Faith is the work of God signifying God’s work is done on your behalf

Hebrews 4:3-5 For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.” We are encouraged today by the fact that there is a rest of God available today for us. The author has a rest, a place of peace in mind where we can retire from our labors. Notice that he wrote that those who have believed in Jesus enter that rest of God. He doesn’t say they have entered in the past or will enter it in the future. They enter it presently, today, now. The present, middle, indicative form of enter is used to show that the subject is acting so as to participate in some way in the results of the action. It’s communicates that once someone believes in Jesus, rest is the result of the action. When the Hebrews heard of the rest of God, they apparently thought of the Sabbath rest, when God rested from His labors because He was finished doing His work. Their weekly Sabbath rest was commanded by God based on His seventh day rest recorded in Genesis 2:1-2. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. The author was intent on showing that God finished His works from the foundation of the world, however, for Him to say that there is a rest yet to be entered into signified that God has another rest available, which can only be entered into by those who believe in Jesus. Here’s the encouragement for us today. Faith is a work of God, and when we received that faith, it meant that God’s work of justification was finished on our behalf. There’s no more work that we have to do to justify ourselves. So when faith came to us and we believed in Jesus, at that point in time, we entered God’s rest. We not only rely on His work for our justification, but we rely on His work on a daily basis. We are living to love with Jesus. He is at work in us. Do you remember what Paul wrote to the Philippians? “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). He told the Colossians, “I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me” (1:29). Yes, we work, but we do so by the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 1:14). Do you get the significance of this great reality? Can you see why this would mean so much to the Hebrews who thought that they had to keep the Law to be right with God or else they were in danger of God’s wrath? We live to love with Jesus, resting in His works, not our own. We walk in His love for His glory. So today, you may rest in Him. Faith is the work of God signifying God’s work is done on your behalf. You live in His presence with all of His grace and mercy available to you. There is no fear of wrath because you have entered His rest in Jesus Christ.