Season 3 Day 6 Genesis 2:1-3 7th Day God's Rest
Sue’s Notes:
Genesis 2:1-3 7th Day, God’s Rest
Two Questions:
1)Who are you God?
2)What are you like?
Many books and sermons on the subject of Rest. Sabbath mentioned 71 times in OT and 68 times in NT. Central to the 10 commandments. And I think we will keep coming back right here to this 7th Day as we continue through Genesis, because this is what we were made for! I think all of scripture keeps us coming back right here.
We don’t rest in God because we don’t believe:
1)That He is who He says He is
2)That He will do what He says He will do
The OT is showing man over and over not believing, but rebelling and not entering God’s rest, like the Israelites that came out of Egypt and rebelled, turning away from God. Psalm 95:7-11. It’s a repeated pattern over and over! They cry out to God and He rescues them and they rebel again.
Isaiah 30:15-16 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. (NIV-In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength) But you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt. They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.’ But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you!
God showing the people what they are doing. Being our own gods and battling by ourselves, with what we think is strong, but is not strong at all, Egypt (slavery) and their horses (own strength), lol!!! We have a choice. The rest of Chapter 30 from verse 18 so good, His love and goodness chasing us down!!! His voice saying, “This is the way you should go,”.
We can’t hear that voice unless we return/repent then stop/cease/rest
God gave the command of Sabbath in Exodus 20 and Deut 5, because He knew this was a human pattern of working/striving and forgetting who He is and who we are. Exodus 20:7-11. You have 6 days for your ordinary work and the 7th is a sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord. Interruption of our work, to return back to God’s Rest, remembering who God is, what He is like, that His work is complete, not ours. We can rest in His Work, not ours!
Our actions show what we believe. Often a gap between what I publicly say I believe, and even what I privately think I believe and what my actions show I believe.
Like saying I believe Jesus is Enough and still when a great stress comes into my life or great fear, I will turn to a counterfeit comfort like food, alcohol, shopping, trying to control/fix everyone else so that stress or fear ceases. Lol, trying to make that thing sabbath!
We have some warning lights built into our emotions that signal places of unbelief too. An example is having a great anger overtake us in response to someone’s behavior or a situation that threatens us. Or letting a great fear bring us to fight or flee in the face of a person or situation. And I say these from experience in my own life.
Right there in that counterfeit comfort or inflated emotional warning light, God is inviting us, just like in Isa 30, to be honest and cry out to Him. Be honest about the struggle and the unbelief behind it. Return (repent) to God and rest in Him or we will end up 30:17 battling in our own strength, pride, which brings harm to us and others. Take His Favor and invitation to intimacy and Return/repent and Rest.
I love that Repent is Return, turning back to God, back to the 7th Day we were made for.
How: Open His Word and tell Him what is on your heart, journal it out and as you read, journal what is popping off the page at you! Pray for God to reveal what is in your heart and to soften your heart.
The Israelites that left Egypt did not enter God’s Rest, even though at times they talked the talk, sang praises, and swore they would do as He asked. Their actions showed what they believed. They believed fear, lies of enemy over God. That He brought them out to the wilderness to die, that He wasn’t going to do what He said He was going to do!!! And the opposite was true. Bringing through wilderness to life and intimacy with Him.
These are the greatest lies of the enemy that bring unbelief and unrest!
1)That God isn’t who He says He is and
2)He isn’t going to do what He says He’s going to do! We’ll see that next week ☹
Couple things from Genesis 1 last week that will work into this week.
God Blessing what He breathed His breath of life into, the Day 5 animals and humans. Blessings is Him giving us His Favor! It makes it possible to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue and rule. It is His Heart given to us which is enough! It is an invitation to Intimacy with Him. Then He Blesses the 7th Day and makes it Holy. It is the place of living in His Favor in intimacy with Him! Blesses and makes Holy!
I had many ask me about Gen 1:26, God saying, “let us make human beings in our image to be like us.” Elohim, plural, yet all other sentence structure is singular in the Hebrew. This is who God is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is in and is perfect relationship, and He makes us in His Image for perfect relationship with Him and others. In chapter 2 we’ll see His Name as Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God. This is who He is in relationship with humans, Our breath, Our perfect relationship.
This Leads to Rest, Elohim, Yahweh Elohim!
