Bang the Gavel on Worry: Come Higher and Enter God's Rest

Sermon outline

Worry is a position you choose, and so is rest: Jesus calls the believer to come higher, couple yourself to Him, follow His guidance and stay there, letting go of whatever will not fit through the gate to the next level.

1. Do not worry: close the court case in your mind

   Reading Matthew 6 from verse 25, he stops at the question Jesus asks: are you not of more value than the birds? Worrying cannot add to your stature. Many believers lie awake with a court case running in their mind, taking the bait of whatever pictures and thoughts the devil offers, whether true or lies. Jesus is asking why you are worrying about the things the pagans run after.

   Illustration: He told someone to buy a judge's gavel, and at night to bang the desk and say the court case is over.

   “At night, just bang the desk and say, court case is over.”

   • Matthew 6:25-34

2. Things should run after you

   There is a big difference between a child of God running after things and things running after you, and God wants it reversed. Promotion, a new job, money and opportunities must seek you, because you are resting in God's grace. He then runs through some statements: the key to life is finding your purpose, the greatest tragedy is being busy but not effective, and the greatest failure is to be successful with the wrong assignment. Establish priorities and put first things first.

   Illustration: Ask someone to come to a meeting and the answer is, 'No, pastor, I'm very busy.' He wonders whether the busyness means effectiveness.

   “He doesn't want you to run after things. He wants things to run after you.”

   • Matthew 6:33

3. There remains a rest for the people of God

   Hebrews was written to Jews who had already turned to Christ, so the rest of Hebrews 4 is not salvation. It is the ongoing walk with Christ. The writer saw that they had come into God's rest and then disengaged from it, and he exhorts them to get back in. The works were finished from the foundation of the world, so God has you covered. They failed to enter for two reasons: number one, they did not believe, and number two, disobedience.

   “As believers, you could have salvation. But somewhere along the line, you stopped resting.”

   • Hebrews 4:1-9
   • Hebrews 6:1

4. Be diligent to enter that rest

   The prerequisite for entering the rest of God is diligence, which he explains as being disciplined and getting your act together. Because the writer links failing to enter with disobedience, he draws the inference that walking in God's rest is obedience, and that where rest is absent a believer is walking in disobedience. So you labour to enter a rest that has already been prepared for God's people.

   “There is a rest in God. Why are you failing to enter into the rest?”

   • Hebrews 4:10-11

5. Hold fast your confession: rest is a position

   Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, we hold fast our confession: it is finished, all things are mine, we are healed by His stripes, I have no worries in Christ Jesus. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God making intercession, so someone is praying for you while you sleep. Rest does not mean sitting on your laurels. You can be busy and work hard, but you work from a position of rest.

   “Rest is a position, and worry is a position that you take upon yourself.”

   • Hebrews 4:14
   • Romans 8:34

6. Come: come higher and take My yoke

   In Matthew 11:28 he says the word 'come' means come higher. Jesus is speaking to people who already know Him but are fatigued from worry and toil, and He offers not more work but rest. Another word for yoke is coupling: you couple yourself to Christ and lean on Him as your partner in life. He tells you to learn from Him because He is gentle and lowly in heart, so a believer who has lost gentleness and become arrogant is yoked to something, but not to Christ.

   Illustration: He calls Pastor Wesley up and leans his weight on him: coupled to him, he will fall only if the pastor falls. That is what it means to be hooked up with somebody big.

   “I'll fall if he falls, and if he does not fall, I will not fall.”

   • Matthew 11:25-30

7. We never negotiate with the devil

   Jesus could be gentle and lowly because He was in a position of rest. When the devil offered Him the kingdoms in exchange for worship, He did not draw up terms: His assignment was to nullify the works of the one who steals, kills and destroys. He then commissioned the church to do what He did, with the power of attorney. Yet believers negotiate with the devil by worrying, and by trying to strike a deal with sickness. You are the one who shows up and brings rest to others, because you are resting yourself.

   “You were never meant to negotiate with the devil.”

   • Matthew 4:8-10
   • John 10:10
   • Luke 10:18
   • Matthew 28:18-20

8. Power moves things, but power is never moved

   He reads Matthew 11:28-30 again from the Amplified Bible, with its rest, relief, ease, refreshment and blessed quiet for your souls. We worry because we are moved. Only those with calmness of spirit inside can speak to a storm, and the person who is frantic about how to fix things is yoked to something other than the anointing that removes burdens. Being out of rest is why money and peace are not coming. Go to bed, sleep well, and take care of tomorrow when it comes.

   Illustration: In the voting queue that day, a woman in front of him talked without stopping for the whole hour while her husband quietly held their child. By the time he voted he was tired. A busy mind has a busy mouth.

   “You can never say to a storm, peace be still, if there's a storm inside of you.”

   • Matthew 11:28-30
   • Mark 4:39

9. Follow: let Him be your guide

   First Jesus said come, and now in Matthew 4:19 He says follow. He tells them to write these down as important keys. The Amplified says 'come after Me as disciples, letting Me be your guide', so being coupled with Christ means He guides you to where the supply is: the contracts, the money and the opportunities. He adds a warning about coupling yourself to people who have more worry and more problems than you have.

   Illustration: Peter toiled all night and caught nothing. Same boat, same location, but when Jesus told him to cast the net on the other side he had a net-breaking experience, because now he was hooked up.

   “If you hook up with me and couple yourself to me and I guide you, I'll guide you to where the bountiful supply is.”

   • Matthew 4:19-20
   • Luke 5:4-7

10. Abide: stay fixed in your place

    The third word is abide, from John 15:4. It means to dwell, to stay in a given place, to make your fixed residence there. Do not visit Jesus casually with a 'good morning' and a 'bye-bye'. Coupled to Him, if He goes you go, if He stops you stop, and if He says left you go left. He adds that some people are still living in 1960, 1980 or 1999.

    “You cannot rest unless you stay fixed in your place.”

    • John 15:4

11. The secret of coming higher: let go of the garbage

    Every time Jesus says come higher, you pass through a gate from one level to the next. When you first came to Christ you were allowed through with everything you carried. Now you pray for another level while still holding what you should have let go, and you blame the church when nothing works. It may be a relationship, unforgiveness, or family ways you still behave like. He also retracts a saying he has used himself, 'for every new level there's a new devil': there is only one devil, and he is defeated and under the church's feet. What holds you back is what you have not dealt with.

    Illustration: He stands Adrian, Pastor Wesley and Bongi close together as a gate and tries to push through with his arms full. He got through as a baby Christian, but each higher gate is narrower, and to be yoked to Christ your hands must be free.

    “If you want to go to places where you've never been before, you've got to let go what you have never let go of before.”

    • 1 Corinthians 13:11
    • Romans 8:19
    • Galatians 5:6
    • Colossians 2:15
    • Ephesians 1:22