God's Holiday

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I am thankful this morning to be back in the book of Genesis.
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We have spent several months examining chapter 1.
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We have examined creation in that chapter.
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We have seen that it teaches that God created the world in six days.
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On the first three days, God formed the world.
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He formed light and darkness on day 1.
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He formed the sky and the seas on day 2.
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And He formed dry ground and vegetation on day 3.
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Those were the forming days.
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And then on days 4, 5, and 6, God spent filling that which He had formed.
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On day 4, He filled the heavens with the light-bearing objects, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
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On day 5, He filled the sky with birds and He filled the sea with fish and other creatures.
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On day 6, He took that dry ground that He had made and He created beasts to live on that ground.
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And He created man as the crowning achievement of His creation.
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Man who would be the only one of His creation to be formed in the way that He was formed.
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The only one that would say that God breathed into Him the breath of life.
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And the only one that it would say that bore God's image.
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Then on day 7, God rested.
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And this is where we left off.
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And we spent several months breaking down chapter 1 and we got sidetracked as soon as we did the first sermon in chapter 2.
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So, today we're picking up where we left off on the day that God rested.
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And I want to remind you of something before we read the text.
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I want to remind you of what we learned in our last lesson because I know it's been 2 months now.
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So I imagine many of you have maybe allowed it to go out of your mind.
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But remember this.
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The last time we met and talked about verses 1 to 3, we asked the question, Why did God rest? And the answer is that God did not rest because He was fatigued.
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But God rested because He was finished.
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God did not rest because He was tired.
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God rested because He was through.
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Creation, as God had established creation, had been completed.
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And therefore, God rests.
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Let's stand and read the text.
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Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 1.
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Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all of the host of them.
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And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.
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So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.
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May God add His blessing to the reading and to the hearing of His word and write its eternal truths on our heart.
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You may be seated.
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The title of today's message is God's Holiday.
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God's Holiday.
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The dictionary defines holiday as a day of festivity, a day of recreation, a day when no work is done.
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It's often interesting if you ever watch a film from over in Europe.
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I sometimes will watch movies and it will have someone speaking.
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And I remember as a kid I would hear somebody from overseas talk about going on holiday.
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And I didn't know what that meant.
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To them that means going on vacation.
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And for me, I never heard it said that way.
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You know, when I was a kid we didn't go on holiday.
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We went on vacation.
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But the idea was the same.
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It was the day that there was no work.
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Right? The reason why you go on vacation is you're getting away from it all.
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Right? No one goes on vacation and gets a job.
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You go on vacation to take a...
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I don't want to say...
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Brother Mike is so funny because he works so hard.
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And yes, you're going to be an object lesson in today's message, just so you know.
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I didn't clear it with you, but with a smile on your face I'm assuming it's going to be okay.
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But no.
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But even you, brother, you go on a cruise.
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You don't expect to work.
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You might want to be the captain of the ship, but you expect somebody else to do the work for you when you go on holiday.
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The idea is you're ceasing with your normal routine.
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You're ceasing with your normal schedule.
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The word holiday, as you probably know, comes from the combination of the words holy day.
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Holiday is just the English derivative of the word holy day.
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It is a day that is set apart.
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It is a day that is dedicated.
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It is a day that is consecrated.
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In the simplest terms, the word holy means different.
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In fact, I would encourage you to remember that when we talk about the attributes of Almighty God, the one attribute that should always challenge us is the holiness of God.
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People think God is like us.
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God is not like us.
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The Bible clearly says God is not like man.
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He is different.
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He is unique.
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He is holy.
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He is, as R.C.
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Sproul said, he is other.
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Everything else is different than he.
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Everything else is other than God.
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God is holy.
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God is unique.
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He says in Isaiah 46, I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like me.
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So when you refer to something as holy, what you're referring, you're saying it's not like the other ones.
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God is holy.
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He's not like anyone else.
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And God has the power to make things holy.
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God has the power to make things special.
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We call it holy communion.
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Why? Because this bread and cup is different than all the rest of the bread and cup that we eat all week long.
