God's Good Order

Jesus taught us to build our house on the rock. The warning was against building a structure on the sand. Now, we know from common knowledge, we know because of common grace that this makes sense. And he's using what's already understood. You need a secure foundation. Of course, Jesus was actually saying much more than make sure you have a sure foundation. Jesus says, unless you hear and do my words, you're like a foolish man that builds his house on the sand. The solid foundation, the structure, the rock we need to build our lives up in a way that actually is good are the words of God himself. God has spoken truth into this world of confusion and lies so that we can identify error, We can know what is good, we can set our minds upon it, and we can do it. This morning, we're going all the way back to Genesis 1. Last time I preached, which was almost six months ago, we finished Luke 2, and we'll go back to Luke 3, but I wanna go back to Genesis in order to start thinking about some of these foundational truths that are gonna be helpful as we look at Luke and go back into Jesus, the new Adam, and the new creation. But I'll go back and look at these foundational truths. All the seeds that are laid in Genesis one through 11. All the essential truths that we need to make sure we're holding dear to. These very words of Christ himself. It's important to have a strong foundation. I learned this the hard way through the way I normally learn everything, trial and error. I was building a retaining wall and I was a little sloppy on that most, you know, the bottom layer. And I thought, well, no, it'll work out, and I kept building, and as the wall kept growing, it became more and more obvious this thing was what we call whoppy-jawed. Had to tear down the wall, start again. We need to have a sure, plumb-lined, holding fast foundation. That's where we're gonna go back to Genesis 1. That's found on page one. If you're using a pew Bible, please take that if you didn't have one. It's a short foundational series as we think about God's truths for us. Real quick, just an overview of Genesis 1. It fits in the non-fiction unit of Genesis 1-4. As C.S. Lewis said, anyone who claims this is a myth has never read a myth. Genesis 1 is unique in its genre. It has numerous markings of of Hebrew poetry, but Hebrew poetry, especially there in verse 27, it has meter, it has repetition, and there's parallelism. It actually has more markers of prose. And God, and God, and God. It has in stress. It reads like a prose of praise. There's really nothing else in the Bible like this. It's historical narrative in many of its functions, but it has such order and clarity and repetition, kind of like a hymn. Most important thing for us to notice about this is it is first and foremost about God. God created, chapter one, verse one. God rested, and this hymn goes all the way through chapter two, verse three, one of the most unfortunate chapter breaks, which are not inspired. God created, God rested. In the beginning, God was. If you're looking at the order of it, Genesis one and two, that seems to be a preface to this grander preface of the whole Bible. Really, I think the six days of creation are unpacking verses one and two. Just like Genesis two, beginning of verse four is unpacking day six. So God keeps giving us declarations and unpacking them, declarations and unpacking them. The whole passage revolves around important phrases that are repeated. As you heard, God said, and it was so. God called it. God saw that it was good. One of the main takeaways we need to see here is God's own word begins by directing us to God. He's a God who has given this world order. He's a God who has spoken it into existence. He's a God who has spoken into it his own goodness. And so that is how it begins to help us reorient our lives toward God. Moses is the author. He's the author of the first five books of the Bible. That's what we call the Pentateuch. And we know this primarily because Jesus said Moses wrote it. He wrote this on the wilderness for 40 years. He wrote to the people of Israel who were leaving Exodus. They were leaving Egypt after the Exodus. They were a grumbling people. They were about to go into the promised land and what they needed to do is not fall into the temptation of worshiping all those gods or grumbling against the one God. And this is how Moses began his writing according to the Holy Spirit to help his people worship God. with gratitude. There's three main truths about God. This is gonna be a theological sermon of sorts. It's going to be taking truths from this text and helping us see them. If you're taking notes, there's three main points. The God who is there, the God who is there, the God who creates, and the God who speaks. He's there, he creates, He speaks. Point one, God who is there. Let's look at chapter one, verse one. In the beginning, God, full stop. That's as far as we really need to go. God exists perfectly with and within himself. He is not dependent upon anything. In the beginning was God. Now I say He exists within Himself because we now know in the New Testament that that one God who is not dependent upon anything, He's Father, Son, and Spirit. The one God creates this world, but He is not dependent upon it. He is eternally present. He is everywhere when there is nowhere yet because He hasn't created it yet. God is holy, He's perfect in every way. It's pretty remarkable as we look at this text. to see the purpose of God, the care of God, to create something he doesn't need. The amount of care and intentionality here, God doesn't need this creative world, but yet he gives it such attention, and then we think about ourselves, we depend upon him fully, and we reject him, and we ignore him. How twisted that is. It's the thing about