Opening Illustration: In Community Group this past Wednesday, we got into a brief discussion about where the best place to go on vacation is.  While there are some misguided people in my Community Group who disagree with me, it became clear that the best place to go on vacation is the beach. One mom in my group said, “I’ll agree with you if I don’t have to take my kids with me! Going to the beach with kids isn’t a vacation. I leave more tired than I arrived.” And that’s true, I typically call vacations with my kids “a change of scenery”. Why is it that the things we work so hard for often leave us more exhausted? We work and work to get to our vacations, often only feeling more tired. We are an overworked culture. The statics out there are staggering.How many hours we work. How little vacation time we take. I read this week that the “The Swahili have a term for Anglos and Americans: mazungu. It means ‘One who spins around.’[1] The world sees our culture as non-stop. And the studies show that it all catches up with us. Stress and lack of sleep are often considered the biggest threat to our health. In one study I read, “Workers who put in an average of at least 11 hours per day at the office had roughly two and a half times higher odds of developing depression than their colleagues who clocked out after seven or eight hours.”[2] We are tired. I’m tired.

Can I give some good news? There is rest available to you. In fact, you’ve already been given that rest. You just need to choose to enter that rest. Today, we are going to look at how enter a rest that only comes from Jesus. Here’s what’s cool about that rest: It’s resting in Jesus that enables us to keep going. Today isn’t about me telling you that you need stop moving. Today is about God telling us how we keep going. Here’s what we see in God’s Word today: Those who endure the best are those who rest in Jesus.  Our current Sermon Series: Hebrews: The Complete Work of Christ.  We are journeying through the book of Hebrews. We continue to see two major themes: Jesus is better. Stay close to Jesus. We are about to read God’s Word. And we are about to see that God’s Word is alive and powerful. Let’s read His Word with expectancy. Read Hebrews 4:1-13. Pray. What did we see last with our time in God’s Word? “Faith to the end requires a heart near to Jesus.” We don’t have to endure to receive faith. But rather because of our faith that we endure. Endurance of faith demonstrates that we belong to Christ. The best way to have endurance is by keeping your heart near to Jesus. Jesus wants your heart to be near to Him. That’s why God designed a way for you to be near. Here’s where we jump into the text: God designed rest for you.

[1] https://summitchurch.com/GetFile.ashx?Guid=a6038eab-df4d-4950-8c7a-898b2ea8a2f7

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/health/working-overtime-doubles-depression/index.html

1) God designed rest for you. (vs. 1-4) Let’s look at these first four verses: ¹God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. We see something amazing off the bat in verse 1. There’s a promise for us to take hold of. What’s that promise? God’s rest is available! Just because the Israelites failed to enter the Promised Land – or God’s provided rest – God didn’t decide to shut the door on rest for good. In case you missed last week, we saw the Israelites failed to enter a place that God had set aside for them because their unbelief took over. In verse 1, there is also a warning. Because God’s rest is still available, it means that you can still miss it. Verse 1 is that God’s rest is still available, but don’t miss it. Why? Well, verse 2 tells us that rest is something God wants for us. It’s something that God has prepared for us. 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. 

Rest is not only something God wants for us and has prepared for us, rest is something God designed at the creation of the world for us. Look at verses 3 and 4: 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,’” 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.”  Why are we pointed all the way back to day seven of the creation account? Rest is God’s design for us. In fact, God choose to make rest part of the 10 commandments. There isn’t an asterisk by the fourth commandment that says, “If you feel like it!” Rest for the Christian isn’t optional, it’s required. 

Why is rest required? What was God’s intentions when He designed Sabbath (which means to rest)?

1. To remember that God is the point of it all.
   • To remember that God is the provider of it all
2. To reflect on your salvation
   • God told the Israelites to look back on how He freed them from slavery
   • God wants us to look back often how we were freed from the bondage of sin and death
3. To see Jesus as the ultimate rest
   • We’ll talk about that special rest we see in verse 9 in a minute

Do you have a biblical framework of rest and Sabbath? God designed rest, wants rest for you, and requires rest of you. Our lives are designed to be in a rhythm of work and rest. Illustration:  Half Marathon Training. I am training my body to run 13.1 miles. Do you know how many times I run per week? 3 times per week. Why? Shouldn’t I be running every day? 13.1 miles is a lot of miles. If we fail to do both well, then we are living our lives out of the rhythm God designed. And that creates unrest. It takes away our peace. We become restless. It’s one thing to acknowledge the rhythm that God created. It’s another thing to live in that rhythm. Here’s what we see next: God designed for you to enter His rest.

