Enter God’s rest by believing His Word

Sermon for the week of Trinity 26

Hebrews 4:9-13

Come, you blessed ones of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Don’t you long to hear those words from the King when He descends from heaven on the last day, with all the angels and saints accompanying Him? You heard a few descriptions of that inheritance on Sunday, from Peter’s first epistle: Incorruptible, undefiled, unfading. In this evening’s Lesson from Hebrews chapter 4, you heard another description of it: 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. “A Sabbath rest.” John speaks of it in similar terms in the book of Revelation: Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

To understand why the writer to the Hebrews speaks of it as a Sabbath rest, we need to go back a few verses, back into chapter 3, actually, where he quoted a Psalm in which God said about Israel: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ” God rested from all His work of creation on the seventh day of creation week. But when He commanded Israel to rest on the Sabbath Day, it wasn’t only in memory of God’s rest during that week. It was also in anticipation of another rest, a future rest for the people of God, a rest from all the toil and labor of this sin-tainted earth, a rest from being constantly attacked by the devil and constantly buffeted by temptation, a rest from suffering, a rest from loss, and from every heavy burden we carry. It’s the rest that awaits the people of God after this life on earth is through.

But many in Israel failed to enter that rest. Why? Because of their disobedience to the Word of God, which was the result of the unbelief. Oh, they believed God was real. They even knew who the true God was. But they didn’t trust in His goodness, or in His promise to give them eternal life. They wanted a better earthly life, and so they rebelled against Him throughout the Old Testament period. And then, when Jesus came to them, calling out, “Come to Me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”…they remained in their unbelief. And so those people didn’t receive Jesus’ rest during this life. Their souls didn’t receive His rest when they died. And they won’t enter into His rest after the Last Day, either.

And so the writer to the Hebrews pleads with Christians, Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Strive to enter that rest! How do we enter it? It isn’t automatic. Israel had the promise, but then fell. And as long as we’re still in this world, we, too, could fall by the same sort of disobedience. Notice, there’s no such thing as “once saved, always saved” in Scripture. The writer to the Hebrews warns Christians that we could fall, if we follow unbelieving Israel’s example. But the good news is, we don’t have to follow it! Here we have God the Holy Spirit, through these inspired words, urging us toward that rest, which God wants us to enter and offers to us for free. And so He urges us to enter it, by hearing and believing the Word of God.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Living. Active. Sharp. Piercing. The Word of God cuts through all the defenses, all the excuses, all the false motives, all the lies. It exposes the sins in our past, so that no one can hide anything from God. No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

But the word of God does more than expose our sins. It also reveals where there is repentance, and where there is faith in the Lord Jesus who died for our sins. It’s living and active, and able to work repentance and faith in our hearts. It’s living and active, and able to guide us away from sin and temptation and disobedience, able to show us the disobedience of Israel and other unbelievers in the past, so that we don’t repeat their foolish errors, able to set God’s eternal rest before our eyes and cause us to yearn for it, and, finally, to enter it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, it says.

Keep hearing. Keep believing. And keep working and toiling and suffering with patience for a little while longer. Because rest is coming for all those who remain faithful until the end. Amen.