3D Worship Part 8 – Worship Through Work: The Fourth Commandment Part 1

Date
February 1, 2026
Speaker
Mark Savaglio
Topic
10 Commandments, work, Worship
Series
3D Worship
Book
Deuteronomy, Exodus

Text

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 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. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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. Exodus 20

Prayer

Intro

Why does God want us to rest?
Shabbat in Hebrew → rest or to cease from work

Creation account of genesis, made in God’s own image, follow in the same pattern of design
Unless you know how you can worship the Lord with your work you will never be able to worship him with your rest.
Work is a human thing, not just a christian thing, too much emphasis on work or rest and you fall into laziness or workaholic
Work will expose what sits at the heart of what you worship, and as matt has been saying throughout these message worship is our default state and given the sheer volume of time we spend on work that only adds to the importance of this message
1. The plan today talk about how work was meant to be, before sin came into the world. Then have a view on what work has become in a secular age, and then the unique and I would say far better resources the gospel affords us as Christians, to not only dealing with the difficulties that come with work, but to do so in a way that points our worship to our God and King

WORK IS NOT A PRODUCT OF THE FALL
Work for mankind is part of what it means to be made in the imago dei, the image of God.

Mankind is set apart in creation because it is made the image of God.
All creation works
How does work reflect that we were made in the image of God?
Before fall
1. Make the Earth look like Eden
2. Have babies
After fall
1. Contending with the land for survival
2. We work now for security and Significance
Before fall
1. Time was not a factor before sin came into the world. Life is limited, so quick, the inner drive in our beings strive for purpose, meaning or significance

We were perfectly secure, there was no need that our bodies had that were not met in the design of creation itself
1. No need to worry about food, or water, or warmth, or cold.
2. We had important significant work to do, and we stood completely secure knowing there was nothing out there trying to hurt us and we had everything we needed to live and work

Ultimately, before sin there was no need for anyone to work for security or significance because those things were wrapped up in the knowledge of who God is and what He has done for them, but now all of mankind is in exile from the home that we were all made for, and the knowledge of who God is and what he has done has become obscure. And for all of humanity, this is a problem.
For the rest of our time we are going to look at how this problem gets addressed first from a modern secular worldview, then we will look at how the Christian worldview satisfies the drive for security and significance that are irreducibly human

2. THE SECULAR SOLUTION

To illustrate how the secular worldview looks to satisfy this we should look no further than Hollywood
1. Its a wonderful life example
Now security and significance are very much interconnected motivators in many ways but also very distinct. People who typically already feel a sense of security will often then turn their sights to significance. For those who don’t have a sense of security, almost by definition they are very vulnerable and the motivation of significance will be just so overshadowed by the motivation to achieve some sort of security.
1. Pursuit of happiness example
In both examples facing real problems that threaten their existence and were saved by the fruit of their labor. Bailey investing in community, Gardner tied to performance
And this is where the secular worldview falls short
1. The world’s answer to this need, that is an irreducibly base level human need, for both security and significance alike rests entirely on the shoulders of each individual and will always be under threat from an endless list of things that you will need to always defend against. And often it is just a crumby hand that you are dealt that you have no control over
2. The secular answer to where your security comes from or where your significance is derived from is always going to come back to the idolatry of self.
  1. YOUR accomplishments, YOUR performance, the lives YOU touched, the impact YOU made
  2. Everything will always be going fine until YOU feel threatened
    1. That is when you become shaken to your core
      1. That’s what happened to George Bailey, have you ever felt that way before? Where you were facing a problem that seemed escapable that you wish you had never been born? I have
      2. Or about Gardner, have you ever just felt like breaking down in utter exhaustion and tears because you have been desperately working to get out of a rough spot for so long, but giving up is not even an option? I have been there too
    2. The secular world view really does not have a good answer for this, none that I could find at least. You just have to keep going, what other choice is there?

If you find yourself working for security
1. you will begin to measure your self worth based on your production, performance or results.
  1. If you ever let up in your work or if the results don’t equal the effort you are putting in, or something happens outside of your control, you will be left stressed and anxious with the only answer being, just work harder, longer, make more sacrifices to obtain the sense of security for you and your family.
    1. Then you’re left asking yourself, how much longer can you actually do that?
    2. How much longer do you think Gardner could have continued on his pursuit of “happiness” if he failed again and didn’t get the job?

