The God of Rest

[0:00] It's really remarkable in a modern age of health advances, in a modern age of time-saving technology that so many of us feel no more rest than our ancestors did, no more rest than they did.

[0:15] We feel restless and we feel unrested. We feel busy in our minds and in our body. And in the book of Exodus, we encounter a God who gives his people rest, a God of rest.

[0:28] He is not a God who is a cruel taskmaster. He's not like their old master Pharaoh, Pharaoh king of the ancient Egyptians. God is a good master. The Lord is a good master who cares for his people that he has rescued from the land of Egypt.

[0:45] He's brought the people of Israel to Mount Sinai in the wilderness where he's teaching them his law, where he's instructing them on how to live rightly, how to live justly as a people that he has called his treasured possession.

[0:58] The Lord God, he's built this legal code around the Ten Commandments, which teach them how to love him, how to love one another. And today we arrive at the Fourth Commandment.

[1:10] It's in Exodus 20, verses 8-11. And that's on page 61, I believe, in the Blue Bibles that our usher's handout. The Fourth Commandment, Exodus 20, verses 8-11.

[1:22] It reads as follows. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

[1:33] But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

[1:49] For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

[2:04] So in this Fourth Commandment, the Lord was establishing a weekly cycle of work and rest for his people. And in particular, the Lord was having them set apart for him the seventh day of the week.

[2:16] A day which brought a stoppage to their ordinary labor from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. That stoppage day was what the Lord called the Sabbath day.

[2:28] Now here's what the Lord was doing in introducing the Sabbath to the people of Israel. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest.

[2:43] And the way that the Lord did that is by inviting them in verse 8 to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now this command to remember, that means more than just accessing memories.

[3:00] Suppose one of you married men is shaving in front of the mirror one morning, and suppose your wife walks in and asks you this question, Honey, do you remember that today is our anniversary?

[3:12] And because you are such a thoughtful husband, here's how you reply. Well, of course, honey. This information is irrelevant to my actions today, but I still retain memories of our wedding day. You go right back to shaving and you're blissfully unaware that there is a bedside lamp sailing right towards your head.

[3:29] To remember your anniversary, that's more than just memory recall. It means that you commemorate it with your actions. You take your wife out to dinner or on a trip or you buy her flowers or you buy her a kitchen appliance if you like to live dangerously.

[3:47] It's the same when the Lord says in verse 8, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember. He's calling his people to commemorate something that he himself has done.

[4:01] To commemorate it by patterning their lives after his example. What the Lord has done is explained in verse 11. In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

[4:18] Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. And so here the Lord is referring back to Genesis chapter 2. Back to the account of his creation where he has finished his work of creation.

[4:33] On the seventh day of his creating work, we read this. 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.

[4:45] 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.

[4:59] Now, just like that word remember, you and I, we might misunderstand the word rest. Now, we often rest because we're exhausted.

[5:11] We're exhausted from our own efforts, from our own work throughout the day. Is that why God is resting on the seventh day? Is it because he's exhausted from his work of creation?

[5:22] He's put in a good six days creating everything. Or is God recharging his batteries after spending that sixth day talking with people?

[5:32] The introverts among us may relate to that. Well, it's not the case. It's not the case that God is exhausted or God is worn out. Rather, God's rest, here we see it as a state of perfect satisfaction.

[5:46] It's perfect satisfaction. At the end of the sixth day, God examines his handiwork and he assesses it as very good. He describes his work in these verses as finished.

[6:00] God blesses the seventh day. He's affirming with his authority that it is good. And so we see here a God who is enjoying his good creation in a state of perfect satisfaction.

[6:12] We see here that God is good and he has made something that is good. And we also read that God made this day holy. That means he set it apart for himself and that it is set apart by his very presence with his creation.

[6:30] We see that God is not only good, but that God is with us. God's rest of the seventh day. That is in contrast to a sense of unfinished restlessness, a sense of dissatisfaction, a sense that there has to be something more.

[6:50] No. God is perfectly satisfied, at rest, perfectly able to rest. So by giving the fourth commandment, God was inviting the people of Israel to commemorate his rest and to imitate his rest.

[7:08] And in this way to join him in his rest. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest. Now the problem is that this state of rest, it did not remain long in God's created world.

