Last October, when Lucas and our daughter Megan still lived in New York, we drove to see them for a long weekend. Normally, we leave early in the morning for our east coast road trips, but that week we couldn’t leave until after lunch on Thursday. Our thought was we’d drive until we were tired, and then we’d get a hotel and drive the rest of the way on Friday. When we made it to Ohio, we started looking for a place to stop but found out there were no rooms available anywhere because deer hunting season had just begun.
We kept driving and because we were tired, we were even willing to spend the night in a “cockroach motel.” There was no room in these “insect inns” so we got back on the highway and kept driving even though we were tired. When we entered some hills and the white lines on the side of the road started weaving in and out, I knew we were in trouble. We finally found a rest area and pulled in.
We were delighted to find about 25 semi-drivers sleeping in their cabs, so we just pulled in next to them, locked the doors, and tried to sleep amidst the cacophony and aroma of diesel engines. BTW, I have a lot of respect for truckers who work hard to deliver items we need. While we saved some money on a hotel, we didn’t sleep much that night.
Have you ever been so tired you didn’t think you could go on? Some of you are experiencing that right now, as sleepiness and sermons seem to go together. That reminds me of a church bulletin blooper: “Mildred Smith is in the hospital and because she’s having trouble sleeping, she requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.”
We’re jumping back into our study of Genesis and today we’ll see how God established a rhythm of work and worship, of rest and refreshment into our lives. Lord willing, we’ll finish up Genesis 3 the weekend before Easter. Please stand so we can read Genesis 2:1-3 together. BTW, didn’t Pastor Justin do a super job last weekend teaching us the best is yet to come?
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 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. 3 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.”
In the event you doze off, here’s a one-sentence summary of the sermon: Because God rested, we must rediscover rest to be refreshed.
Let’s begin with eight observations.
1. Since verse numbers and chapter divisions were added after the Bible was written, these three verses belong with chapter one because they serve as the capstone to the six days of creation.
2. The seventh day is mentioned three times. This is the only day given this kind of attention, showing how important it is to God. One could argue the last day is the best day.
3. There are three main verbs in this passage.
• “Finished” is used twice (1-2)
• “Rested” is used twice (2-3)
• “Blessed” is used once (3).
4. Each verb is explicitly associated with the seventh day.
• “On the seventh day God finished.” (2)
• “He rested on the seventh day.” (2)
• “God blessed the seventh day.” (3)
5. Each verb is associated with the completed creation work of God.
• “God finished his work that he had done.” (2)
• “God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” (2)
• “Because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (3)
6. In each clause, God is the grammatical subject: “God finished…He rested…God blessed.”
7. The seventh day is the only day where we do not read, “there was evening and morning.” One commentor suggests this is because creation is complete while the seventh day continues.
8. Creation was called “good” in all its parts, but only the seventh day is called, “holy.”
Let’s walk through these three verbs to help capture the awe of what the Almighty has done. It’s my prayer that we will worship Him with wonder.
1. FINISHED: God always finishes what He begins. According to verse 1, the Creator has completely completed His creation: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” The word “finished” in verses 1-2 means, “to accomplish or complete.” The heavens are finished, the earth has been completed, and “all the host of them.” There are no loose ends and no modifications needed. This is a powerful argument against the error of evolution. God created His creation in six literal 24-hour-days. In contrast to Genesis 1:2, which described the earth as “formless and void,” the earth is now fully finished and furnished.
Seven times in Genesis 1, God calls His creation good. The Hebrew word translated as “good” means, “well-pleasing.” After surveying all He had created, God explodes with an exclamation of praise in verse 31: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” This is God’s final stamp of approval on what He accomplished.
What had been pronounced “good” individually is now called “very good” collectively, which could be translated as “certainly good” or “surely good” or “exceedingly great and mighty.” As God gazed at everything He created, from the smallest subatomic particles to the largest galaxies spinning in space, He celebrated how everything was complete and reflected His glory exactly as He planned.
As we’ve pointed out before, God is the central and supreme character of creation, with His name appearing 31 times in the first 31 verses! His existence is assumed, and He has left His fingerprints all over creation. His creation was precise, prompt, and perfect and it receives His final stamp of approval because everything has been accomplished.
