Sabbath Rest

The Sabbath: An Invitation to Rest

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Genesis 2:2-3

“And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

Photo by Jessica Delp on Unsplash

God sanctified this day and not any other day because on it He rested from all of His work and what He made. This is clearly pointing our attention toward what God did and not what man is doing. It is His work, it is His day, it is His creation; He did it and sanctified it. Therefore, it is up to us to keep this day, and no other day, as holy. On this day, God rested from all of His works because creation was finished. When God saw everything that He had made, He called it very good. Why? Because it was perfect. Everything was as it should be, and it all functioned in perfect harmony according to His will. Therefore, the seventh day–the day sanctified by God–is a sign of this completion, of this perfection. On this day, we acknowledge and worship the One by Whom “all things were created and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things exist”(Colossians 1:15-17). Yes, on this sanctified day, we cease from our work and worship the One Who existed before us, through Whom we came into existence, and by Whom we are being renewed in His likeness. Shabbat is a sacred reminder, a covenant, “a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you”(Exodus 31:13). On this holy day, we also cease from our works to recall and celebrate this covenant, which reminds us that He is the author and perfecter of creation. This covenant also assures us that just as He completed creation in the beginning, He will once again bring it back to perfection. We find rest knowing that–even though we are surrounded by chaos and darkness–we stand in the presence of Him who separated the light from the darkness, who spoke and transformed the chaos to order. One day a week He calls us to set aside the work of our own hands, to step out from the chaos, so that we are reminded that the God who formed us from the dust and breathed life into us is the One who alone sustains us–not our jobs, not our entertainment, not our pleasures, not the work of our own hands, and not our human relationships.

Therefore, on this day we seek out this rest by deliberately separating ourselves from everything that consumes our time, our energy, and our attention. Six days a week, we are compelled to meet the demands of our taskmasters–be they physical or spiritual–but on this holy day, God invites us to separate ourselves from these, and we eagerly do so, knowing that it is the Creator, not the creation, that restores us, fills us, feeds us, sustains us, and gives us rest all around. Not only are we compelled to meet the weekly demands or our taskmasters, but we voluntarily fill up any spare moments with additional pursuits, pleasures, and obligations. By His goodness, God grants us the freedom and the time to pursue these pleasures and fulfill these obligations. Six days a week we spin, toil, build, and pursue, but on the seventh He commands us to cease. Why a command? Because He knows that we are creatures driven by success and accomplishment, which are not evil in and of themselves, but left unbridled, easily become the sole objects of our attention and worship. The Creator knows His creation, how easily we are seduced by ambition and enslaved by addiction–addiction to work, pleasure, and busyness. We are so consumed by such things that we are constantly driving ourselves, each other, and creation into exhaustion, illness, and spiritual depravity. Consequently, this leads us deeper into addiction, deeper into the feedback loop of despair. It is because of this that Paul writes,

Romans 8:22-23

“For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves…”

This is where we find ourselves today. We appear to be more advanced than any other civilization in history, seemingly closer to the pinnacle of innovation than we ever imagined, but at what cost? We are “progressing” quicker than we can keep up, and the more we accomplish the more this insatiable desire to have more spreads like cancer. Has all this innovation made us better human beings? Look around. Depression, anxiety, and other metal health issues appear to be on the rise and are beginning to manifest themselves in new ways. Across the internet these issues are even being celebrated and normalized. We are at war with ourselves and with each other. Violence is becoming the norm, and even if we are not directly affected by it, we seem to be growing increasingly numb to its presence. Even as we become more impacted by this, as we feel ourselves and the fabric of our societies unraveling  each day, we refuse to stop. We push forward under the delusion that if we just work harder, we will find the holy grail we have all been desperately seeking after: rest. Yet the more we distance ourselves from our Maker, from the One who is the Lord of the Sabbath, the farther we find ourselves from what our souls desperately need, and that is His rest. Jesus also witnessed this depravity amongst His own brethren, which is why we hear Him extend the following invitation to rest:

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The Lord of the Sabbath has come to this earth to extend His invitation, or better yet, to reestablish His command to rest. “Come,” He says, because He is inviting us, calling us to rise up and join Him. He does not say, “I will come to you when it is convenient for you, when you can fit Me in your schedule, or on a day you set apart for yourself.” No, He says “come to Me,” because He is inviting us into His sanctified space and time, a time established and set apart by Him and the Father in the beginning. He is Lord of the Sabbath, because He initiated this time, and He was the first to rest from His work and to be refreshed on this day (Exodus 31:17). Now He invites us to do as He did… to do as He does. Hebrews tells us that, “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His”(Hebrews 4:9).

