The Othniel cycle is paradigmatic in the sense that it provides us with a general framework
that guides our understanding of all the other cycles.
Very little detail is given us here.
This is the shortest of all of the judge narratives here.
There's little detail given about the people and the circumstances involved.
And that's because the purpose here is to show us a pattern that structures every story.
And it's the pattern that we find already mentioned in chapter 2.
So one author describes it this way.
That the Othniel cycle gives historical flesh to the theological bones of chapter 2.
So when we're thinking, what is the, actually the, why it says so little about what is happening here.
So what's really the purpose in including it?
Well, the author has a particular purpose.
He's told us in chapter 2 his theological interpretation of Israel's unfaithfulness.
He's given us this cycle of sin and judgment and salvation that just returns back to sin and judgment and salvation again.
And now he takes a real life example from Israel's history at the beginning of this time period.
And he says, it's a lot like this into the Othniel cycle.
And he just gives us kind of the bare bones of this structure.
So we come to it and we may think, relative to all the other stories and judges, this one is boring.
There's not much here.
It's very bland.
But before you dismiss it, there's something else we need to consider about its purpose.
This opening cycle is intentionally vague because it's not ultimately about Israel.
It's not about Kushan Rishathame.
It's not even about Othniel.
It's about God's divine action through, for, and against these people.
In this text, Kushan Rishathame is not the judge of Israel.
God is.
In the same sense, Othniel is not really the true savior in this narrative.
God is the savior here.
Israel doesn't sin in the eyes of the world.
Israel sins in the eyes of God.
And the rest that is awarded to them in verse 11 is not won because of Israel's valiance in war.
It is given to them as a gift of God's grace.
You say, well, what are you saying?
I'm saying that we're not meant to be distracted by the people and the circumstances.
Our eyes are meant to be set on the God who is sovereign over all of them.
And this is a critical dynamic to this paradigm that the Othniel cycle presents to us.
No matter what narrative we're studying as we work through the book of Judges,
it is always about the glory of God.
It's never about these men.
It's never really about Israel.
Ultimately, it's about telling us who God is and how God acts
and how he has provided salvation for his people.
Now, whenever I teach Adventure Club, whenever it's my turn to teach the lesson,
I have this habit of repeating a couple of phrases
whenever their eyes begin to wonder a little bit.
This happens on Sunday mornings, but I don't usually say the phrases.
Sometimes there's lots happening around.
When we were at the acting out studio, it was the worst
because we had all those windows, right?
So people could be pulling into the parking lot
or walking right behind the windows and staring in,
not realizing that there's people staring right back and all those things.
Now, take all of our kids in our church.
You put them there, and you don't have the backdrop anymore.
A lot of times we did, but sometimes we didn't have the backdrop,
and then all this stuff is happening.
Their eyes begin to wonder, doesn't it?
And when your eyes wonder, your mind wonders, right?
And so I would have these phrases that I say all the time.
I'd say, all right, give me your eyes.
Give me your eyes, or all eyes on me.
Now, when we come to this particular passage,
I think that's a helpful way to understand what's happening here.
It's as if God is saying, all right, give me your eyes.
There's lots of things here to distract us.
We can get into Othniel, and we can get into Cushan, Rishathame,
and we can get into Mesopotamia and where that is
and what that's all about and what exactly happened in this whole scenario.
We can get distracted with all those stuff, all those things,
but God's saying right from the beginning,
as you go through this, keep your eyes on me.
Look at me.
This is about me, God says.
So that's what I want to lead you to do this morning.
As we work through this text,
I want to lead you to turn your eyes to the Lord God, okay?
So we're going to try our best to take our eyes off of the circumstances and the people,
and we're going to look at how God is acting here.
And the first thing that we find that is true about him is his holiness,
the holiness of God.
Verse 7.
The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherah.
Now, as always, the cycle opens with a statement of Israel's apostasy.
And as we learned in chapter 2,
the heart of Israel's evil was an issue of worship.
It's an issue of worship.
That's why Baal and the Asherah are mentioned once again here.
Now, it's not that Israel had become ignorant of God.
