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Uh we’ve got two Bible readings this evening um the first is from Deuteronomy chap 12: 12 to 15 um if you have one of the church Bibles uh the page numbers are up on the screen so Deuteronomy chapter 5 vers 12 to 15 observe the observe the sabbath day
To keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you 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 do shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter or your
Male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sourer who is within your Gates that your male servant and your female servant May rest as well as you you shall remember that you you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the
Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day and our second reading is from Luke chapter 13 verses 10-1 17 and again the page numbers are up on the
Screen now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath and there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for 18 years she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself when Jesus saw her he called her over and said to Heroman you are freed from your
Disability and he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God but the ruler of the synagogue indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath said to the people there are six days days in which work ought to be done come on those days
And be healed and not on the Sabbath day then the Lord answered him you Hypocrites does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his Donkey from the manger and Lead it away to water it and ought not this woman a daughter of
Abraham whom Satan Bound for 18 years be loosed from this Bond on the Sabbath day as he said these things all his adversaries were put to shame and all the people rejoiced at all the Glorious things that were done by him John thank you very much for reading
Those two passages um we’re digging into our second week thinking about uh what God’s will for us is in the fourth Commandment what the Sabbath has to do with us um I just thought perhaps um Stuart we could have a slide up on the screen uh just in case you’d like like
To think a little more about this uh this issue and try and work these things through a little more just three books that you might think about um the first is H it’s got a long title it’s called the Sabbath as rest and hope for the
People of God by a guy called guy Waters um it’s about 150 Pages it’s not a very long book and it just takes you sort of Through the Bible section by section trying to pull out what the Sabbath command is all about and what’s going on
And so it works you through bit by bit and it’s a it’s a good primer um if you’d like something that does something similar but perhaps with a bit more kind of topical angle a bit more kind of practical Focus perhaps the one in the middle is called celebrating the Sabbath
By a guy called Bruce Ray that’s a an easy read again probably 150 pages and very kind of conversational um that’s very helpful um the third one is a slightly left field recommendation it’s um a book called The ruthless elimination of hurry by a guy called John Mark comr um
I’m not sure I’d recommend everything the guy writes um this is he’s got a a chapter on Sabbath in this particular book and for the most part the chapter is very good there are a couple of bits where I might not track with him what where I think he’s really excellent is
That he is just so very thoughtful and so helpfully provocative in terms of application he’s wonderfully Direct in a way that other books I’ve read and other chapters I’ve read are just not and so if you’d like something that just really helps you think about what are you going
To do this uh this week or next Sunday um I think that’s uh there’s some good wisdom in there and so that might be worth a look it was on sale on Kindle a couple of weeks ago I don’t know if it’s on sale now um but like I say it comes
With a read carefully and thoughtfully we’re going to dig in uh to those passages and a couple of others I’m going to pray for us as we get stuck in there uh Father in heaven we sang just a few moments ago our anticipation of gladly forever adoring
You we pray now for Grace to be fitted for that to truly anticipate that to be able to sing those words here on the Lord’s day full of meaning and intent and hope bless us we pray help our minds and our hearts and our lives lives because we ask in Jesus
Name and in the power of the spirit amen every Sunday Laura and Mary were dressed from the skin out in their best clothes with fresh ribbons in their hair they were very clean because they had their baths on Saturday night on Sundays Mary and Laura must not run or shout or
Be noisy in their play Mary could not sew her nine patch quilt and Laura could could not knit the mittens she was making for baby Carrie they had to sit quietly while ma read Bible stories to them or stories about lions and tigers and white bears
From PA’s big green book the wonders of the animal world they might look at the pictures and they might hold their rag dolls nicely and talk to them but there was nothing else they could do at Laura liked best to look at the pictures in the big Bible with its paper covers and
Best of all was the picture of Adam naming the animals Adam looked really comfortable he didn’t have to keep his clothes clean because he had no clothes on he only wore a skin around his middle did Adam have good clothes to wear on Sundays Laura asked
Ma no ma said poor Adam all he had to wear was skins Laura did not pity Adam she wished all she had to wear with skins one Sunday after supper she couldn’t bear it any longer she began to play with Jack their dog and in a few minutes she was running and
