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God’s
Constitution for Living
Grace
Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam
Chess
(Civil, Ceremonial, or Moral?)
God created this universe and everything in it in the first five
days of creation and declared it good.. On the sixth day God created
man and women and declared them to be very good. Adam and Eve
were perfect physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, etc.
Mankind rebelled against their sovereign Creator. Sin choked off
their relationship with God. God didn’t annihilate mankind for their
sins…he loved them, he pursued them. He set out to re-establish a
relationship with them.
He did that by choosing one man as a starting point; and out of that
man God grew a nation of people whom he worked with to re-establish the
bonds between sinful mankind and a holy God. He had to wrench their
minds away from an idol- worshipping, sinful focus and rebuild into
those minds a holy, moral focus. He had to, literally, start from
scratch defining for them what was morally right and what was morally
wrong. (What I’m calling God’s Constitution for Living)
Exodus 20: 1 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the LORD
your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
(condensed)>>>
3 "You shall have _____ other ______ before me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an _______
7 "You shall not ______ the ______ of the LORD your God
8 "Remember the _________ ________ by keeping it holy.
12 "______ your ________ and your _________
13 "You shall not ________.
14 "You shall not __________ _____________.
15 "You shall not ___________.
16 "You shall not give ________ testimony.
17 "You shall not _________
God went on to give pages and pages of additional laws… not designed
to bind up their lives with useless rules… God called it “becoming
holy” setting them apart from sensual, idol-worshipping lives to lives
lived in tune with God’s moral character. It wasn’t an easy thing for
God to do…. To move millions of people’s mind from paganism to
holiness.
Some of the Laws for holy living that God gave to the Israelites
apply to you today. Not all of them! Some of the laws God gave
Israel were just for them in that day and don’t apply to you today.
Some very much apply to your lives today… how do you figure out
which ones.
Ceremonial Laws:
2) Civil Laws:
3) Moral Laws:
Let’s look at a few and figure out what’s what: I chose these off
one page in Leviticus:
Leviticus 19:23-25 " 'When you enter the land and plant
any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden. For three
years you are to consider it forbidden ; it must not be eaten. 24
In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of
praise to the LORD. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit.
In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the LORD your God.
Civil, Ceremonial, or Moral?________________________
Leviticus 19:5-6 " 'When you sacrifice a fellowship
offering to the LORD, sacrifice it in
such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf. 6 It shall be
eaten on the day you sacrifice it or on the next day; anything left
over until the third day must be burned up.
Civil, Ceremonial, or Moral?________________________
Leviticus 18:21-24 " 'Do not give any of
your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane
the name of your God. I am the LORD. 22 " 'Do not lie with a man
as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. 23 " 'Do not have
sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A
woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual
relations with it; that is a perversion. 24 " 'Do not defile
yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations
that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.
Civil, Ceremonial, or Moral?________________________
The New Testament makes very clear that the civil,
and ceremonial laws served their purpose in the Old Testament and do
not carry through to you. It not just that you don’t have to obey
them….God is insistent that Jesus death and resurrection fulfilled them
and all who follow him are not bound by the old set of laws:
Colossians 2:13-14 ….God made you alive
with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the
written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that
stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
This does not apply to God’s moral code.
God’s moral laws are universal and are binding on
all peoples in all places, at all times. The new Testament, and
Jesus himself, took the moral codes of the Old Testament and made
them just as morally binding on New Testament believers.
Jesus, himself reiterates the Ten Commandments and
reinforces the fact that they are part of God’s universal morality that
applies to all mankind, at all times, in all places.
Actually, he reiterates all of them, but one,
and that one he gives a bit of a twist; It’s #4 and the number four
command in it’s entirety reads:
Exodus 20:8-11 "Remember the Sabbath day by
keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you
shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor
your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien
within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and
the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the
seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it
holy.
I have to be very, very careful what I say to you in
the next few minutes. You probably all know that the Sabbath day was/is
not Sunday, the day we are meeting here for worship…but Saturday.
Yesterday, on the Sabbath I worked from 5:00 am.. till evening without
a thought about desecrating the Sabbath.
To most of Christianity, except the Seventh Day
Adventist and a sprinkling of other small groups, the Observance of
Sabbath and its associated laws was a Jewish thing that went out with
the Death and Resurrection of Christ…... But before we get too cocky
let me remind you that the fourth commandment shows up in the middle of
nine others that are all, clearly, part of God’s eternal, moral law.
We need to be careful….make absolutely sure, that
whatever reason God had for including #4 in the list of ten…..we get
it!
God had more severe punishments in place for breaking
this one, than he did for many of the others:
Exodus 31:14 " 'Observe the Sabbath, because it
is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death;
whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.
15 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a
Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the
Sabbath day must be put to death. 16 The Israelites are to observe
the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a
lasting covenant. 17 It will be a sign between me and the
Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and
the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and
rested.' "
There are actually some clue in that passage…did you
see them? What was the purpose of the Sabbath?
Sign of God’s covenant with Israel: “The
Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the
generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign
between me and the Israelites forever…”
For Humane reasons: You can’t keep a violin
strung at concert pitch all the time or it will break. You can’t
keep a man or woman strung at concert pitch…
Why did this happen?:
Genesis 2:2-3 By the seventh day God had
finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he
rested from all his work. 3 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.
