Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:23-28; The Gift of the Sabbath

The following message is from Faith Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Join us on Sundays for our 8, 15, and 11 am worship services.

For more information, visit us online at faith-pcaorg or download the Faith PCA app.

Thank you for tuning in to Faith's podcast ministry.

This morning we're going to be looking at a couple of passages of Scripture that are there for you in your handout, and we're going to be talking about the fourth word of God, or maybe you know it as the fourth commandment.

It's found in Exodus, chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

I want to say before I get started is that I'm going to be standing up here and I'm going to sound like an expert on this stuff, because what I'm really doing is I'm saying again what God has already said, but I do want you to know that, as we look at this fourth commandment in this passage in Mark, that I am preaching on this because I need this, my heart needs this More than anything.

This is really preaching to myself.

So I want to say that I'm in it with you.

I'm not standing before you as an expert on the Sabbath, but as someone who wants to learn and drink deeply of it.

While you turn there, you can go to Exodus 20, and then you can also turn to Mark, chapter 2, and maybe put your finger there and hold on to it, because we're going to come back to it, but as you turn there in your Bibles, I wanted to share this story with you.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

This was a video that I saw of a pastor.

His name is Howard John Wesley.

He's the pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church in the DC area and he had been there for just over a decade, and a couple of years ago he was announcing to his congregation that he was going to take a much needed sabbatical kind of like.

Pastor Jason Sterling is right now, and that's why I'm here today but he was announcing to his congregation His congregation he would regularly lead four services on any given weekend.

There were about 4,500 people in person in attendance at his church.

He had about 50,000 people streaming in online and he was making this announcement and he was telling them.

You know, part of the reason I need to do this is because I myself have cultivated some really unhealthy work habits and I was going to burn out if I didn't take a break.

And as he was making the announcement, he recalled this conversation that he had with this older woman in the church, this wise old sage, where he was preaching a sermon and he mentioned in his sermon that he was working seven days a week, and so this older lady came up to him afterwards and she asked him this question.

She says why do you work seven days a week.

And he replied kind of with some sarcasm.

He said well, the devil doesn't take a day off, why should I?

And she says to him well, why is the devil your role model?

Why is the devil your role model?

Jesus rested.

He modeled to us that we need to rest too, and so what I want to explore this morning is if God, the Father, rested in his creation, if God in human form rested when he entered his creation, then maybe there might be something to consider about this whole Sabbath thing.

So let me read this passage to you.

This is Exodus, chapter 20, starting in verse 8.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

God says or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

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.

Now this is from Mark, chapter 2, starting in verse 23.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

One Sabbath, jesus was going through the grain fields and as he and his disciples made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain and the Pharisees were saying to him look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

And Jesus said to the Pharisees, were saying to him look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

And Jesus said to the Pharisees have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry?

He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and he ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat, but the priest to eat, and also he gave it to those who were with him.

And Jesus said to them the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

The grass withers and flowers fade, but the word of the Lord endures forever, and this is God's word.

Let's pray.

But the word of the Lord endures forever and this is God's word.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you that you are the word who is in creation.

Thank you that you are the word who comes to us in spirit.

Thank you that you are the word that comes to us in scripture, lord, that you have spoken to us, that you have not hid yourself from us, but you reveal your heart and your will and your mind and your character to us, so that we might know you, that you're a God who wants to be known and you're a God who wants to be met with.

And one of the ways we do that is on your Sabbath, and I pray that even this morning, lord, that we would not only know about you, but that we would know you and experience you in new ways.

I pray that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts and minds that are open, and that we would turn to you, be healed, and we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen to you.

Be healed, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So I want to explore this just in three parts.

What is the Sabbath, why do we Sabbath and how do we Sabbath?

What is the Sabbath, why do we Sabbath and how do we Sabbath?

Pastor and author Pete Scazzeri is kind of this expert in healthy leadership.

You may have heard his name before, but he was having a conversation with one of his colleagues and he was talking about these pastors and CEOs that he was working with and he was kind of expressing some frustration and he was saying to his friend.

He said I don't get what's missing.

You know, I talked to all these pastors and leaders and they all agree with me.

Every time I talk to them about how necessary it is to slow down for God and to take a Sabbath, how important it is to sit at the feet of Jesus, and every time I talk to them about this, they all say yes, yes, that's so important, but almost none of them will actually do anything about it.

I want you to listen to his friend's response.

His friend said well, you know, pete, they can't stop.

If they stop, they'll die.

They're terrified, they're frightened to death of what they'll see inside themselves if they slow down.

The terror of stopping reveals the depth of our emptiness.

How's that sit with you?

Does not sit well with me.

I can tell you that the terror of stopping reveals the depth of our emptiness.

