Finding the Rest You’re Missing | The Follow Up | Hebrews 4:1–13

And so the efforts, the efforts that we make to trust God aren't about working super hard to make God like us.

They're about entering into what God has already provided.

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of the follow-up.

I'm here with Jeff Pittman and Bill Van Kirk, and I'm Jack Guerrera.

And we had the privilege of speaking from Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 through 13 this week.

Hebrews 4:1–13

Now, what campus were you at?

Lawrence.

Lawrence.

Downtown.

Downtown.

And I was at Bellevue.

And highlights, we'll hit the points in a minute, but who wants to give me kind of an overview of what was Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 through 13 about?

Hebrews 4:1–13

And just so you know, those of you who are watching, we were in this discussion before.

Bill and I were talking about this Saturday.

This passage takes work because it does not naturally spell itself out in a logical order the way I would say Paul would have written it.

You got to jump around a little bit and you got to kind of dig.

So it's going to make for a fun discussion.

Hopefully it will make sense and it'll be easy to follow along.

But who wants to highlight kind of where the author of Hebrews was going?

I volunteered.

All right.

I'll try to keep it really tight.

But essentially, this entire chapter is the theme of God's rest and entering God's rest.

And when you first hear the word rest, you might think, and we all talked about this, like taking a nap or or or resting easy or something like that.

But the idea behind the rest that he's talking about is the work is finished.

And it doesn't mean you don't have to live in that work.

Right.

But the work is finished and it's accomplished for you.

Now, previous to this whole passage coming up, he's been talking about Jesus and how Jesus is greater than.

And so essentially the idea you're supposed to get by the time you get to this chapter is that Jesus has completed the work.

And so what is our job now?

And the thrust of this chapter is our work now is to trust that completed work and actively trust God with our lives.

So the three big points that we all kind of ran with.

The first one was the promise of rest is open today.

And it's that idea of it wasn't for something just back then.

The rest, the promises of Christ are here for us today.

Secondly, and let's dig into this a little bit, our response matters.

Like, yes, God's made that available to us, but then what do we do with it?

Jeff, kind of from your perspective, how did what how did you run in what direction with this?

Yeah, I kind of went down the path of you know, our responses of faith and a belief.

Um that leads to obedience, uh, which then leads towards this rest.

And so it's kind of an equation we went through.

And we actually got that from the reverse of that, because he talks about mostly the Israelites in the wilderness that had didn't have faith and belief, and they led them to disobedience, which led them to not entering into God's rest.

And so we kind of reverse that saying our response here is through faith, to trust in the finished work of Jesus, that he's done the work already for us, and that will lead us towards obedience to God, and eventually to this rest that he promises us.

How I I struggle with this on their behalf when I was reading this.

How do you miss it?

How do you miss what God has done in being led out of the wilderness, a pillar of fire, you know, a cloud to follow, the Red Sea, the Red Sea splitting, the manna?

Like, how do you miss and go, nah, I'm I'm just gonna bail on it all?

Like I'm I'm just gonna disobey.

And and I get it.

The part of me that does get it is like, why would I obey if I don't believe?

Like if I'm in disbelief and I have no faith, why would I obey?

But then if I've seen all that God can do, what totally eliminates or disintegrates our faith to the point where we go, okay, God may have done all that, but I I'm not in.

Right.

I think the uncomfortable truth of this part of the passage is that the author of Hebrews is writing to us in a sense.

Yeah, sure.

He's writing, he and he's writing to this group of people who weren't in the wilderness generation.

He's they're much later, they have seen what Christ has done.

They they might even profess a belief in his resurrection and all of these things.

But now they're experiencing persecution.

And so they're attempted to say, yes, I know how great God is and I know how great Jesus is, but um, I'm having trouble trusting him.

Yeah.

And maybe they're not like rejecting Christ, they're not rejecting all the things of God, but they're having trouble like entering into that rest in the sense of, yes, I can I can like tip over and put all of my faith in this.

And so they're starting to think, well, maybe we should go back to these Old Testament sacrifices.

Maybe we should go back to more religious things or messages by angels or whatever it is.

And I think the truth is the same for us.

It's easy for us to say, I've seen God do a lot of things in my life, but right now, on a practical level, I'm having trouble trusting him with fill in the blank.

