Heart Transplanter | James Rafferty

[Music] free angels broadcasting network is pleased to bring you something better a faith-inspiring picture of a loving god from the book of hebrews welcome to 3abn's virtual homecoming camp meeting good evening we just want to welcome you once again to three bands fall homecoming 2021. what an incredible blessing camp meeting has been already my name is jill moriconi and it's my great privilege to introduce our featured speaker for this entire weekend that's pastor james rafferty we heard from him last night hebrews chapters one and two love languages tonight's message is heart transplanter from hebrews 4 hebrews 8 and hebrews 12. we have long loved pastor james rafferty and his wife reecey they've been part of the ministry of 3abn kind of parallel for many many years but just a couple months ago they joined the three abn team officially pastor james of course is 3bn's director of discipleship we are so blessed by his knowledge of the word his love for god and his heart for other people so it is my great privilege to introduce him i know that the holy spirit will use the message that he presents to bring conviction and conversion to your heart but first we have our very own tim parton playing and singing tonight bringing the message in song oh praise the name [Music] i cast my mind to calvary where jesus bled and died for me [Music] i see his wounds his hands his feet my savior on that cursed tree his body bound and drenched in tears they laid him down in joseph's tomb the entrance sealed by heavy stone messiah still and all alone o praise the name of the lord our god o praise his name forevermore [Music] for endless days we will sing your praise o lord o lord our god [Music] then on the third at break of dawn the son of heaven rose again o trampled death where is your sting the angel's roar for christ the king [Music] he shall return in robes of white the blazing sun shall pierce the night and i will rise among the saints my gaze transfixed on jesus face o praise the name of the lord our god o praise your name forevermore for endless days we will sing your praise o lord o lord our god o lord oh lord [Music] amen thank you tim that was powerful and thank you dino and cheryl and celestine and pharah and and of course our very own the sheltons this is the first time i've ever met ronnie shelton he's always been in the background and you know they hide the best i guess the best of the shelters is always hidden and just a warm welcome to everyone our viewing audience this evening we are in the book of hebrews we're in the book of hebrews because it is something better but before we get to the book of hebrews we want to remember that song is a weapon that we can always use against discouragement powerful powerful how song is you know god's people all through the old testament were always encouraged to sing hymns a praise for the deliverance that god brought to them over and over again god has given us song as a weapon in times of discouragement last night we talked about well we started with the love languages and we talked about how god communicates to us through languages of love so that we can love him so that we can be transformed so that we can love him and love one another tonight we're going to be talking about how that love actually changes us we're going to be talking about heart transplanter how god's love comes into our hearts and that love transforms us and then through us it flows out to bless others heart transplanter and it's so important nowadays to recognize the the power of god's love because all around us are heavy hearts hearts today are filled with fear and heaviness and sorrow hearts are failing all around us and we have fear of health and economic fear and racial fear and social fear and political fear there's a lot of fear in this world today you know the bible says in first john 4 and verse 18 i'm going to read it for you tonight there is no love in fear but perfect love casts out fear i love that it casts out fear because fear has torment he that fears is not made perfect in love god doesn't want us to be tormented with fear friends god does not want us to be fearful of anything and so when his love comes in it casts out fear and that's what we want tonight that's what we're going to pray for tonight so let's as we open the word of god tonight let's just pause and ask the holy spirit to be with us father in heaven we want to thank you this evening because you are a god of love and you are a god that transplants our hearts and takes out the fear the social fear the economic fear the health fear the political fear father you take out all of the racial fear every aspect of fear that we have in our hearts that causes us to be less than loving you take it out because all of that has torment and according to your word according to the promises of your word you place in our hearts your love so that it can transform us that our hearts can be transplanted and that through us you can love others and tonight we want that love to come in we want to make room for it we want to ask you to come in we want to ask you to send your spirit your holy spirit the holy spirit to be with us we want to ask that you will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves we want to give you permission to step into our lives there are a lot of viewers out there this evening that are struggling they're they're facing trials they're facing situations that are very difficult very fearful i'm asking that you will step into their lives into their hearts and make a difference tonight with your love speak to us through your word show us what your love is what it does what it can do what it will do for we ask it in the precious and worthy name of jesus christ amen so we we have been looking at the book of hebrews because the book of hebrews has a message for us of something better that word better is used all through the book of hebrews over and over again some 13 times and last night we did kind of an outline of that and we talked about in the context of god's love we want to have god's heart of love and god wants to give us that love he wants to give us that same heart of love that he has he wants to fill us with his love that is void of fear he wants to give us a heart transplant god is the heavenly physician he's the heavenly physician and he's the great heart transplanter so let's just review a little bit because we didn't finish up our love languages and and by the way we weren't i wasn't planning that we'd finish our love languages we're actually going to weave the languages of love all the way through our series and this is the second part of our four-part series on something better in the book of hebrews we did talk though last night about the gift of love god's gift of love love gives gifts that's how it communicates itself to us