Regularly Remember the Rest-Giver
Do I Have to Go to Church?
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds today is recorded in Deuteronomy 5:12-15:
Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD you God has commanded you. 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien with in your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath Day.
(Deuteronomy 5:12-15 NIV) – This is the word of the Lord.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, who are sanctified by his word,
“Do I have to go to church?” I remember asking that question a few times while growing up. The cartoons, “Underdog,” and the “Rockie and Bullwinkel Show,” were on Sunday mornings and I wanted to see them. I don’t think I asked the question too often, since the answer was always the same: “You’re coming to church with us.” But that doesn’t mean that the question didn’t come up in my mind at other times.
It was good and right for my parents to take me to church each week whether I wanted to go or not. But what about that question: “Do you have to go to church?” To fully address the attitude behind that question will take a little time, but to get us started let me offer this simple answer: “No, you don’t have to go to church.”
I’m glad to see that you all didn’t get up and leave, because there is more to the answer. To stop here would be dangerous. When our sinful nature hears that we don’t have to go to church, that sinful nature does everything it can to keep us out of church. I’m sure, like me, you have struggled against that nature and all the excuses it can come up with for skipping church, ranging from tiredness to important family activities.
Maybe by now your asking, “But doesn’t the Third Commandment say we have to go to church?” You just heard the Third Commandment as recorded in Deuteronomy 5. On the surface, did it say anything about going to church? No, it didn’t. Rather it commanded Old Testament Israel to rest, not do any work, on the Sabbath Day, which wasn’t Sunday but Saturday, the seventh day. In fact, the word Sabbath, in Hebrew, means to rest, to stop working. The people were to rest on the Rest Day, the seventh day.
So what does that have to do with going to church? Let’s dig below the surface to answer that.
1) The Rest-Giver rescued us from sin’s slavery
Listen to what the Lord wanted Old Testament Israel to think about as they rested on the Rest Day, the Sabbath. “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 5:15).
I’m sure you’ve seen pictures and movie scenes about Israel’s slavery in Egypt. Imagine yourself walking acre after acre in fields that have been harvested. You’re picking up the stubbles of straw, which you need to make bricks. Back home the straw is mixed with clay under the hot Egyptian sun. Your muscles ache from digging and kneading the clay and carrying the bricks. Your own people are driving you hard because if you fail to meet the quota, they are beaten by the Egyptian slave drivers.
Then your life changes. The Lord God stretches out his arm and turns water into blood. He brings plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, disease, locust, hail, and darkness against your enslavers. His mighty hand strikes down the first-born of all the Egyptians from the son of Pharaoh on the throne to the prisoner in the dungeon to the livestock in the stall. You are free to go. And when Pharaoh changes his mind and tries to pin you between his army and the Red Sea, look at what God does. The Lord again stretches out his arm and his mighty hand pushes back the waters of the Red Sea. You cross on dry ground. Pharaoh’s army is destroyed as your God brings the waters down on it. The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord your God gave you rest from slavery by rescuing you.
The same Lord God has rescued you and me from our slavery – our slavery to sin. We were born as slaves to sin. Sin drove us hard to search for the stubbles of hope that we thought would make us happy. Sin worked us hard in Satan’s ways leaving our souls sore and aching. Sin made us sweat under the heat of our guilt. And sin fooled us into thinking that as long as we did what our natural self wanted we were free. What a lie!
But the Lord God stretched out his arm to rescue you. He stretched out his arms over the beam of the cross. He opened his mighty hand for the nails to pierce him. It was not the Egyptian firstborn, but the only-begotten Son of the Father, who died for you . He willingly died to rescue you.
His cross shades us for our guilt that beats down on us. For on the cross he covered his innocent self with our guilt and endured the heat of God’s anger that we justly deserve. His blood soothes our aching souls that long for forgiveness. For his holy blood paid the full price for all our sins, which afflict us. And his death gives hope because, after he died, he rose from the dead. This hope is not a stubble of straw that fails. This hope is more solid than a mountain. Just as surely as Jesus, our Savior, lives, so surely we who believe in him will live in joy with him. He has parted the waters and brought us over from death to life, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom. He has rescued you and gives you rest for your soul. Rest in the peace of forgiveness purchased for you by his cross and guaranteed to you by his resurrection.
He invites you, saying in Matthew 11, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28, 29 NIV) – the rest that comes from being rescued from sin’s slavery.
