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with me to the opening verses
of Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. As we meet each Lord's Day and
we walk through the gospel of Luke week by week, It is if we
come to a new apex as it regards pointing back to the Old Testament
and seeing it fulfilled in the person of Christ. Here is God
in flesh. Here is Christ dwelling amongst
us. And as we look back and we see
fulfillment in Christ, this week is no exception. Look at Luke
6, verses 1 through 5. Luke writes, now it happened
that He was passing through some grain fields on a Sabbath. And
His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them
in their hands and eating the grain. And some of the Pharisees
said, why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And Jesus
answered them saying, have you not even read what David did
when he was hungry He and those who were with Him, how He entered
the house of God and took and ate the consecrated bread, which
is not lawful for any to eat except the priest alone, and
gave it to His companions. And He was saying to them, the
Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Verses 1 through 5 there in Luke
chapter 6 are telling us about Jesus and His disciples in another
interaction here with the Pharisees regarding their eating as they're
passing through a grain field on the Sabbath, and it is providing
for Him the opportunity to proclaim that He has authority over the
Sabbath. This is a text teaching us that
Jesus claims authority over the Sabbath, and a text demonstrating
His deity, His goodness, His love, His compassion, and His
mercy. And we learn from this that indeed
He has authority over the Sabbath. He has the power. He has the
right. He is the one who makes decisions
about the Sabbath. He is the one who interprets
the Sabbath. And as that reaches back to the Old Testament and
we see this fulfilled in Jesus, we see the Sabbath showing us
His glory. Now this comes in three parts
in Luke 6, 1 through 5, each setting the stage to help us
see the glory of Christ in the Sabbath. It is the Sabbath showing
us the glory of Christ, showing us His divinity, His power, His
privilege, His goodness, His grace, and His love. But before
we get to those three parts, I want you to see what's going
on here in Luke 6 and having a bit of a context as we look
at this text. And to do that, I think it'd
be helpful for you to turn to Genesis chapter 2. It was almost
a year ago we were in Genesis chapter 2, so some of this is
going to sound familiar because you've been here within the last
year. It's in Genesis chapter 2 where
you find the origins of the Sabbath. You might think the origins of
the Sabbath, Pastor, isn't that the commandments? But the origins
are actually here in the account of creation. This is a text,
if you remember from a year ago, that teaches us that true rest
is only found in the Creator God. And as we walked through
those days, we considered how the Creator God is Lord of the
earth, Lord of the heaven and sky, Lord of the plants, of the
lights, of the creatures of the sky and water. how He is Lord
of the creatures of the land, Lord of the image bearers, and
as we came to day seven, we recognize that He is Lord of the day of
rest. Genesis chapter 2 verse 1 reads
this, thus the heavens and the earth were completed. That's
a key word. and all their hosts. By the seventh
day God completed His work which He had done and rested on the
seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from
all His work which God had created and made." In those verses, you'll
remember And you can see clearly that it's telling us that this
work of creation is complete. And being complete, He rested.
That's the Hebrew word, Shabbat. It means to cease. It means to
desist, to stop something. It says, He blessed the seventh
day. How did He bless it? He sanctified
it. He set it apart. He distinguished it from the
rest of the days. And you can already see that
in the fact that He rested. He's not doing what He was doing
on all of those other days. So God Himself is showing us
what a day of rest looks like at the culmination of creation
week. God is not alone on this day, you'll remember. The seventh
day is the first full day that man exists, the image-bearing
creature, experiencing this day as his first full day when he
is on the earth. This is a very special day. So
this day, God is resting. And by His resting, He's not
doing this because He's lazy. He's not doing this because He's
grown tired. He's doing this because everything is complete.
He is the one who has completed it. And He is establishing here
a pattern for His image-bearing creatures to model their days
after Him. Image-bearing creatures who here
would know that God completes what He starts, that God is the
one who provides everything for us, everything that we need,
and that He governs all of our days so that we can actually
take a day and rest knowing He is the one that is in control.
So a day of rest, when you think about it, is as old as the account
of creation. And it ripples out from there
into all of human history to us being here this morning, and
we'll see that in a moment. Turn to Exodus 1. When you come to Exodus 1, you're
going to find a situation amongst the people of God where they
appear to be very far from rest. Exodus 1 verse 11 through 14
that's essentially opening the book of Exodus for us tells us, appointed taskmasters over them,
Israel, to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for
Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they
afflicted them, Israel, the more they multiplied and the more
they spread out, so they were in dread of the sons of Israel."
The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously,
and they made their lives bitter. How? With hard labor. in mortar
and brick and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their
labors which they rigorously imposed on them. So, you come
to the beginning of the very next book here, Exodus, and it
describes Israel as a people who are frankly unable to rest
because they are ruled by taskmasters. So, when God delivers them, From
the Egyptians in Exodus 14, Moses responds by singing praise to
the Lord who's high and exalted in Exodus 15. Before you get
to Exodus 16, where the Lord who provided deliverance there
in Exodus 14, water for them in Exodus 15, now provides manna
and meat in Exodus 16. And then Exodus 16 verse 22,
it establishes a pattern of Sabbath rest on the sixth day after the
sixth day here among His people. A people who have been delivered
out of the hands of their taskmasters and out of the hands of all of
this labor in order to rest. He tells them He'll provide for
them enough manna that they're able to gather there on the sixth
day. They're to intentionally plan for the seventh day to rest.
So He is far here from being a taskmaster. He is the God who
delivers His people, who brings them to rest, whose deliverance
is complete so that they can rest. And again, in Exodus 16,
you have a pattern reflected among the image-bearing creatures
who have trusted this God who has led them into the desert
where they now rest, believing that God who delivered them from
the enemies will continue here to provide for them because He
is the Creator God, the Lord of heaven and earth, who completes
what He starts. It's reflected in how they're
to respond to Him. Look a few chapters over to Exodus
20. The people are standing at the foot of Mount Sinai. The
Lord gives Moses the commandments for Israel so that His people
might be a holy people. They might be a people whose
lives give testimony to the glory of how great their God is, that
they would conform to His holiness. Remember there in Exodus 20 verse
2, the commandments are introduced with those words, I am the Lord
your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of what? Slavery, you were under taskmasters
there. He reminds him of their situation
He delivered them from. They were slaves afflicted with
hard labor, and these commandments that He's about to give them
are meant to be good for them. They're meant to glorify God.
They're meant to set them apart as the people of God. They are
to express that the God of Israel is the Lord God of heaven, and
so they come to them. Commandment 1 in verse 3, you
shall have no other gods before Me. Commandment 2, you shall
not make for yourself an idol. That's good that you don't do
that. You would be submitting yourself to taskmasters once
again, as we'll see. Commandment 3, you shall not
take the name of your Lord God in vain, verse 7. You go to Commandment
5, we'll skip over 4. You go to Commandment 5, verse
12, honor your father and mother. Commandment 6, verse 13, you
shall not murder. Commandment 7, verse 14, you
shall not commit adultery. Commandment 8, verse 15, you
shall not steal. Commandment 9, verse 16, you
shall not lie, bear false witness. Commandment 10, verse 17, you
shall not covet. These are good for you. This
is how you should live. Tucked between 3 and 5 is the
fourth. Exodus 20, look at verse 8, remember
the Sabbath to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, do
all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
your God. In it, you shall not do any work,
you or your sons or your daughters, your male or your female servants,
or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you." Verse 11,
would you note, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and
the earth, the sea and all that's in them and rested on the seventh
day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Here is the one commandment that
comes to them whose origins are directly expressed as being rooted
in the pattern that God established in creation. The Lord commands
His people, rest. It is good for you to rest. You need rest. You might remember,
as we looked at Genesis 2 last year, we noted how that is one
way in which the Lord is different from the gods of the people,
the pagan gods, one way that He is different from the idol
worshipers. Among the pagan nations, they
taught amongst themselves that the gods that they were worshiping
were gods who they needed to be served constantly and endlessly. They needed the people to serve
them. There was a never-ending task amongst the people of serving
the needs of their gods. This is the case with every single
type of idol. Your idols are needy. You can
never satisfy your idols. They are incapable of completing
whatever it is you think that they started. There is no rest
in idolatry because you need to complete what your God is
unable to complete Himself. And that's the case even today,
whatever your idol might be. If your idol is your career,
you will go to great lengths and never rest in order to satisfy
your idol. The same with the video games,
they will keep you up all night till you can satisfy your idol. The same with relationships,
no rest. But not the God of Israel. His people are to be a people
whose faith is evidenced by their resting and in their resting.
