Lord of the Sabbath

Well, good morning. It's good to see you all here. Glad you have joined us this morning.

I'm going to begin this morning by reading our passage that we're going to be looking at.

This isn't my normal practice, but we're going to start with the Word of God this morning.

And we're going to be looking at Mark chapter 2, starting in verse 23.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

That's starting on page 786 in your pew Bible.

And why don't we turn there, and before we go to read God's Word, let me pray and ask for God's help.

So, let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we come to you now.

And Lord, we ask that you would, Lord, allow your Word to dwell in us.

Lord, that as we look at this passage together, Lord, that you would be teaching us about who you are.

Lord, lay bare the realities of our hearts and the need that we have for your gospel,

and most of all, for our Savior Jesus.

Lord, I pray for your help this morning that you would give me, Lord, words that you would have me speak.

And Lord, that together we would sit under your Word.

Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Mark chapter 3, starting in verse 23.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

One Sabbath, he, that is Jesus, was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way,

his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

And the Pharisees were saying to him,

Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

And he said to them,

Have you never read what David did?

When he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him,

how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest,

and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for the bread…

I'm sorry.

And ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat,

and also gave it to those who were with him?

And he said to them,

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

And again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand,

and they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath,

so that they might accuse him.

He said to the man with the withered hand,

Come here.

And he said to them,

Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?

But they were silent.

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart,

and said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him.

How to destroy him.

So if you are a good literary reader, you're reading this story,

and when you come to verses 5 and 6 of chapter 3,

it should be shocking.

Let me read them again to you, just so you can hear this.

And Jesus said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

And the Pharisees went out, immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him.

How to destroy him.

How do you get there?

How is it that a man being healed causes the heart to want to destroy the one who did the healing?

This is the question that I think we want to look at.

As we think about this story this morning, these accounts,

there are two stories that I think Mark put together for a purpose.

How do you get to a place where you want to hate a man and kill him for healing someone else?

These stories focus on the Sabbath,

and their understanding of the Sabbath.

And so we're going to spend some time looking at the Sabbath and what it is broadly in the Bible,

and then we're going to look at how the Sabbath was an issue in these passages,

and then we're going to look at how Jesus responded to those issues.

So if you're taking your outline, there it is.

The Sabbath broadly in the Bible,

and then the Sabbath problem in the passage,

and how Jesus responded is his third.

So let's look at this together for a few minutes.

What do you think the Sabbath means?

Maybe you grew up, like I did, reading Little House in the Prairie,

and Little House in the Big Woods.

You may remember, Laura Ingalls Wilder records this in The Little House in the Big Woods.

On Sundays, Mary and Laura must not run, or shout, or be noisy in their play.

Mary could not sew on her nine-patch quilt,

and Laura could not knit on the tiny mittens she was making for baby Carrie.

They might look quietly at their paper dolls,

but they must not make anything new for them.

They were not allowed to sew on doll clothes, even with pins.

They must sit quietly while Ma and Pa read Bible stories to them.

And then a little further on,

one Sunday after supper, Laura could not bear it any longer.

She began to play with Jack.

That's their dog.

And in a few minutes, she was running and shouting.

Pa told her to sit in her chair and be quiet.

But when Laura sat down, she began to cry and kick the chair with her heels.

I hate Sundays, she said.

So maybe this is the view of Sabbath.

If you've ever grown up in a church,

or you've thought about it, you've read about this,

you've seen it in movies,

this may be the picture of Sabbath that you think of,

something that's severe, without laughter, without joy.

It's a stereotype of a stiff, uncomfortable day,

with a set of rules that most of us would chafe under,

and that we would rather not do.

But that's not really what the Sabbath is biblically.

So let's look at it biblically for a few minutes, broadly,

to think about what it is, right?

So the Sabbath was established in creation,

and then clarified in the law that Sarah read earlier

in the giving of the Ten Commandments, right?

