Where is Peace? (Heb 4:1-16)

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you, please turn it to Hebrews 4:1-16.

And as you turn there, let me give you some background information to prepare you for where we are this morning.

As you know, last week we started a mini-series to prepare our hearts for Christmas; and in doing so, we’ve focused in on the concept of peace. Last week, we answered the question, “what is peace?” And we learned from Scripture that peace isn’t just a feeling, and it’s more than just a lack of interpersonal conflict or militaristic war. Rather, true, genuine peace is something that occurs only as a result of what Jesus does on the cross for us—what He does for us by saving us from sin and its consequences.

Or, in other words, peace is something that we only find in Jesus despite our desire of trying to find peace in other sources. Whether we look for peace in substances or relationships with others, or in the political system—true peace, lasting peace, eternal peace is found only in Jesus Christ because it is the result of His work on the cross for us. It is the reconciliation of man with God—that’s what true peace is and it’s only when we experience that peace can we then share true, genuine peace with those around us.

This morning, we’re going to continue this series on peace and the question that we’re trying to answer this morning is, “where is peace?” And I don’t mean this in a metaphysical way or even a purely spiritual way; I mean, where do we go in which we experience true, lasting, eternal peace?

Hebrews 4:1-16 answers that question for us, but instead of using the term peace, the author of Hebrews uses the idea of rest, which we know to be referring to a more specific idea, a sabbath rest. And as he speaks about this sabbath rest, he isn’t just thinking about us resting on the Lord’s Day, but rather, he’s thinking about an eternal rest—meaning, he’s thinking about a true, genuine, eternal rest or what we call peace. Hebrews 4:1-16 is all about peace and where we find it/

But before I get ahead of myself, let’s read the text.

Hebrews 4 ESV

1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

As we study this passage together this morning, we’re going to divide it into two parts: (1) An Exhortation to Enter God’s Rest (1-13) and (2) Our Great High Priest (14-16). Now, I will admit that it’ll seem like vv. 14-16 are better suited for the next chapter, but by the time we wrap everything up this morning, I hope you’ll plainly see that the exhortation to enter God’s rest is only possibly because of Jesus being our Great High Priest—they’re intricately linked to one another. What this sermon will do is two-fold (1) it will remind us that the location of the peace that we’re looking for isn’t here and (2) it’ll encourage us to keep moving towards that peace by following Jesus.

Prayer for Illumination

The book of Hebrews is an anonymous letter written to Jewish people in the first century. Because the letter isn’t signed, we don’t actually know who the author is, but some have suggested Priscilla, some believe Paul wrote it because of some of it’s similarities to his writings, I personally believe Apollos wrote it based on the sermonic style and the knowledge that Apollos was a very eloquent speaker. Regardless, the book of Hebrews was written with a very specific purpose to the Jewish people, and the purpose is that of convincing the Jewish people to believe in Jesus Christ.

The whole purpose of this letter, which seems like a sermon, is to convince Jewish unbelievers to believe; and that idea informs the overarching argument of the book. So, if you read the book of Hebrews in its entirety, what you’ll see is this:

In ch. 1—Previously in history, God spoke to our forefathers by way of prophets, but now, in the last days, which includes today, He speaks through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the one whom created all things alongside the Father, Jesus is the one who radiates the glory of God because He is God. Jesus is the one who is sitting at the right hand of God reigning on high.

Or, in other words, the author starts with this idea that Jesus is preeminent or Jesus is better or Jesus is greater than all others—and as he continues throughout the text, he builds and builds on this idea.

This concept, that Jesus is better continues throughout chs. 1-3 with the end of ch. 3 focusing on this idea of a sabbath rest.

And because the author is speaking to Jewish people, he ties this idea of a sabbath rest into the lack of rest the Jewish people experienced as they wandered in the wilderness.

The idea is that there was a promised rest given to the nation of Israel, but because of their unbelief, they were unable to enter into that rest; they were unable to enjoy what had been promised to their nation.

The reality that the author of Hebrews mentions going into ch. 4, is that no human can actually bring us into this sabbath rest, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a sabbath rest.

Rather, it means that instead of looking for that sabbath rest here, we must look elsewhere for that sabbath rest; we must look elsewhere for peace.

