THE LIFE OF OBSERVING THE LORD'S DAY  

- EXODUS 20:  8-11

2001 will be an important year for all of us.  Like I have stressed before, this new year must be the year in which all of us come together in spirit to pursue a common goal of solidifying the foundation of our respective faith.  Any building that ignore good foundation, any study that ignores the basic knowledge, and any chess strategy that ignores basic rules will lead to problems.  We must learn the ABCs of the life of faith to become true Christians--not just through words, but through actions--so that when God and people around us look at us, they can recognize that we are indeed true Christians.  

The most basic foundation--of all basics--of a life of Christian faith is observing the Sabbath, or the Lord's day.  We cannot become true Christians, regardless of what we say about Jesus, of Him being our savior, if we do not follow the basic path of Christianity and go astray.  For the upcoming year, I want each and every one of you to adopt Sunday church-going as a habit.  

Worship service is the most expedient method of receiving God's grace.  Therefore, it is a great oxymoron for someone to say he received abundant grace of God when he does not even attend Sunday worship service.  Those who consistently attend worship service are those who are always with God and experience His abundant love.
I spoke to all of you about Reverend Charles Spurgeon some time ago.  Reverend Spurgeon led the largest congregation in London during the 19th century.  The ministry that Reverend Spurgeon led had some 6,000 members, and they gathered every Sunday to offer worship service.  Reverend Spurgeon happened to be on a trip one week, and another pastor had to fill in for him to deliver the worship service sermon.  Some members of the congregation, upon realizing that another pastor was about to give the sermon, got up to leave the worship service.  

The guest pastor who was filling in for Reverend Spurgeon was a very clever man.  Towards the people who got up to leave before the sermon, the guest pastor said, "Wait a minute.  Please stop.  If you are here this morning to worship Charles Spurgeon, then go ahead and leave.  But if you are here to worship Jesus Christ with me, then you should stay."  

We must observe the Lord's day in order to worship God, our Father.  How can we return glory to and praise God when we fail to attend Sunday worship service in order to satisfy our secular requirements?  How can we learn of, and understand, God's love and grace for us when we do not attend worship service?  Barring especially extenuating circumstances, for common people like myself and all of you out there, observing the Lord's day is the most critical path in understanding God's true intent and providing our worship of Him.  

According to today's scripture, Exodus 20, verses 8 to 11, the fourth commandment of the ten commandments is keeping the day of Sabbath.  The commandment regarding the Sabbath is 48 letters long in Hebrew, making it the lengthiest commandment of the ten commandments.  The explanation for this is that for God and the people of Israel, the day of Sabbath was the most important concept, and therefore required the most emphasis among the ten commandments.  

The word "Sabbath" is derived from the Hebrew word "Shabbath," which has the meaning "rest from labor."  In Genesis, God Himself works for 6 days to create the universe, then takes the 7th day as a day of rest.  Among the ten commandments, the only commandment that God Himself set the example through observation was the fourth commandment.
In Exodus 20, verse 8, it is stated, "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."  

To remember means to commemorate it, like how we celebrate Independence Day or Memorial Day, and to keep it holy means consider this day as separate from the other days of the week, to consider it holy and sanctify it.  The people of Israel usually worked for 70 hours during the six-day work week.  One of the reasons why God created us was for us to go out and work hard.  However, God's purpose for us is not limited to work; He also created us to rest after a busy work week.  Therefore, true people of God not only know how to go out and work hard, but they also know how to rest hard.  According to the Bible, people who only work are not true people of God.  Those who know how to take a break not only follows God's intent for us, but they are also clever and intelligent.  During the days of the Old Testament, people went as far as to give the domesticated animals a day of rest during Sabbath.