The Sabbath was to demonstrate for a watching world that the
God of Israel was the Lord of heaven and earth, that he is
good, that he has delivered them, that he is providing for his
people, that he will protect them, that he will defend them,
that he has a plan for them, that he has accomplished and
that he is accomplishing, and that he is sovereign over heaven
and earth, everything, every moment, every day, every event. The Sabbath was to acknowledge
That they, in turn, were finite creatures who could never deliver
themselves, who would starve to death in the desert apart
from Him providing for them. That they are creatures who could
not secure the land that was promised to them by themselves,
but they can rest because they are watched over, they are cared
for, they are loved by a glorious and majestic God whose purposes
will never be thwarted. Believing who God revealed Himself
to be was to bring rest to them. If you didn't believe that this
is who He is, how in the world are you going to be able to rest?
Unbelief equates to no rest, no rest for the idol worshiper
and no rest when it came to unbelieving Israel. And you see that in Numbers
chapter 12 when the spies returned from the land and reported that
certainly the land flows there with milk and honey, but the
people who live there, oh, those people, they're strong, their
cities are fortified. The spies that went into the
land, we look like grasshoppers before these people. So they
refused to obey the Lord, they refused to trust Him, they refused
to believe Him, and they refused to enter the land. In acting
in unbelief, they forfeited the promised rest. Psalm 95 revisits
that moment. Psalm 95 verse 9, when your fathers
tested me, they tried me though they had seen my work. You had
seen all that Yahweh had brought to completion. For 40 years,
I loved that generation and said, they are a people who err in
their hearts and they do not know my ways." What's that? Not
believing, no faith. Therefore, I swore in my anger
truly, they shall not enter into my rest. Unbelief, not trusting
God, is over and over again associated with an inability to rest. Now, among the commandments in
Exodus 20, the Sabbath was not to take a backseat to any of
the other nine. Profaning the Sabbath was an
act of defiant unbelief, and it came with serious consequences.
Exodus 31 verse 12 tells us that anyone who profanes the Sabbath
shall be put to death. Exodus 35 verse 2, whoever does
work shall be put to death. So as you're thinking about the
Sabbath, you realize it comes with consequences of defying
God's law. So in Numbers 15 verse 32, you
find that there is a man who is actually stoned to death for
working on the Sabbath. Why? Because his actions are
viewed as a sinful act of defiance related to a specific situation
that was forbidden as described in Exodus 35 verse 3, to not
kindle a fire in your dwelling on the Sabbath. Now, if you were
to go throughout the Pentateuch and you were to look for specifics
related to Sabbath, all the restrictions that are given there, you're
not actually going to find that many Repressive rules and regulations,
but you will find this one and it's related to this man who
chose to violate it in unbelief and his sin brought immediate
consequences. Faith, rest. And the Sabbath
that originated in Genesis 2 and then was commanded in Exodus
20 by the Lord God was to glorify Him through a nation that was
acting in faith, resting in faith. It was to remember who He is,
what He had done. That's Deuteronomy 5 verse 12
that connects remembering what God has done, delivering them
with the command that's restated to remember the Sabbath and keep
it holy. So, it's no surprise then amongst this group of people
you have a psalm like Psalm 92. You can turn there and look if
you want. It is called a song for the Sabbath day. And it's
a song that speaks of the Lord's lovingkindness and His faithfulness
in verse 2. Singing for joy at the great
works of the Lord, verses 4 and 5, of His being on high forever,
verse 8, of His enemies perishing before Him in verse 9, and of
Him being the rock of His people, a God in whom there is no unrighteousness,
verse 15. This then is the God who is in
control. That's what's being expressed here. So then certainly,
if this is the God who is in control, all of His people can
rest. He will defeat His enemies. He is in control of all things. The Psalm says, I like there
in verse 6, that a stupid man doesn't understand this. That's the Sabbath. What happened to the Sabbath
by the time you get to Luke 6? It's time passed. The Sabbath
came to be less and less a means by which this group of people
showed the nations around them the greatness of their God, and
