The church is full of ideas about the Sabbath. Everyone has an opinion on it. The question we must grapple with is: "Does our opinion reflect the mind of Christ?" When Christ was confronted about the Sabbath, He seized the opportunity to set the record straight and to reorient man's thinking about the day. He saw the burdens that the religious leaders had placed on the people in relation to His day and the fences they had constructed to bind the people and minimize the delight God had purposed (Isaiah 58:13-14). And so Jesus sought to take down the fences and to remove the man-inflicted burdens. In Mark 2:27-28 we have Jesus declaring two things - things that He saw as extremely crucial to our understanding of this day He established. The first thing He declares is the reason for the Sabbath. He helps us to understand that purpose by taking us all the way back to the seventh day of Creation found in the opening of Genesis 2. If we start our discussion on the Sabbath in Exodus 20, our thinking is out of step with Christ's thinking. God established the day for the benefit of mankind. The second thing Christ declares is His relation to the Sabbath - He, the Son of man, made under the law, as the very Giver of that law, is also Lord of the Sabbath. It is His day - He claims one day out of the seven for Himself. The Sabbath was made for man, to be a benefit and a blessing to him...so says the Lord of the Sabbath.

This is the day the Lord hath made;
He calls the hours his own;
Let heav'n rejoice, let earth be glad,
And praise surround the throne 

Mark chapter 2, we're going to pick up for the reason of context verse 23 and read through the end of the chapter, Mark 2, 23. Now it happened that he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. And as they went, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to him, to Jesus, look, why do they do? What is not lawful on the Sabbath?

But he said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests and also gave some to those who were with him. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. Let's pray.

Gracious God, we thank you for your word. Lord, man shall come and go, shall wither like the grass, but your word shall stand forever. Lord, may we understand that and embrace that as we come before it today. Lord, give us teachable hearts to hear what the Spirit has to say to us today. Bless us in this day.

Thank you for this day. May it be to your honor and your glory alone. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Amen.

You may be seated. Once there was a great king who built a splendid city. In the middle of the city, the king designed a delightful park which was laid out with ponds, fountains, and springs. Magnificent trees from all over the world, gorgeous aromatic plants, inviting stretches of lawn, pathways and benches where peoples and families might walk and sit together, and a spacious amphitheater for public meetings. Weekly, the king met with his subjects in this park.

His people delighted in the time with him and one another. One day, the king had to go away. In his absence, the rulers he left in charge began to let the park run down. Although they still held civic events at the amphitheater, these rulers had little interest in the park. They did not truly have in mind the king's interests.

Soon the park was overrun with weeds. The trees were not pruned, the exotic plants died, and the pools of water stagnated. The park was in ruins. After a time, a new group of rulers came into authority in the city. They were genuinely concerned about the park and began to restore to it its former beauty.

They pulled out the weeds, They replanted all the gardens, pruned the trees, repaired the pathways and the benches, and opened the streams so that fresh water again flowed through the park. These rulers, however, were fearful that the park once again would fall into disrepair. In order to protect the park, they made it a memorial to the king, rather like a museum. They continued to hold meetings at the amphitheater, but they put a fence around the park's border and along the pathways so people could look at the beautiful sights in the park but could not actually use it. Then one day, quite unexpectedly, the king's son came to the city.

One of the first things that he did was to tear down the fence. He exclaimed to the rulers, enough of this. This park was built for the people of the city to remember my father and enjoy, but you have kept them out of the park. So after removing all the fences, he invited the people to come and meet with him and one another in the park. Because the King and his son are still occupied throughout their great kingdom.

They have appointed leaders in the city. Regrettably of late, these leaders once again have allowed the park to become unkempt and trampled down. Again, weeds overrun it, the trees are not pruned, and the ponds have become stagnant. And because it has lost much of its charming beauty, people no longer come to it. Admittedly they have kept the amphitheater in good repair and continue public meetings but increasingly The people have lost their interest.

