In 'The Law of God (Part 8),' Pastor Grant Brown explores the significance of the Sabbath as outlined in Exodus 20, emphasizing its divine origin and enduring relevance. He underscores that the command to 'remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy' is rooted not just in the Mosaic Covenant but in the very act of creation itself, as God instituted the Sabbath from the beginning. Brown argues that neglecting the Sabbath contributes to societal and personal unrest, highlighting its role as a divine gift of rest and reflection. He contrasts the Sabbath's grounding in creation with its grounding in redemption, particularly as seen in Deuteronomy 5, where the Sabbath is linked to Israel's deliverance from Egypt. The sermon further elaborates on the shift of Sabbath observance to Sunday, the 'Lord's Day,' following Christ's resurrection, marking a new creation and a new exodus. Brown calls on Christians to embrace the Sabbath as a day of rest, worship, and joy, likening it to weekly 'Christmas' celebrations within the family, and emphasizes the need for the Sabbath to be viewed not as a burden but as a gift.

Exodus 20, beginning in verse 1. Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me, and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God in it you shall not do any work You or your son or your daughter your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you? For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth See and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

May God bless the reading and the preaching of this His word. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. The fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

You know how we've talked about what you get when you give up on the law of God, right? You get lunacy, we talked about that, lunacy in the home, church, state. Well, you also get homes and churches and states with outrageous stress levels, high suicide rates, paralyzing anxiety, children that don't know how to cope with anything, like a splinter. Children that don't know how to cope, parents who don't know their children, churches that don't take the worship of God seriously, which then affects every other arena of their people's lives. You get a people who don't know how to rest.

You get a people who when they neglect the law of God, generally speaking, are wildly unproductive despite working an extra day. Why? Because they've rejected the command to rest. And specifically, they've rejected the delight of resting in Jesus Christ on his day, the Lord's day, the Christian Sabbath. So I'm not sure which commandment, the third commandment or the fourth commandment, is more routinely ignored not just in the world but in the church at large.

But either way it should be clear to you that to reject these 10 commandments from God is to invite very great peril into your home, into your church, and into the state. Now we saw in Leviticus chapter 24 last week of a man who was stoned for blaspheming the name of Almighty God. A man was put to death for disobeying the third commandment in Leviticus 24. And we see in Numbers chapter 15 the same thing but for a Sabbath breaker. Numbers 15 verses 32 through 36, a man was found not keeping the Sabbath day holy and so just like the young man in Leviticus 24, God says in Numbers 15, take that man outside the camp and stone him, put him to death.

Why? Because he broke the fourth command. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is serious. This isn't a suggestion from God.

This is a command. And this is a gift. The Sabbath is a gift. You need the Sabbath. You need Sabbath rest.

Brothers and sisters, the fourth commandment is for you. It's for your good. The Sabbath is a glorious gift from God to you Christian, and I hope you see that glory before we're through. So let us turn to the Sabbath, a very important matter of the Sabbath. It begins in verse 8 of Exodus chapter 20 that we just read.

Our passage begins first with the command itself. Remember, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now note that word there at the beginning, remember, remember. This is not something that God decided to institute with Israel in the Mosaic Covenant no no no the Sabbath is something that he has instituted since when since creation now that's verse 11 I'm going to get to that in just a second But you just need to understand Right at the outset of this command that word remember the Sabbath didn't start with Moses on the mountain The law of God didn't start with Moses on Sinai. The moral principles of the law, the Fourth Commandment included, are part of who God is himself.

And God's unchanging. And so the moral law of God didn't just start all of a sudden here in Exodus chapter 20 at Sinai. The Sabbath was not a novel idea that God said, you know what, I'm going to give this one to Moses. No. The moral law of God, the Sabbath included, has existed in history in space and time.

The Sabbath has existed for all but six days of the world. I'm going to come back to that in just a moment. But again, at the very beginning of this command, we read, God says to his people, remember, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is something you need to recall, something that's already been established in the past. Remember and keep it holy.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Look at that second phrase. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now God is saying to his people, and he's saying to you Christian, you don't make the Sabbath holy. It already is holy.

You keep it holy. That's an important distinction it's not something within you that makes the Sabbath day holy You didn't set the Sabbath day apart. Who did? God did. You keep it holy.

To be holy means to be set apart. Remember the Sabbath day. Keep the Sabbath day set apart. Again, why? Because God made it holy.

