Lord of the Sabbath Matthew 12:1-14

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth This might be the most well -known verse in the
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Bible At one time there was nothing but God Father Son and Holy Spirit There was no matter no energy
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No space no spirit beings It's hard for us to imagine this, but it's true
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Then God and his infinite power spoke things into existence But Genesis 1 tells us that God did not speak everything into existence at once He could have done that he has infinite power so he can do
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Whatever he wants But he chose instead to create the entire universe in one week
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Six days and Then on the seventh day He rested
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Genesis chapter 2 verses 2 and 3 says that on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done and he
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Rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it
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God rested from all his work that he had done in creation So the seventh day
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Was a day of rest for God And you might wonder if God is
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Infinite in power if he never gets tired Why did he take a day of rest?
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I had a professor in seminary who said something very interesting about this Rest is much more than just ceasing from work, but it is enjoying your work
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It is standing back and saying yes, I did that and it's the satisfaction that comes
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From the work that you do in our case. It is the satisfaction of the work
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We have done all week and also enjoying God's creation as we rest
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Now in the Old Testament the Sabbath day was the seventh day of the week Saturday But in the church age the best day to take off is today
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Sunday This is the day where you cease from your labor and join
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God's people in worship It is also a day where you enjoy God's gifts such as family good food and the beauty of his creation
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Isn't this wonderful that God gives us a day? Where he says don't work rest
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Enjoy your labors enjoy The gifts that I have put before you
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To not do this is to go against his creative design To not do this is foolish and you will not function as well over the long haul.
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It's to go against Your creator is to go against his creative design in the
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New Testament era. We should keep this it is for our benefit, but in the
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Old Testament era, they had to keep the Sabbath as Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 10 says remember the
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Sabbath to keep it. Holy Six days you shall labor and do all your work But the seventh day is a
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Sabbath to the Lord your God on it. You shall not do any work But for an
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Israelite to not keep the Sabbath would be a grave sin in God's eyes
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Now for us, it's not technically a sin because we're not ancient
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Israel We're not in the Old Testament period But the point I want to make is that it's it's wise to take a day off every week because that's how
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God designed creation to be But in the Old Testament, it's interesting that they had to take off Saturday the
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Sabbath, but there were exceptions there were times when people could do activities on the
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Sabbath and they were guiltless in doing those things and This morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew We are going to look at an occasion where Jesus and his disciples are doing something on the
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Sabbath and the Pharisees Who are the rule keepers? Shake their finger at them and say you can't do that.
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So once again, we're gonna see a confrontation between Jesus and The Pharisees we'll see this in Matthew chapter 12 verses 1 through 14.
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So at this time, I encourage you to turn there with me And if you use that a right Bible in the pew is on page 971
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The sermon is titled the Lord of the Sabbath and here's our big idea
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What the sermon is calling us to do Do not get caught up in false religious ideas and we will see two reasons why in This text before we jump in.
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Let me give a little recap where we were one week ago We looked at the end of chapter 11 verses 25 through 30 and how sweet a passage that is
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I mean if you didn't hear it, it's on our website. I hope that that will be a blessing to you
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What we saw is that Jesus was giving the sweet message of salvation To those who were wearied by the false
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Jewish teaching of their day the false Jewish teaching said that you needed to earn your own way to heaven and They even added laws that God didn't give
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But Jesus spoke sweet words to the people by telling him to come to him and not be burdened any longer
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He promised that by coming to him you would find rest And what you will find is that his yoke is easy and his burden is light
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In Christ and in Christ only do you find joy and peace forevermore? Every other path will lead one to be weary heavy laden and without hope
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Now this leads us once again to our our text this morning in Matthew chapter 12 verses 1 through 14 that centers on the
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Sabbath and it's true understanding and at the heart of this is
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Blowing up false religious ideas So we'll be we'll see this in beginning in verses 1 and 2
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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 to him look your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on The Sabbath as we look at Jesus ministry you get the impression that he and his disciples were always on the move
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They had a central place of living Peter's home in Capernaum, but they were always on the move
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Jesus ministry was only three and a half years And so they had to be on the move for Christ to accomplish everything.