instead, it became a means by which they showed the people
around them the sinfulness of their own hearts. The Jewish
people who were often either exiled or occupied because of
their own unfaithfulness attempted to maintain their national identity
primarily in two ways. You were to be circumcised if
you were a male, and you were to keep the Sabbath. Sabbath
keeping became this visible sign on a weekly basis from sunset
Friday to sunset Saturday, identifying you as a Jewish person. So to
keep Jews then from breaking the Sabbath, they added extra
biblical commands and they added these traditions that they created
to just add an extra layer in order to protect the Sabbath
so that you would not break the Sabbath and that you would keep
it holy. Within some of those traditions, you've heard some
of this before, but it was forbidden to even carry a child on the
Sabbath or to help livestock that might be giving birth that
needed help if that happened on the Sabbath. Surprisingly,
perhaps to you, the tradition among the Pharisees and the rabbis
that was captured in the Mishnah was actually a less rigorous
tradition than some of the other traditions that existed at the
time. It's summarized in the Shabbat. as general acts of labor
prohibited on the Sabbath called the 40 less one." That's just
a nice way of saying 39, right? What was prohibited? Well, here's
a few. Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding
sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting produce from crops,
so looking and going, that's a better apple than this apple.
Grinding produce, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing
it, beading it, dyeing it, weaving it. It said you couldn't make
two loops. You couldn't loop two ropes together
or threads together or weave two threads together. All you
quilting folks, you've got problems. You couldn't separate two threads.
You couldn't tie things together, couldn't untie things. You couldn't
write more than one letter. You couldn't write a letter to
me and go, wow, I really messed that up. I'm going to try again.
Because if you tore that up and you wrote it again, you wrote
two letters. That would constitute work. On
and on it went. You couldn't travel more than
1,999 paces because anything more than that would constitute
a journey. Do you see what's going on with
that? In effect, they had constituted a system through tradition that
led to no rest. You're constantly keeping an
account of what you're doing. Friend, this is what unbelief
always does. So by the time Jesus and His
disciples are passing through that grain field there in Luke
6 that we read a moment ago, the Sabbath has been reconstituted
as a day amongst the people of Israel. It wasn't a day that
cultivated humility by reminding creatures that we are dependent
upon a holy God, but it was a day that provided for an expression
of pride. I keep the Sabbath better than you keep the Sabbath.
It didn't express that God was gracious, but that God was demanding.
It didn't reflect that the Lord had delivered them as a people,
but that perhaps He had imprisoned them for one day a week. It didn't
demonstrate the glory of God, but it demonstrated the attempts
of men to prove themselves as righteous. That's the background for Luke
6. That's the background for the
Sabbath to show us the glory of Christ. Part one, verse one,
the setting. The setting. The setting here
provides the opportunity for Jesus to claim his authority
over the Sabbath. The setting provides the opportunity
for Jesus to show us his glory as it relates to the Sabbath.
Verse one, now it happened that he was passing through some grain
fields on a Sabbath, and his disciples were picking the heads
of grain, rubbing them in their hands and eating the grain. That
these men are walking through this field, Picking what is probably
wheat or barley and eating it, this is not the problem. Leviticus
23 verse 22 said, when you reap the harvest of your land, moreover,
you shall not reap to the very corner of your field nor gather
the gleaning of your harvest. You are to leave them for the
needy and the alien. I am the Lord your God. Deuteronomy
23 verse 25 said, when you pluck your neighbor's standing grain,
then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall
not wield a sickle. It was a very gracious way for
God to provide for the poor and the needy. One would expect that
if you were going to walk out amongst the fields, that you
would find people walking through the corners of the field, taking
grain that had been left behind and eating it. Why were His disciples
doing this? Well, the very profound spiritual
reason that they're doing this is because they were hungry.
