Luke 6:6 - 11: Rest For Your Soul

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Pastor Mike Abendroth, Luke 6:6 - 11, Rest For Your Soul

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I was thinking about my favorite teachers in my life, those that have taught me.
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And in school, it was fifth grade Dan Sanfilippo, Mr. Sanfilippo.
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And I loved him. He loved teaching. He loved the students. Probably 10 years ago,
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I looked up on the white pages, Dan Sanfilippo, Omaha, Nebraska teacher, and I found his number.
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And I just called him, and he answered. And I said, Mr. Sanfilippo, you probably don't remember me, but my name is
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Mike Ebendroth, and I had you many, many years ago in fifth grade. And he said, Mike, good to hear from you.
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How's your sister, Marcy, and your brother, Pat, doing? And I thought, wow,
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Dan Sanfilippo. Although there was a thing I didn't like about him.
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We all had to stand in a circle and hold hands, and then the person here had to hold onto this electrode, and then the other person had to hold onto this electrode, and he would grind this electricity through, and you would shake, and when you dropped out, the circle would get smaller, and the current would get more intense.
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And I'm fifth grade, and it came down to me and another girl named Alice Police.
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And all the guys rooting for me and all the girls rooting for Alice Police, I'm just shaking, and I have to win one for the team.
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She was probably five foot eight and already a woman, and I don't even have my adult teeth in.
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Anyway, I lost. You want to know why I have psych problems?
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That's one of them. In the theological arena, my favorite professor is probably
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Sinclair Ferguson, and I've learned so much from Dr. Ferguson, how he carries himself, how he talks about the
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Lord Jesus, and how he wants to help students. My family and I were in Scotland in 2000, and we went to hear him preach.
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He was at St. George Tron in Glasgow, and I was preaching here the book of Mark, and Mark has 16 chapters about Jesus, and not a lot of application per se, do this or don't do that.
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And so I said to Dr. Ferguson after he preached, I'm having a hard time coming up with a lot of application things.
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Could you help me? I'm preaching through Mark now. And he said, Mike, is there anything wrong with telling people the glories of Jesus every week?
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The answer is no. And so what he meant by that was to keep preaching about the
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Lord Jesus. After all, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the
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Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
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In other words, as you look at the object of your faith, you become like the object of your faith.
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If you worship something, you become like that. If you worship money, you become greedy, et cetera. And I thought that is so true that there's something to be said for Jesus's commendation of Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus in Luke 10 and just listened and learned, right?
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Here was the advice that Mary took, don't do something, just stand there. And then
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Mary too busy serving. But since we're in Luke now, the gospel of Luke for week after week after week,
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I kind of want to connect the dots a little bit. I kind of want to telegraph a path so you can say to yourself, how practical is it to see
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Jesus every week? Does that help me in any way, shape or form? So let me ask you this question.
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Out of all the sins that you commit or I commit, is there a particular sin that you commit that you commit all the time, that you hate, that you don't want to do anymore, that you struggle with and you say,
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I don't want to do that anymore. It's just not right. It doesn't honor the Lord. And I'd like to stop that sin.
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And of course, everyone has those things, those sins. So my question is now, how do you stop those sins?
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How do you say, I'm going to stop that sin? Is it as simple as saying, stop it?
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Is it as simple as saying, I'm just not going to do it anymore? Is it as simple as say, I'm going to resolutely buckle down.
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I'm going to have accountability. I'm going to whatever the list might be.
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Before we get to Luke 6, please turn your Bibles to Colossians 3. And I just want you to remember that if you'd like to say yes to holy living and no to sinful living, you cannot forget about the
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Lord Jesus. He's directly related to the solution of your problem.
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Christ isn't just for salvation. Christ is for sanctification. Christ isn't just for pardon declared not guilty.
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Christ is for power because He gives you the Spirit of God to say no to sin, to say yes to righteousness.
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And so I want you today, as we look at the Gospel of Luke pretty soon, for you to remember as we're studying week after week the glories of Jesus, the glory of Jesus, this is not something that is abstract.
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It's for your daily living so you can say in light of the grace of God, because I'm in Christ, I want to say yes to righteousness and I want to kill sin.
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As Thomas Watson said, be killing sin or it'll be killing you. So I want you to realize all problems of the
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Christian life have to have Jesus around. The missing element in holy living in most churches is
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Jesus. So I want to make sure that we understand that very fact.
