Why keep the Sabbath?

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the first talk in a four-part series on the Sabbath. Today we're going to study various passages in the Old Testament that explain what the Sabbath is and why we keep it. Because this talk was recorded before a live audience, the audio contains some background noise. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. Lecture notes are the information I would give you on a handout if I were teaching you in person. You can also find those lecture notes by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Sabbath1. Thanks so much for listening today. Let me just open us in prayer and then I'll introduce myself. Father, we just thank you that we have the chance to come and study your word. And we pray that you would put away all the cares and the distractions and the worries and the thinking about what we have to do the rest of the day to learn how we can rest in you and to get to know you better. And I just thank you for each one here that you would be giving us the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and that you were giving me the words to say. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, for those of you that don't know me, my name is Krisan Marotta. I know a lot of you, but I see some faces I don't know. Let's see, to tell you about me, I volunteer as the director of women's ministries here, and I teach regularly on Wednesday in the Word. My husband's an elder here, and we have two, I guess they would say grown children. It's hard for me to think of them as grown children, but uh we have a son who's about to graduate from college in about three weeks, and our daughter's in her first year of college. And we have we each run a business more or less. Actually, I could say Bob runs Dave's business. He couldn't do it without him. And um we have two cats still at home, so that's kind of who I am. So this is the first of a four-week series on the Sabbath. So if you're looking for something else, you're in the wrong room. So leave now if you if you want to. Always catch a few. I'm speculating that I bet you are here for probably one of two reasons, maybe both. Either you're completely frazzled with life, you rush from day to day and activity to activity, and you begin to suspect something is wrong. Perhaps you find yourself complaining about your schedule, but you have no idea how to slow down or how to do anything about it, and you're beginning to think this can't be what God has in mind, that this kind of addiction to activity is probably not right. So that's probably one reason you're here. The other reason you may be here, I'm guessing, is that you're convinced that the Sabbath still means something today, but you have no idea what it is. After all, it's one of the Ten Commandments, and we don't we don't kind of let the other nine slide, so why do we seem to ignore this one? So if you take the Bible seriously, and I suspect most of you do, and you want to follow God and obey Him, then there's this command for the Sabbath, and what are we supposed to do about it? And it doesn't help that if you get four Bible teachers or scholars in the room, you're probably gonna get five different answers to what the Sabbath means. Hmm, what do we do with that? And then you look around at your friends and you go, well, I'm not doing what they're doing, and they're not doing what I'm doing, and how do I know who's right and who's wrong? Well, if that's the kind of questions you're asking, that's what we're gonna answer. And that's what started me in on this study. I was looking around at the pace of life, going, this can't be right. There's got to be something to this. So, how do we know what it is? So, over the next four weeks, we're gonna answer the question today, what is the Sabbath? Why does God command it? Then we're gonna talk about how do we keep it and when do we keep it. And the final week is how did the New Testament change things? So we're gonna spend a lot of time in the Old Testament for the first two weeks and then more in the New Testament the second two weeks. I just have to tell you up front, I will not answer all your questions, but I will hope to lay some groundwork so that you have a way to approach it. And I also should say I'm not speaking for the PCA. I am not speaking in any kind of official capacity, like this is what the elders of the church believe. This is just me as a regular Bible teacher in the church speaking on that basis. I just want to lay that ground. And one other uh disclaimer or actually an acknowledgement. Those of you who know me know that I'm uh basically a plagiarist, that everything I teach I've read in a commentary or heard in a sermon or read in a book, and that I do voracious research. And everything I tell you probably came from 15 or 20 different Bible teachers or pastors and teachers, and I just kind of put it all together. And I'm deeply indebted to a man named Paul Taylor, he's a pastor in California, for the basic kind of framework of this. So I just want to acknowledge him. And it also lets you know I didn't make it up. See? Someone else believes it. Okay, so what we're gonna learn today is we're gonna talk about the Sabbath and why we keep it, why did God give this command? And what we're gonna learn is that the Sabbath is about who God is. So it's not about what we leave need to live healthy lives, uh making sure we can get our rest so we're more productive the rest of the week, that