Listen in as Thomas Terry breaks down the Sabbath controversies in the gospel of Mark.
Transcript
Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. Following the scripture reading from Pastor Ryan Lister, Pastor Thomas Terry delivers his message entitled, The Practice Versus the Principle. This message continues the series, Follow the Son, which is teaching through the gospel of Mark. Thanks for joining us. Here’s Ryan. The gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 23 through chapter 3, verse 6. One Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields. And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but
the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Then he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here. And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with their Herodians against him,
how to destroy him. This Trinity Church is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well this morning, we are dealing with the fifth and final of these conflict narratives. So if you remember last week, Jesus was confronted with the Pharisees, and a conflict ensued because the Pharisees were concerned as to why Jesus and his disciples were feasting when they should have been fasting. Before that, there was this conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees because Jesus called Levi the sinful tax collector, and because Jesus was eating with sinful people. And prior to that conflict, there was another issue with Jesus and the Pharisees because Jesus exercised his authority to forgive the sins of a paralytic man. Well here this morning, Jesus finds himself yet again in the midst of another conflict. In fact, two conflicts with the Pharisees. So this morning, you get a two for one deal.
Harvesting on the Sabbath
And the reason why there are two conflicts this morning in this one narrative is because they’re connected. Both conflicts likely happened on the same day, and both conflicts are over the same issue. They both center on the Sabbath. So this morning, we’ll be dealing with these two conflicts in two parts. And the way we’re going to break up this narrative is chapter 2, verses 23 through 28, we’ll be dealing with harvesting on the Sabbath. And then we’ll get to chapter 3, verses 1 through 6, where we’ll be dealing with healing on the Sabbath. And what I find so interesting about these two parts is that the structure of the conflict is strikingly similar. So for example, in the conflict of harvesting on the Sabbath, you get the atmosphere in verse 23. You get the accusation in verse 24. You get the answer in verses 25 and 26, and you get the authority in 27 and 28.
And then as the same, the conflict with the healing on the Sabbath, you get the same issue. In verse 1, you get the atmosphere. In verse 2, you get the accusation. In verse 3 and 4, you get the answer. In verse 5, you get the authority. And then in verse 6, you kind of get this holistic picture as to how the Pharisees respond to this narrative as a whole. Okay, so let’s begin by looking this morning at the first part of this conflict, harvesting on the Sabbath. And we’ll start first with the atmosphere in verse 23, okay? One Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields. And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. So let me set the context here. Because it’s the Sabbath, it’s likely that Jesus and his disciples were en route to the synagogue. As we’ve seen over and over again, Jesus continues to get invited to the synagogue to preach.
The people were interested in Jesus. They were captivated by his powerful preaching. And so he and his disciples are traveling through this grain field to get to the synagogue. Some of his disciples decide that they’re going to grab a few pieces of grain as a little snack. See, they’ve been walking for a while, and so they’re a bit hungry. So they snatch some grain. Now this isn’t uncommon, nor is this inappropriate. It’s not like they were stealing grain. They were just grabbing a few pieces to eat. In fact, grabbing a bit of your neighbor’s grain in Jewish culture was biblically permissible. So if you look at Deuteronomy 23, 25, it says, if you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain. So basically the rule is here, if you’re hungry and you happen past your neighbor’s field,
you can grab a couple pieces for yourself. Just don’t show up with like six or seven bags and a sickle and cut down all this grain. It would be inappropriate. That would be stealing. So the disciples were doing basically what was biblically permissible. However, the Pharisees who had been keeping this very close watch on Jesus were looking for a way to catch Jesus slipping. They were trying to find discontinuity between what Jesus preached and what he practiced. It’s here in verse 24 where we get the accusation of the Pharisees. Verse 24, and the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? So here again, you get a snapshot into the heart of the Pharisees. Now a couple of things to point out here about their accusation. First, the Pharisees address Jesus, but the text doesn’t tell us that Jesus was plucking
grain. It says that his disciples were. And the reason why they asked Jesus was because in this culture, the rabbi was usually held responsible for the actions of their disciples. And second, the thing that I find interesting is that this accusation is a ridiculous reach. It’s completely ridiculous. To say that these men who were grabbing a few pieces of grain as they were walking through this grain field was somehow equivalent to working on the Sabbath was bogus. This is what you would call meticulous scrutiny. The Pharisees didn’t really have a legitimate charge against Jesus. It was a reach. It was a stretch. They were redefining what it means to break the Sabbath law. Now where does this even come from anyway? What is the Sabbath and what is the basis for their accusation of working on the Sabbath? Well, the Sabbath simply means to stop or to rest.
