Exodus 20:1-3, 8-11 - Work from Rest

Before we read today’s text, let’s remind ourselves of the context. After over 400 years in Egypt, and Israel spending over many, many years in non-stop slavery, God rescued His people with ten god-toppling plagues, ending with the death of all firstborn sons in Egypt, including Pharaoh’s son, the supposed next “god” of Egypt. However, any household covered by the blood of a lamb was spared. Yet after being freed by God from such cruel slavery, Israel longed to return to those false gods and their endless demands whenever the journey toward God’s promised rest became difficult. Now, at Mount Sinai, God declares that they are His special people, a kingdom of priests, his children, and makes a covenant with them, giving them His laws to show them how to live, with Him as their only God.

But do you know what? Shortly after the giving of the law they will rebel and try to make a different god to serve. You might be thinking…who would want to go back into slavery after being rescued?

We aren’t that much different. Even though we have been rescued from our slavery to false gods and their cruel demands for work without rest, we often try to go back to them. We sometimes tirelessly work for our jobs, slaves to emails at any hour. Or tirelessly work in ministry, slaves at trying to make God happy. Or tirelessly work at home, slaves of pleasing our kids or parents.

I’ve got good news! You don’t have to be a slave to work anymore. I want to tell you today that it is possible to work hard and work from a place of deep rest without becoming weary and burdened down. This is the opportunity for us today in Exodus 20:1-3, 8-11.

Exodus 20:1–3 ESV

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“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.

The first thing this passage shows us is that…

We image God in both work and rest

God designed our work to be fruitful and joyful, with the Sabbath as a sort of shared weekly celebration, with all of creation. This rhythm of working and resting in God's blessing is the framework for all of life.

We see this in Exodus 20:1-3. Israel was to have only their eternal, faithful, covenant Creator as God. He had rescued them from the household of a cruel and false god who made them work without rest, and brought them into His free household. God rescued them from tyranny as slaves and adopted them into His covenant family as sons and daughters. He didn’t rescue them just to give them a lighter workload…He rescued them to give them a new name, a new dignity, and a new family…His. They were no longer Pharaoh’s slaves but God’s children, honored to bear His image before the nations and for them to enjoy Him and He them in all they do.

Also, in Exodus 20:8-11, and ultimately Genesis 1-2 we see that Israel was designed to work and rest in a prescribed creational rhythm, in a 6 to 1 ratio…working and resting in God’s blessing. God does not command them to be slaves to their work, or make others slaves to them, working constantly with no rest, but rather, He commands them to rest and give rest to others in their charge the same rest He gave them. The Sabbath day was to be a day set apart or holy to, dedicated to, the Lord their God. It was His day for them! Why? Because this rhythm is what God modeled when He created everything. He designed us to do all we need to do, ordering the world like Him, in 6 days and spend the 7th in a whole day of deep rest in Him…He will continue to work to uphold us while we rest.

This is the framework from which all our work should be done, which explains why the seventh day is not framed with an ending in the creation story. All our work should be done from a place of deep, soul rest, for, through, and to God. And in so doing, we image God the One who both worked and rested in His creation and His ordering of the world.

And as we work 6 and rest 1, what happens? We enter into God’s blessing. Our work, our rest, our bodies, our families, all in our charge, even the world is blessed. God’s joy and favor is upon us as we work from rest.

But the problem is that we don't live this way…

We work for and seek rest in false gods

God designed us to live in a rhythm of work and rest. Our weekly rest is to be like a celebration, with a sort of cake to be shared and enjoyed together in His blessing. But in our sin, we take that same cake, shove it into a blender, and gulp it down alone. What God meant for joy and fellowship with Him and others becomes distorted and not restful.

This is what we do with work and rest. Like Israel, instead of having no other gods before our true God, our covenant faithful creator, imaging Him in our work and rest, and working from our rest, we either worship work or worship rest. What do I mean by this?

On one hand, we might refuse to work, worshipping rest and living for our own pleasure. Like Israel, we demand God drop mana directly on our dinner table instead of collecting it in the morning and preparing it later.

On the other hand, we worship work, living to earn status or acceptance. Like Israel, we go out on the Sabbath to collect more mana when enough was already given the day before.

God commanded us to rest for our good and enjoyment, but we make other gods, gods of work or pleasure. We need God’s corrective embedded within us in order to protect ourselves and others from our idolatry.