So, and the fourth commandment,

for in the six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth,

and the sea and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy.

God in his creative work set apart one day out of seven,

where he did not work.

He worked six, and then on the seventh day he rested.

And so, God commanded his people to follow this pattern

in order to show this creative pattern that God had done.

But it's not just in this creative pattern

that God rooted this idea of the Sabbath,

but in Deuteronomy, in the second telling of,

the second explanation of the Ten Commandments,

he says,

you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt,

that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,

and the Lord your God brought you out from there

with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore the Lord your God commanded you

to keep the Sabbath day.

So it was grounded in creation,

but then it was also grounded in God's creative work,

that they were slaves who had to work seven days,

and then as God rescued them,

he said, restore yourself to this creation pattern.

I'm restoring you into a place where there is rest

as a part of your work,

because I'm redeeming you into a place of rest.

And God said the Sabbath is so important.

It is one of the key signs, along with circumcision,

of being a part of the nation of Israel.

So in Exodus 31, 16 and 17,

Moses writes,

therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath,

observing the Sabbath throughout their generations

as a covenant forever.

It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel

that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,

and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.

These are God's words to his people through Moses.

And again, just as I was saying,

this is one of the most important things in the Old Testament

to say this is what it means to be part of my people,

is to observe this rite of six days to work

and then seventh day a rest.

Okay?

Now, the people of Israel didn't always follow this.

You can read through the story of the prophets

to see where they failed and where they succeeded in doing this.

Fast forward to the New Testament.

And in the New Testament,

the Jewish setting of this was the Pharisees.

And the Pharisees, who were a small sect of Judaism

but had a lot of influence more broadly in culture,

and they had a particular love for God's law and the Torah

and a desire, a zeal even, to obey it.

But their zeal, as Jesus pointed out,

missed the mark because they loved the letter of the law

and missed the heart of the law.

So Jesus in Matthew 23 says,

that you tithe mint and cumin,

but neglect justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

The Pharisees had this pattern of building a hedge around the law.

That is, they put on extra regulations

so that you couldn't get even close

to breaking one of the laws of the Old Testament.

So when they kept the Sabbath,

they built all of these extra rules

to make sure that you didn't even come close

to working on the Sabbath.

Fascinating.

I looked up the website,

the Orthodox Union website.

You can look it up today.

There are 39 categories that were established

in the first century that still are practiced

in Orthodox Judaism.

39 categories of things you must not do

in order to observe the Sabbath and to not work.

The first one is you may not carry anything.

This comes from Jeremiah 17,

if you're interested in looking it up more.

You may not carry anything outside of your home.

Okay?

That's fairly straightforward,

but this means things like you can't carry firewood

out of your home into your home to light a fire.

You also can't light a fire,

but that's a different thing.

That's why you can't turn on light switches.

But they built all these other rules about this.

Not only could you not carry things outside,

but even they said,

well, to make sure that we're really honoring this,

you also can't carry things inside your home

that aren't necessary.

So things like small rocks.

Not sure why you'd carry rocks in your home,

but that was on the list.

Also pencils.

You can't use a pencil.

Because using a pencil means to carry it,

and that's doing work.

You can't carry candles.

You can't carry money.

There are all these things.

Even when you go to synagogue,

you can't carry your keychain.

You can't carry your wallet.

You can't carry a purse.

These are the ways that they make this hedge

around this don't do work on the Sabbath

in an honest desire to honor God in it.

So this was the context of first century Phariseeism

in the way that they practiced the Sabbath.

Now I'm going to fast forward just a little bit.

And what about the church?

What did the early church do?

Well, many early Christians were Jewish by background.

So some of them observed the Sabbath

as an ongoing part of their tradition.

But, and this is not the point of the sermon,

but I'm just going to say it

because we might as well deal with it.

But I don't believe that Christians are obligated

to keep the Sabbath in the Old Testament way.

