Jesus, I am resting, resting
In the joy of what thou art,
Of thy loving heart.
Here I gaze and gaze upon thee
As thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power,
Thou has made me whole
…
Simply trusting thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And, Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart,
Satisfies its deepest longing,
meets, supplies my every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings
Thine is love indeed.
Ever life thy face upon me
As I work and wait for Thee;
Resting ‘neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth’s dark shadows flee
Brightness of my Father’s glory
Sunshine of my Father’s face
Let Thy glory e’er shine on me
Fill me with Thy grace.
(Jean Sophia Pigott, 19th Century, From The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, 108-109).
I don’t know that I could explain this in beautiful prose as this poem does. But, it is my prayer that the believers join in the journey of abandoning the flesh’s way of trying to earn God’s rest even in the process of sanctification.
Introduction: The Sabbath for the Christian
As an occupational therapist, my target is to get my patients or clients to resume their daily occupations. It is my passion and duty to find a way around their disability either by remediation or compensation.
Mankind sees a great value to doing whether such doing is play or practicing a hobby, a job, or a social role like being a mom, a caregiver. Though none of them alone captures who we are in our essence and identity, we overemphasized what we do that any failure, disability, or moral judgment that threatens what we do is perceived as a direct insult on who we are. We have let our performance dictate the value of ourselves.
Generally, such an attitude of the mind and heart will lead to two things. Either we will take false pride in what we do or be crushed when perceiving a threat to what we do. For example, one might take pride in their philanthropy providing a false sense of satisfaction and rest. You can apply this to pretty much anything you do that you perceive it to be valuable. It could be being a mother where you find your rest in knowing by comparison that you are doing a better job than mother Y. It could be that you are trying to find your rest in the success of your ministry, book, blog, etc. It could be that you are trying to find your rest in making sure that you are healthy or have that right body shape and weight, etc. I think you get it now. While nothing is inherently wrong in any of the above, the error is in putting your trust and rest in these things.
Out of God’s mercy, He might use these same things to teach us using the hard way where we should not put our trust, rest or identity.
Finding Rest, Value, and Identity
When you think about the big questions such as the purpose of one’s life or why we exist, you notice that our deepest yearning to find our self. Yet, we look for our identity hoping that what we find at the end is something of value. So what do we do? We work and do things. We internalize what we do until it becomes a social role which we reduce our entire existence to.
For example, what is the first response you give when introducing yourself to others? You give your name and profession. In other words, we let what we do define who we are. Then we use that to determine our self-worth. Back to our initial examples. If I believe that I am the perfect mother, then I feel valuable. If I am facing serious challenges as a mother, I might have poor self-perception. I will start to worry and lose my peace and sense of rest.
Also, the method we typically use to determine our value or success is typically fed to us by our environment. Each culture and society has an unwritten hierarchy of who is of higher value. Someone with a disability might be viewed as lower because of their lack of independence and productivity. Consequently, if I acquire a permanent disability, I might consider euthanasia, even as a Christian, as an act of mercy. What is worse than losing your identity or sense of value?
When we lose what we believe it to be our identity and value, we lose our sense of rest and peace. Do you see how the three, rest, value, and identity are interconnected? Are you surprised then that Sabbath was directly related to stopping your work? It is a reminder call that our soul’s rest is not in doing but in someone else.
The Sabbath: Finding Rest in Christ
Remember that God issued the Sabbath as a law after, not before, the crossing of the red sea (a picture of spiritual death and victory over it) and redemption from the slavery of Israel (a type of liberation from the power of the world). We saw in Exodus, chapter 16, how underestimating the gift of the Sabbath extends to the believer. This is also evident in the Hebrews text. C H Mackintosh reflects on the believer’s position to the Sabbath prayerfully when he states, “May we learn to value more the rest which our God has provided for us in Christ, and while enjoying Him as our rest, may we feed upon Him as the "hidden manna," laid up, in the power of resurrection, in the inner sanctuary — the record of what God has accomplished, on our behalf, by coming down into this world, in His infinite grace, in order that we might be before Him, according to the perfectness of Christ, and feed on His unsearchable riches forever.
Finding Rest in Jesus our High Priest and Intercessor
While Jesus is neither deceived by the brokenness that lingers in us after regeneration nor does he undermine it, He has the remedy for it. He has entered heaven and on our behalf He is interceding for us that our salvation, which is not just positional justification but also daily sanctification, may be perfected in Him and by the action of His grace in our lives delivered daily in the form of spiritual manna, His word and the transforming work of His Holy Spirit in us.
