Rest for Addicted Children

If I was to read you this list of symptoms, who would you think I was talking about?

Spending 7 or more hours on a screen

Sleep problems

Reading fewer books

Less time with family and friends

Not enough outdoor or physical activity

Weight problems

Mood problems

Poor self-image and body image issues

Fear of missing out

Less time to relax and have fun

It is from a report of the effects of excessive screen time for children. But it could describe most Americans. We are all suffering from a deplorable immaturity when it comes to healthy rhythms, especially a 24 hour rest and reset from the onslaught of messages and demands for our attention. It is leaving us restless, anxious, and fearful, and it is keeping us from spiritual maturity. We are addicted children, enslaved to fear.

We will learn today that God created the weekly rhythm of sabbath to teach us to rest in His provision and salvation in Jesus Christ.

Sabbath Teaches Us to Say, “Enough”

Sabbath frees us from addiction. We live in a dopamine addicted society. We are all hooked. Dopamine is the hormone in your body that is produced with every new experience of pleasure. It makes you feel alive. Dopamine doesn’t care whether something is good or bad for you. If something makes you feel good, it wants more. More ice cream, more success, more sex, more entertainment, more spiritual highs. Dopamine is why you can’t stop scrolling. It’s also why you can’t stop working for rewards, or filling your schedule, or using pornography, or smoking, or eating sweets. We don’t know when to say enough. We keep seeking our next dopamine hit. The problem is that the hit doesn’t last long, we will soon feel empty and unsatisfied, and obsessing over when we can get more. We get no rest.

Bible Teacher Marty Solomon says that what we see in Genesis 2:1 is a God who saw the work He had done in six days of creation and knew when to say, “enough”.

Genesis 2:1 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

It is finished. God’s creative work was complete. This isn’t so much the end of something as the fulfillment of something. What He had done was enough.

And it was plenty. “All the host of them” indicates an abundance.

The seventh day carries the feeling of abundance. There is no literary formula like the rest of the days, “there was evening and morning, day ____”. Day seven has no end. God has just looked at everything that He had made by the end of day six, and declared it very good. It is finished.

God knew when to say, “enough”. So,

Genesis 2:2 ESV

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.

He ceased his making work. The word translated “rested” here is shabbat, from which we get the word sabbath. It means to cease, to stop. What did God stop? He stopped “the work that He had done.” This phrase is the work of making, like making a tool or making a bed. He has prepared something for use. In this case, creation is ready to fulfill its purpose. The temple in which God establishes His kingdom has been finished and it is time for God to settle in.

This is the language of Exodus 20. When God commands Israel to keep the Sabbath holy, He refers back to Genesis 2.

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“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 (settled in) on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

On day seven, God ceased work. He said, “enough”. The word “rested” means the preparation is complete, it’s time to settle in. God settles into the seventh day to abundantly bless His creation, specifically the humans He created to partner with Him in the fruitful abundance of the world He had made.

The psalms picture this poetically, especially Psalm 132. It depicts Mount Zion, like the garden of Eden, as the resting place of God from which He

Psalm 132:13–18 ESV

For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: “This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed (messiah). His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.”

The imagery here is a resting place for God that is more like a dwelling, from which He will bless His people with provision and salvation, partnered with the Messiah, His anointed human kingdom partner. So, God’s “rest” is to dwell with His people and provide for and protect them. For us to enter His rest is to dwell with God and receive His provision and protection.

If we were to go back through Genesis 1 and tell the story of creation, we could tell it this way: God created everything over your head and under your feet, and He created you in His image to bring Him glory as you bear fruit and multiply and partner in His kingdom over all creation. Day six ends with a list of the provision God has made in abundance so the humans can fulfill our purpose. To complete the story, God blessed the seventh day in which to dwell with humans in a place of abundance and safety.

As the shorter catechism says, we were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. As Augustine said, “O Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.” We’ve been settling for temporary dopamine hits when God has provided eternal satisfaction in Him. And we can experience that satisfaction one day in every seven. If I can learn to say, “enough” to giving in to every desire, to my addiction to things that satisfy me for one day, I can rest in God and be satisfied in Him eternally. It is the day I declare, “God is enough.”

Maybe I struggle to believe that is true. The sabbath is an act of faith. I cease working for my own provision and salvation and I believe that God will provide for me and protect me, specifically through the work of Messiah, who cried out on the cross, “it is finished”.

The tragedy here is that we humans could have inhabited that eternal day of rest with God if we had truly believed that He is enough. We could have been fed by His word and tended a garden that abounds with His life-giving presence. But we did not trust God. We chose to be our own gods, to create our own stability and security. We found the forbidden tree more satisfying than God’s words. And this enslaved us to fruitless labor and to fear and shame. Which is the second lesson of sabbath. Sabbath is freedom from slavery.

Sabbath Teaches us that We are Sons, not Slaves

We have a dysfunctional relationship with our work. We were created to bring glory to God by partnering in establishing His kingdom in this world. And we can and should do that in our work. But this goes wrong in two ways, which are two sides of the same coin.

