The Stupidity of Sin

Your sins have kept good from you. (Jeremiah 5:25)

Why do you sin? Why does anyone sin?

Eve sinned by distrusting God and eating the one forbidden fruit in the Garden because she thought good would come of it – she thought she would become like God! (Genesis 3:1-6)

We have similar motivations. We think that God’s way is not the path to true life, not the way to fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).  Like Eve, we think that we can follow an alternate route, a road that will be less onerous, less dangerous, more fun, and more fulfilling. So we reject God – the One Who knows all things, the One Who made us – and in our arrogance head out on the path we think is better, the path of sin.

But that path never leads to joy! That road never leads to fulfillment! At best the choice to follow our own paths results in some temporary ease, a false sense of security, and a passing joy.

In the end, however, as Jeremiah 5:25 tells us, “Your sins have kept good from you.” We choose to sin because we think we gain some good through it. But every time we sin – every time! – we are instead missing out on good!

John Piper summarizes this truth well, “Never, never does God ask you to deny yourself a greater value for a lesser value. That’s what sin is. On the contrary, always, always, God calls us to surrender second-rate, fleeting, unsatisfying pleasures in order to obtain first-rate, eternal, satisfying pleasures.”

The following Scriptures make this point in different ways. Use them to ponder this truth: “Sinning keeps good from me!” Then, remind yourself at every temptation: “Regardless of how it seems, trusting Jesus and His Word is the path to joy – this temptation is the road to sorrow!”

May you fight the fight of faith, and so live to Jesus’ glory and to your greatest joy.

His Paths Lead to Joy!

  • Deuteronomy 10:12-13 “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?” (emphasis added)
  • Proverbs 3:5-7 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
  • Psalm 119:92 If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
  • Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
  • Isaiah 35:10 The ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

The Goods of This Life Pass Away

  • Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
  • 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world– the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life– is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

The Promise of Rest, the Promise of Judgment

  • Jeremiah 6:16-19 Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’ Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices.”
  • Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
  • Romans 6:20-23 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Come to the King!

God is King!

Yet Psalm 95 emphasizes something unusual about this king. Who can approach a king?

In the book of Esther, recall that no one was allowed to enter the kings presence without his explicit invitation. If you did come in, you would die – unless the king leaned his scepter towards you.

In contrast, three times in Psalm 95 we read: Come!

  • Come to the king
  • Let’s come into His presence
  • Come let us worship

Jesus issues similar invitations to all:

  • “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
  • “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37)
  • “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst…. Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:35, 37)

Despite these extensive invitations, many do not come. Jesus says to some of them: “You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).

Thus, nothing is more important than coming to God, than coming to Jesus.

So let’s examine this psalm that exhorts us to come to God again and again, and listen to its explanation of why we should come.

We’ll examine this psalm under three headings:

  • Come to Him!
  • Why?
  • Oh That You Would Hear His Voice!

Along the way we’ll see three different ways we are to come to Him.

Come to Him!

The psalmist commands us to come in Psalm 95:1-2 and again in verse 6. At first reading, these may appear to be similar commands. But both in ancient Israel and today, these commands refer to two distinct purposes behind our coming to God. The first:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! (Psalm 95:1-2)

We come to do what? To sing, to make a joyful noise, to thank Him, to praise Him. But note: we are doing all this while coming into His presence.  The picture is of procession approaching the tabernacle or temple, praising Him along the way.

These verses describe a rambunctious, joyful, noisy procession, praising God for being the “rock of our

So this is first of the three ways we are to come to Him: Come with joyful praise.

Psalm 95:6 is rather different:

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

Now the procession has entered the tabernacle or temple. The joyful praise changes to awe at His presence. So the worshipers now come to bow and kneel rather than to make a joyful noise.

This second type of coming expresses similar sentiments to Habakkuk 2:20:  “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

So Psalm 95 commands us, first, to come to God with joyful, loud worship, and, second, to come to Him with quiet, reflective, contemplative worship.

