Sabbath | Doing and Being
With the Sabbath established at the start of creation, as a means of worshipping God by fully relying on Him for every aspect of our being and declaring His sovereign rule over all creation, the Sabbath became elevated to a high standard in the life of the believer. As time went by, the law dictated that people take a Sabbath. Then, as things developed, the Pharisees added additional stipulations to what could constitute work and not work on the Sabbath. These additional rules laid down dictated very stringently what a Jewish person could and could not do, even so far as how many steps they had been allowed to take before they were required to break in their walking. When Jesus came, taking on flesh, Jesus challenged the religious institution of the day by doing things that the Pharisees considered work while still simultaneously upholding the true meaning of the Sabbath.
One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:23-28, ESV)
The conflict arose here (and in various other places throughout the Gospels) where Jesus had committed actions that most people would consider to be reasonable actions yet had been forbidden by the Pharisees given their proximity to breaking the Sabbath. In this specific case, picking the heads of wheat so that the disciples could eat had deeply offended the Pharisee sensibilities as harvesting would have been considered work. Following Jesus Christ went deeper than simply doing the right actions and obeying all of the rules and laws, as if we could merit the love of God. Instead, our relationship with Jesus Christ is based solely on our being and our identity as being a child of God. By observing the Sabbath, we cease our doing and rest in our being, knowing that the love God has for us does not scaled with our productivity by remains constant regardless of our actions.
Ceasing To Do
The Sabbath involves a rest from work, trusting that God’s way is better than our own. In Mark 2, the Pharisees had failed to understand that the rules and commandments that God had given to His people had not been meant to constrain them or limit them, but rather to give them the freedom to live their optimal and ideal life as God intended. While God is most certainly sovereign over all creation, He is most assuredly a loving God who cares for His creation, crafted specifically in His image. The Sabbath is not mean to restrain, construct, or frustrate the people but rather to give them a blessing of rest and an opportunity to cease from their work. Furthermore, this love of God that extends to humanity is not an earned gift but one given holy by the grace of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8 ESV) Mankind is unable to boast about earning the love and favor of God. Rather, this favor is given solely through the goodness of God’s infinite, abundance, and lavish love for His people.
Yet, the temptation for many people is that we must obey all of the laws of God or God will cease to extend us grace and love. We treat the commands of God as check boxes to be completed in an effort to be the best Christian out there. We spend all of our emotional energy on striving thinking that we need to doing enough to be a good Christian. We tie our actions to our identity, something Jesus died on the cross for us not to do. Taking a Sabbath rest means that we cease from our working and our striving merely to be in the presence of God. Sabbath requires us to stop performing and producing as we frustrate the part of our flesh that strives to earn the love we get. Yet, when we embrace the Sabbath fully, we find that the love of God does not diminish during our times of Sabbath but remains constant. Ceasing to do does not change our status and standing before the Lord as even during this time of rest and sabbath, the Father draws us to Himself for His glory.
Our Being And Identity
Sabbath reminds us that our doing does not determine our worth in the eyes of the God. As we cease from our work, the only thing that remains is to sit in the presence of God. Not seeking to do better. Not looking to the next event or next task to be crossed off the list. Instead, we sit in the presence of God enjoying Him and His goodness, despite our own abilities and performance. The temptation for many Christians would be to continue to identify ourselves as sinners in the eyes of God. Simply put, though, this is not true. This is not to say that we cease to sin, but that our identity is not and cannot be based in our actions but in our being. As we are in Christ, God no longer identifies us as sinners, the product of our actions, but identifies us as being in Him. The works of Christ as imputed to us as our own and we enjoy the works of Christ because our identity and our personhood is rooted fully in the resurrected Jesus Christ.
The affections and love of God cannot be earned by our doing. Since we do not concentrate on our own sense of doing good enough, all that remains is simply to focus on our being. And our being is fully established by the works of Jesus Christ. No amount of performance will merit the love that God has for us. Yet, my fear for many Christians is that we understand that fact and mourn. The reality is that our inability to earn the love of God should lead us to praise God who invites us to sit in His presence regardless. We shapes and molds us to enjoy the fullness of His presence forever. In Christ, we are new creations and our identity has been established fully by the hand of God. Just as we cannot earn the love of God, nothing we do will disqualify us from being a child of God once we come to Him. The goal of Sabbath is not to delay the work we must do to maintain our right standing but the goal of Sabbath is to highlight our being and find our rest in the fullness of God who establishes everything on our behalf. Out of our being comes our doing, but our doing must never attempt to give birth to our being. Thus, as we established our being, we Sabbath rest, cease from doing, and rest in the presence of God.
About The Author
Daniel Burton is the founder of The Gospel Outpost. He is passionate about discipleship and seeing people grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. To find out more about him, check out his Author Page.
