Seeing My Salvation as the Fulfillment of the Sabbath

Sermon Transcript

This is a one of those unique Sundays.  We have one of these about every 7-8 weeks.  Where we’re going to go all over the Bible, so if you brought your Bibles that’s a good start.  We’re going to wear out a few pages today turning around in them.  The first place I’d like you to turn as we get started is Exodus.  Go near the end of the book of Exodus and as you’re turning there, I want to remind you that our study of Hebrews chapter 4 has prompted a rather provocative if not pejorative question that became the title for this series, and that is, Am I Really a Christian?  Already in chapter 4 as we started our study last week in this chapter we found that, the question is not an academic question. It’s a sobering question that our entire destiny hangs on, our future eternity.  Now the writer of Hebrews began in chapter 4 by tells us that we ought to be sure, we ought to be really sure, we ought to be very sure.  The analogy that’s been drawn throughout the third chapter of Hebrews and into the first part of the fourth chapter of Hebrews is the analogy of the rest that Moses was trying to give the children of Israel as they came out of Egypt and were walking into the Promised Land.  And we saw that, that rest was forfeited because their unbelief at Kadesh Barnea.  Remember that?  There they were like, no, we’re not going to believe the spies, 10 spies came back that gave them a bad report.  They were going to believe them.  Joshua and Caleb said “No, let’s go take it” God said it, let’s believe God, let’s trust God, let’s do it.  They didn’t do it, and they forfeited the promised rest.  And the analogy in Hebrews so far has been, “Don’t miss it.”  You might think you’re part of the community of the believers, but if you don’t have genuine faith, you won’t be walking into the kingdom.  So you ought to be really sure that your faith is genuine.

 

But then suddenly, in Hebrews chapter 4, we encounter analogies that start to go in several different directions.  The word we we’ve been looking at was “rest”.  The analogy was to the Old Testament Promised Land.  Now all of a sudden, we start to have discussion of days of the week.  Specifically the seventh day of the week and that ought to raise a few eyebrows of you Sunday school graduates.  I emphasize Sunday school graduates.  Knowing that if the question is “Am I acceptable before God?”  “Am I pleasing to God?” or as our title is “Am I really a Christian?”  Does God embrace me?  We’ve got to grapple with this question of the days of the week.  Which is where our passage in Hebrews 4 goes, as we’ll see in just a moment.  And I’ve turned you to the end of the book of Exodus, let’s go specifically to chapter 35 and I want to show you, that if you’ve gone through Sunday school reading the Bible you’ve seen in the Old Testament that God seems to be pretty serious about the days of the week.  Exodus 35 verse number 1.  Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and he said to them, these are the things that Yahweh has commanded you to do, verse 2, for 6 days work is to be done.  But the seventh day shall be your holy day.  A Sabbath, which by the way the word means seventh, that’s all it means, it’s the seventh day, which by the way is Saturday, not Sunday, is a rest to Yahweh.  Whoever does any work, is going to get a slap on the wrist, is that what is says?  No, five months in jail, 300 shekel fine?  What is it?  Death.  Talk about Tookie Williams, right?  We must think this through.  You worked on the wrong stinkin’ day.  Strap him up, get the reporters there, and kill him.  That’s what Exodus 35 says.  Oh and by the way, I just want to clarify what work is, next verse, verse 3.  Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.  What?  You know that wood chopping thing and the fire place and kind of heating the place up, don’t you dare.  If you do, you’re dead, going to kill you.

 

Now if you think that’s just kind of hyperboles and I don’t know, God wasn’t serious about it. He was just trying to kind of put a little fear of God in them.  Turn over to Numbers if you would.  Let’s see if the law is just the law on the books, like a lot of California laws, but the law makers don’t really mean it.  Let’s see.  Keep me out of politics here today, sorry.  Numbers chapter 15, if you think the guidelines was over stated, Numbers chapter 15 will clarify.  We have the law on the books, now we’re going to see how it’s worked out in the courts.  Ready?  Numbers chapter 15 look at verse 32, Numbers 15:32, while the Israelites were in the desert a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.  Well, we heard about that, the whole fire thing on Saturday is wrong.  So he’s out there gathering wood.  Now those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly and they kept him in custody because it was not clear what should be done to him.  He was gathering wood, I don’t know, looks like he’s going to start a fire, but I’m not sure.  What should we do?  Verse 35, Yahweh says to Moses, “The man must die.  And the whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.”  So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death.  Just as Yahweh commanded Moses.  It’s pretty serious instructions about the seventh day of the week.

