Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

There is a place on this earth... there are a few places actually... where heaven and earth meet.

The places are mysterious.

They are uniquely glorious and so utterly incomprehensible that one loses touch with reality and assumes they have entered a dream state.

A few places where the dirt beneath your feet and the air in your lungs seems... other worldly.

Places that make you think of earth like a dream... or a dream within a dream... a dream that you struggle to recall and you just can't place it A few places that make you question the reality you once knew because here in this seemingly impossible world everything is new and pure and so... real.

Places where the veil between heaven and earth is so thin that you could almost... almost reach out and touch the arm of God.

Places where if you strain your senses enough and listen very very closely... you can barely... just barely... make it out.

Shh... do you hear it?

Shh.... "Holy, Holy, Holy...." There are places on this rock.. where heaven and earth are not so far apart.

Do you know some of these places?

Hmm? Summer 2013, I was in a meadow in Northern New Mexico.

Literally 100 miles from the nearest car, outlet, or cell phone.

It was 3am.

The dead of night.

I stepped out of my tent into the brightness of the starlight and moonlight... walked barefoot 100 yards because the grass was that soft and stood in an ankle deep brook.

And I swear that if I could've just reached a little higher, I could've held the stars between my thumb and forefinger, lowered one to my ear and heard... barely... just barely... Holy, Holy, Holy...

I swear if I could've just held the haze of the meadow in my hand...

I could've pulled it back like a curtain a gotten a glimpse of the night camps of the armies of the Lord of Hosts.

Some sleeping peacefully.

Some standing guard.

All breathing in and out the same song... Holy, holy, holy... shh... can you hear it?

Do you know the kind of places I'm talking about?

I've only found a few... maybe 7 or 8.

They aren't all nature.

A long hallway on the 5th floor of a school in China.

An overcrowded dining room in Stella, Missouri.

A 3 lane drive-thru at the most efficient CFA in the country... have you found any of these portals?

The Bible talks about a few of them.

Some long destroyed or lost.

The Garden of Eden...

The tabernacle... Mount Sinai... Mount Moriah... the temple... the mount of transfiguration.

But... did you know that heaven embraced earth in other ways?

Not only in geographic places.

There are certain events or institutions where a channel for grace from God is uniquely opened, and the veil between heaven and earth is thinner than paper.

You experienced one of those moments just a few minutes ago in communion.

These are the Sacraments.

Now I suppose I should give a little context.

The Biblical authors did not think or reason like us.

Doesn't make us wrong just different.

For them all they could perceive with their senses was part of a sphere called the raqqia.

The firmament and the land.

Earth.

All they couldn't perceive was part of another sphere.

The heavenlies.

We tend to think of heaven and earth as totally separate dimensions.

Earth is here and heaven is somewhere out there.

The biblical authors thought earth is here and heaven is up there but there are some parts of earth and all its places and events where heaven is present, and some parts of heaven where earth is present.

Those were places like Eden, or the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and temple.

Places that were sacred because God was uniquely present there.

Traditionally the church has seven sacraments.

Events or institutions in which God is uniquely present beyond day to day life and offers special grace.

That's what sacraments means.

Sacred things.

They are marriage, communion, baptism, anointing of the sick, holy orders or ordination, confirmation, and reconciliation.

Protestants have only adopted 2 or 3 of these as sacred.

Communion in Baptism are fairly universal in the protestant church and marriage is considered a sacrament by many (and I tend to agree).

Now by this point you may be wondering why I'm talking about sacraments in a series on rest.

It's because I believe that biblically, there is another sacrament (if we use the definition of a channel in which God is uniquely present and imparts grace to his people) that we should adopt and keep holy: The Sabbath.

When I started thinking about this sermon a few weeks ago... rest...

I wanted to wrestle with the question: what is God's design for rest?

The answer is Sabbath.

So what is Sabbath.

I want to give you the definition up front and then we'll flesh it out with scripture.

I hope you get to learn something new!

Sabbath is an intentional pause of normal activities for the purpose of communion with God.

- Sabbath is in God's nature.

Let's flesh this idea of Sabbath out together.

Turn in your Bibles to .

This is the first instance in scripture that we see the Sabbath.

Before the fall, rest is a part of God's nature.

Let's read it.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

I had this idea as a kid that when God finished creating he was so tired that he laid his head down on a pillowy cloud and started snoring... the first thunderstorm.

Ha.

Maybe you had an idea like that.

But... What does it mean, God rested on the seventh day?

It does not mean that God closed his eyes and went to sleep.

He did not take a nap.

It does not mean that God rested in the sense that he became indifferent to what the man and woman were doing.

We know God was not indifferent because when Adam and Eve sinned he was immediately there in the garden calling them to account.

He pronounced judgment and held out hope of a Redeemer to come.

Rest is not to be understood in either of those ways.

What is involved here is what St. Augustine had in mind when, with his magnificent use of words, he contrasted the rest of God with our restlessness.

He said, “Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

Augustine was thinking of the turmoil of the human heart.

He was saying that our true destiny is to find the rest that is found in God only.

Is it not the case that what is involved here is this kind of rest?

God, having completed his work of creation, rests, as if to say, “This is the destiny of those who are my people; to rest as I rest, to rest in me.”

That leads to the second point.

God not only promises rest in these verses, he promises holiness as well.

Holiness means to be set apart.

So God sets the Sabbath day apart to teach that we are to enter not only into rest but also into holiness.

The two go together, because holiness is the opposite of sin, and sin is what makes us restless.

Why is it that when we go out into the world with the gospel the world is not willing to respond to Christ’s teaching?

Why is it that when we talk about rest, the world, which is restless, does not rush with open arms to embrace the gospel?

The answer is that rest is connected with holiness and the world does not want holiness.

The attributes of God are always an offense to men and women.

God is sovereign.