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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Pressing Into God's Rest, #2
If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, Then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13,14—NIV)
The key phrases are as follows:
Call the Sabbath a delight and honorable.
Not going your own way.
Not doing as you please or speaking idle words.
We can see at a glance the difference between what Isaiah stated and the original fourth commandment:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. (Exodus 20:8-10—NIV)
The fourth commandment stresses not working, but Isaiah expands this to mean not following our own will but God's will.
The original fourth commandment served until the Lord Jesus came, for it was not possible for us to obey the words of Isaiah apart from the forming of Christ in us.
The Lord Jesus always lives and has His Being in the eternal Sabbath of God.
By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:30—NIV)
Don't you believe I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:10—NIV)
Compare what Isaiah said with the above two verses and you will see the fulfillment of the Sabbath in the Lord Jesus.
Not going your own way.
Not doing as you please or speaking idle words.
The Apostle Paul tells us about his desire to press into God's rest:
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, And so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11—NIV)
The believer who desires to press into God's rest must come to the place where he regards all of his possessions and accomplishments in the present world as rubbish. We are in our hovel, as I said previously. We are bound with many chains. Until we see our true circumstances we are not able to let go of our rags and enter the glorious rest of the King of all kings.
To "gain Christ" is to gain God's rest.
To be continued.