The Covenantal God: Rest | Genesis 2:1-3
Introduction
One of the fun things that I have been able to do as a parent is watch my kids get a driver’s license or motorcycle license. For all of them, we have started out with the car driving around an empty parking lot, or we have gone out to the desert with a motorcycle and let them practice where they can’t hurt anyone, even before they start their lessons. For all the things that have changed with technology, driving any kind of vehicle is still mostly about muscle memory and learning to have the right instincts because of practice. You can’t shortcut time and practice, and you need to get straight all the rules and methods so that everything essentially comes naturally.
My favorite is putting our kids in my Jeep CJ-7, which is a stick shift, or on a motorcycle, which all have clutches and shifting. (My second favorite is watching Katie throughout all these experiences, but that is a different story, and I’ve been told I react the same sometimes.) I mean, how many of you today could drive a stick-shift car? Isn’t that funny…that used to be the only option. The motorcycle classes are especially hilarious! Here is a whole group of people, many of whom have never ridden a motorcycle before, going in circles in a parking lot between cones and trying to keep everything straight in their mind and coordinate with their body the clutch, brake, gas, and shifting with their foot while trying not to run into the person in front of them. I sat there watching that for a good hour one afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Think about how much has changed in so many areas because of technology, where we no longer need to work hard in many ways. Think about just driving. Still adjacent to driving, another great example is maps. How many of you have ever seen a map like this:
(Topographic Map Image)
Unless you were in the military or are an avid hiker, you likely have never had to work with a topographic map, yet for years, this was a coveted possession. This is the whole reason we sent out Lewis and Clark, so that we could know what lay beyond the Mississippi and that we could know how to navigate that territory. Topographic maps aren’t rocket science to read, but it takes some training and some getting used to, so you can quickly know what you are seeing and how to utilize the map well. Even if it’s not topographic maps, I’m old enough to still remember taking paper maps with me on business trips and trying to drive in a new city with a folded map on the passenger seat next to me and not knowing I was going the wrong way for quite a long time. You used to have to plan a road trip and be very sure you knew where you were going.
What we are all used to now is this:
(Apple Maps Image)
A nice little blue line and an arrow guiding us in the right direction, a soothing computer-driven voice telling us when to merge, turn, and stop.
Maps are a great analogy for what we have been doing in Genesis chapter one. With all our Christian books, podcasts, and online videos, many of us have forgotten the map of the bible. We have so many great resources that we have forgotten what is called:
Biblical Theology
Or perhaps you were never taught this concept in the first place. Biblical Theology is understanding the large flow of Scripture from beginning to end and seeing the major themes and imagery, and how it all connects from one section of Scripture to another. It’s like understanding the map of Scripture so you can quickly tell where you are in the storyline and why certain phrases, statements, and images keep coming up again and again.
On my first trip to Ethiopia to teach a group of leaders in 2015, I had the privilege of teaching a Biblical Theology class. We sat with these sweet brothers and sisters who were leaders in their churches, and over a week, we started in Genesis and worked our way to Revelation, tracing some of the major themes and ideas in Scripture in classes that lasted about 8 hours each day. On the last day, I was sitting by a pastor who was about seventy years old. He looked over at me and, through tears, said, “No one ever told me this. I never knew it was all one story and that it all connected together.” That made me so sad that no one had ever explained to him how his Bible went together. He spent most of his life reading, teaching, and preaching Scripture as small stories with good meanings and pictures of God and the joy of the gospel, but he was missing the main story and path through them all.