Shouting P told her to sit in her chair and be quiet but when Laura sat down she began to cry and kick her heels against the chair I hate Sundays she said that’s how Laura Engles Wilder the lady who wrote The Little House on the Prairie books described her Sundays as a
Six-year-old in 1870s Frontier America is that God’s will for us in the fourth Commandment it’s not very attractive is it but nor I think is probably the other side of the spectrum that I would imagine we are a little more familiar with one writer expresses it like this
He says ultimately nothing in this life apart from God can satisfy our desires tragically we continue to chase after our desires at infinitum the result a chronic state of restlessness or or Worse angst and anger and anxiety and disillusionment and depression all of which lead to a life
Of hurry a life of busyness and overload and shopping and materialism and careerism a life of more which in turn makes us even more restless and the cycle just spirals out of control and to make a bad problem worse this is exacerbated by our cultural moment of digital marketing and social
Media from a Society built around the twin gods of accumulation and accomplishment and when our innate human restlessness collides with the digital age the result is a culture-wide crisis of emotional unhealth and spiritual death what is God’s will for us in the fourth Commandment where do you
Go last week we looked at the The Hope and the expectation of rest that God built right into creation right into the very structure of reality but today we’re going to think about that reality from another angle from you might say in post-fall terms life after
Sin God’s will for us in the fourth Commandment is that we enjoy his Rescue of us and that we help others to do so also I want to sort of hit two things but to be honest much of this evening’s Sermon Just kind melds into one big
Point so you’ll have to bear with me but here’s the first thing to try and kind of nail on to and the first is that the rest day underlines rescue the rest day underlines rescue because sin ruins everything not least the creation reality we started with last week God
Builds this rest day into his creation to to press us towards to warmly draw us towards joining him in his own rest at the end the the Eternal Joy of life and communion with him God creates and then he rests and human beings are made to work his creation and finally to rest
And week by week they look forward to it and sin ruins everything it horribly subverts this Sabbath that God has built into creation because after sin there can be no rest now at least not by Adam’s hands and from there as you follow through the rest of scripture you find
The the unfolding of just the horrible Legacy of the fo but at the same time you also find unfolding God’s work to undo that horrible Legacy through initially Abraham and his descendants right back early in Genesis and that reaches you might say a key kind of peak in the Exodus Abraham’s
Descendants by that point have become slaves in Egypt and they’ve been slaves for hundreds and hundreds of years they’ve been homeless you might say they’ve been mercilessly oppressed and they have been without rest and in many cases as you read The Exodus account you find you you get the
Impression that many of them were basically resigned to it basically settled almost despairing that anything might be different working working working to death and never resting and then God raises up Moses and through great acts of judgment through Moses god rescues his people and he constitutes them as a nation and he he
Chooses them he sort of designates them his special holy people and in the great Charter of their life as the Lord’s people and as their great Charter of life with him as it were the Covenant through Moses in preparation for entering the rest of the promised land god restates the Sabbath in his
Commands to his people in the Ten Commandments given at sin Exodus chapter 20 God links that Sabbath that Weekly rest to his own rest in creation and we talked about that last week but then you get the the the Commandment restated in Deuteronomy in Exodus the people have just come out of
Egypt and they’re at Mount Si in Deuteronomy theyve spent 40 years wandering around in the wilderness but they’re on the edge of the promised land and God is sort of setting them up to enter and now he ties this sabbath command to rescue verse 15 of
Deuteronomy 5 maybe we could just uh pop it back up on the screen God says you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm therefore the Lord your God
Commanded you to keep the Sabbath day and in Exodus in Exodus 31 you find actually the Sabbath was a really big deal it was not only sort of one of the Ten Commandments but actually it it acted as one of the the Great Signs of that Covenant it was a particular marker
Of God’s rescue it was a particular marker of Israel’s Holiness and specialness to God the Sabbath spoke of the invitation to God’s rest ever since the beginning but now in a world of sin and a world of Oppression the Sabbath also speaks of God’s rescue into
Rest and it comes as a serious command you might say because because of the situation you see so often we’re prone to think of God’s command and Par perhaps particularly his Sabbath command is as quite oppressive and quite restrictive you feel like it’s inevitably going to leave you feeling like six-year-old Laura Engles
Wilder but just think for a moment about Israel coming out of Egypt think about what they have known generation after generation after generation one writer puts it like this Israel had been released from bondage and hard labor to enjoy and communicate God’s rest but for a nation that had recently
