Ten Commandments for Today
08/04/2002 - God's Word to Workaholics
In August of 1833 the British Parliament passed the Emancipation Act, which forever abolished slavery in the British Empire. It was an unprecedented historical event and the person most responsible was a committed Christian by the name William Wilberforce.
It took Wilberforce nearly twenty years to build a coalition of lawmakers that eventually passed the anti-slavery legislation. It was a monumental feat and today many consider it to be one of the greatest and most courageous acts of statesmanship in the history of democracy. And to pull it off it took a person of enormous spiritual strength and moral courage and Wilberforce had it.
But during his twenty-year struggle he was tempted many times to lose sight of his goal. At one point he was lured to a position of power and prestige in the cabinet of England's new Prime Minister, Lord Addington. About that temptation his biographer, Garth Lean, writes, "It did not take long for Wilberforce to become preoccupied with the possibility of the appointment. For days it grabbed at his conscious mind, forcing aside everything else. By his own admission he had 'risings of ambition,' and it was crippling his soul."
But fortunately there was a disciplined check and balance in place in Wilberforce's life that is this particular situation kept him laser focused. Lean says, "Sunday brought the cure. It was the day, every week, when he rested." In his journal Wilberforce wrote, "Blessed be to God for the day of rest and religious occupation where earthly things assume their true size and ambition is stunted."
The check and balance in Wilberforce's life was the Sabbath. He learned that blocking out time each week for worship, rest and reflection keeps all of life in perspective and protects us against burnout and breakdown. Two of his colleagues, by the way, who didn't observe a rest day, ended up committing suicide because of the pressure they were under. Have you discovered the power of a Sabbath rest? Or are you living life on the ragged edge?
This morning we continue our series on the Ten Commandments called Ten Commandments for Today with a look at the fourth commandment given by God in Exodus 20. If you have your Bible meet me at Exodus 20:8-11, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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 animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
If there's one commandment we all need to hear today it's this one, "Slow down and learn what it means to rest." We live in a culture that's lost its ability to rest. Do you ever feel tired just thinking about all that you have to do today? Do you ever feel like the work never ends? Do you routinely take work home from the office at night or on the weekends just to catch up? That's almost expected today with cell phones and pagers. Do you feel guilty when you try to relax and after fifteen minutes start thinking about all the things you got to do or even worse, that the world is going to fall apart if you stop and take a break?
Gordon Dahl put it this way in his book Work, Play and Worship in a Leisure Oriented Society , "Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted. Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their life-styles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot."
If you feel that way, you're not alone. According to economist and former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, the typical American works 350 hours a year more than the typical European, that's almost nine more forty-hour weeks a year. And Americans work more even than the industrious Japanese. There is increasing pressure to do our work better and faster and cheaper. So that we never reach a point where we can relax, because even if we succeed, our success is only temporary, because the competition is always catching up. There's no coasting. Every producer and seller is running scared-placing bets, working his tail off, watching his back. And as Reich says, "Only the paranoid survive."
And you know what? God knows all about that and so he has a word today for workaholics like us. He says to his people, "I want you to be different. I want to give you a higher quality of life than that. I want you to learn that there is more to life than work. I want you to work, but I also what you to know what it means to rest, to get refreshed, to keep reality in perspective. I don't want you to burnout or breakdown. So I'm commanding you to stop and take a day off." This isn't a suggestion. This is a command from God.
It's interesting to me that this is longest of the Ten Commandments. God has more to say about this value than he does about murder or adultery or stealing. This Sabbath thing is serious business for God. In fact, in the Old Testament people were executed for breaking it! Aren't you glad you didn't live back then?
So this morning I want to ask and answer the same three questions that helped us out last week. First, what does this commandment mean? Second, why is this commandment given? And third, how do we obey this commandment of God?
