A Place of Rest
/Hebrews 4:1-12 NASB
CHAPTER 4
God’s promise was that He was bringing them to a place of rest. A place where He would give them victory over their enemies, a place where His people would live for Him and bring glory to His name. He delivered them, but even once He got the next generation into Canaan [He is committed to His plan], they didn’t live for Him.
That’s after they entered Canaan, but right now, let’s stay focused on this part of the journey. He delivered them out of Egyptian slavery, but they didn’t unite it with faith for victory over the giants, but there were a couple other problems that they had: 1) they really didn’t like the way that God was doing things (manna/Bible), they wanted what they wanted, and 2) they still had a love for the place they had left [Egypt] and they really wanted to go back. They didn’t love the chains and shackles and the gathering straw and making bricks, but it if they could have what they wanted: melons, onions, garlics and leeks they could maybe bear the burden of the chains. God’s plan was something altogether different: for them to hate where He saved them from and believe Him that what He had was really better for them. Because the whole time for them and the whole time for us, He is working on something bigger than we can see, and we’re so focused on our own plans and desires that if we’re not careful, we will neglect His plans and desires, which is to give birth to this man child named Jesus!!
John 12:25
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Galatians 1:4
Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. 3 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. 4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS”; 5 and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.” 6 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, 7 He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David [Psalm 95] after so long a time just as has been said before,
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. 9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And this is the ongoing saga. Man’s will vs God’s will. What I want vs what He wants. His word vs what my natural mind perceives and what my opinions want to believe:
Quote/talk about it
1 Corinthians 2:12-14
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
7 Sabbaths a repeated promise of a finished work. A horn that blows on the Day of Atonement, the very day that the blood of the Lamb was sprinkled on the mercy seat. I’m not trying to just give you a bunch of Bible info here. I’m trying to make you understand that God has provided a way of victory for you, so that you can have an opportunity to serve Him and bring Him glory. He did not do what He did, so that you could serve yourself and live for your own personal carnal desires. 8 ‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9 You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. 10 You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field. 13 ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.
In both the Sabbath, the Jubilee and tithing, there is not only faith and complete trust that God can provide, but there is a dying to self and self will, dying to what self wants, what’s best for self and a submission to God’s will.
Exodus 21:1-5 NASB
CHAPTER 21
Ordinances for the People
1 “Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: 2 “If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. 3 If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’
Exodus 21:6
then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.
True submission to God says that I will not live my life according to my own will and my own desires. My Master Jesus purchased me with His own blood. I am His property. What I have actually belongs to Him. My time, my money, my family, my desires, my plans…
Lord, you have been too good to me, I cannot leave. In the words of Peter:
John 6:67-69
67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
1 Peter 2:1-12
A Living Stone and a Holy People
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk [of the word] that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” 7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.