Dennis Tuuri

# Refreshment in Exile

On the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, have had to go into exile, as it were, from their own city, from their homes once more as the hurricane bears down upon them. We’re going to continue to pray over the next few days for the people in New Orleans and the other cities that may be hit by that horrific storm and also for I know Arthur was flying down around Cuba, I think, for the Coast Guard as the storm began to move toward Cuba and make landfall there for a bit.

I don’t know where Isaac’s at in this whole deal, but the men and women of the Coast Guard who minister here. But these people after a few days will find refreshment as they’ll be able to go back to their homes. And refreshment is what I want to talk about today.

You know, I don’t want to get into politics, but the choice of Sarah Palin, a charismatic Christian woman, mother of five, praise God. A mother who had a Down syndrome child and didn’t abort. Praise God. Because of her commitment to life and seeing God’s sovereignty. I could go on. I know that some people may have trouble with her, but I’m telling you, the choice of Sarah Palin is an illustration that I cannot ignore this last week on Friday that brought such refreshment certainly to the conservative movement. Everybody lined up all of a sudden.

The base was completely jelled and also brought refreshment to a lot of Christians who feel like in this state of near exile that we’ve been talking about, well, we’ll never see this kind of pro-family multitude, you know, I don’t know how long it’s been since we had a family with five kids that potentially might be ending up in the White House. So, refreshment is what we’re going to talk about.

And there’s lots of things and you have your stories. You can probably think of refreshing moments in your childhood. I want to talk about refreshment and I want to talk about it particularly in the context of exile. I want to read a couple of poems. All week I was thinking about this song, “Time for a Cool Change.” Those of you who are my age or a little younger will remember this. I think it’s time for a cool change.

Refreshment is what the song’s about. Now, listen to what this version of refreshment is. “If there’s one thing in my life that’s missing, it’s the time that I spend alone sailing on the cool and bright clear water. Lots of those friendly people and they’re showing me ways to go. And I never want to lose their inspiration. Time for a cool change. I know that it’s time for a cool change now that my life is so pre-arranged. I think it’s time for a cool change.” He talks about being born in the sign of water and the albatrosses and the whales are his brother and so it’s time for this cool change. And the last lyric goes, “I’ve never been romantic and sometimes I don’t care. I know it may sound selfish, but let me breathe the air. Let me breathe the air by himself.” That’s what the version of refreshment was to that particular band or the lyric writer.

And I don’t want to, you know, I mean, I think that sometimes when we’re on our own and have those kind of experiences, it can be refreshing. This same sentiment, although in a somewhat more Christian fashion, is sounded and found in a poem I read. There’s a website I found in my research, poems of refreshment. Christian poems of refreshments. Let me read this to you. It’s “Refreshment for Our Souls.”

When we call upon the Lord, he answers us in our need. He refreshes us with living water. Besides rivers of blessing he leads. For when we quietly meditate and wait upon the Lord, he will speak into our hearts and reveal to us much more. We shall find our souls refreshed and a new hope shall emerge. Then we shall begin to worship him. Remember that we’re refreshed. Then we shall begin to worship him as he speaks to us his word.

Our spirits need to be refreshed as we quietly spend some time alone in our Lord’s holy presence for it’s there that we shall find a greater sense of almighty God his love his mercy and peace the wonders that we have in life we find will one day see. So again aloneness is what this poem offers refreshment that leads us to worship and again I’m not putting that down I know that some of us have very similar thoughts along these lines or at least similar experiences but I want us to sort of measure that whole thing in relationship to what the word of God says.

So, this is a little topic study on refreshment. And after we get done talking about exile, because that’s the context for this, all we’re going to do is go over the places in the Old Testament and New Testament where the word refreshment is found. Now, you know, there’s different translations. The word the verses I’ve picked are where there are multiple translations that use the word refresh, refreshment, refreshing.

And as it turns out, it’s every verse where the ESV, English Standard Version, a pretty good version, I think a modern version, every place that they use this word is in the context of our outline today in the handout. So, we’ll go over that. And those little numbers behind the verse references in Old and New Testament, H and then a four-digit number or G in a four-digit number. That just means Hebrew or Greek.

Those are the Strong’s reference numbers. No big deal. Don’t think about it again if you don’t want to. But if you want to do your own subject study, look a little more in depth in terms of the Hebrew and Greek words that are used. There you are. I figured I’d had to do the research, pass that on so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel if you ever look at this topic. You’ll have the strong reference numbers to begin your investigation of God’s word in the context.

So, we’re going to talk about refreshment. So, refresh: to be made fresh again. That’s the idea. A new song, right? It’s the same song we always sing, but it’s refreshed as it were in the context of worship. Cool breeze on a hot day. Cool water when we’re thirsty. Refreshment, you know, food that water drink. Jonathan as he’s fighting the enemies of God running along weary and he sees some honey there as he’s running and he sticks his staff into that honey, puts it to his mouth.