Neither is it that they suffered from some type of spiritual amnesia
that just caused them to intellectually forget him.
That's not what this means.
The nation as a whole willfully abandoned the Lord to pursue the gods of Canaan.
To them, what Baal offered was more attractive.
It was more desirable.
So they left Yahweh in their worship of Yahweh to go after the gods of the land.
But instead of rehashing that all over again, we did that in chapter 2.
Instead of rehashing that, I want to point out an important word in this verse.
Look at it with me again at the very beginning.
The people of Israel are said to have done evil in the sight of the Lord.
It's important.
Because to Israel, to the Israelites, they saw no problem mixing with the people of the land.
Culturally, maritally, religiously.
They just didn't think it was a big deal.
That's why over and over and over in the book of Judges, we see this refrain where it says that all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
But when we come here, we find that the evil that they have done is evil not in their eyes.
It's evil in the sight of God.
If this generation of Israelites lived today, perhaps they would say something like this.
We're not quite as old-fashioned as our parents were.
We believe to be on the right side of history.
It's necessary to affirm the culture and beliefs of the people around us.
After all, who are we to say that the way of Yahweh is better than the way of Baal?
Well, surely we can find ways to accommodate the deeply held beliefs of the people of the land.
It's not hard to see how many Christians today follow this same path, right?
We've got to remember, good and evil are not determined by the ever-changing winds of culture.
There must be objective truth.
That doesn't change.
And that's what God has revealed for us in His Word.
If there's anything that we must stand on as a first order of importance in Christian faith,
it must be that God has given His Word that is infallible.
It's inerrant.
It's inspired.
And it's authoritative.
It is objective truth.
And it remains objective truth in every season and in every culture and among every people group.
What matters is what God says.
Not what we feel.
It doesn't matter that the people of Israel did what they felt was good and right.
Evil is what God says it is.
And we need to remember that.
He's the Holy One.
He alone determines good and evil.
All of our beliefs, then, must be subject to His Word.
Now, I'm not denying that we don't live in a complex time
and that there aren't issues that arise among our culture and among our churches and among our families
that aren't complex.
And we have to grapple with that.
It's not usually as black and white as we want it to be.
I'm not denying that that's true.
But what I mean to say is that all of our convictions,
they must first be rooted in God's Word.
They must be.
Our thoughts on gender and sex and race and marriage and worship and our work
must all be rooted in what God is,
what God has said,
and what God has done.
And too often we get that backwards.
Where we're presented with a particular issue in our lives
or we're presented with an issue that we really need to deal with,
whether it's in our family or in our church
or maybe it's just with a co-worker or something like that in conversation.
And you can't just ignore it.
You have to deal with it in some way.
You have to think about it.
And so many times we start at the wrong end.
We start by kind of examining the thoughts that are out there
and the different perspectives.
And then we examine what is my personal experience like
versus what is their personal experience like?
And can we come to some type of truth?
And once we kind of get an idea of where we're going to land
on the thought process and on the issue itself,
then we kind of go to the Word as Christians
and we say, okay, does this fit with what the Bible says?
And see, the danger in that is that we'll always end up
making the Bible say what we want it to say.
We got to get that the other way around
so that no matter what the issue is,
we start here and we ask questions.
What does the Word say?
What does it say about who God is?
What does it say about what God does?
What does it say about God's character and the way he acts?
What are the implications of all of that?
And then once we establish all of that theologically
in our hearts and in our minds,
then we sit down from there
and we start to view all of the issues in our lives
and in our culture and in our church
through the lens of the Bible.
Because if we don't do that, we'll end up being like Israel.
And we'll slip into these cycles of self-destructive sin
and we'll get to the end and everything seems okay to us.
We reason it out.
It's rational.
But then it ends up being evil in the sight of God.
Because what we ultimately did
was cause his Word to fit what we thought
rather than fixing what we think
on the foundation of his Word.
Are you with me?
There's an issue here with Israel,
their worship, their view of the Bible.
It's an issue with Christianity today.
The biggest issue I think that we're facing
as Christians and in churches today
is a high view of the Scripture.
We're losing a commitment
to the faithful exposition of the Bible in many churches.
