Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Thank you worship team and amen. Amen. I'm going to invite Dr Kerr and Reverend Jervis to come and join me here on the platform, but while they are coming, I just want to extend a special welcome to a group of guests that we have here today, and let you know that we have a number of students who are here looking at the seminary and wondering if the seminary or graduate programs that we offer might be a good fit to them, and a number of them are here in the chapel with us. So please extend a welcome that we're so pleased that they're here. So welcome to you today. At Homecoming this past September, we Tyndale University awarded seven Distinguished Alumnus awards. And if you're unfamiliar with what the whole idea of distinguished alumni are, you can go to the website. There's a whole section there, and you can even nominate alumni to be future distinguished alumni recipients, and the reason why we do this is not to put these individuals on a pedestal or to sort of celebrate look all that they have done. Rather, it's an example of lives lived with passion and purpose that have gone on to do and represent those very things that we hope for and wish for, for all of our alumni and one of our award recipients was unable to be here at homecoming because he might be getting an idea of who the recipient might be, but was attending the Luzon conference in Seoul, Korea at that time, as was Dr Kerr you were both there, but you're here today to speak in chapel, and so we have the opportunity to physically present the award today. Now there are several distinguished alumni award categories. The Horizon Award is presented to an alumnus who has made a significant impact within 10 years of graduation. So this year's horizon award for seminary and Graduate Studies is presented to Reverend Jervis Djokoto, who is an MDiv 2020, just five years ago.

Now, Jervis is from Ghana and is currently a Canada based pastor, musician and author. Before moving to Canada, he served for more than 10 years as the founder and president of Ghana based worshippers ministry International. While completing his master's divinity degree at Tyndale, he served as the young adults pastor of Sanctus Church, which is a large, multi site congregation here in Ontario, and later served as the church's missions pastor. Currently, Jervis serves as the executive director of the Renew movement, a budding global initiative focused on facilitating mentorship, training, strategic resourcing and consulting for personal church and global renewal, and he describes that as sort of taking more of a back seat and more part time, because a year ago, he took up the new role as the Senior Director for Church Health for the Free Methodist Church in Canada, where he helps pastors and boards develop healthy churches. And Jervis is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree at Fuller Seminary, so I don't think he's looking for too many things to do. He's a busy guy, but would you please welcome, join me in welcoming and celebrating, congratulating Reverend Jervis Djokoto this year's recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, the horizon award for seminary and graduate studies. And I would be remiss if I didn't welcome Robin. Jervis' wife who's here with us today to celebrate and Bishop Linda Adams from the Free Methodist Church. We're so glad that you're both here to celebrate with us today as well.

A reading from Book of Hebrews chapter four, beginning at verse one. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands. Let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it, for we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said so I declared on oath, in my anger, they shall never enter into my rest. And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere, he has spoken about the seventh day. In these words, on the seventh day, God rested from all his works. And again, in the passage above, he says, They shall never enter my rest. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them, did not go in because of their disobedience, God set a certain day calling it today. This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us pray. Holy Father, we ask that you would anoint your servant now as he comes to speak, would you open our hearts, open our minds and open our ears to hear what the spirit is saying to us through your word we ask it In Jesus' name. Amen,

Well, thank you, James. Well permit me to go on my knees. I said to God that I would do this. And Father, I thank you for counting me worthy and putting me in the ministry, not that I'm sufficient of myself to think anything of myself, but my sufficiency comes from God who has enabled me to be a minister of the New Testament. And Lord, I thank you for this institution that trains future leaders and pastors, that trains people who will be in the marketplace, some who would stay within the academic field and write books, preach, teach, write articles. Father, bless this institution. I pray for current and future students that they would see the purpose for which you've called them here, that as they are learning you would feed them from your hand, they'll eat from your hand. Thank you for putting me into a family that's God fearing I thank you for my parents, though they're not here. You sovereignly allowed me to be born in a family that knew you and followed you and served you so thank you for mommy and daddy. Thank you for bringing my wife Robin all the way from Canada to Ghana when I was just a little young man, looking forward to what my future held. Thank you for bringing my wife to me. Thank you for her support in the early days of ministry, when I had nothing but a heart for you. Thank you that she was not looking for a new car or a new house. Thank you that she wasn't looking for somebody who was already established. Thank you that she was willing to partner and participate in what you were doing in our lives at the time. Thank you for Robin. Lord, I also thank you for all the leaders who have poured into me, some who have seen gifts in me that I didn't see myself. I thank you for my mentor in Ghana, who is not here, who stayed with me for three months and mentored me because you showed him my future and I thank you for leaders, even present, like Bishop Linda Adams, people who serve selflessly as they see God's work in other people to hold hands with them and walk with them. Thank you for all this in Jesus name Amen.

