# There is Power and there is Rest

Category: Peace & Assurance
Speaker: Gregory McCoy
Date: March 20, 2022

Thank you. Good to be back, I must say. It is weird. Traveling on the road is a very different lifestyle than at home, so that has been some adjustments there. I am going to give a little bit of an update for the ministry, just so you guys kind of have a bit of an idea what is going on there before we jump into the message tonight. We have done two fairs, and one of them was about a week and a half. The other one was only five days, but of those five, two of them got rained out and they canceled, so that is very unfortunate. But God has been working in a lot of different ways. We have seen a lot of souls in…

I do not think that we have this mentality here, but a lot of people, when we give a number because we keep track, they think, well, I mean, really, did all of those people actually get saved? Well, one, I cannot say 100% because I cannot see their soul. But I can tell you that I spend 30, 45 minutes, an hour and a half with people covering scripture and the gospel and other topics. So do I believe they get saved? Yes, I do. I would not confidently say that they got saved if I thought there was doubt there.

And so what we get to do because of the setting that we are in, is we get to spend a lot of time with people. And that also leads to dealing with a lot of problems that were not so prevalent years ago. Soul winning today is not the same as soul winning years ago, not because the gospel has changed, but because people’s problems have changed. And so you need to be able to address what they believe or do not believe and lead them into the gospel. And when they have questions, you need to be able to answer them if you are going to effectively witness.

So the Romans Road is a great place to start. But if you think all you need to know out of this entire book is the Romans Road and that is going to set you for life, you have completely missed out on the rest of the book. God gave us the whole thing for a reason, not just the Romans Road. And it is because this book is full of so much, and I do not want to get into personal details, but when I preached at the end of last year, we talked about if God is good, why and why bad things happen and how God wants to help us grow, and that does not come through being comfortable; that comes typically through being uncomfortable.

And in my life, there was something where I was very comfortable in a particular scenario, and God used that scenario and made it very uncomfortable and absolutely destroyed my faith in somebody else, my trust in somebody else, and made me realize that I was dependent on somebody else in a way that I was not to be dependent on. And God has completely ripped me apart and put me back together. And I was going through just the beginnings of that when I was here and I preached in January. But it has really been since I left. God has changed my life. God has changed my heart. And not that I was not serving him before, but I have a whole different outlook on serving him now.

It is no longer just about duty, though I never really thought of it that way before. I had always done what was right because it is right. Is that a bad reason? Well, no, absolutely not. Is doing what is right, is obeying God, to be our supreme motivation just because it is duty? No. God gives far more powerful motivations in the Scripture. I will give you two. One is heavenly reward. And we think, oh, well, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, right? We are familiar with the generics of the passage. But how much do we actually take that to heart? How much are we actually living out so that we can attain gold, silver, precious stones? He did not tell us that so that we could just keep doing what we are doing out of duty. He told us because he says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. So is it selfish to live for heaven? No, he tells us to. Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven. Where your treasure is, that is where your heart is going to be. Our heart is to be in heaven.

But beyond that, God says we are supposed to obey him, not out of duty and not just for heavenly reward, but because we love him. “If ye love me,” Jesus says, “keep my commandments.” “Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?” Those were right out of the mouth of Jesus while he was here on this earth. And yet, we find ourselves serving out of duty. And when we serve out of duty, the motivation is because I have to or because I should. When we serve for heavenly reward, we serve because we want to. And when we serve out of love, we do it because we want to and because we get to. We get to serve God. We get to see him work through our lives. And that is kind of what we are going to jump into tonight in the message.

And so tonight is not primarily to aim at being convicting, but rather to be encouraging. Y’all have just gone through the Soul Winning Conference, which I made the last tail end of, and I am going to have to go back and watch the other services later. But I have already seen a change. I have seen a change in the fervor in soul winning. And that is something that I love to see because I am a soul winner myself, and I love being recharged and preached to on soul winning, and I love seeing other people have a fervor for soul winning. But you realize that by changing and having more of a fervor for soul winning, you are now coming up on somebody’s radar. You are coming up on God’s radar, I guess we could say it that way, though he always knows, but you are coming up on Satan’s radar.