And here’s where it comes from. In Genesis 2, just after the creation account, in chapter 2 verses 1 through 3, it says,
Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the Sabbath day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
— Genesis 2
(ESV)
Then in Exodus 20 verses 8 through 11, it says, 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 or your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, or the sojourner who was with you within the gates.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, 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 finally, Exodus 31 verse 14, You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. So God, immediately following this creation account, instituted this day of rest for his people. God instituted the day of rest for people. So God worked for six days and then he rested, and this resting became a pattern for us to follow. It was a gift to God’s people. So what the Pharisees did was they took this gift of grace from God, this day of resting from all of your labors, and turned the resting into work by adding all kinds of religious regulations to it. Things that you could and could not do on this day of rest on the Sabbath.
So the question then is, how did the Pharisees decide or determine what was or wasn’t work on the Sabbath? Well originally it was by consensus. These rules and regulations, these restrictions, were discussed among the rabbis. They thought about it, what was acceptable and what wasn’t. They debated and they made their interpretations. They casted their opinions about it, and eventually this list was compiled of what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. This list is now in a book called the Mishnah, which is a book of transcribed oral traditions. In the Mishnah, you get this little section called Sabbat. It’s basically this guideline for what you can do on the Sabbath. In this section, you have 39 categories of rules and specific acts that are prohibited on the Sabbath. These categories include burning, writing, washing, building, demolishing, and harvesting is one of these categories.
Jesus’s Biblical Response
Under these categories were a long list explaining the categories. And since harvesting was one of those things considered to be work, the Pharisees were making the case that since Jesus’ disciples were plucking the heads off of grain on the Sabbath that they were harvesting, that they were working on the Sabbath, which was a total reach. But look at how Jesus brilliantly deals with these Pharisees. Not by entertaining their accusation, but by answering their question again with a question. Verse 25 and 26, and he said to them, have you not read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abathar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him.
What’s amazing here is Jesus doesn’t appeal to the rabbinic oral tradition. Jesus doesn’t begin a debate with the Pharisees on whether or not plucking the head of grain was unlawful on the Sabbath. What he does do is he appeals to scripture. He goes to 1 Samuel 21. And by doing this, not only does he challenge their knowledge of the scripture, but he gives a biblical precedent for doing something that was considered unlawful. Now it’s important to know that Jesus, just because he responds to the Pharisees by giving them a biblical precedent for what was acceptable, is not admitting to guilt. Jesus does not acquiesce to the accusation of the Pharisees. He’s simply seizing an opportunity to interpret what the Sabbath is and what the Sabbath was made for. And so he uses 1 Samuel to break it down. So in this story, you have David, who was God’s anointed one.
He was to be the future king of Israel. But David was currently a fugitive running from the present king Saul, who was trying to kill him. So while David is on the run, he makes his way to the city of Nob to take refuge in the temple with the high priest Ahimelech. So David shows up in Nob with a few of his men and asks the high priest, do you have any common bread or any bread for that matter? Now David asks this question because David knows that priests have bread. How does David know this? Well, according to Levitical law, 12 loaves of bread were to be baked and consecrated. That just means set aside as holy and placed on a table in the tabernacle every Sabbath day. So priests must have had a lot of bread hanging around. So this holy bread was called the bread of the presence, and it was only to be eaten
by priests. So David knows you guys have bread because you have to bake it every week. So the priest Ahimelech says, well, I don’t have any common bread, but I do have this holy bread that’s reserved for priests. And then he said, but if you and your men have kept themselves from women, that just means that they’ve remained pure, then I’m going to give you the bread, which is lawful only for priests. And so David and his men, they take this bread and they eat it. The question is, why did this priest give David and his men this bread when the law restricts the eating of this specific bread to priests? Is this just blatant disregard for the law? No, what it’s doing here is showing that there are unique exceptions to what is unlawful. See, David was God’s anointed king who would help to establish God’s coming kingdom.
