[0:00] I want us to consider verses 1 to 12 and in that to look at different attitudes. There are three pronounced attitudes of heart and that's what I want us to look at this morning.
[0:17] But I'll just read at the very beginning. Again he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.
[0:34] We live at a time when people's words and their actions are analyzed and dissected at a level probably that has never happened before in this world.
[0:47] And I suppose the whole area of social media has changed the way that we live. So that people are able to express an opinion about anything and everything that's going on.
[1:01] And many people are able to read that. And of course newspapers home in on what people are saying and it becomes news. And there's just this almost an obsession with how people live and people conduct themselves and what people say.
[1:15] And it puts a lot of pressure on life when there's this almost like this big brother watching all the time.
[1:26] Well there wasn't social media in Jesus' day but he lived under constant scrutiny. His words were always being analyzed and people were always digesting what he was saying and they were scrutinizing what he was saying and often twisting what he was saying and trying to take out a wrong meaning if possible from what he was saying.
[1:52] And so it must have been one of the difficult things for Jesus living under that constant pressure. This as we say this constant scrutiny where people were passing judgment upon him all the time.
[2:07] And in this section we see the attitude of heart in a different way. We see three different heart attitudes. We see first of all the Pharisees with their hard heart.
[2:21] These were hard hearted men. And then we see the heart of Jesus which is a heart of compassion. It is a heart of love.
[2:32] It is a heart for people. It's a healing heart. And then we see the heart of the people, the crowd. And they've got a hungry heart for Jesus.
[2:45] They're hungering after Jesus. But first before that we find that Jesus, he entered the synagogue. And this of course was the Sabbath day. And this was Jesus' habit, was to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
[3:00] And we've got to remember that this is one of the great gifts that God has given to us, is the Sabbath day or what is now, in keeping with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the Lord's day.
[3:11] Because at the end of the chapter 2, the previous chapter, it tells us, verse 27, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
[3:23] So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. Isn't that an amazing thought? That God has gifted us this one day. In all the busyness of our world, the Lord in his wisdom, Yes, he set the pattern at the very creation on the seventh day he rested from all his labors.
[3:44] But he set this day apart. And he has given it to us. And of course it was included within the Ten Commandments. But it was something that he set apart from the very beginning. And it is something that is binding.
[3:57] Some people say that it no longer counts. Well, that is really in keeping with Satan. Because Satan has waged war on this day.
[4:08] Because Satan knows, Take away the Lord's day and you take away everything else. Once you take away God's day, you really take away the gospel. And you take away the God of the gospel.
[4:20] And you will find if you go through the Ten Commandments, Once you pluck this one out, The rest will all crumble. And that is why this has been given to us from the very beginning.
[4:32] And it is a gift that has been given to us. And it is the worst thing in the world is to say, To try and make ourselves wiser than God. And say that we can live seven days, Working full out these seven days.
[4:44] God has given us this wonderful day. Where we are able to come aside, Yes, rest for our bodies, Rest for our minds. We shouldn't have the pressure of work, Any of these things, Apart from the necessities, Works of mercy and necessities and such like.
[5:02] And of course that involves work for a lot of people. Because they are into areas where that is the case. But primarily it is a day for our soul.
[5:13] Where we are able to meet with God. And God wants us to come to meet with him. Because we are spiritual beings, Not just physical. This is a special day. And so Jesus was always found, It was his habit of going to the synagogue on the Lord's day.
[5:30] And when we come to God's house, We should always come prayerfully. We should come expectantly. We should come joyfully. I joyed when to the house of God. But it is a question we always have to ask ourselves.
[5:42] Before we come to God's house, Did I actually pray? Because it is very easy just to walk in and walk out. But you know, we are coming to meet with God.
[5:53] And we should be saying to the Lord, Lord, open my heart, open my mind. I want to meet with you today. I want to hear what you are saying. Because you do speak through the word. And so we should come with expectation.
[6:06] We should come with prayer. When we come to God's house. But anyway, on this occasion, When Jesus comes in, There was a man with a withered hand. This man's hand was paralyzed. It was absolutely useless.
[6:18] It would have just hung down at the side. And he couldn't lift it. He couldn't. There wasn't anything. Probably so many times in his life, He would say, Oh, if only this hand would work.
[6:29] If only this hand would work. I just can't. It's absolutely useless. I can't do anything at all with it. And he was aware of this. And so we find the first group That we're looking at.
[6:44] And that is the Pharisees. The hard heart. Because, again, As Jesus entered the synagogue, And a man was there with a withered hand. How do we find the Pharisees? They watched Jesus To see whether he would heal him On the Sabbath So that they might accuse him.
