Well, today we're going to be looking at the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3 in Mark.
! And we've seen this series of confrontations that Mark records for us that Jesus had with the Pharisees.
And there are five of them. Typically, people would say things that way, but we're going to address the last two together because it's topical in that way.
I hope you know that the chapter and verse numbers are not inspired in the Word of God.
And so, if you'll allow, I'm going to go from the end of 2 into the beginning of 3.
So let's read together, beginning in verse 23, chapter 2.
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 in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence,
which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him.
And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.
And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.
And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here.
And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?
But they were silent.
And he looked around at them 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 the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you for the great blessing of getting to be together here today,
for the blessing of a community of faith, your church.
And we thank you for your word, which is a great gift to us as a guide for all holiness.
And we thank you for your spirit, who works in us to understand what it is your word would communicate to us this day.
Both to know what it means and how to apply it to our living.
And we pray, Father, by your spirit, that you will have your way with us this morning.
And we pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.
So we've seen the kind of the interaction so far through chapter 2 between the Pharisees, the Pharisees of the scribes, the scribes,
these religious elite of the day, and Jesus.
And you begin to note as they're following him, there's a lot of record that the reason that they were following him
was not to believe in him, but rather to accuse him.
They were looking for accusations to stack up against him.
And you see that happening here again.
We see them following him through the grain fields, asking him accusatory questions.
Not honest questions, but questions seeking ways to accuse him.
We see it again in chapter 3, verse 2, right?
They ask him again this question that they might accuse him.
And then we see them immediately after this interaction in verse 6, going and conspiring with another sect of the Jews
that were particularly kind to Herod called the Herodians to see how it is that they could destroy Jesus.
And their major point of accusation was that he was blaspheming, that he was saying he was God.
And they were right.
They caught at least that.
He was in fact saying he was God.
And it would have been blasphemy if Jesus himself wasn't in fact God.
So you see this constant accusation being railed against him.
And here he does something incredibly shocking.
Previously in chapter 2, verse 10, he has claimed that he has the power to forgive sin,
which would have equated him with God.
Here he calls himself the Lord even of the Sabbath.
This would have been a massive claim to make for them.
And certainly he is.
John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, my favorite account of Jesus coming into the world says,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
He made the Sabbath.
Colossians 1.16 furthers that.
Paul writes,
By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,
all things were created through him and for him.
And so he certainly is the Lord of the Sabbath.
But in order to understand the shock that this kind of phrase would have been to them,
we must first understand how the Pharisees viewed and how they kept the Sabbath.
It was certainly wrong the way that they did.
A man named Alfred Eidersheim wrote a book called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,
which I did not read, but I gleaned a bunch of stuff from,
in which he researches, studies the Talmud, which was an old document, came after the days of Jesus,
but was written to sum up the laws that were being kept by the apostate Jews at this time.
And he brings some understanding to what the Sabbath meant for them.
Now the Sabbath for them would have been celebrated from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.
So this is the 24-hour period of time, and there were many, many laws that they had put in place.
The intent there was to prevent, originally, them from sinning at all,
from breaking what the Sabbath was really meant for.
But these new laws, called hedge laws, have become the new form of worship.
As I said to you before, the Pharisees at this time numbered about 6,000 people
among the millions that existed in this day.
They were the religious elite, at least in their own minds,
and they held a standard over everybody else.
So listen just to some of the things.
This is just a few.
In the Talmud, there are 24 chapters designated to this.
One rabbi said he spent two and a half years trying to understand the minutiae of the laws that existed at this time.
So get this.
You couldn't travel more than 3,000 feet.
3,000 feet.
Some say you can't go more than 2,999 steps just in case you wouldn't take that last step and be found in sin.
No burden could be carried, so no weight could be picked up that weighed more than a dried fig.
Or half a fig carried two times.
It wasn't that lenient.
If you put an olive in your mouth and rejected it because it was bad,
you couldn't put another whole olive in the mouth because your palate had already tasted the flavor of the olive.
If you threw an object in the air and caught it with the other hand, it was a sin.
If you caught it in the same hand, it wasn't.
A tailor couldn't carry his needle.
The scribe couldn't carry his pen.
A pupil couldn't carry his books.
Wool couldn't be dyed.
