The Lord of the Sabbath

As we continue in my series of sermons through the Gospel of Luke, we're now ready to open chapter 6.

! And so if you would, take your Bibles this morning. Our text for this morning is Luke chapter 6, verses 1 through 11. Luke chapter 6, verses 1 through 11. And let me go ahead and read it to you.

Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first. That's how it appears in the New King James and King James. I think some have on a Sabbath or a certain Sabbath.

So whether it was the second Sabbath after the first, whatever that means, or just a certain Sabbath, it doesn't really matter. Let's read on. That he went through the grain fields, and his disciples plucked the heads of the grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.

And some of the Pharisees said to them, Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? But Jesus, answering them, said, Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him?

How he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat.

And he said to them, The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. Now it happened on another Sabbath, so there's another Sabbath.

We're not told, by the way, if this was the next one or a different one. Luke's purpose is not to give us some chronology here, okay? He's putting two Sabbath day stories together for a purpose.

So here's another Sabbath. And he said, Then Jesus said to them, that is to the Pharisees, I will ask you one thing.

Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save life or to destroy? And when he had looked around at them all, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

And he did so. And his hand was restored as whole as the other. They were filled with rage and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Interesting. I once read kind of an explanation on some of the various forms of government that exist in the world today, have existed, still exist today.

And the explanation kind of follows a consistent scenario. It begins with a man who has two cows. Under socialism, that form of government, he would have to give one cow to his neighbor and keep one cow for himself.

Under communism, he would have to give both cows to the state and hope to get a little butter and milk from time to time. Under fascism, we might know it as Nazism.

That's how it was certainly manifested in our day, some of our day. Under fascism or Nazism, he would be shot and both cows would be confiscated by the government.

Under capitalism, he would sell one cow and buy a bull so he could have more cows. Makes sense, doesn't it? Let me add one to it.

This wasn't part of the illustration I read. Religious legalism. You say that's not a form of government. Oh, certainly it was in the Jews' day. In Israel, still is to some extent.

And certainly it is in the Muslim world today. A religious radicalism. A religious legalism. A ritual or oppressive, stringent rule of law.

Using the same scenario of the man with two cows under religious legalism, he would get rid of both cows because all of the rigid rules and regulations would make it too laborious to keep them.

Now, I use that illustration because religious legalism is not about keeping cows. Not about that.

The specter of religious legalism, which is our subject this morning, is more than just simply a killer of joy. You know, something that makes your life hard.

Something that removes all freedoms and liberty from you. It's something more than just reducing your life to some rigid set of rules and regulations that must be obeyed or else.

It's something more than just making your life void of joy, which it certainly does that. It's more than that. These are just outward kind of signs or symptoms.

We might even say the observable fruit of religious legalism. But religious legalism is far more diabolical and destructive.

And I would even add the word damning. Because at the heart of religious legalism, whatever form it might take, at the heart of it, is the belief that strict obedience to a set of rules or laws will result somehow in righteousness before God.

Or to put it another way, it is the belief that good works, whatever they might be, works of righteousness is required for one's salvation.

Not, as I said last Sunday, salvation by grace through divine accomplishment, but rather salvation by works through human achievement.

And specifically those works associated with certain religious practices. And for the Jews of Jesus' day, that was first and last how one observed the Sabbath.

I mean, for the Jews of Jesus' day, and I would add that we'll get to this later, even some in our day, it all came down to the Sabbath. It all came down to that.

If you got that right, then you were right with God. That is, you were saved. But if you got that wrong, then you were wrong. Wrong with God, on the wrong side of God, on the wrong side of salvation.

For the Jews, it all came down to the Sabbath. And that is Luke's point. And these two seemingly isolated, separate instances in the life of Jesus.

It all came down to the Sabbath. And a strict adherence to the law, quote, law of the Sabbath. Now, is it any wonder then, that when Jesus violated the so-called laws of the Sabbath, that the Jewish leadership finally started talking about destroying Him?

All because of how He treated the Sabbath. That was the sin of sins for the Lord Jesus. And here in Luke chapter 6, it's pretty clear, Jesus openly, flagrantly, we could even say, in their faces, violated the laws of the Sabbath.

