LAW HOMILY (Rest As Rebellion)

The Fourth Commandment and the Meaning of Sabbath Rest

Every week we look at the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people. Today we're on the fourth commandment. I'll read it to you. It's Exodus 20, verses eight through 11.

This is what the word says. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord, your God. In it you shall not do any work.

You or your sons or your daughters, your male or your female servants, or your cattle, or your sojourners who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. Now there is a kind of weariness that vacations cannot mend. There's a hollow fatigue that hums beneath the skin of a culture that will not stop.

We worship at the altar of motion. We're baptized today in the gospel of busyness and we call it virtue. But God commands us to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. The word remember is the Hebrew word zakar.

It doesn't just mean think about it. It doesn't just mean a kind of nostalgic recollection. It actually means to mark it, to memorialize it, to deliberately center your life around God's finished work and rest in creation.

To remember the Sabbath is to stop trying to be God and to start rejoicing that he already is. When God rested on the seventh day, it was not because he was exhausted. It was because he was exalted and his rest was a celebration of the completion of his work.

He looked upon his work and he called it good and then he blessed it and set it apart. Thus, every Sabbath is a weekly covenant sign that proclaims that God is king, not I, and that Christ is sufficient, not our strivings.

The Sabbath as Moral Law and a Weekly Covenant Sign

And if for some reason you tend to fall into the Genesis chapter one is metaphorical or allegorical or that it somehow doesn't apply to us today because it was a different genre, what do you do with Exodus 20?

Which is the law of God, the moral law of God, which means that it's always true for all people and at all times. And it says in Exodus 20, in six days, God made the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them.

And therefore we must rest. The fact that this is so biblically entrenched means we ought to take it seriously. And yet for 50, 60, 70 years, the Sabbath has been treated frivolously. There's a great book I think called The Sabbath of Delight where he traces the history of America through the neglect of the Sabbath and he shows how that we as a country have fallen into depravity right alongside the trend of working on Sunday and patroning businesses on Sunday and shopping on Sunday and treating Sunday as if it's just another day out of the week.

Exodus 20 doesn't allow that. God set it apart, made it holy for us to mark it, for us to memorialize it, and for us to orient our lives around it to rest. Now there are exceptions. For instance, if you're a police officer, I hope you will arrest a criminal on Sunday.

If you're an ER doctor, I hope that you will help people who have heart attacks and broken bones and stubbed toes and other things on Sunday. The Westminster Confession allows for acts of mercy, but for the most of us who are not in a job like that where we have to work on Sunday, let's memorialize it, orient our lives around it, glorify God in it.

God has given us a day every week to do nothing but work for him. It's not a day to sit in our pajamas and throw our feet up and watch the next Netflix special or whatever. That's not rest. That's a kind of work of gorging ourselves on things that we shouldn't be gorging ourselves on.

Instead, let us do the work of God on this day. Let us share the gospel. Let us read our Bibles. Let us pray. Let us be at church every Lord's Day and feast at the table of Christ and let us not neglect it.

That's why Hebrews says to not neglect the gathering.

Why?

Because it's so important that we be about the Lord's work on the Lord's Day. So wherever we've fallen short in that, and all of us have fallen short on that, let's repent, let's lay our sins down at the foot of the cross, and let's come to the only one who can forgive us.

Amen?

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you that the kingdom of God is not comprised of a litany of perfect people, but of Sabbath breakers and covenant breakers and all sorts. We are thankful, however, that there is one and only one who is faithful, because Lord Jesus, through your faithfulness, we've been made whole.

Forgive us of our many sins. Cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Help us to remember the ways that we've transgressed against you. Help us to confess those sins with joy, and help us to receive your pardon and your forgiveness, and Lord, we thank you for it.

We thank you that if we ask, you're faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. Lord, we thank you, and we praise you for that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For all of us who are forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ, there is passage upon passage upon passage in the Bible that exemplifies our pardon.

The Prodigal Son and the Joy of Divine Forgiveness

Today we're in Luke 15, 20 through 24. This is the story of the prodigal son. So he got up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fattened calf, kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again.

He was lost and has been found and they began to celebrate. I love this because his confession wasn't even perfect. He confesses, I've sinned against heaven and earth, period. He should have stopped there.

Then he says, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Only God can determine that. And God said, kill the fattened calf. Let's celebrate because the son of mine was dead and now he's alive.

That's us.

We should be dead, but we're alive in Jesus Christ and God in heaven and all of his angels celebrate the fact. Just the parable before when one lost sinner is found, all of heaven erupts in praise. That's the God we serve who loves us and cares for us and forgives us and sings over us with joy because we're his.

Confessing Faith After Receiving Mercy

So stand with me joyfully and let us confess our faith together, amen. Dear Christian, as you're standing and knees are popping,.

What do you believe?

Therefore, following the Holy Father.