An Exhortation to Enter God’s Rest (1-13)

Our text starts with a statement that builds the foundation for the rest of the text, “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” And we’ll pause here.

The author therefore informs us that he’s not starting a new idea, but rather he’s building on what he has already spoken.

That idea goes back to ch. 3 with this idea concerning a rest that the nation of Israel didn’t enter into because of their unbelief.

That even though the nation of Israel had witnessed amazing works of God through the Exodus, they still refused to believe; and thus, they couldn’t enter into the Promised Land; they couldn’t enter into what the Bible calls their rest.

The author of Hebrews applies this idea in ch. 3 with the exhortation that everyone checks their hearts to be sure that they aren’t unbelievers as well—his exhortation is that they check their hearts to be sure that they aren’t hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

In v. 1, he’s reiterating that idea—that because there is still hope to enter into this rest, they need to be alert about their own heart condition.

Because just like they heard the good news of the Promised Land, we’ve heard the good news of the ultimate Promised Land.

Or, in other words, they had heard that there was the promise of peace in a land flowing with milk and honey, but they didn’t actually obtain that promise because they didn’t believe in Jesus.

Likewise, you’ve heard the promise of peace in a heavenly kingdom, but before you just assume that you’re assured this promise of peace, check your heart.

As v. 3 says, only “we who have believed enter that rest.”

Only those who do as Romans 10:9–11 says—confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.””

There is a promised rest, but just hearing about the rest doesn’t do anything, it’s hearing of the promise and believing that actually allows one to enter into the rest promised by God.

The text then continues with a series of quotes, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘they shall not enter my rest.’” and “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

The exhortation is rather simple—you’ve already heard the promise of God given to those who genuinely believe, now, be sure that you’re a partaker of that promise through your belief or your faith in Jesus Christ.

Because, the reality, according to Hebrews 4 is that no human leader can bring you into the promised rest of God, only Jesus can bring you into the true, genuine rest, the sabbath rest, what we call peace. True, genuine peace, sabbath peace is available only through Jesus because Jesus alone brings you into the Promised Land.

The implication then, which we see in vv. 9-10 is that this rest is not here, but rather it’s somewhere that we are not. We see that implication in two ways:

First, v. 9 says that the Sabbath rest remains, not that we have it yet, but there’s still a potentiality for it.

There is a future aspect of this rest or what we call peace, and so we know that those of us still alive on this side of eternity have yet to experience it to it’s full extent.

Or, in other words, while we experience parts of peace today because of Jesus, His sacrificial atonement on the cross for our sins, and really just the common grace given to all people; we will never experience rest or peace to it’s full extent until we enter into the Promised Land.

Second, v. 10, says that those who have already entered God’s rest have rested from his work just like God did; and anyone still alive realizes that this world involves toil even after retiring from vocational careers.

Meaning, that even after finishing our vocational careers, living in this world requires work, which shouldn’t surprise us as God specifically stated that living our lives would be that of toil in the curse itself.

Though we’ll experience some of the peace or the rest to come, we cannot experience the fullest extent of that rest on this side of eternity.

So, the exhortation given by the author of Hebrews is simple—since that rest is yet to be, let’s be sure that we actually do “enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”

The meaning is rather simple, since there’s still an opportunity for repentance and belief at this moment, let’s actually repent and believe.

The idea is to be sure that we don’t just have the mental knowledge of the truth, but rather we genuinely believe with our hearts that this is the truth concerning Jesus and we genuinely repent of our sins and believe in Him.

And the reason for being sure of our salvation is found in vv. 12-13, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

The reasoning for being sure that we genuinely believe is because God knows whether we genuinely believe or not. This idea of His Word being alive and active, the idea of His Word being sharper than any two-edged sword. This idea that nothing is hidden from God’s sight all speak of the same thing.

God sees you, He knows your heart, He knows whether you believe, you can’t trick Him and you can’t hide from Him.

Unlike how you might be able to trick me or trick our fellow church members, the reality is that God sees all things and we’re all “naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

It’s actually kind of a terrifying thought if you really think about it. That the all-knowing, omniscient, Creator-God knows everything that you think, everything that you feel, everything that you believe…unless you already know for sure that you believe in Jesus Christ. Knowing that you can’t hide from God would be utterly terrifying, but if you know Jesus, if you’ve repented of your sins and believe in Him, if you follow Christ, it’s not so terrifying.

