Jesus, Lord of Rest

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Our desire is to help you draw near to God by growing in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Pastor of Teaching and Vision, Don Filsek, and is a part of a series entitled

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Not Your Average Savior, a study of the book of Matthew. Thanks for listening. This morning we continue in a series encountering

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Jesus in the book of Matthew. The title of the sermon series is Not Your Average Savior, and Jesus proves himself to not be an average savior.

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There's all kinds of things that we can look to in life to try to save us, but Jesus is not average in that sense.

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He is the real, genuine, real deal. And he said to us last week when we were together, to come to him for rest.

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He basically called to everybody to come to him for rest. He said, as a matter of fact, here's a quote,

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Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Anybody ever felt weary and heavy laden?

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Anybody felt a little burdened? Maybe even this week there have been times where you felt weary and heavy laden, and he says, come to me and I will give you rest.

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Rest for your souls. And this week we're going to see an expansion of what that call to rest means, that Jesus is going to actually identify himself as the

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Lord of rest, as the Lord of the Sabbath in our text this week. And I don't think it's by chance that Matthew records a call from Jesus to come to him, all who are weary and heavy laden, that he will give you rest.

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And then we launch into a couple of stories about him referring to the

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Sabbath, to the day of rest. You see, during the life of Jesus, the practice of religion had become primarily a social convention.

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It was a lot to do with society in general and less to do with a personal decision to follow

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God. And so, not to say that there weren't people in that day and age who genuinely loved

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God and were genuinely sold out for him, but primarily the way that religion worked was a societal thing where religious leaders told you how to live your life, to the degree that they issued laws and you had to follow those laws or be punished for not following those rules and regulations.

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And so that was the nature of the life that Jesus was born into, the culture, the society where he came to live.

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Those rules were primarily based on Old Testament laws and how many of you would say that that's kind of a good thing, like to have laws or rules or to have in your mind thoughts generated from the

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Old Testament? Is that a good thing? Would you agree with me on that? That's good. But religious groups like the

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Pharisees, who we're going to see in our text this morning, perfected the art of adding laws on top of laws.

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So there'd be a law like dietary laws and they would take and add on top of that, well if you're not supposed to do this, then here's some ways you can avoid doing this.

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And those man -made laws eventually became binding on people so that they basically said you're going to be punished if you disobey our laws.

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They made them more specific and we're going to see with the way that they interact over the Sabbath that God said take a day of rest and they're going to just define out carefully and cautiously to the extent of adding, keeping track of how many steps you take on the

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Sabbath. That was the Pharisees' way of doing things. To categorize and classify work and say you're not allowed to do this and not allowed to do that is primarily about prohibiting people from doing certain things on the

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Sabbath. Jesus throughout his life called that concept of adding laws on top of laws, heaping heavy burdens on people.

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Can you see why that might be a phrase that would be used for that? Have any of you ever felt like maybe you've heaped burdens on yourself?

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Maybe you've had other people heap a heavy load of obedience to the law on you?

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But that's how he referred to it. And in our text we're going to see Jesus go against a legalistic interpretation of the law that tacks on rules on top of rules and ends up being a burden to us.

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Jesus in our text is going to show a position of authority over the law, but also he's going to show his value on giving us rest.

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How many of you like that word? You like the word rest? It's a good thing. We're going to talk about that this morning.

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The rest that Jesus came to offer us was not just a Sunday afternoon nap. Some of you might enjoy a

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Sunday afternoon nap. I'd prefer if you don't take a Sunday morning nap this morning, but a Sunday afternoon nap is acceptable, especially after you've listened to me and I lull you a little bit and then you just...

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Don't crash on the way home though. Just wait until you get home to take that nap. It's more than that, right? Because one of the biggest strivings in our life can be striving to please

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God, striving to please others, an effort to beautify what we know is broken.

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So we have the real self that we know we are in here and we can work and struggle and strive and basically it can be a whole life endeavor in an attempt to put makeup on the problems that we have in our lives.

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You know what I'm saying? To remedy this. And that can be a significant part. And Jesus is coming to give us rest from that kind of striving, from a law -based way of living.

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Keeping the law is not the point. Coming to the lawgiver for mercy is the point, and we're going to see that in the text.

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So I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12, 1 through 14 is our text.

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That's page 695 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you. So if you turn to 695, you can get there pretty quickly.

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And then follow along as we read God's word to us this morning from the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 12, 1 through 14, follow along as I read.

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At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

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But when the Pharisees saw it, they said, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.

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He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

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Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the

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Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

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And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.

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For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He went on from there and entered their synagogue.

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And a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him?

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

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Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the

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Sabbath. Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And the man stretched it out, and it was restored healthy like the other.

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But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for mercy and grace, and I ask that you would help us to understand that this morning, that as we encounter

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Jesus Christ in this text, that we would be changed by His example, by the model that He is for us.

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That we would see Him in the text. It's very easy for us to get caught up in the little nuances of the Sabbath and the

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Pharisees, and all the intrigue, and a man with a withered hand. And we can lose the forest for the trees in the understanding here, that what we encounter in this text is

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Jesus Christ in His mercy, and in His grace, and in His compassion. And that we come to understand the

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Old Testament and understand it through Him. And so Father, I pray that you would help us to grasp this awesome privilege that it is the place that we live where grace has been shown us through Jesus Christ and through His sacrifice.

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Father, that you would help us to lift up voices before you. Again, not just merely an exercise of our vocal cords.

