“Rest” Part 2

Review

Proverbs 18:14 (ESV): ¹⁴ A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?)

Matthew 11:28–30 (ESV): ²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

• Come
• Take
• Learn

We find rest in the process of spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is the process of God forming our inner life in such a way that it is more and more like Christ.

And while it is God who does the forming, it is a process that is enabled by our participation in spiritual disciplines (e.g. prayer, fasting, scriptural meditation, submission, service).

The Great Exchange

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV): ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

A Capacity to Receive

Spiritual formation is a process that expands our capacity to receive from God.

The False Gospel of Toil

The Origin of the Spirit of Toil

Genesis 3:17–19 (ESV): ¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 1:31 (ESV): ³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.)

Life Without the Holy Spirit is Toxic

When Adam and Eve sinned, the Holy Spirit left the premises.

Psalm 51:10–11 (ESV): ¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. ¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Male Behavior Without the Holy Spirit

Female Behavior Without the Holy Spirit

The Guiding Principle of Our Contemporary Life of Toil

The Holy Spirit Fulfills the Promise of Rest

Jesus’ promise for rest is a just another way of Him promising the Holy Spirit.

• John 14:16–17 (ESV): ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
• John 16:13–14 (ESV): ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024