Exodus 20:8-11
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
In the 1981 movie, Chariots of Fire, the hero is a Scotsman named Eric Liddell who won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. A key part of the film is his decision not to run in the 100 meters event, his best event, because it was to be run on a Sunday. Instead, he trained for the 400 meters event and won the gold in that.
In one scene in the movie, he is coming out of church when two young boys come running by kicking a ball. He tells the boys, “The Sabbath’s no a day for playing football,” and then agreed to meet them later that week to play with them.
Staying with the Scottish illustrations, in 17th century Scotland, a man was thrown in jail for smiling on the Sabbath.
When I was growing up in the US, stores were closed on Sundays and I remember the debate when it was decided to open stores on Sundays. Now on Sundays, the malls of America are full. I looked on the internet and was surprised to find that Sunday shopping was not only restricted in the US. It has been only in the last ten years or so that shopping on Sundays has been allowed in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, and the UK. Belgium still prohibits shopping on Sundays.
In the US, youth sports have moved more and more of their games to Sundays so that churches face more and more competition on Sunday mornings. Sunday used to be, in Christian cultures, a day for the church. This is no longer the case.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, was asked why he did not believe in God. He replied,
Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
There is a lot to admire about Bill Gates. He is a very intelligent man, has worked hard and has donated a lot of money to help with problems in the world, but he revealed in this interview his lack of wisdom.
Devoting a day a week to God may not seem very efficient, but it must be important because God commanded it. The wise man or woman pays attention to the commands of God because when we live in obedience to them, we find life – in this world as well as in the next.
The fourth commandment is the longest of the ten commandments. It is the fourth of the commandments that deal with our vertical relationship with God. Next week we will begin with the last six commandments that deal with our horizontal relationship with others.
What does it mean to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy?
By the time of Jesus, there were 1,521 things you were not allowed to do on the Sabbath. Jews identified from the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, 613 laws to be followed. The 110th of these was this fourth commandment and from it came 39 categories of work: sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, sifting, grinding, sifting in a sieve, kneading, baking; shearing the wool, washing it, beating it, dyeing it, spinning, putting it on the weaver’s beam, making a knot, undoing a knot, sewing two stitches, tearing in order to sew two stitches; catching deer, killing, skinning, salting it, preparing its skin, scraping off its hair, cutting it up, writing two letters, scraping in order to write two letters; building, pulling down, extinguishing fire, lighting fire, beating with the hammer, and carrying from one possession into the other.
When the disciples of Jesus walked through the field picking the heads of grain to eat, they were reaping by collecting the grain. They were threshing by rolling it in their fingers preparing it to eat. If they tossed the grains up in the air to get rid of the chaff, they were winnowing. And if they dropped two seeds or more as they did this, they were sowing.
Modern observant Jews are not permitted to use an automobile on the Sabbath. The automobile is powered by an internal combustion engine, which operates by burning gasoline and oil, a clear violation of the Torah prohibition against kindling a fire. In addition, the movement of the car would constitute transporting an object in the public domain, another violation of a Torah prohibition, and in all likelihood the car would be used to travel a distance greater than that permitted by rabbinical prohibitions.
This legalism is not restricted to the Jews at the time of Jesus or to the observant Jews of today. Christians have also created many restrictive Sabbath laws over the centuries.
The result of all these legalisms is that this fourth commandment is viewed as a restriction, something to make us not do things we like to do, rather than as it was intended to be viewed, as a blessed gift.
The Israelites worked as slaves in Egypt. Do you think they could go to their masters and ask for a day off to rest? They worked when and how their masters wanted them to work. When they received this commandment it was a gift. It told them that on one day of the week they could rest. They did not have to work. This was a gift given in recognition that they were now free.
And it continues to be a gift to us. When we understand and live out this fourth commandment, the door is opened for us to discover the blessings that come with rest.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In this commandment verse 8 tells us what to do; verses 9-10 tell us how to do it and verse 11 tells us why we are to keep the commandment.
First, what does the commandment tell us to do?
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Remember meant a couple things to the Israelites who first heard this commandment. They remembered their experience over the past three months on their way to Mt. Sinai. They grumbled in the desert and complained that they had been better off in Egypt. Maybe they had been slaves in Egypt, but at least they had had food to eat.
And then God provided for them manna. If you ask me, “Manna, what is it?” I will tell you, “That’s right,” because manna is Hebrew for what is it. They woke up one morning and saw white flakes on the ground and asked, manna? And this is what they ate for forty years as they wandered in the desert. For forty years, manna would nourish them and sustain them as they wandered.
