What Does the Sabbath Mean For You?

2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/6/21 Deuteronomy 5:12-15 What Does the Sabbath Mean For You? I. It means the rest you receive through forgiveness. II. It means the rest you enjoy through God’s word. Imagine doing nothing for 24 hours. I don’t mean absolutely nothing. Obviously, you would take care of some personal hygiene matters, get dressed, and eat food. But you wouldn’t prepare any food. The food you eat during those 24 hours would be prepared ahead of time. Other than the simplest of necessary tasks, you would do nothing, and you wouldn’t go anywhere either. You would stay right at home. If you’ve been incredibly busy lately, a day of doing nothing might sound like a wonderful idea. But then again, if you’ve been incredibly busy, there might be things you left undone that need to get done, and sooner rather than later. Most of us don’t enjoy just sitting there doing nothing when we know there are things that need to be done. Some of them might be right in front of you and they are silently screaming for your attention. Now imagine being commanded by your God to do nothing for 24 hours once a week, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Other than the bare basics, you were forbidden to do any work. God’s intent was for you to get rest. And he called it the Sabbath day. The Hebrew word “Sabbath” means rest. We have that command of God before us this morning here in Deuteronomy 5. Moses spoke these words as part of his final sermon to the Children of Israel before the Lord called him home to heaven. Forty years earlier the Lord had given this same command in a slightly different form to Moses on Mt. Sinai. And now Moses was sharing it with them again in order to impress on the Children of Israel the command to observe the Sabbath day. But, obviously, we don’t observe the Sabbath day, and rightly so. God tells us in his word that there’s no need for us who are living after Jesus completed his work as our Savior to observe the Sabbath day. But here it is—God’s command to observe the Sabbath day. So, you might be wondering what it means for you today. That’s a good question, so let’s keep it before us this morning. What does the Sabbath mean for you? Let’s see the answers our God provides. Part I. Permit me to ask you a question and I’m going to give you a few seconds to ponder your answer. What do you need? Even if you’ve made the statement, “The Lord has been so good to me; I have everything I need,” I still want you to ponder and answer that question. What do you need? “I need healing for a chronic health problem.” “I need a little more income to make ends meet.” “I need a vacation.” “I need to retire.” “I need to make this happen for myself.” It might even be as simple as “I need to buy groceries.” Every day of your life, those needs, along with a host of others, run through your mind and often through your heart. We need those things in order to live, to cope, to be happy in life. Did it ever occur to you that our first parents who lived in the perfection of the Garden of Eden never had those same needs to live, to cope, or to be happy? They had no health issues, no money issues, no employment issues, no retirement issues, and no relationship issues. Everything they thought, everything they desired, everything they said, and everything they did brought them complete satisfaction. They had no concerns about anything. Can you imagine such a life? I know I can’t. My days are filled with issues, concerns, and needs. Not so for Adam and Eve. But that all changed on the most dreadful day in history, the day that they listened to Satan’s temptation and fell into sin. And now we know exactly what their day was like after the fall into sin. So, what was the first need they experienced? What was crushing them the moment they disobeyed the Lord’s command not to eat of that fruit? It was without a doubt their guilt and shame. The Bible speaks about their shame. And their crushing guilt caused them to try to hide from the Lord. They realized in an instant that their sin had caused a dire need and they were helpless to supply it. As I mentioned, that’s the only life we know. All we know is a life of daily sin and the guilt and shame those sins load onto our hearts. From the time we were toddlers, we know all about sin and its unbearable consequences. So, on your list of things you need, what rises to the top now? It has to be the removal of guilt and shame for your sins. My greatest need, your greatest need, the greatest need for any sinful person is the forgiveness of sins. And that’s what our Savior, Jesus, is all about. The Lord Jesus knows all about the hell that our sins deserve. He suffered that hell on the cross. He did so in order to win our forgiveness. That means our guilt and shame have been removed. In fact, by faith in Jesus we are innocent or holy before our God. And that’s the truth that gives us rest. Jesus once called for all who are weary to come to him for rest. That was his constant invitation for sinners to come to him for the forgiveness that only he can give. And in that forgiveness is the rest that we desperately need. And there’s the first answer to our question: What does the Sabbath mean for you? It means the rest you receive through forgiveness. Recall that we stated a moment ago that forgiveness rose to the top of your list of needs. But I’m guessing that took a bit of thinking things through with me for you to come to that point. Let’s admit it—as we enjoy that cup of coffee in the early morning and ponder the day that lies ahead of us, getting forgiveness is not likely on our minds and doesn’t make it on that day’s list of things to do. Do you realize that, without the forgiveness of our sins, nothing else that we achieve, attain, or accomplish during our entire lifetime would matter? Without forgiveness, the end of this life would be the beginning of endless death separated from our God. Ponder that eternal dilemma! And then receive this astounding good news: we live in the daily forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus. What we need more than anything else Jesus gives us freely, even without our asking. That forgiveness is ours even though we may not think about it or appreciate it. It’s ours because Jesus won it for us, and he wants nothing more than to make us certain of it. And that, dear people of God, gives us rest—the rest you receive each day through the forgiveness of sins. Part II. Did you receive instruction from Luther’s Small Catechism in your youth in order to be confirmed in the Lutheran church? If so, you might recall Luther’s explanation to the Third Commandment. “We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his word. But regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.” Luther correctly believed and taught that this commandment is no longer about observing Saturday as the day of rest. It’s about God’s word. He only wrote two short sentences in his explanation, but they’re packed with meaning for us. As such, they help us answer the question, “What does the Sabbath mean for you?” The first truth that his explanation shares with us is that we are forbidden from despising God’s word. Well, just what does that look like? It’s treating the word of God as anything less than the word of God. It’s allowing our sinful human opinions to rise above it. It’s denying what the clear word of God states. It’s harboring the attitude that God’s word doesn’t mean enough to me to take the time to pay attention to it. It’s even hearing what it says, but not believing it or doing what it says. Do any of those hit close to home for you? And then Luther shares the positive meanings of this commandment. It’s regarding God’s word as holy. Do you realize how much in the minority we are on that truth? The vast majority of Christians in the world do not believe God’s word to be holy or true. This is the holy word of God. These are the most precious words we can ever hear or read or believe. And that calls for this response: that we gladly hear and learn God’s word. Gladly hear and learn it. Hearing God’s word is not our one-hour per week obligation. It’s not something we endure. It’s not something we do when we have nothing better to do. We gladly hear and learn it, as much as we can, as often as we can. And the reason we do so is all about the Sabbath—the rest God wants us to have. Our connection to our God and all the blessings he wants for us do not come out of thin air. They come to us through his word. Our forgiveness, our lives as his children, and our certainty of eternal life with him in heaven come to us through his word. For those reasons alone, we should be willing to give up everything else in our lives in order to have God’s word. This word gives us the only rest that truly matters. Praise your God for the fact that the Sabbath is no longer a regulation you must keep, a regulation from God to get your rest! Praise your God it’s all about the rest he gives you in the forgiveness of sins that comes to you through his word. So, how can you thank him? Cherish that rest he gives! Cherish the word of God which brings that rest to you! Amen.