"Sabbath Rest is Not a Request"
Stand Alone Sermon: Sabbath Rest • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro: 10 Day challenge. (Man who gave up shoes)
Over this last month I have made it a point to ask a very simple question that people tend to answer one of two ways.
The question was this, "How are you doing?" The response was almost always, "I'm good (or ok)" or it was, "I'm tired".
I started to notice this trend and so I began to track it and 70% of the time people said they were tired.
Now I recognize that some life situations bring about more restless nights and days than others, but this was the response from a lot of people who are just simply living life in the norm.
In his book Garden City, John Mark Comer writes: "Work and rest live in a symbiotic relationship. If you don’t learn how to rest well, you will never learn how to work well (and vice versa).
After all, the opposite of work isn’t rest—it’s sleep. Work and rest are friends, not enemies. They are a bride and groom who come together to make a full, well-rounded life."
Rest seems like a waste of time. Most of us have a difficult time imagining a day devoted to rest. We admire people who work hard and play hard.
We have weekend projects, maintaining home or yard or garden. We travel or watch television. We have ball games and family obligations and so on and so forth.
There is too much to do and too little time, and anyway, idle hands are the devil’s workshop, right?
As the old saying goes, there’s no rest for the wicked, and the righteous don’t need any. So to many of us, rest seems like a waste of time.
Sure, sometimes we feel the stress of busyness. We know we need a break, and we say that we should stop and smell the roses. But there never seems to be enough time for rest.
We know the consequences of no rest: high blood pressure, heart attacks, broken relationships, sleep deprivation, poor eating habits, and so on.
Yet even knowing these things, hearing that we “ought” or “should” try to take a break simply gives us one more thing to squeeze into our calendars between the doctor’s appointment and the deadline.
The truth is though, God says to mankind, “You are My image bearers. “In Genesis 2 He says to, "Fill the earth and subdue it, create art, build cities, start businesses, plant crops, get married.
He tells them to have children, be a grandparent, celebrate, live, love, laugh. . .” and then sin entered the picture and it fractured everything.
When we become fractured image bearers we stop displaying God as God. Instead, we make creation our god, it cannot bear the weight of it and so it collapses around us.
We make our spouse our god, our kids our god, money our god, power our god, position our god and physical beauty our god.
We make crummy gods, they crumble around us and then we shake our fists and ask, “Why?!?” But, and you know that is my favorite word in scripture, but.
But Jesus came and restored everything by His work on the cross and restored us back to God. This gives us the opportunity to be His image Bearer again.
This morning, we are going to investigate a couple of passages. The first one helps us see how we can better a be an image bearer of God.
The second one will show us one of God's commands to us, not a request, but a command. First, we begin in Genesis, the beginning of time where God has just finished creating all things. Read: Gen 2:1-3
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.
And now we move into where God instituted this idea of rest into our lives and notice that this is not something that we are to treat as a maybe, but as a must. Read: Exodus 20:8-11
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.
So now God is saying, “You are an image bearer, and if you want to walk like this, you’ll need the Sabbath.” Here’s why.
When He’s writing this, he’s writing to a predominantly agrarian society, which means there’s no electricity, no streaming tv and there’s no X. When the sun goes down, the day is over.
But for us, life has a way of endlessly piling upon itself until our very existence is just one giant obligation and we go from place to place to place.
We do thing to thing to thing to thing and lose sight of what matters and the tender mercies that God has given to us.
This is why I challenged you to give up something for 10 days and use that time to connect with God earlier. What will those 10 days do for you? You might be surprised.
Today what I want to spend the rest of our time discussing the reason for Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest helps us reorient our hearts and minds in three ways and the first one is ...
1. Sabbath brings about communion with God
1. Sabbath brings about communion with God
We, as children of God and citizens of His kingdom, are called to dwell with and spend time with God. Read: Matthew 6:33
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Read: Romans 10:17
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Read: John 15:1-5
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Read: James 4:8
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
I can give you countless more, but I think you get the picture. God wants to commune with us, and He does so through many various ways.
Through the HS living in us, and through His word, but it’s not going to be something that just happens. It’s something that must be cultivated. To cultivate something, that takes time.
Look, I know it seems very difficult, but how many of you spend time with family? How many of you spend time with a friend(s)?
Here is where it gets real, do you believe in God and that He rescued you from your sin? So, we love Him, but how often do we set aside a large amount of time for Him?
This is why He established the Sabbath. He did not do it to stress us out, but to give us time with Him. Notice God was more than realistic.
He knew that man would make themselves busy and in return said, "Rest one day, and make that day Holy." No rigidity, just rest.
