Exodus 20:8-11

[0:00] Who's got your copy of God's Word and turn to Exodus chapter 20. This is part two of our consideration of Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 11.

[0:14] ! And so I want to get you there. I want you to mark this place in your Bible and let you know that we won't stay here much today. We're taking a break from our careful study of the Sermon on the Mount because we were brought to Matthew chapter 5 verses 17 through 20 where Matthew records Jesus saying the following.

[0:38] Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

[0:55] Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

[1:13] And this text has caused us to ask the question, what is the relationship between the Old Testament law and the gospel of Jesus Christ?

[1:23] And this is a highly contested question. And so with much labor, we have answered that question with two answers.

[1:35] Number one, the Old Testament law is meant to bring us to Jesus Christ. It fixes for us the holy standard that God requires and exposes our failure to keep it.

[1:47] It creates for us a problem and sends us looking for a solution, a solution that is found in the person and work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[2:02] Secondly, having been set free from the burden of it, the Old Testament law continues to serve as a guide for how our lives might please God.

[2:15] So having been accepted by God and the perfect righteousness of Jesus, we are gratefully obedient to the moral commands of God for our good and for his glory.

[2:29] So I want to take a moment to unpack this phrase or these two phrases that we tend to use a lot around here. And as I thought about this, I realized just how often we say for our good and for his glory in our gatherings together.

[2:46] And so just take a moment with me and think about what it is that we're trying to communicate in saying such phrases. First, for our good.

[2:57] I want to address the charge of legalism at this point. It is absolutely astounding to me that in the modern church, whenever the clear commands of God, the explicit commands of God are instructed, there follows an accusation of legalism.

[3:20] We find ourselves in a place and in a day where the great liberal experiment, and I'm not talking about liberalism versus conservatism, the American experiment itself was an experiment in liberty, casting off all authority, has led us to a place where no one likes authority at all.

[3:48] We want to be the masters of our own universe. We want to absolutely reign in all ways. And beloved, this is not the way the world works.

[4:01] We are created beings, and therefore we have a creator. And we do well when we recognize that we are meant to be under his authority.

[4:12] To be legalistic is to add to the commandments of God and demand adherence to these extra-biblical commands, or to believe and teach that the keeping of any commandment of God is salvific, that we must keep the commands in order to be saved.

[4:36] Keeping the command leads us to salvation versus us being saved, and therefore we want to keep the commands. I have never once been legalistic in my teaching of God's word.

[4:51] I have made other errors in teaching, but I have never once been legalistic. So be careful. Lest in your effort to avoid legalism, you become licentious.

[5:04] Do not take lightly the commandments of God. Because God's commands are good for us. They are good for us.

[5:16] They are a gift to us. At the creation of the world, God does not leave the man without his good word. Genesis chapter 2, verse 15 and following.

[5:28] The Lord God took the man and he put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

[5:43] For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. God says to Adam, don't die. And let me tell you how not to die.

[5:54] This is a good word. It's a good command given to Adam. And you likely know the story well. It doesn't take too long for Adam and Eve to be tested in their faithfulness to God's good command.

[6:08] We read in Genesis chapter 3, verse 1 and following. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

[6:23] And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

[6:37] But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The serpent, in essence, said, That legalist, he is trying to deny you something that is good for you.

[6:57] And the command to not eat of it was clearly the good command. But the serpent says, Do not listen to these kind of strict rules.

[7:10] Verse 6, Genesis 3, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

[7:24] She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. In like fashion, mankind has been rejecting God's good commands ever since.

[7:35] And, beloved, it is a great deception of the devil for us to think, having been saved by the personal work of Jesus Christ, that God's commands have ceased being good.

[7:47] The book you hold in your lap, hope that you hold in your lap, is full of rich, loving, joy-bringing instruction. This is why I say each Lord's Day, before I read our text for the morning, Beloved, this is God's word to us, written for his glory and our good.

[8:09] We'd all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands. I hope you will never grow tired of hearing this, and that you do believe the promises of the Bible, and that you do keep the commands of the Bible in ever-increasing fashion.

[8:27] Telling you what God requires of you is not legalism. It is loving. And any pastor who withholds the truth, as many in our day, because he doesn't want to make you uncomfortable, is not fit to be a pastor.

