The Best of the Rest :: Hebrews 4:9-13

 Are you tired? Are you so tired that you don’t even realize you’re tired? Are you “reTIRED” ... working too hard for too long too often, “reTIRING” yourselves after tiring yourselves out after a lifetime of work? 

Truth is, I know we’re tired. Our children are tired. Our mothers and fathers are tired. Our husbands are tired. Our wives are tired. Our world is tired. We’re constantly confronted by bickering and unrest ... upheaval and tension ... pressure and anxiety. And it’s downright tiring. We long for good rest.

Some of this is just the world’s doing, but most of it is our own. We sweat the small stuff and the big stuff. It strains our marriages and relationships, which wears us from the inside out. Meanwhile, our world wrestles with psychoses, and neuroses, and simply strained nerves. Time is always at a premium, then we waste time trying to find our rest. Even the people of God have been towed under by the tides of busyness and unhappiness. We long for leisure and the Laz-Z-boy. We long for good rest.

We’re even too busy to call our pastor and say, Hey, Pastor, I’m tired. ... Will you help me? I need a prayer ... right now. We’re so tired we avoid confessing our sins ... Then in our retired state we just cry out ... Give me liberty and give me rest! 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what are we to do? 

Where are we to find rest?

The evangelist to the Hebrews has the answer. He proclaims that ...

THE LIVING WORD OF GOD DELIVERS THE BEST REST FOR HIS PEOPLE

1. God has promised this best rest for his people.

The rest of God is not just physical ... the precious bit of sleep we get ... a few relaxing hours on Sunday afternoons as a football or baseball game echoes in the background. Sleep and relaxation and recreation certainly help us improve our rest, and they are essential to everyone’s health and well-being. 

But ... I am speaking of the rest “OF” God, the rest “IN” God, the rest “WITH” God. I’m speaking of the rest our Savior promised to give to you when he called each of you who are weary and heavy laden. The rest of God is the rest of peace with God ... the rest of the forgiveness of sins ... the rest of his service to you ... the rest of freedom from everything that spoils life as God intended it. The rest of God is the rest of the soul and the spirit ... the satisfaction of the heart and soul.

This is the rest he promised. And it is eternal.

Scripturally speaking, we find the rest of God typified by the Sabbath Day (Gen 2:2) ... the day sanctified for liturgical praise in the God’s sanctuary (Ex 20:8-11). It is also typified by the Promised Land of milk and honey, the place where God’s people will rest from their labors (Ex 3:8). 

Before the foundation of the world was laid, God ... in his gracious will ... resolved to give his people this rest. His Sabbath of rest is rest that is in perfect harmony with him. It is the place he provides you. 

In the beginning, after God worked for six days creating the heavens and the earth, the sea and the sky, the land and the man ... on the seventh day God finished his work which He had done, and He rested (Gen 2:2). ... He rested and he dwelled with his people. Adam and Eve were at peace with God. And he intended the same thing for you. That has always been God’s plan for his people. 

It is difficult to paint a more beautiful picture of rest than that of Genesis chapter 2. The garden was set apart. All the living things in the garden were in harmony with God. All of our senses were delighted with the gifts of God. There was no strife, no shame, no bloodshed, no death. There was neither drought, nor flood, nor pestilence. There was no sin. We had no need. God nurtured man in his divine service. 

It was the best of THE REST.

But God’s people seldom go along with God’s plan. Like the world, we long to work things out for ourselves, to serve ourselves. I don’t need a helper, we like to tell ourselves. I get to do it my way on my highway.

Adam and Eve were first in line for this job. They sought work ... to work toward their own rest, to work toward their own knowledge. They wanted something of their own making and doing. So they began reworking God’s word into their own image ... declaring that they should nourish themselves instead of allowing God to nourish them ... that they should love themselves instead of allowing God to love them. 

Adam and Eve never found that rest. 

Instead, we got what we deserved. Man-made fatigue and disease that wears us out and breaks us down. Sin hurts. Emotionally. Physically. 

