Podcasts about sabbatarians

This is our last week on the long Progressive Covenantalism series. Here we close out the topic of the Sabbath and discuss how we as non-Sabbatarians should prepare our hearts and minds for the Sunday gathering each week. You can watch this message here.

I gave this message at the Pasadena Auditorium congregation on Nov 13, 1993 just after returning from Ukraine with Oleh Zajac and Bev.,  Lots of interesting history about our early working with these people that we still work with today, particularly in their distribution of aid in the current war with Russia.  Also a glimpse into the Worldwide Church of God.    Photo is of Michael Palchey who was the founder of the postwar Sabbatarians in Ukraine.  He emigrated to the United States where I met him and he then asked me to visit these people in Transcarpathia.

In this episode, we sat down with former UCG President Victor Kubik to listen to his story about life in the ministry.*Correction (at 30:12 mark): Actual number of Sabbatarians in: Ukraine - 3,000Romania - 4,000Moldova - 3,000

Subject: Book of Romans 14:1-6 Speaker or Performer: Dennis Helton Scripture Passage(s): romans 14:1-6 Date of Delivery: April 23, 2023

Subject: Book of Romans 14:1-6 Speaker or Performer: Dennis Helton Scripture Passage(s): romans 14:1-6 Date of Delivery: April 23, 2023

Join the conversation as Matt and John discuss lots of sports, Sabbath keeping, and Prime Time.   0:00-intro 1:30-sports 19:55- should we keep the Sabbath 41:04-this day in sports 45:16- one thing Stepehn Welum, “3 Reasons Sunday is not the Christian Sabbath” → https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sunday-not-christian-sabbath/ Justin Taylor, “Is the Sabbath Still Required for Christians?” (reprints Tom Schreiner from his book 40 Questions on Law) → https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/schreiner-qa-is-the-sabbath-still-required-for-christians/ David Strain, “Why Christians Should be Sabbatarians” → https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christians-sabbatarians/ D.A. Carson, From Sabbath to Lord's Day → https://www.amazon.com/Sabbath-Lords-Day-Theological-Investigation/dp/1579103073/ref=sr_1_1?crid=YTLU7C0W36NU&keywords=from+sabbath+to+lord%27s+day&qid=1665339501&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjYyIiwicXNhIjoiMC40MiIsInFzcCI6IjAuMzgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=from+sabbath+to+%2Caps%2C240&sr=8-1

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' website.Main ideas:Sabbatarians are right about the day: Sabbath is the 7th day, sundown Friday-sundown Saturday. The 4th-C church created a "Sunday Sabbath". (Although Christians had long been meeting on Sundays, it was not legally day of rest/worship.) This happened under Constantine (early 300s).Yet in the 1st C, there was a change to the 1st day of week: John 20:19, 26; Acts 2:1, 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10. Jesus, after all, rose from the dead, appeared, ascended, and gave the Spirit on Sundays.John was in the Spirit on "the Lord's day" (Gk. kyriakē, the Greek word for Sunday).True, Paul enters synagogue on Sabbath, but this was for purposes of evangelizing the Jews (Acts 17:2).Some claim that the Sabbath preceded Moses—that it was for Adam. Yet there is no evidence of Sabbath before time of Moses (New 9:14).The patristic writers agree that Sabbaths are no longer kept. Rather, Christ's followers assemble on Sunday (Ignatius, Magnesians 9:1; Epistle of Barnabas, 15:8-9; Justin Martyr, First Apology, 67. It seems highly unlikely the generation after the apostles forgot the truth about the Sabbath. Ignatius, after all—writing around 107 AD—was a disciple of the apostle John!Sabbath receives near zero emphasis in the N.T. documents. If it is so important, isn’t it odd Paul that explicitly mentions it only once (saying it should not be an issue, Col 2:17-17; also Gal 4:8-11). It is certainly not a matter of salvation / superiority.What about the feeling that all 10 commandments must still apply, for aesthetic purposes or symmetry? Asymmetries are a feature of biblical revelation as well as of the natural world. Arguments from symmetry have aesthetic appeal, but not logical power.Christianity is a continuation and fulfillment of Judaism, but there’s also a radical disjunction from Judaism. Getting our heads around this was not easy for early (predominantly Jewish-background) Christians, and we too need to give this special consideration.Although Sabbath law no longer applies, but there are still vital spiritual principles: We are not machines. "The Sabbaths were given to Israel in order that they might study Torah" (Jer. Talmud, Shabbat 15:3). Shabbat is rest, yet not laziness. It is devotion to God, but not work. It is for study and prayer, but not a burden. And for those with families, a time to share.We have seen abundant evidence that the early church did not observe Sabbath as a Christian ordinance. Not everyone will agree with the assessment, so let’s show grace to those who value one day over another (Rom 14:5-6)—even though we must not allow them to judge us over the issue (Col 2:16).

Christianity has had a 1900+ year bad history with (rabbinic) Judaism, with devastating consequences for the lives of Jews and theological bankruptcy for Christians. We hone in on the problem within our own tradition by looking at Luther's contorted and confusing attitude to Jews—from being the first person in about 1000 years to propose toleration and speak well of them, to his famously horrific suggestions to drive them out, steal their books, and burn their synagogues. Yet Luther proves to be not unique but representative in his anti-Judaism, so we also address wider concerns such as the not-always-tenable difference between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and to what extent the roots of Christian anti-Judaism lie in our Scripture, Old and New Testament alike. Romans chs. 9–11 guide us through this mare's nest of issues. Notes: 1. David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition 2. The chief texts of Luther relevant to his Janus-like relationship with the Jews are: “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew” (1523; Luther’s Works vol. 45), “Against the Sabbatarians” (1539; Luther’s Works vol. 47), and “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543; Luther’s Works vol. 47) 3. The book that popularly made the case in America for the direct lineage between Hitler and Luther was William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Uwe Siemon-Netto wrote a rebuttal to this claim in his The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths. 4. My choice for the best place to examine this issue is in Thomas Kaufmann’s Luther’s Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism. Here's a review I wrote of it. 5. See Dad’s review of the excellent book by Peter Ochs, Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 13/2 (2014) and in his book Beloved Community the “Excursus: on Jewish perplexity as a principle internal to Christology” on pp. 416–428. Also, check out his book Before Auschwitz, which analyzes various Christian theological positions regarding Jews and Judaism and how they were able to resist Nazi ideology or, conversely, fell right in step with it. 6. A few things I’ve written dealing with these issues: “Still Reckoning with Luther” in The Christian Century; commentary on Mark 12:28–34 for Working Preacher; my chapter “Tradition: A Lutheran Perspective” in the collection The Idea of Tradition in the Late Modern World; and a chapter in my ebook Luther, Thrice, available by signing up for the Theology & a Recipe newsletter on my website. More about us at sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

Boulder Church | Happy Sabbath!

Jessyka Dooley | Exodus 20:8-11

Jessyka Dooley | Exodus 20:8-11

Boulder Church | Friday was called “preparation day” in the house where I grew up.

Boulder Church | Is the problem with our Sabbatarianism that we have believed in it too little, rather than too much?

Boulder Church | What if you decided that the Sabbath was a day for giving rather than keeping?

Boulder Church | Perhaps the Sabbath wasn't for “keeping” but for giving.

Boulder Church | Is it possible that we have diminished the idea of the Sabbath to just a day, and that we no longer see it as a principle that we can incorporate into everything we do?

Boulder Church | When God interacts with humanity, something new is made!

Is Genesis 1:14 revealing climate seasons as Lunar Sabbatarians claim or religious days including the weekly Shabbat?

Is Genesis 1:14 revealing climate seasons as Lunar Sabbatarians claim or religious days including the weekly Shabbat?

The so-called Super Bowl Sunday is coming soon. But these three guys don’t seem too excited about it. Why? Are they just nerdy mama’s boys? Partially. Fuddy-duddy Sabbatarians? Probably. Legalistic killjoys? Careful! Just tune in and listen to why you might want to tune in and listen in a whole different way this coming Sunday! …

