Sabbath Rest (Exodus): Many people struggle to find a healthy balance of work and rest. Is there a way to work hard for the glory of God without dying on the altar of productivity? In the story of creation, God modeled productive work and meaningful rest. The lesson of the Sabbath is that God clearly expected his people to adopt this same pattern as a sign of their relationship with him — a sign ultimately fulfilled by Christ. Recorded on Feb 9, 2025, on Exodus 31:12-18 and other selected verses by Pastor David Parks.
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This message is part of our Exodus series called Journey to Freedom. Exodus is a story of liberation — of God working to rescue and redeem a people for himself, freeing them from slavery and leading them to the land he promised to the family of Abraham and Sarah. Exodus is also a picture of the gospel and the Christian life. In Christ, we, too, are freed from captivity to sin and death and led through the wilderness of life by God’s Word and Presence as we make our way to the Promised Land of the world to come. Join us as we make this journey to find true and lasting freedom.
Sermon Transcript
So, we’re working through the book of Exodus in a sermon series called Journey to Freedom. And, we’ve said that Exodus is a story of liberation, of God rescuing and redeeming a people for himself. Exodus is a wonderful picture of the gospel and the Christian life — that God saved a people by his grace, freed them from captivity, and led them by his word and holy Presence in relationship to him as they made their way to the Promised Land. The Exodus is our story in Christ. As we said last week, the first half of Exodus is mostly narrative/story, while the second half includes mostly commands and instructions from God given through the prophet Moses while the people remained camped at Mount Sinai. So we’ve paused our typical expository preaching style for several topical sermons here in the second half of Exodus — sermons on the Law, Tabernacle, Priesthood, (today) Sabbath, and more. A topical sermon widens the scope from “What does this one passage say?” to “What does the whole Bible say about this topic?” Today, we’ll consider God’s desire for his people to rest in the practice of the Sabbath. The Hebrew word ‘Sabbath’ means to stop or cease working. Now, the Bible does not present work as part of the curse of sin. But one area that sin has certainly affected is our work. For example, in Ge 3, God said that childbearing would continue but would be painful. The ground would bear fruit but would also produce thorns and thistles. Christians today must learn God’s intention for our work and rest, how sin distorts these things, and how we might learn to honor God in our work and our rest. Now, I’ve always liked to work hard. I was the kid who pushed myself in school/sports/whatever. I spent countless hours practicing basketball after the team practice was done. Then, I’d shoot free throws until I made ten in a row. (To this day, I can hit a free throw more often than not.) Before I was a pastor, I worked in the business world, and I loved the meritocracy of sales. The harder I worked, the more money I could make. That seemed like a great deal to me. When God called me from the business world into vocational ministry, I threw myself into this with everything I had, and for years, my motto was this: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” But, you know, as I got older (and a little wiser), I learned that if that’s your attitude toward your work — no matter what you do, whether your work is in your home or somewhere else, whether your work is paid or unpaid — if you’ll sleep when you’re dead, you’ll be dead sooner than later. This was just not a good way to live. But is there a better way? Is there a way to work hard and be productive in life and to the glory of God without dying on the altar of productivity? Is there a way to balance fruitful/productive work and enjoy meaningful rest? This is the lesson of the Sabbath, and it’s no less important for us to learn today than it was for the Israelites some 3,300 years ago. If you have your Bible/app, please open it to Exodus 31:12.
Exodus 31:12–18 (NIV), “12 Then the Lord said to Moses, 13 “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. 14 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people. 15 For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death. 16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. 17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ” 18 When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.” As we’ve seen, Yahweh, the Lord God Almighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth, had a particular way he wanted life to work for his people in the world he had made. His instructions and commands touched on their judicial system (Law), their worship (priesthood, Tabernacle, and sacrificial system), and now, here, in their work and rest. Basically, God’s will covers all of life. But, in this passage, we discover that the Sabbath was a gift of God and was designed to be a sign of their covenant relationship. As my wedding ring is a visible sign of my relationship with Holly, so the practice of the Sabbath was to be a visible sign of the relationship between Israel and God. But this sign did just point toward their relationship but also back to the work of God in creation itself. Verse 17 points back to the first pages of the Bible and how “in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” This is a very curious idea that a God who is uncreated and infinite in power might rest and be refreshed from his work. Why would he do this? Well, it can’t be because he was worn out and needed a break. God did this to model for the creatures made in his image how to work and the need for healthy rest. This was especially true for the Israelites. They needed this lesson because, as a former slave people, slaves for hundreds of years, they were used to being only valuable as they could be productive for their Egyptian masters. The first practice of a six-day work week and a Sabbath rest was found in Ex 16 in the gathering of the manna (bread from heaven). God told them not to collect the manna on the Sabbath. He would provide twice as much manna for them the day before so no one would be without food. But some people still went out looking for manna on the Sabbath. This is also why, in Dt, some 40 years later, before Israel entered Canaan, Moses reminded the people of the command to keep the Sabbath saying, Deuteronomy 5:15 (NIV), “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.” As former slaves in Egypt, Israel had a lot to learn (and unlearn) about how to live according to God’s word. But also, the Sabbath was a sign that they were free people in a relationship with Yahweh God. But this command and desire of God went beyond his people to every living creature in their society. We see this in the Ten Commandments where it says, Exodus 20:10 (NIV), “10 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.” God wanted his kingdom to be a kingdom of work and rest. His people might’ve been exploited and taken advantage of as slaves in Egypt. And that might be normal for the kingdoms of this broken world. But that was not how life in his kingdom was to be. Even the lowliest of servants in Israel was to have regular rest. Now, in their culture, Sunday was the first day of the week, so Friday evening to Saturday evening was when the Sabbath was practiced. But there were more aspects to the Sabbath than just the weekly day off.
