The Day God Rested

Turn with me in your Bible, if you would, to Genesis chapter 2. Having spent nine weeks in Genesis chapter 1, I can assure you that we will not spend nine weeks in Genesis chapter 2, even though we're only going to cover the first three verses.

This morning, we're going to look at the day God rested, the seventh day of creation. And we're going to understand a little bit about Sabbath rest and the implications for your life and for mine. Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And 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. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

Six things I want you to see, six principles we're going to draw from the seventh day of creation in these first three verses of Genesis chapter 2 that help us understand more about the day God rested.

The first is this. The seventh day is a day of completion, a day of completion. It says, and by the seventh day God completed. His work. If you have a New American Standard Bible, you have the proper translation. If you have another version, you're going to say on the seventh day God completed his work. That's wrong. It's a Hebrew word, it means prior to or by. So if you've got the New American Standard, the real good Bible, then you're going to know that you have a correct translation, that by the seventh day, God had completed all that He had done when it comes.

to the work of creation. We also know that although the work of creation was completed, the work of preservation Continues. Hebrews 1. 3 speaks of that. Colossians 1. speaks to that effect as well. That God is preserving the world. God did not create the world, sit back, let it run its course, and do whatever it is it's going to do. God did not do that. That's the deist's perspective. What God did is not only did He create the world and rest on the seventh day, but we know that by the power of His Word, He preserves.

The universe. He upholds all things by the power of his word. So he ceased his work upon the seventh day. That is. By six days, everything that he had created, according to Exodus 20, verse 11, in six days God created the heavens and the earth, and all that's in them. And on the seventh day, God rested. It's a day of completion. It's a day of consummation. It concluded everything. And between those six days and the fl, there was 1, years. After the flood, from the Tower of Babel to the time of Abraham, there were 225 years.

That's about 2,000 years. From the time we pick up the life of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, all the way through the Babylonian captivity, you have about 1,5 years. That is, you have 430 years in Egypt. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, seven years of conquering the land of Canaan, 350 years of the judges. 110 years of what is called the un kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon. 350 years of the divided kingdom. One being Judah, the other Israel. 70 years of Babylonian captivity, 140 years of returns and rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Which equals about 1,500 years. You add the 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament, you again come up with around 2,000 years. From the time that the New Testament began to the present day, you have another 2,000 years. So, what you have is an earth that's somewhere around 6,000 years old, not millions or billions of years. Old. We have a very young ear, according to what the Bible teaches. And on the seventh day, God rest. It was a day of Completion. The second thing I want you to notice is a day of reflection.

The Bible says that God rested on this day. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that God was worn out? God was weary. God was tired of putting up the mountains and creating the oceans and all the fish and sea monsters in them and all the galaxies, the sun, the moon, the stars. God expended all of his energy. He was tired. He needed a day in which to recuperate, in which to rest. Answer: No. We know from Isaiah 40 that God is neither weary nor does he ever become tired. So, therefore, because God is omnipotent, his strength is unceasing.

God did not rest because he was tired. He rested as a musician himself would rest. He would pause, he would reflect. He would remember, he would pause for emphasis' sake. God would reflect on what had just taken place over the previous six days. And the text would say, as we noted earlier last week, it was very good. It was very good. Can you imagine what was going through the mind of God as he sat and looked over this vast creation? And all they had put together in those six days, and said that it was very good.

Let me reiterate one more point to you that you need to get. God said it was very good. That's important to understand. Why is that? Because up to that point, there was nothing bad that ever happened. Anim did not eat animals. You see, we have a hard time imagining that. We try to interpret the past. Because of the present. You can't do that. You can't look at the world today and judge what took place in the past.

All we have is a biblical account, a biblical record. And God said everything was very good. We know that animals did not eat animals because God tells us in verse number 30: to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky. And everything that moves on the earth, he says, I have given every green plant for food. God says, this is their food.

