God’s Rest (Hebrews 4:1)

Kootenai Church

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Turn now to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 4. When you've found your place, let's bow before the

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Lord and ask His blessing upon our time of study. Father, it is our heart's desire to understand Your Word, and as we discuss some very challenging and difficult and really infinite concepts today, we pray that our hearts and minds would be attuned to Your Word and that You would send

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Your Spirit to be our teacher and our guide, and pray that You would grant us clarity not only in what is said and how it is said, but also in the hearing that we may be clear as to what these things are teaching in Scripture and that our hearts and minds may be obedient to Your truth.

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We thank You for Your love for us, and we know that You are intent upon our understanding of Your Word so that we could honor

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You and love You and worship You aright, and we pray that You would grant that today in the name of Christ and for His sake.

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Amen. We're starting into Hebrews chapter 4 today, and this is a bit of a challenging or difficult passage and subject.

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There are some subjects in Scripture and some passages in Hebrews which are more challenging than others, and this is one of the more challenging ones,

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Hebrews chapter 4. We're tackling today the subject of God's rest or the rest of God.

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By the rest of God, if I mentioned that, I'm not talking about having part of Him and then having the rest of Him, just so we're clear. We're talking about a rest.

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Don't you wish the English language was a bit more precise sometimes? We're talking about a rest that belongs to God, God's rest, and what is that here in Hebrews chapter 4.

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And I want to read together verses 1 through verse 13. Before we do,

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I want to remind you that the subject of the rest of God is something that was mentioned two times in chapter 3, and I'm pointing this out so that we don't think that we've come to a chapter division and therefore we're changing subjects or changing topics.

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Look at chapter 3 verse 11, as I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest.

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And then look down at chapter 3 verse 18, and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest but to those who were disobedient?

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So twice already the author has mentioned this rest and that it belongs to God, it's God's rest, and he hasn't explained it as of yet, but he is going to here in chapter 4.

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So, let's read together verses 1 through verse 13 of chapter 4. 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, 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, 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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Now in reading that and all that discussion about rest, you're kind of wondering to yourself, what is that?

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This rest, what is that? This is kind of a confusing subject, and I'll give you a number of reasons why it can be a bit confusing.

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First, there are some perplexing elements in this passage, and not just what I just read, but also the passage prior to it at the end of chapter 3.

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For instance, in chapter 3, we see that God's rest is equated with the promised land. They didn't enter into the promised land because of unbelief.

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Therefore, God swore, they shall not enter into my rest. And the promised land is in the book of Joshua, and when the next generation comes in and takes possession of it, the promised land is called the land of rest.

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It is called God's rest, where they enter into the rest when they enter into the land. So if the promised land is

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God's rest, and yet we are to enter into it today, how do we do that? Are you confused yet?

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Do I stand on the border of the land of Israel? When I went to Israel a little more than a year ago, did I enter into God's rest when

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I went to the land of Israel and then exit his rest when I left the land of Israel? If it's the promised land, how are we then implored to seek to enter it, be diligent to enter it?

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And if that's not confusing enough, then there is this reference to the Sabbath when God rested on the seventh day in verse four.

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And again, in this passage, they shall not enter my rest, which refers to verse 95, and seems to suggest the promised land.

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So is the rest then the Sabbath, the seventh day of creation? Is that the rest? And he says in verse nine, there remains a rest, a

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Sabbath rest for the people of God. And yet we are to enter into this rest, and it seems as if the rest that we enter into is in Jesus Christ.

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So is it the seventh day of creation? Is it a Sabbath that we are to keep? Is it the promised land?

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Is it God's rest of some other nature? Is it salvation? Is it heaven?

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What exactly is this rest? Because the rest is used of all of those different various things here in this passage.

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It's kind of confusing, isn't it? And is the rest something that we have entered into as believers?

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Or is it something that we are in the process of entering into as believers? Or is the rest something that we will yet enter into at a future time?

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And how do I know if I'm in this rest? Is there a feeling that comes over me? Is there a light on my forehead that goes off that tells me, bing, bing, bing, you're in the rest?