Although we today don’t come into the tabernacle or temple, both ideas still hold. In worship, we express joy in Christ. There is a place expressing that joy in noise, in loud singing, in celebration. And there is a place for expressing that joy in quiet contemplation, as we consider our sinfulness and His great grace, the judgment we deserve and the cost to Jesus of taking that judgment on Himself.

The great King calls you to come to Him, into His very presence, in both ways. So come to God in joyful praise! Come to God in quiet confession, considering how you deserve His judgment.

Both are important. Do you love both? Do you respond to both?

We still must consider the third way to come to God. But first let’s see why we should come to Him.

Why?

Why should we come in both ways? The psalmist gives three reasons Psalm 95:3-7.

First: He is a great king above all gods:

For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods (Psalm 95:3)

He is the greatest king, the greatest god – there is no comparison.

But most of us are not tempted to worship Baal or Molech or a block of wood. So replace “gods” with “idols.” Aren’t you tempted to idolatry? That is: Aren’t you tempted to look to something other than God for identity, for security, for joy? This verse tells us that God is far greater than all these alternatives:

  • Nothing else can satisfy us and give us true joy
  • Nothing else can protect us
  • Nothing else can tell us who we really are
  • Nothing else endures

The second reason we should come to Him: He created and controls all.

In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:4-5)

The psalmist uses extremes to communicate how extensive God’s work is: He controls the depths and the heights, the sea and the dry land.

To show God’s intimate involvement, the psalm uses the metaphor of God’s hand thrice (two times here and again in verse 7). He made everything by His hand – and all things remain in His hand. God thus controls all.

The third reason we should come to Him: He is our Maker, and we are His sheep

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Psalm 95:6-7a).

What does the psalmist mean by saying that God is our Maker?

Surely that God creates us, as He creates the seas and  mountains.

Surely that He controls us, we are in His hand, as is the case with the dry land and the depths of the earth.

But there’s a third level to God’s relationship with us that does not hold for inanimate creation: We are not only made by His hand, we not only are in His hand, we are sheep of His hand; we are people of His pasture. So He not only created us, He made us to be in relationship with Him. He is our God.

Throughout history God has been working to create, protect, and complete His faithful remnant, His perfected people, Christ’s spotless bride. As Romans 8:28-30 tell us, God works all things together for good of His people, so that the very ones He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son; these very same ones He then calls at specific points in time – calls them to come to Him; these very same ones He justifies, He declares righteous by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross; and these very same ones He glorifies, making them like Himself. Furthermore, all this is so certain that it is as good as done.

That’s what it means to be the sheep of His hand. The good, all-powerful shepherd loves you. Amidst all the apparent threats to the flock – the roaring lion of Satan, the wolves of disease and danger, the foolishness and stupidity and wandering that we sheep are prone to – His hand guides us and holds us, lifting us up on His shoulders to bring us back when we wander, fighting off attackers, hindering and ultimately destroying the lion, Satan. By His hand, He brings His entire flock into the fold. And we remain His for all eternity.

Indeed, by His hand He brought you here to read or listen to this sermon.

So come to Him:

  • He is the great king who offers you what no idol can ever grant
  • He created and controls all – including all that happens in your life
  • He can be your You can be His sheep, guided and protected by His hand.

Join that flock. For Jesus says: “Come to me – however weary and burdened you may be. Come to Me – and I will give you rest.”

O That You Would Hear His Voice!

In the second have of verse 7, the tone of the psalm changes dramatically. Indeed, it changes so much that some have wondered if this should be considered a different psalm. But this change of tone is a powerful way to communicate the third command to come. To help us see that, let’s consider briefly a New Testament passage in which Jesus commands a man to come.

In Mark 10:17-22, a man runs up to Jesus – he comes. This man kneels before Him – as Psalm 95:6 tells us to do before God. The man praises Jesus, calling Him “Good teacher.” He then asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus tells him that he already knows the commandments, and then lists several. The man replies, saying he has always kept them.

Now – when we consider the way that Jesus understands the commandments, we know that statement is false (see Matthew 5:17-48). But instead of quibbling with the man’s statement and explaining what obedience to the commandments really means,    Jesus goes directly to the root of the man’s problem. Our Savior looks at him, loves him, and tells him he lacks one thing. Then Jesus gives him five commands:

“Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)

Five commands. What is the one thing he lacks?