the God who is there. He's just the one God who has always existed without anything else needed. I wanna draw us back to the Exodus. When God told Moses, go tell Pharaoh and my people you're gonna go. Moses said, who will I tell them you are? What is your name? What does he say? I am who I am. God is absolute being. God is being in himself. There's nothing that depends upon he exists because he exists. What's beautiful about that Exodus passage, I am who I am, also says I am with you. The God who does not need us, Commits himself to us fully by saying I will be with you. I am for you Now God is tied to this creation not because he needed it Just because God must be righteous and fulfill his promise As we consider this God who was there There's a few things we need to make clear is it's true He's not distant like a watchmaking God. He is not distant and out there just observing. He is committed and promised to be with us. He's also not mysterious like the agnosticism or Eastern religions. He's spoken, as we'll see in just a few sections later, he's spoken so that we can know him. There's two ways I want us to think about the God who is there. The God who is there, who exists perfectly within himself, but yet created us and made promises to us, he's come down to be with us. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. God himself has come down to descend upon us, to descend into the womb of the Virgin Mary, to walk among us. John's gospel opens echoing Genesis 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God in the beginning. There's no mistaking it. Jesus Christ is that creator God, and that creator God has now come to be with us, walking alongside of us, walking to live the life we refuse to live. He was the perfect human being. was God himself living as that perfect human being so that when he died on the cross, he took the judgment for our sin so that we can be forgiven. When he rose again, he now gives us that new resurrected life. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father, having completed his work. The God who is there is not distant. He's come to us. He's descended down to us. He's made promises to us, and he's fulfilled all of those promises in Christ. Not only has that God who is there come down to be with us, that God who is there, secondly, is the God who indwells us. Our world, I think the way I typically am gonna think is, I've been trained to think whatever's wrong is something outside of me, and whatever's right, I need to look down inside of my heart. I need to look inside for the solution. The Bible tells us that's the wrong way to go about it. That's the opposite truth. Jesus says what defiles us comes from within us. Paul says our desires, they're deceptive. The very, heart of ours is the very heart of our problem. And this is what's amazing about the Holy Spirit who comes down after the Son has sat down at the right hand of the Father, God comes all the way down to the most intimate, personal part of us to fix what's really wrong with us, our hearts. We're tempted to look inside. We're tempted to try to get more self-confidence, more self-assurance. Now what we need to do is look up to God the Father who sent his Son to be with us. And then to praise him because the Holy Spirit has actually come to the most intimate, most dangerous part of who we are, to wash us, to sanctify us, to again restore us to be image bearers. We need to deny that lie. We're gonna constantly be pressed with the lie. Whatever the problem is, it has to be outside of you. No, the problem that we need to be most concerned about is the problem that is inside of us, our sinful hearts. And praise God, he has now come to indwell our hearts to fix our most dangerous problem, our own deceptive desires. The God who is there is with us. The God who is there is now indwelling us as believers. The second point. The God who creates. We get one more word further. In the beginning, God created. God created. As we think about creation, it really is amazing what we as humans have been capable of in terms of creating. We can look back in history and we can see the pyramids and just wonder how in the world did they build these pyramids? What was the technology? How were they able to move these huge stones and build this amazing structure? Or even today, we can look at the Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the world. It's a half mile high. That's a little bit more than a skyscraper. That's in the sky. We look at human structures like this, past, present, and it's supposed to give us a sense of awe and wonder. That's amazing, humans did that. How much more do we consider this planet Earth? That we've actually got the technology where we can look at it from outside, the angels on view of Earth. Or the stars, the sun, the vast array of animals. God created all of these. to give us an opportunity to have an awe and a wonder. God did create all of these things differently than the way we create our most amazing structures or anything. If we're to build a Lego tower, we're gonna take the Legos and we're gonna have the idea what a tower is, because if we've already seen a tower, we're gonna build it with the hands God gave us and the mind God gave us. The way God created was He spoke. Look, God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let the waters separate, and it was so. Let the earth sprout forth vegetation, and the earth started sprouting forth that vegetation. God said, and it was so. We see over and over again these repeated phrases. He said, he said, he said, and I think the most profound one, and it was so, and it was so, and it was so. God did not have material. He spoke it into existence. It is what we call the creation ex nihilo, out of nothing. That's amazing power. consider it. The power