Sure.

With the fact that my kid is sick or I'm dealing with cancer or whatever it is, or just like the car's advice.

And so the idea is um it can be hard to trust.

We can know, we can be around the things of God and say we trust God, but are we actually putting our faith and our trust in Him?

And what do you do when you walk with Christ?

I I kind of, as I was reading this, I went back and forth between the word rest and the word peace.

Because I think there's something, it's it's really hard to rest when you've got no peace.

Sure.

And then what do you do when your faith in Christ is what's train wrecking your peace or your rest?

Because now they're being tormented for it by both the religious side and in the Jewish community and the Roman side and and the cultural community.

So then it's now it's not only a uh a choice of it didn't make my life easier as far as rest goes.

Yeah.

Like you were saying, they're they're actually facing more struggle with it.

So what do you do?

How how do you find that rest and peace?

And I I want to go twofold off of this.

How do you find that rest and peace when it's God asking you to take a step that's gonna be uncomfortable with your finances?

I mean, that's a real thing in church.

Sure.

Maybe with your time, uh with your personal um devotions and habits.

Like sometimes it doesn't it it doesn't bring you it it makes the workload heavier, which doesn't feel like rest.

Yeah.

Have you guys ever seen or experienced that where God asked you to take a step where it's like, ooh, this is more restful, like this is more work.

Yeah, I think when you I think even just like receiving the call to ministry, you sign up for a lifetime of of maybe it's not the easiest life.

Right.

I think the distinguishing factor for somebody who's gonna put their faith in Christ and it's gonna cost them something is we have to keep the broad view in mind, which is I trust God enough to trust that the outcome will work out.

And maybe it's not even the outcome in this life.

Sure.

But I if you have eternity in mind and your your ultimate hope is Christ and being with him, then the things of this life you can endure and say, man, you know, this didn't go the way I thought, my life's not going the way I thought.

This this was awful, I had to go through all these seasons.

But the end is in sight, which is this life is actually really short.

Eternity is a really long time, and I get to spend it with Jesus.

And I and one day I'll get to look back and see how, despite all of those hard things, I got to be a witness for Christ through them.

And I know it to people who are going through it, that feels like a really pat answer, but we do have to hold on to that eternal hope.

What do you do?

And we're all three kind of in a similar boat.

All three have kids in school, uh married, life going on, uh, you know, jobs that stay pretty active.

Uh I'll throw this one to you.

What do you do to find rest?

Like I you and you and your wife run hard, both working, you've got your kids, you've got in some cases your fostering.

You know, so that I'm sure that that's easy.

Yeah.

Um how do you find those not only moments of rest, but like we read in this passage, like ongoing rest.

Yeah, I think it's important when we talk about rest in this passage, we're not talking about um napping or like or or relief from fatigue.

Which is I like my hammock, but it's not a good thing.

Which you do need that, right?

So I guess the you know, your quick answer is like, well, I take a nap every Friday or something like that.

But uh I think rest really comes when there's a peace.

I love the connection between peace and rest because there's a peace and contentment in what happens when you know you're exactly where God wants you to be.

I'll bring over to foster care for instance.

So we're families in in foster care, and there's been times where it's been very, very hard.

Not only am I asleep schedule or maybe emotionally for us, but like it's just hard to dive into areas that I'd rather just not not navigate.

I'd rather not, I'd rather be my bubble and not navigate the realities of poverty and situations that are just messy, right?

Um but we've always enjoyed that, not because it's easy, but because that's where God wants us to be.

And it feels like that's where Jesus would be if he was walking around earth right now.

And there's a contentment and peace and a rest that comes from knowing I am exactly where God wants me to be.

No matter if it's easy or hard, difficult, or joyous.

I'm just I'm content with where God wants me to be.

That is a great delineation between rest and easy.

Sure.

Because I in my mind, man, if something's easy, I can rest doing it.

You know, but it is it is a different game when you're saying I I'm not looking for rest, like satisfaction in.

The word rest, I don't know if I I didn't get to hear if you guys use this, but it means to come to the end of a journey, like uh or to sit down, meaning things are done.

That sounds easy, but it doesn't mean it's easy.

It means no, I'm I'm living out, like I'm in what I'm supposed to do.

That's where the rest and satisfaction comes from and the peace of it.

