What’s In a Day?
March 5, 2005
Cornwall
We are in a very exciting time for our little church, here in Cornwall. We are in our final month as renters, and we are about to do something very new for our church and for most of our denomination, in fact- move into our own building. The next few months are very important for us. They are months when we, because of Jesus’ guiding us to such, need to be clarifying who we are, what we’re for, and how we’re going to go about doing the work of the church, with Jesus as the head, here in Cornwall. Remember, that I am not the head, and no one in the congregation is the head- Jesus is the head of our church, and we’re all along as brothers and sisters, wanting to assist in His work.
What is the church for? What is the grand over-arching responsibility or opportunity of the church? Jesus told us, prior to his departure to heaven, that the church is to go and make disciples of all people and to help people into relationship with Him.
Please turn to Lk.14.15-24- here we have an exciting story, given by Jesus, to illustrate the process of helping people to the God family. This story, without question, is allegorical of the process that God has been involved in for centuries. Let’s read it together.
The mission of the church is to reach out to people where they are, in the places they are in, the attitudes they are in, and the frame of mind and understanding that they are in. The apostle Paul was particularly good at this- with one outstanding example being how he reached to the very minds of people:
Acts 17.22-32- in another place, he declared that he would reach, in whatever way would help, to each individual and group he encountered- 1 Cor.9.19-23.
In addition, based on what Jesus tells us, through his story and what Paul tells us, we’re not to make it more difficult than it already is for individuals to come to Christ. We understand that God is powerfully at work- Jn.6.44- no one will cross the line to faith unless God is involved, but we must not add to what is necessary, or seems to be necessary, to cross the line- Ro.10.8- the word is near, v.9-13. We must not add extras or make the process more difficult. In fact, Jesus indicated, in telling the servant to go out and compel people to come, that they were not given time to ‘clean up’, or anything like that- nothing was given but the invitation.
Today, we need to look at one area in whish we can be guilty of adding something that makes it more difficult for God to bring people that we touch, to Himself. This is one area that is difficult for us to even consider, but which can be a great impediment to our coming alongside Jesus in His work in Cornwall. This has to do with the simple matter of the day we meet for church. (I want to ask each of you to take a deep breath, listen, and follow the scriptures and ideas that we need to consider together today.) There are some things we need to understand, on this subject, so that we, together, can make the decision that will enable us to be as greatly effective as possible here.
We have to look at historical and biblical Christianity, today, and understand what they did with regard to their day for worship, and reasons for why they did it. We’ve never put a lot of stock in historical Christianity, but we need to, because the church didn’t just start here in Cornwall, and it didn’t start in Eugene, Oregon in 1934- it began in 31 AD, in Jerusalem, and has extended from there.
Matt.16.18- Jesus declared it and this is one incredible reality of life from there.
First of all, let’s look at the early church- a great example and our example, in so many ways. There is a constant cry, in Christian circles, to become more like the early church. Let’s see their example.
Acts 20.7- without question, there is no command to meet together as a church on Sunday. Instead, the basis upon which churches meet Sunday is that meeting on Sunday was the practice of the early church. This is the only place that records the church meeting on Sunday, and some object to this, on the basis that it is a singular reference. However, this is the only place in scripture that specifically records on which day the early church met together, and how this is recorded is important to understand.
Luke is recording a narrative of events in the early church, but it is not true to imagine that he is only recording narrative. One of Luke’s purposes for writing is to instruct the early churches in apostolic teaching. Luke records only those events that would best accomplish this goal. And it is not so much the number of references to this or that practice that establishes a pattern. Rather, it is the way in which the practice is presented. Luke’s mention of this declares an assumption that this was an ongoing practice. He says, literally, “On the first day of the week, having come together to break bread.” The Greek conveys that the point is not simply that the church met together, and incidentally this week it happened to be on Sunday. Rather, Luke’s statement is more accurately stated as, “On the first day of the week, when we came together to break bread,” implying a definite link between meeting together as a church and meeting together on Sunday.
In church history, there is very little evidence that the Christian church ever regularly met on any day other than the first day of the week, aside from some Jewish Christians, until the fall of the temple. (Repeat, if necessary.)
Paul lends credence to the idea that this was a widely held practice when he writes in 1 Cor.16.2. He assumes that his churches are meeting together on Sunday. Otherwise, he would have said something like, ‘on whatever day you meet, when you come together, make a gathering so that….’, but this is not what he said, or meant.
