Finding Rest
Notes
Transcript
These are the inheritances that the people of Israel received in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel gave them to inherit. Their inheritance was by lot, just as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses for the nine and one-half tribes. For Moses had given an inheritance to the two and one-half tribes beyond the Jordan, but to the Levites he gave no inheritance among them. For the people of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. And no portion was given to the Levites in the land, but only cities to dwell in, with their pasturelands for their livestock and their substance. The people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses; they allotted the land.
Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”
Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba. (Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim.) And the land had rest from war.
The cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the people of Israel were in all forty-eight cities with their pasturelands. These cities each had its pasturelands around it. So it was with all these cities.
Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.
Scripture: Joshua 14:1-15, 21:41-45
Sermon Title: Finding Rest
Finding Rest in the Text
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when God led his people into the Promised Land after spending forty years in the wilderness, there was still work to be done. Getting across the Jordan River was just the first step. As they continued their journey into a foreign land that was now to become their home, there were battles to be waged. The Israelites fought against the Canaanites, and they conquered the kings who ruled. God guided them on this offensive because if they simply moved in alongside them, their enemy, he knew how easily they would fall in their devotion to him. When they had reached a certain point, under the direction of the Lord, they settled into the land. We heard a declaration in chapter 14 verse 15, “Then the land had rest from war.”
What followed that declaration was the defining of the land divisions for the Israelites. If you had a Bible in front of you or if you have read through this section, you likely noticed how much detail God went into defining the boundaries for where the nine and a half tribes were to live. Those borders were given so that people could make their home and not dispute over what land was theirs. Inside the tribal allotments, there were also cities that were distributed for the Levites and for those who killed someone on accident. Once all of the details had been laid out, we read at the end of chapter 21 that not only does the land have rest, but verse 44 said, “The Lord gave them,” his people, “rest on every side…Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”
In the original Hebrew, there are two different words being used for rest in these chapters. The first applied to the land is a type of rest that can be described as quiet and undisturbed. The land that had been marched on, fought on, used for ambushes and assaults, dust stirred up as soldiers ran into battle, and hills used as look outs. All of it could finally be still. The land could return to a place for home, for work, for its new inhabitants to travel. The land rested.
The second word that is used, when describing the rest that the people had, is a word that means they were able to settle down and remain. What the Lord had brought them to was not just a time for the Israelites to refill on energy, to get prepared for the next offensive. No, what God had given them was the opportunity to settle permanently into their new home. They no longer had to fear enemies or worry about moving again. It would have been a drastic change in life compared to that which Israel’s fighting men had been enduring for the past few years. No longer would they as a nation have to adapt day after day as they had while wandering in the desert for the over forty years.
God gave them rest that allowed them settle in to a place that they could call their own. At a deeper level his rest for them was also an opportunity for the people to see that what he had brought them through had now come to its conclusion. God had brought them all the way from being slaves without any land or status to this land he had promised to their fathers, and his goodness was on display by giving them a new home and a new identity. Having followed his commands, Israel could now experience the true blessings of the covenant—and experience them in security while they put down roots. They had found rest.
Finding Rest Today
As God’s people today, finding rest is one of the most important things that any of us can do. Our rest is going to look different from Israel’s, because it is not about a geographic location—Israel is not the Promised Land that we have to move to nor is our country of residence to be seen as a new Promised Land that God has ordained. To be Christians as most of us probably heard this morning is to be part of the body of Christ that seeks for there to be disciples of all nations, from every land under heaven. Our allegiance is to the kingdom of God. That is important for us to remember and have before us is because our rest is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ.
This rest goes beyond the quiet and stillness that the earth of the Promised Land was able to experience. It goes beyond having a home location that was not to be taken away. The rest that we as believers have the opportunity to find is rest for our weary souls. Our souls that get jerked around by sin and pulled by all sorts of things vying for our love, our devotion, and our worship in this world. The rest that we have in Jesus will inform how we live and where we go, but let us remember that he is not always safe. While that is the case, he can be sure that in him we are grounded in the only way for salvation, the only hope and light in this dark world. The rest held out by God to all who turn to him is a rest that signals completion, the end of our need to search.
