Fulfilled in Christ - Part 3 — Duane Troyer

I'd like to share a thought with you. In Hebrew, the Serbic priests, they say, shalom, shalom. It's the same word. Jesus and her and Jesus, they're very much linked together. They say, shalom, shalom.

That's what I find. Amen. And Isaiah 26 says, Shalom, shalom.

Alright. I appreciate those thoughts. I appreciate the opening. I think it very much touches on a characteristic of God. He will not be angry forever, the scriptures say. He is very much able to hold his peace.

I really appreciated the ending thoughts there, Norman, about eternal rest and eternal unrest. And it very much ties in with things I want to talk about today. I want to wrap up this series that I started a few weeks ago about fulfilled in Christ.

And this study has been a blessing to me. I hope it's been a blessing to you. It's been big. It's one of those things where I'm trying to cram the most important of the things in this message. We could just keep going on.

About how Christ is the fulfillment of everything. And this all started out with wanting to do a message of the Sabbath. Today's message is mostly about the Sabbath. As for wrapping up, the ways that we can be enlightened and inspired and encouraged by how Christ fulfills, there is no wrapping up.

Maybe once Christ returns and wraps up the sky like a scroll and we sit at his feet, maybe then there is just so much. Let's pray before we go on. Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, for this beautiful day, and this place to gather and people to gather with.

Thank you for the edification we've already received this morning. Help us to apply these things to our lives. We pray that you would help us now as we continue to look into your word, that your spirit could illuminate things for us and guide us into your ways.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So I hope the skeleton we talked about in the first message I hope has some flesh and hopefully maybe we can blow some breath in it today or get it to see how it applies in our lives, especially how this subject of the Sabbath should look today.

The Old and New Covenants Fulfilled in Christ

I hope in the other two messages I've established that there is an old covenant and that there is a new covenant. Remember, a covenant is a relationship, it's a partnership, it's a binding agreement. And God communicates with his creation through a covenant.

God did not break his covenants with Adam and Noah and Abraham and Moses and David. He's still keeping them. They are not destroyed as in demolished. They are fulfilled. They're fulfilled in Christ with such a glory that surpasses the glory of the old covenant that the old fades away like the moon and the stars do when the sun comes up.

I hope it is well established in our minds that the new covenant is not just a renewed covenant. It is the fulfillment of the shadows, the figures, the types, and all those things of the old covenant.

It comes with a new priesthood and as it says in Hebrews, of necessity, when there is a change of priesthood, there is a change of law. It comes with a new law and with a new lawgiver. And I hope it is established in our minds that the old and the new covenant cannot be heirs together.

Not any more than Isaac and Ishmael can be heirs together in the promise that Abraham had. The old and the new covenant cannot be heirs together. I hope it's established that the old covenant, its laws and precepts cannot lead us into Christ's promise.

Any more than Moses was able to lead Israel into the land of Canaan. And that there is a distinction between the law and the prophets and the things that Jesus said. It is through that framework that we'll take a look at the Sabbath.

The Mosaic Law as a Schoolmaster

Before I get into the Sabbath, I want to talk a little bit yet about schoolmasters. Paul says this in Galatians 3. He says, A good schoolmaster will work himself out of a job. A good schoolmaster takes somebody without understanding and he teaches and he instructs and he brings them to this place where he has understanding and then he's not needed anymore.

He's become useless. The person has gained what the schoolmaster can offer. And now the schoolmaster has worked himself out of this job. And that's what the Mosaic Law should do for us. It should work itself into uselessness for us.

The Mosaic Law brings us to Christ but not into Christ. It brings a slave into freedom but not a free man into a conqueror. It brings us from negative to ground zero but not above that. So this is kind of how this works.

You've got a man who's in the negative. He's a lazy thief and he goes around and instead of working with his hand, he just robs for what he wants. And he hears the Law of Moses that is severe enough to make the whole mountain shake and he hears, Thou shalt not steal.

And it convicts him. And it brings him from that place of being a thief to this place where he now works with his own hands. And he gathers what he needs by the sweat of his brow. He becomes an honest man, a just man.

Or the murderer who went around killing people and shedding people's blood. He hears this trembling schoolmaster law says, Thou shalt not kill. And it convicts him and he comes to this place where he quits shedding blood.

And you could do this down through all these laws. And if a man governs himself by these laws, if we govern ourselves, if we govern our families, if a nation governs by these laws, they'll be blessed.