And that was the last straw for them. It's interesting, I think, that we can map out the kind of gradual, not even gradual, very rapid deterioration of Jewish sentiment about Jesus Christ.

We can kind of map that out this way. It started with curiosity. Who is this guy? It very quickly evolved into concern. We better watch this guy.

And then very quickly manifested itself in open criticism. This man's dangerous. And then ultimately led to condemnation. We've got to get rid of this guy.

That's how the sentiment toward Jesus very rapidly deteriorated in his life. Here we are in chapter 6, and they're ready to kill the guy.

We've got, you know, a total of 24 chapters in the book of Luke. We're barely into it, and now the Jews are ready to kill him. What was it then that represented the last straw for the Jews?

His, Jesus' violation of the Sabbath. And so, then the intent, the objective, the whole point of Luke chapter 6, 1 through 11 is to reveal Jesus' absolute, utter disdain for the Jewish system of self-righteousness.

That's what this is all about. His utter disdain for religious legalism, which is what the Jewish system was all about, works, salvation.

salvation. Salvation by human achievement. Salvation by outward ritual, which described the Jews to a T.

And so Jesus had to openly attack this damnable system, which meant that he must attack the very heart of it, and what was the heart of it?

For the Jews, it was the Sabbath. More specifically, the strict laws pertaining to its observance. So here you have Jesus deliberately, premeditatedly, I think he set the whole thing up, he is violating the Jewish laws of the Sabbath.

Jesus openly attacked their beloved system of works, righteousness, and by the way, he's still doing that today. And not just toward the Jewish system, but any and all other systems.

See, the Word of God always attacks, always confronts the damnable lies of works, righteousness, whatever form they might take.

Whether it is some rigid system of Sabbath observance or laws, or any other system of works, salvation devised by man.

The Word of God stands in condemnation of any system of self-righteousness works unto salvation.

All right, now enough with the introduction, let's get to the Scripture text and see how the Holy Spirit deals with the issue of religious legalism. Here in our text, it is specifically directed toward the Sabbath, but it's not just the Sabbath.

any system of religious legalism. How does the Holy Spirit deal with that here? Well, the first thing we need to notice is legalism itself.

The legalism of the Sabbath as Luke shows us here in the text. The legalism of the Sabbath. What do we see here in verse 1?

Look at it again. Now, it happened on the second Sabbath after the first or a certain Sabbath. That he went through the grain fields and his disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands.

Now, let's stop right there. Anything wrong with this? I mean, this was perfectly fine for them to do this. There was even a law that, by the way, that allowed for this.

You can read about that in Deuteronomy 23 and verse 25. There's a law that allowed this kind of thing. All right? But as we shall see, it is not what the disciples did that was the problem.

Right? Let's read on. And here's the key to the whole thing. And some of the Pharisees said to them, Why are you doing what is not lawful?

That's what you need to pay attention. Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? Ha! Tell us it's not true. Jesus broke the Sabbath law.

Surely not. Does that make him a sinner? Well, we have to ask, what law did he break? Well, you know, they were plucking off heads of wheat, rubbing them in their hands, blowing away the chaff, and then eating the flour that remained.

All right? They were trying to get some nourishment. That is, what they were doing was this. They were harvesting, threshing, sifting, grinding, winnowing, and preparing food.

And you can't do that on the Sabbath. Right? You can't do that on the Sabbath. That's strictly against the law. But what law?

You say, well, the Sabbath law. They're breaking the Sabbath law. By the way, the same thing occurred, something similar occurred in John chapter 5. We'll not turn to it, but let me just kind of remind you of the story.

when Jesus healed the lame man there at the pool of Bethesda. And in verse 8, Jesus said to the man, get up, rise up, take up your bed, your cot, and walk.

And the man immediately did so. He was healed, took up his bed, started walking home. And the Bible says that it was the Sabbath. It was the Sabbath. And so what happened? Well, the Jews, the Bible says, therefore said to him who was cured, it is the Sabbath.

