Sabbath is a New Way to Work

Intro

When is Sabbath?

What do I DO during sabbath? - Sabbath is a time to prepare for a temptation we all face. A temptation God’s people faced, and one Jesus faced.

The temptationi s revealed in a test in Exodus 16.

For context, In Israel’s journey out of Egypt, right after they left Elim (Ex 15:27), which was a place of 70 Palm Trees, and 12 springs. Trees and water is the type of language from Eden and we should know from last week’s discussion about the number seven, that seeing seventy should get our attention. The people had just left a little Eden and now they are off again into the desert. Right away the complaining begins. We can give the Israelites a hard time about this, we can point out they are days removed from seeing incredible miracles and experience saving from the mighty hand of God. Which makes this story maddening to read, because we want to say, “Come on, get it together!” but then, this is a commentary on the human condition. It doesn’t take much for us to lose our focus on God, which is why we need a weekly Sabbath. Each week we need an intentional time to be reminded of what is most true and refocus.

Hangry story?

We do the same thing.

Exodus 16:4–5 NIV

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

Here again is our pattern, for six days they are to collect the bread from heaven, but the food will only last for that day and then on the sixth day they are to collect twice as much because something different is going to happen on the seventh day. God says this is a test.

What is the test? The test for them is the same test for us. This test has to do with the temptation the Sabbath is trying to prepare us for. Before we understand the test, let’s look at the bread. The people go to bed that night, get up the next morning and the bread shows up.

The Bread:

Exodus 16:14–15 NIV

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

Manna is the “what is it” bread.

Often God provides for us, but we miss it. We don’t see it as provision. We question it and are ungrateful for it.

Exodus 16:19–30 NIV

19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. 21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’ ” 24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” 27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

The word for rest there in verse 30 is the word from last week, Shabbat, to cease, or to stop. The people are in need. They are alone in the desert, they have no food. If you are Type-A, a planner, or a worrier, which I am all three, now is the time to horde the food, ration it out and make a plan for survival. God says no. God says the plan is to trust Him. He provides daily, but you can’t carry today’s provision into tomorrow. Except on the sixth day. Then, you are expected to carry enough for two days. Then the cycle repeats and you have to trust God again each day.

Principles of Manna:

§ It required daily trust in God to provide.

§ Whatever they were given, it was enough.

§ They had to work to collect what was provided.

§ It followed the rhythm of creation: six days on, one day off.

THE TEST — do we trust God?

Do you know Jesus faced the same temptation we face in choosing to trust God and not ourselves? Just before He began His earthly ministry Jesus faced a series of temptations. Matthew tells us about them. Here was Jesus first.

Matthew 4:1–4 NIV

1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

“I sin when I do not trust that God has my best interest at heart” Michael Mangis

Jesus is quoting from Moses about the manna from Deuteronomy when Moses reminded the people:

Deuteronomy 8:3 NIV

3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

God told Moses, all of this manna was provided to test them. What was the test? The test was to trust in God. They had to trust God would bring the manna each morning. Think about this with me. This went on for 40 years. 40 years of waking up each morning and collecting manna for the day for six days and then 40 years of the seventh day not having manna and having to trust that the next day God would bring the manna back. For 40 years.

If I was among the people, I can promise you I would have struggled with being anxious those 40 years, or at least impatient. For 40 years we aren’t putting down roots. For 40 years we aren’t establishing the family business. For 40 years we aren’t getting anywhere. For 40 years we live and rely only on God’s daily bread.

Here is what this story is wanting us to understand. We still live the same way they did. We just don’t realize it. When Jesus taught us to pray, part of the prayer He gave us is this, “Give us today our daily bread.” A direct reference to the manna story. The trouble for many of us is we have created a world where in our abundance, we don’t look to God daily for provision and thus we aren’t aware of how He actually does provide for us daily. In other words, we receive manna each day from God, we just don’t realize it is manna. We don’t realize “what it is” and then, worse, we assume we produced it.

