The Meaning of the Sabbath: Matthew 12:9-14

Good morning, it's great to be with you this morning and be able to worship with you this morning and We know that the

Lord is is with us and he's going to bless our time So let's open up with a word of prayer

Dear Heavenly Father. We're thankful this morning that we can come before your presence through our

Lord Jesus Christ We ask for your blessings Upon our time and upon our worship and upon the teaching of the word

That it would edify and encourage the Saints in this difficult time and we ask all this in Jesus name

Amen Well, we have some announcements Of course, we are in the middle of the corona virus.

So we will not meeting be meeting on Sunday mornings and our Bible studies will be cancelled until further notice

We will continue to update you on the status of our meetings as we hear more about the corona virus and we are going to Comply with the state's and government's directives to stay healthy and safe in terms of prayer

Let's pray for our president and the country that we would have wisdom from God to deal with the corona virus pray that God will use this crisis for His good and we will be able to get the gospel out

Pray for God's comfort on those who have the disease and The families of those who have the disease what a sad thing

So we our hearts go out to them and let's keep them in prayer Pray that the

Lord will enable us to pray at this time to use all the opportunities that he's put before us to do good and to glorify him and that we will continue to have attitudes of faith and love and mercy as We serve him

And it's at this time. We're going to have some worship We Live in unprecedented times.

I don't need to tell you you're going through it confused

We're traumatized We don't know what to do But the good news is the encouragement is is that God does?

He is in control. He is in control of this world and in this

Of this crisis and he will take us through and we need to hold on to him in the

Word of God in this morning Jesus teaches us something important He teaches us about mercy the

Pharisees put the letter of the law above the spirit of the law

They put observance of the Sabbath over the restoration and well -being of a man with a withered hand and Also in this time of crisis that we face we can lose sight of God and we can lose sight of what is important because We become so Traumatized at what's happening in the world and it's easy for us to forget that God holds the world in his hands.

It's easy for us to forget that God is in control and what we see now in the in this crisis is

That What people need more than anything else is people need

God and Mercy, we all need mercy. We need God's mercy

We need to extend mercy to others and I believe that in this trying time

That God is is speaking to this sleepy world that is seeking to live without him

Showing them that they need him so desperately that The world cannot do anything without God And that man is not in control, but God is in control

Give your life to him Live for Christ and Show mercy to others.

These are things we learn in a crisis like this do good That's not only the meaning of the

Sabbath, but it's the meaning of our lives take every opportunity To do good to show mercy to serve

God and that's what we're gonna see tonight This morning

That it's the Meaning of the Sabbath and so I want to read these verses in Matthew 12 verses 9 through 14

Matthew 12 9 through 14 Okay I'll read

Now when he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue and behold

There was a man who had a withered hand and they asked him saying is it?

Lawful to heal on the Sabbath and they that they might accuse him Then he said to them

What man is there among you who has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the

Sabbath? will not Lay hold on it and lift it out of how much more value then is a man than a sheep

Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath Then he said to the man stretch out your hand

And he stretched it out and it was restored as whole as the other Then the

Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy Him.

So the first thing we see here is the problem

We see a man with need and here our

Lord Jesus Came to the synagogue and he came to the synagogue on a

Sabbath and We see now a change in the narrative in the book of Matthew.

It is at this time That the Jewish religious leaders Seek to destroy our

Lord Jesus and they're plotting against him and this will ultimately lead him to go to the cross to die for our sins on the cross and Here according to God's plan.

He is going directly Into a confrontation with the religious leaders so he goes to the synagogue and That by itself is

Very important that Jesus went on the Sabbath to the synagogue and one of the things we see there is that he wanted to Redeem and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So he went to them and we also see the importance of Worship and Fellowship that our

Lord. Jesus is Teaching us and showing us that that we need

Worship, we need worship with God's people and how important fellowship is and we have

Really learned that at this time this crisis that we're going through How important it is that we

Fellowship together and how much we need each other

Because in this world, we need to encourage one another in our faith

And that's what fellowship is and that's what Paul says Fellowship is in Romans 1 11 and 12 turn with me to Romans 1 11 and 12

I Like this Definition of fellowship because it puts it right there where we live

