Entering God's Rest AM Sermon Feb 6

ENTERING GOD’s REST
A strong young athlete was wadding waist deep in the shallow part of a recreational lake. Unknowingly he stepped off an underwater ledge and plunged fifteen feet beneath the surface of the water. After several seconds he bobbed to the top of the water flailing his arms and gasping for breath. The lifeguard attentively watched the situation from a nearby bank.
A friend of the struggling young athlete grabbed the lifeguard by the arm and cried out, "Bob can’t swim, you’ve got to help him." The lifeguard remained unmoved as Bob continued kicking and splashing wildly. The young man’s friend furiously yelled at the lifeguard, "If you won’t go after him, I will." Calmly but firmly the lifeguard said, "No one can help him yet. I’ll help him when he’s ready for my help." After a couple more minutes the young athlete stopped his struggles, as his body became limp. The patient lifeguard suddenly dove into the water, swam out to the young man and brought him to shore for a successful rescue.
Later the friend asked the lifeguard, "Why did you wait so long to help my friend." The lifeguard responded, "As long as Bob was trying to save himself there was nothing I could have done for him. If I had swam out to him he would have grabbed me and pulled me under with him. Only when he was weak, exhausted and had given up was I able to save him."
This morning’s sermon is going to focus on that very idea-

What we can’t do for ourselves – it is God’s work to Save.

WE can’t save ourselves, we can’t pull ourselves up by our moral bootstraps and knock down heaven’s door.

I think about his dilemma and I think about that I cannot even match my clothes very well, I don’t buy good gifts for my wife on holidays, I sometimes get overwhelmed just trying to take care of a 5 month old for 2 or 3 hours if Allison has to go somewhere.

How could I ever save my own soul? How could I, in my limited human nature, do the work of God?

To get into the text this morning we need to go back and review a little from last week.

In last week’s sermon we witnessed Jesus heal a man that had been sick for 38 years.
He was laying by the pool of Bethesda and Jesus asked him if he wanted to get well.

When Jesus healed the man he told him to get up and walk. He told the man to take up his pallet and walk.

The only problem with this was that it was on the Sabbath day. Under Jewish Law one could not work on the Sabbath and the Pharisees considered carrying the mat a work on the Sabbath.

Also healing on the Sabbath to the Pharisees would have been considered work.

So in verse 16 we will pick up on the response to Pharisees by Jesus – this doesn’t calm them down but throws fuel on the fire.


John 5: 16-24

16 For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working."
18 For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. 19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing ; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. 20 "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing ; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. 21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. 22 "For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Jesus is persecuted by these people because He works this miracle on the Sabbath.
Why would he do this because it is on the Sabbath and it is breaking the Law.

Why – He is at work on the Sabbath because His Father is at work on the Sabbath- God as His Father but also tells us something about the Sabbath

The Sabbath is a spiritual sign – one of the 10 commandments – but it goes back to CREATION

Genesis – He Hallowed the Sabbath, Blessed the Sabbath day, and he Rested on the Sabbath.

These three things come out in the Genesis Account.

Only place in Genesis where the word Holy is used, it is used for the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy by worshipping?
Remember it by singing songs?

No it says for 6 days you will work or labor but on the Seventh you will cease from your Labors. Not sing, not worship not anything else but cease from work on that day.

No one works, wife, beasts, children, you – no one works – it is a day of complete rest.

So why does God use 6 days to create the world and then rest and consecrate the seventh?
Something can be learned about ancient covenants.

In Genesis 21 we see the first real mention of a covenant in the Old Testament. This is a covenant between Abimelech and Abraham.
There is one theme that comes back time and time again in this passage- the number 7 is important.

In the story of Abimelech and Abraham, Abraham introduces seven lambs to seal this covenant.

To swear a covenant comes from the work Sheva – this word Sheva literally means to Seven one’s self.

The word Seven and Covenant are tied together and denote that a covenant to be in place.

Now lets tie together the concept of Sabbath and what Jesus answers these Pharisees in John 5 -

When God created us He made us and created us – we were merely His creatures.
We are His creatures but we were not part of his family.

We were merely created and made but not part of God’s covenant family.

It would take a gracious act of God to elevate man to His family. Without man being elevated by the covenant, man would simply be just a created being, nothing more or less.