As we have been looking at Genesis one, we have been trying to slow down and ask questions like, “Why does it give us all these descriptions of creation? Why does God say, 'It was good”? Why does it tell us God’s desires and even his conversation within the Trinity?” When we do that, we begin to see that from the very beginning of Scripture, there is a map that is there:
(Topographic Map Image)
And all the things we see can be somewhat overwhelming if we haven’t used this map much. Last week, I reviewed at the beginning what we have been seeing in this map throughout Genesis one. We have seen:
God
God Who Creates Out of Nothing
God Who Reveals Himself to Us
God Who is Present with Us
God Who is for Our Good
Humanity
Image Bearers: Inherent Worth
Image Bearers: Sons & Daughters
Sons & Daughters: Kings & Queens
Sons & Daughters: Priests
Image Bearers:
Purpose: To have Dominion
Purpose: To Guard and Keep God’s Words and Ways
Creation
Eden is an image of King’s Kingdom
Eden is an image of God’s Temple
That is overwhelming and a lot of data. So, I tried to give us a key or a summary to think of how to categorize all that information. I mentioned that one of the main ways scholars tie Scripture all together is with the four Ps:
Summary
Presence (of God)
(in the) Place (of God)
(with and through the) People (of God)
(living out the) Purposes (of God)
This is like the map key to remembering all the many details we were seeing. We were seeing that God’s very presence has always been with his people and that his place—his dwelling place and temple—was originally in Eden, but now his place is in us through his presence, the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us. God’s people started with all of humanity in Adam and Eve, but now it is us as we are again made the people of God who can again walk back in the very purposes of God as he is changing us through our faith and our sanctification. God is showing us his consistent character and purposes as we come back again and again to the presence of God in the place of God for the people of God to walk in the purposes of God. This is one of the great summaries of Scripture and the main contours of what God is doing and all that we see throughout Scripture. Those images help us to see what God is doing at any given time with people like Abraham, Moses, Israel, David, and all the other examples we see in Scripture. It makes sense of what he is doing with you and me—a story that is consistent from Genesis to today and on into the future.
And last week, we added another crucial element:
Covenantal Relationship/Love
All that God is doing with his presence, in his place, in and through his people to accomplish his purposes is bound up and wrapped together in his covenantal relationship with us. God has given us a job and a special relationship and that begins to lay the grounds for our covenantal relationship with him. We see that here in Genesis one as we see our role a sons and daughters, royal priests described, and as God begins to give his people our mandate and role. As we get to Genesis two, we will see more about this relationship as God not only tells people their job but also gives us stipulations, promises, and curses. That is what a covenantal relationship is—promises from one party to another for a specific relationship with stipulations and agreements.
It is okay if you are still a little overwhelmed by this map and plan of God we have been beginning to see here in Genesis. In fact, that is a feature of good teaching and preaching. It is okay that we feel the tension of information we don’t quite fully understand, because that forces us to pay attention and strive to know it better. But you should still be wondering one question: if this is the key and summary of the map we are seeing:
Summary
Presence (of God)
(in the) Place (of God)
(with and through the) People (of God)
(living out the) Purposes (of God)
(bound by the) Covenantal Relationship (of God)
You should still want to know, “Where does this map take us?” All maps are there to point to an ending or destination. And we see that as well in Genesis one (well, what should be Genesis one). The goal of all of this is REST in our God!
Genesis 2:1–3: REST
That is the theme we come to this morning in Gensis 2:1–3. Sadly, this section really belongs in chapter one. If you haven’t heard me say this before, there is a joke about how we got our chapters and verses in Scripture that says it was a monk in the 13th century who added these in Scripture while he was drunk, riding a donkey, on a bumpy dirt road. That isn’t true, but it is helpful to remember these are not part of the original, inspired word of God. Chapters were added in the 13th century and verses in the 16th century to help people quickly find their place and read Scripture together. But thematically, Genesis 2:1–3 belongs with Genesis 1. Let’s look at this section again:
“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.”
(Genesis 2:1–3 ESV)
God’s desire, once he finished everything he had made, was to rest. And he “blesses the seventh day and made it holy.” This is the first mention of sabbath, the word we use for rest, which comes from the Hebrew word shabbat. God’s purpose in making everything was to get to rest, and in doing so, he wants us to learn to rest and come into rest as well.