And the text says his eyes brighten. And now it doesn’t use the word refresh there, but that’s what’s going on. He’s refreshed. Life comes back. No, he’s not dead. He’s mostly dead, we could say. So, he needs refreshment. And I don’t know about you, but there’s lots of times in my life when I think I need some refreshment. And so, this text, these texts we’re going to look at should help us to understand what God’s word says about that.

Point two on your outline is refreshment in the realities of the Babylonian exile.

And again, this series started in Jeremiah 29. The other exilic prophet, of course, is Ezekiel. Ezekiel was one of those guys who was in Jerusalem. He was in the walled city. He had friends dead. He had friends wounded. They’d been starved out as they were besieged by the Babylonian army. I mean, they went through really difficult times. And at the end of all that, they didn’t win. They saw the temple destroyed.

They saw their king go into captivity. They saw what for a strong believer in Yahweh could only be experienced as a near decreation of their world shaken to the corn. This was what Ezekiel was one of these guys along with Daniel. Jeremiah was an older fellow there too. But Ezekiel went through all of this. And after all of that, then the Babylonians said, “We’re leaving. Round them up, these good guys.” And they didn’t put them on buses.

They didn’t put them on horses or mules. They walked them 700 miles to Babylon. Now, you can imagine after the warfare and stuff and after the starvation, some of these people probably died along the way too and they had to care for each other. This is difficult stuff this whole exile thing. We’re not anywhere near that in this country but we’re approaching that kind of thing perhaps but we have our own difficulties but understand in the context of exile one of Ezekiel’s big jobs was to encourage and refresh these people who had gone through this tremendous difficulty and then they get to Babylon and they don’t see the nice rounded mountains around the hills around them, that kind of topography.

No, they see long flat plains. They see these walled cities with ziggurats in them as they go along. And finally, they’re planted down by the river Chebar. And it’s an old ruined city that they’re put in the context of, and they got to work. So to that group in exile, Ezekiel brought refreshment. We’re not going to preach on Ezekiel today, but the refreshment came first for knowing that Jerusalem’s destruction for his sins was being accomplished.

The next part of Ezekiel says, is you got to know that the enemies of God’s people will be destroyed. That refreshed him. And then finally, he talked about resurrection and restoration to the land. You know, those dry bones got fat again. Remember that. We’re going to look at some texts in Proverbs. Dry bones get living again and fat again. He brings refreshment to the people by pointing them to the reality of God’s coming victory.

So, refreshment is an important part of maintaining fidelity in the midst of difficult times. And we said, how do these guys avoid either just forgetting about working for the peace of the city or forgetting about Yahweh? Well, one important way is refreshment. And we said that this is a very important thing to them in terms of Sabbath observance. We’ll look at that toward the end of the sermon. But refreshment is an absolute psychological necessity for these people to stay refreshed so that they might serve Yahweh in that way.

And it’s important for us as we our work in this world and as we see the world turn away from Jesus Christ more and more it’s important for us to notice our need for refreshment and to require it. So the prophets brought refreshment is what the prophets brought to the exiles to the exiles community.

Now this story of David is like that exile isn’t it? I mean he’s in the city and now he’s in exile. He has to go out. He’s got to go out where he’s being taunted injected, thrown stone, mock execution by Shimei, his son. He’s got to flee quick out of Jerusalem because otherwise he’ll probably be killed by Absalom in his revolt. Absalom was one of these politicians. You know, for years he had been exiled himself, but for years he’d built up relationships, friendships. I’m the good guy, he’s the bad guy. You know, David’s okay, but you know, I’m kind of your friend.

And you know, so he worked underneath the scenes for years to break down people confidence in their leader. So the preparation for revolution and folks I’m telling you know this is what frequently happens in the context of secular history is people nipping away at the image of the leaders and we think yeah give it to Clinton but the problem is it’s preparation or can be preparation for revolt rebellion that’ll bring something much worse and that’s what’s happening here so David in a way is in exile right he’s had to flee he’s had to get out of there quick.

And it’s interesting. We can’t take the time to go through this in detail, but if you read the story today on the Sabbath day, a good Sabbath day reading, read chapters 15 and 16. And what you’ll see is that in this description and narrative, David’s life is moving in reverse. It’s sort of what had happened when he brought came near to Jerusalem. That whole progression of his life starting off in exile from Saul and then moving back in eventually.

This is what kind of goes back the other way. So there’s a series of meetings for instance and the royal household members are the first to meet David as he leaves and then out comes Zadok with the ark and David sends the ark back now. But see remember David brought that ark up into up into Jerusalem, right? And now when David leaves the king’s men leave, the ark leaves. It’s like he’s going in reverse.

Now the ark sent back. But in terms of the story, and narrative it draws this connection to David’s ascent and particularly his bringing the ark into the holy hill and then he’s met by another servant and then finally we we read earlier Zeba who’s a servant of Mephibosheth and he’s oh by the way those guards around David early on the royal guard those are Gentiles and so David’s connection to the Gentiles you know his own are kind of kicking him out but he’s being received by Gentiles and in his exile from Saul, he worked with Gentiles, Philistines, Gittites are mentioned specifically, etc.

