The Junior Sunday School Class teacher asked her eager 10-year-olds if they would give a million dollars to missionaries. “Yes!” they all screamed! “Would you give $1,000?” Again, they shouted, “Yes!” How about $100?” “Oh, yes we would!”, they all agreed. “Would you give a dollar to the missionaries?” she asked. Again, they all said yes, except Johnnie. The teacher noticed him clutching his pocket. “Why didn’t you say yes like the rest?” Johnnie said, “Well, I have a dollar.”
I get Johnnie. You want to hang on to that dollar. A dollar is hard to come by. So, you want to make that money to keep that money, to keep your pocket right. So, you work, work, work. The challenge is: can you keep your pocket right and keep KTS right. KTS stands for “Keep the Sabbath”—the fourth commandment. Since Moses went up to the mountain with his I-stone—the first generation I-phone—God has been texting man with some serious messages. This one may be the hardest, to take seriously not being so serious. KTS is God’s way of saying TGIF on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays, all through the week, to take a break, to rest, rest, rest.
But not all rest is the same. He wants you to have R&R—right rest. What must be done to keep the Sabbath right? We have two links to the Ten Commandments—what I call Commandgram—an update of a timeless communications between God and man. Link one is found in Exodus 20 and link two link is found in Deuteronomy 5. Both shed their own light on the same command—KTS—a command, not for a certain day, but a cosmic concept for eternity, that it’s OK to take a break, not from Him, but for him and for yourselves.
First, in Exodus, KTS is a call to remember God’s creative works and trust in it. Second, in Deuteronomy, KTS is a call to guard God’s delivering works and reflect it in your relationship with others. The Ten Commandments is not about rules, it’s about relationship. God wants to be your God and you, his people—a well-rested people. Get out your cell phones and text someone you know who needs some right rest: KTS...more later. When they hit you back, hit them with: KTS means TGIF—Thank God it’s Friday all week long.
First, KTS is a call to remember God’s creative work and trust in Him according to the Exodus text. Look at Exodus 20:11:
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.
Sabbath is an opportunity to reflect on God’s creative and complete work. He did. After making heaven and earth, land and sea, fish and fowl, God stepped back, folded his arms, admired His work and said, “Hey, this is pretty dang tov”. Tov means good in Hebrew. (I’m pretty sure He said dang.) After six days, He washed up, put His feet up, and said, “All done. Time to chill.” It took 6 days to make creation, only one day to rest. That’s how powerful the right rest is. To make it right, you’ve got to make it holy. Holy is the key word. To make it holy—qadash in Hebrew (vd;q')—you must set it apart from the normal, to treat it special. The second key word is shabbath (tB'v;.). It means to rest. You must not work; the family must not, even the animals and the slaves must not work. So, KTS is simple: set apart a time of no work of your own hand to appreciate the creative work of God’s hands, and trust those hands.
Rest is important spiritually, physically and socially.
Spiritually, rest shows your faith in the creative and complete works of God. He is good and can be trusted to provide good things for you. Sabbath was a witness to the other pagan nations that Israel’s God is singular and special, to be set apart. In contrast, to work all the time and never rest is to say rest is good for God but not you. It’s another way of saying, “God, didn’t quite ‘get’er’ done. I got this.”
Rest is also important physically. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, and a sick boy. We are not machines. But we work like it, working more, earning less and breaking down more. It’s killing us. 75% of all doctor visits are work-related stress.
Socially, rest gives us an opportunity help the poor, to get our eyes off self and set it on others. Every seven years, Israel was to give the land a rest and share its fruit with others. Sabbath and seven share the same root spelling and common meaning of rest and completion. Where there is seven, there is rest. Look at Exodus 23:11:
11 but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Ex. 23:11
When we rest, we have more opportunity to give to those in need.
But rest in the Lord and not rest from the Lord. His completion makes us complete. We get from God’s rest what we can’t get from our work.
We get comfort from His rest.
"Come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Matthew 11:28-30
We get strength from His rests.
"In returning and rest you shall be saved...confidence shall be your strength. Isaiah 30:15
However, rest in doesn’t mean rest from praying: Ephesians 6:16 says we are to: pray in the Spirit on all occasions. Rest in doesn’t mean rest from church: Hebrews 10:25 says we are not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” Rest doesn’t mean rest from doing good. Jesus did good on the Sabbath even if it meant upsetting some churchy church folks as seen in Mark 3:4,5.
4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Mark 3:5
So church, keep praying, keep meeting, keep doing good in keeping the Sabbath. It’s not about a day, but a concept for eternity. Trust and rest in God’s creative and complete works anytime. Text someone you know who needs some right rest—KTS. When they hit you back tell them KTS is God’s way of saying TGIF: Thank God it’s Friday, any day of the week.
Second, KTS is a call to guard God’s delivering work and reflect it in your relationship to others. We see in the Deuteronomy 5 link that the Sabbath is a reminder of what God has done for you and what you must do for others.
12 'Take care (guard) to keep holy the sabbath day as the LORD, your God, commanded you…. 14 Your male and female slave should rest as you do. 15 For remember that you too were once slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God, brought you from there with his strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the LORD, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:12,14,15
The chief distinction between this link and the Exodus link is this: to be careful not to forget your relationship between God and man, and your relationship between man and man. You can rest in the knowledge that God loves you, delivers you; and in response you must love each other. Isn’t that what Jesus said when asked what is the greatest law? He said, there are two: Love God, love your neighbor according to Matthew 22. He delivered you. Don’t enslave others.
Keeping the Sabbath is so much more than a day off. It’s a love-in. We see that in Jesus’s keeping the Sabbath in a transcendent way. The big picture is this: the Sabbath was made for man. If man is hungry on a Sunday, feed him.
23 As he was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. 24 At this the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?" 25 He said to them, "Have you never read what David did… ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?" 27 Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. 28 That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath." (Mk.2:23-28)
We see this transcendent keeping of the Sabbath in another meal in my ‘feel good” story of the week.
When Jamario Howard and his friends Jamychol and Tae saw an older woman sitting by herself at a barbecue restaurant in Oxford, Alabama, they knew they had to go over and say hello. After all, a meal is best shared with friends, and they could tell she needed one. “My exact thought was ‘Dang, I’d hate to have to eat alone,’” Howard said. When he went over to introduce himself, Howard and his friends learned that the woman had just lost her husband, and the next day would have been their 60th anniversary. The four new friends shared a meal and snapped a pic together. “The point is to always be kind and nice to people. You never know what they are going through,” Howard said.
At another meal—The Lord’s Table, our Sabbath meal—it is a good a time to remember what God has done for you, so you can do for others like share a table. Text KTS to someone who needs rest from loneliness. Tell them KTS is God’s way of saying TGIF—thank God it’s Friday anytime, any day of the week to show love, to share a meal.
CONCLUSION
First, KTS—Keep the Sabbath—is a call to trust God’s creative work and rest in it according to the Exodus text. Second, to KTS is a call to guard God’s delivering work and reflect it in your relationship with others according to the Deuteronomy link.
Johnnie wanted to hang on to his dollar. It was his security as it is for so many of us. That’s why we work, work, work, work. But God calls us to let go, chill out and rest, rest, rest, right. Text someone KTS. It’s God’s way of saying TGIS: thank God its Sabbath all week long, all life long, all eternity long. So, be secure in Sabbath. Take a take a break, not from Him, but for Him, and yourself and others. You can’t get that with a dollar.
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