FBC Morning Light – February 9, 2023

A good Friday to you, coming upon another weekend here, and looking forward to the

Lord's Day. I trust you are as well, as we gather together as God's people, we worship

Him, we fellowship with one another, we participate in the services of the day, that we might grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.

We sing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to edify one another.

We pray together, we read the Word together, we hear from God together through the ministry of the

Word, and all of these things take place as we gather on the Lord's Day. Hope you're looking forward to it, and you will join in that time together.

Well today, I want to tie together our Old Testament reading in Exodus with the

New Testament reading in Mark. In Exodus 31, look at a section of that chapter, and then tie it together with a verse in the

Gospel of Mark. In Exodus 31, by the way this is an aside, this is an aside.

Exodus 31 begins talking about this individual that the Lord has called to craft, oversee the crafting of all of the different elements and components going into the tabernacle, this man

Bezalel. And he is an artisan. But here's the thing I want you to see.

The Lord says, I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze and cutting jewels for setting and carving wood, to work in all manner of workmanship.

The Lord says, I have filled him with the Spirit and given him wisdom and understanding and knowledge so that he can engage in these crafts.

And has it ever occurred to you that whatever your occupation, your vocation is, that God's Spirit can fill you with wisdom and understanding so that you might carry out that calling, you might fulfill that calling in a way that brings glory to God?

I don't know what that calling is for you, but whatever it is, turn it over to the

Lord, give it to the Lord, ask the Lord's Spirit to fill you, to fulfill that calling in a way that brings glory to Him.

Well anyway, that was a little bit of an aside. What I really wanted to focus on is what comes next. In verses 12 and following, the

Lord says to Moses, speak to the children of Israel saying, surely, or the

ESV translates that, above all my Sabbaths you shall keep, above all my

Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the

Lord who sanctifies you. The Lord makes a very big deal about his people keeping the

Sabbaths, observing the Sabbath. And he's very serious about it because he goes on to say, if anyone profanes the

Sabbath, then he's to be put, it's a capital offense, he's to be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from his people.

The Lord takes this very seriously. He says, work is to be done for six days, but the seventh is a

Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on that day, you know, don't profane the

Sabbath. Therefore, he says, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.

It's a sign between us, the Lord says. Observe the Sabbath. And that was part of the

Decalogue, right? Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy? And the Lord reasserts that here.

Now through the generations following this time, there were all kinds of add -ons that were given by the priests and the scribes and so forth.

They interpreted different things, and they said you can't do this and you can't do that, there's only a certain distance you can do any walking, you can't do any kind of work whatsoever.

Remember how Jesus was frequently confronted by the

Pharisees when he tried to do things on the Sabbath, like heal somebody, and Jesus says, look, you'll take an ox out of a ditch on the

Sabbath, shouldn't this person be healed of this infirmity he's been suffering from? And another occasion, the priest hollered out, you know, there are six days to be healed, don't come to be healed on the

Sabbath day, you know, that kind of an attitude. But where did they get that attitude? Those were add -ons that made

Sabbath -keeping a burden, a legalistic burden. There was no mercy, there was no kindness, there was no grace extended for some of these things, none whatsoever.

And we see an example of that in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, where it says on the

Sabbath, Jesus and his disciples happened to be walking through a grain field, and the disciples, legally, they were allowed to do this, plucked some heads of grain, and what they would do is they would take these heads of grain, and they would rub them in their hands, and they would get the kernels of the grain, and they would eat that, because they were hungry.

The Pharisees castigated them for this. Look, why do you do what is not lawful on the

Sabbath, they said? Why are you violating the Sabbath? Jesus said, wait a minute, haven't you read what

David did? How he ate the bread of the showbread in the table of the

Presence in the Old Testament, because he and his men were hungry? And then he concludes with this, he says, the

Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the

Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Now what's Jesus saying here? The Sabbath, God gave the

Sabbath to us for our benefit, to be a blessing to us.

It is made for us that we might be refreshed in that day of rest and refreshment, that day of worship and service to the

Lord. It is to be a day set aside unto him, it's a day set aside for rest and refreshment.

This was what he made it for. He didn't make this day as something that would be a torturous, you know, like ogre over us.

We serve the Sabbath. No, the Sabbath serves us. I wonder though, how many of us are actually benefiting from the

Sabbath? How many of us actually make the Lord's Day a day of rest, a day of refreshment?

We go to God's house together, we worship the Lord together, we learn of him together, we make it then a day of spiritual refreshment, and a day of physical rest as the day continues throughout the

Lord's Day. I hope that we will do that, and thereby gain the benefit that the

Sabbath is to be to us, the reason why God gave it to us, to be a blessing, to be a benefit.

Our Father, thank you for this gift, and I pray that we would open it, and that we would receive it, and that we would enjoy it as you have intended.

And this we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a wonderful weekend, and hope we see you on the