  • He has come to Jesus physically.
  • He has fallen before Him and acknowledged His goodness – thus he has worshiped Jesus in some sense.

But He is not following Jesus. He has not come to obey Jesus in all of His life. Indeed, he disobeys Jesus’ explicit command. So he walks away sorrowful.

He has not come to Jesus in obedience. He has not come to hear and obey.

It’s that sense of coming that Psalm 95 refers to in verses 7 to the end.

“Today, if you hear his voice” (Psalm 95:7b ESV)

Or “Today, if only you would hear His voice!” (Psalm 95:7b NIV)

Understand: In Scripture, hearing God implies obedience to Him. Thus Jesus repeatedly says, “He who has ears to ear, let him hear!” (for example, in Mark 4:9, 23). Jesus means: “Don’t just let the words go in one ear and out the other! Take them to heart! Obey them!”

So the NET renders Psalm 95:7b, “Today, if you would only obey Him!”

The psalmist is not saying, “Maybe you’ll hear His voice, maybe you won’t.” Rather, he says: “He has made Himself clear. Listen to Him! Come to Him and obey Him! Follow Him!”

This is thus the third sense in which we are to come to God – the same sense Jesus uses in the story in Mark 10:

  • Come in joyful praise
  • Come in quiet contemplation and worship
  • Come and obey. Come and follow

Verses 8-9 then state this negatively:

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. (Psalm 95:8-9)

This refers to an incident recorded in Exodus 17. Consider what the people of Israel have experienced:

  • They have seen the ten plagues in Egypt that God used to orchestrate their release
  • They have walked through the Red Sea as if on dry land, while Pharaoh’s army was drowned
  • They have worshiped God joyfully as a result (Exodus 15)

God has proven Himself mighty; He has proven Himself faithful.

But now they are in place with no water. They grumble. They complain, saying to Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us… with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3)

God tells Moses to strike a rock with his staff – and water miraculously flows out of that rock. God does provide for them.

But they had hardened their hearts.

In what sense?

They had plenty of revelation concerning God’s character and love in both word and deed. Now was the time for faith – a time to remember who God is, to trust that He would once again work for them. This was not a time for demanding further proof that God was for them.

Aren’t we tempted to have similar hard hearts?

  • Hasn’t he given us everything pertaining to life and godliness in His Word?
  • Hasn’t He shown Himself faithful to us, His people over the centuries?
  • Don’t we have thousands and thousands of witnesses to His power, grace, and mercy among people we know and among those who have told their stories?

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul refers to Exodus 17 and experiences of the people of Israel in the wilderness, saying they are examples for us, written for our instruction, so that we would not be idolators like them, or engage in sexual immorality like them, or put Christ to the test like them, or grumble like them.

Friends, don’t harden your heart against God. Soften it instead. He has told you who He is. He has told you how to be among His people. He has told you the path to life. He has commanded you to come to Him and to follow Him joyfully.

As Proverbs 28:14 tells us: “Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.”

The great majority of the Israelites kept hardening their hearts, kept going astray, and thus never knew God. So Psalm 95 concludes:

For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

The very people He had brought out of Egypt and spoken to at Mt Sinai are under His wrath. They cannot come to Him (the Hebrew word translated “enter” in verse 11 is translated “come” in verse 6).

As Hebrew 4 tells us when the author comments on Psalm 95, we must make every effort to enter, to come to His rest. We must quit depending on our own resources; we must quit depending on other, alternate resources. We must come to Jesus for grace, for help, for joy, for fulfillment. We must follow Him in joyful obedience by His Holy Spirit. He provides us with the way to resist temptation. His hand leads us in His ways

Conclusion

“Oh that you would hear his voice!”

Friends: We preach the way we do – opening up passages, sticking closely to the text – so that the voice you hear is God’s, not the preacher’s. You have ears to hear. The sounds of His voice have gone out. Now: You must obey.

Come, then: Follow Him. Obey Him.

