THE PROMSE OF ENTERING HIS REST

Hebrews 4:1-13

Key Verse: 4:1

“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.”

Last week we studied that Jesus was greater than Moses. Therefore, we decided to fix our thoughts on Jesus and follow his promise. Today, we will study how to enter the Sabbath rest God promised for us. I pray that we may not repeat the same mistakes the Israelites made in the wilderness. Their disobedience prevented them from entering the Promised Land. Learning from their mistakes let us strive to enter God’s rest through Jesus. May God bless us to pay more careful attention to the word of God and have rest in God!

PART 1 MY REST

There are various kinds of rest in the world. But today’s passage talks about three. First, is to enter the Canaan land. God promised to give Abraham the Canaan land to his offspring. (Gen 12:7) Israel was born in Egypt through the 12 sons of Jacob. Then, God led them out of Egypt with Moses as their leader. God gave them the Ten Commandments as their constitution and wanted to make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. During their wilderness journey, God repeated this promise to give them the land of Canaan. (Num 13:2) Deuteronomy 12:9 says, “Since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.” Here the rest means entrance into the promised land.

Second, is the Sabbath-rest after the six-days of creation. Genesis 2:2 says, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”  God completed his creation and satisfied saying, “It was very good.”  Adam and Eve had rest with God while they had fellowship with God in the Garden. There was no labor or toil in Paradise because there was a perfect relationship with God. But when Adam disobeyed God and was driven out of the Paradise, he labored to earn his bread and women suffered pain in child bearing. Later, Jesus offered the Sabbath rest for believers by saying, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28) Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and is eligible to give us rest from pain and suffering comes from sin. He offered this rest to all believers.)

Third, is the promised rest. This is related to the future kingdom of God. Psalm 95 is an enthronement psalm anticipating the coming kingdom. Hebrew 4:1 is a future promise. Rev 14:13 talks about rest from labors in heaven. The OT describes the kingdom of God as rest (Ps 132:12-14, Isa 11:10, 14:3 32:18, Ezek 34:15 Hebrews focuses on “world to come” (2:5), “promised city” (11:10, 16), New Jerusalem (12:18-24). This is what the author is talking about in this passage. (4:1, 3, 6, 8-11)  Today, we will focus on the promised rest in this passage.

PART II THE WILDERNESS GENERATION VERSUS THE CHRISTIAN GENERATION

The author of Hebrews gives an example of failure to warn the reader’s generation so that they might not fall short of entering the promised rest. The Israelites crossed the Red Sea as on dry land by faith under Moses’ leadership. They sang and danced because they saw the great work of God with their own eyes. Also they heard the good news that they would enter the Canaan land and possess the land as their own inheritance. They were excited to have their own home and rest from their wilderness journey. They chose twelve leaders from each tribe and sent them to the Canaan land to spy out the land. When they entered the land, they recognized that the land was flowing with milk and the grapes were big and juicy. The land was good and spacious as God promised. The only problem was that they also saw giants the size of linebackers. The leaders were split into two groups: the disobedient group and the obedient group. So they gave different reports on what they saw. The disobedient group said, “The land is devouring and there are giants living there. We are like the grasshoppers to our eyes and to their eyes.” When people heard their bad report, people grumbled against Moses and Aaron. They wept aloud. They hardened their hearts and wanted to go back to their old life in Egypt. Their spiritual sight was low because they only saw the reality of life. They had the slave mentality. M. Joseph Jun complained when his group got a harder assignment than the other group in his nursing class by saying, “It is unfair. They have an easy project while we have a hard project.” But he later thanked God later because he learned more his more difficult project. When we face hardship, we should give thanks to God instead of complaining. Complaining comes from lack of faith. The amazing fact was that ten leaders were disobedient and only two leaders were obedient. Ten leaders seemed to be right because they were the majority. They thought that the majority could not be wrong. But two leaders gave them a positive report. They were Joshua and Caleb. They said, “The land is good. We can conquer the land. Just do not be afraid. They are our food. We can certainly do it.” They encouraged the people not to rebel. They believed the promise of God. They believed that everything was possible with God. Though they were the minority, they acted by faith.

Why did the wilderness generation fail to enter God’s rest? Look at verse 2. “For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but those who heard did not combine it with faith.” Many manuscripts said, “Because they did not share in the faith of those who obeyed.” They heard the good news but did not combine it with faith. They heard the message of God’s promise but were overcome by fear of their enemies. What can we learn from this event? Combining the good news and action by faith is important to enter God’s promised rest. Here we can draw a formula to enter the promised rest. G for good news + F for faith = R for rest. When we go to McDonalds, we like to order combo meal like number 1 which consists of a Big Mac and fries and a soft drink. Who orders just a big Mac? Nobody does that. If we only order a big Mac, we will be thirsty. If we only order a coca-cola, we will be hungry.  In order to enjoy the meal and sustain our body, we need a combo. By the same principle, in order to enter God’s rest, we need to act upon God’s promise by faith. Hearing the word of God is not sufficient. We need to meditate on the word of God by writing testimonies. Then we can digest the word of God and apply it to our practical life. After hearing the Sunday message, we must chew on the word of God and then we can have true rest comes from God. The wilderness generation heard the message, but they did not act on it. Instead of faith, they hardened their hearts. They disobeyed God. Their disobedience invited God’s anger. God said in Psalm 95:11 says, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” God made a negative oath here. He kept that oath. It is not enough to hear the message, the message must be acted on in faith. For example, if we get a message that we won Redskins tickets, then we must pick up the tickets and go to FEDEX field and watch the game. If we do not go and see the game, the tickets have no value. Joshua and Caleb acted on in faith and they combined the message with faith and entered the Promised Land while all other people perished in the desert. The word “faith” appears 243 times in the NT and 32 times in the Hebrews and 40 times in Romans. Faith in Jesus, our high priest, allows us to enter God’s rest. The failure of the wilderness generation gives us a warning. Do not make the same mistake. We have heard the good news preached to us as well as they have. We must respond to today’s message. It is believers who enter God’s rest with an attitude of trust. One time someone asked Jesus, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” (Luke 13:23a) This man thought that he was saved because he heard the message of Jesus. He said, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.”  This man faithfully attended food fellowship with Jesus and Bible study meetings. But Jesus surprised him by saying Luke 13:27, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus did not know him because this man did not combine the message with faith action. He was a superficial follower. The opportunity was given to him but he missed it because he did not accept Jesus’ word by faith. He came to Sunday worship service many times but did not accept the word by faith. The message of Jesus has no value to him because he did not act on it in faith. We have to take the word of Jesus very seriously and obey God.

