Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - You Weren’t Made From Steel: A Biblical Case For Rest

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

“Why did God build rest into creation before he ever gave a single command to work? In this episode, Jonny and Hank trace the Sabbath from Genesis through the Ten Commandments to Jesus, and ask what it means for our rhythm of work and rest today.📖 Pre-order Jonny Ardavanis's new book Get to Work: Seeing Your Daily Grind as God’s Good Gift here: https://a.co/d/0aFMdjNpYou’ll learn: • Why God rested on the seventh day — not from exhaustion, but completion • How the Sabbath pointed forward to Christ, and why it’s no longer binding law • The difference between biblical rest and mere relaxation • Why busyness (not just laziness) can be a spiritual danger • How Jesus modeled withdrawing to be alone with the Father • Practical questions to evaluate your own rhythm of restIf you’ve ever felt guilty resting, or like you can’t stop producing or distracting yourself long enough to be still, this conversation will reframe rest as a gift from God, not an obstacle to productivity.This episode is part 5 in an ongoing series tied to Jonny’s book, “Get to Work.”📱 This episode is also sponsored by Accountable2You. Stay accountable in a digital world: check out Accountable2You at accountable2you.com/dialin — use code DIALIN for 25% off your first year.

This episode of Dialen is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the Crossway Short Classic Series. This series introduces a new generation of readers to classic works of the faith, such as Heaven is a World of Love by Jonathan Edwards, and The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther. These books speak powerfully and truthfully about the Christian life. You can pick up a copy from the Crossway Short Classic series wherever books are sold, or visit crossway.org to get 30% off with a free Crossway Plus account. What does the Old Testament Sabbath have to do with our priority of rest? And if God rested, then aren't we still his image bears and aren't we supposed to mirror and mimic him?

When you're working hard, rest becomes easier. And when you're not working, rest actually becomes unrestful. Biblical rest is a shutting down to both production and a distraction, kind of to your point. Like we often live our lives in the realm of production, doing, doing, doing, or distraction, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, or watching, watching, watching. And you have to ask the question of Jesus needed to withdraw and spend time with God. How much more we who are full of sin? I want to just provide a sketch of my own need and yours for rest. Hank, how we doing?

I'm doing great, Johnny. How are you? Good, why are you so great? Can you sense there's just like a change in the atmosphere? I can sense it. A wrong has been righted. Rectified. Rectified. We went to a bear's game.

Last Monday, verse the Eagles. Monday night football. It was a top. We were at the Case Keenham game. I'll be able to, my kids and my kids' kids someday will look back and say, where were you when Case Keenum lit up the Eagles defense? We hate the Eagles.

And I'll say I was there. We were there in the flesh. Now, speaking of the Eagles, we're not really speaking of the Eagles. We have been in a series for about a month here, trying to elevate our worldview of And so far we've covered this biblical theology that God is a worker. One of the first things that we know about God is that he loves to create.

He's an artist. He's a zoologist, a builder. And we're made in his image. We've talked about laziness a couple weeks ago. And one thing that's worth stating plainly is that the series would be incomplete and consequently unbiblical if we did not draw our attention to another important category that we find in the opening narrative of scripture. Now, before we continue to jump in, I want you to think for a moment about your calendar. and in doing so, ask the question, how do we derive the current divisions of time?

Meaning this, that one year is the Earth's revolution around the sun. One month is what? It's based on the moon? The moon cycle. Come on. One day is the Earth's rotation. But I first heard Kevin Young talk about this. He said, have you ever considered where we get the week from?

Meaning that every society and economy typically functions on a seven-day cycle, but why? It's an arbitrary measurement of time that is not tight. to anything astrologically. So where did we get our seven-day week? Well, at this point, you may know where we're going. In Genesis chapter two, it says in verse one, thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their hosts, but the seventh day, God completed his work which he had done,

and he rested on the seventh day from all of his work, which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all of his work which he had created and made. So all of creation was completed, and on the seventh day, God rested, not because he was exhausted, but because he was finished. He rested kind of on the, like in that hands on the hip, look at your mode lawn, perfect stripes, diagonal or straight? Diagonal. Diagonal stripes type of way. And he paused to enjoy and delight in what he had made.