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Right? And so when we talk about things that are holy, sometimes we use the word sanctify.
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To sanctify means to set apart.
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To set apart something for God's purposes.
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We're making it different.
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We're making it holy.
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We're setting it apart and making it unique.
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So when we talk about a holiday, we're talking about a day that is different.
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And we celebrate holidays all year long.
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For many of us in the Christian church, there are two great holidays of the year.
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And what's interesting, it's Christmas and Easter, as you know.
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What's interesting about those two holidays is they're not biblical holidays.
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The Bible doesn't command us to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
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And there's really no example in the Bible of anyone celebrating the birth of Jesus.
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I'm not saying it's wrong.
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I'm just saying it's not something that we see in the Bible.
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The Bible tells us about the birth of Jesus, but we don't see the early church having an annual Christmas celebration.
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And the other thing would be we celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
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Which is sometimes referred to as Easter.
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But actually in the early church, they didn't celebrate that once a year.
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But the whole reason why the church gathered on the first day of the week, every week, was because every Sunday was the Lord's Day.
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Every Sunday was Resurrection Day.
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The whole reason for gathering on the first day of the week was because Jesus rose from the first day of the week.
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In fact, part of what I'm going to talk about, and probably going to be next week because there's no way I'm going to get to it today, I'm going to talk about why we should worship on Sunday.
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Because some people look at Genesis 2 and verse 3 and they say, because God sanctified the seventh day, which is not Sunday.
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Some people look at that and they say, we should still be celebrating Saturday.
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You've heard of the Seventh-day Adventists? Did you know that Ellen G.
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White, the woman most responsible for the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church herself, a false prophetess, said that the mark of the true church was worshiping on Saturday, and the mark of the false church was to worship on Sunday.
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The mark of the beast is the worshiping on Sunday.
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So I do want to challenge that.
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And I realize we're getting a little bit away from the text here, but I think it's important because this is the first holiday in the Bible, y'all.
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Think about it.
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In fact, this is the first time the word holy is used.
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We've gone through the whole first chapter of Genesis.
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The word holy has not been used.
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We are now in chapter 2, and the word holy is used.
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And you might think that because God is holy, the first time the word holy is used, it would be used to apply to God.
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But it's not.
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The first time the word holy is used, it's used to apply to a day.
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The day that God rested.
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It says in the text, in verse 3, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
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In his book, Holiness of God, Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul made a good point.
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I remember reading this years ago, and it really stuck out to me because, and by the way, if you've never read the Holiness of God, I've got a copy for you.
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I keep copies of it to give you because it's such a wonderful book.
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The Holiness of God by R.C.
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Sproul is required reading.
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Everybody should read it.
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But in the book, he talks about the idea of holy space and holy time.
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And he talks about how God, throughout the Bible, makes certain places holy by his presence.
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You remember what happened when Moses saw the burning bush? What did God say to Moses? Take your sandals from off your feet, for the ground upon which you stand is holy ground.
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Why? Because I'm there.
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God is there, and so that ground was holy.
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What did they call the temple? The holy place.
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What did they call the interior of the temple that only was allowed to go into once a year, and you could only go if you were the high priest, and you could only go after several things that you had to do to prepare yourself to go into? It was called the holy of holies, or the most holy place.
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So God has set apart places, and he's sanctified them, and he's made them holy.
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God has also set apart holy times.
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Think about the Old Covenant.
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Think about all of those feasts and festivals.
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On the third day of the fourth month of the this and the that at dawn.
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You think God cares about time? It seems as if he does to make such a strong point that you're going to do it this way, and you're going to do it at this time.
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And this time for you will be a holy time.
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And I just find it very interesting that the very first thing that God identifies as holy in the Bible is time.
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He makes a day, and he sanctifies that day to himself.
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Now, I want to mention this.
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The question of the idea of a sacred day is hotly debated, and I've just mentioned I'm going to preach on this in the weeks to come, or at least next week at least.
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But I want to mention, this is not something that is easily agreed upon by people.
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Last year I did a debate.
