Our first reading of scripture this evening is Isaiah chapter 55. So the prophet Isaiah chapter 55. Beloved congregation, let us hear the word of God. Come everyone who's thirst, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me, here that your soul may live. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that you did not know you shall run to, because of the Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. "'For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. "'The mountains and the hills before you "'shall break forth into singing, "'and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. "'Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, "'instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, "'and it shall make a name for the Lord, "'an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.'" This is the word of God. Amen, you may be seated. And please turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1, the book of Genesis chapter 1. And I actually want to read two different passages of scripture this evening as the sermon text. I want to read a few verses from Genesis chapters 1 and 2 to begin with. And then we will turn over to Hebrews chapter 4 and we will read a few verses from Hebrews chapter 4 as well. And what we will see is that the author of Hebrews comments on a passage from Genesis chapter 2 with regard to the Sabbath, God's Sabbath rest, and the Sabbath rest that is promised to us and that remains open to us. And so let's begin in Genesis chapter one. And I don't want to read the whole chapter of Genesis one. Let's start with verse 26. Genesis one and verse 26. And before we hear God's word, let's pray together once again. Father, we thank you for the scriptures which never return to you empty. which are powerful and accomplish that for which you have sent them. And we pray that through the scriptures this evening, you would edify us and cause us to be sanctified and conforms to the image of Jesus Christ. Open our ears to hear and our hearts to understand what scripture teaches us about the Sabbath rest that remains for us and how we are to enter into it through Jesus Christ. And we pray this in his holy name, amen. Genesis one and beginning in verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. 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. 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. And now let's look together at Hebrews chapter 4 and we will look at the first 11 verses of Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4, beginning in verse 1. Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message that 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, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. Since, therefore, it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David, so long afterward, and the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 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. This is the word of God. Now these two passages of Holy Scripture are critical for understanding what the Bible teaches us about the Sabbath. And I imagine that whenever we hear the word Sabbath, we usually think of a particular day of the week. If we are thinking of the Old Testament, we think of Saturday, but if we're talking about the New Testament, we think of Sunday. And so we ordinarily associate the word Sabbath primarily with a certain day of the week. And to be sure, the word Sabbath is used that way in scripture. But the word Sabbath has a much deeper meaning than that. It's not just an Old Testament synonym for Saturday or a New Testament synonym for Sunday. The word Sabbath is connected to the idea of rest and we saw that when we were looking at Genesis chapter 2. That goes all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible where in Genesis 2 we are told that God rested from his works on the seventh day. After finishing his work of creation, God rested from all his works. And so from the very beginning, the word Sabbath has been associated with the idea of rest. And especially with God's rest, first and foremost, and then man's rest in imitation of God, secondarily. And the word Sabbath conveys the idea of a state of rest, being in a state of rest, but it also conveys the idea in scripture of a place of rest. And that latter idea is particularly how the author of Hebrews is using it in Hebrews chapter 4. The Sabbath refers to a place of rest. The Sabbath has a spatial connotation. It is a place of rest that one can enter into just like one would enter into a city. And so it has a spatial connotation as well as a temporal one. It refers to a place of rest and not just to a period of rest, a time of rest. And so if you're here with me in Hebrews chapter four, look again at verses nine through 11 of Hebrews four. The author says, 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. And so the Sabbath or the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God is something that we can enter. It's something that we can enter into and therefore indeed should strive to enter into. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, verse 11, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Now what's he talking about there when he says so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience? Well, if we were to go back and read some verses from chapter 3 of Hebrews, we would see that he's talking about the Israelites in the wilderness who failed to enter into Canaan, the land of promise. And if you go back to Hebrews chapter 3 and look specifically at verse 16, The author says, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear, they shall not enter his rest, but those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. They, referring to the Israelites in the wilderness after they were brought out of the land of Egypt, the land of slavery, into the wilderness, they were unable to enter into Canaan, the promised land. They were unable to enter God's rest because of their unbelief. So the promised land, you can see here, is associated with God's rest. To enter that land is to enter God's rest. Now in chapter four, the author of Hebrews explains that the land of Canaan itself is not the true place of God's rest, but it's only an earthly type or shadow of it. The true Sabbath, which is the place of God's rest, is a heavenly