Christ our Sabbath Rest

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That's cornerstonerbc.com. Very good, brethren, as I said, today we're going to be speaking about rest, the rest that Christians are supposed to have, the rest that we have in the Lord. And I'm going to invite you to open up your Bibles. I'm pretty sure that you have already opened them to Hebrews chapter 3.

We're going to be reading from verse 7 all the way through chapter 4, verse 13. So this is the reading of God's Word. Please pay careful attention to the context. of what the Lord says through the author of Hebrews. This is the word of the Lord.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. As I soar in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil and believing heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. And as it is said today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart, as in the day of rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were unable to enter the rest because of unbelief. Chapter four.

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 soared 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. 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 fail to enter it because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, Today, if you hear his voice, Do not harden your hearts, for if Joshua had given them rest, God would have not 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. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Why? For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intention of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Amen. This is the reading of God's word, my dear brother and sister. There is a very powerful verse in the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians in chapter five. There the apostle answers a very important question about the Christian life.

The question of how are we supposed to walk the walk of the Christian. There in verse 7 in chapter 5 of the second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us the answer. And the answer is that the Christian walk is meant to be walked by faith and not by sights. There the apostle establishes a foundational pillar for the Christian life. And that is that the most important thing in your life as a Christian, it is the faith that you have in the person of Jesus Christ.

Not by virtue of your ability to believe, but rather by virtue of the object of your faith, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is powerful when the object of that faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. So the most important thing that we have As Christians, it's our faith. Hence, the Apostle calls us to walk the Christian life by faith and not by sight. In that passage, the Apostle Paul is explaining to the church this future idea that even though we cannot see the Lord Jesus Christ today, there's going to be one day in which we're going to see him and we are going to be like he is.

There's going to be one day in which this body is going to pass and we're going to be with the Lord. Hence, he says, you don't need to see the Lord Jesus Christ today. You only need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because even though your eyes cannot see the Lord, even though your senses cannot experience the presence, the immediate presence of the Lord, your faith connects you with Christ Jesus, what He has done in the past and the promise that He's going to come in the future. The basic teaching of that passage is that we Christians are to live our lives by faith and not by experiences, not by emotions, or not by feelings.

Our feelings and our emotions might tell us certain things about the present, but that which is true about Christ Jesus is only told and given to us by our faith. But I don't know if this is what happened to you. It certainly happened to me when I see that, at least that passage. And my question is, but what is the connection or the relationship between faith, that which makes me a Christian, and my feelings, my experiences, that which my senses experience? How am I going to relate my feelings, my experiences to my spiritual condition, namely to my faith?

Are my experiences connected at all with my faith or are they supposed to be disconnected? When the Bible calls me to live by faith and not by sight, is the Bible requiring on me that I will completely cut? any sense of experience or feeling or emotion and I should only focus on the faith that the Lord has given me? Well, you know, Christians have tried to give an answer to that controversy or that situation between my faith and my experiences and my emotions. You might have heard or seen that some Christians will say that your emotions will tell you or that your experiences will tell you or that what you experience and you live will tell you absolutely everything about your faith, so because your emotions are so important about your faith, then you should be walking always in joy.

You should be walking always in victory. You should always be abounding in the presence of the Lord because your emotions tell you about your spiritual condition to the point that even some people will tell you that if you are in Christ, you're not to be anxious, you're not to have fear, you're not to have any sense of a negative emotion in your experience because your experience tells you everything about your spiritual condition, namely your faith. There's going to be other group of Christians that in response to that view will say that there's no connection between faith. and emotions. There's no connection between faith and experiences.

There's no connection between faith and that which we live in in our life. Actually, that our emotions, our feelings, and our experiences will tell us absolutely nothing about our faith. And let me submit to you that is it always the case with extremes. Many times the biblical teaching found some place there in the middle. Let me submit to you that even though our emotions and our feelings and that which we experience with our senses do not tell us everything about our emotions, they do tell us something about our faith and our spiritual condition.

They do tell us something. about our spiritual condition. They tell us something about our beliefs. When a brother or sister has been united to the Lord Jesus Christ by grace, and that person has become a son or daughter of God, they have been genuinely united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when that person starts to walk the walk of faith, and they start to face the difficulties of this world, they start to face the difficulties of their own lives, their sin and the problems of this life, and they start to struggle with the assurance of their salvation, They experience fear, they experience uncertainty.

