Episode Details

Sermon preached for Trinity 17 by Rev. James Preus on Luke 14:1-11. 

Trinity 17

Our Hearts Are Restless until They Find Their Rest in Christ

Luke 14:1-11

Pastor James Preus

Trinity Lutheran Church

September 22, 2024

St. Augustine begins his famous work, Confessions with a prayer to God in which He says, “Man, a little piece of Your creation, desires to praise You, a human being ‘bearing his mortality with him (2 Cor. 4:10), carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that You ‘resist the proud’ (1 Peter 5:5). Nevertheless, to praise You is the desire of man, a little piece of Your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in the Lord. This truth is fundamental to understanding the Sabbath. Sabbath means rest. Moses records in Genesis 2, “And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:2-3)

God blessed the seventh day and made it a day of rest. Yet, man fell into sin. St. Paul tells us that the Law was added because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19). Moses writes in Exodus 20, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” When man sinned, he fell out of God’s Sabbath. He could not find rest in the Lord on account of his sin. So, God added the Commandment to remember the Sabbath Day, so that His people might find rest in Him. But the Commandment did not give them rest, because of their unbelief. Because of their hardness of heart and rebellion, the Lord says in Psalm 95, “Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” (Psalm 95:11)

Hebrews chapter 4 explains this, “For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said, ‘As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter My rest,’” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.’ And again, in this passage He said, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again He appoints a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:3-10)

The command to rest failed to give the people rest! This is what St. Paul says in Romans 3, “Through works of the Law no human being will be justified in God’s sight, since through the Law comes knowledge of sin.” It could be paraphrased, “Through works of the Law no human being finds rest in God, since through the Law comes knowledge of sin.” The Law does not grant rest. Rest can only be received through faith, because it is God who accomplishes the work.

This sets us up for our Gospel lesson. A ruler of the Pharisees invited Jesus to dinner on the Sabbath, and they