Matthew chapter 12. We're going to read verses 1 through 14. That's on page 816 of the Bibles provided for you. Matthew 12, 1 through 14 on page 816. This is our final week of looking at the idea of the Sabbath, the Lord's Day. And we're going to read here about Jesus' confrontations with the Pharisees about the Sabbath. And so far, I've been showing you how scripture requires us to keep the Sabbath in a way that many Christians don't today, in a way that is considered more restrictive than necessary by many Christians around us. But being too lax about the Sabbath is not the only danger. And so, as I read here, listen for what the Pharisees were doing wrong in their practice of the Sabbath that Jesus confronts them about. Matthew 12, verses 1 through 14. This is the word of God. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him? How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him? He said to them, which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? of how much more value is a man than a sheep. So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him. May the Lord bless the reading of his perfect word. In the Jewish Talmud, there are 39 specific categories of work that break the Sabbath. And the Talmud is the written record of Jewish tradition. It's an ancient document, the Babylonian Talmud is an ancient document, but it's a collection of what the rabbis taught about the law of God. And it goes into great detail about what breaks the Sabbath and what doesn't break the Sabbath. And so just as in one example, they talk about how When someone is harvesting wheat, or sorry, when someone is cutting hay, I know there's a difference between hay and wheat, trust me. But when someone's cutting hay, that they're guilty of two sins. They're guilty of harvesting, as well as planting, because cutting the hay stimulates new growth. So they go into great detail of what commands have been broken. In another case, they teach that throwing an object four cubits or more is work. But if it's less than four cubits, it's not work. And so then they had this great debate between the rabbis about, well, if someone intended to throw something two cubits and it went four cubits, is that person guilty of breaking the Sabbath? These are the kinds of teachers that Jesus was dealing with here in our passage this morning. The Pharisees here confronted Jesus' disciples because they were plucking heads of grain as they walked through a field, presumably because they considered that harvesting on the Sabbath. And they were focused on the details of the law, and they cared about the law, but they cared about the law without caring about the lawgiver. And the command not to work on the Sabbath was originally, and is still originally, an outworking of the greater purpose for that day, of devoting that day to the Lord. But the Pharisees had made not lifting a finger in any kind of work the whole point of the day. But the good news in our passage this morning is that the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus, the Lord of the Lord's day, came to bring down false teachers like that and to help us understand the true purpose of this Sabbath law. He didn't abolish the command, he didn't get rid of this command that's one of the 10 commandments, but he gave us the good news of how that Sabbath command was originally intended to work. And so as followers of Jesus, as we try to focus on him today, on his day, we should take our cues from him on how to spend this day. not just interpret the law ourselves, but to pay attention to how Jesus interprets this law. And here in our passage, Jesus does encourage us to do several different kinds of work on the Sabbath. So brothers and sisters, on the Lord's day, do the work that Jesus has encouraged you to do. On the Lord's day, do the work that Jesus has encouraged you to do. Jesus points out three kinds of work here that are good and that are necessary for us to keep the Lord's day well. And so first of all, do works of necessity on the Lord's day. Do works of necessity. As we've seen here, Jesus and his disciples were walking through these grain fields on the Sabbath. It was probably a Sabbath morning. They were on their way to the synagogue. We'll see that in just a moment. They were on their way to the synagogue for worship. It's kind of like just coming to church on a Sabbath morning. Presumably they'd stayed outside of the town with someone and they had to walk through these fields to get to the synagogue for worship. And Jesus and his disciples were not wealthy men. Jesus did not use his ministry to gain wealth for himself. And so they were hungry. And the disciples probably hadn't had breakfast that morning. And on the way to the synagogue, they were plucking a few heads of grain and rubbing them to get the chaff off and eating those grains of wheat. They were hungry, and so they just picked some breakfast on the way to the synagogue. But for some reason, the Pharisees were there and saw what they were doing, and they didn't like it. The Pharisees were people who cared deeply about the law. They cared about the word of God and obeying it to its last detail. And so when they saw these men picking heads of grain, they said, they're harvesting, they're working. They're harvesting grain on the Sabbath, and they thought it qualified as work. And so they confronted Jesus about it. So Jesus responded here by pointing out that they had missed the purpose of the Sabbath. And in fact, they'd missed how the whole law of God works. And he does that here by reminding them of a story from David's life. From the story of David's life before he was king, David was on the run from King Saul who was trying to kill him and David and his men had to rush away. They hadn't been able to get provisions for themselves and they were starving and they came to the tabernacle. And David came to the high priest and said, we need food. Can you please give us something to eat? And the high priest said, well, we don't have any food here. The only food we