Observing the Sabbath

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So, knowing that not a lot of people probably were going to be there that Sunday, they decided, you know, let’s just have a worship at home Sunday. Not my taste, not what I would do, but I don’t find it necessarily unscriptural either. The Bible says not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

As near as I can tell, it’s one Sunday out of 52. They said worship at home, and so I don’t see that as them necessarily neglecting worship. Well, one of the things that I saw recurring, I don’t know why I read comments on things.

It’s just the comment section of any website is where brain cells go to die. I don’t know why I read these things. But because J.

D. Greer, who is, as I said, the president of the SBC, because he is a nationally known preacher, everybody feels the need to get on there and comment. And there were comments saying J.

D. Greer hates the gospel and hates God. And I thought, come on now.

You know, they canceled church one Sunday, but clearly J. D. Greer is the Antichrist. All right, give me a break.

I kept seeing repeatedly that accusations that this church in North Carolina that he pastors was violating the Fourth Commandment because they were not getting together to have church on Sunday. And I thought, well, that’s interesting. The whole thing about J.

D. Greer hates God and the gospel, and by the way, that is a direct quote, The whole thing about him hating God and hating the gospel, that’s just so ridiculous. It doesn’t even need to be dealt with.

But I thought, that’s interesting, because I’ve seen about a half dozen people chime in here and say they’re violating the fourth commandment by not getting together and having church. I don’t think that’s what the fourth commandment means, but we’re going to look at it tonight in that light as we go through this series on the Ten Commandments and say, what do they mean? What did they mean to the people who first heard them when God sent Moses down from Mount Sinai with the engraved tablets?

What did they understand them to mean? What did God intend out of them? And how do they apply to us today?

What’s our relationship to them today? So we’ve been looking at that with each of these commandments, and we come to the fourth. Did J.

D. Greer’s church violate the fourth commandment by not having church on that Sunday? I would say no, but let’s look and see what the commandment actually says.

So we’re going to be in Exodus chapter 20 tonight. And by the way, again, we’re not looking at this because that happened with that church. We’re going through the Ten Commandments.

I just thought that was an interesting story to introduce the idea of what is the fourth commandment. Is it what people assume it to be? So Exodus chapter 20, starting in verse 8, here’s the fourth commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

There’s your fourth commandment, that the Israelites were commanded to observe the Sabbath. Now the Sabbath, as it says in there, is the seventh day of the week. Then, just as now, the calendar starts on Sunday, and so working through the week, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, we come to Saturday, which is the Sabbath.

And in Jewish culture, by their calendar, the days would actually start the night before at sundown. So what we’re talking about for the Sabbath is a period of time between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. That was the seventh day of the week in the Jewish calendar.

And during that time, they were supposed to do no work. They were supposed to rest. By the way, that’s still done by observant Jews today from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. There’s no work done.

So they were commanded to observe this day of rest every week. That’s the first thing we need to understand, is that they were commanded, in here the Israelites were commanded, to observe this day of rest every week. That it was supposed to be something, when it says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, do all your work in six days, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, and he lists all the people who were not supposed to do work.

Not you, not your children, not your servants, your cattle. Cattle don’t really work anyway, but they definitely were not supposed to work on the Sabbath day. Well, you know what?

That does make sense if you think about an ox pulling a plow. Yes, thank you very much. But when did that cow get the milk, he’s going to hurt him.

Well, that comes into, the question was, if you didn’t hear that, what about a cow giving milk? They’re going to hurt if they don’t. That question is raised in the New Testament.

And Jesus said, if you have an animal that falls in the ditch on the Sabbath day, aren’t you going to pull him out? I would think, from my perspective, I would think that that would include milking them so that they don’t hurt. I don’t know if you were allowed to drink the milk, though.

I don’t know what the specific rule is on that. Because a lot of rules did develop around this that go beyond what the law actually said. So this commandment was that they were not supposed to work.

Even the foreigner who was under their roof in their country was not supposed to work. And he says the reason for this is that God took six days to create the universe, and then he rested on the seventh day. Now, one of the interesting things about this to me is I don’t think God needed six days to create the universe.

I mean, a God who can speak it all into existence can speak it all into existence immediately. A God with that kind of power, it’s not going to take him six days to figure out where all the pieces go and put them together. Like me trying to work a jigsaw puzzle.