Finding Rest in Dying with Jesus
If we lean on our efforts and well-intentions to do what is right, independent of God’s grace, we are breaking the Sabbath in its most real and practical sense. Sanctification is a process of dying to self, or “loosing” it by dying to the habits of reliance on its natural powers; Death to self is learning to work and do while waiting for God to deal with the outcomes. It is learning to do while leaning on God’s redemption as the foundation of our value and identity as precious children of God and partners in His kingdom.
Finding Rest in the Transforming Power of the Resurrection of Jesus
While we let the Spirit work in us that we might lose ourselves, we let the Spirit work in us to make us whole and new. We trust that God will finish His project, you and me, perfectly. When we let Him work in us, we find the self that God intended for us, we are resting in His smile, filled with His grace, and trusting that his transforming power is making me whole.
Finding Rest in Christ as the Good Shepherd
Our struggles may vary from trying to lose weight to winning bread, from dealing with a child with defiance, mental or physical health issues to selecting the right tutor and school, from leading a busy stressful life to empty nesting and retirement, from resisting the temptation of autonomy to standing firm amidst persecution. But do we trust and live in accordance with the belief that God is the good shepherd? We think it is enough for God to have dealt with our eternal damnation and secured us a place in heaven. We think for some reason that Psalms 23 is only for kings, who lack nothing. It is easy for them to sing, “I shall not want…”
I hate to burst your bubble. But, God wants us to find rest in Him even when there are unmet needs in our lives. The Israeli nation faced unmet needs in the desert, the scarcity of water, secured indwelling from external enemies and threats, and the scarcity of crops. Instead of finding rest in the heavenly manna and God’s indwelling in their midst as their protection, they kept complaining. In contrast, the apostle Paul says, “we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Can the good shepherd take care of us in the desert, in the valley of the shadows of death? During mental and psychological sufferings similar in their intensity to the sufferings of Jesus? When we discover ourselves in our daily walk with Jesus that the answer is a “yes,” we also discover resting in Christ, as our Shepherd.
Forfeiting the Rest of God
“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it” (Apostle Paul, Hebrews 4:1).
Christians and non-Christians may forfeit their access to God’s rest. The non-Christian does not have the key to enter. In contrast, the believer has the key but chooses not to use it. That’s typically the result of disobedience (Hebrews 4:6, 11).
In the New Testament, the Sabbath was fulfilled in Jesus because, in His work of redemption, we are given access to God’s eternal rest that cannot be taken away from us. That said, believers forfeit their experience of it now when we try to either earn righteousness and sanctification or peace by our human will-power and wisdom alone. They also forfeit it when they refuse to subject the flesh to sanctification and death or throw a tantrum in objection to the circumstances.
Accordingly, it follows that Jesus was not abrogating a law due to God changing His mind about the observance of the law. Rather, we understand that God set up the observance to teach us and prepare us to Jesus fulfilling it and us enjoying such fulfillment to its maximum potential.
It also becomes clear that God was not changing or undermining the meaning or the significance of why the observance was established in the Mosaic covenant. The law stood for God’s gift of man through the gift of salvation and redemption. Thus, breaking it was a serious matter and rightfully so. For breaking it meant the despising of God’s gift of justification and sanctification, which is still a serious offense worthy of condemnation. We often quote John 3:16 and omit what comes after it. John says, “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only son” (John 3:18).
Yet and despite all of this, the apostle Paul follows his warnings with verses of hope. Disobedience is not irreversible. We can repent trusting that our intercessor understands and appreciates the gravity of the temptations and will intercede for us and will finish His work in us.
Word of Encouragement
Remember that “when setbacks and failures, and upset plans, test my faith and leave me with empty hands, are you not the closest when it’s hardest to stand? I know that you will finish what you began… Overwhelmed by the thought of my weakness and the fear that I’ll fail you in the end. In this mess, I am one of the pieces, I can’t put this together, but you can” (
Here I am, Downhere lyrics). We fail a lot. And, our falls are not always graceful or private. But, God’s grace is bigger and sufficient, and will not let us go even when the closest to us have given up on us. His grace won’t let go of us even when we give up on ourselves.
Concluding the Series
The Sabbath is a sign that we enter a covenant of God’s provision to us, that we are receiving a gift that no human hand could earn. Thus, whether you are Christian or non-Christian, the Sabbath, not the day or the observance of it, but your response to what it signifies, is the deal-breaker for your spiritual and eternal well-being. I encourage you to read the previous posts for better context if you have not already.