YOU SHALL KEEP THE DAY OF REST HOLY
Rev. Mark F. Bartels
Old Testament Lesson;
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Epistle Lesson;
Colossians 2:16-17
Gospel Lesson;
Mark 2:23-28
Sermon Text; The Third Commandment
You shall keep the Day of Rest holy.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
I am going to give you some statistics. And, as I go through these statistics, I would like you, in your own mind, to try to figure out, try to determine what the common thread is that binds all these children together. What is it that they all have in common?
These children are apt to live eight years longer than their peers.
These children are less apt to be involved in a crime.
These children are less apt to be involved in violence.
These children are more apt to wear their seatbelt.
These children are more apt to be safe drivers.
These children are less apt to have car accidents.
These children are less apt to cause trouble at school.
Theses children are less apt to cause much trouble at home.
These children are more apt to be satisfied with their life.
These children are more apt to be confident in their future.
These children are more apt to become church leaders.
I could go on, but what do you think is the common thread that unites all of these children together? You might say to yourself, "Well, I am guessing that all of those children are Christians."
That is not the answer!
All of those children are regular church attendees. Regular church attendees. What does that show us about the Third Commandment, which God gives us? It shows us, (just like any of the Ten Commandments), God does not give the Ten Commandments in order to put a straight jacket on us and take away our fun. God gives us the Ten Commandments, because He wants nothing but blessing and joy in our lives. And so, God gives the Ten Commandments, (and particularly now today, as we look at the Third Commandment, to keep the Day of Rest holy); He gives them, in order to bring great blessing in our lives.
I don’t know how many times this has happened in the history of the world, (and it may very well have happened when you were a teenager). But, how many times has a parent, on a Sunday morning, gone into a teenager’s bedroom, shook the bed and said, "It is time to get up for church?"
Ten minutes later, the parent goes to check on the teenager, and the teenager has not budged from bed. And so, the parent shakes him again and says, "It is time to get up for church."
Ten minutes later, the parent goes back and the teenager is still in bed. And now, time is running short. Time is of the essence and patience is running short. And maybe the parent loses his or her temper at the child and says, "Come on! You have to get up for church. We are going to be late!"
And the teenager retorts, "Why do we have to go to church? Church is so boring."
I wish that any teenager, (maybe it was you), and any of us who see the Holy Day, the Day of Rest that way, could really stop, pause, and think about what Jesus meant when, in response to the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath Day, He said,
"The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath."
Do you understand what Jesus was saying there? Jesus was saying the Sabbath, the Day of Rest, was made just for you. God loves you so dearly that He intends to open up His blessings to you, pour out His blessings to you, and the Sabbath, the Day of Rest was made for you. God, in His love and goodness, has set aside a time and hour when you and I gather together around the Word of God and do nothing, but gather around the Word of God. And by that, God intends to open up the profound treasures that are in His Word, pour them out to you, and bless you.
"The Sabbath was made for man."
The Day of Rest was made for you and God intends to bless you through the Sabbath, through the Day of Rest.
God intends, as you sit here in church today, to pour out His blessings on you.
God intends for you to leave this sanctuary today having those great treasures poured out to you.
He intends for you to leave here today confident, absolutely confident that your sins are forgiven, and you do not have guilt, in His eyes.
He intends to open up the treasures and send you home today, refreshed in your faith and ready to go forward and face the onslaughts of the devil for the rest of this week, armed with the Word of God.
He intends to open up His treasures, bless you, and send you home with confidence that no matter what troubles or trials you face, you are armed with the Word of God and the promises of God.
In fact, Martin Luther said if there is no other reason that you keep the Day of Rest holy than this one, this is all the reason we need to keep the Day of Rest holy. He said that you need to be aware that the devil incessantly, day and night, nonstop is seeking to attack you.
