ENTERING GOD'S REST (Hbs 3.7 - 4.13)

“ENTERING GOD’S REST”
Hebrews part 5 (3:7 – 4:13)
Rev. Grady Davidson 100911
This morning I intend to preach the 4 great themes in this lengthy text, and by God’s good grace we will experience together what the author tells us in the concluding verses – namely, that God’s Word is indeed living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, God’s Word penetrates to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
1. Warnings
2. Rest (a dozen times in the passage)
3. Restless people
4. The human heart
After we follow these 4 themes through these 26 verses, then by God’s grace I hope to weave them together in such a way that we discover what the Lord would have us to know and to do in response to the Word.
With your prayerful obedient and faithful listening to God’s Word, let’s dig in to the text.
WARNINGS
In postmodern America we are admonished to give heed to so many warnings, that we often don’t even pay them any attention. If you get a cup of coffee at McDonalds, you are warned on the cup that… the coffee is hot! I read this week a blurb written by a mom who claimed that she had purchased a superhero costume for her child to wear for Halloween. It had a label that said, “Warning: Costume only. Cape will not enable child to fly.” (There you go, taking all my fun!) If you see a sign declaring, “Wet Paint,” what do you want to do? (Touch it and see!) But sometimes we encounter warnings of a more serious nature. In Christianity Explored the speaker, Rico Tice, tells of visiting a friend in Australia, and taking a stroll on a pristine Australian on a beautiful sunny day. Rico was in the process of pulling off his shirt to take a swim in the beautiful blue water, when his friend said: “What are you doing? Haven’t you read the signs?” Rico looked up and saw a huge white billboard which declared in bold text: “Warning! Shark-infested waters!” Rico said, “Phooey on that, I’ll be fine.” His friend: “More than 200 Australians have been in shark attacks over the years. You have to decide if that sign is there to rob you of fun, or to save your life. You’re of age, you decide for yourself.”
Likewise today’s text has some warnings which very well could be printed on giant billboards for us all to have to wrestle with.
(3:12) – review. Could that happen to you? Or to your loved one worshiping near to you today?
(4:1) -- review. (“let us fear” preferable to NIV “be careful”) Could it happen here, at LVPC, to one of us? Could someone set out on a journey of faith, following Jesus Christ, and yet in the end fail to finish the course? Fail to cross the finish line?
(4:11) – review. Again, a warning that one of us might begin with Christ, and yet fall away through disobedience.
And finally, words of admonition and implicit warning repeated over and over again… (3:7-8, 3:15, 4:7) – “Today, if you hear {God’s} voice, do not harden your heart…”
I wonder, even right now, is God speaking any words of warning into your life? As you pause under the preaching of the Word to allow God’s Word to penetrate deeply into your spirit, is there a flashing red light “on the dashboard” telling you to wake up, and listen, and take notice and act? Hold onto that thought, as we move on.
REST.
The word “rest” appears by my counting 11 times in the passage, plus a special word found only here in the New Testament in 4:9, “Sabbath-rest.” Bible teachers and commentators have spilled a lot of ink over the years arguing with one another about what “rest” the author is writing about in this passage.
Is it the believer’s rest from his labors when he dies and goes to glory?
Is it that glorious eternal rest that awaits us all at the return of Christ and the renewal of all things?
Or is it more of a here-and-now kind of rest; a rest of the spirit that we can enjoy in Jesus Christ each and every day, even when life is difficult and we face trials and tribulations? What kind of rest is it?
Someone might accuse me of being overly simplistic, but I think it’s all of the above! It’s a rest that we enjoy now, as we quit “working at religion,” as we quit striving on our own power to please God, quietly trusting in the completed work of Jesus Christ (4:10). But there’s also a future aspect, an eschatological dimension, a promised deeper, fuller rest that we will enjoy at the end of time (4:9).