We're losing the conviction of the inerrancy of the Bible,
of its authoritative nature
and we're starting to give in
to all of these other things culturally.
We can't do that.
If we do, we're gonna end up in the same boat as Israel,
living in a way that's evil in the sight of God.
And we don't want to do that.
Because what happens when you do what's right in your eyes?
Even if it's evil in God's eyes, what happens?
Let's read on and see.
Verse eight, we find the wrath of God.
The wrath of God.
Therefore, the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel.
He sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathame,
king of Mesopotamia,
and the people of Israel served Cushan Rishathame.
Eight years.
Now there's always consequences to sin.
And in this case,
Israel's consequence was to be conquered
by this man, Cushan Rishathame,
king of Mesopotamia.
Now we aren't given any additional information
about this king except what is revealed in his name.
And I actually think it's interesting.
Maybe you will too.
His name means double wickedness.
Something I'm sure didn't come from his mother.
Can you imagine?
You know what?
I'm gonna name this kid.
Double wickedness.
Maybe some of you could go back
and you could change the name of your children.
This is probably a later name used to mock him.
Probably an Israelite term that's used later on
in reflecting back on this time.
And it's safe to assume that whatever he was
and whatever he was like,
he was twice as wicked as the people of Israel were.
Now think about how wicked that is.
The people of Israel at this point
are involving themselves in public prostitution
as a form of worship.
Eventually, they're gonna make their way
to where they're sacrificing their children
to the gods of Canaan, to Moloch and to Bill
and to these various gods of the people of the land.
And now they say, this guy that came in
and that the Lord sold us into the hand of,
he was twice as bad as we were.
And it was terrible.
Can you imagine what this was like for them?
Now, it's also a play on words with his title.
Title, King of Mesopotamia
is how it is probably recorded in your English translation.
Mesopotamia, you don't need to think about that
so much as an exact location.
As much as it means double rivers.
So basically, Israel was conquered by double wickedness
from the double rivers.
But the emphasis of this text
is not on Cushan, Rishathame's power to conquer Israel.
The emphasis in the text
is on God's action in selling them.
Notice what it says in verse eight.
Look at it with me again.
The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel
and he sold them.
That's what we're meant to see.
We're not meant to see this weird guy,
the double wicked guy from the double rivers.
We're meant to see the God
who sold his own people into the hand of this man.
This episode isn't about world powers.
This episode is about divine wrath.
Wrath, anger, the anger of the Lord.
Now, there's no way to get around
dealing with the fact of God's anger
in the book of Judges.
Can't get around it.
We don't like to talk about it.
It's not the fun part to talk about in the Bible.
But we do need to understand it.
And one of the things that we need to understand
is that there's two dynamics to God's anger.
Barry Webb is helpful in pointing these out.
I think this is on the screen
if you want to follow along with me.
The first thing is retribution.
Retribution, which is pure punishment,
unmitigated by grace,
is for those who are and remain
outside of his covenant.
As Paul says to the Ephesians,
they have no hope and are without God in the world.
Okay, so that's one part of the wrath of God.
We talk about, that's usually what we think about
when we think about God's wrath.
We think about his wrath being poured out
against unregenerate sinners,
which ultimately, its final conclusion,
is eternal hell, right?
That's the wrath and the anger of God
set against those that are outside of his covenant.
But there's a second thing here.
Within God's covenant with his people,
a different kind of judgment takes place.
The most appropriate term for it is discipline.
Because it is corrective rather than retributive.
And it is always tempered by grace.
It can be severe,
but its aim is always to reclaim
rather than destroy.
Do you see the difference here?
Just because you're a Christian,
just because you're within God's covenant now,
doesn't mean that you're absolutely free
from God's anger.
God will judge our sin.
He doesn't do it with us in the same way
that he does it with unbelievers,
but he does take us through corrective discipline.
And let me tell you,
corrective discipline is hard.
It's hard.
Nothing Israel faced here was pleasant,
but it wasn't God's way of cutting them off either.
He was disciplining his people
in order that he might lead them
on the path of repentance.
And in this sense,
the anger of the Lord is a means of hope.
