Reverence & Rest: Entering In (Pastor Aaron Trelfa, 08/27/22)

For those who are just visiting, you're going to get to experience something I do, not all

the time, but regularly.

I like to touch sometimes on what happens in the news and then give a biblical or theological

response to it because I think that we can do that often.

One quiz question, what was the perhaps the number one headline from this past week?

Ripples everywhere.

Lots of folks were talking about it.

Student loan forgiveness.

Did we hear that that was announced this past week?

Alright.

This is not going to be a commentary on the rights or the wrongs.

Whatever, that's up to you.

If that impacts you, if you're making that decision, have at it.

Talk on the side, weigh your options.

What I would like to touch on is a viral meme that went around the internet.

I could not log on to any of my social media once the announcement was made without seeing

this meme.

It was all over the place.

I'm sure it was shared by well-intended folk, but you might have realized that I'm going

to mention it because it's good to critique it.

So let's critique it.

Here's the meme.

If you're a Christian and you're big mad about the possibility of student loan debt being

canceled, let me remind you that the entirety of your faith is built upon a debt you couldn't

pay that someone stepped in and paid for you.

Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Sounds accepting.

Sounds like the kind of thing that Christians could stand behind and support, and many Christians

were.

I would like to submit to you that though at first glance this is not so bad, however,

this statement does continue a long tradition of mixing socio-political happenings with

bad theology.

This mixing is usually to help lend biblical or Christian support to something that otherwise

should be left outside of the biblical and Christian discussion.

There's a little bit of an oil and water attempt, if you will.

What do I mean by that?

Well, first let us look at the Gospel because this meme is attempting to mix the statement

about student loan debt forgiveness with the Gospel.

That's the mixture.

That's the attempt.

What is the Gospel?

This is in a nutshell three points about the Gospel, the good news.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead, voluntarily offered himself

as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

He voluntarily sacrificed himself to pay the sin debt that you and I could not pay.

Is that a fair summary?

Number two, all the debt was taken upon himself.

All the debt from past, present, and his time, and all the way until probation ends, all

of that debt was taken singularly and solely upon Jesus Christ himself.

Correct?

He did not share the burden with anyone else and in reality he could not because only Jesus

could have paid this debt for humanity.

It could not have been shared.

And finally, when you are forgiven of sin by the blood of Jesus, your sins are entirely

scrubbed clean.

That's the great and fantastic news of the Gospel.

God treats your sins when Jesus' blood cleanses it and washes it.

He treats you as if you've never sinned ever.

They're cast into the trench.

They're tossed into the black holes that maybe James Webb Telescope is going to show us one

day.

When God looks at you after you have accepted Christ's sacrifice, what does he see?

Christ's robe of righteousness on you.

Scrubbed clean, wiped, gone.

There is a totality in the forgiveness of the Gospel.

By contrast, this student, and again this is not, maybe you're in favor of some of these

points, I'm just drawing the contrast between the Gospel and what's going to happen with

this process or this act if it comes to fruition.

By contrast, student loan debt forgiveness will forcibly transfer the debts from the

debtors to the broader society.

I use the word forcibly because I was not consulted on this.

They did not come to me.

Maybe you had a different experience.

Maybe they came to you and they said, how do you feel about accepting someone else's

debt?

They did not do that to me.

So for this to happen means that it will, and we're going to touch on this, it will

be forcibly imposed on a broader sense.

That's not voluntary.

That's a direct opposition.

This act is not voluntary.

Often, often the debtors can or could pay back the debt.

Most student loan debt is held by people that are in the middle to upper middle class.

They usually have advanced degrees.

That's where the greater weight of student debt is.

Not all, but the greater weight is on those with higher advanced degrees, which means

the higher likelihood of a better paying job, generally speaking.

So they can or they could pay the debt.

That's very different than that sin debt, diametrically opposed.

You and I cannot in any sense, the tiniest fraction of a point pay towards our sin debt.

Not at all.

Often the people that can or could find themselves struggling because either they haven't, they

won't, or their priorities on debt management are out of order.

Often.

Second, unlike the debt of sin burdened by Jesus and Jesus alone, the forgiveness is

a redistribution of debt.

