Entering God’s Rest
Communion Sabbath
Opening Songs: 86 How Great Thou Art
470 Sunshine in My Soul Today
249 Praise Him, Praise Him
CH – 40 The Dawn of God’s Dear Sabbath (Read at end of sermonette
Let’s talk about Rest, today.
The doctrine of the Sabbath is such an enormously simple thing. It is as simple as resting.
It is sometimes hard for me to understand why people keep complicating it.
Shortly after I learned of the Sabbath rest, I was in downtown Oakland, CA. While waiting at a bus stop, a man in white robes approached me and invited me to join his spiritual commune.
(Communes were popular in the 70’s.)
I asked him about his beliefs and found that his spiritual group still kept Sunday. I asked him why, when the Bible commanded that the 7th day, Saturday, be the Sabbath. He said that there was no text in the New Testament that commanded resting on the Sabbath.
I pointed him to Hebrews 4:9 where Paul wrote: “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath-rest to the people of God.” That’s the New International Version.
He said that this passage dealt with Rest in God.
I said, “God has connected His Rest to the Sabbath day.”
There is continual information throughout the old and new testaments concerning which day to keep as the rest day. Jesus and the Apostles all kept the 7th day, Saturday, according to the commandment.
But we need to understand more about the Sabbath than what day it is. We also need to understand the Why of the Sabbath.
The New Testament passage of Hebrews 4:1 to 4:12 makes it plain that the purpose of the Sabbath is to lead us to experience Rest in God.
Let me read it for you from the New International Version.
The setting here is important:
Paul has just pointed out in Hebrews 3 that the people who followed Moses out of Egypt failed to enter God’s rest due to their unbelief, when they refused to enter Canaan due to the report that there were Giants in the land.
They feared the cananites more than they trusted God.
Because of their unbelief in God, that generation died in the wilderness. God did not let them learn to trust Him. God did not let them enter His rest.
Entering God’s rest is therefore a function
of belief and faith in God.
Paul then goes on with his exhortation.
1
Therefore, since the promise of
entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found
to have fallen short of it.
2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us,
just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them,
because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
3 Now we who have believed enter that rest,
just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall
never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the
creation of the world.
4 For
somewhere he has spoken about the
seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from
all his work."
5 And
again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest."
6
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel
preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.
Notice
the connection here between unbelief (vrs 2) and disobedience (vrs 6). Unbelief, lack of faith, leads to disobedience
to God.
7
Therefore God again set a certain
day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as
was said before: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your
hearts." (Psalm 95)
8 For if
Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.
9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest
for the people of God;
10 for anyone who enters God's rest also rests
from his own work, just as God did from his. [on the day and in the same way]
11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to
enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of
disobedience.
In this passage, the act of keeping holy the 7th day Sabbath is shown to be a symbol in time of the act of resting our lives in God’s hands.
The result of entering into this experience of rest in God is obedience.
“Let us make every effort to enter that rest (symbolized by our obedience in Sabbath observance) lest we fall by following the Hebrew’s example of disobedience (through unbelief).”
Other
Christian’s seem to be confused about this connection between the day and the
rest.
They suppose you can rest on any day and make that day the symbol for their rest in God.
But more and more they are finding their
reasoning challenged by the scriptures, and they are struggling to maintain their traditions.
In this I
see a recent fulfillment to prophecy.
I remember that when I joined the SDA church in 1972, people outside our denomination would say: “How can such a small thing as a day make a difference?”
Other
Christian denominations would ignore the question of the 7th day
Sabbath as meaningless: Beneath notice.
The only reason I believed the Sabbath would
become the center of the Great Controversy in those days was because the Bible
said that it would.
And now, after 31 years, we see the first indications that prophecy is being fulfilled in our time regarding this issue.
Dr. Samual Bacciocci reported in his news letter that there have been over 30 dissertations on the Sabbath/ Sunday issues written that past year by doctoral candidates.
