So we are continuing this morning in our series through the gospel of Mark, the son of God. We come to Mark chapter two, verse 23, through chapter three, verse six. So please turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter two. Here now, the eternal living word of God. One Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry? He and those who were with him how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here. And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger. grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held council with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him." This is the word of the Lord. So any relationships that you have in life, the strength of that relationship is connected to how well you know that person. When you first meet someone, you don't know them very well. But then over time, as you get to know them better, you gain a better understanding of who they are. And the more intimate and extensive your knowledge of someone becomes, the stronger the potential of your relationship with that person will be. It's not guaranteed, sometimes it makes it worse, but the knowledge of someone must be there in order to grow and to strengthen your relationship with them. And this is what makes the relationships of marriage or a parent-child relationship so special, because they can potentially build a significant, strong bond between two people. When two people have lived together for decades, they have an intimate knowledge of each other. You then know this person's history, their personality, their likes, their dislikes, their desires, and your relationship with them grows as your knowledge of them grows. Now one of the many fascinating topics in the study of theology is the attributes of God. The attributes of God are what God reveals about himself to us through his word. The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives us an idea of many of God's attributes in the answer to the question, what is God? It says, God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. And these are just some of the attributes of God that we come across in Scripture. And so knowing these attributes of God helps us to build a more intimate and worshipful relationship with God. And knowing these attributes of God also helps us to understand our relationship with Him better. It helps us to understand all that He does better. Because all that God does is inseparable from all that He is. What God does is an extension of who He is. And so as the ministry of Jesus continues through the gospel of Mark, Jesus will reveal more and more about himself, more and more about his mission, but he also reveals more and more about God to us, because Jesus is the image of the invisible God. And so in this passage this morning, we'll see that Jesus teaches us two attributes of God that are revealed in his law. The goodness of God and the love of God. The goodness of God and the love of God. So our first story from this passage takes place on the Sabbath, beginning in verse 23. One Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? The problem of the Pharisees' legalistic view of the law, that we looked at a bit last week, is now illustrated in regards to the Sabbath. The disciples weren't stealing. They weren't doing any real labor on the farm on the Sabbath. They were enjoying the benefits of a provision that is actually included in the law. According to the law, those in need were permitted to take small amounts of grain to satisfy their hunger. But the Pharisees had created this long list of regulations on specific actions to say what was work and what was not work. And if you violated one of their lists, they considered that unlawful, sinful. And so the Pharisees seem now in the story to be following Jesus and his disciples around. not so they can learn from him, not so they could be disciples themselves, but to catch him breaking their list of dues and don't so they could accuse him. So then we see the reply of Jesus starting in verse 25. And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, but also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. And so the response of Jesus begins mentioning this episode from the life of David, which is recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 21. In this original story, David and his men were fleeing from King Saul, who was trying to kill them. Now, David had already been anointed as God's king, but he hadn't yet ascended to the throne. And so now David goes to the house of God and he goes to the priest to get help for him and his men because they were hungry. But the priest only had consecrated bread, which would have been unlawful for David and his men to eat. But he gave it to them on the provision that they've maintained sexual purity. And he also actually gives David the sword of Goliath in this moment. But here, Jesus is making two points by retelling this story. The first is, as he says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The disciples of Jesus weren't putting in a full day work at the field, they were simply plucking enough grain to eat. But these regulations that the Pharisees had added most likely included not doing this. So the rules of the Pharisees for things that it was unlawful to do according to them, and therefore sinful, was things like you couldn't untie a knot on the Sabbath. So if you had a knot in your sandal, you had to wait till the next day to undo it. If you tore your garment, you were only allowed to sew one stitch on the Sabbath. So anything more than that was deemed work, therefore unlawful or sinful, and so