And he and his men were hungry and needed food while they were on the run. The point here is that God’s law is intended to serve the coming of God’s kingdom, not hinder it. And so the justification for eating bread that was reserved for priests was because it served the coming of God’s kingdom. So Jesus, by appealing to this story in 1 Samuel, does two things. First, he gives a biblical precedent for a specific exception to the rule, that David and his men were doing kingdom work and they were in need, and so the need was greater than the rule. And secondly, although a bit more elusive, Jesus here was insinuating that since David, God’s anointed one, did it, then Jesus could absolutely do it. If David had the authority to get a priestly pass for something that was considered unlawful, then Jesus could get a priestly pass for something presumably unlawful by the Pharisees.
Because Jesus’s authority far exceeds David’s authority. After all, Jesus is the greater David. And remember, Jesus didn’t even pluck the grain. But just like David’s companions were permitted to eat the bread on the basis of David’s authority, Jesus’s disciples would have been permitted to pluck the heads of grain on the basis of Jesus’s authority. So Jesus didn’t break the Sabbath law here, but even if he did, he would have a biblical precedent because he and his disciples were doing kingdom work. And he has greater authority than David, so he would have gotten a pass. And in verses 27 and 28, Jesus really begins to demonstrate his authority here. First, by explaining the spirit of the Sabbath, and then by explaining his sovereignty over the Sabbath. Verse 27, 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.
Here Jesus gets to the core of what’s behind the Sabbath. He gets to what is the true spirit behind it. Jesus here is saying the Sabbath was made for humanity, the apex of God’s creation. It was made to be a blessing and a benefit to human beings, the only created things uniquely made in the image of God. He gave it to us, this gift of the Sabbath, out of his sheer kindness to us. He didn’t create the Sabbath as some ritual or rule or regulation intended to oppress us or to hurt us. It was made for us as a delight, not a duty. And of course, the undertone of this statement is this, the Sabbath was made for man precisely because of men like you Pharisees, who would take this good gift of rest that God has given his people and distort it, misinterpret it, make some restrictive religious rule that
requires all of this work to uphold it and use it as a means of keeping my people from rest. God gave us the Sabbath as a benefit and a blessing. That’s the spirit behind the Sabbath. It’s intended to give us rest. See this is part of God’s creation order. We, the created ones, were created with the need for rest. The Sabbath was created for man, not God. God doesn’t need to rest. He is all powerful. In fact, Isaiah 40, 28 says, have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. God is omnipotent. He is all powerful. He does not get tired, therefore he does not need to rest. So then if God doesn’t need rest, then why does he rest on the Sabbath? Well for one, he rests as an outward sign to humanity that the work of creation is complete.
But more specifically, he rests for us. He rested on the Sabbath day as a template for us to follow, because we are not God, because we’re not all powerful. We’re not omnipotent because we were created beings. We need rest. So if the spirit of the Sabbath is meant to meet our needs, then why would it be unacceptable for the disciples of Jesus to eat something, pluck grain, and eat on the Sabbath? And since God created the Sabbath for his creation, since God created it, he is the one who uniquely has the authority to interpret and exercise sovereignty over it, decide when the law can be superseded. So Jesus says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Now when Jesus says this here, he’s using this creative wordplay. This is a creative nod to Psalm 8. Psalm 8.4 says, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you would
care for him? Jesus says to the Pharisees, God created the Sabbath to meet man’s need because he cares for them. So in terms of priority, man’s need is more important than strict adherence to the Sabbath. See, in this statement, Jesus reveals his sovereignty to overrule the Pharisees’ legalistic interpretations of the Sabbath law. And in so doing, he shatters one of the most sacred systems of religious piety for the Pharisees. And their response to Jesus’ interpretation of the Sabbath? Silence. Their response to Jesus having a biblical precedent as an exception to the Sabbath? Silence. Their response to Jesus making himself greater than David? Silence. And their response to Jesus exercising sovereignty over the Sabbath? Silence. Jesus’ question is the checkmate that silences their meticulous scrutiny. Jesus shuts them down again. And you would think that after this day of reckoning, after this rebuking, that the Pharisees
Healing on the Sabbath
would call it a day and put the issue of Sabbath to bed, put the issue to rest. But they don’t. Instead, they take their issue of the Sabbath and push it into the synagogue, which brings us to the second part of the narrative, healing on the Sabbath. And just like the first part of the narrative, it starts again with the atmosphere in verse 1. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. So Jesus and his disciples move from the grain field and begin and make their way to the synagogue. And as the typical pattern, Jesus steps into the synagogue, and what is he doing? He’s preaching. Okay? Now, let me set some context for the attendance there. In the center of the synagogue, you have Jesus who is preaching. You have his disciples. You have all the people there who likely invited Jesus to come and hear him preach, because
again, they’ve been captivated by his preaching. Then you have the Pharisees who always seem to make the atmosphere tense and uncomfortable. And then finally, you have this man with a deformed hand. Now, we don’t know why this man’s hand was withered, whether it was a birth defect or some type of paralysis. But what we do know for sure is that his hand didn’t function properly, and people knew it. Okay? Like the first part of the narrative, we get to another accusation from the Pharisees in verse 2. And they, meaning the Pharisees, watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. Here the accusation is a bit different because it’s not verbal. It’s a silent accusation. See, they already know, these Pharisees. They already know that Jesus is going to heal this man’s hand. This is Jesus’ style.
