The Lord's Day is Sunday

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Revelation chapter 1.
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Hold your place at verse 9.
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For the past several months, we have been studying verse by verse through the letter of Paul to the Colossians.
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And in chapter 2 of Colossians, Paul warns against the people of Colossae being taken captive by vain philosophy, by being judged by Jewish ceremonies, and by being disqualified by pagan rituals.
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And we have spent the past several weeks looking specifically at the Jewish ceremonies because there are still those in the church today who wish to impose such things upon the body of Christ.
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In fact, as we mentioned, there are several groups which are distinguished by their allegiance to the dietary restrictions, the feast days, and the Sabbath.
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In fact, some are even named specifically for that, the Seventh Day Adventist one to speak of, they name themselves specifically after the Sabbath day.
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And Paul tells us in Colossians chapter 2 that those things are a shadow, but the substance belongs to Christ.
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And last week we noted that Paul lists among those Jewish ceremonies the Sabbath day.
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He says that the Sabbath day is a shadow.
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And what is it a shadow of? It is a shadow of our rest in Christ.
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And as Christians, we now have true Sabbath because we have our Sabbath in Him.
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But that does not mean that we do not have a special day.
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We actually do.
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But it is not the Jewish Sabbath.
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The Jewish Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant.
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I showed that last week.
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But we have the Lord's Day.
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And the Lord's Day is not Saturday.
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It is Saturday.
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The Lord's Day is Sunday.
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And today we are going to examine both the biblical and the historical basis for Sunday worship.
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And might I add, yes today is Resurrection Sunday, but please remember every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday.
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Every first day of the week we gather for one reason, and that is because Jesus rose on this day.
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If you get nothing else out of today, that is it.
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The reason why we gather on the first day of the week is that this is the day that the Lord rose.
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And we are going to read from John's Revelation where he references the Lord's Day.
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So let's stand and let's read.
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We are only going to read a few verses.
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We are going to read Revelation chapter 1 verses 9 to 11.
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And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this moment that we get to reflect on just a short phrase in these verses.
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But Lord as we look at this phrase and how it has been understood by the church in the beginning, how it has been passed down to us through the ages, and how we are to recognize this today, I pray Lord that we would understand the truth and that we would apply that truth in our daily living.
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But Lord we know that understanding comes from the spirit and application comes from the spirit.
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Lord apart from your spirit my preaching is worthless and apart from your spirit the hearing will be worthless as well.
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So I pray that your spirit would fill each believer and I pray that he would convict the unbelievers that today they might see Jesus as beautiful and wonderful and winsome with an outstretched hand saying, come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give thee rest.
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Father, please for your mercy's sake keep me from error as I preach in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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As exciting as some of you may be for us to have opened our Bibles this morning to the book of Revelation, I hate to disappoint you but we will not be discussing eschatology, which, for those who don't know, is the study of the end times and people get often excited about the study of the end times.
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I'm not one of those persons.
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In fact if you've been here for a long time you've noticed this is one of the few times I've ever asked you to open your Bible to Revelation on Sunday morning.
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I have not preached through it yet and I'm thinking around the age 50 maybe I'll give it a shot.
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It gives me seven more years.
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But, for today we're going to look only at one phrase in this important book.
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John says in verse 10 that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.
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Te kuriake hemera.
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Te kuriake is the Lord's and it belongs to the Lord.
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Hemera is just the word for day.
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And this term that John uses is not given any explanation.
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He does not feel the need to stop the narrative and say I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and oh by the way the Lord's day is this.
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He doesn't do that.
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He simply says I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and then he goes on to recount his receiving his revelation from Jesus Christ.
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So this phrase which is given no definition or explanation indicates to us that his readers, his hearers would have understood what he meant.
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Anytime you read something in the Bible and there's no explanation the reason why there's no explanation is the author assumes understanding.
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He assumes that the people are not ignorant of the Lord's day.
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He says I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day assuming his audience would know what he meant.
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Fast forward two thousand years and we find ourselves today in a place where there are people who want to give all kinds of explanations and arguments as to what he meant.
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People want to debate what he meant.
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People want to see if they can fit something else in to this short phrase.