the Sabbath is given to us to teach us something about God, to remind us who He is. We're gonna start at the beginning. We are gonna spend a little time in a lot of different passages, so please bring a Bible if uh if you didn't today, bring one next week, and there might be some in the back of the room because we are gonna be uh looking at a lot of different texts. So today we're gonna start with at the beginning and define the word Sabbath. You've probably heard this before. In Hebrew, the word just means to stop, and it's related to the word for seven, which was the word for uh completeness or perfection, or had that theme. Sabbath is a theme that's woven throughout scriptures. We find it in the first chapter of Genesis all the way through Revelation. And so what we're gonna try to do today is figure out what we're supposed to stop and then why. Okay, so the first time we get a command for the Sabbath is in Exodus 20. So turn to Exodus 20. And that's where we're gonna start. This is the first listing of the Ten Commandments. You're probably aware Sabbath is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. It's Exodus 20. Give you a minute to find it. We're gonna read verses 8 through 11. So Exodus 20, verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That answers all your questions, right? I don't know about you, but I first read that next, okay, now what? Okay, so we get the basic pattern of the command in the first verse. Remember the Sabbath because it's holy. And then he goes on to explain why we're supposed to remember it and how it is holy. The first thing we learned that it has to do with not doing work. So six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You shall not do any work. And then, lest you mistake, he lists every possible person in your household and says, and they don't work either. That seems on the surface, you think, okay, oh, that how that ought to be easy. Well, the interesting thing is why. Because the last verse gives us why we're supposed to keep the Sabbath holy. The reason is because God rested after he created heaven and earth. So let's turn back to Genesis 2 and look at that. So something about the Sabbath is patterned after what God did in creation. We're told to rest because God rested. So let's look at why he rested. So you keep your finger in Exodus and flip back to Genesis chapter 2. And I'm going to just read verses 1 through 3. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work he had done in creation. Now, when I read that out loud, you can't help but notice the repetition. This heavens and earth were finished, God was finished, he was done, he was done, he was done. And he said this three times in that, in just those three verses. So why did God rest? Because his work was finished. So he didn't rest because he was tired, and he didn't rest because you know all that creation stuff that really wore him out, and now he he needed a you know a vacation before he started his next work week or something like that. He rested because he was done. I think that suggests that the reason we rest is to remember that God's work is done. So God created us and he's finished. Now, we're gonna talk a lot about what that means, but for most of us, the idea of work being done is really strange. I mean, how many of you even remember what it felt like to have all your work done at any point in your life? I mean, we always have something left to do. There's always, you know, school responsibilities or work responsibilities or family or house and yard or church. There's always something to do. I remember one day, right after I graduated from college, I had nothing to do. I'd finished all my finals, I'd applied for graduation, my husband and I were getting married in a couple of weeks, but you know, everything was taken out of my hands. You know, everybody else wanted to do everything, so even all the wedding plans were out of my hands. We were going to be moving to Oregon after our honeymoon, but we didn't have jobs yet, so I had no job responsibilities. So it was like, I have nothing to do. I was like, I had no clue. So my husband and I, or my fiance at that time, we went to this little park and we had this picnic, and it's the first time in my life I remember thinking, there's nowhere I have to be. I think it's also the last time in my life that happened. But it was great. You know, until that moment I'd been a student on my life, and you know, there are probably some students in here, right? You don't uh rest, you procrastinate, right? Because there's always something to do. But at that point, I had no job, no children, no volunteer work. We disconnected from everything at church because we were moving and it was it was great. And especially for women, I'm I teach to women most of all, so I don't mean to slight men, but I know that for women we always feel like there's always something to do. If you're working or not working, or you have kids or not kids, there's always something. And so if we rest, we rest so we can be better tomorrow, or so we can be more productive the next day. Now, that assumes that it's our job to get as much done as we possibly can. So it's my job to create myself, to do it all, to make it all work, to get everything organized, to fit it all in, and to make everything happen. And what the Sabbath is saying is that's God's job, and He's done. And you can rest in that. That's a real radical shift. We're gonna talk more about it. First, let's talk about why