In the sermon titled 'What to do on Sunday?' delivered by Peter Allison, the speaker explores Acts 20:7-12, focusing on the early church's observance of the first day of the week as the new Sabbath. The sermon highlights how Apostle Paul structured his life around the Sabbath, emphasizing worship and fellowship. It explains the transition from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day Sabbath, correlating it with the resurrection of Christ. The sermon argues against the notion that the Sabbath is obsolete, emphasizing its continuity as a creation ordinance and its significance in both Testaments. It also addresses common arguments against Sabbath observance in the New Testament, refuting claims that it is not binding on Christians. The sermon underscores the importance of corporate worship, preaching, the Lord's Supper, and works of mercy as central activities of the Sabbath. It encourages believers to prioritize Sabbath worship and view it as a time of celebration, fellowship, and comfort, reflecting on God's grace and mercy.

So let's turn now to our Scripture reading in Acts chapter 20. We'll be looking primarily at verses 7 to 12, but I wanted to pick up our reading at verse 4 because there is one aspect in those previous verses that we want to look at. So beginning at verse 4, Paul has decided to, he's just finished his stay in Greece and he's going to Macedonia. So verse 4. And Sopater of Borea accompanied him to Asia, also Aristarchus and Seagundus of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia.

These men going ahead waited for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days. Now on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul ready to depart the next day spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together, and in a window sat a certain young man named Eudicus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep, And as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and fell on him, and embracing him, said, Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.

Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed. And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted. May His statutes be our songs and our pilgrimage. Heavenly Father, may You seal this word to our hearts. May its hearing be mixed with faith in us.

May You sanctify my lips to proclaim Your Gospel truthfully and fully. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, in the early 1980s, Well, in the early 1980s, Jay Adams published a book called What to Do on Thursday, A Layman's Guide to the Practical Use of the Scriptures. And the thesis of the book was how to study the scriptures so that its principles could be naturally and seamlessly applied to the many decisions, the myriads of decisions that we all make throughout our week that collectively constitute our lives. And it's in that spirit or frame of reference that we'll be looking at this passage in Acts 20 that we just read that describes in some detail how the Apostle Paul and the church at Troas spent Sunday together nearly 2, 000 years ago, 1, 970 years ago precisely.

This account that we just read gives us a window into their life, enabling us to see how they applied the Scriptures teaching on the Sabbath to how they spent this Lord's Day together. What do we see? What do we see? And so how they spent this Lord's Day together. Well, first thing we see is that Paul ordered his life around it.

Luke gives us some details on the duration of the various legs of Paul's journey that show how Paul prioritized his life around what we call Sunday, or what the New Testament calls the first day Sabbath, or what the Ukrainians call Resurrection Day. So we know that he left Philippi, it says, after the days of unleavened bread. And then it took five days to get to Troas, where he stayed seven days, and he left on the next Monday. So we can back this up. If he departed on Monday after staying for seven days, then we know that he arrived in Troas on Monday the week before.

On Monday the week before. Okay, you following this? It's a little bit complicated. But we know that if the trip there took five days and he got there on Monday, We can back that up to say, well that means he must have left on Wednesday, the previous Wednesday. So this is the picture that's given here.

Paul leaves Philippi on Wednesday after the days of unleavened bread. Now, when he made that reverse trip to go to Troas, but when he made that reverse trip from Troas to Philippi back in Acts 16, remember it only took one day because they had fair winds and following seas. You can go back and check that. Historical geographers tell us that the trip normally takes two days. Paul was able to do it in one day when he went there because they had these these favorable conditions.

So leaving on Wednesday, if you expect the trip to take two days, Paul would have expected to arrive in Troas on Friday, which would have been plenty of time to preach in the Troas church on Sunday. But the trip was delayed. It took five days to do what ordinarily took two days, and which in one case had only taken one day. And so He doesn't get there until Monday after the Lord's Day that he was probably intending to preach there. So what does he do?

Remember, he's hurrying to get to Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. He's hurrying. Does he say, oh well, I missed it? Why don't you try to gather everybody midweek? Does he just say, I missed it and life goes on?