The truth is we all probably have a reason that we don't think will allow for the rest, but even with the unfolded laundry, unchecked items on the to do list, those things will still be there.
They don't go away if we’re honest with ourselves. Then we become so focused on them that we lose sight of what is promised to come from God, or even fail to see His blessings.
A sabbath rest gives us time to reflect in the crazy. It gives us a moment to be aware and conscious of eternity in our time, that is, what is to come.
It allows us to live mindful of the presence of God, to see that He is at work in our lives and to give Him the praise He is do. Our time here is too precious not to take a sabbath rest.
Dan Allender writes: "Sabbath is not about time off or a break in routine. It is not a mini-vacation to give us a respite so we are better prepared to go back to work.
The Sabbath is far more than a diversion; it is meant to be an encounter with God’s delight." The second way a sabbath rest helps us reorient our hearts and minds is ...
2. Sabbath brings about balance in life
2. Sabbath brings about balance in life
God invites us to be in continual communion with Him, in both work and rest, and we can’t do one without the other.
Sabbath rest allows for us to find a good balance before we begin the endeavor of a new week. Yes, there is work, family, and life that has to be lived, but what happens when we don’t sabbath?
When we don’t bring God into the picture as our highest priority for the week consistently, when we don’t intentionally delight in Him, we are telling the world that we are capable in our own strength.
One Pastor said, “At the heart of the original sin is the refusal to accept God’s rhythms for us. And I say at the heart of the Sabbath is a stopping to surrender to God in trust.
Failure to Sabbath rest is the very essence of the sin in the Garden of Eden. Without balance, how will we be prepared to give an answer for our faith? Read: 1 Peter 3:15
15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
We can all thrive in our walk, but it will take the rhythm of God to lead us to the most fruit and allow us to take back control of our lives when out of rhythm.
We must come to a place of surrender to Him, because He knows what is best. This is the example that Jesus set for us. Read: Luke 5:16 Jesus would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
People who keep a sabbath, whether it is Saturday, Sunday, or some appointed time of rest and reflection, often say that it helps them value their time during the week even more.
The last way a sabbath rest helps us reorient our hearts and minds is ...
3. Sabbath brings about proclamation
3. Sabbath brings about proclamation
So again, we are citizens of the Kingdom now and the kingdom to come. When we do something that is counter to our culture it will garner attention.
What I am asking of you today by participating in a regular Sabbath is not so we can say, “Look at us. We are Holy and pious!”
No, what we are doing is proclaiming to the world Whose we are and Who it is we belong to. And be sure of this, He is worthy of that time and proclamation.
Mark Comer writes: "Even though the Sabbath is about imitation of the God who works and then rests, it’s also a day to remember that we’re not God.
We take a day off, and the world gets along just fine without us. We’re not as important as we think. There is a God, and I’m not him."
Read: Psalm 46:10
10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
Read: Lamentations 3:23
23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
God is patient and kind to help us pursue the rest He intends for us. It will look different for everyone.
But at its core, Sabbath rest is a time set apart from the toil of everyday life, and devoted to replenishing our bodies and souls, increasing our delight in the Lord.
Sabbath is just a day, a time, where you slow down and take in all that is good that God has given you.
It could be going for a walk, but not to burn calories. We just walk to walk. We spend time with good friends. We might catch a game with one another. Have a bonfire. It’s about enjoying God’s goodness.
Do you have a day where you’re disconnected? To go for a walk? To stare at creation? To have good conversations? To read a book?
Do you have a day where you just listen to good music? To play in the yard with your kids? To go to the park? To just walk outside, breathe and feel the air?
Do you have a day where you don’t do, but you just are? Because the Bible doesn’t request this; it commands it. This is not God going, “When you get a chance, you ought to rest some.”
And it’s not doing nothing, it’s about connecting with God the Father. The point of Sabbath is the cross.
If you have a day where you’re not doing and you simply are, then on that day you are reminded that you are accepted by God not because of what you do but because of what He did.
This is when you have a day where you’re just enjoying Him and the simple pleasures He brings instead of, going from event after event, plugging in church or small group with no Sabbath.
It truly is a time of rest in Him. It is a time to think about and apply what you take in. Folks, we must figure out how to rest in the Lord.
Once you figure out what that looks like, then set aside a day or an appointed time and do it. This falls on you to lead out in your home what it looks like and what it doesn’t look like.
It’s been my experience that it takes a bit of time to figure it out, but worth the effort put forth. This is why I encourage you to take the 10 day challenge. May you find your rest in Him.