Rest II - In the Beginning…Rest.
We are in the 2nd week of our series on “Entering God’s Rest.” Last week, we learned about what rest is and how it has to do with ceasing from our own efforts and entering our lives into a yoke with Jesus.
Introduction:
I wonder if you have ever started a project…a big one. Like remodeling your home, maybe building a home. We build a Gazebo this past summer. I did the work during my vacation in the summer. I wanted to make sure I could finish it. What do you feel like when you finish a project like that? One that is a big project? You feel pretty good. Most of us stop and enjoy our finished product.
I doubt any of us have ever started as big of a project as God did when He began to create the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, " Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, {I have given} every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 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. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
I. God’s Seventh Day:
a. God didn’t rest because He was tired.
i. The Hebrew word, “shabath”, which is translated "rest" does not really refer to a requirement to sleep or take a break due to weariness.
ii. The word for rest in Genesis means to “stop or cease.”
iii. In numerology, the number seven means “completed.”
iv. God rested because He was finished.
v. I wish we didn’t have to use the word “rest” because it is not the literal word here. We should substitute the word “cease from labor.”
b. This is because there is a contrast between God’s “work” of 6 days, and God’s so-called “rest” on the seventh.
i. The passage we read in verse 3 notes that God “sanctified” the 7th day, because “in it” he “rested from all His creative work”
ii. The word “sanctified” means “set apart” or made “special”
iii. The problem is that we tend to interpret backward. We look at this 7th day in the light of our modern understanding of the Sabbath.
iv. But that is not applicable here. You see, there is no command for mankind to observe the 7th day Sabbath until the time of the Exodus. We only hear in this place that the 7th day is considered “set apart.”
c. Another detail concerning the seventh-day account is that it does not have the formula "and there was evening and there was morning, a seventh day" as do the six days of creation.
i. The seventh day of Gen 2:2,3 may have been a regular day as were the first six days of creation, or it may have been an indefinite period of time.
ii. There is no mention in the Genesis account to an end to God's seventh-day rest.
iii. It is presented as an ongoing state by the omission of "and there was evening and there was morning, a seventh day".
1. The fact that the Genesis account is so carefully constructed suggests that this omission may not be accidental.
2. This implies that the seventh day is not closed.
3. In all other days the text says, "there is the evening and the morning, the n day."
4. But there is no such closing for the seventh day.
iv. Even though the 7th Day of God’s rest may not be at an end, God has been very busy during this "rest.”
1. He is busy with the “work” of redemption.
a. Forming the nation of Israel,
b. Sending the Messiah,
c. Building His Church
2. During this time, God has ceased His creative work. But he is still very busy!
d. You see, during the first 6 days…
i. God was working so as to establish a relationship with man
1. by creating an environment to sustain man (Gn 1:1-25)
a. During the first six days of creation there were light, air, grass, herbs, and trees; there were the sun, the moon, and the stars; there were fish, birds, cattle, creeping things, and beasts
b. All of the creation before man’s creation was preparatory
2. Then God created man. (Gn 1:26-27; 2:7; 2:21-25)
3. And then He instructed the man, providing the basis on which the relationship would exist and continue.
4. If you look carefully at the creation account of Genesis, man was the object and purpose of creation.
5. The purpose of the first six days was to ESTABLISH a relationship with man.
ii. God was “finished” only after He had created man.
e. On the 6th day, Adam and Eve were created late in the day.
1. Neither had lived a full day before they entered into God’s day of completion.
2. Their first day was God’s 7th day of creation.
3. To put it plainly, Adam and Eve were created to ENTER INTO AND ABIDE IN GOD’S REST.
4. Since the formula which closed each day of creation is omitted for the day of God's rest, is there a suggestion that God's intent was for Adam and Eve to live in a perpetual Sabbath—a day that would not end.
5. The purpose of this series is to help us understand what it means to “enter into God’s rest.”
f. Let’s look a little closer at what happened on the 7th day:
i. On the 7th day…God did not do anything else to ESTABLISH the relationship with man.
ii. On the 7th day…God sought to ENJOY the relationship with man.
iii. God walked with man, who he had made to be his friend and companion.
1. God enjoyed that relationship. It was the whole reason He “worked” for 6 days. God had made man…that is you and I, for a very specific purpose. For a relationship with Him.
2. This relationship was pleasing to Him.
3. And the conditions which characterized the "rest" of God would probably have continued had it not been for man's sin.
iv. It was intended for Adam and all future men who would exist, that when they entered into God’s rest, that God would be their focus.
