Day 7 Rest: Gen 2:1-3

Intro:

Shout out to my sister and brother-in-law are here from Indianapolis with their two kiddos.

I have to start off by confess, this is not something that I do particularily well.

I was playing ping pong this week and we were wondering how we could fit this into the 7th day of creation (scott, angela, william)

“Rest”- are we talking, sitting down for a few minutes, taking a nap, having a good night’s sleep and feeling rested, death (resting place), or the state of ths soul that is at ease even if chaos insues all around you? would it be the opposite of restlessness of the body or the soul. Because it is possible to be sitting still and not be a rest

God said, separated, saw (REPEAT after me)…creates, defines, evaluates (repeat after me)

Outline:

Creates: “Finished” (v. 1)

Defines: “He Rested” (vs. 2)

Evaluates: “Made it Holy” (v. 3)

Summary: Rest, the act of trusting in the finished work of Jesus

Prayer:

Creates (Said): “Finished” (v. 1)

Heavens and the Earth (v. 1)

Thus the Heavens and the earth- Day one

Were finished- completed, all that was necesssary for life and flourishing had been created. There was nothing left that needed to be created for this to happen.

Jesus- It is finished

Host of Them (v. 1)

and all he host of them (Deut. 4:19) “And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”

“Hosts”- horde, a host or a vast multitude, military service campaign; troops.

Authority structure

Not just the physical part of creation but the governance or authority of the physical creation.

Application/Implications:

“Finished”, what does that word mean to you? What do you associate with it?

What are you physically working so hard to accomplish these days? What is on that honey do list or the project that is on the bucket list for the summer? Will you ever be able to rest? Why or why not?

When it comes to the authority structure in your life, what are you working so hard to accomplish? Will you ever be able to rest? Why or why not?

How do the words of Jesus on the Cross give you hope in the midst of all your striving to finish things? What was it that Jesus “finished” on the cross?

You see, if we are not careful, we too can take this aspect of creation and pull it out of the whole and make it the point over the whole. There are some of us that have turned work or our job, or our task lists into an idol and we never stop.

Transitional phrase: Do you believe that God has given us all that we need for life and flourishing through His finished work? In other words, is there anything that you think God has left undone and so therefore you need to finish it?

Defines (“Separated”): “Rested” (v. 2)

Finished (v. 2)

On the seventh day- a unit of time from sunset until the next sunset: including evening and morning

God finished- to bring to a finish or an end

his work- “trade mission, business journey; handiwork, craftsmanship, “activity directed toward making or doing something

that He had done- make manufacture, to make or cause to be or to become

Rested (vs. -)

He rested on the seventh day

“rested”- cease, stop, be absent, come to and end, perish, die, rest, celebrate, to be inactive, refrain from working.

Rest “As developed earlier, ‘rest’ does not imply relaxation but more like achieving equilibruim an stability” (NIVAC 148)

“God’s Sabbbath is no a withdrawal from the world and its operations (e.g. , ‘My work is done, it’s all yours now; good luck!’) instead, it represents his taking his place at the helm. This is what Israel’s observance of the Sabbath gives recognition to…By this he meanst that each of them cut out a section of their domain as belonging in a special way to God, specifically as a reminder that the entire domain belongs to God” (NIVAC, 153).

The idea of “rest” being associated with “temple”.

from all his work that he had done- same as before, not only was God finished, but He rested from all his work that he had done

Application/Implications:

“Rest”, what does that mean to you? What do you associate with it?

Where are my fellow parents of young children? What does this look like in your life? Hopefully not the “Jesus take the wheel” approach. Is it possible to rest in the midst of the chaos, the needs of our little ones, where the days are long and the years are short. Rest is sometimes associated with the relaxing of the body but is more about status of the heart and the conviction of your soul that someone is at the helm of your crazy even when that person is not you. Physical cessation can be a part of this, but is not all of this.

Is “finished” different than “rest”? Either way, the work that he had done was both finished and He rested from it.

Transitional phrase: God defines that there is a difference between being finished and resting. So how does He evaluate that difference?

Evaluates (“Saw”): “Made it Holy” (v. 3)

Set Apart(v. 3)

So God blessed the seventh day

“blessed” same word as before in 1:22, 28,

and made it holy- “removed from common use; subject to special treatment, to render holy or set apart by means of religious rites.

Rested (v. 3)

because on it

God rested from all his work

“rested” -perfect, to be inactive, refrain from working

that he had done in creation- “Thus, the Sabbath element is not a tag on to the creation narrative. it is its motivation; the reason God creates is to establish a place of rest for himself” (NIVAC, 155

Application/Implications:

Only God has the ability to make something holy. Have your days become all to common?

God finished, rested, and blessed

You might be sitting here saying, “Wow, I am not doing this well”. The comforting thing is that neither did God’s people the Israelites. They were supposed to have a sabbath every week, every 7 years (Lev. 25:4). But they did not. They were warned in Lev 25:2-4; 26:33-35 what would happen if they disobeyed and both Jer 25:11-12; 29:10-14, 2 Chron. 36:21 confirm that they did not. Part of them going off to exile was to allow the land to catch up on the years of sabbath it had missed (Jer. 34:12-17). 70 years to make up for 490 years missed. After exile the people took it very seriously. Josephus records that Jerusalem was captured by Ptolemy 1 Soter (323-283bc) because the Jews refused to fight on the sabbath day.

Hebrews 4

Exodus 31:13 ““You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.”

Becoming more like Jesus includes trusting in the finished work of Jesus

Transitional phrase:

Summary: Rest, the act of trusting in the finished work of Jesus in creation and sanctification

Song: Everalsting God-

you will not faint,

you will not grow weary,

You're the defender of the weak

You comfort those in need You lift us up on the wings Like eagles