Rest is Found in Christ Alone (Tommy Alderman's Testimony)

Well, good evening. Open your Bibles, please, to Matthew 11 and place your finger in the book of Galatians. Matthew 11 and the book of Galatians. Tonight's message will be a little different than normal. Rather than an expository sermon, I want to share my testimony with you. I want you to know how it was that the Lord saved me some 30 years ago. And I pray that the Lord might use it to bring glory to Himself and that He might also use it to serve as a mirror to some of you. Perhaps some here will see or hear something familiar, something that convicts you, something that then gives you hope. Let's read Matthew 11 verses 28 to 30.

Matthew 11 verses 28 to 30. This is Jesus speaking and He says, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden," I'm reading from the legacy standard version, "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 will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." I grew up in a Southern Baptist home with a mom and a dad who were very well respected, who were outwardly moral, treated each other with kindness, and were very good to me. They raised me with discipline. I got the belt from my dad when I needed it, and I needed it more than a few times.

My mother was an absolute ninja with an azalea switch. I thought I was pretty nimble, but pal, when she started flicking that wrist with that azalea switch, there was no escape. No amount of dancing, no amount of leaping would cause her to miss a lick. Once upon a time, I thought she grew azaleas because she thought they were pretty. I came to understand she had them because they provided an endless supply of weaponry. But I promise I deserve every switching I got and more. Mom and dad brought me to church almost every Sunday morning, as was customary where I grew up just outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a little town called Baker.

It was just expected that any upstanding citizen would have his family in church. But I don't think I ever remember going to church on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night during my childhood. I reckon Sunday mornings were enough to meet community expectations. I didn't understand this at the time, but neither of my parents were Christians then. Neither had been born again. I believe my father was born again not long before he died in 2005. My mom died in 2014, and though she heard the gospel from me and from Patty, I don't know that she was ever converted, and that, of course, saddens me.

When I was young, they were both what is commonly referred to as cultural Christians. A cultural Christian is one who kind of has a Christian worldview, a person who lives an outwardly moral life. Neither of my parents drank alcohol, for instance. I don't remember either of them cursing when I was young. And my dad once came and got me and my best friend out of the middle of a movie theater, about a third of the way into the movie because he didn't approve of the film that we had chosen to see. We were 15, 16 years old, and boy, he marched us right out of there, and I thought I would die of embarrassment.

So while I never saw my parents fuss and fight that I recall, and I never saw them drink alcohol or curse or treat anyone with anything other than fairness and honor, I also never saw them reading a Bible. Never saw or heard them pray. I also don't recall having any spiritual conversations with either of them until I was an adult and had been born again, and that one didn't go well. More about that later if time permits. But growing up in the Bible Belt and attending church regularly, at least on Sunday mornings, did expose me to some level of biblical truth, although incomplete and unexplained.

I've told people many times that I got saved five times before I was actually born again. Maybe because my memory isn't what it should be, but I can't remember now whether I really walked out five times or if it was more like three and I just rounded up for effect. But I did respond multiple times to altar calls, and I was even baptized multiple times as a young person and a teenager. And while the outside world thought I was a morally upright young man, respectful and so forth, on the inside my heart was a cauldron of wickedness. I secretly participated in gross immorality.

My mind was often occupied with wicked imagination and my thinking was totally corrupt and perverse. And no one knew it but me and of course God. My language was foul and profane, but I even hid that well as a young person making sure to avoid cursing in front of adults and such. But around my friends every other word that came out of my mouth was profane, and yet somehow I thought I was a Christian. Jeremiah 17.9 says the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can know it? Proverbs 16.2 says all the ways of a man are pure in his own sight, but Yahweh weighs the motives.

Is your heart deceiving you like my heart deceived me? Does your heart try to convince you that your ways are pure even though your conscience says otherwise? I hate it when people say follow your heart. Don't do that. Don't trust your heart. Trust Christ in His word. When Patty and I were married neither of us had been yet converted to Christ, but both of us thought we were Christians because of decisions we had made earlier in life. And again for me I'd made that decision on multiple occasions.

