Sabbath rest was just a glimpse of something better that is on the way.
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Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it
holy. 9 You have six
days each week for your ordinary work,
10 but the seventh day is a
Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in
your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and
daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any
foreigners living among you.
11 For in six days the LORD
made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the
seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set
it apart as holy.
Just about all of us are running on empty and would love to have some time
to rest but it seems like none of us are willing to make rest a priority.
It seems like it should be an easy command to obey but for most of us
resting is the hardest thing to do.
In the beginning God put us in a perfect place of rest in the Garden of Eden but instead of
resting in our relationship with him we decided to take Satan's advice. We
preferred to put our trust in our own efforts rather than trusting God but
instead of improving and becoming a better version of humanity or becoming
gods we became much less than we were. As a result we gave up our place of
perfect rest in the garden. The Bible is the story of God making a way for
us to get back to our rest that can only be found in his presence.
God promised Abraham that his descendants would live in a place of rest
some day, the Promised Land was a place where they would live under God's
blessing, but hundreds of years went by as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all
passed away waiting for God's timing.
God finally brought his people out of slavery to the kingdom of darkness
where they never had any rest. On their way to the land where they should find rest in the land of plenty they sing this song of praise to God after he saved
them from Pharaoh:
God Brought Them Out So He Could Bring Them In
Exodus 15:13,17-18 “With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed. In your might, you guide them to your sacred home.17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain— the place, O LORD, reserved for your own dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established. 18 The LORD will reign forever and ever!”
Don't forget that God's children are singing this song out in the
wilderness on the shore of the Red Sea. They are celebrating a
miraculous victory over Egypt where they were forced to labor but they
were nowhere close to the place of rest that God has promised.
They were brought out of the kingdom of darkness and guided to the place
where they can reside in God's presence even though they were still standing in the wilderness. What a beautiful picture of the
ultimate fulfillment of this reality in the future when God's people
will find the perfect rest that we lost in the garden.
Until we get there we need to wrestle with the desire to do everything
for ourselves. God's power at work in us and our willingness to rely on
him is the way to a peaceful, satisfying life. But most of us see God's word as a bunch of to do list and rule keeping that
looks nothing like rest.
Finding rest seems just as impossible as it
must have sounded to the former slaves that Moses led out of Egypt. For
hundreds of years they were under the threat of losing their lives if
they did not work and now God is telling them that their future depends
on their ability to rest in him.
What Is Work?
It's not a bad question to ask but when you look to man for the answer
instead of God you end of with the wrong answer. In their passion to avoid
work God's people kept adding to the list of things to avoid doing to the
point that the Sabbath became a burden instead of a blessing.
When man adds to God's rules it is usually done with bias and it is done
to have control over others. The largest organized religions in the world
are famous for adding church rules and traditions on top of the Bible. We
have to be careful when we add to the intended purpose of God's rules.
To not work is just the beginning
Isaiah 58:13-14 Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the LORD’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. 14 Then the LORD will be your delight. I will give you great honor and satisfy you with the inheritance I promised to your ancestor Jacob. I, the LORD, have spoken!”
God centered rest was taught by the prophets in the Old Testament over
and over again. God made it so clear that they were doing it wrong, how
to do it right and showed them the great benefits for doing it correctly. (Isaiah
56:1-8, Isaiah 58:13-14, Jeremiah 17:21-27, Ezekiel 20:12-26; 22:8, 16,
26, Nehemiah 10:28-31; 13:15-22)
Part of their problem was they were not living to please God the other
six days of the week so it would be impossible to be genuine in their
observance of the Sabbath.
Micah 6:3,8 “O my people, what have I done to you? What have I done to make you tired of me? Answer me! 8 O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
The unnecessary burdens that the religious leaders placed on the
people probably contributed to their tendency to be unfaithful to God
and create less demanding gods. The pleasant demand to rest had been
replaced with a strict application of the law that was a weapon to
control people. (Deuteronomy 10:12, Matthew 23:4, Acts 15:10)
Then comes Jesus, the religious leaders didn't have any idea how to handle someone
that seemed to intentionally break their rules, imagine telling Jesus how to obey the Sabbath. It seems that Jesus took the time
to break man's Sabbath rules in order to teach them the real Sabbath
rules.
The True Sabbath Rest
Matthew 11:28-29 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Jesus must have felt incredibly misunderstood as he saw the unnecessary
burdens that the religious leaders placed on the people. As the people
tried to do what was right, their religious leaders only had bad news
for them, no matter how hard they tried they were told they were doing
it wrong. (Isaiah 58:1-14, Matthew 23:1-39)
Jesus offers us a better opportunity than the law could ever do,
instead of resting for a day Jesus
offers us a daily rest in him. Only Jesus can release us from the
bondage of sin to receive true rest. We can lay down the burden that
our conscious puts on us as we feel the weight of our sin. We can lay
down the burden of trying to be good enough to be loved.
God's purpose for us on the sabbath is that we experience the highest and most intense joy that can be experienced, namely, that we "take delight in the Lord." And yet what he finds again and again is professing Christians who prefer little human-sized pleasures from things that have no close relation to God at all.
We can work as hard as we want everyday of the week but if we will acknowledge that every good thing that we have comes from God's blessing on our lives then we can give up our slavery to our own strength and stamina. We can rest from our labor and trust God that he will provide for tomorrow just as he did today. (Exodus 16:16-26)
The greatest rest that we need can be found only in Jesus. We
celebrate the rest that only his work on the cross could make
possible, peace with God and the peace of God is available without an
effort on our part. (Ephesian 2:8-9, Romans 5:1, Philippians 4:6-8,
Revelation 14:13)
How can a true believer that understands the incredible gift that
Jesus has given them fail to rejoice at the beginning of the week for a day focused on celebrating
this glorious fact?
Let's focus on delighting in God as we
look forward to the day when we reach our final and ultimate Sabbath
rest for eternity in his presence.
RELATED ARTICLES
The Eighth Day
(baylor.edu)
The Sabbath in Apostolic Preaching and Practice
(bible.org)
Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep It Holy
(desiringgod.org)
