Overworked, stressed, riddled with anxiety and tension. It's not just an american thing. All over the world, people are finding themselves increasingly unable to accomplish everything they are expected to do, and it doesn't show signs of improving. Despite technological advances over the last century that increase productivity and multiply our effectiveness, we find ourselves working more hours at higher stress levels with ever increasing expectations. Every machine or computer program that promises to make life easier just opens up the need to add other work to get enough accomplished.

And it is taking its toll on our personal health, our family bonds, and our effectiveness in sharing the gospel. Jesus has the answer come unto me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Join us these next few weeks as we look at what the Sabbath is and why it is one of gods greatest gifts to us. Isaiah 58, as Tom had read. Thank you, Tom, for that.

I want to start. The reason also that I wanted it kind of read before is because I want to back up. And my daughter loves when I tell her a Bible story and say, but in order to tell you that, I've got to back it up. And she says she loves it because she loves history. History is one of her favorite subjects.

I figure it's easier than math, right? So anyway, history is like a story, but it's only just stories unless we learn from history, unless we take its lessons and apply it to our lives and our world today. So in Isaiah 58, it talks at the end of it about the Sabbath and how God brings that up. And we'll talk about that kind of near the, near the end of our message. But to understand what the Sabbath is, which is the series that we're in, we kind of have to back it up.

We've got to look back all the way to creation. We see that God created for six different days. And then it says, the 7th day, he rested from all of his work. Now, at that point, it says he made the 7th day holy, or he sanctified it in a way, but he didn't yet command anyone to, let's say, partner with him in resting on the 7th day. In other words, it didn't become a weekly rest day for human beings.

Yet at that point, in fact, it isn't until later, when God has spoken to Moses and he said, I want you to go to Pharaoh in Egypt and tell him, let my people go. The israelite people had been slaves there for 400 years, and Moses had killed an egyptian guy and went on the run for 40 years as a fugitive because pharaoh was looking to kill him. So he went out into the middle of nowhere and just wanted to be left alone. At that point, he ends up getting married. He marries the daughter of a priest.

That's kind of scary because it's like, oh, my goodness. You know, like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, when you find out, you know, if you're young and you're dating someone, you're like, hey, what does your parents do? And they're like, my dad's, you know, this. My dad's that, well, my dad's a priest or a pastor. And you're like, oh, boy, you know, like, I'm gonna be scrutinized on everything, you know?

So Moses marries the daughter of a priest, and then later on, like, that guy has some words for him, too, when he comes to visit him. Like, years later, when he's leading the Israelites out through the wilderness, and his father in law comes up and he's like, man, you're some kind of stupid, aren't you, Moses? I'm really paraphrasing quite a bit. I'm reading between the lines, but that's kind of what he said. He says, what you're doing is not good sometimes, especially when you're the guy that writes the story in the Bible, you know?

Moses, like, writing these books. He cleaned it up a little. But I'm pretty sure the guy said, man, my daughter married an idiot. You know? Mind you, Moses is 80 years old at that point, so who knows how old his father in law is?

But at 80 years old, Moses is still like, okay, I got some lessons to learn, you know? So I guess part of the message on that is we're never too old to learn some lessons and, like, kind of get better, you know? So his father in law says, you've got all these people coming to you for help and with questions, and they're wanting you to kind of judge between them in little disputes. And they're standing in line all day waiting for their turn, and then you don't get to them, say, come back the next day. It's like the old school deli counters with that little red thing where you pull a ticket, you know, or go into the DMV, and they assign you a number and all this, and you're just waiting for your number to get called.

And the end of the day rolls around and they're like, better luck tomorrow. And you go back and his father in law is like, this is dumb. Why don't you get more people to help judge the cases and he's like, oh, yeah, I didn't think about that. You know, that's always, like, a good reminder, like, hey, we need more volunteers, you know, spread the load around. So Moses, he's leading the people, though he's been obedient to God.

He met him at this bush that was on fire and not burning up. And God says, first of all, you got to take off those shoes. You're standing on holy ground. I guess that helps. Like, for the people today that are going on social media and saying, oh, you need to be grounded.

