A confession & testimony… I have been in full time Christian ministry since 1984 and had never established a weekly Sabbath rest until recently. Though I completed a bachelors degree in Christian ministry and master’s degree in theology I don’t remember ever having a class that taught me how to practice the biblical Sabbath rest taught in both the old and new testaments. I always tried to keep a day off, but usually filled it with household tasks and catching up on ministry tasks that had to be done before Sunday.
After 21 years in full-time ministry I was given my first six-week sabbatical. I really didn’t know anything about how to plan and take a sabbatical, so I filled the six weeks with multiple conferences and a stack of books to consume. I remember the first week of this sabbatical, while sitting on the roof of the men’s dorm at Moody Bible Institute, writing in my journal, “I’m tired…I’m really tired.” Well, after a whirlwind of travel, attending conferences and consuming more ministry knowledge, I returned to my ministry responsibilities about as tired and depleted as when I left.
Life and ministry hit hard over the next 6 months and I experience my first deep and debilitating depression in the spring of 2006 that lasted for six months. You might say the Lord granted me the sabbath rest I failed to take in 2005. I emerged from this depression strangely renewed mentally and emotionally. I tried to establish healthy practices of rest, exercise, diet and seemed to be maintaining a healthier pace of life.
In 2012, seven years later, I was given another six-week sabbatical. I did not enter this period as depleted and planned for a more restful and renewing experience this time. Thankfully, I returned from this six-week sabbatical rested and refreshed. I came back with renewed vision and vitality. However, following this restful sabbatical, a new wave of life and ministry hit that seemed to demand all of me, week after week, month after month and year after year. Without sharing the details, I found myself depleted again in the fall of 2019, just months before I was scheduled to take my third sabbatical. Again, I wrote in a reflective manner in the middle of October, “I’m tired, depleted, struggling to focus and concentrate.” Two weeks later on October 31, while driving to do a wedding rehearsal a deep and debilitating depression descended on me that would deepen and darken over the next two months until I was hospitalized for depression just after Christmas 2019. This depressive episode would continue to become deeper and more debilitating for 10 months, resulting in additional hospitalizations, treatments, counseling, and medicine that seemed to not be touching the depression. I remained sidelined until August 30, when my church family was notified of the seriousness of my situation and called on to pray for me and my family. I awoke the next morning, August 31, as if I had never been depressed. Hallelujah! Praise His Glorious Name!
As part of my recovery I was given the opportunity to attend SonScape minister’s retreat, northwest of Colorado Springs, overlooking the majestic Pike’s Peak. This was the most restful and renewing retreat experience I have ever attended. A few days into the retreat I sat under the teaching of John and Becci Wood and learned the biblical teaching of Sabbath Rest and then was granted a Sabbath day while on the retreat. It was amazing!
I learned through the the Wood’s teaching on Sabbath rest that,
“Based on a few studies of pastors and on our experience at SonScape, it appears that less than 10% of those serving in fulltime ministry are practicing a weekly Sabbath.”
I was regretfully part of the 90% that did not practice a weekly Sabbath. Two depressions later, I was now ready to listen and learn.
What is Sabbath?
The literal meaning of the word, “Sabbath” is to “cease working”. Stop! Take a break! Breathe! Mark Buchanan, in The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath – writes,
“To cease from that which is necessary and to embrace that which gives life.”
Louis Giglio, wrote in, I Am Not But I Know I AM, “You see, Sabbath is not so much about a day off as it is a “day up”—a day to remember that He is God and we are not. Without Sabbath, we forget who we are and lose sight of who He is, leaving us to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. When there is no Sabbath in our lives we become intoxicated by the lie that the sum of our lives depends on our efforts alone. We get to the place where we truly believe that the outcome of the story fully depends on us. But in truth, we are tiny, limited beings. Our biggest and best efforts still accomplish far less than God can do in us, through us—or without us—in one breath.”
SonScape, “It is more than just taking a day off each week. It is a day set aside where work has no claim. A day that renews and refreshes our souls.”
