All right, Mark chapter three, are you ready? All right, let's take the Bible, Mark chapter three. I'm gonna read the first five verses of our next passage. Mark chapter three, beginning in verse one. And Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And the Pharisees 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 the Pharisees said, he said to the Pharisees, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. And Jesus 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. Our message this morning is titled, The Restorer of Hearts. The Restorer, the Revealer of Hearts. Let's pray, Father, You've been so good to us to be able to affirm and to confess the teachings of our Lord, the truths of the scriptures. Lord, as you in your word reveal hearts this morning, don't just reveal the hearts in this passage. But for my brothers and sisters who sit before me longing to hear a word from God, In their hearing, would you reveal their hearts to them, that we may faithfully follow and obey you. And I pray this in Christ's name, amen. Misogynist, fascist, racist, Any of those words are enough to make a person socially radioactive in 2025. Say one of those and an online mob will form instantly. Careers end, friendships evaporate, and communities disintegrate. 2,000 years ago, the kill shots were different. blasphemer, friend of sinners, Sabbath breaker. But the question is why? Why those names given to our Lord? What is it about those names specifically And our passage this morning reveals why the Pharisees called Jesus those names. In Mark chapter three, verse one, follows another significant Sabbath event, right? Last week, we were learning that Jesus and his disciples began to eat grain on the Sabbath day. And he's the Lord of the Sabbath is why he tells the Pharisees. And so in Mark chapter three, verses one through six, We would read it as if this is just a continuation of the Sabbath day. It's not. The way Mark's account reads, that's the way it feels. But if you were to read the Luke's account, Dr. Luke's account, you would learn that this event happened another Sabbath day. So Mark paints this picture with simple yet bold details. The synagogue felt like a trap that Sabbath morning. Jesus walked in through the back door, every pharisaical eye lifted up their gaze from their scroll. They did not fix their eyes because of wonder at Jesus. Rather, those cold-blooded killers' eyes looked with contempt at how they could entrap the rabbi from Nazareth. The Pharisees sat frozen, scrolls forgotten in their laps, their legalistic fingers clutching at the fringe of their garments. the disciples who had followed Jesus into the synagogue that Sabbath morning. As they were following him in, beads of sweat began to drip from their foreheads. Across the room, there was another section to kind of complete the triangle, if you will. A man with a withered hand begins to shrink back into the shadows. Everybody's eyes were fixed on Jesus and the man with the withered hand. He hadn't come to the synagogue that morning to make trouble, he had come to pray. But in doing so, he found himself to be the bait. that Sabbath morning. His lifeless hand is unable to move from the steely gaze of the Pharisees and the gentle eye of our Lord. His throat is dry. He ekes out a silent prayer that only the father can hear. Please God, don't let him call me over to him. At that moment, Jesus stepped into the center of the room. It was completely silent. Only thing you could hear was the creak of our Lord's leather sandals that seemed to reverberate even against the soft walls of that synagogue. With righteous eyes, Jesus looked at the Pharisees and asked this question. Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath? To kill or to give life? No one breathed. No one answered. And Jesus embraced the condemning silence of the Pharisees. He turned to the man with the withered hand and he said, Stand up, come here. As the man began to take those steps towards Jesus of Nazareth, his feet felt like they were in quicksand with every step seemed as if that quicksand had become hardening concrete. The man stopped close enough to see, to stare into the eyes of our Lord. And as he stood close, he saw that the anger in Jesus's eyes were not reserved for him, but rather for the hardness of the hearts around him. With four words, Jesus changed this man's life. Stretch out your hand. And the man that hadn't been able to move his hand for years, all of a sudden felt the pulse of blood and strength invigorating his hands. The Pharisees, though many, it's as if they moved as one that morning to see what would happen. It was as if time stood still as mercy and murderers stood face to face. In this one miracle, Four hearts are laid bare before God. I want you to see the very first heart this morning. It is the hard heart of the Pharisees. Jesus didn't touch the man. He didn't ask his disciples to go move the man. No one picked the man up and brought him over. He simply said, stretch out your hand. If that is work, is of the non-physical variety of work. And by extending healing, Jesus reveals this, that hard hearts are more concerned with the law than they are mercy. And Jesus's question to them is very clear. If Sunday through Friday are reserved for healing, does that mean that the Sabbath is intended for harm? If Sunday through Friday is intended to give life, does that mean that the Sabbath is intended to kill? Their silence that day condemned them. Their hard hearts screamed defiantly. We don't need that type of good here or now, and we certainly don't need it from you, Jesus. And saints, it is this hardness of heart that now explains to us why they called our Lord Sabbath breaker, blasphemer, friend of sinners because of their hardness of heart. You know, a hard heart looks at Jesus's mercy and says this, I don't need that. Not here. Not now, maybe someday, but not now. And not from you, Jesus. A hard heart is a heart that has slowly gone dull and blind to amazing grace. Saint's hard heartedness reveals itself differently. Here in Mark 3, it's one with who has open hostility toward God, toward Jesus. For another, It's not hardness of heart doesn't open hostility. It's it's more like kind of indifference. Yeah, I can take it or leave it. For much for many call themselves Christian in our own country. It's not open hostility or indifference. It's more just kind of a casual a casual approach. to God. If it's suitable, then