  • Don’t be like the Israelites, demanding signs when they have plenty of evidence, plenty of revelation of Who God is.
  • Don’t be like the rich young ruler, saying nice things about Jesus, but rejecting His command and walking away from the only possible Savior.
  • Don’t make excuses for your sin, claiming that God couldn’t expect you to overcome it.

Admit that you are at best the stupid sheep of His hand: Prone to wander – but guided by Him, loved by Him, protected by Him.

Come into His rest.

  • Come! Praise Him with thanksgiving, with lots of noise.
  • Come! Kneel, worship quietly before Him, confessing your sins and accepting His grace in Jesus.
  • Come! Delight to follow Him in obedience, delight to be His sheep – now and forever.

[This is a shortened write up of a sermon preached April 18, 2021. You can listen to the audio at this link.]

 

 

 

Boldly Approach the Throne of Grace

What do you do when you feel condemned? Or when you feel like God is distant, hidden, and silent – you’ve tried to reach Him, tried to obey Him, and nothing happens? Or when life is hard because of disease, death, disappointment – breakdown of relationships, betrayal, or abandonment?

In these times of the virus, many are facing disease, or death, or unemployment, or bankruptcy of a business the family has worked incredibly hard for years to build.

But such questions about God occur not only in these extraordinary times, but in all times in this fallen world. We are always tempted to abandon faith in God, to think He’s not living up to His side of the bargain, to conclude He is not what Scripture says – or, if He is, to think He has rejected you personally.

Hebrews 4:13 could lead to such feelings of condemnation: “All are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” He knows what is inside us. He discerns not only our actions but also our desires, our thoughts, our intentions. We are guilty before Him.

However, immediately after this verse the author tells us: “That guilt need not lead to condemnation! We have a great High Priest, Jesus! He sympathizes with our weaknesses! So there is mercy and grace available – indeed there is a throne of grace, because of our great High Priest and King!”

A throne of grace – that phrase appears only in Hebrews 4:16. The king sits on a throne, exercising justice, punishing evildoers, guiding and directing His kingdom. No one who is guilty, no one who stands condemned, can ever boldly approach the throne if the king knows all.

And yet: This king’s throne is a throne of grace. Though He is completely just, He stands ready to forgive and accept because of the mediatorial work of Jesus the Son, the High Priest. We therefore can boldly approach this throne of grace, whatever our doubts, whatever our sufferings, whatever our discouragements. Through Jesus, the King will grant us grace, and a perfectly-timed help.

That is the main point of Hebrews 4:13-5:10: Given who Jesus is, when the struggle is hard, it makes no sense at all to abandon the faith. Rather, it makes perfect sense to boldly approach this throne of grace – for that is the only place to find real help. You may not see that help immediately. There may be days or weeks or years or decades of walking by faith not by sight. But because of our great, sympathetic, merciful, and effective High Priest, you will receive God’s help at exactly the right time.

So hold fast to your confession!

In first verses of chapter 5, the author introduces three characteristics of any High Priest, and then shows how Jesus exhibits those characteristics – and, indeed, is superior to other such priests. We’ll see that in Hebrews 5:1-10, then consider the exhortations the author gives us in Hebrews 4:14-16 on the basis of those truths.

Three Characteristics of Earthly High Priests

God designed the priestly and sacrificial system in the Old Testament so that before Jesus was even born we would have pictures of who He is and what He does. The High Priest is one key part of those pictures. So we must do our best to understand the High Priest so that we might see JC in the way that God intends.

Three characteristics of earthly High Priests are brought out in Hebrews 5:1-4.

First, from verse 1: The high priest is “chosen from among men,” and thus is a man himself. But he acts “on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” He thus is a mediator between God and men.

Why do we need a mediator? Because we are guilty, condemned by God. We have rebelled against our rightful king.

While all priests offer sacrifices, picturing the atonement of the people’s sins, once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, only the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies (as described in Leviticus 16), picturing the very presence of God.

The second characteristic is mentioned in Hebrews 5:2: “He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.” That is: When the people are rebellious, sinful, or questioning, the High Priest doesn’t just berate them: “You failures! Do better! Work harder!” Why not? Because he too is “beset with weakness.”He too faces those temptations. He understands the difficulty of seeing God, of focusing on Him in the midst of a fallen world. So he can deal with sinful people as God intends.

