The Lord’s Day
Matthew 12:1-14
Do any of you remember the old ‘blue laws”? For those who are younger than 30, our state used to have rules about what could and could not be done on Sunday. Almost all stores and restaurants were closed on Sunday. The vast majority of people did not have to work on Sunday’s because just about everything was closed, with a few exceptions like gas stations and hospitals. In the Bible belt regions of our state people would spend the day with their church families and their extended families. After Sunday services people would go home and have a Sunday meal with their families. The afternoon would be spent quietly in devotion, worship and prayer in the most devout homes. In other homes people would spend the time playing family games or reading books. It was a quiet day of rest for much of the country.
It was in the context of that culture that Eric Liddell refused to run a race on Sunday in the Paris Olympics of 1924. Eric was a devoted Christian who believed that he must defy his home country, and the Olympic Committee. He was scheduled to run in the 100meter race, a race he was highly favored to win. But the event was scheduled for Sunday, and Eric refused to run. The government of England did not want to lose their chances at a gold medal, and so they tried to persuade Eric to race. But he wouldn’t budge.
In the end he did not run in the 100 meter, but he was entered on another day in the 400 meter race, a race he had never run in competition before. Many race commentators said that he ran that race like a man on fire. He broke the world record and went home with a gold medal in the 400. In 1981 a movie titled: “Chariots of Fire” was made to tell his story.
Was Eric right to refuse to run on Sunday? Are we to cease from all labor and all sports on Sunday’s? Should shops and restaurants be closed? What does God want us to do with the first day of the week? Should we be keeping the Sabbath for a day of rest? Is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday?
I am going to try and answer these questions this morning by looking at the principle of the Sabbath in the Bible, and by taking a closer look at Jesus and His approach to the day.
Theme: Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
1. Why a Sabbath?
The word Sabbath, or in Hebrew – Shabath, literally means to rest, or to cease from your labors. This concept of rest goes all the way back to creation. God created the world in 6 days, and on the 7th day God rested. In setting apart the 7th day as a day of rest, God declared that the 7th day of the week was to be a Holy Day unto the Lord.
On the 7th day God enjoyed His creation. He declared that all that He had made was good. Adam and Ever were in the Garden. They were enjoying the ‘rest of the Lord’. They were at peace with God and with each other. This didn’t mean that Adam and Eve did not work. God had placed them in the Garden to be fruitful and to multiply. Adam named the animals, and together with Eve they tended the Garden. But they were in a state of rest. Their work was not laborious, but a joy.
This rest was broken when sin entered into their world. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, and their labors would now come at a great price of pain, suffering, and even death. The world no longer experienced the rest of God. There was separation, sorrow, and sin. But God began a new work, the work of redemption of mankind.
At first he chose a people, the Israelites to enter into His rest. They were slaves in Egypt, but God would deliver them from their slavery and bring them to a Promised Land, a land of rest. They were to set apart the 7th day of the week as a Holy Day, a day of rest from their labors. On this day they were to remember that they had been slaves, but that God had delivered them. And so Moses gave them the 4th commandment. It is listed in several sections of the Old Testament, but I will quote this morning from Deuteronomy 5:12-15
"Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any kind of 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. Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out with amazing power and mighty deeds. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Israel was to keep this day as holy unto the Lord, but they failed time and time again to do this. Often they were judged, and they were finally taken into captivity for the years they had neglected the Sabbath. And so when the Jews finally returned from captivity, keeping the Sabbath became a priority to the remnant that remained in the land. Added to the 4th commandment were 39 regulations and definitions of what it meant to keep the Sabbath holy. These were kept in a book called the Mishnah. The restrictions became very specific. For example:
- You could lead an animal to water as long as nothing was carried (Shabbath 5:1)
- You could draw water for the animal and pour it into a trough, but you could not hold a bucket for the animal to drink out of (Erubin 20b, 21a)
- You can only treat a person medically when that person’s life was in danger (Mishnah Yoma 8:6)
- You could not harvest or thresh fields of grain
- You could only walk 3,000 feet from your home
- You couldn’t carry anything weighing more than a dried fig
- You couldn’t carry a needle for fear that you might sew something
- Taking a bath was forbidden, because water may splash on the floor and clean it
- Women were not to look in a mirror because they might pull out a grey hair
In short, the Sabbath had become a day of legalistic bondage to the people of Israel. It was a day of rest from labor, but also a day of harassment and fear. Would we be breaking some unknown law if we did anything on the Sabbath? The people were not slaves to Egypt, but had become slaves to the letter of the law.
In this context God sends His Son. Jesus came to restore the rest lost through the sinfulness of man. Jesus did the work of God, and just as on the 7th day of Creation God rested, Jesus declared on the cross; “It is finished”. The work was over. And so Jesus declares a new Sabbath rest. In Hebrews 4:3-11 we read:
For only we who believe can enter his place of rest. As for those who didn’t believe, God said,
"In my anger I made a vow:
’They will never enter my place of rest,’ "
Even though his place of rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because the Scriptures mention the seventh day, saying, "On the seventh day God rested from all his work." But in the other passage God said, "They will never enter my place of rest." So God’s rest is there for people to enter. But those who formerly heard the Good News failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his place of rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David a long time later in the words already quoted:
"Today you must listen to his voice.
