Christ’s Lordship Over The Law

Grace Fellowship Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

00:16

So we heard PJ just read the text and it was a little bit different from the text that we've read so far in that it's now

00:25

Christ speaking. He is responding. There's a teaching aspect to this text.

00:30

And so it seems fitting as we're getting a little bit more didactic. I want to begin our study today by placing each of us in a bit of a scenario.

00:40

So I'm going to put you in a pair of shoes. I'm going to plunk you down into a situation, a bit of an apologetics type of situation, maybe a polemical type of situation.

00:50

So imagine with me for a moment that you went home later today and that as you began to unwind from your afternoon at church, maybe you settled down into your favorite spot on the couch.

01:06

And just as you begin to relax and put your mind at ease, you're at once startled by a firm knock on your door.

01:15

And you think to yourself, who could this be? I wasn't expecting any visitors today. Who could be at my door?

01:22

But nevertheless, you proceed to the door. And as you open the door, you'll notice this is a familiar scenario. I think

01:27

I've used this before. I'm trying to get you guys ready, by the way. As you open the door, you're greeted by two missionary types who are from the

01:35

World Mission Society Church of God. And as they usually do when they come from the

01:40

World Mission Society Church of God, they immediately spring upon you things like God the

01:46

Mother and the historical second coming of Christ in a Korean man in 1918.

01:53

And almost immediately you're emboldened. You think initially, you know that these are outrageous claims and they're easy enough to repel.

02:02

They're outlandish and they're clearly unbiblical. But as they begin to see that you're a

02:07

Christian, maybe you rely on the Bible, maybe you go and get your Bible, they change their tactics.

02:14

And they start asking you questions like this. They said, did you go to church today? And you say, of course

02:20

I went to church. And then they ask, well, don't you know that the Sabbath is on Saturday and not on Sunday?

02:28

And that it was Constantine who changed the day of worship for Christians from Saturday to Sunday?

02:34

If you had any discernment, if you were a true believer, wouldn't you know that? They might ask you, they say, please tell me that you celebrate the

02:44

Passover, right? You do participate in the Jewish festivals, the Levitical celebratory laws of the

02:52

Old Testament. You can't be saved if you don't celebrate the Passover. You can't possibly be a true disciple if you don't partake in that.

03:02

Then they might ask you, do you fast during the Feast of Unleavened Bread to actively participate in Christ's suffering on the cross?

03:11

And you might say, well, no, I don't. That's not a Christian thing. Well, don't you believe in Jesus? Don't you believe that he went to the cross?

03:18

Don't you believe that he suffered there? Why would you not want to participate through fasting? And with a series of other questions, the

03:27

World Mission Society, Church of God missionaries will try to disqualify you from the

03:33

Christian faith, try to discredit your proclamation or your profession of Christ as Lord and Savior.

03:42

And you might think that this is far -fetched or that I'm stretching the truth, but if you've ever had an exchange with these individuals, that's exactly what they do.

03:51

They start with their doctrine, and when they see that their doctrine isn't taking, they go for the throat. They attack your views.

03:58

And this is how they win converts, by seducing religious yet doctrinally unstable people.

04:07

They seduce them into their cultic system of a merit -based righteousness. Now, for some of you, you very well might feel equipped for such a barrage of questions.

04:19

You might have an understanding of biblical theology. You might know how God's covenants work. You might know your

04:25

Bible so that you can open it up. You see them coming. You excitedly open your Bibles. You know the chapter and the verse numbers.

04:31

You know how to respond. But for the average Christian, this is true.

04:38

For the average Christian in every church, and I believe probably for the average Christian in this church, for the average

04:45

Christian who sits in the pew on Sunday, because we live in an age of widespread biblical illiteracy, it's far more likely that as they come on with those attacks, your eyes will glaze over.

04:57

You'll stumble over your words. You'll open your Bible, but you won't know exactly where to look.

05:03

And Google just isn't fast enough for the questions as they come. And for the average

05:09

Christian, what probably would happen is eventually they would end the conversation. They'd feel defeated.

05:15

And those wolves, those false teachers, would leave your doorstep feeling vindicated, feeling confident in their heterodox views, and go to your neighbor and try to convince them of the same.

05:31

Now let me ask you, brothers and sisters, friends, if this scenario were to happen to you this afternoon, if someone were to try to disqualify you based on feasts and fasts and Sabbath keeping, what category would you fall into?

05:48

Would you be there ready with your Bible, chapter and verse in hand? Or would you be there with your mouth open, your eyes glazed, and maybe

05:57

Google running a result on a passage you barely know, but you hope will deliver?

06:06

Would you be an able apologist, or would you be a hapless victim? Do you know, dear saints, do you know why we meet for worship on Sundays and not

06:19

Saturdays? Do you know why we are not bound to the Jewish feasts or to the

06:25

Jewish fasts? Do you know why we do not hold to mandatory fasting as Christians?

06:33

Or if you're honest with yourselves, are these simply details that you have assumed based on the patterns and the practices of cultural

06:41

Christianity? Ask yourself that honestly. Are you ready? Well, today as we open our

06:47

Bibles, the Lord Jesus Christ, interestingly enough, there's no new heresy under the sun.

06:55

The Lord Jesus Christ is going to encounter the same kind of scenario. People coming to Him, putting questions to Him about a legalistic, merit -based righteousness.

