The Ten Commandments | 4th Commandment

The Fourth Commandment

“Enter His Rest”

Exodus 20:8-11

Rev. Dustin A. Largent

September 14, 2025

Opening Reflection: Peter’s Restoration and Our Calling

So, I just spent some time this morning, and I just sense God brought me to the end of the Gospel of John where Peter is distraught. Peter is at the end of his rope. He doesn't know what to do. He's ready to throw in the towel. He's frustrated. He thinks that the whole thing is lost. He thinks that Jesus isn't going to accept him back because he's denied Christ. So he's about as devastated as you can be.

That's kind of how I felt through the week. I was pretty devastated. But he meets Jesus. When he meets Jesus, Jesus says, “Do you love me? Do you love me?” That should be an easy question. Do you love Jesus or not? Some of you say, “Well, I don't even really know Jesus.” Well, then let's get you to know Him, because I promise you, the more you know Him, the more you'll love Him. The more I've come to know Jesus, the more I love Him. But He says, “Do you love me?” And the response He gave to Peter—you're devastated now, but what I need you to do is, I know you love me, so I want you to feed my lambs. That's the response.

That's the response I want you to have out of your devastation. I've asked you, “Do you love me?” Yes? Then feed my lambs. “Peter, do you love me?” “Yes, but I'm devastated.” “I'm devastated.” Take care of my sheep. Take care of my sheep. Right? Get out there and be the message of God. Be the man or the woman of God that I called you to be. And some people will hate you for that. Some people are going to hate you for being and having God within you. And because God is within you, you're going to say things, you're going to stand firm on certain things, you're going to fight against certain things. You're going to stand for truth, and that truth will offend.

The Law, Judgment, and Offense

And here's what I know about the law. We're studying the law—the Ten Commandments. What is the purpose of the law? The law is created for two reasons. First, once you've become a believer—remember, they got the Ten Commandments after they'd been freed—it teaches you how to live a free life. How do I live a life of freedom and of joy? But for those who do not know the gospel of Jesus Christ, those who are not His, those who do not love Him, the law is meant to convict and to offend and to make you feel bad. That's what the law is for. Because if you don't know the truth, then when you hear the truth, you're saying, “Something's wrong with me.” That's offensive to people. It's offensive when you tell someone the truth, but God is about offending the unrighteous. That's what God does—He offends the unrighteous. But He offends you because He loves you. If He doesn't offend you with His law, if He doesn't offend you with the truth, then you'll never come to Him, because you'll never see the need to come to Him.

And so, the response that people have when they don't know Jesus, when they don't love Jesus, is this: “You disagree with me, you must hate me.” You know why I think you hate me? Because I hate you. I hate you because you disagree with me. I hate you because you're saying things that offend me. I hate you because you're judging me. No, I'm not judging you. I'm agreeing with God. Do you understand what judgment is? What really got Charlie Kirk was that he was proclaiming the truth of the gospel. He was proclaiming things that came from the gospel, that came from Jesus. He was saying it because he loved Jesus. He had faith. And as a result of that, people said, “He is a hateful person. He hates us.” He didn't hate people—just like you and I don't hate people.

People think they are hated because when people disagree with them, and they don't know God, they assume you hate them because that's the way they feel about other people. They project hate onto you. They say, “Well, because he's so judgmental. I hate you Christians because you're so judgmental. You're judging other people.” No, we're not. The way judgment works is that you're judging other people. We are unable to judge. We do not, as Christians, make any type of judgment as far as what is right and wrong. We never will do that. What we will do is we will always agree with the judgment that has already been made by God. God has made decisions. He said, “This is right. This is wrong. This is what a family looks like. This is what is righteous. This is what is sinful.” God has laid that out and said, “This is it.”

Now, if I were to come and say, “You know what? That is wrong. God says it's right, but I say it's wrong,” I have now started judging. The way we do not judge others is we don't step into this and judge God. God said it's wrong. Therefore, I won't make a judgment. I'll stand on the sidelines and agree with the one who is the Judge—Jesus Christ. And that offends. It offends. The law offends. But that's what God calls His people to do—to defend His Word, defend the gospel, and to not do it with hate, but to do it with love. That's what God says.

