No Time To Rest...?

Intro

Exodus 31:12–14 ESV

12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 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.

Exodus 31:17 ESV

17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ”

Why did God command us to keep the sabbath?

Why does God command us to do anything?

There is always a really good reason behind the ways of God, whether they are big things or small things there is always a reason. More than that there is always a reason that benefits the concerned party.

When God asks us to do something, its not ever for His benefit. God doesn’t need anything from us. A couple of weeks ago we were in a series called the blessed life. We were discussing tithing and what that looks like in a believers life. God asks for the first portion what we make, not because he wants our money or resources but because He wants to know that we will say yes to Him so that He can bless us. Then, in turn we can bless others with what God blessed us with. It’s all about God knowing the best thing for us and wanting that best.

What is the thing God wants to bless us with when we keep the sabbath? Why does God want us to rest? Not only rest, but take an entire day and dedicate it to God and doing anything else but work?

When I was in college I took a couple counselling classes and my professor would talk about three different types of activities that make up our lives. There are green light activities which are activities that aren’t depleting our energy. Then there are yellow light activities which are activities like your house hold chores and things that just need to get done but aren’t that mentally taxing. Then there are the red light activities. These activities are the ones that drain us and leave us feeling exhausted. These are most often work related activities.

The idea behind the red, yellow and green light activities is that each individual person has a certain tolerance for the red and yellow activities before they’re exhausted. Then once that persons tolerance for red and yellow is used up… when the tank is empty so to speak, they need to engage in green light activities to refill.

I needed to learn how to do this but it was a hard concept to nail down. When you’re in school full time, as a student you often talk about the triangle of student life. Sleep, School, Friends… and you can only have two of those. More often than not you choose school and friends, but this is not a healthy red, yellow, green light balance. Hanging out with friends has the potential to be a green light activity, but when you are doing that when you have school deadlines, not doing school and being with friends is slightly stressful, making the supposed green light activity into a yellow one and as such, it still drains the tank.

I ended up getting to a place in my schooling where I was burnt out emotionally, mentally, and physically because I never actually stopped and rested. Not only that, I didn’t keep a sabbath and it bit me in the butt.

As human beings we need to realize how much red and yellow we can have in our life before we need green. The problem is, the way our society functions and the way we work makes it so that not only do we not know how much red and yellow light activities we can handle, we have no way to learn the signs that show us how full our tank is because we are constantly trained to ignore those signs.

I feel sick but you know, I can’t stay home from work because it’s just a cold and I can handle it. I also need the money so a sick day isn’t an option…

Meanwhile you’re saying this but you have a hard core man cold and your brain and body is functioning at 1/2 strength so in reality, taking one day to listen to your body and get better is much more productive because you will take a full day off and then be back to work rather than working 3-4 days at half capacity because you’re sick.

You’ve had a busy day at the office and you’re stressed because of an upcoming deadline so you’ve taken your work home so you can do a little bit more after dinner… after dinner your 3 year old son wants to play but you’re so stressed and so pre-occupied with your deadline that your scale of importance is all slurred and work becomes more important than taking 15-20 minutes with your son which would not only contribute to the health of your family but also ease the stress of the deadline because you took a break.

God knows that we need to be rejuvenated. He knows that we need to stop. He created us after all, so He knows exactly how much we can do and think and stress before we can’t do anything properly.

The Sabbath was created for us

The sabbath was created to give people rest. It was for restoration to happen when we couldn’t be restored in our day to day because of busy schedules.

The interactions we see in Mark 2:27 come about because the pharisees were upset at the disciples for plucking heads of grain to eat while walking through the grain fields. They said, “why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?”

The disciples weren’t working, but the laws of the pharisees regarding the sabbath were extensive and they were very strict. They didn’t allow people to do pretty much anything… you couldn’t walk half a kilometer, draw water from a well, help your animal give birth… you couldn’t even have sex with your spouse!

Jesus says to the pharisees in Verse 27 that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath,”

He was trying to get them to understand that the sabbath laws were there to help people stop working. Idly plucking heads of grain in the presence of Jesus is exactly what should be allowed on the sabbath. The disciples were simple having a snack while chilling with Jesus… aka, God. In doing so they were allowing God to restore them. The pharisees couldn’t see that because they had taken the law of the sabbath and twisted it to become so legalistic, that instead of giving rest, it became something burdensome. The purpose of the sabbath was lost amongst the Jewish leaders, Sabbath was no longer for the people, the sabbath was for God.

write this down… God doesn’t need my sabbath.

Sabbath keeping is not something that God wants us to do because it benefits Him in some way. HE wants us to keep a sabbath because we need it. We, need it. We need it physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you happen to be a little bit of a workaholic you need it even more than the rest of us because your sabbath is going to include depriving yourself of the thing that you are addicted to… work. And it doesn’t matter what that work is, if it’s work, you gotta stop.