Let me ask you this, weird question: Does Satan know who you are? In the Bible, in the New Testament, there are a group of people, Pharisees primarily, or at least they were descendants of Pharisees, it seems to be, and they thought that casting out demons was a party trick—the seven sons of Sceva. And so they took it upon themselves to call people over and say, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches to come out of that person.”

And do you remember what happened? The person who is possessed with many demons looks at that person and says, “Paul, we know. Jesus, we know. But who are ye?” because they were not a threat to Satan. They were doing things in their own power. They were trying to use Jesus as a party trick. There was no threat there, so why would Satan care who they are? They are living the way he wants them to. He wins, but he does not care. Satan does not care who you are as a believer. He just wants to destroy you. So they said, “We know Jesus. We know Paul. We have no idea who you are,” and then beats them up, and they run out, literally naked, because they had just gotten beaten up by someone who was possessed by demons because they thought that religion was a party trick.

Real religion is not a party trick. And we say, and it is unfortunately, the phrase itself is almost becoming cliché, where we say it is not about religion; it is about a relationship. But that is true. It is about a relationship with God. So, may I ask you, are you living that relationship?

Are you as close to God as you want to be? You do not have to answer out loud, but answer that in your head. Are you as close to God as you try to be? That one, there is a definitive answer because God says, “Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.” So you are as close to God as you try to be.

So what is the problem? There is a disconnect between what we want and what we actually experience. And so tonight what we are looking at is, there is power and there is rest. There is power and there is rest. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity, God, to stand here at my home church and behind the pulpit again to give your word in love. And God, I ask you to speak through me, that my own personality and charisma and knowledge would not get in the way, God, but that I would be filled with your Spirit and speak only the things that you would have for your people tonight to be an encouragement and a challenge. And we ask these things in your name. Amen.

If you would, open your Bibles to Romans Chapter 5. We are going to be there, but we are going to jump into a few other topics first before we get there. Romans Chapter 5.

There is power and there is rest. So let us talk about power. Y’all probably know the phrase. You may not know the reference. It is Psalm 62:11. But we see that power belongeth unto whom? Power belongeth unto God. Thank you, Brother Patterson. Power belongeth unto God. So if we are going to have an experience of power, we know who the source is. It is not ourselves. It is not the world. It is not Satan. It is not personal pleasures. No, it is only through God.

And so first we are going to look at the power of the word. And I know we are going to get to Romans 5 in just a minute here, but Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” I cannot look at you and see the thoughts and intents of your heart. I have good people reading skills. I can read body language. I can read motivation as far as people reading other people skills go. But I cannot see your heart. You know what I found out? Some people are really good at being fake. Some of us are really good at being fake without even realizing that we are fake. That is a little scary.

Samson, he lost the presence of God in his life, right? But he got up and he shook himself and he wist not that the Lord was no longer with him after Delilah shaved his head. And he goes out to fight in his power and he did not even realize that God was no longer with him. That is one of the most terrifying stories I have ever read in the Bible. Because what happens when we get up and we think we can do things in our power and we go out and try to serve God in our power? And we have completely missed the fact that God is no longer with us. It is a dangerous place to be. But God’s word has power, and so we have to abide by what His word says. I think we agree there.

Isaiah 55, verse 8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” When I preached last time at the end of January, we talked about fulfilling the very thoughts of God, about how surrender leads us to being within God’s will. And God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth, it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and shall prosper in the thing where to I sent it.” We see the word has power.

But who is the Word? “In the beginning was the Word, capital W. And the Word, capital W, was with God, and the Word, capital W, was God. And the Word, capital W, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” Now, we are God’s children if we are saved, but there is only one who was the only begotten. And that is Jesus.

Jesus has power. And so as you are here in Romans chapter 5, let us look at verse 8. And I am betting that the majority of people in this room could quote verse 8, but let us look at it: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Got familiar with the verse? I would have guessed so. Are you familiar with the preceding verse? Look at Romans 5:9: “Much more then, being now justified by what? By his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” There is power in the blood of Jesus. We sing songs about that. There is power, power, power in the blood. But do we acknowledge that in our own lives and how we live? Because if we did, we would realize how big of a deal salvation is. And that would change how we act in our own lives towards God, and that would change how we give His word to others.

“Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” You see, when we were unsaved, we were the enemies of God. You understand that, right? It is not just we were sinners and we deserved separation from God. We were God’s enemies. But he loved us anyway, and he shed his perfect blood so that we could be reconciled, so that we could have a relationship with him again and turn from being enemies to his children. And now that he is alive again, how much more are we going to be reconciled to him when we get our glorified bodies and spend eternity with him? “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.” He is the one who paid for our sin, and he did so with his blood.

Hebrews by itself is a phenomenal book, but it is a very deep book. It is a different type of book, and I have been studying it lately. I am not going to pretend like I have all of it understood perfectly, but there is a lot that I grasped this time going through than I have in times past, and how it talks about the satisfaction of Jesus and the satisfaction of his perfect blood because the priests would offer sacrifices for the people. The high priest once a year would go into the Holy of Holies or the holiest of all and offer blood once a year for the sins of the people. But here is the problem: The blood of sheep and of goats cannot atone sin. When they offered sacrifices, that is not what forgave them. God forgave them because they were obedient to how he told them to behave. But the blood itself did not do anything because it is the blood of animals. It was not perfect blood. Even if it was an unblemished lamb, it is an animal. But Jesus came down in the form of what? Well, when he was made flesh, he was not made in the flesh of an animal. No, he was made in the flesh of man. And he shed his perfect blood for us so that we could be saved.

And so Hebrews 9, verse 12, says—actually let me back out. Let me read verse 11: “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.” You see, in the Old Testament, they had the tabernacle, which Moses built off of the blueprint that he was given, which represented the true tabernacle, which is in heaven. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Chapter 10, verse 10: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

“And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” See, Jesus does not have to be offered over and over. Chapter 9 talks about that. He does not have to be afflicted and wounded and shed his blood repeatedly because his blood is so powerful that he offered himself once for all. There is power in the blood.

But oftentimes, just in general, we live in a very academically religious society. We are here in the Bible Belt, and our religion and our relationship with God stops right here. And it does not even go all the way through our brains. We have not even thought a lot about what we believe, and it has completely missed our hearts. Academic religion will not do anybody any good. In fact, I would argue that academic religion that does not touch your heart does more harm than good because it gives a false sense of having a relationship with God and being in accordance to the way he created us.

The Apostle Paul, before he was renamed to Paul, his name was Saul. And he was a Pharisee, and he was very, very religiously zealous. He grew up, and he was taught the Scriptures. He memorized. And he had it all up here, and it completely missed his heart, just like the majority of the Pharisees did. Did that do Paul very much good? No. It was only after he actually got saved and he allowed God to change his heart that he became the Apostle Paul that we talk about today.

And the same thing is going to be true in your life. If all you do is let Bible preaching and teaching hit you in the head and you go, “Oh, that was interesting,” it is not going to do you any good. But if you will allow it to pierce your heart and you let God change your heart—pastor mentioned this morning—we cannot change our own hearts. Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, but God wants to change our hearts. And we will get into that. I do not want to jump too far ahead of myself, but we will either allow God to change our hearts, or we will refuse his offer for him to do so. It is not something that he is going to force upon us. He gives us the choice. We will get into that a little bit later. So there is power in the blood.

But God also gives us a personal power. Revelation 1:6, and 5:9 and 10 talk about how God has made us kings and priests unto him. And again, jumping back to Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14, says, “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

“Let us therefore come and tiptoe to the throne of grace.” Is that what it says? No. Does it say, therefore, let us come and hang our heads as we approach God on his throne? No, it says, “Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain grace to help in time of need.” See, God wants us to approach boldly. But if we are living our lives in sin, we cannot do that because sin causes death. And sin will separate us, even if we are already saved, sin will separate us from the life that God wants us to live. But he says come boldly. Why? Because we have attained some wonderful thing in our own power? No, because Jesus offered himself and went into the holiest of all in heaven itself and offered his blood so that we could be reconciled, so that we could have a relationship with him. And he says, no longer do you have to go through another man and offer sacrifices? No, he says, now you can come personally and boldly to the throne of grace. Amen.

But do we do that in our own lives? Or do we only come before God’s throne when it is meal time? And we say, “Dear Lord, the food, amen.” Is that how we pray? I hope not. Quite frankly, sometimes I pray for everything but the food whenever I am asked to pray over a meal. Why? Because when you get to know God personally and you realize that prayer is talking to him personally, it changes the way you pray. It cannot not. I know, double negative. Do not crucify me on an English grammar book. Okay. But God says we can come boldly. But here is the problem: We allow other things to distract us from the power that God wants to fulfill our lives.

