The Fourth Word
Introduction
I am preaching this commandment to people who do not obey it. Some of us try to obey this command and fail. Others of us don’t take this command seriously at all. But I am preaching this commandment also as someone who has not taken it seriously in the past. I have not honored God with my time. One thing Covid revealed was my view of time management came from non-Christian businessmen instead of God’s word. But since repenting of this sin, I have seen God ‘s blessing and experienced His goodness. I want the same for you.
The Passage
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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. Exodus 20:9–11
Explain the Passage
The first word dealt with worshipping God exclusively. The second word dealt with worshipping God obediently. The third word dealt with worshipping God with our words. The fourth word deals with worshipping God on His time, not ours. Notice that the fourth and fifth commandments are not negative laws. Unlike the rest of the Ten, they tell you what to do. At the core of worshipping God rightly is feasting and family. He commands a day of joy and a family to share that day with. He commands a melody among saints and harmony among the generations. Christians who take this command seriously will struggle against the legalism of creating a list of “nots.”
This commandment establishes the pattern of work and rest for God’s people. It can be broken down into three parts: what the pattern is, who the pattern is for, and why the pattern is given. First, the Lord establishes the pattern of working for 6 days and resting for 1 (Ex 20:9-10). The 6 days of labor are for “your work” while the seventh say is “a sabbath of the Lord your God.” God gives you 6 days to work for yourself and one day to rest for Him. You are to “remember” this day. This doesn’t mean we get out flash cards. It’s the same word God used when He established the covenant of the rainbow (Gen 9:12-17). You remember the sabbath by stopping on the sabbath. The silence of the sabbath was intended to tune hearts to hear God’s word. We need a weekly reminder that the work God called us to do doesn’t depend on us. God gives us work and He gives us rest. Work and rest are all grace. Second, the Lord established this pattern for all in the household (Ex 20:10). You, son, daughter, male servant, female servant, cattle, or guest should not work. Notice, the Lord in the list dealing with seven days lists seven types of people. Third, the Lord gives the reason for the Sabbath day (Ex 20:11). Because God worked for 6 and rested on the seventh, we should rest on the same day He rested.
New Sabbath for a New Age
A good portion of Jesus ministry dealt with correcting the Pharisee’s interpretation of the Sabbath. I used to believe that the Pharisees represented God’s old opinions in the Old Testament and Jesus came to bring the New Testament which were His new opinions. But that’s wrong. Jesus never condemned, rejected, or erased the sabbath. Instead, He said He was Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8). Jesus did not become Lord of the sabbath just so He could erase it entirely. He is still Lord of the Sabbath albeit a different Sabbath.
One way to think of this is that as Jesus died on the cross, the Law, the prophets, the Psalms, and all of the OT died with Him. But when He rose from the grave, all that died with Him was resurrected with Him including the law (Romans 8:1-4). So, now we don’t receive a law that came down to us from Sinai, we receive a resurrected law. We receive a resurrected Sabbath (Heb 4:9-11).
The Sabbath is Christmas
What makes teaching on the sabbath difficult is that we don’t know how to make the Lord’s Day holy (v.11). Maybe in the past you saw it done in a legalistic way—long lists of thou shalt nots. Despite forgetting how to celebrate holy days, many of us still know how to celebrate holidays (they’re the same thing!). Christmas is the day where you putt off working on your broken-down car. But it’s also the day where you should gladly help a lady whose car broken down on the side of the road. We know the concept of Christmas spirit. What we need is to know what sabbath spirit is.
Sabbath reminds us that our work is God’s work. In Hallmark movies, this is the guy who works during Christmas. He usually falls for the disorganized girl who convinces him to love Christmas too. In the Sabbath, God tells us to stop. When your heart is enslaved to an idol, you don’t want to stop. The heart of an idolator doesn’t want God’s gifts. They want their own glory.
Sabbath requires that we stop and look to God. In the new covenant, Christians should assemble to worship God (Heb 10:25). We learn from the old covenant, that the sabbath day was a day to stop working for yourself so you can learn and be fed by God (Ex 31:13). So, Christians should assemble to worship God every seven days. We do so on the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10). As a church, we recently spoke of the necessity of a reverent and grateful spirit for worship (Heb 12:28). We could have the most bible-saturated worship service in the world, but if your heart isn’t in the right place, you’re not worshipping. Neither are you worshipping if you don’t honor the day of worship in the first place.
Sabbath is received as God’s gift to His people. Christians should be the partying people (Ex 23:12). We should be the musical and dancing people. God wants you to sing, dance, and feast in community instead of sitting by yourself watching tv. God gives good gifts. The problem is that our hands are too full of our idols to take hold of His good graces. The new covenant is better than the old covenant. We should party better in the new covenant.
