Strength For The Weary | Peter Toganivalu | Hillsong Church Online

strength for the weary strength for the weary i want you to open your bibles with me to isaiah 40 if you don't have your bibles it's all good it's going to come up uh on the screens for you and you can follow along and i'm reading from the niv and in isaiah 40 just a little bit of a backdrop as i has just kind of announced as in in chapter 39 he kind of concludes with a warning to to the israelites to the people of god that it was to be in the future be captured by the babylonians and so i love as i the book of eze i've been really into it pastor brian been preaching from messiah 55 and really been just looking at it these past few weeks and love it that it's kind of a book of warnings but a book of comfort it's a book where isaiah the prophet lets every one know what's about to happen the near future of what's going on but he also reminds us of who god is and the strength of who god is and so we pick it up from isaiah 40 verse 28 it says this i love it poses a question do you not know have you not heard the lord is the everlasting god the creator of the heavens and the earth he will not grow tired or weary and he's understanding no one can fathom he gives strength to the weary and he increases the power of the weak even youths come on where's the youth at come on all the young people let me know in the chats that you're there even youth grow weary the youths grow weary but those whose hope is in the lord will renew their strength they will soar on eagles or wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not be faint strength for the weary i don't know about you but this may be a silly question up front but do you get tired i mean parents you kind of know what i'm talking about parents guardians of young bobs young children it's like you and i we live in this state of perpetual constant tiredness and weariness right but you know you do you get tired and you might be there right now and you're like no i don't get tired at all but i can see you trying to hide your yawn i mean if you love preaching in church sometimes and you know you look out sometimes and someone's just trying to hold their yawn off you know they're like it's like bro just yawn it's all good i can see you trying to hold in that yawn i don't know what it is but do you get tied do you get weary see i'm a danger to myself and everyone else when i'm tired when i'm weary i'm not a great person to communicate with i don't think straight i don't see straight i've done some silly things as a result of being weary tired exhausted don't have all the time to tell you all the stories but just to name some i remember one time being on a 14-hour plane ride going to the bathroom coming back to what i thought was my seat only to figure out after waking up laura that it wasn't my seat it wasn't my row nor was it laura my wife it was a completely random person stumbling around in the middle of the night i was wondering where my seat was only to land in the wrong row i remember summer camp week many years ago being so tired weary summer camp's a big week in our youth ministry and we love it and i look forward to the day when we can have summer camps again as we know it but this one week we were there and we were praying it was ministry time and i was a bit worrisome towards the end of the week and i remember praying for who i thought was a man of god only to figure out as i was praying that this was no man of god that i was praying for weariness does some silly things people most recent thing is last night had a moment of vulnerability i had a moment where i was tired weary thinking about today thinking about bringing the message i thought i would give myself a covered haircut now you're probably wondering already judging me why is toxie wearing a beanie as he's bringing the word of god this man is not spiritual at all no this beanie is for you to not distract you from what lies beneath it covers a multitude of sins because in a moment of tiredness and weariness last night i cut my hair and made a few mistakes along the way we get tired right i think it's part of being human it's part of the human condition in that all of us we get tired we get weary we get exhausted sometimes it's indicative of being a human but more than circles under our eyes or the 2pm caffeine crashes i think weariness goes beyond the physical tightness goes beyond the physical sometimes it can point to significant things going on in our lives but often our weariness results from the cumulative multi-layered intersections of life's complexities be it physical or emotional or things going on it's interesting that even in this pandemic in covert 19 in the chaos of covet where you and i are forced to quarantine in our homes forced to slow down stop moving strip back schedules not many places to be not many people to meet it's funny we still find ourselves exhausted still find ourselves in a place of unrest even though our schedules have been pulled back which makes me think it's not so much about physical but maybe spiritually internally something could be going on online fatigue is a real thing driver fatigue is a real thing tragically lives lost every year due to driver fatigue perhaps the amplified noise and heartbreak rounding about us and the uncertainties of these times they bring some wear and tear and some weariness into our lives and maybe i'm talking to people right now and you find yourself generally fatigued maybe physically but maybe you feel tired where is it's kind of like if i was to hold this bottle