Hebrews 4 God Promises Rest to the Faithful

Dr. Mann introduces the topic of rest from Hebrews chapter 4. He reflects on how the Hebrew children received everything from God but couldn't fully enjoy it due to worry. Resting in God's care is emphasized, with references to Psalm 91 and the importance of faith and hope in experiencing true rest. Hebrews 4 emphasizes the need for faith and obedience to enter God's rest, highlighting the consequences of rebellion, sin, and disobedience. The importance of living with hope, faith, and love is stressed as essential for experiencing rest in God. Hope is presented as a present experience and a future hope, crucial for enduring trials and trusting in God's promises. Alright, good to see everybody this morning. Always good to be able to be here with you and just spend some time together. And so Sandy did make it back safely, and so I am fat and sassy and well fed today, so thank you for praying for her as she traveled back last Monday. It's been always good to have her get back safely and for her to be able to spend some time with her sisters. So we are going to look at Hebrews chapter 4 today, and we're primarily going to talk about rest. Okay, rest. When we talk about what does the Bible mean when it talks to us about rest. Now before we get into Hebrews, I want to remind us what we looked at as we were getting ready to close out Joshua. And back in Joshua chapter 24, the Lord had said, verse 13, you'll remember this, I gave you a land that you did not labor for, and I gave you cities that you did not build, though you live in them. You're eating from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. And so everything that Joshua had led the Hebrew children through as they crossed over the Jordan River, as they fought against all of the enemies, mostly victories, some defeats, when they had dispersed the land, and Joshua was bringing the book to a close, and he reminds them that everything that they possess, they possess only because God has given it to them. Now, they had the opportunity to live in a state of rest because God had given them everything, and yet though they had been given everything they needed, they were unable to just really enjoy the rest that God had provided for them. And why is that? I think we as believers, when we think about everything that we have been given in Jesus Christ, that we stand before God forgiven of our sins, that we don't need to worry about tomorrow, for Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, you can't add a hair to your head. You can't add a minute to your life. By worrying, if He feeds the birds of the air, how much more will He feed those who are His children? He clothes the lilies of the field, and Solomon in all of his glory was not clothed as they were, and He'll clothe us, He'll take care of us, He provides for us everything that we need. And yet, there is nothing that will exhaust us more than worry. You know, you can go out in your backyard and spend ten hours digging a hole, and it won't wear you out as quickly as ten minutes of worry. It keeps us awake at night, it doesn't allow us to rest. We spend time together with family and friends, and we don't really rest, because worry is constantly robbing us of our rest in God. I think we get a picture of rest, and it's amazing, we don't have time to go through it all, because we need to get to Hebrews chapter 4, but we get a picture of rest in Psalm chapter 91. I love this particular chapter. Verse 1, the one who lives under the protection of the Most High dwells in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say concerning the Lord who is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust, He Himself will rescue you from the bird trap and from the destructive plague. He will cover you with His feathers, and you will take refuge under His wings. His faithfulness will be a protective shield. You will not fear the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by the day, the plague that stalks in the darkness, or the pestilence that ravages at noon. Though a thousand fall at your right side and ten thousand at your right hand, the pestilence will not reach you. You will only see it with your eyes and witness the punishment of the wicked, because you have made the Lord my refuge, the Most High, your dwelling place. Notice the beautiful imagery that the psalmist brings to us here, what it means for us to know the Lord. We are protected under His wings. Like Jesus would say, like a hen gathers the chicks under her wings. God desires to gather us under His wings and to protect us. Think about how comforting it is for us to know that there is not one thing that can pass into our lives that has not first passed by God. That means that when we go through seasons of trial and struggle and difficulty, it means that God has allowed those things to come into our lives. We have never for one second in our lives faced something that snuck by God. Everything has passed through His courts before it has entered into our lives. Which means that even when we go through difficult times, there is a purpose for it. We don't always realize that the difficult times through which we are walking has any purpose. But God has never wasted a good trial. And when He allows us to go through something, it is always to accomplish something. It is to accomplish deepening our faith and dependence on Him. It is to accomplish us growing in our Christian walk. It is to accomplish us being witnesses to others as they watch us go through difficult times. We share prayer requests and how encouraging is it to all of us to see someone be strengthened by the grace of God through the prayers of His people. What does it mean to rest? That's what we want to look at in Hebrews chapter 4. So let's fast forward there a little bit, Hebrews chapter 4. And we'll look at the first couple of verses here to begin. Verse 1, Therefore, since the promise to enter His rest remains, let us beware that none of you be found to have fallen short. For we also have received the good news just as they did, but