Rest for the Weary

I will introduce this message with the words that we just sang. Art thou weary? Art thou languished? Art thou sore, distressed? That's a good question. A lot of people aren't. To the contrary, a lot of people are invigorated by their efforts to work their way to heaven. They become more proud and more enthralled in their accomplishments. They're not weary. And then you have those who in their attempts to work their way to heaven have come to the end of themselves.

I'm weary. I'm languid. I'm in sore distress. And the Lord Jesus says, come unto me. Come unto me. And the one coming says, you shall find rest for your soul. The gospel is for the poor and needy. The gospel is for the weary. I've titled this message Rest for the Weary.

Those who have not only become weary in their attempts to work their way to heaven, but those who are weary in the daily struggle of their own sin and unbelief. Those who are weary of living in a world that hates God on one hand, and yet especially weary with the shameful truth of their attraction to that very world that hates their God. Is there anything that wearies the soul of a believer more than that? Lord, why am I thus? Come to me. And in coming, you shall find rest. The only place where a sinner can find true rest for his soul is in Christ. Anyplace else is a false peace. Anyplace else is not really rest. It's just more work, just more work.

The Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 11 said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. A lot of folks laboring, but they're not yet heavy laden. That word heavy laden means that A weight has been placed on my shoulders that has crushed me. I cannot stand under the weight of this. I must fall to my knees. I've been laboring to carry it. You've had that experience. You carry something that's very heavy until you can't take another step and you either drop it or fall to the ground.

We all know what it means to be exhausted physically, to where all we can look forward to is rest. You've worked hard. You're not interested in eating. You're not interested in talking to anybody. You're not interested in being entertained. You just want to lie down. I've got to have rest for my body.

They say that sleep deprivation is more effective in interrogation than physical torture. And I can see why. Just in the few experiences I've had in being deprived of sleep, you become, you can't think straight. You can't function. You just gotta sleep. And for someone to keep you awake when you have to half your body is shutting down. Now that's what the Lord's talking about when he speaks of finding rest for your soul.

Lord, I'm shut down. I can't carry this burden anymore. We looked at 1 Corinthians 10.13 the other day, a week or two ago. you know, where it says that God will not put on you more than you can bear. And people look at that and they take that one, it's a long verse, they take that one phrase out of that verse and say, well, God's not gonna put more on you than you can bear. If he doesn't, you'll not need God. And if he ever puts your sin on you, You'll have a burden you can't bear.

You'll be laden. You'll be burdened and heavy laden. You'll be crushed by it. You'll need a savior. You'll need a place of rest. You'll know that you cannot atone for your sins. You cannot recommend yourself to God. You cannot produce enough work that will qualify you for heaven. You've got to have another do that for you.

By the way, the rest of that verse says, God will not put more on you, but will with the temptation provide the way of escape that you might be able to bear it. Christ is the way of escape. I am that way, the way, the truth, and the life. We cannot escape this burden apart from Christ.

All ye that labor in a heavy burden, come unto me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your soul. For your soul. Now if I need rest for my soul, then God's done a work of grace in my heart. Because the unregenerate man, the man that God has not done anything for, He's not interested in rest for his soul. He thinks he's got rest for his soul. But Lord, we've done many wonderful works in thy name. I've been working all my life to get here. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.

What an amazing miracle of grace it is that God would cause us to be disquieted in soul. Not just in body, not just in our circumstances, but in our hearts. To fear God. To fear the thought of standing in the presence of a holy God without a savior, without an advocate, without someone who's able to present himself as my righteousness before God.

That's the rest. That's the rest that only the believer has a need for. You're not just looking to be delivered from some temporal troubles that he's in. Isaiah 28 verse 12 says, this is the rest wherewith he may cause the weary to rest. This is the refreshing.

If this work of grace is to be done in our hearts, it'll be done by God's word. The Lord will make his word to be a two-edged sword. What does a two-edged sword do? It kills and it makes a life. It destroys and it heals. That's the two-edged sword, and that's what the word of God does. And before we can be made alive, we've got to be put to death.

