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If you turn to John 20, we are going to finish the Sabbath teaching, and we are going to move on to honor your father and mother. Excuse me, I had to clear my throat there. in John chapter 20 verse 19 I'll read some text and then we're going to bounce around a little bit because I'm trying to kind of close the gap on everything that we've talked about with the Sabbath so it's not going to be quite so verse by verse as I like to be but it's part of I think going through the Ten Commandments through Exodus like that we're going to hit points where we just have to kind of comment on everything and then move on. John 20, verse 19.

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side.

Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. It was a reading of God's holy word. Now there's a lot of things going on in John 20, 19 to 29.

And a lot of them we're not going to talk about today. And there's one particular verse that you probably should have questions about where Jesus tells the disciples that they forgive the sins of any their sins are forgiven them. And if they withhold forgiveness from any, the person's not receiving forgiveness. And that's a really good Roman Catholic verse that they like.

And so if you want to talk about that one at the fellowship meal, we can. Purpose of me reading that section of scripture primarily. I want to draw your attention back to verse 19 where it says on the evening of that day the first day of the week the disciples were gathered together and Jesus appeared and then if you look in verse 26 where it says eight days later his disciples were inside again this time Thomas was with them and Jesus appeared the first day of the week being Sunday referred to in verse 19 it's actually the day of the resurrection if you read in there it says on the evening of that day which assuming it's continuing from the previous section that was the resurrection day itself 8 days later if you're talking about 8 days in the United States culture you're going to think that means Monday because we're going to think okay, seven days from now is Sunday, eight days would be Monday.

The way that they spoke about things then, they would have included the first day in their eight days. So Jesus' appearance was on Sunday, the first day, and then his appearance was on the next Sunday. And so the reason we went to that passage, and we'll comment on it a little bit more, is that part of what I want to help you understand today is that the Christian Sabbath is in fact Sunday.

This is not a tradition that we have concocted. This isn't something that Constantine started because pagans like to do things on Sunday and so he thought it would be easier to make Christianity do things on Sunday. I guess you could probably look up dozens of myths as to why Christians do things on Sunday. And you will also find people who will say, well, it's just kind of a tradition and maybe it's a little bit implied.

I think it's clear from the New Testament that Sunday was the day. And that's why we went to John 20. We'll go back there then. So there's a few comments I want to make on the Sabbath. So if we go back to Exodus 20, I'll remind you that there has been probably six sermons now. So there's a lot of information that's already been given.

There's a lot of things that I'll say have already been proven that we're going to assume have already been said today. And so there will be times that maybe you think this one particular sermon I didn exhaustively prove everything and thank God I don do that because I don know probably don want to sit here forever and just hear me exhaustively say the same thing I said a few weeks ago but in Exodus 20 I want to remind you what it says it says remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy so God commands them to remember the day and that they're remembering is to keep it holy that's what they're supposed to be remembering that it's a holy day. It's a separate day.

He gives them some examples of how to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. One of the forgotten and missing components of Sabbath worship, of Sabbath obedience in the church today is the six days you shall labor. One of the reasons why a lot of us feel actually stressed on Sunday because we're not supposed to work and get things done is we don't work hard enough the rest of the week getting things done.

And so we've got all this stuff left over that needs to be done on Sunday because we didn't want to do it on Saturday. We wanted to do something else. Or we didn't want to do it on Friday or Thursday. Or we weren't thinking ahead on Friday. So part of your problem when Sunday is not a delight for you to rest from your labors, to rest from your desires and your business and your own personal pleasures is that you were not taking care of things beforehand.

I think one of the reasons why... I think you'll see if you work hard every day of the week, Monday through Saturday, I think you'll start to see how a more restful Sabbath is actually a pleasure. For a lot of people to be told to sit back and relax on a Sunday is not pleasurable because they've already relaxed Friday and Saturday and now they've got to mow their grass and do other things.

