This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersbrings, Florida, where Dr. Pete Alanson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 15 in the series on the Book of Exodus and deals with the 4th of the 10 Commandments. This message is taken from Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 11 and is called Give Me a Break. Now here's Pete with today's message. Our Father as we come into your presence today, there are many reasons why we need to be still before you. And to relax and rest in you, Father, because you're the sovereign God of the universe, because you are supreme in all of your knowledge, because you're infinite, because there are no limits to what you know about everything. You know us, you know us well. You know what we bring into this room today, the weights on our shoulders, the fear in our heart. Lord, you know what everybody in every chair in this room is experiencing right now. Father, you know those who are fighting an illness that could take their life. Father, you know those who are getting older and struggling and you know those who are young, worried about if they have a future. Worried if they're going to get that job, Lord, those who feel overburdened because of responsibilities that they have at home. Kids that are struggling with their parents, parents struggling with their kids. Father, you know every one of us. The bills that we have to pay and wondering how it's going to get done. Father, the relationships that we'd really like to have or be reestablished. You know us. And so on this day, which is supposed to be a day of rest, we don't rest, we struggle. And some of us, Lord, are bearing burdens right now that are unbelievable. And so we bring those to you. Lord, we bring you our guilt, our shame, our sin. We know that you're the only one that can deal with the real issues of our life. And so we ask you today that you would meet us. That living God, you would touch our lives. This is in a show it's not religion. We ask that you would touch us in the very center of our lives where we need you. You'd speak to us. You'd take your word, you'd apply it, you'd encourage us. Father, you would see us through. That we would have rest that is supernatural because of all that Jesus has done for us. We look into your word this morning and Father, we pray that you would make it make sense to us. We pray for the teacher and pray that you would forgive him his sins. And use one as human and finite and limited to be able to communicate your infinite truth. We pray this morning that you'd be honored and that our rest would be found in you as we pray in Jesus' holy name. Well, good morning. It's good to see you. It's good to be back. It's good to be back from New York. Everybody said in the office that when I was going to go up to New York last week and be with our missionaries, the stoneburners, they said I was going to go where it was cool and no humidity and all that wonderful. And it was hot and humid and awful like here for the first two days and it was perfect. But it's good to be back. I tell you, I bring you greetings from the stoneburners. Mark and Patty have been a part of this church forever and I remember when they were teaching my sons in the storefront years and years ago and now we support them as missionaries with the navigators. They've been in Europe and now they're at West Point and it was such an incredibly great time to be with them to encourage them to speak to some officers but also to speak to cadets. They have a strategic ministry so pray for them. And those are our future leaders in America. It was good to be up there. Good to be back, though. And where are we today? Where we're studying continually on Sunday morning in the 10 Commandments. And we are on the, it's up there I know. We're on the 4th Commandment today as we study through this incredible, incredible list of don'ts and do's that God gives his people right after this. He gives his people right after he frees them from Egyptian bondage. He says this is how you can live free and you're going to love the 4th Commandment. Trust me on this. You are absolutely going to love it. It's going to take two weeks for us to look at it. So this week and next week we've got communion today so I want to talk a little bit about it as we get into preparing for communion but next week we'll finish this up. Are you tired? Are you tired? Let's just take a deep breath and relax. Just let it out because we're tired. We're all tired. It seems like we're all stressed out. We all have more to do than we know what to do with. And we struggle. We need rest. Americans need rest. It's fascinating to be how we, after we leave here, we'll go home. Many of us will put on a football game and we'll watch that. And we'll watch all of these people. We who need to exercise or sitting around watching 11 guys on each team blow their brains out and their bodies out as they exercise. We need exercise. But we also need rest. It's like this lady writes. She said, I feel like my problem with time is that I have gotten into a habit of filling every minute of my time with something I think absolutely must be done. And now I will not allow myself downtime without feeling like I should be doing something. I am always exhausted from overworking myself. Then I am cranky and stressed out and I am not much fun to be with. Are you like that? Admit