Exodus 20:7-11

So we are making our way to the second book of the Bible.

If you've been with us, if it's your first time here, the second book of the Bible is this book called Exodus.

It comes after the first book of the Bible, which is Genesis.

And we get these great stories, and we've just been seeing story after story after story.

And as we've been digging into these stories, what we've seen is that these stories are a lot more than what we read initially.

We first think the story is about one thing, but then as we dig into it, it gets better and better and better.

And so what we've seen is that the Hebrew people, this is the people that Jesus eventually is born out of.

The Hebrew people, they were enslaved in Egypt, and they were making bricks for the Pharaoh.

They made bricks every day.

They made brick after brick after brick.

And they had quotas, they never could quite live up to the quota, and then they were beaten, and then they make more bricks, and the next day they wake up and they make more bricks again.

And so these bricks became symbols of bondage.

The bricks are a symbol of bondage.

They're a symbol of the never-ending toil of a work that brings no life.

And so now in the biblical storyline, this becomes a symbol of the bondage of sin.

So finally, these people are rescued out of this life and they begin this journey.

They begin a journey into the wilderness, which is like a desert, and we've talked about how it should only have taken a few weeks to cross this desert, but in fact, it takes them like 40 years as they keep settling down.

And while they're in the wilderness, we start to get some really interesting things.

And so the first thing we run into is we get the Ten Commandments.

And I'll be the first one to say, and I've been saying all along, this was a passage, a text, a chapter I was not looking forward to.

I don't think there's a lot of people who wake up ecstatic about reading the Ten Commandments, mainly because you read them and you realize you aren't perfect.

And in fact, what we've been discovering is that's one of the big purposes of the Ten Commandments is to help you realize and remember that you and I are not perfect.

And so that's what we've been talking about, how these commandments are good and holy and perfect, and we need them, and we need them for a guide for our society, like the boundaries of like what keeps us as a healthy society.

We need them for us as individuals.

We need them to help us see what is healthy, what a healthy life looks like.

They are good, they are holy, they are right, and at the same time, they crush us because we don't live up to those commandments.

And that's what we've been seeing.

We went through commandment one and two last week, and then today we're gonna go through commandment three and four.

Now, what we've also said, and I have to kind of re mention this every week, what we've also said is that perhaps you've been around a particular church or a person or a book or you read something or somebody's post on Facebook or they tweeted something out.

You read it, you saw it, you talked to somebody, you experienced something, and you didn't know why, but you're so averse to that sort of version of Christianity or that thought.

And you didn't know why you were so averse to it, but what you did know is that it just felt like exhaustion.

Like what they were saying, what you experienced, what you read, you you didn't, you couldn't, you didn't have a framework for why you were averse to it, but you knew it just felt like exhaustion.

And all of it seemed like exhaustion to you because probably it was life under the law, without allowing the law to send you on to the relief of grace.

And now once you start to get this framework in your head, you'll start to spot it.

You'll start to spot law without grace, and you'll go, oh, that's why that's exhaustion, because that's law without grace.

But when we let the law send us on, the law does its job.

It crushes us and sends us on to the necessity of Christ.

Alright, so that's what we've been discovering.

And that's the theological side of what we've been talking about the law, God's standard of righteousness, who we should be, not just what we should do, but who we should actually be.

It guides us, but then it breaks us and it has to send us on.

And so maybe that explains your exhaustion.

Because you live your Christian life under the law.

Maybe that explains your exhaustion, or maybe your exhaustion is just you have kids and they call out your name 117 times a day.

That's also possible.

It could be one or the other, or you're in school and you sleep four hours a day and you study a lot.

I mean, all these things are possible, but it could be, it could be life under the law.

All right, so third and fourth commandment is where we're headed this week.

And so we have to remember the third and fourth commandment in Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

We don't get to verse 7 without verses 1 and 2.

And verses 1 and 2 is where we remember what has happened.

And that's what verses 1 and 2 say.

They say, hey, remember, I saved you out of Egypt.

