Good morning. So our task today is to go through two lessons, religious worship and the Sabbath day, which in 45 minutes is impossible. So I'm going to do my best. One of the things I wanted, my goal for today is that we don't separate them. that we don't consider the Sabbath day as its own thing and then worship as its own thing, but that we do see them together in light of each other and that they do. We can only worship rightly on the Sabbath day and the Sabbath day prepares our whole lives so that we can worship. That's kind of the outline I've provided. We'll see worship and the Sabbath as a pattern of life and we'll kind of go through the Ten Commandments, pausing on the fourth one. to really see what the Lord has to say about the Sabbath day. And then we will kind of finish off the second table briefly, and then in the second major half go through worship and the Sabbath as principles. We want to see that worship and the Sabbath day are covenantal and are regulated by God's word. That's kind of the track we're going to go through today. So first, we'll start in the beginning. Genesis, so Genesis 1 and 2. Most of us are very familiar with the text, right? So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light was good and separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there is evening and morning, the first day. And as we see in the patterns, we see in the next several verses, God creates the expanse of the heavens. He creates the waters. He creates the plants and vegetation and all the animals. And the sixth day, he concludes with who? Who's the last creature made? Man. And then what happens? He rests. It says, let us make man our own image. So God created them. And then he saw everything was very good. And there was evening, there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens in chapter two, thus the heavens and the earth were finished. God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So he blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. So one of the first things we see is that God establishes time. He establishes sacred time, that he, for six days were to work, and on the seventh day were to devote wholly to the worship of God. That's the pattern the Lord has set. So six days of labor, one day of rest. But we also see that when he makes the garden, so he puts Adam and Eve into this garden that he's made, And we also see him establishing a sacred space. So the sacred time, sacred space, when you consider the garden and then you look at the rest of scripture, when the Lord makes the Ark of the Covenant, you notice he commands them to make pomegranates and trees and to decorate all the lattice work and all the filigree. And he puts two cherubim before the Ark of the Covenant. He does the same thing with the temple, that both the Ark of the Covenant The temple, the tabernacle, all these things are pointing back to the garden where God dwelt with man. So the garden presents this space of a sacred space where people meet with God. Why that's important is because this Genesis 1 and 2, the sacred time and sacred space, when we move forward throughout scripture, we begin to see this general pattern that the Lord designates particular times for his worship. And he designates particular places for his worship. In the garden, it was the garden. In the tent of meeting in Exodus, it was the tent of meeting. The Lord dwelt with his people there. In the temple time period, it was the temple in Jerusalem. And as new covenant saints, what does the Lord call us? In Christ, we are living stones, 1 Peter 2. That as we gather on the Lord's day, we, in effect, become the new temple where God dwells with his people. So when we gather for worship, God is especially present, that there is something unique about Sunday worship that is different from Monday to Saturday. That something happens here that cannot happen Monday, because God's here, because he's blessed the seventh day, or the Sabbath day. That's helpful. It's helpful, so unlike in the old covenant, or in the old administrations of the covenant of grace, that the particular location was vital. And this is the, remembering John 6, the woman at the well, she asks, well, who, is it better to worship in Jerusalem or in Samaria? And Jesus says, well, you're wrong about where you're worshiping. You're supposed to worship in Jerusalem, but the Lord is seeking worshipers in spirit and in truth. So on this side of Calvary, What constitutes a sacred space is the gathered church. That the church is not essentially a building, but a congregation. That the people of God coming together can occur, can worship God anywhere. That's why we have the most precious, one of the precious promises, wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am amongst them. Which is a wonderful promise. Which means worship, true worship of God can occur in a prison, it can occur in the fields, it can occur here. And that God meets with his people unconstrained by geography, unconstrained by any of those things. But the Sabbath day has not changed. That though the sacred spaces can be anywhere, as long as two or three are gathered in his name, the sacred time aspect remains the Sabbath principle. So practically God has ordained all of space and time for a purpose. And when we come to Exodus 20, which we're familiar with because we read it many Sundays, the law of God, when we come to the Exodus 20, we come to this after the Lord had commanded Pharaoh to let his people go for the purpose of worship, commands Pharaoh to let his people go, and then we see the Lord hardens his