New Covenant Heart, Part 3

Well, we once again want to welcome everybody to this series that we are currently giving here in the San Diego and Redlands Congregations. The name of the series is A New Covenant Heart Towards Christian Responsibilities. Over the last couple of messages, we've laid the plank. We've laid a foundation to build upon. We've established that in one sense that we are indeed under the New Covenant. With that said, though, there are still responsibilities that a Christian ought do as put forth in the Bible. Over the last couple of messages, we've laid down the plank that we come to understand that grace is the gift of God and that there is nothing that we can do, even by ourselves, on this earth down below that would merit salvation. Salvation, by God's grace, is indeed a gift. Salvation being eternal life. At the same time, we came to understand that it's not by our works that pleases God, but that it's by our faith that we are approved and that we are justified. So we laid down, if we might put it in the vernacular, a lot of serious plank. We talked about grace. We talked about the sense of faith. We talked about justification. A lot of what we may call strong, deep theological terms and understandings, but those are the very pillars of what the new covenant is all about. But then we came and we came to understand that, even with all of the stated, as we went through the book of Hebrews, and how the book of Hebrews elevates Jesus Christ up and up and up, and to recognize the magnificence of God's plan through Him. Nonetheless, we came to verse 4 and verse 9, which just kind of is set in there. Having said all of this, it says, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. The Greek in that is Sabatismos sabbalipatos, which simply means there remains, even with all of this said, even with grace, even with the aspect that we approach God with faith, even with the aspect that Christ is so much above the angels and Moses and Joshua and the earthly tabernacle, and all that is, and even with the better covenant, even with the better promises, even with the better resurrection that is assured us, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. We discovered in a fascinating sense that this is the only place where this Greek word is mentioned in the New Testament, and it's different than all the different rests that are mentioned in Hebrews 3 and 4, which is the word there is cataposis, which is talking about a spiritual rest. What is being mentioned in here is a technical observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath. That's the only way this word is used in any extra biblical literature. With that then found, we began to build our understanding then, if this be so, if we are under the New Covenant, yet there remains this rest for the people of God the Seventh-day, therefore then what are we to learn, and how do we approach it? Not just simply as individuals of old, but now under the New Covenant, what do we learn from it? How do we understand God's rescue and saving hand? How do we understand the relationships that come by that? The first point that we covered the second class was simply this, and I don't mean to go into it, I'm just building for those that weren't here. The first point that we covered is that a New Covenant heart will understand that the Sabbath is forever a memorial of God's plural acts of creation. It just didn't finish at Eden. God is continuing to create.

He is creating, and He continues to establish a relationship with those at him kicusis. He started with Adam and Eve. They rejected it. He then went to Abraham, and He accepted it. He then went to an entire nation, and we found that ultimately they rejected that, being the nation of Israel. But God forever made this day to help us to understand that while He, in a sense, rested after the earthly creation, He merely ceased, and He went on to a spiritual labor of fulfilling that which He desired at the very beginning, which was to make man in His image and after His likeness. This now moves us to the second point that I want to bring you today. We're going to try to go through two of these points. I hope that you will find them informative, and I hope that you will find them rewarding.

The next point that I want to share with in the aspect with the framework of approaching this Christian responsibility with a New Covenant heart is this. A New Covenant heart will view the seventh day as a day of freedom. A New Covenant heart will view the seventh day Sabbath as a day of freedom. Let's discuss that for a moment, okay? Some will say that God no longer requires the seventh day Sabbath observance. Why is that? Because they link it with the word bondage, and they link it with just simply the observance of the law.

At times, people will say the word Sabbath, and you will hear the echo of bondage. But the question we must clearly face today is not what does man say, but what does God say in His word?

This is a very important discussion. Here's the big question. Allow me to lay it out there for you, okay? Here's the big question. Can a good God make bad laws? That's it. Can a good God make bad laws?