Nothing could be sold.
Nothing could be bought.
Nothing could be washed.
No fire could be lit.
Cold water could be poured on warm water, but warm couldn't be poured onto cold.
I don't know why.
You could not bathe for fear that when the water fell off of you, it might wash the floor,
which would have been considered work.
If a candle was lit, you couldn't put it out.
If it wasn't lit, you couldn't light it.
Chairs couldn't be moved because they might make a rut.
They might dig into the ground.
Women couldn't look in a glass, or they might find a white hair and be tempted to pull it out.
Women couldn't wear jewelry because jewelry weighed more than a dried fig.
A radish couldn't be left in salt because it would make it pickle, and that's work.
You could use only enough ink for two letters.
Not letters written to somebody, but two letters.
You could write your initials, I suppose.
And these things like this go on and on and on and on for 24 chapters.
In the Talmud.
Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23, verses 4 through 7,
They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders.
But they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.
Religious ornaments.
And they love the place of honor at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by others.
They had created this false, superficial religion that they wanted to bear on the outside,
as Jesus called them, whitewashed tombs full of dead people's bones.
And they lorded this over people.
They themselves could not keep the Sabbath.
Recall the way they prescribed it.
Recall that they could only travel 3,000 feet.
But look, at the very beginning of our text,
they're traveling through the grain fields.
And who's following them?
The Pharisees.
They accused the disciples of plucking heads of wheat in order to eat.
Notice they don't accuse them of walking more than 3,000 steps.
Because they themselves were guilty of even that.
Do we not have many amongst us that are pharisaical?
We would do well as we contemplate the way they treated the Sabbath
to see how it is that we are often pharisaical in other things.
Casting judgment where judgments not do.
Now the Sabbath, as it was meant to be observed,
was first instituted in Genesis 2, verses 1-3.
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 seventh day from all His 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 the creation.
In Exodus chapter 20, beginning in verse 8, we can read,
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.
And on it you shall not do any work,
you or your son or your daughter,
your male servant or your female servant,
or your livestock, or the sojourner who is in your 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.
The Sabbath day in its entirety was meant to be a day where you did not work.
It's very common in this day to work every single day of the week.
Again, trying to provide for yourself off the land,
off the fruit of your own labor,
and you work.
God gave to them a day where they were to not work.
In fact, where we get Sabbath,
the original Hebrew word,
simply means to cease.
What this day was set apart from.
To cease from work.
Why?
Why did He do this?
It was meant, firstly,
as a mercy.
To God's people.
To rest.
Rest is good for us.
Our bodies are frail,
and they're failing.
We need restorative rest.
But primarily,
primarily it was given to us
as a reminder.
In Exodus chapter 31,
verse 12 and 13,
we see this record,
and the Lord said to Moses,
you are to speak to the people of Israel and say,
above all you shall keep my Sabbaths.
For this is a sign between me and you
throughout your generations
that you may know that I,
the Lord,
sanctify you.
It was meant to serve as a reminder in this way.
A sign.
A covenant sign.
A wedding ring,
if you will.
Of a reminder of the relationship
between God and His people.
To what end?
Right?
That I, the Lord,
sanctify you.
That it is my doing on your part
to make you perfect.
That you cannot achieve favor with God
on your own.
But that I work in you
to will and to work
for my good pleasure.
This is what the Sabbath
was meant to represent for them.
That they ceased laboring.
Both in the physical realm,
but to remind them
that by no effort of their own
could they labor their way to God.
This was a relationship
wrought by Him in grace.
And therefore kept by Him in grace.
Colossians 2, 16 and 17.
We see some inspired commentary.
Paul writes,
Let no one pass judgment on you
in questions of food and drink
or with regard to a festival
or a new moon or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow
of the things to come.
But the substance belongs
to Christ.
So for the Jews,
the Sabbath was meant
to remind them of this reality
and point them to
the final work of Christ
on the cross.
Who would come for them
and spill His blood.
Bear the wrath of God
that they might have rest.
See that further in Hebrews 4.
The writer of Hebrews
beginning in verse 9 says,
So then there remains
a Sabbath rest
for the people of God.
For whoever has entered
God's rest
has also rested from His works
as God did from His.
You see that connection for us?
