Summary: Hebrews 4 is the great rest chapter of the Bible, for the word rest is used 9 times in this chapter, and that is more than any other entire book of the Bible.

Heaven is so appealing because it is a place where all negatives are forever eliminated.

No more war and struggle on every level, but peace and security with all threats gone. It

is a place of rest from all the strife of life. God’s goal is to share with all of His people the

blessedness of rest, which is the satisfaction that comes with a job well done and a task

completed. He finished His creation and rested, and He commanded His people to do the

same. The Sabbath was to be a taste of heaven where labor is replaced by leisure, and

where enjoyment was to replace employment. The Promised Land was a part of this same

picture. It was to be a place where His people dwelled in peace and prosperity in contrast

to being slaves for centuries in Egypt, and living in poverty. The Sabbath and Promised

Land were a taste of the ultimate in God’s plan for His people. They were a taste of

heaven.

These were mere shadows of better things to come, however, and they were never

adequate to accomplish the goal of giving people God’s experience of rest. The Sabbath

became a burden to people rather than a blessing because the Pharisees made so many

laws to regulate it that it became a pain. The Promised Land never became a place of

peace and rest because of the disobedience of the people and its history is one on warfare

and much disappointment. The children of Israel never did enter into the fullness of the

rest that God had for them, and so there remains yet a Sabbath-rest for the people of

God. It is still God’s goal to give rest to His people, and it is still the great challenge of His

people to enter into that rest. That is the essence of the message of Hebrews chapter 4.

God’s plan has not failed just because His people failed to receive and achieve it. He

wants His people to enter into His rest, and every generation of believers is expected to do

so.

Our rest is not found in the Sabbath, even though the principle of resting one day in

seven is still valid, and our rest is not in the Promised Land, for that was exclusive to

Israel alone. Our rest is in the Person of Jesus Christ who is our Sabbath and our

Promised Land. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-29, “Come to me, all you who are weary and

burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am

gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus is our rest, and in

Him alone do we find all the peace and comfort that God wills for us to have. He is our

Promised Land where we live in peace with God. He is the greatest rest because in Him

we have rest for our souls. It is not merely rest of the body that we have in Him. It is rest

of the soul, which means that we have in Him an inner peace with God that is a real taste

of heaven. The Sabbath only gave rest for the body and it was temporary, but in Jesus we

have rest for the soul that is permanent. The rest we have in Jesus is like the appetizer of

a great meal. It will be followed by that great meal which is the marriage supper of the

Lamb, which is the beginning of the eternal banquet we call heaven.

Hebrews 4 is the great rest chapter of the Bible, for the word rest is used 9 times in this

chapter, and that is more than any other entire book of the Bible. It is an important

subject because it is an important part of God’s plan for man, and the people He chose to

experience His best in time failed to experience it because of their unbelief. God gave up

on them and swore they would not enter into His rest, but He never gave up on getting

people to enter that rest. Man’s disobedience and failure will not stop God from achieving

His goal, and so there always remains a rest. There always remains the danger of missing

it also, and that is what this chapter is about. The promise remains of a rest, but the same

problem of unbelief also exists, and so the writer is warning this new generation of God’s

people to take heed that they do not miss God’s rest because of a hardened heart of

unbelief that caused so many in the past to miss it. God is going to have a people who will

enjoy His rest with Him for all eternity, and they will be a people who enjoy a strong taste

of that eternal rest in time, but the only way to be a part of this people is to be a person of

faith and not a person of unbelief.

We start with the belief that the promise of rest is still valid. Verse 1 says the promise

of entering his rest still stands. In verse 3 it says we who have believed enter that rest. In

verse 6 it says it still remains that some will enter that rest. Verse 9 says there remains a

Sabbath rest for the people of God, and finally in verse 11 it says, “Let us, therefore,

make every effort to enter that rest...” The Old Testament people of God missed it, but

the New Testament people of God still have the chance to enter God’s rest, and that is

God’s will for all believers. This is not a popular subject, but it should be, for it is one of

God’s goals for His people and it should be a high priority in the life of every believer to

enter God’s rest. The implication is that we have already entered His rest by believing in

Jesus as Savior, but that we have not fully entered into His rest because we have not yet

made every effort to do so. In other words, it is easy to get in by belief, but to get deeply

into His rest so as to experience the fullness of it calls for determined effort on our part.