No, he waits all week in Troas until the next Lord's Day when the church was assembled. Then he departs on the following Monday after spending Lord's Day with all the saints at Troas. You see how Paul ordered his life around worship on the Lord's Day. He even skips stopping at Ephesus. That's the church that he spent three years ministering in.

He skips stopping there after he leaves Troas. And we'll read that in the following verses. And goes ahead to Miletus. And he calls the elders of Ephesus to him at Miletus. And he would have met with them on the Sunday after he worshipped at Troas.

You see how Paul is structuring his life. He's ordering it around the Lord's Day and meeting with God's people. I don't think he probably didn't plan to spend all that time at Troas, considering that he was hurrying to try and get to Jerusalem. The second thing we observe is that Sunday is observed as the required Sabbath. We see that in verse 7.

Luke directly applies the term Sabbath to the first day of the week, which we call Sunday. And as I've said, the Ukrainians call it Resurrection Day, literally. Now, most translations don't translate that Sabbath, they translate it week. But the word is the word for Sabbath and Sunday here the first day of this week is explicitly identified as the Sabbath using the exact same expression, it's a genitive plural, as the Septuagint uses for the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment. So the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament that Jesus and the Apostles quoted from sometimes.

And that Greek translation uses the exact same word for the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment as Luke uses here. And it's in both Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5 and other places as well. Now when the New Testament refers to the seventh day Sabbath of the Old Testament, the Jewish Sabbath if you will, the one that Jesus observed and the Apostles observed before the resurrection, When it refers to that Sabbath, and it does many times in the New Testament, it uses the same word for Sabbath that's used here in this text. For example, in Acts 16, 13, when Paul and his companions went to the river outside of Philippi to pray on the Sabbath day. Luke uses the same word for Sabbath as he does here.

The only difference between the two expressions that are used in Acts 16 and the one used here is that he uses the word day instead of first. He uses the word day instead of first. There's a word day in the Greek in Acts 16 that's not here. Here the word is first. But see, in this verse here, which is referring to the New Testament Sabbath, he uses the word first instead of day.

That's why day is probably in your italics in your Bible. Because the word for day is not in the Greek. But the day is assumed by the Greek grammar. And there's technical reasons for that. It's assumed, so I'm not saying that that shouldn't be there.

It's incorrect. It is assumed. It's just not there. The word first is there in its place. And I think there's a very important reason for that change.

It is to distinguish the New Testament Sabbath, which is on the first day of the week, from the Old Testament Sabbath, which is on the seventh day of the week. You see, in the Old Testament, when the Sabbath is defined in the law, it uses the word seventh day. For example, the Fourth Commandment says, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord God." You see, they're using seventh instead of first. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. Or Leviticus 23.3.

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." And there are seven other places in the New Testament that refer to this first day Sabbath. And Each of these seven other passages which refer to Sunday as the Sabbath, use an identical or nearly identical expression as is used here. The word day is replaced by first I think, two things abundantly clear.

The first day of the week, or Sunday, is now the Sabbath day. And secondly, the Troas Church is meeting on this new first-day Sabbath, not the old seventh-day Sabbath on which the Old Testament saints gathered for worship. This expression is making abundantly clear that the first day of the week is now being identified as the Sabbath. And the church, which used to gather every week on the seventh day Sabbath is now gathering every week on the first day Sabbath. Now, the reason for this change is abundantly obvious.

Of course, Christ's advent is the focal point of all history. In the 4, 000 years preceding Christ's coming, the saints looked forward to it. They waited for His coming. They were expecting it. Their sacrifices pointed forward to His coming.

And now that He has come, that He has triumphed over death and over the grave, He has removed the sting of death, now we celebrate our sacraments, and they look back, and they commemorate in some way his finished work. You see, Christ's resurrection from the dead is the seal of our redemption. Paul said if Christ didn't rise from the dead, then our whole faith is in vain. It's the linchpin. It's the pinnacle of history.

It's the irrefutable and infallible demonstration of Christ's victory over death. You see, by the resurrection, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh, by the resurrection He is powerfully declared to be the Son of God, having the power of God according to the Spirit of holiness. And so in recognition of the great significance of this event in all of history, the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week, the resurrection day, to continue. Creation was a significant event. God made the world out of nothing.

