Read Genesis 2:1-3
We are going to use some church words today. You have heard them all—sanctified, consecrated, holy, made holy, declared holy, set aside, purified, and even the term ordain. Today we use the term made holy in this text from Genesis.
God made the Sabbath holy.
We will use some of the original language as well, such as קָדַשׁ (kaw-dash'). It is where we derive many of the other words we just talked about. Consecrate, ordain, sanctify, and made holy.
God set apart the Sabbath and made it special to him and for us. It is set apart from other days.
God made this day special. He made it holy. After six days of creating, God took a day of rest and set it apart from the days of labor. The scripture didn’t say God was tired. It didn’t say he was exhausted. It said he took a day and rested from six days of creating.
In fact, God did a little work on the Sabbath. He created the Sabbath. He made it holy. I guess it wasn’t the Sabbath until he created it so technically, he didn’t work on the Sabbath.
In addition to making it holy, he blessed it. The original language would use the word בָרַךְ (baw-rak'). The word translated as bless or blessed appears over 275 times in the Old Testament. It has two basic definitions: kneel and bless. Bless is the term that we know but unlike other ancient terms it does not have a plethora of definitions.
That does not mean that we don’t try to expand the original definition with context and an understanding of modern syntax.
And even in modern context, the word bless has among its first definitions to sanctify, make holy, or consecrate. Again, God is saying this day is special. I am making this day special. Bless and make holy are almost redundant. Almost.
Other definitions include divine favor or pronouncing divine favor. To praise or speak approval, to confer prosperity or happiness, to protect and place protection upon someone, and other things that fall under the highly theological category of “good stuff.”
I have blessed children and houses. Every time I refill the water in the baptismal, I say a prayer of blessing. When Rick and I traveled overseas we put our hands on the aircraft as we entered and sought God’s blessing upon the flight.
At the conclusion of the service, I send you into the world with a blessing. The church word is benediction. You all know one blessing that you have said many times.
The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
“‘“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”’
“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Last week I described man and the Sabbath as a two-peace puzzle. We were made to work and to rest. The Sabbath was made for us to complete the rest part. I challenged you to rest. I challenged you to find a day of rest among the other busy days of the world. I hoped to make the point that man and the Sabbath are natural companions.
We were designed with the Sabbath in mind.
Today, I want you to realize that the Sabbath is more than essential to our completion. It is made holy and blessed by God. Which brings us to God’s wisdom.
God longs to pour out his favor and blessings upon us. Life is not a game show or a reality TV show where you have to figure things out on your own or get voted off or disqualified.
God wants to bless you. He has given us the ultimate blessing in making us right with him through the blood of Christ Jesus, but he has countless blessings in store for us if we just do things his way.
After a year of preaching and teaching the Proverbs at the First Light Service, I gave you my Tom’s Notes. They were much shorter than Cliff’s Notes. I boiled this 31-chapter book down to there is God’s way and there is everything else.
God’s way is to give man rest after a time of work. God’s way is to make that day of rest a special thing. God’s way is to make this Sabbath day so special that it came out as #4 on the commandments that were written in stone.
Before God got to the thou shalt nots such as killing and stealing and coveting, he commanded us to take what he had made holy and keep it holy.
God made it holy. We are to keep it holy. God said that this is important. He made the day of rest important. We are to continue in what he made. We are to abide in the Sabbath.
It is special to God and to us because God made it that way. So is it just rest?
No. It is also a day of Sacred Assembly. We gather together as God’s people and we are to rest. By the time Jesus had saved us from all unrighteousness and his good news was going out to the world, new believers had already set aside these sacred assemblies.
This is not unique to our century, though we have certainly earned the admonishment found in Hebrews. Part of this special day is gathering together as God’s people. This is where we not only worship but spur each other on to doing the work of a disciple.
Must this be on the seventh day as in God’s original model? If you are a Hebrew—a Jew-and have not received Jesus as the Messiah—then yes, it starts when the sun goes down on Friday.
If you have received Jesus as Lord and he is unequivocally Lord of your life, then you follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit for Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath as well.
Paul gave some defining guidance here. Whatever it is that we do, we should do it because we are fully convinced in our own minds.
If in your dialogue with God’s Spirit, you are completely convinced that you should abide in a Saturday Sabbath, then that day is holy unto you and the Lord.
If you know without a doubt that you should gather with other believers on Sunday, then that’s the day.
If you gather on Sunday because that’s what everyone else does but believe it should be Saturday, then that’s your sin and vice versa.
If you have not noticed, the church—the disciples who follow Jesus—are at work every day. This is a good thing. In this body it’s not 20% of the people doing 80% of the work. We have somewhere around 50 ministries every year. Some are unique to me as pastor. Some fall squarely in the middle of the mission committee’s bailiwick. Others belong to youth and youth leaders. Others are interesting combinations of people who come together to make sandwiches for kids go door to door collecting food. Yet others are tied into other organizations where we can be God’s love in action.
The church is at work every day, so if we each had different days of rest, the church body would continue to function and be effective. We should understand that besides a day of rest, it is also a day of sacred assembly.
For the disciple of Christ Jesus, that’s mostly on the first day of the week.