The park is so unattractive that they see no need to go there at all. Recently, developers seeing the land unused have begun seeking to put up an amusement park. The historical society is opposing them, wanting instead to restore the park and preserve it for the sake of tradition. But there is a third group who wants to restore it to its original purposes. To make matters more confusing, all parties are claiming to act on behalf of the interests of the king and his son.

Meanwhile, as you might imagine, the king's subjects are thoroughly confused. Well, the story comes from Dr. Joseph Piper's book, The Lord's Day. The park is a picture of God's Sabbath. The story shows God's purpose in creating the day of how it was neglected by the Jews, how his son came into the world and sought to set the Sabbath back in its proper place, and how those who followed him allowed the day to fall in disrepair today.

And how the church approaches the subject of the day in our time. Well, You may be sitting here this morning wondering why in the world you are asked to turn to the Gospel of Mark for the sermon text of a message in a series on the Ten Commandments. Why would we not have the pertinent portion of Exodus 20 as our opening text for dealing with the fourth commandment. Well, one good reason that could be given is that God in the eighth verse of Exodus 20 declares that his people are to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Remember.

And so the commandment itself finds its roots in something that occurred much earlier. And for that reason, we can start a study on the Sabbath in no better place than right here in Mark 2. Because here in this passage, we have Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, declaring both the reason for the Sabbath and his own relation to the day. So when Jesus dealt with the questions regarding the Sabbath, he didn't go to Exodus 20. So let us start where Jesus starts.

Now, before we dive in, I would like to begin by asking of you a favor. Because in a room this size and with all of us coming from varying backgrounds, the likelihood is that there are some among us who are not convinced of the relevance of the fourth commandment in the life of the new covenant believer. And rather than assume your station as one who will oppose, rather than tuning me out simply because you know where I'm going and where I will end at the end of these messages. And that place is maybe different from where you stand at the moment. I beg of you the following four things.

First, that you lend your ear to the arguments as they are unfolded before you. As they are unfolded before you. Don't go run to... But what does it say? Just lend your ear to the arguments.

Second, that you give due consideration to the Scriptures we shall deal with in the coming weeks in the very context in which they were written. Context is important. Third, that you weigh in appropriately the teaching of the early church, which I also hope to cover. And fourth, and probably the most important, that you exhibit the noble spirit of the Bereans mentioned in Acts 17, that you receive the Word with all readiness and search the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things are so. So are you willing to do that in the next few weeks?

Are you willing to receive the word with all readiness? Are you willing to go wherever the truth might take you? I hope so. But with those things in place and your Bibles open in front of you, look with me at verse 27 as we consider the first point of our outline this morning. And it is this, Christ declares the reason for the Sabbath.

Christ declares the reason for the Sabbath. And Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Dear ones, hear him who now speaks. Christ spoke the words of the Ten Commandments given to Moses and the people on Mount Sinai, and it is the same Christ, though here in his incarnate state, who speaks these words in our text here in Mark 2. The words of Christ must be taken with all seriousness.

In Deuteronomy 18, 18 and 19, God spoke to Moses these words to relay to the people a prophecy of Christ who would come. I will raise up for them a prophet, Jesus, like you, Moses, from among their brethren and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of them." On the Mount of Transfiguration, in Matthew 17, 25, we read, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, that is Jesus and the three disciples who were with him. And suddenly a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him." Matthew 28, 19 and 20 adds another layer of responsibility in considering and heeding the words of Christ.

There, the risen Christ establishes what we know is the Great Commission, a recreation mandate for His disciples. And He said, "'Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. We cannot afford to miss out on, to overlook, to downplay, to add or subtract from the words of Jesus anywhere, even in this text before us. We must hear Him. And if we are to be his disciples, we must obey him and observe the things that he taught.

So what does Jesus have to say on the subject? Jesus declares that the Sabbath was made for man. The word made in the Greek has the idea of being established or enacted. You see, the Sabbath had a beginning. The Sabbath was established the very next day after the creation of man.

In that sense, man is but one day older than the Sabbath. But Jesus does not stop the sentence there. He includes a prepositional phrase that gives us a reason for the establishment of the day. The Sabbath was made for man. Now, Greek scholars point out that the preposition for in the original language indicates that Jesus is communicating the fact that The Sabbath is an advantage or a benefit.

