How to Enter God's Rest

If you have your Bible, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 4 Hebrews chapter 4, how to ent God's rest It was Augustine who said in the fourth century in his Confessions those very famous words, Thou hast formed us for thyself And our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee. I wonder this morning if you have the rest that God speaks of in his word As we go through the fourth chapter, you realize it's all about God's rest Ten times in the first eleven verses, God mentions His rest And you need to keep in mind that the rest that God speaks of

Was initiated at creation, illustrated in Canaan And implemented at Calvary If you can kind of keep that in mind as we go through these verses You'll begin to understand what God wants to do as He urges us to enter into His Rest Rest specifically speaks of the reality of God's saving grace and the beauty that God has for those Who live in H presence? God has always been interest In people entering his rest That's always been God's plan since the beginning of creation, because that's when rest was initiated And yet, because of sin and because of man's disobedience to God He forfeited that rest

And so Canaan became an illustration of the promised rest of God for the nation itself But they, because of their unbelief and because of their disobedience, and because of the deceitfulness of sin and the hardness of their heart, forfeited their rest And even those children who went into the prom land, into Canaan, Would be driven right back out of the land again because they too would refuse to listen to God and obey His Word, and they too would forfeit the rest that God had for them So God would send his Son to die for their sins that they might experience true bliss

The rest that comes through the indwelling presence of the living God That will ultimately manifest itself in eternity when we are with God Forever in his presence In fact, God told Moses way back in the book of Exodus: after the children of Israel had sinned because of the golden calf and their worship led by Aaron And God was going to get rid of the nation itself, and Moses would intercede on behalf of the nation God told Moses He said, My pres shall go with you, and I will give you rest To illustrate the point that there is no rest outside the pres of the living God None whatsoever

To which Moses would reply, then he said to him, If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here Moses knew That without God's presence, there would be no peace There would be no rest Because God Himself is the essence of peace and the essence of rest, and that's why in Hebrews chapter 4 He calls it my Rest, my peace, my satisfaction In Israel, even though they entered the promised land, The land of Canaan, they would be driven right back out of that land because of their disobedience

For through the prophet Isaiah, The Lord said these words in Isaiah 30, verse number 15: For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, said, In rep and rest In turning from your sin and in trusting in me as your Savior, you will be saved In rep and rest, you will be saved In quietness and trust is your strength, but you were not Willing You didn't want that That's not what you wanted You wanted your sin, you wanted to live your own way Thus you have forfeited rest That's why in Isaiah chapter fifty-seven, the Lord says The wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet

And its waters toss up refuse and mud For there is no peace, says my God, for the wicked There is no rest for the wicked The wicked are like the sea The sea is in constant turmoil Oh, there are times when the waves are not as full as they normally are And there's that reprieve from the comm turmoil of the sea But the wicked are like the ocean It's always in turmoil, tossing up refuse because there is no peace for the wicked Even God said to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 6 these words in verse number 16: Thus says the Lord, stand by the ways and see and ask. for the ancient paths

Stand by and ask for the way things used to be, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls You want rest for your souls? You got to go back to the way it was You got to turn around and go back and follow me, serve me, and walk in the way that is good You want to find rest for your souls? That's what you do But they said, We will not walk in it That's just amazing to me We will not walk in that way Having known what their forefathers did

That caused them to forfeit that rest in the land of Canaan, except for Joshua and Caleb, because they believed in what God said And they would lead them into that promised land and have in front of them the opportunity to experience the fullness of God's rest They still Would not believe the word of the Lord, and thus they would forfeit the rest that God would give to them For Canaan became a picture, an illustration of what God promised his people, but would fully be implemented At Calvary, through the ultimate sacrifice that would come, that would allow the people of God to enter His rest

That's why the Lord said those beautiful words in the book of Matthew Take my yoke, or come unto me, all you that are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I wonder today if you have found rest in your soul Hebrews 4 is an extension of Hebrews chapter 3 There are no chapter breaks in the original language, but the translators have put them in there It's a continued warning from chapter 3

Let me read to you those first 11 verses It goes as follows: Therefore, let us fear while a promise remains of entering his rest Any one of you may seem to have come short of it For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard For we who have believed enter that rest, just as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world

For he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works And again in this passage, they shall not enter my rest Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, And those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day, to-day, saying through David, after so long a time, just as has been said before, today if you hear his voice Do not harden your hearts For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his Therefore, let us be diligent To enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same examples of disobedience Charles Spurgeon, in a little devotional book called The Checkbook of the Bank of Faith. I don know if you had that or not, but it's It's quite an interesting little book It's just called The Checkbook of the Bank of Faith Making sure that you make a deposit in the scriptures every single day The year

And in it, he says this about Hebrews chapter 4 He said, God has provided a Sabbath, and some must enter it Those to whom it was first preached enter not because of unbelief Therefore, that Sabbath remains for the people of God David sang of it, but he had to touch the minor key, for Israel refused the rest of God Joshua could not give it, nor Canaan yield it It remains for belie Come, then let us labor to enter into that rest Let us quit the weary toil of sin and self Let us cease from all confidence, even in those works of which it might be said they are very good

Have we any such? Still, let us cease from our own works as God did from His Now let us find solace in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Everything is fully done Justice demands no more Great peace is our portion in Christ Jesus As to providential matters, the work of the grace in the soul, and the work of the Lord in the souls of others Let us cast these burdens upon the Lord and rest in Him When the Lord gives us a yoke to bear, He does so that by taking it up we may find rest By faith we labor to enter into the rest of God, and we renounce all rest in self-satisfaction. or ind

Jesus Himself is perfect rest, and we are filled to the brim in Him. I wonder how many of us are filled to the brim in Christ How many of us have really experienced that great And wonderful rest that God has given to us all How to enter God's rest Let's look first of all at a caution concerning rest And then the comp surrounding that rest Verse one of chapter four begins with a caution Because it takes us back Therefore, therefore, why is it therefore? It's therefore there because of what has already taken place in chapter 3

The great warning of the scriptures that speak of the hardness of heart We spend a lot of time talking about the characteristics of the hard heart and the soft heart to ask and answer the question: is my heart being hardened to the things of God? So the writer of Hebrews says, Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering rest, we come short of that You ought to fear There ought to be great fear in the hearts of those who have yet to enter the rest of God Paul says, Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persu men

Why? Because it's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God Our God is a consuming fire, the writer of Hebrews tells us And so, therefore, there should be great fear to come upon those who have yet to enter God's rest And he's writing to Jewish people Jewish people who have heard the truth about Jesus the Messiah He has come He has lived, he has died, he's risen again, and they know the facts, they know the information about the Christ They know that And yet, some of these Jewish people have yet to commit themselves to following Christ

They have yet to come mainly because of persecution or maybe because they love their sin too much And so this relates to them because the nation itself, the reason they didn't enter Canaan, because their great love for their own sin And then, of course, those who went into Canaan could not rid themselves of their love of sin, and they were cast back out of the land of promise And so these people would know about the promise that would remain And yet, maybe some of them were thinking that they, because they were involved in the crucifixion of the Messiah Had no hope left

So the caution comes from the writer of Hebrews You ought to fear Because if you harden your heart, as in the day of provocation in the wilderness, God's wrath is upon you The judgment of God is upon you, and you will die in your sins There needs to be great fear. I'm afraid today, in our evangelistic efforts, we don't preach enough about the judgment of God, the wrath of God, so people understand the implications of the future Of their soul We want to woo people into the kingdom You ever notice that? We want to be really sweet in our presentation

