Ex 33:14, And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." 
The last time we were in this chapter, before Christmas, we dealt with the exposition of the day of the rest, the Sabbath. It was ordained throughout the Old Testament times as the day in which the people would gather in their homes and celebrate and recount the glorious manner in which the Lord God Almighty had redeemed them from the slavery of Egypt. This is a very forceful picture of an aspect of the rest promised by God. It was in place as the people took God’s example as their model of rest in accordance with the fact that as God rested on the seventh day, so were they to do likewise.
There is more, however, contained in this promise of God as we hope to see in this consideration. The Sabbath is but one component of the way in which God’s presence brings rest into our hearts and minds and beings, as we will go further into this study. His rest is on a variety of levels within our lives as we need to recognize and honor Him for His manifest glory surrounding us.
This morning, let us look to the fact of The Lord’s rest evident in the peace that surrounded the nation of Israel as they took possession of the Promised Land. We will pick up our study with the word spoken to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh by Moses as the rest of the nation was about to cross the Jordan to conquer the Promised Land. These tribes had decided to stay on the other side of the river in the land which they felt was sufficient to meet their needs. 
However, before that land would be theirs, Moses instructed them, in Deut 3:18-22 as to their obligation to the balance of the tribes of Israel. They could have the land of their choice, but they still needed to help the remainder of their brothers in the conquering of the land for the sake of the entire nation.
Deut 3:18-22, "Then I commanded you at that time, saying, 'The Lord your God has given you this land to possess it; all you valiant men shall cross over armed before your brothers, the sons of Israel. 'But your wives and your little ones and your livestock (I know that you have much livestock), shall remain in your cities which I have given you, until the Lord gives rest to your fellow countrymen as to you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God will give them beyond the Jordan. Then you may return every man to his possession, which I have given you.' "And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, 'Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings; so the Lord shall do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross. 'Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.' 
The warriors of the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh were to continue to march forth with all the people until the land was conquered …until the Lord gives rest to your fellow countrymen as to you. They were to go forth in order to bolster and fortify their brethren in the battles and the trials which lay before them. They were to offer full assistance and support in order that the entire nation would have the promised rest of God in the land of His appointment, just as they had in the land which had already been subdued. 
There is a key truth held within this passage that we need to take to heart if we ever want to know the real and vital rest of the Lord in our daily, physical, and spiritual lives on this earth. 'Do not fear them, for the Lord your God is the one fighting for you.' The promise of God to be with us is our assurance of His rest in our lives. If we truly know that we are always in the presence of the Lord and that He is the One Who fights all the battles of our lives, we will know real rest and peace in Him. We will not frustrate or worry or struggle with all the conflicts and the trials and the tribulations that this age continual looses upon us. Rather, we will become enamored with each view of how the Lord rules and overrules in every attack and mêlée. He will prove Himself always without any lapse or loss or lack. 
This is why the Apostle Paul could so confidently encourage and instruct us in Phil 4:4-7 with the full truth of what the presence of the Lord brings in our lives. Phil 4:4-7, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 
Look at it in the light of the counsel of both Moses and the Apostle Paul. Rejoice in the Lord always. No matter what, rejoice in Him. It is not a rejoicing in the trials themselves or in the pain or in the disappointment or in the frustration or the fear. We rejoice in the Lord and in the truth that He is always with us. The Lord is near… just as He promised Moses, He is near us, He is with us, He is holding us close to His heart and He is giving us His rest and His peace. 
On that reality, we are to be anxious for nothing but counting on Him. When we do experience the fears and the doubts and the aggravations and the stresses and the hassles, we are to turn to Him in confident peace and ask Him to deal with our minds and our hearts and thank Him for the fact that He is the One Who is fighting our battles. 
This is the singular and vital promise that needs to become the central and dominating reality in all of us. We need to learn the truth of being thankful, truly and honestly and adoringly thankful for Him in our lives. We need to become wellsprings of thanksgiving to God and to others. It should be the core characteristic that is expressed in our every encounter and endeavor. True thankfulness to God will evidence itself in our being enabled to rest in the every situation and development of our walk on this earth. It will show that we know that He is with us every step of every day. It will be the outward confirmation and substantiation of the fact that we are relying on the Lord as our Defender and our Sustainer and Our Provider and Our Everything. 
As well, true thankfulness is something that is foreign to the inhabitants of this world. Everything is so centered in me and myself and what I want and what I need and what I deserve. It all revolves around how what you and everyone else does affects my well-being. That is so much the emphasis of an ungrateful heart and mind because there is no true satisfaction in what we have in Jesus Christ. There is always a lusting and craving for more and to continue to get and to accumulate saturated with the fear of what we might lose as we are the focal point of our every dealing with others. Set in that self-promotion and self-exaltation, there can be no real thanksgiving for the fact that all is counted as loss for sake of gaining Christ. This we do with all rejoicing and thanksgiving for the fact that we are loved by God.
Again, listen to the Apostle Paul in the Letter to the Philippians, Chapter 3, verses 1-11, as he relates the recognition of the full cost of everything that once mattered to him. It all was revealed as nothing of value in his thanksgiving of knowing Jesus Christ. 
Phil 3:1-11, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 
	There is, expressed in this catalogue of all that he lost, no regret, no lack, no concern for what was of utmost value at the time before his conversion. Rather, there is a thankfulness that he was found in Jesus Christ. All that he had was willingly set aside, counted as nothing for the sake of the inestimable treasure of Jesus. Paul was thankful and he was rejoicing that God so loved him as to make Himself known in the power of the resurrection life of the Only Begotten of The Father. In this, Paul was at rest, knowing the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding. This is the rest that God promised to Moses in the fact of this morning’s passage, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." 
The Apostle Paul was thankful for the presence of the Lord in his life and counted on the Lord to make every way and provision through all the roads that he had to travel. We know the history of the life of this man, all that he had to bear within his physical body for the sake of the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, through it all, even being forsaken by those to whom he committed so many years of teaching and encouragement and fellowship, he still saw the glory of God and rejoiced in the Lord and expressed the most sincere offering of thanksgiving unto God. That is the essence of what it means to know that the presence of the Lord is with us and that His rest and His peace encompasses us.
Returning to the course of the rest promised to the nation of Israel, please turn in your Bibles to Josh 21:43-45. This is one of those passages which we would do well to mark and to underline and commit to the deepest recesses of our hearts. It recounts the summation of the manner in which the Lord went before Israel into the Promised Land and how He conquered all the nations that opposed His people. 
Josh 21:43-45, So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the Lord gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass. …And the Lord gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers…Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass. 
This is the reality of the Lord being with us. We have complete rest on all sides, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We can count on Him to prove Himself always faithful, always just, always Omnipotent, always Omnipresent, and always Omniscient as to the manner of our lives. He will never fail us and He will keep His every promise as detailed throughout His Word! Men may fail us, loved ones may fail us, we often fail ourselves, but God and His promises are sure and true to the very nth degree. He is our only source of life as we rest on His promises.
Finally, for today, in Josh 22:1-5, we see that the Lord supplied all that was necessary in order for the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to return to their land in peace. Josh 22:1-5, Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and said to them, "You have kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, and have listened to my voice in all that I commanded you. You have not forsaken your brothers these many days to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God. And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers, as He spoke to them; therefore turn now and go to your tents, to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan. Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." 
Just as the Lord gave the other tribes of Israel rest all around, so the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh were at rest to return to their families and also enjoy the peace of the Lord upon them. They were to hold fast to the reality that the Lord was with them recognized in the manner in which they would …hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul… So it is in our lives. So be it. 
And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Phil 4:8+9. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you. Amen.