I want to clarify something before we go any further. doing the laundry isn’t necessarily work. Doing the dishes isn’t necessarily work. Doing those things because you can’t stand having a full laundry basket… well, maybe you should re-think why you need to do that on your sabbath.

Guys, sabbath isn’t some legalistic thing that says you can’t do your chores. What it is, is something that says… You need rest. And if you don’t absolutely need to do that thing today then don’t do it and spend time with God and your family instead. Rejuvenate, let God sanctify you… the chores that have been waiting for 2 weeks can certainly wait one more day.

Besides taking a break from work, sabbath keeping is taking a break from the things that make you unnecessarily busy and stressed because they’re extra.

Sabbath Affects Every Part of Our Lives

Does anyone not take a sabbath every week because you feel too busy, there’s too much to do at home and you don’t have time for a day of rest? Raise your hand...

If you answered yes in your head and didn’t raise your hand, now’s your second chance. By keeping that in, by not confessing that you do this even occasionally, you are giving satan power over that area of your life. Satan only has the power over you that you give him and by keeping the things you are struggling with such as keeping a sabbath in the dark, you are letting him have power over that area of your life.

Let me re-phrase what we just established to more accurate and simple terms...

By saying that we’re too busy for a sabbath, we are saying we don’t have time to dedicate a day to have with God for us to grow in relationship with Him and for God to sanctify and restore us.

We don’t have one day for God, that’s what we’re saying when we don’t take a sabbath because we’re busy.

Exodus 31:13 ESV

13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.

“That you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you.”

This suggests that part of the reason for a sabbath day, a rest day, is for God to do what we cannot. It’s for us to allow God to sanctify and restore us.

Who knows what the word sanctify means?

to sanctify v. — to make as dedicated to God; either in becoming more distinct, devoted, or morally pure.

In the bible dictionary the word sanctify means to make change or to make alive!

Sabbath then is for God to make change in us or bring us back to life!

The thing that Exodus 31:13 is saying is that we are incapable of restoring our selves the way that God intended us to be restored. We are incapable of self sanctification.

When we don’t keep a sabbath, we are affecting every part of our life. Think of the sabbath as a thing that helps hold everything else in your life together. Think of yourself as a piece of steel. Throughout the day to day this piece of steel goes through the motions of life, the good weather, bad weather, salt, wind, rain and snow.

Now think of the sabbath is the cleaning process of that steel from time to time. If you never clean that piece of steel, never rinse the salt and grime off, it will begin to rust. Maybe it’s just a little surface rust, no big deal… But over time, that continual neglect causes the surface rust to grow and then it becomes more than just surface rust. Pieces of the steel start falling off because the rust was eating away at it so much. Then one day, the piece of steel is used to support something heavy but the rust had done it’s work. The weight was too much for that neglected piece of steel and it twisted and broke in half.

If the owner of that piece of steel had only taken the time to clean it and look after it, the steel would still be clean and strong.

we, are that piece of steel. your life is the rust, continually eating away at you. Your sabbath… that is the care and cleaning. If you neglect your cleaning, if you neglect the time that God wants to use to sanctify you… you will grow tired and weak until one day, you will have a giant hole in you or you will break. you may loose your job because the quick thinking snappy brain you were hired for is slow and tired and doesn’t function the same way… you can no longer do the things that used to bring you joy because you haven’t had time to do those things in years… you have no friends any more because they just stopped asking you to hang out… they knew what you didn’t, you would just say no because you were too busy with “Important” things… and worst of all, Your family might end up collapsing around you because you didn’t have the energy to foster deep, meaningful relationship with your spouse and kids…

Keep, Your, Sabbath.

Sabbath is for you to take a rest, let God restore you and sanctify you so that you can enter back into your mission field that is called work and not be stressed, irritable, tired, and just plain not functioning fully as God created a human being to function. So that you can support and bring joy and life to your family. So that you can do your hobbies and bring glory to God through the gifting’s He has given you.

The sabbath is for us, not for God. more than that God commanded that we keep the sabbath because He deemed it an important enough part of our lives to be worth more than just a request.

It’s not enough to just take a day off. The rest of the world can take a day off. We should be taking a sabbath. A day off with God at the center because that is how we become truly rested. and being truly rested is the only way we can fully step into the life and calling God places on our lives.

Conclusion

God want’s us to live our best life. He wants us to live in blessing and abundance of life not tiredness and burnout.

Don’t let life, the fast pace of the world take away your sabbath time.

Don’t let satan distract you from what is important with the daily grind.

My challenge to you today… Write the sabbath into your calendar as soon as we close today and make it unconditional… that means you take your sabbath no matter what. Also make it a repeating event for a month. Then look back at the difference it has made to your life. I dare you…

We’re going to take some time in worship