It says, six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. We pointed out once before that it's a one in seven pattern. He doesn't say the seventh day of the week necessarily in this case. It's the seventh day. There's a one in seven pattern.

And we can read about it in the Confession, chapter 22. It's a pattern of one in seven days. That's God's eternal law. And positively speaking, he enacted it to be the seventh day of the week in the pre-Jesus part of creation. Before the incarnation, before really the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Sabbath was the seventh day of the week. It was Saturday.

Your pattern was you work, work, work, work, work. And then when you're done working, you can rest for a day. That was the pattern. Jesus comes and we're going to prove this a little more but Jesus comes and now with the picture of Jesus even on our mind and I mean that symbolically now we rest, then we go work the Sabbath rest of the Old Testament was pictured by the Old Covenant itself where you worked and worked and worked and if you were successful you might find some rest the Israelites were promised many blessings if they would simply do the commands of God.

In the New Covenant, which we see so clearly in the life of Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins, apart from works of the law that you do, what we see is that it is you rest in Christ. And then as a result of your resting, you go to work. The motivation that each and every Christian in this room should have for everything you do should be the fact that Jesus Christ shed his blood for you.

And if you wake up on any given day and you've got work you want to do, important work, helping a friend, abolishing abortion, whatever it happens to be, there's all sorts of cultural woes. I was going to start just naming things. My brain was overloaded almost. Whatever the things is, we want to fight. if your motivation is you're trying to just earn something and maybe if you get it right you'll be able to relax at the end you'll get worn out because there'll always be another thing this side of heaven if your motivation is jesus christ paid for my sins and now because i'm resting in him i want to go and do the good works that he has foreordained that i should walk in you'll be energized to do so.

I watched a show about William Wilberforce today. So that answers your question, is it okay to watch TV on the Sabbath? Well, your pastor watched a show about William Wilberforce, so there you have it. I thought watching Christian biographies and Christian documentaries was something that I would consider to be part of how I worship God on the Sabbath.

So anyway, That's what I did. And William Wilberforce was a powerful force in the parliament before he really embraced Christ. And he actually is one of the few people, historically speaking, who actually was powerful and well-known and then got saved and then remained faithful and remained actually in the public eye. But William Williforce was instrumental in the abolition of the slave trade in England back in the early 19th century.

And the thing that you forget when you read history, you read, oh, this guy did this thing, and what a great guy, and he was Christian. The thing I didn't realize, he introduced an abolition bill for 20 straight years before it finally passed. But he was motivated by the fact that he had been freed from slavery to sin by his Savior Jesus Christ And he was going to continuously present to the Parliament that slavery needed to be abolished without compromise and without incremental components to it And he was going to do it unwaveringly, even though he became sick and had some difficulties he had to face.

This was he was motivated by love of Christ. He was motivated because he was already resting in Christ. so back to Exodus 20 verse 10 the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God it's a ceasing, it's a stopping of your labor on it you shall not do any work he says, you or your son or your daughter your male servant, your female servant, your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates parents, one of your commands is that you are to teach your kids the Sabbath. One of the reasons why your kids won't find delight in the Sabbath is that you don't make them work throughout the week.

Some of you are loving people and you're very servant-hearted people. Some of you moms maybe and you do everything for your kids sometimes. They're not even tired by Sunday. And tell them today you don't have to sweep the floors, no big deal because they only did it once in the past three weeks anyway. So you can train your kids at a very early age in a way that maybe you were not trained to enjoy the Sabbath as a delight, as a chance to worship God and to focus on the things of God.

It also says you're a male servant and you're a female servant. And we read that and we think about these guys with slaves and we think about rich people that had servants around and things like that. But in a very real sense, every single person that you employ as your servant, even just temporarily. So you drive through Wendy's on Sunday, pick up a burger and some fries, you're breaking the Sabbath and you're causing the person who's working at Wendy's to work for you at that time.