Your feet need to touch grass. And I'm like, yeah, that's how I grew up. You know? Now everybody lives in concrete jungles called cities, and we never actually walk outside barefoot. And they're saying, you need to actually touch the earth.

It's good for your body. You know, it's physically good for us. So God tells Moses, you need to get grounded. Here, take off your shoes. This is holy ground.

And so Moses just was intrigued by this bush. He didn't know he was going to get sent on, like, a mission now at this point. And so he's got this mission now to go, and nothing real big. Just talk to the most powerful man on the planet at that time and say, hey, you know all these people that you get this free labor from, they need to. You just need to free them.

And he's like, I don't think that's going to work, God. And God says, trust me, it will. And I'm getting way off my notes here, and I don't care. This is fun stuff. So what?

God finally kind of gets him convinced to do it. Then Moses, he tries to say all these reasons why. He's like, I won't be able to talk to Pharaoh. I stutter a lot. I stumble.

I don't have the right words to say. And God has an answer for everything. Finally, Moses says, well, just send someone else. You know? Have you ever done that?

You're like, God, you've got to have. Surely there's somebody better than me for this job, right? And he's like, well, maybe, but I picked you. And so here's Moses, and he says, okay, but hear me out, God. You know, like, what if you ever give God those what ifs?

He says, what? And, jerry, I'm gonna borrow this real quick. I didn't plan this. He says, what if they don't believe me? What if the Israelites don't believe me?

And God says, what's in your hand? He's like, huh? Oh, this this is just a. It's just a stick, really. He was.

He was a shepherd. He had a shepherd staff. It probably had more of a hook on it, but some of you guys are probably wishing you brought one. Sometimes when I preach too long, you know, they're like, get the hook. Pull them off stage.

And so he says, you know, hey, it's just a stick. It's just a staff. And God says, yeah, but I can use that. And so God says, throw it on the ground. Like, this is one of my favorite sermons.

I'm really condensing it down into just this short little analogy. God says, throw what you have in your hand on the ground before me. Offer it up to me, and that thing becomes useful when we offer it to God. You might think, well, I don't have much. I'm not much of anything.

I don't have anything to offer God. Perfect. He's not looking for people that think that there's something special. He's looking for people that say, you must be thinking of someone else. I'm not the person for this.

And God says, give to me that thing that you have in your hand. Whatever that little thing is that you possess. Give that to me, and I'll do miracles with that. Now that stick becomes a serpent. Moses starts to run from it, and God's like, just grab it by the tail.

Moses, I don't know if he said it like that, but that's what I would picture. And he grabs it by the tail and it becomes a stick again. He's like, that's a pretty cool trick. I need to remember that one, you know, like, okay, throw it down. Cool snake.

All right, pick it up. Got it. What do I do with that? And he's like, they'll just think you're cool, you know? No, they'll know that there's some power behind you.

And so, anyway, without going into the whole exodus thing and all the fun stuff that happens there with the plagues and everything, Moses does this, and he leads the children of Israel. Finally, after all these ten plagues and all this stuff, and they celebrate the first Passover, they go out into the wilderness, they cross through the Red Sea. One of the best little verses in the Bible is like, I think it's Exodus 1313, or maybe it's 1414. I always forget. But you can look that up and figure it out.

Moses is like, looking at these Egyptians that are now chasing them because Pharaoh regrets his decision to free them. And God says, look at those Egyptians behind you, because those Egyptians that you see, today you'll never see again. And Moses is thinking, I don't know about that. I don't even have a sword, you know, like, we can't fight them. They're the strongest army on the planet right now.

But God parts the sea, they cross through. And the Egyptians are like, cool new highway, you know, and they go through. They didn't need the skyway bridge, Tom, you know, like, they crossed through, and then God's like, all right. And scene. Water covers over them, they're gone.

And so Moses is like, cool. I don't ever have to see those Egyptians again. That's better than the stick trick. Now they're in the wilderness. A month passes by.

