Hebrews 4:1-11
grace to you in peace from him
who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits
who are before his throne and Christ Jesus the faithful witness
the firstborn from among the dead and the ruler over all the
kings of the earth Amen. Our Lord, having greeted us,
calls us, his redeemed, into his presence. And today from
Psalm 95. So let us stand as we hear God
himself summon us into his presence that we might worship him. Psalm
95 says to us, Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make
a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into
his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to
him with songs of praise for the Lord is a great God and a
great king above all gods. Oh, come, let us worship and
bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is
our God and we are the people of his pasture. Amen. Let us do just that now as we
sing a worship the king number 10 in praise to our God. ♪ O praise Him, O praise Him ♪
♪ O praise Him, O praise Him ♪ O say can you see, by the dawn’s
early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last
gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright
stars, through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched,
were so gallantly streaming? ♪ O’er the land of the free and
the home of the brave ♪ ♪ O’er the land of the free and the
home of the brave ♪ Let us pray together. Our great
God, our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we delight to sing your
praises this day, for you have called us into your presence,
that we, the sheep of your pasture, those redeemed by the precious
blood of Jesus, might enter into your presence to seek your face,
to worship your holy name, to declare your goodness, and to
see your might and splendor, and to hear from your holy word.
We ask, O Father, that you would speak with thunder clarity today,
that our ears and our hearts and our minds would know for
sure that it is you, the God of the universe, that has spoken
to us and that we might go from this place and do what you ask.
We also pray that you might dwell in our midst and be pleased to
accept our worship through Jesus and that you would delight to
hear in the praises of your people. We ask for your help and blessing
and strength in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. Our affirmation
of faith today is from the ancient Nicene Creed, and so with many
generations of saints behind us, we proclaim that which we
believe. And so, congregation of the Lord
Jesus Christ, what do you believe? We believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible
and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God,
light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being
of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made,
who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was
incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made
man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered
and was buried, and the third day He rose again according to
the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and is seated at
the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with
glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall
have no end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and
Son, who with the Father and Son together is worshiped and
glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy Catholic
and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for
the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of
the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. Let us stand together and sing
praise to our triune God using the Gloria Patri. You may be seated. At this point in our service
of worship, you may well say in your mind, we have bumped
into the holiness of God. We’ve seen our God high and lifted
up. We see that He is the maker of
heaven and earth, that He is God and that we are human. And
you may say there’s There’s no point in moving forward. He’s
God, and I’m a sinner. He is God, and I am weak. He
is strong and mighty, but I am a failure. But we thank God for
His grace, that He loves, He delights to be with His children,
and He makes a way through the blood of Christ that we might
again have fellowship with Him. And so we restore that fellowship
with Him during the day and week as often as necessary, but we
do it as a body together when we worship. because it is good
for the covenant people of God to be in full and right and restored
fellowship with Him. So let us confess our sins together
as we pray. Holy Lord, I have sinned times
without number. I have been guilty of pride and
unbelief, of failure to find Your mind in Your Word, of neglect
to seek You in my daily life. My transgressions and shortcomings
present me with a list of accusations, but I bless you that they will
not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ. Subdue
my corruptions and grant me grace to live above them. Let not the
passions of the flesh, your lustings of the mind, bring my spirit
into subjection. But do rule over me in liberty
and power. No trial is as hard to bear as
a sense of sin. If you should give me a choice
to live in pleasure and keep my sins or to have them burnt
away with trial, Give me sanctified affliction. Deliver me from every
evil habit. Everything that dims the brightness
of your grace in me. Everything that prevents me taking
delight in you and running the race. Then I shall bless you,
God of my righteousness, for helping me to be upright. We
pray this in Christ’s blessed name. Amen. Take a moment to
silently confess your sins before the Lord. Brothers and sisters of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who truly by faith are resting in Him alone for
salvation, hear now God’s very words of assurance, of pardon. For if we have been united with
Christ in a death like His, we shall be united with Him in a
resurrection like His. We know that our old self was
crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought
to nothing, and so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Amen. We give thanks to our God
for this glorious redemption. Let us stand together and sing
of this redemption. We’re going to sing at the Lamb’s
High Feast we sing. I think you’ll recognize the
tune as it’s played for us. Let’s stand and sing together.