It is.

There is no magical wand or eraser that poof lets it disappear into nothingness.

It is a redistribution of debt.

Both liberal and conservative sources in economics believe that this will definitely add to the

current inflationary state.

They believe that it definitely could increase the likelihood of higher taxes, that it definitely

incentivizes universities to further raise their rates.

In other words, that money goes somewhere and it's due somehow.

It's not just scrubbed clean, unlike your sins when Christ's blood is applied to it.

Can you see how this is not the gospel?

That means that there is no totality of forgiveness with this act.

There is not.

Forgiveness is a euphemism for redistribution.

Maybe you're in favor of it.

I know a lot of people are in favor of the redistribution approach to these things.

Maybe you are.

Okay, this is not a commentary on that.

Again, we're drawing the points on how it's not the gospel.

The argument is also faulty theology because if it were not faulty theology, then this

idea would apply to all debt.

Credit cards, auto, mortgage, et cetera.

All debt.

But you don't hear arguments for that, at least not yet.

I say give it time.

I say give it time.

If we're going to apply this, the logical conclusion is to take this application to

its extent.

That extent is everything.

Why not scrub our visas clean and our master cards and our Subarus or Toyotas?

Why not if we're going to apply this across the board?

No one's doing that just yet.

This seems to be a backwards application.

It sounds good, so we're going to backwards apply the Bible into something.

What is good theology then when it comes to your debt?

Well, let's turn to the Bible.

Don't take my word on it.

The greatest source for all of our ideas, our theologies, our framework for applying

it to life, the Bible.

One, a good principle is to not conflate the gospel with things that are not the gospel.

If it looks kind of like it but it is not, please don't try and conflate the two.

That's just a general principle.

Slow down on it and weigh out these different aspects that I've kind of outlined and say

do they line up?

And if not, try to not force that blending.

Force that square peg round hole kind of idea.

Pray for discernment.

Be slow to overly apply the gospel principle.

The gospel is the gospel.

There is something more grand about what Jesus did for you and I than just simply how it

applies to our financial situation today.

That's so high and lofty.

I would like to leave the gospel the gospel.

So now some Bible verses if you're wanting to take note.

Proverbs 13, 7, and 8, pay to all what is owed to them.

Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is

owed, honor to whom honor is owed, owe no one anything except to love one another.

That's a great starting point.

Pay your dues, owe no one except love.

Proverbs 22, 7, this is B, the second half of that verse.

The borrower is the slave of the lender.

Don't borrow outside of your means essentially because then your paycheck comes and as quickly

as it comes it bleeds right through your fingers and it goes out because you're then working

for the lender.

Luke 14, 28, in the context of the cost of discipleship, Christ also gives an illustration

that can apply here.

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost

whether he has enough to complete it?

We are asking 18, 19, and 20, and 21 year olds to not really consider the long term.

Can they pay off the tower that they're signing their name to?

It is good.

We should be encouraging our children or our grandchildren or you if you're helping them

out.

When you put your name on the bottom of that paper on that electronic form, have you weighed

out what this tower is going to cost you?

And can you pay for it?

It's a fantastic principle.

Apply it to all of your purchases basically.

It's a good principle.

And then finally Psalm 37, 21, the wicked borrows but does not pay back but the righteous

is generous and gives.

This is not the gospel when it comes to an adult.

At 18 we consider them adults.

There's debate.

At 18 we consider them mature enough to sign on the dotted line which means that at that

point we are asking them to then weigh out all of these different options.

And if they get over their head I'm sure there are ways of doing it but please do not conflate

the ways of relief with what Jesus did for your sins.

They are not the same.

So when these memes come around when they catch like fire and it sounds so good, pray

for discernment my friends.

It's not always what it looks like on the surface.

That's my own.

That's my little bit.

Now we'll get into our message.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father thank you again that we can come and worship you this morning.

That in unity, in voice, in song, in prayer we can come before your throne.

We can acknowledge you as our Lord and Savior.

So as we open up your word I pray that your Holy Spirit would be present.

Give me the words to speak but also I pray that you would soften our hearts that we might

be receptive.

