Immediately Sabbath

Opening

Now as we continue in Mark today we reach a real inflection point. We reach a point that may separate us from some. Separate our exegesis or explanation of the text from some others that you may hear. Today is a real pronomian sermon. It is one that may challenge some things that you have been today, but I ask that you walk with me and that you see what the text says. We are going to talk about the sabbath, what it is, what it is not, should we keep it, how do we keep it.

Immediately The Wrong Sabbath

Now the story starts again with the Pharisees questioning Christ Mark 2:23-24

Mark 2:23–24 BSB

One Sabbath Jesus was passing through the grainfields, and His disciples began to pick the heads of grain as they walked along. So the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

The disciples are doing what is lawful, that are plucking grain, not to eat tomorrow or tonight. They are not doing it for commercial reason but because that are hungered. Here’s what the law says Deuteronomy 23:25

Deuteronomy 23:25 BSB

When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

So the ones who are trying to condemn Christ and his disciples for breaking the law don’t know it as well as they may think, but what they do know is the tradition of men Rabbinic Tradition that they followed at this time orally, but that can now be found in Jewish books called the Mishna, and a wider more know collection of books called the Mishna Torah have 39 probations on things you cannot do on the sabbath things like Planting seeds, Digging or farming, Picking grain or crops, Gathering food into piles, Separating grain from the plant, Tossing grain in the air to clean it, Sorting food, Grinding grain into flour, Sifting flour, Making dough, Baking food, Cutting wool off sheep, Washing cloth or clothes, Coloring or dyeing fabric, Writing. What they saw the disciples doing fell into the category of picking grain or crops. So here we see the disciples being accused of breaking the sabbath, but they are not breaking Gods rules for the Sabbath they are breaking mans rules for the sabbath.

See man sometimes makes it hard to follow God, to keep the Commands of God, but God makes it very easy. God gives us very simple rules for his Sabbath. He says this from the 10 commandments Exodus 20:8-11

Exodus 20:8–11 BSB

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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 which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Look how simple that is. Look how plain that is. Rest. Remember it. Keep it holy. You worked six days, you have six days to do all your work. But the seventh day is for rest — for you, and everyone under your care.

That’s it. That is the Sabbath. That is what God said.

But man, in all his wisdom, decided that wasn’t hard enough. Man said, God, You made the Sabbath too easy. Let us help You make it more difficult. Let us put thirty-nine fences around it so nobody can get close to breaking it. And by the time they were done, they had built a cage around the gift God gave.

The Pharisees knew religion. But they did not know God.

And friend, that ought to convict somebody in this room. Because we do the same thing. We tend to make our faith harder than it needs to be. God says one thing, and we add three more. God says be modest — we say no, you have to wear a floor-length dress everywhere you go. God says read His text — we say no, make sure you read this version that I like. God says when your brother sins, rebuke him privately, with a spirit of restoration — and we go straight to Facebook with it. While our own house is on fire.

Yeshua said it like this:

Matthew 7:3–5 BSB

Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We are so busy with the speck in someone else’s eye, we cannot see the beam in our own. We are so worried about somebody else’s relationship, we cannot see ours is hanging by a thread. We are so worried about how often somebody else comes to church, we cannot tell you what the pastor preached on last week. We are so worried about the next man’s music, we forget we have not opened our Bible in four months.

And we become no better than the scribes and Pharisees. We strain at a gnat, and we swallow a camel. We remember the assembly, but we forget the widow. We post the scripture, but we never feed the poor. We are so worried about religion, we forget the people.

We can keep the tradition just fine. But we forget the commandment of God.

That is exactly what the Pharisees did to the Sabbath. They had so much tradition piled on top of it that the gift was buried underneath. They knew religion. But they did not know the God who gave the Sabbath. And they certainly did not know the Lord of the Sabbath when He walked right past them in the grainfield.

Immediately Mercy

But now look how the Messiah responds. He doesn't argue tradition with them. He goes deeper than tradition. He goes back to Torah, back to creation, and back to who He is.

