As this newsletter is going out, I’m heading back into Tallahassee with my family after vacation taking time to visit my family. If you send me an email (and you haven’t sent me one in the last 48 hours), you will get my “autoresponder” that says, in part, “Thank you for contacting me. I am out of the office for vacation and rest in the sufficiency of Christ’s work for my life and yours.”
I remember coming up with that phrase a few years ago. I was trying to come up with something that said *why* I wasn’t answering my email. It certainly was not the case that I couldn’t. I could answer those emails individually and say things like “I’ll get on that when I get back,” or give quick answers to things that I could from afar. But then I stumbled upon that phrase: “I’m resting in the sufficiency of Christ’s work for my life and yours.”
I have a weird vocation as a pastor because a part of that vocation is supposed to model a healthy life. I fail at that a lot. Like writing a newsletter article while I’m on vacation. By the way, if you’re a father or mother or husband or wife, that is also supposed to be a part of your vocation in those roles. But specifically in my role as pastor, a part of what I’m supposed to be doing is modeling appropriate rest. I don’t need to tell you that it is extremely counter intuitive in our culture to “model rest”.
We are constantly told to do, be, and produce more. This is a theological concept called the “Law”. The “Law” says “you’re never completely righteous,” “you’re never done,” “you’re never enough,” and you aren’t those things. You know it too. Your to-do list, your vision board, your insecurities, your guarded conversations about how you’re doing at your job at 4th of July parties – they all testify to the reality of the Law.
Which gets to the difficulty of the Gospel, the thing that drives why it is a part of my vocation to model a healthy life and healthy rest. The Gospel agrees with the Law. You aren’t enough. You aren’t sufficient. If you were, you wouldn’t be working so hard. You would have to work until you were dead. Thankfully, you know Someone who worked Himself to death. His Name is Jesus. And He is the Gospel.
Jesus worked Himself to a point where He was sufficient. His work is sufficient for Himself, as He has been given the Name above all names. And His work is sufficient for you, and for me. So let us rest, and let us be vocal about our rest. It is WEIRD in our culture to rest. It is attention getting in a good way. Maybe you can’t write what I do in my autoresponder, but we can be clear about why we’re resting. So let’s tell people about how it is that we are able to rest in Christ.