Or is the bondage that is spoken of or addressed in Scripture, is it about obsessing over the law, making the law itself a God? Or is it the bondage that comes by thinking that the law is going to save you, and thus the law cannot save us, and thus we are faced with the curse of the law, and that is death? With that mention, join me if you would in Matthew 5, which is germane to our discussion today. Matthew 5. There are those that are sincere and believe in Christ, but basically have a limited view of what Christ did when He came to this earth during His earthly ministry. Many people think, and I do mean many, think that Christ came and basically did away with His Father's law. And by doing away with that, many people say that He was doing us a favor.

But let's look at the clear reference here in Scripture in Matthew 5 and verse 17.

Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but I came to fulfill. For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. I'd like to go over to the board here for just a second. Take a look at this, because basically what Christ is doing is He's giving a reference to the Hebrew alphabet. Now, in speaking of the Hebrew alphabet and Hebrew writing, I'm not going to go from this way to that way. So please understand all analogies break down. But let's use it with the alphabet that we kind of know. He's using the analogy of an alphabet. And basically what he is saying is that I have come to fulfill the law. The word out of the Greek literally means that I have come to just fill it up, just so it is overflowing. I'm sure we've all had that experience, even though we don't want it, where we've left the water on in a tub or a sink or in the kitchen and or just in our normal filling up or something. And we just fill it right up to the top and it just kind of cascades over. What Jesus was saying that when I came to show you how God would live if we were in flesh, because that's what Jesus was all about, I came not to do away with the law. I've come to just do it to where it is filling over. And he says, by the way, nothing is going to pass away. Notice what it says here when it says, till heaven and earth pass away. Now I've got a question for the audience. Has heaven and earth passed away yet? Or are we all alive and well and still in these physical bodies? Just a question. Just kind of reading the book. Just taking Christ at His word.

And he says, not one jot or tittle. So he's using the example of the alphabet. He says, not one speck of the alphabet. A jot would be like the the dotting like a jot. It would be like the the dotting of an eye or the dotting of a small case j. And a tittle would be like you know the crossing of a t. Basically what Christ is saying at this point, until heaven and earth pass away. Not one jot, not one tittle of the entire alphabet. The fullness of my father's law will pass away.

That's pretty plain. And so we have a responsibility to understand what our Savior is talking about.

Building upon that, then, let's go to a point that links the seventh day Sabbath with freedom. Join me if you wouldn't do it on me five. Normally people will go to Exodus 20 to explore the Decalogue and or the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 5 has another giving of that law. For those that are just awakening to the scriptures and wondering why Deuteronomy and why didn't Moses leave it all in the first four books of the Bible, let's understand something. The first books of the Bible were written to a people that were in transition. Israel was wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. It was given to a people that were not yet stationary. They were going around in circles, to put it bluntly. But God gave them a history, which is Genesis. He gave them a law, which is the book of Exodus. He showed that they were to be a holy people, which is the book of Leviticus. He talked about their problems in the book of Numbers. Now, what's Deuteronomy about? Deuteronomy is they are about to cross river. They are transitioning from being a people of pilgrimhood to a stationary nation. So Deuteronomy means the second giving. It's the second giving of the law. Not just simply law for those that are going to be pilgrims, but now those that are going to be a nation. And it's been 40 years. That's a long time. And so we have to go back to basics to remember why this whole thing started. With that stated, then notice what it says in Deuteronomy 5. And there's some interesting observations here as well. It says, breaking the thought, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Now, that's interesting in itself, and especially for some that are younger in this audience today, or young in the faith, it's very important to understand this concept. We don't make the Sabbath holy ourselves by how we keep it. We don't make the Sabbath holy. God already impressed His presence upon this day. He blessed it. He entered it. He put Himself into it. The day is holy whether you keep it or I keep it or not. We don't create holiness by observing the seventh day Sabbath.

