Hebrews 4:1-13

Okay, as we've been going along, there's a few things that I wanted to recap.

One, Hebrews.

Hebrews is different from Paul's writings.

Probably this is written by maybe Barnabas or Apollos.

Those are kind of the top two contenders that are out there.

But it's somebody that was contemporaneous to Paul, influenced by Paul, but probably not written by Paul.

And then it's not written by the, probably not written by one of the guys that wrote the gospels.

So when you, if you're a follower of Jesus, when you come into the book of Hebrews, you're gonna hear something that sounds um like it sounds familiar but different.

And this pastor is trying to be very practical in encouraging these Christians in their walk, but the way he encourages them is different from how maybe a Paul would encourage or how a Peter would encourage them.

So the the material here may not um ring so familiar to you and my ears.

There is this kind of pattern.

When we looked at Peter, Peter's written in this way where he brings up a topic, touches it, moves past it, but then he comes back.

And so it kind of would look like a telephone cord.

And and we're gonna see that a bit with the writer here of Hebrews.

We've seen this idea of God's family, that admittance into God's family is something he really wants these Jewish followers of Jesus, these Christians, to get a hold of.

And that it's not just that you're of the children of God, but you need to understand that Jesus is your brother.

And what comes with Jesus being your and my brother is this place of honor and inheritance with him.

So what Jesus has earned through the work of the cross in his family through his obedience, we get to also benefit from by being with Jesus, the brothers and sisters of Jesus in God's family.

We also saw this theme of God speaking, and that's going to be one of the main things we talk about this morning, but God speaking to people and expecting them to listen is fundamental.

So this pastor, he wants you and I to know in our following of Jesus that hearing God's voice is very fundamental to being a follower of God.

So hearing from God daily is to be expected.

That God, the God of the Bible is the God who speaks regularly to his people.

And the third theme that we've seen is that God is looking for a response of faith from a tender heart.

So he's been talking about this a lot and using Israel as an example in the past.

He keeps saying, listen, when God's talking, your heart needs to be soft, able to believe and trust what God is saying.

This is not just something to mentally grasp or something that's theoretical, it has to impact our hearts and be believed from the heart.

We also have seen that Jesus is our merciful and our faithful high priest, that he is the one who has taken it upon himself.

It is his commission to bring us close to God.

When you think of the high priesthood of Jesus, think of uh how you, in your full-time job, maybe 40, 50 hours a week, you're working to accomplish a mission.

Well, Jesus, as our high priest, his mission is to bring us close to God.

That is his full-time job as our high priestly in that high priestly office.

To have mercy upon us, to be the apostle, the forerunner, to start it, to keep it going.

And so Jesus is our merciful and faithful high priest.

As we went through chapter three, I mentioned a couple times this theme of rest.

Rest kept coming up over and over and over again.

And it's gonna come up over and over again throughout chapter four.

And one of the things I mentioned is that depending on what Christian tradition you grow up in, the rest of God is interpreted in different ways.

Is it a present rest or is it a future rest?

If you're from a Seventh-day Adventist background, the rest of God is the uh Saturday, the Sabbath day.

If you went to the Bible college that I went to, the rest of God is you're resting from doing um the law.

You're no longer doing the works of your of the law, but you're doing um you're operating with God according to the new covenant grace, and you don't have to keep trying to earn the favor of God through legalism.

If you um come from, let's see, maybe a tradition.

Oh, so the like the historic um uh black church would say that um the rest of God, they probably have this right, actually, the rest of God is primarily this future state in heaven.

Um, because if you were a slave in slavery, your um disposition is like there's no rest that's gonna happen to me in this condition of slavery.

My hope is to someday get to heaven and experience the promised land that has been given to me, just like the children of Israel.

So, depending on what tradition you grew up in, is how you may have understood rest.

We're gonna talk a little bit more about it as we go through this morning.

But let me let's read together Hebrews 4, 1 through 13.

Hebrews 4, 1 through 13.

Let's read it out loud together.

I love when we read together what's up on the screen.

So I'll lead us, but um say it out loud as we go along.

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.

For we who have believed enter the rest, in keeping with what he has said.

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.

For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way, and on the seventh day God rested from all his works.

Again, in that passage he says, They will never enter my rest.

Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news did not enter because of disobedience, he again specifies 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, God would not have spoken later about another day.

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.

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 is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of the soul and the spirit, joints and 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 let's look at this text together.

First of all, let's ask this question What is God saying?

And what I mean by this is I want to just do something very simple in terms of Bible study.

I want you to see how in these 13 verses the repeated reference is to God's voice.

Let's look at verse 1.

Therefore, since the promise to enter his rest remains, let us beware that none of you be found to have fallen short.

