Make absolutely sure you all have a day off each week! (Even your animals, Ex 20:10!) This is the very first of Exodus’ commandments, after the ones directly about relating to God! And it sounds, doesn’t it, just like our God who, as Dallas Willard says, is `undoubtedly the most joyous being in the universe’…
Remarkable: this is prioritized before we get onto anything like not stealing and not killing. A parallel eye-opener for me was Roger Forster pointing out how Leviticus 25 ordains that every seventh year be a holiday: `God is really into holidays!`
Practically, we saw five posts ago (in Exodus 16) how whether we do this shows whether we trust God; it’s an expression of obedient faith. Taking a day off each week (for example from studies!) means we’re stopping because we know each part of our lives is above all in His hands. (`Do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?”… Your heavenly Father knows that you need them!’ [Matthew 6:31-32].) And God points out that Sabbath is actually about freedom from slavery (appropriately for something first revealed in Exodus, as that’s the whole book’s theme!): `Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out… Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day!` (Deut 5:15).
Let’s get this right: because Sabbath is about freedom, we’re obviously not to be legalistic about it (as Colossians 2:16 makes very clear)! Sometimes, as Jesus says, the cow falls down the well on our sabbath day (Luke 14:5), and has to be pulled out. (Imagine.) But I’ve known Christians go way beyond that into legalism (it’s a day for wearing black; cycling on Sunday or writing a letter is supposedly a grave sin; and only quiet games for children. Aren’t we daft sometimes!) We watch Jesus sorting out that mentality – repeatedly – in, eg, Mark 2 or 3, Luke 13, John 5 or 9. In fact it’s the only one of the ten commandments not reaffirmed in the new testament. That’s because in the NT sabbath is reinterpreted as being firstly (as we might expect) about gospel – about our `entering rest` in the deepest sense, the rest of knowing we no longer have to work and rely on our works for salvation (Hebrews 4:9,3). So in the sense that matters most, we Jesus-people are in sabbath every day!
But God’s original concern is also clearly there still. When Jesus says that sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27), evidently it was made for us, and we ignore it at our peril. It’s a lesson that may make our lives feel worth living!; as so often, the old testament shows us the Spirit’s agenda. Even God Himself loves a change of rhythm (Gen 2:3), and there’s huge value in having a special day that’s a time for rest, reflection, celebration, refreshment, reintegration; a time for God, for family, a time to do whatever gives us joy. That day may well not be Sunday; there’s a spiritual war on, after all, and for some of us Sunday’s the heaviest day of the week. But then it’s so important that we take another day. For me, living in Holland and learning from Dutch believers who were serious about this, Sabbath became a lifesaver, an island I swam towards throughout the week. It could be for you too?
It’s especially important if we have a driven personality, the sort of person who can’t stop checking their phone on holiday (might part of Sabbath be switching it off that day?); whose identity maybe rests not on God’s deep love, but on ` I have value because I achieve`…. a self-destructive self-image which can lead in time to a heart attack, or at any rate have a big price in our relationships, and our prayer life. If we’re trying to do more than we can in 6 days, we’re logically trying to do something that’s not God’s will for us, and that’s not smart. Rather let’s ground our whole week (the first, foundational day of the week!- because `We are designed to work from a place of rest, not rest from work` [Mike Breen]) – let’s ground our whole week in a day for rest; a day for God; a day for our closest relationships. A day for joy (1 Tim 6:17)…!
So which day will be your usual Sabbath? This matters; it’s not an optional extra. Listen to God’s Word! Diarize it. Protect it. Cut out what has to be cut and leave the results to God. Learn what gives you joy and renewal and re-energization, what an ideal day off looks like. We’ll find, as Jesus said in John 10, that trusting and obeying Him leads to abundant life…