But we have the privilege. We have the opportunity. We have the Christian responsibility under the new covenant to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Now, notice this. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your ox nor your donkey nor any of your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Now, we've all heard that, and you're saying, well, Mr. Weber, why are you reading this to us? And if you're asking that question, that's a very good question to ask at this point, because I'm now going to give you the answer. Because the account in Deuteronomy is different than the account in Genesis, and maybe you've never noticed that. In Genesis, pardon me, in Exodus, because in Exodus says, for in six days God made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is. But so in Exodus 20, it goes back to what? The account of creation at Genesis. But now, with what I've told you about, they're about to go into the land. Same law, but now a different rendering, a different facet. Let's look at it.

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath. Fascinating! Have you ever seen that before? Maybe you have. But it is telling of where we want to go in linking the Seventh-day Sabbath with freedom. What God is doing is He is drawing upon a relationship, a relationship that was based upon a rescue. Here were people that didn't have the opportunity that many people have to do, day and justice, to declare themselves a bank and therefore get a bailout and get rescued. Ancient Israel was not a bank, and there was no bailout. They had been in slavery for hundreds of years. They had no hope. They were disorganized. They were a disrupted people. They were a people that were not a people. They were slaves. They had no hope. They had no future. There was nothing that lay ahead of them other than the whip of the master.

And God took something which is His favorite thing to do. God took something which is nothing.

Nothing!

And He made it into something towards His glory.

Remember what we said is that creation did not end at Genesis, that the Sabbath reminds us of God's ongoing creation and acts of creativity, whether it be with Adam and Eve, whether it be with ancient Israel, and or whether it be with you and me, and the nothingness that He chose to begin to deal with when we were in our sins, when we were apart from God, and He revealed Himself to us. He said, just as much as He said to Adam and Eve, ancient Israel, and or us today, I want to be your God, and I want you to be my people. I am holy, therefore you be holy. Thus, what we see here is that the Sabbath is enfolded in the act of freedom. The Sabbath is, in a sense, a weekly July 4th to remind us of freedom, to remind us not only ancient Israel, but the Israel of God today. We were ensnared at one time. We were enslaved one time, and God came and rescued us. You know, I've always said this, and I will keep on saying this because it makes sense to me. I hope it makes sense to you. What is grace, and what is the rescue about? Simply this. When we've ever thought about a drowning person, a drowning person of and by themselves cannot save themselves. You cannot take your hand, hand, got your hand up here for a moment, hand, can't take your hand, and if you still have hair, can't grab your hair, I better grab in front, grab your hair, and you can't pull yourself up and put yourself on the side. That hand has to come from somewhere. There has to be another hand. There has to be another individual to be able to rescue a drowning person. And that's exactly what God did with ancient Israel and Egypt, and that's what God does with you and me. And he says, as I do, you keep the seventh day to remind yourself that I grant you freedom. That very same God that led Israel through the wilderness and gave them the law later came in the personage of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 10. Let's look at that for a moment. 1 Corinthians 10, where Paul links the past with what was then his present and those that he was teaching. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 1, Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.

So it's talking about not only a physical food, but a spiritual drink and a spiritual food. And notice what it says here, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 10 verse 1, Before the word that is revealed in 1 John 1, excuse me, in John 1, the gospel thereof, became the incarnate Jesus, God in the flesh, he had been the very same God that had led Israel out of Egypt and wretched them and gave them the law. This same God, then, here's what I want to bring to you. This same God that gave law to ancient Israel is the same one that later would come in fashion of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ, when he came to this earth, approached the Sabbath. And I'd like to use some very key words for you. And I wish you would jot them down, because I think these are words that we want to center on as Christians under the New Covenant. He approached the Sabbath with passion, with vigor, and with activity. Passion, vigor, and activity. Why? Because Jesus Christ looked at it as he had endorsed it in the book of Deuteronomy as the God of the Old Testament as a day of freedom, a day of taking off the chains and being liberated just as much as we find in this account in Deuteronomy. And we will find that it is fascinating now as we begin to explore some of the actual examples of Jesus in dealing with the Sabbath, to remember that more space in the Gospels is used concerning Jesus Christ about what he taught on the Sabbath about the Sabbath than any other subject that is in the Gospels. Isn't that fascinating? And he did it as a platform to always express God's goodness. Here's a point I want to share with you.