and we saw that in hebrews chapter 1 where god has given the gift of himself for our sins so god's love is manifested to us according to hebrews chapter 1 in this revelation of his gift of love the gift of himself and then in excuse me revelation i said revelation chapter 1. there you go i'm a revelation guy hebrews chapter 1. keep me honest tonight will you in hebrews chapter 2 we talked about how that love was manifested in the person of jesus christ jesus christ became a man he physically connected with the human race and that physical connection has never ended it didn't end after 33 years when jesus was resurrected jesus became a man he became the second adam so that he could legally justly righteously ethically take upon himself the consequences of man's sins and so he became the second adam the head second head of the human race and he is physically connected with us this is god's love god gives gifts and god touches us physically those were the two love languages that we emphasized last night in the book of hebrews now we noticed we noted last night we learned last night if you didn't know many of you did some said to me hey i remember reading that book the five love languages in fact one sister said to me i read that book and i tried to get my would-be husband to read that book who is now her husband but he wouldn't read it he still hasn't read it so i reminded him after your meeting did you ever read that book on the fifa love languages the five love languages gifts physical touch we've looked at so far and then we have acts of service and quality time and finally words of affirmation all of those love languages in the book the languages of love the five love languages are also found in the book of hebrews of course they are because the book of hebrews is a relational book and indeed they're found all through the bible and we'll see a little bit of that tonight so we touched on the first two and i shared with you about my own experience my wife and i learning the love languages and realizing that i was speaking french while she was speaking english in other words our love languages weren't communicating love because i was speaking acts of service and my wife was a quality time woman and still is and so it's so important for us to to communicate in the languages of love to people so that they can hear they can accept they can understand that they are loved they are appreciated and they are accepted and that made a huge difference in the relationship the marriage of my wife and i we just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary recently and of course uh greg and jill just celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary god is into keeping marriages keeping people together and keeping marriages together and he does it through love and love is practical it's not just some emotional feeling love has languages it communicates to us in languages so acts of service was another love language and i just want to give you a scripture reference for that we may touch on it more later hebrews 7 25 in hebrews chapter 7 and verse 25 and we'll just actually look at that verse it's speaking about the ministry of jesus christ for us in the heavenly sanctuary and in hebrews chapter 7 and verse 25 it says wherefore he jesus christ is able to save them that come to him save them to the uttermost that come to god by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them friends jesus christ is continually interceding in our behalf he's continually working as mediator so that we can come to god through him because sometimes we feel overwhelmed with our guilt and our shame and we feel like we can't come to god we're not worthy to come to god well jesus is worthy and jesus says you can come in my name that's why we pray in the name of jesus christ you can come to god in my name and when you come in my name you are worthy because of my worthiness you become my beloved son my beloved daughter because of my righteousness my goodness my merit that is what is happening right now in the heavenly sanctuary jesus is continually interceding that's a revelation of acts of service that's a revelation of the love of god for us and there's also words of affirmation we're going to spend a lot more time on this later on words of affirmation we're going to spend a whole meeting focusing on words of affirmation we talk about the gift of faith but right now words of affirmation would be hebrews chapter 11. and i'm just going to give you a little sneak preview into that session hebrews chapter 11 i want to challenge you to read hebrews 11. you've probably read it many times it's the faith chapter but i want you as you read that to try to find anything negative that you can find in there about god's people anything at all see god is speaking words of affirmation to his people in hebrews chapter 11. over and over again god is communicating communicating words of affirmation trying to inf affirm us in christ in hebrews chapter 11 and that's because words of affirmation are one of the love languages so you've got gifts you've got quality time you've got physical touch and you've got acts of service and then you've got words of affirmation now those are the five love languages but there are more than those five in fact as i started reading this book i thought you know i'm a bible guy i like to be established in the word of god and so i want to find these love languages in god's word i don't want them just to be in this book that i that i read from someone i want these love languages to be something that is that are in the word of god and so as i started reading through the book of hebrews i started looking for these languages and sure enough they were there but there was more than just the five there were two more that i believe are as significant as the other five but they weren't in the book and sometimes we leave them out of our relationships our community community relationships and out of our relationships in the world now the the one that i want us to look at right now is found in hebrews chapter 12. if you just want to turn there open your bibles if you're if you have your bibles with you or on your computer or on your phone turn there open there to hebrews chapter 12 and we're going to look at verses 5 and 6 of hebrews chapter 12. here's what it says hebrews chapter 12. if i can find it here beginning with verse 6. did i say 5-6 i meant to say 6-7 hebrews 12 6-7 okay here we go for whom the lord loves so we'll stop right there this is talking about a love language right a love language whom the lord loves he chastens and he scourges whom the lord loves he chastens and he scourges every son whom he receives now this is love language number six and it's clearly a love language from god because it says who he loves he chastens and scourges and we might think oh that's terrible