The Old Covenant reading for this evening is taken from the book of Leviticus. Leviticus 23, beginning at verse 26. We'll be reading through verse 32 this evening. And you'll notice right away, particularly if your Bible has a heading over it, that this is a description of a particular Sabbath rest that the people of God were to partake in on the Day of Atonement. And I want to draw your attention to two things. First, the seriousness of entering into God's rest. It is a gift, but it's a gift that needs to be received. And second, I want to draw your attention to the fact that this is on the Day of Atonement. Part of the reason why it's so important that the Old Testament people of God learned to completely rest on the Day of Atonement is to make clear that they contributed nothing to it, but they were resting in God's work, that God and God alone was going to provide the means for the forgiveness of their sins. Leviticus chapter 23, beginning at verse 26, the word of the Lord. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, now on the 10th day of this seventh month is the day of atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest. and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month, beginning at evening, from evening to evening, shall you keep your Sabbath. Here ends the old covenant reading. The new covenant reading is taken from the letter to the Hebrews. Hebrews chapter four, beginning at verse one, we'll be reading through verse eight this evening. The word of our God. 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, justice 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, Freer 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. Here ends the New Covenant reading. Please keep your place here. And the letter to the Hebrews is this will be the primary portion of God's word for our evening sermon. Suppose we all grow tired of the cold, dark New England winter. And some of you are going, check. And so we decide to take a cruise together. We take a cruise off the coast of Latin America. The weather is fantastic. The food is amazing. And everything is absolutely perfect. Until it isn't. A freak accident happens, and the ship is taking on water. And we all need to get into the lifeboats. Now let me ask you a question. As you're getting into the lifeboats, what are you going to consider to be a success? If 80% of us make it home alive, is that good enough? What about 90%? Well, I trust that all of you agree with me, but the only acceptable outcome is that every single one of us makes it home alive. The stakes are simply too high for anyone to be left behind. Well, the author of Hebrews is writing about something that's even more urgent and more important than making it off that ship alive. He's talking about entering God's rest and the very real possibility that some of the people in the church that he's writing to will fail to enter into God's rest. The risk is not merely hypothetical. He's been talking in the previous chapter, meditating on numbers through Psalm 95, about the wilderness generation. And we recall that the vast majority of those who miraculously walked through the Red Sea on dry land died in the wilderness and never entered the promised land because of their unbelief. Their failure to enter the promised land serves as a type for us, a type of failing to enter into God's rest by trusting in Jesus Christ. Or if you prefer a geographical analogy, a failure ultimately to make it to the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, the city that God has prepared for his people. and instead to spend eternity under the wrath of Almighty God for our sins, where the worm does not die and the fire is never quenched. The urgency of tonight's passage is not because there were many apostates in the church that the author was writing to. It is not because there is widespread unbelief The urgency of tonight's passage is because of the supreme importance of the matter at hand. The supreme tragedy if just one member of that church should fail to enter into God's eternal rest. And the same thing is true of our congregation as well. We're going to look at tonight's passage under five main headings. First, the tragedy of not entering God's rest. Second, the necessity of faith. Third, a family of faith. Fourth, divine rest in the midst of our human restlessness. And fifth, there is still time for us. That's an awful lot, so let me give that to you once again. First, the tragedy of not entering God's rest. Second, the necessity of faith. Third, a family of faith. Fourth, divine rest in the midst of our human restlessness. And fifth, there is still time for us. We begin this evening with the tragedy of not entering into God's rest. Look at verse one with me. 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." This verse is a call for intense vigilance. A number of modern translations, I believe, have actually softened this call. Inadvertently, it wasn't their intent. But they've translated the word fear as something else because they thought it would be misleading to people to talk about fear in this context. So they say, let us be careful or let us take care. And I want to say the motives of those translations are just fine. We should not be living in constant anxiety and terror that someone in our congregation is not going to be saved. So there is a wrong type of fear. Nevertheless, I think those other translations actually evacuate the passage of the intensity that is clearly intended by the author of Hebrews. And as Peter O'Brien points out, the author of Hebrews contends that it is good to fear. It is a motive for the strenuous action The prospect of falling away from Christ and missing out on the heavenly rest is terrible in the extreme. And so, it should be feared. That's entirely right. What I want to draw your attention to, however, is that this is not simply a solitary activity. This is a matter that the author of Hebrews is making a corporate concern for the entire congregation. Yes, you should be concerned about the state of your own soul if you have not entered into God's rest by entrusting yourself, body, and soul to Jesus Christ as your faithful savior. By all means, that's true. But actually, what the author of Hebrews is talking about here is the entire faith