And you, like me, probably know what this look like in practice…

• Working professionals: you're supposed to be off work on the weekend, Sunday rolls around, and on Sunday afternoon, you get an email from your boss at work, and instead of resting, you respond, thinking…if I don’t, what will this mean for my upcoming raise...only it never comes…
• Parents: it's Sunday and you are supposed to be resting, but the kids are asking about their laundry they need for school tomorrow, you start digging into the massive pile, thinking…well it has to be done…but there's always another pile…
• Everyone: we all know that work is necessary for life, and we are supposed to do it, but we dread and hate every minute of it, longing only for the weekend to come so we can do everything for us…but somehow it never satisfies…

When we do these things, we reject God's design. And when we do, we won’t find ourselves free, rather, we simply trade masters, God for a brutal taskmaster. Whether in work or religion, without the rest of God, others make us slaves or we make ourselves slaves to our false gods. These false gods not only exhaust us; they shame us. They strip away our God-given dignity and treat us as less than human…demanding more. But God never meant His children to live in shame or slavery. He made us to work and rest with Him in honor, as His sons and daughters.

Though our idols seek to enslave us…

Jesus bore our burdens to give us rest

While we were in slavery to false gods like work or rest, Jesus, the lamb of God, the firstborn of all creation, was slaughtered on the cross for us. His blood is available to apply to us, to cover us, just like the Passover lamb’s blood was applied to the doorposts of Israel’s homes to save the firstborn. But to get to that cross, Jesus had to work from a place of deep rest.

How did He do this? Jesus rested in God’s sovereign plan to be our Passover lamb. He worked 6 days a week, and rested on the Sabbath, in His humanity, often doing works of necessity and mercy, healing those with disease and sickness, taking our weariness and sorrow upon Himself, yet doing it as God, from a place of true rest, doing not His will, but God’s.

But He also worked by fulfilling the law, obeying it perfectly for us as the second Adam. For us, there is no rest in fulfilling the law, for it can only condemn us for our violations of it. But there is true rest in Christ because He fulfilled the law on our behalf and bore our condemnation on the cross.

Are you worn out from serving the god of work? Striving to prove yourself, to earn favor with God and man? If so, you are weary and burdened. Or are you worn out from serving the god of rest? Striving for true rest, but never finding it? Whatever god you serve, Jesus, the true God, offers you a rest beneath your rest, a rest in the One who gives you His perfection and His status. He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

At the cross, Jesus was treated like a slave so that we could be treated like sons. He bore the dishonor of thorns on His brow so we could be crowned with glory and honor in Him. That is the deeper rest He offers…a rest where you no longer have to prove your worth, because your Father calls you His beloved child.

Jesus is our true Sabbath rest. He not only worked perfectly from rest, but He enables us to rest in Him and work, mirroring Him, from a place of deep rest, a rest from the weariness of our own idolatrous striving.

After He completed His work, His body rested in the grave for three days. But His resurrection was not the end of His rest. It was the dawn of the eternal Sabbath. And raised by the Father through the Spirit, He now pours out the Spirit, writing God’s law on our hearts so we live as sons, not slaves. And so…

In Christ we work from rest

The law given through Moses at Mount Sinai used to be terrifying and impossible to fulfill. It commanded us to have no other gods, not work or rest. It commanded us to work six days and rest one, wholly devoting a day to the Lord for our good and the good of others. But now, the Spirit has given us a new heart and written His law on it. He has made us children of our Father in Christ, the greater Moses. Because Christ lives in us, the law has become a family code baked into our DNA. It’s the family code of our Father’s household, written on the hearts of His sons and daughters. We don’t keep the Sabbath as slaves trying to earn approval, but as children honored to share in our Father’s rhythm of work and rest.

While the fourth commandment still calls us to set apart one day in seven for holy rest and worship, the New Testament shows us that the early church gathered on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, because it was the day Jesus rose from the dead. That is why we rest and worship together on Sundays. Yet, as Paul reminds us in Colossians 2:16–17, we must not turn this into a new legalism. The day itself is not the ultimate point…Christ is. The pattern of six days of work and one day of rest remains, but its goal is fulfilled in Jesus, our true Sabbath, and so rest is now on the first day of the week, for we work from rest. And so, in Christ, we keep one day in seven not as slaves burdened by the law, but as beloved children who delight in their Father’s provision and reorient our lives around His grace.

