Remember the Sabbath Day, Part 3

[0:00] Exodus chapter 20, you got Genesis and then Exodus.! We're going to be looking at the fourth commandment today.! Also, another book of the Bible, if you want to kind of prepare, we'll be spending some time, is the book of Hebrews.

[0:18] Hebrews. That's pretty close, getting close to the end of your Bible. All right. So we are in a series here on the Ten Commandments.

[0:33] We're on the fourth commandment. In fact, this is message number three on the fourth commandment. And so far, we've only spent one message on the first three. And I imagine that might be a pattern for the next commandments as well.

[0:48] But why are we spending so much time on the fourth commandment? Well, as I've said before, it does tend to be the most controversial one, the one that causes the most confusion or dispute, I guess, among Christians.

[1:07] But one of the things that we've done through this whole series is to kind of set up the perspective that we have when it comes to the Ten Commandments in particular. But then the law of Moses in general.

[1:20] So I want to remind us of the perspective that we're taking. One is that we are not under the law, but we're under grace, just like that memory verse says.

[1:33] The law does not have any power over us as Christians to condemn us. Now, it had that power when the law was in effect under Moses.

[1:45] But for those of us under grace, it does not have the power to make us righteous, and it doesn't have the power to make us unrighteous. Our righteousness is in Christ.

[1:58] Yet at the same time, the other thing we need to keep in mind is that the law is good. It was good during the time of Moses and during the time of Israel's Old Covenant, and it is still good today.

[2:12] And it's good for us to read it, to understand it, to study from it. It also sets proper boundaries for how we ought to live our life. And in some instances, it will teach us more than just morality.

[2:29] Because as we looked at in some of our first messages, some parts of the law have to do with morality, fundamental right and wrong. But there are other parts of the law, like this fourth commandment, that are more ceremonial.

[2:43] They're ritualistic. And they have something to teach us, though not necessarily about fundamental right or wrong. Let's go ahead and we're going to read this fourth commandment again.

[2:54] This is from Exodus chapter 20. And we'll start in verse 8. It says again, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work.

[3:07] But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. You, 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.

[3:22] 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 he hollowed it.

[3:34] Hollowed just means to make holy or to set it apart. The last few weeks, just a quick overview of what we've looked at the last couple of weeks here regarding the Sabbath day.

[3:50] The first thing that we did was look at just explaining, well, what is this Sabbath all about? It's not a day of worship, or it was not for the Jews anyway, but a day of rest, a day in which they were to stop doing any kind of labor.

[4:07] It wasn't just any day of the week, it was specifically the last day of the week. It wasn't something that was just a recommendation, by the way. This was part of the law of Moses.

[4:18] And along with the commandment actually came punishments for those who did not keep this law of the Sabbath. And even, and we find this in one specific account, the death penalty was involved for those who did not keep this Sabbath day.

[4:36] And it was not just for some people, just the heads of the household. It was for all of their children. It was for their servants. It was even for the strangers who were living in Israel, the foreigners.

[4:51] And not only just for people, but even for the animals. Those animals of labor who would plow the fields and other forms of labor. Even the animals were to rest on the Sabbath day.

[5:06] We looked at four, the four main views that Christians have regarding the Sabbath. The first one we looked at is called seven day, or excuse me, seventh day Sabbatarianism.

[5:22] Those who believe that Christians today ought to keep the Sabbath as it is in the law, maybe with some modifications, but generally as it is in the law, and should keep it on the seventh day, which is exactly what we read here, right?

[5:36] On the last day of the week. The other view is that Christians ought to keep a Sabbath day, but not on the seventh day of the week, but after Jesus rose from the dead, and he rose, what?

[5:48] On the first day of the week, that there has been a change in which Christians ought to keep a Sabbath day on the first day of the week instead of the last. The third view is that the Sabbath is not something that is required for Christians, but there is a special day of the week that some people call the Lord's Day, a Sunday in which Christians ought to gather and worship the Lord on that specific day of the week.

