All Eyes On Me

The Othniel cycle is paradigmatic in the sense that it provides us with a general framework

that guides our understanding of all the other cycles.

Very little detail is given us here.

This is the shortest of all of the judge narratives here.

There's little detail given about the people and the circumstances involved.

And that's because the purpose here is to show us a pattern that structures every story.

And it's the pattern that we find already mentioned in chapter 2.

So one author describes it this way.

That the Othniel cycle gives historical flesh to the theological bones of chapter 2.

So when we're thinking, what is the, actually the, why it says so little about what is happening here.

So what's really the purpose in including it?

Well, the author has a particular purpose.

He's told us in chapter 2 his theological interpretation of Israel's unfaithfulness.

He's given us this cycle of sin and judgment and salvation that just returns back to sin and judgment and salvation again.

And now he takes a real life example from Israel's history at the beginning of this time period.

And he says, it's a lot like this into the Othniel cycle.

And he just gives us kind of the bare bones of this structure.

So we come to it and we may think, relative to all the other stories and judges, this one is boring.

There's not much here.

It's very bland.

But before you dismiss it, there's something else we need to consider about its purpose.

This opening cycle is intentionally vague because it's not ultimately about Israel.

It's not about Kushan Rishathame.

It's not even about Othniel.

It's about God's divine action through, for, and against these people.

In this text, Kushan Rishathame is not the judge of Israel.

God is.

In the same sense, Othniel is not really the true savior in this narrative.

God is the savior here.

Israel doesn't sin in the eyes of the world.

Israel sins in the eyes of God.

And the rest that is awarded to them in verse 11 is not won because of Israel's valiance in war.

It is given to them as a gift of God's grace.

You say, well, what are you saying?

I'm saying that we're not meant to be distracted by the people and the circumstances.

Our eyes are meant to be set on the God who is sovereign over all of them.

And this is a critical dynamic to this paradigm that the Othniel cycle presents to us.

No matter what narrative we're studying as we work through the book of Judges,

it is always about the glory of God.

It's never about these men.

It's never really about Israel.

Ultimately, it's about telling us who God is and how God acts

and how he has provided salvation for his people.

Now, whenever I teach Adventure Club, whenever it's my turn to teach the lesson,

I have this habit of repeating a couple of phrases

whenever their eyes begin to wonder a little bit.

This happens on Sunday mornings, but I don't usually say the phrases.

Sometimes there's lots happening around.

When we were at the acting out studio, it was the worst

because we had all those windows, right?

So people could be pulling into the parking lot

or walking right behind the windows and staring in,

not realizing that there's people staring right back and all those things.

Now, take all of our kids in our church.

You put them there, and you don't have the backdrop anymore.

A lot of times we did, but sometimes we didn't have the backdrop,

and then all this stuff is happening.

Their eyes begin to wonder, doesn't it?

And when your eyes wonder, your mind wonders, right?

And so I would have these phrases that I say all the time.

I'd say, all right, give me your eyes.

Give me your eyes, or all eyes on me.

Now, when we come to this particular passage,

I think that's a helpful way to understand what's happening here.

It's as if God is saying, all right, give me your eyes.

There's lots of things here to distract us.

We can get into Othniel, and we can get into Cushan, Rishathame,

and we can get into Mesopotamia and where that is

and what that's all about and what exactly happened in this whole scenario.

We can get distracted with all those stuff, all those things,

but God's saying right from the beginning,

as you go through this, keep your eyes on me.

Look at me.

This is about me, God says.

So that's what I want to lead you to do this morning.

As we work through this text,

I want to lead you to turn your eyes to the Lord God, okay?

So we're going to try our best to take our eyes off of the circumstances and the people,

and we're going to look at how God is acting here.

And the first thing that we find that is true about him is his holiness,

the holiness of God.

Verse 7.

The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherah.

Now, as always, the cycle opens with a statement of Israel's apostasy.

And as we learned in chapter 2,

the heart of Israel's evil was an issue of worship.

It's an issue of worship.

That's why Baal and the Asherah are mentioned once again here.

Now, it's not that Israel had become ignorant of God.