There is more to the rest that can be our in Christ than being saved. It is one thing to step

into a house, but it is another to own that house and enjoy all of its benefits. Salvation is

just the beginning of the rest that we find in Jesus. To get a greater view of what is

involved I want to look at some characteristics of the rest that can be ours by means of

topics that come under the letters R, E, S, T.

I. RELAX

When God finished creation He was not exhausted, for He is all powerful and does not

need rest, but He did it anyway to illustrate that there is a time to relax and enjoy what

you have made and not be always working to make more. Many people live their whole

lives in making money and fame and other things, but do not take the time to relax from

their labors to enjoy what they have made, and what God has made for them to enjoy.

God is no workaholic and He expects His children to imitate Him. Reach a goal and then

relax and enjoy it. Verse 10 stresses this: “For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests

from his own work, just as God did from His.” This has implications in both the physical

and spiritual realm. A Sabbath for the body where we just cease all labor for things and

have a relaxing time to enjoy them is a part of God’s plan for His people. Those who

never take a day off to relax, and those who never take a vacation from work are not

living in obedience to the principles that God has laid down for His people. The

workaholic is a sinner, even if they are working for God, for they are living in defiance of

His plan for them.

In the spiritual realm the idea of relaxing is crucial for the happy and wholesome life of

the believer. The abundant life Jesus came to give us involves this spiritual relaxing and

entering into rest. Spiritual resting is a matter of awareness that we do not have to labor

for our salvation, but wholly lean on Jesus. So many believers are infected with the false

idea of salvation by works that they never relax and enjoy what they have freely received

in Jesus. They do not have confidence that they are saved by Him alone and so they feel

the pressure of having to do so much to have assurance that they will be saved. This leads

to guilt for not doing enough and endless pressure to always be doing more. They can

never fully relax and enjoy the gift Jesus purchased for them. They have not grasped

what Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-

--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, [we are to rest from

our own works!] so that no one can boast." When Jesus said “it is finished” it was

finished. His blood atoned for all sin and made it possible for us to be forgiven and

accepted into the family of God. There is nothing we can add to His work to be saved. We

need only accept His finished work and relax and enjoy the gift of eternal life. This means

that entering His rest is having a total confidence in Him and what He has done that we

are released from all pressure to save ourselves.

The Old Testament people of God had no confidence in God. In spite of all the

miracles they saw they never ceased to doubt and complain. They expected God to

abandon them in the desert, and they expected God to let them down and be defeated if

they entered the promised land. They always expected the worst and never had faith that

God would work on their behalf. This unbelief made them miss God’s best and they never

entered His rest. Ray Stedman writes about how this is still a problem today for the

people of God. He writes,

“Failure to expect God to act caused the disobedience of Israel in the wilderness, and a

similar failure destroys thousands today. It is called overachieving now, but it is the cause

for most of the breakdown of Christians under the pressure of stress or responsibility.

Pastors and teachers particularly have often been taught that they are personally

responsible to meet the emotional needs and to solve the relational problems of all in their

congregations. Many sincerely attempt this but soon find themselves overwhelmed with

unending demands and a growing sense of their own failure. Relief can come only by

learning to operate out of rest and by sharing responsibility with others in the

congregation whom God has also equipped with gifts of ministry.”

Entering the rest that is ours in Jesus is a matter of becoming more and more

confident in Him and in His working in and through us. When we lack confidence we feel

we must do everything ourselves. We are not surrendered and so we can never fully relax

with a sense of assurance. We are in Christ, but not deep enough to fully experience the

sanctification that enables us to fully relax. It is really all a matter of the level of our faith.

Faith comes in all sizes from little faith to great faith, and the more we move toward great

faith the more we can enter into God’s rest and relax.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “The stars do their work without fuss; God does His work

without fuss, and saints do their work without fuss. The people who are always

desperately active are a nuisance; it is through the saints who are one with Him that God

is doing things all the time. The broken and the jaded and the twisted are being

ministered to by God through the saints who are not overcome by their own panic, who

because of their oneness with Him are absolutely at rest, consequently He can work

through them. A sanctified saint remains perfectly confident in God, because

sanctification is not something the Lord gives me, sanctification is Himself in me. There is

only one holiness, the holiness of God, and only one sanctification, the sanctification that

has its origin in Jesus Christ. "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who was made unto us .