Until recently suffered under grueling bondage in Egypt and lived hand to mouth the principle of rest and the Trust In Divine goodness and provision and protection would have been difficult to learn I once read an article by a couple who had adopted two children from a very impoverished orphanage in another
Country and the dad described how they brought these children home and suddenly they went from impoverished conditions to extremely prosperous American lifestyle and life standards these children suddenly had far more than they could ever need but he said it took an awful long time before he and his wife stopped
Finding hoarded pockets of food around the house God gave a command because rest did not come naturally to former slaves he was commanding them to stop slaving and to come and enjoy him because they didn’t know better think about that to people held in terrible and oppressive bondage where there is no
Stop and there is no rest God gives a day and says stop stop and remember and and live the fact that I have made you free and made you mine and that was serious stuff it was the Covenant sign there was serious sanctions that went with ignoring the
Sabbath it wasn’t just kind of a nice option if you felt that way but also it was it was festive enjoyment there was the weekly Sabbath and that was good and that was a big deal but actually there was a whole package of kind of Sabbath festivals that went with
The kind of the the Israelite calendar in fact you get to Nehemiah chapter 8 in the Old Testament and you find there the holy day is a feast day that’s the day where the the priests tell the people you you go and get your best food go and get the really good
Wine and get it out and share it with others and be filled with with joy in the Lord when I was uh in Bible College training for ministry as part of an assignment I actually went to a synagogue service on on a Sabbath one time and after their synagogue Sabbath
Service they they had food together now now it was cold food Cold Buffet because they they they weren’t doing any cooking um but it was really good and you know what they did after the food they served whiskey now I’m sure there are some people in that s that synagogue Community who felt
Frustrated by their Sabbath and the things that they didn’t do but you know it would be wrong to map modern times onto the Old Testament but it didn’t seem very hard for me to be able to see that there were lots of ways in which it really was a very very good
Day and it was for everyone go back to Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 14 God says on it you shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your
Livestock or the sjer who is within your Gates so that your male servant and your female servant May rest as well as you because here’s the thing so often rest is for the rich leisure time is for the rich but that is not so amongst the Lord’s
People now this Echoes the fact I think that that Sabbath is baked into creation Sabbath was not just a kind of Israelite distinctive it is something that God is built into the world for all human beings whether we acknowledge it or not but also it echoes God’s
Rescue now Israel may go on having servants and you may go on having different different layers of society but there was to be rest for everybody not rest for the rich on the back of the work of the poor and this rescue I think gets this rescue sense of Sabbath gets even
Stronger when Jesus comes on the scene in the New Testament we read this account from Luke Chapter 13 of Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath and the synagogue ruler protesting that’s work you do that stuff on the six days come and get healed on the six days that’s
Not for the s ab and Jesus responds there Luke 13:1 15 you Hypocrites he’s outraged does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his Donkey from the manger and Lead it away to water and ought not this woman a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has Bound
For 18 years ought not she be loosed from this this Bond on the Sabbath day and there you begin to see Jesus work to Free People not simply from physical bondage but from Satan from spiritual bondage from spiritual oppression from sin back at Christmas we spent a little
Bit of time just on sort of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the beginning of Mark’s gospel and you find there that as Mark begins describing the arrival of Jesus do you know how he describes it he describes it in Exodus terms the great release from bondage
That you get in the Old Testament was a picture was a taste of a great much bigger Exodus event salvation event from bondage and it is in the coming of Jesus and his Exodus and his release that the coming of rest really begins to take shape now you might have just as you
Read that section in Luke you might have just noticed there’s an exception in there isn’t there now the Old Testament regulations for keeping Sabbath was serious stuff and actually as you find the kind of the the attempts to apply it afterwards became even more detailed but Jesus points to a generally
Recognized principle that really is very much in keeping with the day there are some things that need to be done verse 15 he points he points to the thing that everybody would have agreed with in that synagogue there is a bit of work that needs to be done for instance in taking
Your livestock to drink water because they kind of need it and so his point then in verse 16 is like if you do that and it’s just so obvious how much more appropriate to do mercy and to relieve suffering in the case of this poor woman you find another account of Jesus
And the Sabbath in Matthew’s gospel and there he points out that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are Guiltless there is work that is appro that is appropriate for the day traditionally these kind of legitimate exceptions have been of not
