distracted -sabbath
Notes
Transcript
Text: Hebrews 4:1-16
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Consider with me how completely wildly different the culture tells us to spend our time. We fill our lives with striving to get to the next thing. Some of us hit the ground running. touching everything in our paths affecting everything we come across, knowing that we went through this exact same process the day before but never asking if this is really what we want to do.
Understand, we live in a society today that has engrained in us a measure of success that is neither healthy nor rewarding. Heavy laden and tired we charge into the work taking on the yoke of peoples expectations, past failures we are trying to avoid, and the nagging voice of the critic that may or may not have ever formed a work of synicim.
It is to this person that Jesus calls - Come unto me...
It is the same word that your spouse may be saying to you. Truth be told in my early marriage I thought nothing of bringing my work to bed. While my wife lay in the bed next to me in the evening I would tap away all the while using the thin excuse of serving God. You could imagine my surprise that my conscience didn’t support me when I came face to face with the reality that I had no time for my wife. I could hear her loving voice come to me...
Jesus looks to many Christians today who know more about the inner workings of their Selfones than they do the inner working of their own heart.
He calls to the worried, over worked, over entertained, neck craned from looking a their phone, He calls to the one that uses all these things because they are running from a convicted heart, fear of failure, or an allergy to boredom.
He says Come to me...
It is the call to you from your children when we need just five more minutes on social media when our child who will remain this way for only about five more minutes calls to show us his creation from mud.
Chapter 4 is a continuation of the conversation in chapter 3 remember that the chapters are not inspired. Chapter 3 brings us to this conclusion…
So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
Why is this the position that God would take on the judgment of His own people.
The conclusion of the author unbelief is a great wickedness. and is punishable by keeping on outside the rest that God offers.
I. Unbelievers do not enter into the rest of God.
This is a great fear that should rattle us to the bone. If we fall short of his rest that we are a people to be mourned.
They had the gospel preached to them.
If you don’t know that Word of God is a pretty big deal…
Scripture says in the 12-13 verse.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
His word is a searching dividing tool. It is alive and powerful and sharp. If this is the power of the work of God’s Word than how is it possible to fall short of his rest. His word is powerful enough and strong enough. The issue is found in statement.
“…the word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” - 2
You see we will fall short of the grace of God without belief in God and his Word.
II. Believers enter into the rest of God.
What is meant by this rest.
David Guzik points to the old Puritan commentator John Owen described five features of this rest for the believer:
• Rest means peace with God.
• Rest means freedom from a servile, bondage-like spirit in the worship and service of God.
• Rest is deliverance from the burden of Mosaic observance.
• Rest is the freedom of worship according to the gospel.
• Rest is the rest that God Himself enjoys.
Guzik, D. (2013). Hebrews (Heb 4:1–2). Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik.
When the author speaks of rest he is not speaking of Heaven. Rather the rest that you and I enjoy today is a sense of heaven. You could say that heaven is a type of the rest that God’s wants us to experience here.
Notice that we know this is not a speaking of heaven because in the images that the author gives there was work to Follow.
God’s rest on the Sabbath. 4-
Verse 4 is a quote from Genesis 2:2-3
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
This rest resembled God’s sabbath rest. The final words of verse 3 refer to God’s rest since the creation of the world. This was the rest that the Creator enjoyed when he had completed his work of creation. This means rest cannot be defined as inactivity; rather, it involves the sense of completion. The rest Christians can enjoy today comes when we willingly take on Jesus’ yoke (Matt. 11:28–30). This sense of completion experienced in taking on Jesus’ yoke is a benefit which comes to those who have experienced salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Joshua’s deliverance into Rest.
The author quotes David in vs 5
For he is our God;
And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
To day if ye will hear his voice,
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation,
And as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
When your fathers tempted me,
Proved me, and saw my work.
Hebrews 4:6 is speaking of Moses trying to bring the people of Israel into the promised land. vs 8 says that Jesus brings them into rest. This is no accident. The Greek name Jesus is Joshua. This is why it was so common. Joshua was a common name because Joshua was a national hero.
CIT: Rest in not a place it is a person.
But it reminds us that Rest is not a place. Rest is a person. Those that are in Christ are a people who have rest. The rest from the sin and its shame; the rest of carrying the burden of the law; the rest from appeasing God in our righteousness is handled. While we are at it. So is the rest from producing the fruit of the Spirit, true righteousness is not found in trying harder but in dying to self and letting Christ live through us.
Rest is to no longer to continue in works. (10)
Entering this rest means no longer needing to work. The idea isn’t that there is no longer any place for doing good works.
We know that we are saved in Christ Jesus unto good works.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
The idea is that there is no longer any place for works as a basis for our own righteousness.
Rest is to continue in Believing. (11)
“lest we fall after the same example of unbelief.” We could all fall into unbelief. Avoid this snare by Fear falling short of the trap of unbelief.
Here is a trap that I see in our culture today. Our level of work is based on a lack of Christian faith.
There are people under the sound of my voice that
1. place your value in the amount of hours of your work.
Welcome to the rest in Christ.
Your value is not in how many widget you make or sell. Your value is not found in the heights of the ladder you climb. Your value is found in the person of Jesus Christ and the lengths he would go to to save your soul.
2. use work as a way to avoid the more needed work in your heart.
You are distracting yourself so that you can’t get captured by a savior who is setting you free from that internal pain inside. You hopped out of one addiction and find yourself still numbing the pain that you are running from.
This is why it is so important that we…
Rest is to cling to the Word of Grace.
His word is powerful to anyone that is willing to believe it.
What we really need is some healing that has kept people distracted.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
CIT: Rest in not a place it is a person.