"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Stephen C. Foster, 1854

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

’Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, hard times, come again no more;

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

Iron and Wine

Mavis Staples

Lennon and Maisy

Emmylou Harris

Bob Dylan

Johnny Cash

Bruce Springsteen

James Taylor

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Iron and Wine

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Mavis Staples

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Lennon and Maisy

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Emmylou Harris

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Bob Dylan

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Johnny Cash

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

Bruce Springsteen

"Hard Times Come Again No More"

James Taylor

1. God created us to rest (Gen. 2:1-3).

In what ways does rest require faith? How does faith enrich rest?

What does our need for sleep tell us about our dependence on God?

Voices from the Church

“A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us—not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.”

–Marva Dawn

2. Because of sin, true rest is disrupted and becomes elusive (Eccl. 6:1-7).

What is it that keeps people from laying down their work? What makes rest difficult for you?

Have you ever felt burned-out on work? What led you to the brink? What makes people despair of work and desperate for a break?

Have you found yourself avoiding work? Have you ever made excuses to avoid opportunities to serve or work to help others? What motivated you?

Voices from the Church

“The Christian’s life is not grounded in leisure; it is grounded in the cross. If we have truly been set free from the bondage of sin and death, then we have been set free from the slavery of perpetual leisure that would have us live only for ourselves.”

–Trevin Wax

3. Because of Christ, true rest is established and granted (Heb. 4:1-11).

In what ways does the finished nature of the gospel speak to your motives for work and rest? How do you understand the paradoxical nature of this passage—that we are to strive to enter God’s rest?

Conclusion

When we fail to take time to rest, we fail in our mission. God’s kingdom is not extended through gritted teeth and the determination of people who can’t stop working. We can proclaim the doctrine of justification by faith as much as we like, but if our lives are examples of feverish, self-justifying activity, then we discount our message with our lives.

Our mission is most effective when we are modeling a better way of being human, a way that recognizes our creaturely dependence on our Creator and beckons people to taste the sweet rest of Jesus Christ’s salvation. Work and rest. We reflect God to the world by doing both.

Questions to consider this week

• In what ways is our mission hindered by our failure to rest?

• How does the message of “entering Christ’s rest” influence the way we do evangelism and missions?

• What human needs does this message speak to?