Chapter 4 verses 1 through 13, we continue to work our way through this book. And tonight, the author turns our attention to rest. And so let me invite you to consider rest. God's rest, the rest that God has designed for us from Hebrews 4 verses 1 through 13.
Here now the word of God. 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. 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. 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.
For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. Since, therefore, it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again, he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward, in the word already quoted, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Forever has entered God's rest, has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living an 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.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to who we must give account. Amen. This is God's word. May you cut our hearts with it.
Let's pray. Father, will we meet you? Ask that you would be our teacher. Grant us the gift of the Holy Spirit, that by the Spirit that we would understand your word, and may it be a blessing to us, help us to rest and rest in Christ.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, this passage is about rest. You heard the word rest 10 times in it.
And not just physical then, but spiritual and eternal rest. It's a rest which God provides. It's a rest which God's word offers to you, and it's a rest which God's people are to offer to others. I actually want to think about it in those three parts.
First of all, there's a rest which God provides. Now, let's take the bird's eye view of the passage for a moment, and then we'll get it into nitty gritty in our second point. But there is an availability of rest, he says. The word rest, as I said, or rested, appears 10 times.
It's what we need, and it's truly what God provides. We all need this for our souls to rest in the Lord. I don't know if you know the name Madeline Murray O'Hare. She's now the deceased founder of the President of the American Atheist Society.
She launched a bunch of attacks on Christianity in public life from the 1960s to the 1990s. Her lawsuit before the Supreme Court led to the banning of the reading of the Bible in public schools. Well, her diaries became public, and her life was heartbreaking. Her marriage failed.
Well, from her perspective, this is heartbreaking. Her son became a Christian in 1980 and began witnessing for Christ. Learning that she commented, one could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess. I repudiate him entirely and completely.
For now and all times, he is, she's said, beyond human forgiveness. You see, there's great trouble in her marriage and her family life. She felt, in fact, that in every area of life that she had failed at what she wanted to accomplish in her marriage and her family, even in her relations with her colleagues. It's clear she didn't trust her colleagues in the Association of Atheists.
And she had rejected Jesus, but she desperately felt the need for love. And she never did feel like she got it. Six times in her diaries, she says, someone, somewhere, please love me. Yet she had turned her back on the one who could truly love her and give her soul rest.
Augustine famously said, of God, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. As far as we know, tragically, Madal Murray will hear, turn her back on the only one who could give her that kind of rest. But rest is what we all mean. The kind of rest that knows it's loved by and reconciled to the Creator.
Jesus puts it this way, very famously, Matthew 11, come to me, all you who labor and are have you laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I'm gentle and humble and hard, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And so the main emphasis here in Hebrews, chapter 4, is clear, words I view, it's clear, though admittedly something's very confusing, or more than some. This is, I think, one of the most complicated passages in Hebrews.
The main argument is clear, but the scripture quotations, the altest of an illusion, the logical connections can mudding the waters a bit, and as another pointed out to me, the main emphasis is easy to see. Verse 1, the promise of entering his rest still stands. Verse 3, we who have believed enter that rest. Verse 6, it remains for some to enter it, and verse 11, let us strive to enter the rest.
So there's a rest, believers have it, some still need it, don't miss it. That's the clarity. But one of the things that makes it a bit difficult is the different nuances associated with the word rest as the author brings it up. He circles around at least five different perspectives on rest.
Then let me show you that first, there's Israel's rest in Canaan, the promise land. So in verse 8, he mentions Joshua, and then he says, where if Joshua had given them rest, the promised rest of Canaan, then God would not have spoken of another rest, or another day. So they left Egypt by Moses, their descendants entered Canaan by Joshua, but Joshua didn't give them the rest he's talking about. Jesus can give us what Joshua can't.
But then there's also the rest of God's rest at creation. Or verse 4, God rested on the seventh day from all his works. So God works six days and finished his work. He created all things of nothing, speaking them into existence, and then he seized his work of creation.
Obviously, he didn't cease his work of providentially upholding the universe. But he stopped his work of creation and then took joy and satisfaction in it. And so there's the rest of God's creation. And then there's an allusion to the Sabbath, rest of the fourth commandment.
Verse 9, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And Sabbath is that pattern of six and one, six days of work, one day of rest, that weekly pattern with a heavenly fulfillment. And then there's the believers rest in Christ now, rest for our souls. We're believing in Christ.
Verse 3, we who have believed enter that rest. And then there's the believers rest in Christ in the future of consummation, what we call the heavenly eternal rest. And that's in verses 9 and 10. So he can get a little confusing and fuzzy if we're not clear on the different nuances here.
But it's clear that he's saying there's a rest that God provides. It's like his rest at creation, in that we rest from our labors. It's like the rest of Canaan, which pictured in promise but ultimately couldn't fulfill the promise rest. And it's like the rest of the fourth commandment, the Sabbath rest, which points us to it.
And it is resting in Christ now for salvation and looking to Christ for salvation forever. So that's the big picture. If I didn't make that more money for you. Then secondly, we see it's a rest which scripture offers to us.
