Servanthood: Strengthened by Sabbath Rest

It’s Sunday morning, 10am, thirty minutes until the service begins. I still have six slides to complete for the power point, bulletins to print and cut, but I have no one to set them out in the pews…so I will have to make sure it gets done as well…my brain is foggy and body tired from meetings, counseling, and school assignments…yet the service starts in thirty minutes.

Although this is not the standard Sunday morning for me, nonetheless, this was my reality on February 21. I had a head ache…and yes…wait for it…I did NOT want to preach. I knew what the text said, and even had a rough idea of how I would navigate through it, but I did not want to preach. Honestly, I wanted to walk home and go to bed (side note…make a point to pray for your pastor on Saturday evening and Sunday mornings, even if it simply be a breath of a prayer. Pray for the man who is going to proclaim the gospel for the benefit of your soul).

Now, it was at this moment when I was battling exhaustion and inward tensions that a song came across the speaker in the sanctuary (before I got to my office I had set up a worship song list to play as people came in to the sanctuary). I began to hear the song “Death Was Arrested“. And in that moment my ears and heart were arrested:

Oh your grace so free washes over me;

You have made me knew now life begins with you.

It’s your endless love pouring down us;

You have had made us new now life begins with you.

“Death Was Arrested” by North Point InsideOut (disclaimer on other songs produced by this band)

I sat back in my chair, rested my hands on my head and quietly thought: “It’s ok. If the slides are not what I hope them to be or the bulletins are distributed in a different way this Sunday…its ok. I am free in Christ. All that really matters, all that will last eternally, Christ has accomplished at the cross. What he accomplished is all that matters. Everything else is dust and ashes.”

I have written over the past few weeks about servanthood. I have written on this because in the bigger context of my blogging we discussed the Kingdom of God (which I will speak to more directly next week). However, it is important to see what Jesus taught about regarding life as his follower participating in the kingdom: servanthood. A follower of Jesus is by definition a servant for we follow him who came to earth not to be served but to serve. The follower of Christ must prayerfully seek out God to give him a mindset of service to others, especially his or her brethren of their local church.

In that there will be seasons in which we are spent…and really all service leads to that point. It’s not a bad thing to not feel spent every week or every month, however true and real service to Christ WILL lead to times of feeling spent. And that is what I want us to look at today.

The Servant Strengthened

As the follower of Christ submits to God’s will as revealed in scripture (Romans 12), and embraces suffering while engaging in sacrifice, his only strength is from God.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Colossians 1:29

We must learn to seek strength and praise Him when we see that strength has been given to us.

Why do we seek strength?

1. We need strength from him. If you think that you can even do the smallest task for Jesus without his strength you are sorely mistaken and you will falter. Maybe not tomorrow or next month. God may even allow you to go years, but at some point you will become sharply aware of your need to seek His strength. The Christian life is not one born out of natural ability. Paul asks the Galatians “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? In other words: are you moving forward as a follower of Christ apart from the power and work of the Spirit who began your journey with Christ? Paul would shout: No! To think that is foolish just as Paul said at the beginning. We cannot submit, suffer, and sacrifice according to the will of God without the strength of God. (And one final note. The common saying that “God will not give you more than you can handle” is the twisting of 1 Cor. 10:13. Every call to obey the will of God is more than we can handle. Therefore, he supplies the Spirit to strengthen us.
2. Why do we seek strength? Because God honors those who seek him for the strength to submit, suffer, sacrifice, and every other nuance of the will of God as set forth in the Bible. Do you think your heavenly Father is going to brush you aside when you whisper: help me be patient…give me wisdom in this time, or for this decision…help me understand…give me strength to go help my neighbor…train my heart to embrace this suffering…make me more willing to sacrifice my time or money for the benefit of others. Our heavenly Father will hear and honor. We know this for these things are God’s will for us. When we pray for strength we know he hears and will answer as He sees fit: “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

The Servant and Sabbath Rest

If the portion above answered the question, at least in part, why we seek strength, here we ask:

How do we seek strength?

I am going to speak to two ways we understand idea of Sabbath from the Bible. These are not two perspectives that are opposed to each other and therefore must be chosen one over the other. These two perspectives are not mutually exclusive but work together.