Fool’s Gold Amen. In 1577, English privateer and explorer, Sir Martin Frobisher, led the first English mining expedition in Canada, on the rocky and freezing Kodlunarn Island in Baffin Bay. Now, on an earlier voyage to that same part of Northern Canada, he was looking for the Northwest Passage through to the Orient. Didn't find it, but found this island, went on it and found there a mysterious, large, black rock that had gold specks all the way through it. And he was intrigued. And he took it with him back to England, and brought it to an assayer that he knew about, who studied it and told him that it was gold. Whereupon the Crown, the English Crown, funded a massive mining expedition back to Kodlunarn Island. And they extracted over 1,000 tons of similar black rocks, and sent them back to England, the largest shipment ever, as far as I know, of iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold. Completely worthless. Needless to say, Frobisher's reputation took a beating. I would think the assayer that told him it was gold, his reputation would take a beating. But the fact of the matter is, it became a display of a well-known slogan, "Not all that glitters is gold." And just because it glitters, does it look... Does it actually turn out to be the genuine article? The assaying of the ore, the testing of it to determine its worth is a picture of what awaits all of us on Judgment Day. We are told in 1 Corinthians Chapter 3 that all of our works are going to be tested with fire. And they will be proven to be what they truly are. Are they wood, hay, and straw, on the one hand, or are they gold, silver, and costly stones on the other? Our own individual faith and our life practices are going to be tested. Is our faith genuine? Is it worth more than gold, or will it be proved to have been fraudulent, a deception in the end? I. Fool’s Gold: The Deception of Religious Machinery (vs. 1-5) Now, in Isaiah 58, the prophet exposes, I think, many religious people, Jews, in his day, who appeared to be godly, who appeared to be religious, but who actually weren't. They had heart problems. They were going through the motions of a religious system. And he calls them away from that pattern of fasting and praying and other religiosity to a genuine fast that he defines in the chapter. And we talked about a lot last week. Now beyond that, this illustration of fool's gold and the assaying of it and the testing of it could also serve a different purpose for my sermon today. And that is, our evaluation of the world as it comes to us. Not all that glitters is gold. And we can be enticed into worldly things, worldly patterns and habits that we think are going to be satisfying to us, and are really actually impoverishing our souls in the end. We can be drawn into patterns of behavior that we think are going to satisfy us and they're going to leave us weak spiritually, defective spiritually. Now, Isaiah 58 calls on the people of God, of his time, to a Sabbath rest, a fast to some degree, from the world once a week, for the purpose of recalibrating their souls to the still small voice of Almighty God, to the delight of intimate and healthy fellowship with God. That's what I want to talk to you about today. Now, the fool's gold of their false religiosity, we went over last week. I'm not going to have time to go over in detail. But look again at verses 1 through 5. These were religious people going through the motions. "Day after day, they seek me out, they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God." They seem eager for God to come near them. Verse 3, "'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'" These were a religious people who did the fasting thing, but on the day of their fasting, it ended in quarreling and strife and striking each other with wicked fists. That's not the kind of fasting God wanted to see. This was another example of something we've seen again and again in the Book of Isaiah, of a religious machinery that was set up. And they were just going through these religious motions day after day, but the actual heart of the matter was far from the truth. Isaiah 29:13, And Jesus quoted this, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teaching is just rules taught by men." So we saw that last week, that was fool's gold, it wasn't genuine piety. II. Pure Gold #1: The “True Fast” of Mercy Ministry Instead, he calls them to the pure gold of a genuine mercy ministry. We went over this in detail last week, just want to remind you. Verse 6 and 7, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood." God calls this the fast he wants from them. This is the religion that he accepts as pure and faultless in his sight. And we saw verse 10, in particular, it was a challenging call for us to spend ourselves on behalf of the poor and needy. Not just give of our money alone, but invest our souls, our hearts in the condition of people who are suffering. That is genuine, not fool's gold, but genuine piety. III. Pure Gold #2: The “True Fast” of Delighting in the Sabbath Now we come to pure gold number two, verses 13 and 14, the true fast of delighting in the Sabbath. This is a second condition in the text, not just caring for the poor and needy, but honoring the Sabbath. Look at Verse 13, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, and if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words." This is the "if," it's the condition, and he's defining, it seems in the old covenant, a true, genuine-heart Sabbath observance, what it means for God to observe the Sabbath, that's what... How God is defining it. God calls the Sabbath, in this text, "My holy day," and also, "the Lord's holy day." So he calls it holy twice, and he commands the people to call the Sabbath a delight. And it would be a weighty or honorable or massive thing, this Sabbath observance. "It's a weighty thing," he says. "I want you to think of it that way," he said to his people. Now, the word "holy" here, I think means, "set apart unto God as His own prized possession." The word "holy" is a very important word in the Bible, in the Old Testament. So in effect, it's like... It feels like this to me, like God is saying, to the Jews, "Although all nations on Earth are mine, you are my holy people, set apart unto me for my own pleasure." And again, in the Old Covenant "Although all the Earth is mine, this holy ground, this temple is my space, set apart unto me to be my Holy Place, where I will meet with you. And although all time is mine, this day, this seventh day is set apart unto me as holy, belongs to me." I think that's what he's saying, it's holy ground. Negatively: Do Not Break the Sabbath! So negatively, he commands on them to not break the Sabbath, that they would not violate the Sabbath with their footsteps. "Keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath" I think would be a better translation there. Daily lifestyle choices, almost like the Sabbath is holy ground and you're supposed to, "Take off your sandals, for the place on which you're walking... " So "Don't just tramp on my holy day. "And not doing as you please," he says, very challengingly to us. We're going to take this concept over to some of the confessional statements in the New Testament. But it comes, I think, right from this verse, not just doing whatever you want or not doing your pleasure. I think, specifically, what it means here is not... It's not talking about sin, we know that's out, it's not like God's saying, "Six days you may sin but the seventh day is a holy day, on that day you must not sin." We know we're not talking about wicked things that we should not be doing, but good things, things that bring us pleasure usually, things that are usually delightful, that we would not do those things. That seems to be what it means, not doing your own pleasure. And not speaking idle words, doing whatever you want and speaking idle words. And then, in the end, the "then statement," he says, "These are what your rewards are going to be, this is what will happen if you do that, if you meet this condition." Then Verse 14, "You will find your joy in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Wow, it's an amazing promise, if you do what verse 13 says, if you meet those conditions, then you will learn, you will find your joy in the Lord. It's almost like the psalmist in Psalm 73. You remember the one who was so jealous of those prosperous wicked people, and he wanted to become like them, remember? Until he went into the temple and understood their final end, and he said, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you." It seemed like the Sabbath, for them, was a time to say that to God. "There's nothing else I want here, but you. You're what I'm going to... " You're going to find your joy in the Lord and not in earthly things. And he says, "I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land." So I get the picture almost of being up on Mount Pisgah and looking out over the Promised Land, and you can see the beauty of it, a land flowing with milk and honey, that Old Covenant blessing language. And you're going to be enriched, you're going to be made rich by the inheritance of your father, Jacob. I would actually go even back to the inheritance of your father, Abraham. Remember how he turned away from the loots, after the defeat of the kings, and the King of Sodom and Gomorrah and all that, just turned away from that, didn't want any of it. And then the Lord appeared to him and said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." It's about a powerful thing, and then, in that, in Genesis 15, he shows him the covenants and all that. So you're going to feast on the blessings of the covenant, which ultimately is the blessings of God, you're going to feast on your inheritance, God himself. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken." What a great way to end the chapter. In other words, "Take this seriously." Or like in the Book of Revelation, "Write these words down for they are trustworthy and true." This is just the true statement here. So that's the chapter, walking through it. The phrase "call the Sabbath a delight" is very provocative isn't it? Very intriguing for us. Walter Chantry wrote a book in 1991 about it, about Sabbath observance for Christians, and he chose that as the title. It's very intriguing, it should draw us in, and it's going to be worthy of our full attention for the rest of the afternoon, so...Yeah, you missed that one, didn't you? Just want to see if you're paying attention. This is an elaborate, difficult, complex, theologically weighty issue that we're about to walk into here. I'm not going to stand up here and make simple pronouncements and make a bunch of assumptions that I don't support and just say, "This is what you all should do." That's not how I'm going to preach this. And that's what took me so long to work on this this week. And so let me lay out plainly what I think we're going to do now with this time. I believe that learning in some spiritual way that connects with the truth of the New Covenant, that we've learned in Jesus, to call the Sabbath a delight and to cheerfully and willingly refrain from work and secular pleasures, not because you have to in a legal sense, but because you want to, will give you power, spiritual power, a level of intimacy with Christ that you haven't known before. And will greatly enrich and empower you the rest of the week, in a way that you will in no way regret. But I cannot come so far as to say that the Sabbath observance should be handled the rest... The same way the rest of the nine commandments of the 10 Commandments are handled. I can't go that far, so I'm laying my cards on the table. I do not think this is a legally binding command like the rest of the 10 Commandments are, but I really do respect others that do think that. So in the end, I'm going to say to you several times in here, "You will have to make up, O church, your own mind on this. But I'm going to give you some principles that I hope will enable you to make a wise decision by what you do on Sundays. IV. Understanding and Delighting in the Sabbath So let's try to understand the Sabbath, what are we talking about? What do we mean by the Sabbath? Well, this Hebrew word literally means to cease or desist or stop or rest. The focus then is on stopping something. That's what the word... The Hebrew word means. And of course, the first time this comes in in the scriptures, right at the beginning of the creation account, in Genesis 1 verse 31, it says, "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And it was evening, there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." Then Genesis 2:1, "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 the seventh day, he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." So that's where it first comes in. That becomes a very significant weighty pattern for us to consider as we look at the Sabbath. That's where it all starts. Now, obviously, we should not imagine that God rested on the seventh day because he is, in any way, depleted or drained by all the work he had done, He wasn't tired, God is omnipotent. He does not grow weary, ever, Isaiah 40, he never gets tired. So we shouldn't imagine that. The resting of God here, I think, is some kind of a display of his total, complete satisfaction in the world that he had made. He loved it. He thought it was very good, he delighted in it. Other theologians have, I think, helpfully given us the picture of God moving through his creation, both spiritual and physical, and going up where the throne is, turning around, looking at his creation and then sitting on the throne. So it's an enthronement-image for some of the theologians. I like that. It's the idea of God sitting in rulership, over all the things that he has made, in a final resting of God on his throne. Now, after the Exodus, after the Jews were delivered from bondage, from slavery in Egypt, where their lives had been an unending blur of slave labor. There was no difference from one day to the next to the next to the next. Seven straight days without a rest they were made to feel the lash of the taskmaster. Then God brought them out with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, brought them through the Red Sea, and brought them to Mount Sinai where he gave them the law, the essence of the Old Covenant, law, at Mount Sinai. And the fourth commandment, reads this, "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 it, you shall not do any work. Neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." So that's the fourth of the 10 Commandments that are so well known. Then 40 years later, when they're about to enter the promised land, in the book of Deuteronomy he gives the law a second time. And the fourth commandment is stated similarly but a little bit different. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll pick up in the middle of it, Deuteronomy 5:14-15, "On it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien that is within your gates so that [now this is new] your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day." Now there, he links it to redemption. So here we have these two glorious, massive theological themes, creation and redemption, both of them linked to the Sabbath observance. It's very powerful. Now the Sabbath regulation that we're describing here is an old covenant law, a rule for Israel. It was also for them, something that was a mark of the Covenant, it was a way you marked the Jews out in the city, they had the Sabbath rhythm. And on the Sabbath day, they would meet together in the synagogue and study the Scriptures etcetera. They were, the Jews, to labor for six days, but on the 7th they were to cease, they were to stop laboring. That's the essence of the Hebrew word. Now, the implication would... There would be worship in that time, there were... It was consecrated to the Lord, so they would turn their hearts, their minds to God, and they would consecrate that day and make it holy by worshipping and focusing on God. Because the commandment begins with the word "remember" they were to look back at God's creation, "remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy." They were also to look back, "remember that you were slaves in Egypt." So you're supposed to think back in the old covenant observance and remember it. I think the Sabbath also had a vertical looking up aspect because it's consecrated to the Lord, you're looking up to God and thinking about God enthroned, God the King. I think also we should notice in the commandment that there's a special focus on leaders on heads of households, fathers kings masters employers to be sensitive and aware to what's going on with their sons and daughters and their manservants and maidservants, and to set up the system so that they can rest. Not just you. So that brings us into that social justice theme of Isaiah 58. Don't just fast yourself while your workers are having to slave away. You need to extend that rest to them as well, so that they can rest as you do. How Does the Sabbath Translate to the New Covenant? Alright, now this is an old covenant regulation and Christians have had long and rancorous debates on whether this is still binding for us, so we come to the issue of the law in the new covenant, how are we to understand the law of Moses in the New Covenant? Well first, in Christ, thank God we have been delivered in some mysterious sense, from the law we've been set free from the law and then we're told that in multiple places like Galatians 2:19, "for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God." That actually is stated also in Romans 7 and Romans 8. We have died to the law. In some sense, it says that. Roman 6:14 says it a little differently, it says, "Sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law, but under grace." So where you're now in some sense, delivered from the law. We're not under the law, etcetera. We also know that forgiveness of sins can never, does never come by observing the law. We know Galatians 2:16 a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Our sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus. We're actually really ultimately trusting in his law-keeping not in ours. We're saying he actually perfectly kept the law, and then substituted himself under the law's penalties for us who didn't perfectly keep the law so that there's that beautiful transfer of our wickedness to him and he dies, his perfect righteous law-keeping to us, and we live in that righteousness, forever. So that's how we get saved. So, if I can just say simply none of us is going to be saved our eternal destiny, is not going to depend on what we do on a Sabbath day, or a Lord's Day. So that's, in some sense, it means that we're free from the law. I think we all agree with that. We're free from the fact that the law has the power to send us to hell, we're free from that. Christ nailed that to the cross. The law is not going to send us to hell. Praise God. It could have, apart from Christ, it would have. But we're free from that. However, there are some other things we need to say about the law. There are aspects of the law as we look at, that we know are obsolete, there are details in the law that we know we don't have to do anymore. There's a whole thing in Galatians and in Acts on how we don't need the circumcise our boy babies on the eighth day, we're done with that there is no spiritual reason to circumcise a baby anymore. That's done it's been fulfilled. Also there's the dietary regulations, Jesus declared all foods clean, so we can eat. We can eat bacon, praise God, we can eat ham, we can eat pork. We can do that even though there's clear prescriptions against it in the old covenant. We know that, we're free from that... And then there's obviously, quintessentially the sacrificial system, the animal sacrificial system with the Levitical priesthood that whole thing has been fulfilled, that's one good word. And another powerful word in Hebrews 8, it's obsolete. So not only is it true you don't have to offer a lamb or a bull or a goat for your sin, you better not, thinking that God's going to accept it. What an insult to Jesus. So we're done with that. Furthermore, we know that there are national laws that had to do with the life of the Jews in the promised land, that we don't need to do anymore, like the three-time annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which would be very costly. We don't need to do that. There are parts of the taxation system and the kingship and all that that are fulfilled, it's done, we don't need to do that anymore. Yet we know that there are, what some theologians call the "moral aspects of the law", that are going to be binding till Jesus returns. Like, "I'm the Lord, your God, You shall have no other gods before me." Tt's not like, "Well thank the Lord now that we're Christians we can have as many gods as we want". And we can take the name of the Lord in vain, and we get to do that now that we're free from the law. And now that we're free from the law we can dishonor and disobey our parents. Kids, that's not what I'm saying. We don't have the freedom to do that, we must honor and obey our parents when we're minors and then honor them, the rest of our lives, we know that those other 10 Commandments, we understand that they're binding, we're not free now to murder, free now to commit adultery. Or just take the summary of the law that Jesus gave us so beautifully, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." That's the law, we're not free from that, we are now able to do it finally by the power of the Spirit, we can actually love God with all of our hearts and we can love our neighbors ourselves. So, we're not free from that. The question then comes is the fourth commandment binding on the