last section I want to talk about this Kingdom Leadership Habit and specifically
I'd love to talk about Reset to Rest. Now those who've been to the School of
Leadership and so on will say, oh we've seen that before. This is going to take it up
quite a bit to a different level because I want to bring up the Kingdom element.
But just to get everybody on the same page as to what we're talking about
obviously one of the key scriptures here is from Matthew 11 28 which we
quote almost every time we're together. And the reason is this might be one of
the most helpful, this might be one of the most helpful Kingdom business
scriptures. And I feel like I'm becoming the scripture. I really feel in my own, I
think many of you might feel that already. Because here's what it is, we
come to Him, all of us who are weary and burdened, if you're feeling you're
pulling the big load and I will give you rest. So there's an exchange. Now it's
not transactional, it's relational. So that doesn't mean that when I'm a bit of
stress I go and find some peace. I go and find some rest. It means I cease from my
own effort. I stand still. I stop in my heart. That. And you can't be, because
rest activates your yoke. Because you cannot be in your yoke and be stressed.
Where am I getting that from? Galatians 5 is a 20 or 25 that says we live by the
Spirit let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Which infers that it's possible
to live by the Spirit and not be in step with the Spirit. So then he says take my
yoke. So okay let's join together. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I
am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul. Your whole
inner being. That word soul, psuche in the Greek literally means your whole inner
life. It also means when you say I, when you refer to
yourself, when you say I, the all of me, the all the inward me, that's your soul.
Jesus will find rest for every aspect of your identity, every aspect of your
being. And here comes the kicker. For my yoke, my partnership, is easy. It's
effective and delightful. Highly effective, highly delightful. Upstairs
and downstairs. And my burden is light. You will feel like that the part you're
carrying, it'll feel a little bit like you're cheating. Like Lord really how
much lighter can this feel you know? And it was because of that I meant to throw
in the picture of the bull here which I might still do or maybe someone can pull
up the picture of the two bulls that I shared with you before.
Because what I want us to get from this is what the Lord is
offering us is a modality, a lifestyle, a way of leading, a place to lead from, a
place to stand, a place to be. Not a transaction to get to when we feel a
little stressed or under pressure. Hey guys, seriously, stress, weariness, anxiety
are completely unnecessary in the kingdom when so much rest and peace is
available. Think about the massive rest and peace that's available. You have the
Prince of Peace living in you. You know one of the dumbest things we can do is
pray for peace. You have the Prince of Peace living in you. You get to practice
his peace. You get to let his peace reign. You don't have to get any more. You have
all the peace you could possibly need. It came free with the lover of your soul,
with Jesus. So rest activates your yoke. So let's talk about what a kingdom
routine looks like. As I said to you in the beginning, there's a prompt, there's a
cue, that's the trigger or event that causes you to call up this routine.
Something happens causes you to call a routine. We know this from basic habit
training. We all know that part. Permission is what's my permission with
the Father to do this. Remember we work of upstairs permission leads to
downstairs bold action. Upstairs permission, you know, it's like well should
I invest in that course? You know, you took the advice, you said I'm gonna
invest in the inner circle. You got the permission, you took bold downstairs
action. But imagine if you just got the permission, did nothing. Or worse, you went
to go and take bold action without the permission. Part of the learning, no
condemnation here. Alright, because you're all smiling like have done that, been
there, done that. And then the practice is, this is the practice or the, you know,
the routine part of it, the part that we want to make permanent. And in the
kingdom you practice something until it's permanent. You have a new nature in
Christ. You're not trying to get one. You have a new nature in Christ.
Practicing this new thing because you are someone new.
If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creation.
The oldest past, the new has come.
You're not practicing it to become someone,
you're practicing it because you are someone in Jesus.
This is a huge shift.
You're at the top of the mountain,
no need for mountain climbing gear.
He put you there, it's a gift.
And then the person who you're becoming,
your true identity in Christ, your true nature.
Okay, so let's apply to reset to rest.
So that means when I'm stressed, worried,
anxiety is trying to gain access to my life,
what's the permission?
The permission is Jesus saying,
peace, I leave with you.
My peace, I give you.
I do not give you as the world gives.
Do not let your heart be troubled.
And do not be afraid, do not let.
I love all the let and do not lets in the scripture.
It's just like, no biggie, don't let it.
And the reason you can do that
is because your new nature in Christ
has that level of self-control.
Did you notice that self-control
is connected to all the fruit of the spirit?
One of them is peace.
You're not trying to get those things,
that is a description of your new nature in Christ.
You're a participant of his divine nature.
