Man it’s been a tough few years, hasn’t it. Everything seems to have changed. Pandemics, wars, division, strife … not to mention the usual things life throws at us day after day. Perhaps that’s why so many people in this world are so tired, so exhausted. Perhaps … you’re one of them.

So many people in this world are so … tired. Exhausted. And it doesn’t matter how clever you are, how emotionally resilient you or how strong you might be … when you’re tired, you’re just not functioning at your best. When you’re tired, you’re simply not enjoying life.

GOD’S IDEAL FOR THEE AND ME

Last week on the programme we kicked off a new series of messages called, “O God I Need a Rest,” because this is what so many, many people need – a rest. So many people are tired, too tired, to have quality time with their friends or their family; too tired to be truly part of a faith community; too tired to enjoy life; too tired, well, just too tired. And here’s the funny thing: we just keep on keeping on – same commute, same pressures at work, come home at night exhausted, up the next morning, Friday – weekend, collapse, back on Monday again.

We just keep going – we know something is wrong – we know life shouldn’t be like this but it is and that’s it and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just have to keep on going. I’m trapped on this treadmill that I can’t get off. And you don’t hear too many people talking about this problem either – we know we are all tired, just get on with it. Now I have absolutely nothing against hard work, but where’s the balance; where’s the joy; what’s the point?

Today I’d like to share with you that this exhaustion; this tiredness is not God’s plan for our lives. As we saw last week, it says in Psalm 127:

It is 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.

In other words, God wants us to have a rest. That’s why we are talking about rest – a simple straight forward ‘how to’; how to enter into God’s rest – how to live smack, bang in the centre of God’s peace. Last week on the programme we saw that God, after His mighty act of creation, rested and that He thought that, that day of rest was so important that He commanded His people to keep a Sabbath day, set apart for Him.

Now He didn’t rest because He was exhausted; He rested to sit back and enjoy His creation. So for God, right up front there, is a simple pattern of work and rest. You and I we need both and actually that wonderful creation; that sense of work and then enjoying this world, that’s something He’s also gifted to us – humanity.

See sometimes, we imagine that God’s blessing and His goodness and His whole rest and peace thing can’t possibly be for us. But come and have a look with me at what He did with all He created – let this rock your sock off! Genesis chapter 1, beginning at verse 26:

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’.

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.’

And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And so it was.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning on the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.

And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3)

There it is! God creates this stunning universe, hands it over for the man and the woman, for you and for me, to enjoy that creation. ‘Here, here, it’s yours, subdue it, till it or farm it, be fruitful, multiply and enjoy.’ See God only rests once He’s created everything and given it away to the people; to the man and the woman – both of them made in His image. That’s the joy He has in His creation. And then in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and to keep it.

And He gives the man a woman to be his wife, his partner and they enjoy this life in the Garden, safe, at rest, working, resting in relationship with God. That was God’s original plan for His people – that He would be their God and that they would be His people – safe and at rest. Now we know that Adam and Eve ruined that and we will look at that later on in the programme but for now let’s just stick with God’s original plan.

It was never His plan for us to be out of close relationship and fellowship with Him or with each other. It was never His plan for us to be amid strife and conflict. It was never His plan for us to be carrying around heavy burdens. It was never His plan to see you and me groaning under the burden of a weight that was crushing us. Those things were never, ever His first and His best plan for us.

What’s befallen us has done so because Adam and Eve and then you and me, in our turn; we all in our own way, in our own time, have turned our backs on God. As I said, that’s for later. But if you are somehow imagining that God couldn’t possibly bring you peace and rest into your life, then it’s time to think again. Look at what He did – He created the whole universe, handed it over to Adam and Eve; to us, to humanity, to enjoy – both to work and to rest, just as God Himself had done.

This is the point I believe God wants us to get today; that right from the very, very, very beginning, His plan was a good one. And here’s the thing: there’s a reason why they call Jesus ‘The Saviour.’ A lot of people wonder to themselves, ‘What could He possibly save me from? I’m not lost, I’m not in trouble,’ and so they conclude they don’t need Jesus. And sadly, let me say, all too often, these are the very same people who are carrying around those heavy burdens. These are the very same people who are being crushed under the yoke of slavery to their sin. That’s why Jesus came; that’s why Jesus said – Matthew chapter 11, beginning at verse 29 – He said:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:29-30)

God has heard the cry of His people and He has come to do something about it – that’s His plan for you and for me.

