We're going to continue now, transition somehow to the book
of Hebrews. We are now in our fourth week of this sermon
series, Simply Irresistible, where we're looking at the
central lens of the book of Hebrews is Jesus himself.
And I think as we've sat in service so far, this service,
as most services are and should be, all about the person of
Jesus, the writer of Hebrews. Again, we don't know who it was. Writing to an audience,
getting them to understand why Jesus
is it. It's not only the it factor, but he is
the way, the truth, the life that your life fully defined
is found in the person of Jesus. We started
with showing that Jesus is higher than the angels.
We talked about that, we talked about the angelic and how Jesus is beyond
that. And then the writer is kind of taking the name of Jesus
through the history of the Old Testament. We talked about Moses, why Jesus
is better than Moses. Though Moses was a wonderful messenger of the
Lord and God used him mightily to take, bring the Israelites
out of slavery from Egypt, Moses was
fallible. Moses didn't always obey, right?
But Jesus, fully God, fully man, obeyed the Father
completely, even to the point of death and then resurrection.
And so there should be this irresistibleness to the person
of Jesus. Yet a lot of the world and maybe even some of us in the room today
or online tend to resist aspects of the Bible
or resist aspects of Jesus himself.
Now, if I may be so bold, I think part of that is because we don't want to be fully honest with
ourselves. To believe in someone who knows me better
than I know myself, who knows all of my insecurities, all my faults, all my
sins, even before I might choose to confess them to
him, that's intimidating, that's downright scary
that someone knows you like that.
But the conversation that we're going to have today has to do with something that the
Lord provides all of us. And
I'm speaking to myself first, I don't always take advantage of this.
It's rest. The idea of rest.
We're going to talk about that in detail,
if you will, because chapter four of the book of Hebrews talks specifically
about that. So if you're new to the church, maybe it's your first time here, I do like to
interact a little bit, ask some questions, get some responses, kind of see where we are, the pulse
of the congregation. When I say the word rest,
what comes to mind? Sleeping. Let's just get the obvious
out of the way, right? Sleeping. But for you, when you're at rest,
what are some of those things? What are some of those scenarios
or places that maybe you find rest?
The beach, absolutely. My wife, she's
at a baptism for my nephew this morning, she would say the same thing. She finds rest
at the beach. That came after the boys learned how to
swim. Because prior to that, rest was, ehh, but now
that they know how to swim, it's a lot better. Others.
The Sabbath, okay, we're going to talk about that. Yeah, talk about what that
actually means. You find rest in surrendering.
Interesting answer. I don't think a lot of people would agree with that, but for you, maybe.
Absolutely. Others.
Stop doing, ooh, I like that one. Ah, that one preaches to my heart.
It is what it is, or it is well. Alright,
so understanding that, it is what it is.
I just know a lot of people, they hate that saying, but that's interesting that you find rest in that.
Henry. Recovery, well, yep,
absolutely, absolutely. We give thanks
for Henry's recovery after his cardiac incident a couple weeks ago, so we
definitely give thanks for that. For rest and recovery. Anyone else?
Oh my, okay. What?
Doing nothing, sure, yeah. Doing nothing.
Others. Pause, not clause,
that doesn't make any sense. Pause, okay.
So we're going to talk about rest. It is something I don't
do well. I know, you're shocked. I don't rest well.
And there are times that the Lord has to
bring me to a place of rest. And if we
think about it, and we open our minds to that idea, that
we need rest. We were created to rest.
I don't care how much Mountain Dew you drink, how many Red Bulls
or whatever energy you drink, how many people remember Jolt? How many people remember
Jolt Cola? That was the stuff. Yeah, absolutely.
Love me a Jolt Cola. But even the most Jolt Colas,
right, which probably stunted my growth, probably that still
doesn't take place the fact we were created
to rest, right? Now, that doesn't mean lazy,
that doesn't mean at times not doing anything, but we were
created to rest, and we're going to talk about that. But we're going to start in the
can of the door, like we've done almost every
sermon, because there is a article, there is a
section of one of our confessions specifically set apart
for irresistible grace.
That there's this irresistibleness to faith, that when something's going on
in you, that conviction of the Holy Spirit, maybe you felt it at Camp Minnetocca
on the Wednesday Night Fire, maybe you felt it in Catechism,
maybe you felt it on a spiritual retreat. I know for some of you, you felt it
right here in this sanctuary over a span of years.