 

Our question in Hebrews chapter 4 as you turn there is, I want to be acceptable to God, I want to be someone who is a genuine Christian, where God looks at me and He smiles and He’s pleased and He’s happy because I’m in the good grace of God.  Now all of a sudden we start talking about days.  Maybe knowing a little bit about the Old Testament, I ought to be concerned about the day of the week.  This is a good question.  Before we get there, or as you’re turning there, it’s good for you to know that not a few modern day writers have made their opinions very clear about this.  Let me give you a few quotations from four different authors. “Sunday worship involves the greatest offense that can be committed against God.”  Here’s one, “Here we find that Sunday worship is the mark of the beast.”  You know the book of Revelation, take the mark of the beast, it’s done, forget it, you’re never going to find the grace of God.  “The very act of changing the Sabbath into a Sunday worship meeting”.  Author number 3, “The Sunday Sabbath, that’s what people like to call the Sabbath now in the modern church, is purely a child of the papacy”, which of course from that writer’s perspective, we know who that is.  I just love this, terse very simple writer he puts it this way, “Sunday worshipers will be condemned.”  After reading Exodus 35, Numbers 15, I’m thinking maybe I should be concerned about this.  Or maybe I should just blindly follow whatever my parents taught me. Or maybe I ought to get a real brain attack, maybe I better be here at church with an open Bible studying a really bizarre looking chart that my pastor has spent hours putting together, trying to figure this out.

 

Hebrews chapter 4 let’s read it and let’s try and understand this text. Verses 3 through 9, now don’t look at the charts yet, I know you’re tempted to look at those.  Let’s just read the passage, verse 3, now we who have believed enter that rest.  So far we only have one reference to that, and an application.  Old Testament = Rest, New Testament = Salvation God.  Just as God has said so I declared in my anger they shall not enter my rest, ok we know something about that, that was that Old Testament story we’ve been told in that in chapter 3.  And yet, here comes a new reference, His work, God’s work, has been finished since the creation of the world, for somewhere God has spoken about the seventh day in these words and on the seventh day God rested from all his work, got a new rest now.  And again in the passage above he says they shall never enter my rest, different historical reference point.  It still remains, verse 6, that some will enter that rest.  Wait a minute, confusing.  Keep going.  And those who formally had the Gospel preached to them did not go in because of their disobedience therefore God again set a certain day calling it today, we’ve already seen this quoted a couple of times in Hebrews 3 and 4, when a long time later He spoke through David as was said before today if you hear his voice don’t harden your hearts for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.  There remains then a Sabbath rest for God’s people.  Confused?  Let’s sort it out.

 

1. Untangle the Rests of Hebrews chapter 4

 

I whipped up a little chart for you.  We’re going to untangle the “rests” of Hebrews chapter 4 that’s why we need a chart.  Let’s start reading through the passage again, Verse number 3, we’ll take it a phrase at a time.  Beginning of verse 3 says now we who have believed enter that rest.  The writer of Hebrews says if we trust in Christ that was the context chapter 3-chapter 4 we enter the rest, that rest, we enter real rest.  Find box F, you got a box that references the first part of verse 3 and it says, “Trusting and Obeying Christ”, this now all the way down cross the timeline at the bottom, Hebrews Exhortation, here’s what he’s been trying to say throughout Chapter 3 and the beginning Chapter 4, he’s writing around 60-65 AD as you remember from the beginning of our study of Hebrews.  So we’re in the first century.  Now what rest are we talking about?  We’re talking about a spiritual rest, and He’s saying you better get in it.  That’s why the title of this sermon series is “Are you sure you’re a Christian?”  He wants people in the first century to be real Christians and he says you ought to enter that “rest”, you ought to make sure that you are right with God, you ought to make sure you’re trusting and obeying Christ.  We’ve already got that in the context of our study of Hebrews.  That’s his focus.  Now see where it is on the timeline, 65 AD.  After the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, got it?  Keep going.

 

Next phrase says this, “Just as God has said”.  Now “just as” it’s interesting because we’re entering that rest and he’s about to quote something where people don’t enter the rest, the “just as” is not that we entered it and they entered it, that’s not the point.  The point is a comparison of time.  We enter it now, but you know what, it’s like or it’s comparable to the fact that they didn’t enter it then, and he quotes this that we’ve already come in contact with in chapter 3, that God declared on oath because of the Kadesh Barnea event, they didn’t believe the two spies, Joshua and Caleb, God said they’re not going to enter.  They are not going to enter my rest.  Box C is Kadesh Barnea, 1444 give or take a couple years BC.  They have come out of Egypt they were at the front door of the Promised Land they did not trust.  So what they’re about to enter, spiritual rest?  No, fill this is, they were going to enter physical rest and Israel was going to have its own nation.  Oh, you’ve been wandering around in the Patriarchal period and then you found your way to Egypt and then you were enslaved; now I’m going to give you a land.  That land I promised to Abraham in Genesis 12, you’re going to get it, and you’re going to get physical rest.   Well that was the analogy, box F has been analogized to box C, through out chapter 3 and in the first few verses of chapter 4.  And the point is we ought to be Christians and enter God’s spiritual rest just like these guys should have entered God’s physical rest but they didn’t.  They forfeited it because they didn’t believe God, they didn’t obey God.

