Mark 2: The Sabbath, the Rest We Resist

Introduction

Have you ever received a gift you didn't want? That is the question Scott Morrison uses to open the first message in a series on rest at Ryde Baptist Church in Sydney. He was senior pastor of Georges River Life for 25 years, and today he serves with Partners in Ministry, an organization that supports pastors of every denomination across Australia.

The Sabbath, he says, is a deeply countercultural idea in the world we live in. His hope for this series is that the church would walk away with more than information: a transformed heart, then a transformed life, welcomed into God's plan for a flourishing and lasting life.

He asks a simple question: for you, is the Sabbath a burden, a blessing, or something that has nothing to do with your reality? The message moves in three steps: understanding the purpose of the Sabbath, seeing why we resist it, and starting to apply it in our busy lives.

Message Outline

1. A Gift We Don't Know How to Use

The preacher tells of his family's gift misses: a bottle of 4711 perfume given to his wife, all the rage "70 years ago," or a blender given to his 16-year-old son, "the kitchen appliance 16-year-olds don't want."
Above all he remembers his grandmother, "a wonderful, godly woman," who worked in charity thrift shops. A whole room of her house was filled with them. For birthdays and Christmas she would "go shopping" at home: a candle wrapped in cellophane with the word "peace" on it, a tea towel, a crocheted blanket, a porcelain doll, and always Tupperware containers.
The Sabbath may feel like one of those gifts: "That's kind, I love the thought, but will I ever actually use it?"
Three possibilities: we don't understand the purpose and power of the Sabbath; we understand it but don't value it; or we value it but don't know what to do with it.

2. A Rhythm Built Into Creation

Sabbath means to cease, to stop working. From the first chapters of the Bible, God builds it into the very order of creation: he works six days and rests on the seventh (Genesis 2:2-3).
God doesn't rest because he is worn out. He does something by creating this seventh day: rest is part of creation.
Work is not bad: "Work is part of what it means to be made in the image of God." God is a worker, and he blesses humanity so that we would be fruitful and work alongside him (Genesis 1:28).
Rest is not "the good part" of life set against work that would be bad. It is another part of the goodness of life. The rhythm of good work punctuated by good rest is God's plan: a life that is creative and productive, but also unproductive and recreational.

3. A Commandment Given to a Freed People

The people descended from Abraham ended up enslaved in Egypt for about 400 years, under Pharaoh and false gods. There, no Sabbath.
Before the ten commandments, God sets the context: "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2). These "ten words" are not oppressive rules but an invitation to live as a free people.
The fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) is one of the longest. To keep the day holy is to set it apart for a particular purpose. No one is left out: children, servants, foreigners, and even animals. "Everyone rests."
In a society where you eat only if you work, the question quickly becomes practical: how do you stop for a whole day? Judaism eventually drew up a list of 39 categories of forbidden activity, from plowing to tying a knot. The preacher mentions the eruv that surrounds neighborhoods in eastern Sydney: a wire checked every week that turns an entire area into a "threshold" within which people may carry objects on the Sabbath.
What should Christians do with the roughly 613 laws of the Old Testament? Scott Morrison distinguishes the ceremonial law, fulfilled in Christ (the animal sacrifices to atone for sin have ended, because Christ is the perfect sacrifice), the civil law of Israel, sound in its principles but not binding on us, and the moral law, of which the Sabbath is a part.
So the Sabbath is neither a wellness trick nor an archaic idea. "We can't treat it like one of my grandmother's gifts." But it is about embracing the spirit of the Sabbath, not the letter of the law.

4. Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath

In Mark 2:23-28, the disciples pick heads of grain on the Sabbath. The Pharisees object. Jesus reminds them that David ate the consecrated bread when he and his companions were hungry, then declares: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."
Right after, in Mark 3:1-6, people watch Jesus to see whether he will heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. Jesus asks: "Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?" He looks at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their hearts, then heals the man. The Pharisees go out and plot with the Herodians to put him to death.
The Sabbath becomes the breaking point. Jesus doesn't deny its purpose; he challenges the Pharisees' interpretation: a good gift had become a religious obligation, then a tool of manipulation, "much more a burden than a blessing."
The Sabbath is an invitation. It moves us from human doings to human beings. It restores us mentally and physically, builds resilience in us to go back into the world as agents of the transforming power of the gospel, and refocuses us on God.
It was communal, not individual. It is a space to reorder our priorities, resist idols and substitutes for God, and walk out of the land of slavery into the freedom that is yours in Christ.

