Gen 28:15, And behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." We will finish this morning with this consideration of the great promise that God made to Jacob, soon to be Israel, and throughout his generations to us in Jesus Christ. We have spent several weeks with it in terms of tracing it through the Old Testament and into the New Testament. Today, we will tie up a few miscellaneous aspects with regard to the joy that this promise is to have in our lives as the people of God. 
We will return to an Old Testament passage that should hearten our spirits and our thoughts with the incalculable immensity of what the abiding presence of God means to us. Please turn to 1 Kings 8:54-60 and let us read it together. 1 Kings 8:54-60, And it came about that when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and supplication to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread toward heaven. And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, "Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised; not one word has failed of all His good promise, which He promised through Moses His servant. May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers. And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. 
This was the blessing and its results after Solomon installed the Ark of the Covenant into the holiest of holies in the newly constructed temple of God. The glory of the Lord had filled the house and caused even the priests to exit because they could not stand and minister in such an overwhelming presence of God. Solomon had prayed, then he addressed the assembly with the emphasis on the reality that God was certainly with His people in a most solemn and holy and powerful way. The words of Solomon should still ring forth in our hearts with respect to the fact that God so loves and blesses us with Himself as His Beloved Ones in Jesus Christ. 
Let us look at this blessing in a little more detail as we consider just how glorious is this promise of God’s being with us always. Yes, this passage was given to the assembly of the Children of Israel, but, as we have seen in Jesus Christ, it is just as valid in our lives as it was in their experiences and history. Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel… While Solomon was describing the physical rest that was in place in terms of the habitation of the Promised Land, we can, as well, bless God for the rest that we have received in Him.    
The Psalmist gives a description as to the heart of what this rest entails in Ps 37:5-9, Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret, it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. 
How often do we complain to the Lord that it seems as if those who do evil benefit from their schemes and their atrocities? We compare ourselves to them in terms of why do we have to suffer and undergo all the hardships and the difficulties that arise from doing the right thing, while they can sin and seem to prosper? We struggle with the Lord in our minds and hearts and frustrate over the outward inequity of the whole situation. We put ourselves into turmoil and anguish because it just isn’t congruent to our conceptions of fairness and what is right.
However, in this passage, and others in scripture, we are encouraged to not lose sight of the fact that we are to trust God despite all the appearances to the contrary. We are to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the faithfulness and the eternal justice of God. As we wait upon Him, so will we realize that we can rest in all that we perceive as unjust in this world because we know the One Who will judge all humanity in His perfect Holiness and Righteousness. Our peace and our security and our vindication are set in The Lord God Almighty as we trust, obey, and rest in Him
As well, the Psalmist encourages himself, and us, in the fact that when we are troubled and depressed and striving and struggling with our thoughts and with our fears and with our anxieties, we can fully and freely turn to God and receive His rest and His peace of mind as we consider His faithful and abiding presence and protection in our lives. Ps 116:7-9, Return to your rest, O my soul, For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For Thou hast rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord In the land of the living. 
As we concentrate on the fact of God’s hand in operation in our lives, we can face the challenge of walking …In the land of the living… We will know His strength and His wisdom and His safekeeping. That is how we come to know His rest in our lives.
Next, we read that wonderful extension of this promised rest in the abiding presence of God as proclaimed by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt 11:27-30. Let us read and feast upon this great truth together. Matt 11:27-30, "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light." 
Implicit in this glorious pledge is the fact that this reality is in place because it will be Jesus Christ, through the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit, who will carry our burden as we obey and trust Him. It is the assurance that we are never alone and that we are not expected to make our own way on the earth. We are to trust God to see us through every mountain pass and valley floor. There will be very many strenuous, arduous, and trying circumstances and dilemmas that will fill our laborious and demanding march through the perils of this realm, but we are not alone. We are not expected to make it by our own efforts and wills and abilities. We are to count on the Lord and to seek His way and His guidance and His wisdom and His grace and His mercy to meet the needs of each day. In so doing we will know His peace and His rest in the gloriousness of His yoke of love and power. 