It's a means of hope and love.
Dale Ralph Davis is helpful here.
Serving Kushan Rishathame
may not sound like salvation to us,
and it isn't.
But if it forces us to lose our grip on Baal,
it may be the beginning of salvation.
I love that statement so much.
You ever get to a point in your life,
you may not even realize
how idolatrous you actually are.
Because at the heart of all of our sin
is idolatry, right?
In some form or fashion, it's idolatry.
We don't even always realize exactly
how many idols we have that have gripped us
and that we've been holding onto ourselves.
And then you get to a point in your life
where God is clearly,
he is bringing you through a difficult time.
And it's not just that he's testing your faith.
There is a measure of judgment happening here.
There is corrective discipline happening here.
And you come to the Lord and you say,
why are you doing this?
You ever thought that God's discipline
is meant to loosen your grip
on the idols that you have allowed
to come into your life?
I love that phrase so much.
It shows that the covenant God
who has bound himself to his people
will not allow them to be cozy in their infidelity.
Steadfast love pursues them in their iniquity
and is not above inflicting misery even
in order to awaken them.
What is the anger of the Lord
meant to do for his people?
To lead them to repentance,
to awaken them,
to loosen their grip on this world,
to loosen their grip on the idols
that as I think it was Calvin said,
and our heart is a factory of idols.
It is to loosen the grip on all of those things
in order that we may turn again and again
back to him, back to him.
Even God's people face his anger.
Not as punitive action,
please hear me correctly here,
but as corrective discipline.
To be sure,
Christ has taken God's eternal wrath
against our sins.
That's the glory of the gospel.
Those who belong to him
will never, ever have to endure death and hell.
But the Bible still tells us
that he takes us through discipline
as a loving father.
Proverbs chapter three,
Hebrews 12.
Do not despise the Lord's discipline
or be weary of his reproof.
For the Lord reproves him whom he loves
as a father, the son,
in whom he delights.
Hebrews 12.
What's the purpose of this in our lives?
Why does it seem like God's so hard on us sometimes?
He disciplines us for our good,
that we may share his holiness.
For the moment,
all discipline seems painful
rather than pleasant,
but later,
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it.
It may be much later,
like it was for Israel.
But the discipline of the Lord builds us up.
So we need not get bitter against him.
We should glory in the fact
that he loves us enough to correct us.
And he always gives us grace to endure.
Number three,
the salvation of God.
Salvation of God.
We see the holiness of God in verse seven.
We see the wrath of God,
the anger of God in verse eight.
Verses nine and 10,
we see his salvation.
But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord,
the Lord raised up a deliverer
for the people of Israel
who saved them.
Othniel, the son of Kenaz,
Caleb's younger brother,
the spirit of the Lord was upon him.
And he judged Israel.
He went out to war
and the Lord gave Cushanrishathame,
king of Mesopotamia,
into his hand
and his hand prevailed over Cushanrishathame.
I appreciate the author leaving that name in there
so many times in this thing.
Say that five times fast.
Okay, so God's instrument of judgment here
is Cushanrishathame.
His instrument of salvation,
Othniel,
the nephew and son-in-law of Caleb,
who was one of the 10 spies.
He was the only one along with Joshua
who came back with a good report.
Yes, the Lord will give us the land.
You know the stories.
We've been introduced to him
in parallel passages of Joshua chapter 15,
Judges chapter one,
but nothing more is said about him here
than what we already know.
Why?
Again, the reason for that
is that our eyes are meant to be set
on the Lord who delivers his people.
Othniel is merely an instrument
in the hands of the almighty God
who raised him up and empowered him.
Our eyes aren't to be set on Othniel here.
Our eyes are to be set on Yahweh.
Now, crucial to this paradigm,
remember this is paradigmatic,
this paradigm that Othniel cycle
is presenting for us as we move forward.
Crucial to this
is this fact of God's love
being set on his people in salvation.
It's crucial.
Yes, he's a holy God who must judge sin,
but he's also a loving God
who takes pity on us in our suffering.
That's what's meant by Israel's cry.
This isn't a reference to their repentance.
This is a reference to their cry for help in distress.
