Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon July 19, 2009
Today, I would like to explore with you another way God made himself known in the Old Testament, namely, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, which means, “I am the LORD who makes you holy, sets you apart as holy, or sanctifies you.”
Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 1 Peter 1:16, “Be holy, because I am holy.” God’s purpose for you and me is that we become like him in his holiness. What we are going to learn today is that becoming holy and blameless in God’s sight happens when you and I remind ourselves of God’s grace giving character and when we demonstrate God’s grace to others.
The particular passage which includes Yahweh Mekeddeshem that I would like to draw your attention is Exodus 31:12-17. Please, turn your Bible to Exodus 31:12-17 and let’s stand together for God’s word.
- Ways to be reminded of God’s grace giving character.
What is stated in this text is how the practice of the Sabbath resulted in knowing God as grace giving God, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy.” Yahweh Mekeddeshem is grace giving God because it is his grace that allows us to be holy.
For God to be Yahweh Mekeddeshem, the One who makes you and me holy, he would have to be holy God. Consider these verses: Leviticus 11:44-45, “be holy, because I am holy… I am the LORD who brought you out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” Leviticus 19:2, “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” When God who is holy calls you and me to relationship with him, he calls us to become like him in his holiness.
God who is holy is completely free from the moral imperfections, impurity and frailties. Unlike you and me, no flaws can be found in him; he never gets tired of being good; never fails to be good and perfect. He is sinless. God who is holy is also completely faithful to his own promises again unlike us who can be unreliable as faulty bows when it comes to keeping our promises.[i] Psalm 105:42 speaks to his holy character of his promises, “For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham.” Exodus 15:11 speaks of holy God as one who redeems, who saves, “Who among the gods like you, O LORD? Who is like you-majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”
God who is holy has the quality of otherness about him; because he is transcendent beyond our ordinary limits of moral imperfections and sins, to sin ridden, imperfect, unreliable people holy God is utterly unapproachable. According to Colossians 1:21, human condition is such that of being alienated from God and being his enemies in minds because of evil behavior (Colossians 1:21). You may see a blatant and hostile attitude towards God, or you may see the attitude that treats God as irrelevant; “God doesn’t matter to me,” some might say and live accordingly. God who declares, “I am holy” will not be reduced to irrelevancy. God who declares, “I am holy” will not tolerate those who rebel against him. There will be a day when holy God will judge the attitudes, the lifestyle, and the deeds of those who insist God as irrelevant to them, those who continue to oppose God and refuse to yield to him.
So, when this holy God declares, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy,” this is God’s message of his grace giving character. Your best of best shots at shunning evil, moral imperfections and failures, temptations, your most sincere intent to be good and holy will never measure up to God’s standard of holiness, his goodness. Your best of best effort and striving will not get you anywhere but restless and fruitless life. Holiness for Christians as it was for the Israelites is something that cannot be conceived outside of God’s intervention. It is God’s grace of making you holy that enables your effort and striving to bear lasting fruit.
To help the people of Israel know this grace giving God, God gave them the Sabbath; the Sabbath practice was a way to be reminded of God’s grace, the One who makes his people holy. So, let’s consider how the Sabbath was a way of God reminding his grace.
The verbal form of the Sabbath means to cease, to pause. What were they to stop, to cease? They were to stop doing things that sustained them. Consider when God gave manna when the Israelites lived in the desert. On the sixth day, God gave them a double portion of manna so that next day on the Sabbath they wouldn’t have to work to collect manna (Exodus 16:22-26). This law of stop working after six days and resting on the seventh day was so important that non-compliance was dealt with death penalty (Exodus 31:14). God called the Sabbath a sign, which allowed the Israelites to remember important things about God; their week in and week out of stop working and resting on the Sabbaths was designed so that the Israelites would grasp God’s grace giving character.
In Exodus 20, you will find the Sabbath as one of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:11, you read the connection between the Sabbath and God’s creation account of creating for six days and resting on the seventh day from the work of creating. So, the weekly practice of the Sabbaths was designed as a sign that would point them to God as their Creator.
In Deuteronomy 5, you also find the Sabbath listed as one of the Ten Commandments. But, here the emphasis that comes after the Sabbath is the call to remember their former condition as slaves in Egypt and how it was Yahweh who brought them out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
In their weekly practice of resting by pausing from working, they were reminded God was the Creator who provided for them and that it was God who delivered them out of bondage. It wasn’t their labor, but it was the grace of the Creator who provided for them and the grace of the Redeemer who delivered them. So, the Sabbath was designed as a sign to point the Israelites to the grace giving Creator, Redeemer.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:8, “… the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” The way it works for Christians now is not by observing the Sabbath as the Israelites did, but by finding ourselves in the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ.
He said in Matthew 11:28-29, “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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
It is only in Jesus Christ, you and I can become holy, be set apart for God. Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy,” Yahweh calls you and me to rally around Jesus, to come under him, to find ourselves in him, for through Christ’s blood, his death and resurrection, we can become holy.
How you spend the sacred time with Jesus will determined if you will grow in holiness. For some of you, the struggle is overworking. You need to learn to take time to rest in Jesus Christ. But, many of you, the struggle is not so much about overworking, but taking wrong kind of rest. In your spare time, if your goal is simply to vege out in front of TV, mindlessly surfing on your computer, this wouldn't fit the kind of rest Jesus envisions for you.
For the Israelites, the Sabbath keeping was a sign that pointed them to God's grace giving character. What kind of rest would point you to God's grace? Are you taking such rest on ongoing base?
- Ways to love others through demonstrating God’s grace to others:
When you read carefully Exodus 21:10 and Deuteronomy 5:14, you will find a comprehensive list of who were to remember the Sabbath. “On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.” It was for the whole people, whole creation that were to pause from work of labor and to rest in God, the Creator, the Redeemer. So, through the practice of the Sabbaths, the Israelites were called to love people and love creation. Loving people meant tangibly allowing others to stop working and experience God’s grace.
The principle of the Sabbath extended not weekly, but on every seventh year as well.
Exodus 23:10-11… Consider the Sabbath year. God promised to bless on the sixth year, to produce enough for three years that can last until the harvest of the eighth year. So, they were told to give the land a Sabbath of rest (Leviticus 25:4); During this Sabbath year of rest, then the poor would be able to eat from the land at the Sabbath rest. Consider Deut 15:1-3… the Sabbatical year for canceling debts… “At the end of every seventh years you must cancel debts.”
Pretty radical stuff, right? God has no interest in raising up generations that are self-absorbed and have no interest in demonstrating God's grace to others. Jesus said the first and the greatest commandment is to Love the Lord God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. One's confession of love to Jesus without following his command to love others is not genuine and downright unchristian. Faith without deeds is dead faith. Faith must be expressed in good deeds. So, as we seek to be immersed in God's grace to make us holy, we must seek tangible ways to bless others, to demonstrate God's unearned grace to them.
[i] New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis: Volume 3. 882. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1997.
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