He made the pieces and he put them together. He could have done it instantly. But I think God was setting a precedent here to show them that you take, you work diligently, you serve him, you do all these things six days, and then you take a day of rest. Because we need rest. We need to be refreshed.

We need that time of refreshing, that time of rest with God to go back about our labors. You know, if you work and you work and you work seven days a week, you work double shifts, seven days a week, no vacation ever, you’re going to die. I mean, eventually, ahead of time.

Yeah, I mean, we’re all going to die, but you’re going to die ahead of time, ahead of where you were. So, God is basically telling them, you need to take a break, not be lazy, But there’s the tendency to chase the, not in their day, but in our day, the almighty dollar, whatever they would have used then, the almighty flocks and herds. But there’s a tendency to work and work and chase after stuff and chase after material things and let that always be your focus.

And God said, you need to come apart on the seventh day of the week. You need to set that aside as a time of rest with the Lord, not to go out there and be trying to earn more and get more, but just rest in God’s presence. This is not about laziness, and it’s really about taking time each week to make sure that our focus is where it’s supposed to be.

That doesn’t mean we only think about God one day a week, but God’s saying on purpose, you take one day or you just rest. Just be in his presence. So they were commanded to observe a day of rest every week. And that day of rest would have coincided, again, with mostly Saturday.

Sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. No work was to be done. And the Sabbath was a time that was consecrated to the Lord.

He says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. To keep it holy. That word holy, one of the meanings of the word holy is that something is set apart.

God is holy because he is altogether different from us. But one of the things that was true of holy things in the Old Testament, we’ve talked some recently about the sacrifices. Once something was given as an offering to God, it was consecrated, it was holy, it could no longer be taken back for common use.

You know, if you offered a sacrifice, especially a burnt offering, they were going to burn that on the altar, it was there as a thing to honor God you couldn’t just necessarily take all that back and say now we’re going to eat like kings now there were some provisions in the law where they were given give some of the meat back give some of the meat to the priests but in general you aren’t just going to throw a barbecue and say we take it back now we’ve used it to honor God now we’re going to use it for what we want now once you gave something to God it was his and if you were going to use it at all, you could only use it for the purpose that he set it aside for. Now, to consecrate this day says this belongs to God, and it’s for his purposes. It is a day of whatever he says, and we don’t take it back and use it for just the things that we want to do.

Because, again, it was a day not just of rest, but a day of resting, I think, in God’s presence, resting in him. That’s going to be very important when we look at the New Testament considerations about the Sabbath day, resting in him. The Sabbath was not just rest, it was about resting in him.

So the Sabbath was consecrated to the Lord. He said, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy there in verse 8. And all of this was a picture of what was to come.

It was made as a picture of what was to come, ultimately. Yes, it served a purpose in the Old Testament times, but we look at it backwards from the New Testament and we see that it was a picture of things to come. A couple of things that we need to look at tonight as far as the New Testament perspective on the Sabbath is, first of all, Colossians chapter 2.

If you’d like to turn with me there, you’re welcome to. Colossians chapter 2, verses 16 and 17, it says, So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come. That’s not just Jared’s opinion that the Sabbath represented something else that was to come.

That’s what the Apostle Paul said to the church at Colossae, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Sabbath and all these other things were shadows of things to come. The law about the foods, what was clean and what was unclean, The festivals, the Passover, the Sabbath, all of these things, he says, are shadows of things to come, but the substance is Christ. These Old Testament things were the shadow, and the substance behind that shadow is Christ. And there’s nothing wrong, you know what, if you take a personal Sabbath every week, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s not what he’s saying.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a Sabbath. If you want to celebrate the Passover and remember what God did, not only bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, but also in giving us his Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, for the remission of our sins. If you want to celebrate the Passover in commemoration of those things, there’s nothing wrong with it.

But we’ve got to realize these things are not a ceremonial obligation any longer. These things have nothing to do with our standing before God. those were things that pointed ahead to Jesus Christ. And now that Christ has come, we’re not obligated to follow the ceremonial aspects of the law.

Now, I said this morning, talking about the law, we don’t just throw the law completely aside. We don’t just throw aside everything the Old Testament says and treat it like it doesn’t matter. It does matter immensely.

but first of all we don’t look for our salvation to the laws taught in the Old Testament. We realize that the law taught in the Old Testament was there to show us that we are sinners because it was there to say you must be this holy to ride this ride and for us to realize we’re way short of that standard. The law was there to show us our sin.