As we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

For those who are just here you are catching us on 1, 2, 3,.4 of I don't know how long

a sermon series.

I have started to describe the sermon series like a train where we started with the locomotive

of Hebrews chapter 12, the very end of that chapter and we looked at photos from the James

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Webb telescope and we said how amazing the universe is, how amazing, more amazing is

God.

And then how much does he love us and what is our response to him?

Well we respond to him with reverence, with awe, with worship.

Then if we're going to ask the question how could that look, well we go to our best human

example and that would be Jesus Christ himself.

Where he cleansed out the temple in Matthew the second time in his ministry.

How did he respond to the children?

How did he respond to the hypocrites?

How did he act in that place of prayer and worship, healing, shouting hosannas, etc.

Defending the innocent.

Then because he referred to the temple as the house of prayer, we turn to where that

reference was taken from, Isaiah 56.

And we looked at how before the house of prayer becomes the house of prayer, we notice that

the foreigner and the eunuchs, the outcasts are welcomed into the body of believers.

Those on the fringe, those that are hurting, those that have been damaged, those that are

converting in.

We give them room to do so as they are and we allow Jesus to work in their lives.

We shouldn't close the door and we shouldn't expect perfection before we let people come

and worship God.

So are we allowing our doors of this church to be that?

Are we welcoming in the outcasts because you need to do that first before we can have a

house of prayer?

That's our third car.

If you were paying close attention, you will have noticed that I purposefully did not land

on the caveat.

The caveat to the eunuchs and to the foreigners in Isaiah 56 is this in verse 4, to the eunuchs

who keep my Sabbaths.

And then in verse 6, the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, everyone who keeps

the Sabbath.

Now I purposefully skipped over that because we are following this progression of things.

Well one, it starts with are we welcoming and are we opening?

Well now let's look at the next step, the next car.

Again this is why I say we are just kind of following this train through inspired writings

and seeing where God wants to take us with regards to worship and reverence.

Additionally, I want to share with you a purposeful approach to this.

I don't know, I haven't asked, I haven't heard it.

Some might be wondering why we haven't talked about the forms of worship.

Why we really haven't gone into a list of what to do when it comes to worshiping God.

How should we sing, how should we pray, how should we do all of these things?

That's by design.

It is by design that we are not leapfrogging into what it looks like, but rather we are

laying the foundation for the heart attitude.

We are laying the foundation for the principles of we respond to God.

This is a place of healing for the sin sick.

This is where we allow joyful worship, not dead-panned stoic silence.

You can have joy in your worship.

We are laying the groundwork because if we don't have that groundwork laid then we can

easily fall into just forms.

Thinking that the forms are the groundwork and that would be reversing it.

Because we can easily think of Micah chapter 6 when we do this where Micah 6, God is saying,

Micah 6 · chapter mention

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old, forms of worship?

It's what God had dictated.

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Good questions.

All of that is proper.

But then God responds, He's told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require

of you but to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God.

If all we do is walk in these doors and think that our forms are what God cares most about,

we've gotten it backwards like the people in Micah's day.

So we are purposefully laying the foundation for the forms.

Because if your heart's not in it, my friends, you are not being reverent no matter how perfectly

you do the forms.

You're not.

We touched on that last time.

If we come here to worship God and our first thoughts are how indecently someone is dressed,

you are not being reverent.

If your first thought is why aren't we kneeling, why is that person sitting for prayer, that's

not reverence.

If your first thought is, and that list could continue, if that's your first thought, your

first thought is about criticism or this and that and so on, and it's not about honoring

your creator and by extension the image of him in those around you, if you're not loving

those people, if you're not caring for those people, if you're not permitting the space

for broken hearted, sin-sick, addicted, beat down and exhausted humans to come to their

God for healing, if we're not allowing that, we're not being reverent no matter what else

we do.

So we are going to touch on, we're going to start our look at this caveat, the Sabbath.

Because it's very clear that these individuals described as the foreigner and as the eunuchs,

and I would extend that, that's Christians, that's the rest of us, if we are going to

come into the house of prayer, then this caveat extends to you and to me.