When the Holy Spirit is at work,
and the regeneration of the heart, where your heart is becoming new
to the person of Jesus, something is happening.
And it's something that is, excuse me, irresistible.
So this is Article 9 from the fulfillment of God's plan.
This plan, arising out of God's eternal love for the elect, for his people,
from the beginning of the world to the present time, has been powerfully
carried out, and will also be carried out in the future.
The gates of hell seeking vainly to prevail against it.
As a result, the elect are gathered into one, all in their own time,
and there is always a church of believers founded on Christ's blood.
A church which steadfastly loves, persistently
worships, and here in all eternity praises
him for her Savior, who laid down his life for her on the cross,
as a bridegroom for his bride.
So if you read that, especially that
kind of that, what is it, the third line, that the church is involved.
That the church is involved in you
growing spiritually, that the church should be involved
in the irresistibleness of the grace of
Jesus. The grace that is founded in salvation.
Now, the whole other sermon series, that
we'll probably do at some point, I'm not even going to put a date on it, because I don't even know where we are
right now, but as far as future sermons, but the church, I think we would
all agree, does not do a good job, because the church at times
neglects the part that we call
rest, or as Curtis put it, Sabbath.
That a lot of times the churches get so busy
that they burn out their leaders, they burn out their counsel, they burn
out their pastor, all of these things, that there is a time
for the church to rest as well. Now that doesn't mean we
stop doing ministries, that doesn't mean that we say, oh, for this next
year we're not going to do anything, but if you look at our
ministry season, we build in those times.
We do follow a school calendar, and I would love to think that the school calendar had
Biblical values that showed that there should be rest for students, I think it's more for teachers
than students, and that's a good thing, because teachers need rest as well, amen.
Okay, yep. But we do, we have periods
of rest. We want our ministry leaders,
your counsel, myself, to take times of rest.
Whether that's forced upon us by the Holy Spirit,
enter my journey over this last year, right, having four weeks off
the pulpit, having ten days where I was not able to talk,
and I appreciate all of those letters,
and notes, and text messages of encouragement
to learn something during that time. That brought great
encouragement to me as I was not able to talk back.
You took your shot, and I appreciate it, and it was well received for the most part.
But this idea of rest, this idea of being in
God's rest, if I and the church is going to expect
people to do that, the church should do it as well.
Now, that doesn't mean we're all going to take a nap right now. That's not what that means.
Because that would be weird. Think about that. If I said quiet time
for ten minutes, and we just stood in here for ten minutes or sat,
how awkward would that be? How many of you would fall asleep?
Okay, so I'm going to keep talking so that doesn't happen.
Even though for some of you that still will happen, and I receive that as well.
We're going to look at Hebrews chapter four, because it's going to
talk about God's rest and what we need
to have as far as a mindset and being open
to the thing called rest or Sabbath.
We're going to kind of use some of that interchangeably this morning.
Starting with verse one. Therefore, while the promise
of entering his rest still stands, for us, fear
lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it,
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. For we who
have believed entered 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,
for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this
way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.
I went one too far, didn't I?
Nope, okay, all his works. And again, in this passage, he said,
they shall not enter my rest. So, understand that
what is being talked about here is the Ten Commandments.
What's being talked about here is the law. So, one of the first things that we need to
understand is that it is lawful to
rest. That in the Ten Foundational
Commandments, and we know what these are, you shall have no other gods, you shall not
carve for you any graven image of a god, do not take the name of your lord,
your god in vain, on the Sabbath day, rest, keep
it holy, and for a lot of people, that is Sundays.
Man, you're lucky that you get to rest on Sundays, but that isn't for
everybody, right? My nurses, my doctors, my, well,
most doctors do, but for a lot of people in the medical field, a lot of people
in civil service, right? Pastors. Now, I know a lot
of you think I only work one day a week, but you know, if I didn't
have to on Sunday, I'd be able to rest seven days of the week according to you. And that would
be great. No, you know me, I would hate that.
But understand, this is a part of defining a people.
Now, what we can pull from that
is that the Israelites were workers. Now, part
of that is they were slaves, so they had to work, and I don't know,
we don't really know what kind of lifestyle they had as far as being in
slavery in Egypt, but we can pretty much say that for 400 years it wasn't the best.
