Maintaining God’s Rest and Freedom
maintaining Gods rest and freedom • Sermon • Submitted
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Maintaining God’s Rest and Freedom
In the Old Testament, the people were bound by the law (the 10 Commandments). It was the Law of Condemnation. If you broke one law, you broke them all, and it was Physically and Spiritually Impossible for us to keep this law.
If you notice, I said Bound By The Law. Being Bound is the opposite of Freedom as we know! So God said, I’ve got to make a new covenant with man” and as
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
He sent His Son to the earth to Set Us Free from Sin, to Set Us Free from Guilt, to set us Free from Condemnation and to cover us by the Blood introducing Grace which fulfilled the law’s requirement in giving us the amazing gift of Freedom!
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
So church, When You Get Saved, when you Receive The Gift Of Salvation, all your past Sins Are Covered. Jesus remembers them no more, and you are Free From The Sin That Owns Other People.
So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.
So when we Get Saved, we get Freedom and we feel great, just like someone who has literally been Freed From A Prison because sin is a prison, but we Have To Continue to Seek that freedom deeper and that’s where the Word of God comes in.
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
We come to God and GET FREEDOM…and then we FEED ON THE WORD of God Daily…and the Word of God is literally Jesus, and Jesus is the Bread of Life, so we Feed on the Word, which is Jesus, who is the Bread that gives us Continuous Freedom And Grace, but just because we are free from sin and we have grace Does Not Give Us A License To Sin!
For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
In other words, this Freedom and His Grace does free you from sin, but it is Not A License to sin again and get away with it.
So, when you truly get Saved and get Free and have Grace, you will Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness. You will strive to be Holy because God is Holy. You won’t want to sin and get away with it and call it Grace. If that is your attitude, you need to seriously check yourself!
In Matthew 5:17
“Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
So, Jesus is saying even though God has made a new covenant with man that frees them from the law, the law is still a good moral compass of who God is and what He expects from a righteousness person.
So, Christ is saying that He is fulfilling the law because the Freedom and Grace we receive when we get saved allows us to fulfill every law which allows us to be seen as sinless in God’s eyes!
We are So, So blessed that we have a God who has mercy on us and as a gift for Giving our Life to Him, He sets us FREE! This freedom we have been talking about produces REST. The Rest of the Lord is a product of Freedom.
Just like Freedom, you will get Rest when you Surrender Your Life and become saved, but you must Maintain Rest.
So, let’s take a deeper look at REST as a whole.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
This is Jesus talking. He is telling us “Come to me and I will give you REST!” So it is plain to see right here that the REST IS FOR EVERY PERSON who comes to Christ for salvation.
Let’s take a deeper look at these verses in Scripture. This is Jesus’ invitation. His Invitation to Salvation and His Invitation for Getting Saved and receiving Rest, then living in the Rest continually.
When Jesus says come to me He is showing His authority. There is not another being, another man, woman or child or angel in the Cosmos BUT GOD who can make this statement.
Jesus turns no one away. He invites us all to come to Him.
Then Jesus says “All you who are Weary and Burdened.” He is saying Put Down The Heavy Load. Come to me with your burdens and let me help you carry the load.
The REST is a Free Gift. Many of us receive this Rest and Feel Amazing for a day or two, and then we go back to life and lose it. The fact is the Rest is a Free Gift, but the Maintaining of it you must Go After and Live It.
Many of us have an Emotional Breakthrough at church and then we leave and the rest leaves also, Because we do not maintain the rest.
We must SEEK THE FACE OF GOD and look to Him for that free gift of REST every day, and He will give it, if you allow Him to.
He will if we do what it takes to Remain in the Rest…
which is prayer…
we must keep an open line of communication…
we have to studying the Bible…
then living out the truth that you study in the Bible…
and then staying in consistent participation at church. We have to quit coming to church looking for what the church can do for us. We Become the Love we are looking for, get Plugged Into A Ministry within the church, and then Serve God.
The first part says COME TO ME and I will give you rest…and then He says LEARN FROM ME and you will find it…FIND WHAT? REST.
So we must Come to Jesus to receive the FREE GIFT of rest and then LEARN from Jesus to find the REST CONTINUALLY.
Well, how do we Learn from Jesus? He answers that in the first part of the verse. He says, “TAKE UP MY YOKE, BECOME ONE WITH ME!”
When you yoke two animals together, you are combining two separate animals with two separate strengths, and you are making the two into one. The two work together for the same goal and outcome.
So what Jesus is saying is: “Here you go”.
You’ve got the REST, the PEACE, the LOVE and EVERYTHING that comes along with making ME LORD OF YOUR LIFE…but in order to Maintain what I’ve freely given you, you’ve got to YOKE YOURSELF to Me; you’ve got to BECOME ONE with Me DAILY.
Then you become one with the Lord, then before you know it, your wants and needs are changing and you are looking to Jesus for GUIDANCE AND DIRECTION and His Holy Spirit begins to speak louder to you.
You are still yoked to Him, but the two of you are working together for the same goals…and you are now MAINTAINING THE REST. Those goals may not be the SAME GOALS you had when you came to Him…but they are now GOALS that God had for you. He just couldn’t reveal them to you until you were on the same page, UNTIL YOU WERE ONE WITH HIM.
But you are now understanding what He says in the next verse, you understand that His YOKE IS EASY and His BURDEN IS LIGHT! You are now understanding that His yoke is tailor-made for each one of us. The burden is light because the yoke was specifically made for you, so the burdens are easily carried when you are walking one with Jesus for the yoke that was made for you.