But what about hard work? Yes! Working hard is good and wise. We should work at something with our whole selves, working as if we were working directly for God. I am all about hard work. I have two Masters Degrees and a Doctorate, I used to work for a management consulting firm and had billable hours, and I train for marathons for fun. I’m all about hard work. The manna on the ground still had to be collected. God didn’t bake bread and leave it at people’s door, they still had to get out there each day and collect it. Here is what is also true. I live in a station where I was able to go to school. God enabled me to learn to read and write. God allowed me to get hired by that firm. God has given me enough health to be able to run. Yes, I steward what God gives me and I’m responsible for that, but I should never assume I created the manna. I just received it.

In this way, Sabbath gives us a new way of working: receiving over achieving.

The people received manna from God. They didn’t compete with each other to see who had more manna than their neighbor; you couldn’t keep it more than a day. They woke each day to receive what God had for them, they didn’t wake up anxious for how they were going to provide. They trusted God and He provided each day for them.

God does the same for us.

I want to encourage you to think about a need you have right now in your life.

It could be financial, health-related, school-related, relational, emotional, or spiritual. It could be a need that came from your fault or no fault of your own. If you have your Sabbath guide you could even write down that need. Then write down:

God will provide.

This is not laziness. It is trust. God will provide what you need, when you need it. This is why the manna was a test. It was a test to see if the people would trust God to provide.

Kyle’s Version:

Made For This Sabbath is a New Way to Work

We are in week two of a series on rest. Last weekend we kicked off this series by exploring one of the Ten Commandments, the command to take a day of Sabbath. We learned last weekend the Sabbath command was never about a bunch of legalist dos and don’ts, unfortunately it became that, but that was not the original intent. Sabbath has always been about us taking an intentional pause, a focused time of rest, in the midst of our week to focus on enjoying God, enjoying others, and enjoying our life. We saw last week how this beautiful theme of Sabbath is woven into the story of creation. We ended last week with an invitation to embrace the Sabbath Challenge. Have you signed up yet? If not, I want to encourage you to scan this QR code, sign-up, and we will email you each week throughout this series to help you implement an intentional time of Sabbath rest into your weekly rhythm.

A few people asked me last week, “You work on Sundays, so when is your Sabbath?” which is a fair question. For me, I take my Sabbath on Fridays, generally it is about noon on Friday to noon on Saturday because that time tends to work best with our kid’s sports and activities and my work schedule. Since Sunday is such a big day that means I have to organize my week to be very purposeful to be able to hold a Sabbath; it has actually been a lot of work for me. So, this week, if you were struggling to find a time for Sabbath, keep going! The first few times you try to implement this you will be surprised at how challenging it is to wrestle this into your calendar. But keep wrestling, it is worth it! Now, others of you held your time of Sabbath and you might have wondered, “Okay…now what? What do I actually DO during Sabbath?” Sabbath is a time to prepare us for a temptation we all face. It is a temptation God’s people faced, and one Jesus faced. The temptation is revealed in a test, found in Exodus 16.

In their journey out of Egypt, the people had just left Elim (Exodus 15:27), which was a place of 70 Palm Trees, and 12 springs. Trees and water is the type of language from Eden and we should know from last week’s discussion about the number seven, that seeing seventy should get our attention. The people had just left a little Eden and now they are off again into the desert. Right away the complaining begins. We can give the Israelites a hard time about this, we can point out they are days removed from seeing incredible miracles and experience saving from the mighty hand of God. Which makes this story maddening to read, because we want to say, “Come on, get it together!” but then, this is a commentary on the human condition. It doesn’t take much for us to lose our focus on God, which is why we need a weekly Sabbath. Each week we need an intentional time to be reminded of what is most true and refocus.

Plus, the people were hungry. When we are hungry, we can get grumpy. Several years ago Steph and I were in DC with a friend and his wife for some meetings and I had the brilliant idea of taking the Metro around DC to avoid renting a car. It all worked fine, except we missed one of the trains on our way to dinner and it was Saturday night and we had to wait like a half hour for the next one. My friend was a little irritated. His wife opens up her purse and starts handing him snacks. Stephanie looks at her and she says, “I do the same thing for Kyle.” Pain, either from hunger and thirst, or pain from loss of relationships or loneliness or anxiety, can cause us to focus on ourselves and complain. This is exactly what is happening to the people of Israel. God responds to the complaints with a test.