Now, the fact that they would be working anyway is not an excuse. People could argue about this. I'd venture to say that if Christians everywhere stop buying things on the Sabbath there'd be a lot more places like Chick-fil-A out there. But the United States Christian community is well known for its post-morning church large fellowship meals at Bob Evans and places like that.

And I'll tell you what, Bob Evans and Scrambling Marie's are never going to shut down on Sunday as long as people are filling the place and buying things all Sunday afternoon. And in some of their cases, in their minds, they're thinking, I'm resting, it's Sunday. And they're violating not only the spirit, but the letter of the Sabbath law as to what you should be doing on Sunday.

You are a testimony to the rest of the world on the Sabbath that we have a God who created all things. That the God who created everything rested on the seventh day, even though he has no need of rest. And he commanded that we follow in those footsteps and we rest also. And we testify to the world that he's our creator. And he's their creator when we obey the Sabbath command.

We testify to the world that he is more important than anything else. He's even more important than Christmas or Easter. I'm not anti-Christmas and I'm not anti-Easter necessarily. I don't like when it gets focused on the Sabbath, but I did watch a sermon in the last couple weeks. I thought the guy took a bit of an extreme anti-Christmas position, and I understood it though.

But one of the things he pointed out that is a concern of mine is that as the excitement and the increase in the focus on holidays, like Christmas and other things, increases, the focus on Sabbath worship decreases. Now, individually, maybe that's not the case for you. Maybe you can keep them separate and you're a good Sabbatarian, and you can also enjoy Christmas.

But culturally speaking, I think we can see how we have a culture that is 100% anti-Sabbath at this point. 100% might be extreme because there's nine of us here, but you get my point. and yet we still have Christmas off on the calendar here in the United States unless you're a home business owner and you just take off whenever you want the rest of us only get a few holidays a year and that's tongue in cheek of course own your own business they say you can work whenever you want, make as much as you want they say right? yep that's how it works anyway we talked about that one before it says we're the sojourner who is within your gates The Sabbath command was for everyone, not just the Jews. God's moral law is eternal and universal and perpetual.

So there are certain aspects of God's law that have changed, right? We can eat pork today. We're in the new covenant. We believe we can eat pork. We believe there was a time when the people of God would have not eaten pork in obedience to a command of God. That law changed.

That was not a perpetual, universal, moral law. That was a positive law God gave for a specific dispensation of time to teach his people and even us lessons. The Sabbath command is not one of those commands that went away when Jesus came. In fact, if anything, it's been increased and now it's been changed to Sunday. Verse 11 of Exodus 20. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth. this is the verse I go to when I talk to old earth creationists So whenever you talk to someone that says well maybe God made the earth in 14 billion years or whatever people want to say it is today because it going to change in a few years anyway I go here it says for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth There is no concept of six days in Exodus 20 that means six million years.

In Exodus 20, the context is most clearly a single week of regular 24 hour days. and the only motivation anyone has for trying to change that is because they want to unbelieve or disbelieve what God has said come like Thomas bring it all back for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day he gave us the example therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy Sabbath day is holy set apart, separate Turn to Deuteronomy 5. In Deuteronomy 5, Moses gets the law again. You may recall that Moses broke the law.

In Deuteronomy 5, if you look at verse 12, you'll notice that it's worded differently than it was worded in Exodus 20. In verse 12 it says, observe the Sabbath to keep it holy as Yahweh your God commanded you. And then the rest of the command is nearly identical. We have the prohibition effectively of buying and selling. We already talked from Matthew 12.

We already talked about the fact that we can do acts of mercy and acts of necessity. you wake up on the Sabbath and you take care of your family members that need taken care of. I was sick last Sunday. I was glad that my wife was willing to work to take care of me when I was sick. She did not break the Sabbath command by helping someone who needed help on the Sabbath.

