Remsen Bible Fellowship; 10/22/2023
Introduction
When does God sleep? The answer, of course, is that he never sleeps. Psalm 121:1-4 says,
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
But while God never slumbers nor sleeps, we do read in Scripture of God’s rest. We come today to the seventh day of the creation narrative, which concludes the introduction of Genesis. Genesis 2:1-3 reads,
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
You may have noticed that though I have titled this sermon, “Sabbath yesterday, today, and forever”, the word Sabbath never actually occurs in the text. Nonetheless, what we find in these verses sets the pattern for what will become a law for the people of Israel in Exodus chapter 20; and here I believe we also see the roots of patterns not only for the people of Israel, but for all of humanity. We will look at Sabbath as completion, Sabbath as blessing, and Sabbath as rest.
The Completed Creation
Notice first of all a word that is in the text: “seventh.” Three times in three short verses Moses uses this word. “On the seventh day God finished his work”, “he rested on the seventh day”, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” Now, if you’ve been reading the Bible a long time, you’ve probably noticed the word “seven” before - it occurs over 600 times in the scriptures and is referred to by some as the “divine number.” The idea of divine fullness seems to be carried in the number seven; so, for example, in Revelation 1:4 we have a reference to the “Seven Spirits of God”, probably referring to the singular Holy Spirit.
And here, at the end of the creation narrative, we read that there is a seventh day of creation. Creation is full, it is complete. Now, as I’ve said in the previous weeks, there is actually still quite a bit of work to be done. But God has delegated that work to the man and his wife, he’s given the task of dominion to humanity. But the initial work of creation is finished. That word, “finished”, is also repeated in these verses: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished” and “God finished his work that he had done.”
Why is this significant? I would suggest three reasons:
* When God gave man dominion over the earth, all that man needed for the task was already present in creation. The creation itself contained what was necessary for man to accomplish the work God had given him to do. God had told man and woman to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. He had formed and filled the world in such a way that they could accomplish, over the course of the centuries to come, what he called them to - if they remained obedient.
* We will examine this more in a moment, but it’s important that God accomplished his six days of work and then rested. Now, we know God wasn’t tired. He had spoken all of creation into existence! But the pattern he sets is a rhythm of work, then rest. This will be made explicit in the giving of the Sabbath command in Exodus 20:9-11 says,
“9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. 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. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
One of our favorite books that the kids have had over the years is called “Monday is Wash Day.” And there is a line in that book that sums this up well: ‘“First we work and then we play.” Mama smiles but walks with purpose to the porch.’
God’s pattern of Sabbath rest on day seven does set the pattern for ceasing our labors - but it also sets the pattern for getting the work done in those seven days that you ought to be getting done. God values a job completed, a job well done. As creatures made in his image, so should we. So Sabbath, first of all, reminds us that God had finished his work.
The Blessing Over Creation
God also blessed the seventh day. Notice the language of verse 3: “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” What was different about day seven from days one through six? As we’ve already noted, and as Moses (the author of Genesis) makes clear in v3, it’s that God’s creative work is no longer taking place. And because of this, we are told, God blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart. That’s what “made it holy” means - he made a distinction between this day and every other day.
Now, it’s important to note, that at this point in the narrative, this is not a command for Adam and Eve. Rather, we are receiving a narrative description of God’s own actions. He ceased from labor, the seventh day. The word “sabbath” won’t occur until Exodus 16, and won’t be codified into Hebrew law until the Lord gives Moses the 10 commandments in Exodus 20.
Rather than being, at root, a rule, the first 7th day rest is just what the text says: a blessing. What seems to be indicated in this text is that though God’s work in creation was very good, the world he created was not just about work. The work moved toward rest, toward Sabbath. And here is probably as good a place as any to point out what is missing in these verses: the words “evening and morning.” While days one, two, three, four, five, and six all end with these words, the seventh does not. And the implication seems to be that creation was designed to live under the perpetual blessing of God.
