Almost 300 years ago, a man named Charles Wesley wrote a beautiful song titled, Christ the Lord is Risen Today. It may be familiar to some of you or many of you. Here's the first verse of that song. Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia. Sons of men and angels say, alleluia. Raise your joys and triumphs high, alleluia. Sing ye heavens and earth reply, Alleluia. This is only the first verse, but you can hear the joy and excitement and amazement and celebration caused by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. His resurrection gives us hope and promise and the best possible reason for rejoicing and for worshiping God. The resurrection was a supernatural, dramatic, and revolutionary event. So it should not be difficult for us to understand that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus caused a change in the Sabbath day, which was implemented when he appeared after he rose from the dead, confirmed by the coming of the Holy and put into practice by the apostles and the early church. The theme of today's message then is that the change of the Sabbath day from the seventh day to the first day of the week was brought about by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. So the theme of the message, one more time, is that the change of the Sabbath day from the seventh to the first day of the week was brought about by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. Let me pause just a minute and let's think about that. No matter what we think or feel about the Lord's day, the Sabbath day. keeping one day out of seven set apart for God all day long. If we're Christians and we think about the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and what that means, why in the world wouldn't we want to worship this God all day long? Why wouldn't that be a source of our greatest pleasure and greatest motivation and greatest In the message last week we examined the circumstances that God arranged in order to prepare for the change in the Sabbath day from the seventh day of the week or Saturday to the first day of the week or Sunday. Today we are going to discover the actual events that show this change in the Sabbath day taking place. In other words, last week we looked at the background that God developed over thousands of years beginning at creation laying the process in place or the platform in place that would bring about this change in the Lord's day, that would focus on His greatest work and His purpose, His overall purpose in all of creation and that was His purpose of redemption. So we looked at that last week and what God did in order to prepare for the change in the Lord's Day and lay this foundation in place. This week we're going to look at this change in the Lord's Day actually being brought about by the events of the resurrection of Christ and what follows that. So the first event that brought about this change was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our first point of the message today. The first event that brought about the change in the Sabbath was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Please open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, and we will be reading verses 1 through 4. Hebrews, chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. Here we read God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways. in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And he is the radiance of his glory, and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they. Notice what happens in verse 3. There we are told that when he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. In other words, after the Lord Jesus completed his mission to save guilty sinners from death and hell, he sat down because his work was complete. He rested in the sense that he had completed or finished the work of redemption. Doesn't mean he didn't do anything ever again. It meant that he rested from that work because that work was completed just as God had rested from his work of creation because creation was complete. It doesn't mean that God stopped doing things. He certainly did continue to do things. So here Christ rested in the sense that He had completed or finished His work of redemption. Now as we have already learned, this work of redemption was God's eternal purpose to save the people, to be His people, to forgive their sins, to give them life with Him forever. And that eternal purpose was fully completed when Jesus rose from the dead. Therefore, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the central dramatic event that changed the Sabbath day from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. As Brother Clyde read when he read the gospel this morning, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ our faith is in vain. None of it means anything. So in the completion of his work in the resurrection, we have the fulfillment of our salvation and of God's eternal purpose. In the same way that the deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt became an additional reason for keeping the Sabbath, which we looked at last week, The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ became the ultimate and in fact the primary reason for keeping one day set apart specifically to worship and serve God and enjoy Him. It was God's plan all along to glorify and point to His Son and His glorious work in Christ by focusing our attention on this day. and setting it apart for him. That was always God's purpose, even on the first Sabbath day that he established in the seventh day of creation. The writer of Hebrews makes a clear connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the change in the Sabbath. Look at Hebrews chapter 4 again, verses 9 and 10. Hebrews 4, 9 and 10. Here we are told that there is a Sabbath keeping for Christians and that the day to be observed is the day that Jesus rose from the dead or the first day of the week. Here's what we read in Hebrews 4, 9 and 10. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has rested also from his works as God did from his. Now the New King James Version does not include the word Sabbath. However, the Authorized Version, the King James Version, and the New American Standard Bible do include the word Sabbath. And those translations include the word Sabbath because the word is present in Greek manuscripts. Notice verse 9 says, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. In the Greek text, there is a word here, for Sabbath rest, that is Sabbatismos. Sabbatismos. It is a word used only one time in the Bible, right here. That's the only place in the Bible that this particular word is used. Sabbatismos is a noun that is related to the verb Sabbatizo, which is used several places in the Old Testament to mean keep the Sabbath or to describe Sabbath keeping. So sabbatismos means a Sabbath keeping or a keeping of a holy day unto the Lord. While Hebrews 4 is pointing to the ultimate rest, I mean the whole chapter of Hebrews 4 is pointing to the ultimate rest that Christians will have with God in eternity. Verses 9 and 10 emphasize that just as there was a Sabbath-keeping in the Old Testament that looked back at God's work of creation and looked forward to His promise of rest with God, there is for the Christian, the people of God, a Sabbath-keeping that looks back to the completed work of Christ, the ushering in of a new creation, a new order, culminated in the resurrection and looks forward to the eternal rest with Christ when He returns. Thus, verse 9 says, there is a Sabbath keeping or a keeping of a holy day for the people of God. Then verse 10 tells us what that day is. Verse 10 says, for the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His. Now the word for connects verse 10 with verse 9. In other words, the people of God must keep a holy day or a Sabbath rest because, or for, because Jesus, the one who has entered His rest, has Himself also rested from His works. You see, the one who has rested from His works is Jesus. He rested when he was raised from the dead on the first day of the week and all his work was finished. Therefore, there remains a Sabbath rest. That is, Christians are to keep a day holy to God because Jesus has rested from his work on the first day just as God did from his on the seventh day. Therefore, the people of God are to keep a Sabbath to the Lord in the same manner that Jesus rested. Jesus rested on the first day of the week, so Christians are to keep a Sabbath on the first day of the week also. So the first event that brought about this change was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Point number one. The first event that brought about the change in the Sabbath was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Point number two, Secondly, this change in the Sabbath day was implemented by the appearances of the Lord Jesus to his disciples after he rose from the dead. The change of the Sabbath was implemented by the appearances of the Lord Jesus to his disciples after he rose from the dead. In John 20, verse 1, the Bible tells us, now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb." John goes on to tell us that the Lord Jesus appeared to her outside the tomb. This happened on the first day of the week is what he tells us in that verse. This same event is described in Matthew 28 and Mark chapter 16 where it is clear that there were other women with Mary Magdalene. On that same day, according to Luke chapter 24, Jesus appeared to two of the disciples as they traveled down the road to a village named Emmaus. That's the same day, the first day of the week. Also in Luke chapter 24, verse 34, we discover that the Lord appeared to Simon, that is the apostle Peter. And in that same chapter of Luke, chapter 24, in verses 36 through 43, We are told that Jesus appeared to 10 of the apostles later that day. He talked with them and showed them his hands and feet and ate with them. Also John chapter 20 verses 26 through 29 describes what happened when Jesus appeared to all 11 apostles one week later. That's one week later. on the first of the week, again, the first day of the week. All of these supernatural appearances of the Lord Jesus were on the first day of the week, the day our calendar calls Sunday. These appearances were the evidence that Jesus was truly who he said he was. They were evidence that Jesus was the anointed one, or the Messiah, sent from God to save his people from their sins and give them eternal life. These appearances showed that God had provided escape from death and hell. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 56 and 57, the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friends, this great salvation, this great gift of forgiveness and eternal life was now the ultimate reason to worship God and to rest in the completed work of Christ and to enjoy God. And the best, most appropriate day to do that was obviously the first day of the week. A 19th century pastor that I've quoted previously who did a lot of writing on the Sabbath day, named Daniel Wilson, writes these words. He writes, the Lord of the Sabbath was lying in the grave on the precise day of the Jewish rest, or the seventh day Sabbath. It would have been impossible for the morning disciples to have celebrated the praises of the great creator, of the redeemer from Egyptian bondage, of the God who promised and had given them the Messiah and Savior while that Messiah and Savior was in the tomb and all the prospects of his kingdom were shrouded with the darkness of death. But when the Lord arose on the first day of the week, then and not before were the disciples glad. Then did their Sabbath begin. The necessity of the case or situation changed the day of peaceful, happy rest in the worship and praise of God from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day. Thus, the first two events that brought about the change of the Sabbath day were the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the appearances of the Lord Jesus to his disciples after he rose from the dead. The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week was confirmed by the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. This change in the day of the Sabbath day was confirmed by the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In Acts chapter 2 verses 1 through 4, Luke writes, when the day of Pentecost had come, They, that was the apostles and the disciples, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. This event fulfilled the promise of Jesus in Acts chapter 1 verse 8 when he told his disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. Now we must understand that nothing happens by accident. We must always remember that God has decreed and predestined all things for a purpose. God filled these first Christians with the Holy Spirit in order to carry out God's final purpose of saving guilty sinners. And it was no accident that God sent the Holy Spirit into the world on the first day of the week. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week to show that he had accomplished God's eternal purpose of salvation. So also God sent the Holy Spirit into the world on the first day of the week to apply that salvation to all those he had chosen for eternal life. It's important for us to recognize that what Christ did on the cross was to accomplish our salvation. He accomplished redemption. He paid the price for our sins. What he has accomplished then, that means he's actually saved his people It is not applied to us until God sends the Holy Spirit into the world and sends His Holy Spirit to us to apply that salvation to us by making us born again, making us new creatures, giving us faith in Christ and granting us repentance. And that's what happened on the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost was on the first day of the week. And God sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply his salvation on the first day of the week because Jesus had risen from the dead on the first day of the week. As the theologian Matthew Henry writes, this feast of Pentecost happened on the first day of the week, which was an additional honor put on that day and a confirmation of it to be the Christian Sabbath, the day which the Lord had made. to be a standing memorial in his church of those two great blessings, the resurrection of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit both on that day of the week." End of quotation. In other words, the coming of the Holy Spirit was clearly a mighty work of God that he accomplished on the first day of the week like the resurrection. This supernatural blessing confirmed the special status of the first day of the week for the church. as the Christian Sabbath day. Hence the resurrection of Jesus brought about the change of the Sabbath day. His appearances after the resurrection implemented this change and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost confirmed this change. Fourthly then, our fourth point and final point today is that this change in the Sabbath day was put into practice by the apostles and the early church. This change in the Sabbath was put into practice by the apostles and the early church. If you recall, we have read in previous message, Acts chapter 20 verse 7, where Luke writes, on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. Again, in this verse, we notice that this was not a specially called meeting. They were not gathered together to hear the great apostle Paul who had recently arrived for a visit. This wasn't an advertised healing service, or evangelistic event, or as they had when I was a boy growing up in the Ozarks, Bluegrass Gospel Night. That wasn't it. Here, they were gathered together to break bread or to celebrate the Lord's Supper. They regularly met to worship God on the first day of the week, and Paul happened to be there, and he preached until midnight. Also, in 1 Corinthians 16, verses 1 and 2, The Apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth and gives them this instruction. Now concerning the collection for the saints as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week, each one of you is to put aside and save as he may prosper so that no collections be made when I come. Here Paul tells the Corinthians to take up a special collection or offering on the first day of the week. In verse 1 he tells us that he has already given the same instruction to the churches in Galatia. So the apostle expects all the churches in Galatia and the church in Corinth to take up a special offering on the first day of the week. Why would Paul choose the first day of the week? Why didn't he choose the seventh day or the third day? And why did he tell all the churches to do it on the first day of the week? Obviously the answer is that the meetings of the church on the first day of the week were well known. It was simply the general practice of the churches. It was the practice of all the churches to meet and break bread together and worship God on the first day of the week. These events occurred almost 30 years after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This same practice is documented in the Bible in the vision the Lord Jesus gave to the Apostle John in the book of Revelation chapter 1 verse 10. Revelation chapter 1 verse 10 where John writes, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet. Notice that John identifies the day of the vision as the Lord's day. How do we know what day of the week it was? Well, remember that in Matthew 12, verse 8, Jesus said, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. If He is Lord of the Sabbath, then the Sabbath is His day. He owns it. It is the Lord's day. So it is the Sabbath day. He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and He is the Lord over this day that John is talking about, and it is the Sabbath day. And as we have learned today, the only day the Bible gives us reason or evidence to identify as the Lord's day, specifically the day of the Lord Jesus, is the day on which Jesus rose from the dead and on which the church was anointed with the Holy Spirit. And the day of the apostles and the early church set apart for worship. It was the first day of the week. Notice also that John uses the name, the Lord's Day, in a very casual way. Not disrespectful, but just casual. Certainly, he expected all the churches to understand what day he was talking about. Allow me to quote Daniel Wilson again. Daniel Wilson writes, a new name would have created surprise, not communicated information. And that's true. Perhaps most importantly for us to understand, these words were inspired by the Holy Spirit. So it is God himself who names this day the Lord's Day and designates it as special. The Apostle John wrote these words about 60 to 70 years after the resurrection of Jesus. Clearly, the change of the Sabbath to the first day of the week was the practice of the apostles and the early church. And that practice continued for more than 1,900 years. In the 1950s and 60s, An incipient form of false teaching that had been around for a while became popular in churches throughout the United States and Europe. And one of the numerous and dangerously false teachings that became almost universally popular was that the Ten Commandments only applied directly to the Jews and not to the Christian church. This led to the teaching that the Fourth Commandment, was a totally ceremonial law and was obsolete. The consequences have been disastrous for the cause of Christ and for the welfare and blessing of the church ever since. This false teaching was based in part on erroneous interpretations of statements