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Colin Smith: For in six days God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. Now, did you ever stop to ask the question, why in all the world would God make the heavens and the earth in six days when he could have made it in an instant?

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible weekend with Pastor Colin Smith, and yeah, I have to admit, I have asked that question. Why did God choose to make the world in six days?

Colin Smith: Well, so that he could enter into his rest on the seventh. I mean, that's really the point that is made. And as we look at this theme of the Sabbath day, I don't know if there's any of the commandments that has been thought about more negatively by many people. You know, there's all rules and a day where you can't do anything and all this kind of thing.

The gift of the Sabbath is a marvelous gift, to have a day to rest, to have a day to be able to savor the eternal good things of God, to worship him. For anyone who really loves Christ, this is a great thing. Sunday is my favorite day of the week, to be with God's people and to worship him. That's an anticipation of eternity. It's a wonderful gift.

Steve Hiller: All right, so you just said Sunday's your favorite day of the week, but as a pastor, that's a day that you're working, right?

Colin Smith: Well, it's not my day off. I do have a day off on a Monday. But the gift of the day of worship together that we celebrate on Sundays is a wonderful gift. It's like a window in time to strengthen our grasp on eternity. To come together with God's people and to look to eternal things, that's marvelous.

And without wanting to get into a big debate about precisely when this is to be done, the fact that it is to be done and that God's people come together, that's an anticipation of what it's going to be in the presence of Jesus in eternity. And I need to get my mind fixed on that. Set your mind on things above.

So this day of worship is a wonderful gift to help me in my Christian life, and I think it's something to be embraced, to be savored, to be rejoiced in. All of God's commandments are good, and especially the fourth commandment.

Steve Hiller: You know, the older I get, the more that I'm enjoying and appreciating the fourth commandment. I remember when I was younger, though, I would hear this day of rest thing and think, boy, that just sounds incredibly boring. And I think unfortunately, too many of us maybe have that mindset that a Sabbath is a day where you go to church and then you go home and do nothing. But that's really not what God intended, is it?

Colin Smith: Defined by the games you can't play and all this kind of thing. Yes. And of course, when God is speaking to us about the blessings of the Sabbath day, he's talking about the things that we are able to do, that we're privileged to do, which is to draw near to him in worship. And that is the greatest blessing of our life.

That is an anticipation of eternity. A person who isn't interested in worshipping God should seriously ask the question, why would I think that I will be in heaven where that's what all the people are doing? If I don't have a heart for this, why would I think I'll be there? One of the marks of a true Christian is that he or she loves to worship God because he or she loves God, and therefore it's a privilege to join with his people.

Steve Hiller: Well, we're going to spend some more time looking at this fourth commandment, our struggle with time. If you can, hope you'll open your Bible and join us in Exodus chapter 20. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: The fourth commandment shows us the dignity of work as an expression of the image of God. It's very important for us to grasp this. Now, of course, this may sound marvelous, but the reality is that many of us feel overwhelmed by our work, don't we? And God gives us two insights right here in the fourth commandment that I think are very powerful and very practical.

The first is about this whole issue of dividing your work. Six days, verse nine, you shall labor, six days. And notice again in verse 11, for here's the reason, for in six days God made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them. Now, did you ever stop to ask the question why in all the world would God make the heaven and the earth in six days when he could have made it in an instant? He could have, couldn't he? So why six days?

Surely the answer is that God was modeling a pattern for dividing our work. God is teaching us how we should work by the example of how he worked. He is mentoring us in what effective work looks like. God has divided time for a reason. He has given us in the very order of creation a day, a week, a month, seasons of a year.

And in the creation itself, God models a pattern of work that has rhythm to it, rhythms of rest and of work. And the very order of God's work in creation, of course, shows the importance of structure within our work. Sometimes, of course, your work seems like an overwhelming mountain. You look at it, you say, how am I going to do all this? And of course, when you feel overwhelmed by your work, you lose your ability to function.

Now, the successful worker will be one who copies the example of God and learns the ability to divide work and to establish priorities. These are the two things that we see in the account of creation. I have to tell you, I find this one of my own biggest struggles, and I'm sure many of us would say the same thing. I have to ask the question, what do I need to do today? What do I need to do this week?

