Remember The Sabbath Series

We are in a series featuring the Ten Commandments. We began with an overview of the scene when the Ten Commandments were first given in Exodus 19. And now we find ourselves examining the fourth commandment.

Today’s Scripture

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).

How are you progressing on memorizing the Ten Commandments?

When billionaire Bill Gates was asked why he didn’t believe in God, he said “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning.” For many people, worshipping God can be a royal waste of time. Today, I want to challenge you to “waste” your time. Actually, God commands you to “waste” one day a week.

God commands; He doesn’t collaborate. When you talk about the Lord's Day, it is one of those subjects where one gets a “But what about...” before you can even start talking about the issue.

There is a range of views on this commandment. On one end of the spectrum is the Seventh Day Adventists who believe we are wrong from worshipping today. On the other end are those who treat this day as if it is the same as any other day. “Nothing special about this day…” is not a thoughtful response but a neglected reality. For many Americans, there is no debate concerning the Fourth Commandment – it’s something we simply ignore. Yet, we ignore what we need. We live in busy times. Even as we have the lights turned on in this worship center, somebody's down at the power plant making sure we have power. We need doctors on call for medical emergencies.

Yet, in a day when we have so many time-saving devices in our possession, we’ve never been more hurried and restless. We have computers, calculators, and cell phones to save us time, but we have no time for the things that matter. It seems for all of our progress that about all we have accomplished is to increase our speed and increased our volume. We get there faster but we don’t know where we’re going.

There was a man who swallowed an egg whole. He was afraid to move because he was afraid the egg would break. Yet, he was afraid to sit still because he was afraid the egg would hatch. That is a great description of our day. We’re so frenetic and so pressured that we don’t know which way to go.

I want to change your thinking when it comes to God’s command for one day of rest. I want you to think more about what you are commanded to do rather than what you are not commanded to do.

1. It’s a Holy Day to Remember

The command is given in verse eight. And I want you to see the specifics of the command in verses nine, ten, and eleven.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).

1.1 Remember

“Remember the Sabbath day…” (Exodus 20:9a). This command does not begin with words such as “Thou shall not…” or “Don’t.” Instead, this is the first commandment of the Ten Commandments that is worded positively. The word Sabbath means, “stopping.” Instead of calling it a “Sabbath” day, you could call it a “stop-working” day. This was done for the sake of placing your focus on God. You are to remember this. You are to mark your weeks and your calendars. This is a day when you must remember God.

1.2 Keep the Day Holy

“…to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:9b). This tells us the reason why we should remember this day. We remember to take one day off in seven in order to “to keep [the day] holy.” The word “holy” has to do with belonging to God. You can make your cell phone holy if you use your phone for the special purpose of God. You can make this day holy by setting it aside for God alone.