Enter With Diligence (Hebrews 4:9-11)

Kootenai Church

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Turn now to Hebrews, Hebrews chapter four. We're gonna read together these 13 verses,

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Hebrews chapter four, one through 13. This will set the context for what we're gonna be looking at this morning, Hebrews chapter four.

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Therefore, let us fear if while a promise remains of entering his rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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He again fixes a certain day, today, 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.

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For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a

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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.

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Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

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For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. And piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

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Let's pray together. Our father, we ask that you would grant us the grace of the ministry of your spirit as we look at your word.

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We pray that the intention of the Holy Spirit in writing this passage may become obvious to us and that we may be able to understand and apply correctly the things that are here.

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We pray that you would teach us through your spirit and by your spirit and that your word would be not only before us, but in our hearts.

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And that we would be encouraged and equipped and made able to obey it in all of its implications and all of its ramifications.

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We're so grateful for your word and we pray that you would give us clarity in our understanding this morning in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, we are nearing the end of this morning passage in chapter four. Looking today at verses nine through 11, we are tying up the section that has to do with God's rest, this rest of God that is mentioned in chapter three and in chapter four.

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And this morning passage and other warning passages are sometimes used in order to prove that a believer having once believed in Christ can lose their salvation.

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And having studied through this, I hope that it is as obvious to you as it is to me that the author's concern is not with believers losing their salvation.

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That is not what he is describing. The author's concern is with people who think they're believers, but are not.

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They are make believers or fake believers. They think that they are saved, but they have not actually embraced

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Christ for salvation. His concern is that they through negligence or apathy or neglect or just outright disobedience having come so close to salvation, having been part of this

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Christian community for a period of time, that they would depart from Christ and go back to their

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Old Testament, Old Covenant, Judaistic ways. And in doing so, they may fail to enter the rest that is provided in Jesus Christ.

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That is his concern. So there is an evangelistic concern in the passage toward unbelievers, toward make believers and fake believers.

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And there is an encouraging concern in this passage for the believer. And the encouragement for the believer is in verses one to three.

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Do not think that being in Christ that you will miss God's rest. It will not happen. Don't begin to think that you will come short of it because you have walked away from all of that.

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The fullness of the rest is to be had in the person of Christ. And so we who have believed enter that rest.

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That is God's promise. And we ought to take great delight in that and be encouraged by that and enjoy that and experience joy in just the understanding that this is the promise of God, that we who are in Christ possess all that is to be enjoyed of that blessed and still and perfect state of God that he longs to share with us.

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We have it. We have that salvation rest in Christ. So now we come to verses nine and 11, which is the conclusion of the discussion of God's rest that has occupied most of chapter four.

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And I've been telling you all along that verses nine to 11 is the conclusion of that argument. And we've been seeing how the author has been unfolding this discussion of God's rest through the passage and sort of aiming towards these two main points that the rest remains and that we should be diligent to enter it.

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Those are the two main points in the conclusion. And though we are nearing the end of the warning passage, and we're certainly at the end of this discussion on the rest of God, verses 12 and 13 properly belong to the warning passage as well.

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That familiar, those familiar verses, for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword piercing even to the vision of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and as a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Now, if you were reading that in your

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Bible, you're saying, well, that wasn't exactly my translation. There's a reason for that, because I have memorized that in the

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King James and the New King James and in the NASB. So when I begin to quote something from memory, like here in Hebrews chapter four, it's just an amalgamation of all of that.

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So if you're sitting there with the King James and you heard that, you're like, oh, it's King James. No, that's not King James. Oh, that's New King, no, that's not

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America standard either. That's what is Jim reading out of, right? It could have been the new amplified extended in super paraphrased contemporary modern

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Bible, study Bible for left -handed midget farmers or something like that. It could have been some amalgamation of all of that.

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And that's really what it boils down to. So those two verses, verses 12 and 13, familiar to us, they are intended to cause in us a scripture centered self -examination as to whether or not we are in that rest.

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That's the intention. So it's part of the warning passage. He is appealing to scripture to do its work.

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And that is to reveal to us in our hearts whether we are in that rest or not. But we'll get to that next week.

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Today, we're dealing with verses nine through 11, which encourages us to be diligent, to enter into the rest that God has provided.

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Now that's gonna sound a lot like what I've been saying for weeks, right? Haven't you been telling us all along, be diligent to enter the rest? And you've been telling us that for five or six weeks and now we get to the end and you're just gonna tell us what you've been telling us for five or six weeks.

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There is a sense in which that is true, but verses nine to 11 have some interpretive issues that are interesting and that we need to deal with as we work through them.

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So we are handling the conclusion to the matter, which is be diligent to enter that rest and make sure that you are saved.

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Do not through negligence or apathy allow that to pass by without you making certain that your soul is resting in the person of Christ.

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That's ultimately what he wants us to get at. But in verses nine to 11, there is these interpretive issues, particularly in verses nine and 10 that I think are interesting for us.

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I think that we'll enjoy it as we go through it. So let's look at the nature of the rest that remains in verse nine. Let's just read together verses nine through 11 so that we have this fresh in our mind.

