Not There Yet

Hebrews 4:1-16
        
In the name of the Father, Son + and Holy Spirit, Amen.  The Holy Spirit says:  So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.  Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience (Hebrew 4:9-11).  This is the Word of the Lord.

Parents have heard their children ask many times.  “Are we there yet?”  “When will we get there?” They ask because they are bored of riding, tired of sitting and eager to get out of the car at their destination.  The longer the trip, the more likely is the complaining.  If they are going to see beloved relatives like grandparents or cousins they can hardly wait to arrive.  If the trip takes them to a vacation spot, camping or amusement park a different kind of joy awaits.  “Not there yet” are three words children do not like to hear.

As children of the heavenly Father, you have been given new birth from above in holy baptism.  The Triune God adopts you as His own with full inheritance rights.  Through Jesus your sins are forgiven and heaven is open to you.  Even now your citizenship is in heaven and you await the time when you will finally be there to experience all of its wonder forever.  Meanwhile we sojourn through life. Times and seasons pass but one day seems similar to all the others.  The years roll on and some things change slowly.  You may be farming the same ground that your great-grandfather plowed a century ago.  The barn or shed that he built may still be in use.

The children of Israel spent four hundred years in Egypt and forty in the wilderness.  They were a people on the move, a pilgrim and transient group looking forward to the Promised Land. They did not enjoy a happy journey through the wilderness.  They complained about the food and water.  At times they longed to go back to Egypt a place of permanency in an otherwise tumultuous trek.  The Israelites were seldom content, often whining and frequently complaining.  They took out their frustration on Moses as God’s chosen leader of the Exodus. They were ultimately displeased with God but did not have the courage to express it directly.  More than once there was a collective “Let’s go back to Egypt” from the people.

Through it all God is faithful.  They ate manna and drank water from the rock.  Their clothing and shoes did not wear out all the days of their wandering in the wilderness.  Still they complained.  The report of the twelve spies sent to investigate the Promised Land scared them.  Oh, it was a good and bountiful land where a family could plant a vineyard or an orchard and enjoy the richness of the harvest.  But there we people in this land that the majority of spies feared.  They felt like grasshoppers next to them.  No way, they said, could they overpower these people.  Only Joshua and Caleb expressed confidence that the Lord would bring them safely through. These two faithful men were outvoted but God had the last word.  None of the adults except Caleb and Joshua would live to enter the Promised Land.  Another forty years awaited their time in wilderness.

The sin of the people was unbelief.  They did not take God at His Word or believe His promises.  They witnessed God’s plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They experienced God’s deliverance from slavery and crossed the Red Sea on dry ground.  They travelled to God’s mountain where the Lord met with Moses.  Somehow this was not enough.  Seeing is NOT believing.  They feared men rather than God and rebelled when the Lord directed them ahead.  Despite all of the miraculous acts they witnessed with their own eyes, they did not enter the Sabbath rest promised the people of God.  The warning to the Hebrews applies to us.  Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts (Hebrews 4:7b).  This generation was not there yet, nor would they enter it because of their disobedience and unbelief (Hebrews 4:6).

Are we different from the children of Israel?  Do we recognize the time of God’s visitation and rejoice in it?  The Lord appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterwards in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7).  The longer a trip takes, the more restless children become.  They might quarrel and bicker in the back of the car.  They may say and do annoying things to each other.  Occasionally mom or dad intervenes with a sharp word or threat.  Persevering requires patience.  This commodity grows scarce when delays or unexpected detours arise.  No one is happy when of the travelers becomes sick and requires extra stops and attention.

Similar reactions are found in the church as we await the Lord’s return or our departure from earth at our death.  “Are we there yet?”  Anxious people fidget, bicker and feud.  Idiosyncrasies of people grow irritating the longer you are with them.  Patience wears thin when frustration increases.  We express our feelings in less than kind ways to the person or people we deem responsible for our unhappiness.  We may even turn against the Lord and His servants. All the while the Lord remains true to His Word.  He is with us all day, every day, even to the end of the age.  Why do we act as if He is absent or missing?  This was Israel’s sin even as the Lord’s presence was as close as the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.  Unbelief blinds.  It veils the truth from our eyes as it seeks to destroy vestiges of faith.  It is for this reason that our text states: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience (Hebrews 4:16). The Holy Spirit is skilled warrior in the use of the Lord’s two-edged sword of Law and Gospel.  He wields it with the skill of a surgeon in excising sin and exposing the thoughts and intentions of every heart.  Everyone stands accountable to God to whom we must give an account.

Jesus Christ is the Light of the world.  His penetrates the darkness caused by sin. Moreover He is the great High Priest.   Upon the tree of the cross He made atonement for your sins and mine. His is the blood of the Lamb, without blemish or spot that remains the propitiation for your sins.  Jesus knows what it is like to live in this world.  He faced every temptation common to man. He succeeded where you and I fail. Christ was crucified, died and was buried.  He rose from the dead ascended into heaven.  He is more than able to help you and me Jesus knows both the hardness of men’s hearts and the frailty of human flesh.  He is able to sympathize with us in our weakness.  We may approach His throne of grace to find mercy and help in our time of need.

Even now your true life is hidden with God in Christ.  When He appears, you also will appear with Him in glory.  Here in the Lord’s house and at His table he comes to us anew each week.  Here He passes over our lips, into our mouths to join His life to our mortal bodies.  Here we receive all that we need to support this body and life from Him who is the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.  Here we are called from disobedience to faith, from unbelief to a living hope in Him who died and rose again.  He is coming back but has not yet returned in His indisputable glory and honor before all creation.  Now we live by faith, not by sight.

In heaven we will have the full Sabbath rest described in our text.  Until then we are buffeted, troubled and hounded by the forces of hell trying to remove heaven from our sight.  Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience of Israel in the wilderness for we are not there yet,  Amen.