February 5 Sermon: When We Worship

As we come to the fourth commandment this morning, there are many different angles that we could consider and different angles that we could take. Specifically, what I'm thinking of is we've been looking at the Ten Commandments. I've been pointing out that there are these two tables of the law, that there is our duty to God in the first four Commandments, and then our duty to man in Commandments 5 through 10. Well, as we think about this, we come to them and we might be wondering, Okay, is there any overlay on this in how they benefit us? Obviously, it's a good benefit to keep God's law. There's always a benefit to keeping the law of God. But as we think about this command, the fourth commandment, to remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Yes, it is a duty to God, but there is a significant benefit to man, isn't there? We honor God on this day. We worship God on the sabbath. We do this, but we also receive from this the benefit of rest. 

Now, as I was looking at this idea of rest, as I was considering the aspect that we get the benefit of this, I was thinking about myself personally. I struggle to rest. I am not good at it, like at all. I am high strong. I like my job, so I like to work all the time. And I'm thinking about this, here I am. I'm the hypocrite standing up in front of everybody talking about resting in what God has done. So I started to think about this and then something interesting happened to me in the midst of it. My phone did a little beep beep in my pocket and I picked it up and it was Brian Busker from the Christian school asking me to speak at Chapel this week on the topic of patience. Yeah, that hurt. So not only was I considering this idea of rest and Sabbatheth, but the idea of patience in my lack of it. I came to it. At the end of considering it all, of meditating on the passages that I was looking at, I don't know if I failed to rest because I am impatient, or if I am impatient because I failed to rest. 

But regardless, I came out of my consideration of all of this just really stopping and thinking about, what is it about this commandment that I struggle with? And how much better off would I be if I was better at resting, if I was able to take the time and to really consider rest and patience and taking what God has blessed me with. Because at the end of the day, one thing that I came to the realization of is I struggle with these two things because at the end of the day, I'm not as content as I should be with what God has blessed me with. I'm not as content with the providence that he has over my life that he is in control as I should be. I want to take control. Going back to that first commandment, I want to put myself in the place of God. I want to be in control. I want to do this. And then also the impatience, the not trusting that things will happen in their time in God's providence, but also not really resting in the fact that God has won salvation for us. God has done everything. 

We can trust Him because of all that He has done for us in Christ. And so as we come to this passage today, it's important that we remember not that it is solely about our rest. At the end of the day, the commandment is about our duty to God. That is the chief purpose of it. It's absolutely essential that we don't lose of the sight of the reason that God has called us for a day of rest. It is so that we will worship Him. We are called to worship Him. God does not tell us to rest for rest's sake. It is rest for the sake of bringing glory to God and for resting in the salvation that has been won for us because of the work of Christ on our behalf. And so as we look at this commandment, we're going to be looking at the idea of sabbath rest, and we're going to look at how this points us to the rest that has been won for us in Christ. And we're going to see that, yes, it is about our duty to God, but there is this benefit for us of receiving this rest as a gift. 

We are worshiping God, and that benefits us because we are taking the time to not only rejuvenate our bodies, but to say, I'm not God. I'm not the one in the control. I'm not the one that deserves worship. He is, and I'm able to rest in what he has given me. Now, as we think about the idea of this commandment, let's think about the idea of work in our culture for a minute. We are always looking for ways to eliminate work, aren't we? I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Joseph Pieper, the German philosopher, said that leisure is the basis of culture. And I think he's right. How much of the stuff that we enjoy in this life is a huge part of our culture? That is all good stuff. But we're often looking to make things easier. The big example that I can think of of how things have become easier is I can remember when I was younger, my grandmother.....so this is in the 80s here, okay? Just to give you perspective. My grandmother refused to give up her ringer washer. We were way beyond ringer washers in the 80s. I remember going down with her and helping her, terrified that I would flatten my finger in there. 