Matthew 12, 1 says, they did it because they're hungry. Now, you couldn't simply eat
what you picked. To eat it, you had to rub it in your hands to
separate the grain from the husk and the outer shell. Only then
could you consume it. The problem is not so much what
they're doing, but when they're doing it. It's on the Sabbath. And you know there are prohibitions
on the Sabbath. 40 less one. So the setting then provides
the backdrop for the objection. The second part that sets the
stage to show us the glory of Christ is number two, the objection. The objection, verse 2. The Pharisees
are expressing here their understanding and their opinion about the Sabbath
in the form of an objection against Jesus' disciples. When they say
this, I want you to hear, listen to their authority that they
have determined to be and to rule over the Sabbath, verse
2. But some of the Pharisees said, why do you do what is not
lawful on the Sabbath? You can do what you're doing,
that's fine, but not on the Sabbath. What are they doing that the
Pharisees were determined to be unlawful? Remember the 40 last
one. They are reaping, threshing,
perhaps winnowing in a sense, preparing food with their hands
on what might just be classified as a journey. The self-appointed guardians
of the Sabbath are policing the day by scrutinizing the actions
of the disciples of Jesus. This is what they did. This is
how they saw themselves. They are the authority. Is this
technically a Torah violation, what they see? It would really
be hard to argue that it was, but most certainly it's a violation
of their regulations and their tradition. You can't do this
because it constitutes work, and work is prohibited on the
Sabbath. And while we don't have an Old Testament Scripture, we
have wisely crafted traditions to keep you from working and
to force you to rest and protect you from violating God's law. And here you are in a grain field
on the Sabbath, you are unprepared, you are hungry, you should have
planned for all this, and now you're working to satisfy your
hunger. It is awfully easy for us to
look at them and to critique these guardians of the Sabbath
and to fail to identify some of these same tendencies within
each one of us. Some of us who have become guardians
of the Lord's Day and all sorts of things about the Christian
life. They had a view on the Sabbath that's detached from
Scripture, and they oppose their judgments and opinions upon others,
viewing themselves as the authorities on the Sabbath. And yet, what
was in them can creep into us. I think it's helpfully summarized
by something that Ryle says. He said, what excessive importance
hypocrites attach to trifles. What excessive importance hypocrites
attach to trifles. What importance we can place
upon what Scripture is silent about and has not placed importance
upon. If you were to be publicly identified as a Jew during this
time, you had to keep the Sabbath, and it was the Pharisees who
judged what was best practices to keep the Sabbath. You could
say the same heart shows up amongst us, that if you were a Christian
in our day, you must demonstrate your Christianity based off something
we have judged and formed an opinion on that you must demonstrate
that Christianity as. You must homeschool your children.
You must dine weekly with others as part of your rhythm. You must
lead family worship without missing a single night where you preach
passionate, expositional, doctrinally rich sermons. You must successfully
catechize your children. You must sound like the Valley
of Vision when you pray. You must only read Scripture
from a literal translation. You must only sing the Psalms. That's how you know that you're
a mature Christian. Sabbath keeping as the religious
leaders prescribed it to be kept. is what people thought it meant
to be a God-fearing Jew. What do you think it means for
someone to be a spiritually mature Christian? Are you making what
you think binding upon other Christians? The reason I'm bringing
it up is not to condemn you but so that you would realize that
you might be making secondary issues primary and placing an
expectation on others that is actually an excessive burden. And if that's happening, it's
probably because you're placing an unbiblical burden upon yourself,
and upon your family, and upon the friends that you have around
you, and upon people perhaps in your church. Brothers and
sisters, in what ways do you or are you tempted to place excessive
importance on what you think is best when Scripture is silent?
