Latest / HBCWestminster / 7.4.21 Genesis 2:1-15 Pastor Sam Porges

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7.4.21 Genesis 2:1-15 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  We're taking this summer to explore the depths of Genesis 1 to 3. We've titled this series, Origins, How It All Began. And two weeks ago, we covered the origin of species, God's creation of all things from Genesis chapter 1. And last week, we covered the origin of sexuality, about the fact that God has made humanity male and female, and how his design really is best.
• 0:27
  This week we're going to discover the origin of Sabbath in Genesis 2, 1-15. If you were with us last week, you'll remember that Pastor Danny told us a story about his time in Hollywood when he was waiting in line for the live filming of a singing contest show with his youth group and how God let him be humbled, we might say.
• 0:58
  Just a good lesson in that, right? For us to approach the Word of God with humility, which becomes us. And there was a time in my life when I was in Hollywood as well for the live broadcast of a show. This was back in 2014. I went to Hollywood with a few other people for the filming of part of the finale for The Voice. And I remember going down to Hollywood Studios and...
• 1:27
  parking in this big kind of separate parking garage and leaving all our phones and everything in the car right because they were patting us down and checking us to make sure nothing could be leaked from the show and we get on this bus we head over to the the voice studio and as we step out of the bus we see this giant if you've seen the show the giant hand with the microphone in it right and there's this really long line of people and we're all waiting to get in to the show and
• 1:54
  as they're letting people in giving us our bracelets the line stops right as uh our group is about to go into the show and i remember thinking oh no i hope they didn't fill up or you know run out of seats for us because that'd be a bummer so after a few minutes of waiting kind of looking at the production crew you know wondering what they're going to do they come to us and say all right put them in the pit and that could only mean one thing it would mean that we
• 2:25
  would be the people standing immediately around the stage, mere feet away from these performers and from the stage itself. And so as soon as we heard that, we were stoked. And so we walk through the dark back hallways of the studio into the studio where they film the voice.
• 2:45
  And they put us on the left side of the stage. I was obviously in the back because I'm too tall. But they put us in the pit. And as they're getting ready for this live filming, you've got all the judges, you know, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton and these guys sitting in their chairs getting their makeup done. And they're checking the lights and everything. And then the show starts.
• 3:11
  And these contestants are coming out, they're performing, people are cheering and clapping. And there was one thing that happened that I didn't really anticipate. All of the people in the pit are primarily responsible for the hype and the energy, right? So they're the ones waving their hands, they're the ones clapping, because after all, I mean, they're on camera. You can see us. And so they're responsible for...
• 3:37
  for making the finale energetic and great and so as the show would begin and a contestant would come on and start singing their song and performing we would have to clap and it would always be a clap above your head right so the camera can see it if you're clapping down here it doesn't really make a difference but clap above your head or sway side to side with your hands right and that was really really fun for the first 15 minutes of the show
• 4:07
  And after that 15 minutes, we were getting tired. I mean, imagine just holding your hands above your head for an hour. That's a long time, right? And so as we would get tired of swaying or clapping our hands above our head, our hands would, you know, slowly come down. And the production crew who were wearing all black so you couldn't see them on the camera are wandering the perimeter of the pit. And they're giving us a direction, you know, clap, sway.
• 4:35
  jump, whatever it is. And as we would get tired and our hands would lower, they'd be walking around behind us saying, higher, clap your hands higher. Clap them higher. All right, sway side to side. Come on, be energetic. Cheer, clap. And after, honestly, after an hour and a half, it was incredibly tiring because it's a live show. I mean, the breaks are not.
• 4:57
  10 minutes long they are minutes long and so you have minutes to let your shoulders relax before you gotta get back up there and do this whole thing you know um and with these guys wandering behind us giving us direction and and telling us what to do it just got tiring and we needed a break we needed rest rest is one of the few universally shared experiences of humanity the necessity of rest has blessed and plagued mankind for thousands of years
• 5:28
  functioning both as an escape from our ever-demanding world of production and as an inevitable reminder of our limits. The old song, all you need is love, is not true. Sometimes all you need is a nap. And although rest is necessary for us, for mankind, we would never dare to say that rest is necessary for God.