Furthermore these High Priests also sin themselves, so as Hebrews 5:3 says, the High Priest is “obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins” (see Leviticus 9:7).

So the High Priest is a mediator between God and men who deals gently with God’s people.

We see the third characteristic in Hebrews 5:4: “No one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”

A High Priest is called by God. No one is to grasp for this position, to put Himself forward and campaign. God Himself has to appoint the High Priest.

Thus a High Priest is a mediator between God and man who deals gently with the people and is called by God.

Jesus: the Great, Sympathetic, and Merciful High Priest

JC is similar to all High Priests in these three ways.

Hebrews 5:5-6 tells us He is called by God. The author quotes Psalm 110:4 to make this point.

But why does the author quote Psalm 2 also? That text doesn’t mention the High Priest.

By quoting that psalm, the author draws our attention back to chapter 1 (where Psalm 2 was also quoted) to begin to show us that Jesus is superior to all other High Priests. He’s not only a man – He is the Son. He is the exact imprint of the nature of God.

So Jesus is indeed similar to the other High Priests, but He’s better.

Hebrews 4:15 indicates that Jesus can also deal gently with God’s people. He sympathizes with our weaknesses because “in every respect [He] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Perhaps the NEB renders this clause better: “because of his likeness to us, [He] has been tested every way, only without sin.’”

For the point is not: “If I’m tempted to commit some horrible crime, Jesus must have been tempted to commit that same horrible crime.” Rather, Jesus is genuinely like us. He is genuinely human. His entire life was a test, a trial, a temptation.

Whenever life is tough, we humans are tempted to forget the promises of God, to lapse in our faith in God, and thus to lapse in faithfulness to God, thereby falling into disobedience.

In His genuine humanity, Jesus experienced such temptation – and He never gave in. Because He resisted to the end, He knew the power of temptation far better than you or I.

Hebrews 5:7 elaborates on this idea:

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Clearly Jesus prayed to God with tears in Gethsemane. But that same night, prior to His prayers in the Garden, our Lord says to His disciples, “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials (temptations)” (Luke 22:28). Since the disciples weren’t with Him when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus is referring to other temptations that came on Him during his years of ministry.

Therefore, we must think of “prayers … to him who was able to save him from death” in contexts in addition to Gethsemane or the wilderness. So think of Jesus in light of Hebrews 2:15: Jesus delivers “all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery”. To do that He first had to conquer that fear of death, that fear of missing out on life Himself. Jesus too was tempted to think that God was withholding something good, desirable, fulfilling, or exciting from Him. He too was tempted to forget God’s great and precious promises. Jesus fought every minute of every day via prayer against such lack of faith. He persevered in faith, in trust, in dependence on God. Thus Hebrews 5:8: Although He was Son, He “learned obedience through what he suffered.” That is: He learned what it means to endure in faith when all your flesh cries out to turn away from God, when all around you say you’re foolish, missing out on life, when you’re mocked, derided, beaten, spit upon – and it could all end if you just say, “God’s promises aren’t true!”

Jesus lived out true faith which leads to faithfulness which leads to obedience from the heart. So, more than any of the former High Priests, more than any pastor, more than any parent, He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward. He knows and sympathizes with our weakness.

Thirdly, Jesus is a mediator between God and man. This truth is the primary focus of later chapters; it’s only alluded to twice, briefly, in today’s passage.

Hebrews 4:14: “We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” As Hebrews 9:24 makes clear, Jesus has passed through the heavens into God’s very presence so that He might make intercession for us, so that His death might cover our sins. That is, He is our mediator.

Then Hebrews 5:9: “Being made perfect (or, “complete”), he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Because He is the mediator, He is the source of salvation, salvation you can never lose, salvation to the uttermost (using the language of Hebrews 7:25). This salvation is for all those who, like Him, have faith in God, in His promises, and thus are faithful to God, and thereby obey Him from the heart.

This is the High Priest we have: Called by God, able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, and the perfect Mediator between God and man.