Neither is it that they suffered from some type of spiritual amnesia

that just caused them to intellectually forget him.

That's not what this means.

The nation as a whole willfully abandoned the Lord to pursue the gods of Canaan.

To them, what Baal offered was more attractive.

It was more desirable.

So they left Yahweh in their worship of Yahweh to go after the gods of the land.

But instead of rehashing that all over again, we did that in chapter 2.

Instead of rehashing that, I want to point out an important word in this verse.

Look at it with me again at the very beginning.

The people of Israel are said to have done evil in the sight of the Lord.

It's important.

It's important.

Because to Israel, to the Israelites, they saw no problem mixing with the people of the land.

Culturally, maritally, religiously.

They just didn't think it was a big deal.

That's why over and over and over in the book of Judges, we see this refrain where it says that all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

But when we come here, we find that the evil that they have done is evil not in their eyes.

It's evil in the sight of God.

If this generation of Israelites lived today, perhaps they would say something like this.

We're not quite as old-fashioned as our parents were.

We believe to be on the right side of history.

It's necessary to affirm the culture and beliefs of the people around us.

After all, who are we to say that the way of Yahweh is better than the way of Baal?

Well, surely we can find ways to accommodate the deeply held beliefs of the people of the land.

It's not hard to see how many Christians today follow this same path, right?

We've got to remember, good and evil are not determined by the ever-changing winds of culture.

There must be objective truth.

That doesn't change.

And that's what God has revealed for us in His Word.

If there's anything that we must stand on as a first order of importance in Christian faith,

it must be that God has given His Word that is infallible.

It's inerrant.

It's inspired.

And it's authoritative.

It is objective truth.

And it remains objective truth in every season and in every culture and among every people group.

What matters is what God says.

Not what we feel.

It doesn't matter that the people of Israel did what they felt was good and right.

Evil is what God says it is.

And we need to remember that.

He's the Holy One.

He alone determines good and evil.

All of our beliefs, then, must be subject to His Word.

Now, I'm not denying that we don't live in a complex time

and that there aren't issues that arise among our culture and among our churches and among our families

that aren't complex.

And we have to grapple with that.

It's not usually as black and white as we want it to be.

I'm not denying that that's true.

But what I mean to say is that all of our convictions,

they must first be rooted in God's Word.

They must be.

Our thoughts on gender and sex and race and marriage and worship and our work

must all be rooted in what God is,

what God has said,

and what God has done.

And too often we get that backwards.

Where we're presented with a particular issue in our lives

or we're presented with an issue that we really need to deal with,

whether it's in our family or in our church

or maybe it's just with a co-worker or something like that in conversation.

And you can't just ignore it.

You have to deal with it in some way.

You have to think about it.

And so many times we start at the wrong end.

We start by kind of examining the thoughts that are out there

and the different perspectives.

And then we examine what is my personal experience like

versus what is their personal experience like?

And can we come to some type of truth?

And once we kind of get an idea of where we're going to land

on the thought process and on the issue itself,

then we kind of go to the Word as Christians

and we say, okay, does this fit with what the Bible says?

And see, the danger in that is that we'll always end up

making the Bible say what we want it to say.

We got to get that the other way around

so that no matter what the issue is,

we start here and we ask questions.

What does the Word say?

What does it say about who God is?

What does it say about what God does?

What does it say about God's character and the way he acts?

What are the implications of all of that?

And then once we establish all of that theologically

in our hearts and in our minds,

then we sit down from there

and we start to view all of the issues in our lives

and in our culture and in our church

through the lens of the Bible.

Because if we don't do that, we'll end up being like Israel.

And we'll slip into these cycles of self-destructive sin

and we'll get to the end and everything seems okay to us.

We reason it out.

It's rational.

But then it ends up being evil in the sight of God.

Because what we ultimately did

was cause his Word to fit what we thought

rather than fixing what we think

on the foundation of his Word.

Are you with me?

There's an issue here with Israel,

their worship, their view of the Bible.

It's an issue with Christianity today.

The biggest issue I think that we're facing

as Christians and in churches today

is a high view of the Scripture.

We're losing a commitment

to the faithful exposition of the Bible in many churches.