And the Old Testament Sabbath was based on that. But now there's been a greater event. And now our Sabbath is based on that event. You see, this Old Testament command to Observe the Sabbath continues into the New Testament because this command to remember the Sabbath day was not fulfilled by Christ like the temple sacrifices of the ceremonial law. And since it wasn't fulfilled by Christ's redemptive work like the ceremonial law was, the Old Testament command to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy continues today.

In fact, the New Testament tells us that there remains yet a future rest for God's people, which we are still looking forward to. And our weekly Sabbath rest is a foretaste of that coming rest. Many Christians today, many well-meaning evangelical, sincere, Bible-believing Christians teach that the Old Testament Sabbath has been done away with and that there is no New Testament replacement for it. And therefore, there is no command for Christians to observe the first or the seventh day of the week as a holy day of rest. And I'd like to look briefly here at a few of the reasons that are raised in support of this view, because I think it is very erroneous and detrimental to the health of the Church of Jesus Christ.

One theological argument that's often used is that the Sabbath was given as a sign under the Mosaic covenant. Therefore, Christians are not required to observe it because they are under the New Covenant. And this obviously arises from a very Baptistic understanding of the covenant of grace as being connected only with the New Covenant and not with any of the other Old Testament covenants directly. See, In that view, the New Covenant replaces all the other covenants after Christ. But as we've seen in our studies on the covenant, if you've been in those, all these Old Testament covenants, like with Noah and Abraham and Moses and David, and are said to be everlasting covenants.

And all of these covenants collectively are referred to in the singular as the covenant, meaning there's not many different covenants, but there is one covenant. And all these various covenants that God makes with these people manifest different aspects of the one covenant of grace. Jesus Christ is the Federal Head in the Covenant of Grace. Adam was the Federal Head of the Covenant of Works. And in the Covenant of Grace, Jesus as our Federal Head undertakes to do what Adam failed to do and to fulfill the law in our place because we can't.

And none of those men in the Old Testament could either. They all failed. But they were types that pointed to Christ. But it's also not exactly correct that it's a Mosaic institution. The fact is that Sabbath observance was commanded as a creation ordinance, And it existed long before Moses' time.

It's based on God's work in creation. Why are we to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? Because in six days God made the heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and held it. That's why we rest on the Sabbath. It has nothing to do with a Mosaic institution directly as to its origin.

See, even commandments that are directly tied to the Land of Israel, like the Fifth Commandment, which remember was a promise of long life in the land that God is giving them. They don't cease to be irrelevant or cease to be relevant in the New Testament. The fifth commandment is still very much enforced. Just because it was attached to a promise of living long in Palestine doesn't mean that once that promise has been superseded, that the commandment goes away. Rather, it actually becomes more relevant.

And the promise of the fifth commandment regarding long life in Palestine is expanded in the New Testament to include all the earth. Ephesians 6 2 says, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. But then he changes the promise. He expands the promise because the promises of the New Covenant are always expanded. It says that it may be well with you and you may live long in the earth.

See, it's not just the land of Palestine that the saints inherit. It is the earth. The saints inherit the earth. And children must obey their father and mother just as much today as they did in Moses' day. And so it's the same with the fourth commandment.

The seventh day's Sabbath is now replaced by the first day's Sabbath, but it's just as much a command now as it was in Moses' day. Now another argument is that, sometimes used against a continuing Sabbath, is that there's no record of anyone observing the Sabbath before the time of Moses. And this, unfortunately, is simply wrong. God observed the Sabbath before the time of Moses. And this, unfortunately, is simply wrong.

God observed the Sabbath before the time of Moses. He rested on the seventh day. In fact, His resting on the seventh day, as we said, is the basis for our resting, for our observance of the weekly Sabbath. Genesis 2, 2, and on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that 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." You see, The Fourth Commandment copied those words.

It wasn't initiating something brand new. It was simply putting into writing something that was very important, something that had been true since creation. But note that God's resting was not a cessation of all God's activity. God was not idle. It's a resting from one specific work, His work of creating the world and everything in it.

You see, in that sense, God's seventh day is still continuing. He is still resting from His creative work. But He's not idle. He's very active. Jesus was active on the Sabbath day.