why would god do that that's not love at all well actually we need to think about this and we need to look at it from a biblical perspective the word jason actually means to educate but you know education can be easy or education can be hard you know you hear this phrase i had to learn it the hard way and many times fallen human nature has to learn it the hard way so god educates us god scourges us and verse 7 says if ye endure chastening god deals with you as with sons for what sons is he whom the father chastens not so god deals with us as with sons if we're a son of god if we're a daughter of god if we're children of god god will actually chase us he'll educate us he'll discipline us he'll scourge us why you may ask why does he do this well because he loves us is it easy i remember when our kids were younger and we started the discipline you know and discipline is different you know the bible says spare the rod and hate the child so you know we think well a rod that's you know something that's physical and you have to have physical but i i don't think that's necessarily all-encompassing of discipline for example our daughter our daughter she would just stiffen up if she got a spanking she would just stiffen up and we realized this isn't gonna work this isn't gonna work we're gonna have to think of something else well our daughter was a communicator you know i would call home to check in if i was traveling somewhere i would call in and i would talk to my wife for a while and then i would talk to my son and i would say hey son how's it going he would say good dad how are you doing i say how was your day and he would say it was good what'd you do today oh nothing the conversation was very short then i would get on the phone with my daughter i would say hey sweetie how you doing she said good dad you'll never guess what happened today and she'd say and she would just talk and talk and take a dog for our daughter the most successful mode of discipline when she was out of line was the a timeout a timeout and you know god uses timeouts they're in the bible timeouts are biblical nebuchadnezzar went on a seven year timeout yeah yeah that's in the old testament in the new testament you have the father of john the baptist who questioned gabriel when he was telling him you know about this son being born to his wife elizabeth and he went on a nine-month timeout it worked with our daughter but it took a few times we would start out with okay five minute timeout she couldn't help it she would talk 10 minutes she hit 20 minutes 30 minutes by the time we got to about 30 minutes she got the message but it was hard for her god disciplines us because we're his children and he loves us he wants us so much to be filled with his love and so he disciplines us to help us to educate us to grow us to mature us to bring us to the place he wants us to be he wants us to be with him in heaven and we see this all through the bible it's so powerful in fact i want you to look at a story that's found in second kings chapter 21. second kings chapter 21 and we're going to look there in second kings chapter 21 we're going to start with verse 10. we're just going to look at a few of the verses here in second kings chapter 21. we're going to start with verse 10. this is a story about manasseh manasseh was a wicked king he was the son of hezekiah and he was a wicked king started here in second kings chapter 21 verse 10 the lord spake by his servants and prophets saying because manasseh verse 11 king of judah judah has done these abominations and hath done wickedly above all the amorites did what all the amorites did which were before him and hath made judah also to sin with his idols therefore thus saith the lord god of israel behold i am bringing such evil upon jerusalem and judah that whosoever hears of it their ears will tingle verse 16. moreover manasseh shed innocent blood very much he filled jerusalem from one end to the other beside his sin wherewith he made judah to sin in doing that which was evil in the sight of the lord verse 17. now the rest of the acts of manasseh and all that he did and his sin which he send are they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of judah manasseh verse 18 slept with his fathers he was buried in the garden of his own house in the garden of azza and am and his son reigned in his stead and you could basically conclude that manasseh was a wicked king he was the wickedest vilest king and he basically died and he's lost but then there's this little you know suggestion that the rest of what manasseh did is written you know later on and we picked that up in second chronicles chapter 33 second chronicles chapter 33 it gives us more of the story of manasseh and it's really interesting what it says here let's start in second chronicles 23 33 with verse 1. manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 50 and five years in jerusalem so he was a young kid he was he was probably influenced by others around him as at a young age to do evil it says verse 2 but he did that which was evil in the sight of the lord like under the abominations of the heathen whom the lord had cast out before the children of israel for he built again the high places which hezekiah his father had broken down and he reared up the altars for balaam and made groves and worshiped all the hosts of heaven and served them he also verse 4 built alters in the house of the lord wherewith the lord had said in jerusalem shall by name my name be forever he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the lord he was worshiping the host of heaven he was worshiping the son he was worshiping all of these pagan deities and he should have known better and then it says in verse six and he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the sons of hemon also he observed times and used enchantment enchantments and witchcraft and dealt with familiar spirits with wizards and he wrought much evil in the sight of the lord to provoke him to anger set up carved images of idols verse 7 says and god is chasing manas in fact it's really interesting the way that god deals with them in assa it says in verse 10 and the lord spoke to manasseh and to his people but they would not hearken you know god speaks to us he communicates with us when we talk about in the book of hebrews god is a communicator and he speaks to us but sometimes when he speaks to us we don't hearken i remember when i was a young man i was probably about it was probably a couple years before i actually gave my heart to the lord i was 18 or 19 years old and i had a party house i had two roommates and we just partied all the time especially on the weekends i remember one one night at this party this young lady came to me and she was completely drunk i mean she was just under the influence and she said the weirdest thing to me she said