Remember the storyline, I saved you out of Egypt.

Here's why that's important.

It's because the Mosaic law, all these commandments, the Mosaic law comes after the Lord saved them out of Egypt.

And here's what that means.

What it means is, is it means you already are redeemed.

You already belong to him before the law.

So that means that any motivation for obedience is out of gratitude of what's already been done.

That's the starting point for a discussion about the Ten Commandments.

And so we get in the third commandment.

And here's the point.

I'll make the point, and then we'll read the commandment.

So the third commandment, here's the point, point number one, it's about our language, but it is about much more than our language.

Exodus 20, verse 7, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Exodus 20:7

Here's what it means: because he has graciously loved you, just don't speak his name in futile, purposeless ways.

It's about honor, it's about respect.

But here's what it means: don't lift up his name to emptiness.

Hang in there because I think all of us have fallen into some habit of this.

I mean, maybe you're not dropping GD, but maybe you're dropping Jesus Christ, or maybe you're just like me, and I just catch myself all the time, I'll just say like Lord Almighty.

I don't know why.

Maybe because I'm Southern.

I don't, I don't know, but we fall into these traps, or maybe it's like Lordy, Lordy.

I don't know, but it's like we fall into these traps of just kind of like saying some reference to God into emptiness.

So work with me here.

Um so what we had back in 1924 is uh this started right here.

That's that's the real deal with Kleenex.

This started in 1924, it didn't come from us.

Japan was using it, by the way, in case you were wondering.

And at first it came out just to um wipe makeup off, and because everybody's using handkerchiefs, right?

Like so disgusting, just snot rag.

Okay.

Uh so uh in the 30s we convinced people that the idea of a handkerchief was not the healthiest of options, and so in fact, you should throw that thing away, and so you should use a Kleenex, right?

So, like I said, you don't have to work with me here.

This will all kind of make sense.

So you get a cold, you don't want toilet paper, you want the real deal, right?

You don't want a knockoff, you don't want, we have the other options, right?

What came along after that?

Puffs, puffs plus.

I I realize that we've been on a grocery store last week and this week.

We've been spending time in the grocery store for sermon illustrations.

So Puffs Plus came along pretty good, okay.

And then we just have all the knockoffs, just like the Kroger versions, a little bit like cardboard, right?

That's why it's cheaper.

So, but this is the original.

Kleenex is the original.

Like so much so that you don't say, hey, give me a puffs, pass me a pass me a puffs, I need a puffs.

You say, I need a Kleenex.

You don't say, give me a Kroger, I need a I need a Kroger.

Say, I need it, I need a Kleenex.

It's what it's it's it's how we say it.

It's the word, it's the term.

Now, let's let's just say, um, let's just say your little kids are in the back seat.

Say you have kids, maybe don't, but let's say you have little kids in the back seat and they say, uh, I need a Kleenex, oh, and it sneeze, and it kind of went all over the place.

And this happened the other day for me.

Uh one of the little girls, they I think they sneeze and it's kind of drippy and it's gross, and you're like, ah! And she said she says, I need a Kleenex, I need a Kleenex.

And and this is what I hand her, right?

Because these are all over our car, the Chick-fil-a napkin.

Like, so at this point, and I don't think I said, here's a Chick-fil-A napkin, I said, here's a Kleenex.

Right?

So now we're not just calling the puffs and the Kroger Kleenex.

Now I'm I'm down to calling Chick-fil-A napkin a Kleenex.

I'm pretty sure I'll call a sleeve of a random jacket, my car a Kleenex at some point.

Like, and and and it's just just like dilution over time.

And it's like lifting the name up to emptiness.

How far we've come from the original, like this was the original, and the name keeps getting diluted.

Now, let's just really be silly for a second here, and let's just say for some absurdity, we as a society we decide now we are gonna use the term Kleenex for disappointment.

You stub your toe, going down the hallway, you just catch the edge of that little pinky toe, and oh and you just or you can't, all the top words or won't go back in, or your spouse, you know, you wake up and you're gonna drink that last drink, that thing that you thought was gonna be in the fridge, and it's not in the fridge, and it kind of made you mad.