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Not merely an exercise of our brains reading words off of a screen and singing them, but our hearts would be engaged.

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And we would genuinely offer these songs up to you, thoughtfully, but also emotionally moved by your presence with us, knowing who you are and rejoicing in the way you have treated us.

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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Appreciate the band, and appreciate having

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Dave back. I'm grateful that Rob was able to step in in his absence, but also good to have Dave back. So, thanks a lot, you guys.

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Remember that we're in Matthew 12, 1 -14. So if you weren't here when we read through that earlier, I know some of you maybe walked in afterwards.

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Matthew 12, 1 -14, page 695. Have that open in front of you as we walk through this text. It's beneficial for you to kind of see where we're going.

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But what we saw the last time, at the end of chapter 11, Jesus wrapped up a call to the crowds to come to him for rest.

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And now, in our text, we see right off the bat that the Sabbath has arrived. As a matter of fact, the text starts this way.

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At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry. So they're going through the grain fields, and it's at that time.

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Now one thing you need to understand is that there's different words in Greek for time designation. And so what's happening here is not saying, and the very next thing that happened was they were doing this.

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There's a word that means next in Greek, and that's not this one. It's just kind of in the same vicinity of time, around the same time that Jesus called out to the crowds, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Around that time, maybe the next Sabbath that occurred, these events that we're seeing here in the text actually occur.

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And what's very clear is that he and his disciples are walking through a grain field, probably somewhere around Capernaum, north of the

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Sea of Galilee. That's where the context of all of this has been happening. Up in the north of Israel, about an hour's drive in a car from Jerusalem, about a couple days walk from there.

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I think it would be very valuable for us to discuss, at least briefly, the concept of Sabbath.

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Because I really believe that it's very hard to have a moderate view of Sabbath. I think that probably if you were to think about your upbringing, either you don't even know what the

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Sabbath is, because in all honesty, many of us are confused. If you weren't raised in church, then quite honestly, you probably don't have a good concept of that.

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It might be foreign to you. But if you were raised in church, then there's probably one of two ways that it was viewed.

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Either it was a confusion as a child, kind of like, I've heard of this concept, you're supposed to go on Sunday and go to church or something like that, and it was very nebulous and generic in general.

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Or, on the other side of the equation, you were told you couldn't play games on the

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Sabbath, you couldn't go out to eat, there were things that you were not allowed to do, and it was very restrictive. So, do you have in your mind what your view is of the

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Sabbath, what your understanding is of it? There's all different kinds of, a big spectrum of views.

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So the concept of Sabbath runs back in the Bible all the way to the book of Genesis. As a matter of fact, all the way back into the ancient roots of history and God creating the world as it is.

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We're going to be studying Genesis starting in January, so I've already started some work on laying the groundwork for my own devotional life and studying

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Genesis devotionally. I've already gotten through the first few chapters, I'm working through that, I'm heading towards preaching that in January.

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Genesis states that God ordered the world in six days and rested on the seventh. And this becomes the foundation of the pattern of the way that we keep time.

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How many of you would say that your day, your week, your life is affected by the fact that we live according to a seven day work week?

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Does that impact any of you? A handful of us? The structure and the order of life and the rhythm of life is kind of set in the bounds of time and the way that we record time and the way that we keep time.

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Seven days, seven days, seven days, months, years, all of that. It's a part of the way that we record this.

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And where does that come from? It comes from Genesis, it comes from Scripture. And fundamental in that design, fundamental in the way that God has orchestrated the world is the concept of a day of rest.

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That rest is something fundamental, it's foundational to the way that he created things. I want to highlight that Sabbath is meant to be a blessing.

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It's what it's intended to be. It's supposed to be something good for us, a rest from our toil.

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Sabbath is a picture of dependence upon God and I want you to highlight that. If you're taking notes, I want you to write that down, that Sabbath is a picture of dependence upon God.

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Because in essence, I think we've gotten things muddied a little bit with the concept of Sabbath day for worship and a

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Sabbath day for rest. It's a Sabbath day of worship through rest.

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The cessation of work is the act of worship on the Sabbath. Do you understand what

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I'm saying? It's not like there's a two -fold purpose to the Sabbath, worship and rest. No, the end of all of our lives is to be worship, right?

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Is it Sunday? Sunday's the day of worship and so what do you do on Monday? What do you do on Tuesday?

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What do you do on Wednesday? What do you do on Thursday? Do you worship on those days? You need to be worshiping on those days.

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It's not like, oh, Sunday, Sunday's the day for worship and the rest are not. But the act of rest, the act of taking pause, and the reason that I say that that's dependence upon God, that's the act of worship and resting, is really ultimately the heart of Sabbath.

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To grasp the heart of Sabbath is to understand that I am not God. You realize that?

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Have you come to that? Hopefully you've come to the conclusion yourself that you are not God. And if you haven't, come and see me afterwards and I'd like to talk with you about that a little bit more.

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You're not God. And so here's the point. The world will keep spinning if I sit back for 24 hours.

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If I take a break, it's not going to be the end of the world. Because guess who's on the throne?

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Guess who's taking care of business? Guess who's getting it done? God. And so can you see how there's a component of dependence upon God in Sabbath rest?

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And taking a time away to recognize He's God, I'm not. He doesn't really even need my toil. And how many of you know that when we're buried in the grave and long gone, things will keep churning?

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Things will keep moving? People will keep doing? Stuff's going to keep happening? Is it dependent on our shoulders?