And even though that fear and that uncertainty does not tell me anything about the truth of their faith because they are genuine believers, they are genuine Christians only by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those fears or those feelings of fear and uncertainty do tell me something about the faith of that person. And that is perhaps that the faith of that person is not as strong as it should be. It tells me that perhaps the eyes of that person are placed no longer in Jesus Christ, but perhaps they are examining themselves in such a way that they are no longer paying attention to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and hence they are experiencing this fear or this uncertainty. While experiences will not tell me everything about the spiritual condition of a person, they will tell me something about the experience of that person.

And that's why we have beautiful emotions that are connected to our faith. When you go to Galatians chapter 5, you will read that the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of those who are in Christ Jesus by faith, is to have joy, is to have peace, is to have gentleness. Biblical emotions are connected with biblical realities, namely our faith. The question is not which one are we going to choose, but rather in which one we are going to focus. And let me submit to you that in order for us to have biblical emotions, experiences, or feelings, we are to have, more importantly, biblical and solid beliefs and faith.

in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why questions about the experience of the Christian, many times, will tell me something about the life of that person. And I'm not saying all of that just simply to frame the question that I'm going to ask you. And the question that I'm going to ask is this. Brother or sister, are you resting in the Lord?

Because rest is an experience, right? Rest is not an abstract idea. Rest is not a definition that you just simply come and see in the dictionary. Rest is an experience of the Christian life that is meant to be rooted in our faith. Now, your rest or lack of rest will not tell me everything about your faith, but it will tell me something about where your faith is placed or if your faith is strong or not.

So let me ask you once again this question. Are you resting in the Lord? Are you resting in Christ Jesus? Or are you paying so much attention to yourself that you're no longer caring about Jesus Christ and your life has become a burden upon your shoulders? Or perhaps in order to ask that question in a better way, are you tired?

Are you tired? And I'm not only referring to physical, you know, being tired physically, but are you tired emotionally or spiritually? The Lord Jesus Christ will tell us in Matthew 11, verse 28, that we are to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. All who are weary and heavy laden, we are to come to Christ because He is the one that gives rest to our souls. How is your soul, brother, sister?

Are you tired in your mind with many thoughts, conflicting thoughts that take you from one place to another and fill your vessel with uncertainty, with fear of the things that are to come? How are your relationships? Do you have fear and uncertainty? Are you emotionally tired of your relationships? Are you resting in the sovereignty of the Lord?

Are you resting in Christ Jesus? Are you giving everything to the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you bringing everything to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you resting? Because even though the answer to that question might not tell me everything about your faith.

The answer to your question at least will tell you there, as you answered that before the Lord, something about your faith. Because if you are not resting in the Lord, if you don't have the peace of Christ, that He has completed it all already, that He has died upon the cross, then there is something inside of us that is distracting us from the attention of the Lord Jesus Christ. And brethren, I'm not asking you that question as a person who can say that is entirely resting in the Lord, because as you answered that question, I also answered that question. And let me submit to you that there are many things in our lives, many things inside of our heads, many times, many things are inside of our hearts that distract us from Christ Jesus. And many times we find ourselves not resting in the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but rather filled with anxiety, or filled with uncertainty, or filled with fear.

Fear that can only be dealt and solved by the power of the Holy Spirit by resting in the Lord Jesus Christ. And because The experience of rest is meant to be rooted in a belief of what rest actually means. This is what I want us to do, brethren, that we will come to this text, and very briefly, I hope, not going very long today, that we will address Rest from a biblical perspective so that by seeing in the Scriptures what it is to rest in Christ Jesus, your faith will be strengthened in the Lord. And when you're tempted to despair, when you're tempted to be anxious, when you're tempted with the problems of this life, that your eyes will be pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ and understand the greatness of the rest that we have. As I said, I only want to address verse 10, where the author, a Hebrew, tells us that whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

I want us to do a couple of things from this verse. I want us to do actually three things from this verse. The first thing that I want us to do is to ask ourselves the question of what is this rest? What is this rest that we can have in the Lord? We cannot experience that rest if we do not know what is the rest that we have in the Lord.

