Hebrews 4:1-11 — Don McClure

Entering God’s Rest Through Faith

Let us therefore fear, lest a promise be left to us of entering into his rest, any of you should come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

For we which have believed do enter into rest. As he said, I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in such a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

And in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seen therefore, it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. Again, he limited in a certain day, saying in David, today, after so long a time, as it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

And if Joshua, and it says Jesus in some of your translations, but it's actually Joshua, and if Joshua had given them rest, then he would have not have afterwards have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

For in that he entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Father, we thank you for your word this morning, and we thank you for the rest that you want to give to us.

We ask that as we look at it, we'd understand this rest. We'd understand what it is that you have for us, how wonderful it is, and how to enter in. That we, Lord, could cease from our own labors, these things that exhaust us, that tire us, that push us to the limits.

Lord, that we could learn to rest in you in a greater and greater way. Teach us, feed us, Lord, from your word. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Well, here we have this morning, as we've already, of course, just read.

The Repeated Promise of Spiritual Rest

And the wonderful thing is, is to realize here, as the Lord tells us over and over within this text, that the reality of the spiritual rest that God wants us to know, that he wants to see us to be able to enter into, to realize there honestly and truly is a rest.

Just to give some of those verses again, it says, let us therefore fear lest being, or a promise being left of us of entering into his rest, any of you should come short of it. Down into verse three, for we which have believed do enter into rest, as he has said.

Down in verse four, for he spake in a certain place on the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all of his works. Verse five, and in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest.

Verse six, seeing that it remaineth that some must enter therein. Down in verse eight, and if Joshua had given them rest, then he would have not have afterwards spoken of another day. There remaineth, verse nine, therefore a rest for the people of God, and he that has entered into this rest.

Over and over, verse after verse, the rest that God wants to give us, where we really, the Bible tells us, we cease from our own labors, we cease from our own efforts, our own energy, our own genius, our own responsibility, the burden of our own life upon ourself.

That is one of the greatest and most wonderful, thrilling aspects of the Christian life, that day by day, the issues, the responsibilities, the trials, the burdens, the struggles that come upon us within our homes, our families, our health, our finances, our careers, whatever it may be, the stresses of life, the burdens, the griefs, the sorrows, the struggles, the agonies, to realize that God wants us to discover in him all of those things.

He watches us, he sees us experiencing them, and yet he is with us all the time, wanting to give it to me, offer it to me, let me have it, cease from your own labors. And here, as he goes on now in the book of Hebrews, he wants to give us here another, one of these wonderful analogies, as we have been saying throughout the book of Hebrews, as we've been teaching it, is that all of these wonderful Old Testament pictures that we have been looking at, they're merely allegories or pictures of the finished work that Jesus Christ had.

None of them actually did the work, but they were an outward representation of what Jesus inwardly wants to do within our lives. So when Moses came along and he delivered the children of Israel out of bondage, and out of, you know, Egypt, out of slavery, and into freedom, this was something there that, you know, that that was a picture of what Christ would do.

Moses took them from one side of a river to another, took them from, you know, slavery to freedom, and yet at the same time, they still had, you know, a lot of issues and struggles obviously going on within their life, but it was a picture on how Jesus Christ comes, and he's our deliverer, not just from one side of a river to another, but of one end of eternity to another, from the pit of hell to the heights of heaven, there that he presents us now faultless before God.

We are his children, just as Aaron the high priest was a high priest who went in there into the holy of holies in this tabernacle just built by men to symbolize something, though it's something when we pick up the New Testament, we realize that is a physical visible picture of what Jesus Christ did in heaven, where there he goes into the holy of holies eternally by his own shed blood, offers himself for us to make atonement for us.

Joshua and the Promised Land of Rest

You know, Aaron the high priest symbolized something, all of which it happened here on earth, but it was a picture of what was actually going on in heaven. Well, here as we look at Joshua in chapter four, the one that was now to come along there to give them rest from their enemies.

Moses got them out of Egypt, but he didn't get them into the land of rest. He got, they were in the wilderness, you know, going around in circles for 38, 40 years, and as they found themselves just going around and around and around there, they still had all the same burdens and struggles and trials instead of the taskmaster being Egypt or Pharaoh.

Now they had one just as wicked. It was themself. You know, we're no better of a master of our own life than anybody else is, and somebody else tells us what to do, and we are so angry at them for forcing us.

So we go off into liberty and run our own life and don't do any better with it, and don't have any more answers than anybody else did. We're not in the land of victory yet, and here Joshua, he was now taking them not only, you know, through the Red Sea that Moses brought them through, but now through the Jordan River on into a land that was typified as a land of rest, that they were to bring them in a figurative picture where they now were to cease in a sense from their labors and know God's blessings.