[8:46] So it's for your good that we want to consider the commands of God. But it is also, and it's more importantly, for God's glory. For his glory.

[8:56] So turn with me again, keeping a mark in Exodus chapter 20 to Psalm 119 and verse 129. Psalm 119, 129.

[9:08] Psalm 119 is about the commands of God.

[9:33] And the psalmist writes, Your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light and imparts understanding to the simple.

[9:48] I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name.

[9:59] Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me. Redeem me from man's oppression that I may keep your precepts.

[10:12] Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.

[10:24] I want to make three quick observations from Psalm 119 verses 129 through 136. First, the psalmist loves the Lord.

[10:36] A broader reading of Psalm 119 reveals this. He loves the Lord and therefore loves the commandments of the Lord. Verse 129, and your testimonies are wonderful.

[10:50] Therefore, my soul, my very being keeps them. Secondly, Psalm 119 suggests no tension between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the law.

[11:03] The psalmist seeks deliverance from sin so that he might obey the law. He seeks first to be saved from his sins so that he can be obedient to God's good command.

[11:19] Psalm 119, verse 134, redeem me from man's oppression or the oppression of man that I may keep your precepts.

[11:32] And thirdly, for this joy of keeping the law, for all this joy that the psalmist finds in the Lord and in the keeping of his law, all is not well.

[11:45] Verse 136, my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. The psalmist has broken up over the fact that others don't keep this good commandment.

[12:01] So, implicit in the psalmist's words words is mission. The need for the glory of the Lord to be made known amongst the peoples of the world.

[12:15] And we shouldn't be unfamiliar with this idea at this point. If you will recall two weeks ago, we spent considerable time looking at the introduction of God's giving of the law to Israel at Mount Sinai.

[12:26] Do you remember this? Exodus chapter 19, verses 1 through 6. Go there with me. We are done with Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Beginning in verse 1, Exodus 19.

[12:52] On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai and they encamped in the wilderness.

[13:05] There Israel encamped before the mountain. While Moses went up to God, the Lord God called to him out of the mountain saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.

[13:24] Right? I made you my people. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine.

[13:35] You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. We spent some time considering those titles given and came to understand that God has a purpose for Israel and it is a missionary purpose to display his glory in the world in holy living.

[13:59] And this is still God's purpose for his people, his purpose for us. We can know this with absolute certainty because the apostle Peter borrows language from the beginning of Exodus chapter 19 to make the same point in an expanded form.

[14:16] This is 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9 where he says to the church you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[14:37] And so we are meant to be keepers of the moral law having been delivered from the burden of it in order to proclaim God's glory amongst the peoples and for our good.

[14:52] We are meant to be a people set apart in this way. So Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 11 you should be really close to it right now.

[15:04] Beloved, this is God's word to us. It was written for his glory and our good and we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.

[15:19] Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath through the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

[15:38] For in six days the Lord made the heaven 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.

[15:52] Now last week we answered two questions in a series of three questions. I wish it were possible to not talk about those two at this point but I think we must.

[16:04] I think we absolutely must consider even for those of you who were here last week who may even have it very fresh on your mind we need to think together again to set ourselves up well to answer the third question.

[16:18] And of course for those of you who weren't here I want you to hear these two in brief but I also want to encourage you to go back and listen to that sermon. You should be able to find it on our website.

[16:30] The first question was what does it mean to keep the fourth commandment? And we discussed at length how the Sabbath commandment is sort of a ceremonial moral law so there's a part of it that has been fulfilled in Christ, right?

[16:45] Aiming us toward the types of sacrifices that were being made showing us the eternal rest that can and is ours by faith in Christ. And that should find us expecting some change to the commandment much the same way that circumcision is now baptism of believers.

[17:04] However the moral component should find us expecting to keep it. I read to you a bit from the London Baptist Confession of 1689 as it is the law of nature that in general proportion of time by God's appointment he set apart for the worship of God so by his word in a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages he hath 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 is called the Lord's Day and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.