God sure didn’t rest on day seven because he was
tired! So what was God trying to say by taking one day off in seven and
then….. emphasizing to the Israelites the fact that one day in seven
was to be so completely cut off from normal activities, that it was to
be a sign of Israel’s covenant with God and to break that covenant
would bring a penalty of death?
What we do know is that Israel, much like they took
very seriously the honoring of God’s name…took very seriously the
honoring of the Sabbath. They went overboard trying to be careful not
to step over the line.
We find out more as we go on into the Law. God began
to give additional command concerning how they were to worship and what
was to be included in their sacrifices and offering and the lo and
behold, the weekly day around which this worship was to take place was
the same day God had set aside for rest.
What a coincidence! God gives the world the example
of a day of rest. He then commands Israel to rest on that day or they
will suddenly enter their eternal rest. He then unfolds a pattern of
using that resting day for worshipping him. God even promises them
inner blessing as a reward for keeping a day set aside for Him.
Isaiah 58:13-14 "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
doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 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."
So what’s with the fourth commandment? Do we keep
everything it says to the letter?
Exodus 35:1 Moses assembled the whole Israelite
community and said to them, "These are the things the LORD has
commanded you to do: 2 For six days, work is to be done, but the
seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD.
Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. 3 Do not light a
fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day."
So is that it? Don’t light your stove… don’t turn on
your heat (or air)… don’t turn on any switches in your house. Don’t
start your car…don’t do anything that could be construed as work….
Don’t do anything that would make someone else have to work.
The Jews tried it…more or less. It was impossible.
They developed ways to cheat. They could walk a Sabbath days journey
(2/3 mile)..but if they left a piece of clothing there they could walk
another 2/3 mile. They could eat two meals in one home but if they ate
in two homes they didn’t have to count the distance between…..(Mishnah)
Stay with me here and let me try to explain this so
we can all understand:
The Sabbath was God’s covenant day with the
Children of Israel. The foundation on which the Sabbath laws were
based was ceremonial law and does not carry over into
Christianity.
The principle of one day of rest out of seven
was based on Creation and is a principle that applies to all
mankind.
The principle of one day out of seven, to focus
on worship, while started with the Sabbath has implications into
the present.
Pastor, you had better be sure… If the punishment for
breaking the Sabbath was to be death, you better not be telling us that
the Sabbath laws don’t apply now… unless you a real, real sure.
I’m real, real sure…I think!
Actually, the reason I am so sure comes from none
other than Jesus, Himself….
We know what Jesus response to worship and the
Sabbath was:
Luke 4:16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been
brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as
was his custom. And he stood up to read.
It seems likely that Jesus used the Sabbath as the
day to rest from his labors, and to focus on worship. Notice, Luke
doesn’t say he stayed home and watched a TV preacher, completely cut
off from other believers.
How focused was Jesus on making sure he kept all the
Sabbath laws?
Not so much…Six times he has run-ins with the
religious leaders on this very issue….
Mark 2:23-28 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking
through some grainfields, his disciples began breaking off heads of
wheat. 24But the Pharisees said to Jesus, "They shouldn't be doing
that! It's against the law to work by harvesting grain on the
Sabbath." 25But Jesus replied, "Haven't you
ever read in the Scriptures what King David did when he and his
companions were hungry? 26He went into the house of God (during the
days when Abiathar was high priest), ate the special bread reserved
for the priests alone, and then gave some to his companions. That
was breaking the law, too." 27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath
was made to benefit people, and not people to benefit the Sabbath.
28And I, the Son of Man, am master even of the Sabbath!"
God had set up rules to help
people get unlocked from their paganism and locked into habits of
worshipping God. In time people left
worshipping God and set out to worship the rules.
Jesus says…You’ve lost the main point. One day in
seven was given to you as a gift from God to allow you to defrag
from life and refocus your attention on what really matters… the
eternal!
“All the additional Sabbath laws with Israel were to
teach them about their special covenant relationship with God but you
guys have turned it into a legalistic exercise.”
Instead of seeing it as a positive…one day a week you
don’t have to go to work and you get to refocus your worship toward
God… you started emphasizing the negative. You’re saying that hungry
men, who are allowed, by law to glean grain as they walk through a
field are breaking the Sabbath by rubbing off the corn and lifting it
to their mouths.
The Sabbath was made to benefit people, and not
people to benefit the Sabbath!
We know how the early church responded to this issue.
They dumped Saturday, completely, as their rest day and re-established
the rest/worship day on Sunday immediately after the Resurrection of
Jesus…. which happened…. On Sunday.
I fully believe that was something Jesus taught them
to do before he ascended.
Remember the Jerusalem Council where the Jewish
church decided, once and for all, which things they would enforce on
the new Gentile Christian Church.
Four things…guess what’s conspicuously not on the
list? Observing the Sabbath!
There’s more
Hebrews 4: 1Therefore, since the promise of
entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you
be found to have fallen short of it. 9There remains, then, a
Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God's
rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let
us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one
will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Jesus doesn’t just fulfill the Sabbath by his death
and resurrection….. He isn’t just Lord of the Sabbath on this earth. He
becomes the “Sabbath rest” for the people of God. Our relationship with
him and the promise of an eternity spent in his presence becomes the
ultimate Sabbath rest that we are all called to participate in
Conclusion: Application to our modern lives.
Are you going to get all tied up in Sabbath
laws? No!
What about the principle of one day of rest in
seven… what are you going to do about that?
Are you following Jesus example of using your rest
day to refocus your worship on your loving Creator in cooperation with
other believers.
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