It tells us in Joshua 13 .1 though, it says,. Now Joshua, he was old and stricken in years, and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

Here Joshua had gone along, and he'd fought hard and for a number of years, and they still didn't really fully enter into that rest. So they went back and had some more battles, and between Joshua 13 and Joshua 21, it tells the Lord speaks again, and he's in Joshua 21 .43, it says,.

And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it, and they dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about according to all that he swore unto their fathers, and there stood not a man of all of their enemies before them.

The Lord delivered all of their enemies under their hand, and there failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. All of it came to pass. And here through the years, they finally inherited, they finally entered into all of these things that God had promised them.

They had them. And then at the end of Joshua's life, a few chapters later in Joshua 24 .13, it tells us,. And I have given unto you, the Lord speaks unto him, the land which you did not labor, cities which he built not, and he dwelt in them, and vineyards and olive years which you planted not, do you eat.

Now therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and of Egypt, and you serve the Lord your God. Here is Joshua now as he's, they're looking back now through it, they finally entered into this rest.

They have these cities they didn't build, olive years and vineyards they didn't plant, wells they didn't dig, and all these blessings they had. And so they found in a sense rest and in a peace. But yet here is the writer of Hebrews tells us though, and kind of his basic argument here in this particular section is, is that God had promised again the children of Israel a rest.

We're told there, of course, in verse one, as we all, you know, read it. But they truly, you know, they failed to truly enter into it. They figuratively sort of entered into that rest, but not truly. And, but his promise still stands.

He still looks at us, he says there still remains a rest for the people of God. It is still there. The promise of God hasn't ended. He tells, says of Joshua there in verse eight, had given them rest. And he did give them a rest, but he didn't give them a spiritual rest.

He gave them a national rest. He gave them a political rest sort of a thing, but not a spiritual rest that, that the national rest, that, that physical rest though, was just a type. It was a symbol of where God now looks and he says that rest that they had nationally, that rest that they had politically is to be a picture of the rest I want to give you spiritually.

Where you know what it is to cease from your own labors. And he says had, and he goes on here in text that we read, if Joshua had given them rest, then he wouldn't speak of later of when David spoke there in verse I think seven again.

It says there he limited a certain day saying in David, and this is out of Psalm 95, today after so long time, he says today if you'll hear his voice. In other words, many, many years after Joshua, they still had not entered into this rest.

They hadn't discovered it. And God still says, well, they maybe didn't enter into it. It's still there. There still remains a rest for the people of God. And he's looking there and says, I want you to have it.

God’s Sabbath Rest and Christ’s Invitation

And so essentially here, the thing is, is that the whole aspect of this section of scripture is there is still a rest. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God as he says in verse nine. And he relates this rest in this text as well in verses four and in ten to God's rest.

For it says in verse four, for he spake in a certain day of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from his works. In verse ten, it says, for he that has entered into his rest, he has also ceased from his works as God did his.

Here the writer says God, you know, worked for six days, created, created, created. Seventh day, God rested. And now some may think that there God rested because he was just so tired as if, boy, that exhausted me.

Those were a tough six days. I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to make creation, you know, and to do all of this. No, what it means there to rest isn't, it's not a rest because of exhaustion.

It's a rest in the sense that he is merely, he's never, he wasn't as if he was tired at all of creating the worlds. The rest there, it merely speaks of a completion, of a peace, of a satisfaction, essentially the Sabbath rest of the soul where you just look and you look at all of this and say, oh, isn't this wonderful?

Not exhausted, not tired. But here, this is what God wants for us. He wants to give us this sense of a rest where we can look at life and we just cease in a sense from our own labor. This is what Jesus talked about when he says, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden.

And he says, I, you know, will give you rest. This wonderful thing, he says, are you doing your own work? Are you burying your own burdens? Are you struggling through all of the issues of life all by yourself?

What are you doing that for, Jesus said. Come to me if you're laboring. I will give you this rest, this rest of God that just as God rests, God, you know, and his work is ceased. You too can know this rest within your life.

He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. He says, I am meek and lowly of heart. And he says, you shall find rest. If you do this, you will find rest for your soul. He says, for my yoke is easy.

My burden is light. And so here he tells us that I think that one of the most important things, first of all, for every one of us is to stop and realize, do we know God has such a realm for us that there is such a place that spiritually God wants us to have this rest?

How many of us, you know, through you are already thinking maybe about the week ahead of you and the struggles and the burdens and the tasks and the responsibilities. Sometimes maybe some people come in here and sit down in church and it's maybe one of the quietest times you really have all week long and therefore it's almost okay.

