Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #262 Web Description: The Sabbath is a special covenant that God made with all mankind. It is a weekly reminder that all things God created are completed and available for us. He rested from His works and invited us to enter His rest. We can do that because He has done it all, and we do not have to keep striving to do it in ourselves. This Sabbath rest is a provision made for us from the ...
Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #262
Web Description: The Sabbath is a special covenant that God made with all mankind. It is a weekly reminder that all things God created are completed and available for us. He rested from His works and invited us to enter His rest. We can do that because He has done it all, and we do not have to keep striving to do it in ourselves. This Sabbath rest is a provision made for us from the beginning, and we appropriate it today.
Show Notes: On the Sabbath we remember that God completed all His creation and rested from His works. This means that whatever we need already exists and is available. All we have to do is appropriate what God has finished creating. We are also told in the book of Hebrews to enter His rest. How do we rest from our works just as God rested from His? If we know that everything is completed, then we do not need to keep trying to accomplish by ourselves what is already done.
We want to enter His rest, and the Scriptures enable us to learn from the mistakes of those who failed to do so. The children of Israel saw the works of God when He delivered them from Egypt. Yet in the difficulty of the wilderness, they tested God because they stopped believing He could do what they already saw Him do. Moses knew what God could do. But instead of speaking to the rock as the Lord commanded, Moses in his anger disobeyed God and struck the rock. He made it about his works instead of the works of God.
As Christians we have experienced God's salvation and seen His deliverance in our lives. But when we face difficulties, what happens to our faith? Do we start to quarrel with Him and test Him? Or even in good times, do we try to work out everything by ourselves instead of believing He has done everything? We need to enter His rest. That means we stop everything we are doing out of ourselves and believe in Him, in who He is, and in what He has done. He has provided for us all things pertaining to life and godliness, and we need to live our lives from that point of faith.
Key Verses:
• Genesis 1:31—2:4. "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work."
• Hebrews 4:3–11. "The one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His."
• Psalm 95:1–11. "They tried Me, though they had seen My work. … They shall not enter into My rest."
• Exodus 17:2–7. "Why do you test the Lord?"
• Numbers 20:9–12. "Because you have not believed Me … you shall not bring this assembly into the land."
• 2 Peter 1:3. "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness."
Quotes:
• "He is the great Creator, and all things were created by Him. And He finished that work of creation and opened the door for us to enter into that creation in rest because there's nothing for us to work up. We don't create. We simply receive and appropriate."
• "It's very important that during these days that we're in, and moving forward from here, we don't lose our faith. You've got to be able to go back and remember all that the Lord has done."
• "Things can get very difficult. But He's provided for us one day a week where we can come and remember all of His provisions, all of His blessings. And we can therefore look at what we're facing today, and what we're going to face tomorrow, and realize, 'Yes, He is with us, and He is faithful to His promises.'"
Takeaways:
1. The seventh day, the Sabbath, is a day God sanctified, meaning that He set it apart from the other days of the week. This makes it a significant day that we keep by remembering God rested from all His works. All His creation was completed, and all things in the created world are available to us.
2. We are called to enter His rest where we cease from our own works. That is, we stop trying to do everything ourselves because we know that He has done it, and we become one with what He has done.
3. All things are available. All things are ours. And all things are possible for us to appropriate right now in this day. Therefore, we should not let go of our faith in God's completed provision, either because we are facing difficulties or because we are magnifying our own works.
