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You're listening to the Women of Faith podcast from Faith Church Indy.  These recordings are teachings from our 2025 Fall Women's Conference on Rest and Sabbath.  Thanks for listening. Striving to rest. Let's pray. God,  we ask you to grant us  a deeper revelation of who you are. It's such a privilege to look at you.  That we could see you  as you really are  and tap into the inheritance  that we have  of  Sabbath rest. Amen.  Amen.  What is God like?  If at any point you can't hear me because she said that's really far away, just raise your hand, okay? And I'll try  yelling. A  little bit louder.  Okay. Move this over here.  I'm new at this.  So what is God like?  What kind of God is he really?  Thinking correctly about God  is the most important task  of our life.  It affects everything.  It affects our self-image.  It affects our relationships. It affects m our pursuits,  our contentment.  It affects everything.  God cannot be revealed em all of who he is. He cannot reveal here on earth to us  all of who he is.  But some of his attributes  are given by revelation.  Revelation through nature,  revelation as we can see, glorious. uh revelation through the scriptures  and then ultimately through the life of Jesus.  Those  attributes  are not innate  in our thinking  about God,  nor are they casually found.  Just as  Hannah did a beautiful job  of showing them we have to seek after them,  go after  who God is.  Through prayer,  laboring in the word, and then meditating on what's discovered.  In scripture, God uses two different mountains  to teach us important truths about himself  and about our journey with him, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion.  Mount Sinai is on the Sinai Peninsula,  and it's  where the Ten Commandments were given, the law was given.  It symbolizes God's law,  it symbolizes uh the legalism  and the ineffectiveness  of  human effort.  It symbolizes or it shows a terrifying  experience with fear  and darkness  and fire,  condemnation  and judgment.  And on Mount Sinai,  God is  inapproachable  and he is distant. Mount Zion,  on the other hand, is in Jerusalem, the city of David.  It represents a place where God's  constant presence  dwells.  It's a place where God can be found.  It's a place of immense faith.  It's a place of hope  and divine intervention  and of peace  and rest  and of Sabbath rest.  Mount Zion is the condition that believers can approach God freely,  with joy,  and find true deep rest from human effort. God also uses physical laws  that are shadows  of spiritual laws,  and Sabbath rest is one of those  physical laws. As  Hannah told us,  if you read that list  of  all that the Jewish people have to do, they  think they have to do  to honor the Lord, mean,  rip off all the toilet paper they need. You know, I mean, it's  daunting. um All the labor  that they  prepare their home,  they prepare their food, they prepare their bodies  for uh Sabbath, for  the goal of ceasing from work. and fully engaging in spiritual rest, in prayer,  and family time  for 24 hours.  But the Jewish people They prep the  Sabbath  to prepare,  I'm sorry, the Jewish people prep for Sabbath  to  fulfill  a duty  to a distant God.  Mount Sinai.  Oops, I forgot, I have a picture. There we go.  They are climbing Mount Sinai. out of fear, out of condemnation, or possibly the preparations  are merely what they've done for years,  week after week, with no thought of God. Because of their human efforts,  they will never  arrive  at Mount Zion. They will never experience God's presence, nor true rest of the Sabbath. that they work so hard to achieve.  It is possible for us  also  to do all the prep  and all the planning  for Sabbath  and not enter  into God's presence  that produces true Sabbathness. that makes him approachable uh and  constant, his presence constant.  For the past 4,000  to 6,000 years,  God has been at rest  from his work,  which was finished  when the sun set  on the sixth day. We've already talked about that,  which means that  God is still  resting, right? He offers for humans to join him in that same continual Sabbath rest. This rest is not merely about ceasing from work, but entering into a excuse me, spiritual place where our very DNA was designed to dwell in. We talked about, somebody brought up the death, but not honoring the Sabbath brings. and someone else brought up the stress, that's the result of not living  Mount Zion. just as God does,  and we were created  in His image. Let's turn to Hebrews 4. Must come. Hebrews 4 verse 1 says there that we are to fear. What? In scripture it says to fear. We are to fear or strive for only one thing in our life. We are to fear not entering into his rest, period. legitimate  Sabbath rest is crucial  and it affects  everything  in our life.  Verse two  says the word that was preached to them  did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith. And then verse six says some did not enter it because of unbelief. God's Sabbath rest is only entered by faith. and mixing faith  and faith in  the word.  