2) God designed for you to enter His rest. (vs. 5-10) What’s the point of hearing the play call if you don’t actually go out and run the play? What we see starting in verse 5 is what it looks like to actually enter in God’s rest. Because some of you all might be thinking that all of this means you need to go take a nap this afternoon. And you should – Sunday afternoon naps are the best. They just hit differently than other day of the week. But entering God’s rest is not just physical rest. Starting in verse 5, the writer of Hebrews shows us this rest being offered to us is much more than a beach vacation. In verse 5 and 6, we see again that the Israelites didn’t enter the Promised Land: ⁵ But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.” 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.  And then in verse 7, we see the call to enter God’s rest: 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.” God announced His rest at creation, announced it to the Israelites in the Mosaic covenant, announced it before Canaan, David announced it in Psalm 95, and now God is announced it today. We know God is announcing His rest today because eventually the Israelites made it in the Promised Land. That’s what verse 8 is about: ⁸ Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. If God’s rest was just about the Promised Land, then it would have been completed when Joshua lead them out of the wilderness.

So, that special rest, that God rest is here, today, waiting for you to enter into it. Look at verse 9 and 10: ⁹ So there is a special rest 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. What is this rest? It’s soul rest. It’s a rest that became fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It’s a rest that changes your status, your identity, your purpose, and your security. When we work, what does it do to us? It gives us security. When our bank account has money in it, we find rest from worry. Working gives us purpose. We wake up and we go do something. Working gives us an identity. We are given a title at our work place, which drives our identity. When we look to Jesus who has done all the work we’ll ever need, and we chose to let our soul rest in Him, it changes us. It changes our identity, our security, and our purpose. When we sit in those things that are only found in Jesus, there is where we find rest. Resting in God means entering into complete dependence on God. Illustration: Rachel and I get caught in a rain storm in a small boat. The motor came unplugged. It’s what Matthew 11:28 is all about: ²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 

How do we enter this rest? You have to create purposeful pauses in your life. You have to create time “to be” instead of “to do”. Here’s a rhythm I learned from another pastor: Divert Daily. Withdraw Weekly. Abandon Annually. Of those three, I encourage to focus on withdraw weekly. I don’t care what day of the week it is – it doesn’t have to be Sunday. Find a time weekly when you can pause as individual or a family enter into dependence on God. Examples: The reason that God rested on the 7^th day of creation was to signal that everything was absolutely taken care of. The reason that you rest in Jesus is because you are signaling that Jesus has taken care of absolutely everything. God designed rest. Enter His rest. And finally, God designed for you to stay in His rest. 

3) God designed for you to stay in His rest. (vs. 11-13) We are given two options in verse 11: 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. What are those options? Enter God’s rest or fall. Enter God’s rest or collapse from spiritual exhaustion. Enter God’s rest or burn out doing it on your own. What is followed up after the presentation of the options seems a bit peculiar. We see an amazing statement on the word of God: ¹² For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. God’s Word is spiritually alive. When it comes to the spiritual realm, God’s Word has life and power. And what does that power do? It teaches, it convicts, and it exposes. God’s Word has the ability to penetrate our souls. No other book can do that. Someone can pick up the Bible for the first time, read it, get convicted of their sin, and begin a relationship with Jesus Christ. No other book has the ability to change a person’s eternity.

What does that have to do with staying in God’s rest? Look at verse 13: ¹³ Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Our belief or unbelief will be exposed before God. God has given us the gift of His Word to show us where we stand. God has given us the gift of His Word to reveal our hearts so we know if are in His rest or running on our own power. It’s the wake up call we need. Illustration: Semi Truck Horn while Driving. Quote: “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” – CS Lewis. 

I’ll close with this question…What if we changed the standard of how we evaluate Christians? What if it was less about how busy we are and more about near to Jesus we are? The problem is not how many hours we are working. The problem is how few hours we are resting in Jesus. Can you imagine what your life would look like if you let your soul rest frequently in Jesus? Can you imagine what our church would look like? Illustration: Jesus in the boat during the storm. I re-read the story of Jesus calming the storms in Luke 8. Let me read. Let’s pray.

 Transition to Lord’s Supper and Prayer

Previous Page