Brothers and sisters in Christ, please remain standing as we now read this morning's sermons text from God's holy and precious word. Mark chapter 2, verse 23, on into chapter 3 and verse 6. Mark 2, 23, and then on into chapter 3 and verse 6. And when you have that, look up so I know that we can commence our reading this morning. I'm seeing most eyes. Now I see them all. Let's read together. One Sabbath as 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 hungry? He and those who were in the house with him, how he entered the house of God at the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it 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 continuing in chapter three, 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 in anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. And he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. 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. Thus far from God's Holy Word, let us pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we are grateful for Your Word, for its perfection, for its beauty, and for its inspiration. How it is altered by the God of all discernment, the God of all clarity, the God of all light. Indeed, O Lord, it searches deep into the heart, dividing joints from marrow, so that the thoughts of men may be exposed as they read it and as it is preached. We thank You for the blessed time that we have today that we can gather to study this Word of Yours and to hear it preached. Lord God, this day may You guide me as I bring Your Word, as I preach it. May You open the ears and hearts of the hearers that we might know You better, that we might delight in You more, and that we might glorify You with all of our hearts, souls, and minds. And in turn, as we will touch on this morning, to love our neighbor as ourselves, in your grace, as our Lord, the Lord of the Sabbath. Lord, if there be anyone here today that does not know you, may you use your word and move their hearts that they may trust Jesus as their Savior. Lord God, for those of us in this room who do, equip us and strengthen us to be Your people more fervently. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. The Sabbath day, the Lord's day, In Presbyterian circles, we often speak of it as the crown, the delight of our week. Because it is the day when we can draw near to God, to worship Him, to honor Him, and to bask in His presence. A day when we find rest and refreshment. A day when we can be unhindered by the cares of this world to be with our Savior. to meditate on His Word and works, and to draw together in unity and in Christian fellowship, both in this church and in congregations throughout the world that are part of the true body of Christ. And particularly One of the things about us as Presbyterians is that also observing the Sabbath is a witness to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, and a witness to our fellow man, that in Him we not only have rest, but that gathering as His people, We, my friends, point to him as well. Many Presbyterians have taken great stands throughout history over the necessity of upholding this rest. I think of one minister who laid down on the docks in Scotland to prevent commercial transportation from taking place on the Sabbath. I think of Eric Little who is portrayed in the famous film Chariots of Fire, how he refused to run and race, competing on the Lord's Day. He put God first, speaking of feeling God's pleasure. He had a heart that was alive to God. He had a heart that cherished the Lord. and a heart that in so loving God observed the primacy of this commandment, but yet did so also, as all Christians do when we are where we should be, with grace and discernment and humility." The Sabbath. My brothers and sisters, one of the things that attracted me as the Lord opened my eyes as I became Reformed, was the beauty of the Lord's Day. But as it was a new commandment to me, as the Lord corrected some of my previous understandings, I enjoyed spending time with the Lord. But I also found myself asking the question, what does it mean to hallow the Sabbath? What does it mean to honor it, to take delight in it? And how is rest, the rest that is observed, to be enacted? Well, the key is seeking the precious heart of Jesus, seeking His Word and His will in union with His Holy Spirit. And it's to the Lord we must go as we go to the main point of our text today. And the main point is this, is that Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath commends to us works of necessity and mercy on the Sabbath. Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath commends to us both works of necessity and mercy on the Sabbath day. And we'll see this in three main sub-points. The first one is that the Lord of the Sabbath commends to us works of necessity on the Sabbath. And then the second main sub-point is that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. And then the third main sub-point is that the Lord of the Sabbath commends to us works of necessity and mercy on the Sabbath. And you will see some of the nuancing here of what it means to rest. on the Lord's day and what things can be done on a day of rest. So let's go back to verse 23, the beginning of our preached text. It says this, on the Sabbath, or one Sabbath rather, as he was going through the grain fields, the Sabbath, I've already alluded to it, Jesus and his disciples were walking on that day and they needed something to eat. It was the one day in seven that was commanded at the creation of the world when the Lord God Jehovah created in six days and rested on the seventh as a reminder of what we, his people, should do. It is a creation ordinance. In six days we shall work and on the seventh we shall rest and enjoy God. Also, in the book of Exodus, that was later codified. in the Mosaic Covenant, in the giving of the law. And in that Mosaic Covenant, we read this. I'm going to turn back here. We see an expansion upon God's revelation that progresses throughout the Old Testament, and it says this in Exodus 20, verse 8, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." And I hope that is a good reminder. of the nature of that holy commandment, and it's in a very pure, inspired form. Working six days, resting the seventh. It is the rhythm of life that the Lord God set out for us, what we should do. The Sabbath was a holy day. As God is holy, so are we to dwell with the God who is holy. Has God thundered on Sinai the giving of the law, and the people trembled, so we are to in reverence behold this God on this day, see His magnificence, and also rest in His goodness as well. God is to be worshipped on that day. So much so, you may remember also in the book of Exodus when God brought the manna down from heaven, He told them to gather the manna for six days and take an extra portion for the seventh day and hold on to it and eat it in that day so that they might even be free from the troubles of gathering. So that they might meditate on the One who liberated them from Egypt, the One who is the source of their salvation, their life and light. And that is the purpose of that commandment, so that we can be with so that we can call that day a delight. You know, Isaiah 58 talks about that very thing that, and I'm going to read that here this morning because I think it's important that we notice that aspect of the Sabbath day. Yes, it is a commandment to rest and not to work, but the purpose is delight, joy, refreshing in the Lord. And listen to this, if you turn back your foot, from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure in my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, a holy day of the Lord and honorable. If you honor it, not going your ways, seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." And so, my friends, that is the chief end. If we say in our confession, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, the Sabbath is part and partial to that. And to us, under the covenant of grace, the new covenant, the New Testament, it's become not the seventh day, I should have said earlier, as the Jews originally observed, but the first day of the week. The Sabbath was moved. at the resurrection of Jesus to the first day of the week, the day on which He was raised, which is the common calendar Sunday, or what we call the Lord's Day. And indeed, that's what it is. It belongs to Him. That is why it is holy, because He instituted it. He instituted it for our good. He wants us to delight. And he knows that sometimes seeking our own interests can lead us astray, even though it may be a good and holy thing on other days of the week to play games, to have fun, to engage in sports, to be about our normal work business. Some of us like our careers. I know we do. We like our work, don't we? It can be a good thing. Sometimes we get tired. Sometimes we we're ready for a break. But the reality is, is that we can exhaust ourselves if we do not observe a holy rest, my brothers and sisters. We can burn out because God is the one in His holiness who gave us the ability to work, the ability to enjoy the good things of life, His gifts, to enjoy Him. And if we are so haggard through neglect of His presence, haggard through neglect of spending precious time with Him, How can we possibly enjoy anything? It's possible to be so drained you can't enjoy. The font of enjoyment is He who enables you to have that. If He is the One who is described as our rest in the book of Hebrews, how can we possibly rest or have any kind of peace in our lives without seeking Him? And that is why we are to do this. There are the prohibitions about not working, but again, as I said earlier, there are the reasons why we don't work, and that's to bask in his presence. It says a day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere in Psalm 84. Psalm 16 talks about the boundary lines falling for us in pleasant places as we take delight in our God. Many other places to which I could allude. But for the sake of time, I will not. That is what's at stake. Thinking and praying about holy things, family worship, worship in the church, praying, reading scripture. Many things we are to do on that day. But having defined the Sabbath, chiefly the end of our text is, now that we know what it is, what are some expansions that Jesus gives on that? And that is, as our catechism