We're losing the conviction of the inerrancy of the Bible,

of its authoritative nature

and we're starting to give in

to all of these other things culturally.

We can't do that.

If we do, we're gonna end up in the same boat as Israel,

living in a way that's evil in the sight of God.

And we don't want to do that.

Because what happens when you do what's right in your eyes?

Even if it's evil in God's eyes, what happens?

Let's read on and see.

Verse eight, we find the wrath of God.

The wrath of God.

Therefore, the anger of the Lord

was kindled against Israel.

He sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathame,

king of Mesopotamia,

and the people of Israel served Cushan Rishathame.

Eight years.

Now there's always consequences to sin.

And in this case,

Israel's consequence was to be conquered

by this man, Cushan Rishathame,

king of Mesopotamia.

Now we aren't given any additional information

about this king except what is revealed in his name.

And I actually think it's interesting.

Maybe you will too.

His name means double wickedness.

Something I'm sure didn't come from his mother.

Can you imagine?

You know what?

I'm gonna name this kid.

Double wickedness.

Maybe some of you could go back

and you could change the name of your children.

This is probably a later name used to mock him.

Probably an Israelite term that's used later on

in reflecting back on this time.

And it's safe to assume that whatever he was

and whatever he was like,

he was twice as wicked as the people of Israel were.

Now think about how wicked that is.

The people of Israel at this point

are involving themselves in public prostitution

as a form of worship.

Eventually, they're gonna make their way

to where they're sacrificing their children

to the gods of Canaan, to Moloch and to Bill

and to these various gods of the people of the land.

And now they say, this guy that came in

and that the Lord sold us into the hand of,

he was twice as bad as we were.

And it was terrible.

Can you imagine what this was like for them?

Now, it's also a play on words with his title.

Title, King of Mesopotamia

is how it is probably recorded in your English translation.

Mesopotamia, you don't need to think about that

so much as an exact location.

As much as it means double rivers.

So basically, Israel was conquered by double wickedness

from the double rivers.

But the emphasis of this text

is not on Cushan, Rishathame's power to conquer Israel.

The emphasis in the text

is on God's action in selling them.

Notice what it says in verse eight.

Look at it with me again.

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel

and he sold them.

That's what we're meant to see.

We're not meant to see this weird guy,

the double wicked guy from the double rivers.

We're meant to see the God

who sold his own people into the hand of this man.

This episode isn't about world powers.

This episode is about divine wrath.

Wrath, anger, the anger of the Lord.

Now, there's no way to get around

dealing with the fact of God's anger

in the book of Judges.

Can't get around it.

We don't like to talk about it.

It's not the fun part to talk about in the Bible.

But we do need to understand it.

And one of the things that we need to understand

is that there's two dynamics to God's anger.

Barry Webb is helpful in pointing these out.

I think this is on the screen

if you want to follow along with me.

The first thing is retribution.

Retribution, which is pure punishment,

unmitigated by grace,

is for those who are and remain

outside of his covenant.

As Paul says to the Ephesians,

they have no hope and are without God in the world.

Okay, so that's one part of the wrath of God.

We talk about, that's usually what we think about

when we think about God's wrath.

We think about his wrath being poured out

against unregenerate sinners,

which ultimately, its final conclusion,

is eternal hell, right?

That's the wrath and the anger of God

set against those that are outside of his covenant.

But there's a second thing here.

Within God's covenant with his people,

a different kind of judgment takes place.

The most appropriate term for it is discipline.

Because it is corrective rather than retributive.

And it is always tempered by grace.

It can be severe,

but its aim is always to reclaim

rather than destroy.

Do you see the difference here?

Just because you're a Christian,

just because you're within God's covenant now,

doesn't mean that you're absolutely free

from God's anger.

God will judge our sin.

He doesn't do it with us in the same way

that he does it with unbelievers,

but he does take us through corrective discipline.

And let me tell you,

corrective discipline is hard.

It's hard.

Nothing Israel faced here was pleasant,

but it wasn't God's way of cutting them off either.

He was disciplining his people

in order that he might lead them

on the path of repentance.

And in this sense,

the anger of the Lord is a means of hope.

It's a means of hope and love.

