Episode Transcript
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Enlighten it to us. And now, Oh God, we sing of your
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day. We gather on your day. And now we look at a portion
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of scripture the deals with keeping your
day properly. And so Lord, as
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we do come to your word,
we confess that we need your help.
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That Lord, your word is beyond
us. Lord, such knowledge is indeed
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too wonderful for us. But Lord, we pray that you would help us
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to understand it, to know it, to be able to apply it to
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our lives. Lord, sending a
searchlight of the Holy Spirit into our hearts,
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and let us check of ourselves,
Lord, to see in the ways
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that we are properly doing what you
command. But God, as we look
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today, I pray you would keep
me safe in your word. Help the
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words that I speak be true words, keep me from error and heresy,
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And help me, Lord to preach
to your people your word. May Christ
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be exalted, May the Gospel of
Christ be made clear. And I asked
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these things in Jesus name. Amen, if you want to turn with me
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in your bibles to Luke chapter six. We've been going through on Sunday mornings
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the Gospel of Luke. And obviously
I'm not going to make it through the
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end of luke Um. That would
not even be possible in any kind of
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dream. But I want to read. Even though the text primarily is going
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to be the first five verses,
I do want to read the two stories
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to both the story I'll deal with
this morning and the story I'm going to
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deal with next Sunday morning, because
they kind of go together, so I
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want to read them together. But
I'll just be preaching on the first five
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verses. But here is God's word. An a sabbath, while he was
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going through the grain fields, his
disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain,
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rubbing them in their hands. But
some of the pharisees said, why
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you doing what's not lawful to do
on the Sabbath, And Jesus answered them,
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have you not read what David did? When he was hungry? He
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and those who were with him,
how he entered the House of God and
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took and ate the bread of the
presence, which is not lawful for any
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but the priest to eat, and
also gave it to those with him.
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And he said to them, the
Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
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On another Sabbath, he entered the
synagogue and was teaching, and a
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man was there whose right hand was
withered and describes. And the pharisees watched
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him to see whether he would heal
on the Sabbath, so they might find
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a reason to accuse him. But
he knew their thoughts, and he said
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to the man with the withered hand, come and stand here. And he
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rose and stood there. And Jesus
said to them, I ask you,
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is it lawful and the Sabbath day
to do good or to do harm,
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to save life or to destroy it. And after looking around at them all,
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he said to him, stretch out
your hand, and he did so,
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and his hand was restored. But
they were fear with fury and discussed
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with one another what they might do
to Jesus. Thus ends the reading of
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God's word. Please be seated.
So this morning we're going to look at
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Luke chapter six, and again I
said that I think both stories that I
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read are related. But I have
enough to say on the first one without
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going into the second one and keeping
you here for over an hour. So
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I won't do that. But we
canna start by looking at the first two
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verses. As we've been going through
the Gospel of Luke, we've been noticing
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that Luke is stressing different things along
the way that Jesus has authority over He
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has authority over Satan, he has
authority over temptation, he has authority over
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demons, he has authority over disease, he has authority over man. And
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now we're gonna see something else in
verse six that might be a little bit
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surprising that is going to be given
to us that Jesus is has authority over,
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and that is the Sabbath. But
also along with the motif of the
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authority of Christ over all of these
things, there's another motif that's going on
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along with it, and that also
is going to be highlighted in these two
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stories of Luke, and that is
the motif of mercy. We see that
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Christ is merciful. The leper says, if you will, you can make
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me clean, Jesus says, I
will be clean, and all the other
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healings in the book that we have
encountered many healings we have seen, some
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specific and some end mass and in
those we see that Christ is merciful.
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And now in these first two stories
in Luke again we're going to show Christ
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is having mercy again and again and
we're reminded of that wonderful verse that I
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keep running into. It seems like
in my life over and over again.
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Micah six eight. He has shown
the old man what is good and what
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does the Lord require of you but
to do mercy, to do justly,
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and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with your God. So in
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first one we have the disciples going
to the grain fields with the Lord,
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and as they do, they're taking
the grain from the plants, and they
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are eating it. Well. The
first thing you might think about is,
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wait a minute, that's stealing.