The Test: Exodus 16:4-5

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

Here again is our pattern, for six days they are to collect the bread from heaven, but the food will only last for that day and then on the sixth day they are to collect twice as much because something different is going to happen on the seventh day. God says this is a test.

What is the test? The test for them is the same test for us. This test has to do with the temptation the Sabbath is trying to prepare us for. Before we understand the test, let’s look at the bread. The people go to bed that night, get up the next morning and the bread shows up.

The Manna: Exodus 16:14-15

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”

When the people saw God’s provision, they first didn’t realize it as God’s provision. Which is insightful for us. Often in our lives we aren’t immediately aware of how God has given us something we need and it actually takes someone else to point out God’s provision. This is especially true with this idea of rest and taking a day of Sabbath. When we first hear about it, or if you tried to put it into practice last week, you might not have felt this was God’s provision. It might have felt awkward or strange, or you might have even wondered, “Why are we doing this?” God’s provisions can be this way, at first we need to trust God and take Him at His Word before we start to realize His ways are actually for our good. So it was with the manna. The name, manna, by the way literally means, “What is it?”

This bread has a direct connection to the idea of Sabbath. There is a little clue in another book of the Bible that describes the qualities of the manna. In the book of Numbers we learn more about how the people used manna and also what it looked like.

The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil. Numbers 11:7-8 (NIV)

What is resin? This word appears only twice in the Bible. Once here in Numbers describing manna and one other time. Based on its limited usage, we believe the word is referring to a gum-like substance which had a strong fragrance with a white or transparent appearance. Do you know the other time it is mentioned? In Genesis, describing the creation account. Speaking about the land God had just created, Genesis says:

The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there. Genesis 2:12 (NIV)

I think this is so clever. Last week we saw how in the creation account in Genesis 1, God speaks ten times, previewing the Ten Commandments. Before those Commandments are given the people in their exodus need food and God provides bread from Heaven, bread from Eden. This is bread God designed and provided for the people. And the bread, in fitting with God’s design, follows the rhythm of creation.

The Rhythm of Creation: Exodus 16:19-30

19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. 21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’” 24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” 27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

The word for rest there in verse 30 is the word from last week, Shabbat, to cease, or to stop. The people are in need. They are alone in the desert, they have no food. If you are Type-A, a planner, or a worrier, which I am all three, now is the time to horde the food, ration it out and make a plan for survival. God says no. God says the plan is to trust Him. He provides daily, but you can’t carry today’s provision into tomorrow. Except on the sixth day. Then, you are expected to carry enough for two days. Then the cycle repeats and you have to trust God again each day.

This rhythm, by the way, is given to the people before God gave them the Ten Commandments. We haven’t yet reached the mountain of Sinai, but God is teaching the people how to live as people of the Sabbath before the official Commandment of the Sabbath is given.

This should be a clue to us that Sabbath is more than some outdated Commandment which we no longer need to follow. Rather, Sabbath is a way of living. The manna was given to the people to teach them about how to embrace the rhythm of creation and the cycle of the Sabbath. In this way the provision of the manna was to teach the people how to live. It serves to teach us, still today, how we are to live.

Principles of Manna:

§ It required daily trust in God to provide.

§ Whatever they were given, it was enough.

§ They had to work to collect what was provided.

§ It followed the rhythm of creation: six days on, one day off.

God told Moses, all of this manna was provided to test them. What was the test? The test was to trust in God. They had to trust God would bring the manna each morning. Think about this with me. This went on for 40 years. 40 years of waking up each morning and collecting manna for the day for six days and then 40 years of the seventh day not having manna and having to trust that the next day God would bring the manna back. For 40 years.

If I was among the people, I can promise you I would have struggled with being anxious those 40 years, or at least impatient. For 40 years we aren’t putting down roots. For 40 years we aren’t establishing the family business. For 40 years we aren’t getting anywhere. For 40 years we live and rely only on God’s daily bread.