Dale Ralph Davis is helpful here.

Serving Kushan Rishathame

may not sound like salvation to us,

and it isn't.

But if it forces us to lose our grip on Baal,

it may be the beginning of salvation.

I love that statement so much.

You ever get to a point in your life,

you may not even realize

how idolatrous you actually are.

Because at the heart of all of our sin

is idolatry, right?

In some form or fashion, it's idolatry.

We don't even always realize exactly

how many idols we have that have gripped us

and that we've been holding onto ourselves.

And then you get to a point in your life

where God is clearly,

he is bringing you through a difficult time.

And it's not just that he's testing your faith.

There is a measure of judgment happening here.

There is corrective discipline happening here.

And you come to the Lord and you say,

why are you doing this?

You ever thought that God's discipline

is meant to loosen your grip

on the idols that you have allowed

to come into your life?

I love that phrase so much.

It shows that the covenant God

who has bound himself to his people

will not allow them to be cozy in their infidelity.

Steadfast love pursues them in their iniquity

and is not above inflicting misery even

in order to awaken them.

What is the anger of the Lord

meant to do for his people?

To lead them to repentance,

to awaken them,

to loosen their grip on this world,

to loosen their grip on the idols

that as I think it was Calvin said,

and our heart is a factory of idols.

It is to loosen the grip on all of those things

in order that we may turn again and again

back to him, back to him.

Even God's people face his anger.

Not as punitive action,

please hear me correctly here,

but as corrective discipline.

To be sure,

Christ has taken God's eternal wrath

against our sins.

That's the glory of the gospel.

Those who belong to him

will never, ever have to endure death and hell.

But the Bible still tells us

that he takes us through discipline

as a loving father.

Proverbs chapter three,

Hebrews 12.

Do not despise the Lord's discipline

or be weary of his reproof.

For the Lord reproves him whom he loves

as a father, the son,

in whom he delights.

Hebrews 12.

What's the purpose of this in our lives?

Why does it seem like God's so hard on us sometimes?

He disciplines us for our good,

that we may share his holiness.

For the moment,

all discipline seems painful

rather than pleasant,

but later,

it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness

to those who have been trained by it.

It may be much later,

like it was for Israel.

But the discipline of the Lord builds us up.

So we need not get bitter against him.

We should glory in the fact

that he loves us enough to correct us.

And he always gives us grace to endure.

Number three,

the salvation of God.

Salvation of God.

We see the holiness of God in verse seven.

We see the wrath of God,

the anger of God in verse eight.

Verses nine and 10,

we see his salvation.

But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord,

the Lord raised up a deliverer

for the people of Israel

who saved them.

Othniel, the son of Kenaz,

Caleb's younger brother,

the spirit of the Lord was upon him.

And he judged Israel.

He went out to war

and the Lord gave Cushanrishathame,

king of Mesopotamia,

into his hand

and his hand prevailed over Cushanrishathame.

I appreciate the author leaving that name in there

so many times in this thing.

Say that five times fast.

Okay, so God's instrument of judgment here

is Cushanrishathame.

His instrument of salvation,

Othniel,

the nephew and son-in-law of Caleb,

who was one of the 10 spies.

He was the only one along with Joshua

who came back with a good report.

Yes, the Lord will give us the land.

You know the stories.

We've been introduced to him

in parallel passages of Joshua chapter 15,

Joshua 15 · chapter mention

Judges chapter one,

but nothing more is said about him here

than what we already know.

Why?

Again, the reason for that

is that our eyes are meant to be set

on the Lord who delivers his people.

Othniel is merely an instrument

in the hands of the almighty God

who raised him up and empowered him.

Our eyes aren't to be set on Othniel here.

Our eyes are to be set on Yahweh.

Now, crucial to this paradigm,

remember this is paradigmatic,

this paradigm that Othniel cycle

is presenting for us as we move forward.

Crucial to this

is this fact of God's love

being set on his people in salvation.

It's crucial.

Yes, he's a holy God who must judge sin,

but he's also a loving God

who takes pity on us in our suffering.

That's what's meant by Israel's cry.

This isn't a reference to their repentance.

This is a reference to their cry for help in distress.