Well, and this is so a major idea here of being rest. I think it's natural. I just wanted to pull out the point earlier you made because as we've worked through the series, we considered the Christian work. work ethic and the fact that our work ethic should set us apart if it's understood and grounded biblically something a lot of people i think in today's culture are blowing by and then second we looked last week or two weeks ago rather on the concept of laziness just the inversion of what the work ethic might be and how that might undermine our witness and how it's an affront to our creator to be lazy and i i just want to start here of the first time i'd heard you kind of work through this series

I'd be honest in saying, like, my mind didn't automatically go to rest. So I'm looking forward to diving more into the conversation. Because it's often, again, we talk about work. It's just it's easy to maybe miss the undergirding principles that actually make up a holistic biblical view. Yeah, and I think going back to a line we say often by toes are nothing less than a whole Bible makes a whole Christian. And so you can't emphasize one reality at the expense of another.

And so we have to have a holistic understanding of both work and rest as it relates to God's word. Now, that word for rest in Hebrew in Genesis 2 when it said that God rested is the word sabbat. It literally means to stop, to cease, and to keep. And the language of Genesis 2-2 is particularly interesting. It says that God blessed the seventh day. What does that mean? Well, there are three times in the Genesis narrative that we read that God bless something. The first time we read of it is in Genesis 122, when God blessed the animal kingdom and said,

be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The second time is when God looks at it. looks at Adam Neve and he blesses them. And then once again says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This third time we read that God bless something is about this seventh day. But there's no specific command to fill the earth. But from this, we get this idea that rest also shares in this capacity to fill the earth with God's goodness. And so we see here in chapter two of the Bible that rest is not some sort of unfortunate addendum to God's design. No, it's a celebration of his goodness, who he is as a king, a creator, and friend.

And then there's something else to observe here and then jump in. It says that God not only blessed the seventh day, but he sanctified it. The ESV translation says that God made this seventh day holy. Now, what does it mean to be holy? Set apart. To be set apart. So the first time in scripture we read of holiness of something that is sanctified and set apart is time.

It's the seventh day. And so before the first week of planet Earth comes to a close, before God ever establishes something as a law with Moses and the people of Israel, here in the garden, God models this pattern of ceasing from labor and resting. This is super helpful, and I'm actually really eager to keep rolling, so I don't want to take too long. But one observation I'd make quickly is when you hear that the Lord rested on the seventh day, I think for a long time I read that and just thought,

like I didn't even know what to do with it. it just felt incongruous because when I rest, it's because I'm tired. And so there's this part of me that knows like, well, I know God can't get tired, but then how does he rest? And so it's just helpful, like low-hanging fruit here. When we're defining things biblically and actually lean into the text, the text can define things for us. And it's important that we're allowing the Bible to define itself as opposed to bringing our own preconceived notions about what these words might mean. For sure. Keep rolling. And we'll talk about more about what that rest even means.

Now, let's fast forward a little bit. and this is kind of like a high view, and I go into greater detail about the subject in my book, get to work. But if we push forward to millennia, you know, 400 years of bondage in Egypt, Yahweh then comes and displays his great power in delivering the people out of Egypt, and then in Exodus, God leads Moses up this mountain, and he gives them the Ten Commandments, the fourth and the longest of which is found in Exodus chapter 20. Do you have that there in verse 8?

Absolutely. So in verse 8 it says, remember the Sabbath, day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it, you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or your sojourner who's within your gates. For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens in the earth, the sea and all that's in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed that Sabbath day and made it holy. So God here makes a clear command that the day he had set apart as part of the rhythm

or fabric of creation in the garden is now going to be set apart in their week and they were to rest. They were to stop from all work and to mirror and mimic their resting God. Now, externally, it meant a cessation of labor, but internally, it meant a celebration of God's goodness and kindness and grace.