we have to build something like the Burj Khalifa or anything that we can just look at and say, that's amazing how we built that. But we use what God had already given us. When God creates, it's the power of His own proclamation that brings things even more glorious into existence. I wanna meditate there on that power, because it is what we see here. He spoke and it happened. He spoke and it happened. Power is something that, if it's outside of us, we're usually terrified of it. For somebody to have this kind of power, to have a great power over us or next to us, we're usually gonna be scared. A lot of people use power for selfish purposes, and it usually means somebody's gonna be abused, and this world is very much aware of that. We're in power struggles. Friends, look at the God who has all power. He created, and he saw that it was good. The God who has all power is all good. There's no being afraid of this power. There's a submission to this power, there's a rejoicing in this power. It was good, he saw it was good, he saw it was good, and then notice, Verse 31, and God saw everything he had made. And behold, the end emphasis, it was very good. Francis Schaeffer in his book, The God Who Was There, that's where I ripped off the title of the first point. A book worthy of reading. He says, regardless of man's systems, he has to live in God's world. That's worthy of meditation. Our own systems that we want to create, the systems that are out there that terrify us, we're in God's world. He hasn't backed away from this world. He's gotten more involved because he walked among us and now he indwells saints with his Holy Spirit. It's good, and he has all power. It's refreshing. One of the things I want us to see from this passage is God's creation has goodness in order. God said it was so. And even the days are ordered in a way that the first three days are declaring light and darkness, changing the expanses of waters, and then creating earth. Well, then he fills those. He creates the planets. He creates the fish and the birds to fill those water expanses. And then he creates mammals to welcome the earth and humans. There's a beautiful order to all of creation. And I believe one of the reasons Moses is writing this, according to the Holy Spirit, is to help us see this is the world God created because this is not the world we live in anymore. Right? It's kind of confusing. Our world does not have the same goodness and order. John Calvin describes this world as it is now, as a glorious ruin. It still has the markings of God's glory, it still has the markings of order, it has the markings of goodness, but we have corrupted it with our own sin. We need to give an explanation. Why isn't the world we experience today nothing like this good, ordered world? It's because of our sin. We who were put in charge of this world, we who were put in the place of having dominion, we corrupted it. One of the reasons Moses wrote this creation account was that there were other creation accounts. And if you ever read them, they're kinda crazy. Because this is what a pagan does. He looks at his world and thinks, whatever this world looks like, that's what the gods look like. And however I feel, that's what the gods are like. And so they looked at this chaos, world of danger and uncertainty, and they said, this must be the way God created it. God gave us this word from Genesis 1 to make clear, no, this is not the way God created the world. He's good, he's orderly. That is what pagans do, that's what non-Christians do. We take how we feel or the way we experience things and we just say, well, God must be like this. Christians, we need to be careful doing that. We need to be careful of saying God must agree with what I think, feel, experience. No, the goal of the Christian life is to fit in His world, to receive His truth, to let His word correct, or as Jesus says, deny yourself, carry a cross and follow Him. The wise life is one built on the solid ground that says what God says is true. What God says is who I really am as a human being and how to live as a human being and how to enjoy life as a human being. The lie of this world says you need to be true to yourself, how you feel, how you desire, what you want. Jesus says, no, I came to heal who you are as a sinner. I came to heal and correct and give you, I had a friend I used to work with, and he liked using the phrase more better. I realize that's not good English, but it's true. God's ways are not just more better, they're excellent. They're higher than our ways. God, who created us in His image, is restoring us to His image. That's what we saw in Ephesians 4. Brothers and sisters, friends, the God who created this world good and orderly then promise, I'm going to put it back in order. I'm going to put my people in this place. And if you go back to Deuteronomy, God says to Israel in Deuteronomy, I want you to have goodness and order because when the nations come, they're gonna say, wow, what a wise God you have. What a wise God you have because things are orderly. But Israel never fulfilled that. When Jesus came, he taught true wisdom. He taught true goodness. He taught true order. And now we as a church are supposed to be the people who when the nations come and see, when the non-believers come and see, they say, wow, what a wise God these people know because of the goodness and order. I think when you consider the church as a church militant, not quite yet the church of rest. We'll get to the rest, maybe. that God has designed this church, every church, to be a beachhead to reestablish goodness and order. Yes, we're saved sinners, we're scoundrels, we're thieves who've been saved by God, but we've also been regenerated and we have the Holy Spirit to now order our lives according to Christ. Church members, those