And it's the revelation that God has made of himself in his word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter four. Verse 12, Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12. For the word of God is quick. That word means alive. It's a living word. This isn't just some static rules and regulations. This is the living word of God. The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing, eaving, the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and the joints and marrows and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

It's only by God's word. that I have the discernment of knowing that every thought of the imagination of my heart is only evil and I continually. If God didn't tell me that, I wouldn't believe that. I wouldn't believe that. I've got good thoughts, I've got holy thoughts, I've got good deeds, I've got good things about me, and I would rest the hope of my salvation on the good things that I see in myself. But the word of God discerns the thoughts and the intents of our heart.

Only when God's living word is alive in our hearts, can we see that our best motives and our best deeds and our best thoughts and our best actions would send us to hell if God judged us by them? I'm not talking about the evil stuff that men don't want other people to know about. I'm talking about the best thing that I can produce would be sufficient to condemn me to an eternal separation from God. How do I know that?

I look at myself and I believe, no, I know that because the word of God has been a discerner of my thoughts and my intents, and I know that my best motives are never pure. They're never pure. There's always some self-promotion. There's always some diverted, polluted thought. Look at the next verse.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight. God sees it all. If the Lord doesn't show me this by his word, I will think that I can hide things from God. Nothing's hid from the sight of God. I know that's true because God said so. You know, men are like a little child. They think that if they pull the blanket up over their face and they can't see you, that you can't see them. I mean, that's how foolish we are. God sees it all. But all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we must do.

There is a God with whom I must do. If I'm gonna have rest in the presence of that God, I'm gonna have to have a sin bearer. I'm gonna have to have a substitute. I'm going to have to have a savior. I'm going to have to have a surety, one who can do everything for me. I can't do anything. God has revealed this to me by that double-edged sword, his word.

I wouldn't come to these conclusions on my own. I would devise in the darkened imagination of my own unbelief some God that was altogether such a one as myself. And I would devise some modes of worship and service that would be nothing but feeding my flesh. And I would convince myself that I believed God and was worshiping God. And go to my grave, go to my grave, doing works, resting in a false hope, a false refuge. God has to make me to not be at rest with those things. And God has to make me to look to Christ for all my salvation. That's what faith is. We come to God for faith. Lord, save me. Lord, remember me. Lord, have mercy upon me.

The Syrophoenician woman said, truth, Lord, I am a dog, but the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Would you just put a crumb down on the floor for me? What do all those men have in common, whether it be Peter, the thief on the cross, The Canaanite woman, what do they all have in common? They knew that the hope of their salvation was completely dependent upon their master.

He's the one that had to do it. Lord. No man can call me Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. With any understanding. The whole world said, well, yeah, Jesus is Lord. And then they bring something to obligate him to save them. Lord, I have nothing. I can't do anything, and I don't know anything. I'm completely dependent upon you to save me.

And I can't rest. until you reveal that to me, until you reveal Christ to me, until you give me a place where I can sit, where I can be at rest at thy table, drink from that water of life. Turn with me to Isaiah 28, Isaiah 28. Rest for the weary. Here is my prayer, and here's my hope, that if you came in here this morning not weary for your soul, that God is stirring a weariness up for you right now.

For Christ came to save sinners. A sinner is a person who cannot produce anything but sin. And a sinner is one who cannot find rest anywhere outside of Christ. Child of God, you know what sin is from your own experience, and you're weary of dealing with it. You're weary of the experience that you have with it. And as I said, as much as this world hates your God, is something very strange and very shameful about your attraction to it. And you came here to find rest for your soul, and that rest is only in Christ. Isaiah chapter 28, look at verse nine.

Whom shall he teach knowledge? Here's the question. Who's going to understand? this need that they have for one to give them rest outside of themselves. Who's gonna understand the gospel? Who's gonna understand their own state of affairs? Who's gonna understand that they're a sinner? Who's gonna understand that Christ alone is able to save? Who's gonna have that understanding? And whom shall he make to understand this teaching, this doctrine? this glorious truth. Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast and that are able to eat.

