Rest - Part 2

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

When I first planned this sermon series last year, I had no idea just how appropriate and timely today’s message would be. The first case of the coronavirus hadn’t even occured at that time. So none of the fear and panic that is so prevalent today was even on anyone’s radar.

A couple weeks ago I talked about how we, as disciples of Jesus, are to respond when we face a crisis like the one we’re in right now. And if you didn’t get a chance to see or hear that message I’d encourage you to go to our website and do that. There is no doubt that things have gotten even worse since I shared that message. We now have hundreds of cases and a number of deaths right here in Arizona and in the Tucson area - some of which have hit close to home for some of us. But there is still no reason for us to fear.

Tension

This morning we’re going to wrap up our current sermon series - Rhythms of Grace. In this series, we’ve looked at eight different rhythms that God desires for us to build into our lives so that we can grow in our relationship with Jesus and become more like Him. When I first planned this series, I intentionally allowed two weeks for this last rhythm - the rhythm of rest. My reasoning at the time was that in this culture that values busyness and productivity this is the rhythm that is probably the hardest for many of us to incorporate into our lives. So it was going to require more than one message to cover it adequately.

But now I also see that apparently God had some other reasons why we need to spend another week on this rhythm. Today I’m going to be talking about an aspect of rest that I believe is the key to allowing us to live without fear in the midst of this current crisis - or maybe more accurately I should say that it allows us to live with the right kind of fear.

Truth

Hopefully you have your Bibles handy and you can turn to Hebrews chapter 4 and follow along as I read the first 11 verses of that chapter. You’ll find the book of Hebrews near the end of the Bible right before the book of James.

Hebrews 4:1–11 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.

Here the author of Hebrews is continuing his line of reasoning that began back in the previous chapter where he is using the example of Israel in the wilderness to help explain the kind of rest that is available to all through Jesus.

Although the author covers several different periods in the history of Israel, he doesn’t do that chronologically. So, like much of the book of Hebrews, this isn’t easy to follow and understand. So let’s begin by putting the events he refers to here in chronological order. Once we’ve done that, it will be much easier to develop the main idea the author is trying to get across.

We’ll begin with verses 3-4 with the rest that we talked about last week - the rest that God entered into after He finished His work of creation. This is the same rest that is mentioned in verse 9 where it is called a “Sabbath rest”. That is the only place in the New Testament where that particular Greek word is used. God designed that rest to be a spiritual rest - a time of rest and peace and joy in which God’s people could enjoy fellowship with Him. It began on the seventh day, but it was always intended by God to last forever.

And initially Adam and Eve experienced that rest. They walked and talked with God and had intimate fellowship with Him. And one of the benefits of that rest is that they were free from fear. But then in Genesis 3 we read about how their unbelief brought an end to that rest. They refused to trust that God’s command to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was for their own good. So they disobeyed God.

So we see that from the very beginning, disobedience is always rooted in our failure to believe and trust God. And because Adam and Eve had forfeited God’s rest, they now feared and and they tried to hide from Him. From that point forward, the rest of the Bible is the story of God’s plan to restore that Sabbath rest for his people - including all of us.

From creation, we move next to the nation of Israel after God frees them from slavery in Egypt. That period is described beginning in chapter 3 and it continues here in verses 1-2 and again in verse 6. Like Adam and Eve the nation of Israel did not experience the rest He had intended for them because of their unbelief. Even though God had promised to give the Promised Land to Israel, they failed to enter the land because they chose to believe the reports of 10 of the 12 spies who had gone into the land rather than trust in the promises of God. As a result an entire generation forfeited the rest that could have been theirs and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 year and never got to enter the Promised Land and experience that rest.

The author then moves on to Israel during the time of Joshua, which is mentioned briefly in verse 8. Under his leadership, the people did enter the Promised Land and experienced a time of rest, but that still wasn’t the ultimate Sabbath rest that God planned for His people. While the people did enter the land, they failed to trust in God fully and obey Him and completely drive out the nations that have previously occupied the land. As a result, their worship became corrupted due to the influence of those pagan people and they were constantly engaging in battles with those other nations.

