Virtue: The Character of Spiritual Renewal

We learn a lot from our parents. In countless situations when my mother was flustered, frustrated or waiting, I’ve seen her sigh deeply and utter the words, “Patience is a virtue.” Though in many ways, my mom is one of the most patient people I know, life – especially the life of a parent – is full of situations that test our patience. Thus my mom’s need to remind herself that it was a virtue worth cultivating.

My mom’s saying taught me that virtue had something to do with character qualities we should strive to attain. But that was the extent of my understanding until recently, when I read N. T. Wright’s excellent book, After You Believe: Why Christian CharacterMatters. Since then, I’ve grown excited about the concept of virtue and about how its recovery by American evangelicals could revolutionize our efforts in discipleship.

This post is the last in a series about the process of spiritual renewal. To recap: spiritual renewal happens when our will and action join up with God’s will and action to renovate our hearts so that our bodily life becomes the true expression of the spiritual life God gives us. We participate with the indwelling Holy Spirit, who generates this change. Our role is to engage in disciplined training of mind and body, so that our habits change and our life is marked by Christlikeness through and through.

The purpose of disciplined training is to produce virtue. Broadly understood, virtue simply means moral excellence or noble character. More specifically, virtue is good character forged and formed by determined practice. A virtue is strength of character that we are not born with, but which, when cultivated, becomes an ingrained part of who we are.

N. T. Wright explains:

Virtue. . .is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration to do something which is good and right, but which doesn’t “come naturally”—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find they do what’s required “automatically”. . . Virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices become “second nature.”[1]

In the rest of his book, Wright argues – and this is a crucial point for Christian discussions of virtue ethics – that virtues allow humans to do what God designed and created us for: to worship and serve God aright and to love others authentically. The kind of life produced by virtue, therefore, fulfills our deepest human longings and leads to a joyful, focused, flourishing life. It leads to true “happiness,” not in the anemic modern sense of pleasurable satisfaction but in the deep sense in which ancient philosophers spoke of happiness: a life well-lived, characterized by goodness, contentment and peace.[2]

Because the transformation from vice to virtue aligns us with our God-given purpose, we begin to find pleasure in doing God’s will, which once seemed burdensome at best and senseless at worst. Like the psalmist, we learn to delight in God’s Law because we become the kind of people who want to follow it.[3] We also delight in discipleship, since Jesus’ teaching sums up both Law and Prophets[4] and obeying him means doing God’s will and entering God’s Kingdom.[5] Following Jesus becomes joyful, because we realize that the way of self-denial and self-giving love is really, paradoxically, the secret to satisfaction,[6] despite the world’s pressure to assert our power, pursue our “rights,” and do whatever we want.

So if spiritual renewal aims at virtue, which makes us flourish as servants of our God and King, then the logical question to ask is: Which virtues should we strive for? Which character qualities should our disciplined apprenticeship to Jesus aim to produce?

Aristotle, whose Nichomachean Ethics is the seminal work on virtue, believed that a truly happy life hangs on four “hinge”[7] virtues: courage, justice, prudence and temperance. The Apostle Paul entered the discourse on virtue by commending nine kinds of “fruit,” which the Spirit produces in believers who are being transformed. Paul’s list is quite comprehensive: love – the paramount Christian virtue – joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.[8] The apostle James, too, defines the qualities God’s heavenly wisdom, which we can embody. It is “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”[9] The overlap of these qualities with Jesus’ beatitudes is striking. Jesus follows lead of Israel’s great prophets by highlighting virtues that are foundational to faithful obedience under the reign of God. Chief among these are righteousness and justice,[10] simplicity,[11] and humility.[12] All the virtues are rooted in humility, because it is the heart orientation that makes them all possible.

These virtues are the stuff of Godliness. They are God’s own character traits that we are called to embody in our relationships with God and others.