the message they heard did not benefit them, since they were not united with those who heard it in faith. Now, remember that this therefore that we read in verse 1, it's actually back in reference to verses 16 through 19 of chapter 3. He said immediately before that, write the quotation from the Psalms. Today, if you hear His voice, do not hurt your hearts as in the rebellion. For who heard and rebelled? We see these rhetorical questions. Wasn't it all of those who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was God angry for 40 years? Wasn't those who sinned and whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, if not those who disobeyed? So, here's what we learn, verse 19. We see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. And therefore, because of that, because they could not enter because of unbelief, the promise of rest still remains. I want to come back to that in just a moment, but let's look first of all, why were they unable to enter His rest? He says here in verse 2, we heard the good news just as they did, but the message they heard did not benefit them since they were not united with those who heard it by faith. And we are to make sure that we, that none of us, are unable to enter that rest by falling short of what God has required of us. What is it that God has required of us? It is that we live in obedience and faithfulness and the righteousness of Jesus Christ before Him. He really lays out for us three reasons that they didn't enter. Some rebelled, or they rebelled, going back to verses 16 through 18 of chapter 3. They rebelled, they sinned, and they disobeyed. And so for us to rebel is for us to turn against God, for us to sin. Many pictures in the Bible that are used of sin, but the one that is most often used is that God has given us the target and we have missed that target, and then we disobey. One of the reasons that Christians fail, and we're going to talk about again in just a moment, how rest is a present experience, but also a forward hope. But one of the reasons that we do not experience the rest that God has us in this temporary world is because we lose sight of the reality of the eternal world. And we begin to determine reality based upon our present experience instead upon God's future hope. Notice two things about this rest. First of all, this rest is something that we experience as we live in a season of hope. I can rest today because I know that everything that I am facing today does not determine my eternity. I can rest today because we cast our eyes forward toward eternity and upward toward God. We live in a season of hope. Hebrews 10.23 tells us that we are to hold on to the confession of our hope. Our hope. Notice that the Bible closely, and particularly in Hebrews, the Bible closely unites the two words rest and hope. You know, there is no one who is more exhausted than the person who is living without hope. Have you ever felt maybe just a sense of hopelessness? How in the world is this ever going to work out? Because we sometimes feel and think and maybe even say that hope is one of the three primary traits of the Christian that Paul uses regularly. Now, these three remain. What's the second one? Faith, hope, and love. Charity, right? Hope is essential to the Christian faith because when we lose our hope, everything else begins to suffer. And the more that I've studied the Bible over the years, the more I've realized that so many of the promises of God that we see in the Bible are promises for which we must wait. Think about how often the Bible uses the terminology of wait, right? You know Isaiah chapter 40 very well. Wait upon the Lord and He will renew your strength. He commands us to wait upon Him and waiting is not inactivity. Waiting is activity. Knowing that God is at work and is going to bring all of our labors and all of our efforts into fruition at some point. Hope is a central theme in the Bible. I love Charles Spurgeon here. Charles Spurgeon says, Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened. Think about the picture of that. Faith walks up the stairs. We're journeying up stairs and those stairs have been built by love, by God's love. He built those stairs. And as we walk up those stairs that God has built, faithful in the journey upon which He has called us, we ascend to that point where in hope we're able to see outside of the window as we wait for God. But hope is not only something that is this present experience living in hope, but hope is still available to those who don't have it. Notice what he said in verse 1. Therefore, since the promise to enter His rest still remains. There is nobody, nobody who must live without the hope that God provides if they will just believe in Jesus Christ. How many times have we heard over the years, oh if I ever walk in that church building, the ceiling is going to cave in. It's a way of oftentimes somebody trying to humorously communicate a lack of hope. They feel as if they have no hope because they would never be able to receive the blessing of God. But the promise, it still remains and it's available. It's readily available to those who will place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, you know, what does this word rest mean? You know, literally, excuse me, I'm waiting patiently for the seasons to change so that the allergies will go away. But what is, the word hope in the original language, it literally means, it is someone that has ceased from their labors. Now by labor, again, we don't mean activity. But labor, go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. God had created Adam and Eve, Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 2, blessed them with all the fruitfulness of the garden. Of any tree of the garden you may freely eat, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gave them responsibilities to tend the garden, name the animals, take dominion over the world. They had responsibilities. But those responsibilities were joyful until Genesis chapter 3. And then, by the sweat of your brow, you will fight the thorns and the thistles. And so the