A Key to Receiving God's Blessing

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. So what would you say if I told you that there was a key to receiving God's blessing? If there's a key, would you be interested?

The Sabbath as a Key to Receiving God’s Blessing

Well, turn if you would to Exodus chapter 20. I believe there is a key. And to put it plainly, putting God first in all things, giving God the first and the best, I believe is the key. If that's not in place, nothing else is really going to make a difference.

So as Christians, we have our heavenly father. And one thing about fathers is God is a good father. Amen. One thing about good fathers, they give good gifts to their children. So the title of the message is the Lord blessed the Sabbath day.

In Mark chapter two, verse 27, Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. So the Sabbath, which was a day of rest and worship for the Israelite people, you could view it really as God's gift to them. Everyone needs a day off.

We get that much. Everyone needs the time to sort of reset and to recharge and to remember. Kind of get the world's problems and get all that out and just focus on God and his goodness. And that is done on a specific day of the week.

So this is the way it was back in the Old Testament. Look at Exodus chapter 20, verse one. This is when God gives the commandments to Moses, says, and God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image of any likeness or anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and do what?

Keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. And remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 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 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 on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. And this is the word of God.

I remember several years ago when it became common in this nation to hear about Ten Commandments monuments being removed from courthouses and other public places. You remember those stories? They seemed all come at once.

Naturally, Christians were upset about that. We were grieved by that. We understand that this nation, at least to some degree, was built on a Christian foundation and Christian principles. So when the Ten Commandments monuments were taken out, we were troubled by that, and we should be troubled.

As the Pledge of Allegiance says, you know, one nation under God. So it really, here's the point, it really went without saying that, of course, Christians agreed with the Ten Commandments. You would be hard-pressed to find somebody who would argue with that, a professing Christian who said, hey, I don't believe in or I don't want anything to do with the Ten Commandments.

So it goes without saying Christians believe the Ten Commandments.

Amen?

Or do they?

Christians and the Fourth Commandment

Well, let's test this out. Commandment number one, we shall have no other gods before the Lord. So should we worship other gods?

No.

Commandment number two, you shall not make any idols. You're not supposed to bow down to them or serve them. So should Christians make idols and bow down to idols and pray to idols?

No.

Hey, we're doing good so far.

We're in agreement.

Love it when God's people dwell in unity. Commandment number three, you should not use the name of the Lord your God in vain. Now, I realize people do that, but I've never met a Christian, even the ones who let that slip sometimes, I've never met a Christian who said, no, it's fine, or you should, it's okay to take God's name in vain.

So I think all Christians would at least say they agree with that. And then we get to commandment number four. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is the one commandment that people don't believe in.

This is the one commandment where people start dropping off. Let's look at it again. What does it say? Exodus 20 verse eight. Remember, that's how God chooses to express this. Remember the Sabbath day.

And it's been argued how ironic it is that the one commandment that starts out with the word remember is the one that people are most likely to forget about. So just a few facts. God's blessing upon the nation of Israel was in a large part dependent on whether or not they kept the Sabbath day holy.

There was more to it than that, but it was dependent largely because of that. The Jewish Sabbath was on what day? The seventh day. Now we would call that day Saturday. They were to do no work. And it was based on the fact that God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them in six days.

And then God rested on the seventh day. So that's what it's based on, that they were to rest. It was also their day of worship. They would gather later on at the synagogue on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, the scripture says, and hallowed it.

And God gave this commandment through Moses to the nation of Israel. And really it was the law of the land. So already you can see a few differences. Number one, we're not Israelites.

That's true.

Number two, we're not under the old covenant. That's also true. And we don't observe our day of rest and worship on Saturday, do we? As New Testament Christians, we observe this day. We recognize this day as Sunday and not Saturday.

So when we read this Old Testament command, there's something here for us. In the New Testament, Paul said how all scripture is profitable for doctrine. That's 2 Timothy 3 .16. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that all the things written that address the Israelites, they're written for our admonition.

So everything in the Old Testament is for the church. Not every commandment directly applies because we're not under the law. But it is all for us. So there's something here that we can take away. There's something here that we can learn.

So let's turn to the Gospel of Mark chapter 2. So then you have to ask, what is it that we should learn from these commandments? Again, the other nine commandments, every Christian would say absolutely.

We shouldn't murder. We shouldn't commit adultery. Christians shouldn't lie. Christians shouldn't steal. Christians shouldn't worship other gods. Christians shouldn't bow down to idols. But when it gets to this day that is to be observed, for some reason that is seen differently.

Jesus and the Sabbath Was Made for Man

All right, look at Mark chapter 2 verse 23. It says, now it happened that as he went out through the grain fields on the Sabbath, or that he went through the grain fields, and as they went, this is Jesus and his disciples, the disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.

And the Pharisees said to him, to Jesus, look, why did they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? But he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry? He and those with him, how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the showbread, which was not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him.

And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the son of man is also Lord of the Sabbath. So what's happening in this passage? Notice Jesus doesn't say that the Sabbath doesn't matter.

He didn't say that. Nor did Jesus say, I've come to make the Sabbath null and void. Jesus is addressing their misunderstanding about the Sabbath. And he's giving an example that there are exceptions. So all the Jews understood we're to do no work on the Sabbath, but they had added so many rules and were so strict about it that even the apostles plucking a little grain on the way by and eating it, that was somehow a violation.

So Jesus is saying, well, there are exceptions. So the Jewish rabbis and the scribes, the Pharisees, they had come up with all these rules of things you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. That was the real issue, all the things that they added to it.

So much so that the Sabbath, instead of being seen as a gift from God, instead it was starting to be seen more as a burden. Instead of a joyful time, people were worried about, okay, I'm not allowed to do this, not allowed to do that, can't do this, can't do that.

And, you know, if you're hungry, you can't take an apple off a tree. If you're hungry, you can't cook because that's work. And I guess you're going to have to go hungry, and then the Sabbath just turned into this burdensome thing.

That is not the way God intended it. So the scribes and the Pharisees, the Jews, what they were doing, the word is they were being legalistic, right, adding all these rules. And it was kind of choking out the joy.

Now, on the other side, in fairness, why do you think the rabbis were adding these rules? Because the people weren't keeping the day holy. So this is the problem. There's always somebody on this side and somebody on that side, and you're trying to correct and overcorrect.

So you can look at it this way. The truth is somewhere in the middle. The truth is somewhere in the middle. These are the errors to watch out for on either side. There's a ditch on both sides of the road.

Either people drift too far in one direction and rebel against God and don't take his commandment seriously, or in trying to correct that, they go into the other side of the road, into the other ditch, and they start adding rules and start being legalistic about it, and it chokes out the joy, and you miss the whole point of the thing.

So these are the two errors, legalism and license. So where are we at? Where do you think we're at this morning? Are we in the legalism ditch, or are we in the license ditch? Does anyone want to take a guess?

Yeah, we're in the license ditch. Back 50 years ago, 100 years ago, churches might have been in the legalism ditch. But hey, they're both a ditch. They're both wrong. They're both bad. So I talked about this a little bit last week.

In times past, starting in the 1950s, 60s, into the 70s, legalism was more of the problem. But then it shifted to where now today, license is more of the problem. And the Jews, they struggled with these things just like we do today.

So now that we know what the Sabbath is, we've read from Exodus 20. We've talked about it a little bit. Now we want to know what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach the church. All these things are written for us, for our admonition.

So what is God expecting from us as New Testament believers? Let me ask you this way. Is there still a Sabbath today? Is there still a Sabbath for Christians today? I think a lot of people would say no.

The Remaining Sabbath Rest for God’s People

Well, the scripture says otherwise. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9, you know what it says? There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. And the word rest is the word for Sabbath. Here's a Holy Spirit inspired scripture that says there remains a Sabbath for the people of God.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, with the grace of God be with you.