Actively Seeking Rest

 Hebrews 3: 7-4: 11

            Parenting can be hard, especially when the children are small. Here is some advice that might help.

            Mary’s three small children were stressing her out. She complained to her best friend, “My kids are driving me crazy! They are relentless! I can’t catch a break! I’m exhausted!”

            Mary’s loving friend advised her, “What you need is a playpen to separate the kids from yourself.”

            “Great idea!” Mary said.

            Mary went to the store and bought a playpen. A few days later, her friend called to ask how she was doing.

            “Fantastic! I can’t believe how relaxed I feel,” Mary answered. “I get in that pen with a good book, and the kids don’t bother me one bit.”

            All of us need rest.

            Here is another image courtesy of a sister-in-Christ. Have you noticed the plethora of businesses offering manicures and pedicures? Have you noticed the high volume of business they receive?

            I know of wealthy matrons who love nothing more to get their nails done. I know of junior high girls who are working minimum wage jobs, and still they set aside enough cash to drop by the salon. (I have even known a few men who have gone with their wives or kids to receive pedicures!)

            Why do so many go? Why do some ladies even make sacrifices to get their nails done?

            This sister told me that it is not simply a case of getting ones nails cut. There is often a lot of conversation. The “salonista” is asking questions and finding out about her client. There is the element of the human touch. A connection is taking place. These females are finding—community.

            All of us need community.

            Ironically, we live in a day and age when people can find association in more places of the world than any other time in history. Thanks to the Internet, someone India can read my words moments after I push a button on my computer. Before the day is out, we could be having a conversation.  

            Clearly, communication would be taking place. I could literally make dozens of links like this before the day is out, but it would not be a connection. The contact would be sterile—machine like. They alone could not nurture a soul.

            Today, we have computers and smart phones. We have Internet by Ethernet; we have Wi-Fi. Clearly, in this world today, we are wired; but we are not connected.

            The preacher in Hebrews addressed these needs 2000 years ago. He proclaimed—we need rest, and we need community.

            This passage is going to teach us that spiritual fatigue comes from disobedience, disobedience comes from distraction, distraction comes from unbelief, unbelief comes from misplaced faith, and misplaced faith leads to disconnection.

            The preacher’s words are strong:

7 That is why the Holy Spirit says,

   “Today when you hear his voice, 8 don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness.


9 There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. 10 So I was angry with them, and I said, ‘Their hearts always turn away from me. 
 They refuse to do what I tell them.’ 
 11 So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”

It is an interesting phrase that the Preacher uses: THAT IS WHY THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS… He is summarizing a statement we looked at last week. I might paraphrase his previous words in this way, “Because Jesus is God, and because he became a human, suffered, was faithful, and endured, let’s pay careful attention so that we don’t drift away; let’s fix our thoughts on Jesus. After all, we are his community. Consequently, let us TODAY listen to his voice. Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

What rebellion? He is talking about the rebellion that occurred in the Wilderness centuries before. He specifically refers to Psalm 95. You have probably sung part of that Psalm before. It starts out, “Come let us sing with joy to the Lord...”

Pretty joyful, right? However, it ends, like this:

Today, if you hear his voice,  8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, 
9 where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. 
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; 
I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.” 
11 So I declared on oath in my anger, 
“They shall never enter my rest” (Psalm 95:7b-11.) NIV 1984

            (Try adding that verse to the devotional song. Trust me, it does not have a good beat, and you cannot dance to it!)

            Playing off that story, the Preacher writes, Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God (Heb. 3:12.)

            What is the connection with rest and obedience? Have you ever seen a child really cranky? What's wrong? Often, it is a lack of rest.

            How many times has your child whined and cried, and you said, “What you need is a good nap.”

            To which your child, with great tears and emotion said, “I don’t need a nap!” Yet, a nap was precisely what was needed—rest. However, your child did not trust your leadership, so he complained. This was active rebellion.

            That happened in the wilderness with the children of Israel. They were not trusting in God. Instead, they rebelled. Their lives were in chaos. Consequently, they were finding no rest.

