Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-3:6)

All right, thank you so much.

So as he mentioned, we are going to be in Mark chapter 2 for the last time.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

For a while.

And so please turn in your Bible to Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

As you're sitting there trying not to think about this fact, just remember, in August you will miss this temperature.

So sweet.

So we're going to be in Mark chapter 2, starting in verse 23.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Alright.

We're ready.

Now that everyone's all comfortable, please stand if you are able for the reading of God's Word.

There you go.

Alright.

Starting in verse 23.

On the Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain.

The Pharisees said to him, Look, why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath?

And he said to them, Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry?

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 anyone to eat except the priests, and also gave some to his companions.

He told them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

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

Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand.

In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal them on the Sabbath.

He told the man with a shriveled hand, Stand before us.

Then he said to them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?

But they were silent.

And looking around at him with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts, and told the man, Stretch out your hand.

So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against them how they might kill him.

All right, go ahead and have a seat.

And I'm going to pray again, Lord, thank you so much again for today, and I thank you for what a blessing it is to be a part of this, part of this body.

Just let your will be done today with your word.

Be glorified in every aspect of it.

Fill me with your spirit for the teaching and be glorified in your name.

Amen.

Awesome.

So we're going to start by talking about something that has nothing to do with the passage we just read.

Just to keep you on your toes.

So later on in the Gospels and in the story of Jesus' time on earth, there's a scenario where Jesus goes to visit the household of Lazarus.

Yes, that Lazarus, the one who was raised from the dead.

And he will forever be known as the one who was raised from the dead.

If he was like a painter or something, nobody cares.

He's the guy who was raised from the dead.

And so he's in that house and he has two sisters, Martha and Mary.

And while this is happening, Mary is sitting at the Lord's feet, listening to what he is saying, and Martha is getting everything ready.

She's distracted by many tasks.

She's going here, here, here, and then finally she has enough.

And she goes up to Jesus and says, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Tell her to give me a hand.

That takes boldness.

We'll say that.

And the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary.

Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.

Okay.

Hold on to that so you can sit here this whole time going, Why did he read me that?

What's going on with that?

It'll all make sense later.

So, what's the context of the passage that we're looking at right now?

The disciples and Jesus are traveling and they're going through a grain field.

And so I grew up in something called a city.

And so this idea of walking through a field seems to me a little bit foreign.

And so in my head, I have this picture of them like they're walking through the central valley right now.

But no, right now, at this point in time, we know that the since the Pharisees have just shown up, that it's not far from where they're going because they're not going to travel far on the Sabbath and break their own interpretation of the law.

So it's going to be pretty close to where this the town is that they're trying to travel.

It's not like he's going way out in the middle of nowhere.

So they're traveling through a field and it's the Sabbath.

And the disciples begin picking heads of grain.

Why are they doing this?

Why are they picking heads of grain?

Okay, if I asked my children that, I would get three very, very different answers, and I will not out which child would give which answer.

One of them, if told that why they were picking these plants, is are they making a beautiful tiara for which to wear on their journey?

No.

The other one would be because they're so bored.

There was nothing to do.

Okay.

And then the other one would be cuz because they're hungry.

They're so hungry.

They ate five minutes ago, but they're still hungry.

Um and that that's my household.

And uh, but with that, I I go with the third one.

They're hungry, they're picking food.

So, what's going on with this is that there is actually a provision within the law that allows this, they're allowed to do this.

It's not like they're just jacking someone's food at this point in time.

And so there's a provision in the law, but the best way to uh see this in action is in the book of Ruth, where you have Ruth, who's a Moabite, and her mother-in-law, and they are living in Israel, and they are both widows, they have no means to support themselves, and Ruth goes out and is gleaning the fields, what's left over and what's dropped.

So, same thing, that's what's happening here.

This is what happens when you don't have a means of income for the most part.

You're able to provide for the poor.

That is a provision within the law, and that's okay.

So, here they're they're picking heads of grain, which tells me a couple of things.

Number one, they're hungry, but number two, they're probably not very immensely financially well off following Jesus because they left their occupation.

Zh, occupations, there's a fisherman, the tax collector, and all and uh everything in between, and now they have left all and they're following Jesus.

So, what are they doing?

They're getting a poor meal, is what's happening here.

So, having that said, they did not get in their private jet to go to the next town to speak in the synagogue.

So, that is the context for what they're doing at this point, which sets up the action here.

