The Gospel of Rest

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Maybe. All right. So, I'm a licensed professional counselor associate, which means I'm a licensed therapist under supervision. So, if I handed you my card earlier, we need to talk later. Just kidding. I'm not analyzing you guys too much. Also, I'm married. My wife, Raven, is here with me today. We'll be married eight years at the end of this month on the 22nd, and we have two beautiful children. My son, John, who's two years old, and our daughter, Taylor, who is six months old. So we got two little ones and as Pastor Drew said I am so excited today because this is my first time to preach on a stage for another congregation on a Sunday morning and I'm more privileged to be sharing what God has put on my heart with you today because I feel like God has given me this word for you and that word is essentially the gospel. I feel like the gospel is probably a safe place

to start for your first time preaching. But maybe, or hopefully in a different way than what's, I think, typical or routine, I want to talk today, if I could give you a main point, it would be that the gospel means that we don't have to earn our salvation. So it's less about what it means to become saved and more about what happens after you're saved. You see, that what Jesus did on the cross, his death and his resurrection is enough for for us to receive salvation, that we don't have to keep earning it, and that we don't have to be good enough because Jesus is enough.

So we're gonna be today, if you wanna go ahead and turn there, Ephesians chapter two verses eight through 10. But we'll get there in a moment. Ever since being asked to preach, since I got the invitation, the email, I feel like almost immediately God put on my heart that I needed to share with you this concept of not feeling good enough, not feeling adequate, that when we are in our walk with God, when we're in relationships with others, when we're in our careers, or when we're just walking through life, this general sense of not being good enough.

I know I have felt this in counseling. There have been times when I walked out of session and I just felt like I let my client down for that hour. I wasn't the best therapist for them in that moment. That I could have done better. There have been times in my marriage where I feel like I've let my wife down. And that I could have been better. Times as a father where my children don't even know that I let them down, but I feel like I let them down. And of course moments in my faith, my walk with God where I feel like that sin I just did, that one was bad. That one, I'm going to need to give God a cooling off period before I can come back to him. And then even then, I got to pay some penance. I got to step it up a little bit and make sure that I'm doing what I can to make my relationship with him good again. I think by all accounts, if we're operating according to the world, which I believe

in these situations I have been, the world would tell us I need to step up. I need to do better. My clients, they're paying me. So if I wasn't good for them, then that's on me. In my marriage, the world would tell me if I'm not stepping it up, she's going to leave me. My kids, they're going to walk out on me. I need to be doing everything I can to maintain these relationships, to maintain my status as a good counselor, as a pastor. But the world would also tell these people that they need to do what's best for them. That if I'm not a good counselor, they need to find another one. If my wife is not receiving kindness and love for me, then she should leave. The world has conflicting standards. I think the world and Christianity, we both share the sense that adultery is bad. You shouldn't cheat on your spouse. in certain circumstances it's understandable. Oh, your spouse hasn't

been kind to you or been loving you for the last several months, years, whatever it is, and you cheated on them? That makes sense. That's understandable. But that is not what our what our scriptures say. There is no wishy-washy. There is no gray area. To live in the kingdom of God is to live according to His Word. However, we are influenced by the world. We are influenced by what our flesh wants us to do. And we do strive to make things right, to make things better, to add to our relationships and to our standing with God. Dallas Willard puts it like this. He says, when we're operating according to the world, it's like flying in a plane. Imagine a stunt pilot who is doing all sorts of maneuvers. He's doing twists and turns, loop-de-loops and corkscrews. He's got this maneuver and at the end of it, he's got to do some turns and then he's going to fly straight up into the air.

He knows this is coming up and he does one too many turns and he gets disoriented. He's not sure which way is up, but he knows he has to pull up. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and just pulls up. He's not sure which way he's going to go. 50-50 chance, right? He could go straight into the air like he's supposed to, or he could nosedive into the ground into destruction. If it was up to me, I'm going to be trying to do everything I can in my power to make sure I'm going to go the right way, right? I don't want to nosedive into destruction, but if I'm operating for the world, I don't know which way is up. I don't know if I'm upside down or not. So what this looks like, or what I've found this to look like when it comes to my relationship with God is if I feel like I'm slipping away or he's mad at me, I feel like I need to increase what I'm doing to increase my standing with him. So I need to start reading my Bible more.