Christian so that we now must say "I am not permitted by God to work on the Sabbath/Lord's Day?". That's the question that's in front of us. Christian Views of the Sabbath Now, there's been lots of debates on this. I greatly shortened this part of the sermon right here, you're welcome. Don Carson and some others that wrote with him, DA Carson wrote a book that basically said they see... What they call transference theology. Moving from the seventh to the first day, clearly articulated in the New Testament. Neither do they say a world-wide trans-cultural command of the Sabbath? He doesn't see that. He says basically Christians are free to do what you choose to do on that... Whatever it is that's DA Carson and others that wrote with him. John Calvin a little I would say a little stricter. He said that there were three lasting principles about the Sabbath for Christians to listen to. First, the Lord meant for his people in every generation to have a day of spiritual rest in which they lay aside their earthly work and let God work in their souls. So spiritual rest, stop working and God can work in your soul. So that's personal, you and God. Secondly, he wanted his people corporately to assemble together for worship, corporate worship, and for the hearing of God's word, there's a practicality to that. We need a time we can gather together for corporate worship. And then thirdly, he wanted to make provision for laborers and those under authority to cease from their toil as well. Just simply to... So for them not specifically a worship aspect, but it was there. Now, of course, those labors, free from needing to come work for your company are also now free to come to your church. You can see why Chick-fil-A and other companies have done this, "I can't really require you to work on Sunday morning and schedule some workers there and then also ask if you would come and visit my church" because the person's lost, you're trying to reach them. So they just saw it better to shut the business down on Sundays. Now my professor at Gordon-Conwell, Meredith Kline, taught this about the Sabbath, basically essence of the command was ceasing. It was stopping work and that's the fundamental... He's not saying, he's against worship or any of the worship themes, he's saying it's not intrinsic to the word or to the command. So for him it was just rest, physical rest, taking a long nap going for a refreshing walk in the woods, a nice bike ride... Whatever would renew you. That would be meeting the Sabbath regulation, Meredith Kline. The Puritans on the other hand, were what we call strongly Sabbatarian, and no one articulated Sabbatarian thinking better than they did, especially in the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is what they wrote: "as it is the law of nature, that in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God. So in his word, by... " listen to this, "a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him. Which from the beginning of the world, till the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week. And from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as a Christian Sabbath, this Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and an ordering of their common affairs beforehand." So you get your heart ready and you get your house and everything, ready beforehand, like on Saturday. When you do that, do not only observe a holy rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their world employments and recreations but are also taken up the whole time, in the public and private exercise of his worship and in duties of necessity and mercy. That is your full-on Sabbatarian statement. Well thought out, like everything the Puritans ever did. The Baptist faith and message, which is the Baptist statement of faith or confession of faith, that we had as a church, First Baptist Church had as a church when I came here in 1998 was Sabbatarian. Bet you didn't know that. So you all were Sabbatarians, I guess. Now this what it said, 1963 Baptist faith and message. This is what it said "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed an exercise of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, and by refraining from worldly amusements and resting from secular employments works of necessity and mercy only being accepted". Baptist faith, and message 1963 First Baptist Church's statement of faith until the year 2000. In the year 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention convened and changed a number of aspects of the Baptist faith and message including this statement on the Lord's day. This is what it now reads, "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, that's all the same. Now listen, "activities on the Lord's day, should be commensurate with the Christians conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ". So that's a very different statement. Basically, whatever your conscience tells you to do on the Lord's Day, you are free to do. V. Applications Alright, so what applications can we take from all this? Well, first, let me just begin as I always do by proclaiming the Gospel to you who are lost. But in the context of what I'm saying now, it doesn't really make a difference what you do on Sunday it doesn't make a difference actually, what you do, any day of the week if you have not yet come to Christ. This is the work of God for those that are as yet unconverted, believe in the one that God sent. And by believing in Jesus alone are all your sins forgiven and if you will trust in him and turn away from your wickedness, turn away from sin, you will receive the gift of the forgiveness of sins and not only that but you'll receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then you'll be given an exciting life to live. Now, let's talk about the Sabbath or Lord's Day aspect of that life. First of all, can we just look again at the text at Verse 13? Do you see the delight aspect, call the Sabbath a delight. Look again at Verse 14, "then you will find your joy in the Lord." If I can just say right at the beginning, the whole issue here is one of delight and joy. So friends let us not drag our feet into this theological discussion with groaning, and rolling of eyes and a sense ultimately coming down to some drudgery that God did not intend. This is meant to be about delight. The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Then you sell everything you have and buy that field out of joy in the treasure. Now I got to tell you something, I thought about this this morning. I was like, for many years, I thought, "Hey I got a good deal where I can kind of gain the whole system here." Sell everything you have to like a pawn shop, go buy the field, now you got treasure, take a portion of the treasure and go buy back everything you had. Good deal, huh? I think that misses the point of the parable, don't you? It sure doesn't work with the pearl. Remember, you're selling everything and buying a pearl. What, are you going to cut off a portion of the pearl and get your possessions back? It would destroy the pearl. So the treasure and the pearl are supposed to be what delights you. So the real question I want to ask is, "Oh, friend, what delights you? What really delights you? What really makes you happy?" That's the question. So now, second, is the Sabbath... "Dear pastor, is the Sabbath a binding commandment on Christians today in the new covenant?" I'd like to ask that you would turn to Romans 14, and we're going to finish up there but, let me weigh it on one side. First, this sabbath commandment is a weighty thing. It is a weighty thing that God rested on the seventh day of his creation, and basically took his throne over that and set apart the seventh day and called it holy. That's weighty. It's not to be taken lightly. It is a weighty thing that clearly the other nine of the 10 Commandments are still binding on the hearts and souls of Christians, that's weighty. It is weighty to me that in no clear way does Jesus ever abolish the Sabbath. He just defines it and makes it clear how it's best to be spent. He didn't set it aside, he doesn't declare all foods clean when it comes to the Sabbath and say, "Hey you don't need to do the Sabbath anymore." Yet on the other hand, it's also significant that after the book of Acts, basically the Gospels and Acts are still in the old covenant era. Jesus is still operating under the old covenant, and then as the Gospel spreads out and goes from city to city, they're going on the Sabbath to Jewish synagogues to preach. But after that, the word Sabbath doesn't appear again in the New Testament except in two places, in Colossians 2, 16 and 17, we're told, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival and New Moon celebration listen or a Sabbath day. Don't let anyone judge you by what you do on a Sabbath day. So what that means is, I think elders, the leaders of a church can never set up a church discipline system connected to the Sabbath. It's therefore definitely going to be a matter of private conscience. It's never going to be a matter of sin that we're going to say, because we can't judge anyone by what they do on a Sabbath day. Then he goes beyond that and says, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality is found in Christ." That's exactly the kind of language that the author to Hebrews used about the whole Old Testament. Then in Hebrews 4:9-11, it says, "There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who 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 their example of disobedience." Lots of ways to interpret that statement, but the home base of that is, by faith in Jesus and coming into our salvation in Christ, we have entered our Sabbath rest. In some beautiful full complete sense we have rested from our works in Jesus. We have a perfect righteousness, can't be improved on, and we rest in that. That however doesn't mean we shouldn't have a Sabbath observance. So Romans 14 seems a powerful and helpful guide. Now understand Paul is writing, Romans 14 to a mixed assembly of Jews and Gentiles. So that means that the Jewish Christians would have had a regular pattern of one day in seven, worship in the Synagogue, right? The Roman Christians, the Gentiles would have had no such pattern at all. So what are they going to do now as a local church? How are they going to do that? And so he writes Romans 14 to talk about various issues of meat sacrifice to idols and other debatable issues. Look at verse five and six. "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." That is where the Baptist faith and message 2000 statement got its doctrine from. You need to be fully convinced in your own conscience, what the Lord wants you to do on a Sabbath day. That's all. Now let me tell you something, if verse 5, Romans 14:5, I think, this is my opinion, If Romans 14-5 is in fact talking about the Sabbath, that settles for me whether that commandment is treated differently than any other commandment of the 10 Commandments. The answer is, it is. Because you're not going to say similar things about any of the other nine commandments. You're just not. So clearly, it's just treated differently if this is talking about the Sabbath. I think it is, others don't. Other think it's just one of those Jewish ceremonial type days. So you need to be fully convinced in your own mind. At the end of the chapter, Verse 23, it says, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." So you have to be fully convinced in your own mind and be sure it's done in faith, and that means tied to the word of God. So the one application I can give you is, don't blow this thing off, that's all. Just, if you can just take that from Romans 14, don't just blow it off. But take it seriously. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to get in some extra work at the company on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that Lord does or does not want you to watch NFL football, on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to take part in a soccer league that has Sunday games. Just be fully convinced, work it through. Be sure that you're operating in faith. Then in verse 7-8, it says that whatever you do, you're going to give an account to Jesus. It says, "None of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord" and verse 10 and following says, "We're all going to stand before God's judgment seat. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." So whatever you do, not just in general, but specifically, you're going to give an account to Jesus. Be sure it's real gold and not fool's gold, that's all I'm saying. At the time of us saying, when your works are tested with fire, be sure that it will survive. It was gold, silver, costly stones. So stop, pray, consider, ponder. Is the Sabbath regulation a binding one, like all the rest of the 10 Commandments? I will not give you an answer. I say, you have to be fully convinced in your own mind, work it through. Thirdly, we are never allowed to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Corporate worship needs to be part of our lives, the rest of our time as long as we are able-bodied. As long as we are able to get around, you're able to go do shopping, you're able to go to work during the week, you're able to play golf on Saturday, as long as you're able to do these things, you should be in corporate worship. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as some are in the habit of doing." Now, does that mean every single Sunday? No, there are some times in which necessity, you can't be in corporate worship. The issue there is forsaking and habit, that's the issue. So as long as you are alive and able-bodied you need to be there. Fourthly, you need rest. "Nah, I can crank it out with the best of them." You're over-estimating yourself, you need rest. And you don't just need physical rest, you need soul rest. I love the songs that we sang, there's so many resting, like, "Jesus, I am resting, resting and my soul finds rest in God alone." That was beautiful, wasn't it? You need rest, you can't keep going forever under the lash of perhaps even your ambitions or desire for money, or even a company or boss that's driving you hard. And if you want to get ahead in this company, you're going to be at that Sunday afternoon meeting. You can't relentlessly drive yourself or your employees, you have to consider your manservants and maid servants, which translates now to people who are responsible to you, your sons and daughters, and your employees forcing them to work. And your souls need to be refreshed, you need time alone with Jesus. Psalm 62:1, "My soul finds rest in God alone." Listen to this, this one came alive a little for me this morning. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." What's the next part, remember? "He makes me lie down." Ponder that one, just spend the rest of the afternoon pondering that. "Makes me"... You mean against my will? No, hopefully not, but he's like, "You need to rest." Stop, rest and lie down and be refreshed. There's a practical side to it, "Come away," Jesus said in Mark 6, "And get alone and let's have some time of refreshment." Fifthly, let's consider not merely, what am I permitted to do? What is it lawful for me to do? But what is it best for me to do. Alright. Look, Martha was lawfully permitted to make 17 different dishes to serve to Jesus when Jesus came to visit that day. Mary was lawfully allowed to sit at his feet and listen to him. But I think Jesus says effectively that Martha chose a good portion but Mary chose a better portion. So it's just good, better, best in the Christian life. So over the next 10 years if God lets you live, you may have over 500 Sundays and you get to decide what to do with them. Let's assume you're going to go to church, let's just start there, that you agree with what I just said, you're going to get home around 1 o'clock or maybe today around 2 o'clock. Alright, so you're going to get home, and so in general, you're going to have eight hours of discretionary, what do I do with it, time. And you say, "We have home fellowship." That's a choice you make, I think it's a wise choice but it's a choice you make, you don't have to go. It's not like you lose your church membership if you don't go to home fellowship, you're just making choice about your time. So, you'll have about 4000 hours. You could spend all 4000, I'm convinced... Well, no, no, there's a season end, but you could spend all 4000 watching spectator sports. I was about to say football, but the season does end in February or March or whenever it ends. And there's three football games, one after the other, after the other now, it wasn't always that way, but there's the 1 o'clock game, the 4 o'clock game and the 8:30 game. Now, you could do that. The question is what's best for your soul? Not what am I lawfully allowed to do? But what would it be best? At the end of those 4000 hours, what will I be glad that I invested in? Six. We have to avoid legalism and judgmentalism on this topic. The quickest thing that groups tend to do is define work, once you start defining work, welcome to Pharisee land. Calvinistic reform traditions have struggled with this for years. I remember here Joel Beaky talking about this, he saw some other reform guy and they're both in an airport on a Sunday and they're like this...Both feeling ashamed, they're violating their churches' prescriptions. I don't think churches should make those kind of prescriptions on what is work, what isn't work. I think that's where you head to legalism. Furthermore, some of you are probably going to come to stricter convictions on this topic than others. Easiest thing to do when you come to a stricter conviction on a certain matter of Christian freedom is to export that through judgmentalism, and you start saying, "Oh, you do that," and start judging people. Seventh. This is a chance for you to evaluate what you really love, what really brings you pleasure. And if the answer is honestly, the world, you're in danger spiritually, that's all. If you would consistently rather watch an NFL football game or binge watch on Netflix or some other secular amusement, if you would consistently rather do that than spend time in prayer, singing praise songs, rich Christian fellowship, reading good Christian books, or just walking through the woods and looking at the foliage and thanking God for it. If you would really rather do the one than the other, shouldn't you be afraid of worldliness in your soul? "All things are lawful for me," 1 Corinthians 6:2, "But not everything is profitable." All things are lawful for me but I will not be enslaved, let's put it that way. I will not be enslaved by anything. How can you tell whether you're being enslaved by something? Fast from it. Just try one Sunday say, "I'm not going to do X." If it's inordinately difficult, you're sweating, like you're having DTs, and like its the afternoon's crawling by, and it's like, "I can't wait till next Sunday, I can go back to my usual pattern." Just be afraid of the state of your soul, that's all I'm saying. Eighth. Practical steps for those who want to do this, you say, "I actually would like to do something different." Okay, just some different things. I would suggest work harder, days one through six, the first six days. Set your clothes... Get them ready and hang them up like a fireman. I think that's a symbol, I think about the firefighters, and they have their coat, and their boots, and the door of the fire engine is open and everything's lined up for a quick getaway. So just get your church clothes ready like that and let that be a symbol. I'm going to try to clear out the day as much as I can. So women that cook for a home fellowship make simpler meals, make them on Saturday. It's not a requirement, it's not lawful, it's just so that you can rest. It's not like, "I'll be breaking the 10 Commandments, so I don't... " it's just... I want to try to have a spirit of a simplicity on Sundays. Consider the possibility of electronic fast or maybe even electronic reduction. I'm not going to feed on this stuff, I want some time to have my soul refreshed in Jesus. I want to go to a beautiful place, I want to see nature, I want to go look at lakes, I want to walk through woods, I want to reconnect with my family, I want to spend time with my kids, husbands and wives, praying together, walking together, talking about Jesus together. Taking Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3 and praying over those rich prayers that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you would know the hope of your calling, and that you would know how wide and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ for you, and you end the day saying, "I know more now than I did before this day started, how much Jesus loves me." Final word to fathers and mothers, parents, heads of households. You may be saying, "Do I have the right to say, As for me and my house we're going to do X." You do. Now, the earlier you do that in your kid's developmental process, the better. If they're infants they're not going to have any idea, but if they are well-attuned or accustomed to like teenagers or whatever, accustomed to certain secular patterns on Sundays, it may be very hard to change. What I would do is I would just start by saying, "Let's just talk about our souls, let's talk about soul inventory." Maybe give older kids freedom to choose but say, "Look, We are going to do this. I would urge you to do it." rather than setting the law, but others may say, "I think for me and my house we're going to do this." And you have the right to do that, but if you do that, be sure that you as a father enrich that day, think about it, how to make it fascinating, how to make it delightful, how to make it a joy in the Lord. Close with me in prayer.