But is was not that God provided manna that they were to remember on the Sabbath day, it was how it was provided that they were to remember. Each morning they picked off the ground enough manna to eat for that day. If they gathered too much, the next morning what they had saved was full of maggots and beginning to smell and was no good to eat. But on Friday morning, they were instructed to gather two days worth of manna and this manna lasted for Friday and Saturday, the Sabbath day.
For three months on their journey from Egypt to Mt. Sinai they had been experiencing God’s special provision for them on the Sabbath so they could eat but did not have to work to gather the food and God told them to remember the Sabbath. “Remember how I have provided for you on the Sabbath these last three months.”
There was also a future remembering that God had in mind for them. Each week, moving into the future, they were to remember the Sabbath. This is also our remembering.
The Sabbath for Jews was and is Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Because of the importance of the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week, Sunday, early in the first century Christians were already moving the day of their observance of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
So when you wake up Sunday morning, it is not enough to remember, “Oh yes, it’s Sunday today.” In many marriages, if the husband wakes up, realizes it is his wedding anniversary, gets out of bed, showers and dresses and heads to work, he has not really remembered his anniversary. Technically he might have remembered, but to really remember his wedding anniversary will involve something special done with his wife. Flowers, dinner, a special gift, something that makes that day special.
The Sabbath is a special day for us and when we remember the Sabbath, we make it a special day by what we do and what we do not do.
Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning to cease or to rest. On the Sabbath we cease from our activities of the past six days. When we remember the Sabbath, we realize that Sunday is not a normal day. We remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
The opposite of holy is not only vulgar or sinful, it is also common or ordinary so when we treat the Sabbath as an ordinary day, we break the fourth commandment. When we treat Sunday as just one more day to do the shopping, clean the house, pay some bills, clean out a closet or finish some paper work we brought home from the office, the Sabbath is no longer being kept holy.
The Sabbath is a day for us to catch our breath. In six days we weave a tapestry but see it only from the back side. On the Sabbath we step out in front and see the pattern that has been woven that week. We take time to reflect and gain perspective on the Sabbath that helps us to make sense of all that we have done the rest of the week.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. This is what we are to do, how are we to do it?
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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
How do you remember the Sabbath and keep it holy? The first way we do this is often overlooked.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work
We remember the Sabbath by working hard the preceding six days of the week.
You can’t lay around on a couch all week eating potato chips and watching TV and then go to church on Sunday and observe the Sabbath. We are meant to work. Work is good for us. Work is a necessary part of our life. We earn money to pay for food, clothing and shelter by working. We generate healthy self-esteem by doing meaningful work. We use the talents God gave us to be used when we work. We are able to help those in need when we work.
Some people think the Bible has a negative view of work because of the curse God put on work after Adam and Eve sinned. But God gave Adam work to do before the fall. He told him to name all the animals which was the work of a zoologist. Our work was negatively affected when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden but that does not mean work is not good.
The effect of the fall of Adam and Eve is that our work will work against us. The soil will work against us.
Genesis 3:17-18
Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
This explains where bureaucracy came from. Bureaucracy is the thorns and thistles of the field.
Work is difficult. Work does not come easy. But work is good and we work because God works. After six days of creation, Genesis says
Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
We remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy by working and we keep it holy by worshiping.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.
This part of the Sabbath we know. The Sabbath is a day to come together with the people of God and worship.
The writer of Hebrews called his readers to persevere and one of the ways he called them to do this was to come together for worship.
Hebrews 10
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Psalm 96:8
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.
Psalm 99:9
Exalt the LORD our God
and worship at his holy mountain,
for the LORD our God is holy.
There is no need to talk a lot about this. It is evident that from the beginning God intended for his people to gather together and worship. It is possible to sit in the forest alone or lie in a lake like the man on the cover of the bulletin and worship God, but part of the fulfillment of this commandment is to be involved in weekly corporate worship. This is how we, as the body of Christ, best live out the life God intends for us.
We remember the Sabbath and keep it holy by working, we keep it holy by worshiping and we keep it holy by resting.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
When you think about making something holy, what comes to mind is that something needs to be done. Something needs to be thrown away, something needs to be created, something needs to be given. But this is an amazing commandment. We keep the Sabbath day holy by resting, ceasing our work, taking a deep breath, relaxing.
Sabbath rest is a gift God gave to us. It is not a straightjacket that restricts what we can do and what we cannot do. It is a gift that serves to restore and renew us.