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I did a debate on, well it wasn't this chancel, it was the old chancel, but we did a debate on the chancel, and Rob Hamm and I debated, is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? He said it was, I said it wasn't.
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But you know what? I've gotten several letters and emails since that.
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Not one of them.
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Not one of them dealt with the issue that we were addressing.
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We were addressing whether or not Sunday should be treated like a Sabbath or not.
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I say no, he says yes.
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But you know what every letter and every message and every email and every comment I've ever gotten about that was? You're both wrong! Because you shouldn't be worshipping on Sunday.
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You should be worshipping on Saturday.
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That's always the issue.
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I can show you all the emails I've received, all the comments on Facebook, all the comments on YouTube.
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You're both wrong! Because you're worshipping on Sunday and not on Saturday.
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I hope to show you next week, and maybe I'm just enticing you to come back, but I hope to show you next week that we should worship on Sunday.
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This is the Lord's Day.
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This is the day we're called to worship in the New Covenant Church.
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Now, having said that, I want to talk today about the Sabbath.
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The day God created this holy day.
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And I want to talk about three things regarding this day that are important for believers to understand.
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Number one, I'll give you all three and then I'll go through them.
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Number one, by God establishing a seventh day of rest, He was establishing a pattern of work and rest which is necessary for human flourishing.
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God was establishing a pattern of work and rest which is necessary for human flourishing.
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That's number one.
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Number two, God will later use this pattern for work and rest as the sign of the covenant He makes with Moses at Mount Sinai.
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So God establishes a pattern.
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He then later uses that pattern to sign or signify His covenant.
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Did you know the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant God gave to Moses? I'm going to show you that today.
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But the third thing, and the thing that I hope you never forget, is that the reason for this day of rest is it looks forward to the true rest that we have in Jesus Christ.
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That's the whole point.
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So even though it's a pattern, and it does give us a pattern, and even though it's a symbol of the covenant that God gave to Moses, the real and true fulfillment of this day of rest is it looks forward to our rest in Christ.
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Jesus said to him, Come unto me, all ye who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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So that's the three points for today.
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I know they're kind of long points, but let's go to the first one.
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By establishing a day of rest, God establishes a pattern of work and rest that is good or necessary for man's flourishing.
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God is the reason we have a seven-day week.
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God is the reason we have a seven-day week.
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Because in essence, if you think about it, seven days is really arbitrary from our perspective.
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There's nothing in the celestial bodies, and there's nothing in the seasons, that would cause us to mark seven days as anything particular.
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If you think about it, we mark days by the sun, or by our turning.
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The sun goes up, the sun comes down, we mark our days by the sun.
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We mark our months by the moon.
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And we mark our years by the seasons.
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So every other type of thing that we mark time with has a celestial or a seasonal purpose.
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But not the week.
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The week does not have a purpose.
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In fact, the week has no corresponding cycle at all.
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Yet we know, by the very nature of experience, that the seven-day week seems to fit perfect man's pattern for rest and work.
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In fact, most jobs follow the seven-day-a-week cycle, and everyone in general will get at least one day off in those weeks.
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Unless your Mike calls you, and that's what I was going to say, I was going to bring you up later.
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Mike is the hardest worker I know, and I say that to an encouragement to you, brother.
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You're a very hard worker, and I appreciate how hard you work.
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But I want to tell you something.
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There have been societies down through the ages that have tried to change the seven-day work pattern.
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In fact, I'll give you an example.
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During the French Revolution, there was an attempt to switch to what was known as the decimal system of time.
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Here's what it was.
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This happened, and it was based on the idea of tens.
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Why tens? Because most of our numbers are based on tens.
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We have ten fingers, ten toes, right? During the French Revolution, there was an attempt to switch to the decimal system of time, which was known as the rational calendar.
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Here's how it worked.
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Based on tens.
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A day had ten hours.
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Every hour had a hundred minutes, and every minute had a hundred seconds.
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A month was divided into three ten-day weeks.
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They attempted to make this work, and they did force it upon the people.
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And it lasted less than two decades.