It wasn't the life God had for them, right? No one is meant to
be in slavery.
And understand that rest, when He defined for them
the vertical relationship, we've talked about this already,
the first four commandments have to do with my relationship with God.
The other six have to do with how I show God to the world.
Things like do not commit adultery, do not murder,
all of those things. Do not covet, do not steal,
we can't say, and we've said this before, man, I believe in Jesus, but I'm going to
murder a little bit. It doesn't work.
That is not, that is, what's the word I'm looking for, that you can't do that,
that's inconsistent to the life of the believer.
So understanding that, that from the very beginning
rest was in the ingredients of what it meant to have
a relationship with God. And I think from very early on
He was talking to the workaholics, those that
strive to work, that there's never an end to work, and it's the work
to always be producing, always to be achieving.
Because there can be, and I know I'm going to get emails about this,
there can be an idol to your work.
That our
ability to work, our ability to make money, our ability to
be successful, there's nothing wrong with climbing a corporate ladder, there's
nothing wrong in starting your own business and being successful, there's nothing wrong
in starting your own business and not being successful. Because that happens all
the time too. But that driving, that striving, can
become an idol.
That so often God puts people in our lives to say, hey, slow down
a bit. Hey, you're working way too much. Maybe
it's your spouse that says, we never see you, because you're always working.
Your kids would like to have a relationship with their father
or their mother. A little passive aggressive,
but it's true that this strive to always succeed
can be idol worship. And if it's one thing we know
about the Ten Commandments, they were to take us out
of the mindset of idol worship. Because the Israelites were in that mindset
in Egypt every day. That every day there were Egyptians
praying to a God for something. They were worshiping constantly
pagan gods. Yet the God who created you,
the God that loves you, puts in there number four.
Again, I'm not going to rank them because they're all commandments, just like we don't rank sins,
they're all sins. Is remember the Sabbath day,
keep it holy. Rest. Right? If we take
the word Sabbath out and put rest in, which we can do, we'll get to that in a minute.
Remember to rest and to keep it holy.
That your rest should be something that you're striving for.
Daily? Weekly? Monthly? I don't know.
That's between you and the Lord. But that
rest is a part of that. Now you
go on into other parts of the Old Testament that the Lord actually uses
rest as the signifier of winning. That, you know
what? When all of this has happened they will enter my rest. When they are
faithful they will enter my rest.
Now some people believe that God's rest is death. And in some ways it is.
There is ways to talk about it that way. But this is something different.
This word rest in the Hebrew but also in the Greek
means also peace.
A calmness, a peace.
So I guess one of my questions this morning is, do you
have peace in your life?
Do you have that comfort of Christ in your
life where you can pause, gain perspective about a situation,
a relationship, whatever it is? That is part of God's
rest. God's rest and God's peace are linked.
So let's move on.
So if they're linked and we are striving to find those things
then we're going to jump. Since therefore it remains for some
to enter it and those who formally receive the good news fail to enter
because of disobedience. Again appoints a certain day today
saying through David so long afterwards, in the
words already quoted today if you hear his voice, do not harden
your hearts.
Part of entering God's rest and getting God's peace
is hearing God's voice.
So I guess that begs the question.
I'm not even going to ask are you hearing God's voice, are you listening
for God's voice? Are you reading God's
voice? You want to find peace and comfort? Go to your Bible.
Call an elder, call me. We will
talk about the Bible. For people that want to come into
my office and talk about their struggles, awesome. I love doing that.
The pastoral counseling side of my job is something I very much enjoy.
As I go to my pastors and my mentors and
my counselor to talk about all that stuff.
But there are some of us that go in and go why
isn't things going right in my life? First and foremost you're making
it about yourself so be careful. But second thing is are you listening
for perspective? Part of God's peace is and God's
rest is God's perspective. Well I don't know God's
perspective. Are you listening for it? What does that even mean? Are you reading your Bible?
No. Well then let's start there.
Because God makes it, I don't know, to me
and I struggle with this too, it seems pretty clear.
It seems pretty clear. But there are times we want to
bypass that because we have a very specific understanding. We have a very
specific description of what our peace and our rest and
our comfort should look like. Well friends that's not how it
goes. God I will believe in you if you answer my prayers
exactly the way I want them to be. No because you're not praying to God
you're praying to a genie. And that doesn't work. That's not the same.
