Will you turn in your Bibles
to the book of Luke, please, chapter 6? That'll be our text
for today. Take your Bibles, set them on
your laps, if you would. Allow me to start by quoting
from Matthew 11, verse 28. The book of God is written to
God's people. The world hears the words of
God with the ears of the flesh. But only God's people hear with
the ears of the heart. Only by God's grace will any
flesh hear the word of God with the heart. Our Lord says to those
who hear with ears of the heart, come unto me. Come unto me. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. Only God can give rest to a laborer's
soul. What do you mean by laborer's
soul, John? Well, we're raised to think this. If you do good,
you will receive good. Those of us who are a little
bit older, and some of the rest of us know that that's not always
true, don't we? That's what it means to labor. We're brought up to think that
we have a little flame of goodness in us if we just fan it. Just
put a little fan to that flame, you know, like you do at the
fire pit in the campsite. And it'll get better. You can
be a better person. Labor. Come unto me, all you
who labor. Labor for what? Labor for self-righteousness. Labor for the righteousness of
your flesh. As we get older, we find out that all that labor
was for naught. When God opens our hearts to
the truth of his words, we find out that there is no righteousness
in us. No, everything I did good throughout
my life, I did for my glory. All the goodness that came from
me as I was walking through this world was so people He's not so bad. He hasn't killed
anybody. He hasn't done any prison time
for whatever it was he didn't get caught at. So he's a pretty
good guy. Everything I did was to make
people look at me like I'm okay. And to hide the fact that there
is no righteousness in any, in any man. We all come into this
world dead in trespasses and sin. That's God's Word. That's
the Creator's Word who tells us we are all dead in trespasses
and sin. That's how we were born. But
until He speaks that to our heart, we're going to go through this
world thinking, I can be okay. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The Lord says,
I will give you rest. Take my yoke, he says, upon you
and learn of me. Learn of the one who is God Almighty in the flesh.
Paul says, I wish to know nothing of you save Christ in him crucified.
Why is that? Because that's Jesus Christ,
the Lord. Everything in this book was written
that God's people might look to the Lord Jesus Christ and
what He has done for us. That's grace. That's the grace
of God and what He has done for us. That's the love of God for
His people and what He did by giving His Son as our substitute. laying everything that you and
I deserve upon His Son, the Lord Jesus, when He went to that cross
and washed away the sins of His people with His own precious
blood. He washed them away for good.
There's the rest. There's the rest that God's people
have. It's not in what we do to make ourselves look good.
It's in what He did to make us perfect. We're perfect in our
Savior. God will not accept anything
less than perfect. My yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Why? Rest in me, he says. I will give you rest. We usually
think of those words as being a gospel invitation, don't we? You know, maybe it's just to
the lost. Maybe to one who's never heard
the gospel preached before. No. No, no, no. God's people know that those
words speak to us right now. The Lord first opened my ears
to His truth in 1999. As most of you know, I'm really
bad at math, so we'll just go back however many years that
was. These words mean just as much
to me now as the first time I heard them. We must not place a limitation
of God's Word just upon words of invitation to those who have
never heard. These are words to you and I that edify us and
build us up. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. These are gospel words of grace.
It addresses the needy souls, both lost and saved. All religions
fall under two categories. works or grace. If you follow
any religion, any religion, if you follow any religion, pick
any one you want, you follow it down to its core belief, it
either comes down to one of two things. It's either going to
come down to you doing something you have to do to earn your salvation,
or it's going to come to sit back and rest in the one who's
done it all for you. John, why are you Why are you
hounding so much on resting? Have you ever heard of the Sabbath?
