“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, 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.” – Exodus 20:8-11
Q: What is the fourth commandment?
A: You shall make the Sabbath day holy.
What does this mean?
Because we worship and love God, we should love and respect the preaching of his word, and gladly listen and learn from it.
What do you look forward to? A birthday? A concert? The last day of school?
The Sabbath is important because it looks forward to something. Do you know what that is? The Sabbath day is a day to rest from work and remember God and his work for us. But there is coming a day when we will finally enter into a completely restful state that will never end. We will completely rest from our sin, suffering, and sorrow.
Just like the Lord’s Supper points forward to a future day when we will sit down and eat in celebration at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, our weekly Sabbath reminds us that there is coming a day when we will finally rest in Jesus for all eternity and the turmoil of our current lives will be over for good. Isn’t that good news!?!
In this sense, we wait for our final place of resting and God promises to give it to all those who belong to Jesus.
Read Revelation 21:1–5:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
- What sounds most attractive to you about this description of the future?
- Does it sound restful to you?
- How can we be sure that we will get to participate in this rest?
Prayer
Our Father, thank you that you have given us a picture of our future and complete rest in you. We long for it and we thank you that it has been promised to all those who love and follow you. May our weekly rest remind us of this truth and may we be bold to invite many others to join us in the eternal rest that you will one day provide. In Jesus’ name. Amen.