What does this grace look like? Instead of trying to earn favor with our boss by answering non-emergency emails on Sunday, the Spirit enables us to unplug from our devices, and instead, plug into the true source of our life and rest…Jesus. We know that even if we don't get that promotion, we are sons or daughters of our Father under His blessing and are honored in Christ.

Instead of shoving all our fun into Saturday and living for entertainment, we remember that there are six days to do all our work. And so, we prepare ourselves so that we can truly rest in Jesus on Sunday, spending the day delighting in God as a covenant family.

As parents, instead of allowing our kids to do whatever they want with homework and activities on God’s day of rest, we help them structure their week and weekend so they can live out of their rest in Jesus. And as kids, instead of treating Sunday like any other day, we see it as a time to reorient our lives around what really matters: that God is our Creator and we are His beloved children.

And as heads of household or even managers, we no longer view those under our care as unworthy of rest. We view them through the eyes of Christ, who worked to give us rest. And so, we allow them to rest, and help them to get their work done before Sunday or don’t send them emails on Sunday.

Sunday, or for those who work in professions of necessity like a doctor or nurse, some other day, is a day to reorient our lives around the chief Worker who gave Himself for us. Our work can now mirror His and be done from a place of rest.

If your work feels like striving or your rest is unsatisfying, then Jesus is saying to you, “Come to me...and I will give you rest.” Whether you know Him or not, He is calling you. If you have never come to Him, come for the first time and surrender your life to His rescue from slavery. If you have, maybe you need to reorient your life around Him as your true Sabbath rest.

Come and enjoy the cake with your family! Come celebrate our freedom from the curse of the law and the curse of work without rest. When you do, He will enable you to work and rest not from a place of slavery, but from a place of true rest in the Spirit, all to the glory of the Father.

Until then, Christ gives us a foretaste every Lord’s Day. So come, rest in Jesus, and work from His blessing of rest, until that eternal day when your labor is finished, your burdens are lifted, and your Father welcomes you as His beloved child to the feast that never ends.

Exodus 20:1-3, 8-11 - Work from Rest

Rev. James Pavlic / General Adult

Work and Our Labor in the Lord / Rest / Exodus 20:1–3; Exodus 20:8–11; Matthew 11:28–30

In Christ we are enabled to work from His rest.

 

Before we read today’s text, let’s remind ourselves of the context. After over 400 years in Egypt, and Israel spending over many, many years in non-stop slavery, God rescued His people with ten god-toppling plagues, ending with the death of all firstborn sons in Egypt, including Pharaoh’s son, the supposed next “god” of Egypt. However, any household covered by the blood of a lamb was spared. Yet after being freed by God from such cruel slavery, Israel longed to return to those false gods and their endless demands whenever the journey toward God’s promised rest became difficult. Now, at Mount Sinai, God declares that they are His special people, a kingdom of priests, his children, and makes a covenant with them, giving them His laws to show them how to live, with Him as their only God.

But do you know what? Shortly after the giving of the law they will rebel and try to make a different god to serve. You might be thinking…who would want to go back into slavery after being rescued?

We aren’t that much different. Even though we have been rescued from our slavery to false gods and their cruel demands for work without rest, we often try to go back to them. We sometimes tirelessly work for our jobs, slaves to emails at any hour. Or tirelessly work in ministry, slaves at trying to make God happy. Or tirelessly work at home, slaves of pleasing our kids or parents.

I’ve got good news! You don’t have to be a slave to work anymore. I want to tell you today that it is possible to work hard and work from a place of deep rest without becoming weary and burdened down. This is the opportunity for us today in Exodus 20:1-3, 8-11.

Exodus 20:1–3 ESV

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“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.

The first thing this passage shows us is that…

We image God in both work and rest

God designed our work to be fruitful and joyful, with the Sabbath as a sort of shared weekly celebration, with all of creation. This rhythm of working and resting in God's blessing is the framework for all of life.

We see this in Exodus 20:1-3. Israel was to have only their eternal, faithful, covenant Creator as God. He had rescued them from the household of a cruel and false god who made them work without rest, and brought them into His free household. God rescued them from tyranny as slaves and adopted them into His covenant family as sons and daughters. He didn’t rescue them just to give them a lighter workload…He rescued them to give them a new name, a new dignity, and a new family…His. They were no longer Pharaoh’s slaves but God’s children, honored to bear His image before the nations and for them to enjoy Him and He them in all they do.

