Weariness

The new year has just begun.  Are you wearying already?  Perhaps you are weary of the cold of the winter (the weather this week isn’t helping).  Perhaps you are weary of a health issue, or a financial issue, or a relational issue.  Whatever the issue is, it’s January 16th and you are already weary in 2025.

Many people place a lot of hope in the calendar turning from one year to the next.  Perhaps that’s why New Years Eve is such a big deal in our culture.  Folks are ready to “turn the page” or get a “fresh start” in life.  But the reality is that life doesn’t work that way.  The same issues…the same problems…follow us into the new year.  The same accusations of others are still in our ears.  The same stumbling blocks get in the way of us becoming the person that God wants us to be.

So what can we do about it?  God gives us the answer in the form of a prophecy found Isaiah 50:4:

The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.

Isaiah 50:4-11 is one of the four “Servant Songs” found in Isaiah.  These songs are prophecies of the coming Servant or Messiah and describe His service, suffering and exaltation.  In the Isaiah 50 passage the Servant (to be clear, this is Jesus) notes how He will be beaten, mocked and spat upon, among all the other indignities that He will suffer.  Without a doubt, Jesus knows what it is like to be weary!

So how did Jesus overcome His weariness?  He tells us in verse 4 – He had a morning-by-morning appointment with God the Father.  The Father gave Him words of comfort and peace…the words that sustain the weary.  Then in verse 9 Jesus declares this:

It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.  Who is he that will condemn me?  They will all wear out like garment; the moths will eat them up.

God the Father was always there with Jesus and for Jesus during His time on earth.  Because of God’s presence and His promises, all of things and people that made Jesus weary ended up being “worn out” themselves.

Now, here’s the deal – Jesus endured all of that for our sake, to make things right between us and God. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. One author put it this way – “That peace is the word that sustains the weary. The difficulties of this life are much easier to bear when you have someone to bear them with. Jesus is always there for you with his promises. Your weakness and your weariness do not scare him away.”

If you are not weary now, it’s bound to happen at some point in 2025.  The world offers us energy drinks, get-rich-quick schemes, empty platitudes about how great we actually are, and endless pleasures and hobbies to combat weariness.  While some of the world’s solutions are relatively benign, others are quite harmful.  In all cases, they are temporary solutions at best.

But morning by morning, Jesus is there ready to speak His words of peace and forgiveness. Evening by evening, He is ready to comfort you with the assurance that He will always be with you.

Here’s what’s happening:

1.      Our congregational vote on the 2025 church budget will be held after the service on Sunday.

2.     Youth Group next meets on 1/23 at 6:30pm in the schoolhouse.  February youth group nights are 2/13 and 2/27.

3.     Men’s breakfast will be on 1/25 at Kreider’s Market at 8 am.

4.     Cornerstone Reproductive Health will be giving a ministry update during the service on 1/26.

5.     Youth Retreat at Black Rock is coming up fast, 1/31 – 2/2.

6.     Onesimus Ministries is holding a breakfast fundraiser on Saturday, March 1 at Waterway Church in Oxford.  The event will be from 9am to 11 am.  Tickets are free and a freewill offering will be taken. I’ve enclosed a flyer with all the information or you can go to onesimusministries.org.

This Sunday we will be studying Nebuchadnezzar’s famous dream found in Daniel 2.  The dream has him terrified about the future and so Daniel goes before him to give him the interpretation.  What we will see, however, is that Daniel's real purpose is to connect the faithless king to God. 

Have a great weekend!

Scott