First, what does this commandment mean? Let's start with the word Sabbath. The word Sabbath simply means "rest." It comes from a Hebrew verb that means "to rest, to cease from labor." Sabbath does not mean Saturday or Sunday or any specific day of the week. God is simply saying, "Every seven days remember a rest day and keep it holy, keep it different, keep it separate from all the other days of the week."
For the Jewish people that day is Saturday. It actually begins with sundown on Friday night and goes until sundown on Saturday night. For Muslims that day is Friday. For Christians that day is typically on Sunday, the first day of the week, celebrating the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. But we're not to get hung on the day.
If we were to look through the book of Leviticus we would see that the Israelites had Sabbaths on the first day of the month, the tenth day of the month, the fifteenth day of the month during special holidays. God salted the Hebrew calendar with many days for rest and worship to keep his people refreshed and enjoying life. But in this command he says, "At least once a week, take a day off."
For the first two and half years of Valley View Community Church we didn't meet on Sundays. We couldn't get a facility on Sunday morning so we gathered for worship on Saturday nights at the barn of the Fairview Village Church of the Nazarene. And I can remember having discussions with people who wondered whether it was okay to worship God on Saturday night and not on Sunday morning. "Isn't Sunday to be special?" they said.
So we searched the Scriptures and found the answer to that question in the apostle Paul's words in Romans 14:5-6, Some consider one day more sacred than another. Others consider every day alike. Everybody should be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who regard one day as special, do so to the Lord.
The New Testament doesn't specify a particular day of rest, but it does stress the principle of a weekly rhythm of work and worship. Don't get hung up on the day. Get hung up on the principle.
Now what does God mean, "to rest?" Does God mean that one day a week his people are to hit the snooze button, pull the covers over their heads and stay in bed all day? And all the parents of young kids said, "Yes!" Is that how God rested after six days of vigorous, creative activity? No. God doesn't get tired. He didn't sleep in, but he did stop working. He stopped creating and took time to enjoy his labor. "To rest" means "to cease from labor, to stop doing whatever it is that you do for a living." One day in seven God says, "I want to give you a gift. I want to liberate you from your job. I want you to crawl out from underneath the responsibility, close up shop, shut down the office, turn off the computer, and the cell phone, and the pager, and get refreshed in me." God didn't even want animals working on the Sabbath.
In Exodus 34:21 he adds, "Even during the busiest time of the year I want you to rest." Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest, even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest. In a farming economy, like Israel had, the busiest time of the year was plowing and harvesting. Make hay while the sun shines. Even then God says, "Rest one day in seven."
What do you do living? Does your job have a busy season? If you're a stay a home mom with young kids your busy season is twelve months a year. If you're a CPA, it's tax season. If you're in retail, it's the Christmas rush. If you're in construction, it's the summer. If you're a student, it's exam week. Even during the busiest time of your year, God's says, "Take a day off." So the commandment means that one day in seven we are to stop doing what we do for a living and rest.
One of the most interesting experiences I had when I lived in Jerusalem for a month was watching the whole city shut down on sunset every Friday night. And for twenty-four hours no shops, no museums, no restaurants were open, no buses, no taxis, no cars were running. No smoking in public places was permitted on the Sabbath, just silence, a day of rest physically and spiritually.
Now, why is this commandment given? Did God give this command to add to one more rule to our lives? To say, "No you can't do this and no you can't do that?" That's what the religious leaders in Jesus' day thought. The Pharisees had 39 ways you could break the Sabbath and for each of those 39 ways they had 39 ways to do them. So 39 times 39 is 1,521 ways to break the Sabbath. You couldn't' tie a knot on the Sabbath that was work. You couldn't pick up quill on the Sabbath that was carrying a load. You couldn't kill a flea on the Sabbath that was hunting. If you were a woman you couldn't look in the mirror, because if you plucked out a gray hair that was harvesting. You couldn't bathe on the Sabbath. You couldn't spit on the ground on the Sabbath. You could spit on a rock, but not on the ground because your spit would make a little furrow in the dirt and that was plowing.