Kyle G. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. His book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a compelling narrative of how nineteenth-century Americans negotiated the tension between majority rule and minority rights and between representative democracy and popular democracy. He focuses on debates in the antebellum northern states where moral reform efforts of Sabbatarians, temperance activist, and racial segregationists circumvented representative government to assert their social vision through direct majority rule. Volk shows how some Americans rejected majority reform projects of moral uplift as despotism. Non-elite minorities challenged the popular democracy initiatives that infringed on their constitutional rights to work on Sunday, sell and drink alcohol, and have access to integrated public transportation. Immigrants, blacks, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others engaged in a proactive defense. They developed techniques to protect their rights through legal arguments, moral suasion of the press, and political action. The moral minorities of the nineteenth century bequeath the strategies for political and legal activism deployed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by ethnic minorities and gay rights advocates. Volk's work illuminates our understanding of American democracy and minorities' position within it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle G. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. His book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a compelling narrative of how nineteenth-century Americans negotiated the tension between majority rule and minority rights and between representative democracy and popular democracy. He focuses on debates in the antebellum northern states where moral reform efforts of Sabbatarians, temperance activist, and racial segregationists circumvented representative government to assert their social vision through direct majority rule. Volk shows how some Americans rejected majority reform projects of moral uplift as despotism. Non-elite minorities challenged the popular democracy initiatives that infringed on their constitutional rights to work on Sunday, sell and drink alcohol, and have access to integrated public transportation. Immigrants, blacks, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others engaged in a proactive defense. They developed techniques to protect their rights through legal arguments, moral suasion of the press, and political action. The moral minorities of the nineteenth century bequeath the strategies for political and legal activism deployed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by ethnic minorities and gay rights advocates. Volk’s work illuminates our understanding of American democracy and minorities’ position within it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle G. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. His book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a compelling narrative of how nineteenth-century Americans negotiated the tension between majority rule and minority rights and between representative democracy and popular democracy. He focuses on debates in the antebellum northern states where moral reform efforts of Sabbatarians, temperance activist, and racial segregationists circumvented representative government to assert their social vision through direct majority rule. Volk shows how some Americans rejected majority reform projects of moral uplift as despotism. Non-elite minorities challenged the popular democracy initiatives that infringed on their constitutional rights to work on Sunday, sell and drink alcohol, and have access to integrated public transportation. Immigrants, blacks, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others engaged in a proactive defense. They developed techniques to protect their rights through legal arguments, moral suasion of the press, and political action. The moral minorities of the nineteenth century bequeath the strategies for political and legal activism deployed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by ethnic minorities and gay rights advocates. Volk’s work illuminates our understanding of American democracy and minorities’ position within it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle G. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. His book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a compelling narrative of how nineteenth-century Americans negotiated the tension between majority rule and minority rights and between representative democracy and popular democracy. He focuses on debates in the antebellum northern states where moral reform efforts of Sabbatarians, temperance activist, and racial segregationists circumvented representative government to assert their social vision through direct majority rule. Volk shows how some Americans rejected majority reform projects of moral uplift as despotism. Non-elite minorities challenged the popular democracy initiatives that infringed on their constitutional rights to work on Sunday, sell and drink alcohol, and have access to integrated public transportation. Immigrants, blacks, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others engaged in a proactive defense. They developed techniques to protect their rights through legal arguments, moral suasion of the press, and political action. The moral minorities of the nineteenth century bequeath the strategies for political and legal activism deployed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by ethnic minorities and gay rights advocates. Volk’s work illuminates our understanding of American democracy and minorities’ position within it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kyle G. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. His book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides a compelling narrative of how nineteenth-century Americans negotiated the tension between majority rule and minority rights and between representative democracy and popular democracy. He focuses on debates in the antebellum northern states where moral reform efforts of Sabbatarians, temperance activist, and racial segregationists circumvented representative government to assert their social vision through direct majority rule. Volk shows how some Americans rejected majority reform projects of moral uplift as despotism. Non-elite minorities challenged the popular democracy initiatives that infringed on their constitutional rights to work on Sunday, sell and drink alcohol, and have access to integrated public transportation. Immigrants, blacks, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and others engaged in a proactive defense. They developed techniques to protect their rights through legal arguments, moral suasion of the press, and political action. The moral minorities of the nineteenth century bequeath the strategies for political and legal activism deployed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by ethnic minorities and gay rights advocates. Volk's work illuminates our understanding of American democracy and minorities' position within it.

The “Sabbath Rest” is Infinitely Beyond the Sabbath Hebrews 4:9. "There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God." Hebrews 4 speaks of a timeless Sabbath rest for the people of God, and it commands us to labor to enter that rest, in verse 11. How then do we do this, how do we enter the rest that Hebrews 4 is talking about? For many of you, when you hear of the Sabbath, or a Sabbath rest, you have images of the Jews, perhaps from Fiddler on the Roof, as the sun would go down on Friday, and how the women would prepare the Passover or the Sabbath meal with the candles and with prayers and Jewish singing. Or perhaps, some of you think of the Puritan strictness on the Sabbath, how they were strict Sabbatarians, it was said. A strictness that many felt went beyond the delights of corporate worship into sheer legalism, though, I think that could be and should be debated. And the Puritans in the 17th century fought against the Book of Sports, a declaration issued by King James I in 1617 in which he listed out sports that were permissible on Sundays. By the way, football was not mentioned. The Puritans were for the most part strict Sabbatarians so it's said; restricting all their activities on Sundays to religious observances and to acts of mercy. So maybe that's what pops in your mind when you think of the Sabbath. Or again, maybe you remember the struggle of Eric Liddell, the Scottish missionary, who was also an Olympic athlete, whose life is portrayed in the movie Chariots of Fire, and how he upbraided with some little boys that were playing soccer on Sunday and he said, "Sabbath's not the day for playing football, is it?" And those words came back to challenge him when he realized that he would have to run on Sunday in order to win the Olympic medal that he'd trained for all those years and his commitments on the Sabbath would not permit him to run on the Sunday. And you know the story, if you've seen the movie. But I want to say to you that the Sabbath rest of Hebrews 4 is something infinitely beyond all of these meditations. It soars infinitely beyond all earthly shadows and types and pictures. All human observances of the Sabbath, that's what we're discussing in Hebrews 4. No, the Sabbath rest of Hebrews 4 is the perfection, the completion of Christ's saving work for us. The final perfection of it awaits our resurrection from the dead, into a glorious body free from all death, and mourning, and crying, and pain. Free from temptations. Free from weariness, free from all evil, living in a perfect world, at peace and at rest radiated with the open clear displays of the glory of God. The new heavens and the new earth, that is the Sabbath rest in view in Hebrews 4. This is the Sabbath rest that Jesus bought for us through His blood shed on the cross. So the author begins, that the concept is something that still remains, if you look in verse 6. It's something that still stands over us all, it still remains that some will enter that rest, and that those who formally had the Gospel preached to them, did not go in because of their disobedience. So these are the things that still remain in front of us, those that do enter in and those that don't enter in through unbelief and disobedience, but it still remains. Rest is the Unifying Theme of Hebrews 3-4 Now, the unifying kind of cohesive theme of Hebrews 3 and 4 is the author's extended meditation on David's exhortation in Psalms Psalm 95. The centerpiece of that exhortation is today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Yes, but what is God saying as He speaks? What message is God speaking that we should not be hardening our hearts from? The topic according to the author, the topic of God's address is His rest. That God is speaking to us concerning His rest. And so the author in Hebrews 4, 1-5 focuses on God's rest. Look at verse 1 again, "Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." Or let us fear. A gain, in verse 3, "Now, we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, 'So I declared an oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.'" And in verses 4-5, "For somewhere, He has spoken about the seventh day in these words, 'and on the seventh day God rested from all his work.' And again, in the passage, above, he says, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" So the unifying theme then is God's invitation to His people to enter his rest. This is the topic the author is picking up again here in Hebrews 4:6-11. Main idea then is, that there is a perfect eternal heavenly rest to which God is calling His people to through faith in Christ. Now, there are earthly experiences or foretastes of that final rest. The weekly Sabbath, and the conquest of the promised land are in view in particular here. Foretastes. But they are merely types or shadows of the final reality. They pre-figure that perfect rest. It's like a woman who is cooking a wonderful meal and the husband comes and sticks his finger in the pot and puts it on his tongue. Ought not to do that, but it's a foretaste, the meal hasn't come yet. And so, we have actually through the Holy Spirit, many foretastes, but we've not entered the rest yet. And so verse 9 says, there still remains or there remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And then with that an imperative or command in verse 11, "Let us therefore make every effort" or let us labor to enter that rest. So it portrays the people of God as still at work, still needing to work. The author proves that neither the Sabbath rest under Moses nor the promised land rest under Joshua fulfilled the rest that God is inviting us to enter. The focus of our time today then is the Sabbath rest of God, not the imperfect Sabbath rest of the Law of Moses. Nor the imperfect rest of the Jews entering the Promised Land under Joshua, but rather that perfect final rest which is the goal of our faith in Jesus. II. Imperfect Pictures of God’s Rest: Creation, Sinai, and the Promised Land So what does it mean then to enter that rest? Now, there are two different ways of understanding this passage. I didn't realize that until yesterday. So there's going to be another sermon on this passage next week, because I couldn't bear to throw out this morning sermon entirely. And there's good things in it, but I believe I was convicted by the Spirit that I had somewhat missed the point. Somewhat. What is the point? Well, there are two different ways of looking at entering the rest. First of all, we enter the rest through faith in Jesus. So that it can be said of us in Romans 5:1, "Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." So that we are already at rest with God, and God at rest with us through Jesus. Those are true biblical themes but that's not what the author has in mind here. That's not the rest he's talking about here. He's talking about something that, not a single person on the face of the Earth has entered yet. None of us has entered the rest he has in mind here. It still remains for you to enter the rest, you haven't entered it yet. It's in the future, and therefore, in verse 11, you need to make every effort to enter that rest. So it really talks about the nature of your life from this point until you finally die and do enter the rest that the author has in mind. And so that clarity actually didn't come to me until yesterday, and so I'm going to preach more clearly on that next week. But what I want to say is, in the meantime, through our faith in Christ, we can have and ought to have as many foretastes of that rest as we can have in this world, and it's beneficial. And so that's the kind of two-part outline of this Sunday's and next Sunday's. So how then can we enter into God's rest by faith today, in a foretaste sort of sense? Well, coming to realize that we will never enter that rest while we live here on earth. And that therefore much in line of the whole flow of the book of Hebrews, is we are being commanded in Hebrews 4 to run a race with endurance here because we haven't finished yet. And we'll get to that later, and that image in Chapter 12. But that's what the author's been saying all along. You're not there yet, dear people, you've not finished yet dear friends. You've still got some laboring to do. Now, what I've come to understand is that there's a kind of work and a kind of labor that Jesus frees us from immediately, as soon as you come to faith in Jesus. And we'll talk about that this week. But then there are some other kinds of laborings that you must bear with until you at last walk through that door in heaven. And you must do it, and that's the press of the passage okay? So I hope that's as clear to you now, as it's I hope been clear to me and we'll talk more about it next week. We have first these imperfect pictures of God's final Sabbath rest, and that is creation, Sinai and the promised land. The original kind of mention of the Sabbath rest, or the resting of God happens as you know, at the beginning of creation, in Genesis 1. God creates the universe, the Heavens and the Earth, He creates the universe, and the world He makes in six days. In Genesis 2:1-3, it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array and by the seventh day, God had finished the work that He had been doing, so on the seventh day, He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done." The Significance of God’s Rest So what is the significance of this statement that God rested on the seventh day? Well, you get the sense of God deeply and richly satisfied by what His hands had made. He's declared that it's all very good, and He's satisfied with the labors of His hands, and He finishes those labors, that category of works that He intended to do. So it's a cessation from labors. He's ceasing from His work, the work of creation. Nothing could be added. And so God blessed that seventh day and set it apart as holy. Friends, that seventh day rest is a picture of our future rest in heaven. It's a picture of it when all our labors will be finished. Perfect and complete, nothing more to add to them. And so God in His finishing of physical creation at that point, blesses the seventh day and sets it apart as holy. The perfection of God's rest is that He was satisfied with what he was intending to do at that particular time. But there is also an imperfection of the rest, because God knew perfectly well that all of redemptive history lay in front of Him at that point. Jesus said, "My Father is always at His work, to this very day and I too am working." What's the nature of that work? The nature of the work that God was doing was saving sinners from His wrath and bringing them into His perfect rest. That's what redemptive history is about. And so when God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, still in front of Him in redemptive history was the fall of Adam into sin and with him the entire human race. And the wickedness of the human race at the time of Noah, when and when every single thoughts and inclination of the hearts of men was only evil all the time, and Noah alone and his family found grace in the eyes of God, and God wiped out the world with the flood; that was still in the future. And the call of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the Promised Land and to receive it only as a promise, something that was still ahead of him, and he died without receiving that promise, but that was still in the future, when God rested on the seventh day. And so also, the development of the 12 tribes of Israel, and their bondage in Egypt and all of their labors, still in the future. And then the deliverance under Moses, the passage through the Red Sea was in the future at that point. And the coming to Sinai and the entrance into the promised land, and then the wretched cycle of sin of the Israelites which they had already done before they even entered the Promised Land, and so they have to wait 40 years to enter. And then in the Book of Judges, they just began immediately going after the gods of the peoples and the cycle of wickedness and sin, until, finally, they're evicted from the Promised Land. Been warned again and again by the prophets, but they still wouldn't heed God and they were evicted from the Promised Land, all of that was still in the future. And so also the restoration under the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the coming of Jesus, born of a virgin, born in the fullness of time. And his sinless life, and his rejection by His own people, the Jews, how they rejected Him. He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. And His bloody death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension into Heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit in the day of Pentecost, and the explosive movement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth going on now for 20 centuries, all of that was in the future when God rested. And He knew that, He knew all of that story. And so God's work was imperfect, because there was still more work to be done. And so therefore the seventh day rest was merely a picture of a future rest that was going to come. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, but He knew that the whole story was yet to come. The perfect rest could not come until Christ brought it about both in His death on the cross and through His constant intercessory ministry as our high priest at the right hand of God, and by His sending of His Holy Spirit to convict the elect, and bring them into the kingdom. Through that work alone, the preservation work, redemption accomplished and applied, right to the end; only then would it all be perfect. The Sabbath Rest Commanded at Sinai We see also the imperfect type or picture of the Sabbath rest, commanded at Sinai. Now, the concept of the Sabbath as a weekly observance precedes the 10 commandments. It existed in the mind of God, but it was not in the habits of the people. They had been slaves in Egypt, seven days a week, they were slaves. They were making bricks, by that time they were making bricks without straw. Laboring, the sweat, blood, and tears, that that life of bondage called from them. And they're just working seven days a week, day after day, after day, after day, after day, after day until you died in bondage. That's what their lives were like for four generations, they'd been there. And there was no distinction one day from another. But when God called them out and by the power of His miracles, and through the Red Sea crossing, and they come into the desert, God provided manna for them, the bread from heaven to eat. And He began teaching them about the Sabbath. The cyclical observance, a once a week observance through the patterns of the giving of the manna. And so the manna was coming down like rain like bread from heaven, and they were to collect it in baskets off the ground. And they were told very clearly to only collect enough for one day. Don't take any more for tomorrow, I will provide for you tomorrow. So that's somewhat in Jesus' mind, when He says, "Give us this day, our daily bread." But some Israelites really just didn't listen to instructions. Perhaps you teachers have had pupils like that, they just didn't listen. Some parents, perhaps from time to time your children have not listened to instructions. Perhaps that's even characterized you from time to time. But some of these Jews went out and they took some extra amount. Not merely for a midnight snack, mind you, but this was for tomorrow so they'd have enough for tomorrow. But what did they find? The stuff that they left over was wriggling with maggots the next day, it was foul and unusable. God rebuked them for their disobedience. But he made an exception in preparation for the Sabbath. And He said in preparation for the Sabbath you are to collect twice as much manna, collect two days' worth. And the people found the next day that it wasn't covered with maggots, God did a once-a-week miracle for them to preserve that extra manna and they would eat enough, and they would not go out and collect. Although some of them didn't, wouldn't you know, they would go out on the seventh day, and they did try to look, and there was none on the ground. But God was already teaching them a certain rhythm, a seven-day cycle in which there would be six days of laboring and serving, and then on the seventh day they would rest, they would cease. And this was in preparation for this to be codified, to be established in the law of Moses, in the fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day," At Sinai, God commanded them, "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 it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your man-servant or maid-servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day." And therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. And so in this commandment, God was being gracious to the Israelites and setting up a weekly reminder, I believe, of that future final, eternal rest that we will enjoy with Christ in Heaven. He was teaching them about that. Now, in one sense, the Sabbath regulation was backward-looking, for in six days, the Lord your God made the heavens and the earth. But in a very mysterious, and at that point, very shadowy way, it was forward-looking too, to a time when all of their labors would be done, finished. And God really intended that they keep this because the Sabbath law came with a penalty, and if you did not obey it, you would be put to death. He very much meant, He intended that this be a part of their lives. And so when a Sabbath breaker was found who was out collecting firewood, the word came for this Sabbath breaker to be put to death, and so he was. Now, the Sabbath regulation was seen to be a time of self-denial, interestingly. Leviticus 16:29. "You must deny ourselves and not do any work." Interesting. Deny yourselves and not do any work. Well the self-denial means from just give up your earthly ambitions for a day, don't try to achieve more in this world than in this life, in this day. Deny yourself, focus on God. That's really what it's about. Again, in Leviticus 16:31, It is a sabbath of rest. You must deny yourselves. It was also called sacred to the Lord, and a day of holy assembly. Leviticus 23:3, "There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly." You are not to do any work, wherever you live. It is a sabbath to the Lord." And so, a time for the people of God to gather and to meet together and to focus on God and to worship Him. Sadly, the Jews regularly disobeyed the Sabbath regulations, they sinned, as we already mentioned the man gathering the firewood. Or in Jeremiah's day, they're carrying loads through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath. The time of Nehemiah doing the same thing. And He went out as the governor and said, "If you continue to camp outside the gates, I'm going to lay hands on you." And that's not for ordination. He was going to arrest them if they continue to do this, but they just were constantly wandering into worldly business and ambitions and materialism, and prosperity rather than taking that day to rest and focus on God. Now, all of this Sinai regulation, the fourth commandment, was man-centered in it's purpose. Jesus came to instruct us about the Sabbath and teach us. He designated first and foremost, Himself to be king over the sabbath. Which would be sheer arrogance, if you weren't God. But he said "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." In other words, the way I define the sabbath is the true and right definition, of it. And he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The God-Ordained Sabbath a Delight It's for your benefit for our benefit. It was not made to be a burden, a crushing burden, but rather a delight. And so it says in Isaiah 58: 13-14, "If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please, or speaking idle words then you will find your joy in the Lord." It's to wean us from earthly things and to have us focus on God. And nothing but God, that day. Now the Sabbath regulation was right for legalism. Legalism with the Sabbath tends to focus on you what you must not do. What you are forbidden from doing. But they call the Sabbath. A delight approach, focuses and what you may do, you may focus on God, you may release the world for a day, and you may meet with the brothers and sisters and pray together, and worship, and have a foretaste of God that day. That's what you may do. Well the legalistic Sabbath was a crushing burden by the time Jesus came to free us from it, His poor disciples and I mean that literally, they were poor, going through the grain fields on a Sabbath they hadn't had anything to eat, in the Law of Moses provided for poor people to just pick heads of grain that were standing and eat them immediately. They couldn't bring baskets in the field, but they could eat their fill, Just in the fields. It was their form of welfare, really. And so His disciples are standing there doing it and the Sabbath police, the Pharisees said," Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." Wasn't that they were stealing they knew that, that was fine, but it was they were harvesting. They were harvesting on the Sabbath. Jesus had to deal with this all the time. I actually think... If you read through it, do some statistical analyses, you'll find that you did an overwhelming number of His healing on the Sabbath. He did it on purpose. Is there someone I can heal today on the Sabbath? So He finds a man paralyzed by that that pool in John 5, and He heals Him on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath police find him and he's carrying his mat. It's un-lawful for you to carry your mat. Not asking how were you healed and what does it signify? But it's unlawful for you to be carrying your mat. But Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath, and more than that, He's more than just Lord of the Sabbath, friends, He is the Sabbath rest. He is our Sabbath rest, both now and forever, He is the Sabbath rest. A Shadowy Picture of Rest Under Joshua And the third shadowy picture is the rest under Joshua. The coming into the promised land. It was spoken of as a kind of rest before they even enter the Promised Land, under Joshua, it says in Deuteronomy 12:10, "But you'll across the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you, as an inheritance and He will give you rest, from all your enemies around you. So that you will live in safety.” So there's that word rest. And after they entered the Promised Land and had begun in a large part, had conquered it and settled it in Joshua 21:44, it says "The Lord gave them rest on every side as he had sworn to their fore fathers." He mentions in Deuteronomy 8 the rich blessings of that land of rest. "The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. A land with streams and pools of water. With springs flowing in the valleys and hills, a land with wheat and barley. Vines, and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing, a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills and when you have eaten, and are satisfied then praise the Lord your God for the good land, He has given you." He especially focuses on when you eat from vineyards you didn't plant. And when you gather in harvest that you did not labor for. When you sit at tables you didn't build, and when you eat meals that were laid out by somebody else, but now you get to sit there and eat them, then praise the Lord for the good land He's giving you. That is such a picture of our heavenly enjoyments, we're going to get out there and we're going to sit at banquet table with Jesus. And He paid at all, what did we do? And we're going to sit and eat His food and we're going to celebrate. And so the conquest of the promised land is a mere shadowy foretaste of our crossing the river of death, and entering into our final resting place with God. But it was merely temporary friends. The author says, Joshua did not give them the rest that David wrote about, because David wrote about this rest long after they had entered the Promised Land, and if Joshua had given them rest then David wouldn't have spoken later about another day, another time. Joshua's rest was not permanent. For the possession of the promised land was conditional, it was a conditional covenant, they had to obey the laws of Moses, to hold on to the Promised Land, and they could not do it. The Old Covenant did not transform their hearts, the Old Covenant did not take out the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh. The Old Covenant merely said, "Do this and you will live." And so it was not the final rest but merely a picture. II. There Remains a Perfect Sabbath-Rest And so, dear friends, there remains still a Sabbath rest for the people of God. It remained in David's day. It remained in Ezra's and Nehemiah's day, it remained in Jesus' day, it remained in the days of the apostles, it remained in the days of the reformers, and it remains still today, and it will remain as long as Jesus tarries, there still remains for us a Sabbath rest. "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." And along with that comes the warning. "I swore on oath in my anger. They shall never enter my rest." And so the implied command or invitation however you like to understand it, please all my people enter my rest. God is still inviting you through the Gospel now, to enter His rest, again verse one, "Therefore since the promise of entering is rest still stands. Let us be careful that His fear that none of you be found to a fallen short of it." And so in every generation, God stands with His arms extended and He invites His people. He invites them and says, "There remains for you today a Sabbath rest for the people of God. There remains the Sabbath rest." And this Sabbath rest, is heaven. He is not talking about a meticulous careful Sabbath regulation. He's not talking about that. And so if you are hoping that I would answer the age-old Christian question, "Are we still to keep the Sabbath?" I will not. I have preached about that in Colossians. Get it up on the website and listen to it. I've been through all that, but that's not what this text is about anyway. That's just a shadow in a type. The Sabbath rest that He's talking about here is heaven through Jesus Christ. Christ’s Perfect Work at the Cross And so when Jesus stands there in Matthew 11, and says, "Come unto Me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, take My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy. And my burden is light." He is talking about the Sabbath rest of Hebrews four. And Jesus is the door way for the sheep, He is the way to enter. And it is through Jesus that we come into our Sabbath rest, as though we're in this long corridor. And there's that door, and we have to finish walking through this corridor and we will step through the door. But Jesus is the corner, He's the door and he's the rest. And He says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and no one..." What? "Comes to the father, except through me, you know the way to the place where I'm going." That sounds like a journey to me friends. It sounds like there's a race to be run dear friends, and Jesus is the race and He is the finish line and He's the reward on the other side. So I want to plead with you. It says in verse six that some are going in and some aren't. Some are going in and some through unbelief and disobedience are not going to enter that rest. And I pray this morning that there would be someone here who has not yet come to faith in Christ, so I could plead with you to do so. That you could know justifying faith right now that you can know that God is at peace with you through the blood of Jesus right now. You can know that, that all your sins will be forgiven it could be that soon you might die you don't know how much longer you're going to live. What are you waiting for? Jesus shed His blood for you. He is pleading with you to come to enter through Him, to find rest for your souls. Complete forgiveness for all of your sins and I'm pleading with you, and His place through the spirit that you would do so. I'm begging with you, don't put it off. Jesus finished His works, Amen. Jesus works are finished. He said in John 17:4, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do." And the ultimate perfection of that work was on the cross when He shed His blood for sinners like you and me, and when he finished, he said. "It is finished." It is finished. Or you could translate it, "It is perfect." You can't add anything to it, it's perfect, it's done, it's finished. And He completed His work. And so therefore in verse 10 of our chapter here, anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from His own work, just as God did from His. And so we're going to step into Jesus' finished work. And I tell you there's a category of works that Jesus frees you from for the rest of your life, you're done with it for the rest of your life and you can enter that immediately if you're Christian, you've already entered that rest. But then next week I'll tell you there's a category of labors you are not free from yet. And you need to still work out your salvation with fear and trembling. That's next week. But now, you can be freed from a variety of works, you can be freed from wicked and sinful works that lead to death. Hebrews 9:14 speaks of works that lead to death. You can be freed from those works immediately, from idolatry, freed from the works of your hands, worshipping the works of your hands. The thing about the Sabbath regulation is it enabled you to look at your idols. And say, "I can't live for the things I make, for the money I make, or the stuff that I can experience here on earth, I'm living for heaven." It's a benefit. You're freed from wicked labors, you're freed from the labor of slander, you're free from the labor and the work of gossip, you're free from the work of lust and covetousness and greed, you're free from all of those works, the works of idolatry. And you're free from empty religious works that don't get you any closer to God at all, but the God repudiate because they're not done by faith in Christ. You're free from religiosity, you're free from justification by works, isn't that beautiful? By the works of the law, no flesh will be justified. You're free from that now. Your standing doesn't depend on the works of your hands. You are accepted in Jesus by faith. As it says in Romans 4, "To the one who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited in his righteousness." You're free then from religious works that you're trying to use to pay for your disobedience, you're free, from that friends. And you're free from frustration in the labor of your hands. As the book of Ecclesiastes says "Vanity of vanities," or, "meaningless, meaningless… everything is meaningless." "What does man gain from all of his labors and toils under the sun?" If you're a Christian, you're free from that mindset, forever, Amen. You can wash the dishes to the glory of God. You can make beds of the glory of God, you can train children in the glory of God, you can go to that job tomorrow to the glory of God, you can type a memo to the glory of God, you can answer a phone call to the glory of God. And everything you do by faith for the glory of God will be waiting for you on Judgment Day, reward able by grace. You are freed from wrestling with the ground and it producing only thorns and thistles for you in that sense. There is a sense you're not free from that curse. We'll talk about that next week. But you are freed from the ultimate meaningless-ness of life. Your work then has always been the same. What must we do to work the works of God, it's always the same. This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He Has sent. So labor to enter God's rest by faith, even today, have done with these works that you're freed from forever. Have done with wicked works, and religious works and meaningless works and justifying works, have done with all that, and stand in the peace that is yours and God. Now next we're going to talk about meditation on the heavenly life. And I'm going to share with you some insights from a Puritan pastor who wrote a 677 page treatise on Hebrews 4:9. And you're going to get all of it next week, no you're not, I'm sorry. Run Your Race With Endurance Hebrews 4:9. "There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God." Richard Baxter, thought that was worth almost 700 pages. I was interested in that. I knew of the Saints Everlasting Rest. I've heard of it but I never read it. I looked at it I said, "Oh, that's the text I'm working on this week. What a surprise? What a surprise how long it is?" And as I read it I said, "What a surprise, I've missed the point." The point is run your race with endurance, and we'll talk about that next week, close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the insights that come from the Word of God, and Lord we look forward to the saints everlasting rest not pulses of rest coming in and out of rest coming in and out of a sense of peace, and then back at it again. Oh God, we yearn for the day when we're free at last from the battle itself. And Lord I pray that as we meditate on that this week, and as we prepare to hear more from Hebrews 4 next week, Oh Lord enable us I pray, to be ready to answer that final rest through faith in Christ. I pray that we wouldn't Imitate those who through disobedience and unbelief refuse the gospel. And Father, I pray again for any lost person here. Oh, God, I pray that now in the hearing of the gospel they will have been saved, that they will be ready to die even now, so that they can have eternal life, in Jesus name, Amen.

