Based upon Genesis 2, I want to give you a Biblical worldview of rest. Hear me, there is so much on this topic. In my preparing I came across one podcast series by Bible Project that was fourteen episodes, which is over 15 hours of insight about rest within scripture. I listened to a podcast from John Mark Comer and Practicing the Way where he did a four-week series just on rest. I don’t have the capacity in the message I shared or these faith challenges to give you complete, necessary view of rest. But I want to give you nuggets and invite you into more.

Read Genesis 2:2-3- 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

The word rested in the Hebrew is sabat, pronounced shawbath, where we get our word Sabbath. But before you start going down the road of Sabbath and legalism and you can’t cut your grass on Sundays. If you’re from Oostburg or grew up in a legalistic home, you know what I’m talking about. Hit the pause button and let us see and listen with fresh eyes and ears. We see a glimpse of what God was getting at for the ancients long before religion bastardized Sabbath.

Rested, sebat, Sabbath, actually means to cease or stop. We see that in the passage, God finished from his work, he rested from the work, from creating. Which gives us this beautiful picture, on the seventh day God ceased, he stopped and enjoyed what he created, he delighted in what he created, he was present with creation.

Think about that for a moment. God, Creator-King, stopped and enjoyed what he created. Every day after he created he said it was good and now God sits back and enjoys what is good. He spends time with what he created.

The first Biblical worldview of rest is stopping and delighting. Rest is stopping and delighting in what is around you, what you’ve created/finished, family and friendships, God’s creation, God’s presence (scripture, prayer).

Stopping and delighting speaks into our state of restlessness, it flies in the face of our running around and consuming. Always pressing for more, more of anything; experiences, stuff, titles, degrees. Not that there is anything wrong with any of them, but to what extent. Consuming, anything and everything, an insatiable thirst for more.

Stopping and delighting is celebrating and worshipping what God has done and given.
Think about it this way. If you’ve ever traveled toward the mountains and through the mountains. It is a sight to see. It is almost as though they are growing out of the earth as you approach them. Getting bigger and bigger as you speed towards the mountain range. But once you get up the mountain you know what happens, the speed limit slows down. You aren’t going 70 MPH as you traverse up Pike’s Peak. No, you are going slow, one because of safety, but two, so you can take it all in. You will not experience much of the mountains if you speed through the mountain range.

In a very small way, that’s what rest is. Stopping and delighting, versus maintaining a pace of life that isn’t safe and misses much of life.

With the first biblical worldview of rest, stopping and delighting, what does that mean for you? What gets your attention with that perspective? How can you even carve out 15 minutes in a day to do that? Trusting it can build into more.