This isn't the son
who's just suffered the consequences of his sin
running to his father and saying,
I'll never do it again.
That's not what this is.
This is help, please, help.
You ever tell your kids,
don't touch the stove, it's hot.
And then at some point,
they walk over and they touch the stove.
The first thing that they say
when they touch the stove is not,
oh, mom, forgive me of my sin.
I repent of touching the stove.
No, they say, ah!
And they run.
And what are they wanting you to do
when they run to you?
Do something to take this pain away.
That's what Israel's doing.
They're crying out to the Lord,
not out of repentance.
They're running to the Lord.
Lord, do something.
Take this away from us.
Relieve us.
In our distress.
God displays his loving compassion
by raising up a deliverer
who would save them
from the hand of their enemies.
What love is this?
That's what Davis says again.
Who then can plumb the abyss
of Yahweh's pity for his people?
Even his sinful people
who are moved more by their distress
than by their depravity.
Yahweh is indeed the one
who could bear Israel's suffering no longer.
What sheer grace
when Yahweh delivers.
What is this meant to teach us here?
Not that Othniel was a mighty warrior,
even though he might have been that.
It's to teach us the love of God
set on his people
even when they're merely concerned
about their pain
and not their sin.
Now take a moment to consider
God's instrument of judgment
and God's instrument of salvation
side by side here.
God allowed
Kushan Rishathame
to overcome Israel temporarily.
That's different
than what he does with Othniel.
He allows man's power
to come in
and inflict his people.
But he empowers
Othniel
with his spirit.
That's a different thing.
Look again with me.
Verse 9.
The people cried out to the Lord.
The Lord raised up
a deliverer for the people of Israel
who saved them.
Othniel.
Verse 10.
The spirit of the Lord
was upon him.
That's why he saved Israel.
Not because he was strong
but because the Lord
empowered him to do so.
Now we need to consider
those two dynamics
side by side.
Sometimes God's instrument
for judgment
is to step back
and say,
let man's power
come against you.
But whenever God is working
on behalf of his people,
he doesn't trust our power
to fight for ourselves.
He empowers us
with his spirit
to fight those battles.
That's what he's doing here
with Othniel.
On the one hand,
man's power is set
against God's people.
On the other,
God's power is working
on behalf of his people.
And God's power
crushes every enemy.
He always prevails.
The salvation of our God
is certain
for all who belong
to him.
It will never fail.
He's always in control.
He's in control
of the enemy.
He's in control
of the Savior.
And he always empowers
his Savior.
And no enemy
can defeat him.
What is this meant
to point us toward?
You know the answer.
It all points forward
to Jesus.
The true and better
Othniel.
He too was chosen
and empowered by God
to bring us
a greater salvation
than Israel ever experienced.
Their enemy
was a mere man.
Ours is death
and hell
and eternal damnation.
But God's power
through Jesus
crushes every enemy.
Even death itself.
Romans 8.
What then shall we say
to these things?
If God is for us
who can be against us?
He who did not spare
his own son
but gave him up
for us all
how will he not
also with him
graciously give us
all things?
Who shall bring a charge
against God's elect?
It's God's
that justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus
is the one who died.
More than that.
Who was raised?
Who is at the right
hand of God?
Who is interceding
for us?
And who shall separate us
from this love of Christ?
Shall tribulation
or distress
or persecution
or famine
or nakedness
or danger
or sword?
No.
In all these things
we are more than conquerors
through him
who loved us.
for I am sure
that neither death
nor life
nor angels
nor rulers
nor things present
nor things to come
nor powers
nor height
nor depth
nor anything else
in all creation
will be able
to separate us
from the love of God
in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Salvation
belongs
to God.
He has heard
our cries
for distress
and he has raised up
a deliverer
for our salvation
and it's not Othniel
it's Jesus Christ
his own son.
That's the salvation
of God.
But there's a final thing here.
Verse 11
we see the gift of God.
The gift of God.
Look with me
at verse 11.
So the land
had rest
40 years.
Then Othniel
the son
of Kenaz
died.
The rest here
was applied
to the land.
Notice it doesn't say
Israel had rest
it says that the land
had rest.
