back to index2019-7-21 Finding True Rest in Christ
00:00:13.440 |
Reading out of the NASB, "Therefore, let us fear if while a promise remains 00:00:17.120 |
of entering his rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. 00:00:21.320 |
For indeed, we have had good news preached to us just as they also, 00:00:24.560 |
but the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith 00:00:30.040 |
For we who believed enter that rest just as he has said, 00:00:33.640 |
'As I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.' 00:00:37.640 |
Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, 00:00:40.600 |
for he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested on the seventh 00:00:46.040 |
And again in this passage, 'They shall not enter my rest.' 00:00:48.960 |
Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good 00:00:52.480 |
news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, 00:00:55.680 |
he again fixes a certain day today saying through David, 00:00:58.680 |
'After so long a time, just as has been said before, 00:01:02.200 |
today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. 00:01:04.960 |
For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day 00:01:09.880 |
So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 00:01:13.680 |
For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God 00:01:22.880 |
Gracious and loving Father, we thank you so much for being patient 00:01:28.560 |
Help us to discern the thoughts and intentions of our own hearts, Lord God, 00:01:37.200 |
It would be our food, the source of our comfort and strength, 00:01:44.160 |
So we pray, Father God, as the word goes forth, as you have ordained, 00:01:48.520 |
that it would not return until it has accomplished your purpose. 00:01:56.680 |
May this time be acceptable before your eyes. 00:02:02.080 |
Okay, so as you guys know, we had VBS run this week. 00:02:05.360 |
And for many of the parents and children, it's the highlight of the year. 00:02:09.120 |
So much time and effort goes into preparing, and so many volunteers come. 00:02:13.760 |
And so, you know, it was kind of sad because it was our last VBS for our 00:02:18.680 |
youngest child, so next year he won't be doing VBS. 00:02:22.320 |
And I was talking to Isaiah, and Isaiah was, you know, he's already kind of 00:02:27.240 |
And he said, "Can I at least help next year?" 00:02:29.720 |
And I said, "Well, you have to be baptized and be a member." 00:02:41.880 |
So Friday night, I'm sure everybody was exhausted. 00:02:44.040 |
And, you know, at the end of a long week like that, you know, you naturally tend 00:02:50.280 |
So maybe some of you guys were able to get some rest yesterday. 00:02:53.520 |
And I know for some of you guys, yesterday was another long day. 00:02:57.000 |
But what do you do when you're fatigued, when you're tired? 00:03:01.760 |
Sometimes if you have small children, if you went on a vacation, you're probably 00:03:10.520 |
Some people will sit on their couch and watch Netflix. 00:03:14.520 |
Some people will go grab something to eat or sleep in. 00:03:18.080 |
We're all doing that because we need to recuperate so that we can get back to work. 00:03:23.840 |
The text that we're looking at today in chapter 4, the theme of the whole chapter 00:03:31.000 |
We've been talking about how the warning about not drifting from this God, 00:03:37.480 |
from Christ, who he's greater than the angels, he's greater than Moses, 00:03:45.400 |
And so the previous chapter, in chapter 3, it was a warning against if you hear his 00:03:50.720 |
voice today, not to harden your heart because tomorrow you may not hear his voice. 00:03:55.040 |
And there's an ordained time for people to repent and come to Christ. 00:03:58.440 |
And if you ignore that, if you sweep that under the rug, he says, 00:04:02.600 |
"The next time you come around, it may be even more difficult." 00:04:05.480 |
Chapter 4 is leading us to the "let us" statement. 00:04:09.720 |
So if you read through chapter 4, you'll notice that there are four 00:04:13.400 |
The first one we find in verse 1 where he says, "Let us fear if a promise remains 00:04:23.160 |
He says, "Therefore, let us be diligent to enter the rest." 00:04:26.600 |
And then verse 14, it says, "Since we have a great high priest who has 00:04:30.560 |