joy of work gave way to the curse of labor. For us to rest is for us to cease from our labors, not for us to have activity. Now, I'm a big fan of Power Naps, I've got to tell you. I'm a big fan. Listen, black coffee, dark chocolate, and Power Naps makes the world go around. It solves a lot of problems. Dark chocolate, black coffee, and a Power Nap. And the world just becomes a beautiful place again. But this rest, that's not the rest that he's talking about. The rest that he's talking about is that we, in our service toward the Lord, are resting in the Lord. My dad worked in the oil field and my mom loved to make jelly and canned stuff and all that kind of stuff and I had the spiritual gift of eating it and so I was very blessed. One day, I would have the opportunity in the summer, Saturdays, whatever it would be, my dad was an oil field pumper, which means he would drive, you know, kind of work by himself. So, you know, one of the greatest blessings that I had as a son in having a great dad was that I'd get to go to work with him when I didn't have school. And so, one day, I was going to work with him and, you know, we're driving out around all these oil field leases and tanks and, you know, the pump jacks and all those kinds of things and I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Well, he was off on a dirt road and he pulled off and he stopped because what he had seen is he had seen these wild plums that were growing. It was just on the western side of Oklahoma. You know, not quite to Elk City. Western side from where I was in the panhandle. Back to the east-west side of Oklahoma. I'm not that directionally confused. I hadn't quite made it to Elk City. And, he saw these plums and so, you know, he went home, told mom, hey, there's some plums, well, that, you know, would make some great jelly and so my mom gave me a task and she said, well, I don't have a bucket to pick those plums and so, go out into the garage, she's saying to me, go out into the garage and make a bucket that we can use to pick those plums. Mom was going to ride with him the next day or a couple of days later, whatever it was and have this bucket that she wanted me to make for her. Didn't have a five-gallon bucket or anything like that so she wanted me to make one for her. Now, I used to think that this was just something she wanted me to do because it would be a good life lesson. You know, learn how to use your imagination. Learn how to do something. Learn how to build something. I reflect back on it now and I realize there was a life lesson that was learned. Probably her motive was just to get me out of the house because I was getting on her nerves but, you know, that was a lesson that I learned. I go out into the garage and I couldn't figure out what to do and so my dad comes out and he had a metal can that, I don't know, was maybe a gallon and a half or something like that. I don't know what it was but it was a metal can and it didn't have a handle on it so he said, let's make a handle and so we get some baling wire and a drill and we drill, you know, there just below the rim of the bucket. Take the baling wire, braid it, fashion a handle, take a piece of hose, cut it off, flip it over the handle so that it's got a nice cushion grip and I take that inside to my mom and I hand it to her and she is so proud of what I had created except it wasn't me. It was my dad. You see, the works that we do for our Father in Heaven are works that He is actually doing through us and He simply allows us to participate in what He is doing but it's Him by His Spirit that is energizing us and we can rest in the fact that we know that every work done in Jesus' name is a work that has a purpose that He will use to glorify and to honor Himself but here was the problem that the Hebrews made in verse 2. We've also received the good news just as they did but the message they heard did not benefit them because it was not united with faith. It was not united. What they heard, they did not place their faith in. Now, think about how often the Bible refers to the Word. The Word of God is powerful in the Bible. God created in Genesis chapter 1. How did He create? His Word. God said, let there be light and there was light. God said, let there be an expanse between the sky and the waters and there was an expanse. God said, let there be birdies that fly and fishies that swim and froggies that hop and there were birdies that flew and fishies that swam and froggies that hopped. God spoke these things into existence by His Word. That was His primary way of revealing Himself to His people in the Old Testament. Thus saith the Lord. Aren't you glad that God is a God who speaks? In Hebrews chapter 10, we read there, God uses the Word to convert the hearts of the believers. The Word is near you. It is in your mouth and it is in your heart. And if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And how did Satan cause Adam and Eve to fall? He caused them to question the Word of God. Did God really say? And God's means of redemption just as His means of creation was His Word. So much so that His Word becomes a... His Word is personified. It is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ in John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. And down in John chapter 1 verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. You see, the reason that they did not enter that rest was because they did not unite faith with the Word that they heard. You know, when I need rest, my heart needs rest, my mind needs rest, my soul needs rest, the greatest place to find that rest is simply opening up God's Word and praying and reading and reflecting and memorizing and thinking about His Word. Because it is His Word that reminds us of His promises and it is His promises in which you and I are able to rest. So, that rest, it requires faith. But what is faith? Look at verse 3. For we who have believed enter the rest in keeping with what He said. And so I swore in my anger, they will not enter my rest, even though His works have been finished since the foundation of the world. What