2024 Week 36
Hello, Springers!
Labor Day weekend is here.
Do you toil anxiously?
Or do you recognize that there is One who can give you peaceful sleep?
As a person whose job it is to “work weekends,” this holiday has become a little foreign to me. But when you consider that God rested from his work on the seventh day and blessed it by setting it apart (Genesis 2:2-3), that’s something we should take time to consider.
God works and he gives his people work to do from the beginning of creation. Adam was put in the garden to tend it as a steward of God’s creation. But in Adam’s fall, work has become cursed. Genesis 3:17 says:
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life…
So now what Proverbs 6:10-11 says is also true:
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
The Bible commends good work, but recognizes that all work now is cursed with a drudgery to it.
However it will not always be this way. Psalms 127:1-2 and 4:8 in the Old Testament leave us a promise:
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor 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…
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Again, do you toil anxiously?
Or do you recognize that there is One who can give you peaceful sleep?
Combine the above with the promise of what Hebrews 4:9-11 says in the New Testament:
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest…
God intends to redeem work and rest. He has begun this undertaking in the work of Christ. That’s why Hebrews 10:11-12 makes a distinction between the unending work of a priest and the completed priestly work of Christ:
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…
Ultimately, Jesus completed his work (death, resurrection, ascension) and rested. That’s why it says he sat down.
While we wait for him to come again, we still work, but we work as those who have been promised rest and who know that our drudgery must end because of the joyful rest he brings.
in Christ,
Pastor Tag