LAW HOMILY: Keep The Sabbath

This week, for our confession of sin and reading of the law, we are reading from the 4th commandment, Exodus 20, verses 8 -11. So this week, again, we're on the 4th commandment, that loan of the 10 commandments, which no longer applies, no longer expects any adherence, so long as you can say in your hearts that Jesus is your Sabbath rest.

Christ as Our Sabbath Rest

Just kidding. Rather, we've arrived this morning at the commandment which we most easily throw off the actual commands of in favor of the hyper-spiritual reading of the text. Many Christians have been taught, and rightfully so, that the Lord Jesus is our Sabbath rest.

In Hebrews chapter 4, we read in verses 9 -11,. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God, for he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, this is the rest of Christ, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Jesus is the Sabbath rest for the people of God. He represents the true rest to us from all of our labors, because he and he alone has fulfilled the covenant of works on our behalf.

There is no work for the people of God in accomplishing their own salvation. He has bore the whole weight of it on our behalf, and this is why he calls unto us, Come unto me, and rest, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The Law Requires Inward and Outward Obedience

Now, where we begin to run into problems is in our tendency towards antinomianism, lawlessness, particularly in our culture that ignores the Lord's day entirely. Very often Christians have accepted this merely spiritual understanding of Sabbath rest, essentially neutering the command to only mean that I must believe my salvation is by faith alone, and not by my own works in order to obey it.

But this type of interpretation is strange, it's foreign to our understanding of the law, particularly in light of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, when Jesus says that if you're angry with your brother in your heart, then you've committed murder, is the spiritual application of the law removing the physical requirements it comes with?

Or when he says that if you lust after a woman in your heart, you've committed adultery, is he saying, I don't actually care about the physical act, just your heart? Of course not. We understand, and rightly so, that the law's requirements go beyond our mere outward adherence.

The law requires our inward man to love the righteousness of it as well, not just obey its letter. And in this way, the law to remember the Sabbath day is no different. Is there a spiritual element to it that matters?

Yes, and amen, of course there is. To truly obey this command is not only to not work on the Lord's day, it is to believe that Christ has fulfilled the covenant of works for you, and that in him you have rest from the obligations of that covenant and its consequences for our failure, namely sin and misery, forever.

Resting from Worldly Works on the Lord's Day

But does that negate the physical aspects of the law? Absolutely not. In our remembrance of the Sabbath day, keeping it holy, we are to rest from our worldly works unless they are of mercy or necessity.

Bring rest to our homes, not putting our children or our livestock even to work. We're supposed to bring rest to our companies, not putting our employees or our slaves to work. And we bring rest to our communities, not putting strangers within our gates to work.

The Lord has given this day for us to remember his work on our behalf, and I think even as a testimony to the lost, to the stranger, and to all creation of our Christian rest in him. But when we treat his day just like any other, we blaspheme God and do not remember his day.

Now you might ask, or at least I hope you will, well then what about those people who don't believe and are working in jobs that aren't of mercy and necessity on the Lord's day? I'd say that as it pertains to your obedience, what about them?

You have been given a command by God, whether others follow it or not, to not work, not make your children work, your slaves, your livestock, or the strangers in your communities. What more do we need to know that obedience means to disengage from those things?

The Christian Duty to Keep the Sabbath Distinct

And so what does this mean? I'll speak frankly. There's no reason for the Christian, for example, to go shopping on the Lord's day just because they're open. We should know better and believe that we have better things to fill this day with.

This is the Lord's day, a day we are commanded to remember for the realities that it points to. First, that God created the world in six days and he rested on the seventh. Second, that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, which is why the Lord's day is moved to Sunday in the Christian age.

And third, that in him the people of God have entered into the rest found only in him, a rest of eternal peace with God by faith, not by works. And so may we recover our love for this day and call it a delight, and by faith receive this command as instruction for us in how to love it more and walk closer with our God, the Lord of the Sabbath.

Prayer for Grace to Remember the Sabbath

Let's pray. Father, we do thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for this command. Even when it's hard to understand application, particularly in our time, where commerce is just so prevalent every day of the week, Lord, but even on the Lord's day on Sunday, where it's hard for us to understand application, especially, again, when we've grown up and living in a very different way, we ask you'd give us, Lord, by your grace, you'd give us a resolve of faith, Lord, that would receive your word for what it says, Lord, to remember this day, to keep it holy, to set it apart from the rest of the week.

It is unlike these other six days, not merely because we gather to go to church, Lord, but because this is the day that you have called us to set apart in worship of you. Strengthen us, Lord, in this resolve, where we know that we each have sinned against you in this command.

And so, Lord, we thank you that in Christ we can have confidence in the forgiveness that has been granted to us in him. Lord, again, we ask you'd strengthen us to go forward from here as a people that set apart this day for your glory.

We're not using it to catch up on errands, not using it to go shopping or to find the best sales, Lord, but using it as a day for the worship of our God and for the fellowship with his people. Strengthen us in these things, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. Again, this is a command that many of us have broken, and yet, one we may even be more prone to break, even still, than others. But this morning, I want to encourage us that if you are in Christ, his covering of you is complete.

It is total. As he died for your sins and granted you pardon, he has done that in full. And so, may God grant us strength in our repentance to obey him, and may that begin here with the knowledge that he has fully pardoned us of all our sins.

And so, if you would, I invite you now to stand to receive that pardon. As a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and upon the authority of God's word, hear this from Colossians 3, verses 1 -4. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

The strength of the Christian confession is that we are dead in Christ, we belong to him, and that if we are in him, then we look forward to future glory. May our obedience be strengthened by that future hope.

Amen.