a beautiful phrase there is. His works have been finished from the foundation of the world, for somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day, the Sabbath day in this way. And on the seventh day, God rested from all of His works. And again in that passage He says, they will never enter my rest. Therefore, since it remains for a son to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news did not enter, and here's our key, because of disobedience. Remember, we're asking the question, what is faith? Well, to put it positively, faith is obedience. To put it negatively, a lack of faith is disobedience. And notice that the Bible almost uses that interchangeably. They rested, or they did not enter into rest because they did not mix the word with faith. How do we know they didn't mix the word with faith? Because in verse 6, they had disobedience. And so the good news did not enter because of disobedience. He again specifies a certain day, that is today, He specified this speaking through David after such a long time. From Moses all the way up to David, depending on how you count, four to six hundred years. No need to discuss that, but four to six hundred years, depending on how you count. And so He again specified a certain day, today He specified this speaking through David after such a long time. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, then God would not have spoken later through David about a rest another day. Therefore, and here's our promise, verse 9, Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God's people. For the person who has entered his rest has rested from his own works just as God did from His. Now notice how the Bible unites together for us faith and works. And sometimes people can look at those and they want to contrast them. They'll appeal to Paul about Abraham. Abraham was justified by faith alone, not by works, the book of Romans tells us. And then James flips that around and almost seems to be contradicting Paul, but we know that can't be the case, because it's the Word of God and God cannot lie. James says that Abraham was not justified by faith alone, but by works. How do we reconcile those two? We reconcile those two by getting the engine in front of the caboose. The engine is faith. The caboose is works, obedience. Martin Luther said we are saved by faith alone. But faith that saves is never alone. In other words, faith is pulling obedience to God. Our obedience is not pushing us, but our faith is pulling all those good works behind us that God desires for us to do. And the reason that is key is because it is in doing those works that we are able to rest. You know, there's been a time or two where I reflect back on my life and I would think, well, that was a bad decision. John, you big dummy, why'd you do something like that? Ever second guess yourself? See, the reality is that as we are walking with the Lord and our desire and our motive is to serve and honor Him, even our bad decisions are used by God and we can rest in them. It's when I've made decisions without depending on the Lord that I get exhausted. I beat myself up. But when I can reflect back and say, you know, I prayed about it. I sought good Christian counsel. I felt like it was what the Lord wanted me to do. And even if it may have been the wrong decision, if my motive was right, I can rest in God. Because I know that He'll take my bad decision and turn it for His glory. We can rest in that. He says in verse 6, Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news, they did not enter because of disobedience. We see there that there is this connection between faith and obedience toward God. And there is this promise in verse 9 that remains for God's people. And so it is that toward which we are looking. Let me finish out here with 11 through 13 lest we get behind. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience. For the Word of God... I want to hold off on that for just a moment. One of my favorite sermon series that I ever preached to was the Psalms of Ascent. You know the Psalms of Ascent? Psalm 120 up to about Psalm 134. It's a beautiful section of the book of the Psalms. And the way that the Hebrews would use them, the reason they're called the Psalms of Ascent, is because they would sing these psalms daily as they were journeying up toward Jerusalem. You know that in the Bible, when you're going to Jerusalem, you're always going up. Right? They are ascending up to Jerusalem. For the Day of Atonement or whatever it may be, they're making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They're ascending. And part of the Jewish practice as they ascended was to sing these Psalms of Ascent. If you were to look at Psalm 120, where these Psalms of Ascent begin, oops, I moved my bookmarker. Psalm 120. And notice that Psalm 120 is a cry of distress. In my distress, I called to the Lord and He answered me. Lord, rescue me from lying lips and a deceitful tongue. What will He give you and what will He do to you, you deceitful tongue? I wore your sharp arrows with burning charcoal. What misery that I have stayed in Mesheth, that I have lived among the tents of Kedar. I have dwelt too long with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war. Now this Psalm 120 is the very first Psalm of Ascent that they would sing on the morning when they began that ascent. Because here's what they knew. That as they're making their way up to Jerusalem, they're walking on some treacherous paths. There's crooks and robbers and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! I don't know if there are bears in Jerusalem or not. But they are facing a lot of danger. They're facing wild animals and uncertain weather and crooks and robbers. And so as they begin this Psalm of Ascent, they are saying, I'm crying out to the Lord. I'm asking for the Lord to be mindful of where I am. And notice that Psalm 120 doesn't really end on a positive note. I'm for peace, but when they speak, my enemies, they are for war. That's not a very friendly way to end a Psalm. Most Hebrew scholars believe that Psalm 120 