And the Pharisees said to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

So the Pharisees show up and they go, What's the deal?

Why are they why are they doing what you can't do on the Sabbath?

Now, why are they doing that?

Number one, because Jesus has set himself up and established himself as a rabbi, as a teacher, and they're his followers.

Really, really well explained a few weeks ago.

So go go back and listen to that um that concept of what a rabbi would look like.

And so they're not only indicting his followers, they're indicting him, basically saying, Why are you leading these people poorly to do what's not right on the Sabbath?

And uh I've I've had too many management jobs and I have had too many employees that have had this similar attitude, and my attitude is my response is always you clearly need more on your plate.

If you are out here in a field on the Sabbath asking yet again for the second time in a row about the eating habits of my followers, you might need a hobby.

So Jesus handles it a lot better than I would, I'll put it that way.

So let's just step back for a second and ask what is going on with the Pharisees here?

Because we just established that it's okay that they're picking food.

They're allowed to do that, they're not stealing.

Their issue is that it's on the Sabbath.

So there is a collision going in within the Pharisees.

This collision is between what is allowed to do for the well-being of individuals versus their own cultural interpretation of how to keep the Sabbath.

So, way back in the beginning, God created everything.

On the seventh day, he rested, and he also established that pattern of resting for people, being the Sabbath.

That's the fourth commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy.

So they are not to do work on the Sabbath, they are to rest.

And why?

Why do they need to rest?

Well, number one, we live in a fallen world, and work is hard and there's much toil, and we also have bodies that break down.

I really hope I'm not the only one experiencing that exponentially, but um, with that, we need to rest, and we tend to not do that, and so it's a good system with that.

But number two, we live in a fallen world and we're full of sin, and we tend to stray and disconnect from God, and so it's a really good time to reconnect, to settle back down and have that connection with God.

So we're resting and we are focusing on the Lord and reconnecting and remembering Him, remembering His provision, because there's a crazy thing going on in the wilderness where there's bread coming down from heaven, they could gather every day, except on the sixth day, they're supposed to gather two days worth so that they have enough for the seventh day.

And so there's a trust aspect in that.

Trusting God provides, trusting He's taking care of them, that He's leading them in the right way, that He's good.

So, aspects of the Sabbath here that's going on.

Why is this a collision?

Because their cultural interpretation is way beyond that.

There's an there are more and more rules, more and more laws, more and more to in order to make sure that we don't break the Sabbath.

Um, I'll put it this way.

If there is a somewhat ambiguous yet very scary law that is given, and I have millions of people asking me, how do I do that?

I'm probably gonna write some sort of explanation.

That happened for hundreds of years, and so it got pretty in-depth, pretty crazy and pretty in-depth with that.

And so here's the thing that's happening: they're having a collision within themselves of what the law provides for for the well-being of a human and their own cultural interpretation of holiness.

Those two collide, and what do they choose?

Their own cultural interpretation of how to be pure and holy, over the well-being of an individual who's hungry.

So, we say that in different words, they chose their own moral code and culture over the well-being of a person.

We're gonna skip past that really quick in case we get too convicted about current evangelical Christianity.

So, with that in mind, they chose that side.

They chose to go, wait, we need to we need to be upright here.

And um, this is something that I really want to establish and continue to hit over and over and over and over again.

The Pharisees are not the bad guys.

I know we have been taught that, and we see that, and it's easy to see that because they were the instigating force in the death of Jesus, which was actually God's plan from the beginning.

Um, but they're actually not the bad guys.

Sin is the bad guy, death is the bad guy, the devil is the bad guy.

And so, at best, the Pharisees are following the wrong side.

But they are not the antagonists in the story.

I know it's hard to think at, but this is something that I really want to figure out how to how we can establish that.

And so, this is how I set this up in my head.

You have the disciples, you have the Pharisees.

Both of them are immensely petty individuals, as you can read throughout the scriptures.

Both of them are very dense at times.

Both of them, both groups, are very passionate, and both groups have forsaken all to follow something.

So we need to acknowledge that.

That both the disciples and the Pharisees have actually like dedicated their lives to following something.

It's just that the disciples are following Jesus, and the Pharisees are following their tradition, which they believe leads them to God.

So try to think of two people who are immensely devoted individuals just to the wrong thing, like siblings.

Hmm.

Like siblings like Mary and Martha.

Think of it in those directions.

