I want to read two verses to
you this morning, and my text will be Hebrews chapter 4, verses
10 and 11. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from
his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter
into that rest. Lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief. In verse 9 we are told, There
remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. And then in
verse 10 we are told, That he that hath entered unto this rest
hath ceased from his own works. And then let us labor to enter
unto that rest. Rest. His rest. I went over to Cottageville,
West Virginia last weekend. I stayed with a man and his wife
and family, Cheryl Dobson. And he said he would have to
meet me. I couldn't find his house. And
he told me a place to meet him just off the interstate. And
he said, you'll see a big sign there that says, Park and Ride. Park and Ride. And there was
a, parking place, a parking lot. And I pulled in that parking
lot and that's where I met him. Just a few cars in the parking
lot. And I'm not for sure if we even have such a thing around
here. But over there, in some of the bigger cities, they have
these parks where you can park your vehicle and someone picks
you up, you leave your vehicle and you get in their vehicle.
and they drive you to your destination. You're not responsible for getting
there. You're not responsible for fighting the traffic. You
get out of your vehicle, you get into your vehicle, and you,
in their vehicle, you rest, and they take you to your destination. And that would be the title of
our lesson this morning, Park and Ride. Park and ride. Let somebody else stop the traffic.
Rest and leave the driving to someone else. And this concept
of park and ride is taught throughout the Scripture. Someone else is
doing the driving. And you and I go along for the
ride. And we're utterly, utterly, utterly
dependent upon the driver to get us to our desired destination
and our final destination. And here the Hebrew writer in
our text tells us of this rest that you and I must experience. We must enter into this rest. And here in verse 10, he calls
it his rest. It's the rest of God. It's the
rest of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 4 and verse 1, he
calls it that again. Look at this. Let us therefore
fear, lest a promise be left us of enter into his rest. Any of you should seem to come
short of it. Now, what is this rest? It's His rest, and He has entered
into that rest. And what is His rest? Well, to
tell you in short, it's the great accomplishment that Jesus Christ
has accomplished in His death. In His death, He accomplished
something that nobody could ever accomplish between the eternity. And you know what that is? The
purging away of sins. Now, I want to show you two places
in this book. This is so important. I want
you to look back to the first chapter in verse 1 and verses
2 and 3. Look at this. Look in chapter
1 of Hebrews and begin in verse 1. God who at sundry times and
different times and in different manners spake in time past to
the fathers by the prophets. He has in these last days spoken
to us by His Son. Now look what He has given to
His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things. Look what He has done by His
Son, by whom also He made the world. Look at the character. Look at the very nature of His
Son, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express
image of His person, He's more than just being like God. He
is God, the very image of the invisible God. And look what
He does. He's upholding all things by
the word of His power, and look what a great feat He's accomplished. when he had by himself purged
our sins." What did he do then? He sat down on the right hand
of the Majesty on high. He is resting. He has purged
sin away and now he is resting. I want you to look in chapter
10 of Hebrews. Look in chapter 10 and look in
verse 9. Here's what the Son of God said
when He came into this world. Then said He, then said Jesus
of Nazareth, the Son of God, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O
God. He takes away the first. He takes
away the first covenant and all the temple worship and all the
sacrifices and the priesthood. He took that all away. that he
may establish this second covenant, by the which will we are sanctified,
were set apart to God in his glory through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And every priest
under the Mosaic law, he stands daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down. He's resting at
the right hand of God. Now, Paul said all of these priests
under the law, they never sat down because their work is never
finished. Because He said, the blood of
bulls and goats that they offered could never take away sin. But
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when He offered Himself a sacrifice
for sin, that took away sin. The work was finished, so what
does He do? He sets down. He enters unto
His rest. In other words, there's nothing
else to be done. There's nothing else that can
be done. There's nothing needful to be done. Sin has been purged
2,000 years ago upon the cross of Calvary. You know, this was
the most difficult and impossible task. It was even difficult for
God to do it. This was a task that only God
in our humanity could accomplish. If any think that it is easy
to put away sin, If anybody here this morning, dear soul, believes
that it's an easy task to purge sin away, then go yonder to the
garden of Gethsemane and look at the Son of God upon His face
on a cold night, sweating drops of blood. Look at His lip as
it quivers and He cries like a baby. Follow Him to the judgment
hall and see Him stripped naked and mocked and shamed. and follow
Him to the cross and stand there and feel that darkness cover
the earth. And realize that the wrath of
God like waters are being poured into His soul. And it took all
the strength that He had. It took all of His blood to purge
