It Isn't About Entertainment Or Spiritual Jumping Jacks, But About Hearing The Lord's Word
Texts: Exodus 20:1-17 and Hebrew 4:1-16
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
Last week we began the Season of Lent. As it was mentioned, the Season of Lent is an
extended period of time, during the calendar year of the church, where we pause
and reflect. It is a time for us to take
a step back from the busyness of life and consider our place before almighty
God. This happens as we move towards Holy
Week and Resurrection Sunday.
In order to consider our place before the Lord, it was
also mentioned last week that we are examining over the next month and a half, the
perfect, divine, and holy will of God for us as expressed in the Ten Commandments. Yes, through the Law of the Lord we are not
only instructed on what is good and true, but we are also convicted of our sin
and driven to despair. Otherwise stated,
as we contemplate our sinfulness this Lent Season through studying God’s Law,
we do so knowing that we are traveling towards the cross of Good Friday where
our sin finds its home not on us, but on Christ.
Tonight
we are focusing specifically on God’s design for life as expressed in the Third
Commandment. The Third Commandment
states,
“Remember the Sabbath day by
keeping in holy.”
In
other words,
“You are to hallow the day
of rest.”
Now,
too often this Third commandment is misunderstood by those outside and even inside
the church. Truly, we fool ourselves
when we think the Third Commandment is speaking only about a certain day of the
week when we have church, or that it is speaking only about not doing any
physical work at all on the Lord ’s Day, or that it is speaking only about the
day of the week which the old Blue Laws didn’t allow businesses to be open on
Sundays. Otherwise stated, each of us
knows that we need physical rest at least one day a week; our bodies need to be
refreshed. But rest is not the main
point of the Third Commandment. Each of
us understands that Sundays are typically ‘church days’, but that is not the
main point of the Third Commandment. So,
what is the main point of the Third Commandment? The main focus is really on God’s Word, His
Word for you and for me.
Every
day is intended for hearing God’s Word; it isn’t limited to just Sundays. And every day is holy because God’s Word
makes every day holy. But we also set
aside certain days, mainly Sundays for the purpose of hearing God’s Word. We do this so that everyone may have the time
and opportunity to attend public worship.
And that’s the main point of the Third Commandment. It teaches us that worship is ultimately
about hearing and learning God’s Word, receiving His gifts of life and
salvation.
We
need to really hear this in our day and age, especially when churches have
become so completely radicalized in our country. These days some of what passes for “worship”
is little more than low-budget entertainment.
Some so called “worship services” in our time only seek to alter moods
or get people fired up for some reason or another. This unfortunately puts the focus on our
reactions, our emotions, and our thoughts.
And
this mind set is not only “out there in radicalized churches,” but it is also
right here, in our hearts and our heads.
We too have something of these thoughts and desires of entertainment
within us. We want to be wowed. We want to be impressed. We want to feel a particular feeling. Our
time is valuable, so we want each minute to count and to impress us.
Think
about this for a moment…in our spare time we try to find some way to entertain
ourselves and alter our mood, to forget about everything else for a little
while. When we are off of work and rest,
we want the television to hold our entertainment, make us laugh, and give us
that escape from the mundane of life. We
avoid boredom like the plague. We
especially want this of our weekends!
So
when it comes to Sunday morning, those ideas of entertainment are still
bouncing around in our head and sometimes we begin to desire the same kind of
thing in the Sunday Morning Divine Service.
When we consciously and subconsciously do this, we put the focus on what
we feel and desire instead of on what God has to give us in His Word. If a song doesn’t move us, if a sermon does
not give us a tingly, and if we are not kept engaged, we cry foul. “This is not entertaining!” We then determine that we would’ve been
better off staying home to watch the Kardashions,
or Face The Nation, or the NFL Pre-Game Show, or Sunday morning
reruns of The Wheel of Fortune on the
Gameshow Network.
My
friends, when it comes to the Third Commandment, it is most certainly about us
stopping our work and the elimination of our entertainment agendas, so that we
can simply listen to God’s Word. You
see, our Sunday Morning Divine Service and Wednesday Night Services are all about
hearing the Word and receiving the Sacrament, these are the times for us to
stop thinking about our quest for distraction and entertainment as being most
important and instead focus on the work God is doing to and for us in His Word.
What
this all means is that we keep the Sabbath day holy by stopping our efforts and
by receiving God’s efforts as He works for us.
The Sabbath, the worship service is not about what you can do for Jesus,
it’s about God’s Word and what it tells you your Savior has done and is doing
for you. The Divine Service on Sundays
is not mainly about us speaking to God in worship in order to summon His presence
and offer Him praise so that we can impress Him and obtain kudo points. This view sees God as the audience of our
worship. This way sees us as the ones
coming before God and doing all sorts of spiritual jumping jacks and spiritual
work in order to get the Lord to notice us and then hopefully respond to us
with kudos. Christian worship is the
exact opposite my friends. God is the
speaker. We are the audience. He calls us before Him so that He might give His
Gifts to us.
This
is why God wants you to hold preaching and His Word sacred. This is why you are to gladly hear and learn
it. There is nothing sweeter than
gathering around God’s Word and being fed with the forgiveness of our sins as
we listen with our ears.
God
forgive us for attempting to make the Sunday Morning Divine Service into
something that it is not. God forgive us
for our laziness, those times where we convince ourselves that we really don’t
need to hear the Word of God. God forgive
us for those times where we sleep in or simply attend to something else that we
believe has a bigger importance than hearing from the Lord. God forgive us for our failure to simply
hear, that is to say, listen to the Word and receive the gifts from the
Altar.
Baptized
Saints, hear the Word of God for you and for me now. You are forgiven; Christ Jesus was
crucified—for you. Yes, you who have
ears, hear. St. Paul says in Romans that
“faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” That means, faith doesn’t come by what we do
or how much we do. Faith doesn’t come by
how you feel or whether you are entertained.
Saving faith doesn’t come by sermons on religious living or how to lose
weight with Jesus, or how to have a stress free life. Faith comes in only one way: by hearing the
Word of God and the clear message of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of
the world. Thus, hear again, God’s Word,
His promise to and for you. You are
forgiven for Christ’s sake! Be of good cheer, the good news of Mt. Calvary is
for you.
This
very listening to God’s Word—hearing about the forgiveness of your sins—is the
greatest privilege and work we can do as Christians. When you listen, learn, take to heart and
inwardly digest and retain the message of Jesus you hear in this place, God is
more pleased than if you were to build the greatest church ever built. Listening and taking His word to heart is the
greatest involvement any Christian could have in the worship service.
God’s
design for life is a life with His Word. It’s a life of listening to Him and
what He does for us in His Son. It is a
life that is captive to the Word of God.
It is a life receiving constantly from the Word of God.
It is a life that is fed, shaped, and formed from the Word.
God’s
Word will never return to Him empty, it will accomplish what He desires. And what He desires is your forgiveness,
life, and salvation.
This
is what the Third Commandment is all about.
It is about guarding and protecting the Word of God, the Word that is
given to you and to me.
Baptized
Saints, listen: You are forgiven for Christ’s sake.
Baptized
Saints, pause: You are forgiven for Christ’s sake.
Baptized
Saints, rest: you are forgiven for
Christ’s sake.
May
the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.
Note: This sermon is highly indebted to Pastor Joshua Reimche of Our Savior Lutheran Church and Martin Luther's Large Catechism.
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