They'll really be blessed. They'll receive blessings. The law makes a man just, fair, right, equal. It is eye for eye. It is tooth for tooth. It is ox for ox. It is ass for ass. It is equal, just, and fair.

That's what the law is doing. But here comes Jesus and he brings the faith. He brings in the new covenant and he writes on our heart a new commandment. He said this thing to the apostles just before he died.

He said, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another the way I have loved you. And Jesus demonstrated that love by his selfless, sacrificial life. And he also taught about it. And so this is what this thief that had stopped stealing and now came to this place where he's working and not stealing anymore, he hears Jesus and he hears, If someone takes your coat, forbid him not to take your cloak.

If someone steals your possessions, don't ask him back. He's like, What? You mean it's not good enough for me to just stop stealing? I'm also supposed to suffer it when someone steals what I have? That's what he's saying.

Or the murderer, he hears Jesus, who quit murdering because he heard the schoolmaster, he hears Jesus say, Resist not the evildoer. If someone smites you on the right cheek, turn the other one. He hears him say, Be as a sheep that goes to the slaughter.

And he's like, What? I mean, it's not good enough for me to just stop killing people? Taking people's lives? I'm supposed to suffer it if people want to take my life? This doesn't sound like blessings anymore.

It starts sounding like suffering. Consider the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, Well, what are the commandments? Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother.

And he's quoting Sinai, right? He's quoting the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. And this rich young ruler says, I've kept all those from my youth. Jesus knew something. He knew that in spite of him keeping all these things from his youth, within him is a heart that has not been touched yet with the new covenant.

He is not loving his neighbors as himself. In fact, he's a very rich man. And he said something to this man that was never, ever quoted in the Torah. He said, If you want to be perfect, go sell what you have, give it to the poor, come and follow me.

And it was too much. This man walked away sorrowful. This was too much. This was not the blessing he was wanting. The old covenant can bring a man from a self-destructive life to a self-preserving life, but it cannot bring us to this selfless life of Christ.

And it's where most people stop. It's where most people say, I'm good. I don't break the Ten Commandments. And life is a blessing. And they walk away from the message of the new covenant. It's why Jesus said, No one having drunk old wine straightaway desires new, for he says the old is better.

That is the Mosaic law. It is a schoolmaster, and if we are to enter the kingdom of God, it will work itself out of a job. It will work itself into uselessness. God can change his laws without changing his will.

Just like we can change our rules for our children without changing our will. And we do this all the time. I'm sure all of us parents do. Let me give you an example. If I live along a real busy road, I make a rule for my little children, You shall not cross the road.

Don't cross the road. It's a precept. It's simple. It's understandable. And that's my rule. But my will is, I don't want my child to get hit on the road. In fact, once my child is older, I not only allow him to cross the road, I'll sometimes command him to cross the road.

I'll instruct him to cross the road. It's because at the heart of what I wanted was not that you can't be on the other side of the road or cross it. It's that I didn't want you hit. And you were not at a level.

Your heart, your comprehension was not there. But once that's there, I'll command you to do the very thing that I had commanded you not, and I have not changed one bit as a father. It's the same way with positive commands.

I want my children to be thankful. And when somebody gives them something, I want them to say thank you. And if they don't say thank you, they can't have the thing that was given to them. But once they have a thankful heart, there's no need for that rule.

They'll express their thankfulness in ways far beyond thank you. But I'm working towards something. There's a will and there's a command, and they're not always the same thing. The command is a means to an end, and not the end in itself.

God had to give commands to a people who were stiff-necked and rebellious and hard-hearted in the old covenant. But in the new covenant, there is a change of law. It says that in Hebrews that there's a change of law.

Because we enter into this covenant with people, God enters into this covenant with people who have a willing heart and a willing mind and have a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone. Here in Hebrews 7, verses 17 to 19, where it's again talking about the priesthood, it says,.

For it is attested of him that you are a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. For on one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness. For the law made nothing perfect.

And on the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Justin Martyr says,. For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision and the Sabbath and, in short, all the feasts if we did not know for what reason they were commanded you, namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts.

The Sabbath Commandment at Sinai

All right. How does this pertain to the Sabbath? In the first message, we talked about Sinai, Mount Sinai, where the children of Israel came there in the wilderness and the shaking and the thundering and the voice and how what was said there should not be taken lightly.

