Commandments Explained - Sabbath Festivals | Exods 23:1-19

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Remember, Trust, and Celebrate: Following God in the Ordinary

There are some passages of Scripture that seem easy to understand at first glance—and others that make us stop and wonder, What am I supposed to do with that?

Exodus 23 is full of laws and instructions that were given to Israel as they learned how to live as God's people. Some of them feel immediately relevant. Others involve oxen, donkeys, fields, vineyards, and practices that seem very far removed from our everyday lives.

But underneath these ancient instructions are some deeply relevant truths about what it means to follow God.

Following Jesus Requires Integrity

One of the first themes in Exodus 23 is the danger of simply following the crowd.

God tells Israel:

"You must not follow a crowd in wrongdoing."

That's a challenging command because we all know the pull of the crowd.

Sometimes we're afraid of being the lone dissenter. We don't want to be the person who goes against everyone else. If enough people believe something, it becomes easy to assume they must be right.

The crowd isn't always wrong. Sometimes being part of the crowd can be wonderful. There is something powerful about thousands of people joining together in celebration.

But God's people are called to something deeper than simply going along with everyone else.

We are called to discernment.

If the crowd is moving toward righteousness, justice, mercy, and love, we can join in. But if the crowd is moving away from the heart of God, we cannot simply follow because everyone else is doing it.

That requires integrity.

And integrity becomes even more difficult when the person we're called to love is someone we don't particularly like.

Exodus gives the example of finding an enemy's lost animal or seeing the animal of someone who hates you struggling under its load. Even if you don't want to help, God says to help.

The principle is striking: our responsibility to love our neighbor isn't dependent upon how we feel about our neighbor.

We can apply that principle to our own lives.

What do we do when the person who has been rude to us needs help? What happens when the coworker who talks badly about us experiences a crisis? What if the person who has made our lives difficult suddenly needs us?

Following Jesus means loving people because they bear God's image—not because they've earned our kindness.

The same principle extends to justice. Exodus 23 specifically speaks about the poor, the innocent, and the foreigner. God's concern is that justice not depend upon someone's status, wealth, or social standing.

Everyone matters because everyone is made in the image of God.

So following Jesus requires integrity: a commitment to truth, justice, and loving our neighbor—even when it costs us something.

Following Jesus Requires Trust

The passage then shifts to something that might seem completely unrelated: farming.

God tells Israel to work the land for six years and then let it rest during the seventh. He also repeats the command to observe Sabbath.

There is something fascinating about this command when we remember where Israel was at this point in the story.

They had been wandering in the wilderness for three months. They weren't planting crops. They didn't have vineyards. They weren't harvesting fields.

And yet God was giving them instructions about a future they couldn't see.

I wonder what that sounded like to them.

"God, we don't have any fields yet. Why are you telling us how to manage them?"

But perhaps that is part of the point.

Sometimes God gives us instructions for a future we aren't ready to see yet.

There may be things in your life right now that you're waiting for God to do. You may have promises you believe God has given you, but you haven't seen their fulfillment.

If so, you're in good company.

Israel had to learn to trust God before they could see what he was preparing for them.

We often want God to show us the destination before we're willing to take the next step. But faith rarely works that way. God frequently asks us to trust him before we understand what he is doing.

And the command to rest is part of that trust.

Sabbath was not simply about stopping work. It was a declaration that God's people didn't have to produce constantly in order to be provided for.

Even the land was given permission to rest. The poor could eat what grew naturally, and even the animals were included in God's provision.

Rest requires trust because rest reminds us that we are not God.

The world will continue turning without us.

God will continue working when we stop.

We can trust him enough to rest.

Following Jesus Requires Celebration

Then the passage takes another turn.

God commands Israel to celebrate.

Three times a year, they were to stop what they were doing and celebrate festivals that reminded them of God's faithfulness.

Why?

Because God knows something about us that we sometimes forget: we are forgetful people.

We remember disappointments more easily than blessings.

We focus on what we still don't have instead of what God has already provided.

We dwell on unanswered prayers while forgetting the prayers God has already answered.

That's why God gave Israel practices of remembrance.

The festivals were opportunities to stop, look backward, and tell the story again.

"Remember what God did."

"Remember how God rescued you."

"Remember how God provided."

"Remember who God is."

Celebration isn't frivolous. It is spiritual formation.

When we intentionally remember God's faithfulness, we're reminded not only of what God has done but of who God is. And remembering what God has done gives us confidence to trust him with what he has not done yet.

That's why celebrations matter.

Birthdays. Anniversaries. Milestones. Recoveries. New jobs. Restored relationships. Answers to prayer. Adoption anniversaries. Years of sobriety. Moments when God carried us through something we weren't sure we could survive.

These moments give us an opportunity to stop and say:

God has been faithful.

And sometimes celebration involves remembering painful things, too. The Israelites' celebrations were not disconnected from suffering. Their story included slavery, loss, wandering, and hardship.

But remembering God's faithfulness allows us to look at our whole story and see things we couldn't see while we were living through them.

Don't Forget What God Has Done

There is something we can learn from children when it comes to celebration.

Children can celebrate without worrying about whether someone is watching.

They dance because they're happy.

They sing because they love the song.

They laugh without wondering whether someone thinks they're being too much.

Adults often lose that ability.

We become self-conscious. We look around to see who's watching. We wonder what other people think.

But genuine celebration allows us to simply receive joy.

And when our celebration is rooted in God, it becomes more than happiness. It becomes worship.

So perhaps the question for us isn't simply, "What should I celebrate?"

It's:

What could I intentionally remember so that I don't forget God's faithfulness?

Maybe there's a date you should mark on your calendar.

Maybe there's an answered prayer you need to write down.

Maybe there's a story you need to tell your children.

Maybe there's a moment from your past that you need to revisit—not to live in the past, but to remind yourself of who God has been.

Whatever it is, don't let God's faithfulness become something you forget.

Remember it. Celebrate it. Tell the story again.

Because when we remember what God has done, our faith grows for what God will do next.

Following Jesus requires integrity when the crowd is going the wrong direction.

It requires trust when we can't yet see what God is doing.

And it requires celebration because we are prone to forget.

God calls us to love our neighbors, to trust his provision, to rest in his care, and to remember his faithfulness.

And through all of it, we are reminded that our hope isn't ultimately in our ability to follow every rule perfectly. We will fail. Israel failed. We all fall short.

Our hope is in Jesus—the one who perfectly obeyed, perfectly loved, and made a way for us to come near to God.

So let's follow him with integrity.

Let's trust him when we can't see what's ahead.

And let's become people who remember and celebrate the goodness of God.

Don't forget what God has done. Celebrate his faithfulness. And let that remembrance give you faith for what comes next.