‘We should be doing more for the Lord in this great city’ – How CH Spurgeon changed the face of London

What happens to churches that really understands the radical message of the gospel of God’s grace?  They make it an urgent priority to proclaim the message of the gospel to their communities & cities and at the same time they make it a necessary priority to love and serve their neighbours in deed as well as word.

I’ve written before on Tim Keller’s book Generous Justice and his summary of the biblical evidence that your attitude to the poor is a measure of your grasp of the gospel. Having read DeYoung & Gilbert’s book on exactly how evangelism and social concern relate to the mission of the Church and the mission of individual Christian I look forward to making some comments soon. Both books are important reminders that whilst the preaching of the gospel is central to our work, where the gospel is at work in our lives, Christians are concerned for the practical needs of the most needy in our cities.

In my reading this morning I was reminded of just how the greatest preacher and evangelist of the British church in the 19th century, CH Spurgeon, was also hugely committed to mercy ministry. Larry J. Michael summarises Spurgeon’s impact on London in his Spurgeon on Leadership writing;

Spurgeon blended evangelism and social concern perfectly. In fact, most philanthropic movements in the nineteenth century originated with evangelicals. Spurgeon saw society as an organic whole.

He built almshouses for the poor (only one was in existence when he came to London). He built seventeen houses for the aged and a school for four hundred children. He erected the Stockwell Orphanage for homeless children. He began the Colportage Ministry to provide books for poor rural pastors. He instituted the Pastor’s Aid Society to help the poor. He also founded the Old Ladies Homes, the Book Fund Ministry, the Rock Loan Tract Society, the Ladies Maternal Society, the Metropolitan Tabernacle Poor Minister’s Clothing Society, the Flower Mission, the Baptist Country Mission, Mrs. Thomas’s Mothers Mission, Mrs. Evan’s Home and Foreign Missionary Working Society, the Gospel Temperance Society, the Tract Society, the ragged schools, the Pioneer Mission, and other ministries.

They all fit his approach to bringing the whole gospel to affect the whole person in every area of life.

Fullerton’s biography of Spurgeon records the birth of Stockwell Orphanage (sometimes called the greatest sermon Spurgeon ever preached);

at one of the Monday evening prayer meetings, which in his day were phenomenal, he said, “We are a large church, and should be doing more for the Lord in this great city. I want us to ask Him to send us some new work; and if we need money to carry it on, let us pray that the means may also be sent.” So the Stockwell Orphanage was really born in a prayer meeting.

In our own times the State has taken on much of this work but the church continues to witness to the gospel in a multitude of ways not least through City Missions up and down the country as well as releasing many volunteers to work with organisations such as Christians against Poverty.

May we continue to find in the gospel reason to join Spurgeon in proclaiming ‘we should be doing more for the Lord in this great city‘.

How the gospel overcomes your fear of giving generously

In the final part of my sermon last Sunday on the 8th commandment we looked at how the gospel has power to transform us from being ‘on the take’ to ‘giving it away’.

What the commandment reveals is that there are, in fact three attitudes to money not two.

1) What’s yours  is mine and  I’ll take it,

2) what’s mine is mine, I’ll keep it,

3) what’s mine is yours, I’ll share it.

Good manners may be enough to move you from the first attitude to the second.  Respecting peoples property is an honourable thing but it is in essence the rule of the classroom.  But morality won’t take you to generousity for that it takes the power of the gospel.

The gospel has the power to take you from ‘what’s mine is mine, I’ll keep it’ to ‘what’s mine is yours, I’ll share it.’ Why? because in the gospel that is what God has said to us.

We start to keep the 10 commandments when our living is shaped and directed by the gospel. So how do we learn to be generous? How do we begin to be so utterly transformed that we say ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’

We look back to both the transforming power of the cross of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of  Jesus.

The death of Jesus moves us to be generous givers

The apostle Paul in the middle of  2 chapters teaching about the grace of giving put’s Jesus death at the centre. In 2 Corinthians 8:9 Paul writes:

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

When it comes to keeping the 10 commandments we’ve seen through this series that the Bible teaches us that we can’t. But Jesus did and by his Spirit he begins to live them in us now.

