There’s a crisis of BUSYNESS in Western society. People struggle to SWITCH OFF. Smart phones means we’re never away from work. Stress leave, mental health problems and anxiety are more common than ever before. Automation and computerisation are supposed to give us MORE free time. But, instead, most of us fill our life with so much activity we don’t have time to ENJOY it. Work, family, study. Even hobbies, exercise and meeting with friends are attacked with energy and focus. We’re either frantic. Or exhausted. Or BOTH.
The sad truth is that, for many of us, busyness is a badge of honour. (A measure of WORTH and SIGNIFICANCE). The first thing most of us say in answer to the question, “How’s life?” Or “How’s WORK?” Is… “It’s BUSY”.
The temptation is to think that if you’re not busy at work, then you’re not worth employing. If your LIFE isn’t busy, then you must be a LOSER! But Tim Kreider, in his essay for the NY Times, The Busy Trap, makes the point that busyness is A CHOICE. We COMPLAIN about being busy, but we got that way because of ambition, or anxiety, or identity. He says “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”
What about YOU? Is your life more STRIVING, than STILLNESS? More RESTLESSNESS, than REST? More FRANTIC, than FAITH?
God doesn’t WANT us to be BUSY. At least not in the sense of STRIVING. (Of restlessness. And fear. And anxiety. Of finding our identity and meaning in what we DO or ACHIEVE or EARN). Instead, he wants us resting and rejoicing in the truth that he’s MADE us for his glory, and SAVED us by grace, through his Son.
He created the world in six days, and then RESTED on the SEVENTH day. His world has a natural rhythm of six days to WORK. And one day to REST. Resting/ is trusting God. It’s consciously letting go of control. And resting, is enjoying the world God’s made. And enjoying HIM, as its Creator. It’s entering into HIS rest. When we’re always BUSY, we’re not DOING that.
King David knew the peace of resting in God. Of trusting him rather than striving. And he wanted ISRAEL to know it TOO. So he wrote Psalm 131. It’s short, and sharp, and engaging. Inviting us into David’s experience. Listen to his experience of entering God’s rest.
1 My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
David knew that he could only be still when he’s consciously put his hope in GOD. Quieting his soul was an expression of TRUST. That’s the GOAL. And Hebrews 3 and 4 tells us HOW TO ACHIEVE IT. So if that sort of rest appeals to you, then LISTEN UP!
Back to the start – Wilderness Wanderings
Remember that Hebrews is a message specifically for a group of Jewish Christians. They’re in danger of giving up their faith in Jesus. And going back to their Old Testament ways. And today’s passage is COMPLEX. You have to keep in your head a couple of JUMPS IN TIME, a sequence of events, before you can catch the main point.
It starts, Ch 3 v7, with a long quote from Psalm 95. It’s a Psalm about WILDERNESS WANDERINGS. About Israel before the entered the Promised Land. It’s a Psalm King David wrote, hundreds of years later… looking back. To the time God promised to bring his people into THE PROMISED LAND. Which he said would be A PLACE OF REST.
God said, “TRUST me. I’ll take you to a land of milk and honey. You’ll be my people, I’ll be your God; and, together, we’ll REST. It’ll be just like back in the garden. It’ll be just like the seventh day when we rested together.”
That was the promise. But what did the people do? As soon as things got the slightest bit tough… they started GRUMBLING. As soon is they got scared or thirsty or hungry, they started saying, “We’d rather be slaves back in Egypt.” They DIDN’T TRUST GOD’S PROMISE. God said, I’ll DEFEAT the enemies in the land FOR YOU. But they say, “No, We’re scared. The people there are TOO BIG. They’ll defeat us, and we’ll DIE.
So God sends them back out into the desert. For another 40 years. Until they DIED. Just like they’d feared. A whole generation who didn’t get to enter God’s rest in the Promised Land.
Now that’s the story David looks back to in Psalm 95. As he writes the Psalm hundreds of years later, he wants to teach a lesson to HIS OWN GENERATION. (In time period number TWO)
Look at v7 in Hebrews 3, quoting Psalm 95:
So as the Holy Spirit says: TODAY if you hear his voice, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS as you did in the rebellion… during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That’s why I was angry with that generation, and I said, THEIR HEARTS ARE ALWAYS GOING ASTRAY and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger… THEY SHALL NEVER… ENTER MY REST.
David’s saying, BACK THEN, God’s people missed out on God’s rest – that is, on entering the Promised Land. Because their hearts were HARD. Their hearts went ASTRAY. And I’m warning you TODAY, it’d be a terrible thing to MISS OUT ON GOD’S REST.
Which, when you think about it, must have seemed ODD to the people of Israel. Because when David’s talking, they’re already IN THE PROMISED LAND. Sure, MOSES’ generation missed out. But in the end, by David’s time… they’re IN the Promised Land. They’ve got A KING. They defeated their enemies. They’ve entered REST. And yet David says to them, TODAY I want to warn you… don’t make the mistakes of the past. Don’t stop short. And FAIL TO ENTER GOD’S REST.
Which means there must be ANOTHER rest that David’s thinking about. Something more than just living at peace in the Promised Land. A rest that’s STILL TO COME. (A rest that’s MORE than where you live. Or how many hours a week you work. Or that comes AFTER this life.)
That’s the point the preacher makes, down in ch 4 v7.
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.” 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.9 There REMAINS, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
Those are TWO different time periods. But then, of course, there’s a THIRD time period. When Hebrews is written. And the writer to the Hebrews wants to warn HIS READERS. Which we come to in v12. Not Moses talking to Israel. Or David talking to his people. But the Hebrews writer talking to his listeners.
