Jesus, Our Rest

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Okay. Would you turn with me and your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 4. We're going to be squarely in chapter 4 today, verses 3 through 13. And as we are looking at Hebrews chapter 4, although it might seem a little odd, it made me think of time travel movies. Yeah, I know. We just went from praying for for the Ukraine to time travel movies, but just stay with me, okay?

Time travel movies are really great. It's really interesting, at least to me, but they also do really well in the box office. It's an interesting idea of changing the past to alter the present, right? Like that's a fun idea, and it's the basis for some really famous movies that we know about, Back to the Future, Star Trek, A Wrinkle in Time. There's so many, so many of those movies. And I think what we love, we not only love the idea of changing our present by altering our past, but we also love the ridiculous complication that ensues anytime you start talking about disrupting the space-kind of time continuum. So you go back to change your past, but you can't go back and change it too much and you can't see yourself in the past. You don't want to disrupt the balance between all that. And so to poke fun at all of that complication in the movie Avengers Endgame, okay, they poke

fun at all that ridiculous complication. And there's this quote from Bruce Banner. And he says, and here's a quote up here, he says, I don't know where everyone believes that, why everyone believes that, but that isn't true. He's talking about all these time travel movies that we know of. So this is Back to the Future. He goes, think about it. If you go into the past, the past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past, which can now be changed by your new future. Just complicated enough. In these movies, the complication between trying travel, it's supposed to be ridiculous. It's supposed to be weird. To make it pretend to play by rules is silly and fun. And it's what movies are made of. As you're watching these movies, if you really want to keep up with the plot, you really do need to pay attention to the past, the present, and the future

to understand what is happening. If you're watching Avengers Endgame, for example, and you lose track of what year you're in, it's not really going to make sense. You're going to kind of lose the plot. The same could be said for Scripture, especially in the New Testament. That in the New Testament, it's full of places that refer to the past, the present, and the future, sometimes all within just a few verses. And the verses that we're going to be looking at today is one such place in Hebrews 4. And as we get into it, I'll just say this, I don't bust out the theological degree that often, the original languages badge that I have, right? But there is a great benefit in knowing the Greek that the New Testament was written in because it helps me identify words that are written in past tense, present tense, and future tense. Because sometimes that gets a little lost in the English translation.

In English, we care much less about past, present, and future. Greek, they care a lot more. So what we're going to do is we're going to read the first part of Hebrews 3. And as you're, you know, just as you're kind of putting your finger on that, I just want to say this is the last sermon in our series of Jesus is higher, where we're working through Hebrews chapters 1 through 4. We're not going to get all the way through 4. That's we're going to pick that up in the next Hebrew series that we're looking at. But what we've done is we've taken this long look at who Jesus is. We've realized that he's altogether different than really what we think about on a normal basis. That Jesus, we learned that he's the full and final word of God. That Jesus is salvation. That Jesus is a fitting sacrifice for sin. That Jesus is our apostle. That he goes before us. That he's the author and finisher of our faith.

Jesus is our guide. He's the way to kind of sift through even what's going on in front of us now. And today, today we talk about Jesus being our rest. Jesus being our rest. And so let's read. Remember, we got to keep track of past, present, future here. I'll help you. Hebrews chapter four, the first part of verse three, it says, for we who have believed enter that rest. Now I'm already going to put the brakes here because we're already dealing with past tense and present tense. We who have believed, as in it already happened, as in the past, those who have already decided to follow Jesus. We who have believed. Now, okay, that's past tense. We enter that rest, that's present tense. We presently and continually enter that rest. Okay, using the past, present, future here is beginning to highlight God's rest, which is what we're going to be talking about today. Last

Last week we learned about the wilderness generation and we focused on their disobedience, despite Moses and the miracles, despite seeing the Red Sea part, despite seeing all that, we focus on their disobedience. Today, the scriptures are gonna focus on what they lost, what they lost, which is God's rest. Okay. And so here we are, we're gonna continue in the space time continuum. We're going to look at rest next couple of verses. So three, the end of three, four, and five, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest is what God said. 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. You might wonder why, why are we bringing all this up? Why, what's going on here?