Now we have to be able to define that or we'll come up with a million excuses. Well, my husband really likes steaks that take a couple hours. Obviously, you know, it doesn't go on forever. We have to be reasonable with works of necessity. You know, a stubbed toe isn't a work of necessity that you need to go to the doctor and some things can wait until Monday.

But he says, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as Yahweh your God commanded you. In Exodus 20, they were told to remember the Sabbath. They were supposed to recall that God had already given them a Sabbath long before the stone tablets came with the law etched in them. They were to remember that. It was a reminder, hey, this is not a new thing. It's like God knew of all the commandments, there was going to be one that people were going to say, hey, maybe this one we don't have to do anymore.

Because it takes an extremely wicked culture to think you don't obey parents, you're allowed to murder, adultery is okay. Lying's okay. Stealing's okay. Natural law teaches people more than half the commandments already. The way we're built teaches us to be worshippers of something, whether it's the one true God or an idol. We all understand these things.

Blasphemy is so clear to people. If you don't think blasphemy is obvious to people, watch a movie. I don't recommend it, honestly. Come to Ohio State with us sometime. People walking by with nothing on their mind but watching some football will walk by us. They will hear preaching.

They will see a Bible. They will see a gospel tract. And they will instantly have to blaspheme. They instinctively know this. The Sabbath command is a little bit more nebulous for people. And so God told us to remember it.

But Deuteronomy says observe it or obey it. It's a command to be obeyed. Now, there's a few ways you can keep the Sabbath. And there's a few ways you can do it wrongly, let's say. I'm going to remind you of what Jesus taught us in particular in the Sermon on the Mount. That your obedience to God's law is all from your heart.

So you can physically be what we call a pure husband. You're not actually committing adultery with any woman out there in the world. And in your heart you could be committing adultery with women. And according to Jesus, you've sinned against God and broken the adultery command, if you've done that. The Sabbath command is not any different. So you can sit there all day on the Sabbath. you can show up at church you can even have your Bible open at home and if in your heart and your mind you're not observing God's Sabbath if you're focused on your pleasures if you're focused on your worldly recreations and God forbid even sin you're violating the Sabbath so here's a couple quotes that I thought would be helpful this is by some guy named Bishop Andrews no idea who he is he's terrible just rebuke me later he says to keep the Sabbath in an idle manner so to do nothing at all just sit around and do nothing because that's a temptation he says that's the Sabbath of oxen and asses now all the kids are listening I know it So to sit around and do nothing on Sunday and to think you're observing the Sabbath, you're just acting like a cow.

Okay? You're nothing but a dumb animal. the Sabbath to be observed is not idleness. It's actually about activity. Now you should rest. I took a nap today. I thought it was a good idea.

Might be able to preach two hours. What do you think, Easton? It's okay. All right, that's my man right there. But, and I don't want you to wear yourself out every Sunday. But the Sabbath is actually a wonderful day for a church to get together and do something.

We could get together a few hours before church and we could go door to door in the neighborhood here. Just hand out information about the church. Wouldn't be a bad day to visit a police station or a fire station where some of these guys out of, we'll say, necessity are working. And some of them might not even want to. Maybe they miss church. I had an old friend that was a police officer and he hated, hated when he got put on Sunday.

They got like 20, 25 days off a year of vacation. He basically just spent all his vacation days on Sundays. He never took a vacation. Just so he could be at church 25 times more than not. So those are the kinds of things we can do on the Sabbath that are still work. They could be very labor intensive in fact.

But if we're doing it for the Lord's sake, if we're doing acts of mercy, feeding the poor, helping homeless people. These are the kinds of things that oxen and asses don't do, but human beings can do when we're not idle. He says to keep the Sabbath in joviality, that is like pleasure, sports. He says that's the Sabbath of the golden calf. Let me try to exegete this guy's quote for you.

The point is this. You may be resting on Sunday. And you may be thinking in your mind, okay, I'm resting. God told me to rest. And the way I'm going to rest is I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to watch the Browns embarrass themselves again. Okay?