Have you ever thought about, maybe, the extremely unhealthy work habits in our relationship with work that we've created in our lives is actually a symptom of an emptiness inside of us, this vacuum that we're constantly trying to fill, no matter how hard we try, no matter how many hours we put in, how many raises we get, or promotions we get, or pats on the back that we get, that we still go to bed hungry.

So we have to ask the question well, okay, how do we truly get filled up?

Okay, how do we truly get filled up If it's this result of an emptiness?

How do we, instead of trying to find other sources of nutrients that aren't filling us up, how do we turn to God and how do we invite him into this emptiness and ask for his presence, the bread of his presence, to fill us up?

How do we model our lives after Christ?

How does our theology right that's what we're big on in the Reformed faith is our theology and our doctrine.

Well, how does this theology of God's sovereignty and God's providence, that says way up here, where it's safe and far away from us, how do we bring that down here and practice it and embody it in our daily lives, in our weekly rhythms?

How do we witness it to our neighbors?

One of the ways that we do that is that we meet God on the Sabbath is that we meet God on the Sabbath.

See, this word that we translate into Sabbath is this Hebrew word Shabbat, and Shabbat has these two ideas that are kind of wrapped up into it.

On the one hand it means to stop, to stop, and on the other hand it means to delight, and so we're stopping and delighting.

One day in seven, we're taking time to stop and say no to work and rhythms that we keep other days of the week so that we have time and space to delight.

It should kind of like if it jogs your memory of what God does in creation.

He's speaking creation into existence for six days and after he makes man and woman and finally creation is complete the seventh day, he stops, but he doesn't just stop, he stops and he delights.

Stops, but he doesn't just stop, he stops and he delights.

So we stop working, we stop our daily routines, we stop staring at a screen for 10 hours a day, we stop checking anxiously our news sources and we stop worrying and we just stop.

Especially in a year like this right An election year.

Stop.

Especially in a year like this right An election year.

It's good for us to stop.

You can think of this part of the Sabbath as kind of this crossing guard, where there's all these things vying for our attention.

There's companies spending billions of dollars to get your attention, for you to pay attention to them, and we say no so that we can pay attention to God paying attention to us.

And, yes, there are so many projects to be finished, there's appointments and meetings to go to, there's children to be bathed and fed and put to bed, there's calls to be made and texts to be answered and emails and emails and emails to respond to.

I'm currently planning and getting ready for the onslaught of freshmen that will descend onto Auburn's campus in the fall.

There are so many things to schedule and plan for and yet the Sabbath comes along and it says stop.

Stop trying to find life in things that can't give you life.

Your work is good as much as it is a means to join me in my redemption of the world and to glorify me in the excellence of your work.

It can't give you any more than that.

It's actually a means to me Stop the things that are distracting us from our families and our neighbors in our connection with God.

You know, I don't know.

If you're one of those people who's really good at saying no, then more power to you.

I am not one of those people.

I need God to bring in his Sabbath so that there is a day that's built in so that God says no.

For me, the Sabbath is the God-given gift of saying no.

It's a weekly reminder that's built in to remind ourselves and be a witness to others that we are not the sum total of what we produce or accomplish.

It's the gift of reminding us that God is God and we are not, that it's not up to us to change the world, that we are not the centerpiece of God's plan of redemption.

It's almost like every week God is asking the question hey, why are you on my throne?

And the Sabbath is an invitation to get off his throne and put King Jesus back on the throne and enter into the rest of God, the rest of living water, which takes away your thirst, the rest of the resurrection right, and all those other things that we try to fill up that vacuum.

It's like being really thirsty and drinking a ton of salt water.

It just makes you more thirsty.

It's an invitation to rest in God and rest in Jesus.

This is why one pastor says I've never met anyone who used to Sabbath.

It's not one of those things that you pick up and then put back down.

It becomes a lifeline in your life.

So we don't just stop, though we delight.

It's not just a day off, it's a day of.

It's a day of rest and contemplation and celebration and feasting and worship and word and fellowship and solitude and prayer.

It's this day of reorienting ourselves to the glorious hope that we have when God is on the throne.

We stop for a purpose.

We stop to delight.

The great poet and essayist Wendell Berry says this about Sabbath.

He says Sabbath observance invites us to stop.

It invites us to rest.

It asks us to notice that while we rest, the world continues without our help.

It invites us to delight in the world's beauty and abundance.

You see, this is where the more legalistically minded Jews got the Sabbath really wrong, when Jesus was walking through the grain field with his disciples and his disciples were getting grain and they were beginning to eat from the fruit of the field and harvesting would have been a huge no-no on the Sabbath.

So the Pharisees are calling him out because they got the stopping part really right, but they forgot about the delighting part.

They totally missed the delighting part.

And I think you know, sometimes when we get to these verses where we see Jesus rebuking the Pharisees, it's really easy for us to kind of imagine Jesus with a snarl on his face and like you guys are so dumb and you don't get it.