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Is it a certain thing that other people observe in me? How do I know if I'm in the rest or out of the rest?

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Is it possible for me to be in the rest one day and out of the rest the next day? Man, those are tough questions.

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They're all answered, I think, in this passage. But that's the first reason why this is difficult is because the language here is a little bit confusing, and there are some difficult concepts here.

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The second reason this is confusing is because I think of the chapter division there. We tend to get to the beginning of chapter 4, and I'm just reminding you that take that chapter division that is there between 3 and 4 and get rid of it in your mind because we are not changing to a different subject.

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You see in chapter 4 verse 1, therefore, this is a concluding statement. And he is concluding an argument here. He's working through an argument, and the chapter division is somewhat arbitrary at this point.

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It's not helpful at all because this warning passage goes from chapter 3 verse 7 through chapter 4 verse 13.

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And he's continuing this discussion of the rest that he mentions in verse 11 in chapter 3, and he mentions it in verse 18 of chapter 3.

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And that's one of the reasons why I reminded you of those two references to rest so that in your mind you can put all of this together.

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So if you're new here this morning, you are coming in, my heart goes out to you because you are coming into the middle of a detailed discussion on a very complicated passage of scripture, and now we reach the most difficult part of a very difficult passage of scripture.

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You've come at the worst possible Sunday, so if you want to take now to get up and walk out, this is your chance to do it.

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Thank you, Josh. Yeah. So the chapter division is there, but don't let that break up this subject in your mind because we are continuing what we've been working through all the way through chapter 3 and now into chapter 4.

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So third, a third reason this is difficult is because of the Old Testament language and themes that are here. Let's be honest, you and I in Western American Christian culture that we are in, part of our

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Christian subculture, we are not as familiar with the language and the ideas of God's rest and Sabbath and all that is attached to it as those first century

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Jews would have been. The whole concept of a Sabbath to us is foreign to us because we have a distance from the

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Old Covenant, and just because the concepts of a Sabbath and God's rest and the implications of that are part of the

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Old Covenant and it's distant from us, that's not a bad thing in and of itself. It can be a very good thing, but culturally speaking, we have to climb a little bit of a hill to get the view on this that the

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Jews would have had. It's going to take a little bit of work for us to get into that mindset of understanding what a Sabbath and what a rest was all about because that's all part of it tied in here, though it would have been something that all the

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Jews would have understood, him even using this language and describing these things, it's not something that we are as conversant with.

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Fourth, the reason that this is difficult is there is a very complex, and it is not easy, and by complex,

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I mean complex argument that the author is making beginning of chapter 4 verse 1 and going all the way through to the end of verse 13.

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It is a very difficult argument and it's difficult to follow. It is something where I think that the author assumed some understanding on behalf of his readers.

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It's an understanding that we don't have, and as you read through it, if in your mind you were scratching your head and saying,

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I'm not sure what all of that is about or what all the implications of that is about. Is it the promised land? Is it the

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Sabbath? Is it salvation? Is it heaven? What exactly is it? You're not the first, you won't be the last, and you're not alone.

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And I will tell you that I am not the Oracle of Delphi with some mystical ability to peer into deep and mysterious things and then make them clear.

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This takes a lot of work, I think, to try and do that. I'm not trying to make you feel sympathetic for me, I just want you to know it's this tough slugging for all of us, and whether I am able to take what

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I'm grappling with myself to make myself understand and present it clearly remains to be seen.

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But if you're going to pass judgment on the clarity of it, please wait until the very end. By end, I mean end of the book of Hebrews when we've all forgotten about it.

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So now that I have laid out the challenges and kind of walked through what some of the difficulties are and sort of plotted the course ahead,

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I want you to notice the argument that the author is making in chapter 4. He says, therefore, chapter 4 verse 1, therefore, oh,

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I need to flip back. 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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So he's drawing a conclusion with what we've covered so far in chapter 3, and he is at the same time aiming this argument in a certain direction because he wants to take us to a conclusion.

