Resting in God

Resting in God

When God created you and me , he knew that we would need rest.
Rest comes in different forms
Physical rest
Emotional rest
Thought rest.
Often people say, I need to clear my head so that I can think clearly

Spiritual rest

All of us know and understand that we all need rest for our physical bodies. if we don’t get rest, we cant give our best.

We also need to rest our minds, sometimes our thoughts and feelings and emotions become tired, so we need mental rest

Now I know about the 996 philosophy and perhaps sometimes we need to work for periods of time like this, but science will tell us,

And more importantly, Scripture teaches us that if we don’t get the right amount of rest, we cant give our best.

The reason why we need rest is because we get tired.

Scripture also informs us that God himself rested on the 7th day of creation.

The rest which God speaks about is very different
Not the physical rest which we need after a hard days work

Understanding this rest is important for us because its also the kind of rest that God has intended for us to enjoy.
Genesis 2:2-3
Our human thinking of rest, is that we have worked hard, we have exhausted our strength now we need rest.
Yes that’s true.
Example
End of work week arrives, you are exhausted, no energy to continue and in need of a break, but the work is not finished because a deadline has not been met.
In your mind this unfinished work troubles you until its done.
Two choices

You continue working until the job is complete, missing out on rest day completely
You take your rest day but your mind cant rest because the work is not finished
So on work start day, the work that was not finished now needs to be completed. Only then can our minds rest.

When God took rest, it was not because he was exhausted, and couldn’t continue, or ran out of energy .
Genesis 1:31
God took rest for two reasons
1.His work was fully complete.
2.He was fully satisfied with the work he had done.

To help us understand this,
Think about a Mother who has dressed her daughter for her wedding day. When the work is finished mother looks at daughter and admires the work.
The bride is beautiful, she is fully dressed and ready for her wedding.
Mothers work is complete
She is fully satisfied with what she has done.
She can now rest, sit and enjoy the wedding.

When God rested, that’s what he did, he looked at all the work he had done
Was fully satisfied with what had been accomplished.
He too could now sit and enjoy all he had created.
When Jesus hung on the cross what were his last words
John 19 v 30
It is finished
He too had accomplished all his work
He too was fully satisfied with the work which had been accomplished through his work.
Hebrews 1 : 1-3
Jesus sat down
Jesus rested
He also could now take pleasure in all that was accomplished.
How about you and I,
Many are tired, and weary
We are struggling our way through life
Fighting our way up the ladder of promotion.

Many years ago, I was like that, I was a senior manager in a manufacturing company
My ambition was to become the CEO
The thing was, I worked long hours, 996, saw little of my family, and eventually my health gave in.
I changed companies, moved to a different city and repeated the same cycle.
Until I entered into rest.
Once I stepped into rest, I was able to enjoy life, work reasonable hours, and earn much less money.
All of the working for things which did not have any eternal value stopped, even though I earned less much less money, my life and home was transformed.
I no longer needed to impress anyone with a big house, or a big car, or fancy brand clothing.
My life had much more meaning than all the striving which I had considered so important in the past.

All of us can enter into the same rest as the Father and the son.
How do we enter this rest
Mathew 11:28-30
Jesus says’ come to me
You shall find Rest to your souls
Our souls are troubled, anxious, fearful, uncertain
Many are laboring to achieve recognition, success, promotion, higher earnings, more power, some are even trying to earn salvation, to please God so that we can go to heaven.
Many are laboring in ministry for the wrong reasons
Jesus invites us to step out of all this labor and being heavy laden.
Step into the rest He will give us.

The way we do this
Step out of My will be done
Step into God’s will be done.
When we insist on saying my will be done,
God says go ahead
When we say
God’s will be done
He says welcome home my child

The Jews called the OT law a yoke
A yoke is something you put around animals necks like cattle or buffalo to get them to do manual labor.
Keeping the law was hard work,
Sometimes external forces are also driving us, Satan’s yoke, the yoke of sin
Cultural yokes
Pursuit of wealth can also be a yoke
Being yoked to anything like the above examples means, we become it’s slave.

When Jesus says take my yoke upon you

Jesus is saying, My yoke is not a burden, my ways bring rest. And peace and joy
Take my ways upon yourself
learn my ways, they are a different from your ways
Isaiah 59 v 6
God offers us alternative ways, higher ways, kingdom ways of living out life
Purposeful, powerful, influential, eternal ways of living.

All the things we are doing to try and be successful, the selfish ambition, fulfilling fleshly desires, being slaves to other masters,
Stops when we enter rest.

Jesus says I will teach you a new way
Through gentleness and humility, you will find rest for your souls

Hebrews 4:3
The writer of Hebrews says
When we come into relationship through believing, we enter rest.
Rest for our souls
That’s the first step to finding rest, come into relationship.

So someone might ask
Is God doing nothing except sitting and resting?
Is Jesus sitting and doing nothing?
Not at all, God is working
He is working from his position of rest
He has a master plan to fulfill, he is rolling it out step by step
Jesus is also working from his position of rest.
In the same way,
We too work from the same position of rest where the struggles of this world are behind us, and his word is in front of us, to direct us.
Ephesians 2:6
The scripture says that God raised us from death
Seated us together with him in heavenly places.
This does not mean that we stop working physically,
When we Enter into his rest, and continue to work, we work from a position of rest, to accomplish all that the Father has called us too accomplish in his name and not ours.

Entering rest means
Right priorities
Manage our time well,
We structure and plan our lives wisely

We serve our families, communities, societies, being able to give our best, able to say no to yokes the devil, people, and society try to put on us.

My destiny, Gods plan for me was to do what I am doing, it’s what I do best, because I entered into rest

Gods plan and design for my life was laid out for me long before my parents ever thought of having a son.

When we enter into relationship with Jesus, Gods plans come alive, when we surrender to those plans, we find rest.

Some of us are called to be CEO’s, world leaders, world changers, business owners entrepreneurs etc,
Some of us, employees, followers, workers
When we step into rest, what we do is no longer our biggest focus
Our focus Becomes on who we have become

John 1 : 12-13

When we enter into rest, our identity changes
From being a slave to yokes of the world into becoming children of God.

2 Corinthians 5 : 17
Old things pass away
Old ways of thinking
Old ways of doing

Philippians 4 : 6-7