[6:20] And then the fourth view, I'm calling the freedom in Christ view. That there is no requirement for Christians today on any particular pattern of rest that they must keep, or any pattern or specific day of worship, even, that they must keep.

[6:39] And we're going to look more into that particular one today. So why would we teach that? And so we looked at that in detail, but just a quick summary again.

[6:50] Why should Christians not observe the Sabbath? One, it was established under Moses. Even though there is a reference back to the creation, there is no indication at all in the Bible that anyone observed a Sabbath day until it was implemented during the time of Moses, after they exited from Egypt.

[7:11] Also, in the law, and we read this verse, I can't remember if it was in Exodus or Deuteronomy, it specifically says that the Sabbath day was meant to be a sign of the covenant between God and the people of Israel.

[7:27] It was specifically something that was to be a sign of their covenant with God. Also, this is, like I said earlier, a ceremonial law and not a moral one.

[7:40] It's not something that has to do with fundamental morality. And then finally, and maybe most importantly, for us anyway, as believers in what some people call or what the Bible refers to as the dispensation of the grace of God, this age of grace in which we live in, Paul tells the different churches in a couple of different places, Colossians, and I believe the other one is Ephesians, that we are not to observe special days, special holy days.

[8:20] Yet at the same time, even though as Christians we are not under the law, we are not required to observe any holy days, the whole concept of the Sabbath does teach us something about the created order.

[8:35] When we look back to the creation that God created and did work for six days and on the seventh day he rested, that God designed us as human beings not to work like robots do 24-7.

[8:49] And by the way, robots are coming. Anybody paying attention to all the things going on in the news? The robots are coming and they can work 24-7, right? As long as you charge their batteries, I guess. But for human beings, God did not design us to just work, work, work, work, work.

[9:05] He designed us to need rest. And so we should learn that from the Sabbath commandment. And these Ten Commandments and all of the Old Testament is meant for us to learn things.

[9:22] Romans 15-4 says this, For whatever things were written before were written for our learning. We ought to learn from them and make sure that we learn the right lessons, right?

[9:32] Not the wrong ones. Today we're going to look and we're going to finish up this whole three parts on the Sabbath. We're going to look at two additional things.

[9:42] One, is the Sabbath a day of worship? Is the Sabbath a day in which we should worship? And then the second thing that we'll look at is what can the Sabbath teach us about not just physical rest, but about spiritual rest?

[10:01] So let's start with weekly worship. You know, Christians for 2,000 years have traditionally gathered on Sundays for worship services.

[10:16] And my question is, is that biblical? Is there some place in the Bible that teaches that Christians ought to worship God on Sunday or on Saturday or on some other day of the week?

[10:31] And between Saturday and Sunday, right, those are the two disputed days usually. Which one is more biblical? Well, if we go back to actually looking at Sabbath practice, and I mentioned this at the very beginning, the original Sabbath law had nothing to do with a day of worship.

[10:48] It was a day of what? Of rest. And so the Jews would spend that time maybe with their family, maybe they might go visit a friend, but it was not a time where they would go to some kind of a building and sing songs together or read scriptures.

[11:06] That's not what it was about. Worship for the Jews was actually something that was relegated to the tabernacle or the temple sacrificial system.

[11:19] Worship had to do with offering sacrifices to God. And those gatherings, by the way, were limited to just certain seasons of the year. Feasts and festivals and other holy days in which the people would travel to the tabernacle or the temple and offer their sacrifices.

[11:38] That was what worship looked like for the Jews. Now, but, one thing that we do see as we get into the New Testament and specifically in the Gospels, we see that there's this new concept, this new idea that we don't find in the Old Testament and it's this building called a synagogue.

[12:00] Most of us are familiar with synagogues because we still have them today. They're a place that Jews will go, right, to have service, to have a gathering of some kind and they do that usually on the last day of the week, on their Sabbath day.

[12:16] And so, between the time of the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament, there was this tradition that started of the synagogue.

[12:28] And the people of Israel had actually been scattered across much of the world at that time, that region anyway. And because they were among a foreign people, they would take opportunities to gather just a group of Jews and so people would build these buildings called synagogues and they'd meet at them for prayer and scripture reading on a regular basis.

[12:54] And so, this became a custom, not a commandment, but a custom. And this was a custom actually that Jesus himself followed. I'll read here from Luke chapter 4, verse 16, it says this, talking about Jesus.

[13:07] So, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. This was Jesus' custom and why was it Jesus' custom?

[13:22] Well, it was because it was his parents' custom and it was a custom of many of the people at that time. But again, notice, this is not a commandment. Nowhere in any of the scriptures, Old or New Testament, was it commanded that the Jews should meet on any kind of weekly basis on any particular day in a building called a synagogue.

[13:45] But it did become a custom. Then, after Jesus died and he rose from the grave on the first day of the week, this custom that the Jews had continued among the Christians except instead of meeting on that last day of the week, the Christians began meeting regularly on the first day of the week.

[14:07] And we actually see this recorded in a couple of places in the New Testament. In the book of Acts, chapter 20, verse 7, here's what it says. Now, on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

[14:28] So, they would meet regularly on the first day of the week. and it sounds like they would have evening services as well way late into the night.

[14:39] We don't have evening services at this church but many churches do. And then there's also just a reference here in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. It says this, 1 Corinthians 16, verse 1.

[14:51] Now, concerning the collection for the saints, Paul was writing a letter and he wanted to prepare them to receive a collection for the saints in Jerusalem.

[15:04] And he says this, As I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also. On the first day of the week, let each one of you lay something aside storing up as he may prosper, that there may be no collections when I come.

[15:20] He says, I don't want you to take up the collection while I'm there. I want you to do it beforehand. And he mentions the first day of the week. Well, why do this on the first day of the week? Because that was their tradition to get together on the first day of the week.

[15:33] Now, this is all we have. Just these two verses that reference not a prescription on what ought to be done, but simply a description of what the believers did in the early part of the church.

[15:52] So, my question based on this data that I just shared with you, should Christians worship on Sunday? And the answer is yes, Christians should worship on Sunday, but also on Saturday, and also on Monday, and also on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, and on Friday.

[16:22] Christians ought to worship every single day of the week. You know, I've heard for some people who promote Sabbath keeping among Christians, they'll say something like this, that, you know, as a Christian, we ought to give God at least one day out of our week.

[16:46] we ought to give the Lord one day out of seven in our week. And that sounds very good, but you know, that's not true. What we ought to give God is seven days out of seven in our week, not just one.

[17:03] But you know, this whole idea of the Sabbath even being a day that we give to God is not biblical. It's not biblical now. It wasn't even biblical under the law.

[17:15] Because the Sabbath day was not something that God designed would be a gift that man gives to God, but it's the opposite. The Sabbath day was a day that God gave to man.

[17:30] In fact, there was this dispute when Jesus was doing his ministry, and the Pharisees, who come up a lot and were always critical, they saw Jesus and his disciples and they were gleaning grain from the fields.

[17:44] They were hungry, it was the Sabbath day, and this was according to the law, it was legal to just grab some grain off the edges of the field, and what you would have to do when you grab that grain, you've got to get the, what do you call it, the stuff that's on the outer, yeah, the chaff, the outer little shell, and all you have to do is just rub it in your fingers and that's it, and it just comes off and you eat the grain.

[18:06] And the Pharisees criticized him. Look, you and your disciples are working on the Sabbath day. And Jesus wasn't having any of it. Now, Jesus was actually very careful to observe the Sabbath day according to the law.

[18:22] He actually, throughout his whole ministry, life and ministry, he upheld the law of Moses. But he took the time to educate them on what this law was all about. And he gave some examples.

[18:34] But here is a famous line that he said. He said this about the Sabbath. He says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God did not create the Sabbath as this holy day that men would just offer to the Lord.

[18:52] It was the opposite. This was a day in which God, now it was a commandment under the law and it was required, don't get me wrong, but the intention was that this is a day that God is gifting to man for him to rest from his weekly labor.

