Entering God’s Rest
Download MP3Alright. We continue our study in Genesis. And so I invite you to open your bibles to Genesis chapter 1 or Genesis chapter 2, excuse me. Last week, we looked at how God created humans on the 6th day of creation and how mankind was the last of all creatures to be created. And really, we're seen as the pinnacle of creation, yet we are not the climax of the creation story.
Joel Brooks:The climax is day 7, the day that God rests. We've been actually looking at implications as to what it means to created in God's image. And last week, we mostly looked at work and dominion. And this week, we're gonna look at resting, And the way we rest reflects God's image. And next week, we are going to look at being created male and female and how gender reflects being created in God's image.
Joel Brooks:But we're given many commands throughout the Bible, but the command to actually rest and to observe the Sabbath is the only one that's embedded in the creation story itself. After God created heavens and the earth, God rested on day 7. And since we were created in his image, we are to rest. So read with me Genesis will actually begin at the very end of chapter 1 verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.
Joel Brooks:And there was evening, and there was morning, the 6th day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the 7th day, God finished his work that he had done, and he
Caleb Chancey:rested on the 7th day from all his work that
Joel Brooks:he had done. On the 7th day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the 7th day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. In Exodus 20 verse 8, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 6 days you shall labor and do all your work, but the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
Joel Brooks:On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in 6 days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the 7th day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. This is the word of the Lord.
Caleb Chancey:Thanks be to God.
Jeffrey Heine:If you would pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Our father, we thank you for the word that you have given us, in which we might learn to trust you and to love you more. We might learn of your goodness to us and of your glory that is to be enjoyed forever. And we pray that you would bless us, with your presence in this place as we listen to your word. May my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I don't have to even know you to know this about you. You are busy. You're very busy.
Joel Brooks:Your your plate is full. You just don't have enough time for everything. Maybe your bandwidth is full. Maybe you fooled yourself into thinking you're just in a busy season right now, but the strange how those seasons keep blurring together. And also know this, you you wish it wasn't that way.
Joel Brooks:You wish you weren't so busy, but if you were to actually pause for a moment, you would probably acknowledge that deep down, it's something that you're proud of. You're proud of your busyness. Deep down, you you kind of think it it shows a little bit of of your worth and your importance. Busyness has become something in our culture that we celebrate. If someone asks you someone asks you, how are things going?
Joel Brooks:There's no shame at all in saying things are going well. You know I'm just I'm really busy. I mean work's got me working a whole lot of hours and and and I'm just working overtime. There's a lot to do. There's no shame in that in our culture.
Joel Brooks:But if you were to answer how are you doing with this, thanks for asking. You know, after working reasonable hours all week, going to bed at a good time and getting plenty of rest, I've just decided to spend this day doing absolutely nothing. You're like, what? You you would always feel like you need to apologize for giving an answer like that. That that that that is not something to celebrate.
Joel Brooks:That's something to be ashamed of, and I have never in all of my years heard that answer. We are a relentlessly restless people. We don't call it restlessness. No. We just call it being busy, but really it's restlessness.
Joel Brooks:We're always hurrying from one thing to the next. We never have enough time to do everything we want. As a result, we multitask everything in order to try to get it all done. And so, we listen to a, you know, Annie Downs podcast while we're running. We check our emails while we're watching our children's soccer games or while driving cars?
Joel Brooks:Raise of hands. How many of you have ever texted while driving? The rest of you are liars. My gosh. Okay.
Joel Brooks:How many of you have ever texted while driving while eating breakfast? Texted while driving while eating breakfast and still getting dressed or putting your makeup on. Okay. We we we multitask at everything. I just read an article a couple of weeks ago, how the food industry, the fast food industry is one of the only brick and mortar places that are is exploding in growth.
Joel Brooks:And it's because no one has time to actually sit down and have a meal together anymore. We even multitask at our resting. So we go to dinner with our friends, but then we actually spend time texting our other friends. Or when we're watching a show on Netflix we have to be checking our Instagram. We don't know how to slow down and rest.
Joel Brooks:And and I'm not I'm not trying to just make jokes about this. We honestly don't know how to rest. We have forgotten what it means to rest. And since it's part of being created in God's image because he rested, that means we have forgotten how to be human. What does rest look like?