[7:22] The human beings that God made, that first man and woman, Adam and Eve, that he placed in the Garden of Eden, they were deceived, they were dissatisfied. And they disobeyed.

[7:33] They believed that God is not good. They believed that the good life, this life of rest, that it can be found apart from God, independent of him.

[7:45] And so they sinned. They rebelled against God. And as a result, God cursed his creation, denying them the rest that they were seeking. And God said to the man, So the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, they would labor all the days of their lives until they were dead.

[8:27] They would be toiling without a sense of true rest. And so it is today. We live in a frantic rat race.

[8:38] What the preacher of Ecclesiastes identifies as toil, striving after wind, nothing to be gained under the sun. There is no rest to be had.

[8:50] Yet the Lord offered hope that one day his people would find his rest again. One day they would find perfect satisfaction. One of Adam's descendants fathered a son and he named his son Noah.

[9:02] Noah. The word Noah means rest. And he explained it this way. This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.

[9:17] This one will give us rest. And so the fourth commandment was given to some of the descendants of this man Noah. Given to the people of Israel.

[9:28] Inviting them to commemorate and imitate the Lord's rest. Inviting them to long for a day when God's rest would return to them. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest.

[9:43] So the theologian Michael Horton, he explains it this way. In the Garden of Eden, God sought to bring heaven to earth in a small way.

[9:54] By making the garden a holy place of rest and giving a Sabbath time of rest. When the Jews celebrated the Sabbath, they looked forward to the end of their suffering and labor.

[10:07] Sacrifices and ceremonies to the final rest. God would come at the end of the age, the week. And set things right. God would come and set things right.

[10:21] This week we've seen what the town of Squamish looks like when we've got a cloud of smoke descending on it. Obscuring the beauty of the mountains around us.

[10:31] Inflicting harm on our health. And so I asked a friend this week. What would it be like, do you think, if the smoke never went away? If the smoke never went away.

[10:42] And I ask that because I'm a cheerful kind of guy. And she was a good sport. She replied, I don't think I would live here. The mountains are home.

[10:54] And I told her, I'm going to use that in a sermon. And so here we are. I think what she said is more profound than she realized. I don't think I would live here.

[11:07] The mountains are home. And so it is for those who are living in the world as we now experience it. We're living in a world that is shrouded in smoke.

[11:19] What the preacher of Ecclesiastes called a vapor or vanity. The smoke not only brings pain to our lives. It obscures our vision. So that we can no longer see that there is a home.

[11:35] That there is a place of rest. There is a place of all satisfying beauty. So what if the smoke remained? What if it remained day after day, year after year?

[11:47] What if it was choking us and clouding the beautiful mountains beyond it? Would we not want to remind ourselves what lies beyond the smoke?

[11:58] Would we not want to show our children who dig up photographs of the mountains, the sea, the sky? Even though these photographs are small, they're two-dimensional pictures of the real thing.

[12:10] Would we not do that for them? This is what the Lord did for the people of Israel. He showed them a photograph of his rest. He did that by giving them a place he called his promised land.

[12:23] The land of Canaan. Just as God was present with his creation on the seventh day, so he would be present in that land. In Exodus chapter 33, the Lord is going to tell their leader.

[12:35] He's going to tell Moses, My presence will go with you. And I will give you rest. And the Lord kept this promise that he made to them.

[12:47] In the book of Joshua, chapter 21, we read this. The Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there.

[12:57] And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands.

[13:09] This promised land, it was a photograph of the true rest that the Lord had in store for his people. And now, for us here in Squamish, if our city council, if it wanted us to remember the mountains that are behind the smoke, they would not only show us photographs of the mountains, they might even commission artwork.

[13:29] They might commission paintings and sculptures of the mountains for us to see, to feel, to walk through, to experience. Events to teach us. Events to remind us about them.

[13:40] And so the Lord also gave in his law instructions and rules and a ceremonial calendar that his people could participate in. The Lord gave them the fourth commandment.

[13:53] He gave them the Sabbath day. He gave them a day of rest. The Lord not only gave them a Sabbath day. The Lord gave them a Sabbath year for their farmland to rest in Exodus chapter 21.