Mark 2:25–26 BSB

Jesus replied, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? During the high priesthood of Abiathar, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which was lawful only for the priests. And he gave some to his companions as well.”

Here the Messiah Goes Directly into a story about David, now if you remember the bible says David is a man after Gods own heart. They story comes from 1 Samuel 21:1-6

In this story David is on the tun from King Saul, he has been running for a while.

1 Samuel 21:1–6 BSB

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” “The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission or charge. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” “There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.” David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the equipment of the young men is holy, as it is even on common missions, and all the more at this time.” So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.

The Messiah show them that mercy is written directly into the framework of the Torah, the torah is not rigid. I has mercy built in. That bread was not for David, but the priest here understood mercy, He understood the same God that said that David was not allowed to eat that bread said that if your brother was in need that you should help him, the same one that said to do no work on the sabbath said that if you brothers ox in in a ditch help him Deuteronomy 22:4

Deuteronomy 22:4 BSB

If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up.

He went even further and said even your enemy Exodus 23:4

Exodus 23:4 BSB

If you encounter your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him.

and this commandment does not end or suspend on the Sabbath; it remains according to our Messiah Matthew 12:11

Matthew 12:11 BSB

He replied, “If one of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out?

The mercy of God is built into the torah, its build into the Law, its built into the Sabbath.

We should know Hosea 6:6

Hosea 6:6 BSB

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

God has commanded us to be merciful on the sabbath, but just on the sabbath.

That’s not Jesus canceling the Torah. That’s Jesus quoting the Torah back to people who memorized it but never read it. That’s the prophet saying what God has been saying since Sinai mercy is the heart of the Law, not the exception to it.

So when the Pharisees see hungry men plucking grain on the Sabbath, they should have remembered Hosea. They should have remembered David. They should have remembered Ahimelech. They should have remembered that the God who gave the Sabbath also said, ‘I desire mercy.’

But they couldn’t. Because they had built their religion on the wrong foundation. They built it on the fence, not on the field. They built it on the tradition, not on the text. And when mercy walked into the grainfield with His disciples, they could not see Him.

So, while some like the Pharisees today will try to convince you that the law or in this case the sabbath in particular is a burden that it's ridged that it's a fence. I came today to tell you that it is the opposite, it is Gods mercy on us and for us. It is the will of God for us showing, you father wants you to have rest, he wants you to live a more abundant life. John 10:10 tells us that God wants us to have a more abundant life

John 10:10 BSB

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.

and that's what his laws and his sabbath gives you a more abundant life not in the sense or more wealth, a better car, a bigger house, but in the sense of better health, more time with your family, more rest a closer and better relationship with him. Imagine a day that there is no work, that there is no stress, there is only time with your family and time with God rest for both your body and your spirit. That is What God is giving you and that's what his sabbath gives you not ridged rules.

Immediately Made for Man

Now we get to one of the most powerful, yet one of the most misunderstood verses in the text Mark 2:27

Mark 2:27 BSB

Then Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

The Messiah tells us that the sabbath was man for man. In the Greek it says anthrōpos meaning universally, with reference to the genus or nature, without distinction of sex, a human being, whether male or female

Some will tell you that the sabbath was a Jewish thing, it was apart of an old covenant that we no longer adhere to but the Messiah does not tell us any of that, he does not say that this is for Jewish humans, but he says for all humans.

For this we go back to the origins of the sabbath itself. The sabbath did not start with Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Noah or Moses. It does not start at the ark or at Mt. Siaini

The Sabbath starts at the very creation of the universe. It start with the creator in the very beginning Genesis 2:1-3

Genesis 2:1–3 BSB

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.

Look at the chapter. Genesis chapter two. Not Exodus. Not Deuteronomy. Genesis. Chapter two. Before the flood. Before the tower of Babel. Before Abraham. Before Isaac. Before Jacob. Before Moses. Before the Law. Before there was a single Hebrew on this planet, God blessed and sanctified the seventh day.

There were two people on the planet at the time. Their names were Adam and Eve. And neither one of them was Jewish.

The Sabbath is older than Israel. The Sabbath is older than the Torah at Sinai. The Sabbath is woven into the structure of creation itself.