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But I want to tell you from the outset today I think what John means is very simple and I think it's very provable.
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And we prove things with what is known as internal evidence and with what is known as external evidence.
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And if you don't know the difference internal evidence is that which is drawn from the text and external evidence is that which is drawn from other historical sources that were written in and around the time that the text was written.
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And both of those are important.
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We are sola scriptura people.
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Meaning we believe the Bible alone is the sole infallible rule for faith and practice.
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Sola scriptura is one of the five Latin phrases that we hold as a banner.
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Sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola fide, sola gratia and soli deo gloria.
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We hold those five things very firmly that the word of God is our only infallible rule of faith.
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That's true.
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But that does not mean that we discount history.
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And if you discount history what you will find out is often times you are missing so much because we are not on an island by ourselves but we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
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And we learn from them.
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We wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for church history.
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We wouldn't be where we are if men of God had not done the things that they had done to give us what we have today.
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The counsels, the confessions, the creeds, all of those things are important.
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Please read.
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I said counsel works.
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Read history.
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You will be so much better off for it.
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You will be better students because of it.
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So what is the Lord's day in Revelation chapter 1? Various interpretations have been given.
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I want to give you two that I disagree with only for the fact that I think some of you may have thought these things so I want to tell you why you are wrong.
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That was kind of a joke but not really.
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No I think it is important for us to look at the incorrect things so that we can at least say that we have addressed them.
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The first answer to what is the Lord's day is that John is referring to the Saturday Sabbath.
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And there are those who argue that when he says he was in the spirit on the Lord's day that he is referring to the Sabbath day.
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And they make this argument based on the fact that God did in fact hallow the seventh day in creation.
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He made the seventh day holy and we know that in the ten commandments he says to remember the Sabbath day which is Saturday and to make it holy.
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And therefore the argument is because God made that day holy that is his day.
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Now that is logical.
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That is reasonable.
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But it is still wrong.
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You say well can you prove that it is wrong? I am getting there.
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But just know that that argument that the Sabbath is in view on the Lord's day does not comport with anything in the New Testament.
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It does not even comport with the Old Testament.
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It is not what they called the Sabbath in the Old Testament.
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They called it the Sabbath.
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They did not call it the Lord's day.
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The term the Lord's day is a new covenant word that in church history did not mean the Sabbath.
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In fact I am going to read to you in just a few minutes some writings from the early fathers.
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We are talking within the first hundred years of the church who said the Sabbath and the Lord's day are different.
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They are not the same thing.
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So just to be clear it is not the Sabbath.
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Not the Saturday Sabbath anyway.
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It is not that.
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It is not the Jewish Sabbath.
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Second thing.
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There is a very odd interpretation that says that the day that John is talking about here is the day of the Lord.
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And what that interpretation says is that John is in the Spirit seeing a vision of the final day of the Lord.
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Again I will read to you a commentary.
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This is from the Bible knowledge commentary.
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A commentary I actually use.
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I like this commentary.
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I was surprised that they took this interpretation.
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But this is what it says.
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It says he was projected forward in his inner self in a vision not bodily to the future day of the Lord when God will pour out his judgments on the earth.
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This interpretation is what they are saying is the Lord's day is the day of the Lord.
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Again it is not the same construction.
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It doesn't say I was in the Spirit on the day of the Lord.
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It says I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.
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The construction is different.
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But it also doesn't fit because he was already there before he got the vision.
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The idea that this is referring to the day of the Lord as an eschatological day does not comport.
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So what is he referring to when he says I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day? Well history shows us that the Lord's day in the early church was the first day of the week, Sunday.
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I want to read to you a few quotes.
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I have here in my hand I have quotes from several early church writers.
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You remember a few weeks ago I mentioned the Didache.
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The Didache is one of the earliest church documents that we have.
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It is one of the earliest documents outside of scripture that we still possess to this day.
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If you don't think that is important, I have to tell you it is vastly important.
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Because again history matters.
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You know me.
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Theology matters.
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I have it on my shirt.
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I have it on my car.
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I am sort of a geek.
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Theology matters.
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Theology does matter, but history also matters.
