(Posted by Cameron Oliver)

Last night’s sermon was entitled ‘Resting’. Nick Duke took up the ambitious task of giving an overview on what the bible has to say about work and rest, through both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It was a long sermon (approx. 45 minutes), but knowing Nick, he could have easily talked for half an hour on any one of the many passages he covered!

Unfortunately, the MP3 recorder ran out of disk space part way through, so we only recorded 13 minutes of it - which included the reading and then the introduction. It turns out that just assuming that there will be enough memory remaining (and not actually checking) is a bad thing. Below is what we do have of the talk, if you’re interested.

What follows are Nick’s rough notes from the talk on Sunday. We hope they are of some value for those who want to think further about the topic. Nick would be happy to hear any feedback or discussion about how that applies to us. He didn’t get much time to think about applying the principle of living for God’s rest. Hopefully that will continue in conversations.

Intro - Different Approaches to Work.

Some cool bumper sticker views of work…

• ‘Hard work may not kill me but why take a chance?’
• ‘Work fascinates me - I can sit and watch it for hours!’

What views of work are commonly held by our generation?

1. Work is a necessary evil
   Seen on the back of a truck in the USA - ‘I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!’. But the Bible says plenty of good things about work.
2. Leisure is a necessary evil
   We’re finite, we recognise we need rest, but we go for the minimum amount of rest so we can throw ourselves into making a name for ourselves in our achievements. But the Bible has good things to say about rest - about recreation.

How you answer that question says a lot about who you are; it says a lot about what you live for. Do you live for leisure? Do you live for work?

Some people recognise the value of both and so try and express a ‘work-rest balance’. Many would see that balance in Exodus 20:8-11. A cosmic cycle of work and rest that we need to keep: six days of work and one day of rest.

I am going to suggest that, wise as it is to work hard and rest well, there is something bigger going on in the Bible with the question of the Sabbath and the Christian.

Raises the question - how does Old Testament rules apply to the Christian?

1. They don’t - new covenant, new law; Jesus fulfilled the law - doesn’t apply to me….
   BUT…Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount suggests that the law is not removed - in fact those who remove even the least of it are the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
2. They do, in exactly the same way…
   Take for example the Seventh Day Adventist view of the Sabbath.
   Gets something right, but something quite wrong. Selective application…
   It doesn’t understand how Jesus changes the way we apply the law to Christians today….he doesn’t just uphold it…he fulfils the law…what does that mean?

1. Exodus 20:8-11

Remember
Command to remember: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

• Keep it holy - holy means to keep separate. e.g. Holy Bible - a book that is special, separate. The word ‘holiday’ came from ‘holy day’, meaning special day.
• v9 shows what that looked like for the Israelites.
• I think this the emphasis is on rest - do all your work in the six days.
• Interestingly, doesn’t even mention church or gathering. Good thing - but not here commanded.

Key question - Why were they to rest?

• Answered in v11 - God created in 6 days and rested. Remember something about creation.
• SEEMS to be saying - a cycle of work and rest.

Interestingly the Deuteronomy 5 account of the same command is slightly different.

• Has a different reason for the Sabbath….v15
• Remember that God took you out of a land of work…and into a land of rest.
• The thing we need to unravel here is why these two reasons are given.

A common view is that there are two different reasons given for the Sabbath:

• Exodus 20 - Remembering God’s work and rest model in creation (therefore applying to all creation)
• Deuteronomy 5 - Remembering God’s rescue / redemption of His people.

I actually think they are not two reasons, but two aspects of the one reason. The view above is missing something important about the Genesis creation account. Got to remember that the law takes Sabbath breaking VERY seriously. It carries the death penalty. It does seem odd that the Bible takes Sabbath breaking so seriously - if it is simply a matter of remembering to have your day off.

I think one clue is in Exodus 31 - where it describes the Sabbath as a sign and a symbol of something. Think of a wedding ring - what would it communicate to lose it? Think of a flag - what would it communicate to burn it? I’m arguing it’s a sign of something that really matters - but we’ve got to look at Genesis 2 to work out the details of what exactly was symbolised.

2. Genesis 2:1-3

Rest
I’d like to give you a couple of questions I think are raised by the text:

a) What does it mean for God to rest?
It does sound strange - does God get exhausted by the work of creation?
Think of Psalm 121:

“He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.”

Can’t mean that he is exhausted. Hold that question for a moment. It will tell us something important about God.

b) What’s the significance of the seventh day?

Seventh Day Adventist might say it shows us an eternal principle of a work and rest cycle. That we join with God in resting on the seventh day (Fri sundown to Saturday sundown). Others might say - forget which day you take it - here’s a model of a cycle of work and rest from the Bible. The argument for both would be that to have something other than a 7 day cycle would work against the way God has made us. Stories about 8 and 10 day week trials… And I believe that it’s good wisdom to have a rhythm of work and rest (I take 1 day off in seven), but is that what is mean by the 7 days of creation.