[17:58] So we talked a bit about this and why it is that the early church began to meet rather on Sunday and there was a transition period many of the early church continued to meet on Saturday and they didn't want to burden people's consciences but largely the church met on Sunday like looking to the hope of a future resurrection celebrating the resurrection of Christ which happened on the first day of the week Tertullian the second century theologian wrote that for Christians Sunday is a day of joy and that pagans would not celebrate anything on Sunday for fear that they might be mistaken for Christians that day had been so clearly set apart in people's minds as a day that the Christians gathered in order to celebrate the resurrection of Christ last week we looked at Matthew chapter 12 verses 1-14 which I'm not going to read for the sake of time I want to encourage you to go and look at this yourself where Matthew records two separate accounts of Jesus dealing with the Pharisees on the Sabbath and we noted three things from this text number one that Jesus does not abolish the Sabbath in the text number two that Jesus allows for work of necessity so we saw the apostles picking wheat as they were walking along the path because they were hungry they needed food and so they were taking it they would have rolled it in their hands to give a quick process of shucking it

[19:34] I'm not sure that's probably a corn term not a wheat term but so that they could eat it so they're walking along doing this and the Pharisees were enraged by it so Jesus allows for work of necessity and we talked in brief about how this means that military and police firemen like those we need people working around the clock through the week these things ER doctors and nurses pastors this is you might be shocked not really a day that's restful for me many of my Sundays are 16 hour days and don't hear me complaining I love love my job but it is not restful on this day and we don't live in a society that really has any regard any longer for the Lord's day almost none anymore your eight year old child may have to travel and play baseball if you're gonna pursue baseball so I think it's appropriate to extend this allowance beyond the traditionally held vocation so you read some of the old works and what ancient theologians would have said and who they would have said could work on the

[20:53] Lord's day and I think we can extend it a bit beyond so many retail locations that are open and you may not be able to find a job that doesn't force your hand doesn't make you work on that day I certainly would advise you to look for one that doesn't try to gain some status in that company so that you no longer have to but could see the place where in order to provide for yourself you must take the job that would do that for you possibility of being a coach and having to work on the Lord's day to be able to feel the team and you're making your livelihood by this and of course we could think of other examples as well where you may just be forced in order to make a living for your family to work on Sunday Jesus allows for work of necessity and he also allows for acts of and even desires acts of mercy so in that text

[21:55] Matthew chapter 12 we see Jesus healing a man with a withered hand which is certainly not a life threatening thing could have waited until the following day but Jesus saw the opportunity and sees the opportunity to love and to serve this man so we want to be aware of and giving of our time to and for others if you were on your way to worship us with us this morning and you saw someone stranded on the side of a road who needed help changing a tire I would suggest you would do well to stop and to help them although changing a tire on the side of the road is work it's not fun to do you will probably sweatier and dirtier after having done so but this would be a merciful thing to do for such a person staying home from gathering with the church with a sick child is not restful it is work keeping our little ones feeling well and comforted it may not always be easy to discern what is merciful and what is not how it is we're given some space in this way

[23:08] I was thinking through because it's summer taking vacations and how many of us take family vacations because we have a fairly young population whether that's going on vacation with your father or maybe you're now young married and your parents are gracious enough to pay for things for you so you can go on vacation and some of you have unbelieving parents and these unbelieving parents may expect you to be there with them because the condo rental starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday maybe maybe it'd be merciful to go maybe it'd be a good thing for people who just would not understand your abstinence about traveling and being with them at the beach on a Sunday to do that and find a way to redeem some time in the car I could see some space in here for things like this we should desire to carefully consider a circumstance that may find us not resting on the

[24:12] Lord's day to see if it fits in these criteria I think all of us would find if we would do so we would all be a little bit tighter a little bit stricter about our activity on Sunday I think if we gave it a good and serious consideration we would do less not more in fact I think that is likely through the ages legalism has slipped into the church around this issue because church leaders did not want to just throw open the doors for flippancy when it comes to the commandments that was the challenge for me in this week because there's things I wish I just want to say oh this far and no further the Bible doesn't really do that in great clarity and so I don't feel like I can either why because that could very readily become legalism this was the work that the

[25:12] Pharisees were doing I imagine that it was a work that started out with the very good intentions let's help people keep the fourth commandment and they began to stack up the silliest of expectations to that end my prayer is that in dealing with your heart on the matter of the!