They’ve seen this before. They know what he’s going to do. In fact, they’re banking on it. And more than just banking on it, they’re already thinking in their mind, we got him. We’re going to catch him for violating the Sabbath. And see, the issue was just like harvesting. The rabbis had thought about healing on the Sabbath a lot, just like harvesting. They had very specific guidelines as to what were the appropriate conditions to heal a person on the Sabbath. The issue was debated among rabbis, and they finally arrived at this consensus, that you could heal somebody on the Sabbath only if that person was close to death. In fact, the Mishnah, this book of rules, states that whenever there is doubt whether a person’s life is in danger, this can override the Sabbath. But this man with the withered hand wasn’t even close to death.
There was no real threat to his life. He simply had a deformed hand. And so if Jesus does heal this man’s hand, the Pharisees believed that this would be a violation of the Sabbath. Now the Pharisees, they’ve seen Jesus heal on the Sabbath twice before. They know he’s gonna do it again, and so they begin to plot their charge against Jesus. And here’s what’s crazy about this situation. They’re so bloodthirsty to charge Jesus for healing on the Sabbath for the third time that they completely glossed over the fact that Jesus actually heals people. The very fact that he is miraculously healing people should be a testament of his identity and his character, but they’re too bloodthirsty to notice it. They completely dismiss it. And so again, Jesus answers their silent accusation with a question in verse three and four. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here.
And he said to them, the Pharisees, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But again, they were silent. He answers their silent accusation with a question, but he doesn’t simply ask a question. He does so much more than that. First, he asks the man with the withered hand to step up and come to the center of the room. Now why does Jesus do this? How awkward for this man. But Jesus does this to reveal to the Pharisees that he knows what they’re thinking. Remember, this was a silent accusation. This is a power move by Jesus. He does this to show that what they are doing privately in their own hearts, he intends to expose publicly to the whole room. And second, Jesus with this question again reveals that he is God. By doing what only God can do, he reads their minds and their motives.
Jesus knew their thoughts. But if Jesus knew their thoughts and he knew that these men were trying to accuse him of healing on the Sabbath, then why does Jesus bring attention to this man’s withered hand? Jesus could have simply healed this man privately. Jesus could have waited till sunset to heal this man and dodge the accusation of the Pharisees, but he doesn’t do it. What Jesus does is he begins to set the stage for this healing to expose the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And so he asks the Pharisees, what’s allowed on the Sabbath? To do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill? Now this is what’s called a lesser to greater argument. This is a common sense strategy that forces a debate opponent to see that if something is true about the lesser in the same category, then it must be true about the greater.
So if it is right to do good on the Sabbath and wrong to do evil on the Sabbath, then it logically makes sense that it’s right to save life on the Sabbath and wrong to kill on the Sabbath. This is a genius argument strategy here. But does the strategy actually fit here? Is Jesus’s argument relevant to this specific question? I mean, the man with the withered hand was not going to die. This wasn’t a life or death issue. This man’s life was not in jeopardy. Jesus wasn’t necessarily going to save this man’s life. Jesus was just going to heal his hand. But here is the brilliance of Jesus. His argument has more to do with the Pharisees than it does with healing this man’s hand. It had more to do with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Jesus is getting ready to do what is right and good on the Sabbath while the Pharisees
are doing wrong and evil by plotting to kill Jesus on the Sabbath. See, not only did Jesus read their mind for the moment with their silent accusation about healing, Jesus knew their mindset. He knew where this was ultimately going. He knew that they were going to plot to kill Jesus, and Jesus, he knew it. In fact, this is why I think Jesus referenced 1 Samuel when dealing with the issue of harvesting on the Sabbath, because just like Saul was trying to kill David, God’s anointed one, these Pharisees were trying to kill Jesus, God’s anointed one, the greater David. You see the irony in this situation? These so-called righteous Pharisees, the do-gooders, were looking to charge Jesus on a technicality, breaking the Sabbath because he was going to heal someone. But the Pharisees failed to recognize the greater sin of plotting to kill Jesus on the
Sabbath, a technicality versus murder. See, the lesser to greater argument exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And despite their silent accusations and their trumped-up charges, Jesus finishes what he started with the healing and demonstrates again his authority in verse 5. And he looked around at them with 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. One thing to notice in this verse is that Jesus, just before he heals this man, he reveals something very important about himself, his anger towards sin. His anger towards people who would sin against him. Jesus shows his. He shows his very real emotions. He’s angry. He’s angry with these Pharisees because he knows they want to kill him. He’s not just angry, he’s also heartbroken. He’s grieved at what’s going on in their heart.