In fact, the author of Hebrews concludes with this truth in vv. 14-16, let’s take a look.

Our Great High Priest (14-16)

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The passage ends by telling us about Jesus, who is our high priest, and that’s a significant truth.

If you remember with me what the role of the high priest was, it was to intercede on behalf of the nation of Israel.

The most important time of intercession that the high priest was in charge of was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in which the high priest would offer sacrifices for the sins of the nation.

He would then walk into the Holy of Holies, which was a place that only he could go into for the express purpose of communing with God, Himself.

It was a very important time of the year and when it wasn’t done right, would result in the death of the high priest.

The Bible says that we have a great or better high priest in heaven named Jesus and because of this, we ought to hold fast our confession, which refers to our belief in Him.

Because He is able to not just intercede on our behalf, but He as fully God and fully human can sympathize with us—He understands what it means to be tempted to sin and yet, He is without sin.

He knows what we go through and yet, He still intercedes on our behalf. He knows what temptation is like and so He has empathy and sympathy.

Thus, let’s believe in Him, recognizing that He understands us.

And then let’s do as v. 16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Let’s come into the presence of Almighty God because our God knows us, He understands us, He sympathizes with us.

Let us be confident as we draw close to Him because in coming near to Him, we find mercy and grace even when we experience great hardship and experience need in our lives.

In light of the rest of this passage concerning a sabbath rest; in light of us coming into Christmas, I think we can rightly say that the primary argument that the author of Hebrews has is this:

Jesus is the one who gives us peace and He is the one who has offered eternal, never-ending, lasting peace.

But, we don’t experience that eternal, never-ending, lasting peace on this side of eternity—rather, this world is epitomized by a lack of peace.

However, if we know Jesus, if we genuinely believe in Him, we’re blessed in that He will lead us into the Promised Land of peace in the next life.

And thus, let’s be sure that we genuinely believe, let’s know that we have peace with Him and through Him, let’s know for sure that we’re partakers in the peace that only He gives.

Which leads us into our application for this morning.

Application

Like last week’s sermon, which showed us clearly that true, genuine, lasting peace cannot be found in temporal sources like substances, human relationships, or political systems; this week’s sermon shows us that true, genuine, lasting peace won’t be found here on earth on this side of eternity, but rather on the next side of eternity.

Now, some here hear that statement, that true, genuine, lasting peace won’t be found on earth on this side of eternity and you think that that’s just a given, however, let me state that this is not how the majority of the world thinks and this isn’t how some Christians believe.

For instance, most unbelievers who are activists or are focused on social justice issues aren’t doing so because they feel that the world won’t get better—no, they fully think they can make the world a better place, they believe that if we fix our society, there will be peace.

Likewise, the whole goal of the United Nations is to help broker peace amongst the nations in the world, which is why the UN Headquarters in NYC has a statue depicting Isaiah 2:4 “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” in front of their building (though, they neglect the first part of the verse, which says that the LORD is the one who will achieve this during the end times).

The majority of people who are doing these sorts of things are doing so because they think and feel that they can make lasting peace on this side of eternity.

In addition, there are groups of Christians who believe that they can bring about peace on earth through initiating the end times. They hold to a postmillennial perspective of the book of Revelations, which means that they don’t think Jesus will return until after the world becomes a peaceful place.

Now, I will say, this is a minority position in Christianity experience in life seems to imply differently; and yet, there are some Christians who think this way based on their understanding of Scripture.

They believe that we live in an age in which Christians are to make the world better by proclaiming the Gospel until a vast majority believe and we enter a golden age of sorts. It usually extends beyond just simply preaching the Gospel to making a sort of theonomy in the world around us—or, in other words, many postmillennial adherents believe that as we proclaim the Gospel, we should also be working to set up a society that is ruled by God—it sounds like a good idea, but usually it ends up with someone in their corruption leading wrongly.

A few Puritans believed this, quite a few people who hold to what has become known as Christian nationalism believe this; and the people who are doing these sorts of things are doing so because they feel and think they can make lasting peace on this side of eternity.

