Hey all, Pastor Jon here. Thanks for tuning
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Now let's dive into this week's message. If you
have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Genesis
chapter 2. Genesis is the first book in the Bible,
so if you're not familiar with the layout of
the Bible, just go to that first book. Genesis
chapter two, that's the big number, two, and
then we're gonna start in the little number one.
Genesis chapter two and verse one. And you might
think, well, OK, so we're hitting the new year
here. Let's go ahead and have a sermon that lays
out the groundwork and tells us all the things
that we need to be doing and how we need to shape
up this year and all the goals that we have.
And I think today is going to be a little bit
different. The title of my sermon today is When
the Work is Finished. Genesis chapter 2, beginning
in verse 1. So the heavens and the earth and
everything and them were completed. On the seventh
day, God had completed his work that he had done,
and he rested on the seventh day from all his
work that he had done. God blessed the seventh
day and declared it holy, for on it he rested
from all his work of creation. This is God's
word. For many of us, stepping into a new year,
we kind of import all kinds of assumptions and
perspectives into it. Something like this might
sound familiar to you. This year, success will
depend on me, on my effort, on my consistency,
on my discipline, on my endurance. And maybe
for some of you, rarely do you say that out loud,
but we surely live like it is true. We stack
good responsibilities on top of good responsibilities.
And sometimes, even when we're exhausted, we
push through because stopping can feel like we're
lazy or feel like failure or irresponsibility.
And we think, man, if I stop, things are gonna
fall apart. If I stop, people might be disappointed
in me. And so we keep going, we keep going. A
few years ago, who founded and was running a
global media company called the Huffington Post.
She told a story about a moment that changed
her life. At the time, she was doing what our
culture celebrates, especially for women in our
culture. She was successful. She was traveling
constantly. She was sleeping very, very little.
She was working nonstop, and she was carrying
enormous responsibility to found this global
media company. And by every external measurement,
she was successful. She had made it. She was
dominating. And then one day her body gave out.
She collapsed from exhaustion. She passed out
and hit her head. And when she came to, she woke
up in a pool of blood. And later on, when she
reflected on that moment, she said the most unsettling
part wasn't the collapse. It was what she realized
in the recovery. While she was recovering from
her fall, the company kept running. Stories were
written and published. The world didn't fall
apart all without her. The machine didn't need
her the way that she thought it did. And it shook
her. It wasn't just the exhaustion of it, but
it was this lie that she had been living under,
which is, If I stop, everything will unravel.
And whether we admit it or not, many of us are
carrying that same assumption into the new year.
But scripture tells a very different story about
how God intends his people to live. The Bible
doesn't open with urgency or anxious busyness,
but with order and intention that leads to rest.
The first rest in scripture comes after completion.
And that's where I want us to begin this year,
not with everything we have to do or everything
that we need to do, but with what God has already
finished. Today we're gonna talk about Sabbath.
Not as laziness or self -indulgent, or as another
spiritual discipline to feel really bad at when
you fail. But as a gospel practice. A way of
trusting that the world, our families, our finances,
the church and our lives are held together by
God, not by us. So let me say this right at the
outset. Refusing Sabbath is not a scheduling
issue. It's a trust issue. And so let's go back
to the very beginning and listen to what God
tells us about rest and about himself. If you're
taking notes, I got three points today. Number
one, God rested because the work was finished.
The word Sabbath simply means to stop. It comes
from a Hebrew word that means to cease or to
rest or to bring something to an end. And in
Genesis chapter one, God creates the world. He
brings something out of nothing. He orders chaos.
He establishes life, he establishes light and
oceans and waters and land and time and purpose,
all of that in creative work. And God's work
is not the same as our work, amen. That work
only God can do. And when he gets to Genesis
chapter two, it tells us that God arrested. And
it's not saying that God had to stop because
God got tired, is it? Scripture's clear as day,
right? God does not grow weary. Listen to what
Isaiah wrote. The Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the whole earth. He never becomes
faint or weary. There is no limit to his understanding.
God doesn't need recovery time. He doesn't need
to recharge. So why does God rest? Well, Genesis
two starts with, so the heavens and earth. and
everything in them were completed. God rests
because his creative work is complete. Nothing
missing, nothing fragile, nothing left undone.
