Resting in What God has Already Provided by Grace

Hebrews 4:10-11
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

Rest is what the writer had been speaking of. It is ceasing from our works the way God did from His after Creation.

When the Lord created the heavens and the earth, He did it in a unique way that many people have not understood. He didn't just create trees, plants, and animals. But He created them in a way that they could procreate. That means He doesn't make new trees, plants, and animals today. But His original act of creation was done in a way that He has been resting ever since. He did it perfectly and so completely that He hasn't had to create since.

This is what the Old Testament Sabbath was painting a picture of. It was only a type and shadow of this New Testament rest (Col 2:17). It was not the reality itself. The Jews were commanded to take one day out of seven off and devote it to worshiping the Lord as an act of faith that God was their source. In the natural, this didn't make sense. If they didn't work every day, they wouldn't prosper as much as those who did. But that's not the way it worked. Because of their faith in the Lord, which was expressed through their obedience to take the Sabbath off, they prospered more than those who worked seven days a week. God was teaching them to rest in the Lord as their source and not their own works.

Just in case anybody missed the obvious lesson of the weekly Sabbath, the Lord told the Israelites to take one year out of seven off (Le 25). During the seventh year the Israelites couldn't sow or reap any crops. That which came up naturally they had to leave in the fields for the poor and the wild beasts.

Some would say, "What shall we eat the seventh year?" (Le 25:20) The Lord blessed their crops supernaturally on the sixth year so that their fields brought forth three times a normal harvest. They would eat the harvest of the sixth year during the sixth, seventh, and the eighth year while their crops were growing.
All of this pictured that God is our source. We may work and sow our crops, but it is God that gives the increase. Likewise, in the New Testament, Jesus has done everything for us. He isn't still saving people and healing them. That has already been done. All we are doing is entering into what has already been provided.

Those who think they have to act a certain way to gain God's acceptance and approval are not resting in the finished work of Christ. Sure, we need to live holy, but it should be a fruit and not a root of our relationship with the Lord. This is what the Old Testament Sabbath was a picture of.

Those who legalistically observe the Sabbath today with the belief that the Lord is angry with those who don't, are missing the true meaning of the Sabbath. They are really Sabbath breakers. True Sabbath keepers in the New Testament are those who don't try and relate to the Lord by their holiness but totally rely on what Jesus did for them to make them acceptable to the Lord. That is a relationship to be enjoyed every day of our lives and not a single day per week.

This was understood by the early New Testament church and is one of the specific reasons they chose to meet on the first day of the week (Sunday) instead of the seventh day (Saturday), which was the Jewish Sabbath. They knew they were free from the observance of a day and were now living in the true Sabbath that the seventh-day observance pictured.

Hebrews 4:11 sounds like an oxymoron. Why labor to rest? If you understand clearly what the rest of the Lord is (Heb 4:10), then it takes effort to rest in the finished work of the Lord. Our human natures want to do something to be worthy of the Lord's blessings. But the truth is that we can never deserve the goodness of the Lord. We have to cease from trusting in our own works and rest in what Jesus has freely provided by grace. It will be the hardest thing you will ever do. You need to get where you trust that God has done everything instead of thinking that something still needs to be done. It's challenging to control your tongue, anxieties, and actions. It takes effort, you have to labor to rest.