Sabbath: Hebrews 4

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0:00 All right, the rest of us, we are as promised spending six weeks on Sabbath. So this is week two. Last week we talked about like, I started thinking about creation and marveling at creation and taking in the work. We're going to go right back to that story in Genesis chapter two, because we talked about how God made the world in six days and then set something up on the seventh day.

0:36 So the seventh day isn't the absence of something, but it's the presence, it's the culmination of the creative act. And so God makes the world not seemingly for the purpose of just having work to do, but because the things that he makes are good. And so he makes gardens in order that people might enjoy them. He makes humanity in order that they might enjoy each other. And so he sets aside specific time to bask in the celebration and appreciation of good

1:09 work. And the invitation then for humanity is to follow behind that, like to set aside time to appreciate and relish sort of what God has done. What I want to look at now is in Genesis chapter two, starting around verse 15. Remember in Genesis 1, has this like day by day account of the work of creating and what

1:43 God does on each day. And there was evening and there was morning, the day was done and what God had done was good and it starts this rhythm of the day starting with the evening. And then God celebrating each thing was good. In Genesis chapter two, it does like a different view, kind of a much closer view. And so now instead of just commanding all of the plants to grow, God roots the plants. Instead of just making man and woman, he comes down and shapes them with his hands out of

2:13 the clay. And instead of just calling them to life, he breathes the breath of life into them. So Genesis chapter two is a retelling of Genesis chapter one, but from a different perspective, right? And in that retelling, we get a little bit more description about what happens there in the garden. So if you go to Genesis chapter two, verse 15, the Lord God took man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it. And Lord God commanded the man saying, you may eat of every tree of the garden, but the

2:47 tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for that day. You shall eat of it. You shall surely die. Adam's job here in the garden, Adam and Eve's job, is to work the garden and maintain it. So it's not as though God finishes creation, puts Adam and Eve in the perfect brand new place. And now they do nothing. They just lay around without clothes on and grapes fall into their mouth.

3:20 And no, they have to tend the garden. Like they have a responsibility. Humanity is not created in order to be passive, but it is created in order to mirror God in creation. Adam has to imagine what's the right way to prune these grapes that they grow and produce the best kind of fruit. Is there something I can do to the soil? Is there things I can do to the leaves?

3:53 And as he's stewarding the animals, he's got to figure out what's the best way to challenge these sheep to become the fullest version of what they are? What might we, how might we protect them and care for them? Adam is having to, even if we were to keep reading this story, right, the very first act he does, he names all the animals. He sorts it and gets things in order and decides how he will call them by name, where they'll go. So humanity is not made to be passive.

4:23 Humanity is made to work to mirror God's creative action by imagining new things into the world. So in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are working. They're doing work in the place of ultimate provision and protection, in the place of plenty, in the absence of problem without pain or debt or they're working, in the absence

4:54 of problem, in the presence of perfection, Adam and Eve are working. Of course they don't stay in the Garden. Genesis chapter 3, right, they get this like confusing thing. Actually in Genesis chapter 3 there, verse 1, he said to the woman, did God actually say to you, you shall not eat the Garden of all the fruit of the Garden? Well, no, he didn't say that. He just said to this one fruit, then the temptation is, God is lying to you actually.

5:27 He said he has your best interest at heart. In fact, he does it. He has his own interest at heart. God is not caring for you. You must care for yourself. God is hiding from you. He's holding out on you, in fact. He doesn't want you to become your fullest version of yourself. He's trying to limit you instead of liberate you. And so here, I know what you should do. You should become like God. You can make yourself like God.

5:58 You can know the right decisions. God doesn't know. Eat the fruit. So the fatal flaw of humanity, we're talking about this a lot, but the fatal flaw of humanity is our kind of recursive and reflexive inability to believe that God has our best interest at heart. Our recurring tendency to think all we'll ever get in the world is what we can take for ourselves instead of relying on God to give.

6:31 And then of course the problems come, but what we want to see here, God comes back. He finds out what's happened. Everything changes for them when they try and be God. Here's the problem. They can't handle the responsibility of being God. And neither can you and I, right? You don't know the future. So if you try and manufacture your future, you will carry deep stress and anxiety because those questions are beyond you. If you try and prepare and protect and orchestrate events that are outside of your control, you

7:04 will handle, you will buckle under the weight of the responsibility. If you try and secure your own provision and protection without knowing the dangers that are around, you will, if you try and validate your own existence when you don't know the full meaning of existence. So if you try and understand your own love and value, if you try and handle your own prayer, you can't handle these things. These are the prerogative of God. When we try and be God, we get fear, anxiety, shame.

