Rest In Christ

September 2nd, 2024
by Stephen Belk

A popular meme format may have advised readers to “keep calm” and follow some course of action. While another meme is usually meant as a joke, many times the tendency of mankind to keep calm and rest runs against the environment that our culture has created. We may be worried constantly about our health, our job, our family, our school, and even our churches. We rush nonstop from task to task, or we pack our lives full of so many different activities that rest becomes a foreign concept.

What we must understand, as followers of Christ, is that we are commanded by God to rest. How do we understand what rest really is when we are not raised in a culture of rest?

If we are truly believers, we are blessed that God has given us the canon of Scripture, His very Word, to us to show us how and what we should do in our lives. In one of the very first passages in the Bible on rest, God Himself leads by example. On the seventh and final day of creation, when all of creation is complete, God rests. “And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created in making it” (Gen. 2:2-3).

From the very beginning, God shows us to lay aside a day to rest, by not working and instead reflecting on the goodness of God and His works. This was the idea behind the Sabbath. God commanded the people of Israel in the Ten Commandments to set aside a day of rest.

“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 of Yahweh your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave or your cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day and made it holy” (Ex. 20:8-11).

Here we recall that Yahweh rested on the seventh day and that the Sabbath day was therefore made holy. As believers, God has provided us a day specifically to rest and reflect on His goodness, as well as a day that we can devote to the building up of each other with the fellowship of the saints. On this day we enjoy the edification of our souls through the preaching of God’s Word and the blessing of the sacraments of communion and baptism, which remind us of God and His promises.

The first question in the Westminster Catechism is “What is man’s chief end?” The answer is, “to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

Our purpose is not to worry or to exhaust ourselves until we can move no further. Our purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We enjoy His goodness, we enjoy His mercy and grace, we enjoy the world He has placed around us, we enjoy the people He put in our lives, and in enjoying Him we bring glory to His name. He calls us to rest in Him, to place our trust and faith in His goodness, and He will never let us down.

Jesus said: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

As Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount:

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his life span? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt. 6:25-34).

Worry is the tool that Satan will use to prevent us from placing our full trust and confidence in Christ. Satan wants us to be so busy that we do not have time to rest and reflect on God and His goodness. He wants us to be full of worry and fear instead of leaning on the promises of God and trusting in Him. It is in our weakness, in our frailty, and in the reality of our state of helplessness that we lean on Christ, and in which His strength is shown not only to us but to those around us.

Set aside time for rest. Make sure you gather with your brothers and sisters in Christ to fulfill the commands of God. Trust in God and lay aside your fear and worry. Enjoy God and in so doing glorify Him forever.

“Rest is a weapon given to us by God. The enemy hates it because he wants us to be stressed and occupied.” — Elizabeth Elliott

About The Author

STEPHEN BELK
Westminster Covenantalism | Amillennialism
Stephen Belk resides in Tullahoma, Tennessee, with his wife, Jessica, and presently works in IT at Williamson Health. Stephen’s spiritual journey has led him through various churches and denominations, but it was in 2017 that he embraced the doctrines of grace, turning away from a trajectory toward deconstruction and progressive Christianity. Instead, he came to a profound understanding of God’s sovereign grace as revealed through the work of the Holy Spirit. As the host of The Reformed Fire podcast, Stephen is passionate about sharing the Word of God and seizing every opportunity to preach the Gospel and encourage Christians to find our rest and assurance in the perfected work of Jesus Christ.