she said jim that's what i went by then jim she said i believe if you gave your heart to the lord and you became a christian you could have a great influence among these people that was about two years before i became a christian and i thought she was crazy i had no idea what she was talking about i thought why did she say that to me i didn't realize and i remember after i gave my heart to the lord some two years later that god was speaking to me through that to that young lady that god was sowing a seed and that seed was going to be planted in my heart and it was going to have its influence as time went on i remember i looked back and i said you know god was trying to reach me just like god was trying to reach manasseh right god was trying to reach him but he wouldn't listen and so it goes on it's and it talks about how god had to to to take manasseh into captivity it says that he went into captivity and it says in verse 17 or verse 18 now the rest of the acts of manasseh and his prayer which you pray excuse me i'm going too far down uh where are we okay verse 11 wherefore the lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of assyria which took manasseh among the thorns bound him with fetters carried him to babylon and when he was in affliction he besought the lord his god you see it took me two years friends of affliction deeper and deeper affliction deeper and deeper bondage into drugs alcohol i was drinking alcohol i was on my way i was having blackouts i was on my way to becoming an alcoholic it was in my family on my mom's side on my dad's side i was raised in alatine so i was going deeper and deeper into affliction lower and lower i could have listened to god two years earlier but i didn't i went deeper and deeper into affliction that's what hap is happening with manasseh he's going deeper and deeper into affliction and and he goes so far down that he that he besought he he reached out to the lord that's what i did i reached out to the lord he besought the lord in verse 12 it says he humbled himself greatly before the god of his fathers and he prayed unto him verse 13 and he was entreated of him and he heard his supplication and he brought him again to jerusalem and into his kingdom and then manasseh knew that the lord he was god what a powerful story what a powerful story and now after this he built verse 14 says he built a wall without the city of david on the west side of gehan in the valley and and and even to the entering into the fish gate and he that compassed about ofo and he raised it up to a very great height he put captains of war in all the fence cities of jude and he took away the strange gods verse 15 and the idols out of the house of his god and the altars which he had built and in in the mount of the house of the lord in jerusalem and he cast them out of the city i remember my sister came over one day and she said i had just become a christian she said she said james she said you're still listening to rock and roll music i got all my cassette tapes you know i'm dating myself now all my cassette tapes there in my living room my drum set there and i said it doesn't matter what you listen to you know it doesn't matter what music i listen to because i love the lord and i go to church now and i don't go to bars i don't drink and i don't do any of that kind of stuff that i used to do but in time as i spent more and more time in the word of god i remember coming home one day and i grabbed the cassette tape it was van halen because i was going to play the drums with that cassette tape and i grabbed that cassette tape and i was looking because cassette tapes you have to decide what side are you going to play you can't just play through the whole thing like with cds and etc so i put in the side that had this you know i looked at the side that had the song running with the devil running with the devil i thought in my mind i'm not running with the devil and i took those cassette tapes those hundred rock and roll favorites i took them outside and i threw them in the garbage can just like manasseh not because i had to not because the church told me to not because my sister told me to i did it because of the words of that hymn turn your eyes upon jesus look long in his wonderful face and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace manasseh is going to be in the kingdom of heaven even though he did wickedly it says here because the rest of the story see the rest of the story is that manasseh turned to the lord why did he turn the look to the lord because he was chastened because he was scourged in god's providence he was scourged by the assyrians and so this is one of god's languages of love it's it's not a language that we necessarily focus on in the christian church sometimes we just want to focus on god's love in a very emotional feeling way and we don't want to recognize tough love but the bible here in hebrews chapter 12 describes god having tough love and chastening us and scourging us because he that love wants us to be saved and sometimes that's what it takes that's what it took with manasseh that's what it took with nebuchadnezzar and sometimes that's what's going to take with us and so this is another one of god's love languages the personal experience of many of us on planet earth today is literally hell that's what i was going through i didn't realize it i didn't know it because i was medicating i was medicating with drugs i was medicating you know with music and so i didn't really understand the hell that i was living in until i gave the lord a chance i got on my knees one evening and i accept the lord as my savior i just asked him to come into my heart to forgive him for my sins and i told him you know if you want me to be a christian you're going to have to do that in me because i can't and from that day forward i started walking with the lord and he started doing to me what i was not able to do i gave my heart to jesus and that that giving was returned with him filling me with his love i was filled with the love of god and i began to do something different with my life now in that context god is telling us that his love is powerful it transplants our heart he takes out the old heart the stony heart the worldly heart the carnal heart and he gives us a new heart a heart that is filled with his love a heart that is filled with his goodness with his grace god is committed to us and by the way that's the seventh love language so we've got gifts physical touch acts of service we've got quality time we've got words of affirmation we've got correction or chastening hebrews chapter 12 and now we've got the last one and that is commitment god is committed to us hebrews 13 verse 5 says i will never leave you or forsake you god is committed to us you know those last two that chasing a correction and that commitment are strangely absent in