If you’re working for significance:
1. Your sense of worth will be shaped by the validation you receive from your work from others.
  1. If your significance comes from your own efforts you will find that you will only feel that sense of significance to the most recent thing you were working towards. You will only feel as significant as what you have been able to do lately, and it will always be a game of comparison
    1. When your that sense of worth comes under threat, you will feel worthless and like George it would be better if you were never born.
    2. If George wasn’t saved by the community that he poured himself out for, do you think he would have been able to keep being so chipper when he would be put in prison and he sees much of the work he had worked so hard for crumble while he was still alive?
    3. Or what if saw the world and it wasn’t really that much different?
The secular world view is oh so fragile
1. When things are going well, well that’s just it they are going well. It can be really hard to tell that there is an issue with this.
2. It isn’t until you are able to feel the heat from the fire that you start to sweat, when the pressure gets turned up, when you see or feel the threat materialize in your life
  1. You are presented with an option
    1. Double down in your own efforts
    2. or surrender to the reality that for as long as you have your security or significance rooted in conditional circumstances life will really just be about going from one trial to the next

3. CHRISTIAN RESPONSE

What makes Christianity different from any other worldview is that we do not work for security but we work from a place of unconditional security. We do not work for a sense of feeling significant, but we work from a place of unconditional significance.
1. It is not that the Christian does not need to work to pay his bills, or that there will be periods of time where they will really need to put themselves in a push period and work hard to make things happen for them and their family
  1. There is nothing wrong with that
2. Just like there is nothing wrong with going the extra mile to make a difference in someone’s life, to be intentional about being an agent of change in a world that can be tough.
  1. These are good things, but this is not being done for a sense of security or a sense of significance, but rather they are things that flow out of a sense of unconditional security and unconditional significance
Let’s take some time to unpack this concept that is utterly unique to the Christian worldview, which is why I believe the follower of Christ has far better resources provided by the gospel to both work and rest in a world that has been corrupted by sin.
1. by going back to the fourth command and we are going to do a little side by side comparison of the two renditions of it found in exodus 20 and deuteronomy 5
  1. We started this message with the exodus 20 version of the fourth command and they are largely the same with one major difference
    1. Just highlighting the difference in the text
2. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 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. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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. Exodus 20
3. Deuteronomy 5:12–15 [12] “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. [13] Six days you shall labor and do all your work, [14] 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 or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. [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. (ESV)
  1. It is interesting that commandment is the same really except for one aspect which is the reason they were given to follow the fourth commandment to work 6 days and rest 1
    1. To understand this difference is the to understand why the follower of Christ can work from a place of security and significance vs. for security and significance
  2. It all comes back to who God is and what he has done. Let me show you
    1. In the Exodus account, this highlights Who God is our creator
      1. What part did humanity play in the creation of the world?
      2. God had made everything that would ever be made and then he made mankind
      3. As the pinnacle of his creation, that which reflected his very own nature being made in his image
      4. We talk about work coming before rest, but mankind’s first full day of existence was the day that God had sabbathed
    2. In the deuteronomy rendition,
      1. What part did the Jews play in them being freed from slavery in Egypt?
      2. Did they execute the ten plagues?
      3. Did they split the red sea?
      4. Did they obliterate the world’s strongest army in just a matter of how long they could hold their breath?

The fourth commandment was to serve to the jews, that whether at work or at rest they are not the ones in control He is
1. The fourth command give God’s people to regain the clarity that was lost when we were exiled from the garden
  1. The clarity of who God is and what he has done
  2. This clarity is the humble reminder that they are not God, but they have a good God who meets them in their captivity and creates a way out when there was no other way of escape
  3. By observing the fourth commandment the Jews would be forever reminded that Yahweh, their God is their creator and their redeemer

But this is not just a tool for the Jews, the fourth commandment points us to another creative act of redemption through the finished work of Jesus Christ
1. As Matthew has been saying through this whole series, we all were made to worship, and last message the emphasis was made clear that it is our responsibility to direct that worship to the only one who is worthy of it
  1. If we are not directing our worship to God, we will be directing our worship to ourselves
If your security and significance is based on your own work, it is conditional in its very essence, but if it is based on the work of the God the only conditions he places on it is to believe and follow,
1. Or another way to say it, is just to surrender