have is this bread of the presence. These were 12 loaves of bread that were baked for the priests to eat. And they sat in a certain spot in the holy place in the temple. And they were only for the priests to eat according to the law of God. But the priest went ahead and gave that bread to David. And Jesus says that it wasn't lawful for him to do that, but Jesus also approves of what David did. So in some sense, David broke the law of God. He broke the ceremonial law of God to eat that bread. But Jesus says this in an approving way, saying, look, this is something that was okay for the priest to do in that situation. So what is Jesus trying to communicate with that? Is he saying the law of God is negotiable as long as you're doing it for the right reasons, the ends justify the means. As long as you're trying to keep one command, you can break another command. Well, no, Jesus upholds the whole law. So there must be something more to what's going on here. It's not just that you can break laws if you need to. Jesus is pointing out here a difference between the ceremonial law and laws that are shadows to laws that reflect true reality. The Old Testament laws were meant as signs. Those Old Testament ceremonial laws were meant as signs to point to something real. And to use the example of the show bread, this bread was designed to show that God provides for those who are close to Him. So the priests were the holiest of the people, right? And they were closest to God. So there was this bread that provided for the people who were close to God. But that was just a shadow. It was a sign to point to the reality that God provides for all of his people. And so in this instance, when David came to the temple for the priest to say, no, I'm not gonna provide food for you with this food that's meant to show how God provides for his people, they would have been missing the point of the command. that the substance, the reality of what God does is more important than the shadow that's meant to communicate it. The substance is more important than the shadow. So how does Jesus apply this principle to the Sabbath? Well, we looked a couple of weeks ago at Hebrews chapter four that talks about how there yet remains a Sabbath keeping for us, a Sabbath thing, because we haven't entered our Sabbath rest yet. The Sabbath, even today when the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ, the Sabbath is still a shadow. It's still a sign of what we're looking forward to, of rest and provision and care that God will give us in the new heavens and the new earth. It's still a shadow of a greater reality. And so, to tell someone on the Sabbath that they have to starve, instead of enjoying rest and refreshment on the day that when we look forward to God providing rest and refreshment for us, is to miss the point of the command. To make the shadow more important than the substance, the shadow, the sign more important than the reality, is to flip it on its head and to miss the point of the commandment. The Sabbath is a picture of rest and refreshment. And so if your Sabbath keeping keeps you or others from resting and being refreshed, you've missed the point. And Jesus makes the same point again in verse 7. And there he talks about how the Pharisees didn't understand what Hosea said when he said, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. That those sacrifices were meant to be a sign of God's mercy. to his people, and if you were sacrificing to the Lord but then not being merciful to the people around you, you missed the point. You're making the shadow more important than the reality. Essentially, to put this another way, how are you going to enjoy the Lord and rest in him, which is the point of the day, to delight in him and make the day holy to him? How are you going to do that if your stomach is growling the whole time? if you are distracted by how uncomfortable you're making yourself by your Sabbath keeping. But the Pharisees here were promoting a very uncomfortable Sabbath lifestyle. They were so focused on the rule itself that they forgot the whole purpose of the rule. And you can look today at the way that those who practice Judaism practice the Sabbath, and it's a miserable thing in some ways. And they talk about the delight of it in some ways, but they've created this system that makes them very uncomfortable for that day, and they aren't able to rest. So the question is, on the Sabbath, do you spend the Sabbath keeping the Sabbath, or do you spend the Sabbath resting and worshiping God? So often we can, if we're really focused on trying to be faithful to the Lord in this area, we may spend our whole day focused on, am I keeping the Sabbath? How can I keep the Sabbath? And what if I do this and what if I do that? And if your restrictions on what you do create an environment where all you can think about is those restrictions, you are not keeping the Sabbath. The point is to provide an environment for yourself by doing works of necessity, works of things that are necessary for your life, to provide that opportunity for you to rest and worship. And if you don't do those things, like the Pharisees were doing in Jesus' day, then you are not keeping the Sabbath well. You're not able to worship and rest in God well. So what are works of necessity? We can't go, I'm not gonna give you a laundry list here and we can talk more about, I'll let you guys talk about that over lunch today. But many of you have occupations that require work on the Sabbath, necessary work. Those of you in medical care have to provide that medical care on a daily basis to those who are relying on you. Those of you who work in law enforcement or in the prison or jail system or for firefighters or for any caretakers of any kind, for those who take care of livestock. There are these basic necessities of life that if you are not providing care and life to those around you or to yourself, you are keeping those people or those animals from resting on the Lord's Day. So even as you have to do some of that work, and