Tag: Sabbath Rest of God

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The Rest We Seek

 

So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.

Col. 2:16-17 NLT

The Sabbath Rest of God is experiencing by faith God’s adequacy and faithfulness in every life situation resulting in freedom from worry, anxiety, and care. This rest is not passivity, inactivity, or idleness. Rest is experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit lifting us up to Jesus in the midst of all our earthly fears and worldly burdens. New Testament rest is the peace of Christ, confidence in God’s covenant promise, and assurance in the Holy Spirit’s keeping power.

The two key verses for this New Covenant understanding of rest is Col. 2:16 and Heb. 4:8-10. The ESV Study Bible (Heb. 4:8-10) states, “the Sabbath rest remains possible for God’s people to enter even now, in this life (v. 9). The promise of entering now into this rest means ceasing from the spiritual strivings that reflect uncertainty about one’s final destiny; it means enjoyment of being established in the presence of God, to share in the everlasting joy that God entered when he rested on the seventh day (v. 10).”

The rest we seek is Christ deep and personal. Christ in the heart soothing the fears that bind us. The Holy Spirit in the soul releasing within the peace that passes all understanding. The Father in the mind leading, directing, and guiding.

In our anxious, stress-filled world, we must find the rest of God. Yet, the rest we seek is not a rejuvenation of our energy; it is an exchange of energy – our life for God’s – through which the vessel of our humanity is filled with the all-sufficiency of the Divine Presence, where we draw from the fullness of God Himself.

Francis Frangipane

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The Rest of God

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Matt. 11:28 ESV

The Rest of God means experiencing by faith God’s adequacy and faithfulness in every life situation resulting in freedom from worry, anxiety, and care. This rest is not passivity, inactivity, or idleness. His rest is an encounter with the power of the Holy Spirit who lifts us up into an experience of the resurrected Jesus. It is Jesus who dispels our earthly fears and worldly burdens calming our hearts in the midst of life’s storms. New Testament rest is the peace of Christ, confidence in God’s covenant promise, and assurance in the Holy Spirit’s keeping power.

The more we rest in Him the more we are independent of everything outside of Him at such a time, the more vigor we really possess; and the better we get over the winter, be it ever so severe. If I am independent of the winter, it is evident that I have mastered it, and not it me; and if I have done so, through the strength of the Lord Jesus, I am relieved though in no human way. Peter is delivered from prison in a superhuman way; but first he, though enduring a very trying winter, could lay him down and sleep–take his rest, because the Lord sustained him.

J. B. Stoney, His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 460.

 

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The Sabbath Rest of God

 

Resting From Your Works

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Heb. 4:9-10

The Sabbath Rest of God operates on two levels. First, the New Testament reserves Sunday as the designated time for corporate worship, but Sunday is not a new Sabbath with regulations and prohibitions. We know from Rev. 1:10 and 1 Cor. 16:2 that the earliest church moved their corporate worship time from the Sabbath (Friday night) to Sunday, the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Day is the day of resurrection. Therefore, the church is called to celebrate Jesus victory over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil as her central focus in praise and worship.

Second, the New Testament teaches that the Sabbath (Ex. 20:8) is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Now for believers, our Sabbath is internal rest that we can experience every day, all day.

The Sabbath Rest of God is experiencing by faith God’s adequacy and faithfulness in every life situation resulting in freedom from worry, anxiety, and care. This rest is not passivity, inactivity, or idleness. Rest is experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit lifting us up to Jesus in the midst of all our earthly fears and worldly burdens. New Testament rest is the peace of Christ, confidence in God’s covenant promise, and assurance in the Holy Spirit’s keeping power.

The two key verses for this New Covenant understanding of rest is Col. 2:16 and Heb. 4:8-10. The ESV Study Bible states, “the Sabbath rest remains possible for God’s people to enter even now, in this life (v. 9). The promise of entering now into this rest means ceasing from the spiritual strivings that reflect uncertainty about one’s final destiny; it means enjoyment of being established in the presence of God, to share in the everlasting joy that God entered when he rested on the seventh day (v. 10).”

Last, as believers we are no longer bound by law to keep Friday night as a day of obligation in worship, but we are bound to trust Christ by faith to be the adequacy of God in us.

The rest that Christ gives is an inward and spiritual thing. It is rest of heart, rest of conscience, rest of mind, rest of affection, rest of will. It is rest, from a comfortable sense of sins being all forgiven and guilt all put away. It is rest, from a solid hope of good things to come, laid up beyond the reach of disease, death and the grave. It is rest, from the well-grounded feeling, that the great business of life is settled, its great end provided for, that in time all is well done, and in eternity heaven will be our home.

J.C. Ryle, Old Paths (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999), 368.

HT: J. C. Ryle Quotes