Sabbath Rest
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Introduction
Introduction
This is a busy time of the year for most people.
We’re running around trying to get stuff ready for Christmas.
Making travel and family arrangements.
We’re doing all of this while working, or taking care of kids, or both.
You would think that the holidays would be a time for rest, but it’s really a time for stress. But this is the way much of life is, isn’t it?
Our lives are so busy, so filled with work and errands that we rarely have time for ourselves.
If work, errands, and kids aren’t enough, sometimes life sends storms our way, and we have to find a way to navigate through those storms.
When we finally lay our heads down at night, we sometimes just toss and turn.
Psalm 22:1-2.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Do you ever feel this way?
My point is this: our lives are sometimes very restless, and this is why we long for rest.
This is what we are going to talk about in this lesson. We are going to talk about rest from a biblical perspective.
God has promised us a gift… The greatest gift that could ever be given. He has promised us rest.
We are going take a tour through scripture to see what God teaches us about rest.
Rest In The Beginning
Rest In The Beginning
When reading through Genesis 1, we see a pattern emerge.
Six times, we read, “There was evening and morning, the ___ day.” This pattern continues through most of the days of creation.
But when we get to the seventh day, we see something different. Genesis 2:1-3.
1 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.
It’s almost as if the seventh day never ended.
I think that Moses wants us to see that life in the garden was rest. He’s is making a symbolic point.
In a figurative way, the seventh day didn’t end after verse 3.
So, Adam and Eve were put into the garden to enjoy God’s rest, but this didn’t mean that they didn’t have any responsibilities.
They were told to be fruitful and multiply, to work and keep the garden, and to exercise dominion over God’s creation.
This work was not toil. It wasn’t by the sweat of their brow. They had responsibilities, but they were still living in God’s rest.
So, Adam and eve were able to enjoy this rest, and if they remained faithful to God, then all of humanity would enjoy experience it as well, but this isn’t what happens.
Adam and Eve were blessed with God’s rest, but they weren’t content.
So, instead of guiding all of humanity into rest, Adam plunged us all into restlessness because now we live in a broken world
But God gave us hope, didn’t he?
Genesis 3:15.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
God promised that there would be a second Adam who would destroy the tempter in the garden, and the implication is that this second Adam would lead God’s people to rest.
So, from that moment, people were looking forward to this rest.
Genesis 4:1.
1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.”
It’s possible that Eve believes that this child is the promised offspring, but we know the story. He’s not. Cain was unable to rule over himself or sin that was crouching at the door.
Genesis 5:28-29.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son 29 and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”
Lamech believes that Noah’s the one who will give man rest from their toil, but he doesn’t.
Just like Adam, God tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply, but just like Adam, Noah eats of the wrong fruit and was found to be naked because of that fruit.
Neither Cain, nor Noah, would be the ones who would give humanity rest…
But God does have a plan.
Promised Rest For Israel
Promised Rest For Israel
God’s plan begins with Abraham and Israel, the nation that comes from him.
This nation begins its history in Egypt as slaves, and so you can image that their lives were very restless.
So, as soon as they leave Egyptian slavery, God gives them the 10 Commandments and tells them to keep the Sabbath. Exodus 20:8-11.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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.
God gave them the gift of rest.
The purpose of this Sabbath was not only to remind the people of how God had blessed them, but it also gave them something to look forward to: a better rest.
So, Rest was a part of the Israelites’ DNA.
Every seventh day, the people were supposed to rest… God would provide for them.
Every seventh year, the people were supposed to rest for an entire year.
They weren’t supposed to work the land because God would provide for them. They weren’t supposed to work that entire year because in the sixth year, God would provide enough harvest to last for three years.
Also, debts were forgiven during this seventh year
Every forty-ninth year, the people would celebrate the year of Jubilee. They would rest for a year, debts would be forgiven, slaves would be freed, and if you had to sell your property, then you would receive it back.
The Israelites would be constantly reminded, not only of the rest that God provided them as his people, but also of ultimate rest that God would provide for his people on the last day.
God gave the Israelites a great gift… the gift of rest. Leviticus 26:6.
6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land.
Don’t you wish we had something like this?
Rejected Rest
Rejected Rest
How did the Israelites respond to God’s rest?
Ezekiel 20:12-13.
12 Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. 13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes but rejected my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned.
“Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make a full end of them.
Here we are told that while the people were in the wilderness, they rebelled against, God. But not only this, they also profaned the Sabbath.
Amos 8:4-8.
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6 that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
God hoped that his generous gift of the Sabbath would encourage his people to be generous with one another, but this is not what happened. Instead, they used the Sabbath to take advantage of one another.
They saw the sabbath as a burden, and not as God’s gift to them.
As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence that the people ever gave the land rest every seven years or celebrated the year of Jubilee.
Because of this, God’s people go into captivity.
2 Chronicles 36:20-21.
20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
Since the people refuse to obey God regarding the Sabbath rest for the land, God sends the people into captivity and provides rest for the land in that way.
When they return home from captivity, God’s people seem to have learned their lesson. Nehemiah 10:31.
31 And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.
But just a little while later, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to see the people working on the Sabbath.
So, throughout the OT, we see that the Israelites failed to keep Sabbath. They rejected God’s gift of rest to them.
Rest In Jesus
Rest In Jesus
When we move forward to the time of Jesus, we see that the keeping of Sabbath had moved from one extreme to another.
Sabbath was supposed to be God’s gift to mankind, but the religious leaders turned it into a burden by adding additional rules to it.
So as Jesus is spreading his good news he give the people an invitation to God’s rest. Matthew 11:28.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
This reminds us of the promised one from Genesis 3 who would do what Adam could not.
Adam was supposed to guide all of humanity into rest, but instead, his sin caused a broken, restless world.
So, what does Jesus do? Psalm 22:1-2.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Jesus accepted the restlessness of the cross so that he could provide us with rest.
God’s Ultimate Rest
God’s Ultimate Rest
But the question is: when?
Hebrews 4:9-11.
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.
The Holy spirit promises us that in the same way that God brought the Israelites into the land, he will also bring us into rest.
Revelation 21:1-4.
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
This doesn’t explicitly mention rest, but what does it sound like?
So, in the beginning, Adam and Eve were able to partake in God’s rest, but because of sin, the world was plunged into restlessness. One day, we who are faithful will partake in God’s rest.
Application/Conclusion
Application/Conclusion
What should we take home from this?
We aren’t there yet.
We aren’t there yet.
“If God is good, then why…”
Sometimes we want Heaven on Earth, but we aren’t there just yet.
Rest is important.
Rest is important.
It’s interesting that the concept of Sabbath rest was implemented before the law of Moses.
We aren’t commanded to keep the Sabbath like the Jews were, but rest should be just as important to us.
God wanted them to rest so that they would remember God’s blessing, but also so that they would remember that there’s a greater rest coming.
Don’t we need to be reminded of the greater rest that is coming?
Don’t reject God’s gift.
Don’t reject God’s gift.
The Israelites felt like God’s gift was a burden, and so they ignored it.
God has promised us a greater rest to those who are faithful, but we sometimes feel like being faithful to God is a burden.
Rest is waiting for us. Are you ready for it?