Fellowship is mutual encouragement basically How we encourage each other

In the faith with our mutual faith Romans 1 10 and 11

Making requests if by means Now at last

I may find a way in the will of God to come to you for I long to see you verse 11 that I may impart to you some spiritual gift that you may be established in then verse 12 and Look at what this verse says that is that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith

Both of you and me and that's what fellowship is that we will be encouraged together

By our mutual faith. And so how important that is and we're learning how precious that is

With this stay -at -home order that we have We're learning not only are we to worship

God? Wherever we are and we're the people of God, but how precious fellowship is

And how precious it is to assemble together and fellowship together

Now going back to Matthew chapter 12 verse number 10

We see that right there in the midst of the congregation is a man with a big need

Really big need he had a withered hand. Well, I'll tell you that would be a rough situation

Probably couldn't Move his hand much couldn't use it He was very very needy he knew that he couldn't heal that himself and there he was right there in the midst of the synagogue and What we see is that the scribes and the

Pharisees were using this man and this man's need to accuse and to get to the

Lord Jesus and So if we look at at Luke 6 verses 6 through 7 we see that turn to Luke Luke chapter 6

Verses 6 and 7 what it says here a

Companion passage to the other one It says now it happened on another Sabbath also that he entered the synagogue and taught and a man was there

Whose right hand was withered and look at verse 7. So the scribes and Pharisees watched him closely whether he would heal on the

Sabbath that they might find an Accusation against him so they kind of use this man for their own means to accuse our

Lord because they knew That our Lord was very merciful and very sympathetic and then when he saw this man, you'd want to heal him

Nevertheless It still remains that in that congregation there was a man with a huge need and that also talks about fellowship

You know in our congregation Even though we're a small church. We have many different people and we have many different needs and we're there to encourage one of their

Each other and we're there to support one another and minister to one another and we see that here as well, and so In verse number 10

It's interesting we see that the scribes and Pharisees are testing him seeking to accuse the

Lord of breaking the Sabbath of Actually working on the

Sabbath. Can you imagine that? He's seeking to do good and they want to accuse him for working

Interesting, and so they asked him the question saying is it lawful to heal on?

the Sabbath and the answer, of course is

Yes Because the Word of God the

Old Testament law Never taught that it was unlawful to do good deeds and acts of mercy on the

Sabbath but according to the scribes and the

Pharisees and their traditions or man -made traditions It was unlawful and So that's that's the issue here

And so We need to be very careful ourselves as Believers that we just don't put

Mere religious observance above people and above the needs of people and We have to ask ourselves

What is the Sabbath and why did God give the Sabbath to the

Jews? And I do like what William Macdonald Said about that in his commentary on Matthew He showed us that the

Sabbath is on Saturday and the Lord's day is on Sunday That's very important to understand the

Sabbath was given to the Jews to remember that God created everything and that we were to remember his creation and we see that in Genesis 2 verses 2 and 3

It was not till later When God gave Moses the law and the

Ten Commandments that the Lord told the

Jews to keep the Sabbath Okay, so we need to remember that now when we think about the

Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 verse 8 nine of those

Commandments are moral. They're the moral law and one commandment is

Ceremonial and that one commandment that ceremonial is the Sabbath Nine of those commandments

Carry into the New Testament for us to practice

But one of them Doesn't and that's the Sabbath We're never told in the

Sabbath to keep the Sabbath okay, so Christians worship on the

Lord's Day Sunday because that is the day the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and we celebrate his resurrection

When we meet on Sunday the Sabbath refers to Creation the

Lord's Day to the new creation the

Sabbath points to Christ and is a shadow of things to come but Christ is the substance life and salvation is found in Christ not keeping the

Sabbath or observing the law what we need is grace and That's what we're to understand

So I hope that kind of helps to have the right perspective on the

Sabbath and the Lord's Day a lot of people are confusing the

Lord's Day with the Sabbath These days and in calling it the

Sabbath, but the Sabbath actually is on this on the seventh day. So We need to understand that we now have freedom through Christ We're not under the law anymore, but we have liberty in Jesus Christ So the the next point we want to look at is the parable

We've looked at the problem verses 9 and 10. Now. We want to look at the parable verses 11 and 12

The teaching about the Sabbath I Love the Lord Jesus is teaching.