So we don’t look to the law as a means of salvation and we look primarily to the New Testament to see what it is to live in light of what Jesus has done. Now, I think for us to really understand the New Testament, we have to go back and consult the Old. Just like to get a full picture of the Old, we need the New.

We take God’s Word all together. But we keep in mind that a lot of these laws and things have been fulfilled. Well, the whole law, the demands of the law have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And that would include the Sabbath.

You see, for a lot of the things mentioned in God’s moral law, a lot of the things mentioned in the Ten Commandments are reiterated or clarified in the New Testament. The keeping of the Sabbath is not one that it says in the New Testament, continue to keep the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, when Jesus talks about the Sabbath, when he clarifies about the Sabbath, he says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Because the Pharisees had in mind that they were there and one of their primary duties was keeping these rules and all these things. And Jesus says, no, you don’t exist to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath exists for you.

It exists for your benefit. And the Sabbath of taking that time to rest in God is for our benefit. It’s for our benefit.

It’s for our good. In Romans chapter 14, Romans chapter 14, verses 5 and 6, it says, One person esteems one day above another, another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

He who observes the day observes it to the Lord, and he who does not observe the day to the Lord, he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks, and he who does not eat to the Lord, he does not eat and gives God thanks. And this is important for us to understand because in the earliest days of Christianity, there were people from a Greek background and there were people from a Jewish background.

And they obviously had different values coming into the church. They were saved by Christ. They were saved through the same gospel. But they came bearing different backgrounds, different values, and they were hung up on different things.

They were bothered by different things. So the Greeks might be offended when the Jews did certain things, which they had every right to do as Christians. And the Jews might be offended when the Greeks did certain things that they had every right to do as Christians because of their backgrounds, because these things offended their cultural sensibilities.

And Paul was saying here, you know, one person celebrates this day or this holiday. Somebody celebrates this over here. Somebody doesn’t celebrate any holidays.

So what? If this guy’s over here celebrating Passover, and he’s celebrating it to the glory of Jesus Christ, let him do it. This guy says there is no more Passover, and he celebrates every day as the day the Lord has made, and he celebrates every day to the glory of Jesus Christ, let him do it.

Some people are eating certain things, and they give God thanks for what they eat, and others abstain from eating it all, and they give God thanks in their abstention. let them do it and don’t judge each other over that. Now we’re also taught though we’re taught in this passage don’t judge the other for what they’re doing.

Now there are things that are sinful that’s not what this is talking about this is talking about our cultural sensitivities okay you know it I remember going to Mexico for the first time and I didn’t really understand this and it really bothered me that the church we went down there with was, they didn’t have church on Sunday morning, they went to the market because Sunday morning was market day and they had church on Sunday night and that bothered me why? they were still coming together on Sunday and worshiping Jesus Christ, it was my cultural sensibility that says oh no, we have to worship at this time on Sunday that wasn’t anything sinful they were doing they were just defending my cultural sensitivities and then I realized I needed to get over that because there were more important things. So he’s not talking about, oh, just let each other sin and who are you to judge.

Oh, he’s saying you’re coming from different backgrounds and you celebrate this and you don’t celebrate that. You know, it would be like we get together and say we’ve got people who come from an independent Baptist background and they wear the long denim skirts and I’m not making fun of anybody. I come from that kind of church.

They wear the long denim skirts and the long hair and carry a certain kind of Bible. And some people might look at that and say, well, they’re kind of a throwback. That’s kind of weird.

Don’t judge them in that. If they’re doing it to the glory of Jesus Christ, let them do it. And others of us come and we read out of a different version and maybe the women are wearing pants and you know what?

They’re not supposed to judge us either. That’s what he’s talking about. Don’t get wrapped up in these cultural things.

and what we’re reminded of is some people were celebrating the Sabbath still some were not and it wasn’t anything they were supposed to get hung up on when Jesus talked about the Sabbath he said the Sabbath is made for man not man for the Sabbath these things are just a picture an Old Testament picture of a New Testament reality that’s fulfilled in Jesus Christ and is no longer an obligation again if you want to keep the Sabbath go for it I know some folks who keep the Sabbath. They are Christians. They believe in Jesus as their Messiah, but they keep the Sabbath.

They observe Passover. They don’t observe Christmas. And one of them said something to me one time about other Christians judging them for that.

