And why don't we begin by looking at Catechism questions 63 to 65. I'm going to do a two-week consideration of the Fourth Commandment, and we're just going to do three Catechism questions this week and then the remaining two next week. So on Catechism question number 63, the question is, what is the Fourth Commandment? Let's answer together. The fourth commandment is, 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 do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them is, and rested the seventh day, therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. And number 64, what is required in the fourth commandment? And we answer, the fourth commandment requires the keeping holy to God one whole day and seven to be a Sabbath to himself. And finally, which day of the seven has God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath? And we answer, Before the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath, and the first day of the week ever since to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath. I am a big Cycling fan, and I don't know if you guys know but the Tour de France just ended today. I didn't watch it I'll read up on it tomorrow, but Not only do I like watching cycling But I also like cycling and one of the things that happens when you do a lot of cycling is you cramp okay? Has anybody experienced a cramp that is no fun not a walk in Disneyland, okay, and So in trying to avoid cramps, I did a lot of research. And people talk about pickle juice and magnesium and all these things. And I've tried a lot of those things. But typically to no avail, they help a little bit. So what I came to the conclusion of in my research is that, and by the way, Lance Armstrong, love him or hate him, agrees with this. When you start cramping, what that basically means is your body is telling you that your training up until that point has not prepared you for the tax that you're putting on your body at that point. That's basically what it comes down to. And so your muscles, not being able to handle it, they start cramping up. I'd like to draw a connection tonight to something that happens, I think, potentially in the church, and that is this. The church is under attack in our culture today on every single side. We're being pressured to conform to culture and what culture says, masculinity is, femininity is, sexual orientation, marriage, truth. Some of these battles are perennial, the battles that we have faced generation in and generation out. But here's what's happening. Churches left and right have been and are continuing to capitulate to culture in order to be accepted by the culture. And many churches, in fact, have become what John calls a synagogue of Satan. I just read an article the other day that a PCUSA church, that's Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, it's a liberal denomination, at their general assembly, they had a coordinated prayer to Allah. This is a Christian church. And they prayed curses on all those who had Islamophobia. That is a synagogue of Satan. But what is happening is they're capitulating to the culture, because the culture has a particular zeitgeist, which means the spirit of the age, what's popular, what everybody's believing. And if you don't get on board, well, you're on the outside. So these churches are no longer concerned with pleasing God and remaining distinct in the world. Rather, they are primarily concerned with pleasing the culture, Now here's the thing, here's the question. How can we be insulated from such threats? What is it that we can do? What's the most that we can do? What's the best practice that we can have in order to avoid something like this? Well, coming back to the cycling analogy, I think it's preparing yourself in such a way that when that threat comes, you are prepared to meet it. And one of the ways in which we do that is taking full advantage of the Lord's day. The Lord has given his people a mark, and that is baptism. The Lord has given his people a meal, and that is the Lord's supper. The Lord has given his people a day, and that is the Lord's day. And every single one of those play an integral role in preparing us, not only for heaven, and making us more godly, more like the person of Jesus Christ, but they also prepare us to stand against the perennial threats that our culture is always going to throw at us. the perennial threats that the culture has been throwing at the church for 2,000 years now. And to be very frank with you, I am concerned about the church at large, and I have a concern for us. that we might capitulate, I hope that we never do, to some of these threats if we are not prepared. I'm concerned that we will cramp up spiritually, if you think, because the culture is saying, if you don't get on board, we're not going to like you. And we all like to be liked. And I think one of the best ways we can avoid that, and one of the best ways that we can prepare ourself, and more importantly than all of that, one of the best ways that we could see and savor Jesus Christ is to call the Lord's Day a delight. And so that's what I want to talk about tonight. I want to talk about the Lord's Day. I'm going to do this over two Sundays, and here's what I'm going to do very simply. I'm going to say three things. Number one, this is a thumbnail sketch. There's so much that can be said and should be said about the Lord's Day that we're simply not going to have time to unpack. But secondly, what I'm going to do this week is just give a very simple biblical theological thumbnail sketch of how we got from Sabbath to Lord's Day. And then next week, what I want to do is I want to give some practical considerations about how we can better observe the Lord's Day. So that's the road map for where we're