The Big Ten: Take a Break

Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 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.

Once I led a game with the young people of the church. They were really excited about the game, but there was one thing I didn’t do. I did not tell them the rules. There was really no way anyone could win without knowing the rules. God doesn’t just give us rules to help us “win” but to point us toward him. God, in his power and love, gave us the boundaries that will help us be in right relationship with him and with others around us. 

For the background to today’s commandment, we have to start at the beginning. Lots of people, even Christians, have the idea that work is a bad thing. The worldview says, God cursed Adam because of his sin — kicking him out of the Garden of Eden and making him work. They can even quote Genesis 3:17-19: Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So we think of work as a great curse, and we try to avoid it by all means. 

But we have to go back further to better understand the background. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then, in Genesis 1:26-28, Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

I want to skip to Genesis 2:15. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

I want to point you to four words in these creation accounts. “dominion” “subdue” “work” and “keep.”

God made humanity and gave dominion. In other words, the ability and responsibility to rule over. He blessed humanity to fill the earth and subdue it — this word means “to bring something under control, especially by an act of will” or “to bring land under cultivation.” God made humanity and gave us jobs. This was before Adam and Eve sinned. We had jobs before the curse!

God’s expectation of his people is that we work. There are two ways that humans miss the mark in God’s expectation to work. The first is when we fail to work, even refuse to work, often stemming from a misguided worldview. The other failure is when we fail to rest. God commanded his people to rest from our work.

There are various reasons  that God commanded us to rest. Physically, sleep helps heal and repair our hearts and blood vessels and helps protect us from heart disease, kidney disease, high BP, diabetes, stroke, and obesity. Sleep helps support healthy growth and development. Our bodies rely on rest to boost our immune systems, keeping us healthy. 

Sleep helps us mentally, helping our brains work properly. Proper rest keeps us alert and helps us solve problems. Studies also show that sleep deficiency alters activity in some parts of the brain. It also helps us control our emotions and behavior. Sleep deficiency has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.

Children and teens without proper rest may have problems getting along with others. They may feel angry and impulsive, have mood swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation. They also may have problems paying attention, and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.

But God did not create the Sabbath simply for our health benefits. This command is modeled by God’s own “sabbath” rest in creation. For six days, God worked in creation, but on the sixth day, God rested. But did God need rest for his health? In Psalm 121:1-4 we read the following: I lift my eyes to the hills — from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Or consider Isaiah 40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. 

God does not need sleep. God does not get tired. So why would he command us to rest? Let’s go back to the first time Sabbath is really used in the Bible. In Exodus 16, we can read that when Moses was leading the Israelites in the wilderness, God provided Manna for the people for six days. He commanded them on the sixth day to collect two days of manna, reserving half for the seventh day, which is a day of rest and a holy day to the LORD. Not only does this passage show that keeping Sabbath is a commandment from God, but also a reminder that we must rely on the word of God, not our own understanding. 

The story of manna in the desert demonstrates that God supernaturally provides for us while we keep Sabbath. Math and Economics would tell us that 7x1>6x1, that if we work 7 days, we should have a greater increase than if we work 6. But in God’s economy, 6>7. But we have to have faith in God, that He will provide like he says he will. And what God provides is better than what we can do on our own. 

God also used the Sabbath to begin to create his people’s unique identity. Remember that they were just coming out of slavery in Egypt? What day do slaves get off? If you responded that they don’t get any day off, you’re right. They work 24/7. God is changing his people’s identity, from slaves to sons. 

Furthermore, when God instituted the Sabbath, he didn’t just instruct us to “keep it” — he instructed us to “keep it holy.” Holiness takes time. Sometimes we treasure busyness as a virtue. But God is saying, take your time, treasure it, set it aside to worship me. Poor people can worship God. Even without money, you can bring perfect praise to God. But busy people cannot. So we set aside Sabbath to God, letting God provide for us and to create our identity and to continue to remake us in his own image.