The Sabbath was made for the benefit of man. It was made for the advantage of man. You see, the Sabbath is a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's not a burdensome thing.

It's not a loss. The God who created all things that exist, who stood at the end of each day of creation and declared what? All was very good. This day, God established for man, He calls it the Sabbath, and the establishment of it for the created man is no less a very good thing than anything else he created on the first six days. Do you get that?

Each day God declared this is very good when he established the Sabbath. It's good for man. All that God did in those seven days was good. The Sabbath was established for man, for man. God did not need the day for his rest.

You see, his omnipotence, his omniscience were not taxed. His rest was simply a ceasing from his labors as we read in Hebrews 4 10. God was rather establishing a pattern for man whom he had just created. He created man in such a way that a day of rest as defined by the one who established it would be and is an advantage and a benefit. Note as well that the day was an advantage and a benefit to man in his pre-fallen state.

The entrance of sin was not the thing that necessitated a day of rest. God, the all-wise creator, saw this day as needed by man, even as created in all his perfection. If that is the case, how much more advantageous, how much more beneficial is the day for us since the fall. And so man's first, his first full day on this earth was the Sabbath, God's day of rest. As a creature made in God's image, Adam and Eve entered into God's rest on the first day.

Because the Sabbath was established for man, then the opposite cannot be true. And so Christ seeking to break the unbiblical grip that the Pharisees sought to hold the people under states that man was not created for the Sabbath. You see, man came first and then the Sabbath. The Pharisees had so twisted the purpose of God, they had made the Sabbath a burden rather than an advantage. They made man the servant of the Sabbath rather than the Sabbath the servant of man.

This is important for us to understand. Jesus is here seeking to reorient man to the Sabbath, to remove the man-inflicted burden, not to remove the God-given mandate. The last thing we need to see under this point is that this day was established for man. The whole, it was established for man, not man for the Sabbath. We need to focus on this word, man.

The Greek word here, you'll recognize it, it's anthropos, anthropos, which means simply mankind. Why is that significant? Well, remember who Jesus was speaking to. He was speaking to the Jewish leaders. If he viewed the day as simply a Jewish day of remembrance, as something established there at Mount Sinai, wouldn't it not have made more sense for him to say the Sabbath was made for you, for you Jews.

By stating that the Sabbath was made for mankind, Jesus rewinds the narrative passing Mount Sinai and rewinds all the way back to the Garden of Eden. This pinpoints the establishment of the day. Thayer's Greek lexicon also points to the fact that this word for man, anthropos, is preceded by an article in the original text. The addition of the article renders the interpretation of man so as to include all human individuals. Not just this group, but it's including all of the individuals within that group.

Jesus states here, and he does so infallibly, that the Sabbath was made for all mankind. It was made for man without regard to nationality and without regard to time. We must make the distinctions that Jesus himself made. The Sabbath was established when? At creation, not at Mount Sinai.

The Sabbath was established for whom? All mankind, not just the Jews. The Sabbath was established for what reason? For the benefit of each and every man and woman that would come into the world, all the descendants of Adam and Eve. And in observing a weekly day of rest, we the creation, following the footsteps of our Creator, We become imitators of him.

So this is the reason for the Sabbath as Jesus himself declares it to be. It was created for the advantage, for the benefit of man. As a friend of mine once said, very simply yet profoundly, the Sabbath was created for man. I am a man. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

Christ states the reason for the Sabbath, your benefit, my benefit, your advantage, my advantage. Now look with me at verse 28 and consider the second main point, which is Christ declares his relation to the Sabbath. Having declared the reason for the Sabbath, he now declares his relation to the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath." Who gave this Galilean man the authority to speak concerning the Sabbath that these Jews have been practicing and observing for centuries. Who is this carpenter who so addresses the religious leaders of the day?