I became a police officer and even a dare officer attempting to influence children to live drug free and have good character, all while my own character was a mirage. It was a lie in fact. Oh I had a good reputation for sure. I was a public figure of sorts and spoke to crowds of all sizes and people would clap and compliment me on whatever it was that I said, telling me that I was such a good influence in the community and telling Patty all the time how lucky she was to have me, right Patty? I think maybe at first she might have agreed, but after a few years with me she began to roll her eyes when people said such things to her.

See those people had no idea about the pornography that I brought into my home. And by the way fellows if you watch pornography you are an adulterer because Jesus said if you look at a woman to lust after her you've committed adultery in your heart. These people had no idea that while I was out saving the world and other people's kids, Patty was at home by herself with two small children. And those people also had no idea that when I finally did get home I had nothing left in the tank for my own family and I would just zone out.

One of my most heartbreaking memories is being out in the public in my police uniform at some public event, maybe it was a festival or a fair, and Patty and I were walking side by side and she reached out for my hand and I pulled mine back because somehow in my corrupt mind I thought that for people to see me holding my wife's hand in public while in uniform would be a bad thing. That was an awful thing to do to her and she didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve any of the pain that I caused her in those days and there was a lot of it. Around the five year mark we were on the precipice of divorce. I didn't really know that though.

See in my self centered world I thought everything was fine. Well I suppose I probably knew things weren't great but I had no idea because I was stupid, self absorbed, self righteous and self deluded. I had no idea that Patty was actually considering leaving me. Then something happened to her but God. Now I won't presume to tell you all the details of Patty's conversion story. That's her story to tell.

But it does tie into mine so suffice it to say that the pain and turmoil that I was causing her combined with her never having dealt with the death of her father when she was eight years old on Christmas Day no less, drove her into a deep, dark depression. A mutual friend recommended a Christian psychiatrist for her and the psychiatrist immediately recommended pastoral counseling believe it or not. We thank God that he did. We had been attending a local Baptist church where a couple of godly police supervisors of mine were active members. God used those men in my life in very meaningful ways over the years.

The church was really more like a Baptist costal church where they sang praise music and raised their hands and such. Patty began counseling with the pastor there. As a result of his counseling and the Lord's mercy Patty eventually cried out to God and in that crying out she met Christ and was converted. Shortly thereafter she confronted me with the most jarring words I have ever heard. She told me that she still loved me but I was no longer her source of happiness. It was a gut punch to me and my sizable ego. She also told me that she would be going to church faithfully whether I went with her or not.

She said she wanted me to go too but she was going regardless of what I did. Patty and I talked about this last night and she said that since Cameron was two at the time and Chelsea was around six months or so what she probably told me was that if I wasn't going to church I would be keeping the kids while she went. She is probably right about that. Over the course of the weeks and perhaps a few months that followed Patty's conversion I was looking at a different woman. She had a piece about her that I had never seen before. She will tell you it was a piece she had never had before and I knew that what had happened to my wife was real.

I also knew that I was totally miserable. I had trouble sleeping. I was losing weight if I recall correctly. My stomach was in knots all the time. I was totally and completely shaken and didn't know which end was up. I knew somehow that I was not the man I thought I was. I was not the man that people kept telling me I was. I was not the man that I pretended to be at all. At some point and I really don't remember exactly when or exactly why I began reading the Bible. I suppose maybe it was an attempt to investigate what had happened to Patty. Maybe it was just me searching for something true since my whole life had been exposed as a lie.

I'm really not sure all these years later but whatever the precise reason I began reading scripture and because I didn't really know where to start I just started in the first book of the New Testament the book of Matthew. A lot of that is so fuzzy now the details of how and why I ended up reading the Bible but here's what I know for sure. Here's what I remember like it was yesterday. When I read Matthew 11 28 to 30 I knew I was lost and without hope and heading for hell. Let's read those verses again please. Verse 28 Jesus says 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'm gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. In verse 28 Christ said if you come to him he will give you rest. Then in verse 29 he said that one would find rest for his soul by coming to him. When I read those words I immediately thought I don't have rest and although I didn't really understand what it meant I mean I had a wrong idea about what rest he was talking about.

I couldn't explain what it meant to not have Christ or what it meant to come to Christ but even though I didn't understand what that meant I knew that I didn't have Christ and suddenly I desperately wanted to. That was I think around 7 30 in the morning and I think it was December the 9th 1992. I know for sure it was December 92 and I'm pretty sure it was December 9th and I think I called our pastor that very day and asked to speak with him. Maybe it was the next day within the next few days but I called him pretty quickly and I was very anxious to meet with him.

