Eden Everyday: 2 How To Keep The Sabbath Holy

this is one of my very favorite places in all of Australia and the great thing about it is it's just about a five minutes drive from my front door I'll often come here in the mornings to read my Bible to pray and just to watch nature wake up I've even written a song on these very rocks with my own guitar this week at Kings Cliff is a part of our Eden everyday series we're going to be asking what I believe is a very important question and the question is how to keep the Sabbath when we go to Eden Genesis chapters 1 & 2 we find this familiar poetic refrain it says the evening in the morning were the first day the second day the third day the fourth fifth sixth but then on the seventh when God has finished creating all of the stuff extended in space God does something that's absolutely amazing astonishing the Bible says he rests now why would God who possesses all of the resources of omnipotence why would God need to rest and furthermore why would he invite Adam and Eve to rest with him to to invite them into that rest I mean after all they hadn't labored they hadn't toiled they hadn't worked they were freshly created you can imagine their desire was to get out to explore to do stuff and yet on that first full day of their life God invites them to come apart to rest and to spend time with him the Bible calls the Sabbath and this week at kingscliff we're going to be taking a look at that word holy what does it mean that something is holy later in the Bible God would say to Moses you're on holy ground God would call Israel to be a holy people so what does that mean holy and what does it mean that the Sabbath is holy and how do we keep the Sabbath holy this is going to be a great installment in our Eden everyday series this week at Kings Club I hope you enjoy [Music] so lest happens when we were together we talked about God's creational intent there's a picture that emerges in Genesis chapters 1 & 2 of the way that God desired Eden to function and that picture can be sort of summarized in four words all of which begin conveniently with the letter F so number one Adam and Eve were what's the word they're free number two they were functional number three they were called to flourish and then of course the fly in the ointment was that they were fallible they were they could earn they could make mistakes and that's exactly what we see happening they were entrusted with morally significant decisions which was the only way that they could have grown morally themselves and so they were free that were functional they were called to flourish and they were fallible we noted last week that freedom is fundamental to how God governs and how he's designed the universe to work can somebody say amen to that freedom is at the very heart of the love freedom risk growth equation that we talked about last week we noted that God's highest will for Humanity is that they are perfectly what's that word free and then notice this last line here not only are they perfectly free they are voluntarily what's that word voluntarily holy they're not holy under compulsion they're not holy under threats of punishment they are voluntarily holy they want to be holy we talked about how Eden has four streams that flew out of it we talked about those rivers that flowed from Eden I'm suggesting that not only were there four literal rivers that flowed out of Eden but there are four identic institutions four identic realities that flow from time long since past in right into the modern time right into 2018 and that we can find in these four identical rivers opportunities for us to access both healing and holiness and so they are number one marriage and parenting number two stewardship number three a template for health and diet and number four the seventh-day Sabbath and we'll be spending our time today on the seventh day seven so evens for healing rivers our points of access to true freedom and authentic holiness and this is how we ended the first presentation because there is the actual and the ideal God has an ideal for our lives and then there the reality of where our lives end up falling short what does Romans chapter 3 verse 23 says for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God it's even it's even clearer in the Greek all have sinned and continue to fall short of the glory of God right it's in the continued ative sense it's not just something that happened historically it's something that continues to happen there is a missing of the mark there is a falling short so there's the ideal that God is calling our lives to that identic ideal that ideal of holiness and then there's the fact that we fall short and we need forgiveness and I'm so happy to tell you here today that God is in the business of forgiving sinners can somebody say Amen hallelujah and so there is the ideal and the actual but this series this particular series here our five-part Eden everyday series is how do we get the actual closer to the ideal and notice that how do we do that how do we get the actual reality of our lives right with all of the busyness and all of the distractions and all of the shortcomings and the failures and the fumbles and the foibles how can we get the actual closer to God's identic ideal which brings us to our sermon this morning how to keep the Sabbath how do we go about keeping the Sabbath now I have heard and myself have preached a great many sermons on the importance of Sabbath and even exhortation you should keep the Sabbath and you'll be blessed if you keep the Sabbath but I myself over 20 years now with being a Sabbath keeper have heard precious few sermons on the practice how okay you tell me I should keep the Sabbath and I feel the the biblical compulsion to keep the Sabbath but then the question is how do I do it and today's presentation will be steeped it will be saturated in the practical how Tunis of sabbath-keeping when we talk about keeping the Sabbath when we say how to keep the Sabbath of course this is simply short for saying how to keep the Sabbath what's the word there yeah how to keep the Sabbath holy it's implied right when we say how to keep the Sabbath we're the short form for how do we continue to keep the Sabbath holy and what we're going to do is gonna basically look at four things today four parts in our sermon number one what does the word holy mean anyway what we talk about holy days and holy people and holy ground in a holy Sabbath what does the word holy mean number one number two why why is the Sabbath holy is there some reason is there some substantive reason or is it merely arbitrary God just Wow pick one that's the one is there some reason that the Sabbath is holy number three we're gonna talk about this phrase that Jesus said in mark chapter two the Sabbath was made for mankind and then finally number four this is where we'll spend the lion's share of our time principles for keeping the Sabbath holy but in order to get there I want to spend some time setting the table first of all I don't know what word comes to your mind I don't know what pictures come to your mind I don't know what ideas come to your mind when you hear the word holy but I want to teach you what the word actually means right in the Old Testament the word Kadesh and in the New Testament the word Hagios right in the Greek what do these words mean the word holy well the start with holy means something that is different set apart or other it would not be incorrect to say that nine times out of ten if you see the word holy in Scripture you can substitute the word different and it will