Skip Heitzig - Learning to Relax
Well, good evening and welcome to Calvary Church at home for those of you who are joining online. We don't know from what part of the world you're joining us from or the nation, but we welcome you and we hope that this will be a fulfilling experience as you tune in online and you go through whatever you're going through. Also we want to welcome our church, who has come for our first Saturday night service. And our first weekend in December.
Welcome to church, glad you are with us. How many of you happened to bring one of these with you, a Bible with you tonight? That's a good thing to bring to church. Just saying, that it's important that we don't see this time as a lecture time. This is a time of Bible study and you need to see that the points that are being made are founded upon the text of the scripture. That's what expositional or expository preaching is all about. You need to have the authority of the scripture and you need to see how that ties together.
So turn in your Bibles that you brought or your device that you brought, tune in and turn to the book of Exodus, the second book in the Bible. Exodus chapter 20. We are right in the middle of a series called "Hustle and Grind," series on work, and we're kind of right in the midst of that. We have just a couple more weeks to go on it.
But I want to talk to you about what happens, what should happen, after you work hard, and that is resting. It's a message called "Learning to Relax." So we're going to be in Exodus chapter 20. We're going to begin in verse 8 in just a little bit. I want to begin by showing you the front page of an owner's manual, vehicle owner's manual, and what it says. It says, "Regular maintenance is..."
By the way, before we read this, how many of you have read all the way through the owner's manual in your vehicle? You've read it all the way through. Yeah, mostly a couple of guys. You are so hardcore if you read all the way through. Most people don't do that by the way.
But my owner's manual front page says, "Regular maintenance is essential to obtaining the highest level of performance, safety, and reliability from your vehicle. This booklet is designed to help you make sure your vehicle receives proper and timely maintenance. Follow this booklet's recommendation and you'll enjoy maximum reliability and peace of mind for many years to come." What a promise. Peace of mind for years to come. Well, that's the owner's manual to a car.
This book is designed to help your life run right and give you peace of mind for years to come. This is the book you should read all the way through. Whether you've read the owner's manual of your car or not, I don't care. But this, I care about. And this is the owner's manual to our life. And God gave the Bible to us so that we would have proper maintenance. Just like an owner's manual to a vehicle talks all about the maintenance you need, this book, the Bible, talks about our maintenance and promises peace of mind.
So I've had you turn to Exodus chapter 20. It happens to be the very first record in scripture of what we know as the Ten Commandments. And we in particular want to notice the fourth commandment because the fourth commandment is about timely and proper maintenance. For our unit, for us, for our lives.
Of the Ten Commandments, the commandment we want to look at for the Sabbath, or to rest, of the Ten Commandments, this is the tender commandment. This is God's tender way of caring for you and showing you that he cares, it will bring you peace.
Now, even before we read it, you probably know, but I'll refresh your memory, that the Ten Commandments are part of, or were part of, a covenant that God made with the children of Israel in the Old Testament on Mount Sinai when he delivered them from Egypt. They had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. God sent them Moses, a deliverer. Moses brought them from Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, took them out into the wilderness. Three months after they left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, were out in the desert, three months later, they rendezvoused at a particular mountain we know as Mount Sinai. And God established his covenant with his people by giving them two tablets of the law. We know that as the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments, the Hebrews call it said it, "aseret ha-devarim," which literally means "a decade of words." A decade of words. Or simply put, they would call it the 10 words. Or let's call it God's top 10 list. And God's top 10 list or the 10 words, the Ten Commandments, cover all the basics of life. A few things to note about these Ten Commandments. They are commandments. They are commandments. They are not 10 suggestions. They are not 10 proposals. They are not 10 really good ideas. They are ten commandments.
Something else. There are 10. Not five. Not 9. It's like, yeah, I don't like that one so I'm going to throw that out. No, there are 10 of them. But there's also not 19 of them. I bring that up because the rabbis, after this was given, much after this was given, the rabbis counted 613 commandments. And of those 613 commandments, 248 were positive commandments, things you should do. 365 of them were negative commandments, things that you shouldn't do. But aren't you glad God gave 10? Not 613, he gave 10. And this is the fourth of the Ten Commandments.
