The Wounds of Violating the Sabbath
Notes
Transcript
Of all of the Ten Commandments, the Fourth Commandment has created more debate and confusion among Christians. I struggled greatly this week in how I would preach this sermon. It has gone through several revisions and the sermon I am preaching this morning was written yesterday morning. As a result, our Scripture lessons will be slightly altered.
As I thought about why there is so much confusion and debate about the Fourth Commandment, I concluded that it is primarily caused by our failure to appreciate how God’s revelation progresses over time. This is especially true of the Fourth Commandment, because this commandment to God’s redemptive work. In the book of Hebrews, we learn that the believer’s final state of glorification in the New Heavens and New Earth is a “Sabbath rest” (Hebrews 4.9). In other words, the Sabbath points to our final salvation!
God’s revelation of this promised rest began, not at Mount Sinai, but in the Garden of Eden. Our first Scripture lesson comes from Genesis 2:1-3.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
Here we learn that the Sabbath is the culmination of the Creation week. It is one day in seven, set aside to reflect on God’s glorious reign over all of creation. When the Bible speaks of “Sabbath rest” it is not referring to taking a nap, doing a recreational activity or sitting quietly. It is talking about setting aside time for the glorification and enjoyment of God. The daily activities of life, be it work or play, tend to crowd out God. God commands us to keep and honor the Sabbath, because we need to carve out time just for Him.
Think of it like a husband and wife going on a “date.” On the surface, it seem ridiculous. Are not husbands and wives always together? However, anyone who has been married knows that the day-to-day actives of life have a way of robbing love and intimacy from a marriage. Only by stopping and carving out time for each other is a couple able to maintain love and intimacy. The same is true with God.
The next step in God’s progressive revelation is the Law of Moses given at Mount Sinai. Please turn with me to Exodus 20:8-11:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 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. For in six days the Lord made heaven and 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.
Here we find restrictions added to Sabbath keeping, under the Old covenant God commanded the people not to work, but what is work? This is where the big debate is. In one of the churches I served, a member told me that when they were growing up they could not uses scissors to cut out paper dolls on Sunday! This same type of confusion was evident at the time of Jesus. Our next lesson comes from Luke 6:1-11
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
The most important thing I want to point out to you from this passage is that Jesus said He is , “Lord of the Sabbath.” As the second member of the God Head, He is the one who gave Moses the Ten Commandments. His authority and His interpretation of the meaning of the Sabbath trumps all others! According to Jesus the Sabbath is for doing good and saving lives. On another occasion Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)
In other words, the Sabbath is a time carved out each week for the enjoyment and worship of God, but also for serving our fellow man, especially for those who are “of the household of faith”. We see this reflected in Hebrews 10:24-25.
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
The finally stop in our review of redemptive history as it relates to the Fourth Commandment is Colossians 2:16-17.
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Here I want you to notice that all of the ceremonial and civil laws found in the Old Covenant were but shadows pointing to a greater reality and that greater reality is Jesus Christ!
If a person is standing behind a building so that you can only see there shadow, what do you see? Well, you can clearly see that a person is there. You might even be able to tell if that person is tall or short, fat or skinny, a man or a woman, but you would not be able to see the person themselves until they walked from behind the wall.
When Jesus came to this earth, we walked from behind the wall!
Therefore, what does this mean for us to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” under the New Covenant?
First, it means we must find our rest in Jesus.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Our sin nature is “restless” in its attempt to rebel against Christ and to establish our own righteousness. We speak of “making Jesus our Lord and Savior,” but what does this really mean?
It means we “Sabbath” in Christ. The root meaning of Sabbath is “cessation.” We stop in our sin and rebellion against the King of kings and we stop in our attempts to win our own salvation.
Second, we recognize that Christ already inaugurated His Kingdom Reign. When Jesus rose from the dead, a New Age had dawned. The eternal Sabbath had begun. This is why we see in the pages of the New Testament, the early church observed Sunday, not Saturday as the day of rest, calling it the “Lord’s Day.” The one day in seven principle still stands; we still need to carve out time for God.
Let me close with this: God knows our hearts better than we do. You may think you do not need to carve out one day in seven for God. You may say to yourself, “I can worship God anywhere and at any time.” This is true, but the reality is we will not unless we give God our first and our best. Sabbath keeping is like tithing. Concerning tithing, God says this:
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
Sabbath keeping and tithing take trust. You are giving up a lot when you give God one day in seven or when you are giving God one tenth of your income. Our human minds see Sabbath keeping and tithing as the path to loss, not blessing. How little our natural minds know! Jesus is the one who was able to take five loaves and two fish and multiplied them so much that He fed a multitude! Do you not realize He can take your time and money and multiply them as well?
The fact that we find it so difficult to trust God enough to keep the Sabbath shows how deeply sin is ingrained in our heart, but the Good News of this series is that Jesus took our sin upon Himself so that we might be healed!
I do not want you to leave here this morning discouraged, but encouraged—Jesus is the substance of the Sabbath. Come to Him you who are burdened and heavy laden, and He will give you rest!
Let us pray.