Joel Brooks:I know we all love the idea of rest. The first home we had, we lived there for a couple of years. And one of the first things I did is I put in the backyard a hammock, And I put it out there. And for 2 years, I enjoyed that hammock by looking at it outside the kitchen window and just seeing it there and every time I would just see it just beautifully there in our backyard. I think someday, like someday I'm gonna get to lay in that hammock.
Joel Brooks:And I remember after a couple of years I finally got to lay on it and after 2 minutes I was bored. And I was like I've been looking for for 2 years for this but I didn't know how to settle into it. I didn't know what rest should actually look like. Busyness is certainly an idol in the 21st century, if not the idol in the 21st century. And as we've looked at in the past, every idol demands sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:And what we sacrifice on the altar of busyness is our capacity for joy. We have become a angry, anxious, joyless people. And, of course, I don't have to spend really any more time explaining that to you because you all feel it. You all feel the pressure to be busy because if you're not busy, you feel unimportant. So what does the Bible teach us about this?
Joel Brooks:What does the Bible teach us about rest and in particular Sabbath rest? Actually quite a lot. Sabbath rest is extremely important to God. As a matter of fact, he actually required the death penalty for those who didn't observe the Sabbath. And that alone should get our attention as to the importance that God places on the Sabbath.
Joel Brooks:As you read through the old testament, if you wanna find ways to tick God off, you'll find 2 primary ways. 1, neglect the widow. 2, never stop working. Never stop working and you will tick God off. In Exodus 20, we read that God tells us that we need to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy.
Joel Brooks:This is the 4th of the Ten Commandments. The word Sabbath simply means to cease or to rest. One day a week we are supposed to cease from work and we are supposed to rest. Sounds easy right? Because you literally don't work.
Joel Brooks:That's what we're being asked to do. Literally do nothing. It sounds pretty easy. So so why is that so hard for us to observe this? Some of you are thinking, well it's because I have legitimate reasons that I can't ever rest.
Joel Brooks:I mean I've got kids. How are you supposed to rest with kids? Don't you think the Israelites had kids? The Israelites had kids. You might be thinking well I've just got to put food on the table.
Joel Brooks:I've got to work. I think the Israelites had to put food on the table. Well gosh, you know I've got a really demanding boss. I've got demanding work. Do you really want to go there with the Israelites?
Joel Brooks:Like do you? Is that is that the excuse you want to pull before them as to why you can't observe the Sabbath? I mean I I get it. We're in this this current within our culture that makes taking a day and just resting hard. This is why we actually have the commandment here that begins with the words remember.
Joel Brooks:That's different than all the other commandments. All the other commandments, they begin with the words you shall or you shall not, but not our commandment to obey and observe the Sabbath. It begins with remember the Sabbath. And God uses this language because he knows that no matter what culture we live in, no matter what time in history we have been placed, it will be hard within that culture and time and place to remember to rest. Everything's gonna keep you from trying to observe the Sabbath.
Joel Brooks:And so, you're gonna forget. And when you remember, you might even feel guilt in taking that time to rest. And so you need to be reminded, ceasing from work is good. And God actually blesses that day. He blesses you when you observe that day.
Joel Brooks:In Genesis 2:3 we read that God blessed the 7th day. He doesn't bless any of the other days but he pours out this special blessing on that day of rest, and it's his gift to us. And what I want us to look at is 6 six reasons that the Sabbath is God's gift to us, and it's a blessed day. The first is this. The Sabbath is a gift given to us, blessed by God, that allows us to enjoy his creation.
Joel Brooks:Don't miss the the importance of the Sabbath being embedded in the creation account itself. Because what this means is that that commandment or the Sabbath being observed that was given to us pre sin. Pre fall. Before sin ever entered the world, before the world ever fell under a curse, there was the Sabbath. And that should change the way that many of us actually think about the Sabbath, because typically we think of God giving us the Sabbath because he knows that work is hard for us.