[7:03] Isn't that incredible? That's what these Pharisees were about. Their life was about watching others. Watching others.
[7:14] Not looking out for others To help them. But watching To see anything that they did was wrong. They lived their lives Purely as men of criticism.
[7:28] Critical of others. They were watching Like hawks The actions of others. And I cannot think of a worse way to live. There's something seriously wrong With people with that attitude.
[7:43] Who just They focus upon others And their faults all the time. Just trying to pick out faults. They'll never tell you anything good about people. Only what's wrong. Or did you see what he did?
[7:54] Did you see what she did? Did you hear what he's done? Did you hear what she's done? This kind of attitude. Well that's what the Pharisees were like. And above all They were watching Jesus Like a hawk.
[8:06] Imagine coming to church. And that's what you're about. Is looking at people. Looking at what they're wearing. Looking at the way they conduct themselves. Sitting in judgment upon them.
[8:19] You're looking at these people And you're thinking about How did they live this week? And all this sort of thing. I'm not saying that anybody here is doing that. But that's the way the Pharisees came to church.
[8:31] They came loaded with an agenda Of being critical And looking down upon others. Well there's something seriously wrong With people like that.
[8:42] And there's a total absence of love Within a heart. Love The Bible tells us that love covers A multitude of sins. That's what love does. Love wants to cover.
[8:53] To conceal. To cover over. But the Pharisees were those Who wanted to devour. Jesus said that. They were devourers. And they were watching everything Just like hawks.
[9:07] You know one of the big problems With the Pharisees was They had no idea What their own heart was like. You know if you get a glimpse Of what your own heart is like And you see the deceit And the twistedness And the maliciousness And the covetousness And the idolatry And all that's going on in there.
[9:30] If you get a true glimpse of that Guaranteed You're not going to sit In judgment of others. You're not going to sit Looking down on others.
[9:41] Because you know What's in your own heart. And you dare And open your mouth And you cannot go up And say Whoa isn't that terrible. Because there is it.
[9:52] And that's You know The greatest sight We get of our own heart Is when we get a sight Of the Lord. The two go together. And you know The more you see Of the Lord The more you see Of your own heart. And you look at Some of the great saints In the Bible.
[10:06] When they were given A great glimpse Of the Lord. We see the reaction The likes of the The apostle John When he in Patmos Was given this vision Of Jesus He fell down as one dead.
[10:18] He felt utterly helpless In his presence. Daniel That great saint In the Old Testament When he was given A sight of the Lord He says Oh we have sinned. That's the reaction Isaiah When he was given That vision of the Lord He says Woe is me I'm undone.
[10:36] That means literally I'm unraveling. That's the way he felt That his whole being Was beginning To unravel In the presence Of the Lord. So if we have A true sight Of the Lord We will then be given A sight of our own heart And we will not Be sitting In judgment Of others.
[10:56] Like this is what The Pharisees were doing. Well The Pharisees Of course They were just so Full of hypocrisy And they were always As we say Condemning The Lord Jesus Christ.
[11:11] And As we say What is Really awful About the Pharisees They are They are there In church In the synagogue And they have come In order that They might accuse him.
[11:24] That's what it tells us. And they watched Jesus To see whether he would Heal him on the Sabbath So that they might Accus him. Isn't that awful?
[11:35] And Jesus Is reading their heart And Jesus asked A very simple question. He said Is it lawful On the Sabbath To do good Or to do harm? To save life Or to kill?
[11:48] You couldn't have A more straightforward Answer than that A question than that And how did they answer him? It tells us They didn't answer They refused to answer It was like They were gritting their teeth They knew deep down What the right answer was They knew it was right To heal someone On the Sabbath But they weren't Going to answer And they were there Sort of daring Jesus We dare you heal him On the Sabbath day Because you've got to remember That they had built Loads and loads And loads of laws On top of The law that God Had given And we find The reaction of Jesus He looked around With anger Grieved At their hardness Of heart You know It's not often We read about The anger of Jesus When you go through Some of the incidents Within the Bible And you look at people Say someone like Zacchaeus Zacchaeus was a man Who had robbed And he had robbed
[12:51] The poor To make himself rich It wasn't that He robbed the rich And gave to the poor But he often Robbed the poor To make himself rich He was a man Who defrauded many Do we read of Jesus' anger When he meets Zacchaeus?
[13:07] No, not at all What about the woman Who was taken in adultery? They brought this woman To Jesus Do we read about Jesus In anger with her?