BOOTED OUT OF THE GARDEN

Every now and then I get to thinking, ‘God, why am I so tired? Why do I have to work so hard?’ I’m sure that’s a thought that’s gone through your mind just once or twice as well. And when we are in the middle of this tiredness and exhaustion, we keep going and we keep going and through our blurry eyes, it seems we see things just from a human perspective – a purely physical and emotional perspective. The fact that sometimes life is just hard work and we are tired – ‘Well, that’s how it is! What alternative do I have? I’ll just keep on going till I drop.’ Right?

But tiredness and exhaustion; they’re not just human; they’re not just physical and emotional. There’s a deep spiritual dimension to hard work and exhaustion – a dimension that starts almost at the beginning of time – unless we get that and deal with that, no amount of physical rest is going to bring rest into our lives.

Before the break we had a bit of a look at God’s ideal plan for humanity – straight out of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 in the Bible. God made this amazing, utterly stunning creation, the universe; all the stars and the planets and here on earth, the land and the water and the animals and the plants and of course people and He put us, Adam and Eve, into the creation; into the Garden to work it and to enjoy it.

See, some people think that the whole working bit didn’t happen until after the fall; after Adam and Eve ate the ‘apple’ that they shouldn’t have eaten. But it’s not true – listen again – Genesis chapter 2, verse 15:

The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

So, there was work and rest, together, making up a perfect existence for Adam and Eve. But we know the story, that Adam and Eve did the one thing that God told them not to do – they ate that ‘apple’ from that one tree that God had forbidden – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Smack, bang, right in the middle of the Garden. They did what you and I do. God gives us everything He has created and says, ‘Look, here – there you go, enjoy it.’

And He puts boundaries around just this tiny portion of that. He calls that ‘sin’, He sets it off-limits because it will hurt us and tells us not to go there but we go there anyway. Not His plan but He wants to give us a choice to love and obey Him or to reject and disobey Him. And as sure as God made those little green apples, we chose the latter; just like Adam and Eve before us and the moment they did that, everything started to come apart. Even before God showed up to talk to them, they were ashamed in front of one another and they ran and hid from God. And God came and spoke to them and after He dealt with the tempter, the serpent. Have a listen. To the woman He said – this comes from Genesis chapter 3, beginning at verse 16:

To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return’. (Genesis 3:16-19)

So before they rebelled against God, there was work. They tilled and kept the Garden – that literally means they had to do labour in it to work it and look after it. But after the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God, tilling turns to toiling – “… in toil you shall eat of the ground all the days of your life.” The original Hebrew word there means ‘pain, labour, hardship, sorrow, toil’ and in my book, those things lead to exhaustion.

Do you see now the spiritual dimension of what’s going on when we are slogging our guts out day after day, when instead of tilling we are toiling. Things only became difficult for the man and the woman when they rebelled against God. That’s why things are tough sometimes in this world – we live on the other side of that. That was never the original plan but toil replaced tilling after humanity rebelled against God.

And let me say to you today, still, whenever we rebel against God; whenever we pull in the opposite direction to God; whenever we go to that tiny roped off area called ‘sin’ where He tells us not to go, I can absolutely guarantee that toil will come – and with toil, pain and sorrow and with those, exhaustion.

Now you might say to me, ‘Berni, that may well be, but does that mean if I honour God; if I obey God, will my life be a bed of roses? Because that’s what I’ve been doing and it ain’t so?’ And the answer is, ‘No, not always,’ because we live in a world where humanity has rejected God and sometimes, you and I have to live through the consequences of other peoples’ rebellion against God and that hurts. Great!

So what, if anything useful, do we learn from God here, about the link between sin and exhaustion? Well, simply this: there are plenty of things out there in this world that you and I have no control over – sickness, disease, wars, riots, economic failures, other peoples’ greed – lots of things out there; things that can impact our lives. Let me tell you something: we do have control over our own sin and we can join hands with God to deal with our own sin and our own rebellion, till we progressively get rid of negative impact of that sin in our lives, we start to discover the rest of God.

This is what I have found: there seems to be a power, a power of God, the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives that enables us to deal with the other stuff when we are living our lives in obedience to God. Time and time again I have found that when I am living in obedience to God, then when the difficult things do come from the things out there I can’t control, I’m able to walk through them with a peace and a confidence I just never had before.

Sin, my friend, leads to toil. Toil equals pain, sorrow and hardship and that’s what makes us tired – that’s the spiritual dimension; that’s the bad news but after the short break we are going to take a look at the good news.