away sin. He did something that all the
angels combined together could not do. He did something that
God in heaven could not do. He had to come to this earth,
take to Himself our humanity, and suffer upon the cross of
Calvary, and pour out His heart's blood. And that's what it took,
to purge away sin. And that's the rest that He has
entered into this morning. The rest of purging away our
sins. Oh, what a difficult task it
is to put away sin. But the Scripture says once in
the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin. And there was those in this Jewish
community that wanted to hold on to this ceremonial law. They
would not let it go, Wayne. They wouldn't let the temple
worship go. They always wanted to go to the
temple. They always wanted to bring their
sacrifices. They wouldn't let the priesthood
go. They wouldn't let the holy days go. They wouldn't let the
dietary laws go. They wouldn't get out of that
old vehicle. That's what I'm saying. They
wanted to do the driving themselves. And that brings us here to this
second point in chapter 4 in verse 10. Look at what else the
writer of Hebrews says in verse 10. That's His rest, brothers
and sisters. He that is entered unto His rest. His rest. Look what he says in
the second portion of verse 10. He also has ceased from His own
works as God did from His. When we enter into the rest that
Christ has entered into, that means we cease from our own works
as God ceased from His. God has ceased from His works
of creation. Remember there in Genesis chapter
3 when God began on the first day to create all things? And
the sixth day, he finished his creation. And he looked at it,
and he says, it's very good. Nothing was lacking. There wasn't
a limb on the tree that was lacking. There wasn't a fountain springing
up in a little brook somewhere that was lacking. Creation was
finished, and God says, it's good. And what did he do? He
rested. He rested the seventh day. And
when the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross says it's finished,
nothing else was lacking. It was done. Sin had been purged. They had been put away. So verse
10 tells us here, we must cease from our own works. We must cease from our religious
duties and our efforts to atone for our own sin And we must enter
into the rest that Jesus Christ has accomplished. In other words,
you've got to park. You've got to park. You've got
to get out of your old vehicle, leave your sedan there, and get
in this vehicle of rest and ride with Him. The accomplished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pulled in that parking lot
over there and met Cheryl, and there was hardly any cars in
that parking lot. Park and ride, but nobody takes
advantage of it. Maybe most people like us. I
like to drive myself, don't you? I'm sort of fond of driving.
This is one vehicle you better get out of. This is one place
where we better not be fond of driving our own cars, brothers
and sisters. Some people want to drive themselves
because they don't like the company they would have to keep riding
with somebody else. But I love the company. I love
the company. Some fellows want to sightsee,
or they want to stay longer someplace. If you're riding with somebody
else, you've got to go where he takes you. You see? And when we look at this from
a spiritual sense, there's not many cars, there's not many people
that have pulled over and got out of their old cars and said,
I'm going to leave the driving to somebody else. I'm going to
rest. I am going to rest. I tell you,
some people say, well, it's an easy matter to believe this.
I tell you, it's not an easy matter. It ought to be. But I tell you to park your old
religious vehicle of works and self-righteousness and put all
your confidence in somebody outside yourself to have him purge your
sins away, you may find out that's not as easy as you think. You've got a nice car, you see. And you don't want to leave it
there in that parking lot. Somebody may steal it. Somebody may put
a den in it. I'm just about afraid to leave
my car. And I just don't trust His driving. Well, you've got
to pull over this old religious vehicle. You've got to pull it
over. You've got to park it. You've
got to get out of it. And you've got to trust the Lord
Jesus Christ as He has already purged sin away. Park and ride. Park and ride. I tell you, the
happiest man in this world is the man that puts all his
confidence in the Son of God to have his sins purged away.
Happiest man in the world. But if it was easy, if it was
easy, then there wouldn't be these verses like this, Let us
labor. Therefore, to enter into that
rest. Let us therefore fear. That's the promise being left
to us of entering into that rest. Any of you should seem to come
short of it. Brothers and sisters, there was a whole nation of the
Jews came short of this rest. They wouldn't get out of their
old vehicles. They're going to drive themselves. And they perished. They perished. They entered not
in. to His rest in the cause of unbelief. Park and ride. Park and ride. Happiest thing I've ever done
is got out of my old vehicle. Park that old sorry trap. Number two, let's look at another
concept of this park and ride that's taught in the Scripture.
We talk a lot about our justification before God. standing just before
God. The Scripture asks the question,
if God is holy, and He is, and you and I are unclean, and we
are, how can we be justified before God? How can God possibly
look upon us and count us to be just when we are so sinful
in ourselves? Well, the means that He does
this must not violate God's holy law. It must be a means that's
consistent with justice. And boy, that's what complicates
things, isn't it? Oh, God loves us, somebody said. So therefore,
because He loves us, He'll never punish us. We get all twisted up in those
things, don't we? Here's what we're talking about this morning.