When you were born again, you became a kingdom being.
You live in the kingdom, you're of the kingdom,
and yes, you are in the world,
but you live and exist in the kingdom realm.
That's your realm.
And so from that realm, the gift of self-control
is I can stop the noise, I can stop the stress,
I can say, like a police officer holding up their hand
saying, stop, and I can usher in.
Graham explains it like this.
It's like being on the 20th story of the building
and you're standing and you hit the button
and then peace rises, the elevator rises to meet you.
And there's just some real talk about this.
Why do we have to practice?
Well, we practice to let the peace of Christ rule.
I call up his peace in me.
I can do this because the prince of peace
already lives in me.
Peace is a ruling power.
The prince of peace, let the peace of Christ rule.
You know, the king doesn't rule when you remember
and then not rule when you forget.
It's not like you go to the king's domain,
go to any country, and it's not like,
well, you know, I'm English and I'm in Britain
and now we have a king.
But I forgot that King Charles was the king
so he's not the king anymore.
Right, it's not how it works in the kingdom either.
He is the king.
And the prince of peace rules in you.
So what you're doing is you're learning
to let the peace of Christ rule.
What does that mean?
That means the first time you practice it,
peace of Christ, and then it lasts for like 30 seconds.
So you practice it again, then it lasts for like two minutes.
You keep practicing and what'll happen over time
is it'll last longer and longer and longer.
And then you'll wake up one day and go,
you know it's been a whole week
since I've had to practice my peace.
So what you're doing is you're letting his peace,
you're not manufacturing peace,
you're not trying to feel more peaceful,
you're not trying to do all the downstairs
tweaking of your brain and your emotions
to try to zen in, whatever.
You know, we don't need all the,
all the downstairs stuff that the world discovers
are just shadows of upstairs truths.
That's all they are.
They're just the light shadows, the 5% version.
And so what's happening when we come to that place
of peace and rest, something extraordinary happens.
I become, I am an untroubled and calm leader
who lives in permanent peace.
This is how you know you've become the verse.
When you say, and others say around you,
somebody said, I'm looking forward,
my wife wants me to learn rest,
or whatever it was one of you said.
So I love that because that we become the calm,
what if you were the untroubled,
calm lead even in the midst of crisis?
And stress and worry are unnecessary for me
when so much rest and peace is available to me.
Isn't that an extraordinary, you see nothing in the kingdom,
God never starts with a negative.
He's never working on your stress.
He's never working on your anxiety.
He's never working on the negative.
He's only working on your peace.
Because he replaces.
It's like I turn on the light switch,
so there's light in the room.
I don't work, I don't suck the darkness out
until there's light in the room.
When I turn on the light switch,
there's not like this two hour struggle
as the light switch slowly pushes the light out
and slowly forces the darkness out of the room.
In other words, darkness exists in a vacuum.
Evil exists in a vacuum.
The old man, so Jesus said,
let me make this super simple.
I think when God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
had a meeting in heaven about this.
They said let's not try to fix them. Let's just kill them off
And give them a new a new version of us. Let's give them a new being
Let's make them a new creation. Let's make them a god-indwelled being a new species on planet earth
a god-indwelled being
Paul writes and says I write you because you're not merely human
In other words, you can do all this stuff because you are not merely human when the scripture is telling you do this
Don't do that. Let that don't let that it's simply explaining to you
What your new nature is like in jesus?
Now it doesn't mean that you're going to get it instantly, right?
The process is of learning and the process of becoming but what you're doing is you're learning to walk out who you already are in christ
So
This is a completely different way because now we take this from a very different viewpoint, right?
Not sure why this my slides are going backwards now
This is hilarious
All right, well, we'll go without the slides for this part. So here's what we're doing is we know already from neuroscience
That when you are peaceful and restful, you're most creative
You have most clear thinking you're most productive
You're most present in your relationships and you're most effective in your leadership
So what the lord is inviting us into is a whole different way of being with him
So he's saying to us. Hey, I want you
I want you to be in a position where you are working with me
In other words, you're walking out your new nature in jesus
Notice i'm not trying to attain something i'm doing it because I am someone
I love this stuff so much because what it says to us is that the lord is saying I am the prince of peace
Your job is to let my peace reign
And that is the game changer. That is the thing. I know for some of you
You've really been practicing this listen. I wrote a whole book called wired
You can see it behind me because I was trying to figure out why christians take so long to grow, you know
20 years in church. Why do there's so little transformation?
