INTRODUCTION
Two weeks ago we started a new four-talk series titled ‘Why we gather?’ I got the idea for the series from a website called SermonCentral. For the past 16 months most of us haven’t been gathering, or at least, not in person. Two weeks ago we started to meet again. So I think it's a good time to think about WHY we do that, WHY we come to church Sunday by Sunday.
In general, WHY questions are really important. When you know why you’re doing something it motivates you to do it. Or perhaps you don’t find a good answer to your ‘why’ question and you decide to stop. Often, we can’t show that we’re doing the right thing unless we can answer why questions. At the start of my career I worked as a mechanical engineer for a company that designed power stations. We’d design something, for example a section of pipework carrying high pressure steam. There would be all sorts of calculations and references to standards that would explain why the pipe was a particular diameter or used a particular kind of steel. If we couldn’t answer the various ‘why’ questions we would have no confidence that the design was right.
So, why do we gather? Why do we come to church Sunday by Sunday?
The SermonCentral series suggested four reasons for why we gather. They are encouragement, rhythm, strength and unity. Gathering for encouragement, strength and unity all make sense to me. They seem like very solid reasons to get together. But gathering for rhythm!? That seemed very strange to me.
Rhythm is important if you’re a musician. But is rhythm important for God?
The Bible emphasizes things like love and justice and mercy. Most English versions of the Bible never use the word rhythm at all! So we might think that rhythm is way down in our priorities or not on the list at all.
But that would be a mistake. Because the SermonCentral series included rhythm as a reason to gather I’ve thought about it, probably for the first time in my life. I now see that God is very interested in rhythm and that Sundays support God’s desire for us to have rhythm in our lives.
IS GOD INTERESTED IN RHYTHM?
Yes, he is! We can see that he is in the creation story. Here’s Genesis 1:14:
‘And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the DAY from the NIGHT. And let them be for signs and for SEASONS, and for days and years.”’
God set up lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night – the sun and the moon, in other words. He created the sun as a metronome which goes ‘day – night – day – night – day – night.’ There’s a rhythm in the regular beat of day and night, a rhythm which God established. The moon is another metronome. It controls the tides, for example. And it establishes a monthly cycle: the word month comes from the word ‘moon.’
This verse also mentions seasons. There’s a rhythm in the seasons, a rhythm which God established.
Early on in Genesis we find that God established another rhythm. At the beginning of Genesis 2 we read that God took a break. He’d worked for six days and on the seventh day, he rested. In Genesis 2 verse 2 we read that ‘on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day.’ The verb ‘rested’ is the Hebrew word ‘shabat’. That’s where the word ‘sabbath’ comes from. The fact that God worked for six days and then rested for one day doesn’t establish a rhythm. A pattern has to be repeated for it to be a rhythm. But God then made this pattern into a rhythm.
Then in verse 3 we read, ‘So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.’ When it says, ‘God blessed the seventh day…’ it doesn’t mean one particular day thousands or millions of years ago. It means that God blessed the seventh day in general.
It’s clear that this is what God meant in the Ten Commandments. God commanded, ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’ God told the Israelites to ‘remember’. By Moses’ time the seventh day was an established concept. Moses reminds the Israelites: ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.’
When Genesis tells us that ‘God blessed the seventh day…’ it clearly means all seventh days. On the first seventh days, God ordained a rhythm for humankind to follow. The seventh day was to be ‘holy’. You probably all know what ‘holy’ means. It means ‘set apart’, or we could say, different.
We've thought about the sun and the moon and day and night and seasons. We've thought about the seventh day.
So, even though the Bible doesn’t use the word rhythm, it’s clear that God is very committed to rhythm. These rhythms show that God desires rhythm; rhythm in the natural world and rhythm in our lives. The rhythm of the week, with a holy day every seventh day, is a fundamental aspect of how God wants human life to be ordered.
WHY DOES GOD WANT HUMAN LIFE TO BE ORDERED LIKE THIS, in a cycle of seven days with the seventh day being a day of rest? I don’t know! But I’m certain that God created the world in such a way as to allow life in general to flourish.
Scientists tell us that the parameters of planet Earth are ideal for life to flourish. In the 1990s scientists started to use a phrase ‘Goldilocks conditions’ to describe the situation that planet Earth is in. You probably remember the story. Goldilocks is playing at the edge of a forest and strays into it. She comes to a house with the door open and goes inside. She doesn't know it but it’s the home of three bears. The bears are out, but Goldilocks tries out various things in the house: the bears’ bowls of porridge, their beds and so on. Each time, the third thing she tries is ‘just right’.
