Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
We're gonna continue in Hebrews, and I'm very excited about this passage as
I am probably about all the passages, right?
But it's it's it's so fun. Just like even how Jesse was sharing, you know, how seeing the Lord
throughout Scripture and in the Old Testament as well, you know, I think it's
so interesting how the Lord made it a point to reteach the Scriptures to his
disciples so that they would see them in a new perspective coming through Jesus.
And we have the privilege because we know Jesus in reading and learning the
Scriptures in the same way. Amen. So we are turning to Hebrews chapter 3, and
there's a lot of verses, but we're not gonna stop once we get reading because
it just is such a great portrayal of what we're gonna talk about today. But
today's message is entering God's rest, and you know what that looks like. How
do you enter into rest? And we're gonna dive into that, but the Lord is, does
want to bring rest to our souls, doesn't He? In fact, when He was preaching in
Matthew 11, He said, Matthew 11, 28 to 30, He said, Come to me, all you who are weary
and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls, right? 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 because my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You know,
this world puts a yoke upon us of all kinds of things, of comparisons, of fear, of
anguish, of envy, you name it, right? Sadness, sorrow. This world has so many
yokes that the enemy just puts upon us, and the Lord is saying, Well, you just get
that yoke off, and let me put my yoke on you. And what He's saying really is, I
picture His yoke as almost like a hug. You know what I mean? Like He's saying,
Let me wrap myself around you, and I will carry you through this life. I
will take the burden of this life for you and carry you through it. As we
are praying in the prayer room and talking about these things, I envision,
remember the poem of the beach, and you see two footprints, you know, next to each
other walking along, and then all of a sudden there's only one, and then
the person says, Lord, you know, I thought you were walking alongside of me my
whole lifetime. You know, what happened? How come the footprints, there's only one
set? The Lord said, they're mine. I was carrying you. You were on my back, and I
believe that's what the Lord does. He carries us through, and He does give us
rest. So we're gonna talk about that today, and I love how, again, as we study
Israel and the Scriptures, because the Lord, His interaction with His chosen
nation on earth, Israel, draws so many parallels to God's relationship with His
heavenly nation, which is us, right? We are a holy nation, we are a heavenly people, we
are heavenly, and we can compare the Lord's interactions with Israel to
interactions with us, because throughout Scripture there's so many typologies,
analogies, metaphors, all these things can be compared, and if you're not used to
reading the Bible, you might think, now why, how do you connecting these two
things? Well, throughout Scripture, we can see the Lord doing this again and
again, and there's no greater spot than in Hebrews, and especially in these
verses we're looking at, because the Lord is going to connect all of the
interactions with Israel, with interactions with His holy nation, the
Christian faith, right? So let's dive in and start reading in Hebrews
chapter 3 verse 7, and we're gonna read a little slow just so we can really
absorb it. So Father God, we ask You to speak to us through Your Word this
morning, Lord, as we engage with it, Lord, we ask Your Spirit to pierce through any
distraction, anything that isn't of You, any words that don't, aren't what You
would want to be said, Lord, we ask You to speak through Your Word with Your
Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out, in Jesus' name, amen. So verse 7,
therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you will hear His voice, do not harden
your hearts, as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your
fathers tested me, tried me, and saw my works 40 years. Therefore, I was angry
with that generation, and said they always go astray in their heart, and
they have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not rest, they shall
not enter my rest. Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief, in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily while
it is still called today, lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the
beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said today if you
will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. For who
having heard rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses?
Now, with whom was he angry 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned?
Those corpses fell in the wilderness, and to whom did he swear that they would not
enter his rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. In chapter 4, almost there, therefore, since a promise
remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come
short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them, but
the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in
those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as he has
said, so I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although the works
were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has spoken in a certain
place of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from
all his works. And again in this place, they shall not enter my rest, since
therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was
first preached did not enter because of disobedience. Again he designates a
certain day, saying in David, today, after such a long time as it has been said,
today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had
given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day.