community of the church. The concern here is a concern that we embrace as a church family. Just two weeks ago, we weren't here last week due to the snow, but just two weeks ago, we were reminded of the author of Hebrews of our mutual responsibility to stir each other up in our faith by pointing people to the goodness of God, to his steadfast love and his faithfulness, so that he would be seen as attractive as he truly is. That theme is continuing here. We are not to be content that most of us seem like we're going to make it to the eternal promised land. Like the Marines, had to slip that in. Like the Marines, we should be committed as much as depends on us to leaving no one in this congregation behind. To fail to reach God's rest is a tragedy of the highest order, for it signifies a rejection of the ultimate peace and fulfillment that God offers. This gift of divine rest involves both a person and a place, and we dare not forfeit either one. And of course, they come together. I want to say just a word about the fact that this divine rest involves both a place and also a person. First, it is a place. I think sometimes in the evangelical world, broadly speaking, we want to water that down a bit and just talk about my personal relationship with God. But because of our personal relationship with God, Jesus Christ is going to prepare a place for you. So later in Hebrews, we will hear of this rest being described in terms of a city whose builder and maker is God. It is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the kingdom that cannot be shaken, and the city that is to come. We ought not to vacate all of these physical realities of God's promise, by turning them entirely into something that happens in my heart. On the other hand, the New Jerusalem is only the eternal promised land because Jesus is there. Because we will behold the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in joyous love, and we will see them face to face. If your view of heaven is you could really enjoy heaven without Jesus being there, you are in serious trouble. It means you don't understand what the new heavens and the new earth are about at all. They are after all described by Jesus as my father's house. The very fact that we are called to enter into God's own rest makes clear that this promised rest cannot be limited to a piece of real estate. After all, when God rested on the seventh day, he didn't go anywhere. He didn't have to leave the created space that he had made and go somewhere else to take a break. The rest that the Lord has prepared for you involves both the new heavens and the new earth, and also a rest in God himself and in his unshakable love for you in Jesus Christ. Now, not surprisingly, in this present age, you mostly experience the latter. That is, you mostly experience the rest that comes from God's presence in your life and not from a location. I want to say that that's only mostly true. There is a sense in which, not so much in geography, but in the church, which God has put into this world as his very own family, we can enjoy a foretaste of the rest that is to come. We do that through corporate worship. We do that when we cast all our cares upon him and our confessions of faith and hearing his assurance of pardon. And we do that with our lives together. In sharing your life with your fellow saints, yes, not yet perfect, you get a foretaste of what heaven's going to be like and what life's going to be like in eternity in God's new earth. And in the age to come, we have the certain promise of eternal life. The greatness of this gift reveals the astonishing kindness and grace of our God. It also casts a brilliant spotlight on the tragedy of failing to enter into God's rest. Hebrews has been looking at the Exodus generation, not simply by looking at numbers, but actually looking at the Exodus generation through the lens of Psalm 95. That's important for you to remember, because it's not simply about what happened then, it's about the ramifications of what happened then for later generations. In this case, at least 400 years later. The living God had delivered his people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. The Lord manifested his presence in their midst through a pillar of fire. He gave Israel his Torah on Mount Sinai and repeatedly cared for them, both providentially and miraculously. Nevertheless, Virtually every adult male, we actually aren't told about the women, virtually every adult male who left Egypt as an adult died in the wilderness and never entered in the promised land because they didn't trust the Lord. They didn't have faith. Why? Well, as I say, it was due to their lack of faith, In spite of all the good the Lord had done on their behalf, they repeatedly refused to trust him. If they had good reason to trust the Lord, and they did, you and I have more. We can see centuries, more than a millennium in the Bible, but centuries and centuries of God's faithfulness throughout the ages. We live on this side when the messianic promises are not simply promises of hope. Except for the second coming, they've been fulfilled in our Lord's first coming. We live on this side of the empty tomb, this side of the cross, this side of Pentecost where God has richly poured out the Holy Spirit on us. If they had reason for faith, we have more. Which means if it was tragic for them to refuse to trust God, It is even worse for us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. The author of Hebrews is challenging us to examine our hearts and our faith. Are we truly living in the faith that unites us with Jesus Christ? Are we availing ourselves of that grace that God so freely offers? Or have we through disobedience and unbelief, placed ourselves outside the boundaries of God's own rest, the rest that God has prepared for those who love him. What is necessary for us to confidently receive this gift, to not simply hope that we've received it, but to know that we've received this gift, Look at verses two and three with me. Verses two and three. For good news came to us, justice 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. Have you heard the gospel? Have you heard good news from God, actually the greatest news that has ever been told? Well, praise be to God, every single one of you has heard