Promise Of Entering His Rest

I. EXORDIUM:

Have you entered GOD's rest?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that rest is offered to us today by JESUS CHRIST.

IV. TEXT:

Hebrews 4:1 (Amplified Bible)

4:1 THEREFORE, WHILE the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid [to distrust it], lest any of you should think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it.

V. THESIS:

I have my rest in CHRIST JESUS.

VI. TITLE:

Promise of entering His rest

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Date of writing: Before AD. 70

B. Style of writing: Best Greek style

C. Authorship: Not specific, but generally attributed to Apostle Paul. Can be also ascribed to Barnabas, Luke, Apollos

D. Audience: Hebrew Christians

E. Theme: Christ is superior to the prophets; Christ is superior to angels—J. Vernon McGee's Thru The Bible

F. Purpose: The chief doctrinal purpose of the writer was to show the transcendent glory of the Christian dispensation, as compared with that of the Old Testament.—Thompson Chain - Bible Book Outlines

G. Keyword: better

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. Promise of entering His rest still offered today

"THEREFORE, WHILE the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today],"

Hebrews 4:9 (Amplified Bible)

4:9 So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God;

2 Timothy 2:13 (Amplified Bible)

2:13 If we are faithless [do not believe and are untrue to Him], He remains true (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for He cannot deny Himself.

Romans 3:3-4 (Amplified Bible)

3:3 What if some did not believe and were without faith? Does their lack of faith and their faithlessness nullify and make ineffective and void the faithfulness of God and His fidelity [to His Word]?

3:4 By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].

Only our unbelief or lack of faith in the finished work of JESUS CHRIST can lock us out of the rest of GOD. All people are working on this world, they toil and labor trying to get rich, but we are always at rest in GOD.

Ecclesiastes 1:3 (Amplified Bible)

1:3 What profit does man have left from all his toil at which he toils under the sun? [Is life worth living?]

Ecclesiastes 1:8 (Amplified Bible)

1:8 All things are weary with toil and all words are feeble; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Results of their toil, is they get weary, GOD does not let us be wearied. Unbelievers are of different species from us, they toil and labor to get rich, we toil and labor to do good works.

Galatians 6:9 (Amplified Bible)

6:9 And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.

Hebrews 12:3 (Amplified Bible)

12:3 Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

B. Let us be afraid to distrust it

"let us be afraid [to distrust it], lest any of you should think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it."

1. Lest any of you should think he has come too late

2. Lest any of you should come short of it.

Matthew 7:26-27 (Amplified Bible)

7:26 And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid (foolish) man who built his house upon the sand.

7:27 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great and complete was the fall of it.

Matthew 25:1-3 (Amplified Bible)

25:1 THEN THE kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

25:2 Five of them were foolish (thoughtless, without forethought) and five were wise (sensible, intelligent, and prudent).

25:3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they did not take any [extra] oil with them;

1 Corinthians 9:26-27 (Amplified Bible)

9:26 Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.

9:27 But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].