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    Feb 23, 2025

    The Still Point

    The Still Point

    Passage: Hebrews 4:1-13

    Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

    Series: Worthy: His Worth, and a Life Worthy of Him

    Keywords: faith, living, word, belief, rest, voice

    It is sought not only in those privileged times of vacation. We seek it in our work. We seek it in the ordinariness of life. I’m talking about rest. More than mere disengagement, rest is something inward. One way we think of the worthiness of Jesus, and the life worthy of Him, is how in Him there is available to a kind of “rest” our other feeble attempts can barely approximate. The author of Hebrews is out to explain that rest while at the same time, and ironically, how to strive for it.

    CENTRAL TEXT:  Hebrews 4:1-13

    Heb. 4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, 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. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”

    Heb. 4:6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 

    Heb. 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

    Heb. 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

     

    CALL TO WORSHIP:   Psalm 23

    LEADER:  The LORD is my shepherd;

    ALL:  I shall not want.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures.
    He leads me beside still waters.
    He restores my soul.
    He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake.
    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.
    You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
    you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
    Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
    and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
    forever.

     

    PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH:  Mark 4:1-9

    LEADER:  Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” 9 And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

    The Word of the Lord

    ALL: Thanks be to God

     

    CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER: 

    CONFESSION OF SIN:  From the Book of Common Prayer

    LEADER:  Let us confess our sin to God.

    ALL:  Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name: through Christ our Lord. Amen.

    ASSURANCE OF PARDON:  Colossians 2:13, 14

    LEADER: And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

    ALL: Thanks be to God

     

    BENEDICTION:    Matthew 11:28, 29

    LEADER:   Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

     

    RELATED SCRIPTURES:

    • Isaiah 55:11
    • Matthew 6:33
    • Acts 7:38
    • 1 Peter 1:34

     

    DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

    1. Best vacation you ever had? Why so? Worst? Why so?
    2. Keep track of all the “rest” here. Refresh your memory from the passage of all the references to rest. To which does each refer. As to the first reference–the rest God took on the seventh day: how is God at rest and yet still active? Why catalogue all those?
    3. Is the Sabbath rest still to come something later or now? Defend whichever position you take? Could what might be entirely future have any present awareness or experience?
    4. What are several sources of unrest in you? Sure, many things outside us unsettle us. What about what is within–anything? What would a deeper belief in the gospel today answer some of that unrest?
    5. Have you ever had the word of God–a promise or purpose or word of wisdom–ever confront you in some profound way–like you’d been split open and your heart exposed to yourself like you hadn’t seen it before? If so, would you be willing to describe the experience? 

     

    ILLUSTRATIONS:  

     

    Feb 23, 2025

     

    QUOTES:  

     

    • At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; 
      Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, 
      But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, 
      Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, 
      Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, 
      There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. 
      I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. 
      And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
      - T.S. Eliot, excerpt from Four Quartets

     

    • Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.
      - Blaise Pascal

    • The chief good of man is nothing else but union with God.
      - John Calvin
    • "Few people want to be saints nowadays, but everybody is trying to lose weight."
      -       René Girard
    • I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man “wishes” to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.
      - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
    • “It is the will of God to have the Spirit of God use the Word of God to make the children of God look like the Son of God.”
      -       @HBCharlesJr
    • I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
      - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

     

     

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