I don't think that's it at all.

I would imagine that Jesus, at this point, is filled with a deep sadness because the Pharisees are totally missing the fact that this is a gift of the Father and they're not seeing God the Father as a father who gives them good things.

They're seeing God the Father as this taskmaster who gives them law, law, law.

And so that's how they react.

They react by giving the disciples law, law, law.

They've turned the gift of the Sabbath into a burden.

Jesus is like guys, y'all are totally missing it.

The whole point of the Sabbath was to differentiate God the Father from the Pharaoh in Israel.

You notice, god doesn't give the Israelites 10 commandments while they're enslaved to the Egyptians and say, hey, get these right and I'll free you.

No, he frees them from the house of bondage, from the slavery of Egypt, and he brings them out to the wilderness to worship him.

And he says I am not like the Pharaoh, I'm a good father, I'm a good master.

Good father, I'm a good master.

My rules for your life are because I've designed you this way.

I've designed you to know that before you do any work, I love you and I delight in you because you are made in my image.

If you'll notice, if you go back and read the creation story, adam and Eve were created and then their first day on earth was the Sabbath.

They didn't have any time to earn God's love, he just created them and then loved them because he created them.

See, this kind of legalistic law, misunderstanding the gift part of Sabbath keeping, misses the whole point of God's word to his people.

He's saying your worth is not in the work that you can do for me.

Your worth is in that you are mine.

I've called you by name, I've made you my people and I will be your God.

Deuteronomy the commandments are repeated and the fourth commandment in Deuteronomy ends with this promise Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord, your God, brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore, the Lord, your God, has commanded you to observe the Sabbath because I am a better master and a good father.

So that's what the Sabbath is.

But why do we do it?

The first point kind of what I was just saying is it's a command One.

We Sabbath because it is.

God limited himself to 10 commandments of.

This is what it looks like to be my people.

I'm revealing to you my will for your life.

I'm limiting myself to 10 words, and this is one of them.

And not only is it one of them, it's the one that takes up the most of the tablet.

It takes up 40% of the tablet.

These 10 things remember, and half of it goes to the Sabbath.

Listen to how God speaks about it in Exodus 31.

Above all else, you shall keep my sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the lord, your god, sanctify you.

You shall keep my sabbath because it's holy for you.

Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death.

You think God cares about his Sabbath Kind of reminds me in the verse where Paul is talking about all these good things, like you know, honor and joy, and he says but the greatest of these is love.

It's like God is like all of these good commands that are good for your life.

And, above all else, keep my commandment.

You know this is the only commandment that begins with remember why?

Because we often forget it.

Also, he really cares about it.

Remember the Sabbath.

It's also the only spiritual discipline that's commanded in the Ten Commandments and God doesn't say make sure you read your Bible every day.

God doesn't say make sure that you're praying hard enough.

Those things are important.

There are means by which we connect with him, but they're not commanded.

Sabbath is commanded.

It's commanded and secondly, it's woven into the fabric of creation.

So it's a command.

It's also in creation.

In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth In six days.

He did the work of creation.

On the seventh day he rested.

Have you ever thought about the fact that God rested?

God rested.

There is one pastor who said that one of the reasons that we fail to keep this commandment is because there's so many good reasons not to.

But I don't think any reason can trump this argument that God rested.

You know, right now I just have a lot going on.

I can't take a Sabbath.

Yeah, okay, god rested.

You would understand if you know if you were in the nursing program or for your junior in engineering, if you're an architecture student.

God rest it.

I can't really take a day off because my boss would not be very understanding of that.

God rest it.

I think the only group of people that I haven't figured this out for, group of people that I haven't figured this out for and I really wanted to have it figured out by this Sunday is single mothers.

I think there is so much grace for you and I think that it's incumbent upon your church body.

Maybe they need to reach out and take your kids for you so that you can have a Sabbath and truly rest.

But I just want to say, as a single mother, you are pardoned from the conviction this morning.

There's so much grace for you, but for the rest of you, god rested, the creator and sustainer of the universe, of every human life, of infinite power, goodness and knowledge and wisdom.

He rested the creator and sustainer of the universe, of every human life, of infinite power, goodness and knowledge and wisdom.

He rested, and you know that this is the only commandment with a reason built into it that God knew we would ask the question why, and so he built the reason into the commandment.

He said you need to rest because I designed you that way and because I, the maker of heaven and earth, rested.

You are like me and I need rest and you need rest.

One author says when we fight the rhythm of six days work and one day Sabbath rest, we are going against the grain of the universe.

It's a commandment.

It's in creation.

Finally, we see it.

Jesus models it for us.

Right, who is your role model?

Is the devil your role model?

Jesus rested.

He modeled to us that we need rest.

We're told that Jesus always observed the Sabbath.

He was worshiping in the synagogue on the Sabbath.