5. Why We Resist: Our Culture and Our Context

The preacher admits his own struggle: for a pastor, the weekend is full. Many Christians reduce the Sabbath to going to church on Sunday and not doing their usual work that day.
Culture: we are finite beings trying to move through an "infinite world," under pressure to do everything, know everything, have everything. Hybrid work has blurred the line between work and rest. We live in a culture with "no off switch," caught between the constant stream of news, thousands of advertisements, and the phone that keeps us "stimulated, distracted, dissatisfied, and polarized."
Researchers speak of "cognitive bandwidth" being saturated. With the rise of artificial intelligence, some drift into a kind of resignation: "It's too hard, I'll let AI think for me." And when you ask how someone is, the answer is: "Good, I'm busy." Busyness has become a badge of honor.
Context: the pace of Sydney, the traffic, the rents, and the cost of living. Rest becomes a luxury we literally cannot afford. Many couples need two incomes and several jobs, and the more we accumulate, the more we have to manage.
Stage of life matters too: with young children, the Sabbath seems out of reach for about twenty years, between sports, birthday parties, and driving around. Then comes the "sandwich generation," caring for children and aging parents at the same time. And countless retirees tell him they have never been so busy.

6. Why We Resist: Commitments of the Heart

Beneath culture and context are deeper commitments that are incompatible with rest. "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23).
We quietly commit to a vision of our lives: possessions, places, trips, privileges for our children, a house, a neighborhood. This story runs in the background "like a silent operating system" that steers our choices.
Deeper still are our fundamental needs: relationship, love, significance, meaning. We make an idol of whatever promises to fill them. "If being a workaholic is the price, then workaholic I'll be." As in Ecclesiastes, we chase the wind without ever catching it.
At the very bottom lies the most primal commitment: the one to our own salvation. The serpent sowed the lie that God is holding something back and that we know better than he does how to provide for our lives (Genesis 3:1-5). "The idol hiding beneath all our idols is ourselves."
We forget that it is God who makes the seed grow, who sends the rain and the sun, who makes the lilies of the field grow and cares for the sparrows. Jesus tells us to seek his kingdom first (Matthew 6:33). "The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John 10:10). The Sabbath is part of God's wisdom for living that life.

7. Receiving the Sabbath: Question, Choose, Live Free Together

We need to keep critiquing our culture, questioning our context, and confronting our commitments. Jesus challenged the culture of his day, and his response was to do good: he healed the withered hand.
The preacher describes the gym where everyone scrolls their phone, "a room full of people working out only the thumb muscle," and the train where everyone is doing the same thing: "We're almost hypnotized; we've forgotten how to look up." Too often, Christians simply mirror this culture.
Jesus calls us to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16): not a negative critique, but a redemptive one that shows a better way.
Questions for the week: "What am I really committed to? Every time I say yes to something, what have I said no to?" A heart that keeps saying "yes, but" or "yes, and" is a divided heart. Sometimes we need to say yes and no.
"Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1). Paul echoes Exodus 20. Walking in this freedom doesn't necessarily mean doing more: "It means doing less."
We are called to do this together, watching over one another and not giving up meeting together (Hebrews 10:23-25).
The message leads into communion (Matthew 26:26-30). Through his broken body and shed blood, Jesus finished the Father's work, so that we may enter his rest and stop wearing ourselves out trying to earn our own salvation. "By his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

Key Takeaways

The Sabbath is a gift from God built into creation: a rhythm in which good work is punctuated by good rest.
It was given to a people freed from slavery, as a way of living as a free people.
Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath, refuses to let it become a religious obligation: "The Sabbath was made for man."
Our resistance to rest comes from our culture, our context, and above all from the hidden commitments of our heart, down to the idea of saving ourselves.
Receiving the Sabbath means entering the rest Christ won for us by his death, and learning it together, as a church.

Personal Application

For you today, is the Sabbath a burden, a blessing, or a gift still sitting in its wrapping?
In your culture and context (work, city, stage of life), what makes rest hardest for you?
What are you really committed to? Every time you say yes to something, what do you say no to?
How much of your busyness comes from the idea, even a quiet one, that everything depends on your efforts?
Who in your church or family can you begin learning a rhythm of rest with?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Jesus mean by "the Sabbath was made for man"?

In Mark 2:27, Jesus doesn't deny the Sabbath: he challenges the way the Pharisees read it. For Scott Morrison, the Sabbath is a gift from God for our flourishing. Turned into a religious obligation, it had become more burden than blessing.

Does the Sabbath commandment still apply to Christians?

Scott Morrison distinguishes the ceremonial law, fulfilled at the cross, the civil law of Israel, and the moral law, of which the Sabbath is a part among the ten commandments. The Sabbath remains for us today, but it is about embracing the spirit of the Sabbath rather than the letter of the law.

Why do we struggle to rest?

The preacher sees three reasons: a culture with no off switch that prizes busyness, a heavy life context (cost of living, children, aging parents), and above all the hidden commitments of the heart. At the bottom lies the lie that we could secure our lives, and even our salvation, by our own efforts.