Rest in Jesus

Hello, this is Matt Bennett, welcome to the Bennett Broadcast episode 5, Rest in Jesus. Thank you so much for joining me for this, either just audio or for the video as well, very, very glad to have you. This is episode 5, as mentioned, they say that it takes a whole bunch of these to really feel like you know what you're doing. So I'm on my way by the grace of God. Thank you for following along, being an early adopter and listening these episodes, these podcasts are all about revival and how we can trust the Lord for revival in America. What does it take? How do we understand revival and what do we do in order to see the Lord bring that about? Each episode has some aspect of it in different ways, sometimes there, there are going to be interviews, sometimes it's explanation from biblical texts and what is revival looking also at history and how the Lord has radically changed cities and nations in the past. So that's what this series is about by the grace of God and hopefully it's a benefit to you and hopefully you can use it either as a devotional time or something to enjoy to grow and you're understanding this. So together we can take action. We want to see the United States changed. We want to see a nation that loves and honors and reveres the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the beginning of everything in every society is the spiritual base and we as Christians know that even though I think it can be forgotten from time to time. And related to that is today's subject which is the issue of finding rest in Jesus. And I'll explain how this has to do with revival but there's a lot of anxiety today. There's a lot of fear in my personal ministry dealing with people who have panic attacks and mental health issues are higher than ever on this subject. And so question is what's causing this? What can be done about it spiritually? What does it mean to rest in Jesus? How does one attain this and have this? Now there are a lot of natural remedies for this and these things can benefit a person. If you read the literature on this, it teaches how if you get outdoors more, it helps. If you exercise more, if you experience a sauna or you get a good night's rest, all these things can help and this is great. These are good things to do. But also especially as Christians we should know that there is a spiritual dynamic to all of this and to the extent that we can understand this and be in step with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It can bring a lot of relief to us. And to other people, we want people to be arriving to be alive in God too in every way honor and praise Him. And this is a great gift that Christians can give to the world. That has been given to us. Now, I've seen a lot of lives transformed through what I'm going to be sharing here today. The passages from the scriptures where the Lord lays out what it means to have rest, how to have rest and peace in Him, no matter what's going on around you. And I'm glad to pass on what I've seen and what I've learned. And so the outline of this is we're going to look at it just a couple of passages. There's no way we can speak about everything that Bible teaches on the subject, but we can share a lot. But at first we're going to look at Matthew 11 when Jesus promises rest. We're going to look briefly at Hebrews 4 about entering God's rest. And then we're going to look at some applications for today. What this means, how we can get there and understanding and applying these spiritual truths can radically, positively impact your life and help you be a dynamic witness for Christ and see other people's lives changed as well. So that's what this Bennett broadcast is about today. Now I want to start with an illustration of two cabins. Now if you're watching this on video, you'll see the picture of the cabins, but if you're not, it's okay. I'm going to describe it to you and you'll get the point. So don't worry about it. Like this first cabin, I want you to imagine you're walking to the woods and I live not too far from Pennsylvania, I'm in New York City. And so folks often got to Pennsylvania to get some fresh air and experience nature. And you will, you're walking to the woods and you come across this cabin. Now imagine this cabin, it very quickly you can see it's very well taken care of. The roof is sleek. There aren't any broken shingles off of it, the siding all looks fresh and well kept and fully repaired in every way. You also notice that there's smoke coming out of the chimney, which tells you some things or must be some people in there right now, keeping the fire going or cooking something. Also you see windows and lights coming out of the window. You can even see in there a little bit through the windows and you can see a very well maintained kitchen, very well maintained living room, looks very warm and inviting and cozy. Also you see all in front of it that it's all clean and well kept and swept and manicured. Not like you see it up in the home and suburbs or something, but you can see that attention has been given to the gardens and even some items out in the front yard like maybe an outside stove or some other aspects, a beautiful porch all the way around. You can imagine people sitting out on the porch and enjoying the evening. So it all strikes you and you see it and very quickly you know what's going on. You know what's behind all of this and you know the effort and time that had to be spent to make this happen. You know that if there's people there and it's as well kept and obviously they have food so they probably are growing something nearby, their own gardens or go to town regularly to get food. You wouldn't be surprised if you go back nearby you'll see maybe a chicken coop or they keep chickens or maybe some animals, farm animals, something like that. Maybe they provide milk maybe from meat or something like that, but you would expect to see that also well kept and you think about all the time it takes to keep it in good repair with the weather with there can be really strong snowstorms and winter weather in Pennsylvania. So you can you imagine like wow they put a lot of