He was with his neighbors on the Sabbath.

He went away to be alone with his father.

On the Sabbath, jesus, the son of God, god in human form, he rested.

And we see this in the rhythm of his ministry.

He's out with the crowds and he's preaching, proclaiming the good news, he's healing, he's feeding 5,000.

And then he withdraws and he leaves and he's not available to anyone except for his father.

Some of my favorite passages of scripture when the disciples wake up and they're like where'd Jesus go?

Where is he?

He just left, he's just gone.

Sometimes it's probably good for our children to see us do that.

Plan it out with your spouse first.

But it's probably good for your kids to say Dad, where's Mom?

You know what I got you today.

Mom needs to go out and be by herself and be with her father.

Mom, where's Dad?

Dad really needs some time to just be him.

Dad, dad really needs some time to just be him.

If God the Father rested, god the Son rested.

If their example isn't enough for you, I have one more.

Kirk Cousins is a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, but he was a quarterback for the Vikings for a long time, and this is what his wife, julie, says about their practice of the Sabbath.

She says On Tuesdays the boys go to preschool, so Kirk and I get time together, just us.

I don't know how I could do this life without a Sabbath.

I can deal with every other crazy day not talking to him, not seeing him, sharing him with a million people, but I know that Tuesday is coming and it resets our whole relationship.

I want you to think about this that when Kirk Cousins was negotiating his $84 million contract with the Vikings administration, he looked them in the eye and said there's going to be every week a full 24 hours where you don't get to contact me, and it's for the sake of my faith and it's for the sake of my family, I won't be available to you.

God the Father, god the Son, kirk Cousins, our practice of the Sabbath not only reminds us of the resurrected life we have in Christ.

It also reveals how much we trust in that resurrected life.

Okay, so how do we do it?

I'm going to end with just a few points here.

These are real simple applications.

First application we leave work undone.

The Sabbath does require us to leave work undone.

In a culture of overproduction, overstimulation, work-life imbalance, practicing the Sabbath is gonna cost us something, but I want you to think about what it costs us if we don't, because I think it does cost us.

It's good practice for us, but it costs us so much more if we don't.

It costs us our souls.

Right, he tries to save his life.

We'll lose it, but he loses his life for my sake, we'll save it.

It costs us our families.

Maybe you're in here and you're just realizing that I'm watching my children grow up in pictures, churches.

Sabbath comes along and says stop, be with, engage delight.

There's one author, marsha Labor, says on the front end, sabbath hurts.

Leaving my to-do list alone, trusting the universe will continue forward motion without my intervention, demonstrating that it is God who sustains me and not my own efforts.

Sabbath is like the scary free fall of faith in microcosm and it's good for our hearts to practice it.

We leave things undone to be with God, to be with our family, to be with our church, to be with our family, to be with our church.

We leave things undone to remind ourselves who we are, who God is.

We leave things undone to be a witness to our neighbors that Sabbath is a witness to say we're different, we're weird.

I actually believe God is real and I believe that he is the sustainer of all things and that I'm just not as important as I tend to think.

The Sabbath takes planning to be intentional about finishing our work in the six days that we have To plan on being alone in God's presence, to plan on being in the presence of others.

No one ever just stumbled into the Sabbath.

You don't just, it doesn't just happen upon you, you actually have to plan for it.

You plan to rest in worship, you plan to stop and delight, plan out your day so you can have margin in it for someone God brings your way, for a neighbor who needs your help, for your children, for your spouse.

Make them a priority over your labors.

I love this saying from a guy named Dallas Willard.

I say this all the time Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort.

Some of these things actually take effort.

It takes effort to place ourselves in the presence of God to transform us from the inside out in ways we could never do ourself.

So here's my invitation to you I really hope that this morning, if this is a practice in your life that you'd just be encouraged to keep going, maybe reframe it for you a little bit, and, if it's not, for you to see the gift and the beauty and the grace that's available to you in the Sabbath, that it's not a day of oppression, enslaving you.

It's actually a gift of grace.

It's a poignant reminder that you are first and foremost a child of God, before you are anything else, that his grace is sufficient for you, that you are not the culmination of what you produce or accomplish.

So my invitation to you is to lean into the gift of the Sabbath and keep it holy by resting in God's presence and delighting in the name of God, our Father, the Son who sits at his right hand and the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and watch how God remembers His covenant with you.

Amen, amen, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you are a good God and a good Father that you work all things tragedy, tragedy, joys and celebration, peaks and valleys, lows and trials of various kind.

You work all things for your glory and the good of your people.

And, lord, I pray that today, that this week, that we would meet with you on your Sabbath, that we'd meet with your people, that your spirit would be in us and that we would meet with you on your Sabbath, that we'd meet with your people, that your spirit would be in us and that we would experience you and know you in a deeper way.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.