I remember once way back when I was a teenager, you know how difficult teenagers can be when we’re growing up. And there’s a reason for that. Being a teenager is about moving from childhood into adulthood and that means establishing yourself as someone who’s independent of your parents.

And because it’s a learning time we all make lots of mistakes in those teenage years. That’s why God put us in a family with parents who have both the love and the maturity to cope with our mistakes and to guide us through that growing up process.

Anyhow, I remember once when I was a teenager I must have really been pushing the boundaries with my father, and he said to me, ‘Son, I love you very much but as long as you live in my house under my roof and eat the food I provide you and wear the clothes I buy for you, you’ll do as I say. If you don’t like it there’s the front door go and live on the other side of it.’

Well, well, I was so offended. How dare he say that to me? How dare he. Now my dad passed away quite a few years ago now. And I’m no longer a teenager, I’m now in my early fifties. I have grey hair and hopefully just a bit more wisdom and maturity in life than I did back then.

And what I realise now is that all that my parents provided for me in those growing up years was an incredible privilege and a blessing. And because they were the providers that blessing came on their terms not on mine.

So how are you at the beginning of another week? Isn’t the year racing by at a great rate of knots? Unbelievable.

Now last week on the program we started a series of messages that I called “Oh God I Need A Rest”. And I know, I know that this is a subject that kind of hits many people right between the eyes. Quite simply because so many people are tired.

Tired of the grind. Tired of the stress. Tired of the problems. Tired because they work so hard. Tired because, well there are so many things that can make us tired, so many. And I guess we spent some time last week looking at the causes of our tiredness, the spiritual dimension.

The fact that God’s perfect plan for us, as we saw with Adam and Eve in the garden, right from the beginning was to have a perfect relationship with Him. Yes to work, Adam was called to till and to keep the garden. You can read that in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15. But also to walk in the cool of the morning with God. To have safety and peace on every side. Not to be stressed. Not to be exhausted all the time.

But that all came apart when Adam and Eve rejected God by doing the one thing, the one thing He told them not to. And so that perfect existence ended and pain came into childbirth for the woman and hard toil and labour came into work for the man and enmity and strife came between the man and the woman.

All this as a direct consequence of their sin. They missed the point completely which is exactly what the word sin means. And so they suffered the consequences.

Well this week, this week we’re going to take a look at the solution. Great to understand the problem but we need a solution to the tiredness and exhaustion that many people live through day by day. So this week we’re going to look at how to enter into God’s rest. How? Rubber hits the road stuff.

And the first part of that ‘how’ comes back to the story I shared with you about my teenage years and that tough lesson of love that my father had to teach me when I was being a precocious self-centred teenager. What was that lesson? Simply this: the blessing that my parents heaped upon me came on their terms not on mine

I always find it interesting that out of the Ten Commandments the first four are about our relationship with God. How we should honour Him. But the very next one, the fifth Commandment is about us and our parents. Have a listen to it because the lesson we need to learn is reflected right here in the fifth Commandment. Exodus chapter 20, verse 12:

Honour your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

See the blessing of long days is attached to obedience. God blesses us when we honour our parents. And get this, this Commandment about honouring our parents comes ahead of “You shall not murder” Which is number six and “You shall not commit adultery” which is number seven and “You shall not steal” which is number eight and so on.

So God considers it of first importance after our relationship with Him. And that, that is the first thing that we need to know and to learn about blessing. Blessing comes on the terms of the giver and not on the terms of the receiver. And it’s exactly the same with the blessings of God’s peace and God’s rest.

That blessing comes on God’s terms. And that’s something that I’ve had to get through my thick skull. It’s taken a while and you know, to be honest, it’s still a work in progress. See spiritually, when it comes to obeying God I think we all want to be teenagers. We want the blessing to be on our terms as though somehow we deserve it.

Well let’s get a revelation here together today, you and I, we don’t deserve it. God’s blessing is an act of grace that comes to us through the death of His Son who paid for all our sin. In a nutshell, here it is, Adam and Eve had a perfect existence in the garden until they disobeyed God. Genesis chapter 3, verse 11, God said to Adam: Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

And so they lost their perfect existence. We’ve done that too in rebelling against God. Read the whole of the Old Testament and we can see how incapable humanity is of honouring God. And so God sends His Son to pay for our sin. To open the door again so that we can have a relationship with Him.

But have a listen to what the New Testament says about God’s peace and His rest and how to get it, how it becomes available to us. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 9 through 11:

So then a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from His. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one may fall through disobedience.

The one thing that takes God’s Sabbath rest away from us is what? Disobedience. And actually that’s something I’ve learned in my walk with God. It’s something I already know. When I’ve decided, on occasion, to go off in my own direction, to do things my way against Gods will, you know what happens? There’s no rest in that place, there’s no peace in that place.

Life starts getting hard and complicated. If we harbour anger in our hearts, if we fail to forgive people, if we steal or lie or grumble. Against God’s will and all of those things are against God’s will, we lose any sense of peace. On the other hand, when we obey God, well have a listen, 1 John chapter 5, verses 3 and 4:

For the love of God is this, that we obey His Commandments and His Commandments aren’t burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world and this is the victory that conquers the world. Our faith. When we obey God we have victory and what does that victory bring? When there’s a war and finally one side wins, what comes after that is peace. What comes after that is rest.

When Israel entered the Promised Land they fought battle after battle but they obeyed God and what happened? Joshua chapter 21, verse 44:

And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as He’d sworn to their ancestors.

My friend, the rest of God, His peace comes on His terms. The sooner we get that the sooner we’ll enter God’s rest. 

How you going today? It’s great to be with you and you know I’m particularly excited today because we’re talking about a subject that’s really dear to my heart. We’re talking about rest – entering into God’s rest.

That’s what we’ve been chatting about together over the last week and a half or so. Looking, I guess, at the spiritual and emotional reasons that so many people are so tired, so exhausted. And the reason we’ve looked at those is, first, is because I think in life we make the huge mistake often of under spiritualising things.

Take this whole tiredness/exhaustion pandemic going on across the world today. We, by and large, don’t notice that other people are chronically tired too. We really only feel that tiredness in our own lives. And perhaps we can see some of the physical reasons for that but how often do we stop and get a handle on the deep spiritual reasons for our tiredness?

That’s what we’ve been talking about over this last week and a half, the spiritual dimension. But you know I’ve been in Churches where all the preacher ever talks about is the spiritual dimension and rarely, if ever, deals with the day-to-day physical realities and issues and problems of life.

In other words, just as we can under spiritualise important issues like tiredness, there’s also a risk for a guy like me in over spiritualising. So today, today we’re going to take a reality check on the physical dimension of rest because that’s just as important as the spiritual dimension.

Now, how do we get physical rest? Well we sleep every night. We, hopefully, each have at least one day a week off work. Perhaps even two for most of us, that’s Saturdays and Sundays. And then once or twice a year we take a break from work, that being called a holiday.

Now that’s the ideal but the problem is that many, many people struggle incredibly to get that sort of physical rest in their lives. I mean take Japan for instance. Traditionally people work very, very long hours in Japan. Then many of them will go out for drinks and dinner with their work colleagues after work. And then on top of it they have a long commute home, an hour maybe even two by train, often not getting home until late at night only to have to get up really early, early the next morning to turn around, head back to the office and do it all again.

Socially that’s a huge issue for the Japanese. Others, well millions and millions of people work in sweat shops in the developing world for a few cents an hour to make consumer goods that we consume so veraciously in the developed world. The idea of getting two days a week off or a holiday, well that’s just a pipe dream.

And there are people like me who can choose to have time off but who are born workaholics. Who get up early in the morning and work until late in the evening, burning the candle at both ends.

So when it comes to talking about having physical rest I’m sharing some thoughts and hopefully just a bit of wisdom with you as someone who’s spent much of his life as a workaholic and suffered the consequences of that and learned to get some balance back into his life. Still learning actually.