There seems another, therefore, arrest for the people of God, for he who has
entered his rest has himself also seized from his works, as God did from his. Let
us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the
same example of disobedience. So there we go, that's a lot of scripture we just
read through, but it's such a perfect picture. And so what are we talking about?
This whole thing of the Lord leading his people to a promised land, which they
refused to enter. So we're gonna show a little map, Nicole, if you, thank you,
that map up there, and we're gonna just take a little memory tour of what
happened to the Israelites, okay? They were here in the land of Goshen,
Goshen, the best land of Egypt, okay? And then the Lord sent Moses, okay,
out from the desert to rescue his people, okay? And after nine plagues,
finally the tenth came, which was Passover, okay? And they spread the blood
of the lamb on the doorposts, all of that being a symbol of who?
Jesus, right? He is our Passover lamb. John the Baptist said,
behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, right?
And so after Passover came, the Egyptians were paying them to leave.
They had enough. These plagues, they couldn't take anymore, right?
So get out. So they're all leaving, and as they approach the Red Sea somewhere
here, and there are different, there's all kinds of different schematics on
their actual route, but this is generally the agreed upon major
traditional view of the path they took, right? So they passed through the Red Sea, okay?
And as they did, they went on to Mount Sinai. Some say it's up here.
I prefer down here, but so they reached Mount Sinai, and that's where the law
was given, okay? And because they rejected, because they sinned against the law,
3,000 people fell. That was on the day of Pentecost. That was 50 days after Passover, okay?
Now, Christians celebrate Pentecost, because again, it's 50 days after Christ
being crucified, the Passover lamb, and what happened to our Pentecost?
The Holy Spirit fell, and 3,000 lived. 3,000 people came alive,
right? So you see the parallels are uncanny, right? The Lord, this is all demonstrated
by the Lord. He planned this all out to be a picture to the future seed of Abraham,
those who believe in faith. Are we, am I making sense so far? Okay, so then, so this whole
picture. Now, as we read this, okay, well, let's move on. And so they answered, so they moved on
from there, and about the 14th, between the 13th and 14th month, they finally came to the Jordan
River. Now, some say this is actually, if you walk fast, you can walk it in 11 days. I don't know,
I never measured it, but it wouldn't take 14 months. But there was a lot of them, okay? There's
like 3 million people or more in the desert, and they're constantly grumbling and complaining.
They had a lot of picking up their tents and moving, so it was a big operation, right? So they
finally got to the Jordan River, and the Lord said, okay, send 12 spies over to spy out the land,
right? And so there was one from each tribe sent over, one of which was Caleb from the tribe of
Judah, okay? And also Joshua went over as well. And as they went over to spy out the land,
they came back. And when they came back, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. They keep saying
that same phrase, milk and honey. What does milk represent? Fat, right? It's a fat land. I mean,
it has everything you need, and it's sweet honey, right? It's a fat and sweet land over there,
right? So they all came back, and they're bringing like this huge, you know, staff of
grapes hanging there, and they probably had all kinds of stuff, and they're like, wow,
this is amazing, right? Where'd you get these grapes on the side of basketballs? Well, maybe
that's an exaggeration, but they're big, right? And so they're talking to them, and they're like,
this is great, you know? We got to go over, Joshua and Caleb are saying. We got to take
that land, but the other ten are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's giants over
there. The sons of Anak, we can't go over there. Like the cities are tall, the walls are grand.
Those people will destroy us. Well, wait a minute, didn't God leave them there? You know,
we forget where God guides, he supplies, right? He provides, he provides. And so, you know, they were
falling into disbelief because of fear. We cannot enter that land. So they started rebelling,
okay? And then Caleb and Joshua were like, no, no, no, no, we can do it. We can do it. They were
ready to stone those two guys. And so with that, the Lord said, okay, well, guess what?