They shouldn't be doing that. But the
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answer to that is, actually,
it is not stealing. According to the
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law. The law was very specific
on this in Due around twenty three Versus
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two. If you go into your
neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill
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of grapes as many as you wish, but you shall not put any into
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your bag. If you go into
your neighbors standing grain, you may pluck
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the ears with your hand, but
you shall not put a sickle to your
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neighbors standing grains. It's perfectly permissible
to go through people's vineyards and through their
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fields and to pluck food in order
to eat that. I don't think the
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people that had the apple orchards when
I was a kid understood that quite so
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well. But uh, but nonetheless
they are doing that. But it is
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legal to do this. But if
this is legal according to the law,
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then what is the problem that the
scribes and the Pharisees have. You See,
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the problem isn't what they're doing.
The problem is when they're doing it.
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That is what the problem is.
They're doing it on the Sabbath.
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Now, the Texas receptors uh manuscript
has kind of a strange reading here that
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King James translates it on the second
Sabbath after the first. In the Greek
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the term is dudal proton second first. And it might be that Lucas saying
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this is the second Sabbath that I'm
telling you about, or you can just
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take the more simple reading of other
manuscripts that says it was a particular Sabbath.
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And so Luke is going to now
tell us two stories that relate together
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because they both happened on the Sabbath, different sabbath, but they boatht have
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both happened on the Sabbath. There
is a third story as well that probably
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belongs to these, but Luke does
not relate it. Only John relates that.
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That is the healing of the man
at the Pool of Bethesda. And
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again only John relates that. But
that also was a problem with healing on
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the Sabbath. Not so much with
the healing there, although that could have
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been a big problem, but the
fact that Jesus commanded the man to take
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up his bed and walk, which
they looked at as a violation of the
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Sabbath, and doing that, and
so in verse sixteen, Actually if John
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five and the stories found it interesting
because John says, and this was why
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the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because
he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
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Will just told them one thing.
So why does he say these things?
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He's probably relating back to the things
that Mark and Luke had had said
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together. So those are probably the
stories he had in mind. So the
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question that is found here relates concerning
the question what is classified as work,
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in particular, what is work in
regards to the Sabbath. Now you may
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be aware, as I read it
this morning, that the fourth commandment concerning
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the Sabbath is the longest commandment of
the ten and so therefore, of course
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it had great importance to the Jews, and the Sabbath in the Bible.
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To the Jews was even spoken of
has a covenant in Exodus sixteen. Therefore,
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the people of Israel show keep the
Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their
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generations as a covenant forever. So
the longest commandment, it's a commandment that
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specifically spoke enough has a covenant.
So again very important, and in at
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least one instance in the Bible,
the case of someone breaking the Sabbath by
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in that case picking up sticks actually
brought the penalty of death, and Jehovah
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said to Moses in numbers fifteen,
the man shall surely be put to death.
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All the congregation shall stone him with
stones without the command without without the
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camp So you can see the commandment's
pretty important. I mean, all these
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things kind of lead into that how
important it is. And since in this
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commandment they're specifically told it is a
Sabbath and they should not do any work,
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well, it becomes important then to
define, well what is work?
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I mean, we want to make
sure we're keeping this thing right, so
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we need to decide what work is. It's not really easy to define work,
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and I'll come back to that in
the application this morning. But what
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they did was they divided the categories
of work into thirty nine different categories,
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same as the number of books in
our Old Testament, but it's not the
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same number as in the Hebrew Old
Testament, as they combined several uh several
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books together. Um. But again
they divided into thirty nine categories, and
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then those thirty nine they further divide
into six other minor categories. Now,
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some things that were prohibited that they
considered work would be where if you were
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to write a particular letter on the
paper, on the paper, that was
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okay. But if you happen to
write a second letter to tell about a
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literary alphabet, a second letter,
that's worked because you could have actually made
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a Hebrew word if you put two
letters together, So that would be classified.
