The Key to Finding Rest

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

As Americans, we have a hard time finding rest. In 2018, the last year for which data is available, 55% of all workers did not use all their vacation days, leaving a total of 768 million unused vacation days. And even when they did take vacation, 79% of people worked on their vacation.

And because so many of us find our identity in our work, a Wall Street Journal article revealed that when workers are asked how many hours a week they work, most of them tend to overestimate their hours, likely because that makes them feel more important. “Yah, I’m so important that work 70 hours a week because if I didn’t my company just couldn’t survive”.

It’s hard to think of a topic that is more relevant and important to our culture than rest. A recent study showed that those who worked 11 hours per day were 250% more likely to become depressed than those who worked 8 hours a day. And there are numerous studies that link a lack of rest to a wide variety of medical conditions that cost our economy billions of dollars every year.

Tension

God designed our bodies to need physical rest and when we don’t get the rest we need, we have problems. We’ve talked about this before. While the command to observe the Sabbath no longer applies in the sense it requires us to take off a specific day of the week, the principle itself still applies to New Testament believers, just as much as the commands that prohibit murder or adultery. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are some of you joining us today who regularly and intentionally violate that command.

If i were to ask who how you’re doing, and you answered, “Fine, just sleeping with my neighbor’s wife”, none of us would say that’s OK. But if you answered, “Fine, but I’m really tired. I can’t remember the last time I had a day off.” Most of us would probably not give a second thought to that even though in both cases, what you’re doing violates one of the “Big Ten”.

So the practice of Sabbath, of taking one day a week off from work is Biblical and important. But the kind of Sabbath rest that is fulfilled in Jesus is even more important. So, while I hope that you take one day off each week, my focus this morning is to help you understand how to enjoy the kind of rest Jesus provides both in this world and the one to come every day of the week.

Truth

So this morning we’re going to continue our discussion of biblical rest that we began last week at the end of Hebrews chapter 3. Since we’re going to build on what we learned last week, let’s take a moment to see if any of you can remember our main idea from last week:

Unbelief will always keep me from entering God’s rest

Keep that idea in mind as we read today’s passage.

Hebrews 4:1–13 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.

As we often do, we’ll begin with our main idea this morning and then use this passage to help us develop the idea and apply it to our lives:

I must enter into God’s rest daily by allowing His Word to speak into my life

Consistent with what we’ve seen throughout our study of Hebrews, this section can be difficult to understand, especially if we try to start with some of the details and work our way toward the big picture. Like the old cliche says, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees. So, like I’m finding with most of Hebrews, a better approach is to start by looking at the big picture and then see how the pieces fit within that framework.

The first thing we need to do this morning is to use this passage to answer this crucial question:

What is God’s rest?

There is little doubt that God’s rest is the key theme in this section. The author used the word “rest” twice in the passage we looked at last week as he introduced the topic. In today’s passage, it is used 10 times, if I counted properly. Although the author never really defines what God’s rest is directly, he does give us three illustrations that will give us some good insight.

3 Illustrations:

Creation

We see this first in verse 4 where the author quotes from Genesis 2:2 to remind his audience that God rested from His work of creation on the seventh day. And He has been resting from that work ever since. So we see here that rest is not a recent invention, but rather was initiated by God at creation, and has been available to men throughout history since then. As we saw last week that rest is appropriated by faith and forfeited through unbelief.

In verse 10, he tells us that entering into God’s rest has some parallels to the way God rested from His work of creation:

…for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his...

Now obviously God still works as Jesus confirms:

John 5:17 ESV

17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

But His work of creation is now complete. He is no longer doing that work.

I think it is pretty easy to see the parallels with our salvation. Someone who puts their faith in Jesus “rests” in the sense that they no longer work on trying to obtain salvation through their own efforts. Instead they rely upon what Jesus already did for them.

But once we have put our faith in Jesus, we do work, but it is a different kind of work with a different purpose and motivation. We see this principle throughout the New Testament, but it is probably most clear in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Our salvation is not a result of anything we do. It is 100% God’s work. Even the faith to believe in Jesus is a gift from God. But once we are saved, we are to do the works that God has prepared for us. That is because we are created in Christ for that very purpose.