On the seventh day, which again is verse 11, and I keep wanting you to go there I'm gonna get there so verse 8 remember the Sabbath day the Sabbath has existed since the creation of the world Remember to keep it holy just as God himself did in the creation of the world. How? In what way do you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy? Verse 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Verse 10. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. Okay, How do you keep the Sabbath day holy? How do you do that?

Well first, verse 9, you work hard the other six days. Write that in your notes. You work hard the other six days. One of the ways, right from the text, that you keep the Sabbath day holy, that you keep the Sabbath day holy you keep the Sabbath they set apart is that you work hard you labor diligently the other six days and whatever calling the Lord has placed in front of you you work hard for six days so Christian God has made you for good and righteous labor. Before sin entered into the world, what were Adam and Eve doing?

Laboring in the garden. Work is not evil. Now the curse has resulted in a corruption of it, but God has made you Christian for good and righteous labor. So give yourself to it. Give yourself to what God has placed in front of you to do.

It's not a labor without glory, which is done in the Lord. If you labor hard for six days of the week in the Lord, whatever the calling is, so long as it's righteous, there is a glory in it. And if you labor diligently for six days, Gloriously so, it sets you up to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. Colossians 3, 23 and 24. Whatever you do, do your work, do your labor, heartily ask for the Lord rather than for men, for it is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

Ecclesiastes 9, 10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your mind. Why? Because the fourth commandment, labor hard for six days and then rest. First nights, six days you shall labor and do all your work.

So one of the ways in which you keep the Sabbath day holy is that you give yourself the faithful, hard work six days of the week. Got that? All right, it's an often neglected part of the text. Work hard. The second way in which you remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy is that you don't treat the Sabbath as a normal day of labor.

It's set apart for something else. You rest. You work hard for six days and then you rest for one. You rest for one day and then you labor diligently for the next six in the Lord. Who is to rest?

Who is to refrain from labor? Look in verse 10. Who is to refrain from labor? You, your son, your daughter, your male servant, female servant, cattle, and the sojourner who stays with you now I mean it's pretty cool that there's seven and you rest a bit who is to rest well we just read it you son daughter male female servants cattle sojourner in a word your household your whole home should rest husbands that's on you to lead your family in the rest of God. You and your household.

The promise is for you and your children, so is the gift of the law. Rest for you and yours. So the Sabbath is for your household. Notice there in the text, verse 10, it's not just for your offspring, It's for all those who serve you and work for you. It's also for the sojourner, for the alien, the Gentile in your midst.

The Sabbath is for the Gentile to remember and keep holy. So who's the Sabbath for? The Sabbath is for everybody. But it's not just everybody. It's for everything.

Did you catch the sixth category in verse 10? Even the cattle? I found that kind of interesting study. Whoa, the cattle! Even the beasts of burden are to be given a day of rest the animals that work for you they too are to cease from their labor think about creation is given the Sabbath day as well creation And we see that throughout the Old Testament.

You see things like land Sabbaths. For six years, the people of Israel could farm their lands, but on the seventh year, they were to give it rest. Let it lie. You can read more about that in just three chapters from Exodus 20, Exodus 23, and Leviticus 25. This pattern of six and one is even for animals and even for the lamb, vegetation.

So who's the Sabbath for? You and your household, your servants, those who serve and work for you, the soldier or the non-Israelites would be given this gift of the Sabbath, and the beast's creation itself was made to rest. Why? Why? Because that's how God made the world.

Because that's how God made the world. And that's verse 11, the reason for the Sabbath. Why Sabbath? Well because that's how God made the world. Look at verse 11.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. You are to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because that's exactly what the Lord did. So did you see in verse 11 that the Lord is mentioned twice there? It's all caps.

Yahweh. You remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because that's exactly what the Lord did. So who is the Lord? If it's what the Lord did, don't you think you should know who the Lord is? For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that's in them and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Who is the Lord? Well in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who does Jesus say he is? Luke chapter 6 verse 5, then Jesus said to them, the son of man, he's talking about himself, is Lord of the Sabbath. He says the same thing in Matthew's Gospel and Mark's Gospel.

I am the Lord of the Sabbath. Now that's Jesus saying I am God. That's the first three Gospels a version of John 1, 14. In the word, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was with God, the word was with God, the word was with God, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. It's the first three gospels version of that.