Once we have addressed and perhaps we're going to take most of our time addressing what is this rest in the Lord, then I want us to address how do we obtain this rest? Because there's no point in understanding what the rest that we can have in the Lord is only with our minds if we do not enter into that rest, if we do not enjoy that rest, if we do not experience that rest. And then if the Lord allows us and gives us enough time, then I want us to speak about a few practical applications of how we can enjoy the rest that the Lord gives us through His finished work. So let us start with the first one. What is that rest?

And the first question that we need to ask of our text that we have there in our passage is this. What is the nature of the rest that the author that is writing this letter has in mind? Is this a spiritual rest? Was this a physical rest? And you may think that the question that I'm asking is an obvious question that can be easily answered and said that this is a spiritual rest.

However, there's going to be people that are going to come to this text and are going to tell us that the rest that the Apostle or that the author of Hebrews has in mind, it is actually a physical rest that later will lead to a spiritual rest precisely for what the author of Hebrews says in verse nine. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So, for whoever has entered into God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Some people might say that this rest is actually a physical rest for the people of God. Of course, I'm going to submit to you, my dear brother and sister, that the type of rest that we are speaking about here is not a physical rest, but rather is a spiritual rest.

And the first reason that I'm going to be giving you for this is because the rest that we have just read about is a rest that transcends time. The type of rest that we have just read in these few verses is a type of rest that goes beyond time. If you come quickly with me to chapter 3 in verse 18 or verse 16, there the author of this passage of Scripture is going to give us the example of the people of Israel. You remember how the people of Israel were enslaved by the Egyptians in the Old Testament? How they spent hundreds of years there under bondage with the Egyptians?

Then the Lord will come to liberate the people of Israel and to take them out of Egypt. The promise that God gave to the people of Israel is that He was going to bring them to the Promised Land. You remember that? The Promised Land was going to be the place in which Israel was going to enjoy the final rest. They were very tired in Egypt because they were working very heavily.

They were doing all of these sort of works there in Egypt. They were slaves. They had absolutely no rest. They didn't have day off. They had to work for themselves and produce under Egypt.

But when the Lord took them, He gives them the promise, I'm going to take you to the Promised Land. And once you enter into the promised land, then you're going to enjoy not only the land, but you're going to enjoy rest. And that rest is that I'm going to be there with you. As the author of Hebrews has given us the example of the people of Israel, you remember that even though they were liberated from Egypt, they were not the best people of God in the wilderness. You remember?

They were sinners. They forgot the Lord. Even just a few months after the Lord had liberated them, they sinned against the Lord and they turned back against the Lord. And because of their disobedience, you remember that all of that generation died in the wilderness. You remember that.

This is the example that the author of Hebrews is using and he's going to tell us they did not enter that rest. Let us read here from verse 16 when he says, For who were those who hurt and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. If we stop there, then someone might say, well, the rest that the author of Hebrews is speaking about is a physical rest. And that physical rest refers to the land that had been promised to the people of Israel. They were disobedient, they died in the wilderness, and they could not make it into the promised land.

Hence, they could not enjoy the rest of God. But surprisingly, the author of Hebrews is going to tell us that entrance to that rest is already available. When you go into chapter 4, verse 1, it says, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, still stands. I mean, Joshua and the people of Israel have already died when he's writing this, these hundreds of years in the past. But the author of Hebrews is telling us that the promise of entering that promise rest still stands, he 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.

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. The rest that the author of Hebrews refers to seems to be a rest that transcends the time of the time of Joshua. And that is confirmed when you go to verse 8, and I'm really sorry that we're doing this, but we really need to have clarity from the text so that we move on to the next point. When you go to verse 8, it is clearly stated that Joshua did not give rest to the people of Israel when they entered into the Promised Land. It says, for if Joshua, verse 8, 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. The rest that the author of Hebrews is referring to, it is a type of rest that transcends time. A rest that he says that is now available to the people that are receiving this letter. And even if I just give you a little bit more detail there, and I promise that I move on to something softer, Even if we pay attention to the title of this book, what is the title of this book? Hebrews, this letter was written to the Jews before the destruction of the temple.