maybe you have to miss worship sometimes for, I know there are people who aren't here this morning because they have to work in these jobs of necessity. Even if you have to do that sometimes, work with joy. knowing that that's part of keeping the Sabbath, that if it is a truly necessary job for the sake of life and sustaining life, you can do it joyfully knowing you are keeping the Sabbath. And then just in your own life, you do need food, you need shelter, you need heat in the wintertime. And again, there are those who have practiced the Sabbath in a way that creates just a day of physical discomfort because they're so worried about following every little restriction of work. But we should be providing food for ourselves and we should work ahead a little and do your best so you're not spending the whole day working on these things. But it's okay to do some works of necessity to provide food for yourself and for your loved ones, to take care of yourselves on this day. Do what you need to do to rest and to worship God on his day. Now this idea of rest has gotten some new attention in our culture. I think in a good way people are realizing that our seven day a week breakneck pace is killing us and our culture. So there's been some focus on this idea of resting from work and providing an opportunity for rest. And that's good in a sense, but the Sabbath is not just a day of rest. The Sabbath was given to us as a day of worship. And Jesus talks about that here as well. So secondly, Jesus encourages us to do works of worship. Do works of worship. If you remember when we read the fourth commandment over the last few weeks in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, The main command in the fourth commandment is not about work. The primary command is to remember and observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And not working is one of the ways that we keep the Sabbath holy. It's one of the ways, it's how we keep the day holy, but the main command is to keep it holy. We've talked about how making the day holy means devoting it to God, making it a day for Him, for our Creator and our Redeemer. And later on in the Old Testament law, it was made clear that this is supposed to be a day for getting together to worship. One of the reasons we don't go to work is so we can be here. You rest so that you can get together. Leviticus 23 verse 3 says, six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. Convocation is just a fancy word for getting together, assembling for worship. And you see this pattern in Jesus' life. Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. We see this here in our passage this morning. Luke chapter 4 verse 16 tells us it was his custom to go every Sabbath to the synagogue with God's people to worship. And there was weekly worship that happened at the temple. There was a different kind of worship. There were extra sacrifices on the Sabbath, even though there were daily sacrifices through the week. And so in verse five here, Jesus points out that the priests had to do extra work on the Sabbath. The priests did more work on the Sabbath than they did other days of the week to make that Sabbath worship happen. Jesus says, It's strange to us to think of it this way. He says they profane the Sabbath. They break the Sabbath in the sense that they have to work on that day. But that's what they had to do to make that worship happen. And that's just the reality. If you're going to have a day of worship, some people are gonna have to do some work to make that happen. This service that we have every Sabbath morning involves work for not just me, but for several people who have to get things together to make this happen. And Jesus says here that that's good. It is good to do work that facilitates worship, that makes worship happen on the Lord's day. Now there's something to be said for simplicity in worship and not creating unnecessary work. I think some churches, the worship is such a production that you have dozens of people who have to work to make it happen. And there's something to be said for keeping our worship simple so that not too many people have to work. But it is good for us that some people work on the Sabbath to make worship happen. Now, I don't think any of you, well, certainly none of you have ever confronted me for my work on the Sabbath of preaching to you, or of leading in worship. And I don't think that any of you really are worried that I'm breaking the Sabbath by doing what I do on the Sabbath, or the deacons or others who are doing work on this day. But there are many of you who have to do some of that work, who have to work to make worship happen, parents of small children especially. Sabbath school teachers, deacons, elders, any of you who travel a long way to get here for worship, you're doing work to get here for worship. And maybe you wonder sometimes, do I really have a Sabbath? Am I really keeping the Sabbath? Look at the day, look at how I have to spend all this time driving. Look at all this time I have to spend getting my kids dressed and out the door. Look at all this time I have to spend teaching a Sabbath school class or leading in worship or cleaning up after the meal or whatever it is you feel like I'm working so much on the Sabbath. Do I have, am I really practicing the Sabbath day? And it's something I ask myself as I look at the work I do. But I would encourage you, as someone who works a lot on the Sabbath, even when you have to work to make worship to happen, you are giving that day to the Lord. It is still the Lord's day. If you are working a lot to make worship happen, you are still devoting the day to the Lord. It is still your Sabbath. It is still your Lord's day, as it should be. Now, pragmatically speaking, practically speaking, for those of you like me who work a lot on the Sabbath, you need to recognize that God has created us to work six days and rest one. And so, if you aren't able to physically rest on the Lord's Day, it's important to make time other times in the week when you can