7:36 These are the things that come when we try and be God. Adam and Eve, they come rushing into them all at once. Adam comes to find them and he says, this now, you can't fix. He says, I'll have to find a way to fix this. But he says, everything will be different now. He takes them out of the garden. It's interesting when you read the story carefully, he takes them out of the garden because he's like, if they eat from the tree of life, they'll live forever like this. And this is some shallow version of what I intended for them. And so he takes them out of the garden.

8:07 But before he does, he tells them what it will be like now that it's different. And I just, instead of going into all of it because we've got a couple of places to go, look at verse 17 of chapter 3. To Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of Eve and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

8:40 Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken from dust. For out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you will return. Maybe you recognize that from an ash Wednesday thing. That's what we say when we put the ashes on your forehead. From dust you came and to dust you'll return. God is telling Adam, hey, you're going to keep working. But now look, if you want to be the provider, it's going to be way harder, man, because

9:17 you are not as good of a provider as me. And you said you want to be your provider, your work is going to be toil and hardship. It's not going to go great. And for the rest of your life it's going to be that way. Maybe you have had work like that. It's just like trying to pull thorns out of the ground. You can't get yourself to do it. It's frustrating. It's hard. You don't see the payoff. It feels like everyone's working against you all the time.

9:51 It feels like you're running on a treadmill. You don't know the point of it. It feels like it's aimless and busy work. All these work is not the problem. It's the context in which we are working. Work is not evil. It's the context in which we work outside the garden, separated from God's provision. We had work that was like a garden work, kind of seventh day work that responded to the

10:26 provision of God that steward His goodness. Now outside of the garden, apart from the seventh day in the garden, we have this toil work which is sweat and difficult, which is fighting and angsty and hard to understand. There's two kinds of work then. There's seventh day work and there's toil work. There's garden work and there's sweat and pain work. These kinds of work are happening in the world.

10:56 And how might we ever get to this again? Of course, God says, He was coming today where He'll give it to us, but this is the context of Sabbath. Okay, we're going to go a couple of places. Are you ready, Brian? Okay. Go to Hebrews 1, Hebrews 4, because this idea of having a restful work where might we ever

11:36 be able to find this kind of seventh day experience again? Comes up over and over again, the seventh day rest, this like rest in the provision of God rather than toiled to manufacture our own provision. Rest in the protection of God rather than toiled to protect ourselves. Rest in the love of God rather than trying to manufacture love that can sustain our lives for us. Seventh day work versus toil work comes up in the story of scripture all the time.

12:10 But one of the places that's really interesting is in Hebrews chapter 4. Let's see where we should start. Well, go back to chapter 3. Look at verse 16. No, 12. We're just going to read the whole thing, Beverly.

12:40 Okay. Take care, brothers, you said, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from God. Hebrews, we don't know who wrote Hebrews. It's like one of the most syntactically correct versions of Greek in the New Testament. It's like really kind of dense and expertly written. Paul wrote probably two-thirds of our New Testament. His ideas and concepts are deep.

13:11 His Greek is not great. It probably wasn't his first language in writing. And so he uses a couple of structures, but clearly he's not nearly as erudite as the writer of Hebrews. But the theology matches, which is probably why it got included in the canon to begin with. People were like, the theology is the same. We're pretty sure it was a student of Paul's or a scribe of Paul's that was making a kind of symbiosis of several of Paul's teaching, connecting it to the Old Testament.

13:42 So really cool book. But he's writing to the church to Hebrew believers. Remember most of Paul's stuff was to Gentile believers trying to pull them in. He was starting the synagogue and teach, this is trying to go, don't lose your Israeliteness, but understand how your Israeliteness is fulfilled in the person of Christ. And this, we're going to get this version of how we get to seventh day rest in the person of Christ. It's really kind of beautiful and Paul's in the Old Testament. Okay, I guess you don't have to take my word for it. I can try and make the case that it's beautiful and just telling, instead of just telling

14:15 you that it is. Let's see. Okay, if we can get there. Okay, take care of brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil and unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the loving God. Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end as it is said today. If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.

14:47 You can see how what the writer of Hebrews is talking about is similar to the case I was trying to make, that you have a faith, a confidence to trust God to give you things, but there is a temptation because it is the fatal flaw of humanity to assume God will not give it to you. If there's anything that you can get, it's going to have to be yourself. That all you can get is what you can work for and earn. That all your protection is the money you can stack up. That all your worth is the promotion that is coming. That all your love is the friends that you have.

15:19 That all your value is the entertainment you can create or muster. It's a slippery slope and very difficult to hold on to the faith. So the writer of Hebrews is saying, hey guys, remember the confidence and don't let your heart fall into the temptation that is so easy for all of us that life is only what we can take. For those who heard it, then he says he quotes this thing. Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. This is in Psalm 95. I'll read it for you just real quick if I can get to it.