GOD’S REST IS STILL AVAILABLE TO US

I have some good news – in fact, I have some fantastic news for you. God knows the problem and He wants to give us a rest and not just any kind of rest – His rest! It’s something that sometimes we don’t expect of God. We have our spirituality over here in this box and over there in that box we have our day-to-day lives. For many people, they never make the connection between their spirituality; their faith in God, on the one hand and their day-to-day lives on the other – between God and life; between God and their tiredness and exhaustion. Well may they exclaim, ‘Oh God, I need a rest!’ But mostly they don’t expect an answer.

I want to show you right now that God does have an answer – that He plans to answer us and He wants to deal with our tiredness. This is where the rubber hits the road. Now what we have been talking about is that God’s plan for our lives is a good one and how humanity, you and I, ended up snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

In a nutshell, Genesis chapter 1, God creates this ammaazzing universe – light, heavens, earth, day, night, oceans, land, plants, animals and you and me – complete splendour in His creation. Have a look around! And then He puts us; you and me in the middle of it all; and gives it away; He gives it to us – everything He’s created. On the seventh day God rested, not because He was exhausted but to enjoy all that He’d done and all that He’d given away to you and me – to delight in that.

Then Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, He tells us that we are called to till the land and look after it – there is work and there is rest. God’s perfect plan is a perfect relationship with Him – both working and resting. But … and this is the point that we arrived at earlier, then we blew it – at least Adam and Eve did. They did the one thing that God told them not to do – they ate that ‘apple’ from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and everything from that point; all of God’s good and perfect plan for humanity started to unravel.

So we go from a good and perfect plan to toiling and suffering. That’s what happened when humanity rejected God. Look around the world – sin ushered in pain and suffering and toiling and exhaustion. That’s the bad news, but here’s the good news! The good news is that God wants us to experience His rest and that rest, that peace has everything to do with us living in obedience to Him.

Have a listen – the writer of the New Testament Book of Hebrews has just gone through a fairly lengthy explanation of how the rebellion of Israel during the Exodus in the wilderness, stopped them from entering God’s rest. Have a read for yourself Hebrews chapter 3. Now let’s pick it up in chapter 4 and listen carefully. Hebrews chapter 4, beginning at verse 1:

Therefore, while the promise of entering God’s rest is still open, let us take care that none of us should seem to have failed to reach it. For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “As in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day—“today” – saying through David much later, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. 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 such as theirs. (Hebrews 4:1-11)

Now, the logic of the writer of this letter of Hebrews uses there makes you and I feel just a bit convoluted. He’s providing an argument that his readers would have understood back in the first century, with their historical mindset. But it’s a little bit more obscure to you and me, here and now. But here’s the gist of what he’s saying: what God is indeed saying to you and me through this passage is that all the Israelite … all of them; hundreds of thousands, perhaps well over a million, who fled from Egypt – all of them, bar two, perished in the desert. They failed to reach the Promised Land after that forty-year exodus. They failed to enter into God’s rest – this land of milk and honey – because of their disobedience.

Let that stand as a lesson to you and to me. Disobedience means that we won’t end up in God’s promises and in God’s rest. That’s what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. And the punch line … the whole point of what God is saying to you and me, right here and now, comes in just the last couple of verses – verses 9 and 10 of Hebrews chapter 4:

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

God’s plan is for each one of us to know a rest that goes way beyond a day or two off each week … a rest that goes way beyond a week or two of holidays every year. It’s a deep abiding peaceful rest; entering the rest of God; a blessed rest from toil and trouble. The sort of rest that can happen in the middle of the most terrible of life’s storms when we experience a peace that just doesn’t make sense. All the burdens we have been carrying around just lift of our shoulders and we don’t have to worry in this world anymore.

This is not me heading off on some flight of fancy, this is exactly what God says to us in His Word. Have a listen. Isaiah chapter 40, beginning at verse 28:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40: 28-31)

You see that’s exactly what God promises us – rest, peace, rejuvenation when we come into a loving relationship of obedience with Him. I think this is great news! I mean a fantastic place to finish off this week. And it’s good news that we will be talking a lot more on the programme again next week when we take a look at exactly how to enter into this rest that’s available to God’s people.

So many people are struggling to get enough rest in their lives. One of the reasons for that, is that we think we can burn the candle at both ends, we think we can do it our way. But … God made us. He knows us.  Maybe we need to try, His way.