♪ Heaven and earth are rejoicing
♪ ♪ In praise of our Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ You come in peace ♪ ♪ You come
in peace ♪ ♪ You come in peace ♪ ♪ You come in peace ♪ ♪ You
come in peace ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, sing a hymn
of joy ♪ ♪ For the Lord, the God of joy ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord,
sing a hymn of joy ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, sing a hymn of joy
♪ ♪ In the land of the free and the
home of the brave ♪ ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner
yet wave ♪ ♪ O’er the land of the free and the home of the
brave? ♪ Amen. You may be seated. Our reading from the Old Testament
today is from Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 through chapter 2,
verse 3. In our passage for the sermon
from Hebrews 4 today, we will hear that on the seventh day
God rested. And when God rested from His
work, it wasn’t because He was tired, It wasn’t because he was
exhausted and had created the universe. It was because he had
finished his work. And he finished his work in order
that he might rest. And the reason he’s given us
the seventh day as a day of rest is that we might labor six days
and finish our work on the day six and rest as he has done. We live in a world that never
stops. We have cities that never sleep.
We have schedules that never end. And God has said to us,
I give you a day of rest. And so we read with great interest,
God creating the heavens and the earth, He formed them, He
filled them, and then He rested. So hear God’s word, beginning
at Genesis 1. In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and
void. And darkness was over the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering
over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.
And there was light. And God saw that the light was
good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called
the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was
evening and morning, the first day. And God said, Let there
be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate
the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and
separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters
that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called
the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there
was morning the second day. And God said, Let the waters
under the heavens be gathered together into one place. And
let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called
the dry land earth. And the waters were gathered
together he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation. plants yielding seed,
and fruit trees bearing fruit in which there is their seed,
each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. The
earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according
to their own kinds, and the trees bearing fruit in which is their
seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning the third day. And
God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens
to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs
and for seasons, for days and years. And let them be lights
in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.
And it was so. And God made the two great lights,
the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule
the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse
of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the
day and over the night, and to separate the light from darkness.
And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and morning
the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters
swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea
creatures, and every living creature that moves with which the waters
swim according to their kinds, and every winged bird according
to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, fill
the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and morning
the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring
forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and
creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their
kinds. And it was so. And God made the beast of the
earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to
their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according
to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth. So God created man in his own
image. In the image of God, he created
him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And
God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth
and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that
moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have
given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the
earth, and every tree with the seed and its fruit, you shall
have them for food. And to every beast of the earth,
and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps
on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have
given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything
that he made, and behold, it was very good. And there was
evening and morning the sixth day. 17 Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 18 And
on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and
he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had
done. So God bless the seventh day
and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work
that he had done in creation. This is the word of God for us,
his people. Let’s now turn to this great
God, our God, and ask for his help and blessing as we live
life in the world. Pray with me. Our Heavenly Father,
we come before you today blessing you because you are our God who
has created us. And when sin has marred us and
ruined us. You have recreated us in Christ
Jesus. And we thank you for the church,
for the Word of God, for the gifts of the church, the Holy
Spirit, and for the ordinances, the Word, and the Lord’s Supper,
and baptism, and for fellowship, and prayer, and life together.