He is the One who invites us to willingly cease from our own labors, from our wearisome efforts and the daily toiling, so that He might sustain us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Ultimately, this time is when we find relief and refreshing from the curse that has plagued mankind since being expelled from the Garden. Since that time, man and woman have been plagued and wearied by enmity, strife, sorrow, pain, unfulfilled desire, subjection, endless toil filled with thorns, thistles, and sweat (Genesis 3:15-19). All of these terms are used to describe humanity’s existence since being ousted from the Garden, ousted from God’s rest. Now, Jesus is calling us to return to the Garden, to the time of Rest that was and will once again be. Until then, we are invited weekly to experience this rest, this sanctified time, this separation from the world and all its demands.

So, Jesus invites us to “come and take.” Take what? He says to take His yoke upon ourselves and learn from Him. This is what Sabbath is, a time of refreshing and of learning. It is not a time of sitting around and waiting for time to pass, as many believe it to be. On this day we cease from our works and open ourselves to His work. We open ourselves so that He might first do His work in us, then we learn from Him how to do the work. This may seem confusing because the Sabbath is about resting, so how can we be working? On one Sabbath, Jesus was persecuted by His own people for supposedly breaking the Sabbath by healing a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. What was Jesus’ response to their accusations?  “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working”(John 5:17). He tells them He has been working all along. On Sabbath, Jesus has and continues to do the work of the Father. He was not doing His own work, out earning His own paycheck; nor was pursuing His own pleasure, taking the day off to get a round of golf in. He was not working in this manner. What exactly, then, was He doing? He was healing, He was feeding, He was worshipping, He was teaching, He was restoring, He was doing good. In other words, He was removing the yoke of physical and spiritual oppression from people’s lives, and giving them rest. Throughout the Torah, the command to rest includes ensuring others enjoy God’s rest as well. He intentionally did these things on the Sabbath to shake up what Sabbath had become. For many, Sabbath had become a prison. Those who were in power, who held the monopoly on religious practice, were able to rest, while the rest of God’s people were suffering. Therefore, Jesus performed miracles to remind the people of what the Sabbath was and still is: a day in which ALL of God’s people ought to be refreshed and given opportunity to rest.  This is what it was, and this is what it will be in the future –a time of healing, of restoring, of teaching, of worshipping, a time of removing–once and for all–the yoke of oppression from our necks, from our bodies, and from our souls. This is the “work” of the Sabbath.

Therefore, we come to Him on this day, setting aside everything so that we can first experience this healing, this lifting of the yoke, this rest in our own lives. Then, like Jesus, we learn from the Father how to engage in this work ourselves. After replying to His accusers about He and the Father working, Jesus then said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does”(5:19-20). Once we experience the rest given through Sabbath, we learn to do what the Father is doing, just as Christ did and continues to do. In fact, Jesus takes us to Himself and teaches us. This is why Jesus invites us to learn from Him. He teaches us what it means to rest, but He also models what it means to do the work of the Father, which is to lead the world to rest.

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God Gives, But Are We Ready To Receive?

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2 Peter 1:3

“Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

God has given us all that we need… everything for life and godliness. If we do not have it, it’s not because God is lacking, but it’s because there is a breakdown in faith. Somewhere we are not trusting, not approaching, not surrendering, or not obeying. It’s there. The question is, do we believe it’s sufficient enough to bring life? Are we willing to trust God completely and depend on what He is asking of us? God is always ready to give, but are we truly ready to receive? This is the very reason why He brought Israel out into the desert:

Deuteronomy 8:16

“In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.”

There are three important things to pull from this:

a. God pulled them into the wilderness to humble them and test them.

b. He did all of this to do good for them in the end, not to destroy them (though they thought this many times).

c. He did this so that they would know that the process of salvation and godliness had nothing to to do with their power or strength, but it was completely of Him. It did require their trustful obedience. This one is huge for us, because we want to “get through all of this on our own power.” In fact, we see ourselves as “weak” if we ask for help or depend on anyone else. God sees it differently. Our inability to surrender to God in faith, trust, and obedience proves “the weakness” of our faith in His promises. I say “our” because this is a lesson I have learned recently, and that I am continuing to learn every week. Let me explain (take this however you will):

Many people have questioned and criticized me and my family for our observance of sabbath. They say that we have taken up the law and legalism (which in most churches is a no-no). They have voiced their concerns that I have either gone backwards or off the tracks completely. What they fail to understand  is that it has been completely the opposite. Now, more than ever, I see why God commanded the sabbath and requires His people to observe it (Exodus 20:8-11). I also know more now than I did in the past what it means to trust and depend on God, to have faith, and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We do not observe it because it is some ancient rule that God put in place to take away all of the fun in life, nor do we observe it to gain salvation or because it makes me holier than everyone else. These thoughts have never even crossed my mind. Here lies the reason why I observe sabbath:

Exodus 16:23-30

“Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.’ So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul, nor was there any worm in it. And Moses said, ‘Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in a field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.’ And it came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.”