actually make sense the word holy means difference what does it mean every one different let me give you a few examples Exodus chapter 3 verse 5 this is the very first occurrence of the word holy in the book of Exodus and perhaps I think even in Scripture this is Moses at the burning bush then he said do not draw near this place take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is you know this holy ground it's different grounds this is different there's ground over there and there's ground over there this is holy ground which of course raises the question why was it holy why was it different why was it other and in this case the inescapable answer to that is because God was there because God's presence was in the immediate proximity of the ground and so he said hey Moses be careful take your shoes off take your sandals off this ground is different than that ground over there this ground is holy another one Exodus chapter 16 verse 23 then he said to them this is what the Lord has said tomorrow as a Sabbath rest and what kind of Sabbath a holy Sabbath to the Lord make what you will make today boil what you will boil and lay up free set for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning there are days there are times and then there are holy times and here he says this is a holy time a holy Sabbath it's a different time it's another time ok we're gonna continue to pick this up Exodus chapter 19 verses five and six this is all the children of Israel gathered at the base of Mount Sinai God is speaking to them as a recently liberated recently freed nation from the shackles of Egyptian bondage and he says now therefore if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine says Yahweh and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation or what word can we insert there you are a you're a different kind of nation you're an other kind of nation so when we think about the word holy what would what would be really helpful to you as you read scripture and especially as we go through the presentation today think of the word meaning different or other or separate holy and the Hebrew was the word Kadesh and the word means this is the definition apartness notice that apartness holiness sacredness separateness set apart nests other nassif things or of places right so the word holy i don't know what connotation comes into your mind i don't know what idea comes into your mind if it's a kind of incandescent glowing in the dark Holies like a oh no the word means different it means other it means not common or not the same as everything else and so we worship a holy god can somebody say Amen that is to say a different god he's not like the gods of the pagans and the gods that were requiring child sacrifice and all of the horrific things that we see pagan deities requiring and requesting and demanding no our God is a holy God he has called a holy people which is what we just saw there in Exodus 19 he gave them a holy day and then through scripture through the instruction of scripture called Torah he gave them a holy way a different way a different God a different nation a different day of worship and so you can just substitute that a different God of different people a different day a different way or if you prefer and other God and other people and other day and an other way and so what's just a word holy mean in a single word what does it mean everyone means difference so when we talk about how to keep the Sabbath what we're really asking is how to keep the Sabbath holy and we could translate that by saying we can make that even simpler by saying how do we keep the Sabbath different what makes the Sabbath different why do we set it apart or more precisely why did God set it apart and then ask us in in response to his having set it apart for us to keep it apart to keep it holy to keep it different to keep it other so now we're in our second part here why was it just some arbitrary decree of God gods like I'll pick that one what's specifically scripturally speaking makes the Sabbath holy why is the Sabbath holy well the first key we just have to get right at the outset here is that we don't and we can't make the Sabbath holy we can simply keep it that way so far so good in fact not only can we not make the Sabbath holy we can't make anything holy God is in the business of making things holy he made a nation holy he makes us holy through the righteousness of Christ he made a day holy he made the sanctuary holy there are many things in the Bible that are holy and what God says here is I've made this holy I've made this different now what I need you to do is to what word am I going to say here I need you to keep it that way that's the state that it's in you don't establish the state you simply honor the state you maintain the state of the thing that I've already established you don't make it holy you simply keep it that way so the Sabbath is holy because God said it is and he made it that way so far so good now let's continue to sort of unpack the significance of the sacredness of the Sabbath of the holiness of the Sabbath and of course it goes right back to Genesis chapter chapters 1 and 2 which is why we've called this series Eden every day right you have these identic institutions these identities of Sabbath keeping and stewardship and healthful living and marriage and family that are flowing as it were down through the eons from from Eden and I'm suggesting here that that if you just jump into this Eden extreme you will be benefited you will be blessed if you eat the way that they ate and Aiden you eaten you will be blessed if you conduct your marriage and your family in the way that God intended and even you will be blessed if you keep Sabbath the way that God intended Adam and Eve to keep you will be blessed if you conduct your finances and your personal stewardship of your talents and your resources and your influence in the way that God intended Adam and each of you will be blessed so think of this eating every day concept is a mighty flowing river and if you just jump into the Zdenek ideal you will be blessed and by blessed I mean happy you'll be happier you'll be bad enough you will have a better life if you seek to follow God's identic ideal than if you don't because you were designed for a purpose you were what did I say everyone you were designed for a purpose and I'll remind you of something I said last week true freedom is not found in getting to do whatever you want to do that's a counterfeit freedom true freedom is found in being able to do what you were created to do never forget that true freedom is not doing whatever you want that's not freedom that actually becomes bondage that becomes slavery to the various vices and selfishness --is that this world is saturated with no true freedom is not getting to do whatever the heck you want true freedom is being able to do what you were called and created and designed to do so if you jump into these e10 extremes if you jump into these identic ideals your life is better you are freer and happier and better for and we find this right in Genesis right at the outset of Scripture before we ever get to sin before we ever get to death before we ever get to disease right in Genesis 1 and 2 flowing from Eden's nation' streams as Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 thus the heavens and the earth were what were they completed this is from the NIV I like this in all their vast array they were completed in all their vast Troy whoo I like that by the seventh day God had finished the work which he had been doing so on the seventh