we think that way. I think part of it is we want it all. You know, we feel like we have to have these exciting careers and perfect marriages and the most dynamic, perfect church, and the best compassionate friends ever, and these stimulating hobbies, and you know, all our children are above average and perfectly obedient, and we have all these parents who are who are generous and don't need anything, and so we have to reach our full potential, we have to become everything we can possibly be. And we start teaching that idea early, you know. You've probably felt this pressure, especially if you're a new parent. You have to teach your kids to read before they, you know, are two years old so that they can get into the best preschool, you know, and it's because they have to get into the best preschool because then they'll get into the best elementary school. And if they get in the best elementary school, then they can get into the right high school where they can take all the honors classes and all the AP classes, so they can get into the best college, and then of course you have to take your master's and your PhD and whatever, and and you have to do all that so you get the best job ever. And if you don't get enough job, uh the best job, you won't have enough money to retire, and so you have to work all your lives and you never get any rest at all. Right? And if you're the mom, you have to make it all happen, not just for you, but for your kids, right? So while you're getting them on the fast track to success, you have to do it all for yourself as well, and never gain a pound and never get a gray hair. You know, that's kind of the rules, right? Now I'm sure I'm more familiar with the stress moms feel, but I'm sure dads probably feel the same way. You have to provide expertly for your family, never take a break, never have a need of your own, always uh serving for someone else. Now I come to you and I say, okay, you have to accomplish all this and take a day off. And your first reaction is probably, what kind of a gift is that? How could that help? Well, the flaw in that thinking is that we have to create ourselves. And the Sabbath says, our life is not about creating ourselves, it's not about getting where I want to be in that sense. It's that God created me, that God has a plan, that he knows what I need, that he's prepared works beforehand for me to walk in them, and that I can trust him for that. And so I can take a day off because, in the ultimate sense, it's not my job, it's his. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals, and I'm not saying you shouldn't strive for them, that there's something inherently wrong with being ambitious. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying the attitude is I can trust God to take care of me, and I can take a break because he's created me, he's responsible, and I can rest in that. Now, that's hard for us, and I think it was probably hard for the Israelites when they first got this command because I'm sure it didn't seem like a gift. They were an agricultural economy, so they lived off what they could grow and harvest. And now God says, take a day off every week, don't do anything for your crops or your livestock. Now, for us, it's probably true that if you're a nurse or you're a teacher or you're a boss or you're a mom or computer programmer or whatever, if you take a day off, you'll be more productive the next day. And that's that's true for most of us. We need that break to be more productive. But if you're a farmer, you don't take a day off. It's irresponsible for a farmer to take a day off and do nothing for his crops. And it would have looked very strange for them. How do you stop caring for your livestock? And think how their neighbors would have thought, you know, look, they're those lazy Israelites taking a day off. It's it's just downright irresponsible. The people who got this command originally, they would not have this mindset, take a day off to be more productive. Take a day off would have been crazy. It's just not something you do. But you can only do it if you trust that God will sustain you, that it's his job ultimately to make sure those crops succeed or not, and that you can live like it's his job to sustain you and you can trust him for it. Think about that. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe in your life that God created you and that sustaining your life is his responsibility? I mean, I don't know about you, but a lot of my life is lived under the impression that I'm responsible for creating myself. So I have to work hard to get where I want to be, I have to take all the classes I can take and make get the education to make things happen, get everything organized, cross everything off my list, and I live like it's my job to do everything. You know, the the world will end if I don't cross everything off my to-do list by the end of the day. I I'm convinced of that. And and most of the time I live like it. But what the Bible calls us to do is say, you don't create yourself. That's God's job. So the first reason behind the Sabbath is we rest to remember that God created us. Now turn to the second time we get this commandment, and we're gonna see Moses gives us another slightly different flavor of that. This is Exodus 31. So after he gave the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, he gave another another more specific descriptions on how these commandments were to be applied. And in Exodus 31, he gets to the Sabbath. So