And then as he gets further away, Zeba, representing Mephibosheth of the line of Saul, comes and he’s kind of like a friendly part of Saul’s household, at least partly friendly, and he brings all that stuff that they’ll eat later and get refreshed with. So, he brings refreshment. And when David’s exiled from Saul, Jonathan, a member of the household, is kind of a refreshment to David. But then the last narrative before we get to our particular text of refreshment.

The last part of the story was Shimei. And so now we’ve got to just utter hatred of Saul now that Saul showed for David being shown by one of his descendants, Shimei. So really, it’s sort of David’s life is coming back apart. It’s kind of a chiastic movement into the center. He’s established in Jerusalem, established worship, and he goes out. And because of this, you know, commentator, this is an exile for him.

So the refreshment scene we have here is refreshment in exile and can be seen analogously to what Ezekiel through the word of God was bringing to the people in exile. So people have also noticed that what’s going on here is a prefigurement of Judah’s or Israel’s exile as well. The same thing happens to those captives in Ezekiel’s time. They had gone up triumphant into the promised land and now they were being driven out.

So David’s exile is analogous it’s the same story as the exile that we’re talking about in Jeremiah 29 and Ezekiel etc and relating to our particular uh position here in America where we have a secularist pluralistic government at best one that turns increasingly anti-Christian it seems like there many lessons of life in exile for us in the same way and so the lesson today is that in the midst of all those problems in the midst of difficulties In the midst of our exile here, God plans for us to receive refreshment.

Refreshment. This refreshment and exile happens in verse 14. The king and all the people that were with him came weary. And some people think that another phrase is found there in the text to the fords of wilderness. So they’re in the wilderness. We had earlier and I paused when we read the text that the wine was for men that were faint in the wilderness. So we’ve got wilderness pictures going on here.

Now David comes. So he’s taunted. He’s mock execution. He’s chased out by his own son. He’s in exile. He’s weary. But they stop. And what do they do? They refresh themselves there. Now, this particular word for refreshment is the text that I found up in Alaska as I was preparing to preach on the Sabbath up there. And we’ll see toward the end of the sermon that there’s only three occurrences and the other two are to the Lord’s day.

Very interesting of this particular word. The word is in the same family as nephesh living soul which is related to God’s breath. So here refreshment means to take a breather we would say or again that cool wind is sort of a refreshment to us at the same time they’re resting from their weariness they’re stopping there’s a literal cessation of work like the Lord’s day brings us that brings a refreshment and revivification of life renewal rejuvenation we could say and they’ve been given all this cool tasty food so symbolic for us.

Bread and wine and then good tasty stuff to eat as well, fruits and stuff. And that certainly is partly what they dined on here because they had to get out quickly without many stores or provisions. So they refreshed themselves by eating, by resting, by being with one another in the context of this, reminding themselves that while we’re in exile, the Lord God is with us. Right? And they do it in take a take a breather.

And the breath of God we can say comes upon them to refresh them. So this scene is one of refreshment in exile and it sort of gives us an opening picture for today’s topical sermon on what it’s about this refreshment in exile. It’s about getting life again. It’s about the breath of God bringing blessings in the midst of not completely away from but in the midst of trials and tribulations. And when we got trials and tribulations The Lord’s day is obviously something we can think about in terms of how this refreshment works.

So there’s refreshment. Refreshment is what David found in hard very hard times.

Now I had earlier on the outline that what we have to do is see what the scriptures say about refreshment. And earlier I passed the point, but I’ll bring it up here. Flying by the instrument panel. Now, when you’re in hard times, it can be compared to piloting a plane in a storm. Not in the nice sunny time of life, but in the middle of a storm.

And you don’t know where you’re at. You don’t really know. You can guess. You can gut check yourself. You may be wrong in terms of your altitude, what’s up in front of you, whatever it is. And what you have to do in those times is not rely upon your own ability to get you through safely. You don’t rely on your own self-reliance. You don’t try to figure it out yourself what will get you through the thing. You rely upon the instrument panel, right?

It’ll tell you where you’re at in terms of altitude. It’ll tell you radar what’s up in front of you. It’ll tell you how fast you’re going. It’ll tell you what’s going on. We’re people of the word. We’re people of the book, right? We want refreshment. We need refreshment. Otherwise, we’ll die spiritually. One could say we need refreshment and we shouldn’t rely upon our own ability to think what refreshes us.

Okay? We don’t know what’s good for us, right? We think all kinds of things are good for us for the moment, but the word of God clearly says that’s bad for you. It’s not good for you. So, an adult means learning to fly by the instrument panel when things get tough in your life. In the midst of exile, you got to find out what God’s word says about refreshment. You know, I read a few of those of you that still get the Chalcedon Report.