It's not lawful for you to carry your bed. Notice they didn't say, wow, you've been lame 38 years and now you're healed and you're walking, praise God.

Well, they didn't say that. They said, you can't carry that cot. That's against the law on the Sabbath. And a little bit later in the text, in verse 16, for this reason, the Bible says, for this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath.

What things? He healed this guy on the Sabbath. And then, also they told this, he told this guy to pick up his cot and walk with it, carry it. That is, he told this guy to disobey the Sabbath.

That's what they persecuted Jesus for. But, and here's the point, to what Sabbath law are they referring?

You know, I don't know, there might be someone here thinking that some of these laws appear in the Bible. Guess what? Well, they don't. There's no such law in Scripture that prohibits the carrying of one's cot on the Sabbath day.

It's not in the Bible. And also, there's nothing in the Bible about not healing on the Sabbath. They said it's unlawful, but it's not in the Bible.

And then we get to our text for this morning. There's no such law in Scripture that prohibits the harvesting and threshing and winnowing of grain in your hands on the Sabbath. So to what law are they referring?

Well, they're referring to those Sabbath laws that were contrived, that were developed by the rabbis over centuries. They're contained in the Jewish Talmud, a kind of instruction manual for the Jews.

And so they have all these laws there. And the rabbis then over the centuries had developed a myriad of instructions designed, all designed, supposedly, to guard the Jew from violating or breaking the fourth commandment, remembering the Sabbath.

All right, so they have all these laws. And many of them are absolutely ridiculous. I wish we had time to name a lot of them. We couldn't name all of them. There are, I think, some excess of 70, maybe 800 different laws on how to observe the Sabbath.

Let me give you a few of the absurd examples. For example, on the Sabbath, you could not travel more than 3,000 feet from your home or 3,000 steps from your home.

If you went beyond the 3,000, you'd be violating the Sabbath and that would be serious business. But they had some provisions built in. If on the Friday before, you had some foresight and you went 3,000 feet from the house and planted some food or placed some food there, then on the Sabbath, you could walk that 3,000 feet to where that food was and then you could walk another 3,000 feet because the planted food or food placed there in that spot represented your home.

And so, then you were home and then you could go another 3,000 feet and I guess theoretically you could strategically place little tomato plants or little something that would be edible at various places around your home and then you could just virtually walk anywhere you wanted to.

Ridiculous. Huh? And also, here's another kind of provision that helps you obey that law of the 3,000 feet.

You could walk along if you walked along and you reached the 3,000 foot mark but you had the foresight to carry along with you a little stick of wood from your house. Then when you reach the end of the 3,000 feet you could place that stick of wood down on the ground or the road and then walk an additional 3,000 feet because the stick of wood could represent the door of your house.

I'm not making this up. And, you know, on the Sabbath, which, of course, for the Jews, began at sunset on Friday.

If you were, you know, sitting back in your, your, you know, easy boy, your lazy boy there at the house and you wanted to, you know, grab a sandwich you had prepared there and so you're reaching over there to get the sandwich and then the Sabbath overtakes you.

Sunset comes. What do you have to do? You have to drop the sandwich right on the floor and you have to leave it there the entire Sabbath day. Can't pick it up. Can't bear any burdens on the Sabbath.

And, by the way, if you're carrying something, some burden, say, even in your pockets and the Sabbath day overtakes you, then you must drop what's in your pocket on the ground no matter where you are, whatever the possession is, even if it's something valuable.

You've got to drop it there on the ground and leave it there and you can't pick it up until Sabbath is over. But, by the way, you couldn't reach in your pocket and pick it out and drop it because you'd be carrying a burden so what you would do is somehow turn your pocket inside out or upside down and let gravity do the work and drop it to the ground.

I'm not kidding. You couldn't carry any burdens on the Sabbath. And they had laws within laws within laws within laws for every conceivable scenario.

Laws about drinking, laws about eating, laws about spitting, though you really shouldn't do that, my mama told me. And you have laws about cleaning your body on the Sabbath.

In fact, the Jew that wanted to be very strict about the Sabbath would never take a bath on the Sabbath just in case some of the water might slosh out of the tub and hit the floor and you'd be guilty of washing the floor on the Sabbath.