this is Exodus 31, verses 12. I'm starting in verse 12 and going to 17. And the Lord said to Moses, You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, Above all, you shall keep my Sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generation, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctifying you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. Did you notice the repetition in this passage? This is a sign, this is a covenant, this is a sign between the Lord and us, or in Israel originally. So the first listing of the Ten Commandments says we rest to remember that God created us. This passage gives us an additional reason. It says this is a sign of the covenant between God and his people. Now, for Jewish years, those would have been very significant words, sign and covenant. And covenant, it was the fundamental way that God related to his people. It was a legal contract, if you will, that he made as promises that he would be their God and they would be his people. And there were signs of that covenant. One we're probably most familiar with is circumcision, which was a sign of the covenant, but here God says Sabbath is also a sign of that covenant. So this is a way of saying, I belong to the people of God. I am different. I am marked out as his, and my life looks different because of that. And one of the ways it looks different is there's a day when you stop and you rest. Now, by Jesus' time the Sabbath had become kind of a flip-flopped and became sort of a badge of loyalty. It was the idea that I chose God, and I'm showing how much I choose Him by how religious I am and how well I keep the Sabbath. But the idea here is not the opposite. It's that we rest because God chose us. And it reminds us of our basic identity. Now think about that. What's your basic identity? We all have labels, we all have identifiers. You know, when you meet someone for the first time and they said you start getting to know them, and what's the first thing you tell them? You say, you know, well, I'm a wife or a mother or a student or I'm a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher or whatever. We have these labels and we like to start putting people in these labels to get to know them. I mentioned that my daughter started college this fall, and she laughed that she should have just put a sign around her neck saying, I'm going to UVA, I don't know what I'm majoring in. Because whenever anyone would meet her, they'd say, Where are you going to college? What are you going to major in? Now she's going to update it to, I still don't know what I'm majoring in. But that's where we we want to start getting kind of those basic boxes of do you work, do you not work? Are you married or you're not married? Do you have kids? Do you not have kids? You know, are you from Charlottesville? Are you not from Charlottesville? What kind of job do you have? So we look for those basic identifiers to kind of begin to get to know someone more deeply. And what the Sabbath says is my identity first and foremost is as a member of God's chosen people. So this is who I am. I'm a member of God's people. And Sabbath was a way to demonstrate that. So not honoring the Sabbath was not just disobeying God in a sense, but it was also renouncing your identity. And I think that gives us a clue as to why in the Exodus passages he says, if you don't keep it, you'll be put to death. Because for us, we go, ooh, good thing we're in the New Testament period. This could be a problem. We're going to talk about that a little more actually in next week when we talk about what to do and what not to do. But part of the idea was if you work on the Sabbath, you're renouncing your basic claim of being Jewish. You're saying, well, I don't want to look like everybody else that's part of God's people. I don't want to admit that I trust Him. I'm going to kind of look like everybody else. So think about that question. What's your primary identity? When people meet you, what do they know about you or what do you tell them? And for the Sabbath, or for the Jews, the Sabbath was a way of saying, this is who I am. I'm different because I'm part of God's people. And think about what that would be in our culture today. I mean, we live in a culture where busyness is admired. And the more busy you are, the more important you are. And if someone asks you how you're doing, and you say, Oh, I'm really relaxed, I had a really great week, fresh, you go. unknown: What's wrong with them? Krisan Marotta: Something must be wrong. They don't know the rules. When someone asks you how you're doing, you have to say, I am so busy, I have a hundred things to do this week, and then you're fine. That's because that's what our culture expects. My husband is an elder here, and every seven years, elders are required to take a sabbatical. And the first time his sabbatical came up, some of the older, wiser women in the church said, you know, you should take a sabbatical too. And I thought, no. And then about the 30th time they told me this, I thought, maybe that's a good idea. I should listen to them. I untangled myself from all my church commitments too, and we took a year off, and people thought we were strange because we had time for coffee, we had time for walks, we didn't have to rush from one place to another. But it felt weird. It felt like we didn't belong. It just seemed like we were out of sync with everyone. If I'm relaxed and I'm rested, then something must be wrong with me. But if