 

Verses 3 and 4, and yet, now we got a whole new thing coming up, His work has been finished since the creation of the world for somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in these words, “And on the seventh day God rested from his work”.  Now we got a whole new place, a whole new reference, a whole new point in time.  He says, you want to talk about rest, I’ve been talking about spiritual rest and the physical rest of Canaan.  Now you know you want to talk about rest, because this is a Jewish author to a Jewish audience, he says, let’s talk about the ultimate prototypical rest, let’s go back to box A, cause there was a day, Genesis chapter 2, where God creates the world in 6 days, and then he says I’m stopping day 7.  And that was the first “rest” and it became the template of work and rest.  Six days work, one day rest.  This was historically God’s “rest” and He didn’t rest because he was tired.  He rested to show us a pattern of work and rest, which He goes on to explain and is encapsulated in the ceremonial laws, more on that later, became a special day of worship in a covenant between Israel, we’ll get to that.  But the point was, that was the very beginning.  Creation week, date we don’t know.  It’s not 4004 BC by the way, for those of you who have learned that.  Certainly the genealogies in Genesis take us back a long way and it’s not 4.5 trillion years either.  That’s another sermon, we’ll get to that.  God’s rest, now we brought up a whole new rest.  Verse 5, And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest”.  Where does that take us back?  He’s saying, “Now wait a minute, God rests, prototypical rest and then later we remember they didn’t enter His rest, we’re going back now, physical rest for Israel.  He’s quoting again a passage that refers to the physical rest that they didn’t enter at Kadesh Barnea, 1444 BC.  Keep reading, it still remains that some will enter that rest.  Do you see, we’re still popping all over the time line now?  He says, it’s going to happen that’s why I’m preaching to you, the writer of Hebrews says, I want people to enter that rest, and it’s still remains that some will enter the rest, but now I’ve got two references in my mind.  I’ve got God’s original rest in the creation week, and I’ve got the Canaan rest that was offered by Moses and yet they forfeited that at Kadesh Barnea.  So he’s back to the exhortation, it still remains that some will enter that rest, that’s what we want, that’s why he’s preaching, that’s why he’s writing this.  Keep reading.  This actually goes to verse 8.  Bottom of 6 through 8.

 

And those who formally had the Gospel as we saw last week, the good news preached to them, the good news was you trust me, you’ll get physical rest and you’ll get into the promised land.  They had the good news preached to them, they did not go in to Canaan, why?  Because of disobedience.   They didn’t believe, they didn’t trust, they didn’t do what God said.  Therefore, God again, now we’re going to a different place,  Has set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later, because this was David now, this is Psalm 95, He spoke through David as it was said before, today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts.  Now, that is in the middle of the timeline.  That is box E.  David writes, 400 years after the Exodus.  He writes about the fact that people in his generation need to hear God’s voice so they can enter the rest.  Oh wait a minute, what rest?  Well, we’re talking about spiritual rest.   David had already conquered the kingdom, his son would inherent the broadest borders in all of the Promised Land as far as they’ve ever been.  David was the ultimate victor.  They had the Promised Land, they had the physical land, but now all of a sudden He’s exhorting people in his Psalm to enter the rest.  Hear God’s voice, don’t harden your hearts like they did, and miss God’s rest.  But it’s not physical rest he’s talking about, it’s spiritual rest.  Which we know in the Old Testament you can never really have rest with God, unless you’re clinging to God’s payment for your sin, until you have peace with God, and that’s in the coming Messiah.  And for them before the cross, all they can do is know I want peace with God, God’s going to take away my sin, so it necessitates, a coming Christ, which hadn’t come yet.

