Do the Ten Commandments apply to Christians today? What about the Fourth Commandment, should we take a Sabbath rest?

Are Christians called to obey the Ten Commandments? Do people become a Christian by obeying the Ten Commandments and living a good life?

SONG – Hear Oh Israel – Getty’s – Awaken the Dawn

Four possible ways to translate Deuteronomy 6:4 into English. “The Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Lord our God is one Lord. The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Or finally, The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. This is HAVEN Today and a series this week on the Ten Commandments and that is Hear Oh Israel by the Getty’s from their Awaken the Dawn Album. That famous Hebrew text – called the schema – is taken from the Hebrew word for “Hear” and follows the Deuteronomy giving of the Ten Commandments.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved (or graven) image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath. You shall not bow down before them. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long and that it may go well with you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. The core of God’s law given to Moses.

Some people don’t wrestle with this. For instance, one author of an Internet site on Bible knowledge says matter of factly,

“The above commandments need no explanation. They mean exactly what they are saying. It’s quite amazing how many of these commandments are being broken on a regular basis, even by Christians themselves. If you look very closely at each of these commandments, they really do cover a broad spectrum as to what God is expecting from each one of us.
They are good, basic laws that will help keep us right before God, and also help keep us out of trouble with ourselves, our families, our friends and our neighbors. God knows what is best for all of us and He simply wants all of us to stay out of trouble in order that we may be able to live in peace and harmony with Him and one another.
The fact that God would go so far as to have these 10 basic commandments manifested on a stone tablet really tells me that they are very important, and that each Christian should know what they are and do their best to abide by them.”

Simply stated, but not so easily understood. Especially when you start reading the scriptures – and I’m not saying these 10 commandments don’t lead us to see our sin and have been done away with. It’s just that Jesus himself said, we couldn’t keep them.

Song

There are many opinions when it comes to the Ten Commandments. But the one commandment that seems to draw the most opinion and criticism is the fourth commandment. “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Seems pretty cut and dry doesn’t it? But does it? Orthodox Jews and some Christians say it has to be the seventh day for a day of rest in observing this commandment. In Israel today, you see Shabbat or Sabbath observance. Elevators on Saturdays stop on every floor so you don’t have to push the button, because a Rabbi has determined that this would be breaking the Sabbath. A friend of mine lives in Israel for a few years and his Orthodox neighbor would frequently make special requests on a Sabbath because he was a Gentile. Can you change the light bulb that went out or perform some task I can’t do. A preponderance of Christians today worship on Sunday and some of those believers would keep some sort of Sabbath rest on the first day of the week. They do that because we are told in the New Testament that Christians would gather on the first day of the week. Some Christians believe the Apostle Paul taught that there is no special one day – every day has become the Lord’s Day and we are not to observe special days or Sabbaths – although Paul also taught and advocated how to worship and even observe the Lord’s Supper when believers came together. If you have an opinion, you probably have a strong opinion. Well this fourth commandment was a high point of opinion and criticism in Jesus’ day. Jesus received criticism on his use of the Sabbath, but he did not need to stammer out any excuses. It is perhaps the Sabbath commandment that shows most clearly how Jesus transforms the law for His believers. When Jesus’ disciples followed him one Sabbath afternoon, they plucked heads of grain in the fields they were crossing. Rubbing the ears between their hands, they picked the grain and snacked on it because they were hungry. The zealous Pharisees were quite vigorous in their enforcement of the fourth commandment. In Matthew 12, they cried, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” How would we have answered their shocked accusations? “Such pettiness! How hairsplitting can you get? With their mind-set, these legalists never knew when to stop. To be sure, if one of the disciples had brought along a sickle, a charge of working on the Sabbath could be made. But how narrow-minded to view informal plucking has harvesting and hand-rubbing as threshing!” We can still find attitudes like this in religious settings today. My wife and I were almost stoned one time in Jeruslam when we were lost and I was driving a rental car in the Maya Shareem … the most Orthodox section of the ancient city with a couple of hours left before the Sabbath ended. I heard of someone who attended a Jewish Temple once and the rabbi was asked if it was legal to load a dishwasher on the eve of the Sabbath. He responded that such an activity would not be considered work if the dishwasher were not loaded systematically by sorting the dishes. Throwing the dishes in any old way would be just fine. The Pharisees were quibbling in the same was as the dishwaser rabbi. They were not leveling a serious charge of Sabbath breaking because they had very little understanding of the true meaning of the Sabbath. Jesus constantly pointed out their misunderstanding of Old Testament law and He reprimanded them again in this instance when he said a bit later in Matthew 12:7 “If you had known what these words mena, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.” What is it aobut the Sabbath that the Pharisees failed to understand? What does the OT Sabbath simply? Why does God give a commandment that his people keep the Sabbath day holy? Here are points we need to consider:

First, there is the matter of physical rest. The Sabbath was given first for an obvious reason. Human beings can’t work 24/7. They just can’t do it. Many studies have been conducted and some cultures have tried work cycles of four, ten and even fifteen days without rest and the conclusion has always been the same. Humans need to rest and the perfect rhythm seems to be six days of work and a seventh day of physical rest. You pick up on this when the hard-driven Israelite slaves were under the oppression of the Egyptian taskmasters. On the road to the promised land, the Israelites were to collect enough manna the day before the Sabbath for two days and not just one. That way they wouldn’t need to work for their daily bread on that special day. The broad law of the Sabbath forbade any work on the part of family members, servants, visiting strangers, or even oxen and cattle.

Second, there is the matter of spiritual fellowship. God’s rest was not an abstract principle that didn’t touch the lives of his chosen people. God gave Moses a blessing that he was to teach. Numbers 6: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” This blessing shows that the peace and rest experienced by the people is the peace that comes because God is with them, among them, loving and caring for them. the blessing is God’s presence. God’s rest. The Sabbath marks the fact that Gdo delights in the presence of his people. Of course, God’s rest in creation is not the end fo the story, just as the Israelites did not find true rest in their desert wanderings. The rest to which the Sabbath points is not only rest form the tyranny of Egypt but the rest they will know in having a true home, a land of their own, where they can live in peace and in the presence of God.

Third, God’s creation rest and the Sabbath that marks it points to another rest – the rest of redemption. The Sabbath is the ordinance that epressed God’s covenant with his peopople. It is a sign not only of creation, but of redemption. The Israelites keep the Sabbath as a memorial of their redemption from slavery in Egypt and of their being brought to rest in the land God promises them. The Sabbath looks forward to a complete and final rest in perfect communion with God. By marking out that day, God’s children are reminded that they belong to God as physical creatures and depend on him for their very breath. They are also reminded that their purpose is not the labor itself so much as it is their communion with the God who made them.