Something else that I think you should notice is that it is the first of two positive commandments. Most of the commandments say, don't do this, don't do that, and don't do that other thing. But there are two commandments that are positive commandments, and that is the fourth and fifth commandment. And this is the first of the two positive commandments.
Now we're going to take this commandment a little bit slowly. We think it's very important. So what we want to do is look at Exodus 20 this week. But look at, also this commandment, but in another listing given by Moses as he reviews it before his death on Mount Nebo, in Deuteronomy chapter 5 next time we gather together We want to begin in verse 8 and read down to verse 11, that's what we're going to be covering.
But let me just say this, as introductory material as well. No other commandment of the Ten Commandments has breeded more controversy than the commandment to keep the Sabbath. Whole church movements have been created over this commandment. Christians are sometimes, by certain groups, accused of breaking this commandment because they meet on Sunday, rather than Saturday. And really hardcore groups will go so far as to say, Sunday worship is the mark of the beast. So if you worship God on Sunday, that's akin to the mark of the beast, as outlined in Revelation chapter 13. Crazy, huh? But true.
I also want to remind you that the Ten Commandments are two tables of the law. And the way it's typically divided is pretty simple. The first four are about your relationship to God. The second 6 are about your relationship to each other. Now why is that important? Because it shows us that the Sabbath, which is part of the first listing, our relationship to God, the Sabbath isn't just a pause from work, but it's a part of worship. It's a part of worship.
So the first commandment is you should worship the right God. You will have no other gods before you besides Him. The second commandment is you should worship the right God in the right manner. You will have no graven images when you worship Him. The third commandment is that you honor his name. You don't take his name in vain. And this commandment, the fourth commandment, is that you devote a whole day to be occupied with Him.
So there are four words. Four words that sum up this fourth commandment, and that gives us our outline. Here's the four words. Rest, remembrance, responsibility, and reason. Rest, remembrance, responsibility, and reason. Let's begin with the first, rest. Resting is commanded. Now let's read through the entire commandment verse 8.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle", your pets get a day off, "nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens in the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it."
So don't you find it interesting, just right off the bat, that resting is commanded? It's a command. It's an order. It's not a suggestion. God gives an order, a rule, a decree. It's as if He said, relax, and that's an order. Take a vacation from your vocation, and that's an order. It is a rule.
Here's the question. Why? Why would we ever need a command to rest? Here's my take on it. I think God really understands human nature. And I think He knows that we need a command. Because, I say that because, breaking the Sabbath is the only commandment that some people actually brag about violating. You hear it in their conversations when they say, I haven't taken a day off for four years. I mean, that's something to be proud of? Or, vacation? Ha. What's that?
So what you need to see is this commandment, this rule, this decree of God is the longest of any of the Ten Commandments. That is, the commandment is given but then there is more supplemental material to explain this commandment than any of the other 9 commandments. There are 98 words altogether devoted to the fourth commandment. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."
Now let me, in this study, especially, kind of give you groundwork because we're going to build on it next time, because we're going to continue this but take a different look at it. The word Sabbath, in Hebrew, "Shabbat", appears in the Old Testament 90 times. 90 times. In the New Testament, 55 times. So about 145 times the word Sabbath, or Shabbat, appears in the Bible. It simply means to cease, or to desist, or to put to an end. So the idea of a Sabbath is it puts to end all of the work that you did during the week.
By the way, 54 times in scripture, it is simply referred to as the seventh day. So I'll be a little technical because some people say, well, I'm taking my Sabbath today. OK, that's OK. But technically it is the seventh day, and the seventh day in Judaism doesn't begin Saturday morning. It begins Friday night at sundown and goes through Saturday and ends at sundown, Saturday evening. So technically, from our perspective, Sabbath would be over on Saturday night and it would already be Sunday.