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Is it all on us? Is it all on our shoulders? No, it's not. But do we live that way? Or do we think that we're getting it all done and it's all dependent upon us?

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So it's a way of depending upon God and recognizing that He's the one getting it done and He doesn't need me.

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But also on the flip side of that, another angle to that is the Sabbath is also to recognize that I cannot go on without rest.

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Another aspect is, I mean, God is God and I'm going to let Him be God and let Him rule the universe. But equally,

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I'm not God and the component of that is that I need rest. I am created as a finite being that is designed, by design,

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I need rest. Notice that the Sabbath was prior to the fall. Do you notice that? And when we get to Genesis, you'll see that.

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Before Adam and Eve took the fruit, there was a Sabbath day. There was still rest. It's part of the way that we're designed and made.

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I'm human, you're human, and ceaseless toil will destroy us. Have any of you got to that place where you're so frazzled and frantic and life is,

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I mean, think about this, coming up into the holidays here. Does it get that way? Do things get so frantic and crazy?

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And have any of you just kind of stood on the edge and gone, I'm on the brink of insanity right here. If one more thing is put on my plate, they are going to have to put me in a straight jacket and send me away.

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Have you been there in your life? I mean, has it just been like, I can't do anymore? That's the way that we are designed.

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We need rest. It's a component of what it means to be human. But also there's a third component to Sabbath and that is the look forward.

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There is hope for an ultimate Sabbath rest. It is a picture from the foundations of the world of the way that things are meant to be.

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A dependence and a joy and a fully being given over to God in rest and recognizing

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His provision and His sovereignty in our lives. Our destination, by the way. So many

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Christians, I think, have a skewed view of this because they saw some cartoons from the far side or they've taken their theology from comic books or whatever.

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And so we have this view of heaven that's like floating on clouds with harps and kind of just like this floating in an ethereal place.

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And that's heaven, right? That's our destination. That's not true. God created us in a garden with roles and responsibilities and a process to actually cultivate and to make better.

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That's what He gives Adam and Eve before they fall, before they sin. Make it better. Improve on it.

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Keep building. Culture. Things like that. Our destination as the people of God is a new earth with new heavens.

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With a real tangible. There will be tables on the new earth. There will be food on the new earth.

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There will be others and fellowship and enjoyment. And I believe that there will also be work.

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There will be things to accomplish on the new earth. But our final

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Sabbath rest will be one of delight and joy and sinless perfection. Where the work that we do will be thoroughly and completely fulfilling.

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Have any of you ever had that like slice of paradise? That slice of where it's like this is what

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I was designed to do and you get a chance to do it and it's fulfilling? Have you ever had, I think

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I've saw like maybe three people feel like they've had fulfillment in work. Okay, a couple more. I'm going to add on to that.

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Encourage you then, if you're not there, I'd encourage you to find some different roles and some functions where you actually can use the skills and the abilities that God has given you.

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But that's the way, and I have a pretty strong conviction that this pointing forward to a future Sabbath rest,

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I have a pretty strong conviction based on the flow of scripture. I can't point to chapter and verse, but I really believe by conviction that on the new earth, when

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God fixes all of this mess and remakes it, that on the new earth, there will be a well followed and enjoyable day of rest.

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That even in the work that we have to experience on the new earth, there will be a day of rest that goes on forever.

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But that's not the way that we experience Sabbath if we're honest. If we're honest in our hearts, we respond to Sabbath more often than not, we're like children that our parents have taken us to the play place at McDonald's and said, run free and have fun.

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And we, because we were commanded to have fun, we go and sulk in the corner and throw a fit.

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How dare you tell me to have fun? How dare you give me a day of rest? How dare you tell me anything?

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How dare you put limits or restrictions on me? And I think that that's a pretty common issue in the human heart, isn't it?

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That when we're told to do something, we do the opposite, right?

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And so often that's the way we respond as we sulk and we're stubborn over this concept of Sabbath.

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Not only that, but like I said, we are self -dependent and so it's not just simply somebody told us to, so now we're not going to or we're going to question it or we're going to wrestle with God over it.

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But we bought into the notion that if I don't do it, it's not going to get done, right?

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Have many of us bought into that concept? So if I don't get it done, nobody else is going to do it, so I've got to attack on more work so we keep working and our day off becomes a chance to do more work and to get ahead.

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Ahead of what? Have you ever thought about that? What are you trying to get ahead of? The neighbors? That's going to be hard for me, right?

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Impossible, says Pete, for me to get ahead. Pete's my next door neighbor. But here in our text, so we encounter the

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Sabbath. I wanted to give you just a brief history, a brief understanding of the Sabbath. But in our text, the disciples of Jesus are walking through a grain field, they're hungry and it's the

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Sabbath. Now, the word that's used for hungry here is not a word for starving, there's a word that they could use for that.

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It's not like they're going to keel over and die if they don't get some food. It would be a little bit easier for us to, a little bit softer in our understanding if they were starving to death and Jesus is like, okay, we're going to break the

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Sabbath to get some food because these guys are going to die. It's not quite that extreme. But it's also not that they're bored and so they've got the late night munchies and they're like right in the fridge for something because, hey,

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I just don't have anything else to do right now. Okay, they're actually hungry and the word hungry means they need something to eat.

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So as they walk through the grain fields, they're plucking some grain. Can any of you picture a wheat, a head of wheat in your mind?

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They're plucking the head of wheat and they're crushing it in their hand and eating the seeds, okay, eating the grain.