You get a little space here. The guy's probably going to go for 30, 40 minutes. So I can now just space off and think about all the burdens I've got, all the struggles I've got and plan out my week. And I know what some of you do, you sinners, but the timing, Jack, we got to work on timing.

But so often at the same time, we still get out of here and the weight of the world is upon us. And even though we're Christians, we're praying during the week and we're asking for this and thanking God for this.

And yet still the weight of the world is on us for our homes or our marriages or our families or our careers and the burdens and the mental strife and grief and struggles of life. And we're carrying them day in and day out, driving down the road and the weight of the world is on us.

You're sitting there in the office and somebody can just come by in a moment and say, hello. And say, what are you scaring me like that for? What are you bothering me for? But we're on edge and so often because of the weight of it all.

And here the Bible, God wants us to know I have a rest for you. I have a place where you can actually cease from your own labor, where you can lay all of your cares upon him, knowing that he cares for you and cast your cares.

I'll bear every burden, every sorrow, every grief. And if we don't know that, you can't go there. You can't go where you don't know. You can't experience a life you don't know exists. If you just think the Christian life is you just trying to mimic what you think God would do if he was trying to do what you're trying to do.

If you merely just look at the Christian life as something that you're there to sweat it out, struggle it through, and just ask God for a little, you know, help here and there, rather than realizing there's a place where you can say, Lord, this is your job to live the Christian life.

Live it in me. I've got the body. That's about all I got. But you've got the love. You've got the power. You've got the wisdom. You've got the genius. You've got the plan. You've got the ability to do absolutely anything and everything.

And so why don't we take what you got and I got? You don't happen to have a body right now. I do. I got what you want. And you've got what I want. Rest. How do we get the two together? And then after he tells us over and over and over about this rest that he has, that he wants to give us, he kind of throws us you know, something out of left field in verse 11.

The Labor of Entering Into Rest

And he says, let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest. Now he turns around. He says, rest, rest, rest, rest. Verse after verse, that remains a rest. And they say, oh, yes, I want it. And now he turns.

He says, let us therefore labor to enter in. So wait a minute. I thought you just said we're going to cease from our labors. I just thought you just said we're going to cast all of our cares upon you for you care for us.

I thought that this was what the whole subject is. And now you turn around and you say, let us therefore labor. But here's where the catch is, and it's a very simple one. And if you don't hear anything else I've got to say today, I suppose this is the only way I know how to say it.

But essentially, I believe God wants to take all of our cares, all of our burdens, all of our trials, all of our labors, all of the things that weigh us down, all of the things that are heavy upon us.

And God wants to leave us with one simple labor. I'll take all the other burdens. The only burden I want to lay upon you is the burden of entering into my presence, is the burden of entering into my rest, that the great burden, the great longing, the great desire, the great labor of your life is not the external labors out here.

It's the internal labor of personally knowing me, of entering into my rest and into my presence. Simply there, God wants to lift every single burden upon himself. He wants us to cast every care upon him, and he wants only to put one upon us, and that is the burden of knowing him.

The burden of our heart there, of looking to him, the burden essentially of himself. It's interesting back, and that's the same thing God wanted to teach the children of Israel through Joshua. And it's several occasions there, it tells us there about Joshua, and when they're coming into the land, they're coming into this land of rest.

They're coming into this land of victory. They're coming into this land of overflowing blessing into their life. And as all of this is to happen, as they're coming into Canaan, it says in Joshua 3, 2, it came to pass after three days that the officers went through the host, and they commanded the people saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests and the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove it from your place, and you will go after it.

And there shall be a space between you and it of 2 ,000 cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore. And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant. There you put it upon your shoulders. They were to carry it. They were to bear it upon their shoulders. And he says, And pass over before the people.

And they took up the ark of the covenant, and they went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day I will begin to magnify thee in the sight of all of Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.

And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When you come unto the brink of the water of Jordan, you shall stand in Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God.

And Joshua said, Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without cease or without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hippitites, Hittites, Jebusites, Perizzites, Gergashites, Amorites, Jebusites, and the Termites.

And behold, just wanted to know if you're listening. And he says, Verse 11, he says, The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all of the earth passes over before you unto Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every man a tribe.

And it shall come to pass that as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord your God of all of the earth, they shall rest in the waters of Jordan, and the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come above and below, and they shall stand upon a heap.

Here the Lord told the children of Israel. He said, You want to go into this land of rest. He says, I want you for one thing. I want you with every one of your tribe, twelve tribes. I want you'll all select one representative of the twelve tribes, a man for every tribe.

