This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day three of our look through Hebrews chapter four. This is in many
ways the day you've been waiting for as we walk through this chapter. I feel
like I've just sort of been teasing things toward this verse we're going to look
at today.

We've talked about God's rest. We've talked about entering into God's rest. We
talked about it remains for some to enter into God's rest, but how exactly do
you do it?

How do you come into this place of God's rest? I know we don't want to get too
formulaic about it because it's God's rest. It's not a matter of A plus B plus C
equals God's rest, but what does God teach us about it?

What does he have to say to us about it? It's in verse 11. Verse 11 says this,
"Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall
by following their example of disobedience.

" If you want to understand the Christian life, if you want to understand what
it means to follow Jesus, if you want to understand what it means to live the
kind of life that God has for you and I to live, you have to understand that
phrase. Make every effort to enter that rest. Make every effort to enter that
rest.

Let's break this down. First, what does it mean to enter that place of rest? To
enter into God's rest.

Well, remember, this is all based as he's talking on this Old Testament picture,
the people of Israel. The ones who were disobedient, who didn't enter into the
place of rest, that's what he's warning them against. So if you go back to this
Old Testament picture, the people of Israel, they're slaves in Egypt.

They have no rest. They're slaves. They're being driven to labor every day of
their lives.

Then they are, by God's grace, freed from slavery seemingly, and they go out
into the desert and they say no to going into the promised land. That's their
disobedience. So they go from slavery to wandering, to wandering in the
wilderness, and they still have no rest.

Now finally, after a whole generation dies, they enter into the place of rest.
They enter into the promised land. What a picture.

What a picture. If you're in slavery to the sins of this world, to the
selfishness of this world, to the hatefulness of this world, if you're in
slavery, God has a place of rest for you. He wants to take you to a place of
rest.

That place of promise, of living based on his promises instead of based on your
pressures, based on just your abilities. God's given you abilities, but he
doesn't want you to live based just on those abilities. We start with his
promise, but there's also this picture of wandering here.

That's the main picture, and it's a picture of so many Christian lives. We are
meant to live in a place of rest. God has given his life for us in Christ to
live in a place of rest.

We've accepted that gift. In one sense, we're on the other side of the Red Sea.
We're just on the edge of living in that place.

All we have to do is step into it each day, but instead of stepping into the
place of rest each day, we wander through so many days. I do, you do, and some
people wander not just through a day here and there. They wander through weeks
and months and even years of their life.

They're not entering into the place of rest. What does it mean for you and I to
enter into this place of rest? For them, it was a land.

It was a promised land. It was very easy to see when they crossed the Jordan
River and they were in this new place. How do I know if I've entered in?

Place of rest for them was the promised land. The place of rest for you and I is
God's promises, is living in the promises of God in our everyday lives. What
does it mean to be in this place of rest?

It means you are in God's presence, trusting God's promises. We read yesterday,
you rest from your work and you trust in His work. There is salvation rest.

We talked about that at the beginning of this week. You rest from your work
thinking you can save yourself, and you rest on His work, what He did on the
cross. Without that rest, there is no other rest.

But in that rest, there is other rest that God wants to work in our lives. There
is sanctification rest, the rest of growth in our lives. That comes from grace
just as well.

That I realize if I'm going to grow, if I'm going to become more and more like
Jesus, that's not based on my effort. God has some things for me to do, but it's
not based on my effort. It's based on what God has done in Christ.

It's still by grace. I like what Warren Wiersbe said about this. When we come to
Christ by faith, we find salvation rest.

When we yield and learn of Him and obey Him by faith, we enjoy submission rest.
The first is peace with God. The second is the peace of God.

It is by believing that we enter into rest. It is by obeying and surrendering
that the rest enters into us. What great sentences.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you want that rest to enter into you. How does it
happen? It happens by obeying, surrendering to the promises of God in your life.

And out of that rest, there's service rest. You might become physically tired,
but you don't have this soul weariness when everything's upon your shoulders
because you know it's by God's grace. You know it's by God's grace.

So you enter into this place of rest. We have to do it once and for all when we
come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior, but then we have to daily enter into
that place, trusting in Him every day, the fact that it's His promises that
we're living based on. You enter into God's rest, but notice what He says here.

It's the strangest phrase. You and I need to make every effort to enter that
rest. Make every effort?

I'm already worn out. It feels like I've got to get tired in order to get to a
place of rest. What is He talking about here?

If you want to understand how to live a life of faith, you need to understand
this phrase. Make every effort to enter that rest. Making every effort to do
God's work for Him?

That does not work. If that's what you're making every effort to do, I'll do
your work for you, God. You're going to be a worn out person.

And by the way, the opposite is true. Doing nothing at all and expecting to
automatically enter God's rest. He will just somehow carry me there each
morning.

That doesn't work either. No, we have to make every effort to enter God's rest.
Make every effort to enter God's rest.

What's the effort that He's talking about here? He's talking about faith. He's
talking about trust.

The effort is deciding I'm not going to live life based on my work, so I'm going
to live life based on His work, what He has done. What is the effort that He's
talking about here? It's trusting in God's promises.

It's leaning on God's presence in your everyday life. And if you've been
following Jesus for a while, you've come into a place of rest, you realize this
takes time. This takes effort.

This takes energy. You don't automatically wake up every morning and just, "Ah,
I'm in this beautiful place of God's rest. " It doesn't work that way in my
life, at least, and I've talked to hundreds, thousands of believers, it doesn't
work that way in their lives either.

No, you take the time, you take the trouble to focus on God's word, to talk to
Him in prayer, to turn your mind to Him. And as you do that, you enter into His
rest. What does it mean to make every effort to enter God's rest?

It means we do what Jesus invited us to do. In fact, in an attitude of prayer
right now, as we pray together, I want you to listen to the words of Jesus, as
if they're word because they are to your soul, to your heart. How do I enter
into this place of rest?

Here's what Jesus says, "Come to me, all of you who are weary, all of you who
are carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Come to me, all
of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. " So do that
right now.

Come to Jesus. Come to Him with your problems, come to Him with your successes,
come to Him with your confusions, come to Him with your decisions, come to Him
with your life, the things you feel good about, the things you feel rotten
about, and say, "Here it is, Jesus, all of it. I come to you with all that I am,
and I want to live in that place of your promise.

I want to live based on the work you were doing in my life, not some work I can
do for myself. And so Lord, right now, in this moment, I bring it all to you,
and in bringing it all to you, I let it all go. Lord, give me back whatever I
need to do.

Show me the next steps to take, and if I don't know the next steps to take, give
me the patience that I need and the faith that I need to wait on you, but also
to move against my fears and trust in you. Jesus, right now, I come to you.
That's the place of rest.

You're the place of promise. I come to you. In your name, I come to you.

Amen.