Joel Brooks:That work is toilsome for us and that we're gonna burn out unless we have regular rhythms of rest. But that cannot be the reason that the Sabbath is initially given. Because at this point, there was no toil in man's labors. There was no work anxiety or stress. And what this means for us is that the Sabbath was given not to give us a break from work, but so that we might enjoy God's work.
Joel Brooks:We might enjoy God's handiwork and what God has created for us to enjoy. God didn't rest on the 7th day of creation because he was just really tired. You know God's thinking I just need to recharge my batteries. I need a day people and he just takes a day to rest. He's not taking a brace break because he's exhausted.
Joel Brooks:He is taking time to enjoy the work of his labor, to enjoy his creation. He's celebrating the completeness of that work. Don't think of creation as this. God's working really hard and finally is like, I need to rest. Instead God finishes all his work and he's like, ah let me enjoy this.
Joel Brooks:And he enjoys the works of his hands. After every day of creation, God said, this is good. After he created man on the 6th day, he said, oh this this is very good. This is very good. And then God in a sense, he he kicks back, props up his legs if you will.
Joel Brooks:I know he doesn't do that. Don't want to send an email but like he he kind of kicks back, opens a drink and just just observes and takes in the goodness of his creation. And this is what we are to do on the Sabbath. To take one day a week to enjoy God's handiwork. We're to put away our work.
Joel Brooks:We're to quit checking our emails. We're to stop cleaning up, and we're here to just enjoy what God has given us. We're to go on walks. We're to take in the sunshine. We're we're to look at the trees and the flowers and to watch the birds and to listen to them sing and to just take in the sights and the sounds of God's created world.
Joel Brooks:The Sabbath is a celebration of God and everything he has created. And if God thought it was important enough to take time to enjoy those things, shouldn't we? 2nd, second reason the Sabbath is a gift to us is to remind us that our value comes in who we are and not what we do. What's one of the first questions you ask somebody when you meet them? So what do you do?
Joel Brooks:It's an identifying question. So so what do you do? Now sometimes you ask that because you're just genuinely curious in all professions and you just you know, you're eager to learn about something. But but honestly, there's at least a part of you that's trying to size up a person. You're trying to see what value does that person have to you.
Joel Brooks:You're assessing them. Now be honest, if you meet somebody and after asking what do you do and you know they you realize that yes, this is a person who works ridiculously long hours, but at some high level position. You meet that person, and then you meet somebody else who's working part time at a very low level position, who do you walk away from thinking is more important? Who do you walk away from thinking that person has more value? We assign people value based on what they do.
Joel Brooks:Yet that is not at all how God operates. Before Adam and Eve ever did a single work, God looked at him and said, oh, this is good. This is very good. Before they had done anything. So our goodness is not tied to our work.
Joel Brooks:And the reason that keeping a Sabbath is so hard for us is we have never heard God say those words over us. Oh, this is very good. We've never heard God say that to us. And as a result, we believe that we are still lacking, that we still need to do something in order to prove ourselves, to show we have worth, to justify our existence. And so we work and we work and we work and we work never stopping because we never have felt that affirmation.
Joel Brooks:We're just looking and dying for affirmation and we have never felt it from God. So we seek affirmation not in who we are. We seek affirmation in what we do. And so we can't sit back and celebrate the completed work of God because we feel incomplete. There's a hole in us and work has become this way that we try to prove our worth.
Joel Brooks:Many of you have recently graduated from college, and you've been trying to find a job, and you are panicking because you cannot find that perfect job. That perfect job for you. And the reason that you are panicking is because you're not trying to find a job, you are looking for an identity. You're looking for an identity. You need to prove not just the value of your education, the last 4 years and all that money was worth it.
Joel Brooks:You're trying to show your own value, That you were worth it. You're trying to justify your existence. God gives us this Sabbath as a way of reminding us that we have been declared good and that we have his affirmation. We need not look any place else for it. We don't have to work for it.
Joel Brooks:We don't have to seek for it anywhere else. And when we forget this, we strive as hard as we can in order to get that affirmation from others. We log in ridiculously long hours just in order to hear a boss, you know, say, hey good work, Joel. I noticed it. Good work.