It is what we call a creation ordinance. Like marriage. Like work. Like the image of God in humanity. You don’t get to opt out of any of those because of your ethnicity. You don’t get to say, ‘well, marriage was a Jewish thing.’ You don’t get to say, ‘well, working with your hands was a Jewish thing.’ You don’t get to say, ‘well, being made in God’s image was a Jewish thing.’ And you don’t get to say that about the Sabbath either.

The Sabbath was made for man. For humanity. For the human heart. For the human body. For the human family. For you.

The sabbath keeps you on track, the sabbath keeps you always focused on God, Saturday is his sabbath, on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday you are thinking back on the last sabbath on Wednesday, Thursday you are thinking about the coming sabbath and Friday until Sundown you are preparing for the sabbath, It keep your whole week focused on God and it keep us continually on his clock not on our, but on his.

Now the next part of the verse is just as important, not man for the sabbath

And here is the second half of that verse, and don’t miss it. ‘Not man for the Sabbath.’ What does that mean? It means God did not make you to serve the Sabbath. He made the Sabbath to serve you.

That is gift language. That is grace language. That is the language of a Father who knows His children. God looked down at humanity — a creature made of dust, with limited bodies and limited minds and limited strength — and He said, ‘My child cannot work seven days a week. My child was not built for that. So I am going to put a day in the middle of his week with his name on it. And on that day, he is going to stop. And on that day, he is going to remember who his Father is.’

That’s not a burden. That’s a love letter.

Now I have to ask the question. Some of you in this room are exhausted. Some of you are running on fumes. Some of you have been working seven days a week your entire adult life because the world told you that was what success looked like. The world said, ‘you cannot afford to stop. You cannot afford to rest. If you stop, you will fall behind. If you rest, somebody will pass you.’

And here comes Yeshua, walking through the grainfield, saying, ‘the Sabbath was made for you.’ The God who knit you together in your mother’s womb is telling you that He built a day into the structure of the universe with your name on it. And the world has been lying to you about it your whole life.

You can’t afford not to keep it. Because the body that does not rest breaks. The mind that does not rest breaks. The marriage that does not rest breaks. The family that does not rest breaks. The relationship with God that does not rest — that one breaks too.

So here is what the Sabbath is not. It is not Jewish. It is not Old. It is not abolished. It is not optional. It is not a burden.

It is a gift. With your name on it. From a Father who knows you can’t go forever.

So take that rest take that gift, don’t let the world convince you to go against God and t agist his timing. He created you, the world and everything in it. So he knows what's best for you, and your family. Don’t worry about the rest worry about staying with God in his order Psalms 37:25

Psalm 37:25 BSB

I once was young and now am old, yet never have I seen the righteous abandoned or their children begging for bread.

Matthew 6:26 BSB

Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

We have to be like those birds we have to have faith that God can handle everything while we take the rest that he gave us.

Now we have to go back to the Mercy part.

I’m not telling anyone here to quit your Job and just say will God will provide, no keep providing for your family. God does not want you to put you are your Kids on the street. I am not here to condemn, but I am here to offer a Gift that God has offered up to those who believe in him. God understands when life commands certain things for us, but what I am saying is do not sign up for that extra shift. Don’t sign up to work every Saturday so you can take an extra vacation this year, trust in God and put all the excess in his hands and he will give you the desires of your heart Proverbs 3:5–6

Proverbs 3:5–6 BSB

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Immediately Lord of The Sabbath

Now Yeshua takes it one more step. And this is the step that nobody saw coming. This is the step that, if the Pharisees had ears to hear, would have brought them to their knees right there in the grainfield.

Mark 2:28 BSB

Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

The Messiah here makes a claim. Some say that this claim is to say he can do away with the sabbath, but this is the Messiah say the exact opposite. He is saying that he is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who ordained the sabbath, he is the one know the true intent of the Sabbath and he has come to restore it for us to that true intent from the one who wanted and did make it not a day of rest for the people but a burden for the people.