heart and all the plagues, and the Lord brings the people out of Egypt by the Exodus, and we come to Mount Sinai, where the Lord gives Moses the Ten Commandments, and he says, 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. So this context of the commandments is salvation. That when we read the rest of the commands, we understand them solely on the basis that we're saved by a gracious God, who saved a people out of bondage. I am the Lord your God, took you up, brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. Fry the Lord your God and make jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers and to the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold you guiltless who takes his name in vain. And we will come to the fourth commandment shortly. Before we kind of dive into the law, does anyone know the difference? Does anyone know what legalism is? Because that's often a charge, and I kind of want to head that off, that when we come to how do we worship God and how we do things on the Sabbath day, we'll often hear, that's just legalistic. So I think we know what legalism is. Going above and beyond what God has actually required of us in the law? Yep, so that's part of it. That's absolutely, yep. That's the second half. Doing more or less than what God has required. Justification. Justification. So legalism, seeking to be justified by the law, or seeking to add or to take away from the law. So there's a difference. between legalism, seeking our own salvation, and obedience, obeying the Lord our God has commanded us to do. And as we come to the commandments, it's important that we recognize that we don't come to these commands desiring to be saved. We desire them, we desire to be faithful to these commands because our God has saved us. And that's a helpful distinction. So we come to ecstasy with the first commandment, as you read, it commands us who we are to worship, the living and true God, who is one. There is one God we are to worship, excluding all others. So when we worship on the Lord's day, we worship our one God, who exists, and in his oneness, he is how many persons? It's three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So we know that this one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we worship. We worship the Father, we worship the Son, and we worship the Holy Spirit equally. Not one person of the Trinity receives a little bit more worship than another. We worship the Father through the Son by the Spirit. So our worship is Trinitarian. So we have this right object of our worship. When we come to the second and third commandment, we see how we are to worship. We're to worship as God has commanded us. We don't have images. We don't make up our own way as we worship, but rather we see what God has said, how he desires to be approached, and we approach him in that way. And then the third, I think that's my kid. And then the third commandment, the not taking the name of the Lord in vain. That in all aspects of worship, we want to take everything God has revealed and exalt it. that we don't want to downplay any part of worship, we don't want to never want to take any part of what he's revealed vainly or in a wrong way. We want to seek to be faithful to what he's revealed. This is frequently called the first table, and this typically has to do with God and man. What is the relationship between God and man, pre-eminently? Then we come to the fourth commandment. And this is the great Sabbath command. And we notice the shift in the command. It's no longer, you shall not. But in verse eight, it's remember. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And it goes, six days you shall labor, but the Sabbath to the Lord your God. So it gives us this practical command of when we are to worship. So on the Sabbath day, As we kind of zoom in to this fourth commandment, we want to remember we can't worship a God we don't know, that God has revealed himself to us in particular ways, and we must learn about him as he's revealed himself in his word. So we come to this Sabbath day recognizing these first three commandments are driving us towards it, and we recognize we need a Sabbath rest, an eternal rest. So we come to Hebrews 4. In Hebrews 4, Hebrews 4, verse 1, therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of us, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we have believed and entered that rest, as it is said, as I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his words were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again on this passage, you shall not enter my rest. Therefore, it remains for some to enter it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience. Again, he appoints a certain day. Today, saying through David, so long afterward, and the words are already quoted, today you hear his voice to not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest is also rested from his works as God did from his. So the writer of Hebrews recognizes that the Sabbath rest has not been achieved for God's people yet. Christ has achieved it. Christ is our Sabbath rest, and we await for his return to bring us into the rest. So until then, we worship God on the Sabbath. We recognize that the Sabbath is the day for worship because we still are preparing ourselves for that eternal rest. So why the shift in days? In Israel, the first day of the week was Sunday. The Sabbath day for Israel was Saturday, what we would call Saturday. So why do we worship on Sunday? Anyone know? Celebrate the resurrection. to celebrate the resurrection? It was the day the disciples were