We then move to the time of King David. The author of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 95 in verse 3 and again in verse 5. From that we learn that even though those previous generations of Israelites had failed to enter God’s rest because of their unbelief, God was still offering the Sabbath rest that He intends for all His people to enjoy. But again, even as Israel enjoyed a time of great prosperity, the very fact that they had demanded a king like the surrounding nations was evidence of their unwillingness to believe and trust God. So it’s not surprising that that prosperity did not last for long and eventually the kingdom is torn apart.

Finally the writer of Hebrews calls attention to the word “today” in verse 7 to make the point that at the time he wrote his letter there was still an offer of rest to those who would believe and trust in God. And that is still as true for us today as when those words were written nearly 2,000 years ago.

The one thing that is common throughout this chronology is that the Sabbath rest that God desires for His people to experience is His rest. So we’re reminded that the kind of Sabbath rest that God has in store for His people goes far beyond what we talked about last week - that one day in seven where we cease from our work. The ultimate manifestation of that Sabbath rest is that future time when we will cease from all our works and rest completely just like God did when He finished His work of creation. But it is obvious from this passage that we can also experience that kind of rest, at least in part, right here and now.

So here’s the main thought that I hope you’ll all take away from this passage today:

God’s rest is faith in the promises of God that makes me fearless toward the perils of this world

It is obvious from this passage that the key to experiencing the Sabbath rest of God is faith. As long as I am trusting in the promises of God, then I have nothing to fear, not even death. Our lives as disciples of Jesus are to be lives that are lived day-by-day, hour-by-hour, moment-by-moment trusting in the promises of God - promises that He will help us and guide us and protect us and most of all that He will forgive us and bring us to a future of holiness and joy - that ultimate manifestation of His Sabbath rest.

And the only way for us to enter into that rest is through faith in Jesus. I can’t help but think that the author of Hebrews was thinking back to these words of Jesus when he penned this chapter:

Matthew 11:28–29 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Those who heard these words of Jesus would have immediately recognized that Jesus was quoting from Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 6:16 ESV

16 Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Here God was offering rest for the soul to those who would walk in the “good way”. When Jesus says that He is the one who is able to give rest for the soul, He is clearly claiming two things:

First, He is clearly claiming to be God since only God can give rest to the soul.

Second, He is also claiming that He is the “good way” that a person must walk in in order to find rest for his soul. I can’t help but think of what Jesus says in John 14, when He claims to be “the Way” and says that no one can come to the Father except through Him.

Remember at the beginning of the message that I said the key to incorporating this kind of rest into our lives is to live with the right kind of fear? In another time of crisis President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

But this passage tells us that there is really only one thing we should fear:

The one thing I must fear is that I might miss God’s rest

This is the point that is being made in verse 1:

Hebrews 4:1 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.

The only thing we need to fear is that we have failed to reach God’s rest. And every example that we are given in this passage reinforces the idea that the barrier to reaching God’s rest is always unbelief.

Adam and Eve forfeited God’s rest because they did not believe that the command He gave them was for their own good.

The Israelites failed to enter God’s rest because they did not trust in His promises even after they had seen how He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.

They did not enter His rest even after Joshua led them into the Promised Land because they did not trust God enough to do what He commanded.

In the days of King David, they failed to enter His rest because they demanded to have a king just like all the other surrounding nations even though God had warned them against that.

And even as this letter to the Hebrew Christians was being written there were those who failed to enter into God’s rest because they weren’t willing to trust that faith in Jesus was the only way to enter that rest.

While we generally tend to think of fear in negative terms, the fear of missing out on God’s rest is actually a good thing because it causes us to seek out that rest.

Application

So how do we enter into this rest that allows us to live a life that is not ruled by fear in the midst of our current crisis? Let me suggest three practical steps we can all take.

HOW TO ENTER GOD’S REST

Stop striving to enter that rest on my own

Over the past several weeks I have watched a number of stories on the local news where officials from several different religious organizations commented that the people in their churches would be temporarily excused from their “Sunday obligations”. At first I was shocked that anyone would use that term to describe corporate worship, but as I thought about it for a while I realized that many, if not most, people in this world tend to view their relationship with God like that. They believe that there is something that they must do in order to earn God’s favor.