What is the reference to God's communication there?

I highlighted it to make it easier, yeah.

It's promise.

The God of the Bible, one of the ways that he communicates is he promises stuff.

And here he has promised a rest.

He has promised a rest.

Let's look at verse 2.

For we also have received the good news just as they did, but the message they heard did not benefit them.

So again, we have a reference to God communicating it.

This is the word gospel.

We received the gospel.

And then he refers to it as the message.

Let's keep going.

There's 13 times here, by the way, where he's referencing communication.

Verse 3.

Here we have he has said, and then it's saying that he swore in his anger, they will not enter my rest.

When we get to verse 4, we see that he has spoken about the seventh day.

In verse 5, it says that he says, You get in the picture here.

Verse 6, the good news did not enter because of disobedience.

Verse 7, again, he specifies, he specified this by speaking.

And then he says, today, if you hear my voice.

Verse 8, God would not have spoken later about another day.

So you get through these eight, you get through these eight verses, what do we see?

What is God doing?

What's the primary verb, the verb, primary action of God?

He's speaking.

God is talking.

Are you hearing God speak to you?

Right?

That's the idea.

The God of the Bible is the God who speaks.

The whole thing started with God speaking, saying, Let there be light, and light came into existence.

God speaks and things happen.

Except for with humans sometimes.

It's amazing.

And the rebuke of Isaiah the prophet is look at how creation is so obedient to God's voice.

Look at how the ox knows its master.

Look at how the uh the orbit of the stars stay in orbit because of God's command.

Look at how the ocean does not go beyond the seashore because of God's command.

Like God is the one who is speaking, and creation is following that guidance.

Look at how that works.

We all need to listen to God's voice.

God is the one who is speaking.

Now I stop at verse 8 because the next time that we hear a verb about God's communication is verse 12.

This famous passage.

I don't know if this is one of your favorite verses, this is one of mine.

The word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword.

Now, you guys know this verse, right?

I mean, this is a great verse.

I love it because it's talking about how God's word is unique and it can accomplish purposes in our life.

It has this, I mean, if you've been walking with Jesus for any length of time, you know that so much of the sense of conviction and guidance of God in your life, uh, instruction of like knowing how to do life, the wisdom that God gives you, it's coming from God's word because it is living and effective.

It's living and effective because God's Spirit animates it in our life, brings it alive for us.

We love that verse, but we forget that that verse is found in the context where the whole thing is about the Hebrew pastor saying, God talks, God speaks, God gave good news, you believed it, right?

The children of Israel were hearing from God, they were not believing it, and they did not enter in because of unbelief.

So here's the thing.

When you look at verse 12 and you remember this, can you please, for the rest of your life, remember that when you read this verse, it's written in a context, an awesome context, where God is doing a lot of talking.

And we're gonna see what he's talking about in just a second.

But I just I feel like it would be irresponsible for me to go through chapter four and not highlight that very loud, repeated theme throughout the book.

The second thing that we just want to ask very briefly is this idea.

How are we to respond?

How are we to respond to God speaking?

If it's found in verses 2 and 3.

Excuse me.

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.

Who's the them?

Who's he talking about?

Them.

They.

Who is that?

Yeah, the Jews, the children of Israel, who are out there in the wilderness.

Two million of them out there, following Moses around in the desert.

We also have received good news, just as they did.

What's the good news we received?

Jesus is Lord.

What did they receive?

They got this message from Moses.

There's a promised land.

I'm gonna give it to you.

Uh-oh.

What's this?

This is one of the big butts of the Bible.

This means there's a contrast.

This means something turns.

They had it, right?

We're being compared to them, but there's something in contrast.

The message they heard didn't benefit them.

Wow.

God gave them a message, gave us a message, but they're different from us.

It didn't benefit them.

Why?

Why didn't that's such a great question.

Thank you for asking that question.

It didn't benefit them because it was not because they were not united with those who heard it in faith.

It didn't mix with faith.

If you have read this from the King James Version, it uses this idea, the hearing of faith, it being mixed with faith.

This is the idea.

God can talk until he's blue in the face.

But if it doesn't get mixed with faith in your in my life, then it doesn't have an effect.

It doesn't become beneficial to us.

Now God's plan marches on.

When God wanted to free Israel from Pharaoh, from Egypt, he wanted Israel to leave Egypt and go to the promised land.

He used Moses to speak as his mouthpiece to Pharaoh.

Did Pharaoh listen?

No, he didn't, right?

That's right.

He did not listen.

He did not listen.

It was not mixed with faith.

Now, did God get his way?

Yeah, God got his way.

Here's the bottom line: God wins, right?

