The Christian practice of Sabbath rest has foundations that were laid long before our days of smartphones and remote work. They were laid before the time of Christ and before the time of Moses. They were laid even before “thorns and thistles” sprang up to make our work in a fallen world more toilsome and less rewarding (Gen. 3:18). Sabbath rest has its foundations in creation.

Longing for Rest

Everyone I know is longing for rest. The teenagers in my life are worn out with studying, extracurriculars, and relational drama. The moms and grandmas are juggling everyone’s schedules while squeezing their own tasks into the margins. My coworkers are putting in extra time and marking the days until the next paid holiday. Our alarms get us up early, our to-do lists keep us up late, and each week brings a fresh set of urgent responsibilities. We are tired. The psalmist didn’t have text messaging or video calls or car repairs, but he knew the same sense of weariness that we do. “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,” he wrote, “eating the bread of anxious toil” (Ps. 127:2). The must-dos and have-tos of life in 900 BC were just as pressing as they are in our day. But, he continued, the Lord “gives to his beloved sleep” (Ps. 127:2).

In a lifetime of “anxious toil,” we need a regular reset. Day after day, the tasks just keep coming, and while the Bible affirms the goodness of work, it also acknowledges its frustrations. “In vain” you fold the laundry and do the dishes, only to face a new pile tomorrow. “In vain” you schedule appointments and meet deadlines, only to confront an overflowing inbox next week. We need rest. Thankfully, the psalmist knew where to find it. It’s a gift from “the Lord” (Ps. 127:1). And it’s a gift particularly to his people, “his beloved” (Ps. 127:2), the ones he has redeemed. As God’s people, we look to the Lord to establish our work and relationships (Ps. 127:1, 3–5), and we look to him to give us periods of rest (Ps. 127:2).

So where can we sign up for regular rest from the hand of our gracious God? Where do we receive this gift? We receive it in the Sabbath. Psalm 127 isn’t merely a song about the daily grind and our biological need for eight hours of sleep every night. That’s a tune our unbelieving neighbors could sing without regard for the Lord. Psalm 127 is a psalm of ascent, one of the songs Old Testament believers would sing together on their way to worship. These lines about yielding our labor to the Lord and looking to him for refreshment echo the pattern of the Sabbath. They’re about more than sleep for the body; they’re about respite for the soul.

Leave your anxious toil, beloved ones, and enjoy God’s Sabbath rest.

Sabbath’s Foundations

The word Sabbath may sound curiously old-fashioned. Maybe it’s a word you associate only with Moses’s Ten Commandments or with laws governing colonial New England. It may seem like a hopelessly dated idea or a harshly Pharisaical one. But Sabbath appears throughout both the Old and New Testaments, and Sabbath observance continues to be practiced by believers throughout the world today.

What’s more, the Bible consistently presents the Sabbath as the Lord’s gift to the weary.

Simply defined, the Sabbath is one day each week that God sets aside for his redeemed people to rest from their daily work in order to worship and enjoy him.

To understand the Sabbath and how the Lord would have us observe it, we need to turn to Scripture. In a brief survey of key passages in the Bible, we’ll see that the priority of the Sabbath stretches throughout the story of redemption, from the beginning of time all the way into our eternal future.

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