Most Christians are at least aware of this idea. Whether it is the Jewish idea of sabbath being a day of rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening, or the Christian version of resting all day on the seventh day of our week, Sunday, the idea is to stop working and rest. I say we are AWARE of this idea because I think most of us are really bad at actually “doing” sabbath, of actually resting. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know that many of us really stop for a whole day and stop working, striving, and trying, but instead rest.
It's interesting to note here that God didn’t have to do this: God didn’t have to rest; God chose to rest. And in doing so, he wanted to set an example and call us into the rest that he created. Everything God had done previously—creating a place where he himself dwelled with his people as they walked out their purpose in a covenantal relationship with him—was to lead us to rest. A rest where we trust in God that he has already done all the work, and we simply need to enter into that rest.
This idea of sabbath becomes a law for Israel, encoding God’s character to rest as something we all need to do. We were created to rest. In Exodus 20:8–10, we see that keeping the sabbath is the fourth commandment that God gives his people at Mount Sinai:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:8–11 ESV)
It is a sabbath, a rest, “to the LORD your God.” A rest to God, in God, for God. Our rest is meant to point us to our God who has done all of this FOR us. That means rest is not only a physical act (stop working) but also a trust issue of looking TO God as the one who provides FOR us. He is our God who created this place for us. He is our God who made US and is still making and forming us in Jesus through his Holy Spirit. He is our God who is giving us HIS very presence, and he is our God who is remaking us as his image bearers that we can live out our purpose now in his covenantal love for us. Rest is meant to remind us that GOD is the one who has done the work and will continue to do the work. We don’t need to strive anymore. We can rest in him.
Rest is more than just physically stopping what we might call work. Rest is about our disposition and trust. Rest is about knowing how we were made and trusting God to provide FOR us. For all the angst you might feel when you see the map of Scripture and plan of God starting here in Genesis, for all the ways you may begin to worry that you need to strive, try, work to make this happen, rest is meant to bring us back to the reality that what we really need is for GOD to do all of this for us and to rest in what he has and is doing! We see this reminder from Jesus in the New Testament as he talks to the Pharisees about the Sabbath.
One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
(Mark 2:23–28 ESV)
Jesus points out that a day of rest is really to help us know and see God more. To see the Lord of the Sabbath, to see Jesus more. There is a bit of indictment on us in this command. You and I are so bad at this—which I think most of us would agree—that we need to stop WEEKLY, for a WHOLE DAY, to remember that God is really the one in control and we can trust in him. There may be moments where the actual day doesn’t line up perfectly with the needs of our life—his disciples were without food so they needed to eat and provide for themselves—but that doesn’t change our need for rest. Rest is meant to bring us back into trust that God is the one providing ultimately what we need.
The Psalmist speaks of this type of rest when he says:
It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
(Psalm 92:1–4 ESV)
God does the work that we really need. We can be joyful in that. Or as the writer of Hebrews reminds us:
For if Joshua had given them [Israel] rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 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.
(Hebrews 4:8–10 ESV)
We are to rest from our works, meaning we are to not rely on what we can do, but rather, trust in God and what he has done. This means looking to Jesus and all he has done for us in bringing us back to our image bearer identity and how God and God alone is the one who can do this for us. We don’t have to strive to have this identity; rather, we receive it through faith. All that we have seen in Genesis and everything we have summarized in Genesis one is something God created and did for Adam and Eve and what he alone has recreated and redone for us in Jesus Christ. We didn’t make this happen—so we can rest! This is exactly what Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:
Come to me, all 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.
(Matthew 11:28–30 ESV)
God chose to rest. We were created to rest. We need to rest.
This morning, I already have you not physically working, though I am guessing some of you are still bouncing there periodically in your mind. But I still think the best thing I can do is to try to help you experience this rest in all these areas we have talked about. Like I said, I don’t think we are very good at this. So, I want to take some time this morning to help you truly experience this rest. To not only sit here and stop your physical work but also to rest in God’s provision of HIS presence, HIS place, for HIS people, for HIS purpose, in HIS love. That means this will be a different kind of sermon this morning.
