Believing God’s Word = REST = Abundance of fruits

Doubting God’s Word –> leads to Sin = Work = NO FRUITS

for we walk by faith, not by sight –

2 Corinthians 5:7

knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him…that we should no longer be slaves of sin

Romans 6:6

reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God

Romans 6:11

God’s Work, Our Rest

  • Genesis 1:1-2:3 – God worked 6 days, rested on the 7th.  Man’s first day was God’s day of rest.  They never saw God create, but knew that it was done.  Dwelled in a garden filled with fruits (Gen. 2:8-9)
  • Genesis 3 – Satan made them doubt God’s Word (Gen. 3:1-5).  Doubting God’s Word led to sin (Gen. 3:6).  Specifically to Adam, God punished him by forcing him to work all of his days (Gen. 3:17-19).  The work only ends when he DIES.  Adam and Eve no longer enjoyed an abundance of fruits (Gen. 3:24).
  • John 5:17 – Jesus is busy at work during His ministry.
  • John 19:30 – Jesus declares that the work is finished.
  • John 6:28-29 – Our only work is to believe in Jesus.
  • Psalm 95:7-11 – Israelites did not believe in God’s work (v. 9).  They were not allowed to enter the Promised Land, which God calls “My rest” (v. 11)
  • Hebrews 3:7-4:16 – Psalm 95 is explained.
    • 3:6 – we dwell in Christ as long as we believe 
    • 3:7 – Even though David wrote, it is accredited to Holy Spirit
    • 3:12 – Evil heart = unbelieving heart
    • 3:14 – we share in Christ as long as we believe
    • 3:17 – word for “bodies” is more appropriately “corpses”, signified that before they physically died they did not have any life because they sinned
    • 3:17-19 – sin = disobedience = unbelief.  All of these are the same.  Belief is key.
    • 4:1 – the promise of rest applies to us today.  There is a possibility of coming short of this rest?
    • 4:2 – we come short of resting if we do not believe God’s Word!
    • 4:3 – when you believe in God’s finished work, you enter the rest
    • 4:4-5 – God had already finished the work, but they still weren’t able to rest because they didn’t believe that the work was finished.
    • 4:5-8 – Israelites did not enter the rest.  Then, about 500 years later, David wrote this Psalm 95.  The argument that the writer of Hebrews is making is that rest is available to anyone who will believe in God’s finished work, as long as the day is called “today” (this is really a catch, because every present day is called “today”).
    • 4:9 – this rest = Sabbath rest
    • 4:10 – secret of rest: do not work, but believe that God has already finished the work!
    • 4:11 – our only work is to strive to enter the rest (John 6:28-29).  This is very difficult for us, because we want so badly to work instead of trust that the work is done, and wait for Christ to work everything out in us.
    • 3:13; 4:12; 4:16 – THREE ways to help us continue resting in God’s finished work:
      • Encouragement from other believers (3:13)
      • Word of God (4:12)
      • Prayer (4:16)
  • Colossians 2:14,16-17 – We are not required to celebrate feasts, Sabbath days, and other things anymore because Christ is the substance.  Christ is our Passover Lamb.  Christ is our Firstfruits.  Likewise, Christ is our Sabbath.
  • Romans 14:5 – Celebrating a literal Sabbath day every week is optional.  Do what is right in your own mind (but do not judge others in celebrating a literal Sabbath [Col. 2:16])
  • Promised Land is known for two things: 1) Rest  2) Fruitfulness – when you are truly at rest and believing that Christ has already done the work, true fruits will follow
  • John 15:1-6 – Our only job is to abide in Jesus (we do this by faith).  It is God’s job to produce the fruits.  When we abide in Christ (this happens by walking out of faith), He will supernaturally produce the fruits in our lives.  The secret to Christianity is not in trying (this is a deception).  The secret is trusting.  God will do, He will just wait until you allow Him to work.
  • Deut. 6:10-11 – all the things in the Promised Land are noted with the phrase: “which you did not”.  God gave cities they didn’t build, houses they didn’t fill, vineyards they didn’t plant, etc.  This is the secret of our Christian walk.  To not try to build or plant, but just rest in the faith that God has already built and planted.  God has finished the work, you have NO work to do.  Only believe that it is done.
  • Phil. 3:3; Rom. 7:18 – there is no good fruit we can produce with our flesh
  • Gal. 2:20 – “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”
  • Romans 7 – at first, Paul struggled trying not to sin (he “willed” it to happen), then he realized that sin was a law that could not be stopped.
  • Romans 7:25-8:2 – there is a law greater than the law of sin.  Our job is to trust God’s Spirit.
  • Ephesians 2:1-6; 8-10 – sitting comes before walking.  When we are standing, our weight rests on our own feet, when we sit, our weight rests on something outside of ourselves.  Only when we are sitting/resting in another power separate from our own can we really live for Christ (our resting allows God to move).  Ex: man moving in a car by sitting.  Ex: crippled man moving in a wheelchair by sitting.
  • “Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE” – Watchman Nee

Hudson Taylor describes his experience with the REST

“…my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls…I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation – but all without avail.  Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.

“I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not.  I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him.  Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control.  Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power.  To will was indeed ‘present with me,’ but how to perform I found not.

“…Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin; and no wonder, for faith and even hope were getting low.  I hated myself, I hated my sin, yet gained no strength against it.

“…I knew I was powerless.  I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength.  Sometimes I almost believed that He would keep and uphold me; but on looking back in the evening – alas! there was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God…

“All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was – how to get it out.  He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak.  I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question.  As gradually light dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite – was the hand to lay hold on His fullness and make it mine.  But I had not this faith.

“…McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory):

‘But how to get faith strengthened?  Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.’

“As I read, I saw it all!  ‘If we believe not, he abideth faithful.’  I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, ‘I will never leave thee.’

“’Ah, there is rest!’  I thought. ‘I have striven in vain to rest in Him.  I’ll strive no more.  For has not He promised to abide with me – never to leave me, never to fail me?’  And, dearie, He never will.

“…it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ!  Think what it involves.  Can Christ be rich and I poor?  Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? or your head be well fed while your body starves?  “The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings.  I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine.  It makes no matter where He places me, or how.  That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient.  It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles.  In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases.  So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength?  No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the emergency!  And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.

“…I am no better than before.  In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be.  But I am dead and buried with Christ – ay, and risen too!  And now Christ lives in me, and ‘the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’” (Hudson Taylor)

“But are you always conscious of abiding in Christ?”  Mr. Taylor was asked many years later.

“While sleeping last night,” he replied, “did I cease to abide in your home because I was unconscious of the fact?  We should never be conscious of not abiding in Christ.”

“Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret”