God's Appointed Times - A Weekly Sabbath

The first event on God's calendar.

Leviticus 23:3 "You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of complete rest, an official day for holy assembly. It is the LORD's Sabbath day, and it must be observed wherever you live.

Genesis 2:1-4 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 

2 On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation. 

4 This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Deuteronomy 5:12 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you.

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In the beginning God created, day after day he didn't stop creating until his work was perfectly completed, then he rested. But don't get the idea that he was tired and needed to re-energize as a result of his labor, his rest was a result of the fact that creation was 100% perfectly finished. (Psalm 121:3-4)

Thankfully God is always working and never gets tired, if he stopped sustaining his creation then everything would fall apart. When we spend time creating something we will eventually need to spend time restoring our energy level but that's not true of God. I have to wonder if work was tiring for Adam and Eve before sin entered our world.

God introduces the idea of resting right after he completed the work of creation but we don't have any evidence that God told man to rest one day out of seven until after the exodus from Egypt. 

God knew that we would be dissatisfied with our work. 

Contentment will always be a struggle for us, no matter how hard we try we will execute our plans and never produce the exact outcome that we were striving for. We can look back on our work and see the imperfections staring back at us and we will have to say that it is good enough.

God knew that we would use work for evil:

• We work to gain God's favor
• We work to gain favor with the people around us
• We work so that we can feel good about ourselves

God knew that we would need to change our focus.

Ezekiel 20:20 And keep my Sabbath days holy, for they are a sign to remind you that I am the LORD your God.' 

We need to turn our eyes upon God and put more effort into knowing and enjoying him instead of the achievements that our work gets us. God wants us to want him more than the blessings that we can gain from our daily grind. 

I need to make sure that I keep my treasure in proper perspective, my time and abilities are from God so therefore everything I produce also comes from him. All of my flawed outcomes are made possible because God gave me the time and ability to make my treasure.

God wants me to rest from earthly labor and he also wants me to rest from my attempts to earn my salvation. The Sabbath helps me remember that I cannot produce holiness in myself, I will only be good enough when I put my faith in Jesus work instead of my own.

God gives us rest for today and for eternity.

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. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

This is the one gift that nobody will return because everybody can use some more of the gift of rest. When Jesus came into our world his people were in a very desperate state of mind, the country had been invaded for hundreds of years by various political leaders, some of them invaded the temple and stole anything valuable while others broke the temple rules, desecrated and defiled the place. 

Even the religious leaders made the burden of the people even worse as the turned the Sabbath into a legalistic nightmare. The religious leaders sought to so narrowly define the rules of the Sabbath to the point that nobody could really enjoy the day. It got so bad that every other day of the week was far more enjoyable and restful than the Sabbath.

Hebrews 4:1-2 God's promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. 2 For this good news-that God has prepared this rest-has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't share the faith of those who listened to God.

God is still looking for people that will rest in him. People that will trust his love and care enough to have peace with him for this life and for eternity. I can look forward to eternal rest and enjoyment in God’s presence in the new place that he is preparing for me. (Isaiah 26:19, John 14:1-4, Revelation 14:13)

Thank you Lord for the gift of rest. I need to realize that my work will never be perfectly complete as your work of creation was. I will be tempted to keep working but it will never be fulfilling. Help me to focus on you and your work in my life.

RELATED ARTICLES

Resting on the Sabbath and Unpacking Its Treasures (firmisrael.org)

What Is the Sabbath in the Bible and Should Christians Observe It? (bibleproject.com)

How is Jesus our Sabbath Rest? (gotquestions.org)

No Greater Rest

Sabbath rest was just a glimpse of something better that is on the way.

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.

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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.

Silly Rabbinical Rules and the True Meaning of Torah

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.

Did Jesus Break The Sabbath Law?

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.

John Piper

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)

Satisfying Rest

Do you suffer from the lack of a Sabbath?

