Christ Church Derby has regular service times of 10:45 am and 6:00 pm UK time every Sunday. We encourage you to be with us in person to be part of the fellowship that is an important part of being church together.
We are putting our Bible teaching from both services on YouTube each week so people can keep in touch with it even if they are unable to be with us on occasion.
The first part of the reading this evening is Genesis chapter 1 vers verse 24 to chapter 2 verse three it’s on the screen behind me and also the page numbers for the church Bibles then God said let us make man in our own 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 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 its seed and 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 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 bless the seventh day and made it holy because on it God
Rested from all his work that he had done in creation the next part of the reading is Exodus chapter 20 and verses 8 to 11 remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six days you shall labor and your work but the seventh day is the 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 sjer who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made 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 is Holy Janet thank you very much um we’ll be looking uh largely at the uh the start of Genesis chapter two this evening um as we dig into uh what the
Lord says about the Sabbath day um and as we think about that uh catechism question um but as I dig in we’re going to pray together so let’s pray Our Father in Heaven your commands are not arbitrary uh they are not your attempt to Simply manipulate us or toy
With us but they are for our goods and for our blessing and for our joy in you and we pray now as we consider this command consider where it comes from we pray that you would give us Grace to see willingness to hear we pray that we might hear you and
So be blessed and we ask in Jesus name amen what is God’s will for you in the fourth Commandment I suspect for many the assumed answer is not much I reckon that was probably my my assumption for a a reasonable chunk of my adult Christian Life certainly Sunday
Was Church day I was brought up that way and uh and also Sunday was part of the weekend and so I guess there was a sort of a bit of rest going on generally but beyond that as far as I was concerned there wasn’t very much to it in fact in
Theory I think i’ I’ve thought at various times that perhaps actually even the church day could be flexible maybe Sunday maybe a different day doesn’t matter very much now this is one of the few questions of the heidleberg catechism where I would probably want to refine
The answer just just a little bit uh we’re going to talk a lot about creation this evening we’re going to spend most of our time in Genesis chapter 2 and I’m not sure the catechism quite does that Justice it’s a good answer but I think I’d probably want to shape it slightly
But it is bang on in its working assumption God continues to have a will for us in his fourth Commandments the Commandment still speaks it is still part of the life of those who have been gathered by Christ and who live in the power of the Holy Spirit now this actually isn’t something
We spent very much time on certainly in my time here in the church and so we’re going to spend two Sundays on this we’ll we’ll start today we’ll finish off or at least do a bit more next week and this week really I just want to uh I want to achieve something quite
Modest I simply want to try to persuade you that there is something significant and something special something standout about Sunday and that we should treat it that way that’s all I want to do this evening we’ll try and deal with more and we’ll try and deal with some objections and
Questions and maybe struggles next week but I just want to start with a fundamental today partly just to get us off on the right foot and partly because I think actually this creation reality is so very fundamental that that everything else sits on top of it as it were
We need to start with creation and so although we’re start we’re talking about the fourth Commandment out of Exodus the Sabbath or the Lord’s day as it comes to be known in the New Testament is really baked into creation it’s hardwired into creation and getting to grips with that
Will help us to get to grips with why the fourth Commandment would still speak God’s will to us today and so the first thing to see out of verses 1 and two of Genesis chapter to is simply this there is a rest day and I want to follow that through in
A couple of steps and the first one is very simply what God does when you think about it the the statement that you get in the second half of chapter 2 verse two is absolutely extraordinary a couple of years ago we did a a sermon series in our evenings on
The the attributes of God what God is like and particularly some of the ways that God is is not like us one of those sermons we looked at God’s omnipotence God’s infinite power and again and again in that little series we came up against the fact that God doesn’t need anything or doesn’t
Depend on anything outside of himself and then just think about the way that God creates in Genesis one we just had a little bit of Genesis chapter 1 but you if you sort of flick back onto page one of your Bible and you spot the phrase that comes up again and again how
Does God create you get the same phrase over and over and God said you don’t get any heavy lifting in Genesis 1 you don’t get any sense even of a sort of fantasy lit kind of using of magic which quietly drains his personal Vitality just
Said and so when you read in chapter 2 verse two of Genesis that God rested that is an extraordinary thing what might that mean certainly it cannot mean that God comes home drops his bag on the floor flops onto the sofa and puts his feet up
At the end of a hard day because he is spent God doesn’t need any of that God doesn’t get spent I think it’s rather tied up with what you get right at the end of chapter 1 verse 31 it says there God saw everything that he had made at the end
Of the six days and behold look it was very good God’s rest isn’t about the need to recharge but one writer summarizes it like this this rest stands for consummation of a work accomplished and the joy and satisfaction that goes with this consummation of a work accomplished and the joy and