That's my example because I have spent more Sundays watching the Browns embarrass themselves than actually being a disappointed fool for even bothering with them at all. then I've probably spent Sabbath worshiping the Lord still in my life, okay? There's my example for you. But for you to think that sitting and watching other people, in fact, in that case, work on the Sabbath, is how God wants you to rest on the Sabbath, is creating an idol, and that's what the golden calf is.

The golden calf is an idol that was created, but was meant to represent the God who delivered them from Egypt. It wasn't just... Excuse me. it wasn't just hey here's an idol worship it we hate god it was oh no god's great worship him this wrong way and so to worship god to keep the sabbath in joviality is a sabbath of the golden calf you're you end up committing idolatry when your sabbath keeping is just based around you having fun now i'm not going to tell you you can't have fun but i'll give you an example.

I have found that in my own personal life that on Sunday I don't want to sit around and do puzzles even though I like puzzles. We'll say like crossword puzzles and sudokus and things like that. But I have decided that on Sunday that's not the place for me to focus on those kinds of things. That Sunday would be the day I should focus on the Lord and doing acts of mercy and necessity.

But today my wife wanted to do a puzzle together. And I thought, well, that's a nice way to do something as a couple together and enjoy each other in communion. And so I did the puzzle with her. And so there can be maybe some gray areas in your life. There can be things you would or wouldn't do on the Sabbath at any given time and maybe you change your mind.

And I think under the grace of God, we can try things and then we can realize, you know what, I don't think that worked. I don't want to do it anymore. And that's okay. And the last part of the quote I thought was unnecessary says, to keep the Sabbath in immorality, drunkenness, and licentiousness is the Sabbath of Satan, the devil's holiday. I think it's quite obvious that at no point is sin permissible on the Sabbath.

So I'm not even sure why that part of the quote was necessary, but it was probably part of a larger thing. Check out this quote. This is by a guy named Moiter. I think his name is Alec Moyter. He says, the Lord is more interested in enjoyment of his blessings through obedience than in self-imposed deprivations. So the point is this, if you wake up on Sunday and you become ascetic, maybe you're going to be like a monk, and you come up with the list of stuff you're not going to do, and that's going to show God that you obey his Sabbath. so you won't watch football which I encourage you won't do Facebook and Twitter and all the other ones out there I think are wasted times anyway but particularly on the Sabbath you won't even read the paper but if you don't enjoy the Lord if you don't spend the day in worship of the one true God through his son Jesus Christ delighting in him that you're really not observing the Sabbath.

You're self-imposing some kind of deprivation on yourself. You're not getting any spiritual benefit. It would be no different than waking up and fasting, but not spending any of the time actually praying, just spending the day focused on how hungry you are So with that turn to Isaiah 58 Isaiah 58 Read it and comment a little. A little. cry aloud do not hold back lift up your voice like a trumpet declare to my people their transgression to the house of jacob their sins yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their god they ask of me righteous judgments they delight to draw near to god so there's this concept that they are actually approaching God.

Why have we fasted and you see it not? These are what the people are saying. Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? So they've fasted for God and they're not getting what they expected to get as a result of the fast. And they're asking God, why aren't you honoring our work for you? We're fasting.

He says, behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure. They're not fasting for God. They're not fasting out of mourning for sin. They're not fasting out of a desire for God to heal the nation and heal the land. They do it for their own pleasure. Sounds a little weird because we don't normally think of fasting as something we do for ourselves, but we can.

We probably will never think of it that way. will always think we're making some sacrifice, but in our heart what we're doing is something for ourselves and for our own glory. He says, you oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.

Is such that fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself? He says, is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? He's saying when you fast, you're trying to draw attention to your fasting. You're doing all the outward signs of mourning so people will notice you. And Jesus comments on this. He says, when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.

