The King’s Clock: How The Sabbath Shapes Our Time and Money

Series SlideI wake up most mornings between 4:15-5:15. I exercise for 45 minutes. I read, pray and study for an hour and a half. I get to work by 8 am. I eat lunch at noon. I try to be home by 3:30 to help with homework and hang out with my family. Dinner around 6 and I go to bed around 10 pm.

Of course, there’s a reason I don’t go to bed when the sun goes down.

The light bulb.

Thanks to Thomas Edison, I don’t have to end my day at sundown.

And there’s a reason that I can plan my day out, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Thanks to an even older invention- the clock.

Most of us have probably thought about what the world was like before the light bulb. Its only about 140 years old.

But not many of us have thought much about life without the meticulous time-keeping that we are afforded by the modern clock.

The mechanical clock is a bit older than the light bulb. It came about sometime in the 1200s. Around 800 years ago.

There was time keeping before that, but it was all sort of natural devices. Sundials, flowing water, sand in the hourglass type stuff. And it wasn’t nearly as precise.

But in the late 13th and early 14th century, Christian monks, in order to keep up the Benedictine practice of 7 prayer services throughout the day, wanted a more precise measurement of time.

The first mechanical clocks were assembled in monasteries. Their movements governed by swinging weights. And it was bells of church towers that first sounded the hours by which people would eventually divide up their lives.

As a matter of fact, the etymology of the word CLOCK has nothing to with time at all. It comes from the celtic word “clocca” that means “bell”.

This is significant. We named the clock not for its time keeping ability, but according to its ability to ALERT us as to what time it was.

Soon, the royalty of Europe, eager to invest in the latest technology, began to fund the refinement and manufacturing of clocks. People began to move from the countryside to work in markets, mills, and factories rather than the field…and days were carved into finely sliced segments…each announced by the tolling of the clock tower bell in the center of town.

Bells sounded for the start of work, for meal breaks, for the end of work, the start and close of the market, the time for street cleaning, to indicate curfew. In 1370, King Charles V ordered all of Paris to orient their entire society around the mechanized clock.

Eventually, the church moved from being oriented around liturgical hours set by meals, gardening, and prayer times…to the King’s time, oriented around production. The mechanized clock ruled society and church.

In step with the culture around it, the church began to focus on the same material interests that the clock promoted…instead of the spiritual interests that those early Benedictine monks had in mind when they invented it.

Eventually, clocks were personalized. You could have one in your home. Then….you could have one in your pocket. The personal clock became an “ever-visible, ever-audible companion and monitor” reminding its owner of “time used, time spent, time wasted, and time lost. It became both prod and key to personal achievement and productivity”- From The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

The personalization of precisely measured time increased individualism. With my pocket watch or wristwatch, I became the master of my own time and set my own schedule. The mechanical clock changed the way we saw ourselves, and it changed the way we thought. We began to see time as a limited resource that could be picked apart into minutes and seconds.

We saw ourselves as the controllers of time, resolute on “not letting time get away from us”.

Theologically, this led to seeing God as “the Great Clockmaker”. No longer was creation a mystery to be accepted and enjoyed, but a puzzle to be figured out. And the clockmaker was unnecessary once we got time under control.

If we figured out his invention, and could manipulate it through a series of life hacks…it didn’t really matter who created everything. We would be the kings of creation. We would rule.

Ironically, the machine that was invented by monks to bring about more devotion to God, became the machine that replaced God altogether.

…and then eventually the lightbulb allowed us to own even the darkness. No longer would sunset hold us hostage, with the clock and the lightbulb….we are masters of our destinies. We could work achieve and accomplish around the clock.

Funny… every time I turn on my phone…there’s a clock and light that allows me to see it.

And then there are those little bells and buzzes. Notifications. Like little clock towers in our pockets. Alerting us, that there’s something important to attend to…something to move on from, before time gets away from us.

Title Slide “The King’s Clock: How The Sabbath Shapes Our Time and Money”- Exodus 20:8-11; Deut 5:15, Hebrews 4:9-11

While I’m not advocating that we get rid of clocks or phones…I AM going to suggest that we should be shaped by something better than a clock or a phone…and someone better than a clockmaker and Steve Jobs.

Today, we’re going to look again at what it means to Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy…

…and hopefully find the beautiful way a simple practice…that requires us to simply take God at his word…will deeply reshape you.

But, I want to warn you. Like anything that reshapes you…its not gonna be easy.

Exodus 20:8-11Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. 11 For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.

Deuteronomy 5:1515 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.

Hebrews 4:9-11Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people. 10 For the person who has entered his rest has rested from his own works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us then make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.

Transition: Today, I want to show you 3 things that Sabbath does to shape us the culture of the clock.

1) Through Sabbath, our rhythms are shaped by God’s tempo, not our phones.

So many of the technological inventions we have, like the light bulb, the clock, the cell phone, email, they were meant to help make work easier.

And to a degree they have. But they have also made it easier to do MORE WORK..ALL THE TIME.

The phone sits right by your bed inviting you to scroll one last time through work email before you go to bed.

Its right there when you wake up to check your calendar.

And even stuff that isn’t related to work you are paid to do still pushes you AWAY from true rest.

Scrolling through social media IS NOT a restful activity. Not for your eyes or your mind. It typically invokes feelings of envy and jealousy, anger or apathy. None of which are restful.

And then there are those notifications. The incessant buzzing at every text, email, Instagram like.

The calendar reminder, the alarm. All pushing you to check your phone…which to a lot of us is just our phones reminding us that we are important. People like us. And we have got to keep up the work of making sure people like us.

They are little clock towers in our pocket setting our lives to a zombie like rhythm.

Lets do a quick self check. Just answer these questions in your head. When you are in a social-setting- around other people- do you find

yourself pulling your phone out of your pocket and staring at it?

When you are waiting in line or a waiting room, can you sit there without looking at your phone?

When you go somewhere and forget your phone…do you get antsy…anxious?

Is your phone the first thing you pick up in the morning? Is it the last thing you look at before you close your eyes to sleep?

If any of those things are true, most likely your life is being shaped pretty extensively by that little clocktower in your pocket.

...and most likely your life is pretty full of anxiety and fear.

Exodus 20:11 The first command in the Bible to Remember the Sabbath and keep

it Holy is in the 10 commandments. And the reason God gives for it points back to Genesis, to the story of God creating the earth.

We talked about a couple of reasons for that last week. Namely that Sabbath stops over-work with rest…and over-desire with delight.

In other words, Sabbath makes you STOP and ENJOY God and his creation. It helps you to STOP WANTING things you don’t have.

But now I want to show you the what the RHYTHM of Sabbath is and how that shapes you.

First, notice the rhythm that the Sabbath command points to. Gen 1:18b-19 (Start at “and God saw that it was good)

Its not just seventh day rhythm. The rhythm that God created the world stops at the end of every day.

There are sort of mini-reflections throughout the week. God creates during the day. Stops in the evening and “sees” that

his work is good.

Then on the 7th day, he takes an extended rest. With no work.

Exodus 20:8-9 So the command God gives Israel, is to work like he worked…and

then rest like he rests.

You are to work 6 days. And not work on the 7th. So lets talk about the rhythm that this is pointing us to.

First…its pointing us to work. For some of you, you think the Sabbath command is lifting rest up

OVER work. Its not. The command is to work 6 days. Remember, this isn’t just about work that makes money. This is all

the contribution you put into your family and household. This is stuff like keeping your house clean and mowing your yard, too.

This is balancing your budget and grocery shopping as much as its clocking into a 9-5.

But notice. The Rhythm God gives us in creation is not work around the clock and then stop on day 7. Its every day, every day…take a breather. Rest. Sleep. Reflect on the goodness of God and his creation. Set time everyday for it.

Before we move on, let me remind you, this is not about a list of legalistic activities that you can and can’t do.

This does not mean that no one can work a night job or a weekend job.

The principle here is a small bit of daily rest and reflection on God’s goodness…and then one day a week a smorgasbord of rest and delight in God and his creation.

