Hebrews 4: Jesus is Rest

Jesus Is: A study in the book of Hebrews / Hebrews 4:1–11

Introduction

Hebrews 4:1 ESV

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.

We are made for rest, but we hardly ever get there. We get a whiff of rest, a sense of it. And we think it is good enough. We see the finish line, or we get close to home, and we never really stop.

This is the problem of our age. We are exhausting ourselves to death

Rest is the place where we communicate the most trust.

Hebrews 4:1–4 ESV

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. 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 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. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

And for the Christian’s sake, God is the One who is ruling.

On our end we practice rest, on God’s end He maintains His rule.

Rest communicates that Christ is the complete sufficiency of our work

Hebrews 4:9–10 ESV

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.

To rest is witness to God’s goodness.

If the human condition does not thrive on frantic pacing, and if all the culture is doing is running frantically, then it cannot flourish as is. It is caught up in itself. We get caught up in it as well.

This week would you trust Christ enough to lay down whatever frantic pace you’re tempted to carry on. Be countercultural this week, when the world is calling you to by endless toil, would you lay down whatever it is You’re tempted to clutch and linger over the goodness of God and point to greater things.