I was one of those people at one time, too. I mistakenly thought that God had this big scoreboard and that as long as the good things I did in life outweighed the bad, that was enough to keep me in good graces with God. But as I came to understand more about the holiness of God, I came to realize that there is nothing I can do to earn favor with a God who is 100% holy.

There are some of you watching this morning who are still trying to earn God’s favor. You think that by coming to church, or giving money or serving in some ministry you are earning favor with God. While all of those are good things that we all ought to do, they will never earn the kind of rest we’ve been talking about this morning. That rest is a gift from God and there is nothing that any of us can do to achieve it through anything we do.

Put my trust in Jesus alone

When Adam and Eve blew it and forfeited the ability to experience God’s rest, God didn’t just throw up His hands and say, “That’s it. I’m done with man.” That’s not how God operates. In spite of man’s rebellion and faithlessness, God remains faithful to His promises. So from that point forward God put into effect a plan for man to reenter His rest through faith in Jesus.

But just hearing the gospel or knowing about Jesus is not enough. We see here in Hebrews that even though the nation of Israel heard from God and even observed God being faithful to His promises, they still failed to trust Him. So if we want to enter into God’s rest we actually have to put our full faith and trust in Jesus alone. We have to trust that His death on the cross was sufficient payment for our sin. We have to trust that His resurrection was proof of His ability to overcome death.

And the good news, as we see in verse 3, is that those who have believed have already entered into that rest. Although the final fulfilment of that rest is yet to come, we get to experience it to a large degree right now. We can rest in the fact that our sins are forgiven and that the guilt of our sin has been lifted and that we have now been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus and that we belong to Him. And that rest frees us from the fear of any of the perils we might face in this world.

Incorporate the “rhythms of grace” into my life

In verse 11, we are exhorted to strive to enter God’s rest. At first glance that appears to contradict everything else that we’ve learned today since entering His rest is a matter of what Jesus has done for us and not anything that we can do.

But even though God’s rest is a gift that He offers to us through faith in Jesus, we do have some responsibility when it comes to incorporating that rest into our lives on a daily basis. We do that by surrendering to God’s will and being obedient to it on a daily basis.

That’s what all eight of the rhythms of grace that we’ve covered in this series are intended to help us do. Each one of them enables us to understand God’s purposes, plans and ways and then helps us to surrender our lives in a manner that is consistent with those things.

As we’ve talked about frequently in this series, these rhythms don’t operate in isolation. There is a lot of overlap among all of them. It’s also important to point out that these eight rhythms are not just some kind of checklist that we use to ensure God’s favor in our lives or to guarantee God’s blessings.

But what I can say confidently is that if we’ll incorporate these rhythms into our lives, we will get to know Jesus better and become more like Him. And we will be able to live a life that is free from the fears of what the perils of this world can do to us. So I want to encourage you to take some time this week to consider again all eight of these rhythms. Go back and listen to our watch the messages again. Review your notes. And then ask God to help you incorporate those rhythms into your life.

Inspiration

God’s rest is faith in the promises of God that makes me fearless toward the perils of this world

The good news is that it is not too late to enter into that rest. As we read in verse 9, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God”. That means that the door is still open. God’s offer of rest is still available to you.

But, as the word “today” indicates, there is an urgency to this offer of rest. It must be seized today because tomorrow may be too late. If there is one silver lining in the coronavirus pandemic, it is that it constantly reminds us of that fact.

Action

As we close, I want to encourage all of us to respond to what we’ve learned today.

Let me speak first to any of you who have been striving to enter God’s rest through your own efforts and have found that to be frustrating. God did not design you to live like that. He wants you to enter His rest even more than you want to do that. And He had provided the way for you to do that through faith in His Son, Jesus, who loves you enough to die for you so that you can have that rest. If you’ve never put your faith in Jesus alone, then please don’t put that off. Do it today. If you’re still not sure exactly what that involves or how to do that, we’re here to help you through that process. In just a moment, I’ll share how you can contact us.

And for those of you who have already entered into that Sabbath rest through faith in Jesus, I want to encourage you to live in that rest on a moment-by-moment basis. Although, as we saw last week, rest does involve ceasing from activity, the kind of rest we’ve talked about today goes well beyond that. It is the ability to be at peace when the world around you is in chaos. So take hold of that rest each day by remembering the promises of God and trusting in them and in the One who made them.