• 5:53
  After all, Psalm 121 verse 4 says, He who keeps Israel will neither sleep nor slumber. Far be it, we would say, from the eternal, omnipotent, and self-sufficient God to be dependent on anything but himself for sustenance. He does not need rest. Genesis 2, however, seems to paint a different picture. If you have your Bibles and you're open to Genesis chapter 2,
• 6:24
  If you would and are able, please stand with me as we read Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 15. God's word says this, 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.
• 6:54
  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.
• 7:22
  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. 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.
• 8:14
  This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
• 8:18
  This morning, of all the verses in our passage, we're really going to focus on verses 1 to 3, and we're going to study the origin of Sabbath, and more specifically, God's Sabbath rest, Israel's Sabbath rest, and our Sabbath rest. So first, let's look at God's Sabbath rest. Why did God rest? Why?
• 8:42
  I think that if that question were to be asked of most evangelicals today, many would answer, God rested on the seventh day to provide humanity a framework for their work week, with six days of work and one day of rest. This answer is certainly true, but it is the answer that lies on the surface of the text. Much like a rowboat floating over the Pacific Ocean, there's so much more depth.
• 9:12
  to this passage than we often realize. I think the reason we float on the surface of day seven is because we tend to see day six as the summit of the creation week. Adam and Eve are the pinnacle of all created things because they bear the very image of God. And we like to think that makes day six the functional finale of the creation week, right? It's when we come on the scene and we love that, right? We love saying, here I am.
• 9:41
  This is the peak of creation week. When we put aside our pride, however, we find that day six is not the climax, but day seven is, and for reasons greater than the fact that it nicely rounds off a seven-day week. Regardless of whether one interprets the creation days literally or metaphorically, the seventh day stands uniquely apart as a calm but climactic resolution to the first week of history.
• 10:12
  Whereas the first six days are defined by their content, God's doing, the seventh is defined by its cessation, God's being. The first six are defined by God's speaking. The seventh day is defined by God's sanctification. Whereas the first three and second three days lie parallel to each other, the seventh day is a day without parallel. So, if God didn't need to rest,
• 10:40
  And if he rested for reasons greater than just providing a model work week for humanity, then why did he rest? What significance does his rest have to the creation narrative and, if any, to the rest of the Bible? You know, when God rested, he was not desisting from all of his works, like his work of providence or of sustenance of the universe, but specifically from his work of creation.
• 11:07
  This is significant for a few reasons. First, this means that God was doing things in the creation week that he is not doing now. Second, it means that God is still resting from that type of creating work since there was no evening to conclude the seventh day in our passage. Third, it reveals the reason why God rested. God did not rest out of necessity, but out of desire.
• 11:36
  God wanted to enjoy communion with his creation, like an artist after creating a beautiful fresco would take a step back to admire it. By unnecessarily but purposefully ceasing from his work, God was endowing his good universe with meaning and purpose. Creation was valuable, not because it was functional or useful.
• 12:08
  but because it was a good creation of God. And it would experience its ultimate fulfillment and deepest pleasure in sharing time with its maker and receiving his love. On the seventh day, God chose to be present to and for creation. You know, one peculiar act of God on the seventh day that seals the sacredness of the seventh day was his blessing of it, right? Verse three.
• 12:40
  He blessed the seventh day and made it holy, set apart, consecrated, sanctified. He blessed it. Normally, blessings are reserved for living beings, right? You think of Jacob blessing his sons, right? The 12 tribes of Israel. So normally, blessings are reserved for living beings, making this blessing abnormal but important. The seventh day is the first thing in scripture to be blessed and called holy.