The Sabbath day was a day where Israel was supposed to sit back
and rest. Supposed to work six days and
then take the seventh day and rest. Well, it wasn't something
to do to save themselves. It was a day that you were supposed
to do that just so you could picture, you could relate. We
come to the table, not for salvation, but to relate to the One who
saved us. It was His body. It was His body
that was beaten and scourged for our sakes. It was His blood
that was shed where ours deserved to be shed. Every religion comes
down to one of two things, works or grace. Either you must do
something to prove to others, see how religious I am? I wear a coat of beautiful attire. I swing back and forth incense
so that everything smells pretty around me. I go to church on
Sunday. Some say if I go to church on
Saturday. See how religious I am? Something
to prove to others or even to prove to yourself that you are
saved or the Lord Jesus Christ has done it all for you and you
rest in Him. God's people sometimes wonder,
am I saved? You ever wonder that? You ever
wonder, am I saved? You ever stopped and thought,
how could I think that? Do you know that if you doubt
God's Word, you have sinned against God? If you're reading God's
Word and you say, oh, I don't believe that, you're calling
God a liar. I don't know. Could that be true?
You've just called God a liar. Do you ever look at God's Word
and say, how can that be true? In the Old Testament, God uses
many, many experiences where Israel was to go into a town
and wipe everybody out. What? Could that be true? Could that be truly God's Word?
Go in and wipe everything out? Man, woman, child, old person,
cow, dog, every living thing had to be cleaned out and wiped
completely out. That's what God's Word was. God's
Word is true. That's a picture of what God
is going to do to sin. That's what God is going to do
to sin. He's going to wipe it all out. It's going to be all
erased. Either you're going to go to
hell and damnation, trying to pay for your sins for
eternity, or Christ has done it for you. Works, grace. Works is the labor of man, grace
is the labor of Christ. Am I saved? How can I be saved
with thoughts that are sometimes very, very, very unchristian-like? My faith, my trust at times is
so weak I see the things of this world and my thoughts plague
me. How could God love an unworthy wretch like me? In Romans 5,
6 we read these words for when we were yet without strength.
If you're asking yourself that question, if you've ever asked
yourself that question, how could God love an unworthy wretch like
me? May He give you an answer right
here in Romans 5, verse 6. For when we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly." You see,
folks, the world doesn't believe that they're ungodly. How dare
you tell me I'm not godly? I go to church every Sunday.
How dare you tell me I'm not godly? I got into baptism. I
was baptized. How dare you tell me I'm not
godly? I've never hit my wife. Whatever you want to say, I made
a decision at such and such a date to come to the Lord. How dare
you tell me I'm not godly? The world doesn't believe they're
not godly. Only God's people are brought to the point of a
broken and contrite heart. Only God can break a heart of
one of His people and give them a new heart that understands,
I am ungodly. Verse 7, it says, For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet preadventure for a good
man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love towards
us. towards His chosen people, to
those the Father had given Him before the world was, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being
now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath
through Him." That word saved, that means it's done. It's like
He said on the cross, it is finished. You see, that's the point of
grace, it's through Him. Through the Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, it's through Him. None of us are worthy. None of
for whom He died deserve His mercy. All for whom He quickens,
makes alive, have sinned against God and deserve His wrath. I
like this. I think I'm quoting this correctly.
One of the old pastors said this. He says, mercy is God not giving
us what we have earned. Grace is unmerited favor, undeserved
favor. God looking upon us and not giving
us what we have earned. Resting in the finished works
of Christ Jesus the Lord is so very, very, very unnatural to
mankind. Our old nature is, what must
I do? Surely there is something that I must do. Putting all this
world and its chaos into the hands of my Savior is a very
difficult thing. Do you know that? Do you ever see that problem?
Putting everything at the feet of Jesus? Are you not like I? Are you not like me? There's
something I've got to be able to do to fix this. Something. Resting in the finished works
of Christ is so very unnatural for us. Surely there's something
I can do. Putting our trust, putting the
world in its chaos in the hands of our sovereign God is difficult.
It goes against our nature. as all of God's children are,
all of God's chosen people are, had to be taught by the Lord. We must all be taught of God.
The Lord of all glory. That salvation is of the Lord
alone. There's an article by a man by
the name of Tom Harding. I want to bring this to you. in trouble is the title for his
article. He says, being a believer in
Jesus Christ and resting in his good providence does not exempt
us from trouble. Trials, sorrow, heartaches in
this life, our Lord said, in this world you shall have tribulation.