And he says, And then they're going to go out here with the priests, and there will be the priests that will take the ark of the covenant. There that which was symbolized the presence of the Lord. The Lord in back in Exodus 20, he spoke about the ark of the covenant.

He said, There will I commune with thee and thee with me. The ark of the covenant to the children of Israel was the symbol of God's abiding presence with them. And he told the priests, he says, You will carry the ark upon your shoulders.

There was the ark of the covenant was to have rings on it and stabs or poles that went through. And then they, the priests bore the ark upon their shoulders. Now the Lord, the day they're going into the land, he says, I want them, the priests to pass through the people with the ark of the covenant.

And as they see it pass, I want them all to stand back. Ultimately, two thousand cubits. In other words, he says, I want it to be in such a way as they're going down there to the river bank that the people all stand far enough back that every single one at a distance is able to see it, that you don't have something or what's going on with the middle of all these people.

No, you all stand back. Two thousand cubits, well over a mile. And he says, And as the people there, they were now to watch these representatives of theirs and the priests that bore the ark. He said, I want you to see the key to this.

They will bear the ark, the presence of God upon their shoulders. They're going to walk down to Jordan. And when they walk down to Jordan, they're going to step out into the water and they're going to put their feet in the water.

And as they walk out into the water, he says, I will stand the water up in a heap on one side, and then they will all walk through and then you will all follow on dry land, which is precisely what it was that happened.

The Lord told the children of Israel essentially, don't worry how things are going to do. The miracle of the whole power of living is to where I'll take all the burdens, I'll take all the trials. But the one thing that you will bear upon your shoulders, upon your heart, the one weight you will carry is the burden or the weight or the longing or the deep desire for that abiding presence of God within your heart.

That's what you will bear upon your heart. That is what you will bear in the amazing way and simply that God has created life as if I bear him. If he is the one that I long to my heart and my life to be caught up in, then in that all the other things that just amazingly and wonderfully disappear.

Jericho and Trusting God for Victory

You don't have to be a Christian too long to where you realize these times in your life, you cried out, God, you're it, you're everything. And at those times, everything fails, doesn't it? Well, that isn't just to be an occasion here and there.

That's to be every day of life. Every day he is to be again the burden. A few chapters later when Joshua, now they're going into the first battle, he's looking at Jericho. And as there is, he's even thinking and looking at Jericho and wondering about it.

How is he going to take it? What's going to go on, you know, with this thing? And as he's looking and thinking about Jericho, the next thing you know, all of a sudden there, you know, maybe he's trying to figure out how many battering rams are going to need to get in.

How are we going to strategize? Where are we put all the forces to try to go through this wall, you know, or over that wall or through this gate? Or where are we break in to try to win this battle? As you can almost just sense there is Joshua looking at this city, strategizing the battle ahead of him, the week ahead of him, the burdens ahead of him.

And as he's doing that, all of a sudden, a man appears before him with a sword in his hand. He's startled. He jumps back. He says, aren't there four of us for adversary? He says, neither. But as captain of the host of the Lord, do I stand before thee?

Here, all of a sudden there, as he's kind of looking at life, he's looking at his week, he's looking at the battles, he's trying to work it out. The next thing you know, somebody there, he's got a sword in his hand.

Oh, no. Whose side are you on? Their side or ours? You're obviously a warrior. He says, I'm not on either side. However, I do happen to be commander in chief of all of the armed forces of heaven and earth.

Joshua, it isn't. Am I on your side or their side? The issue is whose side are you on? Who are you resting in? And then he says, take off your shoe to the place where I now stand. This is holy ground.

And there is Joshua knew what it was just to bow before the Lord himself and realize you're the battle, aren't you? It isn't. It isn't Jericho. The Lord, then he stretches out and he points to Jericho and he says, that have I given unto thee this day.

Don't worry about how you're going to take it. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to take the ark. The same way you got into the land in the first place is the way you're going to fight the battle.

I want the priest now day by day to walk around the outside and all the people can watch the priest bear the ark as they just go around, as they surround Jericho, as they look at Jericho, as you meditate on Jericho, I want you to see me.

Don't worry about Jericho. Day by day, as you do this and you just learn to rest, your focal point is not the battle. It isn't Jericho. It isn't the struggles. It's the fact, Lord, you are powerful enough to handle every Jericho in the world.

You created it. What is too hard for you? And then as I'm going to drill it in and drill it in day after day, as it is, the ark goes around day after day and they meditate on it. You'll come to the realization battles of life have nothing to do with the cities or the people.