And what does God do next? He blesses the seventh
day and he makes it holy. Literally time itself
became holy. Not because he needs rest why because
we do But what do I mean God's God's rest is
not a model of exertion that leads to exhaustion
Therefore we need rest, but God's model is a
model or a declaration of sovereignty By resting
God is saying the world is now ordered it is
sustained by my power It does not depend on my
constant exertion. It is done And in doing so
God is teaching his creatures something about
reality Human beings are created after God's
work is finished which means for every single
one of us On the very first day of our existence,
we enter a world that is already being held together
by God. I know some of us like to think the world
depends on us, yeah? Guess what? The day you
arrived, it was going just fine. We do not begin
our life with responsibility. We begin our life
with dependence. And that's why Sabbath is built
into creation. Not as a reward for finishing
all our work, but as a boundary that reminds
us that we are not God. Our work is always ongoing
and our to -do lists are never complete. Our
responsibilities are real, but our abilities
are limited. And Sabbath teaches us to stop,
not because everything is done, but because everything
is not ours to carry. God rests to show that
ultimate responsibility for sustaining all things
belongs to him. And when he invites his people
into Sabbath, he's not saying only if your work
is finished. He is saying remember whose work
ultimately matters. Sabbath is not about accomplishing
less so much as it is about trusting more from
the very beginning God builds a rhythm into creation
and says you may work faithfully But you may
not work as though everything depends on you
You may work faithfully and we ought to work
faithfully, but you may not work as though everything
depends on you Number two we struggle with Sabbath
because we don't trust. After the opening chapters
of the Bible, the story kind of quickly moves
from creation into brokenness. Human beings stop
trusting God. Sin enters the world and over time,
God begins the long work of rescuing and restoring
his people. And one moment in that story happens
in the book of Genesis. God's people, Israel,
have been living as slaves in Egypt for generations.
And they have no control over their time. They
have no control over their labor. They have no
control over their bodies. Every day is defined
by production. Production, what can they produce?
And then God does something miraculous. He delivers
them from their slavery. He leads them out of
slavery and through the Red Sea and into the
wilderness on the way to the land that he promised
them. But freedom and deliverance of the people
don't immediately erase their fear. They are
no longer enslaved, but they are not yet settled
and at rest. They are free, but not free from
anxiety. I think you probably know this, but
anxiety has a way of exposing what we really
trust. They look around the wilderness that God
has brought them out to, and they ask a very
human question. I'm thinking I'm probably gonna
be the first one to ask it while I'm out there.
I'm like, thanks a lot, God, for leading us out
of slavery. I'm not gonna question the route
you took through the wilderness. You could have
gone a little more flourishing, a little more
plant life, a little more something, but thanks
for taking us to the wilderness. Now the question
is, how are we going to survive out here, God?
It's great that you brought us out of slavery,
but how are we going to survive? And the people
begin to ask these questions. They begin to grumble.
They begin to worry about food. They imagine
the worst. You brought us out here to die. And
how does God respond to all of this? But Exodus,
God responds with grace. He tells them he himself
will provide food every day. He will make sure
they are fed. He will take care of their daily
need. Each morning they're to wake up and to
go and find a mysterious substance on the ground.
They actually don't know what it is. And so they
see it and they call it, what is it? What is
it? That's manna, right? Manna, meaning what
is it? I told about one of my sons. He collects
things. And one time I walked in and zipped open
a bag that he had. And I won't say which son,
but I zipped open a bag and I'm like, oh my gosh,
what is it? What is it? And it turns out he was
the caps from those applesauce pouches, you know,
you twist the cap off and he decided he was just
going to save like 300 of them in a bag. I remember
going, what is it? There's this mysterious substance
on the ground. They don't know what to call it.
They call it. manna, literally what is it? And
God gives them these very specific instructions
about what to do. They are to gather only what
they need to eat for that day. They go out in
the morning and gather. No stockpiling, no hoarding,
no safety net, no chucking a little manna away
in their 401K. Like just go out for what you
need today. And then God adds one more instruction.
On top of that, on the sixth day, they are to
go and gather twice as much what they need today
and one more portion, because the seventh day,
there will be no manna. He will provide the seventh
day manna on the sixth day, because that day,
the seventh day is a day of rest, a Sabbath.
And here's one detail to think about. This is
before the 10 commandments. This is before the
law on Mount Sinai is given, before Sabbath is
given as a command. God is teaching them Sabbath
as a trust, not merely rule keeping. And how
do you think the people respond? How do you think
they respond? How would you respond? The people
struggle a little bit. Some gather extra manna,
afraid that God won't provide tomorrows. Others
go out on the Sabbath anyway, even though there's
no manna out there, just in case. And the text,
the scripture tells us that the extra manna that
they gathered, what was more than what they needed
for the day spoils. It rots. Why? Because hoarded
provision is a form of unbelief. The wilderness
reveals something that God's people are struggling
and we struggle to rest because we're afraid.
afraid that if we stop, things will fall apart,
afraid that if we don't stay ahead of everything,
that we'll just fall behind. And so they gather
and they keep gathering. And I think that story
out of the life of God's people in Israel sounds
uncomfortably familiar to our lives. Sure, we
don't hoard manna, but we hoard stuff. Just in
case. If you wanna make a lot of money, go into
the self -storage business. Dude, folks buy storage
units and they put their junk in there and they
just pay it forever. Forever and ever, and then
their kids have to deal with it. We were stuffed
just in case. Our spaces are stuffed full of
things. We hoard money, savings that moves from
wisdom, which is good. Saving money is good.
