Amen. Please turn with me again in your Bibles, this time to Matthew's Gospel in chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12, and we'll read verses 9 through 14. We continue to address another issue, another event that took place on the Sabbath day. A contention that was developing between the Pharisees and the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter 12, verses 9 through 14. Now when Jesus had departed from there, he went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him? Then he said to them, what man is there among you who has one sheep, and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. And the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the tender and compassionate and faithful heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only the example, the greatest example for us, for humility and love and compassion, but also our Savior who has laid down His life for us. We thank You, Father, for Your heart, that we see the heart of God expressed in flesh. in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray, Father, that as we look at this text today, that you would open our hearts to your truth and make us more like Christ. Give us a heart, Lord, that is like the heart of Christ. We pray that you grant us your Holy Spirit and fill us with your Spirit greatly today and work in the hearts of those who don't know you, Father, and bless our time together as we look into your word. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Recognizing the importance of dealing with the contention that had existed between the religious leaders and the Lord Jesus Christ concerning the proper observance of the Sabbath day, Matthew records two important historical events within which this matter comes to a head. We've considered one of these events last time when the Pharisees had accused the Lord's disciples of breaking the Sabbath for picking and eating heads of grain. This morning then we move on to consider the second of these events where the Pharisees accused Jesus of violating the Sabbath day for healing a man who had had a withered or a paralyzed and withered hand. And so we'll begin first then by looking at the accusation or at least what we can say the setup for the accusation. Notice verse nine, now when Jesus had departed from there he went into their synagogue. In Luke's account of this event, we find that this actually takes place on a different Sabbath day than the one that we went over last time, which again affirms that Matthew's desire is to intentionally put these two events together, not to satisfy chronological purposes, but rather to highlight our Lord's righteous understanding of the Sabbath day, contrary to the abuse of the Pharisees. And so here we find that following the previous event on the Sabbath, at a later time, the Lord had intentionally entered the synagogue which was overseen by these very same Pharisees who had accused His disciples of picking grain on the Sabbath from our previous text. And what's worthy of note here, brethren, right from the outset, is that while the Pharisees are trying to catch our Lord in some violation of the law of Moses, and while they're plotting to do this, the Lord does not avoid them. In fact, He intentionally goes right into their own domain. knowing what they were up to, so as to expose and deal with their treacherous ways. We're told that he went into their synagogue. Into their, that pronoun is used. Whose synagogue? Well, of the same Pharisees who had accused his disciples on that other Sabbath about the picking of the grain. And so he went into their synagogue. And so this was intentional on our Lord's part. In other words, he wasn't caught off guard. They were setting a trap for the Lord. They thought they could craftily catch Him off guard and put Him on the spot, but He knew their hearts, and He had other plans. Is it not a sad reality, brethren, that people actually think that they can pull one over on God? Isn't that a common thing? Even us, in our own flesh, in our own sin, especially before we were saved, did we not think that in some ways we might be able to pull one over on God? This is a common trend among sinful man. But God not only knows the foolish plans of man, but often time he leads them to fall into their own traps. What happened to Haman in the book of Esther who was hung on his own gallows is a textbook example of how God causes the wicked to ultimately get caught in their own snares. Verse 10, we're told here. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked Jesus, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him? Now upon reading Luke's account, we find that it was not simply the case that this man with the withered hand just happened to be there at the synagogue, but rather the Pharisees, unbeknownst to this man, were seeking to use him as a pawn for accusing the Lord so that he could stumble into what they thought would be a violation of the Sabbath. They took advantage of this man's condition. And to this end, brethren, we peer once more into the wicked heart of man, and if we're honest, into the natural tendencies of our own wicked flesh and the natural lack of consideration that we would have for others. These religious leaders, having absolutely no concern for this man's suffering, were prepared to use him as a means of accusing Jesus. Imagine that. Can we not see once again the clear disregard for the overarching law principle of I desire mercy and not sacrifice portrayed again