A Theology of Vacations
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | School will be out soon and family vacation season is about to begin and a
00:00:09.120 | listener named Ryan writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I'm wondering if you
00:00:12.760 | could discuss a theology of vacations. You often talk about not wasting your
00:00:16.560 | life or any moment or season in it. Intellectually I agree, but at times it
00:00:20.400 | seems I need to rest. Where do vacations fit?"
00:00:23.000 | Well you do need a rest and the Bible provides some pretty significant
00:00:30.440 | foundations for rest and I think indirectly for vacations. Let me
00:00:37.480 | just mention a few of those foundations that I think give us some guidance.
00:00:41.480 | Number one, God created us in need of daily sleep. I have always found that
00:00:49.800 | quite frustrating. I hate sleep. I find sleep boring. So why did he make me like
00:00:59.600 | a helpless baby that must go unconscious one-third of my life? I mean just think
00:01:08.280 | of it. What is the message in that? There's got to be a message in that and
00:01:13.760 | Psalm 127 says, "It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating
00:01:21.760 | the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved," some translations say, "in his
00:01:27.760 | sleep some sleep." I think the gist in the context is pretty much the same.
00:01:33.480 | According to this text, sleep is a gift from God and the gift is often spurned
00:01:40.400 | by anxious toil. Peaceful sleep is the opposite of anxiety. God does not want
00:01:47.640 | his children to be anxious but to trust him so, I conclude, that God made sleep as
00:01:55.200 | a continual reminder that we should not be anxious but should rest in him like a
00:02:02.720 | little baby. Unless you turn to become like a child you can't even enter the
00:02:06.640 | kingdom. He created sleep to make sure we would have a daily reminder we are not
00:02:13.840 | God. Our work is not decisive in running the world. God's work is decisive. He who
00:02:24.400 | keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep, Psalm 121. So we sleep, God never
00:02:33.760 | sleeps. So sleep is foundational, it's a pointer, and I think the big picture
00:02:38.920 | there we take away is don't get a big head about your work that
00:02:45.920 | you think you can run the world or make everything happen. You're like a little
00:02:50.120 | baby a third of your life and God meant to tell you something. Number two, God
00:02:55.040 | established a Sabbath principle. However you relate the Old Testament law to the
00:03:01.800 | present, the Sabbath remains a gift with wisdom in it. I remember reading C.S.
00:03:09.320 | Lewis's wife's book on the Ten Commandments and seeing her point out
00:03:15.800 | the wonder and the glory and the incredible gift of telling an ancient
00:03:21.920 | agricultural people whose lives depended on working the land, "Not only don't you
00:03:28.600 | have to go to work today, you may not go to work today. Mandatory weekly vacation."
00:03:34.680 | And it was stunning. I mean I just had never seen it in that light and she
00:03:40.000 | said, "That is exactly the way it would have landed on people at least at the
00:03:44.960 | beginning. You may not work seven days a week. I won't let you. You must." And
00:03:51.800 | then he consecrated it to himself as a sign of his own creative power and
00:03:59.200 | holiness, but the underlying issue of its gift nature to a worn-out, finite,
00:04:09.520 | tired agricultural people remains. And so I say the rhythm of work six, rest one,
00:04:17.200 | work six, rest one, work six, rest one would probably spare a lot of heart
00:04:23.440 | attacks and give longevity to many lives prematurely taken because they never
00:04:29.920 | unwind the spring. They're always working. They're working at home and they're
00:04:35.040 | working at work and they're working in their play and they can't stop working.
00:04:39.920 | And I don't think that's what one in seven means. This spring that we live by,
00:04:44.960 | especially for some of us, it needs to be unwound. Not just two weeks a year, but
00:04:52.360 | one day a week. Here's number three, third foundational idea to point towards rest
00:04:58.920 | and vacation. Work is good and it's not a curse, but it is redeemed. So we we must
00:05:07.400 | work the works of him while it is day. Jesus called for work and we ought to
00:05:14.040 | work. And Paul said, "If anyone's not willing to work, let him not eat." And I
00:05:18.680 | love this verse in 1st Corinthians 15, "Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding
00:05:23.720 | in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." That
00:05:28.320 | means be doing a lot of it, abounding in the work of the Lord. And Paul said, "Don't
00:05:32.960 | be weary in doing good." So here's the rub. How do you not grow weary? I mean, he
00:05:41.320 | says, "Don't grow weary in doing good." But we get physically depleted, we get
00:05:46.560 | mentally depleted, which raises then the question of vacations. And here's the
00:05:51.080 | last thing I would say. Here's the fourth foundational thing. God's
00:05:55.800 | Son took special times to rest from labor. Mark 6 31, "He said to them, 'Come away by
00:06:03.880 | yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.'" It's interesting that he said that
00:06:09.760 | right after these brothers buried the chopped off head of John the Baptist,
00:06:16.720 | which meant probably not only did you risk your lives to go get that head, or
00:06:23.360 | the body at least—I don't know which they buried—they got his body, they buried it.
00:06:27.520 | You risked your lives, this has been a high-stress time for you, so come away
00:06:33.080 | and rest a while. So my summary would be, it seems that the issue of vacations
00:06:42.120 | becomes a matter of wisdom. We should try to know ourselves, know our families.
00:06:47.560 | Seems to me that in this fallen age where the focus is on redemption, the
00:06:55.000 | final rest that we are promised is only tasted incrementally and as a means of
00:07:03.640 | more productive labor in this redemptive age. Play and recreation in this age is
00:07:10.040 | not the main way we glorify God, it's secondary, I think, and it's a means
00:07:16.920 | of refreshing us and inspiring us for productive labor. We work to advance
00:07:23.520 | God's saving kingdom in a fallen world, and that's true whether we're in secular
00:07:29.320 | work or so-called Christian work. Vacations and Sabbaths and days off and
00:07:35.640 | nights of sleep are recreations of creative, happy, fruitful labor for the
00:07:42.880 | advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world, whether you're in a secular
00:07:46.680 | work or not. And of course, there is no clear line, I feel this especially for
00:07:55.040 | many of us, between vocation and recreation. Many of us so love what we do
00:08:02.360 | and find so much pleasure in it and are so energized by it that the concept of
00:08:10.800 | taking time for recreation for the sake of creation is not so clear. For those
00:08:16.520 | folks, we need to make sure that we know not only ourselves, but we need to
00:08:23.520 | know those around us, because our wives may not feel the same, and our kids may
00:08:28.440 | need us when we're just super energized by our reading or our study, and that's
00:08:33.360 | not what they need at this time, and vacations account for that as well as
00:08:38.720 | for us. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of dads leading their families well, I'll
00:08:44.400 | take this opportunity and every opportunity I can to remind listeners of
00:08:48.720 | the episode we recorded back in January, which is titled "Dad's Role in
00:08:52.440 | Homemaking," episode number 255. You can find that in the iPhone app, and soon the
00:08:57.360 | entire archive of episodes will be available on the Android app as well, so
00:09:01.120 | stay tuned for that. Tomorrow we'll talk more about a father's leadership over
00:09:06.520 | his family, specifically, how does a dad best serve his family on family vacation?
00:09:11.400 | I'm your host Tony Rienke. We'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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