Rest - Part 1

Rhythms of Grace  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  27:31
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NOTE:
This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.
Engagement
Most measures of time that we use today are based on the movement of astronomical objects. For instance, one day is the amount of time that is takes the earth to make one rotation and a year is the amount of time it takes the earth to make one one revolution around the sun. Even a month is roughly equal to the amount of time it takes the moon to revolve around the earth.
But a week consisting of seven days is a whole different story. There is nothing observable in nature or mathematically that would provide a basis for that. So not surprisingly throughout history there have been a number of efforts to change that:
Early on the Roman Empire used an eight day week which was based on the cycle of holding market every 8 days. It was not until 45 BC, that they adopted the Julian calendar consisting of 7 days. However both existed side by side up until Constantine banned the use of the 8 day cycle in 321 AD.
The most recent attempt to throw out the seven day week occurred under Stalin in Russia in 1929. He established a five day week in which every worker was given one of those days as a rest day. The system was designed to make sure that on any given day 80% of the population was working. Since people didn’t have the same days off as their family and friends, the system proved to be very frustrating so a couple years later the week was extended to six days, with every sixth day a rest day. But that didn’t work out much better so by 1941 the Russians gave up and reverted back to a seven day week.
Tension
Based on what we’re going to learn today about the spiritual rhythm of rest, we shouldn’t be surprised that the seven day week has survived throughout history. That is because it is rooted in the creation.
However, even though the rhythm of the seven day week has survived, from what I’ve observed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the associated rhythm of rest is the rhythm of grace that is least practiced among those who are disciples of Jesus.
We live in a culture that encourages and even celebrates productivity and busyness. So a spiritual rhythm that requires us to go against that cultural norm can feel uncomfortable or even unattainable for many of us. I think that is demonstrated by how uncomfortable a lot of us are right now because we’ve been forced into times of rest because of all the restrictions due to the coronavirus.
Because I think so many of us struggle when it comes to rhythm of rest, I’m going to spend a couple of weeks on this last rhythm because I think it is going to take that amount of time and focus to understand the Biblical foundation for rest, its importance and to develop some practical ways to incorporate it into our lives. I’ll begin today by taking a look at the Old Testament roots of this rhythm and then next week we’ll explore how it is addressed in the New Testament.
Truth
If you’ve been with us the last couple of months, you know that we’ve been in a sermon series where we’ve been learning about eight different “Rhythms of Grace” that God want us to build into our lives in order to become more like Jesus and grow in our relationship with Him. So far we’ve taken a look at these seven rhythms:
Meditating on God’s Word
Prayer
Fasting
Solitude
Stewardship
Serving
Community
As I mentioned a moment ago, this rhythm of rest is rooted in the creation. So let’s begin there. Go ahead and turn to the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, and follow along as I begin with the last verse in chapter 1 - verse 31:
Genesis 1:31–2:3 ESV
31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 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. 3 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.
At the end of chapter 1, we see that God had finished His work of creation and he looked on it and determined that it was “very good”. That work had taken six days and now on the seventh day, God takes time to rest. God doesn’t rest because He needs to. Because He is not limited by any human attributes, He never gets tired. The Hebrew verb translated “rest” in this passage simply means to “cease” or to “stop”. Because He was finished with His work of creation, God just stopped that work. And from what we see here in this passage, I get the idea that as God rested, He looked upon the creation, which He has just pronounced “very good” and takes great satisfaction in His work.
But the main reason God rests, as we’ll see more fully in a moment, is to model rest for Adam and Eve and for every human being who would follow them so that they would understand that rest is a part of the created order and should be part of the rhythm of our lives. On day six God creates man and on the very next day, He creates rest that is to be a regular part of man’s life.
And God takes two actions regarding the seventh day:
He blesses it. God didn’t set aside a day of rest to be a burden to His people or to enslave them. Rather He provides us with one day in seven to be a day of blessing that is for our good.
He makes it holy. This is the very first time that we find the word “holy” in the Bible. It is a word that means “to be set apart” or even to “elevate” or “exalt”. That means that the seventh day is a day that is to be set apart for us to be devoted to and focused on God and to elevate and exalt Him.
The next mention of the seventh day occurs in Exodus 16 in connection with God providing manna for the Israelites as they wander in the desert. There God commands the people to gather twice as much on the sixth day because the seventh day is to be a “holy Sabbath to the Lord” (Exodus 16:23) and there will be no manna to gather then. This is the first time in the Bible that we find the word Sabbath, which is formed from the same word that was translated “rest” back in Genesis 2. Thus it was a day to rest from labor.
The next reference to the Sabbath comes in the Ten Commandments. We find the Ten Commandments recorded for us in two places in the Bible. The first place is in Exodus 20 where God first gives the commandments to Moses to give to the people. The second place is in Deuteronomy 5, where Moses recounts the commandments to the people as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. Since there is an importance difference between those two passages when it comes to the commandment regarding the Sabbath, we’ll look at both of them. We’ll begin in Exodus 20:
Exodus 20:8–11 ESV
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Now let’s look at the command in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 5:12–15 ESV
12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
The two version of the command open with different words - “remember” in Exodus and “observe” in Deuteronomy. Although there is a slight nuance between those words, they essentially mean the same thing. What is significant, however, is verse 15 in Deuteronomy 5. There a second aspect of the Sabbath is revealed. In addition to stopping work, it is to be a time when the people remember how God redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.
I know what some of you are probably thinking right now. This is a command from the Old Testament, so it really doesn’t apply to me as a New Testament Christian. Let me say that you are right - to a degree. This is the only one of the Ten Commandments that is not explicitly restated in the New Testament. However, as we’ll see more fully next week, Jesus certainly observed the Sabbath and He never in any way contradicts the principle of Sabbath rest. So while we are not required to observe the Sabbath in a legalistic sense, the principle of Sabbath rest, which was modeled for us by God in His creation is still relevant.
Application
In these passages, we find...