This is what they ate. They did not eat one another. God said it's very good. How do I know that? Well, from Genesis 1, verse number 30, plus Romans 5, verse number 12. For by one man, sin entered the world and death through sin. No sin? No death. That's what the Bible teaches. Up to this point, there's no sin. You see, if you hold a progressive creationist view or a theistic evolutionist view, Then you have a hard time answering the unbeliever who says that God somehow said that death is good. You have to admit that.

You have to believe that. Because if there's a day-age theory, if there are millions of years happening and animals are eating animals and birds are eating birds and everybody's living off of one another, you have death, you had disease, you had disaster, you had the survival of the fist. Therefore, you're saying that because there was death, God calls that good. And God never calls death good. God came to conquer death. Without sin, there's no death. So God sits back and says, It's all very good.

Why? Because there's no sin. Everything's perfect. So God would arrest the text says. He'd reflect. He would look back at all he's done, and there would be a deep sense of satisfaction over the greatness. Of his creation. And let me just add this one point.

I didn't put it in the first service. In fact, the first service went by so fast, there's a lot of things I didn't say.

But let me add this to you. When sin entered the world in Genesis chapter 3, we don't know how long that was. We don't know if it was a day, a week, a decade, 100 years. We don know. The Bible doesn't say. So, how long Adam had this sweet communion with the God of the universe in the cool of the garden? We'll talk about that next week. We don't know how long that was. But we do know that when sin entered the world, everything changed. Everything changed. Which leads me to this point. Listen very carefully.

Sin always affects. Everything around you, not just you. See, we think that we can sin solo. Oh, it just affects me, it's just my life. No, it's not. No, it's not. If you sin, I mean, who was Adam going to affect? There wasn't anybody else except for Eve, right? He affected the entire human race. He affected the land. He affected the animals. Everything was affected because one man sinned. Please understand the ramifications of sin. And when we get to Genesis chapter 3, you'll understand this. It affects everyone around you, it affects everything you touch.

That's why God is so against sin. That's why our God's a holy God. He wants his people to be as holy as he him is holy. And that's why he designed a Sabbath day. That people might reflect on his goodness, remember his goodness, and rejoice over all that he has done. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 5 for a moment.

It says in verse number 12 these words. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, or your male ser or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your cattle or your sojourner. Who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And you shall remember.

That you were a slave in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath. Last week we talked about the commands of God. When God gives you a command, it's a blessing. God doesn't give you a command to dampen your lifestyle. God doesn't say do this or don't do that because I'm just a big ogre and I want you to have a bad life. He gives commands because he wants your benefit.

He wants you to prosper from what he tells you. So God gives a command: you keep the Sabbath. I want you to rest. You, your male servant, your female servant, I want you to rest. Why? Because I want you to remember something. I want you to remember my mighty hand, my outstretched arm, my deliverance of you from the land of Egypt. I know, God says, that if you don't take one day, if you don't take that day to remember me, you're not going to take a day.

You won't remember what I did. You're going to forget. So make sure you take at least one day a week to remember what happened so you never forget. And that's important, isn't it? God wants us to sit back. He wants us to reflect on what He's done. He wants us to remember and rejoice over what He's done. Read 1 Peter 5:6, what to say. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Same phrase used in Deuteronomy chapter 5. Under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. God wants you under His mighty hand of destiny.

Because it's his outstretched arm that delivers you from the bondage of your sin. It's his outstretched arm that takes you from one place to another. We serve a great God. And God told the nation of Israel, I'm telling you, you take one day, you don't do any work, and you rest because I want you to remember everything I did. The creation day, day number seven, a day of completion, a day of reflection, and number three.

It's a day of sanctification. The Bible says in Genesis 2, verse number 3: then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.

It's a day of sanctification. He set it apart. He set it apart as holy. He made the Sabbath day a holy day. He didn't make Monday a holy day, as well as we all know. He didn't make Sunday the holy day. He made Saturday a holy day. He sanctified the Sabbath day. He set that apart from every other day. How many times have you heard people say, well, every day is the Lord's day? They're all the same. That's not true. That's incorrect. God set aside Saturday, the Sabbath day, for a specific purpose. And he sanctified that day.