Ezra, I love this verse.  Ezra 7-10  says,  Ezra received the word and he became the word. That is supposed to be us.  We are living words,  right?  That's God's design for us.  Verse nine, there remains, even after 6,000 years, there remains a rest  for the people of God. And then verse 10, God ceased from his work just as we are to cease from our work, our strivings. And then verse 11,  labor,  strive,  do everything you can  to enter into that rest. Climbing Mount Zion requires an effort to gain  correct  thoughts  about God. They do not come naturally to us. God hides himself. Sabbath rest is available to all believers, but not all experience  it. choosing, oh,  simply choosing not to seek the truths of God, wait a minute, let me start again.  Simply choosing to not seek truths of who  God is  and his goodness,  nor believing those truths discovered, prevents us.  from entering into Sabbath rest, thinking through with only a theological mind  and not an enraptured heart  after God clouds our view. Circumstances become loud  and they win our focus. Busyness  always wars  against an awareness of God.  When the clouds roll in,  our trials and burdens  begin to dominate our thoughts, right?  It's who we are,  how it goes,  causing us to have no faith  for who lies  beyond that cloud. The battle is for our mind. The dense cover can amplify pain,  disappointment,  shame,  and sadness,  just like it amplifies that wrought iron.  You didn't notice it in the first picture, right?  But when the cloud comes in,  the things in our life start shouting at us. Our mind in Romans 8-7 is naturally  set on the flesh.  It is hostile towards God. Does anybody have a tissue?  Sorry.  I  grew up with three brothers. I'm used to things.  It doesn't matter.  When you need it, you need it.  Okay, Romans 8-7. Our mind is naturally set on the flesh  and our mind is naturally and  hostile against God. uh A carnal mind dwells on carnal thoughts. and it disengages us  from divine presence and divine purpose. Our faith  becomes lost in the midst.  It  is all I can see. I'm sorry, the cloud magnifies the immediate struggle right in front of me. The cloud  is all I can see and  I  become  my focus.  I forget and lose sight of who  lies beyond the thick clouds  and attempt to find Sabbath rest  by merely altering  my natural environment or circumstances. Psalm 18 11 says, he made darkness his secret place. His pavilion around about him were dark waters. Did you know the rest of it? Thick clouds. He hides himself. Psalm 10 1 says, why do you stand afar off? Why do you hide in times of trouble? Why? You're distant. and  inapproachable. Jesus often asked, Does that offend you? Does the dense cloud and seemingly inattention from God in your life  offend you? Tests are designed  to expose our weaknesses or places that I'm not walking by faith. Anxiety, fear, resentment, bitterness, fill it all in,  are all evidences that I am climbing the wrong mountain  and those things shut down  my capacity to receive from him.  They cause me to put  faith  in my  Mount Sinai thoughts  about God, that he's unapproachable, distant,  unable to be pleased,  and I'm left on my own.  But the clouds,  the clouds are an invitation and an initiation towards us. We have to look beyond the cloud. Psalm 23 says, prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies. We all know that so well, don't we, that verse. So I sit on the other side of that table and commune with him. And he's done all the work. He's done all the prep. He's done all the cooking. I sit and commune with him while the thick clouds of Satan,  of fear,  anxiety have to watch  the feeding into me  of who God is.  It is a place of rich connection with him.  Faith in specific truths  about God  is the only way to experience true Sabbath rest. Let's gaze and feed on  truths about God. And  thank you for the songs  that em our God is. I can't remember that song.  You just listed  so beautifully a lot of the things that he is. I so appreciated it.  In the knowledge of the holy,  A.W. Tozer. says,  without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of What a privilege,  what a privilege we have.  And the weightiest word in any language is its word for God.  Isn't that beautiful?  What a privilege to pass through our lips  the name Jesus.  God is ineffable.  He is too great and too extreme  to be expressed  or described by words. It's impossible.  In scriptures often,  They would use  the word like as if  or like or because it's impossible  to describe  Almighty God.  God is not hiding  behind the cloud  from us.  He is hiding  for us.  He is hiding for us to encourage us  to discover Him,  to search Him out  as a precious treasure. Pursuing God is meant to be a sweet,  absorbing, delightful exercise.  This weapon of truth, remember we said the battle is our mind, this weapon of truth,  which is God's self-revelation for us, clears our eyes of faith to see beyond the blocking cloud  and to climb to Mount Zion, which is the place where God can be found. and  the place where  hope dwells and Sabbath rest is experienced. God's mysterious disposition.  