Easter Sunday- The Lord of the Sabbath- Week 1
Sermon begins at about 20 min
Pastor Andrew Schmidt continues this year’s theme of “The Year of the Lord” as he begins a new sermon series “The Lord of the Sabbath”. In this Easter Sunday sermon, Andrew teaches about the meaning of “The Lord’s Day” and Sabbath. He points us to Jesus and encourages us to begin thinking about the kind of rest that God commands us to take. He emphasizes the importance of this being a command, not a request, and how we often do not take this command as the gift it truly is. The first sermon can be watched as video above. The second can be listened to below or on our podcast (audio is posted on Tuesdays)
Audio: (posted on Tuesdays)
You can listen to the sermon below, or you can subscribe to our Celebrators Podcast wherever you listen.
Scriptures:
Resources and In-Sermon Material References:
The Anxious Generation: Jonathan Haidt
Full Sermon Notes:
March 31, 2024
The theme for our sermons in 2024 is ‘The year of the Lord’.
The Lord is the term used most often of God in the Old Testament and of Jesus. So we are viewing different ways we can think about Jesus as Lord.
The New Testament emphasizes viewing and publicly confessing “Jesus as Lord” in order to be saved (Romans 10:9-13). To make Jesus Lord of our life, means that he is in charge. We seek to do what He wants us to do. We can trust Him in this because He wants and knows what’s best for us.
In the Resurrection accounts of Jesus we see that the early disciples used the term for Jesus as Lord immediately and often after He rose from the dead (John 20:2, 13, 18, 20, 25, 28; 21:7, 12, 15-17).
Since Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, the early followers of Jesus came to call the first day of the week “The Lord’s Day”. This is a day when the community gathered to worship Jesus. It was a day in which they scheduled to prioritize The Lord. Eventually, for some, it became the day when they observed The Sabbath Day.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” is one of the 10 commandments.
It states that on six days you should do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you should not do any work. (Exodus 20:8-10, Deuteronomy 5:12-14)
This commandment is one many Christians don’t even realize is one of the commandments. Even if they do, in our time many have not intention of keeping it. And many don’t even think that the commandment still applies as they consider it to be part of the Old Testament law which was fulfilled by Jesus and thus no longer binding on us (such as dietary restrictions, the priestly sacrificial system, and circumcision all of which the New Testament indicate no longer apply to Jesus’ followers).
The rest of the 10 commandments (at least most of them) are seen as the universal moral law and still relevant for us. Christians don’t say that now it doesn’t matter whether or not we murder or steal, because Jesus fulfilled the law.
The commandment itself is the longest of all the commandments listed. It is talked about and commanded more in the Torah (the first five books in the Old Testament) than any other commandment. In the Exodus listing it starts with “Remember” as if God knows we are likely to forget about this one. And in the Deuteronomy listing it states “as the LORD your God has commanded you”, twice, unlike the other commandments. It’s as if in this commandment God is saying “no really, I am commanding you to do this”.
In the newly released (and quickly #1 NY Times best seller) The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt shows alarming data about mental health for the youngest generation (13-30 year olds). These negative trends started between 2010-2015 and have continued. Haidt argues that the data indicates a “phone based life” and particularly social media (especially for girls) and video games and pornography (especially for boys) is causing this mental health crisis.
Interestly, this atheist social scientist includes a chapter on spirituality. He encourages people of all ages to engage in six spiritual practices that will lift people up rather than pull people down. In number one on his list he uses ‘Sabbath” multiple times. Five out of the six on the list include aspects of sabbath that we will be talking about in this series.
This series is not to try and prescribe for everyone to take a Sabbath day on a certain day and exactly what to do (or not do on it). Rather we are going to explore what Sabbath is and consider what aspects of sabbath we might want to incorporate in our life.
Below are aspects of what can be included in entering Sabbath reality:
(Remember &) Stop:
Break from getting stuff
Break from getting stuff done
Worship (& Wonder):
Worship services/prayer
Celebration of Creation
Rest (& Enjoy):
Silence, Stillness, Solitude, Sleep
Eating & Playing together
In thinking through Sabbath, it may be helpful to consider the Lord’s Day. Is there any time which we regularly set aside as the Lord’s time. Time in which we keep devoted to the Lord and schedule around. If Jesus is Lord he should be the master over all of our time. But if we don’t set any time aside to be devoted to Him, it is worth questioning the extent to which He is actually Lord of our lives. Exploring Sabbath will be an opportunity to consider how we can set aside time for the Lord. How we can observe The Lord’s Day.