If you are unfamiliar with the seventh day Sabbath, please forgive me that today is not

going to be an expounding on the proof text for the seventh day Sabbath.

Find me afterwards, talk to one of our elders, any one of my church members here will help

you do a Bible study.

I have volunteered you all.

You start a creation, you go to Exodus 16, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, a couple of times

in Isaiah, you go to Nehemiah with the rebuilding of the wall, Jesus in all the gospels, then

into the Acts and what the apostles did, you go into Hebrews, you go into Revelation chapter

Revelation 14 · chapter mention

14, the seventh day Sabbath and its relationship to our creator is all the way through Genesis

to Revelation.

It's all there.

We are instead, like we have been doing, going to look at more of the foundation to it.

Why the emphasis on the Sabbath for the foreigner and the eunuch in Isaiah 56?

If you still got your Bibles open or your app opened to Hebrews chapter 4 and verse

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

1, that's where we are going to begin.

Verse 1, therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any

of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

A short summary to catch us up to what the writer of Hebrews is saying.

Hebrews in a nutshell is the Israelites had this and it was good, but now in Jesus we

have this and it is better.

In a nutshell, the writer of Hebrews is drawing that comparison to what the Israelites had

and it was a good and moral and God-centered economy, but now that Jesus has come it is

now better and perfect and higher and holier.

That was then, Jesus came, this is now.

Much of it carried over, but it's better.

Everything is better in Jesus.

That's what Hebrews says.

So he's writing in chapter 3 about how Jesus is greater than Moses.

Fair enough.

Then we get to the rest for the people of God because Moses was leading the Israelites

from captivity, from slavery into the free promised land.

While in Jesus we are taken from the slavery of sin into eternal glory and life in the

promised land.

Can we see that?

That's the parallels that we're working with.

When the Israelites though came to that southern part of the promised land, were they able

to enter in at that time?

No.

What kept them out?

Unbelief and then bold rebellion and then sorrow for the results of the rebellion, which

then led to more rebellion, which then led to loss of life, etc.

It was not good for them, but you're correct.

Initially, they could not enter in because of their unbelief.

God had said, I'm giving you this land and I'm going to go before you to prepare the

way for you.

Then when the spies came back, they said it's everything God said, but we can't do it.

The giants are too big.

We can't enter into this promised land.

That promised land for people just delivered from slavery meant rest.

God was going to drive out the enemies.

God was going to lay down the strongholds.

God was going to conquer for them.

They were just going in after God.

That promised land, Canaan, to these freed slaves meant rest, but they could not enter

in because of their unbelief.

Now the writer of Hebrews speaking to a Christian audience, a converted audience, many from

Judaism to Christianity, is bringing this to mind.

They might be thinking, have we now missed the chance at the rest that God promised the

descendants of Abraham?

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of

you should seem to have failed to reach it.

The first note that we're going to get from this is that the emphasis here is not on the

rest.

It's not on the rest, but on the entering in.

Can they enter into this rest that was promised?

The entering in in the original language is the emphasis, the entering in, the ability

to go into this rest.

So what were they fearful of?

If the entering into the rest still stands, what should they fear?

Because he's telling them that you haven't lost out on the chance to rest.

You haven't lost out on the promise of the promised land.

It's still there.

Why are you fearing?

There are a couple of things that they could have been fearing.

One, that the rest was promised to Israel, and that means the descendants of Abraham

and that they missed it by becoming Christians, that they just simply missed the opportunity.

The door was closed and then they couldn't enter into this rest.

That disobedience, that is, that they were fearful of disobeying kept them out of the

entering in.

Do we sometimes worry that our disobeying completely blocks us from the entering into

God's rest?

Have we ever thought to ourselves, I'm not going to come to church because I woke up

grumpy and I was wrathful at my spouse?

Have we ever thought, I can't show my face there because even though they don't know

what I did on Thursday, I do and God does.

That disobeying, has that ever been a wall in your life to prevent you from the entering

in?

Because remember, the entering in is the emphasis here.

Maybe they were thinking that.