Perhaps you’ve heard me quote this Psalm before but when we talk about getting physical rest in our lives it’s one that I come back to again and again because it speaks about God’s love and His will for me and I guess for you too, which is why I want to share it with you right now. Have a listen. Psalm 127 beginning at verse 1:

Unless the Lord builds the house those who built it labour in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city the guard keeps watch in vain. It’s in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest eating the bread of anxious toil. For God gives sleep to those whom He loves. (Psalm 127:1-2)

What I’ve discovered is that when we’re addicted to something or we have some entrenched pattern of behaviour going on in our lives that we can’t seem to shake we need a reason to change. And when that reason takes hold in our hearts the changing of our behaviour is much, much easier.

Let me give you an example. When I was young, in my late teenage years, my early 20’s, I was a heavy smoker – three packets a day, between 60 and 75 cigarettes a day. I was absolutely addicted. I’d tried to give up on many occasions but I failed over and over again.

Then one day I was in a hospital room with a woman dying of cancer. It had started in her lungs, she’d been a smoker too when she was young. And that night I stood there and I watched her breath her very last breathe. I saw the death rattle in her body when she died.

I walked out of that room that night, took the half full packet of cigarettes in my pocket, threw them in a bin just outside the door. That was back in 1983 and I haven’t had a single cigarette since that day.

So when something happens deep in our hearts it can result in powerful change in our lives and I think that’s what this Psalm is about. Have another listen, Psalm 127 beginning at verse 1:

Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. For He gives sleep to those whom He loves.

What it tells me is that God loves me. That He’s interested in my life. That He’s doing things in my life and I don’t have to kill myself to get it all done. Actually He doesn’t want me to work 18 hours a day. As long as I get about building the house that He’s building, all I have to do is my bit and He’ll take care of the rest.

And He wants me to have a good night sleep because He loves me. You know what? That touches my heart deep inside somewhere. So as much as I’m a workaholic by nature and as much as in growing a ministry like Christianityworks that serves you and millions of others around the world each day by producing and distributing these radio programs and as much as I love doing what I do, here’s what this Psalm has taught me to do.

Now I’m an early riser. This morning I was putting my notes together for today’s program I was up around 3.00am, had a cup of tea in bed and then after some time with the Lord in prayer, at my PC in the study by about 4.15am in the morning. I’ve always been an early riser. It’s when I do my best work.

But these days, even though I work a long day, come around 4.00/4.30pm in the afternoon I’m done, that’s it, I don’t work nights except on very rare occasions. I have almost all my weekends off and each year I try to take a couple of breaks, particularly over summer at Christmas to get away from work and I turn my emails off.

Now, those things may sound simple but making those changes have been a huge deal for me. I’ve discovered I can work hard, which I love, and have physical rest at the same time. And even though some nights I may only sleep 5 or 6 hours, other nights I make sure I get 8 or 9 hours to compensate.

I am through walking through life bleary eyed. It’s plain dumb, right? Now I don’t know your circumstances, maybe you have young children or a long commute, whatever it is but here’s the thing. Pretty much all of us can figure out how to get enough physical rest.

Sleep and a break from work once in a while to make sure that instead of being bleary eyed, good for nothing zombies, we’re more at the bright eyed, bushy tail end of the spectrum. And as well as just enjoying our lives a whole bunch more, it will bring God’s joy into our hearts because we know this is a gift from Him because He loves us and He wants us, you and me, to get a good night sleep. Do you get it?

Let me ask you something today as we come to the end of another week. When you hear the name ‘God’ what picture comes into your mind? Is it a picture of an old man or a father or a king? What does God look like in your heart.

We’re told that He’s a God of love but I suspect that many, many people have a much darker view of God. This view of a judgemental old man with a rule book. A God who keeps track of all our mistakes and all our faults and all our imperfections so that one day He can rub our noses into it.

Some people think of God as being vengeful and vindictive and despotic even. And to be sure, you open His word, the Bible, and you can find plenty of instances where the anger of God boils over and people are punished. You don’t have to look very far to find that at all.

And so when we talk, as we have been over these last few weeks on the program, about entering into the rest, the peace of God, entering into His peace, that can be something of an enigma. Some people’s reaction to that is, ‘Really? Do you think?’

The last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at the fact that tiredness is a global pandemic. So many people are chronically tired, chronically exhausted and all the time God wants us to enter into His rest. But in order to do that we need to know that He’s a good God with a good plan for our lives.