The Bible says he blessed that day. The fourth thing I want you to see is that it's a day of benediction. It's a day of benediction. God blessed this day, it says in verse number 3 of Genesis chapter 2. Why did God bless it? God made this day a blessing for you and for me. The Sabbath day wasn't a day designed to burden people. Well, you can't do this and you can't do that and you can't go here and you can't be this, so it's a burden. No, God blessed this day. God made it a blessed day. He wanted to bless your life.

He wants to bless my life. He wants to make it something. So therefore, he set this. Day aside. Deuteronomy chapter 5. We've already read that, but it says down in verse number 14 that He wants us to rest. He wants us to rest. It's a day designed specifically, he says, for you. Remember over in Mark chapter 2, when the Pharisees came to Christ and were upset about what his disciples are doing on the Sabbath. What did Christ say in Mark 2, verse number 27? The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. He says, Look. The Sabbath was made for man. The Pharisees believed that man was made for the Sabbath. Therefore, he was a servant to the Sabbath day. And Christ comes on a scene and says, No. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was specifically designed and made for man because I want to bless man. I want man to experience a blessing for me to do that. I've given him a day in which he can concentrate on me. I've given him a day in which he can focus on me.

I've given him a He will remember me. I've given him a day in which he can look back and focus on me. It's his day, and I want him to be blessed because it's a day for him. It's a day of benediction. From the Latin word bened, which means to bless. God says, I want to bless man.

God wants you blessed. Are you blessed because you take a day and celebrate what God has done? Are you blessed because God is Lord of the Sabbath? It's a day in which it has been set aside for God to bless your life. You didn't know about that, did you? You never thought that you could come to church and be blessed. You never thought that you could take a day and just experience the blessing of God. But that's not how God designed it. The fifth thing I want you to notice is that it's also a day of dedication.

It's a day of dedication. Exodus chapter 31. Exodus chapter 31, verse number 12. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, You shall surely observe my Sabbaths. For this is a sign, you circle that word. This is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Therefore, you are to observe the Sabbath. For it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. For whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual Covenant. It is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day he ceased from labor and was Refreshed. God says, This is a holy day.

This is my day. The Sabbath day is a day of dedication. It was a day that was dedicated to God. God said, This is my day. You're going to benefit from it. I'm going to bless your life because of it, but it's my day. Over in Leviticus 23, verse number 3, it says that this day, the Sabbath day, is a holy convocation, a day of solemn rest. It was a sign that God sealed as a result of a covenant that He made, a promise He made to His people. When God makes a covenant, He gives you a sign. When God made a covenant with Noah that He would no longer destroy the world with a flood, what was the sign of the covenant?

Anyone? A rainbow. When God made a sign, a covenant with Abraham that through Abraham all the generations of the world will be blessed, what was a sign that He gave to Abraham? It was a sign of what? Circumcision, few of you with kosher blood. When he gave a sign to David over the covenant that said, there shall be a son. That will rule on the throne of David forever and ever through the city or over the city of the New Jerusalem. That sign was Isaiah 7:1, a virgin birth. In the New Testament, there was a new covenant, and that new covenant was the blood of the Lamb, the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. When God gave the Mosaic covenant, he gave them a sign. And that sign was the laws of God. That sign was a Sabbath day. It was a signature. It was a sign between the nation of Israel and God. That Sabbath day was to be kept holy, that they might remember their God and revere his name. And that tells us this. That the Sabbath day is observed or was observed by the Jewish people because God used the Sabbath day as a sign to seal his covenant between him and the nation of Israel.

That does not mean that we, the church, are to keep the Sabbath day. Why? Because we are under the new covenant. And because we are under the new covenant, under the sign of his blood, we are no longer under the old covenant. Therefore, we are not under the legalistic system of the O Covenant, the binding laws of the Old Testament. All you got to do is read the book of Hebrews. That explains it very clearly. It's a day of dedication. It's God's day. And because it's God's day, He designed it to do whatever He wanted to do on that day because He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

And he expected his people to rest. He expected his people to reflect on his great work of creation. Now, there's a great parallel for the Church of Jesus Christ, and it's this: we use the first day of the week.