effort this is really really really nice. And so you quickly are able to ascertain that to keep this place looking like this and this cozy and this wonderful that it takes a lot of time and effort to get there and so it looks like a pace that's very inviting and you can imagine the people inside have me a great time and really benefiting from all the effort that's gone into it and you want to go in and yourself and be a part of it and they invited you in and asked you to help out here there you in mind it's a great situation for you to be in. Now that's the first cabin but let's say you're going along and then you come to another cabin and this cabin it looks very very different it's about the same size and the surrounding area is very similar but it looks very different. Now this one only one room there has a weak light in it coming out the rest of it is all dark it looks spooky you can see too that it's in disrepair the siding maybe the roof is is not you can imagine there may be leaks in the place rain coming in and you think probably pretty quickly there's probably not installation in this cabin so the product cold inside there's no smoke coming out of the chimney so that's another reason why it's be cold there's no fire inside also you'd imagine they're probably not cooking in food you probably think they don't even have a way to keep food and preserve it probably no food in this there might be a person inside because there's one week like but it looks very very unpleasant to be in there also in the yard instead of it being well kept in items and a nice porch there is no porch and there's trash all over the place so it looks like people have lived there at some point but it looks like it is aster and you wouldn't expect to see a chicken coop nearby or a place where they tend animals or guarded nearby well kept that takes attention and time and they can't even keep the house together so all this tells you it's not looking so good here and whoever's living there it looks miserable you do not want to go inside you do want to be helped inside it would be an awkward quick visit if you felt obligated to visit with somebody in there not a place that you want to be and these two cabins are put this illustrations put forward to take in a principle that's going to be explored here over these next couple of minutes because if you ask yourself which group of people are probably enjoying themselves in some sense at rast or able to experience good things in life you would say the first one even though you know full well they had to put a lot of time and effort into it you know that they would have all the upkeep and maybe the trips to town to get the new siding or the repair or the hammers the nails and keep things up or food supply or whatever it is and maybe all the wood that have to chop to put in the fireplace you know that it would take a lot of work where is the second cabin you look at this pretty obvious they're not doing any work whatsoever you know or what they're doing at their time but they're not putting in work but you can see that the first one is much more enjoyable much more restful something that would invigorate and bring vitality to your soul even though you know if you're part of that home community it would be work that you would have chores you'd have to do and maybe you'd have to get up early and but you'd want to be part of that that's what you want to be part of it's okay to get up early and do the chores and other such stuff would be a labor of love and you'd live in a great environment and this is important for us to consider so that we make the application into the spiritual realm because of misunderstanding of the spiritual realm people don't have the benefits the rest the peace that otherwise the Lord would walk them to have and for those who can see this on video you can see these two homes right next to each other juxtaposed and see just how radically different they are everybody would want to be in the home that's lit up that looks great even though everybody would know that's going to take some effort and work to see that come about let's look at this first passage about Jesus talking about being enressed and gaining his rest and this passage is Matthew 11 28 to 30 and you know these verses I'll read them for you but it says Jesus is speaking he says come to me all to labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me prime gentle and lowly and heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light now a couple of things worth noting about this is notice that what's promised here and that is rest but notice that there are a number of imperatives here Jesus says in order to get this rest you've got a one you got to come to him also he says you got to take his yoke upon him and so he does have a yoke it's not that there is no yoke there is a yoke it's easy one in comparison but there is a yoke so you got to take it and then also it says you have to learn from him and so what's implied by this and what's understood is that if we want the rest that is promised here the rest for our souls then we need to come to him we need to take his yoke upon us ourselves and we need to learn from him these are the things that must happen if we want to have his rest and experience that again he didn't say there wasn't a yoke it's just that it's easy by comparison and so we've got these three imperatives and if we are not responsive to these imperatives that is not reasonable for us to expect that we would get the benefit of it and that is that we would have the rest only if we I keep the imperatives we do what he says here so it's contingent and this why so I just remember and think about that if we want his rest it's not doing nothing it is doing certain things and then we will have his rest now this is a paradox in the spiritual it's not something we might normally think of though if we wanted rest this is how we would go about getting it and that's why I began with this illustration of the two cabins so we could see this that it is true in the natural lot of ways too but here it says in the in the verses right before these verses and verses 25 