Hebrews 4:1-13 - Jesus Is The Better Sabbath Rest

Hello, and welcome back to another week of Tabernacle Talk. Hope that you had a good weekend worshiping the Lord with your church family.

Today, we are in Hebrews chapter four. So we've been walking through, seeing with the recipients of this letter, who were concerned about following Jesus in the face of persecution and opposition.

They had seen their loved ones go back to Judaism, and that was what was familiar. That's what was safe for them. And the writer of Hebrews writes to let them know, like, hey, don't turn back.

Jesus is the point of everything. He is the goal of everything that we have in life. And He was the point of all of the Old Testament.

And everything that you had learned about and everything that you knew from the Old Testament, it was all coming through Jesus. So Jesus is the final revelation of God. He is the Word of God.

He is God Himself. Jesus is better than the angels. And so if we listen to what the angels told us about God, let's listen to Jesus, because He's better.

Jesus is our brother and our friend. He became like us. And so have a love for Him, that He didn't abandon you because of the cross or rejection or sufferings.

So don't reject Him in that way. Then last episode, we looked at the fact that Jesus was better than Moses.

And if we listen to Moses, this human person, who is faithful with what God gave him, and Jesus was ultimately faithful with everything that he was given, if we listen to Moses, let's listen to Jesus, who is far more important.

And that brings us to where we are today in Hebrews chapter 4. And we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 13 today. And the passage says this.

Therefore, actually, I'm going to take it, I'm going to take one sentence or one line back from the end of chapter 3, so you can kind of get the run in. With whom was God angry for 40 years?

Wasn't it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

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

For we also have received the good news just as they did, but the message they heard did not benefit them, since they were not united with those who heard it in faith.

For we who have believed enter the rest, in keeping with what he has said, so I swore in my anger, they will not enter my rest. They are quoting from Psalm 95 and verse 11.

Even though his works have been finished since the foundation of the world, for somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way, and on the seventh day God rested from all his works. They are quoting from Genesis chapter 2.

Again, in that passage, he says, they will never enter my rest. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news did not enter because of disobedience, he again specifies a certain day today.

He specified this speaking through David after such a long time. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. They are from Psalm 95 verses 7 and 8.

For if Joshua had given them rest in Greek, that's Iesous, for if Iesous had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. Here he's clarifying, this wasn't just about the children of Israel entering into the land of Israel.

This is about a soul rest. This is the kind of eternal, lasting rest that God entered into at the end of his creating on the six days of creation, that on that seventh day, he rested and there was peace, there was wholeness.

And so the writer here of Hebrews is saying, God has promised that same rest to us. This wasn't just about entering into the land of Israel or Palestine. That wasn't the end goal.

The end goal was that we would have a relationship with God himself that would last for all of eternity, that we would enter into the rest of God. And he says, Joshua, in Greek, Iesus, he didn't give them a everlasting rest.

He just brought them into the land. But God had another rest planned for them. And that's what Psalm 95 tells us.

Verse number 9, Therefore a Sabbath rest remains for God's people. So there is something even better than living in the land of Israel without Rome or Greece or Babylon or Medo-Persia ruling over them.

He says, there is something so much better than right now what the Jewish people are hoping for. And that so much better thing is Jesus.

Verse number 10, For the person who has entered God's rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from his. Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.

For the Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Okay, this is some deep stuff. We've gone through some lighter passages here on Tabernacle Talk.

This is really getting into some great meat that hopefully, as we work through this together, we'll gain a greater understanding of who Christ is to us and of God's mission for our life.

Okay, as we learned yesterday, the author is calling attention to these people that have been gathering together, formerly Jewish believers, that they have been interacting with the claims of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

They have been gathering together with a local assembly, a local church. They have undergone persecution from other people as a result of their faith in Christ.

They've seen some people abandon Jesus, no longer believe in him, no longer believe in his sacrifice alone, and they have turned back to Judaism.

The writer reminds them, hey, you guys recall that it wasn't like everyone that left Egypt that got to the promised land. Salvation didn't come just because people were traveling through the Red Sea, and then in the desert.

But there were people that even though they were traveling with Israel, even though they were in the midst of them, they did not truly believe.

And they died in the wilderness because of God's anger against the sin of unbelief that they had, that they didn't really truly believe in God.

And they exemplified that through their actions and their rebellion and their disobedience, that the belief or lack thereof worked itself outwards into actions and words. He says the same type of thing is true right now in your local assemblies.