Well, the topic that I've chosen to speak on this morning has been fully described by the text that James Pedler read. Dr. James Pedler, thank you too for all your love and friendship these years. The reason why I chose this subject, really the title is operating from God's rest. Operating from God's rest. The reason why I chose this subject is because this theme of God's rest has radically impacted my own life. I remember as a young adult looking forward for God to use me and trusting him for my future, not knowing what that was, and asking questions about so what do I need to do to prepare myself for ministry? What do I need to be, to be all who God has called me to be? What do I need to do? What do I need to do? What do I need to do? What do I need to do? Until there was a holy hush that came, and I realized that I started on the wrong footing when it came to life in him and ministry, because I was looking for what I would do and what God wanted me to start ministry and life by seeing first is what he has done. And that's the fundamental difference between Christianity and any other religion, is that we step into what God has done for us, because God is always previous to our actions, that everything that we do is a response to what God has already done. And so we start from the place of rest. Rest in what? Not on your soft pillow. You're resting in the finished work of God concerning your life, everything you would ever be, every sermon you would ever preach, every book you would ever write for those who are called to do so, every person you would ever meet. David said something fascinating when he said that all the days of my life before every one of them came to be, they were written in your book. And I discovered, without being deterministic about our future, God has prepared for you works that only faith in him can continue to unlock in your life. And so it was April of 2013 really, when I first took the journey into discovering the rest of God, it was on a retreat. Actually, my wife and I were going on a retreat. I was praying about some ministry things that I wanted to do, and I was thinking about it, and I was trying my best to understand what God wanted me to do. And then that journey started for me, discovering the rest that God has already prepared for me. There's a few scriptures that come to my mind right away. Why is this important? First of all, I said that it impacted my own life. But that's not enough. I don't want to teach my experience. I want to teach something that the scripture actually teaches. Let's start with the very first line in Hebrews chapter four, it says, Let us therefore fear. Lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest. Any of you who seem to come short of it, let us fear. The scripture asks us not to fear, but in this verse, it says we should fear because it's possible for somebody who has come to know Jesus, or has come to know God's saving work through Christ, to miss this rest says, let's actually if you're going to fear anything, fear a life of restless disease and dissatisfaction and anxiety and care and worries as you serve God, that's what you should fear the most. You should fear that you would actually engage in pastoral ministry with underlining self deprivation, a lack of awareness of who you are, a sense in which you have to prove yourself by performance.

That's what you need to fear the most. So is the rest of God important? Well, I would say yes, because the writer of Hebrews says we should fear lest this promise evades us. Here's the second reason why I think it's important. I always find that in the book of Genesis, anything that's really important in the heart of God is presented to us in a seed form, and it starts unfolding as the scriptures go on up onto revelations. So whatever started in Genesis, we see it fully blossom in the Book of Revelations. Genesis one, God creates. Genesis two, interesting chapter, then Genesis three. We see man falling. So the fall of man happens in chapter three. Chapter One, God creates in chapter three, humanity falls. And those of you who are Christians, you know what I mean by fall. But it's in chapter two that we first see God's original intention for creating the universe, creating the world, creating Heaven and Earth, and creating the crown of his creation, human beings, humanity. We see it in Genesis chapter two, right from verse one. The Bible says that after God created everything, He rested on the seventh day, and God was so satisfied with his rest that he was like, Ah, I bless this day, and I call it holy. You know, when it was growing up, I used to think that God was tired, you know, so he's like, Oh, let there be light, and there was light, and let there be this, oh, I need to rest on the seventh day. But over time, I realized that that was not just what was happening there. Actually Isaiah, 40 says that God never gets tired. He's not a man that he should grow weary, right? Any of you get tired here, God doesn't. So it really, it really wasn't a rest of fatigue. It was a rest of satisfaction. He was satisfied with what he had done. He said it was good. Day number two, he didn't really say was it was good? But I don't know why scholars speculate, but he does say it's good. Day number three, it's good. Day number four is good. Day number five and day number six, when he creates humanity, he says, is very good. This stuff is good. And then in, you know, the next day, right after creating the very good creation, the crown of his creation, the person, or the people that will end up expressing his character and holiness into the world, a vocation that he had been looking forward to in the eons of the eternity past, as the Trinitarian God commune with each other, they imagined. How does this unending expression of love begin to express itself beyond the Trinity the perioises? How can we see this expressed and so out of creation, God finally found that person that would express his Holiness and character, the stewardship and the vocation that he was looking forward to. And finally, he created humanity. And then he stood up on that seventh day, he said, Ah, I bless this day. Is God all knowing? Did he know that humanity will fall in the very next chapter? So why is he resting? I mean, we're giving him heartache even today, right? Look, I mean, I give him heartache sometimes, but that rest was not denial of the fact that this creation of his was actually going to give him heartache. It was recognition that even if they are to go this way, when I want them to go this way, I've already made provision for them. It was a satisfaction that was deep enough that he didn't want us to miss it. And said, You know what, I'm not only going to bless this day and call it holy when I have a people called by my name and rescues from slavery in Exodus, 12 and this whole nation of people out of whom this the promise seed will come. Who would you know, deal with all the problems that the world is going to face in the future?