To not working on God’s appointed day of rest have been summarized as uh on the One Hand Works of necessity and on the other hand Works of Mercy there are basics of life and celebration you might say that need to be attended to one person in their book points out
Sickness and accidents and crime and fires do not take Sunday off and you can thank the Lord for people who help you on that day but even then I’m not sure exceptions would be quite the right word because they are very much in keeping with what the day is about Not Mere
Inactivity but rest in God Not Mere inactivity but rest through Rescue by God so then where do you get with all this well there is I want to argue and I want to press on us a there is a holy day to rest and that rest particularly takes shape in in
Worship and it is a day particularly to remember and to celebrate and to live the fact that God has rescued Us From Slavery and has freed us from bondage and that in that day it is also a day where it is good and right for us
To enable others to enjoy that rest as well but there are some refinements you might say or some shaping that come with the work of Jesus second kind of big thing to G get to grips with is that there is this day that’s all about rescue but it is shaped by Christ Christ
Shapes the rest day there are just kind of moments or things that pop up in history which really do seem to shape kind of everything that follows you might think about a recent one I think really is the invention of and then the rise of access to the internet communication really has never
Been the same since everybody went online the access to information that we have and the access to stuff that we have has never been has has always been different since we all got online you could think historically not so long ago somebody published a book arguing basically that 17 76 and the
Events surrounding the American Revolution really have had an enormous shaping effect on Western Society ever since a key moment in history but bigger than any other Turning Point any other moment is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and amongst the many many things shaped and forever changed by that is the
Sabbath just to Rattle through some ways in which that is so and we can chase them up afterwards if you want Christ’s Resurrection means the day has changed we don’t merely sort of work through the week anticipating the Sabbath rest at the end and through that the final big
Sabbath but in Christ raised the rest has begun to unfold it has it has begun and so the holy day of rest now is Resurrection Day you begin the week anticipating rest because of Christ but Christ Resurrection also means a New Covenant now God’s law through Moses
Continues to matter as it reflects the realities that God has baked into creation and as it reflects God’s own character and actually as you go through Paul’s letters you find that he continues to give the Ten Commandments to Christians but we are not under that Covenant or that law in exactly the same
Way that Old Testament Israelites were Christ has has has us under a New Covenant he has fulfilled the law and Christ’s people now are not sort of constituted as a a national entity anymore and also Christ has brought to reality everything that the various sabbaths and the various ceremonies and
The various festivals pointed to we could have another verse up on the screen there Stuart Paul says to the Colossians let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath these are a shadow of the
Things to come but the substance belongs to Christ and what’s the point there in this particular issue you are not bound by that whole calendar of sabbaths I think you would we fair to go as far to say actually you are not bound by a a distinctively Jewish weekly Sabbath
Either one writer helpfully summarizes from all this we have been released by the work of Christ but not from the Sabbath as instituted at creation there is a day to rest from our work and daily activities and to worship to celebrate our rest resue and our Liberation to anticipate full rest
And full communion with God and there is a day to free other people to do that too whether or not they know and acknowledge the Lord so what do you do like you actually do with all of this I guess for starters it would be Simply Good to acknowledge the
Blessing generally you are free to come and worship today without having had to go and do a full day’s work or a full heavy shift and turn up just in the evening be good to acknowledge the blessing to eat well to share it hospitably with other people it would
Good be good to be free from your housework and your homework it would be good to enjoy the Lord and to enjoy one another it’s a blessing the Lord has given it to you but inevitably then there are all the detailed questions I don’t know what you’re thinking of now but just a
Few so what employment is it okay to do on Sunday what about if I’m in low paid work or what about if my employer requires me to work on Sunday can I go out for a meal can I do my shopping what about online shopping can I catch up on my studies
Can I do my homework can my kids go to activities or go and play sports teams or go to birthday parties you might have a bunch un more of other questions I was listening to another Pastor preach on the Sabbath recently and at one point he
Said I know what you’re all thinking can I watch the American Football get it was an American pastor and inevitably and his his answer was interesting he asked it was a question he said I don’t know can you and in one sense that is super annoying because I want my answers I