And because they added all these man-made rules, keeping the Sabbath became a huge burden. And the people resented it. Jesus himself was accused at least six times of breaking the Sabbath. Finally he said, "Enough already!" And in Mark 2:27-28 he said, The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a good gift that God gave to his people. It was never meant to be a burden.
God gave us the Sabbath for our own good, to improve the quality of our life. He gave us the Sabbath for our own well being. He knows how we're wired and how most of us will work ourselves to death because there is an addictive power in work. That's where we get our satisfaction and our significance, our recognition and our sense of worth and value, our authority, our money, our power. So God says, "Once a week go on the wagon. Back off. Shut it down. You're more than just a worker."
It's good for us physically to get refreshed and recreated, to take a break from the pressure and the tension of our work. Somehow after his creative work was over God wanted to be refreshed. He wanted to reflect on what had happened that week and he wanted to enjoy fellowship with the man and the woman that he had created. And he wants us to do the same. Inside of each one of us is an anatomical clock that needs to be reset every seven days.
During the French Revolution in the late 1700's, France tried to erase everything spiritual in that country in an effort to convert the whole society to atheism. When they discovered that the practice of taking one day off in seven came from the Bible they changed it to one day off in ten. They kept it that way for twelve years until the country was in chaos. And they had to go back to one day in seven.
Our bodies are programmed to a rhythm of seven days. That's why we get jet lag when we fly to Africa and change time zones. Our bodies are on a cycle and when we refuse God's gift of resting one day in seven we pay for it. We pay in bitterness and resentment, in fatigue and inefficiency, and in irritation and stress, and physical breakdown.
But taking a day of rest also has a spiritual purpose. It shows God that we believe in him, that we trust him to provide for us and that we don't have to work 24/7/365. Why do people work seven days a week? Because they want to? Not usually. Usually because they think they have to. "If I don't work I won't make it. I won't be able to pay my bills. I won't be able to keep up with the competition. I'll lose sales. I'll forfeit accounts. I won't get all my assignments done." Whatever. It can be a trust issue.
So God comes along and says, "If you observe a rest day. I'll do for you in six days what it would take others seven to do. Will you accept that? Will you trust me for that?"
That's the lesson he tried to teach his people with the manna in the wilderness. For six days they were to collect it, but on the Sabbath there wouldn't be any. So God provided a double dip of manna on Friday to feed them until Sunday.
God even had a Sabbatical year for the land. One year in seven the land was to rest and be refreshed. No planting or harvesting was to take place. God said, "I'll give you enough in the sixth year to take care of you until the ninth year." Why the ninth year? Because they wouldn't plant in the seventh year, so they couldn't harvest in the eighth year, so God promised enough until the ninth year. The Sabbath was to be a sign to the world of God's special care for his people.
But you know what happened? Israel didn't take God up on it. And they violated the Sabbatical year seventy times and because of that God kicked them out of the land of Israel and sentenced them to Babylon for seventy years to give the land a break, one year for each Sabbatical year that was broken.
God wants us to rest and recreate. He wants us to trust him to provide for us. We don't have to work constantly like those who don't know God's care and provision. He can give us greater efficiency, productivity, maximize our sales, minimize our bills. He will bless us. He wants us to rest not because the work is done. The work will never be done, but because he commands it. God gave us this command as a gift for our benefit and well being. An old Indian proverb says, "You break the bow if it's always bent."
Now third, how do we obey this commandment? How do we receive this gift? Originally the Jewish people observed the Sabbath with feasting and singing and dancing and extended family time. They used it to rest from the labor of farming and shepherding and shop keeping. Later they included a visit to the Tabernacle and then to the Temple in Jerusalem. In Jesus' day, it was his custom to spend part of the day at the synagogue discussing the Word of God.
