Sabbath Rest

A sermon given on 21st October 2018 for Aldersgate Methodist Church, Youth Ministry – Youthphoria. This is the script that I used. Enjoy.

The church is embarking on the sermon series on the “Sabbath Lifestyle”. So today I am going to share from the word on the Sabbath Rest. We are into the 2nd of 6 “R”s. On communion Sunday, Ps Lynette preached on the Sabbath as a reminder of God the creator and deliverer. Today I am going to preach on the topic of the Sabbath Rest. But before we dive in, I want to give us a warning. While “rest” is the most common word associated with the Sabbath, God’s intention for the Sabbath is more than just “rest”. The Sabbath rest is an extremely deep, but beautiful concept that encompasses hope for all believers.

And so if you are ready, I wish to bring us through a few passages today that helps us to crystallise our idea of the Sabbath rest, and hopefully from there, not only do we understand theologically the idea of the Sabbath, but we pick out applicable concepts that will help us find rest and hope.

How many of you here believe that Jesus violated the commandments of God? Think along with me. If Jesus, who claim to be God, violates the exact same commandments that He himself gave, then Christianity has a huge problem because we worship a hypocritical God. The passage that we are going to read today will seemingly point to Jesus violating a commandment given by God to the Israelites – this commandment instructs the Israelites to cease from work on the Sabbath day. This commandment was given during the time of Moses and passed on for many generations.

We are going to see, in today’s passage, that Jesus, knowing the commandments, seemingly violates the 4th Commandment to cease from work on the Sabbath day. But, it is this exact passage and the words that Jesus said that will transform the way that we think about the Sabbath rest. So if you have your Bibles, let’s turn to John 5:1-17.

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5 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

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My aim today is to answer two questions pertaining to the Sabbath Rest. These two questions will also form the outline of the sermon today. The two questions are

1. What are we resting for?
2. What are we resting from?

In fast paced Singapore, it almost seems natural to be able to answer these two questions. The concept of rest is in-build into our system. You go to school for 5 days, and rest for 2 days. You have classes for 10 weeks each term and have a break after that. Society builds on the concept of rest for physical, social and psychological reasons.

If the Sabbath rest is all about God working for 6 days and resting for 1, and therefore we do likewise, then the Sabbath rest becomes just like any other kind of rest (again). Non-religious people also know that they need rest. So, what I would like to do today is to provide a biblical insight to why we need the Sabbath Rest and it might not be for the reason you think it is for.

To answer these two questions, we need to go back to where it all started from. Let us first look at God’s own Sabbath. So here is the “History or the Sabbath Rest (simplified)”. In the Bible, way back in Genesis, we see that God created every thing in six days and on the seventh day, God rested from all his work. Genesis 2:1-3 tells us

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

This is familiar to all of us. God started work on Day 1 creating the heavens and the earth, He spoke and light came into existence – God saw that it was good. Day 2, God separated the water that covered the earth from the sky – God saw that it was good. Day 3, God separated the land from the water, created plants and trees that bear fruit – God saw that it was good. Day 4, God created the sun and the stars, he placed the moon in its place – God saw that it was good. Day 5, God created birds for the sky and creatures of the sea – God saw that it was good. And on Day 6, God created living creatures of the land livestock of every kind – God saw that it was good and on the same day, He created man in his image to govern over all creation on earth – God saw that it was very good. God created perfection in six days and on the seventh day, God rested from His work.

Now my question for all of us to ponder is this – If God created everything perfect and complete and rested on the seventh day, what did God have do on the eighth day? What does God even need to do? 

Every thing was perfect just as it was intended to be! God’s Sabbath started on the 7th day – He made it holy, and it would have lasted for eternity. Because in God’s perfect creation, there is nothing more that needs to be created and nothing requires fixing. Creation, heaven and earth, Man created in his image are all perfect. From Day 7, God rested and enjoyed His creation and he intended for us to share in the same enjoyment of creation. This is perfection. There is no more work that needs to be done except for God to enjoy his creation with man. There is no “eighth day” where God goes back to work, because there is nothing for him to do. The 7th day would have lasted for eternity.