• 13:11
  by God, making it a consecrated day in which those made in his image would also rest from their work and fellowship with him. Although Adam was designed by God to work the ground in Eden even before the fall, which we see in verse 15 of chapter 2, work is not an evil thing or a result of the fall. Even though Adam was charged to work the
• 13:37
  Garden of Eden, he would find his supreme blessing not in his labors but in his enjoyment of the presence of God as they walked in Eden. And so the primary significance of God's rest in Genesis 2 is his joyful communion with his creation. It's awesome. Even in the first week ever in history, the weekend was the best part. However, once sin entered into the world, one would think that the only logical result
• 14:07
  would be the irreparable and catastrophic destruction of that personal communion between God and his creation. It'd be shattered beyond repair. Fortunately, as we will see in the commands to keep the Sabbath in Exodus and Deuteronomy, that is not the case. So first we see God's Sabbath rest, communion, presence, joy,
• 14:38
  love. Now let's look at Israel's Sabbath rest. The justice of God necessitated his banishment of sinful Adam and Eve from his perfect garden, but his love motivated him to repair that communion by means of a covenant relationship. In the Mosaic covenant, the law, God commanded his people to keep the Sabbath and honor it as holy, and even though the term Sabbath is not used in Genesis chapter 2, signs of God's rest are still
• 15:06
  present. So flip forward with me to Exodus chapter 20 verse 8. This is the 10 commandments, right, where the command to keep the Sabbath is first seen. Exodus 20 verse 8. God commands thus, 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.
• 15:41
  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. Did you notice the reason for this command? The reason why God is commanding the people to observe the Sabbath?
• 16:10
  It's found in verse 11, right? That first word for, it's a because purpose statement, right? Because why should you keep the Sabbath? Because in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth. And then he blessed the seventh day as holy and ceased from that work. This Sabbath command is rooted in creation. Israel was to set one day of their week apart because God rested on the seventh day.
• 16:41
  earth, reminding Israel that they were not defined by their anxiety-ridden productivity, but by their gracious relationship with Yahweh. God was teaching Israel that when Sabbath is ignored, his good design becomes distorted. And do we not know this to be true? When work is divorced and separated from rest, it becomes disordered, utilitarian,
• 17:12
  idolatrous and we end up with workaholism, selfish ambition, and the disintegration of our souls. By commanding Israel to keep the Sabbath holy, God was inviting them to participate in his good design and to get a little taste of the pre-fall communion that Adam and Eve enjoyed with God.
• 17:35
  It is beautiful that this command in Exodus does not apply only to Israelites, but he even says, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner among you, none of them are to do any work. You are all to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. And I think this shows that God was really inviting all of creation back into this Genesis 2 communion.
• 18:03
  that he enjoyed with his creation. It was a broad, open-arm invitation to all to receive him as God and enjoy him as maker. It was a command to come back to our original purpose. So that's the first command, right? Keep the Sabbath. Why? It's rooted in creation.
• 18:24
  But there's a second Sabbath command in Deuteronomy that provides a little bit different of a perspective for us. And so flip forward again to Deuteronomy chapter 5. Deuteronomy chapter 5, verses 12 to 15. Deuteronomy is reiterating the commandments given at Mount Sinai. And in verse 12 of chapter 5, we read this. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.
• 19:00
  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 or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Okay, that's the same as Exodus, right? But whereas Exodus was rooted in creation, pay attention to how Deuteronomy links the Sabbath command to God.
• 19:29
  Verse 15, you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath. You catch that? Exodus, that command is rooted in creation, but Deuteronomy, this one is rooted in redemption.
• 19:52
  It was God who heard his people's cry in Egypt. It was God who delivered them from bondage and slavery in Egypt. And it was God who would lead them into the promised land of rest. Their salvation, and indeed their very life, was credited to the grace and favor of Yahweh alone. Therefore, Deuteronomy says, they were to practice covenant faithfulness by setting apart one day as holy to the Lord.
• 20:21
  And so when we look at Israel's Sabbath rest, we could talk about this for much longer. But to simplify it, really their Sabbath rest was resting on two pillars, creation and redemption. They were to take one day per week to remember what God did in the beginning and what he did in Egypt. And they were to accept God's invitation into restful fellowship with him once again. These commands, however, were mere shadows.
• 20:51
  of the final and ultimate rest that God was bringing. So first we see God's rest where his very presence is here. We see Israel's Sabbath rest where they are invited by gracious God to come back into communion with him as a little taste of the ultimate rest that is to come. Now let's look at our Sabbath rest. You know, in the gospels, God
• 21:19
  God's rest and communion are substantialized in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who reveals God and invites people into fellowship with him. Jesus calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew 12, verse 8. And his name, Emmanuel, which means God with us, proclaims that the very creator has come to commune with his creation.