of water right now holding it for five minutes is quite easy hold it for an hour maybe i'll start to feel some aches and pains but for holding it for a few hours long enough you'll start to feel the wear and tear and the aches and pains what started off as easy then soon becomes soon it does become heavy and burden and it begins to bring aches and paints i think about it with our lives what started off as passionate what started off as the honeymoon period what started off as amazing and zealous you were zealous for the things of god then as years go on things soon just begin to turn into a chore and a task and a religious duty this is what happens with our lives in fact the apostle paul kind of teaches us this teaches us in galatians 6 verse 9. he talks about let us not become weary or another word he uses let us not grow weary it's interesting that the apostle paul uses the word grow maybe it means that we don't just wake up tired spiritually tired we don't just wake up spiritually weary but perhaps it's a slow burn perhaps it slowly happens day by day year by year we grow weary if you look at these words in its original language the words grow weary gives this picture of giving in to evil giving into something evil or bad so what the apostle paul was saying is he was saying don't give in to the evil or bad circumstances happening around you instead understand this galatians 6 9 he says let us not grow weary in doing good but at the proper time we will reap a harvest see if you just keep standing your ground if you keep staying in the fight if you keep just hanging in there i believe that you can see a jew harvest in your life you can see things break through but sometimes tightness and weariness it gets the best of us right i mean i just watched the olympics you and i just watched the olympics we're continuing to watch the paralympics on right now and to see people who have trained all their life in endurance and in their fitness and in their various sports but to see some of the best athletes fall prey to fatigue and conk out along the marathon or the journey makes us think that makes me think that none of us are void of weary what do you do when this begins to creep into your spiritual life where you've been following jesus for decades and you've been in a tough season for longer than you expected when you're in this tunnel of a pandemic and it just seems there's no light ahead when you can't see the light ahead or maybe what about this when you begin to show up yet you're still missing when you're there but you're not really there you begin to as the apostle paul puts it grow weary you go tired in your ability to dream you go tired in your worship you grow tired and your joy and in your generosity and your attendance and your involvement and your servitude the truth is it's not always an easy fix is it weariness isn't relieved by simplistic platitudes of just cheer up bro wtf bro where's the faith man like it doesn't always come by come on be strong like someone grabbing your face and go just just be strong tugsy just you're gonna push through i mean encouragement is great keep helping me when i'm tired keep helping me when i'm wearisome but sometimes it doesn't come about by getting out of it by just doing more striving for more trying more only to fall short of striving only to fall short of where we want to be in our lives which only just proves to be exhausting no no no no you see can i just set some people free here for a moment just because you're weak it doesn't make you or just because you're weary it doesn't make you weak i say that again just because you're weary it doesn't make you weak it makes you human matthew 11 famous words of jesus he says you tied and you weary come to me and i'll give you rest the people of god in this time jesus was speaking to this predominantly jewish audience and they were under the the the jurisdiction if you like of they were under the systems and the processes and the traditions of what the religious leaders put on them that was heavy and burdensome and they were basically approving their way or proving their way into the presence of god they were basically performing their way to some sort of approval by god but jesus says and i love how eugene peterson puts it in the message he says are you tired jesus words are you tired are you worn out i love what jesus says because jesus is the fulfillment of everything they were trying to achieve they were trying to uphold the old testament law and they were trying to do so many different things traditions and ordinances and processes trying to receive the approval of god but jesus turns up on the scene and he says everything that you've been performing everything that you've been doing everything that you've been trying to find approval of is found in me i'll read it to you in matthew 11 28-30 jesus says this come to me all you who are weary and burdened and i'll give you rest take my yoke upon you learn from me for i am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls i love that you will find rest for your souls that word rest means to be refreshed you will find renewal see what happened is the people of god got so caught up in the doing that they forgot to be with god but now jesus fully man and fully god stood before them and said hey are you done with all you're doing because all you're doing is now it's just it's causing you to be burning sin causing you to be weary throw it all on me because everything you've been looking for is found in me perhaps there's people right now in the chats those who