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Of course, as you I'm sure
you knew that of of work,
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and of course you couldn't and and
this makes perfect sense. I'm sure you
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could loosen and not on the Sabbath. So if your shoes shoelaces happen to
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have a knowledge you're coming to church
this morning, and you decided to unloose
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that knot you were working, okay, and so that was something you weren't
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supposed to do, and you certainly
couldn't sew more than one stitch. Now,
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three of the categories that the Pharisees
had and that they had put together
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were actually these three reaping, threshing, and winnowing those three categories. And
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in our story, the disciples hit
the trifecta. They do all of them,
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and so they are breaking three different
categories, and in fact, maybe
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even one more because it also forbid
has work the preparation of food on the
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Sabbath. So of course you could
not do that as well. So the
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Pharisees figure they pretty much have Christ. Now they've they've actually caught him and
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his disciple, at least disciples,
and he's not rebuking them in doing what
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they knew was work. Now,
again, you have to remember there was
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no Old Testament law anywhere that forbid
what the disciples were doing, so they
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had broken no law of God.
But in verse two they say, why
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are you doing that which is not
lawful to do on the Sabbath? And
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they're asking the Lord that Kent Hughes
says, they had no hint of the
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double slam dunk that was coming.
It is never wise to go one on
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one with Jesus. I'm not sure
why he makes it in the basketball,
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but that that's what he did.
So so in verse three, Jesus begins
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to respond. And I have to
confess, as often as the case when
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I read these stories about the Lord, he answers using a story I would
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have never chosen. It wouldn't have
been the story I would have picked in
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order to defend the disciples here.
Uh it's it's the same way when when
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the sadducis come to Jesus about the
resurrection because they didn't believe in it,
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and they gave that made up story
about a man that had a wife and
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died, leaving her childless, and
so all the brothers, six other brothers
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you know, then took her to
wife and none of them had children.
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And so at the end they said, in the resurrection, uh, you
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know, whose wife shall she be? And I would have, you know,
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picked something out of job or something
out of out of Daniel. Perhaps,
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I mean those at the thoughts that
come to me. But Jesus picks
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us, uh one. He picks
us basically as a saying that his whole
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argument depends upon one letter. One
letter is that is what he hinges his
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whole argument on when he says,
God says I am the God of Abraham,
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Isaac and Jacob, and on that
Jesus proved the resurrection. Again,
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I would have never ever thought of
that on that way. And here is
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the same thing. Who would ever
thinking in defending the disciples conduct on the
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Sabbath, who would ever have thought
of a story of David and the Bread.
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I would never have come to that, except that our Lord did.
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And the story is found in first
seven one, and it concerns the bread
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that they called the bread of the
Presents. And these were twelve loaves of
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bread that were put on the table
of shee Bread, or the table of
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the Bread of the Presents, that
represented the twelve different tribes of Israel.
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And every week those loaves would be
traded out, and new ones we put
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in, and the old ones were
to be eaten, but only by the
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priest. And so levitic Is twenty
four eight and nine says, every Sabbath
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day aaron shall arrange it before the
Lord regularly. It is from the people
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of Israel's a covenant forever, and
it shall be for Aaron and his sons,
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and they shall eat it in a
holy place, since it is for
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him a most holy portion out of
the Lord's food offerings, a perpetual do
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so, the Lord said that that
bread was supposed to be for the priest
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and the priest alone. So here's
the story our Lord is referring to in
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first seven one. Now, then, what do you have on hand?
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Give me five wolves of bread or
whatever is here. And the priest answered,
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David, I have no common bread
on hand, but there is holy
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bread. If the young men have
kept themselves from women. And David answered
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the priest, truly, women have
been kept from us. As always when
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I go in an expedition, the
vessels of the young men are holy,
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even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today would their vessels
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be holy? So the priest gave
him the holy bread, for there was
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no bread there but the bread of
the presence, which is removed from before
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the Lord, to be replaced by
hot bread on the day it is taken
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away. That's the story Jesus is
referring to. And it's interesting how Jesus
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says it to the Pharisee is here, he says. I think the E.
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S. V. Kind of softens
it by saying, have you not
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read what David did? The contemporary
English version puts it you surely have read.
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The literal standard version says did you
not read even this? But I,
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like the King James, have you
not read so much as this?
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It would be like me say to
you, haven't you ever read the twenty
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three psalm? Uh? That that's
what the kind of the statement that he's
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making here? Haven't you even read
this story? Now? I have a
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theory, it's my own theory about
this story about David. And it's one
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I'm sure that somebody else has it, because there's nothing new under the sun.