And when the Jews criticized Him for not being idle on the Sabbath day and healing people and preaching and doing works of mercy and traveling and so forth, Jesus said in John 5, 17, my Father has been working until now, and I have been working. So God's rest on the seventh day was not a rest from every activity, but rather a rest from one specific activity, that of creation. And this is our example. Our Sabbath rest should not be a cessation of all activity and a spending of the day in idleness, as some have effectively done. But it should be a cessation of the kind of work that we do on the other six days, as much as possible.

Now some of you mothers with families might be asking, where's my rest day? Well, there are works of necessity or mercy like eating and caring for our bodies that we continue to do. But to the extent possible, we should do as much of those types of work on the day of preparation as we can. So that we are able to rest from our regular work on those days. If your donkey is in the ditch, then you need to get it out even on the Sabbath day.

It's a work of necessity and if that's your transportation, then it's a work of mercy. Now a corollary to this argument is that there is no command regarding the Sabbath before Moses. Well, that may be true, but there is no command not to commit adultery either. Yet Joseph knew it was wrong to commit adultery and he refused to lie with Potiphar's wife. Since the Sabbath observance is grounded in God's pattern of work and creation, it is relevant completely apart from anything associated with the fall and with redemption.

Whether or not Adam ever fell, or not, he would have observed the Sabbath in his unfallen condition, because God did. He would have perfectly kept the law of God including the Sabbath, which means that he would have known the law. So God revealed it to him, just as he revealed the command regarding the forbidden fruit. So I don't think that's a very valid reason. Now another argument is that even during the Mosaic economy, the Old Testament never commanded the Gentiles to observe the Sabbath, nor condemned them for failing to do so.

That this was a command only for Israel And again that there is that's actually not true, but even if it was true it's Not really relevant Abraham Jacob King David were not condemned for having more than one wife. David was condemned for adultery and other sins, but not for having more than one wife, but that doesn't mean it wasn't wrong for them to do so. But regarding the Sabbath and the Gentiles, Isaiah 56 has this to say, Blessed is the man who does this, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Don't let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, The Lord has utterly separated me from His people. Nor let the eunuchs say, Here I am a dry tree.

For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than the sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." And he goes on to talk about also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord to be his servants, everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath. So there is clear reference of blessing to the Gentiles for not defiling the Sabbath. And of course, judgment would come if they do. Now, judgment is in accordance with knowledge, So people that don't have knowledge are judged less severely than those that do have greater knowledge.

But it's, I think, just incorrect to think that the Sabbath did not apply to foreigners or Gentiles. Another argument is that there is no command in the New Testament for Christians to observe the Sabbath. Well, there's none needed. There's no command to baptize infants. There's no command against bestiality and a number of other things that are clearly wrong today as well as then.

These things were commanded or forbidden in the Old Testament, and that's sufficient, because God's law endures forever. Now another one that I think has a little more merit is that the Jerusalem Council did not impose Sabbath keeping on the Gentile believers. Remember the Acts 15 counsel where there were these four things that they were commanded to do. The thinking is that they were going to, you know, the apostles were going to impose Sabbath observance on the Gentiles that that would have been the time and place to do it because it says you There would be no other burden other than these four things But we saw that when we considered acts 15 that the things commanded by the Jerusalem Council pertained to common cultural practices that were in violation of the moral law, and hence binding on all men everywhere for all time. They were to abstain from meat sacrifice to idols.

It doesn't say they were to refrain from idols or worshiping idols, as the First Commandment states. It states they were to abstain from things offered to idols. They were not to eat meat that had been used in a sacrifice to an idol, or use anything else that had been consecrated to an idol. Because to do so would be to participate in that sacrifice. But that command not to abstain from anything offered to idols doesn't mean that they could accompany their best friend to a pagan temple and sit through a ceremony with them, or that they were free to keep idols in their homes as long as they didn't eat any food or use anything that had been offered to them.

No, it's a very specific application of the First Commandment to a common cultural situation, which was that you would be offered meat that had been offered to idols or invited to participate in some pagan ceremony. And so that was no. That's a breaking of the First Commandment. The Council commanded that Gentiles abstain from blood. They were not to eat blood, which was common, and still is in some cultures today that have been minimally influenced by the Gospel.