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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.

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Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

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Now, there are some interpretive issues here in verses nine and 10 particularly. Sorry about that. Verses nine and 10 particularly, but let's not let the main point of all of this go past us.

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And the main point is this, that the rest is not a one -time offer. It has not been fulfilled in Joshua. It still remains.

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It still remains. The promise remains. And he has mentioned this a number of times in chapter four, that that rest is available.

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That rest is there and the people of God enjoy it. That's the main point of the passage. Now, once we get that down and we understand that we are to be diligent to enter that rest, then we can step back and say, now, what are the interesting interpretive issues that are in this passage?

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And there are two of them in verse nine. First of all, what is meant by Sabbath rest? What is meant by Sabbath rest?

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And second, what is meant by the people of God? You see it there in verse nine. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Who are these people of God?

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And what is the nature of this Sabbath rest? And why does he use the term Sabbath rest instead of just rest like he has for the rest of the passage?

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And those are the two very significant and important doctrinal questions. And we're gonna answer both of them this morning.

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Let's begin, let's back into the passage by starting at the end of verse nine and answer the question, who is meant by the people of God?

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Now, there are basically kind of two options to this. The first one I will give you is not my position. Some people say that this is a reference to ethnic

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Israel or Jewish Christians, or particularly the Jews. They would say that the people of God was an

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Old Testament phrase used to describe the nation of Israel and the people who were God's people by covenant, that is ethnic

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Israel. And they would suggest then that that is what he is describing here. Keep in mind the context of the book of Hebrews, that this is written to a

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Jewish audience and that it is a Jewish audience, though they are Christians, it is a Jewish audience that is in view. And so the phrase people of God, sort of an

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Old Testament phrase used to describe people who are his by covenant, so this would be ethnic Israel or Jews.

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If that is the case, then it means one of two things here by Sabbath rest. He is either saying that it remains for Jews or for Jewish Christians to continue to keep the

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Sabbath, there remains for Jewish Christians a Sabbath rest, or he is suggesting that there is an experience of Sabbath rest that is still future, that is uniquely

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Jewish in its character and promise, namely the millennial kingdom or the kingdom at the end of time.

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So if he is describing here the people of God, then some have suggested that he is looking forward to that kingdom in the

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Old Testament that was promised by the prophets and to the prophets and through the prophets for the nation of Israel, a kingdom in Jerusalem, a kingdom over which

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Christ would sit and rule the nations and all the nations would become his inheritance, that that kingdom which we look forward to, that Revelation 20 says is a 1 ,000 year kingdom at the end of time, that that is the expression or experience of the rest of God that is uniquely

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Jewish in its characteristic, that that Sabbath rest still remains for the

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Jewish people. Do you see that in verse nine? Now, I believe that there's going to be a kingdom. I believe it's going to be ruled over by Jesus Christ.

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I believe that it will be in Jerusalem on the throne of David, and I believe it will be 1 ,000 years long, but I don't believe that that's what this passage is talking about.

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Now, I could make that argument from 100 other passages or 1 ,000 other passages. I just wouldn't bother trying to make it from this passage because I don't think that by the people of God, he is referring here to ethnic

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Israel or to the Jews. I think he's referring to Christians, those of us who are God's people by covenant now, or by his choice and by his covenant, and because we are in Jesus Christ.

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There still remains for us a Sabbath rest. So he is describing here believers, not just Jews.

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We are the people of God, not because of our ethnicity or because of our national election. We are the people of God because we are in Jesus Christ.

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We're his sheep. We belong to him. We've been redeemed by Christ. So we are the people of God. So then that raises the question, the issue, which is what is this

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Sabbath rest? If there still remains for Christians a Sabbath rest, then what does this tell us about our relationship to the

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Old Testament Sabbath? Are we still supposed to observe the

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Old Testament Sabbath? Are we still supposed to mark the Old Testament Sabbath? If there remains for us as the people of God, a

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Sabbath rest, then what does that tell us about our relationship to that Old Testament, Old Covenant, fourth commandment to observe a

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Sabbath day, one day, the seventh day, one day out of seven? So let's move on to that interpretive issue.

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And here it is. There's a different word for rest that is used here in, that is translated here in verse nine,

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Sabbath rest, than that which is translated Sabbath in the rest of the New Testament. Sabbatismos is the word, and it refers to a

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Sabbath rest or a period of rest. Interestingly, it is only used here in the book of Hebrews. And interestingly, it is only used here in all of this

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New Testament, in all of scripture. This is the only place where it's used. Now that can be significant.

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And I think that it is significant and everybody recognizes its significance. What divides

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Christians on this issue is the understanding of what the significance of that is, that it is a different word that is used from the word

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Sabbath everywhere else in the New Testament. It is also a different word that was used of rest elsewhere in this passage.

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So all the way through this passage, he has spoken of the rest, right? They shall not enter my rest, be diligent to enter that rest.