Introduction One of Jesus' most remarkable statements - and most courageous, I think, given the context - in John chapter 5, He said, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working." We serve a God who is constantly energetically working. He's a God of labor. But the Bible also portrays our God is in heaven, and He does whatever pleases Him. So, He's a being that's delighting in the works of His hands. He's delighted to do the things He does, brings Him great joy and pleasure to work. Wouldn't it be sweet if you lived your life like that? It's my desire and my prayer that as a result of this sermon today that we might see work differently than we ever have before. But not only does God work, not only is He constantly at work, laboring to bring about His purposes, He has also entrusted to us work to do as well. And so, as the sun makes its circuit around the earth and shines on 24 different time zones, it shines down on the people busy at work. Start with the land of the rising sun Japan. You start with a stock broker in Tokyo selling stocks - Nikkei stock exchange - or a rice farmer who's bent over double. I used to see them in Japan, putting little rice plants into a saturated rice paddy, or a Siberian logger - big burly guy - cutting up Siberian fur, as the earth continues to turn. And the sun moves on past the Ukrainian wheat farmers or some pharmaceutical workers working in some German pharmaceutical company or shines down on the Rive Gauche of the Seine in Paris where there are some painters working on new techniques with oil and canvas, crosses the Atlantic. Cambridge, Massachusetts, some professors there, scurrying across Harvard yard to their class, maybe they're a little late, but about to give a lecture there, or goes across to Chicago where some sanitation engineers are emptying some dumpsters and working hard at keeping the streets clean. Or to Sacramento where there are some stay-at-home moms that are sitting and discussing parenting with one another while the kids play at the playground, or to the place where some people say is the most dangerous occupation up in the Bering Sea, where there are some Alaskan king crabs being fished by fishermen, risking their lives for a big catch. 24 hours of sunlight shining on a world busy at work. But the question that the Bible asks all of those workers and all of us is why do you do what you do? What is the purpose of the labors of your hands? There's a famous story about a traveler in the middle ages - you've probably heard a version of it before - who visited a city where many stonecutters were cutting. And the first was asked, "What are you doing?" And he replied, "I'm cutting stone, isn't that obvious? I've got to feed my family." He went to the second and he said, "Well, I'm the best stonecutter in the land. I'm perfecting my technique. Look how smooth and polished these edges are." Yeah, so the third, and he said, "I am building a cathedral." Now, those three different responses, I think, are paradigms of different ways that people look at work. The first one really, to some degree, lacked purpose all together. His nose was to the grindstone, so he could feed his belly. As it says in Ecclesiastes, "All of man's efforts are for his stomach" (Ecclesiastes 6:7). So, he's trying to feed himself and his family. The second is working on a career; he's developing his technique, trying to be the best at what he does. The third had a grander vision of building a cathedral, a big purpose in his life. But the fact is, frankly, even cathedrals will not last forever. King Solomon did great projects, and he talked about the outcome of those projects. In Ecclesiastes 2, it says, "I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself, planted vineyards, I made gardens and parks, and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them, I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. My heart took delight in all of my work, and this was the reward for all of my labor, and yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11). So, that's projects done in the Ecclesiastes code phrase under the sun, done just on that horizontal level of human endeavor trying to do something great, and he didn't see much in it. So why should we work? What is the overarching purpose for which we should work? I think Jesus gave it to us better than anyone in His high priestly prayer in John 17. Jesus, the night before He was crucified, said this to His heavenly father, He said, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." John 17:4. That's it, dear friends. If you're a Christian, live for that. “I brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” Balance in Work and Play: A Timeless Challenge So, our work should be for the glory of God. We should fit into His overarching plan, the building of the kingdom of Christ. That's what we should be laboring for, but does the Bible have any practical wisdom about our lives of work, either about our careers or even about menial day-to-day tasks? Yes, it does, and we go to the book of Proverbs for that, as we have over the last number of weeks. And, today, we're going to look at the topics of... By the way, have you ever had a moment of regret? I had a moment of regret this morning. The title should have been “Labor, Leisure, and Laziness.” It dawned on me this morning I missed a perfect chance at alliteration. There aren't W's that go across, so it's got to be “Labor, Leisure, and Laziness.” Alright, so just to raise that little work thing, but it's about work, but you know, but it's about labor, leisure and laziness, that's what we're talking about. So, I'm done with my pangs of regret now. Workaholics or Sluggards? That's what we're preaching about today, but we're looking at this topic of work, of labor, and we're trying - we're seeking through this sermon, through the work of the Holy Spirit, I think - to achieve a very difficult thing, which is balance in life concerning our work, balance. Now, in America, I want to ask you, as you know, this nation, are we a bunch of workaholics, are we a bunch of pleasure sordid, playaholics. Which one? Well, it's a complex question as you think about it. My first job, I worked, in my opinion, for a workaholic. Now one of the first jobs I had, actually, first technical job, I just graduated from high school, and I was working in Bedford, Massachusetts for a company that made solar-powered water pumps. And one of the three founders of the company, a graduate of MIT, was just a relentless workaholic, worked about 100 hours a week. Chain-smoker, hypertensive kind of guy. I don't know if he's still alive, but I know this: He never stopped working. And there are people like that; I've seen people like that. Whole corporations can be driven by the ambition of a CEO who lives his life like that and never satisfied. They tend to be miserable people. They only think about work all the time where they're working. If they're not working, they're thinking about work. And electronic technology has made it possible to do that more and more. You could be working while talking to someone, if they'll put up with it, with the BlackBerry, the cellphone going on… I mean, the people can be... You can be doing massive things over the wireless through the laptop, even while sitting next to somebody who you're out on a date with, like your wife or something. I've never done that, but you know, people can be working all the time. So, are we workaholics? Well, it seems to me that America actually tends to be more bent the other way, what you might want to call playaholics. Have you ever seen bumper stickers that allude to this? “A bad day of fishing still better than a good day in the office,” something like that. I don't even know what to say about that. I'm not trying to offend those of you that love fish or to fish, something like that; I don't see that. But at any rate, I understand what's behind it. The person would rather be recreating than working. Or this one, “Work fascinates me, I could sit and watch it for hours.” I've seen people like that before. Frankly, I've been with people like that before from time to time. How about this one? “If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it?” Or this one, “I'm stuck here, but my head is stuck on the weekend.” Well, I really saw that when I was in the workforce. I worked for 10 years out in industry, and Monday morning - or even worse, Tuesday morning after a three-day weekend - it's a tough time to go to work. People are still wishing they were on the weekend. How about this one? “Hard work has a future payoff, but laziness pays off now.” Well, I'm actually preaching against that, and we'll talk about that in this sermon. But it's a philosophy. Or this one, “I owe, I owe so off to work, I go.” Now, that one hits a little close to home, because remember when I was preaching on money, how many people have run up credit card debts to pay for pleasure items that they then have to go to a job they hate and pay off? So, the reason for working then is because of debt. So, Americans have almost endless ways to spend leisure time, addicted to hobbies, sports, computer, video games, vacations, et cetera. And the struggle of the church over the ages has been defined balance. The Church Over the Ages: Struggling with Both Work and Leisure Early on in church history, there were ascetics who pulled away from a lifestyle of leisure and pleasure and went off in the desert and did nothing but fast and pray. Later on, in the development of the monastic movement, they would add working, laboring with the hands. It was a relentless lifestyle driven, I think, by a bad theology of what it took to be saved, to have your sins forgiven, and very difficult for them to find balance. Perhaps some of the most balanced people on this were Puritans, but they are well known for the Puritan work ethic, and they had a dim view of what most people of their age called leisure or play. They were against the book of sports, for example, which just had to do with leisure and recreation, very, very strong Sabbatarians. And for them, their worship was a form of work for the Lord, and they were focused on that. There was a kind of a relentless feel to the life, although not universally with them. Balance has been very, very difficult to find. And so, my desire is that we would have a godly proper balance between labor and leisure and not drift over into the laziness that we can see. The Blessing (and Cursing) of Work Work Is a Blessing from God So, let's go back to the beginning and try to understand briefly a theology of work. And we start with the blessing that work is itself. The Bible opens with God at work. I mean right from the very, very beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth. He's at work, as Jesus said, "To this very day, my father is at work and I too am working” (John 5:17). God is always putting energy to putting will toward this universe to achieve a purpose. So, from the very beginning, God says, "Let there be light,” and there's light. And in verse 31 of Genesis 1, "God saw all that he had made and it was very good, and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. And thus, the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." So, there's God at work skillfully weaving a universe, and then God entrusted meaningful work to human beings. Genesis 2:15, it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." So, there is Adam, and he's at work before the fall. Work Cursed by God What the fall did in Genesis 3, it came in and brought a curse on work. It brought a curse on work. So, in Genesis 3:17-19, Adam has to hear this, "For the punishment for what he did and sinning and breaking the law of God. Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you sink back into the dust for dust you are and to dust you will return." That is a curse on work is what it is. Labor would become futile; it would become frustrating. Efforts will be put forth, and nothing would come of it, and that's where I think Solomon picks it up in Ecclesiastes, where he just sees the vanity of it all. The Mysterious Part of Work In the New Covenant, though, in Jesus, work has been redeemed, and we are called mysteriously co-laborers with God. Our work actually has an eternal benefit as Christians as we do the good works. We are God's workmanship (Ephesians 2:10), created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God laid out or ordained in advance that we should walk in them. And so, the implication there in the open teaching in other places that our works actually have eternal consequence. And, that's mysterious because God doesn't need us at all. But He has in some mysterious way committed to us eternal works - works of eternal consequence. So, that's a brief overview of work and where we're at. Proverbs: Celebrating the Glory and Rewards of Labor Introducing the Ant! Let's look at Proverbs, and Proverbs begins celebrating the glory and the rewards of labor - the glory and the rewards of labor. And, in order to do that, the book of Proverbs introduces us to the ant. The ant. We are introduced to the ant, "Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise” (Proverbs 6:6). The ant is a role model for us. The ant is held out in Proverbs 6, one of the most amazing creatures that God ever made. We're talking in the staff about what would happen if the natural world just weren't restrained anymore toward the human race and just went after us. Who would you dread the most of all of the created beings? And one of our guys said, "I think it's the ants." I mean, what are you going to do with the ants? I thought it was the eagles. I thought, if the eagles came after us, what are you going to do? Swooping from up above; you're in trouble. I think Hitchcock made a film like that about birds, but the ants… Do you realize there are one million ants for every human being on the face of the earth? What would you do against your million if there were war between us and the ants? How would you take on your million ants? Ants are amazing creatures; they can lift over 50 times their body weight, similar to us lifting an automobile. They all live in communities, colonies. The largest ant colony ever found was located in Italy in northern Spain. It stretched 3,600 miles. One colony. Literally, of course, billions of ants. Now, every ant has a specific function. Soldier ants protect the rest of the colony from outside encroachment. Harvester ants store seeds for use as food. Some of the ants chew up the seeds and form a kind of a pasty bread that all the other ants eat. Others take out seeds that have gotten wet and lay them out to dry. Weaver ants use their larvae which produce silk threads to sow together leaves for shelters and other purposes. Carpenter ants hollow out tree stumps for use as nests. Slave-maker ants actually raid other ant colonies and steal away a larvae, which then grow up as slaves for their colony. Now, Solomon urges us to go to the ant to study the ant and look at its ways and to observe the ants specifically for its work ethic. It has no commander or overseer or ruler (Proverbs 6:7 and 8), and yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. The issue there with the ant is its dedication to the task, self-motivation also, and foresight. So, it's dedicated, it's motivated, and it doesn't have an overseer directly commanding it, doesn't mess around when the boss isn't watching. It just sticks to the task. And foresight - the ability to store up today what's available today, so that they can eat tomorrow. Now, the essence of the sluggard, and we're going to talk more about the sluggard later in the message, but is procrastination. Putting off to tomorrow what ought to be done today. The ant doesn't do that. And so, we have the ants as an example. In effect, God is saying to us, "Why can't you be like the ant?" Somewhat like a scolding parent, and saying, "If only you could be as dedicated to your task as the ant is." The Rewards of Labor Well, what are the rewards of labor? Well, first and foremost, very plainly and clearly, the satisfaction of basic necessities, food, clothing, and shelter. Food, clothing, and shelter. And we have had numerous opportunities to counsel people in the community and others that have come that are having trouble in certain areas, and it takes them to sermon. but one of the basic lessons is if you're able-bodied, it's up to you to provide for your basic needs, and if you're the head of a household for those of your family, that's a basic lesson of Scripture. And so, it says in Proverbs 16:26, “the laborer's appetite works for him.” His hunger drives him on; it forces him to do whatever it takes to care for him. His own needs and the needs of his family drives him on. And so, we've seen photos from The Great Depression of people with signs saying we'll work for food, people who are formerly investment bankers that are selling apples, whatever it took to get a job. But Proverbs goes beyond that. Actually, abundant food and blessing comes from labor as well. Proverbs 10:4 says, "Lazy hands makes a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." So excess or surplus or wealth comes from diligence, from hard work. Also, skill at labor produces an ever-widening scope of opportunity, advancement in life. Proverbs 22:29 says, "When you see a man skilled in his work, he will serve before kings, he will not serve before obscure men." So, if you want to advance, if you want to have a wider scope, wider horizon of ministry opportunities or of life, then be skilled in your labor. Be good at it. That's what the book of Proverbs is teaching. Also, hard work results in authority and greater responsibility. Proverbs 12:24 says, "Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor." So again, diligence results in authority and the ability to lead others. It's usually hard workers that get in that position, not always, but frequently. Also, hard work results in the fulfillment of desires. Proverbs 13:4 says, "The sluggard craves and gets nothing. But the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” Isn't that a sweet verse? So, basically, it's just the desires of your heart frequently come through the labors of your hands. That's what Proverbs is saying. Obviously, I know Psalm says, "Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." But this verse is teaching that, so often, it comes through your hard labor as well. And so, in the end, a hard worker will be praised and rewarded. Just go to the end of the book, and you have the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31. Incredibly hard-working lady. Proverbs 31:13 and following, it says, "She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She's like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it's still dark. She provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls." And at the end of all that, in Proverbs 31:31, it says, "Give her the reward she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gates." Well, that's true, not just for the virtuous wife, but for a man as well, for anybody - that hard work results in praise and rewards. I think we even get that from the Lord. "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. Now, I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23). He's rewarding labor there. Initiative, energy, sacrifice. That's what's going on there. Practical Words on Work Proverbs also gives us some practical words of wisdom on work. One of them is, work your fields and avoid fantasies. A couple of Proverbs teaches… Proverbs 28:19 says, "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." It's been heartbreaking for me sometimes to see people who leave a good job or a