Another important passage is Rev.1.10. The Greek behind the translation “Lord’s Day” is literally “the Day belonging to the Lord.” Or course, various interpretations have been given as to the meaning of this phrase, including Sunday as the day the church meets together, the future ‘Day of the Lord’ which includes the period of time just prior to the second coming, and the annual Easter observance of the resurrection.
The word translated ‘belonging to the Lord’, ‘kuriakos’, occurs only here and one other place in the NT. The other instance is 1 Cor.11.20 where Paul refers to the “lord’s Supper”- literally, ‘the Supper belonging to the Lord’). The importance of this word appearing in only these two places should not be missed. The Lord’s Supper was, in the first century, the purpose for the church meeting. Likely, the reason that the Supper was called the ‘kuriakon deipnon’- (‘the supper belonging to the Lord’)- is precisely because the day for eating the Supper was itself called the kuriakon hemeran- (‘the day belonging to the Lord’).
But why was it called the Lord’s Day? There are several reasons for this.
First, the first day of the week was the day Christ rose from the dead- Matt.28.1, Jn.20.1. There is no question about this- we have understood this for several years. It became natural for the early Christians to commemorate the resurrection by meeting together on the day of Jesus’ resurrection.
Second, according to many writings of the post-apostolic era, it was the belief of the early church that Christ’s Second Coming would occur on the same day of the week that he rose from the dead. In fact, the participation, weekly, of the Lord’s Supper was, in essence, a plea for the Second Coming. The church came together on the day to participate in the Supper and to issue the cry that Jesus declared to be central in our praying- ‘your kingdom come’! I gather that there was a lot of excitement and anticipation in the early church meetings, for, in the minds of the early Christians, each Lord’s Day meeting could very well have been the last Lord’s Day meeting!
We must answer an important question about this day, though, because of where we’ve been. Should we conclude that the Lord’s Day is to be seen as a Sabbath day of rest? Some have equated the Lord’s Day of the NT with the Sabbath day of the OT, and believed that there is a need to carry forward the OT instructions into the NT day. Many churches, based on this assumption, do not allow their members to do ordinary work on Sunday, whether office or yard-work. Others go so far as to prohibit recreational activities such as tennis or golf. Is it proper to do these things on the Lord’s Day? Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?
The short answer is ‘no’, for several reasons.
1. Sunday was not even a day off in the Roman Empire during the first century. Nor was it a day off in Israel. No Christian who wanted to keep his job would have been able to take this day off week after week.
2. 1 Cor.11 gives evidence that the meetings for the Lord’s Supper were held in the evening- the word ‘supper’- deipnon- actually means ‘the evening meal’. Paul accuses the Corinthians of not ‘waiting’ for the poor to arrive- v.21-22, 33- before they took of the Lord’s Supper. This makes sense only if the poor were delayed by employment constraints while the wealthy were not. That this is a typical, regular Lord’s Day meeting of the church is clear from v.18 and v.20, where Paul simply writes of ‘when you come together’, speaking of their regular practice.
3. No NT writer ever equates the day of the meeting of the church with the Sabbath. In fact, any time a question of Sabbath comes up, it is always treated as something not to be bothered with. One such place is Col.2.16. If someone wants to keep the Sabbath, that’s okay with Paul- Ro.14.5-6- it’s just not necessary, that’s all. And, we must point out that the Sabbath keeper is here called the ‘weak’ Christian- v.1.
4. Beyond his concessions toward the weaker brother, Paul opposed the enforcement of any kind of Sabbath keeping when he wrote, in Ga.4.10-11- insistence on keeping a Sabbath can reflect a gross misunderstanding of the relationship between law and grace in salvation.
5. Historically the Protestant Reformers unanimously denied that the Lord’s Day was in any sense a Sabbath. In fact, the idea that the Lord’s Day should be a Sabbath is a fairly recent development, promoted by the English Puritans of the seventeenth century.
Scripture and history show us that the early church met together on Sunday, the ‘Lord’s Day’, not because it was the Christian Sabbath, but because it was the day of the Lord’s resurrection. The early Christians celebrated the resurrection every week, not just once a year. They met together with anticipation that each Lord’s Day could be the day of his return. Theirs was a practice deeply rooted in theology. In fact, there is no evidence that the Christian church has ever met, regularly, on any day other than the first day of the week.
The author of Hebrews cautions us not to allow our hearts to become hard-
Heb.3.12-15- when we meet Christ, our hardened hearts become soft. Let us not harden our hearts, on this issue, as we’ve met Christ. It is time to allow Christ to speak to us, to leave behind an unnecessary burden, and to prepare for positively impacting our community.
Conclusions
What does this ‘theology’ mean to us?