07:06

And as Jesus continues to minister in Galilee and display His divine authority, the Jewish religious leaders are going to try to discredit and to disqualify

07:14

Him based on their interpretation, their twisted interpretation of the Levitical laws.

07:20

And the way that this interaction plays out for us, we are the benefactors. You might read this, go over it quickly and move on, but we are the benefactors, or I should say the beneficiaries, excuse me, we're the beneficiaries of this exchange because as it plays out, it's profoundly helpful as we begin to consider the

07:40

Christian's relationship to the Old Testament laws and the Christian's relationship when people come with man -made regulations that trend toward merit -based righteousness.

07:51

And so as we study this text, the big idea, this is what we're going to find, that here

07:57

Christ displays His Lordship. We've talked about His Lordship, we've talked about His authority.

08:02

Here again, Christ displays His Lordship over the Old Covenant law. His authority extends not only to the sick and to the paralyzed, but also to the very law of God.

08:16

And as Lord and God over His law, Christ tells us that He is ushering in a new order that cannot contain the old.

08:24

And what this pronouncement does is it begins to foreshadow a new freedom, a new rest that Christ would bestow upon the partakers of His new covenant.

08:36

Now that was a big mouthful, but this is what our passage teaches. Christian freedom.

08:42

We get a picture of the newfound freedom that Christians have in Christ. And so let's have a look at this freedom for ourselves.

08:52

So beginning in verse 18, Christ is there, and John and John's disciples, sorry, people,

08:59

I better start this over again. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. There we go.

09:05

And the people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the

09:10

Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them,

09:15

Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

09:22

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

09:29

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.

09:37

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins.

09:44

But new wine is for fresh wineskins. If you have the notes inside the bulletin, you'll see that there are two principles, only two today, two principles that I want to flesh out from this passage.

09:58

And the first principle that I want to show us is this. As Lord over the law,

10:05

Christ gives us freedom. As Lord over the law,

10:11

Christ gives us freedom. So as we progress, as we read through chapter 2, what we're going to see is that Christ's conflict with the religious leaders continues to escalate.

10:21

When Matt preaches next week, we're going to get to see that come to a head, when the religious leaders actually begin to plot to put

10:29

Christ to death. And we see this dynamic play out. So John's disciples,

10:36

John the Baptist's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. We see that Christ was continuing to eat, he was continuing to drink, and he was going about his day freely, as were his disciples.

10:46

And it would appear, if we look at this text, this caused no small disturbance among the

10:52

Jews. And to fully grasp why it was that it was such a disturbance, it's important to know a little bit about the parties that were at play and the religious climate in the time of Christ's day.

11:04

And so when Christ came, he came during a time that placed considerable emphasis on external law -keeping.

11:13

It was a very religious, very legalistic society. And as Christ interacts with this religious, legalistic society, we see a few groups start to emerge.

11:23

Last week we heard about the scribes. The scribes were essentially the experts of the law. It was their job to study, to teach, and to administrate the law.

11:32

They were the lawyers of the day. And now we see a new group amongst the scribes.

11:38

We heard about them briefly. We're going to dive in a little bit deeper here. But we see the Pharisees. I don't know how much you know about the

11:45

Pharisees, and so I'll go into a little bit of depth about the Pharisees. But with the

11:50

Pharisees, even though we don't know their origins, we know that they arose sometime about 160 years before Christ, during the

11:59

Maccabean Revolt. And it was by the time of Christ, when Christ came onto the scene,

12:04

Josephus tells us, he was a Jewish historian, that there were about 6 ,000 Pharisees in the nation of Israel.

12:11

Now that might sound like a lot, but in relation to the whole nation, that accounted for about 1 % of the

12:18

Jewish population. But even as 1 % of the Jewish population, their impact, their effect, their influence on the culture can't be overstated.

12:30

In fact, if we were to read in passages like Matthew 23, verse 2, it was the Pharisees, along with the

12:36

Sadducees, who Christ said, sat on Moses' seat. And what this meant, essentially, is that they were regarded by the people as the authorized inheritors and keepers of the

12:48

Torah. They were seen as the religious leaders, and especially the masters of the first five books of the

12:55

Old Testament. And the distinguishing feature of a Pharisee is actually aptly captured in their name.

13:03

The word Pharisee comes from an Aramaic word, which means to separate or to divide.

13:10

They were divisive people. They were obsessed with ritual purity, and obsessed, perseverating on maintaining their own distinct

13:20

Jewish identities. And so to accomplish this, what these Pharisees did was they developed a rigid interpretation of the

13:29

Mosaic law. Think of someone who is a law -abiding citizen. I remember when I wanted to be a police officer.

13:36

The day I decided I wanted to be a police officer, the speed limit signs started to matter.

13:42

And I didn't go 61, 62, 63 in a 60 zone. I went 60 or less.

13:49

Well, here, amongst the Pharisees, they were not only content to follow the law, but they added to it.

13:57

And so the Pharisees developed this comprehensive list of oral add -ons to the law.

14:03

And so a good example that we see, a few examples that we see in our Bibles, is that they were scrupulous in their tithing.

14:09

They would tithe even from, imagine, you're sitting there at dinner time. You have your mint and your garlic and your pepper.

14:16

They would tithe even from the herbs and spices of their meal before they would eat.

14:22

They were rigid hand -washers when it came to the ceremonial washing before a meal.

14:28

It's probably relevant to the text, but they were consistent in their fasting. They would fast usually two times a week, from sunup to sundown on Mondays and Thursdays.

14:40

And then if that wasn't enough, their Sabbath observances were even more zealous.

14:46

I love looking at the extra -biblical literature because we really begin to grasp just how crazy they were in terms of their legalism.

14:56

The Talmud records that Pharisees were forbidden from looking into a mirror or lighting a candle on the

15:02

Sabbath. It's kind of secondhand, but we're told that the women weren't allowed to look at a fixed mirror lest they see a gray hair and pluck it from their head because if they were to pluck the gray hair from their head, they would be harvesting.

15:16

Harvesting was against the law on the Sabbath. They couldn't light a candle, but they could hire a

15:23

Gentile to come into their home and light a candle on their behalf. And you might find this interesting, but the

15:31

Sabbath rules even extended to their livestock. And so if you were the chicken of a

15:38

Pharisee and you were to lay an egg on the Sabbath, this egg could not be sold to a fellow

15:44

Jew. It could only be sold to a Gentile. And so even the chickens were made to be Pharisees.

15:51

They were people that were fixated on strict adherence to the old covenant law.

15:57

And while many might think that this pleased God, certainly many people in their day thought that it pleased

16:02

God, it was the exact opposite. In the sight of God, they were nothing but self -righteous hypocrites.

16:08

And for this reason, we see again and again and again Christ using the Pharisees as a negative example of those who are self -righteous and those who put human tradition above the word of God, thereby making the word of God worthless.

16:24

But here, what we see is that Christ is being compared to these Pharisees, almost as if he didn't measure up to their fasting.

16:32

They said, John's disciples fast, the Pharisees fast, Jesus Christ, if you are who you claim to be, why are you not fasting?

16:40

And it was in this external -based climate that Christ ministered, that fasting and prayer and almsgiving, they were considered the three main pillars of Judaism.

16:51

And so it would be like a Christian today saying, I read my Bible, I pray, but I don't go to church.

16:58

And so people would say, you need to do all three. It's not enough to just do the two, you need to do all three.

17:07

And so there were mandatory fasts that were held on the people. All of this, while we only read of one true fast in the

17:14

Old Testament that's mandated, that's in Leviticus 16, 29 and 30, and that was on the Day of Atonement.

17:19

And we're told that on the Day of Atonement, the people were not merely to fast, but they were to afflict themselves.

17:25

It was to be a painful kind of fast. And so here we find Jesus in this religious climate, being bound by this prescribed fasting, this prescribed afflicting of himself.

17:40

But Christ, we find here, objects. He objects to the inference that he should be fasting.

17:47

And someone might ask the question, if Christ comes into Israel as the

17:53

Son of God and they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, why doesn't he just join in the fasting?

17:59

I mean, is he just being difficult at this point? Why wouldn't Christ fast? And this is what we see.

18:06

Christ tells the people, he says, you cannot fast, we cannot fast, I cannot fast, my disciples cannot fast, because the bridegroom is here.

18:16

And he likens himself to a bridegroom. This would have been a picture that the Jews would have understood. The Jews understood what a wedding was like.

18:25

A wedding celebration typically in Israel would last seven days. And during that time, the guests, in the presence of the bride and the groom, had absolutely no responsibilities except to enjoy the wedding festivities.

18:37

It was a time of song and dance, of food and drink, of celebration. Even when the rabbis would come to a wedding, there's oral tradition that says that the rabbis were to stop teaching and they were to let loose and have fun.

18:50

So even the religious leaders and the teachers, as one commentator says, a wedding was not the time to abstain, but to live it up.

18:59

And so Christ says, the bridegroom is here. We're not going to mourn, we're not going to afflict ourselves, we're going to celebrate.

19:08

And then when he makes reference to himself as the bridegroom, probably what many people in Christ's day missed, and certainly what most people, most

19:17

Christians today miss in their reading of the Bible is this, that Christ is using imagery.

19:23

Not just celebratory imagery, but he's using divine imagery. He's using imagery that would be used to describe or ascribe divinity to a person.

19:34

The picture of the bridegroom coming to his bride is not used primarily in the

19:40

Old Testament of angels. It's not used of prophets. But the picture of a bridegroom coming to his bride is used of God and God alone.

19:49

And so we, if we were to look in our Old Testament, and this is, I want to very, very, this is, we're dealing with biblical theology, maybe

19:56

I'll just pause myself for a second. We're dealing with biblical theology, and what it means is we're going to be in the

20:01

Old Testament a lot. And you might miss some of my references because I have to go fast, otherwise we'll be here all day.

20:07

But if you need to come to me afterwards and ask me for the passages, please do, and I'll bring them up. But Isaiah 62 .5

20:14

says, for as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you.

20:20

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

20:26

You have God the bridegroom. Ezekiel 16 .8, and if you were here when we were doing our study in Ruth, you'll find this interesting.

20:33

When I passed by you again and saw you, this is Ezekiel 16 .8, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner, the corner, excuse me, of my garment over you.

20:44

Picture that from Ruth, and covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the

20:51

Lord, and you became mine. Hosea 2 .19 says, and I will betroth you to me forever.

21:00

I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

21:06

And so when Christ says that we cannot fast right now, he's saying you cannot fast because God is here, because God the

21:14

Son is in your midst. John Piper in his book on fasting, he writes, you simply cannot fast in this situation.

21:22

It's too happy and too spectacularly exhilarating. Fasting is for times of yearning and aching and longing.