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And it is a particular word that is used, but in verse nine, when he says there remains a Sabbath rest, he uses a word that uniquely describes a period of rest or a

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Sabbath type of a rest. And so what does that mean to us? And that's really the issue. What does it say about our relationship to the

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Sabbath under the terms of the new covenant? If we're in Jesus Christ, do we still have to observe the

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Sabbath? If it says there still remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Now there are two positions on this.

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And I'm gonna divide this into sort of two sides to this argument. I'm going to, for the sake of this morning,

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I'm going to do away with all of the hyper Old Testament, hyper legalistic Sabbath -keeping groups or sects that might be out there.

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I'm not gonna be giving consideration to Seventh -day Adventists. I'm not gonna be dealing with Messianic Jews who think that we are still under the old covenant.

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I'm not gonna be dealing with any of that. I'm talking within orthodoxy, within believers, there are really two different views on the

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Sabbath. Now on this spectrum of two sides to this, there are a whole bunch of little positions on each one of these two sides.

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So I'm not gonna get into all of the different little positions. I'm just gonna be dealing in the general and broadest strokes of just these two sort of positions on it.

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And here are the two positions. The first is that the moral obligation of Sabbath -keeping is still for today.

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The second is that the Old Testament Sabbath has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and there is no obligation for us as Christians to keep it.

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Those are the two sides. There is still a moral obligation for us as believers to keep the Sabbath. Or on the other side, there remains no longer a

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Sabbath obligation for the people of God. Broadly speaking, are the two sides of the issue. Now, inside each one of those camps, there are a spectrum.

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There is a wide spectrum in the way people observe this. So for instance, if you get over into this side, that there is still a moral obligation to keep the

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Sabbath, you'll find this in a lot of Reformed circles, particularly Presbyterian circles. And I don't mean the liberal Presbyterians, like the

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USPC, the LBGT Presbyterians. Those are the ones I'm talking about.

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The liberal branch of the Presbyterian Church. But you get into the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and some of the more conservative

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Presbyterian churches that still remain more Reformed and more conservative in their theology, they would hold to this idea that there still remains a

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Sabbath obligation for us. There are other Reformed branches and other Reformed groups that would also say that.

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Now, inside of that perspective over here, you've got people on the extreme that I think Andrew Rappaport talked about this in his conference and on the

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Sunday morning that he preached here a few weeks ago. There are people who would not go to a coffee shop or a restaurant or have their gas pumped on a

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Sunday morning because they would feel that by doing that, they're causing other people to work on that Lord's Day and thus violate the

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Sabbath. So there are people on the outside edge of that that would take this very seriously and still feel that that is an expression of the fourth commandment.

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And then you would have people who would probably enjoy a little bit more freedom in that regard and would go to a restaurant or would go have their gas pumped but still believe that we as Christians are to observe the

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Sabbath. So there's a kind of a wide spectrum even amongst this group over here. Then you have on the other side, the people who do not believe that there is any moral obligation to keep the

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Sabbath anymore. And so you would have even amongst this group, people on, say, the far outside extreme of this who would say, the

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Lord's Day, what's that? That's a Sunday morning when we all get together for worship. Oh, yeah, yeah, I do that once in a while.

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And for them, they think that the Lord's Day, the observation, the observance of one day a week for the Lord is something that they do if they have absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, nothing else that might interfere with it.

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And by nothing else, I mean nothing else. Their kids' sports, fishing, hunting, being up on Schweitzer, hiking, being out on the lake, summer, winter, fall, spring, sleep, work, yard work, anything.

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For them, church is an absolute last priority of any and everything that they would do. It's so far down on the list, it doesn't even register.

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Until a Sunday morning when the whole family is sitting around the living room and they're looking at each other, they have nothing else to do. They've missed the time change.

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They've all got up an hour early and they say to themselves, we might as well go to church today. And they have the time to do it, and so they have nothing else to do, so they go to church.

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Now, those people are way over there. Now, I'm in this camp, and I'll reveal my cards to you at the outset.

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I'm in this camp, but I'm probably closer over here to the middle. I'm certainly nowhere near the outside of that.

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There's nothing in the world I would rather do than to be with the saints of God on a Sunday morning, nothing else, nothing else.

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Everything else is a distant second. I would rather be here doing with you what we do on a

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Sunday morning than anything else. So I'm so far away from that extreme, it's not even funny, but I'm not over in this camp here either. I do not believe,

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I'm in this camp, but I'm very close to this. I think we have, I would never say we have a moral obligation to observe the

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Sabbath, but I do enjoy observing the Lord's day. I'm gonna flesh that out here in just a little bit. Okay, so I'm kind of close to these guys.

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I'm sympathetic to that position, but I don't think it's biblical. So broadly speaking, those are the two camps. So let's deal with this.

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Well, first of all, deal with this group over here who I'm sympathetic to, but I don't agree with it. They believe that the

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Sabbath is still in force. They would argue that it says right here in the text that there remains for us, the people of God, a

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Sabbath day rest. I mean, that's what it says, right? Verse nine says it, there remains a

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Sabbath rest. For whom? For just the Jews? No, for the people of God. So they would look at verse nine and they would say, therefore, this

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Sabbath rest is something that still pertains to us as Christians, and so we have a moral obligation to observe that.

