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The Big Ten: It’s Not In Vain
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: You will be more fruitful when you obey the commands of God.
You Can’t Just Slap His Name on It
Sabbath Rest
True Rest in Christ
You Can’t Just Slap His Name on It
Exodus 20:7-11
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Taking God’s name in vain means treating what is revered as mundane, what is to be holy as common.
Commandment #3:
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”
1. You don’t want to dishonor God who is our uncreated, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful deity using His name without reverence or as a pejorative.
Yet it cuts deeper than this on a daily basis for us.
2. You can not just attach the name of God to anything that you choose to do.
This is taking God’s name in vain and cuts against the essence of being a disciple or servant of the Lord.
The detriment of this is it not only reduces a healthy fear of the Lord in our hearts, but it also strips our existence of the holiness that is to permeate all aspects of our lives.
*This was at the heart of King Saul’s disobedience to the Lord and God’s subsequent rejection of Saul as king of Israel (I Samuel 15).
When we are followers of Jesus, our LIVES ARE NO LONGER OUR OWN. WE ARE TO NO LONGER DO WHAT WE WANT, WHERE WE WANT, WHEN WE WANT WITH WHOM WE WANT.
2 Corinthians 5 shows us that when we were bought back from death by Jesus, that our lives moving forward are no longer about us.
They are about Christ, his glory and then our good.
Our lives have to be laid out in that order to be eternally significant and that for which you receive an enduring reward.
2 Corinthians 5:15
and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
The essence of being a disciple is learning to deny YOURSELF, pick up your cross daily and FOLLOW JESUS.
We follow Jesus through God’s written commands and Holy Spirit directives fulfilled alongside the people to whom God has attached you.
We don’t want to be those who miss the ways of the Lord because our minds are focused more on God blessing our comforts rather than His Kingdom purposes in our lives.
Mark 8:31-38
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
So how do we make sure that we are not taking God’s name in vain?
You pray about everything
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
You have accountability with covenant believers helping to shape your life
John 21:18-19
18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Sabbath Rest
*The commands of God lead to a life-giving existence.
Commandment #4:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
The Sabbath was designed to teach us to trust and find our rest in God.
“Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength….It is wisdom to take the occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.”
-Charles Spurgeon
Each Sabbath, by pausing their work, the Israelites were expressing their trust in God as their source of provision and defined significance.
Consider these promises.
Leviticus 25:18-22
“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Matthew 6:31-33
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
The Sabbath is meant to be a time of worship where we are not finding identity merely in our work, but in the God who brings significance to our work.
*When we honor the Sabbath, we are reaffirming the fact that work is meant to be worship unto God rather than work being that which we worship.
Each Sabbath we are pressing a reset button allowing God to once again reorient our lives around His Word and Kingdom purposes.
It is here that we are each reminded of our divine purpose affirming God’s commands as healthy boundaries to provide necessary direction to our pursuits and outlets for our resources.
*Being a disciple of Jesus affects the decisions that we make on a daily basis, where the rubber meets the road.
How does this help free us from common trappings?
There are only twenty four hours every day.
Lose the extra stress - God will never call you to do something which he doesn’t give you the time or discoverable provision to fulfill.
God will never “call you” to something that requires you to break his commandments to fulfill.
If you feel like you don’t have enough time in the day to obey the commands of God, the issue is that your days are being filled with things God has not called you to do.
You can not serve two masters.
Trust the Lord - it leads to your peace, prosperity, God’s glory and Kingdom good.
*One is not sacrificed for the other, but it does begin with sacrifice.
Reference Andy Stanley’s book - Choosing to Cheat
True Rest in Christ
True rest is ultimately found in Jesus Christ.
True rest means that we are freed to no longer be driven by the tyranny of the urgent, #YOLO or #FOMO motifs.
True rest in Christ means that we work hard for our provision, but we do so with boundaries recognizing that our needs will ultimately be met by the hand of a caring Heavenly Father.
Because of Christ’s sacrifice at the cross, you no longer have to work your way to God or his salvation, but rest in Jesus’ finished work for you.
And with this we subsequently find rest in our soul’s from the burden of trying to forge an identity, significance or ultimate success in life outside of God’s loving plan.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021