Faith's Rest (Individual Messages)

Introduction

Hebrews 3:7–4:16 (NKJV)7Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice,8Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness,9Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years.10Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’11So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”12Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;13but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.14For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,15while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”16For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses?17Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?18And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? (God’s purpose was not just to get them out of Egypt, but to get them into an inheritance, into His rest)19So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.4:1Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.2For indeed 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.3For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.4For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;5and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”6Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,7again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”8For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.9There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.10For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.11Let us therefore be diligent (make every effort, work) to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.12For the word of God is living and powerful (active), 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.13And 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.14Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.15For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.16Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

God promises Abraham 700 years in advance that the people of his seed will go through slavery in Egypt, but then will be brought out and taken to the promised land. And then God sends Moses to the people in captivity to bring them this good news, to preach the gospel to them about a promised land flowing with milk and honey into which they will go and enter. They will live in houses they did not build and eat from vines they did not plant. Great news! It sounded too good to be true.

What happened? They came out of Egypt’s captivity and in how many days did they reach Kadesh-Barnea? In 11 days (Deuteronomy 1:2). After 400 years of slavery, God wanted them in the promised land in 11 days. So, these spies go and inspect the land and then they come back and rebel against God saying they will not enter the land. And here in Hebrews 3, God says that “your parents tested me for 40 years. I did not test them, but they tested Me. For 40 years I tried to get these people to a country where they didn’t have to work hard for a living, but they didn’t want to come in.” And then God says that “I have sworn that they shall not enter into My rest.” Interesting! He did not say “you shall not enter Canaan, but you shall not enter My rest.”

Then the passage says that Joshua led the people into the land of Canaan in the end. But if this land was God’s rest (v. 4:8), then why would God have spoken to David later in Psalms 95:7-8 about another day, that is today, in which we should not harden our hearts? Therefore it is and still remains a rest for God’s people, that is, for us who are born again, into which we are invited to enter.

I think we know a lot about faith, how it comes, how it works, what faith does, how faith catapults you into God’s power, how faith leads you into God’s promises, and how you need faith to receive all that God has given you. But before faith does all these things in your life, before faith produces results in your life, there is one thing that faith will do first: faith will first lead you into God’s rest.

 

What Is God’s Rest?
God’s rest is a place, a dimension, or a realm that we enter.

Genesis 2:1–3 (NKJV)1Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.2And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.3Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

On the seventh day we see God creating a realm of rest into which He also invites man after creating him at the end of the sixth day. In the Garden of Eden was God’s rest and man had work, but it was not hard sweaty work. Everything he did or worked, he did from a place and a realm of rest.

In God’s Sabbath, in God’s rest, work and marriage were not done out of or under pressure, but out of pleasure. When man sinned, he destroyed that day of rest, or rather, stepped out of it. The realm of rest remained intact, but man came out of it and entered into hard work. Married life has become work. Why? Because they were no longer in that place ...