. . sanctification" (1 Corinthians 1:30). A sanctified saint is at leisure from himself and his

own affairs, confident that God is bringing all things out well.”

The bottom line is that Jesus is our rest, and the greatest rest for it can be experienced

in time, and will be experienced for all eternity by those who put their trust in Him. Enter

into it believer and avoid all of the stress that comes to those who think they must save

themselves by their works. Trust in His finished work and relax. - Karleen E. Wickham

has captured the essence of this point in her poem I Wore Your Flesh.

"Shut out the world's craving din,"

He says, "and come with me in

To a quiet place. Rest your soul

And feed on honeyed sweets.

I will not sneer at your triumphs

Or gloat over your defeats,

Neither condemn you, close to my heart.

My love is not based on your success.

I wore your flesh and know it aches;

I long to ease your wretchedness.

Don't be afraid to tell me all.

Trust me with your doubts and cares

And hidden things that devour you:

Well I know the tempter's snares.

I will gentle you with my hand.

I wore your flesh, I understand.

Arthur W. Pink has a paragraph on the invitation of Christ to come to Him for rest

that is a gem. He writes, “What a claim to make! This was something which no mere man,

no matter how godly and spiritual, could promise. Abraham, Moses, David could not have

bidden the weary and heavy laden to come unto him with the assurance that they would

give them rest! To impart rest of soul to another lies beyond the power of the most

exalted creature. Even the holy angels in Heaven are quite incapable of bestowing rest

upon others, for they are entirely dependent upon the grace of God for their own rest.

How this promise of Christ, then, makes manifest His uniqueness. Neither Confucius,

Buddha, nor Mohammed ever made such a claim as this. Ah, my reader, it was no mere

Man who uttered these words: “Come unto Me all ye that art weary and heavy laden, and

I will give you rest.” Though appearing in the form of a Servant, yet was He, in Himself,

infinitely more than that. He was the Son of God incarnate. He was Himself the Creator

of man, and therefore could He restore him. He was the Prince of peace and therefore

capable of giving rest.”

II. ENJOY

The purpose of relaxing from work is so we can enjoy the fruit of our labor. That is

what the Sabbath was for God, and He rested in the sense that He stopped working to

create in order to just enjoy what He had created. The Sabbath was given to Israel so that

His people could enjoy a day of great food and family fun.. The Jews even considered it a

special day for husband and wife to enjoy sex. If you study the Jewish practice of the

Sabbath you will discover it was a day of celebration. God wants His people to have

celebration in their lives. That is why there were so many feast days in the Old Testament.

When the Prodigal returned there was a great party of celebration, and it was the same

when the lost lamb was found and the when the lost coin was found. People celebrated a

lot when their was good news, and the greatest news that can be is the Gospel of Jesus

Christ, which makes it possible for all who trust in Him to be a part of the eternal banquet

that begins the heavenly union of Christ and His bride the Church.

To enter into the greatest rest is to go deeper into the joy of the Lord. Many know and

trust in Jesus as Savior, but they have not yet learned to enjoy Him. Part of the problem

is what we dealt with in the first point, and that is that they do not trust completely in His

finished work, but feel the need to labor to secure their salvation. They cannot rest and

enjoy what He has given, for they never know when they have done enough to be

acceptable to God. They lose the joy of their salvation because they do not rest and enjoy

it, but keep laboring as if it depended on them and their good works to secure their

salvation. They have not entered God’s rest where they just relax and enjoy the gift. Paul

wrote in I Thess. 5:16-18, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all

circumstances, for this if God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Notice, it is a matter of

choice and not circumstances. You choose to be joyful, to pray, and to give thanks at all

times. Entering God’s rest in Christ is a choice to enjoy more and more fully what we

have in Him.

Pink writes of the meaning of the word rest here: “The Greek word expresses

something more than rest, or a mere relaxation from toil; it denotes refreshment likewise.

A person weary with long bearing a heavy burden will need not only to have it removed,

but likewise he wants food and refreshment to restore his spirits and to repair his wasted

strength. Such is the rest of the Gospel. It not only puts a period to our fruitless labor, but

it affords a sweet reviving cordial.”

