Sunday AM Sunday, April 11, 2021

Exodus 20:8-11

A Day of Rest

Service Outline & Sermon Notes

Service outline and sermon notes automatically generated from video content.

Order of Service

Sermon Title: A Day of Rest

Scripture: Exodus 20:8-11

I. Rest in God the Whole Day

A. The sabbath is directed to the Lord, not to self — the entire day, from morning to evening, is to be oriented upward toward God

B. Morning and evening worship bookend the day, following the Old Testament pattern of morning and evening sacrifice

C. Works of mercy and necessity are commended on the sabbath

  1. Jesus heals on the sabbath in Matthew 12 and defends acts of necessity against the Pharisees
  2. The Pharisees serve as a negative example — the day of rest must not become a day of burden

D. Proper sabbath observance begins in preparation before the sabbath

  1. In Exodus 16, God provides a double portion of manna on the sixth day so Israel would not work on the seventh
  2. God supplies the provisions necessary to prepare; we have no excuse to neglect preparation
  3. Practical preparation: meals ready, schedules cleared, affairs in order, so the heart and mind are free to rest in the Lord

II. Rest in God Through Corporate Worship

A. Leviticus 23:3 describes the sabbath as a day of solemn (sacred) rest and a holy convocation — a holy assembly of God's people

B. Rest is not "me time" — God's definition of rest is soul rest in corporate worship, not personal leisure

C. Israel in the wilderness illustrates a deficient view of rest

  1. Their concern was only physical rest — food, water, comfort
  2. Despite the presence of God in pillar of cloud and fire, they had no concept of soul rest
  3. This limited view led to their downfall

D. The psalmist models true rest — longing for God's courts and corporate worship (Psalm 84:1-2)

E. "Doing church at home" is a contradiction in terms

  1. The Greek word ekklesia means assembly — a gathered people
  2. God's word to Pharaoh in Exodus 8:1 — "Let my people go, that they may worship me" — points to corporate, not individual, worship
  3. Rest is found not in individual devotion or family worship alone, but in holy convocation with the whole body of Christ

III. Rest in God as His Image Bearers

A. The sabbath is grounded in creation, not in Israel's covenant — Exodus 20:11 grounds the command in God's rest after the six days of creation

B. The sabbath is a creation ordinance, binding on all image bearers, not a ceremonial law unique to Israel

C. To neglect sabbath rest is to be less than fully human — less than a true image bearer of God

D. The Ten Commandments are a perpetual moral law for both old and new covenant people

  1. Written on stone (permanence), by the finger of God — unlike the book of the covenant written by Moses
  2. Placed in the ark of the covenant, near God's presence, revealing his holy character
  3. To abolish the sabbath commandment would be to say part of God's character has been abolished

IV. Rest in God as His Redeemed Saints

A. The creation narrative points to an eternal sabbath rest

  1. Days one through six each end with "there was evening and there was morning"
  2. The seventh day in Genesis 2 has no closing evening and morning — it is open-ended, foreshadowing eternal rest
  3. Adam was given a probationary test — to obey and bring humanity into eternal sabbath rest

B. Adam failed, bringing humanity into unrest — thorns, toil, death, and chaos rather than eternal rest

C. Christ as the Last Adam succeeds where Adam failed

  1. The temptation of Christ in the wilderness mirrors Adam's test in the garden — the new Adam is tested by the serpent and overcomes
  2. Christ's resurrection on the first day of the week inaugurates the eternal sabbath — Mark 16:2
  3. Upon his ascension, Christ sits and rests at the right hand of the Father — the eternal sabbath rest is established

D. The sabbath is now observed on the first day of the week (the Lord's Day), not the last

  1. We are no longer waiting for rest — it has come in the risen Son
  2. Weekly Lord's Day worship is a foretaste of the eternal rest already inaugurated in the ascension of Christ
  3. The full consummation of sabbath rest awaits the return of Christ, when sorrow, anxiety, and toil will give way entirely to unending glory
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