So Draw Near to the Throne of Grace for Help!

Based on these truths, the author gives two exhortations in Hebrews 4:14-16:

Hebrews 4:14: “Let us hold fast our confession.” That is: Hold fast to the truth! God has spoken! He has revealed who He is, who we are, how we can be part of His grand story of glorifying Himself. And the truth is: He has given Jesus, the Son, the King, for us! He lived like us, He was tempted like us, He suffered beyond what we suffer. He understands our weaknesses and trials. He died as a sacrifice for our atonement. He is the High Priest called by God, the one mediator between God and man. God invites us to Himself via that Mediator. So hold fast to the truth, despite the winds of doctrine swirling around us, despite the trials and the pressures and the fog of unbelief.

Second exhortation, Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to a well-timed help.”

Draw near! Now! Always!

Surely we need to draw near in times of crisis – whether the crisis arises from viruses or job losses or death or abandonment.

But just as surely we need to draw near to that throne of grace every day, every hour. Only then can we enter His rest.

He is King of all that happens, the seemingly trivial details of our lives as well as the big decisions.

He rules over us as individuals and over the entire creation as it moves to the culmination He has appointed.

His throne is a throne of grace! Thus, whatever we have done, however sinful we have been, however hard our heart has been, whatever the ways we have rejected Him and ignored Him and despised Him – we have a great High Priest! He will be our advocate, sympathizing with our weakness.

So our High Priest calls out:

“Come to me! Come to the throne. Don’t be afraid. You are covered by my blood. Trust in God’s great promises. Trust in Me as your Redeemer. Everything you need you will find in Me. I alone am the source of true joy. Come to Me.”

Given what this high priest has done, given that He is the Son, “no exhortation could be more logical … than … to hold fast our confession…. Nothing could be more senseless than for us to abandon our confession … because of the pain of the contest” (Philip Hughes, Commentary on Hebrews, 1977, p. 171).

So where are you? Tempted to throw away your former confidence? Attracted to a life lived by your own wits, by your own resources? Feeling like you’re missing out on life because you’re trying to follow God’s ways, and haven’t seen the benefits? Or thinking that you’re now beyond God’s forgiveness – you’ve strayed too far, you’ve repented and then sinned too many times, you’re no longer worthy to be called his child?

God promises us: He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. And He shows this to us through Jesus, our High Priest.

Because of that High Priest, God’s throne is a throne of grace. So draw near. This is the only path to true joy. This is the only path to true fulfillment. This is the only path to rest.

Come to Him.

[This devotion is a shortened and edited version of a sermon preached May 3, 2020. You can watch a video of the service at this link.]

Strive to Enter God’s Rest

“Let us therefore strive to enter [God’s] rest” – Hebrews 4:11.

What does the author mean by this command?

There is an eternal rest God promises His people in which:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

And God calls all people everywhere to repentance and faith in Jesus so that they might enter that eternal rest (Acts 17:30).

But there is an important sense in which we enter God’s rest today, getting a taste today of that eternal rest.

How do we strive to enter today’s rest?

Striving to enter God’s rest today is working hard to look away from ourselves, to look to Jesus, to trust in God’s promises, every minute of every day.

Or think of it this way: Striving to enter God’s rest is working hard to live out Psalm 23 every minute of every day:

God is your shepherd; you lack nothing in Christ. He leads you in His paths – and they are good and restful, even if they pass through frightening and dangerous valleys. He delights in you and honors you as His own – and those who try to harm you, those who hate you and abuse you, will have to acknowledge that. His goodness and love will pursue you your entire life – and He will in the end bring you into His eternal rest as part of His beloved family.

We initially come to faith in Jesus in this way, trusting in the promise of the Gospel: that God created us for His glory; that we all reject that purpose and rebel against Him; that He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of all who would believe in Him hereafter; that the benefits of that sacrifice, including becoming part of the intimate family of God, accrue to everyone who will repent and believe this Good News.

Subsequent to salvation, Hebrews 4:11 calls us to continue to trust daily in the Gospel and in all of God’s promises. Because in this life we are always tempted to lean on our own resources, to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). We must acknowledge that we cannot save ourselves, nor can we make ourselves into the type of person we desire to be, nor can we accomplish anything for God through our natural resources.

