July 2, 2000 Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15
“Working 24/7”
INTRODUCTION
A Sunday School teacher was telling her children about the importance of observing the Sabbath Day. "I never go FISHING on a Sunday!" piped up little Johnny. "VERY GOOD, Johnny!" said the teacher. "Won’t you tell the other children why you don’t go fishing on a Sunday?" Johnny replied: "Because my Daddy won’t let me go along!"
A certain minister had a weakness for golf. But he had no time for it. Searching his busy schedule, he found one day in a year’s time when he could play. Unfortunately, that day fell on the Sabbath. The minister apologized to God and traveled some distance to a golf club so that no one who might know him would see him. As he teed up the first ball, an angel looked down from heaven aghast: "A minister playing golf on the Sabbath!" He immediately told the Almighty about it. On the third hole, God sent down a gust of wind that made the minister’s ball sink into the cup. . . a hole in one! The angel watching was puzzled. "You call that punishment?" “Think about it," the Lord replied . . . "Who can he tell?" - [Hopewell Herald, June/July 1997]
This morning, we come together to examine the 4th of the Ten Commandments – “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy”. On this command especially, it would seem that this is a message that needs to presented to everyone who isn’t here. You are here, so obviously you are at least attempting to follow this command in your own life. Some of you may have grown up in homes where your parents were very strict about what could and could not be done on Sunday. Church was obviously the way that you began your day. There was no point in arguing about it. Mom would fix dinner on Saturday night so as not to have to work on Sunday afternoon. The only activities that were allowed on Sunday afternoon were sleep and maybe reading. You couldn’t play ball, couldn’t watch TV – couldn’t do much of anything. Fact is that there wasn’t a whole lot that was available to do on Sunday. Everything in town was shut down. Things have changed a lot over the years. I remember when I was growing up how unusual it was to see a business open on Sunday. Now, it is unusual when a business is NOT open on Sunday. Sunday has become just another day of the week. Let me suggest something to you though: this command that we come to today is not just about coming to church on Sunday. It has far greater implications than that. There is much that I learned this week as I studied this command in Scripture. I would go so far as to say that you can be in church every Sunday and not fulfill this command in the eyes of God. And I hope you’ll understand what I mean as we go through.
Before we begin, let me say this: My purpose here this morning is not to make up some list as far as what is and what is not allowed on Sunday. Should you go out to eat on Sunday? That way you don’t work fixing a meal, but then you are forcing the employees of the restaurant to work. Should you go shopping at Wal-Mart or the mall on Sunday? Should you wash the car on Sunday? Should a Christian work on Sunday? I’m a Christian; I work on Sunday. I’m not going to answer those questions this morning. But what I am going to do is to help you see some of what God wanted to accomplish in the lives of the Israelites through this command and what principles related to this command need to govern our everyday lives not just our Sunday lives.
What did the command mean in the lives of the people of Israel?
It meant no work.”. . .on it you shall not do any work . . .” (Deut 5:14)
What would you say should be the penalty for breaking this command? A good talking to – “Man, don’t you know that you’re supposed to rest today? What are you doing working when you could and should be home sleeping?!” Maybe a slap on the wrist or a fine. We’ll fine you all the money that you made on that day and put it in the building fund. God wasn’t joking around when He gave this command. He said that the penalty for breaking this command was to be death (Exodus 31:15). That puts this command right up there with “Thou shalt not murder” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The first test case came along not long after the commandments were given. One day, a Jewish man went out into the wilderness to gather some sticks for a fire. Nothing wrong with that except for the fact that he did it on the Sabbath. He was spotted doing it, and was confined to quarters until Moses could consult God about it. God said that the man was to die, and so the community took him out and stoned him (Numbers 15:32-26). And you thought your mom’s punishment for playing ball on Sunday was severe!