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If you go to Colossians chapter 3 and pick it up in verse 5, maybe you'll see one of those sins that you want to stop in this passage.
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Colossians 3, 5, put to death, mortified, therefore, what is earthly in you?
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Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
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On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
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Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self and its practices and you have put on the new self, which has been renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
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Here there is not Greek and Jew circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, sithian, slave free, but Christ is all and in all.
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Put on then, verse 12, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.
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As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the
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Father through Him. Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives.
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Do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the
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Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people -pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the
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Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the
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Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
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Dear congregation, maybe you found that sin that you'd like to say no to in that list.
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Now if you go back to verse 5, of course you know one of the key words in Colossians 3, 5 is therefore, therefore.
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Of course, God's laws and rules are to be obeyed, and they guide us, they help us honor the
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Lord, but of course you know there's something else besides the exhortation to obey, and he says in verse 5, therefore, and of course as all pastors do, what's the therefore, therefore.
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You listen to Christian radio just like I do. Well we could go all the way back to Colossians 1, 1, or for the sake of time, just go back to the beginning of the chapter, chapter 3.
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If then you have been raised with Christ, and you have, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
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Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, therefore deal with sin, therefore put on, put off, etc.
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Dear congregation, dealing with sin in your life is directly related to Jesus, because he gives you the motivation to say no to sin, the power to say no to sin, the spirit dwelling in you, the reasons to glorify him, and so when we're looking at Jesus week by week, and verse by verse, probably for five years or so, if you live long enough, if I live long enough, what's the application?
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Well the application really is two -fold, boiled down to, when you look at Jesus, you're transformed into his image, and also then you realize who
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Jesus is to help you to say no to sin. Make sense? So when you think to yourself, we're coming to a passage today, and just to be honest,
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I'm working on the passage, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, withered hand, man healed, and I'm thinking, okay, what's the takeaway?
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What's the so what? Right here preaching, you can say, so what? What's the point? We're gonna learn that Jesus is
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Lord of the Sabbath, that's a so what. We're gonna learn that he is God incarnate, that's a so what. We're gonna learn that he has mercy on people that have a withered hand and can't work.
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We're going to learn that he purposely antagonizes the false teachers.
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We're going to learn that legalism kills and suffocates. We're also gonna have our eyes on the
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Lord Jesus, and as we do, I want you to know the Spirit of God is working in your life.
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I want you to know when you're focused on Jesus, you're not focused on yourself, you're not focused on your own problems, you're not focused on anything else.
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All eyes, spotlight on Jesus. And so today, with that introduction, let's turn our
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Bibles to Luke chapter 6. You're gonna love to watch the Lord Jesus in Luke 6, dealing with this man and dealing with the men.
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Jesus is Lord. As you're turning there, Heidelberg Catechism asks the question, why do you call him our
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Lord? Speaking of Jesus. Answer, because not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood,
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Jesus has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil. And Jesus has bought us, body and soul, to be
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His very own. Jesus is Lord. And the lords of the modern religion during the time of Jesus, the
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Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, they didn't like it that Jesus is now on the scene.
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Of course, Jesus shows up and they should be repenting, worshiping, following, being in awe the
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Messiah has finally come. Like Simon who's holding a little baby, the expected one is now here.
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But of course, these legalistic Pharisees don't like the
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Lord Jesus. And of course, that's exacerbated by Jesus forgiving sins.
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Can you imagine? They hated that. That was in Luke 5. That Jesus would eat with sinners and be friends with them, they hated that, chapter 5 of Luke.
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Jesus doesn't even fast. And they despise Jesus for not fasting,
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Luke 5. As a matter of fact, Jesus has a bunch of antinomian, lawless, licentious disciples and they'll walk through the fields and the grain, they'll walk through the fields and take grain on the
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Sabbath of all things. And so one controversy after another, after another, and Jesus is antagonizing them.
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And so last week when we looked at Luke chapter 6 verses, He said to them, the Son of Man is
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Lord of the Sabbath. That was a declaration that we saw that Jesus is essentially saying,
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He is saying, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, Master of the Sabbath, I'm over the Sabbath, I created the Sabbath. Who does that except God Himself?
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I am God. And then we talked a little bit about if Jesus is Lord, how does that look in our life?
