Sermons on Deuteronomy 5:15

… So we find in it a republishing of the Ten Commandments. And in Deuteronomy 5, verse 15, I want you to notice the rationale that Moses gives here for the Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5, verse 15. 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. Did you hear that? Did you see that carefully? Why the command, the rationale is not here, principally based in creation, as it was in Exodus. Because you were once a slave, now you are free by the grace of my hand, God says. For seven days a week, 365 days a year, you had to toil in slave labor in Egypt, but now out of God's sheer grace and his saving effort, you, my people, God is saying, are liberated. Sabbath, therefore, is a day of rest from physical labor, yes, but it's also a day of celebration and giving glory to God because of the redemption he has brought. And of course, that should be centered to our preaching, but on a night like tonight, I'd be remiss to not also say We have the table before us, and what a celebration to in the sacrament among the many things that we remember. …

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… In Deuteronomy 5, 15, he says, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. So the work that he's pointing them to remember and find rest in is the reality that when you were slave, God redeemed you from it and gave you rest in a new land. He's pointing to the Exodus. And all throughout the prophets and in the Old Testament, the Exodus, the Exodus, the Exodus, this act of God redeeming his people from slavery is the pinnacle of the book. So I want us to think about what this exodus would have been like. At the beginning of the exodus, God gave the plagues to soften the heart of Pharaoh. And the pinnacle of it was the death of the firstborn son. And that's where we get this idea of Passover. …

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… And then he goes on to say, watch this. You shall remember, you are 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, in light of the fact that you were a slave in Egypt, therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Picture this. When God's people were slaves in Egypt, they worked hard, slavishly, every single day, all day long, with no break for 400 years. And then God brings them out, and he says, from now on, one day a week, you do nothing and you don't make anybody else do anything because you are not a slave to work anymore that's good rest is a declaration that you are not a slave to your work rest is a testimony to the world that your work is not your god and this is why the sabbath became this sign told you notice that earlier the sign of god's covenant with moses just as the rainbow was the sign of god's covenant with noah the sabbath was the sign that would set God's people apart. When other nations would work every day, God's people would work six days and rest on the seventh as a celebration of their freedom, which leads to one other picture of God's design for rest. God designs rest as a cycle of restoration. And interestingly, this cycle of rest every seven days was part of a larger cycle of sevens in the Bible. …

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