here in this text? What a tremendous testimony to the utter corruption of the human heart that we could be so flippant and careless toward the sufferings, pains, and needs of other image bearers of God to the extent that we might even further take advantage of them when it serves our own selfish purposes. That is in the heart of the natural man. And consider this, brethren. In Luke's gospel, we're told that it was this man's right hand which was withered and paralyzed. In most cases, the stronger and more useful hand is the right hand. No, not in all cases, but in most cases, the predominant hand of use is the right hand. And yet, this man's was paralyzed. It was useless. It was withered. It was in, drawn into his body. Did this not affect his ability to work efficiently, especially during that day and age? Did this not affect his ability to freely participate in the many basic activities of just general life? Did it not serve to hinder him in many significant ways? And yet, the religious leaders of Israel could not search for even a hint of compassion for this dear and precious ailing soul within their own hearts. They would rather use his ailment as a means of trapping the Lord in some form of an alleged Sabbath violation, such as the natural heart. of our fallen race, brethren. And so, like lions waiting for the deer to dip its head into the creek for a drink, they prepare to pounce on the Lord as they set this man before Him to test the Lord and ask Him if it's lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Inconsiderate of this man's condition, they want to use him to try to trap the Lord. For in their wicked and corrupt hearts, in their defiled souls, which sought to adhere to some plastic observance of the letter of the law, never in accordance with the pure and righteous intentions of God, they had considered even healing to be a work. and a violation of the Sabbath day. And so, pretending to be sincere in their inquiry, but really with ulterior motives, again, taking advantage of this poor man with the withered hand, they posed a question to the Lord with this man in front of him. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Secondly then, we consider our Lord's response. That's the accusation, or at least the setup for the accusation. How does our Lord respond in verses 11 to 12? Listen to his words. Then he said to them, what man is there among you who has one sheep? And if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Once again, our Lord does what he did last time in the former text that we read. He uses a lesser to greater analogy here. And in doing this, it ought to have exposed the uttered wickedness of the hearts of the Pharisees. Notice he says, look, if you had a sheep, and a sheep is of far lesser value than a human being, we can all agree on that, he says. and it happened to fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, would you leave even that one sheep there in the pit to suffer and potentially die to allegedly avoid doing any strenuous work on the Sabbath? Of course not. You would immediately take hold of it and lift it out of the pit to safety. That being the case, he says, of how much greater value is a human being than a single sheep or than a multitude of sheep. And if a human being is suffering in some way, how much more ought you to help that individual when it is in your power to do so, especially on the day of rest, to free them from their burden, to free them from their agony and suffering on the day of rest, even all the more? Would you pity an animal more than your fellow man? See, the question is rhetorical, isn't it? He's not really looking for an answer, he wants them to think. It ought to be obvious to anyone with a soul that helping others who are in need is a good thing to do on the Sabbath day. And so this then leads to another overarching Sabbath principle which our Lord lays down in this text. Another Sabbath principle which is in keeping with the very heart of the law as that which undergirds the entire second table of God's moral law in the Ten Commandments. And that is this. It is always lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. You see, yes, the Sabbath is a day of rest. It's a day to stop working. It's a day to revel in and to contemplate and worship and enjoy the glory of our great God in a way that we cannot do, especially corporately in the other six days. And yes, it is a day to lay aside our own interests and to lay aside our normal work. It should be a day that we lay aside our normal jobs. But it is always a day as well to pour out heartfelt love to God and to others. And so loving others and doing good to others may at times even require strenuous work. Now this wasn't strenuous work for the Lord healing this man, but it may require strenuous work. But such work as this, the work of exercising love to God and to others in very tangible ways, is always a lawful work to be done, even on the Sabbath day. Now, we don't sacrifice the worship of God and the gathered assembly to go and work in a soup kitchen. Working in a soup kitchen is a very good thing, but I don't want to go to the other extreme, and people will say, well, why do we need to gather with the body? Let's just go do good works. Well, that would not be the way to interpret this, because that would be a grievous violation of the first table of the law, to worship God. We need to gather together and worship God. But even among the gathered assembly, or before or after gathered