I'll worship. But at its root, here's what a hard heart is. At its root, a hard heart says, as long as I'm not hurting anyone else, I run my own life. But as far too often, rebellion clothes itself in independence from God. It's the heart that says, I have no need for God as long as I'm a good person. Right, you wouldn't think that, at least in the Pharisees' day, you wouldn't think that those are the people who need God and Jesus is revealing to us by their hardness of heart that they're the actual people who need him the most. Even though on the outside they look like they got their act together. It's the hard heart. of the Pharisees, but I want you to see the second heart. The second heart is the heart that's revealed in our Savior. It's gonna be a little bit shocking because it is the angry heart of Jesus. Now many times you will hear people say something to this effect, I don't want the angry God of the Old Testament, give me the kind, loving Jesus of the New Testament. The loving, kind, compassionate Jesus is also unapologetically and righteously angry in this passage. In fact, his anger responded to the hard hearts that were calloused about the physical condition of this man. Luke records, when Dr. Luke records this story, he records that the man's withered hand was his right hand. The right hand in Jewish culture, first century Jewish culture, was the hand of power. It was the hand of blessing. It was the hand of work. So to lose a hand in the first century was devastating economically and socially. And because of his deformity, he was considered unclean. He was actually prevented from certain acts of worship. Now he was allowed to be in the synagogue, but there were certain acts of worship that he was not allowed to participate in because he was considered unclean. So to do good to this man was not simply to restore simple conveniences. To allow him to use a walker perhaps. or to kind of give him a, you know, a wheelchair to allow him to maneuver around in life. Folks, this was not just a simply a matter of simple convenience, but here it was, Jesus by this very act of mercy is bringing him from the edges of society into a full functioning member of the society. He's bringing him back into the ability to work and get this and worship. This is a divine act of mercy. And Jesus is angry with these Pharisees because there is a hardness of heart toward the man's condition. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I created this thing all the way back in Genesis. I named it as such. And when it was given out and when the command was given out in Deuteronomy chapter five that we read earlier, those were my words. This is the same holy anger that caused our Savior to grab a whip, to turn over money changers tables and drive the money changers out of the temple. So whether Jesus's anger is in Galilee or down in Jerusalem, the anger is the same over those who are self-righteous and unmoved by the needs a move by people's need. This is the same Jesus that is found in the book of the Revelation chapter 1. Where John writes these words that his eyes were like a blazing fire. And out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. I remember as a little boy sitting in Sunday school. and thinking to myself, that's the craziest picture I've ever seen in my life. How does that work? How does a sword come out of Jesus's mouth? A sword isn't coming out of Jesus's mouth. The picture is this, is that when Jesus speaks, his word has the ability to cut to the soul, to divide between soul and spirit. He gets to the heart of the matter faster than anyone else. He wields a double-edged sword of words. And the mouth that heals, here is the same mouth that will pronounce judgment one day. That is, yes, Jesus is a lamb, but he's also a lion. He's both and. The Pharisees, the irony of this passage is this, the Pharisees who insist that the Sabbath is for life, what are they going to do? They're going to walk out and they're going to plot death. Right? Hey, Jesus, you can't do that. This is the Sabbath day. Right, you're good and giving life, that's for, I don't know, Sunday through Friday. No healing on the Sabbath. So for those who are insisting that the Sabbath is for worship, they're going to go out and actually plot his death. And their anger, that anger will lead them to plot Jesus' death. Jesus' anger and the glory of the Father sustains his missional grief. What is missional grief? It is a grief that will allow our Savior to have his eyes fixed on Calvary. Fixed on the cross, headed toward the crucifixion. Why? Because of the hardness. Saints, not of the Pharisees' hard hearts, but of our hard hearts. It is that missional grief that propels our Savior. The angry heart of our Lord. Quickly, we go on to the grieving heart. of Jesus. This third heart is not another person's heart. It's the same heart of our Lord. And Christ's anger is swallowed by a holy grief. A holy grief. Grief over calloused hearts, indifferent to pain. Grief over the incapacity to rejoice in good being accomplished. Grief over the self-righteous inability to see their own need for Christ's intervention. And grief over the inability to see that a hard heart closes the mind and the eyes to divine grace. It is divine grace that compels Jesus to the cross. And so Jesus is not just angry. Saints, Jesus is not just angry at their hardness. He is grieving over what their hardness will cost them. This is the same grief that looked on the crowds as they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. It was the same grief that from our Savior's diaphragm spoke out, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. This is the same grief that allowed our Lord to stand silent before Pontius Pilate. This is the same grief that allowed our Lord to look over his shoulder down below into the courtyard prior to the crucifixion as the rooster crowed the third time and there he saw Peter who had just denied him for the third time. Friend, if you are aware this morning, that your hard heart is costing you, that is a sign of divine grace to you. It is a sign of God's kindness to reveal to you the hardness of heart. That ache you sense in your heart right now is God's grace breaking through that moment of honest pain over your own hardness. It's not condemnation. It is mercy in motion. It is your Savior saying to you, stretch out your hand. It's an invitation by your God, your creator, that though you have denied him