“Preeminent: Re-made for Rest”

(Hebrews 3:14-4:13)

Made for Glory

Catherine Tufariello imagines the glory of God in a flowering pear in her wonderful poem by the

same name:

The ornamental pear

Bursts almost overnight,
Its greenness interlaced
With whorls of cirrus white,

Five-fingered blossoms curved

To cup capricious air.
These blooms, the only fruit
The tree was born to bear—

Still pink-tipped, sticky fists

A day or so ago—
Too soon will flitter down
Like flakes of April snow,   

Confetti from a wedding

Swept up when guests have gone.
But now the bride, arms lifted,
Is dancing on the lawn

In her embroidered gown,

Ruched veil and trailing sleeves.
How did she hide so long               
Unseen among the leaves? 

Exempted from the Fall,

The need to be of use,
Resplendent in her prime,
Prodigal, profuse,

And holding nothing back,         

She tosses her bouquet,  
Made for joy and pleasure 
On the seventh day.

Did you catch the end? “Made for joy and pleasure on the seventh day”—or Sabbath.

Augustine understood that until we fully realize ourselves as that “pear” in the hands of our Creator

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prepared for His joy we’ll never know deep satisfaction. He wrote, “Thou awakest us to delight in thy

praise, for thou madest us for thyself and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”

To say “rest” is the major theme of the second major portion of Hebrews would be an

understatement. Nine times the author tells us of a “rest” that God has and offers us which we might

miss.

A restless life…

…is our default template (v.14-16).

“For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm
until the end, while it is said, ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they
provoked Me.’ For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of
Egypt led by Moses?”

I hear two templates by which our life might be lived. First is the template of a partaker of

Christ. If we hold fast to the assurance of our beginning—the Gospel of the glory of Christ—we’ll know

rest. The second template is the one we default to.

As I study Hebrews I’m reminded of two destination filters I must strive to understand it through

to communicate it to you. I must go through Jerusalem and back to the Southwest Suburbs as well as

mentally transport to three times in ancient Jewish history and then to the 21 st—the first century

because of the recipients of this letter; Old Testament times following Moses including the Exodus and

David’s recounting of it in Psalm 95 heavily quoted in these chapters; and the creation week itself.

We’re being told in Hebrews that Old Testament Israel and specifically their endeavor to reach

the Promise Land is a living metaphor of our experience as Christians.

…threatens to waste a whole lifetime (v.17). Check it out! How much time did the people lose

because of their hard heartedness and restlessness? They burned up forty years! We could spend our

whole life being chased or chasing. “The wicked flee when no one pursues” (Proverbs 28:1).

…disobeys because it distrusts God’s Word (v.18-19). A profoundly important question is asked

in this passage. “To whom did God swear they would not enter His rest?” The answer is “those who

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were disobedient.” First the Israelites under Moses shrink back in fear from their enemies, question

God’s goodness and His presence, then when God tells them they can’t go in because of their mistrust

they try to go in! This is the “best of the best” volumes of man’s attempt to self-righteousness. We

work to fix ourselves, to make ourselves acceptable, to find our significance.

The ancient people of God are us! Don’t you think? This is our life. Something has happened in

our relationship to work in recent years. Whereas before it was a tool for us to support our family and

help our kids get ahead, our work has become a way for us to find our self-worth. Our desperate quest

for individualism has uprooted the purpose of work from a sense of community and made it a pursuit.

Work has become our fig leaves. Like Adam and Eve we’re ashamed. We don’t have real joy and are

restless. We know we are missing something of value. So, we look everywhere for it. But fig leaves dry

out so we have multiple sets of temporary pleasures—work, marriage, parenting, neighborhood.

Instead of giving we take. We look for something ultimate in them.

A life which rests in Christ…

…is passionate about entering it (v.1). “Let us fear lest…” Entering His rest for us is worth

spending our emotional and mental assets on. It merits our passion. The template by which we are

living our life is worth constant scrutiny.

…not only believes God but trusts in His “Good News” deeply in his heart (v.2). Resting in Christ

means that I believe Him and I entrust myself fully to Him. Faith is not merely hearing. Faith is the

union of belief and trust deep in our heart.

The Gospel is good news because it reverses the template. Instead of working to find

satisfaction, God’s grace offers us an identity in union with His Son freeing us to live—to really live!

That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “It is better to give than to receive.” Instead of parenting as a

hunt for self worth, I have Christ-worth freeing me to inspire my children to be who God has made them

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to be. Instead of working my job as an idol from which I might find significance, my value is estimated

by God as greater than His own Son’s life so I can now labor for the glory of Christ.

