Sunday Sermon

 

The Sabbath

Isaiah 58:13

You must obey God’s law about the Sabbath and not do what pleases yourselves on that holy day. You should call the Sabbath a joyful day and honor it as the Lord’s holy day. You should honor it by not doing whatever you please nor saying whatever you please on that day.

A few months ago I was awoken by my family to find that our water heater had broken. Water was pouring out of the bottom of it at a rate that told me we had real trouble. It was clear that the only solution was to replace the water heater. Of course this did not make me happy because it was now going to cost us hundreds of dollars to replace it but I had no other choice. No matter how much I did not want to admit that the water heater was broken or that it needed replacing reality made me deal with the issue. I could not avoid the problem because we had no hot water and that made me have to fix the broken water heater. When I think about that day, it makes me think about the human condition and why we need God. The fact is that humans are broken because we have chosen to reject God and to follow our own ideas. Instead of following the God who gives life we as humans have decided to live as we please and all that has done is cause us to be broken people. It is at this point we should call upon God and seek His healing but that is now what we do. We as humans demand that our lives should work even if the evidence shows that they are clearly not working. Just like pretending that the water heater is not broken is stupid so is the idea that humans some how can make it through life without being connected to the God who gives life. Being willing to humble ourselves and admit we have a problem is not a bad thing it is the starting place for fixing broken things both a water heater and a human life. What makes our faith so great is that we have a God who longs to fix us. God does not want to send us to hell but He desires nothing more then us coming to Him to find the healing for our broken lives. The God we find in the Bible calls out to us and invites us to come to Him so that we will find the healing we need. Our God is willing to die so that we can have life and yet we as people reject that idea because we might have to admit we are broken. How foolish we are to demand that nothing is wrong with us when reality clearly tells us something is wrong and we have a God who knows how to make things right. Let us fall before God and find in Him the healing we so desperately need. Once we know the power and strength of God to repair what is broken in us we will want this God to be a bigger part of our lives. When we submit ourselves to God’s authority and become obedient to God it will not be because we fear God but because we love this God who heals our broken lives. Humans are broken but the good news is that there is a God who wants to save us from the broken things in our lives and that is the best thing we can possibly know. Let us humble ourselves by coming to God to get the things we need most in our lives.

Our Christian faith fundamentally says that because we as humans have rejected God we are doomed to be separated from the God who is the source of life. To reject the source of life means the only option we have is destruction and death. The only hope we have because of our sin is that the same God we have rejected offers to restore us to the life He made us for. We have a God who wants us to understand how desperate a situation we are in because He loves us and does not want us to suffer the consequences of the choices we have made. Those who believe in God should not take the faith they profess lightly because what God has done for us is extraordinary. And to those who do not believe it would be wise to examine how faith in the living God would change things for the good in your life. God’s wisdom is so powerful and changes peopled lives even for those that don’t believe in God. The great thing is that once we encounter this God who longs to save us from the destruction and death that sin brings the world changes in powerful ways. Faith in God is not about obeying God’s commands but it is seeing clearly this God who loves us and who tells us the truth even when we want to avoid that truth. God does not speak to us to send us to hell but to prevent that from happening. This is the God who becomes human and dies on the cross because we need someone to die for our sin. Faith is not about being guilty but about God taking our guilt on Himself so we can be set free. The only reason God speaks about our guilt is so we can know we can find freedom from it. This is the God who we discover in the pages of the Bible. A God who pours out wisdom and warns us about our situation so we can seek the help from Him we need. Let us worship and serve such a God with hope and joy.

I must confess I am a philistine when is comes to music. Most music is just noise to me and I know that is a wild statement but it is true. The one place that I find that music stirs me is worship music. For some reason when I enter into worship with God my mind does not hear noise but joy. When the last note fades in worship, I almost feel lost because the music helps me connect to God in ways that I don’t fully understand but I deeply appreciate. How we think of worship of God is central to how our faith works and that is why I like the verse we are considering. We as believers are no longer required to observe the Sabbath but that does not mean the concepts of the Sabbath do not apply to our worship of God. What I really like about this verse is that it sets worshiping God in the right light. Notice that God tells the Israelite people “do not do what please yourselves” twice. The idea here is that worshiping God is not about us but about God which this verse makes a point of. It also talks about the Sabbath as being holy which means something that is set aside for a special purpose. We set aside time for the purpose of giving God the glory and honor He deserves. Because of Jesus fulfilling the Law of Moses we are no longer bound by the Sabbath but the ideas that God teaches about worshiping God still apply. The focus of worship is not to be about us humans but about the God who is worthy of this time. We need to move things away from it being about us and seek to give God the worship that is worthy of Him. The Sabbath is all about a day of rest but that rest is given to us by God so the center of what we are doing will be on God and not us. We celebrate God and honor God when we see the day we are given as special. That attention does not change because of Jesus and it actually causes us to become more centered on the God who saves us from our sin. Every day is a chance to worship God and to think not about ourselves but about the God who loves us. Worship of God is a critical part of our faith because it helps put God in the right place in our lives. The point of the Sabbath was to help people remember and honor God and to look up to God and forget ourselves for just a moment. Nothing has changed about what the Sabbath was all about but now we are called to honor God more because of who Jesus is.

In the middle of this verse we come across this great line that just speaks to what our worship of God is all about. We are told that we should find joy in honoring the Lord and treating God like the Holy God He is. Bowing before God is not a problem but rather the place where joy starts. To have the joy we really want and the joy God gives starts with honoring God like He is worthy of. God tells the Israelites to obey the Sabbath because it directs us to the God who loves us. Joy is found not in doing as we please but seeking to honor God. When we live as God calls us to live the natural thing is to give God the glory He rightly deserves and in that glory we have a sense of joy that can not be found anywhere else. It is such a wonderful thing that joy is the result of putting God first and honoring God. The whole point of this verse is to tell us that if we will put God at the center of things instead of ourselves we will get the joy we long for in our lives. God does not hide that He is the one who is the real truth and power that is worthy of worship. When the Israelite people were traveling in the desert the tabernacle is at the center of the camp with people all around it. The symbolism should not be lost on us. Putting God first is the start of real faith. Worshiping God and treating Him as He is worthy of helps us then be the people God calls us to be and as we live by the wisdom of God we will find the joy we want in our lives. It cannot be stated any clearer, we do not chase joy we seek God and from that will be the joy we need. This sounds so foreign to us because today we are told to make ourselves the center of the world and we will find joy by doing what we want. God speaks to us the truth about how to find joy and He tells us He is the place to find joy and nothing else will do. Focus on God and the rest of things of life will fall into order just as God plans for it to be.

The thing that I like about the Sabbath is that it is both a holy day and a day of rest. The connection between holiness and rest speaks about who God is and what God is all about. We can find rest in God when we seek to be the holy people God wants us to be. Working at being people who are set aside for the glory and honor of God produces things we cannot even imagine unless we have experienced them. God calls to us to tell us how to live because He knows how we should live and what things bring the joy, peace and hope we want in our lives. Let us center our lives on God and give Him glory because that makes our lives so mush more wonderful. Doing what God says instead of what pleases us is the path to a life filled with all the things that really mean something and have real value. Celebrate our holy God not because it is the right thing to do but because it is God who gives us the life we long for.