Prayer and Introduction to the Fourth Commandment

I'm going to pray because I need to have a segue into this. Sorry, but— God, I just thank you for this church. And you've called me not to throw a rally today, God, but to share the Word of God. Because we worship God because we know who He is. And we share the good news because we know His Word and we know who He is. And the more we know who He is, the more we want to worship Him and tell Him how great He is. And so God, we're coming to Your Word because we believe the best thing that we can do right now is to study Your Word and discover more and greater how incredible You are. That we will know how to stand for truth and how to be the people of God You've called us to be. And we pray it in Jesus' name.

All right. So, this morning we're looking at the fourth commandment. And I'm going to get through this—maybe. It might be a two-week series on this one. We'll see how things roll here. The fourth commandment is an interesting commandment. We've had three so far, and now we come to it. Let me just read it to you.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servants, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8–11)

So, let's just break that down. Don't work on the seventh day. And the reason is because God rested on that day after He created the earth. You're like, “Okay, well that's cool. I could probably pull that off.” I think that's pretty clear: don't work. But then you say, “Well, what's work?” The Pharisees and the Sadducees were like, “Well, what's work?” You know, we don't want anybody messing with this and working because then they'd be breaking the law. So to make sure they don't work, let's make up some rules about working. Is walking work? Well, it is if you're walking 26 miles—that's work. But what if I'm walking across the street? Well, we better put a distance on that. So we're going to say you can only walk a certain number of steps. What about cooking? I’ve got to cook, right? We’ve got to do some cooking. My stove has a Sabbath mode on it. Yours probably does too. If you have one that's electronic at all, chances are it's got a Sabbath mode. What that means is it's going to be on ahead of time, and it won't light a fire. You won't turn it on on the Sabbath. But you'll still be able to cook because you're skirting around the rule—around the Sabbath rules. Well, those are all man-made kinds of rules.

These first four commandments are all focused on how to love the Lord your God with all your heart. The next six are going to have to do with how to love your neighbor as yourself. But these first four—including this one on the Sabbath—are about how I love the Lord my God with all my heart. And you're like, “Well, that's kind of peculiar. I just kind of take a nap on Sunday, and that’s how I pull that off.” That sounds like my favorite commandment of all time, right?

So, here's what we’ve got so far:

We worship Him alone. He gets all the glory. He's not going to share any glory. So there's only one God. If you're going to love the Lord your God with all your heart, there’s no competition. No side gods. This is our God.
We worship Him not through images that we make, but through the image He provided—Jesus.
We honor His name. How do you honor His name? We find out that the name above all names is the name of Jesus. So we bring glory to His name by the way we live and the way we treat His name. We live in a way that reflects Christ. If we claim to be Christian, then what we say and do should honor the name of Christ—not dishonor it by doing things contrary to Him.

Now, the week is a weird one. It’s a Sabbath week. Where do we get a year from? Where does a year come from? Anybody know how we came up with the idea of a year? Nobody graduated from third grade here today? Or is everybody just nervous? The rotation around the sun—the planet goes around the sun. And when it gets around, a year has happened. What about a day? The sun goes up, the sun goes down, and then you're like, “Oh, the sun came up again.” A day has passed. What about a month? Got you, didn’t I? A month is loosely based on the moon. It’s lunar—based on what the moon does. That’s why when we deal with Easter, it’s based on when a certain moon comes.

What about a week? Where did we get a week from? One fourth of a month? Just simple math? No. I’ll tell you where you get a week from. You get a week from God creating the world in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. If He hadn’t rested, a week would be six days. If it had taken Him two days to create the world and He rested on the third day, a week would be three days. There is no other reason that we have seven days in a week. The entire world—doesn’t matter if you're Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, Hindu—it’s all the same. A week is based on the creation of God in six days, and then we take a break on the last day. God took a break on the last day. And so this is really significant. This is tied into who we are.

Sabbath Observance Confusion

What’s the seventh day of the week? What day is that? Saturday. And what day is it today? Ah, yeah—Sunday. You’re like, “All right, so we’re breaking the Sabbath. We’re breaking the Sabbath? Are we not breaking the Sabbath?” This is all kind of confusing, right? Am I breaking the Sabbath today because I’m working? When you go home and you make whatever you have for lunch, are you breaking the Sabbath? Is it supposed to be Sunday? Is it supposed to be Monday? Seventh-day Adventists are saying it’s supposed to be Saturday. You know, what day is it supposed to be?