What has to be done within the frame of a month? And then it's very important for me to ask the question, what should I be seeking to achieve in a year? And then to develop a plan. And I'm not just talking about paid work. I'm talking about whatever work God has given you to do, to bring structure into your life in fulfilling what you have identified as your God-given responsibility.

Suppose you are a homemaker. How do you avoid the subtle temptation for some of sliding into a routine that's around daytime television and then hating yourself for it? The answer is you have to work out what this job is, an unsupervised job. Write it down. If I am to do a great job in this high calling, if I'm to be a magnificent homemaker, what would that look like?

List it all. What would I have to do in a year? Then break it down. What would I have to do in a month? What would I have to do in a week? What should I begin to do today? Break your work, whatever it is, paid or unpaid, into bite-sized chunks. That's the pattern that we're learning here from the Bible. For nothing is more paralyzing than to sit in front of a massive task that has never been broken down into ordered steps.

And then see a day as a unit of work. Tackle what needs to be done today and then rest. That's God's pattern. That's why he gave you night. Learn to see six days as another unit of work, and then take a day of rest. That's why God gave to us the Sabbath. Look at the seasons that God has planned in the order of creation.

Plan times of vacation, holiday weekends. Work within whatever budget you have, but plan so that there are breaks in the seasons of your year. You find this actually written right into the Old Testament if you study the Old Testament festivals, after the harvest and so forth. You find through the year that there are seasonal breaks that God builds into the pattern of the life of his people.

And plan your vacation in advance. You see, the seasons did that. There was an ordered thing, just like we know when Christmas comes and Easter comes. In the Old Testament year, there was this pattern of festivals. There were the breaks that could be planned in advance because half the joy is the anticipation of knowing that it's coming. Now, this is awfully practical stuff, isn't it?

But it's all in the fourth commandment, and it is powerfully relevant and desperately needed in our increasingly frazzled society today. Divide your work as God does, bringing structure into it, and you will find this great payoff that you have the blessing of enjoying completed work. You'll also be far more effective because you won't be paralyzed in front of this unbroken mountain.

At the end of each day, God paused and saw that it was good. Isn't that beautiful? He surveyed what he had done and he enjoyed it. He didn't say, well, I've made the moon and the stars, but boy, I've still got the fish and the animals to go, and I haven't even started with the man. You don't find that in the account of creation. No, he enjoyed his completed work at the end of each day.

I tell you, I've found that one of my greatest struggles, to worry more about what I've still to do tomorrow and therefore to lose the joy of what God enabled me to do today. And that's where we break down. God's pattern is that every day and every week, we who love him should savor the joy of completed work—every day, every week, every season, every year.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible weekend with Pastor Colin Smith, in a message entitled Your Struggle with Time, part of a larger series on the Ten Commandments called the Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life. And if you ever miss a broadcast in our series, come and listen online at openthebible.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free.

You can also listen through the Open the Bible app, which you'll find at your app store. Well, let's get back to the message. Again, here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: God's pattern is that every day and every week, we who love him should savor the joy of completed work—every day, every week, every season, every year. And secondly, here's the blessing of rest. God rested on the seventh day, verse 11, and therefore he blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Now, rest, if you want a simple definition, rest is simply the enjoyment of completed work. That's why we've spent so much time talking about work, because you can't enjoy rest if you don't divide and therefore complete work. That's what God did on the seventh day. He finished his work of creation—which isn't, of course, all his work. God is working still, but he finished that work of these days and he rested because it was complete. He enjoyed the completed work.

And God calls us to follow this pattern, particularly not only on a daily basis as we've seen, but on a weekly basis by keeping the Sabbath holy. And of course, we've seen many times in different places where we've come across this important Bible word that holy means different. It just means different. It means separate. It means not bound up with the rest of the stuff.

So what it means to keep the Sabbath day holy will in some degree depend on what you normally do. For a student, there should be one day when you don't study. For the manual worker, there should be one day when you put down your hammer. For the executive worker, there should be one day when you stop pushing your pen. You're to break from what God has given you as your major so that you may focus on something else, something different. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, that's what that means.