Thank you for these things that help us live life well in the
midst of a fallen world. that help us live well for you
even though we still have sin remaining in us and the corruption
of our hearts still is there. We thank you for all these gifts
of grace and we pray that in this new year we would live well
out of these gifts of grace. That each week as we keep Sabbath,
as we sit under your word, as we fellowship and pray together,
as we Use the gifts of the church to serve us well. We pray, Father,
that you would give us a great and gracious year. Though the
world may fall apart around us, though difficulties may enter
our lives, we pray, Father, that you would find us faithful, steadfast
and immovable, and that you would give us grace upon grace, that
we might show the world what living for you looks like. We
pray, our Father, that you would help us to serve each other and
to serve even to the ends of the earth well. Thank you for
the opportunity this year that we might support the Goodman
family serving the church in Wales. We thank you for Drew
and his ordination and his service there in Cardiff. We pray, Father,
that you would bless his labor, his studies, his pastoral ministry,
and his efforts to bring the light of the gospel to a dark
place. We remember in our history that that was a place that once
was bright with your gospel. It was great with revival, but
has fallen again upon hard spiritual times. And so, Father, we pray
that you would dispel the darkness by the light of your preached
word, and that more and more men and women and boys and girls
from that part of the world might call upon Jesus as Savior and
worship Him. We thank you, our Father, that
you give us help as we live life in the world. And so we pray
that you would give us health instead of sickness, give us
strength instead of weakness, give us confidence instead of
anxiety, give us hope instead of despair. We pray that you
would help us to give an account of the hope that is within us
and to speak the word of God to others as we strive to help
others live well in this world that you have made. We ask that
you would help us Help us to be obedient to those who are
over us, whether it be governors or mothers and fathers or the
elders of the church. Help us to fall into rank and
fall into order and to follow after in obedience those Christ
Jesus has put over us. But we do pray, give us godly
leaders. Give us godly parents. Give us
godly governors. And may they rule in justice
and in righteousness and with integrity and in faith and according
to the scriptures, and that they may all recognize that King Jesus
is the King of kings and the ruler of all rulers, and that
their scepter, their rule in the home, in the church, and
in places of government is from King Jesus alone. We ask, Father,
that you would help us as we live life before a watching world
to be found faithful. And we pray together as our Savior
has taught us, praying, Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be
thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. Amen. Let us worship our God
now by giving to him his tithes and our offerings. sweet little jesus boy they made
you be born in a manger sweet little holy child didn’t know
who was. Didn’t know you’d come to save
us, Lord, to take our sin away. Our eyes was blind. We couldn’t see. We didn’t know Long time ago, you was born. Born in a manger low Sweet little
Jesus boy The world treat you mean, Lord Treat me mean too
But that’s how things are down here We don’t know who you is You done told us how. We is a trying master. You done showed us how. Even when you was dying. Just seem like we can do right. Look how we treated you. But please, sir, forgive us,
Lord. We didn’t know. Sweet little Jesus boy, born long time ago. Sweet little holy child, and
we didn’t know who you were. ♪ Praise God above whom all blessings
flow ♪ ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Praise Him above
the heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s scriptures to Hebrews, chapter four. Hebrews, chapter four, verses
one through 11, is our passage for the day. As we’ve made our
way through Hebrews, we have heard exhortation after exhortation
of putting our faith and hope and trust and obedience in Jesus. He is the one who speaks to us
by his word. He’s the great high priest. He’s
greater than angels. And we continue in a passage
that for several times, as we have studied it, has told us,
today, if you hear the voice of God, do not harden your hearts
as did the Israelites in the rebellion. God promised them
redemption and salvation. But their hard hearts did not
produce faith, but unbelief, and their lives were lives of
disobedience and death. And so we we continue in that
vein of thought today with chapter four, beginning at verse one.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands,
let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach
it. For good news has come to us
just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them
because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter
that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall
not enter my rest. And although his works were finished
from the foundation of the world, for God had somewhere spoken
of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh
day from all his works. And again in this passage, he
has said, they shall not enter my rest. Therefore, since it
remains for some to enter it, those who formerly received the
good news failed to because of disobedience. Again, he appoints
a certain day, today, saying through David, so long afterward,
in the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them
rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then
there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever
has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God
did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter
that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. This is God’s word for us. Let’s
ask now for his grace that we might hear and believe what he
says to us. Pray with me. Our God, we thank you for the
whole of scripture, for how it tells us of your wonders of creation,
how it gives us examples of how not to live, and how, like in
today’s passage, it exhorts us, it challenges us that we might
fear you and strive to enter the rest you offer. And it warns
us not to be like a wicked generation. Help us to hear the warning,
to heed the promises, and to By Your grace, live the things
You command and offer to us so freely. Thank You for Jesus and
the Gospel and for Your Word, which is ours. And we pray, Father,
that Your Spirit would open our eyes to see these things and
treasure them in our hearts. We thank You in Jesus for this.
