~ 1 ~ To Be or Not to Be Exodus 20:8-11 August 26, 2012 Osceola UMC Biblical Focus: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Exodus 20:8 8:30 Opening Hymn 140 Great is Thy Faithfulness Prayer Hymn 383 This is the Day of New Beginnings (verses 1-4) Closing Hymn 451 Be Thou My Vision Closing Blessing 666 Shalom to You Special Music during Offering (both services) All That Thrills My Soul Jeff and Gail Marshall Last spring I began a journey of soul searching that brings us to this day. In the July newsletter I wrote about the need to slow down something God was telling me to do. And in the process of slowing down, I read a book about the importance of the Sabbath in our lives as Christians I have included the title of the book in the sermon notes. I realized that for the past several years of my life, I rarely had a Sabbath day. So today I want to leave you with some words that I pray I can put into practice in my life as I find myself slowing down. And I pray that as God s children, we will understand the rhythm of life He has given us and live in that rhythm week after week after week. The first place we read about the Sabbath in the Old Testament is Exodus 16. The Israelites have left Egypt, have experienced the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, and are on their way to the Promised Land. However, they find themselves without any food and begin complaining how it would have been better to stay in Egypt where at least they had something to eat. God hears their cries for food and answers: I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days. Exodus 16:4-5. Why are they to gather twice as much on the sixth day? 21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day,
~ 2 ~ they gathered twice as much two omers for each person and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, This is what the LORD commanded: Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning. Exodus 16:21-23 There is the word for the first time in the Bible Sabbath which God described to us as a day of rest. Some of you may be thinking, What about the creation story in Genesis? It reads: 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:2-3 Yes, God rested on the seventh day, but there is no mention of that day being called the Sabbath. I will come back to this later. So, even before it is one of the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is mentioned by God to the Israelites to be observed as they are making their way to the promised land. Then in Exodus 20 Moses goes up on the mountain and receives the 10 commandments, the fourth reading: 8 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. Exodus 20:8-11 But God doesn t stop there with His directions concerning the Sabbath. In Leviticus 23 God instructs the Israelites concerning the appointed feasts they are to keep. The first one listed among the seven feasts is this: 3 There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is
~ 3 ~ a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD. Leviticus 23:3 How important is the Sabbath for the Israelites? Not only is it one of the ten commandments, but then God emphasizes Sabbath keeping to them again by making it the first of seven appointed feasts, and the only feast that will be observed weekly, rather than yearly as the feasts of Passover, Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. So how did the Israelites do in observing the Sabbath? Through the prophet Ezekiel God says: 11 I gave them My decrees and made known to them My laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. 12 Also I gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the LORD made them holy. 13 Yet the people of Israel rebelled against Me in the desert. They did not follow My decrees but rejected My laws although the man who obeys them will live by them and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out My wrath on them and destroy them in the desert. Ezekiel 20:11-13 Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea all speak of the Israelites violation of the Sabbath. What about Jesus and the Sabbath? Let s take a look at an event that took place with Jesus and His disciples, as recorded in the Gospels: 23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as His disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to Him, Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? 25 He answered, Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. 27 Then he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Mark 2:23-28
~ 4 ~ Jesus and His disciples are doing what is considered unlawful on the Sabbath, picking grain to eat. Jesus responds with two very important statements concerning the Sabbath: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. First of all, we were not created for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was given to us as a gift, a gift which the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law had turned into a burden for man. The Sabbath was not something to which we slavishly conform. Jesus is implying that the 39 Sabbath rules of His time had stepped over the boundary. They had ceased being helpful and had become a burden. Secondly, Jesus lets the Pharisees know that He is over the Sabbath, for He was there when God established the Sabbath. During the six times Jesus clashed with the Jewish religious leaders over the Sabbath, He did not dispute the significance of the Sabbath. Instead Jesus focused on what is appropriate Sabbath behavior, or to look at the bigger issue, the question of what the Sabbath reflected about God to the people who observe it. Jesus was teaching through His many actions that the Sabbath is a day of liberation, a day when people return to the joy of the world as God created it. Jesus showed what the Sabbath really meant for us and gave the Sabbath its full meaning. The Apostle Paul writes to the Colossians about the Sabbath: 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. 16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a
~ 5 ~ religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Colossians 2:13-17 What is Paul saying to us in these verses concerning the Sabbath? First, when Jesus was nailed to the cross He canceled the law s condemnation against us. Jesus took our place and made atonement for those who accept the salvation that comes through His death and resurrection. Secondly, our relationship with God is not to be judged by the keeping of the law what we eat or drink or the keeping of religious festivals or the observance of the Sabbath. The reality of our relationship with God is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him. In other words, our making the Sabbath holy, our observance of a weekly Sabbath does not determine whether we are acceptable to God. Only our acceptance of Jesus death on the cross for our sins makes us sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. Does that mean we no longer need to observe the fourth commandment or the first of seven appointed feasts? Not for the purpose of our salvation, but let s go back to the very beginning the creation of the world and the seventh day: 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done. Genesis 2:2-3 For six days God was busy creating the world, but then came the seventh day and He rested. Did God need to rest? I don t think so. What God was doing by resting on the seventh day was establishing a cycle a rhythm for living. The seventh day what we call the Sabbath is part of the God-designed cycle we live in. God didn t need the rest, but we do. We live in a world that defines us by what we do rather than by who we are. I know that often when I meet someone one of the first questions asked is, What do you do for a living? We are human beings, yet we live as if we are human doings. We move through our days as if what we do matters more than who we are.