Not because there isn't good wisdom

in keeping the Sabbath in the sense of

setting it apart from other days

and setting it apart as a day of rest.

There is wisdom in having a rhythm of work and rest.

It is good for human beings

and it's good for us to flourish with that.

What the early church did is the early church,

rather than following the Sabbath on a Saturday,

they said, we're going to worship and gather

on Sunday morning.

So they moved from the Sabbath to the Lord's Day.

And on the Lord's Day, they gathered

because it was the day of resurrection,

the first day of the week in the first century.

They gathered together for fellowship and worship.

They gathered to say,

rather than doing our regular work that day,

we're going to gather specially to be with God's people

for fellowship and for prayer and for encouragement.

And that's what they did.

And there are lots of ways to celebrate the Lord

and the Lord's Day that honor God,

but not in the spirit of the Pharisees.

But in the spirit of freedom,

that we do this because this is a wise thing,

not because it is a required thing.

So Colossians 2, 16 says,

therefore let no one pass judgment on you

in the question of food or drink

or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

Romans 14, 15 says,

one person esteems one day is better than another,

while another esteems all days alike.

Each should be fully convinced in his own mind.

Again, I don't want to pick a battle.

If you want to come talk to me after it, this is great.

This will be a good conversation.

But I want you to hear,

this is broadly how we would understand at Trinity

the issue of how Christians should or should not

follow the Sabbath.

But having looked at this biblically, broadly, right,

we recognize that God gave the Sabbath as a day of rest,

as a day to honor him,

as a day to set aside from the busyness of our week,

to focus on him in special ways.

And that was true in the Old Testament.

And as we practice it today in the Lord's Day sense,

there's still good value in this.

And it was meant to be a blessing.

But so easily,

what is meant to be a blessing in God's economy

can be twisted.

And this is what happens as we look at this passage.

So let's look at the passage together

and think about how it is in this passage

that we encounter the Sabbath.

Right?

So if you go back to starting in verse 23, right,

this Sabbath creates a conflict

in both sides of the parts of the story.

In the first story,

we see Jesus and his disciples

are walking along the road or through the fields,

and there's grain,

and they're just picking grain

and, you know, shelling it and eating it.

That's what they're doing.

And the Pharisees come and they say,

wait a minute.

You're not a serious Jew.

You're not serious about following God.

The Pharisees come and they say,

I don't know who you think you are,

but you are not,

you can't claim this role of being a religious leader

if you are going to so blatantly

break rules of the Sabbath.

Right?

Because harvesting would be one of those works

that would be forbidden on the Sabbath.

And what they were doing

in the mind of the Pharisees

was harvesting.

And so they looked at him and his disciples

and they judged and condemned by this question.

Right?

Why are they doing what is not lawful

on the Sabbath?

So the Jewish Pharisees had this perspective

and Jesus is leading his disciples

to do something very different.

And this then becomes accelerated

in the next story,

this conflict that's happening,

where in chapter 3, verse 1,

Jesus goes into the synagogue.

There's a man with a withered hand.

And it seems very clear

that somehow this was a setup.

Verse 2,

they watched Jesus.

It's like they set the man up

and they're like,

okay, let's see what he's going to do.

And they didn't just watch him,

but they watched him to see

whether he would heal on the Sabbath

so that they might accuse him.

They were not curious to see,

hey, I wonder what Jesus is going to do here.

Is he going to do something good?

Like, let's find out.

They already had in their hearts

a desire to accuse him

because of what he's already done,

the way that he's already showing himself

to not be submitting

to the religious worldview of the Pharisees.

they had the spirit not of,

maybe we have something to learn from Jesus.

They had the spirit of,

let's see if we can catch him.

Verse 5 describes Jesus

as seeing their hardness of hearts,

which is remarkable, right?

Because Jesus is coming

and the people who are broken and needy,

the sinners and the sufferers,

they're flocking to Jesus for help.