Rest
was given to the land
for 40 years.
That means
that in the absence
of war
the land
was able to recover
and be fruitful
for the people.
You gotta imagine
in those days
a mighty king
comes in
and he sets up
shop for 8 years.
He's not
leaving fertile farmland
for the Israelites
to take.
He's using that
for himself.
They are subjected
to him.
Now God
in the absence
of Cushan Rishatham
and in the absence
of war for 40 years
allows the land
to recover
in order that life
in the land
of promise
may once again
flourish
for the people
of Israel.
Okay so you understand
the gift here.
The gift is rest
for the land
which is ultimately
in some sense
rest for the people.
Now here's how
I want you to think
about this.
God's temporal
or temporary
dealings
with his physical
people
the nation
of Israel
give us a glimpse
into his eternal
dealings
with his spiritual
people
which are all
of those
who have
entered his covenant
of grace
by faith.
Doesn't matter
if it's New Testament
or Old Testament
if they have
entered his covenant
of grace
by faith
just as Abraham
did
they are a part
of the people
the covenant
people of God.
Okay
what God does
with a physical
nation
in the Old Testament
with Israel
points us
to what God
is ultimately
doing through
his covenant
people
his spiritual
people
and with that
in mind
I want you to
consider a couple
of things
about this rest.
Number one
the rest
was a gift
it wasn't
an achievement
it was a gift
it came about
because God
gave
Kushan Rishathame
into the hand
of Atnil
and this is
fundamental
to our understanding
of salvation
it is not
won
through our
best moral
and religious
efforts
it is a gift
of grace
from the hand
of God
we don't
earn it
we receive
it
by faith
in God's
promise
the rest
for Israel
that's what
we're meant
to see here
they didn't
praise Atnil
for this rest
they could have
only praised
God
God's the one
that gave
them the rest
there's a second
thing here
and that is
that the rest
was limited
they only got
40 years
at the end
of 40 years
their savior
died
and he didn't
come back
he stayed
dead
and what we'll
find in the
first verse
of next week's
passage is that
Israel just
went right back
to the same
sin that they
were guilty
of in verse
seven
so the land
its rest
was limited
and the hard
truth here
is that
rest can
never be
permanent
in a world
that is ruled
by death
can't be
we spend
so much time
in our lives
looking for
some kind
of rest
here
and you're
never gonna
get it
that's the
thing
so long
as we live
here
bones will
still break
hearts
will still
break
families
and churches
and cultures
and governments
will fall
they'll be
divided
so long
as we are
in this
life
we cannot
have this
permanent
rest that
we're longing
for
as great
as Othniel
seems to
have been
he couldn't
give Israel
what it
ultimately
was longing
for
he couldn't
give them
permanent
rest
he was still
a sinner
in a fallen
world
himself
and the
temporary
rest that
Israel
received
was a
wonderful
blessing
don't get
me wrong
I'm not
trying to
rain on
their parade
here
that's not
at all
what I'm
trying to
do
we are
grateful
for every
moment of
physical rest
that the
Lord is
kind to
give us
but we
all long
for a
kind of
rest
and renewal
that will
never
end
we long
for
an existence
that isn't
plagued
by anxiety
do you ever
lay in your
bed at night
and you
just think
of the
absolute
worst
possible
scenarios
for your
family
ever do
that
I do
that
Julie and
I talk
about it
sometimes
we've got
like these
things with
the girls
that are
like our
worst
nightmares
that could
ever
happen
to them
and we
lay in our
beds
and we're
like have
you ever
thought
if this
happened
to Ashlyn
or if this
happened
with the
new baby
or whatever
it is
and we
feel ourselves
with anxiety
so long
as we're
in this
life we'll
never have
rest from
that anxiety
in total
we long
for something
more
we long
for a night
where we can
lay in bed
and we're
free from
all anxiety
and all worry
and all sin
and all struggle
and we ask
is it even
possible to
experience that
which brings
us to a
final point
of gospel
application
in the end
Othniel
died
that's as far