But I remember thinking about how much harder this was than our washer at home. But at the end of the day, that ringer washer was a dream compared to rubbing it up against a washboard. And that was better than going out and beating them against the rocks. Also think about another thing that comes to mind is we have machines that wash our dishes, right? We're looking for more rest. We even have robot vacuums. I don't know if you've been paying attention to or heard anything about this, but in the last month or so, there's this artificial intelligence technology that has been released. It's open source. Anybody can use it. Anybody can find it. It's called Chat GPT. And what this does is you can ask it to do things and it will generate things for you. Just so you know, it did not generate this sermon. But you can use this technology to ask it questions and it will do different things. I'll get to what the concern is with it. But some people are plotting out ways to use this technology to be more productive, to maybe automate some portions of their job, or to give them some ideas or outlines for how to do things because it's basically the collective knowledge of the internet and that's at work. 

Some people see this as a blessing because it can help them be more productive. But at the same time, there's been a scramble since this technology has been put out in the open. You got to identify when it's being used because they used it to basically pass an entire course in law, like writing the papers, doing all these things. Students could easily use this to cheat. Don't do it. Whoever's out there that might apply to you, don't do it because they're coming up with technology to identify it. But we are always looking for ways to be lazy. And again, eliminating work isn't a bad thing. How often does eliminating work translate into time with our families that we can spend with them? But at the same time, laziness is not good. And so one thing I bring this up because one thing that I wanted us to think about here is what we get inherently from this commandment. As we look at this commandment, we see that we are to remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. And what is something that is inherent with this commandment, then? That we're to work. That work isn't bad, that work is a good thing. 

We often see work as being difficult. But remember, work existed before the fall. What did God promise in the fall? That by the sweat of our brow we would toil. Work became hard in the fall, but Adam and Eve, our first parents weren't put in the garden to sit around and do nothing, to have angels bring them grapes and feed them while they were fanned with palm branches. They were put in the garden to till it. Work is a good thing. And so as we look at this commandment, we need to remember that this is a blessing, that work is a blessing from God, but so is the rest. We are called to do good work. And so as this day is set apart for us, we find here, as we look at this, that there is some seriousness to this command because it's spelled out, this is probably the most spelled out commandment we have had so far, right? Because what does it say? It says, On it, you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 

In other words, God says no one is to do work on this day. It's not that you're going to sit down and have other people do your stuff, keep your business going, do all these other things. He's saying this is a serious thing. I have set this day apart. I have called you to do this good work that I have blessed you with on this day or on all the other days. You have six days to work, but on this other day it is set apart. It is different. We see in this that we were designed to be in this rhythm. In this passage, what do we have? We have a reminder of the created order, six days of laboring, and then we have this command not to do any work. N otice that deliberate rhythm. We see here that created order. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. There's that created rhythm. God made it this way. Yes, God is commanding this, but he designed you this way. 

This is what he is doing for us. He created us to labor, but then he sets apart a day for himself to bring glory to God and for us to rest and recover. That's the rhythm of life. Now, as we think about this, a natural question arises for us because what day was the Sabbath in the Old Testament? It was Saturday. So you've probably asked this question many times yourself, Well, why do we not go to church on Saturday? It'd be a lot easier. I wouldn't have to hurry home to watch the Vikings if we went to church on Saturday. There's all kinds of different things benefits of this, but why Sunday instead of Saturday? Now, you probably had your children ask you this question as well, because it's pretty obvious, Saturday is the seventh, the seventh day is Saturday. So why do we worship on Sunday? Well, we know the answer to this. On Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead. He rested in the grave on Saturday. He obeyed the law for you by resting on that sabbath and then rose from the dead. And so Sunday, we call it more than Sunday, don't we? 