They were to stop, and this is kind of going back to the original design for rest. They were to remember that they were no longer slaves. they were to, I think it's Kevin DeYoung again, that says that it was a weekly sermon that they were forced to preach to themselves that God was an awesome God. Now, it says here that they were to treat the Sabbath day as holy. And we'll continue to talk about what that, you know, what it means to celebrate the Sabbath. But it says treat the Sabbath day as holy. Now, how do you treat the Sabbath as unholy?

Well, I think pretty basic when you treat it as any other day. So Sabbath was not just to be a day where they were to stop working, but a day that was designed to be full of worship and where the people of God were to practically express their trust and dependence on the Lord to provide for their every need. And by not working on the Sabbath, they were preaching to themselves. God continues to provide for my needs without me. And then be forced to remember, oh, he delivered me out of Egypt.

He's going to continue to provide for me tomorrow, even as I rest, God is, he's at work, Jesus says, and John, my father is working even now. I want to keep going and look more deeply into, it's already feeling a little convicting because I'm thinking of the many ways in which I'll fall into patterns where I'm treating the Lord's Day as if it's any other. But maybe before we do that, I think there's other points in the Old Testament you wanted to bring to the forefront of maybe boltersing our view on how important the Sabbath is. Psalm 119 reads, how can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word?

One of the priorities of a person pursuing purity is the word of God. I've said it before and I've written this for myself that if God's word is not my priority, neither is my purity. Now, in addition to a love for the word of God and a dependence upon the spirit of God, one of the practical strategies for pursuing purity in a world that is littered with impurity is having some form of digital accountability. You have access, I have access by just the devices we have as an orative element in our life to all sorts of sin. And I want accountability in my life.

And so we've partnered up with Accountable to You. And I've been using this software for the last several years and been so blessed by it. The other people on our team use it as well. And I want to recommend it to you. You can use our unique code dial in to get 25% off the first year for your personal or family plan. And you can check out more information at Accountable to You. com forward slash dial in. Yeah, the Sabbath was critical.

Now, in the Old Testament, God makes covenants with his people. A covenant is when the divine sovereign makes a promise, typically speaking, to a lesser, more needy group of people. And this is what God does with his people, Israel, over and over and over again. He makes covenants. And all of these covenants have signs, meaning that the sign of the Noahic covenant, the covenant that God makes with Noah is a rainbow. A rainbow.

The sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham is circumcision, and the sign of the Mosaic covenant that God made with Israel was the Sabbath. Consider Exodus 31. It says, so the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. Then this is key language here. It is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day he rested from his labor and was refreshed. So what God had implemented again as a pattern in the garden is set into law in the Ten Commandments, and it was a sign of a covenant that God made with His people.

There was great blessing when they honored the Sabbath, and there was punishment and consequences when they dishonored the Sabbath, and what does that mean? Well, when they treated it as any other day. Now, and this is kind of accelerating through the text of Scripture, the death and resurrection of Jesus was the fulfillment of all of those old covenants. And now God's people gather, we see this in the early church, not on Saturday, but on Sunday, resurrection Sunday.

Every single week is Easter Sunday. And this is what Paul says in Colossians, too, regarding the Sabbath. And we'll talk about what does the Old Testament Sabbath have to do with our priority of rest? I think that's a big question. And it's worth just slowing down for maybe a brief moment for folks who are listening and maybe feel like, wow, that was really quick. And I'm actually not super familiar with these. You don't understand all the covenants? Mosaic covenant, Abrahamic covenant.

Noahic. Stick with me, Johnny. Ever heard of Noahic? Yeah. But sincerely, just the main idea there of God was making promises to his people. He was giving them a sign. And yet today, like to be a member at Stonebridge Bible Church, we're not exercising circumcision as a part of membership. You made that point very eloquently, but very quickly, Jesus fulfills and those covenants are pointing towards.