[25:31] the! commandment you will begin to apply grateful obedience and wisdom to your weekly routines so that's the first question that we answered last week the second question was why should we keep the fourth commandment and we took some time to consider the beginning of the fourth commandment the word the single word at the beginning of the commandment remember I read for you from the Westminster larger catechism question 121 why is the word remember set at the beginning of the fourth commandment and I gave you the brief answer they write partly because of the great benefit of remembering it and partly because we are very ready to forget it we are such slow learners and we are so quick to forget we are to remember to keep the fourth commandment to remember this is a day set apart for the worship of God to be gathered together with the church to learn and to be reminded that we have rest in

[26:37] Christ this is a day to take time for quiet reflection on the promises of God to remember for all of the failings of last week that if we are in Christ we belong to God to look to the next week to the power that is ours in Christ beloved we have rest so we can rest the wicked cannot rest Isaiah 57 20 but the wicked are like the tossing sea for it cannot be quiet and its waters toss up mire and dirt what an opportunity to be a people set apart right to be the busiest people in the world six days a week but on a seventh to rest this is not us these wicked Jesus says in Matthew 11 verse 28 come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest so the third question how shall we keep the fourth commandment how shall we keep the fourth commandment and to look a little further at keeping the fourth commandment turn with me to

[28:00] Deuteronomy chapter eight Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law Moses is preaching essentially here a sermon or a series of sermons reminding the people of Israel because they've sojourned now for 40 years in the wilderness and there's a new generation that is now going to enter the promised land so he's restating he's re-giving the law and we can pick up a lot of wonderful clarities in his now understanding of the keeping of it

[29:03] I want to show you from Deuteronomy eight four inner disciplines that must take place for any outer disciplines to be of any benefit to us on the Lord's day God is always concerned about the status of our hearts and right actions always flow from right hearts we must be careful in our keeping of the law that we do not do as the Pharisees did and many in our day do Jesus is always correcting this kind of self righteousness Jesus said in Matthew 23 verse 27 woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness and so there are disciplines that must be at place in us for the outward expressing of keeping the Lord's day to have any meaning at all number one remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is an act of obedience

[30:21] Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 11 Moses says take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which I command you today as I stated at length previously we have a loving God who intends good for us so whether we understand entirely the good intended we should remember and believe that God's commands our good and in keeping God's commandments we will be shown his goodness remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is an act of obedience it has been commanded of us let's just do it secondly a second inner discipline remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is an act of liberation it's an act of liberation

[31:29] Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 14 there's a warning here then your heart be lifted up this is after the building of houses and having multiplying wealth and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery Deuteronomy! 5 verse 15 very careful giving of the ten commandments the moral law you shall remember that when you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day it's meant to serve us Israel then and us now in remembering that we have been liberated the entire Exodus story is meant to prefigure the liberation that we now have in Christ we have spiritual rest the author of Hebrews wrote in

[32:37] Hebrews 4 9 and 10 so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his we need time for reflection on this most important truth just as the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Egypt we have been liberated from the condemnation of the law have been brought to God for joyful obedience to the law so we can rest because we have been set free from our spiritual labor and remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment in that way is an act of liberation third inner discipline remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is an act of faith look at verse 17

[33:38] Deuteronomy 8 and through the first part of verse 18 beware lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth God is our great provider so we can trust that he will provide having ordered a day of rest we can know that he will amply provide all that we need in our six days of working to stop on a day to not continue to labor because without that labor how will I possibly have sin but rather to take a day where we say God is my provider and to reflect upon this to see that it's his good order he has said work six days and stop on the seventh I am the creator and the sustainer of everyone and everything

[34:43] Matthew chapter six verse 25 and following Jesus says therefore I tell you do not be anxious about your life labor and toil seven days what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body what you will put on is that life more than food and the body more than clothing look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them are you not of more value than they which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to a span of life why are you anxious about clothing consider the lilies of the field how they grow they neither toil nor spin yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these but if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven will he not much more clothe you oh you of little faith therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what seek after these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all but seek first the kingdom of