When we rest one day out of seven, we fall into the pattern God has built into nature. The Mosaic law instructed farmers to plant crops for six years and then allow the land to have a year of rest. Land that is farmed this way over the years will outproduce land that is farmed every year.
Resting one day out of seven also makes us more productive in the long-term. We are made to work and then have a day of rest.
When Babylon took the Jews into captivity, Jeremiah spoke a word from the Lord that this was the judgement of God, in part, so that the land could have seventy years of rest to make up for the years Israel denied the land its Sabbath rests.
We also pay the price for unkept Sabbaths.
Paul Simon has a song, Run That Body Down, with these lyrics:
Paul, you better look around
How long you think that you can
Run that body down?
How many nights you think that you can
Do what you been do-o-in’
Who, now, who you foolin?
Work is good but it can be poisoned when we do not take the weekly rest we should take. We become tired and fatigued which turns our work into drudgery and turns us into pessimists. Work will be difficult but it will become more difficult when we do not adopt the rhythm of work God set us up to observe.
When we do not take a Sabbath rest, we are denying the power of God. We are saying that we are indispensable. We are revealing that no matter what we say, what we believe deep down is that if we do not work on the Sabbath, the work we are doing will fail.
We work on the Sabbath and deny the power of God to accomplish his purposes in our lives. We work on the Sabbath and trust in our efforts, not in God. We work on the Sabbath because we need money and do not trust God to provide for us what we need.
Our refusal to rest is a denial of God’s love, power and providence and it is a self-destructive act that sooner or later will catch up with us.
We remember the Sabbath and keep it holy by working, we keep it holy by worshiping and we keep it holy by resting.
The fourth commandment tells us what to do
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
It tells us how to do it
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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
And in verse 11 it tells us why to do it
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
We work because God works. We rest because God set the pattern for us by resting. God created, looked at his creation and declared it to be very good and then he rested from his labors.
There are practical reasons why it is good for us to rest one day a week, but when the commandment was given, this theological reason seemed sufficient. God rested so we should also rest.
So what should you do on the Sabbath day to keep it holy?
Work on the preceding six days of the week. Work hard. Work so that at the end of it you can say, “It was good.” Work so that the Sabbath can be a celebration of tasks well done. It does not matter if you are paid for what you do or not. You can be caring for children at home and keeping the house clean. You can be retired. You can be unemployed. Find out what work you can do and do it. All of us are called to do something useful with our time.
Worship God with other believers. Begin preparations Saturday night so Sunday morning you come to church prepared to worship. Encourage the other believers with your presence and with your worship of God.
Relax. If you need to sleep, take a nap. If you need time to yourself, walk through the Hilton forêt or take a walk along the beach. Sit in a comfortable chair and read a book. If you would enjoy it, invite some friends from church and share a meal together. Cook a meal together and then clean up together as well. This is not a day for a fancy meal that requires a lot of preparation and a lot of cleanup. This is not a day to make someone work hard so you can enjoy a meal. This is a day for you to relax and all those who live with you and work for you to relax as well.
This is a day to make special. When your children grow up, they will leave you and make new friends who have never met you. When your children share about what their live was like, it would be wonderful if they would talk about how special and fun Sundays were when they were growing up.
Our daughters talk about how we would go to church with the intention that we would meet someone and invite them home for lunch. I have good memories of meeting people who were new to the church and having a relaxing meal and afternoon with them. Our daughters also talk about how we would invite university students over to our house for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Easter. We hid Easter eggs and gave each student an Easter basket with candy and had a fun meal together.
I wish we had been more intentional than we were with Sundays but as I have worked on this sermon, I realize I missed that opportunity. If you have children living with you, you can begin now to create Sundays as a special day.
This is not a day for legalism. Don’t listen to people who tell you what you can’t do on the Sabbath. The Lord’s day is a day for celebrating the freedom we have in Christ, not for picking up a long list of requirements and making sure we are not violating any of them. Working in the garden will be relaxing for one person and work for another. Cleaning out a closet may be relaxing for someone. (But you have to decide. It cannot be your spouse who tells you to clean out the closet.) Make it a day of worship and rest.
Remember the words of Jesus (Mark 2:27)
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath has been lost for many Christians. The Sabbath for many is just a dash to the church for a service and Sunday School and then home to do what did not get done that week. Remember that the Sabbath is God’s gift to you. The Sabbath was made for man. Do not be an ungrateful recipient of this gift. Do not reject God’s kindness to you.
Reclaim the Sabbath. Make the rest of today a special day. Make plans for next Sunday to make that a special day for you and your family and friends.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
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Therefore, brothers [and sisters], since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