day what did he do he he rested from all of his work then God blessed the seventh day and what did he do okay so a question who made it holy now look then God made it holy why this is our question why did he make it holy why was it different why was it set apart why was it because on it he rested from all the work of creating which he had done it's not arbitrary it's grounded in the creation narrative the reason that the seventh-day Sabbath is holy is that it is an emblem it is a symbol it is a memorial of God's creative activities God is the creator and we're gonna dig deep into this it's gonna get really fun Sig Phaeton stared at his amazing book the lost meaning of the seventh day and I'm gonna quote a lot from Tom's dad today so get ready of that in fact I brought the book up with me if I could have put the entire book on my slides I wouldn't but I'm just gonna give you about six or seven quotations from dr. Tom's dad he says when the seventh day has left to speak from the concise scaffolding of its first mention in the text in Genesis 1 and 2 the seventh day tells of the importance of human beings to God can somebody say Amen watch this its primary message in Genesis - the primary message of the Sabbath in Genesis 2 is not about human duty it's about divine commitments the seventh day brings to view God's priorities let me let me just explain that to you God wants to spend time with his sons and daughters we don't even see an imperative in Genesis 1 and 2 there's no call to duty there's no responsibility there's no moral imperative about the Sabbath it simply says that God made and he rested and the first full day that Adam and Eve would have experienced would have been a 24-hour period with their Creator with their maker with their King and their friends and so what Han said is saying here is from this brief little concise scaffolding as he calls it we have this in this intimation that God is committed to and he values very highly human beings God loves human beings that's at the heart of the Sabbath seeing that the human time begins with the day of rest and not a day of worked on stead continues the spiritual pursuit living life in a relationship with the Creator that is mutually meaningful meaningful to God and meaningful to us stands out as the primary what are those next three words their meaning of life ah what I said is saying here is amazing he says the Sabbath gives us a biblical a biblical launching pad to understand what's the meaning of life the meaning of life is to spend time with a God who longs to spend time with us because he so loves us and friends I can tell you now is as a 20 year Sabbath keeper this is at the very heart and soul of what it means to keep Sabbath to spend time with a God that longs to spend time with you because he loves you so much and loves you so dearly he loved us before the entrance of sin he loves us as we're living in the midst of sin and as we're going to see he's going to love us in the Sabbath even in the wake of sin in the aftermath of sin going forward Exodus chapter 20 is where we find the actual Sabbath commandment spoken by God from Mount Sinai verses 8 to 11 remember the Sabbath day - what's the word not to establish it as holy not to make it as holy no God's done that he is uniquely qualified to do that but - what do we do we keep it holy six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God in it you shall do no work you know your son nor your daughter your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates for here it is the reason because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth the sea and all those in them he rested the seventh day therefore or for that reason God the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and what did he do he held it you know what the word hallowed means it means he holy didn't he made it holy he made it hallowed he made it different on set again by the act of hallowing the seventh day God drives the stake of the divine presence in the soil of human time I love that language very poetic and very perfectly communicated God drives the stake of the divine presence right in the soil of human time therefore the Sabbath is a weekly reminder that Yahweh is the true God the one true creator God if you believe that I want you to say him in God is he's the Creator he's the one true God and so why is the Sabbath holy as the memorial as an emblem and as Tom said says as a stake in the human soil of time a memorial of creation now number three the Sabbath was made for mankind again we're racing through sort of the first three here so we can get to number four mark chapter two verses 27 and 28 a number of passages which the Sabbath occurs in the New Testament we're going to spend time just on this one this morning then he said to them the Sabbath was made for and I purposely choose and chosen an NRSV here the Sabbath was made for what does it say they're human kind because it's not just males right we often say the Sabbath was made for man of course but that's the generic man and I've purposefully chosen the NRSV here the gender-neutral version so that you can get a feel that's what the text is actually saying right the Sabbath was made for human beings the Sabbath was made for what everyone for human beings and not human beings for the Sabbath so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath let me translate that for you man came first and then the Sabbath in other words he said I had man I had these beautiful creatures that I loved and that I'd created made in my own image and I wanted to give them something special I wanted to give them the gift of connection I wanted to give them the gift of relationship I wanted to give them the gift of myself he didn't say well you know I had a day and I was like oh I need somebody to keep this day I guess I'll create some human beings no he says first there was man and the Sabbath was made for the benefit of man not the other way around it's crucially important to understand so when we think about the Sabbath right out right out of the gate and I've traveled all over the world and preached on there's hundreds of times people one of the things that people are gonna give immediate pushback on is they're gonna say yeah but you're talking about the Sabbath and the Sabbath is Jewish the Sabbath is a is it's Saturday it's the day of Jewish worship it's the day of June okay I've heard that criticism but I just want to tell you it is not founded in Scripture it is not found in Scripture in fact I'm going to give you tons of evidence here today so that you can be absolutely completely confident that the Sabbath isn't Jewish okay I want you to say that with me the Sabbath isn't Jewish in fact just take a look at the Sabbath command which we just read a moment ago from Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 to 11 just just take a look at the Sabbath commandment and notice what isn't in the commandment okay and here I've given you a list of them there is no explicit reference to worship or gathering go read it again the word worship doesn't even occur in the commandment and assembly doesn't occur in the commandment convocation doesn't occur in the commandment gathering doesn't occur there is number two no reference to any ceremony or any ritual no offering no special ceremony no special special special Rite or ritual number three there is no reference to washing or cleansing or any other kind of thing for there is no rest reference to festal or festival elements no indication at all and finally number five the reason for this is that the Sabbath command picks up the very identikey universality that's contained in Jesus words the Sabbath was made not for Jews the Sabbath was made for what did we say human there's nothing Jewish in the Sabbath commandment now if you want to spend a little time on your own Bible study just go read Leviticus 23 for the Sabbath afternoon Bible study just go read Leviticus 23 and in Leviticus 23 you'll find the six feasts that were a part of the Jewish calendar year the festival year you had Passover firstfruits culminating with the feast of weeks in the day of Pentecost you then had the Trumpets the Day of Atonement and culminating with the Feast of Tabernacles and you go read in Leviticus 23 the festival calendar annual calendar for the Jews and it's all kinds of and offering this and write this and come to the sanctuary all of that this is how you do it when it comes to the Sabbath the Sabbath doesn't have any of them no washings no ceremonies nothing that is distinctly or idiosyncratically Jewish nothing at all picking up the very point that Jesus would make years later in the New Testament the Sabbath was made say it with me for humankind very good Exodus chapter 24 verses 449 this is the very first use of the word Torah which is the word law in the book of Exodus and notice when it says one law how many laws one law Hebrew Torah shall be for the native born that is to say the Israelite and the stranger who dwells among you from the contemporary English version same verse this law Torah applies to both native Israelites and to those foreigners who live among you so if you were say an Egyptian who decided to cast your lot with Yahweh the god of the Israelites and you went traveling with them then you didn't get a different law you didn't have a different code you didn't have a different day you didn't have a different Sabbath no it was one Torah one instruction one law both for the Israelite and for the native or the non native born that traveled with him now one passage I want to read from scripture here today is Isaiah chapter 56 if you've got your Bibles open to Isaiah 56 on the slide here I've written that isaiah 50:6 is clear that the sabbath is for everyone not only does Jesus say in the New Testament the Sabbath was made for man mankind humankind not only in Eden is the Sabbath being given to Adam and Eve long before millennia before there is such a thing as a Jew we have right here in Isaiah 56 of course Isaiah a Jewish prophet riding in a Jewish context but notice what he says as a Jewish prophet riding in a Jewish context about the non-jewish nosov the Sabbath Isaiah 56 beginning in verse 1 therefore thus says the Lord keep justice and do righteousness my salvation is about to come my righteousness will be revealed blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who lays hold on it who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and keeps his hand from doing evil verse 3 don't let the Sun of the foreigner that's what we just read about in Exodus 12 a moment ago don't let the Sun of the foreigners who has joined himself to the Lord say the Lord has utterly separated me from his people don't let the eunuchs say Here I am but a dry tree for thus says the Lord the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath's and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and of daughters I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off eunuchs keep the Sabbath it says now notice what it says about foreigners in verse 6 the sons of the foreigner who joined themselves to Yahweh to serve him and to love the name of Yahweh and to be his servants everyone what's that word everyone who keeps the Sabbath from defiling it and holds fast to my covenant even then I will bring to my holy mountain I will make them all joyful in my house of prayer their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house will be called you've heard this before probably my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations verse 8 final verse here in isaiah 50:6 for us this morning the Lord God says the Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says yet I will gather to him others besides those that are presently gathered man this is an absolutely amazing promise in prophecy that Isaiah said hey the Sabbath is not just for the Jews the Sabbath is for the four the Sabbath is for the eunuchs the Sabbath is for everyone everyone who comes on Sabbath it's for them in the very same gospel prophet of Isaiah in in almost the last verse the last chapter in almost the last verse of this amazing prophets writings it says this as the new heavens and the new earth that I will make will endure before me declares the Lord so will your name and your descendants endure from one Sabbath to another what are those next two words all mankind will come down will come and bow down before me this is speaking of the new heaven and the new earth quoting tongs dad again the idea that the seventh-day Sabbath is a passing ordinance intended only for members of a specific ethnic group the Jews is countered by the prophet Isaiah who makes it number one the centerpiece of vision and inclusion number two a critical ingredient in future restoration and number three even a feature of life in the earth made new this idea that the Sabbath is uniquely or idiosyncratically Jewish constant says absolutely not Jesus says absolutely not Isaiah says absolutely not I'm just going to say this very simply I don't have time to substantiate this here this morning but trust me on this and I'm willing to be I'm willing for anybody to come up and contradict me on this would love to do a Bible study with you but here it goes there is no biblical indication that the Sabbath has been discontinued annulled or otherwise changed there is just no biblical indication at all in fact scripture affirms the Sabbath's continuity and the Sabbath blessing for all people everywhere always the Sabbath is for everyone and I've given you just a simple little diagram here to help you to understand what Jesus meant when he said the Sabbath was made for humankind if you put all of human history on a continuum from creation in Genesis 1 and 2 to recreation in the new heaven and the new earth everything that comes after revelation 21 and 22 you basically can divide human history up into these these errands you have Adam and Eve of course at the beginning then you have the pre Abrahamic peoples that is to say the pre Jewish peoples you then of course have the Jews followed by the church both Jews and Gentiles and then you have all the redeems throughout eternity forever and we have many indications in all of Scripture that God intended Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath the pre abra Hamit peoples to keep the Sabbath certain also the Jews to keep the Sabbath because they were also God's people the church to keep the Sabbath to receive the benefit in blessing of this habit and all the redeemed forever we just read in Isaiah 66 we'll also come and bow down before God on the Sabbath so now we get to how to keep the Sabbath right because we've talked about what does the word holy mean what does the word mean it means different we talk about why is the Sabbath holy because God made it holy as an emblem and is an artifact of creation right it helps us to tap in to the reality that Yahweh is the one true God number three the Sabbath was made for mankind it is not uniquely or definitively or idiosyncratically Jewish there's nothing in the command that is expressly Jewish nothing at all and Jesus flatly contradicts this when