This is the Lord's day, it's possessive, it is his, it is the Lord's day. And so we gather on this day. But there's something that I want us to consider about our gathering on the Lord's day that I think is important and foundational for our understanding of the rest that God gives us, that there's more to it than just, hey, we gather on Sunday because Jesus rose from the dead. There is a deeper idea for why we gather. So in the old covenant, the day of rest was the seventh day. So we worked from day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and six, and out of our work, we rested. Well, now God has done something new in Christ. Christ rested for us. He won victory over sin, death, and hell for us. He did the work for us. And so we rest on the first day. And out of that, then, we work. Instead of resting after six days of work, we now rest and have six days of work. That is the change that has happened. Now, this is easy for us to understand if we think of the perspective, we've got an easier bent on this as reformed folk because this lines up with what we consider in the Heidelberg Catechism, right? 

The three categories. We realize our sin before God. We realize that we are guilty. We fail to keep God's commands. We fail to rest. But what has God done? He has delivered us. He's given us His grace, and He has won the victory. He kept the law for us. He did all of this for us. And then out of that, our third category is gratitude. We serve God. We love our neighbor out of the gratitude that we have for the grace that God has shown. And so this is perfect. It's easy for us to remember that out of this rest that God has won for us, we now work. And we understand that we can only find this rest in Christ because in the New Covenant, that rest is won for us by Jesus. Something new has been done. The work of God is accomplished on the first day of the week when Jesus rose from the dead. And so that causes us to rest in that work that he has accomplished for us in his life, death, resurrection, ascension. That's what we come to worship, to do, to celebrate that victory, to celebrate that work of Christ and rest in it and say, My labor can do nothing to earn merit before God. 

And so I am going to rest in this salvation that was won for me by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so out of that rest, that work that God has done for me, I am now going to go out into the world. I'm going to love God. I'm going to love my neighbor. I am going to serve because God has first served me. God has first worked for me in Christ. And so in the old covenant, out of work, we rested. But in the new covenant, we work out of the rest that God has given us in Christ. We find our hope, our peace. We find our rest in the finished work of Christ. And from that, we work for the glory of God. Now, how huge of a mindset change is that? How amazing is this? As I said, this matches that idea that we have in the Heidelberg Catechism. We know that we have this salvation, and so each other, we work, this changes how we look at our day of rest. But we struggle with this, don't we? No matter how much we hear what God has done for us in Christ, no matter how much we hear, our automatic assumption is that we have to work. 

We're hard working Midwestern, pull yourself up by your bootstrapped folk. And so we struggle with the idea that someone else has done this for us. We struggle with that. And so that's why we need to come. We need to hear it. We need to be reminded that out of the rest of Christ, we know, go out and we love our neighbor. In the Gospel, we are continually reminded as we hear it, that Jesus has won this sabbath rest for us. As I said, Jesus rested in the grave on the sabbath day, and now he has risen in victory. He has won true sabbath rest for his people. True sabbath rest. In that, we come to this passage then, and we consider what it means for us. What does it mean to have true sabbath rest? Because that's hard. I don't know about you, but I can sit in a chair and do nothing, but I ain't arresting. No matter what I do, I struggle to shut it off. I know so many people are like that, like I am. What is true sabbath rest? It's refraining from all this driving. I think we easily understand how we can violate God's law with our thoughts, and we also in our deeds, but with our thoughts, with commandments like honoring our parents, easy to understand how our thoughts can betray that. 

Same with the commandment against adul and murder and stealing and covening, all those, we understand that. But how often do our thoughts betray this command, this command to rest? How often are we not trusting? How often are we sitting down and resting and we're still working? And so as we consider the application for us here, it's going to require this change of mindset that I was talking about, that out of the rest that God has given us in Christ, we work. As I said, and I've alluded to again, this is a really hard one for me. And so in considering this commandment, and as I said, patience this past week, I realized how little I truly rest in what God has done in his providence, and how little I rest in the salvation that he has secured for me. My mindset is not this, that out of rest I work. I'm constantly thinking that I have to be going, I have to be doing. And I think it is so good for us to stop and to consider how we can find joy in this salvation, in this true sabbath rest that he offers for his people. 

