We're looking this evening at Hebrews chapter 3, verses 7 to 19. So let me begin by reading that passage. This is God's holy and errant word. So as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me for 40 years. They saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation and I said, their hearts are always going astray and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said, today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Who were they that heard and rebelled. Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed?" So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. This is the word of God. Thanks be to the Lord. Lord, we ask that you would lead us now. Holy Spirit, take this word and use it to penetrate our hearts, to soften what is normally hardened in our sin and disbelief. We pray that you would not only give us understanding, but that you would allow that understanding to blossom into obedience and faithfulness. We pray these things, Lord Christ, in your name and for your glory. Amen. So if you'll turn in your order of worship to the outline, you'll see these three points are the bulk of what I want us to look at this evening. First, we're called to keep believing God's promises. As the writer of Hebrews is laying out the case for Christianity, the wonder of what we have in Christ and how we need to continue pressing on, persevering in these things, rather than abandoning Christ and going elsewhere, he's calling us to keep trusting God, to be reminded of what God has promised us, and to believe him for those things. Second, we'll see that there is this community nature to our faith in Christ. And this goes against what most of us think most of the time about Jesus. But there's a community aspect or nature to our faith in Christ. And then third, we must be vigilant in guarding our hearts. So let's look at each one of these. First, we're called to keep believing God's promises for particularly this rest that he he's talking about these people not entering this rest what is what is the rest all about and this is actually one of the great themes of the book of Hebrews this Sabbath rest that God has for his people and so to to keep that in mind or to to understand what that's getting at It's important for us to kind of recap God's promises in relationship specifically to this idea of Sabbath rest. Right? Sabbath and the rest that God provides in Sabbath for his people was not something that he just came up with in the desert on Mount Sinai with Moses. right but that was from the very beginning it's it's woven into the very fabric of creation that God tells us that he created everything that there is everything that exists he created in the span of six days and then on the seventh day the Sabbath day he himself rested right and so one of the difficult things that we have in terms of even accessing or knowing what this is what this is talking about is what is rest that we can understand that God would take it that God would enter into rest right because so much of what we think of is rest is predicated on our weakness, our limitations, our inabilities, right? And particularly as we get older, more and more we realize, boy, we really do need a nap, right? And so one of the things that we need to reckon with is that when the scripture talks about Sabbath rest, it doesn't just mean a nap, right? And we know that because it's not as if creating of all that exists wore God out so that he had to take a nap. That's not true of God. So what is this rest that God experienced and that he set up for us as so foundational that every day of our existence would be set within this framework of a seven-day week with a Sabbath rest. And how is it that these people didn't enter into rest? So let's recount some of these things. God makes the whole of creation in six days and then rests from his work. He enjoys the fruit of his labor. He's not continuing to create as much as he is sustaining that which he has created. And he's enjoying the fruit of what he's done in those six days. And that enjoyment is an enjoyment in community. Who was around for that Sabbath day. Well, he tells us he made everything that there is. And then he set the man and the woman in the garden. And that in the cool of the day, the Spirit would come and God would fellowship with man and woman, with humans. This image of Sabbath rest is a holy enjoyment in this fellowship of God and His people. It is that rest that was lost in our sin and rebellion when our first parents are pushed out of the garden and lose all of what they'd enjoyed in being with God in perfect fellowship. where they were naked and unashamed, where they were face-to-face with God. And after the fall, they go out from there, and if they see God face-to-face, they'll die. And so, that idea of rest is what God continues in promising to His people. So we see the observance of the Sabbath in the law, and right from the beginning, we keep misunderstanding that. We use that as a way of putting ourselves under this restriction that we can't keep. So that when Jesus shows up and says, guys, I'm going to heal this guy. And they say, no, no, it's the Sabbath. You can't do that. Because you don't understand what the Sabbath is about at all. Healing, restoring, bringing life back. That's what the Sabbath is about. And so then, as he delivers the people up out of Egypt, they were there in the bondage of slavery. And where they had no rest, they were under the yoke of oppression. They not only didn't get to have a nap, they had to work nonstop under slave masters. and Taskmasters continuing to and then when they started listening to Moses Pharaoh made it harder for right you gonna make the same number bricks but we're not gonna give you the straw you gotta go and get the straw yourself so you've got all these people being worked mercilessly yearning for rest from the work but that it that's only the tiniest bit of what that rest is it's not just That Sabbath rest is okay, stay in your slavery, but we're going to stop for one day a week and allow you some R&R. Right? The one day of rest is a picture of the blessedness of being together with God, of enjoying that fellowship. of not being under the slavery of serving someone else. See, we were