SIMPLY JESUS
Jesus Our Rest
Hebrews 4:1-11
INTRODUCTION
-Many summers back my friend Joel and I decided to hike 2 of the highest mountains in Oregon…in one trip.
-We drove all the way over to the Wallowa Mountains, and started our rugged journey by…cheating.
-There is tram that you can ride to the top of mount Howard which takes you up to 8255 ft above sea level.
-And our ingenious plan (pic of Erik) was to start our climb from there so we wouldn’t have to gain all that elevation on the trail.
-It also saved us one extra day.
-Now you have to do the math with me; I live in McMinnville which is about 150 ft above sea level.
-So what happens when a lowlander straps on a 40lb backpack, at 8000 ft elevation, and at starts to hike?
-You can’t breathe! And so you are very, very tired.
-And so we were going incredibly slow, which made us an easy target for the mosquitoes, and we had one of the most exhausting days of my entire life.
-By the time we camped that night at the base of Sacajawea and Mattherhorn, I could not wait to go to sleep!
-My body was crying out for rest.
-And I’m sure that if we all swapped stories, we could each tell tales of times when we were really tired and hungered for rest.
-Here’s what you may not have realized: one of the gifts that God has given us and wants to give us is the gift…of rest.
-This is one of the quieter themes in Scripture but it makes a bold appearance here in Hebrews 4.
-Let me give you a very quick overview of “rest” in the Bible.
Genesis 2:2 “On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.”
-WHEN GOD HAD FINISHED CREATING THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH HE RESTED. (GEN 2:2)
-Now God doesn’t get tired, but he rested. Why?
-To establish the precedent of resting for us.
-Later, when God established his people and gave them the Law of Moses, and the idea of rest came up several times.
-First he gave them what was called the Sabbath.
-THE SABBATH WAS GIVEN AS A DAY OF REST FOR ALL THE PEOPLE. (4TH)
-It was a day when no work was to be done, a day for families to spend time together, a day to do nothing.
-The whole purpose of that day was to slow down, quiet down, focus on God, and family, and it was a day not to work. Rest!
-How many of us truly need a day of rest like that in our busy lives
-When God took Israel as his people, he set up their lives how he thought they should be…and that included intentional time of rest
-Every 7 years the farmers of Israel were to give the land a rest
-And every 50 years the whole country took a year of rest.
-But there was another rest that God spoke of for his people.
-In Deut 12:8-11 and (other places in the OT)…it says
-GOD GAVE HIS PEOPLE THE PROMISED LAND AS A PLACE OF REST.
-It was a place of rest from enemies, rest from poverty, slavery.
-A place to rest from their wanderings in the wilderness.
-He wanted it to be a place where they could rest from the temptation to worship other gods.
-The greatest part of that “rest” is that it was God’s idea!
-Rest is something he wanted the Israelites to have.
-And I know that all of you fast paced, busy, overcommitted, and burnt out Americans…hunger for that kind of rest. Good news!
VERSES 1-5:
4:1 God’s promise of entering his rest still stands,
-GOD’S PROMISE OF REST STANDS: HE STILL DESIRES TO GIVE US REST.
-It’s a different rest than he promised the Israelites.
-We’re not hoping for some acreage near the Gaza strip!
-I have a strong aversion to machine gun fire and suicide bombers.
-But the promise of rest sounds intriguing!
-It should peak our curiosity at the very least.
-How many of people are weary in their souls and want rest?
-How many people R tired of guilt & shame and need a reprieve?
-How many people in this room are exhausted from trying to measure up to the world’s standards of success and prosperity, and what you really need is just a break from it all?
-How many came here today looking for a break from your weary dreary daily existence?
-How many of us are so tired of this old world that we can’t wait until the day we enter our place of rest called heaven!
-Verse 1 hits us with a PROMISE of rest right out of the gate!
-God has promised us rest. If God promises…it’s guaranteed!
-But you’ll notice the promise comes with a warning.
so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it.
-The author makes a very sobering statement here.
-TREMBLE: AT THE NOTION OF A CHRISTIAN MISSING GOD’S REST.
-The thought that someone would receive Jesus and then drift and fail to experience God’s rest is…tragic!
-This has been a theme throughout Hebrews.
-2:1 says, “So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it.”
-3:12-13 says, “Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.
-Why should we tremble at this possibility? Let’s review what we’ve learned so far:
-Jesus Christ did all of the work for OUR salvation.
-He came to earth, endured temptation but didn’t sin.
-He sacrificed himself on the cross. He paid our fines.
-There is nothing we can do to earn what he has freely given…
-We believe that Jesus did all the work for us, and the only part we have in salvation is to receive his gift by faith.
-And…to cling to it. To hold on to it. To not drift away from it.
-Because if we reject His gift, there’s nowhere else to turn.
-And so people who take that gift and then walk away…hopeless.
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.
-If you’re taking the Bible in One Year challenge, you should be heading into Numbers where this story unfolds.
-Moses sent 12 men to spy on the Promised Land. They came back with reports of rich soil, fine crops…a land of plenty!
-But 10 of those spies said the bad guys are too big for us!
-Only Caleb and Joshua said, “Come on, we can take these guys!”
-Who do you suppose the people listened to? The 10 doubters!