One of them working, striving, going, the other one sitting at the feet of Jesus.

And the ones who are doing striving, working, going are accusing Jesus, just like Martha.

Why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath?

So it really helps put that into perspective because um, can you this is one of the fun passages where the disciples do almost nothing in this entire passage?

They're kind of innocent bystanders, and I just kind of sit them, see them sitting there as this showdown is happening between Jesus and the Pharisees, and they're just kind of sitting there, just like can I can I can I not?

And so here's the thing with what they have just collided here.

The Pharisees have determined that they have the right idea.

They believe they're following God and doing this, when in reality their devotion is to their tribe.

So, with that, Jesus responds in the same way in kind with a story about taking care of an individual over personal cultural interpretation of holiness.

So Jesus did not respond as I would have responded, which is good.

That's very, very good because he's God and I'm not, and we can all be grateful for that.

So he goes all the way back to the historical books and talks about David.

So, what's happening in this passage?

David is fleeing from Saul, fleeing for his life, and he has a band of people who are with him.

They're in the wilderness, not a whole lot of food there.

Big group of people in the wilderness, they come to a place called Nob, where the uh tabernacle is at the moment.

And so there they arrive at the priest here, the high priest, a Beathar.

Inside the tabernacle, you have the most holy place, and in there is the Ark of the Covenant.

And then in the holy place, you have the altar of incense, you have the lampstand, and you have a table that has bread perpetually throughout all of that.

And so that bread is not authorized, people are not authorized to eat that bread while it's sitting on the table.

That is not for food.

And so um, something that you may realize is that brute bread does not keep forever.

And with that, they change it out, they change it out as necessary in that rotation.

And so when David arrives with a bunch of hungry people in need and says, Do you have anything to eat?

This priest looks around and is like, No.

Uh, but then he sees the bread that has just been switched out and says, You guys can have this if you've been kept clean.

You can have this bread and eat it.

It's not the bread that's currently in the tabernacle, it's the day old, basically.

And so what he did was chose the well-being of those individuals, and he fed people beyond the strictest interpretation of the cultural idea of the law.

That's how those intersect so very well, that the story that Jesus gives them and why he tells them that.

Didn't you hear how this happened?

And then he continues.

He says, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

So he's saying, look, God didn't make a seventh day and go, huh.

What do I do with this day?

I should make rules.

I need people to follow those rules.

I should make people.

Oh, this is great.

I've got a day and I have rules and I have people, and we're good.

No.

Uh humankind was already made on the sixth day before the seventh day happened.

And he rested and then established that rest.

And so Sabbath is made for man.

It's made for the well-being of man and their communion with God, and not the other way around.

Man was not made for the Sabbath.

He wasn't built for that.

He was built for the well-being of the person.

So very, very important to understand what this rest is.

The rest, the purpose of the rest.

And here the disciples are with Jesus.

They're with God.

So you might say they're Sabbathing more than anybody else there at the moment.

They're like, they're they're like sitting there with Jesus at his feet, just snacking.

And that like, where else was he where what else were they supposed to do?

Are they supp are they actually going to observe the Sabbath better by like going in a hotel and just with no food because they don't have it, because they're taking food from the field.

Um no, it's they're actually right where they need to be.

They have chosen the better thing.

Just like Mary did.

And now Jesus is going to actually turn it up just a little notch here.

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

So he gives a very plausible explanation.

He explains the purpose of the Sabbath, and then he also says, By the way, this is my jurisdiction.

So he, as a rabbi, as a teacher, they're coming at him and saying, Why are you teaching poorly?

And he very gently says, This is my lane to be in, is interpreting this.

Because Jesus is God.

How did we get to this point with the Pharisees, where they are so conflicted, and so and and choosing the law over the well-being of purpose, how we get to a point where they go and they go, We're right.

We're absolutely right, and therefore we are going to accuse Jesus.

Uh, how did this uh sibling get so worked up?

Um here's my take on it.

If we look at Matthew chapter 7, Jesus is teaching, teaching a very long, all the way from Matthew 5 onward, very long sermon series with that.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

And so in Matthew 7 he says, Do not judge so that you won't be judged.

For you'll be judged by the same standard with which you judge others.

You'll be measured by the same measure you use.

Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, Let me take the splinter out of your eye?

And look, there's a beam of wood in your own eye.

Hypocrite, first take the beam out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

So Jesus gives this story, and it's supposed to be absurd.

