"How do we keep our balance?" asks Tevye in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." "I can tell you that in one word - tradition. Because of our traditions, here in Anatevka, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do... how to eat, how to sleep, how even to wear clothes. Tradition! Tradition!"

If you are not familiar with this musical, let me tell you that the setting was profoundly Jewish. This set the stage for this story. The traditions were Jewish. One of the major Jewish traditions was that of the Sabbath.

I believe that the Jewish Sabbath Tradition was a major means by which the Jews kept their balance. As we continue to launch into our worship celebration series this morning I want us to think about three words involved in that balance: duty, delight, and discipline.

I. Duty

From our twenty first century Gentile perspective we might say that the Jews were focused only on duty or primarily on duty. Perhaps that was true for some strict, legalistic ones. Realize that God had commanded that we remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The devout Jew thought it was his duty to keep the Sabbath. We should also point out the Jewish leaders had added to this commandment and made it a burden to many.

However, these words from a Jewish essayist, Achad Haam may well state the vital function of Sabbath tradition in the history of Judaism. "We can affirm without any exaggeration that the Sabbath has preserved the Jews more than the Jews have preserved the Sabbath. If the Sabbath had not restored to them the soul, renewing every week their spiritual life, they would have become so degraded by the depressing experiences of the workdays, that they would have descended to the last step of materialism and of moral and intellectual decadence."

My friends, whether our background is Jewish or Gentile, I firmly believe that we were made to worship and enjoy God. While we should do this everyday, we generally do it best daily when we set aside God's day for Him. Joe Bailey wrote an article titled "Ten truths to Live By," that was printed in the September 1985 edition of The Christian Reader. The seventh of these words of advice to Christian parents reads:
This next one may surprise you, but I believe that my generation's greatest loss - next to the inviolateness of marriage and family - has been the sanctity of the Lord's Day.

Can we really trust in the Lord as we are told again and again in the Scriptures without setting aside time to worship God? I do not believe we can. Without this needed refreshment we will whither, fade, and fret. We may likely forsake God if we ignore the worship of Him. It is our duty to God and to ourselves that we set aside weekly time to worship God. But, my friends, it is to be more than just duty it is to be a delight.

II. Delight

"Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips." These are the words with which MarkTwain begins the chapter on the classic tale of Tom Sawyer whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence. A change came over him, however when Tom surveyed the thirty yard fence he was to whitewash. Twain wrote of Tom, "all gladness left him, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit."

Tom then tried to bribe his pal Jim to do the job for him. During this failed bribery attempt Aunt Polly tossed her slipper at him. After this Tom has a great inspiration. Ben Roger looms into sight, on his way to go swimming, Leering, "Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"

Tom replies, "What do you call work? ... Does a boy get to whitewash a fence everyday?" He sweeps his brush daintily back and forth, surveying the effect, adding a dab here and there, until Ben finally offers a half eaten apple as an incentive to turnover the brush; which Tom does reluctantly while murmuring, "Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence - right here on the street, you know - but if it was on the back fence I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't ... I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."

By the end of the afternoon, Tom's magnificent idea has rewarded him with twenty different items, including "a kite in good repair, a dead rat, and a string to swing it with, twelve marbles,... a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a couple of tadpoles,..." These were real treasures for Tom.

Mark Twain concludes by commenting, "He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while - plenty of company - and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village."

Commenting on this illustration Karen Mains wrote, "When it comes to teaching children spiritual truth, I am definitely of the Tom Saywerschool. I think it is a sin to make spiritual things boring.!" I have heard Pastor Chuck Swindoll and Pastor Dan Betzer challenge Christians to make the gospel message interesting to all ages.

Do we communicate, with our words, and also by our lifestyle, that we delight in the worship of God? David wrote, "Delight yourself in the Lord." Delight speaks of a high degree of satisfaction, thrill, pleasure, enjoyment. Is this descriptive of your relationship with God for an hour on Sunday? Is it descriptive of your entire Sabbath experience of God?

Certainly for many, even some professing Christians, their focus may instead be on their own delight and pleasures apart from God. Leonard Ravenhill told David Main the story of staff prayer before the Sunday morning service in a large Texas church in which he was speaking. As the pastors were waiting to go to the platform, one of them asked the others, "Well, do you think the Cowboys are going to win this afternoon?" If we really delight in God should we not be concentrating on holy thoughts?

"What's learned with pleasure is learned full measure." Do you delight in God? Do you take pleasure in the worship of Him and long to have others delight in Him too?

III. Discipline

If your worship and mine is going to be more than duty, but a great delight, it will involve discipline. I want us to think about rules, guidelines, etc as more than duties, but tools of discipline that assist us to delight in the true worship of God. How do you commit your way to the Lord? How have you demonstrated your trust in Him? Have you ceased from anger, forsaken wrath, and ended fretting? I believe these were involved in the discipline of the Psalmist, and should also assist us in our worship of God.

Have you ever thought about how "well," actually, how poorly you focus on God when you are fretting, complaining, or angry? I confess that in those situations I very poorly worship God, if I worship Him at all.

The Jews had a rhythm of worship. Three days prior to the Sabbath they began to prepare their hearts to worship. Following their high holy Sabbath they reflected on the Sabbath. Would you be willing to try that approach to worship? For the next three days pray, visit, and think about what you have heard and talked about in worship and Sunday school today. Then spend the next three days prayerfully focusing your thoughts on being prepared for worship next week.

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