Totally. Those covenants are pointing towards the person of Jesus. Correct. And so, anyway, wanted to restate that briefly as we turn, because then the question becomes, do we totally disregard the Sabbath? And do we have to totally disregard the concept of refs broadly? No, to answer the question, and thanks for kind of slowing us down, because I don't want it to be missed. This is important to understand.

In Colossians 2, Paul is giving instructions on how we are to think about all of these Old Covenant practices, or Old Testament practices. He says in Colossians 216. He says, therefore, let no one, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. He says things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. He's saying all of these things are shadows of what is to come. That is Christ.

Now that word for shadow, Skiya, that's the word that Paul uses to describe also the sacrificial system that was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice. And he's basically putting into that same category, Sabbath law was fulfilled in Jesus. So all of these things pointed towards him and when he arrived and when he died and when he rose from the grave, that means that Sabbath law is no longer binding. At that point, the question needs to be asked, what do we do with the Sabbath pattern of rest and worship and delight that God had implemented from the beginning of creation? and if God rested, then aren't we still his image bears and aren't we supposed to mirror and mimic him?

And is this not something that we should still do? Now, Jesus says in Mark 2, verse 27, that Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. By the time he arrives, the Jews had turned the Sabbath into this constricting and constraining straight jacket. It had sucked the life out of the Jews. This is why Jesus is performing almost all of his miracles in John's Gospel win on the Sabbath to prove to them that they don't even understand it. But he says that Sabbath was made for man. And I think what he means by saying that is the Sabbath originally was intended to be a gift.

It was for you. It was for your benefit. It was a weekly Father's Day for you to enjoy who God is. And you've heard me say it before. God is not only the king of the universe, he's also our father. and it was a day to spend with Father, to walk in the cool of the garden with us. And so he says the Sabbath was made for man

because they had too many rules and regulations. But to people today, I think it would be fair, and a number of other authors have touched on this. It's not that we have too many rules and regulations regarding the Sabbath. It's that we have hardly any at all. It's not like it's treated as this sanctified day

and don't do anything. It's that when I was growing up, we called it the Lord's Day, but now it may be the Lord's mourning or just, you know, a 65-minute event that we attend in the morning and then we go and do whatever else we want the rest of the day. So I think just with that in mind of is the Old Testament law binding? The answer would be, no, that was fulfilled in Jesus. But I want to maybe make an autobiographical sketch

of principles that we find in God's word regarding our need for rest and for communion with God, but anything before I dive in. No, that's super, super helpful. I would just maybe put the exclamation point on, I mean, we're recording this in 2026. You never know when folks are going to listen. even in the last 25 years, I feel like in our kind of lived experience, there's been a wide movement of when I was a kid, like it was, we weren't trying to mow the lawn on Sunday. We definitely weren't playing sports on Sunday. Yeah, totally. And now, I mean, I think that would just be incredibly foreign. Now people are probably listening in all kinds of different contexts.

But it just, it feels particularly relevant because it does feel like something that's not being addressed a ton. Yeah. So I want to just provide a sketch because of what you're, what you're saying is true, of my own need and yours for rest. And you can put these things in the first person. Number one, I am made from the dust, not made from steel. We've talked about diligence. We've talked about labor. We've talked about the sin of laziness.

But in Psalm 103, it says that God is mindful of our frame. He knows that we are but dust. And today, many people have no rhythm in their calendar. Many people work every day. And when they're not working, I think it's DeYoung and his, book, he says it's like this messy mush of both not working but not resting, meaning you're kind of working while you watch TV and you're watching TV while you're working. And so you'd never feel like there's any deliberate rest and contemplation and time in your life. And without that

cadence, there's this inevitability that your soul can begin to run on empty and becomes very badgered in the process. Like, God made you and he knows you. And in the garden, he implemented of this fabric where one day you need your soul to be tuned. Like we sing that in Come Now Found, like, tune my heart to sing of who you are, right? Because our souls get out of tune. And when there's this endless kind of hamster wheel in life, and people say it, like, I'm on the treadmill, like, so to speak, your soul's going to reap the consequences. Totally.