Three to four weeks later, after they've left Egypt, they've seen all these miracles, the mighty hand of God. And now these people are like, we're hungry. I don't know how it took them a month to get hungry. I'm thinking they probably had some food they brought with them. You know, it's kind of like our hurricane supplies for a couple of you that are like, haven't lived through a hurricane in Florida yet.

You kind of stack up on snacks and stuff, you know, and then like, a few hours into your hurricane party, you know, you're kind of like, I just ate all my snacks. I don't know what I'm gonna do for the rest of the hurricane. The hurricane hasn't even hit, and now I don't have my snacks. This isn't good. And so the Israelites, though, they rationed out their snacks, they ate all their food, and now they're hungry, and they're like, moses, when we were in Egypt, we sat around pots full of meat.

We had bread and fish and all this fun stuff. At one point they say, like, we had vegetables, like garlic, leeks and onions. We had all melons. We had all this stuff. We could cook food, a meal.

I don't have anything out here. At times they say things like, Moses, wasn't it good enough for us to die in Egypt? You had to bring us to the desert to die. Which is pretty funny, because the desert seems like a place where you're just gonna die. Like, everything about the desert is trying to kill you.

It's too hot in the daytime, it's too cold at night. There's scorpions, snakes, all kinds of stuff. If you go in the desert, it's pretty much certain death. That's what the point is. And they're like, why did we come out here, Moses?

And he's like, I don't know. I'm just doing what God told me. I met him. It was a bush that was on fire. And they're like, I don't know what you were doing in the wilderness, Moses, but it seems kind of weird to.

And so. But here they are, and they're complaining about food. I'm getting somewhere with this. This is fun. They're complaining about food.

And God says, okay, you want meat? You want bread? You're gonna have it tomorrow. The next day, quail come flying in the camp. There's so many quail.

God feeds them with these birds, and so they have more meat than they can handle. He does this miracle another time where they were complaining about it, and they would put these low nets out. Cause the quail would migrate in just kind of across the ground in this low pattern. And all they had to do was put this net out and just kind of clothesline them. Just kind of.

They just hit it and fall, and they collect them up and eat them. You know, he says, you'll have so much meat that is going to come out your nostrils. It's just literally, you'll gorge yourselves on, and you'll get sick from it. So God provides for them with this quail, and he gives them what they later called manna, which is just a question mark, is what is it? Is what that means.

They said, what is this? What is it? And they never gave it a proper name, like bread or something. You know, they're just like, let's just keep calling it question mark. What is it?

And so here's this question mark, this bread that falls from the sky every morning. But here's where we get into the Sabbath part of it. I told you all that to tell you this. They get into the Sabbath part of it, where God says, for six days, you're to go out and collect a one day worth of bread. You remember when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, and he says, give us this day our daily bread?

He didn't say, give us our bread for tomorrow or help us plan our retirement account or any of this stuff. He says, give us what we need for this day. And then he said, for six days, you're going to gather up enough bread for each person in your household. But not enough for two days, just enough for today. If you keep it for a second day, it's going to get moldy and full of worms and maggots, and it'll be nasty and spoiled, and it'll stink.

Don't do it. Some people did it anyway because they've been going for a time where they didn't have food. And they get to thinking, I need to gather extra for myself just in case this doesn't show up tomorrow. You see, this was an exercise in faith of understanding God's provision. I provided for you today, and I will provide for you tomorrow.

I'll provide for you on the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day and the 6th day. But on that 6th day, all of a sudden, even though it looks the same, there's something different about this manna. You see, gather enough for everybody for two days in your household. Everybody in your household gather two days worth for them. And it won't go moldy, it won't grow bugs and worms and maggots in it, because the 7th day is a Sabbath.

Now this is interesting, because if you've read from the Bible, if you started in Genesis one and you get all the way up here into Exodus, and you're up here, this chapter in Exodus, you know, chapter 16, you get up into here and you realize that at no point has God given a Sabbath rest to any of his people, not to Adam and Eve. Although we assume they might have somehow met with God on the 7th day, we're not sure. But we don't see anybody participating in Sabbath rest, not any of the people, not any of the cultures, not anybody, including like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We don't see any of them resting on the Sabbath day. This is the first time that that word occurs in our Old Testament.