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Now, does anybody's mind turn to where mind turned first? Kind of like, I mean, you're walking through my field, you're eating my grain, like what's going on here?

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Okay, did they plant that grain? Did they sow those seeds? Did they water that field? Like what? Are they stealing?

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Is Jesus letting them steal? But Deuteronomy 23 in the Old Testament law actually allows for this very thing that's happening here.

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So if you're taking notes, you can write that down, look at it later, follow up. Deuteronomy 23 verses 24 through 25 allows for, literally states, if a neighbor is walking through your field or you're walking through their field, go ahead and put your hands down and grab some grain.

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That's totally appropriate to do that. Same with grapes. If you're going through somebody's vineyard and you're hungry, grab a couple grapes, eat them along the way.

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Any of you ever been to Mandingo's picking strawberries or out to Fritz's picking blueberries or anything like that?

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Any of you glad that they don't weigh you before you go in the field and then weigh you again when you go out and charge you accordingly?

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How many of you maybe have been a little guilty of eating some strawberries while you're picking them or maybe a little guilty of eating some blueberries?

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That's understood. The farmers are okay with that. It's that same concept, but Deuteronomy actually says that's okay, that's legal, at least in their culture and in the

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Old Testament understanding. I thought it was kind of like, as I was reading this, I had a little bit of a

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Monty Python moment while I was going through this and I'm like, okay. But there's some stipulations in Deuteronomy 23 that I found kind of humorous.

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It says, yeah, if you're walking through somebody's grain field, pick some grain, crush it, eat it, that's fine. Take some grapes off the vine, chew on them, that's fine.

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But don't take a basket into your neighbor's field and bring home a haul and don't take any farm implements.

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So you picture, you wake up in the morning and you look out and somebody's in your grain field with a sickle just going to town, they got half of it brought in.

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Bill, what are you doing out here? Pete, what are you doing in my grain field? What's going on?

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Just storing some up for the winter. No, no, no, okay, you can't do that. And it makes it very clear in Deuteronomy that that's not appropriate.

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Another thing in the book of Leviticus says to a farmer that you are not to plow or not to reap to the edge of your field.

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So when it comes to harvest time, you are literally commanded by Old Testament law to leave some for the poor so that they might actually be able to come into your field and glean, the word glean just means to take some of the leftovers that you've intentionally left for those who are going through hard times.

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Whether the harvest had already occurred at this time and so therefore Jesus' disciples are eating that which was left at the edges or whether they're just following Deuteronomy 23 is unclear, but they're just getting some food because they're hungry.

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A group of very stern religious leaders known as the Pharisees were keeping their eye on Jesus. How many of you know people are keeping their eyes on you?

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There are some who are looking at you. There are actually probably some who would love to see you stumble, especially if they know you're a believer and you have an outspoken testimony.

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They are eager, they're watching you, sometimes when you're not aware that they're watching you.

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These Pharisees were pretty bold. Notice that, okay, the Pharisees have a major issue with the Sabbath. They would count how many steps they take on the

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Sabbath, but they certainly had enough steps to follow Jesus around to watch what his disciples are doing. So they followed him out into the grain field watching and they observed that his disciples are eating on the

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Sabbath and therefore they come to him and they're going to call him out on it. The Pharisees had classified 39 categories of work.

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Now this is pretty well attested. There's ancient documents that we have access to that show that this is the case. There's 39 acts of labor or types of categories of work that were not allowed to be done on the

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Sabbath day. It's breaking the law if you pick anything from a field. Period.

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Okay, so how many of you know that covers a classification of a lot of different types of work? You can't pick a watermelon, you can't go get grain, you can't do all of this.

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Now I want to highlight that this is a man -made law. This is the Pharisees taking what was don't work on the

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Sabbath and spelling it out in intense detail and keeping heavy burdens on people.

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Tacking more on and specifying to the nth degree what you can and can't do. Like I said, even to the degree of counting how many steps you take.

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And what happens if you run out of steps in the middle of the field? Just got to fall over and sleep right there or something,

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I guess. So they were very, very strict about this kind of thing. Jesus' disciples have apparently broken at least two of the 39 things.

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First, they have picked food. So they've done that. They picked it up. So they've broken one of the

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Pharisees' laws. But the second one is kind of funny. It shows how petty they really were. They have crushed the grain.

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Now the grain, if you pick grain, it usually has a hard outer shell on it. And you have to crush that shell off in order to eat it.

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If you eat it, it's all prickly and gross and really hard and you can't hardly chew it. So you have to get that stuff off of it first.

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A process called winnowing. So now they've broken the law by winnowing. They've taken the grain in their hand, crushed it, blew the husk away.

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Whoa, these guys are working hard on the Sabbath, right? The effort that they've put into this is just intense.

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I'm joking, you guys. I'm joking. It wasn't really that much effort. If you guys didn't get that, then you've got a theology of work here issue.

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That's a lot of work. So they've done that. And then actually in Luke's account, it indicates that they probably then in turn actually crushed the grain in their hand, stamped it out as much as they could, so that it would be almost kind of more powdery, so that they could just lick it off their hand.

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So they're basically just getting some grain -type, almost like flour -type nutrients from the grain.

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That's what's going on. So now they've also, if that's the case, then they've also prepared food on the

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Sabbath as well. They prepared some flour. So you can kind of get where the

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Pharisees are coming from. They approach Jesus in the middle of the field and say, look at what your disciples are doing, what they're doing is unlawful.

