I know it may be frightening to open yourselves up in this way, and even (believe me) a little embarassing, but gentlemen, if you married her in a relationship of love and mutual respect, and if both of you truly love each other (and the Lord), she will want you to tell her if there is something going on. Nine times out of ten, you won't get a reaction more serious than laughter and a "I wondered why you were acting so oddly" (after all, you are in a mature sexual relationship, not at the high school prom). There are, however, cases when your wife will react more strongly to what you share with her, and gentlemen, if the two of you really love each other, that is a cue for you, as good husbands and fathers, to sacrifice your own desires and inclinations at the altar of your marriage, your children, and the Lord.
Today, our text will be Exodus 20:8-11, otherwise known as the "fourth commandment," and it is with the home in mind that I share this message with you. Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a church culture in the United States that has abused the verses quoted below to the extent that their original meaning has been virtually lost, and to me, this is one of the greatest sins that postmodern Christendom has ever committed.
The Lord's commandment regarding the Sabbath is very specific and straightforward:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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. 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 want to address two teachings common in the postmodern American church which, I believe, have done more to harm Christian faith and service in these days than any attack against Christianity from unbelieving governments and rulers ever can:
1. That Jesus abolished the Sabbath
Ladies and gentlemen, I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but whenever you read accounts in the Gospels of the Pharisees and Sadducees criticizing Jesus for "breaking the Sabbath," the argument in fact has nothing at all to do with the Fourth Commandment. I'll give you an example, one I recently came across in Luke:
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels.
Some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
Jesus answered them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions." Then Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."
Luke 6:1-5
Note that the argument arose not out of a genuine concern over a legitimate breach of the Sabbath (the disciples, after all, were not sowing crops, feeding livestock, or even harvesting grain in any real sense) but out of a very sharp, almost tangible jealousy on the part of the Pharisees over the authority Jesus and his disciples had to teach and to spread the Gospel about the Lord. The disciples were desperately hungry--after all, you have to be on the verge of starvation to eat raw heads of grain--and the priests' reaction was a clear exercise in stupidity and arrogance.
Let us look at another example that the Gospel of Luke provides, immediately following the passage quoted above:
On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." So he got up and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"
He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did so, and his hand was completely restored. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Luke 6:6-11
Before commenting on this passage as a whole, I want you to look at verse 7 again:
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus
The whole thing was a trap created by the Pharisees to prompt Jesus to say something contrary to the Torah and/or blaspheme the Father, and as we can see in the passage, it was a very ill-conceived one. After all, Jesus did not engage in some kind of physical application of bandages, poultices, and home remedies to cure the man (which would have constituted "work" under the Sabbath regulation). He merely asked a member of the crowd to stretch out his hand.
The Pharisees were well acquainted with miracles, ladies and gentlemen--after all, they had read the Hebrew Bible and studied the Torah with great alacrity--and they knew very well that a miracle of the Lord did not constitute a breach of the Sabbath regulations. Their reaction had nothing to do with a zeal for upholding religious laws--it was merely an attempt by pompous aristocrats to puff up their own priestly powers at the expense of the Lord. Jesus represented a threat to them--to their livelihoods, their standing in the Judean community, and ultimately to their lack of spiritual depth--and their unrepentant hearts were as hostile to the Lord as anyone has ever been in our time.
2. That the Sabbath constitutes the breaking of bread at church
I want us to look at the Lord's regulations regarding the Sabbath again, this time focusing on the portion of scripture that prohibits the Israelites from doing any work on the Sabbath:
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.
Note that the passage does not say "neither you, nor your pastor, nor your pastor's wife, nor your elder, nor your elder's wife." All of the positions mentioned--son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, animals, strangers--are unique to the Hebrew household.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, the Sabbath--and every other holy day in Israel--was to be celebrated by families, either gathering together in the home or traveling as a family to a specified place (sometimes Shiloh, sometimes Shechem, and sometimes Jerusalem). If you did not celebrate the Sabbath with your family, then in the ancient Hebrew context, you did not celebrate the Sabbath at all.
I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that we have allowed our culture's anti-family attitudes to dictate the way we approach church activities. Many conservative churches in America meet together on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday or Thursday evening, and Saturday evening, and parishioners are often led to believe that they are not very spiritual if they do not attend these activities regularly and often. As a result, family time suffers, and children often wonder why their parents are so consumed with "doing the Lord's work" that they have less and less time to play with them, to read with them, and to talk to them.
Ladies and gentlemen, as an expectant father, I am well aware of the fact that my child is going to be an adult someday, and it is very important to me that my child's formative years be perfect in the Lord's sight and that as an adult, he or she cannot say, as so many of America's children can, that Mom and Dad were neglectful. I will not go to my deathbed knowing, as I am afraid so many men will, that I have not been a very good husband or father.
If you are not a good wife and mother, and if you are not a good husband and father, then in the judgment of the Bible--and of the culture which produced the Bible--you have failed in your spiritual responsibilities. I am not saying that if you pursue celibacy for the rest of your life, you have sinned against the Lord--if that is true, then St. Paul was guilty of sinning against the Lord as well--but I am saying that if you have chosen to have a family and you abandon the responsibilites of being a good spouse and parent, you need to ask the Lord, and your family, for forgiveness.
My wife and I want to do some very specific things in order to raise our children in the right way, according to the conviction that the Lord has given us. We want to homeschool, we want to pursue some home businesses, and she and I want to work together as a couple so that our children can see a model for how they can pursue marriage someday (if they want). These things involve sacrifice, and they are not accepted in a lot of circles--we live in a culture that depends on corporate institutions for its physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, and it is virtually impossible for many Americans, even some of you who are reading this post, to fathom a lifestyle that does not follow the typical lines of public education-corporate job-retirement that so many families are pursuing today.
It is, however, a sacrifice we are willing to make for our children--and for the sanctity of our marriage.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a society where men and women are expected to pursue separate lives, even after marriage, and we dare to wonder why so many American couples divorce as a result of the pressures those separate lives bring to bear on their homes. It is time for Christian men and women to pursue something different, and to prioritize their children and their spouses over their institutional obligations. Without this effort, ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid that we are going to see the eventual demise of Christlikeness within our culture, a culture which has already seen the destruction of 40 million children at the altar of financial greed and institutional slavery.
Let me ask you this: Are you a married man or woman--and if so, did you promise to cherish your spouse forever?
Then why would you want your relationship with your spouse--and your children--to suffer?
Spiritual leadership does not occur in church boards and committees--it occurs in the home. And if you are not willing to engage in the spiritual responsibility of husband and father/wife and mother, then you are not eligible, in the Lord's sight, for anything else.
Paul said it very clearly in his first letter to Timothy:
He [the bishop/overseer] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?)
1 Timothy 3:4-5
And here:
A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 3:12-13
Spiritual education does not happen in Sunday School, church, or prayer meeting, ladies and gentlemen--it happens in the home. It is time that we who are in Christ acknowledge the wonderful and terrible responsibility the Lord has given us in raising our children and caring for our spouses. I am amazed at the incredible depth displayed by men and women like St. Paul, Lilias Trotter, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta who were called by the Lord to lead celibate lives of service, but most of us are called to be husbands/wives and fathers/mothers. If we want our parenthood to mean anything beyond the actions and attitudes of the hundreds of millions of families around the world which do not a firm foundation in Christ, then we need to step up to our responsibilites and face them as men and women of God.
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