he says the Sabbath was made for humankind the Greek where there is an Therapist from which we get the word anthropology mankind's human beings the Sabbath was made Signet on said moreover the tendency to read the commandments as irredeemable negatives is clearly a mistake many of us do this we read the Ten Commandments do not you'd better not or else you'd better not you do not do that and what Tom said says here is awesome he says the tendency to read the Ten Commandments as irredeemable negatives is clearly a mistake if we appreciate the context seeing the people coming from slavery to Liberty the commandments are as much a gift as Liberty itself while it cannot be denied that the Sabbath will speak with the urgency and authority of imperative oh I love this it is a reluctant imperative is the Sabbath and imperative yes is the Sabbath a command yes is the Sabbath a duty yes is the Sabbath an obligation yes but I love what Tom said says here it's a reluctance imperative now let me give you an illustration and I hope I don't offend anybody here but is it isn't imperative in the same way that having sex with my beautiful wife isn't imperative there is some husbandly responsibility and Duty that I am under obligation to fulfill my wife in that way and for her to fulfill me in that way but let me tell you it is it is only barely an imperative because you know it doesn't take much convincing for me to do it this is it just doesn't say it's like it's not like well ok I guess so I guess I have a husband Lee responsibility to do no no no no no I'm up for it almost at all times in all seasons at all days right and and the Sabbath is a similar The Reluctant imperative okay it's like yeah you have to do it but the joy of it the gift of it the blessing of it and by the way if you're a little nervous about the sex thing we're gonna be talking more about it in just a minute so get ready Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 to 11 remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six days you shall labor into all you work now as we read this through I want you to listen how how do we keep this reluctant imperative listen carefully because you're gonna be hard-pressed many of you to find out how six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God in it you shall do no work you know your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates for or because in six days the Lord made the heavens the earth the sea and all that is in them and he rested the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it notice no washings no ceremony no worship no gathering it's not there there are three simple extractable principles from the commandment on how to keep the Sabbath and three not 33 not 133 three principles and I've put them up here on the screen for you so you cannot miss them number one you don't work number two you don't cause others to work and number three by implication your activity or your purposeful rest from activity draws you closer to God as your creator and Redeemer that's it those are the rules or the principles I prefer for how to keep the Sabbath don't work don't make others work and we'll come back to that in just a second according to the command the Sabbath is kept by resting more than activity God doesn't say keep the Sabbath by doing something strangely paradoxically what he says is keep the Sabbath by what by not doing something and he doesn't say keep the Sabbath by getting somebody else to do something he says keep the Sabbath by not making somebody else do something so strangely the Sabbath as an emblem of creation as an emblem of God's rest is kept not primarily by activity but my absence from activity and so we could say it this way don't work don't cause others to work or we could say it this way number one you rest number two you extend rest to others and number three you purposefully engage in and I've been accused over the years of inventing words and making up words and there have a few occasions where I've actually invented a word and this is one of them I just made this word up and the word is restoration engaging in restoration and I've purposely chosen created this word restoration because I'm trying to move away from the word recreation and I'll tell you why in just a moment because recreation increasingly in this world in which we live where everything is driven by our desires and our joys and in our exploits recreation has become increasingly self-centered it's become increasingly about me and what I get so I've just coined a new word you rest yourself you extend rest to others and then you purposefully engage in what's my word rest reiation let's talk about what restoration is this is my own definition it's in the Oxford English David astrick dictionary an activity that is purposefully chosen to facilitate an environment and attitude of restfulness and God you've purposefully selected this activity because it gives you an opportunity to rest in God's showcasing his amazing love his amazing grace his amazing creativity and his amazing provision it is an activity restoration that extends the saving love and Ministry of Jesus to others because I invented the word I can say that's a great definition that is an outstanding definition of restoration so when we're participating in restoration by number one not art working ourselves number two not making others work on our behalf and number three engaging in restoration what does that look like well I'll give you seven things that the Sabbath says yes to and then I'll give you four things that the Sabbath says no to okay because that's in keeping with God's paradigm for for governance we've already seen he gives lots of yeses to a few knows so I didn't want to give you seven yeses and seven knows right that would be out of balance with the way that God governs in the way that God parents know God gives lots of yeses of every tree of the garden you may freely eat but how many trees could they not eat up one so I'm gonna give you seven yeses and four knows okay I'm not as good at this as goddess first of all the Sabbath says yes to authentic praise and worship can you say Amen number two the Sabbath is says yes to passionate reflective intercessory prayer if you're too busy to pray then you can thank the Lord Jesus the Sabbath you can do all of your prayer catching up on the Sabbath yeah the Sabbath says yes to intercessory prayer yes to reflection number three Sabbath says yes to reading Scripture and studying scripture and other similarly minded readings oh you're too busy to read the Bible you're too okay but on Sabbath you can catch up Sabbath is a giant yes to Scripture it's a giant yes to Jesus it's a giant yes to the text if you are glued to your phone whether Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or some other social media distraction Sabbath is an opportunity to say no to social media and yes to the text yes to scripture so Sabbath says yes to Scripture number four sabbath says yes to time with family and friends right otherwise known in christian vernacular as fellowship right number five Sabbath says yes to time in nature with nature's God amen number six Sabbath says yes in time in voluntary service to others if you if you want to as our group here does on Sundays they go out and they give out flowers to the hospital on Sundays they could easily do that on Sabbath voluntary service for others voluntary ministry for others in other words work you are not being paid for it's voluntary that knock yourself out absolutely Sabbath says yes go do it jesus said