going. We're going to consider some biblical theological reflections on the Lord's Day. So, there's going to be five of them, okay? Five reflections, alright? And the overarching kind of point here is, considering the shift from the Sabbath and the Old Covenant seventh day of the week, to the Lord's day in the new covenant, first day of the week. How did we get there? What does that mean? What's the same from those two, from the Sabbath to the Lord's day, and what's different? That's kind of the general roadmap of where we're going, okay? But since the beginning of time, the people of God have always had a day of rest. And this day of rest has always been given over to worshiping of God, okay? So let me give you five considerations of how we get from Sabbath to Lord's Day. Here's the first one. First thing we need to grasp, if we're to correctly understand the purpose and practice of the Lord's Day and the new covenant, is that the day of rest has not always been the same in every age, okay? So the big question we have to answer at the beginning is when did the day of rest begin? Did it begin under Moses or did it begin under Adam? Does anybody have any thoughts on that? Okay, Adam, if you answered Adam, you are correct. So, in Genesis chapter one and two, God created all things in six days. It was morning, it was evening the first day, morning and evening the second day, all the way to the seventh day. And then on the seventh day, he rested from his labors. And by the way, there's a very real sense in which that is anthropomorphic language, which means that God is being explained in ways that we can understand him, that man can understand him. Because does God really rest? No, God doesn't really rest. But then the next question is, well then how are we to understand the statement that he rested? Well, he rested from his work of creation, but is he still upholding the cells in our body and preserving us? Absolutely, and that's a lot of work. But he did rest from his work of creation and he hallowed the day. In fact, the word the seventh day in Hebrew comes from the same word that we get the Sabbath, it's Shabbat. And even today in Israel, they talk about Shabbat, that's the seventh day. It means to rest, it means to cease, it means to end, if you will. So the day of rest began in the garden. God created six days, work, work, work, six times, and then he rested on the seventh. And some people will say, well, we can't say that the Sabbath began in the garden, because what's missing in that Genesis account? A command that Adam should rest, okay? But that's not really thinking it through thoroughly in my mind, because once you get to Exodus chapter 20, which is where we just read the fourth commandment, what is God's reason that he gives for why people should keep the Sabbath? What does he say? "'cause I worked six days and I rested on the seventh.'" In other words, he's going back to creation and saying, this is the blueprint for why you should rest. And so it's true now under Moses and it was true back then with Adam. So now here's the second thing that we need to, well, let me back up before I get there, okay? We are members of the New Covenant, okay? That's pretty clear. So whenever we think about how we are to keep the Lord's Day, whatever the equivalent, whatever the New Testament equivalent of the Sabbath is in the New Covenant, we need to think of it through the lenses of the New Covenant and not the lenses of the Old Covenant. So we'll come back to that in a moment, all right? Now here's the second thing we need to know. We need to notice that a one in seven day of rest was first instituted at creation. We already talked about that. Genesis chapter two verses one and three. But now I want to ask this question, what does that mean? It means that it wasn't instituted under Moses. And why is that important? Because if the Sabbath was instituted under Moses, And then you get to Paul in Romans chapter six, verse 14, and he says, we are not under law, we're under grace. Then it's very simple at that point to throw the Sabbath under the bus and say, it is no longer for the people of God, right? Because we're not under law, we're under grace. And Sabbath then becomes one of the many other ceremonial aspects of the law that drops off in the current covenant, new covenant community. But on the other hand, If the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, which we've already said that it is, then that covenant made with Adam was binding on whom? Anybody remember? Huh? Mankind, that's right. So if the Sabbath was part of the original covenant with Adam that is binding on all mankind, then we must conclude that a one in seven day of rest or a time given over to worship to God is binding on all humanity. So we can say that on the day of judgment, if somebody is not in Christ, one of the billions of things that they will be judged for is for not having given over a time of worship to God. And by the way, isn't that what Romans 1 says? Romans 1 just goes on and on about how the existence of God is plain from creation itself, and one of the biggest sins of mankind is he did not give thanks to God. That's worship. That's worship. We cannot root the Sabbath in Moses, we must root it in Adam. Now here's the third thing that we need to see. As we move forward in redemptive history, the Sabbath command becomes enshrined in the fourth commandment under Moses. Now, there are two reasons why God commands his people to keep the Sabbath. The first one we've already covered in Exodus chapter 20, because I worked six days and I rested on the seventh, so that shall be the pattern for you. Work six days, rest on the seventh. But in the second giving of the law to the second generation in Deuteronomy