Philippians 1:6 says if you have been born again, you can have confidence that God will complete the wonderful work He started in you: “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24 is also a wonderful promise: “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.” If we fast forward to the end of the Bible, we hear these words of completion in Revelation 21:6: “And He said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.’”
Because God rested, we must rediscover rest to be refreshed.
2. RESTED: God rests because creation is complete. Rest is one of the most attractive commodities in life today. People purchase possessions, travel to various places, and pursue pleasure in an elusive attempt to find rest and relaxation. Some of us work really hard at resting, which is contradictory.
Twice in verses 2-3 we see God rested: “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.”
The Hebrew word Shabbat, or “rest,” does not mean God was worn out or weary after a rough work week or from a long drive. Isaiah 40:28 says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary…” God does not need to replenish His energy as Psalm 121:4 says, “Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
The Hebrew word “rested” means, “not to do work” or “to cease from labor.” Since God completed creation, there was nothing more for Him to create. We see this in Exodus 20:11: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” But He did more than just stop working. Exodus 31:17 adds, “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.”
God rested, He rejoiced, and He was refreshed! The idea behind this is that God was delighted in His creation; He was fully content with what He had created, much like a sculptor who steps back to admire and enjoy His finished masterpiece. This is captured in Psalm 104:31: “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in His works.”
Because God rested, we must rediscover rest to be refreshed.
3. BLESSED: God sets apart the seventh day as special. What’s your preferred day of the week? Are you aware God has a favorite day of the week? We see this in verse 3: “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…” The word “blessed” means “to greet, to salute, and to kneel” by attaching special value. The word “holy” refers to “setting apart from ordinary use; to dedicate and distinguish something.” The seventh day is unique and exalted because God sanctified it by declaring it holy. When we set aside one day in seven for sacred use, God blesses us as well.
Have you ever wondered why there are seven days in a week? Why do we even have weeks? They don’t fit evenly into months unless it’s February (and it’s not leap year). The only reason is because God established this order at creation. Every week we go through a cycle intended to remind us God worked to create the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Every time a seventh day comes, we’re to acknowledge God’s awesome power in creation and give Him praise.
Here's how I work it out. Every Saturday we should remember God as Creator and every Sunday we should celebrate Jesus as Redeemer because of the resurrection. On the seventh day, God rested because He finished creation. On the first day, Christ rose because He finished redemption. When Saturday rolls around, remember you are God’s special creation and on Sunday give glory to God for your salvation as His new creation. Sadly, in our culture, most people don’t mark Saturday or Sunday as significant or special.
Because God rested, we must rediscover rest to be refreshed.
When we preached through the 10 Commandments a year and a half ago, we summarized the fourth commandment this way: Let’s preserve the Sabbath principle by setting aside Sunday, or another day, as the Son’s Day. We give God one day in seven because seven out of seven belong to Him! For the Christian, every day is Sunday.
We were encouraged to contemplate these questions.
• Do you have one day a week in which you unplug to rest?
• What one decision will you make to get your calendar back in rhythm?
• What disciplines will you implement to revere God on one specific day?
• What one activity will you stop doing and what’s one thing you’ll start doing to demonstrate you’re ready to rely on the Lord?
Here are some additional action steps to help us make at least one day a week a holy day, not just a ho hum day.
1. As you seek to joyfully tithe the financial treasures God has entrusted to you, make sure you’re also tithing the time God has given you. If the average work week is 40 hours, what would it look like to give 10%, or four hours each week, to serving Christ and His kingdom?
2. Prepare for worship before you arrive. Most of us think weekend worship prepares us to handle the rest of the week. I wonder what would happen if we treated the other six days as preparation for weekend worship?
3. Discipline yourself to gather weekly with God’s people. Pick a preferred service (you have three options) and if something changes in your schedule one week, gather with God’s people on another day and time. If you’re not able to gather in person, engage online. If you’ve been out of the habit, a new year is a great time to get back into the groove of gathering each week. Hebrews 10:25: “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
4. Deliberately slow the pace in your family. Some of us are so overscheduled there’s no time for rest, refreshment, or rejoicing together.