Not too long ago an ex-Adventist Bible teacher named Dale Ratzlaff wrote a book in which he argued that the Sabbath is not necessary for new covenant Christians to keep.
That lead to a long discussion on the internet
between Mr. Ratslaff and Dr. Bachiocci.
Thousands followed their cyber-debate of these issues over the internet.
The Sabbath
is becoming a major issue in Christian discussions.
Some of the reasoning is amazing on the part of
those who would maintain that the Lord’s day is Sunday rather than Sabbath.
They seek to
maintain the experience of rest in God while transferring the Symbol
of that rest to Sunday.
Here is the most prominent recent example:
Therefore, if God
"sanctifies" the seventh day with a special blessing and makes it
"his day" par excellence,
this must be understood within the deep dynamic of the dialogue of the
Covenant, indeed the dialogue of "marriage".
This is the dialogue of love which knows no interruption, yet is never
monotonous. In fact, it employs the different registers of love, from the
ordinary and indirect to those more intense, which the words of Scripture and
the witness of so many mystics do not hesitate to describe in imagery drawn
from the experience of married love.
15.
All human life, and therefore all human
time, must become praise of the Creator and thanksgiving to him. But
man's relationship with God also demands times
of explicit prayer, in which the relationship becomes an intense dialogue,
involving every dimension of the person. "The Lord's Day" is the day of this relationship par excellence
when men and women raise their song to God and become the voice of all
creation.
This is precisely why it is also the day of rest. Speaking vividly as it does of "renewal" and "detachment", the interruption of the often oppressive rhythm of work expresses the dependence of man and the cosmos upon God. Everything belongs to God! The Lord's Day returns again and again to declare this principle within the weekly reckoning of time. The "Sabbath" has therefore been interpreted evocatively as a determining element in the kind of "sacred architecture" of time which marks biblical revelation.(13) It recalls that the universe and history belong to God; and without a constant awareness of that truth, man cannot serve in the world as co-worker of the Creator. John Paul II, DIES DOMINI Para 14d-15
That sounds pretty good so far, and I would
agree with the letter on many issues.
The singular exception is that by “Lord’s Day” the Pope means “Sunday.”
John-Paul II proclaims in one voice that God sanctified the 7th day as the symbol reminding his creation of its dependence on Him alone for everything [Rest], and then, without missing a breath, declares that the Lord’s Day (Sunday in his mind) is the day men and women should enter into this rest with God.
And Brothers and Sisters, that is impossible. For if we really do acknowledge our total dependence upon God in all things, we will not presume to supplant the day he chose for rest with a day of our own choosing.
Doing such a thing denies our profession of belief and faith.
We must have both the truth and the spirit in our worship. The symbol of the 7th day Sabbath and the rest of God go hand in hand.
And that’s one reason why I bring up this
issue on Communion Sabbath.
Those who would make Sunday the Lords special day say they do so because the resurrection is the center of Christian faith.
But The Bible does not consider the resurrection to be the center of the gospel. The resurrection is important, but it would be meaningless without the crucifixion.
Paul writes: 1Cor 2:2 “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. “
It is at the crucifixion that Jesus accomplished the work of our redemption. It is the blood of the cross that Jesus, our high priest, presents before the Father as reason for our acceptance before the throne today.
The sacrifice that gives us life did not take place on the 1st day of the week, but on the 6th, and it was the crowning act of our redemption and recreation. In it God said: “It is Finished.”
And then, He rested from His labors one more time on the same day He had originally set aside for that purpose.
Because of the cross, you and I can rest with God today. Because of the sacrifice of Calvary we can return to God from sin and shame and be received into His Rest.
And this Communion is another opportunity for us to view the sacrificial works of God by which we are redeemed and recreated.
Every Sabbath we remember these things. And every quarter we begin by rehearsing the price Jesus paid for our redemption.
And so, today I appeal to each of you through the emblems of this sacrifice, to enter into the rest of God as you take part in this service this Sabbath day..
[Close reading Hymn 40 and pray]