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And they would say that they would change the change in language here in verse nine from rest to Sabbath day rest is intended to point us to the fact, the reality that we are still obligated to observe the

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Old Testament Sabbath, even though we may call it the day of the Lord. They would also argue that Christ has fulfilled the type, but ultimately not yet.

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They would say that the rest that is promised in the Old Testament and the rest that is spoken of in chapter four, the ultimate expression of that is heaven.

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And so though Christ has come, we have not experienced the fullness of that rest yet. And so as long as that remains to be experienced, we have an obligation to continue to observe that until we get to heaven or until we get to experience the fullness of what is meant by that rest.

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And then they would look at the Old Testament observance of different ordinances is not the word, but different forms.

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And they would say that these are to inform our observance of the Sabbath day. So the people who are in this camp, they see what is called a continuity between the

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Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And by continuity, I mean this. Basically, they would say that if it is not explicitly done away with in the

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New Testament, it is still enforced today from the Old Testament. So they would look at the Passover and they would say, see, the

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Passover has been replaced by the Lord's supper, which we'll observe here in a bit. The Passover has been replaced by the Lord's supper.

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Circumcision has been replaced by baptism. And they would say that the Sabbath has been replaced by the

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Lord's day. And so just as we observe baptism in place of circumcision and the

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Lord's supper in place of Passover, so we ought to observe the Lord's day guided by the

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Old Testament in the same way that they observed the Sabbath. So here are a couple of my problems or issues with that perspective, and I'll give them to you quickly.

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I think that it is inconsistent to interpret scripture in this way. To say that we take something that was on the seventh day of the week and we change it to the first day of the week and something that was called the

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Sabbath and we change it to the Lord's day. And it was an observance of the creation order and we're gonna make it an observance of the resurrection to change it so drastically, what we call it, when we celebrate it and what we celebrate.

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And then to say that we're actually keeping that when we have changed it to the point where we're really not keeping that, that seems inconsistent to me.

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That seems to be an inconsistent interpretation of the scripture passages. If we are required to keep it, then it seems to me that we are required to keep it in accordance with how it was laid out.

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If we are no longer required to keep it, then it seems to me that the observance of it is no longer obligated by Christians in any form.

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That would be my perspective. Second, I would say that it is these very elements of the old covenant and the

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Old Testament which have been done away with. The feasts, the festivals, the Sabbaths, the new moons, all the celebration of those forms and functions from the

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Old Testament, those are the very things that have been done away with and fulfilled in Jesus Christ that are no longer obligated upon Christians to observe.

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And this comes about because they confuse the identity of the Old Testament saints with New Testament saints.

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And at any time that you fail to understand the distinction between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church, you're going to end up blurring these lines and become very confused on what it is from the

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Old Testament that we are supposed to practice and bring into our New Testament observation. And so because you confuse these two people groups, church and Israel, then you begin to confuse how it is that we are to relate to those covenants and commandments that were given to Israel.

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You have to keep these two things distinct. And I have commentaries and I respect Bible teachers, many of them

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I love, because this is not heresy, but they would say that Israel is the Old Testament church and the church is New Testament Israel.

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I disagree with that. I think you have to make a distinction between those two people groups. And if you fail to do that, then you get into all kinds of confusion.

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And this confusion is just what inevitably results. They would argue that the commandment to observe the

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Sabbath day is not repeated in the New Testament, but it doesn't need to be, because it was included with the 10 commandments.

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Now, I look at the 10 commandments and I read the 10 commandments, and then I come over to the New Testament and I see in the New Testament, every single one of those commandments is reiterated in some form or another, except one of them, except one of them.

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And that's to observe the Sabbath day. That is not given to the church. It's not reiterated to the church. I think that's significant.

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They don't think that that's significant. I think it's significant because if we were obligated in the church to observe the

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Sabbath day, I would think that somewhere the apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, who was writing to churches who had no

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Sabbath observance and no understanding and no concept of observing that day, that he would mention somewhere the

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Christian's responsibility to keep the Sabbath in some form. You would think he would bring it up to largely Gentile churches like in Colossae and Philippi and Corinth, in Ephesus and Laodicea and the other areas that he wrote to.

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You would think that he would mention that if it were required of us as Gentile Christians to observe the Sabbath. But they look at it and they say, all the other requirements of the

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Old Testament, all the other moral obligation of the Old Testament are repeated in the New. And so we can just assume that this one was intended to be repeated in the

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New. I don't think it was intended to be repeated in the New. Otherwise the Holy Spirit would have repeated it in the New. That's my position.

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I think it is significant that it is left out. It's left out because I don't believe we, since we're not

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Israel, we are the church, that we are obligated to keep it. They would say that because it is not specifically abrogated in the

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New Testament, remember I talked about the continuity that they see between the Old Covenant and New Covenant, because it is not specifically abrogated in the

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New Testament, because we do not read a New Testament verse that says, look, Gentiles, you are no longer in any way ever required to keep the

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Old Testament Sabbath in any form. Because it doesn't say that, they say, we ought to assume that we are required to keep it.