15:53 In Psalm 95, oh no, it's not Psalm 95. Stand by. He's quoting a section from Numbers which we're going to go to in a minute. So for who were those who heard and yet rebelled, what is not all those who left Egypt led by Moses, was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom he was provoked

16:26 for 40 years, was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were unable to enter because of their unbelief. This story, anybody know this story? I'm curious. Breverly knows this story. Anybody else know the story he's referring to? It's in Numbers. Numbers let's look at 14.

17:02 Numbers 14 or 13. Yeah, 13. Verse 25. Numbers 13 verse 25. We don't know exactly when this story is. It's sometime in the desert wandering. Brever all the 10 plagues in Egypt. Amazing miraculous. The Red Sea. Amazing miraculous. They cross the Red Sea. They defeat the Amalekites. They go to the Mount Sinai. It shakes and God shows up.

17:32 They get the 10 words. Now they're supposed to go to take this Promised Land. And remember how they describe the Promised Land? A land flowing with milk and honey. I looked it up just to make sure I wasn't making up. It's just to say it's a land of incredible bounty. There's so much honey because there's so many plants for the bees to work on. The grass is so great. You don't have to coax the animals to produce milk. They're going to walk in and find walled cities, vineyards ready to...

18:04 It's like an Eden in there, man. God is taking people out of toil where they're making bricks without straw and walking them into a land flowing with milk and honey. Just gifting them. Everything they need. Walled cities, vineyards, herds. Just take it. Let me give it to you. What do they say consistently in the desert?

18:34 Remember? Why'd you take us out here, man? You should have left us in Egypt. At least we know what we had. Look, it was hard, but I knew how to get it. It was up to me. I'm out here in the desert. Look, I don't know when water's coming. I go to a rock and sometimes water comes out. I don't know when food's coming. I got to walk out every morning and maybe there'll be food there. Maybe there won't. Right? Send me back there. God is saying... So they go into... Numbers 13.

19:05 And this is the story of Moses sends 12 ahead into the land. Scout it out, guys. See what we're getting ourselves into here. God's going to give us a good spot. Let's see how it looks. And then at the end of the... So they went up verse 21 of Numbers 13. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zinn to Rahab near Lebo Hamath. They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, Ahiman and Shashi and Talmai and the descendants

19:37 of Anak were there. Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. And they came to the valley of Esch-Gol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes. And they carried it on a pole between the two of them. I haven't been... I haven't been to see like wine vineyards. It's not a thing I've done. Now, but I imagine that they grow really big.

20:07 But I don't know. Someone will have to tell me. They cut down one branch and they put a pole on the branch and put one end of the pole and one end of the shoulder and the other on the other shoulder. Two dudes carrying one cluster of grapes. It sounds like big grapes. I mean, right? It sounds like big grapes. The descendants of Anak have a reputation of being these like giant men. Remember the stories in Genesis are crazy and like people are really big.

20:38 And so this place is supporting really big people with really big grapes and milk and honey. I mean, it's a good spot. The cluster of grapes and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. Imagine they were longing for meat pots as slaves in Egypt. They were making bricks without straw with their feet.

21:11 They go into the desert and we talked about it a couple weeks ago. They're scraping this stuff off of the ground that's manna, some kind of excretion from insects that's like this bread, right? Maybe they get some quail in the evening. They've got water from her, but they're even the same thing every day. I mean, these dudes go into this place that God wants to give them and they've got grapes the size of people. They've got pomegranates and figs and they bring these things back.

21:46 What we can manufacture straight line, we know what we're getting, what God might give. And at the end of the 40 days, oh wait, then the place was called the valley of the wilderness of people of Kadesh and they brought back the word, the congregation showed them the fruit of land and they told them, we came to the land which you sent it to us. It flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit. However, you guys, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified

22:22 and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak in there. The Amalekites dwell in the land and the Negeb, the Hittites and the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country, the Canaanites dwell by the sea along the Jordan. Cut to the chase, they're like, you guys, we can't do this. They're like, I don't care how much we toil or sweat, we're not beating those guys.

22:55 They're like, we cannot do this. And, I mean, it's too good. We can't make it happen. And implied, we don't think God will give it to us. She's like so frustrated. God's so frustrated. He talks to Moses, he's like, dude, I'm going to, I can't handle these people and they've seen all these miracles and they still want to go with what they can get rather than

23:27 what I can give. They'd still rather live outside the garden than inside the garden. They'd still rather live with toil rather than provision. They'd still rather live according to themselves rather than according to me. They'd still rather be God. They'd still think they can be God instead of letting me be God. God's like talking to Moses, he's like, I'm starting over with just you. Wipe them out, build a new nation. Moses is like, dude, you can't do it because you remember how like you have a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night and everybody knows you're out here.