And it's just, I mean, it's so convicting that you're on social media at work. And then when you're home, you're overwhelmed by the amount of work you have. or I'm just even thinking about in the earlier years of my life. Same thing as a student. It doesn't have to be whatever, you know, nine to five, as we've talked about so plainly. But it's just, it's particularly relevant. Yeah, and even beyond, like, an isolated day of the week, Jesus also models the necessity of sleep, like, in his humanity.

He wasn't just working. He was sleeping. And previously, we've talked about how the sluggard in Proverbs loves to sleep. But that's not just saying that the godly person sleeps only four hours a night. You know, I know that's kind of like the jaco thing to do. Like, I go to bed at one. and I wake up at four. That's not physically wise.

It's actually a lack of stewardship. And so lack of sleep not only sucks away our physical health, but our spiritual health as well. Like you see that with Elijah, like when he's so depressed, God, first thing he does is give him a nap and a snack. And so Martin Lloyd-Jones talks about this. Like we're embodied being. So we need rest because God made us not from steel, but from the dust.

And even though we are finite creatures, I think there is still this gravitational pull towards self-sufficiency. And our need for rest is this constant reminder that our bodies, our minds, and our souls need a deliberate break. And this is why God told the people of Israel to gather twice the amount of mana they needed on the sixth day so that on the seventh day they could do nothing. He didn't say like, do most so you can only do a little. He's like, you need a break, break in order to honor me in this way to give your bodies, your souls, and your minds a break. Well, and it just strikes me that when we're talking about rest, these things are all so tied together in the way that God's created things. And so people get out of whack. I would want to go back multiple episodes when we talked about the Christian work ethic.

I think it's fair to say that's a topic both of us feel really passionately about and really wanting to elevate just to the listener the primacy and importance of a true witness-inducing work ethic. And on the flip side, you can easily tip over into. legalism or workaholism. And yet, there's this rest side. If we over-emphasize rest, we drip into laziness. If we overemphasize work, we lead into workaholism. But also, when you're working hard, rest becomes easier. And when you're not working, rest actually becomes unrestful.

And so there's this amazing beautiful balance that God creates there, that these things need to be taken in their totality and in parallel with one another as we see laid out in scripture. Yeah, it's so good. And one of the things that I had written down a long time ago for my own heart is that biblical rest is a shutting down to both production and a distraction, kind of to your point. Like we often live our lives in the realm of production, doing, doing, doing, or distraction, scrolling, scrolling, or watching, watching, watching. And so we need to kind of take a break. Our souls need it. And I think, secondly, we are not made from dust. We're not made from the dust. And then secondly, our hearts are prone to wonder, not prone to worship. One of the most often repeated commands in the Testament is to remember, to remember, to remember. And God built something into the fabric of creation because he knows something to be true about our souls, and that is that our schedule can outpace them. Meaning, if you want to be a worshipper, deep worship requires contemplation, and busyness mutes our ability to ponder. We sing it ponder anew what the Almighty can do,

and restlessness dispels our ability to think about the greatness of God, like Psalm 8, you know, when I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars that you've ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? Those lofty thoughts of God are always, typically, the product of musing, right? But if you're always just chasing whatever is in front of your body or your mind or whatever it may be... Just the next thing. Yeah. So we need to eliminate any distraction that prevents us from saying the beauty of God

and stirs up our ability to worship. I think another just component of rest. is kind of different than maybe what we engaged with when we were kids. Like, hey, go sit down and, like, be quiet. Don't mow and don't play. Turns out our parents just needed a break from us. But I think this other component of rest is appropriate. And that is that, like, our heavenly father has given us life not to endure, but to enjoy.