Now, it's on us whether we want to be on the winning team or not.

Because when God says stuff, he's marching forward.

And God's communicating, I've got good news.

I sent my son to die on the cross for your sins.

He's going to rescue you from judgment.

Um, I want to give you a new life, a new heart.

I want to take you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

I want to give you wisdom.

Lady wisdom is going to cry it out in your life.

The Spirit's going to gift you so that you can accomplish my mission for you in the world.

All this stuff I want to do.

But you don't have to take it.

It doesn't have to be mixed with faith.

You can be standing on the sidelines as others are hearing it in faith.

So you have the children of Israel.

Again, the question was, how are we to respond?

How are we to respond?

It's to be responded to in faith.

Now, in verse 3, it uses a similar word.

It says, For we who have believed, enter the rest.

In keeping with what he has said, so I sworn my anger, they will not enter my rest, even though his works have been finished since the foundation of the world.

So it's this believing, it's this believing in our life.

It would have been the believing in their life that would have caused them, allowed them to enter into the promised land, the rest that they had.

Now, I I've got to just show you out of Galatians, I've shot I've got to show you out of Galatians how the similar language is used.

Look at Galatians chapter 1.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

This is 1 through 5.

You foolish Galatians, who's cast a spell on you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

I only want to learn this from you.

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?

Doesn't that sound familiar?

By believing what you heard.

So, Paul, this is Paul writing this to the Galatians, trying to correct them for getting into legalistic works, and he asked them, Do you did you experience the Spirit of God in your life because you were legalistic?

You were doing the works of the law, or was it because you had the belief you believed what you heard?

Um in the New King James Version, a King James Version, it says the hearing of faith, because you had the hearing of faith.

In other words, the word goes in your ear and your heart leaps up and you're like, Yes, God, I believe it.

He goes on.

He's gonna repeat this one more time.

Are you so foolish after beginning in the spirit?

Are you now being made uh are you finishing by the flesh?

Did you experience so much for nothing?

If in fact it was for nothing.

So then, does God give you the spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or is it by believing what you heard?

Again, by believing what you heard.

I think this this pastor who wrote this letter is like a trainer at a gym.

And he's wanting to help these Christians who are in the middle of their, like they're not just starting out.

I think they're a little ways down the road.

He's trying to do what Paul's doing, he's encouraging them back to that place of faith.

God speaks to you by faith.

He wants to speak to you, and he wants, or he doesn't want to speak to you by faith, he wants you to respond in faith to what he is saying.

And yet there is this tendency to move away from this.

This is what's fascinating to me in my own life, is to move away from the life of faith and move towards legalism or to move just towards licentiousness of like a laziness.

And the middle place, the place where this pastor wants us is like, hey, just hang out right here in this place of responding in faith.

And he's writing this as if today, if you hear his voice, it's this image of just regularly, regularly encountering God and his word uh as we do life.

Okay, here's the third question I just want to tackle this morning, and then we'll be done.

What is the rest of God?

Because here the pastor is saying, believe God so you can enter rest, unlike the children of Israel who did not believe God and they could not enter into God's rest.

In chapter in verse 4, he says, For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way.

And on the seventh day, God rested from all his works.

This is a quotation from Genesis 2, 2.

On the seventh day, God rested, on the seventh day from all of his works that he had done, he had rested.

So this pastor is like, hey, somewhere this has been spoken of, this is what it looks like.

What is this rest?

If you go further on into this chapter, we see that this rest is the um, it is primarily what is promised in the gospel message, that Jesus is going to accomplish the work.

The fascinating thing to me is that this writer, this pastor, he says, there still remains a rest for us.

And the question is in verse one, why?

Why does he say in verse one there we see that there's still a rest that remains?

It's because he's using, he's commenting, he's making.

Meditated on Psalm 95, where it says, where what he's liberally quoting from here, where the writer, he calls him David here, David says there remains a rest to enter into, to miss out on.

And his deduction from that is there remains a rest for the people of God.

So when does the what is the what is the rest of God?

I believe that it is, this is my hypothesis, okay, and I, like I said a couple weeks ago, I would encourage you to wrestle with this yourselves.

What is the rest of God?

I would suggest to you that the rest of God are the benefits that come from a life in Christ.

So what do you inherit by being redeemed by the cross?

You inherit the new covenant, which is both the person and work of the Holy Spirit in our life, a person empowering us to do God's mission, but also a power, we call that grace, to do what God's called us to do.

So you have all the fruit of the Spirit is in that place of rest.

The imagery of living in the garden and being fruitful, that's the place of rest.

So there is the present, but then there is the yes and all that much more of the future.

So yes, I think that the um slaves of America who would who wrote their choruses and um rejoiced in a future hope of rest in heaven were right.