But the religious people are sitting back

watching him,

seeing if they're going to follow,

play by their rules

and are growing in their heart,

a heart of condemnation

and judgment for his actions in the world.

It even led to an unholy alliance.

The Pharisees went out

and they met with the Herodians

who were their enemies religiously.

The Herodians would compromise

in all sorts of places

where the Pharisees wouldn't,

but they came together

because they saw,

they shared with them

this hatred of Jesus

because Jesus was upsetting

their system

and their understanding

and their power.

Ultimately, he was upsetting

their commitment

to their religious life

in such a way

that they would do even,

even seek to destroy him.

So before we go on,

let's just stop for a minute.

What about us?

Can our hearts be so twisted?

Are we too committed

to religious righteousness

in such a way

that we end up actually rejecting Jesus

along the way?

Now look,

we need to be clear here.

As Christians,

there is a proper obedience

to God's word.

God's word does speak clearly

and we need to think about

what it says

and we do need to seek

to obey it

and we're not shrinking back

from submitting

to God and his word.

But the Pharisees

do something more

and something different

than that.

Here's how I want to explain it

to help us see

how easily it is

that our hearts do

what the Pharisees do.

Even the best spiritual practices

can go wrong.

If you're a Christian here,

you may have

how to have a quiet time,

how to pray,

how to disciple others.

We may have a discussion

about things like

what kind of music

do we play

in our church service.

We might have a discussion

about what you should wear

to church.

There are questions

about how do we act

in the world, right?

In the old-fashioned church

in days gone by,

we talk about

don't drink,

you don't chew,

you don't go with girls that do.

Do you guys know that?

It's a silly little phrase,

but it's this sense of

this is how we protect ourselves,

right?

This is the spirit

of the movie Footloose,

right?

We can't have dances

because sexual immorality

might break out.

And we need to think carefully

about this spirit

that can so infuse the church

where we end up

judging one another

based on these rules

that go beyond

what the Bible actually says,

right?

And look,

in its heart,

there's a desire

for us to avoid sin

that is good,

but it can become

a platform

for self-righteousness.

When our zeal

to do what is right

and to follow God,

even when it leads us

to counter-cultural

and sacrificial changes

in our lifestyle,

when we do that,

that can be a glorious thing

to God's,

that honors God.

But it so easily

becomes something

that we then turn

and heap on others

as a burden,

right?

And so we start doing this

and then in our zeal

we become self-righteous

and then we look down

on other people

who don't do

the same thing we do,

right?

And I honestly think

as I look at my own life

and times when I have done

this in the past,

it has been done

often out of fear.

Well,

if I'm going to obey

the Sabbath

in this particular way,

if I'm going to keep

the Sabbath

in this particular way,

then I want everyone else

to do it as well

because I feel weak

and if everyone else

is doing something else,

then I might feel left out

and I don't want to feel left out.

So I'm going to impose

this religious rule

in order to be accepted.

Or sometimes we just do it

to say,

look at me,

look at how righteous

I'm being.

I'm more serious,

more zealous

than you are.

And how easily

this becomes

not only

a self-justifying spirit

in our own hearts,

but a spirit of condemnation

for everyone else

who doesn't do

what we do.

Now look,

in the church today,

broadly,

in the Bible-following

churches in the world,

we've often,

I think we've swung

further away

from this legalistic

judgmentalism,

but I wonder

if we've replaced it

with other things.

Friends,

we need to be

just as careful

with our political alliances,

our views on social issues,

our understanding

of how to navigate

some of these things

as we have in the past

on what music

you listen to

or how long

your skirt can be.

We need to recognize

that the way

that we carry

these attitudes

can have the same spirit

whether we come

to conclusions

out of honest desire

to honor the Lord,

but when we heap them

on others

and require others

to agree with us,

to do as we do,

and judge others

when they don't

follow with us,

then we are in the same spirit

as the Pharisees.

We need to recognize that.

And what does Jesus say?

