“Remember God” — The Third Commandment

When God said, “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy,” he meant much more than to command us to take a day off from work and go to church every week.  Jesus taught us to look deeper than the mere action that is commanded or forbidden in the commandments.  He said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment…But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell,” (Matthew 5:22).  The point he was making was that the Law reaches to your heart.  God cares about what you do to a person, and he also cares about what you think and feel toward that person.  If we look deeper into the Sabbath law, we see again that God cares about what you do, and that he cares about what you think and feel.

In Exodus 20:8-11, God commanded the Israelites to rest on the seventh day of the week, because God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh.  God wanted his people to take that one day a week to set aside their normal work and remember him as their Creator.  He wanted it to be a special day, so that normal work would not crowd him out.  It was to be the seventh day, so that they would remember God’s work in creation. 

In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, God repeated his command to the people of Israel, this time with another emphasis.  On the Sabbath day they were also to remember what he had done to rescue them from their slavery in Egypt.  Along with that they would remember his purpose for them–he had rescued them because of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Those promises were that they would be his people, he would be their God, and he would bring a blessing to all nations in the Savior who would be born from their descendants.

In Leviticus 23:3, God commanded that the Sabbath be observed with a “sacred assembly”–basically, they were supposed to go to church.  They were to gather together to remember God as their Creator, the one who had rescued them from slavery, and the one who would rescue all of us from sin, death, and hell.

The Sabbath is so much more than a ritual, more than a day off, more even than day for church attendance.  It’s an attitude of remembering God.  The Sabbath was God’s wise way of caring for his Old Testament people, telling them to set aside that seventh day because the fact that it was the seventh day would remind them of the great things God had done for them.  It was wisdom to set aside a day, because otherwise the concerns and stress of normal daily work would have crowded God out of their minds.  If you look at it that way, the Sabbath wasn’t really something they were doing for God.  It was something God had commanded for their own good.

In fact, Jesus explained the Sabbath in that very way.  He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” (Mark 2:27).  In keeping with Jesus’ teaching, the early church in the New Testament began to meet on another day, because they had something more important to remember than God’s seventh day rest after creation, and more important than God’s mighty acts in the Exodus.  They had the resurrection of our Lord on a Sunday morning.  By that resurrection with him all are justified of their sins (Romans 4:25). Forgiveness and eternal life have been purchased and offered to all, whoever would believe in him.  In his resurrection, we see our future in him.  The resurrection was the greatest act of God.  It was the climax of world history, from God’s view piont.  More than any other day, it is a day for Christians to remember.  On Sunday, every Sunday, we gather to “observe the Sabbath” by remembering the great things God has done–and central to all of these is the resurrection of our Lord.

On Sunday when you come to church, remember your Lord, who suffered death as the punishment for our sins, and was raised again after the punishment had been served to show that we have been justified.  Think also about how God did this because he is your creator, and his great love for the people he created would not allow him to simply condemn us to hell for our sins.  He had to save us.  Perhaps you will have occasion to remember the Exodus also, and the rest of the history of how God carried out his plan to bring us a Savior from the nation of Israel.  Set aside Sunday for church, if at all possible, because otherwise you will have a hard time keeping God on your mind.  The stress and demands of work will take over.  You will not likely take the time you should to feed your soul from the Word of God on your own time otherwise.  You need the schedule, you need to be in church, because you need to remember God.  As Jesus said in Mark 2, it’s for your own good.  Remember the Sabbath Day.

Heavenly Father, Keep our hearts and minds in your Word, so that our sinful hearts will not so interest us in the pleasures and cares of earthly life that we forget you.  Guard our hearts, because you know us better than we know ourselves.  When we hear your Word, make us eager to hear more.  Bless the preaching of your Word and the Sacraments, and make us eager for that day when the church gathers to hear you and receive your blessings.  Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

“What makes you good enough for God?” Exodus 29

Read Exodus 29 and think about why these priests were good enough to come into God’s temple, when all the rest of the Israelites were not.

People look to pastors as examples of holiness.  It is true, that a pastor should be an example for his people, but don’t think that we are perfect examples!  I am not an example of the holy obedience God requires for heaven.  But neither were Aaron and his sons.

Notice that God instructed Moses to slaughter a bull as a sin offering for Aaron and his sons.  It seems that Aaron and his sons were not good enough for God either–they were sinners too, just like the rest of the people.  There could be no other reason to make a sin offering.  God looked at them and saw sin, and he said that their sins must be removed by sacrificing a bull as a sin offering.  In fact, God must have seen a lot of sin, because he actually commanded  seven sin offerings–one for each day of the week.  Those bulls symbolically took the sins of Aaron and his sons and died for them.  Those bulls connected them to Christ, who would truly take their sins and die for them.

So what made Aaron and his sons good enough for God?  It was not the symbol, but the reality in Christ.  The bull by itself meant nothing to God.  As God said in Isaiah 1:11, “I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and  goats.”  Aaron and his sons were good enough for God only because connected them to Christ, the sacrifice God would make to take their sins away.

The same thing is true for me, as a pastor.  I am good enough for God because of my connection to God’s sacrifice for me.  I am connected to Christ in his Word, and in the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

In that way, I am an example of being good enough for God.  Be connected to Christ.  Hear his Word and believe it.  Think on your Baptism with faith in the new life and forgiveness God has given you in that water.  Receive the Lord’s Supper believing that all the blessings of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection are given to you in his body and blood with that bread and wine.  Being good enough for God is not about what you do or anything you could offer.  Being good enough for God is all about what God has done for you in Christ.

Heavenly Father, be faithful to the promises of your Word, as you always are, and connect us to our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Devotion for October 7th

Thoughts from the Catechism

When we say the Apostles’ Creed, we give ourselves a long list of reasons to put our faith in God.  We say he is “the almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth.”  That little phrase rolls off our tongue quite easily, but there is a lot of power in those words.  Think about all that is in heaven and earth!  Stars have been created that we will probably never see, even with our most powerful telescopes.  Think of all the mountains, the oceans, the birds, fish , and animals–can you make any of those?  Technically, I suppose we could pile dirt and call it a mountain, or dig a big enough pond that we could call it an ocean.  But it would not have the random rugged grandeur that only God can design, nor the intricate ecosystem that he makes possible.  All that we work so hard just to discover, he created effortlessly by the power of his Word in six days.  Look around outside, and see that God is powerful.  See that it is beautiful and amazing, and know that he created it for us to use and enjoy–he must be good, and he is good to us!  It is no wonder that the psalm writers so frequently cited God’s work in creation as a reason to trust in him!

“Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”  Psalm 124:8

Devotion for October 3rd

Ever have one of those days when you wonder if God is actually real?  Maybe the people are right who say that the Bible was all made up?  I can admit it.  We are not stangers in our doubts, either–apparently the earliest Christians had the same doubts too.  Peter wrote to them, reminding them that the good news about Jesus is real.  First he says that he and others were eyewitnesses, who had themselves seen that Jesus is God.  First at his baptism, when the dove descended and the voice spoke from heaven identifying him as the Son of God and the Savior of the world.  Then again on the Mount of Transfiguration, when they saw him beaming with his divine glory as God.  This eyewitness account Peter would stand by even to the point of death, as he would soon be crucified for what he had preached about Jesus.  As compelling as the eyewitness account is, we sinful human beings can find a way to doubt it.  But God is patient with us in our weakness, and he has given us also the prophetic word–as Peter points out.  The prophetic word, meaning something different from the eyewitness accounts of the New Testament, must refer to the Old Testament.  The words of the Old Testament prophets pictured the coming Savior with clarity that we cannot help but believe.  Men who lived hundreds of years before Jesus wrote that he would be born in Bethlehem, that Herod would kill hundreds of babies in search of this one, that he would have to flee for his life to Egypt, a prophet would come before him to prepare the way, he would heal the sick, the lame and the blind; he would be rejected by men, he would bear our sins, he would thirst on the cross, he would die and then rise on the third day.  The Old Testament prophets knew all these things about the Savior, because God the Holy Spirit revealed it to them.  Through the prophets, and through the eyewitnesses, he has revealed it to us also, in the words they have written.  These are words from God.  When your heart doubts, go back to the source.  Let God prove it to you again, through his Word.

2 Peter 1:16-21

“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.  For he received honor and glory from God hte Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’  We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.  And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.  Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.  For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Father, keep us in the faith by the power of your holy Word, until we see your face in glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.