Designed for Goodness: Rest
Focus: We will find true peace when we define our work and find our rest in Jesus.
God’s Relationship with Work
God has shown us that rest after meaningful work is good.
Day 7 - Rest and Enjoyment
Genesis 2:1-3 ESV
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
All of the previous six days lead to a good God and his rest.
God sets the example for us for work and rest.
What God begins, he finishes.
This is encouraging because if he started a good work in you, he intends to work with you to bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
God finished his work and then chose to rest - so should we.
There will always be more to do.
However, God set measurable goals, completed them within an allotted period of time and rested on the seventh day once he completed his work.
God’s example shows us that we should avoid the extremes of both idleness and workaholism.
One can be idle when they are content with living an unproductive life that is fueled by laziness.
Laziness is desiring rest without meaningful work.
Workaholism can be an opposite extreme.
Workaholism is being driven to work without end.
Why are we lazy?
We lack vision for god-ordained, meaningful work.
Yet when we realize that God made us for relationship with himself and to fulfill a divine calling, we live with joyful purpose in Jesus (Ephesians 2:10).
Why are we workaholics?
We try to find value in things other than the loving God who made us.
Yet when our sense of value and self-worth are anchored not in what we do, but ultimately in Christ to whom we belong, then we can work within limits and rest at the appropriate time.
A good standard is that God labored for five days, made preparation (worked) for what would follow on the sixth, and rested on the seventh.
This is a good pattern of life for us.
*The point is that God blesses the work that he gives us to do, but he also blesses rest.
God’s rest was foreshadowing the Sabbath.
With the use of the same word “blessed”, we know that just as there was intended increase with Adam and Eve’s work, so there is also intended increase and multiplication that will only take place when we choose to rest by faith in God.
Think about cellular repair in the body that takes place each night only in the deep sleep stages of NREM (non rapid-eye movement) sleep.
Each time that we Sabbath and rest, we are reminded of this.
*GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY AND MADE IT HOLY - BECAUSE ON IT, GOD RESTED FROM ALL HIS WORK THAT HE HAD DONE IN CREATION.
Here we have the first mention of the word holy - which meant and means to be set apart or consecrated to God for his purposes.
*When we do not follow the rhythms of God, we break down physically, mentally and emotionally because we are not communing with him, following his wisdom or ways.
The question is:
What have I chosen to worship instead of God that pulls me away from his pattern, relationships and places where he has commanded his blessing?
We need to turn from these things keeping us from God’s rest.
The follow-up question also is:
What is rest in God?
Is it just a day to hang out and binge watch tv?
No.
*The Sabbath must be directly attached to God (relationship), what he has done (his work) and what he is preparing to do after the Sabbath rest (his purpose for our lives).
*Why we say this is because what immediately follows the seventh day’s description of God’s rest is the explanation of the purpose for which he put Adam in the garden - to work it and keep it.
Beauty Rest
God created what was both beautiful and satisfying - which we are able to embrace when we enter his rest.
Genesis 2:4-9 ESV
“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
In Genesis 1:1-2:3 you have the generic word for God utilized to describe the deity as the transcendent Creator.
In Genesis 2:4, we now have the introduction of God’s personal name Yahweh (translated as Lord because of the ancient Jewish tradition).
God introduces his name so that we know he is personal and involved in the affairs of his creation.
God set the universe in motion and has been interacting with it ever since.
God prepares, then he provides.
Before there were bushes or plants in the field, God was intent on creating that which would be sustainable.
*Could it be that the promise that you are waiting on in God has to do with his preparation of the processes and the person (you) who will be equipped to manage that which he creates?
You can see signs of what God will do by the mist that came up to begin watering the ground.
Follow God’s trail.
God made humanity of the dust of the earth (this is why dust around the house today is still largely comprised of our decomposing skin cells 😆) and breathed into us the breath of life.
Just as life began with him, the life that is truly life is sustained through him.
People have a saying today, “Out the mud…” which implies the grind that people are in to get from the bottom to the top of their field or craft.
However, before God went into detail about mankind’s work, God emphasized his own rest.
The reason why this is so important is God took time to not only rest, but to delight in his work.
Life is literally stripped of enjoyment when we go from one task to another, becoming an endless to-do list without the reward of celebrating that which we have accomplished in and through God.
It is hard to appreciate and fully engage the beauty of God’s creation when you do not take time to rest.
This is why even before we work, God intends for us to set up our boundaries of rest in him.
*Rest is a part of worship and results in us giving praise to God.
This rest allows us to see clearly the beauty in the world that Yahweh created and intends for us to cultivate.
*God planted a garden and made out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
God is the author of both beauty in creation and what will both satisfy and sustain us.
We will know the fullness of beauty and satisfaction when we find our rest in God.
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
-John Piper on Christian Hedonism
We should look to cultivate beauty in our homes, our environments and one another.
*Yet we see that beauty is defined by God, not our culture’s distorted standards that are often driven by lust, ethnocentrism and greed.
What this means, for example, is that you can be modest and display God’s beauty at the same time.
There is beauty to be found in all the shapes and sizes of the the people of the world.
It means that your home does not have to be the largest or filled with the most opulent things to create beauty there.
So what should be our standard for beauty?
Psalm 27:4-5 ESV
“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.”
As we dwell in the house of the Lord (church) and gaze upon his beauty, we learn what is holy and made by God to be both beautiful and good.
King David made the above declarations and found his rest in Yahweh even in the midst of trouble.
“Christ didn’t say, ‘I will give you rest from sorrow.’ He said, ‘I will give you rest in sorrow.’…He didn’t promise insurance from trouble, but assurance in the midst of trouble.”
-Billy Graham
*As we inquire in the temple, we also see both the problem of human sin and God’s plan for ultimate rest in the salvation provided by Jesus.