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He is seeking to take away your faith.ü
He is seeking to make you fall into misbelief.ü
He is seeking to get you to fall into sin.ü
He is seeking to destroy you.Listen to what Luther says in the explanation to this commandment, in the large catechism. "Let me tell you this, even though you know God’s Word perfectly and you are already a master in all of God’s Word, still you are daily in dominion of the devil, who ceases neither day nor night to steal unawares upon you, to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the Word of God. Therefore, you must always have the Word in your hearts, upon your lips, and in your ears. For where the heart is idle and the Word of God does not sound, the devil breaks in and he does damage, before we are aware. On the other hand, such is the power of God’s Word, whenever it is seriously contemplated, and heard, and used that it is found never to be without fruit, that it always awakens new understanding, new pleasures, new devoutness, and produces a pure heart with pure thoughts. For the Word of God is not ineffective or dead, but creative, living, and powerful. And even though no other interest or necessity impels us, yet this ought to urge everyone, because thereby, the devil is put to flight and driven away."
God intends through the Day of Rest and through the Word that is preached and taught on the Day of Rest, to send you home with the treasures and blessings of His Word in your battle against the devil.
However, all of us have sinned against the Third Commandment. We have not kept the Day of Rest holy, as we ought to. It is not just the people who, right now as we speak, are lying ‘dead’ drunk in a tavern somewhere, and not in a church on a Sunday morning that don’t keep the Day of Rest holy (although that is certainly not keeping the Day of Rest holy). But, we understand that even someone who comes to church every Sunday can be breaking the Day of Rest.
If someone comes to church and listens to the Word of God as if it were a trifle, as if they were listening to any other matter, or if someone comes to church and hears the Word of God and goes home at the end of the year knowing no more about God’s Word than they knew at the beginning of the year, because they see it as something small, or unnecessary, or unimportant, that is just as serious a breaking of the Third Commandment, as the person who is lying ‘dead’ drunk in a tavern right now. It is not honoring the awesome blessings that God pours out to us in His Word.
If someone comes to church and hears a sermon once or twice, or maybe a thousand or two thousand times and at the end of that time says to himself, "Well now, now I know everything there is. I have heard it all. It is now getting old and stale. And now there is no longer any reason for me to go to church and hear the Word of God."
How can you be done learning, what God is not done teaching?
How can you be done learning, what God will not be done teaching to you in a lifetime?
The only people who don’t need the teaching of God’s Word are perfect people. And, if you are perfect, then you don’t need to be taught God’s Word. But so long as we are not perfect, we need daily the teaching of the Word of God, though which He instructs us and pours out His great blessings to us.
Oh, we have been lazy. We have been ungrateful. We have not had a strong desire to hear the Word of God. We have broken that Day of Rest in many ways.
So, what if you are someone who has not been to church in thirty years? And here you are today, after thirty years, in God’s House, keeping the Day of Rest holy, after thirty years. What are God’s thoughts toward you? And what is His heart toward you? Does God look at you and say, "Where have you been for the past thirty years? What have your eyes seen the past thirty years? What have your ears heard the past thirty years? What have you done, the past thirty years? How deeply have you fallen the past thirty years? And now you are in my House. And now you are listening to my Word. And now you want my treasures opened to you. And now you want to come to my Table and you want to receive the body and blood of my Son?"
What is God’s heart toward you? Let’s imagine there is a mother who has twin sons. One of those boys went to church every Sunday, when he was a little boy. He did well in school. He worked hard. He honored his mother. He went off to college and got a degree. He studied hard some more, and today, let’s imagine today he is to receive his PHD degree in some very intellectual field.
And now, let’s imagine her other twin son did not go to church. He was disobedient and rebellious toward his mother. As a young man, he went the ‘broad and easy road’ that leads to destruction, and he fell into all kinds of crime. He committed a crime so great that today, today he is to be executed for the crime he has committed.
And so, on the one hand there is the son who today is to receive his PHD and the other son who is to be executed. Which of those two sons do you think that mother’s heart yearns more for? Don’t you think it is the son who went that ‘broad and easy road’ and now is about to face the consequences?
And so it is with God’s heart. He yearns for you. If you have strayed from His Way, if you and I have sinned, if you have gone against His Word, His heart yearns for you. And today, today, you are in His House. You are gathered around His Word. And it is His desire to do nothing but bless you. It is His desire today to open up the treasures of His Word, and pour out to you the awesome treasure of His Word, and send you home blessed!
And so, let’s open up the treasure right now.
