Corporate Worship Reminds Us to Rest, Pt. 2

    Series: 52 Reasons
    September 18, 2020
    George Robertson

    On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
    (Exodus 16:27–30)

    Last week, we saw the restorative effects corporate worship can have on our souls. That is, corporate worship reminds us to rest, because it reminds us that the ultimate work has been finished by Christ. However, sometimes we can be stubborn. As good as the good news that it is finished is, we still find ourselves working at a breakneck pace, forgetting to take a Sabbath for fear we will not get everything done or some part of our well-being or the well-being of our families will suffer if we stop. The Israelites were no different. In such cases, the Lord has to show us a severe mercy of rebuking our refusal to rest.

    Despite God’s gracious intentions, the Israelites refused to trust God would supply their bread every day. So, they tried to stockpile some just in case. Here is an example of the insanity accompanying distrust of God. While holding miraculous bread in their hands, they placed more trust in their own hands than in the God who worked the miracle. This is yet again an example of redemptive amnesia, quickly forgetting God’s past faithfulness. However, it is no small matter. It is an offense to God as we can see from his reaction, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?” (v. 28). That is the same way he responded to Pharaoh. Refusing to submit to God out of trust in his gracious character, especially when he has proven his trustworthiness, is an offense worthy of execution. If anything, our refusing to trust God is even more offensive than the Egyptians because we have so much more history, recorded and personal, of his faithfulness.

    Without harshness he compels, even forces, us to rest. Our text says right after he rebukes them with the same terrifying words he spoke to the Egyptians, he said, “’See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath’. . .so the people rested on the seventh day.” The famous scientist and missionary Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) said, “If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.”Schweitzer wisely recognized the Lord’s Day as a time to remember how our Father has faithfully provided for us in the past, even the past few hours.

    In Psalm 127, Solomon gives examples of how utterly but delightfully dependent on the Lord we really are.

    Unless the LORD builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
    Unless the LORD watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.
    It is in vain that you rise up early
    and go late to rest,
    eating the bread of anxious toil;
    for he gives to his beloved sleep. (vv. 1-2)

    His point is that our efforts do not bear a one-to-one relationship to results.  For instance, no matter how early you rise to begin work or how late you stay up to complete it, God always provides a greater harvest than you sow for.  We get that point by means of a better translation than what the NIV gives us, “God gives what is right to his beloved while he sleeps.”  The implication is something like this:  If you are a farmer, God causes your seeds to germinate and your crops to grow even while you sleep; if a physician, God heals your patients through the night while you are not with them; or if a construction worker, God is assembling the raw material for your building materials even while you rest your weary bones. 

    This is the point God wishes us to see in the Sabbath.  The reason he commands us to rest on the Sabbath Day is to remind us and prove to us that he provides seven days of supplies for six days of labor.  I would almost guarantee that if you measured the lives of those who never kept the Sabbath against those who did, their long-term productivity would not be any greater. 

    The seventeenth century religious poet saw the need for rest as the primary need that eventually draws us to Christ. Notice the firm but tender care of the Father depicted in his poem "The Pulley."

    When God at first made man,
    Having a glass of blessings standing by,
    “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.
    Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,
    Contract into a span.”

    So strength first made a way;
    Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.
    When almost all was out, God made a stay,
    Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
    Rest in the bottom lay.

    “For if I should,” said he,
    “Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
    He would adore my gifts instead of me,
    And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
    So both should losers be.

    “Yet let him keep the rest,
    But keep them with repining restlessness;
    Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
    If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
    May toss him to my breast.”

    Do you find yourself weary lately? There are many aspects of the year 2020 that could account for that. Whatever it is that is causing your weariness–fear, lack of social connection, grief over the brokenness of the world, grief over the loss of a loved one, overwork–you may turn to the Father who loves us so much that he does not allow us to live under the delusion of self-sufficiency but lovingly tosses us to his breast to find true rest in him.

    Let's commit ourselves to corporate worship every week so we may have our eyes turned back to God and find rest for our souls.


    1. Nancy Gibbs, "And on the Seventh Day We Rested?" Time (2 August 2004).

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