Salvation is the rest we enter into. The Lord worked six days in Creation, and now He rests in His love. Our redemption was accomplished from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Now allow the Word to go into our hearts and reveals our motives and intents. (Hebrews 4:1-13)

Speaker(s): Thomas Schaller
Sermon 13043
Date: 2025-12-14
Time: Sun 11:00 am

 

P. Schaller –

Okay. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Amen. Halleluiah. God. Praise the Lord. Woot Horn is with us today.
Great to have you, Woot. Love you. Wow. Very good. Very good.
You know, in different cultures sometimes like we learn in our country or we learn wherever we
are from like how things go. And we have some Indian brothers that live in a part of India where
there are tigers out in the jungle. And when they walk through to the villages, you know, they
are aware that there are tigers there. And generally the tigers are afraid of people. But still,
would you walk in a place where there are wild tigers roaming around? Huh? Would you walk
where they are?

Some of you are very spiritual. So, you say, Yes, yes, I would. And they do. They do go. But for
me, I’d be constantly looking over my shoulder. Uh, so how does that relate? Well, we lived in
Finland for years. Also, Upstate New York where we are from. I mean I am and others.
Sometimes the snow would be so high. I remember the snow banks. I could go to the snow
bank on Turn Road at my house and just jump up and touch the telephone lines cuz – I didn’t
do that cuz I’m here today! But we lived with the snow.

But not everybody can do that. I guess they like live with the snow, bad weather. Live with the
tigers. Learn how to live your life in faith. And I just say that to encourage us in the snow, in the
cold, in the time of difficulty. Whatever it is, we assemble often and all the more as we see the
day approaching.

So, today we are looking at Hebrews chapter 4. And for review – we are doing a quick review
here. Hebrews 1. Anybody remember what the theme was? I spelled the word wrong in my
9:00 service. What’s the word? Deity. Deity. Okay. What does it mean? Christ is God.
Jehovah Witnesses say he was created like an angel was created. But Christ was not created. He
is the Creator. He is God. He created all things. Mormons have also another teaching. Anybody
that has any teaching where Christ is not God, then that’s not Christianity.

The fundamental teaching of the Christian faith is that God came into the world in flesh to
redeem us and to save us. Who saved you? An angel or God? Who died for you? An angel or
God? Yeah. God. Well, how could God die. I don’t know. You can ask him. But he died.
He died for us. Christ died for us. This is a mystery, but a beautiful one. Because wouldn’t it be
amazing that God would own it? That God would take our sin? That God would come into our
world? Doesn’t it sound like something awesome? That God Almighty would come into this
world and fix our problems.

God Almighty would take our sin. He would come into the world and take on death and
everything that we have to deal with. Hebrews 2. What was the theme in Hebrews 2? Anybody
remember? Humanity. Christ was the seed of Abraham. He was a man. He was tired and sat at
the well in John 4. He was thirsty in Luke 4. Hungry. He was tired. He had no place. He was
homeless. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have their nest. But the Son of man has
nowhere to lay his head.

He was human. He bled on the cross. He died on the cross. He was thirsty on the cross. He was,
he was forsaken on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He knew pain. He
knew our trouble. He is our Christ. Nobody like him. The fairest of 10,000. Altogether lovely.
Song of Solomon 5. Wow.

Hebrews 3. Anybody remember? I don’t really expect you to but there – Hebrews 3 is about
Christ having a group. Christ having companions, partners. The word is METACHOI. And I just
use the Greek word. Not that I know Greek. I don’t mean, I’m not, you know, saying it like that,
but I just want to provoke your thinking. He brought us to be a companion. He brought us to his
group. He made us a great congregation.

Could you, could we please put up Psalm 40 and where is it? Excuse me. Vs. 10. Psalm 40:10.
This is a message in itself but Just I want to go kind of quickly here. Vs. 10. He’s saying to God.
I’ve taken your righteousness. It’s in my heart, but it didn’t stay in my heart. It came out of my
mouth. It came out of my life. I was a righteous man. I was without sin. I did not hide it from
people. I lived it in their presence.