That's in John 16.33. But here's our comfort, and our
help, and our rest. God is our refuge and our strength. A very present help in trouble. That's in Psalms 46.1. Our blessed
Lord said these words, He says, Come boldly unto the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy. Come boldly to Him. Well, I know
I'm a sinner, but what must I do? Come boldly. Come boldly to Him. Grace. Our gracious God has promised
wisdom to understand the trials. That's in James 1, verse 5. Grace
to endure and bear the trial. That's in 2 Corinthians 12, verse
9. Faith to trust and believe God through the trial. That's
in Romans 4. Peace to rest in His purpose,
knowing that this trial works to our eternal good. That's in
Romans 8. Verse 28, hope to rejoice in
our Lord and Savior who said, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. In Hebrews 13, 5, surely we must
conclude that we are needy and sinful creatures and that the
Lord Jesus Christ is our only resource of help, our only place
of rest. Philippians 4, 19. Tom Hardy
wrote those. You need peace? Is there trouble
plaguing you from within or from without? I tell you, there's
only one. rest in this world of death. And I pray the Lord
will teach us this day to rest in His Son, Christ Jesus our
Lord. Look at verse 1 of Luke chapter
6. And it came to pass on the second
Sabbath after the first. Did you find that strange? There
was only one Sabbath day. That was the seventh day of the
week. That was the seventh year after six. It was only one Sabbath
day. Why is the Lord inspired Luke
to write here, and it came to pass on the second Sabbath after
the first? Was the first put away? Yes,
it was. The first was just a picture
of Him who would put it away. Now, continue on, and we'll see
the answers to that in just a moment. And it came to pass on the second
Sabbath after the first that he, speaking of our Lord, went
through the cornfields and his disciples plucked the ears of
corn and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. Now folks, that
was sacrilegious to those Jews who praised themselves for fulfilling
what they thought they were fulfilling, the Word of God. Don't you do
any work on Saturday. That's the Sabbath day. They
didn't see the truth as to what the Sabbath day pointed to. To
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Sabbath. Go on, verse 2. And a certain
of the Pharisees said unto them, Why dee ye that which is not
lawful? What are you doing? How dare you do that? to do on
the Sabbath days. And Jesus answered him and said,
Have ye not read so much as this, what David did when himself was
a hunger, and they which were with him, how he went into the
house of God, and ate the showbread, and gave also unto them that
were with him, which it is not lawful to eat, but for the priests
alone. There was some bread that would
be put away, some bread to be put away that only the The priest
could eat it. Look at verse 5. And he said
unto them, that the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. That's the second Sabbath. The
first one was works. The second one is grace. You
see, that's what Jesus Christ going to the cross is all about. It's about being gracious to
you and I. It's about being merciful to you and I who deserve His
wrath, yet He took our wrath upon Himself. Can you get any
more gracious than that? Can you get any more loving than
that? Matthew 12, verse 8, we read it this way, Matthew puts
it this way, he says, For the Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is fulfilled
in Him. Come unto Me, all ye that labor, and I will give you
rest. That's the word Sabbath. I will
give you Sabbath. I will give you rest. He's the
Lord of the Sabbath. That's the title for today's
message. The Lord of Rest. I tell you this day, the only
rest you will ever find in this world of death is the One who
is Lord of all. The Sovereign God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I tell you this also, you
will not come to Him that you may have peace. I'm speaking
to all, all of those who are called and to all of those who
have not yet been called by the Lord of glory. Turning away from
our old nature of judging my ways is a very difficult thing
to do. It's a continuing battle. Our
tendency is to look into the mirror and see what this flesh
is doing. How can I be saved with thoughts
like that going through my mind? Maybe you can relate to this.
In my old self, I had no care for the sin that I am. I wasn't
a bad person as some, therefore, there was enough good in me to
relieve my conscience of what I was. Yet now my sin plagues
me every day. Does it plague you? your sin
plague you. Listen to the words of Psalms,
in the Psalm 34, 18, the Psalmist, The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and he saith it such as be of a contrite
spirit. Christ came to sinners. In Isaiah
57, 15, we read these words, For thus saith the High and Lofty
One, the one who rules all things by his sovereign grace, the high
and lofty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in
the high place and holy place with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones. In Ezekiel 36, 26, we read
this, a new heart will I also give you, and a new spirit will
I put within you, and I will take away the old stony heart. He must give us the heart, a
contrite and broken spirit. Out of your flesh will I give
you a heart of flesh, he says. This is that new heart. A heart
that seeks the will of God. I ask you, do you seek the will
of God? Turn over to John chapter 6. John chapter 6 to the right. Has God the Holy Spirit given
you a heart to seek His will? If so, it had to come from Him,
because our nature is not to seek the Lord of God, but to
run from Him. And as children of God, if we
know the Word of God, we know this to be true about ourselves.
before He caused the light to shine in our hearts, the new
heart that we just read He gave us, this is what we were. John
3.18, He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that
believeth not, that was you and I, is condemned already because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son. And
this is the condemnation that light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light. Folks, we would
not come to God if it were not for His grace, if it were not
for His mercy. Why? Because our deeds of wickedness
would be proved, would be reproved by the light of God, the light
of truth. No one wants to give up their
free will. My aunt poked me right in the
chest and she said, don't you take my free will away from me.
That's the nature of man. We want to hang on to what little
righteousness we think we have, but we have none. And God must
show us that. And in showing us that we have
none, He shows us the only one who is righteous, our Savior.
Every person born of man and woman, of a man and woman, will
not... Look at John chapter 6, verse
32 through 40. Then Jesus saith unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father gave it to you, the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life. unto the world. Then they said
unto the Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus answered
them. Jesus said unto them, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I
said unto you that ye also have seen me and believe not. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven
not to do mine own will. Has God given you the desire
to seek His will, but the will of Him that sent
me? Verse 39, And this is the Father's
will, which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me
I should lose nothing. How could Christ lose anything?
It angers me to hear this world say Jesus died for everybody. If the true and living God died
for everybody, nobody would go to hell. But we know that's not
true, don't we? He should lose none, nothing,
but should raise it up again the last day. And if you didn't
understand at that time, he repeats it again in verse 40. And this
is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth
the Son, and believeth on Him. Do you see how easy the Lord's
yoke is? Remember what we said? Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. Come unto Me, my yoke is easy.
What is His yoke? Believe on Him. the Lord Jesus Christ according
to scriptures. Believe on who He is. Believe
what the scriptures say about Him. He says, I am. You know
what that is? That's God eternity. I am the light. I am the bread. I am the life. He is the great
I am in the flesh. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
according to the Scriptures, and thou shalt be saved. All that believeth on Him may
have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up the last day. This is the will of the Almighty,
the Creator of all things, the Sovereign God of everything.
Christ should lose nothing, and He won't lose anything. God in
His mercy, by grace, reveals this to His elect. You can't
just figure this out on your own. Many sit down and read the
Scriptures and have no understanding of the truth. You know, there
are those who worship on Saturday thinking they're still fulfilling
part of the law. Rather than resting in Jesus
Christ who fulfilled all of the law for His people. Right there
is where the world will stand up and say, See, John's preaching
that you should go out and do whatever you want. You don't
have to follow the law at all. And they're missing the whole
fact I'm telling you, you can't. It's our desire. I want to be
good. But somebody's going to cut me
off on the freeway and I'm going to get mad at them again. Somebody's
going to tempt me to deceive something like not tell everything
about my taxes, and I may just fall for it again. I don't know.
I hope I don't. I don't want to. I'm going to
try not to, but I can't. Or maybe I'll tell the truth
and say, see how good a person I am? That's just as bad. You getting my point? How many people are saying, yeah,
that's me? That's what I would do too. We
need grace, don't we? We need a Savior, don't we? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The Apostle
Paul opens his letters with some form of this phrase. He says,
grace and peace in every one of his letters. That's how it's
presented. First comes grace, then comes
peace. With peace we have rest. With
peace, we don't have to work for it anymore. With peace, we
know that our God has provided everything. What is His peace? Listen to the words of Matthew
11, 28 again. It says, Come unto Me. That's
where you come to find peace. And He speaks to those who labor
and are heavy laden. Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. And He says, I will give you
rest. He didn't say, I'm going to give
you something and you've got to do this to earn it. He says,
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. What was the yoke of Christ?