We are in a unique time in the history of our little church here. We’ve moved through ‘the changes’ and stand firmly with Jesus Christ in the NC. We’re becoming used to listening to the Spirit and following Jesus one step at a time. Now Christ, out of the blue, has led us to acquire out own building, and has offered us an opportunity for replanting our congregation. Rather than being hidden, as a rental church, we’re to come out into plain sight. Eyes are on us in Cornwall right now. Are we, really, a new church? Are we fully standing as a grace-filled, faith-led NT Christian church? Or do we still see ourselves as somehow better and, necessarily, different?
This is our opportunity to boldly move into the culture of our nation, in order to reach more people in the highways and byways. Our Canadian culture equates church with Sunday morning- this is well known. There are numerous studies on this. In addition, simply ask anyone in your life, ‘if someone invited you to church, when would you believe the service would be?’ Our culture equates Saturday with Jewish, sabbatarian- we used to be, but are not, cult- perhaps we had some tendencies, but are rejecting those, or choice. The only reason we still meet on Saturday is choice- personal choice, on several fronts. That’s the only reason. However, in following the apostle Paul, we need to be willing to do whatever is necessary to reach the lost and this is our time. Our church is not about us, but about Jesus reaching out, through us, to others. Of course, in the process, we’ll be nourished and strengthened.
We have a brief time to grab this wonderful opportunity that Jesus has given us. We have been enjoying being right where God wants us to be. Last week, we sent off Albert and Vicki, knowing they are right in the centre of God’s will. In this community, we have some ‘capital’ to spend and we must be careful not to misspend.
Kevin Armstrong tells of something told him by another pastor in Whitby. The pastor admitted to Kevin that this pastor’s church ‘blew it’. It was a new church getting settled in Whitby and the church made the decision to get settled first, then move out into the community. But, they see this as having been a horrendous mistake, now. When you’re the new kid on the block, everyone is watching. We will never have another opportunity, like now, to make a great first impression. We have a window of our first year or two, out in the public, as a time to do everything to reach out and to become known as who we intend to be in Cornwall. We’ll never get that chance again.
So, we have to confront this matter, over the next little while. It is well known that the church year, in Canada, begins when summer ends. September, in other words, is when new activities begin, new ventures begin, and new programs begin, in the churches. We ought to use the months of June-August to prepare for a ‘grand opening’- to plan a wonderful opening service for, perhaps, the second Sunday of September- to go even door-to-door to invite people, to offer them a mug with our name on it, and to plan a barbecue for after the service. There’s work for us to do.
As your pastor, and I hope you’ve grown to have some confidence in my wanting to follow Jesus closely, I see that the next small step is for us to begin holding our church meetings on Sunday morning. With the new building, we have that opportunity. No longer do we have to meet on Saturday because we can’t rent a church for Sunday morning. Now, we have full freedom to be a fully NT church. I, personally, would like to do this in April. However, I think we need some time to think this through together and to process this and to work this through together, so believe we can hesitate a little while. But, it’s a matter of having time to ‘get used to the idea’, if I can put it that way, not to debate the idea- this is beyond debate. However, we cannot for very long, if we hope to have any effectiveness in this community.
This is an exciting time- yes a frightening time- and I, like you, would rather just keep on keeping Saturday. It fits my schedule now, and meeting on Sunday, will mean that I have two days in a weekend ‘tied up’. However, I am not the issue, and you are not the issue. Jesus and what He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit want is the issue. The lost, out there in this community, are the issue. We are tools in God’s hand. Our church building is a tool to be used in God’s hands.
We have known the great feeling of being right where God is working. We have known that for some time, and this is not a time to move out of God’s will, is it? I want to encourage you to pray about what I’ve brought today and to, even, fast. Please do NOT believe this issue doesn’t make any difference to the growth of our church, going forward. Part of being fully in God’s grace is being where, and as, God blesses the church. The meeting day for worship services is something God has blessed for 2000 years, and the church of Jesus continues forward- beaten and battered, without question- but forward, nonetheless. IF we care about the lost, and IF we will obey Jesus in going out to the highways and byways to invite to the banquet, then WE- the mature, Christ-followers- are the ones who must make the greater sacrifice and change. This is one that we’re fully capable of doing- I believe most of you are ready to do it right now, but we care about the whole, not just ourselves. I’ve sought a lot of counsel on this, in the last few days, with the conclusion that we’ve some time to adjust- I believe that to take the next six months is more than enough time to prepare for a great launch of our new church.
Then, we need to be fully ‘out there’ ready, as labourers in Christ’s field in this wonderful area of Cornwall and area.
