8 Remember the sabbath day, and 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; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreign resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, prepare our hearts and minds to receive Your life-giving Word this morning. Let us rest in Your presence. Search us, and release us from every evil way. Give us hearts to know You, and to love You. Be our God and remain the centre of our lives this day, and every day. Guide us, Lord, in You ways of righteousness, mercy and peace. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Some people wear busyness like a badge. A badge that says "Number One good person - works so hard, is always busy." Is this the way we think? If a person is busy, and works seven days a week, does that mean he or she is good? What about if a person doesn't have work? How do we think about those who are unemployed? I've been there. It's a soul-destroying experience in a society that defines people by work.
Work in itself is a good thing. At the beginning God placed Adam and Eve in the garden with the command to look after it. Work is good. But it does not define who we are. You and I are valuable because God made us, God loves us, God wants u in His world, in His plans, in His eternity. We are not valuable because we are always busy.
Work is a good thing, even though it can be hard.Like many good things, it has become infected with our sinfulness, and the legacy of generations of alienation from God. The Fall of Adam and Eve into sin brought an extra burden and bitterness into work. Adam was told "by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread."
Our modern technology has increased the burden of work. Jesus said, 'Let us work while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work' but now with electric lights our factories and machines and computers can work 24 hours a day. Today we can do more, so we do do more. We don't need as much time to wash clothes or travel to Church or to do shopping, and many other things. But do we have more time? Is the quality of our lives better, because we can do so much more?
Some may escape the pressures of work, and an activity-mad society. But many of us are swept along a swiftly-flowing river of busyness, duty-bound to many commitments, under pressure from all sides, and, underneath it all, desperately trying to prove to others and to ourselves that we have value.
Do we have trouble saying 'no' to be involved in things? Have we become enslaved to work and bound to a thousand other commitments - as surely as the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians? God did not make us just to work.
In Exodus 20, God calls His people to set aside the seventh day as a day of complete rest. This follows His pattern of creation. In 6 days He made the world, but on the seventh, He rested. It wasn't because He was exhausted. It was because He wanted to set apart time for fellowship with His creatures. He never meant for work to take over our lives, so He set a boundary, a limit. A reminder that we serve Him: we are not enslaved to any other master.
In Deuteronomy, when God gave these commands a second time through Moses, he put it like this:
Deuteronomy 5:12-15The Jews were strictly commanded to stop work on the Sabbath. This was not meant to be a burden. It was a blessing! It was a reminder that they were no longer slaves!
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident foreigner in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 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.
What about us? We haven't been enslaved to Egyptian taskmasters, but is there anything in our lives that does enslave us? Has work, and the demands of many commitments enslaved us? Have our modern forms of entertainment enslaved us? The way TV grabs our attention, and keeps it, the way sport can take over any spare time we might have had, the pressure on us to take on more responsibilities in the community - isn't this a form of slavery?! Jesus said, "I have come so that you may have life - and have it more abundantly." He calls us to freedom, and says, "If the Son sets you free, then you are truly free!"
In this command, God may seem to restrict us. He forbids us from working non-stop. He commands us to take a day of rest, each week. But this is not meant to oppress us: rather, He is giving us a precious gift: the gift of time. Time with Him.
In the Old Testament, violating this rule was punishable by death. It was that serious. As New Testament people of God, we are not bound to follow the strict rules God gave the Jews to prepare them, and the world, for the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. But we too have consequences to face, if we violate this command: Aren't we cursed by the consequences of allowing work and everyday demands to invade every moment of every day? We can force ourselves on, answering more demands with more effort, until one day it does become too much, and we collapse with broken health, broken families, or emotional and spiritual damage.
Isn't it the case that the longer we work, the less effective we become? The longer we work ground, without giving it a rest and time to be replenished, the less fertile that ground will become. We who were made of dust from the ground, also need rest.
In this command, God is giving us time. Time to rest. Time to allow Him to renew and restore us.
Saturday or Sunday? Some insist that we have to make sure we are worshipping and resting on the right day. But which is the right day? Saturday may not be the 7th day of the week, because we have no way of knowing which day exactly corresponds to the original 7th day of creation. There have been a number of different calendars used over the centuries. In 1582 Pope Gregory adjusted the calendar by 10 days to get Spring to coincide more closely with Easter. 10 days were deleted. One day it was Oct 4, and the next day it was Oct 15. (And we think 'time flies' now?!)
Whether it is Saturday or Sunday does not matter - but "one day in seven" remains a very helpful guide for us.
Paul tells us in Romans 14: "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another person considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." And in Colossians 2: 16 and 17, he teaches us not to be legalistic about sabbaths: " Therefore let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. "
The reality is Christ.
The true meaning of the Sabbath is found in Him, and the meaning is this: through Jesus Christ, we are set free from having to obey the laws of God and other people as slaves.
We are still called to obey God's law, but we don't have to perform. We don't have to achieve certain levels before he will accept us, because we are now children, not slaves.
Christ calls us to enter a Sabbath-relationship with God.
A relationship of rest. A relationship in which he assures us that it is not our work that defines who we are, just as our failures do not mean we are worthless. He commands us to clear a space in our lives, a space free of work. Luther in his day pointed out that heart of this command is taking time to receive the Word of God. What happens if we work 7 days a week? what happens if we are busy, 7 days a week? We know we will suffer physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, if we keep "on the go" all the time.
So, what about it? Is God calling you to change the way you live your life? Do you have space in your life for Him? Do you have time for His word, and for fellowship with Him in the midst of His people? If God gives us one day in seven as a day of rest and worship, what are we saying if we refuse? ... Do we think we know better than God?
(If so,) We need to repent of this arrogance! How dare we think we know better than our maker?! Who is most important in our life? The Lord? Or ourselves, our families, friends, work, entertainment and other demands?
But "it's not practical," we might say. Isn't it? But God gave this command originally to rural people. He understands the needs of the land, the pressures of farmers. But He is not worried. The seasons are in His hands. He can allow rain, or withhold it. He can allow accidents to happen, that can put us out of commission for any amount of time. The Sabbath is a reminder that we are not in control of our lives. We depend on Him. And we need to take the time to be with Him.
Let us explore this further next week. May God have mercy on us, and teach us His ways, so that we are free of slavery, and receive His precious gift of time. May we take time to receive his word, and find the renewal we so desperately need.
Amen.
The peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
First command (God) | Second command (God's Name) | Third command-a (Sabbath, part 1) | Third command-b (Sabbath, part 2) | Fourth command (authority) | Fifth command (Life) | Sixth command (sexuality) | Seventh command (property)| Eighth command (reputation) | Ninth command (wanting things)| Tenth command (wanting people)| command against idolatry| 'What does God say of all these commands?'