Instead of telling them, listen, today is the day of salvation If you don't give your life to Christ, you're going to burn in hell for eternity The judgment of God is going to be upon you Ac how God judged your sin at Calvary and embrace Him as your Lord and Savior We need to compel people to come to Christ Don't fear the one who kills body, but the one who can kill body and soul in hell, Christ says in the book of Matthew Why? Because that's who you need to fear He is a consuming fire So the writer of Hebrews gives this caution

Because he wants them to be aware, therefore, you should fear if you have yet to give and give your life to Christ But yet he says, He says, a promise remains of entering his rest Any one of you may seem to have come short of it There is a promise that remains The promise, the opportunity To walk through the door As long as the door to decide is there, decide Because once the door shuts, There's no opportunity to do so And that's why the urgency, the red flag is waved, the caution flag is waved You need to be aware That today is that day of salvation You need to be aware of that

So he gives the components One personally, one sovereignly, and one immediately The components of entering that rest He says, for indeed we have, verse 2, had good news preached to us What good news is that? Well, that good news would be the good news of the Messiah He has come He has died just like he said He rose again the third day, just like he said He's coming again, just like he said He died for your sins We have had the good news preached To us You've heard the good news, he says Just as they also, who's they? That was Israel But they had a different good news preached

It wasn't about Jesus coming and living and dying and rising again It was the good news of the promised land The good news of the promised rest that God had to them in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah Remember, we always look back at the cross and see what Christ did They always looked in anticipation of the cross As to what Christ would do, the Messiah would do See? So the writer of Hebrews wants them to understand that we had the good news preached to us The good news of what? The promised rest

That we would have with the one who said, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest And every Jew would understand the rest that God gave to them. I'll explain that to you in a second And so they would know that So he takes them back and says, We've had the good news preached to us, just as they also did, but the word they heard did not profit them Why not? Because it was not united by faith in those who heard In other words, it wasn't mixed with faith In other words, they heard the news, they heard what God said But they didn't mix it with faith

What is faith? Faith is believing what God said Faith is believing in what God has already said Faith is trusting in what God has said and obeying what God has said Faith is trusting obedience It hears what God says and it obeys what God says So they heard the good news about the promised rest But it wasn't mixed with belief It wasn't mixed with true saving faith They heard it, but did not appropriate it They heard it, but did not act upon it And that's the way it always is in Scripture That's why, when Christ closed out his sermon on the Serm on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7

With those famous words You know them well Matthew chapter 7, verse number 22, I believe it is. 24 He says, Therefore, everyone who hears the words of mine and acts on them May be compared to the wise man who built his house upon the rock The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock And the course of the rock is Christ But this is the person who

Who heard the word of God and mixed it with faith? Everyone who hears the words of mine and does not act upon them, that was those who heard the word of God, but it didn't profit them, as the writer of Hebrews says We'll be like the foolish men who built his house on the sand The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, slammed against that house, it fell, and great was his fall Why was it great? Why was the fall great? It was great because it knew the truth It heard the truth, but did not act upon the truth Great was that fall That's the foolish man

The wise man hears the word, acts upon it, obeys it That's why James says, Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, thus deceiving your Deceiving yourselves We have churches all across our country filled with people who deceive themselves Oh, they've heard the truth They know what the truth stands for But they have not acted upon that truth They have not obeyed that truth They have not followed that truth Israel believed they knew the truth And they did They had the scriptures The oracles of God were given to the nation They had that truth, but they did not live that truth

So therefore, it did not profit them It was profitless because they did not obey That's the way it's always been God wants us to obey his word and follow through with what we have heard It does us no good to preach the gospel, for you to hear the gospel, but then not respond to the gospel, right? So the writer of Hebrews says, let me give you a caution Remember the people in Israel? Remember that they had heard the truth, but they did not obey it We had the good news preached to us Just like they had the good news preached to them

