Today, we come to the subject of congregational worship. This is a subject that I’ve been most anxious to address because we in the American church have a real problem when it comes to the weekly gathering of God’s people. I’ve already detailed in previous sermons the decline in church attendance and how the pandemic has caused an acceleration of that decline. This has all developed while we have tried to make church more attractive. One striking example is the Church of the Glades in Coral Springs, FL, where the pastor, David Hughes, says that he will do “anything to get your attention and keep you from falling asleep.” The church has gone so far as to have a circus act with dancers singing Britney Spear’s “Circus” and performers that spit fire.
As the saying goes, “what you win them with, you win them to.” We have become so concerned with delighting our members that we have forgotten our delight in God. We have forgotten that our God is loving and kind, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. We have forgotten that our God made us to find our delight in him, and as St. Augustine said, “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” We have forgotten that the commands of God are good and delight the soul. We have especially forgotten that when it comes to the weekly gathering of God’s people for the sake of worshiping him. So, over the next two weeks, I want to take the time to refocus around the delight that we find in our weekly, congregational worship. I want to do so by answering the questions of “when and where” by looking at the time and place of congregational worship. To do that, let’s consider the passage we’ve been working through from Deut. 6:4-15. This morning, I want you to understand that God calls us to order our lives around the weekly worship of Him so that we might find rest for our souls.
It should be apparent from Deut. 6 that God’s expectation for the people of Israel is that they would order all of their lives around their love for God. They were to talk about the commandments all the time and teach God’s law diligently. Moses gives the reason that they should be so diligent down in verse 12: that they may not “forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” One of those commandments that would keep them in the Lord is the fourth commandment, which we find back up in Deut. 5:12-15. This command to keep the Sabbath day has two components that I want you to see.
First, the fourth commandment calls Israel to rest. In verses 13-14, the command calls Israel to work for six days but to rest on the seventh. This rest is rooted in creation. Remember, in Genesis 2:1-3, after God created the heavens and the earth, the Bible says that he “rested from all his work that he had done. And he blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” So, the Sabbath day was meant to be a blessing, and Israel was called to do what God did, and rest.
This one day of rest was also meant to be a sign. God tells the Israelites in Ex. 31:12-17 that this weekly pattern of rest was to be a sign of God’s covenant. The fact that Israel took a break from their work once a week to worship their God marked them out as different from the rest of the world. The pagan nations around Israel worked their fingers to the bone seven days a week. They might take a little time during a day to offer a sacrifice to their gods, but they would go right back to work, because after all, the bills ain’t gonna pay themselves. But, Israel’s Sabbath rest proved to the world that the God of Israel could do what the pagan gods could not. The God of Israel would provide for his people.
The second aspect of the Sabbath is remembrance. Back in Deut. 5:15, notice that the command calls the people of Israel to “remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out.” The Sabbath was a day to remember, through rest, that God had redeemed his people from slavery. This remembrance was to be a collective act. In Lev. 23:3, the same commandment is stated like this: “six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.” The word, “convocation”, means an assembly. So, the people of Israel were to gather each Sabbath to remember God’s redemption.
Yet, in spite of the beauty of God’s rest that is pictured in the Sabbath, the people of Israel did not value what God had given them. They failed to teach their children the ways of the Lord. They failed to faithfully keep his Sabbaths. And, even when they did keep them, they incorporated the worship of other gods in their Sabbath convocations. So, in Ezekiel 22:8, God passes judgment by saying, “you have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.”
Even the strict Pharisees of Jesus’ day failed to understand the Sabbath as God intended. In Matt. 12, Jesus and his disciples were passing through a grainfield on the Sabbath, and as they did, they picked heads of wheat and sifted them for grain. When the Pharisees condemned them, Jesus answered by saying in v. 7: “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” Jesus, in that statement, claimed to have authority over the Sabbath. Later, in Matt. 11:28, he would call out, “come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The people were so weighed down by the judgments of the religious leaders that they could not find rest in God’s good laws, anymore. But, Jesus calls them to come to him, because only he could give them God’s rest. And on one dreadful Friday, Jesus would take a burden that we could not carry, as he would carry the yoke of a cross up a hill where he would die in the stead of sinners. His disciples would place his torn body in a tomb, and on the seventh day, the Lord of the Sabbath would rest.