Then I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your love and
kindness. That word is the word for, that’s CHESED in the Hebrew. It means grace. I have not
concealed your great grace and doctrinal truth from the great congregation. And that great
congregation. What is that?
That’s the group he has. That’s the great congregation. I have, I have brought it to them. I have
not concealed it. I brought it to them. It’s in John 17. O, Father. I have manifested your name
unto them, the disciples. But I pray not for them alone, but for those that will believe in me.
And what happened with your regeneration is that you became part of the group because the
Lord gave you a new heart. Ezekiel 36:26, the main theme in our teaching, a new covenant, a
new heart, a new spirit. You have that. You’ve been given that by him. You are born of God. You
have the new man in you.

I now have a picture that I want to put up on the screen. Are you, are you listening? Are you
following it with me? Come. Come on. All right. Wait a minute. You’re not. Okay. All right. So,
what are we going to do about it? I guess just put up the picture. All right.

What do you see in that picture? I’m going to go real slow here. I’m going to ask you to do this.
Okay. What do you see in that picture? Right. What do you see? There’s two people. Who are
they? All right. Christ is one. Who’s the other one? Who’s that other one? That’s you. That’s the
first Adam and the last Adam.
The first Adam is a sinner. And what’s in his hand? A hammer to crucify Christ, right? What’s in
his other hand? A nail to crucify Christ. That’s you and me. We crucified him. What did Christ
do? He left heaven. He’s born in Bethlehem and became like us. And he pleased the Father. He
was with the Father. He pleased the Father. He was a righteous man. He did not conceal it. it
was not a secret.

He lived out in the open. He taught it. He did this work on the cross so that he would save us.
He would forgive us. He would restore us. He would give us a new life. He did that for you and I
by grace. Not by anything we did, but he did the work.
Now, in Hebrews 4, we’re going to read in a minute about God’s work. And where do we read
about God’s work first in the Bible in Genesis 1,2. Okay. Wait a minute. I didn’t take enough
time. Okay, go back to the picture. Okay. Here’s the picture. Okay. So, ask your neighbor. What
do you see in the picture? You know, you can tell many things about that man who is
exhausted.

Maybe these are holidays and there are men and women that are lonely. Maybe they’ve lost a
child to drug addiction or fentanyl. Maybe somebody has left home and never had – they have
abandoned you. Maybe a family member is alone during the holidays. Maybe temptations,
depression, fear, emptiness. Maybe some kind of despair, some kind of collapse.
But what is Hebrews 4 saying is there’s two words that I want to make note of: work, God’s
work and then the word rest. Because that’s also what I see in the picture. I see salvation. I see
rest. I see somebody else. I see somebody holding me up. I see somebody coming into my life. I
see somebody that cares about me. I see God. I could, we could say the hand of the priest
because he’s Christ in that picture is actually a priest.

He’s a high priest. What did the high priest do in the Old Testament? The high priest was
ordained of God. He was a man only, but he was ordained of God to wear certain clothes, have
certain perfume on, take certain blood. Only one day in the whole year to go all the way from
humanity, all the way to God and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat.
That might seem primitive to you, but it isn’t. It has a lot of meaning because that was a symbol
or a picture of what Christ would do in reality where God would send his Son to do this and
come back to heaven and with his blood change our lives.

That blood would wipe away our sin. That blood would unite us or reconcile us with God. That
the work of this priest, this priest who upholds us and carries us when we cannot go, when we
cannot get it done, when we cannot obey, when we cannot be humble or obedient or
subservient or wise or hardworking or sincerer or dedicated.

When we are without strength, when we are sinners, when we are enemies of God, God sent
Christ into the world to save us. When we were, Romans 5, when we were enemies and
without strength and ungodly. That’s beautiful. That’s amazing.
So, when we read Hebrews 4, I want you to see something about work here. When God
worked, okay, there’s two elements to it. The first one is the physical. We could call it physical
work. It was spiritual, but the effect was the universe. First day, second day, third day, sixth day
man was made. Then the seventh day never ended.