Because those that believe still did not because they have
disobedience. Though you believe in God and you continually disobey
what does that say about your beliefs?
Right? It's like the husband and the wife
who they say they love each other but they are constantly lying to each other.
They are constantly passive aggressive to each other. They don't sleep in the same beds.
They don't have that kind of relationship. Yet they love each
other. How does that work? Now some of you are going to come back and go
and tell me about the wealth they snore.
Lovingly I'm going to say endure.
Get earplugs. I don't know. We'll all go down that road.
But do you see where the inconsistency is?
Man I love God. I work for God. I'm going to have two trunks at the Fall Family
and I'm actually going to go to another church and do that too. I'm going to be
covert and see what they're doing and then I'm going to come back to Munster and see what they're doing. I love God for all these things
and I'm going to sign up for all of those things. When's the last time you spent time with God?
I don't have time for that. What?
Be still and know that I am
God and trust me friends I am saying that to myself
first. It's one of the hardest things for
a Jim Holland owner is to be still.
And I see you all nodding your head.
I get it. It's tough. Because sometimes we're on fire.
We want to go. We want to do do do do do.
But there are times God is going to say no no no no no.
Sit and be still. Because I know when I'm always
on the go I don't get perspective. And when I don't get perspective
I base it on my understanding of things and that's usually when it goes wrong.
That's where the disobedience comes.
This was put in the law of God.
Remember to rest.
Be holy in your rest.
Now some of you take that to a very unhelpful degree where in a
maybe full functioning household with kids rest means I'm not going to do anything
and expect everyone else to do stuff.
That's probably not rest. I'm just going to put it out there.
That's probably not rest. But that's between you, your family, and Jesus.
So let's keep going. So if we're going to continue we're going to look at
8 and 9. For if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken
of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for
God's people. Keep going. For whoever has entered
God's rest has also rested from his works as God
did from his. It's right there.
It's okay to rest. This is going to cause fights. It's okay to
close the laptop. It's okay to put the cell phone on the nightstand or in the
car. It's okay to take off the Apple watch because I see you. Just because
you don't have your phone doesn't mean you don't have your watch that tells you everything.
And when my wife listens to this she's going to
snapshot this and send it to me. I know she will. I receive
it. But it is okay
to rest. I'm looking out at a lot of business owners. I'm looking at
a lot of worker bees. I'm looking out at a lot of creators
and producers and people that like to do for Jesus.
Don't forget to rest for Jesus as well.
Because it's in those times of rest that you fill.
I say this to my council and my staff all the time. You can't give what you don't
have and you can't pour out if you're on empty. So are you taking
time to fill up? But pastor what does that mean?
First of all don't ask like that. That's super annoying.
Read God's word. Get out
and be with you and Jesus. Find a close friend who can
keep on topic, by the way, and talk about deeper things
of faith. Listen to other preachers.
I said it. Listen to, listen to, they make some
incredible living spoken words of scripture. Because
some of you are like I don't like to read. Some of you I can't read. Whatever it is
then listen to it. There's some phenomenal ones. I have
now there's CDs. Kids
under the age of 25. CDs have things on them that you can plug into
a CD player and hit play and it will play things.
Unless there's scratch on it then it sounds like the remixed version. But you have
those or you can download them.
Find time to rest. How can I say
this with such authority? God did.
Six days He created all things
and on the seventh day He rested. Let's continue.
Let us therefore strive to enter that
rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and the spirit, the
joints and the marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.
And no creature is hidden in sight, but all who are naked and exposed
to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Whew. God's
rest is spoken into you in such a way
that it separates soul from spirit, marrow to bone.
Now I don't fully understand all of that, but that's a pretty
decisive cut. That nothing that we can
hold onto He doesn't see. Nothing that we cling to
and strive for He can't just bloop, I'm gonna take it.
And now God's not a bully. He's not like up there with a magnifying glass
and we're the ants. A lot of people have that understanding of God. But that's not how He
pulls, that's not how He works. God is cheering you
on to rest just as He's cheering you on to work.
In all things, in all things said and done
we do for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thessalonians,
Philippians, Colossians, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
Amen. Hallelujah. Let's keep building buildings. Let's keep doing
ministries. Let's keep whatever it is.
But all things also means rest.
It's okay to pause.
It's okay to stop.
It's okay to sit and get perspective.
