Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church. My name is Matthew Capone and I'm the pastor here and it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
If you've been with us, you know that we are in the book of Nehemiah.
And as we come today, a special welcome if you are new or visiting with us. We're glad you're here.
And we're glad you're here not because you are filling a seat, but because we are following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we are convinced that there is no one so good that they don't need God's grace.
And no one so bad that they can't have it.
And so everyone needs to hear what God has to say in his word and God has something to say to everyone.
It's with that that we come to Nehemiah. If you've been with us, you know we're at the end.
There's two endings. We had the first ending to the book.
And this is a book about a man named Nehemiah.
And this man lived in the 5th century B.C.
He returned to his homeland of Israel from living in Persia to help rebuild Jerusalem, the city that had fallen.
And it had led to the exile of God's people, the Israelites.
And they were led by Nehemiah in rebuilding this wall, this great work that we've seen for so many chapters.
And we saw that celebrated at the very end of the first ending in Nehemiah chapter 12.
We saw the joy that comes from the completion of God's work, the finishing of the wall.
The wall had been finished after the temple, which was also completed.
And so there was this great construction project to finish everything that had fallen down with God's city.
But now we come to the second ending.
And in the second ending, if you remember, when Nehemiah had left Persia,
he made a promise to the Persian king that he wasn't going to go forever.
He wasn't going to just leave.
He was going to return.
And so in chapter 1, they set a date that Nehemiah would return.
He was only in Jerusalem for 12 years helping rebuild the wall.
And then he returns.
And at some point after he's returned to Persia, he asks permission to come back a second time.
And when he comes back a second time, he discovers that God's people,
who he had been working with to rebuild God's wall,
and returned to God's word and walk in God's ways,
in just a few short years had turned away from God's word and his ways.
And as anticlimactic as this ending seems,
when we've had such a great celebration in chapter 12,
it's a helpful reminder to us from the author of Nehemiah that
there is no idealism in the Christian life.
We never arrive.
Renewal and repentance and turning back to God are something that happen over and over again.
So last week we saw that Nehemiah confronted the problems that had happened with people
that had ceased to give the tithe.
The temple was no longer supported, and so God's worship and his presence were neglected.
And this week we're going to talk about not the tithe, not God's money, but the Sabbath, God's time.
And as we come to it, I'm reminded of an article that I came across recently
about many people in South Korea who are choosing to pay for the opportunity, the chance, the privilege of going to prison.
There's a new industry that's cropped up where you can pay a service to be allowed to enter a prison for several days.
Of course, these are slightly artificial.
They're not run by the government.
But this is your chance once and for all to actually get a break.
And so people who enter these prisons, they're not allowed to bring their cell phones with them.
There's no internet.
They don't have any connection to the outside world, and they're willing to pay $90 a day to have this.
And so in this article there's a few especially delicious quotes, and this is one of them.
This prison gives me a sense of freedom.
This is said by a 28-year-old office worker who paid $90 to spend 24 hours locked up in a mock prison.
Since 2013, the, quote, prison inside me, end quote, facility has hosted more than 2,000 inmates.
Many of them stressed office workers and students seeking relief from South Korea's demanding work and academic culture.
After a stay in the prison, people say, this is not a prison.
The real prison is where we return to.
And if that story resonates with you at all, it's because it highlights something that is true.
And it's that our need for rest, our need to take a break, our need for a day off, is not less important than it was in the Old Testament.
It's not less important than it was in Nehemiah chapter 13, but in fact, if anything, it's more important.
I mentioned last week that we live as people in the richest society, perhaps in the history of the world.
And you might also argue that we live in the busiest society in the history of the world.
And so things have not changed that much in 2,500 years.
And just like every part of God's word, as we come to talk about the Sabbath, the idea of taking off one day in seven for worship and rest,
it is meant to give us life.
And so that's where we find ourselves as we come to this second ending of Nehemiah,
that God's people return not just to his money, but also to his time.
And so we're going to talk about this Old Testament concept of the Sabbath.
And we're also going to talk about how it transfers over to us today in the New Testament.
This is an area of a lot of confusion for many Christians.
We might say, well, isn't that just an Old Testament thing that we don't observe?
Isn't that a Jewish ceremony?
We might say, isn't that something that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for?
Isn't that something that's just legalistic that people do when they're trying to prove something to God?
Nehemiah is going to hopefully show us a little bit of a third way.
This is not something that we ignore on the one hand.
It's not something that's legalistic on the other, but it's part of everything that we've seen in the book of Nehemiah.