Seriously. I tell you, the Sabbath was so important to the Jews and they had added all of these layers of laws and procedures and safeguards that you had better follow to the nth degree.

Don't forget, if you violate the Sabbath by violating any of these Sabbath day laws, then you're a sinner and it has salvation implications.

Your salvation depends upon how you honor or remember or keep holy the Sabbath. And that is what Jesus is attacking here.

This whole notion. And so did Jesus break any Sabbath day laws? No. Jesus was not a law breaker. You say, well, what about the fourth commandment?

Well, let me read it to you. Exodus 20 verses 9 through 11. Let me read the fourth commandment. So, 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 not do no work, you nor 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 in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

There's the command. Now, tell me, what is the Sabbath day law?

Don't work. Now, you boil it down to those two words. Don't work. You cease from your working.

Take a day off. That's the Sabbath law. Intended to refresh yourself. As God worked six days and the seventh day rested, not because He was tired, of course, but because He ceased from His works.

And to commemorate the Creator, God gave this provision to man a day to take off, to refresh yourself, to refresh your body, to refresh yourself mentally even, to refresh your spirit.

The very word Sabbath in the Hebrew is sabbaton and it means literally complete cessation. That's what the word means.

And I say just like that, complete cessation of your labors, your weekly labors, your vocation, your work. Complete cessation.

The two B's just carries over from the Greek. It's two betas when they're side by side put together. It's an intensive. It means complete cessation.

Take a day off. Relax. Refresh yourself. And by the way, that's why Jesus said in Mark 2.27, another account of this same story, Jesus said in Mark 2.27, remember this, the Sabbath was made for man.

man. And not man for the Sabbath. But here's the problem being addressed in this passage. The Pharisees were strict Sabbath keepers.

The technical term is Sabbatarians. But, here's the sad thing, they had entirely missed the whole point of the Sabbath. Missed it completely.

Had turned it into something else. In fact, they had turned it into work. Ironically, the very thing that the Sabbath was meant to be a cessation of. And so, instead of a day of refreshing, instead of a day of restfulness, it had become a day of extreme work, of extreme labor, extreme difficulty, in a different sort of way, through an endless set of laborious rules and laws and practices.

That's what it had been turned into. But worse than that, far worse than that, it had become for the Jews the standard by which righteousness was determined.

That's the problem. A system of works unto salvation, works righteousness. And no wonder, then, Jesus was attacking this system, the legalism of the Sabbath.

Now, I will eventually apply this to our day a little bit later in the sermon, but let's move on. Notice the second thing.

The Lord of the Sabbath. The legalism of the Sabbath, and then the text reveals to us the Lord of the Sabbath.

All right, so Jesus and His disciples are walking through the grain fields. It's the Sabbath, and they're processing a few heads of grain in their hands to get some nourishment, and out popped the Pharisees.

I don't know where they came from. There they are. They were always there. And they said, why are you doing what is not lawful to be done on the Sabbath, which, as you know now, is completely bogus.

God gave no such law. And then Jesus answered them, not because He had to justify Himself or give an answer about why it was okay to do that, but He answers them with this.

He says in verse 3, Have you never read this? Have you never read about David, David, and what he did when he was hungry, and he and those who were with him? Now, of course, they had read that.

1 Samuel chapter 21 is where this story is contained in Scripture. The Pharisees had read that. They knew all about that. But Jesus brings it up. And in kind of a snide way, backhanded way, have you never read this?

How he went into the house of God, took and ate the show bread, and also gave some of those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat. Now there, he is reciting Scripture.

It wasn't lawful for David to do that. You can find that in Leviticus. I don't remember where. Just read Leviticus and you'll find it there. And we don't have time, really, this morning to go back and explain the law and what David did and his men did on that day.

And I think I can make a pretty good case that it probably was the Sabbath when David and his men did this. But here's what we need to get. At the very least, we ought to see this masterful way that Jesus responded to the Pharisees' accusation.

