S10 || Finding God’s Rest in a Restless World || Hebrews 4:3-11 || Session 10

Feeling crushed by busyness, pressure, and the never-ending push to be “good enough”? We walk through Hebrews chapter 4 to show how belief opens a real, present rest and why the promise of a lasting Sabbath rest still stands. This isn’t spiritual avoidance or self-help spin; it’s a rooted claim that Christ finished the work of righteousness, and that changes how we face fear, failure, and the future.

Hebrews 4:3 takes us deeper: God’s works were finished from the foundation of the world. God is timeless; his completed work unfolds in our time. That truth reframes anxious questions about career, money, family, and culture. We don’t have to control outcomes; we learn to obey in small steps and rest in a power that never runs dry. And when the text says “there remains a Sabbath rest,” we look forward to the Millennial Kingdom and the Final State—when our mission is complete and our rest is whole. Until then, we live under Christ’s easy yoke, practicing trust over striving and presence over panic.

If you’ve been trying to earn peace, stop and breathe. The invitation repeats like a heartbeat: today. Don’t postpone trust to a tomorrow you can’t guarantee. Hit play, reflect with us through Hebrews 4, and take the next faithful step toward real rest. If this encourages you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s weary, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Hectic Lives And The Need For Rest
• 0:47 Hebrews 4: Entering God’s Rest
• 2:26 Belief Versus Unbelief And Consequences
• 6:01 Rewards, The Bema Seat, And Eternal Impact
• 7:31 Anxiety, Circumstances, And Resting In Christ
• 10:18 God’s Timeless Works And Rest
• 13:19 The Open Invitation: Today, Not Tomorrow
• 16:28 Joshua, Incomplete Conquest, And Remaining Rest
• 20:02 Sabbath Rest: Millennial Kingdom And Final State
• 23:12 Finished Work, Daily Peace, And True Rest
• 26:00 Hurry To Enter Rest; Reject Legalism
• 31:32 Closing Exhortation And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Our world today often gets quite hectic and it gets quite busy and we're pulled in a lot of directions. It seems that there's increasing ways for our flesh to be tempted to get pulled into daily activities, some of which are sinful, but many of which are just daily activities that are just busyness. Oftentimes what we need is calmness and rest. Well, today we're going to find out what the Word of God says about taking advantage of God's rest. There is an opportunity, a promise that we can have in Christ for rest. I trust that today you can benefit for some rest. I know I can. If you have your Bible, open it to Hebrews chapter 4, and we're going to learn about what the writer of Hebrews says about entering into God's rest. There's a rest that we can have today, but there's also an eternal Sabbath rest. And we're going to learn about that today as well. Steve, can you start at Hebrews 4 3 and read down to verse 7?

SPEAKER_01: 1:27

For we who have believed enter that rest, just as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and 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.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

And of course, the book of Hebrews is written to just that Hebrew people. These were Jewish believers in Jesus Christ, and he's writing to a group that would know very well the Old Testament stories and accounts that he's talking about. When verse 3, he says, he quotes the Old Testament once again, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Of course, he's talking about when the ancient Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they did not believe God, that God was capable of bringing them into the promised land when it was full of a lot of dangers. That's the reference here. He's saying that there is a prerequisite for entering God's rest. Steve, what is in verse three, what is the prerequisite for entering God's rest?

SPEAKER_01: 3:09

It says right there at the very first part, for we who have believed enter the rest. Belief is the prerequisite.

SPEAKER_00: 3:17

Belief is just that. It is the key for entering God's rest. Do we truly trust God? In verse three, it also says that God determines that Israel will not enter his rest. The ancient Israelites, of course, did not, as we said, enter God's rest. Does unbelief have consequences still today?

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

Yes, it has consequences today. If it's what we were talking about in our last session, as far as someone who actually has believed in Jesus Christ and they have salvation through that belief, but yet there's an outstanding part of rest in their life while they're in this world and they forsake it because they don't follow through and study God's word and get involved with fellowship of other Christians, or the other unbelief of believing in Jesus Christ and what he has done through his death, burial, and resurrection in the first place. If you don't even advance to that belief, then you have no hope or promise of eternal life at all. And most certainly you're not going to enter into any type of God's rest if you don't have a belief and faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 4:34

Unbelief does indeed have consequences. We cannot enter into God's rest because we don't follow his ways and we don't trust that he can clear the path for us. Just like unbelief has consequences, belief and trust in God does also have consequences, but these are positive. They are rewards. Steve, are there rewards and good things that happen today in our lives because of trusting God? And then are there future ones as well?