12 See to it, brothers, that none of YOU has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
Israel’s problem was UNBELIEF. They didn’t trust God’s promise. To bring them in to REST. So make sure YOU don’t have an unbelieving heart. Don’t TURN AWAY from God.
And that’s a GROUP TASK. God doesn’t intend you to do it on your own. Encourage one another DAILY. TODAY, and TOMORROW, and the DAY AFTER. Because it doesn’t matter that you trusted God YESTERDAY. You have to trust God TO THE END. Hold on to your confidence. Which we’ve already seen is all about JESUS. Who’s our pioneer and leader and brother, who rescues us by DYING and LIVING AGAIN. When you turn away from Jesus, whom God offered to us, you’re turning away from God. You’re no TRUSTING him. Don’t be like Israel, v15-19, who MISSED OUT, because of UNBELIEF.
And then, into chapter 4, we see the idea of REST. Especially the idea that God’s promise of entering rest is still available. 1 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.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.
Same point as before. Learn the lesson from the original people of Israel. They had the good news preached to them – God’s promise of entering the land – but they didn’t combine it with FAITH. (They didn’t TRUST it). So they FELL SHORT. They DIED in the WILDERNESS. So make sure that’s NOT YOU. When YOU hear the message of the gospel BELIEVE it.
And when you DO, v3, Now we who have BELIEVED / enter that REST
When we trust God, we ENTER REST.
What is the rest?
So here’s the big question… what IS the rest? Perhaps it’s HEAVEN. (Our ETERNAL rest). Back in v14 of chapter 3, it seems to suggest that. “We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly TO THE END our first confidence.” Keep trusting God through THIS life. And you’ll make it to ETERNAL rest. And that’s certainly TRUE. We WILL rest then. And lots of scholars think that’s ALL Hebrews is talking about.
But I think there’s a bit more to it than that. Notice v3 says those who have believed/ ENTER that rest (present tense). Not WILL enter that rest (future tense). As we believe, we ENTER REST. There’s REST to be had in THIS LIFE.
What does that LOOK LIKE? Jump down in v9 of ch 4, that we read before.
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.11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
It’s a different word for REST. σαββατισμός SABBATISMOS. The only place it’s used in the New Testament. SABBATH-rest. It comes from the Hebrew word for REST – Shabbat. And it’s what GOD did on the seventh day. At the end of day six, God saw all that he’d made. And it was VERY GOOD. And there was evening and morning – the SIXTH day.
And then Genesis 2:2 says.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
But there’s no finish to that day. It DOESN’T say, “and there was evening and morning: the SEVENTH day.” God’s seventh day of rest CONTINUES. We’re LIVING in the seventh day. And so he commands us to rest. One day in seven. To remember him. To RECOGNISE that he’s made us, and the world. And it’s HIS work that keeps it all going, not ours.
By RESTING, we show we TRUST him. Or, as v10 puts it.
10 for anyone who enters God’s rest ALSO RESTS FROM HIS OWN WORK, just as God did from his
The two go together. Entering God’s rest means letting go of your OWN earning and striving. Letting GOD be Creator and Sustainer. Not YOU.
But there’s more to resting than just getting your work-life balance right. The preacher is concerned for our ETERNAL DESTINY. Our SALVATION. Which JESUS pays for/ as our High Priest. When he offers the perfect, one-time only, sacrifice of himself. And God promises us that it’s EFFECTIVE for us/ when he RAISES him from THE DEAD.
And v3 says it’s as we believe THOSE promises that we ENTER REST. NOW.
And v10 says that as we enter God’s rest, we rest from our own work. We CEASE striving to save ourselves. We STOP good works that we think will earn us God’s approval. We let God be God.
It’s what the Jewish Christian hearers were being tempted to do in going back to Judaism.
You would think it would be EASY to rest from your own work. But it’s NOT. It’s HARD WORK to REST. Our natural inclination is to WORK for things. To pay our debts. We don’t feel we deserve grace. We want to EARN what we have. Because we’re PROUD. Did you notice v11?
11 Let us, therefore, MAKE EVERY EFFORT to ENTER THAT REST, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience
Which sounds like nonsense. (Work hard to rest.) It COULD mean work hard NOW, so you can REST in HEAVEN. And that’s certainly TRUE. But I think it’s saying, keep reminding each other of the goodness and grace of God. Keep remembering what Jesus has done. Which we’ll do in a few moments in the Lord’s Supper.
Work hard to rejoice in GRACE. That Jesus PAID IT ALL. Our debt is PAID IN FULL. Nothing owing. Nothing we CAN contribute. Let go of striving, of worry. Hold on to your CONFIDENCE. To Jesus, our pioneer, our high priest, our brother. Who’s ABLE TO HELP.
He invites us, in Matthew 11.28-30
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
King David invites us, in Psalm 131, into HIS experience of resting in God
1 My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty;I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
Is that YOUR experience?
I’ve spoken a little bit, for the last few weeks, about our mission as a church, of GROWING FOLLOWERS of JESUS. And how a growing follower of Jesus will show FIVE CHARACTERISTICS. Areas we want to encourage you to GROW in.
And the FIRST, and most IMPORTANT, is LOVING GOD. When Jesus was asked what the most important of the commandments was, he said, (Mk 12:30)
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
We encourage each other to do that as we study the Bible together, as we PRAY for one another, and ENCOURAGE one another. AS we meet at church, and in home groups.
We want to be lovers of God, who are Repentant, grateful, joyful, prayerful, contented, zealous, single-minded, awe-filled. And who TRUST him, and REST in him. May God make us like THAT! Amen!
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