This is the first time that God introduces to someone by way of a command. They would observe the rest of the Sabbath day, that on this day they would rest. And so God provides for them throughout the six days. Six days. But on that 6th day, he gives them for the 7th day so that on that day they don't have to work, they don't have to worry about providing for themselves.

They don't have to worry about doing things that promote life. God is saying, when you rest, I take care of you. When you rest in me, I provide for you. Now, this is different, especially in a culture like ours today, where we have work, we have factories, we have productivity goals and all these things, and we think, I need to do all these things to make sure that my family's provided for, that my company continues working and growing and going. I can't afford to take a day off.

We look at it and we think, if I stop on this day, then everything's going to fall apart. I have to keep it going. I have to keep increasing it or providing for it. And then when we do perhaps take a day off from our labors, we decide, well, I've got all these things to do around the house and all these errands to run, and I've got to do those things because this is my only day that I'm not at work. And then we end up working on our day of rest.

And God, he's not mad. He's not looking at us saying, are you stupid? Like Moses father in law did. But what God is saying, I believe the message that I think that he wants us to hear is God saying, I promised to provide for you in the resting, when you rest. I promised that I would provide for you.

I promised that I would take care of you. So a few chapters later, in Exodus chapter 20, God gives Moses the ten Commandments and a bunch of other laws to give to the people. And in that, the ten Commandments, one of them, the law, the one about the Sabbath rest, is actually the one with the most words. It's the one with, like, the most language about how to live out that command. And so they have this Sabbath rest command.

And in that command, God is very explicit in it, because I think he knew we would try to find the most wiggle room on it. Well, what if I don't work? But, like, what if I have employees or servant workers? And what if they work? What if I pay a foreigner who's not under the israelite covenant?

What if I pay them to come in and work, and they use my animals to till the land or to bring in the crops? What if I just do that? Is that okay, God? That must be all right, isn't it? What if I rest from my labors, but yet I pick up, like, maybe some side work of some kind, or use that as the day to build onto the house or to fix those broken things or repair the car or whatever it is?

Is that okay, God? And so God knew our proclivity to deciding that we're going to break this gift that he's given us of Sabbath rest. So he says all these words like, on the Sabbath day, you shall do no work, neither you, nor your manservant or your maid servant, nor your son or daughter, nor your animal, nor the foreigner living within your gates. Like, he gives us all this stuff. And yet they still had to add more, like, caveats to it, more rules.

By the time of Christ, there was so much that you couldn't even remember all of it. I mean, we could get into things like, they got to the point where they said, if you have a tool in the fold of your garment, even as small as a sewing needle, which is one of the smallest tools you could have, if you even have that, and it's just in a pocket of your garment, then that's considered work because you're carrying a tool with you, and therefore you're breaking the Sabbath. They had gotten so crazy with the legalism of what it meant to keep that they lost the point of it. And so God's message to us is that he will provide for us while we rest in him. All that is set up for Isaiah 58.

When I was in fifth grade, we didn't have room in our elementary school for fifth grade. So they put us in with the 6th, 7th and 8th grade. We were part of the middle school. And what we did was we had fifth grade, had different class periods, like the older grades. So it was kind of like this training ground to go from having one classroom to having five or six, whatever it was.

But we also still got recess. And they had this old playground that still had, like, the big wood and old tires and all that stuff. It wasn't one of these modern playgrounds. It was fun. But there was this group of us guys that would go out, and there was this row of nice, soft, white pine trees.

And on the other side of that was a couple soccer nets. And we would go out there and play soccer. And what I mean is, we went out there to fight. It was a great time. We would kick each other, throw some punches, throw some elbows.

We had such a good time at this. I mean, we really didn't care about even teams. Who was on those teams. We just went out there and as young boys that were figuring out our place in the world, we were getting aggression out on each other. And we were learning what it means to be a man.