I want you to experience rest in the remainder of our sermon! For some of you, this will feel really hard. I am going to ask us to take many different moments this morning to simply stop, remember, and rest. Rest as it was always meant to be, that GOD has done all the work and GIVEN you rest.
I want to encourage you to set down your phone or bible. I want to encourage you to even close your eyes for this next section and just listen to what God says to each of you as you trust in Jesus Christ this morning. If you are a journaling person, maybe it is listening with your eyes closed for a moment and then writing the things you recall at the end of each section, when I will give you some time to reflect. Even if you haven’t yet put your faith in Jesus, I want you to still consider closing your eyes and thinking about what it is God is offering you in this amazing plan that we have been talking about.
Stop today and simply receive this morning the rest of God in each of these areas of his plan. Listen to what God says to you through his Word, and rest:
Rest: Presence
Let’s start with the very presence of God. God has told us that we have his presence because he has GIVEN us his presence. God gave his presence to all of creation and to Adam and Eve, and now in Jesus Christ, we have his presence with us! Just listen and know these truths:
Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
(Psalm 46:10–11 ESV)
You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God;
(Isaiah 41:9–10 ESV)
Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
(Matthew 28:20 ESV)
Remember back to a moment where you felt God’s presence clearly and strongly with you. When was that? Perhaps it was the first moment you believed, you knew God was real, and he was WITH you. Perhaps it was an especially hard moment when God met you and lovingly and gently showed you his presence was with you. What did that feel like? What did you notice and know about God in that moment? Go back to that reality and remember that is still true today. Stop and sit for the next minute and remember that God is with you NOW, not because of anything you did, but because HE wanted to be with you through your faith in HIS work. Rest for a moment in the very presence of God.
(Pause one minute.)
Rest: Place
Come with me now in your mind to this idea of place. You are now the very place where God’s spirit, his very presence dwells! Listen to what God says about you and I in faith in Jesus:
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
(1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV)
In [Jesus] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
(Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV)
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
(1 John 4:13–16 ESV)
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
(Romans 8:10–11 ESV)
Just as important, God has you in THIS literal place. God has you here at Main Street Church this morning. He has placed you in your neighborhood, at your job, in your family, because that is exactly the place he is meeting you in. Because his presence is with you, the place you are in is exactly where you are meant to know and experience God.
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.
(1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV)
Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.
(Deuteronomy 31:7–8 ESV)
Stop and think about one of your favorite places. Perhaps it is a favorite vacation spot you have visited. A place by the ocean. A cabin in the mountains with pine trees and crips morning air. Perhaps it is your favorite chair by the front window, wrapped up in a blanket, with a warm cup of coffee. Wherever your place is, what is it like to be there? What kind of joy does that place bring you? (Pause)
Stop and remember that God has the same joy in being WITH you! You are his place of fellowship now. He wants to be with you. And you now being with God and in the literal place God has you, even Main Street Church this morning, is meant to make you smile just like your favorite place. Stop for a minute and rest in how you are God’s place, he enjoys being with you, and that he has you exactly here this morning for your rest and joy!
(Pause for one minute)
Rest: People & Covenantal Love
As you continue to rest, notice that being in God’s place is connected to being God’s people. In faith in Jesus Christ, we now join the Son of God as being received as God’s beloved Sons and Daughters again. We are truly his people now, no longer walking in rebellion against him but walking WITH him. This is how God says it in Scripture:
Beloved, we are God’s children now,
(1 John 3:2 ESV)
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:12–13 ESV)
In Jesus, we can now hear from God:
And behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
(Matthew 3:17 ESV)
Maybe you have a good memory of a moment your mother and father smiled at you, told you they loved you, and told you how much they care for you. Maybe you don’t have that memory. Either way, you know the desire we all have inside us to know we are loved by a parental figure, and our good Father loves you exactly that way. Today, in Jesus, God lovingly draws you near to Himself as your loving Father. You are his beloved son or daughter! While we may still be in process today, growing and being sanctified, God sees you as you will be in the new earth, free OF sin and free TO know his love and love him fully. You belong. You are valuable. You are God’s in Jesus Christ.