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But I do see a New Testament abrogation of the Sabbath. In Colossians chapter two, verses 16 to 17,

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Paul writes to a Gentile church, he writes this, therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath day, things which were a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Now notice how

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Sabbath is incorporated with food and drinks and festivals and new moons and a Sabbath day. Paul says, don't let anybody act as your judge in regard to those things.

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Those things are a mere shadow. Christ is the substance of those things. Those things that the

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Sabbath is included with food and drink and all of those other things that are connected to the

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Old Testament, the Old Covenant. Now, if we are gonna say that we are obligated to keep the

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Sabbath, then I think we would have to say that we should be obligated to keep the dietary laws, right? Well, they would say that the dietary laws are not, they are specifically abrogated in the

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New Testament. I would say the Sabbath is specifically abrogated as well. In that passage that I just read where Paul says, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or respect to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath day. These things are the shadow. We have Christ and he is the substance. Those things,

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Sabbath, food, festivals, they look forward to and anticipated a greater reality that greater reality has come.

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And because we have that greater reality, we are not obligated to partake of or to observe any of those other things which are mere shadows of it.

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Now, I have a commentary where a guy deals with this in Colossians chapter two, and he comes from this perspective that I'm critiquing.

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And he says in Colossians, he says regarding Colossians chapter two, that this only describes the legalistic observance of the

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Sabbath. It only describes, Paul's only talking about in Colossians 2 the legalistic observance of the Sabbath. He's not abrogating all observance of the

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Sabbath. And my response to that would be, if you're going to go back to the Old Testament and look for the

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Old Testament on guidance on what to do on the Lord's day, isn't that the very definition of legalistic? It seems like you can't even begin to look back to that for guidance today without in that very instant appealing to some sort of a legalistic standard of that Old Testament law.

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And it is not the legalistic observance of these things that Paul says is the shadow. It is the

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Sabbath itself that is the shadow. It's the Sabbath that is the shadow. It is Christ that is the fulfillment of it.

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Now, remember, I told you that one of their arguments is that the full fullness of our rest is not until we get to heaven or until we get to the kingdom.

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They would say that we're looking forward to the fullness of our rest in heaven. And until heaven, there remains for us a Sabbath that we are to observe.

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That's their argument. But does Paul say in Colossians 2 that heaven is the substance of the

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Sabbath? What does he say? These things are a mere shadow of what is to come. The substance belongs to what?

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To whom? To Christ. Christ has come. Now, the fullness of our experience of this rest has not come, but the one who is our rest has come.

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So in that sense, the Sabbath has been entirely fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and because I am in him,

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I am a Sabbath keeper. So that is their camp, and that would be my assessment of it.

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Now, over on this side, and again, I'm not over here with the guy that's out fishing right now or up on Switzer right now or out four -wheeling right now.

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Okay, I'm with you. So I'm close over here. I think we have a moral obligation as the people of God to meet with the people of God, but I do not believe that the

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Sabbath obligation is any longer in force. So therefore, we have no longer any moral obligation to keep the

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Sabbath or to observe its prescriptions, and I would argue this way. I would say, number one, we're not Israel.

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We are the church. The Sabbath was given to a nation. It was given to a covenant people. It was given to a people whom God chose, an ethnic people to observe that was to keep them separate.

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It is not part of the moral law. I believe it's part of what we would call the ceremonial or the civil law. It was not part of the moral law of God, and so it is no longer binding upon us because we're not

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Israel. Second, I would observe that the New Testament pattern is not to worship on the Sabbath but is to worship on the

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Lord's Day. Now, those who are in this camp over here, they say we have a moral obligation to keep the Sabbath. They would say that we keep that Sabbath by observing the

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Lord's Day, and I would say, we don't keep the Sabbath. We keep the Lord's Day. We observe the Lord's Day. These are two separate and distinct things.

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In the Lord's Day, we meet on Sunday and not Saturday, and we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and not the creation pattern of God.

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Now, are there similarities between the Sabbath and between the Lord's Day? There are. There are a lot of similarities between the

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Sabbath and the Lord's Day. In both cases, we take one day out of seven. In both cases, we do something that is a break from our normal routine.

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In both cases, we spend it in celebration and time with the people of God, reflecting upon the goodness of God and celebrating

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Him, and in both cases, we take a time to do something unique to give our time, our talents, our efforts, and our attention in ways that we do not do it on the other six days of the week.

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So there are similarities between the Sabbath, which was observed on Saturday in recognition of creation, and the

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Lord's Day, which we observe on Sunday in recognition of the resurrection of Christ. There are similarities between these two things, but similarities do not mean that they are the same thing.

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They don't. Just as the similarities between a submarine and a minivan do not make them the same thing.

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You look at a submarine and minivan, you say both of them have seats, they have electronics, they have engines, they have doors. People ride in them.

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They're oblong and kind of ugly -looking and indistinct, and so there's a lot of similarities between a submarine and a minivan.