 

Verse 8, for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.  Now wait a minute Moses is all we’ve been focusing on, Moses, they blew it, but they wandered in the wilderness for forty years so in about 1404 BC the baton is handed from Moses to Joshua and guess what?  They enter the physical rest for Israel, and they temporally that means only here on earth, they achieved this rest in Joshua’s generation.  But now all of a sudden the writers says now wait a minute, if David is looking past the Moses experience, and he’s looking at Joshua and they’ve already got the land, and David of course, is a recipient of the fact that they got the land.   He now is the king over the broadest border of Israel and Canaan that they’ve ever had.  They’ve conquered the city of David, they have everything.  He says, “Now why in the world are they talking about a future today?”  But the reference here is, the physical rest of Israel that was achieved on the timeline 40 years after they wandered in the wilderness.  Verse 9, there remains then a, first time we have the word, Sabbath rest for the people of God.  Which brings up a concept, we haven’t hit yet in the passage, we kind of shot all the way around the target.  We haven’t dealt with this, the “Sabbath” now was the name given to that ceremonial day, wasn’t the seventh day, it was the Sabbath day and this was the ceremonial rest for Israel.  Which like all the other ceremonial activities, or lack there of in this case of Israel, always look forward to the fulfillment in Christ.  And this on the time line is just before they go to the front door of the Promised Land, just before they get the law on Sinai, the Mosaic Law. Moses’ Law, God gives them the law, they come down the mountain, they go up to the front door of the Promised Land, and they blow it.  They don’t believe, 40 years wandering then Joshua brings them in.  But here they got the rule.  I want you to ceremonially rest.  The explanation, Exodus 31 several other places, Exodus 20, the Decalogue, the 10 commandments, it’s all right in there.  You are to ceremonially rest.  That means you do it, but you do it religiously as a ceremony.  And just like all the other ceremonies, there’s heavy penalties if you don’t obey it.  The focus here is not looking back to the ceremonies, because the whole book of Hebrews is about leaving the ceremonies behind.  He is now drawing an analogy between this, and the fulfillment in Christ.

 

So we’re back again to the exhortation of the writer of Hebrews, and that is spiritual rest.  The Sabbath rest that he’s talking about is the fulfillment of all the ceremony of the Sabbath, which by the way wasn’t just a day; you have the seventh day, you have the seventh year, and you have the seventh, seventh year.  One is called the Sabbath, one we like to call the Sabbatical, and one is called the Jubilee year.  So you have three sets of Sabbaths, which by the way in Colossians why we say “Sabbaths” in plural there, if you look carefully at the text.  Which I don’t think always ends up in the English text, but there were several Sabbaths, three at least.  Actually if you pin on the Sabbaths that they put on top of all the festivals there were several every year, but there were 3 pure Sabbaths.  The Sabbath day, seven days, every seven days, the Sabbath year, the Sabbatical every 7 years, and the Sabbatical of Sabbaticals which was the Jubilee year.  Which is interesting by the way the people that want to keep the Sabbath are rarely into keeping the Sabbatical year, and much less especially if you’re into finance they don’t want the Jubilee year.  Because if you know anything about that they got to give up all their debts, give all the property back.  Nobody that I know is into the Jubilee year, which by the way I think we passed in 1977 and I didn’t see may people giving up their property in 77.  We have another one coming up in 2027.  There’s one more though, and all the commentators will refer to this because ultimately if we talk about rest in Christ it’s a now but not yet reality.  We have rest with Christ, but I’m not resting with Christ.  Why?  Because he’s not on the throne in Jerusalem and we’re not living in this 1500 mile cube called the New Jerusalem.  So there is a seventh rest, God’s ultimate rest.  God’s ultimate rest is in the New Jerusalem where God dwells with his people.  Where the book of Revelation says really clearly, now we have real rest, where we sit in the shadow of the throne of the Lamb of God, and we have fellowship there and dude, it’s vacation.  Oh we’ll still do ministry there, the book of Revelation says, but you want to talk about rest, then it’s perfect.  Because now we’re released from all the godlessness of the world that we live in now, and we are now in the presence of very God.

 

Now we have all the rests sorted out.  Let’s make sense of what we just said.  Particularly as it relates to this, because I’m just telling you there are passages in scripture that say, we cannot please God if we do not keep the Sabbath and a lot of modern writers will say the same thing, “You’re right, you can’t”.  So we need to figure this out, we’ve already untangled the rests in Hebrews 4, let’s try and understand the ceremonial fulfillments because that’s what we’re banking on here, that this passage is telling us that the Sabbath rest of God is present, the fulfillment of the ceremony of the Old Testament.  So let’s try and figure that out.