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

There are. Then I think people are missing out on the ultimate future rest and the future rewards that we have by the deeds and the things that we do in this world. Christians or believers are going to have a judgment at what's called the Bima seat. And that judgment is not going to be for our salvation or not. That's not the questionnaire. That judgment is going to be a review of all of our deeds, whether good or bad, and our rewards that we get are going to be dependent on what we have done here. That's not talked about very much. It's not taught. It's not preached from the pulpit very much. And I think there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be very surprised at that beam of seat judgment to find out that they're going to miss out on some of the rewards that they could have in eternity because it was never revealed to them and taught them that what you're doing now, after you have become a believer, your impact is going to be one of in your eternal life of the rewards that you're going to get. And therefore, they're not going to be expecting to lose some of those rewards. But scripture is very clear in James and other epistles that some of the activities that we take and actions we take here in this life, as Christians, believers, are going to have an impact eternally as to the rewards that we might have received. There's going to be others who are going to receive great rewards because of the activities that they have done here to further the gospel of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

The human condition for all people across all time is to run into scary circumstances, risky circumstances. We get things that we foresee ahead of us on our path through life to where we say, okay, here's a risk. This might happen, this disaster could happen. We end up with concerns about our finances or about our relationships or about international politics or our business or how our church is going to run. We have risks and things that we have to concern ourselves with. If we're not resting in Christ, then these circumstances loom large over our life. If we're worried about circumstances, what does that tell us about God's ability to overcome those circumstances?

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

That's just what they become as a worry to us. And we're focused on the circumstances themselves rather than on He who can help us over those difficulties that we might find ourselves in. Those difficulties might be ones that are small to life-threatening. But through all of them, doesn't matter what the degree they are, if we always go to God first and trust in him, then we can find out and have a rest that he is going to ultimately take care of them, whether that be seeing us through those circumstances in this life or ultimately being able to take us and see him through the circumstance in the next life.

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

The passage here talks about this rest in Christ. And the true rest is trusting in Christ and following his ways, his commands on how to live life. We should all ask ourselves: am I trusting in Christ or am I trusting in my own effort to get through life or my own effort to be righteous enough to appear before God? If we're thinking our own efforts are going to get us to a point where we're rested in righteousness or rested in our ways through life, then we're wrong. We're sadly mistaken. Our ways are flawed, and we're never going to work our way enough to be righteous before a perfectly holy God. All you're going to get is tired. We're never going to achieve rest on our own, not in this world. We can only rest if we're trusting in Christ for our righteousness, trusting in him for our salvation, and trusting in him to know how to live on a daily basis. Once we just yield to him and his ways, then we can rest in Christ. Now it also says at the end of verse 3, it steps waist deep into a thought about God here that's quite profound. The end of verse 3 says, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. Now that's a little peek behind the curtain into God's side of things. It says that his works were finished from the foundation of the world. This is a very deep and profound teaching about the nature of God and the nature of time. God, as we know, is eternal, which is timeless. He doesn't get older, he doesn't get wiser, he doesn't grow larger or smaller. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It says in this book, Hebrews 13, 8. So verse 3 here says not only God was complete from before the world, but his works were complete from the foundation of the world. Yet we know that God's actions occur to us in time sequences. God's actions occur just across the scriptures. There was a time before Jesus came, there was a time that Jesus came, and then there was a time after he came. There was a time that he later rose from the dead. His actions occur in sequences. From all of this, we can conclude some quite profound theological concepts. God, in his person, in his being, is timeless and changeless. He never changes. He is the same forever. God performed his works in eternity, not in time. He didn't perform his works in time, he performed them from eternity. Hebrews 4.3 says they are complete from the foundation of the world. God's works occur in the time he determined them to happen. He worked from eternity, but he determined that the results would happen in time sequences. And that we also know that God's omnipotence, his all-powerfulness, is true, even though humans have free will. The analogy is simple and straightforward. If we have a doctor who is seeing a patient, and the doctor makes one prescription and he says, I want you to take this pill three times a day for the next three weeks. He gives the prescription and the pills to the patient. The patient then takes them. Well, there was one order, one prescription. The doctor said it one time, and it was carried out in time three times a day for the next three weeks. So a directive is given once by God and it's complete, but it plays out in time. The occurrence happens many instances over time. Then the next few verses we see here in this passage draw a very logical conclusion about God. Verse 4 says God rested on the seventh day from all his works. This is what is called God's Sabbath rest. God rested on the seventh day. The next verse, verse 5, the Israelites did not enter God's rest. Verse 6, because it remains that some people still have an open invitation to enter God's rest, then verse 7, today is the day to enter God's rest. Today is the day to enter God's rest. Steve, is the invitation still open for people out there to enter God's rest?