passed through the heavens," did I get that right? 00:04:36.440 |
And then verse 16 is, "Therefore, let us draw near with confidence." 00:04:40.200 |
So all these "let us" statements together are kind of guiding us through if you hear 00:04:45.480 |
his voice and you believe and you're taking his warning seriously, 00:04:54.840 |
So I remember back in seminary, my professor would always say, 00:04:59.040 |
we repeated it so many times in our hermeneutics class, 00:05:03.080 |
He says, "If you apply the Bible without proper interpretation, 00:05:10.840 |
Because if you don't know what the Word of God says or you have a very superficial 00:05:13.720 |
understanding of what the Word of God says, then the application is obviously 00:05:19.280 |
So oftentimes, without study of the Bible, we begin to project unto God, 00:05:23.320 |
"Well, since you're loving God, you ought to be doing this. 00:05:25.600 |
Since the church is this, the church should be this. 00:05:27.800 |
Or since you are this way, you ought to be this way." 00:05:30.200 |
And so our application of what we know of Scripture or we think we know 00:05:34.760 |
of Scripture can be wrong without careful examination of what the Word of God says. 00:05:39.200 |
So application without interpretation is miscarriage. 00:05:43.320 |
But then the flip side of it, he would often say, "But interpretation 00:05:49.440 |
Because the whole point of the study of the Bible is not just for us to say, 00:05:52.840 |
"Aha, I know, I understand," and to be able to take a test and say, 00:05:59.560 |
The whole point of exposition and study of the Word of God is to lead us to these 00:06:06.880 |
Because an individual who's constantly studying with very little application, 00:06:11.200 |
all it does for that person is becomes a puffed-up individual who becomes an expert, 00:06:18.440 |
expert on what the Word of God says, but has no idea of who God is. 00:06:23.200 |
So let's look at the first let-out statement. 00:06:24.960 |
So I'm going to take some time each week going over these let-out statements. 00:06:27.760 |
But the first one we begin with, he says, "Let us fear if while a promise 00:06:35.080 |
So the fear that he's warning us of is that we would fall short of that rest. 00:06:42.960 |
So the first question we need to ask is, why would he tell us to fear so that we 00:06:51.600 |
Doesn't it sound like maybe the fear itself is what's causing the unrest? 00:06:56.440 |
You know, you don't think of having fear of wanting to rest, 00:07:01.680 |
because rest, we typically think of just doing nothing, relax, right? 00:07:06.360 |
I mean, an individual who's living his life in fear is constantly anxious. 00:07:13.480 |
In fact, if you look at later part of that verse, or later part of it, 00:07:21.440 |
In verse 10, it says, "For the one who has entered his rest," sorry, 00:07:25.680 |
it calls us in verse 11 to work to enter that rest. 00:07:35.240 |
It sounds like an oxymoron if you understand it superficially. 00:07:38.240 |
If we begin to project our understanding of rest to what he is saying, 00:07:44.560 |
So the first thing that we need to tackle is, what does he mean by this rest? 00:07:47.920 |
And why is it so important that we need to be working, 00:07:50.720 |
we need to be fearing to make sure that we're entering this rest? 00:07:55.240 |
Well, he answers that question in this text in verse 4 and verse 10. 00:07:58.920 |
He said that the rest that he is referring to is the rest 00:08:02.320 |
that God entered into on the seventh day, on verse 4. 00:08:05.560 |
"For he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, 00:08:08.440 |
'And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.'" 00:08:12.400 |
So in other words, he's not simply talking about not working, 00:08:15.480 |
even though that is part of the definition of the word rest. 00:08:19.400 |
He's referring specifically to the rest that God entered into in creation. 00:08:24.960 |
After six days of creation, God entered into that rest. 00:08:28.960 |
Verse 10, "For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested 00:08:37.000 |
So in order to understand the biblical definition of rest, 00:08:44.160 |
What does it mean for God to enter that rest on the seventh day? 00:08:47.560 |
In Genesis 2, 2-3, it says, "By the seventh day, 00:08:53.720 |
and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. 00:08:58.560 |
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." 00:09:03.000 |
"Because in it, he rested from all his works which God had created and made." 00:09:10.480 |
Our natural inclination is to think he worked for six days and he got tired. 00:09:18.080 |
And so he needed to recuperate on the seventh day. 00:09:21.200 |
And so he rested in order to get back to work on Monday. 00:09:23.880 |
Because typically when we think of rest, that's what we think of. 00:09:27.600 |
We've spent our energy, we're tired, we're going to go relax, 00:09:31.200 |
not do work for a while, and then when I feel rested, then I can go back to work. 00:09:37.120 |
Now that would be blasphemous, to think that God rested from his work 00:09:43.320 |
Because clearly the scripture says, in Isaiah 40-28, "Do you not know, 00:09:48.080 |
have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends 00:09:52.040 |
of the earth, does not become weary or tired. 00:10:00.600 |
The same energy and power and vigor that God had Monday in the beginning 00:10:05.680 |
of creation is the same energy and vigor that he had on Saturday. 00:10:16.040 |
Usually when we have VBS, we start out with a bang on Monday, 00:10:20.840 |
Just like your work day, we call it a hump day because it's difficult. 00:10:25.320 |
You've already gotten wearied, you know, and then Friday is like, 00:10:29.640 |
And then you go to the weekend and then you have things to do to recuperate, right? 00:10:35.800 |
So by the time VBS comes, Wednesday is a hump day, and then Friday, 00:10:38.800 |
we finish with a bang because it's over, right? 00:10:43.840 |
Six days he labored, and then on Wednesday, he got fatigued, 00:10:50.920 |
So he entered into the Sabbath, he's like, "Oh, let's take a break." 00:10:54.560 |
Clearly, that's not what the Sabbath is referring to because God is immutable. 00:11:02.760 |
So what does it mean then for him to enter the Sabbath and for mankind 00:11:11.320 |
Well, I think it helps us to understand what happened after the fall. 00:11:15.600 |
One sin entered, they were separated from God. 00:11:19.280 |
In Genesis 3, 16 to 19, it describes the penalty of this sin. 00:11:24.600 |
God said, "You shall surely die if you eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil. 00:11:31.800 |
But when they eat it, they don't fall to the ground and physically disappear. 00:11:35.680 |
In fact, they live for many, many years after that. 00:11:38.880 |
But the description of this spiritual death is mentioned in Genesis 3, 16 to 19. 00:11:44.360 |
And in that passage, it describes for the woman that she will bear children in much pain 00:11:51.440 |
and that there's going to be contention between her and her husband. 00:11:55.600 |
Now, if you look at that, her very reason of why God created her is described in that fall. 00:12:03.360 |
God created her to be a suitable helper because it was not good for man to be alone. 00:12:07.800 |
God created a partner to help her and that her primary role is to help her to be fruitful and to multiply. 00:12:15.480 |
But the penalty of this sin, this spiritual death that comes in, 00:12:19.200 |
is that the very thing that she was created for now is going to create contention and restlessness. 00:12:27.560 |
She's going to still be with her husband. There's going to be contention in the home. 00:12:31.160 |
She's going to bear children, but it's going to be very painful. 00:12:36.520 |
Adam was created so that he can be the ruler of all creation to subdue the land. 00:12:42.240 |
But as soon as sin comes in, what does it say? 00:12:45.000 |
By sweat of your brow, you're going to be laboring and it's going to produce thorns and thistles. 00:12:52.840 |
And after all the hard work and restlessness and labor, what comes after that? 00:12:58.080 |
He says it's death. From dust you come to dust you will go. 00:13:02.960 |
So the very thing that they were created for, now it's going to turn into restlessness, contention, weeds. 00:13:12.240 |
Thorns and thistles are going to be created by that same labor. 00:13:15.480 |
So what does it mean to enter the Sabbath and to break the Sabbath? 00:13:20.640 |
