this chapter 20, and I'll be reading verses 8 through 11, and then I'll be reading Luke 13, 10 through 17. It can be found on page 61, page 872 of the Pew Bibles. So, we'll be reading the fourth commandment in Exodus 20, and then turning to Luke 13, verses 10 through 17. And before I read, would you please join me once again in seeking the Lord in prayer. Father, would you enable us to focus on your word? You have revealed yourself. You have revealed what is a displeasure to you, what pleases you, what you would require men and women to do. Young men, young women and children to do. But Lord, often we can have deaf ears and our hearts can be hard. So would you open our ears? Would you change our hearts through your word so that we can take hold with delight the way of life that you have laid out before us? Would you help us, Lord? I pray this in your name. Amen. Exodus 20, verses 8 through 11. to keep 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, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Now if you'll turn with me to Luke 13. It should be found on page 872. Luke 13, and I'll be reading verses 10 through 17. Now He, referring to Jesus, was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your disability. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, there are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. Then the Lord answered him, you hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman A daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loose from this bond on the Sabbath day? As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at the glorious things that were done by him. Work and worry seem impossible to separate. If you have work, you wonder if it will be enough. Am I working hard enough to keep this job? Will I keep this job? And if you don't have work, you worry if you will ever find it. How will we make it? This recent pandemic has only turned up the volume on those real concerns and worries. That's an unsettling time. But when we come to the fourth commandment, we see the Lord calling his people to not work and worry, but to work and remember. To attend to their work for six days and rest on the seventh day. Remembering that the Lord has given them work. Remembering the God who has promised rest. to not work and worry, but to attend their work, remembering their God and His promises. When we get to Exodus 16, which is in some senses the Sabbath before the command, we find the Israelites sharing those kinds of worries. How are we going to eat? How are we going to make it? And in the midst of their worry, and their anxiety, the Lord introduces to them His Sabbath. He lays out a principle for them about their work, but also about His rest. I mean, imagine it. There you are, recently freed slaves. You have some semblance of where you're going, but you had to get out of Egypt in a hurry, so you didn't have time to pack snacks or sandwiches. You're out in the wilderness, and you're getting hungry. In fact, you're getting so hungry, you think you're getting ready to starve to death. You start getting angry at Moses and Aaron. My wife would say they're getting hangry. Moses and Aaron brought us out here to kill this whole assembly with hunger. How will we eat? How will we make it here in this wilderness? And it's in that setting, when the people have nothing, God introduces His rest. He speaks to the people through Moses and says that He will provide bread from heaven. That God, in the middle of a desert, will make bread appear to nourish and feed His people. I'd like to read some of the account. So I'll be starting at verse 16. This is after the bread has come down. And I'll be making a few comments after. Verse 16 of Exodus chapter 16. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent." And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it till the morning. But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, this is what the Lord has commanded. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest. A holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil. And all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning. So they laid it aside till the morning as Moses commanded them. And it did not stick. And there were no worms in it. Moses said, eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none. On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, the Lord has given you Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." Verse 30, so the people rested on the seventh day. Two things are very striking to me in that passage. One is the perfection of God's providence. There was no hungry bellies. It was a perfect providence. If someone gathered a lot, there wasn't any left over. And if someone gathered a little, there was no lack. God is so committed to his people that his provision was to the number. But we also see that God gave them work. It is work to harvest bread. It's work to collect it. And on the sixth day, they had to work twice as hard to get twice as much bread. But the people did not have to approach their work wondering, will this be enough? Will God provide for us? Will all of my family members eat? They approached the work of gathering with the promise that God would meet their needs. That He would give them not only enough that their bellies would be filled, but that they could approach Him on the Sabbath day to have their souls filled. To have communion with the God who gives them rest. And then the second thing that was striking to me about that passage. They do not trust the Lord. The Lord is going out of His way to give these people rest, and they just don't believe Him. You're almost waiting for one of the Israelites to say to Moses, where's the catch? You mean bread's just going to rain from the sky? In verse 19, Moses says, hey, don't save any of it until the morning. And why would you save food? Because you don't think the Lord's going to give it to you the next day. And so out of this fear, you see the Israelites stuffing their bread into their Tupperware because they don't believe that the God who delivered them from Egypt will continue to sustain and provide for his people. And on the sixth day, when God commands the people to collect twice as much so that on the seventh day they could have his rest, what do they want? Work, not rest. They go back out looking for this bread, even though the Lord has promised, I will give you enough. I will meet your needs. I will provide for you the work, the bread, so that you can enter my rest. So here at Sinai, in Exodus 20, when we're hearing the fourth commandment, we shouldn't be surprised that it starts with remember, that when God is commanding how their work week will operate and saying, you're going to lose a day. If you were told you're going to lose a day of work, what would you start doing? Probably worrying. Can I lose a day? How's that going to affect my bank account? Will I be able to get all my work done in six days? The Sabbath starts with remember, because it is something that the people of God always struggle to do. To remember that the Lord is faithful, To remember that when He calls our productivity, our work, to cease, He will provide. He will give us rest. Remembering who God is and what He has accomplished in history for His people allows us to rest. Allows us to worship this God who cares for us and also extend mercy to others. Here, question 60 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. How is the Sabbath to be sanctified? Here's the answer. The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, spending the whole time in public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy. We are more familiar with the worship emphasis on the Sabbath. But here, the Lord institutes a day for His people where not only do they have the opportunity to enjoy rest, but to extend it to those around them. God wants the spouses to rest, the slaves, the strangers that is within their gates, the animals. In Exodus 23, He even wants the land to rest a whole year. That's a lot of time. And so why does God want the lamb to rest a whole year so that the poor people could come and eat? Keeping Sabbath is not only enjoying rest, but Israel, being the Son of God, would model the Father by extending rest to others. In Deuteronomy 5, when the commandment is given, it's almost as if the Lord says, make sure you give your slaves rest because you were a slave. And I freed you. I have given you rest and put you in a position to extend it to others. But friends, make no mistake, Israel's neighbors would have thought that this was weird. You're voluntarily giving up a day of work? You're going to let your land rest a whole year to trust it to a God? You're going to let slaves and foreigners in your gates? You're going to let them rest? Even today, as the church faithfully keeps the Sabbath, our neighbors will ask questions about this weird practice. You're not going to pursue career and success and money and leisure? You won't let these false gods dictate your work week? God sent his people in a world to be his missional body to extend rest to weary and tiresome people. The people of God were brought out of Egypt and you, Christian, have been brought out of slavery to sin, to rest. And to, as far as you are able, extend rest to others. If we were to, well, it's raining now, so we wouldn't do it now. But if one day, or maybe we had umbrellas, and we were taking a survey and said, excuse me, sir or madam, would you like rest? What do you think they would say? Yes, please. Yes, I would like rest. We are a tired people. Anxiety, depression, all these things are at all-time highs in our world. We want rest. We are a culture that would chant, yes, give us rest. But we are also a culture that would chant, only if we can define it. Yes, we want rest, but it has to be on our terms. We have to define what rest is and is not. And as we read throughout the Old Testament, we see the people of God give way to this temptation. God has promised them rest. They are a people of rest. But soon after, we see them looking at other nations, looking at the gods of other nations, and wondering, well, is that what real rest is? In the book of Amos, we hear the people lamenting about God's rest. Here's Amos imitating the people. Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, when will the new moon be over that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. and sell the chaff of the wheat. When will the day where we were commissioned to extend rest to the poor be done with so that we can enslave and purchase the poor? When will this day where we are to remember our great God and serve him be over so that we can serve money and make the shekel great? What we find in Amos is not just the people of God turning away from true rest, but seeking a false rest from a false God. Money offers a false rest. Success, leisure, pleasure, a life that is led by the passions of the flesh offers a false rest. And it was the job of the Israelites to refuse those false gods and their promised rest. And they failed. Rest is not hard because God is greedy. Rest is not hard because God has made his terms of rest confusing or hard to understand. Resting is hard because our hearts are hard. What makes rest hard for the Israelites in Exodus 16? They don't trust God. They don't believe His good and loving purposes towards them. Rest is hard because