[19:11] But when it comes to our worship of God and what we give him and how we serve him, we do that seven days a week. At least we ought to. You know, there's a group out there, a denomination of sorts called the Seventh-day Adventists.

[19:27] They're actually pretty popular around here. The whole Kettering health system is actually started by or run by the Seventh-day Adventist church. And they're famous primarily because they worship on Saturday instead of Sunday like most other Christians.

[19:46] Whenever the subject of Seventh-day Adventism would come up in my family, I remember my dad, this is what he would always say. He would say, I'm not a Seventh-day Adventist, I'm a Seventh-day Adventist.

[20:00] Because that is what our Christian life is about, not just giving something to the Lord once a week, but we give the Lord our whole lives every single day of the week.

[20:17] But it really does cause confusion because I think of the terminology that we use. We will call this, what we're doing this morning, a worship service. And so people tend to think, well, Sundays is when you go to worship God.

[20:31] And it's a service, so that's the day in which we go and serve God. And where does that terminology come from anyway? Is it something that the New Testament uses for what we're doing this morning?

[20:41] You won't find that terminology used at all in the New Testament. So where does it come from? Well, it comes from the law, the law of Moses, in which the people would go to a temple and they would offer sacrifices in worship.

[20:56] And the priests, it was their job to serve in the temple. And so when we call this, what we're doing this morning, a worship service, we are bringing the Old Testament law into the church age.

[21:10] And we shouldn't do that. It causes confusion among people. And you know what? When we come together like this, we should worship the Lord, right?

[21:22] When we come together on Sunday mornings, we should serve the Lord. But not uniquely on Sunday morning. We should worship and serve the Lord every single day of the week.

[21:38] Back in the ministry of Jesus, he was, I remember he met that woman at the well, right? And she was, he had been married many times before, married and divorced and married and divorced, married and divorced, and then she was shacking up with a guy that she wasn't married to.

[21:54] She asked Jesus about what's the proper place to worship. There was this dispute among Israel, among the Jews, and the Samaritans, who were kind of half-Jews. And the Samaritans said, hey, this place where we live, that's the proper place to worship.

[22:07] But the Jews say, you have to go to Jerusalem. Jesus, you know, this man who she was talking to, who seemed to be a prophet, what say you? And he said, you know what, the Jews, they're right because that's what the law teaches, that you need to worship in Jerusalem.

[22:22] You can't just pick and choose wherever you want. It has to be Jerusalem. But then he followed up with something else. This is what he said. But the hour is coming, this is John chapter 4, verse 23, but the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

[22:43] For the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. So, Jesus was saying, hey, this is how things are under the law, but there's a day coming in the future, and by the way, we live in that future now, in which our worship is not in a specific location.

[23:06] Our worship is in spirit, in the Lord, and the Lord is where? Is he just in this building? Is he just in that other building with the steeple on it? No. He is everywhere.

[23:17] In fact, specifically the Bible says he lives in us, that we are the temple of God. In Romans chapter 12, verse 1, Paul is telling about what Christ did for us, and then he follows up with this beseechment in Romans 12.

[23:38] He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, in light of all that God has done for you, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

[23:50] That was the worship system in the temple, to offer lambs and goats as a sacrifice. He's saying, as Christians, as believers, God has done so much for us, we ought to offer up our whole lives as a sacrifice to him and worship to him, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

[24:11] And so, we shouldn't think that this is a worship service, but when I get home, there's no worship service. Our worship and our service to God is 24-7, day in and day out.

[24:26] Our whole life in service to God, our whole life a sacrifice of worship. So, if this is not a worship service, if that's not what the Bible calls it, then what is this that we're doing?

[24:41] Well, the two words that you see used in the New Testament about Christians getting together like this on a regular basis is called an assembly. In fact, that's what the word church itself means.

[24:56] It means the assembled ones or an assembly of people or a gathering. That might be the more common term we might use today.

[25:07] And so, my next question is, well, okay, so Christians aren't supposed to worship on Sunday. Well, what about should Christians gather on Sundays?