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The conclusion is stated in verse 9. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

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Now that's what he's trying to prove at the end. That's where we're going. Having some idea of where we're heading in this discussion will help us sort of at least see the road ahead.

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He wants to show to us that there remains for the people of God a Sabbath rest today. So then there's their exhortation in verse 11, therefore, be diligent to enter into it.

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So he wants to prove to us two things, that there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God today, and that we should be diligent to enter into that Sabbath rest.

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That's where we're going with it. Now, how do we get from not understanding any of this to at least grasping at least where we're going in this whole discussion?

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When I'm confronted with a very difficult passage of Scripture or a difficult subject in Scripture, here's how I tackle it.

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And so the only thing I can do is work you through how I work through this stuff in my mind, and here it is. I like to take the passage or the concept, the topic, and I want to look at it from a bunch of different angles.

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And for me, if I can create a list of statements or propositions or observations about that thing in Scripture, and then put it in some sort of a logical or chronological or rational order, where one thing builds upon another so that I can sort of look at this thing from a bunch of different angles, then it helps me kind of get my mind around it.

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And that's what I'm going to do for you today. We're going to be introducing the subject of rest. And I'm not going to be preaching next week, as I mentioned, but two weeks from now, when we go back into Hebrews chapter 4,

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I'll review these statements for you. These are like building blocks, if you were, kind of put these all together like Lego bricks, and there are seven of them.

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And if you're worried, seven points, Jim usually does three, and it takes him forever, even as fast as he talks to get through those.

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What are we going to do with seven? We will get through all seven of these, but these seven statements all build one upon another.

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I'm going to give you all seven of them here at the beginning, and then we'll take them down and kind of expand upon each one of them as we work our way through it.

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So here's the list of seven statements about the rest of God that I think, God's rest, that will help us kind of get our minds around what this is discussing here in Hebrews chapter 4.

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Here's the first one. Number one, the rest is God's rest. Number two, the rest was available in the creation week.

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Number three, the rest is described various ways. And if you're panicking right now, because you're trying to write these down, just calm down, so we can go back through all seven of them, and you'll have a chance to write them all down then.

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Number four, the rest is experienced in different ways at different times. Number five, the rest has not been fully realized or fulfilled.

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Number six, the rest is available today. And number seven, we should be diligent to enter by belief. And those are our seven statements.

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I'll just work through each one of these. First, the rest is God's rest. This rest is God's rest, meaning that whether it is something that God created,

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I'm just throwing this out as a possibility, or it is something that is part of God, it belongs to him. All the way through this passage, the author continually refers to it as God's rest.

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He doesn't say, let us enter into our rest. He says, let us enter into his rest, or let us enter into God's rest.

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And continually, this is how he describes it. Up in chapter 3, verse 11, he quotes God in Psalm 95, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

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God himself calls this his rest. In chapter 3, verse 18, the author says, and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest?

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Chapter 4, verse 1, let us fear if while a promise remains of entering his rest. And so it is in verse 3, and verse 5, and verse 10 of chapter 4, it is continually referred to as God's rest or his rest.

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It's not referred to as our rest, but God's rest. So this is something that God possesses. Now, God possesses this in one of two ways.

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Either he possesses it because he has created it, he has created something that he then enjoys and enters into, and he entered into it on the seventh day, and he invites us to enter into it.

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A good word picture would be if God would create a swimming pool, jump in the swimming pool, and invite us to enjoy the swimming pool with him, right?

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Something that God creates, and then we share it together. It's either something he created, or it is something that God is and has by virtue of the fact that he is the uncreated

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God. In other words, it's not something created, it's something uncreated. It is something outside of God, or it is something that is

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God. It's part of his nature or part of his essence. Whether it is created or uncreated, whether it's outside of him or part of him, it belongs to him.

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Now, I would postulate to you that this is something not that God has created and then entered into. It's not something that is independent of God in the sense that our creation is independent of him.

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It is something that is in God's nature and in God's character, something about his essence that he possesses.