[14:07] He gave those in slavery a year of amnesty and a year of freedom as well. In Exodus 21, we read, When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years.

[14:18] And in the seventh, he shall go out free for nothing. He shall be free. That seventh year of rest. In his law, the Lord embedded many ways to remind his people over and over again of his rest.

[14:33] To increase their longing, their desire for the day when he would bring true rest to the world again. He gave them this Sabbath to make them have a holy dissatisfaction with the world as it is.

[14:48] To long for the world as it will be. The Sabbath day teaches us that true rest is found only in a God who is good and a God who is with us.

[15:00] And so we have God with us now. So we have Emmanuel in Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus is fully God and fully man. Jesus is the true place of rest for the people of God.

[15:15] He is the place of rest that all of the Old Testament law was pointing us toward. In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus tells his disciples as we read this morning, Come to me.

[15:54] Jesus is our true place of rest. And so it should come as no surprise that Jesus taught his fellow Jews the true meaning of the Sabbath. Earlier in the service we read about those events in Matthew chapter 12 immediately after Jesus said these words.

[16:13] Jesus challenged the Jewish religious leaders. These people were nitpicking over what was and wasn't work on the Sabbath. Coming up with all these man-made rules and regulations about what constituted work and what didn't.

[16:24] How far you could walk. What sort of things you could do. And Jesus defied their expectations. He let his disciples pluck grain and eat it on the Sabbath. He healed people on the Sabbath day.

[16:39] Jesus cared for their needs. Jesus gave them rest. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest. And that's why Matthew shows how Jesus fulfills the words of the prophet Isaiah.

[16:54] A bruised reed he will not break. And a smoldering wick he will not quench. Because he is gentle and lowly in heart. He is gentle.

[17:07] He offers rest to you who are weary from a world that's shrouded in smoke. A world corrupted by sin. A world suffering under the curse. So the author of the New Testament book of Hebrews encourages us to find our rest in Jesus.

[17:25] To find our rest in the true place of rest. In Hebrews chapter 3 he tells us. Consider Jesus. The apostle and high priest of our confession.

[17:38] Who was faithful to him who appointed him. Just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant.

[17:50] To testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

[18:05] So here the author is encouraging his readers. To hold fast to Jesus. To remain faithful to Jesus. Even through suffering that they're facing.

[18:19] Hold fast your confidence. And he warns them. About the danger of losing Jesus. The danger of turning their backs on Jesus. By quoting Psalm 95.

[18:29] He quotes this Psalm. Which speaks of what happened to the people of Israel. The people whom God brought out of the land of Egypt. Therefore as the Holy Spirit says.

[18:41] Today. If you hear his voice. Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. On the day of testing in the wilderness. Where your fathers put me to the test.

[18:53] And saw my works for 40 years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation. And said. They always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways.

[19:03] As I swore in my wrath. They shall not enter my rest. The author is reminding his readers. That this generation of Israelites.

[19:14] They died in the wilderness. Because of their unbelief. Because of their disobedience. They never entered the promised land. The land of rest.

[19:26] And so he's warning his own readers. That God's rest is only going to be found. By those who persist. Persist. Persevere. In their faith. He promises that that true land of rest.

[19:42] The true Sabbath rest. Is available for you and for me today. In Hebrews chapter 4 verse 7.

[19:52] He continues. He appoints a certain day. Today. Saying through David so long afterward. In the words already quoted.

[20:04] Today. If you hear his voice. Do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua. Had given them rest. God would not have spoken of.

[20:15] Another day. Later on. So then. There remains a Sabbath rest. Rest. For the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest.

[20:28] Has also rested. From his works. As God did from his. So. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest. So that no one may fall.

[20:40] By the same sort of disobedience. God's rest is offered to his people. Through Jesus Christ. Our Lord. And one day when Jesus returns.

[20:50] Jesus is going to restore. God's rest. To the world. So in order to enter that rest. We are told that we must rest.

[21:02] From our own works. We must stop trying to. Strive and to struggle. To find rest. In the things. Of this world. We have to.

[21:12] To give up that rat race. Of achievement. We have to give up our futile attempts. To prove that we have what it takes. We have to give up our corrupted efforts.

[21:23] To please God with all the good things we do. To be a Christian is to rest in Jesus Christ. In his sacrifice that he made on that cross.