chapter five, we see the 10 commandments again, and what's interesting is the reason annexed to or given for the fourth commandment in Deuteronomy five is a little different than Exodus chapter 20. Does anybody know what it is? Why does God tell people to keep the Sabbath in Deuteronomy chapter five? Because they were a slave in the land of Egypt and he redeemed them. So now it's not creation and work, it's redemption. Now these two themes are very, very important and we must pay special attention. Notice that the reason that God created all things is perfection, imperfection, and he is sovereign. And then he rested, and so we are to follow that pattern and rest. But now secondly, he redeemed us from our sins. So those two reasons serve as the purpose for which Israel should work six days and rest on the seventh. And that day of rest served as, and this is really important, that day of rest served as a type or an example of heaven. It serves as a type or example of heaven. It's the rest that is promised them in the Messiah. Now, if you don't catch anything else in this lesson, you have to catch this. because of all the thumbnail sketch that I'm giving you tonight, this is the key that's gonna unlock the answer to most of our questions. The Sabbath is an example of the eternal rest, we can call it heaven, we could call it the eschaton, we could call it the new heavens and the new earth, but when you think of heaven, you should think rest. Now don't think I'm just gonna be an angel in heaven plucking on a harp. That's monotonous and boring, that's not rest. You know, when I take a nap, like especially on a Sunday, because Sunday's my workday, my biggest workday, it's not boring, it's glorious. It's glorious. Rest is glorious, okay? And if rest is glorious on a human level, on this side of heaven, how much more in heaven, okay? So rest is, the Sabbath is a type, symbol, example, pointer to eternal rest that is promised in the Messiah. It is, in other words, to be a picture on a small scale of something that would happen eternally in heaven. So rest comes when we cease from our works by resting. And I submit to you that the overarching meaning of rest in the Bible, therefore, is ultimate rest in the eschatological state of heaven, okay? Now, here's what's interesting. In the Genesis account, after every day, one through six, it says, and it was morning and it was evening the first day. It was morning and evening the second day, all the way to the sixth day. Do you know that in Genesis chapter two, verse two and three, when he talks about hallowing the seventh day, you know what's missing? It was morning and it was evening the seventh day. Moses was brilliant. Moses is giving us an indication that there's a sense in which the Sabbath has not ended. In fact, it will never end. Okay, it will never end. That's very important. Now, I'm not taking away, if you take Genesis account literal, it doesn't take away from that, but it is a narratival theological absence that gives us a clue into the new covenant that the Sabbath is a type of that which will never end. Days one through six ended, but the Sabbath never ended and never will end because it's a type of heaven, rest. eschatological bliss. So, coming back to Israel under Moses. For Israel, the day of rest functioned as a type or symbol, and in some sense, an anticipation of rest from sin. And how would Israel enter into this rest? Not by their own works, but by faith. And in the Old Testament, the promised land was often symbolized as the place of rest, remember? God promised that after Moses, God would bring them into the rest through Joshua. And then in Hebrews chapter 4, that passage that talks about the Sabbath rest, something very interesting happens. The author of Hebrews says, now as I'm talking about rest, notice this. If Joshua would have brought them into that rest, that would have been it, but Joshua brought them into the rest, but then the prophet spoke about another rest still to come. And so the land was not the rest that God had promised, but was a type or a symbol of that rest. And so we have the land serving as a symbol of the rest, we have the day serving as a symbol of the rest. And if you think about it, And I've showed you this before, but you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, all of these days of the week, what do you do? You work, work, work, and then seven, you enter into rest, okay? So if you think about it, if you just think about our life, like we're born and we go through life and we die and we enter into heaven, that makes sense, right? So the Sabbath, the seventh day, served as a symbol of rest. Now if you want that reference in Hebrews, it's Hebrews 4, 8, and 9. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So, what we've established on this third point is that the day of rest is a type of the rest to come. Now, number four. And this is where you really have to follow me here to get that key to unlock how to understand the Lord's day. Number four, Jesus is the rest to which the day of rest pointed. I repeat, Jesus is the rest to which the day of rest pointed. Jesus comes on the scene. And it almost seems like when you read through the Gospels, every time Jesus gets a chance to break the Sabbath, bam, he's just breaking it. Left and right, breaking the Sabbath. Now, I just wanna add, he never actually broke the Sabbath, okay? And we have to say that. He broke the Pharisees' conception of what the Sabbath should be because they added 14,000 more laws around the Sabbath so that they couldn't break it. But what Jesus did in all those episodes where he quote unquote broke the Sabbath was showing the true intent of the Sabbath. And all of that could be summed up is