Michael Crosswhite // Hebrews 4:3-5 // God's rest comes by faith.
Emmanuel Tuscaloosa
Entering God's Rest
The following audio is brought to you by Immanuel Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. More information about our church can be found at ImmanuelTuscaloosa.org. Hebrews chapter 4, starting in verse 1. "Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again in this passage he said, they shall not enter my rest. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." In 1914, Ernest Shackleton took 27 men on a mission to sail on a ship called the Endurance, and he was sailing to Antarctica in hopes of accomplishing an overland journey with some sleds and teams of dogs. These men were going to set sail, get to Antarctica, and cross it on foot. Now the men optimistically started their journey, but as the ship got closer to Antarctica, the seas got progressively colder. Ice began to freeze around the hull of the ship. By January 20th, 1915, the Endurance was trapped by ice. For nine months, the ship was stuck, despite repeated attempts to try to break it free. The Endurance eventually, after those nine months, gave up the fight and broke apart, at which point Shackleton ordered the men to abandon ship. Now they were stranded on an ice flow without hope of rescue for a number of additional months. Going sometimes days, sometimes even weeks without food, Shackleton decided we've got to do something. So he and five other men left the rest of the crew behind to try to reach their only hope of rescue, which was a whaling station on South Georgia Island, about 821 miles away. 16 days it took them to reach South Georgia Island, which is nowhere near Atlanta, by the way. 16 days it took them to reach the island, but due to the shape of the lifeboat when they got there, they had to trek across the island on foot, a feat that had never before been accomplished. They were on the south side, the station was on the north. The three men left behind the other three men on their crew, because they were too sick to make the journey. So Shackleton and now two others set off on foot, braving treacherous uncharted terrain on South Georgia Island, driving screws through the bottom of their shoes just so that they could get traction. The icy winds cut through their thin, worn clothing, and every step felt like a battle against the forces of nature itself. After 36 hours of trekking with only 30 minutes of sleep, Shackleton and his two men paused to get lunch, exhausted, and near collapse, they heard a faint sound in the distance. It was the bell of the whaling station. Relief washed over them because they realized they had made it. Not only did they make it, but they returned to rescue the three men that they had left behind who were sick, and then they made the 821 mile journey back across the sea to rescue all of the men that they left nearly three weeks prior, not one of them died. We're continuing our study in the book of Hebrews, and this morning we're going to be in chapter four, verses three to five. In this part of the passage, the author of Hebrews is telling us, he's telling his audience that the rest that is designed for us, that God's rest must be entered, and it can only be entered one way. But before we look at that, it's worth remembering what the author means when he's talking about God's rest. Let's read again, verses three to five, where we'll be focusing our attention this morning, so we can see how often this is mentioned in just these three little verses, God's rest. It says, "For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest." Now, when we began the study of the book of Hebrews, we knew it was going to be difficult. And the first three chapters were hard enough, as we're going through, we're trying to understand what it is the author is saying. And as we get to chapter four, we realize we're entering into Ph.D. level territory here, with what he's talking about. Four times in these three verses, God's rest is mentioned. And if you go back to chapter three, it's mentioned two more times in chapter three, and another four times in chapter four outside of the verses that we're talking about this morning. So really, 10 times in total in just these two chapters in these 20 verses or so is the concept of God's rest talked about at length. That's what he's urging his congregation to do that he's writing to. You want to enter God's rest. So last week, we sought to define what he means by God's rest and then try to explain it as best we can over the course of this chapter. And this is what I set out as a definition, which I admit is wordy and is not something you could probably memorize a bet. But it says this, God's true rest is a profound trust in God's sovereign care over your life, where worry gives way to peace. It's a state where disobedience is replaced by an obedient trust in his guidance. As you journey toward the eternal rest, he has promised a rest begun by him from creation, now fully secured and guaranteed by Christ. It's part of what makes idea the concept of God's rest so difficult for us to kind of wrap our minds around his several things. First of all, he's talking about a thing that you can enter right now and urging his congregation for you to enter. And then he's also telling Christians you have entered it, and then he's telling us as a congregation, one day we will enter it. So it's something that we have entered and we will enter and we should be encouraged to enter right now. So how do we understand that? Well, it's a trust in God's sovereign care. And we get that from, as we talked about last week, Psalm 95, which he continues to quote time and again throughout this passage about the children of Israel who failed to enter his rest. He's