Dr. Blair Smith | Give It A Rest!

0:00 As you take a seat, you can turn to two things with me. We're going to look at Exodus 20 here in a minute. So if you want to turn to Exodus 20 on the one hand, on the other hand, please also get your bulletins out and go to the very last page flap and there is Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 38, question 103. three. We've been going through the Heidelberg Catechism here in the evening, and one of the things that the Heidelberg Catechism does, like many other Reformation catechisms, is it presents the three pillars of Christian discipleship. Prayer, how do we pray? It goes through the Lord's Prayer. What do we believe? It goes through the Apostles' Creed. And then our ethics, our obedience to Christ, it goes through the Ten Commandments. And so we're in this section here going on through the Ten Commandments, and the commandment that's before us this evening is the fourth, the fourth commandment. We're going to read it here in a minute, this is page 10 again of your bulletin, but I thought I would note something in the very first clause. First, that the gospel ministry and schools for it be maintained. I'm noting this now because I'm not going to be preaching on that element of the answer. But it's a very interesting thing to highlight in the catechism, not just the gospel ministry. Of course, the gospel ministry is central to the church and its worship service on a Sunday morning on the Sabbath, but also this sort of forward-looking understanding that for that gospel ministry to be maintained, so must schools be maintained. And I think in a narrow sense, really center of the circle, that actually is seminary. Where are gospel ministers being formed, being faithfully brought up? And so, center of the circle here, the schools maintained for gospel ministry, schools like RTS. And so,

2:05 we are very grateful at RTS for the way you help us in this, the various ways that Christ's Covenant supports, prays, encourages what we are doing in our various levels of partnership at RTS. But a little more broadly, not just support of seminary, but Christian schooling in general, because how do you get to the point of having a minister equipped to preach? There's a whole broad education that must be underneath that. And so the various ways that Christ's Covenant also supports Christian education, principally through Covenant Day School, but in other ways as well, I think, is highlighted in this first clause of question 103. So what I'm going to do now is read the question, and why don't we all together give the answer, starting with that word first. Question 103, what is God's will for you in the fourth commandment? First, that the gospel ministry and schools for it be maintained, and that especially on the festive day of rest, I diligently attend the assembly of God's people to learn what God's word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to the Lord publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways. Let the Lord work in me through his spirit, and so will begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.

3:44 And now let's turn to God's Word, which speaks of the fourth commandment. Of course, it speaks of it in many places, but given to us in the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. And so here I am going to read verses 1 to 2 and then jump down to verses 8 through 11. Exodus 20, hear the word of the Lord. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And now verse 8. 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 to 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. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. This is the word of the Lord.

4:51 Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this word. We thank you for this night where we are able to reflect on what you have given to us in the Lord's day in the Sabbath. I pray that we would all have teachable hearts to receive by your Spirit what you have for us this night from your word. We thank you for those who wrote the catechism and the helpful emphases it gives us for this day, and I pray that you would help us to receive these and to put them into our hearts, put them into our minds, put them into our practice. What a gift you have given us on the Lord's day to worship, to praise you, to rest from our works. What a gift you have given us to look forward to that eternal Sabbath, and we anticipate that on a day such as this. So give me clarity. May you give me also faithfulness to your word. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. So when you hear it's Sunday or Sunday's coming, what's going on in your mind and heart and why? In her poem, which began, I never felt at home below, the American poet Emily Dickinson says she doesn't like paradise because it's Sunday all the time and recess never comes.

6:17 Sunday, she implies, is boring. George Herbert, of note because there's a senior Sunday school class taught by Caleb on his poetry, I believe. He's a 17th century English poet. He calls Sunday a day of mirth. A day of mirth because he said, this is the day my Savior rose. Mirth, it's not a word we use much anymore, but it means religious joy. Religious joy. So two responses to Sunday. Boredom, on the one hand. On the other hand, joy. When you hear, again, it's Sunday, what's going on in your heart, your mind, and why. Perhaps your response doesn't fit one of those. It fits another. Maybe you feel Sundays get in the way. They get in the way. Bill Gates, he said when answering why he didn't believe in God, he said, just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday. Let's admit it. In our flesh, God's commandments are often perceived in purely a negative light. We look at them in what we cannot do. And no command among the Ten Commandments probably receives that posture, that attitude, more than the fourth commandment. And we must be honest, like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, there have been, there are Christians who affirm the unique character of the Sabbath, of the Lord's day, but they make it more of a debate about the minutiae of what Christians should be or shouldn't be doing on this day. At the same time, there are others that treat Sunday as if it has no character that's unique to it at all. The fourth commandment, they argue, that's a thing for Israel.