That is, we return to God's word and his ways.
Those are things that God has given us that we would live and have life.
And so it's with that that we come to Nehemiah chapter 13.
You can open your Bibles or turn on your phones,
or you can follow along near the back of your worship guide.
This is printed for you, and we're going to be starting at verse 15.
As we come to God's word, remember that God tells us that his word is more precious than gold,
even the finest gold,
and that it is sweeter than honey,
even honey that comes straight from the honeycomb.
And so that is the reason that we turn to Nehemiah chapter 13, starting in verse 15.
Please read with me.
In those days I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath,
and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys,
and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads,
which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.
And I warned them on the day when they sold food.
Tyrians also, who lived in the city,
brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath
to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself.
Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them,
What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?
Verse 18.
Did not your fathers act in this way,
and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city?
Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.
Verse 19.
As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath,
I commanded that the doors be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath.
And I stationed some of my servants at the gates,
that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.
Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.
But I warned them and said to them,
Why do you lodge outside the wall?
If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.
From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath.
Verse 22.
Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves
and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath day holy.
Remember this also in my favor, O my God,
and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.
Please pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Father in heaven, we thank you for your word again,
that you have given it to us,
that you speak to us.
You don't leave us alone to stumble in the dark
trying to figure out the right thing to do or the right way to go.
But instead, you've given us your word that we would know you and know your ways.
We thank you that you are a God of rest
and that you offer us rest, not just now in our physical bodies,
but you offer us rest as we can cease from trying to earn anything from you
because Jesus has earned everything for us.
We ask all of this because he's earned it for us,
and so we ask it in his name.
Amen.
We saw last week Nehemiah's frustration and anger
over everything that had happened with God's people neglecting the tithe,
and unfortunately for him, it hasn't stopped.
They're not just neglecting supporting the temple,
but they're also neglecting the day on which they would have worshipped the Sabbath day.
And as he comes in, he finds out that people are doing all kinds of work.
Now, at this point, we have to stop and back up
because the Sabbath is something that's not necessarily as familiar in our society and our time,
and so the Sabbath is something that we saw at the very beginning of the Bible.
It shows up in Genesis when God creates the world.
It's the seventh day that he rests.
He spends six days working, and on the seventh he rests.
He then reminds his people of that in Exodus chapter 20
when he gives them the Ten Commandments,
and he gives it to them as the fourth commandment
that they would remember and honor the Sabbath day,
and that's the reason given that they would rest on the seventh day
because God rested on the seventh day.
And then in Deuteronomy chapter 5,
they're reminded again of the Ten Commandments,
and the fourth commandment is again stated that they'd honor the Sabbath day.
This time, though, a second reason is given.
The first reason that God rested, and so they should rest.
The second reason that they were slaves in Egypt.
But now they're not slaves anymore.
In other words, God has redeemed them,
and so they don't have to work every single day like they did when they were in Egypt.
They don't need to live as if they belong to the Egyptians anymore
because God has redeemed them and brought them out of slavery.
And so it's in that context that Nehemiah is coming,
that he knows that God's people have been commanded to take one day out of seven
and to not work.
They've been commanded to take one day out of seven to rest and to worship God.
It's with that passion and that zeal that Nehemiah shows up
and discovers all the ways that this is being violated.
God's people are doing their own work on the Sabbath.
Verse 15, they're trading wine presses and grain.
They're dealing with the harvest.
There's also people who are outside of Jerusalem who are not Israelites,
who are coming in and taking advantage of the fact that this is one more day
that they can sell and do business.
This is another chance for them to increase their bottom line and their profit.
Seeing that, then Nehemiah, verse 17, confronts them
and points out that this is not just a bad idea.
This is an evil thing that they're doing, profaning the Sabbath day.
And then we begin to understand Nehemiah's passion about this in verse 18.
Did not your fathers act in this way,
and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city?
Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.
In other words, Nehemiah has worked for years to turn God's people back to God's ways.
He and the people who have returned to Israel and Jerusalem are those who made it through the exile.
They made it through God's judgment when God's people failed to be a light to the nations.
And now, after he has reached that exact moment,
the place where he feels like they've turned the corner,
they've repented from the things that led them into exile,
it's at that very moment that God's people begin to turn away again.
It's almost like you're a parent,
and you've worked for years and years and years to raise and nurture your child.
You've seen them launch well into adulthood.
They've had some experiences of success.
They've made wise choices.