The ten commandments that God orally spoke were later written into tables of stone with God's own finger. And the fourth commandment says,. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

And then he references creation and says,. For in six days God created heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested. A few chapters later there in Exodus, God expounded this further to Moses and this is what he said.

In chapter 31 of Exodus, verse 12, he says,. Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, You shall direct the children of Israel, saying, See to it that you keep my Sabbaths, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

You shall keep the Sabbath, because this is holy for you to the Lord. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. For whoever works on it, thou shalt be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath, a holy rest to the Lord.

Whoever works on the seventh day shall be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe them throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.

For in six days the Lord created heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he ceased and rested. It is a sign of a perpetual covenant, a sign between me and Israel forever. There's not too much ambiguity there.

We know what this means. In the first message we talked about maybe there's ambiguity about what consists of work, but even that, the scripture has some pretty plain examples. We know that gathering is work.

They were not to gather manna. The man gathering sticks was killed. You were not to kindle a fire, not to start a fire. That was considered work. You were not to carry a burden. That was considered work.

And if you want to know how serious this is to God, let's look at that short account in Numbers where the man was gathering sticks. It says, Now while the children of Israel were in the desert, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

So those who found him gathering wood on the Sabbath day brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation and of the children of Israel. They put him under guard because they had not decided what to do with him.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Let the man be surely put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones. So as the Lord ordered Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones.

Whatever this thing is of keeping the Sabbath is not something God takes lightly. Or I should say of breaking the Sabbath. He does not take it lightly. This day is to be holy. That means it's supposed to be set apart.

They were supposed to finish their work by the end of the sixth day so that on the seventh day it could be set apart as a day in which they abstain from their normal occupation. The Israelites were to walk in all these commands of the Lord and then they would be blessed.

The blessings will find them, it says in Deuteronomy. You shall be blessed in the city. You shall be blessed in the country. Blessed be your ground. Blessed be your herds. Blessed be your flocks. Blessed shall be your storehouses.

You will lend to many and you will not borrow. You will be the head and not the tail. And you know what? It still works this way. If you put into practice these things, you get earthly blessings. If you work hard and if you are honest and if you live in a cleanly way and if you eat wholesome foods, generally speaking, you'll receive earthly blessings.

It still works just like it did for Israel. But he also says this. In spite of the fact that you can work and receive all these blessings, your flocks, your herds, you'll get rich, you'll abound, he says, but don't forget me.

I want you to give one-tenth of these blessings to the priests. Okay? You can keep your 90 for yourself, but I want 10 to go to the priests. And he says, I want you to take one out of seven days and I want you to stop your work.

And I want you to dedicate that to me. Very, very interestingly, these things didn't apply to the Levites and the priests. The priests who were set apart to do the Lord's work, they did not tithe and they did really not keep the Sabbath either.

There were the daily offerings. Every day they brought in sheep and they killed them and they offered them up. And they offered up drink offerings and grain offerings. And on the Sabbath, in addition to the daily offering, they did more offerings.

This included catching these animals. It included killing them. It included preparing them, kindling a fire, putting them on the altar. And any of you who have any experience butchering animals know that it's work.

It is hard work. We start seeing that God must not be against laborious tasks on the Sabbath day. There must be something beyond that. Right? It must be that that command, do not work, is not the end in itself.

He must have a will that is greater than the command. And the prophet Isaiah starts eluding to this. In chapter 58 of Isaiah, and most of you are probably familiar with it, it's that chapter where he talks about the fast.

He says, what is the fast that I desire? Is it for you to stop eating and afflicting yourselves? Is that the fast I've chosen? He says, no. The fast I've chosen is that you release the oppressed and you break every yoke and you undo the heavy burdens and the bonds of wickedness.

And then at the end of that chapter, this is what he says. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasures, not speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth.

I really think it's interesting how he says, not, don't seek your pleasures on my day. He's emphasizing, in this whole chapter, Isaiah is emphasizing the spiritual and substantial value of these things.

In fasting, he's saying, look, it's not so much about you guys not eating. What's really supposed to be happening is you're supposed to be forgiving. You're supposed to be releasing whoever you've got oppressed.

You're supposed to be breaking the yokes of people that are under oppression. That's what's really supposed to be happening. And concerning the Sabbath, it's not so much about no work. The real thing that's supposed to be happening is that you stop from your own ways.