So it the like the promise of rest is open today.

That's the first thing we talked about.

Secondly, our response matters.

We don't look for easy, we look for rest in being and in the right path.

And then the third thing that we talked about on a highlight level was God sees the truth of our response.

God sees the truth of our response.

Anyone want to lean into kind of where you went with that?

Yeah, I went due to the fact that it's by talking to people who were just kind of acting religious in this case, uh, for the first readers, but even in our case now, people who are just kind of going through the emotions, but internally are not really trusting in uh in God.

And so I think that we all can follow into that.

I mean, for some people, I mean maybe overtly that way, but even in my life, there's I think it's a great example before, uh is every area of my life submitted to the lordship of Jesus.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, I'm a sinful person still, so I probably can never say fully.

But if I actually went down, like, am I really in my relationships and my finances and how I think about you know other people, whatever it might be.

And so I think there's an aspect of am I I might be able to be able to fool you guys, you know, like I might be able to fool myself to an extent of like I think I'm doing fine, but ultimately God sees through all of that.

He can see who we truly are and who we're trusting in.

And so it's important to think about that perspective.

Not not what you guys think about what I'm doing, but really what does God see about me?

What is what is He looking into my heart and piercing into that?

Where am I at there?

And that's why I love that uh that you know, divide the where the passage talks about that sword, double-edged sword.

It's a Roman sword that could mess you up either way, swinging to the right or the left.

And it was thorough.

And the way it describes, like soul and spirit, those are two things that are interconnected, and yet the spirit can come, the sword of the spirit can come in and divide that out.

Um bone and marrow, or um joint and marrow.

Joints are like all the movement of your body, your marrow is where life is, and and it can cut that out if you're playing a game or if something sick.

And the last one for me, the thoughts and uh your thoughts and your motives.

I think it was motives was the word there.

And it was like, do my thoughts affect my motives and and my attitude.

That's what it was, thoughts and attitude.

Can my attitude affect my thoughts?

And the word of God comes in and can just divide between that to go, let's look at the real motivation behind what you're saying.

So I I like what you were saying earlier, too, in that previous discussion.

Like that word of God, like what am I looking line by line for what should be dividing my life?

Or what do you what do you think that means when it talks about the the the word of God that's sharper than any double-edged sword?

Yeah, I think it reveals whether or not we're truly trusting him and we're exposed before God.

It's really interesting, this that part of the passage to me, because this is one of the first passages I ever memorized.

Yeah, sure, sure.

Because it's a fun passage to think about.

The word of God is alive, it's active in your life.

How cool is that, right?

But in the context of this passage, it's super sobering.

Sure.

It is saying that God knows.

Based on your reaction to the word of God in your life, God knows are you truly trusting him or are you playing a game?

Are you have you deceived yourself?

Have you deceived others, right?

Kind of like you said earlier.

And so it is really sobering.

But what I love about this passage is when you look at the whole thing, you see that the invitation, the warning is an invitation, which is you're here, you're this close, you understand who Christ is, you understand all these things, that he accomplished all these things.

And so your call is you are exposed before God.

So run to God, right?

So trust him.

Like actually, the things in your the areas of your life in which it is exposed by the word that you're not trusting him, bring those to God.

And that's kind of how I ended this week was a call to say, you know, it can be really scary to be exposed, you can feel really vulnerable.

Yeah.

But the action step is for you then to take those things and bring them back to God.

And people will say, Well, I don't know how to trust God with this.

And it's like, find some time with you and God and go to Him and say those exact words.

He, if He is Lord of over all things and He's all the things we've been saying, He's greater than all these things, then He can handle when you come to Him and say, I don't know how to trust you with this God.

Please help me.

Yeah, and I hope you hear that, like, this isn't something we get to hide away for four hours a day and do this.

Like, I know there are single moms watching this who you are just glad when you get three minutes to eat a sandwich, you know?

Uh or dad, you're you're doing what you do and you're glad to have the break, not having a kid hanging off your back or a practice you need to run to, whoever that may be.

But it's those moments, right, where you choose to create the breathing space.

And I what I and it really just popped out to me is this is actually it's almost a step of violence.

When you're talking about a sword, this isn't God going, hey, psst, you know, maybe let's look at this.

No, it says it's a double-edged sword coming at you.