And then suddenly you look and you see them doing something incredibly foolish.
And you think, of all the work that I've put in up to this point,
am I going to let it all disappear now?
Of all the investment that I've made, am I willing to see it go and be nothing?
And that's the passion that Nehemiah has here in verse 18,
like a parent to a child who has worked so hard with these people to turn them back to God's ways.
He wants to do everything to pull them back from the brink of returning again
to living as if there's nothing different about them from the rest of the world.
Now, why was it that God brought disaster on these people for profaning the Sabbath?
Why was it in the Old Testament and the prophetical books that over and over,
this was one of the main reasons that God tells his people that judgment is coming?
Well, first of all, one of the main reasons that judgment comes on Israel
is because of their oppression of the poor.
Now, think about this. This is true even in our own society.
Who is it that has to work seven days a week?
There's probably two categories of people.
One, the hyper-wealth and the hyper-rich who have the option to
and choose to do that for a limited amount of time.
And then two, the poor who have no choice.
And so this was part and parcel of everything that Israel was doing to neglect
caring for those who were the most marginalized in their society.
That's part of why God's wrath was coming because of their neglect of the Sabbath.
They were making people who desperately needed rest to work.
But the other reason that they went into exile is they had neglected their relationship with God.
And so neglecting the day that they would work and build and worship with him.
It was part of what severed their relationship with him.
And so it's with that that Nehemiah comes, not with legalism here,
but with an understanding that this is part of how God had given his people life.
And in turning away from it, it's part of how they had turned to death.
And so like a parent to a child, he comes in saying,
No, come back from the ledge.
We've done so much work to get to this point,
and now you turn away from one of the things that was most important
in us returning back to God and his ways.
This is the same thing that we see in Mark chapter 2 when Jesus talks about the Sabbath.
He says that the man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.
In other words, the Sabbath was meant to be a blessing to God's people.
It was meant to give them rest when they needed rest.
It was meant to call them back to God and their relationship with him
when they needed to be called back.
It was meant to remind them that they weren't just economic beings or slaves,
but they were people.
People meant for more than just a 9-to-5 grind.
So as we come to this, we've talked about the story here of Nehemiah.
It's a pretty brief story.
He comes, he encounters the Sabbath.
People are breaking it.
He corrects it.
But that's going to raise other questions for us as well
as we look on this Old Testament story.
And so I'm going to ask three questions.
First, why is the Sabbath good?
Why is it worth protecting?
Why is it something that we should want?
Second, how does the Sabbath apply?
Does the Sabbath apply to us today?
And really, I'm going to argue that there are certain ways in which it does.
And then after that, if it does transfer over in some way
from the Old Testament to the New Testament,
how do we apply it?
Why is the Sabbath good?
How does it relate from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
How do we apply it today?
First, why is the Sabbath good?
And as we ask that question, I'll ask you a question.
What do you call someone,
biblically speaking, in terms of the Bible and its language,
what do you call someone who works
seven days a week?
You call them a slave.
If someone works seven days a week,
they are a slave.
That's the reason given in Deuteronomy chapter 5,
as I mentioned before,
that God's people should honor the Sabbath,
that they are no longer slaves in Egypt,
that this is God's gift to them.
In other words,
he is a better master than the masters they served in Egypt.
He's one who actually cares for his people,
who's not just using them.
And so the Sabbath is good because it gives us rest.
We're humans.
God has not designed us to be machines.
He hasn't designed us to be slaves.
Instead, he knows that there's so much more to our lives
than our economic endeavors.
And so he wants to give us a great gift,
that there would be a day that we could not work
and have no guilt about it.
That we would know that we can trust God enough for that.
The second reason that the Sabbath is good,
besides the fact that it gives us rest,
that it no longer makes us slaves,
is that it protects us from ourselves.
We are,
the Israelites were threatened in Egypt
by others who would make them slaves.
And yet, especially in America,
we have faced the threat of wanting to make ourselves slaves.
We live in a society that values productivity,
that values just being able to try to squeeze in a little bit more.
If we can just take the toothpaste and push it another time,
maybe we can get a little bit more out.
And so God protects us from destroying ourselves.
You can work seven days a week
for a certain amount of time.
You can't do it forever.
One of my favorite quotes comes from a man named Cary Newhoff
who says,
Either you take the Sabbath,
or one day the Sabbath will take you.
Either you take the Sabbath,
or the Sabbath will take you.
In other words,
you can get away without resting for a certain amount of time,
but at some point it will catch up with you.
