holy sabbath

In the fourth Commandment, God commands His people to keep the Sabbath ("rest") day holy. We as believers keep the Sunday, the first day of the week, as our day of rest, instead of the traditional seventh day which is Saturday as the Jewish people keep today.

Two main reasons behind the change in date from Saturday to Sunday are:

• Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week. (ref. Matt 28:1-11)

• The early church met on the first day of the week for corporate gathering and worship. (ref. Acts 20:7)

The Sabbath Day was instituted by God in the beginning of the world. God created everything in six days, and on seventh, He rested. But not only did God rest on the seventh day, He did something even more significant:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Gen 2:2, emphasis added)

God wanted to give His children a day of rest from the toil of labor. We are to work for six days and rest the seventh. But the reason behind the command to rest is two-fold: physical and spiritual renewal.

We are in essence built to need a day of rest after six days of "labor."

No one can keep going for continuous days without facing the consequences, whether it be failed health or emotional and mental breakdown.

But even more significant is the spiritual aspect of this renewal.

Each Sunday when we come together to worship, these four things need to be accomplished; otherwise, we will find ourselves out of joints throughout the week spiritually, eventually affecting even our physical aspect of life:

• Remember God's faithfulness
  
• Refocus our purpose in life
• Reaffirm that God is in control
• Rededicate our lives to God
  

These four things constitute a necessary spiritual renewal that ought to be experienced and embraced each Sunday in corporate worship when brothers and sister come together in one place.

So how exactly do we keep the Sabbath day holy?

"Holy" simply means "to set apart" or "to separate."

First of all, Sundays ought not to be like any other in that it is not a time to indulge our need for simple distractive break from regular routine; it is not a "free day" to do as we please not limited by responsibilities work or school or other vocations presses upon us on other days of the week.

God speaks through Prophet Isaiah explaining what He desires from the Sabbath rest of His people and what we ought not to do.

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not or sdoing as you pleasepeaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13-14, emphasis added)

To put it simply, God blessed this day so that if we keep His commandment to keep it holy, not simply doing whatever we please but to spend it pleasing Him, in all that we do, God will bless the work of our hands, satisfy the desires of our hearts and grant us strength to overcome the days to come.

How you worship God on Sunday, in other words, will determine how you will spend the coming week.

Do you honor God by keeping the Sabbath Day holy in His sight? Or is this yet another no-school or no-work day to us as you see fit?

Let that incredible blessing of God be upon your life as you prepare your hearts to give your best each "Lord's Day" to He who gave His Best for pay for our sins and grant us eternity.

--from Nakwon EM Feb 18th Sunday Worship Service