Because the day of rest was so important to the people of Israel, the topic of how to keep this day of Sabbath always became a topic of great contention.  For the extremely conservative and fundamental, the day of Sabbath was a day when one cannot lift even a finger.  Scribes could not record even a word during this day of rest.  One could not even kill a flea.  One was afraid to don clothing, for sweating and changing clothing required work.  Therefore, the regulation on keeping Sabbath had some 1521 requirements and outlines.  Many scholars argue that the sole reason why the people of Israel, despite over two thousand years of wandering, were able to keep their national identity was by keeping the Sabbath.  Some even go on to say that "people of Israel did not keep Sabbath; rather, the Sabbath kept the people of Israel."

The question that we must now ask is whether the concept of Sabbath of the Old Testament coincide with modern-day Christian's concept of Sunday, or the day of worship.  Of the ten commandments of the Old Testament, nine commandments were repeated--in its entirety or following some revision--in the New Testament.  The only commandment that was not clearly repeated in the New Testament is the fourth commandment, or the commandment of the Sabbath.  The omission of the Sabbath commandment in the New Testament testifies to the fact that keeping the Sabbath is not only a religious requirement, but entails additional requirement of fully knowing and understanding the principle and God's intent behind Sabbath.

In Acts 20, verse 7, Corinthians 16, verse 2, and Revelation 1, verse 10, the early Christians gathered every Sunday, not Saturday, to offer their worship service.  Sunday was the day in which our Lord was resurrected, and the day in which the Holy Spirit, during Passover, descended from the Heaven.  Therefore, unlike the people of the Old Testament, who kept Saturday as the day of Sabbath, people of the New Testament kept Sunday as the Lord's Day.

After Emperor Constantine converted the Roman Empire into a Christian state on 321 A.D., many edicts were adopted to integrate the Sabbath of Old Testament with Sunday of Christianity.  Emperor Constantine adopted a law which forbade Romans from working on Sundays.  In 585 A.D., during the Council of Macon, and in 1274 A.D., Thomas Aquinas, who was the spiritual cornerstone of the Catholic Church, taught that the Sabbath of the Old Testament and the Lord's Day of the New Testament must be combined on the same day and all Christians must cease all labor on this day.

In my opinion, after the religious reformation, the concept of combining these two days came under a lot of criticism.  Therefore, understanding why the people of Israel refused to life even a finger on Sabbath is not important; what is important, however, is understanding why God considered the day of rest so precious.
God commanded us to keep the Sabbath holy in order to protect the health of our minds and bodies.  I once read an interesting article which listed the three most common causes of death among people today.  The three leading causes are not cancer, heart disease, and accidents; they were computers, pagers, and telephones.  People of today, in the midst of a very busy schedule, live without adequate rest.  A good rest is a shortcut to a good health.  Hard work alone is not a proper behavior.  We need to take one day to rest, and to think about God and be with God.

Therefore, I hope that Sundays can become a day in which all of us can come to Church with relaxed minds.  I wish that we can stop all arguments and debates on Sundays.  I want it to be a time of comfort and rest, where we can show up and socialize with other Christians after a hard week of work.  What I glean as the true intent of Sabbath is that God wants us to be alone with Him, and retreat regularly from work to look after ourselves and our relations with God.
If we can find the happy medium between work and rest, one thing that we must do on Sundays is to worship God and rest well.  Doing so will prove to be shortcut in establishing a firm foundation for our Christian faith.

A newspaper from Tacoma, Washington carried an article regarding a basset hound named Tatto.  This dog was being dragged behind a truck along a road.  Tatto had no intentions of going jogging on this moon-lit night; however, when his owner forgot to put him inside the truck after attaching his leash to the cab, he had no choice but to run for his life.  A highway patrolman named Terry Filbert saw this dog being dragged behind the truck.  Tatto, who fell occasionally as the truck travelled at a speed of 20 mph, luckily survived the ordeal.

I implore each and every one of us to think about who this leash represents for each of us.  Is it the secular world?  Or our own laziness and procrastination?  Or the Holy God?  As the leash moves, each one of us will follow.  The only thing that I wish for is for this leash to be God for each of us, to lead us to church on every Sunday.  Amen.