• 21:41
  on this earth. And in a time when the Sabbath had been disconnected from its true purpose, right communion with God, and when it had been reduced to a set of legalistic commands, Jesus reintroduces the centrality of communion with God. This is why Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus didn't heal on the Sabbath just to be a rebel, just for the sake of being countercultural. No, what Jesus was doing was showing God himself
• 22:10
  is among you it is i the communion with god that was broken in genesis 2 foreshadowed in the sabbath commands is now here you are invited to fellowship with god you know when jesus preached he offered something much greater than bodily or earthly rest you will most likely be familiar with matthew chapter 11 verses 28 and 29 when jesus says come to me
• 22:54
  The crowds who heard these words were tired, hungry, and worn down by life. Their spiritual leaders did not usher them into communion with God, but were only concerned with loading them with the heavy commandments of God on their shoulders.
• 23:10
  Their bodies were worn out and their spirits were tired, and then they heard Jesus' words here in Matthew 11, like light piercing through the darkness, I will give rest for your souls. It's a rest that can only be lost if you give it away. It's a rest that communes with God because it communes with me. It's a rest that relaxes in God's love.
• 23:36
  grace and I wonder this morning if any of you are tired and heavy-laden and worn out by life and you need the rest that Jesus offers I wonder if your spirit is not relaxed in God's grace either because you don't know him or because life is heavy and if that's you this morning I want to encourage you this rest is available to you now now
• 24:11
  All you have to do is come to Jesus and ask and he will give you rest. He can set your soul at ease in communion with your maker because he has made a way for that communion through the cross. Church, in order for us to commune with God, the breach that was caused between us and God by our sin had to be repaired. And our good deeds could never repair that breach.
• 24:40
  It could never open the gates back into the garden so that we could live with God. It never could. Only Jesus could. And so he lived a righteous life and then bore our sins on the cross, paying the penalty that we deserved so that the gates to communion with God would be open. And all he calls us to do is trust in him. For all who say yes to Jesus, they comprise what the Bible calls the church.
• 25:10
  the gathering, the called out ones, and the church is being built by God to be an unanxious, restful people who love to commune with their God. Just like the Israelites, our rest is rooted in creation and redemption, right? We remember that God rested from his works, and so we rest from all of our striving to be accepted by God.
• 25:35
  We rest from that. We don't try to justify ourselves because there is another who will justify us by giving us his righteousness. So we stop our striving and we remember that our redemption from slavery to our sin, which was bought for us by Christ, has come. And so we rest in God's free grace that is offered to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus gives us his people.
• 26:05
  Sabbath rest. But there's more good news. Not only does our rest impact the present, but it also holds massive future consequences. Jesus promises us a future final rest. The author of Hebrews, in speaking about the generation in Israel that died before entering the Promised Land because of their stubborn hearts,
• 26:30
  That author in Hebrews urges his reader to press on toward our final rest. In Hebrews chapter 4, our attention is directed to our future and final salvation and rest. Hebrews chapter 4 verses 1 to 3 says this,
• 26:56
  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. For we who have believed enter that rest. And then again in Hebrews chapter 4 verses 9 to 11, just a few verses later. 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.
• 27:26
  Let us therefore strive to enter that rest. Israel partially experienced God's rest when they crossed the Jordan River and entered the promised land. But we Christians are awaiting the day when we will cross this thin veil of death into our promised land, into our better country, as Hebrews 11, 16 calls it, into our land of milk and honey.
• 27:57
  Jesus declares this in Revelation chapter 21 verse 3 to 5. He says, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. This is at the end of all things. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Behold, Jesus says, I am making all.
• 28:26
  things new. God's rest on the first pages of Scripture stretches out its arms to touch the last pages of Revelation. One day, God's loving unity with his creation will be brought to its eternal climax. God will complete his work of restoration, and his people will get to walk with him in his new Eden in the cool of the day. This is what awaits.
