Resting in the Lord
Rev. Delwyn and Sis. Lenita Campbell
A New Day • Sermon • Submitted
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· 22 viewsThe Word of Christ brings true rest to us as we hear it by faith.
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Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 5003 Jesus’ Example of Rest
Jesus’ Example Of Rest
Edwin R. Roberts of Princeton Seminary once sat under a pastor who concluded his announcements, “I am not going to take a vacation this summer; the devil never does!”
Roberts went home and re-read the Gospels to see what Jesus’ attitude is. He found that of His three years’ active ministry, there were mentioned 10 periods of retirement! This was in addition to the nightly rest and the sabbath rest.
Whose example are we following? the Devil’s?
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
A Curious Situation
A Curious Situation
The Sabbath was given to us as a gift by the Lord at the conclusion of His work of creation.
And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
The Book of Concord The Third Commandment
79] Our word “holy day” or “holiday” is so called from the Hebrew word “Sabbath,” which properly means to rest, that is, to cease from work; hence our common expression for “stopping work” literally means “taking a holiday.”61 [80] In the Old Testament, God set apart the seventh day, appointed it for rest, and commanded it to be kept holy above all other days.
In the 10 Commandments, God includes a command to set the 7th day apart as a Holy Day of rest:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 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.
In the Large Catechism, concerning the Sabbath, Dr. Luther writes:
In the Large Catechism, concerning the Sabbath, Dr. Luther writes:
The Book of Concord The Third Commandment
79] Our word “holy day” or “holiday” is so called from the Hebrew word “Sabbath,” which properly means to rest, that is, to cease from work; hence our common expression for “stopping work” literally means “taking a holiday.”61 [80] In the Old Testament, God set apart the seventh day, appointed it for rest, and commanded it to be kept holy above all other days.
In time, God’s people began using that sacred rest to study His Word, thus:
Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 395–396.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.
We continue that practice in the Divine Service that God has gifted to us.
The Book of Concord The Third Commandment
You are to hallow the day of rest.
[6] What is this? Answer:
We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God’s Word, but instead keep that Word holy and gladly hear and learn it.
Is Christ leading the Way, or am I getting in the way?
Is Christ leading the Way, or am I getting in the way?
Are you making a way, or getting in the way?
Are you making a way, or getting in the way?
Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν παραπορεύεσθαι διὰ τῶν σπορίμων, καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἤρξαντο ὁδὸν ποιεῖν τίλλοντες τοὺς στάχυας.
Jesus is walking through some fields with His disciples, and it looks like they were literally making a path by eating the heads of grain. Apparently, this was a perfectly legal activity, since (1) Jesus permitted it and (2) the Pharisees did not complain about them stealing; they complained that they were working:
(ESV)
24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
The Pharisees had a problem with people working on the Sabbath, and reaping was considered a form of work. Somehow, the Pharisees in their zeal had determined that anything that they could interpret as a violation was a violation, therefore the disciples’ acts of plucking heads of grain and eating them was not an act of sustenance, but an act of work.
The Wisdom of the Lord
The Wisdom of the Lord
And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
Jesus’ response addresses, not the allegation, but the action. That in itself was, as usual, a wise riposte to the hostile maneuver of the Pharisees, which as always, stopped them in their tracks. The Pharisees were not tasked by God to defend the sanctity of His Holy Commands, but the Priests and the Levites were. David and his men ate the Bread of the Presence, which only the sons of Aaron could eat:
Jesus’ response addresses, not the allegation, but the action. That in itself was, as usual, a wise riposte to the hostile maneuver of the Pharisees, which as always, stopped them in their tracks. The Pharisees were not tasked by God to defend the sanctity of His Holy Commands, but the Priests and the Levites were. David and his men ate the Bread of the Presence, which only the sons of Aaron could eat:
“You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.”
David was a foretaste of the Divine Promise, and he and his men did something that clearly went contrary to the letter of the Law. Jesus is the reality to which David pointed, his men did something that could only be deemed a transgression by twisting the Law, and yet the High Priest absolved the lesser of the greater violation, while they sought to condemn the Greater of what was actually no violation at all!
Bread for the Tabernacle
Bread for the Tabernacle
5 “You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. 6 And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. 7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. 8 Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. 9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.”
5 “You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. 6 And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. 7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. 8 Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. 9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.”
You Can’t Beat God Giving, No Matter How Hard You Try
You Can’t Beat God Giving, No Matter How Hard You Try
In Jesus’ answer, not only did He arrest them in their attempt to play the role of the Accuser, He also gave them an opportunity - an opportunity to rest. Hearing the Word of Christ and receiving His Word by faith, they would have found rest, the fuller rest of which the 7th Day was only a foretaste. The Apostle Paul would later express this truth in Romans 10:17-
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”
We all need that rest, not merely a rest from our attempts to earn righteousness through our works, but also from the state of enmity that we are in as a result of being sinners who are unable to justify ourselves in any way apart from God’s grace.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
We can’t outdo God in justifying us, in cleansing us from our sins, anymore than we can beat God in blessing us in any other aspect of our lives. What we can do, and what will bless us as we do it, is humbly rejoice as Paul and Peter say to us:
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Jesus cares - enough to invite you into His rest. It’s a rest that never ends, a rest that comes, not at the end, like the rest commanded in the Law, but at the beginning:
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Today is the day, not because it is Sunday, but because today the Word of the Lord has come to you - His Word of forgiveness, His Word of release, His Word of peace.
So let the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.