designed to serve God. And so the thing about slavery is not just that it's hard work. It's that you're serving a tyrant that is not the one who is designed to be over you. And so this deliverance out of Egypt is talked about, is promised as this rest in the promised land and and so they they go out of Egypt up out of out of captivity to this land that God has promised them but they continue in their sinful oppression that the oppressor has been left in Egypt but they they continue to oppress themselves and one another and not listen to what Yahweh said they should do But they continue to disobey. They continue to grumble. They continue to look, how do we get back to Egypt? Because yeah, the work was hard, but they had good food. And so God warns them. He declares that if they continue to disobey, they will never enter His rest. This Sabbath rest has to do with being in relationship with God. Not just resting from our work, but resting from our sin. The certainty of being face-to-face with God. And this is exactly what happens when Jesus comes. He comes not just as the deliverer from hard work, oppression, and those kinds of things, but he comes to deliver us as the Lord of the Sabbath. as the king over this whole idea of Sabbath rest and restoring us to right relationship with him. You see the reality was in the garden they had tons of work to do but the creation hadn't been cursed so that they could delight in their work and enjoy it as done before God. Now, some of you have had the wonderful experience of doing some work that you loved well enough to where you've gotten a little bit of taste of that, right? Have you ever had something that you were, you had a ton of work to do, but you got into it and time flew by and, wow, okay, it's time to stop already. Boy, I can't wait to get back to this tomorrow, right? Some of you have had that experience. Others of you have never had that experience. But it's something of what we see in the garden, of work that is done in fellowship with God, in fellowship with one another, and an enjoyment of Him. So that this rest is not, oh, so glad to get done with that. If I never have to do that again, it'll be too soon. But rather an enjoyment of the fruits of our labors. a enjoyment of what God has enabled us to accomplish for His glory. And so Christ comes as this Lord of the Sabbath. Christ comes in fulfillment of all that Sabbath rest means. And He tells His disciples to take on His yoke because His yoke is light. That doesn't mean that he wasn't calling them to difficult stuff, right? This is the same Jesus who said, pick up your cross and follow me. This is the same Jesus who has called thousands of his followers into martyrdom, right? It's not that he's calling us to an easy, peaceful feeling, right? But to rest in him. What does that mean? What does that look like? To be able to rest in him is to recognize he's got control of all this. I can trust him with whether it's hard work, whether it's sacrifice, whatever it is. Okay. I'm following you. You call the shots. And to enjoy him in that. As we understand this, we see this role of faith that we're called to believe God's promises, to when we experience the hard stuff, the heartache, the difficulty that surely will come, that instead of us going, okay, God, what's going on? That's some of what we were talking about this morning. What in the world? But we can recognize, okay, this, God didn't lose control of the galaxy over the last two days. I can trust Him with this, that in our grief, we can trust Him to actually grieve and not try to make it seem like we're not grieving. But in our joy, we can trust Him. Have you ever been doing something really fun, enjoying something, and then you have this awful thought that comes and goes, that's going to stop. That's going to end. Now, I realize I'm much more of an up and down emotional person. Some of you have gotten to know me well enough to know that, right? And so even in the midst of having a really fun time, there are times when I will get sad. And so some of my family will go, what's going on? What's wrong? You guys are going back tomorrow. And they're like, well, we're here now. But I know it's not going to last. Because I'm trying to keep all this stuff going and I don't want it to stop. But to actually be able to trust God so that it frees us to just enjoy now. And not worry about tomorrow. Seems like Jesus said something about that, right? He said that because we need to hear that. Because we constantly lose the joy of now because we're worrying about tomorrow. And so this whole idea of Sabbath rest helps us with that. It helps us to believe God's promises. That whether this is going great right now or this is awful right now, that God's promises haven't changed. That his faithfulness hasn't changed. that he's just as trustworthy no matter where we are on the emotional roller coaster, no matter where we are on our experience. And that enables us to press on, to keep fighting the spiritual fight that rages. Second, there's this community nature to this faith, to these believing God's promises. See, it's not just about me believing God's promises or you believing God's promises. The call of faith is for us together to believe these promises, to believe this God, to trust Him with these things. And that we would believe in God's promises that we're going to get to rest together. That frees us to work together now. to recognize, OK, we don't have all this figured out. But that's OK. God does. So we can strive. We can work together. We can shoulder to shoulder, roll up our sleeves, and get involved in loving our neighbors, in caring for our community, in serving others in a way that I don't know how I'm going to get recovered from this. Have you ever found yourself in serving, in doing something maybe that you're not used to or comfortable with? As a pastor, I do a whole lot of sitting down. I sit down to study. I sit down when I meet with people. And so every once in a while, I'll be out doing something, serving, that's just good old-fashioned hard labor. And I start breathing hard and realizing, I don't do nearly enough of this. that this is hard. And yet, that's what we need to do, right? To serve hard in this. There's this great