Fourth, Jesus answers the Pharisees. We talked about what happened with Jesus’ disciples picking grain while walking through a field on a Sabbath. Jesus doesn’t just respond like I might have by saying, “you are nitpickingk!. As is so often the case, his answer surprises us. He dodnt dispute the charge of Sabbath-breaking but compares his disciples behavior to that of King David and his men when they were hungry. Fleeing from the wrath of King Saul, David and the men with him ate consecrated bread from the tabernacle – bread that only the priests could lawfully eat. Jesus also shows that the priests themselves worked on the Sabbath. Their service to the temple required them to “break” the Sabbath. Why does Jesus find his disciples innocent? The answer shows how Jesus transformed the Sabbath command. He argues that the service of King David justified his eating the holy bread and giving it to his followers. The service of the temple justified the work of the priests in the temple. The analogy is completed when Jesus says, “I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.” That’s Matthew 12:6. What had happened? The kingdom of God, and the Lord of the kingdom, had come. If David’s actions are justified because of the great service to which David was called, if the priests are justified because of the great service to which they are called, then Jesus’ disciples are justified because they are called to an even greater, more holy vocation. Jesus claims to be greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, greater than the temple. In fact, Jesus is so great that he claims to “own” the Sabbath. Matthew 12:8. “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”. In this incident, when he is accused of healing on the Sabbath, Jesus authoritatively defines what may and what may not be done on the Sabbath. Jesus defines Sabbath service, saying that it is lawful to do good. In serving Jesus, his disciples are automatically eeping the Sabbath, since there can be no greater service of the Sabbath than that given to Christ himself, who is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is the Lord of this rest. The Sabbath that was made for man was made for Jesus. We see how Jesus, when he had completed his work of suffering, could say, “It is finished,” in John 12:30. When Jesus said that, he was affirming that the end of his agony for s ushered in the beginning of his eternal rest as the risen Lord of all things. The memory of God’s rest gives us an understanding of the blessing we receive as we are united to Christ in his heavenly triumph. When Jesus adi that he is the Lord of the Sabbath, he was affirming that he is the Creator and the Redeemper. The Sabbath was made for Jesus because it foreshadows the rest that he brings. In the Sabbath of redemption, the Father is not resting but working, and Jesus, too, is hard at work, doing the work of his Father. So Jesus includes his servants in his work and hallows their sustenance in that work, seeing the Sabbath as the entire period of accomplishment of salvation. Only united to Christ the lord of the Sabbath, can we fulfill all our Sabbath duties, finding rest in God’s presence and entering into an eternal rest that satisfies all the hope of the original Sabbath day of rest. Not only will we find rest for our bodies, as they are transformed in resurrection, but we will find in Christ both our place of rest and our time of rest, we will find our freedom in a final jubilee year, and most of all, we will find eternal communion in the presence of our Creator and Redeeper. Such ideas of the Sabbath were far from the unbelieving eyes of the Pharisees, but after Jesus’ resurrection, his disciples began to understand the transformed Sabbath principles and to apply Christ’s teachings to the church.

Fourth and finally, Christ brings spiritual rest. He calls to the weary and burdened to come to him for rest. Yet even in that invitation, Jesus showed the heavenly nature of his rest. The Lord’s Day doesn’t yet offer us the satisfaction and joy we will know in our final rest. Jesus promised rest to those who took his yhoke. How can a yoke bring rest to the burdened? Christ’s yoke is an image of his lordship. We labor under his authority and in his power. Because we are laboring for him and by his strength, we have his peace even though we have not reached our final rest. Jesus blessed his disciples with the peace that he alone can give. Jesus gives peace with God and peace in living for him, not for ourselves. We may cast all our cares upon him, for he cares for us. This peace might seem passing, however, were it not for the promise of final rest. The author of Hebrews in the New Testament describes the future rest that awaits the people of God: the perfect rest of God that has no ending. That hope awaits us. It is where and when we will enter into the rest of God the Creator; a rest in which perfect love will cast out all our fears, a resting place prepared ahead of us by our older brother, who will wipe away every tear; and a resting place where there will be no more sin or suffering of pain or separation or loneliness. In Christ, we tase already the rest and peace found in his presence. To go and be with Christ is far better, but through the Spirit we already know the gift of Christ’s rest. God, who rested from his work of creation, will works in providence and redemption. Jesus, the Son of God, has entered his rest, but he now carries forward his saving work until the final heavenly rest is ushed in. May we receive today our Sabbath in Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath. The shadow of the Old Covenant has become the reality in the fulfillment of Christ’s compassion and the calling of the Great Commission. Jesus transforms the Sabbath to make the whole world see the fruit of the gospel in the company of believers. The world must see in the life of the church the compassion of Jesus Christ in ministry and evangelism. As the world watches us fulfill God’s commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, they will see the resurrection power of Christ and get a taste of the rest into which God is calling his own.