As we discussed over the last few weeks in the Ten Commandments, the first four deal with your relationship with God, and the last six deal with your relationship with others. If you get commandment number one right—love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—you're probably going to do pretty well with the rest of them because everything flows in line. However, we also need to understand that these laws, these commandments, are not just good ideas or suggestions. They were God's commandments for his people. So, we need to understand the weight of the commandments, but also recognize that they are not meant to confine us but to provide a framework to help us get the most out of life. God knows more about you and what you need than you do, and the Ten Commandments help guide us to his very best for our lives.
First and foremost, the Sabbath was established by God's pattern of work. It was established in the very beginning—Genesis 2:1-2—thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done. This was God's example, his template, his pattern that he established. We find with the people of Israel that he had implemented this flow of life for them even before the Ten Commandments were given. Exodus 16:22-26 says this: On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each, and when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, "This is what the Lord has commanded: Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning." So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none."
So, God was establishing this pattern with his people: six days of the week, you're going to go out into the field, and you're going to find manna for your provision. Day seven, you're going to go out, and you're not going to find anything; it's a day of rest. So leading up to the Sabbath, the day prior, you need to gather twice as much. And just to show you my love for you and my power for you, it's not going to spoil, it's not going to go bad, it will supply your needs. You are trusting me for your sustenance, and that's an important concept we'll dive into a little more here momentarily.
The pattern was already established before the commandment is given, but then we get into the command. Let's dive into our text here, Exodus 20, starting at verse 8: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." So, the first word we want to take notice of is that word "remember." I took a look at the dictionary and said, "Well, what does 'remember' really mean?" It says to be mindful of needs, to be at the forefront of our thoughts. "Remember the Sabbath;" we need to reflect, we need to ponder, we need to understand its meaning, we need to understand its significance, we need to take time to mentally engage with Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5:15 adds another component to the memory. Deuteronomy 5 is a retelling of the Ten Commandments by Moses, and in chapter 5, verse 15, he says, "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."
So, the Sabbath day's purpose was not just the pattern that God had established, but it was also to remember what God had done for his people. That you once were in captivity, now you've been set free. It's a chance to reflect and to remember. It's also a legacy component—the idea being that your children will ask someday, "How come we're not doing any work on this particular day?" and it's an opportunity for you to tell your children, "This is why we do that. We were once in captivity; God set us free. Here's how he delivered us. Here's the story of faith," and it perpetuates generation to generation.
In Exodus 31:13, God said, "You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, 'Above all, you shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.'" So you're going to continue to follow this Sabbath throughout every generation as a sign of the covenant between the two of us, as a sign of what I've done for you. You're going to reflect and keep it holy so that you know you are set apart. This idea of "I sanctify you" means you're set apart, you look different from everyone else, and this idea of Sabbath sometimes is a little hard for us to understand as Americans because we're used to Saturday and Sunday off. But you travel to places like India, where there is no idea of Sabbath—everybody's working just as hard seven days a week, day after day after day. There's nothing different, and this was the point: God was establishing a pattern that was unique in his people.
Now, here's what's kind of fascinating with that pattern: years ago, I read a book called "Business Secrets of the Bible" by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and he talks about the six-day work week and that throughout history, the people of Israel have been blessed and prospered, maintaining that pattern set apart, unique among the nations. So this pattern is very unique in its working, but God over and over again is showing his divine favor through that pattern. You see, Sabbath also referred to as Shabbat, comes from a verb meaning to stop, to cease, or to keep. It's putting the brakes on. Here's what I want us to think about: if we're really honest, most of us on our day off do more work right. It's just how we are; we do more work, so we don't really ever take downtime; we don't really ever stop completely.
On staff, this last year, we spent a lot of time talking about our rhythms of rest, building Sabbath into the flow of our life, and that was one of the things that we discussed: most of us have a real hard time sitting still. So, Carol and I have taken cruises together sometimes, and she doesn't understand how I why I do this, or even how I do it. My favorite thing to do? Sit on the balcony, no books, no audio, no nothing, just sit, and I can do it for hours. Why can you do that? Why do you do that? Because that's what I need to recharge. It takes me that long to get my brain to shut off, that I almost need the first 24 hours just to be still before I can enjoy the vacation.
So, this is the issue we get into; it's a chance to stop, cease, and to keep. Here's the other part: "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy," which means exalted or worthy of complete devotion. So here's the question: What are we defiling God's time with? This is supposed to be my time set aside to be with him, to worship him, to assemble with the family of God. What am I polluting it with? That's a point of self-examination.