I need to start praying more. I need to make sure my church attendance is consistent. I need to make sure that I'm listening to the right kind of music and watching the right kind of TV shows. When I do these things, then God will be happy with me and my standing with him will be good. However, when I sin, like I said earlier, sometimes I feel like I need to give God a cooling off time. I can't engage in these spiritual disciplines. If I just got done yelling at my wife and I go get in the car and turn on worship music, I sense that that is a spit in the face to God. And so I feel like I have to give him a cooling off period before I can engage in my spiritual discipline. But I continue to sin in that cooling off period, so that prolongs my standing with him. So I never engage in my spiritual disciplines. I never do those things. And then whenever I finally do get to a place where I can, I try. But if I'm trying on my own, if

I'm doing what I can, it's just never enough. We can't ever do enough fast enough. And so chances are you're like me, or at least somebody in this room is is like me and has experienced this sense of not being able to do enough. And I think that this is a symptom, a result of this, I hesitate to say the word plague, I know we're tired of that kind of thing, but this plague that's in the church called triumphalism. Is this sense of triumphalism, this victorious Christian life. That word victory gets used a lot in church these days. And I think when it's used, it's never used with ill intent or maliciousness. I think that it's meant to be edifying and glorifying to God because it is God's victory. But oftentimes the way it's used for somebody that is stuck in their sin or stuck in an issue, it can be kind of damning. This is how I've often seen it used.

Let's take depression for example. Somebody's dealing with depression. Some might say, brother, sister, you just need to have victory over that, over your depression. And victory in that instance means that you're no longer depressed. But what happens, and I have often seen as a counselor, when the depression comes back, or if it never fully goes away, what if that addiction you're battling never fully goes away? sin struggle returns over and over and over again. You have that thorn in our flesh, like Paul says in 2 Corinthians. Did you ever receive victory? According to this, no. So the question becomes, what am I doing wrong? What's wrong with me? That I'm not experiencing this victory that I'm supposed to experience. And so what I've done is I've tried to control. I've tried to increase what I do to get that victory.

But then when it doesn't come, I ultimately retreat and hide. This is reminiscent of what happened with Adam and Eve in the fall in Genesis chapter three. They thought they knew better than God. And so they ate of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And they became aware of their sin. When they realized that there wasn't anything they could do they hid. But God saw through that. But that curse remains in us, this need, this felt desire to control, to earn our standing back with God. And if I could simplify this, if I could say any message that you're receiving that says you're not doing enough, that you're not good enough, you're inadequate, that message is bad news. No one likes to feel that way or receive that message. It's a the message of bad news.

And when we receive bad news, or at least when I receive bad news, I want to try to right the situation. This happened to me about a month and a half ago. I was diagnosed with insulin resistance. So I have a thyroid issue that I get routine blood work done for. And usually my numbers are fine, they're okay. They call me back a couple days later, said, Mr. Harvey, your numbers are great. Keep going. Well this time they called back and said, hey, your blood sugar is a little high, we wanna run some tests on it to make sure everything's okay. Okay, cool. Oh, they called me back two days later and said, great news, you don't have diabetes. Cool, I didn't know I was worried about that, or supposed to be worried about that, but thank you. They said, but you do have insulin resistance. What does that mean? And they said, well you just need to go on a diet, and they hung up.

Thank you for that. So I did what I think any of us would do, I started Googling. I found out that insulin resistance is essentially pre-diabetes. And so I looked up at, we were able to combat this, the best thing to do is diet and exercise. So I started looking up different recipes and grocery lists and what I could do to improve my diet. I got on Amazon and started looking up exercise equipment to turn my garage into to a home gym. There is currently sitting in the middle of my garage a stationary bike that I have not used yet. But still, I did what I could in my power, in my ability to try to reverse this diagnosis, to reverse this bad news. I wanted to control. And the Holy Spirit very quickly showed me that that's exactly what I was trying to do, and that I wasn't trusting in Him to take care of it. Not that dieting and exercising are bad things.

I should be doing those things, but it was from my heart that I was trying to control the situation, trying to reverse the situation. I was trying to add to my health, my way. I think that's common, that's understandable for when we receive bad news. So my question is, why do we do that with the gospel? You see, when we use that word gospel, it means good news.