and 27 Jesus explains that even very smart understanding people won't get this and they will not understand it he says at that time Jesus declared I thank you father lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding so there are wise and understanding people who do not understand this and reveal them to little children yes father for such was your gracious will all things have been handed over to be me by my father and no one knows the son except the father no one knows the father except the son and anyone whom to whom the son chooses to reveal him so there are people maybe even Christians or non-Christians who do not understand this that by putting in the effort or taking up the yoke of Jesus things are much much better we do enter that rest but we must come to him we must learn from him and then that will come about it's not just doing nothing all right I want to pull back a few verses even before this and highlight something in the context of what Jesus is talking about because if we're thinking about well we got to learn from him we got to come to him we got to take a bus yoke what specifically is he talking about now we're going to talk mostly about that in the end the application but some of it right here in the verses immediately before I just read a few verses before the main and I'm reading the verses right before that 11 20 to 24 so you'll see here after I read what Jesus is talking about here it's not just what's mentioned here but this does include it so let me read this here Matthew 11 20 to 24 then it began to announce the cities where most of his mighty works have been done because they did not repent what do you Corazen what do you bestata for if the mighty works done in you had been done entire inside and they would have repented long ago and sacked off and ashes but I tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for tyrant side and that for you in you cappurnum will be exalted to heaven you will be brought down to haides for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom it would have remained until this day but I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and for you there's a few things going on in this passage one of it is that one of the reasons the Lord does miracles is to provoke repentance honest that we would be amazed and know that God is real and believe also what we see here though given the contacts is that repentance is one of the items we need to do one of the spiritual acts so we need to do if we want experienced Jesus's rest and many do not experience Jesus's rest because we have unrepentant sin in our lives and so if you feel like you're full of anxiety or despair or discouragement one of the things not the only things to do is to ask the Lord to bring to mind anything that needs to be repented of a lot of times we have unforgiveness on our heart towards other people and we need to forgive every single person if we have judgment or bitterness we've held on to something we have some other sins there and we want to hold on to those sins sometimes and do them but you need to know that you don't experience God's rest and so it is a yoke in some sense it is effort it takes this effort to repent but it's much much better to do this than to have the alternative and be weighed down by discouragement and burdens and problems of all different kinds and so this is why the Lord is explaining that it is a yoke but it's a much much better one for us to bear okay I want to look at the second example in Hebrews 4 there are of course more examples in the Bible and all of this but we got to keep this focused and short and sweet in many ways so that was Matthew 11 now we're going to look at Hebrews chapter 4 now this has got some very very interesting language here and to set this up the author is recalling back from the time when the Israelites were about to go into the promised land and they didn't go in the land fully completely what they did later on but the first group didn't go at all because they were afraid and they didn't have the faith I mean they thought what's going to happen these people are big we can't go into the canning that land they'll all kill us forget it no way even though those saw all the miracles but because of that they didn't enter God's rest they that is they didn't get all the blessings of the land the Lord was promising him a very fruitful and active land but is going to take some effort on their part to get that but they would not do it and because of their disobedience they didn't enter the rest and so the author of Hebrews is remembering this because these Christians at this time they are tempted to turn away and revert back to Judaism because there's a lot of persecution against Christians at that time now in the Roman Empire there be waves sometimes things would be fine for a number of years and then the persecution would be quite intense and so some were just tempted to pull back but he's saying don't be like that be obedient even in the face of persecution and stay strong and then you experience the rest of God so I'll read here Hebrews 4 7 to 11 today if you hear his voice do not heart in your hearts for if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken of another day later on so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience and here's what seems to be an irony at least in our natural way of thinking that we have to quote strive in order to enter the rest I think we thank wait a second rest means we don't have to do anything and that's just debt not in the spiritual sense not in the ultimate rest that you want to experience that's not the way it works there has to be certain activities that need to be done such as repentance and here such as remain faithful and obedience even when there's a persecution and harassment if you want to experience a peace and rest of God in your hearts it is available but these conditions need to be met and so in that sense we quote strive that is persist in doing some perhaps some difficult things in order that we can have the benefits of it it reminds me of some a number of months ago I have once a month I gather pastors together