good situation for some whim, some fantasy, really. A get-rich-quick scheme or some other thing, and they get themselves into difficulty, and they don't really recover. Now, I'm not saying it's not possible that the Lord can come and give you a vision for a ministry and cause you to make some sacrifices, like the rich young ruler is called on to sell everything and follow Jesus. But this proverb still speaks a word of wisdom to us to be careful that you're hearing God properly. Secondly, prioritize your tasks wisely. Proverbs 24:27 says, "Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready, and after that, you may build your house." So, the idea is, you might want to make your house cushy, comfortable, luxurious, just like in the book of Haggai with paneling and all that, but there's something outside the house that needs to be done first. So, look after that. Prioritize your tasks wisely. Thirdly, be honest in business. Proverbs has many things to say about the honest scales or the dishonest scales, and how much God loves an honest set of weights. And that just expands to just talk about honesty in business and honesty in how you earn your living. In Colossians, it says, work hard, and not just when the boss's eye is on you. But even when it's not, do your work as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24). So, honesty in business. And Proverbs urges us to take care of our equipment. Take care of your tools, the things that you use to make your living. Prize your possessions. Proverbs says in 27:23, "Be sure to know the condition of your flocks. Give careful attention to your herds." And then it goes on and says, "Because they're going to give you wool for clothing and food for your family." So, look after your things. Be good stewards of your possession. So, this is just some of the practical wisdom that God gave Solomon for a lifestyle of hard work. It's wise, it's prosperous, it's orderly, and it's satisfying. So, the Lord envisioned a life that's going to be six-sevenths labor. Might as well enjoy it, dear friends, because that's what God's called us to do, to be productive, to work hard, to work for His Glory, and to do things fruitfully for Him. The Blessings and Purpose of Leisure Rest Displayed and Commanded by God But what about rest? Is there a place for leisure in the Christian life? Is there a limit to work? Well, from the very beginning, we learned that there actually is a limit to work, and God set that up by the Sabbath rest that He took in Genesis 2. It says, "By the seventh day, God had rested from the work..." Or, sorry, "Had finished the work he had been doing. So, on the seventh day, He rested from all of His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Because on it, He rested from all the work of creating that he had done." And then God established that as the law for Israel and ten commandments: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. "Do all your work in six days, and rest on the seventh, for God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh” (Exodus 20:8-11). So, therefore, God gives us a picture of a limit to work. There's just a limit to it. Now, we know theologically that God has to constantly work or the universe doesn't exist anymore. We know that, but there's a symbolic resting from work that God intends, a picture of our future heavenly rest, but also a rhythm for everyday life for the Jews and for us as well. So also, just the rhythm of day and night tells us that when the sun goes down… And, after Edison, I think we are confused about this. But people in less developed nations, they know when the sun goes down, you go to bed. And you know, they did. I remember in Kenya, you see these little coleman-style lanterns, but those are only for a little while and then they go out and they're in bed. Hour or two after the sun goes down. Not us. Ever see a satellite photo of the Earth at night and just all of the lit areas? Those are all the first world countries that have forgotten what it means to go to bed when the sun goes down. Rest is Sweet to the Wise But God intends for the rest of a laborer to be sweet. “The sleep of a laborer is sweet,” it says in Proverbs 3 and verse 24. After you've done everything that God wanted you to do, you've lived a faithful day, the sun has gone down, you've finished up, it's just time to put your head on the pillow and rest. And that rest is sweet. Interesting word, though, isn't it? Sweet? The book of Proverbs talks about this thing called honey, and it talks about how sweet honey is, and that it's a good thing to enjoy it. It's a good thing to taste the honey. God made it delicious for a reason. There's even a command in the Bible that we ought to eat honey. Proverbs 24:13 says, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good. Honey from the comb is sweet to the taste." And the next proverb talks about some other topics, so that's all that proverb has to say is just, “Eat honey.” It's good. Well, I think that honey is a metaphor. It isn't just that God really wants you to eat honey and that there's... It's got to do with a health thing, and if you just eat it, you're going to be healthy and live long and all that. No, it just tastes good. There's no other reason for it. It just tastes good. So, I think an extreme ascetic life out in the desert grinding away, especially one in which you're trying to pay for your sins thereby, that's not what God had in mind at all. God created fruit. He created beautiful things to see, created experiences and things for us to enjoy, leisure things that are what I call amoral pleasures, not immoral pleasures. But those things that are good, richly to be enjoyed. "Eat them," God says. That's the kind of life He gives us. But you know, there's more to say about honey from Proverbs, isn't there? There is a command not to overeat honey. Proverbs 25:16 says, "If you find honey, eat just enough. Too much of it, and you will vomit." Now, it's not often you hear the word “vomit” from the pulpit, but that's what the Proverbs are saying. You'll vomit. If you take in too much of the good things of life, it will come out of you in a bad way. It will destroy you. So, there's a balance here on leisure. Now you're going to say, "What in the world does honey have to do with leisure?" I just don't think... I think that honey is a metaphor for blessings in life that are not intrinsic or essential to keeping us alive. It's just the good things of life. God created all things richly for us to enjoy, but it says in Proverbs 25:27, "It's not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor." So there, just going from honey to honor, shows it's a metaphor. It's just a metaphor. And so, the basic thing is, please enjoy the good things of life, but don't over-indulge. And one of the dangers of overeating honey is you grow to hate honey. And, once you hate one kind of honey, you're constantly then drifting looking for the next kind of honey. And it's a bad way to live. It really is, I think, a satanic way to live. You're empty, you're restless, you're wandering around looking for something in life. And you haven't noticed that you have become idolatrous is what it is. You're looking horizontally for the blessings of life, and you've forgotten that God is our pleasure. He really is our honey, above all of these earthly blessings. So, it says in Proverbs 27:7, "He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet." So, that's the whole problem, I think with America: it's over-indulgence. It's not that God's blessed us. It's a good thing that He's blessed us. It's the over-indulgence. Yes, there's food, but why do we go on to gluttony and to obesity? It's not enough for some to have recreation. We have to play to the level of a frantic addict. It's not enough to have a weekend or a vacation, some pretty place. We become idolaters and live for the weekend and hate work. It changes the heart. It's not enough to watch a ball game or two from time to time. We've got to have 24/7 ESPN, and how many... I don't even know how many versions we are up to. ESPN 360. They just added ESPN Boston. And you're wondering how do I know? Well, we'll talk about that another time. But at any rate, there's just lots of different ways to over-indulge in different things. So, it is damaging, dear friends, bottom line, to love pleasure. Proverbs 21:17 says, "He who loves pleasure will become poor. Whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich." Now, I don't think that means pleasure in an absolute sense. We're a pleasure in God; we're created for pleasure. John Piper satisfied me about that. We ought to be hedonists living for the pleasure of God. That is fine, but that's not what that Proverbs is talking about. It's talking about a horizontal earthly pleasure that you then live for; it becomes an idol. That leads us very easily and naturally to the shame and destructive destructiveness of laziness. The Shame and Destruction of Laziness Introducing the Sluggard! And so, we have introduced a different character now. We had the ant earlier; now we meet the sluggard. The sluggard. And what a fascinating character this individual really is. Have you ever studied the sluggard passages? They're really quite fascinating. This is an interesting guy. First and foremost, he loves to sleep. I mean, he's just addicted to sleep. Proverbs 6:9-11, "How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty is going to come upon you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man." I remember in school there was a guy in our fraternity; you couldn't wake him up with fire to his feet. I never tried that. Somebody said they did, and it didn't work. I mean, this guy, you couldn't get him up. But this sluggard just loves to sleep. Or this one, Proverbs 26:14, "As the door turns on its hinges, so the sluggard in his bed." That's his labor that day, to find the comfortable way to sleep. How to get the pillows arranged, and what's the best position for sleeping? Now, the sluggard is filled with desire. He's filled with dreams and aspirations, but nothing ever comes of it because he's completely unwilling to work for it. Make any of it happen. Proverbs 13:4, "The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligence are fully satisfied." And again, Proverbs 21:25, "The sluggard's craving will be the death of him because his hands refused to work." So, it just torments him, all the things he wants, but they don't come his way because he doesn't work for them. The sluggard is constantly making excuses for his laziness, even to the point of ridiculousness. Proverbs 22:13, "The sluggard says, "There's a lion outside or I'll be murdered in the streets." I mean, please. The reason the sluggard says he doesn't want to work, and what might happen if he goes out. Something's going to happen. “I might get eaten by a lion. Somebody might murder me. I just need to stay here where it's safe.” The level of laziness can reach ridiculous, even epic proportions. Proverbs 26:15, "The sluggard buries his hand in the dish. He's too lazy to bring it back to his mouth." So, I pictured this. A man still living at home with his parents at age 40. Sleepy from his afternoon nap, he turns out just in time for dinner for his mommy who has cooked for him yet again, another home-cooked meal, asking her if she would please cut it up for him and feed him. That's about the picture I get from this proverb. How pathetic and disgusting laziness can become! And the sluggard then creates immense frustrations for people around him, immense frustrations for his extended community, his family. Proverbs 10:26, "As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is a sluggard to those who send him." Have you ever been camping, and you use sappy or wet wood, green wood? And it's just billowing smoke and whatever, wherever you stand, it seems the wind shifts to get that stinging smoke into your eyes. Well, that's what it's like to send a sluggard to do a hard worker's job. Imagine a scenario, and I saw things like this, not exactly like this, but imagine a scenario where an employer, a manufacturer wants to get some parts made ASAP. They need them that day. The best vendor in the area is willing to set aside some work for this special project if he can get the drawings by 10 in the morning. And so, the boss sends a messenger with the drawings. Little does he know he has sent a sluggard. The guy drives by a Starbucks and realizes he's not going to get his morning coffee break like the rest of the guys. So, he pulls in. An hour later, he rolls out, and he brings the drawings to the vendor. Vendor didn't get them by 10 o'clock, so he figured that the guy didn't need them after all. He puts them in the bottom of the queue. Around 4:30, there's a phone call between the boss who sent this guy and the vendor, and it's frustrating to both parties. And why? Because the sluggard was in the middle. That kind of stuff goes on in the workplace just about every day. And it's a shameful thing. Sluggard misses opportunities and makes excuses about it. Proverbs 20:4, "Sluggard does not plow in season so at harvest time, he looks but finds nothing." There was a window of opportunity for him to get his crops in the ground; he missed it. Growing season is over; he missed it. And even more amazing in the proverb, he looks for the harvest, and he didn't know why it's not there. He's shocked. And so, it is now. The deadline for applying for fall classes comes and goes, and then the registrar gets a phone call from somebody who wants to apply, register for classes. Well, that ended a week ago. And what's amazing is how angry the individual gets toward the person on the phone. How angry they are about it. And so, it says in Proverbs 19:3, "A man's own folly ruins his life, and yet his heart rages against the Lord." God, how could you let this happen to me? And he never traces it back to his own laziness. He's always a day late and a dollar short. He starts projects and doesn't finish them. And basically, dear friends, he is fighting his laziness his whole life. Proverbs 15:19, it says, "The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway.” Look at how ironic that is. Every moment, what he wants is his own ease and comfort. That's what he's looking for at every moment. And as a result, he leads a very difficult life, very difficult life. He wants to travel, but he can't find his passport, so he has to apply for another one. Very stressful for him. Tries to find a dress shirt that he knows he can't find, he goes and buys another one at a certain amount of expense, finds the original dress shirt a week later. A college friend's father dies. He meant to get a sympathy card or something in the mail, doesn't. The relationship goes down a tick as a result. He doesn't pay the bill on time, and so there's creditors calling. Very, very difficult. His way is blocked in with thorns. Basically, he's a slave to his own sense of comfort. And the result of all of this, in Proverbs 24? You heard Allan read it. I'll read it again. A shameful display, visible to the whole world. "I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment. Thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds and stonewall was in ruins and I applied my heart to what I observed, and I learned a lesson from what I saw. A little sleep, a little slumber. A little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man." What’s Wrong with a Little Sleep? So, you may say, what's wrong with a little sleep? I think Proverbs is overly harsh on sleep. No, not at all. Actually, it's from Proverbs 3. It says that the sleep is sweet to the laborer. The problem is love of sleep. Proverbs 20:13 says, "Do not love sleep or you'll grow poor. Stay awake and you'll have food to spare." That's the problem. So, guard your heart, dear friends. Watch your tendencies. A little of this, a little motion in direction, next thing you know, years later, you've missed a whole bunch of good works God wanted you to do because you weren't vigilant over your heart. Applications Rest in the Finished Work of Christ! Well, what application can we take from all of these proverbs? Well, first and foremost, let's go to Jesus on this topic of work and say to Him what was already said one time before. What must we do to work the works of God? What do you have to do to work the works of God? Jesus' answer is this: this is the work of God. Believe in the one He has sent. The work of the human race has already been done, dear friends, already been achieved. The central work of the human race was done by one man, Jesus Christ, when He shed His blood on the cross and died for sin, that work is finished. He said so. He said, "It is finished, it's done." And the reason that I can preach so eloquently about the sluggard is I played that role from time to time in my life. I have. I've played the role of the workaholic, too. All of us struggle with balance in every area of our lives. We are sinners, and we are saved by works, dear friends. They're just not our works. Jesus' work on the cross saves us. His righteousness and obedience of the law saves us. Step into that by faith. Step into that, and trust in the Lord Jesus. I said it's likely, there's some here that have never trusted in Jesus. Set aside your own works; they cannot save you. It does not matter how great your career is, or how many of the works of your hands, they cannot pay for your sins. Trust in Jesus. It's the only, only work that will save you, the work of Jesus. Live for the Grand Work of the Kingdom of God Well, secondly, what now then? How do I work the works of God aside from believing in Jesus? How do I do the good works that God's ordained that I should walk in them? Well, I think we should understand the overarching glory of God in the building of the kingdom. Just say, I am doing this work. I am preaching this sermon right now that God's kingdom might be advanced. Even down to “I am peeling these potatoes to the glory of God, that I might pray while I'm doing it, that I might give my labors to God as an act of worship.” That, the Puritans were excellent at that. Live like that. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might to the glory of God. And then learn the practical lessons of Proverbs. Don't despise the menial tasks of the day. A life worth living is made up of garbage taken out and bills paid on time, and lawns mowed and gardens weeded and socks repaired and shirts ironed and thank you notes written on time. Cars washed, groceries bought, meals cooked, children bathed and put to bed. That's life. Do it all to the glory of God. Do it for His honor. And use your spiritual gifts; have a ministry. We're going to talk more about that in a few weeks, but just be sure that you're using your spiritual gifts for the glory of God. Build up the church; build up the brothers and sisters in Christ. And beware of the recreation craze culture that we live in; beware of it. A little of this, a little of that, next thing you know you're addicted. Don't go there. Have the wisdom to show restraint. And teach your children, please, to labor. Their bent is going to be toward recreation, toward play, and so also their schoolmates. Be the mean parent. We talked about the mean parent last week that actually makes your kids learn how to work. Be the mean, tough parent that says, “You actually do have to make your bed every morning and keep your room clean and learn how to serve.” And all the more as they get older. Teenage boys, teenage girls learning how to serve others with their vigorous bodies. Finally, don't procrastinate or be like the sluggard. Do the good works God has ordained for you to do today. For His glory. Close with me in prayer, if you would.