Because in a fast paced, competitive world, I know it's not just me who struggles to rest. We all do. We're busy, we have to keep going. We have to stay ahead of the game. And so we understand that this is a human thing to constantly desire to work. And so how can we find our rest? How can we find our break from always striving, always wanting more, always wanting to do our own thing? And I don't think I need to go through as we consider the second use of the law today, this use of the law that convicts us of our sin, I don't think I need to go through a list and tell you how you and I violate this commandment. We know. We know how we struggle through us. We know the stress that we have. We know the anxiety that we have. We know this. And I'm guessing that even if we deliberately try to rest, as I mentioned, we struggle. So how can we find our rest? How can someone who's maybe a little bit high strong or workaholic have a rest truly consider how we can find peace in what God has provided us in sabbath rest? 

Well, I believe that we need to come to this third use of the law of God's guide for holy living here in the law and understand the joy in the truth that we work out of rest. How hard is it to constantly think that we have to do, that we have to go. That's where our anxiety, that's where a lot of our fear comes from. That's where our stress comes from this constant feeling that we have to do this. It's the pressure of the world. Nobody wants to get fired. Nobody wants their business to go under because they didn't work hard enough. But what if we found joy in that the true work that we need, the keeping of the law was done for us in Christ, and this eternal thing that we so desperately need. God has done that work for us. And so out of that rest, we can go and work and serve God. And all that other stuff is good. Our hard work is a good thing. But when we begin with the rest that God has given us, we can find more joy in how we are serving God because he has first served us. 

We can work because this work that we truly need has been done for us in Jesus. And so I want to suggest that there is a way in which you and I can really come to maybe have a better perspective on Sunday, have a better perspective on this day of Sabbath rest. Might just be me here, but I see it in the world. We intellectually know that Sunday is the first day of the week, don't we? It's the first day in our calendars. We call it the first day of the week. But at the end of the day, what is really the first day of the week for us? It's Monday, isn't it? Because that's the day we go to work. That's the day we go to school. That's the way we... Well, you used to do the washing when you had a ringer. But now, that's the day we do these things. We see that as the first day of the week. And so I want to suggest one way that we can come to embrace the joy that we have in the sabbath rest that God has given us is to have a mindset that says, Sunday is truly the first day of the week. 

It's the day that starts my life. It's the day that starts my rhythm. I come here and I hear the work that was done for me, that finished work of Christ. And out of that I rest. And so as we consider how you and I can find a way to rest, find a way to be patient, to relax and find joy in the salvation that we have this true sabbath rest. I want to suggest that if we saw Sunday, if we saw this Lord's Day is the first day of the week, the place where we come to rest so that we can then work out in the world to the glory of God, we would have a better understanding of what we're doing here, that we're coming here to worship God for what He has done for us. And it would change our mindset to have not only joy in our salvation, but joy in our work. And so as we desire to bring glory and honor to God for what He has done, may you and I truly find rest in it. Because that was the goal. The goal of the salvation that we have in Christ was to bring us this rest because we were striving to reach God on our own. 

We were trying to climb the ladder, but God came down that ladder in the person and work of Christ and won that victory for us, that we would find that rest that we can't find anywhere else. So may we fill up on the Lord's day, prepared to go out with that message of salvation. And even in our work, may we rest in the joy of our salvation. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of your Word that tells us of this truth of the gospel, that you have brought us sabbath rest in Christ. We pray, oh Lord, that you would bless us in the coming week with a reminder that we work for you, we labor for you out of the rest that has been won for us. Grant us this joy in our salvation and this joy in the sabbath rest that you have accomplished on our behalf. We pray this all in the name of Jesus, our sabbath. Amen. 

This message was delivered on February 5, 2023 by Pastor Mark Groen at First Reformed Church in Edgerton, MN. First Reformed is a congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.