He took all of the sins of his people upon himself, died, was
buried, and rose again. That's the yoke of Jesus Christ.
Take his yoke upon you. Learn of me, for I am meek. Can we understand how meek the
Almighty is in laying down His life, becoming flesh to be our
servant? Can we understand how lowly in
heart the One who left His majesty behind and became the servant
of men? If you can grasp it just a little
bit, He says, ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke
is easy, and my burden is light. How will He show you rest? By
showing you His Son, the Lord Jesus. The Lord of the Sabbath. The Lord of all. All things have
been put into His hand. This is the rest. There is rest
in His and this Word. Salvation is of the Lord. You
see folks, John 3.14, we read these words, and as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. That whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. Where are you going to
find rest? In the Lord of the Sabbath. The
Lord of rest. It's because of Him that we have
hope and we have assurance. It's because of Him that we have
peace It's because of Him that we have rest. Because the Son
of God became flesh, we have an assurance of His righteousness,
and we put aside trying to earn our own. Doesn't mean we won't
try once in a while, but we fail at it, and then we fail at it,
and we realize there's only one righteousness, and that's our
Savior, Christ Jesus. Because of the blood that He
shed that day on the cross, with the blood of our Creator, we
have assurance that the purpose it was shed for will be accomplished. I don't need to help. He's already
done it all. There's nothing I can do to help
Him. He's done it for me perfectly. His blood was perfect and God
accepted it. Because He was obedient even
at the death of the cross, we have assurance that our sins
have been judged. Because God has raised His Son
from the dead, we have assurance. that God the Father has accepted
his sacrifice as ours. He has provided his only begotten
son, the Lord Jesus, as our substitute. Just because we are saved, though,
doesn't mean that we won't have conflict in this flesh. It does not mean that we won't
have doubt, wondering, am I saved? Listen to these words by the
Lord himself, Luke 12, 51, suppose ye that I am come to give peace
on earth, I tell you nay, but rather division. Folks, there's gonna be trials
every days of our life. In fact, quite honestly, since
the Lord called me out of darkness, it seems like there's a trial
every day. Where is my peace? Where is my peace as I deal with
the troubles that the Lord brings my way? It's in this, it's knowing
all things are purposed by the Creator. All things, He says, are for
my good. I may not understand that. There's
going to be times where I'm going to sit in my chair and put my
face in my hands and cry. Cry hard. Lord, if you would,
remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, nevertheless, thy
will be done. We have a dear, dear brother
whom I love much, who is going through the worst trial, he says,
he's ever gone in his life. He's having to come face to face
with the fact that he can't do. His body just won't do what it
used to. He spent 50 years building a beautiful home for his wife
and him, and now he has to walk away from it. You don't think that's a trial? You don't think that's a Tribulation. We're proud men,
aren't we? Don't we have a little pride
in ourselves, Roger? Got a little pride in the way we keep our
homes, don't we? I got a little pride in the fact
that I was able to get up and physically go out and mow the
lawn yesterday. And I know you guys feel the same way. Don't
tell me you don't. I know you do. I got a little
pride in the fact that I've made a little bit of this of this
home of mine. Our Lord knows how to break our pride. to give
us a broken heart and a contrite heart that looks to Him. Pray
for our brethren. Our Lord will divide His people
from this world. Trials and tribulations will
follow us till we leave this body of death behind. Our peace is not of this world. Our peace is in knowing who He
is. according to scripture. Our peace is in knowing what
he has done according to scripture. Our peace, our rest, is knowing
where he is right now, making intercession for you and I. I've
saved this one already. What this one is thinking this
very moment, I've already paid for. And I paid for it with my
life, laying down his life for you and I.