[25:21] And again, I just want to repeat this. The Bible just does not explicitly command anything about when Christians ought to gather.

[25:32] We just see really two things. One, a pattern, not a prescription, but just a pattern in the early church of meeting on Sundays. And then, two, there is an exhortation in the Bible, in the book of Hebrews, actually, about Christians getting together.

[25:51] Open up your Bible to the book of Hebrews. We're going to spend the rest of our time in there. And this is in Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. And it says this in verse 24, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.

[26:10] You know, as Christians, we are part of a family. We have our biological family, but then we have our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we ought to live as a family.

[26:21] We ought to stir one another up, to encourage one another, to love and good works, he says. And then he finishes up with this. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.

[26:41] You know, our Savior is coming. He's coming to take us home with him. And as we wait for that day, we ought to continue to live as a family, as a church family.

[26:55] You know, the family of the church is universal. It's global. We are all part of one another. But when you live in a particular geographical area, like Springfield, or whatever it might be, then it is appropriate and is good, and it is wise and it is healthy for those Christians in a particular locality to get together on a regular basis.

[27:20] Because if you don't see one another, how can you encourage one another? How can you stir one another up to love and good works? How can you exhort one another to do what is good and what is right and what is true?

[27:33] If you don't gather together on a regular basis. So local congregations should meet regularly. The earliest Christians, they met weekly, and specifically they met on the first day of the week, at least in the couple of examples that we have.

[27:54] The bottom line is, is that we ought to look at the principles and not try to create legalistic rules about how we do church.

[28:06] Meeting regularly is important. That is a principle that we ought to follow. It's an important principle. The day that you do it is less important.

[28:22] You know, Sundays are a very convenient day for Christians to gather. Sunday mornings in particular. And why is that? Well, just like the Jews created a custom where they would gather on that Sabbath day to meet in the synagogue for prayer and Bible reading, so too have Christians created a tradition or a custom that has lasted 2,000 years of gathering regularly on Sundays.

[28:50] And so because of that, it has been ingrained into our culture, especially those nations that have a Christian heritage or background. So for 2,000 years, we have this cultural tradition of meeting on Sundays.

[29:05] And so it's probably the most convenient time for Christians to gather. If we were to this morning announce that, you know what, we're not going to do Sundays anymore, we're going to do Tuesday mornings.

[29:18] That probably wouldn't work out very well, right? Because in our culture, we have people, a lot of people are working on Tuesday mornings, so they have other things planned because of how our world and our country works.

[29:32] Yet, Christians are free to choose when they gather. They can gather on any day, at whatever frequency. You can have one service a week, you can have three services a week, you can have ten services a week, if you'd like.

[29:48] You know, some people think that, and this has kind of become a pattern that I've seen among certain churches, you have Sunday morning service, and then Sunday night service, and then Wednesday night service.

[30:02] And man, if you don't show up to all three, you're probably backsliding. And you know what? That is just not a requirement that anybody, any Christian leader, should put on someone.

[30:17] They have to be at church on certain days. You know, when I was growing up, when I was in high school, we went to this church, we had just moved to the area, this is in Washington, and we went to this church called Lighthouse, and they didn't have their own building.

[30:29] So they rented a building from another church. But guess what? That church, they were using their building on Sunday morning, just like most churches do. And so they said, well, let's just meet on Saturday nights.

[30:43] And so they had Saturday night services every week for years until finally they were able to buy their own building, and then guess what? They changed to Sunday morning.

[30:54] Why? Just because it's more convenient, it's more traditional. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that church having their services on Saturday night.

[31:04] And you know what? When it comes to individual people, some people have jobs and work situations. I think about nurses and firemen and police and all kinds of different other things, military sometimes, where Sundays are just not a good day for you to go and gather with the people of God.

[31:23] So you might find another service, or maybe a Bible study that the church has, so that you can do that. Here's what I want everybody to walk away with. When it comes to these types of things, both rest, when we rest, and when we gather together, when we come to church and meet with God's people, that we have freedom.

