"Sabbath Rescue" Matthew 12:9-14 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning though, Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

What an exciting passage.

I'm going to read it for us.

I'm going to start in verse 8, which is the conclusion of last week's text, and then I'm going to read through verse 14.

This is the word of God, Matthew chapter 12, verse 8.

Matthew 12:8

For the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.

He, being Jesus, went on from there and entered their synagogue.

And a man was there with a withered hand.

And they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

So that they might accuse him.

He said to them, Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, won't take hold of it and lift it out?

Of how much more value is a man than a sheep?

So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

And the man stretched it out.

And it was restored healthy like the other.

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him.

How to destroy him.

This is the word of the Lord.

This encounter that we just read is described here.

It's described in Mark chapter 3.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

It's described in Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

It's a significant encounter described in three Gospels because it really changes everything in the trajectory of Jesus' life.

For us, it's, you know, it's tucked in after the earlier encounter about the Sabbath that we looked at last week, so we can be excused if we overlook the significance of this exchange here, but it really does alter how Jesus viewed the crowd, how Jesus viewed the Pharisees, and how they viewed him.

Until this point, Jesus had been communicating with the crowds in outreach mode.

He'd been doing sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, for example.

He'd been ministering to the crowds.

He'd been addressing them as the crowds, almost introspectively, asking them, What did you go out in the wilderness to see?

You know, what are you?

This is what John did.

He was inviting them.

Come to me, all who are heavy laden, all who are weak.

He'll give them rest.

He'll give them strength.

I mean, this has been the normal tenor so far in Matthew's gospel.

That stops right here.

From this point forward, Jesus goes into condemnation mode.

He's going to tell them after this that no more signs are being given to them, other than the sign given to Jonah, which is going to be his own death and resurrection.

No more miracles will be given to them.

He's still going to heal people in isolated settings.

That, of course, is still going to happen.

But as far as the outreach mode of his ministry, which so far has been the norm, that's over after this Sabbath.

For the Pharisees' part, until this point, they have come across as somewhat antagonistically apathetic towards Jesus, if that makes sense.

They don't like him.

They're bothered by him.

They think he's a bunch of hot air.

It's the impression I get from them so far.

But after this event, they change into full-on hatred of him.

It's after this that they decide they're going to kill him.

They've had enough.

It's this event that drives them to that point.

What drives the Pharisees from antagonism to murderous?

It's Jesus' treatment of the Sabbath.

It's the sermon Jesus preached this Sabbath, this Sabbath morning.

It doesn't say which synagogue.

It was likely Capernaum, because that's where he spent most of his time.

It says he went back into their synagogue with them.

He was up earlier on Mount Arbel where the crowds were in Matthew 11.

So it seems reasonable the readers would have deduced, he's cutting through the grain fields, that he's headed back to Capernaum.

This is his normal stomping grounds.

He enters the synagogue there.

It's this event where he's teaching.

He's the one who stands up in the synagogue, unrolls the scroll, and begins to teach.

That's described for us in Luke's gospel.

Luke says he was teaching there that Sabbath.

So he takes his spot, unrolls the scroll, and is teaching on it.

Synagogue, if you have not been in one, it's pretty easy to visualize.

It's got an aisle down the middle, much like our worship center does.

It's got pews or benches on the side that face in and they're staggered up.

So you've got three or four rows, depending on how big the synagogue is that face each other.

You've got benches behind, benches in front, a podium in the middle, but it's on the floor.

It's not elevated like this, it's on the floor, and everybody's looking down on the speaker.

That's where Jesus is, in the middle of the synagogue.

They're back on one side, a whole empty row, you know, aisle in front of him, and everybody facing inwards.

And he's teaching on the synagogue.

On the Sabbath.

We don't know the content of his sermon.

Luke doesn't provide it.

We get a parable that he tells described here in Matthew.

Maybe he was preaching on the Sabbath.

We don't know.

But he's preaching there that Sabbath.

And this sermon is what changes everything.

We don't get the content, but we get the context, and I'll use that as the outline.

This is a six-point Sabbath sermon.

I'm a Christian preacher.

I like three-point sermons.

We have the Trinity, we have three-point sermons.

It's fun.

I imagine a Jewish preacher could have a six-point sermon, one for each day of the week they work.

I don't know.

It made sense to me this week when I was thinking about it.

It's a six-point Sabbath sermon that Jesus gives, and that'll structure our time this morning.

The first point was Jesus' confrontation.