Let me give you some Sabbath principles that carry this out. Use one day a week for rest and relationships

o One day where you stop work, stop trying to GET something you don’t have…money or stuff…and you focus on delighting in God and in the relationships he’s given you.

o …and this doesn’t have to be a Sunday. o Though, for most of us, that’s probably the best day for it. o Since we start your focus off with that right here in a worship

gathering, where we remind each other through word and music that Jesus finished the work of our salvation and now we can rest in him, without trying to prove ourselves to God or anyone else.

o What a great day to set your phone to Do Not Disturb.o What a great day to miss emails.o Hang out with people. Be hospitable. Talk about Jesus. Have a

good meal and stick your phone where the sun don’t shine.o Literally put in a cabinet where the sun don’t shine. Or a

drawer.o Or…did you know this. Your phone has an OFF button. You can

turn it off.

Give Generously/Tithe

I’ll go into this in a little more detail in the next point, but for right now, think about this.t

The Sabbath is supposed to be life-giving. Additionally, Sabbath teaches us the paradox of living life God’s

way. It seems like we could accomplish more if we worked on the

Sabbath, but God says, “I want you to take a day off. No work. And through that, I’ll accomplish more.”

Did you know that on the Oregon Trail, the families that stopped on their journey to Sabbath made it to Oregon before the one’s that didn’t?

Tithing, giving is the same principle. The math doesn’t seem to work out, yet when you give 10% back to

God… when you dedicate a portion of your income to God…he seems to multiply the 90% to do more.

They are both acts of trust. And when that money is going into the life-giving work of the

church…or helping the poor…then it honors the Sabbath command.

And of course, our objections to tithing sound A LOT like our objections to Sabbath.

Its legalistic! Or I can’t afford to give up that portion of my week or my paycheck!

God says, “You can’t afford NOT to!”

Sleep (Psalm 127:1-2) This is a core part of the Sabbath Rhythm. The sign in that verse that you are beloved by God is SLEEP.

Sleep is GREAT trust isn’t it? Sleep is a daily rhythm God has created to remind you that you are

NOT GOD.

So how about not checking that email right before you go to bed, and instead, kneel down and say a prayer. God Thank you for rest. I’m so thankful that you are the one who runs the world…and I am not. This sleep is about to be an act of worship. A confession. That you are God, and I am not. And that you love me and give me rest.”

That’s SO MUCH better than a glowing blue light reminding you of tomorrows activities or an update on your friends trip with their kids to the zoo that day.

That blue light from your phone disturbs your ability to rest. Don’t look at right before you go to bed.

Instead, let there be sleep. Daily rest.

Daily mini-Sabbaths Don’t wait til the weekend. Everyday, make time to reflect on God and his goodness. Talk about disciplines of Reading Scripture before phone. Kneeling

Prayer.

Back to 1) Work hard. Do good work. Then rest. Not JUST on the weekend. But let Sabbath shape your daily rhythms

more than your email, calendar or phone.

Transition: Here’s the second way Sabbath shapes us vs. the way the culture shapes us…

2) Through Sabbath, our values are shaped by God’s compassion, not our politics or economics.

As the mechanical clock took over Europe in the 14th century, the church switched over to the King’s time. Obeying the incessant tolling of the clock tower bell.

With that, came a move toward pursuing economic gain for everyone.

And still, 800 years later, we live in the outworking of that ideal. America is built on the American dream. That you can go from having nothing to having it all, if you put the

work in.

And for a lot of reasons I am very thankful that we live in a country of free enterprise. There is a lot about capitalism that I am very grateful for.

But there is also a spirit of greed underneath the American Dream. A sort of gimme-gimme-gimmee attitude that puts money and

achievement ahead of relationship with God and others.

The Sabbath is a resistance to that greed. And the Sabbath is a resistance to the powers behind that greed.

To both the King and his Clock. Deut 5:14-15 The Sabbath command is given 2 times in the Torah…or the five

books at the first of your bible that make up Jewish law.

The first one is in Exodus. Its when Moses brings the 10 commandments down from Mt. Sinai

at the beginning of Israel’s 40 year journey to the promise land.

And the REASONING given there to obey this command points back to creation.

The second time is at the end of the Torah, in the book of Deuteronomy, which means “Second Law”.

And the situation here is that Israel is at the END of their 40 year journey. They are about to enter the promised land. Where they will find abundance. Where they will no longer be the oppressed minority, but will be a conquering people.

And the reasoning God gives here for obeying the Sabbath is different. It doesn’t point back to creation. It points back to the Exodus.

He says, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt…and it was GOD that brought you out of it.