But the difference is that some of us have applied it and some of us haven't Some of us have appropriated that faith, some of us haven't Some of us have truly repented and rested in what Christ gives, others have not repented Thus there is no rest For their souls And so, from the human perspective, from the human side of things There is that believing in God, that faith that we must have to appropriate the truth of God's Holy Word and to live it out So it says in verse 3, for we have believed, entered that rest

In other words, those of us who have appropriated the truth of God, have believed what God says, have acted upon what God says, and therefore we have thus entered the rest of God And then he says this As I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest Remember, he goes back to Psalm 95 He goes back like he did earlier in chapter 3 and quotes David from Psalm 95, because David was concerned about the people in his generation

That they would hear the word of God and not respond, and they would live in disbelief, and they would harden their hearts to the truth, and they would not obey and refuse to believe So, the writer of Hebrews a thousand years later is saying the same thing Because it's always the same You need to act upon what God has said Because I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest

Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, where is it somewhere? Genesis 2:1 and 2, right? And God rested on the seventh day from all his works And again, in this passage, they shall not enter my rest So he is equating God's rest with Sabbath rest He's equating God's rest with creation rest Remember, I told you, there's a creation rest, there's a Canaan rest, and there's a Calvary rest Remember creation rest? On the seventh day, God rested Did God rest because He was tired? Wow, man, those six days wore me out

Man making the heavens and the stars and the earth and man making man Oh, wow Oh, that took every ounce of energy that I had Did God rest because He was tired and weary? No, no, He's Almighty He never gets tired No, he didn't rest because he was worn out He rested because it was the rest of satisfaction The rest of joy, the rest of cont, because when he rec, it was all very good That is the creation rest And in that creation rest were who? Adam and Eve And what did Adam and Eve enjoy in creation rest? The presence of God

Remember what Moses said? If your presence does not go with us, we will not leave from here God says, I promise my presence, and with my presence comes my re Well, Adam and Eve, in creation rest, experienced the bliss of the presence of the living God Adam and Eve didn't need forgiveness of sins because they hadn't sinned Adam and Eve never worried about what was going to happen tomorrow Did you ever think about that? They never worried They had no concerns Why? Because they rested in the presence of the living God

They had no frustrations, they had no depression, they didn't have anything because they lived in a sinless world in that creation rest But then there was that temptation that Satan came and tempted them, what, not to believe what God said And they decided to no longer believe what God said, but believe what Satan said They believed the lie And they were cast out of that creation rest So the Bible is a story about redemptive rest How God was going to bring his people back into his presence that they might experience the beauty of his rest

And it was all illustrated in Canaan, the promised rest, that God had given them a land, right? And in that land, there would come a Lord who would rule that land One was Abrahamic covenant, one was Davidic covenant, and all of it centered around the promise of God and the promised rest of his people All they had to do was believe and trust him, follow him But Israel, time and time again, refused to believe, refused to trust, and therefore They did not enter the land, and those who did never experienced the fullest rest because they too did not believe in what God said

But all of it was pointing to Calvary Because way back in the book of Genesis, after ex me Adam and Eve were cast out of that creation rest, which was my rest, God's rest, he says He gave them a promise And that promise was in the seed Of the woman, the gospel message preached in Genesis chapter 3 The promised seed would come He would crush the serpent's head, and through that crushing of the serpent's head, Rest once again could be conceived So everything was about redemptive rest So, what was initiated at creation, creation rest, illustrated in Canaan, Canaan rest

Would be implemented at Calvary through Christ's sacrifice on the cross that we then again could enter into his rest because sin would be dealt with Sin Would be taken care of because he would bear in his body our sin And so through that, we could enter into God's glorious kingdom That's why when he preached, he came preaching, the kingdom of God is at hand, right? Why? Because what is the kingdom of God? Romans 14:1 It 's not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, right? There is no joy without peace There is no peace without righteousness

