Why do so many people live in a state of unrest and anxiety? What is it about the human condition that we have been so unable to find the peace and rest we all deeply long for? What does the Bible teach us about finding rest in our relationship with God? Join Pastor Jim as he unpacks a baker’s dozen verses from Hebrews 4 which describe God’s promised rest for believers.
Rest = 12x in Hebrews, 10x in chapter 4
Enter = 12x in Hebrews, 6x in chapter 4
Promise = 52x in NT & Hebrews 4:1 is first of 17x in book of Hebrews
The Bible speaks of rest in several different ways:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Augustine, Confessions
“When we stop building our identity on career, or our race, or our family, or any other created thing and rest in God, the fears and drives that enslaved us recede, and we experience a new freedom and security.”
Tim Keller, Making Sense of God
“Anxiety is only the context for sin, not its cause. Our base problem is unbelief. Failing to trust the infinite God, we live anxiously, restlessly, always trying to secure and extend ourselves with finite goods that can’t take the weight we put on them.”
Cornelius Plantinga, Not The Way It’s Supposed to Be , summarizing Reinhold Niebuhr in The Nature and Destiny of Man
“Freedom unlimited is an illusion. The mind is free only under the authority of truth, and the will under the authority of righteousness. It is under Christ’s yoke that we find the rest he promises, not in discarding it.”
John Stott
