Hebrews 4 - REST!

“So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” (Hebrews 3:19) Israel was unable to enter the rest and Promised Land of God, not because they didn’t walk far enough, not because they didn’t earn it with their time in the desert, not because their leadership was weak, but because they didn’t have faith.  It is important to notice that faith was not the entry fee to the rest of God.  Faith itself would not have been what got Israel into rest, God would have been who got them into rest.  Faith allows God to move you into proper positioning, it does not earn the favor to move his hand.  Thus, faith is not the ticket, but lack of faith is the disqualifier, for it moves you into a place of wandering where God cannot have his way.  Jesus Christ is the author of faith, and he desires to perfect it in all people. (Hebrews 12:2) 

Unbelief disqualified Israel from entering God’s rest, but his rest has not disappeared, nor has the promise of entering it been revoked!  “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” (Hebrews 4:1)  This is the first of four commands of action that the author of Hebrews give to his audience in chapter 4, “let us fear.”   There it is, the blessed fear of God, but not a fear of punishment, or a fear of God himself disqualifying me, but a holy and burning fear of not being with Him in his rest.  There is a wondrous place in God where your only and most overwhelming fear is that you would screw up the rest and the work of Jesus with your own effort.

The second verse of the chapter illustrates the unchanging nature of God and his message, for, “the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.” The gospel has indeed been preached for all of time.  Here we find out that the Israelites had heard it, Romans 1:20 tells us that all people have heard it through creation, and we know it was brought with the person of Jesus.  So what exactly is the gospel, the author of Hebrews goes on to tell us. “The works were finished from the foundation of the world!” (Hebrews 4:3)  (See also Rev. 13:18, Eph. 1:4, 1 Peter1:20) That is indeed the good news: God did it, it is finished, He is resting and His rest is open for us.  God is not scrambling trying to save people, he is not scrambling to take care of you, he has done his work, and is eagerly awaiting your joining Him in his rest.   “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.  For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” Hebrews 4:9-10  That is the mark of those who have not fallen short of the grace and rest of God.  They have stopped working, they don’t know what it is to try, they have entered the glorious rest of God and have no illusion of needing to obtain anything more for themselves.  Believers are resters and resters if I can be so bold are those that rest!

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:11)  I have very often in my life been supremely concerned about obedience and I praise God for that concern, for there are many who call themselves Christian that care not if they obey the Father.  However, so much of my diligence in obedience came outside of the revelation disclosed in this verse.  We are to be diligent in resting, because to do anything other than resting would be to step into disobedience.   To rest is to obey, we must not walk through life trying to get more God, or more blessing, or more breakthrough when God has simply said “Here I am, walk with me!”  So often our Christian activity is nothing more than religious insecurity in the finished works of God.

So what does this diligence look like?  How do we ensure that we don’t try too hard, or start working?  How do we avoid making our attempts to rest just as much of a binding religious activity as everything else we do?  Thanks be to God, he gives us the answer, we sit and let him have his way with us.  We let him reveal the depths of our striving, we let him reveal the depths of his finished works, and thus the depths of our shared rest.  We in faith invite the living “Word of God,” in other words Jesus, to know us and help us know ourselves and Him.  The scripture reads, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:12-13)  Praise God that we are naked before him and that he wields a big sword! 

God wants to divide your soul and your spirit.  That’s part of his plan in rest.  I want to clarify that this desire of God doesn’t connotate one being evil, or bad, or even necessarily less than.  However, we must understand that the division of these things is good and desired and central to our being able to live in rest and outside striving.  The soul is the hub of emotion, and as such it is the soul that is liable to try to earn favor.  It is the soul that has a tendency to insecurity.  It is the soul that gets nervous about its standing and pushes the panic button of works.  The spirit on the other hand is that which connects us to the realm of heaven.  It is the spirit that is the storage place of faith, and thus the spirit from which we are to direct our actions.  It is only from living from our spirit in the Spirit that we will rest in God.  Again, this does not mean that the soul is bad, without the soul we would be unable to in the faith of the spirit walk in love and grace to those around us.

Further God wants to separate our joints from marrow and subsequently to discern the thoughts and intents of our heart.  We are triune creatures: spirit, soul, and body.  We have already established God’s work to establish our spirits as the command center for our lives, but it is our body, our joints that will carry out everything we do.  Thus God wants to get to the heart of our actions.  He wants to lay our works before him, naked and exposed, and show us where these works are motivated by anything other than faith.  Jesus said that He did nothing apart from the Father.  Thus when Jesus’ works are set before the Father, there is nothing impure behind the working of his joints.  All came from God and all came from love ,for God is love, and thus it is that Paul testifies that if we do all good things without love we are nothing! (1 Corinthians 13:2)

Our bodies are crucial and beautiful and divinely constructed, but there has only ever been one body that without fault.  Praise God for that one, for our Jesus, who is not a “High priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  (Hebrews 4:15)  It is thus, because of this faultless lamb that our consciences are able to be cleansed completely. (Hebrews 9:14)  A guilty conscience is what God is seeking to eradicate in the place of rest.  A guilty conscience always stems from lack of faith, and it always drives us out of his presence.  Thus, knowing that fullness and perfection of Jesus Christ and his offering, let us, “hold fast to our confession of Him.”  That is the third instruction.  We are to fear falling out of rest, to be diligent to enter rest, and now the picture gets clearer as we cling to the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord.  This command is singular in its nature, and so wonderfully simple.  Hold on to your confession of Jesus as your perfect lamb, and as you hold onto it two things will happen: all guilt will and shame will fall away, and you will want nothing more than to be at rest with him. 

Thus it is that we come to our final command!  “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  This is the heart of the Gospel, God finished it so come, rest, and receive.  So often we are afraid to preach the radical nature of the gospel.  The devil has instilled a fear in God’s people of their sinful nature.  The fear is that if we don’t give people something active to do they will just get caught up in sin or lethargy.  Here is the reality.  God is good, he did it, rest with Him, get what he’s got for you, and you will do more than anyone who is trying to get things done.  The only command that we can give to God’s people, as the author of Hebrews shows is to rest in God!  God has purchased rest for us because he wants us to rest in Him.  That is the Good News and nothing more than “rest!” is the gospel.  All else is unnecessary dead works of religion.  So rest and be blessed.