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And so notice where the Pharisees start in this transaction. What is their first and foremost go -to issue?

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What is the thing that they want to approach a stranger in a field about? They begin with the law.

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Isn't this unlawful? What is their primary concern? Law, rules, regulations.

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Not with human relationship, not with compassion, not with, man, are you guys hungry?

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Like, what's going on here? Like, I mean, you guys doing okay? Not with grace, but their starting point in interaction with the followers of Jesus Christ is law.

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That's their starting point. That's their greatest and deepest concern, the law. So from verses three through seven, we see

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Jesus give three responses to the challenge of the Pharisees. He knowingly takes them to two stories from the

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Old Testament, knowing that they would have been concerned with the Old Testament. The Pharisees are supposed to be students of the

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Old Testament. They're supposed to know it in and out. And so he takes them to two stories, and it's ironic, I think

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Jesus is kind of a bit sarcastic, if I could say that about Jesus.

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He says, have you not read? In essence, Jesus is saying, shouldn't you guys know this stuff?

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Aren't you the experts in the law? Shouldn't you have already read this? Don't you already get this? And then he uses

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David, the ancient hero of the Jews, as an illustration. You see, there was a point in David's life when he was fleeing from King Saul.

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How many of you have read some of those stories or remember those from Sunday school? He's fleeing from King Saul. Saul is going to kill him.

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David has already been anointed as the next king, and Saul doesn't like it, because what king likes to be dethroned?

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So he's trying to get David. David's running, and he's fleeing, and actually in that account, he's starving.

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Him and his posse are running from Saul, and they come to the tabernacle. How many of you understand when

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I say the word tabernacle, it means something to you? A handful of you? It's the ancient tent that before, up until David's son is going to build a temple for God, but up until the time of Solomon, there was no temple.

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There was this tent that was, the blueprint for that tent was given on Mount Sinai to Moses.

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They built this tent, and that was the place of meeting, called the tent of meeting with God, the place where all the sacrifices took place in the

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Old Testament prior to Solomon. And David, fleeing from Saul, comes up to the place where the tabernacle is set up.

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And in the tabernacle, there's a temple in the outer entryway. There's a table with loaves of bread set out for the priests.

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Basically, a symbol, if you will, of God's provision for the nation. God is the one who's provided this grain, and then the priests were allowed to eat that.

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Because the priests, how many of you know, that if you're making sacrifices all day, it's kind of hard to plant a garden and get food for yourself.

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And so that was the nature of the way that they were fed. So it was bread for the priests. This story is found in Samuel 21, verses 1 through 6, but the laws regarding the bread are found in Leviticus 24, 5 through 9.

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But the priest gives this bread that was only supposed to be eaten by the priests, and he gives it to David and his men, and they eat, and they regain their strength, and they go on from there.

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By implication, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, you know, this whole law business, living by law, it's not quite as easy to discern as you might think.

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So then he goes on for a further illustration to help clarify it, and he alludes to the priests and uses them as an illustration, and he says, so let's talk about the priests for a minute.

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I've already introduced them in this former story. Let's talk about them for a minute. A significant portion of their work is done on the

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Sabbath. They basically profane the Sabbath by working all day long. They're making sacrifices.

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They're disposing of the mess of sacrifices outside the camp. They're cleaning stuff. All the tasks of the priests occur on the

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Sabbath as well. And Jesus says they are held guiltless despite their not keeping the Sabbath.

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Are you seeing how Jesus is showing exceptions to the law? He's making that clear. So if we end there, we might be left in a world of hurt, to be honest.

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Because what we're left with is a very floppy sense of ethics, aren't we? Like, how many of you would agree that Jesus is saying, hey, keep the

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Sabbath unless you're hungry? Is that what Jesus is saying? Is that what he's trying to communicate in this text?

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Keep the Sabbath unless you're hungry. Or how about this one? Keep the law unless it's inconvenient to you.

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If it gets a little inconvenient and crimps your style, then go ahead and break the law, but keep it if you want to and if it works for you.

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Is that the ethic that Jesus is promoting here? Now we need to move on to verse 6 to really understand the point that Jesus is making.

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And this is an intense point. He says, I tell you, something greater than the temple has arrived.

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Something greater than the temple is here. What? It's likely one of the most offensive statements that he ever made to the

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Pharisees. Something that was extremely and abundantly offensive to the Jewish mindset.

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He says in no uncertain terms that he and his ministry, notice that he doesn't say someone has arrived, he says something.

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It is the entire package. The Messiah is here. Something greater than the temple.

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And eventually that statement is going to be brought up in his trial before the Jews. And they are going to crucify him based on that statement.

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And not only that, but while he's on the cross, they're going to bring up his view of the temple. That's how central it was to their heart, how important it was to them, that while he's hanging on the cross, a

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Pharisee is going to walk up to him and spit on him and say, you said you would rebuild the temple, but you can't even save yourself.

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Remember that? How central was the temple to their understanding? To say to a

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Jew that he was greater than the temple was extremely offensive. You see, the temple to the Jewish mind was the place of connection between God and humanity.

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It was central to their religious understanding. And Jesus is saying in essence, you know what guys, the temple and all of that ritual and all of the stuff surrounding the temple, you can push that aside because I'm here.

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It's me. Here I am. Scrap the temple. What? Can you imagine how offensive that would be to a

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Jew who has been brought up to believe that the temple is the center of everything? And he's saying, no,

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I'm the center of everything. Right here. Jesus is saying,

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I'm the place where God meets with you. I am the place where heaven meets earth.