I want you to think about that. Who gave the Ten Commandments? Who appeared in the cloud? Who spoke from the mountain so loud the people begged Moses to make Him stop? Who wrote on the stone with His own finger?

In our tradition we call Him the Angel of the LORD. Now don’t hear me wrong — not a created angel. The pre-incarnate Son. The Word who was with God and the Word who was God, before He took on flesh in Bethlehem. The same one who walked with Abraham at Mamre. The same one who wrestled with Jacob. The same one who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. He is the one who gave the Sabbath at Sinai.

So when Yeshua walks into Mark chapter two and says, ‘I am Lord of the Sabbath,’ He is not contradicting the Old Testament. He is identifying Himself as the one who gave the Sabbath in the first place.

He came not to do away with in but to fulfill it. Matthew 5:17

Matthew 5:17 BSB

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

Now some people read this is Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets I did not come to abolish, but to abolish, but that word for fulfill in plēroō and it means

 to make replete, i.e. (literally) to cram (a net), level up (a hollow), or (figuratively) to furnish (or imbue, diffuse, influence), satisfy, execute (an office), finish (a period or task), verify (or coincide with a prediction), etc.:—accomplish, × after, (be) complete, end, expire, fill (up), fulfil, (be, make) full (come), fully preach, perfect, supply. and the outline of Biblical usage tells us this

to fulfil, i.e. to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment.

This is true for all the laws but in this case specially for the Sabbath it say to cause Gods will as made known in the law to be obeyed as it should be.

Christ did not come to do away with the law, but to cause to be obey as he intended for it to be obeyed.

Its like when you receive a completed Job manual and someone shows your perfectly how to do the Job , that does not mean that you throw the manual in the trash and that you don’t follow the example of the one who trained you, it means the opposite. It means that you take the job manual and you read it and you look at the way it should be carried out and you follow the lead of the person who did it.

What example did Christ and his apostles leave ?

That is the Pronomian hinge of this whole text. If your Lord gave the Sabbath — and your Lord kept the Sabbath — and your Lord called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath — what is your reason for not keeping it?

Look at Yeshua’s own life. Luke 4:16 says it was His custom to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath. His custom. That word custom in the Greek means a settled habit. A regular pattern. Yeshua kept the Sabbath every single week of His life on this earth. He never missed one. He healed on it. He taught on it. He worshipped on it. He rested on it. And when He died, He died right before sunset on the day of preparation — because even His death honored the Sabbath that was coming.

And then look at Paul. Paul, who supposedly came along and abolished everything — that’s the story we get told. But Acts 17:2 says Paul reasoned with the Jews from the scriptures on three Sabbaths in Thessalonica, ‘as was his custom.’ Paul’s custom. Same word. Acts 13. Acts 16. Acts 18. The man kept the Sabbath everywhere he went

So now I want to ask you, gently — because I love you — where did the change come from? If Yeshua kept it, and the apostles kept it, and the early church kept it — where did the change come from?

Church history will tell you. Three hundred years after the resurrection, in the year 325, the emperor Constantine wrote a letter after the council at Nicaea. And he said, in his own words, ‘let us have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.’ That is a quote. That is in the historical record. And it is one of the documents that began the institutional shift away from the Sabbath — not by revelation, not by apostolic authority, but by imperial pressure.

And then in the year 363, the council of Laodicea — canon 29 — threatened anathema against any Christian who rested on the Sabbath. Now think about that. If the church had already moved past the Sabbath, why did they need a canon to threaten people for keeping it? You don’t outlaw what nobody is doing. The very existence of that canon proves that 300 years after Yeshua, Christians were still keeping the Sabbath in numbers large enough to alarm a council.

The Sabbath was not abandoned by the apostles. It was suppressed by an empire.

And what we are doing here at Altared Doers — what the Pronomian Nazarene movement is doing all over this country — is we are coming back to what was always ours. We are not adding something new. We are recovering something old. Something the Lord of the Sabbath built into creation, kept in His earthly life, and never — not once — not anywhere in the New Testament — abolished.

So should we keep it? The Lord of the Sabbath kept it. Should we?