1. Sabbath Rest in the Lord: In Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Quickly note how the very fabric of this passage does not dismiss service, but leads to a healthy service with Christ. Now to the point. He calls those “who are weary and carry heavy burdens” (NLT). That is the person operating on their own ability. First, this speaks to the soul that is in some form or fashion pursuing peace with God, or forgiveness, based on what they do on their own. Yet, this call is not to be set aside by the person who has come to Christ, nor can it be set aside. Coming to Jesus for rest is not like going to a water table during a marathon for refreshment and then getting back to the grind. Coming to Christ for rest is coming to stay. We come to Christ who sets us free from our labors of endeavoring to find peace on our own. And there with him we live and labor under his easy yoke and light burden. In this we rest for it is not we who labor but Him who yokes himself to us. He is laboring, and he is empowering us to work with him. I was reminded of that truth as I sat down on Sunday morning. I needed to be reminded that God’s got this. He is mightier. He does not need me. Yet, by his grace and to our joy He invites us to work along side him. He who is mightier enables us so that we serve in peace and joy.
2. Sabbath Rest on the Lord’s Day: I know that this is a point of disagreement among believers. I respect that. I ask for a few more minutes of your reading so as to allow me to put forward why I believe Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is also the Christian Sabbath of the New Covenant (New Testament era or New Testament Church). 1) God Established the Sabbath into Creation itself: At creation God did not merely bring material into existence but he set down systems. One example of that is marriage. The institution of marriage is for all of humanity, not just the people of God (although the people of God have the best understanding and appreciation of it). In the same way God set forth a system with regard to time: The Week. We read at the end of The Ten Commandments: “Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath (seventh) day and made it holy.” Point being that scripture testifies that the first Seventh Day was the first Sabbath. In other words it was not first established with Israel. Now, to be sure, there is more that can be said on this point but I will move on for now. (However, in my blogging schedule I will be visiting the topic of the Church and Lord’s Day Worship in the somewhat near future. Then I will give more detail to this point). 2) God reestablished the Sabbath in The Ten Commandments: Although it was not first established with Israel in The Ten Commandments, nonetheless that was a very important appearance. If we think about the content of The Ten Commandments it represents the entirety of God’s moral law. The greatest commandment (Love God & Love People) is expanded in The Ten Commandments and further explained in the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). In other words, the content of The Ten Commandments represents the moral expectation of God for all people. It was revealed and especially given to Israel in God’s covenant promise to them, yet the moral law applies to all and across time. Therefore, the Christian is still to observe one day in seven as holy unto the Lord. (Until I elaborate more on this point in the months to come I point you to this sermon which led to my delight in seeing Sunday as the New Testament Sabbath). 3) In the New Creation there is a New Day: I’m sure by this point you have already called out my error: The Sabbath was the seventh day but Sunday is the first day. Great point. At creation, upon God’s completion of his work, the practice of the Sabbath was observed on the final day of the week in keeping with the work of God in Creation. By the time of the giving of The Ten Commandments nothing had occurred in the work of God to alter the timing of the day which was to be treated as holy. However, now that Christ has come and begun the work of new creation the practice of the Sabbath is observed on the first day of the week in keeping with the work of The Son in New Creation. My brethren, the new creation we long for as spoken of in Revelation 21:1-4 has begun in the new life of Christ put forward in His Resurrection. In his resurrection, the corruption of the first creation as manifest in and by death was broken for the first time. Creation was altered at the resurrection of Christ and a new period of time begun. In this time the day that is set apart as holy is Sunday, the day when our Servant Savior rested from his work, and the New Testament church assembled itself.

Now with that said, the day of rest, Sunday, is a time in which God invites us to rest in him in a specifical way (hence the holiness of the day, a day set apart from others). On this day we gather with the brethren as we do not do on other days. If we abide by the commandments and guides given for the day we may have a special time to be with God in reading, prayer, and fellowship. The puritans called this day: The Market Place for the Soul. For on this day we are invited by God to rest in the truth, namely the truth of the gospel by public and private worship so that we may be strengthened for the week ahead. We ought not to think about about Sunday in connection to a list of what we can and cannot do. But we should consider it as a day of opportunity when we do stop our every day work and turn the eyes of our hearts to our Savior. In that gazing into the gospel contained in the scriptures our soul is refreshed and strengthened. On this next Sunday enter it with the idea of God inviting you to set aside the normal routine of life to rest in his presence in such a way that the normal week’s routine will not allow for. Pray for desire for God. Read that book that you do not have time for from Monday to Saturday. Be with your family. Meditate on what Jesus has done for you.

Christ calls us to him, for with him we learn to serve in submission to his will as we were designed to do, and from him comes the strength to gladly embrace his will even amid suffering and sacrifice.