Genesis 2:1-3 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when He rested from all His work of creation.

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Observing the Sabbath must have been so easy at first but as time went by the list of rules kept growing longer and longer. Each new rule was probably easy to justify and well accepted in the beginning but as the list kept growing it became too difficult to know what they were allowed to do.

Knowing how to please God is such an awesome goal but when you try to make a rule to apply to every single situation that you can think of then it gradually becomes less clear and too difficult to know what you are allowed to do.

It was obvious that you couldn't go to your field and harvest your crops but what should you do it your basket full of produce topples over onto the kitchen floor? Were you allowed to pick it up and clean up the mess or did you have to leave your food on the kitchen floor until the next day?

I can't be sure what the religious leaders in the Old Testament would say about the mess on the floor but I think that God is pleased when we remember and celebrate these two things:

My Stuff Didn't Come From Me

Leviticus 23:3 "You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of complete rest, an official day for holy assembly. It is the LORD's Sabbath day, and it must be observed wherever you live.

The nation of Israel was instructed to work six days and then rest from their worldly worries and difficulties and focus on the source of everything that they have. Instead of continuing to push on to be more successful they were told that God's blessing would be more abundant if they trusted in him enough to quit pushing to get ahead.

This scripture in Leviticus is a reminder to the Israelites that when they setup household in the Promised Land they need to keep the Sabbath for their benefit as well as the benefit of their household servants and their livestock.

Time spent with God should be more valuable to us than another day of work trying to provide for our needs. Blessings are sure to come our direction when we honor God by acknowledging that he alone is the source of our prosperity and happiness. Whatever I am allowed to produce in six days is all that I need to have.

My Salvation Didn't Come From Me

Matthew 11:28-30 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. 30 For My yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light."

Not only is God the source of my prosperity and happiness but he is also the source of my eternal salvation. The most important need that I have is the last thing that I could ever provide for by my own effort. Instead of being burdened down with a huge list of rules that nobody could keep, Jesus tells us about a better way that is truly the only way.

You might expect Jesus to tell the people to throw off their yoke and be free of any yokes but instead he tells them to put on a yoke that is far better than the old one. People that have never worn this yoke think that it must be a burden but those of us that are wearing it know that it is very liberating.

The old yoke of the law was all about your own effort at following the rules but the new yoke that Jesus offers is a shared burden. As we walk with him, at his speed and in the same direction, we won't hardly notice the new yoke that he offers.

Because of the huge list of rules God's children suffered from the Sabbath in the Old Testament but in our day we tend to suffer from lack of a Sabbath. Our society is seldom content with what they have and it keeps working to get more.

Physical rest is good but soul rest is our greatest need, without a peaceful relationship with my creator I will never have rest for my soul, I will never feel like I am good enough or that I will be okay when this life is over. I celebrate the Lord's day because his work on the cross is the only way to enter into his rest.

Have you found the satisfaction and contentment that you long for? You will only find peace with God by trusting in Jesus work instead of your own.

RELATED ARTICLES

A Yoke For Rest (faithgateway.com)

Celebrate The Lord's Day

The Sabbath reminds us of the first creation, the Lord's day reminds us of the new creation.

Genesis 2:1-3  So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed.  2  On the seventh day God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work.  3  And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when He rested from all His work of creation.

Exodus 31:13  "Tell the people of Israel: 'Be careful to keep My Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between Me and you from generation to generation. It is given so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.

Deuteronomy 5:12,15 Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 15 Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day.

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For a lot of people the concept of the Sabbath began at creation, God had completed the work of creation and he rested from it, for them that first Saturday was the first Sabbath. But the problem with that point of view is that there isn't a command from God at this point that tells us that we are to have the same rest. 

Way back in the Garden of Eden there were only two rules that we know for sure that God gave to Adam and Eve: Do not eat of the tree and be fruitful and multiply. In fact you do not see any evidence of a Sabbath being observed by Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or any of Jacobs twelve sons.