That’s not a hard question. That’s the easiest question in the room.

Immediately Keep The Sabbath

Now we are going to see from the text the case study of how exacly we should keep the sabbath. How did the Messiah do it here. How do we place that with the commandment and keep it.

Mark 3:1–6 BSB

Once again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man with a withered hand was there. In order to accuse Jesus, they were watching to see if He would heal on the Sabbath. Then Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, “Stand up among us.” And He asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” But they were silent. Jesus looked around at them with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart. Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and it was restored. At this, the Pharisees went out and began plotting with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Look at the scene. It’s the Sabbath. Yeshua walks into the synagogue — because that’s what He does on the Sabbath. There’s a man there with a withered hand. The Pharisees are not there to worship. They are not there to learn. They are there to watch. They are there to catch Him doing something they can use against Him.

Yeshua doesn’t even pretend to ignore them. He calls the man up to the front. ‘Stand up among us.’ He puts the man right in the middle of the room. And then He turns to the watchers and asks them the question that exposes their whole framework:

‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath — to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?’

And nobody answers. Not one of them opens their mouth. Because they know. They know the answer is ‘do good.’ They know God did not give the Sabbath so that people could leave a man with a withered hand suffering for one more day. But they also know that if they say ‘do good,’ their whole accusation falls apart.

Mark says Yeshua looked around at them with anger — grieved at their hardness of heart. Beloved, that is the only place in the Gospel of Mark where Yeshua is described as angry. The only place. And what made Him angry? It was not the Sabbath. It was not the synagogue. It was a religion that could look at a man with a withered hand and care more about its rules than his hand.

Then He says, ‘stretch out your hand.’ And the man stretches it out. And it is restored. Right there. In the middle of the synagogue. On the Sabbath. In front of the people who came to accuse Him.

Now hear me. Yeshua did not break the Sabbath when He healed that man. He kept it.

Healing is not work. Healing is restoration. Healing is what the Sabbath was made for. The Sabbath is the day of shalom — a Hebrew word that means peace, but also wholeness, completeness, things being put back the way God intended. When that hand was restored, that was the most Sabbath thing that happened all morning.

So how do we keep the Sabbath? Not the way the Pharisees kept it. The way Yeshua kept it.

Number one — we rest from our regular labor. That’s Exodus 20:10. ‘On it you shall not do any work.’ You stop your job. You stop your hustle. You stop your side gig. You stop the thing you do Monday through Friday to put food on your table. The Sabbath is not catch-up day. It is not the day to finish what you didn’t finish. It is the day you trust God to keep the world spinning while you put your hands down.

Number two — we gather. The Sabbath is a holy convocation, a called assembly. That’s why we are sitting in this room at ten in the morning on a Saturday. Not because somebody made us. Because the Sabbath is a meeting between God and His people, and the meeting requires the people to show up.

Number three — we do good. Mark 3:4 settled that question. If your neighbor needs help, you help. If somebody is hungry, you feed them. If somebody is sick, you visit them. If somebody is in trouble, you go to them. The Sabbath is not the day you stop loving people — it is the day your love has more time to be generous.

Number four — we delight in it. Isaiah 58 calls the Sabbath a delight. Not a duty. Not an endurance test. A delight. You eat well. You sleep well. You laugh well. You love your family well. You worship well. You rest well. The Sabbath is the one day in the week when you are commanded to enjoy God.

And number five — we don’t add to it. The Pharisees took something simple and made it heavy. We are not going to do that. We keep what God said. We keep it joyfully. We don’t put thirty-nine fences around it. We don’t turn it into a contest. We don’t use it to judge each other. We just — keep — it. The way our Lord kept it.

That is the Want-To. That is joyful covenant obedience. That is what it looks like to follow the Lord of the Sabbath.

Now look at how the chapter ends. Verse 6. After Yeshua heals that man and restores his hand, the Pharisees go out and begin plotting with the Herodians how they might kill Him.

Stop and feel that. Yeshua just healed somebody. And the response of the religious establishment is murder. They would rather kill the Messiah than admit their religion got the Sabbath wrong.