Before all of that happens, I am actually going to provide a law that says that you must remember that day, that that day that I rested, you must, you must maintain it. Remember it. Why does God want us to remember that he rested on the seventh day? It's because we are prone to forget that when God rested, the satisfaction that he felt can be maintained in our lives and ministry today, because he foresaw that all the problems that you would ever have will be taken care of. Another thought that came to my mind about the importance of entering into the rest of God was looking at the story of Noah. Actually, the word Noah means rest. And in Genesis six, eight, he says, Noah found grace in the sight of God. And you know the story of Noah, he, you know the ark, the curse was coming because of sin and all of that stuff, but Noah found rest, or grace. Found grace. Rest found grace. And I began to see in the story of Noah little glimpses of the importance of resting in the ark of God's provision. Even when everything is falling apart all over the world, the Ark of Noah. Okay, maybe that's not let's go into the New Testament. Jesus, in chapter 12 of Matthew, was walking on the Sabbath day. You know, have you ever wondered why Jesus did most of his miracles on the Sabbath day? Has it ever crossed your mind, like, Why? Why don't you choose Tuesday, or, you know, Wednesday, whatever they used to call it at that time, because it got the religious folks really upset. Right? Some of you intentionally preach sermons, you know, you're speaking to that person in the back. No, don't do that. Somehow, because everybody was resting from the toil of their weak, it looked as if they were more positioned to receive from him what he had to offer, maybe in their moment of, ah, God was like, Stretch out your hand, that shriveled hand. I'm going to heal it. And there was another day where Jesus was just going through the fields, and his disciples were picking the heads of corn and were eating it up and all of that. And the religious folks were like, Why are you folks working on the Sabbath day? They are eating on the fields. Why? Jesus says a bunch of things, but he says, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. When you become a Christian who has put your faith in Jesus, your initial saving faith must be extended into your everyday life to trust that Jesus is going to is going to walk through the fields and provide for you as you're walking behind him, eating the heads of corn, Jesus is going to go ahead of you deal with the sin and separation that would always be your problem your whole life. Trust that he is the author and the finisher of your faith. And when faith begins to rise up in your heart concerning who Jesus is, you start stepping into rest, not just the Jesus who justifies me. He's the one who will sanctify me, which is why the very first time the word holiness or sanctification is used in the Bible is on the Sabbath day, where God rested and blessed the day and called it holy. Holiness is not about what you can do for yourself. It's about what God has done for you, right? In some in some context, even the glasses you wear is unholy, right, right? So if you wear the right kind of glasses, you are holy. Anybody been there before? Or if you wear the right kind of that or this, or if you don't wear, you know, the first time holiness is described in the Bible, it shows us that sanctification will come through the work of God, not our works. A few thoughts before I give you. So what do you do about this? Now? We now know that this is important. What do you do? So here's a few thoughts as I conclude, the Bible distinguishes between dead works and good works, and I'll try to explain it very quickly. Dead works are the things you do out of a flurry of desire to fix a problem or maybe appease your own conscience that you're doing something, or maybe appease the conscience of other people that you are doing something. But actually, everything you're doing does not have life in it. It's lifeless. It's dead works. It does not spring from faith in Christ. It springs from your own desire to do something and accomplish something. The Bible calls it dead works. Actually, when the Bible is describing the fundamental principles of the New Testament in Hebrews 6:1 it says that, oh, Paul, I believe Paul wrote it, but Paul is like, you know, we're going to talk about all these fundamental principles where we're going to start from repentance from dead works, and faith towards God. So actually, repentance, we don't just repent from our sins. We also have to repent from dead works. This is working because it's not because your faith in God tells you that my future is taken care of. Everything about my life is taken care of. It's because you actually want to create the future yourself. The Lord says, Repent from dead works. You know what good works are in the Bible, Ephesians, 2:10, who knows what it is?

The context of what it was said there, what was said there? It says, You are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto what oh unto good works. And then it describes the good works. What does it say? Which God prepared in advance that you should walk in them? Here are a few thoughts as we close. So how do you enter into that rest? The title of my message is operating from the rest of God. You have to enter it first before you can operate out of rest. We've saw the story in Genesis that man's first day was God's seventh day. So God worked and he rested. But man or humanity, we rest before we work. So our first day was the day of rest. Any of you have children here? I mean, I know what my kid is doing right now. He doesn't work. So we start by resting. Right you come out of the womb where you know, where's the milk? Mom, you keep drinking all night. Mom, where's the toy play? It's not until, I mean, if you're born in Africa, you're probably a young adult before you have a real job, like a young adult before you actually have a real job. So we start with rest before we work. That's the pattern, the pattern, and for our life, God wants us to remember that. So how do we enter into rest? So we can operate from rest? How do we do that? Few quick thoughts before I end. Jesus said, You are the vine and he is the branches. He I mean, sorry. Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches. Believe him. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. The reality is that without him, you can do a lot of stuff, but it will have no eternal significance. It will not ripple into eternity. It will fade. It's called fading glory. It will just fade away with time. But how many of you want to do something that will touch the heart of God, ripple into eternity, live selflessly like Jesus on the cross, an act that may seem humiliating, not glorious at all, but out of it will come the salvation of many people. That's the kind of work God has called us to. Jesus says, I'm the branch, I'm the vine. You are the branches. Believe him. Number two, the death of Christ is effective in your case, simply believe it. When the blood was spattered on the mercy seat in the Levitical priesthood, there was a mercy seat. There were, you know, cherubs of glory, who were carved with gold and were looking down. Inside of the ark was a pot of manna, which represented the rebellion of the people of Israel in the wilderness, as they were, you know, talking to God and saying that he brought us here to kill us in the wilderness, and all of that stuff, murmuring and complaining, unbelief. They didn't believe that God will bring them into the Promised Land. It was there before God murmuring. Aaron's roar, that budded God's instituted priesthood. They were supposed to follow prescribed rituals and ceremonial laws, and all of that, many of them were just breaking it. So the rod that budded was it happened in the book, in the Book of Leviticus, in numbers, when they rebelled against the leadership of Aaron. And God said, bring the rod before me. And Aaron's rod, that bade, was the sign that God had chosen the Levitical priesthood. So we often rebel against God's leadership. That's also really before God. It's before him all the time. And then there was the 10 Commandments and the ark, the murmuring in the pot of manna, disobedience to his 10 laws, rebelling against his authority. Everything you've ever done was before God, the cherubims of glory were just staring at it. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. I know that they did it. They're just like this. But Jesus, I mean, his blood, the Bible says that the priest was supposed to sprinkle seven times on the mercy seat, and so now, when they look, they don't see your sin. They see the blood of Jesus, because the seat of God's mercy has paid for your sin. When I was coming here, I felt in my heart that I might not be speaking to everybody, but there's somebody here, I see God delivering you from a sense of depression and anxiety of mind. You know neuroplasticity is possible because the word of God can actually change the neurological pathways of your brain and cause you to embrace a new story that will eradicate the effect of trauma in your life. And I know that God is working on somebody here because of his plans for your future, my final thought avoid destructive hurry. Busyness is outward, but hurry is inward. One of the keys to abiding in Christ and living the life he has called you to is to avoid destructive hurry. My final thought, which I learned from Tyndale seminary, my spiritual formation course, develop a Rule of Life. Give God your first fruit of the day. Wake up early, spend time with him weekly, daily, monthly, yearly rhythms to keep yourself refreshed. Go for counseling, if you need to. See a spiritual director, if you need to. Spend time with the word and pray and allow a healthy rhythm to keep you healthy in the long term. Amen. Let's close our eyes and pray, Lord. I thank you for people whose hearts are reaching out to you and love you. I pray in Jesus name that as we go to our day, you would confirm in our heart some of the words that were spoken here. I know some of them. We need time to go deeper into them. But Lord, I know that you know every single person here more than I would ever do. And so I pray that in Jesus name, like you did in Matthew 13, when you sowed the seeds, I pray Lord that it will land on good soil and that you will nurture it and will bear fruit, that many people here will begin to live a life of Faith, live a life of rest and serve you in ways that will impact the world. Please stand up as I share the benediction. President, thank you so much for the honor of giving me the award and the privilege of speaking here and George Sweetman and the entire Tyndale staff and leaders. Thank you. It's been a remarkable privilege for me. Second Timothy one just going to read from verse 12 to 14 is our benediction, and then we can step out of here for which cause he suffers these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto his trust, hold fast the form of sound doctrine which you have heard in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus, That good thing which has been committed keep by the Holy Ghost that dwells in us go with the blessings of Jehovah God in Jesus name I pray, Amen.