He agreed and we met fairly often for a while and I was just consuming scripture and asking him questions mostly about what I needed to do to be saved and Chris Shepherd will appreciate this as I recall he didn't say much. Rather he just let me talk and let the Holy Spirit of God do his work. Whether it was on the morning of December the 9th 1992 at 7 30 or sometime in the few weeks that followed I'm not certain but sometime during that period I was born again. Just prior to those days you have to understand this I was dead as a doorknob in my trespasses and sins. I was profane.

Oh I wanted the community respect that came from an association with church but I didn't want Christ and suddenly I did want Christ more than anything. Although I wrestled with some sins for sometime after that and of course I still wrestle with sin we all do. There were some sins that fell off of me in a moment of time almost like taking off an old garment. Suddenly my mouth was no longer profane. Not long before I would cuss a blue streak and I mean all the big hairy five dollar cuss words. I had a nasty nasty mouth. Then instantly my heart was clean so my tongue was therefore clean too.

One of my favorite stories is that not long after my conversion I was in a backyard shed at our house working on something maybe a model train set or something but I had a hammer and I hit my thumb and when I tell you hit my thumb I mean I hit it. Split my thumbnail open blood went everywhere and when it happened I yelled "Ow!" and in that instant it occurred to me that I didn't cuss. Patty was inside the house and I just had to tell her what had happened so I went running into the house dripping blood all over her nice clean floor yelling "I'm really saved! I'm really saved! I didn't cuss!

I didn't cuss!" I was reading so much scripture in those days I had already encountered Matthew 12 34 that says "For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart." King James I think is what I read at the time out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So I knew that my heart had been cleansed or made new even as a young Christian because that verse made sense to me. What an incredible moment of assurance the Lord is so kind to do stuff like that. By the way sir or ma'am if your mouth speaks profane words it's because your heart is filled with profanity. What's in there comes out.

If your mouth speaks harsh angry words it's because your heart is filled with harshness and bitterness and anger and you may need a new heart a clean heart. Christ had changed me. I was a different man I don't know how my eyes looked like George. George had new eyeballs I don't know if I got new eyeballs but I got a new tongue. He had given me a new heart a clean heart. You know what else he gave me? A clean conscience and you know what a clean conscience will give you? Can any of you guess? Rest. He gave me rest for my soul. My turmoil was ended. I slept well that night.

I began to learn how to love my wife and children and how to be a husband and father. I haven't got there but I started learning and I need to emphasize something here. God did all of that not me. I had nothing to do with it. He took the initiative. I was dead. What can a dead man do? Nothing. But God who is rich in mercy made me alive in Christ. He of his own accord in power made me alive and gave me a hunger I didn't have before. A hunger for his word. He gave me a thirst I didn't have before. A thirst for his righteousness. Though I couldn't explain that at the time all I knew was that I needed righteousness and I wasn't righteous.

And eventually I learned that the righteousness I needed and wanted was his righteousness which he gave to me. In Matthew 5, 6 Christ says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied." In John 6, 35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst." I always needed righteousness but until he regenerated me, until he made me alive, until I was born again, I never wanted righteousness. But as soon as I wanted it, he gave it to me. He gave me himself. I love Jeremiah 33, 16. Jeremiah refers to the Lord.

His name is the Lord is our righteousness. Did you get that? Not the Lord will give us righteousness or the Lord will make us righteous, although both of those are true. No, it's Jer...it is the Lord is our righteousness. What an incredible mercy and grace that he has. Now looking back at our verses in Matthew, it's important to understand that the rest mentioned by Christ in verses 28 and 29 are really not the sort of rest I was even seeking, that I knew I didn't have. What he was describing was rest from trying to earn righteousness.

The Jewish traditions had become so complicated and so burdensome they were like a really heavy load that people tried to carry in order to be right with God. Christ says in those verses that by coming to him, and the phrase "come to me" is synonymous with other such phrases like "trust in me, believe in me, hear me." What he was saying in verse 28 and 29 is that by coming to him, believing in him, trusting in him for your salvation, you will find rest from all your human efforts of self-righteousness. All you're working to try to please God on your own, because we are saved by grace through faith, not by works lest any man boast.