in the upper room. It was the day the disciples were in the upper room. But why did the Lord change the Sabbath day? That's a pretty big deal, right? He changed all of his... worship shifted a whole day. It's a huge cultural problem, a huge cultural deal. It's a huge religious deal. But it was the rites of the resurrection. So the shift of day. So the Sabbath principle, that there's a one day and seven where to worship, is perpetually binding. But the specific day is what's called a positive law. A positive law is a command that comes from an authority. The command itself doesn't necessarily have moral force. So an example I put down, it's a silly example, but a parent commanding a child to eat only jelly doughnuts is not a moral command. Donuts don't have moral value. But the relationship between the parent and the child is. It has ethical and moral force. The command could just have easily been, only eat glazed donuts. See that distinction, the positive? The Lord could have commanded the Sabbath day to technically have been any day. But the reason he chose Sunday is You consider the Colossians 1, 15 through 20. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, the firstborn for all creation. And then firstborn over all the new creation. So you consider this creation and new creation motif, this idea. So he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things are created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. So we see Christ is the Lord of the old creation, the Lord of the old Sabbath. So that Sunday through Friday in the old covenant is pointing forward to Christ as the Lord of the new creation, the Lord of the old creation. But then he dies. He redeems his people. And all of a sudden, we see this, the new heavens and the new earth, the new Sabbath rest coming and breaking in. He is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile himself all things. So we see this, the shift happens, that Christ, as he rises on the third day, It changes the pattern of the first day. The first day no longer becomes the first day of the old creation. It's the first day of the new creation. When you consider when did Christ die, he died on a Friday, which was the last day of the week, the last day of work. When he says it is finished, all the work of the old creation pointing to the cross of Christ is consummated in his death and resurrection. The old creation has been killed, that has been crucified to Christ. So as he is buried and as he rises, right, so even on Saturday, he rests. He doesn't continue his labor. His labor is done. So when he rises on Sunday, we see that he has established a new paradigm, that Sunday is now the day we're to worship, we're to celebrate Christ's resurrection, we're to celebrate the coming of the new heavens and the new earth. And we see this paradigm shift, we see Paul, in Acts 20, worshiping on a Sunday, breaking bread, having the Lord's Supper on a Sunday in Acts 20. In Revelation 1, John receives the vision of revelation while he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day on Sunday. So we begin to see this shift in worship from Saturday to Sunday. So that's the shift. I say that because we're in a Seventh-day Adventist church. We recognize that there's something that they deny this, but why do we do this? And I think that's always important to look, why do we worship on Sunday? So the Lord has given us this day for our good, for our enjoyment of him, for our growth in grace, and for our spiritual refreshment in the means of grace. That when we come to the Lord's day to worship, we're not only doing something we cannot do anywhere else, But the Lord has promised His gracious presence to bless us in ways that He won't do, and that He could do, but He desires to bless His people abundantly. The Epirotans called Sunday the market day of the soul, that there is a refreshment available here that's not available elsewhere. And how we view the Lord's day, how we view Sunday, how we view this foretaste of this eternal rest we saw in Hebrews 4, reveals our view of heaven. When you come to the Lord's day excited for the day to be over, that kind of reveals your heart towards spending all of eternity with the Lord. That's something I encourage in my own heart, right, that as we come to worship on Sunday, do we wake up excited to go to the presence of the Lord, to be with his people where he has promised to bless and to dwell. because that's our eternal promise as Christians. So that's the Sabbath day. So the Sabbath day, this fourth commandment focuses as a pivot between the first and the second table, the first table between God and man, and the second table, Commandments 5 to 10, that the Sabbath, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And then it's almost as if Moses, as he's writing these commandments, as the Lord is revealing these commandments, he tells you who he is, how he is to be worshipped, when he is to be worshipped, as you meet with him on Sunday, as you meet with him on the Sabbath day. Now go and love your neighbor. That first commandment, honor your mother and father. He establishes the paradigm of the family with our nearest neighbors. Then it says, don't kill. And he says, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't covet, that the Sabbath establishes how we are to love our neighbor, that we can't love our neighbor if we don't worship God rightly. And that's the commandments have that flow. And that's often one of the great tragedies of liberalism in Christianity is they so exalt the second table to the neglect of the first, they cease