It's gonna be a long time for each day. They were over in spying out the Promised Land and came
back and refused to go in. Each day will equal a year. Okay? So those 40 days they spied out
are now going to be 40 years. You are going to wander through the wilderness,
and everyone from the age 20 up is gonna die in the desert. That's what this whole thing we just
read is all about, okay? The day of their rebellion, okay? What's interesting is a few of them had the
bright idea, okay, after they heard this 40-year sentence of death, they said, you know what,
all right, let's go over anyway. And suddenly a few of them got up some nerve, didn't bring the
ark, didn't worry about God going with them and protecting them and fighting all their battles.
And they tried to go in without God. And of course, as soon as they approached the border,
they were just decimated and pushed back into the land they came from. And they're like, yeah,
that's not gonna work. And so from there, they wandered around throughout the wilderness for
40 years, you know? I sometimes think, well, let's first say this is a whole picture. This
you know, when we first came out of our own Egypt, our own land of bondage to sin,
because in the word, Egypt is compared to our bondage. When we were, before we came to Christ,
we were actually slaves to sin, right? In Romans, we just read through that over the last few
months. We were slaves, but the Lord took us out of slavery, right? He took us out of slavery.
And so as we came out, okay, we were then hopefully baptized, baptized by the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Fire, okay, some kenna, okay, we got some kenna. And, but Holy Fire, but then also,
hopefully you were submerged. And that doesn't save you, but it's a tradition to signify what
happened on the inside. If you're a believer and never been baptized, no rebuke, no guilt,
but get baptized, man, just do it. It's a sign of obedience, right? And so here for the Israelites,
as they came through here with the cloud of glory above them, that was their baptism.
But for us, we are baptized by the Holy Spirit when we come out of slavery. So you see the
parallel, okay? Just as the Israelites came out of slavery, so do we, and we are baptized, okay?
And then as we wander through the wilderness, and this was me by the way, for at least a year,
I said yes to the Lord, I accepted him. And for at least a whole year, I'm trying to save myself.
And I'm just like, this isn't working. Like I'm always, I always feel guilty. I always feel like
there's something else I have to be doing. And I was always beating myself up. And I just,
I don't think it's stuck. I don't think it's real. I wonder if it's even real for a solid
year. And then finally, I just had my moment. And I just was like, I was like, Jacob wrestling God
before he went across to meet Esau. I was fighting with God. I said, I thought you were saving me.
Why does it feel like I'm saving myself? I was like the guys going into the,
into the promised land without God's protection. I was fighting with God. And finally,
I just like felt this complete surrender. I bawled my eyes out. Like I've never cried before.
I was explaining that to my doctor last week. This Jewish doctor I have. And I was explaining,
he goes, how do you know any of this is real? Because he's not a believer. I'm like,
oh, I know. Because when I accepted Christ and really surrendered, I had an emotional meltdown.
And I was never the same after that. I was baptized by the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you,
I was just revitalized. So that was me for a whole year saying, I don't know. I don't know.
Let me work it out somehow and do this myself. Finally, I entered. He just wants us to press in
and actually go in and experience that fat and sweet life of the Holy Spirit,
letting him do all the work, letting him change us, entering that rest.
You know, there's such beautiful pictures in scripture of demonstrating how this whole
picture of Israel was all really about Jesus. They were baptized in the cloud. Jesus, right?
He was the rock that gave them water. He calls himself out of me will flow living water.
Okay. And he also is the manna that fell from heaven. He calls himself that in John six. He says,
I am the true manna that fell from heaven. So all of this was a picture of Christ and us. Isn't
that beautiful? Like it's all a metaphor. It's all a parallel analogy, but it all actually happened.
And it all was pointing to how we are living life now. You know, someday we were actually
getting to heaven and that is a promise eternal life. But right now we can experience
that promised life now. Another analogy, if you notice, like to Israel, it was all about the land,
the land, the land, the promised land, right? But for us, it's the promised life.