Joel Brooks:Or if you are a stay at home mom, you you strive. You work so hard to have your homes immaculate. Your children obedient. Your dinners tasty and nutritious, your dress stylish, and all doing it with this apparent ease. Just so others could look at you and be out, wow.
Joel Brooks:How do you do that and just make it look so easy? You're craving that affirmation. Why is it that some of you just have to keep checking Instagram after you post something to see how many likes you get? Honestly, it's because you don't ever feel like God's doing this to you. He's not.
Joel Brooks:You've never felt that God looks at you like I love that. I love who you are and you're looking for affirmation from others. God put the Sabbath in our lives as a way of somewhat violently stopping that meaningless march. Let's go to the 3rd 3rd reason. 3rd reason why the Sabbath is God's blessed gift to us is the Sabbath is a cure for anxiety.
Joel Brooks:The Sabbath is a cure for anxiety. Another way of putting it is this, the Sabbath reminds us that it is God, not us, that rules the world. I confess here. This is one of the reasons that makes, one of the reasons it's hard for me to take a Sabbath is because I like to think I rule the world. And that if I were to stop working, everything's just gonna fall apart.
Joel Brooks:You know, Redeemer Community Church is just gonna implode, crumble to pieces. If I don't respond to every email or text, if I'm not available 20 fourseven, and I'm not alone in this. I mean some of you think that if you if you don't check your email every few minutes that that the sky is gonna fall or your business is gonna implode or, like, kittens and puppies are gonna explode all over the world. You know, whatever it is you just you think that you are holding it all together. You rule the world.
Joel Brooks:Let me let you in on a little secret that everybody needs to grapple with And that's you are not that important. You were not meant to carry the weight of the world. That's God's job. And when you try to do His job, it will crush you. God is the one who's in control.
Joel Brooks:All that control you think you have through all your hard work is just an illusion. Because God is the ultimate ultimately the one in control. All that anxiety that you currently experience as you exhaust yourself trying to keep everything afloat is a result of you trying to do God's work. You know when God gave the death penalty for not observing the Sabbath, all he was doing was speeding up the process that we're all bringing in on ourselves. Because when we try to rule the world and work relentlessly, tirelessly, and never take a break, that will crush us.
Joel Brooks:And so God gives us the Sabbath to free us from that burden. 4th. 4th reason why the Sabbath is God's blessed gift to us is that the Sabbath allows us to enjoy relationships. When God gives us the gift of the Sabbath here, he does not tell us just to stop working. Notice what he says in Exodus.
Joel Brooks:He says, you shall not work nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor the sojourner, nor the immigrant at the gate. And what God is saying here is that on the Sabbath you will never use people. You will never use people as a means to an end. And this is huge here. What the Sabbath is saying is it's God's way of making us relate to one another as person to person and not as a person to a commodity.
Joel Brooks:You cannot use people on the Sabbath. You're not allowed to work or to even discuss work. You're not to talk about what another person can do for you. God gives you a day in which you can simply relate to another human image of God to image of God. You are to enjoy the person.
Joel Brooks:Not enjoy what they do for you. So you can slow down and you can take time as a family to to slowly cut up ingredients and and cook a meal together. And then to sit down and actually in an unhurried pace eat and have conversation without worry of the constant interruption of text or of emails. I've mentioned this in the past, but husbands, some of your wives would have to duct tape your phone to their forehead in order for you to give them your undivided attention. That's the only way you would ever just look at them unfocused.
Joel Brooks:But here's the day we get to relate to one another person to person. God is telling us put those things down, cease from working and simply be with other human beings. 5th. 5th reason why the Sabbath is God's blessed gift to us is that the Sabbath reminds us of our salvation. To see this more clearly, we actually need to go to Deuteronomy chapter 5.
Joel Brooks:It's there in your worship guide. Deuteronomy chapter 5. In Deuteronomy 5, we're gonna see the 10 commandments are repeated. However, the reason for keeping the Sabbath is different this time. So we're gonna read the whole thing.
Joel Brooks:It says observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. 6 days you shall labor and do all your work but the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. So far it's almost identical to Exodus 20 but here it parts. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.