This isn't the son

who's just suffered the consequences of his sin

running to his father and saying,

I'll never do it again.

That's not what this is.

This is help, please, help.

You ever tell your kids,

don't touch the stove, it's hot.

And then at some point,

they walk over and they touch the stove.

The first thing that they say

when they touch the stove is not,

oh, mom, forgive me of my sin.

I repent of touching the stove.

No, they say, ah!

And they run.

And what are they wanting you to do

when they run to you?

Do something to take this pain away.

That's what Israel's doing.

They're crying out to the Lord,

not out of repentance.

They're running to the Lord.

Lord, do something.

Take this away from us.

Relieve us.

In our distress.

In our distress.

God displays his loving compassion

by raising up a deliverer

who would save them

from the hand of their enemies.

What love is this?

That's what Davis says again.

Who then can plumb the abyss

of Yahweh's pity for his people?

Even his sinful people

who are moved more by their distress

than by their depravity.

Yahweh is indeed the one

who could bear Israel's suffering no longer.

What sheer grace

when Yahweh delivers.

What is this meant to teach us here?

Not that Othniel was a mighty warrior,

even though he might have been that.

It's to teach us the love of God

set on his people

even when they're merely concerned

about their pain

and not their sin.

Now take a moment to consider

God's instrument of judgment

and God's instrument of salvation

side by side here.

God allowed

Kushan Rishathame

to overcome Israel temporarily.

That's different

than what he does with Othniel.

He allows man's power

to come in

and inflict his people.

But he empowers

Othniel

with his spirit.

That's a different thing.

Look again with me.

Verse 9.

The people cried out to the Lord.

The Lord raised up

a deliverer for the people of Israel

who saved them.

Othniel.

Verse 10.

The spirit of the Lord

was upon him.

That's why he saved Israel.

Not because he was strong

but because the Lord

empowered him to do so.

Now we need to consider

those two dynamics

side by side.

Sometimes God's instrument

for judgment

is to step back

and say,

let man's power

come against you.

But whenever God is working

on behalf of his people,

he doesn't trust our power

to fight for ourselves.

He empowers us

with his spirit

to fight those battles.

That's what he's doing here

with Othniel.

On the one hand,

man's power is set

against God's people.

On the other,

God's power is working

on behalf of his people.

And God's power

crushes every enemy.

He always prevails.

The salvation of our God

is certain

for all who belong

to him.

It will never fail.

He's always in control.

He's in control

of the enemy.

He's in control

of the Savior.

And he always empowers

his Savior.

And no enemy

can defeat him.

What is this meant

to point us toward?

You know the answer.

It all points forward

to Jesus.

The true and better

Othniel.

He too was chosen

and empowered by God

to bring us

a greater salvation

than Israel ever experienced.

Their enemy

was a mere man.

Ours is death

and hell

and eternal damnation.

But God's power

through Jesus

crushes every enemy.

Even death itself.

Romans 8.

What then shall we say

to these things?

If God is for us

who can be against us?

He who did not spare

his own son

but gave him up

for us all

how will he not

also with him

graciously give us

all things?

Who shall bring a charge

against God's elect?

It's God's

that justifies.

Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus

is the one who died.

More than that.

Who was raised?

Who is at the right

hand of God?

Who is interceding

for us?

And who shall separate us

from this love of Christ?

Shall tribulation

or distress

or persecution

or famine

or nakedness

or danger

or sword?

No.

In all these things

we are more than conquerors

through him

who loved us.

for I am sure

that neither death

nor life

nor angels

nor rulers

nor things present

nor things to come

nor powers

nor height

nor depth

nor anything else

in all creation

will be able

to separate us

from the love of God

in Christ Jesus

our Lord.

Salvation

belongs

to God.

He has heard

our cries

for distress

and he has raised up

a deliverer

for our salvation

and it's not Othniel

it's Jesus Christ

his own son.

That's the salvation

of God.

But there's a final thing here.

Verse 11

we see the gift of God.

The gift of God.

Look with me

at verse 11.

So the land

had rest

40 years.

Then Othniel

the son

of Kenaz

died.

The rest here

was applied

to the land.