Important. He never discussed it in the sense of bondage, but he did discuss it as an expression of freedom and of liberation. How and why could he do that? Because he was the supreme interpreter of the law. He was God in the flesh. He came to this earth, friends, to show us that if God did come to earth and he was in this human tent, how God would keep the Sabbath himself. That's how important the example of Jesus Christ is. And when we look at it, what we will find if we are fair is simply that he is attacking external obedience that was not made by God, but was made by man. And that we will find that he will show that the Sabbath was not a day of bondage, of restriction. Here's the thought I want to share with you. I'm just kind of talking to some people that have kept the Sabbath day for some time.

Do you look at the Sabbath as being restrictive? Do you retract from life on the Sabbath day?

Do you stop planning acts of goodness and reaching out simply because the sun has sat? I think we're going to come to find that it was the man-made restrictions of the do-gooders of Jesus' day. The same people that added 39 different restrictions to the Sabbath. One was that if you know, and we've all had this experience, I hope it's not too gross, but you know, have you ever gotten a bug in your mouth? No, you didn't. It was not off for play, but it just kind of got in there. Am I like the only one? I've been in some joints. Okay, and the bug got in my mouth. Well, you know, you go, oh man, I got a bug in my mouth. Yuck! Well, what happened in the old days that if you had a bug under the religious folk of Jesus' day, if you got a bug in your mouth and you swallowed it, that was considered to be work.

Now, it's amazing how far the human mind can go, and we're going to talk about that.

The one thing that I want to share with you is simply this. And the point that I want to get across to those that may be hearing a message about the Sabbath day and have very sincere convictions about it one way or the other, but consider this. In the scriptural record, it is never recorded that Jesus did away with the Sabbath. He never did away with the Sabbath. He never abolished it. I'll give you a fancier word that is used in seminary. He did not abrogate it, which is just a fancier word for abolish. He did not put it on the shelf. You will never find, and I would be happy if you would come up to me and show me this in the scripture. And for those who will be listening to this message later, you can write me. You will never find that he said, I am the Sabbath. There are some sincere people that think that they've gone to school and gotten a degree and will tell other people that I, that Jesus basically said, I am the Sabbath. You will find nowhere in the Bible where Jesus said, I am the Sabbath. You will find that he says, I am the curielos. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I own it. I regulate it. I interpret it. I will share it. I will not only preach it, but I will teach it by my example as how to live it. But you will not find in scripture where Jesus says, I am the Sabbath. Period. Period. We need to understand that.

What you will find in scripture is every time that Jesus and the Sabbath are mentioned, he clarifies its purpose apart from human limitations. That's the only way I can put it. Any time you find Jesus and the Sabbath linked together in the Gospels, you will find how he clarifies its purpose of freedom apart from human limitations. And he addresses it both in word and deed as a day of activity and not passivity. That's what I'm kind of wanting our congregation to think about and do some heart work and to do some homework in your own mind and in your own heart as New Covenant Christians as to whether or not we are restrictive of ourselves on the Sabbath or do we look at the day of the Sabbath as a day of activity the way Jesus did? Let's understand this. Let's go to Matthew 12.

In Matthew 12 and verse 10, we have an example of Jesus and the Sabbath.

And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath that they might accuse him?

Now, you have to understand where people come to that point. Basically, in the community of that day, we will call it the community of Judaism, you could take care of people and you could bring them to the status quo if they had some kind of injury, but you could not make them well. You could not take the next step to address their needs. You could basically put them at a status quo point to where they are not bleeding, but you can't make them feel better. You can't make them better or that would have been regarded as work. You have to kind of understand the context of the day. The question comes, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath that they might accuse them? Then he said to them, what man is there among you who has one shape, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Or how much more value then is a man than a sheep, therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And then he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Now, man, you think everybody was happy and doing a high five to the kingdom? Wow! No? Notice what happens.

Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. And yet what we have here is we find freedom. And we find that Jesus, in his own words, says it is good to do good on the Sabbath. We find an active Savior doing works of activity that are good towards their fellow man on the Sabbath. Join me over now in Matthew 12 and verse 1 at the beginning of this chapter. Again, another story. At that time, Jesus went through the green fields on when? The Sabbath.

And his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said, Look! Now, I just say, Look, you have to say it wasn't just, Look. It was like, Look! What irreligious people! You have to understand what Look means. And he said, Look!

Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? And he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread from which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priest? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priest and the temple profaned the Sabbath, and yet they are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple.

What is this example about? Allow me to narrow it down and to crystallize it for you. What we find here is that what was going on was that, and even the example back in the time of David, this was not about harvesting. This was not about industrial labor of gathering, of plucking heads of grain as if you're going to go sell it. This was about survival. This was about eating. This was not about industrial labor. This was not about working for gain. This was not about working for money. This was not about effort, effort, effort. What we're finding here is that they were harvesting to survive. What we find here, then, if you want to jot this down as students and wanting to develop this point, is simply this, that Jesus, by his example, is showing mercy rather than religiosity. Mercy and common sense. Jesus himself applied common sense with spiritual sense to live out the Sabbath. Again, join me in Luke 13 and another Gospel in Luke 13.

Verse 10. Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sunday. Is that what your Bible says? Just trying to make sure you're awake. No? On the Sabbath! But why? To do away with the Sabbath? No! To show what God intended always about the Sabbath, that it was to be marked and coupled with freedom, with liberation, with the doing away of bondage. Not that it was bondage. And we find in Luke 13 and verse 10. Now when he was teaching one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, he called to her to him and said to her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, the religious folk of their day, those that were tradition-oriented and led by the rules, answered with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And he said to the crowd, There are six days on which men ought to work, therefore come and be healed on them, but not on the Sabbath day. And the Lord then answered, and said, Hibicret, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose as ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan is bound, think of it, for eighteen years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath.

What we find in this example, which is fascinating, is Jesus exercised the freedom that this day depicts to loose men and women from physical and emotional bondage. What do we then gain by these three examples that I've shared with you but for a few minutes?

The seventh day Sabbath, this rest that remains for the people of God, should offer us freedom to grow, freedom to serve, and freedom to be instruments in God's hand to lift burdens off of other people. You find in no sense that Jesus was a couch potato on the Sabbath day. Remember going back to the Genesis account when it says, and God rested. It means that he ceased. It didn't mean that he didn't stop his efforts. It didn't mean that he didn't keep on working in a spiritual sense, in a sense of restoring people. It says he stopped from what he was doing, which was a physical labor.

But there is so much spiritually that we can do, brethren, on the Sabbath day, in a spiritual sense of reaching out, getting into people's lives, working with them, lifting the bondage, creating freedom. What you basically find in Jesus' approach and what he's trying to tell we that are under the New Covenant is the Sabbath is a day to be thinking. To be thinking. It's a day that you have freedom to think as to how to serve others. Freedom to exercise God's Spirit, not from the outside in, but as Jesus did from the inside outward. Therein lies a big difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, that we are proactive and that we're thinking about how to serve our fellow man. Here's what I'd like to share with you as we go through this, and what we're looking at is in the framework of the New Covenant. If observing the Sabbath is shrinking your world, rather than expanding it, I want you to consider that maybe you need some course correction as a New Covenant Christian. In all of this conversation, I'm not talking about industrial labor. I think we all gone through that commandment already, and we understand what I'm talking about.

But on the Sabbath, do you retract from Christian responsibility, or do you extend yourself more than not just as Jesus himself did in the Gospels? Another thought. Perhaps you've gotten stuck on the rules alone, rather than recognizing that the relationship defines the rules and not the rules, the relationship that God desires of you, from you, for him, towards others, to be in the work of restoration and spiritual activity. Very important concepts, and you have to really think them through to recognize that God has not called us to be a couch potato on the Sabbath, but perhaps to be as active as ever in serving Him. And the actions that we take serving Him, to glorify Him, to lift the bonds from other people, just as our example Jesus Christ did. Now, with all this stated, before I move to the next point, I do want to share one short point with you, and something that we want to think about as Christians. You know, we have a unique example here when it talks about liberation, coupling it with the Sabbath.

