Is Jesus your Sabbath or Sunday or Saturday or all three?

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A modern Western worship team leading a contem...
A modern Western worship team leading a contemporary worship session. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
God chose to rest. He worked six days, creating the heavens and the earth and everything that would fill them. And then he, the God who never grows weary, chose to rest. He took sabbath. Why would he do this? Why would the all-powerful God rest? He rested to established a pattern, to establish a flow. There would be times for labor and times for rest. Six days you could earn a living and carry out your day-to-day responsibilities, and on the seventh you were to rest. Six years you could harvest your crops, but on the seventh the fields were to lie fallow. There would be ebb and flow, there would be work and rest. God did not intend all work and no rest; he did not intend all rest and no work. He intended both to flow in a pattern, a dance.

Looking at it now, I see three great lessons we learn from a day set apart.

Sabbath teaches dependence. Sabbath teaches us to depend upon God. By taking one day away from our normal responsibilities, we declare our dependence upon God. We do not need to work seven days a week in order to have daily bread; we can work six days and spend the seventh in worship, rest, and Christian fellowship, and through it all trust that he will provide for our needs. My children can schedule their homework and projects so they, too, can learn to depend upon God without working all day and every day.

Sabbath teaches weakness. By taking one day each week away from our normal responsibilities, and by dedicating it to worship and rest, we declare our own weakness. We are too weak and too needy to work without rest. We are not God. We are not all-powerful. We are weak and limited. Sabbath reminds us that we cannot do it all, and that we do not have to do it all. As we acknowledge our weakness, we learn to lean upon God’s strength.

Sabbath improves the day. By setting aside one day and protecting it from work-related activities, we are able to elevate the day so that it becomes the best day of the week. Because we will not work, we are forced to look for other ways to use the day and these tend naturally toward worship, Christian fellowship and family.

God rested, so we rest. And that rest is sweet.

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