our world today you know we're not able to correct our children anymore you know we get in trouble we're not able to to tell people things that they really probably need to hear because we need to be politically correct and people aren't committing to each other they're getting in these relationships they're hooking up they're living together but they're not making any commitment to each other and that is a lack of love a lack of correction a lack of commitment in our society today is a lack of love and it's a lack of the presence of the holy spirit because god is love and the holy spirit is god and the holy spirit comes in to our hearts and makes his present presence known and we in that presence we find ourselves able to commit to people we're afraid to commit we're afraid to correct and god says no i want your love my love filling your heart so you can love people the way that i want you to love people the way that i love people for their good and that's what god is all about tonight he's all about helping us to love people for their good but how do we do that how do we have that experience with god well i'm going to tell you how i had it i'm going to tell you how i had that experience in relation to hebrews chapter 4. hebrews chapter 4 is what we're going to break open right now we're going to look at hebrews 4 verses 1 through 11. and we're going to look at it in the context of quality time we're going to focus on this because this is my wife's favorite love language so of course i've got to focus on this i've learned a lot about quality time and the importance of quality time and the impact of quality time it's powerful quality time is what i started spending with god when i first became a christian i had a vacuum to fill a party vacuum you know a vacuum with friends that wanted to just hang out and do nothing basically and in that vacuum when all that stuff went out when the drums went out and the rock and roll went out and all the parting went out in came the word of god and i began to read the word of god i began to read the bible i began to read other books and commentary on the bible i began to saturate my mind and heart with the bible and i spent a lot of time with jesus quality time with jesus now in hebrews chapter 4 we have this this description if you will of eternal rest but we also have a description in hebrews chapter 4 of sabbath rest eternal rest and sabbath rest you see the sabbath commandment is so relationally focused that many theological theologians today don't even believe that it's in the new testament that it's in any of the new testament especially in hebrews chapter four a lot of theologians believe that hebrews chapter four is just talking about our spiritual salvation rest in jesus christ and sometimes we like to say the sabbath is just a spiritual salvation rest but the sabbath is a door into spiritual salvation rest and that's what hebrews 4 actually communicates it's really powerful let's look here first of all in the context of having something or needing something better let's take a look at hebrews chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. first of all we're going to look at the gospel invitation here hebrews chapter 4 and let's just read verses 1 and 2. it says let us therefore fear lest a promise be left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them but the word preached did not profit them not be mixed with faith in them that heard it so what we have right here is we have a call a gospel call into spiritual rest that's what verses one and two are talking about they're talking about spiritual rest it's really clear because here we see the gospel mentioned in this in this context we see the word preached the gospel mentioned and we see this promise of entering into rest now let's look at verse 3. for we which have believed do enter into his rest as he said as i have sworn in my wrath if they shall enter into my rest although his works were finished from the foundation of the world so now we have a distinction being named between the rest of god and the works that god finished or the rest that god took when he finished his works at the creation of the world that's actually referring to the sabbath we have a distinction be made in other words there's a spiritual salvation rest being talked about in hebrews chapter four and then there's this sabbath rest and the spiritual salvation rest is not the sabbath rest he's making a distinction here between the two now let's go on and look at verses four and five for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise and god did rest from the seventh day from all his works that's clearly talking about the seventh-day sabbath right and in this place again if they shall enter under my rest that's talking about the spiritual salvation rest so in four and five you see a distinction being made between the sabbath the seventh-day sabbath and the spiritual rest that god is calling us into in jesus christ now let's read verses six through ten seeing therefore it remains that some must enter therein that is into the spiritual arrest and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief again he limits a certain day saying and david today after so long a time and as it is said today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts god is calling us into the spiritual rest and you know friends today is the day that god is calling us into that spiritual rest wherever you are right now in your life whatever crisis you're facing whatever situation you're in god is calling you into his spiritual rest that is the gospel call it is not a call to keep the seventh-day sabbath this spiritual call is completely different it's separate from the seventh-day sabbath but the seventh-day sabbath is a key part of how we enter into that rest as we're going to see as we continue reading so hebrews chapter 4 continuing here in verse 8 for if jesus and you know that should actually say joshua because talking about the old testament rest that they brought uh brought came into in canaan if joshua jesus had given them rest then would he not after would have spoken of another day now we know jesus was leading joshua so you could read that jesus that's why it's translated that way because jesus was the one that was calling him into that rest and they never entered that rest so then he spoke of another day and every day we fail to enter into god's spiritual rest and accept the gospel god sets apart another day and another day and another day just like he did with manasseh just like he did with me in my life god is committed to us and god will do whatever he can to save us and he he wants to speak he wants to whisper into our ears he wants to draw us through the conviction of the holy spirit but if we don't listen to that and we go on in our way he'll continue to work with us remember