But I think that there is also a reality of a present-day rest.

Even Jesus said, Hey, take my yoke upon you.

My burden is light, find rest for your souls in me.

There is a rest that we inherit as we step into Christ.

So it is a kind of a generic term for I would I believe the life that we have in Christ.

But it seems it's written as if, look, don't miss out on this.

While it is presently given to you, one of the reasons I think it's present and not just to the future is because there is this sense of, like, hey, Christ has done this work on your behalf and my behalf, but it's very possible to not live that out, to miss out on the rest that could be ours because we're not assimilating in the promises of God by faith.

In closing, I want you to just think about the children of Israel out there in the wilderness.

They're out there in the desert, and I've often thought about them and thought, man, you know, they experience this crazy like um getting the water is parted, and the um whole Egyptian army gets like swallowed up out there, and then they've got like a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day.

It's like a crazy setting, right?

That's amazing.

And this pastor wants to take and say, look, I want to take and pair you with them.

I want you to not put them in a category completely other.

I want you to see that you have been given promises by God that you're you can not just learn from their mistakes, but you can identify with a sense of excitement of wow, God delivered us from Egypt.

And he's put in front of us a promised land.

I don't know what that means for your life.

I don't know what your Egypt was necessarily, what deliverance God needed to bring about, other than that everyone is born in a condition of sin, that we are our own worst enemy, and we need to be delivered from Satan's realm of darkness and to be brought into the arena of light.

But it's, I think it's more than that.

I think that God puts on display redemptive purposes in our life, each individually, and that this story, these promises, play out.

Why does that happen?

Why does God not just give us the template of the gospel, but he puts on repeat micro-gospel stories in our life?

Do you know why he does that?

Why does he do that in your life?

Because you got neighbors that don't know Jesus.

Right now they're far from God.

You got family members that are far from God.

You've got a city here in Baltimore that's far from God.

And God loves to take your life and play out micro-gospel stories.

In other words, I need to be delivered.

I'm stuck.

This is dark.

I'm buried in the ground with Lazarus.

I'm wrapped up.

There's nothing I can do.

What do I do?

And then you're praying, God help.

I'm dependent upon you.

I'm trusting in your promises.

God says, Hey, I'm never going to leave you or forsake you.

I'm going to take care of you.

Don't worry about your food, your clothing.

I've got that because I've got the birds and I've got the lilies, right?

All of that stuff plays out in the day-to-day basis, and he's providing for you, and it becomes a witness.

You're got an unusual hope.

And your friends are like, wow, why are you so hopeful?

I want to have that hope.

You have this tradition, you have this open-heartedness, this tenderness.

You're willing to take risks in relationship because you've believed the gospel message.

So, Jesus, the apostle and high priest, the merciful, our merciful high priest, has brought us near.

He's given us this future and hope.

And then he said, Go do Monday.

You're going to go do tomorrow.

You're going to get up tomorrow.

And I would encourage you tomorrow to open up your Bibles and say, Lord, even if you strike the posture with an open hand, just saying, God, I'm ready to do this day.

I don't have what it takes.

And there's some things that I'm just flat out worried about.

But I'm yours and I'm ready to listen.

And my hands open before you.

That's a picture of my heart being open to say yes and amen to what you have for me.

I'm willing to let my life be a little demonstration of your resurrection power.

I'm open to what you have for me.

I'm ready to trust you.

And maybe some of you not only need to take that step of having an open heart, tender heart of belief, some of us we need to step back and realize, man, I haven't been trusting the things that God's been saying.

God's been talking loud and clear.

I've been hearing it, and I haven't been trusting it.

And if you're hearing the Holy Spirit convict you of that this morning, I just encourage you, along with the pastor here of Hebrews, he's saying, listen, don't miss it.

Pay attention.

Receive God's message.

Receive the message.

Don't miss out on the rest that God has for you.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this book and how this pastor wanted so desperately for the people he was pastoring to be alert and realize that you're a God of communication and that you fully expect us to trust you.

Lord, you deserve our trust and our faith.

For some reason or another, sometimes we just fail to respond in a believing way.

But we get to do tomorrow.

At least we think so, Lord.

If you will, Lord, we're gonna wake up tomorrow morning and we trust, God, that you want to work through our lives and that we have this relationship with you through the Spirit living in us.

And we just ask, God, that you would speak to us, that we would hear your voice.

Lord, each of us have different stories.

I pray that you would just speak, that you'd cut into each of our lives and that you would speak to us.

Lord, we know that you've accomplished the work through your Son Jesus.

As we take communion this morning, we want to just celebrate all that you've accomplished on our behalf.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.