Embrace Productive Rest
Pastor Don Carpenter
Redeeming Your Time / Mark 6:30–32; Mark 3:1–4
A Young man approached the foreman of a logging crew and asked for a job. “That depends,” replied the foreman. “let’s see you fell this tree.” The young man stepped forward and skillfully felled a great ree. Impressed, the foreman said, “Start Monday.”
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday rolled by, and by Thursday afternoon the foreman approached the young man and said, “You can pick up your paycheck on the way out today.”
Startled the young man replied, “I though you paid on Friday.” “Normally we do,” answered the foreman, “but we’re letting you go today because you have fallen behind. Our daily felling charts show that you dropped from first place on Monday to last on Wednesday.”
“But I’m a hard worker,” the young man objected. “ I arrive first, leave last, and even have worked through my coffee breaks!”
The foreman, sensing the boy’s integrity thought for a minute and then asked, “Have you been sharpening you axe?”
The young man replied, “I’ve been working too hard to take the time.”
Sometimes we get so busy we forget to sharpen our axe – the result is that we lose the ability to work.
If you have been with us for the last three weeks, you have come a long way and hopefully feel more confident about redeeming your time. A quick recap for those who may have missed:
In Ephesians 5:15-17, God commands us to “redeem the time.” Why? So that we can do “the will of the Lord.” We’ve been looking at seven principles from the life of Jesus as an example of how we can redeem our time. Here’s a quick summary of where we’ve been so far:
? Principle #1: Start with the Word
? Principle #2: Let Your Yes Be Yes
? Principle #3: Dissent From the Kingdom of Noise
Principle #4: Prioritize Your Yeses
? Principle #5: Accept Your Unipresence
When thinking about time management and to-do lists, it is so easy to get overwhelmed. We have so much to do, so many things coming at us from all directions, so many responsibilities. It can seem like an impossible task.
Matthew 11:28–30 KJV
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Embrace Productive Rest
– To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must embrace the God-designed rhythms of rest which are counterintuitively productive for our goals and our souls.
We live in a “hustle” culture. If you want to get more done, the world will often tell you to “work harder,” “burn the midnight oil,” or “sleep when you’re dead.” But the biblically-based, scientifically-verified truth is that rest is a counterintuitive key to being wildly productive. In order to do more, most of us need to do less and rest more.
So what are these God-designed rhythms? Where do we see Jesus implementing these examples of rest?
Daily Breaks
Mark 6:30–32 KJV
And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.
The disciples had been working hard, teaching and ministering to the people. While our culture would say, just teach one more sermon, reach one more person…Jesus recognized that what his disciples really needed and what was going to be best for everyone was rest.
Most of us treat our days as sprints—going as hard and fast as we can until we finally collapse in the afternoon. This is just not how God designed us to run. God created us to operate not as if we’re in a sprint or a marathon but a workout.
Okay, stick with me here, because I’m going to get a bit scientific.
Scientists have discovered that God has hardwired us to “pulse” every other hour in what are called ultradian cycles. Essentially, our brains move from higher to lower levels of alertness every ninety minutes. At the end of that ninety-minute cycle, our brain needs a break. Ultradian cycles are our body’s way of demanding we work for ninety minutes, rest for fifteen to thirty, and start all over again, repeating the cycle on a bi-hourly basis throughout the day.
This seems like a colossal waste of time, but I dare you to give it a try. I wouldn’t be surprised if these brief rests ironically help you get more and better work done.
Nightly Sleep
The second rhythm is sleep. Although we see Jesus getting up early to spend time with his Father, we also see him prioritizing sleep. In the passage about Jesus calming the storm, we often skip over the part where Jesus was sleeping: Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38)
If you skip back up to the beginning of the chapter, you see that it had been a long day of teaching for Jesus. So when they got on the boat that evening, Jesus was getting his rest.
I know what many of you are thinking – how many hours of sleep do we need? It doesn’t say in scripture how many hours of sleep Jesus got, so we will leave this one to the scientists:
The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours of sleep per night for adults.
Okay, but what happens if I don’t get the recommended amount of sleep? Who really cares?
According to Matthew Walker, a renowned sleep expert, a failure to get adequate sleep is worse for your performance than “an equivalent absence of food or exercise” or showing up to work drunk. In addition, “routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer…[and] contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality.”[1]
Yikes. Now that I have your attention, here are some benefits to getting an adequate amount of sleep:
You can concentrate better at work and at home. You perfect skills you’ve learned throughout the day when you are asleep. According to studies, more sleep = more potential income. Your creative problem-solving skills are enhanced.
These are great benefits, and ones that you have probably experienced in your own life after a great night’s sleep. But ultimately, why does this matter?
