Ok to begin let's look into gospel of Matthew 11:28. Now this is a very well know verse and I'm sure most if not all knows this very verse. "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest."
On our today's bible will be focusing more on the last word that is rest, but before we all touch it let's go step by step into it as we cover other things by breaking it down into different sections.
Now if we look into the first part "come to me", the message is very simple clear and direct,
it says to come to Him. And of course what else could it mean, there is nothing to get confused about, there is nothing that one can get wrong on this simple message.
Yet, what happened is we don't, instead of seeking God what do we do? We instead seek for an intermediary, and the best example for it is Chat GPT, and I'm not saying it's wrong but sometimes it even mentors...
What we do is we go to our mentors for our problems, which is not wrong even I always go to brother Jojo if I don't understand something and sometimes I get a satisfaction answer and sometimes I don't, it's good to seek help from your mentors but what's wrong is the dependency of your trust on your mentor instead of God. In a sense making them idols.
Although to avoid confusion from me I'll like to make it clear, God will not literally come down from heaven to help you but He'll send His people I.e your mentors and all those people to help you and its fine to ask help from them approach them seek help but, first go to Him first present your problems to Him, and trust that He'll fix you, put your trust on Him and then God will help you through His people.
There is a sequence, a hierarchy of level and no matter what always start with God by going to Him and ending with God by thanking Him.
And next part "all who labor and are heavy laden", now here it says all who labour and are heavy laden, it doesn't say the lazy and the free, it's not that he doesn't want the lazy and free people to come to Him, He does but the context of this verse is about providing rest which the lazy and the free have no need for.
Do you think the lazy and the free who did nothing need rest? Is it like I'm tired of resting so I'll rest again since I'm tired. The lazy why do they need rest for and from what?
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: if anyone will not work neither shall he eat.
This is said by Paul to the people of Thessalonians who its kinda funny but like they were unwilling to work because they thought Jesus is returning soon and they were like if Jesus is returning soon then why work.
Which sounds funny but I'm sure most of us will do the same if we were in their place, but yeah like Paul said in the scripture even when we were with you, depicting that he taught it to them when he was with them and this is the second letter to them showing how much of nurturing they needed just like us...!
And one thing he said was neither shall he eat, now again what does eating means? What does eating signifies, not particularly here but in a broader sense?
Eating can be understood as rest,
for we eat when we have food,
and we have food when we work,
and when we work we are tired,
and when we are tired we eat what we reap.
So it's a full cycle. Eating is resting from our labour.
Now going back to where we came from, God called the labour and heavy laden and not the lazy and free because the rest He is about to give, the lazy and free are not qualified to receive.
Now heading to the core focus of today's bible study. And i will give you rest. As I have said will be focusing more on the word rest. And so to understand it we need to ask ourselves this 3 thing questions
What is a rest?
Why do we need a rest?
How do we get rest.
A simple question what, why and how.
Let's start with what. If we go to Google and search rest will find rest as cease, settle and relax. And this indeed will be key points in discovering rest.
As we all know the bible we all read today is not actually written in English but is just a translation of Greek and Hebrews. Greek for new testament and Hebrews for old.
How if we look into the Greek translation of rest for our today's verse Matthew 11:26 the word rest is written as Anapauso.
Now here the perfex Ana means up, back or again)
And the suffex pauo means stop.
And the meaning of which is
A. Physical rest, God will give literal physical rest to the weary and burdened.
B. Emotional/mental, it's not just about getting physical rest God is promising for mental and emotional peace as well. What's the use of getting physical rest if we are constantly being haunted by whatever our problem is.
C. To give refreshment. Now now the refreshing here isn't like church refreshment, if it was then there would be many people following God like those 5000 people following jesus, leading by me.
But the refreshment here it's talking about spirit and soul.. Giving refreshment to our spirit, re-soul, recharging our connection with God.
Now again, like I said the bible was not written in English and some of the Greek word have no direct translation in English and they use the closest word and rest is one of them.
In Greek there are different rest according to the meaning but in English there is only one rest.