Well, the other people is just making a point. And I've underlined the verses so that you can kind of see it. They shall not enter my rest, it is present and future, right? They're not going to enter my rest. Okay, that's present and future. Although, his works were finished from the foundation of the world, past. So God is declaring something in the present, even though something was already established in the past And look, it does it again, it does it again. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. That's the past. That's the seventh day of creation. God rested already.

And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest, which is present with a future kind of indicator going on. So you have past, present, future, all interacting. What I wanna show you with these couple of first verses is that you have a positive and a negative statement about God's rest, and both of those statements have past, present, future going on. So positively is what we looked at in the very beginning of verse 3. Positively, those who have believed in the past currently and continually enter that rest. We're going to go there in a second. But negatively, that God presently with future intent, presently prohibits people from entering that rest, even though the rest has already happened. Now look, I understand this might look like verbal gymnastics, you know, where it's just like, you know, the verb tenses can kind of stretch and bend and all that stuff.

And it just might feel like a grammar lesson. I'm sorry. It's helpful because all of this is here. And without really understanding what's going on, why are we highlighting past, present, and future, then we won't really get what God is saying about rest, what the author of Hebrews, what the pastor in Hebrews is saying about rest. And so we have, we have positive, we have positive and negative statements. And these, these statements really point to everyday life. And I want to show you how. So as those who have believed, right, as disciples right now, we currently and continually enter God's rest. So in other words, following Jesus is, is constantly, It means that you are constantly invited into a rest. And this works on two levels. This works on the present and the future. So if you are a follower of Jesus, you have a present state of rest that you can have, right?

You own, you have access to a present state of rest. And what does the scripture say? Philippians 4:6, it says, don't be anxious about anything. But in everything about prayer and supplication, Thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. Matthew 6, 25, Jesus saying, says, therefore I'll tell you, don't be anxious about your life, what you eat or drink, your body, what you put on. Second Timothy 1, 7, God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but a power and love and self control. As disciples of Jesus, as people that follow Jesus, we can literally not be anxious. We have no need of being anxious. It's not saying try hard to not be anxious, even though you have all these reasons to be anxious. It's saying you don't need to be anxious because you can trust what God has finished, that God will finish what He has begun. It's saying that anxiety and just this tension

that you consistently live in doesn't need to mark your life, that this rest is a present state. This present state of rest is something that we can have right now in Jesus. And it doesn't mean your problems go away, but it does mean that present rest is there. It's available to you can know peace presently because God has furnished that peace. God has established that peace. He's established that rest. He's wrapped up with a bow and he's given it to you. And he's saying, look, you can enjoy this rest right now. You can be in a current state of peace, but it's not just a present state, it's also future. In other words, those who have believed also invited into a process of renewal, a process of renewal that we can enter continually. Romans 12, too, it says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Second Corinthians 4, 16, so we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our

inner self is being renewed day by day by day. Look, we talk about having a quiet time. We talk about reading scripture and prayer. We talk about those things. Really, what we are doing in those things, that we are engaging in a process of renewal. We are taking hold of something that will transform us. If you don't know Jesus today, my encouragement to you is until think really hard. My encouragement to you is to read his word. My encouragement to you is to engage a process of renewal that is right there in front of you that whereby you receive power from the Holy Spirit.

And we will see this more later, but for now, we must see disciples of Jesus currently and continually enter God's rest. They currently and they continually enter God's rest. But there's this natural question that arises that if God has already established his Sabbath rest in the past, then how will people now access it? How are they going to get there? And this is what Hebrews talks about in verse 6. Hebrews 4-6, since therefore it remains for some to enter it. So it remains for some to enter. There's people that have not entered it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter it because of disobedience. This is talking about what we talked about last week, that just because you know Bible answers, just because you've been to Sunday school, just because you can quote John 3 16 and maybe even John 17. That's great, right? Like super excited

for you. However, that it doesn't mean that you are going to enter God's rest. It doesn't mean that you were going to spend eternity with Jesus Christ. The only way that we do that is through a relationship, not through knowledge. So we looked at it last week, we see it here again. Again, people that failed to enter the kingdom of heaven today fail for the same reason that people failed to enter the kingdom of God before. And it wasn't lack of knowledge. They failed to enter it because of disobedience. So what the question is asking is, is God's rest closed or open? Is it closed or open? And here's the answer in the next couple of verses. seven through eight. Again, he appoints a certain day today. Okay. So basically the answer is, is God's rest closer open? Yes. Yeah, sure it is. Because we don't get much of an answer beyond the very first sentence here. Again, he appoints a certain day today saying through David,

so long afterward in the words already quoted today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart for Joshua had given them rest. God would not have spoken of another day later on. God has appointed today. This is another way to say yesterday is gone. You can't go back to yesterday. You can't count on tomorrow. All you gots today. That's it. So was God's rest open or closed? Yes. But you have today. You have today. You have God's rest open to you today. Might be close tomorrow. We don't know. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Can't go back and do anything about it. Time machines aren't real. You have today. He's given us today. And verse 8 puts a fine point on it that if the rest was finalized, then we'd have no need for today. If God had established his rest way back with Joshua, which is a long time ago, a long time, way back in the Pentateuch, way back in the book

of Deuteronomy, or Joshua. If he would have given that rest then, then he wouldn't be talking about a day of rest later on. What Hebrews 4, 7, and 8 is saying is that, look, you've got today, and it's, man, I mean, it's kind of like the Hebrew version of YOLO, okay? Like seize the moment, okay? You You don't have another day that you just get to, you know, a lot of times when I'm talking with people, counseling people, and it doesn't matter young, old, this comes up often. They've got a big decision to make, right? And they say, and they believe it when they say it, if I only knew what was going to happen then that would make this decision a lot easier. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever thought anything like that. Yes, you have, good, we have some liars out there, but most of you tell them the truth. You, you, your problem with assessing the future is not information.

Because if you knew the future you would still mess it up. Because you're finite, like me, I would still mess it up too. So not just pointing the finger at you. Our need to figure out what to do right now is should, can't be informed by future events that we can't touch. It can't be informed by special knowledge that we somehow have. It has to be informed by the fact that what is Jesus putting in front of you right now to do? Are you gonna be obedient? My wife is full of wisdom, tiny bits of wisdom that come out in like these little, you know, these little sentences every once in a while. It's great. She doesn't, you know, she doesn't lay them out all the time, but when she speaks, it's pretty good. And she said, early on in our, maybe we were dating at the time, but she called me out on something, I don't remember what it was, and she said, if you have to move an inch

to be happy, you'll never be happy. I think that's pretty wise. I'm sure that's covered in scripture somewhere. You have to move an inch to be happy. In other words, if you can't be happy where you are now, moving an inch isn't going to make you happy. If you have to, let me just translate, if you have to have something happen before you're going to be obedient to what Jesus is calling you, it's not about whatever is hanging you up. It's in your heart. You're not being obedient, not because God isn't delivering. You're not being obedient because you're not being obedient. You have everything that you need right in front of you. If I only knew more, I'd be able to make no. No, that's not today. God has appointed today. You only get today once. There is a way to conduct your life that assumes that you will have time later, assumes that you're going to be able to get to that really important thing when you get around to it,

that you're not going to deal with the stress of something right now, because you're going to give that to tomorrow. But God has appointed today. It is a moment in the entire space-time continuum that we call now, today. Let's keep reading. It keeps going. Verses 9 and 10, Hebrews 4. It says, so then there remains, There 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. This is more of what we discussed earlier, but it is worth repeating because of what God has done. We are able to rest. In the present, this restful state is ours. We are not anxious. We don't need to be anxious about the future because God has control of that. We don't need to fear what is coming because God has already ordained that. Your life isn't something that you need to look forward to and be afraid. Your life as a Christian, in Christ, following Christ, you can look to the future and

you can say with utter confidence, not because of you, but because of the Lord God in heaven, you can say with utter confidence, the best days are yet to come. Best days are yet to come. You hadn't even seen goodness yet. You can't even guess what's gonna happen. The Lord God has it for you. And I'm not, listen, I'm not preaching health and wealth here. I'm not saying you're just gonna be like showered with money in the future as long as you pray and give me $20.

It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the life of blessing that the Lord has for you, which does, oh, it includes suffering and pain, It includes learning, it includes all those things. But the life that the Lord God has for you in the future is better. Your best days are yet to come. And that's true if you're two or 102. Your best days are yet to come. The Lord God in heaven has, what it says in Ephesians 2:10, laid out good works in front of you so that you may do them. It doesn't lay on front of you and go like, See what you could have done? He lays them out in front of you so that you can do them. This is the present restful state that is ours to have. We don't have to work like our eternal future depends on it.

And you have not known pressure until you've known the pressure of, I better not mess this up or I won't go to heaven. Oh, that is an awful way to live. And that is how every other world religion, besides Christianity, that's how every other world religion works. You live in fear that you won't make it, that your life ultimately won't matter. It won't count. The security that we have in Christ is that He's done it. We believe it. And again, it's not just a present Russell state, it's also a process of renewal. The Psalms talk about God's mercies being new every morning, and that's for us. Right? This is part of the best is yet to come. The good old days are yet to come. And this rest right here, this rest, it marks us as disciples. If we have truly believed, if we have believed in the Lord, that rest will come. And yes, yes, surely you will have moments where you lose your way.

You will have moments where you fall into despair. You will have moments that are frustrating, but you can stand through those moments because you know those moments are not the end. Your doubt is not the end of your spiritual life. Your tragedy is not the end of your spiritual life. However, if you are continually anxious, if you are continually depressed, if that rest never comes, if you are sinking lower and lower into despair, and there's never this moment of reprieve, if it's just unending, just unbearable, bearable, just so oppressive. If that is you, I would say this, today is here. The time is now that Jesus, our arrest, is waiting, that we can look soberly upon the cross of Jesus, and we can say with open arms, Yes, I received it. Yes, I believe that you have finished everything that I could never even start. Yes, I believe Jesus, that you want me,

that you want a relationship with me, despite how I feel, despite whatever doubts are going on, despite whatever I've been through, the tragedies I've suffered, what I'm about to go through, what I'm scared of, Despite all those things, I believe, I believe you want me to enter that rest. I believe Jesus, you want to be my rest. This rest only comes from Jesus. Again, this is not about calming your mind. This isn't an exercise, this isn't a breathing technique. All those things are great. Like my dad has heart issues, he does breathing technique. It's cool, I don't chide in for that. Exercises are great, but they can't provide true rest. They can't give you what you really, really need. They can help with your heart attack, risk percentage. They can lower that, but that's not the same. That's not what Jesus is offering. He's offering real rest that goes beyond a heart attack.

He's offering real rest that goes beyond the fear of death. These last few verses, then they move us into action. It was 4.11, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. We've been talking about this a lot. We've been dancing around it and sometimes addressing it full on, but it is enough to say again, and I want to say it again, it is a lazy thing to say that somebody is losing their salvation or that I have lost my salvation. That's not biblical. That's not the way scripture talks about it. scripture talks about it. Scripture says if the Lord has saved you then the Lord has put you in his hand and there's nothing there's no one there's no greater force powerful that can take you out of that right that if you are that if you are in Christ you are in Christ it is decided and done at the same time

scripture talks about real choices and real consequences scripture will say like Hey, don't don't fall away by the same sort of disobedience. Don't don't reject the Lord. Don't run from the Lord Don't run away from the Lord. Don't do that because you then are in danger of not entering God's rest Just like the wilderness generation and in the way we say it is

sometimes Well, the way we talk about Hebrews is that the pastor in Hebrews then is warning us against a process that will reveal our our unbelief, that you can have layers of religion and morality right on top of it. And an authentic self, you can put a lot of things over that. But when tragedy comes, when frustration comes, when these things don't start going your way, all those layers are removed, they're stripped away, they're scraped off, sometimes they're just ripped off. And what is revealed, this unbelieving heart that was there the whole time. But now you can see it. Now it's right there. Even in that, even in that unbelieving heart, right? We don't just go, oh, well, unbelieving heart, I'm out. Even with the unbelieving heart, we still have the pastor in Hebrews that's saying, today is the day. Now is the time. You can receive a new heart. That unbelieving heart can be replaced with a believing one.