21:29

That's at least the Jewish fast. Longing, aching, yearning, but the bridegroom of Israel is here after thousands of years of dreaming and longing and hoping and waiting.

21:42

He is here. The absence of fasting was a witness to the presence of God in their midst.

21:52

And so what we see here is this. You've got this question about fasting. If you want to do some subheadings, you've got this external, law -based system of righteousness that Christ comes into.

22:04

You've got Christ, God in human flesh, coming into the situation. And what

22:10

Christ is about to do is this. He's going to give us an eternal, or internal, excuse me, grace -based system, a grace -based order of living.

22:22

So Christ says in verse 20, when the bridegroom is taken away, then they will fast.

22:28

And he describes cloths and garments and wine and wineskins.

22:34

And someone might ask, what does all of that mean? What he says is this. He says that when you use the imagery of a new patch sewn on old clothing, moms, you know the situation.

22:45

Your kids burn out the knees in their pants. And so if you were to take a new piece of cloth without having washed it and dried it,

22:53

I remember this, I learned this from Nicole when she was mending our children's clothes and some of mine. You need to wash and dry the fabric before you put it on the pants.

23:01

Otherwise, when the cloth shrinks, it destroys the pants. You can't put a new cloth on old pants.

23:09

Same with wine. You can't take new wine that is going to be fermented and put it into an old brittle wineskin.

23:16

It needs a new wineskin that can expand with the wine. If there's no give in the wineskin, the wineskin will break, it'll ruin the wineskin, and it'll ruin the wine.

23:28

And so what Christ is saying here, what he's trying to get at is that here, these people, they live in an external law -based system and Christ, the author of the law, the author of the covenants, has come to his people and he's bringing a new system, a new system that the old system can't handle, a new system that the old system can't hold.

23:52

And so you could say that Christ spells the coming end of the old covenant and therefore the coming end of the old covenant law.

24:03

So when those men and women come to your door, they're coming to you with old covenant laws.

24:10

They're coming to you with Old Testament demands. They're coming to you with a system of belief.

24:17

They're coming to you with old wineskins. They're coming to you with old clothes. And what

24:22

Christ is saying here is, I'm giving you new wine. I'm giving you new cloth. And we see this prophesied in the

24:29

Old Testament. Stay with me, brothers and sisters. I know we're going deep here, but Jeremiah 31 -33, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

24:41

Lord. I will put my law within them. A new covenant with the law inside, an internal grace -based system.

24:51

And I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people.

25:00

When Christ came in human flesh and when he was carried off, when he was taken away, as he says in this passage, and when he died in our stead,

25:08

Christ delivers every Christian, every true Christian, from slavery to the

25:14

Old Covenant system of feasts, fasting, and dietary laws. That's why Mark can say, when he puts in a little parenthesis in Christ's teaching, in Mark 7, verse 19, thus he declared, all foods clean.

25:30

Like the Old Covenant tithe. That's why we don't teach tithing in this church, because it's Old Covenant.

25:35

It's old law. It's old wineskin. Like the Old Covenant tithe, like Christ who replaced the mandated practice of fasting and affliction, sorry, like the

25:48

Old Covenant tithe, Christ replaced the mandated practice of fasting as an act of affliction to usher in a type of fasting that is characterized by freedom and worship and serving after God.

26:02

Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 6, 14, he says, For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.

26:12

We have died to that law. He wrote to the Galatians, Galatians 3, verses 24 to 26,

26:19

So then the law was our guardian. How long? The law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

26:28

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

26:37

So what we see when people come, if they try to hold the Passover feast over you and say, if you were a true

26:44

Christian, you would hold the Passover. If you were a true Christian, you would fast on the

26:52

Day of Atonement or in the case of the World Mission Society, you would fast on the Day of Unleavened Bread.

26:57

It's kind of an interesting thing that when the Jews would be eating, they're not eating. But such is heterodox theology,

27:03

I suppose. We have been spared. We've been rescued from the law.

27:10

And yet, perhaps more than ever, Christians are more susceptible than these heresies than ever because we don't know our

27:18

Bibles, because we don't know the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and Christ fulfilling the

27:24

Old Covenant that he might usher in the New One, that he would make the law obsolete with its legal demands in order that we would live no longer by the letter of the law but by the

27:33

Spirit. Now it begs the question, Christ says this partway through.

27:39

He says, the days will come, in verse 20, when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day.

27:47

So here we have a whole bunch of theology. I'm going to give us some application. Is there a true

27:54

Christian fast? Is it biblical at times past when we've said, we as a church, we're going to fast together or we encourage you to pray and fast.

28:04

We're going to teach you how to fast. Is that biblical or should we just throw out fasting as an

28:11

Old Testament practice? Old wineskin, we throw it out. Christ says, when

28:17

Christ is taken, when he is taken, then they will fast. And what we see is this, that God, that Christ, in coming in human flesh, he rescued us from slavery to the law, from bondage under the old covenant.

28:33

And dear saints, he has freed us now to fast, not as an act of affliction, a lashing of ourselves on the day of atonement, trying to seek out our own justification, but he's given us the gift of fasting that we would worship

28:50

God and that we would seek hard after him. And we see that in the New Testament.

28:56

Fasting is not listed a whole lot in the New Testament, but Christ gives us some instruction in Matthew 6, verses 6 to 18, 16 to 18, excuse me.

