Triple Threat for Rest

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

I'm excited because the NBA season is about to resume. We're already in preseason games and festivities. One of the key things in basketball that you learn is you have to operate out of the triple threat position. That's where you have your hand in your shooting position ball on your hip, and out of that you can pass the ball, you can shoot the ball, you can dribble, you can make a variety of moves even in , sequence in order to open up the defense.

We've been in a series where we talk about entering rest amidst the race. The idea that in the midst of the chaos, hecticness, challenges of life, we desire to experience rest and that God's rest is available to us even in those seasons. Not that those seasons will go away, but that through them, in them, rest can be experienced.

So one of this triple threat position is what we you teach kids when you coach basketball because they have a tendency to do either what my friend calls the turtle, which is grab the ball and bend over it. Or it's the chuck it and pray where you either chuck it towards the basket or you chuck it across the court. And usually that results in a turnover. But rather than freeze or panic, if you can, use those different moves. You can open it back up and make some space for yourself. Find an open teammate, make a shot, dribble to the hoop, whatever it might be. So for us, I think there's a triple threat position in the Christian life, and it's faith, hope, and love.

And that those three things, no matter what we're facing, whatever challenge it is, relational, financial, in the midst of the busyness and the chaos and the brokenness that pushes in on us, the triple threat position for us is, okay, what action of faith do I want to take? How am I choosing hope? And ultimately, what do I do to resonate with the ultimate reality of love?

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul sketches out and he says, hey, love is the ultimate thing. It is the ultimate reality. And even if you do all kinds of good things, but don't have love, you, it's meaningless. It's worthless. It's like a clanging gong, he says. But love, and he defines it: patience, kindness, endurance, bearing all things, rejoicing in the truth, not being envious or boastful, not being arrogant or rude.

These are the kind of things that he says, that that's what you want to be. And that in the midst of that, what we want to do is we want to choose faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. And so what is faith exactly? Well, faith is any action that helps us move towards love. So actions of patience actions that help us rejoice in the truth actions that are kind. These are the kinds of actions.

And so when we find ourselves in this place in life where the challenge and the busyness are pressing in us, one of the moves we want to make is a move of faith. So it's small steps that lead us towards love. Perhaps you've seen the movie, What About Bob? It's one of my favorites. And in the midst of it, What happens is Bob has all kinds of mental challenges and he's looking for help.

And a doctor tells him about this idea of baby stepping, baby stepping out of the office, baby stepping onto the elevator, baby stepping onto the sidewalk to help him get through his anxiety. And I think a lot of times in life that can be helpful to us, this concept of baby steps. So you don't have to change everything.

Just in whatever challenge or situation you're facing, what's a baby step of faith that you can take? What's a baby step of action towards love that you can take? How can you increase your patience? How might you be a little bit more kind? What's a way to rejoice or discover the truth? How can you maybe reduce the level of irritability or resentment?

These actions, which are a display of faith, they're what we've seen Christ do and live, will help you in the midst of whatever challenges and hecticness you face, and in the midst of that you'll enter into rest as you're, as you're looking for.

Secondly, the, the next part, right, so if, faith is like dribbling, then hope is like passing.

And here's our challenge when we're in the hectic, we're in the chaos, we're in the challenges, we imagine that evil, sin, and death, the brokenness, is going to rule the day. And so we get hopeless and we double over, we go turtle on the ball, and we just freeze, we don't know what to do.

And so Paul tells us and reminds us that right now, When we look out into the world, we see dimly. We see partly. We don't see it in its entirety. Love is the ultimate reality, and we can see that in the world, but it doesn't have full reign. Love has been displayed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, but it's still behind a veil. And so what he challenges in Corinthians to do is to remember that they only see partly and that one day they will see fully and clearly.

And so that's really important for you and I. We have to help ourselves cultivate a mentality of restoration and resurrection. That's the trajectory of everything. The good, the joy, the beauty, that's going to win the day. And so what we want to do is remind ourselves that that's where we're headed.

That's where we're going. That's one of our triple threat moves. And here's how that helps us. It helps us because rather than shutting down, we have a sense of openness, of possibility. And in order to cultivate that, I think we want to do three things. First, we want to remind ourselves, The hope that's been displayed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Second, we want to look at our own history. Each of us have traveled through different seasons that we thought we would never get through, and yet somehow we've gotten through. Somehow, it has shaped us. Somehow, love has won in some way. And then finally, you want to imagine how is it, that this situation that I'm dealing with might have some sort of restoration or resolution to it.

Ultimately, we know we live in a broken world and so sometimes cancer still wins. Sometimes relationships break and fall apart. Sometimes we don't overcome the challenge that we're facing. But we're reminded that that is still only what we see in part and that there's a future in which restoration of all things is to come and that evil, sin, and death will be destroyed.

And God's love and joy will be the thing that reigns and so we can hold on to that. But let me ask you, as you are dealing with life right now, what is a way for you to imagine restoration or resurrection coming out of a challenge you're facing? Get that in your mind and it'll, it'll help you enter rest.

Lastly, we want to have the action of love. So if we were to think about the triple threat, it's not passing, it's not dribbling, it's shooting. What we want to do is we want to resonate with love because love is the ultimate reality and what that tells us is love Is ultimately relational which love always is.

Love is us choosing relationship with God, one another, creation, ourselves. The opposite of that is destruction, disconnection, isolation, separation. And that's where the brokenness in the world invades and we're invited, we're tempted to take those choices when we're feeling overwhelmed, but instead what we want to do is is in faith, take small actions towards love, choose hope and resonate with love.

And here's the thing. Here's why this is great. No matter what situation you're facing, you can resonate with love. As you walk through divorce, as you face the financial challenges, as you are just in the mundane of child raising, the stresses of life. You can always choose love at work, at school, at home.

And as you do that, you will resonate with the ultimate reality. And as you resonate with that ultimate reality, you will find rest even in the midst of the chaos and the challenge. I hope that this whole series has been helpful for you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Take care.