THE REST OF GOD

INTRODUCE MYSELF

JULZ - YA MIN

PLAY VIDEO OF RETREAT!!!

FUNNY STORY FROM RETREAT

The last thing we did at young adults retreat was a scavenger hunt

FALSE PERCEPTION OF WHAT HAD HAPPENED

SOMETIMES SO BLINDED BY THINGS WE PERCIEVE TO BE RIGHT BUT ARE NOT ?

CONTINUE ON TOPIC OF REST

If you missed last week, PSA brought an amazing word on Rest & Sabbath

He spoke about Sabbath is to rest, to cease, to stop and to go against the current of hustle and productivity, and to worship God and remove distractions

As he was preaching i texted some of the girls here like I was going to speak on rest ….

So we have for you A SERIES ON REST. REST PART 2. PSA doesn’t know we were collaborating on a series but surprise

INTRODUCE HEBREWS

Hebrews is a book found in the New Testament

It is traditionally seen as a letter, but it doesn’t have all the letter parts that so many other books in the new Testament do eg there’s no greeting. A lot of scholars believe it was sermon, but either way letters were often read out

It has a pastoral tone, filled with exhortations, and it’s filled with lots of theological juice. But it’s diving into big specific topics, and there’s a draw back to exhort (encourage)

We don’t know for certain who wrote Hebrews or to whom - not like others eg paul the apostle to the church in rome

HEBREWS 4:1-11 ESV

English Standard Version Chapter 3

4:1

HEBREWS 4:1-11 NLT

1 God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. 2 For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God.[a] 3 For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said,

“In my anger I took an oath:     ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’”[b]

even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. 4 We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.”[c] 5 But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.”[d]

6 So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted:

“Today when you hear his voice,     don’t harden your hearts.”[e]

8 Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. 9 So there is a special rest[f] still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11 So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.

This tension is being built

There is a rest that is being spoken of

But there’s some who did not enter this rest

This verse quotes a few times, from Psalm 95

English Standard Version Psalm 95

7 For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture,

and the sheep of his hand.

Today, if you hear his voice,

8  do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,

as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

9  when your fathers put me to the test

and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

10  For forty years I loathed that generation

and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,

and they have not known my ways.”

11  Therefore I swore in my wrath,

“They shall not enter my rest.”

Which is ultimately a reference to the people of Israel

If you’re unfamilar with the Old Testament, God has his chosen people, he sets them apart, he delivers them out of slavery in egypt and then they begin to grumble and they begin to say we miss how it used to be etc

So after much back and forth God ultimately says, they will not enter my rest

The land of Canaan i have prepared for them, this generation will not enter it

But in Hebrews 4, what’s being pointed to is more than the promise land of Canaan, there’s a greater reality at hand

VERSE ONE

I would love for us to break down this passage in Hebrews this morning, if you’ll follow along with me,

It starts off by saying; 4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands …

There’s a promise of entering God’s rest that is available …

Last week PSA talked about how in Genesis, God is seen to rest on the seventh day and how this is a picture of the rhythym we need - a rythym in which we rest.

I want us to look again at Genesis 1-2

In Genesis 1, God has six days of creation. After each day it says “and there was evening and there was morning”. But on the 7th day, Genesis 2:1-3

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

It does not conclude. There is no “evening and morning” and next. The rest of God remains. The rest of God is open

This is what the writer of Hebrews is trying to tell us when they say in verse 3-4; “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.”

GOD’S REST IS AVAILABLE TO YOU 

GOD’S REST IS SALVATION

IS FREEDOM WITH HIM

GOD’S REST IS AN ETERNITY THAT IS TO COME

ECCLESIATIES SAYS GOD HAS SET ETERNITY IN THE HUMAN HEART

THERE’S A LONGING FOR REST AND THERE WILL BE UNREST UNLESS YOUR LIFE AND YOUR HEART IS GIVEN TO JESUS

The rest that God is offering us is that same rest he has been enjoying in since the completion of creation. God’s is reigining from rest.

VERSE ONE - PART 2

As we read on, the end of this verse 1 says “let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it”

When speaking of the rest of God, and the possibility of someone receving this not reaching it

It says “let us fear”… There’s a call to a collective responsibility. Collective way of thinking.