and we seek the Lord all day seven a.m. to seven p.m. we pray and if we fast during the day we will worship we'll read the scriptures we'll pray some more and one of the pastors said he'd been feeling down and discouraged last month or so and so he decided he was going to do all his favorite things and he did a bunch of them but it didn't do for him what he wanted it to do but then he came and is here for the day and he said this is what I need and this is the refreshing that I was going for so you see here he had to put in the effort he had to get up early come out you put energy into prayer energy into fasting and now reading the scriptures and let it come in but benefit was the rest of God the peace of God the filling of the Holy Spirit and the Lord is wonderful and gracious and he does that so there's an irony there there's a tension there there is something that's not a quickly understood just by in the natural but the Lord reveals it to us he gives us the scriptures and explains it to us and then we get to experience it by his grace by his power so it's a powerful reminder in verse there so they do strive like the Israelites had to strive get into the promised land some did not do it others later on did do it so the Hebrew Christians need to strive in the sense that they need to remain faithful and obedient and devoted to Jesus Christ even though they may be persecuted for it and and then of course we have Matthew 11 and we just looked at we've got obey as commands to repent in order to experience his rest this is what we need to do all right so in looking at some application of this in a fuller way we already know that some of the activities that need to be done to inner God's rest are repenting and staying faithful but there's more to it it's not all listed just in these passages what we want to do is to have a mindset and a lifestyle of seeking the Lord and doing the activities towards that end now I want to draw a contrast before I go into some more of these specifics and that is what rest is not rest is not complacency rest is not slumbering rest is not being at ease and in many places in the scriptures people are condemned for being at ease or being asleep or in a slumber or being complacent in the Old Testament and the New Testament numerous places but today I think many Christians can think rest is being at ease being complacent in these ways slumbering not being active and are seeking after the Lord but that's not the case the Lord condemns it and you don't get the rest I'll read uh passage here in Revelation 3 the church and sardis there's a lot of examples like this um I think of an amus and xf and I will to those who are complacent to those who are at ease those are at rest I mean there's a lot of condemnation but here we have in Revelation 3 this is the church in sardis which is a city in modern day turkey and this was written about 95 AD and Jesus is speaking to John and he's got some strong words about the Christians in sardis he says into the angel of the church of sardis right the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars I know your works you have the reputation of being alive but you are dead wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your works complete in the side of God remember then what you have received and heard keep it and repent if you will not wake up I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come against you so these are very very strong words from the Lord Jesus coming to sardis and I feel like much of us in the western church are in many ways in a slumber and are asleep in our complacent we take these words about being at rest that means we don't have to do anything we just kind of pull back and that's your step and that's not the case we've already looked at a couple things I need to be done and we're gonna look at some more here and needs to be done we got to wake up and be alert and the beautiful thing is then we experience God's rest and the midst of that is peace filling up a spirit is joy in every way so what other activities or mindsets need to be done I don't have verse references for this here but you can go to danielspirituality.org or christian union.org slash seven keys and explains it all more thoroughly got their references I'll give the overview here but you can see it in depth with all the references so first of all we got to remember that we need to be seeking the Lord and that takes effort one of the aspects of seeking God is repentance as mentioned but also we need to humble ourselves with the help of fasting also we need to have frequent and fervent prayer we need to be taking the scriptures very very thoroughly and deeply we need to be with other Christians and gain strength minister to them and have the minister ask to be strong we need to be obedient to the Lord day by day we also need to persevere day after day and week after week and we call these the seven principles to the seeking God lifestyle and these are needed for us to experience the rest of God in our hearts also we want to put these into a regular adder and draw in close spiritual practices you can call them or discipline and this is needed for us to be strong in the Lord so Christians you'll want to have 30 to 16 minutes every morning and every evening in the bible reading and worship and in prayer listening to God praying to God reading the scriptures having your devotions you need that level of interaction and then also fasting twice a week the early Christians up to about 700 AD all Christians fasted Wednesdays and Fridays until about dinner time so it's a great practice through that self denial helps humble yourself so you can be strong church on Sundays morning and evening and if your church doesn't offer both ones you can go to you can have extended time with the Lord with your family or on your own also it's a great idea to take a whole day once a month you're all close to the Lord and several times a year you want to take multiple days to get close to the Lord to experience them three days five days seven days a great extended time it cleanses you fills you with a spirit it gives you the peace of God