I am tone deaf.
Those who have heard me sing can only agree with me.
Thank goodness I am not in a denomination where the minister sings the liturgy.
Yet today I would like to give you a Music lesson.
The lesson I would like to teach is that in music there is a space for the rest.
Much great music is two great sounds connected by a rest by silence.
The rest becomes profound when surrounded by brilliance.
Without the rest the music would be too much - They need each other the music and the rest.
In the same way we to need to so compose our lives that we have music (i.e Christian living) and a rest (a sabbath.)
In Hebrews chapter 12 we learn about the rest that the Christian needs.
The concept of Rest is incredibly important to the Christian.
Failure to rest is fatal - it is a recipee for disaster.
Failure to work is also an unmitigated disaster.
When work and rest are beautifully balanced in a Christians life a symphony results.
The kind of music we are calling here is not Beethovens unfinished symphony - which suggests that one is still busy but rather handals Messiah!!
Jesus once said in:-
Mark 6:31: Then Jesus said, "Let’s get away from the crowds for a while and rest." There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
Faced with unceasing demands Jesus knew that filling these particular needs would not delay the rest it would mean that he had less to give others.
So mindful of God’s teaching on the Sabbath in the Ten commandments Jesus and his disciples retreat for a rest.
There were two woodsmen. One day one woodsman challenged another to an all-day tree chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had.
"I don’t get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did."" But you didn’t notice," said the winning woodsman, "that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down.
Throughout scriptures and therefore history there are countless examples of the need for rest:-
The third commandment states:-
EX 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In this passage we read from Hebrews we read:- HEB 4:1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
Today I want to talk about three different rests that we can have that are suggested in the fourth chapter of Hebrews.
2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said:-
Salvation brings rest.
Alcohol doesn’t bring rest merely numbness and poverty.
Intellect doesn’t bring rest merely a journey down a factual tredmill chasing the carrot on the string called knowledge.
One of the great Christian apologists of our age - josh McDowall talks about how Christianity bought a rest to his family.
I’m sure you’ve heard various religous people talking about a bolt of lightening. "Well after I prayed, nothing happened."
I was in a debate with the head of the history department at a University and I said my life had been changed and he interrupted me with, "McDowell, are you trying to tell us that God really changed your life in the 20th century? What areas? After 45 minutes he said, "Okay, that’s enought."
One area I tald him about was restlessness. I always had to be occupied. I had to be over at my girls place or womewhere else in a rap session. I’d walk across the campus and my mind was like a whirlwind with conflicts bouncing off the walls. I’d sit down and try to study or cogiate and I couldn’t. But a few months after I made that decision for Christ, a kind of mental peace developed. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not tqalking about the absence of conflict. What I found in this relationship with Jesus wasn’t so much the absence of conflict but the ability to cope with it. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
Salvation for Josh McDowell led to rest with God.
And you know that rest will bear more fruit than business.
I will say it again Christ’s rest will yield more fruit than busyness.
McDowell shares how his Father was an alcoholic - and they lived in a small town.
As a boy He’d go into the barn and see his mother beaten so badly she couldn’t get up lying in the manure behind the cows. When we had friends over, I would take my father out, tie him up in the barn, and park the car up around the silo. WE’d tell our friends he was out.
Five months after the decision for Christ Josh McDowell looked his Father squarely in the eyes and say, "Dad I love you." And I really meant it. After some of the things I’d done that really shook him up.
Shortly afterwards his Father came to him and said "Son if God can do in my life what I’ve seen him do in yours. Then I want to give him the opportunity." Right there my father prayed with me and trusted Christ.
The life of my Father was changed right before my eyes. It was as if someone had reached down and turned on a light bulb. I’ve never seen such a rapid change before or since. My father touched whiskey only once after that. He got it as far as his lips and that was it. I’ve come to one conclusion. A relationship with God changes lives.
A relationship with Christ brings rest.
A minister Evan Hopkins used to teach the three positions; struggling, clinging and resting. The illustration he used was of a shipwreck when people are thrown into the sea. In the struggling position they are in the water, fighting with the waves, and are in need of help themselves. In the clinging position they are holding onto the boat; they are quite safe themselves, but cannot help anyone else, because both their hands are occupied. In the resting position they are sitting in the boat with both hands free to help others. The place of deliverance was always when they got to the resting faith.
(Norman Grubb.)
The second position of rest is not our salvation - but salvation should point to it.
As it says in Hebrews Chapter 4 verses 9 - 10 (RSV) There remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labours as God did from his.
