LORD, HAVE MERCY
For Demonstrating Irreverence and Despising Your Rest
GOD’S NAME AND GOD’S REST

Welcome to worship today at Morrison Zion Lutheran Church. We exist to glorify God. We have set out to do this by gathering around the Gospel so that we may grow in the Gospel and go to others with this Gospel.

The Second Commandment: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. What does this mean? We should fear and love God that we do not use His name to curse, swear, lie, or deceive, or use it superstitiously, but call upon God’s name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? 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.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ, our Lord:

Names are sometimes a difficult thing to pick from, to choose.  They carry a lot of meaning.  If you’ve ever had kids and you’ve had to choose the name of your kids, you understand how names carry a lot of weight.  You and your spouse might be talking about names and you pick this name and then your spouse says, “I don’t know if we can pick that name.  That reminds me of this person from high school” or “college.”  When you hear a name, it reminds you of something.  It carries a lot of weight and a reputation.

We see that out in the world as well.  We see that in politics now where just saying one of the names from one of the sides, if it’s Trump or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, those names cause emotions in people.  Names carry weight and reputation.  Or think of even a general name, like mother, father, mom or dad.  What do you think about when you hear mom or dad?  Do you have good thoughts or bad thoughts?  The hope is good thoughts, but sometimes we talk about the idea of when we call God the “Father,” people who didn’t have good relationships with a father, if they didn’t know their father and they hear that God is a loving Father, what is their picture of a father?  Names carry weight.  They carry a reputation.

We see that and we need to think about that and what God’s name means for us.  We don’t want to misuse the name of the Lord, our God.  We talk about the meaning:  “We should fear and love God that we do not use His name to curse, swear, lie, or deceive, or use it superstitiously, but call upon God’s name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.”  What is an interesting thing is are you going to call on God’s name in every trouble, pray or praise and give thanks if you don’t think good things about God?  What I mean by that is when you hear the name of God, what comes to mind?  Do you think of this man in the clouds with a big, white beard, who doesn’t care?  When you think about God, when you think about Jesus, do you have joy?  Do you have peace?  What we think about Him and His reputation means everything.

Pastor Mike Novotny, in his book 3 Words that will Change Your Life where he talks about how God is here, he says what we think about God is so important.  When you hear God’s name, does it fill you with joy?  Do you want to sing?  Or do you just kind of shrug?  Our hope is that joy is what we feel, but we know there are a lot of people in the world who hear the name of God, they think about God, and they really just kind of shrug.  If our view of God isn’t that positive, maybe you don’t think negatively about God but God is not that impressive or that comforting, well then we can maybe understand why you don’t go to God very often.  If God isn’t very thrilling, then what do we think about heaven?  Is it kind of boring?  Is it hard to find truth in life if God is kind of ho-hum?  Fear is going to be great if we don’t think great about God.  It’s going to be hard to find happiness and repentance.  Why would I repent if God does not love or if He doesn’t want to listen to me?  Peace is going to be impossible.  What we think about God matters.  If you think much about God, you are going to be filled with happiness and peace.  You will want to obey.  You will want to be close to Him.  The thought of heaven is this joyful, great, amazing thing.  What we think about God and His name and His reputation matters tremendously.

His name—this is what that Second Commandment is.  When we talk about the First, Second and Third Commandments, they are all really related.  You shall have no other gods.  Often the problem is that we don’t think much about God and His name.  Who do we think more about?  What name do we like to put first?  Our own names.  We like to emphasize ourselves and make it all about us.  So we dishonor His name by making it more about us and we don’t think about who He is and His reputation.  He is a loving Father.  He is one that gives us salvation and peace and hope.  My prayer is that is what you think about when you think about God’s name and His reputation goes before Him.