Jesus provokes his confrontation with the Pharisees.

So far they have been passive-aggressive, passive and aggressive, but both of them.

And Jesus provokes the showdown with them.

He initiates the confrontation.

Jesus, in a sense, is done being passive with them.

He is now going to be in their face.

He leverages the conversation.

You see this in verse 10.

There was a man with a withered hand there.

They ask, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

So that they might accuse him.

That's described in verse 10.

When you take Mark and Luke together, you get the same picture but some different color to it.

While Jesus was teaching, they were eyeing the man with the withered hand, thinking, I wonder if Jesus is going to heal him.

So they were conspiring in their own minds.

This is the same attitude.

It fits with what we saw in Matthew 12, of course.

This is the same attitude where Jesus is cutting through the grain fields in the Sabbath, and they're following him through the grain fields to catch him, breaking the Sabbath.

You know, they themselves are wandering through the grain fields in the Sabbath.

They're breaking their own rules, but they're out there to catch Jesus.

Their hypocrisy is on full display.

Imagine going to the synagogue, hoping to see someone healed so that you could be angry at the healer.

That's what's happening here.

Jesus reads their thoughts, he knows their thoughts, he knows their hypocrisy, and he leverages that not to let the pitch pass.

I feel like when you read the first part of Matthew 12, he did let that first pitch pass, didn't he?

It was his disciples who were plucking the grain, his disciples are rolling the grain.

The accusation is, why do your disciples do what's not lawful on the Sabbath?

And Jesus answers it, but not by plucking grain himself.

He answers it by declaring that he is the Lord of the Sabbath, which is outrageous.

I mean, he's saying, I'm God, I made the earth in six days, not you.

The Sabbath points to me.

The Son of Man comes to fulfill the Sabbath.

People are made.

The Sabbath is made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

I mean, he just up-ends their whole system.

And now he provokes this confrontation.

Do you remember that the Sabbath is so central to Jewish identity in a way that's hard for Americans, evangelicals especially to understand?

We talked about this a bit last week.

Americans, you know, we have Thanksgiving.

It's one day a year, you have a big, a big meal.

You know, you might do something like that on Christmas Day or something, but it's kind of Thanksgiving where you even might even bring food places ahead of time and you spend the whole day there, and it's your planning.

In the Jewish world, understand that this is every week they have something like that.

Every Sabbath is that kind of big event.

The family comes together, your home is defined as where your food is, starting on sundown on Friday.

Everything in Israel closes at noon on Friday.

You get out so you can go to the markets and buy the stuff.

You're preparing the big meal.

You often spend the night at that house.

And you know, if you're in a city that hasn't a roof, that cable that goes around that boxes you off, you don't have to spend the night where you're gonna eat.

The whole thing is kind of the extension you're allowed to freely move on Sabbath to the house where you're gonna eat the meal, and then you spend the day together.

That's every week.

This is so central to the Jewish identity, it's so central.

The Jews have built this whole system regulating the Sabbath, the whole system structuring how to guard it and keep it.

Because people are inclined to go away from it.

It's so critical to their own identity.

They have rules about it, including a rule that you are not allowed to do good on the Sabbath.

Now that may seem outlandish to us.

Like, why would you have a rule about doing good on the Sabbath?

But understand from the perspective of the Sabbath-keeping Jews, there's always an excuse to break Shabbat.

There's always an excuse.

You always could have something good to do.

Oh, I can't honor the Sabbath because I have to do this or I have to do that.

There's always something good to do.

And so they have banned the doing of good.

This goes down to the little idiosyncrasies of the law.

I was reading this week a more modern article about a candle that falls over on the Sabbath.

If a candle falls over and for whatever reason isn't extinguished, are you allowed to lift it up?

And, you know, the the answer to the question is if it's gonna burn your house down, put the candle out.

Right?

Like if it's gonna cause actual like harm to human beings, put the candle out.

But if it's just gonna burn the tablecloth, if we're just gonna, you know, burn a little area, why don't you ask a Gentile?

Why don't you go ask a I mean you're laughing, but that's the the the way it reads is like how hard is that though?

How hard is it to go knock on your neighbor's door and ask him to lift your candle up?

It's not hard.

It's the little principles that are guarding the Sabbath.

You're allowed to help an animal on the Sabbath.

Doctors are allowed to help people live, but not prolong life.

So, for example, if you're bleeding out, doctors can stitch you up and stop the bleeding, but they can't prescribe you antibiotics or whatever.