to honor the Lord. I was mentioning when he wrote Christianity and Liberalism, he pointed out that they're two separate religions because you can't love your neighbor if you don't love God, who your neighbor is made in the image of. So that is, those are the pattern of life of Sabbath day and the worship. So what are the principles that govern how we are to worship God on the Sabbath day and how are we to treat the Sabbath day? Well, those two principles are both covenantal. and regulated. Now, covenant is agreement between two parties at its most basic definition. And when we studied covenant theology before, so does anyone know why a covenantal understanding would impact our worship? Why does a covenantal understanding of who God is affect how we worship? I would say because we know that the Lord has entered into covenant with us, therefore we can come and worship him, that he in fact commands us to come and worship him. And we can come and do that and draw near to him without fear of destruction because we are in Christ and in covenant relationship with him. Amen. Exactly. Because we're in a covenant relationship, we can come to God without fear. And that God not only beckons us as a judge, but commands us as a father. He draws us to himself by the power of the Holy Spirit. So this covenant aspect does a few things. So first, it should inspire a reverence and a focus on God and his word of the third commandment. And should also be a worship recognizing that it is communion with the Lord. Does anyone know, has anyone heard a difference between a union with Christ versus communion with Christ? Is anyone familiar with that term? So union with Christ is to be joined to him, that we receive all the benefits of redemption because the Holy Spirit has united us, has brought us into union with him. Similar to a husband and wife, they're united in marriage. They're brought together. But there's a distinction between a union and a communion. So if Meg and I didn't speak for six months, we would still be married. But our fellowship, our intimacy, would have been greatly hindered, because we didn't speak for six months. Our communion with one another would be lessened. So when we come to worship, that our union with God can never be broken. If Christ has died for his people, they cannot be separated from him. But the communion certainly can. That we can be hindered, we can often hinder ourselves in worship. But that's the beauty of worship, that God has blessed worship with the ability to commune or to talk to him and hear him back. That's why in worship we have preaching, one of the great joys of being a Christian is to hear the preaching of God's word. And when we hear the preaching of God's word, we are hearing Christ speaking through his ministers to his people. That the Holy Spirit takes the word that's being read and it's being expounded and applies it to the hearts of God's people. That when we hear the minister speak, we're hearing the voice of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That all three persons of the Trinity are affecting us in that moment, and they're speaking to us. I'm sure, hopefully, all of us have been in a sermon in which we feel like the minister is speaking to us directly. It's as if he has uncovered your most inner thoughts and has laid bare your soul, and you're like, well, this is uncomfortable. He knows all of my sin. Or you're struggling, and you hear the word of comfort And you just, you feel the grace and the presence of God comfort you in afflictions or in a sadness. And that's the power of preaching. It's God speaking to his people through his word by his servants. So this communal aspect, this covenantal aspect, because he's promised that his sheep will hear his voice and they will respond. So it's preaching. We have the sacraments that the covenant sign and seals that present God. declaring or saying things to his people. Baptism, right? The, I will be your God and you will be my people. And as we baptize our covenant children, that's the great promise that as they lay hold of their baptism by faith, they will walk in the same steps as their parents walk. And they will continue the covenant promises of God and of the Lord's supper. What a, what a treasure it is that we can come to the Lord's table as our savior has laid before us a feast to nourish us. And he says, come. And we, as his covenant people, respond and have a meal with our God. So in worship, there is this communal aspect. And finally, in prayer, where we respond to the Lord as we speak to him. We speak right of supplications. We speak our fears. We give him glory and praise. So we have this conversation. between us and the Lord in worship, that worship isn't just man trying to figure out what God wants, nor is worship God just giving us a list of things to do and don't do. It is a meeting with the Lord in which we get to fellowship with God and with his people. Practically, this affects how we worship, that we recognize that public worship primarily is only for God's people. There is an evangelistic aspect, right? We always give the call of the gospel to turn from sin and turn towards Christ. But that's for God's people and for everyone. Everyone needs to hear that. We never outgrow the need to turn from sin. But it changes, there are some churches who will seek to make their worship service in space as comfortable as possible for unbelievers. They don't want to just drive in the way. They want to make everyone as comfortable as they can. But there is something about being in God's presence that should make us profoundly