The illustration is supposed to be that point.

You have this picture of this guy going and looking at his friend and going, You got a little speck there in your eye.

I am immensely interested in your eyeball and happen to notice a speck in there.

And then, like, you could see the friend being like, Dude, you got a two by four sticking out of your eye.

Like, first of all, how did you how are you even seeing to look at my eye?

Secondly, why are you so interested in my eye?

You've got a beam sticking out of it.

That's just crazy.

And that is what I see is as the heart of how we how they go wrong and how we go wrong in this situation.

Is number one, we get very immensely passionate about being right, and then number two, we get immensely passionate in the faults of others, and basically, because we're right and we're the you know the harbingers of truth, we can actually go to someone and go, hey, what you're doing is wrong.

Why are you doing what's wrong?

What's the prescription that Jesus gives in this parable?

First, take the beam of wood out of your eye, deal with your own eyeball.

And so, why?

Well, because you gotta worry about yourself and take care of yourself.

And so, um He doesn't stop there though.

This is the thing is that a lot of times when I hear this passage taught, that's where people stop.

Deal with your own eyeball, don't judge, have a nice day.

It goes on, it continues forward, and he says, Then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

He does not say, So, take care of your own eye and the speck that's in your brother's eye.

Eh, don't worry about it.

We're good, or whatever.

Like, can you imagine being like, okay, good, we got this, I got the beam out of my eye, and then like you see your brother and it's like, hey, how are you doing?

He's got an eye patch on, and like, what happened?

Well, I have a torn retina because I had a speck in my eye, and no one told me about it.

That's that's not the point of the story in this.

So, take the beam out of your own eye, and you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

What is it about taking the beam out of your own eye that makes you qualified to take the splinter out of somebody else's eye?

When you deal with your own problems, when you actually address headfirst your own sins and confront them and have the Lord work on them, it does something.

It breaks us beautifully.

And we learn perspective, and we learn compassion, and we learn humility.

These are very, very important things that come from dealing with our own uh issues.

We learn perspective, we learn compassion, and we learn humility.

These are the things that qualify us to actually be beneficial to help somebody take the spec out of their own.

Eye because you cannot adequately take the speck out of your brother's eye if you do not have perspective, if you do not have compassion, if you do not have humility.

That's the challenge in this is that we need to have soft hearts that are humble, that are broken in order to be taking care of somebody else.

Because otherwise, as as I've heard uh this illustration used, if we don't have that, then we'll use a hammer when a scalpel might have worked better in that scenario.

So it gives grace to the situation.

So, what's the opposite of that?

If you do not take the beam of wood out of your own eye, this looks like outrage.

This looks like indignation, this looks like zeal.

And these things can come from either a hurt heart or a hard heart, oftentimes, is that instead of having humility, instead of having compassion, instead of having perspective, we have outrage, we have indignation at the speck in our brother's eye.

We have zeal that we have to go make our life about this thing and about taking care of that speck in our brother's eye.

And that's what I see here in this story when the Pharisees are accusing Jesus, saying, Why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath?

They're saying, first of all, what's wrong with your disciples?

And secondly, what's wrong with you?

That there is a lack of perspective and humility and grace that happens in there.

And so these things are fueled by either hurt or hard hearts oftentimes when people react that way.

Please do not raise your hands at this.

Please do not raise your hands at this.

Have you interacted with another Christian in the last year in a way that involved something slightly sounding like outrage?

Thank you for not raising your hand.

Humility.

Compassion or perspective are the antidote.

Jesus continues here.

He enters the synagogue again, and this is going to reinforce what we're talking about here.

He enters the synagogue to teach.

As is his way.

We've seen that happen.

He goes, he teaches.

And there was a man there who had a shriveled hand.

Depending on the I depending on the malady, sometimes uh people believe that this was a result of sin, that somebody was uh wounded or injured, or that their parents were that's what we saw in John 9, where like the disciples like see a blind man, they're like, hey, who's sin?

That guy or his parents?

And Jesus is like, well, number one, he's a person, but that's not why.

But um here, the man has a shriveled hand, and can we like just kind of applaud the fact that he's in the synagogue with this without you know he's willing to show up?

That's awesome.

Now, having that said, in order to accuse them in chapter 3, verse 2, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal them on the Sabbath.

So, the Pharisees on the Sabbath in the synagogue are like, this is it, this is great.

We see a man in need, and I just bet he's gonna heal him.