But if we don’t have that, we’re not going to be at peace and we’re not going to want to be in His Word; what the Third Commandment is all about.  It’s going to be hard to find peace in Him and to find rest if I don’t think about God or I make it more about myself.  When we look at who God is, we see His name.  He is a Father.  He loves.  It’s all about salvation.  We also look and see that He is a Creator.  We know that He created the world.  What else did He create?  He created you and me.  What does it mean if you have a Creator?  Someone created you.  How many of you, when you get some new technology or some other tool, men are very good at this—they just think:  I can put this together.  I can fix it.  I can figure this out.  I don’t need the instructions.  There are men out there smiling and laughing because we can do it.  We don’t need all those instructions.  But think about us as people.  If we have a Creator, were we created to function in certain ways?  Do we have an instruction manual on how our bodies, our souls, our minds are supposed to work?  Does that have a lot to do with how we can rest physically, spiritually, emotionally in our Lord?

It’s interesting to think about how we go about life spiritually, physically and emotionally and say “I don’t need to be concerned about how God created me, how my body is supposed to work, how my mind and my soul, my emotions are supposed to work.  I can just go, go, go and ignore it.”  It’s like a car that you never take for an oil change.  You never get it checked.  Maybe you don’t put the right gas in.  You just think:  I know what is best.  But what is going to happen?  That car is going to break down.  It’s not going to work the way it’s supposed to.  Isn’t that what we do with ourselves?

The Third Commandment is about being in God’s Word, but it’s also about resting in God.  I am not able to rest in God if I’m not emotionally, spiritually, physically healthy.  Part of the problem with this is we believe some lies, lies that keep us so distracted, so busy and so overwhelmed that we are just unable to rest in any of these things.  Think of the general concept if someone asks you how you are doing.  What is your answer?  “How’s it going?”  What do you say?  “Busy.”  Is that the typical response?  “Busy.”  We fill our lives with stuff and it’s our culture, it’s our technology.  We are overwhelmed.  So are we resting in God?  Are we resting in His Word?

I think there is an argument you can make that there are three main lies that affect us and keep us from resting in God.  The first two we will group together because they kind of relate to each other.

The first lie is that you need to be perfect and the second one is that you can make everyone happy.  You can say “Of course I know I can’t be perfect.  I’m a sinner.  I know that.”  But what happens if you make a mistake?  What happens if in your job or in a different part of your life you don’t meet your expectations?  Think about all the callings that you have in life, all the places where you are put.  Can you be perfect in all of those things?  Can you give the same amount of energy to work, to family, to all these things?  Kids, you have your education, your sports, and all these different things.  Can you be equally good at all those things?  There is going to be something you are going to have to neglect.  In order to excel in one thing, the truth is that you are going to have to be average in something else.  But we think:  I have to be perfect!  I have to do everything amazing!  That is overwhelming and it makes us anxious and never at peace, never at rest in God.  And who do we make it all about?  Not resting in God but all about what “I” am doing.  That really relates to making everyone happy because we struggle to say “no.”  We struggle to say “I can’t do that thing.  I know you need help.  I know we need this to get done,” so we extend ourselves because we want to make everyone happy.  Think about it this way:  how many of you have a work day, it used to be 9-5, but how many of you get done with work and you are DONE with work?  No texting.  No email.  Nothing else.  What do we have?  We have constant communication, constant talking, and we are constantly connected.  But how much work is enough?  Is it 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours?  If you work 60 hours, you know what is probably going to happen?  Someone is still not going to be happy that you didn’t get that thing done or you didn’t do this to that level.  We have to understand, not just with work but with life, are you going to let people down?  Are you going to forget to help someone?  Are you going to break a promise?  Are you going to make everyone happy all the time?  You’re not.  We have to learn that and understand that we can try, but we also need to understand that we need to rest.

Think about it this way.  Did Jesus help and heal every person?  We talked about this in catechism when we were talking about the Good Samaritan.  We teach and we talk about how you should help everyone and often there is someone there that we walk by, but is it sinful to not help that person?  Then if you think about Jesus, people were coming to be healed and sometimes He would go off and pray and rest.  Even our Savior, our Perfect Savior, took time on His own to rest.

