Relax: God’s Got This (Part 1)

Message Date: October 9, 2022
Bible

The Principal of Sabbath

  • Big rocks represent your main priorities or longer-term goals.
  • Little rocks represent your day-to-day responsibilities and shorter-term goals.
  • Sand represents minor tasks that are not really that important.
  • Water represents the unimportant distractions that prevent you from getting work done.

The sabbath is a big rock.

    • Make time to rest
    • Lack of rest will make you sick and rob you of your vitality
    • Rest should energize you. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t actual rest.

Sabbath is Rest

Sabbath Defintion: (Strongs) שָׁבַת shâbath, shaw-bath’; a primitive root; to repose, i.e. desist from exertion

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12:1-8‬ ‭NKJV‬‬
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Regulation vs. Rest

Mark‬ ‭2:27-28‬ ‭KJV‬‬
“And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”
    • Sabbath isn’t a regulation we are expected to comply with, it’s a requirement we can’t do without.

God’s Original Intentions for Man are His Eternal Intentions 

      1. Dominion
      2. To partake of and enjoy all that God has provided
      3. Rest and fellowship with God
      4. To guard and keep it (Responsibility)
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:26‬ ‭NKJV
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

To exercise dominion in the earth.

Definition of Dominion:
a. Subjugate
b. Dominate
c. Rule

To partake of and enjoy all that God has provided

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:28-31‬ ‭NKJV
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
      • In the beginning, God created everything man needed to live a successful life from a natural standpoint.
      • God intended for us to enjoy our our life.  (John 10:10).

Rest and fellowship with God

Romans 14:5 NKJV
One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.”

Deuteronomy 5:12, 15 NKJV

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2:1-3‬ ‭NKJV
Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

      • Blessed it = empowered to prosper
      • Sanctified = set apart for a special purpose

You guard it and keep it

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2:15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
      • Rest comes before responsibilities.

Works vs. Faith.

    • Faith is a rest:
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:1-4‬ ‭AMPC‬‬
Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid [to distrust it], lest any of you should think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it. For indeed we have had the glad tidings [Gospel of God] proclaimed to us just as truly as they [the Israelites of old did when the good news of deliverance from bondage came to them]; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith (with the leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) by those who heard it; neither were they united in faith with the ones [Joshua and Caleb] who heard (did believe). For we who have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on God) do enter that rest, in accordance with His declaration that those [who did not believe] should not enter when He said, As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest; and this He said although [His] works had been completed and prepared [and waiting for all who would believe] from the foundation of the world. [Ps. 95:11.] For in a certain place He has said this about the seventh day: And God rested on the seventh day from all His works. [Gen. 2:2.]

Close

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11:28-30‬ ‭MSG‬‬
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.