We know that because there's a lot of teaching about how the temple should operate and what is the reality and the substance of the temple. Yet the author of Hebrews is going to tell to these Jews that were Christians in verse 9, so there remains a savage rest for the people of God. But the people of Israel already had the Sabbath on a weekly basis. They already have the Sabbath every year. They had already entered the promised land.

They were already in the promised land, yet they had failed and they had sinned, but they were already in the physical shadow of the rest. The apostle or the author of Hebrews is not referring to a physical rest, but rather he's referring to a spiritual rest. And we clearly know that because he has told us in verse Now brethren, this may sound like a lot of information and a lot of things to you, but the simple point that I'm just making here is this. Rest is spiritual by nature, and the type of rest that God offers to his people is an spiritual rest that can be obtained only by having faith in the person of Jesus Christ. When the author of Hebrew tells us in verse 10 that whoever has entered God's rest, he has also rested from his works is describing the salvation experience of the genuine believer, the person who has placed his or her faith in Jesus Christ.

is now enjoying the spiritual rest that only God can provide. So the question that follows from there is, have you entered into that rest? Have you rested from your works? Those works that God requires of people so that they will obtain righteousness. Not that righteousness can be obtained through the observance of the law, but when God says you shall not lie, or when he says you shall not commit adultery, or when he says you shall not steal.

Those things that God requires of people, those works that are required of people, have you rested from those works? Have you rested from pursuing your own righteousness in your own flesh? Have you come to the point in which you have realized that you cannot rest from those works and from those requirements and you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ so that now you are resting Not because you have done something in order to earn it or to win it, but rather you're resting because Jesus Christ, He's the one who has completed the work of the Lord, and He's the one that has gained or won this eternal rest for His people. Are you there, brethren? This is perhaps the most important question that a person can answer.

You see, it is not about how much money we have in our bank account, or what are the plans that we have for the future, or if I'm going to be healthy or not next week, or if I'm going to have 5 or 10 or 15 children, or if I'm going to have this job or that job. Having entered the rest, the spiritual rest of God is the most important question. Let me submit to you that the author of Hebrews is actually going to give us two important elements that are going to help us understand what is the experience of rest. Because what is rest, right? How do I know?

that I'm actually in the spiritual rest of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle or the author of Hebrews is going to tell us in chapter 3 and 4, he's going to point us to two elements that are characteristic of this spiritual rest that the genuine Christian experiences. Let me just put it into two words and then I will explain them. Genuine spiritual rest is the one that experiences this connection and connection. Genuine spiritual rest is the one that experiences this connection from the works that the person believes that will give them righteousness before God, and experiences connection or direction or union to God Himself.

When we think about rest, sometimes we may reduce down the concept of resting to simply doing nothing. When we think about resting, sometimes we just simply think about stop or cease. I'm resting because I'm not doing anything. While that idea of resting is contained in the rest that we have in the Lord, the rest that we have in the Lord is not only about giving up or just not doing something, but the rest that we're supposed in the Lord is a rest that takes us to a particular direction, and that is to be with the Lord united in our hearts. Let me give you the example of the people of Israel.

The people of Israel were in bondage to Pharaoh. Pharaoh were like those works that were keeping people captive and in bondage. When the Lord came down to liberate the people of Israel and the Lord took them out of Egypt, He disconnected them from the bondage that they had under Pharaoh. But the requirement of the Lord was not only that the people of Israel will be disconnected from whom was the master of the people of Israel, namely the Pharaoh. The requirement of the Lord is that they will now turn to the Lord and they will be connected, that we will be united to a new master.

And this master is now the Lord. The old master that was Pharaoh kept them in bondage, gave them no break, gave them no rest. But now that God has come and has liberated the people of Israel out of Egypt, now he's requiring that it's not only about disconnecting from your previous master, but now it is about connecting with your new master. A master that is going to take you, a master that is going to lead you, a master that is going to take you eventually into the promised land. What the people of Israel did not do is that their hearts were moved away from the presence of the Lord.

Even though they were disconnected from the master that kept them in bondage, they were tempted by their flesh and by their sin, and they were not united in their hearts to the Lord. That is actually the whole point of chapter 3. If you come with me and we read it there, this is going to teach us what is resting actually in the Lord. Pay attention to chapter 3, verse 7. Disconnecting and connecting.