I think this is why there is no command to Sabbath rest in the beginning - because all of human labor and activity was meant to be done as a part of our joyful reception of God’s blessing. Work was not originally toil. That came with the curse in Genesis 3, which we will look at in a couple of weeks. God did not command Adam and Eve to take a Sabbath, because they were living in the Sabbath blessing of God.
But once Adam falls and God lays a curse upon the earth, the character of work changes. It’s still commanded, and necessary, and good. But it is, at times, unspeakably hard and most definitely not restful. The difference between curse and blessing is a big one. But God had formed the world knowing that sin was coming, and he had instituted a pattern that would continue to bless his image bearers, if they would walk in that pattern. And that pattern is Sabbath rest, to stop working.
That’s precisely the logic of Exodus 20, where in verse 8 it says to remember the Sabbath, and in verse 10 that is defined as not working and not allowing (and certainly not forcing) your family, your servants, strangers in your city, or even your livestock to work on that day. This is what Sabbath looks like on the other side of the fall. Do as much as you can in those six days. And then honor the Lord and demonstrate your faith in him by ceasing work on that seventh day.
The people of Israel, of course, didn’t do this very well, and it becomes one of the charges brought against them by the prophets before they are sent into exile. It’s worth us asking, then: do we have to keep the Sabbath? The answer is no, but it’s not a simple no.
Remember the text - because God had ceased from the creative work of days one through six, he blessed the seventh day and made it different. He set it apart from all the others, he created a distinction. Just as in days one through three God had separated light from darkness, waters above from waters beneath, and land from sea; no now he separates day seven from the other six. There is something inherently different and blessed about a day when our normal strivings cease. Part of that blessing is rest, which makes intuitive sense to us as many of us are tired even this morning. We’ll talk about rest momentarily. But part of the blessing in not simply rest, but a reminder that we are not just to work in creation, we are also to enjoy it, and that enjoyment is meant to turn our eyes upward to the Giver of all good gifts.
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, “24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
Solomon says that part of finding enjoyment in the midst of a fallen - toiling - world is punctuating that labor with times of eating and drinking, of enjoyment, feasting, and remembering the goodness of God. God builds a rhythm for this into the very fabric of creation: the seventh day. So we need to Sabbath, because this side of the fall we need the rest. And we need the regular rhythm of pausing our normal labors and looking back over God’s goodness to him. We need to not merely labor, but take joy. This is a good gift from God. Remember what Jesus says Mark 2:27: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Which brings us to our last heading: believers are not under the Sabbath command of Exodus 20, because Christ has fulfilled the requirements of the law for us. For those of us who are in Christ, Sabbath is not a command, it is meant to be an overarching truth in which we live. God is, for us, beginning to undo the curse of the fall.
The Rest of God
The third component of Sabbath is, in fact, rest. Sabbath signifies completion, is a day and time blessed by God, but there is clearly a component of rest here, as well. “He rested on the seventh day” and “God rested from all his work that he had done.” Remember, I pointed out earlier that all of life was meant to be Sabbath for humanity. We were meant to live all of life under the blessing of God. But the curse interrupts that pattern. Can it be restored?
I’d direct your attention to the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews three, the writer compares Jesus to Moses, noting that Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house - but Jesus is a faithful Son (the overarching point of Hebrews is how Jesus fulfills and supersedes the Old Testament system and patterns of worship). Then he quotes Psalm 95, which speaks negatively of the wilderness generation, who rebelled under Moses’ leadership and did not enter into God’s promised rest (the promised land). His point is to call out those gathered in the church, who like the children of Israel, might think that just because you’re in with the right crowd means you’re set. He says beware, “lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (v12). No fewer than three times in Hebrews 3-4 do we read the warning of Psalm 95:7: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” And three times also we find the dreadful reminder of Psalm 95:11, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” The writer of Hebrews thinks this warning is life and death serious for his readers to grasp. But what does it have to do with Sabbath?
Let’s read the first 11 verses of Hebrews 4 to understand what’s happening.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 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.
