Sabbath Rest | Sunday, November 8, 2020

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work... And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

When the throne on earth seems vacant, the throne in heaven is not—and the Lord of the Sabbath still calls the weary to rest.

A Triggered Nation and a Song in the Night

It has certainly been an eventful week. I shared last week that the events of Tuesday's election would likely trigger about half of the adult population in the U.S. to enter into experiencing a low-level mental illness. If you've been experiencing heightened stress, general anxiety, fuzzy-brain syndrome, cognitive dysfunction, or moderate frustration and anger over the election, then you've been triggered.

Interestingly, I don't think it is only those on one side of the political aisle experiencing this. Every politically engaged individual in our nation is probably not entirely happy with the outcomes, and it definitely has that 2020 flare. I expected chaos from this election, and I've been sharing that expectation with you since before this year began. But we can continue to praise God that we're still moving forward and God is still on the throne.

Like many people, I went to bed late on Tuesday night conflicted about the outcome. But I woke up early Wednesday morning with a song in my head that I hadn't heard in maybe fifteen years—a song from Psalm 131, sung by a group called Water Deep. The words are straight out of Psalm 131:

Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forever. (Psalm 131:2-3)

Cultivating a Quiet Heart

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? These words have been on a perpetual loop in my mind since early Wednesday morning, and I'm thankful they have been. I've been calming and quieting my soul all week long by meditating on them: Oh Israel, trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

One translation of Psalm 131:2 says, "I've cultivated a quiet heart, like a baby content in his mother's arms." On Thursday I found a picture on my phone of my youngest, Elliot, less than a week old, content in my arms—exactly the image that came to mind: a baby content in his father's arms. Have you cultivated that kind of heart? A calm and quieted heart is one that safely trusts in the power and majesty of almighty God.

I remember taking kids to youth camp where they had a ropes-course activity called the "leap of faith." You climb forty feet up a tree, stand on a tiny two-by-two platform, and jump out to grab a trapeze bar ten feet away. It seems absurd, but you have a harness on. The leap of faith is a test not of your ability to grab the bar but of your trust in the person holding the line, the rope, and the harness. Some would climb up, freeze, and never bring themselves to jump. That's the picture of trust: do I trust the person forty feet below to hold on to me?

Where Is Your Faith Seated?

In my experience, God is always seeking to mature our trust in Him, and challenging circumstances like elections are leaps of faith in our lives. If we are disquieted in our soul, it is an indication that our trust might be in something other than God.

So on this post-election November morning, I want to ask you: What are you trusting in? Where is your faith seated? If it is in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., you are always going to be disquieted. One meaning of the name Israel is "governed of God." If you are ruled and governed by God, then trust in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. As I rested in and waited upon the Lord, it was as if a weight and burden was lifted.

Some indicators that we need a trust adjustment are catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, tunnel vision, and cognitive distortions. I've reminded you many times of Paul's words in Philippians 4:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

That's what I've been experiencing this week—God's all-surpassing peace guarding my heart and mind. I can honestly say I'm at peace, because I trust that the Lord is on the throne.

Set Your Mind on Things Above

Another passage I've returned to is Colossians 3. If you are a child of God, raised with Christ, Paul is speaking to you:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Not on Washington, not on Sacramento, not on the stock exchange, not on pandemics or wars and rumors of wars—set your mind on things above. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ who is our life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. Our ultimate hope is not in politics, politicians, vaccines, therapeutics, the stock market, our career, or education.

There's a great story in 2 Kings about the prophet Elisha. The Syrians were warring against Israel, but every time the Syrian king planned an attack, God revealed those secret plans to Elisha, who told the Jewish king. Frustrated, the king of Syria sent a great army with horses and chariots to surround Dothan, where Elisha lived. In the morning Elisha's servant saw the army and was rightfully terrified: "Alas, my master! What shall we do?"

Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. (2 Kings 6:16)

The servant could only see the earthly realm. So Elisha prayed, "Lord, open his eyes that he may see," and the Lord opened the young man's eyes, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. God, open our eyes that we may see this is spiritual—You are not defeated; You are still upon the throne.

I keep coming back to Isaiah 6 as well, where the king had died and the throne was vacated, yet Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a throne. It was as if God was saying, the throne on earth is vacant, but the throne in heaven is not. And Isaiah 26:3 says:

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

The word for peace is shalom, and here God doubles it for emphasis—peace, peace—but only as your mind is fixed upon the Lord. Therefore the exhortation: "Trust in the LORD forever, for in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength." Time and time again the Scriptures tell us: trust in the Lord, hope in God, let not your heart be troubled. I hope you'll set aside time this week to do that.

Returning to Deuteronomy: The Sabbath Command

Aside from the many topical messages I've given this year—far more than I ever expected—we have been studying through Deuteronomy. The last time I spoke from Deuteronomy, three or four weeks ago, we considered the first three of the Ten Commandments. The first was, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Times like these reveal our divided loyalties. Second, we are to make no idols, no visible and earthly representations of our God—nothing in which we set our trust, hopes, and affection. Third, we are not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain, but to bear His name with reverence.

The teaching of those first three commands is clear: God expects and commands exclusivity, demands proper adoration and representation, and is rightly jealous for our devotion. Now we move to verse 12:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work...

This may be one of the more contested and misunderstood of the Ten Commandments. Some Christians see it as an essential and literal keep; others think of it spiritually; some disregard it almost entirely. One thing is certain: when reading the Gospels, Jesus kept the Sabbath, and the religious people of His day didn't really understand what the Sabbath was about.

Who Is the Authority on the Sabbath?

Jesus, who is God incarnate, will always keep the laws of God perfectly. Yet the religious leaders sought to kill Him, certain that He broke the Sabbath. So clearly, His understanding was correct and theirs was not. In Matthew 12, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His hungry disciples plucked heads of grain. The Pharisees said, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath."

Just a few verses later, in the synagogue at Capernaum, there was a man with a withered hand, and they asked whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse Him.

What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

He told the man, "Stretch out your hand," and it was restored. And then in verse 14, the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might destroy Him. So Jesus does a good work, heals a man, and they want to destroy Him for it. Oftentimes very religious people completely misunderstand, misinterpret, and misapply God's law—and they continue to do so today with the Sabbath.

I don't say that to claim I perfectly understand and apply the law of the Sabbath; I'm not sure I do, and there's much for me to learn. I don't keep any of God's laws perfectly. The Bible makes clear none of us does. But Jesus is the only one who kept the Sabbath perfectly, and the religious leaders of His day, who felt they were the authorities, did not.

A Command and a Gift

So what is the importance of this command, and how should we observe it? According to the commandment, the people of God are to set apart—to consecrate—one day in seven as a day of rest unto the Lord. The Sabbath is a day of rest made for man. It is a command, but it is also a gift. In His grace, God commands rest.

This reveals something important about God: He is gracious, and He knows the weakness of our frame, because He formed us of the dust of the earth. Therefore He graciously commands our rest, and for this we ought to be thankful. November is a month of gratitude. God is not a harsh and severe taskmaster; He redeems and rescues us from our burdens and calls us unto rest.

When Moses says "as the LORD your God commanded you," I believe he is dropping a subtle reminder to remember the original command in Exodus 20:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy... For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Moses connects the Sabbath to God's creative activity—and His inactivity. The almighty God worked in creation and then He rested. Not only did He rest, He blessed the seventh day and made it holy. In our American workaholism, we feel we must keep going to get ahead, to the point that many work six or seven days and long hours. But God exemplified rest and called us to experience its blessing. Unfortunately, like the religious people of Jesus's day, we think we must keep the Sabbath to keep God happy. In reality, God gave us the Sabbath to bless us with a supernatural blessing and happiness through rest.

