How Sin Changed the World pt. 2

Introduction

Genesis 2:1–3 NKJV

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.

There is something about resting after a job well done that produces the best kind of rest. God worked for six days, and on the seventh day, He Rested.

The reason that rest is so sweet after an accomplishment is because there’s nothing left to be done. Everything is exactly as it should be.

That’s exactly what God did, He rested.

1. Sin Has Changed Our World (Devalued Humanity)

When God created the world, the Bible says that He created it and saw that it was good. But now, because of the effects of sin upon this beautiful world that God created, it seems as though we are becoming more and more restless in our lives. “We have so much, yet we have so little.” We have allowed sin to invade our lives and to devalue our humanity in ways that God never intended. Instead of having self-worth and a sense of accomplishment, many people live their life in a vicious cycle of defeat.

We have devalued ourselves because we have erased the image of God in man. The world doesn’t believe that life is a precious gift, and they end up throwing life away as if it doesn’t matter.

We have devalued ourselves because by living as if we are nothing more than the animals.

We have devalued ourselves by trying to blur the lines between males and females. We are reducing the uniqueness and special care that God gave each of us trying to be something that we were never intended to be.

All of this is rooted in rebellion against God and His created order. Think about the very first sin, Satan wanted Adam and Eve to rebel against the one instruction that God gave them

2. God Produced Something Worthwhile

From all of His work, God produced something that was worthwhile. The Bible says that He rested. And He didn’t rest because He was tired, He rested because He was satisfied.

He was satisfied because everything that He made was worthwhile and something to be admired.

3. Sin Destroyed our Rest

Something happened with Adam and Eve sinned. The satisfaction of perfect order and peace disappeared from the Earth.

When sin and discontentment invade our lives just as it did the world, then our rest is destroyed.

When bad choices and bad attitudes are the summary of our life, our rest is destroyed. Too many people have what we call a “victim mentality”. They believe that they are stuck and that they’ll never get ahead. 1) They are discontent with everything. 2) They make bad choices or have bad attitudes and want to blame others.

4. God Can Renew Our Rest

Though sin has changed the world, God saved the world. And even though sin has destroyed your rest, God can renew your strength and give you peace in your life.

Isaiah 40:31 NKJV

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

This means to say that in all the work that life requires, a steadfast reliance on God…doing life the way God intended for it to be done, will give us an enduring rest that will conquer the restlessness of life.

Look back in our text so I can show you some truths from the Bible.

5. Understanding God’s Rest

Even though Moses doesn’t use the word Sabbath here it is exactly what he’s referring to.

The term Sabbath relates to a lot of things and I want to show you some of those things here in these three verses.

Seventh Day (v. 2, “on the seventh day God ended His work.”)

This seventh day is not Sunday, the seventh day is Saturday.

Because of the ressurection power of Jesus, we celebrate God on Sunday.

Either way, Christians have freedom in how they exercise the Sabbath or how they operate on Sunday.

A time of rest (v. 2, “He rested on the seventh day.”)

The word rest literally means to cease from.

Even though God rested, He still worked

John 5:17 NKJV

But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

That is that God may have rested from creating but He still worked to sustain life, and He worked to save the race of man by sending Jesus to die on the cross.

Represents Eternity

At the completion of every other day, the Bible says, “So the evening and the morning.” But you won’t find that on the seventh day. God’s designed us for eternity, and He designed us to live in His rest each and every day.

Hebrews 4:4 NKJV

For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;

Hebrews 4:9 NKJV

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

And what I want you to understand and what I want you to apply to your life is the reality of rest.

6. Obtaining God’s Rest

To obtain God’s rest, we have to do things God’s way. Sin and death will stop at nothing to destroy your rest. Satan knows that if he can keep you tired and burnt out then he can keep you from experiencing any kind of victory in your spiritual walk.

In Genesis 2:1-3, I want us to see that there are three basic realities that we see.

I. Work

Before God rested, He worked.

The point is that you will never have satisfactory rest unless you first learn to work well.

Genesis 2:1–2 NKJV

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.

A. Work is Good

Work is not something that God gave us as part of the curse. Work is something that God gave to us as a gift to be cherished.

Before there was a curse, God had man working.

Genesis 2:15 NKJV

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

That was Adam’s job. When God created Eve, He said of Adam, “It’s not for man to be alone.” Well, the principle stands, it’s not good for man to be alone and it’s not good for man not to work.

Work is a holy thing that gives us a sense of purpose, it gives a place to go and produce something that we can look at and see that it is good.

God did this very same thing, every time God created, the Bible says that He saw it and it was good. That is a part of our nature, to look at the work that we’ve done and to see that we produced something.

