Sermon Outline

Prepared by

Dr. Joseph P. Metoyer, Jr., Pastor/Teacher

July 15, 2001

Text:  Hebrews 4: 1-3, 9-11

Subject:  “Taking Advantage of God’s Rest”

                 (Series on stress management)

Introduction:  We’ve thought about overcoming worry by leaning totally and consistently on the Lord, refusing to rely on our own strength and ingenuity.  We’ve talked about delegating your workloads that produce anxiety.  We’ve also considered the value of prayer; simply calling on God for relief and wisdom.  These are essential techniques in keeping ourselves out from under the weight of anxiety.

But there is one more scriptural insight on stress that isn’t mentioned very often.  It has to do with cultivating a lifestyle characterized by rest – a mental and emotional rest, virtually free of the tyranny of the urgent.[1]

I.                   God’s Rest Is Available (v.3)

We believers do enter into God’s rest; it’s prepared and open, it has been ready since the world began.[2]  “We do enter” is the emphatic words of verse three, (we are sure to) enter.  This construct is the futuristic present.  When God excluded the unbelieving generation from His rest, He was already Himself in His Rest. 

A.     This passage of Scripture is considered an exposition on Psalm 95.  Now this Psalm was written in David’s time, a considerable period of time after Moses had led the Israelites out of Egyptian Captivity.  The reflections of both David and the writer of the Book of Hebrews are upon the people who did not make it into “God’s Rest”.

B.     (Vv. 1-3a) is explained or clarified in (Psalm 95:7-11)…  “The truth they heard did not profit them”.  Why?  Because it remained merely truth – sterile, theological, unrelated information – unmixed with their faith.  They heard about God’s provisions, they heard about how He would give them the Promised Land, but they didn’t take it all personally.  His truth and their faith remained two distinct and separate factors.  They failed to enter into His Rest He made available.  They continued to operate on the basis of sight, which led them into fear, then stress, and finally open unbelief.[3]

1.      Does that sound like you?  Is God’s Word just the truth, he promised you His “Rest” are you taking advantage of that promise.

2.      He made His rest available from the beginning of  creation.  That’s why this “REST” is called only in this passage in the Bible “Sabbath Rest”.  The Rest God makes available to us is the same type of rest He took on the “Seventh Day” in the Genesis creation account.

a.       Things around us still go on happening just like His creation continued to perform, but He took a rest.  We need to enter into God’s “Rest”. 

II.                God’s Rest Is Still Available (Vv. 9-11)

Even though Joshua took the Children of Israel into the Promised Land (v. 8) that was not the “Rest of God”.  That was a physical rest but God’s Rest is something deeper, it affects the inner man.  God’s Rest is a “Spiritual Rest” which requires obedience to His Word.  God knows that we need to “Rest” our Spirit.  Has your Spirit ever been disturbed?  Have you ever been troubled on the inside?  Worried deep?  Stressed?

“God continues to hold out to all His children a peaceful, worry-free lifestyle that we can enter into on a moment-by-moment basis.

Will it happen automatically?  No, we are instructed to (v. 11) let us be diligent to enter that rest.  What does that mean?    

A.     The word “diligent” carries the thought of urgency.  To hurry up, we get our English word “Speed” from this Greek expression to be diligent.   

B.     How do we hurry up and get into God’ rest?

1.      We acknowledge that our God is in full control of our lives.  No accidents or surprises occur.  He calls the shots.

2.      We take Him at His Word.  We believe His promises (The Bible is full of them – by the hundreds).

3.      We claim them by faith.  We apply them to our particular circumstances almost as if God were speaking directly to us this very moment.

4.      We rest in Him.  We consciously refuse to worry or fret over how he is going to work things out.  By entering into that rest, we cease from our own works just as deliberately as our Creator-God ceased from His works on the seventh day of creative week.

5.      We continue in that calm frame of mind until God sovereignly intervenes and solves the problem. We keep trusting in Him with all our hearts.  And every time an alien thought of anxiety flits through our minds, we turn it over to the Lord in prayer.

Application:  Our problem is that we do not exercise our faith in our God and take advantage of His rest.  Seeking God’s help is the only remedy for getting ourselves out of a rut.  We must admit the need and seek God’s help.  All too often we seek relief and not a remedy!  (I Chronicles 16) Learn the benefits of our Lord, let God help you.  (Psalm 34:10) “The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.” (Amos 5:4) “For thus says the Lord… Seek Me and live”.  We need to ASK our God and He will give us REST.  The word “ASK” when treated as an acronym could mean:  A – admit the need; S – seek the Lord; K – Keep the faith.   But something is required of us to completely enjoy God’s rest!

I have heard people say that they don’t have enough faith.  Faith’s size is not the issue.  The issue is not how much faith you have, but the object of your faith:  Let me tell you the story about a man who crossed the Mississippi River in the winter…  He started out crawling but after a while he heard a wagon with a team of horses coming with the wagon loaded with coal and it passed him he got up and begin to run across the lake.  He did not get increased faith he merely acknowledged the object of his faith, which was the ice over the river.

Faith in the Bible is always placed on a Faith or no Faith basis, never on a size of faith basis.  (Luke 17: 6) “The Lord said, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you.”  The mustard seed is the smallest seed we can think of for an example and yet no one on earth has faith that size.  I don’t know of any mulberry trees that have been moved to the sea by man’s faith.  So BIG FAITH does not move God.  It is whom you have your faith in that counts.  In (Mark 9:24) When the father wanted his child healed from sickness he asked Jesus to heal him and Jesus responded “ If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.  Immediately the father of the child cried out  and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

The issue is not the size of your faith. But the object of your faith.  You see it’s “faith” and “God’s ability”.

The removal of stress is not automatic.  It is the cooperative effort of the Christian and his God.  (Col. 3:2)  Set your whole mind on things above…  May our God be allowed entrance into your mind and be given the reins of your life so completely that all your stress is replaced with peace, as all your fear is removed by faith.   

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