Life Raised and at Rest
Rev. Sean D. Lester
April 20, 2003
Introduction:
A. The Israelites were birthed from Egypt for the purpose of becoming a new nation of holy people in the land occupied by sinful people.
B. The journey from Egypt was supposed to be short. They would enter the new country and begin to live in God’s promise as quickly as they could walk across the desert.
C. After crossing the Red Sea and before reaching the border of Canaan, the people saw that God’s power would be enough to give them the victory, but they failed to acknowledge that God would do what he said, and failed to enter His rest.
D. The experience from salvation to entering God’s place of rest should be short. First, God saves you by sending someone to call you out of your sins and follow Christ into a new life. Second, he shows you His power for mercy by taking care of your needs and healing the damage done by sin. Then, He commands you to begin to invade this world with His word, to preach and teach the good news. The rest of God for the believer is to live according to Christ’s teaching, and to preach the good news while God blesses you and gives you a deep, satisfying peace to your life.
E. Far too many people have left the ways of sin, have witnessed God’s power to sustain, but fell short of doing the work of ministry. Instead of living a resurrected life, there is a harsh wandering, not a sinner anymore, but not at peace either. There is no contentment in a spiritual wilderness.
F. When the passage speaks of rest, it refers to peace and contentment. It would be a mistake to think of God’s rest as ease without the burden of responsibility. That kind of rest is laziness.
Proposition:
You can have a resurrected life characterized by peace and contentment. This passage of scripture tells you how.
I. Fix your thoughts on Jesus.
A. He is our apostle and high priest.
1. Which means that He has the authority to command what you are to believe and how you are to serve.
2. You are expected to enter His presence so that He can give you instructions.
3. An ambassador who does not have contact with his government speaks on his own.
B. He is faithful to you because you are what he values.
1. Just like Moses was faithful, but the people belonged to God. His reward was in heaven.
2. For Jesus, you are His inheritance, His reward. Since you are His prize, you can trust Him to take care of you, to protect you,, and to do mighty things through you so that you can do what He expects of you.
C. Get an image of the Lord in your mind, sitting on the throne.
1. Study His commands, the Bible, and
2. go to Him in prayer and find out how to put it into practice in your situation.
II. Do not harden your hearts.
A. A hard hearts is the intentional state of spiritual insanity.
1. For example, the Israelites witnessed the sea parting for them, they saw the pillar of cloud and fire.
2. Yet, despite the evidence, they chose to believe ina god represented by a golden calf that they built themselves. Insanity. Intentional.
B. In this room there are enough stores about how needs were met and how sicknesses were cured for no other reason than an act of God. If God has changed your nature so that you don’t live in sin, if he has taken away the damage caused by sin, is he not also able to protect you from a group of boys desperate for the guidance of a spiritual father? Will He not give you the ability to minister to men looking for true friendship? Will he not raise you up in the eyes of your lost but looking co-workers? Will he not more than make up for what you think you would lose by not telling a lie?
C. Obeying Christ is the ultimate act of honesty.
1. You know He is Lord. You know younot only belong in His church, but belong in the work of making disciples and giving people the hope of salvation.
2. You know that He has the power to give you peace and contentment.
3. To not follow through is to imply that Jesus was just kidding.
D. Sadly, many don’t follow through.
1. When you ask them where they are going in life, what God has called them to, they can’t say for certain, or they speak in ambiguities.
2. You must believe what your own experience, what your eyes have proven to be true about God.
III. Encourage one another daily.
A. Some translations say “exhort”, while others say, “warn.”
1. In the amplified version it says, “warn, admonish, urge, encourage.”
2. We are not talking about a few nice words spoken casually in passing. This is a coach yelling at his team. He doesn’t yell to be mean, he has to push his team toward the goal of winning.
B. Sin hardens you, it makes you do insane things.
1. The pleasures of sin will scream for you to act against what you know to be right.
2. Who ever committed adultery or stole something because it was the right thing to do?
C. Hard spirits lead to rebellion.
1. Once you have sinned, you know that you will experience some sort of pain. You don’t want face the God who could punish you, so you get as far from Him as possible, and push godly people from you as far as possible.
2. The insanity is the truth that God is everywhere, inescapable.
D. That is the very reason you need to be in church.
1. So I can yell at the team the Holy Spirit gave me to coach. So you can yell at the team you are coaching.
2. Be assured that Satan is keeping his people in line through fear and temptation. We stay in line because of the promise of His rest.
Conclusion:
A. You can make the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ appear to be useless by wandering through life without peace, power, or purpose. By not devoting your life to the work of the kingdom, you remain in the wilderness, not a sinner anymore, but not really a saint, either.
B. But, by your obedience to Christ’s teaching and your devotion to lead people to salvation, you will experience the peace and contentment because God will provide and protect you and give you an inheritance in Christ’s kingdom for all eternity.
