“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:9-11).
As most of you know, I just returned from a two-week vacation where I spent most of the time at home, but also was able to make it to Tennessee to visit my family. We had a very good time on the trip catching up with family and celebrating our son, Travis’ seventh birthday. However, what was probably the most refreshing part of my vacation was that it gave me an opportunity to rest. If you don’t know, my family and I are constantly busy and “on-the-go.” Karla and I both have our jobs, we have school requirements and homework for our kids, as well as gymnastics, volleyball, track, and cross-country, all in addition to other various and sundry obligations that come up from time-to-time. So, to have two full weeks without all of these responsibilities was quite a treat for me; it gave me an opportunity to rest.
And, I know that my family and I not the only ones who experience this level of extreme busy-ness; it seems that, nowadays, everyone is constantly going and doing, constantly having full schedules. I know that many of you have shared with me that, now that you are retired, you are busier than you were when you were working; so even retirement often doesn’t ease the strain on our daily schedules. By and large, we Americans are busy people who only stop doing one thing in order to move on to the next. We are a people that wake up, hit the ground running, and often don’t stop until we put our head on our pillow at night.
But, what the above passages from Scripture teach us is that God desires, you could maybe even say that He requires, rest for His children. God created us, He created our physical bodies, so He certainly knows our physical limitations; He didn’t design us to be creatures who are constantly on the move and never stop to get rest and rejuvenation. That’s why God created the Sabbath; He created it so that His people would have the time to put down their day-to-day work, to give their body the rest that it needs, and to focus on Him. The Sabbath is meant to be a respite for a weary soul to attune itself to the Holy Spirit and to get the rejuvenation that it needs through rest.
Jesus Himself understood the importance of rest; that is why He tells us in Matthew that, if we come to Him, we will find rest for our souls. He knows how important rest is, and He knows that in Him, we will find the truest, deepest rest possible. Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light; in saying this, He is telling us that if we cast our cares, our worries, our fears, our doubts, if we cast EVERYTHING upon Him and rely on His strength, we can find true rest from the troubles of this world because we have placed them in the perfect hands of our Savior and, thus, we need no longer worry about them. How many times have you been laying in bed at night and just can’t go to sleep because your mind is racing about different things you have to do or worries that you have? If we turn to Jesus and cast our cares on Him, those types of nights should fade into a memory as we are able to truly rest knowing that Jesus is in control of it all and is working all things for His glory and for our good.
The bottom line of all of this is: giving our bodies time to rest is important, it is ordained by God. Therefore, rest is not optional, it is necessary and required. God requires rest because He knows that we need it, and because He knows that we will only be effective in serving Him and spreading His Gospel if we are well-rested and in tune with the Spirit. So, my encouragement to all of you today is to make sure that you are taking time to rest. Yes, I know that there are many tasks to be done, many errands to be run, many places to go; but, never let all that is on your schedule keep you from divinely-appointed rest. When you are making your schedule for the week, make sure that you are pencilling in some time to rest; it is a gift from God that He has given us for our benefit and for the advancement of His Kingdom in the world.
When we are tired, when we are exhausted and worn down, it gets harder and harder for us to do anything as effectively and thoroughly as we should. But, when our bodies are rested, we are capable of accomplishing much; thus, it is only when we are rested that we are ever more equipped and able to truly fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission to us to “go and make disciples.” So, now that you are done reading this...go get some rest!
May the blessings of the Father and the peace of the Son be with you,
Pastor Keith