Like that can wait till tomorrow.

I like that you're you're laughing a little bit.

I like I appreciate that.

It should be a little silly.

But do you understand, in order to appreciate this story, you have to understand the perspective that Jews have on this that this day has to be guarded or it will be lost.

It has to be protected.

And so Jesus finds himself on the Sabbath.

There's a man with a withered hand.

Notice how the topography of Israel has changed over the years, by the way.

When Jesus started his ministry, there were sick and dying and paralyzed people and lame and lepers everywhere.

He's basically driven illness out of Palestine by this point.

Remember, there were so many sick people, he had to flee, he had to get on a boat in order to get some space between him and them so he could teach.

He stuck away in the middle of the night a few times to get away from the crowds looking for healing.

Now, a year into this, you got a man with a withered hand.

Like that's that's what's left.

Guy with withered hands.

And he's not even there for healing.

Nobody brought him there.

His hand doesn't work.

It's his right hand.

Luke tells you it's his right hand.

So that means he maybe he's right-handed, he can't make a living or whatever.

I'm not trying to downplay it too much, but he's not going to die.

He's had it for a long time.

Nobody brings him to Jesus here.

He's just at the synagogue because this is where he goes to the synagogue, and he's got a withered hand.

That's it.

He's not expecting to be healed.

He's not looking for healing.

It hasn't crossed his mind.

It has crossed the mind of the Pharisees who are rooting for it.

And Jesus knows their mind.

And so Jesus calls the guy up front.

It starts in Luke in Matthew chapter 12, verse 10, where the Pharisees ask, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

Matthew 12:10

So they might accuse him.

They ask the question.

The Pharisees ask Jesus, is it lawful to heal?

Because so far Jesus is just teaching.

He's not giving any indication he even knows the guy is there.

So one of the Pharisees interrupts his teaching with, Is it okay to heal on the Sabbath?

Kind of hoping Jesus says, Who can I heal?

Instead of responding that way, Jesus responds this way.

This is described in Luke 6.

It's not in Matthew 12, but in Luke 6, Jesus responds by calling the guy with the withered hands to stand front and center.

Jesus brings him out of the congregation and parks him in the middle of the fishbowl.

Remember, there's the open aisle in the middle there.

Everybody would be looking at him.

In our church, everybody's looking at me right now.

It's not weird, I'm used to it, but in that in this synagogue, Jesus is at the end here.

People will be looking down.

Jesus makes the guy go stand in the middle.

So everybody is looking at him, puts him there.

And Jesus turns it on them.

This is described in Mark's gospel.

Jesus then asks them, is it okay to do good on the Sabbath or to murder?

You tell me what to do.

Murder the dude or do something good to him?

Now this is provocative by Jesus precisely because this guy's life is not in danger.

This is not a gray area in the Talmud or in the Jewish writings, in the case law, the oral tradition, the written tradition.

All of Jewish law is unanimous on this.

You may not do good to this guy right now.

His life is not in danger.

You see this so clearly in Luke 13.

In Luke 13, there's a different person who's brought to Jesus for healing on the Sabbath in a synagogue.

And Jesus moves to heal him, and the synagogue leader intercepts him, Luke 13, and tells the guy, There are six days of the week to be healed.

Come back on one of them.

Not today.

Calls the man to the front.

Perhaps even providentially, he left the man with a withered hand for just such an occasion to provoke the showdown over this law.

Second point.

Jesus' wisdom.

Jesus says in verse 11, a parable of all things.

Bet you weren't expecting that in the synagogue on the Sabbath, but here Jesus goes with a parable.

Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, won't hold it up and lift it out?

Okay, this is not an unusual event.

Sheep fall into pits all the time.

Out in Galilee, there are lots of sheep.

This isn't Jerusalem, this is out in Galilee.

There's sheep everywhere out there.

People have sheep.

A lot of them are shepherds.

Some of them are fishermen, but a lot of them are shepherds.

Even the fishermen probably have sheep at their house.

This is a normal course of affairs.

If you have a sheep, they fall into pits.

That's what sheep do.

There's also no gray area about this.

You help the sheep out of the pit.

Everybody knows that.

Jesus is not choosing some morally ambiguous story here.

He's teaching, he's choosing a story that is crystal clear and easy to answer.

The American equivalent might be your dog gets out of your yard and runs away.

Okay?

That's not that unusual.

For some of your families, that's just called Monday.

You know, your dog got out.

That's the kind of scenario.