As we look back to the cross we find that Jesus, the one who delighted to give and who gave so freely giving everything away, was willing to be considered as a thief.  In Matthew 27:38 we read ‘ Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.’  In Isaiah 53:12 we read that ‘He was numbered with the transgressors.’ Martin Luther wrote  ‘When the Law found Him among thieves,it condemned and executed Him as a thief’

How can you be a generous person? Understand just how generous Jesus has been to you and it will, as Paul says, test and prove the sincerity of our love.

How does the resurrection help us become generous givers?

The resurrection helps us overcome the fear of being generous. You see what often stops us from being generous with our time, our possessions, our money, in big part it is fear about the consequence for me in being generous.

-          Fear that I give away my time I might be missing out on opportunities elsewhere.

-          Fear that if I give away my money I may not have enough for the future

How can you deal with your fears about being generous?

Understand that the resurrection of Jesus moves us to be generous givers. The resurrection teaches us that we have an incredible future. It reminds me that in the light of eternity giving up time now is of no consequence. It reminds me that in heaven I have an inheritance that can’s spoil or fade so does it matter if I do have a little less than others now?

Do we think for one moment that Jesus regrets his generousity on earth now that he is in glory? No. And so as we look to him so we are moved to be generous givers.

It’s not just Jimmy Carr who needed to hear this last Sunday…

So Jimmy Carr has hit the headlines for his decision to use a tax loop-hole to avoid paying income-tax. In a twitter post this morning he wrote ‘I now realise I’ve made a terrible error of judgement’ and is promising to put his house in order. It may be a pretty blatent form of breaking the 8th commandment but as we’ve been seeing in our series at City Church there isn’t one of us who hasn’t also broken the 8th commandment.

How we break the 8th commandment

We might not be armed robbers or highway man but how then do we break the commandment?

1. Whenever we take something that does not belong to us

What are you like when it comes to other people’s property? One of the issues with stealing is that we don’t call it that we just ask to borrow things without any plans to return them (intentions maybe but no plans). Maybe it is time to put things right – some kind of church amnesty on returning things.

Employer’s time is also one of the ways we take something that doesn’t belong. JI Packer asks whether we  ’start late, finish early, stretch coffee, lunch, and tea breaks, and waste time in between’ . Maybe that means avoiding Facebook during working hours.

Money. It’s not just MPs who are tempted to fiddle the expense claim with slight exaggerations here and there.

2. Whenever we are lazy – we steal time

Not from an employer but from the time God has given us to use. It is easy to waste time which is really stealing God-given time. The Sabbath principle reminds us that this is no mandate for overwork but 1 Thess. 4:11,12, 2 Thess 3:10 there is a call for Christians to be careful stewards of time.

Students just finishing exams you now have 3 months ahead of you. Who’s time is it you have? Who will set your priorities?

3. Greedy – Stealing in the heart

As someone has said ‘coveting is to stealing what lust is to adultery’. Stealing things in our hearts (inside/outside rule) is a very subtle way of undermining the commandment. We’ll return to this when we look at the 10th commandment ‘You shall not covet’.

4. Whenever we are wasteful – we fail to put to use what God has given us

We steal what could otherwise have been put to good use Squandering what we have been given– That’s at the heart Jesus’ teaching in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. We learn from the parable that every Christian has received something from God that is to be put to use. We are stewards of what God has given because you and I are God’s servants. We have ‘talents’ entrusted to us. JC Ryle says ‘Our gifts, our influence, our money, our knowledge, our health, our strength, our time, our senses, our reason, our intellect, our memory, our affections, our privileges as members of Christ’s church – all, all are talents’

Two of the servants take what the master has given them and put it to use but the third refuses to use what God has given him and instead buries it in the ground. What is being highlighted in the parable is that it is possible to talk as if we are God’s servants and yet fail to serve him by do nothing.

Jesus tells of the masters return, a picture of his return at the end of time, when every Christian will give an account of what we have done with what the Lord has given us. Those who have sought to work with all that God has given them there is the promise of great reward but for those who claim to be God’s servants and do nothing, only a fearful judgement.

Now if you are here and looking into Christianity then please don’t think that we are saved by what we do. We are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. We are saved by what Jesus did in his perfect life and death but when we claim to have put our trust in him it should make a difference. Faith saves alone but is never alone but begins to work. The apostle James says a similar thing in his letter and chapter 2v.14, 18b.

