Hebrews 4:6-16
enter his rest.
First of all, I want to get something out of the way. Thanksgiving is the pre-game to the Christmas season. Thanksgiving is a part of Christmas. It’s the warm-up, the stretching before the big game.
You’re allowed to disagree with me, that’s fine. I mean, you’d be wrong, but that’s fine. But for the purpose of this message, I just need you to go with me. Thanksgiving is part of Christmas. Even if you disagree, just pretend for today.
Ok. Thanks for that. That will just make everything a little easier.
I’m going to be sharing today about rest. If you were to take a look at my schedule from the past two weeks, you would laugh out loud at the irony that I’m the one sharing about rest. Seriously, look at this.
One of those weeks I had something scheduled every single night. The night before I preached this message I flew in from Florida. And I didn’t take vacation days to go to Florida, so I worked 9-5 while I was there. I’m not good at rest. I’m good at staying busy.
Sometimes this busyness is self-imposed, and other times I feel this pressure from others to do all the things. Like Christmas gifts, for example. I feel like I’m supposed to get gifts for every single person I know. Because gift-giving is good, right!? A few years ago I made a list of everyone I “had” to buy Christmas presents for, and it was 40 people. Seriously. I went back the other day to find the list and I checked. Do you know how much money it takes to buy gifts for 40 people? It’s a lot of money! And those people on that list aren’t expecting Christmas gifts from me. I just feel like I have to buy them presents for some reason.
But other times the expectations are external. Like Thanksgiving. I want to do Thanksgiving dinner with friends, but I also feel this external pressure to travel to Kentucky to visit my grandma for Thanksgiving. Plus there’s a pressure to be with Michael’s family on Thanksgiving. Of course this is a good problem to have, right? We want to spend Thanksgiving with our friends and families, but the pressure to spend it with all of them is an external expectation that pushes us toward busyness.
I’m sure we all struggle with meeting expectations of others, especially at Christmastime. Maybe you’re a parent, and you feel this external pressure to buy or make Christmas gifts for your kids’ teachers. Maybe you always drive to your parents’ house for the holidays, and this year you can’t afford it or you don’t want to make your kids take that trip again, but you feel pressure to do it anyway because it’s what you’ve always done. I think we all have traditions that we’ve “always done” that are actually exhausting. Maybe it’s that elf on the shelf thing, cookies for Santa, cooking a whole turkey, sending gifts to every single niece, nephew, cousin, in-law, and neighbor you’ve ever met, or buying matching pajamas for everyone in your family. Some traditions make a lot of sense and are fun and enjoyable, but others are just. plain. exhausting.
And what does all of this striving lead to? Do we end up enjoying the holiday season? Do we get to rest with our families and celebrate the love of Jesus together? No! We end up in credit card debt buying crap, exhausted from late nights wrapping gifts, sick and tired of our families who expect so much from us, and so busy that we don’t have time to spend with God.
I think we can all agree this is not part of God’s plan for our holiday seasons. I want us to look together at Hebrew 4. The writer of Hebrews here is explaining the rest we are offered by Jesus. The writer explains that the Israelites in the old testament never got to enter into this rest, because they disobeyed God. The Israelites, if you don’t know, were God’s chosen people, but they are infamous for turning away from his gifts time and time again, especially through idolatry. Idolatry is placing anything other than God as the most important thing in our lives. If you’re familiar with stories of the Israelites, you may be thinking, “But I’m not melting gold to make giant statues of cows, so I’m good on the idolatry front.” But I would challenge that we all struggle with idolatry, especially at the Christmas season. We strive to please others, to uphold traditions, to buy presents for everyone, and before we know it we are worshipping an idol we created before worshipping God.
But God has a better plan for us, and that is rest. Read what Hebrews tells us:
6 So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today.
Not after the holidays, not January 1 as a resolution to rest, not after you finally get the tree put up or finish that big project at work. God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today.