The Jewish leaders got very specific when it came to classifying exactly what was work and what was not. The following 39 principal classes were prohibited as work: “sowing, plowing, reaping, gathering into sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing it, beating it, dyeing it, spinning it, making a warp of it, making two cords, weaving two threads, separating two threads, making a knot, untying a knot, sewing two stitches, catching a deer, killing, skinning, salting it, preparing its hide, scraping off its hair, cutting it up, writing two letters, blotting out for the purpose of writing two letters, building, pulling down, extinguishing, lighting a fire, beating with a hammer, and carrying from one property to another.” Most of these general categories were then further elaborated on with the outcome that the Jews had several hundred activities that they must avoid on the Sabbath day if they were to follow the letter of the law. “For example, the prohibition about tying a knot was much too general and so it became necessary to state what kinds of knots were prohibited and what kind not. . . . allowable knots were those that could be untied with one hand. A woman could tie up her undergarment, and the strings of her cap, those of her girdle, the straps of her shoes and sandals, of skins of wine and oil, of a pot with meat. She could tie a pail over the well with a girdle, but not with rope” because it would take two hands to untie a knot tied with rope. [The Zondervan Pictorial Dictionary p. 756]
Did God give this command because He was against work? No. From the time that Adam was in the garden, work was a part of God’s plan for our lives. The Bible says that those who get lazy and choose to sleep instead of working will come to ruin (Prov. 6:9-11). Then in 2 Thes. 3:10, God says that those who do not work will not eat. God is not against work. But He is against work consuming our lives. He is against us escaping into work so that we don’t have to face life. He is against us finding our significance and self-worth in our work. He is against us filling our lives so full of work that we don’t have time for Him or other people. He did not want them or us to think that work was all that there was in life. He told the Israelites that just as He put a limit on the amount of work that He was going to do before He stepped back to evaluate it, so they needed to stop from their work on a regular basis.
It involved everyone. “. . . neither you . . . nor the alien” (Deut 5:14)
No one had the right to say that they were not under obligation to cease from their work either because they were above the law or because their job was too important. The law applied to the Jewish people, their children, their animals, and the aliens living and serving in their land. (By the way, the term “aliens” does not mean people from outer space. It means anyone who was not an Israelite.) Jewish landlords didn’t have the right to make their servants work on the Sabbath. If they wanted something that a servant normally would have gotten for them, on the Sabbath, they had to get it for themselves. Nor did anyone have the right to work on the Sabbath because they thought that their work was too important or too time critical to put off. “I can’t take a day off to rest and worship God! My work is far too critical and important for that!” Mary Magdalene and the other women had a very important job to do. They needed to prepare the body of Jesus for burial. But as important as that job was, it was more important that they obey God. So they waited until after the Sabbath to prepare His body. By the way, had they not waited, they would have missed the events of His resurrection. Who would you say had the most important job of all time? Most of us would probably agree that Jesus holds that distinction. There can be no more important job than providing salvation for mankind and teaching mankind about God and His requirements of them. But do you know what Jesus did? On the Sabbath and at other times, Jesus took time to stop and rest. As one author put it, if he had been Jesus, he could have never stopped working. “[He] would have died of exhaustion, not crucifixion.” [Where is Moses when we need him? p. 116] But no matter the importance of His job, Jesus knew that He too needed to stop from His work and take time to rest. No one was exempt from the requirement.
It demanded rest. “so that your manservant . . . may rest”
On this special day of the week, the Jewish people and all those who lived among them were not only not supposed to work, but they were supposed to rest. In fact, the word “sabbath” actually means to rest, to cease from activity. Taking time to rest was a big part of what this day was all about. God made man’s body. He knows how much it can handle. He knew that if they didn’t take time to recharge their batteries, they were going to destroy themselves. The rest that he spoke of though was more than just physical rest. It was emotional rest and spiritual rest. You or I can take a day of the week to cease from our regular work and still not rest. We can have our minds so filled with all the stresses of the week and all the problems that the new week is probably going to hold and receive absolutely no refreshment from a day away from the job. Or we can have our spirits so filled up with sin and guilt that we are constantly fighting with God’s Spirit over who is going to have control of our lives. There’s no way to get rest then. Is. 57:20-21 “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ’for the wicked’” Is. 30:15 “. . . Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength’, but you would have none of it.” Do you feel like you’re tired all the time? For some of you, the reason is because you’re working too hard. You need to get some sleep, to learn how to relax. But for others of you, the problem is that you are fighting with God over something. God has a lot more energy than you do. He is not going to get tired. You, on the other hand have a limited supply of energy. Stop fighting against God. Let Him have His way, and find rest for your soul. God promised to the Israelites and to Moses that when they walked in obedience to Him that His presence would go with them and that He would give them rest. (Ex. 33:14)
Several years ago, newspapers told how a new Navy jet fighter shot itself down. Flying at supersonic speed, it ran into cannon shells it had fired only a few seconds before. The jet was traveling too fast! If you don’t have time to go to church services, if you don’t have time to read the Bible, if you don’t have time to pray - If you’re neglecting any of these, you’re probably traveling too fast to hear the sound of God’s voice. You can’t tell whether you are in the center of His will. Better slow down before, like the jet, you shoot yourself down.