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He needed to accomplish It was a very active time and when people are on the move, they need to grab things on the go
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There's a reason fast -food places are popular All right, everything is prepared for you.
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It doesn't take much time. It's cheap Obviously in the first century, they didn't have fast -food places. So what do they do?
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They go through farm fields and they grab food to go in verse 1
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Jesus and his disciples are hungry and In the first century Palestine, this would have been late
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March early April This was the season when the grain ripened right around the
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Passover when they had the Feast of Unleavened Bread And at this period there were only a few roads and so much of the travel took place on paths
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That would just run through fields and they'd walk through these paths. The paths would narrowly take one through a grain field
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Now when people went on a journey, they would take enough food with them to supply them for the entire journey however, sometimes they made a mistake a
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Not packing enough for the journey because it lasted longer than planned or maybe they didn't plan well enough and so sometimes people would need to grab grain as they went through the grain field and the disciples find themselves in a situation here where they need food and they don't have any and You might wonder where Jesus and were they stealing here as they did this because you know
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If we were just to walk through someone's field and to start grabbing things, they wouldn't look good, right? Now we know that they're not stealing right?
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Jesus did it. Jesus is sinless as the Bible is very clear on Taking food from this grain field was well in their rights in the
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Mosaic Law God allowed his people to take from their neighbors field if this need arose as Deuteronomy 23 verses 24 and 25 says when you enter your neighbors vineyard
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Then you may eat grapes until you are fully satisfied But you shall not put any in your basket when you enter your neighbors standing grain
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Then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbors standing grain
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Okay, so what this is telling us is take what you need don't get a bucket and just start throwing things in and and Stockpiling it but take what you need as you go through the field
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As verse one tells us they were doing this on the Sabbath They are in the field on the
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Sabbath. So the question is are they breaking the Sabbath? the
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Pharisees think so That's why they say to Jesus in verse 2. Look your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the
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Sabbath as We have seen so often in the book of Matthew the Pharisees make laws that God never made in The parallel account to this in the
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Gospel of Luke in Luke 6 1 that account says the disciples were rubbing They were rubbing the grain with their hands
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The rabbinic tradition known as the Talmud that was that was written after the
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Old Testament period Said that the rubbing of grain was considered threshing and if you're if you're threshing then you're working and They considered blowing the chaff away as winnowing and if you're winnowing then you're working
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But God's Word does not say this As we've already read the
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Mosaic law told them that they could eat in their neighbor's field without taking excess They had permission to eat what they needed and then to go on their way
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But the laws that the Pharisees added did not approve of what the disciples were doing here as The Pharisees accused
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Jesus and his disciples Jesus gives a piercing Response as he so often does to the
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Pharisees. He says this in verses 3 and 4 He said to them. Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him?
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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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So Jesus by appealing to the Old Testament He's rubbing this in their face the
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Pharisees were supposed to be the experts in The Old Testament if a
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Jew had a question about something in the Old Testament in Their scriptures at that time the
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Pharisees were the ones to ask But they didn't understand the
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Old Testament nearly as well as they thought they did and more on this in a bit But let's see what
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Jesus is talking about when he mentions King David What Jesus explains about David is an account from 1st
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Samuel 21 where David and his men were fleeing King Saul who was jealous of David and wanted to kill him as They were running from Saul.