I also said it was a risk for God to make us in His image and I want to clarify. Not a risk like He didn’t know the outcome, what was going to happen. No, it was a risk to His own heart, pain!!! And yes, He knew this was coming. Pain because being made in His Image meant humans could turn away from Him. Not just pain like we understand it, but the deepest pain of rejection as humans rebel over and over, the deepest pain of watching us destroy/harm ourselves and others, the deepest pain of having to wipe out what He created and begin again (Noah), the deepest pain of watching His Son pay the brutal price for the world’s sin, of being tortured and dying a criminal’s death on a cross He didn’t deserve, carrying the weight of my sin, your sin, the world’s sin on Himself, a pain we could never, ever fully understand, the deepest pain of Jesus crying out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me! And this He did for the joy that was set before him (Heb 12:2), the joy of this work of rescuing and restoring us to Him forever by defeating death, and eradicating the shame of sin (destroying it’s power), the joy of bringing us back to what He created us for, His Rest!!! It is finished!!!! His Work is finished!!! Full circle back to the 7th Day.
This leads to Rest!!!!
Rest is a person, belief in a person: Jesus!
This always takes me back to John 6 as the crowds were chasing Jesus because He gave them food miraculously (5000 fed) and they want to get their needs met. 6:15 They were ready to force Him to be their king (little k king, little expectation, didn’t really understand what He came to do!!!!). This is not rest, this is working/striving. 6:26-27 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth (truly, truly), you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. 27 But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man[a] can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”
They focus in on works and miraculous signs and ask: We want to perform God’s works too. What should we do? (in Greek it’s work the works of God). This is like saying they can do what God does and make themselves right by striving/working harder. He is holding out rest/eternal life and they are wanting to continue to work/strive to get their needs met and be accepted.
Jesus’ reply to the question about what work they should do in 6:29 “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”
Return/repent of your work and Stop/Cease/rest and believe the One God has sent, Jesus.
Believing:
1)Jesus is who He says He is and
2) Jesus will do what He says He will do.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He performed many miracles on the Sabbath. Rest has been ready from the beginning (Gen 2:1-3) and is now here, Jesus Heb 4:3-4.
Matt 11:25-30. Jesus is praying and thanking the Father from hiding these things (God’s truth in Jesus) from those who think themselves wise/clever, and for revealing them to the child-like. Children can believe and rest, in one more powerful than them!!! They know they need help!!!
Then He invites: Come to me all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. His yoke easy, light. Not wearisome!!! Just before started to pray he was talking crowds about judgement coming for unbelievers, those that saw Him and his miracles and did not repent (action of unbelief!). His Yoke is His/God’s teaching. Devotion/belief of His teaching/Word (He is the Word) frees a person (John 8:31-2)!!! You are the Yoke/the Word we take on to rest, find freedom! Jesus says, I will give you rest! He is the only One that can give us true Rest!!! He is Rest.
Rest is a person, Jesus!
Matt 12:1-8 Jesus and Disciples going through grainfield on Sabbath. Like they are in a garden on the Sabbath!!! Pharisees complained it was working on Sabbath. Priests work hard on the sabbath in the Temple! Work of Rest in Presence of God! And one greater than the Temple is here! For the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath. Jesus is Sabbath!!! Everything He does is Sabbath!!!
Unbelief and Fear not given/confessed (return/repent) to God leads to hard heartedness (stiff-necked), leads to disobedience/sin/rebellion, leads to unrest (weariness)/not entering God’s rest.
Honesty about what is in our heart. Turning to God and admitting what we are believing or not believing. What are you fearing or not fearing/revering? What are you actions saying about belief?
Disobedience is an action of unbelief. Obedience is a natural by-product of a heart receiving from God and believing! He is the author and perfector of our faith Heb 12:2.
Back to the Israelites who heard God’s voice and saw His miracles, saw His cloud by day and pillar of light by night, His Presence, yet they did not believe His Promises and Goodness. They believed fear and lies. Heb 3:18-19
Heb 4
1 His promise of rest (living in Day 7) still stands!!!
3 Only we who believe can enter His rest.
Heb 4:7 So God set another time for entering his rest, that time is Today!!! “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”
When you hear His gentle voice of conviction, when you hear Him saying come, you are weary, when you hear Him in the warning lights of your inflated emotional response, when you hear Him say “that is a counterfeit comfort”, don’t harden your heart in unbelief of who He is, fear and self-protection, and rebel. Be honest about what He is revealing in your heart and bring it to Jesus!!! He wants to take that place of weariness and burden that continues to drag you down and give you His Rest, live with you in His Rest! He can do it!!!
Heb 4:12-13 He has the tools to bring us to Faith, to expose all and cut away with the precision of the greatest surgeon, the hardness of our hearts! To bring healing, so that we to can enter His Rest, Today!!!!