Now, where did it come from? It came from Creation, and we'll get into that in just a minute. So the pattern of Shabbat, or ceasing work, stopping work, goes before the law, all the way back to Creation when God had a work week that lasted 6 days. He made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested.
But I want to press this a little bit further. In the Bible, the Sabbath is far more than Saturday. It's far more than just a weekly day. In the Bible, there are feast days that had prescribed Sabbath rest attached to them, whether it was Saturday or not. So for example, in Leviticus chapter 23 it outlines the different festivals of Israel. And on the Feast of Trumpets it says this. "On the first day of the seventh month you shall have a Sabbath." It's a special day attached to the feast, a day of rest.
Also the Feast of Tabernacles, "The feast shall be kept for seven days. But on the first day it shall be a Sabbath and on the eighth day there shall be a Sabbath." So there are weekly Sabbaths. Saturday, we would call it. Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Then there are days attached to festivals, also called Sabbath.
But also, sabbaths are far more than just days of the week. Sometimes sabbaths are referred to as an entire, get this, year. A year, where people were commanded by God to take a year off. Now I know some of you are going, you're talking my language. We've actually already had that, it's called COVID.
But in Leviticus 25, the land was cultivated for six years. On the seventh year after that, God commanded them agriculturally to let the land rest. Let it rest, so that the soil would not deplete. It was a method of conservation for the soil. Also it was to remind them that the land doesn't belong to them, it belongs to God. And not to any one person.
Now why am I telling you all this? I'm giving you this information because sometimes you'll meet people who pride themselves in being Sabbath keepers. I keep the Sabbath. I'm not like you Christians who meet on Sunday. I actually keep the Sabbath.
If you ever have that conversation, you might have a little fun with them and say, do you really keep the Sabbath? So you're telling me every seven years you take a year off? And trust God for whatever comes in that year? Because that is the Old Testament Sabbath.
And if they go, oh, well, that really wasn't all that important. Well, to God it was pretty important. In fact, he took it so seriously he sent the whole nation into captivity for 70 years because they hadn't kept the sabbatic year for 490 years. That's 70 Sabbath years.
And at the very end of 2 Chronicles chapter 36, God says this. "Therefore he", God, "brought against them the King of the Chaldeans." That is the Babylonians. "They burned the House of God. They broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all of its palaces with fire. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept the Sabbath to fulfill 70 years."
I share all of this simply to say two fine points need to be added. First, God takes rest seriously. God takes rest seriously. And second, if you happen to boast because you're a Sabbatarian and you don't worship on Sunday, if you are tending toward legalism, I would just press that and say, I don't really think you're living according to the Old Testament biblical idea of Sabbatarianism. Just saying, just saying. So rest is commanded.
But let's go on. After rest is to remember. Resting is commanded, remembering is clarified. So let's go down to verse 9 and notice something. "Six days you shall labor," now He delineates the command but He's adding supplemental material. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work," you, nor your son, daughter, male servant, female servant, cattle, stranger that is within your gates.
The previous verse says, remember the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath. Now what does that mean, remember the Sabbath? Just sit around and think about it like, oh yeah, I remember. It's Saturday. That you recall it? Deuteronomy 5, that we're going to look at it next week, renders it a little bit differently. It doesn't say remember it, it says observe it. Observe it.
So sometimes the word remember means to call something to mind in order that you may do something about what you call to mind. That's the idea of remembering. Call something to mind, recall it, think about it so that you do something about it. Here's an example. When Joseph was in prison and he interprets the dreams of a couple of prison mates, he tells one of them, because he knows he's going to be released, he says, remember me when you are released before Pharaoh and get me out of here. I want you to call to mind this conversation so that you can spring me from jail, because I want to get out.
So to remember the Sabbath, It's a very strong, positive command. In Hebrew it's called an infinite absolute, that is, it's a very emphatic command. It means to recall and ponder so that you will elicit the proper response. What is the proper response, you ask? Notice verse 8. "Remember the Sabbath to keep it," what? Holy. That's the response you are to have. You are to remember so that you will keep it holy. That is, you will treat this day as different from all the other days.