[13:18] No, not at all But here we read about Jesus He looked on them With anger With righteous anger At the vicious Corruption That was within their own heart The twistedness Of their whole being And he saw them As we said Just like vultures Who devoured With not an ounce Of love Or care Or compassion Within their heart And these were supposed To be the men of God And that's why Jesus was angry And he was grieved In his heart And he was grieved Because they were Missing out on the blessing That he had come to bring They were refusing him And that's one of the Biggest heartaches To the Lord Jesus Is when people refuse him That's why Jesus Wept over the city Of Jerusalem The tears Streaming down his face As the people
[14:18] That he came to Wouldn't recognize him They wouldn't submit Before him It's a solemn Solemn thing To reject And to turn away From Jesus And this picture That we have here Jesus He looks at them He looked around At them with anger Grieved at their hardness You know there's going To come a day When Jesus When the full anger The wrath The righteous wrath Of God Will be displayed And when Jesus As he sits upon As judge On the judgment seat He will display That wrath That anger That righteous Anger and wrath On that day But then we see Now we move From these hard Hearted men Very briefly To the healing Compassionate Loving heart Of Jesus And that's what Jesus was bringing Into life And that's what Jesus brings He brings life And meaning And purpose And hope And he brought it To this man
[15:19] Here's this man Who had this I would imagine A life long Withered hand And he can't do Anything with it And he says To the man Stretch out Your hand And it's here We see the faith Of this man Because this man Could have said To himself Well there's no point For years I've been trying To stretch out My hand It's been an utter Impossibility There's nothing The only way I can do it Is if I take The other hand And kind of Try and lift This one up But there is not The slightest chance Of it being able To rise up Cannot support it In any shape Or form It's absolutely Useless So if that man Had applied Natural reason And natural logic And just thinking He would have said To Jesus I'm sorry I can't With the best Will in the world It is utterly Impossible for me To stretch out My hand But that's not What he did Jesus said to him
[16:20] Stretch out your hand What did the man do He responded Right away To the word Of Jesus He heard What Jesus said He listened To what Jesus Said And he lifted Up He did the impossible And it was because He started to lift Up his hand He was unable To do it And his hand Was healed And that's what Faith is Faith is taking The bare word Of God It's accepting The word of God That's how we Become That's how we Become Christians Is by believing And accepting And laying hold Upon what God Has said to us Of what God Has done for us In Jesus Christ That's what faith is And as we live Out our day Day by day It is trusting In the Lord And you know Sometimes we stop And we reflect On life And we say How much of my life Is actually Lived by faith Am I going
[17:21] On my own Do I trust myself Do I trust Other people Is my trust In the Lord A last resort Or do every day Is every day Am I living Trusting Believing In the Lord You know people Who live by faith People whose Lives are exemplary Who live in such A way by faith It's an amazing Witness Spurgeon used to say Of George Muller George Muller That man who Did just so So much by faith And had The orphanages And so on Everything was by faith All the money He raised Was by faith He just He lived A complete life Of faith Spurgeon used to say It was the greatest Living sermon Going on that day That people were So impacted And affected By the life Of George Muller That people were Turning to the Lord His life was A living sermon So a life of faith Is a powerful statement
[18:22] A powerful witness But anyway Jesus He healed this man But he didn't just Heal this man He healed all around That's what we find That Jesus withdrew With his disciples And a great crowd Followed from Galilee And Judea And Jerusalem You know from North, south, east And west They were all gathering And everywhere Jesus went He was healing Healing, healing, healing It's wonderful Because that's why Jesus came That was his mission Into this world He came to seek And to save To do what?
[18:56] To heal Those who were lost That's why he came In here today There are many Whose hearts Have been healed By Jesus Because Jesus That's what he did He came into your life And he showed You himself And he said You know I can sort your life Because that's That's a place We have to come to At the very Right This is where We have to come to Is to realize You know this I can't make it On my own I just can't Get right with God The most important Thing in the whole Wide world Is to be right With God If we're out With God Life is ski-wiff Life is lost But if we're Right with God Everything has Come into place That doesn't mean Your life's a bed Of roses But it means There's a fulfillment A purpose A direction
[19:57] A goal An end in view You know where You're going You know why You're here You know what You're about That's where Jesus has come Because that's What he says I'm the way I'm the truth I'm the life I give you life I lead you In the right way And so Jesus Is a great healer But then we see The Just again Very briefly The hungry hearts Of the crowd And they They were all Following Jesus Because of what They saw Jesus do When they saw Jesus healing They saw straight away Here's a healer Here's a deliverer Here's a savior And this is who They wanted For their life And so There was this Huge movement Out after Jesus And may I say To you today This is who You need For your life You need Jesus And it may be Today life is Rosy for you Things are going
[20:57] Well You're saying To yourself You know I feel I feel quite Content in life And sometimes We reach stages In our life And we've had That Christian Upbringing And then we Kind of put it On hold Or push it To the side And say That was okay When I was a kid But I don't Really need that Now Oh you do You most certainly Do And you know All it often Takes in life Is for your life To be all of a sudden Thrown upside down And the way Things are going To be turned And you realize Oh I'm not As in control Of things As I thought I'm much more Vulnerable Than I thought Life is fragile Doesn't take much To change Everything Well again That is so important For us To come to this place This discovery Self discovery But more importantly At Jesus discovery And you ask today For Jesus To come into your life To be the great healer To be the one Who changes you But you'll also notice In this chapter
[21:57] That part of what Brought the huge crowds To follow Jesus Is what we read In verse 8 When the crowd Heard All that he was doing They came to him In other words The news was traveling People were telling Other people About what Jesus Was doing And that's your Responsibility And my responsibility Is to tell people What Jesus is doing And what Jesus Has done Every Christian Gets an opportunity Gets loads of Opportunities To share their Testimony With others And it's amazing How often In the course of life At work On holiday Different places In the course of Conversation And it comes up As a Christian People will often ask How are you a Christian?