And that's our moment to prove him as a false teacher.

Okay, let's try try let's try try to pull that apart for just a second here.

Um, the Pharisees have more faith at this moment that Jesus is going to heal somebody than anybody else in the story.

Has that sunk in for a second?

Is there like he's gonna heal this guy?

So isn't that crazy that they have more awareness of his authority and yet do not come under his authority?

That is a very real thing that we can very, very, very easily be fully aware of who Jesus is and yet not follow him.

And uh that's it, it's just crazy to me that that's the point.

And they're like, that's gonna be our point to prove him as a false teacher if he does it on the Sabbath.

And that's how we know they have prized, again, their own cultural interpretation of morality over the well-being of an individual.

This reminds me of one of the best, most human things I see in scripture in the book of Jonah, when God tells Jonah, hey, go to Nineveh, you know, your sworn enemies, and go proclaim to them and and uh warn them about impending judgment.

And Jonah goes, No, no, not doing that.

Goes the opposite direction.

God uh convinces him to come back, and Jonah goes in and gives the like most heartfelt, beautiful repentance message everywhere ever.

In three days, y'all gonna die.

And then he leaves and waits to watch it happen.

And then turns out they repent.

And then God spares them and does not bring the wrath upon them.

And this is what I this is I love this only in the sense that it betrays my own heart at times.

Is that then Jonah is like, this is why I didn't want to go.

I didn't want to go because I knew you were gonna be merciful to them.

You were going to not destroy these people, and that's why I didn't want to bring this message.

What is the deal, God?

And it's like, that's crazy.

That is you listen to that, and I love again how gentle God is that He's like, Jonah, is it right for you to be angry?

I was like, that's that's really gentle.

Because it's one of those things of like, you know, you're talking about the death of you know hundreds of thousands of people, and going, like, I'm really upset with you, God, that you didn't do that.

That's pretty intense.

Um, and that's the same thing we see here, is that they're basically like sitting in there, like, I just know he's gonna help this guy, and that's our moment.

That's our moment to out him as a false teacher because the violation of the Sabbath to heal this man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath in the synagogue, and I just bet he's gonna make that man whole for the first time in his life.

So, here's what happens in those situations, and and please don't test this theory, but when I see that a showdown like that coming, when I see a problem like that coming, sometimes I'm just like, okay, let's just get through service, get through this.

This sounds like a great time for a Tuesday meeting.

You know, get the people together, talk about that.

Let's just kind of try to avoid this whole thing.

But Jesus is not like that.

He tells this poor man, hey, come here.

Stand right here, front and center, the man with the shriveled hand.

And I can imagine, although this is not in the text at all, I can imagine this poor man with a shriveled hand is like, great, more ridicule.

Here we come, you know?

The poor guy has a very visible and evident injury, and he put front and center.

And Jesus says, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?

To save life or to kill?

But they were silent.

So Jesus asks the teachers of the law a very basic question.

Is it lawful to do what's good on the Sabbath and heal people, or to do what's uh evil on the Sabbath or kill people?

Very straightforward basic question.

And they were silent.

So the teachers of the law are silent on this point.

I'm not falling for that.

I smell that trap and I'm not doing it.

Can you imagine?

Like, I mean, if if your position is in such a place that you consider it a trap to say it's right to do good on the Sabbath, you might have the wrong position.

It's just it's crazy how that works.

That's like, oh no, I'm not gonna say anything.

I'm not gonna, we're not, we're not doing this.

We're not the ones on trial here.

And so they are silent.

The teachers of the law have nothing to say.

And what does Jesus do here?

He looks at them, he looks around at them with anger.

He was grieved at the hardness of their hearts.

Wow! He looked around at them with anger.

This is the first time we see this in the Gospels.

What is it that makes Jesus angry?

Was Jesus angry with the tax collectors when he uh called and followed when he had that meal in the house?

Was he angry like, dude, you guys are messed up?

Any outrage there?

None that we saw.

Uh angry in other spots of, you know, very loud possessed people in the middle of his sermon?

No.

Actually made the person well.

What makes Jesus angry?

Hard hearts.

But he because he's grieved at the hardness of their hearts.

The anger comes from grief.

Grief comes from the hardness of heart, that they are so wrapped up in their tribe, in their culture, in their crusade, that they have no regard for the life of a human being.

That anybody who is not in their tribe is number one wrong, is number two the enemy, and is number three needs to be eliminated.