Jesus is saying, I'm God. The only person who can be Lord of the Sabbath is Yahweh. The only person who can be Lord of the Sabbath is the Creator, because He created the Sabbath. That's the only Lord of the Sabbath. And in the Gospels, Jesus says, yeah, that's me.

Yeah, that's me. So you could easily read verse 11 of our passage this morning you can read it like this for in six days the Lord Jesus made the heavens and the earth seas and all that is in and rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord Jesus blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy Why could you read it like that? Because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. And when did the Lord Jesus institute the Sabbath? We instituted it at creation.

At creation. Verse 11. Jesus Christ instituted the Sabbath at creation. So here's a question, was the Sabbath day instituted before or after sin? According to verse 11 of our passage.

Yeah, it was before. The Sabbath was instituted before sin entered the world. God saw all that he did, it was good. In Genesis 2, he celebrated it with a day of rest. He capped off the glory of creation in Genesis chapter 2 by marking the seventh day and final day of the week holy.

He set it apart, a day of rest. Now Christian, that should really make you pause and think about the Sabbath's place in your life. We're gonna get to what that looks like in the life of a Christian in just a little bit. But for now, you need to come to grips with the fact that God blessed the Sabbath day and He made it holy when? At creation before sin.

And then sin enters the world in the next chapter, Genesis 3, and Eden is lost and mankind is put out of the garden, but a seed is promised who will redeem all of that back a seed who will make all the world his garden amazing a seed who will reverse the curse a seed named Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath who will bring us back to Eden. And what will you find in Eden? A Sabbath day of rest. That's what you'll find in Eden. Verse 11 tells you that the reason you remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, the reason you rest is because that's what God did when he made the world.

God made the world that way it's baked into this world that you live. I mean, right? I mean, we have, we right now 24 hour days, Seven days makes a week you live in a world that's just baked into it a week One week seven days six and one one and six God rested from his labor on the Sabbath day, therefore you should too." So why should you keep the Sabbath day, Christian? Reason number one, because that's what God did. God made the Sabbath day Holy.

The Lord Jesus made the Sabbath day holy, and so you should keep it holy. Why? Because you bear His name. Don't forget the third commandment. Have you forgotten the third commandment already?

The third commandment comes right before this one. Do not bear the Lord's name in vain. Christian, you bear the family name. At your baptism and at this table, God marks you out as His own. His name is placed upon you and God is transforming you Christian more and more into the image of His Son like Father like Son.

And so because you bear his name, you Sabbath. You Sabbath. Because this is what the household of God does. This is what the household of God has been doing since the beginning, resting one day in seventh. Children do this all the time.

Children don't you do this all the time? You watch what your father does and you become like him. Sometimes it's awkward Because you start maybe saying some phrases and words that aren't good dads and You are sitting at the dinner table and your daughter or your son Erupts in some kind of slaying or some kind of I don't know Not evil word, but I don't appreciate that language. Where did you learn that? And they look at you.

Awkward. So children do this all the time. They pick up what their parents do, but it's not always evil. In fact, normally it's good in the Christian realm. They follow their father's example.

I remember growing up I wanted to be just like my father Charlie Brown. Who am I kidding? Still want to be. And I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be like him in all the ways.

I wanted to laugh like him. I want to talk like him. I want to sound like him. I want to be a dad like him. I want to be a husband like him.

I want to be like my father. And Now, Charissa says, I do sound like him, I do act like him, and I'm slowly losing my hair to become even that much more like him. It's the highest compliment you could get me. So, beloved, if that's the way children are with their earthly fathers, How much more so than with the triune God, who has made you his child, that you might keep his Sabbath. My God Sabbath?

My God Sabbath? Of course I want to Sabbath, too. I want to be like him. I want to follow in his steps it should be the delight of the christian of the child of god to say I want to follow my god So I want you to hear that. If children follow the example of their earthly fathers, and they do, how much more than ought you to give yourself to the fourth commandment Christian, because God the Father made you Christian, His child, through the shed blood and imputed righteousness of his son Jesus.

He says to you, here is how my children behave. They rest on the Sabbath day. Christian, You bear the family name. And so you follow the name's footsteps. And He rested.

And so you rest, too. You remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, because that's what His household has been doing since the beginning. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, you. And you might posit that you might say whoa whoa whoa whoa how they really Has the household of God really been doing that from the beginning? Yeah.

