Enter Into My Rest

Sharpening My Ax

One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had. "I don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did." "But you didn't notice," said the winning woodsman, "that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down to rest."

The Sabbath

Not rest for rest sake

Not just

rest from work

rest from chores

rest from shopping

rest from ....

Sabbath is not

rest from something

But rather

rest in something!

Example of Rest

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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.

Question:

was God tired?

NO!

The why is He resting???

(same Adam and Eve)

Resting is NOT

about what NOT doing

about what you are doing!

Question is

what were they doing?

Scripture doesn’t say...

Rest is an experience we enter into not a goal we fight to achieve.

Rest is more

state of mind

than

state of being.

Last week

Law and Order

Main point:

how we relate

Tickets and Cops

waving “hi”

God is not

cosmic killjoy

divine party-pooper

God is about

your joy

Proverbs 29:18 NKJV

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.

God loves joy

we miss picture.

Examples of Big 10

Do Not Kill

oppressive?

protection of life

Do Not Commit Adultery

oppressive?

protection of family

Do Not Worship Other Gods

oppressive?

protection of Divine authority

Remember Sabbath

oppressive?

protection of relationship

Forcing Rest???

Ellie Nap

sad moment.

Many hear the

do not...

do not...

But miss the

do...

do...

Commandment

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 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. 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.

Don’t work

oppressive?

But why?

RELATIONSHIP

We don’t do,

so we can do.

If we miss the doing

we missed the Sabbath

Health Ministries

Why no work?

Remember God’s example

God was not tired

Why Sabbath

= not working?

Relationship

Time

Divine Date

Divine Date

Force Date?

Date burden?

No

Why not?

Enjoy that person.

Sabbath a burden?

Missing picture.

Missing the person.

Sabbath and Work?

natural law

French 10-day week.

50 hours rule

God knows

limits of humanity

One problem

we overdo

we have nothing left

for relationship.

Individual Examples

Step on Toes

Working

Shopping/buying

Nehemiah 13:16–18 ESV

Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

Why no shopping?

Shopping = not resting

Cooking/Cleaning

(but it is restful for me…)

Numbers 15:32–36 ESV

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.

why no cooking?

cleaning = not resting

Travel

Wedding/Party

Isaiah 58:13–14 ESV

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Seeking own pleasure?

Seek God’s pleasure?

Watching the game

on a date.

(checking out other women)

Secular Recreation?

Swimming?

“Every working of Christ in miracles was essential, and was to reveal to the world that there was a great work to be done on the Sabbath day for the relief of suffering humanity, but the common work was not to be done. Pleasure seeking, ball playing, swimming, was not a necessity, but a sinful neglect of the sacred day sanctified by Jehovah.” — 3SM 258

Nap

None should feel at liberty to spend sanctified time in an unprofitable manner. It is displeasing to God for Sabbathkeepers to sleep during much of the Sabbath. They dishonor their Creator in so doing, and, by their example, say that the six days are too precious for them to spend in resting. They must make money, although it be by robbing themselves of needed sleep, which they make up by sleeping away holy time. They then excuse themselves by saying: “The Sabbath was given for a day of rest. I will not deprive myself of rest to attend meeting, for I need rest.” Such make a wrong use of the sanctified day. - CCh 270

Competition

etc.

How to Rest

Spending Time

Take God with you.

Date

Somebody you don’t like

ask you out?

Want to date them?

NO

Bad Sabbath experience?

Do you like God?

Playing catch-up

Dating Raluca

Visit in-person

Talking continually

Resting in Salvation

Pet peeve

perverting truth

Hebrews 4:9–11 ESV

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Resting in Salvation

Resting in God’s works

Resting from works

God made time holy

not a place or thing.

Cannot be taken

Sabbath is not so much about a day off as it is a “day up”—a day to remember that He is God and we are not. Without Sabbath, we forget who we are and lose sight of who He is, leaving us to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. When there is no Sabbath in our lives, we become intoxicated by the lie that the sum of our lives depends on our effort alone.

Summary

Sabbath is about doing.

not NOT Doing.

Sabbath is a date.

You must like God.

Sabbath is not catch-up.

It is a deeper experience.

Appeal

Like God during the week.

God deeper on Sabbath.

Protect that date.