it. Confession is good for your soul if you are like that. You might be like this lady. And maybe like the lady I saw driving the miniband who said, the bumper sticker that said on the back, if a woman's place is in the home. How come I am always in the car? That's one of my favorites. Now, a woman's place is not always in the home. We need women out in the workplace and many respects. We need you involved in life. But we need you at home too. But the reality is we are busy. Congratulations women. You are now as stressed out and busy as we men are. You have the jobs. We are struggling for equal pay maybe. But I want you to know, you have as much heart disease as going up because you are getting closer to where men are. Congratulations. Your heart problems are growing. Congratulations. Women are getting what they so desperately wanted. Oh, guys. We are about to get some emails about that too. We are so busy ladies. All this is to say is that women you are as busy as we guys are now. And as a society we are stressed out. We probably feel like this guy being chased by this animal. I like this picture. Do you love that? You look closely. If you can and you can't really see. But you see this guy's eyes. They are like this big. He is being chased by the bull. Send me this email. He said, you know, there are three people in history of walked on water. Jesus, Peter and Jose. And some of you are walking on water. But you don't know how you are getting it done. You don't know how you are getting through your week. And you are always being chased by the bull. A busyness. And it is driving you crazy. I don't know. I like this lady. I like what she says. She takes responsibility for her life. And she says, nobody is making me live this way. But I take responsibility for it. She doesn't blame God. I like this too because she says that her drivenness has become a habit. Her drivenness has become a habit. Hey, it is a cultural habit. It is the American way. And so she is stressed out. But she takes responsibility for it. I like how she says, when I relax, I feel what? Guilty. I do. I struggle with that. When I relax, I feel guilty. It is like the book on my shelf by that title. You don't write book. I should have written it. You don't write books like that. Unless it is a problem. It is. When I relax, I feel guilty. Let me give you three clarifications. About the hectic pace that we experience in America. One clarification is what the guys that man in the mirror constantly say. They say, our life system is perfectly designed to get the results that were experienced in our life. So let me say that again. Our life system is perfectly designed to get the results that we experience. So that if you experience in a stressed out life, that's the system that you have brought into your life. Nobody else to blame but yourself. Nobody else for me to blame but myself. It's a system that we adopt and we're getting the results because we have the system. The second clarification comes from a book, a time for life. 10,000 people were surveyed to actually keep the exact amount of time they work working. Exactly what they do working. So have you ever done that? By the way, it's very instructive how much time you really, really are at work. So people kept that. And if you're a homemaker, you could do this too. But they found that people actually worked fewer hours than they thought. And they were overstating their work hours but they felt like they didn't have a minute to spare. This is how they felt. Straight jacket. Uptight. Been out of it. That's how they felt. But they really weren't spending as many hours as they thought. And here's what the book concluded. A culture that promotes instant gratification also helps to explain why life seems more hectic than it is. We want everything fast, fast food. Eye glasses in an hour. Drive through banking. Internally we feel rushed. And the more rushed someone feels, the more they feel pressured for time. What is it? This instant gratification that we Americans have makes us feel hectic. We want it. And we've embodied this. We want it. We want it now. Right? Jeff Fogan before the first service comes up to me and he says, Pete, is speeding a sin? So why do you ask me? You know, I confess to you over and over. Why do I live two miles from where I work? And I speed to get here. Is that neurotic or what? Instant gratification. I want what I want. Maybe too much coffee in the morning. Maybe that's it. But I think I want to get here. I want to get going. I like to work. I want to get going. But instant gratification creates this hecticness that we... Well, the third clarification is that we as a culture value financial success. And so we often believe that the busier a person is, the more successful they will be. So we worship busyness because we worship success. Those are clarifications that we need to keep in mind. So we constantly feel chased by the bull of busyness. Now, good news. God does not design that, did not design that for his creation. He does not desire that for you, for me, or for Israel. When he set him free, he brought him back to the Promised Land. He brought him... Before they got to the Promised Land, he set up the Sabbath. He gave him the commandments. These are the means by which we would have the ability to enjoy being set free. Grace. And in the fourth commandment, he shows how to live free. He