Transcript:

Hallelujah. I want to share with you tonight, going straight into my word about rest. I want to take you from a place of rest to restitution. I don't know if the guys have a few slides I gave them. Tyler is a bit late, but we're gonna be talking here. I want to show you that restitution is God's promise for each one of us.

He hasn't forgotten about you. Don't worry. Amen. But the key to get restitution is to enter the rest. So when we rest, we get restituted. Are you seeing my play on words here? And so we don't get restituted by trying, by, struggling by, um, you know, uh, using our own effort. We get restituted when we rest in the work of Christ, when we look to what he's done rather to what we've done.

And just to remind you, I'm giving you an introduction and then I'm gonna give you five quick signs to see if you are at rest. So you'll be able to see if you are in the right place tonight. Amen. But just to remind us to lay a foundation, there's three things we've been learning about restitution up until now.

First of all, we've learned that it is the heart of the gospel. Uh, God wants to rest his people, not because we deserve it, but because he's such a good and loving, and caring and wonderful God. Thank you for your amen. And there are so many stories in the Bible. Is everybody understanding my English? Give me a wave or a thumbs up, or, you know, have mercy.

No. So I think most people are understanding everybody else has got, uh, earphones. Is that right? Okay. So there are many stories in the scripture that show the principle of restitution. One of them that came to my mind earlier is the story of Naiman. Naman, as you remember, had leprosy a terrible disease that literally made his skin and his flesh grow old and become insensitive and even fall from his body.

Terrible thing. You remember the story. He was healed when he dipped seven times in. Jordan in Israel, who remembers that story. But what's interesting, the Bible doesn't say that he was just healed, but that when he came out of the water, his skin was like a baby child. So in other words, it was more than a healing.

It was a miracle because God rero the clock to give him skin as if he was just a baby boy. That's restitution. He got much more than what Healing said he got. Uh, 10 times more, seven times more. You understanding the principle? Think of Joseph now. A great story too. He started off in his father Jacob's house as the favorite son.

He went through all that trouble because his brothers betrayed him because Potiphar's wife falsely accused him and he passed through 13 years of suffering. In prisons and as a slave. But at the end of it, he wasn't restored to Jacob's house. He was restituted to Pharaoh's house. He didn't just become Jacob's favorite son.

He became the most powerful man on the face of the Earth's favorite son, Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Are you hearing what I'm saying? So you can see restitution is more than just being restored to your former place. We have all sinned and fallen from the glory or the standards of God. That's what scripture says, but in the salvation package in Christ Jesus, he doesn't just take us back to our former position in Adam before we fell.

He actually takes us to a much higher place and puts us now in Christ Jesus, not in the Garden of Eden, but in heavenly places far above principalities and powers. Adam. Remember he had the glory of God in him, but we, excuse me, upon him to cover him, but we have the glory of God in in us. Adam walked with God in the cool of the evening.

We walk with God 24 hours a day. Adam had God come and visit him. We now have God dwelling in us. Adam could always make a mistake and fall. We may fall, but we can never now be detached or thrown out of the presence of God because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Our position is far greater, far superior than Adam's.

That's restitution. So restitution means that your future is so much better than your past. I don't know what your past was, but I'm here to say God in his glory, in his goodness, wants to do wonderful things for you. I was just meditating during the worship time, as we do, as our minds are flooded with the high thoughts of heaven.

I. And it was as if I could see the father and the son and the spirit planning out mankind and, oh, remember, they can't be surprised by anything. Satan is far beneath their feet. I believe that they created us with this enormous heart to see us have the most glorious, glorious life. Because they are glorious, glorious beings.

Oh, with what joy they made us. Oh, with what joy they redeemed us. And now will ute us say amen. So some of the scriptures, we've based this message restitution on Joel chapter 2 25. Pastor Ralph spoke about it yesterday. I will repay you for the lo. The years the locusts have eaten. You will have plenty to eat until you are full.

Who likes to eat until they're half full? So we're not talking about survival here. We're talking about abundance here. Amen. Another great scripture, instead of your shame, you shall have double honor and one of the most extraordinary ones under the law, Exodus 22 and one, if anyone steals your ox or sheep, he shall have to repay five oxen for one and four sheep for one sheep.

So you lose one sheep, but you get four back. That's restitution. Now when you know that God watches over his word to perform it, if you, if you go through a time of loss or of problems, you don't panic anymore, you know that God is setting you up for much more blessing in the future. So rejoice in your trials and your tribulations when things go wrong, uh, say to your wife, say to your kids, get ready.

Get ready. Get ready. God's got something good for us. Something much better than we ever had before. Hallelujah. Now, just remember this, that there is a basis for this restitution. It's not just positive thinking. It's not just a nice way to encourage people. You see, restitution is based, it has a foundation on the work of Jesus Christ.

One of the greatest revelations that Paul says so succinctly in the book of Romans is that we're sin abounds. Grace abounds so much more, or as one translation says, it's super abounds. So, in other words, gr sin put us into debt, but God's grace doesn't just pay the debt. It leaves us in credit. Are you following?

We are not just forgiven sinners. We're not just people with quitted debts. We are a new creation in the image of Christ Jesus. A glorious new being here on planet Earth that has never existed before. Eternal reflecting the glory, filled with the glory and destined for glory. Say amen. Remember again, the basis of the gospel.

This is Paul in Romans four and five, but to him who does not work but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. The word accounted. There literally is an expression that accountants use and you know, accountants, they have a, on the left hand side of the page, your debits, your outgoings, and then on the right side your incomings.

So Paul here is talking literally in legal financial language. He's saying, look, you might have got all this debt, but into the entrance, the incoming, the income is so much more. Well, why is that? I'll tell you why. Because the blood of Jesus is much more valuable than all the sins of the whole world.

Hallelujah. You understand, you've been purchased, you've been redeemed. A price has been paid for you more than your debts to give you credit for the whole of eternity. Say Hallelujah, somebody today. So that gives us faith, doesn't it? To believe for good things. Now, the second thing we learned about restitution is this.

We don't need to struggle to get ahead. We don't need to struggle to be restituted. In fact, the gospel message shows us that we are inserted into a finished work. I'm moving quickly today 'cause I've got a short time. If you, you see, the Garden of Eden represents Jesus Christ. Remember the word Eden means delights.

It's the place of delights. Jesus Christ is the delight and the desire of our hearts. Say, amen. If you remember, God made the world in six days. He made the world and only at the end of making all things did he make, man. Why is that? Because all things were made for man. When everything was ready, he made, man, he saw that all things were good.

But when he saw, when he made man, he saw all things were now very good or completed total satisfaction, and therefore he stopped working and he rested on the seventh day. Say Amen. Hallelujah. Like an artist who finished his painting. He finally sits down and rests. Then he takes, man, you can all read all about it in Genesis chapter two, and he places man into Eden.

Okay? He placed him into a finished work man. Didn't need to sweat to get Eden functioning. Man wasn't made and then put into a factory. He was put into a garden, a place of rest, a place of delights, of aromas, of flowers and of beauty. Say amen. So the last day of God was the first day of man. God's day of rest was what Adam was inserted into.

Who's following the principle Now you know the story. Adam sinned and because he's sinned in a sense, God had to get up from his rest and work again. To redeem, man, it took a lot more than six days. It actually took thousands of years for God to produce of people into which he could bring his son to be a messiah, a redeemer for the world.

It took words to create the world, but it took blood to redeem us. Say Amen, somebody. Hallelujah. So God worked. Jesus said, I must work. My father is working. I must work. But there on the cross, he finished his work and that's why he declared it is finished. Hallelujah. And