are viewing with us right now online maybe you find yourself wearisome burdensome because you've been trying to at work and get out of this place of being tired and wearisome maybe you need to get out of that place of doing and simply be in the presence of jesus i love that judd's been leading us live here in this service i love it because all you need to do is simply just be in the presence of jesus maybe sometimes it's not about doing so much but you can just simply be and rest and refresh and renew yourself in his presence get away with jesus renew refresh yourself believe that god's speaking of people right now who are tired exhausted from this past season when is it going to end and i tell you what regardless of the circumstances that happen around and about us more than us getting caught up in the doing of doing everything we can to get out of this season may we be the people of god that choose to just simply be with jesus throwing our cares on him i love that we opened up with isaiah 40. you still there church let me know in the chats i'm still here because we're going to look at as i have 40 and i want to break it down for you we're going to make some observations that we can apply to our lives based off isaiah 40. i love it because it talks about strength for the weary here's the first observation one i want to make and you can write this in the chat or you can write it in your notebook but one thing that isaiah teaches us here is this it is a revelation that god that it is god who gives us strength look at this is i 40 verse 29 he gives strength to the weary and he increases the power of the weak see we live in a culture right that is so obsessed with strength right i mean you hear it in kids all the time my daddy is stronger than your daddy no my dad is stronger than you is stronger than your daddy i mean you hear it in kids which then progresses to i'm stronger than you no i'm stronger than you no i'm stronger than you then it progresses to i've got more finance and money than you well i got a better job than you well i've got a better wife than you i just threw that one in there i'm sorry please don't be offended i've got a corner office i've got more likes and followers than you i'm more popular than you and we are so obsessed with strength we're obsessed with strength because we think in our culture in western culture strength is based off our performance how we're doing strength is all about walking into that boardroom and showing them who you are and standing up and showing your strength yeah you go in there you let them know who you are you puff your chest down and you let them know who you are you're a man of strength you're a woman of strength we are so obsessed with strength strength's not a bad thing it's just where do you get your strength from some of us we get our strength from ourselves and our own performance what happens if you start underperforming then what what happens when you're not really hitting your kpis anymore what happens when you're not really hitting your dreams and your vision because all of your strength is caught up in that dream or that goal you see i want to set some people free through the gospel of jesus let me tell you as believers our strength does not come from our own doing it doesn't come from our own performance no our strength as isaiah 40 says it comes from the lord our strength comes from him he gives us the strength to the strength to get through this pandemic he gives us the strength to lead our kids he gives us to strength to be married and to live in relationship with others he gives us the strength as a church to keep moving forward into the best days ahead i don't know about you have you ever had a wi-fi signal strength problems the other day this happened to me i'm the guy in the house apparently that has to fix it all the time the kids run to me dad the wi-fi it's not working and so i go over and i make it sound complicated like kids we've got to cut the red wire and we've got to cut the blue wire and they think this rocket science but literally i just turn it off for 10 seconds wait turn it back on but uh it works but what i know about signal strength wi-fi signal strength now i admit that i am no tech savvy dude but what i do know the wi-fi signal strength is dependent on the proximity of that device so it is when it comes to our strength it is dependent on the proximity we have in the presence of jesus and when you step outside of that you'll find that you'll do things in your own strength you'll find that you'll start to do things in your own strength and your own weakness and in your own performance but when you step into god's will for your life when you step into what he says as jesus says in matthew 7 24 if any man hears my voice and puts it into practice he is like a wise man who built his house on a rock that when the wind and the waves came that house stood unlike the man who built his house on sand that when the wind and waves came that house was crumbled gone kaput you see let us find our strength in who god is let us find our strength in who he is psalm 121 says this i lift my eyes to the mountain where does my help come from it comes from the lord second thing i want to write down is this it is a confidence that when i am weak he is strong i love watching my kids struggle with something and i'm like i can help you with that but in this stubbornness they're like no no no i want to do this by myself how much do we do that with god we we get so caught up in our things that we want to do beat our businesses and our marriage and