So simply set a day apart for Me to do whatever I, the Lord, want you to do. I want you to use a day of your week to focus on Me. It's part of your worship. Part of your worship. How many married couples do we have here tonight? So you're married, OK. Keep your hands up. Keep your hands up. If you're married, keep your hands up. OK, how many of you with your hands up have regular date nights? Continue to keep your hand up. If not, just put your hand down. OK, so, we need to work on that, don't we. All right?
So when you have a date night, I don't want to shame anybody about that. But if you do have a date night, what you're telling your spouse is I'm going to schedule, I'm going to remember, that you are so important that this is all about you and me. This is about our relationship together. That's what date night's about. I'm remembering that. I'm doing something. It's holy. It's for us.
When our son Nate was a young child, my wife came up with this idea, just out of the blue. She called it an "I love Nathan day." And it was a day where she would pick him up from school and it was just, you know what, you decide what we're going to eat, you decide what store we're going to go to, you decide what activity. And it wasn't based on anything. It was just out of grace, this is an "I love Nathan day."
Think of the Sabbath as an "I love God day." An I love God day. You're going to do the activities God likes. You're going to consider the relationship you have with him.
Back in 1924, not that I would remember from personal experience, but there were Olympics in which somebody very famous ran named Eric Liddell. Chariots of Fire was based on his story. Eric Liddell, his best event was the 100-meter run. The problem was is that during that year of the Olympics, all of the heats for the runs were on Sunday. Eric Liddell, as a strong Christian, would not participate. And while they were running the heats he was in church, preaching sermons.
So a few days later, he decided he would run the 400 meter. Now he wasn't trained for that and everybody who knew about this did not give him a chance that he would win. They thought, oh, he'll never win. Not only did he do well, he got the gold medal. Not only did he get the gold medal, he broke a new world record for that year.
And the way he describes it, is that God was honoring him for honoring God. God was honoring him for honoring God. Now I'm conflating a couple of things. I'm talking about Sunday versus the Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. But I'm going to work my way to that.
So the Sabbath idea is it's a day where God is honored, and a day where men and women get recharged. Both together. Now what's strange about that is you would never know the Sabbath was designed for that purpose when you get to the New Testament. Because by the time you get to the New Testament, the Sabbath had become a wearisome burden to keep. It was a labor to keep the Sabbath.
I'll remind you of what Jesus said about the religious leaders, the scribes in the Pharisees in Matthew 23. He said, they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
What was that all about? Simply this. When the Jewish people returned from the Babylonian captivity back to their land, they got very strict about the Sabbath. So that by the time of Christ, by the New Testament, they listed 39 different kinds of work. 39 different kinds of work that they had identified, all of which were prohibited on the Sabbath day.
One whole section of the Talmud, the Talmud are the Jewish writings, Jewish sayings, commentaries, et cetera, one whole section of the Jewish Talmud has 24 chapters listing Sabbath laws. 24 chapters of Sabbath laws. One whole section on what constitutes a burden on the Sabbath. You can't bear a burden on the Sabbath. Well what's a burden?
So there were endless discussions about, can you lift a lamp, like a little candle, or an oil lamp on the Sabbath. Could a woman wear a brooch on the Sabbath. You got to pick up that little pin and ugh, pin it on your blouse. Oh man, that's a burden. They had chapters about this.
And they had these back then, this is what's interesting, if you wear artificial teeth, and you had taken them out and now it's the Sabbath, if you lift them up to put them in your mouth are you bearing a burden? They had discussions about this stuff. Chapters about this stuff. If you need to pick up your child, is that violating the Sabbath law?
So you can see they had lost the whole idea that this is a day of rest. Because after the Sabbath, keeping it like that, you needed a rest. It became easier to work for six days than to rest on one day. So remember the Sabbath. Remember what it's for and remember why it's done. So resting, remembering. Resting is commanded, remembering is clarified.