THREE ESSENTIALS FOR BIBLICAL REST:

One day out of every seven
The overall principle here is “work six, rest one”. That’s the pattern prescribed in the Ten Commandments and which in turn is rooted in the pattern God established at creation.
Unfortunately that overall principle has sometimes been overshadowed in our day by those who want to argue over which day is to be observed as the Sabbath. But from what I’ve learned in my study, it seems like God is a lot more concerned about whether we observe the general principle of resting one day out of every seven than He is about which day we do that.
Interestingly, in the Bible, the names of the days of the week are never even mentioned. That is because the Jews merely called them the first day, second day, etc. up through the sixth day and then the seventh day was called the Sabbath. The names that we now associate with each day of the week likely have their origins with the Babylonians who associated the days of the week with the sun, moon and five known planets. Later the Romans modified those names to reflect the names of their Gods and our current English names for the days of the week have been derived from those. So it’s really kind of pointless to argue about which day of the week we are to observe the Sabbath.
At creation, God designed man so that we function most effectively physically, emotionally and spiritually when we follow the pattern that God modeled for us at that time. I don’t want to get too legalistic here, but it seems pretty clear to me that it is God’s intention that we build a rhythm of 24 uninterrupted hours of rest into our lives each week. When we do that is not nearly as important as just making sure we do it.
Stop working
As I pointed out earlier, the verb translated “rest” in Genesis 2 means to “cease” or to “stop”. And in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, the command concerning the Sabbath indicates that we are to stop our “work”. Unfortunately, by the time Jesus comes to the earth, the Jewish leaders had made this a lot more complicated than it needed to be, coming up with all kinds of rules to determine what constituted work.
But the word translated “work” in both places we find the command about the Sabbath, simply means “employment” or the manner of work in which a person earns a living. The idea here is that we are to take a 24 hour break each week from those activities that are associated with whatever we do to earn a living.
In today’s culture that means that I don’t make or take phone calls or texts that have to do with my occupation, I don’t compose, read, or respond to work emails. I don’t do work at home that relates to my job. And to the extent it’s possible I don’t even think about my job.
I know I’ve shared this with you before, but right out of college I went to work for a national CPA firm, where it became impossible for me to incorporate this principle into my life because of the demands of my employer. So even though I enjoyed that job and had the potential to make a lot of money doing it, I eventually had to find another job.
But I sure don’t follow this principle perfectly even today. When I was working on the message this week, God impressed on me that I still have some work to do here, so I’m going to take some further steps to disengage from my work more completely for one day each week.
Trust God
We see this in the Deuteronomy version of the Sabbath commandment. The people were to use the Sabbath as an occasion to remember how God had released them from their slavery in Egypt. That was something that He had done completely in His own strength and power without any help whatsoever from the people.
Next week, we’re going to talk more about how this aspect of the Sabbath is reflected in our own salvation in which we are saved completely apart from anything that we can contribute. But for now, what I want us to consider is how resting from our work one day a week is a manifestation of how much we really trust God.
Because we live in a world where most of the provision we receive comes from the work that we do, we can very easily begin to assume that we bear the responsibility of taking care of ourselves. That was probably even more true in the ancient times where none of the people in the surrounding nations took a day off because their survival was dependent on working 24/7. But God wanted His people to live differently as a demonstration that they were trusting in Him, and not in what they could achieve. And that is still true today.
Rest is a counter-cultural declaration of trust. When we take off a day to rest we are proclaiming with our lives that we trust in God to provide for our needs. Biblical rest is a means to drive me back to the place where I acknowledge that God is bigger than I am.
I realize that much of what I’ve shared so far seems to only be relevant to those if us who have a paying job. So if your a mom who doesn’t work outside the home, or you’re retired, this might not seem like it applies to you. On the other hand, for those of you kids who are in school, I’m pretty sure that you don’t mind at all taking off a day from your school work. But we all need this kind of Biblical rest regardless of whether or not we have a paying job.
Next week, after we’ve had a chance to see what the New Testament teaches about this rhythm of rest, I’ll be able to give you some more ideas about how we can all incorporate this rhythm of rest into our lives. But let me close this morning by sharing three ways we can do that based on what we’ve learned this morning:

How to incorporate rest into my life

Rest my body
I enjoy lifting weights at the gym on a regular basis, but I know that in order for that to help me get stronger, I need to rest my muscles after I use them to lift. So I have to rotate muscle groups from day to day so that my muscles have enough time to recover before I lift with them again. That is just one indication that even though God wasn’t tired after six days of creation, He has designed our human bodies so that they do require physical rest.
We get part of the rest we need on a daily basis when we engage in the rhythm of sleep. But our bodies also require a longer period of physical rest each week. That is going to look different for all of us depending on the kind of work we do and our season of life.
For those of you with young kids at home, that might mean that the whole family takes a nap on Sunday afternoon. Even though most of my work isn’t all that physical there are times when I need to do that myself.
If you have a job like mine that isn’t physically demanding most of the time, then your body might actually benefit by doing some light physical activity like going for a walk or doing some yard work. And that kind of physical activity can also have some other benefits that I’ll talk about in a moment.
Recharge my soul
In Biblical terms, my soul includes my mind, my will and my emotions. And I need to take time each week to refresh that part of who I am.
No matter how much you like your job, there are going to be some things in that job that are going to tax you intellectually and emotionally. I know that is certainly true for me. I love what I do for the most part, but there are some parts of what I do that really drain me emotionally. And even as much as I love digging into Scripture, my mind needs a rest from that at times.
Even if you’re a student, or you’re a mom that stays at home or you’re retired, you need this kind of rest, too. You need some time to unplug from your daily routine in order to recharge your mind and your emotions. So men, if your wife doesn’t work outside the home, it is your responsibility to make sure that she has some time to recharge during the week. You may not be able to make that happen for a whole day, but you need make sure she gets some uninterrupted time to engage in those activities that will be refreshing for her emotions and her mind.
I know for me this is where some kind of physical activity can really be helpful. Sometimes going for a hike or working on a project at home that can provide a sense of accomplishment is just what I need to recharge.
Again, this is probably going to look a bit different for each of us, which is why we need to be really careful about being too legalistic like the Jewish religious leaders and coming up with a bunch of rules that govern what we can and can’t do.
Refocus my spirit
My spirit is that part of me that communes with God. And while hopefully my human spirit is interacting with God’s Holy Spirit on a continuous basis, we all need to set aside time periodically to consciously refocus on God.
It’s interesting to me that even though we tend to associate the Sabbath with worship, there is actually nothing in the commands that we looked at this morning that directly connects the Sabbath with worship.
But here is where the command to keep the Sabbath holy comes in. As we said earlier, keeping the Sabbath holy means that it must be set apart to focus on God. So Biblical rest is much more than just taking a day off work. It is also a time for me to focus on who God is and what He has done in my life in the same way that the Israelites were to remember how God had freed them from their slavery in Egypt.
That doesn’t mean that we need to spend the entire day reading the Bible and praying. But it does mean that we should use our time of rest to refocus - to get our eyes off of self and put them on God.
Certainly corporate worship is an important aspect of that process. I don’t know about you, but there have been a lot of times in my life when I have arrived at church burdened by my circumstances because I am so self-focused. But once I begin to worship with others, God uses that time to begin to re-direct my focus from my needs to His goodness and faithfulness.
Again, I can’t possibly give you a list of all the different ways that you can use the Sabbath to re-focus your spirit, but I will say that it does rewire some intentionality. It certainly requires more than watching TV or playing video games.
Action
Since I can’t physically give you a sermon outline today with your homework assignment, let me share one way all of us can make practical application of this message. Will you join me this week in making an honest assessment of your weekly schedule to see if you’ve built in an uninterrupted 24 hour period of rest each week. And if you haven’t, will you take some concrete steps to begin to build that Sabbath rest into your life?
Inspiration
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