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I've just never come across it.
But I'm sure there's somebody that has
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it. And and here is the
thought, because there are times in the
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Bible where it appears that God either
sanctions or even commands a breaking of one
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of his commandments. For example,
rehab the art is looked at in Hebrews
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eleven as one of the heroes of
the faith. And what did she do?
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She broke the commandment? She lied, She lied about where those spies
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were. In first Samuel sixteen one
and two. The Lord said to Samuel,
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how long will you grieve over Saw
since I've rejected him from being king
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over Israel? Fill your horn with
oil and go, and I will send
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you to Jesse to Beoutamite, for
I have provided for myself a king among
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his sons. And Samuel says,
how shall I go? If Saul here's
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it, he'll kill me. And
the Lord said, take a heifer with
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you and say I have come to
sacrifice to the Lord. Now you may
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not count that as a lie.
I don't know by saying that, but
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it is certainly an avoidance of the
truth. It is certainly that that is
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not the main reason that Samuel is
going. And so my theory, and
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again it's just my theory, so
you don't have to take it. My
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theory is that there are greater and
lesser commandments. And I'm not referring to
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the two commandments that our Lord gave, But in the commandments there are greater
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and lesser commandments. And I think
I could illustrate that by the punishment.
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The punishment for breaking the sixth Commandment
is death. That is not the punishment
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for line generally, nor does the
punishment for stealing. Generally, it's not
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that is the punishment. So I
think the greater punishment speaks to it being
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a greater commandment. And so in
both of the stories that I have referred
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to, and particularly the one the
Lord refers to David's men, lives are
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spared, men don't die, men
are given things to sustain their life.
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And to me, that is a
greater commandment. That is done. That's
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my theory. You can do with
it what you like. So what is
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Jesus used this story for? Hendrickson
sums it this way. If David had
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a right to ignore a divinely ordained
ceremonial provision when NECESSI demanded this, then
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would not David's exalted anti type,
namely Jesus, God's anointed, in a
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far more eminent sense, have right
under similar conditions of need to set aside
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a totally unwarranted man made Sabbath regulation
uh Sabbath regulation. Nowhere in the Bible
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is there any condemnation of David and
his men for what they did in eating
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that bread. And we should know
Matthew in the Gospel actually gives one further
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illustration that Luke does not record here
but the Matthew says, Jesus gave this
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illustration as well. He said,
in Matthew twelve five, have you not
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read in the law that on the
Sabbath day the priest in the tempo profane
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the Sabbath and are guiltless. So, pastors, do we profane the Sabbath
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every Lord's day by working, by
getting up in front of you and proclaiming
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God's word and doing those things.
Are are we profaning the Sabbath? Jesus
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said, no, the priests do
not profane the Sabbath day when they do
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that. And then he gives another
statement in Matthew it is important, I
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think in the story, he said, and if you had known what this
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means, I desire mercy and not
sacrifice, you would not have condemned the
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guiltless. And I think that's important. And here we return again to the
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theme of mercy that our Lord often
speaks about. One of the purposes of
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Sabbath is to show mercy, and
we're gonna see that really clearly in the
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next story as well. But it
gives us opportunity to perform merciful things.
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So Christ is saying to the Pharisees
by your accusation. You are condemning the
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guiltless. The disciples haven't even broken
the law. And I'll give you the
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illustration of David and that proves you
it's not. It's not that way.
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And so he's saying the Sabbath in
a peculiar way is fulfilled by actually being
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merciful. And so, uh,
these examples of our Lord lead us of
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the principles that our standards have in
the Westminster standards of allowing on the Sabbath
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day works of piety, works of
mercy, and works of necessity. And
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if you try to define those works
too narrowly, you're gonna end up in
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thirty nine categories again, So so
be careful with that. Verse five then
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gives us one of those powerful verses
that sometimes we don't even note how powerful
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it is. It's an amazing statement
in some ways. To me, it's
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almost the most amazing statement we've come
across the Luke. It's it's it's just
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profound. He Jesus says that he
is that you might know that he is
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the Lord of the Sabbath. Now
let me ask you a question. Who's
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authorized to be Lord of the Sabbath. Well, only one, the person
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who created it, that is who
is lawful, the person who actually instituted
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it. That is the only one
that can be the lord of the stay.