-The people began to cry and whine and complain and they said, “Let’s pick a new leader and head back to Egypt”
-Their plan was to go back into slavery. And God had enough of it:
-He said, “You have seen me do miracles, I’ve provided for you, I rescued out Egypt with a display of power. You have seen my presence as I led you to this place of Promise and Rest.”
-And now that you’re on the brink of entering you have lost faith.
-And so you will never enter this place of rest.
-But it wasn’t a lack of religious activity or good deeds that kept them from the Promised Land.
DIDN’T SHARE THE FAITH: THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL TRADED THEIR FAITH FOR DOUBTS, FEARS, AND LIES.
-And people do that today all the time.
-Do you know how many people I’ve seen come to Christ and then leave him because something went wrong in their life?
-A sickness, a job loss, something caused them to doubt the goodness and promised of God.
-Do you know how many women I’ve seen come to Christ, and then leave Him for a man? Because of the fear of being alone.
-Do you know how many men I’ve seen who have listened to the same lies as the Israelites. When the task at hand seemed too hard, the Israelites said we’ll find our rest somewhere else.
-We’ll go back to Egypt; we’ll have food and shelter, a job.
-It may not be the Promised Land but we’ll take it.
-And so many people who have said “yes” to Christ, go right back to slavery. To bondage. To living for themselves:
-Living for paychecks, living for comfort, living for pleasure because they didn’t have faith. But look at verse 3…
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.” 5 But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.”
-Those hard-hearted, faithless people died in the wilderness having never entered God’s rest.
-They traded their faith in for doubts and disbelief.
-The only people to experience that Promised Land, from the original Exodus, were Joshua and Caleb.
-Almost ten years ago I went to Costa Rica on a mission trip.
-It was life changing. I went with E3 partners, the same group I’m going to Rwanda with in May.
-We got to Costa Rica and were paired with a local church member, and a translator. And every day we did the same thing.
-We had rice and beans for breakfast then went into the sweltering humidity of these little Costa Rican villages.
-At noon we stopped and had rice and beans…and dinner was usually something different, but with a side of rice and beans.
-And knocked on doors all day asking people if they wanted to hear the good news about Jesus. Not one person turned us down.
-The physical, emotional, and spiritual fatigue on those week long campaigns is draining. Not to mention the digestive fatigue!
-But all week they talked about our fun day…the last day of the trip which was supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation.
-We were going to go hike to the top of an active volcano, go out to a nice dinner, and buy some souvenirs at the local shops…
-Well, the day before that fun day…the director of the team came to me and said Erik I need to ask you a favor.
-One of our tickets for the return trip was a standby, and we didn’t get it. So someone has to fly home a day early and miss the fun day. I hate to ask you this but would you be willing to miss it?
-So while all of our team was site seeing, and partying, and resting, I was in down town Atlanta in a motel with 6 dead bolts on the door, trying not to get mugged! (not kidding)
-After all of our Costa Rican wandering I missed the place of rest!
-And all of those Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 yrs..
-All of those people who ate rice and beans for every meal…I mean “manna”…for every meal.
-All of those people who’d been waiting to celebrate in the Land of God’s rest….failed to enter.
-But it wasn’t because they got bumped. It’s because they lost their faith in God. And because of that, they lost everything.
VERSES 6-11:
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. 7 So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today.
The Israelites who had gone through the Exodus had good news about a place of rest.
-And so did the generations who followed them.
-And TODAY: WE HAVE THE PROMISE OF REST THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.
-I love that line…“that time is today!”
-Today is the day for you to believe what God has promised.
-Today is the day for you to accept that free gift for yourself.
-Today is the day for you to give up your burdens, your addictions, your pride and sign up for the “rest” that comes from Jesus.
-Today is the day for you to reclaim what has always been God’s gift to you…the gift of rest.
-And if you haven’t taken what God has offered, today is the day for you to put on eye on eternity and think about that ultimate rest…in the Kingdom called “Heaven.”
7b God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.” 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 you don’t know your OT you may not won’t this part.
-Joshua eventually did lead the people of Israel into the promise land. But much later David wrote about another rest.
-David was writing about something different.
-He was anticipating another rest, something that God was going to do in the future. That rest is…
STILL TO COME: THE PLACE OF REST AND UNBROKEN FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD.
-Verse 8 paints a real picture for us…
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. 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.
-I want to go to that place of special rest. The best day on earth doesn’t even compare to the place of rest God has prepared 4 us.
-All the things that make us weary, and tired.
-The pain in our bodies, and the pain in our hearts.
-All the life sucking things we deal with on earth, will be gone when we finally enter heaven…the perfect place of rest.
-I think sometimes we Christians forget that heaven in our goal.
-We forget that Christianity isn’t just following rules…it’s a journey we’re on with Jesus…to get to the place of rest.
-And so verse 11 gives us a very simple piece of advice:
DO OUR BEST TO ENTER THAT REST:
-God gave his best effort to see us enter that place of rest.
-And it stands to reason that we should give our best effort as well
-We can’t earn our way into heaven.
-We can’t deserve what Jesus gave us for free.
-We can’t possibly do enough good deeds.
-But what we can do, and what we must do, is cling to our faith in Jesus. We must SIMPLY REMAIN FAITHFUL!
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DO I REGULARLY STOP TO ENJOY GOD’S GIFT OF REST?
AM I ON TRACK TO FINISH FAITHFULLY?