8:18 That's a thing under Moses, and that's now passed away in the New Testament. And so, in effect, they believe more in the practice of nine commandments than they do of ten commandments. Now, Christians can disagree about aspects of the Sabbath, but disagreement is no excuse to say that it doesn't matter. Like the Bereans, we must examine the scriptures to see what they say about the fourth commandment, about the Lord's day. And let me say at the outset that when I refer to the Sabbath's contemporary relevance, I will be often referring to it as the Lord's day, and I will explain that a little deeper in my sermon. So where are we going? We'll begin with Jesus and what he has to say about the Sabbath. Then we'll trace this day, the Sabbath day, through the Bible. We're going to go back to creation through redemption and look forward to our eternal rest awaiting the people of God. And then finally, we'll see why the resurrection of Jesus makes Sunday the Lord's day and consider what it means for us to receive this day as a gift from God. So let's start with Jesus. You know, in Sunday school, you learned that if you don't know the answer, go to Jesus first. You're likely to be in the realm of possibility. And that's what we're going to do here as we start our investigation of the fourth commandment. What did our Lord say about the Sabbath? And here I want to refer back to our reading earlier in the service led by Kevin on Mark 2. Mark 2, and it's there still in your bulletin. And as background to this text, it is necessary to know that in the intervening years between the close of the Old Testament and the coming of Jesus Christ, Jewish leaders came up with some rather ingenious ways of attempting to keep the law. They had these ingenious ways of accumulating sort of more and more hedges around

10:26 the law so that they would not break the law. And if you look at the Old Testament's teaching about what may or may not be done on the Sabbath, the detailed regulations are actually relatively sparse. It's clearly a day of rest from ordinary labor, and the Old Testament does give several concrete examples of prohibited work, but it never supplies sort of an exhaustive definition of work or a comprehensive list that fits every circumstance of what we must do or not do. So rabbis, rabbis would debate these things endlessly through something known as casuistry. For example, rabbis debated whether an egg laid on the Sabbath could be eaten. Was it the product of Sabbath labor or was it the product of labor that occurred earlier? You can see how this would build and build on a simple general command so that by Jesus' day, the fourth commandment had become unwieldy through this tradition of the rabbis.

11:36 The Pharisees, they wanted to keep all of God's command. And as a general principle, more power to them. That's an excellent desire. but they had added many laws on top of God's law in their attempt to interpret application of his law. So when Jesus faced this group, he always had a way of making clear to them that they weren't the authoritative interpreter of the law. He was the authoritative interpreter of the law. After all, as a member of the Trinity, he gave the law. Well, in Mark 2, the disciples are rebuked by the Pharisees for taking some heads of grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry. And this, of course, is interpreted by the Pharisees as work. And Jesus, he counters them by referring back to the Old Testament in order to make a very pointed point. Now notice, he doesn't go back to the Old Testament to say that this fourth commandment, it no longer obtains. It no longer matters now that he has come. It's not what he says.

12:41 He meets them in the Old Testament to tell them where they've gone wrong. Their petty laws, their accumulation on top of God's law has caused them to strain at gnats while swallowing camels. They've missed the point. So what does he want them to teach? He wants them to teach, Well, first, the Sabbath was made for man. The Sabbath was made for man. That is, the end purpose of the Sabbath is not about keeping a mountain of laws so that, in a sense, human beings are serving the law. That has things turned all around. The law, the Sabbath here, is to serve man. In other words, it's for our good. It's for humanity's good. So as we'll see in a little bit, it's both for our physical and our spiritual good. It's for our refreshment.

13:39 Another point that Jesus wants to make is he is Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, not the Sabbath of created beings and religious authorities. He's divine. Interestingly enough, he's divine, but he's also human. The humanity of Jesus, we could say, assures us that he will administer the Sabbath with an understanding of our needs and of our weaknesses. The Sabbath is mercy. The Sabbath is not oppression. Jesus says in another passage, Matthew 11, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. So the Sabbath, it's for man. and the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. His character and the realities of his life, the realities of his death and his resurrection, they define this day, the day of our Lord.