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They came to the city of Nob Nob was the place where the tabernacle was located at this time
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Now to remind you the tabernacle was the temple before the temple It was the dwelling place of God on earth
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It was the holiest place and the tabernacle was like the temple on wheels and eventually under King Solomon The temple was built and when
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David and his men come to the tabernacle Kind of like the disciples here
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They're hungry now everything in the tabernacle was considered holy including the food that was eaten and One item of food that was prepared was the bread of presents
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This bread was baked weekly with 12 fresh loaves The only people that could eat the bread were the priests who worked in the tabernacle
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But when David and his men arrived they were tired and they were hungry and the only food they could eat
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Was the food in the tabernacle? So It was okay to put aside the ceremonial law in order to help
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David and his men eat Otherwise they'd starve as Jesus told this to the
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Pharisees. They would not have been able to argue with him. They were put in their place We're not doing anything wrong
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But they were put in their place even more by what he says in verse 5 Or have you not read in the law how on the
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Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless This one would have been obvious to the
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Pharisees the priests work on the Sabbath. They had to They would have had a rotation yes, but somebody had to work on the
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Sabbath The work in the temple was non -stop Priests did their normal duties and in fact if a sacrifice were brought to the priests on the
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Sabbath They had to bring a double sacrifice according to Leviticus 24 verses 8 and 9 so they worked twice as much on the
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Sabbath than they did any other day of the week and The Pharisees would have known this in this contradiction their teaching would have been more obvious than the example of David and his men who ate the bread of presence violating a ceremonial law
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But the Pharisees ignored what the Bible said and held tightly to their own laws their own rules
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Last week we saw that this is what they do. They burden people with their laws and they missed the whole point of the
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Bible According to Deuteronomy 6 5 the greatest commandment is to love the
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Lord your God with all your might And with all your soul and with all your heart
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Then Jesus said in Matthew 22 39 that the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself
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The priests that let David and his men eat the bread were loving them even though it violated the ceremonial law
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The priests were loving God by working on the Sabbath as God had told them Jesus in John 5 healed a cripple on the
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Sabbath Jesus was loving the man by healing him on the Sabbath. It would not have been loved for him to wait another day
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In our text we were going to see a similar story to this in verses 9 through 13, and I'm gonna go there right now
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He went on from there and entered their synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand and they asked him Is it lawful to heal on the
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Sabbath so that they might accuse him? He said to them Which one of you who has a sheep if it falls into a pit on the
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Sabbath will not take hold of it and lift It out of how much more value is a man than a sheep
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So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath Then he said to the man stretch out your hand and the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the other
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I Already mentioned to you the John 5 passage where Jesus healed a cripple on the
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Sabbath and now in this account Jesus once again heals a man on the Sabbath These rule -keeping
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Pharisees in the synagogue Witnessing this healing are deeply bothered by this and they're thinking
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How dare he heal someone on the Sabbath doesn't he know that he's violating it.
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You're not supposed to work It's supposed to rest These are the same Pharisees who were just with him as we saw in the earlier verses and now they are in the synagogue with him witnessing this healing
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And as they went with Jesus to the synagogue and the synagogue would have been a place of worship for the Jews in the first century
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As they went there the Pharisees still had the Sabbath on their mind and in the
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Talmud their Jewish tradition This was what came after the Old Testament where they added to their own laws
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They had 24 chapters listing Sabbath laws Almost sounds like the tax code right in America.
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I mean just page after page after page does it really need to be that complicated? They were well -versed and what one could or could not do on the
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Sabbath and and remember these are their own laws Not what the Bible said so as they enter the synagogue they see this man with a withered hand and they had already seen
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Jesus heal many people and now they're wondering is he going to break the law and heal on the Sabbath as They asked
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Jesus this question They think that they have him in a trap as they so often did but once again
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Jesus puts them in their place They misunderstand the Sabbath The Sabbath was put there to help mankind
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Not to hurt not to be a burden but a blessing In the parallel passage charged in Mark Jesus explains the blessing of the
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Sabbath for mankind. He said the Sabbath was made for man not man for the
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Sabbath So we can clearly see what Jesus is saying to the
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Pharisees There are exceptions to the Sabbath as long as love is necessary in those
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Circumstances if love is required Then it is okay to violate the
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Sabbath In our text in verses 11 and 12 Jesus explains why he's going to heal the man with a withered hand
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He tells the Pharisees that if a sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath What is the right thing to do?
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Is one to work and lift it out or keep the Sabbath and neglect? The sheep in the ground and the answer is easy.
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You don't leave it there you help it out You pull it out. It's interesting in our area.
