WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO REST IN THE LORD?
If you are tired and need rest this is the message for you
The Bible tells us that we are to strive to enter his rest(sounds strange doesn't it)
If you don’t learn to rest in the Lord, you won’t be able to get your prayers answered consistently
Hebrews 4:1-16 (ESV)
1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”
5 And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a has priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
1. We are to strive to enter into his rest
· Go after the promise (striving) and get it in our heart
2. We are to strive to enter into his rest
· Rest means to: cease work
· Sounds strange doesn’t it
· Usually when you rest you just lay day and relax and go to sleep
· This is different (relax in him to see him work)
· Take practice and God’s help to be able to do it.
3. If you don’t learn to rest in the Lord
· You won’t be able to get your prayers answered consistently
· Let me give you an example from way back in my past. I prayed for my son Chad decades ago before I understood how divine healing worked. He had been diagnosed with partial deafness. I prayed and commanded his hearing to be restored and then just forgot about it and put it in on the back burner.
· The back burner is one way of entering into his rest. I still use it occasionally.
· Striving Dictionary definition is “to make great efforts to achieve something” (this is different than striving to get the promise in your heart; this is talking about a struggle to believe and leave it in God’s hands
· Striving=You take it Lord/No I’m taking it back/no you take it (that's the battle)
· I remember a skit that I saw with a person trying to leave their prayer/their burden at the alter (they used a backpack to represent this) The person would come and then give it to God (set it down and pray) and then take it back after as they left the altar (I think that pretty well sums it up.
Mark 11:24 (KJV)
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
You must rest in order to: Believe you receive when you pray
4. Good news.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
· We have a High Priest in Jesus who understands how we fee and we can come boldly and get mercy and grace to help us