July 5, 2009 Pastor Tim Pusey

WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT SUNDAYS?
Deuteronomy 5:12-15

 

It’s so good to be back with you this morning…

As we continue in this series on the Ten Commandments, let’s begin by reminding ourselves of all Ten of them by singing the little ditty the kids taught us a few weeks ago:
One—Don’t worship other gods
Two—No graven images
Three—Don’t take God’s name in vain
Four—The Sabbath is for rest
Five—Obey your mom and dad
Six—Don’t ever, ever kill
Seven—Be faithful to your spouse
(8) And don’t steal, (9) don’t lie, (10) don’t wish for other people’s things!

This morning we center in on Commandment Four. Let’s turn to our Bibles to read it.
12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. 15 Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the LORD your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15, NLT)

I remember when all the stores were closed on Sundays—nothing was open. Growing up, my family would go to Sunday School and Church Sunday morning, go home for dinner and for maybe some quiet play-time with a friend, then back to church for the youth service and then the Sunday evening service. My family didn’t eat out often, but we didn’t think about eating out on Sundays. We also wouldn’t get the Sunday paper—because we’d been taught not to read secular literature on Sundays—it would distract us from the true purpose of the Sabbath. I think TV was generally held off until after church Sunday nights.

I was a seminary student working at a shoe store in Kansas City when the city voted to repeal what they called “The Blue Law.” The Blue Law stated that only businesses considered essential could be open on Sundays—and I recall that our store manager was so excited about getting rid of the Blue Law so that they could keep the shoe store open on Sundays. It struck me at the time as being purely motivated by greed—I figured people could only buy so many pairs of shoes anyway, so couldn’t figure the necessity of a shoe store being open on Sundays.

Now…it seems like for most people Sunday is a day like every other—except that most people don’t go to their places of work on Sundays and so it leaves them more time for golf, fishing, camping, and watching sports on TV. Even for some in the Christian community, Sunday is seen as a “family day”—a “family day” that often takes precedence over gathering with other believers to worship. Restaurants thrive on Sundays, as Christians flood the best eating places—and I’ll confess that Cindy and I are often among those eating out. Sundays can be busy days at malls and department stores and amusement parks. We know that there’s a commandment somewhere about “the Sabbath,” but we’re not sure it applies here and now. After all, what’s so special about Sunday?

God’s Word instructs us to set apart one day a week as a holy day—unlike all the others. It is “a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.” It is not to be a work day like all the others. It is one day among every seven set apart for the purpose of re-centering our lives around our Creator God, our Redeemer, our Lord.

We may have heard a lot in the past about all the things we aren’t suppose to do on the Sabbath, but let’s start with what we are to do. This commandment is not about a kill-joy God wanting to remove any hint of pleasure from our lives at least one day of the week. Rather, it’s about God building into the rhythm of our lives one day a week when our lives are recalibrated to be focused on Him all week long. This is about submitting ourselves to God’s plan—trusting that He loves us deeply and knows what we need. Just as God rested after His seven days of creative work, the Israelites were called upon to remember the Sabbath because the Lord had brought them out of Egyptian slavery, thus delivering them from their bondage.

Have you ever wondered why God rested after the six days of Creation? Was He tired? Did it wear Him out? Does God tucker out at the end of the week like we do? No, the reason God rested had nothing to do with fatigue. After the 6th day of Creation, the heavens and the earth were complete and perfect. God sat back on the seventh day to appreciate the finished results of His creation. The purpose of the Sabbath was to give the Israelites—and us!—time to reflect, not on our own works, but on God’s. God provides refreshment to our whole beings when we are reminded again that our physical needs were supplied and are supplied not by our own efforts, but by the God who created the universe and who gave us life.

You may already know that the Ten Commandments were first given to the people of Israel after their deliverance from slavery. God had called Moses to meet with Him up on the mountain, and Moses returned with the tablets of stone, with the Ten Commandments etched upon those stone tablets by the hand of God. This is recorded in Exodus, chapter 20. In Exodus, Moses focused on reflecting on the God of Creation on the Sabbath.

Where I’ve chosen to read the Ten Commandments from comes from a scene later in Moses’ life. In Deuteronomy, the focus was on God the Deliverer. Moses was near the end of his life, and was getting ready to turn the leadership of the people of Israel over to Joshua. The Deuteronomy, chapter 5, recitation of the Ten Commandments was his reminder to the people of that which is so very important. By then they experienced more of life, and thus he gives a broader reasoning for observing the Sabbath. Here Moses is teaching the Israelites that what was true of Creation is also true of redemption. Just as the spoken Word of God made possible physical life in Creation, it also became the means through which God had met the Israelites’ needs. God had spoken the Word and the people had been delivered from their slavery and given a new lease on life. All the feasts they were called to observe were other reminders of God’s redemption of their lives. And so the Sabbath is a time to reflect on God’s work in our lives.