realm, but the land of Israel was an earthly type of that heavenly realm. It was an earthly shadow of the heavenly Sabbath. And so to enter the promised land was to enter God's rest, at least in the form of an earthly type and shadow of it. Now the generation of Israelites that rebelled against God in the wilderness all died in the wilderness. They did not enter Canaan. They did not enter God's rest. Because of their unbelief, God swore in his wrath, quote, they shall not enter my rest, which is taken from Psalm 95. God didn't allow them to enter Canaan. And the author of Hebrews sees that historical event of Israel's failure to enter the promised land as parallel to the situation of the church. He envisions the church in his day and the church in our day as being in the same situation as the Israelites who were brought out of Egypt. The church is in the wilderness. We are in the wilderness on a journey toward the land of promise, which is the place of God's Sabbath rest. And we must not follow the example of the Israelites in the wilderness who failed to enter God's rest because of their unbelief. And so the author says in chapter four verse one, therefore while the promise of entering his rest, God's place of rest, still remains, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it or fallen short of it. And then verse two he says, for good news came to us just as to them, the Israelites in the wilderness, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. The word they heard, the Israelites in the wilderness, the word that they heard from God telling them the good news about the promised land didn't benefit them. It was of no value to them. It did not profit them because they didn't believe it. They did not believe it and they didn't enter God's rest because of their unbelief. They hardened their hearts in unbelief and as a result they failed to obtain the land of promise. And the author of Hebrews warns us not to do that. He warns us not to follow that negative example of the Israelites in the wilderness. And he reaches his conclusion here in chapter four, in verse nine, where he says, 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 by which the Israelites in the wilderness fell and failed to enter God's rest. So that same sort of disobedience is talking about the rebellion of the Jews in the wilderness. They fell short of entering God's rest because of their disobedience, their unbelief. Now, the instruction of verse 11, that we are to strive to enter God's rest, sounds a bit odd to me. Verse 11, he says, let us strive to enter that rest. Now, I think that the way to enter rest is not to strive at all, but to stop from striving, to cease striving. That's how you rest, you stop striving. You don't strive to enter rest, but that's what he says, strive to enter that rest. Now the word strive here actually means to work. It means to work hard, to labor. It means to make every effort to press forward and to strive to attain something. Now it seems odd to say that we are to strive to enter rest or to work hard to enter rest, but it fits with the wilderness motif that governs the whole passage. We are in the wilderness, like the Israelites were. We are on our way to the place of rest. They failed to get there. And we must not do that, we must press ahead, we must move forward and strive to enter into that rest. And the temptation that we face, just like they faced in the wilderness, is to turn back, is to turn back to the land of Egypt and not to press forward and move ahead until we get there. And that was certainly the temptation that the original readers of the book of Hebrews faced. They were tempted to turn away from Christ, to fall away, to commit apostasy, to fall away from Christ and to turn back to Judaism. Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians who were facing a crisis of faith and who were tempted to leave the faith and to return to Judaism. And that's why when you read through the book of Hebrews, you find all of these very severe warnings not to fall away, not to fall away from Christ. The author repeatedly warns them not to do that, but to persevere in faith and to not lose heart. Now, one of the chapters in Hebrews where the author encourages them to press ahead, to persevere, to move forward, is in chapter 12. And at the first of chapter 12, let me read to you the first three verses of chapter 12. This is a very well-known exhortation to press ahead, to finish the race. The author says to his readers in chapter 12, verse 1, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. That's what they need to do, to run, to move ahead with endurance Not to lose heart, not to give up, not to quit, but to endure, to persevere, to run with endurance the race that is set before us. Verse two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. They were tempted to grow weary and faint hearted and not to endure and press ahead and finish the race. So he encourages them to do that. Now that exhortation here in Hebrews 12 is very important for our understanding of the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. What exactly is that Sabbath rest that remains for us and what does it mean to enter that rest, to enter God's rest? Entering God's rest is what Christ did after finishing the race. After he finished his work, he entered that rest. He entered God's rest. And what did he do? He sat down at the right hand of the Father. Verse 2 of chapter 12, he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The promise of entering God's rest that still stands for us, chapter 4 verse 1, and the Sabbath rest that remains for us, chapter 4 verse 9, is what Christ obtained in his resurrection and ascension into heaven. So what does that Sabbath rest look like? Well, it looks like this. It looks like being seated at the right hand of the throne of God. That's what it means. That's what the Sabbath rest means. It means to be seated, to be enthroned at the right hand of God in the invisible heaven. That's the place of rest that Christ entered. Remember I said Sabbath means a place of rest, and that's the state of rest that Christ entered. He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God after he finished his work, after he completed the race. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Now the author of Hebrews repeatedly says this throughout the book. Let me give you two other places. One other place is in chapter one, verse three. Listen to what he says. After making purification for sins, he, Jesus, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. After he finished his work, the work of redemption, making purification for sins, what did he do? He rested. He sat down. Where? At the right hand of God. Again, chapter 10 of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 11. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all times a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. His posture of sitting at the right hand of God is his enthronement. His enemies are being made a footstool for his feet. So he's enthroned at the right hand of God. But repeatedly the author of Hebrews makes the point that Christ obtained this at the end of his work, after finishing his work. And Christ obtained that Sabbath rest, he entered God's Sabbath rest as the second Adam. It's the rest that God himself entered after completing his work. Now again, remember what Genesis 2 said, when the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them 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. Now what does it mean that God rested? When I was a kid, that really bothered me because I thought God was all-powerful. I thought God was God. Why would He need to rest? I mean, did He have a hard week's work? And did He get tired and fatigued and have to rest and recuperate, recover and regain His energy and strength? Well, that's not what it means. It doesn't mean that God was fatigued and had to rest in order to recover His energy. But it means that having completed his work of creation, he rested on his throne as the ruler of creation, reigning over his creation, the works that he had made. He reigns over it as the ruler of heaven and earth, the ruler of all things, the king of kings, the lord of lords. He reigns over the creation from his throne in the highest heavens, which is his place of rest. God entered his Sabbath rest by taking his throne in the highest heavens and beginning to reign over his works of creation. Now that's the kind of rest that Christ entered after completing his work. He ascended into the highest heavens, the invisible heaven, where God's throne is, and he sat down at the right hand of God. He is enthroned at the right hand of the majesty on high. And so just as God completed his work and entered his rest, so too Christ, as the new Adam, completed his work and entered his rest, and that same rest is promised to us. Now that's what the author of Hebrews is talking about when he says in chapter 4 verse 9, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest, Christ entered God's rest. He shared in the reign of God at the right hand of God having finished his work as God finished his work. He entered God's rest and 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. And so what Jesus obtained, his enthronement in the highest heaven at the right hand of the Father is the Sabbath rest that remains for us. It's the rest that God himself entered after completing his work and the rest that Christ entered after completing his work. And it's the rest that's promised to us. Now I think that helps us, it should help us to understand the original meaning of the Sabbath rest in Genesis 2 and the original significance of the Sabbath day, the ordinance of the weekly Sabbath, the Sabbath day that was instituted for man in Genesis 2. God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. So the weekly Sabbath that was given to man at the beginning was an earthly sign of the heavenly Sabbath rest that God entered after his work of creation. God rested in the sense that having completed his work, he sat down on his throne and reigned over his work and he gave man the weekly Sabbath as a sign of what he would enter if he successfully completed his probationary work. And the specific probationary work or command that God gave Adam in the Garden of Eden was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Had Adam passed that probationary test, he would have received eternal life. He would have been glorified. He would have passed from an earthly mode of existence into a heavenly mode of enthronement, of enthronement to rest at the right hand of God in heaven. Now, how do we know that? Well, we know that because what Christ received as the second and last Adam is what the first Adam would have received had he obeyed God. And what did Christ receive? Well, he received the Sabbath rest that was promised to the first Adam on condition of his successful completion of his work, his perfect obedience. Christ received that as the new Adam, as the second Adam, and it's that Sabbath rest that is promised to us and that remains for us. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Now we don't strive to enter that rest by our own works because Christ is the one who has secured that Sabbath rest for us by his work, but it's through faith rather in Christ that we strive to enter that rest. We strive to enter by holding fast to Christ in faith. and not falling away from him like the Israelites fell away from God and failed to enter the place of rest because of their unbelief. Well, friends of God, let's join our hearts together once again in prayer. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who is the second Adam who has successfully completed his work and has perfectly obeyed your law and has obtained eternal life for himself and for all those who trust in him. Father, we thank you that you resurrected him from the dead and exalted him to your right hand in the heavenly places where he is seated on his throne, reigning as the King of kings and Lord of lords, as the one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given. We thank you, Father, that you have given to Christ the Sabbath rest that you promised to Adam in the beginning, that Christ has obtained it for himself by his own work and for us who trust in him, who believe in him, and who hold fast to him in faith. And we pray, Father, that you would give us the grace to do that. to hold on to the Lord Jesus Christ, to keep our eyes focused upon him who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at your right hand in the heavenly places. And we pray all this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.