[21:36] His body broke and his blood shed for us. To trust Jesus' work. Not our own. To believe that he alone.

[21:46] Jesus alone. Is good enough. Jesus alone. Is perfectly righteous. Jesus alone. Offers mercy. And grace. To help in time of need. Whenever we are driven to despair.

[21:59] Whenever we are driven to despair. Over our sin. Over our guilt. Over our shame. To rest. In Jesus Christ. Rest. The Lord established the Sabbath.

[22:12] As an invitation to enter his rest. And so Jesus Christ. Has brought to us. The true Sabbath rest. For the people of God. With Jesus' arrival. All of that smoke.

[22:24] It's beginning to clear up. We can see the mountains again. And we are looking forward to life. In the land of rest. With Jesus Christ our Lord.

[22:36] God. It's Jesus who brings us. The true Sabbath rest. That's why the Apostle Paul. Tells his readers. In Colossians chapter 2. Let no one pass judgment on you.

[22:47] In questions of food and drink. Or with regard to a festival. Or a new moon. Or a Sabbath. These are a shadow. Of the things to come. But the substance belongs. To Christ.

[23:00] So Paul summarizes. The holy days. Of the Old Testament. Religious calendar. The annual festivals. The monthly new moon feasts. The weekly Sabbath. And he bundles these together.

[23:11] Along with the dietary laws. Of the Old Testament. That restricted food and drink. And Paul says. That all of these are shadows. Shadows that have now been eclipsed.

[23:22] By the true substance. By the reality that is Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is the one. Who has cast these shadows. Back in time. Back across history. The Lord established the Sabbath.

[23:34] As an invitation to enter his rest. And this rest is found in Jesus Christ. Now different Christian traditions. Hold to different views. On how the fourth commandment.

[23:44] Is significant. For us today. Significant for Christians. Believers living. In the new covenant. That has been established. By Jesus Christ. So there are seventh day Adventists.

[23:54] And there are some others. Who would argue. That the Sabbath. Should still be observed today. From Friday sundown. To Saturday sundown. As under the old covenant. There are many.

[24:06] So there are many Roman Catholic. And Presbyterian. And some other reformed Christians. Among others. Who affirm the teachings. Of Thomas Aquinas. And the Puritan theologians.

[24:16] Who argued that Sunday. Is now the Christian Sabbath. Sunday is the day to be devoted. To worship and rest. I have the most confidence myself. In theologians like Martin Luther.

[24:26] And John Calvin. And theologians who point. To the scriptures we've read. From Hebrews and Colossians. And they argue that. Under the new covenant. The Sabbath day. Is no longer in effect. In this manner.

[24:37] Because the reality. Of God's rest. Has arrived. In the person of Jesus Christ. So if like me. You follow that line of thinking. Does that mean. There is no more need. To rest from our employment. And does this mean.

[24:48] That church attendance. Is an optional part. Of the Christian life. Well. If we treat. The fourth commandment seriously. As common law.

[24:59] That guides us. Even today. Our answer. To both of those questions. Has to be. No. Absolutely not. There is a need. To rest.

[25:10] There is a need. To be part. Of a church. The Old Testament law. Reveals to us. God's character. God's priorities. The Old Testament law. Reveals that he is a God.

[25:21] Who values rest. That he wants to make sure. That every person. Receives the rest. That they need. And you can see this priority. In the fourth commandment. Six days.

[25:31] You shall labor. And do all your work. But the seventh day. Is a Sabbath. To the Lord your God. On it. You shall not do any work. So the Lord's emphasis. On rest.

[25:41] And refreshment. That appears. In the case law. Of Exodus 23. There the Lord lays out. The need for Sabbath days. And years. For six years. You shall sow your land.

[25:52] And gather in its yield. But the seventh year. You shall let it rest. And lie fallow. That the poor of your people may eat. And what they leave. The beasts of the field may eat.

[26:04] You shall do likewise with your vineyard. And with your olive orchard. Six days you shall do your work. But on the seventh day. You shall rest. That your ox and your donkey may have rest.

[26:16] And the son of your servant woman. And the alien. May be refreshed. And so we see here that. The Lord wants. His land. To flourish.

