God Invented Rest
There are some things that are kind of a surprise in life. I mean by that there are some things you just wouldn’t expect. Take for example: the idea of taste. Hey, God! That was a pretty nifty idea. The idea of taking a bite of a chocolate bar is an breathtaking experience. Or take the astonishing flavor of a fillet mignon, the amazing sensation of a banana split with hot fudge topping. It was all God’s idea. Broccoli – Nah, I don’t think so… That must have been Satan’s idea.
God invented so many cool things – everything from the Grand Canyon to fabulous beams of sunlight streaming across an early morning sky. God invented hippos, elephants, and puppy dogs.
God is amazingly creative – and it was God who invented rest.
Why did God Invent Rest?
Rest?!? Why would God invent rest?
You and I have all experienced a kind of love/hate relationship with rest. When you were young and your parents wanted you to take a nap – and you would fight off sleep as if it were a mortal enemy.
How many times have you observed a 3 year olds reaction to nappy time? I’ve seen some kids who react to the idea of being put in bed as if their mommy was preparing to deep-fry them like a 20# turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
During adolescence you operated as if there was a switch in your head. If it was “on” – you were moving at full speed with 115% operational activity. If it was “off” – you zonked out where ever you happened to run out of juice and your parents carried you, limp and lifeless, to your bedroom. And then came the teen years when your parents couldn’t peel you out of bed with a pail of cold water and an air horn until at least the crack of noon.
In college – the era of all-nighters and slamming massive quantities of Red Bull – the world is so full of so many things to do, so few restrictions, and so little time – you hardly sleep at all – until you crashed for 2-3 days of semi-comatose exhaustion.
As an adult you find that sleep becomes a welcome acquaintance that you’d like to get to know a lot better. I remember as a kid seeing my dad take a Sunday afternoon nap and thinking, “what a waste.” Now – it seems like such a good idea. And as I grow older rest is at times a difficult thing to attain – what with backaches, dripping faucets, worries about the grandkids, and general insomnia. And when you get right down to it… there isn’t much to watch on TV at 3:00 AM.
So, Why? Why would God invent such a strange thing as rest? Certainly with respect to himself he didn’t need to rest. We know that he did on the seventh day after six days of creation but it wasn’t because he was tired! And with respect to human kind – if he invented such nifty things as taste and vision – certainly, he could have made us so that we didn’t need to rest.
Yet, the simple fact is that God designed us to need rest – and he has promised to supply our need.
God has Written You a Promissory Note
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
Hebrews 4:1
People Need Rest
We need rest – but most of us don’t get enough. We’re sleep deprived, over worked, on edge, and we live in a world of clocks, calendars, and deadlines. The “to-do” list never bottoms out and the frustration levels rise as the pressures build up. And on top of the every day activities of survival there are worries and concerns for the people we love that cause us to toss and turn at night when we should be asleep.
Let’s face it – people are restless. There is something about us that is prone to worry and given to being anxious about all manner of things. We are consumed by such concerns as our health, our finances, our kids, our parents, our friends, our cars, our pasts, our futures, in short – we worry about anything and everything.
Perhaps that is why the promise of “rest” that the author of Hebrews speaks of is such a wonderful pledge. God has made us a promise. God has promised us rest – and we all need it.
Above all things make sure you don’t lose this wonderful rest that God has promised! For you see – it can be lost!
The Promise of God must be Combined with Faith
2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
Hebrews 4:2
Take the Hebrews in the days of Moses and Joshua for example – they heard the message about God’s rest but they never obtained it.
God had promised them good news – they would be freed from the slavery of the Egyptian world of toil and struggle for survival – and be brought through a desert into a place of rest across the Jordon River in the Promised Land.
But Israel failed to enter into that rest – because they didn’t combine the promise of God with faith. They heard the promise but they didn’t believe the one who made the promise.
Think about it this way. Someone comes along and sees you struggling with life. They love you and care for you so they hand you a check. You look down at the number on it and almost fall over. It’s for a huge amount of money that will solve all your problems and put you on easy street – but you don’t believe that the guy who handed you the check is good for it – so you never deposit it into your account.
We have had an experience like that as a church – last October I shared with you that we had been given a grant of $700,000 to help us build our ministry center. We received two checks – one for $300,000 and a second for $400,000 and I gotta tell you – it was thrilling to open up the envelope and see a check with that many 0’s on it – on the left side of the decimal point! But what if we had not taken the check to the bank? What if we had put the check in a drawer or under the mattress – because we really didn’t think it was good. We would have lost the blessing. To make that check good we have to take the promise and add to it a commitment of faith – faith that not only takes it to the bank but adds to it our own offerings, sacrifice, and work.
The Israel of old, in the days of Joshua, failed to add faith to the promise when they came to the Promised Land – they were afraid and refused to go into the land.
Without Faith there is No Rest
3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
Hebrews 4:3
God’s message of good news – God’s gospel – is that he sent Jesus to us with the promise of rest.
In the times past it was a message sent through prophets and teachers of old. (Hebrews 1:1) Today, that promise has been given to us through Jesus himself – the very son of God.
But it is a promise that requires faith – your faith – to be of any value. The promise – however wonderful it is – is not enough without faith. But it goes beyond this – our faithlessness incurs the anger of God.
Imagine that you offer your children a great and wonderful gift – that they decline – because of their lack of appreciation, their poverty of love, and unwillingness to trust you. You are going to be miffed, put out, offended, and angry enough to say “I’ll never give them another gift like this.”
Tyler and Nicole Sherman went to Ireland this past year. Nicole’s Grandmother paid for some 30+ members of her family to accompany her to Ireland. Can you imagine if one of the members of the family had said – I don’t want to go – just give me the money?
How do you feel when you offer someone a gift that they turn away from as if it has no value at all? You – like me – are offended. You have given of yourself and the receiver has turned away from your gift. They, in rejecting the gift, reject you.
And so it is with God’s gift. Israel rejected God’s gift by failing to combine the promise with faith – and God swore an oath – they will never enter my rest.
That’s why one whole generation wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
God made a promise – and they never cashed it in faith – and they never crossed the Jordon into the promised land – a land of rest.
But what is this gift of rest for us? What is God’s promise – today?
God’s Rest
4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.”
Hebrews 4:4
In creation: God created the world in six days – on the seventh he rested.
It’s not that he was tired. Rest is more than simply regaining strength. Rest is about of stopping work long enough to enjoy what you have created. God’s rest is rooted in the idea of what has been done is good and worthy of enjoyment. His rest is not a rest of exhaustion but the rest of satisfaction.
It’s a principle that still stands today. In fact, in your notes today I’ve included some guidance on how you can have a Sabbath rest with your family. I want to encourage you to take some time to have a Sabbath rest that allows you to stop long enough to enjoy the fruit of your labor… with the people that mean the most to you. In fact, I’m going to listen to my own message today. Donna and I will be leaving this afternoon for a few days in sunny Florida! We’ll be back on Thursday after a Sabbath Rest.
But this Sabbath rest is not the reality. It is the shadow of something even greater to come. There is a whole new day of rest…
God’s Rest is Promised on a Whole New Day
7 Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
Hebrews 4:7
In the fourth command: God ordained that his people would set aside the seventh day as a day of rest.
God designed the whole world to need rest. He developed the idea of rest. Every seventh year the fields were to left to rest. Every seventh seven years (49) the year of jubilee was to be declared and all land was to revert back to the original owners and all slaves were to go free.
Think of this as a kind of cultural rest allowing a reboot of the social structure – a way to start fresh – like a new day.
Some people have held that we need to continue to uphold this law and to keep the Sabbath.
But that is not what the author of Hebrews says! He writes that we have a new day – called Today.
The Promise of God Remains
9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.
Hebrews 4:9
God’s rest is the gift of salvation
They took the check and never cashed it because they never really believed that it was true.
We have entered that rest – when the people of Israel have not.
This is the peace that defies understanding. The world does not comprehend the rest we enjoy – in Jesus.
The Promise of God Remains
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28
This is the “rest of faith” that Jesus promises in Matt. 11:28–30. The “rest” of Matt. 11:28 is salvation, and it is a gift that we receive by faith. The rest of 11:30 is what we find day by day as we take His yoke and surrender. “Let us therefore fear” (v. 1) is God’s warning, for many of His children have failed to enter into this life of rest and victory.
Dennis Marquart tells reports that in 1997 – 11 years ago in Hungary there was an interesting development. Government radio produced a six-part series of the first five books of the Old Testament. Each broadcast was 60 to 70 minutes in length with the best actors in Hungary participating in the dramatization. The series was repeated again several months later under the title, "The Book That Karl Marx Read."
Also, a dramatized adaptation of the four Gospels was broadcast in the fall on the same station. The Government hopes that these broadcasts may contribute to the solution of the drug and alcohol problems among its youth. -- The Trans-World Radio Report
Jesus is the answer to our restless souls. He is our Sabbath Rest for all of eternity.