…rests from its work of “life-worship” remade by God in His Sabbath (v.3-10). What is this “rest”

we must enter? First, it is the Gospel. We see that in verse two. Second, it is illustrated by the ancient

Jews Exodus from Egypt and pilgrimage into the Promise Land—“They shall not enter my rest” (v.3b).

Deuteronomy 15 explains the law of the Sabbath to ancient Israel. And at its core is this precept

from the Lord, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God

redeemed you; therefore I command you this today” (v.15). In other words, prior to the Exodus God’s

people were enslaved under a system which estimated their worth by their work. But, now they are

redeemed. That reversed template becomes the law by which they are to live and work and play and

raise a family. So, Sabbath rest is a reminder that we, who were once slaves, are now free. Living your

life by resting in Christ is to live it with the freedom to enjoy His glory.

Hudson Taylor, the great 19th Century missionary to China, was the hardest working man I’ve

ever read about. Yet, in his son’s biography of his father, he recalled his dad frequently singing his

favorite hymn, “Jesus, I am resting, resting, in the joy of what Thou art; I am finding out the greatness of

Thy loving heart. Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee, and Thy beauty fills my soul, for by Thy

transforming power, Thou hast made me whole.”

Such restfulness gave Taylor the passion to spend His life for Christ as a joy. It’s the reason he

could write his sister in 1860, “If I had a thousand pounds China should have it- if I had a thousand lives,

China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for

such a precious Savour?” This is not the ranting of a terrified man looking for self-righteousness and

vindication to merit God’s favor. This is the one who has found the joy of losing his own life to discover

the life of Christ.

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 Rest is the Gospel. Rest is freedom. And the rest we are offered is the same rest God now

experiences.

“’God rested on the seventh day from all His works’; and again in this passage, ‘They shall not
enter My rest.’ Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news
preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying
through David after so long a time just as has been said before, ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not
harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after
that.  So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  For the one who has entered His rest has
himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

The Sabbath rest God experiences and offers us is not idleness. God is still working. His work is

a restoration process of His glory revealed in your heart so that you will finally give up your works and

find rest in Him. That’s what Augustine meant when he said, “Thou awakest us to delight in thy praise,

for thou madest us for thyself and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”

…embraces the Bible as the sole means of deep satisfaction (v.11-12). “Let us be diligent to

enter that rest.” Otherwise, you’ll fall away from God—“lest anyone fall through following the same

template of disobedience.”

Speaking of our incapacity to know a lasting rest, Blaise Pascal asked, “What is it then that this
desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there
now remains to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his
surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all
inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to
say, only by God Himself.”

Verse 12 seems a bit odd because of its harshness. To this point, we’re hearing “rest, rest, rest.”

Now we hear, “The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and

piercing asunder soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and

intentions of the heart.”

Verse 12 describes the ordeal we have to go through to know verse 10’s promise of becoming a

person whose “rested from his works.” We must be judged. And His judgment must be real and

penetrating. It must not be just another superficial, shallow religious experience. We must have our

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beliefs about God and our life intentions—the reason we live as we do—cut open and lay bare. Or, we

must be redeemed on the deepest possible level.

…knows the joy of redemption through eager spiritual nakedness before God (v.13). “And there

is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom

we have to do.” How intimate is our exposure before Him? It is “open and laid bare.”

“Open” means “naked.” You’re completely unclothed. Remember Adam and Eve? Following

their sin in the Garden, immediately they felt ashamed of their nakedness. So they tried to cover up

with fig leaves. But, God provided a living creature as a sacrifice. Do you know what Hebrews is saying

then? God wants to free you from turning created things into your fig leaves.

“Laid bare” is “trachēlizō.” Do you hear the word—“trachea.” What’s that? That’s the throat.

It refers to an animal destined as a blood sacrifice. The priest would grab its head and twist it until it

was utterly vulnerable to the sword. God’s Word is the sword. And until you’re sinful self has its neck

twisted to be slain you’ll never know the rest Christ offers. Romans 6 envisions us dying in Christ so we

might rise to newness of life.

Jesus

Do you see how terrifyingly vulnerable we are before God? No one could possibly stand before

God like this. We couldn’t survive. “All of us like sheep have gone astray; we’ve all gone our own way”

(Isaiah 53:6).

We have to have the Messiah. We have to have Jesus. Naked on the cross, Jesus bore our

shame. We who deserved the sword are spared it because “He was pierced through for our

transgressions. The LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Like a lamb that is led to

slaughter…He is cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:5, 7a, 8).

Have you come to this “rest” through the ordeal of the cross for salvation? Christian, are you

constantly preaching the Gospel to yourself and resting in Him through the ordeal of the Word.