Stop, stop, you know, cease from your own pleasures and from your own pursuits. In other words, we should be resting from our own works to enter into His work. Let's look at one more prophetic word in the Old Testament about the Sabbath.

Entering God's Rest Through Faith

And it's in Psalm 95. The word Sabbath is not used here. But in Psalm 95, starting in verse 6, it says, Come, let us worship and fall down before Him, and let us weep before the Lord who made us. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. During the day of testing in the desert, where your fathers tempted me and tested me and saw my works, for forty years I was treated with contempt by that generation.

And I said, they always go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Now the reason we know that this is a prophetic word about the Sabbath is because it was revealed to the Apostle Paul, even though the word Sabbath is not here.

So, you would disagree with what part? That it's not there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So David here, he's making a reference to something that happened in the past. Back when the children, back when God wanted to bring them into the land of Canaan, and they did not believe Him.

And then in His anger, He said, I swear in my wrath, they will not enter my rest. David is making reference to that while he's also prophetically saying, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Okay.

In another Psalm, David says, the Lord God has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. I want you to think about that. He has not, He made us, not we ourselves. We are His people, the sheep in His pasture.

That should give us a lot of rest for our soul. God made us, right? We don't have to make ourselves. He made us the way we are. He made our gender. He made the color of our hair. He made the color of our skin.

He made the color of our eyes. He decided how tall we're going to be, how many limbs we're going to have, or how... Caleb's limbs are shorter than mine, but He made him that way because He wanted him that way.

And He made us the way He wanted to make us. And then He wants us to be in His pasture. Being in God's pasture means we have green pastures and still waters and everything is supplied for us. It should be a very restful thought that He made us and we are the people of His pasture.

He made everything in six days. And in one place in the scripture it says He made it for His pleasure. And then He rested from His creative works. He rested from making things and began to work at caring for creation.

And He partnered up with man in the care of His creation to spread goodness over the whole earth. And David in this psalm is saying today, if you hear my voice, if you hear this and if you want to enter this pasture, if you want to enter this rest, today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

And what Paul writes in Hebrews about this I think is very helpful in understanding the Sabbath. In Hebrews 4, we'll read verses 1 -11. It says, Therefore let us fear, if while a promise remains of entering His rest, any of you may seem to have come short of it.

For indeed we have good news preached to us, just as they also. But the word they heard did not profit them, because it was united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day, and God rested on the seventh day from all His works. And again in this passage, they shall not enter my rest.

Therefore since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as had been said before, Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself rested from his works, as God did from His.

Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience. So when should we keep the Sabbath? Today. Any day that you can call today, that day, you should keep the Sabbath.

How should we keep it? We should cease from our own works. We should cease from making, from making things for our own pleasure. And we should enter into this rest with God. And this rest does not mean no physical work.

Not at all. God kept right on working ever since He created the world. Like the priests in the temple, the work of the redemption of mankind is a non-stop thing. God has been working 24 -7. He doesn't slumber.

He doesn't grow weary. God keeps working every day, the work of the kingdom. Did you know that Jesus says that? Jesus says that God works on the Sabbath. There's that account in John 5 where there's this man laying beside that pool of Bethesda.

And he's been crippled, ill for 38 years. And he's laying beside that pool and he's wishing to get into that pool for healing. But he never makes it in. When the waters get stirred, he never makes it in first.

And so he's laying there and Jesus comes upon him and he sees this man and he says, do you want to be healed? And he says, yes, I want to be healed, but I never make it into the pool. And Jesus says, rise up, pick up your bed, and walk.

And this man who's been crippled for 38 years gets up and he picks up his bed or his pallet, whatever it is. Some versions say pallet, some versions say bed. Some kind of a cot that he was on all these years.

And he picks it up and he takes this burden and starts walking down the street. And the Jews see it and they say, hey, it's the Sabbath. It's not permissible for you to carry that thing. And he said, well, the guy that healed me, he told me to pick it up and carry it.

And once they figured out who had healed him and who had said this, they came to Jesus accusing him. And what did Jesus say? He said, my father works hitherto and I work. There's no mistaking this language.

He is, he is, he is basically saying, my father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath, and I'm working too. It made the Jews even more furious. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, he was making himself equal with God.

Those are words from John, okay? In case, unless John would just be trying to say what the Jews are saying, John himself says, not only did he break the Sabbath, he made himself equal with God. And this brings us to another thing that Jesus said, and we'll read this in Matthew chapter 12.

Starting in verse 1, it says, at that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.

