June 4/23- The Sabbath Rest Hebrews 3:7-4:16

Today we are continuing our series based on the book of Hebrews. We will be reflecting on Hebrews 3:7-4:16 -The Sabbath Rest. The writer of Hebrews invites us to make sure that we enter into the sabbath rest God offers us through Jesus. He roots sabbath rest in creation. The first thing God does after creating humanity is to invite them to spend the day with him. Together they get to know the very good creation. The writer also ties the exodus of Israel to sabbath rest. We are invited to experience freedom from the work week and pressures of providing for ourselves and our families. By spending the day with God in his very good creation, we are pointed to the renewal of creation at the second coming of Jesus.

Transcript

The Sabbath Rest

Hebrews 3:7-4:16

We’ve journeyed so far with the writer to the Hebrews in remembering who Jesus is the Soon of God and in his humanity and why both sides of who Jesus is important to us and part of God’s plan of salvation for us. Now the writer begins to challenge his readers on how our faith shapes and impacts our lives and relationships, beginning with the invitation to enter God’s rest. We are reminded what Sabbath rest is all about.

The writer connects Sabbath rest to 2 key moments in history, using Moses’ writing to guide us. He begins with the Holy Spirit’s warning to not harden their heart to God like the people of Israel did after God lead them out of slavery into freedom and their response was to whine and complain. Moses makes the connection between Sabbath rest and freedom in Deuteronomy where he gives us God’s command to keep the Sabbath, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” If you’re looking for true freedom from whatever is holding you as a slave, whether it’s habits or patterns of life you can’t seem to change, whether it’s addiction, or ways of thinking, freedom begins by accepting Jesus’ invitation to come to him to find rest. 

You can begin to experience the beginnings of freedom by coming to spend time with God and others; Sabbath is a community thing, not an individual thing in the Bible. When we come together, we remember who God is and his acts in the past for us to experience hope and strength. This doesn’t mean that God does everything for us, along with practicing Sabbath rest, we also seek out healing and counselling, we work to change our habits, we find mentors who will challenge us in our life choices, we work at connecting with the Holy Spirit to begin the process of transforming our ways of thinking and acting by pointing us to Jesus and his way. Jesus came for those who are sick and admit that they need him, he invites us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We all need Jesus, we all need his rest, but we don’t all realise it.

The reality is that even in Canada and our own communities, there’s still slavery, often sexual slavery. There are people quietly aching to be free but live in fear and despair. If any of you know of someone in this situation, if you yourself are in a destructive relationship, trust that Jesus is with you, that he weeps your tears over your suffering. I encourage you to quietly reach out to myself or others here at Bethel and we will walk with you as best we can to help you find freedom and rest in Jesus and connect you to resources to help you. 

We seek God’s rest, knowing that he understands how much we need his rest because of who Jesus is, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

In Exodus, when giving the 10 Commandments, Moses roots Sabbath rest in creation, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” After creating the universe and everything in it, culminating with humanity and seeing that it’s all “very good,” God rests the seventh day, humanity’s first day. The setting is the Garden of Eden and the pleasure of being with God. God’s first day with us is not spent showing us what work we’re supposed to do, instead he rests with us, enjoying together the beauty and wonder of creation and life. Here the Sabbath focus is time spent with God; and it’s for the entire creation! Resting from our work is a sign of trust in God that he will provide for us, that work is not the center of our life, but God is.

The warning is to make sure that we don’t fall short of entering onto God’s rest. Verse 2 is an interesting verse in how it’s constructed and translated, “For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.” A literal and expanded translation is, “But the Word preached, the gospel, did not benefit those who were not uniting by faith with those who have listened to or obeyed the message.” Either way, there’s something about coming together every 7 days that helps refresh us spiritually, emotionally, and physically. God’s rest is part of the rhythm of creation. God’s rest is about God’s people spending time together with God, taking our minds off work and achieving more, and just being God’s people together. This is a time to encourage and build each other up. This is part of our faithfulness to God and Jesus. We unite weekly with others who are listening to and walking the way of Jesus in obedience to his teaching. Hebrews often refers to the importance of community, that we come close to God and enter his rest through the community of the Body of Christ, through the fellowship of the church. Later, the writer urges the believers to “not give up meeting with each other.”

We’re shown how we can find ourselves not entering God’s rest, “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” There’s a warning here to not turn our back on God, to make God less important, to make God’s gifts more important than him, to make our desires and goals more important than God. It fascinates me, it’s not about whether the people believe in God and Jesus, it’s about the lack of their relationship with God and Jesus. We can get so caught up in our own stuff, making everything more important than God and being part of the family of God, that we end up turning our back on God. 

Sin is deceitful, we might think that we’re fine with God because we believe the right things about Jesus, that Jesus is both God and human and died for our sins and was raised from the dead and assures us of our salvation, but remember that even Satan believes in who Jesus is, yet he turns away because his wants are more important than a relationship of trust and obedience with Jesus. We’re often willing to be deceived so we can be like everyone else and focus on our wants, this is why the warning is repeated in different ways like, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart,” an echo again to Israel’s time in the wilderness. 

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword.” There’s something about God’s word that gets deep inside of us when we’re exposed to it regularly. God knows what’s going on in our hearts, sometimes even when we’re not completely aware of what’s happening. His word’s able to penetrate through all the garbage we fill our thoughts and hearts with, and it draws us to him and helps us stop fooling ourselves. This can be a sometimes very painful process, which is why cutting and piercing imagery is used. 

Again, one defense against unfaith is mutual encouragement; this requires being part of a community of faith. Mutual encouragement is a vital part of being part of the family of God. Obedience to Jesus, “if you love me, you will keep my commands” helps us enter his rest and strengthens our faith. “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” “Let us,” is not an encouragement, it’s a command because we don’t listen so well otherwise.We ache for rest, we live in a culture that is tired, exhausted. Mostly it’s not physical tiredness, it’s mental, emotional, spiritual tiredness. 

But what is this Sabbath rest? Sabbath rest is about connecting with God and about freedom from the things that make us slaves.Our example is Christ himself who came to us just like us. We have a high priest, the one who enters into God’s presence and prepares the way for us. If Sabbath rest is about meeting God and finding freedom, then the way to Sabbath rest is through Jesus. Jesus knows the temptations we face, to skip the Sabbath rest. Jesus teaches us that Sabbath rest is about freedom from our driven daily lives and switching our focus to others who carry the image of God in them. He gave us an example by regularly setting time aside to be with God. Jesus knows our need to be freed from religious rules that stop us from being with him or seeing him; he gives us an example by spending time with people and responding to their needs on Sabbath days. Sabbath rest is connecting with God and freeing our hearts and minds so we can focus on being like Christ. It’s about time with God and the community of God and doing Christ-like things for and with each other; a foretaste of heaven.