The Christian’s Eternal Rest Adapted from Richard Baxter (1640)

Hebrews
Written By Steve Estes

Download MP3
Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Hebrews 4:9
January 5, 2025

Sermon Notes

Hebrews 4:9: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.”

Outline:

1. Introduction

  • Baxter’s life/illnesses

  • Old Testament saints in the desert were promised rest

  • Christians have hard lives, but God has promised eternal rest

2. Our eternal rest

  • Our eternal rest means the end of tiring effort

  • Our eternal rest means we will experience perfect love

  • Our eternal rest means we'll have the capacity for all heaven’s delights

3. How our souls will respond to all this in heaven

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

Previous

Human Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
Next

Suffering and Glory