Because, you see, they had so venerated and revered King David that there was no way they could come back with an answer for this. They're not going to shed some negative light on King David.

And so they just could not respond to that. They had no comeback. Jesus was a master at that. Second, Jesus, I think, is laying the foundation for an important principle of truth about the Sabbath, what it was intended to be all along.

As well as really laying a foundation for any kind of ceremony, all the other ceremonial structures in Judaism. And that is basically this, that mercy and compassion, which is what the priests showed to David and his men that day, that compassion and mercy is much more important than ceremony, much more important than ritual.

So Jesus is laying the foundation for that. And he's going to get to that here in just a minute. But third, and I think most important, Jesus declared his sovereignty over the Sabbath.

Absolute sovereignty. He made that crystal clear in verse 5. There's no way to miss it. The Son of Man, he said, is also Lord of the Sabbath. He's clearly referring to himself. The Son of Man is Lord, kurios, supreme ruler, over the Sabbath.

Now, see, listen, if David could be allowed, here's the logic. If David could be allowed by the priest to violate a divine law on the Sabbath, then Jesus could allow his disciples to violate a human, unbiblical law on the Sabbath, right?

He's the Son of Man. Clear reference to his Messiahship, by the way, according to Daniel 7, 13. a point, apparently, the Jews there missed entirely.

I don't know. They didn't respond to that. But, as the Messiah, he is Lord of the Sabbath, which means that the Pharisees were not in charge of it.

Right? They never had been in charge of it. And so, all of these laws that they had developed over the years, and some developed even since then, in fact, the Orthodox Jew still holds to many of them, all these laws and layers of laws and layers and layers of laws on the Sabbath and what the Sabbath had been turned into, all of that was man-made.

The Pharisees did that. They're not Lord of the Sabbath. The Lord Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, you see. That's the whole point. In fact, Isaiah 1, God said to His people, Israel, I am sick of your Sabbaths.

Sick of them. Because of what, not only what they had turned it into, but because their lives, the injustice of their lives, the lack of compassion and love, all of that made them standing in complete hypocrisy.

God said, I hate your Sabbaths. You see, a greater one than David had come. He is Lord of the Sabbath, Lord over the Sabbath and He will tell you what the Sabbath is to be.

And He will tell you what the Sabbath is not to be. This is what He's saying. And it is, by the way, not and never has been a set of rules by which one may earn righteousness or salvation.

It never has been that. And so Jesus is saying you have completely missed the whole purpose of the fourth commandment. The day was made for you.

For your blessing. For your benefit. For your joy. and fulfillment. For your rest and refreshment. To show mercy. To show compassion.

To do good things. That's what it was made for. And they completely missed that. Which Jesus made even more clear in the second part of this text.

Let's look at that. Verse 6. Now it happened on another Sabbath also that he entered the synagogue and taught. So Luke has combined these two stories.

He's making the same point. These two go together. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. It had atrophied. It was deformed.

Nothing in. Maybe the bones were even gone. And so the scribes and Pharisees watched him closely. whether he would heal on the Sabbath that they might find an accusation against him.

They didn't care anything about the withered the man who was lame in his hand. They didn't care anything about him. They didn't really care about finding some proof that Jesus was truly the Messiah.

They're not still looking for proof of that. They're not looking for that at all. They only care about finding some valid reason to have him destroyed. so they're watching.

But he knew their thoughts. He knew their motives. He knew the malice of their heart. Nobody else knew it. But Jesus knew what they were up to. And he said to the man who had the withered hand to rise and stand here.

And he arose and stood and then Jesus said to them to the Pharisees I will ask you a thing. One thing. Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil?

To save life or to destroy? What a question. How shrewd Jesus is.

He asked a question they could not answer. They could not answer it. Not honestly. And certainly not with witnesses around.

They couldn't answer it. Because on the one hand if they had said well of course it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath then I tell you what their entire structure Sabbath structure all the laws concerning it would have crumbled to the ground if they said that.

That's right. They said well yeah it's good. Sabbath you can do good on the Sabbath. Then it's all gone. And of course they would not allow the Sabbath structure to be destroyed because that is what gave them power over the people.