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History makes your theology better.
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So the Didache means the teaching of the twelve.
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That is what the phrase means.
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This is what it says.
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It says, But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, break bread, and give thanksgiving, after having confessed your transgressions, and your sacrifice may be pure.
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So it tells the church they are to gather on the Lord's day.
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And it says when you gather you are to break bread, give thanks, and have confessions.
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Right? So it is telling how the church did what they did on the Lord's day.
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Much like what we do.
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We come together.
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We praise God with thanksgiving.
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We confess our sins through prayer.
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We receive the bread and the cup.
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The only thing it doesn't say is preach.
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It bothers me it should say preach, but again I weren't there.
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I couldn't help them out.
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But I am sure somebody taught the word on the Lord's day.
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But you notice in the Didache it again doesn't say what the Lord's day is.
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It just says on the Lord's day do these things.
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So we have to look further into history.
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I want to read to you from the epistle of Barnabas.
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Now the epistle of Barnabas you have probably heard of before.
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Well at least you have heard of the man who was Barnabas.
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Barnabas was an associate of the Apostle Paul.
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Now there is debate as to whether or not he actually wrote this.
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I don't want to get into the history of that right now, but I do want to read to you what the letter says.
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We are talking about a first century letter.
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Non-biblical I admit, but a first century letter passed around within the Christian church.
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In fact I will give you one really interesting point of history.
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And if you want to know more about this come to my class starting next week on how we got the Bible.
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Because the first canon that we actually have, the first listing of books that we actually have from history is called the Moratorium Fragment.
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It dates around the year 200, 180 to 200.
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And it lists books that were considered scripture.
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Four gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul.
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But it didn't list all the ones that we have now because there were still books that were considered to be up for debate within the early church.
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But one of the books it did list that we no longer have is the epistle of Barnabas.
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It was in the Moratorium Fragment.
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I'm not saying it's part of scripture.
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And I'm not arguing that we have the wrong list.
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But what I am saying is there was a time when the people of God looked at this letter with great respect.
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And some even considered it to be part of scripture.
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I don't, but some did.
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Listen to what it says.
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It says, Further he says to them, Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot endure, yet perceive how he speaks.
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Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that is which I have made, namely this, when giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning on the eighth day.
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Now let me stop right there.
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What's the eighth day? Sunday.
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How do you count that? There's only seven days in a week.
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It's the first day of the week.
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But you start with the Sabbath.
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You go to the next Sabbath and it's the next day.
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It's the eighth day.
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And because you're counting the first Sabbath, that's how you get there.
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Right? We're going to see that in a moment too.
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I'm sorry, you count the first day of the week down to the next, you get the eighth day.
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But he goes on to say, That is the beginning of another world.
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Wherefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.
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And when he had manifested himself, he ascended into heaven.
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Notice what he says.
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He says, We, we, who is we? We are the church.
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And what does the church do? The church keeps the eighth day.
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First day.
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Why do we keep it? Because Jesus rose from the dead.
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Have you ever heard of Justin Martyr? Justin Martyr, one of the early church writers.
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Again, I don't agree with anything or with everything Justin wrote.
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Just to be clear, you may come to me later and say, Wait a minute, Justin Martyr wrote something that I disagree with.
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Me too.
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I've never, I've never, I don't agree with everything John MacArthur says.
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I don't agree with everything R.C.
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Sproul says.
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I don't even agree with everything Paul Washer says.
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I know some of you guys love him a lot, so I thought I'd throw that in there.
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But the point is, these were godly men.
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And listen to what he wrote.
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This is in 155.
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Can you imagine? We still have writings from men from 155.
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Does that not blow your mind that I can go to my computer and print a letter from Justin Martyr that's 2,000 years old? Again, I'm bad at math.
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It's 1980, 50 something, whatever.
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This is amazing.
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This is what he says.
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On the day called Sunday, in case we're wondering.
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He literally says it.
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And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits.
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Next time y'all get on to one of us for preaching too long.
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As long as time permits.
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Then when the reading has ceased, the president verbally instructs.
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They didn't call them pastors.
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They called them presidents.
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I move.
