THESIS:
To define the Sabbath biblically and how it impacts us as believers today.
To
know the Lord is the intent of the Sabbath.
This evening we’ll be considering Mark 2:23-28:
23And it came to pass, that he went through the corn
fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the
ears of corn. 24And the Pharisees said unto
him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25And he said unto them, Have
ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and
they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the
high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the
priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the
Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. (Mark 2:23-28)
What is the Christian’s
responsibility toward the Sabbath? What
does keeping the Sabbath look like today?
How do we know? These are the questions
I seek to answer today. First off – we
are defining the Sabbath because it is clear that Christ’s idea of the Sabbath
is different from that of the Pharisees.
And Christ is the authoritative One, but the Pharisees aren’t to be
completely ignored. They do have a zeal
about the Sabbath which makes their case compelling. Sabbath keeping was to them a serious business! But secondly, please recognize that to preach
a single sermon on defining the Sabbath is kind of like studying an atlas of
America, and presuming that you know all about driving! The sheer amount a material, let alone the
depth of the various facets are too great!
And don’t worry! We’ll be touching the subject again, as the very next pericope
deals with Christ healing on the Sabbath!
The Sabbath described.
Let’s consider how the
Sabbath is described in the Scripture.
The 1st reference to the Sabbath is found in Genesis
2:2-3. And God blessed the seventh day and
sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created
and made. I want
you to notice that it is God who sanctified the Sabbath. In Exodus 16:14-30 we have the gathering of
manna explained – and in particular the explanation centers on the
Sabbath. How much to gather, when to
gather and to save it overnight 1 night a week, that Sabbath may be observed. Both of these accounts reference the Sabbath
before the giving of the Law. So Sabbath
actually predates Mosaic Law. But that
does not mean that it supersedes it. The
Law merely codifies the matter. Sabbath
was not created by the Law, but the Law does establish the Sabbath day practice
to some extent.
And let’s look at the
law. The 10 commandments are listed
twice for us. The 1st giving of the Law in Exodus 20, the 2nd
in Deuteronomy 5. Consider how the
commandment is put, in the positive – to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy. But then the command switches to
the negative. You shall not do any work.
What is the benefit of a negative command? In most cases it is to prevent receiving the
consequence of the act itself. But
‘work’ has a good consequence – in fact we are commanded to work from the time
of the garden. Look at some of the other negative commands, you shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery. You shall not lie. These commands are there
simply to prevent us from the catastrophe of participation. These things are sin, and the wages of them
is death. But the wages of work? Work is not sin. So immediately we see a uniqueness to
Sabbath. The reason given
to keep the Sabbath was that creation reference in Genesis. God blessed the day – He sanctified it.
Before we get to the 2nd
giving of the Law in Deuteronomy, we read in Exodus 31:12-17 some additional
clarification on the Sabbath, and I want to focus on verse 13, as this verse
gets to a purpose not yet known to us.
It reads as follows:
Speak
thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall
keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye
may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
So here it is made known
that the Sabbath is a sign to all between the Lord and the people of Israel
throughout your generations. A sign of
what you ask? Of the relationship God
had and has with his people. Sabbath is
an outwardly visible display to everyone of the specialness our Lord has toward
his people. And again we read that it is the Lord that sanctifies you. We read
a similar reference in Ezekiel:
Moreover also I gave
them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify
them. (Eze. 20:12, 20)
Deuteronomy 5 restates the
Law upon the arrival to the Promised Land.
But the interesting thing is how instead of pointing to creation as a
reason that we are to keep it, now Moses tells us to “remember that you were a
slave in Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out…therefore the Lord your
God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” (Duet. 5:15) We’ll see why I think He does this later.
I’d like to consider what
might seem to be a rather obscure event which happened in Numbers 15:32-36,
32 And while the children of
Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the
sabbath day. 33 And they that found him
gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the
congregation…35 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be
surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without
the camp.
Why was this man treated so harshly? Let me show you how it
wasn’t harsh at all. Let’s reason this
out for a moment. This man knew about
manna and how it was they were to collect it every day, before the sun was
high. He had seen that God
supernaturally provided it, and even gave the double portion on Friday, and
further allowed that it stayed fresh for that 1 evening a week. The whole matter was a supernatural
event. He knew of the commandments in
Ex. 20, 23, 31, 34, and 35. Yet knowing
all this – the man would not believe the testimony of God’s mighty loving
provision for the people! He did not
know his God! And let me assert right
here – To know the Lord is the intent of
the Sabbath.
Later in the whole 1st chapter of Isaiah we read
of another negative example of keeping the Sabbath. Verses 11 – 15 read as follows,
11 To what
purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full
of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in
the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me,
who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto
me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is
iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they
are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes
from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full
of blood. (Isa. 1:11-15)
These people were doing all the right things. The problem is that they were not doing them
in truth. I’d like to read verse 13 in another
translation, “Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense
is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of
assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.” Though they were doing the work of offerings
and prayers, the Lord rejects such as sin, because their heart was not in it –
to Him it was sin to combine empty obedience without love. They really didn’t love this God to whom they offered sacrifice and
prayed.
Consider for a moment David’s words in Psalm 40,
5 Many, O Lord my God, are
Your wonderful works which You have done; And Your thoughts toward us cannot be
recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, they are more
than can be numbered.