In fact, God smiles on you in his covenantal love!
“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)
That is the image of God smiling on you. Like the warm sun rising in a cool morning, God’s smile is meant to radiate over all your worries, fears, and work and let you know that he has done it all. You are deeply loved in Jesus—not the least of which how he went to the cross for you and me. Sit and rest in your sonship or daughterhood again this morning. Rest in the warmth of the covenantal love of God given to you in Jesus!
(Pause for one minute)
Rest: Purpose
Today, as God’s presence is with you as you are his place and in his place, and as you and I dwell in the sweetness of knowing we are God’s people again—sons and daughters—who have his covenantal love dwelling in us, we also rest in the purpose God has given us. Even in hearing that, you may have immediately switched from resting to striving. Your mind is trying to find the thousand different things you need to do differently to accomplish a purpose. That is not rest. That is not what God wants you to hear when you think about your purpose in him now. Your purpose is not about accomplishments or striving. Your purpose is not about the doing or checklists. Your purpose from God now is to image HIS character: his love, his joy, his goodness, in all that you do because you have been changed. You will still need to do things, but we do those from trust, enjoying that God is giving you exactly what you need to engage each day with healthy patterns and, importantly, REST even in the work. Remember:
“fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
(Isaiah 41:10 ESV)
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
(Romans 8:28–30 ESV)
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
(Jeremiah 29:11–14 ESV)
Think back to a moment where you lived your purpose this way. Maybe it was a project you completed that felt joyful every step of the way because you saw how it mattered, and you loved that you could help with it. Perhaps it is a moment where, with friends, you found joy even in the hard times of life. Maybe it was the praise you received for a job well done. Stop and remember that your purpose comes out of WHO God has made you, and your purpose is meant to be lived out from your new identity in Jesus today, not from your striving. It really can feel like REST. Again, as Jesus said:
Come to me, all 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.
(Matthew 11:28–30 ESV)
Dwell in the Rest of God even in your purposes this morning.
(Pause for one minute)
REST
You can open your eyes now if you have had them closed.
Friends, this plan God has created and brought us back to in Jesus is not meant to make us strive, worry, fear, or work out our own joy. Just like in Genesis one, we are to see over and over again that God has provided all that we need. Everything about his presence in his place with his people who can now live out their purpose as his sons and daughters, royal priests, image bearers of God HAS BEEN AND WILL BE accomplished by God in Jesus Christ. His covenantal love is bringing you into HIS rest. That is why we stop. That is why we sabbath. We are so quick to forget and so easily try to run back to working our way INTO these truths. That is why we regularly, for long periods of time—whole days—are meant to stop and trust in the God who has and is accomplishing this plan FOR us.
I want to end our sermon by giving you several more minutes to continue resting in God. Where, today, this next week, or in life in general, do you need to rest? Is it in the very presence of God with you? Is it in you and I now being the very place where God’s presence dwells? Is it in your status as a beloved child of God? Is it in God’s loving and good purposes for you? Is it simply in the smiling face of God as your loving father? This plan we have seen introduced in Genesis and the plan of God that will play out again and again throughout Scripture. We will see it in Genesis 2 and 3, and we will see it all the way through the New Testament. And this plan is meant to bring you and I into rest. That is what we are destined for—Rest. As all of God’s plan comes to its end, as he completes all things, here is what we hear the voice of God declare:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors,
(Revelation 14:13 ESV)
I will put up on the screen here all the passages that I referenced as you were listening. Come back to those again in these next five minutes. Sit here, look at God’s word, and rest in Him. I have let the band know when to come up and they will lead us in a song of joyful remembrance of our Great God that we can rest in.
(Pause for five minutes w/ music. Larry Hall, “Come Thou Fount”)
Prayer
Communion
Benediction
Come to me, all 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.
(Matthew 11:28–30 ESV)
And may
“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)
