‘Are we beginning to Get Rest yet?’ #GetRest
By Ps Vernon Quek
We’ve come to the fourth and final Sunday in our January Sermon Series on Rest – kickstarting our Year of Rest here at Zion Bishan.
So let me ask you a question: What have you learnt about rest so far? What has really struck you about what rest is and what resting well looks like? What has the Lord convicted you to put into place in your life?
I’ve been reflecting on how to personally grow in this area this coming year, and what to pray for the Lord to do in our church family this Year of Rest.
As the preaching team has mentioned repeatedly, the way to rest this year is not to drop everything and do nothing (although it is wise to ask if we should slow down in some areas). I know the temptation for many of us who are tired is to desire that this year we can just pause and get rested. While this is a beneficial goal, I believe it’s not the ultimate goal of what I hope for myself and all of us this year. It’s not enough to just be able to say at the end of 2026 that we’re rested and ready to do more.
Instead, my great desire this year is that we will really grow in our understanding of what it means to have the rest that our Lord Jesus offers – the easy yoke and light burden that means real rest for our souls![1]
In other words, I hope that we will really GET (understand and grow in wisdom about) the REST that Jesus is offering.
This might not actually mean that we’re physically rested at the end of 2026, but if we really #GetRest – if we really know how to be find our rest in Christ – then I would consider this year a success!
The author of Hebrews gives us a really helpful reminder about God’s Rest:
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put Me to the test
and saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known My ways.’
11 As I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter my Rest.’”[2]
The author here is quoting David in Psalm 95, and goes on to explain and exhort us:
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.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that Rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.[3]
Here’s what I find so helpful to remember this year. God has an ultimate and eternal Rest reserved for us – it is coming for all who hear His voice, obey and follow King Jesus.
Which means that what you and I really need to learn this year, is how to strive well together to enter that Rest. To use some of the terms we’ve heard over the last few Sundays: we need to find our rhythms of rest, our means of grace – not just so we can rested the way the world thinks of rest, but so we can joyfully and healthily continue striving together to enter the never-ending Rest that is soon to come!
Do join me in praying that the Lord will teach us many things about striving well together this coming year.