it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day and number seven this really encapsulates the whole essence of what tongs dad was driving at when he said that the Sabbath plants the stake of the divine presence right in the soil of time here it is the Sabbath says yes to being intentionally present all day to God people say to me all you know I I keep the Sabbath every day I worship every day I pray every day yeah no you don't know you know neither do I nobody does nobody spends 24 hours a day in thoughtful or I guess were awake say sleep for 8 hours 16 hours a day in thoughtful intentional reflective scriptural prayerful meditative study and service to others you don't do that cuz you have jobs by the way there's nothing wrong with having jobs there's a great blessing and having a job God wants you to have a job and God knows that our tendency would be especially men who are doers we'll talk about that next week but especially men they want to do that to accomplish they want to earn they want to they want to they want to make hay right they want to be busy with their hands gods like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna put a little restraining order on that because I know that your natural inclination would be to do it to excess and do we live in a world where people are doing things such as working to excess acquiring things to excess consumerism to excess materialism to excess go ahead and give me an answer what's the answer and so god wisely says you know what this day is the day that I want you to be intentionally cognizant intentionally aware of my presence in this day that doesn't mean you can't be aware of that on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday are or Sunday of course you can but this is a day where it is dedicated exclusively to being mindful of the presence of God as we number one rest number to extend rest and number three engage in what's our word rest reiation now some some people gonna say yeah okay this emphasis yes to all that but what about yeah but can I am I allowed to and we're gonna get to some of those in just a second because those are fun but we're gonna give you some simple principles so that you can make those determinations yourself okay so these are the things that savage says no to well the obvious is that we've already stated number one the Sabbath says no to doing the work that earns a livelihood that's clearly the thrust the pulse of the command you don't labor right the work that earns our livelihood you don't do that on Sabbath so number one the Sabbath says no to making this day just like every other day because the word holy means what help me out here again the word means where it means different so if that's what you do six days a week five days a week four days a week that's not what you do the seventh thing number two the Sabbath says no to making others work on your behalf right this is what it means when it says you know not you not your manservant not your maidservant not the stranger that is within your gates not even your cows I don't want anybody working for you so not only are you yourself resting you are extending rest to those that are under your sphere of influence and control so far so good number three the Sabbath says no to spending money spending money and being a consumer now the primary reason for that is is that typically when you spend money and certainly in biblical times when you spent money somebody was on the other side of that economic interaction working or you providing a service or a good on your behalf now that we live in sort of the digital age the whole commerce the whole consumerism you can spend money without relieve and feeling like you're spending money you're just clicking on your phone right but I'm gonna suggest that even the spend of spending of money in these modern ways should be strongly avoided at all possible cost and I'll tell you why in just a second back to tell you right now Todd's dad again and his last meeting of the seventh day says keeping the Sabbath is an act of prophetic resistance all that really appeals to the punk rocker in me some of you might not know that that before I became converted I was a punk rock kid I became a punk rock kid punk rock skateboarder kid at the age of 15 became a punk rock follower of Jesus at the age of 23 and so when I hear resistance and standing up to the man and sticking it to the status quo that really appeals to me right so I love this language you keeping the Sabbath is an act of prophetic resistance a resetting of priorities notice this away from what's that word away from self-interest in the area of work and recreation alike for the same reason and notice this tongs dad just nails this the Sabbath is aptly perceived as a time for no he said the Sabbath is a day to say no not today the Sabbath is a is a time for no a time to turn ones back on the illusion that production and consumption are the primary purpose of existence you just turn your back on that it's a lie anyway in this sense as Tom said the Sabbath is the launching point of the disciplined right disciples a disciplined journey in the direction of a center other than oneself Sabbath Orient's you away from your interests your desires your recreations your job your money you me and it Orient's you to God firstly and it Orient's you to community the Prophet had his finger on the pulse of modernity when he wrote quoting now from Isaiah 58 if because of the Sabbath you turn away your foot from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and you call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honorable and honor it de system from your own ways from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the heights of and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father for the mouth of the Lord has spoken he quotes Isaiah 58 and then Tom's dad says this decrying the life preoccupied with pursuing your own ways seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word the Prophet urges his reader to recognize that the self-important and self occupied life this is paradoxical the true will diminish the self and lead to the dissolution of human community on the extreme end of this it's called social it's called being a sociopath where everything ultimately always narcissistically is about you and the Sabbath is a great big yellow flag no better yet a red flag right in the middle of human selfishness it says today it's not all about you today it's about the Creator today it's about community today it's about service six days shalt thou surf and do all of thy way of catching but the seventh day is a different kind of day six days shalt thou go rock climbing but the seventh day is a different kind of day six days shalt thou fill in the blank we'll come to that in just a second Conn sad continues leads to the dissolution of human community his remedy is the Sabbath promoting it as the means by which to reconnect to God and when we reconnect with the Sabbath we reconnect to history we reconnect to community and even to the earth the earth itself and thus combat the disconnections of a Sabbath las' existence oh I love that last phrase friends we live in a world right now that is in the throes environmentally financially socially psychologically morally in the throws of a Sabbath less existence that's the world you live in you live in a world where people don't care about history as much in terms of got the history of God's redemptive plan God's redemptive narrative they don't care about God they don't care about his Sabbath that's the world we live in we live