Well, he's the Lord He's the master teachers. I love his teaching on Practical things

I I love his parables and his metaphors they just hit home and this parable

Especially hits home and it really tells us Not only what our focus should be as true believers in Jesus Christ But it gives us the meaning of the

Sabbath and really the meaning of our life it's so profound

And he's talking to these Pharisees and there were scribes there too.

We saw in Luke 6 And he's saying to them what one of you if one of your sheep would fall into a pit would not

Grab that sheep and lift it out to try to save it on the

Sabbath and They're all probably all going Wow really and I bet you there were a few of them that that very thing happened to and They went ahead and lifted that sheep out on a

Sabbath and wasn't that work compared according to what they said Because I want to just show you a meaning of a few words

Here first of all the word pit in the Greek means a large hole a deep hole

It means a ditch man out that sheep was Stuck in a big ditch he couldn't get out and it took a lot of effort to get that sheep out and this is on the

Sabbath because the word lay hold of in the

Greek actually has the idea of Great intense effort and so Isn't that work?

But Jesus is saying that's the right thing to do

The right thing to do is if you see it even an animal that falls into a pit and it's gonna hurt itself or especially

One of your own animals. That's one of your work animals. You're gonna want to lift it out right away

To save it how much more would you want to save a human being?

That has a horrible affliction and infirmity and want him healed on The Sabbath that's the point verse 12 hits the

Lord hits on the point so So well of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?

and He's just hitting home to the Pharisees how much more value is a human being a man than a sheep a

Man is of so much more value a human being we net we can't forget that people

We are made in the image of God and that is why life is sacred

Because we as human beings are made in the image of God and Even if there's people that are pretty rough and rough around the edges.

They are still Created by God in the image of God Therefore we as human beings and as Christians we need to show them respect that's the idea and these

Scribes and Pharisees who claim to be religious leaders were showing no respect

No mercy to a human being that needed restoration and needed healing that man with a withered hand and as a contradiction and it was

Hypocrisy really and that's what we see What we need really is is

Mercy our Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5

Verse 7 I'm going to read that to you Matthew 5 verse 7 blessed are the

Merciful right For they shall obtain

Mercy blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy

When we look at Romans 14 verse number 6, let's Want to go let's go there

Romans 14 verse 6 We see something's just so important Romans 14 6

He who observes the day Observes it to the Lord and he who does not observe the day

To the Lord he does not observe it he who eats eats to the Lord for he gives

God Thanks, and he who does not eat to the Lord. He does not eat and gives

God things So in other words, this is talking about the fact

That we as believers have been justified by faith in Jesus Christ by his grace

And that we are not now Justified by the works of the law by observing one of the

Jewish holy days or whatever in the Old Testament or merely by observing the law

That does not make us righteous The righteousness we have is what is called imputed righteousness.

It's by faith in Jesus Christ. And so now Whatever we do

Whether it's any kind of religious observance or or a religious Holy day or whatever it is

We want to do it as unto the Lord. So now we live every day as Unto the

Lord we live our lives unto the Lord now as redeemed people and If a person feels that he should celebrate a certain

Religious Holy day or the Sabbath he is to do it unto the

Lord and is not to force Another believer to do it because we are now under grace and it's

God who now holds us up and So that's the the idea here

So we need to understand that About the Sabbath here and So I Like what the

Lord says in verse number 12 going back to Matthew 12 therefore it's lawful to do good on the

Sabbath and That's the issue here.

We're talking about what is the Sabbath? What's the meaning of the Sabbath?

The idea here is that We are to to do good every day all of our lives as Believers whether it's on the

Sabbath or on any other day We are to do good and So Jesus Christ verse number eight

The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath So we understand

What our focus should be? Jesus is Lord We serve

Him He's Lord of the Sabbath and man was not made for the

Sabbath But the Sabbath was made for man. And so now our focus is to remember

God to do good to be merciful That is what we live for.

That's the meaning of the Sabbath God never said

In his word that you are not to do good on the Sabbath or show mercy

We are but the man -made religion of the

Pharisees Misapplied it

To the point where it became legalism And so we have to watch out for that and be careful so we see

The meaning of the Sabbath by this parable We are to do good

We are to show mercy We are not to put man -made external religious observance above Mercy and compassion for our fellow man and love for God.