Because what’s going on in their heart is so evil that it makes them want to kill Jesus. And this here gives you a picture of our Lord Jesus, full of anger at sin, but simultaneously deeply grieved at the hardness of heart because of sin. Jesus perfectly balances righteous anger, but also grief and sadness because of sin. Remember this, brothers and sisters. Remember that Jesus was angry when he was sinned against. Remember that Jesus was angry when people conspired against him. Remember that Jesus was angry when he was wrongly judged. Remember that he felt all the raw feelings of anger when these people plotted to kill him. Remember this when you believe that Jesus couldn’t possibly understand what you’re going through when you are sinned against. He knows it. He understands it. It angers him when people hurt us, when people sin against us. It grieves him when he sees hearts that are hardened because of sin towards him and his people.
But Jesus is not overcome by his anger. He does not let anger get the best of him. Instead, he turns his attention to the man with the withered hand to heal him. Jesus says to the man, stretch out your hands. This man stretches them out and he’s healed. Jesus, angry at the situation, does not sit in his anger. Instead, he focuses on healing, and this is a great example for us. Jesus gives us the justification to express righteous anger towards sin, to experience grief because of sin, but he does not give us the justification to sit in it, to wallow in it, and to allow it to destroy us or our ministries. Jesus moves back into his ministry of compassion despite his appropriate anger towards the Pharisees. And don’t miss the authority of Jesus. Don’t miss the authority of Jesus here. With only words, he heals this withered hand.
Jesus completely disregards the charge of the Pharisees and gets to the business of healing this man simply by telling this man, stretch out your hand. This shows you Jesus’s authority, but it also shows you Jesus’s priority. Man’s need is more important than strict adherence to the Sabbath. And look how the Pharisees respond to this healing. In verse 6, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him. So the Pharisees got what they wanted. They got what they came for. They were banking on it and it happened. That’s all they needed to close the deal. This here became their justification for trying to kill Jesus. And their response proved that Jesus was right. They were plotting to kill Jesus. The Pharisees now have three counts on Jesus for violating the Sabbath. But these three counts of violating the Sabbath won’t ensure a capital punishment.
Why They Hated Jesus
So they need to build an alliance with the Herodians who were the politically motivated Jewish leaders of the culture to conspire against Jesus so that they could secure a capital punishment. Now the Pharisees and the Herodians, they never got along. They didn’t see eye to eye because the Pharisees were anti-Rome and the Herodians were pro-Rome. Their ideals differed drastically in so many ways. They were willing to work together. They were willing to work together for the common cause to condemn and crucify Jesus because Jesus’ message posed a threat to both parties. An alliance like this would definitely secure a death sentence for Jesus. And see what we continue to see with Jesus over and over again is that his life-giving message creates incredible conflict. Not the kind of conflict that ends in mild confrontation. Not the kind of conflict that ends with mere words. The kind of conflict that leads to a crucifixion.
They hated Jesus so much that they were willing to kill him. They were willing to kill him. Why? Why do they hate Jesus so much? The same reason our culture hates Jesus. Because his message threatens human autonomy. His message rids us of self-reliance and self-righteousness. His message demands a relinquishing of our wills and our sinful desires. His message is exclusive and narrow and it won’t fit into our pluralistic boxes. Because his message takes all of our religious work, all of our human achievements, and all of our man-centered morality and renders them meaningless. Because his message demands from us a response of total submission and complete allegiance. His message cracks the notion of justification by our religious and moral works. Jesus’ message threatens our works-based justification before a righteous and holy God. This, brothers and sisters, is precisely why God gives us the Sabbath. Because all of that work is too much to bear.
