We saw yesterday how God rested, and set out a rhythm for work and rest. Here we see God giving some of the reasons why it’s important for us to rest, and how it’s still God’s gift for all creation even though many years have passed.
“‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 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 or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15 ESV)
He wants the Israelites to practice it, and to share it with those in their employ. Even their animals are included. But it’s more than that. It has to do with showing who their God is. God reminds them they were once slaves. The day of rest, the Sabbath, is a weekly emancipation from slavery.
They were being reminded by God, weekly, that they were created human beings, not pyramid building resources. Sabbath was part of their freedom – they belong to God, not pharaoh.
This is so important today. We can live in self-imposed slavery to career, money. Or fear. Or a form of slavery to work can be imposed by an exploitative company, a sex trafficker, a manipulative boss, etc.
Sabbath is a way for people who spend all week working to announce they are not just money making machines, they are God’s beloved children, and so they are free.
Yes, this is a limitation on work – it limits profits and production. And it wasn’t just weekly, the idea of Sabbath rest also applies to every seven years – when no fields could be worked. Imagine the statement of a nation that planned ahead like that, and took a year of rest to focus on other kinds of work. It would be very risky, but it was a way to show their trust in God, not themselves or their own risk management efforts. They may have been less productive, but they were free.
Question: How do you break free from the sense you are a slave to work? How can you show colleagues that there are more dimensions to your life than work?
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Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan, you host for the daily challenges. These daily challenges are meant to help people explore what it means to follow Jesus even during our busy commuting lifestyle. If you've never looked into what that means in the first place, I'd really encourage you, check out our Christianity 101 course first. You can take it live in-person or through our mobile app; great introduction to the basic concepts of what it means to follow Jesus that we try to build on in the Daily Challenges.
Every day and week, we follow a rhythm to help us, as one community, learn what it means to follow Jesus even when we're not physically together. Every Monday,we introduce the idea for the week. Every Tuesday, we see what the Bible has to say. Every Wednesday, we allow ourselves to be challenged in our thoughts. Every Thursday, we try to apply it and live it out in our lives. Every Friday, we take time to pray and reflect on the topic. Saturday is a day for rest and then Sunday is a day for community. We're going to start gathering together as one community soon. We just recently had a great baptism service and celebration where a number of our members came together in one place to worship God. We're going to do that more and more often over this year. So, stay tuned for some of our upcoming gatherings.
We're in a series right now called, "Reset." We're looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets everything in our lives. We've looked at a number of areas that it impacts. This week we're going to look at how following Jesus impacts our views of food and the body. That's why I'm here in a Chinese buffet, a place where people indulge, enjoy a huge selection of food and can have as much as they like.
This kind of a topic about food and the body might surprise you. You might expect Redeem the Commute to be focused more on spiritual things, not having much to do with what we eat and what we do with our bodies, but the two are very closely connected. Tomorrow we're going to see how the Bible says that these two are connected, but it's probably something that you know from experience as well. Think of those times in life when somebody's struck with a serious illness. You almost immediately turn to prayer. We have this sense that spirituality and our physical bodies are both connected.
Just look at people's interest in yoga today. It's amazing to see how people are longing for a way to connect spirituality and physicality in a way that Christianity has maybe neglected. Christianity does connect body and faith in a lot of different ways through things like the Lord's Supper, breaking bread and wine, connecting Jesus' death on the cross with actual bread and wine. There's a physical sign of something amazing that happened a long time ago. Or, baptism where somebody's washed cleaned spiritually, symbolized with water washing them clean on the outside. There's a huge connection between the two. Maybe you can think of some others. That's what I want you to think about today.
Question: I hope you'll join with some other friends from the train or bus, or from the neighborhood, somebody else you can discuss our Daily Challenges with. Discuss with them today's question, "How else do you think the spiritual and physical are connected for Christians?" What examples have you seen?"
Well, have a great discussion. Don't forget, we're reading the Bible in sync as a community. So, check our website or app to see what today's Bible reading is. Have a great one. I'll see you tomorrow.
When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again?
The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate.
What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives:
Reset: Goals
Reset: Time
Reset: Money
Reset: Work
Reset: Body & Food
Reset: Sex & Marriage
Reset: Family
Reset: Compassion
Reset: Nature
Reset: Society
Reset: Death
Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.