I've been taken to a restaurant, a special restaurant, so that I could be served blood and I had to turn it down at the risk of offending my host. So this is what they're talking about, not to eat the blood. That doesn't mean you could kill people if they did it in a way that didn't spill any blood. That would be absurd. The command there is pertaining to an application of the Sixth Commandment as it was common in that day.

That they were to recognize that this common cultural practice, this common food even, was something that they couldn't eat out of respect for life and out of obedience to the Sixth Commandment. They were to refrain from things strangled because the blood would not have been drained from the meat. And to eat something that was strangled would then necessarily involve eating blood. They were to refrain, abstain from sexual immorality. This sexual immorality was a common part of most pagan idol worship.

These temples had hundreds if not thousands of temple prostitutes connected with them. And so new Gentile believers would need instructions on that point. Yes, that's considered acceptable in your culture to engage in that kind of sexual immorality, but it's not right. It's a violation of the Seventh Commandment. Even today, some professing Christians, and I use that word very loosely, would argue that fornication prior to marriage isn't wrong.

Christians from a pagan culture with no knowledge of God's law whatsoever would need specific instruction on these types of matters. Today we might include the music that you listen to as well as the sexual immorality. Eating meat sacrificed to idols is less of an issue in our culture. But you see, even Gentiles living in Israel in the Old Testament were required to keep these commandments because these are outward things that the civil law pertains to. Even though these same people wouldn't have been required, or even in some cases permitted, to keep the ceremonial law.

See, the Jerusalem Council didn't say anything about the second, or the third, or the eighth, or the ninth, or the tenth commandments. So when they say they are laying no other burden on the Gentiles, they didn't mean that the Gentiles were not obligated to keep these other unnamed commandments. They were. So The fact that the Jerusalem Council doesn't include the Fourth Commandment in their list is not, I don't think, really a valid argument that we don't have to keep the Fourth Commandment today. A corollary to that is that Paul never warned the Gentiles in his letters about breaking the Sabbath.

And while this is true, again, I don't think it's really relevant. There are other sins that Paul does not directly condemn or warn against. You see, a command does not have to be repeated in the New Testament to be a valid command today. It simply needs to have been given by God in His Word, commanded in His Word. And then we need to obey it.

Paul does give a number of exhortations on what to do on the first Sabbath. And so this implicitly assumes that the church will be meeting on the first day Sabbath. For example, in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul commands the church to collect their offering on the first day Sabbath. And he says, now concerning this collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the church of Galatia, so You must do also. There's a command about what to do when they were gathered together on the Sabbath.

He says, on the first day Sabbath, that each of you lay something aside. And in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says, when you come together as a church, I hear there are divisions among you." So he's expecting they will come together, and it's clear from the same letter that he's expecting they will come together on the first day Sabbath. And I think This is also consistent with the fourth and fifth commandments, which are the only ones that are positively stated in the Ten Commandments. And the New Testament itself does warn against breaking the Sabbath. Hebrews reminds us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the pattern of some is.

Now there's one other argument that I think is also deserving of a good answer, and that is that there are some passages in the New Testament, like Colossians 2, 16, and 17, that describe the Sabbath as a shadow of things to come that is no longer binding since Christ the substance has come. Now, that would be a very valid argument. That's the basis on which we do not observe the details of the ceremonial law. Colossians 2 says, 16 says, Let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is Christ." Now notice that the Sabbath is plural. Don't let anybody judge you regarding a festival, or a new moon, or sabbaths in the plural, because they are a shadow of the things to come.

See, There were other Sabbaths besides the seventh day weekly Sabbath that were a part of the ceremonial law. There was a Sabbath associated with the Feast of Trumpets. Leviticus 23, 24, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation." See, this pointed to the casting away of national Israel and the beginning of the times of the Gentiles that happened in 70 AD. It was a shadow of the things to come, the substance of Christ. There was a Sabbath connected with the Day of Atonement.

And I won't read the whole passage. It's in Leviticus 16, 29-31. But there was a Sabbath connected with that day. There was a Sabbath of solemn rest. That Sabbath pointed forward to Christ sprinkling the real temple in the heavens with His own blood, and the provision of one sacrifice for all time.