But is there another way of viewing the seventh day? Here’s four clues that persuade me that both the above views are not getting to the bottom of the issue:

Four Clues

Clue 1: The seventh day is not called the Sabbath - even though the term was known to the writer.
That’s something that came later in Exodus 16 to the Israelites - after they’ve been rescued from Egypt. Here it is simply called - the seventh day. I think we will see later that the Sabbath is only one example of a large theme of this idea of the seventh day rest.

Clue 2: The emphasis is not on a cycle but on completion. Read 2:1-3

Clue 3: It’s clear that God doesn’t rest entirely on the 7th day.

• The significance of the 7th isn’t simply recovering your breath…He keeps on sustaining the universe. If he were to stop for just a moment the universe would implode. The text emphasises that he has stopped from the creating work of days 1 to 6. Uses a special word to describe that creation work as opposed to the work of sustaining the world since then.
• I think that’s what Jesus is talking about in John 5:17 when accused of breaking the Sabbath - “My father is working until now - and I am working” - if you think the Sabbath is purely about labour law - then you’ve missed the point of it. The Sabbath is pointing to something much bigger than that.

Clue 4: There is no suggestion that the day ends..

• Every other day ends with…”and there was evening and there was morning…the xth day…”. That’s missing from the 7th day account.
• A number of places in Scripture that suggest God remains in that state of rest….he doesn’t move out of it on the 8th day. For example, Hebrews 4 - suggests that God is still at rest - and so the opportunity for us to enter that rest still stands.

What do you make of all that?

Here’s my suggestion:
The seventh day is when God moves from creating to enjoying creation. It’s as if he’s an worker who finally steps back from his work and enjoys it. The 7th day is the climax day of creation - it reveals the goal to which creation is moving and intended for - rest. The 6th day shows humanity as the pinnacle of created things, but the 7th shows the purpose of creation. It shows where it is going.

What does it say? There is more to life than working. The goal of creation is rest with God. That’s not stopping working - that’s a picture of relationship with him, with each other and with the world.

It’s like the word ‘peace’ or shalom in the OT. More than just a absence of war. Peace or Shalom is not just lack of enemies, but the presence of relationship and plenty. The seventh day is a blessed day. I think that’s what’s being pictured in the blessed state of things in the Garden of Eden.

Now read that understanding forward through the Old Testament. Where do we see Old Testament echoes of these themes?

1. The promised land is seen as a land of REST. They are taken out of a land of labour / slavery and placed in a land of REST. It becomes a picture of the rest that will come to all of us in heaven.
2. Weekly Sabbaths (Exodus 20, Deut 5)
   • a weekly reminder that God made us for rest - for relationship and blessing. Don’t forget that….
   • That makes sense of Deut 5 - remember how God took you from a land of work and put you into a land of rest….
   • not that they would never do any work in the promised land - but it pictures something very important.
3. Land Sabbath (Lev 25) - the year has a year off every seven.
4. The Year of Jubilee (Lev 25) - after seven sevens of years, on the fiftieth year, land was returned, slaves were released..And in Luke 4, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 which talks in Jubilee terms of the coming Messiah. He says he brings in that time. ‘Today this is fulfilled in your hearing’

3. The Christian and the Sabbath.

What’s it got to do with us? The 4th commandment just as important as any other. Shouldn’t it be just as important for us? In some way or another!

One of the surprises is that this one and only this one is not reiterated. And there is no word against any Christian who fails to keep the Sabbath.

On the contrary:

1. Romans 14:4-5
   If you want to treat one day as special - that’s ok. If not - that’s ok.
   How can Paul say that?
2. Colossians 2:16-17
   Don’t let anyone judge you re the Sabbath day FOR these are a shadow of the things that were to come. The important thing is understanding why you are not to let others judge you. It is because the reality is found in Christ. The shadows have given way to the reality. The symbol to the symbolised. The signpost to the destination.
3. Matthew 11:28-30
   Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden - and I will give you rest.
   Don’t psychologise the text! It’s laden with theological significance in the light of the Old Testament. Jesus is promising to fulfill all the OT expectations of rest. It comes sandwiched between one allusion to the Jubilee ‘rest’ (11:4-6) and two explicit discussions about the meaning of the Sabbath (12:1-14).
4. Hebrews 4:1-14
   We enter the rest by belief. The Sabbath of v9 is not a weekly sabbath - but the reality to which that symbol points. Rest is the goal of life, not a day off.

4. Working on your rest.

Does the 4th commandment apply to me? Absolutely! But it’s not about your day off - it’s so much bigger than that. It’s asking the question - what’s your goal in life?

A helpful thing might be a day off a week to REMEMBER. But the real question is are you living for God’s rest?

To the workaholic - repent; you’re living for your achievements.

To the leisure seeker - repent; true rest is only found in Jesus, don’t get distracted by the trinkets and the sideshows.

“Come to me, all 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.”

–
Note on sources: I found Andrew Shead’s article on Sabbath in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology very helpful and am largely following his argument. The structure of the talk (Ex 20 -> Gen 2 -> OT -> NT) reflects an unpublished sermon a college lecturer gave on the topic of Sabbath in 1995.

Tags: sermons
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