Genesis 2 and God's Rest

Let’s open up our Bibles to Genesis 2:1–3. Let’s just look at this real quick, and we’ll go through some scripture. Genesis chapter 1 is all about creation. But it’s not just creating—God is also separating. He’s separating darkness from light. He’s separating water from land. He’s doing a lot of that. But at the end of that, He creates man. Then in chapter 2, we start and it says:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.” (Genesis 2:1–3)

Why did God rest on the seventh day? Look at the scripture. I don’t care what you learned in Sunday school—why did He rest? He rested because He had finished His work. So, God creates. He creates the earth. He does all this creation, and He gets done. And here’s the thing: the work is finished. There’s nothing else for God to do. It is perfect. There’s no problem with it. There’s no decay. There’s no disease. There’s no anything. He created it and He says, “I am finished. It is finished. There’s nothing left for Me to do.” And so, now what I’m going to do—and you, Adam and Eve, what you’re going to do—is you and I, we are going to live in this rest. We’re going to rest in the glory that I created. We’re going to enjoy the perfection. We’re going to enjoy the glory that is the earth that I made. And how long are we going to do that—for one day?

No. We’re just going to keep doing that, right? Because there’s no reason not to. But on the seventh day, He’s going to rest. Why? Because He has created and finished something beautiful. He’s not resting because He’s tired. He’s not saying, “Boy, I’m bushed. Wow, that whole separating the light from the dark—that was a rough one. I think I might have pulled a hammy on that.” That’s not how this worked. He was not tired. He stopped because it was finished. That’s what it says in the book of Genesis. So, God rests. Man rests. Creation can rest because the work’s been fully completed by God. There’s nothing to fix. He doesn’t have errands to run to maintain it. Things are good. And so all He does is rest and enjoy.

Genesis 3 and the Fall: From Rest to Ruin

Now something particular is happening here. What happens in Genesis 3? Adam is in the garden. He is commanded not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he does. He disobeys God. And what happens? It affects him—who is a creation. It affects the land—which is a creation. It affects everything that God created and finished. So, in the fall, what Adam did is now it is not finished. What was finished has now become unfinished because it’s been messed with. It’s fallen. It is corrupted. The earth is corrupted. There is sin. There is death. There are all kinds of things. That wasn’t the way He created it. When He created it, He created it in six days and it was finished. But now it needs to be refinished. It needs to be refixed. And so, the first thing in your notes is this:

The need for a Sabbath day is created by the sin of Adam that threw us out of our original finished rest.

You and I were in our finished rest in the garden. And our sin knocked us out of the finished rest. And it triggered God to work. Now God has to work to finish and to redeem and to recreate His once completed creation.

Sabbath Rest Introduced After Slavery

So, we go through the Bible and you go through the rest of the book of Genesis. Does it say anything about resting on Sunday? No. Did Adam rest on Sunday or on Saturday—on the seventh day? No. There’s no command at all in the Bible anywhere in the entire book of Genesis. Abraham never had a Sabbath rest. There was no commandment for him to work six days and then rest on the seventh. Abraham never did. Isaac never did.

The first time we have any mention of anything Sabbath-related is after the Jews have gone into slavery and then been freed from slavery. That’s when we get the Ten Commandments—a little bit before that. Now, there are two types of rest. There’s what we call physical rest, which is, “Boy, I’m bushed.” And then there’s spiritual rest. Spiritual rest is: I don’t have to work anymore for my salvation. I don’t need to try hard to make God happy. I don’t need to struggle. I can rest in the finished work of God for my salvation. I can rest in that. That’s spiritual rest. But the problem is, people don’t naturally make that connection. People don’t naturally know that they need that rest. The people that were walking around in the time of Adam, the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—did they know that they really needed rest? Did the Jews know they needed to have a rest? No, they didn’t really realize that.

And so, what does God do? God puts them into slavery. I know this isn’t what you were expecting at all for a sermon on the Sabbath day. You’re like, “Hey, don’t work tomorrow.” He makes them slaves. And what do they do when they’re slaves? They work. And how many days do they work? Seven. Every day. From morning till night. They just work. And what builds up in people that just work, work, work, work physically? “Boy, I really would like a rest. I really would like to have a break. I really would like to be able to just rest for a little bit.” And so, what God is doing is He’s taking the Israelites and He’s trying to show them that you need to have a rest. I’ve created within you this desire to rest. But I want you to know that this desire to rest is actually pointing to a bigger rest—which is the rest between Me and you in our relationship with God.