Childbirth and motherhood and being a wife has brought NOT the promise of rest ... along with all the joys that come with being a woman. ... The original sin instead brought women sorrow and pain and longing after authority that was lost in the fall. Adam’s sin cursed the ground that so many of you work. Now you toil and sweat and face the heat of the day, longing for rest from it all. Your work in the field never ends. Your sin took away the benefit of rest and safety and security. 

It continues to reject the best of the rest.

2. But the promise holds: God has provided the best rest for his people.

As the evangelist writes, There is a Sabbath celebration ... a Sabbath rest ... left to the people of God (v.9).

We like to tell ourselves that we don’t have time to rest ... that we can rest when this body wears out and we are dead and buried. That is not the Sabbath celebration that awaits you. The evangelist to the Hebrews is not talking about the end of your life here. 

God provided the best rest for us when he came to us in the person and work of Christ. Jesus is our Sabbath rest. For the one who entered his place of rest has also rested from his works as God did from his own (v.10). Jesus is the one. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Immanuel, our God incarnate, is not merely a good man with a good word about good living. He is not merely some model for the model life. He didn’t come to give you a new law. He is the Word made flesh who came to work for you, to give you rest. He is not merely a savior. He is the Christ, the keeper and guardian of rest. He gives us the best rest. 

Unlike all of the other gods we place in our lives ... most notably me, myself, and I ... our Lord Jesus has done something all the world’s gods won’t do for you. 

Although he was born through the pain of a woman, born to toil on a cursed earth, he knew no sin. He lived his life without sin. He did this specifically so that he could give you the best of his rest. He who knew no sin then became the sin that burdens you ... the sin that is wearing you out. He carried that sin to the cross so that God could pour out all of his anger for your sin upon Christ instead of you. This was his unique work. Then, he carried that sin to the grave so that your sin will never be heard from again. 

And there, God rested, and declared: It is finished (Jn 19:30). 

There is no nothing left for us to do, except rest in Christ. He has even risen for us, giving us new life in his resurrection. There are no more sacrifices we have to make. Jesus has worked them for you, atoning for our power trips, our guilt, our shame, and the consequence of our sin. Rest in the truth that his work brings us to repentance and frees us to enjoy the best of his rest. 

3. And this is the rest you need.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, May we therefore be eager to enter that place of rest so that no one by the same pattern may fall to faithlessness (v.11). 

Although the fullness of our rest is still to come in the second Advent of our Lord, a type of God’s rest has come to us today. It provides us the best of our rest here on earth. 

For more than a year now, I have been encouraging you to seek this rest, to long for this rest, to return to this rest with joy. Here, in the Divine Service of Word and Sacrament, we find God’s best rest. Here, he proclaims the Gospel that provides faith, hope, and love. Here, he refreshes you and makes you new in the waters of holy baptism. Here, he nourishes you with his unending heavenly feast that provides the bread of life and the cup of salvation, which deliver the tangible forgiveness of sins. Here, we sing for joy with all the heavenly hosts. 

This is where we find his rest with him. 

Why do we deny ourselves his rest with him through these means of grace? Our liturgy is not a human activity ... a human work that wears us down ... it delivers God’s rest, his peace. He serves us. He nourishes us. washes us. He is with us.

Liturgy does not exist to provide edifying entertainment, motivation for sanctified living, or therapy for our psychoses, neuroses and anxieties ... although it does that too ... it exists to deliver to us God’s rest. 

Here, the living and active word of God (v.12) ... because that is who our risen savior really is ... comes to you in word and sacrament. Here, the living and active word of God gives himself fully to you, for you. 

God’s word and sacrament are not dead. They are alive and able to transform sinners into saints, to make the dead alive because Christ, the living one, is bodily present in these means of grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, rest in his living word. Rest in his continuous service. Rest as he reminds you how God has lived for you, died for you, risen from the dead for you, ascended into heaven for you, where he has prepared a place of eternal rest for you. Rest knowing he is coming again for you to give you the best rest. May we strive for this rest with joy every day, so that we are all strengthened in faith knowing that his word will accomplish his will (Isa 35:10-13).

To his glory, and our good. In Jesus’ name.