Introduction: The Lord’s Day? The Sabbath? Does God call on us to
rest one day of the week? If He does, does it matter which one?
Speaking of “one,” should we being keeping all days “holy?” Maybe all
our time is now holy because we now live in the “Sabbath rest” era of
history? What, exactly, does God require of us? Is this issue a
“pillar” of Christian faith? We will spend this week and the next
two looking at this interesting issue of the Sabbath. Let’s jump in
to see what God has to say!
- Creation
- Let’s read Genesis 1:1. Of all the things that God wrote
about in the Bible, why did He start out with this
message? (It defines our relationship to God. It teaches
us who He is (our Creator) and who we are (His Creation). - Last week we spoke of “righteousness by attitude.”
What changes in your attitude if you know that God
created you? - Imagine getting hit in the head and forgetting your
parents and your childhood. Then imagine that your
parents found you and told you who they were and told
you about your childhood. What impact would that have
on your thinking? (You would feel like you knew your
“place” in the world again.)
- Is believing God is our Creator a “pillar of faith” for
Christians? Does it properly set our “place” in the
world? (Not only did God start out with the message that
He is our Creator, but Creation affects our relationship
with Him in the most fundamental way. Creation says God
has the power, and He exercised His power, to make us as
we were in Eden. Evolution says there is no God, or, if
there is, He does not have (or did not exercise) His
power. God merely found us! We were already made by
chance.) - Consider the difference in your attitude in these two
situations:
- Your parents were able, by manipulating your
genetic code, to select every one of your
characteristics? - Your “parents” found you toddling along by the
side of the road and decided to take you home
with them because they had a large farm and
needed all the workers they could get? - How would your attitude be different?
- Creation Memorial
- Read Genesis 2:1-3. Why does the Bible say that God made
the seventh day holy? Because He was a tired God? (No!
The rest is keyed to His Creation! Sabbath is God’s
memorial to His creation of the “heavens and the earth” —
including the creation of us!) - We have all sorts of memorials in the Bible and
elsewhere. Normally, they are “things” that we look
at to remind us of something in the past. Do you know
of any “time” memorial like the Sabbath? (Birthdays,
Anniversaries, Holidays.) - How important is it that others remember your
birthday on the exact day that you were born? How
about being off by a week? A month? Six months? What
about forgetting it altogether? - Assume that you are married for the second time. Your
spouse has a hard time remembering things – but he
(she) remembers perfectly the birthday of his (her)
first spouse. Since it is a real pain to try to
remember your actual birthday, would it be OK with
you to celebrate your birthday on the actual birthday
of your spouse’s first husband (wife)? Would that
please you? To make life easier for him (her), what
if he (she) just started calling you by the name of
his (her) first spouse? - If God commands us to keep a specific period of time
as a memorial to His work as Creator, does He care if
we change it? - Do you think it makes a difference if God’s
position as Creator is already heavily under
attack? - Why do you think God’s authority as Creator is
under attack? (Consider two pictures. In the one
we were created perfect, sinned, got worse and
are saved now only by God. In the second, we
started from nothing, and steadily got better,
and are now secure in the knowledge that we are
the best mankind has ever been. Is it any wonder
that believing in Creation is inconsistent with
man’s arrogance and pride?) - Read Exodus 20:8-11. What reason does God give for
keeping the seventh day holy? (Creation! God says again
that it is a memorial to His Creation.) - I have a friend who says that God resting on Sabbath
after Creation cannot be that important because there
is no reference to it between the Creation week and
the giving of the Ten Commandments. Is that true? - Look at Exodus 20:8 again. When God says
“remember,” is He saying, “let me remind you of
something you already know?” Or, is He saying,
“remember to do this in the future?” (There are
two clues to this. First, God gives a past event
as the reason for remembering. Second, read
Exodus 16:23-27. God gave Manna to the people
for them to eat before they were given the Ten
Commandments. Even in the giving of food God did
not have them collecting it on the seventh day
because the holiness of the Sabbath.) - Read Exodus 31:13&17. In verse 17 God repeats that the
Sabbath is keyed to creation. However, in verse 13 He
introduces a new concept as the basis for Sabbath-keeping.
What is it? (Salvation! God tells us that the Sabbath is
a memorial not only to the fact that He created us, but
that He recreates us.) - Sabbath Significance?