It's okay to tell Pastor Jim, no
I don't want to do that ministry. Just don't do it
a lot.
But if someone who wrestles with it says it's not my season, who am I
to say no it is. No.
If it's not your season that's fine. Here's the thing.
That's not your season always.
And for some you're like, but I tasted that rest that you talked about. I really, really like
it. I don't want to do anything in the church. Friend, that was
never, that's never the job. That you
can rest and work all in the same day and in the same week. It's okay.
But please hear this from my heart, the heart of your elders
and the heart of your deacons. We never want
burnout. We never want to put everybody in all the
positions all the time. We don't like having the same names
up for council all the time. We don't. There was a season of this church that
you wanted that. That season is gone.
We have new laborers in the field.
I'm looking out at a bunch of you that I don't really know. And that's awesome.
And there's a lot of work to get done. How do I know? Because there's still unsafe
people in our five mile radius of this church.
We're going to dedicate a building that's going to hopefully help point people to that hope
and that peace and that rest. There are going to be ministries in there.
Food pantry, Pastor Jameel, this way ministries.
AANA, a lot of support ministries
will be used by that building almost exclusively. Our cadets, absolutely.
A lot of work is
yet to be done. The prayer is how can I
enter that in a healthy way?
Devoid of your agenda, devoid of it needs
to be your way or the highway. That doesn't work either. But as
we work, we will also rest as we're going to close in the Hebrews.
Or are we done? Have we closed it already?
We're done. So Hebrews
stops with this verse.
Let me find it. Therefore let us strive
to enter that rest that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience
for by the word of God is living and active. Continuing on to verse
13, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are
naked and exposed to the eyes of him who we must
give account. It was that last verse.
At one point you're going to have to give
account to what you're doing in your faith.
And I've had some amazing conversations this past week that people are like careful Pastor,
you're getting very close to works righteousness.
This idea of I can earn my faith.
And believe me, there is a line there and I know that I'm staying on the right side of it,
but it's getting close because too many of us don't think about
the fact that once faith is established, righteousness has been
imputed onto you that you are a believer that it's time to get to work.
For every action as an equal and
opposite reaction, so is the same with faith. How do you make faith
irresistible by sit doing nothing and just complaining?
No, I'll resist that all day.
It's about getting to work. It's about
taking the gospel and the idea of faith out to a world
that needs it. Because we'll have to give
account. So what are you accountable
to in your life? I hope you're accountable to rest.
But I hopefully you also are accountable to work. Finding your giftings
and getting involved. There is no shortage of
things, ways to serve at this church. There really isn't. Some are
high visible, high a lot of time and we carry time very preciously.
Sometimes as an idol, that's a different sermon.
But there's going to be more. There's more coming.
There's more understanding of how we as a church can
partner with our communities.
Friends in a year and a half, there's going to be a train that's going to come through right over there.
I don't want to hear about why. I don't make the rules.
But it's going to happen. New developments are going to be put up in Lansing
and Munster and in Dyer and in our area Hammond.
Which means new people. Which means new brokenness. Which means
new issues. New opportunities for people to find Jesus.
To start this road of faith.
And I love you, but you better believe I want to put us right smack dab in the middle of those tracks.
But not my will, ever.
But the opportunities are coming. Let us be rested up.
Ready to go for when we are called into the game.
Whatever that looks like. Let's pray.
Fathers, we come to give account week in and week out. We hope and pray that that account
is a good investment. That we are walking our faith
out in such a way that people are noticing.
That we're pointing back to you. Pointing back to the cross.
Fathers, we continue to work and walk in this
faith. First and foremost we understand that
it's you that is putting faith in our heart. Saving us from our
sins. Giving us the greatest gift ever. Which is the gospel.
But to whom much is given, much is required.
So Father I'm going to say thank you for requiring
of us the work of the gospel.
For entrusting us knowing that Christ goes before us.
Christ will be here long after we're gone. And Christ we know you're closer to us
than our two front teeth. We thank you for that and pray this in your holy name. Amen.
Please stand if you are able. Great song that we're going to close with.
This idea of a cornerstone. When we do this work
it's because a foundation has been laid.
153 years for this church but Christ eternally has laid the foundation
for you. And remember 11 o'clock meet over at the CLC.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make His face shine on you.
Be gracious unto you. Lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace.
And His rest. Which always passes our understanding. In the name of the Father
Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.