29:05

In Acts 13, verses 1 to 3, that's where you'll remember Paul and Barnabas and the church in Antioch gathered together in fasting and in worship and then

29:14

God sent them out. In Acts 14, in verse 23, when they went to appoint elders, when they sought hard after God to know who they should appoint and to seek his blessing on those whom they appointed, they went to him in prayer and fasting.

29:31

If we look, I'm going to bring a little bit of early church history into this because oftentimes these groups, these heretical groups, these false teachers will say, but so -and -so brought that in.

29:42

It was the Catholic Church. It was this Roman emperor. It was this. It was that. It was this. You can say no.

29:49

In the Didache, which is essentially written almost comparatively with the writings of John, essentially an early church history, it says, let your fast be, let not your fast, sorry, be with the hypocrites speaking about the

30:07

Pharisees and of these religious zealots for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays. But the new church, they said, but do your fast on Wednesdays and Fridays so as to say, we're going to continue the worthwhile practice of fasting, but we're not going to do it like the hypocrites and we're even going to do it on different days to distinguish ourselves from them.

30:28

New wine calls for new fasting. And it makes me ask the question, how many of us fast?

30:39

Is fasting a practice in your life? And if not, why is it not a practice in your life?

30:48

Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones, he says, fasting is to be turned into feasting and misery into joy.

30:57

And he says, I wonder whether it has even occurred to us that we ought to be considering the question of fasting.

31:05

The fact is, the fact is, is it not that this whole subject seems to have dropped right out of our lives and right out of our whole

31:14

Christian thinking? Most Christians do not think about fasting. Edward Farrell provides his commentary.

31:20

He says, when the sense of God disappears, fasting disappears.

31:27

Could it be that we do not fast because we do not have a big sense of God? Again, to borrow from John Piper, in his book on fasting, he talks about a time when he was dating or courting his soon -to -be wife and he was in South Carolina teaching at a

31:45

Bible camp and she was up being a waitress several hundred miles away and he would write letters to her from the camp and every day, just before lunchtime, they would have a mail call.

31:56

So you can picture this. He said he never felt as homesick as he did in that Bible camp being away from his then -girlfriend

32:05

Noel. Yes, Noel. And every day, just before lunch, when they would call his name during the mail call, he would see the little lavender envelope that his future wife

32:20

Noel would write for him and he would take that envelope and rather than staying for lunch, he would go off into the forest just alone so that he could read that letter from this woman that he loved.

32:32

And if you've been in that kind of love before, you know what that is like. Just to long for that person.

32:39

And he longed to hear from her more than he desired to have food.

32:45

And that is really the Christian fast. It's desiring God so much that I can put away with my worldly appetites for a time so that I can seek after God, seek hard after Him, to know

32:58

Him. Not to afflict myself, but to feast, to use Martyn Lloyd -Jones' words, to feast on His goodness.

33:06

John Piper says this. I'm going to move fairly quickly here. He says, If you don't feel strong desire for the manifestation of the glory of God, it's not because you've drunk deeply from the word of God and are satisfied.

33:20

It's because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things and there is no room for the great.

33:30

God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God and it can be awakened if you invite,

33:37

I invite you, sorry, to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry and say through fasting,

33:46

This much, O God, I want you. And so, saints, we're going to move along, but let me encourage you.

33:52

If you've never tried fasting, give fasting a try. And Paul even, he speaks about a different kind of fasting.

34:00

If you can't abstain from food, for health reasons, abstain from your phone. Abstain from TV.

34:06

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, 5 that husbands and wives, for the purpose of prayer, can abstain from marital intimacy.

34:14

But seek hard after God. God has ransomed you. He's rescued you from slavery to bondage, from slavery to the law, and he's opened himself up to you that you would approach him with boldness and with great confidence.

34:29

I heard a story of a missionary in a mission field in Korea that I think beautifully demonstrates this.

34:36

There was one experience in this missionary's life that was emblazoned on his mind.

34:43

And he said it showed the sacrificial dedication to prayer and fasting in Korea.

34:51

He said, My father worked with a leper colony and they had prayer meetings that met at 4 o 'clock in the morning.

34:58

I was a little boy, but my father took me with him, getting me up at 3 .30 a .m. to get there on time.

35:04

He sat me down in the back where I could see out the door. And I'll never forget one man who had no legs, no crutches, and was using his hands and crabbing along the ground and dragging his body to pray and fast at 4 a .m.

35:22

I'll never forget that. Brothers and sisters, are we as dedicated as that man crabbing along so that he can seek

35:31

God in prayer and fasting. The psalmist says in Psalm 63, 1, Oh God, you are my

35:37

God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

35:49

So we have been ransomed from that old covenant system of feasts and fasts and festivals.

35:57

Next we see this, verse 23. One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

36:05

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

36:11

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 any but the priest to eat.

36:26

He also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the

36:32

Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. We don't really understand this story the way that it could be understood just because our modern

36:45

Western mindset places very little emphasis on Sabbath observance. But let me transport you back.

36:52

Kids, if you're paying attention, let's get back in our time machine and go to 1st century

36:59

Israel. To the nation of Israel in the 1st century, the Sabbath was profoundly important.

37:07

Along with the mark of circumcision, the Sabbath was one of the defining characteristics of the people of God for thousands of years.

37:17

In Exodus, I believe it's Exodus 31, it is said to be a sign of the

37:24

Mosaic covenant between God and the nation of Israel. And our

37:29

English word for Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which essentially means to stop, to cease, to rest.

