[0:00] Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 through 13.
[0:19] ! If you would stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word together.! Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
[0:34] For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
[0:52] For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience.
[1:10] Again, he appoints a certain day, two day, saying through David so long afterward, and the words already quoted, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
[1:21] For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
[1:35] Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul, of spirit, of joints, and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
[1:54] And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word.
[2:05] Would you please be seated? What comes to your mind when you hear the word rest? Take a moment to think about that.
[2:19] You hear the word rest, what comes to your mind? What immediately comes to your mind? Some of you might be thinking about the nap you're going to take after church when you go home.
[2:33] For some of you students, you might hear the word rest, and you might think rest from school. Teachers as well. Spring break is coming.
[2:44] Summer break after that. Maybe to you rest is just a Saturday when you finally get to sleep in. Some of you are parents of young children, and they're a lot of work.
[2:58] They keep you up late at night, and they wake you up early in the morning. You're tired. And so rest for you might be just a few hours of uninterrupted time by yourself.
[3:12] For our expecting mothers, I'm sure you're tired and you need rest. You're ready for the baby to come, though when it comes, you won't get much rest. Some of you might hear the word rest and think of vacation.
[3:23] Or maybe there's a project you're working on at work, and when that's finally over, you will feel rest. Or maybe you're thinking of retirement as rest.
[3:35] Some of you are retired, and you know that retirement isn't always restful. You might equate rest to relief. Relief from aches, relief from pains that come to you in the morning and then sometimes throughout the day that cause you to moan and groan.
[3:54] Some of you are facing difficult things. You're battling cancer, recovering from surgery, or you're in the process of being evaluated by doctors to determine if you need surgery or what's ailing you.
[4:12] Some of you have a loved one who you're walking with as they go through such things. And the road to recovery has been long, both for their sake and yours, and you desire a rest from it all.
[4:32] Some of you are feeling stressed, anxious, fearful over a number of things.
[4:43] And to you, rest is that thing that's causing you to feel mentally and emotionally and spiritually drained and wore out for that just to be over.
[4:56] The word rest can mean different things to different people depending on their circumstances. In Hebrews chapter 4, the word rest appears nine times in just 13 verses.
[5:11] It's the central theme of this passage. And to truly grasp what God is communicating here through His word about rest, we need to see how the writer of Hebrews used the word, how he intended his original audience to understand it, and how that meaning applies to us today.
[5:33] In the immediate context, the writer of Hebrews takes his audience, and he's taking them back to the time of the Exodus, where God demonstrated His power in amazing ways to free His people from slavery in Egypt.
[5:47] If you remember, after Pharaoh finally let them go, they got to the Red Sea, and they were trapped because Pharaoh changed his mind, and the Egyptian army was hot on their tail, and God parted the Red Sea.
[5:59] And they all passed through safely, and then He drowned their enemies in the waters. And then God escorts them throughout the wilderness in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
[6:12] He led them to the outskirts of Canaan, a land described as flowing with milk and honey, a land that God promised to give His people.
[6:23] Moses appoints spies from each of Israel's 12 tribes to go scout the land. And the spies find that it's exactly as God said that it was, exactly as God promised.
[6:37] It's a land flowing of milk and honey. But ten of those spies came back with a bad report. They're intimidated by the powerful inhabitants of the land and the fortified cities they live in.
[6:51] And rather than trust in God, who just delivered them from one powerful nation, the people grumble, they complain, they harden their hearts, they don't believe, and that provokes God's wrath.
[7:08] As a result, those who refuse to believe are barred by God from entering the promised land. And they're forced to wander for 40 years in the wilderness until they all die.
[7:22] And the next generation, led by those who trusted the Lord, took possession of it. As we saw last week, the writer of Hebrews uses this event in Israel's history in Psalm 95 to urge his readers to not harden their hearts in unbelief and fail to enter the greater rest that God's provided through His Son, Jesus Christ.