[31:44] We have liberty. And what goes with that is the need for wisdom and how we express, how we use that freedom and liberty.

[31:55] You know, it's really easy if somebody just tells you, this is how much money you're supposed to give to church. And these are the days where you have to show up. And then you just do it because somebody told you.

[32:07] But one of the things that Paul points out to the Galatian people when he writes his letter to them is, you know what, that is like living as a child or a slave. And God does not want that from you. You tell slaves when they're supposed to start work, when they're supposed to end work, what time they're allowed to eat lunch.

[32:24] You do the same thing with young children. But God wants us to grow up, to use our liberty, the freedom that he has given us, and to use it wisely.

[32:37] And so when it comes to how we worship, how we gather together, how each individual family or individual person gathers, it's really up to that person or that family.

[32:52] But there are a lot of Christian leaders out there, pastors, who will put a guilt trip on the people in their congregation that they really need to show up to those services every single Sunday.

[33:09] And I understand why, right? You spend 10 hours preparing a sermon and then people don't show up. It's like, that's frustrating. And for a lot of pastors and leaders, the number of people that fill the seats is kind of an indication of how successful you are in your ministry.

[33:29] So if we can just, you know, tighten the screws a little bit on making people actually show up, that can help me feel a little bit more successful. But I'll tell you what.

[33:39] What is more important than my ego or the ego of any other leader is the freedom in Christ that God designed for every Christian to have.

[33:53] That is so much more important than anybody's ego. Our freedom in Christ that Jesus bled and died for so that we could live not under guilt and condemnation, but we could live a life of righteousness, peace, and joy in Him.

[34:14] Now, there is a warning, I guess, right? You have those, some people might say, well, if you don't tell people they have to go to church, then they might not show up, right?

[34:25] Some people, if they have the option, they're going to go fishing on Sunday morning. So what do you do about that? Well, it is important, right, to gather with the people of God.

[34:37] We can't judge people, and we shouldn't allow other people to judge us on the decisions that we make with our own wisdom. Somebody might not show up to church just because their week was rough, and you know what?

[34:49] They're not going to tell me all the details of what happened in their week, and the only opportunity that they have to release some pressure in their week is to, you know, maybe sleep in on that Sunday. And you know what?

[35:00] They have the freedom to do that. But at the same time, right, if we use our freedom, the Bible talks about, warns against this in Galatians, if we use our freedom only as an occasion for our flesh that we're always sleeping in every single morning, that's going to lead to an unhealthy life for us.

[35:21] And so it is good and it is proper to gather with the saints on a regular basis so that we can live a spiritually healthy life.

[35:32] Because if we don't do that, really for any reason, even if it's a good reason, if we don't gather regularly with the people of God, we will suffer spiritually and our spiritual health.

[35:43] Galatians 5.13, that verse that I mentioned, for you, brethren, have been called to liberty. This is what Paul says. Only do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

[36:00] Remember that going to church is not just about what you get. When we go to church, when we meet with other believers, whether it's in this building or another building or maybe in a restaurant, when we're gathering together with other believers, it really should be more about what we are giving than what we are getting.

[36:19] So we don't want to miss out both on what we receive, but also we don't want to miss out on what we give. And so for those who would call, just to kind of wrap this up about the whole Christian Sabbath thing, when we call this a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, what we are doing is we're actually undermining the grace of God.

[36:45] Why? Because we're taking the law and we're bringing it into the church, the body of Christ, where it was not intended. Again, we are under grace, not under the law.

[36:58] The Sabbath was good for the people of Israel because they were under an old covenant, but it was a symbol for them and not for us at a different time in history.

[37:11] Also, even calling Sunday the Lord's Day is incorrect. There's only one passage in the whole Bible that anybody will go to to say, oh, the Bible says that Sunday is the Lord's Day.

[37:23] The Bible nowhere says that Sunday is the Lord's Day. There's one reference in the book of Revelation to it says that John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. It doesn't say what day of the week it was. It doesn't say what that means, the Lord's Day.