That tells you how serious this fight is. The fight over the Sabbath, in the first century and in the twenty-first, has never been a small fight. It is a fight over who gets to define the people of God. It is a fight over what kind of Messiah we follow. And it is a fight that some people would rather see somebody die than lose.

But our Lord didn’t lose. He went to the cross. He came out of the grave. And He left us a Sabbath that the empire could not bury, the council could not cancel, and the Pharisees could not own.

Closing.

So I want to talk to three groups of people in this room before we close this morning.

To the one who has been keeping a Sabbath the world gave you

Maybe you grew up in a tradition that taught you Sunday is the Sabbath. Maybe you grew up being told the Sabbath was a Jewish thing that got nailed to the cross. Maybe nobody ever sat you down with a Bible and walked you through what we walked through this morning.

I am not here to argue with you. I am not here to make you feel stupid. I am here to invite you. Come and see. Come and see what the text actually says. Come and see what your Lord actually did. Come and see if maybe — just maybe — there is a gift waiting for you on the seventh day that you have been missing your whole life.

To the one who has been keeping no Sabbath at all

Maybe you have been working seven days a week. Maybe your phone is your boss and your inbox is your god and you cannot remember the last time you stopped. Maybe you are tired in a way that sleep does not fix. Maybe your family is tired of looking at the back of your head bent over a screen.

Hear me. The Sabbath was made for you. The Lord of the Sabbath is calling your name. He is not asking you to do one more thing. He is asking you to stop one day a week and remember that you are not God. The world will keep spinning without you. Your job will not collapse. Your children will not starve. Your bills will get paid. The God who fed Israel manna for forty years can feed you on the seventh day.

Come and see what rest feels like. Real rest. Covenant rest. Sabbath rest.

To the one who has been here every Saturday

Don’t miss what your Lord just did in this text. Don’t become the Pharisee. Don’t turn what God gave you as a gift into a weapon you use on someone else.

Keep the Sabbath joyfully. Keep it mercifully. Keep it the way Yeshua kept it — with healing in your hands and grace on your face. When somebody walks in here who has never kept a Sabbath in their life, you do not look at them like they are less than. You look at them like they are family who just got home. Because that is what they are.

The Sabbath was made for man. Not man for the Sabbath.

Yeshua is the Lord of it. He gave it at creation. He kept it on this earth. He defended it in the grainfield. He embodied it in the synagogue. And He is offering it to every single one of us right now.

Some of you came in here this morning carrying weight you were never supposed to carry. Some of you came in here this morning thinking faith was a burden. Some of you came in here thinking the Old Testament was a problem and the New Testament was the answer. And what I want you to see this morning is that they are not two books. They are one story. And the Lord of one is the Lord of the other. And the gift He offered at creation is the same gift He is offering you right now.

Doers of the Word, not hearers only. James 1:22. That is the verse that hangs over everything we do in this house. And being a doer of the Word includes being a doer of the fourth commandment. Not because we have to. Because we get to. Because the Want-To is in us.

Now I cannot a will not leave without saying this, there is a sabbath, not a day but a eternal rest, that we have to enter in to, it does not replace the Sabbath day, but It is much more imporatat than a sabbath day. Hebrews 4:6-13

Hebrews 4:6–13 BSB

Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience, God again designated a certain day as “Today,” when a long time later He spoke through David as was just stated: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

So now as we speak of that weekly rest I would be remised if I did not offer you eternal rest.

If you are in this room this morning and you have never given your life to Yeshua — to Jesus — today is your day. He is the Lord of the Sabbath because He is the Lord. Period. He is the one who made you. He is the one who died for you. He is the one who rose for you. And He is the one calling you out from under all the weight you were never supposed to carry.

If you are in this room and you have given your life to Him, but you have never entered into His rest — today is your day too. Don’t go back out there and pick up the weight again. Lay it down. Come into the rest your Father built into the seventh day before there was even a single sin in the world.

Come and see. The Sabbath table is set. There is a place at it with your name on it. And the Lord of the Sabbath is sitting at the head.