It was a statement of faith. ”God brought you out” (Deut. 5:15)
I am not a farmer. I have never lived on a farmer. So until this week, I never looked at this command from the perspective that the Israelites, who were farmers, would have looked at it. As I understand it, there is a certain timing for everything that you do as a farmer. You plant things at a certain time of the year according to what the climate is and how that crop deals with the climate, and then you know pretty much what time of the year your crop is going to be ready for harvesting. If you wait past the time for planting or don’t get all your crop planted before the heavy rains come, then you’ve got real problems. If you allow your crop to stay too long in the field, you’ve got problems too. Everything will rot and be of no value to you or anyone else. Timing is everything. I think that’s why I never was able to get anything that I planted to grow. I never paid very much attention to those directions on the back of the seed packets that told you what seasons of the year you were supposed to plant different flowers and vegetables. So God, knowing how crucial timing was to a farm culture such as Israel had, surely He would make an exception for those times of year when crops were being planted and harvested. Surely they could work right through the Sabbath and then make up for it later on in the summer when they were just sitting there watching the crops grow. Exodus 34:21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.”
God was testing their faith. Is their faith in their own ability to get that crop in the ground and then harvest it in the fall, or is their faith in Me, the one who makes the crop grow in the first place? Do they have enough faith in me that they will sleep and sleep peacefully without pacing the floor in their mind even as their crops are potentially rotting in the field? God took the test a step further too. You may or may not know that the sabbath laws were not just about the 7th day. There were also about the 7th year. For a six-year period, the Israelites could plant and harvest their fields. But in the 7th year, they were forbidden to plant anything. All that they had to eat was their stores from the previous year and what grew in the fields on its own. This gave the fields a chance to rest which we now know is a good thing. You can overwork a field just like you can overwork a person. (By the way; that’s just one more evidence to the fact that God is smarter than man ever thought himself to be. Long before man ever figured out that you needed to rotate crops and let fields lie dormant to preserve the quality of the soil, God already knew that and had instructed His people to use good farming practices.) But God’s command to not plant the fields was about more than just good farming practices. It was about faith. God was saying, “Do you have enough faith in me to not even plant your fields once every seven years and see if I will provide for you?” There was one more level to this test of faith. After 49 years – 7 cycles of 7 years – the 50th year was called the Year of Jubilee. Along with other things that the Israelites were required to do to celebrate that year, they once again were forbidden to plant any crops in their fields. So they can’t plant in the 49th year or the 50th year – two straight years without planting anything in the field. Isn’t that kind of risky? It’s risky if you’re relying on your own work to provide for you, but it’s not risky if you’re truly relying on the Lord. God made an awesome promise to them. (Lev 25:20-22 NIV) You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?" I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. “You place your faith in me, and I’ll give you an over-abundance – more than you could ever imagine.”
Do you know how much of a rest and a relief it would have been to them to come to the realization that it was not up to them to provide for their families. It was not their responsibility to protect their families. It was God’s. That took the whole burden off of their shoulders. They didn’t have to carry it anymore. They could have rest. (Psa 81:6 NIV) He says, "I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket. That verse doesn’t say that God made the burden go away. It says that He took it off their shoulders. Guess where He placed it after He took it off their shoulders. He placed it on His own shoulders. Let me ask you a question: who’s got broader shoulders? – you or God? The problem is that with the Israelites and with us, we don’t have enough faith in God to really believe that He is going to meet our needs, protect us, and carry our burdens. So we try to carry them on our own and wear ourselves out. Do you have enough faith to believe that God can carry your burdens?
After I finished typing in these words on Friday, I took a moment to get up and stretch my legs. I went to the front door and discovered that the mail man had left a piece of mail for us. It was a card from Lorie Nicholas, the girl who organized the mission team that was here a couple of weeks ago. Inside the card was a money order from her parents whom I have never met. It was as if God was saying to me, “Chris, do YOU have enough faith to believe that the financial condition of this church is not up to you, but it is up to me? Do you have enough faith to believe that as long as you are obedient to me, the success or failure of this church is my responsibility, not yours?” Paul, the Apostle said it this way: “(1 Cor 3:6 NIV) I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. Where is your faith resting? Is it resting in yourself and your ability, or is it resting in God?
It was a sign of the covenant. “. . . sign between me and the Israelites. . . “ (Exodus 31:17)
This past Friday, I performed my very first wedding. I thought that I was going to be more nervous than the bride and groom, but actually, it wasn’t too bad. Part of their wedding ceremony, like most wedding ceremonies, was the exchange of rings. Most of you probably are wearing a wedding band. I have one on my finger right now. If you really think about it, the money that was spent on this wedding band could be put to much more practical use buying groceries or maybe something that we need for the house. But what prevents me from taking it off my finger and selling it, other than the fact that I can’t get it past my fat knuckle and Tammy would beat me up if I did, is the fact that this ring serves as a sign of the covenant – the promise – that Tammy and I made to each other. When I go out into public, I don’t have tons of women trying to come and pick me up because they see this ring that lets them know that I am already taken. (And I know that the ring is the ONLY reason that doesn’t happen.) And when Tammy is gone somewhere, part of the reason that she can trust that I will be faithful to her during his absence is that I have this ring as a constant reminder of her, the relationship that we have, and the promise that I made 11 years ago.
Israel and God had entered into a covenant relationship with each other. God had promised to provide for them, and they had promised to be obedient to Him. God was Israel’s God, and Israel was God’s people. But they didn’t use rings to signify the relationship that they shared. They had two signs of the covenant. One was circumcision of all male Jews. The other was the keeping of the Sabbath. When other peoples living around the Israelites noticed that the Jews would do no work on the Sabbath, it would provoke questions in them. Everyone else worked 7 days a week. You had to if you were going to survive, or at least that’s what they thought. “Why do you Jews only work 6 six days a week and refuse to do any work on the 7th day?” To which, they could respond that they did this as a testimony to the fact that they belonged to Almighty God and that they were trusting in Him to provide for their needs.
Much later in Israel’s history, after they had returned to the land from their captivity in Babylon, the people forsook their practice of observing the Sabbath. They were weak and few in number. They didn’t want to stand out as different anymore. They needed to make friends with the surrounding peoples and couldn’t afford the risk of offending anyone. If they didn’t do business on Sabbath, they figured, then the surrounding peoples would take their business to someone who would do business on the Sabbath. Nehemiah, the leader at the time, was very angered by this practice. How dare they treat the Sabbath like any other day of the week? By treating the day this way, they were showing how little value they placed in their relationship with God and how little trust they had in Him to provide for them. It would be like me taking my wedding ring to the pawn shop in order for me to pay for a hooker. In his anger, Nehemiah commanded that the city gates be barred shut on the Sabbath and that no business be conducted during the Sabbath. (Neh 13:14-21) You say, “What’s so important about a sign? Why should I worry about it?” A sign is worth something and is worthy of protection when it points to the kind of relationship that a husband and wife share or the kind of relationship that God and His people share.
It reminded them to take notice that God was the Creator. “For in six days” (Exodus 20:11)
One day, little Jacob walks up to his dad and says, “Papa, why do we rest on the 7th day?” Papa turns to him and says, “Look out there my son. Do you see all that? God made that, and He made you. He did it all in six days. Then He ceased from His work. So to celebrate God’s work and His creation, we follow His example and rest on the 7th day. Always remember, my son; God made you.” To that little boy, to his parents, and to all his friends, the fact that God made them would have meant several things. It meant that God knew exactly what their needs were. One of their needs was a day of rest. It meant that God was powerful. He could meet their needs. And it meant that God was in charge. He could tell them to stand on one foot for a day as a sign of His relationship with them if He wanted to, but instead He told them to rest for a day. And every time they took that day off, they were reminded of the fact that God had created all that was.
Have you taken the time today to remember that God is the Creator. That means He knows your needs, He has the power to meet your needs, and He’s going to meet your needs His way because He is in charge.
It was a day designated for worship. “sacred assembly” (Lev 23:3)
God knew that as important as it was for their physical bodies to get rest, and as necessary as it was for them to receive an emotional release, far more important than either one was for them to receive a release from their sin and the contamination to their thinking which they had received during the week’s activity. The only way that they could receive this kind of rest was through time spent in worship of God with other believers. (Psa 62:1-2 NIV) My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. (Psa 91:1-2 NIV) He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
What does the command mean in the lives of the people of God today?
It promotes trust in God to provide.
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, "Jump! I’ll catch you." He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you." But the boy protested, "Daddy, I can’t see you." The father replied, "But I can see you and that’s all that matters."
It prevents the temptation to greed and over-working those under your authority.
The theory goes like this: if I work 6 days of the week, then I make so much money. But if I stretch it out and work all 7 days or have my store open all 7 days, then I will make a lot more money. It’s called greed.
Most of you know that I worked for Chick-fil-A while I was in school. One of the practices of this company that set it off from most other restaurants is that it is closed on Sunday. If you’ve ever been to a restaurant on Sunday, you know that day is one of the busiest and most profitable of the week. It would seem that if you plan on being profitable, you need to get that Sunday crowd. But Truett Cathy, the Christian owner and founder of the company, made it his policy from the very beginning that no Chick-fil-A would be open on Sunday. He figured that if they couldn’t do enough business on six days a week to stay open and bring in a profit, then it wasn’t in God’s will for them to be in business.
I wonder how many of the people who are required to work on Sunday would love to have that day as a day of rest. I’m not so nieve to think that if suddenly all the businesses were closed on Sunday, then the churches would be full. But when church is the only thing available to do on a Sunday, it suddenly becomes a little more appealing. One thing that it would do is allow families to spend more time together. I have no doubt that would help to decrease the number of divorces in this country. But instead, because of their own greed or the greed of the people who employ them, people work on Sunday and are over-worked to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion.
It provides a time to step back, evaluate, rest, and re-group.
Yes, I’m tired. For several years I’ve been blaming it on middle age, iron poor blood, lack of vitamins, air pollution, water pollution, saccharin, obesity, dieting, underarm odor, yellow wax buildup, and a dozen other maladies that make you wonder if life is really worth living. But now, I find out, tain’t that. I’m tired because I’m overworked. The population of this country is over 200 million. Eighty-four million are retired. That leaves 116 million to do the work. There are 75 million in school, so that leaves 41 million to do the work. Of this total, there are 22 million employed by the [federal] government. That leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the armed forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Take from that total the 14,800,000 people who work for the state and city gov’ts, and that leaves 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now there are 11,998 people in prisons. That leaves just 2 people to do the work. You and me. And you’re standing there reading this [sitting there listening to this]. No wonder I’m tired. [Anonymous, as quoted in The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart by Chuck Swindoll (p. 319)]
According to tradition, when the apostle John was bishop in Ephesus, his hobby was raising pigeons. On one occasion an Ephesian elder passed his house as he returned from hunting. When he saw John playing with one of his birds, he gently chided the old bishop for spending his time so frivolously. John looked at his critic’s bow and remarked that the string was loosened. "Yes," said the huntsman, "I also loosen the string of my bow when it’s not in use. If it always stayed tight, it would lose its rebounding quality and fail me in the hunt." "And I," said John, "am now relaxing the bow of my mind so that I may be better able to shoot the arrows of divine truth."
I smiled recently when I read about an angry church member who blustered up to his minister, saying, "I phoned you Monday, but I couldn’t get you." The preacher explained that it was his day off. "What? A day off? The devil never takes a day off!" exclaimed the member with holier-than-thou indignation. "That’s right, " said the minister, "and if I didn’t take any ’time out,’ I would be just like him!" Yes, we do need to rest. As Vance Havner used to say: "if we don’t come apart, we’ll come apart!"
Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God. . .” In all our busyness, we fail to stop and worship God. We don’t take the time to let Him heal our spirits and refresh our souls. Is. 40 talks about the fact that even the strength of young men wears out. But they that wait upon the Lord – trust in Him, rest in Him, let Him be their strength and refuge – shall renew their strength. They shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint.
It points to a relationship between God and us.
We do not have the right to judge anyone’s relationship with God based on whether they worship on Sunday or not. (Col 2:16-17)
CONCLUSION
Up until the death of Jesus, the Jews rested and worshipped on Saturday. That was Sabbath. It was the day that they ceased from the work of their week just as God had rested from His work of creation on the 7th day. On that day God looked back over His work and evaluated it. The evaluation that He gave was that it was very good. He celebrated the existence of life and the beauty that it provided. Likewise, the Jews on the 7th day could look back over their work, evaluate it, find some satisfaction in it and give thanks to God for His provision for them. Today, right now, we worship on Sunday. But we don’t celebrate the creation of the universe anymore when we worship. The reason that we worship on Sunday now is because that is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. Like the Jews, we celebrate the coming of life – the resurrected life of Jesus and the new life that He offers to all those who come to Him for forgiveness of their sins. All who come to Jesus are a new creation.
INVITATION
Are you at rest today? Jesus said, (Mat 11:28-30 NIV) "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Some of you are struggling with some type of decision that you’ve got to make. Bring it to the Lord, allow Him to take the burden from your shoulders and place it on His own.
Some of you are worried about how you are going to pay the bills. You feel like you have to work yourself to death in order to make ends meet. In order to get that raise or that promotion so that you can get out of debt, you have to work on the Lord’s Day. God says, “Trust me.” You are not the one who is responsible for meeting the needs of your family. God is the one who does that.
Some of you are working yourselves to death to earn your salvation. Jesus says, “Rest in me. I’ve already done the work.”