I think it’s called Faith for All of Life or something. I don’t know hardly any of us do. We ought to subscribe to it at Jack’s house up in Alaska. The latest edition had an article by a guy not a reconstructionist but favorable to Rushdoony about his relationship to Christianity today. Fascinating article. All I knew was in the mid 80s Christianity Today had a cover article about how horrible Christian Reconstruction was and R.G. Rushdoony was.

I didn’t know that Rushdoony had written for him important in terms of their development, what they were originally intended to do, and then they just ended up breaking ways. And when he got popular, they decided they had to do a hit piece on him. And this article is about that. The hit piece was a funny thing, though. It didn’t attack theology or exegesis. It just said, “Well, look how horrible it would be if we had a theocracy.

Oh, yeah. Be stoning little kids to death. Democracy would be considered heresy. You’d get stoned maybe or executed for democracy. It’s horrible. Oh, these guys are going to do they’re going to probably, you know, do horrible things. And then the article talked about how he couldn’t get along with his son-in-law. Yeah, it’s great. Okay. That became the way that reconstruction, which is the root of the CRC, folks.

Whether you know it or not, the root of the CRC and Federal Vision are the principles and truths laid out by Cornelius Van Til, R.J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, James B. Jordan. We can go on. But the way it was all discredited was by a straw man attack in Christianity Today. But the funny thing about the article was you open you flip open the page to the article itself and there’s a line drawing a little cartoon drawing of a guy and instead of a head he’s got a Bible and I’m thinking yeah supposed to make me feel bad.

It doesn’t make me feel bad at all. The Bible tells you to you know bring every thought captive to the one who wrote the word right. So we want to today kind of bring our thoughts captive about what it is that refreshes us. Now, not, you know, I’m not trying to put down whatever you like to do for refreshment. Maybe a lot of it’s very good and you do have to sort of know some of that stuff, but what we want to know is what the Bible says.

How do we get this refreshment? It is so important for getting us through times of exile. How do we do it?

So, we’re going to do a quick overview of the text. So, we’re on now outline number four, other Old Testament texts on refreshment. And so, the first one we read reminds us that it’s like life. It’s breath. It comes through rest, cessation of work, and it comes through food.

Now, Genesis 18:5 is the first reference. Let’s go ahead and just do quick Bible working through our way through the Bible. So, turn to Genesis 18:5 if you would like. I learned this from Mike Meyer Derk Sword Drill today. Okay, we’ll try Genesis 18:5. And that way you get the word heard and the word coming in through your eyes and double witness maybe to its truth. So, the story here, you know, is the men of God, you know, God’s servants coming to Abram because they’re going to go to Sodom and destroy it.

So, they meet with Abram here in Genesis 18. That’s the context. These three men come to him. In verse 5, he says, well, verse four, he says, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.” Verse four, rather, “Let a little water I pray you be fetched and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree and I will fetch a morsel of bread and comfort ye your hearts after that ye shall pass on for therefore are you come to your servant and they said so do as thou hast said and that word comfort in the King James or New King James that’s refresh the ESV and in most other translations so he wants these men to be refreshed and look how it happens there’s a cessation activity sit down there’s feet being washed Well, we know the whole Bible.

We know what that’s all about, right? And then he’s going to bring them some food. And he’s going to refresh them with food, with rest, having their feet washed. So that’s refreshment. You see, it’s refreshment in community with other people, with Abraham and his household, Abram and his household. And it’s with food. So food in community brings refreshment is what this particular text tells us.

Abram’s food then brought refreshment to his guests. Hospitality, I guess, is another way to put it. Not just in terms of Lord’s Day supper and all that stuff, but hospitality produces refreshment for people.

Secondly, 1 Samuel 16:23. Turn there, please. 1 Samuel 16:23. Praise God. We got Duck Schuler here this morning. I’m a believer in God’s sovereignty, so I have not to be unthankful or bitter that his talk didn’t get taped for Sunday school class. I got to be okay with that. But we’re going to do everything possible to get his talks at Future Men taped. He brought a wonderful talk this morning. And so hopefully his talks at Future Men will be taped. And Duck is one who has brought refreshment to God’s people and continues to do it.

1 Samuel 16:23. It came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took a harp and played with his hands. So Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him. He didn’t wait for the evil spirit to depart. You know, the evil spirit departed as he heard the sweet psalmist of Israel. That beautiful music of David is what God used to bring refreshment from Saul and in the context get him away from doing evil. So music in community is what’s pictured here for us as bringing refreshment even to King Saul.

That’s why I say praise God duck’s here today. Hadn’t planned it this way. But what a neat deal to be able to talk and give honor to a guy that’s brought refreshment to our church certainly through the music he’s brought to us and transformed some of a lot of our worship based upon his musical understanding and what he’s taught us. And much more than that, he’s brought refreshment to the whole CRC because of his overseeing and basically doing the Corpus Christi project when he was in Moscow, Idaho for a while.