This, then, brings us to the fact that we are to experience rest on this earth. There are those who feel that rest is not a requirement to life as we know it. There are those philosophical and practical arbiters who declare, with all sincerity that life is a constant struggle for survival, that we can never let our guard down, so to speak. We must ever labor or we will be washed away with the tidal waves of change and evolutionary transformation. In their minds, to rest is to succumb to the factors of death, where there will be nothing else but rest.
However, as Christians, as those who know the very presence of God, we have the very example of Our Creator as our source of the knowledge and encouragement that we are to find our rest in Him. As the Writer to the Hebrews so eloquently details in Heb 4:9+10, There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 
Just as God created and then rested from His labors, so are we designed, not only for the physical rest from our daily grind, but for the refreshment of being joined together with God, in His rest, in Jesus Christ. We enjoy the very rest of God in His creation, in the fact that He is satisfied with all that He has done. To us, the rest of God covers our hearts, our minds, our thoughts, our energies, and our entire spectrum of life, now and evermore. In the very person of Jesus Christ, by the promise of God’s eternal presence with us on this earth and in heaven, we know the peace and the serenity of His Omniscience and His Omnipotence in His Omnipresence. 
In harmony with this reality, we have the complete assurance of all that He has done and will do in our lives …according to all that He promised; not one word has failed of all His good promise… Because He has promised to be with us, we are absolutely able to count on Him in all His grace and goodness and mercy to cause us to abide with Him. Our whole existence is set in His Word of promise in Jesus Christ. As such, we know that every Word of His is our reality of life. There is no wavering with Him. There is no possible means of His plans and purposes coming to naught. There are no contingency plans. His word is absolute truth and the very bedrock of our being.   
As the Apostle Paul so encourages us in 2 Cor 1:18-20, But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us —  by me and Silvanus and Timothy —  was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. 
	God, Who has promised us all in Jesus Christ, will fulfill, will maintain, and will accomplish the totality of His every Word. There is no doubt of His ability and His resolve and His love as evidenced in the very death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son Whom He gave to this very end. All those precious truths that the Holy Spirit opens in reality in our lives, declared throughout the entirety of His Word, especially including the very promise of His abiding presence that we have been studying, is ours in Jesus Christ. 
	Nothing and no one can remove us from being the blessed recipients of His so great love. This is the very core of the extension of the very presence of God in our lives as voiced by Our Lord in John 10:27-30. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. "I and the Father are one." 
	This brings us face-to-face with the expressed reason for God’s so faithful treatment and care and presence in our lives…that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. …so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. In God’s tremendous dealings with us in the just and complete fulfillment of all His promises, we become those living witnesses and the testimony of Who God is in this whole of creation. 
	Our daily walk with Him, covered in His love and His grace and His mercy shows forth, unto this whole universe, that God is compassionate and faithful and just. It proclaims that He is absolutely and solely worthy of all reverence and trust and obedience and worship and praise and honor and glory. He does what He does in our lives because He can not do otherwise. He must be true to His very nature and Character. 
Because He is love, we are loved. Because He is just, we are treated with justice. Because He is Omnipotent, that power is evidenced in our daily walk. Because He is Omniscient, our lives are covered and kept according to His divine knowledge and wisdom as it floods our minds and our prayers. As well, because He is Omnipresent, He makes Himself known in our lives, in His abiding presence, through all those daily touches which reveal Himself to us and to others. 
That is why we cannot earn or decree that we have any right of our own good works to deserve to come into His presence. This is why we are never enabled to stand against all the waves of this world’s destruction in our own clout or resolve. There is no means available to us to know the abiding presence of God apart from the fact that He makes Himself the very fabric of our lives through the freely given gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. In this truth, He shows forth Himself to His glory on this earth and throughout all of creation. 
No one can argue against His existence in the lives of those Whom He has redeemed unto Himself. The enemy can use all kinds of twisted and fabricated scientific theories and manipulations, but it will not avail against the very certainty of those who know God in the living relationship of Jesus Christ alive and glorified! Every detail of our beings is centered in the fact that because God is with us, in truth and in reality, our lives stand forth as the active verification and evidence that God is Who He is, now and evermore! So be it!
And behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 115:14+15. May the Lord give you increase, You and your children. May you be blessed of the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. Amen.