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We have we have dairy farmers, you know, we have professions like this And I don't know much about Farming or is specifically dairy farming
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But what I know is that cows need to be milked several times throughout the day and you can't take a day off And it's good and right to of course take care of the cows provide a living for oneself and also provide dairy for the population
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Milking a cow is not only necessary for the health of the animal But also that milk and cheese and other dairy items reach the population to be consumed
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This would be an example of a job that needs to be done on Sundays but my counsel
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Would be to still prioritize gathering with the people of God as best one can
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Hebrews 10 Verses 24 and 25 commands us to meet together and God would never make a profession
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That would keep someone from gathering with the people of God again. There are exceptions. Okay on occasion
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Yes, but he would never make a profession that would keep someone regularly from gathering with the people of God So my counsel is
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I know this is a working area. Okay. I know that I'm stepping on toes here Okay, but my counsel and I say this all in love is
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Prioritize meeting with God's people. Yes, get your work done work hard. I understand there are exceptions but Prioritize meeting with the people of God, but the
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Pharisees did not make exceptions They They cracked the whip they were they drove people
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They were not loving they were quick to point the finger at people who were performing acts of love needing to temporally violate
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The Sabbath they placed this heavy burden upon the Jewish population to keep the Sabbath no matter what?
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They equated obedience to all these rules with godliness And my question is can we do this this has happened historically in the
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Christian community and it still happens today If we say that no one can ever have an occasional drink
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We are falling into pharisaical thinking if we say no one can ever watch a cleaner movie from Hollywood We are falling into pharisaical thinking if we say you can never do clean forms of dancing
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Then we are falling into Pharisaical thinking if we say we can never play a card game
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We are falling into pharisaical thinking if we say or if we think of ourselves as superior to others because we don't do some of these things that others do, we are falling into pharisaical thinking.
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And we're falling into pharisaical thinking when we add laws that God never gave.
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What's interesting is that historically in the church, thinking like that was the dominant form of pharisaical thinking.
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And we are conservative, but there can be an unhealthy conservative. And Baptist churches in the 20th century had this reputation.
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And this is why churches everywhere and denominations are dropping the Baptist name from their title because society associates
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Baptist churches with can't drink, can't smoke, can't dance, can't play cards, so on and so forth.
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And I think that doesn't describe Christianity. So people are dropping the
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Baptist name. And I'm not saying that we're ever going to do that, but just so you know what people are doing. So that is pharisaical thinking on the conservative end.
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But here's what's interesting. I believe that today the dominant form of pharisaical thinking is not coming from ultra -conservatives, but rather from the left, the more liberal side.
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The progressives on the left fringe of evangelicalism. And it's most specifically coming from the social justice warriors or the cultural
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Marxists. This has arisen like a storm over the last five years, especially in 2020.
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I mean, look at a denomination. Look at a church. There's a high likelihood that they're woke. And I've explained from this pulpit before about what the secular society calls racism is not what the
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Bible calls racism. The Bible defines racism as partiality. In other words, you see someone as inferior to you because one is different from you in some way, including skin color.
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And the Bible, of course, defines that as sinful. On the other hand, this is largely not how secular society defines racism today.
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They are calling it systemic racism. And these are Marxist ideas. One is the oppressor just because he or she is white.
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One person is the oppressed just because he or she is a minority. And this is a false definition because one actually has to take part in the sin to be a sinner.
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You're not guilty just because of your skin color. But many in the evangelical church have borrowed the secular definition of racism.
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And whenever the secular media is focused on a story that they perceive was racially charged, these evangelicals get on their social media or whatever media form they have, and they virtue signal.
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If you don't know what virtue signaling is, it's good to learn this. Virtue signaling is when you tell everyone how virtuous you are as you address publicly these so -called social justice causes.
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Look at me. I'm not like these white supremacists. So let me go on my
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Facebook page. Let me go on my Twitter account. And by the way, does anybody know a white supremacist?
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It's hard to find one. There are some out there, OK? There are fringe groups out there. I understand that.
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And yes, everybody struggles with partiality to a certain extent. But to call that a pandemic in society, that's false.