all these years, though there is righteousness on the outside, like the Pharisees inside, there is a harshness and a hardness of heart. It is divine mercy that reaches out to you. I'm so grateful that the fourth and final heart is the one that is caught in the crossfire of the Pharisees. It is the needy heart of the man with the withered hand. We're not told in the passage in Mark or in Luke, we're not told what caused the withered hand. The way the underlying language underneath the English, the way it's written, he wasn't born this way. This was something that happened to him. Perhaps a mining incident. Perhaps a woodworking tragedy. Perhaps a farming accident. Who knows? Regardless, here's what we know. permanently injured. And though he's in the crosshairs of the legalists, the needy man is swooped out of those crosshairs and into divine, gracious, sovereign, merciful hands by Christ. That is the all-powerful that according to the Old Testament that is stretched out was stretched out that day for a man who could not stretch out his hand. It's the the needy man here. Saints, when we're reading Mark 3 verses 1 through 6, where do you find yourself? You're not Jesus, right? You may have started off saying, well, I think I'm more like the disciples. Perhaps for the past few minutes, the Spirit of God has laid bare your heart and has actually said to you, no, you're the Pharisee. That is intended for you to open your heart up even deeper. to actually see yourself in the position of the needy man, the man with the withered hand. It is the needy person is the one who feels the desperation for divine rescue. It is this need. Saints, is this not the need that brought you to gather on the Lord's day to worship your Father? Lord's day after Lord's day after Lord's day. Is that I am the needy man. We are the needy people. That's why I gather. That's why I come. That's why I worship. The needy heart. is the one who recognizes that the greatest need is not out there. It's not my neighbors. It's not those people. It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. This man's physical need, it's visible. Like everyone can see it. And he's faithful at that synagogue, Sabbath day after Sabbath day. On the surface, you wouldn't think that the Pharisees were the one with the deep spiritual need. They're the ones kind of leading the worship. This passage is telling us that their hearts, the Pharisee's hearts, were more deformed than the man's hand. And a physical deformity may prevent you from physical prosperity. But get this, a shriveled heart shielded from God's grace will fast track you to hell. And so where this passage is pointing us to is do you see yourself is the man with the withered hand in need of divine, saving grace. And you can have been saved for some period of time. You know, I asked Jesus into my heart, but the longer we're saved, saints, That sinfulness is so much a part of our life, is intended to push us further into humility, further into our need of God's saving, sanctifying grace. So question, do you stand in need of mercy this morning? And if you're truly born again, there's not one heart or mind in here that not ought not emphatically say, yes, I stand in need of the mercy of the man from Nazareth. Before that restored hand had even flexed its fingers Before that restored hand had moved from kind of a pre rigor mortis, if you will, the Pharisees walked out the back door of that synagogue, plotting with their sworn enemies, the Herodians, on how to kill Jesus of Nazareth. Look at verse six. The Pharisees went out. and immediately held council with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Here's what you need to know about the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees, their name means separatists. They're anti-Roman. They are strict Torah keepers. The Herodians on the other side, they are pro-Herod. Herod is the king who's in charge, and there's multiple Herods throughout your New Testament, throughout the Gospels. But they're pro-Herodian government. They are pro-Roman collaborators. These are the ones who are politically astute. If you wanna get ahead, you gotta kind of grease the wheels, so to speak, politically. The Herodians are politically compromised Jews. So the strict Sabbath-keeping, Torah-observing Pharisees make common agreement or union with the Herodians for one purpose, to destroy Jesus. And so even in mercy, the cross is in view. Even in the need of grace of this man with the withered hand, still the cross is in view. And still the cross is in view in your life, saints. In your need for divine, intervening, saving, and sanctifying grace. And the same voice that said, stretch out your hand, is speaking to you right now through the prophet Isaiah. Listen to these words and hear your God incline your ear. And come to me. Here and your soul shall live. Did you hear that? If you hear God's words, you shall live. Not hear God's words and do. hear God's words and live. So if you have responded with saving faith, the words that I have spoken to you through the gospel of Mark chapter three are intended to free you Saints that you might live to the glory of the one who has saved you and sanctifies you. Needy hearts have listening ears and respond in obedience to the Savior's command to hear. Friend, Jesus, the revealer of hearts, the revealer of hearts, has laid open, has bared open your heart this morning. But here's the great thing. It's enough for me to see my own heart. I don't know about you, I can only handle so much. But he didn't stop there for you to see your own heart. But this passage is intended for you to look to the heart of your Savior, Jesus Christ, who is merciful and gracious to men and women with withered hands, and to men and women with shriveled, graceless hearts. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Grace Life, or maybe it's your first Sunday. For the next few moments, with no noise, no instrumentation in the background. There's two responses before us today, to hear, but to keep a hard heart. And if you have heard, would you worship your Lord and Savior for the next few moments? And if the Holy Spirit has laid bare your heart, would you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? And if you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will heal your sin-filled, sin-cursed heart. And if that is you, would you tell someone this morning that that happened in your life? But I want to give you