If you heard your neighbor's dog got out, that wouldn't be unusual at all.

That's a normal thing that happens in the normal course of life, and you would go look for the dog.

It doesn't matter what day of the week it is.

That's what's happening here.

Your sheep falls into a pit.

Which one of you is going to go get him out?

Everybody will go get the sheep out.

It's so obvious.

It's a wonderfully chosen illustration because in the Sabbath law, if you recall, in the fourth commandment, Exodus 20, there's no restriction about lifting candles up that are burning.

There's no restriction about, you know, if you spit in the dirt and it, you know, it kicks up the dirt, you're guilty of working, or how many straps to have in your sandal, or there's no restrictions about, you know, where your food is on Friday that, you know, councils your house.

There's nothing about enrichment.

None of that is in the fourth commandment.

You know what is in the fourth commandment, though, is don't work and don't have your livestock work.

You don't work and you let your sheep rest on the Sabbath too.

Let your donkey and your ox and your horses rest.

Don't put your farm animals to work on the Sabbath.

Give them the day off, too.

All right, so that's the rule.

Obviously, if a sheep falls into a pit, you can't tell the sheep, hey, just rest there.

It's the Sabbath.

Your little legs kicking.

You know, get the sheep out.

It's more restful for the sheep to be out of a pit than in a pit, so help them out.

And everybody would understand that.

Notice the wisdom of Jesus' parable here, though.

It forces the Pharisees, and us really, to think through this.

Why can you rescue a sheep but not a person?

Why?

I mean, is a person worth more than a sheep or not?

Now the whole it's exposing the heart of the works righteousness system.

The heart of the works righteousness system is not about helping people.

The heart of the works righteousness system is about protecting the fence, so to speak.

To guard the works righteousness, to guard the system.

That's the heart of it.

So Jesus elevates this normal daily activity into a moral dilemma for the Jewish leaders.

This is the conundrum now.

If they say it's okay to help on the Saturday, then they have to say it's okay to heal on the Saturday.

And if it's not okay to heal, then they are outing themselves as people that are harming human beings by placing them lower than sheep.

And notice for a Christian, it's when you live in a gospel of grace, exalting Christ is always allowed.

It's always permissible to do good.

If you can do good on Sunday, do good.

If you can do good, if something is good on Monday, it's good on Saturday and it's good on Sunday.

And if something is foolish, somebody asked me recently, well told me recently that when they grew up in their house, they were not allowed to spend money on frivolous things on Sunday.

And they asked me what I thought about that.

And I just thought, I mean, if something is frivolous, if it's an unwise purchase on the Sunday, it's good probably going to be an unwise purchase on Monday, right?

But in the Jewish mind here, they're so concerned, not with the man's needs, not with the man with withered hands.

They're not praying for him, they're not shedding a tear for him, they're not caring about him.

For him, he's a for them, he's a prop.

They are concerned about guarding their works righteousness system.

And Jesus knows that.

He knows their murderous hearts.

The same hearts that right now are so concerned about honoring the you know restrictions on doctor's healing on the Sunday, I mean on this on the Sabbath, on the Saturday, are gonna go out the door and plot to murder Jesus.

I mean, he knows all this.

That's why he phrased the question like he did.

Verse 12, how much more value is man than a sheep?

That's his question.

That's his mic drop.

How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?

What is wrong with you?

What's wrong with you?

He's asking them.

What's wrong with you?

Thirdly, Jesus' anger.

This isn't described exactly in Matthew's gospel, but it is in Mark's gospel after Jesus asked that question.

Mark says, Jesus looked around the synagogue with anger.

Jesus was mad at them.

The Greek word that Mark uses is the word orge, which means uh wrath.

It's the word for wrath, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness of mankind.

That's the word that Mark says is in Jesus' heart at this moment.

Jesus, it's so interesting.

This is right after Matthew 11, where Jesus described himself as gentle and lowly in heart.

The next moment he's filled with wrath.

All the complex descriptions of God are all evident in Jesus.

And he's so angry at this room.

So angry at them, filled with wrath against them.

He's angry at their hardness of heart.

That's the phrase in Mark's gospel.

They're so recalcitrant.

They're so guarding their own system, they're okay harming people.

And this is important to understand because Jesus, you know, it's not necessarily politically correct to speak like this now in today's world about Judaism, because I understand in the political world, Israel is an ally and they're a beacon of freedom in the Middle East, and we pray for the conversion of Jews, and we understand that in the future all of Israel will be saved.