Satisfaction that goes with it you might think about it like this maybe sometimes at work you you you work on a big report over months and months and you get to the end and maybe even gets printed off and bound and and you pick it up and you
Flick through it and you think you know what that was a decent piece of work or or maybe it might be a bit like a gift actually me and Katherine were given at Christmas we got a a friend uh who whose hobby is wood turning and they
They’d taken a block of wood and they they’d worked on it and they’d made us this beautiful Christmas tree ornament and I can imagine that there for the person who made it there was enormous satisfaction both in the finished finished product but also in the the pleasure of giving it for somebody else’s
Enjoyments and that’s just a little flavor of what it means that God rested consummation of a work completed and the satisfaction and joy that go with that but you need to take a step on here because you don’t near need to merely need to look at what God does but also
What God invites people to follow him into because God’s rest here isn’t simply for himself there is an implicit you might say invitation here because think about the connections between God on the one hand and the people that he’s made on the other hand you get back in chapter 1 veres 26 and
27 God makes human beings mankind a man and a woman and they are made in God’s image they are made in a like God in a way that nothing else is and they are made to be very specially connected with God one of the phrases we sometimes use
Is made to have communion with him and these human beings are given a Job chapter 1 verse 28 God says to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it and have dominion and when you get into chapter two we didn’t read it but in chapter two
You get the particular account of Adam and Eve in detail it’s almost like you zoom in on the sort of wide angle lens you get in chapter one and God puts the man and a little later the woman into the Garden of Eden and it says verse 15 to work it and keep
It and in that Garden you’ve got two trees you’ve got the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and God tells the man that he can eat from any tree in the garden but not from the Tree of the knowledge of Good
And Evil and if he eats from that tree he will surely die now God has finished his work of creation but we shouldn’t think that that creation is totally complete at that point we sometimes talk about the Garden of Eden as being perfect and that’s fine if we mean
Something like there was no sin in the Garden of Eden but we shouldn’t see it as kind of an end point that in the end gets sadly interrupted by the Fall God intended more God worked in creation and then he rested but human beings now have work to
Do they have creation to fill and to subdue and to cultivate they have a rule to establish and in particular they have relationship with God to I don’t know how you put it to confirm they have obedience to continue in they have submission to walk in don’t
Eat from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil do pursue life under God and the implication is that I think just as God works and then rested human beings made in the image of God subduing and cultivating the creation of God to the glory of God will also
Work and then finally join God in his rest Eden was good but God always intended an advance on that heaven when we talk about it or the new creation is not sort of some kind kind of better plan that God worked out after the fall because it had all
Kind of messed everything up this was always where things were going and the Sev day Rhythm that God sets up points to that end for Adam and Eve the pattern of six days of work and one day of rest invited them and pressed them into that goal it
Pressed them towards creation filled and subdued and towards life complete and confirmed and towards enjoyment of God complete and confirmed and so think about how that might matter for human beings before sin came into the world every seventh day they stop their work and they rest with
God and for creatures I mean that’s just a needed thing we are made in the image of God but we are not gods we’re creatures we’re dependent we’re limited we do need to rest and we do need to be refreshed but there’s a godward flavor
To that rest as well we don’t stop and sort of refresh ourselves we look to God with thanks for his provision and his strength over the past six days and we look to God in dependence for the six days that are coming yet but there’s more than that as
You think about Adam and Eve sort of on that on that seventh day it’s forward-looking one writer summ izes it like this the weekly Sabbath was a continual reminder to Adam that history is not a ceaseless repetition of days rather at the beginning of each week he could look forward to the rest
Of the seventh day the weekly cycle impressed on him that he together with the created order as a whole was moving towards a goal when I had a different job not in a church I worked in a worked in an office I had colleagues who you might say lived for the
Weekend their work in the week was mainly it seemed geared towards kind of funding the good time that they were planning to have on the weekend and so they slogged out the week often without very much enthusiasm or satisfaction and then they went out and they spent their
Disposable earnings on on having a good time now that’s not a life lifestyle I would recommend but is it possible that in that kind of living for the weekend there is just a hint of kind of misplaced misused creation Instinct going on a desire for rest a desire for your
Week of work to culminate in a kind of Joyful goal one of the struggles of I think recent moves towards working from home or towards flexible working is that work oversteps its boundaries that it never seems to end that there are times where we really do experience a ceaseless repetition of
Days but Genesis 2 tells you different it tells you that your days and your work have a goal that they are going somewhere and that they mean something God is hardwired as Sabbath pattern into creation rest before him one day in seven to underline that goal