didn't want them to be slaves. He doesn't want you to be a slave, didn't want me to be a slave. And so he gave them the fourth commandment. Here it is, Exodus 28 through 11. This is God's Word and powerful to us. God says to Moses, and Moses says to the people, remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you nor your son or daughter, or your manservant or maid servant, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, in 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. He set it apart. He made it a special day. He made it a day for the people. Now when Moses was getting the ten commandments, and after he got the fourth one, can you kind of picture yourself being looking over Moses' shoulder and God is just etching this in stone. And there it is in Hebrew written from right to left, not from left to right, written from right to left, and he reads these words out and Moses is seen as etched. What's happening to Moses as he sees this fourth commandment coming to be? How does he feel inside? What's he thinking? Oh, they're going to hate me when I get down the mountain. Now what he's thinking is, oh, they are going to love this. They are going to love this. They are going to think I hung the moon when I given this ten commandments. They are going to be so happy to me. Why? Because these guys have been slaves. These guys have been slaves. And they are going to just absolutely rejoice in the freedom they have. Now I've got three points for this sermon and I can only do one today. Aren't you glad? Some of you are saying, I have instant gratification. I'd like it over right now. Not going to happen. I'm going to finish this at least one point and then we're going to have communion together. But the point I want you to get to do the big point is I want you to understand, first of all, that the Sabbath was God's gift of rest to Israel. It was a grace gift. It was a gift of physical rest for Israel. And Israel had been slaves. And when they've been in bondage, they didn't have daytimeers or dayrunners or trios or blackberries. They didn't have any time management skills at all. Why? Because they had no time. Slaves do not have time for themselves. Time, how many of you read a book on time management? Raise your hand. Come on. Has it worked? I've read about 30. I struggle with time management all the time. But time management is something that only free people deal with. Slaves work at the bidding of their master and the Egyptians told the Jews what to do and when to do it and how to do it. They were human tools. And when a tool, you buy a tool. You buy a tool and it wears out or gets dull. And when you do, you're sharpened up or you what? Throw it away by another one. What do you do when you're a slave? What do smasters do with human tools? You use it and tell it what? It tells it dies and you get another one. That's how they view the Israelites. But that's not how God ever viewed people. Never, ever. In fact, at creation, what does it say that God did on the seventh day? Now, did God command the human race at creation? Did he command them to rest and take a day off? Did he command it right there? Be careful on this. No, he didn't command it. There's no command. It says that God rested, was God tired? So God doesn't command rest on the seventh day after creation. He simply models it. And expects that his children are going to follow what he does. So it's modeled there, but it's not commanded until Israel is actually set free. Then they are given the Sabbath shabbat. The word Sabbath, it's interesting word. It means literally that which is at the end of a sequence. That's what Sabbath means. So it means you work six days and at the end of that sequence, Shabbat, Sabbath, you take a day off, you rest, you relax. And most every culture, by the way, has come up with a sequence of days on and day off, and they've linked with this model that God puts here. Some cultures came up with four days work and a day off. Kind of like that. Some cultures said ten days. Ten days on, one day off. Some cultures said sixteen days work, one day off, but everybody struggles. Every culture is struggled. And even the French Revolution, they wanted to get rid of everything Christian and everything biblical. So they got rid of the Sunday day off of work. And then they had to re-institute it because people were, so they brought it back. They brought the Sabbath back. They brought the Sunday back. They brought the day off back because we needed it. This is fascinating. Do a study on efficiency reports and you will find that the efficiency experts say that the best system is six days work, one day off. God's way. God's way is always the right way for us. Now don't get me wrong. As we look at this, it's important to understand that the fourth commandment also, while exalting rest, it exalts another word. It exalts the word work. How many days were to work? Six days. And on the seventh day, we take it off. That's what he says to the Israelites. Take it off completely. See, work is really important. I like work. I like working for something productive. People who don't work sometimes get weird. Like this guy who retired, Mr. Fenton. Mrs. Fenton took him to Walmart. He didn't like going to Walmart. But he came along. And he started getting into trouble because he didn't want to go shopping with his wife. And he really probably needed to still be working. Mrs. Fenton received this from the Walmart. Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and maybe force to ban both of you from our store. Our complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras. June 15th, he took 24 boxes of polydent and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking. July 2nd, he said all the alarm clocks and housewares to go off at five minute intervals. July 19th, walked up to an employee and told her an official voice, go three in housewares, get on it right away. August, men, you retired, you might try some of these. August 4th went to the service desk, tried to put a bag of M&M's on layaway.