To attach excessive importance to trifles, Israel says. Ryle
says, he goes on, it's a bad symptom of any man's state of
soul when he begins to put the secondary things in religion
in the first place and the first things in second, or the things
ordained by man above the things ordained by God. Let us beware
of falling into this state of mind. There is something sadly
wrong in our spiritual condition when the only thing we look at
in others is their outward Christianity, and the principal question we
ask, whether they worship in our communion and use our ceremonial
and serve God in our way. That describes here the basis
for the Pharisees' objection to what they see Jesus and His
disciples doing. So their objection here provides
the basis for Jesus' authority. That brings us to part three
that shows us the glory of Christ in the Sabbath. Number three,
verse three and five, the authority. Jesus responds to their objection
here and teaches them about the Sabbath and teaches them about
men from Scripture. He gives us a sense of His authority
within this first response here. It comes in two parts. He gives
us a sense of His authority here over the Sabbath by first instructing
the guardians of the Sabbath. Look in verse 3, and Jesus answering
them said to them, have you not even read what David did when
he was hungry, he and those who were with him? how he entered
into the house of God, took and ate the consecrated bread, which
is not lawful for any to eat, except the priest alone, and
gave it to his companions." Those words, have you not even read? That is a rebuke for those who
prided themselves on having read a whole lot, having read the
Old Testament. It's a rebuke that's coming here
not in the form of a parable or a metaphor or a simile or
a wonderfully crafted story, but as a rebuke that's coming
directly from the Old Testament in one of its most revered figures. Have you not read? Who's the
person that you should know about that it seems like you don't
know much about? What David did. Here is Israel's most revered
king, most honored king, most respected king. Here is the man
who is the man after God's own heart, 1 Samuel 13, 14, presented
to them as an example. Have you not read what the man
after God's own heart did? Don't you know this? Don't you
know what David did when he and those who were hungry were hungry
on a Sabbath? He is reminding them of 1 Samuel
21 verses 1 through 7. David is on the run from Saul
who had told Jonathan, David must surely die. They're in 1
Samuel 20 verse 31. Jonathan, you'll remember, conveyed
that message to David who was hiding in the field. And he's
been in that field a while, and immediately David is on the run
for his life. There's no time for food. There's
no time for supplies. David shows up at the tabernacle
and he's hungry. And he knows that there is bread
at the tabernacle because he knows Leviticus 34 verse 5 and
Exodus 25 verse 30 prescribe that there is consecrated bread
to be placed before the presence of the Lord once a week. And
the bread was to be placed there every Sabbath, and it was to
only be eaten by the priests per the law. And here is David
and his companions showing up at this place, and they are hungry.
It would seem that he showed up at the tabernacle on the Sabbath
because 1 Samuel 21, 6 suggests that the bread had just been
placed there, which is what they did on the Sabbath. By all standards,
this is a violation of the law on multiple levels. And Jesus
recognizes that here when He says, this is not lawful for
anyone to eat except the priest alone. And yet, the bread was
given to David and his men. Jesus is teaching the guardians
of the Sabbath about the Sabbath. He's responding to them here
from 1 Samuel 21 because here's an example of the needs of men
taking precedence over ceremonial law. He is arguing here from
a more difficult case of violating the law. How do you reconcile
what David is doing here? This is difficult. He's arguing
from a more difficult case to a lesser case in the charges
that are being directed at his men by the Pharisees. David's
situation, in a sense, is much more difficult to resolve. How
could this, what David is doing here, possibly be acceptable?
David's actions can only be acceptable if the law was not designed to
prevent a person from meeting their own needs and leaving them
to starve on a Sabbath. His actions can only be acceptable
if the law is meant to serve for the good of the people and
to show and demonstrate the glory of God. Here is the man after
God's own heart. Here is the man that God has
promised would be king, and he is hungry, and there is bread
there in the tabernacle on the Sabbath. You wonder, did God
drop the ball here? Did He forget that David's out
there on the run? Is David having to fend for himself? In God's
providence, He recorded this account in 1 Samuel 21 of the
future king who is hungry, who is on the run, and who comes
here to the tabernacle and finds bread. What would the right response
to the starving man be? Would it be to just let him continue
to starve? Is that God's will? Would it
be to let him grow weak so that Saul would capture him? Or has
the God who established the Sabbath provided for His people and demonstrated
His goodness to them here, His compassion for His people? Is
that more important than biblical ritual and ceremony is mercy? Does he want to see them suffer?