6 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My
ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. 7
Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of
the book it is written of me. 8 I
delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David extols God’s wonderful works and thoughts toward
us. Can I ask, what is his motivation for saying so? David loves his God! He knows Him, and loves Him! This
is an important clue. Reading on we
see in verse 6 that sacrifice you did not desire. This is not news to us, as we know well 1
Sam. 15:22, that to obey is better that sacrifice. But David goes a whole lot further than
that. Verse 6 concludes, “Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.” Very clearly something new has been disclosed
to us. The Law of Moses did indeed
require sacrifice. I puzzled for a time
on this and came to verse 8, “I delight to do Your
will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.” This is amazing! In David’s words we have the very expression
of the New Covenant! Didn’t David live
long before such was prophesied? Indeed
– about 400 years before Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention it. And what do we know about the New Covenant? A new heart! A new Spirit! New desires! What drives this New Covenant? Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel tell us, Ye shall be my people, and I shall be your God. Again we see relationship as the key. Jeremiah explicitly tells us in verse 34a, “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his
brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of
them to the greatest of them, says the Lord.” It is the knowledge of the Lord which
accomplishes this!
To know the Lord is the
intent of the Sabbath. Psalm 46:10 is really the theme of
the Sabbath, “Cease striving, and know that I am God.” You might be more familiar with the
rendering, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Let
me demonstrate from the commandments themselves that the knowledge of the Lord
is indeed the goal of keeping Sabbath.
In the creation account we are told that God rested, and that
is why we are to rest on the 7th day. We bear the image of the living God – and if
so, we should reflect that image – even to the point of rest. In the Ex. 20 commandment this is what we are
reminded of – God rested and set it apart.
In Ex. 31 we read that it is a ‘sign between me and you’ pointing to a
unique and special relationship God had with his people. Especially note the phrase, “that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.” Knowledge of the Lord is what sets us apart
folks. That’s exactly what we read earlier in Eze. 20 verses 12 and 20. And we
do not sanctify ourselves in sabbath keeping – rather it is the Lord who does
so. In the restatement of the
commandments in Deuteronomy 5 the Sabbath command is again stated, but this
time pointing to their slavery in Egypt and His deliverance of them. Why does He point them to this event instead
of creation? I say he does so because as
his relationship with his people progressed he wanted to remind them once again
of His special covenant love to them, and he did have the right to expect of
them obedience! He loved them! And those whom He
loves receive His benefits.
In Isa 56:1-8 we see that a blessing is in store for those
who keep my Sabbaths. Even for the
foreigner, even for the eunuch! He gives
them ‘a place and a name that shall not be cut off’ in verse 5. A name and a place to live point very much to
relationship. Just 2 chapters later we read,
13 If you turn
away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and
call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor
Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your
own words, 14 Then you shall delight
yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the
earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the
Lord has spoken.” (Isa 58:13–14)
This portion reminds me of the Psalmist, “Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the
desires of thine heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
How does this work? As we delight in our God He gives us what
we delight in - more of Himself! It is as we love him he becomes more and more
precious to us and we are blessed by more of that very precious Lord Himself!
Do you delight in being still before the Lord?
In our passage the disciples were plucking grain as they went
through the field and this act is what upset the Pharisees. What they didn’t get was that Sabbath keeping
is not simply the keeping of the letter of the law. The intent was that instead of having to go
out early and pick up the manna – they
had a day set aside to consider the God of that manna! Instead of looking at Him as some evil
taskmaster who was waiting to strike them down over the least stick picked up,
He wanted them to see that they didn’t need to pick up sticks. He’d made provision for them in manna and
he’d do the same if they needed sticks. Unbelief is betrayed in the Pharisee’s
legalistic accusations. And Christ
answered them easily with an example from the life of David – a man after God’s
own heart – who had learned with great joy the God does provide for his own –
even if it would be day old shewbread. Look
it up in 1 Sam 21:1-6 to get the detail.
It’s not that the law didn’t matter. Think about it – This is the Son of God we’re
thinking of when we keep the Sabbath! Do
you know Him?! If the Sabbath appealed
to anyone, most certainly it did to Him!
In the counsel of eternity, when God rested on the seventh day, was
Christ absent?! Of course not! We know that he was party to creation itself
from John 1. Most assuredly that was a
Sabbath day properly kept! But Christ
makes a revelation to us in the statement, The Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.
Turning this statement on its head, the Pharisees made the
Sabbath a burden to man. But Christ
points us to the Joy of Sabbath – which is God himself.
Do we extol our God and enjoy being his people? This is Sabbath dear people! This is the real joy of keeping Sabbath. Not the keeping of every jot and tittle of
the law per-se but considering how such a God can and does take care of His
people – even when they don’t know where the manna and sticks will come from
next.
In early December 2002 I walked into the fellowship hall of
Forest Glen Baptist church and there on the whiteboard it read, “Have a Mary Christmas!” What was different was that Pastor Dave, had
misspelled Merry. He put M a r y in
place of M e r r y. Then he had us turn
to Luke 10:38-42, “Now it came to pass, as they went,
that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha
received him into her house. 39And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’
feet, and heard his word. 40But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him,
and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
bid her therefore that she help me. 41And Jesus
answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about
many things: 42but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good
part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
The message was clear – don’t
let all the distractions of the holiday season take you away from the precious
Lord of that season. Cease striving, and know
that I am God. I’ve never
forgotten that lesson. And I really
believe that Mary was keeping Sabbath right then.
Jesus made another pronouncement
against the religious leaders in respect of Sabbath observance in John 7:24, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with
righteous judgment.”
This tells us again that God
looks on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). We
read in Col 2, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat,
or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath
days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
(Col 2:16–17) The blessing of being a
New Testament believer is that we don’t have to wait ‘til the 7th day.
I’ve made a whole lot of
‘keeping the Sabbath’ as a law. Please
don’t leave today thinking that to be a burden.
The law if rightly kept is a joy to his people – but it can also be a
burden. That is pharisaical law keeping. We aren’t under the law to keep it. It was the pointer to lead us to Christ. But if you now have Christ – it becomes
actually a means of grace! O the wonders
of our God!
Let me close with the words of
our Lord from Matthew 11, “Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mat.
11:28–30.)
Amen.
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