[7:47] And so he exhorts them again in this passage to enter God's rest today. And he urges those who are wavering to stop wavering, to stop drifting, to stop neglecting the great salvation of Jesus Christ and the eternal rest and the eternal rest that can only be entered by faith in Him.
[8:12] In Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 through 13, the writer of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, continues to encourage his readers to enter God's rest today while the promise still stands.
[8:25] And so the main idea for this morning's message is that God encourages us to enter His rest. As was the case for the original recipients of this letter, that continues to be the truth that God wants us to hear today in His Word.
[8:40] God encourages us to enter His rest. And just as we saw last week in our text, this morning, the writer of Hebrews is using Psalm 95. He's using Old Testament Scripture to address spiritual issues that His readers are facing.
[8:58] His audience is made up primarily of Jewish people. Some of them had genuinely trusted in Jesus Christ and were saved. Some of them had heard the gospel, but the persecution that they were facing for being associated with Christ was hardening their hearts and tempting them to drift away from the truth, away from the Lord and to neglect His great salvation.
[9:22] Just as the Lord delivered their ancestors from bondage to slavery in Egypt under the blood of the Passover lamb. So now, in Jesus, the opportunity for them to be rescued from the greater bondage, the bondage of sin and the opportunity to enter the greater promised land has been provided by God through the blood of His lamb.
[9:45] Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which was shed at Passover. Just as was the case back then, so today God encourages us to enter His rest.
[9:59] Some of you may find yourselves in the same position as the original audience who first received this letter. You've heard the gospel, but you're not sure if submitting your life to Christ is worth it.
[10:14] And make no doubt, there is a cost that comes with following Jesus. Jesus talked about that in Luke chapter 14, verses 25 through 27.
[10:29] Now great crowds accompanied Him, and He turned and said to them, If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
[10:46] Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. The Christian life isn't easy. It requires humility.
[10:58] It requires repentance. It requires self-denial and other things. But it also brings rest. Jesus talked about that in Matthew 11, 27 through 30.
[11:11] All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
[11:22] Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
[11:35] For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Friend, does your soul feel restful or weary?
[11:49] You may be striving to bring rest to your earthly life, but how much time do you spend thinking about what comes at the end of this life?
[12:05] Jesus wants you to think about that. In Matthew 8, verses 34 through 36, He said, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
[12:20] For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospels forsave it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
[12:32] In other words, you can spend your whole life striving to gain the whole world, and even if you could get it, at the end of your life, if you don't know Jesus, if He hasn't saved you, you'll forfeit your eternity.
[12:52] You will forfeit your soul. You'll be cast away from Him. You will be shut out for your rejection of Him. And so either you'll respond today to Jesus' invitation to come to Him, or you'll hear Him one day say, Depart from Me, I never knew you.
[13:12] The good news is that God has brought you here today to hear the Gospel. And I pray that as you hear His Word, that you will hear His voice, and that today is the day of your salvation, that today is the day you enter through the narrow gate, and you follow the narrow path that ends in eternal life.
[13:38] Many of you, though, are here today, and I trust that you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And you've experienced His rest both in an earthly and an eternal sense.
[13:53] But maybe you've become lethargic, lethargic in the command that we see in our text this morning to strive to enter His rest.
[14:05] Maybe, maybe you think that there is something more for you to do, for some of you. Maybe you think there's something else that you need to add to what Jesus has done for you.
[14:20] And so you are striving. You're striving to do good because you think that God's love, you think that God's grace and His forgiveness are things that you must earn.
[14:33] The enemy can't take away your salvation, but he can rob you of the joy of your salvation in this life by making you think such lies.
[14:47] And so my prayer for you today is that God, through His Word, will encourage you to stop striving and working to prove yourself to someone else, to yourself, to other people, and thinking that it's necessary for you to do those things in order for God to love you.
[15:09] God encourages us to enter His rest. Our text this morning communicates three realities about God's rest. The first reality is that God's rest is entered by faith in Jesus Christ.