Verse 9 goes on and gives us guidance: "Six days you shall labor and do all your work." So when we talk about labor, that is the ordinary work of your hands, your day-to-day work, what do you do to produce an income, feed your family, keep the bills paid? Six days you shall labor. Leviticus 23:3, "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work." It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.
And I want you to understand the weight that was on this with the Israelites. We're not going to dive too deep into this, but it was such a critical element that if you were caught working on the Sabbath, you were to be cut off from the people. Scripture even records instances of a man working on the Sabbath, and he was brought before Moses and the leaders, and God's instruction was, "Put him to death." Now, aren't you glad that's not exactly how we're operating today? Because I'd be a dead man because, doggone it, my email and my text go off all the time. I don't know about yours, and I get sucked into the work vortex. We'll get into that in a minute.
Let's continue on; the second part of that is "all your work." So, we read verse 9, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work." Here's the thing: you have to plan for Sabbath, or else what's going to happen is your work is going to encroach into your time set apart for God. So you have to plan your Sabbath; you have to plan to stop your work. Now, what you may be saying is, "Well, wait a minute, my work never stops." That's true; it's up to you to decide when you engage it. The tyranny of the urgent doesn't always mean that you drop everything. Sometimes you have to make a decision: no, this is my time set apart; that can wait. Let's continue on here.
Verse 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." So one of the things that I want us to see here is that there was no favoritism in Sabbath. It wasn't, "You men need to observe the Sabbath; you let your wives and children, everybody else, do the work." It was all inclusive: you, your wife, your children, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, and even the foreigner who lives in your land.
This is kind of an important thing because we live in a 24-hour world in a very globally connected world, and so the temptation could be very easy: great, I'll take my Sabbath, but I'll let my folks on the other side of the world work seven days a week and wear themselves out. So we have to be thinking in the totality because this is what's laid out in scripture.
Ezekiel 20:12, "Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between them and me that they might know I am the Lord who sanctifies them." This is important because the question is going to come up with your sojourner, the foreigner in your land, or the person who works for you: why do you take that day off every week? Well, it's set apart because God has set that apart, and this is his plan for my life, and the reason I apply it to everyone else is that that's the way it needs to be because here's what happens if we don't: we get what's called mission creep, which means the tyranny of the urgent kicks in, and things that we weren't going to do start to encroach into our time where we weren't going to do them, and before you know it, we're just back in this pattern of busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
So, in Nehemiah 13:15-18, we're just a few generations past Moses' day when being caught working, you were cut off from the people of Israel. But we get to Nehemiah 13, and in those days, I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, and I warned them on the day when they sold food. Tyrians also who lived in the city brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself. Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, "What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath."
So just a few generations later, people were totally ignoring God's commandment for his people; they're just working away, making money. But the pattern goes back to what God established for us in the beginning. Verse 11, Exodus chapter 20, "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." So here's a question for you: did God rest because he was tired? No, he rested because the work was done; it was finished; it was complete.
So, back to what we were discussing, you know, we most of us would say, "My work never ends," but it's up to you to choose when you're finished for the week. I don't have to engage 24 hours a day; it's up to me to decide. And if I'm going to build Sabbath into my life, then there comes a cutoff point. Now let's continue through this thought: the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy, and so the Lord's blessing is what made it a vital part of the flow of life and set it apart because God blessed it because he sanctified it because he set it apart. It works because it's his plan.
But now let's shift gears a little bit because when we look at the Ten Commandments, really what the Ten Commandments help us see is where we fall short. If that was the judgment criteria for my life, and my condemnation or my righteousness depended upon my adherence, I'd be in trouble. It's why we need a savior. Jesus is the lord of the Sabbath. In Matthew chapter 12, his disciples were walking through a field, and they were taking heads of grain and breaking them open and eating them, and the Pharisees said, "Hey, wait, wait, wait, teacher, teacher, what are your disciples doing?" In the Jewish Talmud, there are 39 categories of work that are not permitted on the Sabbath. "Teacher, get after your disciples. What are they doing?" Jesus declared, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."
In Colossians 2:16 and 17, Paul writes these words: "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." So here's what I want us to understand: there is the physical Sabbath, the day set apart, the day for solemn assembly, holy convocation, and then there is the day-by-day, minute-by-minute, if you will, Sabbath of rest that we find in Jesus because he is Lord of the Sabbath.