man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. In other words, what you Pharisees have missed is that this is supposed to be a day of rest. By the way, if you read a lot of Puritans, Their conception of the Lord's Day. You wonder if they got the memo that the day of rest is supposed to be a day of rest. Read Richard Baxter. I don't know how you fit all those things into a day. You'd have to stay up 24 hours a day to do all the things that Richard Baxter suggests that you should do on the Lord's Day. It's exhausting. So what Jesus does, he comes on the scene, he says, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. In fact, he comes into a synagogue, he reads a portion from Isaiah that talks about liberating the slaves on the year of Jubilee, which was the 49th year, seven times seven. is 49, and that's the Jubilee where, according to the Mosaic law, they were supposed to free the slaves, which, by the way, they never did. It's one of the reasons they went into exile. They were supposed to give the land rest, which, by the way, they never did, and that's why they went into exile. And Jesus said, after he read that in the synagogue, he rolled up the scroll and he said, today this has been fulfilled in your presence. In other words, what is he saying? I'm the fulfillment of the Sabbath. I have come to free the slaves. I am the epicenter of the Jubilee. I free people from their sins. And then he says in Matthew chapter 11, come to me all who are wearing heavy laden and I will give you what? Rest. Anapausis, katapausis, two words in the Greek which are taken up by the author of the Hebrews in Hebrews chapter four when he talks about rest, rest, rest. Jesus is the Sabbath rest. But what does that mean then? What does that mean? Does this mean that now that Jesus has come, the Sabbath has been fulfilled? Well, yes and no. Did Jesus fulfill the commandment, you shall not murder? Yes, he did. Does that mean we can murder now? Of course not. Does he fulfill the commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery? Yes, but that doesn't mean that we can go ahead and do it now, okay? Let me give you one thing to think about with respect to the 10 commandments. What's interesting about the 10 commandments is all of the 10 commandments from Old Testament are repeated in the New Testament, except for one. You will search in vain in the New Testament to find the fourth commandment repeated in the New Testament. Does that mean something? I think it does. This is how Reformed divines have usually understood the fourth commandment. All of the other commandments are moral. Now remember what we said about moral. Moral is unchanging. That means that you should only have one God is applicable to Adam, to Moses, to Abraham, to David, to everyone. Whether you're in California, Virginia, Africa, doesn't matter where you are, all peoples, all times, all places, okay? But then remember when we talked about ceremonial law, Ceremonial law in the Old Testament were laws like sacrificing the lamb, your clothes should only be made of one material, okay? Those were temporary laws given to a particular people in a particular covenant context that had what we call planned obsolescence, which means that, and this is the whole argument of the book of Hebrews, they were never meant to be forever. They were what another term we call positive laws, positive laws given within a particular covenantal context that were meant to point to something else and when that something else came, then they found their fulfillment and we no longer had to keep these. So clothes of one material, sacrificing animals, not eating pork, those types of things are ceremonial, okay? Now, the fourth commandment we say is both moral and ceremonial. It's moral and ceremonial. But now the question is, what part is moral, what part is ceremonial? Okay, here's a quick and dirty rundown of what it is. Obviously, the day itself is ceremonial, right? Because did the day change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant? Yes. So the day is not so intricately bound up in the moral part of the law that it's unchanging. No, it's actually ceremonial. So the day is ceremonial and it changed from the seventh day to the first day. And I would also add that anything else that's not repeated in the new covenant is ceremonial and drops off. Now that's going to be a very controversial point. If I had more time to unpack this, the other thing I'd say is our confession itself tends to follow the Presbyterians in seeing more continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And they want to say, well, if it's in the Old Testament, it remains unless the New Testament puts it out of commission. But we Baptists think a little bit differently when it comes to baptism, because the mark of the people of God in the Old Covenant was circumcision. But in the new covenant, it's baptism, but the question is to whom do you apply it? Well, we would say that command of circumcision is positive law, and it finds its fulfillment in Christ, and now in the new covenant, It's baptism and the people we put it on is the people that the New Testament tells us to put it on, right? That's called positive law. Now, the Presbyterians would say, well, now wait a minute. No, it was given to the children, the infants in the Old Covenant, so we should give it to the infants in the New Covenant, even though the New Covenant doesn't say you should. We say, no, no, no, no. The New Testament has to repeat it. The New Testament has to confirm it. So in other words, our method is this. The Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ, and now whatever we do with the Lord's Day in the New Covenant is what the New Testament tells us to do. So, let me answer a few simple questions