He promises to give us an abundant life. And when we allow him to do that,
when we have an open heart to him and let him actually come in and do that in our lives,
we experience that rest. I don't have to strive to please God because he's doing all the work
in me. Remember Paul, he just said, I work harder than all the other apostles,
but it's not me. It's the work of God in me. You know, it's all him, you know,
that's God. And he's saying, you know, enter in to that rest, that promised life.
You know, I was thinking about this Sinai Peninsula. That's what it's called, that little
kind of tongue that we were just looking at, right? And if you could just show that
map again for a second. So see this, you know, it's really all about the heart.
What we just read mentions six times about a heart. It's a heart issue. Like entering from there to
there is all in the heart, isn't it? It's all about our heart posture towards God. And
several times we've read in here that the Israelites had a hardened heart, okay? A heart
that was hard towards God. Who else had a hardened heart? Pharaoh, right? It says again at least 12
times, Pharaoh had a hardened heart. The Lord hardened his heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Lord hardened his heart. I think it all worked together, okay? He had a hard heart. They left
a land and here they had the same heart of their master, that hardened heart of Pharaoh.
So it was all a heart issue. And it talks about this hardened heart. If you have that next slide,
I just want to show you some of the comparisons. A hardened heart was compared to ignoring the voice
of God. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. Do not harden up your heart.
Do not like resist God. Don't ignore him. Hardened heart is also unbelief.
You know, it's easy to feed unbelief. Do you know that? It's easy to feed belief too. Like faith is
so easy to feed. You just, you know, we're not going to do that today, but there's a lot of
things if you have any questions. It's so easy to feed your faith. And one of them is actually
just to work it out, right? To actually exercise your faith. It's like a muscle. You ever hear
that? Faith is like a muscle. If you're not exercising your muscle, what happens? Atrophy,
weakness. If you lay in the bed for, you know, if you're sick and lay in the bed for a couple
of weeks and you get up, you're skinny and you're shriveled and it's just, you're dying.
Your muscles are actually dying, right? If you're not exercising your faith, you're losing it,
you know? And I hate to say this really, but it's true. So here it's unbelief is don't accept
that in your life. If you have questions, if you have doubts, press in, seek out people that have
faith that's way beyond yours, okay? You know, faith to faith. We really, we, we encourage one
another in more faith, right? And you can never have enough of it, you know? It's something that
you can exercise. It's a spiritual gift. And yet we're all born with a measure of faith,
you know, otherwise there would be people born without the capacity to believe in God. But we
know that's not true because he wants none to perish, right? So faith is something that you
can exercise. Don't accept unbelief in your life because it will lead to a failure in your walk,
right? The next thing is deceitfulness of sin. People wander from the faith because they are
perpetually in a sin that they, that they have not let go of, okay? And in some sense, because
God is merciful and benevolent and compassionate, perseveres with them, they don't see the immediate
results of their sins, right? Well, I got by again on that one, you know? You know, the Lord,
he's okay with that part of my life. Well, what happens is, of course, your heart,
your heart starts to get hardened or calloused towards God because you're getting away with it
because you don't see any ramifications. You see you're being blessed in other areas. And then all
the sudden the Lord reveals it. It's like he just throws open the curtain, you know? I, you know,
it's sad when you hear people in ministries getting found out. It's, it's, it's sickening,
right? But how did that happen incrementally? Oh, I got by this time. No one's telling on me.
We all have a lot at stake here. Let's just keep this quiet amongst us, right? And what happens?
The sin just starts to get thicker and thicker. Your heart starts to get more and more insulated
from God's touch, you know? You become not, you're no longer impervious. Is that the word,
impervious or pervious? Whatever that is. You don't, you don't allow the Lord in, okay?
