Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

Genesis 2:1-3

K – W – L 

Know – Wonder – Learn 

We are just beginning to read through the first eleven chapters of Genesis.  Last week we started with God creating the world and everything in it. Throughout His creation He said it was good and blessed some of it. God managed to create everything He wanted to create in six days. But He wasn’t finished. He had one more day, the seventh day. On that day, He rested. Not because He was tired, mind you. He rested, to demonstrate the perfect way to wrap up a job well done. God also blessed and sanctified His day of rest. 

This was the pattern of time God gave those that He created in His image to follow. 

When all was said and done it was sanctified. The whole idea of sanctification has to do with being set apart for special use or purpose, in order to make it holy or sacred. God already had the special purpose of rest, or Sabbath, available for us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. This rest, or Sabbath, Jesus provides happens every day, not just on Sunday.  When we read Colossians 2:16-17 

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” 

Paul makes it quite clear that believers are not under obligation to observe the Sabbath because Jesus fulfilled the purpose and plan of the Sabbath for us and in us. 

We may not be obligated to observe it, yet we need to recognize that we don’t lose it either. Every day is a day of rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, every day should be specially set apart for God.

Although we may be free from any obligation of the Sabbath, we would be foolish not to recognize the importance of a day of rest. In Exodus 20 we are commanded to work six days. Did you catch that? Six days. Not a four or five day work week, oh and there is nothing about vacation time in the Bible. 

It’s not like God took a day off after working for six, and that was that. According to Jesus in John 5:17, 

“Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 

It would be ludicrous to think the Lord God Almighty who created the universes and all that is in them, and then He needed a day off? What God did need, was to show humans the rest of God so they would know they can enter into it by the finished work of Jesus. 

Did you notice the seventh day doesn’t end with, so the evening and morning were the ….. day?” That’s because God’s rest for us is not confined to one literal day. God’s rest for us is eternal beginning at salvation. 

The idea of resting in Jesus, or Jesus being our Sabbath rest comes from the idea that God ceased from His labors. When we come to Christ and accept Him as our Lord and Savior, He becomes our all and all. We no longer need to labor, or earn salvation or “do” anything to make things “right.” 

Jesus has covered the cost and done everything that could be done to provide us with a free way to heaven or presence with God. 

Let’s go back to where we hear the fourth command given to Moses, Exodus 20:8-11,

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

For what it’s worth, the Israelites were told to take one day off, only to begin another six more days of labor. At that point in time the various elements of the Sabbath day only symbolized the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah would provide a permanent rest for His people. Jesus was sent to work for the Father and for us. He too rested after He completed His job. In Hebrews 10: 12, we read, 

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.

Jesus completed the task given and He sits now, waiting. His labor is over and so is ours. Because of what He did, we no longer have to “labor” in law-keeping in order to be justified in God’s sight. Jesus is our Sabbath rest. He was sent so that we might rest in God and in what He has provided. 

I think that is the key point 

in the concept of sabbath, and 

Jesus being our Sabbath rest. 

Taking time to rest in Jesus. 

Understanding in the midst of our busy lives that ultimately all of this is just a vapor, a wisp. 

But that which is eternal, 

is our relationship with Jesus, the Creator. 

Eternity starts now, not when we die. 

Heaven is here, now. 

The Holy Spirit lives within us and in us. 

Carving out time, to be holy, to cease from labor, to sit and rest in just being, 

How often do we do this? 

It’s not supposed to be just a once a week event. 

It’s supposed to be a lifelong every day event, Matthew 11: 28-30,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus is “Lord of the Sabbath,” Mark 2:27-28

”Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

He wasn’t kidding. Let’s go back to what Paul wrote to the Colossians in chapter 2: 16-17,

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”

For the Christian, Sabbath-keeping is a matter of spiritual freedom, no longer a commandment from God. We are told not to judge each other. 

Another common error in the Sabbath-keeping debate is the concept that the Sabbath was the day of worship. When we go back to Exodus 20:8-11,  there was nothing said about worship, the Sabbath command was to do no work on the Sabbath day. Yes, Jews in the Old Testament and New Testament and modern times use the Sabbath as their worship day but that was not the essence of the command. 

By the time you get to Christians meeting to worship in the New Testament, in Acts 2:46 we read, 

“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,” 

They met every day! If they did have a regular day to meet it would have been the first day of the week, our Sunday, not because it was the Sabbath day but in honor of Christ’s resurrection on Sunday. 

Check in time. 

We have been brought up in 21st Century America. Our culture tells us from the time we are able to answer questions, our identity is based on our work, on what we do. How many times have you heard the question, 

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

The Bible claims the complete opposite. According to God, you can’t “do” enough to warrant anything significant. But you can “be.” You can be a child of the King. You can be loving, joyful, peaceful, forbearing, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and have self-control. Oh, and by the way, work in a hospital as a doctor or nurse or in a school as a teacher or janitor, or maybe you have the gift of being a plumber. All of the occupations our world offers us are not meant to provide us with our identity. Jesus is supposed to do that. 

If anything, a day off from working and resting is supposed to remind us of that fact. We can’t work enough to make things right. It might seem like we have made it but only for a moment. Like a house of cards, it only takes one catastrophe to make everything come tumbling down. 

Let’s go back to where we started. We are reading about the beginning of how everything began. God spent six days creating and when He had completed everything He set out to do, He rested. In the New Testament, God sent His only Son down to earth with a task, and when He had completed that task He said, while hanging on a cross, John 19:30, 

“Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”