That's today, Sunday. Sunday is not the last day in your weekend. Sunday is the first day of the week.

Saturday is the last day in your weekend. Sunday is the first day of the week. We come together on the Lord's Day because the Lord rose again on the first day of the week.

The early church met together on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day. And so we come together to worship the Lord on the Lord's day, not to remember necessarily his work of creation, but his work of redemption. You see? Because the work of redemption is far superior. Then the work of creation, as great as the work of creation is, the work of redemption is Far superior as we begin to understand the workings of God in the life of the people and whom He created. And so we come together to celebrate.

We come together to reflect, to remember that God used his mighty hand, his outstretched arm, to deliver us from the bondage of sin. And Satan's rule in our life, and we come together to reflect upon what God did and to praise His glorious name and to honor Him for all that He's done. You see, there's a lot of principles that we can draw from the Old Testament Sabbath, although I don't believe that we are to keep the Sabbath, nor is Sunday now the Christian Sabbath. Nor is baptism what circumcision was in the Old Testament, nor is the church what the temple was in the Old Testament, nor is the pastor what the priest was in the Old Testam I don't believe that.

But I do believe that there are some significant principles that we can draw as a church to understand the uniqueness of the Lord's Day. We should come together to reflect on all that he's done. People will automatically say, Well, gee, whiz, man, does that mean that there are certain things we can do and cannot do, and certain places we can go and can't go on Sunday now? Is that what that means? And whenever somebody asks me that question, I say, No, don't ask me that question. Ask God that question.

It's God's day, it's not my day. Ask God what he thinks about all that stuff. God's just concerned about whether or not worship is a priority to you. That's the bottom line. Is worship a priority to you? Is worship something that's nice, or is worship something that's a necessity to your spiritual development? You show me a man, you show me a woman, you show me a boy or girl who doesn't go to church on Sunday, and I'll show you a person who does not understand that every day is the Lord's day. Because if you know that every day is the Lord's Day, you'll use that one special day.

Say, God, you're my priority. I want to worship you with the people of God. And glorify your wonderful name. There's a great balance there that I think we in 20th century Christianity have missed. We're so flippant about our church attendance, we're so flippant about being with the body of Christ, we're so flippant about our worship. But doesn't the Bible say that we're to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable, logical form of worship? And lastly, it's a day of illustration.

It's a day of illustration. Turn with me to Hebrews 4 for a moment, and we'll close here. Hebrews was written to Jewish people. Some of them were Christians, some of them were not Christians. It would be like me speaking to the church at Christ Community Church. Some of you are believers, some of you are not believers. I don know which ones of you who have committed your life to Christ and which ones of you have not committed your life to Christ. I don't know that. The writer of Hebrews didn't know that.

But he did know that Jesus Christ was sufficient. He didn't know that Jesus Christ was superior over everything in the Old Testament. Because Colossians 2 tells us that the Sabbath was a shadow, but Jesus Christ is the true substance. Hebrews chapter 4, verse number 1. Therefore, let us fear lest while a promise remains of entering his rest, the Sabbath rest. God wants us to enter his rest. Any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed, we have had good news preached to us, just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

What the writer of Hebrews is saying is that every man is justified by faith and not by works. And so our Lord God. Has provided for us through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, an opportunity to have a relationship with the living God. To experience the rest that Adam and Ede have before the fall on the seventh day with the living God of the universe. Do you have that kind of relationship with God? Are you still trying to work to get in? Still trying to do enough things to get there? Can't happen.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by the washing of regeneration and by the renewing of the Spirit of God. That's how a man's born again. I trust that you have a relationship with the living God. I trust that you have entered into that rest that God has designed for his creation, that they might experience. Sweet commun with the living God. Let 's pray together.