 

2. Understand the ceremonial fulfillments

 

Please note this, the Old Testament was full of moral laws and ceremonial laws.  That’s the first thing we got to think through in this.  There are ceremonial rules in the Old Testament, several of them, and they’re clearly delineated from moral laws by words like “defiled”, “clean and unclean”, even sometimes in scripture it’ll say “ceremonial clean” and “ceremonial unclean”  and it had to do with the flakiness of your skin the discharges of your body, it had to do with the stuff that you ate, the dietary laws, slip hooves great, barbeque it up, let’s have dinner, oh wait a minute, does it chew the cud. You know these rules in the scripture?  If it doesn’t chew the cud, we got split hooves we can’t have it.  Or you know if it’s an animal with short legs no problem, but if the short legged animal drags itself on the ground you can’t eat it.  And what about birds, birds were so complicated in scripture, you had to go through a list, check the list there’s no clear way to distinguish birds.  You had stuff you could do and couldn’t do based on ceremony, you had things that were places be and places you couldn’t be, based on ceremony, when it came to the tabernacle or the temple there were clearly places you could be and places you couldn’t be.  Things you could do and things you couldn’t do when it came to the Sabbath day or the Sabbath year or the Jubilee year.  There were all kinds of things you could and couldn’t do.  On the Sabbath day you couldn’t carry a backpack, you couldn’t light a fire, you couldn’t gather wood, you couldn’t bring backpacks through the gates of Jerusalem.  I’m not talking rabbinic law here, I’m talking what scripture clearly says.  I mean talk about washing and bathings.  Have you read through Leviticus lately?  The things you had to do, if you join ministry, you know what we did, I’m glad we don’t do this anymore, we shaved your entire body.  I don’t want a part of that little ministry welcome procedure.  You got special underwear, you know the scriptures right?  You had to wear blue clothing, here’s some great ones, these come from Deuteronomy 22, there’s some great ones in Deuteronomy 22, you couldn’t sow two kinds of seeds together in your garden, you couldn’t plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together, you couldn’t have linen cloth and wool cloth woven together, God is really big on these things in the Old Testament, why?  Because God has a set of ceremonial rules that are pointing to a reality that the New Testament realizes and the book of Hebrews, the book of Galatians, and the book of Romans is all about.  And it says now the ceremony is fulfilled in Christ.

 

As a matter of fact you’re in the book of Hebrews or you should be let’s open to Hebrews chapter 10 and here’s some great statements about what these ceremonies were all about.  Which by the way next to point number 2, I have Hebrews chapter 4 verse 14 where we start the discussion of the priesthood and we run all the way to chapter 10 verse 18 which by the way is the major dividing line in Hebrews.  If you go back in your notes, if you were here, and you go to the very first worksheet you got in our Hebrews study, you’ll see an outline and you’ll see that the outline of book that I put together only has 2 points.  The first point goes from chapter 1 verse 1 to chapter 4 verse 14 and then we have a big therefore and a line is drawn and all the ceremonies that are discussed whether it’s a comparison of the entities like angles or personages like Moses and Joshua or then we get into the ceremonies like the priesthood and the sacrifices and the Sabbath day.  We draw a line under chapter 10 verse 14 and we start the therefore section of scripture.  It’s much like Ephesians Sunday school Grads you know in two sections.  The book of Romans after chapter 10, two sections.

 

So let’s start in Chapter 10 which is really the apex of finishing the discussions about the fulfillment of Christ. Look at verse number 1, this needs to be underlined in your text, it’s so clear it’s so helpful.  The law, as we dealt with ceremonies the whole time, sacrifices, what you bring, what you can eat, what you can’t eat, where you can go, where you can’t go, what the priest does, what he can’t do.  The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, which for him is already a not yet reality, the realities, not the realities themselves.  For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.  There’s no reality in the ceremonies, it’s all ceremonies, it’s looking forward to the reality.  Drop down to verse number 8.  References Christ here, and it says, sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them (although the law requirement them to be made).  You had to do it, but that wasn’t what God was pleased with.  Oh great, he didn’t eat the animal that chews the cud, that wasn’t God’s concern, but he made people do that.  Then he said, here I am, I have come to do your will. He sets aside the first, with all of its ceremonies, to establish the second.  The second what?  The second covenant, this new reality in the New Testament, verse 10.  And by that will, we have been made holy, it’s not just a ceremony, we’ve been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all, done with the sacrifices.  Day after day the priest stands and performs his religious duties, again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which by the way, can never take away sins.  But when this priest, Christ, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he’s done; he sat down at the right hand of God.  Drop down to verse 17.  Then he adds: their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.  Here’s the punch line of the entire first half of book the Hebrews which is little more than half of the book.   And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.  There’s no longer any need for the priesthood, there’s no longer any need for dietary restrictions, there’s no longer any need for not yoking the oxen and the donkey together, there’s no longer a need for what fabrics you put together side by side, there’s no longer any need for the ceremony for the Sabbath, it’s over, it’s done, it’s been fulfilled.  Therefore, verse 19, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place, and that was the thing we want to get right with God, we want to be Holy, we want to be acceptable to God, because we can now enter into real Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, be a new and living way He opened up for us through the curtain, which was his body, he let us come through it, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.  We’re right with God, we can be real with God.  God accepts we’re in the presence of God.  We got a real relationship with God.  Are we sitting with God in the New Jerusalem? No not yet.  But the reality of a relationship with Christ through what he’s done changes everything about the ceremonies.

