Resting Well to Worship Well | Exodus 16:14-30
This message was preached at Sherwood Community Friends Church on July 7, 2024. You can watch the video in full by clicking below.
Introduction
Rest does not come easy to me. I have found that I have a hard time saying no to just about anything – work, volunteering, adventures, helping others, and all of the ideas in my head.
We wear our busy schedules as a badge of honor. It’s like we are full of pride when we tell someone we are too busy to find any space on our schedule. I’m doing all these important things… Meaningful connection will have to wait because we are just too busy, right?
According to Ramsey Solutions, here are 8 signs your life is too busy:
You’re always trying to multitask
You’re exhausted and overwhelmed
You have to schedule things weeks in advance
You have a hard time focusing and enjoying the moment
You never take time off
You feel off balance
You feel guilty a lot of the time
You’re filling your calendar with things you don’t even want to do
Now, I am all about getting things done. And, sometimes there are things that must be done, even if we don’t want to. But, if I’m honest, often my hustle has been out of an incomplete burden inside of me to make something happen that is ultimately out of my control. Am I so arrogant to think results only happen when I am in control? When I am the one calling the shots? That’s an enormous burden to carry.
Romans 12:3 says “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourselves more highly than you out, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
Garden of Eden as the Garden of Rest
When God created the Garden of Eden, the very design of rest was its core fundamental design. Even the work that was put before Adam and Eve was made simple by the ground they worked and the animals they ruled. Everything worked in simplicity and joy. There was balance. And God walked together with them, establishing this communion in an intimate and authentic relationship with trust at its foundation.
This state of rest was broken by our distrust of God’s provision. That what God had to offer us was, somehow, not enough.
What more are we looking for that we don’t think is enough from God?
Ever since this choice in the Garden, we have been struggling to find rest since.
The Israelites and Sabbath Rest
In God’s redemptive story given to us through the Israelites, we see Sabbath introduced in Exodus 16. You may remember the story. The Israelites had recently been freed from their bondage and slavery in Egypt. They had been trained to work 24/7 for hundreds of years. They had asked God to take them out of slavery, and He did. But could they trust him to meet their everyday, physical needs?
Let’s pick up in Exodus 16:14: “When the layer of dew evaporated, there were fine flakes on the desert surface, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each person needs to eat. You may take two quarts per individual, according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’ ” So the Israelites did this. Some gathered a lot, some a little. When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat.”
God met the needs of exactly what each person needed for each day. He didn’t burden them with preparing or collecting extra manna for the next day.
Put yourself in the sandals of the Israelites. There is uncertainty in the unknown of where they are going. They are unsure if there actually will be more food tomorrow. They don’t know the land yet on which they will settle.
Who of you is a planner? Could you restrain yourself from collecting more than what you needed for the day? Would you be thinking about tomorrow and what you would need then?
Let’s pick it back up in verse 19: “Moses said to them, “No one is to let any of it remain until morning.” But they didn’t listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank.”
How often have I disregarded God’s past faithfulness to just be and let God provide? How many times have I held so tightly to his past works in my life that I tried to carry them to today, only to look up and see worms?
The world tells us if we just work hard enough, we can make our dreams come true.
But God is not interested in our self-help attempts. When we turn inward to our own efforts and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, we might as well snub our nose at God and say, “Thanks but no thanks. I can do this on my own.”
Rather, can we be openhanded to embrace the provision God provides us and nothing more?
Rest…Sabbath…is all about trust in God. This is God’s design so we can live in freedom to commune with Him, just as with his original intention in the Garden.
Let’s turn back to our story. Now we see the introduction of the Sabbath in verse 23. ”He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, and set aside everything left over to be kept until morning.’ ” So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t stink or have maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you won’t find any in the field. For six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.” Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and instructions? Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.”
The Israelites failed to trust God to provide. In a passage from this week’s Bible reading, we see much later on they continue to strive for earning their blessing from God.
Isaiah 58:3-8 “Why have we fasted, but you have not seen? We have denied ourselves, but you haven’t noticed!”
“Look, you do as you please on the day of your fast, and oppress all your workers. You fast with contention and strife to strike viciously with your fist. You cannot fast as you do today, hoping to make your voice heard on high. Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord ? Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood? Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord ’s glory will be your rear guard.
The concept of taking a day off – not just from our vocational work but anything that can weigh us down like paperwork, household duties, or even entertaining guests - isn’t another self-help gimmick or life hack. It’s not about getting more answers from God, using him for our gain.
When I trust God with a whole day of rest, this translates to trusting God to provide for all of my needs - from my income to my time to my rest and everything in between. When I don’t give into self-provision 24/7 this tells God I’m willing to wait for his timing and his provision. That I trust him. That I value his guidance.
Works Matter - but that’s not our Identity
On the other hand, we see the importance of doing works and showing up!
Ephesians 2:10 points out that we are created to “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
We also see that “Faith without works is dead.” James 2:26.
To continue in Isaiah 58 it says
9-12: At that time, when you call, the Lord will answer; when you cry out, he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you get rid of the yoke among you, the finger-pointing and malicious speaking, and if you offer yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted one, then your light will shine in the darkness, and your night will be like noonday. The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry. Some of you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will restore the foundations laid long ago; you will be called the repairer of broken walls, the restorer of streets where people live.
Sounds like some pretty clear actions in there. We must put aside our work and our accusations, and we are to give ourselves to those in need, be present with the afflicted, and there will be rebuilding and repair and restoration. And notice, this is not done in solitude. This is very people-driven.
So how do we know when it’s time to rest and when it’s time to hustle? What if the right answer is both and?
In Matthew 11:28-29 Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Did you catch that? Jesus didn’t tell us to sacrifice our burdens. He didn’t tell us to quit our jobs, to abandon all our volunteering, to hide in the bathtub while the kids put themselves to bed, to stop going to the doctor visits that tire us. He didn’t tell us our burdens were too heavy. He told us our burdens were too heavy for us to carry alone. It’s when we try to carry the burdens on our own that they weigh us down, and we experience burnout. Because we are trying to do the things on our own.
But then we are reminded of the words of the psalmist. “I am at rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.” Psalm 62:1.
Jesus took the work of our salvation upon himself so we could enter into trust-embodied rest.
Worship and Romans 12
Embracing Sabbath rest wrapped in trusting God also ties into our freedom to worship. Let’s jump back over to Romans 12.
Verse 1 says “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”
When Paul references to “offer our bodies as a living sacrifice” he isn’t speaking figuratively. These are our physical habits, the outward overflow of our hearts. It’s how we schedule our time, what we allow our thoughts to dwell on, the words that escape our mouths. The sacrifice we offer to God is our very lives, laid down with him as we pick up our own cross.
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law {read “through my efforts}, then Christ died for nothing.'
Galatians 2:20-21
God wants all of us. It’s in that surrendered, holy place that we move as the Spirit directs and Sabbath seeps into our everyday lives.
My Journey of Sabbath
I didn’t always practice the Sabbath. I grew up in church, and the deepest relationship I had with the word Sabbath was reciting it as the 4th Commandment as a kid. And I knew we took the day off. Sometimes we would have family over for a birthday. That was about it. Then you get to get a job, and most jobs a teenager can get want you to work Sundays. I just thought one day I would get to have Sundays off, but that wasn’t now. I needed to do to make money.
I used to work in the restaurant business, and as a manager, you can get calls and texts any time of the day or night. I was always on, and it taught me to be checking emails and texts on a 24 seven basis. After decades of non-stop working, I found my soul longing for space to breathe.
And over the last decade, God has redeemed my self-abused work ethic. He has redefined rest, trust, and affirmed the practice of the Sabbath as communion with him so I can catch a glimpse of what it means to trust God with his work.
Each December, God gives me a word for the following year. Some people select their own word, but I am quite confident that it is God who gives this word to me. It’s usually nothing for me to do much with. It’s more like God saying, “See what I do this year. Here’s a hint…”
In December of 2022, God gave me the word “SABBATH” for last year. I was headed into what may have been the most intense and busy year of my life between school and Brayden launching from home. I was hoping for a word like ENDURANCE or PEACE.
Really God? Sabbath?
Yes, Sabbath. In a year when it would have been easy to find myself working 80+ hours a week (which I’ve been known to do before), he beckoned me into a sweet yet challenging space of exploring Sabbath.
Yet, this was so much more than just taking a day off. I had to sit with the discomfort that emails were piling up and the plates I was spinning might come crashing down.
Learning to rest takes time. It takes patience. It takes extending a whole lot of grace to ourselves. It takes dependency on God to meet the glaring needs and removing our obsession from what we think must be done. We don’t like that word dependency.
Yet Isaiah 58 finishes with this -
13-14: “If you keep from desecrating the Sabbath, from doing whatever you want on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, seeking your own pleasure, or talking business; then you will delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride over the heights of the land, and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob.”
Our identity doesn’t lie in our ability to accomplish things on our own but in God advancing his kingdom through us. It’s him who lifts us up to “ride over the heights of the land.”
Delight
Romans 12:2 says we must “be transformed by the renewing of our mind.”
So to embrace Sabbath, we have to be willing to radically uproot our current thought processes, behaviors, even desires, and lay them as a sacrifice at the foot of the cross.
You might be living in a life rhythm that suited you for a season but you find you’ve outgrown it. It might be time for a new life rhythm and it’s ok to experiment with that! For a restful Sabbath, do anything the day before that might cause you to be distracted on the day of.
You might wonder What should I do on Sabbath? Here are some ideas
Commit to disconnect from anything you define as work like checking emails, paying bills, and even dwelling on work.
Commit to avoiding anything that may be viewed as a distraction that would keep you from communing with God. This might include an addictive TV show, social media, or even the news.
Read God’s Word. See what he has to say. On Sabbath, you may benefit from meditating on a Psalm or a segment from the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps rest looks like taking a blanket and a good book, heading to the lake or the beach or a grassy spot at the park to catch up on some reads or cozying up in your favorite couch corner. Or maybe it looks like heading to the local coffee shop with your journal to do some stream-of-consciousness writing.
You may choose to go for a walk. What a wonderful way to worship and commune with God as you breath in some fresh air, admire his creation, and pray for the people and businesses you pass along the street.
Join together with your family or friends for a shared meal and enjoy the community that God has placed you in.
Sabbath doesn’t have to be on Sunday. We live in a 24/7 world and it may just not be possible for you to take a day off on Sundays. I know for me it wasn’t for years. Now, Robert and I take our Sabbath on Fridays. Maybe your Sabbath is Tuesdays. That’s ok! Communicate your Sabbath day to your family, friends, and work so they know when you are offline.
Open Worship
As we head into our time of Open Worship, I’d like to share about my experience last week. I took a personal retreat to the coast as I am in my “summer of being human again” coming off of school. My intention was to enter into a time of reflection, rejuvenation, and rest as I sought the Lord on what he has in this next stage of my life.
On my final day, I walked up to the edge of the infinite ocean before me and stepped in ankle-deep. I looked down at the water touching my toes and told that water how lucky they are to have reached land for a time of rest. As I looked out into the ocean, I wondered how many water droplets would never reach land. They would forever only know uncertainty, turbulent currents, and a dark abyss. They would never know what it’s like to bask on the shores, to feel the warmth of the sun, and to rest for a time.
If you relate more to the image of constant turbulence, then ask the Lord to come and carry the burdens you bear for you. Ask him to bring you to his shores of rest today and to give you his yoke, for his is light.
Closing
Sabbath, rest, trust, and even worship have been hard lessons for me to learn. Like Paul, what I want to do I don’t do and what I don’t want to do I do! What I have learned is that rest isn’t a calendaring issue. Rest is a heart issue.
If Jesus came to restore what was taken from us in the Garden, then the goal of our redemption is not to work harder. The goal of redemption is for our Sabbath rest to permeate into the rest of our days so we can find our delight in Him in our rest and our work, trusting Him and communing with Him, as was His original design.
