What does the Bible say about keeping the Sabbath?
EX 20:8 "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.
God asked the Jewish people to rest on the seventh day, not to do any work and keep this day holy. How does that apply to us? We know that before Jesus came and died on the cross the Jewish people had to follow the law given to Moses by God. This is one of these laws. What does the word Sabbath mean? It is derived from the Hebrew verb and means "to rest or cease from work". There are many examples that speak of keeping the Sabbath. On the Sabbath day the Jewish people would go to the synagogue (church) and worship as God asked them to do. Do we have to follow this law? Lets read out of Galatians.
GAL 2:15 "We who are Jews by birth and not `Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
GAL 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 5:2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
If we read this and look at it, we are told that we are no longer under the law, but if we keep one part of the law we have to keep all of the law. So does this mean we don't worry about keeping the Sabbath? There are examples of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, in other words breaking the Sabbath law.
Jesus talks of a sheep falling in a pit on the Sabbath. What do you do? You let it die or pull it out and do work on Sunday?
Here is a verse from Hebrews 10
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
What is the Conclusion:
I do not believe we are under the burden of keeping the Sabbath as in the Old Testament. The point Jesus is trying to make is that we should not be locked in and be religious about the Sabbath. But God wants us to spent time worshipping him. We need to spend time with him.
According to the verse from Hebrews we also need to spend time with other believers to help each other.
Here is the principle:
We work. We need rest. We need to spend time with God. We need to spend time together with other believers
Do we have to do this in the way it was done in the Old Testament? I do not believe so, but we do need to do it. I believe we can set up our own schedule and if we are serious about it, God will let us know if we are within his will.
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