defines it, As our Westminster confines it, rather, we are to be taken up with such holy duties of worship and prayer, but also to engage in works of necessity and mercy. There is the rest, but there is also the holy serving of God and our neighbor and love. There's a horizontal dimension there, too. If we serve God and delight in Him, we delight in doing good. for others and for other people in the grace that God has given us. And that leads us to what is in view in our text. So verse 23 again, the Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields. And as they, meaning Jesus and the disciples, made their way, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. They had been out ministering throughout the Galilee in that day. And they were making their way along. They were getting hungry due to their hard and tired work. And they passed through a field and plucked some grain to nourish their weary bodies. And what happened next? Well, it says that the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? You see, under the Pharisaic system, Generally, as we have said earlier, we are to rest on the Sabbath, correct? Well, the Pharisaic system that the Pharisees here followed, they sought to codify it. They sought to, we'll call it to be a little over scrupulous, and I will say legalistic, thought to expand beyond what the Word of God enjoins upon us and sought to put extra burdens on the human conscience. Conscience, rather. That is what they did. And so they had the system of, well, we're not supposed to work, so reaping, winnowing, threshing, preparing a meal were all prohibited. They had many different categories. I think the number was 37 that were out of things you could and could not do. And of course, to be wholly devoted to having the aim of resting on the Sabbath day and not working is good. But sometimes due to certain necessities, due to certain things that happen in the course of a day, They could trample on men's consciences. They could go beyond and setting extra rules above and beyond what the Word of God enjoins. We need to have some liberty for people. And Jesus has explained upon this in the next verse. Technically, you were allowed, of course, to eat. They wouldn't allow people to starve or to be hungry on that day. But Jesus corrects them on one thing. Listen to this. And he says, 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 at the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him? So if the Pharisees accused the disciples and Jesus of working on the Sabbath just because they were hungry, they missed the point. Because David was harassed and helpless. He was being chased by King Saul. He was hiding out in the bushes waiting for Jonathan to tell him it was safe to go before this happened. And David and his men needed a meal. They needed a place to rest. They could find no food. And they came to the Jewish temple or the tabernacle, I should say. Forgive that slip. And when they came to the tabernacle, they saw the bread of the presence there. The priest who was in that tabernacle saw that David was on the run as Israel's future king, saw the need of his men, and gave him the bread that was being replaced that very Sabbath with a fresh loaf for the offering of God. David and his men ate and were satisfied. Normally, it's not lawful for any but the priest to eat that on the Sabbath. They would eat the outgoing loaf before the new loaf was placed. That is what they did. But my friends, it was lawful in this case because the Lord is the Lord of human need. Part of works of necessity that I'm going to expand upon is that when people are in need, on the Sabbath, even if they're in a type of need where they have to be helped. If they're hungry, if they need to be fed, if they're naked, they need to be clothed. If there is some basic human necessity, we've got to help them. Because, you see, the primary philosophy of the Lord Jesus Christ is that He is the Lord of life. He's the one who created life and the basic needs of the appetites that must be fed. He's the one who knows about our human condition, fallen in sin and, of course, redeemed for those of us who believe in him. He's the one that knows that we're in need. He's the one that asked, what do you want me to do for you? To one man who called out to him. He is always solicitous to our needs. In worship on the Sabbath, we gather to honor him, yet he also attends to us and feeds us through his word. Should He not then feed us, my friends, through His people when we are in need? Of course. Of course. Even if we have to drive halfway across town to get a loaf for somebody and bring it back. Of course we can do that. Even if we need to whip something up in our kitchens to make something. And it takes a while if there's a poor man that needs it. Yes, we can do that. If dishes need to be cleaned, we can entertain. Cleanliness, taking care of people, things that help us honor the Lord's day are perfectly permissible. Now, of course, a general principle is observing work. I often preach this, it's often a good idea not to eat out and do such things as to encourage people to work on Sunday, to frequent restaurants. There are