The Lost Art of Sabbath

We live in a world that tells us we need to always be producing. But God made us and knows that we need rest. Knowing we would never stop working, God commanded that we stop our work every 7 days and give him our time and attention. You would think we would all rejoice with the break, but it forces us to trust that God will provide for us even if we aren’t producing for ourselves.

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The Israelites First Rest Break

Today I want to brag on my God and how He sometimes works out the tiniest details for His purposes.

On Friday of last week, I was going to read my daily Bible passage since I’m reading through the Bible this year, like many of you. However, I got wrapped up in the devotional book I was reading, and I stopped to pray. When I was done, I didn’t feel like opening my Bible to read something totally different from what I was ruminating on. (The Pharisees, if still alive, might have scolded me for skipping my day of reading!)

I love God’s sneaky and surprising ways! I knew that today we would be talking about the Lost Art of Sabbath Rest – of taking one day in every seven to slow down and rest. I also knew the standard passage to start with: the Ten Commandments. But God had a better plan for today. As I started reading from Exodus 16 for my daily Bible reading (the reading I was supposed to do on Friday) I came across a passage I never would have thought of for our message for today. It is, in fact, the first instance in which God tells the Israelites to take a Sabbath rest, even before He gives them the Law on Mount Sinai.

And so, I ask you to open your Bibles to Exodus 16 this morning. To put this passage in context, remember that in Exodus 14 the Israelites walked across the Red Sea on dry land, leaving the slavery of Egypt on their journey to the Promised Land. In Exodus 15, we read a lengthy song Moses sang in praise of God for His mighty act; and now, in the very next chapter, we realize how fast attitudes change!

Exodus 16:1-30 – The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. ² In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” 

⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “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.” ….

¹³ That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴ When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. ¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. 

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. …

²¹ Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. ²² On the sixth day, 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 Sabbath 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.’ ” 

²⁴ So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. ²⁵ “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. ²⁶ Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” 

²⁷ Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. ²⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? ²⁹ Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” ³⁰ So the people rested on the seventh day. 

I must admit that when I first read this story I was extremely smug. I felt superior to these ridiculous Israelites who grumbled to God seemingly within moments of being set free by an epic miracle. Then I remembered that I haven’t fasted for a full day as they likely had.

God responds to their grumbling, and He provides. He gives them meat to eat at night and manna each morning. He gives them exactly what they need. He is giving them “homework” to build their faith, asking them each day when they go to bed, “Will you trust Me to provide for you again tomorrow?” They don’t need to take more manna each day because tomorrow there will be more; but on the sixth day – that single day – they need to take a double portion. There won’t be any on the seventh day.

Even after six days of God’s faithful provision, some Israelites still don’t believe what He has said. They go out on day seven looking for food. God was clear. He was providing all they needed, and on the sixth day he gave them enough for two days; but they just wouldn’t follow His instruction. They went out intending to work on the seventh day like it was any other day.

It’s in that detail that I realize this is a mirror to our own lives. Jesus tells us in His Sermon on the Mount not to worry about our lives – what we will eat or drink (Matthew 6:25). Instead, just as He did for these Israelites, if we trust in God He will always provide. We don’t need to work our knuckles to the bone to get ahead. In fact, this concept of the Sabbath tells us He will provide in six days all we need to live and enjoy the seventh.

That is good news for the Israelites, who have just stopped working non-stop, day after day for years under Egyptian oppression. This is the contrast God wants to show to the Israelites then and to us today: The world says Produce”, but God says, “Rest”.

The Hebrew root word for “Sabbath” and for “rest” comes from the verb “to cease”; when you cease working you are resting. When you cease production, some might wonder why. That’s a good question: why did God tell them to stop?

Why did God Command the Sabbath Rest?

In this story, it comes down to trust. Will the Israelites trust God to provide enough food each day and enough on the sixth day for two days? Every time He comes through, it builds their faith. He proves to them that they don’t need to rely on themselves but can trust God to give them exactly what they need.

However, there is a bigger reason. The rhythm of the seventh day being a holy day of rest – of ceasing – was set over 2000 years earlier in the opening pages of the story of creation. Genesis 1 shows us how God created everything out of nothing over a six-day span; and then in Genesis 2 we see that God ceased from His creative work and rested.

Genesis 2:2-3 – ² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested (same Hebrew root word for Sabbath) from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested (he ceased, he sabbathed) from all the work of creating that he had done. 

Notice that even God takes time to rest. The omnipotent, all-powerful God takes a break to enjoy His creation; and more than taking a break, He calls that break holy – set apart as different from the rest of the days. That final day of rest is the pinnacle of the creation story. The day He creates the earth is good; the day He creates humankind is very good; but the day He rests is holy!

God wants His people, the Israelites, to follow His lead and take a Sabbath – a rest – on the seventh day. Pharaoh required seven days of work each week; but now the Israelites have a new ruler who knows what’s best for them; and that is to stop working for a day. God will rest from producing manna and the people will rest from collecting it.

Development of the Sabbath Regulations

Everything we have looked at up to this point occurred before God ever gave the Israelites any of the Law. However, because He has already commanded them to take a Sabbath rest, we should not be surprised that God later includes Sabbath rest in the Ten Commandments. I love how completely this Sabbath principle applies to everything and everyone.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 – ¹² Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ 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 ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. 

The break from work is not only for the Israelites, but also for their animals and even their servants. God is saying, “Look, it wasn’t right that Pharaoh made you work every single day, and so you won’t do that to your servants.”

The Sabbath principle extended even beyond people and animals. It also applied to the land they lived in.

Leviticus 25:1-5 –The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. ³ For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵ Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year will be food for you.

While they can’t eat anything from their own fields or vineyards, they can eat anything the rest of the land provides. Again – do you notice how God is using this “ceasing” to drive people toward Himself and encourage their dependence on Him to produce the food they need?

God was serious about His Sabbath commands! Breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death. In Numbers 25 we read of a man who was stoned to death at God’s command because he was picking up sticks.

By the time we get to the time of Jesus, the Pharisees have added more and more rules about the Sabbath law to be sure no one broke it. These rules are still carried out today by Orthodox Jews. Some will turn on all the lights in the house on Friday afternoon so they don’t have to flip a light switch on the Sabbath.

The problem is that while the Sabbath was meant to be a time of rest and recovery – a moment to enjoy God and His provision – it became a burden of conforming to all sorts of rules. The intended blessing became a curse of suffering; and, as we might expect, Jesus ran right into and through the rules.

In Matthew 12 we see the Pharisees go bonkers when they watch Jesus’s disciples pluck some heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath. Later in the same chapter, they lose it when He heals a man’s shriveled hand on the Sabbath. In fact, Matthew tells us that it was after this Sabbath-day healing that the Pharisees began plotting to kill Jesus. After all, that was what the law called for.

We don’t have time to look at all these encounters, but in all of them Jesus makes a clear and significant statement: For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8). In Mark 2:27 Jesus adds: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Jesus is pointing out that the Sabbath is a gift. It is a blessing. It is countercultural. It is a break from the drudgery of work that is the duty of all people. The Pharisees had turned the Sabbath into another duty of its own rather than a rest from the duty of work. Sabbath was made to serve us and to help us. We were never intended to be slaves serving the Sabbath regulations.

It’s interesting that as Matthew was writing his gospel he put these episodes in chapter 12, just after Jesus spoke His famous words at the end of chapter 11:

Matthew 11:28-30 – ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

Do you see the irony Matthew uses here? Sabbath is meant to offer us rest, but it was instead making people feel weary and burdened. So Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, tells people to instead take His yoke, His leading, His teaching. If we do that, then we will find the rest and refreshing the Sabbath regulations were originally meant to provide.

Sabbath Today

When we look now at how Christians are supposed to observe the Sabbath today, we can see that Christians have become confused on the issue. Those who tend to be more legalistic than others expect that Sunday must include attending church, refraining from work, and keeping the kids from leaving the house to go out with friends. On the other end of the spectrum, some Christians essentially write off Jesus’s words about the Sabbath as an archaic Old-Covenant command that no longer applies. They pack their weekends full of activities, making the most of every moment, and they wake up on Monday more exhausted than when the weekend started.

I think we all recognize that neither of these extremes is God’s best for our lives. Remember: the Sabbath is not a command to which we are bound, but a promise we’re invited to enjoy. If we treat it as a command we must serve, we fail to enjoy the holy day of rest for our Lord.

Right now many of you are probably looking for some hard and fast guidelines for remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. Does it mean going to church weekly? Possibly. Does it mean avoiding work emails? Maybe. Does it mean taking a nap? Definitely!

Colossians 2:16-17 gives us some advice on this topic: Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a 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.

I can’t make rules for you. The Pharisees went down that path, and it didn’t work. You need to let the Holy Spirit guide your thinking about the Sabbath as you recognize the principles that point us to a dependence on Jesus. As a rule of thumb, I think many of us probably need to take the Sabbath more seriously than we have been.

The Sabbath reminds us we don’t need to work seven days a week to get ahead. God will provide all we need if we work six days and are faithful to Him on the seventh. For those of you who are retired, this might not be a challenging lesson; but for weeks, as I’ve been thinking about this message, I’ve been convicted by that truth.

As a person who values achievement, I have sometimes found it easy to fall into the trap of believing that if I can get a lot done in six days I can do even MORE in seven days. I would find myself adding tasks to my days off, thinking that if I could just cross a few more items off my To-Do list I could finally get out from under it. But that’s not how To-Do lists work! There will always be more to do; so we have to lighten the load, follow our Jesus, and stop. Stop working. Stop producing. God will work with what you accomplish in six days. Find time to rest for the seventh day. Take time to connect with God, to read the Bible, to meditate, to celebrate. Enjoy God and His good gifts every single week.

I don’t think I’m alone in my struggle to make time for the Sabbath. Why do so many people – especially Americans – feel like we can’t just stop for a day? If we do stop, we try to squeeze in just one small task that HAS to be done. I think it has to do with our sinful belief that we have to take care of ourselves and that we have to be producing at all times to get ahead. We feel too busy or too important to sit back and rest, regularly, every week.

However, with all that work and all that pressure to perform constantly, we seem to be suffering in grave ways. Depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, headaches, sleeplessness and weight gain are results of high stress from our performance-driven culture. God has told us, “Look, you need a break. I made you, I know you. I know you need to rest regularly from your work.” Yet for some reason, we feel that we know better; so we check our work email at night or start one more “little” project on the list. We are a mess, in need of a Savior!

I hope that if you struggle with taking a day “off” – a day away from the pressure of producing something, somehow – you will look at the spiritual discipline of Sabbath as practice for eternity. You need to practice resting in God’s presence and trusting in His provision. At some point in the not-too-distant future, you will spend eternity with God. Surely you can step out of your own busyness for a day to enjoy the break He knows will benefit you. Believe His promise that when you return to your work, everything will be okay because He is providing everything you need.

The Sabbath was made for you. Enjoy it!