See, Jesus fulfilled the law, and in fulfilling the law, he fulfilled the Sabbath. Matthew 11:28-30 says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." I'm so grateful for that because my problems don't always wait for my life flow. One text, one email, one phone call can send my world into a spiral. What I'm thankful for is I have a savior who invites me to come and lay my burden upon him because his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
Jason was talking when he prayed that he could feel a heaviness that some of you are carrying today. Some of you are carrying burdens you were never meant to carry alone, but you've decided that it's up to me to make it happen, and you're just getting weighted down further and further. In Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, we find that our true rest is found in the completed work of Christ because here's what really wears us out: trying to do the right thing all the time. Man, that's tough because some days I'm just not good at it, and some days I really don't want to. Thank goodness Jesus fulfilled the law, and Jesus took my penalty and my shame and my punishment upon himself, so the burden of the law is no longer weighing on me because it's too heavy. Jesus took it. Hebrews 4:9-10, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his."
I can remember as a little kid asking my dad, "Hey, how come we don't do any stuff on Sundays?" And him telling me, "This is the day that we spend to reflect on what Jesus has done for us. It's set apart." So that's that legacy component that comes into play. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath; our true rest is found in the completed work of Christ because here's the thing: I could be faithful to the letter of the law and take my Sabbath weekly, just as the law prescribes, and still be a stressed-out mess, am I right? So by the letter of the law, I'm complying; my heart is in turmoil. Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart. You will find rest for your souls."
Make no mistake; just when life gets going good, something's going to happen; you need his daily renewal and rest, spiritually, physically. You need to follow the pattern God has given you, physically and spiritually. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Katie said this so well last week: The Ten Commandments aren't a jail cell to box you in; they're a framework to help you thrive. Studies bear this out. I asked the question in my notes: Does taking a Sabbath make a difference? According to Atlassian, research shows that productivity decreases sharply after 50 hours per week and drops significantly after 55 hours. In addition, research indicates that not taking at least one full day off per week leads to a lower overall hourly output. According to LinkedIn, rest can increase productivity in such areas as focus and decision-making. A well-rested brain is better able to concentrate on tasks, process information, and make rational choices, which can lead to increased productivity. According to ZipRecruiter, around 37% of Generation Z workers say taking regular short breaks helps them achieve maximum productivity. According to Slack, employees who take breaks show 133% higher scores for productivity. They also show 62% higher scores for work-life balance, 43% greater ability to manage stress and anxiety, and 43% greater overall satisfaction. God knew what he was doing when he commanded a Sabbath.
Now the question becomes: Do you take your Sabbath? Friday sundown moving forward? Take it Sunday? I'm going to let you work that out between you and the Lord. The early church moved the celebration of the Lord's Resurrection to Sundays, and that's why we meet on Sundays. At the same time, history of the people of Israel throughout scripture, the observance of the traditional Sabbath is seen. If you're not aware, we have a Messianic Jewish congregation that meets here on the Sabbath every week, on Saturday, and the cool part is they are growing, so that's exciting to see.
But here's what I want you to understand: God intends for you to take times of rest. That is his plan for your life. There are people who have said, maybe you've heard it, "I'd rather burn out than rust out." And at first, you go, "Yeah, yeah, go get them." But the truth is, if we burn out and never take time to be still, we burn out prematurely. The pattern is built in: build in your Sabbath times. For me, what that looks like is, being an entrepreneur, my laptop is my favorite tool, but it's a vortex because somebody's always going to want my attention. So my Sabbath is Friday at 5:00 PM. That laptop gets turned off and shut down, and it doesn't come open again until Sunday afternoon. Why? Because I'm terrible at keeping Sabbaths, and fortunately, my wife keeps me disciplined in that. "Don't be reaching for your laptop." Why? Because I need to set that time aside to allow God to refresh me spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. What I find is I perform better by building those times in. Something I want you to understand: that Sabbath is all about trusting God. Not only is there the weekly Sabbath, but for the Jewish people, there was even a Sabbath of a year, letting the land lay for a year. You have to trust God for the provision: Is he faithful to provide for you if you're not working yourself to death? It's a trust issue, as much as it depends upon you. Yes, work hard, but get into the flow of his pattern and give him a chance to do even more. That's the real issue for us today.
So this morning, as we close out, there's two groups of people that I want to talk to. There are some of you who are watching online, or maybe here in the room, you know who Jesus is, you've heard his story, but he's not really your lord; he doesn't direct your life. You're still trying to carry the weight of life in your own power and your own strength, and it doesn't work well. The truth is, all of us sin and come short of God's glory. These Ten Commandments, as hard as I try to keep them, I can't. I've failed. What I needed was a savior, and that's what you need as well. Somebody who fulfilled the law and then took your place for where you failed, and that's exactly what Jesus did. He went to a cross; he shed his blood for you; he paid the price of your sin, and the record was set straight. Nothing else is owed. But the story doesn't end there; he stepped forth from the grave, and he offers you strength and power in this life and the promise of what's beyond this life. You don't have to live in fear of "Was I good enough?" The truth is you aren't; he was. That's what we count on.