The work of trying to earn our salvation is always a burden and only faith in Jesus can remove that burden and give us rest. The works we do after becoming a disciple of Jesus should be motivated by our gratitude for what Jesus has already done for us and He makes it possible for us to find joy in those works rather than be burdened by them.

The Promised Land

This has been the focus of this entire section, beginning with the passage we looked at last week at the end of chapter 3. Because of their unbelief, the Israelites were delayed from entering the Promised Land and enjoying the rest that would have resulted. As we see in verse 8, even when they did finally enter the land under the leadership of Joshua, they still didn’t experience the rest that they could have had by believing and obeying God in the first place.

Hebrews 4:8 ESV

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

If you’re using the KJV, you will notice that the name “Jesus” is there instead of “Joshua”. The reason is that in Greek the names “Jesus” and “Joshua” are exactly the same - Iesous. However, the context here makes it pretty clear that the author is referring to Joshua and not Jesus. I just can’t think of any context in which the author would be saying that Jesus does not provide the rest that He promised to us in this familiar verse:

Matthew 11:28 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The point here is that even though the people eventually made it to the Promised Land, their earlier disobedience meant that they didn’t ever experience the rest that God intended. Instead they had to fight to take the land in the first place and fight to keep it. And eventually, they were removed from the land for a period of time because of their continued disobedience.

As we talked about last week, missing out on God’s rest due to our disobedience doesn’t mean we lose our salvation. But it does almost always mean we lose out on the blessings of enjoying God’s rest. That is what happened to the Israelites. So, just like the Gentiles, they had to look forward to a future time when Jesus would make it possible for them to enter in God’s rest. That is something their Jewish religion just couldn’t offer.

The idea of future rest we see in that verse also reminds us that even though we can enjoy God’s rest right now in Jesus, the complete and final fulfilment of that rest will only come in the future in the Millennial kingdom and the New Jerusalem after Jesus returns.

Sabbath system

This system is referred to in verse 9:

Hebrews 4:9 ESV

9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,

We tend to think of the Sabbath as being one specific day of the week. For the Jews that day began at sundown on Friday and continued through sundown on Saturday. But the idea of Sabbath rest in the Old Testament was far broader than that. God instituted an entire cycle of rest that included various festivals and feasts and entire years of rest and renewal. God’s intention was that His people would experience rest on a regular basis. But that entire system was also designed to point ahead to Jesus, who is the only source of real, lasting rest.

When we consider all three of these illustrations together, I think we can draw these conclusions about the nature of God’s rest:

Summary:

It is both present and future

As we’ve already discovered, the ultimate experience of God’s rest awaits the return of Jesus and the New Jerusalem, which will be our eternal dwelling place. At that point God’s creation will be restored to its original state, free from the effects of sin. There, we will all serve God, but that service will no longer be a burden, but rather a joy.

But there is also a sense in which we can experience God’s rest right here and now. That is why there is such an emphasis on the word “today” in this section.

Certainly when we put our faith in Jesus Christ alone and quit striving to work for our salvation that provides a degree of rest. And then when we live in obedience to God and enjoy the blessings that come from living in a manner that is consistent with His purposes, plans and ways, we find an additional level of rest.

It is both a place and a state of being

For the Israelites, the Promised Land was a place of rest, although because of their unbelief they never experienced rest there to the degree God originally intended. For us, the New Jerusalem that we read about in Revelation 21-22 will be the ultimate physical place of rest for us.

But biblical rest it is also a state of being that results when we put our faith in Jesus and rest in Him regardless of our circumstances. And to a large degree that aspect of rest is fueled by looking forward to the physical rest we will enjoy for eternity. Although Peter uses the term “hope” to refer to this kind of perspective, I think it would also be fair to characterize that mindset as rest, too:

1 Peter 1:3–6 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

This is the aspect of rest that we are to enter into daily.

So far we have covered the first part of our main idea for today:

I must enter into God’s rest daily by allowing His Word to speak into my life

Application

The second part of that idea - allowing God’s Word to speak into my life - is covered in verses 11-13. At first glance those verses might appear to be completely unrelated to the rest of our passage. In fact, many of you are probably familiar with verse 12. Maybe you can even quote it. But my guess is that you probably haven’t considered how it relates to what comes right before it even though it is clearly connected by the word “therefore” at the beginning of verse 11.