So he has left, you know, a mark on the church of Jesus Christ that is largely in exile. He’s left a mark of great refreshment for God’s people as he’s encouraged people to think through what we sing and worship to make it psalm or psalmlike, to make it like what David does here. And so what he’s done is he’s increased refreshment for thousands and thousands of people. Praise God. What one guy can do. Each of you can do this kind of stuff.

Do things that bring refreshment to other people. And maybe that’s a big part of the point of this sermon is that, you know, when we start off looking for refreshment ourselves, well, maybe what we ought to be thinking about is how to refresh other people.

So, he’s done that and now Joseph and Brad and John have done so much to refresh us through their musical ministry here. I could go on, but you get the point. When David played his music, Saul got refreshed. Saul got refreshment from David’s music. That’s why you coloring kids, little ones, parents, that’s why this is a coloring sheet today. It’s a reminder of David’s heart. Music brings refreshment. You know, you know this. You play your secular music to get your spirits up, right? Music has a big impact. You got to be careful with music cuz it’s like drinking liquor.

You know, you get bad liquor, you might go blind. You get some good wine, you’re going to be refreshed and enjoy. So you be careful with what you listen to. But the point is it’s a demonstration. It’s a witness in your own life to the importance of music as a possible means of refreshment or not. Right? Much music you listen to is counter refreshment. It brings depression. And so David’s music brings refreshment.

And when you little kids get together in church and you sing together, the stuff that David wrote and men other godly men wrote, you’re refreshing yourself. You don’t have to think about whether it felt refreshing. The word of God says when you get together and you hear godly music and participate in it in community refreshment. That’s what you got right there. Right there. Get your mind, you know, in line under God’s word.

That’s what he says.

Third one. First Kings 13:7. Turn there, please. First Kings 13:7. Here’s that be careful stuff. Here’s the only text where refreshment is used. Well, you better not do it. Situation here is God’s judgments come against Jeroboam. Sends a man of God to Jeroboam to, you know, he makes his hand weird, then he heals it and he tells Jeroboam, you’re, you know, God’s angry at you. So God is really upset with Jeroboam was God’s guy for a while.

Then he went away and brought in a syncretistic worship in the north, yada yada. So we just got very bad things going on here in First Kings 13. And God’s judgment comes from the prophet. So this is Jeroboam the king. Verse 7. And the king said unto the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh thyself and I will give thee a reward.” Well, so here it is. There’s always sirens singing at a shipwreck. Now siren doesn’t mean for you young kids alarm police cars.

The sirens in Jason and the Argonauts, I think it was in Greek mythology, there were these beautiful gals with beautiful voices and the sailors would hear these voices. Oh. you got to go see what’s producing such a beautiful voice and they’d take their boat over in the direction of and it was almost like it was hypnotic like they’re getting drugged and they go there and a lot of times the ships would get shipwrecked there or they come under the dominion of this sirens.

So the culture like Jeroboam says come here and get refreshed. This will be a good place for you to get refreshed. Come to this do these little drugs here. You’ll get instant refreshment. You won’t have to work at it. Refreshment. Refreshment. God says, “Be careful how you seek refreshment.” God had told this prophet, “Don’t you do it. Don’t you eat bread or drink with this guy. I know he’s going to tempt you to do this stuff.

Don’t do it or I’m going to judge you and kill you.” The prophet’s story is interesting. He gets tricked later on and bad things happen to him. But he starts off first by resisting the temptation of refreshment from the wrong sources. I don’t care if it makes you feel good for the moment. You have to be very careful what you seek refreshment by. And if it isn’t, you know, something that glorifies God, beware.

Beware. It’s one of those siren songs singing you to shipwreck. Oh, church. Oh, there’s a great concert going on. That’ll be really jazzy for you. That’ll be great. You know, oh, church. Who cares about that on Sunday? Lord’s day resting. No, no, no, no. God says, hey, this is what you’re supposed to do this day. And you may be tempted to go refreshment for someplace else. You may feel pretty good after you go there.

God says, “Uh-uh, don’t do that. There’s people that are want you to seek refreshment in the wrong ways.” So, here’s a warning against the world’s tempting us to refreshment. Refreshment is not what the world says it is.

So, what it isn’t D. Proverbs 3:8. The New Testament stuff will go quick, by the way, so don’t worry about the length there. Proverbs 3:8. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones or the ESV will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Now here the immediate context what is refreshment to your bones? I should have put it in there the first verse in the verse just says when you depart from evil. So to become refreshed is to depart from evil and that produces this refreshment to your bones. Literally here the Hebrew word means it makes your bones well watered again. Your bones get kind of you know these it’s like those dry bones in Ezekiel, they kind of get watered.

They’re living again. You got marrow flowing in them. You’re revivified. And so, putting away evil, departing from doing what’s against God’s word definitely brings us refreshment. There is a moral dimension, in other words, to seeking and receiving refreshment according to God’s word. It is tied to repentance. Repentance. So, that’s a verse from the proverb. So, refreshment is what we get when we stop sinning.