14:46 So if you're here tonight and you're a Christian, you love Jesus, you desire to keep his commandments. We do not want to do that in a way that the Pharisees did. We love the lawgiver because before he gives us the law, he brings us into a relationship, freeing us from our bondage to our sin. Remember as it said, and I intentionally read verses 1 to 2 of Exodus 20, before it goes into the Ten Commandments, remember what it says in verse 2. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. That's God's redemption, the paradigmatic redemptive act of the Old Testament is the Exodus. And then after he reminds the Israelites of this, he gives the law within that context of redemption.

15:49 Not in order to frustrate us, not in order to beat us up, but with the Holy Spirit's power to provoke us to righteous living, to provide a shape for our life that is pleasing to him. and one of the great gifts he gives us in this commandment is rest. So as we now look to the fourth commandment in Exodus 20, we see its original and abiding purpose is to give rest from our toil, a break from our work. Why is that? Remember verse 9 of Exodus 20. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Sabbath or Shabbat in Hebrew literally means rest. And skipping down to verse 11, we see this six plus one pattern based in God's work in creation itself.

16:51 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, a sea and all that is in them, and rested on the Sabbath day. So we have this pattern, this pattern laid out for us in Exodus 20 of six days in which we labor and one on which we rest, and that this pattern, key here, is an imitation of God and his creation of the whole entire world. So Genesis tells us, Genesis 2, that when God finished his work, he rested on the Sabbath day. He blessed the Sabbath day or the seventh day, and he made it holy. Now, just four verses before those in Genesis 1, we learn that God created man and woman in his image so that there is this likeness between us and God. And godly living and reflection of God entails imitating him in certain ways in our lives. We're called to be holy. Why are we called to be holy? Because God is holy. Righteousness reflects him. There's all kinds of ways because we're created in his image that we are to be a reflection of him. And here we're taught we reflect him in our rest. So God created human beings utterly unique, and we are to imitate him in our rest from our labors, just like he rested from his work on the Sabbath day after creating the whole world. So one of the first things God blesses is a day in which we get to share in his rest. And what's interesting, if you follow the biblical line of redemption, we're still in Genesis 1 and 2. So this is before the fall. The fall takes place in Genesis 3. So even before sin brings increased sweat, sin brings toil and thorns into our work, even before that, God is saying, take a break from work. Give it a rest. One day out of seven, take a break.

19:04 So if this was the implication for our work before the fall, Sabbath rest after the fall is an even greater gift from God as work has been made toilsome and all the results of the fall that eat their way into this world, including in our work. Well, you see here, before we even touch on the spiritual matters of this command, that it has a very physical component. And after all, God has created us with bodies. We've been created with bodies and minds, and these things become weary. They become weary under work. We need to work. God commands us to work. Implicit in the fourth commandment is this positive commandment to work the six other days that we have been given in the work. And this gives our work dignity to know that it is a part of God's design for us. But that work must be met within the cycle of a week, every six days a day of rest, the Sabbath, the Lord's Day, a day in which our bodies, our minds are to be refreshed. Some of you, like me, really enjoy Sunday naps.

20:23 I enjoy naps so much that even though I had, you know, the call and the joy to preach tonight, I made sure I got a nap in. I can feel my body and my bones, you know, they know when I need a nap on a Sunday night. If I miss it, something is off with the world. So, of course, we need these things like naps. We need one day, and within it, even special moments in that day, a physical rest, physical rest. But there's also something spiritual happening when we stop and we rest. When you stop working, you learn that the world keeps going. Your responsibilities do not disappear, but for a day you entrust them to God. We're tempted to think everything depends upon us, everything depends on me getting this thing done, but it really doesn't. It shouldn't be surprising that obeying God's laws is physically beneficial, morally right, since he is the author of the human body and also of the moral order.

21:31 And remember, as Jesus said, the Sabbath is made for man. It is made for man as man, meaning it fits with how we've been made, our nature as human beings. God is the one who created us. God is the one who's given us a nature. God is the one who's framed us, and he knows we are dust and that we need this day. He knows it's good for us. so let me ask what does your day what does your life look like are you honoring god by giving your your body rest are you running ragged are you stretching yourself beyond your nature i'd encourage you i'd encourage me let's look at god's example the math of rest is six plus one not seven plus zero. Let's give it a rest. Let's give it a rest. And as we do so, and yes, we're giving our bodies rest, but we're also spiritually reminding ourselves that, you know, just as we sleep, just as we rest from our labor on the seventh day, God will keep the world going.

