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Rest from self-justification: this is the "You owe me heaven, God"
attitude I just described and touched on last week. It is commonly called
works of self-righteousness. There is no self-righteousness and trying to
create it is THE most exhausting and fruitless work any soul could attempt.
Trying to impress God with how moral you think you are is just stupid. Isaiah 64:6
"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are
like a polluted garment." NLT: "We are all infected and impure with
sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags."
Jesus gives rest from this by providing His own righteousness as our clean
clothes and our only entrance to heaven.
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Rest from self-sanctification – self-victory over particular evils.
At times our souls get weary even though we are true Christians. Part of
the reason for that is we have trusted Christ for eternal rest, but then
we go to work trying to sanctify ourselves. Our thinking is very subtle
in that we suppose we are now responsible to be holy as God is holy, thinking
that we innately have the energy, strength and ability to make ourselves
holy. This has ruined many a good Christian because of repeated failures. They just
run into brick wall after brick wall failing in this self-victory mentality.
Satan loves to go one-on-one with believers who function out of self-sanctification
because he always wins. Turn to Colossians 2:6-7 "Therefore, just as you received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established
in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." What's
key here are the words "just as." Just as you received Christ
Jesus, so walk in him… that covers salvation and sanctification. We received
Christ through faith alone, completely by faith, dependent on faith in His
saving power. That's exactly how we are to be sanctified, not sanctification
through spiritual self-effort and spiritual sweat. Doing battle with Satan
and sin should make us lean on His power by faith.
How do you do this, Harry? When you are facing temptation and sin,
your response has to be: "Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, come to my rescue!
Put your power in me to defeat Satan! Don't let me think I can do it in my own strength.
I'm consciously calling out to you for your strength." James 4:6-8
"But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives
grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil,
and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
Notice how the submitting and drawing near come before the command
to cleanse your hands and purify your heart! Be conscious of submitting
to His power and will before you attempt to defeat Satan. Turn now to 1 Thessalonians
5:23 "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your
whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ." Who is the true 'sanctifier'? He is the only
one capable of doing a "complete" job of it. We grow in actual holiness through
the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This sanctification process is described as staying in line and connection
with the Holy Spirit in Paul's letter to the Galatians. Gal. 5:16 "So I say,
live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature."
Gal. 5:18 "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."
Gal. 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is…" Gal. 5:25 "Since
we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." What does this
mean? It means that you will save yourself a lot of fruitless soul-wearying work
if you rely on the power of the Spirit in the first place as you try
to conquer sin in your life.
Come to Jesus for the filling of the Holy Spirit. That will bring rest to your soul.
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Rest from self-achievement of God's favor and love. Have you ever caught
yourself working for God's love? That's when we feel like God will love us more
if we are more obedient or more productive in serving Him. This is a
burdensome understanding of love. It is entirely wrong, but very subtle. Achievement
based loved is just another system of works. God's love is of such a pure, majestic,
transcendent nature that it is not a commodity to be earned or bartered for.
1 John 4:8-10 "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God
is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his
only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not
that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins."
Love is God's nature, His being. He initiated love toward us long
before we were born. There was no performance basis for love when God decided
to love us unconditionally from all eternity. How then could the quality of that
love suddenly in time become conditional? As His sons and daughters,
we share in the Trinitarian love that existed among Father, Son, and Spirit
before there was time. Jeremiah 31:3 "The Lord appeared to me from
far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued
my faithfulness to you." Rom. 8:29 "Those whom God foreknew he also predestined…"
The word "foreknow" means to 'fore love" – God placed
his love upon us and predestined us because he loved us. The word foreknow
points to God's covenantal affection on His elect people.
Turn to Galatians 4:8-9 "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved
to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have
come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again
to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want
to be once more?" Can you see what Paul did here? He reminded them
of the time when they were slaves to false gods, unbelievers, lost in the
pagan world. Then he reminds them that now they know God – that is,
they have a personal saving knowledge of God. He catches himself and says it in
a different way – "rather to be known by God." Salvation is born out
of God "knowing" us, bringing us into a loving, saving relationship
with Himself. God loved us first, God loves us unconditionally, God
loves us eternally. Don't insult him by acting as though the basis
of his love for you hinges on your performance rather than
on His eternal decree of sovereign election. You have all the love of God
that can possibly be had, right now! Stop working for what you already
have and can't lose!
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem.
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Rest from the hard work of earning the love of other people. This tiring
work is similar to the last one. There may be someone in your life
that you want to love you but they aren't. So what do you do? You work yourself
to the bone trying to get them to love you. Because you have placed a higher
value on their love than on God's love, they have become your master.
