“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”” (Isaiah 58:13–14, ESV)
Our verse of the week this week is a repeat of the last week’s verse. It is a longer verse (actually 2 verses), so I thought it would be good to give an extra week to work on memorizing it.
Last week, we looked at the origins of the Sabbath. This week, I would like to talk about the purpose of the Sabbath. Here are 4 purposes of the Sabbath.
That We Might Know God
“Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.” (Ezekiel 20:12, ESV)
It begs the question – if you don’t honor the Sabbath Day, do you know the Lord? The implication from Ezekiel is that if you don’t honor the Sabbath, you will not know the Lord.
That We Might Rest
The Sabbath is a reminder that God is in control. It is to say that no matter how much more money I could earn by just continuing to work and no matter how many things I could get crossed off my to-do list, I am going to trust God with my affairs. I cease from my activity and business to allow God’s activity and business in my life.
Rest is about restoring. There is physical rest. I can’t keep going without sleeping. Just as I need rest physically – I need rest emotionally and spiritually. I cannot just keep going and going and going. I am not the Energizer Bunny.
There comes a time where I get so tired and the most productive thing is to take a nap. I might lose the half hour of time when I take that nap in terms of being productive. But that half hour of ceasing from activity increases my level of productivity on the other end of the nap that I far surpass my level of productivity had I kept going.
God commands rest because rest is something we need. Through Sabbath rest, we are filled and fueled spiritually. Imagine a commandment that read: You shall sleep each day. We don’t need to be told that because it’s a Law of nature. You can’t go without sleep. In a similar way, the Sabbath is about maintaining a weekly rhythm just as we naturally keep a daily rhythm.
That We Might Worship
Worship on Sunday morning is not something we do if we have nothing else going on. It is what true Christ followers do. It is about the priority of worship. It is about the priority of God in our lives. Sometimes we would rather sleep in and attend the church of St. Mattress. Sometimes there might be something more exciting to do. But if we have made the commitment to follow Jesus, a part of that commitment is to honor the Sabbath Day.
God calls us to worship because he knows we need worship. Life is tough. There is a reason worship space is called a sanctuary. God desires this place to be a sanctuary (rest) from the storms of life.
If weekly worship is not a priority we will soon find ourselves running on empty. God created us for worship and he created in us a need for rest. If we don’t make the worship of God a priority, then we will find ourselves worshipping something else, which is a cheap imitation of the real thing that will not offer the same true rest. If we are not following the pattern for which he created us we will fall down.
That We Might Experience Abundance
Keep in mind why the commandments are given. The commandments are not to burden us, but to help us experience fullness of life.
”If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life. Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you." (Deuteronomy 6:2-3, ESV)
God is not saying I am giving you this commandment to be mean. He is giving us this commandment for our benefit. He is giving it so that we would experience the abundance he created us to experience. We need the Sabbath.
And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27, ESV)
So God creates and commands the Sabbath for our benefit. The Sabbath frees us from the shackles of a busy life. Many of us feel as if we can’t escape the rat race. We are world-weary Christians that God invites to become wholly heaven-minded. Yet, we are constantly striving and we feel exhausted. We are chasing after abundance, but the harder we try, the more elusive it becomes.
We might fear the consequences of not being busy. We might fear the consequences of work left unfinished. It takes a step of faith to cease from our work, but there is a promise when we do.
“But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31, ESV)
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