[35:56] God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself sufficient for the day is its own trouble so we can rest because we know who is our provider so remembering and believing keeping the fourth commandment is important as an act of faith fourth interdiscipline remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is an act of identity it's an act of identity now there is a precious phrase found five times throughout Deuteronomy chapter eight verses eleven through twenty the Lord your God the Lord your God we have already seen its occurrence three times in verses eleven verse fourteen verse eighteen but it also occurs in verses nineteen and twenty the

[37:06] Lord your God beloved we are no longer those who need to tirelessly work to find our identity our purpose or our place in the world we do not need to be defined by the work that we do because we are defined by the work that Jesus has done we belong to God because we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ I am a child of God that is my identity and then I go do some work there is some work to be done in obedience to that my identity is in him and we spend so much time we spend so much of our energy identifying by things that are fading away so we can rest because we know who we are or more precisely whose we are so remembering and believing that keeping the fourth commandment is important as an act of identity it declares who you are and these are interdisciplines these are things that we have to work at right leading up to and during a day such as this and if we will exercise these things properly then and only then will the outer disciplines mean much of anything at all so let me give you three three outer disciplines number one outer discipline preparing preparing if we are to keep the fourth commandment together on the

[38:58] Lord's day then you will need to prepare to do so on your bulletin this morning from the Westminster assembly directory for public worship they wrote the Lord's day ought to be so remembered beforehand as that all worldly business of our ordinary callings may be so ordered and so timely and seasonably laid aside as they may not be impediments to the due!

[39:26] when it comes beloved we ought to be looking forward to this day we on Monday ought to be eagerly expecting the next day when we get to stop from our labors when we get to set it aside we should be considering this the Westminster assembly directory says it ought to be so remembered Sunday should not rush upon us and we find ourselves in the midst of it in a fray I do this often considering the fourth commandment has given me much room for repentance and consideration about how I even could find more rest in a day such as this in Exodus chapter 20 verse 9 and 10 you see six days you labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God and then God gets fairly specific here and gives order to a household on it you shall not do any work you are your son or your daughter your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates no one should be laboring on this day and it would seem that much of keeping the fourth commandment is meant to be ordered in the home where so much of this type of work takes place so we should be preparing we should be preparing by doing these interdisciplines that I've mentioned already and these will require some time on your part beloved get up early on the

[41:13] Lord's day don't let Sunday be a day for sleeping in this this was a day that the women went to the tomb at day break and found our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ risen wake up and spend some time on those interdisciplines why is this day set apart as a day of rest for me what should I be considering and reflecting upon some of you I can tell woke up 15 minutes before you stepped into this building at 1030 you've got ample time in the morning to prepare yourself to come together when I say early I don't mean the 4 a.m.

[41:58] I typically wake up on Sunday mornings I mean like 8 a.m. get up and get ready right this is a glorious day prepare your heart that we might come together rightly and that you might spend the rest of your day in restful rejoicing complete your work for the week set aside this is a day I will not labor make the time the truth of it is that many of us labor a lot of time but we don't labor very efficiently and you could find you could get the studying done before Sunday evening you could get it in on Saturday you could finish it so you're ready for the test on Monday morning you could complete the bibliography on the paper that you wrote in advance to its due date you could get the grass cut you can do the shopping you could get work done completed so that you can rest you can prep food in advance ladies or

[43:06] Sunday lunch gets to be leftover time or it's sandwich day sandwich Sunday you can make t-shirts and make it fun for your children don't burden yourself with the regular work that you're doing make it a joyful time lay out clothes the night before if you have children you know what I'm talking about you can never find their shoes when you're trying to get out the door lay them out be ready prepare yourself this is a glorious day get ready for it it's astounding how often people can get out the door and get off to things that they deem!

[43:56] fun how difficult it can be to come to things that they may not and that says a lot about our hearts young people particularly don't stay up too late on Saturday prepare yourself get ready to wake up!

[44:16] I I think I think we should likely stumble into Sunday it's probably okay that we're a bit tired on Sunday mornings because it's a day of rest we entered into it as humans needing rest and so it's likely that we'll feel that as we come into Sunday but some of you are just doing it to yourselves!

