"The Sabbath is routinely rejected because it is one of our most profound tastes of grace."
— Dan Allender
Introduction
We are in a series called "Practices of Grace"—time-tested ways to enjoy and love God. The first of these practices is Sabbath Rest. We're starting here precisely because we all need the skill of saying no in order to create space for the most meaningful things in life to exist. In many ways, all the practices of grace—as well as our ability to love God and neighbor—are built upon the foundation of sabbath. Can we say no to the frenetic pace of life? Can we trust that six days of work has been enough? Do we have the humility to acknowledge that our worlds will not crumble when we step away?
As we try on this practice of sabbath together—some for the first time—my hope is that we will see and experience refreshment, relief, and delight. It may be challenging and awkward at first, but after a few reps, I hope we find space to enjoy God, rest, and play in all the unique ways God's designed us. Truly, I hope the sabbath becomes the most anticipated day of the week!
And in that beautiful space, we may enjoy the Lord—the one who created us for sabbath rest both here and into eternity.
"It is only when we slow down our lives that we can catch up to God."
—NT Wright
What is the sabbath?
The Hebrew word sabbath literally means stop. If six days are for working, sabbath is for ceasing that work. As God instructs in Exodus 20: "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..." In our culture, we generally hate being told what to do. We prefer autonomy. Any command—even one to rest—can feel oppressive. But that couldn't be further from the reality of this passage.
For the Hebrew people who God had just liberated from slavery, rest was a foreign experience. All they knew was forced labor from sunup to sundown. But then they learn the law of the land under a new King—and to their astonishment, the law is to rest. Not once a month but every single week. Sabbath is a gift of God where we cease from our ordinary work one day out of seven.
Yet the sabbath is not only a restful ceasing from our labor. The sabbath is also a delight. It is meant to be wholly refreshing. Just as God "rested and was refreshed" (Ex 31) as he enjoyed the "good" labor of his hands, we too follow his model, enjoying his creation and the labor of our hands, finding refreshment and delight in the Lord and his good gifts.
The purpose of Sabbath is not simply to rejuvenate yourself in order to do more production, nor is it the pursuit of pleasure. The purpose of Sabbath is to enjoy your God, life in general, what you have accomplished in the world through his help, and the freedom you have in the gospel—the freedom from slavery to any material object or human expectation.
Tim Keller
How to practice the sabbath
To get practice, we wrote another article on the how-tos of sabbathing well. Check it out to learn more about how you can step into this practice of grace and what resources are available to you.
