0932 Embrace Grace - The Rest of Grace

The Rest of Grace (Part 5) // Embrace Grace

1. REST IS A PERSON!

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended 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. Genesis 1:31-2:1-3

God worked for the Sabbath, Adam entered into Sabbath.

In Genesis, God finished the work of creation, we were invited into His rest. (Gen.1:26-31)

In Gospel, Jesus finished the work of salvation, we are invited into His rest. (John 19:30)

God rested after work, we are invited to rest in His finished work.

Grace is entering the rest that Jesus earned.

Grace is starting where Jesus finished.

The finished work of Jesus is the starting point of a believer.

Rest is entered, not earned. Come to Me Mt.11:28. Lord of the Sabbath Mt.12:8. Enter his rest Heb.4:10

Grace moves us from labor to love. (Rest is where labor stops but love starts)

Labor of sin, work of selfless, burden of good works - stops. Wages of sin = death Rom.6:23

613 laws in 5 books - Torah “the law”

When we are at His rest, we don’t live by the law, we live by love.

Broken relationship with God is the root of all restlessness.

2. REST IS A PRINCIPLE! #sanctification

So the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:2, 13, 19, 23, 31 God created a day of rest and also created a rest in every day. Not just one day a week but also 8 hours a day.

Come to Me = I will give you rest Mt.11:28 // Person // Presence // Lord Learn from Me = you will find rest Mt.11:29 // Principle // Pace // Lifestyle

Moving from grind to grace: 1. Your day begins with good night’s sleep. Caffeine can’t replace sleep. Sleep is spiritual. Elijah napped in overcoming depression. Jesus slept in the storm. If you don’t rest from fatigue, you will get arrested by failure. Secret to my longevity in rising early. Prolonged sleep deprivation abuses God’s creation, your body! Grind = running on red. Grace = running on rest 2. Start your morning with God, not with work. If we don’t spend time with God then we act like a god. Wait on God before working Is.40:31 Result: walk, run, soar without faint, and weary. Blessing of the Lord vs busyness of life. Prov.10:22 (Blessing vs busy/bored. Adds riches. No sorrow) Grind = progress - peace. Grace = peace in the pace.

3. Live unhurried life. Hurry kills happy. Jesus didn’t ran or used a running animal. Walked slow enough to be touched, crowd could keep up. Stayed long enough to be at the end of the wedding. Slept in storm. We are spirit led not spirit driven. I’m not busy, I am present! (drive cars, lead sheep). Grind = driven by hurried life. Grace = led by Holy Spirit 4. Keeping up with Kardashians will keep you out of grace. My yoke is easy! Gen.33:12-14. Esau drove an army, Jacob led a family. Speed is different for bicycle and airplane. Driving yourself and leading others. Cost of speeding = losing others. It’s lonely on the top only if you were running. Don't compete with someone who does not pull your load, share your past, not headed into the same direction, and will have your promises. Faster than your grace, lose it. Slower than your grace, limit it. Grind = comparing. Grace = content.

5. Take a day off. 7 day Adventist - they live 10 years longer - amounts to lifetime of sabbath. Trust God to provide supernaturally. 4th commandment punished by death (rebellion, adultery, idolatry). 4th commandment before moral ones.

Grind = #nodaysoff. Grace = takes a day off

Sabbath Killers:

1. A POOR WORK ETHIC. If you don’t do your work during the week, you will end up doing your work on your day off. If you are disorganized, lazy, late, or prone to procrastinate, your day off will get devoured by a bunch of tasks that should be done already.

2. RELIGIOUS RULES. Let the Holy Spirit guide and direct your Sabbath. Religious people want to remove the Holy Spirit and replace him with their rules, but their rules never work. We are not to be filled with rules; we’re to be filled with the Spirit who helps us to obey the word of God. Everyone’s day off is going to look a little different. If you find something that works for you, you can make rules for yourself, but you can’t impose your rules on anybody else—because you didn’t write the Bible.

3. OBSERVING A SABBATH DAY WITHOUT A SABBATH HEART. Sometimes you get to your day off, but you’re still anxious, stressed, sleepless, and unable to sit down and enjoy it. Your heart isn’t able to Sabbath. Perhaps your identity is in your work, so when you’re not working you lose all sense of value. Or perhaps you need to find away to take your thoughts captive. I always carry a notebook, and if something comes to mind on my Sabbath day, I write it down so that it’s out of my head and I can get to it later.

4. A PHARAOH. Our pharaoh today tends to fit in our pocket. One of the great Sabbath-killers is the smartphone: ever-present, dominating our whole life, interrupting at all hours, and demanding our constant attention with e-mails, social media, articles, calls, texts, and more. Technology will kill your Sabbath if you don’t establish some boundaries. If your phone does not Sabbath, your soul cannot Sabbath.

5. RESTING FROM YOUR WORK INSTEAD OF RESTING FOR YOUR WORK. Work is not sinful. Before sin ever entered the world, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 1:15). It wasn’t until after the Fall that work became toilsome. In some way, a fruitful Sabbath must prepare you and energize you for the work God has called you to do during the other six days of the week.

6. STIMULANTS INSTEAD OF SABBATH. We sabotage our rest when we use stimulants instead of Sabbath. Rather than taking a break, we consume coffee, carbs, candy, energy drinks, and soft drinks all day. Then we go home stressed, we watch TV, we surf the Internet, and some will drink into the evening. The result is a population full of caffeinated, drunk, grumpy, phone-answering, Sabbath-violating wrecks. We call it “America.”

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that Titus 2:11-12

Extra Notes:

Chick-fil-A is dominating fast food. The company generates more revenue per restaurant than any other fast-food chain in the US, and it’s only open six days a week. Chick-fil-A has only 2,100 restaurants, and one of its restaurants are open on Sundays. For comparison, McDonald’s has more than 14,100 locations in the US, Taco Bell has nearly 6,300, and KFC has more than 4,160 - most of which are open seven days a week.

Yet, Chick-fil-A generates more annual revenue than dozens of other chains that have more than twice as many US locations, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Arby’s. In 2016, the average sales per restaurant for Chick-fil-A was $4.4 million. For comparison, it’s most similar competitor, KFC, generated $1.1 million per restaurant in that same time period.

Lack of sleep results in 27% higher risk of obesity, 48% of hearth disease, 5 times higher risk of diabetes, 20% of accidents due to sleep (100k/year), 1,500 deaths, 71k injuries, 32% reduced alertness with 1.5 less sleep, like drunk driving <5 hours of sleep as bad as 5% blood-alcohol.