in a world of eye pods and eye phones and eye maxin and historically MySpace and YouTube the whole thing is just so completely totally narcissistic and we've even created these little social media platforms where we can effectively fashion echo chambers of our own lives we just because everybody is affirming us and we look amazing and and we've created these little what sort of looking for here not synthetic we've created these artificial worlds that aren't they're not real and the Sabbath invites us to step outside of that and to step into a larger reality that God is good and God is Redeemer and God has creator and God is liberator and there are other people out there that feel similarly and you engage with them not not through an online means only though that's certainly possible but through actual interaction and connection with human beings and with God Himself self-importance and the delusion of absolute autonomy are perhaps the most resistant human addictions they find in the Sabbath a remedy in the story of the seventh day there is an end to work and a call to heed the summons of creation time oh I like that you were created you were made for a purpose you were made with great love you were made with great affection you were made with great intentionality and on the Sabbath you reconnect in ways that it's not possible to do on on Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday you reconnect with that intentionality for which you were made true freedom and true holiness is found not in getting to do whatever you want to do but being able to do what you were called and created to do and you were called and created to fellowship with God to fellowship with the earth and to fellowship with one another and to serve others no wonder jesus said the Sabbath was made for man and so the Sabbath says no to doing the work that earns a livelihood it says no to causing others to work for you it says no to spending money and being a consumer six days shot they'll spend money and acquire your increasingly our increasingly meaningless Armada of goods and trinkets and toys and accoutrements no the seventh day is not a day for that and then finally the Sabbath says no to any activity that eclipses God's Sabbath intention for your life and what I like about this is is that is up to you to decide this not pester a cure to come to you and say that's appropriate that's not appropriate that's okay that's not okay that's no no no what I love about the fact that there are no particular parameters now I should say very few particular parameters of the keeping of the Sabbath the Sabbath is kept by rest and extending rest and the activity in restoration draws you closer to God as creator and Redeemer that's a judgment that you make there's an elasticity there there's a libera libera allottee there there's a pliability there that you ultimately before your God and your Creator make the the discernment you make the decision about whether or not this is actually an activity that is causing me to abide by that state of the divine presence that's been driven into the human soil of time in my life or not you don't need the pastor to do that you don't need me to do that and God in great wisdom said there's really three principles don't work don't make others work and have this activity or the lack thereof purposeful lack of activity draw you closer to God as creator and Redeemer closer to me as your father friends I want to tell you this if you're gonna truly be a Sabbath keeper it doesn't just mean not going to your job on Sabbath now being a Sabbath keeper entering into the rest that God promised the rest that jesus promised in Jesus summarized on the Gospel of Matthew almost the whole of his gospel mission the whole of his of his messianic identity the whole of his messianic invitation in these words come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you what rest he goes on to say you will find rest for your souls you can bodily desist from labor and still be thinking about all the things that occupy your life the other six days the Sabbath is an invitation to enter into true rest rest in Christ's finished work as creator rest in Christ's finished work as Redeemer to truly rest body mind and soul in the Sabbath and Friends I want to tell you rest requires trust to truly enter into a courage you can say I God is my dad I am in a right relationship with him I'll tell you this my son Jabil last night I had a lovely conversation with him and one of the things that my son said to me last night he said dad two or three months ago if you would have asked me if Jesus came or if I died would I go to heaven I didn't know and he said but now dad I just have confidence and I know that if something were to happen to me I would spend eternity with Jesus I can't tell you how it thrills the soul of this pastor to know that my sons both of them at last I was discussing which able are experiencing a conversion experience they are learning to rest in Christ to rest in his finished work of redemption to rest in his finished work of creation rest requires trust rest requires preparation this is why the only two days that are mentioned in the Bible the names of days that are mentioned in the Bible you have first day second day third day fourth day fifth day preparation day Sabbath day if you're truly going to rest in the Sabbath the way that God has intentioned you to rest in the Sabbath you're going to have to get ready for it you're gonna have to prepare for it you're going to have to make sure the car is filled with gas and the dry clean oven dry cleaning has been picked up from the laundry and all of those little distractions that we get in our lives that that ultimately just become part of the the Malou of life become part of the of the flotsam and jetsam of life you know you got to prepare for it rest not only requires trust rest requires preparation and rest requires intentionality there's things you're going to have to say no to in order to say yes to you say no to good things so you can say yes to the best things there are things that you could do on Sabbath that that you could also do on Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday or Friday so when you say no to those things on Sabbath what you're not you're not saying no . you're just saying no not now no no no not today because today I have the most important thing to do and the most important thing to do friends is not earning more money and it's not acquiring more goodies more accoutrements for all are already materialistically overrun lives the most important thing you have to do is to connect with your Heavenly Father and with his sons and daughters and that requires intentionality rest requires protection that's what I talked about you say no not that no not that no I can't do that so people are going to ask me all kinds of questions practical questions that I get can I have fun on the Sabbath the answer is of course you can have fun on the Sabbath richard davidson and his the sabbath in the psalms the prevailing mood of exultation according to isaiah 58 lies at the heart of the hebrew understanding of the sabbath and i thought many of you might not know exactly what the word exultation means so i've given you all the synonyms hear the word means jubilation rejoicing happiness pleasure joy gladness and delight if you ever seen if you've ever been to Jerusalem and watched the Jewish people uh sure in the Sabbath they do they don't do so with heads hung low and a sobriety and a son ah there's joy there's happiness there's celebration there's delight