Entering into Rest
Notes
Transcript
Needed Rest?
Needed Rest?
Ever Needed Rest
Ever Needed Rest
For vacation this year we spent 5 days walking around a theme park for around 12 hours a day. I accumulated almost 20,000 steps every day and by the end of the day I was completely spent. We had a great time but I ended up physically beaten, and mentally exhausted.
I am sure you had experiences like this, where you feel like you are worn out and just have nothing left to give. The older you get when this happens you find places hurting that you didn’t even know were capable of hurting, and you just need rest.
Israelite Rest
Israelite Rest
I couldn’t imagine that experience of walking around for days and multiplying it by 40 days much less 40 years like the Israelites did. When God spoke of rest to them I imagine that they understood rest on a completely different level. So would have those who were he recipients of the letter to the Hebrews. Today I think that we are so accustomed to rest, that it might not have as much an impact to speak of God’s rest. We have televisions and couches and all of the other technologies that can occupy our time, and give us rest. Many of us have jobs that involve sitting or standing in a stationary location and interacting with a computer that the idea of being desperate for physical rest isn’t as pressing, but even in those cases I am sure that we could relate to the need for mental rest.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Hebrews chapter 3 as we have been studying these last few weeks, speaks to the unbelief of the Israelites. Of the rest of the promised land not entered into because of the people’s unbelief.
The end of Chapter 3 recaps the chapter, and sets us up for chapter 4 which is going to be the focus of our message this morning.
Take a look with me at the end of Chapter 3, starting in verse 15
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. 17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Instead of rest, these Israelites grieved God for forty years, and then fell dead in the wilderness. But a rest was still promised and was obtainable.
That brings us to our passage this morning, Hebrews 4:1-10, please follow with me as I read
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. 3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: 7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
Our message this morning is entitled Entering into Rest
Let’s Pray
Restless
Restless
The Promised Land
The Promised Land
In Hebrews, the picture is being made from the Exodus from Egypt, but the preacher isn’t speaking of entering into a new land on earth. And the passage starts off in relatively bleak way with the phrase
Hebrews 4:1 (KJV 1900)
1 Let us therefore fear...
This is the word φοβέω (phobeō). It’s the word where we get the word Phobia. This isn’t a small fear we are reading about. I am afraid of needles and getting a shots or giving blood at the doctor’s office, but that is a small fear. It makes me nervous and uncomfortable, but I can push through it pretty easily to get done what needs to get done. No, this is an intense fear, an almost paralyzing fear that we are talking about. I think a good way to understand this is the word terror. We should be terrified that we might fall short of our promised salvation. This rings of what we read in Philippians 2:12
12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
In fact, this is the same word φοβέω (phobeō) being used as fear here as we find in our passage in Hebrews 4 this morning.
While I don’t think every single message needs to be about the wrath of God and hell, I think it is a good think for someone to not only see that they have sinned before an Almighty God but to see the consequence of that sin as something to be feared.
There is no sugar coating what we read at the end of chapter 3 in v17
17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
A direct point is being made here and it’s being made graphically and without pulling any punches.
If the Lord tarries and we make it all the way to Hebrews 10 we will read in Hebrews 10:31
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
The Sabbath
The Sabbath
But this isn’t talking about the Sabbath either. Not directly anyway. The Sabbath first makes it’s appearance pretty close to the front cover of our Bibles in Genesis 2:2-3
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
God codified the sabbath in the 10 commandments in Exodus 20:8
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
I have to point this out, and maybe you already know this, but the sabbath is the seventh day. Genesis 2 was pretty clear about that right. The very word sabbath means seventh.
Sunday is not the Sabbath. Saturday is the Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord’s Day and it is different. I say this to point out that the 4th commandment does not apply to the Sunday. I grew up in Sunday School believing that the instruction to keep holy the Sabbath meant we were supposed to not work and to go to church on Sunday. It’s just not true. There are other places that refer to the need to meet with your church on the Sunday, the Lord’s Day, but this isn't one of them. In fact this is the only of the 10 commandments repeated in the New Testament.