But on the other hand if they had said it is lawful to do evil and to destroy a life of course they couldn't catch them couldn't find themselves ever saying that.

But if they had said that then guess what? They would have indicted themselves because that is exactly what they were planning to do to Jesus on the Sabbath. But they could not answer openly.

Look at verse 6. And when he had looked around at them all and that's an incredible phrase. Difficult to see this in the English but it literally meant that there was some time elapsed here.

Silence. You could have heard a pin drop. And Jesus is looking at each one of them one by one his eyes to their eyes looking and they gave no answer.

And so after that he said to the man stretch out your hand and he did so and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Incredible miracle. And then we see their answer.

By the way they do answer the question in a sense though privately in their hearts but Jesus knew their hearts. They answered the question and in doing that they revealed the whole hypocrisy of their Sabbath system.

The Bible says but they were filled with rage and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Well that doesn't sound very severe but when you go to Matthew's account of this same story he wrote they plotted how they might destroy him.

there's the answer to the question. It's okay to devise evil things on the Sabbath day. The Lord of the Sabbath.

Let me get to the third and final point wrap this up and I really believe that this is the most important part and it's what I would call the lessons of the Sabbath.

The lessons of the Sabbath are for all Christians that's many of you maybe all of you here this morning all Christians today who are tempted to become like the Pharisees in Jesus' day to become Sabbatarians that's the technical term.

let me put it another way there are some lessons we need to learn that come from a broader view of scripture than just this one passage some lessons that pertain to the old covenant Sabbath day and there are some lessons that pertain to the new covenant Lord's day.

this is very important very instructive for us now I'll give you three lessons first lesson the old covenant Sabbath day came to an end with Jesus resurrection dear people there is no more Sabbath it came to an end remember remember now Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath right what he said of himself that means he's the one who determines what the Sabbath is all about determine what it was intended for he's the one that determines how it should be observed and so forth and so forth he's Lord of the Sabbath and Jesus said through his word speaking through the apostle Paul in Colossians 2 16 so let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths which are a shadow of things to come let no one judge you regarding

Sabbaths which are a shadow of things to come it's just a shadow the Sabbath is a shadow of things to come but the substance is what Paul wrote the substance not the shadow but the substance is Christ the things of Christ we could even insert the word gospel so the Old Testament Sabbath was a shadow a shadow a shadow is not real a shadow has no substance now the shadow certainly served a purpose or God would not have given the shadow serves a purpose but now the shadow is what it's past it's it's it's over because

Jesus Christ has come and has accomplished redemption and he is the substance and so what about the fourth commandment what about it the outward ritual ceremonial observable obedience of the fourth commandment in terms of a specific day that's over it's over that was a covenant between God and Israel not the church not us did you know that when you come to the new testament the fourth commandment is nowhere repeated you'll find it in the new testament now the other nine are repeated and some of them more than once but the fourth commandment appears nowhere in the new testament we are never we are never commanded in the new testament to keep the sabbath holy that is sanctified separated as a special day we're never commanded to do that not anywhere in the new testament it's just not there so someone might ask what about the fourth commandment are we to obey it then

I mean it's part of the ten commandments are we to obey it well yes and I hope you have I hope you are you say well I guess I am because I'm here today I'm not talking about that this is not the sabbath so how do we obey it then you obey it spiritually you're not obeying it as a specific day of the week otherwise we have missed it nothing in the new testament says that the sabbath is now valid and so if we're to continue to observe the sabbath as the seventh day as the commandment says then we've missed it we're in trouble but we do obey the fourth commandment but not as a specific day of the week and certainly not as the as it was ritualistically in the old testament because it was just a shadow so how do we obey that

I don't understand you say well look at Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 4 or just let me read it to you Hebrews 4 4 really we could start earlier than that but let me just get cut to the chase here in verse 4 of Hebrews 4 for he has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way God rested on the seventh day from all his works that by the way is not a quote of the fourth commandment that goes way back to Genesis and again in this place they shall not enter my rest since therefore it remains that some must enter in and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience he's talking about a rest talking about salvation again he designates a certain day saying to