One of the remarkable blessings of a Christian is the acknowledgement of God’s deliverance in our lives. While I’m guessing that none of us has experienced deliverance from slavery in a literal way, when we came to Christ and received His forgiveness, we were set free from the bondage to our own sin and guilt. He has forgiven us! And we are never to forget it! Setting aside the Sabbath day as a holy day, dedicated to the Lord, is one of the important ways in which we keep that deliverance fresh in our minds and keep our lives centered on the Christ who provided forgiveness for us!

We believe that God changes lives! He delivers sinners from the entrapment of their sin! He takes away our guilt, and grants us the peace of forgiveness! For some of us, that deliverance is more dramatic than for others. We’ve been hearing testimonies from people on Sunday evening’s Prayer and Praise time—and it really has become great cause for praise. All around us are tremendous examples of God’s deliverance—and much of what the Sabbath is to be about is building into our lives a day a week to center ourselves around the God who has delivered us!

I suppose an obvious question relating to observing the Sabbath is why we now do that on Sunday—the first day of the week. Didn’t God rest on the last day of the week—Saturday? Isn’t that the Jewish Sabbath? Yes—those things are true. But in the New Testament, the ritual elements of the Jewish Sabbath are superseded by the work of Christ. It was on the first day of the week that Christ rose from the dead. The early Christians found themselves drawn to worship on that day, focusing on the new life made possible by the Resurrection of Jesus. We refer to it as “The Lord’s Day.” Our Sabbath has moved from the last day of the week to the first day of week, commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord and the new creation that comes into our lives by faith in Him. While in Exodus, the focus was on the God of Creation, and in Deuteronomy, the God of Deliverance, in the New Testament, Christ has taken the stage as the ultimate Redeemer. But still, the Sabbath is a time we are to build into our lives when we slow down from everything else in order to re-center our lives around God and our dependence upon Him. We need that—and God knew it all along!

Unashamedly, Moses tried to spell out what making the Sabbath a holy day would mean for us—in terms of what we aren’t to do on those days. Let me pick up reading halfway through Deuteronomy 5:14—
On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. (Deuteronomy 5:14, NLT)

Get the picture? And again, if you have problems with this, talk with God—don’t fuss at me! I didn’t write this! But God did—because He knows us and knows what we need. Our Sabbath—Sunday—is to be a day of rest dedicated to the Lord! We’re not supposed to work on Sundays like we do every other day. We’re not supposed to force our family to work on Sunday—or those who may be employed by us! We’re not even supposed to make our animals work on Sundays! Your dog’s not even supposed to work on Sunday!

Now, when we read through the Bible, we get the idea pretty quickly that, almost immediately, it became a struggle to maintain the Sabbath as a holy day—so what we’re experiencing in our culture now is really nothing new. It’s certainly not a new battle. The Jews, in an effort to clarify what was work and what wasn’t and what was allowed on the Sabbath and what wasn’t, developed 39 classifications of work. They made seemingly endless lists of rules regarding what was not permitted on the Sabbath. By the time of Jesus, the original intent of the Sabbath had been completely distorted, and the Sabbath had become a burden rather than a blessing.

You may recall the scene when Jesus went through the grain fields with His disciples on the Sabbath day. They were hungry and the disciples began to pluck grain and eat it. It was the perfectly logical thing to do! When the Pharisees—the rigid law-keepers among the Jews—saw Jesus and His disciples plucking the grain and eating it, they were astounded! They publicly condemned Jesus, saying, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” Jesus responded, saying,
“Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:25-28, NIV)

Although Jesus came to fulfill the law and not to destroy it, His statement that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” removed the law forever from the unwholesome restrictions of the Pharisees. Our keeping of Sunday is not an observance of the 7th day but of the first, as in the nature of a new commandment based on a new covenant. Nevertheless, it fulfills the old commandment. The principle—the importance of setting aside a day of rest to reflect on God’s glorious work and our dependence upon Him—remains the same.

But make no mistake about it, Sunday—our Sabbath—is not to be like any other day in our week! It is to be “a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God.” We, even in the Christian world, have too easily turned it into a day that’s all about us! Imagine! Us turning something God designed to be centered around Him into that which seems to center around us!—in yet another realm of our lives! The Sabbath is to be a holy day, set aside to remember our Creator God, to recalibrate all of the rest of the days of the week to be centered again around Him—our Deliverer!