Adam is easy. Adam was right there when God instituted the Sabbath day, wasn't he? Adam was right there. And Adam didn't sin until Genesis 3, and God instituted the Sabbath in Genesis 2. So of course Adam and Eve remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

If they didn't, they would have what? Sinned. And they didn't sin until Genesis 3. Yeah, you got it. Noah, okay, well 2nd Peter 2 5 tells us that he was quote, a preacher of righteousness.

In Psalm 119 verse 172 says that the commandments of God are righteousness, including the Sabbath. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He was a preacher of the Sabbath. Noah preached the Sabbath. Noah observed the Sabbath.

Abraham in Genesis 26 verse 5, He's described as the one who obeyed and kept God's commandments, statutes, and laws. Genesis 26, 5. He obeyed and kept God's commandments, statutes, and laws. What commandments? What statutes?

What laws? Well, how about for starters, the enduring moral law of God in the Ten Commandments including the Sabbath? I don't think it's at the very least you got to say well that is a good case. This is what the household of God since the beginning has been doing. This is what you are called to Christian as a member of the household of God as someone who bears the name of Almighty God.

You are called, you are commanded, you are invited to Sabbath to rest. God gives his people rest. But if you're still not convinced, if you think well alright Adam, Noah, Abraham, maybe. I don't think so though. I think the Sabbath didn't really start until Moses Exodus 20.

That's what I think it did. I think it started right there because in all those instances Pastor Grant you never once said that the text explicitly mentioned sat. Okay. Well if you think that just go back to our passage and look at verse 8. The first word of our passage is what word?

Remember. Remember. This is something God's people have been doing long before Exodus 20. And just to prove this, if you were to go home tonight and read Exodus chapter 16, just four chapters before the giving of the Ten Commandments. The people in Exodus 16, they gather manna in Exodus 16.

And how many days do they gather? Six. And they gather a double portion on the sixth day because on the seventh day it's a Sabbath, holy unto the Lord. That's before the giving of the Sabbath day, apparently. So you've got to give that one to me.

Clearly the people of God knew about the Sabbath. Clearly the people of God practiced the Sabbath prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments of Sinai. So you just need to think about this. The people that are receiving these Ten Commandments, the people of God have been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years. And as they leave Egypt, they've been unable to Sabbath for 400 years.

As they leave Egypt, Moses says to them, hey, remember the Sabbath day? Remember what God gave you and you couldn't do for 400 years? Remember what was passed down from Noah to Abraham, from Adam to Noah to Abraham? Moses says, hey, remember the Sabbath. Remember the Sabbath.

You are free men now. You are free people. And as free men and as free women, you get to Sabbath again. That's the idea in the narrative. You couldn't Sabbath in Egypt but now you're free to rest on the Sabbath day.

This has been what God's children have been doing since the beginning, remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So that was reason number one. If you're taking notes, reason number one, God rested so as His child you rest too. You bear his name. Now just to be clear in case anyone's confused they're thinking God rested.

What? God rested? Did he get tired? When God made the world God didn't rest because he needed rest. God didn't get tired or exhausted from creating everything out of nothing, which by the way is incredible.

I mean, incredible is way too weak of a word. Awesome. But we use that word not very well either. I mean it's just awesome to the 10th degree. It would make anybody else exhausted to the 10th degree.

In fact you couldn't even do it. You can't make everything out of nothing. You can't do it. But God did. So he didn't rest because he got tired.

No, he rested because he finished creation. And what he did was so awesome that he hallowed it. He hallowed a day and called it the Sabbath. So that's what's going on there. Almighty God looked at all he made.

It was very good. It was glorious. So he capped it all off with a holy day, the Sabbath day. He didn't need rest, but you do. And so he gave it to you, Christian, and he gave it to you to remember his creation.

That's reason one. Reason number two for you to celebrate the Sabbath. He also gave you the Sabbath to remember your redemption. To remember your redemption. So reason number one you remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because God at creation did it and you bear his name.

And now reason number two, remember your redemption. And we get this idea of the second reason for why you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, we actually get this from God giving the law a second time. Do you know what book is called like the second giving of the law? The remembering of the law? Do you know what book of the Bible that is?

Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, God gives this new generation of men and women about to go into the promised land. He restates the law for them. He gives them the law. So let's go and see this together.

I want you to turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 5. Deuteronomy chapter 5. I want you to see how in Deuteronomy 5, God roots the Sabbath day not only in remembering creation and what he did then, but in also remembering your redemption. Deuteronomy five, let's look in verse 12. Look in verse 12 with me.

Deuteronomy 5, beginning of verse 12. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your cattle, or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you." So, so far, that's pretty much the same thing as Exodus 20, right?

Same principle, same message. But what comes next? In Exodus 20, we're to remember the Sabbath day, Exodus 20 verse 11, because that's what God did when he made the world. But notice in Deuteronomy 5, that's not what you get. Two passages diverge.

Look in verse 15 now. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand And by an outstretched arm therefore the Lord your God Commanded you to observe the Sabbath day According to that verse why do you remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? Yes, because that's how God made the world, sure. Yes, it's because this is what God's household has been doing since the beginning, but according to verse 15, there's another reason. You also remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because God redeemed you.

He redeemed you. He grounds the Sabbath in redemption. God tells His people in Deuteronomy 5, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and God rescued you out and He gave you the Sabbath back. Remember how for over 400 years you couldn't Sabbath, you couldn't rest. Your slave masters in Egypt were brutal.

The yoke of your Egyptian masters was hard, their burden heavy. But then God set you free. God made you free men. He restored you the Sabbath day to rest. He restored you a day to think about the work that He did.

A day to rest in Him. A day to delight in Him. A day to meditate upon Him. What He did for you in bringing you out of your bondage in Egypt. He gave you a day to remember and honor.

Meditate upon that work that He did. That's what Deuteronomy 5 is getting at. Grounding the Sabbath in your redemption. Beloved, if that was why the covenant of people of God would remember the Sabbath day because of their redemption out of the house of Egypt, out of the house of that slavery, how much more you, the Israel of God, are you to remember the Sabbath day because He has redeemed you not out of Egypt but out of the slavery to your sin. He has redeemed you out of your slavery to sin and Satan.

So how much more than are you to hallow? How much more are you to keep hallowed the Sabbath day as those redeemed from the curse? Just remember, as you think about the Sabbath, here's what you're supposed to remember according to Deuteronomy 5. Remember how you came into this world at enmity with God. Remember how you came into this world as a hater of God, in slavery to your sin, dead in your sin.

Remember that you were not free to rest. Remember that you were only free to rage, to rage against God, to rage against peace. Remember how your slave masters were brutal. Remember how your law breaking gave you no peace. There was no peace.

Remember how your iniquity gave you no joy. Remember how Satan's yoke was hard and the burden of your sin was heavy upon you. Then remember that God demonstrated His love toward you that while you were yet a sinner, Christ his Son died in your place as a substitutionary sacrifice for your sin. His blood, the blood of his Son was shed for you. His Son was the final Passover lamb given to propitiate the wrath of God that you deserve.

He satisfied the wrath of God, and then he came. He came. And he applied that work to your life. He set you free. He redeemed you to buy you back from your slavery and to make you free.

God made you a free man. God made you a free woman. In his son Jesus, he made you into a new creation. In his son, he gave you a new heart. He gave you a new name.

He gave you new inheritance. He gave you his law. He gives you the Sabbath. He gives you rest This is the Lord who rescued you that said my yoke is easy My burden is light If you have a view of the Sabbath that thinks with the Fourth Commandment of the Sabbath, what a heavy burden. Stop it.

It's not the way you're supposed to look at the Sabbath. That's the way you're supposed to look at Sabbath. That's the way you're supposed to look at sin, heavy, burdened sin. But in Christ, this is a gift, a delight. You remember your redemption.

He purchased your redemption at his cross, and part of your inheritance is a day of rest. He gives to you redeemed ones, he gives to you as new creations in Christ, a day hallowed, a day set apart to particularly glory in that redemption that he purchased for you. One day in seven to particularly gather with his people around the family table to rejoice and be glad in the God of your salvation. He gave that to you. So yes, of course, every day of the Christian's life should be a day of rejoicing and be glad.

I'm not saying that for six days you don't rejoice and be glad. Of course I'm not saying that. But it is abundant goodness to you. He gave you the gift of the Christian Sabbath to commune with him in a special way through the word and the sacraments. He's given you the Christian Sabbath to particularly remember his work of creation and his redemptive work of making you a new creation, a new creation, a day to remember that he has inaugurated the new creation for all the world beginning at his resurrection.