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It lasted 17 years, and they could not make it continue to work.
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It did not.
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It would not work.
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And so they fell back to the standard of a seven-day pattern of work and rest.
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Consider this for a moment.
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God does not need to rest, but we do.
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Men need to labor.
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And when I say that, I mean mankind.
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Men and women.
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We all need to labor.
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And we all need to rest.
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We should not get overly consumed with either resting or working.
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I love this quote, and listen to this quote.
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I don't remember what pastor said it, but as I was studying, I came across this.
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It was really good.
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He said, we're made to work.
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There's a time to rest, but the rest of the time is for work.
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I'll say it again.
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There's a time for rest, but the rest of the time is for work.
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You see, the problem with us today is we've come to where we're either on one side or the other.
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We're either overworked and never rest, or we never work and we always rest.
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I think one of the reasons for the rise in the desire for socialism is because there are people who just don't want to work.
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Now, I ain't trying to be ugly, but the idea that I can get a universal basic income.
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You heard of that, UBI? You know what universal basic income is? Everybody is guaranteed a certain amount of money every month, whether you work or not.
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And the idea behind it is everybody has dignity.
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Therefore, everybody should have at least a little money to live on.
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And you say, well, I believe that, brother.
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Everybody has dignity.
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Everybody needs a little money to live on.
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Well, good.
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Go to work.
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Go to work and you will have money to live on.
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The Bible says if you do not work, you do not eat.
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And the idea that we should encourage perpetual rest is dangerous.
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The pattern, if you think about the pattern, it's six days and one, right? And again, I'm not saying this is a demand.
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I'm not saying this is the way you have to do it.
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But I'm saying if you just look at this from the basic principle of pattern.
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The pattern is you work six days and you're off one.
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Most of us demand at least two days.
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I mean, don't we? Some people want that four-day work week.
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Everybody is so excited about Memorial Day.
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Why? Because we got Monday off.
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I say, you just got two months off, a lot of you.
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And everybody is excited about Memorial Day.
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When it comes to work and rest, people often fall into one extreme or the other.
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Some people are busy, they never stop working.
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Some people are lazy, they never stop resting.
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And the wisdom of Scripture would suggest that both are not right.
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That we should have dedicated times of rest so that we do not become exhausted.
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But we should also have much more dedicated time of work so that we do not become lazy and lethargic.
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So there's a pattern.
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God gives us a pattern.
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It's a pattern of work and rest.
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And I think that this is exemplified in this passage.
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Again, this is what we have in Genesis 2.
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We have an example.
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God giving an example.
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And if God is giving an example, we ought to learn from it.
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But that example, that's point number one.
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That we have an example or a pattern.
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Point number two is that this pattern would later become a law.
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See, some people think that the law was given in the garden.
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In fact, that's what my brother Rob believed.
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He believed that the law of the Sabbath was given to Adam.
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And that everyone from Adam to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and to all the rest kept the Sabbath.
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Here's my argument against that.
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The Bible doesn't say so.
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There is no example of Abraham keeping the Sabbath.
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There's no example of Jacob keeping the Sabbath.
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There's no example.
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Now, I'm not saying they didn't have a pattern of work and rest.
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I'm not saying there wasn't a seventh day pattern.
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I'm not saying Adam didn't know about it.
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But the idea of it being law, that's the part that I really have to address.
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Because we don't see it become law until Moses takes the people out of Egypt and into Sinai.
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And we see the law given.
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And I want to show you that.
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If you don't mind doing a quick Bible drill with me, just turn over to Exodus.
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We'll see the first time the Sabbath is given.
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And you know what it's given in relation to? Manna.
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Remember the manna from heaven? What was the command of the Sabbath? Don't go out on the Sabbath and collect the manna.
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You won't need to.
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You'll have enough.
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If you pick up double portion on Friday, it'll hold.
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And it's the only day it'll hold.
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Here, let's just read it.
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It's chapter 16, verse 22.
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Chapter 16, verse 22.
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On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each.
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And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, This is what the Lord has commanded.
