HEBREWS 4:1-13 - A Promised Rest

Introduction

One of the commitments that we have made as a church here at Bethel is the regular practice of expository preaching. To exposit means to “set forth, to establish”, and so expository preaching is preaching that sets forth the meaning of a particular text of Scripture, usually by working through the text verse by verse (or sometimes phrase by phrase or word by word). The aim of an expository sermon is that “the point of the sermon is the point of the text”. (What we want to avoid in our preaching is the type of sermon that C.S. Lewis once described as, “If the text had had smallpox, the sermon wouldn’t have caught it!”)

In preparing an expository sermon, the preacher is first of all bound to understand what a particular text meant to its original recipients—what was that passage written to address in their lives. And then from there, the preacher can move to how that text addresses the current lives of the audience he is addressing.

Expository preaching—especially when conducted in a verse-by-verse, book-by-book order through the Scriptures, is an essential component of a church body that is seeking to worship God Biblically. Expository preaching, in fact, is specifically demonstrated in the Scriptures as an inspired method of proclaiming God’s Word.

Last week we saw the writer of Hebrews quote extensively from Psalm 95 as he exhorts his readers in their faith. He warns them not to be as “hard-hearted” as the Israelites in the wilderness who rejected God’s promises and forfeited their entry into the Promised Land. And here in Chapter 4, we see he continues expounding on the same Scripture:

Hebrews 4:1–3 (LSB)

Therefore, let us fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it. For indeed we have had good news proclaimed to us, just as they also; but the word that was heard did not profit those who were not united with faith among those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just 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.

Just as we saw last week, here again in our text this morning the writer is preaching through Psalm 95 to address the spiritual issues that were facing his readers, Jewish Christians who were living in the last days of the Temple in Jerusalem.

It is worth noting again (as we have previously) how many parallels exist between the Israelites in Psalm 95 and the Jewish Christians who received the book of Hebrews.

Israel was delivered from bondage to slavery under the blood of the Passover Lamb (Exodus 12).

The Hebrew Christians were delivered from bondage to slavery under the Law of Moses through the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, shed at Passover.

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, during which time they received the Law of Moses, accompanied by miraculous signs of God’s provision, protection and authentication of His words through Moses.

Hebrews was written just before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70—a period of forty years between the death of Christ as the Lamb of God and the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem which signaled the end of the sacrificial system. During that 40 years they received the New Testament Scriptures from the Apostles and prophets, sealed up by signs and wonders that authenticated the authority of the Word.

At the end of the 40 year wilderness period, the people moved into the Land of Canaan, resting from their wandering and beginning the conquest of the nations of Canaan under Joshua their leader.

After the destruction of the Temple and fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Christians were scattered all through the Roman Empire and the wider world to carry out the conquest of all of the nations of the earth under the new “Joshua” (Yehoshuah), Jesus Christ.

And so on the brink of this conquest, in the waning days of the Jewish Temple, the writer of Hebrews is exhorting his readers not to make the same mistake their spiritual forebears did! The spiritual threat for them was the same as it was for the Israelites in the desert—the threat of unbelief that would disqualify them from entering into the “rest” of the Promised Land:

Hebrews 4:3 (LSB)

For we who have believed enter that rest, just 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.

And so this is the focus of the writer of Hebrews’ sermon from Psalm 95—it is a warning not to forfeit the rest that God has promised the way they did. And so—in the divinely-inspired tradition of expository preaching, the point of his sermon in this text must be the point of this sermon! And so the point of this text (and therefore the point of this sermon!) is:

Be CERTAIN that you BELONG in the REST that God has PROMISED

We have seen previously that it is possible to drift away from the word we have heard; it is possible to be hard-hearted and fall away from God altogether, demonstrating that we never had that salvation to begin with, but were taken in by the deceitfulness of sin. But here in our text this morning we are also shown that we can be certain that we do belong to Christ, that our faith is genuine; that we really will inherit the “rest” that is promised here.

As we work our way through the author’s Spirit-inspired expository sermon of Psalm 95, he will unpack more of what is meant by this promise of rest for us. As we dig into the first five verses of our text, we learn first of all that

I. This rest can only be entered with OBEDIENT FAITH (Hebrews 4:1-5)

Look again with me at verses 1-2:

Hebrews 4:1–2 (LSB)

Therefore, let us fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it. For indeed we have had good news proclaimed to us, just as they also; but the word that was heard did not profit those who were not united with faith among those who heard.