And here's the argument for us. There's an availability of rest. Now here's the argument for it. And here, let's wait our way through the logical connections beginning at verse 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. So he's got a picture and this goes all the way back to chapter 3. He's got a picture of the children of Israel and the wilderness redeemed by God through mighty acts out of Egypt, brought across the Red Sea, on to the right ground, brought through the wilderness, through mighty miracles, poised to enter the promised land but hundreds of thousands of them end up dying of the wilderness. Why?
Chapter 3 verse 19 we saw. They were not able to enter because of unbelief. Verse 2 now, chapter 4, 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.
What's he saying? Well, it's not just enough to be in a community where the gospel was proclaimed. You need to combine your hearing with believing. And did you see that?
The writer here says good news was proclaimed to them. He's talking about the gospel. The gospel was proclaimed to the people of God in the Old Testament. And so that was the way of their salvation, believing the message, trusting in the promise of the Messiah.
They were saved by the gospel. That's the only way they could be saved because there is only one way of salvation. Christ of course now has come. The Father sent him and Jesus finished the work that he was given to do.
On the cross he cried out, it was finished. And then he was buried and then he was raised and ascended and he rules at the right hand of the Father. And the redemption is complete and how are people saved? Well, Old Testament believers look forward to the coming of the Messiah and it's finished work.
We look back upon the coming of the Messiah and trust in his finished work. Obviously we know more since he's come. We have much greater detail and what a blessing. But the writer is saying they had the good news preached to them.
The gospel was offered to them, but they didn't benefit because they didn't believe. But he says verse three, believe and you receive. Verse three, for we who have believed enter that rest. As he said, and here he quotes Psalm 95 again, he did it in chapter three.
As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. The negative implies the positive. If some shall not enter rest, then there must still be a rest which some can enter into. If some are excluded, then some are included.
Okay, so it's available. There's an availability and then he goes on to speak of God's rest in the seventh day, my rest. Now this end of verse three, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world where he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way and God rested on the seventh day from his works. So that for God, the writer is saying the seventh day is left open.
The first six days concluded with the phrase there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. But the seventh day did not have that concluding remark. It was open ended, so to speak. It's ongoing and we are invited into God's seventh day, God's Sabbath day, God's eternal and everlasting day of rest.
It is a rest from our works as God rested from his work. So we are invited to rest from our work by resting in Christ and his finished work on our behalf. And so we believe in him and find rest for our souls and that rest never ends. It goes on for eternity.
And then in verses six through nine, he speaks of the fact that though many didn't make it into the promised land, that was not the ultimate rest, that was offered to them. There is a rest that remains. Since verse six, therefore it remains for some to enter it, or verse eight and nine, for if Joshua had given the rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on, so that it remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. So Joshua took them into the promised land of Canaan, yet that wasn't ultimately salvation for them.
It wasn't really the fullness of rest. God intended for them. The land promised was a type of heaven, a foretaste of heaven, a foreshadowing of heaven, but it wasn't the real thing, it pointed to the real thing. And Joshua himself was a type of Jesus, not the Savior, though the name Joshua means the Lord saves.
Jesus comes and his name in Greek means the same as Joshua, the Lord saves. But Jesus is the Savior. Joshua was just a foreshadowing. And so Joshua didn't give them the ultimate rest that only Jesus can give, and Jesus is better than Joshua.
And if the people had the kind of rest God had intended by entering Canaan with Joshua, then why hundreds of years later under David did the Psalm speak of entering God's rest? This is the argument of the writer here. It's because Joshua didn't give them. All of the rest, the kind of rest, that's ultimately promised.
But it's a useful picture. Failure to reach Canaan was an earthly picture of pilgrimage with the goal unrealized. All that time they were together as a people walking through life together following Moses, but never getting rest and dying in the wilderness because they would not believe God. And the writer then says to us, don't be like them.
Enter the rest, right? Verse 17, it is verse 10. It is a rest in which we rest, as we've been saying, from our works just as God rest did from his. We rest in Christ's finished work.
And then resting in Christ, Christ does his work in and through us in this life. And someday the time for work will be over. And in that great day, there will be no turmoil, no trials, no tears, no temptations, no thorns and thistles. The New Heaven and New Earth is coming, a glorious day of eternal Sabbath, spiritual rest.
And so he concludes his argument with an exhortation, verse 11, let us therefore strive to enter that rest, make haste to enter this rest. Do it. See that so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. What disobedience?
Chapter 319, the disobedience of unbelief that he's just been talking about. And so rest is available and rest is offered to us. God's Word offers it to us. How do we strive to enter it by believing the good news that was preached?
That is preached. And so the glory of the gospel is that not only have our sins been accounted to Jesus so that he dies for them to free us from any condemnation we deserve for our sin. But the glory of the gospel is also that Jesus lived a perfectly obedient life of righteousness, loving God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and loving his neighbor as himself, the very things we ought to do but haven't done. And he credits us with his own perfect righteousness.