as his help
could go
what we need
and what Israel
needed was a
savior who
can conquer
death
a savior
who can
break this
vicious cycle
of self
destruction
by dealing
with our
sin
once and
for all
and the
good news
is
you've heard
it over
and over
the good
news is
Jesus
is that
savior
sent from
God
he is
that one
he lived
the life
that we
were meant
to live
he died
the death
that we
deserve to
die
but that
only matters
because he
rose from
the dead
and in
rising from
the dead
he proves
that death
has no claim
on him
has no power
over him
it proves
that God
accepted
his sacrifice
on the cross
as a sufficient
payment and
atonement
for our
sins
he lives
peace
that's what
matters
here
and through
this
Jesus
God has
provided
eternal
peace
and rest
as a
gracious
gift
from the
hand of
God
and here's
the best
part of
it
he invites
all of
us
he invites
us all
to enter
this rest
by faith
it's the
exact
words
that Jesus
used
in Matthew
11
come to
me
all
who labor
and are
heavy laden
and I
will give
you
rest
do you
labor
of course
you do
do you
struggle
yes
are you
looking for
meaning
and purpose
and something
good that
might actually
come out of
this pathetic
life that we
live
yes we're
looking for
all of those
things
we're striving
for all of
those things
and Jesus
has just
come to
me
and I
will give
it
take my
yoke upon
you
and learn
from me
for I am
gentle
and lowly
in heart
and listen
to what
he says
and you
will find
rest
for your
what
soul
Jesus
doesn't
offer
rest
for your
land
Jesus
doesn't
offer
rest
necessarily
for your
family
or for
your country
or necessarily
for your
church
it's rest
for your
soul
it's a
transcendent
rest
it goes
far
deeper
and far
longer
than
what we
hope for
now
and he
invites us
to it
he just
says if
you'll just
come to
me
I will
give it
to you
salvation
is a
gift of
God's
grace
through
Jesus
and he
is pleased
to offer
it to
you
but here's
the thing
I want to
emphasize this
morning before
we finish
and I
know you've
heard it
and I'm
not ignorant
to the
fact that
probably every
person that's
here this
morning I
know it's
just a few
of us but
probably every
person here
has made
some kind of
profession of
faith in
Christ I'm
not ignorant
of that but
I want to
make the
point
anyways
the good
thing about
this is
that he's
pleased to
offer it
to you
now
that's the
thing
sometimes we
get this
idea that
we have
to we
have to
hear this
like voice
from heaven
that something
magical has
to happen in
our lives to
where suddenly
we feel
like like
Christians
let me tell
you most
days I
don't feel
much like a
Christian at
least in the
way that we
romanticize
that feeling
let me tell
you I
don't know
what you
understand about
the gospel
what you
understand about
theology
there's nothing
you have to
wait on
you don't have
to wait on
some kind of
like supernatural
voice that
just opens the
clouds and
says okay
now's the
time now
you're allowed
to come to
me the
call has
already been
issued
it's here
Jesus said
it
sometimes we
get confused
about how
conversion
happens
conversion
we're not
waiting for
something weird
to happen
in our
lives
conversion
is come
to me
and I'll
give you
rest
conversion
is if
you will
confess with
your mouth
that Jesus
is Lord
and believe
in your
heart that
God raised
him from
the dead
you'll be
saved
conversion
is believe
on the name
of the Lord
Jesus and
you shall
be saved
God offers
this rest
and he
offers it
to all
who will
come to
him
and all
that's
waiting
is for
you to
actually
come
just
receive it
the price
has been
paid
it's there
he says
come
all that
remains for
you to
do
is to
come
turn
start
trusting
Jesus
as the
Lord
and Savior
what do
we learn
from the
off-mail
cycle
well
we learn
about
a lot
about
who
God
is
we learn
he's
holy
and that
we're
not
we learn
that he
does have
anger
it's a
righteous
anger
but it's
anger
and out
of that
anger
comes
judgment
but out
of the
same
God
that
comes
wrath
comes
salvation
a gift
of grace
of eternal
rest
that we
can't even
imagine
now
and he
offers it
to all
of us
out of
his own
love
so why
not take
it
that's
enough
for us
to rejoice
in today
isn't it