chapter 3 verse 6. These are once again the accounts that include what we would describe as confrontation accounts, increasing level of resistance that Jesus is encountering as he teaches the people. And as we read about the response, the confrontation, the negative reaction that Jesus often encounters with his teaching, it's a great opportunity for us to reflect on how we ourselves are responding to the words that we hear Jesus teach. And so it's very instructive for us. So Mark's gospel, chapter two, 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? 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, uh, 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. And 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. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, oh Lord, you have the words of life. And so we pray, oh God, that as you speak to us, that you would give us ears to hear them and hearts that are able to receive these words and to respond to them in faith and obedience. Grant this as you speak to us through your word. We ask in Christ's name, amen. Have you ever noticed how it seems that the things that we most enjoy in life are the things that everybody tells us are bad for us? Kids, you know how this works. Donuts and ice cream, parents are going to strictly limit that. But bring out the Brussels sprouts, the liver and onions, you can have all you want. Medicine never tastes good, but you take it because it's good for you. Exercise, you know how this works, grownups. If you're going to be healthy, you've got to do it. But it hurts, and you get sweaty, and it just isn't any fun. So very often, we tend to associate those things that are good for us with what's not very pleasant. And of course, there is some truth in that. But as we come to think about the Lord's Day, the Sabbath, how many of us tend to think of this day in that same way? We might think, well, It may be good for me, and it is a commandment after all, so I am bound to keep it, but am I going to like it? Am I going to enjoy it? In order to keep the commandment, doesn't that mean that I'm really just going to have to be miserable for the day? Or maybe if we turn things around a little bit, we might say that if I am enjoying the Lord's day, I must be doing something wrong. Those are the kinds of ideas that that perhaps trouble all of us at some time with respect to the Sabbath. And here in Mark's gospel, once again, the opportunity comes up to teach, to teach the people about the important matters of life. And here he touches on the matter of the Sabbath, something that was important for religious Jews at the time. It was vastly important, a matter of national identity. but something that is also very important for the people of God today, for Christians. And what we're going to learn in this text this evening is that the Sabbath is a gift from God, and it's meant for your good and for your blessing. And we'll come to see that as we consider three things. The first thing we need to do is we need to get to know the Sabbath. We have to understand what we're dealing with when we're talking about the Sabbath. And then once we've done that, we're gonna look at two ways that are presented in this text, two ways that you can ruin the Sabbath. But after we've done that, we're gonna see that Jesus sets before us two ways that you can delight in the Sabbath, that you can rejoice in the Sabbath, that you can truly come to enjoy it as a good gift and a blessing from God. So we'll get to know the Sabbath, we'll see two ways to ruin the Sabbath, And then be blessed by seeing two ways to rejoice in the Sabbath. So getting to know the Sabbath. First off, the Sabbath is a part of the moral law. That's the first thing we need to understand. It's the fourth commandment. And the Ten Commandments, after all, are an index or a summary of what we call the moral law. The moral law, or just to consider that word law by itself, it's really just the instruction, the precepts, the commandments of God that reflect His moral purity and righteousness, and they reflect His character. They tell us what's absolutely wrong and what's absolutely right at all times and in all places. That's very important. The moral law is unchanging because God is unchanging. And so it applies to all and is binding today and for all time. The moral law did not end with Christ. Christ, after all, did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. But just as importantly, the moral law did not begin with Moses and the 10 commandments. So the Sabbath is part of the moral law. That's the first thing we need to understand. as we get to know the Sabbath. But further, as we did our reading from Genesis chapter 1 and 2, we also discover there that the Sabbath is founded in creation. So it goes all the way back to the beginning. You see, the Sabbath capped off, or completed, the Creation Week. And we want to notice there, as we speak about the Creation Week, that the Creation Week was not simply six days. The Creation Week was completed when The six days of God's work of creation were then capped off with that day of rest that he calls, that he sanctified as a Sabbath. And so it's not only the six days, it's the six plus one, the whole seven days that make the full week. And when we look in Genesis, what we discover as we consider that the Sabbath is founded in creation. is first of all that the Sabbath is a holiday. Now you can put that word in quotes in your mind if you like. It's a holiday, it's a day of rest. We saw that when we looked at the text. On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And again in verse three of chapter two, on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. We're emphasizing here because we see in this theme repeated of finishing work and resting. And the word rested that's in the text is actually the root word for Sabbath. And so there's our idea of rest. This is what makes the Sabbath day a holiday. And then when we come to the fourth commandment, we're told to remember the Sabbath day. On it you shall do no work. And we see that this applies to all in the household and includes even the strangers in the community and even animals, those animals that served in a work capacity. And this idea of Sabbath rest is even continued on a larger scale for the land itself so that every seventh year the land was to have a period of rest, a Sabbath. And so we see again and again this theme that defines the Sabbath is rest. It's a holiday. But it's a holiday and then it is also a holy day. Now you can make the connection between those two words in your own mind. There's an obvious connection between a holy day that came to become a holiday or a day of rest, a day off. But we see this idea of it being a holy day in the text in Genesis as well. Genesis chapter 2 verse 2 said, on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done. And here we'll underline this word, God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. God's making it a holy day. And we see this again in the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It's a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. It belongs to the Lord. It's the Lord's day. And because it's a holy day, then we, then we see two things that it's a day to be sanctified. It's a day to be sanctified by setting aside the ordinary. It's to be different. It's not like, it's not to be like every other day. It's not to be a day of carrying on business as usual. And so we set aside the ordinary, but as we set aside the ordinary, we also set apart the day for holy purposes, not for common uses. And it's not just for an hour or two, but for the whole day, that's the command. It's a day of rest and of sanctification. And so we also see that it's a day for worship. It's a day really for pausing from the busyness of life and reflecting on God. Reflecting on him in his goodness and for all the ways that he's manifested his goodness to all of his creation, but especially to his people. It's a day for thanking him and praising him in worship and especially in the context of corporate worship. It's a key part. of the day. And so if we take these ideas of the Sabbath being a holiday and a holy day, a day to be sanctified, a day for worship, we can sum these up the same way that the Westminster Shorter Catechism does in question 60 and describe it as a day of holy resting. And so that gives us some idea of what the Sabbath is. A day of holy resting. But then we see in our texts that Jesus encounters two occasions in dealing with the teachers of the law in that day. And we find set before us two ways to ruin this day that the Lord has given us. The first of those ways we see as we read in chapter two, verse 23, the account of Jesus walking through the grain field and plucking the grain. he and his disciples. And how did the Pharisees who were watching him, how did they respond? They see him and right away they say, you can't do that. That's not lawful. Why? It wasn't because he was stealing. Plucking grain from a neighbor's field was expressly permitted by God. We find that in Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 25. No, they charge him instead with breaking The way they perceived it, as Jesus and his disciples were walking through this grain field and plucking the heads of grain and eating them, they were harvesting and threshing. They were doing work. And this was unlawful. And so they begin to ruin the Sabbath as they act as if the Sabbath was meant to keep you from living. You see, the Pharisees act as if everything must yield to the Sabbath, everything. They act as if life must come to a halt, as if it's wrong for a man to enjoy God's good creation or to feed himself from its bounty. And so, do you begin to see how they're ruining the Sabbath by acting as if it meant that it was to keep you from living? Well, Jesus responds to their accusation with a history lesson. He recalls this particular story involving David. See, David was on the run from Saul. He was being pursued by him and on the run for his life, and he had no provisions with him, so he was in need. He was hungry. And so he stops at the tabernacle where the priest was, and he asks him if he could have the bread. There was nothing else to eat. So he asked him for bread and so the priest