In Romans 11, that day is coming when they will repent and believe the gospel, and we pray for that to come soon.

You know, we long for that.

But there is a tendency in a lot of evangelicalism to view Judaism as a true religion just, you know, just missing the Messiah.

Like they're looking for there, it's a true religion of the true God just missing the Messiah.

That's not the way Jesus spoke about it.

Jesus looks at them, those.

That are practicing the Sabbath restrictions right here and saying it's not good to do, it's not uh permissible to do good in the Sabbath, and he's filled with anger.

I mean, this is a false religion.

They're hurting, hurting people.

They're uh exploiting the poor, they're putting burdens on people's backs that they are not designed to carry, and they're doing it under the umbrella of Yahweh, saying, This is God, the God who gave the Torah, he's the one that wants you to stay injured through Saturday.

He's the one that's just on the horns of a moral dilemma about what to do with the candle.

Or if the Aruv goes down, are you allowed to go to your sister's house?

If a car crashes to the Aruv, it's the God of heaven who designed the system.

You look around the world and you see, of course, in India, horrible exploitation of the poor and under the banner of religion.

I mean, what happens in India is just so barbaric and under the banner of compassion towards the poor, it just destroys human beings.

But they're doing it under the banner of false religion and false gods.

What often happens in Judaism, especially as you see in this story right here, it's under the banner of the true God.

And that's why Jesus is so angry at it.

He can't baptize that kind of cold-heartedness in the Torah.

And he's angry.

They're of course angry at Jesus because they're being exposed.

What makes Jesus angry?

It works righteous religion.

Those that think they can earn their way to God through law-keeping.

Especially if they grab the true law.

The Sabbath is a true law.

The fourth commandment is true.

It's inspired by God and given to check evil and promote good and all of that.

And to use that to exploit and harm people makes Jesus angry.

Fourth, Jesus' authority.

Jesus pauses and looks around the room, grieves and angry at their hardness of heart.

In Mark's gospel, he repeats the question: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to murder?

Back in Matthew 12, verse 12, Jesus renders his own answer to the question.

Matthew 12:12

He declares in verse 12, in Matthew, it's in front of you, so it is indeed lawful to do good in the Sabbath.

Jesus renders the verdict.

You can do good on the Sabbath.

Notice that in saying that, Jesus has elevated his authority above that of the Pharisees.

Like I said, there was no ambiguity in the case law, so to speak, at this time.

You were not allowed to heal on the Sabbath.

That was clear.

And Jesus rejects it.

He rejects the oral tradition.

He rejects the written tradition.

Instead, he says, you can do good any day of the week.

In claiming this, he's claiming to have authority over the law.

Now you know this.

The law was designed to show God's holy standard and to show our inability to keep it.

That's what the law was given to do.

The law was supposed to govern Israel until the Savior came.

Paul tells the Galatians the law is a schoolmaster, or tutor is a better translation of that word.

It's somebody that is hanging out with your kid after school.

It's the after school care.

That's the law.

The law is the instruction, and then it's the tutor that guards the student until dad comes and picks them up.

That's the law.

I don't think the disciples understood that here yet, quite yet.

They're going to get there.

I don't think they fully understood what Jesus was getting at here and how he talks about the Sabbath.

I don't think they got the full picture that he's actually fulfilling it from the inside out.

The Sabbath is going to cease with him.

As I said earlier, that you know, the Pharisees are upset.

If you listen to Jesus, Sabbath celebration will be over, and Jesus is okay with that.

He agrees to those terms.

I don't think that even the disciples understood that, but they will in the New Testament.

By the time Paul's writing Galatians, he's telling you these laws are fulfilled by Jesus.

They were a schoolmaster to keep watching you until dad got here.

You can see why that would be confrontational to the Pharisees.

The Pharisees started with good motives, of course.

You know, Ezra comes back, they're rebuilding the temple.

They have no priests.

Ezra has to go back to Babylon and Persia and wrangle up priests and try to find this.

It's all described in the book.

Ezra try to find priests, and they have such a hard time finding priests to move back to Jerusalem, which is in rubble.

Nehemiah comes and builds the wall.

The Persians are allowing this under Cyrus, but then the Persians fall to Alexander the Great, and the Greeks invade and take over the whole place.

They destroy the temple again.

They commit the abomination of desolation in the temple.

There's nothing, there's no priests now.

The temple's been just blasphemed against, slaughtering animals in the middle of it and everything.