As we learn in Ephesians 2. But God in his mercy used my limited understanding of the passage to knock me off my horse. I might not have understood what Jesus meant exactly, but I knew I did not have rest for my soul or in my soul. Since that time God has continued to be so gracious to Patty and me. We spent some time in charismatic circles. I may or may not have jumped over a pew or three before. And by the way, there are people that we were in contact then at that time that remained friends to this day, that loved us, still love us, and we love them, and consider them friends and brothers and sisters.

The Lord over the years though slowly started reforming my faith as it grew. That's a long story we don't have time for. But do ask me sometime how my Reformation journey started with Ray Comfort. The short version is that I love Ray Comfort who I believe will have a stack of crowns in heaven taller than he is. Of course he'll lay them all at the feet of Christ. But Ray answered some key questions for me regarding whether people could lose their salvation. Spoiler alert, you can't. Well, Ray often quoted some guy named John MacArthur. Y'all ever heard of him? So I started devouring everything I could get from Johnny Mack.

And over the course of time Johnny Mack would talk about this guy named R.C. Sproul. Only R.C. I ever heard of was R.C. Cola. So I started listening to Sproul and then Alistair Begg and you know on and on and on and well here we are. That's a really short version. I'll be happy to share the longer version with you. Just ask me later. Can we read those verses one more time please? Verse 28. 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 will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Do those verses hit anyone here this evening the same way they hit me 30 years ago? Is anyone here like I was living a so-called respectable life on the outside in front of people but inside your field of corruption and you know it? Is your life a lie like mine was? Do you attend church here because it gives you cover maybe with your employer or with your family or just within the community? Do you like I did know the right things to say and the right things to do to make people believe that you are a morally upstanding person but when no one's looking you're unglutton for immorality and the profane. Someone is looking by the way.

Does the one who made your eyes not see? He sees everything. Does the one who made your ears not hear? He hears everything including your thoughts. You like I did might think you're hiding. You might think you've got everyone fooled but he knows. He sees, he hears, he knows. The eyes of Yahweh are in every place says Proverbs 15.3. If that describes you when you read those verses do you have rest? Is your soul at rest? If that describes you I know it's not because mine was not. Mine was in turmoil and if you were like I was then yours is in turmoil too. The good news is it doesn't have to be.

You can cry out to him right this minute and find rest for your soul. The Bible says that whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You can be saved from your perversion. You can be saved from your pretending. You can be saved from your corrupt and immoral heart. You can be saved from all of your sin. Your tortured conscience can be made clean. Your tongue can be made clean. You can be saved from the wrath of God that he has been storing up for you that you have been piling up. If you will but turn to him, come to him, believe on him, hear him. He will create in you a new clean heart and you can be born again. Stop faking it.

Stop pretending. Stop acting. Surrender yourself to him today. Why won't you do that? You know I was going to ask you to turn to the Galatians for a brief look at some things but we don't have time for that. Let me just say this. There is a connection between the words of Christ in Matthew 11, 28 and 30 and the book of Galatians. A few months from now we're going to be doing a small group study on the book of Galatians and I wanted to set the stage for that tonight so I'll just do it in this way. Christ said that he is the source of salvation not you.

Christ said that all the ways that men try to come to him on their own terms are false and heavy and burdensome and that he alone can give a man rest in his soul. In the book of Galatians the Apostle Paul addresses the Judaizers who said basically yeah we believe in Christ but you also have to be circumcised and follow the Jewish food regulations if you want to be saved.

Paul brilliantly counters their arguments in the book of Galatians and it's important for us to get the message of the book deep down inside of us today because while we might not have people in our community or realm of life who argue that you must be circumcised to be saved we do have people in our realm who say you must be baptized to be saved or say you must go to church on Saturdays to be saved or any number of things. They say there are things you must do to have rest. Paul says no sir rest is found in Christ alone and that's the title of this message tonight. Rest is found in Christ alone.

Christ says in Matthew 11 that he will give you rest from your human efforts to obtain righteousness. Paul says in Galatians that only Christ and Christ alone with nothing added can give you rest. I look forward to exploring that further with you soon. In the meantime I beg you come to Christ tonight and find rest for your souls. Let's pray.