Another friend of mine in seminary put it this way,
That's great if you don't want to take a day off.
Just give me a call in 30 years
and let me know how it worked out.
There's something about the Sabbath
that has a cumulative effect.
And God, being wiser than us,
knows that we need a reminder.
We need protection.
We need good boundaries and limits on our time.
So the Sabbath is good because it gives us rest.
It's good because it protects us.
It's also because it reconnects us with reality.
We live in a world that is insane.
There is a certain insanity to the 24-7 cycle of our world.
And it's something that we face in 2019
more than anyone else ever has.
And so as important as the Sabbath was in Nehemiah's time,
I would argue it is even more important today.
that we need a time to stop and remember
that we are not just workers.
We're not just machines.
And we're not what our society tells us
that it wants us to be.
We're not just consumers.
There is something more important about us
than what we do with our money.
There is something more important about us
than our ability to consume and to buy.
And so halting our economic lives,
halting our work,
helps us remember who we actually are.
It connects us with reality.
The Sabbath is good because we desperately need rest.
Sabbath is good because often we're too stupid to take it.
And the Sabbath is good because it helps us understand
what's really true.
Imagine for a second that your employer came to you
and they said,
we have a new HR policy.
We're going to be really strict
about policing, vacation, and time off.
You thought,
oh no.
I hope that
they're not going to
lessen the amount of vacation time I take.
I hope they're not going to suddenly start counting days
that I didn't think they were counting.
But the next thing they say is,
we are going to mandate that all of you
take every single one of your vacation days.
In fact, if you don't take your vacation,
you're going to be in trouble with us.
You're going to be an employee.
You're going to get a bad work review.
You're not going to receive meets requirements.
You're going to receive needs improvement
on your performance review
if you haven't taken all your vacation time.
And we're going to have to talk about
an accountability plan for you
that you'd be willing to take more time off.
What would you call that employer?
What would you say about them?
Would there be articles
about the legalism
of this company
and how they were just cruel
to their employees?
No, there would be articles
about how counterintuitive it is,
how radical this is,
and how much this employer
cares about their employees.
That their HR policies,
instead of policing to make sure
people are at work
when they need to be at work,
they're policing to make sure
people are resting
when they need to rest.
Kids, let me ask you this.
What if your parents came
and said to you,
it is really important to us
that you take a day off
from doing chores and homework?
In fact, it's so important to us
that we're going to stop you
if you try to do it.
What kind of parents would you have?
That's right.
Awful, terrible parents.
I cannot imagine having parents like that.
I hope you don't have parents like that.
I hope your parents make you work
seven days a week.
Just kidding.
Let's take that a step further.
What if your parents came to you
and said,
we know that mom and dad
are really busy.
And we're busy with many things,
and there's times that we don't spend
a lot of time with you all.
But there's going to be one day a week
that we're going to make sure
we're not busy.
And on that one day a week,
we're going to make sure
that we're going to rest
and we're going to spend time with you.
Now, if you're a kid listening to this,
some of you might be thinking,
oh no.
But hopefully you're thinking at last.
There's a blessing
and a goodness
and a provision
to God giving rest to his people.
But there's a catch, right?
Why is the Sabbath so hard?
The catch is that
if your parents came and told you
you're not allowed to do any chores on Sunday,
what would that mean for you?
You'd have to get them done
the other six days of the week.
And if your employer came
and mandated that you take vacation,
what would you have to do?
You'd have to budget
the rest of your time well.
And so the Sabbath is hard
for the same reason
that tithing is hard.
There's a relationship, by the way,
between tithing and the Sabbath.
They're similar.
And they're similar in the sense
that we have to trust God.
We have to trust God
that he's going to be willing
and able to provide for us
with less than we think we need.
If we're tithing,
we have to trust God
that he's going to provide for us
with 90% of our income.
If we take a Sabbath,
we have to trust God
that he is going to care for us
and provide for us
and sustain us,
even if we rest.
And so there's the same principle here
that just as we do this
when we tithe,
when we take a day off,
we express our trust
and our confidence in God.
And not only do we express
our trust and our confidence in God,
we also build it.
Just as when we tithe
and we see God
still provides for our needs,
so when we take a day off,
we see that God
still cares for us.
The world does not come
to an end.
Now, many of you
are probably thinking,
this sounds great,
I'm happy to take a day off.
In fact, I believe in the principle
of taking a day off.
I just don't think
the Sabbath applies
in any way
to us today.
I don't think
this Old Testament rule
applies in the New Testament.