If you were to die tonight what do you think that the Lord Jesus would say to you? How would he judge your faithfulness? JC Ryle again ‘We are not told that the unprofitable servant was a murderer, or a thief, or even a waster of his Lord’s money: but he did nothing.’ Jesus tells the parable with a very clear purpose we are to be faithful in obedience until his return. What we have been given we have been given by him and we have it for a purpose which is to put it to use. Remember the lie of consumerism? That what you have is yours then remember the truth from this parable; what you have has been given to you and given to you for the sake of others.

Wasteful with our wealth

So what might that mean for your use of your wealth? Our wealth This story doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to have money or possessions but it does radically alter our use of money. This is what Paul says in 1 Timothy 6v.17-19 where he calls on Christians to be generous and willing to share.

What does it mean for you to be generous with the money God has given you. It must mean giving the first of it back to God. Some of us here are about to start work – have you already committed to give the first of it back to God? Before Christ came God’s people gave 10% of their income back to a God who had given them so much, living this side of the cross it is hard to imagine that we would be less generous in our thanks to God.

Wasteful with our possessions

Paul also urges us to be generous not just with our money but with our possessions. So, are we willing to share?  I think one of the great opportunities to demonstrate the power of the gospel at work is in our sharing of possessions. I have been so blessed by the generousity of others Ever since our children have come along Jane and I have not had the money to pay for a holiday but generous Christians have provided just what we have needed. This summer we will be spending a week in a cottage in North Wales courtesy of a friend.

At City the amount of stuff that people have shared with us when kids came along has been remarkable. Someone told me of a Christian guy who gave him his car keys to use car in day time if needed as he commuted by rail to work.

Wasteful with our gifts

One of the ways we break the 8th commandment is when we are wasteful with the gifts that God has given us. If you are a Christian then God has given you gifts for the sake of others. When we float form church to church or when we are very sporadic in our attendance or when we come to consume is to be a Chrsitian who steals from God. Not to use your gifts to bless others is to steal the blessing that could and should be theirs.

Wasteful with our time

There are many who have retired from work who are members of City Church and demonstrate a remarkable example of how to be good stewards of the time God has given them. So many give so much of their retirement time to the Lord rather than pottering in the garden.

It is so much easier to spot sins I have committed rather than duties I’ve omitted to do. I am far more likely to be troubled by what I do than what I don’t do and yet Jesus’s teaching in this parable is a reminder that we sin as much by what we fail to do.

38,000 spoons, 18,000 tiles, 355 coffee pots, and even 100 bibles

Philip Ryken in his excellent commentary on Exodus includes the following list of items stolen from a single hotel in its first year of opening; 38,000 spoons. 18,000 tiles, 355 coffee pots, and even 100 bibles.

As we continue our series on the 10 commandments at City Church so this week we arrive at the 8th command.

Why the 8th commandment?

‘You shall not lie’ looks very much like a command that belongs under the heading ‘love your neighbour’ but, as with the other commands 5-10, this one too depends upon first ‘loving the Lord our God’. All of the commandments flow from God’s character – he is a generous God who gives without finding fault and so we too should be generous –  and from commandment 1 through to 10 we express our worship of him as he do his will. Stealing from someone else, is first and foremost a sin against God

How is stealing a sin against God?

1. Everything comes from God

David writes in 1 Chronicles 29 ‘everything in heaven and earth is yours…everything comes from you’. Believing that, changes everything and set’s the Christian apart. Consumerism tells me I own what I possess the Bible tells me everything belongs to God.

J. John writes ‘ Everything we have comes from God. I no more own my house, my car & my bank balance than I own my library books.’  How does that change things?

Two things flow

2. ‘Every theft is a failure to trust God for his provision’ (Ryken)

Why would I steal? I steal because I want more and if I can’t have more by honest means then maybe I can simply take it by other means. But what I’m really doing, or the sin behind the sin, is saying to God ‘you haven’t given me enough!’  Stealing is failing to thank God for what he’s given me and it’s failing to trust God that what he’s given me is enough. More than that it’s saying to God ‘I know what I need more than you do.’ and more than that not only is everything I have from God but everything I have from God I have been given for God and for others. Ownership means stewardship. What I have is what has been given and what I have been given I have been given for others.