They are, of course, not natural,[13] but, through discipleship to Jesus, they can become “second nature.” That is why Paul urges Timothy, “Train yourself in godliness.”[14] Our training joins with and makes way for the powerful work of God’s Spirit, who renews our minds, renovates our hearts and reactivates our bodies. The goal is character transformation. God makes us mature and complete, so we can see him as he is, worship him as we ought, and reflect his glory as he made us to do.

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[1] N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 20-21.

[2] On which, see J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler, TheLost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006.

[3] Psalm 1:2; 119:69-70

[4] Matthew 7:12; 22:35-40

[5] Matthew 7:14, 21, 24

[6] See, e.g., Luke 9:24-25

[7] We know them as “Cardinal Virtues,” from the Latin cardo, which means “hinge.”

[8] Galatians 5:22-23

[9] James 3:17

[10] E.g., Matthew 5:6, 10, 20; 6:33

[11] E.g., Matthew 5:8; 6:19-24, 33; 13:44-46; Luke 6:43-45

[12] E.g., Matthew 5:5; 18:4; Mark 9:35; Luke 18:9-14

[13] In fact, John Dickson argues in his recent book, Humilitas, that Jesus was the first moral teacher to make humility a positive virtue. But that same virtue is at the heart of our salvation, for Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be clung to, but made himself nothing, became a servant, humbled himself, and obeyed God even to the point of death (Phil 2:5-8)!

[14] 1 Timothy 4:8

Spiritual Disciplines: Training for Spiritual Renewal

The process of spiritual renewal I discussed in my last two posts leads to an obvious and crucial question: what should we do? We’ve begun to grasp how the process works. We’ve affirmed the biblical balance between the inadequacy of self-generated moral effort and the necessity of participation in Spirit-empowered growth. Now we ask: What role do we play in God’s work of heart renovation?

Two factors come into play: spiritual disciplines and virtues. The two are intimately connected, but we can distinguish them for the sake of discussion. I’ll attempt to unpack the disciplines in this post and the concept of virtue in my next one. But first, I’ll try to illustrate their relationship.

Spiritual disciplines are to virtues as training exercises are to skills. We see this dynamic clearly in the realms of music and athletics. No one expects to sit down and play Beethoven perfectly on the first run. We realize that superb performance requires practice. The musician must learn the language of music, train their fingers, develop rhythm, and much more, in order to become great. Music must become a part of their nature, so they can “make music,” not just play notes. Nor do we expect a ten year old to dribble and shoot a basketball like a varsity starter. We know that it will take thousands of shots and ball handling drills, along with strength and conditioning training for him to excel as a player. Dallas Willard explains: “We advise the young artist or athlete to enter a certain kind of overall life, one involving deep associations with qualified people as well as rigorously scheduled time, diet, and activity for the mind and body.”[1] The point is simple: excellence takes time and training.

We often miss the obvious parallel to discipleship. We imagine we can do what Jesus would do without imitating his overall pattern of life. Willard continues:

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the “second mile,” turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does. This is . . . a strategy bound to fail and to make the way of Christ “difficult and left untried.” In truth it is not the way of Christ anymore than striving to act in a certain manner in the heat of a game is the way of the champion athlete.[2]

Without disciplined discipleship in all dimensions, we default to our old, ingrained ways. We slip back into sinful patterns. We must realize that, just like anything worth pursuing, godliness requires training. Without training we cannot cultivate new skills and lifestyle habits. Encountering Christ may motivate us, but it does not fully equip us. To actually be like him, we must follow his pattern of life. We can no more live like Jesus by simply observing and admiring him than a singer can sound like Celine Dion after hearing her in concert or a basketball player can dunk like Michael Jordan by watching him on TV and wearing his shoes.

The spiritual disciplines move us beyond aspiration to Christlikeness and into the realm of action. They train us as apprentices of Jesus. They are the curriculum in the school of Christ. They are repeatable, habitual practices by which we put off the old self and put on the new, which is being renewed in the image of Christ.[3] They help us slay the sinful nature that once mastered us and offer every part of our body as an instrument of righteousness.[4] The disciplines are pathways to wisdom and virtue.