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That's true, but they're not the same thing. And if I asked you this morning, how did you get to church? And you said, I drove my submarine to church. And I said, what do you mean, submarine?

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You know my Dodge Grand Caravan. No, that's not a submarine. That's a minivan. Well, they're basically the same thing. I mean, we don't call them the same thing, but there are a lot of similarities between them, okay?

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When I hear somebody say, I'm observing the Sabbath by observing the Lord's Day, I'm keeping the Sabbath. No, you're not.

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These are distinct things. Might as well have told me that you drove to church in your submarine. It doesn't make any sense.

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Just because there are similarities does not mean that they are the same thing. They are different. Yes, there are similarities between them, but on the

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Lord's Day, which we celebrate on a Sunday, because it is the New Testament pattern in the book of Acts and in the epistles, we celebrate that on Sunday.

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We are observing something entirely different, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the creation pattern of God in the Old Testament.

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And we're doing it because we are the people of God, chosen by Him from eternity past as His church.

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We are the bride of Christ. We're not ethnic Israel. And we do things on this day, and we have freedoms on this day that they didn't have under the

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Old Testament. And we do set aside time on this day, but we are observing something different, and we call it something different, and we do something different.

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Therefore, it is not the same thing, right? So we cannot equate these two things. So I am under the conviction that we are not obligated to keep the

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Old Testament Sabbath, nor should we use the term Sabbath to refer to the Lord's Day.

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It is something separate. It is something distinct. They believe that we have entered into that rest only in Christ in a partial way, and so we keep the

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Sabbath to look forward to the ultimate experience of it. I believe that we have entered into that rest, and because we have entered into that rest, we are not obligated to keep the

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Old Testament Sabbath. Because I am in Christ, I keep the

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Sabbath Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, because I'm in Him.

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He kept the law entirely on my behalf for me. His Sabbath -keeping, perfect as it was, is credited to my account as perfect Sabbath -keeping.

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Because Jesus Christ is my rest, He has fulfilled all of the requirements of the Old Testament Sabbath on my behalf.

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So by faith, when I am in Him and I enter into that salvation rest, I am a Sabbath -keeper in the eyes of the

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Father as if I have never missed a Sabbath in my life, as if I have never violated a

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Sabbath obligation in my life. All of that perfect righteousness is credited to my account.

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So because I am in Christ, I always keep the Sabbath. So what do

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I celebrate on the Lord's Day? The resurrection of my Sabbath -keeping Savior who kept the

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Sabbath in my stead. And I look back upon the Old Testament Sabbath obligation, I say, that is not for me.

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I celebrate today the Lord's Day. Now, as I said to you, I'm not over on this extreme where I think then therefore I have freedom to just do whatever

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I want on a Sunday morning. I want to be with the people of God to observe the Lord's Day. This is my priority. It is every

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Sunday. I've raised my children that this is our priority. As a family, we have kept this as our priority and it ought to be.

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I would rather do this than anything else in the face of the planet on a Sunday morning, anything else. I would rather be here.

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Because not that I believe it's a moral obligation, but I believe that it is the most joyous and wonderful thing that I can be involved in on a

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Sunday morning. This is where I would rather be. And it's a celebration of the Lord's Day and not a celebration of the

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Sabbath. So I believe that in verse nine, he is not describing the weekly observance. He is describing the present reality for all who are in Jesus Christ.

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He's not describing a weekly observance that we have. He is describing the present reality for all who are in Jesus Christ.

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So those are the two positions. Those are the interpretive issues with verse nine. And now we have another one in verse three.

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And there are three ways to, sorry, verse 10. And there are three ways to understand verse 10. Let's read it together again. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God does from his.

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So here are the issues. Who is the one in verse 10 who is entering into this rest? And what works is he talking about?

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Who is entering into the rest and what works is he describing in verse 10? And there's a lack of clarity here because it doesn't signal it out to describe specifically who the one is who is entering into this rest.

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It just says he in verse 10. The one or he who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his.

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Now, there's something important in the verse that will be a clue to us in rightly understanding it. And I think it's the parallelism at the end of verse 10 when he refers to as God did from his.

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So there is a parallel between the one who has entered his rest and God who rested. And there is a parallel between the works of the one who was entering this rest and the works that God has done.

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So that's the parallel that is there. And you'll see why this is important here in just a minute. So what are the three positions?

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Three positions on who it is or what verse 10, I guess the best way to say it and what verse 10 is describing. And here are the three positions.

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That what is being described is the unbeliever who has ceased from his works of self -righteousness and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

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The unbeliever who has stopped his works of trying to earn God's favor and instead is trusting in Christ alone having entered into that rest by faith.

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Now that's possibility. It's not heretical to believe that, but I don't think that that's what the passage is describing. The he in the verse in verse 10 would be the unbeliever who through faith enters into God's rest and then stops trying to please

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God in the sense of earning his righteousness as righteous standing or merit before God. So read verse 10 in that sense.

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For the unbeliever who has entered Christ rest or salvation rest in Christ has himself also stopped or rested or ceased from all of his own attempts at self -moratorious works.