Also, in Exodus 20:8-11, and ultimately Genesis 1-2 we see that Israel was designed to work and rest in a prescribed creational rhythm, in a 6 to 1 ratio…working and resting in God’s blessing. God does not command them to be slaves to their work, or make others slaves to them, working constantly with no rest, but rather, He commands them to rest and give rest to others in their charge the same rest He gave them. The Sabbath day was to be a day set apart or holy to, dedicated to, the Lord their God. It was His day for them! Why? Because this rhythm is what God modeled when He created everything. He designed us to do all we need to do, ordering the world like Him, in 6 days and spend the 7th in a whole day of deep rest in Him…He will continue to work to uphold us while we rest.

This is the framework from which all our work should be done, which explains why the seventh day is not framed with an ending in the creation story. All our work should be done from a place of deep, soul rest, for, through, and to God. And in so doing, we image God the One who both worked and rested in His creation and His ordering of the world.

And as we work 6 and rest 1, what happens? We enter into God’s blessing. Our work, our rest, our bodies, our families, all in our charge, even the world is blessed. God’s joy and favor is upon us as we work from rest.

But the problem is that we don't live this way…

We work for and seek rest in false gods

God designed us to live in a rhythm of work and rest. Our weekly rest is to be like a celebration, with a sort of cake to be shared and enjoyed together in His blessing. But in our sin, we take that same cake, shove it into a blender, and gulp it down alone. What God meant for joy and fellowship with Him and others becomes distorted and not restful.

This is what we do with work and rest. Like Israel, instead of having no other gods before our true God, our covenant faithful creator, imaging Him in our work and rest, and working from our rest, we either worship work or worship rest. What do I mean by this?

On one hand, we might refuse to work, worshipping rest and living for our own pleasure. Like Israel, we demand God drop mana directly on our dinner table instead of collecting it in the morning and preparing it later.

On the other hand, we worship work, living to earn status or acceptance. Like Israel, we go out on the Sabbath to collect more mana when enough was already given the day before.

God commanded us to rest for our good and enjoyment, but we make other gods, gods of work or pleasure. We need God’s corrective embedded within us in order to protect ourselves and others from our idolatry.

And you, like me, probably know what this look like in practice…

• Working professionals: you're supposed to be off work on the weekend, Sunday rolls around, and on Sunday afternoon, you get an email from your boss at work, and instead of resting, you respond, thinking…if I don’t, what will this mean for my upcoming raise...only it never comes…
• Parents: it's Sunday and you are supposed to be resting, but the kids are asking about their laundry they need for school tomorrow, you start digging into the massive pile, thinking…well it has to be done…but there's always another pile…
• Everyone: we all know that work is necessary for life, and we are supposed to do it, but we dread and hate every minute of it, longing only for the weekend to come so we can do everything for us…but somehow it never satisfies…

When we do these things, we reject God's design. And when we do, we won’t find ourselves free, rather, we simply trade masters, God for a brutal taskmaster. Whether in work or religion, without the rest of God, others make us slaves or we make ourselves slaves to our false gods. These false gods not only exhaust us; they shame us. They strip away our God-given dignity and treat us as less than human…demanding more. But God never meant His children to live in shame or slavery. He made us to work and rest with Him in honor, as His sons and daughters.

Though our idols seek to enslave us…

Jesus bore our burdens to give us rest

While we were in slavery to false gods like work or rest, Jesus, the lamb of God, the firstborn of all creation, was slaughtered on the cross for us. His blood is available to apply to us, to cover us, just like the Passover lamb’s blood was applied to the doorposts of Israel’s homes to save the firstborn. But to get to that cross, Jesus had to work from a place of deep rest.

How did He do this? Jesus rested in God’s sovereign plan to be our Passover lamb. He worked 6 days a week, and rested on the Sabbath, in His humanity, often doing works of necessity and mercy, healing those with disease and sickness, taking our weariness and sorrow upon Himself, yet doing it as God, from a place of true rest, doing not His will, but God’s.

But He also worked by fulfilling the law, obeying it perfectly for us as the second Adam. For us, there is no rest in fulfilling the law, for it can only condemn us for our violations of it. But there is true rest in Christ because He fulfilled the law on our behalf and bore our condemnation on the cross.