By practicing the disciplines, we open ourselves to the Spirit’s work. We position ourselves for change. We open our hands to receive grace. We invite God to enter our lives and do his transforming work.

And we need his help. If Jesus was serious about the kind of life he desires us to live, then we must do everything we can to facilitate the deep heart change required for a fruitful life.

• How can a bitter, broken heart learn to forgive?
• How can an angry over-reactor learn to respond with gentleness?
• How can a hedonist learn to give sacrificially?
• How can a workaholic learn to rest in God’s provision?
• How can idolatrous human heart learn to worship and trust in God alone?
• How can a self-centered person learn to truly love their neighbor?

Jesus learned obedience in the crucible of life[5] because he engaged in a life of training. For example, before beginning his messianic mission, Jesus fasted and prayed forty days in solitude. He experienced the deep communion with his Father that was necessary to prepare for the tests he would undergo in the wilderness and during his ministry. He sustained this communion through regular withdrawal to “lonely places.”[6] These times alone in prayer prepared and filled him to continually serve and sacrifice on behalf of others. He clearly studied the Scripture from an early age, as his twelve-year-old encounter with the teachers in the temple testifies. The fact that he can call his whole life and ministry a fulfillment of Torah and Prophets confirms his continual immersion in, meditation on, and application of these sacred texts. He certainly observed the Sabbath and attended Synagogue faithfully. And his own material poverty demonstrates a life of simplicity, totally submitted to and aimed at the execution of his Father’s will.

If this disciplined manner of life was so empowering for Jesus, might it also train us to follow his example and meet his high demands.

• Confession might remind us of our need for grace and empower us to forgive.
• Silence might help us hold our tongue when anger boils.
• Frugality and simplicity might free us to give generously.
• Submission might teach us to rest and trust God to provide.
• Worship would remind us that God alone is worthy.
• Fasting would train us to deny ourselves for others’ sake.

When the Spirit-empowered practice of the disciplines does its transforming work, our character begins to change and we experience the joy and abundant life that Jesus offers. We escape slavery to sin and discover liberating submission to Christ our King. His commands no longer feel burdensome or restrictive.[7] Paradoxically, disciplined training lifts the heavy load of an undisciplined life; under Jesus’ easy yoke and his light burden, we find rest for our souls.[8]

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[1] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 8.

[2] Willard, The Spirit, 5-6.

[3] Colossians 3:10

[4] Romans 6:11-14

[5] Hebrews 5:8

[6] For example, Luke 5:16

[7] 1 John 5:3-4

[8] Matthew 11:28-30

Heart Renovation: The Center of Spiritual Renewal

The heart is at the core of our basic human problem and its solution. The perverted human heart is the source of sin. The renewed human heart is the root of righteousness. Jesus’ brother James sums it up well in his pointed call to wholehearted devotion: “Cleanse your hands, sinners! Purify your hearts, you divided souls!”[1]

Unadulterated worship, uncompromised action and undefiled speech: all flow from a pure heart.

Numerous scriptures emphasize the centrality of our heart in the spiritual life. Here are just a few from some key leaders of God’s people:

Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

1 Kings 8:58 May he [the LORD our God] turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep [his] commands

Psalm 86:11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 6:45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. 

The analogy with the literal bodily organ is apt: as our heart pumps life-sustaining blood that enables all our physical functions, so also it is the source of all our words and deeds.  If the heart is so central and important, how do we make it pure?

One typical religious answer is to try hard to make our heart good. We work to do the right things so our lives are pure. The problem is that this turns the process backwards. Jesus says right action flows from a right heart; it doesn’t make it right. God creates our hearts anew, and his grace empowers the righteous deeds that flow from them. Good works do not dig the well; they flow out of the spring.