god's like i can help you with that but it's like no no i've got this one god right and sometimes we do this so much but you see because we live in this culture where we're so caught up in our own strength we're caught up in our own performance we think that we can live this life without god but i've got to tell you right now i love what the apostle paul says to the corinthian church he says this therefore in order to keep me from becoming conceited i was given a thorn in my flesh a messenger of satan to torment me three times i pleaded with the lord to take it away from me but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you my power is made perfect in your weakness therefore i will boast more gladly about my weaknesses so that christ's power may rest in me that's why it is for christ's sake i delight in my weaknesses in insults in hardships in persecutions in difficulties for when i am weak then i am strong what's that saying when you come to the end of yourself that is where god begins his best work we get so caught up in our own doing we get so caught up in trying to perform our way out of our tightness and in our weariness i'm going to do this better i'm going to make this plan and i'm going to hit these visions and hit these goals while that is all good let me just set you free right now and help someone out you cannot do it on your own it is where god turns up in our weaknesses that you can see the strength of who he is and sometimes we get caught up on working on our strength working on our weakness can i just say boast in your weakness because that is where god will turn up in your lack and in your burden and in your underperformance god turns up and he says are you done yet let me take the wheel the problem is what i do to god sometimes is i'm the classic backseat driver i renew my license every year to be a backseat driver because backseat drivers you say oh yeah you jump in the car you can drive but i'ma tell you what to do we do this with god god take the wheel but i'ma tell you where to go no no no god's saying can can i take over now can i outwork my will in your life see we gotta let go and simply let god happen in our lives you see it's a confidence that when i'm weak it is then i am strong last thing's this and i think jad's there he's going to help us and we're going to have just a moment of prayer we've got a few pastors on standby who are going to begin to pray for each and every one of us joining tonight but i want you to write this down the last observation i want to make is this it is an expectation that jesus turns up in our weariness look at this in isaiah 40 31 but those whose hope is in the lord will renew their strength they will soar on wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not be faint i love that picture of eagles did a bit of research via google some characteristics of er eagles one of the things i that really stood out to me is when the storms and the winds come eagles kind of get excited when all the other birds of the skies are kind of scurrying to shelter and kind of hiding out the eagle gets ready to spread its wings because the eagle uses the wind and the storm to cause it to fly and soar above the storm and i love that azia likens it to soaring on eagles because where there are wind and where there are waves and where there are storms i pray as the people of god we kind of go you know what this is an opportunity to soar above the clouds why because our strength comes from god alone i am made strong because i am weak and he turns up when i'm at the end of myself you see it's an expectation that jesus turns up in our weariness many years ago laura and i we were in new york for one of the first times ever we were in new york and we were traveling on the subway we had an eight-week-old willow at the time and as we were going on this train ride we were uh we we kind of found ourselves lost we were on this train we missed a few stops and then by then you could tell that the communities were going through were were really beginning to change and we found ourselves if i'm honest with you back then being a younger guy young dad young husband i was kind of like okay this is this is not looking good for us well i got to tell you this stranger out of completely nowhere turned up when we were at the end of this ourselves lawrence and i honestly we think that possibly it was an angel but that's a story for another day but this stranger in new york turned up and let us out then simply just disappeared we looked he was gone and he just said follow me come this way put us on the right track with the right train when we found ourselves where we needed to be do you know that's what jesus does when you're at the end of yourself when you feel like you can't go on anymore when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel guess what jesus he is that light in the tunnel have you ever noticed throughout the gospels jesus turns up when the disciples in particular peter is at the end of himself i mean one of the first times jesus turns up is when peter's out all day fishing hasn't caught anything then one of the last times is jesus turns up and he calls out and he asks peter a question have you caught anything yet let me just set it up for you in john 21 you can read this verse three to eight jesus has done three years of powerful world-changing impacting ministry he's died on the cross he's completed it for each and every one of us the disciples at the time they were freaking out kind of going well the dream is over it kind of got together and they decided