Remember to Rest
I realize that I am surrounded by a church full of busy people. Not just busy for busyness sake but productive, highly active people who like to accomplish a lot and often. In fact every time I drive down the road to church I am confronted by your hard work since the fields all around us testify to it.
It is not just the fields that speak to me about your hard work but I also see your children and grand children as they race through the entrance and give me a high five or a hello. I know that it has taken a Herculean effort just to get them dressed, feed, loaded up in the car and off to church. I also know that that is true for every day of the week for those of you who have the privilege of caring for them. Children require a lot of effort weather your parenting or baby sitting them.
Many of you also take care of loved ones who are elderly or infirmed who rely on your time and effort to visit and care for them on top of all your daily activities.
Our families take time and effort to make them work our jobs demand time and effort from us to meet a minimum standard for our employers expectations. Our spiritual lives also require a certain amount of maintenance and effort to keep them in tune. On top of all this we add personal interests, hobbies, sports, friends, community work, church work, and personal fitness. In a world filled with what seems like never ending activity we as a culture maybe need to take time and slow down and rest more so than previous cultures.
This weekend is a great example. It is a long holiday weekend which the government of the land has instituted. Even the government realizes we need a day off now and then and even they take seasonal breaks from the work of governing. Parliament closes down for a summer and winter break. I know some of us would like to see it stay closed but we still need people in government.
The point is that we were designed to work and rest. Our God, our creator took time to rest and this fact is recorded early in our bibles in the Genesis account.
Genesis 2:2 NIV
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
Genesis 2:3 NIV
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Now I realize that God got a lot more done in six days than we could ever hope to. Yet I am sure there is a mother out there who would still like to accomplish a list just as long. You see God knows the place and importance of giving yourself rest. There are a lot of reasons why it make sense.
Firstly it says that you have completed what you set out to do. Secondly it gives you an opportunity to review or consider what it is you have completed. Thirdly it gives your mind and body a chance to recover from the effort of what you have done.
Isaiah 40:29 NIV
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
If we look to our bible we can see time and time again when men and women took rest after periods of great activity. Sometimes it was rest after a long hard days work or rest after planting crops or rest after putting up a building or rest after completing a task assigned by God.
Remember the Egyptians working the Hebrew people into the ground for seven days a week. It took Moses sent from God to convince the Pharaoh to give the people a day of rest. This was not Moses idea it was Gods instruction. Even once they got away from Egypt Moses made sure they kept the Sabbath.
Exodus 20:8-11
8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 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.
I realize that today we live in a secular society that does not honor Gods commandments and in fact like the Egyptians society demands we work on Sunday or the Sabbath yet we still need to set apart a day for the Lord since He has commanded us to. We would love to just stop on Sundays but the law of the land no longer allows us to. We find ourselves in a kind of bondage that was once broken but now holds us again.
This commandment was not one of Gods ten suggestions it was meant to be followed, to be honored and to be appreciated. Today our leaders are far from God and they do not see the purpose or value in honoring God. One day they will come to realize their error and at a great cost.
The followers of Jesus knew the place and importance of Gods commandment to rest. We see in Luke that even after Jesus crucifixion they took care to obey Gods commandment to rest.
Luke 23:55-56
55The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Hebrews 4:9-11
9There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters Gods rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Psalm 62:5 NIV
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.
What are we trying to find rest in? Are we hoping that if we work and work and work we will have enough accumulated to finally take a rest? Are we hoping that by working endlessly we will be setting an example for our children to follow, no being a workaholic is not a good example.
We need to balance work with rest and to learn the importance and place of both.
Proverbs 6 warns us about idleness.
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-
11 and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man. [a]
And on the other side of the coin we have this from Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 about over working.
21 For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew Chapter 11
28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Sometimes the work of life can be a burden it can weigh you down with mental anguish and physical exhaustion but Jesus promises His rest. Do you try to carry the weight of the world upon your shoulders? Have you always been the one to carry your own burdens? You need to let go and let God take them and you to Himself.
Maybe you are a tireless saint in Gods church, striving for it, sacrificing for it putting everyone and everything else before your own needs. I would remind you that Jesus instructed his followers to take time to rest.
Mark 6:30-32
30The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. 32So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.