And after all, this Jesus had broken the very rules of the Sabbath by allowing his disciples to harvest on the Sabbath, to pluck heads of wheat while walking through some fields. Who is this law breaker who desecrates the sanctity of the day? So the thinking must have gone through the minds of those leaders as our text opens up back in verse 23. And so the religious leaders, those whose job it was they thought to police the Sabbath, they approach Jesus and say, look, why do they, your disciples, do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Well, having stated the very reason for the Sabbath, a reason they obviously weren't operating according to, Jesus continues to answer their question by stating, secondly, his relation to this Sabbath day.

Who is he? How is it that he has the nerve to instruct them concerning the day? He who speaks is the Son of Man who is also Lord of the Sabbath. The one who was born under the law is the giver of that very law. He who speaks to them now is he who spoke to their stiff-necked forefathers.

He who appears before them now as a weak and powerless man is the one who descended upon Mount Sinai in fire and smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly before his presence. The same one. The same one. Commentators Jamison, Fawcett, and Brown provide a helpful explanation of his title, Lord of the Sabbath. Quote, in what sense now is the Son of Man Lord of the Sabbath day?

Not surely to abolish it. That surely were a strange Lordship, especially just after saying that it was made or instituted for man, but rather to own it, to interpret it, to preside over it, and to ennoble it by merging it in the Lord's day, Revelation 1-10, by breathing into it an air of liberty and love, necessarily unknown before, and thus making it the nearest resemblance to the eternal sabbatism." End quote. Listen to the end of what they just said. This is what his lordship over his day is all about. First, merging it into the Lord's day.

Not abolishing it, not cutting it off, merging it into the Lord's day. Second, breathing into it an air of, not burden, liberty and love, necessarily unknown before. It's what he's doing here. Love and liberty. And thirdly, making it the nearest resemblance to the eternal Sabbath, The eternal rest.

Dear ones, what one of us understand what is ours to come? I certainly don't. I don't think you do. We have a little bit set before us. God knows, Christ knows what the eternal rest is for his people.

He died that we might have it. Well, if he knows what that eternal rest looks like, don't you think he might understand what would prepare us and resemble most that day? Well, think about it. Christ was challenged about his Sabbath keeping. How easy it would have been for him to declare the abolishing of the Sabbath if it was indeed to be abolished by means of his establishment of the New Covenant?

How easy it would have been for him to simply ignore the practice of the Pharisees if the keeping of the day were to expire in conjunction with the removal of their religious authority. Why would Jesus take the time to correct wrong thinking and wrong practice of something that He intended to bring to an end. Why would he take that time to correct it? Because this he did some six times or so during the course of his ministry as it's recorded in the gospels. Each time he sought to correct the wrong thinking about this God-established day.

Christ taught on it some six times, more than most of the other commandments. These truths, coupled with this quote that I read you from Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown also demand our consideration of the foolishness it would have been for Christ to declare his Lordship over something that's fading from the scene. And he intends to be practiced no more. The fact of the matter is that the reason for the Sabbath has not changed, nor has Christ's relation to that day of rest changed? The marvelous work of Robert Paul Martin, who went to be with the Lord of the Sabbath not too long ago, a few years ago, in his book titled The Christian Sabbath, It's been a wonderful, wonderful aid in my study of the subject.

I quote from the book concerning this passage. Dr. Martin says, the point in starting with Mark 2.27 is to underscore that our thinking, our thinking about the Sabbath must begin where our Lord's thinking began. If we start at Sinai with God's giving the law to Israel, we have not gone back far enough in history. And because of this, we risk thinking of Sabbath keeping as a duty binding on Jews but not on us, or as binding only as long as the old covenant was in effect, but not on Christians under the new covenant.

These ideas, he says, are wrong. And one of the reasons that they are wrong is because they do not represent the Sabbath as Jesus saw it. Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, points us to creation." End quote. So as you wrestle afresh with this subject of the Sabbath, you must like Christ go all the way back to creation. You see The Lord of the Sabbath is the Lord of creation.

The creator established the Sabbath, thus extending his lordship to not only what he created on the first six days, but also what he established on the seventh day. He alone determines the parameters of our thinking and consideration of this matter. My friend, You are not the Lord of the Sabbath. You're not, you're not. Jesus is.