Is he concerned about David's need? Is he concerned about the
needs of the people like Jesus' disciples who are hungry? In
Matthew's account, Jesus replies with an added word here, but
if you had known what this means, I desire compassion and not sacrifice,
you would have not condemned the innocent. In Mark, he adds,
the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
Presenting this story then to the Pharisees in response to
their objection is really putting them in a quandary. If you're
going to condemn me and my disciples, then you really also need to
be condemning David. I bet you're not going to condemn
David. Was it God's plan to have people
suffer on the Sabbath? Verse 3 and 4 here, Jesus proclaims,
and He is soon going to demonstrate for us next week that the needs
of the people take precedence over tradition and ceremony and
ritual. He is teaching the Pharisees that they have lost the God-exalting
purpose of the Sabbath that was always intended to be for the
good of man, just as all the other commandments were intended
to be for the good of man. It's good that we don't murder.
It's good that we don't lie. It's good that you rest. But
what Jesus proclaims this day is not only about understanding
the Sabbath itself as He's directing and instructing the Pharisees,
but also His relationship to the Sabbath. Look at verse 5.
Jesus is giving us a sense of His authority here. Jesus proclaims
His authority over the Sabbath. And He was saying to them, the
Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He is proclaiming to be the Lord
of the day that we looked at in Genesis 2, in Exodus 20, in
Exodus 16, in Psalm 92. He is determining to be Lord
of the day that they determined to be critical to identifying
themselves as a Jewish person. Imagine how frustrating this
is to them. He is proclaiming that he has
authority over this day, that he is the one who determines
what's appropriate for this day, and he has all of the rights,
he has all of the privilege, he has all of the power The Son
of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. This is not the first time he's
claimed that title. You'll remember it showed up
in Luke 5, verse 24, when he proclaimed and then demonstrated
his authority to forgive the sins of the paralytic that was
brought to him. So he proclaimed his authority,
he demonstrated his authority, he's about to do that again.
This is a messianic title, Son of Man, from Daniel 7, expressing
who he is. He is the Son of God in flesh. along with expressing here the
corresponding authority that He possesses directly relating
to the Sabbath. It is the Son of Man who will
now determine what is appropriate for this divine institution that's
rooted in Genesis 2 and Exodus 20. Verse 5 here is a very Christological
statement. Jesus is proclaiming the prerogative
of God. He has the right. He has the
privilege that is exclusive to God over this day that God instituted
at the very beginning of creation and handed down in the form of
the commandment in Exodus 20. He cannot be Lord of the Sabbath
unless He is God. He cannot possess true authority
over this divine institution unless He is truly divine, and
He is divine. And now, if you want to understand
the Sabbath, it's not going to be looking to the Pharisees,
it's not going to be looking to the rabbis, it's not going
to be looking to the Mishnah, it's not going to be by looking
to all of the prohibitions that they have handed down, but it
is going to be looking upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
Son of Man, who is the Lord of the Sabbath. He has the authority
to interpret the Sabbath, and he will exercise that authority
over the Sabbath. As He did not come to abolish
the law but to fulfill it, the way in which He fulfills the
Sabbath is going to exceed what many of them could have possibly
imagined. The fullness of the Sabbath rest
will be realized in the Lord of the Sabbath when He dies for
His people, when He is buried and laid in the tomb throughout
the Sabbath day, and then when He is raised, and His authority
over the Sabbath will be demonstrated through His resurrection, and
it will have a massive impact on the Sabbath. So much so that
when the New Testament church starts to gather, it's not on
the last day of the week, but on the first day of the week.