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I am, in essence, the better temple. I am greater than the temple.

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Is that a big statement? You guys agree with me on that? Pretty significant what Jesus is saying here.

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And now Jesus explains his interpretation of Sabbath law and the reason that he has the authority to interpret the

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Sabbath. He quotes the prophet Hosea from Hosea chapter 6 verse 6 where God says, the words of God, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, saying that if the

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Pharisees understood this, then they would not have condemned the guiltless. He basically declares his disciples guiltless and says if you had understood that I desire mercy and not sacrifice, then you would not have condemned them.

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And I'm thinking that if Jesus says that something is important to understand, then we ought to understand it. Do you guys agree with me on that?

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Kind of important for us to get it? Let me read what Hosea says here because Jesus quotes a portion of what

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Hosea says in chapter 6 verse 6. This is the whole quote. From God, through the prophet

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Hosea, he says this, for I desire steadfast love, it can be translated mercy as well, for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.

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Here he adds more. The knowledge of God, I desire the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

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Hosea links mercy and the knowledge of God because the more we know

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God, the more we will understand mercy. If we're far from God, without knowledge of God, our mercy falls off the table.

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But our understanding of mercy, the ability to give and show mercy to others, but the ability to experience mercy only comes when we are in contact with our

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Father. The more knowledge of God we have, true knowledge, like knowing, not just head knowledge.

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You can know a lot up here and not show mercy, but the more we truly know

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God and are known by God, the more mercy we will show to others. It will be a natural outflowing of our lives.

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God desires us to express mercy towards others more than He desires ritualistic sacrifices.

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The Pharisees began with rituals and rules. Jesus is telling us, begin with mercy.

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Start there. Once again, like we saw consistently through the book of Galatians, those of you who were here during that series,

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Jesus is saying if you're trying to balance grace and rules, if you're trying to balance grace on one side and rituals on the other, make sure the pivot point is over here by grace.

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It's not in the middle. It's not like 50 -50, half rules and regulations, half grace.

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It's grace. It's over here. This is the balancing point. Religion approaches

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God based on rituals. But God wants us to approach Him based on a relationship with Him.

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A relationship that I think is very important for you to understand. A relationship that He initiated with us.

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He's the one who started this relationship. He's the one who sent His Son on Christmas 2 ,000 years ago.

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He started this. So why does Jesus have the right to make this ruling that His disciples are guiltless?

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Based on what authority does He declare that David was okay eating the bread of the presence? Without Jesus telling us that, we're kind of left wondering, was

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David okay doing that or not okay? And He says He's guiltless in doing that. Why do we know that it's okay for the priest to offer sacrifices and to work on the

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Sabbath? How do we know that? He says, well, the Son of Man is

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Lord of the Sabbath. So Jesus declares directly, I am the King of rest.

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I am the master over this institution, says Jesus. Now think back to the origination of the concept of Sabbath as we kind of walk through that little history.

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When did the Sabbath begin? When? At creation.

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Okay, so Jesus, how could you have sat out 2 ,000 years or however many millennia between the creation and the coming of Jesus Christ?

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How could you have sat out from that institution for so many years and call yourself Lord of it? How could you call yourself master and king over this institution that's been going on for centuries and centuries and millennia before you?

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What is Jesus implying? Has Jesus been sitting out those years in the Old Testament?

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He is Lord of the Sabbath. He was there when it was instituted. He is its originator.

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He's the one who started it. He was there in creation. Sabbath, ritual, routine rest is

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His. And therefore, He has the right interpretation of it, the correct interpretation of it.

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As the writer of the regulation, He has the inside perspective on the author's intent. Would you agree with me on that?

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He knows what it's for. He's the one who made it and designed it. You come across a gadget and you don't know what it does.

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You don't know why it exists. You don't know what it's for. But let's say that the guy who designed it is standing next to you.

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Does that give you any advantage? Does that help you? Yeah, what's this thing for? Oh, here's what it does.

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And He can show it to you. Here's why I made it. Jesus is there.

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And He's going to tell us why He made a Sabbath day. And it is mercy.

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His intent was to be merciful to us. That's why

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He created a Sabbath. The author's intent was mercy.

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Jesus is not reinterpreting the Sabbath. It's not like, well, it's been interpreted this way for a long time.

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They've had the correct interpretation and now I'm going to change it because, hey, I'm Jesus. I can change whatever I want. That's not what's happening.

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He's not breaking the Sabbath. He's not going against the laws or the rules.

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He's telling us in this text definitively what the Sabbath is for. And would anybody argue with His authority to do so?

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He's telling us why it exists. I'm the creator of it and here's why. I believe that the Pharisees fully understood.

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Their minds are connected with this. They get what He is saying. They don't like it, but they get it.

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They get it enough to actually challenge Him on it. So verses 9 -14, they now test His stand.

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If Jesus says the Sabbath is about mercy, then let's test Him and see if He's really going to be merciful about it.

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And so Jesus follows them. They take Him and they lead Him to their synagogue. That is the Jewish church, if you will, on the

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Sabbath. Where all of the Jews are gathered together. And in the crowd at the synagogue is a man who has a withered hand.

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Now this man's hand has visible physical malformation. We don't know whether it was from birth or from an injury or whatever.

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But how many of you know that in a society where you live based on manual labor, your subsistence, your existence, your survival depends on working with your hands, would it be a detriment to be missing one?