You repel his goodness and it becomes an act. That's what it becomes. It becomes an outward
act, but it's not true on the inside. You know what Jesus said? Clean the inside and the
outside will be clean also, right? And so that's what happens, the deceitfulness of sin.
And finally, just rejecting to rest, trying to serve, like I was doing, trying to prove myself
to God, you know? Trying to say, Lord, I was worth saving. Let me just show you. Okay?
You know, just move aside, God. I got this handled. I don't need you on this one.
Yeah. Yes, you do. You need them more desperately than you think, apparently,
you know? Because, so these are the things that become like a hardened heart. And the Lord
really demonstrated that in this passage. And I have this little graph, just to more
put our brains around it. But we see this hardened heart, okay? And one of the things,
again, we just went over disbelief, ignoring the voice of God, you know, just saying,
I know Lord, I know, but I'm going to do this right now. And sin and rejecting rest,
rejecting to just settle in. You know, there's some times the best thing we can do for God is
nothing. Okay? Just stop what you're doing and just rest. And just pray and just read the word.
Just commune with your brothers and sisters. Just chill out. Like some of the best
revelations comes when you're just resting, like relaxing, just enjoying God. Do you enjoy God?
Like, I really, he's so much fun. Like, do you think of your Abba Father as fun?
He is fun. Let me just say he's a good time, okay? In fact, he has the best times for you.
You know, I love it. In fact, I'll just brag on Zachy a little bit here. My son Zach,
I was just over his house the other night. I share this with Jill, but it was so cute because
like Joel and Hayes, all they want to do is be with dad all the time. Like I'm there talking,
trying to keep in a conversation with Zach. We're just talking about this, but Joel's throwing him
a ball, throwing a frisbee, throwing dad, dad, dad, watch this, you know, and it's jumping off
of things. And if you know Joel, he likes jumping off of everything, right? But like, it's so cute
because dad's fun. Dad's a good time. Dad's always building things in the yard for them.
Dad loves them so much that he loves to see them have fun. Yeah, that's our Abba Father.
He's not taking stuff away. When we're holding on to things we shouldn't have, he's like, no,
no, you got to put that down. That's going to hurt you, okay? But he has the best things.
In fact, he's the father of lights, right? The giver of every good and perfect gift,
which comes down and there's no darkness in those gifts. It's all good at all. That's right, Jim.
It's a blessing. It's all good. That's our Abba Father. He just loves us so much. Amen. And he
wants, you know, in a sense, it almost, if it's all, you know, in a sense, it almost,
if it's all a picture of the heart going from Egypt into the Promised Land, and we're going
to complete, continue to complain against God, and we're going to always wish we went back to
slavery. I mean, they did that over and over again. They said, if we could have only died in
Egypt, well, that's a weird thing to say, or if we could have only died in the wilderness,
instead, you're trying to bring us here to the Promised Land so that we die. I mean,
complaining constantly, right? And so if it's all a matter of the heart issue getting from here
to there, and then I started looking and thinking, yeah, it kind of looks like a heart. So I have a
graphic of a heart in the next video. And see that? I mean, a little bit? No? Anybody seeing it?
All right. He's going off as rockers. Okay. But anyway, so, but if you have to really imagine
too much, maybe it doesn't. Okay. But, but the idea is really, it's all about the heart,
the Lord leading us through a time that could be a wilderness, you know, you might have gotten
saved, then all of a sudden you get sick and you're like, what Lord? I mean,
you took me out of Egypt to bring me into a wilderness. Keep going, keep going. Winston
Churchill once said, if you're going through hell, keep going, right? Because there's a Promised Land
on the other side. Just keep pressing in because the Lord knows where he's leading us to.