And that was fulfilled in 70 AD when the earthly temple and the Holy of Holies in it was completely destroyed so not one stone was left standing on another. It's never been rebuilt. There's never been another place where sacrifices are offered. There remains only one sacrifice and one place and that's in the true heavenly sanctuary. Then the feast of tabernacles had two Sabbaths associated with it.

You can read about that in Leviticus 23 as well in verse 39. So on the 15th day of the 7th month, they had a Sabbath rest. And then on the 22nd day, seven days later, there was another Sabbath. There was also a Sabbath connected with the New Moon on the first day of the month. You can read about that in Leviticus 23.

So there's lots of Old Testament Sabbaths that were shadows, that pointed forward to Christ. And that's what Paul is referring to. It's those sabbaths, plural. That he's referring to when he tells the Colossians not to let no one judge them regarding food or drink or a festival or a new moon or Sabbath. That's what those were.

Those were festival Sabbaths associated with these feast days and new moons. He's not referring to the weekly Sabbath that the fourth commandment pertains to. If I can end the sentence with a preposition. You notice that these Sabbaths that are connected with the ceremonial law are always on different days of the week each year. Because The first day or the tenth day of a particular month is always going to be on a different day of the week each year.

But the weekly Sabbath was always on the seventh day, always on the same day of the week. Year in, year out. There are other passages, Galatians 4, also Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking that God required them to observe special days like the Sabbath. Romans 14.5 talks about Sabbath observance again and not letting people be a judge in observance of Sabbath. But again, these are Sabbaths that are referring to these ceremonial Sabbaths that happened that are connected with the feasts of the ceremonial law.

And they did pass away. There is no requirement to keep those because the substance which is Christ has come and all but one of them have been fulfilled. See, Acts makes very clear that from the beginning of the New Testament church, Christians observed the first day Sabbath. And the testimony of all the church fathers is the same. The church met for worship on the first day of the week from the earliest of times.

And so we see in this passage then the next thing in the Lord's Day is that there is a corporate assembly. The people came together. They congregated on the first day Sabbath. That's why we call ourselves a congregation. Because we congregate, we come together.

In obedience to the command that we read earlier in Leviticus 23, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is a Sabbath of Jehovah in all your dwellings." Hebrews 10 reminds us not to forsake this practice of corporately assembling ourselves together. The next thing we see in this Sunday at Troas is that the congregation assembled and listened to Paul preach. The new King James translates this as spoke to them, which he certainly did.

But I think the Greek allows us to be a lot more specific about what was happening. This is the word that Luke uses in most places in Acts when Paul reasoned or discoursed with the Jews in their synagogues. Like Acts 17, Paul went into the synagogue of the Jews and for three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. The primary meaning is to discourse, debate, or reason with someone. So there's a two-way aspect to that.

But there's a second meaning to the word, which is to instruct about something. And so given that these were believers, Paul was undoubtedly instructing them, not debating and reasoning with them like he did with the unbelieving Jews. And so I think we would call today Paul's speech preaching or teaching them. And That's how a couple of older translations like the Geneva Bible express it. Paul was preaching to them and he continued preaching past midnight.

He was instructing them out of the Word of God and he may have been taking questions as he spoke. He doesn't say. But see, preaching in this assembly, this corporate assembly on the Lord's Day, preaching is the predominant activity. I'm sure there was prayer and singing, but it doesn't make explicit mention of this in this passage, but it does in Acts that they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread in prayers. In the prayers.

We also see, in addition to the centrality of preaching, that they celebrated the Lord's Supper. It's an ordinary part of worship and should be celebrated as often as we meet together for corporate worship where the Word of God is preached. Lastly, well not lastly, but we see works of mercy that are done on this Sabbath day. The Pharisees were often angry at Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath. Well, Paul continues to heal on the Sabbath, continues to engage in works of mercy.

And we see that they experience fellowship with each other on this day. We see this after Paul comes back up from raising Eudicus from the dead. Verse 11 says, He talked a long while after breaking bread and eating. But it's a different word than Luke used earlier when Paul was talking before midnight or past midnight. It means to be in a group and speak or converse.