That's a that's a like I said, it's a Roman weapon.

So it is God's not taking this lightly.

Like the motive of our hearts are a serious thing.

And the passage says that everyone, you know, is is going to experience this.

So that was kind of a highlight point to the passage.

Let me ask you this: is there anything from the Old Testament we've seen throughout this whole time, like the Old Testament spilling in to Hebrews and a Hebrew crowd that would have understood it?

Anything that stood out for you in regard to what you took from the Old Testament spillage into Hebrew?

Spillage, there's my King James word for the day.

Something that's all over.

I really liked, he is essentially developing, he's taking an idea from the Old Testament that has a very particular meaning, which is the rest that he talks about is the wilderness generation getting to enter the promised land.

And he takes that idea and what he's doing, because his audience is familiar with it, he's taking that and he's expanding it.

And he's saying, look all the way back to Genesis 2.

We actually see that God's rest exists there, that it was created there.

And then we see it in this wilderness generation.

But lest you think that it only meant for those people, we actually go all the way forward to David saying that God's rest is open today.

And then we can take it even a step further because we have in our minds the rest of the context of the book of Hebrews, that actually God's rest is found in Jesus.

And so it actually develops a whole like biblical theology of the idea of God's rest, which is really kind of neat to think about.

We love to do that, I think, like as pastors or theologians today love to trace themes throughout the Bible.

And here you have the author of Hebrews doing it for the people he was writing to, which is neat.

Yeah, and I use the word spillage and you use lest.

So you need a King James word just to just for the trifecta to happen.

But going, Bill, going off what you said too, uh, it's interesting that in Hebrews he talks about rest and then he uses the term Sabbath rest.

In their day and age, Sabbath rest came off of God finishing, creating the heavens and the earth.

No.

It is good, and he rested.

He saw it's complete.

There was nothing left to do.

The Sabbath for them, both in Hebrews and in the Old Testament, was that day of honoring what God has done, glorifying and worshiping God, and then a day of recuperating, resting.

I think we've lost that.

Like I don't I don't have a day that I go, I have a day off, but it is my honeydew list, it is my stuff around the house list, it is what else do I have to get done, you know, picked up or done, or who who needs to be run where.

I think we've lost rest as a culture.

So I don't know.

That is true.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I think though, to put it in the context of like what God's Word is saying is think about what it means for us, though, to have God's Sabbath rests.

It means that whereas before you would have to strive to wonder if you are pleasing God, right?

You have to get your sacrifice, you have to bring it into the like now we know that that's finished.

And so the efforts, the efforts that we make to trust God aren't about working super hard to make God like us.

They're about entering into what God has already provided.

And so like there's a comfort there.

It's I'm not trying to earn something anymore.

I'm operating out of the understanding that Christ has accomplished all the work already.

Aaron Powell Yeah, and if you think of Sabbath rest, I mean they tried to use that as a weapon against Jesus, actually.

Like, look what your look what your apostles are doing on the Sabbath.

And Jesus is like, you'd get your donkey out of a out of a ditch if it got stuck on the Sabbath.

Like let's let's not get too legalistic.

Right.

But it's the the heart of Sabbath behind it, or that rest.

Was there anything old testament-wise that kind of jumped out to you?

I mean, nothing more, yeah.

I think the Psalm 95 connection uh was really strong, but that's the discussion about um well, rest and in people not entering the rest.

So I think it's just tight, it's nice to have to see the original readers of this are gonna know that story very well.

They're gonna know Psalm 95 really well, they're definitely gonna know the story of the Israelites in the wilderness really well.

So I think tying upon something they know well uh helps them understand what this rest really is going forward.

And I think for those original readers, like I think, I guess like us as well, we see the discussion, we see people in history failing to receive the rest, right?

So then being encouraged about that makes me feel like, well, everyone always falls short, right?

It always falls short for this.

Obviously, in our day and age, it's different because Jesus has paid for that, alright?

He's the change of that, right?

Because the Israelites didn't have what it takes to actually enter that rest.

But the Psalm 95 connection was really strong.

For me, I um I love, I I never put this together.

But Joshua, Old Testament, is the same name as Jesus in the New Testament, Yeshua in New Testament, Yeshua, Joshua in the Old Testament.