Yet we see that not long later, God had to come out of His Sabbath rest – the 7th day ended. The fall of man meant that some thing now requires fixing, creation is no longer perfect, and God needs to come out of that rest. We don’t know what is the duration between day 7 and the fall of man, but what we do know is that God had to give up His own Sabbath and get back to work again. 

We see in Genesis 3:21 that God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. God had to go back to work because of the sin of mankind. God’s creation was defiled by  sin and He had to perform the first sacrificial killing of an animal to cover the shame of man’s sin. Creation is no longer perfect, mankind is no longer perfect – the 7th day ends.

But so far we have only seen God resting, there is nothing about man resting. In fact, it was not made official until we hit Exodus. Which means, every character that you meet in the book of Genesis did not have to observe the Sabbath rest. Until we reach the generation that God brought out of Egypt. As part of the 10 commandments, God commanded Israel to 

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

And God would only explain why Israel had to observe the Sabbath only in Chapter 31 of Exodus. God spoke to Moses, and this is what He said

“You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you.”

The Sabbath is a sign. The previous time I was here speaking on the book of Romans, I remember telling you what a sign is. A sign points to something. When God made a promise with Noah that He will not wipe out the earth with a flood, God gave a sign – the rainbow. When God made a promise with Abraham that he will be the father of many generations, God gave a sign – circumcision. So here, the Sabbath rest is a sign that points to the promise that God made between Himself and all generations of Israel that God will sanctify them.

God broke out of His own Sabbath when He performed a sacrificial killing to make garments of skin for Adam and Eve to cover their shame. In the same way, because mankind is sinful, God – through the sign of the Sabbath – is pointing us back to the promise that He will sanctify His people (repeat). The Sabbath rest is an assurance of God’s continuous work of sanctification among His people.

What are the Israelites resting for? The Israelites rest in assurance of God’s continuous work of sanctification among His people. The Israelites needed the rest as a reminder of God giving up his own rest to sanctify Adam and Eve. The Israelites needed the rest as a reminder of God giving up his own rest to sanctify them and all their future generations. Some of you might then ask, what does this have to do with us? We are not Israelites. Can I simply apply what was meant for the Israelites to myself? And my answer is “Yes!” Are we not sinners like the Israelites? Are we not needing to be sanctified? So this brings me to my first principle.

What are we resting for? We rest for the assurance of God’s continuous work of sanctification among us.

Human beings are often in need of assurance. When you go on a holiday, your parents probably ask you to turn off all the plugs. Most of you probably came to church today without turning off all your plugs at home, but when you decide to go on a holiday, we feel the need to turn off all the plugs – we need assurance that our appliances don’t burn up while we are away. In school, some of you need assurance that you are not the only one that forgot to do your homework. Or you need the assurance that you are not the only one who fail on a test, you look for other people. If we need assurance for all these things, don’t you think we also need assurance when it comes to matters of life and death? God understands the human condition for the need of assurance and he instituted the Sabbath rest exactly for that. The Sabbath rest is instituted for us because we need the assurance of God’s continuous work of sanctification. God told Moses, and He speaks to us now through His word that the Sabbath is holy for us.

So that’s the first question. Our simplified history lesson is not done yet because we still need to answer the second question “What are we resting from?”. But I want to back track a little in our history lesson and go back to Box 2 and 3, because I want to bring in the parallel to the passage we have read this morning and also to answer the second question.

When we look back on the fall of man, Genesis 3:7 tells us that after they ate the forbidden fruit, they knew that they were naked. In other words, they knew they had sinned and felt shame. So what did they do? They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Adam and Eve, upon sinning knew shame. Their first instinctive action is to cover that shame up. But they knew it was not enough, because when God came into the Garden of Eden to look for them, they hid from God. Despite covering their shame, they knew that they still had to hide from God, because whatever they had done to cover their own shame was not enough. If you recall, God then performed the first sacrificial killing, took the skin of the animal and made garments of skin for Adam and Eve.