paul was so convicted when he was saul and he was persecuting the church he was so convicted but he but he stifled that conviction when stephen knelt there and prayed lord lay not the sin of their charge paul was saul was convicted but he stifled that conviction and so finally on the road to damascus persecuting the christians really persecuting christ jesus comes to him and appears in a bright light knocks him off his horse blinds him and finally saul wakes up he becomes paul eventually the apostle to the gentiles now god doesn't want to knock us off a horse he doesn't want to blind us but he will he's committed to doing everything he can our prayer needs to be this friends lord save me and if you can't save me easy do whatever it takes lord save me and make it easy but if you can't make it easy do whatever it takes and that's exactly a prayer that god is going to answer he's going to do whatever it takes to save us he wants to make it easy he whispers to us he encourages us because he wants to make it easy but if we refuse to let him do it the easy way he's going to do it whatever way he has to do it because he's committed to saving us no matter what of course we can always choose to resist his chase team but i'm so thankful that manasseh didn't resist that eventually he surrendered to god i'm so thankful that nebuchadnezzar eventually surrendered to god i'm so thankful that saul eventually surrendered to god and i pray tonight that you will eventually surrender to the love of god even if it's the chastening love of god it's changed my life i've never been the same and i'm so thankful for the years that i've had i wish i would have accepted christ as my personal savior long before i was 21 years of age but i'm thankful even now so let's look at this now again as we continue on in hebrews chapter 4 verse 9 verse 9 there remaineth therefore arrest to the people of god verse 10 for he that has entered into his rest that is spiritual rest salvation rest the remains of salvation rest of the people that he that has entered into his rest his salvation rest he also has ceased from his own works that word cease means to take a sabbath to cease and desist as god did from his how did god cease from his works well god ceased from his works as noted in the earlier verse for street god ceased from his works on the seventh day paul is very clear about that in hebrews chapter 4. he's very clear about that in verse 4. and so what paul is actually saying here so profoundly saying here is that the spiritual rest that god is calling us into actually comes through the sabbath rest the sabbath rest is how we get into the spiritual rest because the sabbath rest is a time to remember i like that word remember it's the only commandment of the 10 that that starts with the word remember you see god's law is a transcript of his character god's law is a law of love when jesus was asked by the lawyer what's the greatest commandment matthew chapter 22 verse 30. what's the greatest commandment in law and jesus said this is the first commandment that thou would love the lord thy god with all thy heart mind and soul and the second is like under it love your neighbor as yourself love is the fulfilling of the law matthew 22 36-40 and so in revelation excuse me revelation in hebrews i'm telling you i'm a revelation guy in hebrews paul is telling us that this fourth commandment is actually the way to enter into rest if we will remember remember what remember here it is are you ready for this i know my wife's ready for this here it is if you remember to spend quality time with me lay aside your business lay aside your cares lay aside your work lay aside your phone calls lay aside your secular interests lay aside all of the plans you have lay aside all of the worldly influences on this day remember the sabbath day to keep it holy six days you can labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the sabbath of the lord your god jesus christ the lord of the sabbath the seventh day sabbath saturday is the lord's day and i want you to remember that because i'm the way the truth and the life jesus christ says when you enter into the sabbath and you spend quality time with me you become changed that's what happened to me i became changed you become changed by beholding me second corinthians 3 verse 18 says we all with open face beholdings and is in a glass the glory of the lord are changed from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the lord it's a law of our physical and spiritual nature and it works in a detrimental way and it works in a positive way it works either way that we are transformed by beholding and so jesus christ wants us to enter into this quality time with him this rest with him because in entering into this rest in spending time with jesus we are transformed into his image and through that quality time through that relational time that time we spend with him we find ourselves entering into his spiritual salvation rest it's really powerful if you think about it the sabbath is an indication i shouldn't say an indication i should say the sabbath is a sign it's a representation of salvation you remember when god created the world he created the world in six days and on the sixth day on the last day he created me and you adam and eve he created human life and the very first thing that he asked us to do when he created us was to rest to rest on the seventh day the sabbath that was our first obligation if you will that was our first experience with god it was an experience of resting not just resting and sitting around doing nothing but resting in engagement resting and spending quality time with god he didn't send us out to tend in the garden he told us about tending the garden he told us about the animals he told us about creation but he brought us into a rest a quality time with him that was the first thing we did and in that quality time god showed us all of his creation he showed us his love he revealed to us more and more of himself and in all that creation that god showed us there was nothing we could point to and say you see that god and i did that together he did the trunk i did the branches he did the leaves i put the fruit on there was nothing in creation that we helped god to do god did everything by himself he did everything without us for us that's what the sabbath was all about it was a reminder of everything god had done for us without us now you fast forward 4 000 years jesus christ has come to this earth we have of course forfeited everything god gave us but jesus christ has come to save us from the consequences of our sin he's come to recreate us he created the world and us in the beginning and he's going to recreate us that's why it says in 2 corinthians chapter 5 17 if any man is in christ he is a new creation god creates us anew and jesus did that in himself he