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Whether it's work or school or anything else. Now let's take a look at, in verses 6 through 11, the demonstration of Jesus' Lordship.
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And I call this, how many people here go to Awana or have been to Awana or teach at Awana or have served at Awana?
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How many? Yes. For the longest time, I didn't know what Awana was. I didn't know what
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Awana was either. We had a kid, by the way, speaking of my childhood, we had a kid in the neighborhood and we were all
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Cub Scouts and Weeblos and Boy Scouts and stuff like that. And there was this really weird kid, his name was Simeon, I never heard of such a name.
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We called him Cinnamon and I didn't know it was a Bible name. And he was weird.
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He went to church on Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. And he invited me to this special thing.
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He said, it's kind of like Cub Scouts and you have a uniform, you're in patches and all that stuff and you learn the
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Bible. That's enough for me. No Awana for me when I was growing up. But you all know in Awana they have a special teaching time where we want to teach the children, the ashamed workmen who are not ashamed, we want to teach those children a
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Bible lesson. Of course, we want to have them enjoy themselves and have fun and games and all that. But there's a
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Bible time. And what do we call that Bible time? It's kind of visual. If the teacher's good, they'll bring in some kind of prop and what about this water and filling and everything else.
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What do we call that time? Council time. It's time for Jesus' council time for the
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Pharisees. Here's going to be an example, an illustration, an obvious demonstration that He is the
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Lord. That everyone's going to get. It's not going to be done in private. It's not going to be secret. It's not going to be cloak and dagger.
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Here is the demonstration of my Lordship. It's one thing to say, I'm the Lord of the
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Sabbath, and it's another thing to show it. Here is the demonstration, the illustration, the council time, demonstrating
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Jesus' Lordship over the Sabbath. Why did
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Jesus do miracles on the Sabbath? Well, to show His kindness, to show His mercy, but also
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His Lordship. Luke chapter 6, verse 6, on another
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Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And a man was there whose right hand was withered.
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The scribes and the Pharisees watched Him to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath so that they might find reason, or a reason, to accuse
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Him. You know what they got right? They got right that He would do something.
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They got right that He would be kind. They got it right that He would be compassionate. And whether this is just a providential account where the withered man shows up, or maybe it was a plant by the
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Pharisees, they thought, we got Him because we know He's kind and compassionate and He has power and He's going to do something.
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That part they got right. But of course, they're trying to accuse
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Him. They're trying to get after Him. If you look at verse 11, they're filled with fury and disgust with one another what they might do to Jesus.
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Of course, eventually we know what they would do to Jesus in God's plan, and that is crucify the
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Lord of glory. And Jesus shows up on another Sabbath. By the way, here's a really good question for you
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Bible students. Why Jesus healing on the Sabbath all the time?
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Why all the controversies on the Sabbath regularly and often, seven, eight times in the
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Gospel of Jesus according to Luke, Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Why? You're like, well, maybe they're gathered together and they're all listening.
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Jesus, you know, there's teaching time and now there's this Sabbath occurrence. That could be true.
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All right, bear with me here for a second. Let's think about this. God creates the world in six days and then
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He what? Fall off my own pulpit. Once in a while, this thing goes like this and I'm like, here we go.
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God creates in six days and He rests. Is God resting on the
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Sabbath? Well, He's not creating anything anymore, but is
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He upholding the universe on the Sabbath? Is He sustaining the universe? Is He giving life and breath to every person in the universe?
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He's not creating on the Sabbath. Six days He works and then He takes a break to show us we need rest.
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But God is still working in the world. God is working on the Sabbath. God is upholding the universe on the
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Sabbath. Is it right for God to work on the Sabbath? Yes.
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Guess who works on the Sabbath? The Lord Jesus. Just like John 5, 17 says, my father's working on the
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Sabbath and so too am I. Why is Jesus regularly doing great miracles on the
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Sabbath? Because only God works on the Sabbath and I am God and I'm working on the Sabbath. Over and over and over, you see
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Jesus on the Sabbath working, why? Because He's dealing with the effects of sin,
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Adam's sin in creation. It would cause sickness, atrophied hand, because eventually
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He's going to deal with sin itself at Calvary, new creation.
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He's creating whole hands now of the withered hands. On the Sabbath, He's healing,
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He's raising people from the dead, He's doing all kinds of things, working His way toward dealing with the ultimate problem, sin.