According to the text, we don’t have another day coming. Only the seventh. It only goes seven
days. Seventh day God rested. And we could say by inference, by just what it is inferring that he
hasn’t left his rest. God is still resting on the seventh day that has no end. The eternal day you
could say. The day that has no end. The Sabbath that is forever. The Sabbath that is forever.
Like people get wrapped up as a Christian with the Sabbath and do you have the Sabbath? I
have recommended it. But we don’t live anymore subject to law for we have entered into God
himself and into the God of all grace who is resting in himself. He’s resting in his love it says in
Zephaniah. He’s resting from his work.

So, we have this cosmos where you can put the word here, the universe, but there’s another
work and it’s Revelation 13. And it is verse 8? Would you put that up on the screen, please? Vs.
8. The Lamb slain when? Is it the same time as this work? Is it the foundation of the world was
that when he created and said let there be light and there was light? Is this the foundation of
the world and was the Lamb slain at that time or was he slain before that time? Is he slain in
the mind of God before there was time and space?
That’s what it’s saying. The Lamb of God was slain. Before it happened 2,000 years ago in
Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, it already had happened in the mind of God. For God knows the
end from the beginning.

And if we think about God, we transcend time and space and think about his mind. And he’s
saying that’s already been done in my mind. Or we could say in my heart that was already done.
It was just as good as it had happened in history was already done in me. And I am God. And
there’s no beginning, no past or future in God in one sense. There is, there is time in God in one
sense, but in another human sense, it’s different.

Like our reality is in the time and space, but to have it in our minds, we need help. Before it
ever happened, it already happened in God. And it was real in God.
So, this work, we could say the work of God has been done already. When Jesus said, It is
finished, hanging on the cross, he’s saying, The work of God is finished. But actually, those
words are for our sake and for the world that we haven’t yet seen. Angels and other aspects of
that reality that God in his wisdom decided to manifest himself in time and space to us. And
when Christ says it is finished, he means there’s no more work to be done. It’s already done. So,
enter into my rest.

Go back to the picture, please. Is God saying, Enter into my rest? Is he saying that to him
physically, psychologically, spiritually? Is he, is he saying I did it. I took care of your sin. I took
care of your bad habits. I took care of your life. I took care of the grave and the sorrow and all
the tears and all the pain in life. Is he saying, Enter into my rest that I have prepared for you to
enter into my rest where you don’t have those worries.

He said, Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of
me. I am meek and lowly. My way is not your way. My way is a way of power, love, peace,
sound mind. But then you say, like this. We could draw it this way. We could say that man has
his world and it’s like this size.
That man has a world of pain. Maybe my son overdosed on a drug. Maybe my wife left me.
Maybe I lost my job. Maybe I found myself in depression. Maybe I worry a lot. Maybe I don’t
know, I don’t know what to do with my life. That’s a very real thing.

But this message we’re reading today is this. He goes, Enter into my rest that I have for you. I
am Christ. I have it for you. You are part of my group. You are in my group. You’re accepted in
my beloved. You are accepted. I’m not ashamed to call you brother, Heb. 2. I’m not ashamed to
say that you are my brother and that God is our Father. He is my Father and he is your Father.
And when you pray, say, Our Father, who art in heaven. You are in my group. Wow.

Go to Hebrews 4. And tonight we’re going to do Hebrews 5. And it’s about the priesthood, but
Hebrews 4 is about entering his rest. And let’s start from vs. 1. I’m going to read right along.
And anything that catches your attention, just underline it or make a note of it and go back to it
later but I want to move along. I got to get at least to verse 12.

Vs. 1. Now, we said in Hebrews 3, where were we? Um yeah, Hebrews 3. This was about the
heart of man. And there were three words: hard heart, erring heart. Making mistakes and evil
heart, evil heart of unbelief. Three words for what can happen to your heart.

That man being saved by Christ, his heart probably hard, probably erring. Not me. And probably
unbelieving. Probably. Is there a Kleenex over there somewhere, pastor? Just run it over to me.
Hard heart, evil heart, erring heart. That’s like a pattern for us because of the pain and the
trouble in life. So, don’t let it happen to you.

