Good Morning!
I was blessed to spend a couple of days this week in the ARP Heaven of Bonclarken. It was as excellent as always. One of the reasons for my visit was to fulfill my responsibilities as the chair of Catawba Presbytery’s Church Extension Committee, and thereby attend the spring meeting of our ARP Outreach North America board. It was a pleasure to be there in this capacity. Probably my favorite part of the gathering is when the various chairs of the other presbyteries give reports as to what is happening among their bounds. Hearing how the Lord is blessing them, and thinking about the expansion of Christ’s kingdom and the opportunities they have is exciting to me. Another aspect of this time is that it is just fun being at Bonclarken. I don’t need to tell you what a blessing that place is. It’s the best. Every time I go up there I say a thanks to God for His providential provision of the location, the hotel, and the foresight he gave to the men who knew that the right place for the ARP to have a camp and conference center was not our former women’s college in Gastonia, but the recently vacated Heidelberg House in Flat Rock, North Caroline. For those of you who have had the pleasure of visiting Bonclarken the first emotion that probably comes into your heart and soul is: rest. Just the feeling of relaxation and peace which finds you as you enter the gates with thanksgiving, that I-26 and busyness of the ever-growing Hendersonville corridor is behind you.
What if I told you that you can experience a little bit of Bonclarken every single week?
A time of spiritual repose as the clock turns to Sunday? Well, that’s exactly what God has given to us in the Christian Sabbath. In today’s catechism lesson we are going to talk a little about how the Sabbath is meant to be a blessing to the believer, and is an even greater gift, if that can be imagined, than Bonclarken. Primarily because we get to experience it every week in the mercy and love of our savior Jesus Christ. We only have one question this week:
Q. 60. How is the sabbath to be sanctified?
A. The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.
What does the catechism mean when it says, “…a holy resting”? Are we talking here about a sanctified nap? Well, maybe. There is nothing wrong with physical rest on the Sabbath. The beauty of snoozing on the Lord’s Day is that if we follow the commandment in accordance with the spirit in which God has granted it to us there should be nothing else to do that day, other than rest and worship. We have so much going on the other six days of the week why do we allow the world to set our agenda when it comes to the first? Part of the reason is that we have allowed the dictates of culture to run our lives. We are told over and over again that if we are not involved or doing x that we are “missing out”. Well, this morning I have something to tell you. What you are missing out on in not taking advantage of the blessedness of Sabbath rest is much worse than any good thing this present age can give you.
Sometimes we don’t know what we got until it is gone, and probably no portion of the Ten Commandments is more forgotten than the Fourth. We’ve talked a little about why God in His mercy gave us this law as a gift. The resistance we feel to observing the Sabbath comes more from ignorance than learned obsolescence. If Parks and Rec can’t figure out how to schedule games and practices in the six days they have it’s not the Christian’s responsibility to help them out of their incompetence. There are things more important to our life, and the lives of our children than sports and activities. Central to that is the way we are modeling our ability to schedule our life, and the space we give to not doing stuff. All of the data and research shows that children stay close to the Lord at the same rate as their parents take seriously the demands of their faith. The beauty of the Sabbath in regards to this is that there are no “demands”, only more time of gaining the blessedness of time spent with Christ and with His brothers and sisters. We incredibly underestimate how much we need the infusion of grace which comes from observing the Sabbath. To that end let’s think some more about the type of thing that “holy resting” also has in mind. Look again at the catechism question above.
What does an ordinary Sabbath look like for the New Testament Christian?
Well, first of all it means that it is not a second Saturday. If we can get up at a reasonable time for our earthly employers and teachers during the week than getting ready for the fellowship opportunities with our church family should not be a problem. In fact, awakening on the Lord’s Day should be like waking up on vacation. We should feel as relaxed and rested as when we open our eyes at the beach, or at Bonclarken. There should be a thankfulness undergirding our heart and soul as we think about the day ahead. What greater thing is there than seeing our spiritual loved ones as we pull up to the church house for Sabbath School? As we take our seats for morning worship, and as we return to close out the Sabbath in evening worship? A full day given over to the exercises of religion should never be a burden that we try and find reasons to miss out on, but put everything in this world on hold so that we can be recharged by the salvation purchased by Christ for our good and His glory.
Think again for a moment about what all that is pointing to…the future rest. Why wait for that when you can get a foretaste of divine mercy every week in the Christian Sabbath?
Here is a bit more to think about:
https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2002/doing-the-day-keeping-the-sabbath-day/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church