II. God created man in His image, and for four basic purposes…I will only cover these 4 briefly, since they aren’t the purpose of this sermon.
a. to have a relationship with God
b. to cultivate the garden (ie. labor),
i. We have each been given a garden that we are called to cultivate.
ii. Man was created to labor.
1. Before there was any sin in the garden, man was given a job to do. He was given the task of
a. Naming the animals (intellectual labor)
b. Dressing the garden (physical labor).
iii. We were created to have purpose in our life – in other words to have a garden to cultivate.
iv. A garden to cultivate is what we mean by “Meaningful Work”
v. Some of us wonder what our purpose in life is.
1. Many Christians feel as though they have much in common with the mythological figure Sisyphus. Sisyphus, having angered the gods, is condemned by them to the task of eternally pushing a boulder up a mountain. As soon as he reaches the summit with his burden, the boulder rolls past him down the slope he just ascended. Sisyphus returns to the valley to repeat his pointless and wearisome efforts.
2. Our purpose in life gets boiled down to going to work to make enough money to pay bills, and work hard enough that we can enjoy some leisure time.
3. Last week, we spoke of the futility that we experience when we are serving ourselves instead of Christ. It is what happens when we are not in the yoke with Christ. We serve ourselves and find nothing but futility.
4. Need for purpose affected prisoners in a Hungarian concentration camp during orld War II.
a. The Nazi officer commanded [the prisoners] to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the other end of the plant. The next day the process was repeated in reverse. They were ordered to move a huge pile of sand back to the other end of the compound. Day after day they hauled the same pile of sand from one end of the camp to the other. ...One old man began crying uncontrollably; the guards hauled him away. Another screamed until he was beaten into silence. Then a young man who had survived three years in the camp darted away from the group. The guards shouted for him to stop as he ran toward the electrified fence. The other prisoners cried out, but it was too late; there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling noise as smoke puffed from his smoldering flesh. In the days that followed, dozens of the prisoners went mad and ran from their work, only to be shot by the guards or electrocuted by the fence. The commandant smugly remarked that there soon would be "no more need to use the crematoria."
vi. My next sermon series will be based upon “The Purpose Driven Life.” It will be to help you understand the purposes for which God made you. And to help you to experience those purposes.
c. to be fruitful and multiply,
i. To Bear Fruit
ii. The next purpose of man was to be fruitful and multiply. This is about being productive. The Lord has put within us the need to see results from our labor. The more fruit we see, the more satisfied we will be.
d. to rule over the earth and all that is in it, that is…to have Dominion.
i. This is the purpose that man was given to have dominion over the earth and all that is in it.
ii. Every one of us needs a realm of authority for which we are responsible. Those who do not have this will have a deep feeling of incompleteness, and then will try to usurp, or wrongly use authority to fill this void.
III. Let’s look at Adam’s point of view concerning this rest he was to enter, and the work he was created for.
a. Adam, at creation had to do nothing from a sense of urgency (Gn 2:8-9; 2:15-17)
i. When Adam was created, he was placed into a direct, personal relationship with God.
ii. God had given Him everything He needed.
iii. A “perfect” environment.
iv. When Adam got tired, he could sleep.
v. When Adam got hungry, he could pluck the fruit from a nearby tree that God had provided and eat. (Gn 1:29-30, 2:9; 2:15-17; 3:2).
b. It did not take painful toil to make the garden produce.
i. Adam and Eve simply enjoyed its fruit as they took care of the garden and rested in the joy of their unrestricted communion with God.
ii. God provided for their physical needs. They did not have to labor to survive. They had God to provide for that need.
iii. They had duties, but those duties were part of their design.
c. At creation, Adam and Eve had NOTHING to hinder them from having a relationship with the One who had created them.
i. Remember what our definition of rest was last week?
1. Ceasing from our own efforts to
a. Establish or Maintain God’s Approval.
b. Or to meet our own needs.