B. Work is Healthy

The major focus of these three verses are on God’s rest and His desire that we rest. But you’ll never have satisfactory rest unless you have a satisfactory work.

Many people don’t understand this today. They think that more leisure time and less work is better, and there are some who think not working at all is acceptable. Here’s what the Bible says about people who don’t work.

2 Thessalonians 3:10 NKJV

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.

That doesn’t say if they cannot work, it says if they do not work.

Even in retirement or as a stay at home parent you need to find work that is valuable.

Retirement and staying at home because you have a strong income doesn’t excuse our bodies and our minds from their need to have a stable and productive job to do. Getting paid has nothing to do with it really, and I understand that we all need money to live, but it is the satisfaction that we get from producing something that makes working healthy.

C. Work Gives Us Routine

It doesn’t matter if you think you have a schedule or not, you do. We are creatures of habit, and having a job to help regulate our schedules is vital to our spiritual prosperity.

When I had to be on the job site from 6:00-2:30, and I worked part-time at the church, I got more done in those days than I did when I first started in full-time ministry where I had not set schedule.

Eventually, I had to learn to start setting my own schedule or my schedule was going to set me!

In your work and in life, and I believe this is the Godly way to look at it, you need to have a schedule.

When God made creation, He didn’t create it according to disorganization, but He created it according to order.

The first three days of creation are the days that God formed the earth, the latter three days are the days that God filled the earth. Imagine if God did it backwards or off schedule? Imagine if He put the fish on the earth before the ocean was formed. Imagine if He put the cows on the earth before the land appeared.

Even in this day we see in Gen 2, the day that God rested, He ordered that the people of Israel keep this day holy so that they would always value having a sense of time and responsibility. So that they would always have a deadline to keep them accountable.

God created work to be a blessing and it was never a curse. The ground may be cursed, but work itself is not a part of the curse.

II. Rest

Genesis 2:2 NKJV

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.

Rest is a part of how God designed the world. It is so important that God made a day of rest part of His 10 Commandment.

Exodus 20:8 NKJV

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Everyone in Israel was supposed to work for six days and then they were supposed to rest. That is, they spend the first six days of the week working just as God did, and then they spend the last day of the week resting, just as God did. Not necessarily because they are tired, but so that they could take time to depend on God’s provision and so that could reflect on His sustaining power from the work week.

The Sabbath day was a holy day, but it was only made for the nation of Israel, it’s not a day for Christians. The day for Christians is so much better!

Instead of working all week to rest on Saturday, we now rest in Him on Sunday so that we can work the rest of the week!

Sunday is not the Sabbath day, Sunday is the Lord’s day. When we come, we come not necessarily for physical rest, but we come together to rest in the finished work of Jesus on the cross! God created and then He rested…Jesus saved us and now we can rest.

Rest is an important part of our faith, but it means so much more than simple physical rest.

The pertinent question for this morning is how has sin destroyed our rest?

Well, there are three areas of our life that we need rest, and three areas that we have the control over because God has given His people the ability to rest in these things.

John 14:27 NKJV

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

He says that He gives us peace in a way that world doesn’t. That’s because this world is a world of sin, and this is a world that will destroy our peace.

What are the areas that we need rest in?

The areas that we need rest in are primarily with God, then within ourselves, and then within our homes.

A. Rest with God

People get the idea that they can work themselves into a place where God is going to love them more.

For some, church is nothing more than an obligation where people seem to think that they are winning points with God.

To have rest in God, there is something we must do at the beginning. That is, we must have faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. Ultimately, Jesus is our rest because He has done all the work for us. We can’t get to Heaven on our own, the work is too great…but by the power of Jesus we can. And because of the work that Jesus performed, we can now rest in God.

Hebrews 4:9–10 NKJV

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

If you are a Christian, if you are a person that has trusted in the Word of God that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world, then you need to cease from your works and simply learn to rest just as God has rested.

Now, again, why did God rest?

God rested, not because He was tired, but He rested so that He could observe the work that He did as someone Who is well pleased.

Now, because Jesus has paid it all, we can rest in Him everyday! Our rest as Christian people comes from pausing, reflecting, and adoring everything that Jesus did on the cross. It is the time everyday that we stop to say, “Thank you Jesus for your work. It is good, and I am good because of it.”

Do you want rest in your life? Rest in the truth that Jesus has done all the work for you.

B. Rest Within Ourselves

The Bible says that when we enter into the rest of God through a trust in the saving work of Jesus, that His Holy Spirit fills our life and indwells us.

What is the work of the Holy Spirit in our life?