The opposite answer is to sit back and wait for God to make us good. God is indeed the initiator and the power broker in the process, but this, too, misses the true dynamics of the process. It lays all the responsibility on God, and lets us off the hook under the assumption that God does it all. It’s as if we’re just to lay on the table unconscious while God performs a heart transplant. God certainly does the operation, but we must be fully awake and involved. At times, the surgery hurts because there’s a cold calloused heart to be cut out. Yet Scripture consistently calls us to willful obedience and engagement. We must choose to deny ourselves, pick up the cross and follow our crucified King.

A third answer is to look inside ourselves. Find the good in yourself and develop it. The problem here is that we possess neither this good nor the power to develop it. The Bible teaches that we are rotten to the core. We can do good things (because we still have vestiges of God’s image within us), but we can’t consistently do the right things for the right reasons (i.e., from a pure heart). Our motives are always twisted and selfish. We must change the motivation to do truly good and gracious deeds. Again, we’re back to the source, to the why behind our works, to our hearts.

We are not self-justifying workers but receivers of grace. Even in paradise, humans lived and worshipped God in a grace-bathed Garden that he planted. They engaged in royal and priestly service to their Creator and Provider. God’s commands always follow his redemption and assume his provision. Human obedience always responds to his prior grace. As soon as we sink into self-justification, as soon as we think we can save ourselves, so soon do we deny the grace of God. When we try to be our own savior, we fail every time.

But neither are we entirely uninvolved. We are not just passive recipients, but participants. We gratefully receive God’s grace, and we live in response. We work out our salvation, knowing God is the one energizing us to do his will.[2] We are never neutral. We always move toward or away from him. Purity happens when we humbly submit. We stop dancing to our own drum and let him lead us to dance in his rhythm. In Paul’s words, we walk in step with the Spirit.[3]

Finally, we do not fan into flame hidden embers of our own goodness. Rather we receive the fresh fire of God’s presence through the Holy Spirit. Once dead in sin, Christ makes us alive.[4] Our lifeless hearts are revived and reanimate our bodies to live resurrection life. God’s own Spirit, not our dormant divinity, is the source of this new-creation life. God cleanses us from impurity, gives us a new heart and a new Spirit and moves us by his Spirit to keep his covenant.[5]

God’s grace changes us and moves us to willfully, joyfully worship and obey him. Our faith in him is expressed in our love toward him and others. This sacrificial, self-giving love begins in God. It came to us when Christ died for us. It lives through us as the Sprit lives in us. These works of the triune God generate a renovation of the heart.

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[1] James 4:8

[2] Philippians 2:12-13

[3] Galatians 5:16, 25

[4] Ephesians 2:4-5

[5] Ezekiel 36:25-27

The Journey of Spiritual Renewal

I love the word renovation for describing what God does in us as we follow Jesus. The word means to restore to good condition; make new or as if new again; repair. Or, simply, to revive. It comes from the Latin verb renovāre , re-  + novāre  to make new. Renewal: a pulsating, life-giving description of exactly what God does with us. This begins a series of posts which will explore aspects of spiritual renewal.

Made in God’s image, we were meant to reflect and refract God’s glory and to emulate his character. Think of humans as gemstones that sparkle with brilliance as his light shines through us. Sin is like black impurities that cloud the clarity of the stones and obstruct our ability to sparkle and radiate God’s glory. Oozing from our broken hearts, sin seeps into every fiber of our being; it perverts our worship, prevents our fellowship with God and defiles our words and deeds. Renewal is the process by which God enters in to purge us of grease and grime, to restore our luster and brilliance, and recondition us to reflect his life-giving light to a dark, dying world. 

The process is a mysterious, miraculous work of God, which, in many ways, exceeds our finite comprehension. Though we can’t analyze or articulate all the mechanics, the Bible and the experience of believers provide a measure of insight into how it “works.” With the help of some modern day spiritual masters,[1] I’ve come to think of it like this:

Process: Inside-out transformation of the entire self

Power: The indwelling Holy Spirit

Means: Training toward Christlikeness in every dimension of life (spiritual disciplines)

Goal: Character traits that lead us to naturally and joyfully live like Jesus (virtues)

The process is well illustrated by sailing.[2] We are like a sailor and a vessel destined for “that celestial shore” called the kingdom of heaven. Arriving at this goal will mean our lives are completely remade and completely submitted to Jesus as our Master and King. While remaining uniquely ourselves, we will think and act like Jesus would if he were us; Jesus will, in fact, be living through us. By the time we reach the far shore, we’ll still be a ship, but we’ll have undergone a complete overhaul. We’ll have a different character. We’ll be virtuous.