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That would be the idea. Just as God did from his. Now here's why that interpretation of the verse breaks down because the parallelism breaks down.

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Is God through his works attempting self -meritorious works of righteousness? He is not.

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So see how the parallelism breaks down? If God is not ceasing from his works of righteousness trying to earn his favor to enter in salvation, then that doesn't match with the idea that the unbeliever is the one who's entering into rest.

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So though it's not heretical, I don't think that that is what is intended here. And I judge that simply by the basis that it doesn't follow with the parallelism of the verse.

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There's a second possible interpretation and it's this. That the one being described here is the believer who enters into his final rest at death.

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The believer who enters into his final rest at death. So read verse 10. For the believer who has entered heaven, his rest, his final rest has himself also rested from all of his good deeds and labors which he has done on this earth for Christ.

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That's how we would read verse 10 in light of that interpretation. All right, so this refers to the believer who enters into his final state of rest in heaven and he has laid aside all of his good deeds and his works of righteousness here on this earth where he has served

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Christ faithfully. So think of a saint who has passed into glory, who served Christ for years. They have entered into their final rest and they have then ceased or stopped from all of their earthly labors here.

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So they finally get to enjoy the fullness of that rest. Now this wouldn't make the parallel work because God who did good works in creation, he named all of creation very good when he was done with it.

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Having completed those works, God had stopped working. And so the parallelism works in that case.

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The third possible interpretation is that this, oh, let me bring one more thing into it.

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Concerning the believer who enters into heaven and stops his works of service here on the earth. There's a passage in Revelation that kind of describes the same thing using similar languages,

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Revelation 14, 13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, right, blessed are the dead who die in the

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Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit, so that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them.

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So they're resting, entering into heaven and dying in the Lord is equated with resting from all of their labors.

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So the kind of similar language to what is used here in Hebrews 4, verse 10 to describe potentially a believer who enters into heaven and has ceased from all of his labors here on earth.

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The third interpretation is that this refers to Christ who having done the father's will has entered heaven.

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So let's read verse 10 in light of that. Here's how that would read. For Christ who has entered heaven, his rest has himself also rested from all his works.

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Not that Christ is trying to earn righteousness, but that Christ himself having fulfilled the father's will, having been obedient and faithful all the way to the end and endured all the way to the end.

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He having completely accomplished everything that the father gave him to do, has entered into heaven into his rest where he works no longer, where he works no more.

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That would be the idea in verse 10, just as the father did all of his good work of creation and then having accomplished that laid that aside.

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So the parallelism here would be between the work that Christ did, having entered his rest and the work that the father did and then entered his rest.

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Now, which is it? Is it the believer entering into heaven or is it Christ finishing his work and entering into heaven? I could make an argument,

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I think, for either one of those positions. I don't think it is essential that you choose one of those positions. I think that either one of those two is better than the first.

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That it refers to the unbeliever who stops his works of righteousness and enters into rest. I think that the goal here of the author is to show that Christ having gone before us is the example we want to be diligent to enter heaven, verse 11, be diligent to enter that rest, having really two examples ahead of us.

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Not only the saints who have gone before, who have entered that rest and ceased from all of their works here on earth, but also

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Christ who having accomplished all the work of salvation entered into that final rest. And I think it's possible that the author has both of those possibilities in mind because they're very similar.

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In describing it in such general terms, he could be describing both the believer and Christ who have gone ahead of us.

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And he is telling us they have entered that rest and laid aside their works, both Christ and the believers who have followed him, and you ought to be diligent to enter that rest as well.

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And depending on what day of the week it is, I might choose a different interpretation for those last two. They could be either one of those.

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But the point of the author is that you and I ought to be diligent to enter it because somebody and others have gone ahead of us and entered into that final state of salvation rest.

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So for both of those last two options, the final state of rest is what is in view in verse 10. Now look at the encouragement in verse 11.

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This is his final admonition concerning God's rest, God's salvation rest. Therefore, let us be diligent.

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And the word means eager or zealous or hasty to make haste at something, to ensure that you make heaven, to ensure that you do not miss it, to ensure that you do not miss eternal life through negligence or through apathy or through disobedience and not be like the wilderness generation in verse 11 who fell through disobedience.

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You don't want to follow their example. Whose example are we to follow? The one who was faithful, Christ, who entered into his rest and stopped from all his works that he did on our behalf.

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We're also to follow the example of other believers who have gone into heaven ahead of us and ceased from all of their labors. We, like them, are to labor all the way to the end, serving and striving and laboring and being diligent, knowing that that promise remains.

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And we are to enter into that rest. And we need to be diligent and to make haste and to be earnest that we do not miss salvation.

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That there be nobody here who thinks they are a believer, but is not. That there be nobody here who is comfortable being amongst the company of redeemed people, but never having embraced salvation for yourself.

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Be diligent to enter that rest. That's the evangelistic appeal. Make certain of your destiny.

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Don't drift, don't let it drift by. Don't be negligent about it. Don't be apathetic about it.