that. It's an extraordinary privilege. The author of Hebrews is reminding us that privilege is not possession. God has blessed you in this extraordinary way. Are you receiving the gift that he's holding out right before you in his son? Privilege is not possession. The wilderness generation heard good news from God as well. In fact, the author of Hebrews, in this particular case, like I say, we're greater privileged than they are, but in this particular case, he's trying to put us in exactly the same place. He's saying, look, good news was preached to you, good news was preached to them, right? For good news came to us just as to them. Nevertheless, they died in the wilderness without ever entering the promised land because they failed to trust the Lord. A few people, most notably Joshua and Caleb, among the adult men, did enter the promised land, and there's only one thing that separates them. There's one thing that separates those who enter God's rest in the promised land and those who didn't, and that is faith and unbelief. The same thing is true today. Salvation was, is, and ever shall be by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone. The grace of God in Christ is perfectly and entirely sufficient, even for you, for everyone on the face of the earth. That's not the question. The one thing that is necessary for each of you is that you receive this gift by faith. Now that sounds so simple, because it is. It is simple, but it might be useful to circle back a bit to that word fear in order to grasp that while faith is simple, it can also be hard. So let's go back to the colossal failure of the wilderness generation at the point when the Lord was first presenting to them their opportunity to go into the promised land. So you know the story. The Lord commanded Moses to send 12 spies into the land, one for each of the tribes. Right, so 12 spies are gonna go into the promised land, and they're not sent in to figure out, can we take this land? They're sent in to spy out the land that the Lord will surely give to them. So the spies are sent. And at the end of 40 days, they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. You see, what they're saying is, remember, God had promised, I'm going to give you a land of flowing milk and honey. They go, it is. Boy, the enemies in that land are big. And then we're told, but Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. Do you get the fact that the unbelief of the wilderness generation was not their failure to walk the aisle up to the tabernacle and make a quick confession that I'm going to give my heart to Yahweh? That's not what faith and unbelief is. Their unbelief was demonstrated by the fact that they feared the Amalekites more than they feared the Lord. It's not about a decision that they made just in a moment. Faith means trust. They didn't trust the Lord to overcome the enemies that they could see with their own eyes. By contrast, Caleb and Joshua fixed their eyes on the Lord and upon his promises. But 10 spies said, we can't. Caleb and Joshua said, the Lord can. Now this might be a helpful way for you to think about faith in your own life. To think about what or whom do you fear? Do you simply want the Lord to be another avenue by which you achieve worldly success? Or do you seek your praise ultimately, not from man, but from God? I know you'd all get the answer correct on a multiple choice test, but in real life, this is hard stuff. Nearly every significant decision that you will ever make in your life is going to depend on how you answer these two questions. Whose praise are you seeking? And who or what do you fear? That will drive almost every decision you make. If you're seeking the praise of God and you fear God first, you're going to make righteous decisions. If you're seeking the praise of men, Well, Jesus says, how is it possible for you to do what is right when you seek the praise of man rather than God? That's the problem. Genuine faith involves holding the Lord in reverential awe, and in that sense, fearing him. We often say from Proverbs, and it's a beautiful thing to remember, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. but it is also the necessary counterpart to a genuine and living faith. Well, how does this work out in practice? This leads to what I have called a family of faith, a family of faith. Please look back at verse two with me. The author says something important in verse two that's very easy for us to skip over. Since salvation comes to us through union with Jesus Christ, we could easily have read verse two that way when it actually says something else. Listen closely to God's word once again from verse two. 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. Who are the unbelievers not united with? They were not united with those who listened. Genuine faith is the instrument that the Lord uses to unite you with Jesus Christ. But of necessity, that means you become united with every other person who believes in Jesus. All the believers are united in corporate solidarity, and so are the unbelievers. As I say, genuine faith is the instrument that the Lord uses to unite you with Jesus Christ, yet when you are united with Jesus Christ, you are also united with everyone else who has been united with Jesus through faith. God's plan is not a bunch of individuals getting saved, although you are saved as individuals, but then you were brought immediately into a broader family. This is why we call each other brother and sister, which you really are in Christ. There's another aspect of our union with each other, but I think is important to highlight. In the wilderness generation, when the spies return, the unbelieving spies, the people who took the side of the unbelieving spies are in fact the vast majority and they are those who die in the wilderness. They were in that sense united with them. There was a solidarity in their unbelief and in the rebellion against God's call. We read, then all the congregation raised a loud cry. This is from Numbers. And the people wept that night, and all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt. That's sad. Would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. See, it turns out there's a corporate solidarity in this unbelief and rebellion. They're actually united in