In this passage, the writer is drawing a straight line between the rest of God on day seven, to the rest promised to the people of Israel in the Promised Land, to what in verse 9 he calls a “Sabbath rest” that remains for the people of God - speaking here of the church. What is going on? I think it comes back to the effects of the curse.
When Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord, they forfeited Sabbath rest - just like the people of Israel in the wilderness who “were not united by faith with those who listened” (v2) and “who failed to enter because of disobedience” (v6). But for those who have turned from their sins and trusted in Christ, there is both a gift and promise of rest: “we who have believed enter that rest” (v3) and “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did his” (v10).
Ever since the fall of Adam and God’s curse upon the earth, human beings have been trying to fix things themselves. Adam sewed together fig leaves. Nimrod built an empire. The people of Babel built a tower. Pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews. Saul hunted David. David had Uriah slain. If you’re picking up on my drift, when people seek to work out their own problems in their own wisdom and strength, the results are not pretty. Unbelief is the root of disobedience, and as Isaiah 57:21 and 48:22 remind us (with a little help from Cage the Elephant), “there ain’t no rest for the wicked.” So long as men are in rebellion against God, they will have no rest.
But Jesus came, and as Hebrews 3:6 reminds us, he is faithful over God’s house as a Son. In his earthly life he worked the works of his Father: healing and restoring life on the Sabbath day, walking in perfect obedience to the law - both letter and spirit. By his blood on the cross he paid the penalty for our sin. And for those who now trust in his sacrifice, we become the house over which he is faithful (3:6).
Which means that, this side of the curse - and the cross - the way into true rest isn’t through a day or a festival or a rule: it’s through trusting in Jesus. See 4:10 again: “for whoever has entered God’s rest [that is, trusted in Jesus and received peace with God through him] has ceased from his labors as God did from his.” Does that mean Christians don’t work? Clearly not, Paul rips into the Thessalonians for thinking that way. Rather, it means we no longer trust in our works to bring us what we need, and we live by faith in the Son of God. But this life of rest in Christ actually empowers that sort of labor we ought to be about, v11: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
What does that sort of striving look like?
Practically, it means
1) listening to the word of God, and
2) committing to help one another obey that word.
The passage continues into v12: “12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” How do you strive to keep trusting in Jesus? You keep yourself exposed to his word. His living, active, soul-piercing word. Does this mean you should be reading the Bible for yourself? Yes. But I think the writer has in mind the corporate gathering to hear the word read and proclaimed, and the fellowship around that word which prods us toward obedience. See 3:12-13,
“12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Do you realize that’s a central part of what we’re committing to in church membership? Church membership isn’t like membership in a country club or some exclusive credit card rewards program. Rather, it’s formally committing to a household, the household of Christ. Now, if you trust in Jesus, you are part of his household, whether you like that idea or not. But in committing to one another we are publicly stating that we will be held accountable to the word of God, and we are committing to help others in this particular congregation of believers to do the same. We are going to strive together to enter that rest.
And the upshot of this is that when we live this way, our whole lives become set apart for Christ. We offer up our whole bodies, our whole lives, our whole selves as what Paul calls “living sacrifices” in Romans 12. We don’t set one day apart for God. We live all of life under his blessing in Christ, and we give all of that life back to him in praise.
Conclusion
So, back to the beginning. God rested from his work on the seventh day. In doing so he established a pattern that is wise for us to follow. But as believers we must realize that Sabbath isn’t a command for us to keep. It’s a blessing for us to receive. A weekly rhythm of ceasing from our labors and fixing our gaze of God and his goodness is wise, and practically needed in a world still laboring under the curse. But we don’t practice it as some religious rule to keep us in God’s good graces - rather, we should enjoy a day of rest as a reminder that because of Jesus, our striving to earn God’s favor and make it back to him is no longer needed. By trusting in Jesus we have true Sabbath rest, real grace and blessing from the Father, both now and one day perfectly in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