So before we jump into some other topics about how God has given us the Holy Spirit and the power that is available to us through that, we are going to talk about the parable of the seed. And just as a caveat, it is interesting that God had already showed me what to preach on tonight, and then pastor nailed half of my points. And I will admit that while I was sitting there at first, I was like, man, he is stealing my thunder. And then God corrected me and said, well, two things. One, Greg, it is not your thunder. It is my thunder. And two, I know God wants me to preach this. And so whatever my assumption is, some of this needs to be hit on twice. Maybe we are experiencing some rolling thunder today. I just thought of that. That is good. I need to stop. All right.

Let us talk about the seed. Pastor mentioned the parable of the seed, and he talks specifically about the seed that falls amongst good ground. But there are three other categories. The seed is cast forth, then the disciples ask Jesus, okay, what is this parable even talking about? Because Jesus says there are four different types of ground. There is the wayside. There is the stony places. There is the thorns, and there is the good ground. And so the disciples come to him and say, what are you talking about? Because this is around the time where Jesus started to speak primarily in parables and not as directly as he was before, because Israel as a whole had rejected him. And so he tells him, well, the seed is the word of God. And by the way, this is not just talking about salvation. This is talking about the word of God. So that talks, it refers to salvation, sure, but it also goes beyond that to how we live our lives. Okay, so the wayside, Jesus says—actually let me read it to you, so you can have the exact wording. Matthew 13:19: “When any man heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.” Luke 8:12 adds, “lest they should believe and be saved.” This is he which received the seed by the wayside. So you miss the understanding, and Satan catches it out of somebody’s heart.

Okay, then there are the stony places. “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by, he is offended.” The stony places is somebody who they are originally joyful when they received the word of God, but they did not actually pay attention to the fact that the Bible tells us we are going to be persecuted. We are going to suffer for Christ’s sake. The world hated him, so it is going to hate us. And so when that happens, they go, “Oh, this is not what I thought it was.” And they are offended. And they err from the faith, not because Satan convinced them of something else, but because they could not handle the persecution. They ignored the power that God wanted to fill them with. And so they are offended.

Then there are the thorns. Mark 4:18 puts it this way: “And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” I do not think I need to hammer the point again, since you just went through this whole soul-winning conference, that we are supposed to be producing fruit. But what is stopping these people from being fruitful? The cares of this world, and the lust entering in choke those that have received it in thorny ground.

So let me ask you, are we living academically, religiously, where we show up because we have the time memorized for when the service starts, and we sit down because it is convenient and it is part of our routine, and all of it sits up here, or worse, in one ear, out the other? Or are we going to refuse the cares of this world, like Moses, who refused to be called Pharaoh’s son and to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season because he had respect to the recompense of reward? You know what that is talking about? Recompense is to reward equally with one’s behavior. Moses had respect to that, and he knew that if I go out in sin, I am going to be rewarded, in other words, judged for that sin. But he also knew that if he served God, God would reward him equally according to his labor, as was talked about this morning. And Moses did mess up, okay? He was not perfect. But if you look at the things that he endured with the children of Israel, how stubborn they were of a people, and how much he interceded to God on their behalf, he had respect to the recompense of reward. He was not going to be persuaded by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. No, he decided to determine in his heart to live for God, and we would call Moses good ground. He produced fruit.

1st Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Quench not the Spirit.” Why is that a command if it is impossible for us to quench the Spirit? Well, it would not be. So what we know is that God wants to work in our lives by the Holy Spirit, and we are either going to accept that or we are going to refuse it. And God gives you that choice. We talked about free will last year. That sounds like a long time ago, a few months ago. We talked about free will. God gives us the choice. Will you let me work in your life or will you refuse it? Is that because we are more powerful than God so we can control how he behaves in our life? No. But he gives us the choice. We are nothing. We are absolutely nothing. But he says, are you going to accept my strength? Are you going to do your own thing and try to live in your own strength?

2nd Timothy 3, starting verse 1: “This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves.” I am going to skip through some of this list. “Despisers of those that are good. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” It did not say only lovers of pleasures. It says lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Who do you love more? The pleasures of this world? Or do you love God more? “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” You can deny God’s power in your life. You cannot outpower him. You are not stronger than him, but he says, I am going to give you the choice. So let us look at what he has given us, the Holy Spirit.