David today after such a long time as it has been said today if you will hear his voice do not harden your hearts for if Joshua had given them rest this spiritual rest if Joshua had done that then he would not afterward have spoken of another day there remains a Sabbath a rest for the people of God that that a reference to us there remains a Sabbath for the people of God for he who has entered his rest the Lord's rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest rest lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience the implication here is of salvation eternal rest and so if the

Sabbath appears at all in the New Testament it appears in a spiritual sense there is the Sabbath of the old covenant which is a literal day the seventh day Saturday and it was to be remembered it was a day for restfulness it was a day given for refreshment and resting and it was a day to worship the creator because it was attached to him because he too rested on the seventh day the Sabbath in the old covenant was a day but it was also a shadow of an eternal rest that God intends for us to enter into and it's a spiritual Sabbath that we enter into through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and he said don't fail to enter that rest lest you fall under the same condemnation of those who rejected my rest it's an obedience to the commandment spiritual obedience

I hope you have placed your rest your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ceased from your works of righteousness and resting in his grace that's the principle of the Sabbath for the New Testament believer and that leads to a second lesson very quickly the New Testament Lord's day now listen carefully the New Testament Lord's day as opposed to Sabbath the Old Testament Sabbath the New Testament Lord's day has replaced the Old Testament Sabbath day replaced it and even as I say that don't misunderstand me the Sabbath did not become the Lord's day didn't just become it the Sabbath was not moved to Sunday the first day of the week a lot of people make that mistake we didn't move the

Sabbath to the first day of the week and so everything the Old Testament said about the Sabbath now applies to Sunday that's not the case at all the Sabbath was not moved from Sunday the first day of the week today is not the Christian Sabbath the Lord's day is something brand new brand new for the believer for the church why because it started as a result of something brand new what was that the resurrection the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's really quite amazing starting on that Sunday when the first day of the week when Jesus was raised from the dead starting on that first Sunday and continuing now for over 2,000 years the Christian church has observed the first day of the week as not the Sabbath but the Lord's day something brand new and it's going on right now as we speak all around the world wherever

Sunday is and I think according to my watch even in China it's still Sunday we're getting close to midnight there I don't know what time really actually that's just how it's been and it all started when on the day that Jesus was raised from the dead and it became for the Christian the Lord's day the Lord's day and we have by the way if you just kind of kind of follow it through the New Testament we have the first on the first Lord's day we have the first worship service taking place in Matthew 28 9 it was the first day of the week the day Jesus came out of the grave and he comes and he meets with the disciples in a closed room and the Bible says that Jesus met them saying rejoice why because it's the Sabbath and we're remembering God the creator no rejoice because redemption has been accomplished for you I'm alive from the dead I died upon the cross for you and I'm raised from the dead for your justification rejoice and so they came and what did they do they held him by the feet and they worshipped him the first worship service mentioned in the

New Testament for believers was on the first day of the week and we don't end it there we have the first Lord's day sermon delivered in Luke chapter 24 and verse 27 again it's the first day of the week and Jesus appears to these guys walking on the road to Emmaus and he preaches a sermon he begins at Moses and all the prophets and he expounded by the way that's the first expository sermon preached in the New Testament expounded to them in all the scriptures that is he didn't just preach through one book he preached from the beginning Genesis all the way through and he preached the things concerning himself first sermon when did it occur on the first day of the week on Sunday and one week later we have the first Lord's Day confession of faith in John chapter 20 verse 25 again it's the first day of the week one week later after that first appearance to the disciples in the closed room and so Jesus appears again before them this time

Thomas is there and he says to Thomas reach your finger here and look at my hands and reach your hand here and put it into my side do not be unbelieving but believing and Thomas answered and said to him my Lord and my God first profession confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior 50 days later on the day of Pentecost we have the birth of the church in Acts chapter 2 and what day was it he said well I don't know it was Sunday it was the first day of the week you see according to Leviticus chapter 23 verse 16 Pentecost occurs 50 days after Passover!