certain principles we can observe. Jesus is not saying there's a wholesale, we shouldn't consider any limitations. He's not saying that at all, but the idea is what we are doing grounded in love. A diabetic, for instance, goes into a—his sugar drops on the road. He has nothing with him. He forgot it. Of course, he can stop and grab something to eat if that's permissible to him. We've got to be discerning here. There are things that, of course, we need to examine. But are we acting out of necessity? There is an object lesson that I, of course, was a part of in preparation to this. I think the Lord's providence sort of helped me come up with something. Last night, as some of you may have heard, I was stranded on the road. The car broke down. And of course, I couldn't drive up here. And the only way for me to get up here was to take an Uber. I thought about, well, should I take somebody from my church, have them drive, or that takes them out of church? The general principle is this. Sometimes we have to do what we have to do. If God's people need ministering to, if something happens, if your donkey falls into the ditch, who among you, Jesus said, would not help that donkey out? He's going to die. You think of sheep falling over. You know from Philip Keller's book that if a sheep falls over, he'll eventually suffocate. There are things that we have to do. And sometimes things that would not normally be enjoined on the Sabbath. that have to take place. And of course, in many regards, I won't give any more stipulations because the general principle here is to leave it, Jesus left it to the general and in matters of conscience looking toward the love of our neighbors in need. But what's particularly tragic here, what's particularly tragic is that the Pharisees did not see this. If Jesus commends to us works of necessity on the Sabbath. If they were supposed to be the guardians of Israel serving the Lord of love who is the Lord who was so solicitous to people, How could they miss this? How could they not think that the Lord cares about people who are suffering? Well, it's because of the states of their hearts. The God of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not. As hard as this was for them to hear, my friends, Jesus told them in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, that they were of their father, the devil. Many of the Pharisees were not regenerate. And so they became more focused on the regulations for the regulation's sake and not for the commandments for God's sake and for the care of other people. That's why Jesus rebukes them with this other clarification. He says, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. In other words, what is at stake here? is that the Sabbath was instituted by the Lord God that we might rest. It was made for us. Yes, we are to obey Him. And in that view, glorifying Him, it has a Godward direction. Don't get me wrong. Jesus is not saying that, but it's made for us so that we might have that refreshment that I alluded to earlier, so that we might have our spiritual needs met and also so that we might have physical needs met. Many churches, when I speak of works of necessity, they go out and evangelize on Sunday. They go out and visit the sick at hospitals. They do work. We do that too. Also, nurses and hospice workers and firefighters, there are public servants who are Christians that there are certain things, as I said earlier, have to be done. And we should not begrudge nurses and other folks for caring for those who need to be cared for. Because it's rooted in love. It's rooted in love. The Sabbath is made for us. If Jesus had both a human and a divine nature, is fully human, fully divine, my friends. If we look at these things, if we look at these things, he was aware of what it means to hunger and thirst. He was aware of what it means to keep God in view. But yet he was also aware of what we need. because He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the one who, as we go to our second main point in verse 28, He says, So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. If He created the Sabbath and is aware of human need, and He's the God of love, does He then not have the right to interpret what we can and cannot do on the Sabbath? He drafted it. He drafted the very laws. So yes, being one with the Father, He does. Matthew 28, it says, "...all authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto Me." He's the Lord of rest. And so He tells us and frames for us what is best for us. And as I alluded to earlier, but will now more fully explain, it says of entering Christ's rest in Hebrews chapter 4, that truly believing and trusting in Him, He is our Sabbath rest. There remains now a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And those like the Pharisees that do not see human need, that have not had their hearts regenerated, the reason they can't see human need is because they have not entered rest. They're too filled with their own blackness and sins and they do not have the Holy Spirit who has changed their hearts and softened them to open up and see the needs of others. And so, as Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. Our