Catching Our Breath

We've got a lot of notes to get through this morning, but we're going to make an effort. We're going to be in Exodus, the 31st chapter, in just a minute beginning our series as we consider rest and what God has called us to, specifically how he refreshes. We'll, as we move through, talk about how he restores and ultimately renews. So before we dive into the 31st chapter of the book of Exodus, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for your people. We thank you that we can sing together, that we can pray together. We thank you that we can open your word and study it together. We thank you for how you encourage us, and thank you for the encouragement that we are to one another. Be with us this morning as we look at your word, that you would help us to see our need, that you would help us to see how you provide for us, and that you would lead us to rest.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So before we dive into the 31st chapter of the book of Exodus, I want to sort of set three foundational truths for us. Because where this text is, it's strange. The content, especially to us, far removed from Israel in the wilderness, might seem a little strange. And so here's sort of three foundational truths from Scripture that I want us to consider. That first, that Scripture is not just simply something that is interesting, that it's full of trivia, has good stories, that captivates our attention. But the reality is that Scripture has an impact on our life. That's what Paul means when he says the source of the Scripture is God. And that source of Scripture, God, has an impact when he speaks to us, when he says all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable.

And that Scripture, in its impact, first of all, it reveals to us what truth is, and then it shines a light into our lives in those areas where we are not walking in the truth. And then it brings us back to where we should be in the truth. That's the correction part of what Paul says. And it continues that work in sort of an ongoing process, Paul says, is training. The second truth about Scripture that I want us to see, and we start by saying that Paul says in Romans chapter 15, "For whatever was written in the former days," that includes Exodus chapter 31, "was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." And so notice that there's a component of instruction, but that's not just a list of things to do,

but rather it is an encouragement that ultimately leads us to hope. And most of all, and I think this might be the biggest truth that is for us, is that all Scripture ultimately points and directs us to Jesus. So Jesus says twice in Luke chapter 24, "That everything that was written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled." Now all that to say that our text this morning is strange, and so I want to go ahead and read it together. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a page break in the slide, so it's going to be really, really small here. So I'm just going to go ahead and read it. You can follow along in your Bibles if you would like to sort of read along.

"And the Lord said to Moses, "You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, "Above all, you shall keep my Sabbaths. "For this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, "that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. "You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. "Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. "Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh is the Sabbath of solemn rest. "Holy to the Lord. "Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. "Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, "observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. "It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel,

"that in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, "and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." We're going to zoom in on verse 17 in just a minute. But for us, I think culturally, the idea of Sabbath might seem strange, but as Bible verses go, these seem pretty normal, especially from the part of the Bible that's considered the law of Moses. And what's surprising about this text isn't necessarily the content, right? We've heard about the Sabbath and God's instruction to the Israelites to keep the Sabbath, and that is, for many of us, pretty familiar. It's not the content that is very strange, it's the context. And not just sort of in a general way. So this passage in Exodus chapter 31 is at the end of a very long section,

beginning back in Exodus 25. And if you've read through the book of Exodus, chapter 25 through this section in 31 is very, very hard to get to, because it is essentially God's engineering plans, blueprints, designs, measurements for the tabernacle that they were about to construct. Seven chapters of plans and instructions for the tabernacle. There's around 30 distinct objects mentioned in these chapters. Everything from garments and furnishings to the systems that hold it all together, covers for the tent of meeting. Let me just give you just sort of a very quick list. The Ark of the Covenant, furnishings, the mercy seat, the table of the bread of the presence, the golden lampstand, the inner and outer curtain system, four separate covering layers, 48 acacia wood frames, 96 silver bases, multiple crossbars, the inner veil, the entrance curtain, the bronze altar,

the full courtyard enclosure on all four sides, the incense altar, the bronze basin, the ephod, the breast piece with 12 gemstones and four robes, the robe, the tunic, the turban, the gold medallion, the anointing oil, and the fragrant incense. In addition to that, all the measurements. Right? More than like 70 different numbers, and it's all in cubits, right? So two and a half by one and a half by one and a half cubits, and it's just page after page, chapter after chapter, chapter of here's a bunch of stuff, here's the materials that I want you to use to make it, and here's how big it needs to be. Now, get to work. And unless you're really, really, really, really into tabernacle design, it's a bit of a struggle to get through these. Now, what's interesting is not just what comes before this,

