04 God's Top Ten: The Sabbath Principle, Ex 20:8-11

So far in our study of the Ten Commandments we first learned that God will not allow other gods in our lives. He forces us to choose whether we want His blessing or the help these other spirits can give. Next, we learned that He measures our love for Him in part by the way we speak of Him. We trouble our lives when we profane His name. If, at times, we feel the need to say something emphatic we'd be wise to leave references to Him out of our statements. Instead we should always seek to glorify the name of the Lord we love.

Now we turn to the fourth commandment which says, "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." The "sabbath" is a much misunderstood concept in the church today. Certain groups have tried to reimpose a legalistic view and argue over which day of the week Christians must go to church, while others have decided the grace given to us in Jesus Christ means we have no obligation to give any day of the week to God. But clearly neither extreme takes seriously the truth Jesus revealed when He said, "The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath" (Mk 2:27). His statement tells us God gave the sabbath as an act of kindness because He knew we would need it. He didn't intend to set up a ritual in order to receive glory from our obedience to an arbitrary set of rules. He knew we would need a day of rest and knew it would help us learn to love Him.

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