To reassure you that it is coming uh to help you to anticipate it because we can get so wrapped up in a whole bunch of other stuff God rested and he invites you to join him and each week he renews the invitation and actually rather than being kind of quietly discarded when
Christ comes I want to argue that actually that just gets sharper with the arrival of Jesus Christ think about it follow your kind of story line of the Bible Adam and Eve we know that after chapter two it doesn’t go well they sinned they fell and they were in fact shut out from
God’s rest and their work now was never going to achieve the goal of rest their work would be cursed and frustrated in chapter three and as they went on in their life their work was now a struggle was frustrating and we share that with them but then Christ came and we’ve
Heard his words already to us maybe we can have them up on the screen John Jesus says come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Christ comes as another Adam a second Adam but one who this time is
Faithful to God and one who who did all the works of God to the full and one who dies but who is raised to New Life again in fact his resurrection is not just his resurrection but it is the the beginning in fact of the the renewal of all
Creation and so think about these things or in short Jesus has been faithful in the work that Adam has not Jesus has entered into the life that Adam did not Jesus has begun to unfold the goal of creation that Adam only ever anticipated and through faith in Jesus
Christ you have begun to realize that rest hearts renewed and turned towards God new life through the Holy Spirit but we are not there yet maybe we can have the next uh quote up on the screen you get get into Hebrews in the New Testament in chapter four there the
Writer is discussing uh the failure of the Israelites to enter the promised land another thing that that God describes as rest and the fact that God continues to talk about it and the writer there sort of culminates by saying there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of
God Rest has begun to unfold with the arrival of Jesus but we are not there yet and so then this one in seven pattern still matters God still invites us to to enter fully into his rest but there’s a development that goes with it because
Well first of all as we do that what we do is we zero in on the work of Christ for us not on our work first of all but on his work for us it’s Christ’s work that achieves rest not ours and once we’ve done that then we consider our own
Work our daily callings and our Christian service done in the renewing power of the Holy Spirit and we remember then that through Christ they have meaning through Christ they are going somewhere and there’s a development too I think in the day itself as you go through the New Testament you find
Christians beginning to meet on the first day of the week you get a sort of a shift in the seventh as it were in fact actually they’re meeting why are they meeting on the first day of the week they’re meeting on the day of the week that Christ was raised from the
Dead in fact once you get to chapter one of Revelation you find that John the Apostle is calling the day the Lord’s day which fits very much with what you find in Genesis rest has begun to unfold with the resurrection of Christ and so now the day of anticipating the fullness
Of rest becomes comes Resurrection Day Christ has worked and rest has begun to unfold and so now we start our week with anticipation we go into our work in light of work that has already been done for us now just step back a minute I realize
That that is lots of kind of explanation lots of un trying to kind of pick out details but what’s the point of all this where does this take us like I said at the start what I want to do mainly is just try to impress on
Us that this one day in seven Sabbath pattern still matters in fact that the coming and the resurrection of Jesus Christ don’t bring that day to an end but wonderfully develop and sharpen what you find in Genesis Sunday is different we should stop our regular work and activities and we should
Rest and the Heart of that rest is the worship of God and what does that look like well here we are we’re at the start of the week first day of the week we’re about to step into the week the work of our week some of you are going to go to
School some of you are going to go to maybe has University started yet I don’t know starts later some of you are going to go go to employment some of you are going to do the work of raising children at home maybe you’ve got some other work today we’ve
Stopped because God has given us rest for body and soul because he is the creator who never sleeps and I really am not and we’ve stopped the regular stuff and we have drawn near to God we we give thanks for his gifts in the week that’s
Gone and we seek his strength for the days of work that you’re about to step into and today what do we do we gather and we we are remembering the work of Christ for us I come and remember that that especially today I do not work for
My ultimate rest that Christ has come and Christ has done for me why why why do I come and worship like this I don’t come to give God stuff I come in faith on what what has been done for me already and worship and then in worship together
What do we do we we anticipate the work of this week knowing that it is not in vain I don’t know what you’re going to go and do tomorrow probably one of the worst jobs I did certainly in paid employment was given a massive stack of
Letters and I had to put them in alphabetical order of client name it was not very interesting it took most of a week it was not I didn’t come out of my office uh those days feeling particularly satisfied and fulfilled but that work’s not wasted I am not stuck in a ceaseless
Repetition of days but there is a goal I am headed somewhere and by the work of the Holy Spirit and the grace of the Holy Spirit my work and my working has Eternal value and as I will likely face and maybe I expect to face this week some
Trial and some difficulty and some frustration I can face them knowing that that is not where my life finishes those things finally give way to rest today I look into my week and I step into it to undertake my work to the glory of God who gives me