What stirs in you, your thoughts regarding these statements?
What does the Bible say? Let’s take a look at a few biblical texts that introduces, commands and explains what Sabbath is and what observing a weekly Sabbath rest looks like.
Genesis 2:1–3 (ESV): Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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.
From the very beginning of creation, the Creator established the rhythm of working six days and resting on the seventh. God in all of his infinite wisdom, power, and presence didn’t need to rest, but He created man and all other created life to need a regular, rhythmic rest.
Exodus 20:8–11 (ESV): “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, a 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.
A few observations:
- Of the 10 commandments 8 are negative and 2 are positive.
- Vs. 8, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
- Vs. 12, “Honor your father and your mother,”
- Two have more than one verse, a paragraph given to it:
- Vs. 4-6, Command to not worship idols, false gods is explained in three verses.
- Vs. 8-11, Command to remember, to keep the Sabbath day is given in four verses.
There is much to mine out of this fourth of ten commands given to God’s people in the wilderness, but for now suffice it to say, this commandment is just as valid and relevant today as the other nine. You have to wonder why through out modern history, the church has failed to teach and lead its people to understand and practice a weekly Sabbath rest?
Note words that communicate the seriousness of the Sabbath command:
Exodus 31:12–17 (ESV): And the Lord said to Moses, “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. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ”
Words and phrases such as “above all you shall keep”, “You shall keep”, “everyone who profanes it shall be put to death” , “soul shall be cut off”, “shall be put to death”, “shall keep” all communicate God’s heart and intention that man then and now observe, keep a weekly Sabbath day of rest.
Deuteronomy 5:12–15 (ESV): “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 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 or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
This passage parallels Exodus 20, with many similarities. However, there are also some unique differences that brings out additional insights regarding the purpose and meaning of the Sabbath rest taught in both of these passages. Mark Buchanan, in The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath does a thorough job of comparing and contrasting Exodus 20:8-11 with Deuteronomy 5:12-17.
Exodus grounds Sabbath in Creation. Deuteronomy grounds it in liberation. Exodus remembers Eden. Deuteronomy Egypt. In Exodus Sabbath keeping is about imitating divine example and receiving divine blessing. In Deuteronomy, it is about taking hold of divine deliverance and observing divine command.
(Buchanan, The Rest of God, page 119-120
Exodus looks up. Deuteronomy looks back. Exodus gives theological rationale for rest, and Deuteronomy historical justification for it. One evokes God’s character, the other His redemption. One calls us to holy mimicry—be like God; the other to holy defiance—never be slaves again. One reminds us that we are God’s children, the work of His hands, the other that we are no one’s chattel, not Pharaoh’s, not Nebuchadnezzar’s, not Xerxes’, not Beelzebub’s.
One is invitation, the other is warning.
Buchanan goes on to give a few principles from each passage worth considering. In the Exodus passage which calls us to imitation, we mimic God in order to remember that we are not God.
A Good definition of Sabbath: imitating God so that we stop trying to be God.
Buchanan, p. 120
Deuteronomy calls us to remember, we were slaves but no longer. As slaves we had no say in the matter. Rest? Work? We had no option. The choice was made for us every day and was reinforced by whips. You worked. Period. Rest was for Pharaoh. You worked so Pharaoh could rest. That was life before, but God drowned all your task masters of the past and went to extraordinary lengths to accomplish it with the dividing of the sea for you to walk through on dry ground, then closing it to drown, destroy Pharaoh’s army, your past taskmasters.
Don’t revive what God has removed. Don’t gather and piece back together what God smashed and scattered. Don’t place yourself in a yoke that God broke and tossed off with his own hands. Just as we ought not pull asunder what God has joined, so we ought not join what God has pulled asunder.
Buchanan, page 123
Sabbath is a refusal to go back to Egypt.