John 16. Jesus is coming up upon the crucifixion week and he is teaching the disciples and he says, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away.” And you know what? I can relate to the disciples here because after all of the things that they had been through with Jesus and seeing all of his miracles, he says, “I am about to leave.” I would also be like, could you not leave? Like, could you stay here or can I come with you? Right? I mean, that is reasonable. But Jesus says, no, it is good for you. It is expedient for you. This will push you along in your growth that I go away. “For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.”

And I do not know about you. I have often caught myself wishing that I had lived during the time that Jesus was physically on this earth, that I could have been one of his disciples following along with him. But God had me born during this time. And he has given us his completed word, which is a more sure word of prophecy than the speaking of the prophets. And he has given us the Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us, which is a totally different thing than just him walking around on this earth. And that time, before, the Holy Spirit would occasionally empower people, but it did not dwell inside of people. Today we have something that is far more powerful than even the disciples had before the Holy Spirit came. And that is the Holy Spirit. And so what do we do with that?

Acts 1:6. “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?” Okay, so this is just after the resurrection. Jesus is about to ascend back into heaven. And they said, oh, this is the time now, right? You rose from the dead. You are going to establish your kingdom. And Jesus, he said unto them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive what? Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.” See, he has given us the Holy Spirit, and what does that do?

Well, the Holy Spirit is what makes us a child of God. John 1:10 says, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not: But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” That is not something that is done in our flesh. That is done by God and by the Holy Spirit, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Amen.

Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” The Holy Spirit is what seals us unto the day of redemption. Ephesians 1:13, after we believe and we get saved.

And what does he do for us? He frees us from sin. People think, oh, you are a Christian, you are bound by all these rules. And they have completely missed out on the fact that they are the ones who are in bondage to sin, and we have liberty in Christ. Galatians 5:13: “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Verse 16: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” I find that interesting. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

If you are still in Romans 5, go over to Romans 8. A few pages over to Romans 8. Notice how the Spirit frees us to live a life according to how God created us to live and frees us from sin in the flesh. Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Look at verse 7: “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God.” It is the enemy of God. “For it is not subject to the law of God, neither can be.” Your flesh cannot serve God. You cannot serve God in the flesh. Look at verse 8: “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Christianity is not about getting together a bunch of willpower and serving God out of your own strength. No, your flesh is enmity against God. And although we are now redeemed as His children, we still have our flesh. We groan within ourselves waiting for the redemption of our bodies. We do not have our glorified bodies yet. We are still tied to the flesh. But our flesh is enmity against God; it cannot be subject to the law of God. So if we are going to serve God, it is not in the flesh. It is in the Spirit. Look at verse 22: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

Our flesh and our spirit are directly opposed to each other. The Spirit of God and the flesh are opposites. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 1st Corinthians 15. But what does the Spirit then do in us? Well, it frees us from sin, but it does not just free us so we can run around and misuse our liberty for the flesh. No, it produces fruit in us.

We are all familiar with the idea of the fruits of the Spirit, but we often think that the fruits of the Spirit are things that we are supposed to chase out of our own self-discipline. No, the fruit of the Spirit is what the Spirit produces in us when we let him. So the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, long-suffering, right? We know how to rattle through the list. Those are not things you produce in yourself. Those are not things that you convince yourself to do. You cannot, like pastor said this morning, you cannot get some willpower in the flesh and add love into your corrupt heart. No, the fruit of the Spirit is love. This fruit of the Spirit is joy, is peace, is long-suffering, is gentleness. And pastor talked this morning about how people throw out this excuse of, well, I was made this way. This is just how God made me. The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. So if you want to throw out the excuse that God made you rude, that God made you contrary, he disagrees. Because he says, the fruit of the Spirit, when you have the Spirit inside you and you are not quenching him, but you are allowing him to produce fruit in you, he produces gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I do not have time to go across each of these one by one. But against such there is no law, and they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

When we talked about surrender in January, we talked about this concept of dying daily, dying to ourselves, exchanging what we want and how we want to live to gain how God created us to live. And that is done, not through our own willpower, but through the Spirit. So there is power. And there is power that we often do not tap into. And I think that is because we think of it that way. We have this power we are supposed to tap into. When really it is about letting the Holy Spirit tap into you.