Paul in Ephesians 4:28 writes: He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

3. Every theft is a theft of what God has intended for others

When I sin against God by taking that which he has not given to me I also break the commandment that calls on me to love my neighbour. When I steal I’m thinking about what would be good for me, regardless of its impact on others. So that too ends up being a sin against God. When I steal I am stealing from what God has given to others. I taking what he has decided to provide for someone else.

So next post..how do I break the 8th commandment?

There’s no point fleeing from sin unless you flee to Christ – especially when it comes to sexual sin

Here’s the final section of my sermon on the 7th commandment preached last Sunday.

Section D: Keeping the 7^th commandment

Perhaps the greatest danger to us at the end of a sermon on sexual sin is that my preaching leaves you feeling simply guilty and hopeless. Many Christians have given up the fight because they have lost hope.  Matt Chandler pastor of the Village church in Texas described his own experience when he said;

I found myself running from God. I ran because if there was shame to begin with, there was double shame at the moment when I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore but then I did it. I was caught..I was stuck in shame …

Maybe the appropriate question to ask yourself when you fall into sin, as a Christian and you are truly repentant, is this one ‘How do you think God thinks of you?’ Thomas Goodwin the great puritan preacher said this:

Your very sin moves Christ to pity & compassion more than anger.

Why? Because he loves you and he never loved you because you were good. Our greatest danger is to think when you sin you think God can’t love me any more and so even as you flee your sin you don’t think you can flee to Christ.

When you struggle with sin there is only one thing and one thing alone that you need to know because of the cross God treats you as a son and not a sinner. God accepts you as a son…loves you as a son…because he has never accepted you on the basis of your behaviour but on Christ’s perfect life and his sacrificial death.

Matt Chandler says:

The marker of those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, when they stumble and fall, when they screw up, they run to God and not from him.

The power to keep the 7^th commandment comes not from your faithfulness to God but God’s faithfulness to you.

1. God’s faithfulness – Read 1 John 1:8-9

We very much want to end the study by reminding ourselves that God has dealt with our past failures and promised to write the commandments on our hearts by his Spirit.

Whatever your sin there is full forgiveness because of Jesus. Whatever your struggle with your sin there is a final victory because of Jesus

Our hope comes from the knowledge that God forgives and that God will change us. Even when we are unfaithful to him.

If our danger is not that we feel like giving up the flip-side, the other danger, is that  we think this sermon is a call to pull yourself by your shoe laces…

You probably can control yourself not to sleep with your boyfriend, you could put the software on your computer…but what God wants to do is not give you a few practical tips but drive you to Jesus as your only hope…

2. Jesus’ faithfulness  - Read Hebrews 4:14-16

The battle with sexual sin is won through a closer walk with Christ.

You might think that Jesus is the last person who can help you now and yet we are reminded in the Bible that he was made like us in every way and in Hebrews 4 we learn that he experienced every temptation common to man.  Stuart Olyott writes ‘Do not think of him as unfeeling; everything you are facing, he has already faced.’

So the writer to the Hebrews urges us to go to him and ask for help and because it is Christ’s Spirit that is at work in us he is able to show mercy and offer grace to strengthen us in the battle against sin and for purity.

Sex is a signpost – God’s purpose in the 7th commandment

Preaching through a series on the 10 commandments on Sunday we reached the 7^th .  Yesterday I posted the first part of the sermon on the relationship between sex and marriage. Today the second part looks at God’s purpose in the 7th commandment.

What is the 7th commandment?

The seventh commandment reads ‘You shall not commit adultery’.  Pretty much every Jewish adult who first heard those words of God would either have been married or engaged to be married. Every adult could expect to be married by the age of 20. So in that culture the biggest challenge to honouring God with your body was remaining faithful to your spouse.  But the commandment clearly speaks against all kinds of sexual sin.

Paul in Ephesians says ‘ Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity.’ The word there for sexual immorality is porneia and refers really to any sex outside of marriage.

So why is faithfulness in your marriage so important to God?