They control you by withholding the love you crave from them. They
have placed a heavy yoke on your neck that Jesus doesn't want you to bear.
You have to realize that if you learn to rejoice in the eternal, covenantal,
unchanging, sacrificial love of God in Christ, then you won't be "love-starved"
or "love-enslaved" by any human being. Like the book of Revelation says in
essence "You have lost your first love" – so go back and get it!
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from guilt for past sin. This is a trick of the devil to keep
your spiritual heart completely exhausted trying to do penance for your own
sin. Many believers are spent and weary from self-imposed guilt
from sin they have confessed to God a million times but just won't believe
that Jesus' blood has washed away. There is such a thing as Protestant
Penance. It isn't saying the Hail Mary or Our Father, but it is a secret
self-loathing that robs you of experiencing the radiant joy of
the Holy Spirit. At the root of this soul-crushing works mentality is a tenacious
unbelief that God has fully forgiven us on the sole basis of the precious
blood of Jesus Christ. We think that just can't be enough! We
feel we have to add something to the gospel of forgiveness in Christ, something
like self-hatred or self-forgiveness, or depression. All this is so wrong, so evil,
so wearisome. Listen to David rejoice over God's deliverance. He wasn't doing any
penance in Psalms 34:2-6 "My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble
hear and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt
his name together! 4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me and
delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried,
and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles."
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from comparing yourself to other people. This is a disease that wears
the soul out faster than most others. Its root is pure pride and insecurity.
It drives you to always be looking at what other people are doing,
what they are achieving, what they own, who they associate with,
how successful they are in life, how spiritual or gifted they are,
all in comparison to what you think you have achieved in life. This
disease of comparing yourself to others is relentless and drives you
into the ground. It is a clear symptom of a greater disease: not knowing
and valuing Christ for who He is above your own self-focused obsession.
How we need the freedom only Christ can give to our souls.
Turn to John 21:20-22 "Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved
following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said,
"Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus,
"Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain
until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!" Basically, Jesus told
Peter to stop comparing himself with John. Stop worrying about how he's going to
die, just pay attention to following me all the way up to your own death!
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from the effects of being hurt by someone in the past. Some of you
here have been deeply hurt by people you trusted to love you in the past.
There is no measuring the burden that is to your soul. If you haven't been
completely healed of that betrayal and pain by the power of the blood
of Jesus Christ, your soul is still tormented and not at rest. I just want
you to know this morning that Jesus wills to heal you today. He says "Come to me
and I will give you rest for your soul."
Psalms 27:10 "For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will
take me in." Even if your very own parents are the ones who hurt
you deeply, the Lord will take you in and heal you.
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from fear of future – collapse of the economy, fear of death,
fear of old age, etc. Fear of the future is a most powerful fear that
twists and bends the soul. People wake up at night in a cold sweat
fearing all sorts of things. The devil tries to cripple you through fear
but God says "Do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
Isa. 41:10 Why did Jesus come to earth? Turn with me to Hebrews 2:14-15
"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook
of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power
of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through
fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." Are you carrying around
a never ending low-grade fear of a bunch of things? That is not how Christ wants
you to live. It's time to begin trusting God Almighty with you life and future.
Embrace Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the
Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from fear of what may happen to loved ones. We love our children and
spouses so much that we often have a very heavy burden on our hearts
about what might happen to them. We worry about their futures as well as
our own. We might project on their future some of the hard experiences we
have had in our own. I know I don't want my kids to go through some
of the junk I've experienced in life. Yet, God is wiser than I am and He's
in control of their lives, not me.
No amount of my anxiety about their lives produces anything good in
their lives. Actually, the best thing I can do for them is
to entrust them into God's sovereign goodness. They need
to see me entrusting them to God rather than torturing my soul over their
lives. All that shows is a lack of trust in God, and surely a lack of trust
in God in my life isn't going to make them trust God more!
Come to Jesus for rest for your soul if this is your problem
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Rest from hard task masters of bad habits. Bad habits beat the ever living
daylights out of our souls. We feel so defeated when we can't seem
to control certain habits, like eating, drinking, smoking, swearing, spending,
whatever… Do you have a sinful habit that is getting you down, making you weary?
Paul made a statement that indicates that there is freedom from anything that tries
to enslave us. 1 Corinthians 6:12 "All things are lawful for me," but not
all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved
(or mastered) by anything."
This freedom only comes from the power of Christ Jesus. Come to Jesus for
rest for your soul if this is your problem.
I've listed only 10 Rest Robbers. Submitting your life to Christ brings peace from
all such thieves! What are you going to do this morning? Are you going to
hang on to the things that are wearing you down, or are you going to come
up here after we close and pray with me about Freedom in Christ?
What's it going to be?
H.