God’s plan was to put us in his family- to not only be our Creator but our Father. This is an important doctrine to understand.
1st of all – Covenant runs all through the Scripture and begins in Genesis – the Very Creation Act itself was one of covenant bonds through the Hallowing of the Seventh day and man entering into that rest.

2nd – God’s role as our Father and the elevation of man into God’s family is super important to grasp.

6 DAYS represent 6 days as our creator, the Seventh day shows God as our Father – God’s work on the Seventh Day is a Fatherly Work –

Jesus makes it clear that His Father is at work on the Sabbath – The Sabbath Day is a Fatherly Work – it is the work that elevates us to a covenant status with God so that we are now in the family.

Now consider how this idea of the 6 days of labor and the 7th day of rest lead us to the covenant of Grace in Jesus.

6 days man could work but there was nothing man could do to enter in the Covenant – it was the work of God. The Sabbath was all about stopping our labor and considering that it is God’s Grace and His work that Saves.

The work that God wants to accomplish on the day we do nothing is the work of the Father
God was the Lord on the Six days of Creation as just the Creator – but on the Seventh day he was transformed to the ABBA – the Father. We become his children.

REST –
It is interesting that the Sabbath day became known as the Day of REST – As a matter of fact – Rest became synonomous with the Sabbath.

Think back where we find this idea of Rest being attached to an inheritance.
In the Exodus account we remember that the spies went into the promised land and returned with a negative report – only Joshua and Caleb came back with a good report but the 10 others basically said that the land could not be taken.
Because of their unbelief God said in
Psalm 95: 8-11
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, 9 "When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. 10 "For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. 11 "Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest."

In this passage God calls entering the Promised Land as entering His REST – this is Sabbath language the REST

Now consider how all this relates to the passage in John 5 as we hold all this together and start to grasp at what Jesus is saying.

How many of us would go out and work all day and call our wage a gift? I once worked for a man in my home town named hambone Gillespie. That name Hambone ought to tell you a lot. I remember we got to the end of the day and I had worked harder than anyone. I put more hay bails on the truck bed than anyone, I went into the top of the barn, the hottest place and stacked all the hay on my own.
At the end of his day, he gave his grandson more money than he gave me. As a matter of fact I made so little that day that it barely made up for the Sun Drop and peanuts that I purchased that day during a break from work.

Now I would not have ended that day of work and said to everyone around me – look Hambone gave me my inheritance.
Maybe he gave me a wage (but not a just wage).

An inheritance is something that only a Father could give and it is a gift of grace, it is not something we earned or something that we could merit.

To enter into God’s REST = we stop working and allow God to do the Work.

An inheritance is connected with a family, with a Father, and with a covenant.

This is why Jesus chose to this miracle on the Sabbath day. He is showing that only God can do something like this. Only the Father is working on the Sabbath.
This man is healed because God chose to do so. God was working not this man.

The prophets in the Old Testament were called God’s servants.

In the ministry of Jesus we see a dramatic shift in how God deals with man.

When Jesus was baptized a voice from Heaven said that this is My Son.
Jesus was the first to call God His Father in all of salvation history.

We don’t appreciate too LITTLE the Fatherhood of God.

To illustrate why this idea of God’s Fatherhood is so important let me talk some about what we have been studying on Sunday night.
We have been studying Islam.

There is a story told of a Christian scholar that met with a Muslim apologist that he is going to debate. They had a breakfast together and started to discuss God.

The Christian scholar in his conversation with this Muslim called God Father.

He said God the Father. The Muslim pounded the table and shouted in this restraint don’t blaspheme and call God Father.
In Islam there is no concept of God being a Father.

Next the Christian scholar mentioned Jesus as God’s Son and the scholar got up pounded the Table and shouted again and told the Christian not to blaspheme.

The Muslim told the Christian that Allah in Islam does not love like a Father. WE are mere slaves of Allah.
The scholar used the analogy of his dog.

He said that he had a dog that he loved but he had to move to a new home where he could no longer have a pet. The scholar talked as how that he would kill his dog before he moved because he could not have the dog.
He then pointed to that example and said that is how Allah is to us. We are like slaves, animals and God has no love like a Father.

Now think about and let it sink in. Do you want a concept of God like that – a God that could kill you like a dog and not bat an eye or the way Jesus speaks of God as a Father.

What about the God of the story of the prodigal Son where the Father runs to meet him.
Jesus teaches his Disciples to pray OUR FATHER- it is our Father.