So, He creates this desire within them, and they cry out to God, “Help us. Free us so that we will have rest. So, we don’t have to do this all the time.” And so, God has made sinful people recognize that they don’t have spiritual rest, and He makes them long for it. And He does it by making them desire physical rest.

Exodus 16 and the Introduction of the Sabbath

Let’s turn to Exodus 16. It’s the first time we ever see the word “Sabbath” in the Bible. Did you know the word “Sabbath” is nowhere in the creation account? When you were reading that passage at the very beginning about creation, it never said, “You guys should rest.” It didn’t say that at all. It just said God rested because His work was finished.

The first time we ever see the word “Sabbath” comes in Exodus 16, after the Israelites have been freed from slavery. It’s an interesting passage because the Jews are freed, but they don’t have any food in the desert, and they’re hungry. So, God is going to provide them manna and quail. Look at Exodus 16:4:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.’” (Exodus 16:4)

So, here’s what you need to know about this covenant. God’s made a new covenant. He had a covenant with Abraham. He had a covenant with Adam. Now He has a covenant with Moses. The covenant with Abraham was, “I will be your God, and you will be My people.” The sign of that covenant was circumcision. The covenant with Noah was, “I will never again destroy the earth with a flood.” The sign of that covenant was the rainbow. The sign of this covenant with Moses is the Sabbath.

So, God says, “The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way, I will test them to see whether they will follow My instructions.” Very simple instructions: I’m going to put food out on the ground—enough for you to eat that day. So, get enough for that day and then go home. That’s not hard, right? God is teaching and testing these people. Then He says, “On the sixth day, they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” So, He’s starting to introduce the idea of Sabbath now. He’s saying, “Listen, every day I’m going to provide enough for that day. But when we get to Friday, I’m going to provide twice as much. And what I want you to do is go out on Friday and get enough for both Friday and Saturday, because I want you to rest on that next day.”

The question is: will they obey Him? Are they going to say, “Oh, I don’t trust God to provide for the next day. I’m going to be really hungry because I won’t have enough”? Because the way it worked was that when God provided for one day, it would be rotten by the next morning. There would be maggots in it, and they couldn’t eat it. So, they’re thinking, “This is going to do the same thing on Friday night. Whatever I have left over for the next day is going to be rotten. So I’m going to have to go out and look for more.” Jump to Exodus 16:19:

“Then Moses said to them, ‘No one is to keep any of it until morning.’”

Why? So that they’ll trust God to not only provide, but to provide for them when they rest also. When they’re resting, God is still providing. Your rest is not dependent upon you. It’s dependent on God. However, some of them paid no attention to Moses. They kept part of it until morning. Why? Because they didn’t trust God to provide for tomorrow. But it was full of maggots and began to smell. So, Moses was angry with them. Each morning, everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. Now we’re introduced to the Sabbath.

“On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, ‘This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow is to be a day of Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.’” (Exodus 16:22–23)

This is the first time we ever hear the word “Sabbath” in the Bible. So, bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning. So, they saved it until morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink and did not get maggots in it. If you wait and trust God, what He provides isn’t going to stink for you. It isn’t going to have maggots. You can rest.

Then it says:

“Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” (Exodus 16:25–26)

So, God is providing what they need completely and fully in six days. God created, and everything He created was complete and full without any need for more work in six days. Now He is here and says, “Listen, I am going to provide everything you need in six days, and then you will rest.” I am teaching you something here.

The Sabbath and Its Connection to Creation

Now I notice something peculiar. Up until this point in scripture, there hasn’t been any connection made between the Sabbath day and creation. God hasn’t said anything about the Sabbath day having to do with creation—yet. That connection isn’t made until the fourth commandment, which is our passage today:

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:11)

So, here’s what’s happening. I’m working for six days really hard. And then the seventh day comes, and I say, “I have to keep working because my work isn’t finished.” That’s how we work. Some of you are workaholics. You never take a day off. You’re like, “Well, I worked six days, but I can’t take a day off because if I take a day off, then there’s stuff that has to be done and it won’t get done. Or I won’t be able to provide for my family.” You’ve got this all wrong. You think you’re providing all six days, and on the seventh day, you’re still providing. You’re not. You’re working, but God is providing.

Here’s the problem with that: the Sabbath isn’t about your finished work. The Sabbath is about God’s finished work. It’s always been about God’s finished work.

Exodus 31 and the Sabbath Covenant

Let’s go forward a little bit. We’ll go to Exodus 31. I know it’s a lot of scripture, but you guys are big boys and girls and we can handle this.

“For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.” (Exodus 31:15)

So, God’s a little bit serious about this one. You might say He’s going overboard a bit. You’re like, “Wow, He must care about this one.” This is the commandment that the Jews cared about the most. This is the one that Jesus got into trouble about the most. They took this thing seriously. It continues:

“The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between Me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:16–17)

So, obeying this command—by not working—is a sign. It says it will be a sign between God and the Israelites forever. So when you see people taking a day and spending it to worship God, you’re honoring God, and that is a sign. Signs proclaim something. Something’s different about those people. Why are they doing that? Why is it that all the other countries are working every day, and all of a sudden you’ve got this one group of people taking a day off? Why are they taking a day off? Because they’re peculiar people. Those people—the Jews—are very peculiar. They have rules with no rational reason. We have rational reasons for why we have a year. We have rational reasons for why we have a month. But there’s no rational reason for this. And they’re different. They’re peculiar. Let’s go back to Exodus 31:12:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites: You must observe My Sabbaths. This will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so that you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.’” (Exodus 31:12–13)

All right. Why do we have the Sabbath? He just told us. He gave it to us for two reasons:

To proclaim to you that He is the Lord.
To proclaim that He is the one who makes you holy.

The Sabbath and the Gospel Connection

What does the Sabbath have to do with making you holy?

God told us in Exodus 31:13, “You must observe My Sabbaths. This will be a sign between Me and you for generations to come, so that you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy.”

So, let’s break this down.

Number one: The finished work God accomplished in six days was unfinished by Adam’s sin.

When God created the world, it was perfect. He rested because the work was done. But when Adam sinned, what was finished became unfinished. The rest was broken. The perfection was corrupted. The Sabbath rest was lost.

Number two: Recreating our relationship with God is work you and I are unable to accomplish.

There are a lot of people right now working really hard to try to have a relationship with God. “I’m going to try really hard. I’m going to walk little old ladies across the street. I’m going to give lots of money to the church. I’m going to make sure I’m at church every Sunday. I’m going to make sure that I obey the Sabbath.” But what does that mean?

Number three: The fourth commandment is a sign that He, the Lord, works to make us holy.

It’s not about our work. It’s about His work.

Number four: The fourth commandment reveals our need for salvation so that we can rest in the relationship God worked to create us for.

Number five: Jesus never commands anyone to follow any Sabbath rule because He is the fulfillment of the Sabbath.

You say, “What does that mean? Does that mean we don’t celebrate the Sabbath? That we don’t care about Sunday? That we don’t care about Saturday?” We don’t celebrate the Sabbath as law. There’s no righteousness that comes by that. The Sabbath is about entering into the rest provided by Jesus. Resting in the Promised Land back then was only a picture of the salvation rest that He provides for us now.

The Early Church and the Sabbath

Now, does that mean that we shouldn’t gather on Sunday? No. There’s scripture all over that says gather on Sunday. “Do not stop meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” (Hebrews 10:25) There’s all kinds of scripture about that. If you look at the early church, if you look in the book of Acts, they’re continually meeting on the Lord’s Day. They’re meeting. They’re doing that. But why are they doing that?

Not because the law said they had to meet that day. Jesus and His disciples are out picking grain on the Sabbath day. He’s not so concerned about everybody being sure that they get up and they just rest and take naps all day. He’s concerned with the meaning of the Sabbath, which is that you can enter into His rest through Him. That Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath.

Hebrews 4 and the Invitation to Enter God's Rest

Let’s skip down to Hebrews chapter 4, verse 1. This is how I know all of this about the Sabbath. You’re like, “Well, Dustin, are you making all this up? Because I’ve never heard this about the Sabbath.” No—I know this because I’ve read the Bible. And in Hebrews 4:1, it says:

“Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.”