It's not on the day in which the Lord lay in the tomb, but
on the day in which He was resurrected. It's the day of the week when
they're gathered to break bread. They're in Acts chapter 20 verse
7. It's the first day of the week
where they gathered the collection there in 1 Corinthians 16. It's
the Lord's day when John has his vision in Revelation chapter
1 verse 10. He is Lord of the Sabbath. He
has authority to do this. What are the ripple effects of
Him being the Lord of the Sabbath and Him instituting the Lord's
Day? Well, look to your left and look to your right. What
is today? Where are we at? You Christian
are gathered this Sunday morning, this Lord's Day, because Jesus
Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. And when the Sabbath was restated
there in Deuteronomy 5 verse 12, you'll remember what I told
you a moment ago, it came with a call to remember, that the
people would remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,
and the Lord your God brought you out. Christian, each and
every Lord's Day ought to come with a call to remember, to remember
that you were a slave to your sin, but the Lord of the Sabbath
died to set you free. You are free. He delivered you so that you
can rest like you were never able to rest before. You are
now the people who have entered His rest, according to Hebrews
4 verse 1. He has completed the work of
redemption that He started, and we enter into His rest, resting
from all of our works, Hebrews 4 verse 10. The Lord of the Sabbath
has called you as a Christian to follow Him, and He has called
you with a promise saying, come to me, all who are weary and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He has promised this
rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn
from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls." Matthew 11 verse 28. For the Christian, the Lord's
Day is the best day. Unless you're sick and in the
hospital, why in the world would you be watching on the live stream
right now, sitting at home in your pajamas, when you could
be here amongst the Lord's people on the Lord's Day, celebrating
and rejoicing all that the Lord has done, and looking amongst
the people, and seeing His work of salvation having taken place
in your life, and seeing your growth and sanctification, all
of us rejoicing together. This is the best day of the week
because we gather to rest in the goodness of God, to rest
in the grace of God, to rest in the sovereignty of God, and
to remind ourselves of these good things. You gather with
others who have entered the rest. You praise God with others about
this rest. You remember the gospel that
points to this rest. There is an eagerness to come.
There is an eagerness to worship, to come in faith. Reflecting
the glory of God, the gospel itself, and in faith then you
are able to what? Rest, because unbelief won't
allow you to rest. If Israel is to rest to the glory
of God, we are to rest and worship on the Lord's day to the glory
of Christ our Savior who has made it possible for us to rest. The Sabbath reminded Israel there
is a God who is Lord of heaven and earth. It reminded Israel
we are finite creatures, reminded them He is protected, He is provided
for them, reminded them He is in control. We can affirm all
of those things and add this, He has provided rest for our
souls through His Son, a rest that no man could achieve on
his own. So as faith rests in the sovereignty and goodness
of God, faith rests in the Son of Man who is the Lord of the
Sabbath who provides salvation for our souls. Everything that
you read in Scripture in the Old Testament related to the
Sabbath finds its apex in the Lord Jesus Christ who proclaimed
He is Lord of the Sabbath. He brings rest to His people. Father, thank you for Creating
a day. Creating a day in which people
are to rest. Creating a day in which your
son would be glorified. It would show us his power, his
love, his compassion for people. Father, I pray that if there
are those who are lost among us who would never have identified
as an idol worshiper, but who are in fact idol worshipers because
they worship their career and they worship people, they worship
sports, they worship all sorts of things. I pray that they would
see that it has not brought them rest. Pray that they would find hope
this morning in the Lord of the Sabbath, who provides rest for
his people. Pray that all of us as Christians,
as we gather this morning, would find it a joy to gather on the
Lord's Day, to remember all that we have in Christ, to respond
to that by our gathering. And that as His people, we would
glorify Christ, expressing in our lives we trust Him as having
completed everything necessary to save us. That our lives would
reflect that He is a good and gracious Savior. He's been kind
and He's been merciful. That we do not have to work for
our salvation. Anything that comes out of us
is a demonstration of His work in us. Father, I pray that you
would help us to rest to the glory of Christ, in whose name
we pray. Amen.
Lord of the Sabbath
Series Luke
| Sermon ID | 9232539577185 |
| Duration | 45:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 6:1-5 |
| Language | English |
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