Probably if we kept through with that, a man that would end up in jail at some point. But nonetheless, that's where we were at in Isaiah. This was written about the 8th century before Christ. And Isaiah was writing to this group of Israelites who had been so far from following God the right way. They would go back and forth from worshiping God, and then they would go and they would forget God, and they would worship their idols.

And they would build up these idols and these worship places. And then somebody would come along and a king would rise up and he would have a reformation where he'd destroy the idols and lead the people back to worshiping God. But by the time he dies, probably his son, or the next kingdom brings them. And so they're just going back and forth between all these things. And then they would get to this point where they start saying, okay, but you know what?

We're gonna return to God. So what we've gotta do is we've gotta return to our prayers and our fasting and do all these things that God will approve of and that God will like. And then even though they were doing this and they would go about their days fasting and taking their sabbaths and things like that, they would say, God, why do you seem to still be rejecting us? This is what we see in Isaiah 58. As we look at this, they're saying, like, listen, we're doing these things.

We're doing the right things, aren't we? Verse three. They say, why don't you notice? When we fast? Why don't you pay attention?

When we humble ourselves and God has an answer for them, God speaks to them and he says, listen, when you're fasting, you're doing it wrong. When you're fasting, you're actually indulging yourselves. You're taking a day of fasting as a day to actually indulge in the things that are actually just. You're getting farther from where I want you to be. In fact, the word that he uses for fasting is when you afflict yourselves, they would go around afflicting themselves or making themselves look like they were in a fast.

In fact, they were still doing this in the time of Jesus. They hadn't learned much from the words of Isaiah, which is interesting because Isaiah speaks of the Messiah more than any other prophet of the coming messiah. And Jesus quoted Isaiah quite a bit. He seemed to be very fond of it because he knew it was speaking about him. And he, he said to them, he says, listen, when you go fasting, don't, like, look somber and solemn and just make it look like everybody knows that you're fasting.

Go ahead and do your hair, put on your makeup. If you're a lady or one of those guys, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, do your stuff, whatever it is that you do to look presentable in the day, do those things so that nobody knows whether you're fasting or nothing. It's between you and God. It's not between you and other people.

And so this is what Jesus was saying, and Isaiah had said it too. And all the way until the time of Christ, for all those centuries, they still hadn't learned how to put it into practice properly. And what Isaiah says is during these times of their fasting, they were actually getting into brawls and fist fights. They were fasting, so they were a little bit hungry, and they were angry with each other, and they fought. That's where we get the term hangry from, you know, been hangry before or met someone, you know, or like, dude, you need a sandwich.

Like, eat breakfast in the morning if you're gonna be like this. You know, that kind of thing. It's kind of like me and my friends at recess on that soccer field, you know, we really weren't going out there for rest and recess. We were going out there for anger and aggression. I mean, it was fun, but that wasn't what recess is for, is it?

At least that's what the principal ended up telling us when we got busted, in case you were wondering, the playground ladies, they were, like, over by the regular playground. And we just went over there in those trees, and they didn't, like, really keep an eye on us until somebody did, you know? And then all of a sudden, they're like, whoa, you boys can't do this. And we're like, well, we've been doing it for quite a while now. You know, it was great until you showed up.

Isaiah levels the charge at them in verses six and seven of this chapter, that they were actually using this Sabbath as an opportunity to mistreat others. And we might think, I'm not the one doing that. I'm not abusing others. I'm not mistreating others. I don't have any employees or slaves or servants to mistreat.

There's nobody under my control that I'm somehow taking it out on. But look at what he says in verse nine. He says, to remove the yokes of oppression, don't speak sinfully. And then here's a little fun thing. The Hebrew language uses a kind of weird term, and we don't know how to interpret it, but it's basically.

It says, literally, don't send the finger. Oh, don't send the finger. What did they have an expression like we do with the middle finger? Or maybe just shaking of a fist? Or was it some kind of just accusation pointing?