When we start to understand God as Father we can start to have an understanding of Grace.
We must go further than thinking of God as just a Creator but also as a Father that loves us.

The Trinity reflects this family relationship between the Father and the Son.
In the PROLOGUE John tells us that Jesus has revealed the father. The word for Reveal here in the prologue is the word for EXEGESIS or deep scripture study. Jesus reveals the deep truths of God the Father.
Father is not just a noun but a verb. The Father eternally loves the Son – the Son is eternally the Son, the Son is begotten and not made.

There was never a time when the Son was smaller or younger, he is eternally begotten.

Father in this sense is love of self giving. The Father gives Himself to the Son eternally in Love and the Son in return Images the Father and loves back.

This love between Father and Son is so real and intense it is manifested in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The Life, the Gift, and the Love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. Thus we have the Triune God – the Family Love beheld in the Trinity.

God wants to share that life with us. The love that has existed for all eternity is what God wants to give us.
To even come close to understanding this we can look at our own experience of having children.

When my children came into the world there was already love between me and Allison, we gladly shared that love with our kids.

The image of the FATHER- tells us a lot about the nature of God – if we want to understand God until we think of the gift.

Think of John 3 that we talked about a few weeks ago –

John 3:16
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

That eternally begotten Son that has been with God the Father for eternity – the one that has been there loving the Father is now being given as a gift.

Let that sink in a bit. Consider that Muslim scholar and his view of God and think of the one Jesus tells us and communicates.

A God that loves so much, that wants to be our Father that he would give the ultimate gift.

A man once worked on draw bridge for a train track. One day this man that operated the draw bridge was enjoying the day with his son. They were eating a lunch on the hillside over looking the River.
To this man’s surprise he heard the sound of a whistle. A train was coming and the bridge was up. He had just a small amount of time to get the bridge down.

He left his son there and sprinted to the control house of the bridge. When he arrived at the control panel he looked with horror and saw his son playing under the bridge on the giant gears.

This man knew that he had a choice to make. If he left the bridge open the people on the train would surely be killed. If he lowered the bridge he would kill his own son.

Well the man lowers the bridge and kills his own son to save this train. He sacrifices his son for the trainload of people.

Those people on the train never knew what this man did for them. They had no idea that this man had given his son in the simple act of lowering the bridge.

God has done the same for us. God has crushed His Son on the cross for us. We were hopeless, we could work every day of the week at our own labors but it was God that had to come to this earth, take on flesh, and die on the cross.

In the same way there is eternal love between the Father and Son through the Spirit and God shares that love with us, not just His creation but also as His children.

God wants to share his Divine Love with us.

I want to close with a story:

Author Keith Miller tells of an outgoing 40-year-old woman who was part of a sharing group he led. Here is her story:

"When I was a tiny little girl, my parents died, and I was put in an orphanage. I was not pretty at all, and no one seemed to want me. But I longed to be adopted and loved by a family as far back as I can remember. I thought about it day and night, but everything I did seemed to go wrong. I must have tried too hard to please the people who came to look me over, and what I did was to drive them away. But then one day, the head of the orphanage told me that a family was coming to take me home with them.

I was so excited that I jumped up and down and cried like a little baby. The matron reminded me that I was on trial and this might not be a permanent arrangement, but I just knew that somehow it would work out. So I went with this family and started to school. I was the happiest little girl you can imagine, and life began to open up for me just a little. But then one day a few months later, I skipped home from school and ran into the front door of the big old house we lived in. No one was at home, but in the middle of the front hall was my battered suitcase with my little coat thrown across it. As I stood there it suddenly dawned on me what it meant--I didn’t belong there anymore."

Miller reports that when the woman stopped speaking, there was hardly a dry eye in the group. But then she cleared her throat and said almost matter-of-factly, "This happened to me seven times before I was 13 years old. But wait, don’t feel too badly. It was experiences like these that ultimately brought me to God--and there I found what I had always longed for--a place, a sense of belonging, a forever family."

Have you ever felt as though you didn’t belong and that you didn’t have a place? You can belong to Jesus. If you are a Christian, you do belong to Him--"little ones to Him belong." So when you feel small, take this as your hope and comfort

You have a decision to make – You are either God’s child or you are not. If you are not God’s child and you feel called to do so we implore you to come and take God as His promise.

Stop trying to do all this own you own and trust God’s love.