Introduction Well, I remember when I was growing up. I used to love to watch on Saturday afternoons Wide World of Sports, because they had all different kind of weird sports and different things, not the regular ones you watch, but they had different ones. And one time they had this Chinese juggling troupe that did the most incredible things with their bodies that I'd ever seen, like making inverted pyramids on the stage and all kinds of stuff of strength and flexibility. But there's one guy in particular I remembered and just being amazed, and it was the plate spinner. This man had the ability to take a flexible rod and spin a plate up on the rod and it would just balance there. And then he would pick up the next rod and spin the next plate and the next one and the next one. Five, six, seven, eight plates spinning. By the time he got to 10, plates number one and two we're starting to wobble. And so you're kind of freaking out a little bit as you watch this whole thing and you're urging, as though he could hear you, that somehow he could spin this plate a little faster. But he knew what he was doing. 12, 14 plates, 16, 18, 20, and he seemed to know which ones needed help without even looking. It'd behind him and he was setting up a new plate and he'd turn and give it a little spin and then do some other things. It was incredible. It was just amazing. Now, CJ Mahaney had a similar experience on the Ed Sullivan Show. He watched a plate spinner doing that. I bet you're wondering what that picture had to do with Colossians 2. I'm trying to explain that. Here is a plate spinner who's got two phones, one he's talking on and something else going on and there's this franticness to life. Now, this sermon is not about the busyness of modern life and how we need to slow down and smell the roses. That's not what it's about. This sermon is about the lethal danger of legalism. And CJ Mahaney likens the legalistic lifestyle of the Christian to the plate spinner. What happens is you hear some good themes from the Bible, some things that we ought to be doing with our Christian lives and in effect at that moment you can set up a plate and start it spinning. And then another plate gets spinning as well. And this whole concoction in your mind sets up a paradigm that's very dangerous concerning your relationship with God. The more plates I have spinning and keep spinning, the more God is pleased with me, the more fruitful my life is, the more pleasing I am to Him. If I should let any of those plates fall and crash to the ground, there may be serious doubt as to whether I'm a Christian at all. And that's the legalistic mentality that I think Paul is fighting against in Colossians 2. You know how it is, the themes, a daily quiet time, prayer life, intercessory prayer for others, concern for evangelism, concern for cross-cultural missions, unreached people groups, financial faithfulness, stewardship, the tithes and offerings, faithful attendance at church, using your spiritual gifts to minister to others. All of these themes, ministry to the poor and the needy, concern for them. And more and more and more. I struggled with this this Summer on my sabbatical as I was looking carefully at the Christian life and all the elements that are involved in what it is to be a faithful, sanctified, mature Christian. And it's so easy to get under the pile, and for a subtle or perhaps not even so subtle shift to happen in how I see myself before God. That I've got to keep these plates going or else God will not be pleased with me and if enough of them fall to the ground I may not actually have been saved at all. This is an incredible bondage. And Paul here in Colossians 2, as he does in Galatians and in Romans and other places, seeks to liberate us from this bondage of legalism. That we would be free from it, that we would serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. That we would see ourselves as adopted sons and daughters of the living God and not as slaves on a plantation. "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free," Galatians 5. "Stand firm then and do not let yourself be yoked again with a bondage of servitude," Galatians 5. And I think that's exactly what Paul was seeking to do. Now, let's get a little context here. Colossians 1 has established beautifully the supremacy of Christ over all things. The Colossian heresy that Paul is writing to combat, denied the supremacy of Christ, He was a created being, a spirit emanation in the world, and that God, being pure spirit, really didn't desire or want a physical universe to be created, for physical matter is evil and wicked and salvation is to somehow get away from the physical lifestyle into a purely spiritual relationship with the true Spirit God that there was. Christ being an emanation, a created being like other spiritual emanations, can help us through specialized knowledge and through a special religious pattern to be liberated from the physical life and brought into Heaven in that way. It's a heresy. Complete in Christ Review: The Supremacy of Christ And in order to combat it, the Apostle Paul focuses first and foremost on the deity of Christ, on the perfection of Christ, the supremacy of Christ over all things. Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation for by Him all things were created. Things in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together and He is the head of the body, the Church. He is the firstborn from among the dead and by His blood which He shed He reconciled all things to the Father, so that Christ would have supremacy in all things." This is the greatness of Christ, the supremacy of Christ. Christ is Complete, We are Complete in Him And then in chapter 2 he's arguing that, "Christ is complete and therefore we are complete in Him." We don't lack anything. We are fully circumcised spiritually. We are fully alive in Christ. We were dead, but now we're fully alive. We are fully forgiven. He forgave us all our sins, not half of them or three quarters or 99%. He forgave all our sins. We are fully free from the law and we're going to focus on that today. Fully free from the law and we are fully triumphant over Satan and his accusations, specifically his ability to use the written code to accuse us of sin. We are fully free, triumphant because of the cross of Christ. So we're fully complete in Him, but along comes Satan, the intimidating bully that I mentioned last time, and what a bully he is, and through false teachers, through false teaching, he seeks to intimidate us and to tell us we are not complete. Oh, there's something missing. Yes, Christ is good. Yes, Christ is beneficial and helpful, but He is insufficient. I can scarcely say the words. How could the infinite God dying on the cross for us be insufficient for anything? We are full in Christ. But that's what the false teachers were saying. You needed something more. You needed human philosophy. You needed human obedience to the laws of Moses, Jewish legalism. You needed mysticism, some worship of angels and mystical experiences and you needed asceticism. These things will help complete the beginnings of the work of Christ in your life. If you don't have them, then you're really not saved. You're inadequate. You are insufficient. Satan bullying us, trying to show us that we are incomplete. The Intimidation of Philosophy Philosophy Defined Now, last week, we looked at the intimidation of philosophy. Remember what we said in verse 8? "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." We took time to define philosophy. The word literally means love of wisdom. But generally the way we use it, it's just the human attempt to make sense of the world we live in, to answer life's deepest questions, ultimate questions of meaning. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What happens after death? What is right? What is wrong? And why should I do the right and avoid the wrong? These questions are the purview of philosophy. There's nothing wrong with answering these questions. The problem, though, is the kind of philosophy that Paul was refuting. Hollow and deceptive philosophy which is based on human traditions and not on Christ. This is simply human philosophy that is not based on Christ. Christless, man-centered philosophy. Now, that is an enemy of the Gospel and he says, "See to it that no one takes you captive through it." Don't become a slave to that. Philosophy has a long and assorted history which we talked about last time. I won't go into it this time, but there's been literally millennia of the attacks of philosophy on the Gospel and on the church. The great danger of philosophy is that it starts with man, with man's knowledge, man's perspectives, man's issues and it does not go to the Word of God for its answers, but through our own abilities, it reasons out. But philosophy is defeated in Christ. Christ has become for us the wisdom of God, though He looks foolish. Jewish carpenter, bloody, dead on the cross. Where is the wisdom in that? But it is pure wisdom from God and all of the right answers to those questions, they flow from the cross of Jesus Christ. All of them do. He is our philosophy, Christ. But then He takes on the second bully. The Intimidation of Legalism And that bully is the bully of legalism and we're going to spend all our time on it today; I shifted the message a bit. I was going to do legalism, asceticism and mysticism in one Sunday and the folly of that became clear to me the more I looked at it. Can't do it. And so, instead, we're going to look at this issue of legalism. And the issue of legalism is a yoke of bondage, the law of Moses, the rules and regulations, circumcision becomes a portal, a doorway into a whole way of thinking about your relationship with God. A whole way of seeing yourself before the holy God. A way of anticipating how it's going to go for you on Judgment Day, legalism. And it's intimidating, it really is, because along with legalism comes the thought police, the religious police that come and tell you how to observe a Sabbath day, for example. They'll tell you what you're doing wrong, and there's danger to the church here. Look what it says in verses 16 and 17. "Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon, a celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ." Legalism Defined What is legalism? How do we understand it? Well, I love CJ Mahaney's definition of legalism in his wonderful book, the Cross-Centered Life. By the way, that is a great book. I've already alluded to it this morning. It's great for a number of reasons, mostly because it's great to be centered on the cross of Jesus Christ. It's also great to be able to finish a book. So, 82 pages, small, big print, you can get through this, you can do it and what a good feeling to read that final page. If you're kind of a starter and not a finisher, it puts it in succinct language, but he does an excellent job. Maybe one of the best things he does in the whole book is defining legalism. He gives us that image of the plate spinning, but then he gives us a good definition. "Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God." That is one of the best. It's just so clear. Let me read it again. CJ Mahaney: "Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God." It's really any attempt to rely on self effort either to attain or maintain our justification before God through self effort. Either to get it at the beginning or to keep it going once you have it. And it's a subtle change that comes over the brain and you start thinking, "I got it and it's been so good but I have to hold onto it now. I have to hold onto it to make progress. I've got to hold on to Jesus." And Paul, writing in the Book of Galatians, he says, "After beginning with the Spirit are you now completed through the flesh?" After you started by the power of the spirit through simple faith in Christ, are you going to finish your journey through your own efforts? It's so pernicious, so dangerous. John Piper advances the definition a little bit and I think his distinctions are helpful too. He speaks of two different kinds of legalism in the Christian life. One is individual, personal legalism that infects the brain of an individual Christian and hinders their ability to see their relationship with their Father properly. And the second is a more of a community legalism that comes over a group in which man-made rules are brought in to discern who should be a member of that group and if they're in good standing. The first individual, Piper writes this, "First, legalism means treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God's favor," those are key elements. "A law kept by your own power to earn God's favor." That's legalism. In other words, legalism will be present wherever a person is trying to be ethical, to be good in their own strength, that is without relying on the merciful help of God in Christ. Simply put, moral behavior that is not from faith in Christ is legalism. Anything that does not come from faith is sin. Here we're labeling this kind of effort as legalism. That's individual. Then there's that community or corporate legalism. Piper said the second meaning of legalism is this, "The erecting of specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for full participation in the local family of God, the church." This is where an unbiblical exclusivism arises. In other words, the community agrees that this is what we're going to do and be, and you are not a Christian, frankly, if you don't keep these standards and the standards that are erected aren't coming from scripture. But they're man-made. So those are two different kinds of legalism, both of them deadly in the life of the church and the individual Christian. It crushes the joy of the Christian life, crushes it. As a matter of fact, Paul uses joy like I talked about a few weeks ago, as the canary in the coal mine. He is looking at joy and saying it's a fragile thing and when joy goes, one of the things that can kill it is legalism. "What has happened to all your joy?", he says in Galatians, "Where did it go? Don't you remember how it used to be? How sweet it was to know that He forgave us all our sins? To feel like a child of God, adopted and safe and secure." It crushes joy and it leads to a constant effort to earn God's favor. Over and over and what a yoke of bondage that is, how crushing it is. You know the story of Martin Luther, how he tried to earn his forgiveness through Roman Catholic legalism during the Middle Ages, at the end of the Middle Ages. For him, it was a matter of being a monk and fasting, and praying and spending long nights on the floor and all of these things, and thinking that by obeying to the nth degree all of God's laws, he could do enough to cover his sins and not spend eternity in Hell or hundreds of thousands of years in purgatory. That's legalism and it was awful for him. It was awful because you know why? There's never any enough. There is never any enough. What's enough for the eternal, infinite God, perfectly holy? What's enough for him? And so, as he confessed sin after sin to Staupitz, his father confessor, and just kept coming back to confess more. Sacramental system, you had to confess your sins, or if you died with unconfessed sin that was X number of years in purgatory. It was a terrible bondage for him. And he kept going back. "Oh, I forgot something." The man couldn't get any work done, Staupitz, and he's like, "Look, go do something real and come back and tell me about it." It was just inclinations and issues of the heart. And he said, "You're making it too complicated. You just need to love God." He said, "Love God? I hate Him!" Well, that's blasphemy. There's no doubt about that. But that's what it leads to. It kills joy in the Christian life. It makes you insecure, and you can begin well, understanding the Gospel, but soon you're oozing over into this whole way of living. Think about the story of Anne of Green Gables. And Anne Shirley, she was an orphan girl who was taken into a family on probation. How would you like that? "We'll decide whether we'll adopt you or not by how you behave." That's tough. It's not right. It creates a works relationship that is not like a parent-child relationship. Brothers and sisters, we have been adopted. It's done. We are in the family. "A slave has no permanent place in the family," Jesus said, "But a son lives there forever and if the son makes you free, you'll be truly free. Free from the bondage of sin." And Jesus has that kind of power to free us from sin and to bring us as full members into the family of God, sons and daughters of the living God. Now, that's the joy out of which I want to serve God. I don't want to be wondering whether I'm on good standing with Him, and maybe if I do a few more good things I'm in better standing. That is legalism. It is bondage. Legalism’s Long Sordid History Now, legalism has a long and sordid history. It's been around forever, from the Old Testament right on through the New Testament. The Judaizers, the Pharisees, that some of them perhaps became Christians or at least outwardly professed to be Christians, they dogged Paul’s steps on this. They were sent to spy out freedom of the Gentiles, trying to make them obey a bunch of rules and regulations. And finally, they were openly teaching false doctrine. In Acts 15:1 it says, "Some brothers came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." Well, that's a wonderful example of legalism. You have to have Christ plus circumcision. Christ's accomplishment on the cross is not enough. And circumcision, I told you, is a doorway into a whole way of living. A whole way of living before God. It has to do with dietary regulations. What you eat, and what you drink, and religious festivals, and how you dealt with the Sabbath, and all the things he mentions here in Colossians 2. Well, the Apostle Peter stands up at that council, just gives a stirring speech, beautiful speech on this. He said, "Brothers, you know that some time ago, God made a choice among the Gentiles, that God, that they would hear, the Gentiles would hear from my lips the message of the Gospel and believe, hear, and believe, and be saved, that's all. God who knows the heart, showed that He accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them for He purified the hearts by faith. Our hearts are purified by faith," and so it continues. "He made no distinction between us and them," said Peter, "For He purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke, that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No, we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are." Why would you want to be slaves on that plantation again? Earning God's favor by doing His laws, keeping His laws, bondage, and the council rightly decided against it. Paul wrote the whole Book of Galatians to combat this error as they were teaching the same thing there to the Gentiles. And he says this, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.’ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law rather, because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, ‘the man who does these things will live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hung on a tree.'" So there it is, that's bondage. He's saying Christ has freed us from that. He became a curse for us. We're serving in a new way now, of the Spirit, and not the old way of the written code. Well, it wasn't just during biblical times, but after that, in the Roman Catholic era and in the Middle Ages, little by little, more and more laws, and man-made regulations, and canon law, and traditions started coming on one after the other, and you had to do all these things in order to be saved. They would teach outside the church, there's no salvation, and then they would define what it meant to be in or outside the church. And it meant the sacramental system, it meant having your infants baptized, and then the sacraments all the way through, including confession and taking the communion and all of those things. It was legalism. And after Luther's insight concerning justification by faith alone, that we are made righteous in God's sight by simple faith. You just look to Jesus. You just trust that He is the Son of God, and He shed His blood on the cross. You just look to Christ and you'll be forgiven. Luther discovered that that is the Gospel. It could be that that's why God brought you here today to hear that simple message. How can I stand before a Holy God on Judgment Day and be forgiven? The answer is not through legalism. It's not through good works. It's through simple faith in Christ. That's the discovery of the Gospel, rediscovery. And Luther found it and the other reformers, the Catholic Church rejected it. And at the Council of Trent they re-established this statement, "Justification: If anyone says that we are justified by faith alone, apart from works of the law, let him be anathema, let him be accursed." So, there you go, right back into legalism again. It's there all the time. But you know, it's not just the Protestants, I mean, the Catholics, the Protestants have had it as well. Baptists have it. There are some groups, Anabaptistic groups, that became schismatic and broke off, and they were free church movements under no authority of the state or any other group. And they practiced extreme separation from the world. And they were very concerned about worldliness. And they made up rules and regulations about what worldliness was. And a fight against worldliness is one of the most subtle in the life of a church. It is a real threat. But you don't fight it by setting up rules and regulations. And so, groups like the Amish and others, they define worldliness in terms of buttons, and use of modern equipment, technology, and other things like that, these rules are not found anywhere in the Bible. We are four or five steps removed from any passage of scripture. But if you are not involved, if you don't assent to it and you act differently, you are shunned, disciplined from that group, you're not part of the group. That's the second definition of legalism that Piper gave us. It's a community coming up with man-made rules and regulations by which they discern who's in and who's out. And other baptistic groups have done that as well. We were trying to do ministry in Haiti, and there was a group that wouldn't formally do any ministry with us, because we were part of the Southern Baptist Convention, and we do not practice enough separation from the world for their group. So, we are the liberals in their eyes and we are the ones not strict enough, etcetera. To other people, we're exactly the opposite. Isn't it interesting on that? And that's the whole thing. Legalism’s Great Danger When you're setting up your life in front of a bunch of human judges, you're always going to find people to your right and people to your left. I would say, if there's no one to your right or no one to your left, you're probably not a Christian. You are the extremist of all the extremists, either in legalism or license, but you're always going to be able to find somebody who can judge you. And so, Paul says very, very plainly here, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or by religious festivals, new moon festivals or even what you do on a Sabbath day. It's freedom. Don't let anyone judge you." Now, what does he mean by that? Well, legalism leads you to look away from the cross. You're looking first inwardly to yourself, right? You try to save yourself. You're given a bunch of rules and regulations. You're looking inwardly to yourself and either, friends, you're doing well or you're doing poorly. If you look inwardly and you're doing well, you are going to become arrogant and insufferable and pretty soon you will be one of the judges. You'll be probably appointed by the church to be one of the Sabbath judges or whatever, because you're looking inward and doing well. You will become arrogant. You've lost the sense of grace. If you look inward with the law and you do not find that you do well, you will despair. You'll become discouraged. You will fall away from any efforts to continue growing in the Christian life, because you think it's too hard. That's the danger, is looking inward. The next thing you do is you start looking at other people to try to see how you're doing, and that's very dangerous. Don't let anyone judge you. Now, it's interesting a command. I really can't obey it and literally. How can I stop you from judging me? “Don't let anyone judge you.” You're judging me now, stop it. I wasn't, I really wasn't. Yes you are. I really don't know how you literally obey it, but I think what Paul is saying is, at least this much, don't take their judgmentalism to heart and don't let their judgmentalism take root in the church. So individually, you are not standing or falling before them. They are not your judge, and don't let their rules and regulations take over the life of the church. I think that's what he means, when he says, "Don't let anyone judge you." Legalism Defeated in Christ Legalism is defeated in Christ. It says in Verse 17, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come.” The reality, however, is found in Christ. Christ's blood shed on the cross is the only way to wash away our sins. Christ's righteousness imputed to us by simple faith is the only thing that's going to survive the scrutiny of Judgment Day, perfect righteousness. Ceremonial laws like the sacrificial system, the eating laws, temple worship, annual pilgrimage and I believe the Sabbath were meant to point us to Christ. They were the shadow. The reality is Christ. The Difficult Case of the Sabbath Now, I want to take a few minutes and talk about the difficult case of the Sabbath, alright? This is a challenging issue, very challenging. Paul is talking here about what you eat or drink. We know that Jesus declared all foods clean. I don't know many people that struggle with this, with the issue of meat sacrifice to idols and all that. Some struggle with the issue of drinking, and I'm not going to address that today. There's plenty of things to be said about that, many things, and I don't want to do a half-hearted job on it, so we have to do it more thoroughly another time. But here he's saying at least don't let anyone judge you based on these things, or on what you do on a Sabbath day. Now, you've heard the story of Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire, years ago, that movie came out. He was a Scottish missionary, his parents were missionaries in China and he eventually became one. Served to great effect in China and died of a tumor toward the end of World War II. Just a great man of God. He also happened to be a great runner, in 1920 he won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris in the 400 meters. Now, usually he was a sprinter, but he had to change, because it turned out that some of the heats for the sprints were on Sunday and it was against his Scottish Presbyterian convictions to run on the Lord's Day. He based it on the 10 Commandments and many people who are Sabbatarians, strict Sabbatarians, will say, "Look at you folks, what you're saying is in effect you believe in all nine of the 10 Commandments." We don't have to do that one, okay, but the other nine are still good. And they will point to Genesis 1 and 2, the creation ordinance. God created the universe in six days and He rested on the seventh and He set the seventh day aside and made it holy and sacred. And they will even point to the language of the 10 Commandments, the fourth of the 10 Commandments. This is what it literally says. "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 it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, your manservant or maidservant, your animals nor the alien within your gates, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day and therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." That's what the Commandment says. Now, the ultimate legalism on Sabbatarianism is coming from the Seventh Day Adventists, who in a pure form say this, that the Lord's day worship that we're doing today is the Mark of the Beast, that if you worship on the first day of the week and not on the seventh day of the week, you have received the mark of the beast. Well, I don't know if you've read the Book of Revelation, but the Mark of Beast leads straight to hell and there's no escape. There is no rest, day or night. The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for any who receives the Mark of the Beast. Well, that's a very good example of legalism. If we don't agree with them about the seventh day Sabbath, then we are going to Hell. That's what they teach. The question is, is this commandment still binding on the conscience of Christians today and what should we do about it? Well, there's different ways to look at it. Legalism has one extreme, license says the other. Legalism is you got to keep it, got to keep it, got to keep it, and you've got Sabbath police and we'll have to start a new committee here in this church to judge what you do on the Lord's day, etcetera. That's legalism, okay? License is, this matter doesn't mean anything. We're totally free. We could worship on Tuesday if we wanted. We could worship every other week. We could do all kinds of things. We're just totally free in the matter. It has no impact on my life whatsoever. There's nothing here for me at all. That's license in this matter. And then in the middle there's another error, and that is the Malachi 1:13 error, in which you do what you think is right but you sniff at it and say, "What a burden," and you grumble under it the whole time. That's an error too. How shall we come at this issue of the Sabbath? Well, first of all, let's understand the Sabbath is clearly called a shadow here in Colossians 2. The reality is what? The reality is Christ. Hebrews 4 is the extended treatise on that issue of reality and shadow. And it says, "If you have come to faith in Christ you have entered your Sabbath rest. You have ceased from your work just as God has ceased from His." And that's an incredible thing. That's Hebrews 4:3. "Now we who have believed enter our rest." So, when you come to faith in Christ, the Sabbath, friends, for you is fulfilled. And therefore, we are free from careful restrictions concerning what we do on a Sabbath day. Now, is the Sabbath a perpetual regulation? Well, I don't think that we can understand it that way. I think the Sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant. There's no clear example in the Old Testament of anyone observing the Sabbath before Mount Sinai. We know that it's recorded that on the seventh day the Lord rested in Genesis 1 and 2. And I know it's an argument from silence. But I think it's significant that it is openly and clearly called in Exodus 31, "It is a sign of the covenant I am making with you today." And so, therefore, it is a sign of the Mosaic Covenant. We are not saved in the Mosaic Covenant and, therefore, the sign is not binding on us today. Christian practice almost universally has been to move from the seventh day to the first. The scriptural basis for this is this is the day that Jesus was raised from the dead. And Jesus showed Himself on the first day of the week to His disciples. The first Sunday evening service, friends, was when Jesus showed Himself that evening to His disciples. So you don't want to miss home fellowship, friends. You want to be involved in whatever the church is doing on Sunday evening. Some of the best things happen Sunday evenings. And Thomas missed it, to his great regret, but the Lord did show Himself on the first day of the next week. And so, you see a regular pattern there. First day of the week. First day of the week. Friends, I think there's a theological principle here. The seventh day Sabbath looks backward at physical creation, for in six days God made the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. The first day observance looks ahead to the new creation. And Jesus' resurrection body is the first new creation stuff there is in the universe. It will never die. It will never perish, spoil or fade. All the other stuff is obsolete. It's aging. It's going away. So, we are forward-looking by worshipping on the first day of the week. So, what? Well, I want to ask a strict Sabbatarian a key question. If I do not agree with you, what does that mean for me? They must answer that question. I respect Truett Cathy who won't open a Chick-fil-A on Sunday. I respect it. I just want to know what the reasoning is. And some of it could be delightfully wonderful and spirit-led and some of it could be terribly legalistic. I just want to know the motive, the reason. And if their answer is, "It's the Mark of the Beast and if you don't do it our way you go to Hell," I think that's pure legalism right there. If the answer is, "This is what we have chosen do with our time so that we can give ourselves to holy endeavors, to reading the Word of God, that just takes time, and if I'm going to watch a football game or if I'm going to go to Golden Corral, Heaven forbid... Well, I'm sorry, other restaurant, wonderful restaurant... " Is this being taped? I always forget that. But if I go to this place or that place and you're thinking, "Is this wrong, I'm making somebody work on the Sabbath, or on the Lord's day, I'm sinning, I'm making them sin and there's a whole bondage there," I need to know about that. Romans 14 deals with this in the matter of freedom. It says, “one man considers one day more sacred than the rest and another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” At the end of that same chapter, Romans 14:23, it says, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." So practically, I want to ask you this. How do you spend your Sunday and why? Why? We need a practical day we get together. We can't have a rotating schedule. You guys would be and so would I be hopelessly confused. You'd definitely have to look on the website to find out what day of the week and time we're meeting. I think it's best to set a time, don't you? And to follow the pattern of the resurrection of Christ, let's do it on the first day of the week. If we don't, are we going to Hell? No. That's done. That was nailed to the cross. That whole way of thinking is gone. But there are practical sides here. We need to have a time when we can assemble ourselves together and worship together and it's the first day of the week. The Sabbath was set up, also Jesus said, for us. Man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for us. Well, in what sense? We can't go on endlessly working, friends. I was reading Bill Gates. He said he doesn't have time for church on Sunday. I don't know what he works on, I wouldn't say 24/7, but lots of hours on Microsoft things. It's what he does. We can't do that endlessly. You're going to break down. You need some time to get away and to be refreshed spiritually, and that's what the day is for. Call the Sabbath a Delight Furthermore, I do have questions. If somebody is working 24/7, isn't there a danger that there's some idolatry, some covetousness that's come in there? That's what's motivating them, and that is dangerous. If there's an idol in the heart, if there's covetousness in the heart, it may be that Christ isn't there, but not because they're not following the rules, it's because there's covetousness in their heart. And Christ drives that away. Who is the Lord of your heart? And practically speaking, don't you need time to read the Bible? Don't you need time to be with your family to have family worship? These things take time. We have bodies. We can't deny it. So we need to rest, we need to be recuperating ourselves, we need to be refreshed, and this is a good way to do it. And so, what could you do? Well, I would urge you, like in the language of Isaiah 58, "Call the Sabbath a delight." Call it a delight, not because you must, but because you are willing as God wants you to be, quoting from another place. 1 Peter 5, talking about elders. “Not because you must, but because you want to.” And so the question, the practical questions, you start to answer in that way, "Can I watch the Super Bowl on a Sunday? Super Bowl Sunday, can I?" I don't want to say yes or no. I want to say, "Can you watch by faith?" If you can watch the Super Bowl by faith then do it. Frankly, I think you could sin by not running on the Sabbath, on the Lord's day, etcetera, in that you're not understanding the cross rightly, and somebody else could be feeling God's pleasure and glorifying Him by running on a Sunday. I want to know what's going on in the person's heart and I never really can. But you can know better than anyone else what's going on in your own heart. Why would you choose to watch the Super Bowl instead of doing X, Y, and Z? That's all. You have to answer that. You be convinced in your own mind. And then some other practical things can come in to help you. Like some suggest that people do their cooking on Saturdays, not because you must, but because you're willing. And not every week. Some Sundays you can cook. But just try it sometimes. Try getting all your meals ready, all your clothes ready, everything ready, and then just resting on the Lord's day. But not just having a nap. There's nothing wrong with a nap, friends. Nothing wrong with a nap. We need to sleep, okay? There's nothing wrong with that. But instead of doing that, why don't you go pursue the Lord? Psalm 73, "Whom have I in Heaven but you? And Earth has nothing I desire besides you." Use it as a time to renew your love relationship with Christ. Pick your favorite Psalms, a good Christian book, gather your family together if you have one, if you're married and you have children, focus on Christ. But again, not because you must, but because you're willing. Because you want to get closer to Christ. So you're saying, "Pastor, I'm confused." Well, come talk to me afterwards. We're almost done with our time here. I can't go through all the case studies. I say this, we are freed forever from the legalistic requirement to keep the Sabbath. We will not go to Hell based on what we do or don't do with the Sabbath day. And we are not going to set up Sabbath requirements in this church that if you don't meet those requirements you are not a member in full standing or could be disciplined from this group. Instead, what I'm going to do is do something even harder, I'm going to challenge you to say, "What's going on in your heart?" Are you loving Jesus with every thought in your heart, every moment of the day? Are you doing the best things? Are you choosing the excellent things? And if part of that is enjoying watching a football game or playing Ultimate Frisbee or doing something like that, I'm not going to judge you, it's not my place. I don't want to to be on the other side of Colossians 2:16, doing the judging. I'm not going to not do that. But instead, I want to challenge all of us to call the Sabbath a delight, because if you look at that Verse, in the end, it's Isaiah 58:13 and 14, read it later. It says, "Then you will find your joy in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." Close with me in prayer.​