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That's not true. And social justice warriors are pharisaical in two ways.
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One is they add burdens on other Christians that God doesn't command. They call all white
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Christians to repent of systemic racism when a Christian should only repent if one truly commits the sin of partiality.
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Secondly, the social justice warriors are like Pharisees in that they display their supposed righteous works publicly.
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As Jesus says in Matthew 6 to, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, for you as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
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And think about when the George Floyd thing happened. How many people went on their Facebook pages and their
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Twitter accounts and wrote Black Lives Matter without even looking at the facts, without even considering, is this really pushed by a narrative, or is this grounded in reality?
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And it's shameful, frankly, what happened. That's virtue signaling.
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That's pharisaical thinking. And it's interesting, because we think of the conservatives.
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We think only these crazy, ultra -conservatives can be pharisaical, because in the first century, that's what the Pharisees were.
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They were these crazy conservatives who added laws to the Bible. But it can come from the left as well, and it is.
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So this is the most dominant, in my opinion, form of pharisaical thinking in the American church right now.
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And the other is still there, yes. But both need to be watched out for.
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It happens on both sides. And when it happens, when these burdens are added to what
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God said, we must run. We must say, no, I will not go down that path.
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So do not listen to these voices. In our text, the Sabbath was intended to be a blessing to God's people.
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But when you add laws, when you tell God's people to do certain things that God never told them to do, this is burdensome.
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All of his laws are intended to be a blessing to you. And to be told you are doing something wrong when you're not is burdensome.
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Or to be told you need to do something when you don't is burdensome.
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But to take part in righteousness is never a burden, but a delight. 1
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John 5 says that his commands are not burdensome. As you obey what he has commanded, you and others will experience the joy and blessing of God for following his holy will.
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And we saw that last week with the invitation that Jesus gave to follow him.
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He said, I will provide a rest for your souls. He said, his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
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It's a joy to follow the Lord. He doesn't say, you must do this, you must do that. And they're not even there.
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Everything he asked you to do, everything he has asked you to do from his word is for his glory and for your benefit.
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So do not get caught up in false religious ideas. The first reason why is that God's laws are intended to bless his people, not hinder.
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The second reason why we are not to get caught up in false religious ideas is that true religion triumphs over man's faulty system.
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We'll see this in verses 6 through 8, and also verse 14. What we saw in our text is that Jesus is having this conflict with the
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Pharisees. Jesus is fully God, and he's fully man, and he presents God's truth to them, and they wanted nothing to do with him.
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This long -awaited Messiah that has arrived, they hate.
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They love their religious practices, their traditions, their own self -righteousness, but they wanted nothing to do with true religion.
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And Jesus tells them what true religion is in verses 6 through 8. He says this, I tell you, something greater than the temple is here, and if you had known what this means,
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I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless, for the Son of Man is
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Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus got under the skin of the
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Pharisees unlike anyone else did or anyone else could. And as I mentioned, these so -called experts of the
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Bible missed the whole point of the Bible. What Jesus mentions here is that the
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Pharisees misunderstood the temple. The temple was the most holy place on planet
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Earth. It was the place that symbolized the presence of God. And what Jesus does here is make a claim to deity.
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The temple was a building that God visited, that God would temporarily dwell in. But Jesus is
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God's dwelling in human flesh, and he will forever dwell in the flesh. He will forever dwell among his people.
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And what Revelation 21 -23 says is that there will be no need for a physical temple, because God will be in the presence of man.
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Once again, just like he was in the Garden of Eden. And as Jesus stands here before the
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Pharisees, the fact that he is God in the flesh means he is greater than this symbol that the temple was.
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Jesus is not the symbol. He's the real thing. It all points to him. Then in verse 7,
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Jesus quotes Hosea 6 -6. He said, God desires mercy and not sacrifice. In the
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Mosaic law, the Lord told the people of Israel that the temple was the place where they were to bring their sacrifices.
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The reason God set up the sacrificial system - I mean, you read the Old Testament. You see all these laws about the sacrificial system.