We’ve been learning over again in this series is that each of the commandments that call on us to ‘love our neighbour’ depends upon a more fundamental  commitment to ‘love God’.  There is a right and necessary ordering of the commandments.  It is the nature of our relationship with God that compels us to remain faithful to our spouse.

Covenant faithfulness in marriage is an expression of our covenant faithfulness to God.  As God is faithful to us and as we are to be faithful to him so we are to exhibit the character of faithfulness in all our relationships, especially marriage. As his people so we want to be like him, to say to the world how great it is to have God as our God and so being faithful to our promises is part of saying thank you to God for being faithful to his.

I was at a wedding a while back, chatting to a non-Christian couple. They asked how long my wife and I had been married and at the time it was something like 10 or 11 years.  One of them was surprised that having married so young we had lasted so long and then the other commented ‘it’s only the Christians who stay married.’ Sadly, in a fallen world marked by sin that is not always the case but it often is.

Our faithfulness in marriage is a reflection of God’s faithfulness we reflect God’s character as the faithful one who loves us with a never-breaking love. A husband and a wife are in their marriage to model the exclusive relationship between God and his people.

What makes adultery so serious it is both one and the same time a betrayal of a spouse and a denial of our God.

In Genesis  39:9-10 Joseph refuses to betray Potiphar by sucombing to the advances of Potiphar’s wife. He refuses out of loyalty to an earthly master. But more fundamentally he recognises that to break a human marriage is to ‘do a wicked thing and sin against God.’

The 7^th commandment is given by God to protect marriages, to protect children in marriages and to protect God’s own name and reputation in the world.

Jesus and marriage

No wonder then that Jesus in Matthew 19:3-6  issues a solemn warning that it is God who joins a couple together in marriage. Through marriage they are now to be considered as one person (v.6) and therefore Jesus issues a command ‘let not man separate.’ It is not that it is impossible but rather that it is should not happen.

And the consequences for those who do break this commandment are serious. In the book of Hebrews Christians are reminded of the seriousness of honouring God with their marriages. 13:4

Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Yesterday we saw that sex outside of marriage damages ourselves. Today that it dishonour’s God and we are warned judgement awaits those who dishonour God through adultery or sexual immorality.

Tomorrow’s post looks at how we all break the 7th commandment and how through Jesus we can keep the 7th commandment.

How is it possible to forgive someone?

Miroslav Volf, professor of theology at Yale Divinity School and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture shows us how the gospel works to make forgiveness possible.

20 ways to keep the 5th commandment – honour your father & mother

Preaching through the 10 commandments I sought out some advice from friends and family on what it means to honour our parents.  Here’s what we came up with.

20 practical ways to honour your father and mother

1. Show gratitude for the ways they have shown love – however imperfectly — thank them for their love in sacrifice, commitment, care, concern.
2. Visit often
3. Phone home. One guy said to me ‘ I phone both of my divorced parents at least 3 times a week during my walk home from work it’s because I know that communication and keeping in touch is important to them and makes them feel valued. This doesn’t come naturally to me (difficult relationship with my parents sometimes) but I continue because honouring is important.’
4. Continue to seek out and then listen well to their advice – even if you choose a different path. Mark Twain once said ‘When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.’
5. See they are well cared for in their old age (that may mean saving for their future, moving your home, etc.)
6. Pray for them (if they are Christians ask how you can be praying for them).
7. Tell them how great Jesus is (if you and they are Christians they will be blessed more than you can imagine…if not their salvation!)
8. Say you’re sorry if you can look back and see ways in which you did dishonour them and thank them for their patience with you
9. Repent of any attitude that wishes they were out of the way…to free up more time or because you want your inheritance now!
10. Encourage and facilitate active grand-parenting! Let them in to your lives even more as grand-parents.
11. Don’t talk negatively about them behind their backs or grumble against them to others.
12. Speak positively about them to others
13. ‘Value your parents as most parents give their best to their children. I know this isn’t always the case but as a mum myself, I know we do the best we can’
14. Expect the relationship to improve. ‘The beautiful thing about growing older is that my mum and step dad have become my friends.’
15. Ask her Dad’s permission before you propose.
16. Value what is most important in them especially if they prayed for you and encouraged you in your faith.
17. Remember important dates…birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s day, Father’s day
18. Place photos of them in prominent places in your room
19. Accept them for who they are even if you wish they were different.
20. Don’t take what you have been given for granted – a secure, loving, lifelong relationship

Ask yourself: ‘would we be happy if our young children treated us like we, now grown, treat our parents?’ Kevin DeYoung

Why I’m not keeping Sunday special

I’m preaching a series through the 10 commandments at City Church at the moment. Last Sunday it was on the 4^th commandment ‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy’. Here are the five reason I gave as to why as a Christian I am not a Sabbatarian and how the 4^th commandment is fulfilled in Christ.

