Need More Than a Kit Kat? Why God Created a Day to Rest – Part 2

Need More Than a Kit Kat? Why God Created a Day to Rest – Part 2

Sue Redman – August 18, 2007

On a blustery October night in a church outside Minneapolis, several hundred believers gathered for a three day seminar. The seminars began with a one hour presentation on the gospel of grace, the reality of salvation, and using Scripture, story, symbolism and personal experience, the presenter focused on the total sufficiency of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

The service ended with a song and a prayer and the pastor of that church leaving by a side door in a huff. “That airhead,” he told an associate about the presenter, “didn’t say one thing about what we have to do to earn our salvation!”

“Something is radically wrong,” the presenter later wrote. “The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small minded bookkeeper. The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works wherein the elite are honoured and the ordinary ignored. Love is stifled, freedom shackled, and self-righteousness fastened. The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded.” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, p 13)

Does anyone identify?

These are the thoughts of Brennan Manning, a former priest who now spends his life writing and preaching, encouraging men and women everywhere to accept and embrace the good news of the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. These thoughts also reflect the thoughts of some of us and might I suggest the reason too many of us identify with the thoughts of Brennan Manning is because it is just as hard for Adventists to understand the word grace as it is for Catholics. It is just as hard for Adventists to understand the word grace as it is for Catholics because we are all born into the same culture. We are born into a culture that teaches us, “We get what we deserve.” “There is nothing free.” “No pain, no gain.” And the result? Manning describes it like this,

“Sooner or later we are confronted with the painful truth of our inadequacy and insufficiency. Our security is shattered and our bootstraps are cut. Once the fervor has passed, weakness and infidelity appear. We discover our inability to add even a single inch to our spiritual stature. There begins a long winter of discontent that eventually flowers into gloom, pessimism, and a subtle despair: subtle because it goes unrecognized, unnoticed, and therefore unchallenged. It takes the form of boredom, drudgery. We are overcome by the ordinariness of life, by daily duties done over and over again. We secretly admit that the call of Jesus is too demanding, that surrender to the Spirit is beyond our reach. We start acting like everyone else . . .

“Our huffing and puffing to impress God,” Manning continues, “our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.”

(Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, pp 14-15)

The last time I preached I spoke about our need for the Sabbath, a day of rest each and every week. We learnt that it was the Sabbath that helped William Wilberforce keep his life in perspective. We learnt that Mary McKinney, a Clinical Psychologist and Academic Coach, advises all academics – whether or not they’re religious – to take a day off every seventh day to promote efficiency. We read about a new social trend to buck the marketplace convention and steal back a day each week for oneself, for families, for gratitude and reflection.

But, we agreed with Rick Warren, we need more than just a day of physical rest, a day free from emotional stress. What we need more than these things we concluded, is a consistent reminder that we are created beings, that we can let go of any expectation to be all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere because we already have a living, loving God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere. Being reminded that we have a living, loving God is what enables us to rest anywhere, anytime, and the Sabbath we learnt, is that consistent reminder.

The Sabbath is to be an eternal sign, Exodus 31:17 says, that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and He rested on the seventh. At the end of the sixth day of creation, after God had created the animals and Adam and Eve, God saw that His creation was complete – the heavens and the earth and all their multitude – so on the seventh day He rested, He rested from all the work that He had done in Creation, and in so doing God created a reminder of His finished work at Creation (Genesis 2:1-2).

This morning we are going to look at the Sabbath again. We are going to look at the Sabbath again but this time we are not going to look at the Sabbath as a reminder of God’s finished work at Creation but as a reminder of His finished work at the cross. My understanding, and I’ve gleaned this understanding from both the Word of God and from what some of you are telling me, is that we not only need a consistent reminder that we have an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere Creator, we also need a consistent reminder that we have an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere Re-Creator, do I hear any Amens?

Is it true? Are we too often confronted with the painful reality of our inadequacy and insufficiency? Does this affect our security? Does it go on to make us discontent, despondent, despairing? Do we secretly believe the call of Jesus is too demanding? Do we need a consistent reminder that, “Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.”

I think so. I know so. And again I praise God that He has already provided that consistent reminder in the form of the Sabbath, and let me tell you why I believe this to be true.

You might like to open your Bibles with me to the Gospel of John, to John 1:1. You may already know that there are many parallels between Creation and Salvation in the Bible and they extend right from the very first book to the very last. This morning I’m going to share with you just five parallels – five parallels as outlined by Ty Gibson in a presentation called, “Creational Redemption.”

1. There is a new beginning

As we noted the last time I preached, the Old Testament opens with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). How does the New Testament open? Let’s read it together from John 1:1-2,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

“In the beginning . . .” That’s how the New Testament opens too. And it is not by accident that John opens his gospel with a modified version of Genesis 1:1. John wants to remind us of the Creation story. He wants to remind us of how life was, how it was meant to be. Of life before the fall; before sin created a separation between God and humanity. But a new beginning has come, John wants us to know. And he goes on to unfold the plan of salvation/of Re-Creation in much the same way as Genesis 1 unfolds the story of Creation. Let’s look at the second parallel.

