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June 22, 2003
2nd Sunday of Pentecost
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Pastor Robert Raasch

ON WHICH DAY SHOULD WE WORSHIP?

1. Consider the Demands of the Law
2. Consider the Freedom Christ Gives

I've got a question for you. A few moments ago, you heard Pastor Berger read these words of God: "Observe the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy." Most of us probably learned those words as the Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy." You maybe also know that the Sabbath Day is the 7th day of the week. That's the day on which God rested after creating the heaven and the earth. God set aside the 7th day and made it holy. Well, if the first day of the week is Sunday, then the 7th day of the week is Saturday. Here in our text, God is commanding people to set aside Saturday as a holy day to God.

And that leads me back to the question I have to ask you today. The question is this: If God clearly says in the Bible to worship on the Sabbath Day, that is, worship on Saturday, what are you doing here today-on a Sunday (Monday)? Shouldn't you have been here yesterday (two days ago)?

You maybe realize that there are some church bodies which advocate worshipping exclusively on Saturday. The Seventh Day Adventists, for example, conduct their services only on Saturday. In fact, I've heard people say that "Mark of the Beast" is worn by those who have changed the Lord's day from Saturday to Sunday.

What do you think about that? Can you prove that your presence here today is not in conflict with God's command to "Remember the Sabbath Day?" Are you sure that you are not guilty of tampering with God's Word by treating Saturday like any other day of the week? Friends, that's the question we would like to address today. This morning we want to look to God's holy Word to help us answer the question,

ON WHICH DAY SHOULD WE WORSHIP?

And we'll seek the answer to that question by considering two things. We'll:

1. Consider the Demands of the Law
2. Consider the Freedom Christ Gives

First, let's consider the demands which God makes in the law. Here in the book of Deuteronomy, the prophet Moses records a number of different laws. Laws like, "Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not commit adultery." We're all familiar with those laws. We know them as the 10 commandments. But there are a few others that we're maybe not so familiar with. For example, in his law, God also says, "Do not wear clothing woven of two different kinds of material. Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. Do not put tattoo marks on yourselves, or eat meat with the blood still in it." And God says right here in our text, "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work."

Those are just a few of the laws God has given to us in his holy Word. The question is, "What are we supposed to do with them? Does God expect us to obey all of them? Did you sin by trimming your beard this morning? Is it an abomination to God that I'm wearing a shirt with a blend of cotton and some other fabric? Will you be in trouble with more than just your parents when you come home with a brand new tattoo on your skin? If all these commands are written in the Bible, don't we have to obey them?"

Before we can answer that question we need to recognize that even though God expects that all of his commands be obeyed, still some of God's commands were given only for specific people at specific times. For example, just because God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, that doesn't mean that God expects every father down through history to offer his child as a burnt offering to God.

The question is, how do we know which are which? How do we know whether a commandment like Remember the Sabbath Day is an expression of God's unchanging moral will for all mankind or whether it is an expression of temporary law, written just for the benefit of the Old Testament nation of Israel, for example?

To answer that question, we need to look to the words of the New Testament. You might say that the New Testament is like a litmus test that we must judge all those Old Testament laws by. If the New Testament affirms the Old Testament law, then that law still applies to us today. But if the New Testament does not affirm the law, or if it somehow denies the law, then it doesn't apply to us.

In the New Testament we find no commandments about how we are to shave our beard or whether we can eat meat with blood in it. So we know that those commandments were laws which applied only to the Old Testament nation of Israel. But what about this commandment here in our text? "Observe the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you." Does the New Testament say anything about observing the Sabbath Day? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, St. Paul does speak about the Sabbath Day in Colossians chapter 2. He writes, "Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival or New Moon celebration or a Sabbath Day. These are a shadow of things to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."

Now, what does that mean? "Don't let anyone judge you by…a Sabbath Day?" Paul is basically telling his New Testament readers, "Don't let anyone tell you that you must gather for worship on Saturday, or that you can't do any kind of physical labor on Saturday. Those were all requirements which were in effect before Christ came on the scene. As Paul says, "they were a shadow of things to come." In other words, nowhere in the New Testament does God say that we must set aside the seventh day of the week as God's Day.

So, does that mean that God does not want us to gather together to hear his word and worship him? Quite the contrary. God says very clearly in the New Testament book of Hebrews, "Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another…" And again in the book of Colossians, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." Or maybe the most pointed words of all are Jesus' words in Luke 11, "Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and obey it."

In other words, even though God doesn't demand that we worship him on a specific day of the week, he still demands that we worship him. He still expects us to set aside time each week (if not each day) to study his Word, to apply it to our lives, and respond to God with our prayers and praises. That's a part of God's unchanging moral law for all people of all time.