What does Jesus say to us

and to the Pharisees

in response

to these challenges

to his disobedience

of the Sabbath law?

Jesus says,

I am the Lord

of the Sabbath.

Jesus does not shrink

back from this,

but he actually goes into it.

In the story of the man

with the withered hand,

Jesus takes it on.

He walks into the synagogue.

He sees the withered hand.

He sees the people watching.

He knows what they're thinking.

He looks at the man

and he says,

come here.

He makes a spectacle

out of him.

Can you imagine this man

with the withered hand?

He probably spent his whole life

wanting to hide.

He's like,

I don't want to go up front.

I don't want to be...

Jesus says,

come here.

And he's looking at the Pharisees

and he's like,

okay,

you want to see

what I'm going to do?

I'm going to show you

exactly what I'm going to do

and I'm going to make

a spectacle of it

in order for you to know

exactly what I think

about this.

Is it right

that on the Sabbath

I would not do good?

I would not heal?

In the law

in the first century,

that's exactly

how they understood it.

If you were injured

but you could make it

through the Sabbath,

then you couldn't do

anything about it.

Now,

if you were really,

really life-threatening,

you could do something

to try to keep,

get them to stable,

right?

But if you had

a broken bone,

you couldn't set it

until the end

of the Sabbath.

Jesus is looking

at them and saying,

really?

Is that what

the Sabbath is for?

Jesus confronts them

and he says,

there is something

new here,

better than this system

of religious rules.

It's echoing

what Nick preached

on last week,

what he said

about fasting.

The king is here.

Something new

is happening.

Pay attention

and be ready

to follow

because this is

what he's saying

in the end

of chapter 2.

This is what he's saying

when they challenged

the disciples

about not eating

food on the Sabbath,

right?

If you look back

in verse 25

of chapter 2,

have you never read

what David did,

right?

What is he saying,

right?

He's challenging

their understanding

of the Sabbath

by quoting

this Old Testament story.

And in case

some of you

are paying attention,

if you go back

to 1 Samuel 21

where this story happens,

it's not Abiathar

who is the priest

at the moment.

His name is Ahimelech,

right?

And most Bible scholars

understand that

in the days of Abiathar,

you even look

in the ESV notes,

it says in the passage

about,

right?

And most people think

that in referring

to this story

in the Old Testament,

it'd say,

oh, well,

this is the story

about Abiathar the priest

because he's the most

prominent one

in that section

of 1 Samuel.

So,

just in case you're wondering,

that's why it refers to him.

But he refers back

and he says,

don't you know

that David did this too?

David and his men

were running for their lives

and they were hungry

and they came across

the priest

outside the synagogue

or the tabernacle,

sorry,

it was outside the tabernacle

and they said,

hey,

we're hungry,

give us something to eat.

And he said,

well,

all we have

is the food inside

that's on the altar

that's set apart

for the priest.

And David said,

bring it to me.

And the priest went in

and he brought it out

and he shared the food

and he blessed it.

Now,

some people might have said

that what Jesus is saying

is the need is so great,

the law doesn't matter.

Right?

The need is so great,

the law doesn't matter.

And that's a reasonable explanation

because Jesus clearly

is seeing a need.

But his disciples

weren't starving here.

It doesn't seem to make sense

that that's actually his point.

It seems that the point

that Jesus is making

is more of a correspondence.

David,

who was the anointed one,

who was the one

who would be the king of Israel,

was claiming an authority

in that place.

And Jesus is now coming

and saying,

I have greater authority

than David.

And I have the right

to say,

it is good and right

for my disciples

to eat on the Sabbath

in this way.

Just like David did

in the old way.

Right?

Jesus is saying,

the new thing has come.

The new one is here.

I am the Lord

of the Sabbath.

Right?

And he's saying,

look,

the principle is that

the Sabbath has always been

by God

for mankind.

Right?

Not so,

so,

we see the,

the Sabbath was made for man,

not man for the Sabbath.