And I'm going to make
a brief argument
for the application
of the Sabbath
from the Old Testament
to the New Testament.
I realize we're not all
going to agree about this,
that's okay.
I'm also going to make
a brief argument,
not a long argument.
You're welcome.
But that's to say
that if you have questions,
I am happy to talk
about this more.
So I'm not going to say,
as I said last week,
I'm not going to say everything,
but I'm going to say something.
And that's not a cop-out,
but it is an invitation.
So if you'd like to talk more
about the relationship
of the Old Testament
to the New Testament,
of the Sabbath
to New Testament Christians,
I'm happy to do it.
I'm more than happy
to sit down
and have that conversation.
But I'm going to make
a brief argument right now
for why the command
from God to rest
one day out of seven
still applies to us.
And at this point,
I'm hoping that you hope
it still applies to us, right?
If God commands
that we take one day
out of seven,
then we have a really
good excuse to do it.
First reason,
it applies today.
It's one of the Ten Commandments.
So the Ten Commandments
express God's moral law.
That's his law
that's unchanging
throughout time.
And God decided
to put it in the Ten Commandments
to make it clear to us
that this is something
that's for all people.
Second,
it's rooted in creation
and redemption.
It's part of
the creation story
that God took
one day off in seven.
It's not something
that just appeared
magically
when God's people
left Egypt,
but it's something
that was intended
from the very beginning
of the world.
So it's rooted in creation.
Second,
it's rooted in redemption.
We're told in Deuteronomy 5,
as I mentioned before,
that the reason
for the Sabbath
is that God's people
aren't slaves anymore.
And when
Jesus rose from the dead,
we did not suddenly
become slaves
in Egypt again.
In fact,
if anything,
we are even more,
we have an even
greater redemption.
Now at this point,
you're thinking,
you might be thinking,
well,
the Sabbath in the Old Testament
was on Saturday,
and that's the seventh day.
And you'd be right.
So what changes
in the New Testament?
In the New Testament,
we see a change
from the seventh day
to the first day.
And there's all sorts
of reasons for that.
The primary reason is
it's the first day
of the week
is the day
that Jesus rose
from the dead.
Another way of putting it
would be this.
God rested on the seventh day
from his work.
What day did Jesus
rest from his work?
The first day,
because that's the day
he rose from the dead.
God rested on the seventh.
Jesus rested on the first.
People in the Old Testament
looked forward
to God's redemption,
so they started the week
and looked forward
to the seventh day.
We start our week
knowing about God's redemption.
So the moral command
still remains.
It's in the Ten Commandments.
The day has changed.
We see that because
it's modeled in the New Testament.
We see Christians meeting
on the first day of the week.
That's when they meet.
We see them meeting
with Paul in Acts chapter 20
when he preaches.
That's when Eutychus,
by the way,
falls out of a window
and dies.
That's a whole other story.
Paul preaches for too long.
So if you ever want
to confront a preacher
about preaching too long,
you can remind them
that people die sometimes
when you talk for too long.
We also see in 1 Corinthians
chapter 16,
Paul commands the church
to be collecting their tithes
on the first day of the week.
And it's something that we know
just from the history
of the church, right?
As we look back
to the beginning,
the reason we meet on Sunday
is that this is what
the church has done.
There was an understanding
that the day changed.
I'm well aware
of Paul's words
in Romans 14,
Colossians 2,
Colossians 4
about Sabbath days.
I'm just going to say briefly,
I think two things
are going on there.
One, there was a transfer
when people who were Jews
then became Christians.
Some of them wanted
to continue observing
the Sabbath day on Saturday.
So I think part of what
Paul's talking about there
is that observance.
And part of what he's
talking about is
the many ceremonial feasts
and events that went along
with the Sabbath.
Again, we can talk about
that more at another time
if you'd like to.
And finally,
of my short,
now slightly long argument,
Hebrews 4 tells us
there remains a Sabbath
for God's people.
That we have not fully
entered the rest
that Christ offers for us,
but we persevere
and we look forward to it.
So that's my brief argument
for you,
that the Sabbath
still applies today.
We can talk more
if you'd like.
This is also,
by the way,
I'll give a two-second plug
for Chris Bradley's
Ten Commandments
Sunday School class.
This is why we continue
to study God's Word
after we have
our worship service
because this is a time
for us to delve deep
into some of these questions
and that Sunday School class
has done that.
So if you've been in that class,
you have spent
a much longer time
than I'm able to devote
to this talking about
the Old Testament Sabbath
and how it applies
to the New Testament.