uncomfortable. That when you are in the presence of a holy God and you are in the midst of your sins and you are in rebellion against him, you should feel uncomfortable. That's a good thing. That's a good thing to feel the weight of your sin. Because it's only under such a condition you recognize your need for a savior. That doesn't mean we don't run kind to unbelievers. That doesn't mean we don't welcome them to church. We want them to come to church. We want them to hear the voice of their savior and to offer that free offer of the gospel freely and consistently and prayerfully. But that the main focus of worship is the meeting of God with his people, and we want other people to come in that the Lord may be drawing them. So it's covenantal, and it's regulated, that God orders how we used to be worshipped and the Sabbath day itself. So is anyone familiar with the regulative principle of worship? Has anyone heard the term? Do you know what a regulating valve is, my engineers? So what is a regulating valve, my engineer? It's Sabbath day, right? We don't work. All worldly recreations and employments. All worldly recreations and employments. Very well. So regulations, right? It controls how we are to do something. So the regulative principle stems from this idea that what God has not commanded is forbidden. What God has not commanded is forbidden. That's the historic reformed understanding. What we think is the I think it's the scriptural understanding. In Leviticus 10, we read of two Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu. And we read of them approaching the Lord with strange fire. Not sinful fire. The Lord didn't prohibit them from bringing the fire. But the Lord didn't command them to bring the fire. And then what happens to Nadab and Abihu? They die. They're burned. They were immediately killed in the presence of the Lord. We also read of 1 Samuel, Uzzah. Any familiar with Uzzah? The Lord commanded that his ark was to be carried by the priests on pretty much two poles, and four men would hold it, and they would carry the ark. And he says, this is how you were to carry the ark. He didn't say, don't carry it on an ox cart. So what do we read? That the Ark of the Covenant is put on an ox cart. And as they're carrying it, the ark begins to tip over. And Uzzah, seeking to do a godly thing, he doesn't want the Ark of the Covenant to fall in the mud. What does he do? He reaches out his hand to steady the ark, and he's immediately killed. So we see that the Lord cares a lot about how he regulates to be worshipped. Now, there's an argument could be made. That was in the Old Testament. The New Testament's different. Hebrews 12, 29, our God is a consuming fire. First Corinthians, when we read of the Lord's Supper, Paul encourages them to partake of the Lord's Supper rightly. Why? Because some of you have fallen ill and have even died taking the supper poorly or unpreparedly. So the Lord cares very much so about his worship. Another principle you might hear or you might interact with is what's called the normative principle. Now the normative principle takes the other view, what God has not forbidden is allowed. And this is very common in evangelical churches. And it's important that we always want to encourage all of us to be more faithful to God's word. to be more faithful to what he has commanded. So we come now to the parts of worship. So we have the elements, the forms, and the circumstances. So does anyone know what an element of worship is? Or an example of an element of worship? Singing, praying, preaching. Singing, praying, preaching. Anything else? Sacraments. Benediction. Prayer. The call. Yep, the call. Anything else? I'll give you a hint. Yep, so we have the receiving tithes and offerings. Receiving God's word, yeah. The actual reading of God's word. If you're ever curious about what is an element of worship, read your bulletin. Because every line on that is an element of worship. Because if it's not an element of worship, we shouldn't be doing it. And that's an important thing when we consider, as we study God's word, we want our worship to be as constrained by God's word as it possibly can. So we have elements of worship or acts commanded by God. A form of worship is the specific and exact content of that element. For example, the Lord's Supper. We have both, so the right to the, we're going to have wine, the fruit of the vine. So we have both wine and grape juice. That's the form that this element is taking. I guess you technically could do white wine. You could. I think Calvin did. You could do it but that's this, it's what form is this element going to take. And then the circumstances are governed by Christian prudence regarding how to perform the elements. A circumstance would be, you know, what time do we worship? It is prudent to not worship at 4 in the morning, at least in our culture. So we worship at a much more leisurely 10.30 and 5, right? So that's a circumstance. It's governed by Christian prudence. But the purpose is not because we don't care, but the purpose, that's like indifferent, but it's to highlight the elements. The color of the carpet doesn't really matter. However, if it was bright orange, it would detract, it would detract me from the preaching, right? I'd be staring at the ugly. I would just blend in. That is true. I would just blend in. No one would see me. Just be my eyes, which would be distracting, right? So the element of worship is to be exalted. Sound equipment, right? That's another circumstance. Do you have it or not? Do you have a piano? Music, musical accompaniment. I personally