wanting to go back to Egypt. And there's also a corporate solidarity among those who believe. Now, it is true that merely being part of the visible church will never save anybody. You, you personally need to believe. You need to trust Jesus Christ and entrust yourself to him. That is absolutely true. Nevertheless, the way that we live out our faith or unbelief is ordinarily done with other people. Let me say that again. The way that we live out our faith or unbelief is done with other people. Yes, it's true. You could be the godly exception to the unbelievers around you in a church that has abandoned fidelity to God's word. But that's really hard. And it's not God's desire for your life. Furthermore, one of the great temptations that we face to compromise comes to us whenever we would find it much easier and immediately beneficial to identify with those who are walking in unbelief. You can apply that to numerous areas in your life. Young men and young women are tempted to do this in order to date someone that they find attractive in some way, or even to marry someone who's an unbeliever, but they find is going to be satisfying to them in some way. We are tempted to do this to fit with a particular social group or to get ahead in our careers. And we are tempted to do this simply to avoid the hostility that is sometimes directed toward the people of God. That is why the Holy Spirit is plainly warning us here that to identify with those who are rebelling against the Lord in unbelief is to share their fate. Do you get that? You shouldn't imagine that you're the secret Christian in the group. To identify with those who are rebelling against the Lord in unbelief, your primary identity, means you're going to share their fate. Correspondingly, to genuinely place your trust in the Lord always entails identifying with his people who are nothing less than the family of God. Thankfully, Even though it's easy to grow weary of living by faith in a fallen world, and God knows that. I mean, we have Psalms that say, I am weary, O Lord, I am weary. God understands that. It is quite possible that you are there right now. It is certain that you will be there at some point in the future. But even though it's easy to grow weary of living by faith in a fallen world, God himself is prepared to rest. for his people. God gives you rest. Look at verses 3 through 5 with me. For we who have believed enter that rest. As he said, 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. The question to answer is this. Whose rest are we talking about? The passage is abundantly clear. It is God's own rest. Not simply the rest that God provides for us, God is calling us to enter into his own rest in the midst of our human restlessness. On the seventh day, the Lord rested from all his work of creation. That makes clear, of course, that the Sabbath rest is not simply about inactivity. God continued to uphold and care for the entire university he just created on the Sabbath day. Rest is not simply about inactivity. And to state the obvious, God didn't need the seventh day to recover from his strenuous first six days, right? We need to do that. We need Sabbath rest for physical renewal and emotional renewal. So what was God doing on the seventh day when he rested? He wasn't creating something new. He was delighting in the work that he had already done. Remember, he had said over and over again, it is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good. God's Sabbath rest is stepping back from working to reflect on and to embrace the wonder of his own work. And that's what your rest is, too. It's a call for you to get off your performance, your doing things, not to do nothing, but to delight in God. Now, if your view of Sabbath rest is simply, I'm worn out, I need a break. By the way, you are worn out, you need a break, you do need physical rest. I'm not downplaying that. But if that's all it is, you're missing out on what God is giving you. He is calling you to find your rest in his perfect work. And that covers all sorts of things, but obviously at the center of it is the finished work of Jesus Christ on your behalf. As Jesus says on the cross, it is finished. Beloved, therefore you can rest from the burden of worrying about your own guilt. Jesus has already trampled it into the dust. through the cross, and he has overcome death on your behalf through his own bodily resurrection from the dead. The day of Sabbath rest is a pointer to both the eternal Sabbath rest that the people of God will enjoy with the Lord, and it is also something that is meant to reframe how we live our lives right now. As we delight in the finished work of Christ on our behalf, That puts all the hardships you're dealing with, all the hopes you have, into the right perspective. You can't lose, because God is for you. Even you can't stand against you, because God is for you in Jesus Christ. As we delight in the finished work of Christ in saving us, this radically reframes even the work that we do in a broken and fallen world. Furthermore, it is only those who come to know this rest in the present age who will enter into the eternal Sabbath. But this is not a multiple choice exam where you get to pick one or the other answer. If you trust God, that means you trust him for saving rest in Christ. But you also trust him for everything else as well. It's just about trusting God. And that's going to give you a type of God's rest in this present age. And thankfully, everyone who enters into his rest in this age, enters it in the age to come. Here's the good news, the author of Hebrews wants to get home to this congregation, but it applies throughout every generation. There is still time for us. Have you entered into God's rest? Have you a need to continue entering in? The answer to that second question is yes. Because it turns out that you can grow in your faith and therefore grow in your experience of trusting God and his rest that he provides for you. Look at verses six to eight with me, where the author of Hebrews is trying to drive home the point that there is still time for us and for our loved ones to enter into God's rest. Verses six through eight. 