It’s too heavy to carry. It won’t work. He loves us so much that he will not allow us to continue working to try to earn God’s approval through our religious work or our man-centered morality. It’ll never pay off. It won’t work. And listen, all the plotting, all the conspiring of the Pharisees and the Herodians seems on the surface to work. It eventually secures what they hoped for. They got a death sentence. They plotted to kill Jesus, and eventually they do kill Jesus. And what seems like the greatest victory for the Pharisees, the death of Jesus, turns out to be Jesus’ greatest victory and our greatest victory. See, listen to what Jesus says in John 10, 18. He says, no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again.
See, what the Pharisees failed to see is that Jesus came to lay down his life, that he was born to die, that God became, God came in human flesh to pay for the world’s greatest issue, our sin. His death, although at the hands of sinful and wicked men who paraded themselves to be righteous, had divine purpose, to pay for the sins of the world, a debt that we could never pay off no matter how hard we worked. See, the death of Jesus is the only thing that could pay for our sins. Only the death of an infinite God could pay for the infinite cost of our sin. And Jesus says on the cross just before he dies, it’s finished. It’s paid for. But what is finished? God’s divine plan to save us from our sin by dying in our place to pay the infinite cost of our sin.
It’s paid for. Not only does he lay down his own life, but he raises it back up again. Jesus is raised from the grave, proving that he is who he says he is, the son of God who is God, the creator of life, the creator of the Sabbath, the one who came to give us rest. Not simply rest from our work, not just rest from our jobs and rest from our responsibility, but more importantly, rest for our souls. See, God created us with a need for rest. And the reason he created us with this need for rest is so that we might long for him to find rest, that we might look and find the source of ultimate rest, that we would come to love and live in the finished work of Jesus Christ, who is our eternal Sabbath. He is our eternal rest, and he offers it freely to you this morning.
Finding True Rest
Jesus says in Matthew 11, 28, come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Are you weary this morning? Is your sin too heavy to bear? Are you overwhelmed by all of your religious works, trying to please God, trying to make yourself right with God? Are you tired of working on your man-centered morality? Jesus has come to him. He’ll give you rest from all that work. You can come to Jesus this morning by trusting and believing in him, by turning from your sin and turning to Jesus. If you come to him this morning, he will give you rest. He will give you Sabbath. This morning, as an encouragement for you, I want to read a poem written by Paul Tripp. This poem is entitled, Rest, and this has been a great encouragement to me this week as I’ve studied, and I thought it might be a great encouragement to you.
Rest, a faint dream for many, a treasured commodity in a fallen world, a thing so needed yet so easily interrupted. The garden was a place of rest, no violence in creation, no weed or thorn, no cleft between God and man, no reason to hide, no cause for fear, no need unmet, no grief to face. Bright sun, pure love, unfettered peace, unstained beauty, man and God, worship and love, but a voice interrupted the rest. Strategies of death, words of deceit, actions of rebellion, fingers of blame, expulsion from the garden, judgment and death, rest interrupted, rest shattered. So we wait for the Lord. His grace strengthens, his presence comforts, his promise assures, his power activates, his rule guarantees that someday rest, real rest, pure rest, eternal rest, will reign once more. No violence in creation, no weed or thorn, no cleft between God and man, no reason to
hide, no cause for fear, no need unmet, no grief to face between God and man. Yes, rest, true rest, will live again and last forever. So we wait for the Lord to restore us to that place, bright sun, pure love, unfettered peace, unstained beauty, God and man together forever until that day with hearts that are strong and hope that is undimmed and joy that embraces the future. We wait for the Lord. Let’s pray. Father, in all the ways that we have misinterpreted the Sabbath and we have misconstrued your concept for rest, its intention and its divine design, Father, forgive us. Lord, I pray that you would help us to find true and ultimate rest in the finished work of Jesus. I pray, God, for those who are here this morning who feel the need to work and work and work to find acceptance or approval with you, God, that you would invade their hearts, that you
would give them true rest. I pray that they would come to you and experience the joy of having their burdens lifted and their sins forgiven. I pray, O Lord and God, that we would come to love you more in our rest. I pray, God, that you would help us to center ourselves on Jesus Christ, our eternal Sabbath. We pray all of these things in Christ’s name. Amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.