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Why did he put that there? The answer is simple. It was all meant to point ahead to the once -for -all sacrifice of Christ.
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That's what the book of Hebrews tells us. In Hebrews 9 -23 -26, it says this.
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It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
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For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
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Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.
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For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once -for -all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
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There it is. That's the meaning. But the Pharisees missed it.
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They missed it all. They thought they were righteous on their own. They thought by doing all these outward ceremonies,
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God was pleased. But God was not pleased. In Isaiah 29 -13, there's a prophecy about these
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Pharisees from the first century. These great opponents of Jesus. This is what it said about them.
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These people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me.
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God doesn't care about ritualistic activity. He cares about the heart.
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Jesus said in Matthew 15 -8 that the Pharisees fulfilled this prophecy. The Pharisees honored
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God with their lips, but they didn't love God and they didn't love people. True religion loves
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God and loves people. Now in this context,
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Jesus is talking about the Sabbath. Jesus is telling them that if you understood what
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God's law was all about, you would not have condemned my disciples for taking the heads of grain as they walked through the field.
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Jesus tells them in verse 8 that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. As the Lord of the Sabbath, he created it to be a blessing for mankind, to help mankind, not to be a burden.
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Isn't that wonderful that we worship God? Everything he does is to help us. Nothing is a burden. But that's what the
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Pharisees were doing. They were making this a burden to people with all their man -made laws for what you could and could not do on the
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Sabbath. But as we have seen, there are exceptions to the Sabbath, and that exception is love.
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If someone could be helped on the Sabbath, then the mandate to rest could be laid aside for a moment. What is interesting is that what the disciples did was not even considered a violation of the law.
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Deuteronomy 23 verses 24 and 25 gave them permission to eat the heads of grain as they went through the field.
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And what Jesus explained earlier is that a ceremonial law could be violated for the sake of love. The example that Jesus used above is that David and his men needed food, and so the priests put the ceremonial law aside and let them eat the bread of presents in order to help them.
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But in our passage with the disciples eating the heads of grain, no ceremonial law is being violated.
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In the same way, no ceremonial law was being violated as we saw in verses 9 through 13 when
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Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. There is no law in the Old Testament that says medical practices could not be formed on the
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Sabbath. Someone's sick, they need help, it's the Sabbath, get the person help.
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That's the right thing to do. But the Pharisees got all bent out of shape about this.
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Jesus also gave the example of a sheep falling into a pit. Of course, it's fine to pull out the sheep from the pit on the
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Sabbath. This is an act of kindness. For God's creation. The Pharisees were so steeped in their rituals and traditions that they did not love
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God and they did not love His image bearers. They loved their ritualistic practices and doing good to be seen by others.
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And what we see in these verses is true religion versus false religion. True religion loves
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God and others. And what joy is experienced as one lives this out. False religion loves rituals and tradition.
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False religion is self -focused and not others focused. False religion is about glory for self and not for God.
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It's ugly when you look at it. Now before Jesus came on the scene, the
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Pharisees were the good religious people in the Jewish community who did not take part in any of the outward grievous sins.
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And I once heard one of my professors in seminary tell me, he said, you want a Pharisee to be your neighbor.
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They would have been good neighbors. But think about how grievous they are in God's eyes.
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I mean, these aren't people throwing a party. You know, I mean, we don't want neighbors, right, who play loud music and party till two in the morning, right?
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The Pharisees weren't that way, right? They would have gone to bed at nine o 'clock. They would have been early risers. They would have been people who paid their taxes.
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They would have been people who maybe would have helped you, right, if you asked for help. But they're grievous in God's sight.
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But as I mentioned, Jesus got under their skin because he knew how evil they were in their hearts.
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He got under their skin unlike anyone else. And this led them to do something they would not have done in the normal climate of society, right?
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Right, he poked the bear. And this led their dark hearts to be exposed.
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Verse 14 tells us what they were willing to do if their false religious system, which they treasured, that was their idol, right, their own false religion.
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If he goes after that, the gloves come off. We're getting rid of this guy. Verse 14, this is what they say.