Why is that?
and
And then when I went through my own challenges, you all know my story
It took me a full year to learn to live in peace and you say well
That wasn't a very peaceful situation to learn to live in and I say I agree with you
But you know from the lord's viewpoint is you can't practice peace
When everything's peaceful
If you're in a situation not very peaceful right now, man, I envy you because
That is exactly what the lord is giving you
So i'm just going to throw this back up here for the see if we can get our slides back to where they should be
And it isn't okay, so what we're going to do is I want to I want to just say to you I want to share this with you
God is giving you permission to let his peace reign
When we come into that place of rest
The yoke kicks in how do we know the yoke kicks in because there's an acceleration effect
Imagine a small bull and a little bull trying to pull a huge load together
I'm just going to pull up a little picture that can illustrate that for us quickly
And in when we're thinking about that, uh, if somebody else can help me put that together or pull that picture up, that'd be great
Do you do you have the picture of the bull the two bulls
I will get it here in a second. So
But visualize this for most of us. Maybe we were taught
And this is entirely unnecessary this is that i'm out in the field i've got the load
I'm trying to do the work for god that he told me to do and i'm pulling this load and the farmer standing
On the side there with a little frown on his face watching me going. Yeah
You know
And we're like, I just want to please the lord
But what he's actually asking is let jesus is saying i'll come alongside you. So think of this mega huge bull
Being yoked to you the scrawny little bull next to him
And he's pulling the massive load
And you say man my my burden feels very light
You know why he's doing the pulling
cool thing though
The holy spirit keeps you all in step and he's coaching and guiding and comforting as you go through that learning
And the father's gone before you and prepared every good work for you to walk in and then we say the christian life is so hard
It's not necessary to take that view
It's just not required
this this
What jesus is inviting us into his kingdom leaders is a completely different level
That we get to function from rest. Honestly, if you're not in a state of rest take the day off and go and practice rest
There's no point
Because that acceleration effect that happens in the kingdom
kingdom. This again, it's a relational thing that's coming straight out of the
king because everything in the kingdom starts from rest. Your yoke is activated
by it. And so when Jesus is saying, you know, the peace I give you is not like
the world. Well, how does the world give peace? Well, when the downstairs stuff is
going great, then I'll have peace. And so we say stuff like, I'll be so glad when
this is over. And what we're that's about the worldliest thing we can say,
because what we're saying is, I won't have joy until my circumstances give me
permission. But what if the Lord is giving you permission to have joy now?
And he wants you to have joy now, because the joy of the Lord is your
strength, and you need strength to go through this process. Don't you need the
strength now? I'd say you do. So when we look at who's giving the permission, are
my circumstances giving me permission to be at peace? Well, when everything, guess
what's going to happen? That's how the world gives peace. Jesus, that's not the
peace I'm giving you. It's not a downstairs peace that where you're
getting your permission from your circumstances. You're getting permission
from me. And Paul put it this way, the peace of God, that peace which reassures
our hearts, that peace transcends all understanding. Your brain doesn't
understand. It's irrational. Your members of your team are saying it's irrational
for you to be so at peace when all this is going on. We lost that big client.
What's wrong with you? You know, because we use as markers. We have markers in
the world. The marker is if I'm stressed, my stress and busyness is a marker of
how seriously I'm taking my career. But in the kingdom, the marker is peace. How
restful you are is your marker in the kingdom as to how seriously you're
taking your calling. I don't know about you, but this stuff makes me super
excited. I'm preaching myself happy. So here's the point, though, right? Is that
because what's happening is that peace doesn't just transcend your mind. It also
guards your heart and your mind in Jesus. Peace will guard your mind. You don't
have to understand. Your mind is not the smartest part of you, as you know. Your
spirit is far more capable than your intellect. Your intellect is a
downstage faculty and it takes in it slow. So it's okay. It can be renewed and
catch up. At some point, your mind will go and live where your heart is, which is
fine. But your heart, your human spirit, can get revelation in a second. Take your
mind 20 years to figure it out. That's okay. God wants you to enjoy your
mind more. When your heart makes way for your mind, everything changes. And so in
this case, your heart is bringing your mind to peace. So it can think and be
creative and function and do what it needs to do and calm down. And the
analogy we often use is heart, mind and will are like three five-year-olds in
the household. Imagine if the five-year-olds run the household. Candy
for breakfast. Yay! Because that's what five-year-olds do. So what if the adult
in the room, your heart, your spirit man, the eternal part of you, steps in and says
we're not doing that. It's called self-control. We're gonna have peace in
the house now. There's gonna be peace. Okay mind, I get all the implications. You
have to keep shouting at me. I got it. Calm down heart and your emotions just
calm down and now I'm gonna worship the Lord. I'm gonna give thanks in all things.