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If I stand up here and say, hey, everybody, I'm the
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Lord of the Sabbath, you know
you're gonna pick up stones. And I
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understand that because only one can be
the Lord of the Sabbath, who instituted
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in Genesis too too. So God
blessed the seventh day and made it holy
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because on it God rested from all
his work that he had done in creation.
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God blessed it. God said it
apart, or we can go to
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the law again. It is a
seventh day as a sabbath to the Lord
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your God. So then think about
how that would have affected the Pharisees.
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He that you might know I am
Lord of the Sabbath, and the Pharisees
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were lord of a sabbath. That's
blasphemy. He can't be lord of the
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sabbath. Only God is lord of
the Sabbath. And so we see what
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a powerful statement that is. Just
like when Jesus said, thy sins are
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forgiven the end of ears, he
said, who can who can forget sins?
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But God alone? And so they
are left here as they think about
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that statement, thy sins are forgiven
thee that he said, and I am
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the Lord of the Sabbath, they're
left with the famous three choices that have
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been written about in various places.
Either Jesus is a lunatic, or is
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a liar? Or is God?
These statements leave us no other choice as
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to who he is. But what
about the Sabbath? How do we keep
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the Sabbath? As believers? Like
the people in the days of Christ,
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we would probably find it very convenient
if somebody would explain it to us very
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clearly. And if you want me
to give you a list of rules and
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regulations this morning, I'm not going
to do it, because it's really hard
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to define certain things. For example, as I mentioned, how do we
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define what work is. Let me
give you an illustration they came across years
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ago that I think really is good. Say this morning or this afternoon,
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you're you go home from church and
you go to your home and maybe just
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this probably doesn't work into son because
you don't really have trees, but but
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anyway, pretend you have trees and
you come home and uh, you you
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you're on your sidewalk. If you
have a sidewalk and there's a little leaf
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on the sidewalk, and you take
your foot and you just brush the leaf
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off the sidewalk. Have you worked
well? As you're figuring that one out,
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Imagine instead that you come home and
instead of leaf, you find a
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leaf, but there's a little twig
attached to the lake to the leaf,
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so you you kind of take your
foot again and you brush it off.
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What have you worked now? Well, now you come home and attached to
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the twig is a little branch that's
there. It's big enough you can actually
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pick it up, but you could
also still kind of rush it with your
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foot, so you do. So
is that work in doing that? Now,
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let's see an entire limb of the
tree. I'm talking about big trees.
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Now, an entire limb has come
down on your side. You have
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to step over this limb in order
to get into your door. And you
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go and get your neighbor and four
other guys and you come together and you
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lift that limb up and get it
off your sidewalk. Is that work?
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Well? What if it's a tree. What if it's a whole tree and
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all trees down there and you go
in your garage and you get your chainsaw,
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and you start cutting the tree apart, and you cut it into different
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sections that you can burn it in
your fireplace. And you do all these
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things and you stack the wood.
Is that work? Well? I would
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guess that all of us might agree
that the first one is not really work,
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and the last one was definitely work. But where do we stop?
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Where do we find that point to
which it now becomes work and it's no
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longer not work. You might not
have to deal with the question that we
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deal with UH in the Midwest,
because I don't think many of you have
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to do this, if any of
you, But can you mow your lawn
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on the Sabbath day? Is that? Is that right? UH? Can
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I do that? Maybe you have
to ask what could I sweep my sidewalk
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of all the pods that have fallen
off? And and maybe that's the question
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you have to deal with. I
had a lady when I was pastoring a
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UH in a church in Havn,
and she emailed me, dear lady,
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and said to me, UM,
I need you to tell me how long
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a nap it's permissible to take on
the Sabbath day. I wrote back as
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it. I'm not going to be
legislating naps. That's not my job.
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I'm not going to do that.
But but sometimes you know, people say,
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well they think Presbyterians, you know, we work. We're pharasitical in
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the way we look at things and
how we deal with things all the time.