Right?

And he's trying to say there

that,

that the principle ultimately

is that this was something

given for humanity,

not for humanity

to fit into.

Right?

But more than that,

it's the last part of that

where he says,

the Son of Man is Lord

even of the Sabbath.

Even of this thing

that is so critical

to being a part

of God's people.

Even over the thing

that along with circumcision

is the greatest sign

of being a faithful Jew.

Jesus is saying,

I am the Lord

even of that.

And I'm gonna change

what that looks like.

I'm gonna bring

something greater

than the Old Testament

understanding

of the Sabbath.

Because I've brought,

come to bring a kingdom

that is better

than the law.

What does he mean by this?

Well, friends,

we,

we look,

if you wanna turn with me,

you can,

but in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4,

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

we see the final goal

of what Jesus is doing here.

Because what Jesus is saying is,

now that I am here,

the Sabbath,

as it's been practiced,

was meant to be a sign

pointing to something else.

Right?

Hebrews chapter 4,

Hebrews 4:9

verse 9,

says this,

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.

What does this mean?

Well,

what the writer of Hebrews,

in a complex argument

that I'm not gonna try to reproduce

at 10 after 10 this morning,

is a complex,

he's saying,

Jesus has come to fulfill

all of these threads

of the Old Testament.

And here,

Jesus is,

is presented as the one

who's the fulfillment

of the Sabbath.

So that by faith in Jesus,

there is a salvation

that brings rest

from the works of the law

and works of righteousness

that were seen to be

the basis

of how one might be

acceptable to God.

Right?

Fundamentally,

he's saying,

the Old Testament understanding,

faulty in many ways,

of faith was,

you will be acceptable

if you keep the law.

And Jesus has come and said,

no,

there's something better than that.

I'm going to be

the law keeper for you

so that I might give to you

instead

an obedience

and a rest

from trying to justify yourselves.

Right?

We so often want to be

justified before God

because we have done

something right.

And the rest that Jesus offers

is the rest that says,

you will never be good enough

and you will never be

faithful enough

and you will never work hard enough

to please God

and to overcome your sin.

But Jesus comes in his perfect work

and as a substitute

for us,

lives that perfect life

and he says,

now by faith in me,

you can rest

from your work of righteousness

because instead of working for it,

I'm going to bestow it upon you

when you come to me in faith.

And because I bestow it on you,

then you can rest.

You can rest in God's acceptance.

You can rest in God's love.

You can rest that you are a child

in God's kingdom.

And this is what Jesus is saying

when he says,

I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

So we rest from our works

and we rest from the fear

that we'll never be good enough.

We rest from the hamster wheel

of religious activity

in trying to prove that we're worthy.

And we're free.

We're free to worship.

We're free to serve God.

We're free to pursue him

with sacrificial zeal

in whatever that looks like

for each of us in our lives.

But we do it

not to achieve God's favor,

but out of the wonderful rest,

the Sabbath rest

that we have in Jesus.

So this is the invitation

to see the Sabbath

ultimately as a sign

pointing ahead to Jesus,

the Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus says to us today,

come to me.

Come to me if you are weary

of your religious works.

If you're weary

of trying to be good enough.

If you're weary

of somehow seeking to earn God.

Come to me and find rest.

Rest from your righteous

self-righteous works

from your self-justifying heart.

Come and find freedom

from the tyranny

of religious performance.

And come to me

and find joy.

Joy in the Lord of the Sabbath

who has given us rest in him.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus,

we thank you for the rest

that we do have in you.

And we thank you

that this is what

the Sabbath is for.

Lord,

that we might find

ultimately in you

our Sabbath rest.

Rest from works

of righteousness.

Rest from works

of obedience.

Lord,

rest

from

all these things

so that we might

be still

and know

that you are God.

to know

your salvation

bestowed upon us

by faith.

Oh Lord,

be with us we pray

this morning.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.