That you have so-called believers, people that know about Jesus, that they have heard how he lived and died for sins as your sacrifice. That he rose again from the dead, and that now he is king of kings and lord of lords.

He is exalted far above the angels and anyone else. He's sitting on the right hand of God. And so if you have people that have now rejected Jesus, don't follow them.

If you follow them, like that is the way to destruction and to death and damnation for your soul. That is not the path of life and forgiveness and a walk with God. You want to enter into God's good life?

Look at what David said in Psalm 95, that there still remains a rest for the true people of God.

There is that day when we will cease from our own works, both like our daily travail, as well as trying to establish our own righteousness and our own goodness and forgiveness, like people in Judaism were doing.

During that time, you can look at Romans chapter 10, where he says, hey, like I bear my fellow Jews, Paul says this, I bear my fellow Jews like they've got a ton of energy, they've got a ton of zeal, but they don't actually know the truth.

And he says, because instead of submitting themselves to the righteousness of Christ, they're trying to set up their own righteousness by the law. And he says, and there is no salvation in that.

If you try and add Jesus to your good works, if you try and add Jesus to your baptism, or Jesus to your Hail Marys, or Jesus to your church attendance, or Jesus to your money giving, or charity giving, there is no salvation in that.

Salvation is only found in Christ alone. It's not Jesus plus whatever thing you want to add on. It's Jesus plus nothing.

And so we need to cease from trying to establish our own good works as being salvific in any way. That is, we don't do our works and we think, okay, if I do this, God will forgive me. If I do this, God will, you know, view me with favor.

Instead, we realize, okay, Jesus paid it all, all the him I owe. And so I respond with worshipful obedience because a heart that truly believes in God, that's going to result in the actions that a child of God has.

And you can read about that extensively in the Book of James. So, where am I at in the passage?

So that's the general work through that the author is showing us of there is still an end goal that God has for your life that is only attained through faith in Jesus Christ and not a like fake faith that shows up for a little time and then when

persecution comes or when temptation comes, then it just fades away. He says, no, no, no, God is looking for that lasting faith, that real faith, the ones that have genuinely abandoned their own works and that have relied on the works of God.

And then I love verse number, I'm going to look at 10 and 11 jumping into 12. So verse 10, for the person who has entered God's rest, has rested from his own works, just as God did from his.

That there is a, I don't have to earn this Sabbath rest with God. That it doesn't come through God saying, okay, now you've done enough to get into heaven, so come on in.

That he goes, okay, the work's complete, and I am able to rest and rely on God, just like God did at the end of his six days of work, that he went, yep, I've done the work, and now all that's left is to enjoy this Sabbath.

So he says that, and then verse number 11, let us then make every effort to enter that rest. It's kind of like, work out to rest, work out to no longer work. He says, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.

The fear, the caution, the warning that the author puts towards us is this. Realize that your life, your eternity, your end goal is not just like doing stuff. It is knowing God personally.

It's relying on what Jesus has accomplished for you. So, don't disobey Jesus. Don't disobey God through abandoning Jesus.

Don't disobey God through ignoring everything that He has told you in the Old Testament about who the Messiah is and what you have heard from the apostles and that I'm telling you now.

And then he says, okay, but how do we know like where our heart is at? How do we know our relationship with God?

And if we're just playing a part versus if this is real in us and we're just like, you know, going through struggles, how do we know where we truly are with God?

Well, then verse number 12 and on tells us he says, for the word of God, the whole point of this whole first portion of Hebrews is the word of God tells you who Jesus is, what he accomplished, what his goals are for your life.

And so when you want to look at, okay, what are my motivations in this? Like, how am I interacting with God? Am I trusting in Jesus?

Am I relying on my own life? He says the word of God is what will give you the answers. The word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double edged sword.

It is penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit. So it shows you, like, in your inner person, okay, what is like my mind, will and emotions? Am I truly saved?

Do I really know Jesus? Have I been made alive through the Holy Spirit? It will show you that.

It separates the joints and the marrow, your most intertwined parts. It's able to show you who you really are in the sight of God. It says it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Sometimes people have taken kind of a posture towards the Bible that or maybe sometimes towards like Bible teachers or something that says, okay, well, I can't judge anyone and no one can judge me. Like God will just work all this out.

Well, God has given us His words so that we are able to discern, we are able to tell, to judge, to weigh. Okay, God cares about people's souls. I think all of us would be agreed on that.