And so let's enter that rest. Let's strive to enter that rest like it talks about in Hebrews 4:11. How? How do we do that? How do we enter that rest? Hebrews 4:12 through 13. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing the vision of soul and spirit, and of joints of marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart, no creatures hidden from his sight, all are naked, exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give account. That, I'm with you. That is confusing, right? Huh? That's confusing.

How do we enter that rest? Normally, we re-quote Hebrews 4:12 when we're talking about the Word of God, as we should. It's a great descriptor of what the Word of God is. But here, it's given as a reason or a method. I'll say it this way. We enter God's rest. You enter God's rest by letting Jesus discover you, by letting the Word of God discover you. And let me tell you, you can read verses 12 through 13 as either a threat or a promise. Let me show you how. If your desire is to be found, those words are a salve. If you want to be found by the Lord but feel unfindable, 12-13, say, no, no, you're gonna be found. Those words are a salve. Those words are a promise. If, however, you want to hide, those words will haunt you because there is nowhere you can go. The Word of God will find you out. The Word of God will discover you completely, whether you want to be found or not. My encouragement, let

Jesus discover you, let Jesus tear you up, let Jesus get all the way in. I want to read Psalm 139, selections from Psalm 139, not all of it, but I want to read some parts and as I do, if you're comfortable with this, I just want to ask you to close your eyes and if you're tired you can take a nap. I'm gonna read bits of Psalm 139 and I just want you to feel it and maybe that's going to be hard to do if your eyes are open. So as your eyes are closed, if you're comfortable with that, I'm going to read. Where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and sheal, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.

Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my innermost parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me. When as yet there was none, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. I just want to encourage you to pray those words at the very end, you can open your eyes. I want you to pray those words with the psalmist. I want you to pray, search me and know my heart,

reveal my intentions. Let me see that, let me confess that to you, let me be open. And Jesus, say what you need to say. This is, here's the secret about entering the rest of God. Here's the secret about spending eternity with Jesus. It's not that you are struggling to stop a sin habit. It's not that you are messing up too many times. It's not that you just can't be moral enough. It's not that you even feel emotionally distant from God. It's not any of those things. All those things come and go. All those things are a part of normal human existence. All those things are passing. What keeps you from entering the Sabbath rest is believing that you don't belong there, believing that you can make it on your own, that you don't need the Lord God in heaven, that you don't need the rest that only Jesus provides. It's by just striking it out on your own, making your own way, don't do that.

It will not lead to rest. What keeps you from entering rest is not believing what God has already done in your life through Jesus. What keeps you from entering the rest is walking away from today, thinking that you don't need it. It's walking away from now, thinking that you're going to get a later. Trust Jesus to be your rest. I'm going to call Greg up. During our time of response, that's my encouragement, my simple encouragement to you is to trust Jesus to be your rest. Trust him to keep you. Trust Him to save you. I'm gonna be up here just standing and singing. And if you wanna make a decision for the Lord, if you wanna come to Him and just saying, hey, I need to be made new, I need to enter the rest of Jesus, then I'm gonna be up here, we can talk, it's great. If you want to come forward in baptism, if you're interested in being baptized and you want to make that known,

you can come forward and talk to me about it. If you want to join our church, if the Lord's been putting that on your heart, and you want to walk forward and kind of show that to everybody that your desires to be part of our body, then do that. Let's do it as we sing. Let's stand. Greg. I was going to sing from perfect submission, perfect delight. If you go to the slide, perfect submission, perfect delight.

Oh, what a fortis, glory divine, air of salvation, purchase of God, Born of the Spirit, watching His blood This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior, all the day long This is my story This is my song Raising my Savior All that they love Sing this is my story one last time This is my story This is my song Praising my Savior Praising my Savior This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. Praising my Savior, praising my Savior all the day long.