Having a form of wisdom, a plan is good, but
we move from savings that is wisdom to fear -driven
control. Speaking of control, we hoard that too.
We hold tightly to outcomes and decisions. They
have to go. the way that we want them to. We
hoard time, we guard it so tightly that we can't
be generous with it. We hoard our margins, we
fill every gap to avoid any sort of stillness.
And these are all good things that God has provided,
all things that God has given to us to enjoy,
but these are all things that at times we put
our trust and our hope in them for stability
and security, and they always fail. They always
rot. And this is where Sabbath confronts us.
Sabbath asks the question, do you trust God to
provide if you stop? And Sabbath is difficult.
If you step back and you look at our culture
at the moment or before today, sociologists will
say, there used to be a time where if you ask
someone who are you, they would name their family
or the place of origin or their faith, but modern
people instinctively answer who they are with
what they do. We work and our work becomes the
location of our worth. The rest feels threatening
and our resistance to the Sabbath reveals ultimately
that it's not a time problem. It's not a scheduling
problem, but it's an identity problem. Every
time we ignore Sabbath, we are making a quiet
confession. If I don't hold this together, No
one will. If I stop, I'll be a disappointment,
a failure. And the wilderness exposes what creation
has already taught us, that we were never meant
to carry the world. And God is patient with his
people here, not harsh with them. He does not
abandon them. He keeps providing, but he keeps
inviting them to trust him. Will we believe God
is who he says he is? There's another observation
that anthropologists make. When cultures remove
intentional rhythms of rest, rest doesn't just
disappear. It changes form. Instead of planned
stops, intentional rest, people experience unplanned
collapse, like Ariana Huffington. Instead of
Sabbath, they crash. And we see it everywhere,
burnout cycles and emotional numbness. Some people
escape, try to get away as quick as possible
from anything. We see exertion that leads to
exhaustion, that leads to binge watching and
eating that actually doesn't restore. Because
rest was never meant to be imposed on you. It
was meant to be received by you. And when we
refuse God's gracious interruptions, our bodies
and our souls will eventually force one. Which
is why so many of us don't really rest, we just
recover enough to keep going. But collapse is
not the same as Sabbath. And survival, not the
same as trust. And that's why Sabbath can't just
be about managing our energy. It has to be about
trusting God. So if you're taking notes, the
final point I'll have you write down is Jesus
gives the rest we could never earn. Up to this
point, the story has been exposing something
about us. Creation shows us what Sabbath is.
The wilderness shows us why we resist it. but
neither creation nor the wilderness can finally
give us rest. They all point forward to something
because the deepest problem is that we don't
know how to trust and that's where Jesus enters
the story. When Jesus begins his public ministry,
one of the things that immediately causes tension
in his ministry is over the Sabbath. He heals
on the Sabbath. He allows his disciples to pick
grain and eat it on the Sabbath. Jesus refuses
to treat Sabbath as a sort of performance metric.
And when he's confronted about it, how does Jesus
respond? Well, in Mark chapter two, he says,
the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the
Sabbath. In other words, Sabbath was never meant
to crush people under legalism. that says you're
only faithful if you stop the right way for the
right length of time on the right day of the
week with the right restrictions. Otherwise,
God is disappointed in you. Sabbath was given
not as a test to pass, but as a gift to receive
an invitation to trust that God is at work even
when we stop. And Jesus doesn't just interpret
the purpose of Sabbath. He goes on to claim authority
over it. He says, I am Lord of rest. You might
even say, I am Lord of the finished work. So
how does Jesus actually give rest? Well, it's
not by texting us a link to the newest iPhone
app that helps us schedule better, right? It's
not even about giving us a repeatable rhythm
that we're supposed to all religiously follow.
But he does something that we could never do
ourselves. Jesus willingly goes to the cross.
And he bears the weight of sin and failure and
brokenness and fear, everything that keeps us
striving, everything that keeps us proving, everything
that keeps us exalting ourselves and exhausting
ourselves. he goes to pay for it at the cross.