The Command to Work

But there is more to the fourth command than the call to rest. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work." God calls His people to emulate Him in enjoying rest, but also to imitate Him in completing their work. Just as overwork with no rest is a trespass against the fourth commandment, laziness is a transgression as well.

If you read Genesis 1, at the end of each day of creation the Scriptures say, "and God saw that it was good." There is an inherent goodness in a day's work, and God calls us to follow Him into it. Even before the fall, in the perfection of creation, God commanded Adam to work: "Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it." Work and rest are both good.

Moses grounds the command for Sabbath rest in Israel's bondage in Egypt. It is as if God says: remember you were slaves under harsh taskmasters, but I redeemed you and brought you out so you might experience rest. Therefore this rest is not for you alone, but for your children, your servants, even your animals, and the strangers and foreigners in your land. The whole of the land is to rest, because I am a God of rest.

Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath

This is exactly why God the Father sent Christ the Son. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of rest, sent to bring rest to a people in bondage in Egypt—and Egypt in the Scriptures is often a type of the world. As a result of sin in Genesis 3, the ground was cursed; in toil and the sweat of your face you would eat bread. The burden of work as drudgery is a product of sin, but Jesus desires to give us rest. In Matthew 11:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you 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.

That is a glorious call from the Lord of the Sabbath.

A Personal Confession on Rest

Let me be candid: this command is difficult for me. I am not very good at rest. I don't know if it's my upbringing, my personality, my internal drive, or the hyper-work-oriented culture here in the U.S. But I feel a deep need for rest, especially in 2020. My wife and I feel as though we've been running at 6,000 RPM for the last eight months, and many in the church can relate. Work, kids at distance learning, my wife working in the ICU while finishing her master's with clinicals—then the burdens of coronavirus, lockdowns, decisions, bills, the elections, and now the holidays. We can feel like we're going and going and going. But we need to observe the Sabbath. We need to set aside time.

I know someone will text in asking whether we must worship on Saturday or Sunday. Paul addresses this in his letters. From the earliest days, when the Spirit was poured out, the church worshiped God on the first day of the week—the Lord's Day, the day of the resurrection. Many early Christians were also Jewish, so they observed the Sabbath; Paul even went to synagogues on the Sabbath to preach the gospel. But the church gathered on the first day of the week, often in homes—which is exactly what we do. Paul would say to let each person be persuaded in his own mind about which day to observe. We don't make a huge thing of the seventh day, but we should endeavor to set aside one day in seven to experience the blessing of rest.

Make Every Effort to Enter That Rest

I have a hard time with this, so I ask you to pray for me, and I will pray for you, that we will do what the author of Hebrews says:

Let us make every effort to enter into that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.

Israel did experience God's judgment for failing this call—seventy years of captivity in Babylon, in part because they neglected the Sabbath of the land, the Sabbath years. God is deeply focused on rest. The ultimate rest will be found in Jesus and in eternity, but even now He says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In the midst of all the chaos, God desires that we distance ourselves from our workaholism and rest in Him.

Closing Prayer

Father, I pray that You would help me and my brothers and sisters to observe these truths, that we would work to enter into this rest, making every effort to experience the rest You desire to give—and the ultimate rest, which is rest from the burden and bondage of sin and death. Jesus, I pray for anyone hearing this message, whether on the Sunday it is delivered or months or years from now, that You would draw them to You, that they would experience Your rest and be freed from the bondage of striving under sin in the world. You are the Lord of rest, and because of Your work on the cross we can experience rest for eternity.

Father God, we thank You for Your grace and for the rest we can experience in You. As we meditate on these things, may we trust in You from this time forth and forevermore. We pray for our nation and all we are going through, and for a resolution to the chaos—but we know the greatest resolution will come only when You return and rule and reign for eternity. So Jesus, we say, come quickly. Help us, Your church, to occupy till You come, with joy and rejoicing, trusting that You are still upon the throne. We praise You, Jesus. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.