urging them based on Psalm 95 to be the people of God's pasture, to be the sheep of his hand. In other words, to trust in his sovereign care over your life so much so that the worry and the anxiety and all of the things that you struggle over now begin to give way to obedience and trust in his guidance as you journey eventually leading to a day when all of this is over and we are fully in his new creation, which has been secured by Christ and guaranteed by him. Now for the most part, up to this point, the author of Hebrews has been concerned to tell us what not to do. How do you not enter the rest? And this is what you want to avoid. For instance, he has told us several times, do not harden your hearts. If you look back at chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, and then also in verse 15, you can see that he urges us, do not harden your hearts. He's used the example of Israel saying they were unable to enter God's rest because of disobedience. So he's encouraged us, do not be disobedient. So don't harden your hearts, don't be disobedient, and you can see that in 3, 18. But then he also says they were unable to enter because of unbelief. And we see that in chapter 3, verse 19. So the exhortation is don't not believe, right? Don't be caught in unbelief. And then in 4-1, he says that there's a lack of proper fear of God that causes one to not rest. So don't cease fearing God. And in 4-2, a lack of proper faith in God. We're also characteristics of Israel who failed to enter God's rest. So all of these things have been examples thus far of things not to do, but and up to this point, that's mainly what we've seen. But this week and next week, we're going to talk a little bit more about what to do. How do you enter God's rest? What should I employ to actually enter God's rest? Now if you look back with me at verse 2, the verse just before our passage this morning, he says, "For good news came to them," sorry, "for good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened." Now remember the "them" that he's talking about there is the people of Israel. As we saw last week, God had gone into Egypt through the hand of Moses and had rescued them from slavery. He had wiped out the Egyptians with ten plagues and yet in spite of saving them from the hand of the Egyptians and in spite of them opening up the Red Sea for them to walk across on dry land and in spite of them turning around and seeing the Red Sea come back together to crush Pharaoh's army and then in spite of them going out into the wilderness and him providing for them every step along the way, they put God to the test again and again. And as we saw last week, their question to him was, "Yeah, but can you do it now? I know that you have provided for me in the past, but how about now? I know you crushed Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea, but how about now?" So the author of Hebrew says, they heard the good news. The children of Israel's are journeying through the wilderness. They heard and they saw the good news. That is the good news of God's promised rest, his sovereign care for their lives as he's leading them to the promised land that he has for them. But you understand that that good news, the author of Hebrew says, didn't benefit them because why? They were not united in faith with those who saw God's good works, who heard his good news and who trusted in that sovereign care. Some of them listened, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Aaron, and so on. But on the whole, the good news that they heard, the good news that they saw did not benefit them, not one iota because in the end it did not produce not a lick of faith in what God was doing and what he was leading them to. So that brings us to the main point of these three verses that we've got in front of us this morning. God's rest comes by faith. God's rest comes by faith. I know you probably didn't expect that. I know that comes out of that field. I'm sure you probably couldn't have guessed what the main point was going to be. But God's rest comes by faith. Look at verse three, the first part of verse three, the first few words. He says, "For we who have believed enter that rest." There's an equation that's being made here in just these first few little words here. And it's this, "To believe is equal to entering God's rest. To believe is equal to entering God's rest." He says, "We who have believed enter." That's a statement of fact. It's actually two statements in one. First, it is a statement of exclusivity. It means only those who believe enter. There's only one way and it is by belief to enter. But it's also what we would call an indicative statement. It's just a statement of fact. It's an indicative. The ones who believe are at rest. For we who have believed do in fact enter. Now, I want to take these two ways of looking at this statement. First, I want to take the indicative statement. The ones who believe are at rest. Or as he says, "We who have believed enter that rest." Indicative statement. The ones who believe are at rest. Now, I think we would all say there are probably plenty of people that we know who would profess a kind of faith in God. He's probably friends of yours. You know them. Maybe it is you yourself who would say, "I believe in God." And yet, as we look at the definition of what rest is, and we see that people who believe are at rest, when push comes to shove, the same people, some of them who say they believe, don't ever seem to match the definition for rest. They don't ever seem to actually put that kind of trust in their rest. When push comes to shove, they don't seem to have any of the kind of rest as we've defined it. The problem comes for us when we attempt to define belief. Some other way