[15:24] God's rest is entered by faith in Jesus Christ. Verse 1 again says, therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. Therefore, in verse 1, refers back to the truth previously stated in chapter 3, verse 19.
[15:40] The Israelites were unable to enter God's rest. They were unable to enter the earthly promised land of Canaan because of their unbelief. The writer of Hebrews is reminding his readers of their past failure to encourage them, his readers in the present, to not repeat the same mistake.
[16:02] He tells them that God's promise to enter a superior promised land still stands. The door, the way, remains open to them because tomorrow is not a guarantee.
[16:16] And so he repeatedly says, today the offer, the opportunity to enter, still stands because one day that offer, that opportunity, will no longer be open to you.
[16:30] I used to love renting movies and games from Blockbuster. Some of you remember Blockbuster. Others of you, you're like, I don't know what that is.
[16:40] You're going to ask your parents later on. But before streaming, Blockbuster was the go-to place for VHS and DVD rentals.
[16:52] A large portion of their profits came from charging late fees for late returns. Around 2004, Blockbuster at its peak was worth about $5 billion.
[17:04] Meanwhile, Netflix, the startup company, the small company, started mailing DVDs to customers with no late fees, but they were struggling to gain any kind of traction.
[17:19] And so Netflix's founder set up a meeting with Blockbuster and tried to sell their company to Blockbuster for $5 million. And he said they were laughed out of the room.
[17:34] A decade later, Blockbuster went bankrupt and they were sold to Dish Network for $320 million. And today, Netflix is worth $45 billion. Blockbuster missed its chance to take up that offer to buy Netflix, a mistake that proved costly.
[17:58] They scoffed at an offer that could have saved their company, but they weren't forward-thinking enough to realize that their company needed saving.
[18:10] The writer of Hebrews encourages his readers with the news that the offer to enter God's rest still stands today. He fears that some of them see the persecution they're facing, again, as too high a price to pay, so he implores them in verse 1 to enter God's rest.
[18:28] He fears that what will happen to them if they continue in unbelief and in spiritual bankruptcy is to be shut out for their rejection from God's ultimate promised land.
[18:40] Without Christ, they are without hope. He fears for them because he cares for them. Christian, do you care? do you care?
[18:55] Maybe you're content knowing you're in Christ and you're comforted by that reality. You know you'll never hear him say, depart from me.
[19:08] But if you truly love the Lord and you desire to serve him, then you should be committed to sharing the good news of who he is and what he's done.
[19:22] You should care. Before Jesus ascended back into heaven, he told his disciples, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[19:37] Go. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
[19:53] Christian, do you fear being mocked for your faith? Are you afraid of being persecuted? Or maybe it's just the fear of being uncomfortable.
[20:04] The Bible says that God is sovereign in salvation, but it also commands us, his people, whom he's saved by his grace to participate in his mission to serve as his ambassadors, imploring, imploring people to turn from their sins and to trust in Jesus Christ.
[20:29] 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 20 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
[20:45] That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
[20:57] God making his appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. Charles Spurgeon, the great Reformed Baptist preacher, said, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.
[21:12] And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let it be filled with the teeth of our exertions and let no one go unwarned and unprayed for.
[21:24] Spurgeon shared the care that the writer of Hebrews had for the people he knew who were in danger of rejecting God's rest.
[21:39] And in verse 2, the writer of Hebrews says, for good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listen.
[21:51] In the case of the Jews, in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant, God's rest, God's promise to Abraham which he believed by faith was a faith that they did not share. Their love of the law, their knowledge of the law, their obedience to the law, their observance to keep the law was not united with faith.
[22:12] They were physically descendants of Abraham, but they did not share Abraham's faith. Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees in John chapter 8, verses 36 through 40.
[22:23] So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring, physical descendants of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
[22:35] I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me.
[22:50] A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. The point here is that it does no good to hear without believing.
[23:02] Hearing the good news of God's rest is of no benefit. It's of no profit to any person at any time unless that hearing is united with faith. As I shared last week, one of the scariest things that I've ever read are words spoken by Jesus Christ about the tragic reality that hell is going to be full of people who will hear him say, depart from me.