Verse 7, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of rebellion. That is the rebellion of the people of Israel on the day of testing in the wilderness. where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always pay attention, they always go astray in their heart. Pay attention to verse 10, Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, They always go astray in their hearts, as they have not known my ways.

As I soared in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. The people of Israel deviated from the Lord and even though they had been liberated from the master that was the Pharaoh, they have deviated in their heart and they were not connected or united to the Lord. And because that lack of connection in the heart to the ways of the Lord, they shall not enter the rest of the Lord. It is from this point that the author of Hebrews is now going to tell us, be careful. that you, saying that you have been disconnected from your master, Pharaoh, sin, be careful that you saying that you're a Christian, that you're saying that you have placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that when you profess with your mouth that you're a Christian, that you deviate in your heart from the living God.

He says in verse 12, the application of the quoting passage there, he says in verse 12, take care, therefore he speaks to us, brothers and sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Just as the people of Israel had been liberated from Pharaoh and were no longer in bondage to that which kept them as slaves, Be careful that you may follow their same steps. And now you might deviate being free from that bondage, deviate from the presence of the Lord. Because rest is not about not only being under that person who kept you under bondage, but rest is more and primarily, more importantly, to be united with the one that is the source of that rest, and namely God. So he says in verse 13, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, just as the people of Israel."

Just as the people of Israel that had been liberated from the bondage of Israel in Egypt, but now they had been deceived by their sin, and they fell in their wilderness. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end, as it is written, Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the day of rebellion." Brethren, you know that there, verse 15, is directed to us Christians? That today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the day of rebellion. spiritual rest that initiates by faith in Jesus Christ when we first believe.

It is not only about entering into that rest because we have been liberated, but the whole point of the author of Hebrews is to abide and to remain in that rest, in that spiritual rest. And the way that we abide in that spiritual rest is not only by resting and ceasing from the works that we were supposed to do, but by having communion and abiding in the presence of the one that is the source and the substance of a rest. Because I don't know if you saw how many times the Lord is going to refer to rest as, my rest. Did you see that? 18.

How many times the Lord refers to rest? Absolutely every time that He refers to rest, He's going to refer as my rest or His rest. Verse 18. And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest? Chapter 3, verse 18.

And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest? But to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should esteem to have failed to reach it. Or verse 3, for we who have believed had entered the rest, as he has said, as I sought in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Brother and sister, the type of rest that I'm speaking about is a spiritual rest that is the rest of God. And you know what it means that is the rest of God? It just simply means that is not your rest. It means that you cannot obtain this peace and this freedom. You cannot obtain in and of yourself, you don't have what is required to produce the rest for your soul that is required.

That's why the Lord Jesus Christ says in Matthew chapter 11 verse 28, 29 and 30, that, and 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 receive rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. It is coming to the Lord, resting. It is not about leaving behind the things that make us weary.

Resting is not about just simply separating from those things that are the source of our weariness or our tiredness. Resting is actually coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can provide rest to the soul because the rest is the rest of God. It's a spiritual rest. And that means that human beings cannot produce that rest in and of themselves.

We are not going to find that rest in this world, certainly. What we are going to find in this world, brethren, is the same bondage that the people of Israel found in Egypt. That is what we're going to find in this world. Certainly, brothers and sisters, we're not going to find rest in the church. The church is a means by which God manifests his presence.

But the person that provides rest to our souls is Jesus Christ. It is only him that provides rest to our souls. Brothers and sisters, when they come together, this is the means that He has given us so that we can all together look to Jesus Christ and find rest in Him. Brothers and sisters, we are not going to find rest for our souls within our families, with our husband, or with our wife, or with our children. Praise God for the blessing that He has given us of our husband, and our wife, and our children.

But the spiritual rest that our soul desires can only be found at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that the Lord gives us are means to point us to God so that we will give Him glory. And certainly, my dear brother and sister, you are not going to find rest in and of yourself. That's why you have to go to sleep. Because imagine spending 100% of the time with your own thoughts and with yourself.

You're not going to find rest in and of yourself. This is a rest that is only given by the Lord. And let me just simply just tell you a couple of things. Because this is the rest of the Lord, then that simply means that this rest is impossible to be accomplished by humans and by you. And let me just simply just give you a couple of proofs that this type of spiritual rest is impossible to be accomplished in our own strength.