But to get there, we need a soft heart. We need an open heart. We can't have a hardened heart,
right? Because if we have a hardened heart, we're never actually going to receive what God's given
us. You know, the word says it's better to give than to receive, right? And that's true with people
really, because really the Lord just keeps backfilling, right? When you give something away,
when you give your love, your time, your tithes, your whatever, your resources, you know,
the Lord just says, I got plenty more. Just give it away, give it away, give it away. And
he gives more back to you, right? And that's the way he is. But, you know, with God,
you can't give him anything. He gives with God, it's better to receive than give. Because when
he gives you, you have more than an abundance. It's overflowing. You can just keep pouring out
to others, but you need a soft heart to receive from God. You know, we need to have an open
heart. We sang about something about a heart in worship, because it's the idea of just, I want
an open heart. I want a subtle heart. In fact, the word even talks about a circumcised heart.
You know, that outer layer just sheared away so that you could be vulnerable to God,
sensitive to God, receiving God. You know, I just picked up the guitar the other day
for the first time in years. Okay. And I just started playing for like about a minute and my
fingers are getting real, real tender. Okay. And they're like, I can't do this. I can't play.
In fact, it feels like it's cutting into my fingers. They're so weak. But like with the Lord,
that's a good thing to be, to be like soft. Lord, like I want to sense everything you're
doing. I want to hear everything you're saying. I want to perceive everything you're seeing, Lord.
I want to be totally soft towards you. Not hardened. I love what Ezekiel said in the prophecy
as the worship team comes forward. Ezekiel said this, that someday I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you
a heart of flesh. And in this case, flesh is seen as something alive. You know, sometimes flesh is
regarding the soul is seen as a worldly, lustful thing when they say flesh. But really in this
sense, it's a living heart. Don't you want a heart that beats for God? That like attracts his heartbeat,
you know, and really senses that Lord, I really sense you in my life. I can, I can see the person
you want me to talk to. I had so much opportunity. I don't know if you know, I was back in the
hospital, not all about me, but, and, and, and it was so awesome because after I got out of ICU,
I went into a normal room and there was a guy there and the exchanges, he didn't accept Christ,
you know, but we talked so much about God. And I'm thinking, I said, this is why I'm in
your room right now. Like I'm here for a reason. And it was like so much fun discussing God with
this guy I never met before. And he was a talker. He was a lot of talk. You know, he was, it's funny.
I go into the room and he says, Oh man, anything but the last guy that was in here, he wouldn't
shut up. He literally said that guy just kept talking and talking. I'm like, okay. I don't
know what that's like. But it was so cool because he loved to talk and so do I, you know,
so we just talk so much about the Lord and about these things. And I don't know if I ever see him
again. You know, I texted him, but like I saw him there, like that's the idea. He wants us to have
just a soft heart so that we can step into every environment and say, Oh, I get it, Lord. That's
why I'm here. That's the promised life. You know, in a sense, all of us might sense in it
to a degree we're still in a wilderness, but you're not, you know, if you just walk with him,
he is guiding you to that fat and sweet life. Amen. Let's all stand and we're going to finish
up with some worship. And perhaps today, you know, you just, you just know you're missing out.
You know, I believe when it says, you know, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
I believe it's the fear of missing out. I don't want to miss out on God. Do you? I mean,
imagine getting to heaven someday and realizing some of the things that could have been
on earth. And I know some of our theology might, well, there won't be any regret or any of that.
Okay. But if there is, I don't want to learn it up there. I just want to live it to the fullest
down here. I want it. Don't you want to live your life to the fullest? Why wander around
in the wilderness when we can enter that promised life? So father God, we thank you
for this great family. Lord, we thank you for the fun. We're going to have as we walk out of this
room and continue to fellowship. Thank you for these children that just sang songs for you
and, and worship you, Lord God. Thank you for this baby dedication, Lord God. We know that
Jovi is going to serve you all the days of her life, Lord God. And she is going to be an
inspiration, a motivation to hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions, Lord God. We can't put any
limitation on what you can do in any saint's life. So we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.
Let's give the Lord a round of applause. Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His word. Don't forget to join us for Worship Live Sunday
mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube. Be blessed and have a great day!