The weekly Sabbath matters because it's good for you, for your family, and for your whole community!
This video is part 2b in a series on the weekly Sabbath.
Part 1: What is the Sabbath? Part 2: Why does the Sabbath matter? Part 3: Who is the Sabbath for? Part 4: When is the Sabbath?
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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00:00This is Jay Carper again from AmericanTorah.com and CommonSenseBibleStudy.com.
00:07I'm continuing with the series, A Sabbath to Yahweh, with Part 2b.
00:13In this video, we're still talking about why does the Sabbath matter.
00:17In the previous video, we talked about how it matters because it honors God.
00:23Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God, and keeping the Sabbath shows love for God.
00:31In this video, we're going to talk about how the Sabbath matters because it's good for both you and your community.
00:39Let's start by reading Deuteronomy 5.15 again.
00:43You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
00:51Therefore, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, your God, commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
00:57Keeping the Sabbath day according to God's commandment gives us perspective on what God has done for us both physically and spiritually.
01:06God commanded ancient Israel to keep the Sabbath because they were slaves in Egypt.
01:11And He commands us to keep the Sabbath because we were slaves to sin.
01:15When the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, they didn't get any days off.
01:20They had to work when the Pharaoh told them to work.
01:23When God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt into the wilderness, the first thing He did was to tell them to keep the Sabbath.
01:30He gave these former slaves a day off of work every week.
01:34And it seems like refusing to honor that is to show ingratitude for what God has done.
01:41Do you want to be a slave again?
01:43Resting is a privilege, an act of a free people.
01:47Slaves have to work every day of their lives.
01:53They are at the beck and call of their master any time of day and night, every day of the week.
02:01But as servants of God, we are guaranteed a day off from our labors.
02:06And in fact, keeping a common Sabbath proves that all people have God-given rights and nobody can own another person absolutely.
02:15All authority on earth has only been delegated by God.
02:19He still owns all the people everywhere.
02:21And God has said, we get to take this one day off.
02:26And in God's economy, a master can't say, I'm going to take the seventh day off, but I'm going to make my servants work or my employees work and give them Sunday or Monday is their Sabbath.
02:39No, God says everybody gets the same day off.
02:43Everybody gets that day off to spend with God in their community.
02:47And on the Sabbath, everybody is equal before God.
02:51Jeremiah 17.21 says,
02:55Having a guaranteed day off every week is good for your physical, mental, and spiritual health.
03:22Everybody needs to take time off of work to recharge.
03:27This lowers your stress and improves your relationships.
03:30And this creates a cascade of good health effects.
03:34Keeping the Sabbath literally adds days to your years and joy to your days.
03:39The Sabbath is also good for your family.
03:42No matter how busy you are the rest of the week, keeping a weekly Sabbath guarantees that you have time to spend with your family.
03:50You, your wife, your children, you all get to spend this one day together with God.
03:57Keeping the Sabbath is also good for your whole community.
04:00This is a time for everybody to get together in God's name, to worship together, to learn about him, to study his word.
04:09The weekly Sabbath creates bonds with your neighbors, your family, your distant family, and most especially with God himself.
04:18Let's go down just a little bit further in this chapter and read verses 24 to 26.
04:24But if you listen to me, declares Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, and bring in no burden by the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do no work on it,
04:35then there shall enter by the gates of this city kings and princes who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials,
04:45the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall be inhabited for ever.
04:49And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Cephalah, from the hill country, and from the Negev,
04:59bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh.
05:08Jeremiah delivered this prophecy in the last days of Judah.
05:13The city of Jerusalem was on the verge of falling and being taken off into captivity by Babylon.
05:19God had decreed that this was going to happen. There was no way out of it.
05:25So when Jeremiah says that if everybody in the city keeps the Sabbath day,
05:31God would give them security, and the heirs of David would go in and out of the gates and sit on the throne of David,
05:38he wasn't talking about that moment. He was talking about the future.
05:42Keeping the Sabbath brings security to the people of God.
05:47And these verses hint that all of God's people keeping the Sabbath could hasten the return of Israel's Messiah.
05:53Nehemiah didn't care what foreigners did in their own towns or in their own countries.
06:18But he said there would be no business done in Jerusalem.
06:23He even threatened them that if they camped outside the cities of Jerusalem
06:27and lured the people of Israel out to do business on the Sabbath, that he would lay hands on them.
06:33As we saw from Jeremiah, Sabbath-keeping and Sabbath-breaking is a matter of national defense and prosperity.
06:40And encouraging Sabbath-keeping among all the people ought to be a priority for our civil and national leaders.
06:48Luke 13, 15 and 16 says,
06:51Then the Lord answered him,
06:53You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water?
07:01And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
07:08We know that ultimately all people won't repent and won't be saved.
07:13But God still desires everyone to become a child of Abraham.
07:18And so the Sabbath is for the restoration of all mankind.
07:23If even the most overbearing legalist knows that an animal should be rescued on the Sabbath,
07:28how much more should a daughter of Abraham be rescued so that she too can keep the Sabbath?
07:34Was Jesus breaking the Sabbath when he healed the sick?
07:37Not at all.
07:39The Sabbath is about restoring people.
07:42Restoring people to a relationship with God.
07:45Restoring them to good health and good relationships.
07:49We should actively seek ways to help people keep the Sabbath by relieving their burdens.
07:55And what about emergency personnel and essential workers?
07:58In my opinion, if you have an opportunity to help another person keep the Sabbath, you should do so.
08:06In our modern world, we really depend on things like plumbing and electricity just to survive.
08:12If someone's toilet is backing up, or their water has stopped flowing, or their heat is out in the middle of winter,
08:19these constitute legitimate emergencies.
08:22And I think it's fine for someone to go and do those repairs so that those people can be safe and rest on the Sabbath day.
08:31I'm not saying that it's okay to break the Sabbath in order to do what you think are emergency repairs.
08:37I'm saying that it doesn't break the Sabbath if you're doing something that allows more people to keep the Sabbath for themselves.
08:45But be judicious.
08:47Not everything that feels like an emergency really is.
08:50Whatever it is you think you need to do on the Sabbath, is this relieving other people's burdens?
08:57Or is it just making you feel better?
09:00The weekly Sabbath matters because it shows honor and love for God.
09:06It also matters because it's good for you.
09:09It's good for your neighbors, for your family, for your relationships.
09:13It's good for the entire nation.
09:14In the next video, I'm going to talk about how the Sabbath matters because it's about God's relationship with his people.