9 So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11 So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.
What does doing our best look like? God doesn’t say “I will make you rest.” This passage tells us there is rest still waiting for us, and it’s the same kind of rest that God took after he created the world. This is referencing all the way back in Genesis when God created the heavens and the earth and the water and sky and animals and plants and people, and then what did he do? He rested. This is the kind of rest we’re talking about. A well-deserved rest. A peaceful rest. The kind of rest that you feel when you’ve been working really hard all week to create the whole freaking world, and then you take a break and rest.
I think the wording here, “do our best to enter that rest,” is important. It shows us that this is not the kind of rest where you’re sleep-deprived and so your body forces you to fall asleep. This is a rest we have to willingly enter. This rest is a discipline. Like working out or reading our Bible or practicing an instrument, this discipline takes getting used to. We won’t ever wake up one day and accidentally enter this rest. We have to choose it.
12 For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Since I started working at Missio Dei I’ve started getting pretty into the Enneagram, which is a personality assessment, and I’m a type 8. Type 8s are known as challengers who are motivated by power and influence, but this means we hate vulnerability. So when I read Hebrews 4:13, “Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes,” it’s a little unsettling. I don’t like the idea of being naked and exposed before anyone’s eyes, especially if I’m then held accountable.
But I think there’s another way to read this verse that isn’t scary and intimidating, but is actually freeing. God sees everything. This means he sees my intentions. So when I’m striving to please everyone else, he sees me. He sees the effort that everyone else may not see. He knows when my heart is in a good place. And he is the one to whom I am held accountable. Not my grandma, not my pastor, not my boss, not my boyfriend. Only God. This means I don’t have to strive to please everyone else. I can focus on loving God, allow that to overflow into love for others, and rest in that fact that God is in control of everything else.
And there’s more good news here. Listen to this.
14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Jesus not only sees us, he understands us, our weaknesses, and our temptations. He knows firsthand how hard it is to deal with expectations placed on our lives by ourselves and others. He knows the pressure put on us. And because of this, the writer of Hebrews encourages us to come boldly to the throne! We are encouraged here to bring our weaknesses and our temptation and our expectations to God. And he will extend his grace to us. He will help us when we need it most. He will help us rest in the midst of this busy season. He will help us lay down our striving. He will help us do our best to enter his rest.
If your calendar has ever looked anything like mine, if you feel the pressure of expectations this holiday season, if you’re positive no one would ever ask you for advice on how to rest because you’ve never rested a day in your life, then I’m betting also like me this is a huge relief to you. He will help us do our best. We will find his grace when we need it most.
So what does this mean for you? What’s your action step, your takeaway, the big idea? Here it is. Here’s the calling.
> enter his rest.
And if you’re thinking, “What?? That can’t be it!” You’re right. There’s more. Here it is.
> enter his rest. today
Like I said, this rest is a discipline. I don’t know what it looks like for you. Maybe it’s ending a tradition you’ve been upholding because “everyone expects you to.” Maybe it’s taking a couple of vacation days to spend time with family. Maybe it’s actually not spending time with family this year because the stress of traveling keeps you from resting. Maybe it’s serving at church, or donating what you would normally spend on gifts to a mission or charity, or going to Disneyland. Seriously, I have no idea what this rest looks like for any of you, because that is between you and the Holy Spirit. Just like verse 13 says, he is the only one to whom you are accountable. Not me. Not Bob. Not your boss or your spouse or your kids. You are called to rest because God is offering you that rest. The God of the universe, who created the heavens and the earth and then rested is offering THAT SAME REST to YOU!
Enter his rest. Not tomorrow. Not December 26 or January 1. Not Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Today. Enter his rest today. Because he’s inviting you to. And I guarantee it’s better than striving.
I invite you to ask the Holy Spirit what this rest looks like for you. Come boldly to the throne right here, right now, and ask for this rest. You don’t have to be at a certain step in your faith to ask for this. You don’t have to read your Bible every day or pray for 3 hours every morning or have been in church for 25 years to be able to enter this rest. The verse says there is a special rest waiting for the people of God, the people who believe in God, the people who love God.