and 121 were really one psalm originally. And when he thinks, when the psalmist and when the people who are singing this on their ascent to Jerusalem think about the treachery that lays in front of them, what are they going to do? That's where Psalm 121 comes in. I lift my eyes to the mountains. That's where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord. The Maker of heaven and earth. You see, when the people are on this journey, they realize that the way for them to rest as they are journeying through life, ascending to where God is, is not for them to look where they're laying their feet. It's to look to where their help comes from. I lift my eyes into the hills. From whence cometh my help? My help comes from God. What's so special about that? He is the Maker of heaven and earth. And if He can make it, He can take care of it. And if He can make you, He can take care of you. You see, God is providential not only on the macro, the big level, but God is providential on the macro, the individual, the personal level. We need to remind ourselves that we can rest in God. Now, notice that He uses, back in Hebrews chapter 4, He uses this language in verse 9. There is a, not just a rest, but a Sabbath rest. It's the only time that this particular phrase is used in the Bible this way. Where it's not the Sabbath or it's not rest, but it is the Sabbath rest. You'll remember the Sabbath rest and really what it was originally is that after God had created, in Genesis chapter 1, He moves into Genesis chapter 2, and there in Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, we read that God rested from His works on the seventh day. Six days He created. He made the pronouncement and we see it throughout creation. God made the life. It was good. God made the stars and the moon and the sun and everything else and it was good. And God separated and created water and dry land and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! And it was good. He created Adam and Eve and they came together and it was not only good, it was very good. And God rested. God didn't rest because He was tired. God rested because He was done. Done. He had created His people. They lived in union with Him. Sin came into the world. And once again, God went to work in the person of Jesus Christ so that on the cross, once again, Jesus would say, It is finished. It is done. God rested after His creation and God and Christ rested after His redemption. It is done. And so for you and I to rest in God's creation and for you and I to rest in God's redemption is for you and I to enter into resting in God or the rest of God. Why can we rest today? Because God's already got it done. And those things about which you and I exhaust ourselves worrying about tomorrow, God's done. It's okay. He's done. We don't see it, but we can believe it. So just keep mixing faith with His Word. Walking up the stairs of faith that love built so we can look out of the window with hope. It's done. Rest in that. Verse 12. For the Word of God, it is living, it is active, it is sharper than a double-edged sword. It penetrates as far as the separation of the soul and spirit, the joints and the marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from Him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. So it is the Word of God that exposes our intentions. And so what it's exposing is whether or not we are resting in God. Well, Brother Jimmy's going to spend more time on this next week, but you see the way that this chapter ends, it turns our attention toward the high priest. Moses led them, but he fell. Joshua led them, but they didn't enter the rest. We need someone else. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. By the way, that pass through the heavens, what does that mean? That's a two-way street. That highway that passes through the heavens, Jesus came in the incarnation to live, to teach, to be crucified, resurrected, and then He did a U-turn. And He went the other way. He ascended into heaven. For today, He sits at the Father's right hand. What do priests do? They mediate. What is He doing for us today? He sat down at the right hand of the Father forever making intercession for the saints. Mediating. I love people who say they're praying for me. It means a lot. But there is no greater prayer warrior that you have than the very Son of God. That's a pretty good prayer warrior. That Jesus is interceding for you. Philippians 2 shows us that Jesus, although He was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He made Himself of no account. He came in the form of a bondservant. And therefore, God has highly exalted Him. He came down. He went back up. It's a two-way street. And what He did is He finished the work of redemption. And now He's doing the work of intercession. Exalted to the right hand of the Father where He is doing the work of intercession on our behalf. And because of that, in verse 16, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in a time of need. We can rest because we can come before God's throne with boldness. Not by works we have done, but by the work He has finished. What does it mean to rest in God? It doesn't mean that we cease to be active, stretched out on the lazy boy after a big lunch, watching the cowboys. Speaking of hope. But it means that as we walk on this journey, we can rest because He's got us. He's got us. We walk up the stairs by faith that love built so that we can look out of the window and hope. I hope you've had that today. Let's pray. Oh God, You are so good to us. You are so good that You do not allow us to think that we have to wander through this life struggling, purposeless, fearful, but that we can walk through this life resting in Your divine care. Lord, we rest in that. We don't know the future, but You do. We can't change the past, but You can overcome it. And so we rest in You today. We will not harden our hearts, but we will apply faith to the truth of Your Word. For in that is our confidence. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, good to see you today. Have a great rest of the week.