Want some specific but the more I’ve thought about it and as I have to stand up and preach on it myself now I’m coming to think that there is some wisdom there because his in his question just encourages us to kind of check our hearts now sure we we might ask about
The specifics because we are really genuinely trying to work out our principles but let’s be honest sometimes we can just be like hormonal teenagers asking questions about dating sometimes we’re just trying to strip the command down to the very bearest minimum because quite frankly it’s inconvenience or because actually
When we think about it God’s blessing just seems like a very poor substitute for the thing that I really want to do but is it actually so hard one writer says this the Bible does not give us a list of preapproved permitted and forbidden works on the Sabbath
Rather God tells us that if we keep the main thing the main thing then the rest of the day should fall into place if we set aside the work and entertainments that fill Monday through Saturday if we prioritize public worship and fellowship with God’s people and if our hearts take sincere pleasure in
Communion communing with Gods then we are in a good position to make god-honoring and biblical decisions about details like these if we keep the main thing the main thing stuff becomes remarkably clear on the whole but you know I also like that pastor’s question answer because I’m
Very reluctant to just give you a bunch of commands that scripture doesn’t give you the way you deal with Sunday shouldn’t in the end be on my say so but that said let me just try and help us reason through a couple of examples I say these things now to help
You think rather than to bind your conscience and because I don’t want to give you my own experience listening to somebody else or reading a book thinking but I want my answers some people do need to work on the Lord’s day you need to thank the Lord for
Medical people who treat you when you have a Sunday emergency you need to thank the Lord for the police who help you and maintain Law and Order you need to thank the Lord for people in power plants who mean we’ve got lights on this evening you need to
Thank the Lord perhaps even for ministers who also work on a Sunday and you know actually I would be inclined even to include some forms of poverty in that kind of necessary work there are some people who may need to work just to earn the basics to
Live now I don’t want to say that’s a desirable thing and it is not the same as kind of working to achieve a particular lifestyle but perhaps it is not that different to the very earliest Christians who lived in a society which didn’t have a seven-day week and didn’t
Have that Weekly Rhythm and for whom many actually economically they were either slaves or close to it and so life in their society did look like going to worship early or going to worship late in the day after work what about my shopping can I do that on a
Sunday well you know I’m not going to tell you the answer to that but let me ask you some questions think about the principles that we’ve tried to work through just over the last couple of weeks does that sort of thing does that belong more to the work and the activity of the
Week or does it fit well with a day holy to the Lord does it free me and free my mind and free my heart to rest well in the Lord and to worship Him does it help and does it enable other people to rest whether or not they know the
Lord now sure you know certainly there will be mishaps where you might suddenly need to go and get something some emergency Basics and you know sometimes you need medicine sometimes you need to help somebody in need but just generally what is God’s best best for you here what does he
Really want you to have on his day what about kids activities and sports you know is that good for a Sunday again I just want to ask you those questions does that belong more to the activity and the work of the week gone or does it fit well with a day holy to
The Lord does it free me and my mind and my heart to rest well and worship him what about my children children’s bodies and minds and hearts does it help and does it enable other people to rest whether or not they know the Lord now you can probably get from the
Sorts of questions I I I definitely hold a view on those things but I say them as an attempt to try and think aloud I do think there is some wisdom to apply here I think it is possible to come with some nuanced answers talk to each other
Afterwards work it through together some of the talking just you know sometimes we get in the Echo chamber of our own hearts and we have our answers and sometimes you just need to talk it over with somebody else come and talk to me I’m glad to talk it over this is not
Meant to be a kind of putting something very heavy on you but what I really want to do is I want to get us into the fundamentals the Lord has blessed us with a day to rest and in that to worship and to enjoy him and to enjoy
The freedom that Christ has won for us and to help other people to also and in that rest to anticipate the full Joy of life with him forever what is God’s will for us in the fourth Commandment it’s about rest and freedom in him it’s that we might
Anticipate and be sure of and be fit finally to enter into what we sang Forever adore him let’s pray then together our gracious God in heaven uh we uh we thank you for the rich gift that you give us in your day we thank you for the the greater richness that we
Enjoy now in Christ true Freedom true Liberation to know you and to be yours and to enter finally into the rest of your new creation help us we pray as we work our way through trying to Mark and honor and receive in the day that you give
Us might we receive everything that you will for us might we be shaped that we honor you with whole Hearts we pray in Jesus name amen