Stop sinning and you’ll get some refreshment. That’s what that text tells us.

Proverbs 15:30. Turn there if you can. Quickly. Quickly. You know your Bibles. Proverbs 15:30. The light of the eyes rejoices the heart. A good report makes the bones fat. Love those verses. ESV. The light of the eyes rejoices the heart and good news refreshes the bones. But literally the Hebrew word is kind of makes it fat. And again, it’s we can think of it as Ezekiel’s dry bones.

The bones get fat, you get stuff around them, and now you really start to come back to life. So, you’re drinking, your bones are drinking, your marrow is getting better, and the bone itself is growing. Okay? And so,, what produces this fatness, which is good. Culture says fatness is bad. Too much fat is not good. The pinching inch thing, you know, on. You can pinch about I think about 8 10 in. Too much. Too much fat.

If the dagger can go in and disappear in your fat. Too much fat. Too much. But in general, our culture just gets us all messed up. Saw Noah Brooks up at the reception. Saw a Noah or rather Josiah Evans. These guys are their bones are getting a little fatter. Got a little marrow going on. You know, you get hearty, you start maturing, you get a little heavier. Nothing wrong with that. Bones are supposed to get fat.

What makes them refreshed? What makes them refreshed here is a good report. Now, you don’t get a good report off just meditating on your own. The idea is somebody brings something to your ear, a good report about something. You know, you can do exactly the reverse. And I’ll bet you it’d be interesting to track on a log how much you do one or the other because the other way that produces dryness of bone and thinness of bone get unrefreshment is hearing bad reports.

I get them all the time. I’m a little tired of it. I am a little tired of hearing bad reports come back to me through various people. There’s a way to handle things you don’t like that’s being done or people that aren’t being done right. Be careful with your speech that you’re not bringing unrefreshment to people by bringing bad reports all the time, complaining about this and that. Ah, just forget that stuff.

We want to refresh one another with good. You got a concern? Great. Bring it to the right person, the person you’re concerned with, right? You do it right. And but if you do that, great. But normally we’re supposed to be having lots of good reports floating in the context of the church because that produces refreshment. Speech in community, good speech, proper speech brings refreshment to us. And so Proverbs tells us that as well.

Next verse. So what? So refreshment is what we get when someone brings us a good report. A good report.

Proverbs 25:13. Turn there quickly. Proverbs 25:13 just a few chapters beyond. The idea here of the Hebrew word means to restore or to return. And verse 13 says, “Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him. He refreshes the souls of his master.” Again, And you got two options.

You go do a job badly for your master and it brings them depression and unrefreshment. I know I have had children. I have had five children. Sometimes they do what we want them to do. Sometimes they haven’t. And one produces unrefreshment which will soon become unrefreshment for the child and the other brings refreshment to the parent which becomes refreshing to the child. You compliment, you commend them.

So a servant who brings a faithful message, you know this is This is from the book of kingly wisdom in Proverbs 25. King’s got to know that he wants a faithful messenger. And the messenger has to know that if he’s faithful to do what the king tells him to do, he’s actually going to refresh the king. Now, that king’s going to like you and he’s controlling a lot of power and riches and authority and stuff, you want him to be happy.

And so, Proverbs is very practical here. Make your boss happy. Be faithful in your work. Little children, you can bring such refreshment to your parents, such needed refreshment through simply doing faithfully what they want you to do. Isn’t that great? A little tiny 2-year-old child, tell them what to do something very simple, of course, or a little older child. They can be a messenger of refreshment to the parents.

They can minister the grace of refreshment, new life, revivification, restoring the parents’ spirits by simple acts of obedience. Praise God. So, refreshment comes about by doing good work. Refreshment is what your parents feel. and you do good things for them, good things, good reports.

Song of Songs, chapter 2, verse 5. Quickly, if you can, if not, just listen to what I say here. It’s interesting here. The word, the Hebrew word means to be kind of open, you know, not enclosed, supported.

And this is a wonderful verse, of course, right here. verse four talks about he brings us to his banqueting table. His banner over us is love. Verse 5, says, “Sustain me with raisins. Refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love.” Sick with love. In other words, madly in love. Doesn’t mean sick of love. Sick with love. And so, you know, there’s a sustenance going on with raisins, but there’s a refreshment that comes from the apples.

Again, this is food. It’s not mere sustenance food. It’s good food. On the Lord’s day, what are we supposed to do? Eat the fat? Drink the sweet? We’re supposed to be refreshed. Food in community at the Lord’s banqueting table is what he tells us will bring refreshment. Okay, let’s look at the New Testament.

