John - Cross Referenced / Sabbath

Good evening

Introduce Topic

Sabbath

So, do you all think that we should observe the Sabbath today?

Do you think we are commanded to observe the sabbath today?

Text

First scripture of the evening

will be

This is where the sabbath is first introduced

Now, I am curious about what you all think

Was there a sabbath before the Exodus?

Or was one commanded I should say

Exodus 20:8–11 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.”

So, to answer the question about a sabbath before the Exodus we must say no

no there wasn’t

God gave us an example of the sabbath in Genesis 2:3 as a form of foreshadowing

But the sabbath is not commanded until Moses gives the 10 commandments here

No where in scripture from Adam to Moses

is there a sabbath observed by the Israelites before this

Moving on

Now we see sabbath requirements in other places in the book of Exodus

but it isn’t fully explained the reason why

until Moses restates the 10 commandments for the next generation of Israelites

Deuteronomy 5:12–15 “Be careful to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you. You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey, any of your livestock, or the resident alien who lives within your city gates, so that your male and female slaves may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

Id like to point out this is the only commandment that says “remember”

So why did God give the Sabbath to the Israelites?

Not so that they would remember creation

although that was part of the example

But so that they would remember their slavery

their captivity

and then remember the Lord’s deliverance from that

To remember their back breaking labors in Egypt

as opposed to the rest that the Lord provided

One of the big things was that

God would give them manna every day

however if they took too much or saved it

it would rot our get maggot infested

except, on the sabbath

on the 6th day God would provide enough to cover the 7th day and on that 7th day

the manna would still be good

Just as an example of how God provided for them

So, to keep the sabbath holy was defined as not working on the Sabbath

So reasonably speaking the sabbath day is a rest to remember all that God did for them as he delivered them from

slavery and provided for them

Some ways they were commanded to do this were

they could not leave their homes

Exodus 16:29 “Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.””

He could not build a fire

Exodus 35:3 “Do not light a fire in any of your homes on the Sabbath day.””

He could not cause anyone else to work

Deuteronomy 5:14 “but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey, any of your livestock, or the resident alien who lives within your city gates, so that your male and female slaves may rest as you do.”

And in fact, an Israelite that was found to breaking the sabbath was

to be put to death

Exodus 31:15 “Work may be done for six days, but on the seventh day there must be a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord. Anyone who does work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.”

Numbers 15:32–35 “While the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the entire community. They placed him in custody because it had not been decided what should be done to him. Then the Lord told Moses, “The man is to be put to death. The entire community is to stone him outside the camp.””

So to say the Sabbath is a sacred and holy thing is a true statement

The sabbath was in fact a covenant between God and the people of Israel

And this is part of the reason why the Jews were so serious about observing it

And I cant argue with them

But, God did not create the sabbath to be a burden

it was to be a day of rest

a day remembrance

which is exactly what the Jews stopped doing with it

as they began to legalize it

and place heavy burdens on others

as a sense of power or authority

over them

This is one of the reasons Jesus did so many works on the sabbath

not only to show them that they had misinterpreted the law

So when Jesus performed good things on the sabbath he was applying

God principle of desiring mercy and not sacrifice’

We find that example in Matthew 12:7 12:11 as he refers back to Hosea 6:6 “For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Lets look at some examples of Jesus healing on the sabbath

1. Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in Peter’s home (Mark 1:29–31).

2. A man with a withered hand in the synagogue (Mark 3:1–6).

3. A man born blind in Jerusalem (John 9:1–16).

4. A crippled woman in a synagogue (Luke 13:10–17).

5. A man with dropsy at a Pharisee’s house (Luke 14:1–6).

6. A demon-possessed man in Capernaum (Mark 1:21–28).

7. A lame man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–18).

Now whenever Jesus would heal someone publically on the sabbath the Pharisees would accuse him of breaking this very law

as we saw this morning

So did Jesus break the Sabbath Law

No,

although he did act against their

interpretation of the law

and when he did that they could not stand it

See Jesus healed on the sabbath to

1 Help people

2 Glorify God

3 remind people that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath (Mark 2:27)

So, how should we apply that to today

Lets look at a couple of questions

First

when is the sabbath day?

is it Saturday or Sunday?

or is it no day now that we are under the new covenant?

So, for the Jews, the sabbath is still performed on Saturday, which is the 7th day

It actually starts for them on sundown friday evening

and goes until sundown on saturday evening

But… for us Christians we most often refer to the sabbath as Sunday right?