hate organs because I think they distract from worship, however, at Westminster Assembly at the Westminster Abbey where you have, you know, you have 10,000 worshippers. An organ is a very effective instrument to be able to control and contain 10,000 voices, right? So in that sense, I'm like, all right, you can have an organ. But if you had an organ here, you wouldn't hear the element of the people singing. Congregational singing would be hindered by a really loud musical instrument or if you had like 15 drums. That's worship, the elements, the forms, the circumstances, all highlighting this relational aspect, this covenantal aspect of God. And our last few minutes will come to the Sabbath day. How are we to do the Sabbath? Is worship merely the hour, the two, two, three hours we spend while we're in this room? The Sabbath day is to be holy throughout the whole day. When we read the Sabbath day, we do acts of piety, acts of mercy, and acts of necessity. So what's an act of piety? None of us do any acts of piety. Got it. Public and private devotion. Confession. Yep, confession of our sins. This is a great day to to really consider all the things of the Lord. When you think of our own sins, this is a great day to confess your sins to the Lord. Or if you have a broken fellowship with a believer in our congregation, this is another great day. I mean, how right, the parable of Jesus says, you know, leave your gift at the altar and go. Like, that is more important. That's how much of a division it hurts the body of Christ. If you have a division with a brother, almost stop worshiping. Go heal that division so you both can worship rightly. It was a great time to do that. These are acts of devotion and worship towards God in thought, word, and deed. There's a really convicting book by a guy named Ryan McGraw on the Lord's Day. And one of his arguments for having a good Sabbath view is if you can break the fifth commandment or the sixth commandment in your thoughts. Jesus says, if you lust after women in your heart, you commit adultery. If you're angry with your brother, you've committed murder. If you can do those things with the other commandments, you can do those things with the Lord's day. So that's something to consider that we want to train our thoughts or words and our actions on the Lord's day to really see not as a, I need to do all these things, but I get to. I get to just spend the day, as far as I am able, to think about my Savior, to think about my Heavenly Father, to think about the Holy Spirit and my communion with Him. It is a wonderful act of piety. We have acts of mercy, which, if you remember, the Pharisees were always very upset at Christ for healing on the Sabbath, which is always an interesting thing. Imagine being mad at someone for performing a miracle. They were. Because they had a wrong view of the Sabbath. They saw the Sabbath as a restrictive measure that you can't even heal someone. Versus the mercy of, no, you can heal. That's a good thing. If you're in a car accident on a Sunday, going to or from worship, we're not just going to say, well, you're just going to have to wait 12 hours. We're sorry, we can't help you. No, of course we're going to help. Of course there's a mercy to that. And then finally, the things of necessity. And I have a quote from McGraw that pretty much a thing of necessity is what can be done tomorrow or what could have been done yesterday. And if those are right, so I had to feed my dog this morning. I had to take care of my beast. She has to eat every day. We have a farmer in our congregation, right? You have to take care of the chickens every day. You can't just let them starve because it's a Sunday. We have to cook food. But there's a difference between you kind of let the week get away from you, leading to an inability to worship the Lord on Sunday. And providence happens, and a lot of just busy, busy things happen. And you come to the Lord and say, I have nothing prepared. There's a distinction there that if it could have been done, We should have done it. What is grace and mercy and all these things. But ultimately, I would encourage all of us when we look to the Sabbath, that we don't see it as a list of things to do or don't do. But we really see it as the highlight of our week. That we can do things today that we don't do other days. We get to be with believers. We're not at work. We're not with unbelievers. the things of the world that we don't handle, the common things that aren't holy. We come into the Lord's presence on the Lord's Day and seek to fellowship with believers in between services, that we seek to sing psalms and hymns in the morning or in the evening, that we set our day up separately and distinctly, so that we get to just do the things of the Lord distinctly. Does anyone have any questions? on anything. Unless I already missed it, are you able to mention something about the creation ordinance and how it might maybe not relate to like Colossians when it says, no one's to judge you in food and drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, as if Sabbath day was nullified through Christ completely? The old covenant Sabbath day was, that Christ fulfilled the purpose of the old creation. And so that the new Sabbath day is the Lord's day, the Sunday. And so when it talks about the Sabbath day and Colossians, is it talking about the Lord's day or is it talking about another kind of festival day? So it's Colossians 1. Colossians 2, verse 16. Does everyone have a question? uh... he's probably gets a new norse after she's likely talking about the uh... the old