Well, Exodus chapter 31, 12-13, God makes a covenant with the nation of Israel. 00:13:25.080 |
And this is what he said, "The Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'But I ask for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 00:13:30.480 |
'You shall surely observe my Sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generation, 00:13:36.120 |
that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.'" 00:13:41.320 |
Of all the things that God could have used as a covenant symbol, 00:13:45.640 |
he says the Sabbath was one of the covenant symbols that God makes with the nation of Israel. 00:13:51.000 |
That this Sabbath is going to symbolize the relationship that God had with the nation of Israel. 00:13:57.480 |
Now, the key to this is the second part when he says, 00:14:01.880 |
"The reason why this is a covenant symbol is so that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you." 00:14:09.480 |
Now, if you are New Testament savvy, whenever you hear the word sanctify, 00:14:13.880 |
you automatically think justification, sanctification, and glorification. 00:14:19.560 |
So you say, "Oh, sanctification, he's talking about our spiritual maturity." 00:14:24.520 |
Not necessarily. The word sanctify just literally means to be made holy. 00:14:29.000 |
Literally means to be set apart. So it's just a broad word to describe salvation. 00:14:36.920 |
So in other words, God set aside and appointed the Sabbath to remind them that God is their salvation. 00:14:46.440 |
So Sabbath is a symbol of salvation, if you follow. 00:14:53.880 |
Sabbath is a symbol of salvation. So the definition of the Sabbath is, 00:15:01.480 |
when Adam and Eve had fellowship with God, he was with God in the Sabbath, in rest. 00:15:07.400 |
Did they work physically? Yes. If you read the book of Genesis, 00:15:11.640 |
before they fall, they were working. But it was work in joy. 00:15:16.040 |
They had fellowship, right? They had communion. 00:15:19.160 |
They, you know, not this communion, but they had communion, right? 00:15:23.560 |
But as soon as sin enters, they're doing the same work, but they're no longer in rest. 00:15:29.480 |
There's a restlessness that comes into mankind. So the Sabbath is broken. 00:15:34.200 |
So when you are with the Lord, you are in his Sabbath. 00:15:38.200 |
But because of sin, you are expelled from the Sabbath. 00:15:41.800 |
And then there's restlessness. Now, the reason why this is so important 00:15:46.440 |
is because if you read the Old Testament, Sabbath is a key part of his law. 00:15:51.160 |
You can almost say it's the central part of his law. 00:15:53.800 |
If you look at the Ten Commandments, all of the Ten Commandments are all very— 00:15:58.120 |
like, we can understand why those Ten Commandments are there. 00:16:00.520 |
It's a relationship with God, right? "Worship no other gods, no other graven images, 00:16:06.280 |
shall not use the Lord's name in vain." And then he says, "You shall keep the Sabbath," 00:16:10.920 |
which is one of the only ceremonial law that is embedded in the Ten Commandments. 00:16:15.800 |
And then every other law from the commandment after that is a law between other people. 00:16:23.080 |
So you have this vertical relationship and horizontal relationship, 00:16:26.200 |
but right at the center of that is the Sabbath. 00:16:28.360 |
And why is the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments? 00:16:31.960 |
Why was this particular law so important that he kept it in the Ten Commandments and repeated? 00:16:37.640 |
In fact, if you break the Sabbath, the penalty for breaking the Sabbath was stoning. 00:16:43.560 |
They took him outside and they stoned him to death. 00:16:46.520 |
And there was a heavy emphasis on keeping the Sabbath holy. 00:16:50.200 |
You can see why the Pharisees in the New Testament were so concerned about breaking the Sabbath. 00:16:56.120 |
Every time Jesus did something that broke their law—not God's law, but their law— 00:17:00.520 |
they had a huge fit because they understood the weightiness of this law. 00:17:07.320 |
The purpose of all of this is to bring us to understanding 00:17:10.920 |
because the purpose of the Sabbath was not the Sabbath itself. 00:17:14.680 |
It wasn't the rule keeping. In fact, it's spelled out in Colossians 2, 16-17. 00:17:19.800 |
"Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink 00:17:24.440 |
or in respect to festivals or new moons or Sabbath day, 00:17:28.440 |
things which are mere shadows of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." 00:17:36.120 |
All of this, all of the Sabbath was to prepare for the one who was going to fulfill this Sabbath. 00:17:43.240 |
What was broken because of the broken fellowship with God. 00:17:47.480 |
Christ was going to come and restore that Sabbath. 00:17:51.240 |
So all of this was just a preparation to point to the coming of Christ. 00:17:56.360 |
So when Jesus Christ comes, he says, Matthew 11, 28, 00:18:00.120 |
"Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden," in what? "I will give you rest." 00:18:06.840 |
He's speaking to people who are weary and heavy laden because of the broken Sabbath. 00:18:11.400 |
And he says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." 00:18:14.360 |
What is yoke? We're not talking about the egg yoke. 00:18:17.640 |
We're talking about the yoke that is put on an animal so that the animal can labor. 00:18:21.720 |
So when he says, "Take my work," yoke is just another word in the New Testament 00:18:29.400 |
So when Jesus says, "Take my work upon you and learn from me, 00:18:33.480 |
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul," 00:18:42.280 |
It's pretty clear. Jesus clearly says that he came to do the Father's will, 00:18:47.960 |
to do his work, and the work is to atone for the sins of many. 00:18:55.080 |
He who knew no sin became sin, that you and I can become the righteousness of God. 00:18:59.880 |
So he said, "If you hear my voice and you take my work upon you, 00:19:10.120 |
So a distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian 00:19:12.600 |
is a state of restlessness in a non-Christian, 00:19:16.520 |
because he is constantly staggering from one place to another, seeking rest. 00:19:21.000 |
A non-Christian cannot rest until his circumstances are exactly the way he desires. 00:19:27.080 |
Until he eats what he wants and he drinks what he wants to drink, 00:19:31.000 |
and he has the circumstances that he desires and he works for, 00:19:42.040 |
"Jesus answered and said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 00:19:47.160 |
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. 00:19:51.240 |
But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water, 00:19:57.640 |
In other words, he's describing an individual who drinks the water of Christ, 00:20:00.600 |
who's taken his yoke upon him, and he has found true rest in Christ. 00:20:08.840 |
people who ate the miraculous bread and the fish, 00:20:12.360 |
they're coming to him because they want more. 00:20:15.720 |
I mean, let's make him king, because if we make Jesus king, 00:20:21.160 |
Not only is he going to feed us, I mean, if you're blind, 00:20:27.800 |
If you're a leopard, he's going to cleanse you. 00:20:35.000 |
When they finally see Jesus on the other side of Galilee, 00:20:37.320 |
Jesus says to him, "You're coming to me not because you know who I am. 00:20:41.160 |
You're not coming because you understand what I've come to give you. 00:20:43.560 |
You're coming because you ate bread and you want more." 00:20:46.040 |
And Jesus tells them in that chapter, "I am the bread of life. 00:20:51.800 |
The bread that you eat, that you have eaten, you will be thirsty again. 00:20:56.680 |
But the bread that I give you, if you eat of it, 00:21:02.120 |
Obviously, he's not talking about a physical bread. 00:21:06.520 |
"If you do not eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, 00:21:16.360 |
you will always be staggering from place to place 00:21:23.320 |
we think of drug addicts or somebody who's done something illegal. 00:21:28.120 |
But every non-believer who does not know Christ 00:21:42.280 |
Whatever it may be, a non-Christian is always looking for the next fix 00:21:46.120 |
because they are always hungry and always thirsty. 00:21:51.400 |
You may sense a feel of rest momentarily because you took a nap, 00:21:57.240 |
because you took a vacation and you went somewhere and came back, 00:22:02.760 |
So the state of a non-Christian, state of a world who's dominated by sin 00:22:20.920 |
"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 00:22:23.560 |