than the way the Bible actually defines belief. Commonly, some would attempt to define belief as a mentality. A way of thinking. It's a mental ascent. That kind of position says, "I understand the gospel message as you have presented it to me. You have told me what it is, and I understand it in my mind." I can see the logic of believing in God. Maybe you have convinced me that there is a Creator and I get it that far. I can understand the logic there. I agree. It seems reasonable based on the evidence that there was a man named Jesus and that he died on the cross and that he rose again on the third day. Even I like the ethical values that Jesus presents, the way to live. I look at the way that he lived his life and the way that he's recommending his followers live their life. I can see the value in it. That would be a better way of living for me. But this is the position of someone who has essentially lost the debate on the existence of God or the resurrection of Christ. He might have been an atheist at one point or he might have been maybe an agnostic at some point in his life. But now he has seen the logic of the Creator and maybe even the Creator as described in Scripture, not just a deus, but he is actually convinced of the God of creation. However, as days go by, it becomes pretty obvious that although he has checked off all of the intellectual boxes, he has said yes to his intellectual pursuit of God. There seems to be something missing in his supposed belief in Jesus. If he believed, he would enter God's rest. But there seems to be nothing in his life that gives evidence at all that he is trusting in God's sovereign care, in God's continuing guidance for his life. Nothing whatsoever. Well, if we're going back to our definition for what it means to enter God's rest, then we would have to say that it is one thing to come to an intellectual recognition of the truth of the Bible's claims about Jesus. And it's another thing altogether to actually rest in God's sovereign care over your life and for disobedience in your life to give way to obedience and even repentance. Remember, the author of Hebrews is appealing to his audience who is professing faith in Christ to come to rest in God, to come to actually trust in his sovereign care, to put your hope in his guidance. Sure, there are signs maybe in some of acknowledgement, but no signs of humble trust in God whatsoever. The difference in these two kinds of people might be like the difference in a neurologist and a neurosurgeon. Now, a neurologist can look at a scan of the brain and can tell you everything that's going on there. He could even look at diseases that are beginning to develop, and he could tell you what's happening there and why. He could probably even recommend relevant treatment for such diseases. But if you have to have brain surgery, you don't want a neurologist anywhere near your open skull. In fact, you want a neurosurgeon who has taken the same essential knowledge of the brain but has now put that knowledge to the test as he operates on the patient lying on the table in front of him. When he comes to the OR table, he must take all that he's learned and actually trust it or the patient dies. Well, it's not a perfect analogy. I recognize that and I don't want a letter from the neurologist of America coming after me or anything like that. It works well enough to prove the point that we often confuse a Christologist with a Christian. The Christologist might even be able to wax eloquently about the inner workings of faith or doctrine. He might even know the finer points of the complexities of particular theological points of view. He might have his name on a pew in a church and he will let you know if you sit on it. I'll tell you to get up. That's my pew. But you understand all of those complexities of doctrine. When it comes down to suffering and when that begins to enter the picture, his life is on the operating table of life, all the complexities of doctrine are meaningless if he's not able to take those and apply it to his situation now. And in the midst of suffering, runs from God's sovereign care, runs from actually trusting in this sovereign creator who is guiding him from one place to another. The Christologist is exposed. He doesn't actually have any faith whatsoever. And it's in these situations that he doesn't know he should trust God. That the Christian, when he's faced with these challenges, these same doctrines that the Christologist has learned now come bubbling up in his life. But the difference is he is applying them to the situation in these difficult times. And in these times, he's putting to the test, he's putting to actual work the doctrines that he's learned throughout his life and he's knowing he should trust God. He's actually trusting God to lead him from one place to another. President and sisters, this is the kind of belief that we're striving for and that the author of Hebrews is wanting us to be striving for in this life. This is what belief in the Bible actually is. It's right doctrine applied. It's right doctrine as it meets suffering that it is actually applied. It's a trust in God's sovereign care over your life when worry gives way to peace. It's a state where disobedience is replaced by an obedient trust in his guidance as you journey toward the eternal rest that he has promised. A rest begun by him from creation and now fully secured and guaranteed by Christ. It's knowing that even in the midst of this kind of suffering, this is part of the way that he is going to get me from here to there. The Christian is taking all that and instead of building his life on worry and anxiety and fear is relying on God's word and trusting that what he has said is going to come to fruition. Now the reason