[23:29] Matthew 7, 22 through 23. On that day, Jesus says, many will say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name and then I will declare to them, I never knew you.
[23:41] Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. We enter God's rest when we hear the good news and that hearing is united with faith. Faith in what?
[23:52] Faith in who? Well, the writer of Hebrews has already told us. Let's look again at Hebrews 1, 1 through 4. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
[24:06] But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[24:20] After making purifications for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Eventually, we'll get to Hebrews chapter 11 and we'll read about all of those who united what they heard from God to their faith in God, which was demonstrated through their obedience to him.
[24:45] And then in chapter 12, verses 1 through 2, Jesus is once again presented as the author, the source, the perfecter of our faith. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[25:21] So God's rest is entered by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in who he is, faith in what he's done.
[25:32] Faith in who he is as the son of God, faith in what he's done and dying on the cross in our place for our sins to atone for them. Rising again then on the third day, seated now at the right hand of the Father and we are encouraged to come to him in faith.
[25:53] He says, come to me. He gives rest to those who put their faith in him because they know he's bore the burden of their sin, a burden that is eternally weightier than whatever suffering he calls us to endure for him in this life because we know his eternal rest awaits us and knowing that enables us to rest in this life from worry and from fear of death and what comes after it.
[26:27] God encourages you today to enter his rest by the only way that you can, the only way that he's provided, Jesus Christ, his son.
[26:39] So now the second reality, God's rest is extended to you today. Again, in verse 3, the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95, 11, the passage on which he's based his argument since Hebrews 3, verse 7.
[26:55] He says, in verse 6, for we who have believed enter that rest as he has said, as I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. While Psalm 95, 11 convicts the wilderness generation for its unfaithfulness, the writer of Hebrews uses it to encourage his readers that there is still time for them to enter God's rest because God has finished the work needed to make that rest possible.
[27:24] God has done it all. And extends his rest to those who enter it by faith in Jesus Christ. Now verse 4, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.
[27:43] We know from the Bible that God created everything in six days. And the Bible says that on the seventh day God rested. He said on the seventh day basically it's done.
[27:54] God, I've made my wonderful world for man and for woman who I created in my image. I've given them everything they need to be fruitful and multiply in it.
[28:06] Even more importantly, they have a perfect unbroken fellowship and relationship with me and now I can rest and they can rest in me. It's not that God needed to rest as if God could get tired.
[28:21] He's omnipotent which means he's all powerful. God rested to communicate an important theological truth to us about himself. That truth is simply that he stopped what he was doing.
[28:34] He ceased his labors. God used his rest on the seventh day of creation to establish the principle of Sabbath rest for his people. The Hebrew word translated as Sabbath is Sabbat and it means basically just this, to rest, to stop, to cease from work.
[28:56] When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, the fourth of those commands commanded them to rest one day out of every seven. This was not just a physical rest but rest from their labors.
[29:12] Some people think this day of rest was set aside by God as just one day for worship. worship. But under the old covenant worship through sacrifices were made daily at the tabernacle and then later in the temple.
[29:29] The Israelites worshipped God every day. That never ceased. But on the Sabbath day they were commanded to cease from their work and to keep it holy.
[29:40] Now in trying to keep that day holy the Jews started adding all kinds of do's and don'ts which actually added to the work on the day they were supposed to rest.
[29:55] And by the time of Jesus' incarnation the Jewish people under the instruction of the Pharisees had increasingly trusted in their works to make themselves righteous or acceptable in God's eyes.
[30:06] Jesus consistently called out the Pharisees for their self-deceived self-righteousness. They like all of us were incapable of keeping all of God's commands all of God's law all the time.
[30:19] This was the reason why God provided an array of sin offerings and sacrifices so that his people could come to him and receive his forgiveness and restored relationship with him. But the blood of bulls and goats and sheep could not permanently atone for their sins.
