Everybody’s Workin’ for the Weekend

It’s Monday, most people’s least favorite day. I’m not an especially big Monday hater. Mondays have actually become one of my favorite days of the week. We typically have a staff meeting on Monday mornings where we open our Bibles and study together as a staff, then after that, we hit the highlights of what’s going on for the week ahead. I love the men and women I work with, so sitting down with them at the same table on Monday mornings is something I look forward to, even if it is a staff meeting.

I want to help your Mondays. This is the first in what will hopefully be an ongoing series of Better Mondays. So, let’s get to it.

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? 2 May it never be! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who were immersed into Messiah Yeshua were immersed into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried together with Him through immersion into death—in order that just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
– Romans 6:1-4 (TLV)

I don’t know what you did this weekend. The weekend has a mythos attached to it. Everybody’s workin’ for the weekend. It’s why Mondays are so hated. Mondays herald the end of the fun and the return to the grind. While it seems that over the last couple of decades, the “work week” has evolved into something a little more complicated or erratic than Monday-Friday, for many, it’s still the mainstay. But for the sake of this blog post, let’s lean into the traditional five-day workweek.

What are you working for? Why are you working? Let’s lay the obvious answer aside: you need money. Right, that’s the same answer for ninety-nine percent of us. Why do you slave away at a job that you probably don’t like all that much? The answer is almost antithetical. We all work so that we can find rest. If you distill everything we do down to the essential motivator, that motivator is rest.

In Genesis chapter three, when Adam and Eve fell, the LORD cursed the ground, which made our work difficult. Ever since then, rest is something that doesn’t come natural. A long time ago, I was talking with my fellow pastor, Matt, and we were talking about this very thing. I told him, ever since Genesis three, most of the inventions we’ve invented were designed to soften the blow of the curse and reduce the sweat on our brow. I still believe that, but I would add this: our inventions are designed to make rest more accessible.

But do they?

When was the last time something was invented that actually led to more rest? I mean, that’s how some things are advertised. Buy this so you can enjoy more time doing the things you love to do. But once you own it, the payoff of more rest never shows up. We invent things that allow us to squeeze in more and more work, not give us more rest.

Of course, the rest that we lost in the Garden, wasn’t necessarily a rest from work. It was rest for our souls. If you’ll permit me, let me restate a few of those verses above with some word substitutions.

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? 2 May it never be! How can we who entered His rest still live apart from it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who entered His rest by Messiah Yeshua were immersed into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried together with Him through immersion into death—in order that just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might enter His rest.
– Romans 6:1-4 (TLV with my changes)

Hear me, I don’t make this a regular practice. But there’s a parallel at work here. Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest… you will find rest for your souls.” His salvation is the rest. And to enter His rest, you must die to sin.

9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
– Hebrews 4:9-10 (ESV)

This is the rest you are looking for. And you can have this rest every day of the workweek. The world may be working for the weekend, but when you’ve found His rest, you really only find yourself working for Him. Whether it’s in retail, in a bank, in a mine, in a school, or bussing tables and delivering pizza, if you’ve found your rest in Messiah, gratitude and gladness make the grind better. Are there hard days? Always. Are Mondays still a pain? Probably. But when your soul has found rest in Jesus, even digging a ditch can be done to His glory.