22:42 He will providentially still care, still sustain things. It's not dependent on our need to control and do things all the time. The fourth commandment then, it's not merely a Moses and Israel ordinance, it's a pattern of work and rest that is established and rooted in creation itself. God knows you, God knows me, because he created us, he designed us, and he's gifted us this day, which is fitting with how he has made us. Now, this is profound for our physical bodies, But as we learn in the unfolding redemptive plan of God in Scripture, there's these added meanings to the Sabbath day. One writer has said that we need to learn when reading our Bibles to keep time with the clock of redemptive history, to keep time with the clock of redemptive history.

23:40 And redemptive history adds color and depth to the nature of Sabbath day. Now, it doesn't change its fundamental character rooted in creation as a day of rest, but we learn new layers of meaning that are especially important for our souls. This day is a day of physical rest. It is also a day of soul rest. And so as such, we find roots in this Sabbath day, in the Lord's day, not only in creation, but also in redemption, in redemption. Turn with me, if you would, to Deuteronomy 5. Many of you will know that Deuteronomy 5, or Deuteronomy, I should say, the book, is the second giving of the law as the Israelites were ready to go into the promised land. So we find in it a republishing of the Ten Commandments.

24:40 And in Deuteronomy 5, verse 15, I want you to notice the rationale that Moses gives here for the Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5, verse 15. You shall remember that 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. Did you hear that? Did you see that carefully? Why the command, the rationale is not here, principally based in creation, as it was in Exodus. Because you were once a slave, now you are free by the grace of my hand, God says. For seven days a week, 365 days a year, you had to toil in slave labor in Egypt, but now out of God's sheer grace and his saving effort, you, my people, God is saying, are liberated. Sabbath, therefore, is a day of rest from physical labor, yes, but it's also a day of celebration and giving glory to God because of the redemption he has brought. And of course, that should be centered to our preaching, but on a night like tonight, I'd be remiss to not also say We have the table before us, and what a celebration to in the sacrament among the many things that we remember.

26:11 We remember his redemption through Christ on the cross. This is a day of freedom. So once a week, yes, we imitate God by resting from our work, our labors, but we also set up a memorial in the midst of our lives of his redemptive deliverance. We orient ourselves to God in order to celebrate who he is toward us as our covenantal redeeming God who saves us. So we keep the day holy, set apart as a day of worship. It is a day oriented to God, a Sabbath to the Lord our God. So it's a day consecrated or set apart for rest, for worship. And if you look throughout the scriptures, when the people of God are remembering his deliverance, what do you find?

27:08 Do you find when the people of God are celebrating and remembering their deliverance sort of some glum-faced killjoys? I don't think that's what we find at all. When singing following the deliverance from Egypt, we see celebratory dancing accompanying even the bringing of the ark into Jerusalem. We find throughout the Psalms shouts of praise, deep rejoicing before God because he's not only our creator, he's also the redeemer of his people. You were once in bondage. You have been freed from that so you can commune with him. Now experience his blessings. Celebrate his blessings. Do this with joy and jubilation. You'll notice question 103. What does the Heidelberg say? It's a festive day. of rest, a festive day of rest. So on this special day, God is the focus. We remember what he has done for us in reconciling us to himself, and we worship him. We worship him.

28:14 But in that worshipful remembering together, there is indeed enjoyment, feasting, making Mary around this focal point of who God is and what he has done for us. And in our redemption, enjoyment of redemption, in the freedom he has brought us, saving us from our sins, we also anticipate awaiting that eternal Sabbath that is still to come that we will have in the new heavens and the new earth. Let me give you a little homework assignment for later, maybe tonight or later this week. Look at Hebrews chapter 4 verses 1 to 11. And you'll notice in the writer of Hebrews as he talks about rest, it's a rest spoken of not merely as physical rest to be enjoyed one day out of seven. He's talking more there about a resting place, a resting place which was prefigured by the promised land in the Old Testament. And if we know anything about the promised land, it is a provisional place of rest. It's pointing forward as we read the whole of our bodies, the whole of our Bibles, it's pointing forward to a worldwide domain of rest, the new heavens and the new earth. And there's this wonderful line in Hebrews 4, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

29:48 What's in view there is not so much a Sabbath day as a Sabbath place, a resting place, just as that was prefigured in Canaan, the promised land, so we're moving toward a place that will be a place of rest, that will no longer have all the cacophony surrounding us, which agitates us and keeps us in many ways from rest. So in the Old Testament, you have Canaan, you have promised land, but we look forward to the new heavens and the new earth, a heavenly rest which awaits all God's people. And that heavenly rest is the fruit, the fruit of Jesus' work on our behalf. Let's ask, how does heavenly rest, how does that fruit of Jesus' redemptive work on our behalf connect? How does the eternal rest relate to the Lord's day?