what are we going to do jesus is dead the dream is over he was meant to be the messiah peter's discouraged disappointed because by now peter's denied jesus disappointment and discouragement he says you know what i'm going to go back to what i know i'm going back fishing the disciples kind of looked around were like hey we'll go with you so they head back and they go fishing i like that john draws our attention to this that it was early in the morning it was early in the morning and he also lets us know that they had been out all night and they had caught nothing so three things it was early they were too tired it was too early and you know what jesus calls out from the shore and they didn't recognize it was jesus because he was too far maybe you feel like that you feel too tired too tired to dream too tired to see what's ahead for your life can i just say jesus calls out to you and notice what jo what what peter does he say he recognizes it is the lord and he jumps into the water and he swims towards jesus can i just say when you are tired when you're wearisome when you can't dream anymore when you feel like you've lost your vision when you don't see there's a way out can i just encourage you right now is swim towards jesus do everything you can to be in his presence because it is in his presence that you will find rest it is in his presence that you will find refreshment and renewal it is where you will find your strength if we want to soar like eagles then we need to find ourself in the presence of jesus and it is there we see jesus refresh and renew peter what does he do he cooks him and he begins to initiate a conversation where peter one day would change the world feed my sheep do you love me feed my sheep so beautiful strength for the weary is found in the person of jesus i'm going to ask chad in a moment just as we've still got a few things to do but just as we draw towards the conclusion here i really want to pray for people because i really feel people here you're exhausted you're tired spiritually even before covert 19 some of you you're at the end of yourself and this is what i want to do as judd begins to lead us just in a moment of worship in the chat here i want you if you know that's you i i want you to write something in the chat like this something along the lines along the lines of i need strength put it in big capitals put it in lower caps doesn't matter but right there i want you to put in the chat i need strength in other words just saying hey right now i'm just tired hey it's all good we all get tired we all get exhausted but god will give you the strength and his presence is where you will find strength the joy of the lord is our strength if that's you i want you to write in the chat chad right now i want you just to lead us as people just begin to respond right now and and put strength into their souls and refresh them and renew them so father right now lord as we worship you god i thank you in jesus name lord we throw our cares on you lord we're exhausted some of us exhausted we're tired but right now we find our strength in you in jesus name come on let's worship together [Music] [Music] [Music] never [Music] you go [Music] [Music] every [Music] [Music] [Music] amen amen stay in this atmosphere of worship with us i've got some of our pastors who are going to pray for us and i can see here brian campos our maryland's campus pastor hey brian people are responding no doubt in the chats right now i want you to specifically pray for strength for the weary people right now who are just weary tired so maybe it is this pandemic maybe it is real things financial stress going on maybe relational things going on i want you to pray a prayer of faith right now brian for people who need strength right now who are tired and weary come on amen church why don't we pray together father thank you for your strength father thank you because we can find strength within you father that you are the one that gives the strength but whatever is going coming our way lord jesus whatever is putting us down by whatever is making us feel weary i pray in this moment father that we will be filled with your strength father that we will be filled with purpose father with vision with faith father in this season when fear is shouting at us and fear is weighing us down father it feels feels heavy father i pray that we will choose faith that we will choose to be the type of people father go after you that we will choose to be the type of people that put you first that will be the type of people that are full of strength lord jesus as the word satisfied you give strength to the weary lord jesus and we're asking for that today we're asking father for those people right now as they listening to my voice i speak and i prophesy supernatural strength i prophesy they will be able to stand up with purpose and vision knowing that the best is truly yet to come i pray father whatever they ask for father you will be able to promise that you'll be able to come through father i pray that you come through in every single one of the situations father and strength will be our portion in jesus mighty name we pray amen amen amen i see april miller our city campus pastor one of our city campus pastors uh april we love you and nathan and everything that you contribute to the vision of our church but april i really want you to pray i pray you know i talked about people here who have lost vision they've lost dreams they've they've basically they're you know they're uninspired they're unmotivated because that's what being tired does we're