Rest Another Day
Rest Another Day
We are given another day for rest and it’s not Sunday. It’s the day we read repeated over and over again in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, it’s the day our scripture this morning speaks of Hebrews 4:7
Hebrews 4:7 (KJV 1900)
7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
That day is Today. Look down with me again in verses 8 through 10
8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
verse 8 is going to trip us up a little bit. The King James translators in verse 8 chose to translate Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous) as Jesus, where it is pretty clearly referring to Joshua.
F.F. Bruce said of this in his commentary
The Epistle to the Hebrews C. The True Rest of God May Be Forfeited (4:1–10)
We must, of course, use the personal name “Joshua” here instead of “Jesus” which appears in the AV/KJV (the revisers of 1611 would have done better to follow the precedent of Tyndale, Coverdale, and Whittingham, all of whom had used “Joshua”).
Rendering Iēsou as Jesus and Joshua at different places where it is referring to Jesus Christ and Joshua in the Old Testament make it a little easier to follow, but the names Joshua and Jesus are, in fact, the same name in Hebrew. Yeshua.
Bruce continues
Yet it must be recognized that the reader of the Greek Bible had (and still has) an advantage over the reader of the English Bible because to him “Joshua” and “Jesus” are not two names but one; he could distinguish between our Lord and his most illustrious namesake of Old Testament days, and at the same time appreciate some of the implications of the fact that they are namesakes. The parallel between the Old Testament “Jesus,” who led his followers into the earthly Canaan, and Jesus the Son of God, who leads the heirs of the new covenant into their heavenly inheritance, is a prominent theme of early Christian typology,Whose Works?
Hebrews is saying is that there is a rest still to be entered into and if the rest of Joshua leading the Israelites into the promised land were the final rest offered to God then the Psalmist wouldn’t have written of a rest to come on another day.
Employment Change
Employment Change
It comes down to an employment change. Years ago I left a job where I programmed what are essentially industrial computers to work for the company I work for today, which is an electrical products distributor who sells those industrial computers.
Since the company I left was a customer of the company where I am currently employed, my former boss had the audacity to call the company and demand that I finish working on the programing for the project that I was working on when I left, and if memory serves, I think he expected me to do it free of charge.
But here is the thing. I didn’t work for that guy anymore. I ceased doing work for him and began doing work for my new employer. And really that is a picture of the impact of the gospel on the life of a Christian.
When you are the boss of your life, you do work for yourself. Your life is entirely consumed by fulfilling you own desires. In essence, we are our own gods.
But the life of a Christian is different than this. Their life is that of someone who has given their life to Christ. It is no longer that they are serving themselves because their boss had changed. Christ is now their boss.
When people are asked for the reason that they go from one employer to the next, 60% of the time people say that one of the reasons is for better compensation.
And that is what it comes to in our passage this morning. Spiritually, if you continue in your own works, and you are serving only yourself then you earn a certain wage. What does Romans 6:23 say?
Romans 6:23 (KJV 1900)
23 For the wages of sin is death ....
But if you cease from your own works, and instead, through obedience to God enter into His rest, how does the verse continue?
Romans 6:23 (KJV 1900)
23 ..... but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The reason that the Sabbath is not re-stated in the Old Testament is because the theological truth of the Sabbath is made more perfectly understood.
Jesus Christ is the sabbath. Not only does Jesus say in Matthew 12:8
8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
but he says in Matthew 11:28
Matthew 11:28 (KJV 1900)
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you — rest.
Invitation
Invitation
This morning if you are your own spiritual boss, if you have spent your life doing things your own way and haven’t surrendered your life to Christ as your Lord and Savior. What I can almost guarantee is that you feel the weight of unrest in your life.
My hope is that if you aren’t in Christ’s rest that the Holy Spirit this morning makes the weight of your sin so heavy on you and that you become so tired of carrying that sin around that you are desperate to enter into rest. Christ’s rest.
And I pray you will make a decision Today. That you will turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior for your rest.
If you want to know more about our savior or if you have decided to trust Christ please come see me and I would love to talk to you once we close in prayer. If you are watching from home, you can send me a private message and I will get back to you confidentially.
Let’s pray