37:38

And it was expected that in every Jewish household from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, the

37:45

Jews were to put down their tools. They were to walk away from their work and they were to dedicate themselves to solemn rest and remembrance before God.

37:54

And this was based on God's example in the creation week and on the initial giving of the

38:01

Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, verses 8 to 11. And because Christ came to a

38:08

Jewish people that were insistent on external, law -based righteousness, they had to add to the

38:17

Sabbath. They had to add. And so if we, again, look at the Jewish Mishnah and the

38:23

Talmud, we see extra observances of the Sabbath. For instance, it was not only impermissible to work on the

38:30

Sabbath, but it was forbidden to tie or to loose knots. It was forbidden to sew more than one stitch.

38:36

And so if your pants tore, you could sew one stitch and that was it. If someone was in a building, if we were in this building on the

38:43

Sabbath and the building collapsed, they were permitted to look for us to find survivors.

38:52

But if they saw that there were people that were dead, they would leave it until the day after the Sabbath. If you can place yourself in Christ's context, if I were to dislocate my foot on the

39:02

Sabbath and both of my parents were doctors, they would have to wait until Saturday at sundown or Sunday to reset my foot.

39:10

It was illegal to heal on the Sabbath, according to the Mishnah and the Talmud.

39:16

The Sabbath regulations also placed, and picture Christ now walking through the fields, placed limitations on exercise and travel.

39:27

So it was forbidden to go more than 1 ,999 paces or roughly 800 meters.

39:33

To do more than that was considered a journey and it was off limits. And to pluck even a few heads of grain was outlawed under the rabbinic regulations because it was too close to threshing.

39:44

And so here we find Christ walking through the fields in violation, not of the

39:49

Torah, the law, but in violation of the rabbinic rules of his day.

39:56

Plucking the heads of grain, Christ was not stealing, for those of you that might think that. Deuteronomy 23, verse 25 makes allowance for people to come as long as you didn't use a sickle.

40:07

You could go along the edges of someone's field and pluck grain for your own sustenance. But here the

40:12

Pharisees again find fault with Christ and his disciples. Not because they're eating grain from another man's field, but because they're doing it on the

40:19

Sabbath. Christ, in this case, appeals to the witness of David.

40:28

He says, Have you never read? And if you're interested in the study of the clarity of scripture, I find that interesting that Christ expected the people to be able to read the

40:36

Bible and understand it. The Bible was understood to be understood. He says, Have you never read what

40:42

David did when he was in need? He references back to 1 Samuel 21 .6.

40:49

See, there's so many references I can't read them all. Christ appeals to the example of David and in doing so, what he does is he hints at his divine nature.

40:59

Again, he's leaning on his authority. He's leaning on his kingship. And he says, Here, didn't you see

41:05

David? He did this. One who is greater than David is here now.

41:11

And he says that the Sabbath was not given for man to serve.

41:19

Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And he says, So the

41:24

Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. What does that mean that Christ was

41:29

Lord of the Sabbath? It means two things primarily, I think. First, it means that he is

41:36

God over the Sabbath. He made the Sabbath. He authored the Sabbath. He gets to determine how the

41:42

Sabbath is practiced. But interestingly, and probably where other people miss it again, is this.

41:48

When Christ says he is Lord of the Sabbath, he means to say that he is the

41:54

Lord to which the Sabbath points. The Sabbath points to Christ as the

42:01

Lord of the Sabbath. I see you checking on that one. We'll talk about that one after. But Colossians chapter 2 teaches this.

42:08

Is it true that the Sabbath points to Christ? In Colossians 2, Paul was writing to the church in Colossae.

42:16

And they were dealing with something called the Colossian heresy. And what the Colossian heresy was, was it was a system of beliefs based on Judaism and Gnosticism combined to oppress the people in Colossae.

42:29

And he says there, he says, and you are dead. Very similar language to Ephesians 2. And you are dead.

42:35

You who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

42:49

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. So there was our sins, our trespasses, and then there was the debt, and then there was the law and its legal demands.

42:58

He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities. I'm going to fast forward a little bit, and he says this.

43:05

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you. Someone comes to your door, talking about feasts and fasting and Sabbaths.

43:16

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in question of food and drink or with regard to festival or a new moon or a

43:24

Sabbath. He says, These are a shadow of the things to come.

43:31

If we left it there, you'd say the Sabbath does not point to Christ. That's not possibly what the

43:37

Lord of the Sabbath could mean. He says, These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance, the substance of the

43:43

Sabbath belongs to Christ. So he canceled our sin. He dealt with it.

43:49

We cannot be disqualified by food or drink or festival or new moon or Sabbath. Why? Because Christ, Christ is the substance of the

43:57

Sabbath. In Romans 14 .5, he says, One person esteems one day is better than another, while another esteems all days alike.

44:06

Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. There are three main views on the keeping of the

44:14

Sabbath today. And in my mind, two of them are acceptable.

44:21

There's the Seventh -day Adventist view, which comes, it would be acceptable if it was like the

44:27

Messianic Jews that believe that just we are going to celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday in keeping with the

44:34

Old Covenant. If you have that conviction, let you be fully convinced in your own mind. As soon as you say, this is the view and anyone outside of it is disqualified, you've gone beyond the view of what is biblical.

44:47

So we can't include the Seventh -day Adventist view in that. But there are two other views that I think are perfectly fine within freedom of conscience.

