We keep the Sabbath when we Rest and Enjoy God in a Solemn Way for His Satisfaction

The principle of the Sabbath is that God first wants us to rest and enjoy God, and then we can work together with Him.

This principle applies both in creation and in redemption. When God created us, we didn’t have to work first but rest and enjoy God, and then we could work with Him.

In redemption it is the same, we couldn’t work for our redemption or salvation, but we simply had to believe the gospel and receive the accomplished fact, and we enjoy God; then, we can work with Him by being one with Him in His work.

The principle of the Sabbath is that we should cease our work because God has done everything for us and He has even become everything for our enjoyment. After God created man, He rested: man’s first day was a day of rest, while God first worked and then He rested.

God is doing everything for us and in us, and we simply need to rest and enjoy God, and then we will be filled with the enjoyment of God and thus be able to work together with God.

From the beginning of the Bible to the end we see that God wants man to rest and enjoy God first, and then man is one with God to work for God and in God.

Praise the Lord, when Jesus came, the dispensation of law is over, and we no longer have to keep the law, for Christ Himself fulfilled the law and became its reality. Christ also is the fulfillment of all the feasts, and He initiated the Lord’s Table as the reality of the Passover.

We in the New Testament need to stop our self effort and struggle to please God and work for God, and we just need to enjoy God and rest with God and in God.

Our natural man wants to do, do, do many things for God, and our flesh is so able to do things and say things apart from God yet seemingly for God. Oh Lord Jesus!

If we want to grow in the Lord and allow the divine life in us to increase and spread in all our inner being, we need to learn never to exercise our efforts to try to please God or do something for God.

We need to first learn to rest and enjoy God, enjoy God and rest with God, and by entering into the rest and enjoyment of God we will be able to be one with God to do His work.

This is our primary duty, to rest and enjoy God, and then we can work with God. When we rest with God and enjoy God, we seemingly do nothing outwardly, but actually we are filled with God inwardly, and He in us can do the work that He wants to do.

We need to First Rest and Enjoy God and then be One with Him to Work for God in God

After God created man, He could rest and be refreshed, for the man created by Him was in His image and according to His likeness, and this man was to express God and represent Him.

Man was like a refreshing drink for God to have His thirst quenched and for Him to be satisfied.

After six days of working to create the heavens, the earth, and all the things necessary for man’s existence, God finally had a rest on the seventh day, because now He had man as His companion.

Man’s first day on this earth was not a day of work but a day of rest. God’s seventh day was a day of rest and refreshment, and man’s first day was a day of rest. This is the divine principle, and this is the principle of the Sabbath.

God doesn’t ask us or require us to work for Him first until we rest and enjoy God. God first supplies us with enjoyment, and after we fully rest and enjoy God, when we have full of the enjoyment of God, we may work together with Him.

But if we don’t know how to rest and enjoy God, if we don’t know how to have enjoyment of God and how to enjoy God Himself, we will not know how to work together with God, and our work for Him may not be approved by Him.

The principle of the Sabbath applies not only in creation but also in redemption, for when we believed into the Lord we simply had to rest and enjoy God, for all the work was already done.

The result of Christ’s work in redemption is Christ Himself as the Sabbath (see Eph. 1:6-7; Heb. 1:3; 9:11-12).

God blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ; He put us in Christ, He blessed us in Christ, and in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace (Eph. 1:3, 6-7).

Christ offered His own blood to obtain an eternal redemption for us, and all we have to do is believe into Him and receive this accomplished fact. Then, after enjoying Him and the riches of His grace, after we rest and enjoy God, we can work for God, in God, and one with God.

Paul testified of this when he said that it is by the grace of God that he is what he is, for God’s grace didn’t turn out to be in vain to him; he labored more abundantly than others, yet not him but the grace of God which was with him (1 Cor. 15:10).

Paul knew what it means to rest and enjoy God; he enjoyed God’s grace, and it wasn’t him who labored or worked but the grace of God who was with him. And he entreats us not to receive the grace of God in vain (1 Cor. 6:1).

We need to enjoy God, rest with God, and enter into God’s rest; after we rest and enjoy God, when we’re filled with His enjoyment, we will be able to work for God one with God, and it will not be us working but the grace of God that is with us.

May we not receive the grace of God in vain, but may we be the best enjoyers of God, those who rest with God and enjoy God to the uttermost, so that our work would be from God, for God, and one with God.

