Remember to Shabbat

One of my favorite shows of all time is Seinfeld and when I think back on it there is so much of that show that wouldn’t work anymore in today’s society; sure there are some things you cannot joke about anymore because its not politically correct anymore. Then there are the episodes where just having a cell phone would have fixed all of the problems and it wouldn’t have been as funny to watch what happened afterward. One of my favorite episodes though, and if we sit down and watch Seinfeld together, I could probably say this about every episode that would come on, is one called the Friars club. Kramer has decided he is going to try Leonardo da Vinci’s polyphasic sleep schedule which is called the Uberman sleep cycle. So, what this amounts to is you take a 20 minute nap every 4 hours, and that is all you sleep all day. So at the end of the day you are only sleeping 2 hours instead of the 6-8 most of us try to get each night. He was excited because this meant he had more hours to be productive during the day and if there is anything Kramer needed it was to be more productive. While he was in his sleep deprived state this is where he came up with is amazing idea for a restaurant that only served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Eventually in the episode, Kramer crashes from sleep deprivation and falls asleep on his date who is a part of the mob and thinks he is dead. So, she calls her friends who put him in blanket and throw him in the Hudson River where he finally wakes up. It’s a classic episode for sure.

I’m sure in this room there are a ton of us who, much like Kramer, wish we could get more sleep, we struggle to get to sleep or stay asleep, and maybe sometimes we find ourselves like him falling asleep at the wrong time; for some of you that might be in the next few minutes. Studies have told us for years we need at least eight hours of sleep per night for our body to heal and function, more recently that number was dropped to at least six hours a night, which I think is a sign of how the world has started to change. When we don’t get the sleep we need it has some horrible effects on our overall health. We can have memory problems, high blood pressure, mood changes, weight gain, depression, diabetes, fatigue, and those are just a few things it can cause us to have. I read one doctor who said he believes a lot of problems in today’s society comes from a lack of sleep because we are all so much more short fused and thinking less clearly than we should.

Today, we continue our series as we look at what we call the Ten Words, or the decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, and we have spent a good deal of time discussing how these were never meant to be guard rails for us to live our lives inside but were intended for us have the life he had wanted for us from the beginning, to have a full life through Him. The first two weeks he showed us his character, he told the Israelites he was the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they should have no other gods in addition to Him or ever try to make an idol that would represent Him because no matter what they created it would fall short, and as the world looked at it they wouldn’t have a clear picture of who He is. Instead, he intended for us to live lives who would show the world Him, through our living in covenant with Him and with the world around us they would see the glory of God in the way we live. Really, all of the ten words paint the picture of the character of God and who he really is, and today is no different.

Much like telling his people he was the one who brought them out of Egypt, today he is going to talk about his work in all of creation, how he created everything in 6 days and on the 7th day he rested. Just understand God is repeatedly showing His people his nature. Really, as we have walked through these ten words this one is probably the hardest one for the people in our culture, myself included; it is a struggle for us. Our society is tethered to work like its some sort of badge of honor. If you were going to work tomorrow, or if you remember going back into the office on Monday after you had been off, you will know one of the first questions your coworkers are going to ask would be, “so what did you do this weekend?” And in that space we feel the need to fill that question with all kinds of activities and work. If we say we did nothing, then what will people think about me, we must stay busy and on task all of the time, if we aren’t grinding we are dying the world likes to say. Somehow we have gotten to this place where we think the people who work the most without taking a break are the best people, they are the most virtuous, the reason people succeed is because they haven’t stopped grinding man. It is almost to the point we think if you rest at all you are lazy, or even sinful.

And I would like to say that is just the mentality of people not in the family of God, but it would be a lie, this idea is just as prevalent in the church. You ever heard someone say something like, “Well the devil never rested so why should I?” There are a couple of things with that, first, I didn’t realize the devil was supposed to be my example.

The other thing you hear when it comes to this idea of resting, especially in men in the church they love to quote a paraphrase of 2 Thess 3:10

2 Thessalonians 3:10 ESV

10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

And try to use it as some kind of justification to never sit and rest, because we have to eat, and we just have to stay busy. In our culture, we have kept ourselves so busy and overcommitted we cannot find a way to rest. There are chores to do, there are ball games to attend, there are kids clubs we have to go to, there are extended family members we have to visit every weekend, there’s extra work we picked up - sitting for more than five minutes just seems to be a luxury. We are running ourselves ragged, burning the candle at both ends, but this is never the way God intended our lives to be. From the beginning of creation he laid out the entire plan on how we were supposed to live and function in life with others and with Him, and he gives us the way in which we are supposed to do this in the fourth word.

Exodus 20:8 ESV

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

And here we find the Hebrew word Shabbat, and it really isn’t a reference to a specific day, but more to a practice, a lifestyle, or mindset, discipline maybe the best word. And the idea is to cease all our activity for three things, to worship, to reflect on his provisions, and submission his ways.

So, here is the rest of the word today.

Exodus 20:9–11 ESV

9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and 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.

We have to remember the context in which these words are coming, God is giving these words to his people who have just recently been freed from a life of slavery. Their whole lives and existence has been work, work, work, never stop, in fact, they were constantly ramping up the amount of work these slaves needed to do every day. You can only begin to imagine what this idea had to have felt like to these people and changing their identity so dramatically. There were some stiff penalties for not remembering to shabbat. We talk about the man who doesn’t work doesn’t eat, but the man who doesn’t rest is called a sinner. Look at what Moses told the people later in Exodus 31:14

Exodus 31:14–15 ESV

14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.