From Sabbath to Lord’s day

Reading the story of the early church in the book of Acts and other parts of the New Testament  you discover that the earliest Christians, many of them Jews, changed the day on which they met to worship from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath day) to Sunday a day that was called the Lord’s Day.

Something remarkable happened as a result of the resurrection of Jesus — all those first Christians who were Jews began to reorder the pattern of their weeks from Saturday to Sunday.

Three texts highlight the change:

Acts 20:9 – On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

1 Cor.16:1-2 – Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

Revelation 1:10 – On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

But might that just mean that Christians keep the commandment simply by shifting the day from a Saturday to a Sunday?

The Sabbath commandment is not repeated in the New Testament

Looking through the New Testament you discover that the Sabbath commandment is the only commandment of the 10 commandments not repeated for Christians.  Nor is there any evidence of it being practised.

For at least the first 300 years of the life of the church the first day of the week, the Lord’s day was just a normal working day as it still is for Christians meeting in many Muslim countries today. Christians who met on the Lord’s day did so after work.

And what that also means is that

For many Christians Sabbath observance was not possible

Why is that so? Looking again at our commandment in Exodus 20:9-10 and it is clear that everyone was to stop work for the Sabbath. Men, women, sons, daughters, servants, animals and foreigners. In other words Old Testament Israel was told everyone had a day of rest.

But as the early church grew so most Christians in the ancient world didn’t live in Israel and many of them were gentile slaves. No less that two-thirds of the ancient world were slaves and their ability to even take a day off was entirely at the discretion of their masters. They were simply unable to keep a Sabbath. Time-off was at the mercy of their masters.

Israel as a nation were commanded by God to observe the Sabbath, Christians around the world were simply unable so it seems to me unthinkable that God could command his people to do that which humanly speaking they could not do..

Not until the first Christian Emperor Constantine declared that Sundays would be a day off.

But it’s not the Sabbath no longer has any relevance for it finds its fulfilment for us in Christ.

We enjoy our Sabbath-rest by resting in Jesus.

In our second reading tonight (Hebrews 3:7-4:13) we saw something of how the 4^th commandment is fulfilled in Christ.

2 ways in which the 4^th commandment finds its fulfilment in Jesus

We experience Sabbath rest now by trusting in Jesus

Now we who have believed enter that rest – Hebrews 4:3 (NIV)

If you are a Christian then you enjoy rest now. We rest in Christ and enjoy peace with him. Jesus described his very purpose in coming as giving us rest with God through thegospel (c.f.Matt 11:28-30). Only the Christian enjoys God’s rest in that we rest from our efforts to be saved by our works. The message of the gospel is not that we work for God but that he worked for us.

We will experience God’s eternal rest by trusting in Jesus

Hebrews 4:9-10 ‘So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.’

There is a future day in which we will rest in God’s presence in glory for ever. We will stop working as the church. No more evangelism, no more sermons to prepare, no more chairs to put out, no more missions and church planting.

So Christians don’t ignore the Sabbath command but experience it’s fulfilment in Jesus

The New Testament treats Sabbath observance as a matter of conscience

Wherever the Old Testament Sabbath is mentioned it is in the context of a freedom of conscience.

Paul writes to the Colossians: Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col. 2:16-17)

In Romans he writes: One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

So there we have 5 reasons why I’m not a Sabbatarian. In my next post however, I’ll say a little bit about why I do keep Sunday special as a Lord’s Day man.

How do I know if I’m truly repentant?

What’s the difference between being sorry about by sin and being repentant of my sin? A very helpful post by Jared Wilson on the nature of a true repentance.