weary and i want you right now to just pray for a renewal and refreshment in people's dreams again where people have stopped dreaming it's time to dream again it's time to have vision again and yes even though the circumstances around and about us might not change what does not change is who god is he can bring breakthrough he is a god who gives visions and dreams so come on april i want you to pray to that end believe for people to dream again amen father we thank you for this word a needed word for many and father we pray right now that dreams that vision that the future that you have installed for every single person every family every single person over every business over every child i thank you that you are depositing a seed of greatness on the inside of all of us and i pray today that that your joy the joy of the lord would be our strength and i pray that as we step in maybe over the difficult situations and into where you are taking us god that you will give us a new joy a joy for the future a joy for what is to come in jesus name amen beautiful beautiful and we got joel phebes here as well one of our melbourne pastors look at that stallion of a face there wow look at him just wow you're amazing bro we love you but joel uh it's actually april just reminded me about this i want you to really pray for joy right now where people have you know they've gotten weary tired fatigued i want you to really pray for a sense of joy the joy of the lord is our strength that's the promise we hold on to but i want you to pray right now for people in the chats those joining us online come on just pray joy into people's lives that they would not lose their sense of joy for who god is come on absolutely i love that jesus said i've told you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete so jesus right now we thank you that you are a god of joy a god of peace a god of hope the god of comfort god so father i pray right now that joy would rise up in our homes well wherever people are right now in their cars walking through a park wherever god father i thank you that you would just flood them with your presence with your strength with your perspective lord god that as april said the joy of the lord would be our strength god and that this week in our workplace on our zooms amongst our neighbors that joy would be our portion god that that people would see you through our joy that we would just be drawing from that well of your presence god of your word of worship god and that joy would overflow god and it would impact those around this father so god i just pray right now every life every person they would know they are seen they have heard god and they will feel your presence in a mighty way in jesus name amen amen come on chad one more time would you begin to lead us come on church wherever you are come on would you stretch your hands out to heavenwood right now come on let's believe that god is going to begin to refresh renew us as we find our strength in him come on chad one more time church sing together [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and you always will be before i just hand it back to cass and the team let me remind you one more time from messiah 40. do you not know have you not heard the lord is the everlasting god the creator of the heavens and the earth he will not grow weary and his understanding no one can fathom he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall but those whose hope is in the lord will renew their strength they will soar on wings like we they will soar on wings like eagles they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not be faint hey before i hand it back to the team we want to pray one more prayer it's a prayer of forgiveness it's a prayer of hope it's a prayer of coming into relationship with jesus have you made a decision to follow jesus not asking you do you attend church i'm not asking you do you do the things that christians do no no i'm asking you do you have a relationship with jesus he loves you so much and today's the day of salvation where you ask him to come and be lord and savior over your life maybe you prayed a similar prayer like this a long time ago but you know in your heart you've drifted you've gotten distracted you've made choices that have pulled you away from god you know what the good thing about god he doesn't walk away he doesn't walk away from you when you start to drift or get distracted you know what he is there in your time of need he's there when you are wearing all you need to do today is just simply turn back towards him and go god i need you i need you in my life in a moment i'm going to pray a prayer if you're saying yeah peter would you lead me in this prayer of asking jesus into my life then i want you to say this prayer wherever you're at from the bottom of your heart friend he forgives you he loves you he died for you he has a plan and a purpose for your life and even when you've got to the end of yourself that's where he turns up and he can bring healing and restoration and he can rebuild something beautiful in your life so if that's yours you're saying yeah i need to know jesus as my lord and savior i want you to say this prayer after me say this dear jesus come on dear jesus today i give you my life i choose you as my lord and savior help me forgive me lead me and guide me i surrender all i want to follow you in jesus name amen amen amen

Channel: Hillsong Church

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Length: 38min 47sec (2327 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 29 2021