5. Spend time with your neighbors on your day of rest. Visit a discouraged friend. Invite someone over.
6. Repent and receive the salvation rest Jesus offers. Sabbath is all about rest. Instead of being busy and working to be accepted by God, it’s time to believe and rest in your acceptance. The promise of a temporary Sabbath rest is a picture of the eternal rest only Christ provides. Once you repent, believe, and receive Him, you will find the only rest that will satisfy your soul.
Someone said it like this: “Before Christ, people worked all week and then rested on Saturday. They worked to earn their rest. Now that Christ has risen from the dead, we rest on the first day of the week because the work of salvation has been accomplished for us.”
Hebrews 4:9-11: “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. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
There are only two ways to get to heaven.
• You can try to work your way in, which will never work.
• Or you get in by the work of another. We must rest from all efforts to be saved by our own works because only in Christ will we find a total rest.
To get to the heart of what it means to rediscover rest, let’s focus on the Greek word “Tetelestai,” which in English means, “It is finished.” Jesus trumpeted this word loudly from the cross as recorded in John 19:30: “It is finished.” It wasn’t a whimper, but the cry of a conqueror, a shout of victory, a declaration of triumph.
This verb is in the perfect tense, which means it’s an action that has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. We could translate it like this, “It was finished and as a result it is forever done. It was finished in the past, and it is still finished in the present, and it will continue to be finished in the future.” All has been done that needed to be done. Nothing more is needed.
When Jesus shouted tetelestai, people in the first century would have immediately understood the meaning because the word was used in multiple contexts.
• A farmer would say this word to describe an animal with no imperfections. He would look at his lamb admirably and declare, Tetelestai!
• A priest would examine a sacrificial animal for blemishes and if it was perfect, he would shout out, Tetelestai!
• A carpenter, after finishing a perfect piece of furniture would smile and say, Tetelestai!
• An artist, admiring his finishing touch on a canvas that needed no correction or improvement, would survey his work and pronounce, Tetelestai!
• A servant would run to his master after faithfully finishing all the work assigned to him and report, Tetelestai!
• A son, after being sent on a mission by his father, would not return until he took care of every detail. When he was finished with everything, he would smile and report to his dad, Tetelestai!
• A prisoner was given a “certificate of debt” that was nailed to his cell door so everyone could see all of his crimes and the penalty that was assessed. When the prisoner served all his time, the indictment was taken down and the judge would write the word, Tetelestai! across the charges. The freed prisoner was then given this document so if anyone questioned him, he could take it out and point to the word Tetelestai!
• And, perhaps most importantly, this was a banking term. When someone had a debt and it was paid off, the creditor would write Tetelestai on the certificate of debt signifying it was paid in full. Several years ago, archaeologists in Egypt uncovered the office of a “CPA” and discovered a stack of bills, with the Greek word Tetelestai inscribed across each one to show the debt was paid in full.
It is finished. There are no defects or slivers. The picture is perfect. The job has been performed exactly to the specifications. The prisoner is set free. The debt is fully forgiven. “Paid in full” means once something is paid for, you never have to pay for it again. You’d be foolish to even try.
Listen to John 19:28: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished…” This is the same word found in verse 30 and hearkens back to Genesis 2:1-2: “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…” It is finished because all has been completed.
Why Does it Matter?
1. Since Jesus paid it all, there is nothing more that needs to be done. Salvation is not a do-it-yourself project or even a 50-50 arrangement, where you do your part and Jesus does His. Jesus has done it all so you don’t have to.
Can I speak bluntly? Stop performing! Your acceptance is not based upon anything you do but on what has already been done for you. Many of us secretly believe there is something we must “do” to be saved. No amount of personal reformation, keeping a New Year’s resolution, church attendance, baptism, or good works will get you any closer to God. Sin is only forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus on the cross and His finished work on your behalf.