God wants a true heart which the Pharisees were not

Showing and I think this has just so much ramification now because we live in very hard times

I've been talking to people and They have been saying people are very hard now, especially now during the

Coronavirus, we're scared. Everybody's scared and We need love now.

We need mercy We need to be kind to one another and we as believers we need to be reaching out to people

We are still the church Whether we're in our house Whether we're outside of our house, whether we're inside of a church or wherever it is

We don't stop being the people of God. We don't stop showing mercy. We don't stop doing good

That's what we're called to be that's what we're called to do we're called to follow that which is good and do what is good and to show mercy and Especially in these times and it's hard for all of us.

I just went out to the grocery store The other day and going to grocery stores can be quite an ordeal right now

It's not a very fun place to go. People don't want to get germs. They don't want to get sick We know that we don't want to get the coronavirus so I went to the store the other day and The checker asked me.

Are you ready to be checked out? And I said, okay, okay, and so I went up to her and Started putting my stuff on the conveyor belt and everything and I could really relate to her because I Was in the grocery business

I was a grocery clerk, I'm a journeyman grocery clerk I know how hard it is for them

I've been there, but I I feel for them now Because like the people in the hospitals the nurses the doctors they're on the front lines

They're risking their own selves their own lives for people and even at the grocery stores, you know, it's very hard job

They could get germs and everything and I knew that this young lady was stressed out and I told her

I said I feel for you You're doing an important job now, and I know you're risking your own self

She said yeah, I am I said well, I used to be in the grocery business And she started kind of venting to me

She told me yeah, you don't know How bad people have been here to me?

She said one person spit on me. I couldn't believe it. And then she said

One person said a racial slur to me after which I Said to her, you know what?

That's really bad. That's not what we need At this time what we need is

Kindness we need to be showing kindness went on and she said that's it. And then

I was leaving I told her I Really appreciate what you're doing

You know Go when you go in the grocery stores or Whatever.

Not only should we be praying for people but tell them how appreciative you are for what they're doing and We we need to Be really kind and merciful to others

Now I'm not saying that all people are like that acting like that My wife and I went for a walk yesterday and I noticed that We saw a lot of people out there

Walking around because they needed to get out of their house And that's what we wanted to do get out of our house

And I noticed just so many people In the little area where we were walking we're all

Coming up to us and saying hello Whereas before I didn't notice that and they seem to be very kind to us

Because they knew we're all in the same thing Let's show more kindness.

That's what we need now. Let's show people The love of God that's the meaning here of the

SAP So we've seen the problem the parable the plot verses 13 and 14

The Lord healed the man I Love this what verse 13 shows us is the authority of our

Lord Jesus Christ That he is God and he said to the man stretch out your your hand and that's interesting

Because it would have been hard for this man who had a withered hand to stretch out his hand It would have taken a lot of effort, but you see that's obedience and what the

Lord wanted from this man was Obedience he told him to do something.

That's what the Lord wants from us is Obedience and he's pleased with our obedience to him and our obedience to the

Word of God, but it's gonna take effort Just like the word stretched implies

This has the idea that he took a lot of effort. It took a lot of pain.

It it it took a lot of Work for him to stretch out his hand, but he did it and that's the same for us with our obedience to the

Lord It's not gonna be easy It's gonna take a lot of effort from us through the Holy Spirit to be obedient to God But you know when we are obedient to God There's a lot of blessing in that There's blessings in obedience to God's Word and I want to show you that because maybe you want to underline this verse in your

Bible James 1 25 because it's good to know that when a lot of people in the world are not obedient to God but when we are

It's a blessing James 1 Verse 25, but he who looks into the perfect law of Liberty and Continues in it and is not a forgetful here

But a doer of that work see that this one will be what? Blessed in what he does in other words when we not only look at at God's Word and God's Statutes and his commandments, but we continue in it and we do it

We're not forgetful here's but we're actually putting forth the effort and applying

God's Word by God's grace and power in our lives. We are will be blessed in in what we do

King James says the man will be blessed in his deed So remember that in this time

That's important for our lives that we are really blessed with obedience and We need to be obedient to God and his word and this man was obedient and notice

It said he stretched it out. He stretched out his hand and what happened

It was restored as the other Wow What this shows us is that the

Lord Jesus is Lord He can do anything.