September 15th, set up a tent in the camping department, told other shoppers he didn't invite them in if they'd bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department. October 4th looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose. September 23rd, backing up when a clerk asked if she could help him, he began crying and he screamed, why can't you people just leave me alone? December 3rd, darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the mission impossible thing. December 18th, hit in a clothing rack and when people browse through yelled, pick me, pick me. Now I got to tell you, some people ought not to take time off from work. Some people ought not to retire, work is good. People who are working towards something that is good and meaningful enjoy life better. They have a longer lifespan, the statistics bear this out. The people who like, see you may not like your job but it's not working that's the problem, it's probably what you're doing. It's not work, work is a gift and work preceded sin. And so work is a gift of God that when we work, we actually flesh out our creatureliness and some of you are retired and you're busier now than you ever were before. I talk almost unanimously when I talk to people who follow Jesus and have retired they say, you know, I'm busy, I don't know how I had time to do before what I'm doing now. I just don't know how, because they're doing something significant. Serving Jesus, following, being involved and that's the way it's meant to be, work is good. By the way, this view on work will affect your politics, won't it? If you have a high view of work it will affect your politics because James one says, if somebody can't care for themselves, then help them. Pure and undefiled religion is taking care of the widows and the orphans, helping them. But God's normal way for us to meet our needs to be met is what? Asking the government for help. No, it's work. And we're happier when we do that. That's God's way. It's God's, what Proverbs 12, 11, success, you want to be successful? Proverbs 13, 4, the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied. Sure, Christians have a heart for those who can't take care of themselves. We also speak to each other and as a New Testament says, let him not let him who does not work, not eat. Oh, that's pretty strong. So we have a high view of work. It's like the story of the mother who walks in on her six-year-old boy. He's sobbing and sobbing and she says, honey, what's the matter? He says, I just learned how to tie my shoes. That's a good thing. You're growing up. You're becoming a man. He goes, yeah, but the problem is I'm going to have to do this now for the rest of my life. Work's not a curse. Working towards something significant, taking care of our own needs is fulfilling. It's God's way. Now, with that in mind, notice these verses teach that the normal stuff we got to do, to get a paycheck and to take care of our house and stuff. All that needs to be done in how many days? Six days. And on the seventh, it is a... I've been studying this and this is getting my attention. Hey, those of you who worked yesterday is mowing your lawn work. How about cleaning your kitchen floor, the sinks, the toilets, the bathrooms? How about washing your car? Is it work? So all this stuff that goes into our paycheck and into keeping life going ought to be in that six days. And then the last day, he says, take a... how much of a day? Full day for us. This is starting to sink into me. This is the busiest day of my week. I am more tired at the end of Sunday than I am one other day. Well, we're going to talk about that. There's all kinds of issues out there that we'll talk about. But I want you to understand that by Jesus' day, this issue of the Sabbath had become an issue that the Pharisees blew out of proportion completely. They took this and instead of seeing the joy in it, they ramped it up to becoming a day of absolute legalistic certainty. In other words, they had 13... by Jesus' time, they had 39 categories of work. The pastors had sat around and worked this all out. The Pharisees said there were 39 things you cannot do. By Jesus' time, the Sabbath had become what you could not do rather than what you could do. It was negative versus positive. Jesus had no greater conflict with the Pharisees except over this subject of the Sabbath. It comes up over and over again throughout the gospel, except when He claimed to be equal with God the Father, that ticked them off too. But this was the biggest issues. Remember that time they were walking through the grain fields? Luke 6, Jesus was going through the grain fields and His disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. And the Pharisees said, why