Sermons 2024

Video

Text: Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament lesson of Deuteronomy chapter five verses twelve through fifteen.

Boys and Girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Do you look forward to a new day when you wake up in the morning? Every day seems to have its own personality. Fats Domino sang a song called “Blue Monday.” Monday is back-to-work or back-to-school day—back to the grind. Wednesday is called “hump day,” getting over the hump moving towards the weekend. We all know the phrase “Thank goodness it’s Friday!”

What about this day—Sunday, the day of worship, the day we gather together as God’s people? What kind of day is this? What personality, what purpose, does our Sunday observance have? Our readings center on the Sabbath, that time God commanded be kept as special day of worship. What is the Sabbath now? Why and how do we keep the Sabbath? Ponder these questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

I.    Is the Sabbath a workday?

The Pharisees thought so in today’s Gospel. They imagined the Sabbath was a day to work. It was a day for them to keep rules and observances by which God would accept them as holy. All 613 Laws. From things like learning who God is and worshiping Him, reading the Shema at morning and night, not to wear garments made of wool and linen mixed together, not to gather grapes that had fallen to the ground, and many more. Because they viewed the Sabbath as a day of work, a day to keep the Law, they were offended when Jesus’ disciples did not seem to keep those rules.

How easily do we slip into this attitude? Church and worship are seen as something that we do. We imagine our prayers, church attendance, offerings, service in the church are what make us “good Christian people.” We could not be more wrong. This is religious pride, a sin! That is what Paul calls works-righteousness, looking to our own actions as what makes us good people. Saying, see look at me, look how good I have been. God condemns all our efforts to keep the Sabbath holy by our religious activities.

This attitude poisons our relationship with God. It turns the Sabbath into a workday. It makes God our boss and us the “employees.” Worship becomes our work to appease him. Salvation becomes our “paycheck,” of which we can never quite earn enough.

II.    The Sabbath is a “day of rest and gladness”!

So what is the Sabbath if it is not a work day? Our hymn today is not titled “O Day of Work and Labor.” It is a day of rest and gladness! The Sabbath is a day of rest. “Rest” means to stop working. The Hebrew for Sabbath means “cessation,” “to stop.” The Sabbath is a concrete symbol that God’s saving grace is what deems human life rather than any or all work. The sabbath is set to provide the reality of freedom, celebration, and rest for everyone, especially for those who might not easily find it. Those who have been slaves and have been freed by the power and grace of God can never treat slaves in the same way they were treated. 

God wanted to give us a rest from work so that He could do the giving. That is why we call it a Divine Service, God serves us with His wonderous gifts. A time to gather in worship. A time to stop and enjoy the gifts God gives.
Illustration: At lunchtime a farmer’s wife calls to her husband and farmhands, “Dinner is ready.” What does her husband and farmhands have to do? They must stop working to receive the food and drink prepared for them.
God commanded the Israelites to observe this day of rest. The people rest remembering the Lord’s mighty acts of salvation. The Lord showed His mighty and outstretched arm by rescuing the Israelites from the bondage in Egypt. Under their Egyptians overlords the Israelites had no day of rest. Now, the Lord commands them to keep a day of rest to remember. To “remember” was to hear God’s Word, the proclamation of his accomplishing salvation for them. The true core of keeping the Sabbath consisted of gladly hearing God’s Word and learning it.

Illustration: See what Luther writes concerning the meaning of the Third Commandment. We should fear and love God, and not despise preaching and His word, but deem it holy, and gladly hear and learn it.  We come to church and keep the Sabbath to hear God’s Word and to receive God’s gifts. God’s command to worship is not his ordering us around as our boss; it is the commandment of the One who with a mighty arm. An arm He deigned to stretch on the cross for our salvation. A mighty arm that won salvation, and rescues us from sin and death. He is the gracious and merciful Giver who bestows this salvation through his Word.
Our part is to gladly hear and learn it—to believe that our sins are forgiven, that Christ has died for us.

Picture what our Sunday worship is. Not us giving to God but God giving all of His wonderous gifts of everlasting life, salvation, over and over, again and again anew every single Sunday. How do we react? I remember two sets of feelings toward certain days when I was young. Sunday evenings I dreaded going back to school the next day. I had to study, get up early, behave, and work. That was the Pharisees’ picture of the Sabbath, but it is not ours. The focus and foundation of worship is not our work and our doing. Our Sabbath is more like another feeling, a very different feeling, I used to have. I remember the marvelous anticipation and excitement of going to Grandma’s for Christmas—gifts and food and celebration and family. That is closer to what our worship is. The focus and foundation are God’s work, salvation, and giving. We come as poor beggars to receive His wonderous undeserved gifts.

Conclusion: Every day seems to have its own personality. This is the Lord’s Day, the day He gives and forgives and stretches out his mighty arm to put his mercy through his Holy Word in your heart and hands. Every day has its own personality; this is a day of rest and gladness. We rest and let God give to us. We are filled with gladness because He is kind and merciful. Let us keep the Sabbath in joy and rejoicing. Let us gladly hear God’s Word, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.