If God is holy and you and I are sinful, How can God accept us
as just in His holy sight without violating His law? I've used
this example so many times. If you kill somebody or someone
in our community has killed a family and they take him uptown to the
courthouse and they try him and he's found guilty and the judge
looks at him and says, you know, I'm just a kind man and I'm going
to let you go free. I'm not going to force these
charges off upon you. You can just go free now. You
know what the community would do with a judge like that? They'd
run him out of this community, and justly so. How can God accept
us as just without violating His law? Well, in a word, He does it like
this. He does it by giving us. the perfect righteousness of
His Son. Turn with you over to the book
of Romans. Look over in the book of Romans, over to your left. I want you to find chapter 5
in the book of Romans and hold it there just a minute. That'll be page 1227, young people. Paul begins the book of Romans
and tells us that God had separated him unto the gospel of God. I've been separated to the gospel
of God, to believe it and to preach it. And then he tells
us what that gospel is concerning his son. Jesus Christ our Lord,
which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,
and declared to be the Son of God with power by the Spirit
of holiness from the resurrection from the dead." What is the gospel? It is the gospel concerning the
Son of God, who He is and what He has done in the days of His
flesh. And then he went right on in
chapter 1 in verse 16 and 17, and he made this statement, I
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God to salvation to everyone that believeth, for therein is
the righteousness of God revealed. What is revealed in the gospel?
Well, Jesus Christ is revealed in the gospel. It is about Him,
isn't it? It's about His person. Who is He? Why, He's glorious.
He's the Son of God. What's He done? He's lived a
perfect life. He's offered a perfect sacrifice.
He died and rose again from the dead. The gospel is about the
Son of God, who He is, and what He's done. Well, here Paul said,
in the gospel is revealed the righteousness of God. Who is
that righteousness? It must be Christ. The righteousness that God provides
for us is His own blessed Son. And look here what He says in
chapter 5. Look at this. Look in verse 18. Therefore,
by the offense of one man, Adam, judgment come upon all men to
condemnation. That's why we're barned, condemned.
Even so, by the righteousness of one, one man's righteousness,
the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous." Here's why the gospel is good news. Because
it tells us about the righteousness of this perfect man. It's his
own righteousness, and God gives it to us. He imputes it to us. He, as it were, covers the shame
of our nakedness, covers all our crimes. And He looks upon
us then in this righteousness and says, Now you're just before
me. And the whole Jewish nation missed
this righteous one. Because they missed Christ. Oh,
Paul said, I pray for them. I pour my heart out to God for
them. They have a zeal of God. But it's not according to knowledge.
Oh, what are they ignorant of? They've been ignorant of God's
righteousness. What is God's righteousness?
Jesus Christ. His obedience that I just read
to you. They've been ignorant of that
righteousness. What do they do? They go about. They're still driving their own
vehicles, you see, of self-righteousness. They go about to establish their
own righteousness and have not cemented themselves unto the
righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. He has worked out this perfect
righteousness by His obedience. And you know something? When
justice looked upon Jesus Christ and His works and His life and
His thoughts, justice said, Oh, I am so pleased. I am so honored. When the moral law of God considers
Jesus Christ, it says, You've magnified me. You've honored
me. And He didn't do this for Himself,
but He did it for sinners. And now here's the question.
How does this righteousness become mine? How can I have it? If that's the way that God justifies
me, how can I have this righteousness? I think that's an important question,
don't you? Look here in chapter 4 of Romans. Look in Romans chapter 4 and
look in verse 1. I would say if there was such
a righteousness as this that a man could obtain, boy, you're
going to have to work awfully hard to get it. I mean, if it's
that good, don't tell me you can get it free. You ain't going
to get nothing free that's any good, are you? So what do I have to do to get
this righteousness? My dad asked me that question
not long before he died. Ask me that question not long
before you die. This is one of the passages that I quoted to
you. Look in Romans chapter 4. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if
Abraham was justified by works, he hath wore of the glory before
me and you, because he is a faithful man, but not before God. God can see sin in us when we
can't see it in ourselves. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. Boy, I've got to
do something to get this righteousness. You can't work for it. The more
you try to work for it, the more in debt you go. How do we get
it there? But to him that worketh not,
But believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith, his faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ is counted for righteousness. With a heart
men believeth unto righteousness." How does this righteousness become
mine? By a childlike faith. By a childlike confidence. by believing in Him for it. That's it, brothers and sisters.