Notice it doesn't say

Israel had rest

it says that the land

had rest.

Rest

was given to the land

for 40 years.

That means

that in the absence

of war

the land

was able to recover

and be fruitful

for the people.

You gotta imagine

in those days

a mighty king

comes in

and he sets up

shop for 8 years.

He's not

leaving fertile farmland

for the Israelites

to take.

He's using that

for himself.

They are subjected

to him.

Now God

in the absence

of Cushan Rishatham

and in the absence

of war for 40 years

allows the land

to recover

in order that life

in the land

of promise

may once again

flourish

for the people

of Israel.

Okay so you understand

the gift here.

The gift is rest

for the land

which is ultimately

in some sense

rest for the people.

Now here's how

I want you to think

about this.

God's temporal

or temporary

dealings

with his physical

people

the nation

of Israel

give us a glimpse

into his eternal

dealings

with his spiritual

people

which are all

of those

who have

entered his covenant

of grace

by faith.

Doesn't matter

if it's New Testament

or Old Testament

if they have

entered his covenant

of grace

by faith

just as Abraham

did

they are a part

of the people

the covenant

people of God.

Okay

what God does

with a physical

nation

in the Old Testament

with Israel

points us

to what God

is ultimately

doing through

his covenant

people

his spiritual

people

and with that

in mind

I want you to

consider a couple

of things

about this rest.