You are not to define the purpose of the day. Jesus has already done that. He's done it. It's made for man. He is Lord.

Think through the following questions with me. Has the historicity of the resting of God from all his labors, has that changed? Has the history changed? Has the stated purpose of God for establishing a day of rest for mankind, has that purpose changed? Has the fundamental nature of man changed since creation outside of the fall and its repercussions?

Has the fundamental nature of man changed? Is there any man or woman who falls outside the bounds of mankind? You know anybody? You know a man or woman who's not mankind? Has something that Christ established as a benefit and an advantage somehow lost the benefit?

Lost that advantage? Has Jesus anywhere in this book relinquished His Lordship over a day of rest? Is there any place where he declares that you now have lordship over all seven days? They're all yours. Sit in here.

Can we really say with a text like this staring us in the face that the New Testament is silent about the fourth commandment? Silent? Turn with me to Genesis 2. Turn with me a minute. You can hold your place in Mark, but turn with me back to Genesis 2 and look with me at the first few verses.

And for a moment, I would like for you to consider three things before we look at the text. First, I would like for you to note that the Fourth Commandment again points us back to this passage. Exodus 20, 11 says, four and six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." That's Exodus 20. Second, I would like to call to your attention the text that we've just been looking at. Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, points us back to Genesis 2.

The Sabbath was made for man. And now with the moral law and the giver of that law both pointing us back To the Sabbath, the third thing I would like for you to do before we read these verses in Genesis, I would like for you to receive them as Adam and Eve would have received them there in their context. They're in their context. Okay, you've just been created. The earth is perfect.

There's no sin. There's no weakness in you. And God comes to you. Here's the context. So, thus the heavens and the earth, Genesis 2, well, this picks up the reading.

Well, yeah, chapter 2, verse 1, "'Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it, he rested from all his work which God had created and made. So as Adam and Eve stood back and saw all that God had made, and as he stood there with them and declared, all was very good, then they watched their creator rest and enjoy everything that he had made. John Peter Lang rightly concludes, quote, if we had no other passage, if we had no other passage than this of Genesis 2-3, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal observance of a Sabbath or seventh day, to be devoted to God as holy time by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared, a seventh part of time is holy for men.

God blessed it and hallowed it. Such is the deduction from the language of Genesis 2-3." Can you follow that logic? Can you place yourself free from your world view, free from any preconceived convictions? Can you place yourself right there with them the dawn of time as the parents of all mankind. They receive the creation ordinances of marriage, of procreation, of work, and of Sabbath.

That's the context. That's where Jesus takes us, to the garden where mankind receives these institutions, marriage, procreation, work, and Sabbath. Marriage, procreation, work, and Sabbath. These are God-established ordinances, established at creation, established in the time of man's innocency, established for all mankind and for all generations as long as the earth remains, someone has rightly called marriage, procreation, work, and Sabbath the undergirders laid into the foundation of all orderly human life. Do any of you young people, any of you children like science?

Do you like science? I hope you do. It's the discovery of the greatness of our God. Well, by and large, God's creation sets the parameters of our calendars. What determines a day?

Well, the position of the sun in relation to the sky above us. How about a month? Well, in the Hebrew calendar, what determined a month was the phase of the moon. The moon determined what month it was. How about a year?

Well, a year is determined by the solar cycles of solstices and equinoxes as well as the seasons that such cycles produce. But what about a week? What about a week? How does man determine? How did he ever determine what a week was?

Well it was not derived from any created things as were days, months, and years. God by decree and by example established what we now call a week. It is a seven-day cycle that has never changed. Ralph Wardlaw sheds light on God's purpose by means of the following statement, quote, it is true that creation occupied a certain portion of time, but not because omnipotence required it. I mean, have any of you ever seen a house go up?

You know, man's ability to do only so much in a day kind of sets the calendar for how long it takes to build a house. Not so with God. Mr. Wardlaw goes on to say, the same word that commanded into existence the successive parts could have with equal ease by one fiat have commanded the whole. But there was a design in it being ordered otherwise and the design related to man.