And then you're just like, oh, Kleenex.

Like, you see what I'm saying?

And absurdity, right?

Like, why would you pick just a random term and then all of a sudden put it into disappointment?

Right?

You're lifting a name up into emptiness.

Are you tracking with me?

The absurdity of this.

So the point is that using the Lord's name in vain is a sign of disrespect, but it creates a dilution of meaning, and here's what it risks: it risks our proper understanding of what is behind the name.

So it's disrespect, it's not honoring him, but but then it's a dilution of meaning, and then we risk just not even sort of understanding what's behind the name.

So it's about our language, but it's about much more than our language.

And then there's this threat in verse 3, the second part of verse 3.

I don't know if you when you when I read it, you're like, oh, hold on, what's that second, that second part?

Like, what is that?

Wow, because I've said Lord Almighty, or maybe you've dropped something worse in your lifetime, or this is weak, and you're like, whoa, so I'm gonna be held like that.

Oh, okay, I don't know if I like that threat.

And I don't.

Like, I read a threat like that in the scriptures, I'll be honest.

I just want to like turn back to 1 John and something nice.

I want to go to another book, I know that's just like all the promises.

So here's what that is.

What that is, is it's it's the law without grace.

There it is.

You want life under the law, there, there it is.

And it's right.

It is right, it is holy, it is true, and it should break you.

Right?

Like you can't live up to perfection, therefore, this law better send you on to a work outside of yourself, namely Jesus and his work for you.

So it's about our language, but it is about much more than our language.

Fourth commandment.

Here's the point.

Point number two it's about a day, but it is about much more than a day.

Exodus 20, verses 8 through 11.

Exodus 20:8–11

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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, or your male servant, or your female servant, 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.

Can you imagine what it would have felt like for these folks living in an agricultural society to not go check their fields?

The temptation not to walk out and check the work.

That urge, that inner urge, I'll just go check it.

Well, of course you can.

And you know why you can imagine it?

Because we we walk around with our email in our pockets.

Even that baby knows what I'm talking about.

Like the pain.

That baby's like, I've seen my dad do it already.

And we do this.

I mean, we have we have the work of identity creation and affirmation in our pockets, available at any point.

We know the urge to check the work.

So I want to talk about phones for a minute, not to give you like legalistic rules or make you feel bad, because if anybody's gonna feel bad in this subject, it'll be me just as much as you.

Um, and maybe you have a problem with your phone and you already know it, you're like, oh no, here he goes.

Or maybe you don't, or maybe somebody around you knows you have a problem with your phone, y'all have an interesting conversation later.

But it's not about legalistic rules, it's not what I'm headed toward.

But your phone may strangely reveal something about you.

I I think my phone strangely reveals something about me, just like the fields revealed something about those people in this text.

Yesterday, I just I just thought through yesterday, Saturday.

Not a work day for me.

I woke up and immediately checked my phone.

It it my phone sleeps about 10 inches from my head.

I checked the time and I checked the weather, I believe, before I got out of bed.

I don't know how quickly I checked email, but I checked email, I texted, I talked, I voicemailed, I used a flashlight at one point, that was pretty awesome.

I love the flashlight every time I use it.

Um I got on the internet for something, I can't remember what, some curiosity at some point.

Um bought something on the Amazon Prime app, that was great.

Uh used some game with one of my kids, uh, music.

I got on Zillow and looked at some house uh for sale.

I was talking to a friend.

So uh I didn't get on social media, I'm not into social media, maybe you were on social media.

All of this in our pocket.

All of it.

All those options.

It's like a shopping mall and a library, I mean, like everything in it's like the Friday night football game is in your pocket.

Everything, your whole job in your pocket, available at any single moment.

What I mean, incredible gift, an incredible gift.

But let's not pretend it doesn't come with some real challenges.

And the challenge it comes against is the thing that this commandment's about.

Rest.