[30:34] The Sabbath rest and the sacrifices made to atone for sins all pointed to the sacrifice that Jesus would one day make and the rest that Jesus would ultimately provide.
[30:48] Jesus alluded to this in Matthew chapter 12 verses 1 through 8. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
[31:01] But when the Pharisees saw it they said to him look your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him but only for the priests?
[31:22] Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here and if you had known what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice you would not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is the Lord of the Sabbath.
[31:42] As God incarnate Jesus determines the true meaning of the Sabbath because he created it and because he is our ultimate Sabbath rest and since he's done all the work necessary to atone for our sins and give us peace with God bringing us into right relationship with him and covering us with his righteousness there is no Sabbath rest outside of Jesus Christ.
[32:12] He alone satisfies the requirements of the law and he alone provides the sacrifice needed to atone for our sins. He has redeemed us and through faith in him being saved by him we cease from working.
[32:28] the writer of Hebrews urges his readers to enter into the true Sabbath rest provided by Christ to unite what they hear about him with faith in who he is.
[32:42] In verses 5-9 he exhorts his readers to enter this rest which God was continuing to extend to them today. Verses 5-10 and again in this passage he said they shall not enter my rest since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience.
[33:02] Again he appoints a certain day today saying through David so long afterward and the word already quoted today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart for if Joshua had given them rest God would not have spoken of another day later on so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest have also rested from his works as God did from his.
[33:26] Moses didn't lead God's people into the promised land his successor Joshua did however entrance into the earthly promised land didn't bring God's people ultimate rest they still sinned they still rebelled David wrote Psalm 95 long after the Israelites had taken possession of the promised land but he speaks of a future rest which is provided by a superior leader who brings his people into a superior promised land and God's true and ultimate rest by faith which is in and only in Jesus Christ God's rest is extended to you today if you have not received it now you could be thinking you don't know me you don't know what I've done I'm not ready for that because I'm too dirty I'm too sinful
[34:27] I'm too unclean I'll tell you the story about a man named Mel Trotter Mel Trotter was born in 1870 Mel Trotter's father was a bartender who drank as much as he served and Mel became an alcoholic like his dad Mel spent all of his money drinking and gambling and as a result his children starved Mel's little girl died of malnutrition when she was four years old Mel's neighbors donated money because he didn't have any money to buy his daughter clothes to be buried in and so they bought her a dress and some shoes in the middle of the night Mel Trotter broke into the mortuary where his daughter's body was he took the clothes off of his dead child and he exchanged them for a drink you can't get much lower than that
[35:42] Mel was a disgrace Mel was a sinner Mel's sin hurt the people that he was supposed to love and no one saw any hope for a man like Mel Trotter but not long after that awful event and time in his life Mel Trotter heard the gospel and Jesus transformed his life and he became one of the greatest preachers of his generation look him up read a story friend it doesn't matter how far gone you think you are it doesn't matter how far gone others think you are God's rest is extended to you today and in his grace he's provided this day and this time for you to hear the good news and to hear Jesus say to you through his word come to me he doesn't say come to me after you go and do a bunch of good things first come to me after you've proven that you're worthy of my salvation none of us are worthy of that even the best of us he says come to me come to me right now come to me today he'll unburden you he'll save you he'll transform you and he'll completely and totally change your life and you will know a rest unlike any other and knowing who Jesus is and what he's done for you and now the third reality
[37:22] God's rest is experienced through actively obeying his word I'm gonna have to take next Sunday to look at verses 12 and 13 but look at verse 11 right now that is if we make it to next Sunday or if I do let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience so this can seem kind of confusing doesn't it on the one hand we know God encourages us to enter into his rest rest and we know that we enter into his rest by faith in Jesus Christ and we know that God extends his rest to those who have hardened their heart towards him today but on the other hand we're commanded here to strive to enter his rest rest the writer of Hebrews is making the point that we must not be like the Israelites in the wilderness that we must strive to enter