made by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17, as well as Romans 14, verses 5 and 6, and Galatians 4, verses 8 through 11. Now, if you all would like to stay here until about 6 o'clock this evening, I'll be happy to ask Pastor Steve to come up. preach all three of these texts for you because I'm not prepared to do so. However, I have studied them some and I want to make some comments about them in relation to this specific issue of whether or not the Apostle Paul is saying here that you no longer have to observe the Sabbath day. In these various verses, Paul does not abolish the Sabbath day. Take some time, perhaps not at this moment, but take some time and read these verses and you will not find in any of these sections of scripture Paul saying that we do not have to observe a Sabbath day, a day of rest, one day out of seven devoted to the Lord. What we can know with certainty, and we can know this absolutely clearly, that these texts do not eliminate the need to obey the fourth commandment or in any way indicate that we should not keep one day in seven set apart as God's day rather than our day. We can know this because scripture does not contradict itself. It does not. And the clear teaching of the Bible that we have studied shows us that we are commanded to obey the Ten Commandments, including the Fourth Commandment because they are a unit and they are God's moral law for us. As we have already discovered in our study of the Lord's Day, Sabbath-keeping is a creation ordinance, like marriage and labor, meant to be observed by all men for all time. As we have studied, Jesus taught extensively about how to keep the Lord's day and declared that he was Lord of the Sabbath. He would not have done it if his purpose was to abolish it or if it had ended in any way. He did not abolish the fourth commandment or any of the ten commandments and he clearly stated that, that he had not come to abolish the law. So whatever the Holy Spirit is communicating to us in these parts of the Bible, these statements absolutely cannot mean that the fourth commandment no longer applies. How then are we to understand these verses? A careful reading of these texts in context shows that Paul is talking about the ceremonial and judicial laws of Moses, which were the shadow of what is to come. And if you look at these texts and look at the broader context of the chapters in which they're located, that's exactly what he's talking about. He's talking about a movement at that time to call Christians back to obeying ceremonial laws. Paul is addressing the false teaching that called people to go back to following these ceremonial and judicial laws which could not save and which had nothing to do with sanctification. Circumcision had nothing to do with sanctification. Observing New Moon Feast and all of the Jewish feasts had nothing to do with sanctification or salvation, obviously. For example, when Paul writes in Colossians 2, verse 16, I believe is my reference. Yes, Colossians 2, verse 16, when he writes there, therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival. or a new moon or a Sabbath day. He is not talking about the weekly Sabbath day of the fourth commandment. That is the one day in seven set apart for God. He is talking about all of the other ceremonial Sabbath days the Jews observed and there were many of them. You can look at Leviticus chapter 23 and read about them. They included Passover, First Fruits, Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. Those were all Sabbaths, and Paul is referring to those in his book called The Sabbath of Delight. And if you don't have a copy, take a copy as Pastor Steve mentioned. Walter Chantry writes these words. He writes that all these Sabbaths are filled with imagery of Christ, person, and work. They are shadows. They are elaborate, detailed requirements, judicial regulations surrounding these Sabbath days. It is these Sabbaths which naturally come to mind in connection with months and seasons and years in Galatians 4 and with religious festivals and new moon celebrations in Colossians 2. Dear friends, God very, very purposefully changed the day of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. He did this by raising the Lord Jesus from the dead on the first day of the week and completing the work of redemption. The Lord Jesus confirmed the first day of the week as the proper day of worship and Sabbath keeping by His appearances on the first day of the week. God also made this change by sending the Holy Spirit into the world to apply this redemption to those God had chosen for salvation. By these two great blessings, God made the first day of the week the only proper day to set apart as a special day for worship and service and enjoyment of God all day long. And the practice of the apostles in the early church punctuate this change. since God has done all of this to change the Sabbath to the first day of the week. Surely, we should do all we can to keep the first day of the week, Sunday, set apart completely for our relationship with God. Now next week, preview. We'll get to all of the questions you're asking, what should we do? And that's what we're going to focus on next week. How should we observe? How should we observe the Sabbath? Let's pray. Please pray with me. Our Father in Heaven, thank You God for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit into the world to apply His accomplishment of salvation to us. Give us new life. Forgive our sins. Give us faith in Him. Grant us repentance. Our God, we thank you for establishing your church and building your church. We thank you, God, for heaven. We thank you that this religion that we practice isn't just a set of rituals. It isn't wishful thinking. It isn't a fleeing from the exigencies of life. It is a turning to you, the holy God, who has revealed himself in all that he's made, revealed himself perfectly in the Lord Jesus, revealed himself in your Word, revealed himself to us by the coming of your Holy Spirit to live in us. We thank you for this great salvation. We thank you for life everlasting. We thank you for the forgiveness of our sins in the face of the fact that even as we stand before you today, We're terrible sinners, constantly clinging to our Savior, the dear Lord Jesus, who resurrected and ascended, sits at your right hand, interceding for us by His holy life, by His death, burial, and resurrection. And we worship you and we bow down and worship you, our great and holy and eternal God, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.