that it's an indicative statement that we who have believed enter that rest is because rest in God is genuine belief. When we say believe in Jesus, we don't mean for you to sit there and understand what's being said and merely connect the dots of the gospel and check the box of intellectual ascent. We mean for you to actually put trust that the same God that we're talking about who has saved you is the one who is going to lead every aspect of your life until the day when he brings you to his eternal kingdom. That's what you're putting trust in and then all the suffering that I'm going through now, all of the fear and anxiety and all of the worries and everything that is making up my life right now is part of the struggle and the test of my faith to actually believe, to actually put trust in this sovereign shepherd. As we've seen already in our study of Hebrews, our faith will be put to the test. The old and new testaments are filled to the brim with people who believed and who were also tested in their faith. In fact, you would struggle to find one who believed and whose faith was not put to significant hardship and testing. Abraham was told he was going to have a child and the word specifically tells us he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and yet not one chapter later he lies to Pharaoh to save his life and the life of his wife who he says is his sister. Then several chapters later, even after being told that he's going to have a son and that God's going to provide him a son, he tries to procure an offspring some other way. Tests of faith that he failed. Time and again. But finally, once God does provide this son for him, he then comes in 13 years later and tells him to sacrifice it. But what do we notice is different about Abraham at this point than when he began this journey. At this point, he trusts in God's shepherding sovereign guidance. He takes the young man up to the Mount Mariah and he knows all the way God is going to provide and he does. Moses was called by God to lead his people out of Egypt so that they might come and worship the Lord in the wilderness. Moses struggles with his own abilities. How am I going to possibly go? How can I overcome my stutter, my speech impediment? Moses struggled with the grumbling people. What have you given me here, Lord? I'm going to kill every one of them. But the only reason that he pressed on was because he believed God, which caused him to rest in God's sovereign guidance for 40 years through the desert. Take no mistake about it. If you believe in God, the kind of rest that you're going to experience in life is not the same kind of rest that you can expect in the next life. It's going to be a battle to rest in God's sovereign care. It's going to be a battle to rest where he's leading you to pursue him all the more in the midst of your trials. Every aspect of your life is going to be a test to that faith that you say that you have every single step of the way. So when temptation and hardship and grief and tragedy and despair and anxiety or in the case of the original audience of the book of Hebrews as we've seen persecution, when those things hit us really hard, our first reaction is what? To run and hide. When grief hits me, I don't want to be around people. I don't want to answer questions. When tragedy strikes, when sadness, when all I could do is cry. The last thing I want to be around is a bunch of people who are looking at me wondering what. And I get it. Believe me, I'm not mad at anybody. But I want to encourage us as a church, as Christians, that instead to push in toward the church body, especially during those times. We want to grieve with the church, not apart from the church. We want to hurt with the church, not apart from the church. We want to struggle with the church body, not apart from the church body. When you run away and hide, perhaps it's a hardship you're going through and you think, I just need peace. I just need no questions. I just need everybody to just leave me alone for a second. When you run away and hide, what you're actually doing is the opposite of resting in God's sovereign care. You're cutting yourself off from any chance at a reminder of rest. The church body represents God's pursuit of you. It represents God's leadership, his care, his taking you from one place to another, his guidance, his sanctifying, your soul, as he continues to lead you to rest in his sovereignty. It's a reminder every week. As you're around people who have like you gone through hardships before to continue to rest, we demonstrate that it is true that we who have believed into that rest, we demonstrate the truth of that indicative statement by being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, that we grieve, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope, that when we sin, we pursue repentance and forgiveness. See, resting in faith does not mean that your life is going to be one big happy journey, whether if you come to faith in Jesus, that you're not going to suffer anymore. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. You're telling the world that the one that you believe in is leading me to eternal life and eternal joy. And in the midst of that, he's bringing us their suffering. And the world is looking at you like you're crazy. You took this on, this lifestyle. You willingly walked into this kind of mess. Why? But yet when you grieve as those who have as not as those who have no hope, when you're sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, you're demonstrating that you have entered God's rest, that you're at peace, that you're trusting that even in the midst of this kind of sorrow, he's taking me somewhere. And it's part of the journey that he's leading me on. You demonstrate that you've entered God's rest when the turmoil in your life leads to lean you to cause you to lean on God more. But there's another aspect of this statement for we who have believed into that rest. And that is, it's a statement of exclusivity. He's saying God's rest is only for those who believe. It's not for anybody else. It is only for those who believe. Look at how he finishes the statement in the last part of verse three and on. As he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he has said, "They shall not enter my rest." Now, I realize what he's saying here is kind of confusing if you're following along. He goes back and forth between quoting Psalm 95 and then present day talking about his argument wrapping this point that he's making all up. And so it can get kind of confusing as you go through it. So the best thing to do is just step through it a little bit at a time. First, let's put the two statements here together. He says, "For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." Essentially what he's saying is that entering God's rest is exclusively for the believing. There's a group, in other words, that missed it altogether, that he swore in his wrath, they're not in. In other words, you have to enter. It's exclusively by belief that you can enter. And proof of that is there is a group who heard the good news, who saw the good news, and they were excluded altogether. And why was it that they were excluded? Because they didn't believe. They did not enter God's rest because they didn't believe and instead they remain under God's wrath. Now let's not forget, he's talking about the Jewish people here, right? This original audience that is following Moses through the land, through the wilderness, and hopefully into the land of Canaan eventually. They didn't enter his rest, even though they were the people that he rescued out of Egypt, who heard the good news, who were circumcised, who were under the law, who were putting into practice all of the things that was there for the Jewish people out in the wilderness and eventually in the tabernacle, or make it sacrifices, or doing all those kinds of things. They were part of the Jewish community, and yet they were excluded. And the reason they didn't enter is because God's rest cannot be entered by association. And that's what he's saying. Proof positive that it is only by belief that you can enter into his rest is that this whole group of people who heard the good news and who were there by association, they were excluded because they didn't believe. Even though all of their life, everything about them pointed to the fact that they were in. In fact, if you were an outsider, an alien, and you were visiting this whole community, you would say, well, this is a group of people, they're all in, right? They're all following up, they're all doing what God is, they're all following the law, they're doing, carrying the tabernacle from one place to another. And you would be wrong because God's promise rest is not entered that way. If your testimony, in other words, is why are you a Christian? Well, I was born and raised in the church, and I'll die in the church. My daddy and my mama always took me to church. I never knew a time when I wasn't in the church. If that's your testimony, you haven't actually said anything about you being a part of God's family at all because God's rest is not entered by association. Faith in God is not one that's what happens by association. Entering God's rest is exclusively for those who believe, and as we've already seen, belief is a profound trust. But then he says this, look at the last part of verse 3, "Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has spoken somewhere, spoken on the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works." See, from the seventh day of creation, God rested from his work, and God's goal for humanity from the seventh day of creation onto our present day right now has been abundantly clear. His desire is for his people to live in perfect peace and fellowship with him for all of eternity. So if you think back, rewind the clocks back to Genesis chapter 2. God has finished his six days of creative work, and then on the seventh day, says God rested. And the argument that the author of Hebrews is making is that from that moment on, God's arms were opened wide to his people, and he's been offering them to join him in resting in a trust in his sovereign care and his providence and his guidance from that day on. That kind of rest, where we put trust in his sovereign care over us, where we wouldn't worry, but we would have perpetual peace, the kind of rest where there's no disobedience, but instead where we have complete trust in his guidance for all of eternity, that is the kind of rest that he has offered to his people from day one. When God rested, it wasn't because he was tired. He wasn't exhausted from his work. It was because he had completed what he wanted to create, and now he's inviting the rest of his creation to join him at rest. Adam and Eve were offered that kind of rest in the garden, weren't they, a complete and total trust in his sovereign care. But instead of believing God by trusting in that providential care and rule over him, they rejected him in favor of another source of knowledge. Israel was then offered that kind of rest, but instead of believing God by trusting in his sovereign ability to drive out the enemy in front of them and usher them into the promised land, they put him to test in their unbelief, and they said, "We can't go in there. We look like grasshoppers to them." You seeing these people? They're giants. They're going to crush us. There's no way we can drive them out. But they're putting God to the test because he's