For precept must be upon precept. Precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. That's how God teaches. Little by little, word by word, growth in grace is a very slow process. It's frustrating for the child of God because the weeds of their sin grow so much faster than the tree of life. But that's the way God works. Each day, day by day, week by week, he reveals more and more. He grows us slowly in his grace and in the knowledge of Christ.

And the means by which he does that is another sinner, just like you, to preach the gospel A man of stammering lips, a man who in and of himself is not anything. He's just the voice, as John said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He must increase, I must decrease. Look at the next verse.

For with stammering lips on another tongue will he speak to this people. to whom he said, this is the rest, wherewith he may cause the weary to rest. And this is the refreshing. This is the refreshing of our soul. This is our place where we can sit down beside still waters. We can sit at the master's table We can be at rest in knowing that he has been successful and faithful to put away our sin and to present us before God without fault, without fault.

But they would not hear. They would not hear. You see that in that verse? And here's the meaning of the next verse. For to them, the Bible was nothing more than precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they might stumble and fall.

In other words, they took the truth of the gospel of Christ in the volume of the book it is written of me. And like the Pharisees whom the Lord rebuked when he said to them, you search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me. You've missed, you've been very diligent. to build precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little, but you've stumbled over the very word of God. When God sends the strong delusion that they might believe the lie, he sends it by his word. It is the Bible that has become the stumbling block for men. And the same message that gives us life is a stumbling block to them. because they look for a precept rather than a person, a precept to do rather than a person to follow. They look for some new knowledge.

And of course, the Calvinists will say, oh, no, I know salvation is by works. I'm talking about that proud, Calvinist who rests in his own knowledge, who rests in his superior understanding of theology and doctrine and church history and all those things. And I'm speaking from personal experience. And he will rest in that he's taken the Word of God, and he's built precept upon precept, and he takes comfort in the information that he has.

He thinks he has. the knowledge that he has, and the very scriptures that were given to us to reveal Christ as our rest, men will use and they will make it either a work to be done, or a work to be known, a knowledge to be achieved, information, you see what I'm saying? I've given you my word little by little, but be sure that in every precept and in every line and in every principle that I've given you, that you look for Christ. Look for him.

Because he is your rest. He's your rest, none other. Isaiah chapter 32, verse 1 and 2. Listen, just don't turn there. A man shall be a hiding place as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. God says, a man shall be your hiding place as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Now, you're in the desert. You're being burned up by the sun. And you find a place of shade where you can rest. And God says, that's the man. That's the God-man.

It's the only one in whom you can rest, because he's the only one that performed what I require. for your salvation. Look to him, trust him, believe on him, rest in him, have all of your confidence in him. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31 says, they that wait upon the Lord, they that trust in Christ, They that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they that are looking to Christ for all their rest shall renew their strength. You look up that word renew in Isaiah 40 verse 31. I brought this out before. We use the word renew as if we're going to bolster something up, we're going to restrengthen it. But that word renew means to exchange.

They that wait upon the Lord shall exchange their strength for his strength. And then they shall mount up with wings as eagles, and then they shall be able to walk and not be weary and run and not faint. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. There's no resting in Christ. until I'm able to exchange my works for His.

Otherwise, I'm gonna rest in something I've done, something I believe, something I think I know. I'm gonna rest there. I'm gonna rest in something I have. I'm gonna rest in the temporal things of this world until the Lord shows me that I have no strength. Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 25 says, I have satiated the weary soul. I have replenished every sorrowful soul.

Any man thirst? Not everybody's thirsty. Most folks are just happy to drink from the polluted broken cisterns of this world. But the child of God must have that river that flows clear as crystal from the throne of God. I've got to have the still waters of the gospel.

I can't. I have satiated their thirst. I've drank from those wells. I continue to try to drink water from those wells, and every time I drink of those polluted wells, it makes me sick. Sick. I've got to have my soul satiated with the river of life. Let him come unto me. A sorrowful soul.

