Cease From Your Own Works
Scripture: Hebrews 4:9Devotional Series: Sovereignty and Prayer
Teaching: Sovereignty and Prayer pt. 3 (SUN_AM 2024-12-01) by Pastor Star R Scott
The Lord is good; amen? His mercies endure forever. We’ve been looking at the sovereignty of God and how sovereignty works in conjunction with prayer. Prayer assumes God’s sovereignty. There’s no reason to pray if our God is not supreme (amen?), if He’s not almighty, if He’s not all-knowing. God’s omniscience is what allows us to pray according to His will, because He knows the beginning to the end. He already knows how this thing’s going to turn out, and so, because of that, He’s given us specific promises in His Word. True, effectual prayer is just regurgitating the promises of God back to Himself. We take what He promised, and we speak it back to Him saying, “Lord, we’re in full agreement. Thy will be done.” Amen? That’s how that cycle works.
We don’t try to advise God with our prayer; we don’t try to direct God with our prayer. Prayer does not change or try to change the mind, the heart, or the will of God. Prayer accepts the will of God and reaffirms it by saying, “Thy will be done.” Amen? Just in agreement, where two are agreed, you and God, as touching anything the Scripture says. Then, we’re very confident that He’s going to watch over His Word and perform it, as the Scripture says. Hebrews, Chapter 4, look here in this great passage of Scripture. He talks about the children of Israel having died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Then he talks about the fact that, to you and I, there is a remnant of people, His chosen. He continues to, through His grace and His mercy, supply us with sufficient faith. All the faith we have comes from God, through His Word.
He’s the originator of our faith, the author and the finisher of our faith. Amen? So, it all begins and ends in God, the author and the finisher of our faith. In His sovereignty, He’s moving different things around in our life, putting people in our path, putting circumstances in our path. We were looking just the other day in Proverbs, at a man’s heart. We devise all of these different ways, but the Lord directs our path. He sets things back on right course for us.
The one thing that we have to be assured in, we ought always to pray and not to faint, Scripture says. Amen? But sometimes we faint, and we don’t always pray. But Jesus does. Can you say, “Praise God,” for that? He ever lives to make intercession for us. When we don’t pray, He is praying. He’s praying that His will would be done. Aren’t you glad that He’s ever living now to make intercession for us? He’s already predetermined, the Scripture says, not the course that you take or the circumstances you face. He has predetermined, predestined, that we will be conformed ultimately to His image. Everything you’re facing in life that you think is adverse and tough is to make you more like Jesus. He’s going to hold us up in the midst of all of these temptations, tests, and trials. The Scripture says He’s going to preserve us. We will not be tempted past that we are able to stand and with every temptation, test, and trial He makes the way of escape. Hallelujah!
One of the methods is prayer. He makes a way of escape as we begin to pray. We stand up and declare what God has declared, regardless of the circumstances. The righteous are as bold as a lion. It’s those that don’t know His grace and mercy that flee. Amen? So, here we are, called to enter into a rest as His children. In Hebrews 4, verse 9, it says, “There remains…a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour, verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief that the children of Israel had and died in the wilderness.” The way to move into that realm of assurance that we are going to finish this race as victors, that we are more than conquerors, that assurance that no weapon formed against us will prosper, can only be realized in the rest of God. You’ve got to cease from your own labors. Amen? Stop trying to do it. Stop trying to figure it out.
Cease from all of that foolishness of men’s wisdom and rest in the promises of God. If He’s for us, nobody can be against us. Hallelujah! Think about that. Because of that, our full confidence is in these great promises of God.
We don’t try to advise God with our prayer; we don’t try to direct God with our prayer. Prayer does not change or try to change the mind, the heart, or the will of God. Prayer accepts the will of God and reaffirms it by saying, “Thy will be done.” Amen? Just in agreement, where two are agreed, you and God, as touching anything the Scripture says. Then, we’re very confident that He’s going to watch over His Word and perform it, as the Scripture says. Hebrews, Chapter 4, look here in this great passage of Scripture. He talks about the children of Israel having died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Then he talks about the fact that, to you and I, there is a remnant of people, His chosen. He continues to, through His grace and His mercy, supply us with sufficient faith. All the faith we have comes from God, through His Word.
He’s the originator of our faith, the author and the finisher of our faith. Amen? So, it all begins and ends in God, the author and the finisher of our faith. In His sovereignty, He’s moving different things around in our life, putting people in our path, putting circumstances in our path. We were looking just the other day in Proverbs, at a man’s heart. We devise all of these different ways, but the Lord directs our path. He sets things back on right course for us.
The one thing that we have to be assured in, we ought always to pray and not to faint, Scripture says. Amen? But sometimes we faint, and we don’t always pray. But Jesus does. Can you say, “Praise God,” for that? He ever lives to make intercession for us. When we don’t pray, He is praying. He’s praying that His will would be done. Aren’t you glad that He’s ever living now to make intercession for us? He’s already predetermined, the Scripture says, not the course that you take or the circumstances you face. He has predetermined, predestined, that we will be conformed ultimately to His image. Everything you’re facing in life that you think is adverse and tough is to make you more like Jesus. He’s going to hold us up in the midst of all of these temptations, tests, and trials. The Scripture says He’s going to preserve us. We will not be tempted past that we are able to stand and with every temptation, test, and trial He makes the way of escape. Hallelujah!
One of the methods is prayer. He makes a way of escape as we begin to pray. We stand up and declare what God has declared, regardless of the circumstances. The righteous are as bold as a lion. It’s those that don’t know His grace and mercy that flee. Amen? So, here we are, called to enter into a rest as His children. In Hebrews 4, verse 9, it says, “There remains…a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour, verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief that the children of Israel had and died in the wilderness.” The way to move into that realm of assurance that we are going to finish this race as victors, that we are more than conquerors, that assurance that no weapon formed against us will prosper, can only be realized in the rest of God. You’ve got to cease from your own labors. Amen? Stop trying to do it. Stop trying to figure it out.
Cease from all of that foolishness of men’s wisdom and rest in the promises of God. If He’s for us, nobody can be against us. Hallelujah! Think about that. Because of that, our full confidence is in these great promises of God.