John 4:16-18

John 4:16-18 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

Mark 12:24-27 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising — have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

When Jesus stayed behind in the Temple and Mary and Joseph questioned his actions, He answered

, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49 NKJV)

Now as

Jesus fulfills the Father's will, He defends his activities on the Sabbath, saying: My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.

Facing hi doubters and persecutors,

Jesus affirms the biblical truth that from the beginning of time, God has been about the work of saving and redeeming his creation. He points to the book of Moses, reiterating God's declaration that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living and not the dead. We see this confirmed elsewhere in Christ's ministry as in the story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man who cries out to Abraham for help. Lazarus rests in a place of blessing in Sheol, where the living spirits abide, while the rich man abides in Hades, a place of torment without hope. God's redemption plan, formed from the beginning of time, reveals his mercy and grace poured out upon those who are yet alive. He is slow to anger and quick to forgive, not willing that any should perish; nonetheless, He

is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

God rested on the Sabbath when He saw his perfect creation, but when Adam and Eve walked away from that perfection into sin, as God knew they would, He set a Salvation plan into motion that depended upon the work of his Son, even on the Sabbath. With the cross before him, Jesus could not rest on the Sabbath for He was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, performing his Father's work on Earth.

As the only begotten Son of God, the Holy One, the Day of Rest, and the Lord of the Sabbath; Jesus fulfilled the Law. Consequently the writer of Hebrews reminds us to enter into that rest and not to reject God's gift because of a hard heart or unbelief. Those who questioned, persecuted, rejected, and reviled Jesus for claiming his position as Messiah had eyes that did not see, ears that did not hear the Living Word who walked among them in power and authority through the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the day of Christ's visitation, so it is for us today. Whosoever will may come, for God sacrificed his dear Son as an atonement that we might enter the rest prepared for us in Christ Jesus: Our Sabbath, our resting place. To experience God's holy rest, we must cease from our own works by fully accepting and embracing Christ's finished work at the cross. Jesus is the righteous one, the acceptable one: He paid the price we could not pay to give the gift we could not earn: eternal peace and rest, hidden with Christ in God. Therefore, we walk in joy through the trials and the blessings of life by putting our trust and faith in Christ's work and the resurrection power of the same Holy Spirit who raised him from the dead. In Christ, we live now and forever. In him, we rest in his sufficiency and not our own. In him we are the blood-bought children of God, a royal priesthood, a holy generation. Because Jesus Messiah ransomed us from sin, we stand forever righteous before the Father: adopted sons and daughters in a royal family, co-inheritors of the riches of the Godhead. Jesus revealed truth, He lived to obey the Father, and He willingly went to the cross to confirm God's salvation plan for a stubborn and willful creation. As the beloved children of God we are no longer captives in Sheol. Christ's shed blood brought us into the holiest place of all: the very presence of God where we cry, Abba, Father. May we rest, rejoice, and serve as we share the Word of Life!