hearts are restless, my friends, until they find their rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to have Him take our burden as the burden fell off from the, if you've read Pilgrim's Progress, the backpack fell off the back of Christian, excuse me. When that backpack fell off, he had his burden relieved and could truly rest, even though he had a journey ahead of him. And so we work as Christians. And so then we we rest. But we can't have that rest until Christ takes the burden of our sin, until he saves us. That's what's at stake here. That's what's at stake. And then even though Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and even though we've been saved, those of us in this room who are saved, it still follows that we must spend time drawing from Him, resting in Him, meditating on His Word. Because it says in Isaiah 40 that even youth will fall exhausted, but the day who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint. The people of Israel knew the Lord, those who were regenerated. There was the visible and the invisible church. I know a play here, but as a general truism that we know the Lord, but fail to rest. How exhausted do we get if we fail to put the Lord first in our day in primacy? It's like the day is amiss, isn't it? Horatius Bonar describes it as not putting the Lord first and resting in Him and feeding upon Him daily as if the wick of our candles are not trimmed. It's just as if something is off. One of my friends tells me, if I don't pray once a day, the whole day goes bad. My attitude is bad. I'm harried, harassed, frustrated. I lose my temper. That's because He, Christ, gives us the ability to face the trials of this world and to face it with a peace that He can give us as Lord of the Sabbath. In John 14, for instance, Jesus says, you know, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. So the world and all of its harried systems and all of its desire and thirst for more and more and more, this desire for more things apart from God, the world cannot even satisfy. It's all but glitter, all but fake gold. And only Christ, my friends, can give us the inner rest we need. Otherwise, we just spin and spin and spin. We don't know this Lord. We don't know rest. If we don't know this Lord, we don't know the Sabbath. So my question is, do you know this Lord of the Sabbath? Has He made Himself real to you? Has He spoken His word to you in returning and in rest? You shall be saved in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30, 15. Have you known what it means to long for his courts, to faint for his courts? You know, people faint for his courts because they know they need to be recharged. That's why the psalmist says that my soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. That is what is at stake. That's why we do it. And you also know what it means to be poor in spirit, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When we get harried, we need His rest to fill us. If you don't know that rest, the Lord can save you as you call upon Him and He will do so. As you call upon Him in truth. So this leads us then to consider now that if you know the Lord, if you know His rest, do you actively seek On the Lord's day, not only to find that refreshment, but to do works of necessity. If you see a church member in need, you may go out of your way to help them, even if it's inconvenient. Do you seek to spread the gospel in your neighborhood? Do you seek to say, well, this is a day of rest, but it's also a day of service. Do you care about the general welfare of your neighbor? Even if you don't see them, sometimes the best way is just to knock on the door. One good thing to do on a Sabbath afternoon, read His Word, study it, not just in church, at home, exercise as a private devotion. Worship with your families, but then go out that very day, seek who you might bless, visit the sick, visit the shut-ins. Do you do these things? If you don't, if I said the very reason we have rest is the Lord, the very reason that we have discernment with eyes of mercy to see the Lord, ask Him with the help of the Holy Spirit to give you a willingness to do so. Sometimes we find we suffer from burnout and have, if you've ever been like me at times and you're not as grounded as spiritually as you should be, we may not feel like going out, but It's at those times we must press into Him, draw fresh wells of strength. Because if we're saved by grace, if He first opens our hearts and our minds to receive Him, and then we embrace Him by faith, the continual journey, spiritual journey, is one of dependence upon Him after that. It's a journey of, yes, putting forth effort, as Pastor Peter alluded to. Worship requires effort and discipline. But it also has a sweetness where he gives us the energies and refreshment that come from him. We need to seek that. This leads us to our third main point, the Lord of the Sabbath commends to us works of mercy on the Sabbath. We've looked at works of necessity, but now works of mercy. So let's read on now to chapter three. 