If we’re in Christ, our journey has begun. God is already in the process of restoring our hearts and reordering our lives. But he doesn’t begin by giving us a new paint job, despite its weathered deck and worn hull. He starts inside and works his way out. He fixes structural damage, repairs broken parts, replaces rotten boards, mends torn sails. Along with, or after, these essential repairs, he patches holes, seals cracks and eventually refinishes the ship’s exterior. Some of this work may be done in dry dock, but most is miraculously done en route to the destination.

God renovates us by the empowering presence of his Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the wind in our sails, moving us to our goal. (I find it interesting that in both Greek and Hebrew the word for “spirit” can also mean “breath” or “wind;” these meanings play off each other in fascinating ways throughout the Bible.)

Our role is to avail ourselves of the Spirit’s work in our lives. Sailors must set the sails in such a way that they catch wind, so the boat will travel.[3] We do this by practicing spiritual disciplines. They put us in a position to receive grace. They allow the Spirit to fill our sails and propel us toward godliness.

As we practice these disciplines we become expert sailors. We learn to read the currents, predict the weather, navigate at night and control our vessel in harmony with the wind, regardless of conditions. In a word, we develop skill. On the spiritual plane, after long periods of practice, cultivating new habits, we develop virtues, deeply-ingrained character traits. We cultivate a new nature that replaces the old one. From this new nature, following Jesus flows naturally. Our spiritually renewed self begins to claim victory in its battle with the sinful nature. We put on the character of Christ.

This new character, cultivated through spiritual disciplines, replaces our old sinful nature. We live from a new heart, empowered by God’s Spirit, and we actually do what Jesus would do if he were in our shoes.

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[1] Esp. Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (New York: HarperCollins, 1988); John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997); Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, rev ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). My indebtedness to these authors will show throughout this series.

[2] John Ortberg, in The Life You’ve Always Wanted, also uses the sailing metaphor. Except at the points noted below, this development of thought is independent of his.

[3] Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, 51.

Why no hunger?

Last April, I wrote a post exploring why we have a generation of Christians who are satisfied being spoon-fed with spiritual baby food. Those thoughts developed in discussion with my students, who shared their perspectives on the question. One reason we found was that the church serves up the spiritual equivalent of smashed peas and smoothies instead of teaching believers how to butcher a cow, prepare a meal and savor a well-seasoned steak. But the church is not solely responsible: many are content to live on a diet of spiritual junk food (or at least insubstantial snack food) and have not acquired a taste or an appetite for hearty meat-and-potatoes meals. This post further explores the lack of hunger for healthy food. Why are the kitchens and dining rooms empty while busy believers live off Big Macs and Blizzards?

Last week, in my small class of six insightful students, we boiled down the issue. I asked them, “Why aren’t people hungry [for biblical truth]?” One thoughtful students said slowly and with great conviction, “Here’s the answer . . . people are not hungry . . . because they don’t want to be.” This may sound extremely obvious, but I thought it was terribly insightful. It gets to the heart of things. It changes the question from “Why aren’t we hungry?” to “Why don’t we want to be hungry?” Here are some answers we discussed to that question:

• We don’t understand the Bible. If we’re honest, we must admit that the Bible is a hard book. When we don’t understand it, it turns us off.
• We don’t want to feed ourselves, or we don’t know how. We lack the skills or discipline or motivation to diligently study so we can understand.
• We don’t want to change, or be challenged. The Bible calls for radical obedience! This gospel will not allow us to remain us comfortable; it requires radical repentance from our idolatry and radical submission to Jesus as Lord.
• We prefer what’s easy. We want to sustain our mediocrity, to keep living in the status quo, whether it works or not, because it’s easy and painless.
• We hunger for other things. Sometimes these may be good things, sometimes bad or worthless things. These other pursuits and distractions crowd out the seed of God’s word (Luke 8:14). We crave unhealthy food.
• We’d rather goof off. We prefer silly to serious. We’d rather play than persevere.
• We don’t realize that we cannot feed our need. In a culture that urges us to tap into our own spiritual resources, we don’t recognize that we cannot nourish ourselves. Our food must come from outside ourselves. Our hunger for God must be fed by revelation. We must feast on the Bread of Life and the Word of God.

So we have come full circle. Our deepest questions and needs cry for divine revelation, but we often remain content with substitutes that that do not truly satisfy. The Sons of Korah express the attitude we must cultivate: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God” (Psalm 42:1-2)?

What experiences, attitudes or circumstances create hunger in our souls?  How can we recover a hunger and thirst for God that will drive us to crave his life-giving revelation?

Parable of the Tax Evaders

There once was a just and benevolent king who had many subjects. One day, three of them appeared before him on charges of tax evasion. He asked each to explain their failure to give the king what was due him in exchange for the blessings they experienced as residents in his realm.

The first subject answered the king, “Your majesty, I appreciate the welfare of your kingdom, but there are many other things for which I wanted to use the money. There was not enough for both. I had to make a choice.”

The second subject then approached the king and explained, “I, too, am grateful to live in your kingdom, but you require too much of your people. Your expectations are so high that I can never meet them, so I’ve given up trying. Taxes are just another burden I no longer want to bear.”

The third servant said simply, “O king, your laws are not just and you have been unfair to me and my family, so I will not pay your taxes.”

Now, what will this great king do to these unfaithful subjects?

Recovering Rest: A Christian Exploration of the Sabbath

We are busy year round in our fast-paced Western culture, despite all our “time-saving” technologies. But we’re particularly rushed during the Christmas season; the short days are filled with Christmas parties, shopping, church activities, and fun family traditions. Many of these are great things, but the frenzy and stress tend to crowd out opportunities to cease and celebrate our Savior’s coming. So it seems an appropriate time to consider God’s vision for the Sabbath (which simply means, “to cease”). God sets apart this day for sacred rest right at the beginning of the story, on day seven of creation:

The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them.  ² By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.  ³ God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation (Genesis 2:1-3  NET).

God’s rhythm of work and rest is built into creation and covenant. He commands his people:

Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  ⁹ You have six days each week for your ordinary work,  ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work (Exodus 20:8-10  NLT).

To observe the Sabbath is not just to cease all activity and reflect on God. It is to follow God’s example and live in God’s creation pattern of work and rest.

But how do we keep a day holy? First, we must consider the concept of holiness. To be holy is to be unique or set apart, like God. In the Old Testament, a variety of things are holy:

• Places: tabernacle and sanctuary – places for worship and fellowship with God
• Objects: sacred items used in the service of the tabernacle
• People: priests and Levites who serve in the tabernacle

Each of these is set apart, or “consecrated,” for unique tasks. They are holy for the purpose of worship, service and fellowship with God. Holy time is no different. It is set aside for worship, service and fellowship with God. Like all consecrated things, holy time can be desecrated, profaned, made common. How?

• By ignoring its sacredness, treating it like any other day, continuing regular work (Nehemiah 13:15-22)
• By ignoring God, giving no time to worship and no gratitude for God’s gifts
• By making it part of a false show of holiness to hide a life of injustice (Isaiah 1:10-15)
• By cutting rest short out of a greedy desire to make profit (Amos 8:4-5)

So, how do we keep the Sabbath holy? God commands us to rest and remember. 

We must cease from normal work. In resting, we imitate God, who rested from his work of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:11)

We rest to remember God’s deliverance. “Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the LORD your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:15).