~ 6 ~ The Sabbath refocuses life for us; it keeps us from being dehumanized. We live in a world where work never ends. On person said it this way: If we refuse rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die. The Sabbath is God s gracious permission to stop and lay down our tools. The Sabbath is a sign of God s invitation to rest because God is the Creator and Redeemer of His people. His resting at creation is a sign of completion and abundance. The Sabbath helps us slow down, to take away that sense of urgency which drives us. The Sabbath liberates us from the need to be finished. The Sabbath also teaches us about grace. In Ephesians 2 Paul writes: 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10 The Sabbath enables us to experience this weekly in our lives because it help us understand that nothing we do will earn God s love. I bought in to the lie that my worth even before God was determined by what I do in this life. As long as I was working hard, using my gifts to serve others, even experiencing joy in my work along with the toil, I was worthy of God s love. LIE! God doesn t love us because of what we do, He loves us because of who we are. Paul writes, It is by grace you have been saved, through faith not by works! Our worth to God is not determined by what we do, but by what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. And the Sabbath is a weekly reminder that when we stop and rest, who we are a child of God has much more value in God s eyes than what we do. We are loved because of who we are to God through Jesus Christ. Sabbath enables us to be rather than to do. We are invited to enter God s rest as an acknowledgment of His abundance. When we choose to rest on the Sabbath, we acknowledge His abundance; our rest indicates that we depend
~ 7 ~ completely on the God who created and sustains us. One woman put it this way, Just as tithing reminds me that all I have is from God, so Sabbath keeping reminds me that God is in control. We are also invited to observe the Sabbath to rest as a way of remembering that we are redeemed from slavery. In the Old Testament that redemption came in the form of release from bondage in Egypt. After Jesus death and resurrection we continue to celebrate our freedom in Christ from slavery to sin, death, and evil. The Old Testament Sabbath demonstrates the covenant relationship between God and His people. He had called them into a relationship that involved resting in His provision and reflecting His values in the world. The call was true in the Old Testament and continues for us today. How would you describe the Sabbath? I found it described this way: Sabbath is a weekly day of rest and worship; a day to cease working and relax in God s care for us; a day to stop the things that occupy our workdays and participate in activities that nurture peace, worship, relationships, celebration and thankfulness. God know us better than we know ourselves. He made the Sabbath for us, and when we live our lives in the rhythm that He created for us, we are simply living in the best, efficient way. The day of rest will give us more energy, focus and ability. The rhythm of work and rest helps us function more purposefully and energetically, living in responsive obedience to the pattern God designed for us. To be or not to be? May our practice of the Sabbath in our lives enable us to know who we are not by what we do but through our relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. May the Sabbath empower us to experience God s grace to us through Jesus Christ, a grace that comes not by what we do, rather through Christ s atoning love on the cross.
~ 8 ~
~ 9 ~ To Be or Not to Be? Exodus 20:8-11 I. Sabbath in the Old Testament Sabbath and Manna Exodus 16 Sabbath the 4 th Commandment Exodus 20 (see also Deuteronomy 5) Sabbath the first of 7 Feasts Leviticus 23 Desecrating the Sabbath Ezekiel 20:11-13 II. Sabbath in the Gospels Matthew 12, Mark 2, Luke 4, Luke 6, Luke 13 Sabbath was man for man, not man for the Sabbath III. Sabbath in the New Testament Colossians 2, Hebrews 4 Let no one judge you by the sabbath IV. Sabbath and the Seventh Day of Creation Genesis 2 A Rhythm for living V. Sabbath and grace Ephesians 2 God loves us for who we are, not what we do Sabbath Keeping by Lynne M. Baab Intervarsity Press, 2005