The Rest of God

Rest is an important factor of life. Many doctors and physicians today are alarmed by the lack of rest and sleep in today's societies. Insomnia and restlessness have become a epidemic in America, and perhaps Pandemic across the world as people are getting less and less sleep. But perhaps this restlessness steps from a deeper need for rest. What if the rest man and woman dearly needs is not found in capsule, but instead in Christ. Our Lord and Savior told His disciples, "Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." (Matthew 11:28-30). Some may believe Jesus is talking about physical yokes and weariness, while certainly Christ wants to help with those, a yoke wasn't only an instrument put around necks of Oxen, it was in time of Jesus a religious lifestyle, program, and spirituality. Rabbis would have a yoke or teaching, a way of life that they would model and their disciples would try to carry that yoke, Jesus is saying to people of day they are carrying heavy yokes, "you put heavy burdens on those you cannot carry." (). Jesus is addressing a spiritual problem that leads to emotional and physical problems down the road. Rest is spiritual, not just physical and emotional state.

The chief enemy of rest is unbelief. In today's world unbelief has more pulpits and mediums than ever. The mainstream media, Hollywood, and many other outlets from podcasts to blogs and even music industry itself is selling a brand of unbelief to lead many astray from the only source of rest for our souls, Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews warns us about letting unbelief take our rest as it did the people of Israel in Wilderness under Moses, "But Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ. That is why the Holy Spirit says, Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. So I was angry with them, and I said, Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest. Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters.Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says, Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled. And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest," (Hebrews 3:6-19), "God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God.For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath:‘They will never enter my place of rest, even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.”But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest. So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts. Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.  For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most." (Hebrews 4:1-16). There is quite a lot of Scripture to unpack, but the gest is that the Israelites with Moses in the Wilderness refused to enter God's rest, this was not simply an observance of the Sabbath Day of Rest (), but rather it was spiritual state of mind and heart for all who love the Lord and found only in Him. The author of Hebrews reveals that this is fully realized only in Christ Jesus, who can give us rest from fear of damnation, failures, and our own faults and follies. The author reveals that we have gracious God, one who will receive us with mercy and grace, and cover out weaknesses with His very Blood. This is a loving image of rest, that we can be at rest with God and with ourselves, able to settle down and not become obsessed with every failing or trying to do some penance, instead we can rest spiritually in that God is gracious and merciful toward of weaknesses, having been tested by them Himself.

The Rest our Redeemer Jesus Christ wants us to enter is eluding many brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus told us, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matthew 6:25-34). Anxiety is caused by unbelief, doubt, and disbelief. When we don't keep trusting Jesus for our practical as well as spiritual lives. Unbelief is more than just not believing, in fact many beleivers have a problem with unbelief, they believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, but refuse to believe Jesus can heal a person and so instead only seek out medical expertise. Jesus Christ encountered this unbelief in both His family members, neighbors, and disciples, "Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon (these were step brothers, Joseph and Mary's children). And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.”They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were  fed.But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage! I am here!Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed, for they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in." (Mark 6:1-6, 35-44, 50-52). The Apostles did not understand and their hearts at this point were hard and could not take in the miracles of Jesus, not too dissimilar to Christ's reception in Nazareth at beginning of this long paragraph. What is more startling is that the Disciples had actually in same couplet of verses in this paragraph that our omitted, were sent out in twos, endowed with power to heal and caste out demons in name of Jesus (Mark 6:6-13) and yet when Miracle of Feeding of Five Thousand was about to take place they had unbelief, even though they had seen Christ provide apart from them, when they visited villages and took not purse (Mark 6:8). Here we see that even Christ's closest followers had unbelief, despite having seen many miracles, just like Israelites who having seen plagues of Egypt, the Parting of Red Sea by God's hand, and many more miracles of the Manna still grumbled and had unbelief. The Apostles eventually were cured of this unbelief after The Resurrection of Christ but we are reminded by author of Hebrews to remained confident, "And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ" (Hebrews 3:6). We must not refuse Gods' rest, which is to trust Him to provide for our needs both materially and spiritually. The rest we need is to dwell in Christ and rest in assurance of His love, grace, and tender mercies, that we saved by grace through faith, that we have an easy yoke in Christ (Matthew 11:28-30), and finally that Christ can do anything, He can feed thousands of refugees or even pay for our bills. I in fact, recently experienced this, an intercessor and I prayed for help in our finances and I received a notice that my energy bill had been paid for month and so we were able to save our money. If Christ can feed thousands, He can feed you! But just as important is to rest and be confident in your hope that the Trinity has you taken care of. This doesn't mean you will not suffer or go through times of testing, but even then rest in Christ and trust Him.