rest. But that rest time on another day is not your Sabbath. I take Mondays off, but it's not my Sabbath. Today is my Lord's Day. It's the day I give to the Lord. And I would encourage you, those of you who feel like you're working so much on a Sabbath to make worship happen, that you are still devoting it to the Lord, and it's good. It is good to do what you're doing. We shouldn't be surprised that it takes some work to make worship happen. If you want a vacation to happen, it takes some work. It even takes some work while you're vacationing often to arrange for you to get to rest and to enjoy that time. And maybe for some of you, you get focused on that and you can't enjoy your vacation because you're so focused on all these things I'm having to do to travel, to drive, or to arrange the logistics for the vacation. And you can ruin it if you just focus on those things. In the same way, you see the same thing with family gatherings. Sometimes getting the family together is a ton of work and it creates all kinds of difficult things you have to work through. But if you just focus on those things, you won't enjoy the good time that you're creating by doing that. In the same way, we have to do some work to make worship happen, but if we just focus on that work and we resent it, we won't enjoy resting and worshiping God together. Do you resent the work you have to do to make worship happen? Sunday mornings are often rough, especially for families trying to get kids out of the house. And for some of you parents, I wonder if you've ever had that thought cross your mind, you know, I think it would be a more restful day if we didn't even leave the house, if we just stayed put, if we just didn't try to get everybody dressed and out the door and ready to go and on time for church. And you think that would be true Sabbath keeping, that would be restful for me. But that's when you need to be reminded this isn't just a day about rest. This is a day about worshiping God. And so it's so important the example you're setting for your children and showing them this is a day for Him and getting them here and getting God's people together to worship Him and praise Him together. It's good work to be done. Same for you Sabbath school teachers or elders leading in worship. Do you ever feel like you just want a week when you could just be there and just rest and worship and not have to do one of these jobs? And we need to create some space and time like that for each of us at times. But with that weekly grind of some of the things that we do, rejoice in that, that you have the privilege of being part of making the Sabbath a day for the Lord for God's people. that you are essential in that process of bringing God's people together to worship. Now, as far as I know, the Pharisees didn't actually have any problem with the priests working on the Sabbath. They knew the law well enough that they were fine with that. But they did miss the next category of work that Jesus talks about here, and that's works of mercy. So thirdly, do works of mercy on the Lord's Day. After Jesus and his disciples finished this confrontation with the Pharisees out in the fields, they finished their walk and they came to the synagogue and they came into the weekly worship with God's people. And the Pharisees pointed out this man who was there who had a withered hand, some kind of a disability in his one hand. His hand wasn't functioning properly. And Matthew tells us here the Pharisees didn't care about this man. They weren't pointing him out because they cared and wanted him to be healed. They were using him. They were pointing him out publicly in a way that they would hope would trap Jesus so that he could be accused of breaking the Sabbath. But Jesus responded here with another analogy. He tells them, which one of you, if he has a sheep that falls in the ditch or in the pit, which one of you would not pull it out on that day and have mercy on that sheep because you value it? And in fact, in the language here, it doesn't come through in the translation. He actually says, which one of you who has one sheep, who has only one sheep, would not go and pull that sheep out because it's so valuable to you? He's really attacking their idea of value here. He says, you would value if you had just one sheep, if you had one cow, if that was the only one you had, you would place such great value on that sheep. Of course you would rescue it. Of course you would have mercy on it. And he says, how much more value is a man than a sheep? How much more value is a person than an animal? He says, he points out their callousness here. Their strict Sabbath keeping actually meant that they were being cruel and heartless towards this man. And Jesus made a similar argument in Luke chapter 13. In a very similar situation, there was a woman who had a disability in the synagogue there, and they were all looking at him to see if he was gonna heal her on the Sabbath, and asked him if it was okay to heal on the Sabbath. And he responded, he said, you hypocrites. This is Luke 13. You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? He essentially says to them, shouldn't the Sabbath be a day of setting people free? Shouldn't the Sabbath be a day of showing mercy because we have received mercy? You get a hint here that it's, this is more, Jesus is saying more than just you should help people if it's absolutely necessary. He's not just talking about a work of necessity here. It's not just if you absolutely have to, you have to help somebody. He's saying it's good to look for opportunities to help. It's good to take time to do extra works of mercy on the Lord's Day, because it's the day of being set free. We talked about how the Sabbath is a day for your Redeemer. It's the day when we remember and celebrate that we've been saved. And so it is good and right for us to look for opportunities to help others, to set others free, to give them mercy in their lives. It's a day for helping others. We understand this when we honor people in this life with a