Oftentimes people ask, maybe they've done this with you before, what church do you belong to? And you name the name of the name of church? Well, what's that like? That's usually the next question. And just to kind of make a conversation short, I'll say, well, we're Christian Sabbatarians. That usually suffices some. Others, I have to explain it to the next step. And, well, that's well and fine. But with that thought, nonetheless, let me mention something to you, and I want you to kind of think about it. At times, Christian Sabbatarians can make the fourth commandment seemingly the most important commandment of the ten. Whereas, other professing Christians can make it the least important and, or as you know and I know, non-existent.

Think about it for a moment. So where's the balance? Especially when you discuss Sabbath and freedom. True freedom only comes through God's blessings when in faithful obedience we strive to fully observe all ten. The Sabbath is one commandment out of the ten commandments.

But sometimes what we can do, because we do practice it, we do teach it, we do use examples of it. Like this series, we can somehow feel that it's the most important of the commandments. It's one of them. True freedom, true freedom, comes when we observe all ten fully and observe our Father's law. That leads me to the next point. It's a shorter point, but I'd like to finish you today to stay in tact here. Point number three, a Spirit-led New Covenant heart recognizes its need to rest in this physical life. A New Covenant heart recognizes its need for a day of rest in this physical life. That's very, very important. Sometimes, and we've all talked to well-meaning very sincere people, and they say the law has been done away with. We no longer need to observe that Sabbath day, because now we're just filled with God. What does that mean? What should we understand?

From the beginning, the Creator knew the creation needed a break from the stress mass. From the very beginning. After all, He is God. That's what makes Him God. He's the Creator.

He's the one that wound us up. He's the one that made us. And He put in the instruction manual, that six days shall you labor, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall rest. Now, sometimes people say, but I don't need to, because, well, I'm filled with the Spirit. Well, those are the same people that I always say, take the pen test. Just make sure you're still down here below, and that you're a human being. And if you say, ouch, that means you're not full of the Spirit. That means you're still a human being, and that you do need to rest.

Have you ever heard of someone wound up so tightly that they're about to snap? And maybe you've mentioned that to your mate at one time or another in a pleasant little conversation. You know, I'm just about to snap! And we're not talking about potato chips.

Yeah, we get so wound up. There's just so much on us. Just so much coming at us. So much at work. So much the next week. So much the next week. Got to do this. Got to do that. Got to do this. Got to write this. Got to get in that report. Got to buy this. Got to, you know, and got to, got to, got to, got to, got to, got to, got to, got to. Just like a, like a, a Gatling gun.

Allow me to share you a story. It's from Aesop Fables. According to legend, in ancient Athens, a man noticed a storyteller, Aesop, playing childish games with some little boys. And he laughed and jeered at Aesop, asking him why he wasted his time in such frivolous activity.

Aesop responded by picking up a bow and loosening its string and placing it on the ground. And then he said to the critical Athenian, now answer the riddle if you can. Tell us what the unstrung bow implies. Well, the man stared at the bow, stared at Aesop, stared at the bow for several moments, but couldn't solve the riddle. Then Aesop gave him the answer. If you keep a bow bent, it will eventually break. But if you let it have some slack, it will be more useful when you want it.

The bottom line, friends, is human beings, even under the new covenant, even filled with the Spirit of God. Yes, we're like bows. And we need to lay down, we need to take the string off, and we need time to relax. God, our Father, believes in work. He didn't make sick Sabbath and one day of work. He made it just the exact opposite. But He, as the Creator, knows how the creation is best to function, and He told us to relax. Would you join me over in Exodus 23?

Verse 12. Six days shall you do your work, and on the seventh day you shall notice rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger notice may be refreshed. On that seventh day, we are not only to rest, but we are to be refreshed. This is a fascinating word out of the Hebrew, and I need to share it with you. The word literally gives you the sense of to take a breath.