Here is what this story is wanting us to understand. We still live the same way they did. We just don’t realize it. When Jesus taught us to pray, part of the prayer He gave us is this, “Give us today our daily bread.” A direct reference to the manna story. The trouble for many of us is we have created a world where in our abundance, we don’t look to God daily for provision and thus we aren’t aware of how He actually does provide for us daily. In other words, we receive manna each day from God, we just don’t realize it is manna. We don’t realize “what it is” and then, worse, we assume we produced it.

Last summer we took the kids on a Short-Term Mission Trip to Cuba to visit some of the work we at Wooddale support there. The people on that island are lovely, but they are in a terrible situation. They have almost no industry, a very poor and instable economy, a crumbling infrastructure and a government which keeps them disconnected from the outside world and oppressed. It is a heartbreaking situation and I’m so thankful for the small impact our teams are able to make and I’m especially hopefully for the Christians and churches who are preaching the gospel. We help to fund a program that brings food to physically disabled people in a town in the middle of Cuba. Here is a photo from the food distribution area [Photo 1]. On one of the trips I went with our team to deliver this food into the homes of those in need. Here is one of the recipients. [Photo 2]. We were standing in this person’s home, standing because they didn’t have any chairs, what you are seeing is the entire home. And the thought occurred to me, were it not for the grace of God, this could be me. The people in that village aren’t in this situation because they were bad at business, were lazy, or did a bunch of immoral things. They were just born where they were born and have zero opportunities. What did I do that I was born in Kansas City to two parents who knew and loved Jesus? Nothing. Just like they haven’t done anything to be born into a dysfunctional government system in a village in the middle of Cuba.

They are far more aware of manna than I am. Both of us are manna recipients. Theirs is very tangible, but for many of us, we are largely unaware of just how much God has provided for us and continues to provide for us.

But what about hard work? Yes! Working hard is good and wise. We should work at something with our whole selves, working as if we were working directly for God. I am all about hard work. I have two Masters Degrees and a Doctorate, I used to work for a management consulting firm and had billable hours, and I train for marathons for fun. I’m all about hard work. The manna on the ground still had to be collected. God didn’t bake bread and leave it at people’s door, they still had to get out there each day and collect it. Here is what is also true. I live in a station where I was able to go to school. God enabled me to learn to read and write. God allowed me to get hired by that firm. God has given me enough health to be able to run. Yes, I steward what God gives me and I’m responsible for that, but I should never assume I created the manna. I just received it.

The Sabbath helps gives me this perspective.

Sabbath is a time to review game tape.

I love watching NFL quarterbacks. As soon as they come to the sideline after an offensive series, there is a coach who hands them a tablet and they are looking at pictures of the field and tape of the game to help them see what they need to see before they get back on the field. That is what the Sabbath is for us. It is an intentional time to pause our work and look for where God is providing. It is a time to stop the hurried and frantic pace and see what we’ve been missing. Sabbath helps us to see differently the rest of the week.

In this way, Sabbath gives us a new way of working: receiving over achieving.

The people received manna from God. They didn’t compete with each other to see who had more manna than their neighbor; you couldn’t keep it more than a day. They woke each day to receive what God had for them, they didn’t wake up anxious for how they were going to provide. They trusted God and He provided each day for them.

God does the same for us.

I want to encourage you to think about a need you have right now in your life.

It could be financial, health-related, school-related, relational, emotional, or spiritual. It could be a need that came from your fault or no fault of your own. If you have your Sabbath guide you could even write down that need. Then write down:

God will provide.

This is not laziness. It is trust. God will provide what you need, when you need it. This is why the manna was a test. It was a test to see if the people would trust God to provide.

Do you know Jesus faced the same temptation we face in choosing to trust God and not ourselves? Just before He began His earthly ministry Jesus faced a series of temptations. Matthew tells us about them. Here was Jesus first.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:1-4 (NIV)

Jesus is quoting from Moses about the manna from Deuteronomy when Moses reminded the people:

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV)

What was the temptation about? Jesus had the power to make the rocks bread. The temptation was, would He trust His Heavenly Father to provide for Him or would He be His own provider?

This is the same temptation we face. Will we trust God to provide for us or will we trust ourselves? Sabbath reminds us, we were made to receive, not achieve.