And if you don't know that God's mysterious,  you have a small view of him.  He is mysterious. And his mysterious disposition is that he hides  himself. And if you think about it,  the word says he hides himself in nature,  he hid himself in Jesus, and ladies, where is he now?  Where is he? He's in us.  He's hidden himself in us.  We carry him, amen.  Amen.  He is so very active yet so very hidden.  He is truly present and yet so concealed.  The God who hides himself is at work within our life,  but he has hidden himself so effectively  that we can be quite blinded of his activity in our life. When we are faced with our own impotence,  God is often most powerfully present.  He is creating many  situations  and is active in many directions, although He lets us sense none of it.  You imagine these things have just naturally happened.  Both inner and outer conditions of your life are under His control. Since striving, since the striving that we do to please God is for a God that is  hidden,  then our striving must be based on faith, which is unseen, and not on our own efforts, which are seen. We are to strive in faith alone.  So what is faith?  Faith is deep trust. no matter what, no matter what. God is not asking us to have faith for an outcome. He is asking us to have faith in Him, believing in His attributes and the truths that He has revealed to us of Himself. Psalm 121, one says, I choose.  I will lift up my eyes  to the hills  from where my help comes from.  Lift up your eyes to the truths represented on Mount Zion by faith and train your mind to have correct thinking about God according  to our weapon.  So we strive to enter that rest.  Refuse to lift your eyes up to Mount Sinai.  Refuse to accept  fear, condemnation,  and the lie that he is a distant God. Keep God bigger  than any issue and magnify him above it all,  no matter what. Psalm 16, eight says, I have set the Lord  always  before me.  Because he is at my right hand,  he is so close.  I shall not  be  moved. My flesh  also  shall rest in hope. Faith is the fruit  of surrender.  I submit to not looking left or right,  only the Lord that is sitting before me at that table. My  gaze is to be fixed. Sabbath rest is supposed to be a constant state of heart for the believer. We are to protect our rest and our inner peace  at all costs. Don't allow inner  inferior  realities  influence your thoughts or attitudes away from God. When,  and it will happen,  that we do lose  that faith rest, right, that rest, when we do lose our gaze, when we focus on  that railing, because we're butt dust, he knows, he knows we're going to, but he tells us how to get up when Sabbath rest is lost, go back to the thought that took you away, where your humanity was offended at how God is working in your life, and realign your thinking with truth. Psalm 119, 165 says, great peace. have they  that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.  Nothing  shall offend them.  Nothing  shall offend them.  You have to feed yourself only from the table.  He has set before your enemies.  Eat only  who he is and what he is doing  from what he has said he is. Do not feast on trials, do not feast on burdens or unanswered prayer.  No matter how real they are in your life, and we have issues,  all of us do, but they're meant to drive us to see him in him, to fellowship with him.  I challenge you this weekend  to evaluate your thoughts of God. Do they align with the word?  It's easy to sing songs, it's easy to read the word. But if you don't  really make sure that you align with that in your thinking,  you're not going to enter into the Sabbath rest that we're so  wanting and enjoying studying about. Who is he really to you?  So in pursuing  him who hides himself, don't look for great things,  although those may happen. Don't look for things  to be other than what they are, although that might happen. Don't set your expectation on some great experience. That could happen too with God, who knows? He's so funny.  You just never know with him. But don't put your expectation into that. Don't expect anything outward. For God who hides himself  is at work  within you.  He's at work within your life and he is working mightily. Your responsibility  is to cooperate with him  by learning  and responding  to his voice within. That gentle, quiet voice that  voice that seems  so much a part of you that you rarely or you scarcely recognize it as a voice at all. This is Mount Zion where he is found and this is Sabbath rest. Isaiah 11 10 says, his rest shall be glorious. Let's pray. Holy Spirit,  we cannot live this life without you  and without your power. Jesus, you are the ultimate  Sabbath rest. found in you.  And to you, we lift our eyes, we confess that you are the author and you're the finisher of our faith.  And God, Father,  we desire to see your face.  Guide us how to better steward. our relationship with you and we pray this in Jesus name.