Don’t harden your hearts against him."
This new place of rest was not the land of Canaan, where Joshua led them. If it had been, God would not have spoken later about another day of rest. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who enter into God’s rest will find rest from their labors, just as God rested after creating the world. Let us do our best to enter that place of rest. For anyone who disobeys God, as the people of Israel did, will fall.
The rest that is offered to us is a spiritual rest found only in Christ. When we come to Christ by Faith, He becomes our Lord, Sabbaoth. He gives us His peace, and we have rest for our souls. We are freed from the bondage to sin and death. We are given an eternal home with Him. That is why Jesus could speak the words in Matthew 11:28-30
Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light."
We enter into rest by faith in Christ. He gives us our Sabbath-rest according to Hebrews 4. Our rest from our labors is not limited to one day a week. Instead every day is a day of rest, a day of peace with God. We are once again restored to God. We are a new creation. And we eagerly wait the day when all of creation will be restored.
So why they do we still hold out a special day as unto the Lord, a day of resting and of worship? If we are no longer under the Old Covenant, and if we have entered into a 7 day rest in Christ, what is the significance of the Lord’s Day?
Well as we look to the early church we can see several things. First, the early disciples continued to meet and teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath. They used this as an opportunity to proclaim all that Christ had done. Secondly, they met daily to devote themselves to the Apostles teaching, to worship, to pray and to break the bread of communion together. They were a new people of God intent on celebrating everyday as the Lord’s Day. But we also see several mentions in the New Testament of them gathering on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; I Corinthians 16:2; and Revelation 1:10).
They chose this day because it was the day of the Lord’s Resurrection.
But what we must remember is that they regarded as every day as Holy unto the Lord, and every day was to be lived for Christ and in His Spirit. Colossians 2:16-17
So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new-moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules were only shadows of the real thing, Christ himself.
And Romans 14:5-6
In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. Each person should have a personal conviction about this matter. Those who have a special day for worshiping the Lord are trying to honor him. Those who eat all kinds of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who won’t eat everything also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.
And we must remember Hebrews 10:25
And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.
Was Eric Liddell wrong in his strict understanding of the Lord’s Day? No. He was convinced in his heart that He should set that day aside to honor God and not to pursue his own dreams and goals. And God was honored by His actions. Would he have been wrong if He believed that God could be honored by his running as a witness for Him on that day? No.
We must avoid all legalistic inclinations to make Sunday or Saturday a day where we try and work for God’s favor. Those of us who have trusted in Christ have already been given peace with God. We honor Him with our lives, each and every day we live. We should set aside regular times to honor and worship Him. Every day is holy as unto the Lord.
But is it good, to set aside one day to rest and to reflect on Christ, to worship Him with other believers, and to come together as a body? Yes. And the more we can do that, the better. The early church did that every day of the week. Are you setting aside time in your week to honor God? Are you setting aside time to pull back, to worship, to pray, and to fellowship with other believers? Are you giving a portion of your time to be with Jesus?
We all need those times of rest. Jesus still invites us to “Come unto Him, all who are weary and heavy laden and He will give you rest.”
2. What was important to Jesus on the Sabbath?
It is important to realize that as Jew, Jesus kept the Sabbath. He did not break the regulations of Moses or the 10 commandments. He never sinned. He did, however, break the rules of the Pharisees and He tried to show them that the Sabbath was made for man – not man for the Sabbath. He wanted them to see that He was the Lord of the Sabbath, and that when we enter His rest we can begin to do the works of God on the Sabbath.
The first biblical account of Jesus and the Sabbath is seen in Luke 4:16-32. In this account Jesus reads the prophecy from the book of Isaiah. The prophecy said:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come."
When Jesus finished reading this prophecy, he closed the scroll and declared that He was the fulfillment of that prophecy. But the people in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth couldn’t accept that Joseph’s son would be the promised Messiah, and so they tried to throw him off of a cliff.
On 7 more occasions we will see Jesus doing His Father’s Work on the Sabbath, and in each situation he is threatened and at times even attacked. By His actions He was declaring a new understanding of how this Sabbath day could and should be spent.
Let me quickly go through each example in chronological order:
Luke 4:33-39 The first example is an encounter with a demon possessed man in the synagogue of Capernaum. Jesus confronts the demon and casts it out of the man, and the people are amazed and declare: “Who is this man who speaks and acts with such authority.” Later that day, Jesus joins Peter for dinner in his home, and He heals Peter’s Mother-in-law who was sick with a fever.
John 5:1-3 Then Jesus visits Jerusalem where he comes across a group of people gathered around the pool of Bethsaida. One of the sick was a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him he asked; “Do you want to be healed?” and then he tells him to “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” Because the man was carrying something on the Sabbath the religious leaders rebuked him for working on the holy day. When the man told them it was Jesus who had healed him and who had told him to carry the mat, they looked for a way to discredit Jesus.
