Promise #4
Take a Day Off!
How cool is God? There’s 10 commandments. You’ve got just a few commandments or promises to show them the new life you want to give them. With only 10 of these; it’s awesome to me that right in the middle, God has this awesome promise! “You will take a day off!”
The fourth promise says in Exodus 20: 8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”
In other words, TAKE A DAY OFF!
This is so like God! It’s His method of operation from the beginning of our little world! God, who can speak and things pop into existence takes 6 days to create the world; and then, takes a day off and says, this is the day to quit working!
Genesis 2:2 On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
God believes in taking a day off?
Could this be because He knew we’d obsess and work hard?
Could it be that He knew we’d pack our lives with more and more stuff?
Could it be that He knew we wouldn’t stop to enjoy life sometimes?
Could it be that He knew He could pack 7 days of productivity into 6?
Could it be that He knew He could help us realize we were trying to do too much anyway?
The beauty of the Sabbath – the day off – is that it’s a great metaphor of salvation. Where do we mess up too easily on the issue of salvation?
1. We won’t let go and let God take care of our salvation. This is legalism – if I work I’ll get or keep my salvation.
2. We easily forget that God can actually change anything… We start to believe we receive salvation and then stay stuck in our life and sin.
The Sabbath faces both of these lies head on.
Hebrews 4:9 says, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”
The writer of Hebrews is saying, look, salvation is is your rest! You stop worrying about your salvation and transformation and leave it in the hands of God!
And to take a day off of work of all the normal stuff of life – the things that make your life work – means that God has to help make it all work – and we trust Him to actually change things.
The Israelites got a great example of this right before God have them the 10 Commandments. They needed food, so He provided food for them. They called it manna. You can read this story in Exodus 16. Every day God gave them enough food for the day. If they collected too much it went bad overnight.
However, when it came to the day before the Sabbath, they were to collect twice as much so they could rest on the Sabbath. He provided for them… He made them more productive! It’s a promise about the Sabbath encased in a story!
It’s God saying, TAKE A DAY OFF!!! Do you need a day off?
And look at the wording! “You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work.” This is talking about the stuff that makes life work; the stuff you are called to do; this is the stuff that makes life continue. You get to stop for a day and relax!
So, God both saves us -and gives us rest – and provides for us in the process!
This is salvation! You have rest – and I’m going to change your life! Complete salvation!
Now, here’s where people get stuck… It’s the first part of the promise:
You will remember the Sabbath day…. but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.
What day is the seventh? Saturday. This day has been kept faithfully by Jews for thousands of years. The calendar has been revised, but the days of the week have not changed. Saturday is the Sabbath.
And Jesus kept it – read through the gospels. And He expected people after He was resurrected to keep it as well. How do I know? In Matthew 24 Jesus is talking about persecution to happen after His resurrection and he says, “18 A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat. 19 How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. 20 And pray that your flight will not be in winter or on the Sabbath. “
So, He is anticipating that His followers would be keeping the Sabbath after His ascension!
You might ask where did people worshiping on Sunday come from then? Well, that’s a whole study in and of itself, however, to give you a quick view- after Jesus ascension Christians started to celebrate His resurrection on Sunday. They kept the Sabbath (you can read this throughout Acts). However, when persecution of the Jews became more and more intense, Christians started to compromise and wouldn’t worship on Saturday to keep a distinction between themselves and the Jews. As political power united with religious power, worshiping on Sunday became the enforced norm.
But, the bottom line is, Jesus never stopped the keeping of the Sabbath on Saturday.
The next easy question is simple… Why does it matter? Shouldn’t I just keep one day as a day off? I would say yes – except that God Himself said, “Remember… to keep the Sabbath day…. but the Seventh is the Sabbath.”
If your job has you working on Saturday or you have other activities on Saturday, then obviously, this is going to be a big faith risk for you… Will God take care of you if you fulfill the promise He has for you?
It all goes back to salvation? Can you trust God with your life? Can you trust Him your time and your money? Yes. Yes you can!
And more than that, you get a DAY OFF!
For more on this, listen to my sermon on this promise at http://livetheexperience.org/media/listen-online-september-13-2008/