We have tended to make Sunday a day of recreation—which, in the literal sense of the word, is a day to “recreate” ourselves, to be renewed and refreshed ourselves. God wants to refresh us, but He wants to accomplish that in a deeper way than we can accomplish when we’re merely focusing on ourselves. He wants to refresh us and renew us by centering on Him, and as we renew our faith and trust in Him.

I know—it’s pretty daring to say such a thing when you’re living in a recreation haven like Idaho! And on the 4th of July weekend, no less—when many are out camping in the mountains and the lakes. But I must tell you that any observance of the Sabbath that minimizes our focus on God seems to violate the Fourth Commandment. Our tendency is to worship the created rather than the Creator. And there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the beauty of the earth God created—and Idaho has a lot of natural, God-given beauty to enjoy! But we must be careful not to worship the created rather than the Creator!

All through Scripture, God has called His people to come together to worship Him. It’s so appropriate that we come together as fellow believers to worship Him on Sundays, the day of the week we’re instructed in His Word to pull away from our regular routines and demands and to center on Him. What Christians have been doing on Sundays throughout the ages is a good thing! Let’s not abandon it! It is one of the significant ways in which we live out the Ten Commandments! God has called us to set aside this day as a day dedicated to Him—and that’s exactly what we do when we come together to worship Him! God knows how much we need to do this—and that we need to do it weekly!

Now, let me address a fair question—a matter of great concern to some. What about those who have to work on the Sabbath? Our daughter Krista is a pediatric nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise. Kids are still sick and in the hospital on Sundays—that’s just the way it is. And, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, one of the most demanding days of my week is Sundays! (I know…there are those who think I only work one day of the week, so what’s the big deal!…but I’ll assure you that’s not the case!) And while some may have discretion as to whether or not they work on Sundays, there are certainly those who do not—and it becomes a challenge, because, as humans, we still have the need for all of what God has designed for the Sabbath to be in our lives.

I believe that Christians who have to work on Sundays have a spiritual obligation and a human need to build into their lives another day that addresses that need. Mine has always been Mondays. If you call the church office on Mondays, you’ll find that I’m not here. I work hard Tuesday through Sunday, and I need one day a week when I can slow down from the pace of life to re-center my life on the Lord. Sundays are a time of worship for me—and even when I’m on vacation I do everything I can to gather with other believers for worship. But in my humanness, I need a day of reprieve from my ongoing responsibilities—and that’s why I have throughout my years of ministry religiously observed Monday as a day off. Those who work on Sundays must carve out ways to accomplish the same. It’s not so much that God demands it—though He does; it’s that God commands it because He, our Creator, knows what we need.

Brothers and sisters in Christ—we cannot ignore this commandment. And make no mistake about it: it is a commandment, not a suggestion! It’s right up there with not worshipping any other gods and with not murdering. It’s one of the Top Ten! We aren’t allowed to pick and choose from those, or to edit it according to what we think we need. If we ignore it, if we treat it casually, if we pick and choose which Sundays we’re going to observe as Sabbaths and which we’re going to ignore, then there are consequences, because God knows what we need. If we ignore the worship dimension of the Sabbath—the re-calibrating our lives around God once a week—there are no doubt spiritual consequences. People find themselves on the slippery slide away from whole-hearted devotion to God. They become lukewarm…then cold to the things of God. They become distracted by other things in life, and ultimately may walk away from God altogether. We need to gather with the people of God to celebrate God’s mighty acts and to recommit ourselves to Him within the Body of Christ, the community of faith we call the Church.

There’s also the physical/emotional consequences, for God created us in such a way that we must maintain a certain rhythm to life—a rhythm of work and rest, and a rhythm of worship in the midst of our ongoing demands of life. I teach a masters-level course for pastors every couple of years at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, and one of the premises of the class is our need for balance and a healthy sense of rhythm in our personal lives—even as pastors.

So what’s so special about Sundays? It’s a God-ordained day of rest in our week, set apart as a holy day, dedicated to the Lord our God. It is not to be a day of work. We’ve got six other days to get that done. It’s a day to rest from our work and to center on the Lord.

What should you do or not do on the Sabbath? While I’m not going to specify all of what they mean in your life, suffice it to say that I believe it’s a day you need to make every effort to gather to worship with other believers. Make it a high priority to be in worship on the Sabbath! And then don’t just go home and make the day like any other—get your work done on the other days so that on Sunday you can quiet your soul and your mind and your body. Give yourself permission to take a nap this afternoon if you want to! Don’t schedule Sunday like every other day! Be mindful when what you choose to do impacts how others may or may not be able to remember the Sabbath. Seek the heart and mind of God for your life and for your home. And may the Lord bless our lives as we submit ourselves to this commandment and as we seek, above all other things, His blessing in our lives.