Too many verbs in that statement, but we're gonna move past that.

So, what did he do?

He told the man, stretch out your hand.

So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

This man has two working hands for the first time in his life, assumedly.

Can you imagine the joy that this guy has?

For the first time, he's got two working hands.

And just how beautiful that moment is, how worshipful that moment is.

But the hard hearts went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him how they might kill him.

That's the response.

Unmoved by the wholeness of a person, unmoved by the authority of the Messiah, and rather going, we need to get rid of this guy.

He's clearly he had he has violated what we hold sacred, our our own thing, which we are right, right?

Definitely.

Well, what we cannot, you know, change that.

We are right.

He is wrong, therefore, we got to get rid of this guy.

And it is the insanity of a hard heart and the outrage that comes out of it that makes someone think we need to protect the fourth commandment by breaking the sixth.

And furthermore, to plot with the Herodians, which is basically like the Jewish mob at that point in time, to plot with them to take this guy out.

So that's that's not a good look at that point in time.

So it's cra and it sounds crazy that that's where we're where we're left in this passage, but it is so us.

And that's what is just really challenging as I look through this passage and as I check through this story, is on one side we have hard hearts and self-righteousness and zeal and outrage based on our tribe, based on our own interpretation of correctness.

Immoved by the hunger of someone, immoved by the injury, the malady of somebody, unmoved by them being made whole.

And then on the other side, you have the disciples who do absolutely nothing in this story except stick grain in their face at the feet of Jesus.

So we have two siblings.

We have the disciples, as one sibling, who, as we read through the story of scripture, are immensely petty and immensely self-righteous at times, and broken, and yet they have decided to follow Jesus, and they've left all and they're sitting at his feet.

And then we have another sibling, the Pharisees here, who are immensely petty and immensely self-righteous and broken, and they have left all to follow their tribe.

Both are a hundred percent convinced that they are worshiping God by doing so.

Is that crazy?

And what we see in this passage is hard hearts that spill out outrage, that spill out indignation, that are unmoved by the needs of others who are not in their tribe.

Can we find some sort of application in that?

Does that does that hit home at all?

Do we have any semblance of that within ourselves?

The propensity to be so convinced that we are right in our own tribe that has nothing to do with the gospel, and we spill out outrage at the others, and we're unmoved by the needs of others, and we are going to hold our own understanding, our own idea of morality, not based on what the scripture says, because scripture is pretty clear on that, but based on our tribe, Jesus and so um there's something that recently, in one of the recent messages that was really good with that, was that these things are not good, like fasting, these things are not bad.

Fasting is great, but if it's Jesus and then that's a problem.

It's when it's a part of worship of Jesus, that's a good thing.

Um, what does it look like to be on the side of the Pharisee sibling?

Which we can, I mean, I I'm hoping we've connected the dots at this point.

This is the Martha side.

Striving, working, so passionate, so zealous, so angry.

What does it look like for that to be?

Well, what I would ask is whose feet are we sitting at?

Are we sitting at the feet of Jesus?

Are we sitting at the feet of our tribe?

Can we only listen to things?

Can we only learn about God from our own tribe?

A little problematic.

Can we only, not that our, you know, it's good, not that that's a bad thing, but if that's where we go, okay, we're right, and others are wrong.

On things not involving the gospel, not involving scripture, okay.

Do we sit at the feet of a particular news station on our Sabbath?

Or a pillow, a certain figure on either side, any side.

Do we sit at that feet?

Is that what promotes outrage in our hearts?

Is that what provokes us?

Do we sit at the feet of even you know good things that are like church leaders we really admire and yet idolize?

That we put them on a pedestal they don't belong on.

Idols are good things that become ultimate things.

So and then on the other side, how do we be like Mary?

Well, I'll give you the five-step process of what Mary did to be like Mary.

She sat at Jesus' feet, and she sat at Jesus' feet.

Number three, okay.

She sat at Jesus' feet.

She sat at Jesus' feet, and also sat at Jesus' feet.

How do we Sabbath is by sitting at Jesus' feet, communing with believers, diving into his word, prayer in glorious brokenness of humility, compassion with perspective, not compromising on the truth of scripture in any way, shape, or form, but not adding to it with our own cultures and our own tribes and our own things that make us so very right and others so very wrong.

It's really, it's really, really heavy, and that's the that's one of those things is is the uh idea of heart hearts that we are all susceptible to.