[44:35] do not feel bad for you when you! stay up! unreasonable hours doing nothing of any value go to sleep that you might wake up some sense of restedness so that we can rest well together and a thought I'm just going to put this out there as a thought if we think it is important for us to gather on the Lord's day we shouldn't support an economic system that requires others to work a lot of you are going to go eat out after this and that server may or may not want to be with us but wouldn't it be nice to be able to invite them that we have created and we are supporting a system where we eat out we do grocery shopping we buy fuel for our cars we participate in the consumption of media Sunday football be a college football fan don't be an

[45:36] NFL fan just don't be it's not nearly as good anyway they're all too afraid of ruining their careers college guys don't care it's such better football and I just told you everything I know about football consider how you can leverage your dollars to make a change and maybe if all of God's people would work to that end you might see a change actually happen so something to consider I think I think about making a law about it we ought to prepare ourselves in a way that doesn't require others to work so prepare so that you can rest second outer discipline worshiping worshiping this day is a feasting day it's a rejoicing day and we should worship together corporately so we should gather with the church unless a matter of necessity or mercy prevents you

[46:45] I don't want you to hear me giving you space for laziness there's far too much of that right for your good for your good don't put off gathering with the church it's meant to serve you and it serves us when you join with us participate in the gathering of the church show up ready aiming to love and serve others to contribute to our gathering together this is not meant to be a consumption hour this is meant to be the people of God coming together in service to one another and some of us do a bit more of that than others but you have a place in our fellowship you're needed so come ready to contribute to our time together spend time with the church beyond our corporate gathering expand sandwich sundae to others in our fellowship buy an extra loaf of bread and a little more peanut butter and jelly invite others to come and join you and talk about the things of

[47:50] God talk about the sermon and how hard it was and challenging how bad it was on some Lord's days hold others accountable to keeping the fourth commandment and expect others to do the same for you in loving kindness brother sister I miss you it's good for you to set a day aside right must you work on this day must you burn yourself in that way why can you not come and join us come and fellowship with us it's good God is good and he intends good for us in this way also worship privately throughout the day consider the things of God and do not do things that distract you distract you from being able to consider the things of God I would venture to say not many of us are watching much that's offered on television these God to us in

[48:53] Christ they probably don't tend to move our minds in that direction but rather away from that so do things that are uplifting to you that help you to consider God's goodness third hour discipline balancing balancing hear me out there ought to be coming off this idea of private worship active contemplation make plans for reading for taking some time to teach your children to talk about to consider the things of God but you don't need to spend all day doing that we also should have some active avocation!

[49:43] right? Not work but maybe hobbies some things that we really enjoy doing so maybe there's that little bit of flower bed out front of your house that you really enjoy sprucing up if you don't enjoy it if it's a have to thing don't do it if it's a get to thing you actually like getting on your knees and pulling the weeds out of the flower bed that's okay right if it's refreshing to you to be able to do such a thing right some of you have hobbies like that that builds you up you feel all energized after you get to spend some time tinkering in the garage this is okay I would suggest right hobby types of things right some of you like to bake maybe bake something and then leave the dishes till Monday I don't think anybody enjoys doing dishes play play games with your kids go for a walk go hang!

[50:41] out at the park for a these things that can be refreshing to us take some time for recreation the Puritans talked about as activities of recreation for us do the get to things and not the have to things and then thirdly in balancing do active inactivity just plan for it plan to rest recognize your humanity and rest take a nap sit and do nothing you'll be shocked how good that can be for your mind and your soul to just stop and think and relax right sip tea on the front porch sit and read pick up a good book and I have to make distinctions between books that are work books and books that are not for me that I can just sit and really enjoy a book and

[51:42] I'm not thinking about how I'm going to turn around and teach that to somebody else go to bed early prep yourself and get ready and go to bed get the kids in bed and go to bed get some good rest because beloved a lot of us run like we're divine and none of us are we're all human and we need our rest in conclusion it is for joyful obedience that we are to keep the fourth commandment I hope that you will join me in working through the particulars of the commandment for your life the season you find yourself in your unique responsibilities and pressures and that you will join me in keeping the commandment for your good and for the glory of God let's pray together