And there is another connection that might not be evident when looking at the ESV translation.

Hebrews 4:2 ESV

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.

In particular I want to call your attention to the word “message”. It is the Greek word “logos”, which literally means “something that is uttered” but which also can refer to the idea or concept conveyed by those words. So “message” is actually a good translation. But it does obscure the connection to verse 12 where the word “logos” is used again:

For the word [logos] of God is living and active...

In verse 2, we discover that just as good news had come to the Israelites in the form of the Word of God that was conveyed through Moses, the Jewish Christians to whom this letter is written have also received good news in the form of God’s Word in the Scriptures as well as the eyewitness testimony of the apostles and others. And the writer is exhorting his readers not to do what the Israelites had done and miss out on God’s rest because of their unbelief. And that is a warning that is still just as applicable for us today. As we said last week, unbelief in God’s Word will always keep me from entering God’s rest.

So all of us have a responsibility to respond in faith to the good news. If you have not yet put your faith in Jesus, that means making that decision today. And for those who have already made that decision, it means allowing God’s Word to speak into my life on a daily basis.

Until we reach our promised heavenly rest, we must persevere in our walk with Jesus every day. And God has given us His Word so that we don’t have to strive according to our own wisdom, but rather according to His purposes, plans and ways. But that will never happen automatically, which is why we are given this command in verse 11:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest...

That seems kind of paradoxical, doesn’t it? In order to enter God’s rest, I have to strive. But how exactly do I do that?

We don’t have time to dig into verse 12 in detail, but again if we’ll take a step back and look at the big picture, I think we can all agree that God’s Word is designed to penetrate deeply into our lives and to make judgments about them. I’m not speaking of judgment in terms of condemning us for what we do wrong, but rather in terms of assessing our lives.

As we saw last week, the root cause of our sin is unbelief. And often that unbelief comes about because we are deceived. We start believing in the lies of this world rather than in the promises of God. And our only real defense against that is the living and active Word of God that is capable of penetrating through all those lies and that deception.

Now obviously that requires being in the Bible on a consistent basis. But, as our main idea this morning indicates...

I must allow God’s Word to speak into my life daily

That means that I need to do more than just read the Bible. I need to open my life up to it and ask God to use it to penetrate deeply to show me who I am and to reveal those areas of my life where I have been deceived or where I have deliberately chose to rebel against God and disobey Him.

I love how Pastor John Piper summarized this idea:

...the pathway to heaven is a path of unremitting focus and earnestness and vigilance toward the Word of God.

We have seen this morning that...

I must enter into God’s rest daily by allowing His Word to speak into my life

Action

So what action are you going to take to apply what we’ve learned today?

If you’ve not yet made the decision to put your faith in Jesus alone, then it’s just not possible to enter into God’s rest. Some of you are wearing yourselves out trying to be made right with God based on what you can do. And I can assure you that you will never find rest as long as you keep doing that. Rest only comes by trusting that Jesus has already done what is needed to allow you to enter into a relationship with God.

For the rest of you who have already made that decision, you understand what it is to rest from your efforts to please God and how freeing that is. But unless you’re allowing God’s Word to speak into your life on a daily basis in the way we’ve talked about this morning, you aren’t enjoying God’s rest to the extent you could either.

So I want to challenge you this morning to begin by reading the Bible in a consistent systemic manner if you’re not already doing that. It’s not enough to just read a verse of the day or to read your favorite passages over and over. I would even go so far to say that sometimes even good devotionals can potentially keep us from those passages that will challenge us and reveal where we’ve been deceived. They can be a great tool and supplement, but they are no substitute for getting into God’s Word.

I also want to challenge you to approach the Bible with the mindset that it won’t always be a pleasant experience. Sometimes it will be painful to discover that we’ve been deceived or that there is some area of our life where we have failed to believe God and obey Him. Ask God to use His Word to penetrate your life and reveal those areas. And then, as we talked about last week, be quick to confess and repent.

Inspiration

God has not given us a guarantee that we will enter into His rest today. But here’s the good news for all of us. He does make it possible for us to experience that rest today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and every day beyond that through eternity. But that all depends on whether we’re willing to allow His Word to speak into our lives every day.