I certainly am.

And uh it's the best way to see what we are either hurt or hardened by is to ask what makes us mad?

You know, what triggers us?

What makes that little like and you go, well, that could either be something we're very, very comp we're very passionate about, which is okay, or it could be something we're very hurt about, or it could be something we're very hardened about.

And how do we sit at the feet of Jesus in ways that do not make us known by our outrage?

That's why in scripture says, you know, this is how you'll know, like you'll know the disciples by their love, not by outrage, not by um self-righteousness, tribes, all these things.

These things are not necessarily bad, but the way that they are used can be bad in those scenarios.

And so it's crazy.

Can we rejoice in this passage that the disciples sat at Jesus' feet, like Mary did?

That a man walked into a synagogue with a withered hand and walked out with two whole hands?

Because it's interesting in this passage, too, that not only did Jesus with the uh Sabbath declare his jurisdiction by saying, The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, this is this is mine to declare.

But secondly, he answers the questions that the Pharisees were not willing to answer.

When he says, Is it is it lawful to do what's good or to do what's bad on the Sabbath, to heal or to break, to save life or to kill, and they're not willing to answer that, he answers that by making whole, declaring further his uh authority, not only as the rabbi at that point in time, as the teacher, but as the Messiah.

Because that's what he is here in this moment is demonstrating that as that as their rest on the Sabbath, that as they're making whole, he is the one who brings wholeness to a broken world.

This all points forward to the cross.

Where because we look backwards and we go, well, yeah, dot Jesus, Jesus Easter Ham, something like that.

No, it's we go looking forward to this.

This is pointing towards the cross at how Jesus can make damaged people whole, how Jesus can give weary people rest, and how Jesus can soften even the hardest hearts.

Something that I love about our home group, shameless plug, it's tonight, um, is uh that we have marveled through the book of Acts how the Pharisees have heard the gospel more than anybody else in these passages.

They are preached to more than anybody.

And just if Jesus wrote them off, he wouldn't do that.

You know, if God decided you guys are beyond saving and you guys are the villains in the story, he wouldn't bother doing that.

It's a waste.

He's actually continuing and continuing, continuing, and praise God that he goes after hard hearts because that means he goes after me and he goes after all of us, and that's that's the beauty.

I love that.

In um, I think it's 2 Corinthians 4, just that idea of like if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

That level is the playing field.

There's no, yeah, he's a really, really good new creation, but I'm kind of not as good of a new creation because I haven't quite you know got this idea figured out yet and sorted out yet.

Or, yeah, I'm a new creation who does this on the Sabbath and therefore I'm better.

And do the yeah, okay, got it.

And be like, oh wait, you use that version?

Okay, we use you know, all these different things.

He levels the playing field because the one who makes us whole is Jesus, and he makes us all whole if we let him.

So, the challenge, if we are followers of Jesus, in what areas are we moved by hurt or hard hearts?

What are we outraged about in our daily basis?

Do we need to possibly step away from things that make us outraged?

How do we sit at the feet of Jesus?

These are good things to wrestle with.

I've had to wrestle with these like all week and it's a little bruised as a result.

Um and then for those who have not committed to following Jesus, the entrance fee has been paid.

There's no standard of okay, you have to be this person before he can do that.

He makes broken people whole, and that includes you, and it includes me.

And so there is room for you at the feet of Jesus.

With no asterisk footnote, except for this, that's this.

No.

There is room for us at the feet of Jesus.

Does that make sense?

Alright, let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for today.

I thank you for your goodness.

I thank you for your faithfulness.

I thank you that you're a good shepherd, that you are compassionate, that you are gentle, that what grieves you is not uh error that you already saw before we were born.

Sin before that you already knew about and paid for before we came to be.

But what grieves you is hard hearts.

Thank you that the antidote is not our works.

The antidote to a hard heart is not trying harder, striving like Martha.

The antidote is sitting at your feet and letting you work.

Please give us compassion and humility and perspective.

Not only to be soft to your spirit's direction and conviction, but also to move with compassion and help one another out.

Above all, Lord, I thank you so much for your goodness and your faithfulness in taking a sinner like me and transforming me into a sinner who sits at your feet, who has been made whole.

Not because of what I've done, but because of what you've done.

I ask, Lord, you would move on hearts to bring about salvation.

That you would move on our hearts to identify what hardens us and allow us to be softened and broken.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.