Here's the third responsibility. Responsibility is also conveyed here in verse 9, back to verse 9. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." I want you to notice, and this takes us all the way back to our very first study in Hustle and Grind. What you'll notice here in the commandment to rest is that God not only allocates time for enjoyment, but the time for enjoyment is based on a time of employment. It supposes that you are employed in that you work the rest of the week, so as to take off a day.
So the vacation is based upon your vocation. You work six days, you rest one day. So labor is also commanded in the same command to rest. And as we already noted, the Bible speaks very highly of the hustle and the grind that is a part of daily life.
Back in 1985, Bob Black wrote an essay, he's an anarchist, and he wrote a very, very famous essay called "The Abolition of Work." 1985, Bob Black wrote in his essay, "The Abolition of Work," these words. "No one should ever work. No one should ever work. Work is hazardous to your health. Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world." This sounds like I wrote it as a teenager. "Almost any evil you care to name comes from working or living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. A typical worker is a part time slave."
Now, God tells His people, you need to rest. But you need to rest because the rest of the time you spend working. You have a vocation. We noted last week I think it was, that we in this country, the United States, has a very strong work ethic. We even call it a Protestant work ethic. And the reason that we have a strong work ethic in this country, traditionally, is because of the biblical influence on original immigrants that came from Europe and other countries that had a strong biblical base.
And the only reason that there are essays out there like Bob Black's essay and others is the rejection of God in our culture. The rejection of God in our society. And the society is trying to cry, separation! Separation of church and state. They don't want the Bible or the church or religious people to speak into the culture. We must speak into the culture. Because if we don't speak into the culture, the culture will have no restraint whatsoever, and will create societies that want the government to pay for everything, even not working.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord. Now some of you read that and you think, man, God's a little bit stingy with His time. Six days you work and only one day you get off? Because this pattern of six and one is certainly not followed in this country. Right, it's five and two, is that right? You work five days and you're off two, and that's kind of written into our laws.
So why does God say six and one? Well first of all, you need to realize that in ancient societies, ancient cultures, they didn't even take one day off. Most societies that subsisted in day to day living work every single day. In fact, one ancient Greek historian noted that Jews were lazy because they take one day off a week. So they worked every single day.
Something else. When they took a day off, when it was Sabbath, an Orthodox Jew to this day, they take the day off. They're not also doing other jobs on their day off working around the house. They didn't do yard work, they didn't clean out their garage, do landscaping, or take a second job. They weren't adding a new room to the tent, they weren't washing and waxing the camels. They stopped. They stopped working. They ceased working.
Some people's day off brings more labor and more stress than their days during the week at work. So when God says, six days you shall work, but the seventh day you rest, here's what He's saying. I'm going to give you six days to get her done. I'm going to give you six days for you to do your own thing, but the seventh is mine. The seventh, I want uninterrupted time with you.
And there's a further reason for this six and one pattern. And that is it is patterned after God's work and Creation. We mentioned that but now we want to look at that. So look at verse 11. It's part of the same material in the commandment. "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." So that's what it's patterned, on Creation. "Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it."
Now let me take you back to Genesis chapter 2. After God created the heavens and the earth, Genesis chapter 2. If you want to turn there you can, it's pretty easy. It's just the very first book of the Bible, second chapter, easy to find. If not, I'll read it to you. Genesis chapter 2, verse 1.
"Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished." And on the seventh day God rested or, "on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God bless the seventh day and sanctified it," that is, marked it, set it apart. "Because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."
Now what we just read in Genesis 2 becomes the basis for the future Sabbath laws. So way before Moses ever lived, before Sinai ever happened, before there was the giving of the Covenant law, from the very time of Creation itself, the pattern of six and one was established by God. Later on, Moses will reintroduce this concept and expand on this concept.
But before the giving of the law, before Exodus chapter 20, which we were reading before that happened, in Exodus chapter 16 some food fell from heaven. Do remember what it was called? Manna. When manna fell from heaven... by the way, I've always told you that manna was probably like Krispy Kreme donuts from God. Because the Bible says they tasted like wafers made with honey. Now you take wafers made with honey and heat it up a little bit, you got Krispy Kreme donuts. Just saying.