What day was he raised? What day was Jesus Christ raised from the dead? Do you remember? He was raised on a Sunday. Resurrection Sunday.

Jesus Christ was raised the first day of the week. The Lord of the Sabbath was raised up from the dead on the first day of the week, Sunday. That's why we celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday now. We celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday. Today, Resurrection Day.

Jesus Christ began the work of a new creation. He was the first fruits of a new creation. 1 Corinthians 15, the first fruit from the dead. He instituted a new Sabbath as a new creation was inaugurated Sunday. So just think about this.

Before the resurrection, the Sabbath was grounded in creation and Exodus. Yes? The Sabbath was grounded in creation and Exodus yes creation was ground or the Sabbath was grounded in creation and the Exodus creation and redemption with Christ rising from the dead what do you have now with Christ rising from the dead you have a new creation you have a new Exodus and a new creation. A new Exodus and a new creation. That's why you have a new day.

I don't think it's very hard, But that was huge for me when I became a saboteur. Oh, Sabbath day was Saturday up until the resurrection of Christ. After the resurrection of Christ, Sabbath day became Sunday. How? Well, the first Sabbath was instituted at creation and grounded in Exodus.

The new Sabbath day grounded in new creation and the new Exodus. So in the Old Covenant the people of God they Sabbath on Saturdays. Just think about the picture that that makes. The last day of the week they were looking forward to the one who would come and ultimately give them rest that Savior that Lord came and he was raised up on the Lord's Day Sunday And now we look back at he who came and we celebrate on the first day of the week and we go into the rest of the week Fueled up for what's ahead because he came because he was raised glory, hallelujah So we celebrate we remember Creation and redemption the new creation and the greater exodus out of our bondage to sin. We rest on Sunday because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

And we start the week with a Sabbath because from that Sabbath we have all that we need for life and godliness to go out into his world and faithfully labor for six days. That's what we do. So that brings us to the final, actually it's not the final word, There's two more words, resurrection. In Acts chapter 20, you don't need to go there, but in Acts chapter 20, we read of how after Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead, the church met on the first day of the week. Acts chapter 20 verse 7 says this, on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, meeting as a church, Paul began to talk to them intending to leave the next day and he prolonged his message until midnight.

That's the pattern you see in the New Testament post-resurrection. After the resurrection the people of God began to meet the first day of the week, Sunday, rather than the last day of the week, Saturday, because Sunday was now the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day. And in Revelation chapter 1 verse 10 John assumes that his reader knows this when he writes I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day Sunday.

He assumes everybody knows what the Lord's Day is. It's the first day of the week. We've been meeting on The first day of the week that their Savior was risen from the dead. First Corinthians 16 verses 1 and 2, they give us the same example. After the resurrection, Christians gathered together, quote, now concerning the collection for the saints, church collection, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so I also direct you on the first day of every week, each one of you is to do this.

It's the pattern of the New Testament. The first day of the week. The church gathered on the Lord's Day, Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. Why? Because Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath said to him, and in him is a new creation and in him is a new Exodus.

In him we Sabbath. So that's why we as your pastors, along with the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession, call Sunday the Christian Sabbath. Both confessions, the Westminster and the Second London Baptist, are nearly word for word identical in this. And I quote, And I quote, as it is the law of nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so in his word, by a positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, God has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and that is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian self." End quote. So what Christians have believed for a long long time, But we've started to neglect the law of God, and we think, you know what?

I think we can just be a little bit more like the world. That's foolish. Because of Jesus Christ's resurrection, we celebrate redemption. We celebrate creation, new creation. Exodus, new Exodus.

On the first day of the week the Christian Sabbath and then as we Sabbath today you're going to go out into the workplace and you're going to labor hard for six days because you've just been fueled up by the gospel. You go out into the world having Sabbath one day as more than conquerors in him. So here's the question. I've already been trying to answer the question. Here's the question.

Is the Christian Sabbath for you? Is the Christian Sabbath for you? Does the Fourth Commandment apply to you Christian? Some of you maybe walked in, you're thinking, I think I'm a nine commandment Christian. Hard to say.