Rest now there are a bunch of practical nuances to this some people do need to work on this day and the Bible makes provision for that there are various tasks that are particularly appropriate to this day it’s not meant to be a day of mere inactivity and the Bible makes provision
For that too I’m not going to say much more about that now we’re going to try and pick that stuff up next week but just for now let’s try and get the Baseline down God has given a day to rest from our regular work and regular activities and to come and
Worship and it still matters God still has a will for you in the fourth Commandment but there is something else to notice and we’ll hit this just briefly now you get to verse three second thing to see here is that there is a day of rest and then that the day
Is blessed and holy verse three because verse three really raises the stakes if it wasn’t a huge deal already that God rests and he invites us into rest now we raise the stakes even more because if we’re tempted to acknowledge that well yeah maybe there is a day special day
After all but then to kind of park it verse three tells you that it really matters and it tells you that in two ways here’s the first thing firstly it says God blessed the day what would we expect of a day where we have to stop I guess the Temptation often is to
Think that a day like that kind of holds you back that it kind of frustrates you or restricts you in some way got that saying time is money I think probably often we think about things like my to-do list is so long maybe you’ve even checked your
To-do list in the course of a church service I’ve got all sorts of stuff that I want to do and want to achieve and I you know there are not enough days in the week for it and so surely there a day where you have to stop and a day
Where you turn from me and turn to God well you know that takes away from me it diminishes me it impoverishes me it it bores me but that’s not what Genesis says verse three God bless the day that blessing has come up a couple of times already in chapter one as God
Has been creating you get it in verse 22 and also in verse 28 God blesses the birds and He blesses the sea creatures and and He blesses human beings as he makes them and this blessing is connected with multiplying at both times God it says God blessed them and then it says he
Spes again he or in fact that might have been the blessing he says be fruitful and multiply one writer summarizes it like this when God blesses the seventh day our expectation is that this day will be marked by fruitfulness and fullness appropriate to the day now certainly bigger blessing is to
Come God intends to press us towards ultimate rest but God intends to do his people particular good on the day he has set aside now as eot very often what we would like blessed by God to mean is kind of God gives me all the stuff I
Want God gives me the circumstances I really want God makes everything work out super smooth and you know sometimes when God blesses it does mean that but God is a better father than to just sort of that what blessing means his intent is to feed our appetites for himself his intent is to
Fit us for full life with him one person has put it like this humanity is not the culmination of creation sometimes we say that don’t we the human beings are the kind of the peak of God’s creation and and rightly understood that’s fine but the writer goes on humanity is not the culmination
Of creation but rather Humanity in Sabbath day communion with God we and our whims are not the height of blessedness but us in communion with our God is but all of this blessing this is a serious business this blessed day because what does it also say God
Blessed the day and he made it holy means that God marked the day out as different and separate from the other six days it means then that it is a day particularly connected with God now as with everything all of the days belong to God all of the days are God’s days
And all of them are to be lived to the glory of God but this one this one God specially marks out and he particularly sets it aside in connection with himself I want to say in in connection with worship it is a particular day for drawing near to God in anticipation of
The final rest and eternal life with him and Holiness means it’s serious business now not that it suddenly becomes a kind of grim-faced weight but God places real value in something that’s holy get a sense of that if you you don’t need to flick now but if you read some of the Sabbath
Command in the law of Moses you find that the Israelites had to make a really big deal of it and actually they didn’t just have the Sabbath day but they had Sabbath festivals and Sabbath years and things like that and and you know what breaking the Sabbath in Old Testament
Israel could result in the death penalty now we might rise up raise our eyebrows there and think surely not but if you just step back and think why on Earth if if God is as good as the Bible presents him why on Earth on Earth
Would that be part of his law you might just stop and think about how big a deal he puts on the day now we’ll find next week I think that the the commands of the law of Moses don’t simply map straight onto us this side of Christ but the statement here God made
It holy comes with some serious weights when we hear that God blesses today you need to hear that a serious blessing it is a big deal now there’s loads more to be said but again here’s the Baseline the day is blessed and holy and that should shape our
Expectations of it and that should shape the way we treat it God has a will for us in the fourth Commandment he has baked it into creation there is a rest day and it’s blessed and holy and God would have us treat it that way so that we might truly fully have
Joy in him I’m going to pray for us let’s pray Our Father in heaven we because this is the way you have made your world and because this is the way you have revealed yourself to your people we dare to ask here as we worship on the Lord’s day
That you might be gracious to us and bless us we pray that in your kindness you might fit us for the week of work that stands in front of us you give us strength to work to the your to your glory give us strength to endure life in a frustrated
Creation and father we pray that through it all that you might fit us so that we might finally step into full wonderful rest with you we pray in Jesus name amen