Two Different Men, Two Different Views of Sunday Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 14. We continue our study in Romans, we're looking at Romans 14, specifically focusing this morning on verses 5-12. On July 11, 1924, Eric Liddell, took his place at the starting line of the 400 meter race in the Paris Olympic Games, and in his pocket was a note, a handwritten note that had been sent him by the team trainer, on which it was written, "In the old book, it says 'he who honors me I will honor.'" The reason that that note was written and handed to Eric Liddell is that he, Liddell, faithful to his Christian commitment and strict Sabbatarianism, had refused to run in the 100 meter heat the previous Sunday, much to the great chagrin of his nation, who were hungry for a gold medal in the 100 meters, especially against the Americans. They wanted to see Eric Liddell win and he was the best they had, and they did not understand what they considered to be his religious fanaticism. But the scripture in his pocket said, "He who honors me I will honor," and it seems that the Lord did honor his refusal to violate his conscience, because he ran a race he was not very familiar with, that he hadn't run very often, that he had not trained for and he set the world record by two tenths of a second, winning the gold medal. And so he felt very clearly the hand of God's blessing on his commitment. By contrast, on January 30th of the year 2000, Kurt Warner, the quarterback of the St. Louis Rams, led his team to victory in the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 34, set a record for passing yardage, the very exciting game, a rarity for the Super Bowl, and then at the very end, he led his team in a final drive 73 yard touchdown pass with less than two minutes to go. And I will never forget the post-game interview. In my opinion it's the best Christian testimony that's ever been given by an athlete in a situation like that in front of a live TV audience of perhaps 50 million people or more. The interviewer began by saying this, "First things first, Kurt, tell us about that final touchdown pass." And he shook his head, he said, "First things first, I have to give praise and glory and honor to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And as he stood up on the podium to receive the Super Bowl trophy, he held it aloud and said, "All glory to God," in front of the whole world, a clear, unashamed bold witness for Jesus Christ by name, and for the glory of God. He recognized that the accolades of athletic success were soon to be gone like the morning mist, but he desired to live openly for the glory of God. Two different men, two different eras, two different athletes, each of whom desired to use their athletic success to glorify God, but clearly two different convictions on the propriety of being involved in sporting events on Sunday. It'd be interesting to get the two of them together and see the conversation that they would have. What would they say to each other? And I think in the spirit of Romans 14, they would have an incredibly warm and loving conversation, while they disagreed on whether it was right to compete on Sunday. Is it possible that what would have been completely sinful for Eric Liddell, competing on Sunday because it would have violated his conscience, was completely acceptable for Kurt Warner because he did so to the glory of God? That's the question in front of us in Romans chapter 14. I. Context: Full Acceptance Even When Disagreeing Now, we've already seen one message, we looked at verse 1-4. The context here is maintaining sweet fellowship in the midst of disputable issues. We talked last time about the first test case, that is, are we free to eat anything at all or is our diet restricted spiritually? So you look at verse 1, "Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters." And Paul's command is that we must accept what God has accepted, and specifically accept the people that God has accepted. We talked about the need for discernment, to tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian and to tell the difference between an issue that's central to our faith and those things that are more a matter of Christian liberty. And we saw that Paul gives strong words to both the weak and the strong. The strong have a tendency to despise and disdain the immaturity of the weak. The weak, for their part, have the tendency to pass condemning judgments on those who exercise more Christian liberty. And so, he urges them not to do either one, but maintain unity while they continue to talk to one another. II. Test Case #2: Sacred Days Today, we're going to look at the second test case that Paul brings up on this whole issue of maintaining sweet fellowship while we dispute over issues, and that is the issue of sacred days or special days. Now, there's much dispute on this verse, verse 5, also verse 6, straightforward translation talks about one who honors or esteems a day above another, just takes a day above another. The NIV puts the word "sacred" in there, one man considers one day more sacred than another. It's not strictly speaking in the text, it just means that he esteems one day above another. That's a simple translation. The issue I think is clearly religious observance. It's the idea that this man thinks of this thing as a religious matter, a spiritual matter, that one day is spiritually more significant than another. Almost certainly, this has to do with Old Covenant regulations which would elevate one day and make it different than the others. Now, the Old Covenant had sacred days, special days, the Jews did. They had in particular three festivals that they were required by Jewish law, by the law of Moses, to observe. You had the Feast of Passover, unleavened bread, you had the Feast of Weeks, or first fruits, also called Pentecost, and then you had the Feast of Ingathering or booths, Passover, Pentecost, and then ingathering or booths, those were the three. Furthermore, the Jews were required by the law of Moses to travel from their homes in the Promised Land, and make their way to the place that God would choose. That one place among all the tribes where they would all worship. And in the course of time, we found that that was Jerusalem, the City of David, and so they would all travel to Jerusalem. But in the Book of Deuteronomy 16:16, it says, "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God, at the place that he will choose, the feast of unleavened bread, at the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed." Now, before the exile to Babylon and really, even more clearly, before the split, of the Northern and Southern Kingdom, the Israelites traveled joyfully and easily, from all over the Promised Land from Dan to Beersheba and they made their way up to Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, there's a whole body of Psalms called The Songs Of Ascent that they would sing, as they were making their pilgrimage three times a year. Psalm 122:1 is a Song of Ascent and it says, "I rejoice with those who said to me, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord.'" So they're singing these songs and they're traveling and they enjoyed that. It would be a major part of the rhythm of the year of the Jews. It would be unthinkable for a Jew not to observe Passover, to not travel up to Jerusalem and do that. Now, of course, after the exile this became much more difficult. It became much more difficult to make the pilgrimage from wherever you'd been scattered and go all the way to Jerusalem, to see this, to observe this feast, and yet there were still some Jews that did it. As a matter of fact, if you look in the Book of Acts and you see in the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church and all of the church, those Jews that had trusted in Christ, the apostles and a small number, about 120 in the upper room. They were gathered but it says in Acts 2:5 "Now, there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven." So people had traveled from all around the Mediterranean and as far as they been dispersed and they had made their way up to Jerusalem to observe this religious feast. They're listed in Acts 2:9-11 "Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism." Now that's interesting. Many scholars believe that was the beginning of the church at Rome the day of Pentecost, as visitors from Rome heard the Gospel preached by Peter filled with the Spirit. They came to faith in Christ and then went back to their home in Rome, and they started the church, and they were both Jews and converts of Judaism a mixed church there and that's how it began. And so we see the concern for spiritual days. It's right there written in the Old Covenant, the festivals and most scholars agree that at least it means this: It has to do with these religious festivals that the Jews, observed. Now in the New Covenant, the Lord has been very clear that these ceremonial days, these ceremonial observances have been fulfilled, they're no longer binding on the Christian these thrice annual feast at least pointed to Christ's work on the cross so beautifully. Don't they? How Passover, the blood of the lamb, shed so that the angel of death passed over has been fulfilled as Jesus died at Passover, and then the feast of weeks, Pentecost happened at the first fruit when the first fruits were gathered in they would go celebrate and you can see how spiritually these 3000 that were added to their number were like first fruits of the Gospel. It's been fulfilled. The final one we're still waiting for. But that doesn't mean it's binding on us, namely the last fruits, when the last gathering has come in and the final trumpet will sound and everything will be done. But you see how they really just picture the work of Jesus Christ in working salvation. Ceremonial Days Now Fulfilled Now the message very clearly that Paul gives in Colossians and we'll talk about in a minute, is that these things have been fulfilled. Colossians 2:16 and 17 says, "Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day, these are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ." So what he's saying is that these feasts pointed toward Christ, they pointed toward the Gospel and now they have been fulfilled. Christ Himself pointed to a day when they would no longer need to go to this one place Jerusalem to worship he said in John Chapter 4 to the Samaritan woman, "Woman believe me, a time is coming when you'll worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, God is a spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." And so he's pointing to a time when they wouldn't be required to come to Jerusalem, and worship, but they could worship anywhere because God is a spirit. Now, Paul's message here in Romans is one of freedom, but also one of conviction by the Holy Spirit. Like the eating laws the time for these has been fulfilled. It has been... It's passed by now. In Galatians, Paul is adamant that the Gentile believers there, understand their freedom in Christ, they're set free from the law, they're set free from the ceremonial regulations of circumcision and all of the ceremonies of the Law of Moses. They didn't have to do it anymore. And so in Galatians 5:1, he says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free, stand firm then and don't let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. He wants them to be as free as Christ intends for them to be free and he talks about this earlier in Galatians 4:9-11, he says "Now that you know God or rather have been known by God. How is it that you're turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You're observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you." So he's actually very strong about this observation of special days. He says that shows you don't understand the Gospel. So that's a big concern. There it would have been wrong for them to continue to observe these special days because it showed they're acting like slaves, and not like sons and daughters of God. The time for ceremonial requirements is over. But then the question is, "Can somebody still observe them, is that okay? Can we choose to do it even though we know we don't have to do it, can we choose to do it? Can we can still keep the old feast?" Well, Paul would say, Yes, as long as you understand the covenant of grace and how we're saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and not by this legal observance, we learn from the book of Hebrews that the time that you can observe it is coming to an end soon anyway, they were in a transition period as I mentioned last time, in which you could still go to the temple, you could still observe these feasts and these festivals but it wouldn't be long before the Romans would put an end to that by destroying the temple. What About the Sabbath? Now we come to the real question of this text, and that is, is Paul talking about the Sabbath is he talking about the Sabbath the Sabbath observance? Many Christian groups like Eric Liddell's have considered themselves strict Sabbatarians. So I actually looked up and found how orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem today, keep the sabbath regulation, and I found that there's nobody that comes close to them. If you want strict Sabbatarianism just find out what the Orthodox Jews are doing in Jerusalem and see if that's how you'd like to live. Listen to this description according to a 1987 Associated Press story this is how orthodox ultra-Orthodox Jews observe the Sabbath. In Jerusalem before the Jerusalem Sabbath siren wails at sundown Friday night, marking the beginning of the Sabbath. Orthodox Jews unscrew the light bulbs in their refrigerators so as not to inadvertently turn them on and violate the Sabbath. Now in Exodus 23, you're forbidden to light a fire in your dwelling place, on the Sabbath. So they feel that if you open the refrigerator the incandescent light bulb will be lighting a fire on the Sabbath, and so they unscrew it. They turn off their water heaters. That would include all heaters, like middle of the winter, everything any fire, it's out, they hide money because it's a reminder of daily labor instead of divine rest. They cut their toilet paper in advance because ripping it would violate a Sabbath regulation, so they cut it out in certain measured amounts they light tall white candles moments before the sun down, so it's... Timing's everything so they don't want to waste too much of the candle, so they wait moments before the siren because you're not allowed to light the match, but once it's lit it can keep on burning. You see, once the Sabbath has begun. These are some of the acts prohibited during the Sabbath. Taking a bath, opening an umbrella touching a pen. Because they feel writing is work. Strict but complicated carrying laws govern what objects may be lifted and how far they may be moved. Doesn't that sound like John 5, where Jesus healed a man and told them to pick up his mat, and go home, and the Sabbath police came and got him on mat carrying. He's a mat carrier. Well, I'm healed 40 years I've been... Oh you're mat carrier who told you to carry your mat. There's this whole attitude the Sabbath police. And so they... Even today the ultra-Orthodox Jews, have rules on what you can carry and how far. Much of the Sabbath, is spent in three long ritual meals usually shared with friends who arrive on foot and interrupted frequently by blessings and ancient Hebrew songs. Each meal begins with bread season heavily with salt, which must everybody has to eat, to remind them of coming out of Egypt with Moses. Cooking is forbidden pre-cooked food is kept warm by turning a burner on low before the Sabbath, and covering it with a copper plate, so it's burning the whole time, but they have to ignite it before the Sabbath, starts. The whole mentality of strict Sabbath observance is not the mentality of a son or daughter of God, do you see it? And this is what this man says, Yitzhak Wexler an orthodox Jew says "the Sabbath celebration following six days of work is an inalterable contract with God. Either we keep the contract as God commands or we lose the Jerusalem, he gave us." Do you see the fear in that? That God's going to, He's going to destroy us, if we don't keep this. It's the mentality of a slave or of a contract worker. Is Paul Even Talking About the Sabbath? Now the key point of disagreement for Christians however, as we come to Romans 14 is, is Paul even talking about the Sabbath? Notice that the word Sabbath is never mentioned here. It doesn't come up, it just says one man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike, so word Sabbath doesn't even show up. If Paul is referring to the Sabbath in my opinion, it ends Sabbatarianism forever. But he doesn't openly say it so we're still open to discussion that's how it works. And so Christian commentators are divided on this. John Murray who is Sabbatarian, put it this way, [If Paul is referring to the Sabbath in Romans 14:5], "this would mean the Sabbath regulation in the 10 Commandments does not continue to have any binding obligation upon believers in the New Testament economy. The Sabbath regulation would be no different than any of Moses' ceremonial laws. Secondly, the observance of the first day of the week, the Lord's day, would have no sacred significance either since Paul is freeing the Roman Christians from any special observances. Thirdly, the one who continued to observe a weekly Sabbath, the Lord's day would actually be seen in Romans 14 to be the weaker brother, because he had not yet attained to a fully mature view of the Lord's work of salvation. Just like the weak brother who can't eat certain foods, because of his conscience. So also the one who observes a weekly day of rest and sacred worship would seem to be weak in his faith." And for John Murray those three things are unthinkable, and so he cannot come to the conclusion that Paul is even talking about Romans 14. In general, Christians who have a very high view of the Sabbath, who feel that Christians, should be strict and dedicated to setting apart one day in seven, as holy to the Lord, who feel that it's a great sin not to do so, would utterly reject any idea that Romans 14 is talking about the Sabbath. But I believe that Romans 14 is talking about the Sabbath. And I think it's important, we could talk for hours and hours about this issue, the issue of the Sabbath and how Christians are to observe. And I have a number of things that I want to say, but I don't want to do them. What I want to do is get you to look at two passages in particular, take your Bibles and look at Colossians 2, which I've already alluded to, but for me, it's probably one of the most significant verses on this whole issue. Colossians 2:16-17. Colossians 2: 16, 17 says this, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day, these including the Sabbath day are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ." To me, that's a very strong verse on this issue very strong. First of all, I want you to notice that it's very hard to obey Paul's injunction here. Look what he says in 2:16, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you do on a Sabbath day." Well, I don't know how you're going to pull that off, okay? I think perhaps what it means is don't take it to heart if they do and try to persuade them not to based on Romans 14. That's what I get out of it. Other than that, they're going to go ahead and judge. But in effect, he's saying, "Don't let it concern you." They are not the one who's going to be sitting over you on judgment day, so don't take it to heart, and certainly don't do it yourself." But even more significant to me is the idea that these things, the Sabbath in particular, is a shadow. The reality is found in Christ. This is the exact language used in the Book of Hebrews to talk about all of the ceremonial law. Shadow - Reality. Shadow is Old Covenant, reality is found in Christ. The second passage, I want you to look at is Hebrews Four. So turn your Bible's to Hebrews 4:1. "Therefore since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." There he's talking about the fact that the Jews refused through unbelief to enter the promised land. They refused to enter in, they were afraid in the time of Moses, and they turned back, and for 40 years, they had to wander in the desert because of their unbelief. You remember that terrible, terrible story. And what the author is doing is, what happened there, picturesquely in the Old Covenant. Now, it's a very serious issue concerning the New Covenant. If you refuse to enter into the rest of the new covenant, by believing in Jesus. If you refuse to come in to the rest of Christ's salvation you'll be destroyed just as they were. So it's a very serious thing he's saying here, "For we also have had the Gospel preach to us. Just that they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith." Now look at verse 3, "Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, 'So I declared on oath in my anger. "They shall never enter my rest."'" He's saying by faith, we enter the rest that he has in mind and that rest is salvation clearly, because he's talking about the gospel. "'So I declared on oath in my anger. "They shall never enter my rest."' And yet His work has been finished since the creation of the world. For some where God has spoken about the seventh day in these words, 'and on the seventh day God rested from all his work,' and again, in the passage above, he says, 'They shall never enter my rest.' It still remains that some will enter that rest, and that those who formerly had the Gospel preached to them did not go in because of their disobedience. Therefore, God again set a certain day calling it 'today.' When a long time later, He spoke through David as was said before, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.'" Now, let me stop there and say The most important day of the week, is always the same. It's today. That is the spirit of Romans 14, in my opinion. Today and today and today do you understand our whole lives are woven together by a series of today's. And you can enter your Sabbath rest, today, whether today's a Sunday or a Wednesday or a Friday, it doesn't matter, it's the day that God calls you through faith in Christ, the day that you believe the Gospel, you will enter your rest. That's the vital day of the Christian life. It's today. Now today happens to be a Sunday and therefore for me this is the most important day of the week, right now today, because I can't do anything about yesterday and I can't really do anything about tomorrow except affect it by decisions I make today. But today, today is the day I must obey, I must follow. For if Joshua verse eight 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 anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from his own work, just as God did rest from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." What rest is, he encouraging them to enter. Its salvation through faith in Christ. As Jesus said in Matthew 11, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you what, I'll give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus is inviting any of you are hearing me today to enter the true final Sabbath rest, faith in Jesus Christ. And when you do, you will in some mysterious and spiritual way rest from your labors. And now Jesus says, "My Father is always at His work." So yeah, there's still works to be done, but your soul is at rest, in Christ, He's come to your home." To me, I think Colossians 2 says that the Old Testament Sabbath was just a shadow the reality is, Christ. Hebrews 4 explains the theology of the Sabbath and what it was meant for. Now we could go on and on and debate if we had an open forum. You could say "Yes but, it's right there in the 10 commandments written by the finger of God and so it is", and therefore I respect anybody who says, "I believe this is a lasting timeless commandment for all people, all cultures, all times because it's in the 10 Commandments. I respect that this is not an easy issue. And clearly, Paul doesn't say one thing one way or the other, he says, Whatever you believe be certain about it in your own convictions, and act according to your own convictions. III. Paul’s Command Concerning Ourselves: Live for the Lord Alone And so, Paul gives a command, concerning ourselves we should live for ourselves alone. Look at verse 5, go back please, to Romans 14 and look at Verse 5. "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." The act of setting aside a special day for spiritual purposes should be between you and God. It's something you decided to do to please God and to honor Him. You must be completely persuaded in your own mind that this is what God wants you to do. If your conscience is bothering you, you're not acting in faith. And we'll find out later in Romans 14, that whenever you do not act by faith, you're in sin. Look at verse 23, it says there, "The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating does not come from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin." So whatever you believe about the Sabbath be completely convinced in your own mind, and then act according to your conscience, act according to your commitment, act by faith. If you believe the Sabbath regulation is still binding on the conscience of a Christian and if you violate that, for you, it is sin. Secondly, not just be fully convinced, but you need to live for the Lord. Look at verse 6-8, "He regards one day as special does, so the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for gives thanks to God, and he who abstains does so the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord, so whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." Paul's call here is to live a life directly to the Lord. Live a life directly to Christ directly in His face, in His eyes, to please Him, directly to Him. This is a far more powerful compulsion than any legal requirement ever was. Christ has redeemed us from the law and He has called us up into a higher relationship with Him, not as slaves following rules, but his sons and daughters following relationship. It's a higher way to live, because we're not under law but under grace. Therefore regarding one day as sacred is perfectly fine. Beneficial even. If you want to do all you're cooking on Saturday night, so you can have more time for rest and worship on Sunday, fine. If you want to abstain from watching spectator sports on Sunday, so that you can concentrate on prayer and Bible reading that's great. If you desire to abstain from going to restaurants or any businesses on Sunday, fine. But if you're doing so out of guilt, rather than by faith, you're sinning. And if you're forcefully persuading others to do the same or judging people who don't do what you do, you're sinning. Now, that doesn't mean we can't talk about it. Tell me what you think? What do you think about making the Sabbath a delight? There's a book out there talking about that very thing, picking up on The Book of Isaiah, talking about making the Sabbath a delight, and it's got some wonderful things about the way to enrich a Sunday fellowship enrich time and be spiritual. But what is removed is that ultra orthodox legal feeling that if we don't do this, we're going to get condemned by God Almighty. That's thinking like a slave, and brothers and sisters, we have been redeemed from that, we're out from under the law by the blood of Christ. Part of that is the danger of people pleasing, isn't it? Living your life in front of an audience of human beings, thinking What will they think, What will the neighbors think spiritually if I do this or that. It's so easy to begin to live a life to please others. We know that we're constantly being observed. Constantly judged, constantly assessed. It's easy to slip into a pattern of caring more about what others think about your decisions, then you do what the Lord thinks. Paul wants us to live and die for the Lord here. IV. Paul’s Command Concerning Others: Let the Lord Alone Judge Paul also gives us a command concerning others, and that is let the Lord alone judge. Christ has earned the right to judge, He has earned the right of being Lord and judge of the conscience. Look at verse 9, "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life, so that He might be the lord of both the dead and the living." Christ died on the cross. Did you? Christ was raised from the dead, were you? Do you have the right to stand over someone else's conscience as Lord of Heaven and Earth, as Lord of the living and the dead and make an assessment of their conscience. This is the strong language that Paul is using here. Christ died that He might be the lord of the conscience, He earned that right, His title is clear, Lord of all. He rules over the whole universe. "All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me," said Jesus. And He won this right to claim allegiance over the hearts of His people. And this is especially true when it comes to judging. This is Christ's special glory, He said in John chapter 5, "Moreover, the father judges no one, but Has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." And then later in John 5, He says, "The Father has given Christ authority to judge because He is the son of man." Therefore a true Christian life is lived moment by moment in realization, of Christ's authority and moment by moment in a desire to please him. Human judges, therefore show arrogance, when they judge other people's consciences. They're taking a place that isn't theirs, that they haven't earned. Because Jesus said, "When the son of man comes in all his glory, and all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in Heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. That is His unique glory and His unique right, what right therefore, do we have to judge our brother or look down on him? Look at verse 4, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls." And then in Verse 10, "You then why do you judge your brother. Or why do you look down on your brother for we will all stand before God's judgment seat." Therefore, Christians judging others on disputable matters of the conscience are really taking an arrogant role. V. Christ’s Exalted Role: Lord and Judge of Heaven and Earth Christ's exalted role therefore is Lord and judge of Heaven and Earth. Look at verse 11-12. "It is written 'as surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me and every tongue will confess to God,' so then each of us will give an account of himself to God." Do you see how he introduces the quote in Isaiah? As surely as I live, says the Lord. He puts an oath on it. As surely as I live every knee will bow before me and every tongue will swear. That's powerful. It's something that's definitely going to happen. What's so remarkable is that Paul takes that awesome monotheistic quote, ascribed to the God of Isaiah and ascribes it to Jesus in Philippians 2. "Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, The Father." So what is your future in mind? According to this text, Romans 14:12. We will all give an account of ourselves to God, we're going to stand before Him and He will separate us from the unbelievers, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And is that the end of the assessment? No. You're going to give an account for everything that you have done in the body. 2 Corinthians 5-10, says, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done in the body, whether good or bad." So yes, we're free from condemnation by the blood of Jesus, but we're not free from stewardship accountability. We will give an account and here in we find our protection from both legalism and license. From legalism, in that none of us has the right to be the judge. Jesus alone is the judge. But from license, because I know, let me just speak for myself, I know I will have to give an account to Christ for every decision I make in this world. And therefore I must do it as the Holy Spirit leads my own conscience to His glory. I must do it, verse 23, All by faith that He will be pleased with me. VI. Application What application can we take from this? Well, first stop judging others. And you say, "No, wait, I don't do that, that's a problem other people have." Well, if we don't do that, then why are there so many verses about this phenomenon? I have found myself judging people, I found myself judging other drivers. I have. And found myself doing the very same thing they were doing within a week. Sometimes within the hour. We just judge people because there's pride inside us. And we wanna put ourselves above and say, "Well I wouldn't do that on a Sunday. Look at that man he's mowing his lawn." You don't even know the man's name. But he's mowing his lawn on the Sunday, and therefore he's got to be x, y, and z. We do it. Stop judging. You don't know him, you don't know his situation. Secondly, can I urge you to just do some research and determine biblically, what you believe about the Sabbath? I've given you my case, my conscience is clear in this. Colossians 2 and Hebrews 4 settles the matter for me. I believe the Sabbath rest has been fulfilled through faith in Jesus Christ. I think there are other verses that dictate what I do on a Sunday. I believe we must assemble together. We must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Hebrews 10:24-25. And so I want to be with all of you. We'll talk about that more in a minute. But you need to find out what you believe about the 10 Commandments about the fourth commandment in particular, how you're going to carry so that you will not violate your own conscience only you can do that research for yourself. Whatever you believe you work it out between yourself and God that's what the text tells you to do. The third, may I make an appeal to you, to assess the benefits of some Sabbath rest, a regular disciplined consistent Sabbath rest. Let me make an analogy. We are not required anywhere in the New Testament to fast, but fasting is beneficial spiritually. Let me make another parallel. All foods are clean, but I would not advise eating a whole big bowl of pork fat. I mean, you can do it if you want, but I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't advise it. It has no spiritual impact on you, but it might have all kinds of physical impacts, and I believe so also does working for 63 consecutive days. We're not machines. And I think the Lord in His wisdom, has given us a rhythm of work and rest of work and rest that we need to still honor. Don't be arrogant and think you don't need to rest in the Lord, and that's physically. Now let me speak spiritually. We tend to forget the word of God. We tend to forget what life is about and so it's beneficial to hear good preaching and to be with brothers and sisters in Christ and to receive the benefits of the spiritual gifts. It's beneficial. Do you think you can get along without it? You think you don't need the Body of Christ ministering to you? You need it. So physically and spiritually it is wise to have one day in seven set apart for God. And then practically speaking, it's good to know what day it is. Imagine if we were on a shifting kind of calendar constantly moving. Alright, when is it this week? Well, it's Tuesday. I didn't get the news. And imagine if you are traveling. And so God in His Providence has arranged this first day of the week, based on some verses in the New Testament, but all over the world, Christians have, for the most part, accepted the first day of the week, and as the Sabbath looked back at the old creation, completed by God, the first day of the week looks ahead to the new creation that Christ began and inaugurated when He was raised from the dead. And so we celebrate on the Lord's day and look ahead to what He has yet to do. And so, the Sabbath has changed on the first day of the week. That's when we get together. Freed from meticulous questions about whether or not starting a car consists in lighting a fire on the Sabbath. Had you like to work that one out? It's a long walk to church friends. Very long, and you're probably violating the Sabbath day journey thing there. We're all going to be living right around here, in an enclave or else we're going to say the lighting the fire thing on the Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ. And I can drive to church and it's okay. More than anything we'll be freed from that feeling of defilement that comes when you break a law or a rule. Instead, we're free. We're sons and daughters of God. Fourthly, live every moment for the Lord, the issue of the Sunday Ball Game or The Sunday lawn mowing begins to fade into a deeper question. How can I live every moment for the Lord who gave His life for me? How can I make the most of every opportunity? Is a four-hour football game the best investment of my time on Friday or Saturday never mind on Sunday? Sometimes the answer may be yes for a brother or sister in Christ, the Lord will give you this desire and fulfill it. Sometimes the answer will be no, the Lord will give you another desire a higher desire and fulfill that. The mentality Paul is giving here is to learn how to live every moment and make every decision concerning what would most please the Lord, who died for me, and rose for me, and who will assess my whole life. Not if I break this rule, he'll punish me. I want to close with an illustration that I think, I hope will be helpful to you concerning this whole question. Imagine a young family. Tomorrow's mommy's birthday. Father takes the little child aside and says, "Now, you know, tomorrow's mommy's birthday. And she loves it when you draw pictures for her, pictures with the meadows and the trees and the horses and stuff. She really loves your pictures. Now here's all the paper you need, here's all the crayons you need. Make her a picture, do something to make her happy." And you just give the child the freedom to create. But then the child wastes his time watching Veggie Tales videos and playing computer games. The next day comes and the child has nothing to give and starts to cry. Now, what's the mommy going to do. Is the mommy going to kick the child out of the family for not having made the card? Should the family enact a law about card-making for birthdays? No, the mommy's probably going to take the crying child and hold the child and talk to the child but then at some later point, talk to that little child, about wise choices and about love. And I think in the same way, what are you going to do with today? You're going to present it to God, what's going to be on it, how are you going to use it? Today and today and today, how are you going to present it to Him? Are you going to cry over wasted time. Or you're going to give glory and honor to God by choosing what honors Him the most because you want to, because you yearn to, not because some law forces you. Close with me in prayer.

A summary of the four features of God’s law and how Sabbatarians and Seventh Day Adventists pervert the law, and the three tragic sins of the legalist, namely, they love regulations more than people, tradition more than God and darkness rather than light. Title: The Son of Man - the Lord of the Sabbath Speaker: Dr. David Harrell Event: Sunday Service Date: Sep 12 2004 Bible: Matthew 12:1-14