Do you remember what Jesus said about rest? “Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” He didn’t say, “Come unto church… or come unto Homecoming (though HC is wonderful!)… come unto Presbyterian doctrine (though you should!).” No – “Come unto me,” Jesus said. And he promises that in relationship with Him, you will find rest for your soul. How many Christians know Christ, but they never enter into his rest! Like the Israelites, they wander in the desert but never rest in Christ! That leads us to the third great theme of our passage, which I’m calling…
RESTLESS PEOPLE
Listen very carefully to me. Today’s text proposes that it’s entirely possible for someone to set out on a journey of faith with Jesus Christ, and blend in with the people of God, and yet at the end of the day they fall short of entering that promised rest of which I’ve been speaking. That principle lies at the heart of the many warnings in this passage. (examine 3:14) The author includes this lengthy quotation from Psalm 95 in the Old Testament. This Psalm in turn points way back to the experience of God’s people in the wilderness. These were people who saw God’s plagues poured out on Egypt. These were people who saw the Red Sea part and they walked across on dry ground, and when the pursuing Egyptian army came barreling down on them, these people saw God release the waves of the Red Sea once again drowning Pharaoh’s army. These were people who experienced God’s miraculous provision of water and bread and meat in the desert. An entire nation of 603,000 men and their families who personally witnessed and experienced God’s saving power; but out of those hundreds of thousands, how many of them got out of the desert wandering and entered Canaan, the land of rest? (Only 2 – Joshua & Caleb.)
What happened to all the others? They got to the brink of Canaan. By all appearances they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land, the land of rest. Moses sent in a scouting party, a group of select men sent in on an intelligence-gathering mission. They returned and brought a report: “It is a land flowing with milk and honey. Unbelievable prosperity and beauty and agricultural productivity…BUT, we saw the Nephilim and the Anakim, gigantic people beside whom we appeared to be grasshoppers. Besides that their cities are large and walled and fortified; there’s no way we can conquer the Canaanites. Furthermore” (they concluded) “it is a land that devours its own inhabitants.” Now there was a minority opinion – the voices of two men, Joshua and Caleb: “God has promised us success! We can take the land!” But they were crying into the wind, for the congregation of God’s people under the voices of the ten unfaithful spies determined that the only thing left to do was to stone Moses and Joshua, elect new leaders, and go back to live as slaves in Egypt.
God judged that generation. He was still faithful to them, but he judged that they would wander restlessly in the wilderness for 40 years, and that generation would die in the wilderness. (See 3:10-11).
We’re talking about restless people. People who have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They have left the Egypt of their sin, but have not entered the Promised Land of rest. People who have made a beginning with God, but to this day they wander in a spiritual desert and have not entered God’s rest. Why is that? How can it be? That brings us to the 4th major theme of our text, which is the human heart.
THE HEART.
Notice the progression of moving away from Christ and the rest he promises. It begins (3:10) with “going astray” (review verse). The heart shakes itself lose from its anchoring in Jesus and begins to wander away. Then that wandering heart becomes an “unbelieving heart” (3:12. A heart that begins to mix truth with error, perhaps picking and choosing from the teachings of the Bible.
That unbelieving heart then becomes a heart deceived by sin (end of v. 13). Sin finds a new entry into that individual’s life. The willful experience of sin then gives way to acceptance of sin – even to the point of saying that what God’s Word declares is sin we should regard as normative and right and good.
Finally the heart is hardened to the Lord and to His Word (3:13, 15)– and God says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
Stern warnings – warnings that we can be in movement with Christ, in hope of entering into his rest, but if our hearts go astray and becoming unbelieving and full of sin and wickedness – that we might seem to fall short of entering into God’s rest because of our unbelief. We can hear the gospel, but not benefit from the gospel because of unbelief.
Perhaps you say, “Pastor, my heart has gone astray, and I’m guilty of unbelief and my heart has been hardened toward God’s Word. What can I do?” you ask. The answer, dear friend is repeated over and over again in our text: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Today, if you hear His voice listen to Him and believe Him and obey Him. Yesterday’s over—you can do nothing about yesterday; and Tomorrow isn’t promised! What you do have is Today—this moment to hear His voice, to believe in God’s Son Jesus Christ, to embrace and believe God’s Word. You see, God’s Word at this very moment is laying us bare. God’s Word is judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Like a surgeon’s scalpel God’s Word is gently opening us so that we can see the cancer of unbelief in our hearts. Today, won’t you let the Surgeon skillfully cut it away? Don’t argue with him, don’t harden your heart. Let Him heal you, that you may enter into His rest. Amen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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