but what comes after this in chapter 32. The very next words in chapter 32 is Moses goes up on to Mount Sinai to speak to God, and almost immediately the people get tired of waiting, so they throw their jewelry in the furnace, out comes a golden calf, that's Aaron's excuse, and they begin to party, so much so that by the time Moses comes down, they're still partying, and there is wrath, and there is judgment, and there is idolatry. And it seems really, really out of place to have this set of verses about the seriousness of rest, and the importance of rest, and God's command to rest in between, like multiple pages of an engineering document designed to build the tent of meeting for God to meet with his people, and God's judgment on their rebellion and their idolatry.

Our purpose this morning, I don't think, is to say, "Oh, does this text belong here?" But rather, what is God trying to teach us, and correct us, and train us, and to help us to see how is he encouraging us? How is he bringing us to hope? How does this ultimately point to Jesus by putting it in the middle of the architectural description of the tabernacle and one of the Israelites' greatest moments of idolatry in the wilderness? In order to understand what this text is doing here, I think we have to understand the problem that faces not just Israel, but faces us as well. And so we go all the way back to the book of Genesis, and in Genesis chapter 1, you have this picture of creation, right? Genesis chapter 1 just records God's creation, culminating on day 6 with his creation of man.

And then Genesis chapter 2 sort of zooms into that and gives us a closer look into the details of creation. And in fact, verse 2 of chapter 2 says that God rested. And right at the beginning of chapter 2, one chapter into the Bible, we see that there is a rhythm that is present that's also present in Genesis chapter 1, that there is a rhythm of work and of rest or of rest and of work that God has designed. And don't miss the fact that man created on day 6, their first full day on earth was a Sabbath day. There's an interesting pattern throughout evening and morning. We tend to think of morning and night. But Genesis chapter 1 is there is evening, and then there was morning, and it was the next day. There's also a picture of God giving man responsibility.

He places him in the garden to work and to keep it. He gives him the responsibility of naming the animals of tending to it. And what we see in Genesis 1 and 2 is that God has described both work and rest. That God gives us a mission and a purpose to keep, and to care for, and to follow his instruction. But also, in the midst of that, there is a pattern of rest. For many of us, we tend to think work is the problem. But notice that God gives work before sin ever enters the world. We need a mission. God gives it to us. Mission, purpose, labor, creativity, it's all good. And we also need rest to restore and to refresh us, and God gives us that as well, and it's all good. Right, before Moses, before the law, you see work and rest.

But then in Genesis chapter 3, everything breaks, and here's where we begin to struggle with the distortion. Right, the fall doesn't create work. Right, it begins to break it and to destroy it. And ever since Genesis chapter 3, we have struggled with both work and with rest. And so sometimes we elevate work and we minimize rest. Right, rest might feel like weakness or a waste. Or man, by resting, I'm just getting further behind. It can become our complete identity. I've got to accomplish this. I've got to do this. It can even become a badge of our holiness, which Martha finds as she is confronting Jesus about the fact that Mary is sitting instead of working. And so sometimes we can lift up work while putting down rest. And the same is true the opposite direction.

We can lift up rest while putting down work, right? Work is an enemy. It's the necessary evil. We've got to figure out a way to escape it. We've got to endure it. Work is the curse and rest is the goal. And the reality is that neither side of the struggle truly represents God's design for his people. Because God has designed you to both work and to rest. And when we begin to lift one above the other, we just simply encounter brokenness. And that brokenness occurs when things begin to disconnect from God's design and from God himself. And so what we find when work and rest become separated from our Creator, we find ourselves elevating one above the other. And our emphasis is to try to use one to fix the other. "Well, I've worked so hard. Well, now I've got to rest even harder.

Now I've rested too much and I've got to work hard." And we go back and forth. And so with this problem in mind, that we sometimes elevate work, sometimes we elevate rest, while ignoring God's pattern, let's take a look at our text in Exodus chapter 31. And right before our text, we have craftsmen filled with the Spirit, doing God's work for God's dwelling. And if there was ever an important mission that needs to take priority over all of your rest, this would be the mission. But God doesn't do that. He commands them to rest. And then after our text, we have people who will seek to create a God that will allow them to follow their own. desires. In fact, look at what you find them saying. They rose up early the next day, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.