So what will you not surrender? What are you holding back from God where you say, and you excuse it, right? Whatever that is. Whether that is sin or whether that is a something holding you back, a weight from the way that God wants you to live, and you will not give it up. You will not exchange it for the life that God has for you. Because you are as close to God as you try to be. You are as full of the Spirit as you try to be. That is a hard pill to swallow.

The encouragement on the other side of that coin is, you are as close to God as you try to be. We can be close to God, and that is one of the few things that we are guaranteed in this life. You are guaranteed death. “It is appointed unto men once to die.” People say you are guaranteed taxes. But you are guaranteed that you can draw nigh to God, and that when you do, he will draw nigh to you. God is no respecter of persons. He does not look at me and say, well, Greg’s hairdo is not as good as Brother Kaysen’s hairdo, and so he is going to be able to be closer to God than me. No. God’s word is of no private interpretation, and God is no respecter of persons. He leaves it up to us. Are you going to get close to me? Are you going to allow me to work through you in the Spirit to produce the fruits of the Spirit so that you can produce fruit by winning souls and living the way that he created us to live? So there is power.

But then there is also rest. There is power, and there is rest. I do not know about you. Have you ever been exhausted? Have you been exhausted lately? You see, God tells us not to be weary in well-doing. But we often find ourselves like a chicken with its head half on, and we find ourselves weary in well-doing. He tells us, “Be careful for what?” Nothing. Be careful—careful meaning anxious. Never look both ways before crossing the street. He says, “Be careful for nothing.” See, when we say nothing or anything or never and always, we tend to exaggerate. We do not really use those words the way that we are supposed to. Because we do not actually mean never and always. We mean most of the time. But God, when he says nothing, he means nothing. So when he says, “Be careful for nothing,” not be careful and do nothing. Let us say be anxious and sit around and do nothing about it. No, be careful for nothing. So if you find yourself anxious, you are missing out on the life that God has for you. If you are not as close to God as you try to be, well, you will be. If you are not as close to God as you want to be, it is because you are not trying to be. You are not allowing him to change you. And again, that is convicting but also encouraging at the same time. But let us talk about God’s rest.

Let me give you those references for earlier. Galatians 6:7 through 10, and 10:13 discussed this idea of being weary in well-doing. Psalm 127, of course, you hit it this morning, pastor, but verse 2 says—I am about to mess it up. Let me look at it. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows.” God does not want us being anxious and he does not want us being sorrowful and staying up late or rising up early to eat the bread of sorrows. Why? Because he has provided the alternative through the Spirit that he has given us. Philippians 4:6 is, “Be careful for nothing.” But in everything, right, he provides that alternative by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. “Let your request be made known unto God” when we come boldly before his throne. “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” See, God has rest for us that He wants us to have.

He had rest for Israel, but Israel completely missed it. You see, they were supposed to enter the promised land, and they decided that they were afraid of some tiny giants, and they forgot how big their God is. And so they said, “Oh, we are not going to do it.” And so God says, “Okay, you are going to wander around in the wilderness for 40 years.” And then they go, “Oh, okay, no, no, no. Now we will go to the promised land.” Too late. God had already announced his judgment. And so they wander around in the wilderness for 40 years. But did you notice how God provided for them during that time? Did they have to work very hard for their food? They had manna. They had to work for it. They had to collect it. If man does not work, he should not eat. But they did not have to work hard for it; they should have to collect it off the ground. Their clothes and their shoes did not wear out. Deuteronomy 29:5. God is speaking. He says, “I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.” My mom would give a whole lot of money for shoes that did not wear out on my feet. I am telling you what. But God provided even though they were in judgment. But you know what? God wants to treat us the way he treated their clothes. He wants to give us strength so that we never wear out, so that we do not get weary in well-doing. But we miss it, just like the children of Israel missed it.

And so if you would, flip over to Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews 3, verse 7: “Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice), Harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.” See, God had designed rest for them for when they entered the promised land. But because of their lack of obedience to God, and because they continually tested him and provoked him in their 40 years in the wilderness, they all ended up dead. And they had never experienced the rest that God had for them. Verse 12: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” See, sin will keep you from God’s rest. “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.”