In other words, God is saying to Israel, “You are about to be in a position of power. Don’t become what I saved you from.”

Don’t become Pharaoh. Don’t become Egypt.

You are under a new King and you operate in the economic system of His Kingdom.

Sabbath was to remind them that they are NOT SLAVES…and they are not SLAVE DRIVERS

Notice that the Sabbath command is for EVERYONE.

Its for your children. Its for your employees…your servants…Its for the immigrant…the people who are from a different land with different beliefs.

You give them a Sabbath too. Sabbath isn’t just for the rich. Its for everyone. Even livestock. Give your animals a break.

Take a look at the political and economic system of Egypt. Exodus 1:11 & 13-14 First, notice that Pharoah hads the Hebrews building “supply cities”. You know what those are. Essentially, storage units. Those are entire cities that the Hebrews slaved to build so the

Egyptians could have “extra stuff”.

Here’s the interesting thing about Egypt. Egypt never really goes away in the Bible. All through Scripture, the spirit of the Egyptians pops back up. Babylon…and then the Roman empire. In the book of revelation, there are entire chapters devoted to a

discussion about Babylon.

They aren’t necessarily literal. Like “Watch out for the geographic location of Babylon”

No, Babylon, Rome, Egypt all represent a system of government and economics where the rich and powerful use the weak and vulnerable to get more and more power and stuff.

Look at the overuse of the word “work” here. Its written that way to

drive home a point. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, was overworking the Hebrew slaves to

build whole cities of storage facilities.

And that work goes on today. Did you know there are 28 million slaves in the world today? Did you know that in America, we have 2.3 billion square feet of

storage unit space? That is 7.3 ft for every person in our country to store EXTRA stuff that can’t already fit in our huge houses.

Now, think about Egypt again. What is Egypt known for? The Pyramids, right. Ever heard of a Pyramid scheme?

It's the idea that those on the bottom support the few at the top. And indeed, it's the people at the bottom…especially in other

countries that are making your phones, your clothes, your shoes.

Who makes the stuff you order off of Amazon?

DOLLAR SLIDE There’s an interesting irony that's printed right on our

money.

Right in the middle, is a statement- “In God We Trust” Then to the left…is a pyramid.

Which I think is a great reminder. Then on the other side, is a government seal. Think about that. On the back of our money are 3 potential saviors. God. Our economic system. Or our Government. God. The Clock tower. Or the King.

Back to 2) Listen, some of you are REALLY uncomfortable right now, because

I’m using the sort of language that starts to get political. Listen to me. If Jesus LORDSHIP of our lives, DOES NOT EFFECT HOW

I THINK ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY…then its NOT LORDSHIP. Both Egypt and Rome were toppled by the people of God who

resisted being folded into the political and economic values of their day.

The church today stands at the same crossroads.

On the political left… the savior tends to be “more government regulation”. Socialism. Even everything out through redistribution.

The political left likes the circle on the left of the dollar.

On the political right…the savior tends to be “free market”. Let the market work out who are the winners and who are the losers. Let our economic system decide for itself who wins and loses.

The political right tends to favor the circle on the right of the dollar.

Then in comes God. He says, “Stop. Sabbath. Remember I AM THE SAVIOR that

RESCUED YOU FROM EGYPT” As a part of that same law in Deuteronomy where he gives the

Sabbath command, he expounds on why he wants them to remember their rescues from Egypt.

Deut 8:11-14 Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord your God by failing

to keep his commands, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. 12When you eat and are full, and build beautiful houses to live in, 13and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, 14be careful that your heart doesn’t become proud and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 You may say to yourself, ‘My power and my own ability have

gained this wealth for me,’ 18but remember that the Lord your God gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your fathers,

This is what Sabbath resists. It resists the pull of the right that salvation comes through working hard and getting money and climbing to the top of the pyramid.

And it resists pull of the left. That the King that ordered the clock tower is our savior. It says Government regulations won’t be your salvation.

Rather In God we Trust. He saved us. He rescued us. And we operate in his system of values.

Back to 2) Its easy to sucked into our host culture. To be Egyptian, or Roman, or Babylonian. Its easy to believe that I have to have this kind of shoe, or drive this

kind of car. Its easy to believe that if my kids are playing sports for the majority

of the year on travel teams, that their future is in jeopardy. Its easy to say yes to every promotion, even if it constantly has my

family on the move ripping them out of community. Its easy to give your teenager a smartphone because everyone has

one.