This is in chapter 32. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play. And in verse 18, the party is still going on. And so on one hand, rest in God's mission for us allows us to recharge, but also what you find in chapter 32 is that rest keeps us from idolatry. It doesn't just solve the problem of putting work in its proper place. It trains us to wait and to trust in God. And the problem in Exodus 32 is that nobody wants to wait and nobody wants to trust the provision of God. And Exodus 32 is what it looks like when people lose the rhythm of resting in God's promises. And they're saying it's too long. And in Exodus 32 you see the fruit of the people who lose the rhythm of resting in God's provision.

So I want us to take a look at the instructions here in Exodus 31. And I want us to see, first of all, that this is not just God sort of saying, "Hey, one more thing," right? A stream of consciousness. That God is very intentional about what he is saying. Look at verses 12 and 13. "The Lord said to Moses, 'You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, 'Above all you shall keep my Sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.'" Right? So first of all, it's important because God specifically has said it, right? The people outside don't have to guess. They don't have to say, "Will God like it if we do this? What does God really want from us? God has said it."

And then look at what God says at the beginning of verse 13. English is two words. It just says this in the ESV. "Above all." What has God just got done doing? A whole bunch of chapters. Build this, make this, sew this, smelt this, mold this, put this together, and above all, you shall keep my Sabbaths. Above every piece of furniture, every feature of design, every material, every measurement, and every worker who has been gifted in the Spirit, God says above all of that, keep my Sabbath. It's the thing that sits over their work as they seek to build the tabernacle. Let's take a look at verse 17. "It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel. In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he was rested and refreshed."

So there is this declaration that God has made, that above all things. And in verse 17 you have this, that there is a sign that has been given to God's people. And so far in Genesis and Exodus there's been three signs, right? The rainbow after the flood as a sign that God will never flood the earth. Circumcision as a sign given to Abraham. Exodus 12, the Passover blood on the doorpost. When God gives a sign, it is a declaration of a relationship with Him, and designed to preserve that relationship. A sign given by God is not to bring you in, but to declare what is already true of what is happening. And so the rainbow is declaring God's truth. Circumcision to Abraham and to his children is a sign declaring God's truth. The blood on the doorpost is a sign declaring God's truth.

And God will say to his people in the wilderness that this is a sign declaring my truth. That you are declaring your trust in God. Then notice how God emphasizes to his people the important people. "Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest. Holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death." Why is God so emphatic? Because his people need to see that it's not optional. The rest is not just something we do, but it's a theological statement about what we believe. When we refuse to stop, we are saying, "I can provide for myself. I can sustain myself." And notice what he says, that God ultimately is using this to protect us. We'll see this in the verses that come.

And then here's what God does. Some of us learn differently, right? Some of us have to hear things. Some of us like to see things. Some of us like to participate in things in order to learn. I learn, I think it's a very specific way, it's called the hard way, right? That's how I learn in almost every situation. Look what God does. He doesn't just give them the instructions. He doesn't just emphasize it. He gives an example. Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath. Observing the Sabbath throughout their generations is a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. So when he rested, it's the word that comes from Hebrew into English as Sabbath. It just means to stop.

God stopped, not because he's tired or worn out, but because he was done. It was finished. This also points forward to a Sabbath day's rest for the people of God. But the word that I want us to zoom in here is the very end, and was refreshed. It's only used three times in the entirety of the Old Testament, this word here that is translated "refreshed." It's used a few chapters earlier in Exodus chapter 23. "Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox, your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman and the alien may be refreshed." In part, God says, "I'm commanding you to take a Sabbath so that those who work for you in your household and in your field and in your businesses may be refreshed."

Now zoom forward to David being pursued by Absalom. "And the king and all the people who were with him arrived weary." They're running for their lives. It's a different kind of tired. They arrived at the Jordan, and there David refreshed himself. And then in between these two, you have this: "That the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." The picture here is of breath, of stopping and taking a breath. And in the middle, between the highest place you can be as king, but also the lowest because you're on the run from your son and everything's broken. And then on the other side, where you're lowly and you're a servant, in the middle of those two, God says, "By example, stop and take a breath." And what God is doing here, not because he gets tired, not because he's worn out,

not because he needs refreshed, but because we need to be refreshed, he says the external action, the stopping, leads to an internal result, refreshment that comes from rest. And why does it happen here in the book of Exodus, right? Laboring, working people need to be reminded that God stopped too, that rest is a gift. So with that in mind, three things that I think are important for us in regards to God's glory. The first is this, that God's glory refreshes our strength. Immediately before these words, commanding rest are the commands to work, empowered by the Spirit of God. That's the beginning of Exodus chapter 31. God's project, God's plan, God's Spirit, and God's strength. And rest reminds us that ultimately the strength to be able to do and to accomplish and to be creative and to do the things we need to do doesn't come from within us, but it comes from the God who provides for us.