Remember when we studied
Nehemiah recently
in chapter 8, verse 31.
One of the commitments
that the people of God make
as they hear the Word of God
read to them
and realize that they had sinned
in forgetting the Sabbath
was that they would protect
that covenantal sign
between them and God
by keeping the Sabbath day.
If you recall,
I've said to you
that this is when
the Pharisees,
this sect of Judaism
actually began.
Back in the days
of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Men who became committed
to helping the Jewish people
keep the Sabbath holy
and oh how it was distorted
across the next couple of hundred years.
He says in verse 27
of chapter 2,
Jesus says,
The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath.
You see how it was meant
to serve the people of God.
And He drives this point
by telling a story,
reminding them
of the story of David.
If you'd like to later,
you can read about it
in 1 Samuel chapter 21.
And He says to them
very sarcastically
at the beginning
because these people
would have read.
He knew that answer.
The Pharisees had read
the Old Testament.
They were very familiar with it.
So when He says,
Have you never read
what David did?
He's being tongue-in-cheek
with them.
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 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.
So what is the point
of what he's saying
with this example?
Now if you read
in 1 Samuel chapter 21,
you will find
that the encounter
with David and the priest
was not with the priest,
Abiathar.
Don't be confused by that.
This is a consistent book.
The prominent high priest
in this day
was Abiathar.
They would have known
that as a timeline for them.
Jesus is marking off
when it happened,
not who David interacted with.
He interacted instead
with Abiathar's predecessor,
Ahimelech.
And he goes to him.
He's been driven out
as the proper heir
to the throne by Saul.
He's been driven out
of Israel,
and he is gone,
excuse me,
Jerusalem,
and he's hungry.
He didn't have time
to even take a weapon.
In fact,
if you read in here
as he's looking for a weapon,
Ahimelech just happens
to have the spear of Goliath.
He's got a knife
stored away.
And it's pretty cool.
This is the point
at which David takes it back.
He says,
that weapon will do.
There's no other weapon like it.
I'll take that one.
So he's driven out.
He doesn't have food,
and all of his accompaniment
with him
doesn't have a way to eat.
And so what he's offered here,
as he asks for it,
is the showbread.
The bread of the presence
is what that literally means.
And this would have been
twelve loaves
that were set at a table
in the temple of God.
And they were meant
to represent
that God was inviting
the tribes of Israel
to come and feast with Him.
That's what these things represented.
And they were replaced
every seven days.
The old bread was taken out.
New, hot, warm bread
was brought back in
on the Sabbath.
This was the day
that this took place.
And that food was given
to the priests.
They were allowed to eat it,
but it was unlawful for others
to eat that bread
that was given
to David and his company.
It's likely that this was
actually the Sabbath day,
which is a really neat connection
to what we're talking about here.
As we see the disciples
walking through fields
and picking heads of grain,
which was a lawful thing
for them to do.
They were allowed to do that.
The sojourner was allowed to gather.
We think of roads.
If you think of driving
through wheat fields
in the Midwest,
we'd have a road
and then some ditches
and then a fence.
Not so here.
These would have just been paths
that would have crisscrossed
these wheat fields.
And so as they're traveling
from one place to another
and were hungry,
the sojourner was allowed
to pick heads.
You certainly weren't allowed
to go out and start harvesting
somebody else's wheat,
but what you could gather
with your hands
and eat as you went
was permissible for you.
So it's a higher thing.
It's a more atrocious thing
that David and his men
were doing
versus what they're being accused
of doing here
on the Sabbath.
That more than likely
on the Sabbath
in David's day,
they took a bread
that was forbidden
for them to eat.
The high priest
gave it to them.
In Matthew 12,
reading of the same account,
verses 5-8,
Jesus says,
Think about that.
They had created hedge laws
that would have prevented
the priests
from doing their priestly duty
on the Sabbath.
They couldn't lift anything,
right?
One dried fig
or half a fig twice.
That's what they were
permitted to lift.
The very work
that was being done
by the priests of God
was wrong
in the Pharisees' mind.
The point that he makes
for us in Matthew 12.
And so see what he goes on
to say in Matthew 12,
verse 7,
And if you had known
what this means,
I desire mercy
and not sacrifice.
You would not have
condemned the guiltless.