Acts 3:19. This is Peter’s sermon. Acts 3:19. Now, this is funny. I don’t know why this is, but it’s split into 19 and 20 in the ESV. I don’t understand, but it doesn’t make any difference. So, I’m going to read it in the ESV. It’s in verse 19 in the KJV. It’s in verse 20 in the ESV. So, I’m going to read verses 19 and 20. 19 re and he’s talking to people, you know, sinners. Repent, therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out that times of refreshing might come, where do they come from? The presence of the Lord. That he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus. That’s a wonderful verse. You know, refreshment comes from turning from our sins. We saw that earlier in the Old Testament. It comes through repentance. But very importantly, it puts this very important aspect that true refreshment, true seasons of refreshment are what result when the presence of the Lord comes to us.

Abram’s hospitality is the presence of the Lord being ministered. Food at the king’s banqueting table really is a symbol of the presence of the Lord being ministered to us. You know, good report presence of the Lord’s words to us. So the presence of the Lord is the purpose of repentance and it is explicitly said that when you do that you will have seasons of refreshment. You won’t be lifetime of refreshment in this life but there will be seasons of refreshment.

Seasons of refreshment in the midst of our difficult times. So here very importantly refreshment comes from the presence of the Lord. And again, the presence of the Lord is what’s ours as we turn from our sins, turn to righteousness, invoke his holy spirit and the Lord God gives us this kind of refreshment from the Lord. So refreshment comes through the presence of the Lord. Refreshment is brought to us by the presence of the Lord.

Him being with us is being with us.

Secondly, Romans 15:32 in the Old Testament And he says, “So that by God’s will I may,” and Paul is now writing to the Romans, right? It’s at the end of 15:32. And these next ones are going to go quick. So that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. So Paul writes a letter to the Romans. He wants to be with them so that he could be refreshed.

Again, refreshment is found in the context of their company. Church of Jesus Christ. The presence of Christ found not in the company. of the church of Jesus Christ. Refreshment is brought to us by good company. Good company, good reports, faithful, good things that you do. Goodness is what brings refreshment.

1 Corinthians 16:18, Paul at the end of this epistle to the Corinthians is talking about some men, probably the men that bore the letter from the Corinthians that he’s answering that will take the letter back. We don’t know for sure, but that’s probable. And he says, “These men refreshed my spirit as well. as well as yours give recognition to such men. So again, refreshment is found in the context of relationship. They bring to Paul their presence. He loves to be with them and he brings to them news of the Corinthians. He sends them back a message and they bring refreshment, the word of Paul, the presence of Christ through his word to the people.

So refreshment is found in the context of this back and forth communication long distance as it was between Paul and the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 7:13, “Therefore, we are comforted, and besides our own comfort, we rejoice still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.” So now, one of Paul’s guys has been at Corinth. They received him. They are hospitable to him. He had good company with them, and he’s now been refreshed by them. Again, we’re going over every reference. ESV translates as refreshed.

2 Timothy 1:16, “May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. Again, now we’re talking about Paul in chains. This man visits him, refreshes Paul’s spirit. Now, Paul could have said, “Gee, I like being alone and meditating, and that’s how I get refreshment.” But he brings his presence, this other man, and refreshes Paul, not being ashamed of the chains of Paul.

And what and notice by the way, what happens when we bring refreshment to others? Paul then asks for a blessing. The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus. And then the next verse, the grant mercy to Onesiphorus as well. A double wishing for blessing on the house and on the man who brings refreshment through hospitality and visitation to Paul. So 2 Timothy 1:16 again, relationships, fellowship.

Philemon 7 and 20 are the last two. I have I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother. This is Paul writing to Philemon. He calls him my brother. Because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Now, we’re not sure exactly what this meant, but you know, Philemon worked with slaves who were Christians and treated them as Christians. That’s kind of the context for the difficulty in one of them running away.

But he had shown grace to slaves. And this was a refreshing thing. Most commentators think this is probably what’s behind this. particular verse. But again, refreshment is found as one man ministers to others. Having a church in his house brings refreshment to those who are with you. And then verse 20, you brother, yes brother, I want some benefit. I want some reward. I want a gift from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

So here Paul wants to be refreshed by Philemon’s obedience to what Paul’s instructing him. And on either side here, refreshment is to be found in Christ. and in the Lord. So refreshment is not abstracted away from the principle of the presence of Christ and of the Lord as we have seen before. So finally this verse tells us that refreshment is found in community. In community now we started with those two song the song and the poem refreshment comes from isolation.

Refreshment prepares us for worship. But what we see here is refreshment normally I’m not saying it can’t happen alone. Normally refreshment is ministered in the context of people, hospitality, good report, good works being done, good company. That’s what refreshment is primarily described for us at here in the context of the scriptures.

We’re moving toward a parish system again here at RCC. We’re developing parish groups. The elders have approved the basic idea. We’re still working on the groupings themselves. Why? Because one of the neat things that’s been going on for 25 years in this church is people have brought refreshment to women getting married and having babies by doing showers for them. Wedding and baby showers. That’s a refreshment. Get together. Good report. Christian women, Christian fellowship, showing people you care and love about them.

It’s an opportunity to minister refreshment. And we’ve sown refreshment to moms when they have those babies for giving meals to them for a week or two, right? We give refreshment to their spirit knowing that others are thinking about them that offer by themselves even though they have to stay home. Joanna’s home today, the baby’s got an ear infection. This happens when babies are born and people get lonely.