So we stand pardon and accepted before God in Christ. And so there's rest for the soul. I don't have to establish my own righteousness. I don't have to live so that I can prove I'm worthy.
I just rest in the finished work of Christ and you're offered that in the gospel. And so then consider here the final thing. There's not only a rest which God provides and a rest that the Scripture offers to us, but finally in verse 12 to 13 he makes his application. It is a rest which God's people are offered to others.
That's the language here. Verse 1 and verse 11 and verse 13. We might say he's saying, y'all offer this to the church, to evangelists, to non-Christians, to the church. Verse 1, let us fear lest any of you seem to have failed to reach it.
Let us fear lest any miss out on it. And so he has the, as we, when he's inviting us to contemplate is the possibility that there might be some among us. It's part of the visible body of Christ and even this place called Redeemer that have not reached this rest. They've not truly been forgiven of their sins and accepted as righteous in Christ and so have everlasting life in Jesus.
And so we shouldn't be complacent or laid back. We shouldn't say, well it's not a my concern. We should know. It is our concern, he says.
Do you belong to Christ? It is your concern. We must care about people falling away. If we won't care who will, those who are falling away, they won't care.
Those who have fallen away, of course not. So we say you and I are to be concerned. We are our brothers keeper. James 5, verse 20 says this, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the tree and someone brings him back.
Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. So that as another put it, a good church is not defined by the size of its building, nor by the number of people attending, nor the amounts of money raised, rather by God's standards, a quality church is one that leaves no stragglers behind to lag or perish in unbelief. Let's be that kind of church where the discouraged are encouraged, the weak find strength and the care of others and those in danger of wandering away are recalled to the truth and the spirit of love. So he has a word to us as a church.
I think he has a word here too of angeles as well, verses 12 to 13. I mean why are these words about scripture? God has a rest for us and why are these words about how the scripture offers that rest to us? Because the scripture is God's voice.
Today if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. That scripture is God's voice and that word of God verse 12 is living an act sharper than any Jewish sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the hearts. Why this language of scripture piercing? Because a hard heart is a deceived heart and it thinks it's impenetrable and it is not, it thinks it's concealed itself from God and it can't.
So then don't think he's saying to us, don't think about others who we suspect have hard hearts, not uncharitably but evidently, don't think about them that God can't reach them. If you start to think God can't reach them, you'll quit sharing the gospel with them. But the message of the gospel is the weapon of this war. It's the weapon we have.
It's the sword of the spirit. It's the power of God. By the message of the gospel, God does his work. By the foolishness of preaching, God saves many.
And so we need to aim to bring people to faith. Of course not by coercion, but by persuasion, by the sword of the spirit, not the sword of the soldier. Thomas, pastor now retired, aberrist with Wales. It mentioned this in a sermon on this passage.
She says of a mother from Swansea, I'm not sure where that is, asked me to visit her son at the University of Aberrist with, I was happy to do so, but he was resistant and embarrassed and did not want to hear of the claims of Christ. It seemed an unfruitful tense time, but his roommates sitting on a bed in the room was listening to all the conversation. And the next week he turned up in church and became a Christian and married a girl in the congregation. He had not even been talking directly to him, and yet the word was effectual for salvation.
And so by way of application, parents, if you're dealing with a child with a hard heart, we may be tempted to look for some technique to change them. We might be tempted to manipulate them, of course them, force them. I think it's better if we just keep on loving them and be patient with them and pray for them and keep dripping the good news of the gospel over them that in time, in God's own appointed time, he might pierce the heart. And then to non-Christians, if you walk away, be sure of this.
You aren't fooling anyone but yourself. People think that they can hide, but God's word leaves us exposed. So verse 13, no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him and we must give an account. The image there is either of a grip on the throat holding up the head or of a dagger at the throat forcing up the head.
That is the word of God, the dagger of God, either pierces through your heart and brings you to faith or it sits at your throat, lifting your face to the gaze of God who sees all. And so if we think God can't see our hard heart that he then won't judge an evil unbelieving heart, we ought not be so foolish. He is an ignorant and he isn't powerless. So if you're here today hearing these words, then you are not beyond rest.
Today the writer says, if you hear his voice, today is any day, you hear the promise of salvation through believing in Jesus. Then respond, the missionary. And respond in faith. The missionary went to a people with no word for believe, working in the fields to learn their words.
He took a break and a guy threw himself down on the ground in the shade of the tree and he said, what did you just do? What's that word? And so he translated John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever throws himself down on him will not perish but have everlasting life. Whoever believes in him, rests the care of their soul in him.
Throw yourself down on Jesus and rest in the shade of his tree. Let me invite us all to do so. Let's pray. Father, make it so.
Grant most especially that we would not have a hard, unbelieving heart to the message of the good news of the gospel that God saved sinners, that God sent a Savior, that Jesus died for the ungodly. Grant us a tender heart, conscious of our own need, convicted by the Holy Spirit. And then grant us as Jesus promised that we might find our rest in him, in his name I pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's stand together and say. Amen.