Are you worn out from serving the god of work? Striving to prove yourself, to earn favor with God and man? If so, you are weary and burdened. Or are you worn out from serving the god of rest? Striving for true rest, but never finding it? Whatever god you serve, Jesus, the true God, offers you a rest beneath your rest, a rest in the One who gives you His perfection and His status. He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

At the cross, Jesus was treated like a slave so that we could be treated like sons. He bore the dishonor of thorns on His brow so we could be crowned with glory and honor in Him. That is the deeper rest He offers…a rest where you no longer have to prove your worth, because your Father calls you His beloved child.

Jesus is our true Sabbath rest. He not only worked perfectly from rest, but He enables us to rest in Him and work, mirroring Him, from a place of deep rest, a rest from the weariness of our own idolatrous striving.

After He completed His work, His body rested in the grave for three days. But His resurrection was not the end of His rest. It was the dawn of the eternal Sabbath. And raised by the Father through the Spirit, He now pours out the Spirit, writing God’s law on our hearts so we live as sons, not slaves. And so…

In Christ we work from rest

The law given through Moses at Mount Sinai used to be terrifying and impossible to fulfill. It commanded us to have no other gods, not work or rest. It commanded us to work six days and rest one, wholly devoting a day to the Lord for our good and the good of others. But now, the Spirit has given us a new heart and written His law on it. He has made us children of our Father in Christ, the greater Moses. Because Christ lives in us, the law has become a family code baked into our DNA. It’s the family code of our Father’s household, written on the hearts of His sons and daughters. We don’t keep the Sabbath as slaves trying to earn approval, but as children honored to share in our Father’s rhythm of work and rest.

While the fourth commandment still calls us to set apart one day in seven for holy rest and worship, the New Testament shows us that the early church gathered on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, because it was the day Jesus rose from the dead. That is why we rest and worship together on Sundays. Yet, as Paul reminds us in Colossians 2:16–17, we must not turn this into a new legalism. The day itself is not the ultimate point…Christ is. The pattern of six days of work and one day of rest remains, but its goal is fulfilled in Jesus, our true Sabbath, and so rest is now on the first day of the week, for we work from rest. And so, in Christ, we keep one day in seven not as slaves burdened by the law, but as beloved children who delight in their Father’s provision and reorient our lives around His grace.

What does this grace look like? Instead of trying to earn favor with our boss by answering non-emergency emails on Sunday, the Spirit enables us to unplug from our devices, and instead, plug into the true source of our life and rest…Jesus. We know that even if we don't get that promotion, we are sons or daughters of our Father under His blessing and are honored in Christ.

Instead of shoving all our fun into Saturday and living for entertainment, we remember that there are six days to do all our work. And so, we prepare ourselves so that we can truly rest in Jesus on Sunday, spending the day delighting in God as a covenant family.

As parents, instead of allowing our kids to do whatever they want with homework and activities on God’s day of rest, we help them structure their week and weekend so they can live out of their rest in Jesus. And as kids, instead of treating Sunday like any other day, we see it as a time to reorient our lives around what really matters: that God is our Creator and we are His beloved children.

And as heads of household or even managers, we no longer view those under our care as unworthy of rest. We view them through the eyes of Christ, who worked to give us rest. And so, we allow them to rest, and help them to get their work done before Sunday or don’t send them emails on Sunday.

Sunday, or for those who work in professions of necessity like a doctor or nurse, some other day, is a day to reorient our lives around the chief Worker who gave Himself for us. Our work can now mirror His and be done from a place of rest.

If your work feels like striving or your rest is unsatisfying, then Jesus is saying to you, “Come to me...and I will give you rest.” Whether you know Him or not, He is calling you. If you have never come to Him, come for the first time and surrender your life to His rescue from slavery. If you have, maybe you need to reorient your life around Him as your true Sabbath rest.

Come and enjoy the cake with your family! Come celebrate our freedom from the curse of the law and the curse of work without rest. When you do, He will enable you to work and rest not from a place of slavery, but from a place of true rest in the Spirit, all to the glory of the Father.

Until then, Christ gives us a foretaste every Lord’s Day. So come, rest in Jesus, and work from His blessing of rest, until that eternal day when your labor is finished, your burdens are lifted, and your Father welcomes you as His beloved child to the feast that never ends.