The Israelites in the desert all heard the Good News of God’s promise to be with them when they entered their rest in Canaan; but they did not believe His promise:

Numbers 14:2–3 (LSB)

And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! “And why is Yahweh bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

In order to enter the rest God promises, then

HEARING must be followed by BELIEVING (vv. 2-3; cp. Numbers 14)

Only Joshua and Caleb believed what they heard of God’s promise to bring them into the Promised Land of rest in Canaan, and so only they were welcomed in:

Numbers 14:24 (LSB)

“But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his seed shall take possession of it.

In the same way, beloved, the only way we can be certain that we belong in the rest God has promised is if we not only hear Him, but obey Him. Jesus connects our obedience to Him to our dwelling with Him in John 14:23:

John 14:23 (LSB)

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.

Notice that verse 2 says that “we have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they also...” The word for good news in this verse is the same word translated Gospel elsewhere in the New Testament—entering the rest that God promises is impossible apart from not only hearing but obeying the Gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

You can be certain that you belong in the rest that God has promised when your life is characterized by obedient faith—when hearing is followed by obeying, when your believing God is proven in your doing what He has said.

In verses 4-5 the author goes back to the book of Genesis to help us understand the nature of this rest we are promised by God:

Hebrews 4:4–5 (LSB)

For He has spoken somewhere in this way concerning the seventh day: “AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS”; and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.”

I am persuaded that the author of Hebrews is describing for us here something of the nature of the rest God is promising; specifically, I believe what he is showing us here about the rest God promises His people is that

It cannot be DISTURBED by CORRUPTION (vv. 4-5; cp. Numbers 25)

Now, why do I say that? Consider for a moment here the Scripture the author is quoting here: Genesis 2:2:

Genesis 2:2 (LSB)

And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

Now, think about this: The rest that God is offering His children who have obeyed the Gospel call to repent and believe on Jesus is the same rest that God experienced at the end of the Creation Week. This was at the end of Day 6—after the creation of man, and before the Fall. (In the “Seven C’s” Timeline, this is after Creation, and before Corruption, right?)

What was that rest like? It was God’s delighted contemplation of the perfections of the heavens and the earth and all that filled them. This was the One Shining Moment of utter bliss and incomprehensible beauty, when all the created order was filled with the glory of God and reflected that glory back to Him in unstained, unbroken, unadulterated splendor! Perfect fellowship between God and Adam and Eve, exquisite beauty and harmony and fecundity of the created order, with all of the promise of an unfallen cosmos set to grow and mature with never-ending joy and gladness into greater heights of glory throughout the centuries! And this is the “rest” that God invites you into!

That “rest” that began on that Seventh Day is, as we shall see, a rest that still remains, six thousand years later. But it is also a rest that will never be touched by the corruption of sin and rebellion. This is why God says that those who refuse to unite faith with hearing will never be allowed to sully it.

The rest that God promises is a rest that cannot be ruined by the Fall of man’s rebellion; Adam and Eve poisoned and corrupted God’s Good creation by their sin, but the rest that God began on that Seventh Day has never been touched by the corruption of sin, and never will. And that is the rest that is promised to you, Christian, and you can be certain that you belong in this rest when your life is marked by obedient faith in Him.

This rest is only entered through obedient faith, and

II. This rest is only entered through CHRIST’S WORK (Hebrews 4:6 -10)

We are told in verses 6-9 that the rest that God began on the Seventh Day is still available to His people:

Hebrews 4:6–9 (LSB)

Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news proclaimed to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again determines a certain day, “TODAY,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.” For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

You can see his logic in these verses—this promise of rest was not fulfilled when the Israelites entered the Promised Land under Joshua, because David promises it almost five hundred years after God’s people entered the land. (“If Joshua had given them the rest I am talking about, God wouldn’t have told David to keep promising it!”) So that rest still remains (v. 9); there is still the possibility of entering it. And what the New Testament reveals about that rest is that it is found in Christ:

Matthew 11:28–29 (LSB)

“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.”

And what we find here in our text tells us that the rest that Christ offers is the same rest that His Father offers. I take verse 10 of our text to be referring to Christ:

Hebrews 4:10 (LSB)

For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

Since this verse connects “his rest” with being the same sort of rest as God resting on the Seventh Day, this would sound odd if it were speaking of a believer entering his rest—God did not “rest” from his sin and attempts at works-righteousness the way we do when we enter His rest, right?

