Brother ..I do not disagree with much of what I believe I understand you saying but this is a common disagreement . There is truly nothing new under the sun . Justification verses sanctification . Works verses law . Grace verses concern over license and/or perceived disobedience .
What is keeping a day holy ? And how is not every day holy in Christ . How is that a bad thing ? How is that not a better thing than one day ?
Jesus did in a sense break the old covenant by becoming our high priest and became a curse for hanging on a tree . And the old covenant (Torah )was composed of God's commandments . They are beautiful commandments but could not perform what a new heart can for a new heart is from God .
Graciousness and righteousness have always been compatible character traits of the same God, which He expressed throughout the Bible (Exodus 34:6-7, Psalms 119:29). In Hebrews 11:7, Noah was listed as an example of faith and in Genesis 6:8-9, it says that he found grace in the eyes of God and that he was a righteous man, so he was saved by grace through faith in the same one and only way as everyone else.
In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, which is essentially what God's Law was given to instruct us how to do. Furthermore, verse 14 says that Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all Lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so if we believe in what Jesus accomplished on the cross, then we will become zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's Law (Acts 21:20) and will not return to the Lawlessness that Jesus gave himself to redeem us from. Our salvation is from sin and sin is defined as disobedience to God's Law (1 John 3:4), so being trained by grace to live in obedience to God's Law through faith is what being saved from living in disobedience to God's Law looks like.
God commanded His followers to keep the Sabbath holy by doing no work and by having a holy convocation. So if we did on every day what God wants us to do on the Sabbath, then we would do no work, but God also wants us to work.
I do somewhat question part of the statement the statement , All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent from their sins and to return to obedience to His Law , and even Christ began his ministry with that message . I believe the message was ' Repentance unto God Himself although in Acts 20:21 the preaching was repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ ) Of course there were periods of repentance all through the Bible but often there was an outward observance which lead to self-righteousness . They did not have God's heart ..they were not born again . They were the older brother of the prodigal son and keeping the law ( like our brother Saul/ Paul . ) So actually , they needed to run back to the Father ....not to the Law per se . The prodigal could have kept the law but still been away from his Father and this is what I often see . Law keepers justified by the law but no love for the Father . This is my concern with the emphasis on many movements which I have seen . Obedience to establish justification ...and you are correct ...this was Paul's concern in Galatians . One becomes part of " the in-group " .
Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent from our sins for the Kingdom of God is at hand (Matthew 4:17-23) and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is, so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of the Gospel of Christ. The same goes for Acts 2:38 when Peter told his audience to repent for the forgiveness of sins. In Romans 15:4, Paul said OT Scripture was written for our instruction and in 15:18-19, His Gospel message involved bringing the Gentiles to full obedience in word and in deed, so he was on the same page as Jesus in regard to teaching repentance from our sins.
If God's Law were His instructions for how to become self-righteous, and God does not want us to become self-righteous, then it would follow that therefore God doesn't want to be obeyed, which is absurd, therefore God's Law was not given as instructions for how to become self-righteous, and as instructions for how to express God's righteousness. In Romans 10:4, Jesus is the goal of the Law for righteousness for everyone who has faith and in Philippians 3:8, Paul had been outwardly keeping the Law without having a focus on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the Law, and counted it all as rubbish, so the right solution to incorrectly obeying God's Law is to repent and to start obeying it correctly with the right focus, not to stop obeying God.
I see that you are messianic . Does this mean you are Jewish by birth and a follower of Jesus Christ by new birth ?
Jesus did not come to start his own religion following a different god, but rather he came to bring fullness to Judaism as its Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. He practice Judaism by sinlessly keeping the Torah and by teaching his followers how to obey it by word and by example. All Christians were Torah observant Jews for roughly the first 7-15 years after Christ's resurrection up until the inclusion of Gentiles in Acts 10, so Christianity at its origin was the form of Judaism that Jesus practiced and which recognized him as their prophesied Messiah, and this is the form of Christianity that I seek to follow with the inclusion of Gentiles. So it is not necessary for Messianics to be Jewish by birth and in fact Gentile Messianics far outnumber Jewish Messianics due to Jews making up a small percentage of the world's population, however, I do happen to be a Jew by birth and a follower of Jesus by new birth.
And yes , we are to keep the Sabbath Holy and the Sabbath is friday at sundown until Saturday at sundown . I keep it Holy by going out and looking for lambs who have fallen in a ditch ...by looking for withered hands and hearts who do not know the love of God or who have gotten lost in religion . All things are lawful for me but not all things are expedient . ( I realize Paul was not saying things like fornication or covetousness was lawful . )
Also , when Paul was saying " to the Jew , he became as a Jew ..to those without Law , etc. What do you think he was saying ? He obviously did not become a murderer to win murderers .
Loving others is way to spend the Sabbath. If you think that Paul was saying that all things are lawful, then that would include everything that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:9-12 that would cause someone not to inherit the Kingdom. However, he was quoting that phrase in order to argue against it, not in order to endorse it. Furthermore, Paul did not have the authority to countermand God by saying that all things are lawful, nor should we follow Paul instead of God even if you think that is what he was saying.
You are correct that in 1 Corinthians 9:21, Paul was not speaking about sinning in order to reach sinners because that would have completely undermined his message to them, and sin is disobedience to God's Law. Rather, he said in a parallel statement that he was not outside the Law of God, but under the Law of Christ, so he equated the Mosaic Law with the Law of Christ.
Regarding the messianic belief ...do you wear the clothes ...blow the Shofar Horn , etc. How much of the law do you follow ?
I do not wear clothes mixed with wool and linen. We are not commanded to blow the shofar though we are commanded to hear the voice of the shofar during the Feast of Trumpets. Even when the Law was first given to Moses, there wasn't a single person who was required to follow every single Law, and not even Jesus followed the laws in regard to giving birth or to having a period. Some laws were only given to govern the conduct of the King, the High Priest, priests, judges, men, women, children, widows, those who are married, those with servants, those with animals, those with crops, those with tzaraat, those living in the land, and for strangers living among them, while others were given for everyone. Furthermore, many of the laws came with conditions under which they should be obeyed, such as the command to keep the Sabbath holy, which should only be obeyed under the condition that it is the 7th day or laws in regard to temple practice, which should only be obeyed under the condition that there is a temple in which to practice them.
So understanding how much of the Law to follow is a matter of careful prayer, study, and leading of the Spirit. However, if we believe the Bible that the Law was given for our own good and that God can be trusted to guide us in how to rightly live, then we will have the attitude of looking for reasons why we have the delight of getting to obey God's instructions rather than the attitude of looking for every excuse under the sun to avoid following God's guidance.