[26:27] The Lord wants the poor. The Lord wants. Even domesticated animals. He cares about. He wants to make sure. They're provided with food as well. The Lord wants people. From all rungs of society.

[26:40] Servants. Resident aliens. Once again. Even the animals. He wants them to be given rest. Each week. The Lord is teaching us.

[26:52] That all of his created order. Has been made for his rest. The Lord established the Sabbath. As an invitation to enter his rest. So we embrace rest.

[27:04] From our work. So we embrace rest. From our work. We're going to be here. I think that does need to be explained a little bit further.

[27:15] Because in a town like ours. A town. Quote unquote. Wired for adventure. A mecca for outdoor recreation. You'd think that this would be a place where people find rest.

[27:25] And that isn't the case at all. I remember about a year ago. I was at a refugee fundraiser. And I met a local woman there.

[27:36] A very nice lady. Who happened to be a practitioner of Chinese medicine. A practitioner of Eastern medicine. And quite obviously. We would have quite a few differences of opinion on many things.

[27:46] But she made an observation that really seemed very keen to me. Very sharp. She remarked to me that the people in Squamish. Are not living a healthy life.

[27:57] For the most part. People here are not living a healthy life. She said that so many of her clients. Were pushing themselves hard at work during the week.

[28:07] Then rushing home for the weekends. Here to Squamish. And pushing themselves hard at play during the weekends. They've fled from that rat race of Vancouver.

[28:19] And entered a different sort of rat race. Frantically filling their days with as much recreation as possible. And she remarked that this was not a healthy way to live.

[28:33] That this was bringing damage and harm to their lives. This brings damage and harm to your health. To your marriage. To your family. To your church.

[28:43] And she's right. Frantically pursuing recreation. That is not true rest. That's counterfeit rest.

[28:56] It's a disguise for a weary soul. It is a false alternative to the true rest. The perfect satisfaction that is offered by Jesus Christ.

[29:08] By the Lord of the Sabbath. Now many other people are still in that more common rat race. Where they've thrown themselves into their jobs. Where they find their identity. Their thrilling joys.

[29:19] Their crushing disappointments in their career. Like any other false God. Any other alternative to the true God. Our employer or our career. Can be a cruel master.

[29:30] Just like Pharaoh. They will never love you. They will never love you. The folks caught in that rat race will never find that perfect satisfaction that is offered by Jesus Christ.

[29:45] That perfect rest. And then there are other people. Perhaps who devalue hard work altogether. Who fall into the trap of idleness. But the Lord teaches us that hard work comes before true rest.

[29:59] You can't separate rest from work. The two belong together. That's why in Hebrews chapter 4 we're urged. Let us strive to enter that rest.

[30:10] Let us strive to enter that rest. To enter the land of rest. To enter that new heavens and new earth where Jesus Christ lives forever. It doesn't come without perseverance.

[30:22] It doesn't come without faithfulness. It requires us to endure to the end. To endure even through suffering. Even through hardship. To do the hard work.

[30:35] And so idleness. Laziness. That is not an option. For the Christian. Idleness is counterfeit rest as well. It's not really rest.

[30:48] That's why it doesn't satisfy you. It's a false alternative to the perfect satisfaction offered by Jesus Christ.

[30:59] The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest. So we embrace rest from our work. And in addition to this we embrace rest as a worshiping community.

[31:12] Rest as a worshiping community. And we see this emphasis in the fourth commandment as well. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

[31:23] The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter.

[31:35] Your male servant or your female servant. Or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. So the Sabbath rest is devoted to the Lord.

[31:48] And the Sabbath rest is something that the whole believing community participates in together. No matter their racial background.

[32:01] No matter their role in the family or society. No matter their social class. Even the animals take part in it. And so today we too should embrace the Lord's emphasis on rest.

[32:17] As a worshiping community. We should stand out from our neighbors. As people who experience and know true rest.

[32:29] This means that at minimum that we make it a priority to worship together as a community on Sunday mornings. Now I love what John Calvin has to say about this.

[32:39] On the one hand Calvin, he referred to the weekly Sabbath regulation as a quote unquote superstitious observance of days. Now that we are under the new covenant. But then on the other hand, Calvin argued that now because we are under the new covenant.