[37:34] So people can kind of guess and people have assumed that that's talking about a Sunday. But again, what's the risk? Well, if you call Sunday the Lord's Day, well, what about the rest of the days of the week?

[37:46] They all belong to the Lord. All right. The last thing that I want to look at is what the Sabbath means in a spiritual sense.

[38:01] And this really is the most important thing that we can learn about the Sabbath. And really, it's about what it foreshadowed, what it taught about the future.

[38:13] The book of Hebrews, we've already kind of opened up to there, but the book of Hebrews is written to who? Anyone want to take a guess? The Hebrews, right? Yeah, Israel, the Jews.

[38:25] That's who it was written to. And it's really a book of warning to any Jews who have not yet accepted Christ as their Savior. And it talks a lot about how in the Old Testament, under the law, there were so many things, rituals, that pointed, they foreshadowed Christ, but they were not the real thing.

[38:48] And it was a warning not to stay stuck in the old system and miss the salvation that the old system pointed to. Back in Hebrews 10, verse 1, it says this, For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offered continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect.

[39:15] For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every single year.

[39:30] For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. You see, the sacrifices that were made in the temple by the priests, they were just symbolic. It was a type, it was a shadow of something future that was going to come, that was going to be the real thing.

[39:47] You have this innocent, spotless lamb that would die for the sins of Israel. And it wasn't sufficient because it was done every year because the people were reminded of their sins every year.

[40:06] It didn't actually cover their sins. But what it did do was it symbolized something in the future. The blood of an innocent, spotless Savior dying, not just for the sins of Israel, but for the sins of the world.

[40:28] But what or who did those things, those sacrificial things, point to? It pointed to a sacrifice, a lamb that was sufficient or that is sufficient.

[40:45] Go back one chapter, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11. It says this, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come.

[40:56] So those things that were to come, they arrived in a man named Jesus Christ. With a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

[41:15] Jesus did not, he was not sacrificed annually, every single year. He accomplished an eternal redemption for us. Once for all.

[41:28] He died once. He doesn't need to die many, many times. once for all of mankind. For if the blood of bulls and goats, the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sacrifices for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

[41:53] You see, this whole sacrificial system with its temple and priesthood and its altar and the calves and the lambs and the goats and the blood and the ashes and all the water rituals, all of it was just symbolic.

[42:06] But it pointed to something that was real, something that was to come, something that has come. Someone, Jesus Christ, who has come.

[42:19] But is it just those sacrificial things, the sacrificial worship, was it just those things that were symbolic?

[42:31] Was it just those things that foreshadow the reality of Christ coming? Well, Paul actually says, no, it's not just those things. In fact, there are other parts of the law that are a shadow of things to come and this is what he teaches in Colossians, a verse that we've looked at and related to the Sabbath.

[42:46] Here's what he said, Colossians 2.16, So let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

[43:00] Don't let people judge you. And don't you go judging other people about these things, about holy days. Back to Hebrews.

[43:12] Again, like I said, Hebrews is this warning not to neglect the salvation provided by Jesus Christ. And it's a warning because Paul saw many, many Jews do this.

[43:24] They neglected the salvation in Christ. And he gave this illustration to these Hebrews about when Israel was supposed to enter the promised land.

[43:36] Remember, in the book of Exodus there, they received the law, they go through the wilderness, they're supposed to enter into this promised land, this land that God promised. And they refused to go in. And why?

[43:47] Well, they didn't believe what God told them. It was because of their unbelief. They refused to believe that God could deliver on his promise to give them a land that they could find rest in.

[44:02] You know, eventually they did enter the promised land. It took a whole other generation. But Joshua took them across that Jordan River, remember? And then they encountered the people of the land first at Jericho, and those walls came tumbling down, and then they took over the whole land that was promised to them.

[44:21] But here's my question. Did they ever find the rest that God promised to them? Not really. Maybe small pockets of it here and there.

[44:34] But they actually continued throughout generations to fight with their enemies. And they never truly found or experienced that rest.