Just, let's look up here for a moment. I'll be the PowerPoint. This is my PowerPoint breath exercise. Just bring it all in and to fill up and get back all of those moments during the week that you've missed. Just let it in. Isn't that just neat when you can just let it in and just relax, and all that oxygen then just goes out to every tip of your appendages, toes, fingers, every bit of you, and you're just revitalized.

That's what it means. It also has the sense in the Hebrew of being breathed upon as by a fresh current of air. Some of us have been to Hawaii. Some of us go to Hawaii every year for the feast. And you know what it's like. Susan and I only experienced it once, you know, especially when Hawaii didn't have as much air conditioning as it does now, or does it? I'm watching. Got more.

But years ago, it didn't have... And so you had to wait for those trade winds. You know, you'd be in a condo, and all of a sudden, you know, just like the curtains would just billow, and they would just push out. You know, it gets mighty. Can I dare say this? Without a... It gets sticky over there in Hawaii.

I have no Hebrew word for sticky. You've got it. But then all of a sudden, those winds just, you know, they just kind of... And then you just see that curtain just blow out, and you say, hey, matey, let's get this ship going. And that's why they call them trade winds. That's exactly the effect that God wants to give us as a gift with the Sabbath to stop, to rest, to catch our breath.

Today, we'd say a timeout. Today, this commandment is more important than ever in the society that we live, in which technology is getting beyond our ability to handle it. I find, and I am concerned about the amount of busyness in our people's lives. With everything that's coming at us, I see people never relaxing now on the road. They've always got their cell phone going. They've got their text messaging going. Sometimes they're doing it at the same time with two different phones.

That really takes talent, even though they're not supposed to, because they're breaking the law. But everything is coming at you. Everything's coming at you. Computers at the speed of whatever, and the cell phones, and the texting, and gotta get there, and gotta answer this, and gotta get this answer. How often have you been in a...

Have any of you been in a conversation like I have, and then somebody all of a sudden says, then the phone will ring, and like your dad, you don't exist? I've got to get this. They go to the cell phone. Am I the only one? We're all a part of this team, right? You know, how many of you said, I've got to get this phone call, even when you're talking to somebody?

And it just goes on, and on, and on, and so much piling up on us, because we think we need to. We've got to get this. Because we think we need to. We've got to get this.

We've got to do this. We've got to do this. We've got to do that. Now that I've got you and gotten doing this, here's the point. That is why the Sabbath needs to be observed and understood by those of a new covenant heart. When we come to the Sabbath of the day and give God our time, which is actually His time that He's made holy, we're saying we're putting everything to rest. We're not doing our industrial labor, and we even refrain from doing other things that might not honor God, which we'll talk about in another message soon.

But we're basically saying is, it's not going to be by the works of my hands. I don't have all of the answers. I'm putting it down. I'm not just putting it down and holding on to it. I am going to rest, and I'm going to believe that God is going to make up the difference by me resting on this Sabbath day. And I'm going to give the honor.

You see, that is why, as we conclude today, friends, the Sabbath is not bondage, and it is not a fossil found in the sands of Sinai.

The Sabbath is a tool of grace.

Every seventh day, from sunset to sunset, when we rest from our labors, when we put everything down that we might be refreshed, and recognizing that our refreshment comes from God, we are saying it's not by the works of our hands, but it's by God's grace that salvation comes. I've given you some hard work to consider today, given you some homework to take home with you. I hope all of us here in the San Diego congregation, we that are under the New Covenant, can look at the Sabbath day as a day of liberation, as a day of expansiveness, as a day of activity, not just simply passivity. Ask yourself, honestly, have I been retracting? Have I been stepping back? Or have I been following the example of Jesus Christ in my approach, in my vigor, in my activity, as I come up to this day? Those are the questions I'll leave you with. Always remembering that a sermon is not the end of the discussion, but the beginning of the talk with yourself. And with your God.