[32:55] Now we have the opportunity to meet together even more often. He said, why it may be asked, do we not hold daily meetings? Why don't we have church service every single day?

[33:07] And thus avoid the distinction of days. Would that we were privileged to do so. Calvin thinks that would be great. What a privilege that would be.

[33:21] We would be well served. Since that isn't possible to hold church service every single day. We would be well served by placing the highest priority on our rest as a worshiping community.

[33:36] By showing up. By making it a priority to be here to worship together. One of the greatest privileges I had growing up. I was raised by a mom and by a dad who would not miss church for any reason whatsoever.

[33:52] I mean I'm not exaggerating. I literally cannot think of a single Sunday in my childhood when I wasn't at church. You know I grew up in Indianapolis. And whenever I mention that.

[34:02] The one thing everybody knows about Indianapolis is that's where the Indy 500 takes place. And they say what else is there in Indianapolis? And I would say I'm not really sure. I've never attended an Indy 500 race.

[34:18] Because the race was always on a Sunday. And so mom and dad would never take us to that. They would take us to the time trials. To anything else that was on another day of the week.

[34:28] They would not take us there on a Sunday. Even on vacation mom and dad. They would still drag us kids to a nearby church. That was the next best thing to our own church back home. So by the time that I went off to college.

[34:40] I knew from their example. That worshiping with God's people each Sunday. In a local church. That that was a top priority for every Christian. That was something that you made sacrifices for.

[34:55] Mom and dad. They showed me. And I'm so grateful to them for it. They showed me. That rest as a worshiping community. Was worth it. It was worth missing an NFL game.

[35:07] It was worth missing high school sports. It was worth missing a day at the beach. The Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest.

[35:17] So we embrace rest as a worshiping community. Now I don't want to push on us some sort of man-made regulation. To sit down and say. Here's the minimum numbers.

[35:28] Of Sundays a year that you're allowed to miss church. Okay. Let me ask you these questions instead. Some diagnostic questions. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Do you long to rest and worship with the people of God each Sunday?

[35:42] Do you long to rest and worship with the people of God each Sunday? Is this where your heart is? Do you feel restless? Do you feel restless? Do you feel restless?

[35:54] When you're not here? When you're not at church on Sunday morning? Even when you're not at SBC? If you don't feel that longing.

[36:06] If you don't feel that ache to be with the family of God. If you don't feel that ache in your heart when you miss worship with your family in Christ. I strongly urge you in the strongest possible terms.

[36:19] Come and talk with your elders about it. We're not going to beat you up over that. We'll talk with you about it. And I urge you to do that because if you don't sense that ache and that longing. Something is terribly wrong in your relationship with God.

[36:31] Something is terribly wrong. The pastor and author, Tabithian Yabwile, he's right when he explains. The New Testament has no vision for the Christian life apart from our playing our part in the local church.

[36:49] God's plan A for our discipleship and growth is the local church. And he doesn't have a plan B. And he's right.

[36:59] If you look through the New Testament, that's where it all takes place. The local church. The body of Christ in its local form. God has given us a worshiping community for our good.

[37:12] Because he wants us to find rest in Jesus Christ. And in the body of Jesus Christ. You and I. Jesus Christ is present in a unique way when the local church gathers together for worship.

[37:29] He's here among us. And that's why the poet King David, he writes in Psalm 16. One of my favorite Psalms. I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.

[37:42] I have no good apart from you. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. As for those who have been made holy because they belong to the Lord.

[37:56] You and me. They're the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. And so the Lord established the Sabbath as an invitation to enter his rest.

[38:09] So we embrace rest from our work and rest as a worshiping community. Let me pray and then we will take part in celebrating communion, the Lord's Supper together.

[38:20] Father, our God and our Father, you have given us Jesus Christ. You've given us your own Son, the one you love. And he has given us rest.

[38:36] And we look forward to a Sabbath rest yet to come. We long for it. And I thank you this morning we get just a taste of that rest.

[38:49] Rest as part of a worshiping community. Rest from our labors. And may we rest knowing that Jesus Christ our Lord, his body was broken for us, his blood was shed for us. To begin a new covenant, a new relationship with you.

[39:08] Define the rest that our souls ache and long for. Amen.