Church we must STEP OUT from the Coming and Receiving to the Learning and Finding how to maintain the rest. That’s where the intimate relationship happens.
See, we come to Jesus Weary from SIN, burdened from living life WITHOUT JESUS…whether you realize it or not…but once you are moved by the Holy Spirit to come to Jesus and He gives you rest, you see how truly weary and burdened you were and you feel amazing.
But what you do when you Leave the Altar, when you leave the Church, is going to decide if you continue living a VICTORIOUS RESTFUL life as a disciple of Jesus Christ, OR if you had a GLIMPSE of the Lord’s Rest and a ONE-TIME freeing experience!
Church, all of this stuff is inner-connected! When we FAIL to be ON FIRE for God on a CONSISTENT BASIS, then we do not have the BOLDNESS that the fire produces…which means we’re NOT EXPERIENCING GOD in a way that makes us want to tell everyone we meet about the God we Serve.
But Church, when we come to Jesus
And receive the FREE GIFT OF REST…
And we get up from the altar, and we Leave The Church…
And we get in the car to go Home…
And the Music you enjoyed on the way to the church now Offends the SPIRIT that was just revived in you
And you TURN IT OFF and instead of taking in worldly music, you are now TALKING TO GOD…
And then you Get Home and turn on your Favorite TV Show and instead of being entertained by it, You’re Now Burdened for the people on the show because What Happened At The Altar has made you Sensitive To Sin, and gave you a Burden for other people Dying In Sin.
So now you’ve Cut Out Secular Music…and you’ve started Filtering The Kind Of Things You Watch On TV…and now you have not only Felt The Conviction of the Holy Spirit but you’ve OBEYED.
Feeling the conviction and obeying are two different things. If you got in the car, felt the Conviction Over The Music, but did Not turn the music off, the change would cease to happen.
Once you obey the Holy Spirit, He continues to convict you further, such as when you Got Home now the TV Convicted you. But had you denied the conviction in the car, you may have never had the conviction over the TV. [Elaborate]
But when you OBEY, the Spirit now gets Stronger and it nudges you to blow the Dust Off your Bible and Read It.
So, now you’ve SUBTRACTED some worldly things…
And you’ve begun to ADD the Holy Word of God…
And a week goes by and you noticed your LANGUAGE has changed…
And you now are PRAYING in the car or listening to PRAISE MUSIC…
And you’re STUDYING THE BIBLE everyday…
And then you notice your PRAYER LIFE is growing…
And you are now CONSULTING the Holy Spirit all through the day…
And the things of God are on your Mind…
You wake up singing PRAISE SONGS to the Lord…
You roll over in the middle of the night and you are THANKING HIM…
And then you Don’t Just Go To Church Sunday because it’s what you were taught…
You go to Church Sunday Ready To Praise God for the beautiful Rest He has given you…
And you’re not just someone who Got Saved And Is Religious, you’re someone EXPERIENCING GOD daily and LIVING in His Rest and now every person you encounter is a person you want to tell about the amazing God you serve because you’re ON FIRE and you’re YOKED to Jesus and enabled by the Holy Spirit to boldly take the basket off your head and Witness and do what God told us all to do!
Don’t get me wrong, you’re STILL GOING to have BAD days, STILL GOING to have problems if you do what it takes to maintain this rest, but how you Handle the bad day is going to be Different, how you React to problems will be Different.
This is where so many Christians are failing, Church. We are failing at LIVING THE REST simply because we do not put TIME and EFFORT into our relationship with the Lord.
Church, we’ve got to WAKE UP…
Become YOKED TO JESUS…
Become ONE WITH JESUS…
Spend time YOKED TO THE WORD of God…
Spend time in our SECRET PLACE with God…
Quit riding the fence…Stop hugging a line…
Give your Whole Self to Jesus…
And if you do that you can’t help but be on fire…
If you do those things you will LIVE IN REST…
You will be excited about worship…
You will have a true burden for other People’s Souls…
When you come and receive the REST, then you learn and find it CONTINUALLY…and as a result, your life is Easy and Happily Yoked to Jesus and your Burdens are Light…then you can’t keep this rest to yourself.
Church, we are living in a day and time where our Young Folks are Dying at a rate that we have never seen before. Drug Addiction is an Epidemic, Abortion is Outrageous and getting worse, and our country is Divided like never before.
As Christians, as the Church, as Sons and Daughters of the only True God, we are Representatives of Good and Light and Truth on this earth; an earth that is consumed with Bad and Darkness, we cannot afford to be Compromised Christians.
We cannot afford to be Luke Warm. We must be Sanctified, Fire-Filled, Spirit-Led, Sword-Wielding Disciples Of Jesus Christ.
We must be yoked to Jesus, we must be One with Jesus, Moving in One Accord, Loving our Neighbor, and Spreading the Gospel by how we Live…because if we don’t, no one will, because It is the Truth of God that sets us Free…and the Church, the Bride of Christ is Responsible to deliver the Truth to this lost and dying world.
Church It Starts Here, but if it doesn’t Leave Here then what good has it been! We have Revivals to Jump Start the people who make up the church, to re-ignite a Fire in each one of us and then Pour Gas on that fire so that a Whole Nation turns Back To God from a Revival that God started here in Franklin, Tennessee.
If you are a Disciple of Jesus Christ, then I suggest you Surrender All and make sure that you are White-Hot on Fire, ready to Boldly Step Out into the Mission Field and Deliver Jesus everywhere you go!