reference that the movie doesn't matter, it's Gattaca, it's a science fiction thing, but I absolutely love this one piece where, back story, It's a world where everything is genetically engineered, where children are no longer just conceived, but they're genetically engineered to optimize everything, right? And so the main character in this is not genetically engineered. He's just a regular old guy. But his brother is genetically engineered. And so he's faster and smarter and stronger and better at everything. And so growing up with a brother, you're constantly competing, and he's always losing. He doesn't stand a chance. And they had this one thing where they would often go and swim out to this place in the ocean. And they would race out there. And then after the race, they'd have to swim back. And so the character's so tired. of always losing. As they're swimming, as they're racing, he just gives it his all. And he's reflecting on that, that the way that he won, the way that he got out there before his genetically engineered brother, is because he didn't save anything to get back. They swam out to this place in the ocean, But then they had to have enough to be able to swim back. But see, he said, I'd rather die and at least have won once. Right? But see, we're not called to that kind of fatalism. What we're called to is trusting in Christ. That we would give ourselves entirely, not because we don't care if we die, but because we know that Christ will carry us. And that even if we die in his service, he is sufficient. Here's one of the deals. We really want to see people here in Woodstock come to Christ. We want to see this community transformed by the power of the gospel. And when we look at history, the history of God's church, the history of God's people. God has done some amazing things in revival and renewal and transformation of communities. But he's often done that through his people sacrificing everything and actually becoming martyrs before that happens. And so one of the realities that we've got to deal with is that all too often we say, Well, I want renewal. I want revival. I want all those things to happen. I just want to make sure that I'm back in time for dinner. Where in the great missionary movement in Great Britain, more than a hundred years ago, the missionaries packed all their belongings in their coffin to ship over to these faraway places where they were going to tell the gospel. Because they said, I'm not leaving anything left to get home. I'm going to spend it all following Christ where he leads me. That kind of commitment is not something that happens individually. But as a result of a community of faith, of us encouraging one another, of working together, you can't do this alone. It strikes me particularly as this passage refers to those who died in the desert. Right? More than a million Israelites who were brought up out of Egypt to go to the promised land. Moses himself wasn't allowed to go over into the promised land. Do you know who of that entire people Who of that generation that had been adults in Egypt, who got to go into the Promised Land? Do you remember? Joshua and Caleb. Now, it's always struck me that that's not a coincidence that there were two. They sent 12 representatives, one for each of the tribes of Israel. to go in, scout out the land, and come back and tell them. And 10 of them said, nah, we can't do this. God's not strong enough. There's no way. We're dead. But Joshua and Caleb, two together, said, God's got this. He's got this. We don't, but he does. And they were the two of their generation that got to go into the promised land, and everyone else of their generation died in the desert. And their children got to go. There's a reason why this passage is filled with plurals. It's talking to them together. And even in our doubt, you know, so often when we come to passages like this and it's like, okay, here's one of those hard places. that, you know, you're going to make it if you believe and you believe to the end. Oh gosh, do I believe enough, you know, and I wrestle with it. This is not intended primarily as an individual passage. It's saying this church, you've existed 237 years, you've been faithful and kept the gospel clear. Are you going to survive as a congregation? Are we as a congregation going to survive to the next generation only if we believe in the promises of God that's how we'll survive and flourish and have neighbors join in with us is through trusting the promises of God together and so as a result of that we've got to be vigilant in guarding our hearts we've got to be ruthless because there are so many things that wanna coming in and and whisper to us that promise a guy I don't think so yeah that that sounds too crazy well remember you know you you trusted God with this and look what happened we we've got to be absolutely brutal in anytime anything that is untrue creeps into our mind we say no not gonna let you win The couple you were drifting off again. You don't give me any choice. I have to do these things. I'm not going to tolerate it. You will not have any place in my thought life. Get out. To cut it off. To slam the door. That we're clicking our way through the internet. And oh, that looks interesting. No. You have no room here. that the people start gossiping and talking about so-and-so and you don't like so-and-so anyway so you know no not gonna do that he calls us to remember and trust the promises of God and the reality is that sin is constantly in competition for your heart constantly saying love me not that Jesus guy I mean, you don't even see him, but look what I've got for you. Oh, look at this. Oh, you like that? Our hearts have got to be guarded. We together as a community have got to be encouraging one another, to be diligent, to keep the promises of God so before us and to believe them, to trust them, and long for that promised rest when we will no longer have to battle with our sin anymore. Let's pray. Lord God, thank you for your goodness and grace to us. Thank you for the ways in which you have promised us rest and that you were faithful and true. And so we pray, Lord, that you would help us in all of these things to trust in you. For it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.