And the rat the Pharisees, this is where they come from.

They're the ones that step up in this point and say, we're gonna guard the law, we're gonna guard the traditions, we're gonna institute Sabbath regulations and Sabbath worship, we're gonna keep the Jewish identity together here in Israel.

We're not going back to Babylon, we're not going back to Greece, that's for sure.

We're gonna stay here and be Jews, and they're the ones that stepped up and did it.

Now you fast forward a few hundred years, and what has that given you is a group of scribes and a group of Pharisees and rabbis that are law keepers.

Now the one who is supposed to fulfill the law comes, and they have no room for him.

He may as well be Alexander the Great.

He may as well be invading Israel.

In fact, he probably worse because he's Jewish.

How dare he! That's the way the Pharisees view Jesus.

What started off with probably good motives has become just a refusal to bow the knee to Yahweh.

So Paul tells Timothy, 1 Timothy 1, verse 8, we know the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

1 Timothy 1:8

It's a bit of a tautology, it's a bit of a circular argument, but just embrace it for a second.

The law is good, Paul says, if you use it lawfully.

What's it supposed to be used for?

It's supposed to be used to show you your inability to keep it.

It's supposed to show you God's standard of holiness and perfection, and you're down here, you can't get there.

That's how you use it.

And over time it's given way to people building fences around it to guard the law itself.

Which is not how it's supposed to be used.

Not how it's supposed to be used.

It's a silly analogy.

I was almost thinking about not using it, but we'll see.

You have your goal of jumping around the world.

You're gonna jump around the world.

But you're reasonable about it.

You know you have to work in increments.

So you're gonna start by jumping from North America to Africa.

You buy the best map you can find.

Massive map.

You unroll it, it's got the scale on it and everything, and you deduce that your most likely point of success would be from Miami to Casablanca.

4,235 miles, give or take.

You start training.

You study the map to find out which part of Miami sticks out the furthest.

You start patrolling the coast of Miami.

You realize there's docks.

Some docks go out further than others.

You convince some of your friends to join you in this pursuit.

Over time, you develop rules about what kind of docks you can train on.

It has to have space enough for 12 boats, not 11, 12.

Anything less than 12, you're not even really trying.

You have to have a space for 12 boats for it to count as a dock.

What kind of shoes to wear while running down the dock?

What kind of what kind of posture to have while you're prancing down the dock to jump?

Maybe you even make a rule that you can't call it prancing anymore.

You develop a whole system of regulations to govern, and you're missing the point.

The map was supposed to teach you you can't jump there.

Yes, jumping is good.

That's fine.

Yes, North America and Africa are real places, that's fine.

But you're not supposed to study it and build rules about how to protect the map, and then justify it by saying, because I love the map so much.

That's why I have these rules.

That's in a way what's happened with the Israelite law, the Torah.

It was given to show them in six days God made the universe, and you are not God.

So let's take a day and worship him every week, okay?

That's what it was given to you to do.

And it's become how much weight can you carry?

It's become what to do with the candle.

It's become what counts as your house.

It's become if the guy is bleeding out, what can a doctor do versus if his appendix is ruptured?

That's what it's become.

Jesus is angry at it, and then he just fulfills it from the inside out.

And this would be an important point to mention the whole concept of a Christian Sabbath, by the way.

Because people ask this: Jesus fulfills all the law from the inside.

He keeps all the law perfectly, bringing it to his completion.

This has been a theme in Matthew's gospel.

John the Baptist said when he baptized him, he's fulfilling all righteousness.

He's fulfilling all of the laws.

He fulfills the Sabbath law.

The Sabbath law is given to you to help you realize that you are not God.

This is the Jews kept it every week because they're looking for a greater Sabbath rest in the future.

Joshua teaches that.

Jesus has come, he provides a Sabbath rest by fulfilling all the law, doing all the righteousness you can't do.

So when you place your faith in him, you receive forgiveness from your sins, and the law has been completed in your behalf.

You're not antinomian, you don't lead a sinful life.

You're not against all law.

You don't lead a sinful life.

You repent from your sin and receive salvation through Christ, who has completed the law for you.

That's the right way to view the law.

It's not binding on you.

The Sabbath is not binding for Christians.

The Sabbath is Saturday, by the way.

It's not Sunday.

Throughout the New Testament, Saturday is the Sabbath.

It's never moved to Sunday.

Very common to hear Christians today refer to Sunday as the Christian Sabbath.