In His name we pray. Amen. There is a monthly magazine
in another town that I frequently pick up. I enjoy reading the
various articles that are in it. I enjoy the cultural things
that are in it, the advertisements for certain places and things.
It’s just an interesting read. And in the January issue, which
I picked up the other day, there was an article about taking a
break. It was about taking time off. It was saying and challenging
the readers, this is not a Christian magazine and probably not a Christian
audience, but it was saying in the light of the new year, in
light of having resolutions and desires for 2016, you need to
rest. You need a break. And it wasn’t
coming exactly from the biblical perspective, but it was identifying
a problem with the human race. And there were anecdotes and
stories about so-and-so who took time away from work and went
off to a secluded cabin or lived for a month or so on a private
beach somewhere down south where it was warm. And it spoke of
the benefits of having some quiet and some rest and some peace. And you can imagine that most
people reading that article say, what a great idea. And that most
who read that article looked over at their spouse or commented
to someone, you know, that’s something that ought to be in
our plans. Maybe we should spend a month at the beach in the quiet.
Well, let me tell you, dear saints, Christians, God already has for
us rest. and quiet and tranquility and
peace built into our lives. It’s called Sunday. It’s called
the Sabbath day. It’s called a day of rest. A
day of rest and worship. And not only does He give us
one whole day and seven for rest, He has an entire eternity planned
for those who trust in Jesus. That they may cease from their
labors and rest in His holy and delightful presence for eternity. The world may be slow to figure
it out. They may be slow to figure out
that you can’t run seven, eight days a week without wearing out,
that your calendar can’t be but so full. You’ve got to stop. You have to take a break. You
have to rest. See, God knows us. God made us. And from the
beginning and even into eternity, God has a rest for His people. The Word of God tells us that
God worked six days. He made the heavens and the earth.
He formed it and He filled it. He labored and on the seventh
day He rested. He stopped. He ceased from His
labors. And He sanctified a day. One
whole day and seven days and a week. One whole day is set
apart as holy. No work, but rest and worship. And it points us to the new heavens
and the new earth when we will cease from our labors. In a few
moments, we’ll sing for all the saints. who from their labors
rest. It speaks of saints who have
gone before us. They’ve gone on to heaven. It
quotes from the 14th chapter of Revelation. Blessed are the
dead who die in the Lord from now on. And amen, says the Spirit,
for they rest from their labors and their deeds follow them.
So God has given us a day in the week that points to an eternal
and future reality. He’s created us to be a people
who work hard. but we stop. We work hard again,
but we stop. And you think about it in just
our daily pattern. We work hard all day and we stop.
We sleep. Each day is new. We rest and
we begin again. Now how does God speak of rest
in the Bible? We have this idea from the creation
account that He labored six days and rested on the seventh. We
have this idea from the Bible that there’s this new heavens
and new earth where we will have an eternal Sabbath. But how between
Creation and heaven, does God show us examples of rest? If you read this passage, you’ll
find the word rest two handfuls of times, maybe ten times. You’ll
see that rest is implied over and over. You could look at it
as God is preaching a gospel of rest. But how does God show
us rest in the Bible between creation and heaven? I mean,
certainly there’s keeping the Sabbath. He tells Israel to enter
the promised land. And when you do, and after you
have subdued all your enemies, I will give you rest from the
surrounding nations. I’ll give you rest and peace.
There will be no strife in your life. The covenant blessings
of God, we may say it very succinctly, that God promises to give us
grapes and grandchildren. He promises that our farms will
produce and that our offspring will be numerous. And so God
gives us these ideas of rest throughout the Bible in creation,
resting one whole day in seven, certainly in heaven when we will
rest from our labors when we are no longer alive on this earth. And in between, he promises to
give us little bitty glimpses of rest that ultimately point
to the rest we will receive in the new heavens and the new earth.