meetings. It is always lawful to do good to others. And in fact, when we lay aside our normal jobs, when we leave our normal work to the other six days, we will be better suited to serve others on the Sabbath. And brethren, I wonder how often we think when we look at a text like this, we think of the Sabbath as certainly gathering together, as worshiping God, as hearing from God through the preaching of the word, but how many of us come to church and say that I want to look for opportunities to do good to others in the body in a special way, to edify, to build up, to minister to those in the church and perhaps outside of the church as providence allows. Now this does not mean that we cannot rest on the Sabbath as well. We're not saying that. Of course we're not saying that you can't rest or take a nap or whatever it might be. It just means that we ought not to overlook the lawful opportunities of doing good to others on the Sabbath. It's a great day to bless others. To this end, the Lord never commanded us to take a break from serving others, and we ought to always look for opportunities to do so, as the Lord providentially permits. The idea of a day of rest actually means it's a day of putting aside your other regular work so that you can worship and serve God in a unique way on the Sabbath. It really doesn't mean sleep. I'm not saying we shouldn't sleep. I take a nice nap on the Sabbath on our Lord's day. It's a good thing to do, but that's not what it really means. It means to cease working. And so, along with God desiring mercy and not sacrifice, the second Sabbath principle which our Lord lays down here is that God delights in seeing his people lay down their own interests so as to serve him and others on the Sabbath day. It is a great day of service in that sense. We cease from our regular personal labors, but not from our labors of love unto others. Thirdly then, we looked at the accusation. We looked at our Lord's response. Now let's look at the affirmation of our Lord's response. The stamp of approval, the authentication of God the Father on His Son's explanation, His response here. In verses 13 to 14, we see this. After bringing forth His response, our Lord then provides that which ought to have affirmed all that is said here. This should have been the nail in the coffin to the whole argument because what does He do? He heals the man after He gives His response. Notice verse 13, then he said to the man, stretch out your hand and he stretched it out and it was restored as whole as the other. And so the Lord tells the man to do that which would normally be impossible for someone in his condition. Everyone knew that this man had this ailment. It was obvious, you could see the way his hand was curled in, how it was paralyzed. And he orders the man to stretch out his withered and paralyzed hand. And the man, believing that he would be able to do this in accordance with the power and authority of Christ, stretches forth his hand. And we're told that it was made as whole and as good as the other hand. See, when Jesus heals, he brings healing to completion, doesn't he? Jesus doesn't leave anything scathed or marred. He brings it to the fullness. It's a picture there, even here, of the completeness of our sanctification, brethren, when we're in glory. Are we struggling with sin? Are we in the battle? Are we struggling with bodies that rot and decay? Well, Christ will complete that healing to the fullness, without sin, without decay, a perfect body, a perfect morality, when we see Him, we'll be like Him, to the fullest. The Lord had restored the man, having delivered him out of his affliction. Now this in itself ought to have compelled the Pharisees to repent of their foolishness, recognizing that the power of God was just exercised unto the miraculous healing of this man. It was right in their faces. But they're so blinded by their sin, and their pride, and their stubborn commitment to keeping the letter of the law, they're so hardened by their hatred of and envy of Christ, that they would rather harden themselves further, and they refuse to humble themselves before the evident testimony of the Holy Spirit, whom they have blasphemed. Actually. Indeed. It is right here for the first time that we're told that the Pharisees were now beginning to discuss together how they might kill, how they might destroy the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? Notice in verse 14, we're told, And what do they do? They plot. They just witnessed the power of God in an amazing way. And they go out and they plot, plotted against Him, against Jesus, how they might destroy Him. How hard is the human heart, brethren? that those who were the most religious even among the people could be so filled with hate and pride that they could actually scheme together to plan to kill the very son of God who had just by his words healed a man whose arm was paralyzed. Can even witnessing a miracle change the corrupt and wicked heart of man? No. As Jesus said, if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't believe even if one were raised from the dead. And later on, when the Lord Jesus is raised from the dead, what do they do? They bribe the soldiers to create a lie, to create a lie against his disciples, saying that they had stolen the body from the tomb. Well, brethren, we saw the accusation, we saw the response of Christ, we saw the affirmation of what Christ has said, now let's just conclude with a few concluding thoughts based on what