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And this is the second important point under this first one. Not only is it something that he has, he possesses, but this rest is something that he offers to share with us.

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Okay, so it's not like a swimming pool that he jumps into and wants to share the pool with us. He's enjoying rest, and he wants us to enjoy the same thing that he has created.

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I don't think the rest is anything that God has created. I think the rest is something that God is. It's an aspect of his essence.

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It's an aspect of his nature. It's an uncreated thing that is because God is. And so then he invites us to share it with him and to join him in it.

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And not only does he invite us to do that, he commands us to do it, and he tells us to be diligent to enter into it, whatever this rest is.

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So this rest is God's rest, and it is something that we share with him. Are there other passages of Scripture that describe us sharing something with God?

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Yes, Peter talks about us being partakers of the divine nature. Jesus described a union and a unity that exists between himself and the

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Father and the Holy Spirit and his people. Jesus said that his goal, the goal of salvation was that we would be in him and he in us, and he is in the

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Father and the Father is in him. There is this inseparable dynamic living unity that exists between the people who belong to Christ, for whom he has died and whom he brings to salvation.

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There is an inseparable unity between them and the triune God, where it is joined together so we are one because we enjoy what?

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We enjoy his life. And that's what eternal life is. Eternal life is not something that God creates and then gives to certain people who exercise faith.

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Eternal life is the very life of God. That's why it is eternal and can never be lost. It is the very life of God that he imparts to those who believe when he regenerates them.

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So eternal life is ours because we share the life of God. We enjoy communion with him and the Spirit dwells within us and he empowers us and he strengthens us and he has regenerated us and we are united with him like a husband is with his bride.

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So is Christ with his church. We share this mystical union between the triune God and his people and we partake of the divine nature.

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So in salvation, what has God given to us? He's given to us himself. It's his life.

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I am spiritually alive today, not because God created eternal life and then gave me a part of it. I am spiritually alive today because God gave me his very life, which enlivens me and regenerates me and has saved me.

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So the rest that we enter into, even in salvation, it is God's rest and he invites us to partake of it with him.

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Now, second, here's the second statement. This rest was available in the creation week. This rest was available in the creation week, which is why the author of Hebrews says in verse 4, actually the end of verse 3, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, and he's referring there to the seventh day, verse 4, for he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.

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There's a reference here to the seventh day of the creation week in Genesis chapter 2 verse 2.

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Now what's interesting about the seventh day of Genesis chapter 2 verse 2, and this has been observed by a number of people, and I think it is an important observation and a valid one, that in all of the other days of creation, days 1 through 6, it says there was a morning and there was an evening the first day.

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There was a morning, there was an evening the second day. Morning and evening the third day. When you get to the seventh day, there's no reference to a morning and an evening.

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Why is that? Why does the author break the pattern? Because on the seventh day, God rested. He didn't create anything that is confined with a morning and an evening.

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And I think that the significance of that has been suggested by others, this is not an invention of my own adult brain, it's been suggested by others that the purpose of that was to show that the rest that God enjoyed on the seventh day was not part of creation and neither is it confined to the parameters of a day, the morning and an evening.

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It is something that existed prior to that, that God enjoyed on the seventh day, and it is something that has existed since that time.

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Now remember the author in chapter 3 was trying to show us that there was a rest that the children of Israel in Moses' day were invited to enter into, that is the promised land, but they failed to enter it because of unbelief.

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So now the logical question in the minds of the hearers would be this, is that rest then still available for us today?

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Now remember the author wants to show us in chapter 4 verse 9 that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God today, that that still exists.

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So before he tells us that it still exists today, he's going to take us all the way back to the week of creation and show us that on the seventh day, that Sabbath rest was available.

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It was available in the garden because God was God, and what he offered to share with Adam, or what he offered to humanity, and what he shared with Adam was his very life.

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Adam enjoyed face -to -face fellowship with God. He communed with God on a spiritual level. He had that rest in the garden because that rest was there in the garden.