recreated the human race in himself he becomes the second adam he picks up where adam failed he surrenders his will to god he lives a perfect life of obedience and he walks through life and finally takes our place and receives the full weight of our punishment he redeems us completely and fully and he does it by himself in the garden after six days god says the words it is finished on the cross after a life of perfect obedience and taking our sins upon himself jesus christ says the words it is finished jesus christ accomplished the work of recreation for us without us and he rested on the sabbath and when we enter into the sabbath we are entering into everything that christ has done for us without us and we're accepting it we're resting in it we're taking it in we're focusing on it and it transforms us it gives us a heart transplant when i first came to jesus and i realized that he had forgiven all of my sins i was overwhelmed with gratitude and i remember sometime down the road being confronted with the idea that the seventh day is the sabbath not sunday i told my my bible instructor there's no way that sunday is not the day we should worship the sabbath isn't in the bible that's how much i knew about the bible but as i started studying this i realized wow this is amazing i can't believe this why do so many christians why do so many people believe that sunday is the seventh day and of course i did a lot of research on this but finally it came down to this one verse in john chapter 14 and verse 15 where jesus says if you love me keep my commandments and my heart had been transplanted i had a new heart i had a heart that loved jesus and if he was telling me to keep his commandments my love for him was going to say yes my love for him could not say no when we lose this love basically we're left to legalism when we lose this love we may act like christians sometimes and act like the devil other times you ever seen that we may be hot at some times and then we're cold and of course when you take cotton when you take cold and you put them together what do you have luke warm and that's what a lot of christians are in our world today in fact revelation talks about the lukewarm state of the seventh church that's the church of our time the church of our day so this quality time points to the law of god it reminds us of the fact that god wants us to enter into rest with him every single week he wants us to have quality time with him or we can behold him or we can let go of the things of this world because you know babylon is is inundating us the world is inundating us and god wants us to be in the world but he doesn't want us to be of the world and so he encourages us to get away every week a vacation with him every week quality time with him every week for 24 hours and of course it's important for us to do this for another reason i mean have you ever met somebody that you weren't sure you were going to like until you got to know them right you're like i don't know if i'm gonna like that person the first impression wasn't so great you know some people have that experience with me maybe quite often but when you get to know them you say hey this person isn't that bad after all my wife first encountered me as her teacher her bible teacher and she thought i was quite serious didn't think that i had a sense of humor until we started spending more time together and then she realized oh yes i i like i like to laugh i like to be a happy christian as danny said and it's the same with god there are many people who see god in a wrong way they don't see god as he really is and they need to get to know him and that's what the sabbath reminds us to do it reminds us to get to know god to get to to know him and to love him and to realize when we do that that it's not about rules when you love someone it's not about the rules i love my wife and there's a lot of things that i naturally do because not because i s i'm told to do it not because there are rules and regulations james you need to do this for your wife you do that for your wife you need the other thing for wife no because i love her and i care for her and i want out of that love to do things for her and that's the same way it is with god our relationship with god based on love causes us to live in a way that is pleasing to him not only in our relationship with him but also in our relationship with others and that's what god does when he transplants our heart we have what is called a new covenant experience now let's just look at that quickly as we wind down hebrews chapter 10 is where we find the new covenant actually hebrews chapter 8 and 10. we're going to look at chapter 8 first hebrews chapter 8 beginning with verse 6. here's what it says it says but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry talking about christ by the much also he is the mediator of a better covenant which was established upon better promises not our promises to god that's what we have in the old testament the old covenant is not about a time it's about an experience all that the lord has said we will do said the people that's the experience they had galatians 4 tells us that's old covenant it's hagar it's not abraham but the old covenant is not about the old testament the old covenant is about how we relate to god you can be in the new testament and be old covenant if you depend upon yourself and your promises instead of the promises of god so the promises were bad but the new covenant is based on better promises you want to hear what those promises are verse 8 for finding fault with them he saith behold the days come says the lord when i will make a new covenant with the house of israel and with the house of judah the new covenants with the house of israel and judah because we are spiritual jews spiritual israel spiritual judah we are in christ and there we for we are abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise not according to the covenant that i made with their fathers in that day when i took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of egypt because they continued not in my covenant and i regarded them not said the lord the reason they didn't continue in his covenant is because they made the promises based upon themselves and their power they didn't make promises based upon god or what he was going to do for this is the covenant that i'm going to make with the house of israel after those days saith the lord i'm going to put my law into their minds i'm going to write them in their hearts i'm going to be to them a god and they shall be to me a people and they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the lord for all will know me from the least to the greatest and i will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities i will remember no more five promises of the new covenant five promises of the new covenant