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To summarize, Jesus works on the Sabbath because God works on the Sabbath, because Jesus is
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God and He works on the Sabbath because there's something more important than temporal rest, physical rest.
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There's something called what is physically healed and that is spiritually healed. You can die and go to hell healed physically, so Jesus regularly teaching, teaching, teaching.
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Then He heals to confirm what He's saying. And there's this man, read carefully, read like you would a
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Dr. Luke account, whose right hand was withered. Matthew and Mark, two other accounts that are similar, we call them synoptics, just say hand.
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Leave it to Luke the doctor to say it's the right hand. And with your right hand, most people are right handed, at least normal people.
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And it's signifying that it's, this guy can't work. Tradition says he was a stonemason.
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So how do you work with one hand? I mean, it can be done, but this man has a withered hand, an atrophied hand.
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It's like you have a grape and you have a raisin. He's got like a withered, dried up hand that doesn't work.
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Wasn't born with it, something happened. And of course, Luke wants us to see this man and to see
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Jesus. Matthew puts it, behold, take a look at this. Oh, there's all these people in the synagogue, but that guy's got a withered hand.
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Take a look at that. And the scribes and Pharisees are watching.
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They know what he's going to do. Essentially, they're spying on Jesus. And they would teach you can't heal on the
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Sabbath unless somebody's going to die. And obviously, just with a withered hand, nobody's going to die. So you can't do anything to this guy.
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And they're watching, watching, watching. See that again, verse seven, they're watching. And the only thing
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I could think of, and of course, I'm a person of pop culture. Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take,
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I'll be what? Watching you. See, you pagans know every lyric. I'm watching you.
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This is what they're doing. They're spying. They're watching. Jesus is going to do something merciful and kind on the
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Sabbath. And they're plotting the murder of the Lord of Glory on the Sabbath. Jesus didn't care about what they were going to do.
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Take a look. Right before your very eyes, I'm going to do something.
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Verse eight, he knew their thoughts and he said to the man with the withered hand, come and stand here.
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And he rose and stood there. And then Jesus asked them, the false teachers,
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I ask you, they're experts on the Bible, allegedly, is it lawful on the
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Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or destroy it?
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Is the Sabbath for good or is the Sabbath for evil? There had been so many rules put on the
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Jewish people by these false leaders that it was hard to rest on the Sabbath. It was easier to rest other days when
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God gives the Sabbath for good. God gives the Sabbath for rest. God gives the
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Sabbath for, well, we want to go out and farm today because we're in an agrarian culture, but we're going to have to trust
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God that he's going to take care of the farming. We just have to take a day off. It was good of the Lord to say, you know, these people are finite and they're frail and they're weak and they need rest and they need sleep and they need fellowship and they need worship.
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So God creates the Sabbath. But these men destroy it all.
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And so Jesus knows what they're thinking. Because like John 2 says, he knew all men because he himself knew what was in a man.
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And he says, get up, come over here to that man with the withered hand. And he asked them a question as the man is standing there, verse 9 again, is it lawful on the
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Sabbath to do good or do harm? You got to answer one or the other. Mark's account says, and they kept silent.
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They don't know how to answer this because there are implications to each answer in this horns of a dilemma.
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They kept silent. Jesus adds in Matthew 12 to this account, these words, 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? How much more value is a man than a sheep?
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So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. So we get a little added life.
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You value the sheep, you value livestock, you would get that thing out. But based on what you're thinking now, that I shouldn't do something on the
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Sabbath, you're mean to tell me you wouldn't go get that sheep out of the hole. And if a sheep is worth something, how much more is a man worth?
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How much more? Verse 10.
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And after looking around at them all, he said to him, stretch out your hand.
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And he did so, and his hand was restored.
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His hands like the other hand. His hands no longer withered. His hands no longer atrophied.
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The muscles of the hand, if you haven't used for a long time, have to be worked out. It's the same as the other one.
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This is a miracle. This is what the Lord of Glory does. And what do you think the men did?
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The false teachers? They should have been happy. They should have been glad. But of course they weren't.
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And Mark's account said Jesus was angry and grieved at the hardness of their heart.
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The emotions of Jesus, the emotions of the incarnate Lord, anger, righteous indignation because they were doing the wrong thing, and grieved at the hardness of their heart.