SPEAKER_01: 13:55

It's open every day to enter God's rest. You mentioned it in our last session that once you become a believer, that you get salvation and the ability to enter into that rest of faith that we've been talking about. And now we're introduced into this Sabbath rest, which is the next rest after this life. It's something that we might call the millennial kingdom and then the final state after that. That's the Sabbath rest. When is it that you enter that? You enter that on the day of your belief. You are able to enter into those rests, even though that Sabbath rest is something that's going to be in the future. You have a past rest whenever someone becomes a believer. You have a present rest whenever someone is living their life out and becoming more Christ-like, as we've talked about many times. And you have a future rest whenever we go into our glorified bodies and are in that millennial kingdom, and then further on into the final state. But when do we get to it? It's always on the day that we become believers in Jesus Christ. And the imitation is always open every day. That's why it says there in verse 7, today is the day if you hear his voice. Do not harden your hearts. It's today. Don't postpone some decision that you might have that says, Oh, I will come to believing in Jesus Christ sometime down the road. I'll do it tomorrow. I want to take care of some things before I do. I want to clean up my life before I do that. I want to go off and have a little bit more time of partying in my life before I do that. We are not promised tomorrow. And there are very many stories of tragedies that happen to people on days when they do not even know when it's going to happen. Their life is taken from them. Today is the day of salvation. Again, as it's put here in verse 7. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. If you're listening to this, you're hearing the plea of God, you're hearing his voice through his word. Today is the day of salvation. Do not harden your hearts. Become a believer and trust in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 16:28

That's exactly the point. And he's made it twice now. Verse 7, today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. He mentioned that in the last chapter. This promise, this opportunity is open to us today. There's other places in the scriptures that play this out. 2 Corinthians 6 2 says, quote, Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation, it says. And it's saying here at the end of verse 7 in Hebrews that if we hear God's voice, we should not harden our heart. If we feel God's Spirit pulling us towards him, we should yield to that now. And we should not push back. We should not harden our hearts in unbelief. The reason is because, as you just said, Steve, not only do we not know how long we're going to be here, in the book of James it says, quote, you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. It says in James 4.14. So not only do we not know how much longer we're going to be here, we also don't know how much longer God's Spirit is going to draw us in, because we need his Holy Spirit drawing us towards him, or we never would accept Christ. The message here in this section of Hebrews is that the ancient Israelites had this opportunity. And all they had to do was accept the promise. But because they looked at the circumstances around them, they thought, well, there's no way God's going to be able to solve this problem. That is unbelief. They were pushing back on God and his promises, and therefore they did not get into God's rest. We don't know how much longer God's going to draw us in. There are times where God says, You can walk your way because I've given you up. There are times when the Holy Spirit stops drawing us in. There's times when our hearts get so hard that it will not hear the still small voice. What is the day of salvation today is the day of salvation. That is the message here. He said it over and over again. Even those of us that have confidence in our salvation, we should check ourselves and make sure that our daily walk is really believing God. Do I believe God in my daily walk or am I trying to do it myself? If I'm trying to do it myself, all I'm going to get is tired. This carries over into the next section. Steve, can you start at verse 8 and go down to verse 11?

SPEAKER_01: 19:08

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. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

SPEAKER_00: 19:37

In that section we just read, the first part of it speaks of Joshua. What does it mean here when it's saying that Joshua did not give them rest? What's the events that he's talking about?