Lord, we can never sorrow sufficiently for our sin. You hear people say, well, you know, if you just pray this prayer and be sorry for your sin, well, how sorry do you have to be? You have to be as sorry as the Lord Jesus was when he hung as our sin bearer on Calvary's cross and understood, the only man that ever understood how evil our sin really was. And he said from, he said, Psalm 38, I will be sorry for my sin.

So what is the sorrowful soul? We are sorry as the Holy Spirit enables us to be, but our sorrow is not our penance. We don't offer our sorrow to God as if that will do. Best way I understand sorrowful is just simply to come to this conclusion. I'm a sorrowful man. I'm just sorrowful, full of sorrow. I have no righteousness. All my righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. I can't rest in anything that I've done. Rest for the weary.

Hebrews chapter four. Turn to me there again, if you will. Adam, you read from Psalm 95, and that was a quote from Hebrews chapter four. I asked Adam if he would read that passage because I wanted us to get to Hebrews four this morning. And we'll begin in chapter three, verse 18.

And to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. They didn't trust Christ. They were looking to something else for their rest. Children of Israel in the wilderness.

What did they say about that manna that came down from heaven after eating it? Morning, noon, and night, manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner for 40 years. And what'd they say? We loathe this light bread. We want to go back to Egypt, and we want to eat of the garlics, and the onions, and the melons, and the leeks. Now, all those things are attached to the ground. And they're all pretty bitter. I don't know what melons they were referring to, but garlics, leeks, and onions are all pretty bitter food.

But that's what they wanted to go back to, the sweet manna that came down from heaven, white like coriander and sweet like honey. And everything they needed to sustain them for 40 years was in that manna. Now, our health conscious day, we talk about whole foods. There was never a whole food like the manna. You didn't have to eat anything else.

Now, translate that to the soul. and translate that manna to Christ. I am the bread that came down from heaven. Moses did not give you, your fathers, that manna from heaven. My father gave it. I am the manna. And everything that we need to sustain our souls is found in Christ, not in the things of this earth, not in the leeks and the garlics and the onions of this earth. They're all found in Christ. They couldn't enter in because they didn't believe. They weren't satisfied with Christ. They weren't satiated by that water that came out of the rock. They wanted that which came from the earth.

Chapter four, verse one. Let us, therefore, fear, It's a good thing to hold yourself suspect. It's a good thing to not trust yourself. It's a good thing to know enough about yourself and about your own sin to know that, Lord, if you don't give me faith and if you don't keep me in the faith, I'll do what those Israelites did. I like the taste of leeks and garlics.

Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left to us of entering into his rest, any of you seem to come short of it. To come short of his rest is to have anything for our rest other than Christ. To add to him or to take away from him is to come short of his rest.

For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached to them did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. They didn't believe what they were hearing. Moses told them, God told them in picture every day, but they didn't believe it. And some now that hear this message, they won't believe it.

For we which have believed do enter into his rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Now the Lord's telling us something about what this rest means.

It means that the work required by God for us to be saved was accomplished in the covenant of grace by the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb that was slain in the decree of God before the world ever was. Now in time, the Lord Jesus hung on Calvary's cross and shed his precious blood, but that was just simply to fulfill what God had already ordained and purposed in the covenant of grace. This is an everlasting covenant. We're justified eternally in Christ. And the Lord's saying to us that what Christ fulfilled in his body was a work that was done before the world ever began.

You didn't have anything to do with it. I can rest in that. I can rest in a God who does all the choosing. If the hope of my salvation is dependent upon my choice, I know how my choices go. I make a lot of bad choices. I've had a lot of buyer's remorse over the years. Why did I buy that? Why did I spend money on that? That was foolish.

But a God who does all the choosing, I can rest in Him. A God who does all the redeeming, who's able to put away all my sins by the sacrifice of Himself, I can't redeem myself. I can rest in the precious blood of Christ as the covering of all my sin. and a God who irresistibly, invincibly, makes me willing in the day of his power, calls me by his grace, and makes me to believe on Christ, I can rest there.