2. This was “God’s rest.”
a. I was reading from Matthew Chapter 6, v 25 - “I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 "Do not worry then, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear for clothing?' 32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
b. We try so hard to meet our needs, don’t we?
i. We worry about meeting our needs. We fight for our survival. We work hard to get a few things and to pay off the debts.
ii. But Jesus is speaking about another lifestyle. Did you see what he says…”Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”
iii. We do the opposite. We seek these things and expect His kingdom to be added to us.
iv. It is little wonder we are frustrated. We try to meet our own needs. This week while reading the old testament, I came across Abraham. He tries to meet his need for an offspring by taking his wife’s servant. It was a solution. But it wasn’t God’s solution.
v. How often we do that. We want something. We don’t want to wait. We go for it anyway. It is less than God’s best. And who suffers?
vi.
d. God made us in a relationship so He would be our provider.
i. Jesus was saying that we are no longer slaves to survival.
ii. If we are in that relationship with God, then we have God to provide for us.
iii. Yes, we must work, but God provides.
iv. Just like in the Garden. We are to rest in God’s perfect provision.
v. God designed work for Adam and Eve before sin entered the world. Before the world plunged into sin, God judged work, a part of his creation, to be "very good." As a matter of fact, Genesis makes clear that Eve was co-worker with Adam.
IV. Rest Lost:
i. When man sinned, he was excluded from God's REST and God began His WORK of redemption to restore man back to himself.
1. What is this new "WORK" which God started immediately after Adam and Eve sinned? It is the work of Redemption (atonement: covering).
a. We read that "The Lord God MADE garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them" (Gen 3:21).
b. This event was the beginning of a "WORK" which would continue throughout the centuries until it's significance would become fully revealed in the death of Christ.
c. The death of that first lamb, while not mentioned as such in the Genesis account, was the acorn of the great truth which, through the following centuries, would grow into the great, spreading oak of righteousness by faith.
d. It pointed forward to Christ's substitutionary life and death for lost mankind.
e. Naked Adam and Eve were clothed (atoned: covered) with robes made from the skin of the lamb - a substitute who gave his life.
f.
ii. With Adam’s sin, came sorrow.
1. It not only resulted in our “sin nature” but also led God to change the way in which man lived.
2. Adam and Eve suffered the cursing of the ground and the pain of childbirth, and death as a result of their sin.
3. Gn 3:17-19: “Cursed is the ground…by the sweat of the brow shall you eat bread”
4. Instead of being focused upon God, Adam would now be completely preoccupied with survival.
a. The ground had been cursed.
b. The ground would no longer be abundant.
c. Adam would no longer have the freedom to fellowship with God.
i. Rather than sweet communion, he found sorrow, sweat and survival the results of his sin.
5. The curse of the ground would be a means of communication by God though history.
6. God did not make labor a curse when Adam disobeyed him; although the curse did include difficulty and frustration in man's work.
7. The curse is recorded in Genesis 3:1719: Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
8. The Curse is the CONSEQUENCE that would mean our labor would not be fruitful.
9. Note also that when God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden for their own good, the Bible says that Adam must still work the ground (Gn 3:23). Work is actually a gift of God.
i. For the Nation of Israel they were told that when they were obedient, God would bless it and it would increase (Lv 26:4), and if they were disobedient it would be cursed (Dt. 28:18).
ii. Israel would learn that the quest for survival hinders a man from enjoying a relationship with God.
iii. When men don’t desire a relationship with Him, He gives them exactly what they want. (Rom 1:18-28)
iii. Just as Adam and Eve spent their first day in rest before taking up their work, we can enjoy the blessings of salvation only by first resting in the completed righteousness Jesus has provided.
1. From this perspective, God’s rest becomes the very foundation of the glorious truth of righteousness by faith.
2. When He set apart, or sanctified, the 7th day, God was entering into an everlasting covenant relationship with mankind—a relationship in which men and women were always to be dependent on Him.
3. Thus, when Adam and Eve sinned, choosing to be self-dependent rather than God-dependent, they broke this God-given covenant.
4. One result was that they forfeited the true rest that this 7th day symbolized. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Genesis 3:19).
a. This means that before their sin and fall, the ground produced fruitfully, without excessive effort. It produced food abundantly.
5. But Jesus came into this world for the express purpose of restoring this rest that mankind lost at the Fall (see Matthew 11:28).
a. In doing this, He restored the significance of the 7th day: The rest we are to enter. The ceasing from our own efforts to provide for ourselves. To learn to depend upon God for our needs.
b. In order to receive the good news of salvation, we must return to this fundamental principle of rest that was given to our first parents.
b. Our labor must always please God, and not men. The daily drudgery that oppresses us is the consequence of trying to please human masters. When we please people rather than God, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to gain approval, even to the point of disobeying God.
V. Application: What is the purpose of your life? To get things, to pay bills, to get more things, to have more time off work so you can play more?
a. Or is your life’s purpose focused upon God, a relationship with Him.
b. Are you working for yourself or are you serving God?