Let's look into Hebrew 3:18
And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?
Now the word rest here is written as Katapausis(settle down).
Now here the meaning of rest isn't about finding physical rest or mental or spiritual it's more about finding a place to settle.
In this situation it's apostle Paul talking about the isarilities, who failed to reach the promise land, the ones who died on the way to cannan.
The rest here is cannan. And for us it'll be heaven our final rest, a place to settle.
Also let's try to look into Hebrews as well, into the old Testament, what does it have to say about rest.
Image.
So let's look into Joshua 5:12 now the mana ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they art the food of the land of canaan that year.
Now the hebrew word used in this verse is vayishbot Or shabbat, which is to cease.
If we read the story of moses and joshua we find many wonders performed by God some astonishing and some terrifying. We all know the parting of the red Sea, and how he struck the stone with his rod to produce flowing water, and how God send cloud to protect them from the days sun and how the flaming torch guided them in the nights dark.
And in the mist of all even the food was provided by God, for 40 years into the wilderness God provided them with manna,
why? Why Did God provided them with even food? If you remember the letter by Paul to Thessalonians if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. They were not working so why did God provided them with manna, the answer is simple it's not that they didn't wanted to but they just can't they were travelling, where will they grow crops?
It takes months to grow crops and although they stayed in one place for long they were still in wilderness. They couldn't provide for themselves, and like we all know God is our provider. Philippians 4:19.
And yeah so God provided them with manna for 40 years straight, but it cease when they were able to grow their own food after reaching cannan. So the manna stopped like the parent root shabbat.
And we all know shabbat means to rest.
Now there is vahanichoti / nuach which have same meaning as Katapausis from Greek which we already talked about
And vayinafash / nafash, which means to resoul which we will talk more in the next part.
Ok Going back to our 2nd question
Why do we need rest.
To answer it let's go back to Genesis
Genesis 1:11-12 , Genesis 1:20,
When God created fishes and the trees what did He do? He spoke to the Sea and the earth and which is why when you take out fish from sea it dies. Why? Because it is now their source of life.
But let's look into Genesis 1:26, what did He do? Here while creating mankind God spoke to Himself or the Trinity saying let 'Us' showing and implying that now the source of our life is God, we are dependant on God for our survival and we need Him for us to stay alive. There is now a connection between us and God and a very important one that is source of life.
And now again continuing with the verse, according to our likeness, deepening the connection between us, now I'm not saying because of that we become God no, we'll not, but we'll have to follow his likeness.
To make you understand this point let's go again to Genesis 2:2, I'm sure many of you read this verse and was like ok so he rested on 7th day ok good. But have you ever thought why? Like did God needed this rest, like was he tired, which is not the case coz He is not human to get tired.
No He took this rest to depict completion and accomplishment. This might sound wrong but God could have made something on the 7th day too if he wanted but no He didn't, why because there was nothing else to add. It Showed completion, or perfection.
But what if imagine He continued to create 7th day, 8th day, 9th and so on, He can go one till 100 if not 1000. And he can never get tired. But He stopped at 6 and rested on 7th day.
And us being in the likeness of God if God continued to go on 1000th days then we would also have gone so and so, not stopping and us being humans we wouldn't be able to keep us and this is why God took rest, not because he was tired, but because he was teaching us to know when to stop and come to Him the source of life.
And to answer the question.
Why do we need rest. It's simple we need rest because we are dependant on God and the source of our life is God and God gave us this rest to show when to stop and get resoul Or vayinfash Or nafash in hebrew.
And now the last question how do we get rest.
I guess it's obviously by now we get rest through God.
Now it's a little off the point but shabbat day, the jews they don't do anything on shabbat, we can see in the Gospel that even healing was not allowed by the jews during the shabbat, and when jesus healed the man who had infirmity 38 years in John 5:8 saying rise, take up your bed and walk. The jews instead of being happy that someone got healed they said it's not lawful to carry your bed, and persecuted jesus for healing on Sabbath.
And which shows that the jews didn't fully understand the true meaning of rest which is not the absence of work, but instead it's the presence of God.