So how is it that we can begin to worship God through our work?
1. It starts with understanding the gospel identity
  1. Where if the christ follower understands the gospel he will not think either to highly of himself or to lowly of himself
    1. The reason is, because what works do we really have to be able to boast about?
    2. The follower of Christ knows all that he has been given freely to him
      1. There are people who work harder than you and people who are smarter than you
      2. And some are in better life circumstance and some worse
    3. It is freeing to acknowledge there so much that is out of our hands that we have no say over
      1. Only because we worship a God who works for our good and his glory because of the love he has for us
  2. But not to think to lowly of ourselves either
    1. We are made in the image of God
    2. Not for good works, but to good works
    3. when we have our worship directed, not to ourselves, concerning ourselves over our own needs for security and significance
    4. but choosing to place our trust and faith in the one who is the giver of the ultimate unconditional security and the ultimate unconditional significance
  3. When we live out the gospel
    1. We are starting from a place of security and significance and the more we learn to do this the more our lives will be transformed by God to reflect his good work that he has done in us
2. If all life would be is this black and white equation of time and effort and skill equaling security and significance I think the case that I am making could be weakened
  1. But the fact is we all know there is just an abundance of things that are so far outside the realm of our own control you don’t need to live long to find this out
    1. We did not control who our parents would be
    2. What country we would be born in and the opportunities we could even be afforded
    3. Thank God we were born in the time of modern plumbing!
    4. We can’t choose how long we have to live
    5. And we don’t get to choose how we leave this world
  2. The big idea is if you did work for your security and your significance can you honestly say you did it on your own?
But do you know who did have control over these things?
1. Jesus did
  1. Jesus chose, where and when he would be born
    1. Jesus chose to live a life of discomfort, so we could be comforted
    2. Jesus chose to leave his home in eternity, in order for us to have a home in eternity
    3. Jesus chose a life of poverty so in him we would have riches
    4. Jesus chose to become our sin, so in him we can be redeemed
    5. Jesus made himself insecure so in him we can find unconditional security
    6. Jesus paid the ultimate price by laying down his life for you, so you would know are of immeasurable unconditional significance
The christian worldview and the secular worldview are both ones of faith, the difference is the what that faith is placed in
1. Your own individual efforts
2. Or the creator of the universe who wants to set you free
  1. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus, if it is not in him who your source of security and significance comes from I really want you to reflect, why would he do all of these things?

It all starts with looking at who Jesus is and what he has done for us

Who is Jesus?
1. Colossians 1:15–19 [15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, (ESV)
What has Jesus done?
1. John 1:9–18 [9] The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. [10] He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. [11] He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. [12] But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, [13] who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

[14] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [16] For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. [17] For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. [18] No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (ESV)

this is exactly the truth that we are to meditate on and reflect on as we seek to have all our needs for security and significance met in the God man Jesus Christ. In who he is and what he has done.
1. There is just massive amounts of meaning that can be drawn from these two texts that by even just sitting in them and reveling in the reality is enough to fill the follower with zeal and determination for the work that is set before them.

New believers, who don’t know God
1. To the question of who is Jesus and what has he done I simply say to you.
  1. Behold the lamb of God who takes away your sins
Jesus Christ was born to die, but death had no hold on him because though he gave up his life for you to pay for your sins the price that you owed God. He took on your debt past, present and future. So today Jesus lives, and even now is sitting at the right hand of the Father talking to his Dad with such love and great affection for those who are His. And guess what, when his Father looks at us who have surrendered their lives over to Christ, his true Church, he looks at us only with love. With a love so great, so complete, so pure, so perfect, the love of a parent to a child can only begin to point someone’s heart to the kind of love he has for us.
That is why I say as a follower of Christ we have security, that is why I say we already have significance.