You would have noticed that the passage that the author of Hebrews quotes to refer to this rest, this rest of God, is the passage of Genesis, in which the Lord worked in six days, he completed creation, and then on the seventh day he rested. Pay attention to verse four, when he's actually given us that quotation, that quote from Genesis chapter two. Hebrews chapter four, he says, has somewhere spoken of the seven day in this way. And God rested on the seven day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest.

There are so many things that should be said and could be said about this, and I'm just simply trying to choose in my mind what can be said and what cannot be said. But brothers and sisters, the rest, the spiritual rest that we can enjoy when we come to Jesus Christ by faith alone, by repenting of our sins and putting our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that eternal rest, it is a rest that only God can provide. And the reason why God can only provide it is because eternal rest or spiritual rest is only the result of works that have been completed entirely and in its fullness. Please pay attention to verse four. There's a key word that the author of Hebrews uses, quoting from Genesis chapter two, that many times we just simply pass it over, but it's a very important word.

It says, verse four, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from some of his works, brethren, from all, all his works. Rest is only possible when all the works have been completed. If you take the time to carefully read Genesis chapter 2, you will realize that the reason why God rested on the seventh day, it is because He completed all the works of creation in six days. And when he looks back and he sees all the works of creation that he has done, he says in the last verse of chapter 1 that all things that he has made are very good. That absolutely everything that has been done has been completed perfectly.

And because it has been completed perfectly, he can enter into this eternal spiritual rest. You would have realized there in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 how the days of creation will go with evening and morning, the first day, evening and morning, the second day, evening and morning, the third day, evening and morning, the fourth day, evening and morning, the fifth day and the sixth day. But when it comes to the seventh day, there's no evening, there's no morning. The day in which the Lord rested is a day that has no end, because the rest of the Lord is a rest that is entirely complete, because the Lord has completed the works of creation." From that point onwards, God is going to require men the same thing.

I have completed the works of creation. I have done everything that was required of me to do to enter in a relationship with you. Now I require you, men, that you will complete the works that are necessary for you to maintain and to keep that relationship with me. We have the example of Adam. And Adam was supposed to keep and to preserve the garden that he was given.

And you remember what he did? Did he keep the works of the Lord? Was he obedient to the Lord? Did he keep the words and the commandments of the Lord? No.

Sin entered into the world and very soon into creation, Adam is not only going to disobey, but he's going to break the relationship with the Lord. That which was required of humanity, now it is broken because humans cannot be faithful as God is faithful. Humans can ever, ever, even of themselves, enter into eternal rest because simply we do not have the ability to remain faithful in all the requirements that God has given us. God is the only one that is able to be faithful and to complete all the works that are required. And it's for that reason, because we humans are unable to fulfill the requirements that God has given us, not only with Adam, but also with the people of Israel that were given the presence of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord, and they brought that community or that fellowship with God that is the God-man, Jesus Christ, that has to come.

When we read in Genesis or in John chapter 17, Jesus Christ came to complete the work that the Father had given Him. It is only Jesus Christ, who is God-man, that faithfully completes equally as God completed the works of creation, He completes the works of redemption. So Jesus Christ, who is the God-man, comes and fulfills all the requirements that the Father had given Him before the foundation of the world. He fulfills all the requirements of the law that was given to the people of Israel. He fulfills absolutely everything that you and I needed to fulfill so that when He says, Father, It is finished so that when He says, Father, the work is completed.

Now those who have faith in Him can join Him in entering into the rest of the new creation. The seventh day in which the Father entered for the first creation is going to come to an end. Not because God is not faithful, but because we have broken that relationship with God. So there's going to be one time in which this creation will come to an end and the new creation in Christ Jesus will come. And only those who have faith in Christ Jesus are the ones that will enjoy the future coming of Christ and the future new creation, new heavens, and new earth.

The question about rest is not so much if you understand everything that I have just said, because it's very likely that in the way that I have just communicated, it's impossible to understand all of this. But, brother and sister, the most important question, and my dear friend, is this. Have you entered this eternal rest that is only found in the person of Jesus Christ? Has your faith, have you heard the voice of God that tells you that you're a sinner? And apart from God, you can't do absolutely nothing.

That apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to continue to be in bondage in Egypt. That apart from Jesus Christ, you're continuing to labor and labor and labor and labor and labor for a master that will not give you life, but will give you death. Have you been taken from that dominion of darkness into the dominion of Christ Jesus purely by faith? Is your heart certain and enjoying the assurance that if you are part of the people of God, it's not because you have done what is required of you, but rather because Jesus Christ said, it is finished? Because when you look back to the cross, then you can see in Christ Jesus someone that is not only man, but is also God, and came to fulfill all the works that were impossible for us to fulfill.

Have you repented and put your faith in Christ Jesus in such a way that now the experience of your soul is that you're resting in the Lord Jesus Christ? Brethren, the early church heard these words, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of rebellion. He says today, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day in which you can enter into that eternal rest, that eternal rest that transcends time, that eternal rest that can only found in the person of Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation.

Today is the time in which we can rest and trust in the sovereignty of the Lord. Today is the day in which we can join the Lord Jesus Christ and know that it's not by works, but it's purely by grace through faith alone. This is not because of the things that I do, but rather the things that he has already done and that he continues to do. It is by faith, brother and sister, that you rest in the sovereignty of the Lord, that you know that independently of knowing or not knowing what is to come ahead that you're trusting in the One who has all things in His hands? Are you resting in that Christ?

When your sin and where your guilt comes upon your shoulders, when you have done something that you were not supposed to do, and then you're there in the secret place of your thoughts, or in the secret place of your room in darkness, when you open your eyes and you see nothing, but you can only hear your thoughts there, are you resting in Christ Jesus? Why are you turning to yourself, trying to fix yourself in your own works and in your own deeds? But let me submit to you that if every time that that happens, you're turning to yourself, you're not resting. And if you're not resting, then you're not trusting Christ. And if you're not trusting Christ, then you're saying the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not enough to solve the problem in which I am.

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not enough to remove the guilt of the sin that I have committed. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not enough to remove the darkness of the unrighteousness that I have just committed. And hence, because I think that that is not enough, I need to do it myself. I need to organize these variables in such a way that I'm just going to fix myself. Perhaps on Tuesday, I will be better.

Perhaps on Thursday, I will feel better. Brethren, resting is not only about words. Resting in Jesus Christ is about disconnecting from the things that you are not supposed to be enslaved to. But more importantly, connecting to the source of rest that is Jesus Christ. Because rest is not found in any other place than at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Are you resting in the fact that He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His people? Are you actually trusting that independently of the chaos of our minds and the situation that we might be in, that He's seated already at the right hand of the Father? That He's reigning? That He's governing everything? That He has our lives in His hands?

That He's leading us to the path? That He's the one that has control of all things? Brother and sister, are you resting in that? Is the experience and the emotion and the feeling of your life, does that tell something about where you actually have your faith placed upon? Are you resting in Christ Jesus?

Because when we come to this type of existence of life, and when people remember the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, and people remember many religious things, brother and sister, The most important thing is not about what we do or the things that we say. The most important thing is about what is going on inside of the heart. Where are we when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ? He says, he who has entered the rest of God has also rested from his works. And praise God that he has given us Christ Jesus.

Brethren, that we can rest because there's going to be one day in which when he comes or when we die and we're going to have to give an account to the Lord for the things that we have done. And when we look back and when we see all the mistakes that we have made, and we see all the sins that we have committed, even as Christians, when we see all the errors that we have made, At that point, the only certainty that we have is that our lives do not depend on our performance of the things that we've done, brethren, that depend upon the finished and completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And on that day, the one that is going to take all the glory is Christ Jesus. And in Christ taking all the glory, the church is glorified also. And in Christ Jesus taking all the glory, creation and the new creation is glorified also.

And in Christ Jesus taking all the glory, It happens the best to all that has been created. That's why everything is for Him and unto Him. And if anyone is going to bring a message that is different than Christ Jesus, let them be accursed. Because if that person or those people are pointing people to other than Christ Jesus, brethren, that stone will be rolled to their necks and thrown into the sea. because the condemnation that comes upon them is greater than what they can imagine.

The only hope that we have is Christ Jesus our Lord, and he's the eternal rest for our souls, and it is to him that we ought to come. Amen? Amen.