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So God rested on the seventh day, and the author wants to show us it was there in creation week. The children of Israel did not have a one -time offer to enter into rest, and then they failed, and so there is no more rest.

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No, this rest has existed as long as God is God. It existed before creation. It was there on the seventh day of creation.

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That is why he quotes from Genesis chapter 2 verse 2 to show that this rest predated the children of Israel stepping into the promised land.

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Okay, number three, the rest is described in Scripture in various ways. The term rest that is used here in this passage is a

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Greek word that means to cease from work or activity and action of any kind. It refers to ceasing to work or to labor for your salvation.

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We can use it in a salvific sense and say that when I rest in terms of my salvation, I'm resting in something that is done by somebody else.

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I stop my striving. I stop my working. I stop my treadmill of human achievement and righteousness and merit so that I can trust in the righteousness and merits of another in Christ doing and dying on my behalf.

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So I rest from that. Having peace with God is being at rest from fear and uncertainty of eternal damnation and judgment.

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Being content with what God has provided for me in my day -to -day living is a form of resting in his provision and resting in his sustenance and his abundance and even being content with the content of my days, whether it is living or dying, content with the provision for my days, whether it is in want or in plenty.

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Being content in God, I am contenting myself in something that he has provided for me.

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I've entered into it and enjoy this rest so that I'm not striving. I'm not working. I'm not anxious over it.

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Settled with whatever it is. I live or die today. I'm settled with that.

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Whether God provides me a lots or little, I can be settled with that. Whatever God has appointed for my days, I can be at rest in that.

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And I can rest in his righteousness and I can rest in his goodness. And this is enjoyed in a number of ways.

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A lot of what I've just described to you, the fruits of salvation, aren't they? And when I rest in God's righteousness, what am

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I resting in? Something done by somebody else. Christ's righteousness, which is provided to me and imputed to me on the basis of faith.

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So I'm settling myself and resting myself in him. I have entered into that by virtue of my faith, by virtue of what

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Christ has done. And so I rest in that. My rest in the peace of God and no longer fearing condemnation, salvation.

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The believer is called to enter into a communion with a part of God that has always existed because God has always been.

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It was there at creation week. It was enjoyed by Adam. It is available to mankind.

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It was in Moses' day. It was in Joshua's day. It was in David's day. It was in the Hebrew's day and it is in our day.

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It's the rest of God. It is communion with him that is available. It was back then and it still is today.

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It has gone through all of that because it is the nature of God himself. And so when we enter into salvation, we enter into that peace of God, that righteousness of God, and that daily provision, and we rest in it.

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And we stop our striving and our laboring. Number four, that's the first three, number four, the rest is experienced in different ways and at different times.

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There are different expressions of this. Now, this is where we get into, is it the land of Canaan or the promised land? Or is it the

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Sabbath and the seventh day? Or is it salvation or is it heaven? What exactly is this rest? There are different ways that this rest is expressed and different ways that this rest is enjoyed at different times in human history.

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There was a rest in the garden. I mean, he quotes Genesis 2 verse 2 in verse 4 of chapter 4,

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God rested on the seventh day from all his works. There was a rest there that God enjoyed and that Adam enjoyed.

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On the seventh day, God stopped his creative activity and his rest, that part of him that he shared with Adam in the garden in Adam's innocence before the fall was not an aspect of God's rest that he created.

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It was a communion that God enjoyed with Adam in the garden. And so that rest was there.

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And then you have the rest of God that is pictured in the Sabbath. That is why he refers in verse 4 and 5 to the

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Sabbath day rest and verse 9, the remains of Sabbath rest for the people of God. It was there in creation and it was pictured in the

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Sabbath. Now, in the Sabbath, the Sabbath was based upon the pattern of God in creation, creating for six days, resting on the seventh.

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And then this was, I think, enjoyed before the Mosaic law or at least recognized that seven -day work week before the

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Mosaic law. Then it was instituted into the national religious and civil life of the nation of Israel and acknowledged in all of their festivals and their feasts and their sacrifices.

