Sabbath

Exodus 20:8-11NASB95

Intro message as 3rd in series rest… reflection, embracing weakness, sabbath

fire healing, relief, you spouse children pastor

Intro

cell phone fix, Phone issues took to expert, reset, in our spiritual life this should be our first default, IT, restart computer. Just like our phones that means shut down the tv all the apps all the noise etc, For phone first thing they tell us last thing we think of we start with believing we are doing something wrong, we can figure it out, or a program isn’t working...

We want to introduce the message today with a reading of the 23rd Psalm. It’s a very familiar passage to many of us, but I’m going to read a more unique version of the passage this morning. So please pay close attention.

● Psalm 23 revised

o The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.

o It makes me lie down only when exhausted.

o It leads me into deep depression, it hounds my soul.

o It leads me in circles of frenzy for activities’ sake.

o Even though I run frantically from task to task,

o I will never get it all done, for my “ideal” is with me.

o Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.

o They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.

o They anoint my head with migraines, my in-box overflows.

o Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life.

o And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever.

There is a lot of truth to this rendition, is there not? The focus on Rest for us today is the sabbath. The 4th commandment...Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Before we read our text, let’s talk about the origin of this principle that we refer to as the 4th of the ten commandments given by God to the people of Israel.

Origin:

In Genesis chapter 1 God was creating. And as He was creating all things we see a distinct pattern followed in scripture for the work that He did. He created something, He looked at it, He said it is good, and then the scriptures tell us that the evening and the morning were the first day. You might note that the scriptures put evening before morning because your day starts with rest not your morning cup of coffee. So he continued to create, and the evening and the morning were the second day, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth day. Then in Genesis 2:2 we see the scriptures tell us that He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. And in verse 3 we see God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

So God created all that we see around us in six days, and rested on the seventh. Let’s briefly address the importance of this. If God is powerful enough to create the entire world as we know it, out of absolutely nothing then would He have truly needed 6 days to do so? And would a God this great then need a day of rest after completing this task? The rational answer of course is no. So why did He take 6 days to create, and then rest on the seventh. He did this for the exact reason that He does many of the things we see Him do in scripture… to set an example for us.

The scripture we are about to look at is part of a very familiar chapter of the Bible as it contains the ten commandments and the one we are addressing today, which is the 4th commandment was ordained by God from the beginning of time and essentially lays foundations for this commandment as the most well-known idea previous to the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai. So I hope with this introduction we start with an understanding of the importance that God placed on this commandment from the very beginning.

Text

Let’s look at our text here in Exodus chapter 20 verses 8-11.

8 "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 of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

11 "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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. (Exo 20:8-11 NASB95)

PRAY

Scriptural Response to the Sabbath

Prior to the giving of the law we see in Exodus 16 that the Lord gave the Sabbath to the people. The Sabbath was a gift from the Lord. With this being said, and in order to teach the principle to the people, God made provisions for the people. As they were in the wilderness bread would fall daily from heaven, just enough for one day. But on the sixth day of each week God would bless them with a double portion of the bread in order for the people to be able to collect and prepare the food ahead of time so that the Sabbath could be a day of complete rest and recovery.

But just like every other law that God gave the people, the people misinterpreted it and took it to extremes. The religious leaders of the time actually became oppressive with their interpretation of the law and like they had done so many times, they took a gift that God had given, and made it something strenuous and stressful by chalking the law with strict regulations such as limiting how many steps the people could walk on the Sabbath or limiting the weight of something that they might be allowed to lift.

As time progresses, we begin to see the Lord’s response to the Sabbath as it is being observed and the responses to the incorrect observations of the Sabbath are well worth noting.

In Hosea 2, the Lord has become sick of the people’s observation of the Sabbath as they had turned it into a ritualistic and monotonous observance that did not truly honor God. And the Lord said that He would put an end to their Sabbaths.

In Isaiah 1, the Lord speaks and says to bring your worthless offering no more, and He says that he cannot endure the solemn assembly such as the Sabbath.

The religious leaders oppressed the people with the law, then the people honor the Sabbath in a physical sense, but their hearts despise the ceremonial perception of the law.

So Jesus comes on the scene in Mark 2.

The disciples are picking food for themselves to eat on the Sabbath and the religious leaders of the time ask why they are breaking the law. And Jesus responds, don’t you get it? The Sabbath was made for man, not the other way around. When Jesus came, he came to show us that the law will choke us to death if we do not allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of the law which gives life. Paul would teach the church at Corinth that the letter of the law kills a man, but the Spirit gives life. With this references in mind, let’s look back at our primary text and unpack it a little bit so that we can consider what our response and application should be. First...

REST STARTS WITH WORK

Looking at verse 9 of our passage again today it says, "Six days you shall labor and do all your work”

Six days you shall work

As many of you know I’m kind of a math nerd. And this commandment gives us basic instruction for 7 days. So if the commandment says 6 days you shall work, and 1 day you shall rest, that means that 85% of this commandment is actually telling us to work? There’s no real way around that. We need to be working. If you are in any way capable of attaining any job and you make a choice to continue to stay in a situation that is creating a burden for or taking advantages of others, this is incorrect. If you are here today and you are choosing not to work because you can’t find a job that meets your standards, or you think it does not pay well enough, you need to consider today that you are creating a burden for those around you. So we work to support ourselves and remove the burden from others to support us. But beyond the way our work ethic may or may not effect our society, let’s talk about how our work allows us to rest.

I keep lists. I have plans. I have agendas. I have deadlines. I have appointments. I don’t know about you but I sure do love the endorphin rush that comes from checking off that to do list, or wrapping up my responsibilities for the day, week, or month. I’m not going to lie, when I hear someone say that they struggle to sleep, I wonder if maybe they don’t need to expend a little bit more energy working. When we don’t work we are restless. Restlessness is usually something that is associated with things being off. . There is probably nothing that makes me more restless than a day that seemed unproductive. Ultimately, sometimes we can’t find rest because we are not at rest with the situations in our life. Doing work with purpose, and on purpose to provide for our family, and to bring honor to God, brings rest to our souls and minds and allows us to truly rest as we should.

Now like so many principles in scripture, we have to strike balance between work and rest, and understand that...

BUSYNESS IS NOT A BADGE OF HONOR

We often ask each other how things are going, and we love to reply to each other, oh you know we are busy busy busy. We do this so people don’t think we are lazy, we do this to affirm ourselves in what we are accomplishing. But is that what we want to be able to boast of at the end of this life, that we were busy all the time? When many people think they are boasting by sharing how busy they are, I’ve often wanted to ask, are you spending enough time with your family? Are you spending time with God? Are you doing anything to enjoy life? What example are you setting for your children? Your 10 year old does not want to play on 4 sports teams. You want them to play on 4 teams. Your family doesn’t care about your next promotion. You care about your next promotion. God doesn’t even necessarily care about the success of your ministry; He cares about an intimate relationship between you and Him. I stood by and watched as the last generation of pastors boasted about how much they worked, and now we are also finding out that they get to boast about how they got burnt out, left the ministry early, failed morally, and the next generation didn’t want to follow in their footsteps...

So I have to work, but don’t work too much, how do I know when i work too much, how do i know when I’m not working enough… Well, these are the kinds of questions that God answers when we slow down enough to rest and hear his voice. God made us to have rhythms, to stop once a week and evaluate our pace and our purpose, and by doing so we can have peace… So then we...

REST TO RESET

For sabbath how do i refer back to cell phone

We need to understand today that according to the word of God, the Sabbath was a gift given from God to allow us to recharge our batteries and slowdown from the busyness of life. By doing this we honor God and allow ourselves to be renewed to work for Him.

So why a Sabbath? Why did God say we need to take a day off? Here’s 5 reasons that you need a Sabbath

5 real reasons you need a Sabbath

• 1God will one day hold us each accountable for all the things He created for us to enjoy, but we refused to do so. (The whole garden)

• 2God Humbles our soul on a Sabbath (We think we are doing something, we forget how small we are)

• 3It's good for us to wean ourselves off the need to be needed. For many of us, that will be the beginning of health. (What if you died)

• 4God started each day in the evening, not the morning. Your day does not begin when you get up. It starts when you go to sleep. Rest begins your new day, not coffee. (Reverse sleeping in)

• 5During our time of solitude, we are able to hear from God. (You got this)

Transition

As much as many of us might think we are machines, we most certainly are not. Busyness is not of the devil, it is the devil. It has been said that if the devil cannot cause you to sin, he will cause you to be busy. Many times we are able to look at scripture and easily avoid certain sins because the apparent harm to others is easy to see. For example, we all understand how killing someone is harmful to others. But have we considered lately how our busyness might affect those around us?

We often justify our busyness saying that we are rested enough, or we don’t need a vacation, or we enjoy our work. But what about the people that are close to you? I believe that some of us are so busy that we bring stress to those who are most important in our life, and have not yet realized that just as much as we need to be rested ourselves, the people around us deserve to have well-rested version of us.

We are hard-headed and we need broken down. We need to begin to rest today, before our poor health demands it, before we alienate those around us, before our relationship with God suffers any further.

Closing

Newton’s First law of motion states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and we are no different. During a conversation with a friend they told me that they almost have to work to make themselves sit still. And I thought… that is exactly what we need to do; our rest has to be intentional.

So Jonathan, how do I rest? You do something you enjoy, something that refreshes you. Something that you aren’t required to do. Play golf, go fishing, do some scrapbooking, woodworking, hang out with the kids, go shopping, watch the game, spend a deeper more intimate time in devotion with God,

enjoy life. But for God’s sake, for your sake, for your family’s sake, take a break already.

Oh, does a Sabbath have to be on Sunday? No. If you want to know why not read Colossians 2 and Romans 14. Come to Church on Sunday and be with the family of God. And if Sunday is a good day for you to take your Sabbath then go home and enjoy the day with your family. But the principle is rest and somewhere in this thing we must remember that we are honoring God by taking a day off. He’s offering you a free vacation day every week! Take it! Don’t fight it!

Ask God to restore you, hear his voice, ask Him to slow you down and change the busy lifestyle and habits that are wearing you down.

The #1 solution to prevent and remedy most physical pain in this life is rest. Maybe there’s a chance your mind or spirit could be healed with rest as well.

As we wrap up today I’ll share with you that the biggest revelation on the sabbath for me this week was that when God provided manna to the people in the wilderness he gave enough for every day but twice as much for the sabbath. not only that when they collected extra it got moldy. I wonder how much cruddy work we do when we exhaust ourselves or even more I wonder how many times we have missed out on a double portion of what God wants to give because we aren’t giving Him space to give it to us? A renewed mind, body, spirit, and outlook are all waiting for you on the other side of sabbath rest.

LET’S PRAY

Baptism and Local Preacher’s License

STEVEN NELSON LOCAL LICENSE

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Licensing Process

Read Manual p114-115 points 1,2, and 5

After holding local license for 2 years and completing various other requirements the candidate can apply for council license. In a similar fashion after that the candidate can apply for ordination after holding a council license for a year and completing another set of requirements such as educational requirements, interviews, and approvals from both the local church and the denomination.

(STEVE AND DIANA NELSON Invite candidate wife, and family up, Wife and candidate standing, family in front row. Candid talk about relationship - What their role will be – Steve’s been walking alongside Pastor Ed Davis (with Malcolm and Cindy today) an end goal of teaching and perhaps preaching, as we are all to become ministers of the gospel... speaking to Steve and everyone at the same time OBEDIENCE even against rationale, perception. Always be people who question your qualification or your call, but refuse to listen to the voices that oppose the voice of God that you know you have heard. then invite everyone up in family for prayer. Anointing Oil

After prayer present certificate