Entering God’s Rest by Pastor Kong Hee

1st May 2016, City Harvest Church, Pastor Kong Hee

Rest is confidence, peace, belief that everything is promised, prepared, and provided for us. God’s original plan from the very beginning is that we come into His rest. The moment Adam took his first breath, he was living in the rest of God. In that rest, God gave Adam work to do – multiply, subdue, dominate, rule. Adam was able to work with pleasure because he was working with God.

Genesis 2:1-3  Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Hebrews 4:4  For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”

Rest is the greatest expression of faith because we believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

If we say that we trust in God, then we must rest in God, and not panic.

Hebrews 3:7-11

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest

What happened to Israel is a shadow or picture of we believers. Bible is warning us, don’t repeat the sin of unbelief. We have the provision in Jesus Christ.  Everything we need is available for us – victory, success, healing.

God’s asking, can you have trust, confidence? Can you believe everything is provided for us?

Can you trust God enough not to be fearful?

Hebrews 3:12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God

The real fight is in our thoughts, our beliefs.

Luke 4:18

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,[a]
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

Mark 10:30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.

Hebrews 3:13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Hebrews 4:3-4 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”

Genesis 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made

Rest does not mean we do no work. Work is the only way for potential to come forth. Through work, we add value to the society. God gave Adam work before He gave him wife. When Adam was working, he was working in rest. God is not against work, but against toil. The work we do without God is toil.

Genesis 3:17 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: