Understanding the Sabbath
Today’s Focus: Introduction
Scripture: Genesis 2:1-3
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
When we talk about the Sabbath there are so many perceptions and understandings about the Sabbath that can lead to many arguments. The most common argument is whether the Sabbath is on Saturday or Sunday? To lay this notion to rest quickly, in the Jewish calendar the seventh day is considered to be Saturday. Now you may say, well there it is, it is settled the Sabbath is Saturday. Not so fast because as we look through this entire series and we will float through the scriptures and return to scriptures for further understanding that the Sabbath is not a particular day such as Saturday or Sunday, as church has made the Sabbath. Let’s get a foundation.
Genesis 2:1-3: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.
So we know that the creation took six days culminating in God treasured creation, mankind or His son but on the seventh day it seems that God created a day for Himself and in it, He rested. The word rest in the Hebrew is “shabath” or what we know as Sabbath. It means to repose, desist from exertion or rest. So God rested from all His work on this ‘seventh day”. The rest of God is a “seventh-day” position. This is probably the most important thing to remember throughout this series because scriptures will prove that Sabbath really pertains to a position than a particular day in our chronological calendar.
Because Sabbath was the last thing created, it is the first and primary thing in the mind of God. Think about it! Look at the condition of this world and many of the people who claim to be Christians. Everyone is looking for rest. In a world of confusion, turmoil, strife and stress, everyone is looking for rest. We try to find rest in vacations and time away from work only to find when we get back to work, it seems like work just piled up since we left. This will be a very intensive and extensive study because this rest is not a sweet bye-and-bye rest and we will destroy some of these myths we have in the church about the Sabbath. Since we have seen through Genesis 2:1-3 that this rest is a position, in the next message we want to look at the three positions of rest.
Peace, Love and Grace from the Father,
Calvin Calhoun, Jr.