then. Does that mean we can work on Sunday? Because it was clear in the Old Covenant that you cannot work. Well, let's start from a different direction. Why don't we do this? Why don't we say, what does the New Covenant say about the Lord's Day? Well, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24 and 25, let us consider how we may stir one another up toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Acts 2.42, what did the people of God give themselves over to? The apostles' doctrine, the breaking of bread, prayers, and fellowship. the people of God met together on the day designated to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, that is positive command in the New Testament. So now let's come back and answer the question about work. If your work conflicts with meeting together with the people of God, what do you think the answer is? Anybody? No, we shouldn't work. Now, we have to add another layer to that, right? Here's the other layer. Does Jesus talk about certain things that are necessary on the Sabbath that because they're necessary, you must do, even though all other things being equal, they would be forbidden? Yeah. So they're going through the grain field, remember? And it's not right to work. And according to the Pharisees, when the disciples took the heads of grain and they were rubbing them in their hands, they were working. And he said, hey, haven't you heard the story about David going into the temple and eating the show bread? It was forbidden, he shouldn't have done that, but he was starving. It's a work of necessity. And then there's another category, work of mercy. You've got your ox in a ditch. I guess today that would be your Jeep in a ditch, I don't know. Okay, on Sunday, you're not gonna be like, well, it's 9.55, I gotta go to church, so I'm just gonna leave that thing in the ditch. No, you gotta get that thing out, right? Especially if somebody's under it. I mean, can you imagine? You are a Pharisee if you're like, sorry, George, but I gotta get to church, so just deep breaths, right? No, work of mercy is taking care of somebody in their time of need. This may be shut-ins. You know, we don't have any shut-ins in our churches, but I've been in churches where there are shut-ins, and dear saints would go and visit them on Sunday. They would try to do it after service, before service, whatever, but that's a very appropriate thing to do on the Lord's Day. So that is the basic, that is the basic principle that I think we should use in applying our understanding of the fourth commandment is whatever is not repeated from the old covenant is not something that we're bound with. We are only bound to keep what the new covenant tells us to keep. So that basically comes down to worship service, And we do want to give to Jesus a day of rest, and I do think it's wise not to so fill the day with things. that you're exhausted when you do try to go worship the Lord. And I'm gonna talk more about practical considerations about that next week, okay? So number five, I kinda got ahead of myself, was the uniqueness of the fourth commandment. And I've already put that up here. The uniqueness of the fourth commandment is that it is both moral and ceremonial. The ceremonial has fallen off, so we no longer have to keep the Sabbath the way the Jews kept it. But what we keep now is what is repeated in the new covenant. The only other two things I'd say before we take a few questions is our tradition is apt to call the Lord's Day the Christian Sabbath. Here's the only caution I would give in that. I'm not going to say it's wrong to do that. It's definitely part of our tradition. I would say if what they mean by that is the new covenant understanding of the day of rest fine. But keep in mind this. Nowhere in the New Testament is the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, referred to as the Sabbath. that does come in our confession, but the New Testament never does that. Whenever the New Testament talks about the first day of the week, it either calls it the first day of the week or in Revelation 1.10 it calls it the Lord's Day. And so I would just say I'm a little more comfortable with using the term Lord's Day because that's the term that the New Testament actually uses. And then finally, and we'll talk more about this next week, the Lord's Day is about Jesus. And it's to be a delight. It's to be not only a time of entering into fellowship with him, not only corporately with one another, but also individually. It's a good thing to give time over during the week to worship Jesus, but not only that, but instructing your family. Sunday's a wonderful time for catechism. Sunday's a wonderful time for Bible reading with the family. Sunday's a wonderful time for Bible memorization. If you take the Lord's Day as the number one priority of your day on the first day of the week and give it over to all worship, all family time, all time with the saints, works of necessity, works of mercy, and then if there's anything else, you fit that in after all those other things have been done, then you're making the Lord a priority on the Lord's day. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and end with prayer. And if anybody wants to stick around and ask questions, you can do that. Remember next week, we're going to consider some practical considerations of the Lord's day. So please bring questions if you have those. Let me pray. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for your love to us. We thank you that you have given us a day. We thank you that your son has caused us to enter into that rest by faith in him. And we just pray, Father, that you would give us a heart and a burden to make much of this day. We ask these things in your son's name, amen.