Deuteronomy 5:12-15, The Fourth Commandment

Anyway, we're in Deuteronomy, chapter five, reading from verses 12 to 15. Here, the word of the Lord observed the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord, your God commanded you six days, you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it, you shall not do any work. You are your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates that you're that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord, your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord, your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Arbite macht frei. Work makes free in German. That was the promise in wrought iron over the gate of an institution. Big letters out of iron.

Its motto, I guess. We promise, it said, that if you work, you'll earn freedom. And that's what religion, morality, capitalism, athletics, academics, art, business, almost every good thing in our society.

The Lie That Work Makes Free

It promises that today in anything we do, the secret to success, we're told over and over again, is hard work. And there's a lot of truth to that. Don't expect success to be handed to you on a silver platter.

If you want to go to an elite university, you'll have to study hard. If you want an athletic scholarship, you're going to have to work out. If you want to get rich, well, you're going to need to get up early and stay up late and work.

So we're promised over and over again. Arbeit macht frei. That institution about 70 years ago, by the way, promising freedom for work. That was Auschwitz. Sometimes the promise is a lie. But we love the promise of work that we can earn our way to getting what we want.

That's why the Nazis used that promise to give a little hope and also get a little workout of the people, but give a little hope to the people who were who were they were really leading to their deaths.

And sometimes that promise just leads you to your death. But we love the promise of work. We might complain about our job, but we love work. Without work, people feel meaningless that they are not worth anything and that no one's paying them.

So they're not worth getting paid. Getting fired to be devastating to many people, causing them a deep depression. We might long for our vacations and enjoy our retirement. But even then, we probably like to have some something to do, some kind of work and relish our days off.

But we'd hate to be without work. We can even make an idol out of work. We can think that it work. Is what feeds us and houses us and takes care of us. Work. Makes us free. But oddly enough, here in the first and one of only two positive commandments on what's telling us to do a certain thing, we're told not to work, but to rest.

We're told not what we imagine that God wants workers, but that he wants worshippers. What an odd thing that in a list of commandments, basically a job description. We're told. Not to work. He wants people who will trust him and rest.

Now, you think that would be something we would have to be told to do. It's kind of, you know, naturally, we want to rest. Don't you want a day off? Don't you want to take it easy? But we're so fallen from God's original design.

We actually have to be told to do what is obviously good for us. Now, why? Why do people not keep the Sabbath? Well, the major reason most people don't keep the Sabbath is because they can't. As simple as that, they can't, they don't have the ability.

Oh, they could understand if they discipline themselves, they could make themselves not work. They could. Many people could ask not to work on Sundays if they really tried harder. They could not do any homework.

They could not mow their lawn on Sunday or not do any housework. Or if they think of shopping is work like I do, they could not shop. They could go to church and they could discipline themselves not to do any labor for the remainder of the day.

But that didn't mean they would rest. They'd still be worried about the week ahead, about all the times of wasting, and I have so much studying to do, but I have to rest. Trouble in the family, but their health, someone else's health, but something that needs to be done.

They'd have turmoil inside, like in this him, just as I am. Fightings and fears within and without. They just can't rest. Their faith has no resting place. It's not it's as though something or someone is determined that they will not rest.

There's no peace. The Bible says no rest in Isaiah for the wicked. But for us here, we're to observe. Notice it begins with that. Observe the Sabbath rest. I would do it. Keep it holy. Keep it separate.

Keep it distinct. Have a rest that is set apart from the normal daily pattern. Six days, we might labor. Maybe we have five days for employment, for our job. One to do chores and housework. Then it's Sabbath.

The to the Lord, your God. Notice that in verse 14 is to the Lord. It's not just a humanitarian concern. Well, I think there's some of that in there, but it's not just that to keep from. You know, it's not just about keeping ourselves from getting overworked.

Just just having a day off is to bring us to the Lord. We serve the Lord oddly enough by not doing any work. So if it's labor. We don't do it because we know it's not. Arbite mach fri work makes free.

It's the Lord who made us free. We were slaves to sin. See this here in Deuteronomy. Our work didn't gain our freedom. God did notice what so clearly says this rendition of the Fourth Commandment, apart from the same commandment in Exodus 20, they're almost all the same except for this one.

There in Exodus 20 is there. The reason we rest there is that God rested from his work of creation. Six days he worked. And so in the Sabbath, he rested. And so do we. That's in Exodus 20. That's why all people, even Chinese people.

Try to get their attention. Need rest.

All right.

It's built into us at creation. The Sabbath. So it's a it's for all kinds of people. It's not just for one religious group. It's part of what we are created to be to be and to need. The Sabbath was made for man because of the way man was made.

But here it's not creation here in Deuteronomy. It's not creation. That's the reason for rest. But redemption. I mean, they're both true. It's creation and redemption. But here the focus is on redemption.

Creation is for all people. But redemption is only for the people of God. For those who are saved out of slavery by the Lord. Remember, in verse 15. That you were a slave.

How did you get free?

Did work set you free? Was it our bite my mocked fry after all?

Did you earn your way out?

No, it's not work makes free. It's grace makes free. So remember that. And rest. Now, in the Old Testament times, that meant not to forget at the end of a week, a busy week, don't forget that. Don't forget to stop and stop working.

They were always looking forward in the Old Testament times. They were looking forward to the rest that hadn't come yet. All week long. Sabbath comes at the end. They work toward the Sabbath on the last day of the week.

Now, after Christ has risen from the dead on the eighth day, the day after the Sabbath, the first day of a new week, the first day of the week, we look back. We have a rest already for the rest of the week.

We work from our Sabbath. Our work comes from what we rest on. But what is the Sabbath? You know, is it a day? Is it now is as many and probably the preponderance, most so-called reformed people believe that there is a Christian Sabbath and we basically keep it in the same way the Old Testament did the seventh day Sabbath Sabbath.

Is that what it is? Well, I sound like what I just implied back up to now. It sounds like what I've been saying, doesn't it? You've been feeling a little guilty. Oh, no, I've been doing stuff on Sunday.

That's not what I just implied, that we work from our Sabbath. But that's not really not really what I believe. Yes, we work from our Sabbath. We have entered God's rest, not because we strictly keep a day, but because it says in Hebrews chapter four, verse ten, we have we have rested from our works.

Christ has done the work. We believe that. And now rest. This is the most disputed of the commandments. You have traditionally reformed people that say there's a Christian Sabbath that Sunday, you have to keep it just like in the Old Testament.

And then you have many modern evangelical Christians today that claim it is not for us at all, which I think is an error. There's just something for Israel. And yet the commandment of verse 14 says it applies even to the notice that the sojourner who is within your gates.

I was the foreigner living temporarily with you. They need their rest to all had to rest. Here, the Sabbath didn't free them from, I should say, I say this, right? The Sabbath was for those who have been saved out.

Now they're a community. They all keep it.

Salvation.

They've been saved. Salvation didn't free them from the commandment here. It freed them for rest. And it does the same for us. We do have a Sabbath. Now, I believe it's not a day. It's a deliverer. The Lord of the Sabbath.

The Lord Jesus said, you remember the story, the disciples went through just traveling through some grain field and they plucked a handful and rubbed it out and get to feed themselves.

It's just they were walking.

And the Pharisees thought that was they thought that was breaking the Sabbath and accused Jesus. How can you let how can you let your disciples get away with this? Sabbath breaking. And Jesus said back that the Sabbath was made for man.

They're hungry. They need their food. Let them eat. The Sabbath was made for man. And then he says that I, the son of man. And the Lord of the Sabbath. Now that we have been set free from bondage out of our sin, now that we don't have to be incessant workers.

We can be worshipers. We worship the Lord of the Sabbath. Some will say, oh, yeah, that's just the point, because I don't trust in my religious works. I'm not at all concerned about keeping the Sabbath.

Sabbath regulations are for legalistic people who are not fully trusted God. And there's some truth to that. It's Colossians chapter two, verse 16, says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you and questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

I think that verse speaks for itself. Colossians 2 16. Let no one don't let anyone judge you by the way you keep the Sabbath. You're free to do with it, as you will. Legalists make Sabbath observance a work that promises our bite mocked fry work makes free.

The Pharisees, of course, brilliantly illustrated that. But Jesus kept the true spirit of the Sabbath. He attended worship on the Sabbath and Luke chapter four, verse 16, as was his custom. But when there was an opportunity to do something good on the Sabbath, like heal somebody, he did it.

The Pharisees condemned him because they never knew the Sabbath. Now, instead for them, this was a priority. This was like they thought this was one of the major reasons Israel was sent into captivity by the Babylonians.

And we're going to shorten this time. You know, now we're going to get it right. We're going to keep the Sabbath. So this was like one of their priority commands to keep this one. And but they they missed it completely what it was about.

Oh, they strictly kept the day. But they never entered God's rest. They weren't worshipers. They were workers. And for them, keeping the Sabbath was work. It was a chore. I mean, you had to measure your steps.

You had to count them. Make sure you didn't walk too much. You walk too many steps. I forgot how many exactly it is.

You you've worked.

So you make sure you don't walk too much. You can't light a fire, not even a candle. You can't put out a fire. I don't know what happens if your house catches on fire.

Too bad for you.

You can't tie anything, not even your shoes, I guess. Now, on and on, all the restrictions go, just a list of them. What's what makes for work and what's not. If you if you just pick something out of a bush, it's may not be work.

But if you actually get your pruners out and start pruning, that's work. You know all that. Yeah, it would just be exhausting and worrying, trying to keep up with all the rules you would have to do in order to supposedly rest.

Can't you just relax? So don't keep the Sabbath because you have to. Do not get up on Sunday morning and go to church and read your Bible and refuse to work because it's a holy day and you believe that you must observe it for your religion.

That is work. And that won't set you free. God is looking for worshipers, not workers. You worship him when you hear the gospel here that that he's done the work and and he's done everything that needs to be done for you to be accepted by him.

And you believe that.

You worship him when you hear the call to come to him with your heavy load, when you're weary and you take his yoke on you, that the yoke of meek obedience to the Lord, the light yoke by which he leads you.

To rest, come to me, says the Lord of the Sabbath. Take my yoke upon you and I will give you not another job, but rest. It's not work that makes free. It's the Lord of the Sabbath. So our coming to church does not make us worshipers.

Only God can make us worshipers. If if we are worshipers, then, of course. By nature, what do worshipers do? They worship. They come together to church to worship. This coming together is what we're doing now is a declaration to the world that our rest is not found ultimately in more recreation.

I can go play golf, have my rest there or sleeping late or watching whatever is on ESPN at this time. But in the Lord, the Lord of the Sabbath and praising him and submitting to his light yoke rather than living under the heavy yoke of your oppressive sins are on this lie, even wrought in iron that are by mocked fry.

We even make a declaration, you think about it in the way we worship. Now, if you've ever seen other religions worship, they're always doing something. They bring in a joystick, put it in, they wave it and put it and put it in the sand there or they bow on the ground.

They give some offering, some sacrifice. What do we do? This is odd, isn't it?

This is weird.

We call this worship. What are you doing? You sit there that a major part of our worship is simply sitting here and listening, taking in the word, I hope says that this is how God saves us. We don't add a thing to it.

He doesn't need our sacrifices. He doesn't need our incense burned at an altar.

He doesn't need our work.

We need him to do the work. So we come and we listen to what he has done. We have ears to hear. And that's all. And even in God even gave us those. We are then by faith in Hebrews four to to strive to enter rest.

What an odd phrase. Strive, work hard to rest, strive to enter the Sabbath rest by resting from our works like there in Hebrews four. We rest on the fact that the Lord has already set us free from slavery.

We believe that. We believe that we don't have to work, not even by literal Sabbath keeping to earn our rest. We believe we already have it. So we will. So we rest, relax. We strive to enter that rest, that true Sabbath sometimes.

Sorry, sorry, Sabbath Day Adventists. By not striving. To keep a literal Sabbath. So it's all the Sabbath talk, then only for the Old Testament, like a lot of modern people believe, you know, some say, you know, look, the command isn't even repeated in the New Testament.

It's the only one that isn't of the 10. It's not repeated in the New Testament. So they say, well, it's not for us Christians. We're just totally free of it. It's just something old. We've evolved past.

We kind of discuss that when we talk about dispensationalism. Hopefully we know better than that. But some say today, you know, look, you're not so primitive as to believe and take this so seriously to believe that people should be put to death for Sabbath breaking, are you?

I mean, that's what they did in the Old Testament, right? There's a story and this man found picking up sticks and they asked the Lord what to do with him. And it wasn't them just deciding it. The Lord said he's to die for Sabbath keeping.

So what happens when you break the Sabbath in the Old Testament? And today, many people think, well, we don't take it seriously like that anymore. Just relax. Do your own thing. Now, I agree. It's not about a day.

Don't let anyone judge you about the Sabbath. Let's remember Colossians 2, 16. But that doesn't mean that the command expired. That doesn't mean it's just totally revoked. It's now taking a new form. It's not about a delay day.

It's about the deliverer. And it's more serious than ever. You know, they were stoning people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. What happens in the New Testament when you break the Sabbath? What is the Sabbath?

It's about what we rest on, whether we're worshipers or workers, about what or who gives us freedom, work or grace. So now, yes, sure, we won't be we won't be stoned for picking up sticks, not even drumsticks on Sunday or having to go to work.

You know, if you have to work on Sunday, we're not going to stone you for that. But if we rest on our works, if we rest on the fact I'm a good family person, I'm a good husband or a wife or mother or father, whatever.

You know, I do my job. I bring home the paycheck, help support the family, the kids. I'm a good religious person. I go to church. I even keep maybe if you're a really traditional kind of reformed person, the literal Sabbath, we go to church, we do our duty.

So we think I can rest assured. I've done the work necessary to please God. My hope rest in my work, if that's what we're resting on. Then we discover in the New Testament that we are indeed profaning the Sabbath, even if we don't lift a finger on the literal day and that we find in the New Testament.

How serious is it to break the Sabbath? We find that anyone who is merely a worker and not a worshiper, anyone who trust in his own effort, that's where he puts his rest on his work. However slight it is, those people will be put to death.

For all eternity, you are either a worshiper or a worker. If you are a worshiper, you enjoy an eternity of worship, living for the glory of God. If you are a worker, you will labor forever under the torment of God.

Some will say, well, every day is alike and I can worship God every day anywhere. There's some truth to that. Even the commandment isn't just about the Sabbath day. Did you notice that it tells us what to do all week long, about every day that the command that it has a command on how to spend every day of the week?

It says in verse 13, six days you shall do your all your work. So this command is why every legitimate job. OK, being a mafia hit man is not a legitimate job, but, you know, legitimate jobs from teaching school to farming, to construction, to accounting, to sales, to truck driving, to assembly line work, to warehouse work, restaurant work, the baking, the housekeeping, whatever at all, whatever it is, can all be done in service to God.

It can all be a calling from God. We don't have to wait till Sunday to serve God. We can do it in all our work six days a week. Work makes worship. Worship fits for work. But some will say, well, every job can be worship then.

That's why it's OK for me to take a job that always makes me work every Sunday or why or why I can worship God just as well, you know, on the golf course or mowing my grass. I can do that. I can worship God there better than sitting idly in some church, listening to some long winded preacher and sing boring old songs.

But here the command in verse 12 begins with observe. In other words, do what is required. Strive to enter that rest, says in Hebrews, practically obey. In other words, keep at the end, observe at the beginning, keep at the end in verse 15 to remember that it's not work that makes free.

That you're not just a worker. But you're a worshiper. We are either a worshiper or a worker. If we are a worshiper. We do our worshipers do we worship and we worship him by resting in his presence with his people assembling together, it says in Hebrews up to 10, verse 25 is one of the ways of striving to enter God's rest.

Assembling together, worshiping corporately is part of how we now we keep the Sabbath. Notice how corporate the command here is. And here in Deuteronomy, it's so corporate, it's not just you do it by yourself.

All the people together to keep the same day off, even their sons and daughters, your employees, even the animals get a day off. You don't get to send them out to do your work for you. The whole community stopped working.

If we're so now if we're Sabbath keeping, then we join with the community that the Lord has redeemed out of slavery. The church assembling together for worship, we celebrate being a community that has been delivered.

Sabbath keeping is now about worshiping the deliverer. And he calls the church together corporately to do that. Not just individuals stay home and watch your favorite guy on TV. The fourth commandment shows us the corporate ness of being in covenant with God that we're worshiping together with the church.

It's not just we're individuals that happen to have similar religious ideas that happen to have the same spiritual experience, kind of like a club made of people of common interest, like the Israelites here.

We were in bondage together and God let us out together. We can only have we can only keep the Sabbath together. The command is addressed to a community. Israel sets itself apart from the culture around them by their Sabbath keeping, and so should we.

This is church. Sabbath keeping is part of the community's witness that we are a people set apart to observe a rest that God has set apart for those with whom he is pleased with those he has saved. So we come together to hear how God has done the work to save us.

Now. If we occasionally have to work on a Sunday and want some kind of rotation that makes us work on some Sunday mornings or we get called up on an emergency, something comes up, we got to we got to work that happens.

We're free to do that because it's not our work of keeping a day that sets us free. The command now for us is not about keeping a day. It's about what or who makes us free. The Lord of the Sabbath. But be careful, though, say that.

Well, I can have exceptions. Sometimes exceptions have a way of becoming habitual and then becoming rules.

Be careful.

If you get away from hearing the gospel so much, you get away from church so often that you forget to strive to enter that rest. You forget to worship. We are either worshipers or we are workers. If you are not worshiping.

You are working and you are breaking the commandment. But you can go to church. It's not as though the church is the panacea, because you can go to church regularly, faithfully every Sunday and still break the commandment.

If church simply is never about God and his word and the peace and the refreshment you get from that hearing the gospel about the work that he's done to save you. If it's not about that, then it's some kind of work.

Perhaps the religious work of earning points with God. You know, I was raised a Christian. This is the work I do every Sunday. The work of keeping the family religion, teaching the kids good moral lessons, you know, like our bite mocked fry.

Perhaps the work of socializing. Keeping in touch with friends. And of course, if the friends leave, so will you, because it was never really about the Lord, was it? That's not worship. That's not rest.

It is a violation of God's commandment. So how do you keep the Sabbath? Oh, very quickly. Let me give you four hours to keep the Sabbath four ways, each beginning with the letter R. First, you rest. You remember you relish and then you revere.

Well, first.

And as sophisticated as we might want to sound about how we no longer, at least I don't believe, have to have to desist from all labor a day a week. It's not something that will earn you points with God if you do that.

The practical reality is, remember, the creation part were created with that need. The practical reality is that we need, as a general rule, to discipline ourselves to rest. The Sabbath is not a day, but a deliverer.

But you need a day.

It's not about money making again or studying or working out or getting ahead on your to do list. A day in which you can enjoy looking at your grass and not have to think how it needs to be cut. Thought about that this morning, leaving all my grass needs to be cut, but I better not say it because I knew I was about to say this.

Right. As strange as it may sound, sometimes it takes discipline not to work. Sometimes undisciplined people are some of the most worried and weighed down because they don't know how to discipline themselves to rest.

They don't they don't discipline themselves very well to work either, but they just don't discipline themselves to work. Sometimes you need to discipline yourself not to work, to insist that I'm not going to do my chores now just because I have the free time to do it.

I'm going to rest even if they need to be done. I'm just going to rest. As it says in Hebrews chapter four, verse 11, we need to strive again to enter that rest. We sometimes have to exert ourselves from slipping back into the paths of unceasing labor.

Now, I'm concerned about those, particularly those here who are restaurant workers. I admire your work ethic. Just two weeks ago, I pointed out Joe and I were at Balut Park. You know, you say, look, you want to know why these Chinese restaurants make it, why they succeed and many other restaurants don't.

It's late on a Sunday night and the Chinese restaurant is open and the sandwich shop next door is closed. OK, that it's not a mystery. It's not some kind of voodoo or whatever. It's hard work. That's how they make it.

But I'm concerned about whether you get enough rest. Now, now, don't think by getting a day off, you earn something from God. You don't don't don't think that by doing the work of literal Sabbath keeping that you'll be set free.

You won't. But you do have a need to rest.

It's built into you.

The command is for your good. So I hope you can take a whole day off a week. If you can't, maybe two half days off a week, however it works. Now, then count your sleep. Don't go say, well, I get, you know, four, one quarter days off when that's what I'm sleeping.

Now, find something else in part of your rest and find something else you can do that gives gives you rest. You like exercise, exercise, maybe reading. They say if you work with your hands, Sabbath with your mind.

If you Sabbath, if you work with your mind, Sabbath with your hands. All right. So if you're working with your hands all the time, you want to do something with your mind. Take it out. We have good Christian books over there written in Chinese.

You can rest with them. Or maybe you like shopping. I don't know why you would, but some people say they like that or fishing or traveling. You can drive to San Francisco and back. Yeah. Or you can't do that and get back the next day.

But whatever you can walk the river, walk whatever you want to do. You might think, well, I need to work to save the money to succeed so I can rest in my old age. But put your hope in the Lord, not in uncertain riches.

And show that show that is where your hope is. By being willing to take some time away from working. Some time away from moneymaking. And interesting. You rest not because you're lazy, but because you know that it's not work or the money that work earns that makes you free, but the Lord.

Some really nodding going on here.

Good, good, good.

We rest because our faith rests not in anything that we can do, but what Christ has done for us. We put our put away our works. We rest in Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. We keep the Sabbath by trusting in the Lord that he is able to sustain us so we don't have to continually work.

We strive to be worshipers and not become workers. Second, we can rest when we remember. In verse 15, you shall remember. Remember, you were a slave. Work wasn't setting you free. Slaves work at work and work, but never earn anything.

Certainly not freedom. Remember, that is the Luther song says we just sang it. Our works cannot salvation gain. They merit only endless pain. You need to sometimes stop working as a way of saying, I believe the Lord has set me free, not my works.

And so we keep the Sabbath by remembering what Christ has done for you to win your salvation. Looking back on something already accomplished. So we come, we sit here, relax, and we are reminded of the work that was done for us, which we can add nothing to.

Third, we keep the Sabbath by by relishing it.

Enjoying it.

The Lord says in Isaiah, chapter 58, verse 13, if you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, in other words, you're not going out there working from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable.

If you honor it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord. And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. Remember, though, for us, the Sabbath is not a day, but the deliverer.

So now we delight in. The Lord of the Sabbath. And now he calls us together not to work, but to worship. If we delight in him. Well, delighted worshiping him, won't we? We keep the Sabbath by relishing worship, singing the songs of Zion, praying with his people, hearing the word of God.

We happily put away our pleasure, our own way, says in Isaiah, because we really believe that the pleasures God has for us are much, much better. We relish them. So we call the Sabbath, the Lord. A delight.

For we keep the Sabbath when we revere the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the master of it, which means that, though he set us free from literal Sabbath law keeping. That doesn't mean now, well, we're just the master of our time.

It's all ours all day long to do with whatever we feel like doing. No discipline, no self-denial, no Lord telling us what to do. No, that's not what it's about. Since he's the Lord of the Sabbath. Our time is not our own.

We have a temple in time, a holy time we've set apart to worship the Lord, to rest. And what he's done to be with the temple of the Lord, which is the church. And in that sacred temple in time for us, Sunday morning, we show that our lives are about more than being economically productive, having a little more fun.

Maybe, you know, getting ahead, getting stuff done, or maybe making another buck, getting a little more recreation, another round of golf, a little more workout or maybe extra study time, another day at the beach.

No, we are worshipers. And so we stop for the temple in time and revere him who set us free. So this command comes really as an invitation to worship, an invitation to Christ, coming to Christ is the only way we can worship.

It's the only way we can then rest. It's not work, but grace that makes us free. We can keep a day strictly like the Pharisees could do that. But if we don't believe God, if we don't obey his command to believe him, to rest and what he's done, then Hebrews chapter four, verses three to five says, God swears quotes God there.