How to Get a Hard Heart, Part 3

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. A heart that is not surrendered to its creator is often a restless heart. To that heart, Jesus calls, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Today, Pastor Rich will share from Hebrews 4, 1-10 in this message titled, Rest in God. This is the second part of the sermon, which was first preached on May 27, 2012 at Grace Bible Church. As we move to the next frame here, in your notes, you've got that triangle. At the bottom of that triangle, at the very foundation of what rest means, is the presence of God, the very presence of God.

And again, we are not just talking about something that is future for us. I have a question for you. Has God promised His presence for us today?

Yes, He has. And His presence is with us directly in the form of His Holy Spirit. So we have the very presence of God, and His presence becomes the foundation of the rest that we have for Him.

Now think about this for a minute. You are in the presence of One who is absolute good. Absolute good. He is the One, as He said to Abraham, I am your shield and your very great reward in Genesis 15, 1. As we are in the presence of the One who is absolute good, then you and I can know absolute security, absolute love, absolute acceptance. But not only that, because as we are in the presence of the One who is absolute, we are overcome with absolute awe. Because He is Creator and we are not. We are the created. And so, as we are in His presence and we experience this continual ongoing awe, we have an unceasing fascination with the majesty of God. This is what He has ordained for us. Now what would that look like if you've been in the presence of just such a One who is absolute good and in His presence I know and sense absolute love and acceptance and security and awe, unending awe. What would it be if you were in the presence of such a person? Let's call it praise.

Okay? 1 Peter 2 tells us that we were called, we are His chosen people, a chosen generation of royal people that we might proclaim the praises, the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. That would be an appropriate response. You know, have you ever been in the presence of somebody that you were just totally amazed by them? And when you go and you talk to other people, you talk about that person and how you were just completely amazed by them. That's the way it will be when we are forever with the Lord. Forever in His presence and we will be with each other and we will be so compelled to just simply talk about the absolute goodness of God and our awe of Him and we'll talk about that with each other and we will proclaim His praises in an unending way. Not too long ago, just a couple weeks ago, Andrea and I were up in Cleveland, Ohio, just southeast of Cleveland at a large church up there at a pastor's conference. It's just for men, so Andrea goes along just for the getaway.

Lots of outlets around there and that kind of stuff. She gets to sleep in as long as she wants. Tuesday night, though, is open to the public and so I invite her along. She comes along with me, excellent speaking, excellent music. And so the whole auditorium was filled, I'm estimating it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 people. And we sang a song and the whole auditorium is just consumed with the sound of this praise. And we sang a song called Hallelujah, All I Have is Christ.

And when we were done singing, Andrea and I just stood there with tears running down our faces. Imagine with me, if you will, an eternity of that kind of praise. And it has everything to do with the one in whose presence we are. What a thing to look forward to. This is the rest that God has ordained for His people because we are singing the praises of the amazingness of His grace, the awesomeness of His perfection and goodness, the majesty of His holiness.

These are the things that we talk about with each other. But some are afraid, is that all we're going to do? In April, Time Magazine ran a cover story titled, Heaven Can't Wait, Why Rethinking the Hereafter Could Make the World a Better Place.

I think that's a pretty good title. There seems to be something distinctly scriptural about that. The Bible says much about keeping our eyes on what God has in store for us. And when we do that, it changes how we live and think here. But there was one who responded in an editorial in the next issue. And he responded this way with a little bit of surprise that 85% of the Americans still believe in a place called heaven.

And this is what he said. They think of heaven as quiet and peaceful with no need to do anything. That sounds pretty dull to me.

What do you do with all of that free time? And it goes on forever and ever. Christians, is that how you think of heaven? Maybe that's why it doesn't transform us today because we think we're going to be doing nothing. I don't think so. When God created Adam and Eve, were they doing nothing?

I don't think so. But think about what we've considered already, being in the very presence of this one and being so compelled to speak of his awesomeness, his goodness, and his majesty, and his grace. And the things that we get to do, God created us as physical beings and he created us for a physical environment. And did you know that for eternity, we will be physical beings living in a physical environment because that's how God made us. And we were created for one of the purposes is to rule that physical environment. We will have dominion over it, just as Adam and Eve had dominion over the physical environment in which they were placed.

And the reason for that is that God created us for one of the purposes is to rule that physical environment in which they were placed. And we will do so as a delight in serving the purposes of God. So what are we going to do for eternity? We'll be pursuing relationships for eternity.

We'll be pursuing relationships, competition. We will be discovering new arenas of God's infinitude because that's the definition of infinitude. There is always something new to discover. And every day is going to be a, wow, did you see that about God, about what he has done in history.

And in that, it will be a great joy and a delight for us to be ruling and managing the physical universe that he has created for us to rule and manage. Now just think of it. That's okay. Second, think about this.

It's going to be fun. Do you remember Jesus after he rose from the dead? Okay. Jesus is the first fruits of those who rise from the dead. That means as he has been and is, we will be. Did he rise from the dead with a physical body? Yes, he did. And when he rose from the dead, did he see people? Did he meet with people?

And what did he do? And how did he get around? Remember when the disciples were in the upper room and they were sitting there crouched and they were afraid with the Jews and all of a sudden, boom, there's Jesus. But the doors were locked.

Listen, think about this. Jesus was resurrected with a physical body and he got into the room when the windows and the doors were locked. I think heaven's going to be fun. We will be able to travel, listen to this, at the speed of thought.

The speed of light will seem slow to us. Okay, but this is not a message about heaven. What is the rest that God has ordained for the people of God?

What is it? I want you to consider some things because we will be fulfilling the purpose. The third word on the triangle there is the purpose. Okay, so we will be in his presence. We will be proclaiming his praises.

We will be fulfilling his purposes. Okay, you put all of that together, then we will be perfectly experiencing the peace of God. Peace.

The word in Hebrew is shalom and peace doesn't do it justice because the word actually means wholeness. Wholeness. We will be delighting in a state where everything is as it ought to be and every bit of it will be founded upon the fact that we are in his presence. This is the rest that God has for us.

Everything will be as it ought to be and we can count on this because this is what he has revealed to us and what he has revealed to us is anchored in historic reality. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.