Just like the worker can't don't go check out, don't go check the field for a day.

We don't go check the field, right?

The field's in our pocket.

So a friend of mine, prolific blogger and author, David Zoll, he had he wrote this article called What 1792 blog posts, which is what he did, that many have taught me about the internet.

And here's the quote you had it in your um in your bulletin, the handout.

He's talking about his phone here.

I'd come to rely on the distraction it provided.

Distraction from what exactly was unclear, but it had something to do with boredom and what that might represent emotionally and identity-wise.

Theories aside, I was chained to the thing, and it was driving me nuts.

What sealed the deal was when my four-year-old drew a picture of everyone in the family and had it taken extra care to place a phone in my hand.

That didn't feel good.

No, sorry.

So research shows I did some research, I got on the internet, I'm not on my phone, on my actual computer.

Amazing.

Uh we check our phone about 150 times a day on average, average person, average American, 150 times a day.

Uh what this means is it means we're constantly checking our phone.

And we know it.

Like we're we're kind of like like it's just that moment.

Like you walk away and boom, right?

I mean, we know it.

A lot of us at least know it, check after check after check.

So some research, University of Glasgow, that they found this, uh, they did this research on phones and stuff, and what they found is that there's a perceived necessity.

So we perceive a necessity to respond to post or text immediately, and it actually increases our anxiety.

Now it's not a real necessity, it's a perceived necessity that we put upon ourselves.

But then so we're getting the text or we have a post or something, and or we get an email, and there's this perceived necessity within ourselves that we need to respond.

We need to respond somewhat quickly, and that increases our anxiety.

I had texted my cousin not long ago, and she didn't respond for three days.

I was like, oh my gosh, what happened to her?

And then finally she responded, it was over the weekend, finally she responded, and she said, I had an offline weekend.

Like, where was that language like 10 years ago, right?

That didn't exist.

Like, even the need for that didn't exist.

University of Glasgow also found that in teens who were extremely active and also emotionally invested in their digital lives, so really involved in this, they they had worse sleep quality, lower self-esteem, and higher instances of anxiety and depression when compared to their peers who cared less.

So here's the lesson: don't care.

There's a lesson, don't care.

Just don't care as much.

You'll be happier.

And most of us just know this, right?

We just know it.

We know it on the experiential level of posting something or feeling the incoming amount of messages.

We just know it.

Uh, another quote that's in your handout, Joshua Rothman, he wrote in The New Yorker about Matthew Crawford's book, uh, The World Beyond Your Head, talking about technology and distraction.

Here's the quote: Distraction is a way of asserting control.

It's autonomy, run amuck.

When you're waiting to cross the street, and I've done this, I thought about this.

It's like you know, grabbing lunch on the square, and I've done this.

When you're waiting to cross the street and you reach to check your email, you're pushing back against the indignity of being made to wait.

And you're like, how does this uh how does this speak into the reality of rest?

How does it challenge that?

And what if the waiting is the best thing for you?

Like, what if you're supposed to feel that boredom?

What if we as human beings are supposed to feel that sadness and adequacy?

Anybody see inside out?

Anybody, that's just like a reference, you should watch it.

That's what I learned Friday night.

What if that is what if that's where God and the Holy Spirit actually meet us?

Is in that bit of time.

Can you imagine not checking the work?

What we might see, who we might see, and the rest that might be there, right?

I mean, this is what the psalmist is talking about in Psalm 62, where he talks about the fact that our souls wait on God in silence and in stillness, and that is the place we know him as our refuge.

And I mentioned all that not to tell you what to do with your phone, stay on your phone.

I don't, I don't, you know, whatever.

You know, I'm just saying to you, don't give away the silence.

And this has everything to do with the Sabbath principle because this is the dominant area in most of our lives where many of us are constantly working, whether jobs or identity formation and curation, this is the area we're constantly working and where we need rest.

And it's all in our pockets.

And we need rest from that.

This Exodus story is that they're no longer owned by Pharaoh.

They're no longer owned by that kind of work, that brick after brick after brick.