44:54

There's the Christian Sabbath idea. That's the view that the Puritans had. Some would call them

44:59

Sabbatarians. And what they believe is that God gave us the Lord's Day on Sunday, that the

45:05

Lord's Day takes the place of the Sabbath, and so they don't work on the

45:11

Sabbath. They direct their attention, their gaze, their worship to the

45:17

Sabbath day. So in the case that we might not play video games on the Sabbath, we might not go to the pool, we're going to devote this day to the

45:24

Lord and to His worship. And I'll confess, I love the Puritans, and I'm sympathetic to that view, although I don't hold to it.

45:33

And then the other view, I think the view that's most biblical is what's called the fulfillment view, or the new covenant view, which is that He has put away with all of those.

45:46

The Ten Commandments are repeated, every single one of them in the New Testament, except for the Fourth Commandment.

45:52

In the case of the Fourth Commandment, what we see here is freedom. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

46:00

The author of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9 to 10, he says, So then there remains, there remains a

46:08

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.

46:19

So the true Sabbath, the true Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ, and the only true

46:26

Sabbath that remains is a future rest. When Christ becomes our full

46:32

Sabbath rest at His second coming. And what we see is that this is what the early church believed and practiced.

46:41

So when that group comes to you and they say, you believe that because of Constantine, the

46:47

Roman emperor, who made the Sabbath, the Sunday. That's why you believe it, not because it's in the

46:53

Bible. You can say, it's absolutely in the Bible. The only time the

46:58

Sabbath is mentioned from Acts through Revelation, the only time it's mentioned from Acts to Revelation is in the chapters where Paul is going to the

47:09

Jews. You'll remember that Paul said to the Jews, to the Jews I became as a Jew that I might win Jews. We don't read that Paul went to the synagogue to fellowship and to worship alone, but he went there to convict and to save the lost.

47:23

And then in Acts chapter 18, verse 6, he says, from now on, I will go to the Gentiles.

47:29

And the Sabbath is never mentioned again in the book of Acts. And it's never prescribed again in the rest of the scriptures.

47:37

We read in Acts chapter 20, in verse 7, sorry for all of the references, but on the first day of the week,

47:45

Luke says, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.

47:54

The church met on the seventh day, on the first day, on Sunday, what the church later called the

48:05

Lord's Day. In 1 Corinthians 16, too, when Paul was writing, you might remember, I mentioned this previously, that there was a collection, and the collection was to be collected on the first day of the week.

48:15

Why on the first day of the week? Because that's when the church met, on the first day of the week in the New Testament. In Revelation 1, 10,

48:23

John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. He doesn't mention the Sabbath, but he says, on the

48:28

Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. The early church practiced worship on Sundays.

48:37

Not necessarily, as the covenant theologians might say, that it took over the

48:43

Sabbath, but simply because that was the day that Christ rose from the dead. And so, almost like fasting.

48:49

The hypocrites, they fast on Mondays and Thursdays. We're going to fast on, I can't remember what it was,

48:55

Tuesdays and Fridays. The early church fathers, I'm not going to quote a whole bunch of them, but Ignatius of Antioch, in 1, 10, 210 years, 211 years, before Constantine, he says, if those who have been brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, those who are

49:21

Jews who have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in observance of the

49:28

Lord's day, on which our life has sprung up again by Him and His death.

49:34

He says, if you were a Jew prior to coming to Christ, but now you are a Christian, you don't have to observe the

49:41

Sabbath. We don't observe the Sabbath. We observe the Lord's day. Just in martyr, just 40 years later, still another 150 some years before Constantine, he says, and on the day called

49:54

Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits.

50:05

They're meeting for church. Can't you see it? And when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.

50:15

What does that sound like? They read the Bible. Someone comes up. They exhort. They teach.

50:20

Then we all rise together and pray. And as we before said, when our prayers ended, bread and wine and water are brought.

50:29

Sounds like the Lord's supper. And the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people ascent, saying amen.

50:40

Long before Constantine acknowledged Sundays, the church was meeting on Sundays, on the

50:46

Lord's day, for church. It wasn't until AD 321, so 171 years after Justin Martyr just wrote that, that the emperor

50:56

Constantine declared that Sunday would be Rome's official day of rest. And so when someone comes and they say, the early church practiced the

51:04

Sabbath, you can say, no they didn't. Read the Didache. Read Ignatius. Read Justin Martyr.

51:11

Read your New Testament. So how do we apply then the Sabbath today? I'm going to be quick.

51:20

Well, we are not bound by the Sabbath. Brothers and sisters, I think the principle of a day of rest, even what we see in the creation week, is a good idea.

51:28

That we are not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for us. That rest allows us to rely on God to say that God is

51:38

God, and I can take a day of rest. And what I would encourage you to do is make

51:46

Sunday not only the day of rest, but a day of worship. And I do this based on the witness of the early church.

51:57

That if you're going to give a day to resting and to worshipping and to drawing near to God, make it the

52:04

Lord's day. Make it the day that Christ rose from the dead. And just to show that I can play well with the

52:11

Puritans, who had a different view of the Sabbath, I'm going to quote some of them. The Puritans used to call the Lord's day the market day of the soul.

52:19

It's like the day when we go to get our groceries. It's the day when we go to get fed. It's the day when we fill our souls with all the good things of God.