Sabbath so 49 days would make Sunday one more day makes I mean Saturday one more day makes Sunday 50 days that Sunday verse first day of the week the birth of the New Testament church on Sunday and by the time you near the end of the book of Acts the church is still assembling on the first day of the week the Lord's day in Acts chapter 20 verse 7 now on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread I like a reference to the Lord's supper Paul ready to depart the next day spoke to them and continued his message until midnight so he had the first Sunday evening service too only this one was all day and on into midnight you know Eutychus he falls asleep like some of you have maybe this morning and fell out of the window you remember that story that was the first day of the week the Lord's day and then there's more the collection of an offering of the Lord's day is first mentioned in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 16 2

Paul instructed the Corinthian church on the first day of the week implication being when you gather together on the first day of the week on Sunday let each one of you every one of you in the assembly give an offering that has been stored up you know and so here's the first collection or the first mention of a collection it's the first day of the week the church is assembled and they're collecting an offering very very baptistic to do that and finally this new day got a name in Revelation 1 10 why do we call it the Lord's day because of Revelation 1 10 John said I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and it's been called the Lord's day ever since Christians left the Sabbath behind because it was just a shadow and we don't live in the shadows we live in the substance of the Lord Jesus Christ our Sabbath rest is our salvation in

Jesus Christ and we have then embraced the Lord's day you see on the Sabbath the Jews honored the creator and on the Lord's day Christians honored the Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ and guess what there is no command for this you're not here today because you were commanded I hope you're not here because of that that would be religious legalism there's no command in the New Testament for this and also there is no set of laws for its observance I know that is troublesome to some people because they'll come to the preacher and say well just pastor just what can I do and can I not do on Sunday can I go here and do that and I'm not going to just fill in the blank yourself and so you just want kind of a set of things that we can do that it's okay to do and

I can't give it to you because the Bible doesn't give us that there are no laws pertaining! to the observance we could maybe glean the law of not forsaking the assembly and so yeah I think we ought to come together and worship but we don't do it legalistically not because we're forced to do so and if we don't do it then there's some salvation implication there no set of laws not anywhere in the Bible and that leads to one final lesson and I think it's the lesson of the passage the third lesson is this ritualistic legalistic observance of the Sabbath or any ritualistic legalistic observance of the Lord's day totally separate thing either one will not make you one bit righteous before

God the problem which is the problem with any form of sabbatarianism however it manifests the Pharisees were sabbatarians teaching a work salvation through obedience to a set of sabbath day laws and there are sabbatarians still today I highly revere and respect and we owe a great deal to the puritans but for the most part the puritans were sabbatarians many of them most of them who taught that Sunday was the new sabbath for the church and advocated a strict adherence to a set of rules and laws rules of behavior there are also seventh day baptists did you know that and there are of course seventh day adventists

I'm sorry a cult a cult that follows the visions founded on the visions of Ellen White but all of them and any of us here ought to remember what Paul said in Galatians 4 9 he said but now after you have known God or rather are known by God that is after your salvation how is it Paul's perplexed how is it that you turn again to the weak and worthless elemental things that is how again how now again do you turn back to the Old Testament ceremonial laws to which you desire he says to be enslaved all over again you observe days and months and seasons and years a reference to Sabbath laws he said

I'm afraid for you lest I have labored for you in vain lest maybe you haven't really believed not truly been redeemed because your focus is on works and not grace you don't have to be a Pharisee you don't have to be a seventh day Baptist or Adventist because they advocate the importance of the Old Testament Sabbath our hearts you don't have to be any of those our hearts can be just as wrong about the Lord's day it can be just as wrong about the Lord see because to honor the Lord's day which I hope that you want to do to honor the Lord's day you must enjoy the Lord of the

Lord's day it's not about rules it's not about earning quote brownie points with God it's not about earning God's favor with eternal salvation implications it's not about that it's about enjoying him it's about adoring him and loving him it's about worshiping him that's what it's about and so I leave you with this question is the Lord of the Sabbath that's Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath the Lord of your Lord's day you don't have to have a set of rules just answer that question is the

Lord of the Sabbath the Lord of your Lord's day indeed of every day Thank you.