That's it. Park and ride. Park and ride. Somebody else is doing the driving
in this vehicle. Park your own vehicle. Leave
it. Forsake it. Jesus Christ has
already brought in this righteousness. Believe Him for it. You remember
old ignorance and pilgrim progress. Christian and hopeful was telling
him about this righteousness and being justified by this imputed
righteousness. And they said, you're going to
have to believe in him to get it. He said, you have me to thank
and believe that Jesus Christ has done all. And now all he'd
have me to do is simply put all my confidence in him and there's
nothing anymore for me to do. You'd have me believe that?"
And they said, yes. It's like my poor dad told me
when I told him that. You know what my dad told me?
He said, oh, I'd be scared to death to do that. That'd be like
parking and letting somebody else do the driving. It's not gotten by works. It's
a rest that you enter into. And I'll be the first one to
admit it's not always easy to do. That's why you labor to give
up yourself to Him, to be justified by Him alone. And I'll tell you
one of the most difficult things you and I ever did to get our
hands off of our own salvation. To stand before God wholly on
the merits of somebody else to be saved. I tell you, brothers
and sisters, if Jesus Christ, by His own obedience and merits,
does not present me just before God, then I will be damned. Oh, Paul said, the more you try
to do, the deeper in debt you go. Till to Jesus' work we cling
by a living faith. Doing is a deadly thing. doing
ends in death. And thirdly, I want you to consider
this with me. Something else about this concept
of park and ride. It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop
when we find rest in Him for the purging of our sin. When
we find rest in Him to be justified by righteousness that He gives
to us. Rest does not stop there. That
is why the Hebrew writer said, There remaineth a rest for the
people of God. There is yet rest. There is yet
rest. I love that passage where the
Lord Jesus in Hebrews 11 said, Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And then He goes
right on and says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and
you shall Find rest for your soul. Do you desire rest this
morning? Dear children of God, do you
desire rest? Do you desire peace of mind,
quietness in your soul as you live your life in this world
full of devils and sin? Don't you long to come to that
destination where you can live in peace? Well, it comes down to this,
park and ride. Somebody said, the Lord saves
us, then the rest is up to us. Boy, there ain't no resting there,
is there? You're on your own now. You're on probation now.
There ain't no resting there. That's like you're getting in
the vehicle and finding yourself justified and accepted, then
jumping out of the vehicle and getting back in your own again.
The rest, we find, is parking. And once we park our vehicle,
The thing we want to do, and here's where we have our problem,
is get Him right back in that vehicle, and you know we do it,
don't we? There's a rest for God's children. There's a rest for the saved
as they live their lives in this world. Listen to Paul in Philippians
4. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God." Be anxious for nothing. Not one single thing. Don't be
anxious for. Don't be worried. Don't live
your life burdened down with worries. I love Peter when he
says, casting all your care upon Him. All of it. Sounds a lot
like park and ride, doesn't it? All your care upon Him. All of it. Roll your burdens
on the Lord and leave them there. Casting all your care upon Him. And then what happens? The peace
of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and your
minds. You remember when Israel was,
somebody preached on this, it may have been Brother David.
Remember when Israel had left Ramses there in Egypt and they
went out and they were standing before the sea, the great sea. The mountains had hemmed them
in, probably two or three million of them. And they saw Pharaoh
coming behind them with all his soldiers and chariots and on
foot and all their swords and their arrows drawn. And boy,
they got so scared they began to cry out. You talk about anxious.
What would you have told them? You know what I would have said?
Boy, it's time to fight or die. You better pile up your rocks.
You that can swim better hit the water. The rest of you fight. Every man for himself. That's
what I'd have told him, fight or die. I tell you, the Lord gave him a
strange command. You know what he told him? Stand
still. Stand still. Yeah, time to park
and ride now. What he said with it? Stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord. He's going to show it to
you today. Don't you think it's been a lot
easier to fight than stand still? I'm telling you, brothers and
sisters, it's not difficult to park and ride. It's not easy
to park and ride. It ain't. But that's the only
way you can experience the peace of God in your soul. You remember
when the three great armies, three great nations, the children
of Lot, I think it was the Assyrians, Syria, came against Jehoshaphat
in Judea, there in Judah. They had the place surrounded.