it's wonderful and then you'll have to have periodic times where you really go after with the Lord and he's calling you to a three day fast or a 10 day fast or 21 day fast or longer to draw close or some all night prayer meetings or something like that periodically we're supposed to have these exceptional time to draw and close to the Lord this is the lifestyle and it is it does take effort and focus but it's much much better than being at ease and being complacent of being in a spiritual slumber keeps us active and alert and we experience the joy of the Lord on our hearts we get fillings of the spirit the anxieties and difficulties and problems they do fade away really beautiful really wonderful I want to say something to that this short message on the subject doesn't cover everything there can be other considerations sometimes there's a matter of healing that needs to happen for a person and that can be part of it meaning inner kind of healing with their soul also sometimes there can be footholds that the enemy has in our lives and that has to be gotten out or expelled that can also cause a lot of trouble and problems in our lives so those are other subjects and takes longer to get into but this has to be happening too we need to be doing these activities we need to be drawn close to the Lord put in the effort we got to be coming to Jesus we got to be taking up his show we have to be learning from him and then as we do this he'll give us the blessing and the strengthening that we want all right here so back to the two cabins let us remember this as illustration an example I think sometimes with this message is put forth to some people about taking the kind of time needed to be strong in the Lord it might seem too much we don't want to do it but think about these two cabins and if someone just laid out without experience well do you want to go to cabin you got to get up early and you've got to get out and do the chores and you've got to go work in the garden then you got to go to town and get the materials to come back and fix the home you might say oh that's not too much work I don't do that I'd rather be in the other cabin but when you look at them and see what's going on you change your mind fair very quickly say absolutely not I want to be that's where rest happens rest happens when people are putting the effort in this way and you're at peace same thing with the Lord it's how the spiritual realm works and as we draw close to him you will bless us and benefit us and that's what we want to see happen so thank you for listening to this message I hope it's a blessing to you and this is very needed for an understanding for an omission of revival because it's not until large large numbers of Christians in the United States seek the Lord with this kind of diligence even if it's not exactly like what I painted here it's got to be something close to this it's only when that happens that then the Lord releases his power in extraordinary ways in different communities and whenever you read or hear about some sort of outpouring of the spirit that may have happened then you can always go and find out that there are a number of Christians behind the scenes preceding it who are seeking the Lord with even more energy than what it's described here what I described with this Daniel spirituality and the Lord loves it the Lord responds and he brings joy and blessings and miracles and there's advancement of the kingdom of light over the kingdom of darkness and that's what we want to see I've been able to see this in my own life with people and times of ministry over a period of a number of years and then have read many stories about this in other places situations to have the blessing and visitation of the Lord we can't be passive and simply say that he's sovereign therefore he just depends on when he does it of course he's sovereign but he also he's a promise keeper and we draw near to him he draws near to us when we do what Jesus says here about coming close down taking up the oh and learning from him then he does give us peace and rest and it's what he means by it that we have to understand so let's remember this and be blessed and draw close to the Lord and take encouragement he's a very very good God he loves to show us blessing but we got to get in step with the spiritual realm we have to operate in a spiritual realm in a way that makes sense and that benefits us and that we've seen happen in the past in this country and brings honor praise to the Lord Jesus Christ we can't make up our own way in which we think things should work and as there was a challenge to the church and sardis I think there's a challenge to the church and the last these days that we have in many ways fallen asleep and we don't draw close to him with that same level of focus and energy so I want to pray here but also if you want to support the work of christian union go to christianunion.org slash cornerstone to help advance the cause of seeing students reach seeing adults reach I'm helping with this podcast and conferences that the ministry does to help that the United States return to the Lord so let me say a prayer here Lord we love you and praise you Lord you are great and good and holy and wonderful and true you're a great beyond compare Lord we want rest Lord we want breakthrough Lord help us have a culture all across the United States here in New York City all every state in this country of people who love the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who draw close who put in the effort and energy and know that there is a reward there's peace and joy powerful witnessing powerful change lives and victory and strength in every way so help us Lord we want a different day we want to breakthroughs like we've never seen before in Jesus name so thank you for listening or watching this podcast really really really appreciate it and I think I'm getting a little more comfortable doing them I'll be doing more as the weeks progress but by the grace of god people benefit and grow and be changed and we can see many seek the Lord with great energy so thank you so much Lord bless you and thanks for listening