For four, and please note that this is the promise of entering his rest still stands,

let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

In that phrase, what we find is that the failure is not in the disobedience.

The failure is not in they missed the timing of it all.

The failure, in other words, you're not too old to enter into God's rest.

There is no, you're not 80 and all of a sudden I should have done it when I was 30, I can't

now.

No, my friends, there's not a missed opportunity.

The failure is in the entering in.

That sounds so simple, doesn't it?

That's not that the disobedience that was the failure and it's not the missing the opportunity.

The failure is just that they didn't enter in.

God said, here's the border of the land, enter in and they said, no, thank you.

We won't enter in.

Today God is offering you that same opportunity to enter into his rest and are you just simply

saying no, thank you.

And then you maybe you come up with a rationale or really an excuse.

But where the failure is, is in just not accepting the offer.

The entering in.

Are you just not?

I wonder.

The thing about the gospel is it will.

I firmly believe I accept the statement.

It'll be the science that we study through the ages.

The saving, the salvation in Christ and what it meant for God to become human and then

for divinity to die, etc.

That's the science that we will be studying forever.

And yet it is also so simple as God has an open door for you to enter in.

Are you just choosing to enter in?

Or do you come up with a reason to not to?

Because the fear.

Is failing to enter.

Not am I fearful that I've done too much?

God can't forgive me or I'm fearful that the fear is just the failing to enter.

Are we taking him up on his offer?

Into verse two now for good news came to us just as to them.

What was read to us today said gospel gospel, good news, same thing as just different translations

of the same word for good news came to us just as to them.

But the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith

with those who listened.

The message that they heard that good news was not the gospel in the same sense that

we use gospel and good news.

That's why good news is probably a better translation because for the Israelites, the

good news had nothing to do with the sacrificial system.

At that moment, it was the entering into the rest promised by God.

You've been slaves for all those decades and centuries.

I've delivered you.

I'm promising you rest.

I'm going to go before you.

That's the good news.

I'm saving you.

Enter into my rest.

That's the good news.

So the message that they heard was the promise of the rest and that that promise of the rest

comes to us today just as it came to them back then.

I thank God for that.

I know when I've tried to struggle under how can I overcome or I can't come in because

that wall of something I did on Tuesday is preventing me or the shame that I feel is

stopping me from entering in.

It's good to know that that offer of rest still stands.

Are we entering in?

Good news came to us just as to them.

In other words, this is all for you and I.

Those who heard but the message that they heard did not benefit them.

The message that they heard.

There is a difference between just kind of hearing something and having heard it.

It's like the difference in hearing and listening.

Right?

What's the difference?

Hearing is probably a lot more superficial.

The sound waves come into my ears.

They do all of that anatomy stuff and I know what is said or I know what sound is played

on the piano.

And when you listen, then there's a response, then it's absorbed, then it's applied.

Maybe it's memorized.

It changes you.

It affects you when you listen as opposed to just hearing it.

The listening aspect is what is enveloped in this word heard.

The good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit

them.

Why did it not benefit them?

Because with those Israelites, they did not pay attention by obeying.

What were they to obey?

Enter in.

Enter into the rest.

That was the obeying and they said, no, thank you.

Faith is the proper response to a promise.

Because we're talking about a promise.

The promise of entering his rest is still available.

The promise of his rest available to them is available to you and I.

The promise is there.

By faith, are we grasping that promise and acting on it?

By faith, are we entering into something that doesn't always make sense?

By faith, are we just?

Let me ask it this way.

Is faith merely belief?

No.

The Bible tells us that the devils believe and tremble.

Faith is believing and then acting according to that belief.

If you believe that the rest is available to you, are you acting on it?

Are you coming to Jesus when you need relief for your sins?

Are you coming to Jesus when you are burdened with the stress of this world?

Are you coming to Jesus when you are guilty and you can't shake it?

Are you coming to Jesus when you need peace that surpasses understanding?

Are you acting on the belief?

Are you acting on the promise?

It is in this sense that those who believe have entered into God's rest.

Hebrews 4, 2 does hearken back to Hebrews 2, verses 3 and 4.

Hebrews 2:3

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard, while

God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy

Spirit distributed according to his will.