And as he breathes his last breath, his last
words are, it is finished. And that word finished,
man, it sounds familiar, doesn't it? It draws
us all the way back to Genesis. Chapter two,
it's the same idea as Genesis. God rested because
creation was finished, finished. Jesus rests
because redemption is finished. Nothing is left
undone. Sin has been dealt with. The debt has
been paid in full. The work that truly matters
has been fully and complete. It's done. Which
means Sabbath is not something we strive to keep
in order to please God. But Sabbath becomes something
we practice because we trust that God is already
pleased with us in Christ Jesus. And this is
the shift that the gospel makes. Jesus doesn't
say, try really hard to rest. Anyone ever tried
that? I tried last night. I was like, trying
really hard to sleep. And I'm like, the more
I try, the harder it is. He doesn't say try harder
to rest. He says, come to me all you who are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Rest is not something you achieve. Rest is something
you receive. But if we refuse to receive the
rhythm of rest, that God is providing, we don't
just end up tired. We actually end up living
as though the work is not finished. As though
our efforts still has to secure what Christ has
already accomplished. But when we practice Sabbath,
when we stop, when we cease, when we trust, We
are making a confession. We are actually living
a confessional life when we Sabbath. Our life
becomes a message. And what is that message?
We're saying the world is not held together by
me. My worth is not proven by my productivity.
God is God and I am not. And Sabbath becomes
an act of worship then. A weekly reminder, a
daily reminder, a monthly reminder that grace,
not productivity and exhaustion, is what sustains
God's people. Think about it. A group of people
in a world that is driven by identity around
what you produce. A world that is driven around
identity about what purpose you serve in this
world. and how much you can produce a peculiar
people who set that aside and practice a regular
rhythm of Sabbath who say, the world is not held
together by me. My worth is not in what I produce.
Hey, it's really great. It's awesome if I can
bring home the bacon, but that's not my worth.
That's all that is. Sabbath is not laziness.
It's not indulgent. Sabbath is not a luxury.
And Sabbath is not an optional self care. Sabbath
is a lived declaration of the gospel. Because
Jesus has finished the work, we are finally free
to rest. And so here's the invitation. Again,
not another command or checklist or some spiritual
goal for you to fail out in the first two months
of the year. It's an invitation to trust, to
practice Sabbath rest. Not perfectly, not rigidly,
but intentionally. To choose a regular rhythm
of Sabbath rest where you stop working, you stop
proving, you stop producing, and you let your
life confess God is God. The world is held together
by him, Christ's work is finished, and I am not
indispensable. Sabbath is resistance to the lie
that everything depends on you. I'll tell you
from my own personal life. this idea of intentional
resting in the truth that God is in control and
he can handle the operations of the world and
all the things that I think are important. It's
a very difficult journey to walk in, but it's
one that I'm so grateful that the Lord has graciously
invited me into. For years, Not only is it that
it's the pressure, the external pressure of schedules
and all the expectations have, but there's an
internal sinfulness, an internal bent toward
myself that caused me to want to always be the
savior. Savior complex. And so if someone would
call or someone would text and it's a time of
Sabbath, it's a time of intentional rest, I could
not resist responding to it. I could not resist
getting out into the car and going and figuring
out how to help because my worth was wrapped
up in saving. I was trying to save others by,
and that was how I was gonna save myself. That's
how I was gonna have worth and value. I was always
going to be available, always respond, always
be there, never let anyone down. And I'll tell
you, that's crushing. I am a human creation by
the hand of God, not designed to do that. Right?
Not designed to do that. If you ever take your
garlic press and try to hammer a nail in, it's
not designed to do that. I've done that before.
It breaks the garlic press. You know what I'm
talking about? I am a human designed with a purpose,
designed with a baked in, built in rhythm that
I'm supposed to honor. A rhythm that was given
to me by God, a rhythm that is grace. And when
I resist that, when I say, no, no, no, I've got
this, they need me. And the hardest part is,
As I get two days off a week, and usually one
of those I try to be intentional about, and I
switch it back and forth. I'm not rigid about
it. I just try to have half of a day that's set
aside intentionally, or a whole day, or part
of it. But you know how it is. People don't know
that, and I'm not trying to impose that on anyone,
but they'll text you, they'll call, they'll leave
a message, and I have to leave it and go. The
world is not sustained by me and I can't fix
every problem. And maybe by me leaving it there,
the Lord will open up some other door or maybe
someone else will. They'll reach out to someone
else who actually has the word they need to hear,
not me, but I need to be intentional and honor
God as God. Remembering Christ's work is finished.
Sabbath rest is resistance to the lie that everything
depends on you. And as you step into 2026, I
want you to hear this. Friends, if you are in
Christ, you do not need to earn rest this year.
You don't, you don't need to earn rest. You don't
need to deserve it this year And you don't need
to finish everything else first Is Jesus has
really already said the truest thing that can
ever be said over your life It is finished And
God has designed you in a way to respect and
honor the reality of who he's made you as a human
creation in his order. God did not need to rest.
God did not need to end his work, but he used
it as an example for us to show us about reality.
And so you're free. You are free to stop. You
are free to trust, and you are free to rest in
2026.