City Life Starter

I. The Word: Hebrews 4:11

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.”

II. Study Questions

1. When do you feel the most relaxed (least stressed)?

2. What is your favorite day of the week and why?

3. What does “rest” mean to you?

Today’s verse from Hebrews 4 seems like a paradox at first glance: “let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest…” Labor (KJV) to rest? It does sound mutually exclusive at first, but when you consider our natural human tendency to strive for survival, then it makes perfect sense that we would have to make a conscious effort to simply rest in God’s promises.

As Pastor Chris so accurately depicted in Sunday’s sermon, it takes an effort to really rest:

Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day. As the Cat in the Hat says, ”It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional, requiring extensive advance preparation — at the very least a scrubbed house, a full larder and a bath. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction. (Judith Shulevitz, Bring Back the Sabbath, NYT).

Aside from the physical, mental, and social benefits of regularly resting one day of the week, there is also a deeper, spiritual purpose behind the concept of rest. Rest, in its essence, is faith at its best.

I’ve often wondered why the children of Israel had to pass through the wilderness once they were delivered from slavery in Egypt. Why couldn’t God just supernaturally clear a path to the promised land like He did through the Red Sea? He certainly could have. But there was a purpose for the wilderness. It was a time of teaching and character development. The Israelites had to learn to trust God.

Similarly, I have sometimes wondered why people aren’t immediately beamed up to Heaven the moment they surrender their lives to Christ. Wouldn’t that make things a lot easier? It would certainly make life a lot less painful for us, but then we would never have an opportunity to exercise and develop our faith in God.

It’s when we are walking in our own personal wilderness and decide to trust God in the midst of trying circumstances, that our faith in Him and His promises is activated and perfected. While it is vitally important, I think rest is more than simply taking a day of the week to “chillax.”

Rest is a mindset and state of your heart. It’s something we have to do every day of our lives, whether you’re working or retired, eating, sleeping, or what have you. We have to trust God. We have to enter His rest with every breath we take.

What does “enter His rest” mean exactly? At the very basic level, I think it means we must listen to God. We must not harden our hearts against Him. Today’s verse is actually a warning: “So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall” (Hebrews 4:11 NLT).

Disobedience and falling away occurs when you stop listening and believing in God’s Word and His character. What is troubling you today? What are you uneasy about?

Instead of worrying and fretting about the matter, I challenge you to find a scripture about it in the Bible. After finding the scripture, speak it out as truth and pray it back to God.

When thoughts about the troubling matter arise in your mind (along with any dread associated with it), take that opportunity to meditate instead on the scripture that addresses your issue and say “Lord, I trust You.”

As you surrender your “control” of this burden and give it back to God, you’ll find yourself entering into His supreme rest. You may even find that He’ll lay a burden of His own on your heart and He’ll give you direction on what to do. At that, you need only to trust Him and obey.

God will never leave us hanging. It may seem foolish to the world, but there’s no room for disappointment when you trust in God.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, forgive me for taking matters into my own hands. Right here, right now, I give you complete control. Lord, have Your way. I trust You. By faith, I’m entering into Your rest. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.