January 31

Day 323: State of Rest

I am now at an age where real rest is no longer an assumption, nor an entitlement. Some nights I sleep quite well. Only because the previous few nights I did not. So every few nights or so, I get a recovery, a catch up.

My lovely bride is living this life too. However, we're not synchronized. We're not on the same schedule. Therefore, on any given day, one or the other of us is sleep deprived.

For some of us, rest comes as the result of vigorous exercise. Probably the best available option. For others, it may be TV/streaming/gaming, getting lost in another reality for hours on end. Still for others, it's attending to addictions, rarely out best bet. I used to be a good napper. Now naps just prolong my midnight agonies.

While our coping mechanisms may be faulty, our need for rest is not. The need for rest is one of the predominant threads in the Bible. God made rest a serious thing for people; in fact, for all of Creation.

But back then, like today, the people were tempted to regard rest as something different than how God defined it. Therefore, they attempt to secure that different rest in less than savory ways.

Hebrews 3 recounts how that generation of Israelites, the ones who were the adults when they all left Egypt, did not "enter His [God's] rest." The weren't allowed in. Because, they'd not believed God could be trusted.

So they, not unlike us, found other definitions of "rest," and thus other mechanisms to simulate their definitions. Hebrews chapter 4 then gives the reader some insight in review.

"Rest" is re-phrased as "Sabbath," taking a weekly break. Break from what? From "works." Verse 10 says, "...for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his."

So Hebrews 4 gives us a definitive roadmap to finding real rest. The first 11 verses tell us to give up trusting in our "works." The gospel tells us our own works are never good enough anyway. We cannot approach the throne of grace holding our good deeds up high above our heads, waiting for applause. We won't get it.

The following 2 verses tell us how our good works will not help us, and in fact will hurt us...because the Word of God will expose those good works for what they are. Good deeds originated in bad motivations. Self-serving stuff, all of it, if we think it will validate us.

But then the really good part. The closing verses of Hebrews 4 tell us we have a "Great High Priest," an Advocate who as the God-Man has and continues to identify with and now for us.

Because we can have Jesus as our High Priest, we can finally find true, lasting rest from trying to approach God with our merits, the collection of our good deeds, with hopes it will be enough to impress God.

Instead, the final verse in Hebrews 4 says, "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Meaning, only when any of us are finally released from ourselves, our self-manicured list of positive accomplishments, will we experience true rest. Only when we're finally resolved to repent of our good deeds as well as our bad deeds, will we find mercy and grace.

Even if one's sleep patterns do not necessarily reflect one's true state of rest. I suppose it's possible to be both sleep deprived and rested at the same time (?)

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church Juneau