And when we see God's glory, it refreshes our strength. Have you not heard everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth? He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. And so it begins in Isaiah chapter 40 with this picture of God's glory, that he's everlasting, that he's the creator, and he never gets tired. He never wears out. And then here's the implication. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even young men are going to get tired, and they shall fall exhausted, but he who waits for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint. The second thing is that God's glory refreshes our minds.

Growing up, when I would ride in the big truck with Dad to go pick up a trailer load of groceries for the store, there's a place where we go down through the mountain, maybe like the only runaway truck ramp in Vermont, and it always fascinated me. Right, because you're going down this mountain, and there's, you know, warning signs, you know, runaway truck ramp a mile from here, runaway truck ramp half a mile, runaway truck ramp, you know, it's right here, and there's this ramp going uphill. And I was fascinated. How does it work? Because it just kind of looks like a ramp. We're going to launch that tractor-trailer truck off the side of the mountain. But that runaway truck ramp, what it does is it contains sand and gravel, and so when that truck hits it at speed, instead of just stopping,

right, it begins to slow it down, and the hill slows it down, and you end up safely. How many times in our lives is that what our minds need? Right, we're racing. If I were to stop, everything's going to fall apart. Elijah goes into this spiral we'll see next week that I've done this, and I've done this, and I've done this, and everybody hates me. There's nobody left, and his mind's just running away. And in rest, God is providing for us that runaway truck ramp. And he does that for Elijah, where he says, "Here's some food. Take a nap, and remember that I'm in control." Listen to this, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Sometimes on Wednesday night, I'll take a pen and kind of mark up, so you can see how it all fits together. I'm not going to do that now, but I will give you sort of this picture, maybe. Ah, there it is, right? So do not be anxious, right? Our minds are running away. But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, so pray. Let your requests be made known to God. Here's the result of, in that anxious moment, praying, bringing our supplication, with thanksgiving to God. The peace of God, which surpasses all your understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Third, God's glory refreshes our hearts, right? The inner part of that being, because we've spent so much time chasing things that doesn't actually keep us refreshed.

Jeremiah 2 gives us this picture, "My people have committed two evils. Number one, they've forsaken me. The fountain of living waters, they've left the water that God has given them to refresh them. And what have they done? They've hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can no longer hold water. And I don't just think it's the audience that Jeremiah is writing to. Here is living water, and so often our hearts will pursue and chase and dig out and put our hope in something else. And when we stop, when we rest, God refreshes our hearts. So one of the questions we want to answer just very, very briefly, how do we rest? This is a question that has been going on since that time, right? In Jesus' day, it was answered by a whole bunch of rules.

In the early days of the church, up until about the 300s, most people didn't have Sunday off. The church is made up in a lot of cases of slaves who were not ethnically Jewish. And so they rested simply by when they were done with work or before work. They've gathered together and find refreshment in the good news of God's word, of God's people gathering together. We'll talk about that in a couple of weeks, about how God's people refresh us. They just gathered together, and they were refreshed by worship. In 321, Constantine sort of formalizes a picture of rest. And so he says, "By edict, here's a bunch of businesses that need to close. If you're a magistrate, you close. If you're in the city, you close. If you're a farmer, you can keep working, because I'm hungry, and I need food."

Then you go a little further forward, about 1300 years, and the Puritans will say, "We're going to take an entire day devoted to God. No recreation. No labor. We're going to get up. We're going to pray. We're going to go to church. We're going to study Scripture. We're going to involve the ministry to the poor." Right? Not just passive, but actively seeking to strength minds and hearts focused on God. Not a bad thing, just different than maybe what we're used to. And in the middle of that, there's tension, because King James I will release an edict called his Book of Sports He contradicts what the Puritans have said about rest, and King James goes, "Well, as long as you go to church in the morning, you can go play some sports in the afternoon, with the exception of bowling, because that's for degenerates."