I can say, oh, I've got such a busy week, I've got all this stuff due, then I feel better. Now, Sabbath is a way of saying busyness is not what makes me important. Who I am is not defined by what I do. It's not how important I am in my job, it's not how many things I can accomplish in the day. My activity level is not what makes me significant as a human being or important. What makes me important or significant is I am a child of God and I can rest in that. That's what defines who I am, not my schedule. And Sabbath is a way to remind me of that. God chose me. That's what makes me important. Now, as I mentioned earlier, we can twist that around and make it kind of a badge of me choosing God. So I keep the Sabbath to show you that I'm a super spiritual giant and uh look how seriously I take my faith and how I'm not like those other, you know, nominal Christians. I'm choosing God, I'm choosing a Sabbath. And I think that's the wrong attitude. The attitude is not to show you or anyone else how uh spiritual I am, it's a way of saying, God chose me. And I think that's the fundamental flaw the Pharisees and the New Testament had. They were keeping all the rules to show how impressive they were and how important and how uh serious they were about their religion. And I think that's the wrong attitude. We can use the Sabbath that way as well and other church activities to show, you know, how serious we are. So the more church activities I belong to or I volunteer for, you know, the more dedicated I am, the more spiritual I must be, to prove that I'm serious about my faith by doing all this. And that's kind of the wrong attitude. If you think about it, even the language we use, you know, we talk about we ask Jesus into our hearts and we invite him to be Lord, and we put Jesus on the throne. And the way we talk about it, you think he was like a candidate running for office, and we voted for him and he won. You know, we kind of elected him to that position. But he isn't our candidate, he's our king, and we don't elect our king, we submit to our king. So we don't elect Jesus Lord of our life, we submit to him as Lord, and we can rest in that submission. So Sabbath is the same idea. It's not something I do to prove to God that I'm serious, it's something that I do to remember that God chose me. God created me, God chose me, and I can trust him for that. Okay, so those are the first two reasons we've gotten from our text. We rest to remember that God created us, and we rest to remember that he's chosen us. Let's turn to Deuteronomy and we'll find one more. So Deuteronomy chapter 5. It gives a slightly different, same idea but a little different flavor on it. So Deuteronomy 5, this is the Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years and they're about to go into the promised land. And in Deuteronomy, Moses gives them a series of sermons to kind of prepare them for the next phase of their life as a nation. So they've been this wilderness society wandering around in the desert. Now they're going to go in and be established as a nation. And he gives all these sermons to say, when this happens, here's what I want you to do. So he comes back to the Sabbath again, and this is Deuteronomy 5, verses 12 through 15. 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 day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or 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 your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And then here's the new idea, he adds 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. Okay, so the first listing in of the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is linked to creation. In Deuteronomy 5, now like 40 years later, it's linked to the Exodus or to God releasing his people from slavery in Egypt. The first one looks back to creation, the second looks back to the Exodus, and that gives us the final reason to remember the Sabbath, that God redeemed us. So we rest to remember that He created us, that He chose us, and now that He redeemed us. And if you think about it, all three of those are kind of variations on a theme: that God is in control of my life, not me, that I can trust Him for it. Let's talk about the Exodus a minute. That was the defining moment for the nation of Israel. When God saved them, brought them out of the land of Egypt, that's when they became a nation and a people. Before that, they were just a bunch of kind of raggedy slaves living in poverty and oppression, probably had a lot less going for them than, say, the people here today. And yet God made a promise to them. He said, I will take you out of this, I will make you a nation, and you will be my people. So a lot of scholars say, well, Judaism was born when God called Abraham. The nation of Israel was born when God redeemed the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. And the Sabbath is to remind them of that, that He rescued them, that He redeemed them. Now, just to compare our own national identity, you know, we celebrate July 4th as our defining moment as a nation. 