So what does it look like to worship the Lord through our work?
1. It has to start from a new identity that is given to us by the gospel, which can only begin when you see the kind of unconditional love that you are loved with
  1. Then God will bring out in you by his Spirit a desire, a desire to want to live in truth. The way that he wants you to live, not because he forces you to but simply because of great love that he has shown to you
  2. This desire live in Spirit and in Truth will lead you to wanting to live a life devoted to having both your work and your rest to pleasing God
  3. Who will then become the one person in whom you are beginning to find all of the delights you have in this world being tied to, and outside of him, things that you once lived for will grow dim
    1. But it is a process, we call that process sanctification and it isn’t easy, it is actually impossible for us to do
    2. That is why he gave us Holy Spirit
2. The only thing you need to do is learn how to surrender
  1. When you recognize your desire for greed working itself into your business dealings in wanting to take advantage in perhaps questionable gray ethical area, surrender that desire, be different from the world, be above reproach, seek not only your own interest but the interest of the one who is only looking out for himself too, because you answer to the one who already knows the lines you will try to justify yourself with
  2. When you see yourself getting frustrated because someone messed something up at work and made your life more difficult, surrender that frustration, it is so much easier to do that when you are reminded of all the grace and mercy you have been shown by God
  3. When you find yourself slipping into gossip about another coworker, be reminded of how when you were a sinner Christ died for you and surrender your speech to him and defend those who can not defend themselves
  4. When you are waiting for that deal to close that could mean you business would survive or fail and your tempted to be anxious, remember God knows the beginning from the end and he loves you and could have made this situation different if he wanted to but it is for your good and his glory that you are going through this right now
    1. I would love to keep going with more examples, this topic of work is such a massive topic we could give example after example of gospel truths that would be worshipful to the Lord in our work
Our ability to worship God through our work is not just in occupation, but it is in our calling.
1. Common misconception in the church today is that working in church related activities is somehow more pleasing than in the secular marketplace. It is not
  1. The first vocation God called anyone to was to be a gardener, Jesus was a carpenter for 30 yrs
  2. Vocation → latin word vocare, which means “to call”.
    1. When people say vocation today however people often just think of a job, or a career even. But a vocation more accurately would be today what we call a calling. We throw this word “calling” around a lot but rarely define it, the word calling means that you were called to by another to work for the service of others
Now, every job can fit into a calling, but not its just the work you do for a paycheck
1. God also calls us to be:
  1. Parents
  2. Spouses
  3. Children
2. To work out of your calling does have something to do with what you are doing, but it has far more to do with how you actually go about doing something.
  1. So whether you are looking at how you are looking to live out your calling as a son or daughter, husband or wife, parent or grandparent, roofer or insurance agent, carpenter or engineer, lawyer or garbage man, nurse or teacher what matters far more than what you do is how you do it. So to worship our God through our work means
    1. Colossians 3:23–24 [23] Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (ESV)
3. A Christ follower who worships God through work does so by reflecting the same love that the Father has shown to us through His son, Jesus by the power of Holy Spirit
  1. Our default will never be this, our default is not to , aim our worship at God,
    1. Our default will be to always worship ourselves
  2. But that is why Christ calls us to surrender our thoughts, our desires and our actions and replace them with his
  1. You can only really ever do this when you begin to understand the love that God has for you
    1. That is when the good desires of security and significance will not be conditional to your circumstances but to a god who never breaks his word
  2. The more you grow in the knowledge of his unchanging, unconditional love that he has for you then the more you will be able to show it to others
    1. It is by doing this we can then extend Christ invitation to rest in him in through our work to other around us
4. Matthew 11:28–30 [28] Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
If you find yourself battling stress and anxiety about how much money is in your bank account, or what would happen if you lose your job, will you be able to save up enough for retirement, How long can you afford to not work if you get sick or if a family member needed your help. That is an indicator you need yet to grow in surrendering the security that you have tied up in the conditions you think you have control over and replace it with the ultimate unconditional security that can only come from the all knowing, all powerful eternal God who has given you the right to be called his child
If you find yourself questioning your value or worth, or seem to have a hard time resisting the temptation to compare your work and the results or impact with others. Surrender to the fact the we have a God who never questioned your worth, and looks at you with nothing but love in His heart for you.

OUTRO

So what are you working for? Who do you rely on? Yourself or God? Are you working for or from security and significance?
If you’re anything like me it will be both relying on myself and learning to rely more on God. It is a process, and thank God that he is faithful even when we are not, and it has nothing to do with our work, but the work of his Son that covers us.
1. To the question I asked about what did the jews have to do with freeing themselves from slavery
  1. The answer was that they needed to follow the Lord out of Egypt into the promised land
  2. What must you do to be freed from the slavery of this world, follow Jesus see his great love for you surrender and be born again
On one particular sabbath Jesus was accused of violating the law from the Pharisees after healing a paralyzed man he simply responded by saying “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
The biggest way that we can worship God through our work, is to continue his
Brother and Sisters, lets pray