We had a great play Wednesday night. Beautiful. I’m thinking of my earpiece cuz maybe. I don’t
know. Maybe somebody stepped on it. I don’t know. It works but it’s bothering me a little bit.
Thank you, pastor. Okay.
Go to Hebrews 4 and the warning is coming short of entering. Vs. 2. They were taught that they
were to enter the Promised Land and that’s called the gospel in the King James. It’s basically the
message for moving on in faith. So, there’s a message for you and I to move on in faith. This has
to be emphasized.

You’re going to get to a place and stop. Like I used to live in Hungary and we have three
Hungarians down here in the front row. Hallelujah! And you know, I learned like in learning a
language, which I never really did very well at and wherever I lived, but you can just get to a
certain point and just stop learning. You can learn a language to a point and then just stop
learning, right?

You can do many things. You can become a Christian and you can get to a point and you just
stop. And this is a warning and it is you have to take where you are living all the time and mix
faith with what God is saying because he’s not done with you. He’s not done with your life. He’s
not done. You don’t plateau. Put it on autopilot and like cruise through, but instead you got to
say, What’s next, Lord? And he would say, I want you to live by faith.

No, I’m good. I’m good. I got everything I need. I don’t need the church. I don’t need the Word.
I don’t need – I pray. I’m in trouble And the Lord is saying, yeah. I know, I know but you got to
enter into rest. You enter into a rest that I’ve prepared for you, that you could live your whole
life no matter what happens to you in your life, you’re able to be engaged with God in a
personal way and be deeply encouraged by living by faith and mixing faith with what you hear.
That’s vs. 2.

They stopped hearing and they did not mix faith with what they heard. When you stop hearing,
you start complaining. Put that picture right back up again. I want to say something here. This
man could be so filled with his pain and his sorrow. That’s all that he can hear. All that he thinks
about is his bad, lousy, miserable life. That’s all that he can hear.
But God is not telling him that. God is saying, I am saving you. I am filling you. I am satisfying
you. I am building you up. I am carrying you. I have a future for you. I am using you. You are in

my group. I am Christ and you are the great congregation and I have something for you. Enter
into my rest.
Let’s go to the next verse. Vs. 3-6. What happened to them? They died in the wilderness. They
died in their troubles. They died in their unbelief. They didn’t get moving. Only two of them out
of 600,000. Six hundred thousand males left Egypt and only two of them, Joshua and Caleb,
entered into the Promised Land which was where God was saying they were going, were going
there.

That ratio. What percentage is that? P. Taggart could tell us in a second. Point zero, zero.
Whatever. Our point is it’s an example. It’s an example of how many of us fail to mix faith with
what we hear.
But I want to encourage you. You came out on a nice day like today here to come to the church
and hear the Word and you came out because you live by faith. And also, you’re going to say to
your wife or your husband, I love you because you live by faith. You live in the Spirit and you do
love them.

But there are times when we say bad things with our mouth. Sometimes in our hearts, we go in
the wrong direction. We err in our heart. We harden our heart. We have an evil heart of
unbelief and we withdraw. But the writer is saying to the Jews, you can’t do that.
You once offered the blood of bulls and goats, but now Christ himself has been offered up. Let’s
draw near to him. So here is the key verse, vs. 7. Now, how does your heart get hardened?
Today.

#1. What does that mean? It means really now. Not tomorrow. Now. Today if you will
hear his voice. So, we have the word “hearing” is a big part of your new life. You have ears to
hear. You can concentrate on hearing the Spirit of God, mixing faith with the Word.
Do any of you ever quote Bible verses? Do any of you ever sing hymns with spiritual songs? I
think you do. Do any of you start to memorize the Bible on index cards or have a little pocket
Bible? Maybe you do. Maybe not. But I want to encourage you, there’s a very real thing about it
that when you say it with your mouth slowly before God with an attitude of faith, the Spirit will
speak to you from the Word. And that’s one thing about soulwinning.