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But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.
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Jesus humiliates them in front of people by calling them out for their hypocrisy, for their man -made religion.
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And they plan to eliminate him. They plot to kill him. And this will only build as we continue our way through the
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Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is blowing up the foundation of their false
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Jewish system. And they would rather, this is the evil here, they would rather hold tightly to this than admit that they're wrong and follow him.
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It makes you wonder, what idols do we have in our lives? For some people, it is a false
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Jewish religious system, right? But what idols in our lives are we not willing to give up, that God is calling us to give up, that we hold tightly to?
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And that if he goes after it, we say, or others say, don't go there. You can go after these, but don't go there.
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That's something for us to think about. What idols? When I was growing up, sports was a big idol for me.
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I loved sports, loved my favorite teams, even though they always let me down, but I loved them, right?
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It was always, that's the famous words of the Minnesota Vikings, next year. There's always next year. It's an annual holiday at the end of December.
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But that was my idol. And God said, give it up, blow it up.
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You can't follow me and hold on to that. And by his grace, he has released me from that.
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What in your life does he want you to release you from? And again, for some people, I mean, there's people going to church today. Their idol is their religion.
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And frankly, Roman Catholicism is very steeped in this. People are, okay, let's just go through the rituals.
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Let's think that God is okay with us. Let's wear these robes. Let's do mass. Let's do all these things.
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And what God is saying is, you honor me outwardly, but inwardly, you do not honor me.
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Okay, and it might not be wrong. It might be some other falsehood. You can even come to an evangelical church like this, and just going through the motions.
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And you're just doing, you're just checking the box. God's not pleased with that. He wants your heart. He wants you.
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He wants everything. He wants you to worship him. So he's going to go after your idol.
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And you can say, give it up. Leave it behind. Follow me. Let's no longer have that be your
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God. Let me be your God. And my yoke is easy. My burden is light. And you will find rest for your soul.
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It's the happy route. But it's hard to give up our idols. And I think of Lord of the Rings, right? We talk about Lord of the
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Rings a lot in this church. But, you know, Smeagol, right? He says, my precious, right?
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Your precious is your idol. Give it up. Leave it behind. So do not be fooled by outward religion.
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It has the appearance of godliness. But godliness, it is not. It is the furthest thing from godliness and an abomination in God's sight.
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But true religion through Christ leads to true righteousness. And true religion is beautiful.
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False religion is ugly. And it's displeasing to God. So do not get caught up in false religious ideas.
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And we've seen two reasons why. The first reason why is that God's laws are intended to bless His people, not hinder.
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The second reason why, as we've just seen, is that true religion triumphs over man's faulty system.
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So may we not believe the lies out there that are recycled in new ways in our day that would be a burden to us.
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May we follow God's teaching, not man's. May we live in the blessing of truly following Him and His ways.
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And by God's grace, we will do this as we submit to His will. Now, next
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Sunday, we will see Jesus fulfill another prophecy as He's done so often in the book of Matthew.
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And what we are going to see is that He wants Israel's hope alone.
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Or sorry, He is not Israel's hope alone, but He's also the hope of the nations. He's not just the God of the
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Jews. He's the God of the Gentiles as well. So we will see this next Sunday. Let's bow our heads in prayer at this time.
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Father in heaven, we're seeing this driven home as we go through the gospel.
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Jesus went after the false religious system of His day. He went after the great idolatry of His day.
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And He calls everybody to follow Him. Leave your idols behind. Leave your religious system behind.
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Leave your idol behind and follow Me. And you will find rest for your souls.
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For I am gentle and lowly at heart. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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May we always remember that. May we not follow the burdens of man that someone might put on us.
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Someone might tell us we have to do this. When you say, no, you don't. Just follow Me. Or someone might say, you must follow in this way.
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And we will say, no, we don't have to because it's not yours. It's not your way.
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But may we 100 % follow, Lord, what you have called us to do, realizing that living in that is truly a blessing.
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we do this by your strength. In Jesus' name, Amen.