Now, it’s very interesting how this whole passage in Hebrews
4 works. He says to us, if Joshua had given them rest in the promised
land, if Joshua had given them rest, then why would King David
later say that you have not yet entered rest? For there is a
greater rest to come. And so God may give us little
bitty glimpses of rest in this life each Sunday. rest from our
enemies, grapes and grandkids and all kinds of wonderful things
and blessings, rest instead of restlessness. But it all points
to a heavenly rest, an eternal rest. And so we agree with the
scriptures when it says there is an eternal rest that is yet
to come. And so here’s what I want us
to understand from this passage. While a rest for God’s people
remains, While the offer of God’s rest still stands before you,
we must not miss the opportunity while it is still available.
God is preaching to you a gospel of rest, a gospel of eternal
rest, a gospel of heavenly rest through faith in Jesus, through
resting in him alone for your salvation. but there will come
a time when the offer no longer stands.” And so he is saying
today, while it is today, hear this offer of rest and let us
strive to enter that rest so that we will not fall by the
same sort of disobedience as the Israelites. Remember the
Israelites, they were promised a promised land, a land that
flowed with milk and honey, They would drink out of cisterns they
did not dig. They will eat grapes from vines
they did not plant or dress. And they would live in walls
and houses. And the rocks they did not hew
from the ground, nor did their masons lay them. They would inherit
this land. And they said to God, the people
there are too big and mighty. We can’t do this. Joshua and
Caleb were faithful and said, God can help us do this. But
the people said, no, we’d rather go back to Egypt. And God said,
fine. You don’t get the promised land.
You don’t get rest. And so the challenge for us is
this arrest still remains for God’s people. Let us strive to
enter that rest. This passage has several interesting
key words, and I want us to follow them as we make our way through
it today. The first is the word fear, fear. It’s found in verse
1 where we read, Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest
still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have
failed to reach it. This is a collective command. This is the Hebrews preacher
saying to the entire congregation, let us fear together. This is not a me saying to you,
you people. You need to fear? No, this is
a collective congregation of God’s people. We need to fear. We need to fear while the promise
of rest still stands. And we need to fear lest any
of us fail and fall short. It’s a challenge to the church. It’s a seize the day sort of
moment. Carpe diem, we say, right? Seize
the day. so as not to be left behind,
so as not to fail to enter the land. And so he challenges us
to fear God, fear the holy one of Israel, fear the one who offers
freely his own son, Jesus, in the gospel. And that if you put
your faith and hope and trust in him, you have the forgiveness
of sins and life everlasting. You have the spirit and the church
and all the promises of heaven at your disposal. We need to
fear this God, and we need to hear His gospel offer. And because we fear Him and His
judgment, but we know of His grace, we lay hold of His glorious
offer. So we fear, we fear lest we fail. There’s another key word, and
it’s the word hear. We hear, we find in verse 2,
it says this, it says, For good news came to us, just as it did
to them. But the message they heard did
not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with
those who listened. Now, I want to be very technical
for just a moment, and I think you’ll understand why. When we
say the phrase, preach the gospel, we want to preach the gospel
to the nations, we want to preach the gospel to our children, we
want to preach the gospel to anyone who will hear. In the
New Testament, in the Greek language, there’s a word for that. It’s
the word we get evangelism from. And that is the word that the
writer of Hebrews here uses about the Old Testament. The good news
was preached to them. And what was the good news? It
was the gospel. It was the gospel of rest in
a promised land. And it did not benefit them,
because they failed to hear. Now, we’ll see in a moment, they
also failed to believe. But let me encourage you, brothers
and sisters, never stop your ears to the Word of God. For God’s Word is living. It is active. It is like a two-edged
sword, verse 12 says, it cuts to the joints and the marrows.
It gets in you deeply and it exposes who you are. And friends,
God’s word is powerful. We should never stop our ears
to the word of God. The gospel was preached to the
people of God in the Old Testament, the gospel of a promised land,
the gospel of arrest. You trust God and he’ll get you
there. Our gospel. Our gospel is great. God promises
not a land on this earth, but a land in heaven. He promises
a city. He promises Mount Zion, God’s
own presence. And so, brothers and sisters,
hear this gospel of God about a place where He will take you
and give you rest. What does He say here in verse
2? He says, the gospel that was preached to them was not profitable.