gave him the only thing that was available, which was the holy bread. Now that holy bread was only for the priest to eat. It was not lawful for anyone else to eat that bread. And yet the priest gave it to him. David did what was not lawful. He ate that holy consecrated bread in the tabernacle. But here's the amazing thing. This is the point. is that David was never condemned for breaking God's law in this matter of eating the holy bread. Neither was the priest for that matter. So if you picture the situation, the priest had a choice there, didn't he? David comes to him in obvious need. The priest had the choice at that moment to either keep the bread holy or to respond to David's genuine, legitimate need. to save David's life. And we know which one he chose. Now, according to the Pharisees interpretation, the interpretation that was leading them to accuse Jesus the way that they did, that was unlawful. That was breaking the rules. That shouldn't have happened. But you see, Jesus presents a story because in it, it's, it's driving home the point that God made allowance in order for David to live. God, as the bread of presence became to David, the bread of life. And that's exactly what Christ does for us. Christ is the bread of life for us. Christ is not just a decoration in our lives. Christ is our bread of life whom we must eat if we are to have life. And so if God was willing. to make this allowance for David in the matter of his own holy law. Why were these men so quick to judge and to condemn Jesus for breaking, not God's law, but their own interpretation of it, their own rules that they had come up with? So you see the contrast that Jesus is making. God's holy law on this one hand, and he relaxed it. He made allowance for David's need. And yet the Pharisees were not willing to relax even their man's laws in order for Jesus and his disciples to enjoy that grain. So they're acting as if it's meant to keep you from living. That's the way they're treating the Sabbath. But then there's another way to ruin the Sabbath and that's to act as if it's meant to keep you from loving. And we see that in chapter 3, verses 1 through 6. There, Jesus is in the synagogue, and there's a man present there who has a withered hand. Now, as Jesus comes in, the Pharisees watch him like a hawk. They want to accuse him. They're looking for some reason to accuse him. And for what? tells us right there in verse two. They want to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath. They can't wait to find some reason to accuse him, and they're even willing to accuse him for healing. So in verses three and four, Jesus once again creates a teaching opportunity. He calls a man forward, and as he stands there with him in his presence, he asks the Pharisees, why are you acting? as if the Sabbath is meant to keep you from loving. Isn't it lawful to love on the Sabbath? Isn't it lawful to do good rather than to harm? To save life rather than to kill? Isn't that what it really means to keep the Sabbath? To fulfill the law is to love? Why then are you acting as if the Sabbath is meant to keep you from loving? Now, the Pharisees can't win. Either way that they answer this question, they've either admitted what is obviously wrong to harm or to kill, or they're granting Jesus' point. And to say that Jesus is right is almost as repugnant to them as to be wrong themselves. So in verses five and six, when Jesus does, in fact, heal the man, what do we see that the Pharisees do? They immediately go out and plot to kill Jesus. Now you see, there's no clearer way to see the perversion of Sabbath keeping, how twisted they had it, how backwards they had it than in this decision to go out and plot to murder a man. And on the Sabbath, on the way home from church, they were so determined to keep the Sabbath as they saw it. Really, it was simply a matter of not breaking the Sabbath. They didn't understand what it meant to keep the Sabbath. They just simply wanted to keep from breaking it. But they were so determined to do this that they were willing to say that if doing good means breaking the Sabbath, then I'm not going to do good. If saving life means breaking the Sabbath, then I refuse to save life. You see, their view of keeping the Sabbath was keeping them from kindness, from compassion, from mercy. It was keeping them from loving. As we consider these two ways that we see in this text to ruin the Sabbath, let's ask ourselves how we might be doing the same thing. This is not every way. to ruin the Sabbath, you can multiply these examples. There are countless ways that we can ruin the Sabbath, but ask the Lord to search your heart. Do you see ways that you ruin the Sabbath by acting as if it's meant to keep you from living or to keep you from loving others? Let's consider two ways then to rejoice in the Sabbath. Two principles that not only help us to avoid ruining the Sabbath, but more importantly, allow us to delight in the Sabbath, to receive it as a gift from God for our blessing. The first of these ways to rejoice in the Sabbath is to remember that God alone is Lord of the Sabbath. God alone is Lord of the Sabbath. You see, Jesus