And if we bring meals over to them, a little bit of fellowship together, it’s a way to refresh them. Let’s not stop doing that stuff. I know we’re getting bigger. I know some people are, you know, I know that we’re having a lot more activity going on in our lives, but I’m telling you, if we stop rejoicing and bringing refreshment to these special events in the lives of individuals, weddings, babies. If we stop doing that, I think we’re going to get skinny as a church.

We’re not going to be fat, filled with marrow. We’re going to dry up. We’re going to get skinny again. The Bible says refreshment comes from just those opportunities to bring comfort to people who are in difficult times like Paul was in prison refreshment in exile.

I pray to God that we learn the lesson that this refreshment is found in community, not in isolation. Our culture says get away. Our Christian culture says refreshment comes when it’s just me and Jesus off somewhere, you know, on an island or something. Uh-uh. Those are good times. They’re okay times. My spirit was refreshed by being up there for a week and a half with Jack and Debbie. I came back ready to roll. I was revived. I was refreshed. I was like, “You’re going to be here in a couple of minutes when you get to go eat the food downstairs.”

So, refreshment comes from community together. I said there are three uses for this word in David’s refreshment in exile. The other two are Exodus 31:17. The Sabbath is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. That’s astonishing. That’s a weird verse. God is refreshed. Okay, we can understand he stopped from creative work. He’s still doing everything else. refreshed. What is that? He doesn’t need refreshment. No, he doesn’t.

I think it’s clearly telling us this is what the Sabbath is supposed to be for us. His resting is an example for us to follow. And it tells us here that this rest that we enjoy on the Lord’s day, the entire 24-hour period, is one of refreshment. Refreshment is found here. And the other verse that this is used is Exodus 23:12. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest that your ox and your donkey may have rest of the son of your servant woman and servant woman and the alien may be refreshed.

Three occurrences of this particular word from David’s refreshment in exile. The other two are Sabbath exam Sabbath verses that say that we’re supposed to be refreshed and we’re to extend refreshment to those in the context of our broader communities. Refreshment is what the Sabbath does for us and others. We get together, we sing the songs, We hear a good report of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re in good community.

We got all the elements that we’ve talked about from all these verses focused today on the worship of the church. This is refreshment. And we’ll be refreshed as we go out from here and have our meal. We’ll be refreshed as we get together and talk about a mission to Poland or as we gather in the park and sing psalms and hear of those refreshment words from the psalms and as we refresh each other as we talk about things of the Lord.

And we set this day apart from the common things of life and the presence of God is promised to us. That presence is refreshment to our souls. This is the place of refreshment. Good news gospel.

You notice David went across the brook Kidron as he left Jerusalem. Did you notice that? And some of you probably started thinking in your heads John’s 18:1 when Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, across the brook there where there was a guard. garden in 2 Samuel 15:23. All the land wept around Absalom. The people passed by and the king crossed the brook Cedron and all the people passed on toward the wilderness. David is tracking what will eventually become the track of Jesus Christ. Jesus the greater David. Many parallels between the accounts in 2 Samuel 15 and 16 to our savior’s leaving the city as well. Instead of Absalom, we got Herod. That’s very lined up and correct.

Instead of David, as the text tells us, going out because of his own sins, the Savior goes into exile for us, not for his sins, but bearing our sins. And what does those two texts together tell us? It tells us there’s this beautiful movement between David going into the wilderness and our savior going into a garden. A garden. Those are good words. That’s a good message. That’s a good story that ultimately the very things that we think will kill us are actually for our blessing because ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ has gone into greater exile for us and he’s been raised up not just revivified but resurrected new life for our savior and that’s why this day of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a day like a garden intersected by the graces of God flowing to us and is a day of refreshment and revivification for our spirits.

Praise God. for what he has done. Praise God for the food that he’s prepared for us to be refreshed by. Praise God for the good report that Jesus has gone into exile and that wilderness has become a garden. Praise God that in the midst of the difficulties of our day, the Lord God says in the midst of all of that, there’s places of blessing and refreshment even in the midst of exile and wilderness. Praise God that you know good company here.

You got good friends here whether you know it or not. These are great people. faithful people, the Lord’s people are here with you today and they’ll bring refreshment to your souls and you can be a wonderful mechanism of refreshment to them.

Let’s pray.

Oh father, we thank you for the wonderful gifts you give to us through the merits of Jesus Christ. We thank you for him going into exile and taking upon himself the just punishment of our sins.

And we thank you for the refreshment that you gave him in raising him back from the dead and the refreshment that we find because of him. In the midst of our difficulties, give us refreshment today. May it be a joyous day. When we go to our beds tonight, may we say that, “Yeah, we got with the program, sought refreshment, sought to give refreshment today, and indeed, Lord God, you have refreshed us.” In Jesus name we ask it.

Amen.