Truly, I tell you, they've received their reward, he says. it's all for this life one of the reasons why it's hard as a pastor to call a fast even though we're allotted in the confession to even do it we want to be careful that people are always fasting for the right reasons he says will you call this a fast a day acceptable to the Lord now listen he says is not this the fast that I choose to lose the bonds of wickedness and to undo the straps of the yoke to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? He says the whole point of fasting is for you to help others.

It's to teach you to avoid sin and evil. Most of you are more naturally inclined to wickedness than you are to eat. so as hungry as you get when you're fasting it should be a reminder to you of how much you need the Lord to help you fight your evil that's inside you so skip down to verse 13 now he says if you turn back your foot from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in Yahweh. And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.

I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. He wants them to obey the Sabbath. and he defines that as not seeking their own pleasure on his holy day now there is a translational thing here where some people say that it means not seeking your own business if you read a few of the different versions and if you read the context it does seem to say that it's not just that you don't work on the sabbath it's that you seek what the lord's pleasure is now God willing what the Lord God willing what is pleasing to the Lord is also pleasing to you so the things you do on the Sabbath will be a delight for you but his point is the things that you seek to do are not always going to be the things God wants you to do on the Sabbath and it is you turning away from those things and turning to the things God has called for you and calling those things a delight that he wants again the Lord is more interested in enjoyment of his blessings through obedience Moiter says than in self-imposed deprivations so turn to the end of John chapter 20 well real quick you don't have to turn it I'll just read you in Acts 20 verse 7 this is one of the verses cited in chapter 22 of our confession proving that the Sabbath for Christians is on Sunday and not Saturday On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. When it says they were gathered together to break bread, A lot of people consider that a term that simply means to get together for church and to have their communion.

So the early church gathered on the first day of the week. We see that in 1 Corinthians 16. We also see that John calls it the Lord's Day. That's why we say the Lord's Day also and not just Sabbath. with calling it the Lord's Day is nice, because for your non-sabotarian friends, you can kind of start to talk about it without going straight to the thing you know they already oppose.

But Jesus was raised on the Sunday. Alright? There was one verse in Luke I wanted to read. Also, before we get to John. Turn to Luke 23, sorry. we'll do Luke 23 real quick too Luke 23 56 before the resurrection then they returned and prepared spices and ointments this is for Jesus' body on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment and they obeyed the command right up to the point it was going to change, isn't that great but on the first day of the week at early dawn they went to the tomb taking the spices they had prepared and this is where they saw that Jesus was risen and if you skip down to verse 13 it says that very day so it's still Sunday, it's still the resurrection day if you want you can call it Easter I guess early church called it Easter it says they were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem while they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened and they were talking.

And while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. So Jesus walked with them to Emmaus. And remember the story. They don't recognize him. He was hidden from them. They didn't know who he was until they got there.

He broke bread. And when he broke the bread, their eyes were open. They realized who he was and they knew that the Lord had been with them. And then he explained in all the scriptures all the things about himself to them. The one point I wanted to make to you here was that Jesus walked 10 kilometers or 7 miles. And then in verse 33 it says, And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.

So these two guys that weren't part of the 11, they walked 7 miles with Jesus in the Middle Eastern heat or whatever. and then they walked seven miles back and at no point were they rebuked like, oh, by the way, that's too far to walk. Okay? Part of the Sabbath difficulty is it's not always clear what the rules are and so Pharisees make rules. And so that was part of the problem with the Pharisees is they made rules how far you could walk on the Sabbath, how far you could drive on the Sabbath.

Now, I don't think you should be traveling for your work, because now you're focused on work, but I'm not going to tell you you can't drive to grandma's house 100 miles or whatever. At the same time, even though I'm very hesitant to lay down rules for people that aren't the commands of God, I think we can extrapolate using wisdom and a logic and understanding God's law that there are some do's and don'ts on the Sabbath. And I don't think somebody is automatically a legalist because they think maybe you shouldn't do something on the Sabbath.

