Rest
Speaker: Pastor CJ Cody
Scripture References: Genesis 1:31-2:3; Matthew 6: 25-34; 11:28; Hebrews 4:5-7, 9-12, 5:11
SERMON RECAP
As a new year begins, many people make personal goals or what is referred to as New Years resolutions. Then they chase after these goals and strive in their own efforts to accomplish them. But statistics show that by the second Friday of the month, 80% of the people who make these resolutions have given up on them. Life often sends us on a journey chasing after joy, security, love and the belief that we can find them in a job, or a person or personal development. These things seem to promise rest, but in reality, only God can give us these things and only He can give us rest. That is why in Matthew 11:28, Jesus extends a divine invitation to those who are weary and burdened from their chase to come to Him to receive rest for their souls. For, not only is God the source of rest, but He is the creator of rest. When he had completed His finished work of creation as recorded in the Book of Genesis, He rested on the seventh day. And He continues to offer a sabbath rest as a specific type of rest for His people.
God knows each of us and why we are the way that we are. He desires to do amazing things in our lives, but He will not kick down the door and force His blessings on us. Instead we must open the doors of our hearts so we can see Him and receive what He has for us. To receive His invitation of rest requires faith, but we must build our faith through the reading and study of His Word. In doing so, we will develop an understanding of what God’s finished work means to us. When we get a full revelation of Jesus’ finished work, we can accept His invitation to experience rest from our own efforts of striving, from guilt, condemnation and the things that we have been chasing after or running from. We will come to realize that those things have already been taken care of through Jesus’ finished work on the cross. Then we will be able to truly experience rest.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What resonated with you as you listened to this sermon and reviewed it?
2. What resolutions or goals are you considering for this new year? How do you plan to go about accomplishing them?
3. Why do you think people become weary and burdened when chasing after love, joy, security, and other things?
4. What are the things that cause you to be weary and/or burdened and around which you would like to experience rest?
5. What do you think it means to “get a full revelation of Jesus’ finished work?” How would this revelation affect the way you live and the things you seek after?
6. It was said that to receive rest requires faith, and that we build our faith through the reading and study of the Word. What, if anything, blocks your faith from growing and/or gets in the way of your reading and study of the Word?
7. Read Matthew 6:25-24. How does this passage relate to the concept of rest that Jesus offers in Matthew 11:28-29?