30:43 Well, on a day when we rest from our labors, just like our creator did, on a day when we memorialize and celebrate the work of redemption completed ultimately by Jesus Christ, on a night like this at Christ's covenant, we rest, we celebrate, but we also anticipate. We also anticipate. We look forward to what is our future abode, our future place of rest, where there'll be no more toil, where the stain of sin will be completely rubbed out, and we will be wiped clean. Life with God, life with the Lord of the Sabbath in an eternal resting place. So the Lord's day, it looks back to creation. It also looks at redemption, but it also anticipates and looks forward, a foretaste. If you've all been to these ice cream and gelato locations, we have a wonderful gelato location right around the corner here, artisan. And I always recommend if you're looking for a great experience in a gelato place, go in confused. Go in wondering, I wonder what I want.

31:56 Because what will happen if you have a generous person in there that's serving you, is they will give you samplers, one after the other, after the other. Or perhaps you like this, or perhaps you like that. Perhaps you want this, a little spoon sampling all the various flavors. But you know, as you're going through that wonderful experience, you'll eventually hit on the one, and you say, that's the one, that's the one I like, that's the one I want, but the one that satisfies the longings of my taste buds. And then you move into the spoonful, right? But that little bite that you have, what is it? It's a foretaste. You get a little bit, and then you get to look forward to the great substance. Well, the Lord's Day, what is it? It's a foretaste. It's a wonderful foretaste.

32:48 It's when we have those first drops of dew from heaven descending into our bodies, descending into our souls, filling us with anticipation for that eternal Sabbath rest, which is the new heavens and the new earth, which is our great hope. And I love the way that Heidelberg Catechism captures this in our question tonight. It asks, what is the will for you in the fourth commandment? And notice where it puts the emphasis. It doesn't begin with a long list of things we aren't allowed to do. It says that especially on this festive day of rest, I'm diligently to attend the assembly of God's people, to learn what God's Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, to bring Christian offerings for the poor. It is a festive day of rest. What a great description. We stop one kind of activity in order to go into another, which is worship, which is word, which is sacrament, which is prayer, which is fellowship, hospitality, generosity. But then the catechism says something even bigger. It says that every day of my life, I am to rest from my evil ways. And this is a way, of course, of letting the Spirit work through me and so begin in this life the eternal Sabbath. That's what this day beautifully does.

34:18 So the Lord states it's not merely a break from work, although it is that. It's not a certainly a day where we just hyper focus on our personal hobbies and interests. God gathers us around his word, his sacraments, and among his people so that we begin now, even now, to taste the rest for which we were created and for which we have been redeemed. So you could say in a way, Sunday is a day in which heaven is brought to earth. Sunday is a day in which that eternal rest of heaven is brought to earth. The famous Jewish writer and scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel said, Sabbaths are our great cathedrals which exhibit an architecture of holiness. I think we as Christians can appreciate that sentiment even though, of course, we believe that Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath. Because within the course of our days, week by week, we have a day that stands like a grand cathedral among the mundane. It's special.

35:23 It's unique. It's even beautiful. Sunday, a cathedral in time where we taste heaven among the mundane of our lives. We need this day. We live Monday through Saturday among a cacophony of things to be done, of projects to be finished, of assignments to work on, of things to buy and sell, of games and practices to attend and pick up and drop off. We can get stretched. We can get weary. And here in the midst of all that, God places this day, one in seven, that we should not forget. We should not forget that he has redeemed us. He has taken away our sins. He has brought us to Christ, and he has given us fellowship with the Father. So we need this day where the word is preached. We remember his redemption, and our souls are nourished. We need the sacraments such as we celebrate tonight, where we remember and look forward to the day where we will enjoy this meal in a perpetual place of rest with Jesus.