Matthew 12:1-8 In this account the disciples are walking through a field of grain. They are hungry, and so they start to pick at the grain. The Pharisees see this and to them it is work. Even if it is one little kernel of corn, they are threshing and harvesting. Jesus reminds them of the story of King David. In I Samuel 21, David and his men were fleeing from Saul. They were starved, and they went to the high priest and asked him if he had anything they could eat. The high priest knew that the Law forbade anyone but a priest to eat the consecrated bread in the Temple, but He also knew that God is a merciful God and that David was the Lord’s anointed. And so the priest gives David and his men food from the Lord’s table. Jesus is making the point that mercy is more important than regulations and rules. He also brings up the point that the priests serve the Lord 7 days a week. They are in the worship and service of the Lord of Hosts and therefore, they are permitted to eat the consecrated bread. The disciples were also in the service of the Lord. Jesus is greater than the Temple and worship and service of Him is the right thing to do. The disciples were doing nothing wrong, but the judgmental attitude of the Pharisees was wrong. And so Jesus puts it to the test.
Matthew 12:9-14 It appears that immediately after this story of the disciples eating, we see Jesus healing again on the Sabbath. He meets a man in the synagogue with a withered hand. He asks the question: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” And then he reminds them of how merciful they are towards one of their own animals in danger or suffering, and that men are far more important to God. Then he heals the man’s hand and the Pharisees plot to kill Jesus.
It is in this Matthew Passage that we read these very important words:
But you would not have condemned those who aren’t guilty if you knew the meaning of this Scripture: ’I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices.’ For I, the Son of Man, am master even of the Sabbath."
Luke 13:10-17 Jesus is again teaching in the synagogue and he sees a woman who has been bent over for 18 years with a disabling spirit. He approaches her and says: “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” The ruler of that synagogue gets irritated by Jesus’ act of mercy and healing and declares: “There are six days in which work out to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Well, this really gets Jesus angry and he calls him a hypocrite and declares: “If you had a donkey or an ox that needed water, wouldn’t you untie it and lead it to water? How much more should this poor woman be untied from her bondage to Satan on the Sabbath Day!”
Luke 14:1-6 On another Sabbath, Jesus is dining with a Pharisee and a man with dropsy is in the house. Jesus asks the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” They don’t answer, but Jesus continues to heal the man.
John 7:22-24 Jesus teaches them about the Sabbath when he says:
But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision is older than the law of Moses; it goes back to Abraham.) For if the correct time for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it, so as not to break the law of Moses. So why should I be condemned for making a man completely well on the Sabbath? Think this through and you will see that I am right."
John 9:1-16 Jesus heals a man born blind by making a cake of mud and placing it over his eyes and then instructing him to walk to the Siloam and wash. This greatly angers the Pharisees and again they seek to destroy him.
I also want to share one final verse before I give some concluding thoughts. Jesus died just a few hours before the Sabbath began at sundown. And He rose early Sunday morning, just a few hours after the Sabbath was over on Saturday at sundown. During that Sabbath, Peter tells us what Jesus was doing. In I Peter 3:19 we read:
So he went and preached to the spirits in prison—
On that Sabbath, Jesus descended into Hades, the holding place where all who had died prior were waiting for the Messiah.
7 times the gospel writers speak of Jesus working on the Sabbath. And every work was a good work, a work of healing and of freeing those who had been held in bondage. So let’s answer the question I posed earlier: What was important to Jesus on the Sabbath?
And of course the answer to that is found in the words of Jesus Himself. Look again at what He said to the Pharisees:
’I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices.’ For I, the Son of Man, am master even of the Sabbath."
Jesus wants us to be merciful, every day, but even more so on this Day set aside for Him. I believe that is why we read that is we know there is a conflict separating us from our brother, we are to leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled. If we would practice this every time we come to worship, then we would arrive each Sunday at peace with people, our relationships whole and restored.
We see that Jesus involved Himself with healing the whole person on the Sabbath. Those who had been in bondage where set free. Those who were tormented in their spirit where loosed. Those who were limited in their bodies were given a new start. Jesus gave mercy.
3. How can we honor the Lord of the Sabbath?
- By setting aside time to be with Him and with His people in worship, prayer, and study of His Word
- By taking up His cross, denying ourselves and following Him in obedience to His Great Commission
- By joining Christ in His Work of Mercy. There is nothing more spiritual, more holy, or more wonderful that you could do on the Lord’s Day than to honor Him by helping one of His children. There are many ways you can honor this work:
• Take the whole family and volunteer at a soup kitchen or at the salvation army
• Join one of the many walks to raise money to help those who are physically struggling
• Go and visit someone who is lonely, in the hospital or in a nursing home or an invalid or senior citizen
• Invite a neighbor over and extend hospitality and the warmth of Christ to them
• Seek to bring joy to someone who has been down or discouraged
• Do a work in His name and for His glory.
• If you just can’t afford to miss those Sunday afternoon football games, invite a lonely friend over to enjoy them with you, and maybe during halftime take time to listen and to minister to their needs.
• Take a fiend out to lunch and share the gospel with them.
If we would all set aside one day of the week to do this, imagine how the Lord’s kingdom would grow!