interested in membership, other believers are gonna go to some other church Pray for the church. That is the hope of revival. Pray for the church to once again be so focused on submitting to the word of God, to be so focused on believing and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to hear when he gives the command, it's not burdensome. It's freeing. When he gives the command, it's wise. to help us actually be the human God designed us to be. We should be focused on how, as a church, we're all growing up together. The language we ended with in Ephesians 4, 16, we're all growing up together, not to the measure of what we put forward to other people. That's legalism. No, we're all working together to grow up to the measure of Christ, the one true perfect man. the one true God-glorifying, God-loving man. He calls us to be renewed as new image bearers. And we must do it together. The God who is there, he is the God who creates. Our last point, the God who speaks. We've already looked at, and God said, and God said. We can also look at where he calls things. He names things to show dominion. He names the light day and the darkness night. He speaks to create things out of nothing. His word is powerful. But I wanna draw our attention to verse 26. This is where he speaks to us. And there's two parts to this. This is very important for us. Because he's talking, about us, and then he talks to us. This shows how, with the end stress of this passage, with the Hebrew poetry being used to declare one of the most essential truths about who we are, we're important to God. Remember the call to worship. Who are we that you're mindful of? There's a unique way in which God puts his attention upon us, but it's because of how he created us. Notice the first thing is what God says to himself about us. This is what's unique about humanity. God ordered that the fish and the birds, that they would multiply. He gives them a blessing, but here's what's most unique about humans. He actually says something to himself about us. Let us make man in our image. after our likeness. We're gonna think about that more next week as we think more about man, but it's very important. When you think about images in the Bible, it says don't do it. Images are usually something pretty negative in scripture. The reason being, we don't make images of God because God's already provided his image. I'm looking at 150 of them. We're image bearers. We don't make an image in a way that we think we can help create something that's gonna represent God. No, God says, you represent me. I created this world as this good, orderly creation, and now you go exercise dominion, not my own dominion, but with the power of God putting together, putting things in his good order. This is a high position. Yeah, we're lower than the angels. The order of being is very clear, God, angels, man. But angels were not made in the image of God. Angels were not designed by God for his son to become like them in every way. The angels in their rebellion have no plan of salvation that we know of. But man, he's mindful of us. Because he created us with this special position. The inner dialogue of God that could point to the Trinity. It's at least a plural of majesty to declare how great he is. Let us make man in our image. We are the highest creation. And when he says we're to exercise his rule, his dominion, we have a job to do. And then verse 27, the heightened language. He created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. It's very important. That repetition draws out that this is a significant truth. The most important thing about you isn't what's unique to you as a human being. It's what we all have. This is the basis for love your neighbor as yourself. Because you're just alike. You don't love somebody because of what's special about them and unique to them, you love them because of what's special about them is God made them in his image just like you. And that third line adds an extra layer of emphasis. Male and female. We have a problem with prejudice. We have a problem with trying to figure out, all right, who would we like to not treat like our neighbor? And the history of the world is not treating women as equal to men, and so God here, at the very beginning, in his grand declaration, the highest declaration of man at this point, in this poetry, it's a great declaration, male and female. We'll talk about that more next week. Notice, after saying we have this special position, We had this special purpose. Now God speaks to them, verse 28. God blessed them. Now look up, full stop. When you usually think of blessing, what do you think about? A gift, something you receive. We think of something that we get to use and enjoy. God blesses man with a law. How exciting is that? What do you think about this? God's law is good. We just need to use it the way God wants us to use it. God blesses man with five commands, and they all interrelate. God blesses man with a job description. God blessed them and said to them, We were created to hear him, we were created to know him, be known by him. Here's the declarations. Notice the first three are clearly intertwined. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Okay, be fruitful, that could be pretty generic. We could talk about making sure the trees are blossoming properly. We're gardeners. Okay, but it says be fruitful and multiply. Okay, that now is narrowing in the exact kind of fruitfulness he's talking about. That means procreation. And then multiply, that makes it even more obvious. He wants the earth to be full of image bearers. This is an incredible blessing. Notice how these are not confusing commands at all. Notice, we oftentimes think God's law, it's so high, I've gotta reach over to the heavens to figure it out, or it's so low, I need to dig down into Sheol, or I need a coder ring, or some extra kind of tool to know what God really wants. No, this is pretty obvious. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Adam and Eve, you have the wonderful blessing of procreating and filling the earth with more image bearers. Anyone who has ever had a job where the boss or the instructions were unclear can rejoice at how good God is in giving really clear commands. You know what your job is. We've seen the God who was there, he created this whole world as fruitful, and now he gives man a command. Just to be clear, I don't read Vogue magazine. I was listening to a podcast that was discussing something on Vogue magazine, and this lady was, again, I didn't read it, this is all third-hand, alright. So the lady, as I understood this podcast, who I trust, she was saying, I don't know if I should have a child in this world where we're going to have a food shortage. I don't know if I should bring another child into this earth because I just don't think this earth can sustain all the life we're creating. God who created this world and made it fruitful. And if we could just imagine how fruitful this world was before God had to decreate it in the flood. The desert was lush in Africa. The land everywhere was full. There's no shortage of food according to God's provision. Notice what's going on. The lady who doesn't acknowledge God at all, but she looks and she just says, this world doesn't have enough food. And what she's saying is, the God who created this world, he can't sustain us. Therefore, I'm going to be disobedient. I'm not going to have children. She made having children an ethical decision, where really the ethical decision is, why wouldn't you have children? God commanded it, it's the creation mandate. If you're a married husband and wife, this is something that if God opens the womb, he blesses. I think we see there in that Vogue magazine, honest confession. A lack of faith usually is the source of our refusal to obey. A lack of faith in God and what he promised is usually the source of our lack of obedience. While we're on the topic, what a gift motherhood is. What a gift that God designed the female to have a womb that would then form image bearers for God's glory. What a blessing! It's not a burden or a curse, as this world tells you. Yeah, it now has a difficulty because of sin, but God designed woman himself to be able to procreate and to give birth, to fill this earth with other God-glorifying image-bearers. He even created himself to dwell, to become like us. To be clear, You do not need to be a mother to be a true woman. That relationship doesn't complete you. Your relationship with Christ does, but we need to make sure regarding this essential truth that the Bible teaches that motherhood is to be celebrated and held up in great honor. The first three commands clearly relate to one another. Fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. And subdue it. The way to subdue the whole earth is by filling it with other image bearers that are gonna exercise dominion. And there we see that word dominion, rule. There's a power we have. There's an obligation we have. This really comes down to the one very important Christian word, stewardship. We're not owners of this world, we are stewards of it. We have a great responsibility of taking what God has said and putting things in order according to it. What an incredible position to be an instrument of God's own glory. And yet here we are, the human race, selfish, self-glorifying, self-absorbed. Romans 1 walks through the sin of man because it says clearly God has manifested himself. He has made known about himself what is true for all people, but we suppress it. And then we exchange his glory for glorifying anything and everything but God. From things he created to our own desires. What a twisted problem we have. We take what God has given us and instead of glorifying him with it, we glorify ourselves. That's the problem. The solution is pretty amazing if we go on to Romans three. God sent his own son to be the one who glorifies God. To die the death we deserve for not glorifying God. By taking on himself the very wrath of God, so the wrath of God is satisfied and now he is righteous because he has fulfilled his promise. God speaks. Let's go back to that. Think about the power of God speaking. He spoke things into existence, day and night. Stars, moons, planets. He spoke things into existence. He spoke a promise to Satan that we got to hear, I am going to have you crushed, to reverse this curse. God spoke and the earth de-created. Flooding happened all over the earth. God spoke and the rebellion at the Tower of Babel was dispersed because no one could talk to each other again. God spoke and Abraham was blessed. God spoke and Sarah had a child too old and barren, Isaac. God spoke and told Abraham, stop. I have provided the sacrifice. God spoke in Israel after he spoke plague after plague after plague. He's destroyed Egypt with his own declaration, and now his people go out, and then he speaks in water's part, his people walk through dry land, and the waters crush Egypt, the whole army. God spoke, and at Mount Sinai, the world trembled, and the people were afraid. Because the Holy God came in contact with man. And then God spoke. And the Word became flesh. He dwelt among us. So that when He died and said, it is finished. Salvation's accomplished. Now. If you believe in him, if you're convicted of sin, of being that self-glorifying, self-absorbed, self-amusing only, listen to what God says of that same power. If you believe in Jesus, the same power, he declares, I forgive you. The same power that created all things is the same word of power He declares, if you believe in His Son, I forgive you. If