It was to give commencement to such a division of time amongst the inhabitants of the new formed world as should connect the finished work of creation with a commemorative day." End quote. Interestingly, as was mentioned in our afternoon session last week, during the French Revolution, the atheistic republic established a new calendar, which not only claimed that that current year was year number one, thus denouncing the centrality of Christ as the center point of all history, but They also changed the week from seven days to 10 days in an attempt. This was the reason. It was an attempt to further remove all religious influence on the calendar. The Sabbath was thus abolished, and all church holy days were exchanged for holidays centered around nature.

Well, this calendar was used for some 12 years before a return to a seven-day week under the leadership of Napoleon and Pope Pius VII. In the Concordat of 1801, Napoleon declared that, quote, in all ecclesiastical and religious acts, the days will be designated by the names they had in the solstice calendar. The rest of public officials will be fixed on Sunday." End quote. That was Napoleon. Seeing the necessity of returning to what God established.

I don't know his reason, but he returned it to a seven-day calendar and fixed Sunday as the day of rest. Man and his rebellion has denied Christ's lordship in regard to all the creation ordinances. Man has sought to both redefine marriage as well as to encourage life without it. Man has sought to rebel against the will of God concerning procreation by means of abortion and encouraging sexual freedom and pleasure apart from God's intention of procreation, man naturally draws back from work and has established already a five-day work week with the desire to even shorten that. Even so, even so, the creation ordinance of the Sabbath has not gone without attack.

Rebellious man will claim all days as his own. It is not enough to give God one of seven days. Man seeks lordship over all seven. Sadly, such attacks on all of these creation ordinances is not found only out there. There are people within the walls of churches who name the name of Christ, who seek to redefine or even go to war against some or all of these ordinances over which Christ declares His Lordship.

John Willison in a treatise on the sanctification of the Sabbath writes, he appointed the Sabbath for the benefit of his creatures and particularly in compassion to fallen man. For he saw man's heart would be so glued to the world, so drenched in sensuality that where he left to himself, he would not allow one day in a month, nay in a year, for the divine worship, but would have drudged himself, his servants and beasts, even to death in pursuit of worldly things without minding anything that is better. This should convince us of the day's continuing importance. Until Christ ushers in the new heavens and the new earth and the eternal Sabbath, we should treasure, we should treasure the weekly Sabbath as a blessing in this fallen, sin-cursed world. It is the Lord's blessed gift, meant to be a foretaste of that day when we shall enter his rest." You see, That, my dear friend, was the king's intention for the park.

It was for him to once a week gather with his people and his people gather with one another in meeting the king. His son came to this city as Mark two declares to us And one of the first things he did was to tear down the fences that man had built. He exclaimed to the rulers, enough of this, enough! This park was built for the people of the city to remember my father and enjoy, but you have kept them out of the park. So after removing all the fences, he invited the people to come and meet with him and one another in the park.

But we look around us today and what do we see? We see the developers seeing the land unused, wanting to move in and build amusement parks where once the king met with his people. We see the historical society wanting to come in, and for the sake of tradition, to make it like a museum where everything's in place, everything's clean, and boy oh boy the things that are on display are wonderful, magnificent. But there's a third group. But there's a third group.

Bless God there's a third group who wants to restore the park to its original purposes. All parties are claiming to act on behalf of the interests of the king and of his son. But dear ones, if we are to act on the interest of the king and his son, maybe, just maybe, it would behoove us to actually consider the fact that it is actually the King's park and to act according to the King's original purposes for building it in the first place. The Sabbath was made for man, so says the Lord of the Sabbath. Let's pray.

Oh gracious God, Let's pray. Oh gracious God, help us to bow the knee to King Jesus, the Lord of this day. Oh God, you know our hearts, you know our desires, You know our sinfulness, you know our failures, but oh God, we ask that you would set our hearts right. Oh God, that you would help us to truly understand the reason for this day and your relation still to this day. Oh Lord help us to seek to restore this day to the reason that you created it.

Help us to free those who have become servants of the day and are not blessed by the advantage and the benefit of the day created for them. Help us, O Lord, in all of these things so that Christ may be magnified. In his great name we pray, amen.