And so if you're going back to Jesus saying, like, the Sabbath was made to be a gift. This is a gift from God. Now, as a father, it's my daughter's birthday today. I gave her a gift. And when I do that, it's not like, you know, accept it. I want her to what? Enjoy it. Enjoy it.

Totally. And so God has given us rest, and he wants us not only to work hard. He doesn't want us just to rest hard. He wants us to live hard because while we live in our father's world, we sing it. This is my father's world. I rest in the thought. We are not simply God's employees. we are explorers of our father's world.

And there's this other element, and we've talked about this before, and we can talk about it again in the future, of like we're here, we want to redeem the time, we know that the days are evil. But then there's also this element in Timothy where Paul says, like, our God has given us life to enjoy. Like Ecclesiast, he's like,

enjoy life. And God's not this cosmic kill joy kind of in this camera control room in heaven ready to tase anybody that cracks a smile. You know, as a father, he wants you, like when I give you a gift, I say I got you something last week. A couple weeks ago and I said, try it on.

Like, put it on. I just want you to hold it up. I want you to try it on, but I'm not your dad. But like, you want someone you give a gift to to enjoy it. Totally. And I think sometimes in the conversation about rest, it becomes like almost like another burden. We're like, I got to do this. But it's like, no, no, this is a gift from God.

He knows what's best for us. Just like you know what's best for your little children. And it's a day for us to enjoy him, enjoy his world, and enjoy the people that he has made for us to fellowship with. And to go back real briefly, a couple observations. One, we're prone to wander not to worship. And so this idea of rest that you're articulating, there's an element of intentionality required.

And so you're not rolling into Sunday or rolling into your rest day, like completely depleted, just looking at doom scroll. That's not the rest the Bible's talking about. Instead, it's actually, if we go back to what you said in Genesis 2, the word rest used for God in that context was stop, cease, set apart. Yeah. It's not like turning your brain off. It's engaging your brain in a new way to revere the Lord. And that being restful, I think, wouldn't be immediately apparent to people. But then I'm so happy you went to the next point right away. Because hearing that articulation of rest can almost feel like,

my goodness, there's another thing for me to do. I don't even get to enjoy my rest time. But it's no, it's quite the opposite. You wonder in a, Lord who's beautiful and makes things that are excellent that are there for your participation and enjoyment. And so there's this beauty that we can set aside intentional time to be thrilled by. I'm just thinking through all the practical implications for me and even the way I try and lead my own household. Yeah. And I think like in Ecclesiastes, again, like the Bible's its best interpreter, meaning like there is this element of like number my days and we've talked about that redeemed the time but then in ecclesiastes there's this element of like live joyfully ecclesiastes 118

indeed if a man should live many years let him rejoice in them all and one commentator says this i like it the invisible god is made visible in his children as they enjoy life and exhibit joy so even though we know this world is dark and depraved and like we're to be salt and light we're not just trying to get life over with. And I understand we're pilgrims and sojourners, but I like what Derek Kidner says. He says Christians ought to feel the bliss of being alive, to feel the sun, jump in the waves, and get crushed by a waterfall. And then he says this, he says, not to live joyfully and to drink deeply from the well of all that God has extended to us is a sin. And this thought of, and I think David Gibson talks about the same thing in living life backwards, but the first sin we often say in the

garden was pride, which is true. But more than that, it was a failure to rejoice in the gifts that God had given and extended to them. And a failure to find joy in these gifts to celebrate and delight and who God is is the garden where bitterness and ungratitude and pride grow. And so when we rest, it's not just that we're like, you know, twiddling our thumbs. Like, you've heard me say more often. I think it's Winston Churchill that said the line.

Like, if you work with your mind, you rest with your hands. So, like, lately, like, Katie got me oil paintings. And I'm like, how's the painting coming? Yeah, I told you. I'm going to show you. But, like, I'm trying to just learn different ways to rest. Like, even being outside for me because I study so much at a desk, is restful for me. And there's a big difference.