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I was speaking to my sister once. It was a very godly woman,
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and I was talking to her,
and she tends a Baptist church,
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and and I forget what the issue
was we're talking about, and I said,
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well, I said, I just
could never do that. I don't
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think that would be right. And
she looked at me and she said,
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oh, that's right, your Presbyterian. You've got all those rules. I
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said, well, we've we've got
ten of them. Uh. Well,
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all these questions about the Sabbath can
be difficult. And I would guess if
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I went through the congregation this morning
and started interviewing you on your views on
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the Sabbath and what you allow and
don't allow on the Sabbath, and if
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I had a list of survey questions, that none of the surveys would be
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identical, that we would all have
different answers as to what we can and
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what we can't do, and we
all wonder what is the proper way to
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keep the Sabbath. Then we can
come up with reasons to excuse us for
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doing certain things that maybe we think
we shouldn't do. And we may even
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take it the other tact and exalt
ourselves, thinking we are much more strict
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than our brothers and sisters. And
how we observe the Sabbath. We have
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our problem with our deceitful hearts,
and that hinders us from knowing how to
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do things rightly. There's a story
told about a farmer in England who made
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use of the sabbath for getting his
hay. And there was a godly man
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that he hired. It was very
simple and educated, and he went to
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work for this farmer and went for
the time for getting hay and came.
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The farmer told his new worker on
a Saturday, he said, we have
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to get this hay up tomorrow.
The worker replied, I can't come tomorrow,
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it's Sunday. The farmer responded to
him and said, but this is
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the work of necessity and must be
done. The master said that if your
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ass or an ox falls into a
pit on the Sabbath. You must get
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it out on the Sabbath. And
the man replied, true, but not
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if you put it into the pit
on on Saturday night. So that was
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a good answer. Are there so
doing that? And we might apply that
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to our lives again. But let
me give you just some principles. I'm
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not going to give you laws.
I'm gonna give you to some principles that
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I think are important. One thing
I would say, is it since Jesus
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was found in the synagogue on the
Sabbath again and again, we can certainly
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imitate him by using the Sabbath as
the time to meet together with God's people.
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I think that is clear. I'd
say, I love the fact that
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you have both morning and evening service
here. I think it's great to think
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the Lord's day and to have a
morning and evening sacrifice to offer to him.
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I think it'd be hard for anyone
to say, well, that's not
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a proper keeping it the Sabbath,
going to church in the morning and evening.
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I think we could all admit that
that would be proper. Secondly,
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we need to recognize that the Sabbath
is different than other days, and it's
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specifically referred to as the Lord's day
in Revelation one, and we take our
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decision based on that this is the
Lord's day. I'm going to keep that
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in my mind. We still may
end up with different views on things,
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but we're both going to keep in
mind that it is the Lord's day.
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Richard Cecil makes the point on Revelation
one ten, which John says, I
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was in the spirit on the Lord's
Day. Cecil says this verse seems to
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be the soul of the Christian Sabbath. In this view, a thousand frivolous
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questions concerning its observants are answered,
this being the spirit on the Lord's day,
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being the spirit on the Lord's day, and you don't need a set
396
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of laws. We also learn in
these stories that God gave his law not
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to be a burden to us,
but to be a blessing. In the
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days of Jesus, the tendency the
people was to make the Sabbath such a
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drudgery, such a horrid day,
that nobody looked forward to it. Everybody
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hated it. That's that's what the
day was like. It would be foolish
401
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for us to say that's the same
issue we find in our society today.
402
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Of course it is not. We
tend to go the other way. People
403
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inclined to make the Sabbath more a
day of recreation. Why did churches have
404
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services on Saturday nights for many,
not all, but some so people don't
405
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have to go to church and lose
their Sunday, which I've heard people say.
406
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I had a man roughing my house
one time, and he was a
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professed believer, and he talking about
the church he goes to. He says,
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I love it, because he says, I go in my water shoes
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and my swim trunks. Nobody says
a word. And as soon as amen,
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I'm out the door and I'm in
my boat. And I thought,
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well, I don't I don't know
if that's exactly what the Lord intended uh
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for for this day. But again, if we make the Sabbath the way
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the Lord intends it, it should
be a blessing to us. And Isaiah
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fifty eight, verses thirteen and fourteen. If you turn back your foot from
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the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure
on my holy day, and call the
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Sabbath of the Light and the Holy
Day of the Lord honorable, if you
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honor it, not going your own
ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking
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idly. Then you shall take the
light in the Lord, and I will
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make you ride on the heights of
the earth. I will feed you with
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the heritage of Jacob, your father. For the mouth of the Lord has
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spoken, I don't know about you. That sounds pretty good to me.