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And their work week was patterned on that, six days of work and one day you rest.

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But that Sabbath day rest always came to an end. But that Sabbath day's rest was intended for the

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Jews to stop their working, stop their striving, stop their laboring and just rest and enjoy what

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God had provided and what God had given and the abundance of that and the fellowship with God that that day was to provide.

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It was a picture of a greater reality. And even in the acknowledgement of that six days and that one day, the

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Jews were acknowledging there's a picture being lived out here of something that is greater, a reality greater than this.

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So the rest is not just about one day a week. And we do injustice to it if we say, well, the rest that's spoken of here is just that one day

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Sabbath rest. It's not it. The one day Sabbath rest was a picture of something greater. And in living out that Sabbath pattern, the

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Jews were picturing a greater reality. What is it? A communion and a fellowship with God, entering into something by faith and enjoying the provisions of what

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God has done. It's also pictured in the promised land, which is why earlier in chapter three, it is the land of promise, which is referred to as God's rest.

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The land of promise was not all of God's rest, but it was an aspect of it. It was a picture of it. So the

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Jews were invited to come in and to take possession of a land that they had not cultivated, of vineyards they had not planted, of cities they had not built.

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In other words, all of this is given to you. Just enter into it, walk into it by faith, enter into this. And the land was in the old

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Testament, in the old covenant, the land was intended to be a place where God would protect his people from their enemies from without and provide prosperity and peace and abundance from within.

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And they were to enjoy all of those blessings. They could literally step into something that somebody else had provided for them, just by faith, just walk in and take it.

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And that in itself is a picture of a greater reality. What is salvation? Salvation is you and I stepping into what somebody else has done and provided for us.

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Do we provide our merits, our righteousness, our good deeds, or anything for our salvation? We don't. We step into, by faith, what

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Christ has done on our behalf. So the righteousness we have is his righteousness. We have a righteousness that we have not built.

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We have a peace that we have not planted. All of this is given to us, and it is provided for us in Christ.

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And the promised land was God's rest in the sense that it was a picture of, again, a greater reality.

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What is that greater reality? It is the reality of that communion with God, where we step into and enjoy something that we do not work for, we have not earned, it is provided for us.

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We have communion and fellowship with that aspect of God, his essence and his nature, which is uncreated and he shares with us who believe.

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That's the rest. So that was number four. Oh, there are two future aspects of this before I move on.

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There are two future aspects of this. To a Jew, you know what the ultimate expression and understanding of rest would be?

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To an Old Testament Jew, and I would say even to a New Testament Jew, the ultimate expression and experience of that would be the kingdom that God had promised for his people in the

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Old Testament. They looked for that city whose builder and maker was God, whose foundations could not be shaken.

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They were anticipating that time when God would fulfill all of his covenants, when God would fulfill his promises to the nation, and he would give them security from their enemies without, and peace and prosperity and abundant provision within that kingdom.

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That's what the Jews anticipated. They knew that they were going to enter into a which would be their rest, their peace in every way, provided for them by the

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Messiah. So that future millennial, thousand -year reign of Christ is an expression of this rest.

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It is an experience of this rest, and it is a certain reality. And the ultimate experience of this rest is heaven itself.

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When, because of salvation, we step into what has been provided for us, we enter into the kingdom prepared for us by our

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King from the foundation of the world, and he gives it to us and he grants it to us, and we enter into that and we enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth, in that recreated creation, all of the blessings that have been given to us.

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So is this peace, is this rest something that we enjoy now? It is, but do we enjoy it fully now?

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No, we don't. It is something that we partake of now. In positionally, we enjoy it fully, but practically in our experience today, we don't enjoy all of it fully, not all of the aspects of it.

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We have entered into this rest. We are looking forward and continuing to enter into this rest, and someday we will enter fully into this rest, because it is an aspect of God's nature and his person that we communion with and that we fellowship with.

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And so we have, we do enjoy it now, in part, and we will enjoy it in the future, most certainly.