That leads to some obvious questions, by the way, that are very important. How do we give Sabbath for carers? How do we give Sabbath to parents of special needs children or stay-at-home moms? It takes a community to do that. It takes a family to do that. And I thank God, I have to tell you, for many wonderful examples in the life of this community where we sing increasingly that kind of ministry effectively offered.

Helping another person to find Sabbath is a wonderful way for you to keep the fourth commandment. God's pattern for your life includes a day when you enjoy resting from what you normally do. Now, notice that we are to enjoy this rest, verse 11. We're to enjoy this rest. God blessed the Sabbath day and he made it holy. This day of rest is a gift and it's a blessing from God. It is to be enjoyed.

Now, obviously the Sabbath is the seventh day, and I've found some great help from Jewish writers, especially Abraham Heschel, talking about the significance of the seventh day. I should say that in just a moment I'm going to make a comment about the significance of the first day, today, Sunday, in which we are worshipping as Christian believers, but I want us to hear some Jewish wisdom first about the relevance of the seventh day.

The seventh day, says Heschel, reminds us that rest comes when we've completed our work. It's not that we rest so that we can work, he says; it is that we work so that we can enter into rest, hence the seventh day. The Sabbath, he says, is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. You see, the work leads into the rest. We work so that having completed our work, we enter into rest.

This, therefore, he says, is the climax of living. That's beautiful. And then he goes on to describe how it is an anticipation of the day when all our work will be over. You see, the pattern of a week, working for six days and then entering into rest for one, you blow that up large, you have a picture of your whole life. You work and you fulfill all your God-given responsibilities, and then you will enter into rest where you will gather with all God's people.

You will sing his praises. You will enter his rest. You will enjoy his presence forever. Every week is to be a snapshot of the big picture of what your life is all about. That's beautiful. It's very powerful. Enjoy your rest. It's the climax of living. Notice the commandment says we're to share our rest. Verse 10, we're to share this rest with everyone within our sphere of influence.

Notice your son, your daughter, the folks who work for you, the alien, and even the animals. This is radically different from our world. See, we work on the assumption that rest is the privilege of those who can afford it. The executive whose company runs so well that he's now able to spend three days a week at his country club. But for the minimum wage worker from across the border, hey, he's got to work 24/7 just to scratch a living.

Now, that's how it is in the world. But God says to his people, I want you to be a community with a different set of values. I want you to make sure that everyone within your sphere of influence is able to enjoy this day of rest. Make sure that your lowest-paid worker can get by on what he earns in six days and doesn't need to work for the seventh. Remember, as God's people, you were slaves in Egypt.

Your work there was unrelenting. I have delivered you from that. I want you to share that deliverance with everyone within your sphere of influence. Then you will reflect in your community something of my glory. Then all the nations will look at you and they'll say, my, amongst these people, even the animals get a day off. And you'll be able to say, yes, because God has given us work to do, but he's made us for more than work.

He's made us for eternity, and one day in every seven, we take a day to remind ourselves of that and to strengthen our grip on that reality. Now, here's a very last thing. Someone may be saying, well, that's all very well for the seventh day, but this is Sunday, the first day of the week. And Christians have worshipped on Sunday since the earliest times when Jesus rose from the dead.

But believers hold different opinions about whether Sunday should be regarded as a new Sabbath or not. Some say Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, it's just moved days; others say that the day of rest and the day of worship are two different things and they're not necessarily tied together. It's certainly true that the earliest Christians worshipped on the first day of the week before sunrise, before a working day, or else they met in the evening after a working day.

They didn't have Sunday off; they just chose to meet then. Perhaps, by the way, that's one reason why Eutychus fell asleep when Paul was preaching an exceptionally long sermon and fell out the window. You can read about that in Acts chapter 20. But I want to suggest to you that there is special significance for us to lay hold of in this first day of the week.

See, as Abraham Heschel has reminded us, in the Old Testament, the law about the seventh day said, finish your work in order that you enter your rest. And that principle still holds true for us with regards our work. That's a life principle for us. But the New Testament speaks about another kind of rest that we enter on an entirely different basis.