Number one

the rest

was a gift

it wasn't

an achievement

it was a gift

it came about

because God

gave

Kushan Rishathame

into the hand

of Atnil

and this is

fundamental

to our understanding

of salvation

it is not

won

through our

best moral

and religious

efforts

it is a gift

of grace

from the hand

of God

we don't

earn it

we receive

it

by faith

in God's

promise

the rest

for Israel

that's what

we're meant

to see here

they didn't

praise Atnil

for this rest

they could have

only praised

God

God's the one

that gave

them the rest

there's a second

thing here

and that is

that the rest

was limited

was limited

they only got

40 years

at the end

of 40 years

their savior

died

and he didn't

come back

he stayed

dead

and what we'll

find in the

first verse

of next week's

passage is that

Israel just

went right back

to the same

sin that they

were guilty

of in verse

seven

so the land

its rest

was limited

and the hard

truth here

is that

rest can

never be

permanent

in a world

that is ruled

by death

can't be

we spend

so much time

in our lives

looking for

some kind

of rest

here

and you're

never gonna

get it

that's the

thing

so long

as we live

here

bones will

still break

hearts

will still

break

families

and churches

and cultures

and governments

will fall

they'll be

divided

so long

as we are

in this

life

we cannot

have this

permanent

rest that

we're longing

for

as great

as Othniel

seems to

have been

he couldn't

give Israel

what it

ultimately

was longing

for

he couldn't

give them

permanent

rest

he was still

a sinner

in a fallen

world

himself

and the

temporary

rest that

Israel

received

was a

wonderful

blessing

don't get

me wrong

I'm not

trying to

rain on

their parade

here

that's not

at all

what I'm

trying to

do

we are

grateful

for every

moment of

physical rest

that the

Lord is

kind to

give us

but we

all long

for a

kind of

rest

and renewal

that will

never

end

we long

for

an existence

that isn't

plagued

by anxiety

do you ever

lay in your

bed at night

and you

just think

of the

absolute

worst

possible

scenarios

for your

family

ever do

that

I do

that

Julie and

I talk

about it

sometimes

we've got

like these

things with

the girls

that are

like our

worst

nightmares

that could

ever

happen

to them

and we

lay in our

beds

and we're

like have

you ever

thought

if this

happened

to Ashlyn

or if this

happened

with the

new baby

or whatever

it is

and we

feel ourselves

with anxiety

so long

as we're

in this

life we'll

never have

rest from

that anxiety

in total

we long

for something

more

we long

for a night

where we can

lay in bed

and we're

free from

all anxiety

and all worry

and all sin

and all struggle

and we ask

is it even

possible to

experience that

which brings

us to a

final point

of gospel

application

in the end

Othniel

died

that's as far

as his help

could go

what we need

and what Israel

needed was a

savior who

can conquer

death

a savior

who can

break this

vicious cycle

of self

destruction

by dealing

with our

sin

once and

for all

and the

good news

is

you've heard

it over

and over

the good

news is

Jesus

is that

savior

sent from

God

he is

that one

he lived

the life

that we

were meant

to live

he died

the death

that we

deserve to

die

but that

only matters

because he

rose from

the dead

and in

rising from

the dead

he proves

that death

has no claim

on him

has no power

over him

it proves

that God

accepted

his sacrifice

on the cross

as a sufficient

payment and

atonement

for our

sins

he lives

he lives

peace

that's what

matters

here

and through

this

Jesus

God has

provided

eternal

peace

and rest

as a

gracious

gift

from the

hand of

God

and here's

the best

part of

it

he invites

all of

us

he invites

us all

to enter

this rest

by faith

it's the

exact

words

that Jesus

used

in Matthew

11

come to

me

all

who labor

and are

heavy laden

and I

will give

you

rest

do you

labor

of course

you do

do you

struggle

yes

are you

looking for

meaning

and purpose

and something

good that

might actually

come out of

this pathetic

life that we

live

yes we're

looking for

all of those

things

we're striving

for all of

those things

and Jesus

has just

come to

me

and I

will give

it

take my

yoke upon

you

and learn

from me

for I am

gentle

and lowly

in heart

and listen

to what

he says

and you

will find

rest

for your

what

soul

Jesus

doesn't

offer

rest

for your

land

Jesus

doesn't

offer

rest

necessarily

for your

family

or for

your country

or necessarily

for your

church

it's rest

for your

soul

it's a

transcendent

rest

it goes

far

deeper

and far

longer

than

what we

hope for

now

and he

invites us

to it

he just

says if

you'll just

come to

me

I will

give it

to you

salvation

is a

gift of

God's

grace

through

Jesus

and he

is pleased

to offer

it to

you

but here's

the thing

I want to

emphasize this

morning before

we finish

and I

know you've

heard it

and I'm

not ignorant

to the

fact that

probably every

person that's

here this

morning I

know it's

just a few

of us but

probably every

person here

has made

some kind of

profession of

faith in

Christ I'm

not ignorant

of that but

I want to

make the

point

anyways

the good

thing about

this is

that he's

pleased to

offer it

to you

now

now

that's the

thing

sometimes we

get this

idea that

we have

to we

have to

hear this

like voice

from heaven

that something

magical has

to happen in

our lives to

where suddenly

we feel

like like

Christians

let me tell

you most

days I

don't feel

much like a

Christian at

least in the

way that we

romanticize

that feeling

let me tell

you I

don't know

what you

understand about

the gospel

what you

understand about

theology

there's nothing

you have to

wait on

you don't have

to wait on

some kind of

like supernatural

voice that

just opens the

clouds and

says okay

now's the

time now

you're allowed

to come to

me the

call has

already been

issued

it's here

Jesus said

it

sometimes we

get confused

about how

conversion

happens

conversion

we're not

waiting for

something weird

to happen

in our

lives

conversion

is come

to me

and I'll

give you

rest

conversion

is if

you will

confess with

your mouth

that Jesus

is Lord

and believe

in your

heart that

God raised

him from

the dead

you'll be

saved

conversion

is believe

on the name

of the Lord

Jesus and

you shall

be saved

God offers

this rest

and he

offers it

to all

who will

come to

him

and all

that's

waiting

is for

you to

actually

come

just

receive it

the price

has been

paid

it's there

he says

come

all that

remains for

you to

do

is to

come

turn

start

trusting

Jesus

as the

Lord

and Savior

what do

we learn

from the

off-mail

cycle

well

we learn

about

a lot

about

who

God

is

we learn

he's

holy

and that

we're

not

we learn

that he

does have

anger

it's a

righteous

anger

but it's

anger

and out

of that

anger

comes

judgment

but out

of the

same

God

that

comes

wrath

comes

salvation

a gift

of grace

of eternal

rest

that we

can't even

imagine

now

and he

offers it

to all

of us

out of

his own

love

so why

not take

it

that's

enough

for us

to rejoice

in today

isn't it