I'd like to invite you to stand with me for the reading of God's Word, and as you stand, would you please turn with me, beginning with Isaiah 58, verses 11-14. Isaiah 58, verses 11-14. The prophet Isaiah writes, The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you shall build the old waste places, you shall raise up foundations of many generations, and you shall be called the repairer of the branch, the restorer of streets to dwell in. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken." May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. And now would you join me in reading from Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 to 10. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 1 to 10. The author of Hebrews says, beginning verse 1, Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel has preached to us as well as to them, but the word which they heard did not profit them. Not being mixed with faith in those who heard it, For those we who have believed do enter that rest. As he has said, So I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 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. and again in this place, they shall not enter my rest. Since, therefore, it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience. Again, he designates a certain day, saying in David, Today, after such a long time as it has been said, Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. or if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he has entered his rest, has himself also ceased from his works, as God did from his." All flesh is like grass and all of its glory is like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And all of God's children said, Amen. Please be seated. I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 2 as we examine verses 1 to 3 this morning. Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray very simply that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear, Lord, the excellence of your word. Help us, as it says in James, not to just be hearers of the word, but hearers and doers also. Lord, we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would help us throw off all the entanglements from this past week, and that we would like children sit at your feet listening to you and believe every word that comes out of your mouth. God help us, for it is in your precious name we pray. Amen. So this morning, we are in Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3, and I have entitled this sermon simply, The Sabbath Rest. I'd like to begin by reading for you out of the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day number 38. Question and answer 103. The question is, what does God require in the fourth commandment? The answer, in the first place, God wills that the ministry of the gospel and schools be maintained. That I, especially on the day of rest, diligently attend church to learn the word of God, to use the holy sacraments, to call publicly upon the Lord, and to give Christian alms. And the second place, that all the days of my life I rest from my evil works. Allow the Lord to work in me by His Spirit and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath. Well, like all of you, I enjoy a good vacation. Amen? Good vacation. On our anniversary, which is on June 25th, or the week of June 25th, Rachel and I always like to travel. That is our big vacation time. And this coming up anniversary on June 25th, we're going to be traveling to Michigan. One year on our 10th year anniversary, we travel to Santa Cruz, Mexico. by showing of hands, how many of you have been to Santa Cruz, Mexico? Absolutely nobody. Well, it was a good time. It was a lot of fun. It was a big, beautiful beach and lots of people, some of whom we got to meet and kind of be friends for the week that we were there. But we saved for that trip. We planned it. We looked forward to our going, to resting, to having fun together. And it's interesting, in all of the brochures and the pictures that you can look at, one thing is absolutely certain as you head towards going on this vacation, no matter what might be going on in your life prior to your vacation to Santa Cruz, and what might come after your vacation in Santa Cruz, that the vacation itself will be so relaxing that you will be like butter melting in the microwave. You will be as comfortable as humanly possible. You'll be relaxed. And even after you come back from your vacation, the relaxation that you will feel in Santa Cruz, Mexico will be so overwhelming that even if you got fired, kicked out of your house, whatever other terrible things could happen to you could not overcome the relaxation that you felt because of Santa Cruz, Mexico. I remember on the morning of the flight, we ended up getting there very, very early in the morning, and we were told that there was some kind of an issue with the flight. Well, after they told us about this issue, we had to wait for another six hours before we found out that the flight was no longer going to fly that morning, and it was incumbent upon us to find another flight. So you see hundreds of people, or however many there were, run over to this little kiosk with two ladies that looked as scared as it can be. Everybody asking what they can do, and finally we made our way up there, and we were given another flight that we had to wait another four or five hours to get on. We felt stressed. We were looking for Santa Cruz. and we were looking for feeling like butter after our vacation. Well, we ended up getting there and we had fun. It was an all-inclusive place, which means that all of the activities and the restaurants are all under this one umbrella. But the promise that you will be so relaxed that when you leave that you can't feel stressed is a lie. They cannot guarantee on the promise of the pictures that when you leave, you will be as relaxed as you do while on vacation. As we're flying home, all of a sudden you start to feel stressed about finding your flights. You feel stressed out because people are frankly rude. And on one of the flights, I remember I became very sick. and I believe I was sick for several weeks after our vacation. So the promise of this rest that you have at Santa Cruz isn't something that they can promise you. The point is that this rest that this world has to offer us could not be delivered as promises. You have a lifetime of wonderful memories, you take many pictures, but that rest is not a lasting rest. Let me read for you from Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30. Jesus says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What God commands his people to participate in on the seventh day, what Christ promises the elect through himself, is not simply a rest that we get on Sundays. It is something that points to and is realized in the eternity with our Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I'd like to invite you now to read with me as I read Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 3. The word of the Lord says, 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 of his work which God had created and made." So Moses, the narrator and the writer of Genesis, informs us here in verse 1 that God had completed his Trinitarian work of completing creation. And what we see as we look back at chapter one at the creating process is that