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Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.
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By the way, this is the first time in the Bible that that is mentioned, that this day is a command.
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And he goes on to say, Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside and be kept until morning.
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So they laid it aside till morning as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there was no worms in it.
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Moses said, Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.
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Today you will not find it in the field.
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Six days you shall gather, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.
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So this is the first time that we see God using the Sabbath for a purpose.
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And he's using it to make a distinction between his people and the rest of the world.
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He's making a distinction between his people and Egypt that they had just come out of.
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What were the people of Israel in Egypt? Slaves.
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Slaves don't usually get a day off.
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Now I'm not saying they never had an opportunity for rest, but what was the whole idea of when we read through Exodus, what was the whole problem of Egypt? They were driven harshly, and they were treated poorly, and they were slaves to the people of Egypt, and mistreated as slaves.
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And so we come to this text, and what does this text tell us? It tells us that the first thing God did when he brought them out, and he put them in the wilderness is he fed them every day.
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They don't have to work for their food.
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Their food is going to fall from heaven.
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The only thing they've got to do is go out and get it.
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Except for one day.
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One day they're not going to go get it.
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One day they're not going to do anything.
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One day they're going to rest.
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Now, later, God brings Moses up onto the mountain.
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He gives Moses ten commandments.
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And what is the fourth commandment, beloved? Remember the Sabbath day.
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Why would he say remember? Because it was already given as a command back in chapter 16.
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That's chapter 22.
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Back in chapter 16, this was already going on among the people.
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It was already understood that they had this Sabbath day, and they were already living it.
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They were already under the command of it.
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But now God says, remember it.
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Keep it holy.
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And then he points back to Genesis 2, and he says, for God created the world in six days, but on the seventh day he rested.
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And because God rested on the seventh day, God's people will mark that day by their rest.
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And it will become a law to signify God's covenant with the people of Israel through Moses.
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Turn to Exodus 34.
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Did you know that the ten commandments are the covenant that God made with the people of Israel? People don't often think of ten commandments.
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People think of the ten commandments as the moral law of God.
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But actually what the ten commandments are, is the ten commandments are the covenant God made with Israel.
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Exodus 34, verse 27.
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And the Lord said to Moses, write these words, for in accord with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
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So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights.
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He neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
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Notice what it says.
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It says the ten commandments are the covenant that God made with Israel and Moses.
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One of the things that's interesting, oh by the way you see that same thing in Deuteronomy 4.13.
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It says he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is the ten commandments.
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It's the same words almost.
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But just so you understand, we have multiple passages that tell you that the ten commandments are God's covenant made with the nation of Israel through Moses.
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Now I want to ask you this.
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What do covenants always have accompanying them? A sign.
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Covenants have signs.
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What was the covenant God made with Noah? Not going to flood the world and kill the world.
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Next time it's going to be fire.
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This time it was water.
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Next time it will be fire.
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But I'm not going to flood the world again.
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I'm going to give you a sign.
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What is the sign of the Noahic covenant? What? Yeah, the rainbow.
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You're saying the bow in the sky.
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You're throwing me off.
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Yeah, the bow in the sky, the rainbow.
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Sorry brother, I'm listening for your voice.
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You get the rainbow in the sky.
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And that, by the way, that's a promise that that movie 2012 ain't never going to happen.
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You see the movie 2012 about the world flooding again and everybody getting on these big arcs? I didn't see it either.
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I just saw the previews.
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But still, it's a movie about the world flooding.
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I said, if there's anything that ain't going to happen, that's it.
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If there's anything that I don't have to worry about, it's the world flooding again.
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Because every time I see a rainbow in the sky, I'm reminded of God's promise.
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I'm reminded of the covenant God made.
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And God doesn't break His covenant.
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And He puts a sign to remind me of His covenant.
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What was the covenant sign that God gave to Abraham? Circumcision.
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What was the sign God gave in the New Covenant? We have it.
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We do it every week.
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This is the sign of the New Covenant.
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The bread and the cup.
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The bread represents the body.
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The cup represents His blood.