are you doing what's unlawful on the Sabbath? And Jesus said, have you never read what David did and he goes on talking about how David ate the sanctified bread and the temple? And what were the Pharisees so upset about when the disciples just grabbed some grain, rubbed it in their hands and then ate it. They were just getting some granola. No, no, no. They were harvesting. They were threshing and they were preparing food, all work, violation of the Sabbath. And Jesus says to them, hey listen, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. I say it's not wrong for them. I created the Sabbath. I say it's not wrong for them to do that on another Sabbath. He went into a synagogue. You remember this? And there was a guy with a withered hand and he brought him up to the front of the church and he said, is it good? Is it right? Is it legally permissible, you Jews, to heal this man on the Sabbath? And what they say? Not a thing. Because how do you get out of a situation like that? No, don't heal him Jesus, but they didn't want. So Jesus looked at the hardness of their heart. He healed the guy. And then what did he say? You guys are miserable. Because you don't understand that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. They created all of these laws, all these laws, all these regulations. And they'd come up with, in fact catch this. The Pharisees asked the question, well if we're not supposed to work on the Sabbath, what constitutes work? One of those 39 categories was carrying a burden. Wouldn't you say that carrying a burden is work? Do you agree? What about carrying your child? Is carrying your child carrying a burden? Be careful how you answer that. They'll tell me a whole lot about you. Some of you say, absolutely. Teenagers are like, you don't know how much he weighs. 115 pounds carrying that sucker out of youth group. I ain't carrying him anymore. Is you carrying a small child of burden? And the Pharisees thankfully said no. But then they said, but if he's carrying a stone in his hand, it's work. And then they said, but what constitutes a stone? When do you go from a pebble to a stone? These guys really earned their pay as pastors in the first century church. They had messed it all up. They had missed that the Sabbath was for them. Well, we got a whole lot. We got to talk about next week to pull it together. But what you have to understand first of all is the Sabbath was a day of rest, a gift of grace, a gift of rest to God's people. Some of you are saying, well, what if my husband has to work on Sunday or I have to work on Sunday or we'll talk about that. We'll deal with some of that stuff. But I want you to, I want to answer a question because I know a lot of you are here regularly week after week after week. And here's the question. Are you tired like the lady at the beginning of a message? You're just, you're done. You're tired. Do you cram something into every minute of every day? Do you feel guilty when you relax? Do you ever feel clear headed and focused in your walk with Christ or is life just so confusing for you? You just, you never get any clarity. You're not really know where you're going. Are your relationships going well? Or are your relationships in turmoil? Do you have time for relationships? Guys, this is convicting for us. We used to know how to have best friends when we were in fourth grade. Time, time we become 40, we realize, I don't have any friends. How about the current relationships that you have in marriage or are they good? Do you feel close to God? Could it be that you don't, you know, you see that bumper sticker, if you don't feel close to God, guess who moved? If God is omnipresent, that means everywhere. Could it be if you don't feel close to God? Could it be that it's not God that moved but you or that you're too busy to enjoy God? I know that's true for me at times. I want you to think through those questions. And then secondly, I want you to walk out of here today. I want you to see that God's gift to Israel was a full day of rest. The gift was a full day. You know, repetition is one of those devices of learning that Paul uses and Jesus uses. So I'll say it again. The gift to Israel was a full day of rest.
And what keeps us from that is this instant gratification and a success mentality. But also, I've thought of a couple of other things. My desire to control everything. I can't control everything. I take a day off, I can't control everything. And God says precisely, you can't control everything. You never did, Al-Winson. So I have the desire to control everything. I have the desire to take advantage of all the opportunities. America at Great Place, Orlando. I mean, there are theme parks. I just have not exploited yet. Sunday's coming. I'm going to get over there on Sunday. There's so many things I need to do. And I've got to take advantage of all the opportunities. And Sunday's a great day to do it. And I guess one of the other ones I have to admit is a lack of faith, unwillingness to let go. So I don't want you to change your life at all. I just want you to ask the question.