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. Now these verses are carefully making an argument that almost all of you just take for granted. Because you all have completed New Testaments. But remember that congregation the author of Hebrews is writing to, they don't have a completed New Testament. What you take for granted is there's still time. For you, for your loved ones, for members of the church who have not yet professed their faith in Christ, there's time right now for them to do that. But the author of Hebrews is actually making a pretty detailed argument to drive home that point. I remind you that he's not simply arguing from the wilderness generation. He's making the observation about the wilderness generation through the lens of Psalm 95. So David writes this psalm more than 400 years later, and he's telling them that right now, hundreds of years after the wilderness generation, today, there's an opportunity for you to enter his rest. Right now. That's how this argument works. If it was only about entering the promised land, then when Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land with the children, the adults said we're going to die in the wilderness, we might think they entered their rest. And it has nothing to do with us in the 21st century. I mean, what are we supposed to do? All travel to the land of Canaan and enter into, you know, the geographical boundaries under Solomon or something, and that's a way to enter into God's rest? But David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was saying, that's not the rest. That's just the type. That's the pointer. What God is actually promising is something far more. It is a rest in him in this present age. It is a rest in him and with him in the age to come. And you enter into that by faith. When do you enter? The moment you first believe. That promise is held out to you right now. What sort of rest does the Lord give to his people? Three things. First, the Lord gives us rest from the crushing burden of our own guilt and our own fruitless striving to somehow make everything right. If you feel the guilt of your sin and you understand this, It is a crushing weight. And somehow trying to figure out how to make things right with God will just weigh you down astonishingly. But God has continuous good news for us on this. As the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 5, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. We don't simply have the promise of peace. Your long war against God is over. And although God won the war, he's made you his daughter and his son. It's astonishing. Right now, you can have peace in God. If you came here this night without that peace, you can leave here tonight with it and enjoy it for the rest of your life. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Second, while we objectively enjoy peace with God, from the moment we first believe, our experience of that rest in this world is not an on-off switch. It's not like, OK, once you believe, you just experientially enjoy the rest God is providing for you until the very day he calls you home. That's not how it works. because your and my faith is imperfect in this world. And therefore, we often end up carrying anxieties that we don't need to carry. We end up striving as though it depended ultimately on us. God is saying, I want you to grow in faith, to realize that I am completely trustworthy, and therefore, enter more fully into the gift that I am giving you. As R. Kent Hughes points out, The principle is so simple. The more trust, the more rest. That's it. The more you trust the Lord, the greater will be your experience of entering into his rest. Of course, this means as we grow in faith, we should be enjoying a growing experience of God's rest. How many of your cares should you cast upon God? Peter tells us, cast all your cares, all your anxieties upon him, because he cares for you. Many of us carry around unnecessary burdens. I wouldn't ask you to raise hands, people don't want to acknowledge this. But many of us carry around unnecessary burdens because we unconsciously slip from thinking of God as our loving Heavenly Father, to thinking of him as a really good CEO and we're his employees. And while he's a great CEO and he's gracious and kind to us, we better perform, right? So I gotta do my part. And if you think like that, you're gonna get weighed down with troubles. But Jesus says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink. nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than many of them? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat, what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. According to Jesus, how do you avoid anxiety? Now, if you're making a list of the three or four things you should do, you're missing the point. You will avoid the anxieties that are unnecessary in your life by recognizing how good God is and that he's become your father who loves you with an everlasting love. It is precisely as you magnify the greatness of God and his goodness that you will find rest for your souls as you rest in him. Third, Since our faith in this world is always imperfect, our experience of rest in this world will always be incomplete. On the one hand, that's bad news, but it'll also help you to not beat yourself up, as though maybe I don't have faith at all because sometimes I find myself restless. Since our faith in this world is always imperfect, our experience of rest in this world will always be incomplete. but thankfully a day is coming when your faith will become sight. The Lord will soon wipe away every tear from your eyes and you will enjoy perfect peace and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Meditating upon the certain hope of this future peace from and with God, can significantly contribute to experiencing his rest in this present age. It's what makes us realize that our deepest sorrows are but light and momentary afflictions and light is the eternal weight of glory that God is laying up for us. Isn't God good? This is why in the very midst of our hardships, we come together and we lift our voices And we sing, we sing words like this. Be still my soul when dearest friends depart, and all this darkness in the veil of tears. Then shall you better know his love, his heart, who comes to soothe your sorrow and your fears. Be still my soul Your Jesus can repay from his own fullness all that he takes away.