I do believe. I do believe. Why do I believe? Because God calls me to believe. How many things I believed over the course of my life, and I come to find out they weren't true? There are a whole lot of things concerning this world and my life that I used to believe I don't believe now. But I believe exactly what I believed the day the Lord gave me faith in Christ concerning the gospel.

I haven't changed my beliefs on that. Why? In religion, I was always changing my beliefs. Always looking for a different angle, always looking for a better truth, always looking for something else to do, something else to know. But when the Lord shows you that Christ is all, you just rest right there and you keep believing on Him. You never move away from Him. That's how I know. Nothing's changed.

Verse four, for he spake in a certain place on the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works. Now the Lord is likening Christ to the Sabbath. God created everything in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. Why did He rest on the seventh day?

One reason and one reason only. He was not tired. He was finished. Finished. He was finished. The work was done before the foundation of the world. It was finished before the foundation of the world. The work of creation was finished on the Sabbath. Both of these things are pointing us to look to Christ.

Christ is our Sabbath. None of the other of the 10 commandments are called a sign other than the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Remember Christ. and maintain all of your holiness in him. For that Sabbath day worship in the Old Testament was a sign. It's called a sign. Five or six times the Lord calls the Sabbath a sign. He doesn't call honoring your father and mother a sign. He doesn't call that I shall not murder a sign. Those are clear commands of God. He doesn't call not making images in my likeness or anything in heaven a sign.

But he calls the Sabbath a sign. If you keep the Sabbath, you've kept the whole law. Because like every sign, it points to something beyond itself. And those who try to keep the Sabbath by what they do on Sunday and don't do on Sunday, are in their attempts to keep the Sabbath, violating the Sabbath.

They're looking to what they do and what they don't do as the hope of their salvation. Now God's people, God's people rejoice in coming together and worshiping him and hearing the gospel and opening his word and having the spirit of God comfort them and give them rest. And we don't have to put men under the law to get them to come to church or shame men to get them to come. If they have a need to rest and Christ is being preached, they're going to be there. And yet so many churches use Sunday as a litmus test for people's salvation. And it becomes a work. It becomes a work. Christ is our Sabbath.

If we are resting in him, then we've kept the whole law because he is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes on him. they could not enter in because of their unbelief. Verse five, and in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seeing therefore their remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached enter not in because of unbelief, Again, he limited a certain day saying to David, today, after so long a time, as it is said, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Now, Moses gave the Sabbath, but David is telling us 1,000 years, 500 years later, that there's still a rest, that that Sabbath day was not our rest. It was a sign.

And Jesus and Joshua, the same spelling, same exact name, Jehovah saves Yeshua. And our King James Version has translated it into the name Jesus. And accurately, it is the Lord Jesus. But the reference contextually is Joshua. For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterwards have spoken of another day? They thought, well, we've entered into the promised land, now we have our rest. No, all of these things are signs. The Sabbath was a sign, coming across the Jordan was a sign, being delivered from Egypt was a sign. That's not your rest. The manna that came down from heaven is not your rest. These were all signs. there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

For he that is entered into his rest, he hath also ceased from his own works as God did from his. Believers want their lives to be in service to the Lord. They rejoice in being able to to serve the Lord. That's not what he's talking about when he says we've entered into his rest if we've ceased from our works. He has redeemed to himself a peculiar people who are zealous for good works. That we might worship and pray and encourage one another and do what we can in the body of Christ.

Cease from your works. your dead works, any work that you would look to as the hope of your salvation and look in faith to Christ for all your salvation. There, we can rest. We can rest. No place else to rest. Are you weary? Are you languid? Are you sore, distressed in this world by your sin? Come unto me, and he that says come will give you rest. Amen? All right, let's stand together. Brother Tom? 23, in the spiral hymnal, number 23.

Rest for the Weary

Sermon Transcript

About Greg Elmquist

Comments

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

Rest for the Weary

Sermon Transcript

About Greg Elmquist

Comments

More from Greg Elmquist

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Greg Elmquist

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book