31st October 2025

31st October 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20:8-11)


Message (Alan Burke)


The Fourth Commandment requires us to observe God’s own patterns of work and rest. He laboured in creating the universe and then rested delighting in all he had done. The main reason why we accept and follow nine commandments and not ten in practice is because this commandment is just inconvenient to us. Sunday is now a family day, it’s the busiest shopping day of the week, well it was the busiest shopping day and its the day that our children do their homework because when the bell goes on Friday then the school work is done and in Crossgar it’s the day for Sport. Let’s look to what the Fourth Commandment there in Exodus chapter 20 teaches. 


The Sabbath is a holy day, ie this day is to be set apart, it’s not to be like the rest of the days. The sabbath is to the Lord our God. Notice that it is to be dedicated to the Lord, it also includes everyone among the people of God, for the people of God there was no one who would work or be made to work so others could get the final day of the week off, so they could have a sabbath. We see that in what it lists…. On it you shall not do any work, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. Nobody is to do any work.


The reason why we are to do this is grounded in God’s creative work “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.” There duties of necessity and mercy that we must do on the Sabbath, we need Dr’s, Nurses, we need the fire service, police are all necessary, Jesus healed a man with a withered hand and it’s on the Sabbath showing that necessity and mercy are things we must do. God gave us the sabbath to be a gracious gift, It was never the Lord’s intention to keep people hungry or thirsty on the Sabbath, he gave his law for our best. Imagine having a seven day working week, 365 working days, we’d be shattered, we need the sabbath to be released from the toil, but the problem is that more often than not today we have thrown the shackles of God off as a people that we use the sabbath for our own selfishness forgetting the real purpose of it. 


The Sabbath is a gracious gift from God, it is not and should not be burdensome obligation, it was given for our benefit, not to do what we like with, to treat it like any other day, rather it is because we need a Sabbath, we need rest. Our society seeks to normalise the Sabbath, make it like any other day but physically, mentally, spiritually we need it, God gives us one day in seven, before the fall God gave us this day, His day for our benefit and as a response we should worship and thank him for his gracious gift of rest. Our sabbath is a Sunday, is to be sanctified, set apart as a day of rest, let us uses it for what it was meant for, to reconnect with the holy and recharge our spiritual batteries instead of being conformed to the world around us and use the day that he has given us as a witness to how Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and Lord of our lives. . 


Why is the Christian Sabbath on a Sunday and not a Saturday even though from the time of Adam and Eve it was the last day of the week a Saturday? Well the Christian the Sabbath is no longer a Saturday but on the first day of the week, in Mark’s gospel (16), Luke’s gospel (24) and John’s gospel (20), each one records how Jesus rose on the first day of the week. In Acts 20 we learn how… 7 On the first day of the week they came together to break bread, the first day. Revelation 1:10 speaks of that first day as the Lord’s day (9-11). The sabbath had been on the last day after creation was completed, now the Christian Sabbath is the first day of a new creation, it is the day that we come together as the people of God to worship him, it is the day we set aside as a holy Sabbath rest, and it is a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath rest that awaits all the people of God (Hebrews 4:9-10)


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q7 What are the decrees of God?
A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
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