Its easy to go bed browsing all the things I don’t have on pinterest or amazon.

Its easy to dismiss the idea of social justice as left-liberal thinking. Its easy to dismiss the idea of working hard to earn money as right-

wing greedy capitalism.

Its much harder…to work hard, rest worshipfully, and give away what have to help others at the bottom of the pyramid.

Its hard to self-govern my finances. That’s why so many of you pay your taxes but don’t tithe.

Because government MAKES you pay our taxes, but that tithing…awwww. That's just a legalistic idea.

And maybe you say the same about Sabbath. I don’t have time to rest. I have to work 7 days a week.

Would you take time today to consider if you’ve been sucked into Egypt?

How many storage units do you have? Do you use your money to give life to others…or get more stuff that

was likely made by people on the bottom of the pyramid with no hope of moving up.

Do you value what God values? Or what Egypt values?

Transition: You know its interesting. One of the earmarks of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached about was that the first would be last and the last would be first. That the proud would be humbled, and the humbled exalted. That the pyramid would be flipped.

And that’s what he did when he rescued Israel from Egypt.That’s what he did when he toppled Rome with the first century church.…and that’s what he’ll do when he comes back and makes the world new again.

See…3) Through Sabbath, our obedience is shaped by God’s redemption, not our failure.

You may hear things like “Sabbath” and “tithe” and think, this is my problem with church.

Always giving rules. More rules to follow.

Listen. You know why we resist these “rules” so much. Its because we think about our failure. Often, we are try to follow rules to make up for our past failure of

them. Like if we can follow a certain set of rules or disciplines LONG

enough, we can counter balance all our failure to keep those rules in the past.

This is the script of redemption in so many of the ninja warrior type tv shows follow.

I cant tell you how many times someone on one of their interviews before they run the course talks about someone or something they failed in their past and then says, “If I win this completion, after years of hard work and training, if I win…I’ll prove to everyone that I’m better. I’ll prove to myself that I’m not the failure I thought I was.”

See, often we are motivated to discipline to prove to ourselves and others that we aren’t failures.

But look how God locates the 10 commandments. He doesn’t start out with “PROVE YOURSELVES WORTHY AND I’LL SAVE YOU. He starts with this.

Exodus 20:1-2 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land

of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

These commandments were not about Israel proving themselves to God. They were about Israel not CONFORMING to the patterns of Egypt, but instead being a distinct covenant people of the God who ALREADY had rescued them.

Hebrews 4:9-11 Notice when the author of the book of Hebrews talks about Sabbath

rest, he says, “Don’t be fooled.” Sabbath rest isn’t a day of the week. You can follow the story of the Bible and see that even when Israel went into the promised land…they continued in disobedience. They were conquered by Babylon, and by Rome.

They would be slaves again.

No Sabbath rest points to something. TO someone.

Sabbath Rest points to our real salvation. Our true rest. That Jesus Christ obeyed the Father in our place. That he flipped the

Pyramid by going to the bottom so we could go to the top. That he became our sin…he became our failure obey God so we

could become his righteousness.

So that we could enter his promised rest.

Where we don’t obey the rules to impress God, we obey the rules because God has impressed us with his love and compassion.

When we were sinners, he died for us. He became poor, so we could share his wealth. Jesus is the King who is coming back to establish a Kingdom where

he rules not by force…but with love and compassion.

And now as we obey him, as we take up our crosses and follow him knowing that he has redeemed up with his righteous right hand…we don’t do it to impress him.

We fit into his pattern. Notice, the command here is strangely…to work hard to enter his

rest. Why? Because going against the King’s clock is hard. But its good.

And the reason we do it, is to not fall into the PATTERN…the repeated getting up and checking the phone and clocking into work to earn our way pattern….that shapes us.

Instead…. Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of

God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.

2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Because we have seen God’s mercies. Because we have seen his redemption…we offer ALL WE ARE ALL WE HAVE…and in that we aren’t conformed to this Egyptian age…instead our minds are renew and our discernment…of how we spend our work, our time, our money…is heightened.

We see them the way God does.

Lords supper