• 28:59
  So do you see this morning how explosive Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 are? Those few simple verses invite us into the great drama of God who has been inviting creation back into communion with him since the beginning. It used to look like keeping the Sabbath commands, but now it looks like trusting in Jesus for present peace and future comfort.
• 29:25
  As we conclude our study of the origin of Sabbath, I think that we would be remiss to neglect how the idea of Sabbath practically impacts our weekly living. Many Christians, including myself, have wondered whether or not we are commanded as New Testament believers to keep some form of the Old Testament Sabbath. The Sabbath command is never reiterated in the New Testament.
• 29:48
  Neither Jesus nor any other New Testament author advocates for the continuation of strict Sabbath observances as Israel would have understood them. Our experience of God's rest has been changed from Sabbath keeping, right, to trusting in the gospel. Christians do not practice Sabbath keeping like Israel because we are not under the law, which means that we cannot legalistically demand a church-wide Sabbath practice.
• 30:16
  If anything were to roughly resemble Sabbath keeping, I think it would be the weekly gathering of saints on Sunday morning, right? Which functions like a Sabbath in that it shapes Christian doctrine, it directs our patterns of life, and it promotes devotion to God. And so what do we do with Sundays? What do we do with Sundays? Are there no guiding principles by which we should direct this day of the week? As I have sought to answer this question for myself,
• 30:46
  Ray Ortlund and Eugene Peterson have been incredibly helpful to me. They're a couple of authors. Ray Ortlund observes that by setting apart one day per week for rejuvenation in God, this is funny, God has given us over seven weeks of vacation every year. One day a week. There are 52 weeks. That's 52 days. Over seven weeks of vacation a year. That's better than any job that we'll ever have.
• 31:14
  He also encourages us to avoid turning Sunday into a second Saturday where we get things done on Sunday that we didn't get to finish on Saturday. When we do that, we risk fitting God in rather than centering our every week around him. Ortlund says we risk living soul-exhausted lives and wondering why God isn't more real to us, why we're exhausted and grumpy.
• 31:39
  So he says, let's avoid treating Sunday as another day of the work week, right? So what do we do? Eugene Peterson proposes the idea of pray and play. Pray and play, in which at least one day a week is reserved for rejuvenation in God and the enjoyment of things we otherwise wouldn't get to enjoy during the week. Praying and playing is much more than just a day off.
• 32:07
  Just having a day off is like the secularized version of Sabbath. To pray and play is to enjoy the world apart from its obsession to produce and its self-preoccupied determination to consume. To pray and play is to walk with God in the good world that he has made. And for every one of us, praying and playing is going to look a little bit different, which again is why I don't want to prescribe any sort of legalistic command to us, but I think it's better that we work out.
• 32:36
  between us and the Lord in the Holy Spirit, what it means for us to pray and play. I think, though, that if we try it, we can press into the good design of rest that God has for us as we await our final and future rest, our heavenly, eternal Sabbath. So we've got God's Sabbath rest in the beginning, which today is impacting us and giving us a future hope. This is the origin of Sabbath. Let's pray.
• 33:12
  Lord, you are wise and incredibly gracious. What a marvelous thing to consider that in the beginning you would desire just to be present with your creation, just to enjoy it as its great architect and maker. Lord, your rest shows us that you love us and want communion with us. And we praise you that we are not under...
• 33:49
  the old covenant of laws and regulations and rules, but now we are made free in Jesus to enjoy communion with you, not only when we come to church, but every day. And then we get the blessing of worshiping you with our brothers and sisters in Christ on Sunday. What a joy that is. And I pray that as we consider what it means to rest in you.
• 34:18
  I pray that we would remember that your design for our work and our rest is best. You're good and you know what is good for us. And so I pray that we would joyfully discover and explore what it means to pray and play on Sundays or whatever day of the week that is for us, right? Just pray and play to walk with you in the world that you have made. We exalt you. We cannot wait for the day when we give.
• 34:51
  a sigh of relief and relaxation as we enter into eternal communion face to face with Jesus. We glorify you, Lord, and it's in the name of Jesus we pray that all of this. Amen.