 

And if you think, well, I don’t know, book of Hebrews and who wrote it anyway.  Let’s look at what Jesus said, John chapter 4 turning to a few more passages, hang in there with me. Jesus said it in many different situations; I want to show you one that’s really clear.  The Old Testament said you could not set up an alter and worship God just anywhere.  You had to go to Jerusalem.  You had to worship in the holy place.  You had to bring your offerings to the authorized priesthood.  And here by way of trying to get the focus off herself the woman at the well in John chapter 4 is having this discussion with Jesus.  And she says after he exposes her as a multiply divorced gal who had lots of relational problems and lots of issue in her own life, she says wisely in verse 19, sir, I see that you are a prophet.  Can we talk about theology?  Because she was ready to change the subject, verse 20.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, now remember she’s a Samaritan woman.  In the Old Testament in 721 the Assyrians came in and took the northern tribes of Israel, ten of them, and they never recovered.  They intermarried with the Assyrians and they became Samaritans.  And the Jews in the South who maintained themselves till 586 BC got taken away into captivity by the Babylonians.  They kept themselves pure, they did not intermarry with the other nations and they came back 70 years later and inhabited the southern part of the Promised Land of Judea.  So the pure historically, a non-intermarried southern Jews looked at the Samaritan and said you guys are not acceptable to God and when they said, well we’re Jewish too, kind of, for the most part.  They said, no you can’t come in worship in Jerusalem any more. So they had to set up another headquarters in the Northern part of the country.  And they were excluded from Jerusalem.  So she’s a Samaritan, says you know we haven’t able to get down to Jerusalem to worship because what we’ve all been through.  So I want to know, is it ok that we worship in Samaria.  What do you think?  The place where you guys, the Jews, claim is the place you got to worship is Jerusalem.  Jesus declared, believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  None of it’s going to matter. You Samaritans worship what you don’t know, we worship what we do know, for salvation is from Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshiper will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit; his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.  And the woman said, I know that Messiah (that’s called Christ, John says), is coming and when he comes, he’ll explain everything to us.  I mean she’s got one eyebrow raised at this point.  And Jesus declares, I who speak to you am He.  It’s me.  I’m the one.  I am fulfilling everything and now I’m telling you the ceremonies that the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, the court of the women, the inner court, the holy place, the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, all that stuff, the candles, the show bread, the incense none of that matters anymore.  Jesus is tipping the table over.  Why?  Because all of that points to me, Jesus says.  That I’m here, a time is coming and it’s now here, and I’m the one, the focus and fulfillment of all the ceremonial rules.

 

Colossians chapter 2, couple more, got to drive this point home because you’re going to meet someone.  This is what happens when I preach on a topic like this; God is going to put it to the test this week.  You’re going to run into somebody who’s going to tell you something about the Old Testament dietary laws or worshipping on the right day or whatever you need to be ready.  So you got to look not only at John 4 take a look at Colossians 2 the apostles were crystal clear about this topic.  Let’s get a good running start at the punch line of this text, Colossians chapter 2 verse number 8.  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends by the way on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, now that’s amazing because God is saying kill people that gather wood on Saturday and now Jesus is saying none of this matters any more.  What’s going on here?  He’s the fulfillment of Deity, he is the fullness of Deity, he’s God in bodily form.  He’s got the right to tell us that the rules are changing.  He’s got the right to replace the first ceremonial set of rules with the reality of a relationship with Christ.  He can replace, supplant the old covenant with the new covenant.  Verse 10, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is head over every power and authority.  In him you were also circumcised, now here’s the thing, that was a critical thing as well you couldn’t fellowship with the Jewish people unless you were circumcised.  But he says, you are circumcised, he’s talking to a bunch of people from Colossi who weren’t all Jews. Some were some weren’t.  In the putting off, look at this, of the sinful nature, the flesh, God did something in our hearts.  He changed our heart of stone into a heart of flesh.  Not a circumcision done with the hands of men.  Now wait a minute that was critical in the Old Testament.  Not critical anymore.  Because God has now has circumcised you in Christ.  A circumcision that’s done by Christ and having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  When you were dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ and he forgave us all of our sins and he’s cancelled the written code with its regulations, there’s the ceremony, that was against us that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.  Why? Because he fulfilled it, that’s why he called out in part, “it is finished”, completed, having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.  Therefore, very important therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink. I want shellfish, see I really don’t, but see that was on the bad list in the Old Testament. I want bacon, I can tell you that, and that was on the bad list too.  And he says; don’t let anyone judge you in that regard, why?  Because all those regulations, boom, nailed to the cross, fulfilled.  The regulations fulfilled.  And don’t let anybody judge you not only by what you eat or drink but with regard to a religious festival, how about Password over, how about in-gathering, feast of booths, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day variant in the text sometimes Sabbath days.  Sabbath day, Sabbath year, Sabbatical, Sabbatical of Sabbaticals, Jubilee don’t let anyone judge you on that anymore.  Why?  Because these are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.  It’s done.  Now God may have said now you can’t worship him unless you come to this temple, he may have said, you were in bad with me if you don’t worship on this day.  But all of that has been nailed to the cross.  It has been completed and here’s the apostles teaching, don’t let anybody judge you on this regard.  Jesus said it to the woman at the well.  A day is coming and it’s now here.  And the place you worship doesn’t matter anymore because it’s all been fulfilled.  The ceremonies are completed.