can you have fun on the Sabbath of course you can have fun you can have holy fun you can have other fun you can have different fun the kind of fun that God created you people sometimes say to me can I have sex on the Sabbath I hear this way can I have sex on this table I don't know if you can that's a slightly different West but I think the question you're asking is am I allowed to well let me give you an unambiguous answer to this question that I've heard many dozens of times MW Campbell and his sex on the Sabbath from ministry magazine April 4th - or April 2014 says this leads back to a study of the word pleasure that is found in isaiah 58:13 because sometimes you let people say no you can't have sex on the sabbath because isaiah 58:13 says refrain from your own pleasure and after all sex is very pleasurable so you can't do that there's a problem and notice Campbell's gonna point that problem out it is the same Hebrew word in verse 13 that's also found in verse 3 that warns against exploitation the word is also translated in the ni PS Jewish Bible as business pleasure or more precisely one's own business interests it had to do with economic realities not pleasurable experiences he continues isaiah 58:13 actually calls the sabbath a delight a happy time a joyful time a time of exultation the word delight in hebrew is an egg meaning exquisite delight the word is a noun is used elsewhere only it applies to in regard to kings and queens in their royal palaces thus the implication of isaiah 58:13 is that god wants us to lay aside our own agenda and replace it with something far more exquisite oh I like that God calls us to live a life of selfless pleasure focused on our relationship with God the notion that the Sabbath forbids joyous pleasure during Sabbath hours is basically a misreading of the original text hallelujah as Nancy van Pelt observes I've actually met Nancy years ago she says if this text actually meant to forbid sex on the Sabbath because it is pleasurable than any pleasurable activity including singing hymns reading the Bible or eating would also be forbidden I say it was not talking about my seeking my own selfish pleasure if sex is nothing more than my pleasure it is selfish and therefore it's wrong not only on the Sabbath but on every other day of the week as well there is of course a mutuality in the sexual exchange right camel continues for those married couples who do engage in sexual relations on the Sabbath such a view has deep roots in the original creation of view of sexuality that embraces the whole person connect sex with creation as God's beautiful gift to humanity can somebody say Amen I hope so Satan has distorted such a gift Satan is behind every attempt to rob this precious gift of God's original design sexual intimacy with your spouse is not morally defiling in any way and there's every reason to believe that when Adam saw even said this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh he did not merely appreciate her aesthetically until the following Sunday thank you people say can I travel on this Sabbath oh the answer is yes depending on what you can drive your car in the Sabbath I guess you could ride a horse on the Sabbath if you were so inclined flying commercially on the Sabbath no because you're gonna be causing others to work for you that's the simple guiding principle right if somebody is working on your behalf no because in fact my good friend Nathan Renner says it this way if we make other people work for us on the Sabbath then what we're effectively doing is treating people worse than God says we should treat animals in the commandment God says not even cows don't even make cows and we're gonna treat people worse than cows absolutely not people say can I go out to eat on this the staff the answer is of course not number one it involves the expenditure of money which gets you right back into that consumer a cycle and number two who's making your food who's waiting on your table and who's washing your dishes well it's the stranger that it's within your gates it's the Gentile that you have influence over I'm not a literal Gentile of course but that's what was being referred to there in Exodus chapter 20 people say can I stay in a hotel on the Sabbath the answer is you can stay in a hotel on the Sabbath you just hang the sign of the door that says please don't make make up my room today restaurant you know you're not paying it's really simple in fact people will say can I use my phone on this Sabbath or can I turn a light switch on on the Sabbath it's funny things that you hear and I'm just going to quickly introduce you to what I call the one to one simple the one one principle of sabbath-keeping and it goes like this if I pick up my phone to make a phone call there is no one-to-one relationship between the phone call that I make and another person doing something for me in that moment there's no one-to-one relationship there unlike if I go sit down at a restaurant and I'm speaking to that person who's gonna go talk to that person who's gonna make my food and come out and serve it to me and that person's going to wash my dishes there's a one-to-one relationship there in picking up my phone to make a phone call those networks are already there they presently exist I don't add to anyone's labor force in that instant of picking up my phone or turning on a light switch or pressing this to uh the you know floor to or floor 3 or floor 4 button on an elevator so it's really simple what this commandment is saying in exodus chapter 20 is those that are within your gates those over whom you have direct one-to-one access and so on answer to this question can I blank on the Sabbath just ask yourself the question am i working am i causing others to work is this activity drawing me closer to Jesus as my Creator and Redeemer you can answer these questions for yourself I am persuaded that how old you annabelle 10 I think a 10 year old can answer these questions very capably right so certainly a 30 or 40 or a 50 year old can do this can I blank on the Sabbath just ask yourself this question am i resting am i extending rest is this and what is this consistent with restoration restoration alright you've survived three guiding principles are number one you rest number two you extend rest and number three you purposefully engage in restoration I want to close with one of my favorite quotations on the Sabbath from none other than the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel he wrote in his book the Sabbath we must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment it is the moment that lends significant two things significance two things the Sabbath is entirely independent of the month and it is unrelated to the moon it's date is not determined by any event in nature such as the new moon but by an act of creation thus the essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space the meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space and I love this six days a week we live under the tyranny of the things of space on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness time difference in time other nests in time last slide here from Heschel it is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation and to turn from the world of creation to the creation of the world it's holy it's different when you choose to keep Sabbath here's what you're saying you were saying Jesus is the lord of creation and Jesus is the Lord of me Father in heaven [Music] you

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Published: Thu Jun 21 2018