testaments at the festivals and saturdays that have their and questions uh... positive commands and, you know, eat each other's donuts and things like that that are not of moral necessity, is, truth be told, is the... I guess, for example, are the Seventh-Day Adventists necessarily in sin or resting on Saturday rather than Sunday? Yes. And I say that carefully because the Christian Sabbath recognizes that our Savior has come and that the new creation is breaking in. To continue to worship on a Saturday on the old Sabbath is to implicitly say or explicitly say that the new Sabbath has not come. that our new rest and the new worship in the heavens and the earth, the new creation breaking in, has not happened. Sunday is particular. You can't worship God on a day he has not prescribed. And the pattern we see in the New Testament is that the apostles, particularly the Jews, right? Paul, a Pharisee of Pharisees, and John grew up in a Jewish home. recognized the distinction, and they changed. They went against totally their culture, they went against what was convenient, and they particularly just determined to worship on Sunday. And even in the book of Acts, we even see that Paul goes from going to the synagogues to preach, by the time you get to Acts 20, he is breaking bread on the Lord's Day. We begin to see that distinction, that they're shifting from a Saturday observance to a Sunday observance. I would encourage our Seventh-day Adventist friends to worship on Sunday. Though if they do that, we'd lose our building. So I'm thankful for their hospitality, but it would be great if we couldn't worship here, right? That would be a good thing. Any other questions? Very good. I don't want to say pick things apart, but it's kind of an easier way to say it. And they always had discussion. Of course, I made sure they had their Bibles open, otherwise we wouldn't have that discussion. But some of the things they came up with, like on the Lord's Day, they like to go out and talk to people about the Lord. So there was a park over in the Philadelphia area, but we were in South Jersey. So for them to get there, they have to cross a bridge. And there's a toll booth on the bridge. So they're arguing back and forth. Yes, there's the paying of the toll, buying or sailing on the Sabbath. Right, right. And I told him that, I said, I don't believe God gives us a specific thing. But I said, I think you're honoring the Lord by spreading his word on Sunday and talking to people about the Lord. And not to take the toll taking so seriously as that person probably would be there taking the tolls whether you crossed the bridge or anybody else crossed the bridge. And there's, right, so we want to do things that promote the worship of the Lord. And I mean, right, evangelizing is an act of piety. Going to worship the Lord is an act of piety. As I write, as my wife and I cross the toll bridge to pay the toll to come here, right, so it's that a lot of times the Sabbath And as I've talked to a lot of family members who strongly disagree with us on the Lord's Day, both unbelievers and non-believers, unbelievers and believers, unbelievers and non-believers, unbelievers and believers that disagree with us, I try not to ever say, here's a list of things to do and not do. Because a lot of times it just takes providence, Christian wisdom, your season or pattern of life, If a mother or a father were commanded to come to worship, if you are in the hospital sick, you're not in sin because the Lord and his providence has given you an affliction that you can't physically be present. That's different. So when it comes to, my encouragement is always to do what helps worship, not hinders it. And if performing, if going over the toll, to go evangelize, hinders worship, don't do it. Right, if you're just so exhausted from doing all those things that you can't actually come into evening worship and worship the Lord rightly, you know, either lessen your time there or perhaps pick a different spot. What's in Jesus' response to the Pharisees who criticized him for healing? The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Yep, right, that there is a But the point is to rest. The point is to highlight the worship of God. Right? Not to get tied up in legal knots. Yeah. Yeah, and that's one of those things. Like, don't miss the forest for the trees. Right? Don't go like, well, what about these particular things? Like, well, I don't know. Go worship God. Bottom line. Yeah. Any other questions? Sweet. Let's pray and we'll prepare to worship our God. Heavenly Father, you are good and gracious. We thank you, O Lord, that you've given us work for six days, that you've given us opportunities to serve you and honor you in the world. And now, O Lord, we thank you for the privilege and the promise of a rest. O Lord, as we wait and hope for the eternal rest, we come now to your day. to worship you on this momentary rest, this time where we can set aside all of our labors and to devote ourselves wholly to the worship of the crying God. O Lord, we pray for your blessing upon this day. We pray, O Lord, that we would see our Savior, we would hear him in the preaching and the reading and the singing of God's word. We pray, O Lord, for your Holy Spirit to come to bless our worship, O Lord, that we would hear, that we would know that you're God. O Lord, bless us as we leave worship today, that we would be salt and light to a dying world, that we would be lovers of man, because we have first loved God, because you have first loved us. Lord, bless us now, we pray, in spirit and truth, in Christ's name, amen.