And so in particular, people in our church want to get together and talk about these things and want to bring up, hey, I noticed such and such. I think we should be very forgiving if we think they're wrong. Chances are if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I noticed you doing Sudoku on Sunday there. I think we should be very forgiving and very patient about it and trust that maybe God's leading them to help us.

So on Sunday, Jesus did these things. But then in John 20, we have a lesson from Thomas. So most of us are going to go all through eternity, and you're going to be known as Jason Roberts, and Lindsay Roberts, and Elijah Thompson. I might be Michael the Long-Winded. Maybe I'll have a nickname or something. Can you imagine being Doubting Thomas for all eternity?

I mean, nobody, we don't say Peter the denier, do we? Like, nobody remembers Peter that way, but Doubting Thomas, right? What a horrible nickname. Well, he earned it. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, John 20, 19, the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood among them. So already this is supernatural, okay?

This is exciting, all right? He says, Peace be with you. He showed him his hands inside and he appears to them. He lets them know that he's risen. So these guys that had missed them, they understand he's there. Far as I know, this would have been after the two guys he walked to Emmaus with had come back and already told the eleven So so the the eleven are hanging out but there only 10 of them because as it says in verse 24 Thomas Didymus was not with them all right And so they tell him, we saw him.

So these guys, so Jesus told Thomas, I'm going to rise again after three days. He predicted everything that was going to happen to him. Thomas was there, he's one of the disciples. He says, one of you is going to betray me. Judas betrays him. he's crucified he dies and then three days later Peter who was on the mount of transfiguration transfiguration with Jesus and John and James and the other guys look at Thomas and say hey by the way while you were doing whatever it is you were doing when we were meeting here today the Lord showed up and they all testified to it and see you got you got 10 guys that had walked of Jesus for three years, who Thomas supposedly was one of them, and he says, I don't believe you guys.

This is crazy. And you know what? You do it every single time you unbelieve something that's written in the scripture by the same apostles. Or disbelieve, I should say. I like the word unbelief. Every single time we violate one of God's commands, we temporarily suspend the belief in that truth. be glad that you're not nicknamed by your sin.

And so Thomas says, I'm not going to believe it, right? We already read it. He says, I will never believe unless I actually touch them. It's not an unreasonable request, right? It's not crazy to think, I'd like to see it myself. but Jesus is not really proud of them. So eight days later, the next Sunday, Jesus appears again.

One of the things that people say that are Sabbatarian is all of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances were on Sundays. It's hard to verify that in John 21. So I don't know if I would repeat that other than to repeat it that someone else said it. but it's one of the arguments for the fact that we've switched to Sunday. But Jesus stood among them. Now Thomas is there, so look.

One of the lessons, I didn't make this up, this was Matthew Henry or one of the other guys I read, but don't miss church. Thomas skipped out on the meeting. Some guys, I think Albert Barnes said, most certainly Jesus told him to be there. it's maybe implied there that they were together because the Lord had told them, this is where I want you to be on this day, or whatever, maybe.

And Thomas wasn't there. He missed out on the visitation of God with the congregation of God's people. And as a result, he didn't receive the same blessing they all received that day. Again, we understand providential hindrance, but that wasn't Thomas' problem. So Jesus says to Thomas, verse 27, Put your finger here and see my hand. He says, put out your hand and place it in my side.

Jesus knows what he said the week before. And being the compassionate and gracious God, man that he is, he actually kind of gave in to Thomas' request, right? And he says, do not disbelieve. Do not be an unbeliever, but believe. And Thomas immediately confesses them. But there he is on the Sabbath, on the Christian Sabbath Sunday, meeting with the people of God.

The people of God are together. Jesus promised them, wherever two or three of you are gathered, there I will be with you. Jesus meets with his people when they gather together. I've got a Spurgeon quote. It's a little bit long, but bear with me. God has, in great mercy, given us a day, one day in seven, wherein to rest and to think of holy things.