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Or to have one not work? Now the word withered implies that this thing does not work. It's not functioning.

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And you can see something wrong with this hand. Okay? It's withered.

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It's not working. It's not functioning correctly. And notice how

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He is nothing but a tool here to the Pharisees. They look on this man with a withered hand in their midst and they're just so compassionate towards Him.

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They're like, oh man, Jesus, could you please heal him? Would you please do something for him? Man, we just love this guy and we just really want what's best for him.

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Is that what you see in the text? Now they're using Him as a tool to try to trip up Jesus.

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And there He is in the crowd listening to all of this go down. They're using it, as the text says directly, as an opportunity to accuse

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Him, to trip Him up. And I think there's something ironic in this, by the way. The Pharisees are trying to trip

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Jesus up by encouraging Him to heal someone. They're not going to do that with me if I'm standing there.

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How many of you know that this is implying that the Pharisees knew something unique about Jesus? They had seen Him do some amazing things and they're like, well, here's a guy with a withered hand.

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Could you heal him on the Sabbath? Is that appropriate? They're kind of taunting Him and enticing Him into performing a miracle.

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It implies that they knew that He could. That wouldn't be a real genuine temptation to me. Is it okay to heal this guy with a withered hand?

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If you could do it, okay. I mean, I don't really know what to do here. I'll pray for Him and God could do a miracle.

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But I haven't had that happen yet. I would love that. I want to point out that it's a contemporary challenge that they pose to Him.

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When they ask Him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? This was a routine question being asked in synagogues all around the nation of Israel at this time.

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There are documents that prove that this was a major issue among rabbis. They were questioning whether or not it was proper and okay to heal people on the

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Sabbath. Now, is that because there were a bunch of miracle workers running around and healing people? Actually, they're talking about even medically.

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So there was a question going on in ancient Israel at the time that Jesus is walking into the synagogue.

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And they're actually asking, is it okay for a doctor to give medicine to a person on the

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Sabbath? Is it okay for them to perform an amputation on the Sabbath like they would have in those days?

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Is it appropriate for them to practice medicine? Where did they start in this discussion?

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What's their primary concern? Again, the law. Is it lawful?

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Is it not lawful? They are trying to trip up Jesus with law. And so He cuts to the heart of their own hypocrisy.

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They're talking about this man with a withered hand. They're talking about healing. And all of a sudden, Jesus starts talking about sheep. And it's just kind of like, wait, where are you going?

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Have you ever noticed how Jesus doesn't give a direct answer, but He loves to draw people out and He wants you to come to your own conclusions?

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He wants you to come to His conclusion, but He's going to lead you there. He's not just going to tell you where to go, but He's going to bring you along in understanding.

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And so what He does is He just cuts to the heart of their own hypocrisy by telling just a real quick statement.

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Which of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not pick it up and bring it out?

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Which one of you would not lift it out? You need to understand, a sheep was an economic unit in those days.

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It was food. It was livelihood. It was currency. It was bling. The guys would show off how many sheep they had.

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Boom, deal with that. I've got lots of sheep. And so what is

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He saying to them? Where are your priorities? For your own economic interests, you would pick up a sheep, but you wouldn't heal a man?

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You wouldn't help him out, but you'd look out for your own interests? What is this? Do you see how

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He's calling them out? He's calling out their heart. He's calling out their intentions. And He says very definitively, how much more valuable is a man than a sheep?

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Notice that Jesus takes for granted that a man is more valuable than an animal. I just want to point that out. That is in the teaching.

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But in verse 12, Jesus takes His previous interpretation a step further. Not only is the

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Sabbath about mercy towards humanity, but it is certainly lawful to do good on the

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Sabbath. If the Sabbath is all about mercy, God's mercy towards us, it is completely appropriate for you to do acts of goodness and mercy towards others on the

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Sabbath. To serve others and help those in need on the Sabbath is a good thing,

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He says. And then Jesus turns with mercy towards the man, who I think has had a very vested interest in this up to this point.

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Anybody think that maybe? He's sitting there, and they're talking about healing someone's hand, and he's like,

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I think they're talking about me. This is going good. He's on the edge of his seat. He's like, can we go back to the part about the healing of the hand for just a minute?

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I heard something in the conversation about that. Could we go there? He's very interested in the way that this turns out.

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He's used as a tool. The Pharisees, I don't really believe for a second care whether his hands get healed or not.

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But Jesus looks at him with compassion. He says four

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Greek words that are imperative. They're a command. Do this.

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He says, stretch out your hand. And the man obeys.

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How many of you think he had spent years trying to stretch out his hand? How many of you know that he could have been in his pride and in his arrogance have said, how dare you tell me to stretch out my hand?

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What do you think? You think I'm just sitting here acting this way? I've been trying to stretch this thing out for years now.

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But he obeys. He does it. Jesus says, stretch out your hand. He does so. And in their presence, before the eyes of the synagogue, before the eyes of the

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Pharisees, his hand is completely restored so that it looks and acts just like the other one.

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The text is very clear. His hand is restored to perfect health. How many of you might just pass out at that moment?

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Just kind of be like, what? Look over at the person next to you. Did that just really happen? I had the weirdest thing happen to me one time in a basketball game.

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There was a guy who's, I shouldn't even say this. I had to verify it because I could not believe it happened.

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His leg turned around completely the other way. And his heel, his foot was facing the opposite direction.

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And I had to ask somebody a couple of years later, I was there, but did that really happen?