And I go into this in greater detail in the book between rest and relaxation. Like, relaxing might be, like, watching Pride and Prejudice, you know, for you or sense and sensibility. I got multiple shout out. Like reading Jane Austen. But for me, it might be like, I want to be outside. I want to see creation. I want to enjoy my father's world. And I think sometimes we don't think about it that way.

Like this, God says, Jesus, this should be life giving to you. And your bodies need it. Your mind needs it. And your soul needs it. This is why tubing in northern Michigan with your cousins is a requirement. Yeah. And I think we should enjoy life to the degree that the watching world watches the way, even in the midst of trials, that you are thrilled by your father and makes you,

and makes them compelled to ask, like, what God do you serve? Like, what makes you tick? And, well, and to that point, I just want to draw out in our episode on work, you talked about the three guys cutting brick. Stone masons, yeah, the three stone masons. One, basically, is just like, I'm cut in stone. The other one who says, I can't remember them in between. I'm cutting stone and I'm making a living. And then the third who has this much bigger idea of, no, no, no, I'm cutting stone and I'm building a chapel so that God's people might worship him. And the beauty of that metaphor is that it's articulating three different guys who are

speaking something true with different perspectives. And just the idea here of like, people can hear this and be like, okay, but practically like what looks differently? and part of the starting point is just the renewing of your mind. And your perspective, yeah. Totally. Of that, like, that can be enjoyed in the life that you're currently living. Like, that's the question.

Yeah, and even, like, the idea of, like, well, life is tough. Life has trials. It's like, for sure. We've talked about that before. The Puritans talk about trials, difficulty, you know, living, you know, holy life a lot. But the number one word the Puritans use is the sweetness. Like, the sweetness of knowing God, the sweetness of living in his world. there is a zest like to life.

And then I think fourth and finally, one of the reasons why we need rest is just autobiographically, again, I am inundated by noise and not by silence. So in the incarnation, we talked about this a few weeks ago, that in Mark one there's this relentless onslaught of activity by Jesus. That key word in Mark is immediately, immediately, immediately, like he's straight away at once, like he's hustling. He's teaching in a synagogue.

He rebukes an evil spirit. He cares for Peter's mom. But while others were flocking to hear Jesus and be healed by Jesus and be near him, we also see that he was often withdrawing from the region to pray. Luke 516, but Jesus often withdrew to the lonely places and prayed. Mark 1.35, very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place. Luke 612, one of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray.

and he spent the night praying to God. Matthew 14, 13, when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, he withdrew a bibo privately to a solitary place. Nine times we read that Jesus retreated to be alone with God. And so we have to reconcile those realities that he came to honor the Lord, not only with his work, but also with his solitude. and he modeled both of these kind of parallels well because biblical rest opposes both ungodly extremes of work.

That being workaholism on the one hand where work as an idol or laziness on the other hand where you're idolizing rest. We know biblically that we rest so we can work, we don't work so we can rest. But we see this modeled in the life of Jesus, that busyness is like an acid that deteriorates us from the inside out. And you have to ask the question if Jesus needed to withdraw and spend time with God,

how much more we who are full of sin? And that was the point I want to. It's like so obvious, but just to double underscore, I'll maybe speak for myself personally and my wife, Emily. It's, you know, I'm 31, have three kids, have a career that's demanding, want to be involved in community group. We record these week to week. There's a lot of places that are kind of demanding and requesting time, and they're good things.

And so it's so easy for me to get into the hamster wheel of a week and feel like, okay, I got to be up early because if I got to get a workout in now, if I want to do this before I get to work by this time. And if I'm going to beat traffic, I actually need to leave a little earlier. And then when you're at work, it's the tyranny of the urgent. And, oh, people on my team need stuff. Oh, wait, no. People, other more senior folks need something.