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No, no.
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The president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.
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Then we all rise together and pray.
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As we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine are brought together and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability and the people assent saying amen.
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And there is a distribution to each and a participation of that over which thanks have been given.
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And to those who are absent, a portion is sent by the deacons.
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So notice what he says.
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He says on Sunday we gather, we hear the word read, somebody explains it, the pastor, president, whatever.
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He explains it and then the elements are passed, received and if anybody's out, we take it to them.
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Interesting bit of church history.
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That's 155.
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The last of the apostles died out with the apostle John somewhere in the 90s.
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Who's over 60 years old in this place today? You don't have to raise your hand, just think.
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If you're over 60 years old, you have covered the distance of time between John's death and the writing of this letter.
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Your life expands past that time.
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Isn't that amazing? And he said it's on Sunday that the church gathers and does these things.
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Now I'm going to fast forward just a bit.
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I hope I'm not boring anybody.
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This is important.
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He said, man, I came to church on Easter Sunday and he's given us a history lesson.
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I say, thank you.
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This is what we need.
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You can get fluff and stuff anywhere, but come here, you're going to get taught.
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The council of Laodicea.
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Now this is in 360, so this is far removed from the early fathers, but still in the early church.
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In 360, the council of Laodicea confirmed the keeping of the Sunday Lord's day.
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And this is what they wrote.
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Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath.
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Notice what it said.
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Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day.
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Rather, they are to honor the Lord's day.
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Notice the distinction.
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By the time of the council of Laodicea, a distinction had been made between the Sabbath and the Lord's day.
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And the Lord's day was the new covenant day to be kept by new covenant believers.
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Albert Barnes, in his commentary, writes this.
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The term the Lord's day was generally used by early Christians to denote the first day of the week.
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It occurs twice in the epistle of Ignatius, which was written around 101, who calls the Lord's day the queen and prince of all the days.
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Chris Austin, on his sermon on Psalm 119 says, it was called the Lord's day because the Lord rose from the dead on that day.
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Later fathers make a marked distinction between the Sabbath and the Lord's day, meaning by the former, the Jewish Sabbath, or the seventh day of the week, and by the later, the first day of the week, kept holy by Christians.
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He goes on, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but he goes on just to continue to prove the point that the distinction was made very early on that we are not keeping the Jewish Sabbath.
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We are keeping the Lord's day, and the Lord's day is Sunday.
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Now, somebody might ask, why? Why is it that for fifteen hundred years God's people kept Saturday? Ever since the time of Moses in Exodus 16, when the people of God were called to stop their labors, even to the point of giving the capital punishment to anyone who would exercise or work on the Lord's day, they had done that for fifteen hundred years.
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Why is it that in the first century it changed? Well beloved, there is only one event with such intrinsic value that it could cause all of Christian worship to change, and it's the event that we celebrate on the Lord's day.
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I want to show you four scripture passages.
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So, if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Matthew 28, verse 1, and we're going to go Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so we literally go boom, boom, boom, boom.
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So go to Matthew 28, verse 1.
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We're going to read the first few verses of every resurrection account, and I want you to notice the consistent thing that is in every resurrection account.
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Matthew 28, verse 1 says, Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
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Alright, so that's the first one.
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Now quickly go to Mark chapter 16, and verse 1.
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In Mark 16, verse 1, When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint him, and very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
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Now go with me to Luke chapter 24.
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I'm building my case, by the way.
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This is how we do.
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Luke chapter 24, verse 1, But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
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Notice the consistent thing that I'm trying to drive home in all these verses.
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What is it? First day of the week.
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First day of the week.
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First day of the week.
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Go to John chapter 20, and verse 1.
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John chapter 20, and verse 1.
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Now on, I'll give you a chance, I hear the Bible is turning.
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Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
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We have a four-fold witness to the life of Jesus Christ.
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Four testimonies, all coming from four different perspectives.
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Matthew giving us a Jewish perspective.
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Mark giving us a Gentile perspective.
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Luke pointing to Jesus as the son of man.
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John pointing to Jesus as the son of God.
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We have four very distinct perspectives, and if you read the four resurrection accounts, you'll find that all four of those accounts read very differently.