our hearts are restless. We have fallen. We are in that condition because of Adam's sin. We are blind and powerless to find true rest. Why are we obsessed with productivity? Why, children in the congregation, why will society tell you to bow down at the altar of career? To view family and children as an inconvenience? To tell you that the greatest good in your life is the money, the influence, the fame that you could make for yourself? Well, because our world wants rest. and they've turned to those false gods to find it. Children, you must resist those false gods and those false rest. You must turn to the Lord, your God, your covenant God, who has promised you rest. Just as the Israelites were powerless to provide rest for themselves in a desert, Because of the fall, friends, we are powerless to provide rest for ourselves. But God provides. As we've seen in Exodus 16, and as we see in God sending the last Adam, Jesus Christ, who comes into the world to bring weary sinners rest. The Messiah who comes into the world and tells hardened, rebellious, prideful sinners, lay down your work and your burdens and come to me for rest. Last summer I had the opportunity to preach a couple of passages in Luke's Gospel at Broumont. I was interning there last summer. And as I was reading through the Gospels, there was something that was very striking to me. The Lord loved to fight on the Sabbath. Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. He heals a man with dropsy in Luke 14 on the Sabbath. Earlier we read Luke 13 where the Lord delivers this woman bound by Satan on the Sabbath. Jesus loved to fight and argue about the Sabbath. And why is that? Well, because as we read earlier, the synagogue rulers, the people who were charged to keep Sabbath, I'd polluted it. I'd forgotten what the purpose of Sabbath was. I mean, imagine a woman, 18 years, some of you have 18-year-old children, their whole lifetime bound by Satan, crippled over, going to the synagogue Sabbath after Sabbath in excruciating physical pain. Back pain is terrible pain. And here comes Jesus, the Lord of Sabbath, the last Adam, comes into the synagogue on the day of rest and release to minister to this poor woman. And what does the synagogue ruler say? There are six days to be healed. Come on one of them. This man has forgotten the Sabbath is about. On a day where we commemorate rest, he has witnessed this woman receive rest, and his heart is hardened. On a day that is to make the people of God look forward to the new heavens and the new earth, every limitation is removed from us to approach God in worship. He sees this woman freed from satanic oppression, and his heart is hard. He would lead an animal to get water. But here, this daughter of Abraham, Jesus using that covenantal language, this daughter of promise has been given rest. And you're not moved at all. As I said earlier, often the problem or the issue with the people of God is that we forget. We fail to practice remembrance. Some of these Sabbath accounts are often used to argue that Jesus is trying to find a loophole in the Sabbath system. He's trying to get away from the Sabbath and sneak around it while still doing a bit of good. No. Jesus cannot break the Sabbath. It's His day. When Luke records Jesus' response, interestingly enough, he doesn't say, then Jesus responded. He says, the Lord responded. The Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus comes and keeps Sabbath in a way that Israel never could. The Israelite fathers, the head of households, they could say don't work to their slaves, to the foreigners, but they could not heal broken hearts. They could not heal a sinful nature. They could not offer rest to those in sin. But Christ can. Christ can offer rest to weary sinners. He can fix the heart problem that makes us so restless. And so on the first day of the week, friends, we come and worship the resurrected Christ, who is coming to accomplish the goal of Sabbath, extending rest and renewal to those taken by the sickness of sin. Rest is not an accomplishment, a vacation spot, a certain amount of money. Rest is a person. Rest is knowing Jesus Christ and belonging to Him by faith and repentance. So what does the Fourth Commandment call us to do, Church? To practice remembrance. That when we are confronted with worry, I don't know how this will work out. I don't know if I have enough work. I don't know if I'll ever get work. How will these things get paid for? When we are confronted with these things that we do not know, we are to remember what we do know. The Lord will provide rest. The Lord is for you and not against you. Christ is working and realizing the Sabbath goal in creation. And I know that that's not easy work. But friends, to buy the lie that rest is anywhere else in this world will only lead to discouragement and slavery. Perhaps you've tuned in through YouTube and you're hearing a sermon about rest. I would say to you, friend, Jesus has laid claims on rest. It belongs to him. And the only way to come to that rest is to come to that person, Jesus Christ. To humble yourself, lay down before him and ask for forgiveness and enter into his rest. People of God, do not work and worry. Work and remember that God is for you. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you sent Christ into this world to bring about a new creation, and that you have started with men and women, that tired and restless people can now find contentment, can now be freed from the false gods and the false rest of this world, and can take hold of your promises. Thank you, Lord, that we can move away from worry and remember you. I pray this in your name. Amen. At this point, we're going to take prayer requests.