The promise of entering His rest still stands. You might say, “Well, I thought I could just enter His rest whenever I wanted. I just don’t work on Saturday or I don’t work on Sunday. Isn’t that how I enter His rest?” He says, “No, it still stands.” There’s an opportunity for you—the unbeliever—to enter into the rest that I’m offering you through Jesus Christ. He continues:

“For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.” (Hebrews 4:2)

Why did a certain generation not get into the Promised Land? Because they didn’t share the faith. They didn’t believe God. Those who will enter into the rest of God—which is pictured by the Promised Land—enter into it because they have faith in God. That’s how we all enter into the rest. That’s how we enter into the Promised Land. That’s how we enter into relationship with God. Then it says:

“Now we who have believed enter that rest.” (Hebrews 4:3)

We who have believed enter that rest. Just as God has said:

“So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

And yet His works have been finished since the creation of the world.

What works? His creation work—but also His salvation work—to establish everything that allows us to have a relationship with Him.

Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Sabbath

So, let’s skip down to Hebrews chapter 4, verse 1. If you’ve got a Bible, that’s New Testament. This is how I know all of this. You’re like, “Well, Dustin, are you making all this up? Because I’ve never heard this about the Sabbath.” No—I know this because I’ve read the Bible. And in Hebrews chapter 4, it says:

“Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” (Hebrews 4:1)

Still stands. The promise of entering His rest. You might say, “Well, I thought I could just enter His rest whenever I wanted. I just don’t work on Saturday or I don’t work on Sunday. Isn’t that how I enter His rest?” He says, no—it still stands. There’s an opportunity for you, the unbeliever, to enter into the rest that I’m offering you through Jesus Christ.

Jesus' Words on the Cross: "It Is Finished"

So how do we know that God actually finished the work? Back in the Old Testament, we knew it was finished because He took six days and then rested. The promise of it being finished was that He rested because it was done. God resting in His rest is proof that He has done all the work necessary to provide us rest. How do we know that from Jesus? Because Jesus is on the cross in John 19:30, and it says:

“When He had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

In other words, Jesus is saying: “I have done all of the creation, all the recreation, all the work that was necessary—just like in the six days of creation—I did all that work so that we could have rest together.” You messed it all up, and now I have come back and I’ve done all the work. I’ve done six days, three years of work in order to make it possible for you to rest. And now He’s on the cross, and He says, “It is finished.”

So, He’s saying today: Enter into My rest.

Obeying the Fourth Commandment

So how do you obey the fourth commandment? Here’s how:

Enter God’s rest by obediently trusting in the completed work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary.

That is how you obey the Sabbath. If somebody says, “How do I obey the Sabbath?” “Oh, don’t work on it.” No—enter into His rest by obediently trusting in the completed work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. That’s how you obey this command.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, we love You. We want to obey this. There may be some of us in here who say, “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, Pastor. But I know that I don’t feel like I’m at any kind of peace with God. I think He might be mad at me. I think He might be out to get me.” But God is saying in His Word that He’s not out to get you. He has offered—He’s done all the work necessary, all the work—so that you can come into rest with Him. There’s no work that you have to do. It doesn’t say that you’re supposed to do the work. It says that He’s done all the work. “It is finished.” (John 19:30)

So, if that’s you this morning—if that’s you—you’re like, “I really want to be at rest with God. I don’t want to worry about whether I’m good with God.” This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to pray together:

God, Jesus, I believe that I’m a sinner. I believe that I am not at rest with You right now, and it’s because I’m a sinner. I believe it’s because Adam sinned, and now I have this nature that makes me want to do all kinds of stuff that’s opposite of You. I have habits in my life, God, that I know aren’t right. But God, I can’t stop them. Because I can’t do that kind of work to fix myself. I can’t do the kind of work within myself to make a relationship between You and me work. But God, I believe that You have recreated that relationship. You’ve recreated everything good.

And I see signs of that not being the case, but in reality—in the spiritual realm—it has all been finished. All the work is done. And by faith, by believing in You, Jesus, that You died on the cross for my sin, that You finished,
I can be in relationship with You, and I can enter Your rest. God, the day that I’m doing that is today. I’m entering into Your rest today. I turn away from my old way of living, because I don’t want to live like that. That’s what got me into this mess. And I turn to You, and I give my life to You, God. I receive Your salvation. Show me how to live.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Sermon Transcript