We’ve journeyed with the writer to the Hebrews in remembering who Jesus is as the Son of God and as human
and why both sides of Jesus are 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’re reminded what Sabbath rest is all about.
The writer connects Sabbath rest to 2 key moments in
history, using Moses’ writings 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’s holding you as a slave,
whether it’s sin, habits, or patterns of life you can’t seem to change,
addiction, or ways of thinking and behaving, freedom begins by accepting Jesus’
invitation to believe in him and come to him to find rest.
You
can experience the beginnings of freedom by spending 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 to help us find
hope and strength. Jesus’ sacrifice reminds us we have forgiveness, a step
towards freedom from our slavery to sin and guilt. 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 physical
slavery, often sexual. There are people quietly aching to be free but live in
fear and despair as others control them. 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 tears over your suffering, and 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 provides for us, that work is not the center of
our life: God is.
The
urgency here is to make sure that we don’t fall short of entering onto
God’s rest. Verse 2 is interesting 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 being 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 and part
of our faithfulness to God and Jesus. We unite weekly with others who are
listening to, and walking the way of Jesus. Hebrews keeps pointing to the importance
of community, of coming close to God and entering his rest through the
community of the body of Christ. Later, the writer urges the believers to “not give up meeting with each other.”
We’re
cautioned that 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 not make God’s gifts more important than him, or
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; they don’t believe they need God. We can get
so caught up in our own stuff, making everything more important than God and
being part of his family, that we end up turning our back on God.
Sin’s 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 even Satan believes this, 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, “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, even when
we’re not completely aware of what’s happening. His word’s able to penetrate
through all the hurtful things we fill our thoughts and hearts with, and it draws
us to him and helps us stop fooling ourselves. This can sometimes be a very
painful process, which is why cutting and piercing imagery is used.
Again,
one powerful 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” is not an encouragement, it’s a
command. We ache
for rest, we live in a culture that’s tired, exhausted; mentally, emotionally,
spiritually tired, we need rest and Jesus offers it to us.
So, what is Sabbath rest?
Sabbath rest is about connecting with God and finding freedom from the things
that make us slaves. We look to Jesus who became like us; a high priest who enters God’s presence
and prepares the way for us. Sabbath rest is about meeting God and finding freedom,
and the way to Sabbath rest is through Jesus. Jesus knows the temptations we
face, to skip the Sabbath rest, to believe in someone other than God, and gave
us the Holy Spirit to keep connected to him. Jesus teaches us that Sabbath rest
is about freedom from our driven daily lives, and being encouragers to others. Jesus
himself regularly set time aside to be with God. Jesus knows our need to be in
community with each other; he gives us an example by spending time with people
and responding to their needs on Sabbath days. Sabbath rest connects
us weekly with God, freeing our hearts and minds so we can focus on being like Jesus.
It’s about time with God and the family of God, encouraging and building each
other up; a foretaste of heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment