Deuteronomy 5:12-15, The Fourth Commandment

Anyway, we're in Deuteronomy, chapter five, reading from verses 12 to 15. Hear the word of the

Lord. Observe 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.

Our bite mocked fry. 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.

It promises that today and 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, that no one's paying them, so they're not worth getting paid.

Getting fired can 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, in other words, 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'd think that would be something we wouldn't have to be told to do.

It's kind of, you know, naturally, we'd 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. It's 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. 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 as 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, their health, someone else's health, about something that needs to be done.

They'd have turmoil inside, like in this hymn, Just As I Am, fightings and fears within and without.

They just can't rest. Their faith has no resting place. 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. In other words, 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, it's to the Lord. It's not just a humanitarian concern, although I think there's some of that in there, but it's not just that.

It's not just about keeping ourselves from getting overworked, just having a day off. It's 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 arbeit macht frei, 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, there the reason we rest, is that God rested from his work of creation.

Six days he worked, and so in the seventh 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.

It's built into us at creation. The Sabbath, 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 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 arbeit macht frei, 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, the

Sabbath comes at the end. They worked 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? Is it a day? Is it now, 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? Is that what it is? Well, that sounds like what I just implied. In fact, 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 sounds like what

I just implied, that we work from our Sabbath, but that's really not 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 4, verse 10, 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, it's 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. It is just something for Israel, and yet the commandment in verse 14 says it applies even to the, notice the sojourner who is within your gates.

Notice the foreigner living temporarily with you. They need their rest too. All had to rest.

Here, the Sabbath didn't free them from, I should say,

I've got to say this right. The Sabbath was for those who had 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 to feed themselves as they were walking.

And the Pharisees thought that was, they thought that was breaking the Sabbath, and accused

Jesus, 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, am 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 trusting

God. And there's some truth to that. As Colossians chapter 2 verse 16 says, therefore let no one pass judgment on you in 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 verse 16, 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 arbeit macht frei, 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, in Luke chapter 4 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 understand, for them, this was a priority. 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. Now we're going to get it right. We're going to keep the

Sabbath. So this was one of their priority commands, to keep this one. But they missed it completely, what it was about.

Oh, they strictly kept the day, but they never entered God's rest. They weren't worshippers.

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 walked too many steps.

I forgot how many exactly it is. You've worked, so 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. On and on, all the restrictions go.

There's just a list of them, what makes for work and what's not. If you just pick something out of a bush, it may not be work, but if you actually get your pruners out and start pruning, that's work.

You know, all that. 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. Hear that He's done the work 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. 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 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's on ESPN at this time.

But in the Lord, the Lord of the Sabbath, in 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 our bite mocked fry.

We even make a declaration, you think about it, in the way we worship. I don't know if you've ever seen other religions worship.

They're always doing something. They bring in a jaw stick, put it in, they wave 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. You call this worship? What are you doing? You just 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 God even gave us those.

We are then, by faith, in Hebrews 4, 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 4, 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 rest. Relax. We strive to enter that rest, that true

Sabbath. Sometimes, sorry Sabbath Day Adventists, by not striving to keep a literal

Sabbath. So is all this Sabbath talk then only for the Old Testament?

Like a lot of modern people believe. Now 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 ten. 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? The 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. That's 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. 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 taken a new form. It's not about a delay. 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 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 rests 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 trusts 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 will 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?

It has a command on how we're to spend every day of the week. It says in verse 13, six days you shall do all your work.

So this command is why every legitimate job, being a mafia hit man is not a legitimate job, but legitimate jobs, from teaching school to farming to construction to accounting to sales to truck driving to assembly line work to warehouse work to restaurant work to baking to housekeeping, 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 until 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 okay for me to take a job that always makes me work every Sunday. Or I can worship

God just as well out 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 singing 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, it 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 what 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 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 the 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. 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 corporateness of being in covenant with God, that we're worshiping together with the church.

It's not just 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 led us out together.

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, for 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, on some kind of rotation that makes us work on some Sunday mornings, or we get called up on an emergency, something comes up, we've 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, 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. 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 Arbite 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? Very quickly, let me give you four

R's to keep the Sabbath, four ways, each beginning with the letter R. First, you rest, you remember, you relish, and then you revere.

But first, as sophisticated as we might want to sound about how we no longer, at least

I don't believe, 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? We're 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.

I thought about that this morning, leaving, oh my grass needs to be cut, but I better not say it, because I knew I was about to say this.

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 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 them.

I'm going to rest, even if they need to be done. I'm just going to rest. As it says in Hebrews chapter 4 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. 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.

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 don't think by getting a day off you earn something from God.

You 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 don't count your sleep.

Don't go say, well I get four, one quarter days off and that's when I'm sleeping.

Now find something else and part of your rest, find something else you can do that gives you rest. Exercise, exercise, maybe reading.

They say if you work with your hands, Sabbath with your mind. If you work with your mind,

Sabbath with your hands. 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. 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 money making. And into resting. 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 in 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 worshippers 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 and work and work, but never earn anything, certainly not freedom.

Remember that as 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.

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 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, we'll delight in worshipping 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, it 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. Fourth, we keep the

Sabbath when we revere the Lord of the Sabbath. He is 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. We can do that. But if we don't believe God, if we don't obey his command to believe him, to rest in what he's done, then

Hebrews chapter 4 verses 3 to 5 says, God swears, quotes

God there, I swear that the disobedient, those who will not rest from their work by trusting in Christ, the unbelieving,

God swears, they will not enter my rest, God says. God actively prevents people from enjoying true rest until they believe, until they're worshipers.

Think about that. Isn't that strange? How could God command people to do something?

He commands them to rest, there's the commandment, and then he keeps them from being able to obey that commandment.

He says, I will not let them enter my rest. He commands people to rest, but will not let them.

Those who are in rebellion against him. He won't let them actually rest. What's the purpose in that?

Well, the purpose is to get us, if we're still rebellious and unbelieving, to get us to see that the reason, as the hymn writer puts it, we still have fighting and fears within, without, that that, because, as another hymn puts it, our faith hasn't yet found a resting place, that we're still working with device, maybe our religion or our creed, with what we believe, the right, we get the right doctrines in order, that's for us, that'll do it.

We don't yet trust the ever -living one. We don't yet trust and rest in that Jesus died and that he died for me and that's enough.

We don't yet trust that if, if we still, we don't yet trust in him and so we still trust in that lie, wrought in iron, all our bite mocked fry.

We still believe that and so, like those people 70 years ago were being led to our deaths.

Until we give up every strategy to control God, every device to earn something from him, every reliance on, on anything we do, on our religion, on our rituals, our morality, on the fact that we're average or better or we've been a good family person, we've been supporting it with our work, even our baptism, our prayers, on anything, even on literal

Sabbath keeping. Until we give up on that and cast ourselves unreservedly into the arms of the

Lord, until we do that, we cannot have rest. So the

Lord of the Sabbath speaking, come if you're weary, heavy laden, come, those of you who are tired of striving, tired of being a worker, tired of fighting with others and yourself, tired of the empty promise that work makes free.

Oh, you believed it and you've tried hard, but you find yourself like a hamster on a wheel, always running but never getting anywhere.

Come if you're tired of being bored with your religion, instead of loving, relishing the

Lord of the Sabbath. God, come if you're just plain tired.

Come to the Lord of the Sabbath. Take his yoke, the yoke of Jesus, and learn from him.

Come. Strive to enter his rest. Be a worshipper, not a worker, and he will give you rest.