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. The man with the withered hand. It's withered, but you know, the Greek hints with a little bit of subtlety that the hand was withered as a result of an accident or illness when that Greek word was used. So apparently the man once had a healthy hand, but something happened, either maybe a farm laboring accident or he was an artisan. We don't know. But his hand was withered due to something that happened. He lost his livelihood, probably, just putting two and two together. We don't know, but some have surmised that. That being said, one good gift he probably had difficulty enjoying, laboring with his hands. And so these same Pharisees, not convinced by Jesus of the thing for which He just rebuked them, for so-called harvesting on the Sabbath when they were simply hungry, they wait around. They're still blind. They seek to trap Jesus in another example of doing something on the Sabbath. Here we go again, we might say in our common vernacular. What else is new? So here's what's going on. They were looking to accuse him because it's not only that their minds were blind. You see, those who were blind have a certain hostility to the things of God. They may think they mean well, but they don't. They get lost in the commandments, which are holy and good, and sometimes they get lost in making excessive biblical commandments, making commandments of their own, which is legalism, missing the human and divine element. And so they mess up. They seek to trap, for the sake of their own rules, the traditions of men, as Jesus said, rather than honoring the Word of God. In vain do you worship Me, honoring the traditions of men. And He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. That's what God says in His Word. So missing the picture, Jesus says, Come here. He calls him here. The Greek literally, come within the midst of this. Come within the midst. He came within the midst. He's standing out front for everybody to see. Jesus says, you all are trapping me. I'm going to show you what's right. We're going to do this right out in the open with flourish for the glory to my Father. One could imagine him saying or the similar principle. And it says, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. You see, they had developed, the Pharisees, if you thought their system for works of necessity was a little strict, they had developed a system where if you had a flesh wound, you could bandage it, but not put ointment on it. That was considered work to apply ointment. You couldn't even pour water. over an injured hand. You could rescue somebody out of a falling building if rubble was on them, provided you didn't lift too many stones. You had to minimize that. I'm not making this stuff up. I'm seeing some reactions out there. It's sad, but that was the case with them. And Jesus, He's angry at this point. My friends, He is literally, the context of the anger, though, is an anger tinged with love. It's as if He sees them and says, why don't you guys get it? It's sort of a heart-wrenching as when a mother looks at the child or when Jesus is saying, how long I would desire to gather you as a mother hen gathers her brood, but you were not willing. It's that sort of sadness mixed with anger all in one brush there. He said He's grieved at their hardness of heart. The Lord of love is grieved because those who should be representing love first and foremost, they've missed the boat. The Pharisees, it pains His heart. It pains Him. When the chiefest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and then the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. When that main element is missing, we've missed it all. It's no wonder the Savior sometimes shakes His head. Even those of us that know Him and are regenerate, we get sidetracked. Our hearts get distracted by all that's around us. We become self-centered and self-focused. The remaining corruption within us rises up. And we wonder, why has my world become so small? Because it's because we're not dwelling in communion deeply with the Lord of love and rest. And their hardness of heart, it gets worse. This Lord of love once again rebukes them. This Lord of love once again warns them, urging them toward Himself and His message. But it says this, first of all, Jesus acts, he heals the man, he says, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored. Then it says the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with Herodians against him, had to destroy him. It can get darker. If this Jesus is here in His radiance and glory, pointing toward Himself as the Lord of life. If He is pointing towards love and wholeness through healing a man, through making sure that His disciples have something to eat. If this tender Savior is doing all these things, yet they're so blind they want Him dead. Because you see, the carnal mind is not only with enmity against God, the carnal mind resents goodness and it wants to murder the Savior. Even though He has been crucified and risen again, if Luther said before he was regenerated, he hated the just God and in some ways wished that He could be silent. That's what the unregenerate heart does. It likes to have a semblance of religion and order, but without the Savior. It likes to have