Everybody was scared to death. All the women, the little children,
all of them had gathered under the city of Jerusalem. And the
Lord sent a prophet to tell Jehoshaphat and all the children of Israel
the same thing He told the Jews there at the Red Sea. The battle
is not yours. of the Lord. You will not need
to fight in this battle. Be still. Set yourselves and
see the salvation of the Lord. Don't that sound a lot like parking
and riding? I want you to look with me in closing. Look at Psalms chapter 37. Sometimes what dear believers,
dear Christians, get in their heads is once the Lord saves
them and gives them rest, that's just about the end of it. But
it's not long we begin to find out, man, I want some peace in
living. I want some rest in my soul as
I live in this world. Look here what he says in Psalms
chapter 37. Threaten not. Psalms 37.1, page 655. Threaten
not yourself. Threaten not yourself because
of evildoers. We've been threatening lately
about evildoers, haven't we? I'm going to vote something out
if I can this time. We've got a bunch of evildoers
running our country. And I'm going to do everything
I can to vote them out. I'm getting tired of people taking
my money and supporting a woman's right to kill her little innocent
baby. I'll be honest with you, that's
repulsive to me. And I'm going to vote them out.
They're evildoers. But here's the bad thing. When
we get that bunch of evildoers out there, we're going to vote
a bunch more evildoers. Politicians are base men. They're
evildoers. And we just fret and fret and
fret and fret, don't we? And just fret ourselves to death. And look at this. Neither be
thou envious against the workers of iniquity. And I find myself
so jealous sometimes. I told you about my neighbor
taking off on Sunday with his big boat and going fishing. And
here I am ready to come to preach and I'm so burdened. I get up
in the morning, here's my neighbor on the other side, and he's got
his boat on, and he's going out, and he's going fishing, and he's
retired, and he's drawing his big check, and he sets around.
He's got it made, and I get up, and I'm chastened every morning. And every time I try to do something,
it all goes bad. And sometimes I say, oh, my goodness. I shouldn't even tell you this.
I wish I was like that. I wish I could take off and do
it too. You ever get envious? Here's why we shouldn't envy
the wicked brothers. Look in verse 2. They shall soon be cut
off. They're going to be like the
grass. They're going to wither as the green herbs. So what should
we do? Verse 3. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the
Lord with all your heart. Don't lean to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge
Him. He shall direct your steps. Trust
in the Lord and do good. So shall you dwell in the land
and you will be fed. Verse 4, delight yourself also
in the Lord. Delight in His law. Delight in
His gospel. Delight in His Son. Delight in
His church. Delight in His ways. Delight
yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your
heart. And look in verse 5. Thy way unto the Lord." Commit. He's able to keep that which
you've committed unto Him against that day. Commit yourself. Commit
all you have unto Him. And look what He says in verse
8. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Threaten not thyself in
any wise to do evil. Cease from anger. Don't we have
problems with that? Cease, cease, cease. That's what
we've been talking about, isn't it? Ceasing from your own works,
ceasing from yourself. Joe and I came in to get a sandwich
the other day for dinner. And we went to one of those places
where they make your sandwich and you tell them what to put
on it. And they didn't have enough help. All their help was in the
back. And I was there waiting and this one lady was working.
She hollered for the ladies in the back to come up and help
her. She had to order twice. Well, one of them was mad when
she came out, and I was the first person she waited on. And she
fixed my sandwich, and I said, would you put some onions on
it, please? She got one little onion, shook it off, put it on
this end of my sandwich, shook another one off, put it in the
middle, shook another one off, put it on the end. Three little
tiny pieces of onion. I said, would you put some olives? Four little halves of olives. One on the end, two in the middle.
And I said, could I have some more olives on that, please?
She said, we have portions that we have to give people. Boy,
I tell you what. I wanted some mayonnaise, but
I didn't tell her I wanted any. She said, do you want some chips
with that? I said, no. She said, do you want a drink
with that? I said, no. You going to eat it here? I said, no, I'm
staying at the house. And I went out the door, and there was a
trash can sitting there, and I didn't do it. At least I didn't
do it with this hand, but boy, in my heart, I took that sandwich
and I threw it into that trash can as hard as I could. Then
I went home and said to myself, cease from anger. I thought to myself, here you
are, not only a child of God, but here you are, a preacher.
What if that woman shows up? And you're going to preach to
her? What are you going to preach about? Oh, and I thought of this verse
here in verse 7. Look at this. Rest in the Lord
and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself because of
Him who prospers in His way. That's my whole problem. I got
back in my little vehicle of anger and self-will, and I started
driving again. And when we get back in our little
vehicle, brothers and sisters, here's where we have problems. Part, part, and ride. God bless His Word. Let's pray.