See, God’s rest is conditional. The Holy Spirit working in your life is conditional on your obedience and you allowing him to. Just to save time, let us go to verse 17: “But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that what? Believed not.” So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. And that is the same exact reason that you will not enter into the rest that God has for you because of unbelief. Now, if we are talking ultimate consequences for eternity, we could talk about heaven and hell. And how somebody’s unbelief keeps them from being able to rest in eternity with God. But the promised land does not represent heaven. It represents victorious Christian living. And so this also applies to our daily lives and our walk with God. He has rest for us, but we miss it if we are unbelieving.

So look at chapter four. “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” The writer of Hebrews is saying, look, do not miss this because you can. You can miss this. Do not come short of it.

“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, why? Because it was not powerful? No, we know the power of the word. It did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard.” “For we which have believed do enter into rest.” Unbelief is probably the greatest sin that mankind has ever done. Because unbelief will keep somebody who should have been saved, who God wanted to be saved, and they condemn themselves to hell because of unbelief. Unbelief is what will take a Christian and prevent you from experiencing the life that God created you for because you get caught up in the cares of this world, and you cannot handle the persecution, and you do not believe God in that he wants to fill us with his power.

Verse 4 of chapter 4: “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.” And in this place again, “If they shall enter into my rest.” That is not about exhaustion. God was not exhausted when he finished creating the universe in six days, and he rested on the seventh. He did not sit down and say, oh man, I just need to take a cat nap, right? But he did it for our example, and because he rested because his work was finished. His work of creation was finished. When he died on the cross, his work there in his life on this earth in the flesh was finished. So when do we get to have our rest with God? It is when the work that he has given us to do at the moment is finished.

Verse 6: “Seeing then it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.” Jump to verse 9: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”

“Let us therefore labor to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after that same example of unbelief.” You earn your rest, if you will, with your labor. When we labor with God, which by the way is not something that we get to opt in or opt out of, God says, we are laborers together with him. He expects us to bear fruit. But he also has rest for us. And that is experienced through laboring with him, but his yoke is easy.

You know what his yoke is? Do you know what a yoke is? It is a device for keeping oxen in sync as they were to plow a field. So if you would, think of yourself in the yoke with Christ. His yoke is easy. Why? Because who is the one who is actually plowing forward? It is Jesus. He is the one who is carrying the coffee table to steal your illustration from this morning, Pastor. We are on the end. We are not actually doing anything when we are in that yoke unless we are hindering him.

Have you ever seen a three-legged race? And people, two legs are bound together and they have to act as one person. Sometimes people are really good at that. Sometimes it ends up being hilarious and all over YouTube. Why? Because they are not in sync. Because they were not going in the same direction. See, the direction that God is going is the right direction by definition. And he says, okay, you are in the yoke with me, you are my child, you are my laborer, we are working together, I am using you to accomplish my will. Are you going to go the same direction? Are you going to surrender to my power and let me do all the work through you, or are you going to be distracted by the deceitfulness of riches and what the world has to offer? Are you going to rebel and refuse the working of the Holy Spirit and try to back out of this situation that you are in? Or are you just going to go with me? I am the one who is doing the work. I want to do it through you. I want to produce fruit in you, the fruits of the Spirit, to teach you how to live and the fruit of eternal life and being a soul winner. And we miss out on it because of our unbelief and because of distraction with the things of the world.

There is power, and there is rest. And God gives you the choice with what you are going to do with them. Would you allow his power to work in you? Would you labor with him so that you can enter into his rest? Or are you going to do anything else? Let us pray.

God, I thank you again for this opportunity, God, and as you have been teaching me these things and helping me to surrender more and more to you, God, and to realize that you want to work through me in your Spirit. You want to produce fruit in me. You want to change my behavior and to change my heart. But, God, you are giving me the choice. And so, God, I choose to let you work in me. I choose to let you change my heart and to make me more like you every day. I choose to labor with you for heavenly reward and so that I can enter into your rest because I do not want to miss it like the children of Israel, enter into your rest by faith rather than missing it by unbelief. And God, I ask that these same things be true of everyone in here. May they come forward and make a decision that they are going to surrender to your power to give up their semblance of their own power and that they will labor together with you to enter into your rest. God, I ask these things in your name. Amen.

Original File: There is Power and there is Rest - Bro Gregory McCoy - Sunday PM 03202022