Here we see the connection between those who heard the promise of the entering into the

rest and now salvation.

Again, we are following a train.

Now we are seeing the connection drawn from the one to the other.

Hebrews 4, 3 if we were to continue indicates that they were in the process of entering

the rest.

We who have believed enter that rest.

It may be that the concept of rest in this passage connotes both a future expectation

and a present reality.

Sometimes we also like to think that the entering of the rest is only at the eschatological end.

When sin is done away, the graves are split open and we are in glory with God.

Can we enter into that rest?

Yes.

Does that mean that we forgo it now?

No.

This is an ongoing process, an ongoing promise that you are invited to enter into.

It's not only a reality for then, it can be yours today.

Are you willing to accept that?

The concept of rest, this is, we are going to start looping back around to conclude.

The concept of rest is not mentioned anymore in Hebrews but the concept of the entering

in is a fairly common reference.

And that's exactly why here starting off the entering in is the emphasis.

Hebrews 6, Hebrews 9, Hebrews 10 entering in comes up repeatedly.

We see this in Jesus, Jesus having entered into heaven so that we may have confidence

to enter now.

It's crucial to the understanding of this epistle and the meaning of rest because the

rest for the believer is surely an eschatological rest but that's not the focus nor the meaning.

Whatever the rest is, it's available now and not only in the future when believers get

to heaven.

So why are we talking about this entering in when it comes to the eunuchs and the foreigners

and Isaiah with the Sabbath?

Because if you're looking at the Sabbath as a list of do's and don'ts, you're going to

disappoint yourself because you're going to come up short.

If you're looking at the Sabbath, the seventh day Sabbath, Sabbath just for y'all who don't

know, in the Hebrews Sabbath and rest share the same root letters.

One is a noun and one is a verb but when they're sharing the same root letters that's extremely

important.

In other words, the seventh day Sabbath and rest cannot be separated.

So when we're talking rest and when we talk Sabbath, we're talking about all of it together.

When we're entering into the rest, when we're entering into Sabbath with God, how are we

entering into it?

Are we entering into it with foreboding?

My parents I think know this, if not they're finding out.

When I was a child I would enter into the Sabbath with, now I don't get to see my TV

for 24 hours, right?

When we entered into the Sabbath, and I was a kid, a lot of kids I think think this way,

when the Sabbath drew near I thought boy I got to cram in all that I want to do because

now I can't.

The Sabbath was boring.

The Sabbath was am I going to get sniped at if I bounce a ball this way or kick a ball

that way?

One is okay after sundown but the other one is not.

Can I swim on Sabbath or can I not?

Some people say no you cannot, you can only get your legs wet to the knee.

I've heard those stories.

I have heard that little toddlers can't play with their Mattel Matchbox toy cars on the

Sabbath.

They're toddlers, they don't know, they're doing what toddlers do, they got their toy

cars.

As a youth I looked forward to the Sabbath hours ending and by that I meant one minute

after sundown because that was guarding the edge.

One minute after sundown and then I could turn on the TV and get back to life.

Because to me as a child, and this is not a commentary on how I was raised, this is

how I applied it, how I applied it, the Sabbath was do's and don'ts.

The Sabbath was walk this way, talk this way, eat this way, sit down this way, etc. etc.

Sabbath was not a rest for me.

Maybe we had lay activities in the afternoon but it was not a rest for me.

It was a burden.

And for too many well intended Adventists those precious, sacred, sanctified 24 hours

are a burden, not a rest.

Are there do's and don'ts?

Yes.

We'll cover those next time.

But if you aren't coming in, if you are not entering into the Sabbath with the right idea

then the do's and don'ts are going to be the burden.

It's going to be the shackle, it's going to be where you find your displeasure in a day

that God wants you to find joy.

Because what does the Sabbath rest mean?

To the Israelites that promised land, that rest they were entering in meant freedom from

slavery.

It meant our creator God is working on our behalf day and night.

The pillar of fire at night keeping us warm from the frost of the desert.

The pillar of cloud in the day shielding us from the desert sun and the heat.

He keeps away the snakes.