But how about us? How do accept God's gift of the Sabbath? Let me you give you three ways to practice the Sabbath principle in your life, three ways to guard against burnout and breakdown. First, refocus your spirit. In the rhythm of our week there should be one day that we step away from our work and worship God. That's why we gather here every Sunday morning without fail, to worship God in community with others.
At Valley View we have five core values and the first value is worship. Worship is the only thing that the Bible says God seeks from us. We can worship God in a lot of ways. And I hope you do. I hope you set aside time daily or throughout the week to get quiet before God, to read your Bible, to pray, to journal. That's vital to our walk with God. I hope you listen to worship tapes and CD's when you're driving in your car or stuck in traffic. That's a wonderful way to worship in the midst of your day. We can worship God alone. We can worship in small groups.
But on Sundays we get the chance to worship God with the whole community and there's nothing else in our week like it. God touches something deep in our souls here. I don't how many of you have told me that you wish we could gather like this everyday. You know the quality of your life would just improve, because something special happens when God's people gather for worship. Burdens are lifted. Hope is restored. Joy comes alive. The clock is reset.
If you haven't already, make the decision today that every Sunday you will be here to worship God. It's not a decision based on how busy your week was, or how tired you are, or how the nice the day is outside, or how bad it is outside. When it's Sunday, it's time to worship and you're here. "Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God."
Those of you with young children, this is another one of those values that is caught and not taught. Don't drop your kids off for church or just teach your children to worship. Show them, by your example, how to worship. They'll grow up to love you for it.
Second, recharge your emotions. Work drains us. It wipes us out emotionally as well as physically. And it has a way of reducing us to thinking that our whole life is defined by what we do. So we feel good about ourselves if we do our jobs well and we feel bad about ourselves if we're doing our jobs poorly. Many of us work with people who don't share our values and that brings us down. We need to get recharged.
We also need to get recalibrated. For 160 plus hours a week we get bombarded with slogans and jingles and creeds that tell us what the world thinks is important. And that wears us down. It's easy in the push and shove of a week to lose focus and get knocked off course. Like Wilberforce said, "The Sabbath should be a day where earthly things assume their true size and ambition is stunted."
Spend some relaxed time with your family or with some good friends. Do what it takes to replenish you emotionally. We have a small group at Valley View that meets every Sunday for lunch and sometimes hangs together till nine o'clock at night! That's how they get recharged and replenished. Some people need that. Others need time alone. Time to do nothing. I read a story this week about a wealthy American who was on an African safari and he kept pushing and pushing to go faster and faster. Finally, the guide and his African helpers just stopped and said we're not moving today. The rich American was furious and said, "Why not?" And the guide said, "Because we need to let our souls catch up with our bodies." Once a week, let your soul catch up with you body.
Third, rest your body. For those who do physical work all week, Sunday is a day to recover. Take a nap. Read a book. Chill out. Watch the Eagles play. For those of us who sit in a chair most of the time, Sunday may be a day to watch the Eagles play or take a walk, or ride a bike, or exercise or do something to get the heart pumping and the blood flowing. For me Monday serves that purpose. It's the day of the week that I disengage from the work of ministry and accept God's good gift. And on the weeks I do, it's wonderful. But on the weeks I don't, and I cheat sometimes, I pay for it big time and so do those around me.
Do you see what God is giving us here? He wants to protect us from killing ourselves. Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Most of us work harder than God ever expects us to and we pay for it in stress and fatigue and heart disease and bitterness and depression and fractured relationships. God says, "Stop. Enough already. Don't try to get all your needs met from your job. I won't let you. I love you too much."
Remember, nobody breaks God's commands. Instead, we are broken on them. And the fourth commandment is no different. A lot of workaholics who refuse to take a day off and never observe a Sabbath, end up observing it for two weeks in the hospital hooked up to a heart monitor. So God's word to workaholics is back off once a week. Refocus your spirit. Recharge your emotions. And rest your body. And watch the quality of your life soar. Can you trust him for that?