Yet, it is with the resurrection of Jesus that a new pattern of life begins. After all, Jesus did not rise again on the seventh day, but on the first, and in that resurrection, he begins a new creation. Every time we find Jesus appearing to his disciples, he appears on the first day of the week. Pentecost, when the disciples were gathered together and the Holy Spirit descended on them, was on the first day of the week. Throughout the book of Acts and the writings of Paul we find that the church met on the first day of the week. They did this in the pattern of the Sabbath, but now rooted in the rest and remembrance of Jesus, and they called it “the Lord’s Day.”
Consider three ways that the Lord’s Day blesses us as a congregation. First, the Lord’s Day is edifying. Heb. 10:24-25 says, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Just as the Israelites were called to keep the Sabbath so that they would remain faithful, Christians are called to keep the Lord’s Day so that we might “stir one another up.” Brothers and sisters, I know there are a thousand things you think would be better to do on a Sunday morning, but you need to be here. Your sanctification depends on it. Your walk with Christ depends on it.
Second, the Lord’s Day is exalting. Just as the Sabbath was a sign to the nations that Israel was set apart by God, so too, our faithful commitment to the Lord’s Day is a witness to our dependence on Christ. You know, the world thinks we are weird for doing this every Sunday! They think it is so strange that a company that is owned by Christians would shut down for a whole day. They think it is odd that we won’t come to ball practice or that we have to leave early from the river because we won’t miss this day. That weirdness exalts Christ, and we should be glad to do it!
Lastly, the Lord’s Day is eschatological. Heb. 4:9-11 says, “So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.” This day, and every other day that we gather, looks forward to another day – the day in which all of God’s people, from every tribe, tongue, and nation will be gathered around the throne of God singing “Worthy is the Lamb!” This day ought to be filled with joy and singing and delight in the Lord because God has given us rest in Jesus Christ. There is a great day of rest that is still yet to come, and if we are going to make it to that rest, we need this day. We need a day, every week, to confess our sins. We need a day, every week, to hear the Gospel and be reminded of what Jesus has done. We need a day to pray for each other and hear of God’s great work in our midst.
In closing, I want to address a question that I’m sure many of you have: “what about my work?” Maybe you can’t be here every Sunday because you work on an oil rig, or you serve as a fireman, or you have to work a shift. First, let me just say that “work” is the #1 excuse I hear as to why people can’t make it to church, and there are times when that is believable and acceptable. But, I also believe that there are times when we keep ourselves busy, or we choose to work, not because we have to, but because we want the extra money. If you are taking on extra work that keeps you from being in church on Sunday just so you can have more things, you are not being obedient to the fourth commandment. Second, even if you absolutely have to work on Sunday, we have three different meeting times (twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday), and I’ve never met anyone who has a work schedule that would keep them from all three. Third, if you do have that kind of work schedule, you may want to consider finding other work that will allow you to have a day of rest in the Lord. Along with work that takes time away from our Lord’s Day, another trend is sports and leisure that keep us from it. Again, if you are practicing baseball when you should be observing the Lord’s Day, you need to at least tell the coach that you won’t be making it to those practices, or give it up altogether. And, if your lake house keeps you from weekly worship, then you need to sell it.
With all that said, there are legitimate times when we will have to miss Sunday worship. If you are a first responder or medical provider, the Bible explicitly endorses acts of mercy on the Sabbath. And, there are times when our “ox is in the ditch” and we have to work because there is just no other option. But even in those situations, I hope you will plan to come to the Sunday evening service as soon as you get off work or make plans to be here on Wednesday night.
Remember, God has not given us a day of rest for our harm, but for our good. God has made us so that we might find our rest in him, and we will not be satisfied until we do. We must order our weekly schedule around the Lord. We must gather together to remember and rejoice in what the Lord has done through Christ. It is in that regular, faithful worship of God’s people that we glorify God together and look forward to the day when he will give us heavenly rest.
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