The question is, how well are you and I living up to that standard that God has set for us as New Testament Christians? Is a weekly worship service one of the things that you just refuse to give up each week? Can you say with the psalmist, "I meditate on your law night and day?" Is your prayer life reminiscent of that widow who came back to Jesus again and again until he finally answered her prayer? Does your worship life regularly show exactly how much God is worth to you?

My friends, I don't know about you, but I know that there are plenty of times when my commitment to a fervent prayer life and regular worship and personal Bible study worship the Lord leaves a great deal to be desired. When I look at what God expects of me, not only in terms of outward actions, but also by inner motives, I realize how I have failed to live up to God's demands. I have fallen under God's condemnation. And maybe you can say the same of yourself. The bottom line is this: Even though God says we can worship on any and every day we want, still you and I have not offered to God the kind of joyful and willing obedience that he demands. And therefore, according to the demands of God's law, we all stand condemned.

That, my friends, is the bad news about this commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day." We can never keep it well enough to be right in God's eyes. And yet, even though we can't keep the third commandment perfectly, even though we deserve to be punished for our disobedience of God's command, still God loved us enough to give us someone to keep this commandment perfectly for us. That someone is of course Jesus Christ. Let's consider that question "On Which Day Should We Worship in light of II. The Freedom which Christ Gives.

Just for a moment I want you to consider what it means for you that Jesus has obeyed every single commandment in your place-including this commandment, remember the Sabbath Day. And to help you do that, I want you to imagine this scene. Imagine that you are about 7 years old. You ask your father, "Hey, Dad, can I go outside and play for a while?" And your dad says, "Yeah, you can go outside. But before you do, I want you to do just one job around the house. Why don't you go over to that jar and pick out one of those slips of paper that has a job written on it? If you do that job, you can go outside. Sound fair?" "Yeah, that sounds fair," you say. So you pick out a slip of paper and what does it say? It says, "Reshingle the roof!" "Hey, wait a minute Dad. I can't do this." But Dad says, "Hey, that's the deal we made. Until you fulfill your obligation, you are not free to go outside."

Oh man, just like that, that little piece of paper has become an unbearable law hanging over your head, hasn't it? Every time you want to go outside, your father says, "Well, did you do your job yet?" "No." "Then you can't go outside." Face it; as long as you're under that law, there is no freedom for you. And you're one miserable little boy, aren't you?

But now imagine that you have an older brother who just happens to be a master carpenter. And when he sees your predicament, he feels sorry for you, and in one day, he singlehandly reshingles the roof. He fulfills the obligation which your father had given you to do. You don't have to reshingle the roof, because it's already been done. That little piece of paper doesn't apply to you anymore. You can throw it away, because..."It is finished."

Hmmm. Isn't that Jesus Christ has done for each one of us? He took the entire law of God, which hung over our heads, and fulfilled it perfectly. And because he fulfilled it, it no longer is held against us. In Colossians 2:14, the Apostle Paul speaks about that very thing. He says that Jesus Christ, "canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross." Because Jesus has kept the law perfectly for each and every one of us, we are all free from it. We don't have to do any of it. That's what Paul meant when he said, "Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."

Now, apply that fact to our text for today. Do you realize what that means? It means that the third commandment no longer applies to you. You don't have to go to church on the Sabbath Day. For that matter, you don't have to go to church on Sunday either. In fact, the only person who really has to go to church is the person who is trying to earn his way to heaven by keeping the law. But St. Paul says that as a Christian, you "are not under law, but under grace." In other words, it is not the demand of the law that brings you to church. Rather, it is the incredible love which God has shown to you in Christ which compels you to come to church. I mean, isn't that why you are here today? I hope that you're not here because you feel you must be here. Rather, I trust that you're here because you want to be here. Even though God doesn't demand that you worship on Saturday or Sunday or Monday, still in your Christian freedom you've chosen one of those days to gather together with your fellow believers. To publicly make confession of your sins, and receive the assurance of God's forgiveness, to be able to respond to that grace of God with your heartfelt prayers and praises.

My friends, I know how easy it is to take for granted the freedom we have to come to God's House and worship him with our fellow believers. It's very easy for us to develop a take it or leave it attitude toward corporate worship. We think to our selves, "If I want to go, I'll go. If I don't, I won't." In fact, sometimes it's not until God puts us flat on our back for a couple of weeks that we begin to realize what a glorious privilege it is to be able to freely walk into God's house and worship him in the company of our fellow believers.

Last week I experienced that privilege once again. After two weeks of being physically unable to join you for worship, I was able to hobble my way into church. O what a wonderful thing that was. I now know exactly how King David felt when he said, "I rejoiced with those who said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD.'" May God grant to each one of us that same heartfelt desire to worship our Creator and Redeemer God-no matter what day of the week it may be. In Jesus' name. Amen.