The issue is that the Bible seems pretty clear that true, lasting peace, that eternal rest, the Sabbath rest that we see in Hebrews 4 isn’t on this side of eternity, though, we can experience parts of that peace on this side of eternity.

And this is where our application comes in. As we look towards Christmas and we reflect on peace, knowing that we won’t necessarily experience the full effect of peace on this side of eternity, what can we do? What should we do? And I want to look at this in two ways: (1) for unbelievers and (2) for believers.

For unbelievers—realize that your search for peace is commendable—it is good for you to seek peace. It’s even good for you to want the world around you to be peaceful, but the reality is apart from Jesus Christ, there really is no peace.

And the reality is, that in this lifetime, on this side of eternity, there really is no ability for us to achieve lasting, eternal peace and the reasoning is really simple.

On this side of eternity, mankind is still effected by the curse of sin and on this side of eternity, even if everyone acted perfectly, even if everyone could always get along, there will always be issues concerning sin and how we respond to one another.

And the reality is for someone who doesn’t already believe in Jesus, regardless of if we could achieve lasting peace on a corporate or universal scale, you still wouldn’t be at peace with God through Jesus Christ.

Which means, that even if we could develop a society in which there wasn’t pain, suffering, lying, cheating, fraud, murder, or whatever else you could think of (which we can’t by the way, if I haven’t made that clear, yet).

You would still be at war with Almighty God, you would still be in rebellion with Him, you would still bear the consequences of your own sins because it is only through Jesus Christ in which we find salvation.

it is only in Jesus Christ that we receive grace and mercy, which results in peace.

It is only in and through Jesus that you are reconciled with God and any attempts that you try to make peace will always come short.

So, my application for you, if you’re an unbeliever is simple—repent of your sinful lifestyle, believe in Jesus, and follow Him.

Only then will you experience true peace.

Only then will you be at peace with God.

Only then will you enter into peace after this life.

For believers—my application is two-fold because knowing that we can’t find lasting peace on this side of eternity could cause you to despair. It could cause you to be upset, it could even cause fear, but the reality is that it should drive a longing for eternity into your heart; and it should cause you to stop placing your hope and trust in the world around us and to focus on Jesus who is our peace and will bring us into peace.

So, let’s start with that first idea, that lasting peace is not found on this side of eternity in a full, experiential way.

We all know what this means—that even though we experience parts of genuine peace today, we won’t feel its full effect until we’re in eternity.

What this does is provide us with the realization that this world will never be completely peaceful—it isn’t meant to be because of the curse of sin.

While we should still seek peace between others and peace in our town and peace in the world around us, it is important for us to recognize that we won’t be able to achieve complete peace here and now.

And again, that could drive us to despair, it can cause us to be upset and fearful, but the recognition that this world will never be what we want it to be should cause us to long after eternity with Jesus.

The realization that we’ll never experience that sabbath rest that Hebrews 4 is talking about today should well up within us the desire for the next life.

And this ought to put within us a mindset that isn’t so much focused on the world around us today, but rather a heavenly mindset that looks forward to that Sabbath rest instead of only being focused on temporal peace and temporal rest today.

This world will never be completely filled with peace in the way that we would want it to be—but don’t let that truth cause you to be nihilistic where you think all is lost and we should just give up.

Rather, allow this truth to cause you to look towards Jesus who is our peace and will bring us into true, lasting peace.

And allow this truth to cause you to point more people searching for peace towards Jesus because again, most people are looking for peace in some way or another.

But the majority of people are looking for peace in all the wrong places—whether that’s in people, places, things, politics, or whatever it might be.

True peace is found in Jesus alone because He is our peace. And we experience peace to its fullest not today, not on this side of eternity, but when we enter into our Sabbath rest and we walk with Him side-by-side and see Him face-to-face.

Put simply, as we reflect on peace and Christmas, take to heart Hebrews 4 exhortation to be sure that you genuinely believe. And then allow the truth that lasting peace won’t be made on this side of eternity, to lift up your heart to focus on the next side of eternity. Jesus brings us into peace because He is our peace and He gives us true peace.

Pastoral Prayer