There is a section in the book of Hebrews in chapters 3 and 4 that illuminates how this kind of rest can be experienced—how it can be entered. The author there writes that it is by believing in God—that our hearts would not turn away from him, and that we would encourage one another daily to not be hardened by sin. It was disobedience and hardness of heart that prohibited the first group of God’s people from being able to enter into the Promised Land, to not find rest, but now God has made the way through his Son that we can experience rest. By faith, we can have confidence to approach him for his mercy and grace.
True rest must be a part of our faith, a part of our lives that cannot be misplaced. It means that we find our security, our identity, our strength in the one who has already won the ultimate battle. He is the one who holds our eternal home. In finding our rest in Jesus Christ and what he accomplished in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, there is no reason to look anywhere else and it would be sinful of us to look to anything other than him.
Finding Rest for Veterans
This is the truth that we must cling to, and it is the truth that is on display for us to take hold of as we are gathered here tonight on the eve of Memorial Day. On this holiday in particular we have the opportunity to remember brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents, children, other family members and friends who have lost their lives in war. We want to remember them, we want to give thanks for their courage, we want to bear in mind that our freedom, our comfort is in place because people were willing to die to protect them. As we remember their sacrifice, we know that it helped to provide peace in our communities and our land. Sometimes we find those words “rest in peace” on tombstones. It is our hope that those on our hearts and minds have found the rest of being united with Christ. When they came to the end of their earthly life, panic was not necessary because they had found him.
But I want us to spend some time thinking also about rest for veterans who continue to live on. From what I have seen and learned from those who have served in the military—rest is absent from war. I have heard that sometimes in some places, there may be an occasional sense of boredom, a lull in the operations that a soldier is involved in, but true rest with security, with quiet, with the ability to not think about what your next obligation is—rest is not something a soldier is likely to find while they are on the battlefield.
Yet we often hear today about soldiers who return home and continue to be without rest. The sights they have seen, the tasks they have had to carry out, what they have experienced does not allow them to return to the peace that they once had. I am sure the struggle with anxiety, depression, and PTSD is not new to soldiers—they have always faced extreme circumstances. But it may be made all the more difficult to understand when we consider our country to be a land of freedom and safety from tyranny and widespread bloodshed. We would like imagine that it should not take much to get back to normal, yet that often does not seem to be the case.
As the body of Christ, we have the opportunity to speak into the lives of those who are searching for rest. I am not saying that preaching or simply telling someone of the rest that can be experienc0ed in Christ should replace counseling or therapy. But we have the opportunity to share that the most incredible love, the most incredible sense of security, the greatest peace to be found is in our Savior. We as believers have the chance to be compassionate with those who have experienced great hardship—to walk in the areas of life where there is light as well as where things may be gloomy. In times when words do not need to be spoken, times of fear, and times where we are allowed to speak. When we have that opportunity, we hold a wonderful treasure. As we find in Romans 8, “There is nothing in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is one of the Lord’s good promises that we find in the New Testament—we can be sure that he will not fail to fulfill that in those who turn to him.
In Corsica at the start of every morning worship service, we sing this short song, “My peace I give unto you, It’s a peace that the world cannot give, It’s a peace that the world cannot understand, peace to know, peace to live, My peace I given unto you.” In those words we are reminded and we confess that the peace of Christ, the true rest for us is not something that can be labored for as we do for a paycheck or for some other benefit. This is not something that we create of our own. It is purely a gift from God, and it is given to us for our whole lives if we will turn to Jesus. There is no crisis, there is no trauma, and there is no memory that can sever the peace and rest that our Lord extends to us.
Brothers and sisters, as we celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow let us remember that the Lord fulfills his promises. We, with the Israelites of old, worship the God who has blessed us with health, with land, with prosperity, and with freedom. The Lord gave to Israel their land for settling, and he gave them rest in order that they would flourish. The faith that we have and the true rest we can live in are the blessings of God that he gave his Son for. Whether in freedom or in persecution, may we always look to him as our Lord and our Savior. Knowing that in life and in death, we belong to Jesus. As we celebrate, as we remember, and as we grieve, may this be the truth that provides us with comfort, strength, and rest. Amen.