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Because it just was so weird. It did not seem realistic. But anyways, that was kind of gross.

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I really don't know where that came from. The first service didn't have to endure that. But it's just that point of, if you saw something like that, can you imagine how that would impact you?

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This guy's hand is just restored right in front of your eyes. Raise your hand if you'd just be freaked out like that.

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Just be like, whoa! Do it again, Jesus! Do it again! I mean, it would be amazing.

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And yet, look at the response of the Pharisees. It's crazy.

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It's crazy to understand. By the way, it's very easy to think of those Pharisees over there.

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But what about the Pharisee in our own hearts? Who can experience the glory of God. Who can see miraculous things.

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Who can encounter God Himself in the text. Who can come together and experience the delights of fellowship in Jesus Christ.

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And then walk away and do dark and evil things on Monday. Or even the next moment.

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So before we judge the Pharisees in this, let's look at our own hearts and contemplate where we are at. Because we are very prone to this same kind of behavior.

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Verse 14. They went out and plotted to destroy Jesus. They didn't get to heal the hand.

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They didn't get the fame. They didn't get this. And so, there's all kinds of motivations that work into our heart.

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We want the center stage. Jesus took the center stage from them. They're the leaders of the synagogue.

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But now Jesus has gotten all these followers. And the word conspire there.

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They're actually trying to gain people to their side. To oppose Jesus. And here we see seeds of the plot that will eventually result in Jesus Christ hanging on a

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Roman cross. Bleeding and dying for you and me. There's so many angles of application in this.

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And I pray. I pray every Sunday morning that God would deal with us as individuals. I can stand up here and share some applications.

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And then you go out here and go, Well, he didn't cover mine and that's not where I live or whatever. So I really am dependent upon the

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Holy Spirit to work in your heart. There's a lot of angles I could talk about. I could talk about the Sabbath rest and how we should all be taking time each week to rest.

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Independence upon God. How workaholism is detrimental in our culture and is a big problem.

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And that would be good for all of us to consider. Would you agree on that? That would be a good application. Or I could spend time telling you to not be

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Pharisees. To stop laying burdens on others and to be merciful. Start with mercy with others.

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The Pharisees started with rules and didn't have time for compassion and how God's priority is that we're compassionate.

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And that would be a good thing, right? That would be good for us to take on. But I think that would be less than what is most valuable in this text.

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Because there's a way of interpreting Scripture that is really unhealthy.

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It's the notion that we, every sermon, need to come off with a list of things to do.

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Or every time we read the Bible, we need to have a list of things to do this week that's different. Have any of you ever heard the acronym for Bible?

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Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth? Have any of you ever heard that? I think that's unhealthy. So let me say that before anybody really amens that or something.

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Because what it implies is that this is primarily an instruction manual. It's just a list of rules.

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Just a list of things to do. Get to it and get it done. When what this is, is this is nothing less than the revelation of God Himself in human history.

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This is God showing Himself to us. That we might encounter Him here.

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Do you see Jesus in this text? Do you encounter Jesus? Do you miss

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Jesus for the Sabbath and the Pharisees and the grain and the historical little tidbits that I give you?

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Or do you see Jesus here? Do you see Him as He truly is?

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He's the Lord of Sabbath rest. He is the Lord of mercy and compassion. He is the

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Son of Man that the prophet Daniel foresaw. And He identifies Himself that way.

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Where everyone around Him. Just think about this text. Picture that room. Everyone around Him is focused on religion and ritual.

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And there He is. Looking into the eyes of the broken. Looking into the eyes of the downcast.

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Offering healing. Offering hope. There He is speaking into the darkness with words of restoration and mercy.

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While everybody else is consumed with laws and rules and regulations.

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There He is doling out mercy and compassion. Here is our merciful

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King. Offering hope. Offering rest. Offering a new way to live.

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A way of life that starts with mercy. A life based upon the very

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Lord of the Sabbath. The Lord of rest. And this very Jesus, God in flesh, surrendered

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His life for us in the ultimate act of mercy. He gave Himself that we might experience that ultimate rest that can only come through forgiveness that He offers.

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As we pass out communion this morning, consider if you know that Lord of the Sabbath.

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Have you encountered Him in His mercy? Have you met Him and acknowledged Him as Master and asked

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Him to save you? If so, then I would encourage you to please remember His sacrifice as you take the cup and the bread this morning.

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If you have not yet encountered Jesus Christ as Lord, if you have not asked Him to save you, then please pass the juice and the cracker by this time.

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But I would encourage you to reflect on this message. Jesus Christ is truly the Lord of rest.

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And He is offering it freely to anyone who would come under His umbrella of protection.

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By throwing themselves completely upon His mercy. Let's pray. Father, I thank

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You for the mercy of Jesus Christ that is shown in this passage. I thank You for the model and the example of Jesus.

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Father, that as we think about Christmas time, and we're going through the book of Matthew, and we're certainly not reading the

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Christmas story every week, the run up here, but we are seeing Jesus. We're seeing the very nature of the reasons that He came to earth.

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That He came to show us that He is the Lord of rest. That He calls all to come unto

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Him. All who are weary and heavy laden. He offers us rest for our souls. Father, I pray that for each one of us.

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And I recognize that it's very easy as believers, as followers of Jesus, to lose sight of rest.

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To begin to assume that we need to toil and we need to labor in order to get right with You.

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Father, I pray that if there's any here who are not believers, that they would make that initial step to find the rest that is offered through Jesus Christ.