He let our shoes last for 40 years and our clothes didn't wear out.

We were fed with angel food every day and now we've got a land flowing with milk and

honey.

That's what that meant.

That's what that rest meant.

What does the Sabbath rest mean?

The Sabbath is a weekly reminder that one, you are not a cosmic accident.

God knew, He knows you and He knew you.

Knew you, knows you, will know you, however you want to phrase that.

You are not an accident.

Humanity did not come about by happen chance or because God sparked life in a germ and

allowed it to take its natural course.

We are purposefully made and we are sustained with His life-giving breath.

Praise God that the Sabbath reminds us of our creator and that we are created.

The Sabbath reminds us that Christ's work for salvation is done and you don't have

to do any work on it.

That's the Sabbath.

The Sabbath, Adam and Eve's first full day of experience was without work.

God had done it, accomplished it.

The Bible records that they really only had kind of one job on Friday and that was Adam

naming things.

Then there comes along Eve and then what do you see?

The Sabbath.

Rest.

God's already done the work for you.

You can rest in Him.

Does the Sabbath remind you of that?

When Christ had finished His laboring on earth and He had died, He rested on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath can remind you that you are saved, you can't earn it.

Jesus has already paid it for you.

You can rest in that reality.

Does the Sabbath bring that to mind for you?

Does the Sabbath bring you or bring to mind a chance where you can, and I encourage this,

set aside the homework, set aside the spreadsheets, set aside the checkbook concerns, set aside

all those other things in life that distract and consume and weigh us down and cause us

to sweat and lose sleep at night?

I encourage you, take that block of time and set all those things aside.

The world is not going to crumble if you just leave them be until Sunday.

That was my wife's and my strict rule when we were in school.

We kind of did schoolwork up until about three o'clock on Friday and then we were done until

about noon on Sunday.

And at times we had assignments.

At times we had big projects.

At times we had a looming exam.

We were purposefully strict about setting all that aside from about three o'clock on

Friday until about noon on Sunday.

And it was wonderful.

We slept better Friday night.

We slept better Saturday night.

It gave us a chance to reconnect as a family and to visit with friends.

Take advantage of those times.

It's all going to be there.

You can pick it back up.

But take that break.

It's wonderful.

Take advantage of the rest that you can find in Jesus and that's what the Sabbath represents.

The Sabbath is also the assurance of the coming promised land.

Because we are talking about a rest that you can experience now, but we've already discussed

it does also refer to an eschatological end.

Jesus is coming back.

He will deliver us from this planet of sin, this body of death.

He will reunite the heavenly family with the earthly family.

He will bind the enemy of souls and he will deliver us.

The Sabbath reminds us of that.

Are you entering into that rest?

Are you entering into that Sabbath rest with that in mind?

The rest can come afterwards.

But are you entering in first and foremost?

Are you entering in?

And then are you entering in with the right kind of heartfelt attitude?

I would encourage us that as we consider worship and reverence with God, that we remember we

need to one, enter into it.

You've got to enter into his presence to be able to praise and honor and worship and glorify

him.

Enter in.

That promise is laid out before you.

That door is wide open.

Don't delay.

Do it.

And then two, are you entering in with the right kind of attitude?

Are you entering in remembering the promise?

Are you entering in remembering the rest?

Are you entering in the way that God wants you to enter into his rest?

My friends, as we continue this train on worship and reverence, I would invite you to take

him at his word, accept his promise and enter into his rest.

So then we can, with reverence and with awe, worship our heavenly father.

Let's pray.

Loving father, we thank you so much for an opportunity to come before your throne with

our burdens, promising that when we are yoked up to you, then those burdens are light and

that the calling that you have placed before us is a light one.

Do we believe you?

Lord, I pray that you help us accept that today.

I pray that these hours on your Sabbath would be a delight, would be a joy, not selfishly,

but rather we would joy in you and your love for us.

I pray that not for myself and not only for those of us here at the Ringgold Church, but

for all of our fellow brothers and sisters around the globe.

Lord, be present with each one of us throughout the rest of today, throughout this week.

Let us know of your love.

We pray in your name.

Amen.