We can never merit salvation through good deeds, nor can we ever merit God’s commendation through acts we do in our power.

So when we strive to enter God’s rest, we confess to God every day:

“I am a sinner; You are the Savior. In my natural self there is no good thing, only darkness – You are all goodness and light. I can only become what I really want, I can only become what You desire, through Christ in me: changing me, working out His purposes in me. So may my work apart from Your power cease. May your power take over.”

As Ray Stedman says:

We do not have what it takes, and we never did. The only one who can live the Christian life is Jesus Christ. He proposes to reproduce his life in us. Our part is to expose every situation to his life in us, and, by that means, depending upon him and not upon us, we are to meet every situation, enter into every circumstance, and perform every activity. We cease from our own labors.

But this is not easy. That’s why the author of Hebrews tells us we must strive to enter God’s rest, we must make every effort to depend continually on God.

Jesus doesn’t want your self-powered effort. He doesn’t need your toiling. He, after all, has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18)! He wants your trust.

What happens when we ignore this command and step out in our own power?

When those who don’t have faith in Christ strive to live up to some standard and fail, they respond in one of three ways:

  1. They fool themselves into thinking they actually did live up to the standard, or will beginning tomorrow.
  2. They justify their failures, saying something like: “I’m only human – no one could really live that The real standard is to do better than most others, and surely I’m accomplishing that!”
  3. Or they feel like failures, overwhelmed, condemned – they can never become what they wanted, even by their own standards.

What about Christians? What happens when we strive apart from God’s power?

We too become burdened. We are so busy, we are working so hard, we are toiling and striving – and all the joy of the Christian life has left us. We get caught in a fog of unbelief, through which we can’t see God – so we go through the motions, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, but we’re not really trusting God. We are not striving with His power; we are flailing away with our own energy. And so we are weary, burdened, feeling like we can’t continue, but wondering how in the world God’s work can go on without our hard efforts.

To such people, Christians and non-Christians, Jesus calls out:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

So – when faced with a task that must be accomplished, we are not to grit our teeth, saying, “Yes, I can! I can do it.”

We must admit: “I cannot do this! I am unable! In my natural self, I will fail!”

And turn to Him. He is our yokemate. It is His yoke. We are paired with Him. And He pulls. So when we pull – it’s really by his power.

What does it look like when we live out such active dependence on God?

Consider the difference between the Apostle Paul and the rich young ruler.

There is no doubt that Paul works hard. He details in his letters many of the obstacles he had to overcome: Beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, death threats, rejection, betrayals, exposure to the elements – and eventually execution.

So Paul works his tail off.

What about the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-22)? He too has been working hard; he tells Jesus he has kept all of God’s commandments from his youth! We might be tempted to laugh at that – but he is sincere and, undoubtedly, those looking at his life would conclude that he was an upright, honorable man.

But he has a nagging feeling that all that obedience isn’t good enough. He feels that he needs to do something more.

So he asks Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You see: He wants to toil for God! He says, “Give me some task to do, even a great one – I’ll do it! I’m able!”

How does Jesus reply? Jesus does not tell him to go do some great feat requiring perseverance, danger, or hardship. Instead, He tells him to do the easiest thing in world. Indeed, all he has to do is to give one command to a servant, and it’s done.

And yet this easiest task in the world is exceptionally hard. To do it, he has to trust in the promises of God.

Jesus says, “Get rid of everything that you think shows that you are important. Give it away.” And Jesus does not say next, “Then you’ll have earned status as My disciple.” Instead He simply says, “Then follow Me.”

This man could strive in His own power to prove his capabilities, but he did not trust God. He saw Jesus face to face – and Jesus looked at him with love! – yet he turned away. His confidence was in himself and in his riches – not in God. So he holds on to his riches, and walks away from Jesus sorrowful.

In contrast, in all his difficult labors, the Apostle Paul strives “with all [God’s] energy that He powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29). He served “by the strength that God supplies– in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11).