It has to do with keeping your eyes upon me, resting in me. And the last day when we get around, you just shout, just cry out to me. And then you watch and you see the walls as they come tumbling down.

And, you know, the amazing thing is when I look there at life, God has this way of where he gives us this amazing thing in life, all of these relationships, all of these struggles, none of which we were ever even designed or created to handle.

He did not create you to handle a marriage or to raise children. Those are your Jericho's. Those you actually you were so excited. I want to get married. Remember that? Then you got married. Whoa, is this a city or what?

You know, or something there to try to the walls that get built up in a marriage or in a family, the tensions. And yet, and all of the things that humanly just to your undoing that can happen until something happens, you realize, Lord, this is you, isn't it?

This is your way of wanting to teach me to fully depend upon you. And so often we're there, we're trying to figure out how many battering rams am I going to need to get through to this woman, you know, or this man or this child?

How am I going to strategize? Where am I going to get through the walls? How am I going to climb over? How are we going to take this and win something? In the meantime, the Lord looks there and he says, when are you going to learn that you're not going to break that down?

You're not going to win it. It's not until you just let me go around. And the real burden isn't the people. It isn't the struggles. It isn't the relationships. It's me teaching you to trust me in everything.

It's me bringing you to the place where you just say, Lord, this is really yours, isn't it? You really have an answer for this, don't you? You really can handle all of this. Something we're so thrilled about.

The Labor of Faith in Daily Life

Yesterday, I married my niece while I did the ceremony. I'm not going to start anything. But it's funny. I've probably done well over 500 or 600 weddings, and they're all the same. They're all, I can't believe this.

You know, you look at them at each other. He's literally at the ceremony. When do I get to kiss her? When do I get to kiss? You want to say, don't ever forget that. Remember that a year from now, two, 10, 20 years.

Always be, when do I get to kiss her? You know, when do I? You know, she's there. I'm looking at my niece, you know, and she's looking there and she says, and I'll submit to you, promising. I mean, isn't this a riot?

You look at this sort of a thing. I mean, we do this thing we call the marriage ceremony. Where we get, I mean, we invite our uncles and aunts and grandmas and grandpas and all of our cousins and all of our friends and people up and down the street and the neighborhood.

And we spend tens of thousands of dollars and we get into these beautiful outfits. And then he goes and rents stuff to try to make himself look good. And everybody comes in and you got this wonderful thing to watch two people stand up and have the courage in front of God and everybody lie through their teeth.

I mean, and you, and, and, and then I'm the one giving them the script. You know, I'm thinking, what am I doing? But the, but then you head off and now, okay, there's the river, there's Jericho, go get it.

But until we realize there remains a rest, until something happens where we realize, God, you are the one that must do it. And something happens within us that we realize, Lord, I want to labor to enter into that.

I want to discover that you truly are the one that can solve it. That all the burdens and the issues and the struggles of life, they have nothing to do with the cities that you come to in the week that is ahead of you.

And the employment issues that are going on or this or whatever it is that's facing you today or this week had nothing to do with that. That's just merely the script in a sense. God writes to say, now let's see if you really want to labor to enter into rest.

If you really truly want me and you want to value me and my power and my presence and my work within your life more than anything in anybody, than winning or losing or strategizing or how it's going to be done.

That the labor is of learning to stand on that hill and to keep your eyes upon me as I encircle something and I go around it. Oh, if we spend as much time, you know, they're watching God as we do figuring, battering rams on how to win, strategizing how high a ladders I'm going to make to have to get over the wall, trying to figure out all the other things in life.

If we just sat there and just learned to look to him instead of going to the wife and say, this is what you did, you know, to be able to walk around and say, Lord, show me what she needs. Let me walk around this for a few days.

Let me look to you. Let me see your rest, your power. What is it that I can say? What is it that I can do? What are your answers in this? If we could labor and spend half the time sitting before God, waiting upon him, seeking his power.

Oh, that if we could labor that way, that so often it is something that this is when the Bible says, let us labor. I suppose this is the labor of life. If God could focus our hearts and our desires and our attention, say, Lord, this is the labor I want to have.

And it also is the labor of life. It is the greatest labor, I suppose, in a sense of all of life. And it's the most worthy and the most wonderful, I suppose, of all labors. I remember all of our three sons' deliveries.

But I remember, I suppose, our first one the best, the first labor that Gene had there. And since it was, it was actually my birthday and we're having a little birthday party with my parents in the evening.

And Gene's kind of excited because he feels, I think today's the day. I said, that'd be great. She said, I'd give you a child for a birthday. This is before they did sonograms. We didn't know boy or girl.