Joel Brooks:And the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath. Now in Exodus 20, we are told to keep the Sabbath to remember it because God rested on the 7th day of creation. So we're getting this pre fall, this pre sin reason that we are to keep the Sabbath. Now we come to Deuteronomy 5 and we're given a post fall or a post sin reason that we are to keep the Sabbath.
Joel Brooks:We are to remember our redemption. We were once slaves but we have been rescued by the mighty outstretched hand of God. In other words, God is saying, you no longer have to be a slave. You don't have to keep working. You no longer have to keep making bricks.
Joel Brooks:You don't have to just make a brick and then make another brick and then make another brick and it's just that toilsen. You can stop making bricks. I have redeemed you. I have saved you from that and you are now freed to rest and to worship. Let me ask you this question.
Joel Brooks:What is a better picture of the gospel? Your ability to work hard or your ability to rest? What's a better picture of the gospel? It's your ability to rest. Remembering the Sabbath reminds us that when it comes to our salvation, our work doesn't matter.
Joel Brooks:God saves. God gives us rest. And I think this is actually one of the reasons that, the Sabbath day traditionally begins at sundown, not sunrise. You know, the the Jewish days, they begin at sunset and not sunrise because that's how you see it in the story in Genesis chapter 1. The days of creation began with and there was evening and there was morning the 1st day.
Joel Brooks:And then there was evening and morning the 2nd day. So you begin with the evening. I think there is something very profound about that. And it's very fitting for Sabbath rest to begin when you go to sleep. So what you do is you lay down, You rest.
Joel Brooks:You do nothing. And then, you wake up to a world that you did not create. But God has given to you to enjoy. That's Sabbath rest. We rest and we wake up to the reality that God has worked on our behalf and he has given us things to enjoy.
Joel Brooks:6th, the the final thing, final reason that the Sabbath is God's blessed gift to us is because it reminds us of Jesus. Paul says in Colossians that the Sabbath is a shadow of things to come. The substance however belongs to Christ. The Sabbath is a shadow, but the substance belongs to Christ. Jesus is the reality to which it points.
Joel Brooks:So the Sabbath is is just this taste, if you will, of the true rest that we find in Jesus who said, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The Sabbath points us to that finished work on the cross where Jesus says says it is finished. Just like in the creation account, God does his work and he says it is finished. Do you notice that over and over? He looks at all that he has finished and he has said it is good.
Joel Brooks:Now the Sabbath, it reminds us to look to the cross where God steps back through his son says, it is finished. It's finished. Our salvation is achieved. We don't work for it. It's just a gift to us just like the Sabbath.
Joel Brooks:Jesus did all the work. We're to just wake up and receive all the benefits. God now, once again, looks at us after that and he says, oh, this is very good. Very good. Not because of anything we have done, but because of what his son has done on our behalf.
Joel Brooks:So how are we to keep the Sabbath? Pick a day and rest. We could talk a lot about what is rest, what is ceasing from work. Does this need to be a Sunday or a Saturday? I'll let you guys figure that out because we don't have time to go through that.
Joel Brooks:But I will say pick a day, 1 out of 7, and rest. And don't just cease from work, rest in Christ. We keep the Sabbath not by just ceasing from work and then filling up our minds with a bunch of garbage. That's not why God consecrated this day. This is the only day that we have in all scripture that is defined as holy.
Joel Brooks:It's a holy Sabbath or a holy day. God doesn't declare any other day blessed and he doesn't declare any other day holy, only the Sabbath. Saying that this is a consecrated blessed time in which we could simply waste time with God and his creation. And we can hear his word and we can enjoy one another as humans created in his image. Take a day to do that.
Joel Brooks:And then you let that rest prepare you for the work week to come. So you'll be prepared and ready to go into that work week, not trying to prove yourself. Not trying to show that you have worth. But fully trusting and enjoying the rest you have found in Christ and that your identity is found completely in him. Let us pray.
Joel Brooks:Our father, we thank you for the gift of your son and the rest that we have in him. And thank you that we no longer have to go through life just making endless bricks. You have redeemed us. Well, we can rest and we can worship. We can celebrate your goodness.
Joel Brooks:So I pray that the way we rest would indeed reflect who you are. That would reflect the gospel that we say we believe. And we pray this, in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