So when you've got Joshua leading a people in bondage and in darkness, out of darkness, through a wilderness, into a promised land, but not the restful promised land.

That's why Hebrews 4, it's the first time I've ever dug into this, so it was a great learning point for me, too.

But um, now you've got Jesus going, hey, I'm better than Moses, I'm a better Joshua.

I'm not leading you into a land you've got to try and win from in hostility.

Like I've already paid the price for it.

I've gotten rid of the enemy from the land.

So once again, a Hebrew crowd reading, oh, this is a this is a 2.0 Joshua.

Like this is a better Joshua who's come to set us free.

From me, from Old Testament to New Testament, that was a huge win as well.

So And by the way, next week, this coming Sunday, we're gonna talk about, he's gonna say, he's gonna use the key term therefore to start this next section.

And he's going to talk about how Christ is our great high priest.

And so it's actually, you know, expertly connected to this idea of entering God's rest.

It's like, well, how do we get there?

Well, we're gonna talk about Jesus as well.

Glad you asked.

Yes, we're gonna talk about Jesus as high priest.

So that's cool.

Um give me one in closing, give me one.

If if someone's out there and they're like, man, I struggle with rest, I struggle with peace.

Um I'm looking for easy, but that's not satisfying, and it's there's no depth to it.

If you were to say to someone, give me one in an elevator segment, so the door is closing, and they're like, Jeff, I heard you talk about rest this week, elevator doors closing.

Tell me quick, give me a step, give me something, uh, uh a bread morsel to move toward rest.

What would you what would you say?

I would say I think you want to be able to get to a spot somehow to hear God's voice.

And uh that means, and I think everyone kind of goes their different ways, but it's not like endless ways.

People get that by prayer, and that could be a prayer walk, it could be a prayer journal, it could be studying God's scripture, but whatever kind of works for you to hear God's voice in your life.

Uh, because I think whenever I'm coming into maybe a stressful situation, if I can stop and I can pray and take some good time to pray, not necessarily not necessarily like that walking in the door prayer, but like a good time and just leave some space for God to say, what to speak back to me.

And then I can hear those nudges or feel those like leanings that I feel like the Holy Spirit working in my life, that can be be part of it.

So that actual mechanism that can change versus certain people.

Sure.

Ultimately, how do you hear God's voice for that specific situation?

Like, how do you hear that?

Uh for most times it's prayer or journaling, which I think is probably also prayer as well.

Yeah as well.

Yeah.

Good wisdom.

Bill?

Yeah, I would say, I would say, uh along with what you've said, that's that's brilliant.

Um but I would say also invite God in to the very moments that are causing the unrest.

Yeah.

And so you're really stressed out about this one thing, and you're so stressed out that you don't have time for God.

Sure.

Well, as you enter those stressful moments or as you're ruminating about those things, those are the very things that you should trust God with.

And so, how what would it look like to say, I'm going to this meeting, I know it's going to be high conflict, or I'm really stressed out about this thing at work or with my family or whatever it is.

And what it what would it look like to say, you know, just as you're walking in, God help me through this moment.

Help me to sense your presence and your peace through this.

Um, and then after it's over, Lord, thank you for your help with this.

Help me to follow up the way you want me to follow up.

It's, I mean, so often we segment our relationship with God into what we want to be holy moments when we go to church, when we're quiet in the morning, all these things.

And I think there's a sense in which we're not supposed to divide.

We're supposed to invite God into all of those things.

He's supposed to be part of everything.

Right.

Yeah.

For me, whatever's waking me up at two between two and three in the morning, I know that's where the lack of trust is, you know?

And it's it's turning it over.

For me, sometimes it's prayer walks.

Sure.

Like I I've got to move.

I'm just an anxiety, we're driven.

I don't know.

Um it's the ADHD thing.

But it's it's being able, like kind of a combination of what you're saying.

Call it out, call it for what it is, and whether it's my kids or finances or something going on at work or whatever it is, call it out and turn it over.

It's the only way I have rest is by not wrestling with it myself.

Yeah.

So thanks for the discussion today, guys.

And if you're watching today, if you have any thoughts, questions, comments, please leave it in the comments section below.

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And if you're a part of Spring Lake, as Bill said, we look forward to continuing our study of Hebrews this weekend.

Have a great week.