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Every covenant has a sign.
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What is the sign of the Mosaic Covenant or the covenant God gave to Israel through Moses? It's the Sabbath.
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Turn in your Bibles.
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Exodus 31.
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Exodus 31, verse 12.
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And the Lord said to Moses, You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, Above all, you shall keep My Sabbaths.
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For this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.
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You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you.
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Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death.
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Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
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Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord.
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Whoever does any work on the Sabbath, they shall be put to death.
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Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever.
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It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel.
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That in six days the Lord made heaven and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed, and He gave to Moses.
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And when He had finished speaking to him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written with the finger of God.
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So we have here, the covenant is the Ten Commandments.
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What is the sign of the covenant? The Sabbath.
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So for the people of Israel, they have this thing that they do every week, which is nothing, they do nothing every week, one day a week, one to remind them of what God had done in creation, He rested on the seventh day, but also to distinguish their covenant with Him and to remind them of the promises that He had given to them.
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And notice that the covenant came with severe restrictions, or the sign came with severe restrictions.
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What did it say? If you break this covenant sign, you shall die.
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Remember what the Apostle Paul said about the Lord's table? 1 Corinthians 11.
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He said some people have died because they have taken this table.
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Think about the importance of signs.
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That's what I'm trying to show you.
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That covenant signs are valuable.
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Covenant signs are important.
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And that's what the Sabbath is to the people of Israel.
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It's a sign of the law.
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It's a sign of the covenant God made with Israel through Moses.
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So if you wonder what it was and what it was all about, it was God taking something He had established in creation.
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He established the Sabbath on day seven.
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He rested.
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He called it holy.
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And then in the wilderness, He calls His people to do just what He did.
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You know what I did in creation.
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I rested.
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Now you will rest, and that day of rest will be to you a sign of our relationship.
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That's what a covenant is.
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It's a relationship.
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We talk about the marriage covenant.
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The marriage covenant is a relationship.
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What's the sign of the marriage covenant? The ring that you wear.
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That's a sign of the fidelity.
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It's a sign of the promise.
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It's a sign of the covenant.
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And God said this is what you're going to do every week.
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You're going to come and do nothing because on the seventh day I rested, and you're going to rest, and it's going to be a sign of our relationship.
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Now, you might think that, okay, well, God made that covenant sign.
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We should continue today.
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But here's the beauty of the new covenant, y'all.
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See, one thing I want you to understand is that if you're a part of the church on this side of the cross, then you're a member of the new covenant.
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And while we still have some of the transcendent things that apply to all covenants, the covenant that God made with Israel through Moses is not the covenant by which we have a relationship with God.
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We have a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, the new covenant in His blood.
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Stick with me, y'all, because this is where it gets a little deep.
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Because everything in that old covenant was intended to point to Jesus, even that Sabbath day.
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That Sabbath day, Jesus said, I have not come to destroy the law, but that in me the law might be fulfilled.
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How is the law fulfilled in Christ? Well, one, He kept the whole law.
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But it is also that all the law and prophets pointed to Him.
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We're about to start our Old Testament class in our Sovereign Grace Academy.
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Eight weeks of studying through the Old Testament.
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One whole week is dedicated to looking at Jesus in the old covenant.
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Because everything in the old covenant points to Christ.
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Jesus said that.
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Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained Himself to the two on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24.
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So, let's look now.
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And I'm going to go through this rather quickly because of time.
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And I'm going to deal with it some more next week.
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So, I don't want to keep belaboring the point.
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But let's look at the third point.
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You see, the first point was, by God creating a seven-day week, He creates a pattern of work and rest for mankind and for flourishing.
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The second thing, by establishing a day of rest, He sets apart a sign for His people that He would use to establish His relationship and to demonstrate a sign of His covenant with them.
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Third thing, this sign, this covenant sign looks forward to the present reality that believers have in Christ.
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What is the Sabbath for the Christian? The Sabbath for the Christian is not a day.
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The Sabbath for the Christian is a person.
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I'm going to say it again.
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The Sabbath for the Christian is not a day.