The story illustrates what the scientists sensed about planet Earth. In many different ways, the saw that the key parameters of our planet are ideal for life. It isn’t too hot or too cold. It isn’t too big or too small. Many more technical parameters are just right too: the thickness of the atmosphere, the strength of the magnetic field, the angle of tilt of its axis.
As Christians we don’t believe that all these things were simply a happy accident. God had answers to ‘why’ questions. He knew how the Earth had to be set up so that life could flourish.
I don’t know why the earth should be at a particular distance from the sun or why it’s important for there to be the rhythm of seasons in nature. Neither do I know why humankind should observe a seven-day rhythm. But because I see that God has judged every parameter that relates to the created world perfectly, I trust that he has judged this parameter, a rhythm of seven days, perfectly as well. God knows what’s best for human flourishing.
And God promises that if we observe this rhythm, we will flourish. Here’s the prophet Isaiah:
“If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honourable;
if you honour it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights” [Isaiah 58:13-14].
‘I will make you ride upon the heights’ is Isaiah’s poetic way of saying that you will flourish. What is it based on? Respect for the sabbath. Do you find that surprising that scripture places so much importance on the seventh day?
Let’s review what we’ve thought about so far. We’ve seen that God established rhythm in the created world and he ordained a rhythm in human life: the seventh day is to be a holy day. The word ‘sabbath’ is related to the Hebrew word for rest, so the seventh day is about rest. But it’s also a holy day, a day that’s set apart.
HOW DOES MEETING TOGETHER ON SUNDAYS FIT IN?
Gathering on a Sunday helps us to establish the rhythm which God has ordained.
In nature, the movement of the sun and the moon establish a rhythm of days and months and seasons and other activities align to them. We go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. Sheep give birth in the spring. Trees shed their leaves in the autumn.
Similarly, once we make the decision to gather together with other Christians Sunday by Sunday, it establishes a rhythm in our life. Other activities on a Sunday have to align to the fact that we are going to church. Because we go to church on Sunday morning we don’t go to work. Because we don’t go to work, we might have a family meal at lunchtime, we might go for a walk in the afternoon or play a game or watch a movie. Sunday turns into a day of rest and that’s what God wants. He knows that it’s good for us. The metronome of gathering for a service on Sunday helps make the whole of Sunday the kind of day God wants it to be.
I said that the seventh day is about rest, but it’s also a holy day, a day that’s set apart. Our Sunday is about rest. That’s important. But the fact that we set a day apart for God is also important. It helps keep God in the right place in our lives.
When I started to prepare this talk, I thought that gathering for rhythm was a very strange idea. Rhythm didn’t seem to be a priority in the Bible. But as I prepared the talk, I saw that God is very interested in rhythm. In particular, God wishes humankind to observe a rhythm of keeping one day a week as a day or rest and a holy day. And I believe that attending a church service on a Sunday both helps us to establish this rhythm and makes the seventh day a holy day.
DO WE RESPECT GOD'S PLAN?
Before we finish, we need to ask ourselves how we do. Many people who are not Christians don’t pay much attention to this pattern this pattern that God has created. Sundays are steadily becoming just like other days. But what about Christians?
Whenever I teach from God’s word in church it is, I hope, not MY message to YOU but GOD’S message to US. If this was my message to you, I’d be in a lot of trouble because I fall very short in this area.
I’m presently taking two services on a Sunday. It’s a privilege to do that, but Sunday isn’t a day of rest for me. That shouldn’t be a problem. I should take another day as a rest day. But it often doesn’t happen. I’m not following God’s instruction. I'm out of line in this area and I need to sort it out.
But what about you? How are you doing? Are you taking steps to establish the rhythm God wants for all of us? Many Christians are motivated, driven people. We're wired to do more; to go the extra mile. We want to serve God as much as possible. So we attend church on Sunday – but then we get back to work, maybe in some sort of ministry activity! If you're that kind of person then the answer is that you need to do less. That is REALLY hard!
But we need rest. We need stillness. We need time to remember that God is God. So, to those of you who – like me – are not observing Sunday as a day of rest quite as well as you might, do something about it! Don't think of the seventh day, when you don't work, as a nuisance. View it as a delight and honour the day by spending it as God intended.
There are many good things that come as a result of meeting together with our brothers and sisters in Christ regularly. Two weeks ago, we thought about encouraging one another. Today, we’ve seen that meeting together on the seventh days helps us to establish the rhythm of work and rest which God wishes for us. In my next talk, in two weeks’ time, we’ll move on to the third reason for gathering: strength.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 15/8/2021, a.m. service.
