Title: Strive to Enter Rest
(Hebrews 4:10-11)
Verse 11 says, “Therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.” God's rest is certain. After God created all things, He showed God's rest to His people by resting on the seventh day and clearly promised that there would be other rest because Israel failed the Canaanite rest. After that, He showed Israel as a shadow of the rest that would be accomplished through Christ by having them keep the Sabbath through the law. Christ came to deliver us from our sins as our sin offering, and to give us eternal life in heaven through His resurrection, and to live in the hope of that rest with the sure promise of God's rest.
1. How do you try to enter into rest?
We are not the ones who should work hard to keep the Sabbath. The Old Testament legal Sabbath is only a shadow of God's rest. Those who strive to keep the Sabbath are those who live under the curse of the law and have no hope of rest. Therefore, what Christians should strive for is not the Sabbath, but the Christian life that strives to enter into God's rest.
Then, how should we strive to enter into rest? He said that the kingdom of heaven enters the violent. In this way, the place where those who make every effort to enter can enter is the rest of God. Israel failed to do this. So, David warns about the rest of God that will go on, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.' is.
I told you not to harden your heart. Therefore, Christians who put their hope in God's rest and live their lives toward that hope must lead a life that overcomes sin so as not to be tempted by it. In Hebrews 3:13 it says, “Encourage one another daily, while it is called Today, that any of you may not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Sin tempts us. If we accept this temptation, our hearts will be hardened and we will fall into disobedience. This means that we cannot enter the land, even if we still have rest, just as Israel was destroyed in the wilderness because of their disobedience.
Then how can we live a life that overcomes this sin? The secret is taught in Romans 6:11. “In the same way, consider yourselves dead to sins and alive to God in Christ.” We are united with Christ. When Christ died on the cross, we also died with Him. This is the meaning of union. Since we are already dead to sin, we should not be tempted by sin as if we were dead to sin. Rather, since we have been united with the Lord in eternal life, we are living a life that regards God as living. The fruit that Christians should bear comes from this kind of life.
2. Be dead to sin.
We are people who live with both a spiritual man and a physical man. Christians are people who think that the fleshly person is dead and should live as the spiritual person. Therefore, in the fight to overcome the lusts of the flesh and the temptations of sin with the spirit, we must train well to kill the flesh to avoid hardening of our hearts.
To enter the rest of God, you must stand firm in your faith. Hebrews 3:14 says, “If we hold fast to the end what is certain from the beginning, we will become partakers of Christ.” The object of holding on to what is certain from the beginning to the end points to our hope. And the participation of being partakers of Christ means sharing in the rest of God with Christ.
It is very important for us to hold on to the rest of God that God has promised with our hope until the end. Israel fell because they could not stand firm in their hope and faith in this rest. We must not follow the footsteps of Israel by neglecting the rest of God that still remains in us and living a life of disobedience.
(2) Next, in order to live a life that strives to enter God's rest, you must have the hope of seeing God's reward. Hebrews 11:6 gives us great comfort and encouragement. It is said, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Paul said that he looked to this heavenly reward, lost what was behind, and ran his life for the reward that was ahead.