It is the good news of Jesus Christ that he died on the cross and rose again three days later so that we might have a relationship with God again. That word gospel comes from a Greek word, euongelion. And in most contexts, this word was a military term to denote victory. Imagine that you are a citizen of a nation, of a city, you are, your army has gone to battle and you don't know how it's going. There were no helicopters, no on field reporters letting you know why, what was happening. You had to wait. So a messenger would come back and declare one of two things, victory or not. If it was victory they would say you won Gellion. And that was to signify that it's over, we won. Nothing else to do. So imagine if they came back and said you won Gellion, but we still need to secure this area of the nation. We still need to deal with these prisoners. We have to secure

these supply lines. There's still work to be done. Well, that wouldn't be you on Gellion. That wouldn't be victory. If there's extra steps to take, it's not victory. So, and there's that word, right? Victory. Triumphalism would say that you need to keep, you need to keep experiencing victories. But the gospel says that there was one victory. It happened 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross and rose again three days later. That was it. So for today I want to look at how we can stop trying to earn our salvation by looking at three ways that God has saved us through His Son Jesus. So this is where we'll be in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10. So let's read that together. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand

that we should walk in them." So way number one is that first sentence in verse eight. For by grace you have been saved through faith. I want to break down that sentence. So the word grace comes from the Greek word karas, which translates to the favor of the Lord freely extended. And we could replace that that word through with because of and the word faith comes from the Greek word pistis, which translates to God's divine persuasion or divine persuasion. So if we wanted to replace those words with those phrases, it would be, for by the favor of the Lord freely extended, you have been saved because of divine persuasion. And that ending is important because persuasion means that somebody is influencing you to think a certain way, to act a certain way, to do something. And if it's a divine persuasion, then who's doing the persuading. God. God is doing the persuading. So when God persuades you to

accept his free favor, you've been saved. That's it. We don't have to do anything more. That is what it takes. But we're able to do that because of the second two ways. So way number two is we are saved through Christ's efforts, not our own. The rest Verse 8 and verse 9 says, And this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast.

Imagine you need to move, and you need help, right, we all would. Nobody likes to move, that's probably one of the worst activities you can engage in, right? And who's more likely to help you? A friend or an enemy? Not an enemy. And even with a friend, you're going to have to bribe them. Hey, let me get you some pizza. Hey, let me, I'll pay you, right? You're going to have to do something to motivate them to help you move. Well, imagine that you're at work and your friend comes up to you at the end of your workday and says, hey, while you were at work today, I got you completely moved. You don't have to do anything else. You don't have to worry about it. Don't pay me back. We're good. That's crazy. Nobody would do that. If they did do that though, there's nothing that we can do to retroactively go back and motivate them to do that for us. They just did it because of who they are and because of their relationship with you. That kind of activity would require love.

That sacrificial love because no one likes moving. So this is what Jesus has done for us. Let's look at Romans 5, 6 through 8. It says, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We can't retroactively motivate Christ to die for us. He did it while we were still dead in our sin. And when we were dead in our sin, we were his enemy. An enemy is not going to help you move, let alone die for you. Or you're not going to die for your enemy or help them move. But Christ did that for us. So we don't have to earn it once he did it. He already did it. It was a gift and he paid for it. So it's Christ's efforts on the cross and his resurrection that saves us, not anything that we do. And then way number three is we are saved by God making us a new creation. Verse 10 of Ephesians two says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We are his workmanship created for his purposes. This is something embedded in our DNA. We were made in his image. We were meant to do good works.

He prepared it beforehand. But that image has been corrupted by sin. So we have to be made new. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The oldest passed away, behold the new, has come. And so that new creation is the result of what Christ did on the cross. But it is also a restoration to what God designed in us the very beginning before the fall. So therefore any good works that we do comes out of submission and out of our relationship with Jesus, not to earn his favor. They are not a means of gaining salvation. We are saved first and then we engage in good works. And so if I could challenge you today, it's to stop trying to earn your salvation. Our salvation is a gift. So if you are adding to your salvation, if you're continuing to put things on top of it, then you're trying to outdo Jesus. You're saying that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't enough for

you, so you have to do more. So how do we stop trying to outdo him? Well Jesus gives us the answer. He tells us to rest. In Matthew 11 29 through 30 Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Dane Ortland in his book Gentle and Lowly says that this is the only place in Scripture that we see Jesus's heart for us. That in other places of Scripture when he is speaking he is telling people how that they can earn their selves into heaven by following the law. But spoiler alert, you can't do it. You will fail. And

so he tells us in this verse that we can stop striving by resting in Him when we take His yoke and His burden. Now, I do want to point out that a yoke and a burden implies work. If you don't know, a yoke is a device used with beasts of burden to pull a cart or to to pull a plow, it goes over their necks and they have to pull it. There's effort involved in that. But Jesus tells us it's His yoke and it's His burden and it's easy and it's light. So the work that we do when we're resting in Him comes out of that. We don't have to strive anymore. Again, this work comes out of our submission to Jesus, not as an effort to earn our salvation. So as we wrap up today I want to share a final story with you of what good news can do. My wife and I when we got pregnant, I was just going to make a cry, when we got pregnant with our son we had a scare, about six weeks pregnant we had just found out and we had to go to the ER

we thought we were miscarrying and he's here today in the room back there so he's fine but we thought we were miscarrying. And so we went to the ER and had some other tests done and they told us that my wife has something called a bicornate uterus. I bet you didn't think you're gonna hear the word uterus from the stage today. But she has something called a bicornate uterus. If you don't know, a typical uterus is shaped like a balloon. But my wife's shaped like a heart. And that sounds cute, but it's incredibly dangerous. And her pregnancy was automatically considered high risk because the heart or the two horns, that's where the word bicornet comes from, creates a membrane that goes down the middle of the uterus. That membrane is rigid. So they're telling us that as our baby would grow, if he was too close to that wall, he might not have enough room because that wall doesn't give.

And so that might cause the embryo to detach and we would miscarry. If we made it past that, they told us prepare to have a C-section because he's gonna develop feet down and not have enough room to flip. And so if you were planning on not having a C-section, too bad. And then also expect your baby to be born early, like prior to 30 weeks. And so we went into every doctor's appointment anxious and nervous and expecting the worst.

Every cramp, everything that might've gone wrong, we were just holding our breath. But after every appointment, all the way throughout, God showed up. Our baby, John, he developed head down from the start, probably much to Raven's chagrin, because he settled in her hips pretty early on and stayed there, but was head down from the start, healthy throughout the entire pregnancy. And he was born early, but he made it to 36 weeks. And so every step of the way, God showed up. And I know that's not everybody's story.

What I wanna point out here is that when we, in a situation where we wanted to control, we wanted to make this the best that it could, there's nothing that we could do. We had to take our hands off, we had to let God move. And he did. So when we got pregnant with our daughter, we went into every appointment with zero anxiety, zero trepidation. We weren't worried from the start. She was born 34 weeks old, had to go into the NICU for 14, 10 days, 10 days. Throughout the whole period, never thought that God wouldn't come through because we were resting in the assurance of what He did before. So we didn't feel the need to control. That's what good news does. That's what we've been talking about. You don't have to strive anymore is good news. Christ did it and that's it. So as we go from here today, I want us to remember that our salvation is a gift. We cannot earn it.

And we can stop trying to earn it by remembering that God has saved us through faith, by grace through faith, through Christ's merit not our own, and by making us a new creation. Imagine how inviting your church would be to your community, to Burleson at large, if you were operating in the rest and the assurance of what Christ has done for you, so that when you go through hardships, when you go through trials, you are sure and confident of where you're going and what's ahead of you, because you're living in the kingdom of God here and now. We don't have to wait until we die. As Christians, we are here and now in the kingdom of God. And remember our pilot flying upside down and not sure where he's going. When we are operating this way, we ride ourselves. And we are following behind the one who has gone before and has given us the confidence to do this without question.

That's what the people in our community need to see. Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for what you are doing in this community, what you're doing in this church at South Burleson, God, that you are here, you are moving. Lord, if anybody is questioning their standing with God, I pray that you give them a spirit of peace and a spirit of joy, that you are the one that has done the work necessary. But any works we do are just out of obedience and out of love because of what you've already done for us. I pray that you bless this church. I pray you bless these people. That is your name I pray. Amen. Thank you Justin. And man, Justin brought up a great piece of scripture, Romans 5-8, that God demonstrated his love for us and this that while we were sinners, while we were enemies, that Christ died for us. And just like we talk about in our gospel course, that death, that Jesus

died for us, it's not, it is a one-time thing, but it is also something that changes our lives forever. It's something that changes our heart immediately, but changes our whole life for as long as we live. What that means that, for us this morning, is that some of you are, you hear that and you think, okay, I'm still in this process of learning how I'm still in this process of being saved. And maybe for some of you, you're not even in that process at all. What we wanna do as we sing, Josh is gonna lead us in singing. As we do, I'm gonna be standing right down here. And if you want to come and receive prayer, if you wanna come and make a decision for the Lord, if you're interested in joining our church, if there's a step that you need to take, I wanna invite you during that time time as we're singing, Josh is going to lead us through one song. I'm going to be down here

and I want you to come and I want you to pray with me. I want you to talk to me about what's going on and see how we can help. So I would invite you all to stand as we sing. I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small, child of weakness watching day, And finding me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, and all to Him I owe. My sin had left a crimson stain, He was still right as lead I find, I find alone He can't change the lepers, but the heart of sin Jesus paid it all to Him, my sin had left a crimson stain, He was still right before the I stand in complete Jesus side my soul to see I shall still Jesus paid Jesus paid it all or to him I sin I left a crimson stain he He washed your eyes