Kingdom Living: Embracing Sabbath as a Core Value Trust
Kingdom Living Sabbath • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Last week, we saw two different kinds of work. We see work before the fall of man and work after the fall of man.
Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath
If we refuse rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die.
Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days because it liberates us from the need to be finished.
I hesitate to do this but I am going to do it. Here are some practical ways to Sabbath. Remember scripture does not lay out an exact how to. These are some suggestions… I can hear some of you now saying to your wife our husband the pastor said… and then quote what I am about to say but fail to mention that these are just some ideas.
What you should not do…
Work:
Resist the urge to get in a little extra work.
A book I was listening to this week said that during Sabbath their husband would work but not the normal work they do through their week. They did work that did not require the emotional energy that their normal career requires.
Not doing like yard work, laundry, general cleaning, or balancing the checkbook
Shop:
The idea to be full and complete is to resist the urge for more. Do this by not shopping.
Take time to enjoy the things you already have. Look around and appreciate this. Be thankful for all the Lord has provided.
Technology
Put you phone down and turn the ringer on
Take the watch off
Turn the news off
Take a break from kids activities
Some things to do…
Bible reading
Catch up on your Bible reading plan.
Study for an upcoming lesson
Prayer
Take some time to pray
Concentrate on slowing your breathing down and just sitting in silence
Worship
Sabbath is a time you can experience the grace of God. You discover God loves you not because of what you do. You stop and settle in and the Lord loves you regardless of how much stuff you get done.
This was the biggest lesson during my time the church gifted me with of Sabbatical. It was driven home over and over during that time.
A weekly Sabbath practice can teach us this lesson of God’s goodness
Cook a meal
Take the time to prepare a delicious meal and celebrate with family
Invite a friend over to fellowship with
Read a book
Take a nap
Go for a hike
Sabbath (שַׁבָּת, shabbath):
It means that you STOP or to cease from
In Genesis 1 we read of the account of God’s creation. We see the beginning and the end. We also see this rhythm of work and rest.
Then all of this leads to day 7 where God Shabbaths that is he Stops and ceases from work.
He blesses day 7 and makes it Holy or fills it with His presence. God creates then he leads to the ultimate day 7 where he says just rest and enjoy.
Adam and Eve mess this up by disobeying the Lord. We are then introduced to the second kind of work where you will labor and toil over the earth.
Exodus 16 set up
In the beginning of the book of Exodus it parallels the creation narrative. Pharoah comes to power and the Israelites are multiplying. The Lord is blessing them.
The Egyptians get nervous about this multiplication and so they start to suppress the Israelites (God’s chosen people).
This causes the Israelites to grow even more. In order to stop them, Pharoah orders for all Israelite male babies to be killed.
So you have darkness, death and disorder. The creation story starts with disorder and then God brings order to the Earth. and leads to the ultimate 7th day rest.
In Exodus, God raises up a boy through water (Moses) to deliver his people out of slavery.
10 plagues happen and then finally Pharoah lets the people of God go.
He delivers them through the Read Sea on dry ground in this amazing account.
What happens next
22 Then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea, and they went out to the Wilderness of Shur. They journeyed for three days in the wilderness without finding water.
23 They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water at Marah because it was bitter—that is why it was named Marah.
24 The people grumbled to Moses, “What are we going to drink?”
25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he threw it into the water, the water became drinkable. He made a statute and ordinance for them at Marah and He tested them there.
26 He said, “If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in His eyes, pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am Yahweh who heals you.”
Immediately God’s chosen people start to complain. Who can blame them. They have been 3 days without water in the dessert.
God provided for them crossing the Red Sea but it is so easy to forget what God has done in the past. For them, it was 3 days.
1 The entire Israelite community departed from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt.
2 The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!”
Sat: b’shevteno
(beh-sheev-teh-nu) the three letters of Shabbath are in this word.
When we shabbat by pots of meat in Egypt.
We ate bread to fullness or completeness
Sheba or Seven:
Seven means fullness or completeness
So they see the wilderness and this wondering as the opposite of the 7th day rest. They also view Egypt as Eden.
We sat around meat pots and were full and complete.
If you read chapter 1 of Exodus you will see that this is not the case. They were not experiencing Shabbath or fullness and completeness.
How easy it is for our minds to get so twisted and believe that the hard labor of Egypt or Slavery of Egypt for these Israelites is the goal of life.
The portrayal is that humans create the very opposite of what God wants for us but our expectations and desires become so bent and distorted that we can look back on terrible things as the best thing we ever had.
Tim Mackey
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This way I will test them to see whether or not they will follow My instructions.
5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”
In the realm of death God is going to provide bread from Heaven.
He is giving abundance for you that you don’t have to create in the middle of the dessert or death. He is providing for you daily for your needs.
Notice the pattern that he is going to provide it in.
Where does this pattern come from?
Genesis 1.
I want to draw your attention to something in scripture for just a second. After God finishes each day, it ends with this statement
Genesis 1:25 (HCSB)
25 So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
God says of days 1-5 he saw all that he had made and it was good.
Now look at day 6
31 God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
Day 6 God saw all that He had made and it was VERY good. Scholars have focused on this word VERY as God providing enough on the 6th day for the 7th day.
On the 6th day, you gather twice as much. So that on the 7th day you don’t go out and gather but you trust that God has given you enough on the 6th day to last on the 7th day.
God has provided enough for you that you can rest for a day
Just rest and enjoy it
Trust that God has provided enough
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites: “This evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt;
7 in the morning you will see the Lord’s glory because He has heard your complaints about Him. For who are we that you complain about us?”
Verses 9-14
The Lord’s Glory appears and says in the morning I will provide bread from Heaven for you
Quail comes out of heaven covers the camp. There is a layer of dew on the camp and when the dew is lifted there in the desert or the wilderness is these thin wafers or bread from heaven.
15 When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.
Manna: What is it?
The Lord has given you to eat
or
I give to you for food.
Same phrase as Genesis 1 and the 6th day. I give this to you for food.
16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each person needs to eat. You may take two quarts per individual, according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’ ”
17 So the Israelites did this. Some gathered a lot, some a little.
18 When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat.
Jim has expressed to me on several occasions that we don’t understand it but God provides what you need for where you are.
In other parts of the world, people live on a lot less than what we live on here in the United States. Working with Alexis and JoHana it takes a lot less to live in El Salvador then it does here.
22 On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, four quarts apiece, and all the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses.
23 He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, and set aside everything left over to be kept until morning.’ ”
24 So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t smell or have any maggots in it.
25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you won’t find any in the field.
26 For six days you may gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”
27 Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any.
28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commands and instructions?
29 Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day He will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.”
30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
This is before the 10 Commandments
So every day you gather what you need for the day.
On the 6th day you will gather enough for two days. You trust that God will provide enough for you that will sustain you on the 7th day.
Can you trust that there will be enough and that you can rest and trust God’s provision?
The seventh day is the day to trust in God’s provision even when my circumstances tell a different story.
Will you believe that God is provider?
Sabbath has the potential to point us to our ultimate provider.
It can remind us that God is providing for us.
Sabbath can remind us that God can provide enough manna for us in 6 days to stop and rest on the 7th.
Do we truly Trust that Jesus can provide?
9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.