on. And so the disciples were violating these narrow additions to the law. But Jesus' point goes beyond that. God made the Sabbath for man. God made the Sabbath to give us much needed rest to our bodies, in those days to the fields, to their animals, but most importantly, to our souls. But the Pharisees turned the Sabbath into a burden with all their added restrictions. The law isn't to restrict us. It isn't there to make our lives difficult. The law shouldn't be a burden. God didn't give the law and the Sabbath for people to suffer. Rather, he gave it to reveal himself to us. He reveals his character and his nature and the way we are to be. And God is good. And since He is good, His law is good. And since God is good, the Sabbath is good. And this is the first attribute of God we see revealed in His law. The goodness of God. Since God is good, everything He gives us is good. God is eternally good. in and of himself. His goodness is an attribute, and therefore his law is good. The Pharisees were treating law as a barrier to good living. They even wanted to restrict the disciples of Jesus from eating, rather than violate these rules and regulations they've established. They turned God's law into a burden by adding things to it. And unfortunately, viewing God's law as a burden is common in the world. There was a book I've read recently called The Great De-Churching, and the authors documented their findings of a comprehensive study they called of the de-churching in America. And this is a vast number of people leaving churches all across the country. And one of the Many issues, and there were many, many issues given, but one is why people stopped attending and serving in churches is they said they found it too restrictive on their lifestyle. What they're really saying is God's law is too restrictive on them. And some people are saying, in essence, they want to be freed from God's law. Now this wasn't the top issue in this study, but it was an issue nonetheless. And this really is the way the world views God's law. Our secular society sees the law of God as a burden on their freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want. And this really is a misunderstanding both of their own, the nature of their own desires and the nature of God and his law. Sin is bad for you. If you want to live to sin freely, you become enslaved to that sin. A prominent and easy to see clear example is if someone wants to be free to take drugs, well, they'll soon become a slave to that drug. If someone wants to be free to live a sexually promiscuous lifestyle, they will become a slave to that, and so on. When you live for sinful desires of the flesh, you will become enslaved to that sin. But God's law is good. God gave us his law not to confine us, not to restrict us from pursuing happiness, but for good. And the example given here is the Sabbath. God gave us the Sabbath. It's a gift from God for much-needed physical and spiritual rest. But people ignore this rest. They ignore the beauty and the blessing of the Lord's Day. It's not simply a day off from work. It's a day to gather with God's people and worship Him. But many people see this as a burden. They come only when it's convenient, or as long as it doesn't get in the way of whatever else they find important. It could be youth soccer, watching the Eagles, or an infinite number of idols you could worship instead of God. But we were created to worship God. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And so the Sabbath is God setting aside a day for you to glorify him and enjoy him in a special way. and we're commanded to honor the Sabbath. We're told in Hebrews chapter 10 not to neglect meeting together as is the habit of son, but it's not simply about duty. God commands us to do this because it's good for us. It's good for God's people to gather together and to worship in his name, to glorify him, to enjoy him, to seek his presence. This is what we were made to do. Gathering in the name of the Lord to worship Him in His presence is what we were made for. And it's good for us to worship God. So when we think of all the commands of God, not just the Sabbath, it's important to remember that they're good for you. Even if they're difficult to do at times, God is for you. And He gave you the law so you can glorify Him. You can enjoy Him. You can enjoy His blessings, all of which are good. But the second point Jesus makes at this story is the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. And this is the main point of the David story that Jesus is making. And he's once again establishing his authority this time over the Sabbath. He's saying just as David and his men were able to eat the consecrated bread because David was God's anointed, Jesus is establishing his authority over that even of David. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He's not bound to the Pharisees' debate over minor details of what they consider to be work. He is the one who has come to give God's people rest. And again, Jesus, to establish his authority, refers to himself as the son of man. This is the same thing he said when he forgave the sins of the paralytic man. He said the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Now the son of man is a figure of the Messiah from Daniel chapter seven. In Daniel 7, Daniel describes the vision he has of God Almighty. And in this vision, God sits in judgment over the beasts who have been ruling the earth. And God executes judgment upon them and takes the dominion of the beasts away from them. The dominion of the earth is taken from the beasts and given to one like a son of man. This son of man becomes the king over all and he's given the reign over all peoples nations and languages in a kingdom that will never end. And so the Son of Man is a divine figure, a heavenly figure who will rule over all things for eternity. And this is actually Jesus's favorite title for himself. He says it multiple times throughout the Gospel of Mark, because he's establishing himself as God's Messiah, God's King, who will rule God's kingdom forever. And throughout the gospel of Mark, we see God dethroning Satan and the demons. He's removing their dominion over the earth and he's giving it, he's giving his eternal kingdom to his son, to Jesus Christ, the son of man. And Jesus is the one who has the authority to forgive sins. He brings about this new exodus, freeing people from guilt of sin and death. And he has the authority over the Sabbath, meaning he has the ability to give true spiritual rest. So the greatness, the superiority of Jesus is continually being established. He teaches with divine authority. He casts out demons. He heals lepers. He has shown that He has the authority to forgive sins. He reveals His authority over the law, the ceremonial law. He has fulfilled the old, and He can't be fit into the old system of animal sacrifice and purity. He has come to fulfill those things. And now He's showing that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath was established in creation. As we know from the Apostle Paul, all things were created through Christ, through him and for him, including the Sabbath. He's once again establishing and revealing his divine nature. Because throughout the Old Testament, it is Yahweh himself who is said to be the Lord of the Sabbath. And Jesus is one and the same with Yahweh the Lord. He's the eternal son of God who has come into the world to establish his reign of forgiveness and grace. He calls sinners, even tax collectors, to follow him and to be disciples of his kingdom. Then Mark gives us another story of conflict on the Sabbath between Jesus and the Pharisees. So starting in chapter three now, verse one, he writes, Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here. And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. And he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. So now Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath, and there was a man with a withered hand there. And the Pharisees were watching Jesus at this point, knowing he's going to heal this man. And they're thinking that he might break their restrictions on work for the Sabbath. And this really reveals the hardness of the hearts of these men. They know Jesus has extraordinary power to heal people. They've seen him heal leopards. They've seen him cast out demons. They've seen him make a paralytic man walk. And so they know what's coming. They know that he is going to heal this man. But instead of praising God that Jesus is going to relieve this man's suffering, they look to condemn Jesus for violating their man-made standards on the Sabbath. They have no compassion for this man. Their zeal isn't for the glory of God. Their zeal isn't for the love of their fellow man, but only for their own self-righteous image. before others. And Jesus, knowing this is the case, knowing the state of their hearts, calls the man over and says, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill? Jesus is not only exposing the excess restrictions of the Pharisees, but he's also revealing the intent of the Sabbath and the law. It's not meant to be a burden, it's not meant to restrict us, but it's meant for the goodness of God to be felt. He's saying, is it okay for me to do good on the Sabbath? Is it okay for me to heal someone or to save their life? He was exposing a conflict between the hardness of the legalism of the Pharisees and the goodness of God's law. But they didn't care. This actually made them want to get him even more. It hardened their hearts even more. And so Jesus was angered and grieved at their hardness of heart. He said to the man, stretch out your hand So the man stretched it out and his hand was restored. Jesus heals this man on the Sabbath, showing us that God gave us the Sabbath as a gift. He gave us the Sabbath so that you can get much needed rest physically and spiritually. So that you can gather together in the house of God with God's people and worship him as you were created to do. The Sabbath is a gift of God's grace, and worshiping God in public, gathering with his people, is good for you. It's not a burden. It's what you were created to do, to glorify God and to enjoy him. And this Lord's Day, as we call Sunday, is a blessing. God's giving it to us so that you can gather and delight in him, so that you can be freed from work and worldly pleasures, and you can rest and worship the Lord. And following all of God's commands is a blessing, because God is good, what he commands is good, and only good. And this is what makes our desires so sinful, because we want to break his commands. When we sin, we're doing the opposite of good. We're doing evil. It's harmful to ourselves. It's harmful to our relationships with our loved ones, those around us. It's harmful to our relationship with God. If you think about in the Garden of Eden, what Satan convinced Eve of, he convinced her that God's commands weren't meant for good. Satan convinced Eve that God's intentions were to limit her, to restrict her, that God didn't have her best interests in mind, rather that God wanted to restrict her from being a God herself with his law. And it's the same thing the world proclaims today. The Bible is outdated, it's