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And that leads us to number five. The rest has not been fully realized or fulfilled, even up till now.

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This rest has not been fully realized or fulfilled. Did Adam fulfill, did

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Adam in the garden fulfill the opportunity to enjoy fellowship with God forever?

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He lost it in the fall. That rest that was there, offered to man, available to man, where man communed with God face to face, in an unhindered and uninterrupted fashion, that ceased the moment that Adam fell.

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And in falling, he lost that. Doesn't mean that it was not available. Doesn't mean that it's not there. He didn't change the nature or the character of God at all.

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But even in entering into the promised land and in the Sabbath, did they experience all the fullness of this rest in the

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Sabbath? No, because they would work six days and rest the Sabbath. And then when Monday comes, what do you have to do?

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Or in a Jewish calendar, when Sunday comes, what do you have to do? You got to go back to work. And so, so it was six days on, one day off, and they would do this work and then rest and work and then rest.

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And it was a constant reminder that there is a plan and a purpose of God, a greater reality that we can have fellowship with.

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But the Sabbath was not the full experience of that. Just one day out of the week. And what about the promised land?

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Was that fully the experience of God's rest? No, because they entered in. And even when Joshua brought them into the land, and it says that they entered into that rest, did they experience peace from without and provision from within?

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Not through their unfaithfulness and their disobedience. They were punished and they were invaded by their neighbors.

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And they had to deal with droughts and pestilence and locusts and all of the things that God brought as a judgment upon them for their unfaithfulness and their unbelief.

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So did they, even in entering into the land, did they experience all of God's rest? No. Do we experience all of it today?

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No, but we will. That we most certainly will. We will experience all of his rest.

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You and I, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you will stand face -to -face before God and enjoy uninterrupted and unhindered communion with him and share in that nature and enjoy that life face -to -face.

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What Adam lost has been regained for us in Christ, and we will enjoy it fully.

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So we have entered into this by faith. We are entering into it as we are sanctified day by day and commune with God.

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And we will fully enter into that when we see him face -to -face and we are made just like him. So the rest, even today, has not been fully realized or fulfilled.

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Here's the sixth statement. The rest is available today. It's available today. It's available today to those who will believe.

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If you will not believe, then you will not have rest and you cannot have rest. What God demands is repentance and faith.

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And if you will not turn from your sin and believe upon the Savior, then you will not have this rest. He has sworn that you will not enter into it.

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In the future, you will not enter into it. You cannot enter into it if you will not believe. You will not have rest.

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If you will not believe and repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ, then

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God will most certainly cut you off from that rest, and you will have nothing but restlessness for all of eternity.

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The believer gets eternal rest. The unbeliever gets eternal restlessness. The believer gets a rest in God because the gospel gives us

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God himself. And so I enjoy that communion. We have fellowship with God. We enjoy that because that is part of our rest.

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That is our rest. We are resting in him. We are in that part of the essence and the nature of God where we are communing with God and we have the life of God himself within us.

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That's the rest. And if you will not believe, you will not enter into that. And you'll have nobody to blame but yourself.

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And if you will not enter into it, it will not be because provision has not been made. It will not be because the offer was not made available.

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It will not be because you didn't have opportunity or because you didn't know. It will be because you did not believe.

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You would not turn from your sin and repent and believe. That is what cuts you off from the rest of God.

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So are you tired of the treadmill of human achievement and human merit and human rights or human works of righteousness? You sick and tired of striving and trying to make up a guilty conscience and atone for your wrongdoings?

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If you are, then listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I'm humble and meek and gentle of spirit and you will find rest for your souls.

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That's the offer of the gospel. The gospel does not offer us something that God has created apart from himself that he then gives to us when we repent.

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God offers us himself in the gospel, the very life of God, the peace of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God, the justice of God, communion with who he is.

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That is what he offers us in the gospel. The gospel is the offer of God to sinners. Take me and you shall have rest.

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Why? Because we have God and God is our rest ultimately. There's a seventh statement.

