Guardrails - Rest On The Sabbath
No Other Gods.
Do Not Have Idols
Do not misuse God’s name.
Rest on the Sabbath.
Honor your Father and Mother.
Do not Murder.
Do not Commit Adultery.
Do Not Steal.
Do Not Lie.
Do Not Covet.
The year was 2005. Kristy and I had just walked through a difficult loss. We had been trying to conceive for six years and lost our first baby at around ten weeks. So we could rest and recuperate, friends shared their vacation home with us in Destin, Florida.
The crystal blue water, white sand, the sound of the ocean waves hitting the beach…God used that trip to launch healing and give us a great REST from the hurt. During that place of rest, we could smile at one another and mean it.
Do you have a special place to rest where the stress melts away?
Maybe it’s a golf course. Perhaps it’s a restaurant. Maybe it’s a spa…
Today, we are talking about the 4th Commandment, “Rest on the Sabbath.”
Let’s read together:
Exodus 20:8-11 (NLT2)
8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
The command to “rest on the Sabbath” is a Guardrail God gave us to bless us and keep our lives from crashing. I love that God commanded the Israelites to take a day off!
In Genesis, the Bible tells us that God created the World in 6 days, and he rested on the 7th.
I used to work in construction. I labored hard for five days in a row. At the end of the week, my back was hurting, my body was aching, and my feet were tired. I needed to rest at the end of the week! But God did not need to rest after creating the Galaxies. He wasn’t worn down. He didn’t need an ice pack or ibuprofen. He wasn’t tired on day five or day 6. God could have kept on going. He could have kept on creating and imagining. God does not get tired, and he does not need to rest.
In the original Hebrew, “Sabbath” means “CEASED from activity.”
That means, after creation…
GOD DID NOT REST, HE STOPPED
He stopped. God stopped creating. He was finished creating creation and when he stopped, God looked at all he made and said, “It was good.”
From sun up to sundown, the Israelites worked as Farmers and Shepherds. They led the herds to water to drink and to grassy fields to eat. When the animals would fight each other, the shepherds would separate them. Shepherding and farming required constant maintenance.
But on the 7th day, God says, “Stop. Do nothing. And trust me. I will care for your livestock, fields, and you.”
Shepherding reminds me of parenting young children. From sunup till sundown. Parents are leading their kids to get something to drink. Feeding them. Separating them when they fight with their siblings.
Rush to get home after school.
Rush to get homework done.
Rush to the soccer fields, the basketball courts, the baseball fields, and the wrestling match.
Rush to the store to get the cardboard for the school project, the glitter for the lettering.
Rush to get the kids in the bath and in bed.
Then, rush to school the next morning.
Parents, the good news is that God says, “Stop!”
A day with no work. No running around. A day simply just for prayer, worship, family, and laughter. Every. Single Week. Yet, it wasn’t good enough for the people of Israel.
As time went on, they rejected God’s command to stop. Rather than setting the day aside to rest and remember how great God was, the Israelites began working on the 7th day, and they even began to worship false gods.
So, God punished the Israelites for their disobedience. God allowed Babylon to drag the Israelites back into slavery for another 70 years. It was a harsh and cruel slavery.
Psalm 137 was written shortly after the Israelites were freed from slavery in Babylon. Listen to how bad their treatment was:
Psalm 137:8-9 (NLT2)
8 O Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us. 9 Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!
During captivity, the Israelites beat themselves up for failing to keep God’s commands. So when they were finally freed, they were determined always to obey all of God’s Commands…And they overcorrected.
They had this religious book called the Talmud that was equivalent to a modern-day commentary on the bible. A Commentary explains what the Bible means…The Israelites developed a commentary to explain what the Ten Commandments mean and dedicated 24 Chapters to define what it meant to work or not to work on the Sabbath.
24 Chapters to explain one verse. That is OVERCORRECTING!
From that point on, it was considered work to:
Move a lamp from one place to another.
If a woman wore a wig or a clip in her hair
Wear false teeth or a wooden leg
To pick up your infant
So, the Israelites became known to all the other Nations that they trusted God so much that the entire nation would stop working on the Sabbath. The Israelites prided themselves on this distinction…and that is why things got so tense between Jesus and the Religious Leaders. Last year, we spent every weekend in our series called “Meeting Jesus.” What did Jesus do that really got under the skin of the religious leaders?
He WORKED on the Sabbath!
The Jewish leaders harassed Jesus wherever he went to work on the Sabbath.
One of Jesus disciples wrote this:
John 5:16-18 (NLT2)
16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. He not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
The Pharisees were so irritated with Jesus' failure to observe the Sabbath that they began making plans to kill him. Please understand this important distinction. Jesus did not work on the Sabbath to irritate the religious leaders; Jesus worked on the Sabbath because he CREATED the sabbath. He owned the Sabbath. He was Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a day that belonged to Him.
Luke 6:5 (NLT2)
5 And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath.”
As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus could do whatever He pleased because He made the rules. The Israelite people were consistently fearful they would do something wrong and be accused of working on the Sabbath…
But then Jesus shows up and is utterly unintimidated by the Religious Leaders.
Healing people on the Sabbath
Bringing Joy on the Sabbath
Restoring Hope on the Sabbath.
And, ultimately he was crucified and murdered on the cross because the Pharisees had enough of him working on the Sabbath and claiming to be God…ironically, when Jesus died on the cross…
JESUS BECAME OUR REST (Matt 11:28-30)
The Israelites lived with the burden of trying to obey all of God’s Word to enter into heaven when they die. “If they lived a good enough life and sacrificed enough, maybe they have a shot.”
Obey all the commandments. Make all the right sacrifices on the right day, at the right time, and in the correct year. Live perfectly.
The Israelites spent their lives trying to earn their way into heaven.
And when the Pharisees finally killed Jesus for working on the Sabbath, Jesus' death told all of mankind to STOP trying to earn a spot in Heaven.
If you are working hard and trying to be good enough to get into Heaven when you die.
Stop.
If you are attending church to get to Heaven when you die.
Stop.
If you are being generous with your money to try to earn God’s favor so you can get to Heaven.
Stop.
You will never be good enough to get to Heaven. You will never be smart enough to get to Heaven. You will never be sufficient to enter into heaven when you die.
So stop.
Titus 3:5 (NKJV)
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit…
You can never work hard enough, pray hard enough, or give generously enough to be forgiven for your sin.
Jesus' death on the cross paid the price for our sins. And everybody who believes in Him will receive ETERNAL LIFE!
If you want to experience peace with God through the forgiveness of sin, come to Jesus. If you want to know real rest, come to Jesus. If mistakes of your past burden you, things you have done to others if you are weighed down by shame and regret.
Come to Jesus.
Matthew 11:28 (NLT2)
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest….
Surrender to Him. Jesus is your rest.
GOD PRESCRIBES REST SO WE CAN RENEW AND RELATE
Listen to something else that Jesus said about the Sabbath.
He said:
Mark 2:27 (NLT2)
27 …“The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.
The sabbath was made to meet your needs! The sabbath is meant for you to stop the madness!There is always going to be work that needs to be done. If you work seven days a week, it will never be enough…so stop and rest. God designed your body.
He knows precisely how much stress, strain, and work the human body can take. He knows your mental stress limit, your physical stress limit…So rest! The Sabbath was made to meet your needs!
So REST! Stop working one day a week. Play golf. Go for a walk on the beach. Play frisbee golf. Do a puzzle. Do what your body needs you to do to slow down. The Sabbath is a gift from God that helps keep us and our families healthy. I need to do a better job of stopping to enjoy family, rest, renew and relate.
How about you?