He's very specific about that. And then you move forward, even in the next couple hundred years, and rest becomes sort of a way of proclaiming our righteousness. So we ban certain activities on Sunday. Remember blue laws? And it's a way of saying, "Well, we don't do that on the Lord's Day." And so what you find is that almost every part of human history has tried to answer this question differently. Everybody knows that we need rest. And the question is not, "Do we need it?" And the question isn't the theology underneath it. The question is, what does it look like for me right here to stop, intentionally stop, and reorient my life toward God's greatness and trust Him with all those things that I'm setting down? I think three things. First of all, rest must be intentional. Nobody ever accidentally, truly rests.

Like we might fall asleep, we might take a nap, we might not do what we're supposed to do, but true rest is intentional. Right? Rest is going to be different because we're different. What I find oftentimes is restful for me, and I'll be restful for you. So when I'm studying and working with my mind and trying to figure things out, spending time with the heart and the mind aspect of ministry, what's restful for me is doing something physical with my hands. And if you do something physical with your hands all the time, what might be restful for you is sitting down and being refreshed by a book or by quiet. God's people have never successfully legislated rest. I would also add that distraction is different than rest, right? Scrolling on our phones because we're overwhelmed is not rest.

Procrastination because we don't really want to do something is not rest. Here's the beauty of how God works in our lives. He gives us a daily reminder of our dependence upon Him. What's the lie at the beginning? It's that you and I can be like God. Let me quote Spurgeon loosely, "God gave us sleep to remind us that we are not Him." Satan goes, "You can be like God," and God goes, "No, you can't. Go to sleep." Isn't that beautiful? We don't ever think, I think, about a theology of sleep, but the very act of the fact that you and I have to sleep, and if we go without sleep for too long, it has massive physical and emotional and mental effects on our life, is God saying, "You're not like I am." Every day God makes us put down our burdens and trust Him.

True rest is this. There is God, and I am not Him. I'm not the one who's holding this together. Acts chapter 3. There's this moment where Peter and John are coming into the temple. There's a beggar standing outside. He's asking for money. And they say, "We don't have any money." And the guy's like, "Oh, that's what everybody says." He says, "But what we do have is this. In the name of Jesus, get up and walk." And they grab his hands, and this guy who has never been able to walk is up, and he's jumping, and he's leaping, and he's praising God. And Peter uses that as a moment to preach to all the people, some of whom who have crucified or sought to crucify and have opposed and disbelieved Jesus. And there's a word that Peter uses when he calls them to repentance.

It goes back into the Old Testament. In fact, when they translated the Greek, or the Hebrew into the Greek in the Septuagint, they use this to talk about that word "refreshing" that we used earlier, and it's this. "Repent and turn back," Peter says, "that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." The word there means "cool air," just like taking a breath in the Old Testament. Cool air that's blowing to recover your breath. What God offers Israel in Exodus chapter 31, saying, "Catch your breath," Peter says, "is now available through Jesus." He says, "Repent, turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come." And notice this is not us manufacturing that. It involves us setting aside what it is we're pursuing, what it is we're chasing,

and what it is we're hoping and turning specifically back to the presence of the Lord. The refreshing doesn't originate in us. It originates in Him. In Hebrews 4, starting in verse 9, it says this, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." "For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." And the writer of Hebrews goes on to say that that rest must be defended. And it's defended by the Word of God, which is a sharp two-edged sword. And then he goes on to say that that rest is reinforced and protected and lifted up in our lives because we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. And he says because of him we can enter that holy place and we can find mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. Let's pray.

Father, all of us struggle. Sometimes we struggle to rest. Sometimes we struggle to work. And so we ask that as we spend time in your word this summer that you would put us where we need to be. That through your words you would reprove and correct and train and teach and inform us. That you would give us hope. You would instruct us and that ultimately you would point us to Jesus who is the one who truly brings us rest. Remind us that it is his invitation to come to him, all of us who are weary, all of us who are heavy laden, and he ultimately gives us the rest that we have tried to counterfeit, manufacture everywhere else. Refresh us, strengthen us, and encourage us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.