1776. A group of men signed a declaration of independence saying we were subjects of this king, but we are declaring our independence. We are not going to be subjects of that king. We are going to be a new nation. And so we celebrate Independence Day. For the Jews, it's a little different. It's more like they're celebrating Dependence Day. This was where they were subjects of a king who was oppressing them. They eagerly desired independence and wanted to be a nation or wanted to be on their own, but the story is different. Rather than declaring their independence, they were rescued by God. So we created this nation, if you will, or our ancestors did, but God created their nation. They were to acknowledge that God was the one who started this, that it's all was up to Him. So He chose them, He created them, He redeemed them. Now, that adds another idea to the Sabbath for us, that this is not something that we do for our own empowerment. It's not something we do to make us more efficient, to make us more productive, you know, like taking a power nap in the middle of the day so you can make it through all the things you have to do. And, you know, I have to rest today so I can work harder tomorrow. Sabbath is the idea is completely different. It's I'm resting as an acknowledgement that I didn't do it, that I can't do it, that I can't redeem myself, I can't save myself. It's up to God to do that. And I can trust Him for that. I stop working to remember my dependence on God. And if you think about it, that's hard because if we stop working, who's gonna take care of us? If I don't cross those things off my list, how do I know that they're gonna get done? And maybe, maybe, you know, the world actually will end. But if I that's how we think, right? But Sabbath is saying, it doesn't matter what I whether I cross those off my list or not, in the ultimate sense, it's up to God that He's got this plan for my life. And it was funny as I was preparing for these, you know, that it's one of the hardest things about being a teacher because I always start thinking, oh, have I read enough? Have I studied enough? What if I missed that one crucial commentary that has the key? Or that not listen to that one sermon, and and then you get kind of get overwhelmed with, how do I have the audacity to stand up in front of a group of people and tell them what the Sabbath means? Who and what am I thinking? You know, so I start thinking, oh, I just have to work hard enough, and I and I have to read one more Bible study or do one more word study or find one more thing, and I start thinking, I haven't done it enough. I have to work, I have to work. And then all of a sudden I realize all those sentences begin with I. That I have to do it, and I have to find it, and I have to make it all happen, and you know, find the perfect opening, find the perfect close, tell the perfect story. But it's all up to God. If you're gonna learn anything, it's because he's gonna teach it to you. He's the one that redeems you, he's the one that's in the process of redeeming you. I mean, if if sermons worked or lectures worked, everyone in here would be at their ideal weight, eat five fruits and vegetables every day, and exercise three times a week, right? How many times have you heard that? And you all do it because you heard it, right? The truth of the matter is that lectures don't work on those kinds of things, and it's up to God to save us. So it's not sermons, it's not books, it's Bible studies, it's God changing our hearts and working in us. And yes, he can use all those things, and we're very thankful he does, but I have to stop and remember God is the one who's speaking and working. So I just get to go along for the ride. We rest to remember that it is God who is at work in our lives, that it is not our works, it is not our great efforts and strenuous activities, it's not sermons, it's not music, it's what God is doing. He's the one who saves us, redeems us, and chooses us. So that's the why of the Sabbath. We rest to remember our dependence on God. And it's whatever we do or don't do, it ought to be about God and it ought to further those ends. Now I know all of you are having have tons of questions at this point of okay, so what do I do and what do I not do? And what's allowed? What how do I spend my Sunday? Does it have to be Sunday? What if it's Wednesday or what if it's Friday? And I'm gonna ask you to put those on hold because we are going to talk about those next week. That is the fools rush into where angels feel the tread philosophy. That's what we're gonna do next week. So put those on hold for now, and we're gonna look at some specific passages that talk about what to do and what not to do from the Old Testament, and then try to figure out what that means for us today. So we are gonna talk about that, just not right now. So, Sabbath is to remind us that God created us, that God chose us, and that God redeemed us. Sabbath is about God, it's not about me. Now, you're gonna also say, well, all you've been looking at is the Old Testament, and didn't life change with the New Testament? How does that affect everything? And we are gonna look at that as well in a couple of weeks. Uh, we're gonna talk more about it the very last week when we look at some of Jesus' words on the Sabbath. But for now, let me just say that on a broad level, Sabbath is also about Jesus because we know he was there at our creation. He's obviously there at our recreation, if you will, because the cross is what redeems us and gets us into the kingdom of heaven, and that he, of course, of course, chose us and redeemed us. So the Exodus language was often a shadow of the redemption to come. So as Moses led the people out of slavery in Egypt, so Jesus ultimately led us out of slavery to our sin by his death and resurrection on the cross. So for us, from a New Testament perspective, Sabbath reminds us not just of God, but