What A Sabbath Means Today

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

Genesis 2:2

A rancher rotates his cattle from one pasture to another. A farmer plants different crops in his fields from year to year. A teacher takes a year off to travel. A dad loads his family in the car and heads to church on a Sunday morning.

Each of these things, while distinct in their own right, have at their core a seed thought that stems from the first week of human history, where the seventh day we have come to know as the Sabbath.

Today, we will not be mincing the seventh day of the week with the first day of the week in this article. Nor will we be focusing on the prophetic Sabbaths (Colossians 2:16-17). We are simply observing the 1 out of 7 principle, and its benefits.

Though it eventually became the fourth of the Ten Commandments, keeping the Sabbath was always much more than a simple traffic law. It was severely enforced in the Old Testament, but unlike the other nine, it ceased to be under the ministry of Jesus Christ. As part of His new covenant, Jesus told His disciples, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) It was the only commandment not to be extrapolated by Christ as a means of personal righteousness. To make it clear, YOU ARE NOT IMMORAL IF YOU DO NOT OBSERVE A CEREMONIAL SABBATH.

But the Sabbath was more than a legal statute: it was an eternal principle. God rested on the Sabbath from Creation. Jesus Christ’s 1,000 year kingdom on earth is the Sabbath of history. From one end of the Book to the other, this idea of ONE day set apart from the rest demands our attention.

Many philosophical approaches have been taken on this subject. Some recommended articles are Your Routine Needs Rites of Passage, and How and Why to Take a Tech Sabbath from Brett McKay, and Live Coals: Life at Work Series on Spiritual Reload. Today, we will search the Scripture to find God’s reasons for a Sabbath.

A Season of Rest

It goes without saying that rest is healthy for your body. A normal circadian rythym is necessary for proper growth a nd healing. But daily sleep must be supplemented with a weekly rest also.

Daily sleep occurs during the night time, which is from 6 to 12 hours of our days depending on the season (around the 40th parallel). That range is 1/4 to 1/2 of a 24-hour day. The weekly Sabbath is 24 out of 168 hours, which is a smaller fraction of time (1/7) of a longer period. A day of rest is not a significant chunk of time, so most people skip it. But the long-term effect on health and habit are hard- if not impossible- to undo.

With regular daily sleep, you may not feel like resting. But add a little overtime at work here, a late-night fellowship there, or a sick child, and you’ll see the wisdom of this extra break.

God rested. He was not tired when He observed that first Sabbath. Nor do you have to be exhausted to need the weekend. As quoted earlier, “The sabbath was made for man.” Just as God considered man in 6 days of creative expression, He also had mankind in mind in ordaining 1 day of simple inaction.

Horace Greely was a newspaper editor of the late 1800’s. Though he was not a believer, he was wiser than many Christians today in advocating one day of the week to be separate from the rest:

"I am no formalist, and would not have Sunday kept absolutely sacred from labor and recreations with all the strictness enjoined in the Mosaic ritual; I believe the cramped and weary toiler through six days of each week may better walk or ride out with his children and breathe fresh, pure air on Sunday than not at all; yet this... use of the Christian Sabbath as a... mere holiday impresses me very unfavorably. Half the stores are open on that day; men are cutting stone and doing all manner of work as on other days;... only there is more hilarity, more dancing, more drinking, more theatre-going, more dissipation, than on any other day of the week. I suspect that Labor gets no more pay in the long run for seven days' work per week than it would for six, and that Morality suffers, and Philanthropy is more languid than it would be if one day in each week were generally welcomed as a day of rest and worship."

--Greely commenting on the French Sunday

A Season of Renewal

There’s something more than just rest from work. The potential for work is increased by the constant shift in rest to wake, from Sabbath to six days of labor.

A piston engine is great example. Typical gas powered equipment have ‘four-stroke’ engines. Every turn of the engine is the piston inside the engine making a full up stroke, and a full down stroke. But the process for powering that rotation takes four strokes: 1st, intake(down), 2nd, compression(up), 3rd, power(down), and 4th, exhaust(up). Although it may seem like there is some wasted effort, it is actually as simple and as efficient as it can possibly be. The extra effort all contributes to the whole machine running smoothly.

Like that, a Sabbath in your weekly life is not something you can skip. It is part of an irreducible minimum that keeps your life purring happily. Some people view it as a ‘catch up’ day, and if they miss it they will drag behind the rest of the week.

But as you can see, if your car only requires ONE power stroke out of four to keep it moving, certainly YOU can afford one day to rest out of seven working days!

Extra Effort

But perhaps, we’re looking at the one-out-of-seven all wrong. What if God considered the six as the ‘free-wheeling’ motions, and the efforts on one special day as powering them all?

There is a Bible example in a popular, simple story that I’m ashamed to say I have only recently considered: Joshua, and the battle of Jericho. Let’s read it again together:

“And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.

And seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; but the rereward came after the ark of the LORD, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets.

And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did six days.

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.

And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city.”

Joshua 6:12-16

Here, it was not a lesser action, or a lesser outcome expected on the seventh day- it was the opposite! God ordered that army to seven times MORE marching, trumpeting, and obeying than they had all week long! And when they finally ended the parade around the wall, they were ordered to shout! The wall came down, and the Israelites took Jericho.

The Sabbath under Joshua was not a desistance from work- it called for a different kind of work- and alot MORE of it.

That’s why you should GO to church on Sunday. It’s the extra work of serving and singing, helping and hearing God’s Word that gives the victories we seek. All week long we circle the enemy, but on ONE day of the week, we shout for the victory in Jesus! He could give it to us on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday– but just wait a minute– He has a special DAY for showing special GRACE for special VICTORY. Don’t stream it on the TV, that’s putting worship on the same level as a football game or a sitcom. Sunday isn’t for watching- it’s for worshipping!

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength”

Isaiah 40:31a

A Season of Review

The modern buzzword is an ‘existential crisis.’ That means an event that makes you stop and ask if what you have been doing is worthwhile. Read this next statement carefully, because you may have to live through it: no man who has ever followed God relied on an ‘existential crisis’ for his assurance.

It’s not graduating high school.

It’s not your wedding day.

It’s not the birth of your first child.

It’s not turning 40. It’s not the kids leaving home.

It’s not that last look into the casket. None of these will create the spark of passion and purpose that explains your walk with the Lord.

The preaching of the Word of God is the weekly ‘crisis’ you need.

A certain day, where (right now in the USA) a man may choose to wake up, dress up, and walk up to a Bible-believing church and give his time to studying the Bible, learning the stories, and being encouraged. It is here that a man will be asked to bow his head and talk to his Creator and Redeemer about specific issues addressed in a sermon. Church is the ultimate ‘existential crisis’ where you recognize, confront, reconcile, and conquer all sorts of doubts and fears of this world.

A season of review shouldn’t happen once a year. There is too much baggage in waiting that long, too much danger of getting overwhelmed. God set aside one day of seven to allow a glance over your shoulder to set things straight in your life.

For Israel, it was a continual remembrance. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” (Exodus 20:8) In Exodus 31:17, God tells Moses about the Sabbath day: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”

I wonder- what refreshed God? Look back into the Creation account, after God made everything, at the end of the sixth day:

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

Genesis 1:31

David recorded the intended effect of all of God’s works from the beginning and put it into song. He sang:

“The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.“

Psalm 104:31

That Divine Review is meant to become a planned part of our week. It will become such a joy that you will look forward to it. Don’t avoid it. You need the rest, you need the renewal, and you need the time to review. God made it that way.

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