Lord Jesus, teach us to first rest and enjoy God to be filled with the enjoyment of God so that we may enter into Your rest and enjoyment. Save us from trying to work for God and deliver us from the struggle to please God. Oh Lord, may we enter into Your rest and enjoyment, and may all our work be out of You, in our oneness with You! We want to be one with God in His divine work by learning to rest and enjoy God to be filled with the enjoyment of God and do everything by the grace of God which is with us!

Learning to Enjoy Rest with God and with one another in a Solemn Way for God’s Joy and Enjoyment

The principal denotation of all the annual feasts is for God’s people to enjoy rest with God and with one another (see Lev. 23:7-8, 21, 25, 28, 31-32, 35-36, 39). It is the same with the Sabbath rest: it is a weekly rest, a rest with God and a rest with one another.

The first feast that God wants His people to keep is the Sabbath, and the principle of the Sabbath is that God’s people need to rest and enjoy God and all that God has done for them.

Our obligation as God’s people is not first to work for God and do this or that; our obligation is to enjoy God and rest with God. God has already done all the work; the creation work was accomplished by God, the redemption work was accomplished by Christ, and the work of transformation is accomplished by the Spirit – we simply need to rest and enjoy God, enter into God’s rest, and let God do the work in us.

In his book, Sit, Walk, Stand, brother Watchman Nee lays out the principle of our Christian life; we may think that we first stand, then walk, and then we’re tired so we sit, but it is not this way.

According to the book of Ephesians, God first seated us together with Christ in the heavenlies, where we enjoy all that Christ is, has, and has accomplished. Then, we can walk in Him, having been rooted and grounded in Him.

Finally, when we come to trials or spiritual warfare, we just need to stand. If we don’t know how to sit with Christ, we will not know how to walk, and if we don’t know how to walk with Christ, we won’t know how to stand with Him.

We need to learn to rest with God and enjoy God to be filled with the enjoyment of God and the element of God, and then we can walk with Him and stand in Him.

The weekly Sabbath was a complete, solemn rest; this complete rest signifies a genuine and thorough rest with God for God’s redeemed people to enjoy with Him and with one another.

God wants us to have a solemn rest – not in the sense of being in fear and trembling, but in the sense of being sanctified, not being loose, but being with God and in God. Such a rest is to Jehovah, that is, for His satisfaction, joy, and enjoyment; we all participate in this rest, and God is full of joy and enjoyment.

On the Sabbath no one was allowed to work or labor, for man was to enjoy rest to Jehovah (Lev. 23:3). Hallelujah, when we rest with God and enjoy God we don’t have to labor for God or work for Him – we simply need to enjoy Him and rest with Him!

Early in the morning, the first thing we need to do is rest and enjoy God, eating the Lord in His word, and simply being filled with His grace. Then, many times during the day we need to stop and just enjoy the Lord.

And several times during the week we need to come together and enjoy Christ together, resting with Him and having much enjoyment of God with the saints, God’s people.

The result will be that we will work with God by being one with God, and God will be satisfied – and we will be full of joy.

Lord, we want to learn to enjoy rest with God and with one another in a solemn way for God’s joy and enjoyment. Bring us into a genuine and thorough rest and enjoyment with God and with God’s people. Amen, Lord, make us Your enjoyers, Your people who rest and enjoy God day by day! We want to keep the feast by enjoying God, entering into God’s rest, and being one with God. Lord, may we all have such a solemn rest and enjoyment in Your presence for Your joy, enjoyment, and satisfaction!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 1, “Spiritual Applications of the Tabernacle,” ch. 1, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 8, The Feasts (1) – The Sabbath, the Feast of the Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, I believe a rest remains / To all Thy people known; / A rest where pure enjoyment reigns, / And Thou art loved alone. / Remove this hardness from my heart, / This unbelief remove; / To me the rest of faith impart, / The Sabbath of Thy love. (Hymns #424)
  # In such a fellowship / Thou, Lord, art grace to me; / My heart and spirit gladdened, filled, / I enter rest in Thee. (Hymns #812)
  # Christ is our rest and enjoyment, / Here we have nothing to fear; / Here all the sheep dwell securely, / Kept by His presence so dear. / Glorious church life, / Feasting from such a rich store! / Here where we’re dwelling in oneness / God commands life evermore. (Hymns #1221)