God cares about whether people go to heaven or to hell. I think you would agree with that.

And so at its most bare essence, we have a responsibility to be able to care enough about people's souls to find out based on the Word of God, is this person a Christian or not a Christian?

And that's what most of the New Testament shows us, like hey, real Christians profess Jesus Christ as Lord. Real Christians believe in Jesus' completed work alone, not on Jesus plus them. Real Christians live out their Christian faith.

Real Christians don't live with lying and sexual immorality and anger and unkind words and all of the things that you can read about in Revelation 21 and 1 Corinthians chapter 6 among many other places.

It says, hey, here's how you recognize a real Christian. Okay, well, what's the point? Is it just so you can like slap a badge on someone and be like, oh great, you're an awesome real Christian?

No, no, no. The point is so that we can invite people to faith in Christ, that they would repent and turn to Him. Why would we want to look at the soul and the spirit and the thoughts and intentions of the heart?

It is so that for ourselves, we would be able to know if we are truly saved. It's so that as we look at others, we would be able to know, okay, do I need to like call this person to put their faith like initially in Christ?

Because from all appearances, this is not a real Christian yet. And so I want to invite them to become a real Christian or this is a real Christian and they're just going through struggles and they're fighting sin and they're having doubts.

And so I want to encourage and bolster them and strengthen them. I'd say it this way. Satan wants the unbeliever to think that they are totally fine, that they are on their way to heaven, that they're saved.

That's Satan's goal for the unbeliever. For the believer, for the true Christian, Satan wants them to doubt their salvation, that they would be constantly fearful about, are my works enough? Is everything that I'm doing strong enough or great enough?

And so he wants to sow certainty in those that should have uncertainty about their walk with God. And he wants to sow doubt into those who should be standing firm in the fact that, no, I'm a child of God. And so I don't have anything to fear.

I can rest in what God has done for me. So how do you determine all of those things? Is it just through like human metrics?

No, no, no, it's done through the Word of God that we would believe and follow what the Bible says and that we would use it as a light to shine in a dark world and into darkened hearts that wonder like, hey, where am I at with God?

I would really love to know like where he is, where I am in relation to him. We discover that through the Bible.

Verse number 13, no creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give an account. Here he says, there's nothing hidden. There are no secrets with God.

And so when you look at God's Word, it will show you who you truly are. It will show you if you are, you know, a faithful Moses.

It will show you if you are an unfaithful, you know, Israelite being physically with God's people, but not believing in him and not obeying him, not following him.

It will show you if you are one of those that listen to the words of the angels in the Old Testament. It'll tell you if you are one that's been ignoring it.

It'll tell you if you truly believe in Jesus or if you just kind of believe in a Jesus of your own making.

So the question for you today, are you looking to the word of God to discover your thoughts and intentions and motives that will not come through maybe just a cursory reading of God's word?

Frankly, I'm not certain that it would just come through hearing me on Tabernacle Talk or a sermon. That you need to be in God's word for yourself, that you would ask the Lord, hey Lord, would you show me my heart, my affections, my intentions?

Would you show me who I really am through your word today? Thank you for tuning in, and I hope that this particular episode would be a challenge to you.

Of like, God, you know who I really am on the inside, and you have good plans and intentions for me, but those plans and intentions can only come to pass as I am like truthful and open and really like with you.

So, would you show me who you know me to be so that I can have that real relationship with you, that I can get rid of sin that I have, whether in my actions or my words or my thoughts or my motives.

Like, God cleans me so that I can obey and walk with you each and every day.

If you're someone that, as I've been, you know, talking through this, God has been convicting your heart like, oh yeah, I've been in church or I've been around Christians or I've been, you know, I've heard God's word, but I have never put my faith in

Christ. I've been putting my faith in Jesus and something else. I invite you today, like, call on Jesus. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, is the testimony of scripture. Turn from your sin and your way, your own self-reliance, and make Jesus your Lord.

Make him the master of your life, the one that he's going to be the one to call the shots for you and for what you do. Turn from sin, turn to the Savior. That can be a decision that you can make even today.

If that's a decision that you want to make or that you have made, that you have made as a result of today, I would love to hear that. And you can comment, you can email, you can text, you can send a carrier pigeon, whatever.

I would love to hear about that. Thank you for tuning in today. Tomorrow, we're going to be looking at Jesus as the best high priest.