Galatians 5:22–23 NKJV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

We don’t practice the law…we live in rest. The Sabbath day was law, it was a day where they rested from the burden of the law and the burden of the world…but the filling of the Holy Spirit and the rest we find in the saving work of Jesus is the fulfillment of the law…it is the removal of the burden of the law once and for all.

And since the burden of the law has been removed from us…since the burden of perfection has been removed from us, we can now freely practice these things listed here in Galatians 5.

But there is one area that I really want to focus on this morning — Self-Control

Satan wants you to believe the lie that he has sold the world. The lie that Satan has sold the world is that we are helpless and we are hopeless, and there is nothing we can do to overcome the trials of life…the Bible says something different.

Romans 8:35 NKJV

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Romans 8:37 NKJV

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

What is the tool that God has given us to conquer our lack of rest? Self-Control

Through experience in my own life and by dealing with the lives of others, I have come to discover that the biggest problems that we face come from a lack of self-control.

When a person is drowning financially, sometimes it’s because they’re not earning enough money…almost every time it’s just because they’re spending too much money…they don’t have any self-control. They’re making salaries of 100k or more and they have nothing because they refuse to exercise self-control.

When a person is sexually immoral, and that includes viewing pornography, it’s not because they can’t help it it’s because they lack self-control. The world likes to make excuses for just about everything. Everything today is an addiction and everything today is chemical imbalance, there is no accountability, there is no repentance, there is just a pat on the head and the excuse to strut to Hell.

When a person won’t work, that’s not to say they can’t work, but it is to say that they aren’t willing to work…they’d rather allow the government or their loved ones take care of them…they don’t have self-control, they have no discipline.

When a person just won’t stop running their mouth tearing other people down, they have no self-control.

Ultimately, all these things in a person’s life points to the reality that they have no rest within themselves because they’re not in connection with God. They are not living life the way that God intended for them to live.

1 Timothy 6:6 NKJV

Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

When we will finally become content with the way that God created the world, then we have the rest that He wants us to have.

C. Rest Within Our Homes

Some houses are like a war zone and that’s not how God intended it to be.

Everyone in your home can feel it, and there is no disagreement worth your home.

I heard Gary Chapman say one time that forty minutes of honest and loving communication can save you forty years of fighting. I want you to remember this phrase, “it’s better to choose guilt than resentment.” Many people don’t communicate because they feel guilty for what they’re about to say, but the alternative is that they build up resentment in themselves, they explode, and now everything is over.

God intended your home to be a place of rest.

III. Holiness

Genesis 2:3 NKJV

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Look at the word “blessed” and look at the word “sanctified”. Blessed means that He declared it to be a day of rejoicing. Sanctified it means that He made it a holy day. Therefore, if we want to reclaim the rest that sin has destroyed, we need to rejoice in all that God has done and we need to live holy lives.

How do we do that?

A. Abiding with God

Living in the presence and the rest that God wants to give us in impossible if we aren’t willing to live a life free from the stain of sin.

1 John 2:15–17 NKJV

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

The pathway to living in the presence of God here on earth is by doing what He says.

And if you’re always doing what God has said to do, you can never be doing what He has said not to do.

We live holy lives by abiding with God…

B. Trusting in Jesus

The eternal rest that we have comes from knowing that Jesus paid it all.

Hebrews 12:1–2 NKJV

let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

To be holy is to have rest. To be holy is to abide in God through obedience, and to trust in Jesus without the fear of failure.

C. Walking in the Spirit

Galatians 5:16–18 NKJV

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Here’s how you walk in the Spirit of God.

By each and everyday, and in each and every moment of trial and temptation, taking the time to stop, to listen, and to reflect on the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross.

Are you catching on?

Everyday we are to live in the grace of God that was given to us by the finished work of Jesus.

The Sabbath Day was never meant to be forever, but it was meant to picture this truth, that we can rest in the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

Conclusion

Do You Have Rest?

The only way to get rest is to have assurance that you have applied the blood payment of Jesus Christ to your sin debt.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death…that is, we have all earned death and there is no rest for us. What awaits the sinner at the end of all time is eternal torment in Hell.

But..

1 John 4:9 NKJV

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

God wants you to live, He wants you to enter into His eternal rest. He doesn’t want you to enter into the eternal suffering…that’s why Jesus died.

He died to pay your way, He died to give you rest, He died to give you life…eternal life.

The Bible says that if you will trust in Him today, trust in His sacrifice, trust in His work and not your own that you will enter into that rest of Heaven.

Here’s how you can be saved…believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Do You Need Rest?

Get rid of the sin in your life.

If it’s discontentment,

If it’s worry,

If it’s lust,

If it’s unforgiveness.

If it’s a lack of self-control….it has to go…

whatever it is, get it rid of it.

Romans 8:37 NKJV

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.