everything that God created, when it was finished being created per day, looked over and saw that it was good. Verse four, God created light and he called it good. Verse 10, God called the dry land earth, and he gathered together all of the waters, and he called them seas, and he called the land earth, and he called the water seas, and he said that they were good. Verse 12, And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in and itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Verse 18, God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, and He called it good. Verse 21, so God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. Verse 25, and God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and they were good. Verse 31, then God saw that everything he had made, and indeed it was very good. Well, the idea here is that what he had created and had finished creating was good. We notice, though, in verse 2, it says, 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. There are two things to notice here, verse 2. The first is the text says that God ended his work. The work ended from the Hebrew word kalah means completed. It means finished or ended. And in saying this, and this is the point that God's work ended by his work ending, we do not mean that God stopped doing anything and everything for a 24 hour period. It means that the task of creating had been completed. Everything from verse 4 chapter 1 to verse 31 had been finished. There was nothing more that needed to be done. The task of creation had been concluded. The making of all the various types of fish, the whales and sharks and starfish and plankton et cetera, all of the spiders and the worms and the grasshoppers and the frogs and the turtles, again, et cetera, the bears, cows, deers, monkeys, the stars, the solar system, the sun, the moon, all of it had been completed, it was ended, it finished, literally that there is nothing more that God needed to do to make this world habitable for mankind. The second thing that we notice, verse two, it says, and he rested on the seventh day. Notice, in light of creation being completed, again, he rested on the seventh day. Rested, a word that we see again in verse three is the Hebrew word Shabbat. It is a word that literally means to cease. So the idea here in both his work ending and his resting on the seventh day is that God no longer needed to perform the task of creating because the task was complete and therefore God could cease from the task of creating. It was finished. The fact that he says it twice, that he rested, verse two and verse three, does not somehow imply that God was tired and he needed the day off. We know this because the work of God continued on from that day till today and will continue on until the Lord returns is that work of providentially taking care of what he had created and the elect. God is not somehow a clockmaker as we hear about from the false teaching of deism that God somehow creates. He creates all of these things. He creates Adam and Eve and then somehow walks away from his creation. In fact, what we see in scripture to the contrary is that God very deeply, sovereignly, providentially cares about what he has created and the people that he has put on earth to have dominion over his creation. Amongst the many passages that we see that realized, we see it in Acts 17 verses 25 to 27. The word of the Lord says, In other words, God's work is now providentially caring for the world that he created, as well as calling those whom he is electing to himself and saving them. That is, according to his eternal decree, governing over his creations and all of their actions. Which brings us to verse 3. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all of his work which God had created and made." Notice again here that God blessed, we're told, this seventh day. The Hebrew word barak literally means to speak divine favor over. He blessed the seventh day as well as sanctified it. It says, then God blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it. Sanctified from the Hebrew word kadas to consecrate or dedicate in service to God. We're told here in the text why it was blessed and sanctified. It says, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. The point being here is that because God rested on the seventh day, blessing it and sanctified it after His work of creating had been completed, that you and I should see this day as a special day. The unique day that God sets aside that you and I might celebrate Him for all that He has done. We see this mentality that we are to have in Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 10. We're told there, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. We see this mentality that we are to have in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verses 12 to 15. The word of the Lord says, Observe the Sabbath day, and to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well with you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. The idea, very simply, as we already know, is that the fourth commandment, which we see repeated throughout Scripture, which we see beginning here in Genesis chapter 2, verses 1 to 3, is a rationale in which the Lord our God, because he has saved us and delivered us from the power of sin and death, set aside one day in which we gather together to worship him, both for creating and his salvific work within us. It is an entire day, one where we think about Him, we think about His word, we think about the songs that we sing and the things that these songs teach us, and we spend every day worshiping Him, but this one day we gather together as the people of God to worship Him in spirit and in truth, amen? In fact, one of the things that we see in scripture that you and I are supposed to do as the people of God is to make our gathering together a priority. that unless somehow providentially you and I are kept from being able to come, coming to worship the Lord our God is not one thing amongst many things that we can pick and choose to do on a Sunday morning, but our priority is rather our gathering together to encourage love on one another and worship the Lord our God together. because he has delivered us from sin and its eternal consequences in hell. I know that oftentimes it's difficult to get up in the morning, amen? I realize if we were going to be honest that there are many things that come our way that make getting up on Sunday morning difficult, different stresses that we feel, sometimes rubbing shoulders with people that are harder for us to get along with can be difficult. But the fact of the matter is that church and our gathering together to worship the Lord our God with the means of grace is something that we ought to look forward to. It is a breath of fresh air. It is a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day. It is the one time where we walk away from the meanness and the anger and the sinfulness of this world and we gather together that we might encourage one another and worship together and love one another because the Lord our God has called us to be His people. And it's interesting, the world has clubs, it's got all these different activities that it hopes to produce the type of connection only the church can have through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. They have all these