SPEAKER_01: 19:53

Well, as they went into the land, God did go before them and drove out the people groups before them, but they faltered many times. Right after they went in and took Jericho, for example, they had a very small town of Ai, and they tried to take Ai on their own power without consulting God, and they were soundly defeated by this little small town. You can hear that through our study of the book of Joshua. Then as it progressed, they weren't able to take certain parts. We see through that that yes, they conquered the land, but they didn't completely conquer the land the way God had told them to do it. So there was going to be a time in the future that they were still going to have to work in order to completely take the land out. Joshua told them at the very end of Joshua, he pulled them together and told them, You need to swear today to follow the ordinances and statutes of God so that you might be able to live in the land. This day you need to choose who you're going to follow. Are you going to follow God or not? As for me and my house, we're going to follow the Lord. Of course, the people famously said, yes, we're going to follow the Lord, but then before they got out of Joshua, they were already disobeying once again. This concept here is that there's always going to be this Sabbath rest. There's always going to be a rest beyond what we have now in our life today of a life and rest in the faith that we have, we still have something to look forward to in the Sabbath rest.

SPEAKER_00: 21:45

That's exactly right. If we also look at the history at the end of the book of Joshua, there were still places and peoples that had not yet been conquered. There was still work to do. If you follow the history through the book of Judges, they never did conquer some of the people. They never did go into a land that was really restful. So that's what he's saying here is that Joshua, yes, he led them into the land, but they never did really achieve that true rest. In verse 9, it says there, quote, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, unquote. That's referring back to verse four that says God rested on the seventh day. It's making a teaching here that says God's Sabbath rest is that permanent rest. If you remember, God rested on the seventh day of creation. The seventh day had no end. There was no end of the seventh day. So God was in a permanent rest. God's Sabbath rest is forever. It has no end. He's still in his Sabbath rest today. Therefore, when it says here, quote, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, it's speaking of a permanent rest, a complete rest. I think the book of Joshua is talking not only about a daily walk through life with our daily activities and how we handle our all of our cares of the world, we can get rest if we do those things God's way, but it's also talking about a Sabbath rest, a permanent rest, a rest there that is eternal. Steve, is there a place and is there a time when Christians will have a permanent Sabbath rest?

SPEAKER_01: 23:32

Yeah, that's what we've talked about earlier, is in this millennial time period of the kingdom, the restored kingdom of Israel, where Jesus is going to rule from Jerusalem, rule all the nations. David is going to be the prince over Israel. And there's going to be certain believers in the body of Christ that are going to rule with Jesus across the world. Now, that is a millennial kingdom rest. But then after that, there is what we call the final state of a new heavens and a new earth. We're not really told very much of what that's going to be, but those are time periods of whenever we're going to be able to live restfully in Jesus Christ. Not like we're living today, even though we've had this rest that we've described of the faith life, and that we can have peace in our spirit as we go through the many bumps and turns of the life that we have here. God still gets us through it, and we have that type of a rest, but it's not the ultimate rest. We've got one more coming in what's called this Sabbath rest. It's the end state. It's one where we're going to have an eternal rest in God.

SPEAKER_00: 24:49

When it says here that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, yes, it is. It's talking about this permanent rest. It's referring back to the creation week. On creation day seven, it says God rested. Well, it wasn't because he was tired. It wasn't because, well, God's saying, well, I had a long week, so I'm going to take a day off. That's not the point. That's a misunderstanding of the word rest. The word rest there means the work was finished. The work was complete, so he could rest. And even today, if we have a task before us and we've completed every step of that task, the work is finished, then we can stop, we can rest, we can sit down. That's the sense here is that he rested because the work was finished. It was good. At the end, he made the people, they were very good. His work was finished so he could rest. Therefore, the Jews did not fully enter God's rest when they entered the promised land under Joshua because there was still some unrest. The work was not finished. They still had things to do. Today, we can have a walk with God that is restful. We can have a daily walk that's restful. The work of righteousness is finished, but our daily activities with the world is never done. So we are looking forward to that Sabbath rest when our role here, the job that God has given us, is complete. We've done all that God had for us to do. Therefore, we can have a permanent Sabbath rest. Therefore, the rest spoken of here is rest in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ. Verse 10 is speaking about Christians entering God's rest. If we're in Christ and we've entered God's rest and we can no longer work to prove our righteousness, we can enter God's rest because the work of righteousness is finished. Steve, what does it feel like to be able to say that our rest in Christ because He finished the work? Therefore, I don't have to do anything. What does that feel like?