That sounds really bad and I can hear some of you now saying this isn’t all that important we don’t have to keep up with it because we are under grace right? Well the writer of Hebrews would disagree with you. Look at what he says in Hebrews 4:9-11

Hebrews 4:9–11 ESV

9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

And Jesus much more showed us how, just like with all the laws God gave us it isn’t about what we aren’t supposed to do, but how we are truly supposed to live. What we tend to do is become really pharisaical when it comes to all of these words, we try to figure out how far we are allowed to go and ask all the questions what can I not do, and still be safe with God. This is what happened when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand on the sabbath and the pharisees had asked him if it was okay for him to work on the sabbath since Jesus had healed the man. Some scholars will tell you they believe the Pharisees had set the man up to be there in an attempt to trap Jesus into doing something and therefore breaking the law. Look at how Jesus responds to their question.

Matthew 12:11–12 ESV

11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

So maybe the answer isn’t us looking at what we shouldn’t do, but looking at what this practice of shabbat was really about. The instruction was to set this time aside to really worship, to reflect on what he has given us, and trust in his process,and that part of it has not ended. The intention was for us to set aside time to really worship God for who he is and we can all be guilty if we are not truly worshipping God, because listen we can show up to this place every single week to check something off of a list but if we aren’t really worshipping God we are missing the entire point of what this day was supposed to be about. We live in this world where we have stuffed it with so many things we are just used to having a checklist of items that need to be done one after the other, and we are in danger of not keeping the sabbath if we have made Sunday morning worship just another thing on the list that needs to be checked off. This isn’t meant to be more work. What I mean is it isn’t meant to just be some sort of task, it is meant to be a real time of worship where despite everything going on around us we stop and thank him for all he has done.

That’s the whole reason he gave us this word to live by because he knew to our own devices we would just continue to fill our lives with busyness and never stop. When we never stop we start to think we are able to do all of these things on our own, it is me who got me this job, because I worked so hard for it; it is me who got myself into this better posture because I made all the right connections; it is me who got myself healthy because I went to all the right doctors, and the list could go on and on. The busier we tend to be, and the more we look at ourselves, the more we see ourselves as the key player in everything happening in our lives, and God knew we needed this time to stop everything and worship him for who he is and what he is doing.

Secondly, What that shabbat means is not only worshipping him for who he is but reflecting on his provisions. With this word we see the second time God reminding them who he is and what he has done. He is the God who freed them from Egypt and he is the creator of everything. He wants them to take time and thank Him for that, because listen it would be easy for us to just come and worship him and set aside some time to do that but we also have to thank him for all that he is given us. This goes back to us never stopping and staying busy like we talked about earlier, it is so easy when we are busy and never stopping for us to think we are some big somebody, but God tells us we have to stop and thank him for all the good in our lives, this is part of the practice of shabbat. This may not be like we like to do around the dinner table at thanksgiving where everyone sits and says one thing they are thankful for, not that that would be a bad idea, but it what it may look like for you is really reflecting on all the good he has done in your life. So many times it takes hindsight to see where God has been good and what he has done because in the middle of it our faith wavers and we think he is not with us, but as we look in the rearview mirror we can see what he has done.

That job you prayed for that it turned out the company closed quickly and you would have been without a job; that was God at work. That person in high school you prayed God would keep you with forever because they were the greatest person you ever met in your life and it all fell apart, now when you see their posts on facebook you are thankful God didn’t answer Yes to your prayer, that is God at work. Or maybe its that sickness you prayed he would help you to overcome and he did it. Maybe you had that rough stretch in one of your relationships and you asked God to intervene and put it back together, and you came through and he restored that in only a way he could. We have to take time to reflect and think about how good he has been to us, because as James 1:17 says

James 1:17 ESV

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Its all him, we had nothing to do with it, its all his gifts in our life. The air you breath, the heart beating in your chest, its all a gift from him.

The other thing shabbat is for is for submission, trusting his will in your life is better than your own. You know what one of my kids favorite fast food places to eat is? Chick-fil-a. And its a place where we can get something for everyone even the picky eaters and it seems like the time I crave it the most is on Sunday. Have you ever noticed that? You may not think about chik-fil-a all week long, but you sit here and listen to me preach and you think, man some of those nuggets sound good, or for me its that spicy chicken sandwich no bun with extra pickles. Man it’s so good. But when Truitt Cathy and his brother opened the new restaurant he said this in his memoir “We were not so committed to financial success, however, that we were willing to abandon our principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this was our decision to close on Sundays. [My brother] Ben and I had attended Sunday school and church all our lives, and we were not about to stop just because we owned a restaurant.”

And 2024 was the first year in three years that Chick-fil-a was not the top grossing restaurant chain by the end of the year, thats while some experts say they lose 1.2 billion dollars a year by not opening on Sundays.

See, the truth is they really believed submission to God was more important than their bottom line and what God has done is blessed them more in their six days of work than most other companies in their 7 days of work. The truth is part of this shabbat is trusting God and believing his plan for rest is better than us working ourselves to death. Believing and trusting that even when I take this time for Him, he will make me more effective in the rest of my life than I could have been on my own without Him

The truth is this morning I could have come and done a huge list of things we could do on the Sabbath, we could have listed more prayer, more reading scripture, and dug in deep on all of those, but the real question this morning church is are you going to take the time? Are you really going to put him as more important than everything else in the world your extended family, your job, your kids game, and take the time for him? And it isn’t a specific day, its just taking the time to give him what he wants and deserves. Will you give it to him? Will you start today?

That also means Submission. Trusting he can do more in the six than I can in the seven.