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A lot of people approach salvation in just those terms of apathy and negligence. And they think when you're young, you think

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I got all this time, I can worry about it later. Right now I'm too busy doing this and concerned about that. And then I got a family and I got a job and I got other things.

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And I'm really not concerned about eternal life. You have no guarantee that you will live till tomorrow or finish out the end of this day. None of you do.

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No matter what your age is, you have no guarantee. And so there is this pressing evangelistic concern to not neglect this.

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Do not give rest to your soul until your soul finds rest in Him. Don't do it. Do not give sleep to your eyes until you know that if you close your eyes for the final time, you will be asleep in Jesus Christ.

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You cannot let that pass by. There's nothing more important in all of this world than where you will spend eternity.

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And if you don't take that seriously, you are a fool and you will get a fool's reward at the end of it.

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You're the biggest fool. Because you think that now while you're young, that you have all this time to sort it out. And then when you get to be old, you'll think to yourself, yeah,

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I don't know. I mean, I could have sorted that out, but I think that now that I'm older, I'm just gonna roll my dice on judgment day. I'm just gonna take my chances on judgment day.

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I'll tell you what your chances are on judgment day. If you're outside of Jesus Christ, you don't have a chance. You're playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.

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Do not neglect the state of your soul. Be diligent, the author says, to make sure that you are in the rest that God provides in Jesus Christ.

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And give no rest to yourself until you get that sorted out. Do not let yourself sleep. Do not let yourself cease from your anxiety and your striving until you are satisfied and certain that you are resting in Jesus Christ and Him alone for salvation.

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That you have been fully, finally born again. You have a new heart and new affections. That you have come to Christ in repentance and faith.

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If you do not have that, you will perish. You will fall, just like the wilderness generation.

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Nobody falls into heaven. They fall into hell. They trip into eternal damnation. Nobody falls into heaven accidentally.

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Nobody dies and wakes up in heaven, surprised that they got there, wondering what they were surrounded by.

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That is not our default position. Our default position is destruction. Give no rest to your soul until you know, till you know for certain that you are resting in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

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God provides that salvation rest and it is available. You must reach out and take it through repentance and faith.

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And if you do not, you will perish. That is the solemn warning of this text. That is the solemn warning of all of scripture.

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Now, before us is the Lord's Supper. This is for believers, because this tells us the price, the ultimate price of salvation that was paid for us by Jesus Christ.

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That Christ has come to redeem a people for Himself. He lived a perfect life in the place of His people.

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He kept the law perfectly in the place of His people. He died a sacrificial, voluntary, and substitutionary death in the place of His people so that any and all who come to Him through repentance and faith may have eternal life.

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That is what Christ has done for us. The cost of our salvation was the life, the very life of the

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Son of God Himself. He suffered the wrath of God in our stead. He was buried in our place.

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He rose again in our place, and He has ascended to heaven in our place, and He will come again and receive us to Himself and take us to be where He is at so that where He is, we may be also.

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That is His promise for His people. If you're not in Christ, this communion is not for you.

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I would say that you need to give serious thought to your own salvation. Do not partake of the bread or the juice if you're not a

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Christian, because this is not for you. You're eating and drinking judgment to yourself. You must repent and believe.

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For the Christian, we take this with the utmost seriousness and sobriety, self -examination, and in the words of Hebrews 4, verse 12, that scripture -centered self -examination, knowing that everything that we think and everything that we do is naked and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

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And so for us as believers, as Christians, we repent of our sin. In a harbor sin, we flee from it, we mortify it, we turn from it, trusting in the one who lived perfectly in our stead, and died righteously in our stead, and gives us

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His righteousness. And we are observing in a symbolic form the cost of our salvation. So we will pray together.

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We'll examine our hearts before the Lord. I'll lead us in a prayer of confession, and then we'll take the elements together.

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Let's pray. So there was something I needed to say, and I don't mean to interrupt the service like this, but there is part of the message that I left out.

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It was like a whole page. And you're wondering to yourself, how did you get done so early? Well, maybe not.

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Maybe that's not what you were wondering. There's something essential to my argument that I forgot, I left it out. And I don't wanna have to visit it again next week, so I'm just gonna throw this in at the end.

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You may be wondering if you believe that you're over in this group over here, what do you do with the term Sabbath rest?

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What is the significance of the author using the term Sabbath rest? Why didn't he just say rest if he didn't intend for us to keep a

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Sabbath rest? Think that the author uses the term Sabbath rest for two reasons. In the context, he has described

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God when not working on the seventh day, finishing His work and then resting. He has already referred to the Sabbath.

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So in referring to it as the Sabbath rest, he is telling us what kind of rest he is talking about. Salvation rest that God had on the

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Sabbath day that he shares with us. He is intentionally telling us it's not promised land rest. And I think that by not using the normal term for Sabbath, he is telling us it's not

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Sabbath. That's not the type of rest that I'm talking about. I think that he is saying it's not the promised land rest and it's not a normal seventh day observance of a

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Sabbath rest that we are to enjoy. It is that Sabbath rest that God had when He completed

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His works of creation and then rested on the seventh day. Symbolism points back to verses three and four.