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. 00:22:26.840 |
The Sabbath was created so that man could understand 00:22:29.800 |
that his true Sabbath was to point to Christ. 00:22:40.200 |
that somehow they were going to earn their rest in Christ." 00:22:43.320 |
And Jesus says, "If you do not understand that all of this was for me, 00:22:47.720 |
in fact, the very thing that was made for you, 00:22:53.400 |
In other words, if we don't find Christ as our Sabbath, 00:23:01.880 |
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. 00:23:09.960 |
and you couldn't wait to come to church, sing songs, surf, 00:23:25.400 |
Worship is not a place where you come to find refreshment, 00:23:30.280 |
Just like VBS, you work hard, and then when it's done, 00:23:33.640 |
you go watch TV, relax, travel to find your rest. 00:23:47.320 |
think of all the things that you could be doing. 00:23:52.680 |
I mean, all the things that are at the tip of our hand, 00:23:56.040 |
right in your pocket, in your phone, to distract you, 00:24:12.200 |
and you put in your time for an hour and a half, 00:24:16.680 |
And then afterwards, to reward your patience, 00:24:27.720 |
It is a burden that you're not going to bear for long. 00:24:36.120 |
if all it is is an obligation that needs to be carried out, 00:24:57.080 |
that's a continual burden to you for a long time, 00:24:59.640 |
because all you need is one excuse to stop it. 00:25:18.440 |
Because this is not where you come to find rest. 00:25:21.960 |
This is not where you come when you are lost. 00:25:25.880 |
Christ is not the one that you run to when you are hurt. 00:25:31.480 |
And so everything about Christ has become a burden. 00:25:40.280 |
Because the only reason why heaven is a place of rest 00:26:12.600 |
Because what the health and wealth gospel does, 00:26:15.400 |
it takes the reward to be the health and wealth. 00:26:20.600 |
And Jesus is only an avenue to get to the health and wealth. 00:26:39.080 |
is always Jesus as an avenue to get somewhere. 00:26:52.680 |
when he's the avenue to get to the health and wealth. 00:27:50.120 |
"Let us fear that we do not enter this rest." 00:28:03.560 |
Most young people look at the previous generation 00:28:07.960 |
and can immediately tell you what they did wrong. 00:28:14.360 |
So we can easily see because it's already mapped out. 00:28:18.040 |
These are the mistakes that the United States made. 00:28:25.320 |
So when we are older, we're not going to do this. 00:28:33.000 |
I'm not going to repeat the same mistakes my parents did. 00:28:40.760 |
But over and over again, history repeats itself. 00:28:50.200 |
What advantage does man have in all his work, 00:29:04.360 |
You're looking in the wrong place to find salvation. 00:29:25.800 |
or whether it's today or a thousand years later, 00:29:42.600 |
and that which has been done is that which will be done. 00:29:51.400 |
it has existed for ages, which were before us.'" 00:29:54.760 |
He says the difference between a Christian and non-Christian 00:30:07.320 |
for indeed we have had good news preached to us, 00:30:12.120 |
did not profit them, because it was not united 00:30:19.640 |
The same promise and same warning has gone out, 00:30:26.280 |
are the ones who believe and believe and not believe. 00:30:31.880 |
"Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, 00:30:34.200 |
those who formerly had good news preached them 00:30:41.720 |
I want to show you guys a video of how they catch monkeys, 00:30:58.440 |
but there's certain parts of the world that you travel, 00:31:05.580 |
I had a missionary friend who lives in a big city, 00:31:11.720 |
and he says that if he doesn't close his window, 00:31:13.640 |
and sometimes he'll go out, come back at night, 00:31:15.880 |
that he might sometimes find a monkey in his apartment. 00:31:49.240 |
The room doesn't look like a human being at all. 00:31:53.880 |
But he doesn't know what he is in that confounded hole. 00:31:57.240 |
Finally, this is the room that can save the democracy. 00:32:41.560 |
And the seeds is the things that we covet, right? 00:32:49.720 |
So I thought it would be a visual effect, right? 00:32:52.760 |
So he says, "The difference between a Christian 00:32:54.920 |
and a non-Christian is a Christian is an individual. 00:32:57.000 |