And I quoted these two verses, and I said, you know what? It’s not a sin either way. You celebrate the Passover.

I celebrate Christmas. You want to worship on Saturday? I feel led to worship on Sunday.

if we’re doing it to the glory of Jesus Christ, go on with it. And we’re on the same team because all of these things are a picture of what was to come. And we’re at liberty in Christ. And here is ultimately for us, here’s ultimately for us the significance of the Sabbath.

Remember I said the Sabbath was a day to rest in God, to rest in God’s presence. There are people that want to make it out to be a worship thing. Even the Seventh-day Adventists will tell us that we’re siding with Catholicism because we worship on Sunday instead of Saturday.

We should keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath, according to this commandment in the Fourth Commandment, says nothing about worship. It says nothing about a day of gathering for worship.

It was a day of rest. Now, there are other things that we see in the Scriptures where worship goes along. It had nothing to do with corporate worship, getting together to worship. It was about resting in God.

Everything about this Sabbath comes back to resting in him. And so we look at Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews, if you want to see the relationship, I know we spent some time studying through the book of Hebrews last year.

Not every verse, but we covered big chunks of it. If you want to understand the relationship between the Old Testament and Jesus Christ, you could spend the rest of your life digging into the richness that is the book of Hebrews. But in chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, it says, There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

There is still a rest for God’s people. Even in the New Testament times, there is a, if you want to use the word Sabbath there, because the Sabbath is resting in God, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. Not that we are obligated to follow the Sabbath, says in verse 10, for he who has entered into his rest has also ceased from his works as God did from his.

And you look at this chapter, I feel like I’ve left a verse out of my notes that I intended to put in there, so let me open it up here. When you read the fullness of Hebrews chapter 4, what you’ll see is that he’s talking about this Sabbath rest, and the Sabbath rest that he’s referring to for us is Jesus Christ. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

You read the whole chapter and you see that he’s talking about Jesus Christ being the Sabbath rest. And our rest being in him. Our rest does not come from the fact that we take off work between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. Our rest from our labors comes from the fact that Jesus Christ has fulfilled all the obligations of the law.

because you and I, where they were going to wear themselves out trying to earn more, trying to get more, and they needed to take a rest and rest in God, so we could have just as easily worn ourselves out trying to work, trying to follow the law, which was impossible for us to begin with, to follow the law, to keep all the ordinances, to never succeed, to always fall short, and keep trying and wear ourselves out trying to keep this law, and instead we are told to cease from our labors and come into God’s Sabbath rest who is Jesus Christ. Why? Because he has fulfilled all the demands of the law for us and he says rest in me. Jesus himself said come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. And he told us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Now that doesn’t mean that you follow Christ and suddenly everything in the world becomes easy for you. What that means is we are no longer bound under these obligations of the law. We don’t look at God’s law and say, man, if I could just work harder, if I could just be good enough, then God would love me, then God would accept me.

If I could just do all these things perfectly, then I’d have a relationship with God. We can’t. And we will wear ourselves out.

We will kill ourselves trying. And instead of that, Jesus says, I’ve fulfilled all the law for you. You don’t have enough righteousness to fulfill the law.

I’ve given you my righteousness. I’ve fulfilled the law for you. Come and rest in me.

Come and rest in me. He is our Sabbath rest. And he is what the Sabbath rest was a picture of. Because for thousands of years, men labored under the misapprehension that if they could just do enough, that God would somehow love them.

Not realizing they could never do enough. There are still people today who think, if I could just do enough, If I could just get my life together, God would love me. You can’t get your life together enough to earn God’s love or acceptance.

That’s why Jesus fulfilled the demands of the law and its righteousness for you. He takes your sin and he’s punished in our place. He was punished for our sins on the cross.

He bore our sins in full on the cross so that our slate can be wiped clean, so that our sins could be forgiven, and his righteousness, which we did not have, could be given to us. The greatest transaction in history. He took our sins and gave us his infinite righteousness.

And now he says, come and rest in me. You want to keep a Sabbath? Hey, I think we all need rest. You want to take some time apart every week to rest in God and be alone with him?

Great, do it. As a matter of fact, you want to observe the Passover. do it.

Just realize we’re called to rest in Jesus Christ. Our rest doesn’t come from that day a week. Our rest and our ceasing from our labors comes from the fact that He has done it all on the cross.