So it is much better to understand this verse as telling us that just as God rested from His work in the original creation,

Christ has RESTED from His work of the new CREATION

This is one of the most compelling reasons that Christians rest on the first day of the week, and not the seventh. The Sabbath Day of the Ten Commandments is instituted as a creation ordinance—resting on the seventh day was “baked in” to the creation order because God rested on the seventh day, when He completed the work of Creation:

Exodus 20:11 (LSB)

“For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

In the same way, Christ re-created the world when He rose from the dead. (And he did in three days what God the Father did in six days in Genesis!) And so to demonstrate that the resurrection of Christ has inaugurated a new creation, our day of rest is the first day, not the seventh—because Jesus completed His work of re-creation on the first day of the week, not the last! God’s people rest on Sunday as a foretaste of the rest that we have been promised in Christ. The only way to enter the rest God promises is through Him--

We REST as new CREATURES in Christ (cp. 2 Cor. 5:17)

The work that Christ finished by His death, burial and resurrection has secured for us a rest because it has ushered us into that new creation! As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 (LSB)

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Christian, when you become a new creation in Christ, you have entered into that new creation, and you have begun to enter that rest. The rest from striving for approval from God and escape from a guilty conscience; the rest of perfect peace with Him and His perfect joy in you. The old creation of brokenness, guilt, shame, rebellion and futility is gone, and in its place is the hope and promise of a life in God’s presence that will do nothing but grow in ever-increasing happiness and delight in Him and His delight in you! Think of it, beloved—because of Christ, God the Father looks on you as His new creation and says the same thing He said when looking at the completion of His first creation: “It is very good...”

This then, is the rest that God promises His people; and this is the rest that the author of Hebrews warns his readers not to forfeit! As he exegetes Psalm 95, he shows them (and us) that it is not enough to merely presume that you will obtain that rest, or that you can be indifferent to your obedience to God or relegate Him to the corners of your life for an hour a week or so. That kind of indifference and unwarranted confidence is the exact reason there are so many bones scattered throughout the Sinai desert.

And so the writer of Hebrews pleads with his readers as he closes his expository sermon on Psalm 95--

III. This rest is entered only through WATCHFUL DILIGENCE (Hebrews 4:11-13)

Hebrews 4:11 (LSB)

Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall into the same example of disobedience.

A generation of people who believed that they were faithful children of Abraham, loyal sons of the Covenant, members in good standing among the People of God—hundreds of thousands of them lie in unmarked graves scattered across the Sinai peninsula today because they deluded themselves into believing their disobedience was a matter of indifference to God. And so the author of Hebrews exhorts his readers (and us as well) to be diligent to ensure that we don’t make the same mistake. And in verses 12 and 13 he describes the specific ends towards which our diligence must be directed. First, in verse 12, we see that we can be certain that we belong in the rest God promises

As we SUBMIT to the JUDGMENT of His WORD (v. 12)

Hebrews 4:12 (LSB)

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The Word of God is the scalpel that slices us so thin that our wicked thoughts and intentions cannot hide. Beloved, this Book is your Heavenly Father’s appointed means by which the deepest, inmost motives of your heart can be judged. It is sharp enough and fine enough to even dissect your immaterial self. You may be able to shave the truth and split hairs fine enough to turn your disobedience into what you think looks like obedience; but you will never be able to shave it fine enough that God’s Word can’t shave it finer. So, Christian, here is the first means that God has given you to keep close watch on your heart and on the deceitfulness of sin. This Word is alive and active and able to bring your true motives to light. So make it your aim to get this Book into your heart as much as possible. “Visit many good books”, as Spurgeon said, “but make your home in the Bible.” Let this living Word do its work in you, submit to its judgment of your life.

The rest God promises His people is entered through watchful diligence as we submit to the judgment of His Word—and our watchful diligence

As we are INSPECTED by the SIGHT of His SPIRIT (v. 13)

Hebrews 4:13 (LSB)

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we have an account to give.

More than a few of you know the significance of May 4th (and no, I’m not talking about Star Wars Day…) Saturday May 4th is the closest Saturday to May 1st… Spring Gobbler season. Of all the game animals in the Commonwealth, (so I’m told!), spring gobbler requires some of the most thorough camouflage of any type of hunting.

Far too many of us have camouflaged our rebellion and indifference to God more thoroughly than the most enthusiastic spring gobbler hunter. In many cases the camo is so thorough that we even fool ourselves. But no hypocrisy can be hidden from the sight of God’s Spirit. You think no one knows about your double heart, your double life? You think you’ve successfully arranged things to the point where no one can find out what you are really like underneath that “good Christian exterior?” God sees everything. That sin, that temptation, that pull towards rebellion that just jumped into your mind as we speak of these things—He already knows all about it. There is nothing that you can hide from Him.

And that is either a great terror to you, or a great comfort. If you are really trying to hide your true antipathy toward God, if you are “going along” with Christianity because it makes your life easier in other ways, if you are deliberately and consciously planting your feet and refusing to budge in the direction God is calling you to go, it is a terror to know that He sees all of it, and there is nothing you can do to escape His gaze.

But if your heart is set toward God and the rest that He promises His people in Christ, then the fact that God sees and knows everything about you is your greatest comfort—because it means that He will not let you fool yourself. He can see the blind spots you cannot see; He knows the dark corners of your life that even you cannot pierce; He understands even your most confused and bewildered moments, and when you submit to His inspection of your life and cry with the Psalmist

Psalm 139:23–24 (LSB)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me

you can know that He will do so, and will lead you in His everlasting way of salvation in Christ!

You can be certain that you belong in the rest that God has promised—a rest that is completely untouched by the corruption of sin and rebellion of this fallen creation. Christian, are you tired of the constant battles you fight with your old sin nature? Are you weary of the same old temptations, the same old false promises of sin, the same old battlegrounds of your soul where the Enemy meets you and tries once again to knock you down and take you captive? Then see here the hope that is laid out for you in God’s Word! Jesus Christ has finished His work of inaugurating a New Creation; a “new way of being human”, and when you came by faith to Him in repentance for your sins and cried out to Him for salvation from the death penalty you had earned under God’s wrath, you entered into that rest with Him!

You have entered into the rest of your Savior, who has removed the wrath of God from you forever—your battles with sin and the skirmishes you fight with temptation are the mopping-up operations of a war that has already been won! You have been promised that you are a new creation; you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of your safe passage to Heaven; you are the object of God’s delighted contemplation of the perfections of Jesus Christ counted towards you for the rest of your days, and then an eternity of that Rest waiting for you in His eternal hall where you will forever reflect that glory back to Him in unstained, unbroken, unadulterated splendor in perfect fellowship with Him and with one another! This is the rest that is yours in Jesus Christ!

But perhaps this vision of rest does not catch your heart this morning, because there is no real conflict between your heart and the world around you. Perhaps you’re not weary in your battles with your sin because there really haven’t been any battles? You aren’t really concerned too much about sin or holiness or obedient faith; you’re just putting in your “church time” for the week. Don’t you see here in God’s Word that the worst possible thing you can do is leave here today and think no more about spiritual things until next Sunday morning? If the sum total of your consideration of your eternal state is confined to an hour or so two or three times a month—whenever you’re in church—then please heed the message of these verses: Be diligent to enter this rest!

God has graciously ordained these two tools—His Word and His Spirit—to show you what is in your heart. To expose in you the deceitfulness of sin that would lie to you and uncover the lies you tell yourself; to confront the truce that you’ve made with your sinful desires instead of the war that you are called to make on them; the idols of comfort and popularity and wealth and reputation that you have erected in your heart. Don’t harden your heart to His voice speaking to you here in His Word—be diligent to enter this rest! Have done with the excuses, the maneuverings, the hair-splitting and spin: Repent of your hard-hearted disregard for God’s call to this rest, come to Him for the forgiveness He so freely offers, and then submit yourself to obedience to this Word that His Spirit has spoken.

And perhaps you’ve come here today and all you know is that you can’t go on like this anymore. Your life has become such a burden to you that you don’t know where to turn. Your failures and your shortcomings weigh on you; the broken shards of your messed-up relationships pierce your heart; you feel like David did in Psalm 31--

Psalm 31:9–10 (LSB)

Be gracious to me, O Yahweh, for I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. For my life is worn down with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength fails because of my iniquity, And my bones waste away.

Friend, if that is the state of your heart today, then hear this Good News from God’s Word today—all of your pain and sorrow and frustration and anxiety and guilt and stress is the natural state of a heart that is in rebellion against God. And there will never be any rest for you unless and until you come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

Do not harden your heart against the very voice of God that comes to you from His Holy Word this morning--

Romans 10:8–11 (LSB)

... “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation. For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES UPON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.”

Confess Jesus Christ as Lord this morning—He is YHWH God who declared the Creation “very good”, and who will declare you “very good” in His sight as His New Creation when you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead for your salvation. Trust Him today; do not harden your heart against His promise that whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame—there is more grace in Christ to save you than there is sin in you to damn you. There is nothing you cannot confess to Him, no darkness you cannot give over to Him, no guilt or shame that you cannot reveal to Him that He will not take away from you forever.

And when is this rest offered to you? It is offered to you “as long as it is still called today”. This is not a call to obey tomorrow; this is not a repentance meant for someday—THIS is the day to enter His rest; this is the day to stop hardening your heart against His voice; thi is the day to become a partaker of His promise and to hold fast your assurance to the end found in your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Ephesians 3:20–21 (LSB)

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

FOR FURTHER REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

Write down something you learned from this morning’s message that is new to you, or an insight that you had for the first time about the text? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down a question that you have about the passage that you want to study further or ask for help with: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down something that you need to do in your life this week in response to what God has shown you from His Word today: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________