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And of course we know Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The text does not say
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Jesus used some incantations. It does not say he used
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Latin. He effumigated things with pungent odors. It says, he just said, stretch out your hand.
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And by the way, does that work to just say something to someone? Well, not technically.
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Jesus speaks, I love Psalm 29, the voice of the Lord is on the waters. The God of glory thunders.
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The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. And just like God says, let there be light.
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Let your hand be unwithered, and it was, organically, instantaneously, unlike these charlatans on TV so often that don't heal this way.
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This is congenital. This is organic. This is instantaneous healing. It's complete healing. Why? Because Jesus is
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Lord. By faith, this man stretches it out. And what happens, verse 11?
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They're filled with fury. By the way, that's such an interesting word, fury.
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The word for mind in Greek, with an
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A in front of it. So to put an A in front of a word, something's typical, now it's atypical.
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So you have a mind, you put an A in front of it, and now you have what? No mind.
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You're out of your mind. You're full of fury. I would call this, in Nebraska, a conniption fit.
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They're freaking out. They should be happy. A religious leader would not be happy for this miracle to happen.
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The man now can have a job, he can provide for his family, he can provide for his children. What person would not say, this has to be
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Jesus, because look at what He does. Look at how He acts. And they want to do something with Jesus.
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They're in a rage. Matthew says, they went out and conspired against Him, how to destroy Jesus. The plot to kill
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Him. So we watch this passage, and we say, it's one thing to say,
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I am the Lord of glory, 6 -5. It's another thing to prove it, and now Jesus proves that in fact,
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He is the Lord of glory. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord Himself.
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He is the Eternal Son, who took on flesh. Now here's the moment
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I've been waiting for. Turn to Matthew 12. Turn to Matthew 12, please.
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I want you to see something in this passage that is similar, that has the same account, with a little bonus.
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So we're going to look at a similar account. We call this a synoptic approach, similar to look with.
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And so you can read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and many of the accounts are the same, with a few little differences here or there.
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But this is Matthew's account of what we just talked about. So for instance, Matthew chapter 12, verses 1 and following, you see
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Jesus going through the grain fields. It's exactly what we talked about in Luke chapter 6, 1 -5.
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Then you have in verse 9 of Matthew 12, Jesus coming into the synagogue with a man with a withered hand.
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Same thing. So let's think big picture again. Sabbath, rest, temporal rest, physical rest, rest for the people, rest for the livestock.
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I wonder if there's some other kind of rest. A Hebrews 3 rest, a
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Hebrews 4 rest, where there's rest for our souls, and we don't have to work for our salvation, that we can rest in Christ on earth, and even ultimately in heaven.
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I wonder if there's an ultimate Sabbath. I wonder if there's something more, something pointing to something else, something saying, you know what, it's one thing to have a
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Sabbath rest on earth, to just take a nap, and it's another thing to rest in Jesus with the hope of eternal life.
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You say, where in the world are you going with this? You had me with Dan Sanfilippo, but now I'm lost.
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Well, guess what comes before Matthew chapter 12? Answer, Matthew chapter 11, yes.
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Go to Matthew 11, here's the aha moment. You want to know why
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Jesus is doing all these Sabbath healings? There's just not physical healing on the
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Sabbath, there's spiritual ultimate healing with the ultimate Lord of the Sabbath on that eternal
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Sabbath. Verse 25 of Matthew 11, at that time
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Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and reveal them to little children.
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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my
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Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the
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Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Drum roll, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you what?
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What's the main thing on the Sabbath that you're to do? Rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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Do you see the connection between rest and rest? I've come to give ultimate rest from your burden of sin, and to show you that I'm the
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Lord of the Sabbath. I'll prove it even on earth with temporal rest, with healings on the earthly Sabbath.
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I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, and I'm on my way to Calvary, yes, and my face is sent like a flint to Calvary, because I love my own that the
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Father has given me, and I've come to seek them, and save them, and have fellowship with them. But I want you to know, there's a rest that I give.
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Now think about it, legalism, Pharisees, extra law people, what kind of burden were they put under?
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Those Jewish people under the Pharisees and scribes, Sadducees, Herodians.
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Can you imagine how smothering that was? There's a fire in your kitchen, you're supposed to buy one of those blankets and just smother it.
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The smothering effects of legalism, the burden of legalism, and Jesus comes along, and we know what kind of Savior He is, even in Isaiah chapter 53, and He comes and He says, listen,
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I'm here to give you eternal rest for your souls, and to prove to you that I can do it.