So whatever it was, God from heaven gave them the donuts and said, pick that stuff up every day for six days. It's not coming from heaven on the seventh day. I'm not going to give you any manna. You have to pick it up the day before so that on the seventh day you can hang out at home and rest. Now again, that's before the giving of the law in Mount Sinai.
Later on he expanded it a little bit more, saying you won't bear a burden or light a fire on the Sabbath. But it was based upon Creation. Why? Because God rested on the seventh day. Now I've had this question that asked so many times. Why did God rest? Was He tired? Was God worn out after all that work of Creation? Was He just pooped? Was it like, man, you know, those horses or those cats, they were pretty easy. When I got to the elephants though, that just took a lot out of me.
No. He was done. God simply said, I have created enough. I have created enough. He could have kept going. There could have been eight days of creation, or nine days of creation, or 38 days of creation if He wanted to. But the world would be too full, I suppose. He did what He did and He said, it's good. That's enough. He already created 200 billion trillion stars. That's the going count. And 100 billion other galaxies beyond the Milky Way galaxy. So He just said, done. Enough. Tapping out. It's over. I'm going to now cease. Not that I'm tired, I'm just stopping. I'm ceasing from my work.
So here's the point. Yes, I know you can keep working every day of the week and probably be productive if you don't take a day of rest, if you don't take a break. But when is enough enough? And why would anybody be so prideful to say, well, God may have done it but I don't need to do it. If tireless omnipotence can take a day of rest, then contingent human beings can take a day of rest.
There was an angry church member who said to his pastor, boy, I phoned you on Monday and I couldn't get a hold of you. And the pastor said, well, Monday's my day off. The guy said, day off? What are you doing taking a day off? The devil didn't take a day off. And the pastor said, you're right, and if I didn't take a day off I'd be just like him. So don't be like him. Be like God. Last time I checked and you checked, God took a day off.
One of the hardest things to do is to obey Psalm 46, verse 10. It says, "Be still, and know that I am God." That's a hard thing to do, is it not? Be still. Well, can I at least have my phone while I'm still? Be still. Shut it all away, and know that I am God. I think you're going to have trouble knowing that He is God without first being still.
So it's not just stop working. It's stop working, start worshipping. It's to be a day of wholly leisure, or leisure depending on what part of the country you're from. So it wasn't just to rejuvenate the body but revitalize the spirit. So as we close, once again back to the owner's manual. The owner's manual would say follow this booklets recommendations and you'll enjoy maximum reliability and peace of mind for many years to come. The way I see it, resting proves that you are trusting. If you fail to rest it's probably because you fail to trust. That's my guess. Resting proves that you are trusting.
Just a final illustration to close before we pray. In music, if you are musically inclined, you know that there are, on a page of music, there are notes, and then there are things called rests. And a rest is part of a musical score. Though a rest is technically not music at all. It's a cessation of music. It's a cessation of sound. But you need rest in a musical score, you know why? It makes the music more interesting and more melodious. It gives it punch. It gives it character.
So God wrote the score. God is keeping the beat. You play the notes, and the rest. Take the rest. It'll make your life more interesting. Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for Your commandments. That You know us well enough to know that, yeah, these folks need a commandment to rest. You know human nature. You know how busy we can get.
And so often it's just busyness about unimportant things. Of course there are seasons that demand our all and our focus and our attention, but we take this directive very seriously, like You did. You have given us a command to rest. To restore our bodies. And it's spelled out, it's clarified in this passage of what it means to think about it, to think about you, to be prepared to set it apart as something distinct and holy.
Lord, I pray that we would learn to balance responsibility, working six days or five days or four days, whatever our schedule might be. But also taking the time, not just to do more stuff, but to actually rest, to focus on You, think about You, bless You, give You undivided attention, be still and know that You are God. Because You did it. And not only did You do it, You commanded that because You did it, we should do it. So like Father like son, like Father like daughter, may we emulate You in this process. In Jesus's name, we pray. And God's people said, amen.