Don't say that. Be a ten commandment Christian. Does the fourth commandment apply to you? Yes. It's what God's people have been doing since the beginning.

But don't just take Pastor Grant's word for it. Don't do that. Ask the Lord Jesus. Ask the Lord of the Sabbath himself Jesus should I obey the fourth commandment Jesus is the fourth commandment for me and Jesus answers you in Matthew 517 do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill.

I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish the Sabbath, I came to fulfill. So if you say no, we're not going to, we don't Sabbath anymore. Friend, if you say that, you're saying that you think Jesus came to abolish the Sabbath. I don't have another, I don't, I'm at least in my brain, you can come talk to me later.

But if you say, we don't Sabbath anymore, I don't know how you're not saying Jesus came to abolish the Sabbath. And he said he didn't. He said he didn't do that. Instead, the author of Hebrew makes it very plain. Hebrews 4.9, quote, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

He's talking post-resurrection. Hebrews 4.9, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. When? What Sabbath? This day.

The Lord's day. Sunday. The day of rest. So if it's true, if it's true, I think it is, you should remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And what does it look like?

What does it look like? Here at the end, flesh it out, pastor. Alright, I'll give you a chance to tell me what you think it looks like. Alright, here's that other word I was going to tell you. What does it look like?

It looks like this word, rest. And that's directly in verse 11 of our text verse 11 Exodus 20 verse 11 the principle of all of this in the Sabbath day is a day of rest Exodus 20 verse 11 God rested you should rest so here's what you should do You come to worship with God's people on the Lord's Day and you fill up on high octane gospel fuel through the preaching of God's Word, through the singing of God's Word, through the praying through God's Word, through the communing of God's people around God's Word on the Lord's Day. You do that. You fill up on high, hot, octane, gospel fuel. Just revving the engines, rearing to go baby on Monday.

You let it fly for six days you use it up you come in needy desperate for more fuel and God promises oh you're gonna come to my table you're gonna come to this table I'm gonna fill you up rest you rest way I said that probably didn't sound very restful sorry rest second make much of the Lord's Day So it goes with the first one. Prioritize the Lord's Day. Don't skip church. Don't do that. Don't forsake meeting together on the Lord's Day.

That's Hebrews 10.25. Don't forsake the gathering together. Prioritize meeting together. And this, I'm really proud of some of the parents in here. You've had to tell your children, I'm so proud of you parents, hey, if your employer asks you to work on Sunday, you're not going to do it.

Fear God rather than fear a man. Be polite, be kind. I'll work hard for you six days. I'll get after it, man. I'll be like a bull.

I'm ready to go. But that seventh day, that's holy unto the Lord. That's when I get together with my people. We've been doing this for thousands and thousands of years. Prioritize the meeting of God's people.

Prioritize the ecclesia. Gather your household together, assemble with the saints, and descend to the hill of the Lord. So number one, rest. Number two, don't forsake the gathering of the Lord's people on the Lord's Day. Go to church.

Number three, celebrate. Celebrate. The Savior Jesus has made you into a new creation. He's led you into a new exodus out of your sin and into everlasting life. And you're not excited about celebrating that.

If your view of the Christian Sabbath is drudgery, you aren't thinking about the Christian Sabbath rightly. What did Jesus say? Mark chapter 2 verse 27, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for you Christian. I didn't make the Sabbath to be this giant burden that was placed over you.

I made it for you. I made it as a gift. I sever burdens. Pilgrim's Progress gets to the cross, his burden rolls away into the empty tomb, and you get the gift of the breast, the gift of Sabbath. Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So this is a gift from God to you, his child. So seriously, the Sabbath is a gift. If you think of it right, you should think something like this. It's like Christmas once a week. At least if you're the Brown household, when you say the word Christmas, No.

Normally when you say the word Christmas, you say, is it tomorrow? Seriously, I mean it is. It's all the time. When is Christmas? When is Christmas?

They're so excited about Christmas. I am too. I love Christmas. To quote the songwriter, it's the most wonderful time of year. The Sabbath is a gift and it really is like Christmas once a week.

It should be full of joy, full of love, and full of gladness. So strive to structure your day around rest, gathering with God's people, and being full of gladness. If your household, if you're saying with your, we're going to celebrate the Sabbath, we're going to celebrate, you shouldn't look like that. It's Sunday. It's Sunday.