the one that said, "I'm going to drive out the people in front of you." They, just like Adam and Eve, are seeking to find knowledge and put trust in something other than God's sovereign care for them. So simply put, what he's saying in these three verses is this, salvation is available only to them that believe, and God has offered his rest to those who trust in him since the foundation of the world. That's it. But friend, there is a significant obstacle to your belief. As much as I would like to say of myself, "Well, I'm just going to try harder to believe." There's a significant obstacle to that kind of rest, and it's our sin. Our sin is the great barrier that separates us from God's rest. Now, like the men of Israel who heard the good news, but were unable to enter due to their unbelief, we also are naturally resistant to trust in God's sovereign care. Our hearts are hard not just by the trials of life, but by our inherent rebellion against God. We prefer, instead, to rely on our own understanding, on our own strength, on our own wisdom, rather than resting in the finished work of God. This unbelief is the root of all our unrest. It's the root of all our anxiety and all our disobedience. But the gospel is the good news that this barrier has been torn down. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to accomplish what we never could. Through His life, His death, His resurrection, He made a way for us to enter God's rest, and on the cross He bore the full weight of God's wrath for our unbelief, and in His resurrection, He secured eternal life and rest for all who believe in Him. You see, that's the kind of belief that we're actually having. It's a trust that I cannot provide this for myself, that I cannot get out of the trouble that I got in, that the only one who can rescue me is Christ. You see, we're not the heroic Ernest Shackleton who trekked across the uncharted wilderness to find rescue. That's not us. We're not that guy. We're the men stranded on the ice flow that He left behind, helpless, starving without hope. We could never make the journey on our own. We could never reach the place of rest by our own strength. What we're trusting is that Christ is our Ernest Shackleton. Christ is the one that took the journey for us, that He has braved the harshest terrain of sin and death, not merely to show us the way, as if to say, "I made it." See, repeat after me, just come this way. No, that's not what He's saying. He came to do it for us and to come back for us, to take us by the hand and to lead us safely to His eternal rest. You see, our rescue was costly. It requires nothing less than the sacrifice of the Son of God. But now, for those who believe, the bell of salvation has rung. It has been accomplished for you already, that you are invited to enter into God's rest, not because of your own efforts to shirk off the anxiety and the fear, but to actually put trust and faith in the one who's done it for you. And it's in those moments when sin abounds or when anxiety rears its ugly head or depression creeps in and draws you into closing the curtains and shying away from everyone else. It's in those moments where your desire to push away from everything that God is saying is true, that faith in Christ is required. It's at that moment when it's the hardest where you feel like, "Look, all of this is on me and surely God hates me. Look at all these things that I'm struggling with. Surely God is tired of me now that the bell of salvation rings and we're reminded yet again your inclusion in God's family is not based on your efforts. It's on what Christ has done for you already. Because if it was up to you, you would have left a long time ago. But you understand just as Ernest Shackleton returned for his men, Christ comes for us. He's offering rest and peace and eternal life, but you must believe. You must trust. Friends, God is offering his rest to you. It's an offer of eternal life and the rest can begin now, but it can only be entered by belief. You must believe in his son that he died for your sin so that you might be forgiven. But it's not merely an intellectual assent either. The kind of belief he's demanding is not intellectual agreement, but a profound trust that it is only through his atoning sacrifice that you will ever be accepted to the kind of belief this kind of belief is to the Christian. When your faith is tested, this kind of belief will prove to be the genuine article. Where the Christologist who knows the Sunday school answers will flee. The Christian turns to Christ and trust. That's right. Heavenly Father, we pray only that you may help us to trust. There is no doubt anxiety and fear and depression, sin that abounds within the hearts of all the men and women in this congregation, to one extent or another. We have likely all struggled with bouts of despair, unbelief, helplessness. Would you remind us again and again of what you have accomplished for us on the cross? If the sheer fact that we woke up this morning, still Christian, is a miracle of provision by your divine hand, would you help that message to resonate within our hearts today, where there is conviction provide repentance? I pray bring out confession that it would lead us to repentance, where there is worry and anxiety or its supply of faith, to trust where you are leading us, where there is grief, allow us to just rest in your sovereign care over our lives, knowing that even this too is producing for us eternal joy in the age to come. Give us that kind of trust we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for listening. If you live in the Tuscaloosa area and are looking for a church, we'd love for you to visit. Our service times are Sunday mornings at 1030 and Wednesday nights at 615.