We need to grasp that God wants His people to enjoy Him, and that only when we do

are we strong believers. God enjoys His being and His life, and He desires that all His

children do the same. In the great text of Neh. 8:10 we read, “Go and enjoy choice food

and sweet drinks, and send some for those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred

to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” There is a time to

weep and a time to laugh, and we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those

who rejoice, but the laughter and rejoicing should far outweigh the weeping for the

people of God, for it His will that they enter into His rest and experience enjoyment as

their primary experience. That is why the Psalms are so filled with joy and gladness.

Psalm 5:11 says, “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for

joy.” We will have joy for all eternity, but we are not to just be waiting for that

experience, for we are to be tasting eternity all through time. Psalm 16:11 says, “You

have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with

eternal pleasures at our fight hand.” Psalm 30:11 says, “You have turned my wailing into

dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” Psalm 31:7 says, “I will be

glad and rejoice in your love...” Psalm 40:16 says, “But may all who seek you rejoice and

be glad in you....” Psalm 89:15-16 says, “Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim

you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord. They rejoice in your name all the day

long; they exult in your righteousness.” Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day the Lord has

made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 126:3 says, “The Lord has done great

things for us, and we are filled with joy.” These are only a fraction of the verses that could

be quoted that show God expects His people to enjoy His presence and salvation.

When we come to the New Testament we see that Jesus expected His followers to be

people of joy. His very teaching was to impart His joy to them. He said in John 15:11, “I

have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

When we have grasped the fullness of who Jesus is and what He has done we have entered

into the greatest rest, and our joy will be complete. Paul had fully entered the rest of

Christ and that is why he could write, even from a prison cell, what he did in Phil.4:4,

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again; Rejoice!” When you can be always in a

state of joy no matter what the circumstances, you have entered fully into the rest of God.

III. SECURITY

Insecurity is the reason believers cannot fully relax and enjoy what they have in Christ.

Christians are no different than the Old Testament saints when it comes to insecurity and

doubts. Christians are often filled with doubts and they do not feel secure at all. They

doubt God cares for them, and they doubt that they are worthy of being care for by God.

The result is they do not enter into the rest that can be theirs in Christ. God wants His

people to feel secure, and that is why He was constantly encouraging them and promising

them they could be secure in Him.

The concept is expressed well in Deuteronomy 12:10, where Moses said, “But you will

cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance,

and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety.”

In Exodus 33:14 God said to Moses, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you

rest.” To enter God’s rest was to put your trust in the promise of His presence. A child

feels secure in the presence of its parents and that is what God wants His children to

always feel in His presence. That is why Jesus promised that He would never leave or

forsake His disciples, but that He would be with them always. They could rest secure that

even when they did not see Him, He was there in their midst caring and guiding. Dr.

Charles Revis describes the rest of God as "an inner experience of peace which comes out

of trusting and obeying God" rather than "restlessness as a result of distrusting God."

When things did not work out as they expected and they ran into a crisis the Old

Testament saints lost their confidence in God and became so insecure they lost all sense of

God’s presence and peace. Jesus made it clear that His people would have tribulation, but

He said, “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” Jesus expected us to enter

into the rest of feeling secure even if the world is falling apart and we are being tossed

about in a raging storm. As J. Oswald Sanders says, "Peace is not the absence of trouble,

but the presence of God." There may be all kinds of crazy things going on around us, but

as we continue to stay close to Jesus He guards our hearts with His peace not allowing us

to be shaken. Charles Orr wrote,

Oh! this is blessing, this is rest.

Into Thine arms, O God, I flee;

I hide me in Thy faithful breast,

And pour out all my soul to Thee.

There is a host dissuading me,

But all their voices far above

I hear Thy words, “Oh, taste and see

The comforts of a Savior’s love”;

And hushing every adverse sound,

Songs of defense my soul surround,

As if all saints encamped about

One trusting heart pursued by doubt.

O tenderness! O truth divine!

Lord, I am altogether Thine.

I have bowed down; I need not flee.

Peace, peace is mine, in trusting Thee.