No matter who you are,
no matter what you have seen,
no matter what you have thought,
no matter what you have said,
no matter what sin you have committed,
no matter how far you have fallen,
no matter what,
God loves you so profoundly and so deeply
that in His Word He assures,
absolultely assures you
that Jesus Christ, His dear Son, and our Savior
has fully, totally, absolutely, completely, 100%
taken every single one of your sins to the cross
and there on the cross
has made absolute, total, 100%, and complete payment
for all of your sins!
God declares to you today, that you stand forgiven.
You stand in His eyes, for Christ’s sake, not guilty.
You stand in His eyes, for Christ’s sake, as His dear child.
You stand in His eyes, for Christ’s sake, as one who is bound for the eternity, of Heaven, (although we in no way deserve that).
God intends, as you come and gather around His Word, to open up those blessings and send you home, send you home with nothing but comfort, peace, and consolation in your heart. God intends today to open up the treasure of His Word and bless you. And when you hear that saving Gospel message, (what Jesus has done for you), through that, the Holy Spirit motivates your heart. He changes your heart from the inside out, and sends you home blessed with the desire to now amend your sinful ways and live for your Savior. God intends nothing but profound blessing for you today. God’s Word is nothing but power. It is nothing but strength. It is nothing but providing to us the fruits of the Spirit. And who of us would not long for the blessings that God opens up to us today. Today God intends to bless you in this way.
I was at a youth outing once, where a bunch of teenagers were getting ready for Bible study. They were all carrying their Bibles, and one of them had a brand new, beautiful, black leather grain, bound, gold imprinted Bible, with gold leaf pages. One of the other pastors that was there stopped the teenager, held out his hand, and said, "Let me see your sword."
The teenager looked at him and asked, "My sword?"
The pastor said, "Yeh, the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit."
It is the one defensive weapon we have, by which we go out this week (and this week you will face the incessant temptation of the devil, incessant, nonstop temptations of the devil). Today God opens up His Word to you and lies before you your sword, the one weapon that you can go out and fight the devil with. He sharpens your sword and He teaches you how to handle your sword, so that you can drive off the temptations of the devil.
God intends to do nothing but bless you, today.
God intends to do nothing but send you home with guidance in His Word, as you go through all the troubles of your life. What blessing He pours out to us!
God intends to send you home with confidence. Someday you will face your death. We don’t know when. But as you face your death, God intends to send you home today, with absolute confidence. You can be confident, you can be sure that when you die, you will go to Heaven!
Today He opens up that treasure, that limitless treasure of His Word and tells you,
"Believe on the LORD Jesus Christ and
you will be saved."
There is a promise from God, from His Word, a treasure to you. The treasure is that God has made a promise. He cannot, He will not, and He does not break it. You can be confident on your deathbed, confident in the face of death.
What profound treasure is opened up to us in the Word of God, on the Day of Rest.
"The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath."
The Sabbath was made for you!
God intends to bless you.
Who is it that is most apt to be a Sunday School teacher, or a Vacation Bible School teacher? Who is it that is most apt to serve on a church board or a church organization? Who is that is most apt to give generously and regularly to the work of the Lord? Who is it that is most apt to have family devotions at home? Who is it that is most apt to have children who don’t cause as much trouble at home? Who is it that is most apt to have loving homes? The answer to that, to all of those questions, are those with regular church attendance.
You shall keep the Day of Rest holy.
The Sabbath was made for you and God intends to bless you.
Today, being Father’s Day, I think back to my dad, and want to honor him. I ask myself, "What are the greatest blessings my dad gave me?" I tell you, probably the greatest blessing my dad has given me is by his life, by his words, and by his example, he taught me, as a young man to keep the Day of Rest holy. My dad showed me that when I miss church, I miss something. I don’t go to church because I must or because I have to, it is because when I don’t go to church I miss something. I miss the blessings and the treasure that God is waiting to lay before me that day.
God grant all of us such homes. Let us pray this week, that God would cause us to see the Day of Rest as a day where God intends to do nothing but pour out His blessings. And let us pray that God would cause our families to have a real desire for God’s Word. And finally, let’s especially pray for those who don’t come to church on a regular basis.
We pray that for the sake of our Savior.
Amen.
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