 Did you catch what is happening here? When God promised to provide them with enough for both days, there was enough for both days. They had enough because God keeps His word. Unfortunately, some went out on the seventh day, the sabbath, and tried to gather more. No big deal, right? Honest mistake? Well, let’s see how God responded to this:

Exodus 16:28-29

“Then the Lord said to Moses,’How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? See, the Lord has given you the sabbath; therefore, He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”

When we look at this from only a physical standpoint and through the lenses of our culture, God seems to be an uptight dictator. This is why so many people reject the sabbath along with so many of God’s other commandments, they see them as unnecessary rules. But when we look at this from a spiritual standpoint, then we see why it was and still is so important to God. God asks His people to work six days but rest on the seventh. Why? There are many reasons, but remember, this is a test. He wants to see if they truly depend on Him. Will they trust Him enough to take care of their needs? Will they trust that He will feed them? Based on the fact that many of them went out to gather, the answer is no.

He stands ready to give, yet they lack the faith to receive.

There are many reasons and purposes for the sabbath, but one key one is that it is a day designed to teach us to press into and depend upon our Creator. For me, and for God’s people, sabbath is a day that we put down our own pursuits and attempt to pursue God wholeheartedly, the way He asks us to. It is a day we cease from providing for our own well-being and we turn to the God who provides for all of our needs (spiritual, mental, emotional, and so forth). It is a day when we realize that all of these things we pursue and chase after all week do not sustain us, nor do they truly bring life, but it is God who brings life and gives us the bread we need. For six days we work, we gather, we pursue, we entertain and depend on ourselves; we take care of our needs emotionally, physically, perhaps even spiritually. Sabbath is our reality check, a return to the Source. It’s our day to remember that there is only one who sustains and gives life: God.

With this said, we put things down and say no to many things not because God is going to strike us down if we don’t. We willingly and gladly choose not to work or pursue our own pleasure because it’s our way of acknowledging the fact that none of the things we chase after will fulfill, and that these things often get in the way of our pursuit of God. We do this in faith, believing that God’s Word–all of it– is true, and that His promises are designed to bring life. This day is difficult because it teaches us to trust, and it teaches us to have the type of faith God is looking for—the faith and the trust that I do not need to gather on this day, I do not need to work on this day, I do not need to entertain myself on this day, I do not need to care for my own needs, because this is the day that God will do these things with us. This is the day God WANTS to do these things with us. This is the day that He will do what He said He would do: refresh and sanctify us! He will provide us with what we need, if we are willing to be still and trust. Observing sabbath has truly been a step of faith for me and my family because we had to stop. We have had to surrender many things, “important” things, but we all know now that these things pale in comparison to what we have gained as individuals and as a family. God is truly transforming us.

In doing so, I realize how much I do not depend on God, and how much I truly depend on myself. Through this process, I have learned that it is one thing to read God’s Word, it’s another to understand it, and still another thing to have faith it will come true in my life. God wants our faith, because when He has this, then everything else will follow. Many people refuse the sabbath, oppose it, or render it unnecessary because they do not have the faith that it will draw us near to God; they do not have the faith that it can refresh, heal, and sanctify us (make us holy). Above all they lack the faith that He stands ready to give if only they make themselves ready to receive.

God wants to heal you, as He does all of us, but we have to come to Him in faith… faith that His Word is true and is enough for us. This is not a push so much to start sabbath. It is more a push to faith, faith in what God says and instructs, and sabbath just happens to be one of the central aspects of His Word where He infuses this type of faith. I am only speaking from my experience, and from the experience of those that have gone before us. Besides, like anything else, to jump into sabbath without the understanding of what it is and without the faith that it can heal is useless and even dangerous. Everything hinges on faith, and once we step in faith, that’s when we begin to see the truth in His Word: He stands ready to give us everything we need for life and godliness, if only we stand ready to receive.

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