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That sounds like a pretty good blessing. And let me also say this and
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again, I've given you principles,
and I know they're not, you know,
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really definitive and going to help you. But let me say the Christ
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is not only the Lord of the
Sabbath. He is indeed the true Sabbath.
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He is the fulfillment. What is
the sabbath. It's a rest from
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the labors of the week. It
is a day of peace Hebrews four nine.
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Intent. So then there remains a
sabbath rest for the people of God.
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For whoever has entered God's rest has
rested from his works, as God
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did from his. Jesus is our
sabbath. Jesus is our rest. He
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said, Come to me, all
you who labor and are heavy laden,
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and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from
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me, for I am quite gentle
and lowly in heart, and you will
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find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is
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light. The Sabbath is meant to
be a day of peace for us,
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00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:45.079
and Jesus is our peace Ephesians two
fourteen. For he himself is our peace,
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who has made both one and is
broken down the dividing wall of hostility.
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And the last thing I'll say to
you this morning is the Sabbath.
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00:33:54.440 --> 00:34:00.559
Teaches us that salvation is not in
works, but in rest and tied us
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three five. Paul says he saved
us not because of works done by us
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and righteousness, but according to his
own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
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and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
not because of works of righteousness done by
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us. Secontivity one nine. Who
saved us and called us in a holy
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00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:24.000
calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and
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00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:30.719
grace which he gave us in Christ, Jesus before the ages begin Ephesians to
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aid in nine. We know this
one, for by grace you've been saved
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through faith, and this is not
your own doing. It is a gift
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00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:42.280
of God, not a result of
works. So that no man may boast
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00:34:43.480 --> 00:34:46.719
we will never earn our salvation by
works, and that's one of the things
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00:34:46.719 --> 00:34:52.119
that Sabbath is meant to teach us. Why don't we work because the Sabbath
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represents our salvation, the rest that
has been prepared for us. And so
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therefore we don't want to do works
because this is the day of rest.
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This is the day we can rejoice
in the Lord, because it's the day
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he has made. This is His
day, and there is coming. This
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day tells us this is a in
a sense, a rest for us.
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But the scriptures are telling us there's
another rest. Yes, Christ is our
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Sabbath. Yes, our salvation is
our Sabbath. Yes, this day is
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00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:25.679
our Sabbath. But there is coming
for us who believe in Christ and eternal
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00:35:25.760 --> 00:35:30.679
Sabbath and Revelation fourteen thirteen says I
heard a voice from heavens saying, right
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00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:34.920
this, Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord from now on.
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00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:39.639
Blessed indeed, says the Spirit,
that they may rest from their labors for
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00:35:39.719 --> 00:35:45.440
their deeds follow them. Are you
looking forward to that rest when we shall
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00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:51.960
go to forever be with the Lord
and rest with him. Let's pray,
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Lord, we thank you that Jesus
Christ is our rest. That he has
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died on the cross, that he
has shed his blood, that everyone who
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is thirsty can come to him and
find rest. And if they can just
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come to the cross and trust in
that cross has the means for their salvation
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00:36:16.199 --> 00:36:22.159
and leave behind all works. If
they can do that, there is a
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00:36:22.239 --> 00:36:28.679
rest for them. There is a
sabbath made for them. And Lord,
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may we see our salvation. And
if there are those who do not indeed
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00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:37.719
know that they have been saved,
may they take this time to rest in
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00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:43.440
You and in your atonement. What
is the only means for our salvation.
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We thank you for it, Lord, And that would be the greatest fulfillment
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of this day that we could have
were one child to be borne into the
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Kingdom of God. Lord, thank
you for the rest you've given to us,
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00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:02.800
both on this day but in our
lives and in the coming rest that
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shall come. We praise you for
all of these things in Christ's name. Amen.