That's not a biblical teaching.

If you want to say Sunday is holier than the other days of the week, that's fine.

I have sympathy for that argument.

Sunday is the Lord's Day, but it is not the Sabbath.

In the New Testament, when it speaks of the Sabbath, it always speaks of Saturday.

Remember in Acts 15, they're like, what rules should we have the Gentile believers follow?

And they decide, you know, if you want to hear the law of Moses, it's read every Sabbath in the synagogue.

I mean, Sunday is not the Sabbath in the New Testament.

Saturday is.

And you can keep it or not keep it if you want to.

It's a gray area in Romans 13.

Some want to keep it, some don't, whatever.

You be convinced in your own mind, may your tribe increase.

You want a day for worship based upon the pattern of one day of worship in the Old Testament?

That's great.

Sunday is the Lord's day.

He rose from the grave on that day.

It's the day Christians have always met for worship.

That's fine.

But it's not the Sabbath.

It's the Lord's day.

It's different.

It's the Lord's day.

Your Sabbath rest is that Jesus fulfilled the law in your place.

Rest in him.

And we laugh about the candle and the doctor stuff.

I'm telling you, in some Christian sabbatarian worlds, it's every bit of silly.

Every bit of silly.

And there's a good Christian school that will remain nameless.

That I I know one of the administrators at, and he was telling me they used to celebrate Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, and they would tell all the students in the dorms, you can't um work on Sunday, it's for worship, and you can't uh, you know, have organized activities in clubs and all that stuff in the school and not allowed to happen on Sunday.

And so the kids asked, like, is it okay to kick the ball around on Sunday?

Like, sure, of course it is.

Of course.

You got dorms of college kids.

You can go outside in the courtyard in the commons to kick the soccer ball around.

That's of course fine.

Okay, is it okay for us to split into teams?

Sure, you can split into teams.

Okay, can we organize those teams ahead of time?

Well, I mean, I don't know.

It doesn't really matter to me.

Okay, can we set up cones and make goals and corner flags on Sunday?

Like, well, no, because we don't have organized things on Sunday.

No, you cannot set up the cones and flags on Sunday.

This is a true story.

You cannot do it.

How long do you think before those Bob Jones, I mean whatever college it was, how long do you think before they before they figured out I I love Bob Jones, Bill.

I love it.

How long do you think before they figured out?

I honestly didn't know you snuck back in.

How long before how long do you think it took them to figure out to put the cones out Saturday night?

How long?

A semester?

I mean, it took the Jews hundreds of years to develop their own Sabbath restrictions.

How long do you think it took them to figure out we can set the corner flags up Saturday night?

Probably a few weeks.

What happens if one of them blows down in the night?

Are you allowed to put the corner flag back up if the wind blew it down in the night?

I mean, eventually you just get to the point where you have to say, okay, we're out.

Just worship Jesus and be led by your conscience.

I know college students need more help with their conscience than other people.

I grant that.

I have tremendous sympathy for those dealing with college students, believe me.

But we laughed earlier about all the Jewish restrictions.

You understand when you enter the Christian Sabbatarian world, you're back in the same spot.

The early church did not celebrate Sunday as the Christian Sabbath.

That comes in hundreds of years later.

Hundreds of years.

If not a thousand plus years, if not with the Puritans.

I know the early American Baptist viewed Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, but that's not a persuasive enough argument for me.

Jesus here doesn't move the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

He fulfills it from the inside out, and he does it by rendering his own verdict.

It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Number five, and we'll move quickly here.

Shows Jesus' compassion.

Shows Jesus' compassion.

Jesus does not view the guy merely as a prop.

Everybody else does.

Like I said, the Pharisees didn't pray for him, they didn't shed a tear for him.

The Pharisees were unmoved by this guy at all.

He was just a tool to get to Jesus.

Jesus renders his verdict and then actually calls the guy forward and says, Stretch out your hands.

Look at it in verse 13.

He said to the man, stretch it out.

And the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the other.

Jesus actually heals them.

Jesus recognizes this man as suffering.

He's not dying, but he's suffering.

And Jesus sees that and heals him.

The thrust of the story is that Jesus is a savior by nature.

The Pharisees are not.

The Pharisees are using this whole event to point to their own rules.

Jesus is using this event to point to his authority.

The difference between the two is the Pharisees are not concerned about suffering.

Jesus is.

Jesus is a savior by nature.

He wants to help people.

God is a savior by nature.

And God always helps people.