SPEAKER_01: 26:55

Well, I don't know exactly what it feels like because I'm not there yet. But what it does feel good to know that it's out there in the future and that there's gonna be a day whenever I am truly going to be able to rest. I'm not gonna be tied to this world with this body. I'm gonna have a glorified body that is not gonna be tied to the world that we have today. I think it's a very good feeling to know that that is something to look forward to out in the future. It gives me hope and it should give all of us hope.

SPEAKER_00: 27:29

You know, there are churches in the world that teach that we have to keep working to earn our righteousness. We have to be good enough. If I ask myself, what does that feel like? Well, it's just tiring because the work of righteousness is never finished. By contrast, I can tell you what it feels like to realize that Christ finished his work. What was the last thing Christ said on the cross? It is finished. Well, what was finished? The work that he had to do, the work to pay for my sins and for your sins. Therefore, I don't have to work for my righteousness. And that feeling is tremendous. I can rest today in Christ. And there will become a day when my daily activities are finished and he calls me home. That's going to be the great day. Verse 11 in the passage tells for us to be diligent in resting in Christ rather than following the same bad example of ancient Israel. The word here for diligent, some of the translations say strive or make every effort. The word actually means to hurry, to expedite. When verse 11, let us therefore hurry to enter that rest so that no one will fall. He's making this big deal about entering God's rest. It's been going on for several passages now. Why do you think he's spending so much time talking about and addressing to people in the church that you can have rest? It's available today. You don't have to work for your righteousness. You can rest in Christ. Why is he spending so much time on that?

SPEAKER_01: 29:08

I think it's because it's human nature for us to think that we have to do something more in order to have salvation. And since we think that way, our mind is on what do I need to do? What can I do to please God? When you have that type of a mindset, you're never going to be at rest because you're always going to be thinking, whatever I did isn't going to be good enough for God. Whatever I did is only going to be temporary because I have these thoughts and I have these ways about me that I know that don't necessarily please God. So I believe that He is emphasizing this rest to these believers here at this time because they're under great persecution and pressure to go back where it's nice and easy in Judaism with something that they're familiar with, where if you Kept all of those laws, you were perceived to have a righteous standing before God. In our case, we've been able to make great application to it in our way, in that if we are always fighting this world, then if we can just do things that will think that would satisfy God, then we can have our righteousness with God. In many cases, it's going to a certain church or a certain religion, and we get satisfaction from them. We get from them that says, if you do these rules, then you will have righteousness with God. But that's not how it works. And that's not what the author is telling the Hebrews of that day. That's not what the author is telling us in the application that we can make. We can have rest in Jesus Christ today. It's a direct rest with him. And the verses that are going to come is going to talk about him being our high priest. He is going to be a representative between us and God. We no longer have to go through an intermediary person or organization. Through salvation and belief and trust in Jesus Christ, we have direct access to him, direct access to the throne of God through him being our advocate. I think that is why the author is stressing this rest over and over again. It's because of our human nature, our thick skulls that have to get through to us that says, yes, it is that simple. Once you have salvation, now it's time to become more Christ-like. Now it's time that you can have fellowship with fellow believers and that you can have rest and peace from this world by taking that type of an approach versus always having to think that you have to do something else in order to please God.

SPEAKER_00: 32:01

Hebrews 11:4 says, Therefore, let us be diligent or hurry, make haste to enter that rest. So that's my message for you today. Jesus over in the Gospels said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Hurry to that rest and stop trying to do it on your own. All you're gonna do is get tired. Why don't you rest in him today?

SPEAKER_01: 32:32

That's exactly right, Glenn. Resting in him today. We hope that you have enjoyed the session that we've had today. We've got a lot more to go through in the book of Hebrews. We ask that you stay with us. There's gonna be a lot of great things that are going to come. And as always, we want you to come back and reason with us through the Bible. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.