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My Sunday school class, Brother Mike and I teach together.
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I didn't get to be in there with them this morning, but what they did was they read all four of the resurrection narratives, and talked about some of the differences.
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Not contradictions, but differences.
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Some mentioned one angel, some mentioned two angels.
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Some mentioned the angels were outside, some mentioned the angels were inside.
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Some say that there was just Mary, and some say it was Mary and the other Mary, and some say it was Mary and the other Mary and Salome.
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You have to harmonize those texts, and we love to do that.
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I love doing harmony of historical narrative, because it's something that everybody has to do, because when you get different perspectives, you've got to put it all together and understand the story, and that's what they did.
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But you know the one thing that all of them are consistent? That this happened on the first day of the week.
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Every single narrative starts with the same proof, or rather the same point, that it was on the day following the Sabbath, the first day of the week.
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Now you say, well that doesn't prove that that was the day that you're supposed to worship.
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No, it doesn't prove that.
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But I want to show you something else.
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Since you're in John chapter 20, notice that Jesus appears to them on that day, and he appeared to them eight days later.
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By the way, the way Jewish people counted days eight days later would have been the next Sunday.
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So it starts out on Sunday, and they count that day.
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I know a lot of people have trouble with the whole Jesus dying on Friday and raising on Sunday.
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You've got to remember, he counts all the days.
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Jewish people counted all the days.
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That's why they could start on Sunday, end on Sunday, and we would say that's seven days, because we would start counting on Monday.
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They wouldn't.
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They would count that day, and include that day, and take it to the next.
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So eight days later, and by the way, eight days is pretty important if you think about from a historical perspective.
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Circumcision was done on the eighth day, representing a new beginning.
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Jesus is seeing his disciples again on the eighth day, representing a new beginning.
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There's a lot of important stuff going on here, but understand this.
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The eighth day is the next Sunday.
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Notice that's the next time they see Jesus.
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Look with me at verse 26.
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It says, eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.
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Remember, why does Thomas matter? Because eight days earlier, he said, I ain't going to believe.
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He said, if I don't see the scars in his hand, I'm not going to believe.
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Mike and I were talking about this this week.
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You got to imagine, all of those people went all week knowing they had seen Jesus, and Thomas went all week having to hear about it, because he didn't see Jesus.
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But eight days later, on the next Lord's day, get it church, it's the next Lord's day, Jesus meets with his people again.
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He met with them on the Lord's day, the original Lord's day, the real Lord's day, like the first one.
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He met with them on the resurrection day.
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Eight days later, the next Lord's day, he meets with them again, and he brings Thomas that message.
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It says, eight days later, his disciples were with him again, and Thomas was with him, and although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.
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What an amazing thing.
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Jesus meets with his disciples on the Lord's day.
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Now turn in your Bible to Acts chapter 20.
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I realize this jumps ahead in history quite a bit.
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The book of Acts covers several years in the life and ministry of the apostles, but when we get to chapter 20, we notice something that's happening in the early church.
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In Acts chapter 20, verse 7, it says, on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
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By the way, the speech is the sermon, and again, when y'all give us grief about time, remember Paul preached until midnight.
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He preached until somebody died, and then he stopped, rose from the dead, and kept going.
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I keep joking about that.
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Nobody ever says anything.
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I'm just teasing, because I appreciate you guys wanting to hear the word.
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We only see each other once a week, so it's great.
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But on the first day of the week, they gathered together.
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So this was the practice of the church.
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The practice of the church was to meet on the first day of the week.
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In fact, it was so common that they would meet on the first day of the week that if you go to 1 Corinthians 16, you will find that there, Paul tells them that they need to be taking their offerings, because those offerings are going to be helping the missionary endeavors of the church, and he tells them that it is on the first day of the week that they are to take the offerings.
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Why is it on the first day of the week that they are to take the offerings? Because that was the day they were already meeting.
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That was the Lord's day.
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Beloved Sunday is the Lord's day.
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The first day of the week is the Lord's day.