It doesn't really say clearly, so I'm going with they had something akin to the middle finger. I don't know which finger they used, but that's what my thoughts are on it. And Pastor John Piper, who's a lot older and wiser and more studied than me, also says that. And so I'm going with what John Piper said. Like, if it's good enough of an interpretation for him.

I'll use it, too. God's telling his people, if you're going to fast and do this holy thing that's supposed to draw you closer to me, and you're going to send the finger to somebody. Okay, he might not have meant that, like, exactly. You see, there's. There's this time in Luke chapter three where John the Baptist is talking with the people he's teaching them.

And in John chapter three, it's just a couple verses here, and I want to read these to you. I know we're getting into our time here, but in John 310 through 14, he says this. All these crowds were asking, John, what then should we do? John answered them. The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none.

The person who has food must do likewise. The tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, teacher, what should we do? He told them, don't collect any more than you're required to. Then some soldiers. Now, these are the roman soldiers that are their kind of overlords.

Some of the soldiers came to them and said, as for us, what should we do? He told them, don't take money from anyone by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your pay.

It's easy for us to think, what about me? I'm not the oppressor. I'm not the one doing wrong. I'm not the one mistreating people. Pastor, this stuff in Isaiah 58, that's not really about me, is it?

But then I think of John speaking to the crowds, and I think about the way we look at the Sabbath today. You see God speaking through Isaiah, saying, you must observe the Sabbath rather than doing everything that you please. On my holy day, you must look forward to the Sabbath and treat the Lord's holy day with respect. You must treat it with respect by refraining from your normal activities and by refraining from your selfish pursuits and from making business deals. That one hits me hard, because I've got a vehicle for sale.

And people respond. One of the best days they want to look for coming out is on the weekends when they're not at work. And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, okay, but I can do that, right? What if I take Sabbath on Monday or Wednesday or something like that? Then I can sell it on today, can't I, God?

I don't know, but I feel God saying, stay off of Facebook messenger today. When those people are saying, hey, can I come look at it? There's plenty of other nights during the week that they can come look at that vehicle. I'll still survive and take this time to rest in the Lord. Then you will find joy.

See, this is the crux of the matter. This is why God is giving us this rest. Listen to verse 14, I think it is. Then you will find joy in your relationship with the Lord, and I will give you great prosperity and cause crops to grow in the land I gave to your ancestor Jacob. Well, we don't live on that land, and most of us aren't subsistence farmers.

But in the ways that God does provide for you, whatever your income is, God is saying that when you both rest on the Sabbath and find yourself enjoying your relationship with the Lord, he's going to give you that prosperity. Isaiah closes, saying, know for certain that the Lord has spoken this. So here's my wrap up. Here's my closing on this. See, the Lord has given us his Sabbath as a day of rest.

He's given it as an opportunity for us to not only rest, but to take delight in him. I referenced John Piper earlier, that man, as his whole body of preaching is all about delighting in the Lord or finding supreme joyous in the Lord. So we refrain from our normal activities on the Sabbath, not out of legalism or rule keeping or any of that, but because it's that gift that God has given us, just like he gave it to the Israelites, who had only known seven day work weeks for 400 years of slavery. And now he brings them into the wilderness. And in that wilderness, they're complaining about where they're at and why they are in that place.

And in the meantime, God says, I want you to rest out here. Takes a long time to recuperate from four centuries of slavery. In fact, they'd be there for 40 years. And that generation would die off, and their kids, as they would grow up, would learn to walk in the ways of the Lord during that time in the wilderness. I pray that it doesn't take you being sent into the wilderness to learn these lessons from God, but that you would take joy in learning from his word, and that you would have employ that as you take a day of Sabbath rest, whether that be on Sunday or any other day, that you might need to take that, whatever that day might be, that you would refrain from your normal activities.

And look at those verses that say, if you see someone that's not clothed and you can clothe them, then do so. If you see somebody that's hungry and you have food to spare, then feed them. In other words, he's saying, pay attention to those around you who can't take care of themselves. And if they need the help and you can be that person, then help them in that way. In our resting God blesses those who observe the Sabbath day.

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