we've gone over. First, by way of application, brethren, let us ever be conscious of the fact that we are prone toward devaluing the lives of our fellow man. Is it natural for us to place great value on those who are close to us, our families, our friends, our spouses, and our children? Yes, that's natural. Of course it is, but by faith we must remember that all of mankind are precious and of great value in the sight of God because we bear his glorious image. The Pharisees whose eyes were always fixed upon their own selfish ambitions had lost all means of recognizing the precious value of the lives of others. Friends, you think you could toy with a little sin and you don't realize that the heart gets hardened by sin and gets worse and worse and worse to this level of hatred toward your fellow man. But as the people of God, as people now reflecting the heart of Christ, we must strive to contend with such evil seeking by the blood of Christ to purge it from our naturally sinful hearts. We must come to terms with the fact, brethren, that even we have a part in our nature that could care less about anyone else except for ourselves. We must see every human being as precious, and we must always seek the good of others insofar as it is in our power to do them good. We must put ourselves in the shoes of others, bearing their grief, striving to comfort and help them as we can. We must strive to do good to all every day, and especially to the household of faith. And this is one of the greatest means of expressing our love to Christ, brethren, isn't it? We say that we love Christ, and Jesus says show it in very tangible ways by loving others. We say that we embrace the first table of God's law, to not put any other gods before him, to not blaspheme his name, to not worship him through graven images. We want to worship God and put him first. And God would say, as it were, we'll strive to do that by lovingly fulfilling the second table of the law as a means of expressing your love to God by loving others. And we might be tempted to say, But could a Christian ever fall into such a pit of wickedness as the blind Pharisees? We look at this example and we say, could a Christian, even though they weren't Christians, but could a Christian do that? Well brethren, have we not read the story of Jonah, who had more compassion on a silly plant than on an entire nation of men, women, children, and animals? Brethren, if you and I don't see this degrading tendency of the Pharisees in us, then we are truly ignorant of the wicked ways of our flesh. If we can look at these examples and say, that's as far away from me as could possibly be, then we're not seeing ourselves accurately. But if we are aware, if we are consciously aware of our own natural tendencies, we will be more alert and ready to strangle the demon that is our flesh whenever it rears its ugly head. We must strive to love. It's something we have to consciously strive to do. Love doesn't happen naturally. It begins with the actions, and a lot of times the emotions are not cooperating. It's something we have to work at. We must consciously strive to do good to others, or it will never happen. We have to seek out the interest of others, let alone do them good, and find out their needs, and then seek to meet those needs. Again, it's that example of the garden. If you leave a garden alone and just leave it to itself, weeds will come up. You don't have to do anything to grow weeds. They will grow. If you're looking to grow a weed garden, just leave the ground alone. But if you want to grow plants and vegetables and fruit-bearing plants, then you have to work that garden. You have to make sure that it has enough sun and it's getting watered properly and that it's properly cultivated and tilled and that weeds are plucked out. It takes work. Well, in the same way, it takes work to love others. It doesn't just happen. You can't just sit back and say it's gonna come out of me because we feel a certain way. This is one of the reasons, brethren, for why I believe it is important for you to be here in the flesh among the people of God as much as possible. I don't think we can love in the way that Christ calls us to love by having just everything on Zoom all the time. I think we need to be here together. Christianity is a personal touch, face-to-face religion. It's undeniable. It's a face-to-face, a touch religion. greet each other with a holy kiss. It cannot remain on Zoom. Now, there's a place for that for a time, and I thank God for Zoom. I think it's helped us, but we can't get casual with meeting and say, well, we always have Zoom. That's the wrong attitude. It was never meant to be lived out on Zoom for the long run. For those of you who are at home watching this morning, I would plead, come out. Come and be among the brethren. Take the Lord's Supper. You can't take the supper on Zoom. You have to come here to be with the brethren. Be among the gathered body as much as possible. If you're unsaved, be baptized. You can't be baptized on Zoom. Take that risk for the glory of God. It's right and good. Sunday school. Come to the Sunday school if you can be here. Prayer meeting, be here if you can be here. Be among the people of God as much as possible, brethren, because that is what God had intended, and that's what they did in the early church, and they were not without viruses, let me tell you that. In fact, they were ignorant about a lot of things that concern viruses, things that we know much more of today