Well, what if I told you

That now that we are under the New Covenant,

as it was established by the death and resurrection of Christ

That the bible nowhere describes Christians setting aside the Sabbath day as the day of worship

In fact, the only scripture that describes Christians in any sense meeting or gathering on the sabbath

is when they are evangelizing at the synagogues

which obviously met on the Jewish sabbath

Now, traditionally

we worship on the first day of the week

not on the sabbath

which is again Saturday

we instead worship on Sunday

but no where are we commanded to do so specifically on the first day of the week

So why do we worship on Sundays?

well Christ was resurrected on the first day of the week

which occured on a Sunday

Matthew 28:1 “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb.”

Mark 16:2 “Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise.”

Luke 24:1 “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared.”

John 20:1 “On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”

So we observe and worship God on the first day of the week because that is when he rose from the dead

and conquered sin for all of us

I do want to make a point here of saying that Sunday is not the commanded day of corporate worship either

There is no Biblical command that we worship on Saturday or Sunday

Romans 14:5–6“One person judges one day to be more important than another day. Someone else judges every day to be the same. Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind. Whoever observes the day, observes it for the honor of the Lord. Whoever eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; and whoever does not eat, it is for the Lord that he does not eat it, and he gives thanks to God.”

sometimes I have to work on sundays

as many of you who worked shift work did

was that wrong?

no

Colossians 2:16 “Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.”

Here are 4 important points concerning the sabbath in the NT

which I believe we have already covered a few of these

but here is the list

1) Whenever Christ appears in His resurrected form and the day is mentioned, it is always the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, 9, 10; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1, 13, 15; John 20:19, 26). 2) The only times the Sabbath is mentioned from Acts through Revelation, the occasion is Jewish evangelism, and the setting is usually a synagogue (Acts 13—18). Paul wrote, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews” (1 Corinthians 9:20). Paul did not go to the synagogue to fellowship with and edify the saints, but to convict and save the lost. 3) After Paul states, “From now on I will go to the Gentiles” (Acts 18:6), the Sabbath is never again mentioned.

4) Instead of suggesting adherence to the Sabbath day, the remainder of the New Testament implies the opposite (including the one exception to point 3, above, found in Colossians 2:16).

So lets summarize all of this:

The Sabbath was given to Israel, not the church.

The Sabbath is still Saturday, not Sunday, and has never been changed.

The Sabbath is part of the Old Testament Law, and Christians are free from the bondage of the law (Galatians 4:1–26; Romans 6:14).

Sabbath-keeping is not required of the Christian—be it Saturday or Sunday.

The first day of the week, Sunday, the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10), celebrates the new creation, with Christ as our resurrected Savior.

The apostle Paul said that each individual Christian should decide whether to observe a Sabbath rest: “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5).

So what are we to do?

We are to worship God every day, not just on Saturday or Sunday.

Now, what are we to make of the sabbath?

Well long story short, we are freed from it

Now to make a short story long

See, various elements of the sabbath symbolized the coming of the messiah

Who, would provide a permanent rest for his people

So, once again resting for our labors comes into play right

With the OT Law

the jews were constantly working or

laboring to make themselves acceptable to God

They had to follow the ceremonial law

the temple law,

the civil law

etc

and of course they could not

keep those laws

so, because they could not keep those laws

they what

had to perform sacrifices

so they had a number of sin offerings

and sacrifices to perform

in order to stay in right standing with God

both for forgiveness and fellowship

with Him

Now, what was one thing about these sacrifices?

they were temporary

so they had to continue to perform these

day after day, week after week

but, lets look at Hebrews 10:1 “Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.”

See, all of those sacrifices they performed

all the laws they labored to follow

were a foreshadowing of the work of the one to come

and that is Jesus

See Jesus performed the ultimate

sacrifice

one that does not have to be repeated

and once he finished his

work of atonement upon that cross

he rested, at the right side of the Father

So, because of what he did!

we no longer have to “labor” in law keeping

in order to be justified in the sight of God

Jesus was sent so that

we might rest in God and in what He has provided

See, Jesus, is our Sabbath rest now

Hebrews 4 is a good chapter for this

So not only is Jesus our sabbath rest because

he is Lord over the Sabbath and decides the true meaning of it

he is our sabbath rest because there is no

sabbath rest besides Jesus

He alone satisfies the requirements of the law

he alone provides the sacrifice that atones for sin

He is Gods plan to cease from the labor of our works

and he alone is the way of salvation

Wrap it up

So, while we are not commanded by any certain day to worship him

Sundays are a perfect day to do that

as that is day that our Lord rose from the dead

and while we are no longer commanded to take a sabbath

we still should set aside time each week, and well each day

to be thankful for the rest that Christ has given to us

Let us close with this

Matthew 11:28–30 ““Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.””

Let us pray