When we become a christian we ask Jesus to be our Lord - He becomes our Lord.
We are now as it were in the culture of the Kingdom of God.
And that culture has a rest factor.
The rest factor is evident all the way through scripture. GE 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
I once worked with a woman who said: - My Mother called me Jezebel because I went to a picnic on a Sunday!
That sounds a bit steep to me - but it highlights how precious our Sabbath days used to be regarded.
Gradually our society has eroded our Sunday and I believe the Church has sat back largely and watched.
Worse we have joined in.
It is difficult to get this just right:
We don’t want to be Pharisees. The Pharisees had very strict laws about the Sabbath. If a stone wall fell on you the onlookers were only permitted to clear enough stones away to check if you were still alive. If not they left you!! Some things were not permitted but they did permit for a woman to have a baby on the sabbath!!:-
MK 2:25 He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
MK 2:27 Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
MK 3:1 Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
MK 3:4 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.
MK 3:5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
Jesus respected the Sabbath but he also knew the heart of God!!
We need to be careful here.
But make no mistake the Sabbath is important.
the Chinese pictograph for ’busy’ is composed of two characters: the character for heart, and the character for killing. How appropriate don’t you think? In his book, SABBATH: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, Wayne Mueller writes:
Sabbath Rest is so important - because it is ordained by God.
I am not a good maintanance person and my family are constantly onto me to change my oil in my car. They are right I am wrong. But you know there are many people out there who get there practical issues worked out and yet fail to take their sabbath rest.
Some years ago a friend of mine suffered from what was known as burn out.
He had been in ministry and worked really hard - perhaps neglecting his sabbath rest.
Now he was so strained that he had to give up work.
I spent some time helping him find his feet again.
We were walking across the fields on the farm where he was recupperating one day and he told me how a few days earlier he had picked up a dead bird.
He had felt quite sad about the dead bird and was reflecting on it when to his utter amazement the bird flapped it’s wings and flew off.
The man told me the story in utter amazement.
Later he recovered fully and went on to be a very succesful missionary.
I guess in the enforced month of Sundays he learnt the value of rest.
Without rest we simply die.
With it - like the bird we recover and fly off and fulfill God’s purposes for us.
If we fail to take our Sabbath rest - what are we saying to God???
Several years ago, newspapers told how a new Navy jet fighter shot itself down. Flying at supersonic speed, it ran into cannon shells it had fired only a few seconds before. The jet was traveling too fast!
You are also traveling too fast, if you don’t have time to worship God in regular church services, if you don’t have time to read the Bible, if you don’t have time to pray.
If you’re neglecting any of these, you’re probably traveling too fast to hear the sound of God’s voice. You can’t tell whether you are in the center of His will. Better slow down before, like the jet, you shoot yourself down. (Sermon Central.)
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The third rest is the rest we have with God for eternity.
1PE 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
The hope of our faith is that we will enter God’s rest -
In order to do that Jesus is not only our saviour but also our Lord.
Jesus needs to be on the throne of our lives.
Nothing is hidden from God as it says in:-
HEB 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
HEB 4:14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
To believe in heaven is not to run away from life it is to run towards it.
Billy Graham once said:-
Heaven will be the perfection we have always longed for. All the things that made earth unlovely and tragic will be absent in heaven. There will be no night, no death, no disease, no sorrow, no tears, no ignorance, no disappointment, no war. It will be filled with health, vigour, virility, knowledge happiness, worship, love and perfection.
Heaven in the end is the ultimate rest.
Heaven is the inspiration that keeps us faithful to God - it inspires us to obey him and follow him. It helps us realise that all of lives tragedies will be righted there.
If heaven is rest then Hell is stress.
Grady Wilson once said If we had more hell in the pulpit, we’d have less hell upon the streets and the highways of our land, and in the homes of our people.
Heaven’s rest needs to be viewed in relationship to the stark contrast that hell provides.
In summarising then there are three important rests that we have spoken of here today.
The first is the rest that comes when a person commits their life to Christ and walks with him.
The second is the rest that God expects us to take every week.
The third is the rest that is held out as a great hope for us in heaven.
Three types of music. That come from rest.
The beat of a heart that beats in tune with the heart of Jesus.
The sound of silence as the believer takes their sabbath rest.
The symphony of the heavenly chorus - the richness and blessing of a rest and peace that passes all understanding. What do you need to do? Enter his rest.
How do you do that ?
Jesus once said:
MT 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
This morning Jesus invites you to come to him and to give him all that you are carrying and exchange it for his yoke and his burden.
Let us pray.
Jgullick@xtra.co.nz