That’s mostly Sunday worship. The problem in this modern century is that we gather but we don’t continue on to rest. We worship but we cheat ourselves out of rest.
We were designed with rest in mind and God made this day special. We are to remember it and keep it holy. Our shortcomings in this modern age is not that we picked the wrong day, it’s that we don’t keep it holy.
God blessed it, made it holy, and commanded us to keep it holy for our own good. We are to keep the Sabbath for our own good.
It’s not just grab some rest when and where you can. That’s called the infantry. It is take one day and keep it holy. God modeled the seventh day. Jesus rose on the first day. You may only be able to get off work on a Tuesday. Whatever day it is, be fully convinced in your own mind and honor that conviction as holy unto God.
God made one day special and told us to keep it that way. Take one day as holy unto the Lord.
That said, I have not taken a Sabbath in over a decade. I do not expect to get struck by lightning, so you don’t need to rush the exits. My phone rings as much on Sundays as it does on Thursdays. Text messages come at all hours of the day and night. Traditional social boundaries don’t really apply.
I have had calls and texts around midnight asking what time that thing started tomorrow. When the phone rings after midnight, I am usually headed to a hospital or a home to comfort someone because of a loss. Every day is special unto the Lord, but I am not without Sabbath rest.
My rest looks more like a Sabbatical.
For about three weeks every year, I go someplace where it’s hard to get me by phone. People also can’t find me by knocking on my front door. They can’t find me at Dollar General or Walmart and ask me if I will marry them and give me that shocked look when I say that I need to meet both people to talk about that and it will take longer than we might want to spend on the duct tape aisle.
I am out of touch with my daily demands and in touch with rest and the Lord. It’s not so different from the priests who served a tour in the Temple and then returned home. It works for me. My rest comes in seasons and the Lord has blessed it.
We are a church of the Reformed tradition. That is, we grew out of the Reformation that began just over 500 years ago. The word of God is true. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God is love. We follow Jesus. That doesn’t change.
How we do many of the things we are called to do does change. God gave us a model of work 6 and rest 1. That 1 happened to be day 7. Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath rose on the first day of the week. God likes new things. God likes us to put things that hold us down in the past. God models new things for us.
We seek God, his kingdom, his righteousness, his favor, his blessing, his wisdom, his way but we do it in this world so set against him. We love God by loving others, making our tithe, making special offerings, praying for and with people, proclaiming his way and his good news, and gathering together for worship. We do this in a world where in providing for your family, you may not get Saturday or Sunday off work. This worshiping God business isn’t such a big deal in today’s world.
It is to you. It is to us.
Seeking God’s way isn’t a big deal in our modern world. It is to you. It is to us.
Make no mistake, the world doesn’t care if we assemble, worship the Lord, or rest. Even in this part of the country that we like to call the Bible Belt, work takes precedence over rest, and that means even beyond the 6 to 1 ratio that God established.
But we must find a way to assemble with God’s people and to rest. God made one day special and told us to keep it that way. Take one day as holy unto the Lord.
We must find a way to do this! Amen. You all go home and figure this out by next Sunday.
Thanks for the challenge, Tom; got any suggestions?
Yes. Talk with you employer and let him or her know that having one day as special is important to you. For most, that day is Sunday. This might be something that takes time and persistence, but God made one day special and he did it for us. This is worth continuing the discussion.
If you are self-employed, this may be a tougher discussion that if you worked for someone else.
Along the way, take Paul’s advice about the days that you do work. Work as if you are working for the Lord and not for men. Let your employer see what an asset you are. This may even lead to an opportunity to effectively witness.
If you are serious about remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy, put yourself to the test as Daniel did with his captors. See if I don’t come out better by doing things God’s way.
If you have a schedule that constantly shifts, find one day and a few believing friends who will gather with you to worship the Lord. They might have to go to work or have just come from work, but they will gather with you as you worship with them and you may devote the rest of your day to rest. Where 2 or 3 are gathered, Jesus is there.
Realize that you live in a world that doesn’t care much about God’s ways, much like Daniel’s world; yet he and his companions found a way to live God’s way. God blessed them with wisdom far superior to their indigenous contemporaries.
We have been taught that love fulfills the law. Our salvation comes through Jesus not our compliance with some 613 decrees and directives and other constraints found in the wisdom literature of the Bible, but some of these laws or decrees come with built-in benefits.
Our salvation is not at stake, but our well-being just might be. The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. We must find a way to observe a Sabbath and keep it special.
We were designed with rest in mind. God blessed it and made it holy. We must find a way to keep the Sabbath if we are to truly live healthy and abundant lives while we walk the earth in these bodies.
The Sabbath was made for us, not the other way around.
We are a people who do all kinds of diets. We pay crazy amounts for our shakes and teas and other specialties. We buy a two-thousand-dollar exercise machine to hang our clothes on. We download the newest exercise video and then find out that you must exercise with it. Watching and eating popcorn won’t do it.
We jump through all these hoops and yet we won’t squeeze out 24 hours that God himself made special for us. One day out of seven observed for our own good.
Are you going to hell if you don’t observe a Sabbath? No, but you might have some days where your mind and body feel like they are serving a few days or weeks there. Your very soul is crying out for God and rest.
You were designed with rest in mind.
Find a way to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Find a way!
Amen.
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