also what Jesus did for us. We're gonna talk more about that in a couple weeks, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm not uh totally ignoring the New Testament. So, Sabbath is about dependence. It may seem like it's all resting on my shoulders, and I feel that way when I forget about God, and it's easy to forget about him. So I stop working to acknowledge that ultimately he's in control of my life, that I can rest on the promises. Think about the promises if you've already been to the sermon today about asking and receiving, knock on the door, and it shall be given to you. Part of the promise of that is your salvation, that when you ask for faith, when you ask for righteousness, when you ask for him to save you from your sins, he will do it, and you can trust him in that. And so we can stop our frantic activity knowing that he's in control of our lives. Okay, so here's what I'd like you to do between now and next week. This is your homework, if you will, but it's all kind of thought exercises. Put on hold for a sec for for a week, you know. Well, what do I do on Sunday afternoon or what do I not do? Does it have to be Sunday? We are we are going to tackle those questions. But instead, think about what we talked about today. So I'd like you to spend some time kind of reflecting on it, on the fact that God chose you, God created you, and God redeemed you. And ask yourself, do I really believe that? And maybe for some of you you don't believe that. Maybe you're not sure about these claims that Jesus made, and you're not sure whether you want to believe in the God of the Bible, and you you can start there, if that's where you're at. Do I really believe all these claims to be true? If you're already convinced of them, then ask yourself, do I really believe it? How do I live like God created me, God chose me, and God redeemed me? If that's a basic fact of who I am, what would that mean in my life? Now, I'm these have to be more than, you know, the answers you would choose on a theological test. If I gave you a quiz and asked you, you know, some basic theological questions and you would, I probably all check off, yes, God created me, God redeemed me. I'm not talking about that level of understanding. I'm talking about your identity, who you think you are. So when you think of yourselves and how you live and what choices you make, does that fact that God created you, chose you, and redeemed you factor in? So it might be how you spend your time, it might be what attitudes you have toward how you're spending your time. I mean, maybe you may come to the conclusion, well, you know, I'm already doing a lot in my life that expresses that belief. Or maybe you might come to the conclusion, well, I'm doing a lot of things that conflict with that. Or maybe I'm doing the right things with the wrong attitude, or I I don't know. That's what I want you to think about. How do I live like that's true? If I really believe that is true about me, what difference should that make in the way I act and the way I spend my time? So it might be actions, it might be attitudes, it might be your goals, it might just be your level of stress, maybe you're doing all the right things, but you've just lost the trust of that God is ultimately in control. Or maybe you'll become aware of things that you ought to change. I don't know. So while you're out running or doing the dishes or or you know, taking taking a shower, that's where I think best. Just, you know, or just ask yourself those questions. Do I really believe that God created me, that God chose me and that God redeemed me? And then how do I live like that is true? And maybe you want to talk to your best friend or your husband or someone who knows you well and say, How do you think I live like that? Or how do I not? However, you think best. I'm not gonna ask you for your list. I'm not gonna ask you, you know, to show and for show and tell. I just want you to think about those questions in your own life before we start looking at the passages in scripture that give us actual do's and don'ts, which is what we're gonna do next week. Well, let me pray to close this, and then you can have a 10-minute rest before the service starts. The next service starts. Imagine that you have nothing to do for 10 minutes. Father, uh, we have lots of questions, and we confess that this is hard for us, that it's counter to us to want to take a time off or to even to give up the control of our life to you. I just pray that you would be working in our hearts, taking away the words that were confusing or misleading, and teaching us what you would have us know, the truth and the wisdom that comes only from your spirit. And we just pray that as we go through the next week that you would be opening our eyes to how we might serve you better, love you better, and particularly in this area of resting and trusting. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Wednesday and the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a classic means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can share all the episodes in this series on my website, Wednesdayandtheword.com. There's no card, no sound, and no app. It's offering to help you in front of your study skills and understanding the first time. If you've been blessed by this podcast, subscribe to the podcast, leave a thoughts for writing or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Cartagen Marata, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.