Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 4:1-13. He taught that Jesus invites us into an enduring way of life that ends in a wedding feast. Lector: Asia Filipiak
Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 4:1-13. He taught that Jesus invites us into an enduring way of life that ends in a wedding feast.
Lector: Asia Filipiak
Next week, we begin our journey through the season of Advent
During Advent, we remind ourselves that the story of Jesus is not finished
We are waiting for his return, and we are learning how to wait.
Asked my two older children the other day if Jesus was in the car with us, what’s one question they would ask? Almost in unison they both said, “when are you coming back?”
If a 9 and 7 year old are asking/wondering, we are too.
How do we wait? What do we do while we wait? So let this be your invitation to a Praying Christmas (ARTWORK), where we’ll learn how to wait together, as a church
Remember, a church is one, holy, apostolic family.
We are in this together, and we are learning to see our life/church as a we, not a me
We do that by telling the truth to each other, enduring through hardship together, and listening well to each other.
This is what we’ve learned over the last few weeks about what it means to be the church, and Hebrews 4 offers us a great bridge to carry us to Advent.
God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it.
-Hebrews 4:1
Here’s what you need to know: the invitations have been set. The food has been cooked. The table is set. You need to decide if you want to come to the feast
We talked about “rest” in Hebrews meaning an end to striving. Trying so hard to prove yourself, to fit in, to belong. All of that is over.
Jesus has brought you near. He did the grocery shopping, the cooking, the preparing, mailed the invitations…will you come?
The invitation to the rest still stands, and the invitation is so sweet, so good, so compelling and beautiful and satisfying, that it actually makes others scared that you’ll miss it.
“Fail to experience” here means to miss out on something. Isn’t that amazing?
There’s an invitation that’s gone out that’s so good some people are actually scared that you’ll miss it…and not just miss hearing about a feast, but you’ll miss out on the way it tastes, the way the music sounds, the laughter and joy.
I imagine some of you feel very hesitant here…too-good-to-be-true
Last Mother’s Day, Allison and I went to the Biltmore in NC.
Huge house from gilded age
40’ ceilings in the dining room, huge fireplaces, thousands of acres of curated forests, gardens…walking around I imagined what the parties must have been like, but there was some sadness, because middle class pastors don’t get invited to places like that.
The red carpets in life are for the beautiful, the wealthy, the important and influential.
I am none of those things…the closer I’ve gotten in life to extravagant feasts, the more a voice whispers in the back of my head “you don’t belong there.”
So maybe you’re hesitant, and you can’t quite get excited about this rest God says is available. Listen:
Only we who believe can enter his rest.
-Hebrews 4:3
BELIEVE. Do you see it? BELIEVE!
The wedding feast of the lamb only asks you to come. That’s it.
No dress code, you will be given proper attire upon your arrival.
No proof of income, the food has already been purchased.
You don’t even have to shower—the journey there actually washes you clean!
And you know what’s so tragic in all of this? We don’t want to go to parties like that.
Maybe we don’t believe it, maybe we don’t like the idea of being helped…but listen.
Trust is the way you get to the party. And if you don’t trust, you don’t get the party.
This is what happened years ago to Israel in their wandering. They disobeyed God.
What did that mean? They stopped trusting he would take care of them, that he would give them a home…they stopped trusting the party was ready.
God gave them an entire calendar of parties.
“If you want to obey me, you’ll have a huge rip roaring party at least once a quarter…that’s how you’ll remember what I’m like”!
But now the Preacher of Hebrews comes with a message for every one of us this morning:
God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today.
-Hebrews 4:7
That day is today. TODAY!
You know, Jesus let us friends follow him for years before he asked them “who do you say that I am”. But he did ask them! One day, for every one of us, will be that day.
And, today, I’m convinced there are people here Jesus is saying “today’s the day.”
And if you want to know what it looks like to be afraid someone might miss it…it looks like this church. It looks like people arriving at 6am to get this building ready.
It looks like people visiting the sick and mowing neighbor’s lawns.
Cooking meals and helping scared moms find a safe place to stay.
All we do as a church has as its aim showing each other the glory of God and the goodness of his kingdom.
It’s why we do all that we do! And listen now…listen what we must do:
V. 11:
Let us do our best to enter that rest.
-Hebrews 4:11
**Repeat** what does that mean? How do we come?
Do your best to enter that rest.
So, you must answer: what would I do if I had nothing to prove?
Jesus says the first step of obedience, the first response to the invitation, is to call Jesus and Lord and be baptized.
What will people think? What will my family think? Isn’t there another way?
How would you respond to the invitation of Jesus if you had nothing to prove?
You would call him Lord and be baptized. That’s your first step.
Fill out a connect card, stop at the welcome table, tell somebody!
We’ll prepare you for baptism, celebrate with you in the service, and learn to wait for the main course together.
Now, for those on the other side of baptism, I want you to know something.
Coming to the feast of God washes you clean and gives you no clothes.
The only price you will pay is the price of healing.
In other words, the healing power of God will sometimes feel like pain.
Listen:
the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
-Hebrews 4:12
If you give yourself to trusting Jesus, you will have to trust him in painful places.
You’ll have to let the Bible read you. It’s not a book for you to control, and the Spirit is not a power for you to harness. He’s a wonderful counselor, the healer of your soul, the forgiver of your sin, the renewer of your strength.
He’s mysterious and powerful and surprising and, above all, he is good.
BUT…he will expose your innermost thoughts and desires. He’ll pull things from you because they are not good for you.
He’s a mom taking scissors away from a child, he’s a dad holding a son through the pains of drug withdrawals…this healing that is available to us, this feast, is free, but is not painless.
Far too many of us were never told that following Jesus would, at times, feel like dying
But if anyone wants to save their life, they must lose it.
If you’re here this morning and in great pain, especially great pain as a result of choices you’ve made because you trust Jesus, please know it just may be the pain of healing. It may be the pain of breaking free from an addiction or the pain of putting something you once held dear to death. But pain does not mean failure.
The bottom line that is required of all of us is whether or not we trust Jesus has made a way for us to enter his rest.
On day 1, will we turn to him and obey him?
And on day 10,000, will we keep turning to him and obeying him?
I know how hard those words can be for many of us, but remember what obeying looks like, remember what entering that rest looks like: believing I have nothing to prove.
Are you willing to receive the good news that I have nothing to prove?
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
-Hebrews 4:13
You have nothing to prove to God, because he see it all.
You have nothing to prove to God, because Jesus PAID IT ALL.
TO live like more is required of you is to say with your life that the perfection of Jesus life was not enough, the blood of Jesus was not precious enough, and the resurrection of Jesus was not powerful enough.
“But it says we’re accountable at the end!” It does!
You are accountable to whether or not you show up for the party!
And the longer I do this, I can’t help but wonder if being accountable to God in the end will look something like this…
”welcome. I’ve prepared a great feast inside, would you like to come in?”
So who doesn’t come to the party in the end? The ones who don’t come to the party!
And each will be held accountable to whether or not we receive the invitation into the Great Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
Listen. Trust, come to the feast.
Jesus is inviting you into an enduring way of life that begins in the waters of baptism and ends at the great wedding feast of the lamb. Let’s pray.