The author of Hebrews is concerned that the Hebrew Christians are in the same boat

as the Old Testament saints, and that the persecution that they face as believers is causing

them to lose their security and their trust in Jesus. They are in danger of missing the rest

He has promised because of this insecurity. He is urging them to enter into the rest of

Christ by leaning heavily on His promises, and by claiming the reality of His presence in

difficult times. When you do not have the security of knowing Jesus is always with you,

then you will not be able to relax and enjoy the salvation and sanctification that He makes

possible. You see how all of these things are intertwined so that you need them all. If you

break the chain at any point all of the pearls drop off the chain, and you fail to enter the

rest of God. This holds true for the last point also, for it is the key factor that makes all

the others possible, and it is-

IV. TRUST

The security that enables us to relax and enjoy our salvation in the finished work of

Christ is based on our faith in Him, and faith is trust. It is believing and acting on that

belief, and this is the essence of entering into the greatest rest that man can enter into, for

it is establishing an absolute relationship to Jesus as Savior and Lord. When we fully trust

Jesus and believe all that He is and all that He promised, then we have entered into God’s

rest to the maximum degree that can be experienced in time. The eternal rest will be an

upgrade to the ultimate, but by trust we can experience the best in time. Without faith and

trust we cannot please God it says in Heb. 11:6, and the opposite will then also be true

that with faith we can please God, and when we please God we are fulfilling the purpose of

our life, and that will give us a sense of security which leads us to relax and enjoy all that

Jesus died to give us in terms of the abundant life. Trust becomes the doorway by which

we enter into the greatest rest that man can experience.

The Old Testament saints did not please God at all. They refused to trust Him and

obey His will to enter the land of promise, and the result is they never got a chance to

experience the rest He had prepared for them. We can do the same foolish thing now and

miss the rest that is provided for us in Christ. That is why Hebrews is so full of warnings,

for lack of faith and trust in God can lead believers to miss out on all that can be theirs in

terms of experiencing the greatest rest. If we will put our full trust in Jesus He will be our

Joshua who will lead us to victory over all the enemies of our souls, and lead us into the

promised land of peace, joy and security where we can experience all the benefits of His

rest.

Ron Wallace has written this on what he calls faith-rest. “Faith-rest is the attitude and

practice of being totally relaxed and confident in the character and plan of God based on

knowledge and trust in His word. It is not the normal Christian life to be worried and

upset about any of the many pressures and adversities we face in the world. Paul sums up

the reality of faith-rest in the promise stated at Philippians 4:6-7,"Be worrying about

nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made

known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all thinking, shall guard your hearts

and minds in Christ Jesus."

God promised to feed His people with manna each day, and told them to trust Him and

not pick up more than what was needed for the day. Some did not trust God to provide

for the next day and they picked up enough for tomorrow too. The result was that the

manna spoiled and became rotted and worthless. Trusting God is obeying Him and then

just relaxing and not worrying about future provision. Trusting is living in a way that

demonstrates your trust in God. If you are always worried and in a state of anxiety, you

are not entering God’s rest at all, but are just like the Old Testament saints that missed

His rest. Trust is defined in Webster’s New College Dictionary as “total confidence in the

integrity, ability, and good character of another.” May God grant that we will have this

kind of trust in God so that we can enter fully into His rest in Christ.

CONCLUSION

Notice the paradox in verse 11 where we read, “Let us make every effort to enter that

rest, [it's our choice, we can choose to enter God's rest, or we can walk away from it and

experience the restlessness of being out of fellowship with God] so that no one will fall by

following their example [that is, Israel's example] of disobedience." The paradox is that

we are to relax and cease from our labor, and yet we are to work like mad and make every

effort to enter this rest. Vine's dictionary says of this Greek word for rest, "Christ's rest

is not a rest from work, but in work, not the rest of inactivity but of the harmonious

working of all the faculties and affections-of will, heart, imagination, and conscience

because each has found in God the ideal sphere for its satisfaction and development."

What we see here is that we have a choice just like the Old Testament saints had. We

can choose to give it our all to enter God’s rest in Christ, or we can live in disobedience as

they did and just drift along through life and miss God’s rest and His best. Rest is a gift

from God, but it is also a choice on our part to enter into it. Let us choose to enter in and

be able to sing

I've anchored my soul in a haven of rest,

I'll sail the wide seas no more;

The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep,

In Jesus I'm safe evermore.