How Blest the Rest We Possess
Sunday's sermon from Hebrews 4:1-13
As you may have heard, my 30-day sabbatical begins this coming Thursday. The Personnel Team presented, and the church voted to provide a sabbatical for full-time ministry staff every seven years of their service at Arapahoe Road. For me, and all who may serve with me or after me, we are grateful for these extended times.
The word “sabbatical” originates from the word “Sabbath,” which appears frequently in the Bible. The first time we hear the concept is in Genesis 2:1-3:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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 (Genesis 2:1-3, ESV).
While the word “sabbath” does not occur here, the principle does. But the first time the word is used is in Exodus 20:8-21, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Here, Commandment #4 states:
Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 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. 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.
God provides a physical rest for his people from the work they do. The work and the rest are provisions God gave before the curse of sin entered the world. He gave us a rhythm of rest so our bodies can be refreshed.
When the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness toward the Promised Land, they were not to work or collect food on the Sabbath. They were to collect two days’ worth the day before. In Exodus 31:12-14 says,
12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
God was serious about trusting him with this rhythm of rest, and it is a trust. If we keep working and working and working with no rest, then it shows that we are trusting in our work to provide everything. And if we are all resting and doing no work, that violates what we are to be doing as imagebearers of God in working and keeping creation.
The Pharisees and Jesus contested with one another about the role of the Sabbath. If Jesus and his disciples ate on the Sabbath, they balked. If Jesus healed on the Sabbath, they came after him again for working on the Sabbath. They had developed so many rules as to what constituted “work” that they completely lost the meaning of the Sabbath. So when Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28), we see a reclaiming of what God wanted His Sabbath rest to consist of--not an avoidance of work or even (as the Wizard said in the Wizard of oz) “good-deed-doing,” but of a rest and a trust in what God has for us in refreshing and reviving us.
We read in Colossians 2:16-17:
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” In Christ, we find the fulfillment of all of these religious rituals outlined in the Old Testament. Christ is here and is the full substance of it all. This leads us into what Christ provides for us as our Sabbath Rest.
Through Christ, our Sabbath rest, how blessed we are to possess this rest.