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THE ONE THE LORD LOVES(3)
Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
The blessing of Benjamin…
Deuteronomy 33:12 About Benjamin he said: "Let the beloved of the
LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the
one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders." (NIV)
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Phrase I: ….Let the loved of the LORD rest secure in him…
Phrase II: He shields you all day long…
Phrase III: The One the Lord loves…
Phrase IV: Rests between his shoulders… (picture here)
I've been trying for the last three weeks to impress in your mind an
image of you resting between the shoulders of your Heavenly Father. I
borrowed this picture off the internet because it clearly shows what I
think the Bible is trying to portray. The confident, joyful father
steadying the child on his shoulders…. The child is completely relaxed…
investing his complete security in his Father on whose shoulders he is
resting.
You say Pastor… that's a cute picture, but it's all a pipe dream. My
life is anything but relaxed. I live in a constant state of agitation
about something. I am worn down, and worn out, by a stream of difficult
relationships, uncertain finances, persistent temptations, exhaustion,
and even despair over failed expectations.
Understand something…. When God offers a promise like this one we
are looking at he understands that he is giving it to you during the
agitations of real life.
When He says let the loved of the LORD rest secure in him, he
understands that outside that place of rest is sheer bedlam.
The statement that He shields you all day long suggests that he
realizes that there is much you need shielded from.
God's statement that The One the Lord loves rests between his
shoulders is not some pie-in-the-sky biblical poetry…it is a direct
invitation for you to come in out of the storm!
How is that supposed to work? There are certain people in the Bible
that you like to read about because you think, if you could talk to
them, they would understand your life. One of those for me, is David.
From early life he takes it on the chin. The Bible calls him "ruddy"
(red), probably red hair, light skin and freckles, among a lot of black
haired, dark skinned people. He was a tough little boy (probably had to
be) killing wild animals with his sling and finally killing the giant
Goliath. All that really got him was a ticket to hide out in the
wilderness, running for his life from a jealous King Saul. Even when
David became King, his life was one battle after another. Yet David is
the one, amid all the agitations of life that wrote this:
Psalm 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
It's a different mental picture but the same serenity that shows in
the boy on his father's shoulders. David says "My security is all tied
up with my confidence in the one who is leading me through this
life"….Now watch this….
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet
waters,
The assumption is: Life has been pushing you far too long and hard
and you are in desperate need of a rest. David's picture is the Shepard
leading him to a quiet place where there is plenty of nourishment, that
a tired hungry sheep can fill up on and then lie down in. Picture this:
Not this:
"Me" thinks there are a whole bunch of us here who need to "lie down
in green pastures and drink from quiet waters." We are all now headed
into the Christmas season which theoretically is a time to revel in the
coming of our Lord to this earth, but practically often turns out to be
a time of frantic agitation. We need David's words of encouragement:
3 He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for
his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
(and I will!)
( some of you are) I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod
and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You
anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy
will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house
(presence) of the LORD forever.
Jesus himself was big on inviting us into "soul rest"… and that's
what we are talking about here.
Matthew 11:28-30 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who
are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my
yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at
heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to
bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)
Jesus is not promising that you won't have to go to work tomorrow or
clean your house again….He's promising "soul rest".
When you're are exhausted or worn down…particularly on the inside….
When people you depended on have repeatedly let you down… When you've
had to pick up the ball that somebody else dropped for the hundredth
time… When you struggle to pay the electric bill again, ten years after
you were scheduled for financial independence…. When you fall to the
same temptation again, after 50 times of promising yourself and others
you were done…
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I
will give you rest.
One hitch: You have to take your yoke off and put my yoke on!
1) Our Yoke: 2) His Yoke:
Matthew 11:29. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I
am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)
What God is trying to get us too all understand here is that even in
the middle of a hectic and turbulent life, He has for us a "rest" that
will carry us through or above life circumstances with what Philippians
calls a "peace that passes understanding." I've been personally
enjoying the phrase "soul rest."
Let me show you a rather odd section of Scripture about rest and
let's try to figure out what it means:
Hebrews 4:1 God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we
ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience
it. (HUH?) 2 For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has
been announced to us just as it was to them.
The writer of Hebrews is referring back to the Children of Israel
when God brought them out of bondage and led them to the Promise Land.
God's saying that was to be their "rest"…But they came up to the
threshold of that "rest" and refused to go in…turned back to wander in
the desert for 40 years. That was, to God, such a flagrant symbol of
people refusal to trust in him… Now he fast forwards and says: I
offered them rest and they refused it… and/but now I am offering
everyone else a different kind of rest.
2b But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of
those who listened to God. 3 For only we who believe can enter his
rest…..this rest has been ready since he made the world. 4 We know it
is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the
seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work…
I preached a series on the Ten Commandments earlier this year and we
saw that nine of the ten commands were reiterated in the New Testament.
The one that was conspicuously absent was the Sabbath command…. In fact
Jesus said he fulfilled that one.. He is Lord of the Sabbath. In the
New Testament Jesus, Himself, became the Sabbath rest of every
believer….So why is the writer of Hebrews beating on a dead horse?
Go clear back to the seventh day of Creation when God took the day
off. Why did He rest on the seventh day?....because he was tired?
Hardly… Unlike the other six days of creation when there is a morning
and an evening…there was no evening on the seventh day. We are still
living in the seventh day of creation, God is still in His rest day,
and yet God is working diligently building His Kingdom.
We have to conclude that God is, right now, very busy, and yet
resting at the same time. ….Obviously as a model for us all to follow.
There is a rest, called Jesus, that is available to every believer…a
rest that is instantly assessable even in the midst of the toils of
life.
6 So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first
heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So
God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today…..
9 So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. 10
For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors,
just as God did after creating the world.
Notice the emphasis on the importance of entering God's rest today.
Many of us live under the "illusion of tomorrow." I know I've got the
old "self-yoke" on today but tomorrow I will release my grip and allow
Jesus' yoke to settle comfortably on my shoulders.
I hear what you are saying Pastor, about Jesus being my Sabbath
rest, about the importance dropping my own yoke of self-sovereignty and
allowing his light yoke to settle on my shoulders…I even caught that
picture earlier where his yoke was the cross on his shoulders and his
strength in me comes as a result of the sin price he paid on my behalf.
But man…I'm so used to carrying the load and only when it get way too
heavy do I cry out to God for help.
Matthew 11:28-30 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who
are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my
yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at
heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to
bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)
"The one the Father loves…rests between his shoulders!"
God is not actually promising that your life, on the outside will
slow down…he's not even insinuating that the river of trials in your
life will dry up. What he is promising is "soul rest" on the inside and
he is very clear on what the source of the soul rest is:
Colossians 1:28-29 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching
everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in
Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so
powerfully works in me.
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 We are confident of all this because of
our great trust in God through Christ. 5 It is not that we think we are
qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.
6 He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a
covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written
covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives
life. (NLT)
Ephesians 3:20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty
power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might
ask or think. (NLT)
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