We fast forward to the time of Jesus, into the passage that we read earlier. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Now I need to set the context right so that we fully understand the significance of this episode and its relation to the Sabbath rest.

If you were living during the time of Jesus and you were ill or disabled in anyway, people often associate it with either you being a sinner or your parents have sinned. This is why so often in the Gospels, we see people who are sick distancing themselves from society. So here at this pool, were all the people with disabilities, because society considered them sinners and therefore, they stayed away from every one else.

With that in mind, in verse 6, when Jesus saw this man and asked “Do you want to be healed?”, Jesus was addressing the label of sin that is attached to this man. In verse 14, Jesus met this same man again, and he told this man in verse 14 “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”. When Jesus asked the question “Do you want to be healed?”, Jesus was asking a question addressing the man’s sin. What was the man’s reply?

Verse 7 “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”. The people believed that when the water is stirred up, the first person in the pool will miraculously be heal. So this man is literally saying “I want to be heal! But whenever I try, it is not enough! I try so hard, for 38 years, but so far, no luck!”. 

Do you see the similarities between Adam and Eve and this man? Adam and Eve tried so hard to cover their shame that resulted from their sin. This man tried so hard to get himself into the pool so that this label of sin can be removed from him.

This was a man desperate to remove this label of sin that has been tagged to him for 38 years. He tried so hard to get himself into the pool so that he can be healed, but all it took was for Jesus to say 8 words, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”. At once, the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walk. God was the answer to Adam and Eve, just as Jesus was the answer to this man’s label of sin.

What do all these have to do with the Sabbath? When Jesus performed this healing, it was on the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders were not angry with Jesus for performing the healing on the Sabbath. They were angry at him for asking this man to pick up his bed – which under Jewish law is not allowed on the Sabbath. There is a difference between Jewish law and Old Testament law. The Old Testament law is what Moses passed down, the Jewish law is what was added on as it was passed down. 

By asking the man to carry his bed, the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of asking a man to “sin” on the Sabbath. In a very similar episode, also pertaining to the Sabbath, Matthew 12 and Mark 2-3 also recorded for us that Jesus told his disciples to go to the grain field on the Sabbath to pick grain because they were hungry and needed something to eat. When the Pharisees questioned Jesus, Jesus basically replied “so what?”. 

And you must understand why Jesus gave such a response! Because all these things that the Jewish leaders imposed on the people has become a burden for the people. If you lived during the time of Jesus, the person who is the most “zhuo bo” on the Sabbath is declared the most holy. The person who really doesn’t do anything on the Sabbath is the most “righteous”. But as you have seen from our earlier study of Romans, that is not how righteousness work.

The Sabbath was meant to be a day set aside and kept holy, but here, we see the Jewish people defining their own definition of holy. The person who does nothing best, wins the game of holiness. Sabbath became a day of burden for the people because there were additional rules imposed on them. The Jewish law that the leaders added on top of the Old Testament law has become a burden for the people of Israel.

This is why Jesus looked the Pharisees straight in their eye and said “so what?”. So what that I healed on the Sabbath, so what if I asked this man who was healed to go home, so what if I feed my followers who are hungry. The law that you have imposed have neglected the initial intent of the Sabbath rest! The Sabbath day has been defiled to become a day of burden instead of a day of rest. 

Friends, do you find the Sabbath day a burden to keep? Is it a hindrance especially when you are studying for a major exam? Is it standing in the way between you and work that you have to submit on Monday morning? When God instituted the Sabbath, it was not meant to be a burden.

This is what our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 12:8 and Mark 2:16 “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”. Jesus has come to set things straight, to reclaim the Sabbath day and to make it holy again.

If you read the Gospels, Jesus was killed for 2 reasons (1) He claimed to be God. (2) He claimed authority over the Sabbath Day. There was nothing else that Jesus did that angered the people as much as these two things. If Christ died because he wanted to reclaim back the holiness of the Sabbath, you better leave here today knowing that the Sabbath Rest is important to God.

Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” A yoke is an instrument that binds two animals together so that they can plow the land in unison. Jesus is extending himself to you. He is asking you a very personal question. Are you burdened? Come to me, and I will give you rest.

What are you be burdened with? Adam and Eve were burdened because they felt the shame of their sin and needed to cover themselves up. But only God could cover their nakedness. The crippled man by the pool was burdened because for 38 years, he has been labelled as a sinner, and outcasted. He tried so hard to be the first in the pool, only to fail every time. But only Jesus could heal him and remove the label of sin from his life. The Jews, they were burdened because the Jewish Law forbids them to do anything on the Sabbath, it became a constant burden every Sabbath because they know that the Jewish leaders are watching them and judging them from the sidelines. Yet, it took Jesus to come and say “so what?”. What are you burdened with? 

Allow me to give you the principle, then I will say more about the rest that Jesus claims he can give.

What are we resting from? The Sabbath allows us to rest from the burden of our own strive, so that Christ can bring true rest.

Rest does not come by simply obeying the Law. The Jews did that, and they found it a burden.  You see, the more the Jews tried to find rest by observing all the Sabbath laws, the more they missed the point of the Sabbath rest. True rest can only come from the one who rested in the first place – that is from God. Jesus, being God himself claims authority over the Sabbath and he is offering us true rest. Not just on the Sabbath, but every day of our lives.

When God performed the first sacrificial killing on the day that He ended His rest for the sake of Adam and Eve, God had set out a plan for a sacrificial killing that will once and for all restore this defiled creation back to perfection (again). On the day that Christ shed his blood on Calvary, He was that sacrificial killing that has set in place a way for creation to return to perfection – a perfection that can only be realised through salvation in Christ.

Allow me to complete the History of the Sabbath rest, Verse 17 of John 5, Jesus said “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” God had forfeited His rest, but He is offering us Jesus whom we can turn to to find true rest. The rest that Christ came to reclaim is not a day of the week, but it is salvation. Hebrews 4:9 “There is a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His (Jesus’) rest has himself rested also from his work, as God did from His.” To put it simply, the one who have received Christ, will experience true rest.

Some of us here have already come to Jesus for salvation, but yet find it hard to find rest. A lot of times it is because you resist being bound to Jesus. When you receive Jesus Christ, you need to bind yourself to the yoke of Jesus Christ. Allow Christ to lead you, if he goes left, you go left. Don’t try to go your own way. Imagine being tied to someone and both of you decide to head in different directions – it’s tiring!

Many Christians feel tired, because of our disobedience. We want to head in our own direction, while being bound to Jesus. You cannot go both ways. If you are bound to Jesus, there is only one way that you are heading… and that’s His way. There is a reward for choosing to be bound to Jesus and to carry his yoke, Christ promises that His yoke is light – that in Him you can find true rest.

The rest that Jesus is offering is the kind of rest where we cease striving from all our work and simply rest in the Lord. Where we sit at His feet and meditate on His Word. Where we fall on our knees in prayer. Where we enjoy a good meal with our loved ones and talk about what the Lord is teaching each of us. Where we enjoy a great cup of coffee along side friends who spur each other on. Where we put aside our emails, the TV or handphones and spend time with God. This is the kind of rest Jesus Christ is offering you. The question is, then, do you have this rhythm of rest in your life? If you do these things, seek first the kingdom of God, then will you know God’s purpose for your life, then you will stop trying to head in your own direction, but to be lead by Christ.

I urge you to allow Jesus to do the work, and you simply follow his leading. If you choose to take up the yoke of Christ, be bound with Christ and walk the journey of life according to His leading, every day is a day of Sabbath rest. And because every day is the day of Sabbath rest, every day you remember the assurance of the promise that God has made with His people – that He will sanctify you. It is through this sanctification, that we enter the kingdom of God in heaven and enjoy the perfection that God had intended since creation – eternal rest.