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Of course, eventually I'll die and be raised from the dead and exalted, but I want you to know I'm Lord of the
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Sabbath, I'm Lord of rest, and if I can heal on the Sabbath and work with God on the Sabbath, because God is working and I'm working, then you should know me, and you should trust me.
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The burden of legalism, the burden of the Sabbath back in those days, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
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And what He means is, you simply come to me by faith. He could just say a synonym, instead of come to me,
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He could say, believe in me. I'm the one that gives you rest for your souls, I'm the one that really understands what
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God wants. They put heavy burdens and rules and regulations and institutions and ordinances on you, and I'm come to give you rest.
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Now if you go back in Matthew, just a little bit on Matthew 11, there were some people that didn't feel the burden of their sin.
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Of course, the Pharisees don't feel the burden of their sin, but also there are some other people that didn't feel the burden of their sin, and they lived in certain cities.
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And if you go back to chapter 11, there are some people who don't feel the burden of their sin, and that's in verses 20 and following, these unrepentant cities,
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Chorazin and Bethsaida. And it says that they did not repent, verse 20, and God says, woe to them.
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What does Jesus say in chapter 11, verse 28? Come to Moses, all who are laboring and heavy laden.
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Come to the Pharisees, they'll know what to do. Stop doing those things, and then come to me.
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Clean yourself up, and then come to me. Be more religious, and then come to me.
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Be more civically oriented, and then come to me. Here's the man who knows, he's the physician, and he's a good physician, and he gives advice, and the advice is liberating for the soul, and he says, just come to me.
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So when we were unbelievers, was it in fact not true that somewhere along the line you began to feel the burden of your sin?
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Somewhere along the line, people were preaching the law to you and saying, if you were to die today, you have sinned because you've broken the law, and it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living
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God, and if you die today, you're going to go straight to hell. Somewhere along the line in your past, those things were said to you, and you were understanding with your conscience, and you began to feel a burden.
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Like if I die tonight, I'm going to hell, and I need help, and it's a burden that's weighing you down, it's a burden that wants relief.
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And what does Jesus say? Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
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And he talks about burdens. While Chorazin, while Bethsaida felt no burden, when we were first understanding
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God's law, we felt the burden, and we need to have rest from it. If you carry around,
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I don't know if you could do it, I mean, I know I can't do it anymore because I'm so weak as an older man. By the way,
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I'm so weak as an older man, I have to keep a pair of pliers in the kitchen, like grandma, because I can't open cans anymore, jars,
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I have to have the pliers. What if you could take some 55 -gallon drum and just carry it around, walking around with this 55 -gallon drum full of something?
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Like, this is a burden. The crushing weight of sin, the destroying nature of sin, it's a burden, plus all these extra rules from false teachers, you can go to heaven if you do this, you can go to heaven if you do that, you should do this so God is pleased.
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It's just a burden. And when people recognize their burden, where can they go? Well, if Jesus can provide rest on a
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Sabbath day, temporally, physically, how much more does He give rest for souls spiritually?
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I don't know about you, before you were saved, but you think, okay, will my goodness save me?
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I've got to try harder, will that save me? It's tiring. Try to, okay, you can do this for an experiment, mentally.
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Try to save yourself without getting tired. It's the exact opposite of rest.
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What does sin do? It causes guilt, dread, remorse, anxiety, ambition, sorrow, doubt, temptation, conflict, oppression, yields itself in slander, sexual sin, the list goes on and on and on.
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And Jesus, the ultimate temple, Jesus, the ultimate Sabbath, says for those who are burdened under their sins,
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I'll give you rest. Wouldn't you like to rest? Do you like naps, feel
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I'm losing you? Jesus didn't say, by the way,
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I know who can give you rest. If you do these things, you can get rest. No, I'll give you rest.
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Did you notice, I'll give you rest? That means you can't earn it, that means you don't deserve it, that means you can't work for it.
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It's a gift. We're saved by grace and grace alone. I just give it to you. How do you get rest?
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It's given without cost to us. Now, of course, you probably know
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Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. He stood a while to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should such ease him of his burden.
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Remember, he looks at the cross, the burdens being dealt with, his sin. He looked therefore and looked again until the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks, crying for joy that I could be forgiven, that I could have rest.