 

One more text in this regard, Galatians chapter 4.  Well, I just kind of like it and I want to do it because I think that you know what, if God was so into it in the Old Testament I’m sure if I do it now he’ll be pleased if I do it, so I’m going to do it, because I think it’ll be a little extra credit.  I mean think about it right? God was into this for a long time.  And I’m thinking sure, I many have passed the course by God’s grace but I want a little extra credit.  I want more than the 4.0, I want to have a 4.3.  Which I don’t understand by the way, how that works.  But people think they can do it, spiritually.  You want to toy around with extra credit, you’re in big trouble.  Here’s what the scripture says, Galatians 4:9.  But now that you know God—or rather theologically you are known by God.  That’s a whole another sermon.  How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?  Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?  Are you observing special days, and months and seasons of the years?  What does he say about that?  Phooey. Don’t do it, don’t be enslaved by that.  And if there’s any question about it, go over to the next chapter, chapter 5 verse number 1.  He hones in on circumcisions which was the big deal you want to join this group and be a part of the real Christian group, you got to be circumcised.  Look at verse 1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke for slavery.  Oh let’s check the bird list, can I eat that?  Mark my words!  I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.  You want extra credit, you flunk the class.  Do you see that?  Wow!  You want to go and get circumcised for the sake of pleasing God because you just want the ceremonial law and you want to just earn a little bit of extra kudos with God.  He says you flunk.  Christ is of no credit to you.  Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to keep the whole law.  Oh man, I let my kids be circumcised, they asked me in the hospital, I just said yeah, I didn’t know.  It’s a different context.  I don’t think any of you said I got to get this kid circumcised, I want him to be a Christian man, it’s not what it’s about.  Let’s not ponder that too long.  Here are people saying I want to be in with God do I have to be circumcised?  Listen if you’re going to let yourself be circumcised you’re obligated to obey the whole law.  Pull out the bird list and let’s figure out dinner.  You were trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ.  You’ve fallen away from grace, but by faith we eagerly await through the spirit the righteousness for which we hope for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.  The only thing that counts is faith, which by the way is the focus of Hebrews 4, expressing itself through love.  Ceremonial regulations have been completely fulfilled.  Because you were thinking man we’re on Sunday afternoon don’t tell me we’re going to Saturday now.  Alright let’s put it this way, No Spiritually you’re living in the spiritual Saturday.  Saturday was the time to say, we’re done working.  We cannot do any other work, I can’t even light a fire in the fireplace, we’re done.  We’re resting in what’s already been done.  In the text of scripture, verse 3 and verse 9 make it clear, that we are people who enter the rest because of faith or as it’s put in verse number 9 the invitation is thrown out there remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  It’s there are you in it?

 

If you try to please God by what you do, you’re not in it.  If you’re trying to trust in what Christ has already done, then welcome to Saturday.  Matthew Chapter 11, we sang it earlier it’s on the cross there sideways it is no mistake that the Jewish writer Matthew gives Jesus words about offering rest.  Hey, are you weary and heavy laden?  Come to me, I will give you rest.  You won’t be burdened anymore.  By the way he deals with all the leaders of the Jews earlier, and all their obligations.  Come to me, I’ll give you rest.  And then the very next chapter, chapter 12, guess what Jesus is dealing with?  The Sabbath.  No surprise there.  It’s unfortunate that chapter 12 comes and splits it up with a new paragraph heading.  He then deals with ceremony of the Sabbath.  You’ve entered into rest with Christ.  More on that next week, that’s where we’re going to camp next week.  The day is irrelevant, the day is irrelevant.  Romans chapter 14, the day is irrelevant because I’m living on the day.  Don’t you keep the Sabbath?  The answer, Yes, I live in the Sabbath.  But aren’t you a Sabbath keeper?  I am. Every day is the Sabbath for me.  Why?  Because I’m resting in my relationship with Christ.  I can’t earn it, I’ve grabbed the rest of Matthew 11.  He said, come to me and I’ll give you rest, and I came to him and I have it.