            Another manifestation of a lack of trust in children is passive aggressive rebellion. You tell your child to go to bed and go to sleep. Instead, he-depending on the era-played games on his iPod, played games on his game boy, played games on his game board, or played games with his rocks. When you attempted to wake him up in the morning, how did he arise? Rested and refreshed? No. Tired.

            I see a parallel here. Sometimes, we don’t like where God’s leadership has taken us in life, so we cram our lives with as many activities as possible. (Perhaps all of them are good activities.)

            These can occur in those times that God tells us to rest; we can’t because we have too many things going. We have not trusted his leadership; therefore, we enjoy no rest.

            The children of Israel were guilty of this as well. God invited them from time to time to rest and wait upon him. Instead, they crammed their lives full of activities. These ranged from building a golden calf to picking up food on the Sabbath. Whereupon they knew not peace; they knew not rest.

            A heart that seeks to rebel against God actively or passively is a heart that is evil, because it is a heart that distrusts God. It is an unbelieving heart, and it will turn away from a LIVING God. That heart will not know connection, community, or rest.

            13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.

14 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. 15 Remember what it says:

   “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts 
as Israel did when they rebelled” (Heb. 3:13-15.)

             How do you keep from getting a hardened heart? You look out for each other. This is where connection and community come into play.

            Remember that talking earlier about how we live in a world that is wired but not connected? Let me offer you another image of that.

            Recently, I was attending a basketball game. I saw a young couple sitting in the stands.

            Back in the day, when a couple sat in the stands together, they would often squeeze together, touching each other, and you could hear them whispering words like “lovey-dovey” and “honey-bunny.” It would make you sick!

            This couple was not doing that. They were sitting side by side, each with his or her own cell phone in hand, and they were calmly texting their friends. It was as if neither existed in the other’s world. They were wired, but they were not connected.

            This can happen in churches too. Congregations can morph into a confederation of individuals instead of a close community. We are not called to be “isolationists for Jesus.” Instead, our lives connect, and we encourage and admonish each other to faithfully follow Christ. We may not be wired, but we are connected.

            We are willing to speak the truth in love, like this: “16 And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? 19 So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.

            The Preacher is warning these Christians, “You’re not hearing! The Israelites hardened their hearts in revolt. You’re heading that way!”

            It is like he is giving them a verse-by-verse commentary. He is proclaiming, “The God who pronounced judgment on Israel also warns us. History tells us we too can fall away (so did Paul, see I Cor. 10:12.) They were not able to enter into the land of promise because of unbelief!”

            I know this is not a popular sermon he is preaching, but the Preacher sees it as vital. It may be confrontational to us, but we need to hear it.

            I have in my notes a question I heard someone ask years ago, “Do you find yourself ignoring the parts of the Bible you don’t like? Herod did that.”

            Ouch!

THE HISTORY LESSON

Now, we can still enter his rest…

1 God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God (Heb. 4:1-2.) NLT

The Christians of Hebrews received the same message as the Israelites: good news—rest was available. It is the same for us today. All we have to do is trust God’s leadership.

            You ever have kids that complained in the car?

            “Where are we going?”

            “To Mel’s Diner and then home.”

            “Mel’s Diner! Can’t we go to McDonalds!?”

            What is the problem? The problem is the kids don’t like the direction you are headed in. They think they know something better. They express this through complaining. (Of course, my kids would never do that!) The problem is—they do not trust your leadership.

            The problem with the children of Israel, and too often, with us, is that we do not like the direction God is headed.

            Okay, watch this, watch this, watch this: 6 So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted:

   “Today when you hear his voice, 
don’t harden your hearts.” NLT

            God is inviting his community to connect and encourage one another to access the rest that he offers—it is there for the taking. Remember this though:

There is a link between salvation and attitude,

and there is a link between salvation and behavior.