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All my sins paid for, the hope of heaven, citizenship, adoption. As he stood looking and weeping, behold, three shining ones came to him and saluted him with, peace be to you, your sins are forgiven.
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The next angel stripped him of his rags and clothed him with the change of raiment. And the third set a mark on his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it.
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And Christian, knowing that he had been relieved from the burden of his sin and getting eternal rest and spiritual rest and ultimate rest,
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Christian gave three leaps for joy and went on singing. And here was a song, thus far did
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I come laden with my sin, nor could ought ease the grief that I was in until I came hither.
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What a place is this? Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
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Must here the burden fall off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
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Blessed cross, blessed sepulcher, blessed rather be the man that there was put to shame for me.
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And even for us now as Christians, we rest. It doesn't mean we don't work.
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We're under a yoke and Jesus is doing most of the work and we're resting and working and we're working in response to what he's done.
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But just have rest. So even Christians that struggle with anxiety, the solution is found in remembering who
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Jesus is and rest. The solution for workaholics is rest.
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The solution for, how about this, you don't have to raise your hand, but does anybody here ever struggle with their assurance?
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Am I really a Christian or am I not? And we tend to focus in on what we've done. Do we pray enough, read enough, evangelize enough, meditate enough, go to church enough?
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All those things are good. But how about the focus on the Lord Jesus where he has done it all?
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He's paid it all. He's read enough, evangelized enough, preached enough, never worried, never sinned, tempted but never sinned.
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And that since we're in him by faith and by faith alone, it's time to rest. It's time to rest.
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Jesus works on the Sabbath because he's God and God works on the Sabbath. And when you read the accounts of Jesus working on the
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Sabbath, I want you to know that he regularly does things on the Sabbath in review because he's trying to tell you that he's
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Lord of the Sabbath, not only just temporally Saturday Jews, but also eternally all those that would put their faith in Christ Jesus to rest.
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Now the last 44 minutes, I have not thought about inflation.
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The last 44 minutes, I haven't thought about my mom that went to glory 15 years ago that I miss.
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The last 45 minutes, I haven't thought about hardly any of this except who's like Jesus.
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He walks in, he does it on purpose, he knows he's going to go to the cross, he's antagonizing them on purpose, he's being merciful, he's doing the right thing, he knows the value of a man compared to the value of a sheep.
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He says front and center, I'm going to show you who I am. And by the way, the Spirit of God who has this all recorded through Luke's writings, it's illuminating us, inspiring
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Luke, it's all for us for good. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. And since Jesus is
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Lord of the Sabbath, that means he's my Lord. And that means I can trust him. And that means if I'm not a
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Christian, I need to believe in him. And that means if I'm a Christian, I can say to myself, while it's all wonderful that Jesus healed on the
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Sabbath, he's the ultimate Sabbath, and I can rest in him. And out of that rest,
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I'll obey him and I'll work on that sin that haunts me.
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So back to that sin. What's your strategy of dealing with that sin that you hate, that you regularly do?
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The strategy can't be divorced from who Jesus is. The strategy can't just be stop it.
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And by the way, you've probably tried to stop it a hundred times just like me. The strategy has to be, how do
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I see my sin in light of a God like this who loves me like this?
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The Father who gave him the Son for me. The Father with such eternal love for me.
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The Father that has done everything, the Son and the Father sending me the Spirit, everything
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I need. I have all my riches in Christ Jesus. He knew all my sins and saved me anyway.
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How do I respond with that particular sin in my life in light of God? So today, sometime later today, sometime tomorrow, sit down and say to yourself,
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I've got a sin that I'm working on that I would love to get rid of and have it in my rear view mirror. But through the windshield,
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I want you to focus on the Lord Jesus because he's the one that will give you not only eternal rest, but do you think he can give you rest from that sin?
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I think we know the answer. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for these words. I think about how you saved us.
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Seems to me it's very similar to the Lord Jesus saying, stretch out your hand.
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He couldn't do it on his own, that man, but he could do it because of the Lord's grace. When you called us to believe, it was the same thing.
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And now you call us to be holy people and live lives that are worthy of the gospel, walking in a manner worthy of the gospel.
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So Father, for myself, I pray and for these dear congregants, whatever they're dealing with, would you help them?
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Would you help them to see their problem in light of the wonderful, matchless grace of Jesus?