[38:31] God's rest in other words we must work at resting this means that we work against all of our efforts to prove our own righteousness we must strive against our efforts to justify ourselves this is one of the many reasons why joining the church and being a part of the church is so important we gather and when we gather we encourage one another to strive in being faithful to press on toward the prize of God's ultimate rest we sing songs about this we hear God's word we sit under teaching and preaching where his word is exposing our sin and leading us to repentance and sanctifying us and forming us ever more into the image of
[39:39] Jesus Christ his son we help each other strive to enter this rest in Hebrews 10 24 through 25 the writer talks about that and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near church is the place where we stir one another up to love and good works this is one of the paradoxes of our faith again on the one hand we stop working to earn God's salvation rest because Jesus has done all the work for us but on the other hand we do work our faith in the Lord compels us to work in service to the Lord not so that we will be saved but because we are saved
[40:43] James 2 26 says for as the body apart from the spirit is dead so also faith apart from works is dead so on the one hand stop working and rest on the other hand strive to enter his rest well how do you know how do you know if you're working with the motivation to appear righteous before others how do you know if you're working you're serving for the Lord striving to enter his rest comes down to your motivation comes down to your motivation and how do you know by asking yourself being honest with yourself why am
[41:52] I doing this why am I doing this why am I volunteering for this why am I teaching this why am I playing this instrument why am I running the sound and the video why am I doing anything that I'm doing in the church and if you're doing it for the Lord if you're doing it for his glory and for his praise then that's striving to enter his rest that's a good use of your time but if you're doing it for yourself to prove something to others to prove something you think to God in order to receive his love that's a waste of your time that's working in a way where you have not appreciated the rest that Jesus has given to you the Lord has given each one of us one life one life to live right now we have today we don't know that we have tomorrow but he implores us through his word enter my rest don't waste your life don't strive to acquire earthly treasures that will perish but work for the
[43:18] Lord motivated by the joy in your heart knowing the work that he did for you to save you and in saving you knowing that he works to keep you and will not lose you will not forsake you and there's peace there's great peace in knowing that so how do we adjust according to what we've heard rest in Jesus work and work for Jesus glory again that's the motivation why am I doing this why am I doing this and the kind of striving that is good and is worthy of your time is the striving that you can answer why am I doing this for Jesus glory Matthew 6 19 through 21 we'll end with Jesus words here God having the final word in his instruction do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there your heart will be also let's pray!
[44:45] Lord we thank you for the work that you've graciously done to save us Lord we thank you that you were willing to come willing to serve willing to suffer and die willing to endure the beatings and the mockings and being forsaken on the cross for our sins Lord we're so grateful that you rose from the dead on the third day Lord it's proof that you are who you said that you are and that your sacrifice was sufficient and that there's eternal life in you thank you for the work that you've done to save us and Lord forgive us that sometimes we think that there's something more for us to do we think that there's something else for us to add
[45:52] I can't imagine how heartbreaking that must be for you to see acting as if your work wasn't enough forgive us Lord for having such thoughts God in your grace I pray that you would keep us from wasting our lives here working in ways in your name but really doing it for ourselves or having deceived ourselves into thinking that we had to do these things in order for you to love us or to forgive us or to keep us God I pray that we would take your word to heart this morning all of us that we would see the difference in the kinds of works that we're doing and the motivation for why we're doing it for those of us whom you've been gracious to save Lord I pray that it would truly be even more so our greatest desire to do what pleases you so that you will receive all the glory and
[47:02] God I pray also from your word that we would care like the writer of Hebrew cared like Charles Spurgeon cared like you cared for an unbeliever who is being deceived to hear the good news from our lips and God I pray that you would open our eyes to see those who are lost around us and that God we would be willing to open our mouths and share and that in sharing people would see the passion and the love that we have for you that they would look at our lives and see something different and they would know that the difference is you and you alone so God we need your help to be obedient to what we've heard we trust by the indwelling of your spirit that you will help us to obey we love you
[48:06] Lord and we thank you for the work that you've done that we may enter your rest in Jesus name we pray amen