Exodus 20:1-17

The Ten Commandments

In the New Testament, Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments in two sentences. ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). The latter commandment (quoting Leviticus 19:18) presumes love of self precedes love of neighbour, which is not explicitly listed in the Ten Commandments. The first three of the Ten Commandments focus on our relationship with God:- we must have no other gods, no creature shall be considered as God or representative of Him, and God’s identity must not be associated with any other brand of worship, or conduct inconsistent with His person. The fourth commandment is an imperative for the observation of the Sabbath, and the remaining commandments focus on the nature of our relationship with other human beings.

God’s design for Sabbath

What was God’s design for the Sabbath of the fourth Commandment? Was the Sabbath observance instituted for God’s benefit or for man? Who needed to rest? Not God. He cannot be weary, and he does not change. Not man! He was just created and had not worked so he could not have been tired. The man was created on the sixth day and God gave him a vision of the work he was to do. What needs to be understood is that God did not need rest, but Sabbath is a gift to man. The significance of the Sabbath is that man must begin his labour from a place of rest in God. It was God who worked but on the man’s full first day of existence, he entered into that rest before beginning his labour. Man did not work to deserve rest. Thus, the rest was not granted to him as a reward for labour done. One can surmise then that the intended purpose of Sabbath rest is that man must derive strength from resting in and with God so as to be able to do his work according to God’s design and in God’s strength. Remember also that the Sabbath predates the fall. And man’s toil came with the fall.

Furthermore, the Sabbath does not speak to the end of man’s labour but the beginning. If one has some great work to do, a call, or a vision, the starting point must be the rest of God. This is, a rest that gives opportunity to enjoy God and be familiar with His heart. A rest that indicates we are not sufficient for the journey (task) but calls us to depend upon God’s sufficiency. The Sabbath calls us to enter into that rest. It gives us great encouragement that whatever work God has committed into our hands, we must begin from a place of rest. This understanding is God’s perspective of what work is all about- drawing strength from Him for one’s work or calling.

The World’s Model

In marked contrast to God’s call to begin from a place of rest, the world’s model emphasizes the importance of labouring before rest and interprets rest before labour as laziness.  This is particularly so in some parts of West Africa where there is a hidden belief that rest and labour are mutually exclusive. Whatever God has committed into our hands it is of importance to recover the idea of starting from a place of rest in God, which also includes physical and mental rest.

Implications for Us

Returning to Jesus’ statement on the most important law then, we see that the observance of the Sabbath commanded by God is a command to invest in loving yourself so you can love your neighbour. The Sabbath is about each person with God alone. Observing the Sabbath is one of the most important components of the love of yourself.

Do you have a call, a vision, or any sense of great work that God has called you to do at this time? The beginning of that work is the Sabbath. This is different from labouring in prayer to gain clarity about the work. Here we are certain about our calling but insufficient for the task ahead. We are reminded that our biggest ministry in this life is to love God. And we operate from that place of rest in relating with our work and with our neighbour. Sabbath promotes the law of self-care. We must love and care for ourselves so we can love our neighbour as ourselves. All the other commandments come out of drawing strength from Sabbath.

How do you define rest for yourself? What do you do for rest? This is a call for each of us to begin our labour from God’s rest.