There were seven days that God had in the week. He said, take six and use them in your business. No, we must have the seventh as well. It is as if one upon the road saw a poor man in distress and having but seven shillings, the generous person gave the poor man six. But when the wretch had scrambled on his feet, he followed his benefactor to knock him down and steal the seventh shilling from him.

How many do this? The Sabbath is their day for sport, for amusement, for anything but the service of God. They rob God of his day, though it be but one in seven. This is base unthankfulness. As I said before, God could have demanded seven days. He only commanded one. so question for you to ask yourself okay and you ask yourself this every week now and it's convicting so let's abandon the idea that any of us will be perfect Sabbath keepers okay Jesus kept the Sabbath perfectly and we can look at his outward behavior on the Sabbath and we can glean a little bit from that but ultimately his heart was what was perfect.

He was pure in heart so he will see God. You aren't pure in heart. You have a regenerated, born again heart. And so your heart has some desires to do righteous things, but you will never perfectly keep the Sabbath. On your very best Sabbath, if you're honest, you'll look back and you'll actually hate yourself for how you didn't keep it the way you wished you did.

And that'll happen when you're glorified one day. We'll have an eternal Sabbath and it'll be wonderful. But assuming now that each and every one of us is going to be at some different place, where we're better or worse at actually honoring God on the Sabbath. And due to circumstances, in some cases, there's things that come up that we've got to deal with, or we're just not really good at the preparation for it yet, and some of that stuff.

We're all going to be in different locations in our status here. But think about yourself now. How can you make this Sabbath a little more God-glorifying than the last one? so forget perfection forget I'm going to wake up I'm going to read the Bible three hours I'm going to pray three hours and then I pray another three hours then I read the Bible three hours then I go to church and I have my mind on God the whole time and I won even think about it I won pick up my phone once and if I do I won look at my emails Like, forget the perfection concept.

How can you just make this week a little bit more dedicated to Christ than last week was? And then next week, okay, this is an iterative process. It means it's going to repeat. Then next week, well, how can I move a little closer to what I think is ideal Sabbath keeping from where I'm at today? How can I start to structure my week and my days, in particular Friday and Saturday, to prepare myself so that I have less excuses on Sunday for the things that I realize, wow, I don't have to do that if I prepare for it.

So think of it that way. Instead of the perfection, how am I going to be this amazing Sabbath keeper? And then they'll write a book about me and now you've broken it because now you're idolatrous and prideful. So instead think of it as what can I put away that I doing this week and then replace with something more God next week All right for some of you it might mean different things right now than for other people because we're at different places with even understanding the Sabbath and starting to want to keep it.

So that would be my practical advice as to how you can start to do that. But ultimately, remember, if you turn your foot away on the Sabbath and you honor God with it, you make it your delight. What God wants is for you to enjoy worshiping him. And he knows if in your heart you don't. He knows if you're going through the motions. He knew Judas was going through the motions.

You think Judas never did anything good? Judas was somebody the other disciples didn't even suspect of betrayal but God knew his heart and he knows your heart so pray that he would give you delight in his Sabbath pray that he would change your heart he would change you from within and then all these things will become more natural for you and you find yourself having different appetites And then you ask other people hey what do you do I've asked Jason and Jeremy one night, and I asked them some pretty, some of them were probably strange questions, they thought. But it's like, hey, I was really wondering, what do you guys, what do you do on the Sabbath?

What do you do if this happens? Or how do you teach your kid that, you know, whatever? And work together on it. so let me pray Father thank you for the rest provided by Jesus Christ from the labor to try to be pleasing to you we thank you that we are already pleasing to you and we pray Lord that you would give us hearts that would be conformed to his image that we may obey your commands with delight we want your law to be our delight we want to meditate on it day and night and we want to be able to say that we have set apart that day for you.

The day that you have chosen. The day that you have picked. And so we ask you to please, by your grace help us. Help us from the heart. Amen.