- Exodus 31:13 says “Say to the Israelites… observe my
Sabbaths.” Is this a command only to the Jews? All of the
texts that we have looked at so far are found in the Old
Testament. - If you said, “yes,” does that mean that the entire 10
Commandments were meant only for the Jews? - Read Isaiah 56:1-2, 6-7. When Isaiah speaks of the
Sabbath, does he limit it to Jews? (No. Verse 6
specifically refers to “foreigners” and worshiping (v.7)
in a “house of prayer for all nations.) - Are there any texts in the New Testament that refer to
Sabbath-keeping by Jesus and His disciples? (Read Mark
2:27-28; Mark 1:21; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:31; Acts 16:13; Acts
17:2. There is not a single text anywhere in the Bible
that refers to anything other than worship on the seventh
day. Jesus and the disciples all worshiped on Sabbath.) - We have discussed the origin of Sabbath worship, we have
discussed its significance (in terms of Creation and
redemption), we have shown that Jesus and His disciples
worshiped on Sabbath. Does it really matter what day we
worship? Will any day do? - Read Micah 6:8. When God says, “Listen up, I am going
to tell you what I require of you,” I am going to
listen. What does God say He requires? (Among other
things, He calls for us to “humbly walk” with Him.) - If God tells us to keep a specific day holy, and
we decide that we will just pick another day
because it is more convenient or more popular,
are we “humbly” walking with God? Or is this
just the same sort of arrogance that causes
people to reject God’s Creation account? - If you are going to worship on one day,
why not choose the day God specified? What
reason is there for ignoring God’s
command? - What about keeping all days holy? Can we say that it
doesn’t matter because we keep all days holy? (If you
think you are keeping all days holy, you don’t
understand what it means to keep a day holy. Exodus
20:9-10 makes a distinction between the Sabbath and
the other six days. God calls on us to get our labor
done on the other days. Therefore, it would be
impossible to keep all days “holy.”) - Sabbath Fulfilled or Abrogated?
- Years ago I was driving a brand-new black Firebird car at
high speed along a road that passed through a very rough
area. The Firebird had just been redesigned and this was a
loaded and very “hot” car. It was Saturday, I was alone in
the car, and I was headed to church. In the distance I
saw a hitch-hiker and immediately made up my mind I was
not picking him up because he was in this rough area, he
looked dangerous, and I was driving a valuable machine. As
I passed in a blur, I noticed he was carrying a Bible.
Jamming on the brakes, I backed up and asked him what he
was doing with a Bible. He said he was headed to church.
(The same church I was going to — but I did not tell
him.) He got in and I started to harass him about going to
church on Saturday and challenge him about his knowledge
of the Bible. I pointed him to Colossians 2:16-17. Let’s
read this text. - Does this text say that Sabbath worship has been
fulfilled by Jesus? - Does this text teach that no one is to be judged by
their day of worship? (None of the commentaries that
I consulted (on this text) said that it refers to the
weekly Sabbath. Instead, several very prominent
commentators (Adam Clarke (“There is no intimation
here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its
moral use was superceded by the introduction of
Christianity”); Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (“The
weekly Sabbath is permanent, having been instituted
in Paradise long before the Mosaic law.”); and,
Barnes Notes(“[T]here is not the slightest reason to
believe that [Paul] meant to teach that one of the
ten commandments had ceased to be binding on
mankind.”). Instead, all three suggest that Greek
word for “Sabbath” here is plural, thus referring to
the “Sabbaths” that were part of the Jewish festivals
which pointed to the Messiah coming. Matthew Henry
also says Paul is referring to the “ceremonial law”
(as opposed to the 10 Commandments). Note the lack of
bias here: none of these commentators advocate
seventh-day Sabbaths. Indeed, J,F&B advocates a
“first-day Sabbath.” Therefore, this text does not
say that Sabbath worship has been abrogated or
fulfilled by Jesus.) - Read Hebrews 4:9-10. There are some recent writers who
suggest, based on this chapter of Hebrews, that “this side
of the cross” “Sabbath rest” refers to our salvation and
no longer refers to a specific day. If this is true, what
impact would it have on Sabbath-keeping? (It is common in
the Bible for a principle to have more than one
application. Assuming that we have now entered the
“Sabbath rest” era of Christianity, does not allow us to
ignore God’s command when it comes to choosing which day
we will worship each week. If anything, the weekly
Sabbath is a reminder of our salvation and our “Sabbath
rest” era!) - Friend, this lesson may challenge some of your long-held
beliefs. It may create certain practical problems in your
life. God calls us to humbly walk with Him. Will you put
aside your prejudices and preconceived ideas and agree to
walk with Him as He has expressed His will in His
commandments? - Next Week: The Sabbath – The Sign of Our Relationship With God.
(We will continue to look at the subject of the Sabbath and
Jesus’ comments on how it should be kept in the next two weeks.)