says that in verse 28 of chapter two. He says, so the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus is speaking of himself when he speaks about the son of man. That's a title that he used for himself very frequently. But what Jesus means is very simply this, that only God has authority as Lord or master to say what it means to keep the Sabbath or to break it. And what then is the implication? That that means that we are not bound to keep men's rules concerning the Sabbath. Now, this is not an argument against church government or discipline or the authority of elders as spiritual overseers. These things are not man's inventions, elders and the spiritual oversight that they give in church government, church discipline. These are things that God has ordained in his word very clearly. They all have a basis in scripture, but you see the Actions of the church in its government and discipline, the decisions of the elders are not to be blindly followed. What they teach is not to be blindly adhered to, but everything that's done in the capacity of leadership in the church must be evaluated in light of God's word. And so as we follow those who lead us, we follow them only as they follow Christ. So it's not an argument against church government. to say that we don't follow men's rules. What it is an argument against is doing what the Pharisees did. See, the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, they knew the Sabbath. They wouldn't have needed that first point that we went through this evening. The Sabbath was very important to them. They were meticulous in dissecting the Sabbath, to understand it, to be careful to Define it and refine their understanding in every way they labored at this. And that's in some ways it's commendable. We ought to do this. We ought to apply ourselves to, uh, to fully understanding God's word and not being satisfied with the superficial understanding. But you see the conclusions that they came to with regard to the Sabbath. Or the conclusions of fallible men. And yet. They took these conclusions of the fallible men, what came to be known as the traditions of the elders, the teachers of the law, all of the rabbinical knowledge that was stored up in, uh, in many volumes of law was elevated to the same level as God's word. The conclusions of fallen man had the same authority as God's authoritative word. Man's word stood side by side with God's, binding the conscience. And this is what we must avoid. This is why we must remember that it is God alone who is Lord of the Sabbath. Because you see, what happens when we take that Pharisaic route, and we ought to consider that the spirit of the Pharisee is alive and well in the 21st century. It's not something that died out in Jesus' day. When the spirit of the Pharisee takes over Sabbath keeping degenerates into a matter of not breaking the rules. You see, that becomes the emphasis. That's what happened in Jesus day. It can happen in ours. Rule keeping can come to dominate the day. Fear of rule breaking can destroy the day. And so if there's another purpose to the Sabbath, we won't see it. We'll miss it just the same way they did. It gets lost in the rules. You see, we need to be careful to see that because when we elevate rules to become the definition of what God designed in the Sabbath, then we miss what God truly has for the Sabbath. And that's what we want to see in this final point is that we want to appreciate that God has given the Sabbath for your good. That's what we see in verse 27 of chapter two. He said to them, the Sabbath was made for men, not man for the Sabbath. You see, this all leads here. All of what we're talking about leads us to this point here that we need to appreciate the true purpose of the Sabbath. If we're going to be free from the patterns of ruining the Sabbath, and we've only looked at two here, but we know that there are many more. If we're going to be free from those patterns that destroy the Sabbath for us and truly come to delight in the Sabbath, we have to see not only that God alone is Lord of the Sabbath, which frees us from the bondage of manmade rules, but then appreciate the true purpose of it. Appreciate that God has given it to us for our good. And we do that by seeing that the law is not an end in itself. Jesus says that man was not made for the Sabbath, that God did not create the Sabbath and then make the creature in order to serve the Sabbath. No. Why then do we look at the Sabbath as a harsh master that burdens us as a slave? That's looking at it backwards. You see, man was created first and then came the Sabbath. God wisely gave the Sabbath. You see, it's for you. It's for your good. Now, like all law, the Sabbath commandment is for God's glory, but it's also for your good. The law frequently, if not exclusively, serves that purpose. The law is given to glorify God, and yet it's always for your good. It's just like taking the medicine, eating the liver and the Brussels sprouts instead of the doughnuts, doing the exercise. You see, it's good for you. The Puritans would speak of the Sabbath day as the market day of the soul. It was a day to go to market, to go