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And one of the objections that is often raised, and I hear this so much because, as you know, we have somewhat of a thriving internet ministry now, and I get a lot of messages and people send me emails and things, and one of the objections that's often raised against Sunday worship is something that maybe you've heard.
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Very popular.
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People will say, Sunday worship is pagan because it was introduced by Constantine.
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And I want to respond to that with a Greek word, baloney.
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That's what it is.
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It's baloney.
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It's not the truth.
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Now, it is easy to be taken in by people who sound like they know what they're talking about.
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But it is more important that you actually research these things for yourself.
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And do not take the word of a YouTuber, a TikToker, or whatever else they're called.
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A Christian influencer.
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Now, I know you're all saying, but wait a minute, Pastor, you got a YouTube.
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You got a, yeah, yeah.
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I go where the people go.
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We go preach in the downtown square and there's people there.
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And there's people on the internet too and they need to hear the gospel.
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So we go where they are.
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But understand this, there's a lot of snakes in the grass.
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And there's a lot of false teaching out there.
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And a lot of stuff gets tangled up with Constantine.
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Man, Constantine, he is, he is accused of everything from Christmas trees to Easter bunnies.
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I don't care what it is.
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Constantine's accused of everything.
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He's just, he's the worst, according to the internet.
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They want to make everything about him.
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And while I would never deny, having taught church history, I would never deny the importance of the historical nature of the Constantinian dynasty.
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Yeah, there was a time when Constantine was very important.
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And the first church council did happen underneath his rule.
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It was called the Council of Nicaea.
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And it happened in 325 AD.
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And yes, Constantine did, I will admit, in 321, he did decree that on the day of the sun, let all of the magistrates and the people of the city rest and let the workshops be closed.
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He did make Sunday a day of rest in 321.
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So yes, that did happen.
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But understand this, Christians were already worshiping for 250, well, for 300 years prior to Constantine.
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If this is in 321, Jesus died somewhere around the year 30 to 33.
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And if the early church was worshiping on Sunday, within the first 40 years of Jesus, we're talking about a period of 250 to 300 years, somewhere in that space, Christians were already doing this.
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So to say Constantine is the reason why we worship on Sunday is what's called an anachronism.
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An anachronism is when you take something from the future and you read it into the past as if it is the reason or the cause of the thing in the past.
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Like for instance, if we said that the reason why the Black Plague spread around Europe is because the people wouldn't wear their masks, what would that be? They ain't got no masks.
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And they didn't understand germ theory.
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And they didn't know that you should put something over your face to keep from spreading your germs.
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You see how dumb that is? It's just as dumb to say that Constantine invented the Sunday worship.
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He didn't.
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It was already happening several centuries before he was born.
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Making sense? I preach like a debater.
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I'm sorry.
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It's just my way.
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It's like I'm making my case.
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I am.
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I want you to go away from this place excited and happy that we actually do worship the Lord on the day that the early church worshipped the Lord.
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And the reason why the early church worshipped the Lord is because this is when the apostles worshipped the Lord.
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And the reason why the apostles worshipped the Lord on this day is because this is in fact the day Jesus rose.
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And this day is distinct.
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It's called the Lord day.
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And the only other thing in all the Bible that is called the Lord's something is the Lord's supper.
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You see the Old Testament had the Passover.
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And when Jesus came He became the Passover lamb.
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And now we eat the bread and the cup and we have the Lord's supper.
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And the Old Testament had the Sabbath.
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And Jesus came and He said, Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
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I will be your rest.
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And therefore we rest in Him and we gather on His day.
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It stands to reason that the first day of the week would be the day that we worship.
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Because the most important event in all of history happened on this day.
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I'm going to make you go to one more text and then we'll be done.
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First Corinthians 15.
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We're not going to read the whole chapter though we could because it's all wonderful.
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But I just want you to read beginning at verse 12 with me.
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It says this, Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised.
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And if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
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We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ whom He did not raise if the dead are not raised.
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For if the dead are not raised not even Christ has been raised.
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And if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
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Hear it again church.
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If Christ has not been raised your faith is useless.
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Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
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If we have hope only in this life only, we are old.
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If we have hope only in this life only, we are old.
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So of all people the most to be pitied.