It was not profitable. It fell on deaf ears. It fell
on bad soil. And at the end of verse two,
it says some listened. There was a community of faith.
Joshua and Caleb, for one, they loved the promise of the promised
land. They were ready to go. But sadly, not so with some of
the covenant community. They heard the gospel, but they
did not believe. And that’s our third key word.
There’s fearing. There’s hearing, but there is
also believing. And our third key word is believe. We find it at the end of verse
2 and in verse 3. At the end of verse 2, it tells
us, The gospel that they heard did not benefit them because
they were not united by faith or belief with those who listened. For we who have believed enter
that rest. And so we fear God while the
offer stands. We hear his word, but we believe
it. We trust that his word is true,
that it is trustworthy and right. Joshua and Caleb give us wonderful
examples of this. They believe that God intended
to give them the promised land. They believed that God could
help them enter the promised land, that he could help them
take the cities of Jericho, and that they could win against the
forces of the Amalekites and the Canaanites and all the other
ites in the land who were big and scary and mean and hairy,
as we might say. They believed God could deliver
on his gospel promise. And so friends, do you believe
in God’s gospel promise that Jesus can save you from your
sin? That he can give you a righteousness
that is not your own, but his own. Do you believe that he can
land you safely on heaven’s shore, even in the midst of a dark world?
In the midst of a presidential election, in the midst of global
terror, in the midst of cancer, or some sort of sickness, or
family falling apart, whatever comes your way, do you believe
that God’s gospel is true? And that God is mighty to save,
and that on every one of His promises, He can deliver you
safely to heaven’s shore? What do we say from time to time
in our creed? What is my only comfort in life
and in death? And the answer is that I belong
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Friends, do you believe
that? Don’t just hear it and don’t just say it because that’s
what’s listed in the bulletin, but believe it with all of your
heart. The challenge here is that we
do not fail to believe God. We don’t want to fail to believe
God. A Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. Don’t miss
the opportunity while it is available. Take God at his word. Trust that
heaven is real, that sin is a problem and that Christ offers himself
as the propitiation for sins. He is the only mediator between
God and man. Believe, have faith. And he says
to you, if you believe you get to enter that Sabbath rest. There’s
a rest for God’s people, it has aspects of now and future, but
don’t be like the unbelieving generations. Who were before
us, who did not believe and they failed and they fell in the wilderness,
there was no rest for them because they refused Yahweh. You know,
there’s a category now when you can check a box on a form about
your religion. And it’s the religion that’s
now called the the nunner religion, because they check none. I’m
not religious. I have no affiliation. So we have this new class of
people called the nunners. Now, some time ago, maybe they
called themselves atheists. We don’t believe in God. These
aren’t even atheists. They just don’t believe. But, you know,
it’s become pretty cool in our world to say I’m an atheist.
Or at least to try it out as a teenager. Or to say, I’m a
nunner. Religion has done me no good,
so I’m a nunner. But do you see the reality of
no faith? Do you see the reality of being
a nunner, an atheist? Or of following some other faith
other than Jesus? For the Bible is pretty clear,
there is but one mediator between God and man, and that is the
man Christ Jesus. And he’s saying to us, believe,
don’t miss out, don’t fail to enter God’s rest. So there’s
these key words, fear, hear, believe. How about rest? What
is all this rest business? Well, look at verse 9. It says
to us, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people
of God. There’s still an offer. There’s
still a gospel of rest. This word rest comes ten times
in the passage. It’s implied several times. It
is the good news. It is the gospel that was preached
to the people of God in the wilderness. There’s rest, but you’re going
to have to trust God and let Him take you and deliver you
into the promised land. And they said, no, thank you.
And now that promise of rest is through the gospel of our
Lord Jesus, and it’s a promise of eternal rest in a heavenly
city. And what he’s saying to us, why
does he speak of creation and God resting on the seventh day?
