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Christ, Our Sabbath Rest at Work · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Christ is our sabbath rest. We celebrate this beautiful truth every Lord's Day,
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  every Sunday. But what about on a day like today on Monday? Is
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  Christ my sabbath rest today at work? That's Pam's question for you. Pastor
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  John is a good one. Pastor John Heloci writes, Christ is our sabbath
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  rest. A hearty amen to that wonderful truth. To the degree that I
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  understand it, and I don't think I fully understand it quite yet, this
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  seems to mean a lot more than Christ has set apart one day of rest
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  for us, the Lord's Day on Sunday. At the very end of apj
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  six fifty eight, you called Christ our quote eternal rest and quote and that
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  means you said, quote, pervading all our work, we are RESTful in
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  Christ and quote. Can you explain this to me? How is Christ our
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  sabbath rest even while we are working? If we had time, we would
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  dig into Hebrews chapters three and four, because there that amazing author presents an
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  argument for the present rest of the people of God and the future eternal rest
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  for the people of God, and he urges us in three nineteen and four
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  one to fear lest we attain or fail to attain the rest, meaning fear
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  unbelief, because belief is the only way into the rest of Jesus Christ,
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  both now and in the future. But we don't have time to do that,
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  as much as I'd love to, And I want to go straight to
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  Pam's main question, namely, how do we experience the rest, the Sabbath
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  rest of Christ at work? In other words, what meaning does it have
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  while we're expending great energy to speak of enjoying the restfulness of Christ in that
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  very moment of wearying exertion. So the text that I have in mind now
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  is not Hebrews but Matthew eleven twenty eight to thirty, where Jesus says,
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  come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
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  give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for
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  I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
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  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So the burden
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  and the yoke of the lordship of Jesus is easy and light. So in
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  the midst of our labor, our strenuous efforts to do our very best in
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  our vocation the submission at that moment to the demands of Jesus is called RESTful
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  experience. You will find rest for your souls precisely in the midst of your
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  exertions to do your job with excellence for His glory. So what is that
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  experience like? I think that's what Pam's really asking. What is it like
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  working as hard as you can, and in the very doing of it,
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  experiencing Christ as our soul's rest, not just after it, not just before
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  it, but in it, in the very exertion of our life's work.
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  So here are four ways that we can experience the soul rest of Christ as
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  we are doing our work. First, we work with the sweet assurance that
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  we stand already justified before God, not on the basis of our work,
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  but on the basis of faith alone in Christ's work, even as we work.
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  So Romans Chapter four, verses four and five. How sweet are these
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  words now to the one who works, and he has in mind working for
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  justification, working to get right with God. To the one who works,
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  his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. To
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  the one who does not work for justification to get right with God. But
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  believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as righteousness.
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  If we don't get this right, nothing will be right. Our souls enjoy
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  the glorious, precious, sweet restfulness of knowing that we are right with God
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  through faith alone, and that the work we are doing, sweat on our
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  face, weariness in our bones, exhaustion in our minds, is not done
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  to get right with God. Yes, we are delivered from the horrible torment
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  of soul that thinks I must work, I must do a good job so
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  that I can get right with God. I can get a right standing before
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  God. That kind of restlessness and anxiety and striving is over. The verdict
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  has been rendered by the King of Heaven. Not guilty, my son,
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  Not guilty, my daughter. So go about your work with a deep restfulness
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  of soul. Number two. In Christ, we work hard with the thrilling
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  energy that we are loved by God, very personally and forever. Ephesians two
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  for amazing verse. Paul says that God's great love and that phrase great love.
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  I think it's the only place in his letters he uses that very phrase
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  God's great love made us alive. In Christ. That means we were dead,
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  and He made us alive because of love. Before we did anything to
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  get the love. We do not work with the restless, nervous anxiety of
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  trying to win the affections of a lover that we're not sure of the great
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  love of God. If we're alive in Christ, it was great love already
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  that put us there. So picture this analogy to feel what it means to
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  work out of the thrilling energy of being loved. Suppose I have been dating
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  Noel, who's now been my wife for fifty four years, but this was
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  true once upon a time. Suppose I've been dating Noel for just several weeks,
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  and I feel very strong affections welling up in me, and I'm thinking,
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  this is the woman I want to marry, but I'm not sure what
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  her affections are yet. Then the day comes when she needs some heavy lifting
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  done for her, as she moves a dozen boxes or so books furniture from
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  one apartment to another. And I go to her apartment to help her move.
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  And as I start to go down the stairs where she has everything packed
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  up, she puts her hand on my arm and I turned to look at
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  her, and she says right into my eyes for the first time. I
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  love you, Johnny. What happens to my exhausting work that afternoon, Oh,
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  my goodness, There flows into it a thrilling energy of being loved.
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  There is in the exhaustion of the heavy boxes a restfulness of soul, of
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  not wondering anymore? Am I loved? I am loved? I am loved?
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  And of course the analogy breaks down a little bit because God doesn't need
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  any help with lifting heavy boxes. I got that. But the principle is
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  the same. He gives me the privilege of serving his purposes in the world,
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  and he takes away all of its burdens this by saying I love you,
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  I've got you, I love you, I choose to love you.
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  Number three. The analogy of Noel's love, however, is not nearly good
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  enough to capture the point. God's love doesn't stand by like Noel stood by
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  and watch us lift the boxes of life, watch us do our job at
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  work. He doesn't stand by and watch, counting on us to muster the
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  energy. Because we're loved, his love commits him to help us, help
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  us. He steps into our lives by his spirit within us and becomes the
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  kind of energy that turns our work into something far greater than mere human achievement.
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  Even in response to it becomes a kind of God wrought miracle that gets
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  him praise and touches other people in ways we can't begin to explain when we're
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  operating in the strength of God. I say this because in First Peter,
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  Chapter four, verse eleven, Peter says, let the one who serves you
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  could say works, serve work by the strength that God supplies, in order
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  that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory
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  and dominion forever and ever Amen. In other words, there is a restfulness
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  in work because God is an inexhaustible helper in our work, so that our
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  energy is really, in a profound sense, his energy supplied to us.
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  Number four. Therefore, the obstacles that always meet us in our work,
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  and which formerly robbed us of peace and restfulness and filled us with anxiety,
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  those obstacles don't have that effect anymore, because now we know nothing is too
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  hard for the Lord Jeremiah thirty two seventeen, nothing, and He works everything
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  together for our good Romans eight twenty eight. So at least for those four
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  reasons we can speak of Christ being our rest rest for our souls even in
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  the very exertion of our daily work. Beautiful and robust explanation of this rest
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  for our souls. Thank you, Ester John. It's a lot to meditate
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  on here, a lot of connecting threads working out from this great reality of
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  Christ, our Sabbath rest as we head off to work or to school on
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  this Monday. Thank you for joining us today. If you want to ask
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  Pastor John, type your question out and email it to me at ask Pastor
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  John at Desiring God dot org. Well, if you were to sit down
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  with John Piper's collected works, his thirteen volume Collected Works published in twenty seventeen,
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  and you read the entire thing cover to cover, you'd come across the
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  words satisfied almost fifteen hundred times satisfied. It's all over his works, all
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  over his ministry. But you'd likely not read a definition. So what does
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  John Piper mean when he uses the word satisfied? You want to know?
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  And now I want to know, and we'll ask Pastor John on Thursday.
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  I'm your host, Tony Rank you we'll see you next time.