And you see, this is incredibly important as we go through the Ten Commandments because if I look at everything that God has called me to do in the Ten Commandments, I have to conclude I haven't finished the work. I've not finished. And which of us has? We've looked at the first four commandments. Which of us is really in the position of saying I have so holy and unconditionally given myself to God?

I have shed every sense of trying to bring him into my agenda. I am worshipping him as he is in totality. Everything I do is honoring his name. No, we have to say we've not finished the work. And as I look at the calling of God to you and to me in the Ten Commandments, and we have to admit we've not finished this work, the question is how will we ever enter God's rest?

The longer I live, the more I study these Ten Commandments, the more convinced I am I will never finish this work. I will not on the day I die be able to say, Lord, I've finally finished the Ten Commandments. I know that. I'm not going to get there. And neither is any one of us in this sanctuary. And so Jesus says to us, come to me and I will give you rest. I will give you rest.

Think of that. When he died on the cross, he took on himself all my unfinished business before the law of God. And in his body as he bore it, he then cried out, it is—what?—finished! It's finished! My work is not finished, but his work is complete. That is my rest. Come to me and I will give you rest. You've not finished, Jesus would say to you and to me, you've not finished what God's called you to do, but I have.

You can't finish what God has called you to do. You can never achieve it by your own works. Let me give you rest for your soul. And I love the fact that Christians worship on the first day of the week because it reminds us every time we gather that we're going out into another week in which God has called us to do many things, but we're not doing them in order to gain access to his rest.

We're doing it because we have been given his rest in Jesus. I'm not doing what I do in order to earn my salvation. I'm seeking to live a life for his glory out of gratitude because he's given me what I could never earn. And that makes your work and my work an offering of love, a gift of gratitude in regard to a debt that can never be repaid.

Steve Hiller: What a great way to wrap up this message and this time together today, just being reminded of the work that God has given us to do and the rest that can be found in him. Our message is called Your Struggle with Time, and it's part of a larger series called the Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life. And if you ever miss a broadcast in the series, come and listen at our website, openthebible.org.

Well, Open the Bible is a listener-supported program, and as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of Martyn Lloyd-Jones's book, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure. And Colin, what is this book about?

Colin Smith: Well, it's not about depression in the clinical sense that we use that word today. When Lloyd-Jones speaks about spiritual depression, he's speaking about all of the experiences of darkness, discouragement, doubt that come to a Christian believer at some point in our journey of faith. And it is a marvelous book.

Steve, this has got to be one of the top three books, I think, in all the books that I have. Over the years, I have gone back to this again and again and again, and I will continue to do so. He just works through chapter after chapter the various experiences of difficulty that we all encounter as Christian believers, and then he gives to us practical ways forward from the scripture of being able to find our way through these harder passages of life.

So, for example, I mean, his chapter on Where Is Your Faith? is just one of my favorites. That's in the story of the storm on the lake, where Jesus asks this question of the disciples, where is your faith? And Lloyd-Jones makes the point faith doesn't sort of kick in automatically. It's not like a thermostat. You actually have to apply it to the difficulties of the situation that you're in right now. That has been so helpful to me, and that's just one little snippet of so many that run throughout this wonderful book.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of this book, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, as our way of saying thank you for your financial support. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's openthebible.org or 1-877-673-6365. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time. Open the Bible weekend is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: At Open the Bible, we're grateful for like-minded organizations committed to sharing the gospel around the world, and to that end, I'd like to commend the work of Global Fingerprints. You know, in the book of James, God calls us to help orphans in their distress. That's a clear command, but it's not always clear how we should obey it. And this is where Global Fingerprints comes in.

Through Global Fingerprints, you can sponsor a vulnerable child to help meet their physical needs and ensure they hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to commend Global Fingerprints to you. They're focused on equipping the local church to care for children, and where there is no church, they help to plant one.

If you'd like to help a vulnerable child, you can find more information on Global Fingerprints at our website, openthebible.org/gf. That's openthebible.org/gf.