Then you're back in the car. you're heading home, like hopping into second shift. And I'm thinking through, I feel that way. I know my wife feels very similarly with the demands of trying to raise kids well in today's world. But if we're feeling that way and Jesus, we were not healing people throughout today. Like I don't have thousands of people flocking towards me. And just the obvious point of like if Jesus is modeling this, I have no practical excuse of like, oh yeah, I've got a job in three. kids, though even people in the world will want to give you kind of a, like, get out of jail

free card of like, oh, yeah, it's like super busy, dude. I don't know how you're managing it all. It's like, no, no, no. That's ridiculous. Yeah, and I think we often, you know, there's a difference between distraction and busyness. And I think we all, you know, we say we're busy. I think it's Piper that says in the last days are like, when we meet God face to face,

our screen time will show us that prayerlessness was not for lack of. of time, you know, because we are filling our lives to so many other things. And busyness is dangerous. Corey Tim Boom says, if the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy. And so we need this time to foster actual communion and intimacy with God. Remember what the Edenic version of rest was. It was spending time with their father. And I want to just ask the question, what relationship in your life thrives off of five to 10 minutes every so often?

or even if every day. No, extended time, deepening communion, and dedicated space are needed to build a friendship with your Savior. That's not legalism. That's just necessity going like, hey, if you want to mean it when you sing, what a friend we have in Jesus. Friendships are a product of time spent together. And so as much as we want to work and labor in the Lord, we need to, like Jesus, withdraw to, lonely places to spend time with God there. It's super, super helpful, Johnny.

As I'm listening to this, I'm already thinking, if you've made it this far in the episode, I want to hear, this is the comment question for the week. I want people to paint a little bit of a picture of where they find their most rest. And so I'm going to be looking and I look forward to it. But as we begin to land the plane, any other kind of final closing thoughts? Yeah, I think just some basic questions in addition to that, like, How does my weekly rhythm reflect creation's rhythm? When was the last time that I stopped to enjoy my father's world?

Do I view time in silence and solitude with God as optional or essential? And if the Sabbath was made for man, as Jesus says, how might ignoring it be at the peril of my own soul? And then I think just to close, ultimately all this rest that we're talking about, biblically speaking, points towards the rest we need the most. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. And that's the rest we need most urgently, is rest for our souls, rest from the tyranny of trying to earn our way to God. And this is the rest that Jesus affords us in the gospel. And so obviously we're talking about a

subject in God's word. But if you don't know Jesus, the rest you're after can only be found by coming to him and saving faith and believing in who he is and what he has done. Well, and a bunch of people had reached out after the laziness episode, and I think to the person who listens to the episode on laziness and finds it convicting, their view of work needs to be elevated. And to the extent you have an elevated view of your work, oftentimes the missing component is an elevated view of rest. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to unpack this. There's a bunch that I can take away from this one. This felt personal. But I really appreciate you taking the time to unpack it with us, Johnny.

And again, if you've found this helpful, please consider liking it, commenting, subscribe, share it with someone else. We want these resources to go out to the extent that they're useful for other folks. Thanks, Hank. Thanks, Johnny. About 90,000 hours of your life are spent working. And if you never learn to think biblically about those hours, whether you're a mom, a CEO, a doctor, a businessman, a lawyer, or a plumber, about 90,000 hours of your life are spent working.

And if you never learn to think about those hours biblically, you risk living with a significant spiritual injury. The first thing the Bible tells us about God is that he works and he made you in his image. My new book, Get to Work will help you see your daily grind as God's Good Gift. You can pre-order that book right now wherever books are sold. About 90,000 hours of your life are spent working. And if you never learn to think about those hours biblically, you risk living with a significant spiritual injury. The first thing the Bible tells us about God is that he works

and he made you in his image. My new book, Get to Work. We'll help you see your daily grind as God's good gift. You can pre-order that book right now wherever books are sold.