We live in the Christian generation. We are blessed to have the gospel message preached to us. We are privileged to be surrounded by many sincere Bible teachers and servants of God. We have an open invitation from Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” By the grace of God the invitation is still open. We are luckier than the wilderness generation because we have full revelation from God. Look at verses 7-9. “Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.” Here the people of God is the nation of Israel in the OT but in the NT it signifies believers. “Today” is a limited period of time within which the response must be made. Thousands of people die daily and to them there is only “Today” and there will be no tomorrow for them. Tomorrow will be too late and they will miss the opportunity to enter the kingdom of God. NBC has a morning News called “Today” but I never heard a news show called “Tomorrow.” Billy Graham had a famous program called “decision hour.” We have to decide to accept Jesus’ invitation right now without delay.

According to verse 10, to enter rest means to cease from ones’ own work as God ceased from his work. M. Moses said, “Rest means no work.” He liked his retirement because there is no boss and no alarm clock. But to God’s people retirement means re-tire which means to change tires for more work. Jesus said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” (John 5:17)  He also said in John 9:4, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” M. Esther told me last Thursday night, “I am tired.” But after having 2 1:1 Bible studies, she said, “I am refreshed.” Her rest was to do the work of God. M. Moses comes to the early-morning prayer meeting faithfully and encourages others to pray through his example of faith. He will explore the new land of Belize as his mission field. Since I retired from UMCP last year, I became busier than ever before. My day starts 5:00 AM and ends at 12 midnight. While taking care of our ministry and Mid-Atlantic regional work, I received constant calls from church members related to the 2007 Guatemala Tent-maker mission conference. My mission is to build partnership with church leaders to build up the work of God. But it takes time and patience. Sometimes I ask myself how in the world I retired and got more work to do. But I am excited because I am in Jesus and Jesus is in me. I have deep peace that comes from the right relationship with God through faith in Jesus. I have vision that our chapter will become modern-day Antioch. Though the world gives me trouble daily, I have peace like a river. Phillip and Sarah are excited to go back to their mission land. It means more work. Alan Wolff in Chicago finally got his PH.D. last week. He said, “I was inspired by David Brogi who finished his college with perseverance. So I endured hardship and got my degree.”

It is true that there will be hardship to serve God’s work. But the reward is great because we can have rest in God. When can we have rest in the end? We can have real rest in the kingdom of God. Apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7-8, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” Now the crown of righteousness is waiting for him. He was anticipating eternal rest in the Kingdom of God enjoying the glory of God. Until he entered that rest, he worked hard pressing on toward the heavenly goal.

 What should we do since God opened the door to enter the rest right now?  “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter the rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. “ The author exhorts his readers to make every effort to enter the rest. Why? Many people will fall by following the example of the wilderness generation. History repeats itself. As mentioned, rest does not mean “do nothing and lie down.” It means to have fellowship with Jesus. We are living in the postmodern generation. The main characteristic of the postmodern generation is to seek unlimited freedom. “Do not bother me and I will not bother you.” They do not like authority. They are individualistic and seek unlimited human freedom. They hate cops. This generation repeats the same mistake the wilderness generation made. Young people harden their hearts when they hear God’s voice saying, “No, I do not need to study the Bible. I am okay.” They are following the example of the wilderness generation. But there are some students who are listening to the voice of God. Matthew C. studied the word of God and acted on in faith. He combined the Bible study with faith by writing testimonies. He no longer follows the pattern of this world. He is following Jesus. He is growing in the image of Jesus. Arnold Toynbee said, “Life is challenge and response. History belongs to people who respond to challenge.” What is our challenge today? We have Jesus, our true rest. But many people are occupied with the present realities of life. Unbelief, rebellion, and disobedience are the main problem though we seem to have many problems. They are seeking a false American dream which will end in this world. God’s plan is to invite us to live in the paradise enjoying eternal life. Our home is not where we live today. It is the kingdom of God where whose builder and architect is God himself. We need to keep the kingdom dream. Therefore, we need to strive to enter that rest.

In conclusion, how can we practically make every effort to enter God’s rest? Look at verses 12-13. The word of God helps to enter the rest. We are shaky without the word of God. The word of God transforms our lives because it is living and active. No one can change other’s lives. Jesus changed his disciples to become the world famous Bible teachers through his word. The word of God changed Isaiah to become the prophet who spoke the word of the truth. To him the word of God was like a polished arrow. The word of God enables us to follow the example of Jesus not the example of the wilderness generation. At the end of our life we must each give our life report card before God. When we obeyed God and lived by faith, we will be rewarded to live in the paradise. If we disobeyed by hardening our hearts and rebelled against God, we will be judged and suffer eternally. God’s word is living and piercing. My suggestion through this passage is that we must not harden our hearts but listen to Jesus. We must hold on the word of God firmly and strive to enter the rest by holding on the word of God. We need to go back to deep Bible study. Let’s read the key verse 1.