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It's a state of being.
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And the state of being is being in Christ.
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You say, well, I don't think you can prove that.
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Turn with me to Colossians 2.16.
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Colossians 2.16 says this, Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
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Verse 17, These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
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Notice what it's saying.
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It's saying that in the Old Covenant, we had feasts and we had festivals and we had Sabbaths.
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But in the New Covenant, we got Christ.
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And you know what the book of Hebrews says? He's better.
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You know, that's the whole reason for the book of Hebrews.
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Christ is better than any of that.
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Christ is superior to all of that.
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Everything they had in shadows and symbols, we have in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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We have much better.
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We have much greater.
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Our covenant is a great new covenant.
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And it's in Him.
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Someone might say, How do we have Sabbath in Christ? And to answer that question, I would take you back to Genesis.
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You don't have to turn there, but just in your mind.
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Why did God rest? I already said it earlier.
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He rested because He was finished with the work of creation.
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But then after the work of creation came the fall.
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And what began after the fall? The work of redemption.
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The very moment we have the promise, Genesis 3.15, that there's going to come one who's going to crush the head of the serpent.
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We have the very first sacrificial animals that were used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve.
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We have the very first sacrifices being made early on by the two sons of Adam and Eve.
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And then we go on to the sacrifices made by Noah after he came off of the ark.
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And then we see Abraham, and we see Isaac, and we see Jacob.
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We see all down the line this work of redemption.
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God calling out a person, Abraham, making his descendants, his people.
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And He said one of those descendants, the seed will come.
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And through the seed, redemption will come.
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Not seeds, plural, but Paul says the singular seed.
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Jesus Christ, the true Israel, will come.
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And everyone who is in Him will be a child of Abraham.
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Everyone who is in Him will be blessed as a son or daughter of Abraham.
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And the Sabbath pointed to the rest that would come in Christ.
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He said, well, what rest came in Christ? I'll tell you, you know it.
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Because the day the work of redemption started was the day man fell.
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And the day the work of redemption ended was when Jesus was lifted up on the cross and He said, it is finished.
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You see, beloved, that's the beauty of it.
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What did God do when He finished? He rested.
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When Christ finished, He said, it is finished.
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And now what do we do? We rest in Him.
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See, you have two options.
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You can either work for your salvation and fail, or you can rest in the finished work of Christ and never be put to shame.
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The picture of Sabbath is the picture of rest that we have in Jesus Christ.
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The picture that that seventh day gave to the people of Israel is meant to give us a greater picture of what we have in Jesus Christ.
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I want to read to you a quote from Fred Zaspel.
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The sign and seal of the old covenant has given way to the reality of Christ in the new covenant.
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The Sabbath no longer has significance as a day.
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Its significance is in that to which it pointed.
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In Him who gives rest and in whom we have ceased from our works for those who rest in Christ every day is Sabbath.
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For those who rest in Christ every day is our Sabbath day.
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Now, does that mean we no longer have days that we set apart as particularly unique? No, we do.
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We set apart one day in seven still, but it's not the last day of the week.
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It's the first day.
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Why that day? We're going to see next week that from the very earliest chapters of the book of Acts, the history of Christ's church, there was a special day.
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But it was no longer the day that was demanded to rest.
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It was the day to glorify the One in whom we rest, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That's why we call Sunday the Lord's Day.
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Beloved, if you're in Christ today, rest in Him.
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If you are in Christ today, stop trusting in what you're doing and start trusting in what He has done.
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Find your rest in your true Sabbath who is Jesus Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for this opportunity to get to go through Your Word and open it up and take it apart and deal with some of the more difficult parts.
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And Lord, I know that this is a subject that causes a lot of consternation and even a lot of confusion among people.
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And I pray that what I've said today has been helpful and useful and Lord, maybe even enlightening.
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Lord, that we would find our rest in Christ.
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That we would know that there is nothing that we can do, no work that we can accomplish to bring about our salvation.
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That all we can do, all we can do is rest in Him.
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And it's in His name we pray and for His sake.
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Amen.