I, listen, downstairs you'd be insane to consider trials with joy. Only insane
people would do that. But in the kingdom, it's the most normal thing to do.
Consider it pure joy when you encounter various trials. Why? Because you know
you're being upgraded. You know you're stepping into more. You're being
made into his image and likeness. That was his goal right from Genesis 1 26. Let
us make man in our own image and likeness. So here's a couple practical
things I found as a leader. You know you're going through your day. You start
in rest and then just wake up and you're three four hours into your day. You're
all agitated or like and you're frustrated. You're getting anxious and
you're going hang on a second. So I just do a quick peace audit. Hang on a second
where did I drop that thing? I left it. It's like leaving your cell phone in
somewhere. It fell out of your pocket in the car and you can look under the seat.
Ah there it is. And sometimes you go oh it was that conversation I had with so
and so. Don't blame them. Just you get to take a minute. Let peace reign. About a
year of practicing this my peace started to become permanent. And I've
shared the story many times when we were at Catalyst and we interviewed Graham
Cook. And the interviewer I was doing the interview said hey Graham rumor has it
you haven't been worried or anxious about anything for 23 years. That can't
be true. Come on real talk now Graham. Talk to us you know anytime.
He said, no, really, I had an encounter with a Prince of Peace and he never left.
Now, when he explained that later on, you learn that it took him a while to get it going.
He called up the elevator and it stayed for two minutes and left.
Then it stayed for an hour, then it stayed for longer and longer.
And I want to say that because we have permission.
Kingdom learning is slow learning.
This idea that we have to hear it once and go, just have it, is just not the kingdom.
You're going to hear this 50 times.
Some of you have been hearing this same talk from Brilliant or me or whoever in the
branding bar. How many times?
You know, 10 times, 15 times and you still go, yeah, that sounds cool.
I've got to be there. Right.
Because nobody said, oh, I got that nailed.
Right. OK, so here's what happens when we take on his yoke.
Suddenly we switch modes where we're not driven by discipline, we're driven by
delight because our delight leads to discipline.
But when you're trying to drive by discipline and spiritual disciplines and
disciplines and disciplines, you can do that.
That's a tough, tough way around.
That's 40 years in the desert journey.
Or you can do the quick way, which is you start in God's delighting you.
You know, when we know how we stand with him, he delights in you.
He adores you.
He's given you the ultimate permission.
Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to me.
We don't need to be working on the corpse in the grave because that's gross.
And you don't have to call it up or shout at the old man for not whatever.
That's ridiculous.
Why talk to dead people?
That's creepy.
Talk to the new man.
God is never he's only ever working on the new.
And he does it by doing exchanges.
He doesn't.
So people one guy said told me, well, the Lord just sat down.
He just read me the right act.
And for like an hour, I just wrote down everything he told me is wrong.
I said it must be in the pizza because that wasn't the Lord.
Because to do that, you'd have to violate what Jesus did for you.
Because all that was wrong with you was put on the cross.
And he gave you a new nature, his nature.
And the grace is for the learning part.
He knows you don't have it.
He knows you're going to drop the ball.
So here's what peace does for us as a
leader. It means that when our team is anxious and stressed about something going
on the business, we're the calmest person in the room.
Why? Because we know in whom we've believed.
We know that his peace reigns.
That means there is a there's a king in the room.
And I just partnered with him in peace.
I just partnered with him in rest.
And that's what causes the shift.
So.
Romans 15, 13, I'll end with this now,
may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing
that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So what I love for us is that if we can learn this simple routine,
that when something happens, when we have a moment, when, you know,
we're tempted to be under stress or whatever,
we need to switch modalities permanently, develop the lifestyle of rest and peace.
This is on offer from Jesus.
All the promises of your calling, all the provision,
all the favor of heaven is attracted to Jesus in you.
You have his favor, you have his peace, you have his joy, you have his.
People say, well, I'm not a patient person.
Good news.
That person died.
And the new person, which is Christ in you, no longer I that live,
but Christ who lives in me, that means that when the old person's dead
and you're alive to your new nature in Jesus, you feel most alive.
You're the best leader you can be.
You're the best spouse you can be.
You're the best parent you can be.
You step into the realm of the kingdom and the kingdom is a vast place.
So what we don't have to do,
what's completely unnecessary is that stress is just part of business life.
Sure, if you're a downstairs person and that's all you got, I get it.
But you're not.
You're not merely human.
You're a God-indwelled being.
And the three greatest geniuses of the universe have taken up residence in you.