Sunday Gathering 10:00 am, Bur-Mil Park Clubhouse

Week Night Small Groups Office Phone: 378-0062

B. The Argument from Chapter 3

C. The Exhortation Continued (Hebrews 4:1)

(1) 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.

1. Praise God that the promise of entering into His rest still stands.

2. But there also remains the possibility of not entering into it.

D. The Good News: (Hebrews 4:2)

(2) For good news came 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.

1. The people of Israel had the good news of God’s rest proclaimed to them, but it was of no benefit, because it was not received, grasped, trusted by faith.

2. Likewise we have had the good news preached to us, and for it to be of benefit, we must also be united to it by faith, that is, by repentant trust.

(3) For we who have believed enter that rest, 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. (4) For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” (5) And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”

1. If we have believed then we have already entered into that rest. That is, our rest has begun; it is not complete - much more awaits - but we have entered in!

2. His rest is the rest in which He entered on the seventh day when He had finished His work of creation and proclaimed all to be “very good.”

3. Human beings are called to enter into, join in, enjoy, rest in, wonder in, savor the fullness and peace and wholeness of the rest of God. To know God’s rest is to have come home, to have arrived at one’s created destiny.

F. The Oportunity Remains: Today is Still the Day of Salvation

(6) Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, (7) 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.”

1. It remains, it is still an active prospect, an open door, for some to enter into God’s rest, despite the fact that others in the past failed to enter into it.

2. Because God has yet appointed a day – Today – as the day of salvation!

3. His word, the Word of the Preeminent Son, through Whom all things were made, the King at God’s right hand… His voice is still active, still sharp and piercing as a two edged sword, so hear it and receive it while it is still Today!

G. There Remains a Sabbath Rest for the People of God

(8) For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. (9) So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, (10) for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

1. The people of Israel never fully knew God’s rest, otherwise it would not have been spoken of later, and the people would not have been taken into exile.

2. And whatever it is that human earthy Sabbath day rest brings, it is but a foretaste of a greater thing – there remains a Sabbath rest for he people of God! It remains, it awaits, it beckons, it calls.

3. This is the rest of life in the city whose builder and architect is God, the city sought and longed for by Abraham and the great heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11.

4. When you have finally entered this rest you have rested from your striving, not just in the bad sense of striving for God’s favor, but in the “good” sense of your striving to put on the new man, to put off sin, to fight against indwelling sin, to resist the devil, to remain faithful amidst difficult circumstances, to work with all energy to advance the kingdom, to hope against hope (and sight) for the coming of the Lord.

5. One day we will lay down our striving, not that we will just sit around all day and do nothing, but our work and worship and play and even our rest will be joyful with no inner conflict, no physical or psychic pain, no temptation, no relational troubles, no feelings of loss and sadness, no exhaustion, no weariness – just fullness and peace and joy and love and wholeness before our God and King, and with one another, in His renewed heaven and earth, forever and ever.

6. If you take the very best things about your best day ever and multiply them by a thousand, and subtract all the bad things of that day times a thousand, you’re starting to get the picture. So let us not fail to enter into God’s rest!