Remember how we started our series—in Ephesians 5:15-17, God commands us to “redeem the time.” Why? So that we can do “the will of the Lord.” I hope you can see now that nightly sleep makes us more productive as we work on behalf of God’s agenda in the world.
D.A. Carson, the theologian and co-founder of The Gospel Coalition, once said that, “You are morally obligated to try to get the sleep you need. Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep—not pray all night, but sleep.”
• [1] Walker, Why We Sleep, 3.
Psalm 127:2 KJV
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows: For so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Psalm 3:5 KJV
I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.
Psalm 4:8 KJV
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: For thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
Jeremiah 31:26 KJV
Upon this I awaked, and beheld; And my sleep was sweet unto me.
Sabbath Principle
We’ve talked about taking breaks throughout your day and getting good sleep. And now we come to a rhythm that you have probably all heard of, but maybe don’t fully embrace or understand: Sabbath.
So many people view Sabbath as a boring, legalistic, life-sucking chore, and for somewhat good reasons. In Mark chapter 3, Jesus appears to agree that some had turned Sabbath into something other than the life-giving gift God had designed it to be. Check it out:
Mark 3:1–4 KJV
And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.
And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.
And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
Talk about life-sucking legalism—literally. Here the Pharisees were criticizing Jesus for doing something life-giving because it didn’t adhere to the letter of the law of Sabbath. But notice that Jesus didn’t say the law is irrelevant. He said the Pharisees were completely missing the point.
Mark 2:27 KJV
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
What did Jesus mean by that?
A quick history of Sabbath: The first Sabbath day was the seventh day of creation. Genesis 2:2-3 says, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done.”
It’s interesting to note that Sabbath is the first “holy” object in history. On the previous six days, God saw everything he had made and deemed it “good” or “very good.” But Sabbath was the first thing God called holy.
OK, so God rested, thus creating the first Sabbath day. But it’s not until Mount Sinai that God commands the Israelites to imitate his rhythm of working for six days and resting one.
Exodus 20:8–11 KJV
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
So Sabbath is about mimicking God’s rhythm of work and rest, taking a break to simply enjoy him and the good things he’s given us through our work. But it’s also about something else.
Consider the context of when The Ten Commandments were handed down to Moses. These commandments were given just weeks after Israel’s exodus from Egypt where they had been in slavery for more than 400 years. That’s more than four centuries worth of backbreaking work under the hands of ruthless slave masters screaming “Get back to your work!” (Exodus 5:4) and “Make the work harder.” (Exodus 5:9)
So yes, Sabbath is about stepping back and saying of our work and lives this is “very good,” but it is also about saying no to the tyranny of more. It’s about declaring our freedom from slavery. It’s an invitation to “stop,” which is the literal meaning of the Hebrew word shabbat. Stop working, stop striving, stop hustling. Just stop.
Sounds pretty life-giving in the midst of our modern day “hustle” culture, right?
OK, so God rests and commands the Israelites to do the same. Now is when we get into trouble. Over time, God’s people take the good gift of Sabbath and regulate it more than the federal government, adding more than 1,500 rules of what you could and could not do on God’s holy day.[1] With the addition of all these man-made rules and regulations, Sabbath, which God created to be life-giving, had become life-draining.
So that’s the historical backdrop of the exchange we read a few minutes ago between Jesus and the Pharisees. When Jesus said that Sabbath is “for man” he was reminding us that Sabbath is not about keeping hundreds of rules. It is about enjoying God and his good gifts and declaring that we are no longer slaves to sin, Egypt, employers, clients, marketers, email, smartphones, or the constant demands for more. We are free.
Don’t you see? Sabbath is a gift.
What could Sabbath look like for you? What would it look like for you to cease and feast on the Lord, his Word, and the good gifts he has given you and your family this week? I’d encourage you to spend some time really thinking that through.
Conclusion
Okay, so we see the impact these rhythms can have on our lives and productivity. Since these rhythms are God-designed, and we see Jesus following them in scripture, we should take notice of how they impact our souls as well:
Taking bi-hourly breaks throughout your workday is productive for your soul because it reminds you that God doesn’t need you to finish your to-do list.
Getting a full night’s sleep is productive for your soul because it reminds you that God is the only being who neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4) and thus doesn’t need you or me to keep the world spinning.
Sabbath is productive for your soul because it reminds you that “all time belongs to God and stands under the renewing lordship of Jesus Christ.”[2]
And ultimately, all of these rhythms of rest are productive for your soul because they are a means of preaching the gospel to yourself and those around you. Rest is a way of reminding ourselves that no matter how productive we are, no matter how many “good works” we accomplish, we are God’s beloved children in whom he is well pleased.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:58 PM January 26, 2022.