I had the opportunity to share the gospel with someone a week ago. He kept saying he was trying to surrender. Finally, I stopped him and said, “It’s time to stop trying and start trusting. You don’t have to do anything because everything has already been done for you. It’s time to surrender.” He listened and told me he was trying. I told him there’s no such thing as trying. You either do it or you don’t. I could tell this resonated with him but as far as I know, he has not trusted Christ…yet.
Can you hear this cry from the cross? Tetelestai! It is finished! Will you continue to perform or keep punishing yourself through acts of penance? If you’re all about “try” more, listen to this “cry” more. He shouted it so you will get it. The divine demands have been met in the divine done! Are you ready to embrace the Gospel of Done?
We’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:
JESUS + NOTHING = EVERYTHING!
2. Jesus’ work is finished, but ours is just beginning. Once we surrender, repent, and receive Jesus Christ into our lives, we’re responsible to take the message of His completed work to all people. According to Acts 1:8 we’re to go with the “gospel of done” to our neigbors and to the nations: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Jesus’ work is continuing, though now it’s done through us.
When Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills suffered a cardiac arrest during the game Monday night, fellow players started praying. During a time of great need they turned to God, who is an “ever-present help in time of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Here’s part of an article I posted on Facebook this week:
God longs for us to turn (or return) to Him. You don’t have to perform or do penance to try to please Him. Simply come to Him on your knees in a posture of submissive surrender and confess that He is Lord. Jesus paid the price for your sins, and He rose again to show His victory over depravity, over the devil, and over death itself.
Seeing so many moved to pray reminds us of the truth found in Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “He has put eternity into man’s heart.” As Charles Spurgeon once said, “Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.”
While events were still unfolding Monday night, one ESPN reporter choked out these words, “Sports are important...and suddenly they are not.”
Let's keep praying for Damar and for each other. And, if you’re not ready to die, repent of your sins and receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Do it today because you’re not promised tomorrow.
I’m told there’s a tombstone in Indiana with these words:
Pause, Stranger, when you pass me by,
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so you will be,
So prepare for death and follow me.
An unknown passerby scratched this reply:
To follow you I’m not content,
Until I know which way you went.
Which way will you go when it’s your time to go? We’re all just one heartbeat from eternity.
On Wednesday, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky decided to pray for Damar on the spot, on live TV! His two co-hosts also bowed their heads while he prayed.
On Thursday, during a hospital press conference, the doctors said Damar asked in writing who won the game. The doctors replied, “Yes, you won. You’ve won the game of life.”
Amazingly, I watched former NFL player Benjamin Watson use this tragedy as a platform to share the gospel on CNN with Anderson Cooper. Because of copyright restrictions, we’ll need to stop the livestream at this point.
Play Video Clip
Let me make two applications related to this cultural moment.
• Pray for people right away. When you’re prompted to pray, do it right then and there, out loud if possible, no matter where you are. Could you imagine what would happen if people started praying like this on campuses, in workplaces, in grocery stores, at ballgames, in homes, in neighborhoods, at restaurants, and in churches? I introduced myself to someone at a coffee shop this week and found out he had heart surgery the day before and asked if I could pray for him. I was also able to give him a gospel pamphlet.
• Boldly share the gospel with someone this week. Fellow Christ-follower, let’s be ready to give an answer for the hope within us: “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). We are here for such a time as this.
Oh, that God would use this tragedy to “revive us again that we might rejoice in Him.” (Psalm 85:6)
A young man came up to a pastor one day and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” The preacher replied, “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s too late!” The man responded, “What? Are you kidding me? You mean there’s nothing I can do?” The preacher shook his head and said, “No…it’s too late. It’s already been DONE! The only thing you can DO is believe. Stop trying and start trusting.”
If you’re ready to repent and receive the salvation rest Jesus freely offers you, please pray this prayer with me: “God, thank You for creating me and for sending Jesus, who kept all Your commands because I haven’t and can’t keep them. I have not been resting or revering You. In fact, I’m restless and my sins are consuming me. I confess I am a sinner and I’m ready to repent of my sins. I believe You paid the price for my sins by dying on the cross and You showed Your power by rising from the dead on the third day. I now receive You as my Creator, my Savior, my Mediator, and my Lord. Come into my life and give me rest. Lead me to follow You faithfully from now on. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