One of the reason that so many people are so exhausted with life, is that they’re carrying the heavy burden of worry, around on their shoulders. I wonder … if you know anyone like that. You can’t enjoy life, you can’t find the rest you so desperately need, when you’re carrying around the worries of the world. You just can’t.

NO WORRIES

I’ve met people in this world and all they do, all the time, is worry. It’s part of our human nature, I guess, when confronted with something beyond us; something that appears to be overwhelming; something that could well have negative consequences in our lives and here’s what we do: we turn it over and over and over in our heads. We imagine each of those negative consequences that could arise over and over and over. And can I tell you, that sort of thinking just drives you into the ground. It’s like ‘around and around and around we go’ and from experience, I can tell you, it’s just exhausting. You probably know the feeling because no doubt, you have been there too.

Well, over the last few weeks we have been talking about entering into God’s rest – actually finding a deep rest instead of carrying the weight of the world round on our shoulders. But when we are worrying – around and around – there can be no rest because worrying robs us of God’s rest. That’s why we need to deal with that once and for all. My hunch is there are a few people today – perhaps me included – who need to hear what God has to say on worrying.

Remember last week, if you were with us on the programme, we talked about the fact that God loves us and because He loves us, He wants us to have rest. Have another listen. Psalm 127, beginning at verse 2:

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.

Anxiousness is about worrying, isn‘t it? And whatever the one big thing is that each of us is worrying about in our lives, right at the moment, it’s a bit like a dark cloud that hangs over us that never goes away. Jesus knew that! That’s why He had this to say about worrying – this habit that we have fallen into; this worrying that we do that robs us of the rest and the peace that God wants us to have.

Have a listen – I love the way He calls a spade a spade and tells it the way it is. And look, if you need a wakeup call; if you need some healing from this habit of worrying, please listen closely. Perhaps it’s a familiar passage but may … maybe; just maybe, it’s something we need to hear afresh and anew because when God speaks into our lives through His Spirit and His Word, He can bring healing in an instant into something that has been troubling us for a life time. Here we go – Matthew chapter 6, beginning at verse 25:

“Therefore I tell you,” said Jesus, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothing? I mean, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither spin nor toil, yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of those. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But instead, first strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well, “So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have enough worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

You know the bit I really like, that hits me between the eyes in this, is Matthew chapter 6, verse 27, it says, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” I mean, it’s blindingly, glimpsingly obvious, isn’t it? Worrying about something has a zero positive effect on the outcome; worrying isn’t going to produce a good outcome. If there are retrenchments going around in the company where we work, worrying about whether we’re going to be next, simply isn’t going to change the outcome. In fact, worrying actually has a negative effect because it immobilises us – it stops us from using our imagination; our creativity, to find solutions; it stops us from doing the things that we can do to fix the problem.

Here’s a classic: ‘Oh, I’m worried about the debt I’ve racked up on my credit card – how am I … how am I going to pay it off? What am I going to do? I know I’ll go and buy something to make me feel better!’ Right? I mean, that’s what people do! Not only is worrying never, ever, ever going to have a positive impact on a problem, it more often than not, robs us of the solution.

God knows. He knows what we need. He knows we need a job and income and food and somewhere to live … He knows those things. And He also knows when our body is going to fail us. He knows the precise instant when we will leave our bodies behind and go and stand before Him. He knows that! Man, worry is useless and above all, it robs us of God’s rest.

I truly believe that God wants you and me to understand that today and I truly believe that His Word is going to have a powerful and a mighty impact on both of us today. The Lord’s advice is simple: just give it up! Stop worrying and replace that worrying with something else – focus your mind and your energies and your heart on something else.

First strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all those other things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

And so that’s what I choose to do when the devil sows seeds of doubt and worry in my mind. My friend, the devil wants us to worry – he knows that it robs us of the rest of God, the peace of God, the joy of God, the power of God. And today is a day for us to decide to leave that behind – to focus our lives on seeking after God and His Kingdom and His goodness; on living our lives out for Him, first and foremost and then all these other things that we need will be given to us as well. That’s the promise! He loves us, He’s our Dad; He will give us what we need. He will let us travel through whatever He chooses and one day … one day, when we stand before Him, none of those things will matter anymore.

So listen, do yourself a favour, don’t worry about tomorrow; just don’t! It’s not my idea, it’s His!