He's God. He has all power in heaven and in earth Beloved there's nothing that the

Lord can't do for us according to his omnipotent power and his

Omnipotent knowledge he is God and that should give us a lot of hope

The one who created us He can heal us now.

God doesn't always heal us, but he can heal us. He healed this man. Oh He's the creator and he restored his

Withered hand To what it was like before. Oh How great?

How wonderful the Lord Jesus is and so We see that there the

Pharisees reaction should have been one of not only ah, but Thankfulness that the man was healed

But look what we see in verse number 14 the

Pharisees plotted against the Lord verse 14 Then the

Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him

This is pretty incomprehensible to me It just shows their hard hearts

They saw the Lord of Glory standing right in front of them now when

I say the Lord of Glory I'm saying God in human flesh Jesus Christ God in human flesh

God incarnate was standing right in front of them and They couldn't see it they saw his incredible miracle and Instead of being thankful They were enraged and they wanted to kill him.

How sad is that? How wicked the human heart can be how deceitful sin is, huh?

What should have been their reaction was they who were supposedly looking for the

Jewish Messiah the Savior should have fallen at his feet and Said thank you.

Wow, you healed this man Only God can heal

You are Lord But instead they were raged against him That they might destroy him and if we read in the companion passage in map mark 3 6, you don't need to turn there

We see that the Herodians Plotted to destroy him with the

Pharisees now This is kind of funny because the Herodians were Jews But they were a political party not a religious party and they were supporters of Herod Well, the

Pharisees didn't like that because Herod and Rome were oppressing the

Jews and they were Seen by especially the Pharisees and a lot of the

Jews as bitter Enemies and oppressors of the Jews so they didn't like them

So the Pharisees and the Herodians weren't exactly friends.

They didn't exactly like each other But it says in mark 3 6 that they banded together

The Pharisees and the Herodians to seek to destroy Jesus that's interesting

Because you can take people and groups that are diametrically

Opposed to each other don't agree with each other on issues and are kind of Like enemies with each other but You they can get together

To oppose and bitterly persecute somebody or something and that's what we see that Here that the

Pharisees and the Herodians were united together sadly in their hatred of Jesus Christ and What is what a sad thing

So this morning We see a lot We really see

Grace, we see the meaning of the Sabbath that we as believers are are are under grace

We're saved by grace through the faith of Jesus Christ Faith in Jesus Christ said

I hope that you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior And you are saved from your sin and you are now under grace and you now live by grace and and and we see that we have great liberty and freedom as believers in Jesus Christ now and so we also see

The Understand now that this that the Sabbath Was given to the

Jews to remember Creation to remember

God and also to take time out and serve

God and God Never intended that the

Sabbath was to be some kind of legalistic burden that it became through the traditions of men

And God never said in his word That we are not to do works of mercy and goodness on the

Sabbath on the contrary the message this morning is That we as Believers are to do good works and acts of mercy all the time

In our lives in every situation Whether it's the

Sabbath or on a regular day or on the Lord's Day when we assemble to worship together

We are called To serve God we are called to do good to do good works to manifest the fruits of the

Spirit to show mercy and compassion to others That's what

Jesus is teaching this morning and how relevant and applicable it is now, especially in these hard hard times of the coronavirus beloved

The encouragement is is God is in control. He's gonna bring us through We are still the people of God Continue to serve him continue to love him show kindness mercy to others as you have been shown mercy

Through Christ the very mercy that we have experienced through Christ we are to show to others

What important lesson what important thing that is for us this morning?

and Now we are going to Close with our our benediction and then we will have our closing song

Let's close with word of prayer Dear heavenly father. Thank you so much for your love through Jesus Christ For all your provision for us through Christ that we can again get back to the real meaning of of why you created us and that we are to know you and that we can now know you through Jesus Christ and We are to be people who who seek to reflect

Christ reflect his love and show his mercy and compassion to others

Help us to do that as a church and as individuals father in this time

And thank you that we can have the assurance that you are with us Always even until the end of the world and that we know that you're working all things together for good for those

Who love God and are the called according to your purpose and so we can be encouraged

In these promises and in you and in your word lord, and I pray Father for your blessings upon your people this morning that you will

Bless them with you with your love with your grace and your peace And help us to be people who are committed to you

Wherever we are that we will be testimonies to you and show the love of God to others