about hygiene and so on. Take the risk for the glory of God. It is right and good. And the God who doesn't allow a sparrow or a hare to fall to the ground apart from his will will shield you. And he will only allow you to suffer in accordance with his good will and unto your sanctification. And he will only take you home when it's truly your time. Do we believe that about God? Do we believe that God is that sovereign? Do we believe that the folks, the dear brothers that we've lost, it was the will of God to take them home. No, I don't take that lightly and I don't think we should go out and just be careless. But we can't use these things to create a fear in the body to be afraid to get together. Not a sparrow, not a hare. Brethren, Jesus left his heavenly and eternal rest. to dwell among us and to endure great suffering for us, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. He left an eternal Sabbath to dwell in our unrest and to bear our greatest burden of sin. Can we hide ourselves away or neglect to be among and to serve his people when he has done so much for us? It's a lot more probable that any of us are gonna die in a car accident than from the COVID virus. It's a lot more probable, and yet we still drive. Finally, lastly, friend, if you're not in Christ this morning, can I plead with you for a few moments? You might think that the Pharisees that I just spoke about would have been out of their ever-living minds for rejecting Christ after they had seen him heal that man before their very eyes. But you must realize that their rejection of Christ was not based on some illogical deficiency. It wasn't based on them being out of their minds. They were very brilliant men in many ways. It wasn't based on some form of unexcused ignorance. Their rejection was moral in nature because of the hardness of their hearts. Now why do I say this to you? Because if you presently reject Christ, you likewise do so willfully and out of the same hardened heart, and you would not change one iota even if you saw that miracle as they did. And for this reason, You are guilty of your rejection. In other words, you will never be able to stand before God and to justify your rejection of His Son in this life. The evidence of God's existence is everywhere around you and in you, and your own conscience bears witness against you that you know that you are a sinner worthy of God's judgment. You want your sin, and that is what really keeps you from embracing Christ and the gospel. It's not about evidence. It's about wanting your sin. Wanting to be free from God. God has hardwired these realities in your soul. Remember. He made us. And so please don't be deceived into thinking that God will somehow excuse you or allow you to pass through unscathed at the final judgment. Ignorance will not be an excuse. There are people who have never heard the gospel and will never hear the gospel who will still be punished for their sins because they are sinners and they sinned against the light of creation even though they've never heard of Christ. Your sin will damn you to hell, and once you die, there will be no turning back. And so I plead with you this morning, if you have not, to seek Christ before it's too late, to believe the gospel, to recognize that yes, you are a sinner. We're all sinners who have offended God. and that we've done all kinds of things, if not in action, even in our own thoughts and hearts and motives, that are very offensive to a holy God, where even one of those things would warrant eternal condemnation in hell. But God so loved the world, He demonstrated that love by sending His Son into this world to bear sins in His own body, to lay down His own life, so that we could be saved freely by grace. And so I would encourage you to come to Christ, pray, ask God to save you, turn from your sins, submit yourself to the authority of Christ, and you will never regret it. You will never regret it. May God give you the grace to see Christ before it's too late. Let's pray. Father, we do give you thanks for your wonderful word We thank you for the amazing testimony of the faithfulness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious savior and what a glorious king. There is no king like him that has ever walked the face of this earth. And even the best of kings that we've respected have sinned in grievous and great ways against you. No king has loved as the Lord Jesus Christ has loved. Even David failed to love Uriah, one of his faithful soldiers. even though he was a heart, a man with a heart like yours. No one loved and had compassion like Christ has. And Father, we thank you that that love is so great that he is willing even right now to pardon all who come to him in faith. And Father, we ask that you would be pleased to work in the hearts of those here this morning who do not know you. Bring them to their knees. Bring them to Christ for grace and salvation this day. Let them not put it off. And Father, we who are your people, we ask for forgiveness and grace for the lack of love that we have for you and for others. And our lack of love for others is evidence of our lack of love for you. Help us, Lord, not to devalue life, not to put our own interests above the interests of others. but to seek out the interests of others, to be willing to expend ourselves and to sacrifice our own lives and our own comforts to reach out with the gospel and to reach out to exercise the love of Christ to his brethren. Hear our prayers, we pray in Christ's name, amen.