How can I possibly enter into the rest and the peace of God when there are things in my past that I’ve done wrong? Things that have offended God. How can I do that? ‘I know, I know, the Bible talks about forgiveness. I know the theory. I’ve sinned, Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins so that justice would be done and so therefore when I believe in Him I’m forgiven. I know the theory’. But I struggle to believe it in my heart, in my life.

Can I tell you, that’s exactly what’s going on in many people’s hearts? There’s this yawning gap between the theory that they may have heard over and over again and the knowledge that if they were God they wouldn’t find it so easy to forgive. So why should God forgive them?

And that nagging doubt is what stops people from entering the rest of God, the peace of God. I kind of relate to that, it’s one of the reasons I spent most of my early years running away from God. Because deep down I knew, I just knew He wanted to punish me. So better to avoid Him for as long as possible.

Now, since God is a God of vengeance, punishment and retribution just as much as He’s a God of love, we need to find something somewhere that shows us how that works and what end of the equation we’re on, the vengeance end or the mercy end.

And I know no better place to get an explanation of that than from God’s own mouth, His word. Have a listen, Psalm 103 beginning at verse 8:

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always accuse nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our inequities. For as the heavens are high above the earth so great is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children so the Lord has compassion for those who fear Him. For He knows how we are made, He remembers that we’re just dust. (Psalm 103:8-14)

So yes He is both merciful and gracious on the one hand but He does have anger. The thing that puts us either on one end of that or the other, well He tells us that too in that passage. Verse 13: He has compassion for His children, those who fear Him.

Who’s that? Anyone who’s put their trust in Jesus Christ His Son.

Because God loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him wouldn’t perish but instead would have eternal life. (John 3:16)

And the moment we do that, the moment we trust that Jesus really did take our sin on His shoulders on that cross so that we could be forgiven, then we are forgiven. And then: As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.

Do you see the powerful language? He loves us more than we can ever imagine and He separates our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. I love the bit at the end too where it says in verse 14: For He knows how we are made, He remembers that we are just dust.

In other words He understands, He cuts us some slack to make mistakes and learn and grow just as we do with our own kids. Because we love them more than they can ever, ever know. God is a good God, He has good plans for thee and for me. Have a listen, Jeremiah chapter 29 beginning at verse 11:

‘For surely I know the plans I have for you’, says the Lord, ‘plans for your welfare not for your harm to give you a future of hope. Then when you call on Me and come and pray to Me I will hear you. When you search for Me you will find Me, if you seek Me with all your heart I will let you find Me’, says the Lord.

‘And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.’ (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

That was written to God’s people, Israel, when to their shock and horror the Babylonians came along and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, the very Temple where the presence of God dwelt and took Gods own people into captivity. So these people were gutted, they were demoralised, they were dispossessed.

They more than perhaps anyone else at any other time could be forgiven for thinking that God was vengeful, an old man with a big stick. Of course it took several centuries for God to become so angry with them at their idolatry and their unfaithfulness to Him for Him actually to allow this punishment to befall them.

But I guess if you or I were in their shoes we’d probably be forgiven for missing that bit too. And so right in the middle of the mess in which they found themselves God says to them, in affect, ‘I’m a good God, I have good plans for you, come and seek Me with all your heart and you will absolutely find Me’.

And that, that’s what I believe God wants you and me to hear today. That whatever image we might have of Him in our heads and in our hearts, He’s a good God. A God of amazing grace. A God who has His best in mind for us.

Of course we’ll walk through the wilderness from time to time. Through trials and through sufferings. Times when it feels like God’s a million miles away. Of course we will. And there will be times in our lives when, like Israel, we’re left wondering about the sort of God that God actually is.

That’s why it’s important for us today to get God’s word into our hearts: He is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

Love that is higher than we can ever imagine, with a forgiveness through Jesus Christ, His Son, that is absolutely more complete than we can ever begin to understand. And this God, this God has good plans for us, for you and for me. That’s why we can enter into His rest.

That’s why it is that when we abide in Him, I love that word ‘abide’, we can finally, finally enter into His rest and experience the peace and the joy that Jesus Christ came to bring us.