number one god is going to write his law in our minds and in our hearts that's what we see in the text god's gonna do that forgiveness of sin is promised in the new covenant he's going to be merciful to our unrighteousness and our sins and our iniquities are going to be remembered no more god is going to anoint us with his holy spirit in the context of this it says going down to verse 11 they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the lord for all will know me from the least to the greatest in first john chapter 1 20 we're told that the reason why we don't need anyone to teach us is because we have the anointing of the holy spirit and the holy spirit teaches us all things now does that mean that you shouldn't be listening to me or anyone any other pastor or anyone else no we listen you listen to me we listen to pastors because pastors bring us the word of god and the word of god is inspired by the holy spirit i'm not teaching you the word of god is teaching you i'm just i'm just a vessel that god is using to communicate the truth of his word you don't need me to teach you the holy spirit teaches you through his word and if the holy spirit isn't let me put it this way if the word isn't being preached that means the holy spirit isn't in it if it's just man's words that's not the holy spirit teaching you you don't need any man to teach you you don't need any man you need the holy spirit to teach you you have an unction and many times you're going to find when you listen to the word of god that is being can bring conviction to you through the holy spirit you'll listen to things that god has already convicted you of he's already taught you he's already been teaching you and you'll say that's exactly how the lord has been leading me that's part of the new covenant experience god does not want you to rely upon man and man's teachings and man's traditions because men are going to lead you astray they're going to tell you things that aren't in the bible that's what i was raised i was raised believing sunday was this was the lord's day it was a sabbath day that's not what the bible teaches you need to listen to the holy spirit you need to have an unction from the holy spirit and then the other thing is we're going to have restored relationships with god he says i'm going to be their god and they're going to be my people that's quality time relationship that's entering into that salvation that salvation rests through the sabbath the sabbath is the key to all of this because the sabbath reminds us to rest in jesus the sabbath is if you will the conduct the doorway into god's salvation rest and then the fifth one we've got number one god putting his law in our minds and our hearts number two the forgiveness of sins number three the anointing of the holy spirit so no one has to teach us we are taught from the word of god number four restored relationship with god and number five the most important one it's all through these verses i i god is saying i will do this i will put my law in their heart i'll forgive their sins and because i will be their god they will be my people i will teach them they don't need any man to teach them in other words these new covenant promises are not based on what man does they're based on what god does they're not based on our promises they're based on god's promises and we are to rest in those promises and the only way we can truly rest in those promises is to let god communicate his love to us in relationship with him that's why the sabbath is so important and that's why we're so glad you joined us for this camp meeting and you've entered into this time of sabbath rest you lay aside your secular affairs everything secular and you enter into that quality time with god and you let him communicate to you you let him teach you you let him direct you if we miss relationship with god we miss everything so the sabbath is a sign of our resting in christ the sabbath is a sign of our trusting in christ the sabbath is a sign of our looking to christ god is eager to transform our hearts he's more eager to transform our hearts than we are to have them transformed god is a heart transplanter and that's what he did in my life 37 years ago god does this operation by the power of his love and his love is synonymous with his law his love is not just a emotional feeling his love is a strong principle that works and communicates to us through gifts through physical touch through acts of service through quality time through words of affirmation through chastening and correction and he's committed to us all of that is a revelation of god's love and of course god wants us not only to experience that love to to have that love come to us from him but he wants us he wants to saturate our hearts with that love he wants to transplant our hearts with that love so that through us we can be a conduit to love others to speak god's languages of love to those around us to those we come in contact with to those who are so filled with fear who is so filled with worry and and care and concern who are so anxious and fearful about what's going on in our world today god says in psalm 119 165 great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them and god wants us to give that peace to others and friends i'm inviting you to accept that peace tonight i'm inviting you to let god be your heart transplanter tonight it's not difficult 37 years ago i got on my knees and i said lord please come into my heart forgive me for my sins lift this burden of guilt from me and if you want me to be a christian please do that in me because i can't do it in myself it's a very simple prayer and you can pray that prayer tonight won't you pray that prayer right now as we pray together father in heaven thank you so much tonight for each viewer thank you for those who want a heart transplant thank you for those who are listening to your word and listening to your spirit thank you for those whose lives can be completely turned around right now because they're going to open that door and enter into that quality time with you which is the way into that spiritual rest that spiritual salvation that you've given to each one of us the gospel father please tonight listen to the words the heartfelt cries the pleas of your people all over the world people who are tired people who are overwhelmed people who are done with all of the impact of pain and sorrow people who want you people who want jesus to be their lord and savior listen and answer we pray in the name of jesus christ [Music] you

Channel: Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)

Views: 4,645

Rating: 4.9298244 out of 5

Keywords: God's love, Spiritual heart change, new life in Christ, James Rafferty, 3ABN Virtual Homecoming Camp Meeting 2021, God's mercy

Id: 60mW44kVmXw

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021