52:29

Another Puritan said that the Lord's day, Sunday, is the highest thanksgiving day.

52:35

Thomas Watson wrote about the Lord's day. He said, the Sabbath is the market day of the soul.

52:42

And ask yourself, is this true of you? Do you see coming to church on the Lord's day, coming to be with God's people on the

52:48

Lord's day, the market day of your soul? He says, it is the cream of time. This is the day of Christ rising out of the grave and the

52:57

Holy Ghost descending upon the earth. This day is perfumed with the sweet odor of prayer, which goes up to heaven as incense.

53:04

This day, the manna falls, the angels' food. This is the soul's festival day. The soul's festival day.

53:12

On this day, the graces act their part. The other days of the week are mostly employed about the earth.

53:19

This day, about heaven. On every other day, you gather straw. On this day, you gather pearls.

53:28

So don't deny yourself a day of rest. It's a good idea. Don't deny yourself a day of rest and remembrance of looking to God in worship.

53:37

And I'd encourage you, make Sunday that day, brothers and sisters. And we meet in the afternoon, so we're a little bit awkward in the way that we do it.

53:47

Usually, you'd meet in the mornings. You'd have fellowship in the afternoons. But let me encourage you, and we've tried to set some examples of that.

53:55

Meet for a brunch before church with some saints. Go out. We went out for lunch a couple weeks ago.

54:01

We'll do it again. Go out for lunch before church. Meet with the saints afterwards. Have coffee. Go to A &W.

54:07

Enjoy fellowship. Lord willing, when God gives us a building, Sam and I are already conspiring to have two services.

54:13

And to make the Lord's Day the Lord's Day. Christ came to ransom us from slavery to the law and its legal demands.

54:22

And he's given us freedom. So don't let anyone rob you of that freedom.

54:29

There was once a great man who was taken, a great and wealthy man, who was taken to see the

54:35

French galley slaves. These ships. And in the basement of the ship, in these terrible working conditions, were galley slaves who, when they ran out of wind, they would row that big boat.

54:48

And this great man, as he toured the galley full of the slaves, was given the authority.

54:55

Imagine this. Given the authority to set any one man free at his own liberty.

55:02

To go through and to find someone who was worthy to be freed. And he went to one man and he asked him why he was there.

55:10

He had found that the man had already been in that galley for 10 years. And he asked him about his crime.

55:16

And he said, well, I was treated very unfairly. And, you know, it was set up. It didn't, you know,

55:23

I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And the man looked at him and he said, well, this man, it seems already is justified.

55:31

He's too good a man to receive a free pardon, he said. So he passed by and he went to another man.

55:37

And there, too, he found another man who was too good for a free pardon. He said that he was perfectly innocent.

55:46

And he swore that he was as innocent as a newborn babe. And then he came to a third man who said that he might have tripped and fallen and done something wrong.

55:59

And then finally a fourth man. And at last the visitor came, he says, to a poor fellow who said to him,

56:05

I have a long sentence to serve, but I fully deserve even more than I was sentenced.

56:12

I wonder that I was not condemned to death. For had they proceeded to extremities, they might have proved me guilty of murder.

56:19

So I took upon my sentences much lighter than I really deserved. And this great man looked at this, at this humble, this repentant man.

56:29

He said, I pardon you for according to your confession, you appear to be the only man in the whole place who is really receiving justice.

56:38

And therefore I will show you mercy. So you may go your way as a free man. Beloved, we read this story.

56:50

I bet every single one in this room, I know the first time I read it, I thought I'm not, I'm the last man.

56:55

I'm the man that said, nope, I deserve this lot in life. And, and now

57:03

God, because of my repentance, because of my confession, he forgives me. Brothers and sisters, you and I are men and women, one, two, and three.

57:14

When we were still justified in our sins, when we were still vindicating ourselves, when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins, when we were in the basement of our own depravity, in the galley, in the wretched galley of our own self righteousness and self justification,

57:32

Christ came. He paid our ransom. He broke our bonds. He made us free men.

57:40

And make no mistake, this is not because of works done by us in righteousness. It's not because he had some foreknowledge of our future repentance and faith.

57:48

It was because of his own glorious, sovereign grace. He set his affections on us and he freed us.

57:59

And then Paul says in Galatians 5, he says, for freedom, Christ has set you free.

58:05

This is in the context of the law. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit yourself again to a yoke of slavery.

58:14

Use your freedom wisely, brothers and sisters. He says it again in Galatians 5, 13, for you were called to freedom, brothers.

58:23

Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. First Peter 2, 16,

58:30

Peter says, live as people who are free. Not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God.

58:42

We're free, brothers and sisters. And why are we free? I'll finish with this quote from George Swinnick.

58:49

He says, who could have imagined, who could have imagined that God should become man?

58:56

Infinite become finite, the creator, a creature. Who could conceive that he whom the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain should be contained in the womb of a woman, that the only bread of life should be hungry, the only water of life be thirsty, the only weary one, and the only joy and consolation be sorrowful and exceedingly sorrowful unto death.

59:23

Who could have imagined that millions should become rich by another's poverty, filled with emptiness and exalted by another's disgrace.

59:33

Brothers and sisters, who could have imagined that God would make us free men and free women by sending his son to die a slave's death in our place.

59:48

So next time that man or woman comes to your front step and they try to convince you that you are bound by the law, you say,

59:55

I am free. I'm no longer under the law, but I'm under grace. Let me tell you about that grace.