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We should be diligent to enter it by belief. We should be diligent to enter it by belief. And this is what the author wants us to conclude with.

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He says in verse 11, he says in verse 9, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter it lest we miss it.

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And if you reject it, then you will miss it and you will have nothing but eternal restlessness, a godless restlessness because you cannot have rest apart from God.

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So give no rest to your eyes and give no rest to your souls and give no rest to your mind until they find the rest in Jesus Christ and in what

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God has provided. So those are our seven statements. I go through and work through them again and see what is this picture?

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What is the author painting here? Number one, this rest is God's rest. It's something that he possesses that he shares with us.

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Second, the rest is available in the creation week. Why? Because it's an aspect of God's nature and his essence that we get to enjoy.

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This rest is described in various ways as a Sabbath, as the promised land, as heaven, as a kingdom, as eternity, as salvation, as Jesus Christ.

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Why? Because all of them in some way picture or point to this greater reality, which is the communion of God with his people when they repent and believe.

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This rest is described in various ways. This rest is experienced in different ways in the kingdom, in the Sabbath, and in heaven.

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This rest has not been fully realized or fulfilled yet. Why? Because we live in a fallen creation and ultimately the kingdom is going to come and we're going to enjoy an aspect of that rest and then we will enjoy fully that rest in the eternal heavens and the new earth.

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Number six, the rest is available today. And number seven, we should be diligent to enter it by belief.

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So it would be an injustice to the whole concept of God's rest for us to think that it is one of these things and not all of these things.

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And typically this is how the rest of God, this is how God's rest is presented. That God's rest is presented while in the

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Old Testament, it was the promised land. And today God sort of erased that off of the whiteboard. And now it's something else.

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Now it's salvation in Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, it was the Sabbath day, but God realized how bad of an idea that was.

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So he wiped that off of the board. And now today it is heaven that he's offering to us as his rest. As if God just changes the idea of what rest is all the way through scripture, according to his fancy.

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That's not it at all. This rest has always been the same thing since creation. It has always been the same thing.

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It is God offering himself to humanity. Come unto me, come repent and believe you have life and you have all of it.

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Unhindered fellowship with me. You don't want that. You won't receive that. You will not enter into rest.

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But if you repent and believe and receive that, you can have rest. It's not just salvation.

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It's not just the Sabbath. It's not just the kingdom or just heaven or just the promised land or just the seventh day.

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It's not just any of those things. All of those things together describe this greater reality. This greater reality that God shares with his people.

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Life itself. Eternal life. Now that's what we've covered so far. What we have not covered is the argument that the author makes all the way through the passage.

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And so this was the easy part. The hard part is getting our minds around how it is that he unfolds all of this between verses 1 and verse 13.

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Because he is making an argument. He wants to show to them the children of Israel missed the promised land.

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They were not allowed to enter because of unbelief. But don't be deceived into thinking that that was the only opportunity for rest.

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There still remains to this day a rest for the people of God. So enter in. Now that's what he wants to show to us.

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But he makes a very complex argument from the Old Testament and we will look at that in the in the weeks ahead. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

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Our Father we are so thankful that your word has layers and depth of meaning beyond what we are able to grasp even in one sitting.

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And it is my desire that through all of this discussion about your rest and what you offer to a fallen humanity that our hearts and minds would be illumined and encouraged and enlightened together.

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That we may delight ourselves in you. That in all that you are and all that you have provided for us everything up to now has been pictures and types and shadows and illustrations of that greater reality.

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That we can have communion with you and fellowship with you through faith in Christ and look forward to an eternal communion and fellowship with you.

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And it is our desire that if there's anybody here who does not enjoy that fellowship with Jesus Christ that their hearts would be pricked.

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That their hearts would be convicted. And that you would do that work of drawing them to the Savior so that they may have that eternal life.

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As we examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith we pray that you would give us assurance where that is appropriate and give us cause for concern where that is appropriate.

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May you be honored and glorified amongst those who are yours who belong to Jesus Christ by faith as we enjoy that sweet fellowship with you.