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Sunday, July 05, 2009

sermon 3 of 10 on Ten Commandments 7/5/09 Ten Words of God for living a happy life.

Sermon 3 of 10 on Ten Commandments
7/5/09
Exodus 20:8-11
Ten Words of God for living a happy life.
The man had been caught red-handed. He was taken in front of the religious leader, found guilty of sinning against God and then taken to the outskirts of the community and stoned to death. We are shocked by the news. Surely this did not happen and we condemn those who did such a deed. They certainly must not have been God fearers, probably some religious cult of some kind. In fact we would probably say those that stoned the man must have been Muslims.
That is what we would say, but we would be wrong for this event took place in ancient times after the Ten Commandments had been given and a man was found guilty of breaking the Third Commandment, the one we are looking at today concerning keeping the Sabbath holy. We know of this event because the story is found in Numbers 15:32-36. The man had been caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath. He was held in custody while Moses inquired of the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the law-breaker was taken out of the camp and stoned to death.
Why would God say such a thing? In Genesis 28:8-11, we read "Remember the Sabbath (Rest) Day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy." God had spoken and the law had to be carried out.
The Sabbath Law was part of the covenant between the Lord and Israel. Its observance made the nation of Israel different from the nations around them to whom Saturday was a good work day. It was a reminder that the Lord Yahweh was their God and they were his people.
By the time Jesus came on the scene the Sabbath Law was no longer enforced with such severity, but its observance was still seen as one of the most important things that made a Jew a Jew. The Pharisees and their scribes had built a "hedge" around the Sabbath – detailed rules and regulations that legalistically determined what was allowed and what was not allowed on the Sabbath. There were rules that defined what constituted "work" and what did not, rules that specified the distance of the "Sabbath mile" you could walk without breaking the Sabbath, and such. The rules were intended to assure observance of the Sabbath Rest but they had hardened into a rigid system in which the rules had become more important than the purpose of the Sabbath Day.
Jesus quickly got into trouble with the religious leaders because he stressed the spirit rather than the letter of the law and was found "guilty," in their minds, because he did his "work" of healing the sick also on the Sabbath. But Jesus told them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." He insisted that the Sabbath Law had been given to be blessing to man; it was not a case of man being created just to observe and perpetuate a Sabbath Law. And he asserted his divine authority over it all, saying, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Thus Jesus shifted the focus for his followers – away from a legalistic observance of the seventh day, to seeing him as the one in whom the Ceremonial Law, and Sabbath Law, were fulfilled.
St. Paul said that the Sabbath day is a shadow of things that were to come; the reality is found in Christ." It is much the same as if you're waiting for a friend to come around the corner of a building and you see his shadow first and are assured he's coming – it would be foolish, after he has turned the corner, to go on looking at his shadow. You would look right at him. That is what Paul is saying. Christ has come, the one whom the Sabbath foreshadowed, it would be foolish to go on requiring observance of the Sabbath Law instead of rejoicing in the freedom we have through the one who fulfilled its purpose.
To point out this change of focus in their faith, the early Christians soon moved away from worship on Friday evening and Saturday the Sabbath, to worship on the day they called "The Lord's Day" which we know as Sunday, the day Jesus rose from the dead and displayed his victory over death and hell. We follow their tradition. Knowing the purpose of the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we worship on his day, the Lord's Day. The principle involved in the Sabbath commandment, however, still makes it one of the Ten Words for a Happy Christian Life.
The principle of the Sabbath Day is important for our physical and emotional health. You can't keep on working day after day, seven days a week, for any length of time without experiencing stress that leads to ineffective work and bodily illness. The body needs rest; the mind needs relaxation and diversion.
But the real need is not just recreation and rest; otherwise we would not be gathered here this morning. It is re-creation, for our spirits need refreshment and renewal and the Lord's Day provides opportunity for us to be recipients of the Holy Spirit's blessings of refreshment and renewal as we gather together around Word and Sacrament. Martin Luther explained this Commandment in his Catechism. He didn't even talk about which day it should be. It was not important, for Jesus had fulfilled the commandment.
Luther said that now our primary activity as we worship our Lord, is to fear, that is to hold him in awe as the First Commandment tells ,and love God so that we do not neglect his Word and the preaching of it, but regard it as holy, and gladly hear and learn it.
Sometimes I hear even church members explain their absence from God's House by saying, "I can worship God anywhere." While that is true, the response to this is, “Of course you can, but do you?" We surely should worship the Lord everywhere, but the Lord's Day brings us its special opportunity to get together with fellow Christians, to encourage and to be encouraged as we consciously focus on our Lord and Savior.
We do this because in worship we are spiritually refreshed because our gathering on the Lord's Day gives us opportunity to come into God's presence with praise and thanksgiving. Worship is an interesting word in that it can be used both as a noun and verb. I know it is not grammatically correct, but I would say that it is both at the same time. As a noun worship is a state of being, an atmosphere or situation in which something is to happen to us. As a verb worship stresses action. It is something that we do. God is the audience, not we, while at the same time it is something that God is doing as we hear the Word of God being read and preached and receive the body and blood of Christ.
Sunday morning, or whatever day one worships God on, is to the rest of your life what cultivation is to a garden. If you want a beautiful garden you weed, prune, water, and feed it so that the garden will produce. If you do not it, at the very least will produce a poor crop, but will eventually die. Worship like gardening has to be planned and thought out. It does not work well done spontaneously. It does not work well if you come to worship with unreal expectations or expecting to dislike it or you come because God’s Law says that you have to, you will suffer under the law. .
I remember visiting a woman who once told me, “I don't like to feel that I have to go to church. I want to go because I want to.” While she should attend worship services because she wants to, she still labored under the deadening view of this Commandment as Law. She hadn't experienced the liberating Gospel truth that Christians don't have to go to church; we get to go to church, so that we can praise our Lord with brothers and sisters on the day he made for us.
No one is going to take you out and stone you if you are not here on Sunday morning, for God's commandment, as it is applied to those who truly trust in Jesus as their Savior it is no longer a command. It is an invitation to be in fellowship with God and other Christians on a day of rest.
Like the other commandments, as Christians we are free of the condemnation brought on by the Law. Jesus died in your place and you are free to worship God, not because you have to, but because you want to. I pray that you are experiencing the joy of keeping the Sabbath this very day. Amen.