But talk to him and say, Father, is there anything about my life that should change in regard to my work and my work schedule and my time management? Just this week, I'm not asking to change anything yet. I'm just asking you to pray. Father, is there anything you want to change in the way I do life in my schedule? And then I guess the last point is does this supply to Christians? This is one of the most theologically complex issues you will have. I couldn't get my sermon outline done in time, because the more I read, the more I had to read. And the more I read, the more I read, the more I read. There's so much on the Sabbath. Christians have complicated this. And the Jew has complicated this. Is Sunday a fulfillment of Sabbath? Yes. That's the easy answer, simple answer. This applies to us. But we're going to talk more because we can't lose the grace. It's a day of joy, not a day of guilt. But just as Israel, and this will prepare us for the Lord's Supper, just as Israel was led out of bondage in Egypt to liberation and to celebrate that liberation one day a week. So we've been led out of bondage to sin, to celebrate that liberation in Christ. So the Paul says, cease from your work. Good, I can quit my job. No, no, no. He means stop trying to impress God with how good you are. By grace you've been saved, through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift. The Jews had made salvation a laborer. And the gospel is you can't labor enough. So relax as you take of the bread and you take of the cup. You remember that this Sunday, Sabbath, in a sense, this Sunday, it's different from the Jewish thing, but we need to understand that it's a day of liberation for us too. And that we will never, ever get deep rest in our hearts if we're still identifying ourselves by what we accomplish at work. You're not your job. Your identity is wrapped up in what Christ did for you. And that's so what Romans 5 says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God. Hebrews 4, the call is to enjoy the rest. It was great speaking to the cadets, male and female cadets at West Point. They are the most in shape intelligent people you will ever meet. I've met a lot of very, very intelligent people. They say things that I say, you know, you're going to have to translate that for me. Usually those people are not as skinny as these cadets are. And part of the reason they're so skinny and in shape is because they don't sleep enough and they're constantly running literally. They're constantly moving. There is no greater performance work environment that I've ever seen than West Point. They got there from hard work, they stay there by hard work, and their whole life ahead of them is hard work under the task master of their officers. And I say, how do you guys know? It was great talking to them. I said, guys, you guys, you guys are incredible. I'd never get into the school. I said, but I want you to know that even though you're going to be a part of the greatest military that has ever existed in the history of humanity, your identity is not wrapped up in what you accomplish. You're all sleep deprived because it's all about performance. But your Christians, so it matters is not what you accomplish, but what Jesus accomplished for you in him. I had more cadets afterwards come up and say, thank you, thank you, thank you. Really? Really? I know it's true, but I don't believe it. Born identity is one of the famous, the born series, one of the most popular series of movies and the final one is just out, I won't ruin it for you. Oh, how I want to ruin it for you. It's just sin in my life, I'm sorry. But in the first one, you know, the CIA agent, Black Ops, Jason Bourne has found floating face up in the water, two bullets in his back. He's pulled onto the ship and the captain of the ship, wonderful guy, carves the bullets out of his back, and Jason can't remember who he is, he wakes up, he begins to heal, but he's lost his identity. I don't know who he is anymore. He struggles, and he struggles, and he struggles to find out who he is, and the captain of the boat keeps saying, you need to rest, it'll come back, you need to rest, it'll come back. And he keeps fighting that, he keeps fighting that. At the end, his identity comes back. In Christ, we struggle all week, and we lose our identity. And the father says, you need to rest, and by son, you need to rest, and when you do, your identity will come back, and you can get up and go out and do it for another six days. So our elders come forward for communion, I invite those of you who have never rested from your labors and your hard work in a spiritual way. We're still trying to impress God with how good you are, and you still are trying to make something of yourself through your work. If you're ready to give that up today and embrace Jesus Christ, we welcome you to the family. We're people who, like you, are feeling chased by the bowl of busyness, and we have to get off that. That fear cycle, and so if you want to get off and embrace Christ today, pray, Lord God, come into my life, Jesus. I give up, trying to prove myself to you, and I accept your work. I accept you. Give me a life. For the rest of us, as you take the bread now, remember that Jesus worked for you, that you wouldn't have to work. Today, God is pleased with you because of Jesus. You take the cup, take it, and remember that everything God needed, Jesus supplied. Lord, give us this identity back because of your body, bearing for us our sins. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for what you have done. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org, and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.