Failing to rest is like returning to Egypt, where the Israelites were enslaved to unceasing toilsome labor (Exodus 5:5). God saved them from that. The Sabbath prevents re-enslavement to relentless work and gives the gift of refreshing rest to the whole community, including slaves and animals.

Rest involves trusting God to meet our needs even if we don’t run ourselves ragged. We must acknowledge our human limitations and realize that we cannot go non-stop for 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Such a pace is unsustainable.

Rest reminds us that we worship God, not the wealth we acquire through our work (Matthew 6:24). Sabbath gives us time to refocus our priorities and remember that God is the only reward worth pursuing.

We rest so that our work can be properly directed. Sabbath offers a chance to remember Who we work for and the kingdom purpose and goal of our work; we rediscover that our work in the world, if it is to be worthwhile, must participate in his work in the world (as Jesus’ work did; John 5:17). We join God’s rest so we can join God’s work!

Eugene Peterson expresses this truth well in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (117-18):

If there is no Sabbath – no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking – we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives. We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection…

This is a most difficult command to keep, a most difficult practice to cultivate. It is one of the most abused and distorted practices of the Christian life…

But I don’t see any way out of it: if we are going to live appropriately in the creation, we must keep the Sabbath. We must stop running around long enough to see what God has done and is doing. We must shut up long enough to hear what God has said and is saying. All our ancestors agree that without silence and stillness there is no spirituality, no God-attentive, God-responsive life. . .

If we are not to simply contribute a religious dimension to the disintegration of our world, join company with the mobs who are desecrating the creation with their hurry and hype in frenzy and noise, we must attend to what we have been given and the One who gives it to us. One large step in the renewal of creation today, this field upon which the resurrection Christ plays plays with such exuberance, is to not take the next step: stand where we are, listen to our Lord: attend . . . adore.

Rest gives us time to delight in God and his work. When God stopped working, he sat back and looked over his work; he enjoyed its beauty and appreciated its order and function; he pronounced it “very good” (Genesis 1:31-2:3). We, too, should stop and stand in awe of God’s world. We should pause our technology and virtual reality and praise God for his creation reality.

Maltbie D. Babcock beautifully expresses the benefits of this creation awareness in his famous hymn, This Is My Father's World:

This is my Father's world

And to my listening ears

All nature sings and round me rings

The music of the spheres

This is my Father's world

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees of skies and seas

His hand the wonders wrought

This is my Father's world

The birds their carols raise

The morning light the lily white

Declare their Maker's praise

This is my Father's world

He shines in all that's fair

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass

He speaks to me everywhere

This is my Father's world

O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong

God is the Ruler yet

This is my Father's world

The battle is not done

Jesus who died shall be satisfied

And earth and heaven be one

As appealing and life-giving as all this sounds, we must guard against missing the point. Jesus’ response to Sabbath-observance in his own day warns us against extremism.

First, rest does not mean ceasing to do good. Sabbath observance should not keep us from blessing others and giving life, healing and wholeness. Human needs are more important than strict Sabbath observance (Matthew 12:10-13). The law is not meant to prevent the hungry from eating (Matthew 12:3-5). Nor is it meant to restrict God’s work.

Second, Sabbath is not about a big “not-to-do list.” To focus on forbidden activities is to see only the rule and miss the gift. “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It was given to keep our lives in a healthy rhythm, not to bury us under burdensome restrictions. When we follow the Lord of the Sabbath, we need not be burdened by a heavy yoke of rules, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30).

The Sabbath, then, is holy time set apart to remember who we are and who God is. We remember that he is Creator and we are Creature (Exodus 20:11), he is Redeemer and we are redeemed (Deuteronomy 5:15). In rest, we join God’s creation rhythm. In rest, we stop and adore God. In rest, we refocus our lives so we spend them in his service for the sake of his kingdom.

So as you go through this Advent season, when will you pause to wonder at the glory of Emmanuel? How could you rest in God’s creative and redemptive blessings? When could you stop to savor the peace and joy Messiah brings and share them with a world that needs his rest?