day, if we set apart a day to honor a certain historical figure, that when we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, often people will take that day to do something that furthers the goals that Martin Luther King Jr. stood for, that furthers the equality of value of all human beings. And so you might take some time on that day to do something that matches what his goals were, because you're doing that to honor him. In the same way, on the Lord's Day, on the day when he set us free, it is right and good to actively work to show mercy to others, to set others free from the burdens that they are bearing. And you see that here in this situation. Here's this man. This poor man with his disability who's been dragged up in front of the whole synagogue, who's been pointed out, it's pointed out what suffering he's going through. The weakness in his life and the Pharisees are showing no compassion to this man. But Jesus looks at him and he showed compassion and he healed him. And that must have been the best Sabbath day that that man ever experienced. and the day when he was miraculously healed by his Savior. And so we have the opportunity to improve others' view of the Sabbath day, to give them a joyful, happy day of freedom by showing them mercy on the Lord's day, to give them a happy and joyful Sabbath, to show them that Christ has set us free on this day, and so we want to free them from their burdens. So what does this look like practically? What are some of the works of mercy that you can be doing? What are some of the opportunities you have to set people free from burdens on the Lord's day? I know many of you in the past have done visits, maybe to the nursing home, maybe to shut-ins, maybe even to those in prison on the Lord's day. On a time when maybe you would be tied up during visitation hours during the work week, but you have some time on the Lord's Day that God's given you to show mercy. Can you take some of that time actively? Especially for those of you parents, can you bring your kids along and show them that this is a good way to spend the Lord's Day? I have such vivid memories of being dragged to the nursing home week after week to go visit an elderly member of our congregation who couldn't get out. And it showed me that that's what this day is for. It's for showing mercy to others. Or maybe you feel like during the week you don't have time to help others. And maybe the constraints of your job or of your life are such that you really don't have the time to commit to these things. And it could be that you need to make some more space for that in your daily life. But if that's true, if you are hard-pressed all week long, today's the day when you're given time to go help. Maybe you can prepare a meal for someone who needs it. Again, maybe you can spend some time with someone, go visit someone, call someone on the phone, write a letter, write a note to someone who needs encouragement. Take this day to show mercy to others. And when you do those things to honor God, when you do them to show your Redeemer's love, that is a good use of the day. That is a good work to be doing on the Lord's Day. I said at the beginning that the Pharisees had become focused on the law instead of the lawgiver. The Sabbath had become a day for the law. It was no longer a day for the Lord, for them. And we've been looking at these specific disagreements between Jesus and the Pharisees. We've been looking at these specific points that Jesus teaches on here, but think for a moment about how wrong it was for the Pharisees to challenge Jesus about this in the first place, to challenge the Lord himself on how he and his disciples were keeping the Sabbath. In the previous chapter here in Matthew, Jesus had just condemned these cities in this area for their lack of faith when they had seen the wonders that he had done. These Pharisees knew, they had all the proof they needed to see that He was the Messiah, and not just the Messiah, but to see that He was the Son of God Himself. But they had the audacity to challenge the Lord of the Sabbath about how He was practicing the Sabbath. Even after this miracle, look at what they did. This miracle in their own synagogue, and it should have been a day of rejoicing in the Lord, rejoicing in what He had done, and what did they do? They walked out of that room and they conspired how to destroy Jesus. Friends, the Lord's day is Jesus' day. It is His day. It's all about Him. So may we never become so focused on the law that we lose sight of who He is. Focus your hearts and your minds on Him on this day. Make Him the starting point of your day, the starting point of what you do on this day. And then rejoice when you look at what He has told us to do with His day and these freedoms that He's given us, that He's told us that it's good to do works of necessity and works of worship and works of mercy so that we can devote this day to Him, so that we can bring honor to Him and glorify Him. So do those works, do that work that he's encouraged us to do, and rest in him, and enjoy and worship him on his day. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. And we thank you especially for the word made flesh, for Jesus Christ, our Savior. And we thank you for the ways that he has interpreted your law for us to show us the true heart of the law, the true heart of the fourth commandment so that we so that we are warned not to fall into the Pharisee ism of his day. And so, Lord, whatever ways we need to be convicted about our Sabbath keeping, Lord, please work in our hearts through your spirit. If we do not care enough about your day, if we are lax in not truly giving the day to you, please help us to do that better. But Lord, if we're tempted to be like the Pharisees, to make it all about the law and to forget about you in the process, Lord, convict us of that as well. Lord, please bless us through this day. Please help us to focus our hearts and minds on you today, to make this day all about you. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.