Lance Witt writes in , Replenish: Leading From a Healthy Soul
Busyness will not only distract, it will infect. Your business will damage your soul. Over time you will develop a hurried spirit. And when your body is still, your soul will be racing. Your busy spirit will always remind you of everything you need to be doing…For most of my ministry I have been great at busyness and lousy at stillness
The Sabbath rest taught in scripture and explained and applied by many biblical writers flies in the face of our western culture that offers gadgets, apps, programs and many other time saving devices to help us accomplish more in an hour, a day and a week than ever before. Multi-tasking is the norm and seemingly required to keep up the expected life and work pace of the 21st century. The average number of hours worked in America have increased from 40 to 55 in the past 50 years. Sleep scientist have discovered:
“…we are sleeping between one and two hours less per night than we did sixty or so years ago, and two and a half hours less than a hundred years ago, and it’s having a devastating impact upon every part of our lives.” David Murray, in Rest: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture.
The acrostic B.U.S.Y. : Being Under Satan’s Yoke is a warning for those of us who take pride in our busyness. How many times do you ask someone how they are doing and hear something like, “Good, just very BUSY!” We wear this mantra like a badge of honor.But what if that’s not how our Father, our Creator intended for his creation, his children to live, to do life? Could it be…God made us human beings not human doings?
A few takeaways far for me (so far):
When I truly rest on a Sabbath day, I feel a reset and a rest that carries me through the following week.
More is being accomplished in 20 hours than what was previously accomplished in 40 hours when I take a Sabbath rest.
Stopping ministry and productive activity for one day helps me refocus on that which is truly important versus that which is only urgent.
When I take a weekly Sabbath rest, my spirit and soul becomes quiet and still and is able to see what God is doing and to hear his voice.
When I enter a week truly rested I am less likely to live at a frantic pace and more likely to live at a sustainable, grace-paced life and ministry.
I live and serve with greater energy, freedom and joy when I have taken a Sabbath day rest. Renewed energy mentally and physically. Freedom from self-reliance and self-effort. Joy of renewed awareness of God’s presence and power in my life and work.
Other Scriptures to read and study: Exodus 16:23; Leviticus 16:31; 23:3; 25:5; 26:34; Numbers 28:9,10; Deuteronomy; 2 Kings 11:5-9; 16:18; 2 Chronicles 23:4, 8; 31:3 36:21; Nehemiah 9:14; 10:31,33; 13:15-22; Psalm 46:10; Isaiah 56: 2-13; 66:23; Jeremiah 17:21-27; Ezekiel 22:8, 26, 38; 44:24; 45:17: 46: 1, 3,4,12; Hosea 2:11; Amos 8:5;Matthew 11:25-30; 12:1-12; 24:20; 28:1; Mark 1:21; 2:23-28; 3:2-4; 6:2; Luke 4:16,31; 6:1-16; 14:1-5; 23:54-56; John 5:9-18; 7:22-23; 9:14-16, 31; Acts 1:12; 13:14,27,42,44; 15:21; 16:3; 17:2; Colossians 2:16; Hebrews 4:9
Resources to Consider:
*Buchanan, Mark, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring SABBATH, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2006
*Murray, David, Reset: Living a Grace Paced Life in a Burnout Culture, Crossway, Wheaton Illinois, 2017.
*Scazzero, Peter, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature While Remaining Emotionally Immature, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2014, 2017.
Witt, Lance, Replenish: Leading From a Healthy Soul, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2011.
Related Books, but not directly about Sabbath:
Barton, Ruth Hailey, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2009.
Buchanan, Mark, Spiritual Rhythm: Being With Jesus Every Season of Your Soul, Zondervan, 2010.
Dodd, Jimmy & Magnuson, Larry, Pastors Are People Too: What They Won’t Tell You but You Need to Know, David C. Cook: Colorado Springs, 2016.
Jones, Tony, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life, Zondervan, 2005.
Tell, Bill, Lay It Down: Living in the Freedom of the Gospel, NavPress, Colorado Springs, 2015
RESTORING HOPE 