And he said to them, have you not read what David did when he became hungry? He and his companions, how he entered the house of God and they ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for them to eat, him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?

And have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, I desire compassion and not a sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. If the showbread, which was to be holy, meaning set apart, for the priests only, if it could be broken because of who David was, because of the greatness of David, if that law could be broken, or if the, because of the greatness of the temple and the priests, the Sabbath could be broken for that purpose, Jesus is saying, there's something greater here than David or the temple.

He was the very Lord of the Sabbath. He is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. It was one of those, it was one of those many statements that Jesus made where he injects himself into scripture. Jesus said these many things that seem like really audacious statements.

When he says things like, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the resurrection. I am the bread of life. I am the word. Really? Like every scribe, every rabbi, has the right to expound on the scriptures.

He has the right to say, this is what the light is, this is what the way is, but no one has the right to say, the way? It's me. You want to know what the truth is? It's me. I mean, those are just big, big statements.

And here in this Matthew passage, I think this is what Jesus is doing. In fact, if you're open there to Matthew 12, remember, chapter breaks weren't there. Look at the very end of chapter 11. And this was at the same time.

It says it's at the same time. This is what Jesus says. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Really? On the Sabbath day, to Jews who were having a day of rest? He says, hey you, come to me if you want rest. You guys that are heavy laden? Come here. I'll give you rest. My burden's light. Those were big statements.

He is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus, the Son of God, He is the fulfillment of all things. He is the promised seed. He is the rock in the wilderness. He is the new lawgiver. He is the priest, the prophet, the king, the lamb, the manna.

He is our feast. He is our drink offering. He is our Sabbath rest. It can't be said much clearer than how Paul says it in Colossians. No one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink or in respect to the feast, new moon, or Sabbath day.

These things which are a mere shadow, but the substance is Christ. Okay. I want to talk about, just briefly, talk about some of the common objections to this idea. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Are we allowed to break one and keep nine?

I hope I've sufficiently covered that in contrasting the two covenants and the fading away of the old with the coming of the new. Objection number two. It's from the beginning. It's not just the Mosaic Law thing.

There was this thing in the beginning where God worked six days and then rested. I hope I've sufficiently covered that with how God did not stop working. He stopped working from his, he stopped from his creative works.

He stopped creating this whole thing for his pleasure and he started working on the care of redemption and the care of his creation. Objection number three. Jesus never broke the Sabbath. First of all, that's debatable.

John says he did. But regardless, he is Lord of the Sabbath. He can make it. He can break it. He can change it. He can render it. He can render it useless and void and he can inject himself into it. He's Lord of it.

He can do with it whatever he wants. Objection number four. Why did Jesus say, pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath? If he was intending that we would keep the Sabbath, why did he say there in Matthew 24, I think, pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath?

First, let me say, we've got to be careful with that kind of reasoning. I'm not saying it's not a legitimate question. It is a legitimate question. But we have to be careful when we have an instruction and then we hear something that we say, well, why would he have said this if he meant this?

People do this all the time with the thing that Jesus said about, told his disciples, go buy a sword. After he teaches everything about non-resistance, and a lot of people say, well, if he meant that, he would not have said, go buy a sword.

You just have to be careful with those kind of reasonings. There may be a specific reason why Jesus said something for a specific time and we for sure can't build on silence. I'll tell you what my opinion is on why Jesus said that.

He was talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. He's telling the people, these are the signs that are going to happen before Jerusalem gets destroyed and you guys need to flee. But pray that your flight be not in the winter or on the Sabbath and woe to you who are pregnant at that time.

It's going to be real, real, real dire times. Now, the church at Jerusalem was mostly believing Jews. By becoming believers, it doesn't mean that they immediately stopped the customs, the practices that have been ingrained in them for generations and generations and generations.

They may have had the liberty to do things on the Sabbath, but it doesn't mean that their conscience allowed it. It's never saying that it's wrong for you to rest one day out of the week. It's not wrong for you to keep the dietary laws.

It's not. Those things aren't wrong. We don't see the disciples going around trying to convince believing Jews that they need to quit that. What we see is them fighting to keep the believing Jews from binding Gentiles and other believers to those things because it's not where salvation is found.

It's not where it's not where the kingdom of God is. And I think, okay, maybe that's all for that. Objection number five, the apostles kept the Sabbath. I don't know if they always did or not, but it really doesn't change that much.