Encountering God's Delight
Exodus 20:8-11
8-11 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day. – The Message
"Sabbath is not about time off or a break in routine. It is not a mini-vacation to give us a respite so we are better prepared to go back to work. The Sabbath is far more than a diversion; it is meant to be an encounter with God’s delight." – Allender - “Sabbath: The Ancient Practices”
One of the hard things to manage as a Pastor, heck as a human being, is finding the time to truly sabbath. Everything and everyone try to infringe on this sacred practice. We can feel, or be made to feel guilty for taking time off because there is so much to do. Even when we take time off, we do so, to work on all things that “we want to do”. We know we need it, God commanded it, but we try to rationalize all the reasons why we don’t practice it consistently.
So why is it so hard to sabbath.
As Yahweh gives Moses the fourth commandment, He reminds Israel and us to “remember it”. Sabbath was already instituted, in Exodus 16:22-30. He basically tells us to follow his example. We know God didn’t need to take a day off, He’s God! He was showing us that this would be for our own good. He knew our tendencies to try to do things in our own strength. To try to accomplish and attain everything on our own, a self-sufficiency that would lead us astray from being dependent on Him, as the good father, who would provide for us.
It reminds me of a story of a Dad who asked his three year old son to move a cinder block from one side of the yard to the other (can you feel a life lesson coming here). The Dad told the capricious toddler to move the cinder block, and if he did, he would get a new water gun to play with. The toddler tried with all his strength, pulling, pushing, kicking, grabbing a stick trying to wedge it, but the block wouldn’t budge. The toddler sat down frustrated, leaning against the block, after trying to move it for 15 minutes. All the while the Dad was watching everything going on. He asked his son “have you tried everything my boy?” He answered, “yes daddy, I tried pushing, pulling kicking even took a stick and tried to wedge it, and it wouldn’t move, I can’t move it daddy.” Dad asked again, “Are you sure you tried everything?” The boy sat there and placed his finger to his chin, “yes sir”. His Dad laughed, and scuffled his hair and said, “did you ask me for help?” By the way the Dad still gave his son the new water gun, and took him to get some Ice Cream!
When we don’t practice sabbath, we become like this child in the story trying to do it all in our own strength, but to no avail, we will end up frustrated and burnt out. Like the Father in the story, God wants us to come to him and ask him for help, to trust him. This is what we do through our actions when we sabbath. Through our actions we tell God, ok dad, we are going to trust you, and know that you will accomplish more through us in 6 days, than we could accomplish in 7 by ourselves. We are going to delight in you, knowing that you will do for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. What a beautiful picture of the Gospel.
The takeaway from this is as we remember the sabbath and practice it, we should prepare to encounter God’s delight as He lavishes His grace, love and mercy on us, as obedient sons and daughters who trust in him more than we trust in our own strength and understanding (Proverbs 3:5,6).
Proclaiming Him,
Pastor Will