As we will see later, along with the tree of life that extended the years of humanity, there was also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, which once Adam and Eve ate of it, began to distort God’s vision of beauty and provision in the earth.
Yet before this, there were rivers that flowed.
Genesis 2:10-14 ESV
“A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”
The rivers brought life and vitality to the environments that they passed through.
From these environments came the materials and eventually tools with which we would begin to create, like God, that which is both beautiful and nourishing.
(I love the architecture of Chicago - I find joy just walking downtown in the city and the boat tour is one of my favorites.)
This is the good design of God and he creates rivers of life and vitality for you from which to cultivate life in him.
“Most people yearn for one thing more than anything else: inner peace. Without it they have no lasting happiness or security.”
“In the most restless age of history, Christ can give you rest.”
-Billy Graham
Enjoyment in the “Rest” of Christ
Enjoyment is found when we rest in the good design and salvation of Christ.
Genesis 2:15-25 ESV
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
What this describes is the priestly role originally given to humanity that was lost and can be regained in Christ.
All of academia, art, entertainment, business and industry find their value as we cultivate them as Yahweh’s vice-regents to express God’s goodness in the earth.
GOD PLACED THE MAN IN THE GARDEN TO WORK IT AND KEEP IT.
This means to cultivate it and guard it.
This is a clear indication that God has a plan and a purpose for your life that is greater than your own.
Fulfillment will be found when you are in ongoing fellowship with God and are stewarding that which he put you on the planet to guard, cultivate and create.
Your life, marriage and parenting are ultimately not about fulfilling your dreams, but God’s dream for you as you steward his creation and glorify him (this what we would later see with Joseph in Genesis 37-50).
Chariots of Fire quote:
“When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.“
-Eric Liddell
Yet you can struggle if your only perceived value is in what you do and your performance rather than who you are.
This is especially challenging for performers who know how to turn it on and off based on their audience.
You begin to ask questions about yourself like:
Do I really matter?
Can I be around if I’m not performing well, struggling with my own issues or sin?
Am I a burden that God and others will not bear?
If we do not learn to rest from work in Christ, we will be too busy to process these issues because we are always on the go.
The good news is that in the gospel, we rest from our own works and put our trust fully in Christ’s redemptive work at the cross for our acceptance, healing, purpose and worth.
Stop trying to prove your worth by your work.
A genuine humility is what should mark Christians, considering others as better than ourselves.
Philippians 2:3-4 ESV
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
If this reality seeps in, an ungodly competition can die and in love, we can truly be servants of Christ and one another.
Each Sabbath, it is a time to reset, allowing God to begin our weeks with a priority of worship and heavenly perspective on the earthly days to come.
These days become consecrated and filled with fellowship with God rather than endless drudgery and unfulfilling toil.
In Revelation, we see the redemption of all things brought about by Jesus, where God once again makes his dwelling place with mankind as in Eden.
We will experience this by entering into the Sabbath rest of God.
Hebrews 4:9-11 ESV
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
Jesus is called the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
God gives us companionship and a complement.
Let me be clear, whether married or not, it is not good for you to be alone.
In marriage, there is God’s provision of both a helper and complement for men.
The word helper here in Scripture was the same word used of the Holy Spirit in other places, and by no means implied inferiority or lesser value.
Your brothers and sisters in Christ, your roommates in the city, can help you find rest in God.
*So many people feel like they would be better without consistent, committed, covenantal relationship where you are sharing life in Jesus (Acts 2:42-47), but end up missing the rest of God because they are putting more effort battling the demons that assail them on their own.
This was not God’s good design.
You were meant for companionship.
You were meant for godly fellowship with Jesus and his people.
I don’t need more of me in my world.
*You were meant to have others who are not your facsimiles, but different from you, to encourage, help, complement and challenge you to become the person God has called you to be and do all that God has called you to do in Christ.
God does this not only through marriage, but his church, which the Lord calls his bride (Ephesians 5).
*When we allow God to place us with these people, this is when we find rest for the constant wandering and sense of purposeless in our souls.
What is that thing that God put you here on earth to do?
For Adam, it was working and keeping the garden, naming the animals along the way.
There was agriculture, botany and zoology all in his purview.
What is that high call for which JESUS laid hold of you (Philippians 3)?
*We always start by imitating God (Ephesians 5:1).
Philippians 2:13 lets us know that when the Holy Spirit is working in us, not only will the Lord speak to us as his sheep (John 10), but God will cause us to will (desire) and act according to his good purpose in Christ Jesus.
Being “in Christ” is a constant theme throughout the New Testament epistles (letters).
To come into Christ, we must repent of our sin, turning away from our distorted thoughts of beauty and what will most satisfy our lives, and turn to Jesus who alone can in those areas bring us into what is ultimately good.
When we put our trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross, being a substitute to take the penalty for our rebellion, we can also lay down at the cross that which has become distorted and misshapen in our lives, find forgiveness for our misgivings to become new creations in Christ, being remade in his image.
What was dead can come alive again.
And here we find our rest.
This is possible because of the sinless creator, Jesus, who lived the perfect life we should have lived, died on the cross the sacrificial death we should have died and because of his innocence, three days later was raised from the dead to give eternal life to those who would trust him and once again call him Lord.
“In Christ Jesus” - knowing Jesus and making him known through a commitment to the Great Commission and discipleship is the key.
Resting in him who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, gives us a good work to do but also allows us to find eternal rest in him.
Appendix:
People at times stumble when they think of the time that God took to do his work.
Was it a literal 24 hour period, or within the genre and purpose of the narrative, should we leave room for the Hebrew meaning of the word which can also have the meaning of era, period of time which would open the door to the idea of an old earth?
What we do know is that:
2 Peter 3:8-9 ESV
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