Finally,
if the Sabbath is good for us,
if it's God's gift
and it still is in effect today,
how do we apply it?
Quite simply,
if we are able to,
we don't work on Sunday.
Al Clark tells me
that spreadsheets
are work for him
so he does not open up
Excel on Sunday.
If you're a student,
plan your six days
so that you can have
a day off from homework.
Now I'm going to give
one caveat here.
It's been recognized
throughout all of the church.
Jesus made this clear
that there is such a thing
as works of necessity.
So for example,
if you are an ER doctor,
I'm really hoping
there are some Sundays
that you work.
And if you're a policeman
or a fireman,
I am really praying
that the policemen
in Colorado Springs
don't all take Sunday off.
But if you are able,
if your work is not necessary
for society to keep on functioning,
for people to have mercy
given to them,
take Sunday off.
second,
worship here with us
on Sunday.
God gives his people rest,
but part of that rest
is returning to him
and his ways.
And so we honor
the Lord's day
by not doing our work.
We also honor it
by coming and worshiping
with his people.
And finally,
as much as you are able,
as much as we're able,
let's take a break.
let's take a break
from the non-stop
American economy.
If it can wait
till Monday,
let's let it wait
till Monday.
If it can get done
on Saturday,
let's do it on Saturday.
I'll just say
there are ways
to do this
that are wise
without being
legalistic or rigid.
So I'm not asking you
to be a legalist,
I'm not asking you
to be a Pharisee.
What I am saying is this,
God's gift to us
is the Sabbath
and it's good for us.
And whatever we can do
to have that rest,
to worship God
and protect ourselves,
we should do.
And we do all
of these things
not because we're Pharisees,
not out of legalism,
not because we're trying
to prove something to God,
but because of everything
that we've seen already
that God has redeemed us.
He redeemed his people
in the Old Testament
from slavery.
And how much more
has he redeemed us
in the New Testament
through Christ's death
and resurrection
and his work?
If you notice,
we've been talking
about sonship
in our confession of faith
on Sundays mornings.
The opposite of a son
in the passage
that we've been reading
from Galatians
is a slave.
Because of Christ's work
for us,
we are not slaves anymore.
And so he cares for us.
We can take a day off a week
because we trust him.
We know that no matter
what happens in our economy
and our world,
it is God
who holds us up
and sustains us.
In the 19th century,
it's around the time
that insurance was introduced.
And there was a big problem
at that time
when insurance was introduced
because there were people
who were unscrupulous
and they wanted to take advantage
of this new thing
that they could make claims for
and get a lot of money.
And so one of the groups
of people who took advantage
of it were unethical ship owners.
And these ship owners
would take out
large insurance policies
and then they would
purposefully overload
their ships
with too much weight,
too much cargo.
And then the ship
would get out
into the sea
and it would sink
because it had too much
that it was carrying.
In fact,
this happened so often
that these ships
became known
as coffin ships.
So there was a man,
a British legislator
named Samuel Plymsell
and this man decided
something had to be done
about this
and so he passed an act
to deal with this
and what it became known
as the,
well,
it was the Merchant Shipping Act
but they instituted
what became known
as the Plymsell Line.
And this was a line
that would be painted
around the hull
of a ship.
Everyone could see the line
and if the line
was under the water,
you knew that the ship
was overloaded.
So everyone could look
at your boat
and see if you had
a coffin ship or not.
They would know
if you had put
too much cargo
on your ship.
And so instead
of coffin ships,
Plymsell worked
so that these sailors,
the people sailing them,
would have life.
That they wouldn't die
from being overloaded
and overweighted.
brothers and sisters,
God has asked us,
commanded us
to take off
one day in seven
because he wants us
to have life
and he wants us
to protect,
he wants to protect us
from overloading ourselves
so that we would not sink.
And so it's this great gift
to us
and he does it
because he loves us.
And so we can obey him
showing and building
and expressing
our confidence
and our trust
in him.
Please pray with me.
Dear Father in heaven,
we thank you
that you do long
for us to have life
and so you protect us.
You long for us
to have rest
and so you've redeemed us.
We ask that you would
drive it deep
into our hearts
that we would know
and understand
how much you love us.
And it would help us
to take a break
knowing that
not a hair
can fall from our heads,
without you knowing.
We ask all these things
not because we have earned them
but because Jesus
has earned them for us
and so he's given us
rest
and life
and provision.
So we ask them
in his name.
Amen.