MY LORD, MY HELPER

You know something, I think we would worry a whole bunch less if we truly came to grips with the fact that God … God isn’t just the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He’s also our helper. Now, a close friend of mind, Graham, turned seventy just recently. He was a Colonel in the Army when I was a Captain serving under him and then we formed an I.T. consulting firm together with a third guy and we did that way back in 1988. Graham was a year younger then than I am now. And as I was writing his birthday card just recently, I stopped to think back on what incredibly hard work it had been starting off that consulting firm.

The three of us left the Army – none of us really had ever run a business or worked in the private sector before. And those first five to seven years we had to cast something new out of that coalface. We had to develop experience and develop a client base and develop a company from scratch. There were months we couldn’t pay ourselves. There were times we didn’t know whether we would survive. They were a tough few years! And then when it grew and became successful and it was even hard work maintaining that success – you’re only as good as your last job in the consulting game.

But there was one thing … one thing that made it tolerable and that one thing was Graham. See, funny thing – I was a fresh-faced young Captain, working for Graham, the Colonel in the Army, but we hit it off; just kind of clicked. So when he invited me into this new venture after we had all left the Army, I jumped at it. And ultimately, Graham and our other partner – he had been a Major, Mark – and I were three equal shareholders in this consulting firm. We owned it together but we made Graham the Managing Director; the CEO, if you will. And there was a reason for that – he was the oldest – twenty years my senior and he was the smartest. Graham had and still has a wisdom that I value very highly.

When I read the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, a lot of it is about wisdom – passages like this one; Proverbs chapter 3, verses 13 and 14:

Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver and her revenue better that gold.

When I read passages like that I think of his wisdom. He took a hold of me when I was in my late twenties – smart as a button, lots of energy, lots of enthusiasm … but frankly, a bit immature. I had a lot to learn and Graham took it upon himself to teach me. For the next seventeen years or so, he was my mentor and I in fact, was his deputy; his understudy. Now it took me a while to realise it, but without him doing what he did for me, I wouldn’t be who I am today. It’s as simple as that!

But here’s the thing, even though he was the oldest and the smartest and we made him the boss, if you like and even though he was a strong leader, he made those tough, early years tolerable by being our servant. You see, he didn’t sit up on high and push memos and edicts out the door; he put his nose to the grindstone. He pushed harder than just about anyone I have ever known. Now, why am I telling you this?

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at how tired and how exhausted we all get in life and what to do about it – how to enter into God’s rest. And we are continuing with that theme today on the programme and what we are doing, I guess, is getting down into the nitty gritty of how to enter into God’s rest. How actually, to live a life where we are not physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted because that’s what a lot of people are – exhausted.

What we need in life, so often, is help. Help, not just in doing what we have to do, as important as that may be, but also in making things better – help in dealing with things, in coping with things, help in changing things for the better, help in learning how to improve, how to behave differently, how to react differently, because all of those things make a difference … a huge difference to our lives.

When we get things right, irrespective of the pressures that life brings, we can have rest. If we don’t; if we are angry all the time, or touchy or if we take things personally all the time, then we are going to be exhausted. And when I started off working in this fledgling I.T. consulting firm, way back in 1988, the last thing I expected was to get a mentor like Graham to teach me those things in life. He imparted his wisdom into my life through the things we experienced together – the conflict situations in client organisations, the financial pressures, dealing with difficult staff, planning the future – all those experiences he used very carefully to teach me his wisdom. What an incredible blessing and one that I didn’t expect, from the Colonel, the boss.

And I guess that brings me to the point of what I am trying to say. This same mentorship and guidance and help is something that God promises us, over and over and over and over again. Some of the feminists get a bit upset when, in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it says that Eve, the woman, that she was Adam’s helper. Because we have this wacky, hierarchical view of the world that puts the helper below the one being helped, on the old totem pole, right?

But what would you say if I told you that throughout the Old Testament, whenever that word ‘helper’ is used, by far the most common usage of it is in terms of God being our helper. Psalm 54, verse 4:

But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.

Jesus was very specific about wanting to be our ‘helper’. Matthew chapter 11, beginning at verse 28:

Come to me, all who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me; because I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Picture two oxen, yoked together, pulling the load together and what the farmers did is they would always put a young, inexperienced ox with an older, more mature one, who knew the drill and could teach the younger one how to do it. Imagine God’s own Son; the Creator of the universe; the King of Kings; the Lord of Lords, is saying to you and me, in effect, ‘So, ah, things are tough, eh? Well, come and do it My way. Come on, let Me teach you and show you. I’ll put my shoulder into it too. I’ll use all that I am and all that I have to lighten your load – it’s much easier that way and you’ll discover rest for your souls.’