The whole world obviously needs to eat, right? 00:33:06.200 |
but then once he got enticed, he couldn't let go, 00:33:09.880 |
A difference between a Christian and non-Christian, 00:33:12.360 |
the Bible says, "My sheep, they hear my voice, 00:33:20.360 |
He says, "He who finds his life will lose it." 00:33:24.760 |
Because the whole reason why that monkey is holding on to that 00:33:29.080 |
But he's deceived to think that the only way to live 00:33:53.640 |
and he lets go, which frees him from that trap 00:34:07.400 |
but he does not believe that that's where life is. 00:34:48.680 |
John 5, 23 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, 00:34:52.120 |
he who hears my word and believes him who sent me 00:34:55.080 |
has eternal life and does not come into judgment, 00:35:07.480 |
But Satan came and said, "Shall you really die?" 00:35:19.560 |
And that's the distinction between a believer 00:35:27.720 |
it says, "Let us fear, considering the consequence." 00:35:31.400 |
Considering the consequences of just drifting 00:35:39.000 |
We can't stand to hear the truth after a while 00:36:05.720 |
because he doesn't know the danger that's coming. 00:36:15.080 |
An unbeliever doesn't believe anything you say. 00:37:18.360 |
the promise of entering his rest is still here 00:37:55.400 |
he would not have spoken of another day after that." 00:38:16.920 |
The reason why Jesus hasn't come in 2000 years 00:39:31.400 |
that's evidence of his presence in your life. 00:39:44.840 |
and the word of God is penetrating your heart 00:40:26.440 |
and I may make an everlasting covenant with you 00:40:29.160 |
according to the faithful mercies shown to David." 00:41:04.440 |
What do you do with the restlessness of your soul, 00:41:29.560 |
The whole reason why we have the communion table 00:41:38.440 |
that this is the yoke that he bore on our behalf. 00:41:40.920 |
"Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden 00:41:53.240 |
So I pray today as we participate in the communion 00:42:11.800 |
So today I ask you if you are a baptized believer 00:42:17.000 |
come to these aisles and use this middle aisle to exit. 00:42:20.360 |
If you are not baptized and you're here as a guest, 00:42:25.240 |
There is no superpower in these communion elements 00:42:29.080 |
only if there is genuine faith of repentance. 00:42:31.640 |
And so we ask that you would stay in your seats 00:42:35.800 |
if any part of the message made any sense to you. 00:42:38.040 |
You don't need to come through a pastor or any leader, 00:42:43.880 |
"Lord, if you're real, open my ears that I may hear you, 00:42:48.360 |
If you have questions that you want answered, 00:42:51.400 |
you can come to the leaders or anybody at the church. 00:42:55.480 |
It would be more than wanting to sit down with you 00:42:56.920 |
and try to answer some of the questions for you. 00:43:00.760 |
we ask that you would remain seated until we're done. 00:43:09.320 |
"For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, 00:43:17.000 |
that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread. 00:43:20.920 |
And when he had given things, he broke it and said, 00:43:27.160 |
In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, 00:43:31.160 |
saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. 00:43:33.880 |
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. 00:43:36.840 |
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, 00:43:39.320 |
you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.'" 00:43:41.960 |
So let me pray for us and open up the communion table. 00:43:44.760 |
And again, when you are ready, one by one, please come up. 00:43:52.920 |
We thank you for sending your only begotten son to die for our sins. 00:43:57.080 |
We thank you, Father God, that you've given your son's work on our behalf, 00:44:06.840 |
That we know that it's not by our hard work, but it's simply by your grace 00:44:10.920 |
and our faith in that grace that causes us to enter into that rest. 00:44:19.880 |
not just in theory, but in practice and fruit, 00:44:26.280 |
Help us, Lord God, this morning as we participate in this sacred event, 00:44:33.640 |
that we would truly be refreshed, renewed, and re-strengthened, 00:44:38.680 |
that we may truly worship you in spirit and in truth.