For example, the high holy day of ancient Israel, the Day of Atonement, was to be a Sabbath Rest as well (Lev 16). No one was to do any work as the high priest made atonement for their sins. But every Sabbath was to be a sacred assembly no different from the annual Festivals of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, or Tabernacles (Lev 23). These annual festivals were opportunities for the nation to gather, hear the word of God proclaimed, offer sacrifices, sing, and joyfully worship the Lord together in the presence of God. The weekly Sabbath was supposed to be like a smaller, weekly opportunity to do the same thing. To stop working and praise and enjoy the Lord together. We see this in Leviticus 25.
Leviticus 25:1–7 (NIV), “1 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. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.” Dt 15 adds that the Sabbath year was also when all debts would be canceled, and any indentured servants who wanted to be freed could go free. Finally, every 49 years, or seven Sabbath years, would be the year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee was to be a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the rest and freedom that God’s people were intended to enjoy. Along with everything else that happened in a Sabbath year, any Israelites who, through some misfortune, had become so poor they had to sell their ancestral land appointed to them when they entered the Promised Land of Canaan could return and take possession of their land once again. It was to be like a giant reset for their whole kingdom, one of the benefits being to try and prevent generational cycles of poverty.
By Jesus’ time, the Sabbath was celebrated weekly at the local synagogue, in a very similar service to our worship service today. The Scriptures were read and taught, prayers were prayed, and songs of praise were sung together. Jesus himself regularly preached in the synagogues on the Sabbath. However, the religiously conservative Pharisees had gone way beyond what God commanded for the Sabbath, adding rules upon rules to what constituted work while ignoring the people God cared for so much. This is why Jesus repeatedly challenged the hardness of the hearts of the Pharisees by healing people on the Sabbath. He was trying to get them to see the hypocrisy of caring more about the rules of what was supposed to be a gift of God for his people than the actual people. He told them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27), meaning the Sabbath was always meant to be a blessing to God’s people, not a burden. Of course, Jesus went on to say that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, which was one of the more explicit claims of Jesus to be God because, as we’ve seen in Exodus, the Sabbath was clearly given and commanded by Yahweh himself. This supposed rule-breaking and radical claim to divinity convinced the Pharisees that Jesus didn’t just need to be stopped; he needed to be killed. But what about after the old covenant came to an end? And the new covenant was established in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? What about Christians today? Are we supposed to continue to practice the Sabbath? Colossians 2 has a helpful perspective on the practices of the old covenant, including the Sabbath. Colossians 2:16–17 (NIV), “16 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.” But in case we might think the Sabbath no longer applies at all, we must remember that it was to be a sign between God and his people forever. So, how might the Sabbath be a sign today? This is another of the great themes of the letter to the Hebrews. In Hebrews 4, the author meditates on the kind of rest that God was offering to his people and they argue that not only was the Sabbath a sign of the relationship between God and people but also that it was a foreshadowing of the eternal rest that God offers in salvation and particularly in the age to come in the new heavens And the new earth. Hebrews 4:9–11 (NIV), “9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”
The challenge of the Sabbath isn’t really a work issue; it’s a faith issue. Do you trust God to provide for you even if you stop working for a day? How about for a year? Do you trust that God is good and will provide for your needs? Sometimes, we’re tempted to overwork because we get our identity from what we do. I once met a man who had been a pastor but was not currently serving in a pastoral role, but he insisted people still called him pastor so-and-so. His vocation had become his identity. That’s not right or good. Being a pastor was what he did (for a season), not who he was. Other times, we might be tempted to overwork because we get our worth from our productivity. But this is not right or good, either. Throughout life, we have varying levels of ability to be productive. And we better not base our self-worth on our productivity because if we get sick or injured, or as we approach the end of our lives and our abilities decline, we might sadly think our lives are no longer valuable. You are not valuable because you are productive. You are valuable because your Creator has said you’re so valuable, your life is worth his one and only Son. In Christ, you are the Father’s beloved son or daughter, regardless of your abilities, regardless of whether you’re sleeping, sick, have disabilities, or are on hospice care. The Sabbath is an opportunity to test and grow your faith, to remember that your identity comes from God, and to remember your infinite worth in Christ. Let us pray…
Benediction: We’ll close with a benediction from Matthew 11, where Jesus proclaimed, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” May God bless you all with rest. Go in peace today. Amen.