One dictionary says, it corresponds to our use of meet in the sense that have a discussion about something with someone. So it's easy to imagine all that they might have discussed together after seeing someone raised from the dead. Plus, I'm sure Paul had much to say to them. And so there was, after this amazing healing, they continued to have fellowship, to talk, to discuss together the work that they had seen God do. And they are comforted in this.

And lastly, I think we see flexibility, a lot of flexibility as to meeting arrangements. We see how Paul had to adapt his schedule because of delays in his travel. We see them using lamps for light at night. And there's a lot of lamps. And the room is crowded, so they're sitting in an open window.

The time of day even, I think, represents an accommodation to the realities of the culture in which they lived. Sunday was not recognized as a day off. It would have been a work day, so any slaves, servants, and likewise would have been expected to be working. And so this meeting apparently would seem to happen in the evening after they're working. And of course that explains why Eutychus is having trouble staying awake.

There's a compassion here, there's an understanding of the difficulties that they're enduring. And there's a flexibility in all of their meeting schedules and arrangements and accommodations. They're accommodating the both extraordinary circumstances as well as the ordinary aspects of their culture. You know we it's a privilege that we can meet in the morning of our Lord's Day. It's a privilege that in our culture, Sunday is recognized.

The first day Sabbath is recognized as a Sabbath. And the civil laws protected this day. They used to. It wasn't lawful to have stores. I remember my pastor growing up said he was speaking at San Jose, California where he grew up back in the 1920s.

He said there would be one pharmacy open in the entire city. It was a duty pharmacy if you were sick, then you called somewhere and found out what pharmacy it was, and on Sunday you could go there and get some. But just one pharmacy. That's all that was open. I remember Philadelphia was the very first team to start having a baseball on Sunday.

And it created a huge ruckus in the city. I'm not talking about the Christian ghetto, I'm talking about the whole city was in an uproar because the Phillies baseball team was hosting a game on Sunday. See, we were very privileged that this day is culturally recognized as a day of rest and businesses don't expect us to work on it. But it wasn't the case in this culture. And so there was flexibility adapting to that.

And they met in the evening. And they were tired because they've been working all day. But they still met. And they not only met, but they met for 12 hours until daybreak on Monday morning when Paul departed. So what can we learn from this?

There are a lot of things, but I think I'll mention two. The Sabbath worship, the corporate worship, ought to be the highest priority in our weekly schedule. Paul waited a whole week to be at corporate worship on the first day, Sabbath, with the church at Troas. Other events in our schedule ought to change to enable us to gather for worship. This meeting ought to be the highest priority in our weekly schedule.

We should be moving other things around and preparing for this so that we are enabled to be here and be present. We are meeting with the living God. Hebrews speaks about us being in the presence of the heavenly host, the spirits of just men made perfect, and to God Himself. Secondly, we see that this was a time, this was a time, should be a time of celebration, of fellowship, and of comfort. They celebrated the Lord's Supper.

It's a celebration because it's remembering something, a victory that has happened. You celebrate that. It's not looking forward to something that has yet to come. They celebrated God's mercy in their lives. And they were comforted by their time together.

You see, that takes all of us working to edify one another, to encourage one another, to bless one another with accounts of God's mercy, with His promises, with His grace in our lives. That is encouraging. That is encouraging. And I know I need to remember that more. When I was running a school, we would interview a lot of teachers to find, typically at a higher 10 or so or more a year, and that required interviewing a lot of people.

It was always very uplifting to hear people talk about the Lord's work in their lives, because that was something we always asked about, or I always asked about, in doing those interviews. It is uplifting. It is comforting. It is encouraging to hear how God is working in our lives. And it's good for us to talk about it.

And that's a good subject, a fitting subject, for our Sabbath fellowship. May God bless this day to our edification, comfort, and growth in grace. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for this blessing of the Sabbath day that You have given to us so that we can rest from our regular work, so that we can spend it together in fellowship, in hearing your word, in being comforted and encouraged and built up in the truth. Father, may we prize this great privilege as the privilege that it is and the blessing that it is. May we see it as the highlight of our week and our great delight and joy to be here for you, Lord, are present where your people are gathered.

We thank you that you know us and that you've put your name upon us And we thank you for the riches of your grace that we are privileged to celebrate and experience here. We look forward to this table where you are the host and you serve us this bread in this cup we ask this in Jesus name amen Thank you.