Also, I like to meet like we did yesterday on the street and I just talked to a man and somehow I
just kind of like he was listening to me like eye to eye. Didn’t know who he was. Eye to eye. I
was just quoting a Bible verse slowly and he’s listening to everything and it ministered to me
and so on.
And it’s like you can do it alone in your bedroom quoting a Bible verse or in a prayer closet or
driving the car on the beltway. You have the Word. Today if you will hear his voice. There is the

Word and the word behind the Word. There is the Word and this word has life, John 6:63. My
words they are spirit and they are life. We don’t understand.

Take up your bed and walk, he said to the man at the pool. Take up your bed and walk. And
those were Spirit words. The man was lame for 38 years. And he took, he stood up and took his
bed and he walked. How could that happen? It was the Word that did that.
Why would it be any different today? Vs. 8. That means that Joshua in the book of Joshua
talked about the Promised Land, entering the Promised Land. They defeated 31 kings in one of
their campaigns in a 7-year period of time.

But still, they weren’t done. They were not finished. And the writer is saying, If Joshua had
given them rest, he would not have said, We’re not done. But we’re not done. We have much
land to conquer. We have more military campaign. We have more that we have to do in the
book of Joshua, and so the rest isn’t in that. The rest is a spiritual rest.

Vs. 10-11. All right. So, here’s a man doing work. It’s just a symbol. He’s going upstairs like this
and he’s working. A man is working. Like we are filled with work. We do things all the time. But
this kind of work is to find God. He’s working in his religion. He is saying prayers. He is being
dedicated. He’s working. He’s doing sacrifices. He’s making every effort.

And the writer to the Hebrews is saying when you come to Christ, you don’t do that anymore.
You’re not living in that system anymore. You don’t do that anymore. You’re not working in
your Christian life in order to earn merit, merit something in order to gain something. There’s
no more work that way. There is rest.

And because we have entered into a different economy and it’s this one, God gave his Son. God
gave Christ. God gave you himself. You have God. God is in your life now. You are born of God
by a miracle. By the grace of God, you’ve been saved. You’ve been given Christ. For me to live is
Christ and to die is gain, Galatians 2:20. It’s all different now. It’s all by the nature of God, is by God
carrying us. God caring for, God washing our feet. God dying on the cross for us. It’s all a
different economy.

And that, we that have believed have come to Christ like this by faith. You see, the new heart
gives us a capacity for faith. We live by faith in what we hear and we enter into rest. And the
rest that was prepared in God that we read about on the seventh day that has no end is our
rest.
These words are powerful because it says in vs. 11, let’s labor to enter into that rest. Well,
that’s hard to, that seems like an oxymoron, a contradiction of some kind. Let’s put up on the
screen the picture one more time.

How does that man labor to enter into the rest/ How does that man labor to enter into the rest
that’s already prepared? How? What does he do?

#1. He believes in Christ. When you believe in
Christ, you are born of God. You are born again. You are regenerated. What happens when you
are regenerated? You’re given a new heart.
That’s the thing that I have to be aware of. My heart departs. I actually have two hearts. I have
the heart that got me into that situation, the hard heart, but being born again, I have a new
heart. And I’m able to hear what God says to me about his nature, his grace. He’s the God of all
grace. I now labor to make sure that my hard heart is not taking me away.

And I’m saying to God, I could have a hard heart today, Lord. And I’m bringing you, I’m bringing
my life before you and asking you to fill me with your Spirit and move in my heart to draw me.
And the Lord is saying, You are here. You are in my group. I am the one talking to you. Can you
hear me? And I say something like this. Yeah, I got this bad side to me that goes away, that goes
away from you, but I’m making, I’m going to put off the old man and I put on the new man and
I’m walking with you. I hear you.

And he says, Do you hear me? And I said, Yeah, I hear you. And here’s a couple things about
hearing that relate to this. And it is your heart. Now, we could do a subpoint here. Okay. Your
heart checks motives. You’ll find this in your life now in your prayer.
You’ll say, Lord, I gave in the offering. And the Lord will say, What was your motive? Why? Why
did you give in the offering? And I and in my heart, I do a little searching. I actually did it so
other people would know that I did that.

And the Lord said, Come on. What’s your, what’s in your new heart? And in my new heart, it is
like not, I’m not living before people. I’m living before you. And I’m giving. It’s in my heart to
give and to love. I love you and I love others. And I’m giving out of a pure heart. And nobody
needs to know because I’m not doing it before people. That’s what the new heart is like. You
follow Jesus cuz it’s in your heart. And it doesn’t matter if others follow or not. I’m going to
follow Jesus. Though none go with me, still I will follow. This is beautiful.

Why did you go to Bible school? ‘Cause I want, my parents wanted me to go. So, I went cuz of my
parents. Actually, that’s not a bad thing but can you go deeper? And maybe something happens
in your heart in the Bible school and you start to say, Actually, I’m coming here because I’m
refreshed. ‘Cause I’m learning something cuz I enjoy it. I’m actually being built up. I’m actually
hearing from God and he’s searching my heart.

Look at vs. 11 with me and we will finish it up here in a minute. Vs. 11. So, I got motive is one of
the hard work. I have a paragraph here. Let’s finish the verse first. Vs. 11-12. We could in a way

say that it is checking my motives. It pierces to the depths of my being, my soul and spirit. It’s
kind of like cutting them all up into little pieces.
I read that in one commentary that pierces soul and spirit, cutting into every pieces.
Investigating everything about what’s going on in my heart, in my thoughts. Deep down
motives. Something like deep down inside my heart that I can live with myself because the
Spirit is bearing witness to me that this is the truth. I cannot depart from it. God requires truth
in the inner part, Psalm 51:6.

It’s very good. It’s very good. What, vs. 12-13. Now, I’m a butcher’s son and we used to cut up
meat together, my dad and I. And me. My dad and me. Okay. And sometimes you could find a
cyst in a beef carcass. You find something in there. You open it up and you could see something
in the animal that was there that you normally wouldn’t recognize or see. This is what a priest
did.

A priest in the Old Testament was actually like a butcher to be honest. He would open up the
animal and examine it. He would examine the animal. See if it had any cancer, any blemish,
bruises, something broken there that they didn’t know about. And the priest would, well, God is
saying that he’s saying in my company, in my group, we are not living in sin. It’s not a group
where we are embracing lies that we are living like selfish motivation. That we’re living for
ourselves. In my group, it is Christ.

Christ is in this group. That’s what’s in you. And how does this work? It happens by the Word of
God. The new heart today, him speaking to us, checking our motives and also we could say,
well, our mind. It’s there. We could say affections. Mindset, you know. Self-life versus Christ.
Checking out in my heart what I’m living in and that’s a beautiful thing.
I would say as you hear God in your Bible study, as you read the Word, God will check us. It’s
not introspection. It’s just coming under the MRI of God. The CAT scan of God. The X-ray
machine of God. Go in the tube, you know, you know. Go inside and find out what’s going on in
your body.

Well, I don’t like that. I’d rather just leave me alone. Let me live my life. You can do that. But
that’s an erring heart. That’s an evil heart of unbelief. That’s you living life your way. We
recommend with all our hearts, with the writer of Hebrews, mix faith with what you hear.
Believe God for more. Whatever God has for us, let us live in Christ. Put off the old man. Put on
the new man. Walk by faith. And you’ll discover the power of God in your life. And you’ll be
healthy. And this world doesn’t need sick people. It needs some to be healthy. And you are one
of them by the grace of God. You are salt. You are light. You have health. You have something in
your life you didn’t have before.

You have Jesus. You are in his group. You are a disciple of Christ. You are a follower and a
believer. And God is doing work in your life. And you learn what that is and you enjoy it. Okay.
Amen.

Uh, also, I sent out a memo today to the elders and the trustees and I could share it with all the
church, too. That I’m asking for two weeks of prayer for our coming, the future. I have optional
fasting as we prepare to go into the new year.

But let’s join together on the phone, small groups, individually, however God leads you. But
let’s go into our new year prayerfully and God give us guidance and decisions that we have to
make and oneness and love and direction for the coming year. Amen. Let’s do that. So, that’s
optional for you and I’m asking folks to do that. Amen. Would you pray with me?

 

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.