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You know what Paul is saying? He is saying if Jesus didn't rise from the dead nothing matters.
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If Jesus didn't rise from the dead you don't need to be here.
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Go eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die.
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If Jesus didn't rise from the dead it's all a scam.
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It's all a sham.
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It's not worth living for.
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It's not worth dying for.
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There is a seminary professor, a lady, I don't know her name off the top of my head.
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I think it's Union Seminary.
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They are very, very liberal there.
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And she made the proclamation that you do not have to believe as a Christian that Jesus rose from the dead.
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Because there is all kinds of ways to interpret what the Bible says about Jesus' resurrection.
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And all God's people said baloney.
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It's absolute you can't.
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No, if you are a Christian who doesn't believe in the resurrection you are not a Christian.
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Because there is no hope apart from the resurrection.
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There is no faith to believe in apart from the resurrection.
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Brother Mike stole it from me earlier.
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Mohammed is dead.
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Buddha is dead.
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Krishna is dead.
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The Dalai Lamas keep dying.
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They keep getting more but they are all dead.
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But you know what we have that no other group has? We have an empty tomb.
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And no matter how much the enemies of Christ tried to discredit his followers one thing they could never do was produce a body.
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They could never produce a body.
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There is a lot of debate in the Christian world surrounding the day that we should gather.
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Some demand that we go back into the old covenant and observe the Saturday Sabbath.
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Beloved I am telling you Saturday is not the Lord's day.
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It never has been for the new covenant people.
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The Saturday Sabbath was a sign to Israel.
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It's a sign of the old covenant.
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And we are not in the old covenant anymore.
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The church has the Lord's day.
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The day that we recognize every week.
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Not just once a year.
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But the day that we recognize every week that the tomb is empty.
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And there really is something special about Sunday.
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I don't know about you.
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But I look forward to the Lord's day every week.
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I look forward to worship.
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I look forward to gathering.
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I look forward to being with the people of God.
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And we should desire to do this every week.
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Somebody might say well I can worship the Lord every day.
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Yes you can and you should.
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But the day when the body gathers.
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The day when we are called to gather together is the Lord's day.
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And it has been since the time of the apostles.
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It is our weekly memorial day for the most important event in all of human history.
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And I want you to think about that as we get ready for the table.
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You know one of the reasons why the early church gathered was they gathered for that.
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Yes they gathered to hear the word.
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Yes they gathered to pray.
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I read that earlier.
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Yes they gathered to give thanks and to offer up confessions of sin.
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But one of the other things they gathered together to do was to have this table.
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I did a survey this week.
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I put out a survey online.
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How many churches do the Lord's supper every week? And the vast majority of them.
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No.
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Monthly.
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Quarterly.
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Some annually.
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Annually.
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And I heard somebody say well if you do it every week it will lose its meaning.
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First of all prove that to me from the Old Testament.
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Prove that to me from the Old Testament scripture.
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I'm sorry from the Bible.
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Prove that to me where in the Bible they were meeting once a week every week to take the Lord's table and it got old.
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No it never did.
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People say well we can't do it every week because we won't be able to have the opportunity to truly investigate ourselves as the Bible says we have to examine ourselves before we take the table.
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Prove it from the text.
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Prove that taking it every week is too much because that's too many times that we have to examine ourselves.
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You can't.
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But moreover and this is the big one.
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Just because you do something often doesn't mean it loses its value.
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Because every day when I come home my children come to me and embrace me.
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And never once have I said you know what I'm tired of this.
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And every day my wife comes and she kisses me.
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And never once have I said you did that yesterday.
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Frequency does not rob something of its value.
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We do it because every time we gather we show forth the Lord's death until he comes.
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So this morning it's the Lord's day.
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Let's prepare our hearts for communion as we pray.
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Father I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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Thank you for all that you have given us in Christ.
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And I thank you for the Lord's day.
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I pray Lord that if I have said anything wrong today that you would wipe it from our minds.
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Make it clear to me Lord where I need to repent and adjust.
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But more than anything Lord help us to be true to your word and bow down to what it says.
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We pray this in Jesus' name.
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And for his sake.
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Amen.