The last lie is the idea that we are fine.  That everything is okay and you can just keep on going and it’s going to be okay.  I think so often we just go, and go, and go and then we crash.  They say people won’t change.  People won’t make a drastic change until the pain of the situation, the thing that they are in, is greater than the pain of change because it takes energy.  It’s a hard thing to say “no” to something or to actually make that big change.  But usually that happens when it’s too late.  You crashed.  But we do that.  We lie to ourselves and just say, “I’m fine.  It’s fine.  I don’t need to rest.  I don’t need to take a break.  I don’t need to say ‘no’ to these things.”  What does this have to do with God’s Word?  If I’m overwhelmed, if I’m so distracted by the world, how can I rest in Jesus?  How can I find peace in Him when I’m just going, going, going and with everything in the world?

We haven’t done them in a little while, but we had the Partnering in the Gospel discipleship courses previously.  I handed out this Emotionally Healthy Discipleship Personal Assessment paper.  The first section is:  Be Before You Do and asks how you spend time with God.  As I handed this out to people then, and when I give it to people in pre-marriage counseling now, we look deeply into all the different sections.  I have to say I, as one who needs to be listening to music and I’m always doing, this one is even hard for me.  But think about some of these things and think about your life—how are you able to shut out everything else and spend time with God, our Savior and our Redeemer?  Look at some of these questions and see how they work for you.

1. I spend sufficient time alone with God to sustain my work for God so that I live out of a cup that overflows (so I can love others).
2. It is easy for me to identify what I am feeling inside.

If you’re going, going, going, can you actually sit and confess?  Can you understand your emotions?

3. When I become anxious or feel like I have too much to do and too little time, I stop and slow down to be with God and myself as a way to re-center.
4. I set apart a 24-hour period each week for Sabbath-keeping—to stop, to rest, to delight, and to contemplate God, or try to take some time and rest.

We say, “We can’t do that” and “We go to church.”  But think about what the Sabbath day was for the people of the Old Testament.  It was REST.  They weren’t supposed to work and they didn’t go home and turn on the TV and watch the NFL or basketball.  They didn’t go and play sports.  They rested from their work.  Farmers were to rest for a whole year every seven years.  Can you farmers imagine that?  It’s unthinkable for us.

5. People close to me would describe me as content, non-defensive, and free from the approval or disapproval of others.

You might say, “What does that have to do with resting in Jesus or being at peace?”  I’m not making it all about myself and I’m resting in my Savior and I’m thinking and knowing He is there and guiding me.  I’m not defensive.  I’m content in my Lord.  I can rest in Him.

6. I regularly spend time in solitude and silence. This enables me to connect with my Savior, with God’s presence.

Can you slow down and not be anxious and know that your God is big enough?  Part of the problem is that we think we need to be the Savior.

I’ve heard this one before, too.  Can you turn off your phone?  Can you not just put it on silent but can you turn it off for an hour and understand that if someone calls, you can’t answer that?  Can you be away from that?  Is the world going to survive if you don’t answer that?  We kind of make it all about ourselves, our name, our reputations, and we don’t find rest in God and understand that He is in control.

Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  His yoke is light and easy. ^{(Matthew 11:28-30)}  We just read about this in our Sunday night book study and someone said, “I never understood that.  What does that mean where His yoke is light and His burden is easy?”  Is it that His Law is easy?  No, it’s the Gospel.  We need to remove the burden of the Law and find it all in Christ.  The Law is about do, do, do, do and the Sabbath rest is that Christ has done it for you.  It’s done!  It’s finished!  And Christ has kept the Law for you, perfectly.  He kept God’s name perfectly.  He rested perfectly, so that you can find hope and forgiveness in Him.

It’s my prayer that we can think of God and His name greatly, to rest in His salvation and peace, to truly understand it’s not all about “me,” but to rest in our Savior and know that He is in control, and most of all, that He has redeemed you and you are His child.  Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ^{(Philippians 4:7)} Amen.