36:26 We need that foretaste of Sabbath. So let me ask, what perspective do you bring to this day? Do you practice, do you think that Sunday is just like Tuesday, except you worship for one hour in the morning? Or do you rest? Do you remember God's goodness? Do you remember his provision? We need this day. We need to prepare for this day. We need to protect this day in the midst of our concerns. We need to be mindful of how we are setting it apart in all the uniqueness of our various lives for the worship of the Lord. But what about this question that I introduced very early on of it being the Lord's Day? Why do we celebrate the Sabbath now on Sunday and not on Saturday. In Revelation 1.10, the Apostle John said, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. The early Christians called the first day of the week Sunday, the Lord's Day. It is a day that they and we gather to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus because he rose again, not on the last day, but on the first day of the week.

37:45 The first day, Sunday meetings, began with the apostles, began with the resurrection appearances of Christ. And we learn in Acts that the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit descended upon the people of God as they gathered, was a Sunday. We learn later in Acts that Christians broke bread on Sunday. In 1 Corinthians 16, we learn that the early Christians took up collections on the first day of the week. So Christ's saving work, which culminates in the resurrection, transforms the weekly Sabbath of the fourth commandment. The one day and seven pattern remains, but now the day bears the stamp of Christ's resurrection. We wait not for a future accomplishment of our salvation. We rest in one that has already been accomplished. We celebrate that on Sunday.

38:40 This first day, it's a new beginning, a new creation, a new life from the dead. Jesus has transformed this day in that regard. His day is a new day. We see the lights and the breaking in from the dawn of the new world in Jesus and in his resurrection. And therefore, we gather on this day, the Lord's day. The fourth commandment is given in Exodus. It had civil. It had ceremonial. It had moral aspects to it. Those civil aspects belong primarily to Israel as a nation. The ceremonial aspects pointed forward to Christ, and these have been fulfilled in Christ. The ceremonial, of course, no longer because of Christ. The civil, no longer because Israel is no longer a unique nation as the people of God. But the moral aspect remains.

39:34 It's built into the very fabric of creation, the cycle of six plus one. Now the one is not on Saturday, it's on Sunday because Christ has risen. As we think about this, we should remember that not all are able to keep this day in the same way, are they? In fact, we're celebrating the Lord's Supper here at night because some are providentially hindered from being here in the morning. We know that some engage in works of necessity on Sunday. We need power. We need food. We need law enforcement, so on and so forth. And so we need to understand that sometimes people live across the world in cultures that do not honor this day. Some have these works of necessity. We have forbearance with one another even as we encourage one another to honor this day and to gather to worship. This day is always a day for worship, always a day for mercy. At the same time, we shouldn't suggest either in our words or demeanor that this day is primarily about what we don't get to do. Remember that this is primarily a day which is rest. So we may need that nap. We may need some light exercise, some running around with the kids, some resting and reveling in God's goodness to us, celebrating the freedom we have in Christ. So the question is not simply, what am I allowed or not allowed to do?

41:11 The question that should be at the center of our minds, and I think the Heidelberg puts it there, is what is this day for? It's for worship, resting in his goodness, for mercy, hospitality, fellowship feasting anticipating glory we can have it all wrong like the pharisees of jesus day thinking that with the keeping of certain petty rules we are earning god's favor but we should rather rest in christ in what he has done for us this is a day he has made for us let us revel in it. Let us rejoice in it. And so when you hear that Sunday is coming, let us not yawn in boredom, but let's get a little spring in our steps. Let us get a little spring in our steps because we get to receive Christ on a day such as this one. Let's pray.

42:10 Heavenly Father, we thank you for Sabbath. We thank you for your goodness in giving it to us that we can look back at your creation and how you've woven this day into the very substance of things. And as we are a part of that creation, we need rest because you've created us for it and we reflect you in that. We thank you for this day that we can remember Christ and all that he has done for us in redeeming us and we can rest in his redeeming work and we can rest further from our evil actions that don't reflect the goodness of his work on our behalf. And Father, we thank you on a day like this that we can anticipate all that is to come. Every Lord's Day points somewhere. It points to that great consummation, that great eternal Sabbath when all of our work is finished, sin and death are gone and we enjoy perpetual rest with you in the new heavens and the new earth.

43:11 Help us to give it a rest so that we can look forward to that eternal rest. And we pray now that you would be with us as we receive your grace at this table. Prepare our hearts in Christ's name. Amen.