Should be your favorite day. So the way we do this in the Brown household, I know some of you also do this. This is not unique to us. But the way we do this as a family in the Brown home is we regularly hold a Sabbath feast the evening before the Lord's Day. An anticipatory feast.

Right? So last night we did this and we go all out as best we can. Can't I mean, as best we can. And so we get the nice tablecloth out, we only do it on Sabbath meals, we get all the fine china out, the nice glasses, Carissa makes a special Sabbath juice, it's pink, of course. It's really tasty.

Typically Carissa prepares the most elaborate and delicious meal of the week. So, we look like at the end of the, like on Saturday night, we eat the best meal we've had all week because tomorrow morning we're going to go to a feast from the word. It's anticipatory. So we feast Saturday night, and I mean we do feast, we sing the doxology, We raise our glasses full of pink juice. And all our girls do this.

Not Mercedes yet, working on her. And I say to the girls, he has risen. And they all raise their glasses. He has risen indeed, is what they say. We toast.

We cheer. I ask the girls, what's happening tomorrow? And yesterday, Annie said, the Lord's Day is happening tomorrow. And then my daughter, oldest daughter Abigail, she says, oh, it's the Sabbath day. I say, yes.

Yes it is. So we cheer, we say amen, and we dig in. Now what that does is it frees my wife up the next day. We've already had a meal fit for a king, a queen, and five princesses. And there are leftovers available for Sunday so that Krista doesn't have to feel the compulsion, the need to cook very much, she can rest on the Lord's day.

And we intentionally do, we intentionally don't do certain types of labor and instead spend time with the girls in unique ways that we don't normally get to do in the rest of the week. So we spend time with each other while they're napping in ways that we don't typically get to do the rest of the week. And so that rhythm of like, we're not going to refrain from this normal labor to give ourselves to very special things has become a very precious rhythm to us. It's very much become a get to, not a got to. So I loved it the last week, last week six days was very, I'm sorry two weeks ago, a very full week.

Lots of meetings for me. We had Stephen Gates concert which was so wonderful. A lot of people were hosting people. I mean so many people in our home and we just kept, She kept telling me, cannot wait for the Sabbath. Cannot wait for the rest.

And it was glorious. It's a precious rhythm in our life. And so we are excited as a family about Sabbath. I want you to be excited as a family about Sabbath. That's the point.

I do think by the grace of God that my girls their favorite day is Sunday now. I think that. We're all together. Their daddy's home more than ever. Mommy and daddy are together.

It's fun. We talk. We play. We laugh. We do recreation.

We rest. Karissa and I, if you're wondering how this fleshes out, we've been helped by Pastor Joe Rigney when we think about what kinds of labor should we do on the Sabbath, and what kinds shouldn't we do. And he says something like this, is the labor that you are wondering if you do or not, is the labor that you're trying, is the labor you're doing trying to get ahead of the week? If you're trying to get ahead, then leave it be. It's what Joe Regan says.

Is the labor you're doing trying to get ahead for the week? If you're trying to get ahead, then leave it be. It's what Joe Regan says. It's the labor you're doing trying to get ahead for the week. If you're trying to get ahead, then leave it be.

And that's just been a really helpful diagnostic for us as we sought to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Ultimately, parents and children, when you're thinking through Sabbath and keeping it holy, I really do think you need to keep this really cute but powerful poem in mind. This was taught to Alistair Begg when he was but a wee lad. Did it sound like him for a second? Thank you, my brother.

Here's what he was taught, and I intend to teach it to my children. Quote, a Sunday well spent brings a week of content and strength for the toils of tomorrow, but a Sunday profaned, whatever is gained, is a certain forerunner for sorrow. A Sunday well spent brings a week of content and strength for the toils of tomorrow, but a Sunday profaned whatever is gained is a certain for remnant for sorrow. So Christian, Jesus says to you, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Do not have the audacity to come to him and repent and faith, but then reject the very rest that he gives you in the Sabbath.

Do not do that. Instead, come to him and repentance and faith. He promises to give you rest, including in that rest is by giving you a Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath. This is the Lord of the Sabbath. This is the Lord's day.

Rejoice and be glad. Rejoice and be glad in it. And may God make you, me, and all of our people that way. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day.

We do want to rejoice and be glad in it, so work it in our hearts. Give us the right understanding of this, your word, and make us not just hearers, but doers also. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thanks for watching!