THE DISCIPLINE OF REST: OBEDIENCE BORN OF GRATITUDE
Why Sabbath Rest Still Matters
in a Hustle-Obsessed World
The modern hustle is everywhere. Side hustle money makers, grinding out late night creative, meal preps and ice baths, and that 4AM workout so you can check the box and be that imminently qualified human being. You need to get after it 24-7, 365 or you are not going to reach your full potential before you die. The pressure to perform never stops.
By nature I am a deeply motivated and proactive person. An entrepreneur at heart, I fully agree with striving to become the best me I can be, but while I am down with hard work, ice baths, and continually gaining ground on being a better husband, father, business owner and son, if I am not balancing those drives with genuine rest, I am not only on the path to burnout, I am focused on self-glorification instead of glorifying and obeying the Father.
Over a decade ago, I began a spiritual journey that ultimately had me remeasuring the modern western interpretation of the Bible and asking questions I previously didn’t even think to ask. One of those questions was about the 4th Commandment:
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 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. 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." - Exodus 20:8-11
Now more than ever in our borderline chaotic weekly schedules of work deadlines, home improvement projects, side hustles, self improvement, family events, school and sports obligations with the kids, and all the on hold aspirations and dreams knocking on your to do list, Sabbath is desperately needed for our own sanity and health.
Wrestling with the Sabbath: Four Biblical Perspectives
Without making this a deep theological post, I will briefly explain what I wrestled with and the conclusion I came to. Stick with me here, this will greatly benefit your life and quite honestly if you are not observing the Sabbath, you are leaving one of the greatest gifts God gave to man on the table.
As my wife and I began to wrestle with this topic of the Sabbath we found that there are 4 main options of biblical world-view to contend with.
The Sabbath is Saturday - the seventh day as mentioned throughout the bible
The Sabbath is Sunday - it was changed to Sunday at some point in history
The Sabbath as a principle is important so as long as I take 1 day in 7
Yeshuah (Jesus) is our rest - I no longer have to observe the Sabbath
Lets quickly go through a high level summary of these points (these are by no means comprehensive):
The 7th day, long forgotten in American Christianity, has always throughout all of scripture been called out as the one day a week He set aside as an appointment for man (Mark 2:27) to rest, refresh, and refocus on the Father. Ironically it is the one commandment where we are charged to “Remember” and the one commandment we have by en large forgotten.
Those on the Sunday schedule, argue that the Sabbath was broken by Jesus (eating grain on Shabbat) as proof that it was not still to be enforced and was moved to Sunday by the apostles - what they interpret the disciples to call “The Lord’s Day” in honor of the resurrection of our Messiah.
1 in 7 believers honor the idea of Sabbath by taking a day of rest that is convenient for them and their schedule.
Jesus is our rest is a perspective that all of the requirements of the biblical Law have been done away with and therefore Sabbath in any form is not important. Adherents believe that Jesus embodies the idea of rest and is ultimately what the Sabbath was pointing to.
After 2 unbroken years of consistent weekly study on this topic, my wife and I came to the conclusion that the answer is both #1 and #4. I am going to quickly sum up our findings in the next paragraph to give you a high level understanding of what we concluded. If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail, please feel free to send a message through the contact page and I will do my best to answer.
Biblical Evidence: Why We Honor the Seventh Day
God throughout scripture has only ever emphasized one day as set apart in the week. Jesus (Luke 4:16) and the apostles (Acts 13:14-15, 16:13, 17:1-2, 18:4) observed this day. Jesus was angry with the leaders of the time for observing the traditions of men over the Law of God (Mark 7:1-13). Unfortunately not much has changed since those days… We have record of the shift to Sunday happening in the early church and we have testimony of those claiming their authority to change the Law of God.
The Catholic Record September 1, 1923:
“Protestants reject Divine Tradition, the Unwritten Word, which Catholics accept as of equal authority with the Written Word, the Bible. The Divine authority given by Christ to the Church to teach in His name, to bind and loose, Protestants deny. For them - and it is their boast - the Bible and the Bible alone has Divine authority.