See, that’s what Jesus is saying. We never, ever expect God to be our helper. He is always way up there and we’re way down here, in the pecking order … But the reason I told you about Graham and how he impacted my life is that I think it’s the best way of explaining what Jesus is talking about here. Except that, instead of having a fallible man doing our mentoring and helping and serving, Jesus is talking about God Himself doing that for us.

So, every trial, every tribulation, every tough spot and tight corner and pot-hole in the road; every situation that exhausts us is our opportunity to say, ‘Hang on, there’s a different way of handling this. I don’t have to be scared or upset or angry. All those things are exhausting – there is a bold, practical promise from the Son of God that if I get myself yoked up alongside Him, that it will be much easier; that even though I am pulling this heavy load, that God will be my helper, guiding me as to which direction I should head in, how fast I should walk. And then putting His shoulder to the wheel and pushing in the same direction as me. Now that … that is rest!

GOOD GOD, GOOD PLANS

As we come to the end of this series on entering into God’s rest, there’s just one more issue I think we need to deal with and that is the perception that it can’t possibly be for me or for you because we are just not worthy. How can I possibly enter into the rest of God when I know there are things in my past that I’ve done wrong; things that have offended God? We know the theory many of us; that we are forgiven through our faith in Jesus but we struggle to believe it in our hearts.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve spent most of my early years running away from God because deep down I knew … I mean, I just knew that He was going to punish me so, better to avoid Him for a long as possible. But have a listen to this – if you have got a Bible, open it at 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 does he repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

                  so great is his steadfast love toward those who      fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

                  so far he removes our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion for his kids,

                  so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

For he knows how we were made;

                  he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:8-14)

So, yes, He is both merciful and gracious on the one hand but God does have anger. The thing that puts us either on one end of that or the other, well, He tells us in this passage; verse 13, “He has compassion for His children; those who fear Him.” Who are His children? Anyone who puts 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, 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 this Psalm applies to us:

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

That is so beautiful! If you struggle with getting your heart and your mind around the forgiveness of God, can I implore you to grab a Bible and this week, spend some time in this short Psalm; Psalm 103, verses 8 to 14. It is such powerful language and they are not my words, they’re God’s Words. This is the Word of God! The Spirit of God wants to take this and place it in our hearts so that we can wrap our hearts around God’s forgiveness. He loves us more than we can ever imagine and He separates us from our sin as far as the east is from the west. And I love the bit at the end too, where it says in verse 14, that “He knows who we are; He remembers that we’re 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 that they can ever, ever imagine.

God … God is a good God and He as good plans, for thee and for me. Have a listen to this: Jeremiah 29, beginning at verse 11 – God says to His people who were struggling, who were in captivity, who thought they had lost everything, He says:

“For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and you 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 to you your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and the places where I have driven you,” says the Lord,” and I will bring you back … back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

Sometimes we feel like we’re in exile; sometimes we feel like everything has gone wrong, and God has failed us, or maybe God’s not strong enough or maybe God’s not there, or maybe God has just lost interest in our plight. Sometimes we feel like that and we just need to know that God does want us to enter into His rest. Of course we’ll walk through wildernesses from time to time, trials, suffering – of course we will. And there will be times in our lives like Israel, when we are left wondering about what sort of God, God actually is.

That’s why it’s important for us today to get God’s Word into our hearts. God “is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” … a love that’s higher than we can imagine, “As high as the heavens are above the earth,” with a forgiveness that’s more complete than we can ever imagine. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

And He has good plans for us – that’s why we can enter His rest. And every time I think to myself, you know, ‘I just don’t deserve that. I turn my back on God and I sinned and I rebelled and I rejected Him,’ I remember that Jesus looked at that and He didn’t let my failings – my sin, stop Him from going to the cross for me. In fact, it was because of my sin; it was because of your sin, that Jesus went to the cross.

That’s the whole point – because we needed saving. And that’s why we can enter His rest. Not when we die – right now – we can enter His rest. When we abide in Him – I love that word ‘abide’ – we finally, finally enter into His rest and experience the peace and the joy that Jesus came to bring us.

My friend, God does not want you or me to live the rest of our lives absolutely exhausted. Sure, He wants us to do some things. Sure, that means hard work sometimes. But, you know what, right in the middle of that hard work, He wants to be yoked up next to us and pushing in the same direction as us, so that you and I can enter the rest of God.