restricting, it's harmful, it's bigoted, and so on. It's ultimately teaching that what God has commanded isn't good. And when the goodness of God is rejected by rejecting the goodness of his commands, then everything gets turned on its head. It's what the prophet Isaiah wrote about in Isaiah chapter five. He said, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. And this is what the world does when the goodness of God's law is treated as something bad and the sinful desires of our heart are treated as something good. When the love of God and for his people isn't understood and assumed, when it's even implied that God's intentions are to limit us or to harm us in some way, then we will end up calling evil good and good evil. And we see that in almost every aspect of our society today. The goodness of God is rejected. It's assumed that the commands of God and the Bible are not for good, but to harm or to restrict our freedom to limit us in some way. but God is for us. And Jesus is revealing something in healing this man, that the law, including the Sabbath, is not meant to burden us, to bring us down, to tack on an extra duty in an already busy schedule. God is not some sort of cosmic killjoy ruining all of our fun. We see the second attribute of God revealed in his law is the love of God. In doing this, Jesus is exposing the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. They wanted this man with the withered hand to suffer. They misunderstood the nature of God, the nature of his law, the nature of the Sabbath. God gave us the law and he gave you the Sabbath because he loves you. He calls you to gather together in His church, to gather with the rest of His people, to worship Him, to glorify Him, because that's good for you, because He loves you. God commands you to do things and not to do other things because He loves you. He commands what is best for you. And when God's law is disregarded, or even worse, regarded as evil itself, then nothing but harm will come from it. Let's just take one example. The sexual ethic of God that's laid out in the Bible, sex being between one man and one woman in the confines of a marriage. Think about the more our society rejects that, the more people bind a lie that tells them that sex only being for marriage is restricting their freedom, how much worse things become. The more and more our society is rejecting this morality God has given us in his law and his word, the consequences are devastating. When people fail to understand that the goodness of God and the love of God and his commands and his laws, and they live out the opposite, the consequence of their sinful decisions are evident. The rejection of God's sexual morality in our society has torn apart families, it causes divorce and separation, increase in abortion, increase in children being without both parents, and then all of that has a ripple effect of consequences on their own, on families and children and society. And this is just one example of what happens when God's law is not understood as being good and right and true. What God commands is good because God is good. What God commands is out of love because God is love. And to reject what God commands is to reject God himself. The Pharisees lost sight of the love of God. They followed the law so that they could be seen as holy before others, but they didn't care about people who were suffering. They didn't even want Jesus to heal this man because they didn't care about him. The Sabbath was just a day for them to show off how holy and righteous they were before others. But God is for us. The Sabbath is for us. It's an unspeakable blessing that we even have this opportunity to gather in the house of God with the people of God to worship and to praise Him, to glorify God and to enjoy Him as we were created to do. It's good for you. Yes, it is a duty, but that's why God made it a duty. That's why He commands you to do it, because it's good for you and He loves you. Now, unfortunately, in our sinfulness, we all fail to keep the law. Sadly, even as Christians, as disciples who claim the name of Jesus Christ, you and I sin daily, repeatedly. But God, in his grace, in his goodness, and in his love, sent his son to redeem you from your sin, because he is good, because he loves you. God is for you. And he's given you his spirit. He's given you the spirit to empower you by his grace that in your union with Christ through faith in Jesus, your old sinful self is put to death and you're given a new spiritual resurrected life because God is good. And so in your life, each day as you go through desiring to love God through obedience, Remember that no matter what happens, no matter what your circumstances may be, no matter how much you may be suffering, at this moment, God is good. God loves you. God is for you. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening as your people this morning to worship you, to praise you. to glorify you as you've created us to do. We often reject you and your word, but we know that it is good because you are good. We know that it is good for us because you love us. Lord, help us to rest in your goodness and your love. Help us to follow you and your commands out of love in return. to work in our hearts that we will worship you in spirit and in truth on the Lord's day in public worship, but with the whole of our lives, as you conform us into the image of your son, as we wait till the day of his return, where we will worship you and glorify you in complete goodness and love for the rest of eternity. It's in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that we pray, amen.