[22:54] Or people will say What happened? What happened in your life? Well that's a glorious Opportunity They've asked you It's not that you're Imposing upon somebody Else The question Has come from them It happens all the time And we are to take All these opportunities That are God given And share the good news Of Jesus And that's why The crowds Were following Jesus Is because Other people Were telling them You know this He healed me What did he do for you?
[23:27] Well this is what he did And they were able to tell Oh I'm going to see This for myself And as it was said In those days They gossiped the gospel That's what they spoke about They were telling About what Jesus has done The psalmist said Come here Come to me Come here And I'll tell you What the Lord has done And we should be doing that And so we see There's this huge clamor Amongst the people For Jesus You couldn't have A greater contrast To these self-righteous Critical men In the synagogue And the crowds Flocking after Jesus To meet with him But you'll notice that There is this amazing testimony About who Jesus is Because even The very demons The unclean spirits Saw him They fell down before And cried out You are the son of God You know It's an amazing thing
[24:28] There's not one Atheist Or agnostic Or infidel In hell Not one Because they all know The reality And the power Of God In fact We're told in the scripture With regard to Satan And the demons That they believe And they tremble Not that they believe Savingly But they believe In the existence Of God They know the reality Of God And what they know Of him Brings them To tremble It's not a thought And yet Satan will do Everything in his power To try to get us Not to believe In God The thing is The Bible tells us That every single Human being And every angel And every demon And Satan All will one day Have to appear Before Christ Because there's to be A judgment Not only of the human race
[25:28] But even of the demonic world And all will bow Before Christ And they will all Everybody is going To confess That Jesus Christ Is Lord To the glory Of God The Father We're told that In the Bible That's going to be An amazing And awesome day Well today While it is still Day While the opportunity Is here I pray that you'll come To confess Jesus now That you will know him As your Lord And your saviour Greatest privilege In this whole wide world Is to have Jesus As your Lord And your saviour I hope today You have the hungry heart Not the hard heart Let's pray Lord we pray to bless us We give thanks for Your patience with us We pray that Your word will Have gone down Into our hearts Challenging us Because that's what Your word does We pray that The reality of your word May impact our lives
[26:29] For good So that we will Become more like Jesus We pray for hungry hearts For you And we give thanks That when we begin To follow you That we're told That there is a Hungering and thirsting After righteousness And there's a blessing On those who hunger And thirst after righteousness Pray to bless the cup of tea Coffee in the hall After And we pray To take us all home safely Do us good Part us with your blessing We pray in Jesus name Amen We conclude singing From Psalm number 34 In Sing Psalms Psalm number 34 Verses 5 to 10 Page 40 And the tune is Wiltshire Psalm 34 Verses 5 to 10 They look to him And shine with joy They are not put to shame This suffering man Cried to the Lord From him Deliverance came The angel of the Lord
[27:30] Surrounds and guards Continually All those who fear And honor him He sets his people free Come taste and see The Lord is good Who trusts in him Is blessed O fear the Lord You saints with need You will not be oppressed And so on Psalm 34 5 to 10 To the tune Wiltshire They look to him And shine with joy They are not put to shame This suffering man Cry to the Lord From him From him The deliverance came The angel of the Lord
[28:30] Surprised And guards Continually All those who fear And honor him He sets his people free Come to his hands See the Lord is good Who trust in him In his place In his place Oh dear The Lord Who saints with me You will not be Oppressed The lions May grow
[29:31] Weak and fish And hunger For their food But those who wait Upon the Lord Will not Now may the grace Mercy and peace Of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit Rest and abide Upon each one of you Now and forevermore Amen