One is believing that God’s kingdom is dependent on the work we do for God. God does not need to to work for Him. He wants you to be with Him, to find Him in your work. But He is not bound by your schedule. He inhabits the seventh day rest, and He’s inviting you to dwell with Him there. His kingdom comes when we we rest in Him by faith and surrender to His rule over our work. When I believe God’s kingdom, and therefore my own stability and security, depend on my work, I enslave myself to my work and I pack more in to my week. I am the savior in my story. But I am really enslaved to the fear of not doing enough.

The other way our work goes wrong is when we find our identity in our work. If my identity is not in God and His work that provides and saves me, my identity will be in my own work. This is life-sucking. And it leads to all the bitterness we see in people who feel unappreciated when they’ve done good work that goes unnoticed. It also leads to depression and feelings of worthlessness when someone can no longer do the work from which they derived their identity. I am enslaved by the fear of not being enough.

Jesus addresses both of these in the parable of the prodigal father with two sons in Luke 15. Both saw their relationship to their father in terms of their work for their father. They saw themselves as servants or slaves. The father cried over both, because their true identity is not slave, but son.

The second commandment to keep the sabbath comes from Deuteronomy 5. Instead of grounding sabbath in creation, as Exodus 20 does, it grounds it in identity, specifically the freedom from slavery.

Deuteronomy 5:15 ESV

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

You aren’t a slave any more. Don’t live that way.

My new favorite French theologian says, “What is meant by the presentation of the divine work at the beginning as a workman’s week, as an archetype of the human week, except that mankind is to live according to the image of his creator? So we see linking together the meaning of sabbath and the theme of the image of God, which are in a profound manner interdependent; and this link is achieved by the process of literary composition. The form of the days, employed with consummate skill, tells mankind that he will imitate God on earth, which very calling forbids him to identify with his earthly work. It refers him back to his most essential relationship, that with God. That is the message of the sabbath.” Henri Blocher

Sabbath is the day I choose to live as a son and not a slave. I remember what it’s like to be a child, without a care in the world because my Father has everything under control. He invites me into His work out of love for my growth, and for six days a week, I may life under the illusion that He needs me to run His dominion. But the seventh day is a day to renounce that illusion. The way one rabbi put is, “Sabbath is the day I renounce my dominion over my own time and recognize God’s dominion over it. Every seventh day I renounce my autonomy and recognize God’s dominion over me, I accept His kingdom and sovereignty over my life.”

God has consistently been inviting us to be still and rest in Him.

Psalm 46:10 ESV

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Matthew 11:28 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Hebrews 4:4–10 ESV

For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

God dwells in a day called Today. In our sin, we are rebellious children who want to dwell in the past or the future instead of God’s present. I have come to believe disobedience to the fourth commandment is one of the most destructive sins we commit. When we ignore sabbath, we remove the boundaries God gave for our stability and security, as well as our enjoyment of God in His creation. We dethrone God and claim autonomy.

To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, if we imagine our lives like children playing on the flat grassy top of an island in the sea, “so long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries.” But we have knocked the wall down, “leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.” (Orthodoxy, p. 310) Sabbath is the wall we didn’t think we needed, and we have knocked it down, and it has led to increased fear, anxiety, depression, feelings of worthlessness, and malformed children.

Here’s the good news. Jesus came to rescue children and lead them into rest. Hebrews 2 tells us,

Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

We have a high priest in Jesus who understands our weakness. But Jesus is also the faithful son who never rebelled and claimed autonomy from God the Father. Jesus’ death as the only obedient son destroyed the power of death. When He died for our sins, for our rebellion against God’s provision and salvation, he freed us from slavery to the fear of death. He declared, “It is finished” and then He rested on the sabbath.

When He rose on the eighth day, it was the beginning of the new creation. Jesus completed the work of salvation, and invites us to join Him in the sabbath of sabbaths, a year of jubilee, the seventh sabbatical year when all the slaves were freed. If your sabbath rhythm does not include breaking the patterns of addiction to distraction and deepening your satisfaction in your identity in Jesus Christ, you’re missing the fullness.

Jesus is the way we enter God’s rest.

Hebrews 4:9–10 ESV

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

You don’t work to earn your rest in God. Jesus has completed the work. It is finished. In Christ, you are the child that can run confidently to the throne of the King of the universe, who is now your Father.

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

In Jesus, we have provision and salvation. Come to the table and partake.

Questions for Discussion

What is something you put into practice from last week’s passage, Genesis 1:26-31, and what did God teach you?

Do you have a weekly rhythm that includes sabbath? How is God using that in your life?

What are some patterns that keep us from sabbath rest?

What do we learn about God in our passage?

Did God need to rest? Why does He stop work on the seventh day?

What do we learn about ourselves in this passage?

What is the blessing of the seventh day? In what way is it holy?

In what way does Jesus fulfill God’s purpose for sabbath?

How will you respond to this passage this week?

With whom can you share this passage this week?