That’s how we too must serve, how we too must live. Not by that fruitless striving of the rich young ruler, always trying to prove ourselves, striving to show to God and to others and to ourselves that we’re good enough, we’re strong enough, we’re faithful enough to deserve honor and friendship and commendation. But leaning on Him and on His Word, praying without ceasing, turning to Him in active dependence, trusting in His promises, we live and love and worship and serve, confident in our status because of Christ’s work, delighting in the gifts God gives, thankful for the tokens of His love strewn across our paths.

This is His rest. May we strive to enter it – in complete dependence on Him.

[This devotion follows up on the April 19, 2020 sermon, “Brothers and Sisters, Strive to Enter God’s Rest!” (video). This content draws from a 2008 sermon, “Work Hard Yet Relax During the Race of Faith” (audio, text).]

 

Admit Your Need

Who is God? What is man? What is the relationship of man to God?

These are questions of worldview. The answers we give to those questions shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us.

Time and again, Jesus warns us that the attitude we assume in answering such questions, and the presuppositions we are often unaware of, can twist our thought processes and keep us from seeing the truth God has revealed.

Let’s look at three of Jesus’ statements in this regard.

First, Luke 18:24. A wealthy man who desires eternal life has just walked away sorrowful because Jesus has told him to sell all he has, give it all to the poor, and follow Him. Jesus then says: “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

Why is it difficult for the wealthy to enter the kingdom? One reason: Many rich people, like this man, think they are in control. They think that their wealth protects them from the vagaries of life. If they believe in God, they furthermore think that they have something to offer Him – that God needs them, that God even should be thankful to have them on His side.

Jesus offered this rich man eternal joy – the very life the man said he wanted! But he walked away, because he assumed that Jesus asked him to give up more than he was to gain. He assumed that he just needed to tweak his life in some way to make himself acceptable to God, worthy of eternal life. He assumed that his wealth was either a sign of God’s favor or in and of itself useful to God. Instead, Jesus revealed that it was a barrier between him and God. The rich man’s assumptions were deadly.

We’ll consider the second and third statements together:

Matthew 18:3:   “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 11:25-26: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Jesus says that some truth – indeed, the most important truth – cannot be known apart from God revealing it. Although this statement is perfectly reasonable once we admit the possibility of a Creator God, many today begin with the assumption that Jesus’ statement is false. They assume that (a) we are rational beings and (b) we can come to know all important truths through reasoning and experimentation. With those assumptions, there obviously is no role for revelation.

But children know they need revelation. Children know they don’t know many things, and they need others to teach them. So they ask question after question – sometimes to the point of driving their parents crazy!

Children also know they are dependent creatures, who need the shelter and protection that others provide. Children thus know they are not self-sufficient – either intellectually or physically.

Note that this attitude is the opposite to that of the rich man in the earlier story. Jesus, in effect, told the rich man to become dependent on Him. And the rich man went away, sorrowful in his self-sufficiency.

Jesus tells us that all of us must assume the dependent attitude of a child. We must cease assuming that we can know all that is important apart from His revelation. If we continue to believe we are self-sufficient, we will never know what is of greatest importance. We will never see the revealed truth that is right before our eyes – the truth that the Father has revealed to little children – to both literal little children, as well as to those who have become like little children and so entered the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus tells you, He tells me: “You are needy people. Admit it! You need revelation; you need guidance; you need empowering. Acknowledge it! You need forgiveness. Confess it! Quit assuming that your intelligence, your riches, your education, your accomplishments, your position, your reading, or your moral life qualify you to come into God’s presence, or to stand as judge over Him, His Word, and His actions. Instead: Come to Me – humbly, broken, and contrite, like a little child – and I will give you exactly what you need! Come to Me – repentant, seeking, asking – and I will choose to reveal the Father to you.”

This is Jesus’ challenge: Quit trying to establish your own righteousness, your own brilliance, your own status. Quit assuming it’s even possible to do that. Instead, like a child, acknowledge your neediness. Come to Him. He promises to you rest, peace, and fulfillment.

Who is God? What is man? What is the relationship of man to God? Jesus reveals these answers – to those who become like little children.