Viewed from the cross of Jesus and his empty tomb, our original questions doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? “Do I have to go to church?” or rephrasing it, “Do I have to go and hear about how Jesus gave himself to rescue me and listen to his gracious invitation to give me rest. Can’t I just go back and be a slave to sin and live in that pain that leads to hell?” Rather a foolish question. It’s like a fish that you release asking, “Do I have to swim away? Can’t I be your supper?” When we believe in Jesus, we want to regularly remember our Rest-giver who rescued us from our slavery to sin.
2) The Rest-giver refreshes us with his sanctifying Word
But what about the Third Commandment? In its original form, Jesus, the Rest-Giver, has fulfilled the Sabbath. It pictured the spiritual rest that Jesus gives by forgiving us. He is Lord of the Sabbath. And the Apostle Paul makes teaches us that Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath so that we are no longer bound by its outward regulations . Led by the Holy Spirit, he writes, “Do not let anyone judge you by . . . a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17 NIV). Just as, after a person comes around the corner, we no longer watch the shadow but look at the person, so also now that Jesus has come, we no longer have to set a side Saturday or any other day of the week to rest; rather, we look at Jesus. We focus on Jesus, the Rest-Giver foreshadowed by the Sabbath.
Should we cross out the Third Commandment then? Not at all! The Lord still has something to teach us in the Third Commandment. What is that? Let’s dig a little deeper.
The text says, “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Deuteronomy 5:12 NIV). “By keeping it holy.” Let’s think about that. To keep something holy means to set it apart for God, to sanctify it. The word “sanctify” comes from the Latin sanctus. Sanctus means holy. “Sanctify” means “to make or keep holy.”
Does resting from work sanctify a day or make it holy? No. Does going to a certain building called a church sanctify a day or make it holy? Not necessarily. And how can sinners, like you and I, keep any day holy unless we, ourselves, are first of all sanctified? Jesus explains what sanctifies us or sets us apart as holy. In a prayer to his heavenly Father for his disciples, Jesus says, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
Do you see what makes all the difference? God’s Word. God’s Word sanctifies. God’s Word keeps us holy. How? God’s Word keeps us focused on Jesus, the reality, not on shadows. Jesus’ holy life covers our sins through faith in his Word. Because of Jesus God counts us believers as holy in his sight. He calls us his saints, his holy ones.
Through this Good News the Rest-giver refreshes us. Just like a good night’s sleep refreshes us for another day, God’s Word refreshes us to live each day set apart for God in the joy of forgiveness. The Rest-giver refreshes us with his sanctifying Word. With our eyes focused on Jesus and our lives sanctified by his Word, we can keep every day holy to the Lord.
Luther clearly shows us that the Third Commandment directs us to God’s Word. He explains it this ways: “We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it” (Luther’s Small Catechism).
So what about our original question: “Do I have to go to church?” The answer is tied to God’s Word. Going to church will do you no good if God’s Word is not taught in that church. Going to church will do you no good if you do not let God’s Word focus your eyes on Jesus. Even going to our church will do you no good if do not listen to God’s Word and take it to heart.
But when we consider how God’s Word sanctifies and refreshes us, how could we not want to gather with our fellow believers around the pure Word as long as we are physically able to? Where else do we gather to be fed the Good News of our Rest-giver through the hymns and liturgy written and used by Christians throughout the ages. Where else do we come together to hear God’s Word publicly proclaimed from Scripture with a speaker who wants to keep our focus on what Jesus has done to give our souls rest? Where else do we regularly feast on the Rest-giver’s body and blood to assure us of God’s forgiveness? Why would we want to skip a week? Regularly remember the Rest-Giver.
And yet just don’t limit yourself to one day a week. We might gather publicly around God’s Word only once or twice a week, but privately go to his Word every day. God wants everyday to be a Sabbath for you, a day that he brings you rest for your soul as he refreshes you with his sanctifying word. Throughout the week think about what you hear in worship. Read his word daily. Believe his promises continually. Live according to his will always. Regularly remember the Rest-Giver.
“Do I have to go to church?” A simple yes or no is no way to answer that question. Our old, sinful nature, which we inherited from our parents, will never want to go to church to hear God’s Word. We must force it and tell it, “I am going to church.” Our new self, created by God in you through baptism, does not ask “Do I have to.” Our new self loves to regularly remember our Rest-giver as often as possible. Our new self rejoices that he has rescued us from sin’s slavery. Our new self finds his sanctify Word refreshing. Our new self says with King David in Psalm 122, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1 KJV).