He hears prayers.

He heals people, and he heals people always in a Trinitarian way.

From the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.

And that's what happens here.

Did you notice Jesus does not lift a finger, ironically, does not lift a finger to help this guy.

He does not touch the guy.

The whole thing is on display for the synagogue, and they want to know what Jesus is going to do.

And if Jesus lifts a finger, then Jesus becomes the issue here, and he's breaking our laws.

So Jesus deliberately does not lift a finger.

He's going to do that in the synagogue in Jerusalem, remember?

He's going to spit in the mud, spit in the dirt, and make mud and wipe it on the guy's eyes.

Like that's flagrantly in your face, confronting the Sabbath laws.

He doesn't do that here.

Here, he heals the guy without moving a muscle.

And what are they going to do?

I know it was you.

I saw you blink.

What are they going to do?

They cannot.

He's committed no crime.

And they know he did it.

Notice the undercurrent here that they are so positive.

They are so positive that he has the ability to heal.

They just hate him for it.

His compassion.

This is the way we can have our sins forgiven too.

Jesus desires to forgive us and to heal us from our sins.

The Father desires to heal you from your sins, and he always does it from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.

Jesus here is the agent of God's healing.

It's the Holy Spirit who brings it to completion in the guy's body.

The Spirit heals him by the authority of the Son from the Father.

This is how God works.

You understand why the Jewish mind in a synagogue here doesn't have the right even language to describe this.

From the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.

Notice also, this is the first altar call.

Jesus has him come forward.

The congregation even sings, just as I am without one plea.

But that thy blood was shed from.

I picture it that way.

I don't know.

Number seven.

Jesus' own death.

Number six, thank you.

We rest on the seventh point.

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him.

Verse 14 says, They went out to conspire against him.

Mark says they go out and conspire with the Herodians of all people.

The Herodians barely practice the Sabbath.

The Herodians are a liberal political party that affiliate with Herod the Great, the legacy of Herod the Great, who is a blasphemer himself.

The Pharisees have a newsfound alliance with the Herodians over their hatred of Jesus.

The Herodians view Jesus as a threat to Israel, Israel's political security.

The Pharisees viewed Jesus as a threat to their Sabbath restrictions.

And they go out and they conspire to the Greek word here in Mark 14 is destroy him.

I mean, sorry, in Matthew 12 is destroy him.

In Mark 3, it's kill him.

They're going to murder him.

They decide to take his life.

It's over the Sabbath, by the way.

I know they tell the Romans he said not to pay taxes to Caesar.

They don't care about that.

The Romans don't care about the Sabbath, is the problem.

They would have told the Romans it was about the Sabbath.

Romans don't care.

So they make up something the Romans care about.

That had never been brought up other than the one time where Jesus denied it throughout his whole life.

But always, over and over and over again, it was a Sabbath.

He has this fight with them so many times because for them it's on full display.

He says he can fulfill the law by telling you to do good on the Sabbath.

They reject it.

Jesus adequately showed that their understanding of the law was different than what God intended, that he is fulfilling the true intent of the law by offering salvation, forgiveness, and healing to those who come to him, come to God through faith in him.

That's the invitation here that's on full display.

It's a man with a withered hand, but it is the full gospel on display here.

That God wants to save people from their sin.

He does it by having Jesus fulfill the law and then inviting you to respond in faith.

Your faith is drawn to you by the Holy Spirit through the Son to the Father.

That is what's on display right here.

And the Pharisees walk out there and decide to murder him.

They conspire on the Sabbath, which is against their own Sabbath rules, by the way.

They will walk over a pile of dead bodies even on Saturday if it means they get to keep the Sabbath.

It doesn't slow him down.

It doesn't slow them down that they're going to murder on the Sabbath.

It's all right.

He's in the way.

This is a picture of Works Righteous Religion.

It should be on full display that they are not behaving rationally.

This is every human being apart from faith in Christ.

That's where we all are.

Jesus invites you to come to him and have your sins forgiven, and we behave so irrationally.

We justify, we excuse, we get angry.

And Jesus just says, Come.

Lord, we're thankful that you are a healer.

You hear our prayers.

You forgive us of our sin through our faith in Christ.

Ultimately, our work is not in what we own.

Our worth is not in what we own.

It's not in our own strength.

Our worth is found in serving and honoring you.

We're thankful you fulfilled the law.

We're thankful that you offer forgiveness of sins for those who come to you through faith.

We give you thanks for that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.