Rest in God, Part 5

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. A clear view of God's character and purpose will make us intensely aware of our own brokenness. Surrendering is what makes us whole again. Today, Pastor Rich continues in Hebrews 4, 1-10, showing how finding our rest in God will free us from the desperate striving to find meaning and purpose on our own.

Let's listen in. This is the second part of a message that was first preached on June 3, 2012. What is the rest of salvation? It is that I am in Christ, Paul's favorite phrase, in Christ. It means everything. It defines me.

It's my element. It's who I am. And he says to the church at Colossae, you are complete in him. That is the rest of salvation, meaning I am rescued and secure, rescued from the necessary wrath of God and secure in that rescue.

I don't ever have to fear that wrath again. Not only am I rescued and secure, but I am loved and accepted in the very presence of God. And I am defined as a child of God.

And that is the relationship now that I have with him. And then not only is it the rest of salvation, but it is the rest of submission and satisfaction. Where my life is for Christ then, that my life is an outflow of my relationship with him. That submission and that satisfaction that comes from that where Christ is preeminent in my life. Listen now to the language of rest in the scriptures.

Here's one from the Apostle Paul. He says, for me to live is Christ. To die is gain. How is that rest? It means the Apostle was not preoccupied with keeping himself alive and his own temporal survival.

It wasn't his preoccupation. He rested in the fact that he knew he was absolutely confident and resting in God for his eternal destiny. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. That's the language of rest. Listen to it from the Old Testament.

We know this. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.

What is that? That's the language of rest. That's the language of one who follows God with his whole heart.

It's the language of, it's the disposition of rest. Here's another one from the New Testament. These are the words of the Lord himself. Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden.

And who is that? That's everybody. Because we're striving for survival. We're striving for meaning. We're striving to attain the divine.

And we can't. And the Lord says, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you what? Rest. Rest. And here it is.

Here it is. Five words. Take my yoke upon you.

What is that? That's surrender. When the Lord says, the Lord says, when you come to me on my terms, you surrender yourself in faith to me and you submit yourself to me. Then you will know my rest and not until then.

That's how we know. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly and hard and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The psalmist also gives us the language of satisfaction in Psalm 36.

I love this. Those who put their trust under the shadow of your wings. He says this, they are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house and you give them drink from the river of your pleasures. For with you is the fountain of life in your light. We see light.

Oh, continue your loving kindness to those who know you. That's the language of rest. That is the language of satisfaction. And it permeates the scriptures. You see, but are we surrendered? Have we submitted ourselves to the sovereign? Have we taken his yoke upon us? Do you want God's rest without taking his yoke upon you?

It can't happen. And maybe that's why among us today there are some restless people because you've not taken his yoke upon you. There is the rest of salvation.

There is the rest of submission and the rest of satisfaction. Now, as I said before, rest doesn't mean that we do nothing, but it does say here in the text that we who have believed in God do cease from our liquid. Verse 10, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his. So he's ceased from work because the work is done. The work necessary for you to be reconciled to God, which is the purpose of your design, is complete in Christ's redemptive work.

He has done all the work. We are no longer striving to reach God's favor. Now here, understand this. As created in the image of God, every human being is to some degree or another striving to reach God's favor.

Why? Because we're made in his image. We have this God-shaped vacuum that must be filled.

And guess who is the only one who can fill it? God. As Augustine said, or Augustine, depending on where you're from, our hearts are restless until they find what? Their rest in you.

He was absolutely right in that. And so we have ceased from striving to reach the divine or ultimate reality, whatever your perception of ultimate reality is. Because everybody wants to know what that is, even if you believe it's just pure annihilation.

I've got news for you. There is something beyond the grave. And we're not striving for that ultimate reality. That's why I've said before, there are only two categories of religion. There is the religion of human merit, which is striving to attain the divine. But then there is the religion of grace, which is the grace that God has lavished upon us so that we can cease from striving to attain the divine. That's the rest of salvation. He came to us to take us back to himself. Now the next point in this is I'm going to take over the slides here for a minute. The next point in this is that we no longer strive to discover meaning and purpose.

And before I get to that point, I want to give you some illustrations here. What you have before you is a tree branch, right? Is this a perfectly good healthy tree branch?

Well, it was a minute ago, right? And somebody decided to climb on it or the storm came through. This tree branch is broken off the tree. What is this tree? It looks healthy, doesn't it? It's got green leaves on it. There's all kinds of life going on around it. It looks like a healthy tree branch.

The problem is it's disconnected. What is the future of this tree branch? Does this mean anything to you? How would you describe this tree branch? Dead, okay, dry, unproductive. Is this a successful tree branch? What's happened here is this tree branch has now been separated from its very source of life.

It looks healthy. It looks like it's still alive. But since it's become separated from its source of life, what is true about this tree branch? It has begun a process of a slow death. It is headed for decay. And it's because it's been separated from the source and sustenance of its life. Folks, that's who God is. That's who God is. You and I are tree branches that need to be reconciled to the tree.

Why? Because the tree is the source and sustenance of our life. If we are not reconciled to God, we are as this tree branch that looks like it's alive, but it is dying a slow death and headed for destruction.

Now, think of it this way. If this tree branch gets grafted back into the tree, and it can, it can get grafted back into the tree, then it is reconnected with the source and sustenance of its life. And that tree branch then can become not this, but this. What about these tree branches?

I have a question for you. These tree branches on this tree, are they striving to produce? They're not. What are they doing? They are resting in the tree. As those tree branches are vitally connected to the tree, what those branches produce is simply an outflow of their vital connection to the tree. That's God's rest. They don't have to strive to produce. They don't have to strive to attain their satisfaction, their meaning, and their purpose.

They simply rest in the tree. That is the rest that God has for His people. Until you are reconciled to God and submitted to Him and drawing your life from Him, you are nothing more than that branch lying on the ground, separated from your very source and sustenance of life. This is the rest for the people of God.

Productivity, beauty, success. And they don't even have to strive for it, because it is God. And so that takes us then to the next point, the rest for the people of God that we have seized from work. We are no longer striving to discover meaning and purpose, because our meaning and purpose is discovered and realized in our vital connection to the source and sustenance of life, and it is God Himself.

That is the rest for the people of God. Now we are surrounded by a world of people and all of us have been there, every one of us has been there. Surrounded by a world of people that are striving to discover meaning and purpose.

Let me give you some examples. This is by Greta Christina. She was writing an article. She wrote an article in the Skeptical Inquirer. The title of her article was Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing To Do With God. And here's what she writes. Death can be an appalling thing to think about, not just frightening, not just painful.

It can be paralyzing. The fact that your lifespan is an infinitesimally small fragment, tiny fragment in the life of the universe, that there is at the very least a strong possibility that when you die you disappear completely and forever and that in 500 years nobody will remember you. 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.