[44:45] If you go back a few chapters, Hebrews chapter 4, this is what the author of Hebrews, we don't know who it is for sure, says about that illustration. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 8.

[44:59] For if Joshua had given them rest, and by the way, that word that he's using is Shabbat. If Joshua had given them a Sabbath rest, then he would not afterward, talking about God by the way, God would not have afterwards spoken of another day, another day coming in which he would provide rest for his people.

[45:24] Verse 9, there remains therefore a rest or a Sabbath for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

[45:35] You see, back during the time of Israel, they had a Sabbath day to observe, but they had no real rest. Today, in Christ, us as believers, we have that rest in Jesus Christ, even though we don't have a Sabbath day observance.

[45:59] Why? Because Jesus is our rest. He is our Sabbath. We do not rest on a day, but we rest on a person, on the Lord.

[46:15] We rest in Christ. And what do we rest from? Is it all of our labor and toil in this, of trying to eke out a living for our families?

[46:25] Jesus? Here's what he says in verse 10 that we just read. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

[46:38] We cease from our good works trying to earn our way into God's favor. We can stop trying to work to earn favor with God. We can stop trying to work to merit peace with God.

[46:52] We can stop working to try to earn our own righteousness. Here's what Paul says in Romans 10 4. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.

[47:08] The work can end. And we can just rest in Christ and the salvation that he provided. And we ought to do that.

[47:18] We ought to do that in the sense of salvation salvation. You know, if you're not a believer what you ought to do is look to Christ. This is what Christianity is all about.

[47:28] It's not about working your way into God's good graces. It's not climbing some laborious stairway to heaven. The Bible says that heaven came down to us. And all you have to do is believe his promise that what Jesus accomplished for you is sufficient to receive that gift that he provides for us.

[47:49] Not to ignore it. And then for believers, for those of us who've been believers for a year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, to remember to stop putting too much into what we are doing for the Lord or what we're not doing for the Lord.

[48:13] But to simply rest in Christ. You know, back to Romans 14, Paul's discussing in Romans 14, there's these Christians and then there's these weaker Christians.

[48:27] And I think he's talking about some Jewish believers who are still keeping the law. And Paul's talking about, well, how do you relate to each other? You know, you don't want to, like, offend people unnecessarily. But he makes clear that, hey, as Christians, we don't need to keep the law anymore.

[48:46] At the end of it, he says this, Romans 14, 17, for the kingdom of God is not in eating or in drinking. You could also add in days of worship or holy days or sacrificial systems or any of those things.

[49:03] But here's what he says that the kingdom of God is. But it's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is what Christianity is all about.

[49:15] It's about righteousness. Not something that we earn or work for, but a righteousness that was gifted to us, that was imputed or accounted to us through the blood of Christ.

[49:28] A righteousness that we can rest in. It's about peace, a peace that we have with God. We are no longer enemies of his. We are his friends and his family.

[49:41] And we can rest in him. And that's about joy. The joy that we can have in knowing him. We can rejoice in the Lord each and every day.

[49:54] We can enjoy him. We can enjoy our relationship with him. We can enjoy our righteousness. We can enjoy our peace.

[50:05] We can enjoy our salvation. salvation. And we can rest in him. Because that's what he wants for us to do. Amen? Amen. Amen.

[50:16] Let's end in a word of prayer. Father, as whoever the author of Hebrews warned to the Hebrew people to not neglect this great salvation, for those of us who have already received Christ, there's so much temptation to go back to focusing on what we can do for the Lord.

[50:39] Help us, Father, to enjoy the liberty that you gave us, to enjoy the rest that you gave us, where we can rest in the righteousness, not our own righteousness, but the righteousness that you gave us.

[50:53] to rest in the peace, not a peace that we earned through good works, but a peace that you gave us as a gift, to ultimately rest in you. And Father, help us to just enjoy you and our relationship with you each and every day, to wake up every morning smiling, thanking you for all that you've done for us, singing to you, letting you know how much we love you every day.

[51:18] Help us to do that in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Alright. Thanks everybody.