The Sabbath was given to God's people much later, the first time that the Sabbath is mentioned is after the Israelites have left Egypt when God is giving them the rules for gathering manna he gives them a rule about not collecting it on day number seven. The next time the Sabbath is mentioned is the fourth commandment. (Exodus 16:23-30, 20:8-11)

God told his people why he set the seventh day aside, he said that it is a day of rest and a sign of the Mosaic covenant, it is a reminder that he is the creator and they are his chosen people.

>> The thirty-nine activities that were prohibited on the Sabbath

Later as they observed the Sabbath day it should have been a great tool to remind them of God's holiness and their personal short-comings. The Sabbath was needed so that they could examine their lives and see how well they were measuring up to the law, if they didn't slow down and examine their lives then they wouldn't realize their sin and repent.

When Jesus came he changed everything, the Sabbath went away along with the Temple and the sacrifices and the priest, we don't ever see Jesus obeying the Sabbath rules, instead we see him deliberately going against the rules that the religious leaders had concerning the Sabbath.

It is worthwhile to notice that every one of the Ten Commandments is repeated and applied to the Christian in the New Testament epistles except one. It is also worth considering that when the Apostles met at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15:1-35 they did not impose Sabbath keeping on the Gentile believers.

But when you come to the New Covenant, you have a new kind of observation, not observing God as Creator, not observing God as Law-giver, but in the New Covenant God is defining Himself as Savior.

-John MacArthur

The Lord's Day became the time for the early church to meet, we gather to commemorate His resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week, we gather just like they did in Matthew 28:1-9, it was Sunday morning, they went to find Jesus and when they found him they began to worship him.

We are no longer concerned with the old way, just as the Apostle Paul taught in Colossians 2:16-17, the holy days and Sabbath days are a thing of the past. God accepts us because of Jesus Christ, not because of anything that we do, it is by grace, not works. We are to trust in Christ for our salvation without any concern for living under the old system of bringing sacrifices to the temple.

Hebrews 10:23-25 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 

We need to encourage "one another towards love and good deeds," but how can we do that for each other if we doing come to the Lord's house on his day? Do you love Christ enough to get out of bed and go celebrate what he has done for you?

Let’s Pull Some Sheep Out of the Ditch

scripture

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John 7:21 Jesus replied, "I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. 22 But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses' law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the law of Moses.) 23 For if the correct time for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the law of Moses. So why should you be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? 24 Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly."

Hosea 6:6 I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.

Micah 6:6 What can we bring to the LORD? What kind of offerings should we give him? Should we bow before God with offerings of yearling calves? 7 Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins? 8 No, 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. 9 Fear the LORD if you are wise!

observation

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This passage of scripture brings up some question that I wonder about.
Why is there so much commotion for doing something good on the Sabbath? I don't understand why Jesus was condemned for healing on the Sabbath but on the other six days of the week nobody was concerned about it at all. They would search for a missing sheep or pull their ox out of a ditch, they would circumcise their sons if the day to do it fell on the Sabbath, so why all the hubbub about healing and if it should be done on the Sabbath?

Why do they think that healing is work? Was there any strain on Jesus when he healed somebody? It seems that healing a person would be easy for Jesus so it wouldn't qualify as "work".

God wants us to do more than just keep the Sabbath, he wants us to:

• Show love
• Know Him
• Do what is right
• Love mercy
• Walk humbly with your God
• Fear the Lord

application

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There is enough theology in this short list that can be used to conduct your behavior each day in a way that will please God.

I am sure that the church needs to do church in a way that is non-traditional after all Jesus came to Israel and he tore the handbook on tradition in half. Let's forget about tradition, the way that we have always done it and let's concentrate on finding the lost sheep that are stuck in a ditch.

prayer

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Thank you for your love and mercy each day and for caring for the lost and hurting sheep more than the strict observance of rules. Help me to follow this short list each day.