Now in the matter of Sabbath observance the Protestant rule of Faith is utterly unable to explain the substitution of the Christian Sunday for the Jewish Saturday. It has been changed. The Bible still teaches that the Sabbath or Saturday should be kept holy. There is no authority in the New Testament for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday. Surely it is an important matter. It stands there in the Bible as one of the Ten Commandments of God. There is no authority in the Bible for abrogating this Commandment, or for transferring its observance to another day of the week.
For Catholics it is not the slightest difficulty. "All power is given Me in heaven and on earth; as the Father sent Me so I also send you," said our Divine Lord in giving His tremendous commission to His Apostles. "He that heareth you heareth Me." We have in the authoritative voice of the Church the voice of Christ Himself. The Church is above the Bible; and this transference of Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact. Deny the authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third - Protestant Fourth - Commandment of God. As the Rev. Mr. Smith rightly points out: "The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord's Day. Christians are all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday." The Christians who so speak are "Bible Christians," those who make the Bible the sole rule of Faith; and the Bible is silent on Sunday observance, it speaks only of Sabbath observance. The Lord's Day - Dies Dominica - is the term used always in the Missal and the Breviary. It occurs in the Bible once (Apoc. 1.10); in Acts xx. 7 and 1 Cor. xvi. 2, there is a reference to "the first day of the week;" but in none of these is there the remotest intimation that henceforth the first day is to take the place of the seventh. That is the crux of the whole question, what authority does the Bible give for the change? And that difficulty Mr. Smith and his critics, though pious and effusive and vaguely eloquent about many things, have each and all sedulously evaded.”
1 in 7 perspective reaches to honor the principle of the Sabbath, but fails to see the arrogance in the choice. Why would we choose 1 in 7 and not the day appointed in scripture? Because the called out day is inconvenient for us. So we show we are placing our will above His.
Jesus is our rest: Well meaning believers the world over have stood on this thought process and observed Sunday gatherings with community, but not exercised any sort of Sabbath related discipline claiming simply that Jesus is our rest. I was one in this camp for many years. I would go to church on Sunday and go home and do whatever needed to be done or whatever I wanted to do without a second thought for observation of any kind of Sabbath discipline.
Since concluding this study journey, I have continued to embrace the idea that Christ is my rest in all things that pertian to forgiveness, a clean conscience and salvation, however my ignorance was exposed as I studied this topic, ignorance that believed that he was my physical rest as well. He is not. Jesus himself needed actual physical rest. Just as the word of God is called “Daily Bread” but my body still requires food, so too Jesus is my rest but my body still requires down time and sleep.
I will end the theologial dig here, but I am happy to continue the discussion with anyone who wants to engage on the topic. The journey was long and very detailed and incredibly hard to share in just a few short paragraphs.
Practicing the Sabbath: The Discipline of True Rest
I’ll never forget the first day I set out to fully obey and rest on the Sabbath. I sat in a lawn chair in my back yard. It was summer and the sun felt amazing, I had my bible in my lap and my bride next to me… but the grass at my feet was nearly 10 inches long. I could think about nothing else. It was incredibly hard to concentrate on reading the bible. I am a go getter by nature and I struggled that day to fully embrace the gift of Sabbath and push the lawn care to another day.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. - Hebrews 12:11
It was incredibly difficult to start that journey and even along the way, being self-employed, I have turned down thousands of dollars in work because the job was on or spanned the Sabbath Day, but those days I observed it and that discipline that I grew in, while painful for a time, resulted in immeasurable blessing, deep spiritual growth, sacred time with family & fellowship and much needed rest that renews the body and mind for the week ahead. I look forward to it every week. It is a GIFT. I would not trade the Sabbath for any amount of money in the world.
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Hebrews 4:9-11
Discipline is worship. Obedience is Worship. Rest is Worship.
6 DAYS LABOR
You were not made to be a machine. You were not called to be a slave to the hustle.
You were called to obedience.
You were called to rest.