a system, yet without life. I still think that it was said in a work of science fiction called the Silmarillion, where it said that the chief villain in that chronicle, Sauron, he was in love with order, but he did not like the Creator. It's possible to be in love with order and not like the Creator. In a stage play, Beckett, before he's regenerated in that play, Thomas Beckett is portrayed as loving the aesthetics of order. The king asked him, Why are you doing all these holy things? You're the archbishop. Well, aesthetics. This is a work of fiction. And we know that he later went on to suffer martyrdom. We don't know at what time that he was regenerate. But that is to say, many people miss the point because they're in love with scrupulosity and not in love with a savior of tenderness. We need to keep that in mind. Yes, there is a holy end. As the Puritans were defined as being precise, there is a holy good reason to search God's Word, to be thorough, to be diligent, to make sure that we're not missing any of His commandments. We're not neglecting anything. I'm not saying that. We have to be diligent. But what I'm saying is, Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. The heart must be in place first, and then from there it has a proper love of what is orderly and good. not loving order at the expense of the Savior. And also not loving order to where it becomes idolatrous because it says that the Pharisees conspired with the Herodians that He might kill Him. Now, who were the Herodians? The Herodians were Hellenistic Jews who adopted Greek practices that wanted to see Herod restored as the king above and beyond the Romans. They had sacrificed. They were lukewarm. They basically just loved Jewish culture, cultural Jews in some ways, rather than truly spiritual Jews. We saw the decadence of Herod's court. We saw that he wanted to see Jesus for his entertainment, as a miracle worker. We've seen that. We've seen many examples of Herodias and her daughter. So many things that I could expound upon. But those who supposedly left holiness, the Pharisees, trying to work in league with the Herodians? In common parlance today, again, what is up with that, we might say? What is going on there? Well, it's precisely what I said earlier. We see the utter blackness of a heart that does not know rest. Of a heart that does not know the fullness of joy, the delight, the life of God. Of a heart that wants Jesus dead, so to speak, as it were. Of a heart that ignores mercy. And so, that being said, do you prefer your own power and control, your so-called corner on the religious world. Some people go to church because they love being seen as holy. They love being seen of having a system they can defend, which don't get me wrong, good theology is good, but there are some people that love the system more than Christ. They love to be seen as professors. They love to be seen as teachers. They love to rebuke people. They love to say, Now, a holy rebuke is good, but these people, these people miss the boat. Are you one of them? If so, you need to ask the Lord to give you repentance, to develop an attention to detail that's rooted in love, not in self-exaltation, to develop an attentiveness It's not rooted in your own interest, in your own gain. And of course, for the regenerate, we can often fall into self-righteousness for the remaining corruption of our hearts. We can have mixed motives, as Pastor Peter prayed this morning. Even though we love God, we've been transformed from the inside out, been made obedient from the heart to the commandment of which we are instructed, we can often miss the big picture and fail to correct people in love, fail to point out what is actually amiss out of a desire for thoroughness because we love them. And we can become more about appearing right than truly making sure that He appears right. And my friends, that being said, if the heart is not in place, it also follows that we will not be merciful to those around us. We can be so hard hearted that we brush people aside, spit at those who are poor, ignore them, slight them, be like the rich man filled with dainties and ignore Lazarus. That's just wrong. But if it's black, if this sin is black, the Lord of light and life who made the Sabbath can bring light on the Sabbath day. His radiance and resurrection can change a heart, soften it, make it see Him, make it see others, give them vision. give you vision to see with love as he sees, not, of course, with all of his perfection and divinity, but to have a heart that's filtered through his love, to have a heart that comes and that grows and that yearns to bless and to serve others. And so, my friends, if you are not merciful, if you have no desire for mercy, Christ can free you from that. He can give you, by the power of His Spirit, a desire to go out, a desire to do works of necessity and mercy, and a desire chiefly to rejoice in the Savior who made the Sabbath day, the Lord of the Sabbath. The Lord of rest can be your rest. The Lord of mercy can be your mercy, and the Lord of human need can fill your deepest need. And you will rejoice, loving God and neighbor. and finally enter that rest. Amen.