Their righteousness comes because God's righteousness is imputed to us through Christ's sacrifice on Calvary's tree We are now reconciled to God Now we can have peace with God That peace allows us to be at rest in the presence of God And that rest always produces joy That's why the kingdom of God Is righteousness, peace, and joy See that? So, the writer of Hebrews, trying to draw all that together, says that when God finished his work, he rested Because way back in the book of Genesis, it talks about that creation rest So he takes a Jew back to Sabbath rest, takes him back to the beginning

To help them understand that what Christ did for them, who was the all-sufficient Savior of the world, that's what the book of Hebrews is about, the sufficiency of Christ Himself And the supremacy of that Lord over all things That somehow they would begin to understand that what Christ did allowed them entrance Into that Sabbath rest that was lost way back in the book of Genesis, could now be found because of Calvary's Rest Make sense? You tracking with me? Some of you are, some of you are already waiting for lunch, and you're way too early for lunch

Okay? And so the Bible goes on to say these words Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, not all, but some, right? Because not all will enter Why is that? Because of unbelief, because of disobedience And those who formerly had good news preached to them fail to enter because of dis For some, they will enter Others will not Why? Because they're disobedience Yet we also know that Personally, there's the faith to believe, but sovereignly, there's a divine decree Because God always saves a remnant, He always does And you know, for Israel, it's not over

Acts chapter 3 talks about the Abrahamic covenant, the Devitic covenant yet to be fulfilled for Israel That they will enter that promised land And that's the greatness about the kingdom of God, right? For when Christ comes again, Israel will have the fulfillment of. quote, Canaan rest because of Calvary's rest, and they will be able to enter into that land and that was promised to Abraham centuries ago, and their Lord, the Christ Himself, will rule from Jerusalem

As promised in the Dav promise, the Davidic covenant, because the new covenant, the promise of the new covenant, will have been fulfilled in that nation And a remnant will go into that kingdom And the kingdom of God will reign supreme on the earth And that will lead us into the eternal kingdom of God, the eternal presence of God, where there will be no pain There will be no worries There will be no tears There will be no death simply because Sabbath rest God's rest will have been fully attained by God's people What a great thing What a great and precious promise

Have you entered God's rest? It says he again fixes a certain day today Say to David, after so long a time, just as Ben said before today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his Let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience Joshua, Moses They couldn't give you that rest

Because Canaan was just an illustration of rest But Jesus Christ Himself The God of the universe? Oh no He gives you that rest Oh, today Today He goes back to the urgency of the moment The urgency of the moment, because he wants the Jewish people to understand how they can cease from striving How they can enter into God's assurance of eternity, God's confidence given to them, God's Presence that will give them the eternal bliss and joy of rest for their souls that they so desperately need Because the generation before them, they were unwilling They did not want it So I wonder today

Those who are here among us, if you've heard his voice, don't harden your hearts any longer Enter into that glorious rest that God has for your soul Because the promised rest that God gives is the promise of His glorious presence In your life That's why the mystery revealed in the New Testament, Christ in you, the hope of glory Wow Christ, can you imagine? Imagine what it's like to live with Christ in you Just think about that for a moment The God of all peace lives in us That we might experience his peace

That's why Christ said, My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give unto you, but my peace What peace is that? The peace that has complete and total rest It's his rest So think about that We are encouraging people, pleading with people, compelling people To enter into the presence of the living God, that He might reside within them, that they might experience His peace. I wonder if you have that peace today The rest in your soul that you have been forgiven all of your sins That you have experienced the confidence and the assurance of eternal salvation

That you actually have the presence of God living in you Let me pray with you Father, we thank you for today Oh, Lord, the time that we have seems to go by so quickly There is so much more to be said Yet we trust that what needed to be said would have been communicated today We pr for everyone in the room That Lord, as they hear your words, that truly they would not be like Israel in unbelief in the wilderness And those who followed them who would not believe and would not follow you, but that Lord, they would commit their lives to the living God And that those of us who have, We live like it

We live the truth of perfect rest because of the presence of God in our lives We pray in Jesus' name Amen.