Rest for 1, Work for 6, Worship for 7
Rest for 1, work for 6. You can tell what someone worships by what they do with their time. Muslims pray to Mecca 5 times per day. Video gamers stay up all night playing a single video game. Since Jesus began a new week with the resurrection from the dead, followers of Jesus begin each week with resurrected worship. We work after worship. We work from a position of worship. In the OT, worshippers worked toward worship. In the NT, we work from our worship. The first way we get this wrong is by continuing to work as if there isn’t a day to worship God. If you cannot work it out with your boss to get off work to worship God, then your 6 days of work are not “your work” it’s your boss’s work. Your boss control’s your time, not God. When people submit to God’s time, He saves the from the house of slavery and gives them a day to rest, feast, and enjoy Him (Deut 5:15). God made you for 6 days of working for yourself and 1 day of rest. If you’re not giving your body rest the way God requires, you will try to make up for it another way. As America has neglected sabbath principles more, we have relied on things like retirement and yearly vacations more. On the other end of the spectrum, some do not work for 6, but work for 1 or 3. God gave us two hands and one mouth, we should produce twice as much as we consume. Jesus saves us so we could work (Eph 2:10).
Worship God with your time. God has given us 7 days to do 6 days of working for Him and 1 day of resting for Him. When we add an idol to our lives, we add the idol’s time to God’s time. This isn’t rocket science. Unless providentially hindered, we should worship the Lord with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day. And when we choose something else to do with our time on that day, it’s our idol.
What makes idols tempting is that we think they’re blessings. But a blessing is only a blessing if God blesses it. Which brings us to the question “How does God bless it?” By us giving it over to God and Him giving it back to us. In a tithe, we give God 10% so God will bless the 90%. With our time, we give God one day of worship so He will bless the six days of work. But when we choose club baseball or vacation over worship, we tell God with our actions “I don’t want this blessed by you because I want this instead of you.”
The idol can be personal glory or personal comfort. It can be work, shopping, sports, video games, hunting, or finishing homework. We can even wrap the idol in nice wrapping paper. “On Sunday, I’m a witness to my co-workers that Jesus is the Lord of my life.” “Yeah, sometimes I miss Sundays so I can work at my dream job. But hey, if I become the best at what I do, I’ll give God all the credit” You can’t give God glory for your life if He is not first the Lord of your time. When men break the Sabbath principle, they do so in order to be a slave to something else. Here’s how you can tell if what your missing Sundays for is an idol: stop that thing on Sundays and come to church. If you’re thinking of excuses right now, then it’s an idol. If you want to know what to do with idols, refer to the first commandment.
Conclusion
Eric Liddell was born on 16 January 1902 in the city of Tianjin in north-eastern China. His parents were missionaries and discipled him from a young age. At school age, he went to a boarding school in the United Kingdom. He was a gifted athlete excelling in short distance running, rugby, and cricket. But running was his best sport. After setting a new British record in the 1923 100 yards sprint, he was considered a great prospect for the Olympics in 1924.
Like his parents, Eric Liddell took his faith seriously. During the Paris Olympics – because the heats of the 100m sprint were held on Sunday, he withdrew from the race – a race considered to be his strongest. Instead, he concentrated on the 400 meter as the race schedule didn’t involve a Sunday. Liddell was considered to be a strong favorite for the race. But before the final, the US Olympic trainer slipped a piece of paper into his hand, which quoted 1 Samuel 2:30 “Those who honor me I will honor”. If you saw the movie, Chariots of Fire, you know he won the race. He set a new Olympic record time of 47.6 seconds.
In 1925, Liddell returned to northern China to serve as a missionary like his parents. As a missionary, he was still physically fit but rarely competed. He seemed to give his life fully to the task of mission work. He later married and had three daughters. But in 1943, the invading Japanese invaded the mission Liddell was living and the mission camp became an interment camp. During this time, food was scarce, and work was hard. But the testimonies of fellow internees was that Liddell was strong morally. He unified his fellow prisoners and encouraged everyone. A fellow prisoner said that he never hear Liddell say an unkind or uncharitable word about anyone. Another prisoner wrote about Liddell, “He gave me two things. One was his worn out running shoes, but the best thing he gave me was his baton of forgiveness. He taught me to love my enemies, the Japanese, and to pray for them.” Liddell died on 21 February 1945, five months before liberation. He died from an inoperable brain tumor he developed during the imprisonment. It was revealed after the war that Liddell had turned down an opportunity to leave the camp (as part of a prisoner exchange program), preferring instead to give his place to a pregnant woman. Liddell give his all on the racetrack, the mission field, and in the prison camp because his God gave him even more. Liddell was just there to receive it.