He’s saying this gospel of rest, this promise of rest, this good
news of rest has been an open and available promise since God
established it at creation. He worked six days, He stopped,
and He rested. And He offers you this rest. Now, how do we understand this
rest? We understand it in two ways. Now and not yet. Let’s get to the not yet. That’s
an easy one. That’s heaven. We are not yet in heaven. I’m
looking at you. We are here on earth. Okay, the
promised rest that comes in heaven is future. And it’s a rest from
our labors. It’s before the face of God.
It’s eternal worship. We’ll see the King on His throne,
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, worshiped by men
and women and boys and girls from all nations, ages, stripes,
colors, whatever, as well as the created beings who serve
God in heaven. We’ll be worshiping. We’ll be
in bliss. We’ll be in grand, wonderful glory. No more tears,
no more pain, no more death, no more sickness. We’ll be made
whole. But what about the now part? What about the now part? What about rest now? Well, let’s
start with salvation. Rest comes only when you rest
in Jesus alone for your salvation. He is the high priest who has
made satisfaction for your sins. And if you trust in him, you
can celebrate and have great joy in this life because that
is dealt with. Did you did you hear what we
said in our our our prayer of confession? We have, I can’t
remember what it says right off, but basically this, we know that
we have the righteousness of Christ, so we do not fear life
or death because nothing can separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus. That is already worked out if
we rest in Him by faith. So you do not have to live a
restless, painful, wandering, wandering life because you have
salvation in Jesus. Saint Augustine said it so well,
our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. If you do
not trust in Jesus for your salvation, you are going to live a restless,
wandering, faithless life. And you’ll be like these Israelites.
The promise was there, but the promise was rejected. And so
what does rest look like now? Well, you’ve got salvation worked
out. You’re no longer restless because you’re justified. You
have each Sunday, each Lord’s Day, as a day of rest and worship.
Now, this passage isn’t necessarily about Sundays and Lord’s Day,
but I think I ought to say a little something about it. Every seventh
day, God has given you a day of rest. And we don’t take it. We’re just
as busy, or maybe busier, on Sundays as we are the rest of
the week. It’s a day to catch up from the week we didn’t finish.
It’s a day to get ahead on the week that has not, in God’s schedule,
begun yet. Friends, let me encourage you,
without being legalistic, and let me encourage you without
being too free on this, consider the Lord’s Day. And here’s a
funny way to put it. If Chick-fil-A has a higher day
view of the Lord’s Day than you do, then you’ve got a problem.
They’re closed. You go to a coffee shop in downtown
Burlington, and I love what their sign says, Monday hours, Tuesday
hours, all the way through Saturday, but you know what it says about
Sunday? A day of rest. Praise the Lord for owners like
that. Friends, consider your Lord’s
Day and your worship and your rest The rest of the week will take
care of itself and God will bless you immeasurably if you give
him that day and you rest and you worship. It’s a day set apart,
sanctified. It points to heaven. So what
does that mean for us? Well, we’ve entered the new covenant.
We don’t live like the rest of the world. Sunday is a gift from
Almighty God that we might rest, and God promises us rest in this
life with the Lord’s Day, but He promises us rest in the world
to come. Some of you are older in age
than others of us in the room, and maybe death is a little bit
more on your mind. So how should you think about
death? How should you think about eternal rest, as we call it? Well, think of how John the Revelator
speaks of it. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord, for they shall rest from their labors, and their
deeds shall follow them. To be absent from the body is
to be present with the Lord. The rest begins at death. And what a glorious promise that
is. We do not have to face death with fear and with trembling
and with uncertainty. For to not be here is to be present
with Almighty God. So what do we make of this? What
do we make of this sermon from Hebrews that for now three or
four sermons has said, don’t harden your hearts. Don’t fail
to listen to God. What do we say? Well, we say
this. This is God’s best offer yet. He offers you Jesus. He offers
you forgiveness. He offers you salvation. He offers
you rest in this life and rest in the life to come. And notice
how he challenges us in verse 11. He says, let us strive to
enter that rest and not fall by the same disobedience as the
people of God. Let us pray together. Our father,
we pray.