different activities and you go and you participate in them, and it ends up leaving you dry. But when the church looks to biblically help and love one another as we worship the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, because on this unique day, the Sabbath day, we come to worship Him, and it's got nothing to do with the worldly pursuit of fancy vacations that always leaves you dry. Amen? We come out of here regardless of how we felt when we came in. God has ministered to us. He has nourished us. He has refreshed us to the praise of His glorious name. I've said this many times in Sunday school when I was a teenager. Sometimes I did not like getting up in the morning to come to church. I didn't understand what we were doing in church. Frankly, the church that my parents were taking me to wasn't worshipful. It was a feel-good kind of atmosphere. You had people who genuinely wanted to love one another, but sometimes didn't always know how. And so they tried to build up your self-esteem. Well, the beauty of a church that looks to honor Jesus Christ as its Lord and Savior is trying to encourage one another, and yet the basis of what we're doing is actually rooted in Scripture and what God has called us to do together for His glory. No matter how I came in, I always left feeling better. You may not know it, but it is my prayer each and every week, although we might be looking at a difficult passage of scripture, that you and I would leave this place differently than the way that we came in. That we would genuinely look to encourage one another. That we would be uplifted via His Word, that it would be a satisfying thing for us to get up in the morning, to get ready to come, to sit under His Word, to hear from Him, and then together, by faith, walk out looking to live for His glory because of what He has called us to do. And it's a tremendous blessing to be encouraged by His Word. So the first thing that the Sabbath rest ought to help us do is to get up in the morning and to come worship Him with His people. Amen? The other thing that we are reminded of, however, is that, as we said in the very beginning, that this rest that we get isn't just about land in the Old Testament. It's not just about a day of relaxation. It points us to something, a bigger reality. You look at Hebrews chapter four, which we see a quote from Psalm 95, where the author of Psalm 95 is looking at the promise of God for his people to enter into the promised land, to enjoy the seventh day rest. That those things, as good as they are, the land and that day of rest, they point to something bigger, like we are this morning. They don't simply point to a land, a geographic location. It doesn't just point to a day of the week that we gather together and rest for that day from our many troubles and worries. It points to the fact that when the Father sends the Son, the Son purchases our salvation through his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and that we have the promise, therefore, that we will one day, through him, enter into that eternal rest. So the idea here biblically is not only are we given the promise of an eternity with him through Jesus Christ that we get to look forward to, it's that because of him and this salvation, we have a peace together that this world cannot understand. There are many troubles in this world that we see. There are many difficulties, many challenges, things that might come our way that may take our breath away. We don't always know how to respond to, but the fact is that we have this rest both to point us to an eternity with Christ our Savior, but the fact that this same Christ is with you each and every day of our lives. That He really does lead and guide you as we go about this walk of faith. That He does heal us of our various struggles and health concerns. He really does lead and guide you according to His word. Again, Matthew 11, 28, it says, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The basic idea that the Old Testament taught that you and I have to somehow earn our salvation is, through Christ, done away with. And therefore, the pressure of being perfect has been removed. that when I mess up or sin, I can confess that to him or the person that I've hurt and be restored and forgiven and given yet again this rest, this peace and the promise of an eternal rest and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know where you hear about those things? It's not on K-Love, it's not on some Christian television show that preaches the prosperity, but in our local church. The means of grace, the preaching of God's word, the sacraments, the fellowship we have together, our prayer together, the reading of God's word. So the question is, on the Sabbath rest, does it remind you that Jesus Christ is in fact with you? As we talked about at Sunday school, that He's never going to forsake you. Is it pleasurable to our hearts to gather together, to meet people and talk with them and encourage them and pray with them or frankly has church just because something that you have to do to cross off so that we can continue on in our life. See, I love this church. We love this church. We love you. We love coming. We love being a part of everything that the church is doing and everything that it will eventually do. We love meeting here, although it's hot. We love visiting with people. We love praying with you. We like eating food with you. Amen? We like the Reformation Day. We like... I don't know. We're looking forward to the Men's Night Out. Rachel's not looking forward to the Men's Night Out. But I realized something very early on in my life that of all the friends I could possibly have, none of them can do for me what the church can do. And it's not because of you in and of yourself. It's because of the work that God is doing in you through the gospel. This uniting that we have together. I know from 8 in the morning till 10 o'clock at night I'll be at synod meetings and Rachel will be enjoying tea and whatever the ladies like to do there in Menno. And yet through the work of the Lord, we'll feel not only a good sense of tiredness, but that we're serving one another and you. And that's to the praise of His glorious name. Don't ever look at church as just some activity that you do look at it as a thing where God fills you and teaches you and strengthens you. Because as we all know, this world is getting darker and darker. We're not going to get fed by watching TV, or Monday night football, or going bowling, as fun as those things are. We're going to get fed in our gathering together to worship Him for all that He has done to the praise of His glorious name. Amen. Let's pray. God in heaven, we thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord. We thank you, Heavenly Father, that this church meets here in Minot, North Dakota, I thank you, Heavenly Father, that we have a unity that this world cannot understand, that we have a love for one another that it cannot understand. I pray that we don't just depart this place and do what ordinary activities we do, but I pray that we would make this a special day in which we worship you. Remember all that you have done. that we would encourage one another and love one another and pray for one another. Lord, help us to build relationships with everyone here. For it is in your precious name we pray. Amen.