They're no longer owned by that.

And God says to them, hey, you're different now, so hey, take a day, do nothing.

Like, get busy with just being a human being and not doing stuff.

Because you are making brick after brick after brick for so long, and what you need now is you need to remember your worth and value are not connected to your production in this world.

And that's where you'll start to find freedom.

So we're not just talking about phones.

We're talking about what it is that begs you to work.

This is about the human need to be off.

See, it's about a day, but it's about much more than a day.

And if I was to end here and just give you a few tips, we'd all feel very depressed.

Every time we get on our phone, we'd feel like extremely guilty because preacher said something.

Uh we'd just be crushed by it, right?

Because we're all overly wired, overly motivated Americans.

So that's who we are.

So we understand that.

But fortunately, the story continues.

So, point number one, it's about our language, but it's about much more than our language.

Number two, it's about a day, but it's about much more than a day.

And point number three, it's about Jesus, and it's about nothing more than Jesus.

See, the point of the Sabbath is not about what we can and can't do.

That's not the point.

I'm working right now.

This is my prime work day.

The Sabbath is my prime work day.

So if it's about what we can and can't do, I am the worst.

I'm the worst at commandment number four.

What it's about is it's about a life of rest, and where do you find that rest, and then how does that affect your daily life?

And then the New Testament redefines all this Hebrews 4, 9, and 10.

So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest, and they're talking about the supremacy of Christ.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works.

Oh, wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't that be nice if we could rest from our works as God did from his?

To your work, my work, it's never enough.

Our work to be better, to be perfect, to be righteous, to be some measure of achievement, society, to look a certain way, it's never enough.

That work will never be enough.

Your work to work your way out of some debt, some failure debt, some shame, that work will never be enough.

You will never all of a sudden feel like, you know what, I just feel like, I feel absolved by my own work.

You'll never never feel that.

The way that you get to absolution and you get to a belovedness with God is by Christ's work for you.

And Brian said it within the welcome, that all of our sin and our shame and our failure and our imperfection to these commandments and all the other ones, they are put upon Jesus on the cross.

That's why he died for us.

God humbled himself to take the debt of our failure.

And then all of his perfection and righteousness is the great exchange his righteousness is put upon us.

So when he sees us, he sees us as fully righteous and beloved in his sight.

It's how he sees us, it's how he regards us, it's how he thought of you this morning when you woke up, it's how he'll think of you this afternoon when you fail miserably, it's how he always thinks of you.

And it's how you have to begin to learn to think about yourself based on what he says in his work for you.

So it's his love over your shame that his love is enough, and that his value for you, for your being, for your identity, that that's enough.

And that you can be quiet and you can be still, you can even be small.

You can even be great permission.

You can even be the person who gets no little likes on your little post where you make that post of that picture.

There may be the person who you get almost no text every day.

It's fine.

You can be small.

You can be the last.

You are free to be that.

Because you are valued and loved by your Creator based on a work outside of yourself, the great work of the cross, which frees you from that sin and then the result, all the self-justifying work that we do.

You're free from the life of brick after brick after brick after brick.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you hold him in higher honor and find him to be of greater rest for your souls than you could have ever imagined.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank you that you know us fully and you love us fully.

And you know that when it comes to these two commandments this morning, that we don't always use our language well, and we certainly do not rest well.

And thank you that our failure is put upon you, that you just take it.

You say, I'll take all that failure.

And that the cross is about the great exchange of our sin to you and your righteousness to us, and that we can find a rest from our sin, our failure, our brokenness, our inability to feel affirmed and righteous.

Would you help us?

Would you help so many of us that work so hard under the law?

Whether it be in a religious form or whether it be in a secular form of trying to live up to the standard, would you free us?

Would you help us to constantly confess the self-justifying word and to rest back that you're enough, you're enough.

We're free today.

We're free from that today.

And would this great Sabbath principle point us to you and that you are our Sabbath, and with that, with that reality, speak to every day, every moment, that we might honor you with our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.