23:57 You took them out here. You're going to look like a God who can't get them in there if you kill them all right now. God's like fair, but look at chapter 14 verses 20. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word, verse 21, but truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these ten times that I have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land

24:30 that I swear to give to their fathers, they shall not enter my rest. And this becomes a phrase. It's repeated in the Psalms and the writer of Hebrews that there is God is offering rest to humanity and sometimes humanity does not want his rest. They prefer their toil to their own peril because our toil will never produce Eden. Thorns and thistles, and we can live off them, but it's not like living off grapes and pomegranates

25:08 and figs. The all the pomegranates, those little seeds in your yogurt. It's good. I'll put them in the yogurt. Okay so that's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about when he says, therefore when he talks about they will not enter the BC for the, there were those who heard and yet rebelled. Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom was he provoked for 40

25:44 years? So this is why they wander for 40 years. God's like we're just going to wait. He actually sets a date. I think you have to be under the age of 12. Everybody over the age of 12 or 16, I can't remember which, they're not getting in. So we're going to walk around and wait for him to die. So he changes course. They don't go to the promised land. They walk towards the Red Sea in the wilderness. That's why they're in the wilderness for 40 years because he's waiting for the generation that didn't think he could do it to die off or didn't want what he had to provide.

26:18 Tough man. And with whom he was provoked for 40 years, was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom they swear that they would not enter his rest but to those who disobedient. So okay. Therefore, verse chapter 4 verse 1, while the promise of entering his rest still stands. Oh. Therefore, while the, this is important.

26:53 You still have the opportunity to enter into the rest of God. He is not fed up with you. Though you toil your weeks, months, years away, though you live off dissals so often.

27:23 You still can enter the rest of God. All right. If Hebrews makes the plea. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them. But the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith

27:54 with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his words were finished from the foundation of the world, verse 4, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage he said, they shall not enter my rest. He is comparing seventh day rest to Eden, to the promised land.

28:27 He is saying God set up a pattern where his rest can be found consistently, reliably. They shall, okay, since therefore it remains for some to enter it. And those who formally received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience. Again, he appoints a certain day. Today, saying through David, so long afterward in the words that is already quoted, this is the one in Psalm 95 I was looking for, today if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts.

29:00 Today, if you hear the voice that says you can rest in the provision of God, you are not destined to survive off of your toil. Today if you hear the voice that says God has made a way for you, despite your fatal flaw, to have the capacity to trust him. If you have heard the word that says the sacrifice of Christ burst something new in you that has the capacity to let God be God, to settle in his provision instead of settling for your own.

29:30 If you hear his voice, he says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. And say it could not be. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would have spoken another day later on, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

30:05 The idea of Sabbath is a small little taste of the promised land. It's not like some wrote stop from work. It's a quit depending on your toil, as though your future depended on your earning capacity, as though your value depended upon your title, as though your worth depended upon what you

30:39 can manufacture in the world, quit depending upon your toil and rest in the provision of God. What a gift. All the world toils to secure a future and we get to rest in a future that is already ours.

31:16 I had in my segmenting Sabbath what to talk about and last week it was seventh day rest. Today it is work. Why is Sabbath associated with no work? Hopefully you're getting the picture. The last thing I'll say is it's worth putting some structure around it. I learned this when I was really young, Carol told a story about my family.

31:48 When we first started getting the allowance, we would get two dollars a week of allowance, two actually one dollar bill and then like change because they were making us take two dimes to church on Sunday morning. They taught us from two dollars a week to tie off of our two dollars a week. Why? The church does not need my two dimes and probably my parents actually already tied on those two

32:21 dimes, right? They tied 10%. They got double dot tithe on those two dollars. The reason they did is because they wanted to impress upon me that all my money comes from God. And so I can part with two dimes. He's got more coming. The reason we put structure around things is because our hearts are fickle, our mind wanders. We carry the fatal flaw of humanity and if we are not careful, we don't put bounds.

32:54 We will stop believing. It is hard to believe God would give you Canaan. It is hard to believe God will provide for you. It's easier though difficult. It's easier to trust our own toil because though it's just a meat pot, I know the line to cause an effect. It's harder to just walk into walled cities and Emancites and trust God will do something that I can't imagine. That's way harder. I need to walk towards it with intention. So the reason people put strictures around their Sabbath work is to like help them move,

33:29 gain their fickle heart to trust God. I'm going to not work today because God will take care of me. What a gift. Let me pray. Hey Lord, thanks for your Sabbath and your rest. Give us hearts to believe in creativity, to find the right structures, to put around

34:02 us to train our fickle heart and nurture faith in you. We look forward to the promised land and need tastes of it on the regular. In Jesus' name we pray.