            Remember what this preacher has told us in earlier sections: hunger for God… fix your thoughts on Christ. Now he tells us that there is a correlation between our attitude, our behavior, and our salvation. Bad behavior does not condemn us; bad behavior betrays a disbelieving heart. A disbelieving heart condemns.

            A disbelieving heart was revealed in Hebrews by the Christians bailing out on Jesus. The Preacher is telling the Christians, “When you abandon the community of faith, you are demonstrating that your attitude is not right with God. Your attitude is showing you don’t believe what God says. You have put your trust in he words of people.”

            In Hebrews, the situation was rapidly turning into every man for himself! Because of the persecution, they were losing sight of what was important.

   The symptom was fear. The disease was abandoning the church.

   Now, let’s transition to today. What are the symptoms of hearts not trusting in God?

   For some of us, perhaps, the symptom is a jammed schedule. A life crammed with activity to conceal the emptiness we feel. This robs us of rest; this disconnects us from the community of faith.

Remember, even too many good things is a bad thing.

Have you heard about the python problems they are having in Florida? People have imported pythons from other countries for pets. Some of these pythons are escaping into the Everglades. In other cases, the owners are releasing them into the wild. Ultimately, these pythons are reproducing and multiplying exponentially. The problem is that they are feeding on the other wildlife at such a rapid pace, they are destroying the ecosystem.

I appreciate snakes. Pythons are good animals. A few pythons in the Everglades is fine, but too many of them kills off life.

It is the same in our daily lives. A few good things-is fine. Too many good things can kill off a Christian’s spiritual life, which in turn will harm the community of faith. Beware: a life jammed full of activities can ultimately lead to a hard heart.

REST FOR THE WEARY

            Are you tired? Are you stressed? You can find rest…because of heaven: 4:9 So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.

            John, in I John, teaches that God’s people can enjoy a quality of eternal life here on this earth. It is a taste of what is to come, but it is a good taste.

            When we view this world through heavenly glasses, we best deal with the stress, pain, or even persecution that comes with a fallen world. Victor Frankel, who wrote about the lessons he learned in surviving the Holocaust, wrote that belief in a strong future means surviving a tough present. That is what the Preacher is attempting to do in this letter—offer an imaginative vision of a strong future in God.

4:11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

            This is the Preacher’s invitation before he announces, “Let’s stand and sing.” Do you know there was a song from the brush arbor days of gospel meetings? It was based on this passage in Hebrews, especially 3:15 (don’t harden your hearts 
as Israel did when they rebelled)

            It was sung at night because that was when everybody from town could meet. The words go like this:

Oh, do not let the Word depart, And close thine eyes against the light;


Poor sinner, harden not your heart,
Be saved, oh, tonight.

(Refrain) Oh, why not tonight?
Oh, why not tonight?
Wilt thou be saved?
Then why not tonight?

            This Preacher is calling for his members to respond. How about us? Let’s say our hearts truly yearn for God, how can we enjoy this rest today?

            On an individual level, I would suggest selling out to Christ, and, out of that commitment, selling out to his Body—the Church. His body becomes our body. His community becomes our community. We love his church like he loves his church. We prioritize to meet with them and encourage them.

            Second, again on the individual level, I suggest we program into our schedule each day spiritual disciplines that will help us keep the “pythons” from crowding out our lives. Prayer, meditation, Bible reading, fasting, individual hymn singing, and Bible study are all ways we can regulate our spiritual ecosystem. These practices can help us keep our hearts soft before God.

            Third, is communal. Your congregation can do what ours does. We have programmed into our assembly ever week a pause button for rest.

            Do you know what a pause button is? On your DVR, or DVD player, or VCR you have a pause button. That allows you to put all of the action on pause.

            We do the same each week. We got it from the early church 2000 years ago. It is the Lord’s Supper.

            At our church, you can count on one time each week, at least for a few minutes, where you can enjoy God’s rest in the community of faith. We mediate on Jesus and the cross. We ponder his death and resurrection… and the implications these ever-living actions have on our lives today. This, if we allow it, can truly be the pause that refreshes.

            May you, this week, enjoy the rest of God.