Really often in Church we can we slip into thinking indivdiaully.

We don’t notice it but our mind has two filters, what I do and what that means for me (this one can take up a lot) and what another person does and what that means soley for them

We can look upon the failings and wrongdoings of others and hold a 10 foot pole

But what a challenge to us this is church, to hold the responsbility to fearing for one another, that another one of us would fail to reach the rest of God

Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

James 5:20 “let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

It’s a call not to preocupy ourselves with the sins of others to judge them but to carry with them ???

JUMPING DOWN TO VERSE 5

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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.”

We start to get a picture of why the people of Israel did not enter God’s rest, the original way it is spoken about, which is the land of Canaan. And it is becasue of disobedience.

We get this picture that they recieved GOOD NEWS yet were then disobedient.

This might strike some fear in us to go Gosh, have i been disobedient to God? What will this mean?

We can find comfort, in that though there is a warning and a message about disobedience, God is clearly offering an opportunity for a change of heart

In verse 7, it says “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.”

When the Psalmist, David, wrote “today” it had been over 400 years since the wilderness. And yet still he writes today.

Then, the author of Hebrews, over a 1000 years later, goes a step further and says “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today,”

God is continuing to make clear hundreds of years at different markers in time, that his invitation remains, and the opportunity to hear his voice and not harden your hearts remains. His call to not harden your hearts is for today. God’s word remains authorative and true from generation to generation, and he continues to call the next generation to him and to obedience

VERSE 8 - JOSHUA

English Standard Version Chapter 3

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

A lot of Hebrews deals with Jesus’ superiority —> over angels, over Moses, over levitical priests

Jesus’ name in Hebrew (Yeshua) is a shortened form of Joshua (Yehoshua); in Greek they are spelled exactly the same: Iēsous. What Joshua of old could not do, Jesus, the new and greater Joshua, will accomplish: he will lead God’s people into the fulfillment of God’s promise of rest.

I believe this to be an ecnouragement for some of us this morning

PSA spoke about this last week, but there are so many things and distractions in our world

I’d go so far as to say we have a false sense of rest

We put our hope in things to be our rest

Relationships, careers, power

We see it as the promise land … What if the promise is not in the made man things but the man who made the things

Jesus did what Joshua could not

Jesus will do what your false rest cannot do

VERSE 9 - A SABBATH REST

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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.

Hebrews was originally written in Greek

The word here for rest changes … This whole time it’s been (katapausis), meaning rest or place of rest. But in verse 9 he suddenly switches to σαββατισμός (sabbatismos), meaning "Sabbath rest"

It’s the only time it is found in the bible

Because katapausis is a fairly broad word. It can mean:

rest after work,

rest from enemies,

settling in a land,

a resting place.

But sabbatismos is much more specific. It immediately makes readers think:

the seventh day,

God's completed work,

worship,

fellowship with God,

the pattern established at creation.

Translations combine “sabbath rest”

It is boldly equated with God’s own experience of enjoying sabbath when he had finished his work of creation. So too God’s faithful people, their earthly work of serving him duly completed, can look forward to joining him in his heavenly rest

The author wants us to know we are no longer speaking of the rest of the promise land, but the rest in which God is

WRAPPING UP

VERSE 11 - LET US STRIVE

English Standard Version Chapter 3

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Our goal is to enter his rest

Often times, we adhere to a belief that there is no striving in Christianity

We, too, are to press onward through our difficulties, not complaining against God or hardening our hearts against him, but relying on him in this present day of testing. We are to strive with the resources of his rest.

On another level, God’s rest is a present reality that we are invited to enter—sharing in his divine life, experiencing the “peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7), the peace the world cannot give (John 14:27). Five times in chapters 3–4 Hebrews repeats the word “today,” emphasizing the present availability of that rest.

What is the barriers to entering God’s rest?

Unbelief —> Disobedience —> Hardness of heart

Question today; Examine your heart —> Where are you seeing unbelief? Disobedience? These may be markers of a hardness of heart

What is providing you a false sense of rest?