LAW HOMILY: The Heart of the Sabbath

The Fourth Commandment and the Heart of the Sabbath

Every week, we read through the law of God because we want to understand what God's heart is for His people, and we want to understand how we, as His people, can obey Him. Today, we're on the fourth commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

We're not commanded to keep it light. We're not commanded to keep it loose. We're not commanded to keep it leisurely. We're commanded to keep it holy, distinct, devoted, drenched in reverence. It's the only commandment that begins with a call to remember, because it is the one that we are prone most often to forget.

We forget not because the words are unclear, but because our hearts are unclean. The Sabbath is not ambiguous, we just don't want it. The command is not a relic of a bygone era back when stores were closed and there were no sports that were competing for our attention spans.

In fact, it is the bones of the law. It's the heart of the law. It's one of the 10 eternal declarations that were carved by the finger of God, and yet it shows us so much of God's heart that in six days God created, and yet God himself rested to show us how all of life is to climax in rest, and now in Christ, all of life is to flow out of rest because the day changes from Saturday to Sunday in the new covenant.

It no longer builds towards rest, it flows out of rest because we've been given that rest in Christ. So if our life starts with rest, flows out of rest, is founded on rest, then we're actually cutting ourself off at the ankles when we don't participate in Sabbath rest.

And again, that's not Sabbath siestas. That's not Sabbath slippers and pajamas. It's an intentional rest, and in fact, it's a kind of work. If you remember in Genesis chapter one where God rested, God didn't take a nap.

God then stopped creating new things and started ruling over the things that he had made, and in that sense, the Sabbath is not sedentary for the Christian. We treat it like that. We treat it like, man, I've had a hard week.

I've worked a lot of hours, and now I just need a break.

It is far from a break.

That's not what Sabbath is. Sabbath is changing our efforts from the secular to the sacred. It is now pouring ourself out specifically and intentionally in the things of God. Many will say, I just am so busy.

I don't have time to pray. Pray on the Sabbath. I don't want you to pray just on the Sabbath, but you have no excuse. I'm so busy, I can't read the Bible. Read it on Sunday. I'm so busy, I don't have time to really serve or to really care for the people of God.

Do it on Sunday. You have a whole day, 24 hours, to do God's work. What a gracious God that he is. Do you know what heaven is? I remember when I learned this a long time ago, and it was such a blessing to me.

Heaven is a glorified Sabbath seven days a week, 365 days a year for all of eternity. So if we don't like the Sabbath now, we're probably not going to be all too impressed with heaven. God in his grace has given us the Sabbath, and he has called it a delight for his people.

So today, as we repent, maybe our repentance needs to be just a heart-level repentance to where we'd say, God, I don't consider the Sabbath a delight. I consider the Sabbath something else, and that's where we need to pray.

Maybe the Sabbath is something that you've not considered to be all that important. It's just, it's one of those Old Testament commands that's probably passed away. Well, if that's the case, pray that you would see it with the kind of holiness that God sees it with, because he gave it to us not in the ceremonial law of Leviticus.

He gave it to us in the Ten Commandments, which means that it's a universal command for all people at all time to always consider it as holy. Whatever posture you have towards the Sabbath, and I will admit to you that I don't think any of us have the right posture when it comes to the Sabbath.

I don't think any of us consider it as holy as God would have us consider it holy. I don't think any of us treat it as delightful as God would have us treat it delightful. So whatever your posture is on the Sabbath, meet with your God at the foot of the cross right now, and repent and ask him to deepen your love for it, because he certainly does love it, and he wants us to love it as well, amen?

Prayer for Delight in the Lord’s Day

Let's pray. Lord, the scripture is replete with passages, paragraphs, and pages that deal not only with the theological doctrines that exist between our ears, but also the heart-level attitudinal and behavioral posture of our hearts.

Lord, let it not be enough for us to say that the Sabbath is holy. Lord, let us live it. Let us treat it as holy. Let it become our delight. As the book of Hebrews says, you are our Sabbath rest. It even roots the Sabbath in high Christology.

Lord, how could we avoid it? Lord, help us, as we have come here this morning to delight in you, let us be grateful and thankful that you've given us an entire day set apart specifically for the intentional worship of God through Christ by your spirit forever.

Lord, help our attitudes and our hearts to be befitting of this great day. Help us to praise you for this great day, and help us to use this day for your glory and for our good. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Amen.

Union with Christ and the Pardon of Sinners

No matter what sin it is that we commit, the Lord forgives us, if we're in Christ. We talked about this in Sunday school that because of union with Christ, union with Jesus, we now gain the righteousness that Christ actually earned in his life.

We cannot measure up to that righteousness. We can't behave with that level of righteousness. So what does Jesus do? Jesus takes our sin and failure upon himself and gives us his perfection, purity, and righteousness, so that now, brothers and sisters, if you're in Christ, even though you've sinned, even though I've fallen short, we are declared by God righteous on the basis of the finished work of Jesus.

Not by our merit, not by the mediation of men, but by the mediation of Christ. So let us together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, stand together to receive the pardon that he gives us in his Scriptures.

Will you stand with me as I read the pardon over us? Psalm 32, one through two. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven! How happy is he whose transgression is forgiven! Whose sin is covered!

How blessed is the man whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! Brothers and sisters, there is no deceit in you, because there was no deceit in him, and now you are in him!

Let us marvel at that, let us thank God for that, let us praise him for that, and let us confess our faith.