shopping, to stock up, to replenish the pantry, to to fill your home with the good things for your body. The Sabbath day is the same thing for your soul. It's a day to feed your spirit. To neglect your soul by not delighting in the Sabbath, by not keeping the Sabbath, is truly to deny your humanity. To neglect your soul in this way is to deny your humanity. It's saying that all I am is a body, and as long as I take care of my body, that's enough. But that's not who you are. God made you a body, soul, creature, and so we must not deny or neglect our soul, but we must feed it in that market day of the soul. And so you see then that the Sabbath is the week by week opportunity to set aside the earthly concerns to turn our thoughts heavenward. You see in that setting aside of earthly concerns, it's not a matter of depriving yourself from all of the things that truly give you life and happiness. It's a matter of making room for what's truly good for you. Maybe you've gone to one of those steak houses, the kind with the peanut shells on the floor, and you know that as you're waiting for your steak, which they're over there grilling in that windowed room where you can see the towering flames as they sear your steak, that they bring you out a steaming basket of these most delicious rolls. And those things are so good. But if you eat too many of them, you're forgetting The whole reason why you came to the steakhouse. You eat too many of these rolls, you never get the steak. And so you've got to set aside the rolls to make room for the steak. That's what we do week by week with the Sabbath. We set aside the earthly concerns to make room for the heavenly things. To turn our thoughts heavenward. To give ourselves in worship. In praise and gratitude to God, to look to our creator and marvel at the wonder of his creation, to enjoy its blessings in every aspect and to say, wow, God is good. It's to turn our thoughts to our redeemer and to marvel at the majesty of his grace and to praise Christ for eternal life. Not only for abundant life in this life, but for the abundant life in the life to come. It's to set aside those earthly concerns to make room to gather with the church, with God's people. Think about this. When you do this week by week on the Sabbath, you join in the worldwide marathon of praise that spans around the clock and around the globe, hour by hour for 24 hours, as the entire world in its turn takes its turn to praise our Creator and our Redeemer. You see, as we do that and as we understand our connectedness to the entire community of faith around the globe, we get a taste of heaven. This is what the Sabbath does for you. Now, you might say that this is so good, why not do this every day? And we might like to. And you know, there's a certain sense in which it's appropriate to worship every day, that each day You can make room for just this sort of thing in your life. And so you might set aside a little bit of time in the morning and some time in the evening, time at your meals. But you know, honestly, you may not have time the rest of the week to worship this way. After all, think of the commandment. God tells us, six days shall you labor and do all your work. God gives you the full six days. He says, you've got a lot of work to do. Take the six days and do your work. Get it all done. so that then you can put the work, and the school, and the sports, and the activities, and the meetings, and the errands, and the chores, put all those things that consume you throughout the week, put those aside and be free to worship. You know, your week can make you, or can leave you feeling as if you need a vacation. Well, you get to take one every week. You see, because the Sabbath is a holiday, And the Sabbath is a holy day. Sabbath is a day of holy rest. It was meant for your good, for your blessing. And so that's what Jesus sets before us in this passage. It's not a complete teaching on the Sabbath. There's so much more that could be said, but this is a starting point. that challenges us to begin to recover the original intent of the Sabbath and see it not as a means of God depriving you one whole day a week from everything that you love, but of God clearing your calendar so that you can connect with the only thing that matters in this life and the next. So receive the Sabbath as a gift from God meant for your good and for your blessing. Let's pray. Our blessed God and heavenly father. Oh, Lord, forgive us that so often. We have not thought of the Lord's day as you have given it to us in your great wisdom and your kindness, Lord, that you have given us this day to set aside and be free from the tyranny of our lives. Oh, Lord, would you give us the grace, we pray the grace of Christ to receive the Sabbath as a gift to honor you in it, Lord, as we as we keep it. that we would reflect in our own lives, Lord, in the way that we keep the Sabbath, that we see it as a good thing, that it reflects your wisdom and your kindness and not your unkindness, your desire to tyrannize our lives. So, Lord, we just seek the grace to do this, and to delight in all of your goodness. Hear us, O Lord, in Christ's name, amen.