you're not a Christian, convicted of sin, say, Father, I believe in Jesus, forgive me. Friends, we recognize that loving ourselves only leads to destruction. If we keep gratifying the love of self and amusement with pornography, you're keeping yourself from what God has given you, eyes to see his glory, a life to enjoy, a spouse, and the intimate act of sex and marriage. Realize the Bible promises, you will reap what you sow. Self-love is self-destructive. If you keep gratifying the self-absorption that I just want to invest in myself and not loved ones, you're not, you'll be lonely. You'll be left alone. You will reap what you sow. If we keep gratifying self-medication and consumption, whatever we find comfort in, the pain you're trying to cover, it'll only get worse. We'll reap what we sow. The good news today is that God's word says I can, I will forgive you. I'll restore you, I'll wash you, I'll renew you. You can again begin knowing me and loving me and enjoy my love. Because my son has come. As we consider these three truths. Glorify God with the life he has given you. This is the highest calling. To know God and be known by God. the chief in demand to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Live toward Him as the only way to be truly happy and satisfied. If you think about stewardship, there's two resources we'll think about this week, we'll think about others next week. Money and time. Money and time, that is a great way of looking, what do I really love? Where am I really investing myself? Where am I putting my priorities? Calendars and checkbooks. Have I prioritized loving God with my whole heart as a cheerful giver? To give to the things of His will? Or am I merely spending things on my own? Do I think of my money as my own or am I a steward realizing that everything I have is for His glory? Time. It's actually one of the wonderful things. We all have the same amount of time. How are we spending it? How are we using God's time for his glory? When we think about that subdue and fill the earth, one of the things I read in the sabbatical is very helpful. Basil, Caesarea, fourth century church father, he says that that command corresponds with the Great Commission. They overlap. So you might actually be single and say, we're not able to have children. And you're looking at that saying, I can't fill that commandment. Well, Basil's interpretation, which I agree with, is you actually can fill the earth today, all of us, by making disciples, by evangelizing those image bearers who are in rebellion against God, by giving them the hope of the gospel that restores them to be image bearers that will glorify God. We all and fulfill the great work that's clear from God. Proclaim the gospel, make disciples. I didn't know if I had time for this. I have a fourth bonus point. I haven't preached in six months, folks, come on. All right, amen, we're going on. Chapter two, verse one. 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 blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. It's finished. It was complete. It was good. Ruined it. Notice it's not God said it was so, God saw it was good, it's just finished. It was done, it was done, it was finished, and he rested. Those are the key themes here. What's also missing is there's no morning and no evening. This day doesn't seem to have an end. But at the same time, it's very clear that our lives are supposed to be ordered around a seven-day week, as it is, or should be. God rested from all of his work. And I believe the end point of God's rest is that man and God are now at rest with one another. There's a right relationship. There's a rejoicing in the rest of God for Adam and Eve until they ruin it. And to jump ahead without doing a lot of the unpacking theologically of what happens here, Jesus, when he comes down from heaven, he declares, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. The day was made for man, not God. God didn't need rest. The day was created for man to know we can rest in God. The day was created for man to know our ultimate end, our ultimate purpose, the ultimate goal in life is to rest with God. And Hebrews tells us, Moses could not enter into that rest or lead us into that rest. Joshua could not enter or lead us into that rest. But Jesus, who provided the once and for all sacrifice in the true holy presence of God, he now invites us in at the right hand of the Father and says, enter my rest. He washes us, renews us. It reminds me of the great quote of Augustine. Our hearts are restless. We're truly restless. But God says, I will give you rest. Not by the works of your hands, but by the works of my Son. Not by you fixing things internally, but by the Holy Spirit coming inside. Today, rejoice. Believe in Jesus. Enter that rest. And today, which is literally Sunday, that holy day, that was Saturday. But what's amazing about what happens in the new creation, Jesus rose on the first day of the week, why? Because it's a new creation. It's a new beginning for us to order our lives around rejoicing together with the saints. So as we prepare for the Lord's Supper, which we're gonna take on the Lord's day, it's a reminder for us. not because of what we've done, but because of what Christ has done, we can enter into rest. We can rest in the work of Christ, knowing he has forgiven us, he's purchased us. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you, Lord, for your good word to us, because it shows us how we are not good or orderly. We can trust you to be the God who redeems us because you keep your promises. We thank you that you are not the distant God, but you're the good God who's come to save us. Help us to rejoice in Christ, to trust his promise that he will wash us, renew us, and give us the rest we long for. In his name we pray, amen.