2. Darkness gives way to light

What does Genesis 1:2-3 tell us the earth was like in the beginning, before Creation? “. . . the earth was a formless void,” right, “and darkness covered the face of the deep.” What did God do with the darkness? He turned it into light. Genesis 1:3, “. . . God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

What was the world like before the new beginning, before Re-Creation? The world was dark again, John 1:3-9 tells us. A new darkness had covered the earth and a new light was needed. Who created this new light according to John? It was Jesus. The very one who created light in the beginning had come to recreate the light. John 1:4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” Verse 5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Can you see how John’s gospel not only opens with this new beginning in the plan of salvation but it also parallels the giving way of darkness to the light. Let’s look at a third parallel.

3. The image of God is restored

On the sixth day of Creation Genesis 1 tells us that God made the animals and the people, and what do verses 26-27 tell us made the people different from everything else God had created? They were made in the image of God.

What does 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us about the light that came into the world? Let’s read that verse together. 2 Corinthians 4:4,

“In their case (meaning those who are perishing) the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Again, after the fall of humanity, Jesus, the light, comes into the world to recreate something and this time it is the image of God in the human race. Paul describes Jesus elsewhere as the second Adam, a new human being bearing the image of God who brought a new beginning.

4. Salvation is complete

And that brings us to the fourth parallel. Just as Genesis 2:1 tells us that at the end of the sixth day of Creation, God saw that the heavens and the earth were finished/His creative work was complete, so too does Jesus’ coming as the light to this world bring God’s Re-Creative work to an end. Let’s read what Jesus said to His Father at the end of his ministry on earth. John 17:4,

“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.”

Again it is not by accident that Jesus draws upon the language of Creation week here. And He draws on this language again when He is hanging between heaven and earth on the cross. John 19:30 tells us that at the very close of Jesus’ work on this earth He said what? “It is finished.” Jesus work on this earth climaxed at the cross. The plan of salvation was complete. Atonement was achieved. And what day of the week was that? The sixth day.

5. God rests from His work and He invites us to enter that rest

The gospels tell us that when Jesus Christ died on the sixth day of the week, on the day of preparation for the Sabbath, his body was laid in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb where it rested on the Sabbath day. This was to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus would be in the earth three days before He would rise again (Mark 8:31), and in the fulfillment of this prophecy we find another parallel between Creation and Salvation.

If nothing else in the life of Jesus happened by accident, neither do I believe it is by accident that we find Jesus’ body resting on the seventh day. God is again resting on the seventh day, again at the completion of His work, but this time it is not the completion of His Creative work, it is the completion of His Re-Creative work. And just as God invited Adam and Eve to enter into the Sabbath rest with Him at the completion of His Creative work, so too He invites you and I to enter into the Sabbath rest with Him because of the completion of His Re-Creative work.

It takes faith for us to rest, to trust that God has indeed finished the work. That there is nothing you and I can do to contribute to the already completed work of Re-Creation. But it was no different for Adam and Eve – human relationships with God have always required faith. Did Adam and Eve witness any part of Creation? Did Adam and Eve contribute in any way to Creation? No, both Adam and Eve woke up at the end of the sixth day of Creation to an already completed Creation, and the first thing they had to do was trust their Maker when He said Creation was His gift of love to them (Ty Gibson, “Creational Redemption”)

In the same way Re-Creation is God’s gift of love to us. Re-Creation is God’s incredible gift of love to us and let me tell you something I learnt about God’s love this week.

I’m not sure how I have missed out on this detail in the past but I never knew until this week that there was a period of time when Jesus was hanging between heaven and earth on the cross when He actually thought He was going to die and never be raised again. I’ve always known the collective weight of our sin became so heavy it seemed too much for Jesus to bear. I knew He asked His Father to take the cup from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane and I knew He asked His Father why He had forsaken Him when He was on the cross. But I didn’t know until this week that there came a point when the sense the separation sin creates between God and humanity became so great that Jesus thought His death on the cross would literally cost Him His own eternal life and we find this in the Messianic prophecy of Psalm 88.

Don’t you find that so incredibly moving? It literally brought tears to my eyes this week. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, looked into a future of eternal separation from His Father, extinction, and yet His love for you and I was so great He still chose to lay down His life so we could have eternal life.

This is why the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 3 that the love of God surpasses knowledge. It surpasses intellect. It cannot be understood. God literally loves you and I more than He loves Himself and how can we not love a God like that? How could we not respond to this kind of love with love? As Ty Gibson says, the good news of Jesus Christ is not a formalistic religion. It is not a series of ceremonies to move through; a legalistic code we have to comply with. It is encountering a very personal God of love who says, “Come unto me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

What do you need rest from this morning church? From the painful truth of your inadequacy and insufficiency? From insecurity? From discontentment, despondency and despair?

My despair this morning church is that there are some who still do not know the truth about the Sabbath. There are some who still believe we have to keep the Sabbath to be saved. They do not realize that we are already saved – that the Sabbath is our consistent reminder that we are already saved and we must share this good news with them.

When Jesus’ body rested in the tomb on the Sabbath, when God reinstituted the Sabbath at Re-Creation, the Sabbath became a reminder that not only can we let go of any expectation to be all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere, we can also let go of any expectation to keep the law, to measure up to an impossible standard because we have a living, loving Re-Creator who measured up to this impossible standard and He paid the price, then, for our inadequacy and insufficiency.

Church I want thank God again this morning for the Sabbath – for this beautiful reminder that we can rest in Jesus Christ. Would you raise your hand if you would like to thank Him with me?