 

Romans 14.  Now remember this, the converts to Christianity still had to decide every day what to eat, and they had to decide what day to worship on.  And that added some trepidation to the hearts of people.  They’re smelling bacon from the neighbor’s house, but they’ve never taste it.  But man it smells good.  Can I have any of that?  I don’t know man.  I can just picture my grandma and what she said about bacon, I’m struggling with that.  But I know it has nothing to do with my walk with God.  I know it has nothing to do with my relationship with Christ.  Chapter 14, verse 1, Romans 14:1, Accept him whose faith is weak, who sits there and smells the bacon and says, “no I don’t think I should, I’ve never done it.”  Do it without passing judgment on “disputable matters”.  Which is the Greek word, he’s inside torn up.  He’s inwardly deliberating all the time and hesitating.  That’s what the word is.  One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, hey shellfish, I wanted to try that, bacon bring it on, man.  Ham sandwich, I’ve been waiting for one of those.  But another man, whose faith is weak, man, I’m going to stick with the vegetables.  The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not, must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.  It’s not about the food, man.  Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?  To his own master he stands or falls.  And he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand, because Christ did it all.  One man, now this is the important pertinent part here, verses 5, considers one day more sacred the another, another man considers every day alike.  Each one should be, here’s the opposite of disputable matters, up in verse 1.  He ought to be resolved in his own mind.  He’s not worried about the hesitation and will this please God, it’s not there.  He realizes the days aren’t important.  If someone regards one day as special, he says, but I like this day, and I’m going to worship Christ on this day.  Great, he does it to the Lord.  He who eats meat, eats meat to the Lord.  He prays before the ham sandwich, no problem.  For he gives thanks to God, he who abstains does so to the Lord and he gives thanks to God too and he’s fine eating his vegetables, no problem.  It’s not about food anymore; it’s not about a special day anymore.

 

Now can you imaging those words being applied to any moral law in the Old Testament.  Can you image the Apostle Paul coming on the scenes and if you want a passage to put in the margin, you might want to put 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, where he deals with sexual immorality.  Guess what he doesn’t say about sexual immorality?  Well, just be fully convinced in your own mind.  Don’t look down on someone, who you know, who’s sexual immoral.  Don’t do that.  Because you know what?  God’s accepted them all.  That is not the issue. Ceremonial law, and when it relates to first century convert generation, that’s trying to figure out should I eat bacon or not?  He says, don’t sweat that man.  It’s not important.  Moral law, Old Testament Moral law, He’s always hard lined on.  Absolutely God will judge the violator, that’s what he says in 1 Thess 4.  Clearly.  Well, I was hoping to hear this so I can work my employees seven days a week.  I’m not into the Sabbath.  You know the whole rest work thing, is probably a good idea.  Interesting how, when that second box, was set up the ceremonial law.  God is always in the Old Testament talking about this will refresh you.  He uses a great word, a word in Hebrew that’s akin to our spirit, matter of fact even our English word, refreshed, has sense of etymologically connection to our spirit.  We will be revived.  So taking some time off is good, resting is good.  I want to rest right now.  There’s the lamest conclusion you’ll ever hear right there.  So rest is a good thing.  But there are books being written by the way today, I got to say this, because there’s a lot of books that I thought about putting on the back of the worksheet, that just make too much of trying to piggy back on the Sabbath regulations.  Don’t do it.  Don’t do it.  And I think a lot of people make mistakes there.  Take rest, absolutely, take a vacation, great.  Take an extended vacation, fine.  But when it comes to days, you can please God worshiping on Thursday, which we do by the way.  Saturday, Sunday doesn’t matter.

 

Alright let’s pray.   God, a lot of stuff, lot of information, lots of passages, but we have to, we have to understand your word.  You told us to study to show ourselves a prove to God a workman that doesn’t need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.  We want to get into your word, we want to understand it.  This is important.  And I know this is one of those special Sundays where we kind of deal with issues on an intellectual level and we try to unwrap the nuances of the text and we’re trying to figure out what the Bibles says.  But I pray God, that it would nourish our hearts as well. Recognizing that you have completed all that was required.  And because of Christ all the regulations have been fulfilled.  And praise God all of that to look forward to a relationship with God, and intimate relationship with God, has now been accomplished in Christ and we can walk into the inner sanctum, the holy of holies and have fellowship with God.  And though now it’s spiritual, one day it’ll be physical and spiritual.  And we look forward to the day your kingdom comes.  We pray for it as you taught us to, God we’re looking forward to that.  Maranatha, come quickly, we look forward to the New Jerusalem, in Jesus name. Amen.