You Might Need To Learn How To Rest In God Series

Introduction

When Anne and I were much younger, we use to fly a lot. And I was always amazed as I looked about the plane’s cabin at the number of people who could sleep while the plane was in the air. No matter how much I tried to go to sleep on a plane, I just couldn’t. Anne could, I couldn’t. One day, as we were flying, I finally figured out why I had this problem of not being able to rest on a plane. In my senior year in high school, I took physics, I could not understand it; it was like they were talking a foreign language; and I failed it miserably. So, to this day, I don’t understand the physics as to how planes can fly, and therefore, I have no trust in that planes fly even though I see them flying. Secondly, I don’t know the pilot. I don’t know if he graduated 1st in pilot school, or if he passed by the skin of his teeth or if he had a relative that pushed him through aviation school. And it is because I do not know the pilot that I don’t have any trust in the pilot. And then it hit me. Where you have no trust, you have no rest.

Jesus tells us in the New Testament in Matthew 11:28 (NIV) 28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. And some of us, although God has promised us rest, are not resting. And I know why. There is some area or multiple areas of our life where you are not trusting God. And where there is no trust; there is no rest.

So, I set out to discover what I could find in the Bible about the relationship between resting and trusting. I got to be honest with you; I struggle with rest because there are areas that I struggle with trusting. So, this message was important for me to find out about the relationship between resting and trusting.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 8:23-27 (NKJV).

Scripture

Matthew 8:23-27 (NKJV).

23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.

24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.

25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"

26 But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.

27 So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"

Point #1

JESUS AND HIS APOSTLES ARE BOTH IN THE SAME BOAT GOING THROUGH THE SAME STORM, BUT THEIR DIFFERENT RESPONSE IS THE RESULT IN WHOM THEY ARE TRUSTING.

23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.

24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.

25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"

In this Scripture, you can obviously see that Jesus and His Apostles are in same boat, they are experiencing the same storm, but they end up with two completely different responses to the storm. I believe the different reactions are a result in whom they are trusting.

Of the twelve Apostles, we know that Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fisherman by occupation which means that being in a boat was second nature to them and being in a boat during a storm probably was something that they encountered many times in their career. I think it is fair to say that they, as fishermen, would have known what to do in a storm and they would have trusted in their skills as fishermen.

Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. As a man, He would not have known what to do in a storm not having been on the water all his life like His apostles. But He is the one that is resting; and the experienced fishermen are the ones who are panicking. Why?

How many times in the Gospels are we told that Jesus came to do the Father’s will; that Jesus and the Father is one; if you have seen Me you have seen the Father so Jesus knew that the Father’s will would one day take Him to a cross where He would die for the sins of the world! He could rest in trusting what God had in store for Him; and it was not to be lost at sea. Jesus knew His Father, and He trusted in His Father so he could rest in God.