He cares about the heart
of the matter
more than the outward
appearance of it.
Right?
The Sabbath itself
was meant to be
a reminder
of the mercy of God
to His people.
And He wants them
then to practice
mercy
on the Sabbath.
Not to disregard it
and replace it
with some hypocritical law,
some details,
some outward appearances
that would make somebody
appear righteous,
but He wanted them
to actually be
righteous.
And so that's what's
going on here.
That's what the questioning
is being asked.
The Sabbath served man
as the covenant side
of God's mercy
to His people.
And the reason
we're treating this text
together going into
chapter 3
is whether or not
it happened back to back.
I'm presuming
that it did.
But Mark certainly
recorded it for us
back to back
because I think
this next incident
was a test
of what he had just
taught the Pharisees
at the end of chapter 2.
The things he has
just said to them,
he then goes
into the temple
and notice
that he sees a man
with a withered hand.
He knows that they're
standing around
to accuse him.
He brings the man
to him.
Verse 3,
he says,
come here.
And he said to them,
to the Pharisees,
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.
And I think the reason
he was angry
is because he was trying
to teach them this lesson
and they were missing it.
And then he grieved.
Great grief
over their hardness
of heart.
So this lesson
that he's been trying
to teach them,
they missed it
all together.
The same record
of this account
in Matthew 12
from verse 9-12
says,
He went on from there
and entered the synagogue.
And a man was there
with a withered hand
and they asked him,
is it lawful to heal
on the Sabbath
so that they might
accuse him?
And here's his response
as recorded in Matthew.
He said to them,
Which one of you
who has a sheep,
if it falls into a pit
on the Sabbath,
will not take hold of it
and lift it out?
So this is
Pharisaical people,
Which of you
will not do some work
if one of your poor sheep
falls into a pit?
In verse 12 he says,
Of how much more value
is a man
than a sheep?
So it is lawful
to do good
on the Sabbath.
Jesus came to
fulfill the law.
Not abolish it,
to fulfill it,
but to fulfill it
in the proper way,
the way in which
it was set out.
So he came
to deliver mercy
on the Sabbath day,
to see it
for what it was
meant for,
to know that it was
made for man
and not the other way
around.
And that's the great
problem with
Phariseeism
or legalism,
fundamentalism,
various terms
that would be applied
to this type of heart.
Legalism says,
for you to be accepted
by God,
you must look like me.
But the gospel of Christ
says,
you have been accepted
by God by grace alone,
through faith alone,
in Christ alone,
and by grace,
He is conforming you
into His image.
This must be true
for those of us
who are found in Christ.
We will live properly.
We will display mercy.
But it's not the other
way around.
We cannot work
our way
to heavenly favor.
This is impossible.
Our work is simply
the evidence
of the heavenly favor
we have already
received.
And this
was the message
that Jesus was trying
to get across
to the Pharisees.
Remember,
He came
to preach
the Gospel.
Chapter 1,
verse 15,
And the kingdom of God
is at hand.
Repent and believe
in the Gospel,
the good news
of Jesus Christ.
This is what has been
granted to us,
I hope,
for everyone
in this room.
But we really need
to search out
our hearts
and find the ways
in which
we are legalists.
And this happens
a lot.
Churches at Broad,
there are many,
many,
many churches
that this Sunday morning
if I were not wearing
a tie and a jacket,
I'd be found
unacceptable.
Not just from
a personal preference,
which is fine.
It's okay if people
like a guy
who wears a tie,
they take him
more seriously.
It's okay.
But they would
actually find me
unacceptable
before God
that I would dare
enter a church
building
not wearing
a tie.
Phariseeism.
Extra laws.
Things stacked
on top.
Simply trying
to get at the
heart of things.
People just want
to see somebody
be reverent
before God.
That's a good
motivation
and we should.
But when it becomes
about mere trappings
on the outside,
we've missed the point.
We've missed the point
all together.
And so this morning,
as we begin
to take the Lord's
Supper together,
I want to do things
a little bit differently.
And I want to ask you
to take some time
to remove the log
from your own eye
so that you can
remove the speck
from others.
It is so easy
when we read about
these men
to project
the fault
and the wrong
that's happening
here on the world
around us.
I want to do this.
I am so tempted
to say,
Christ Family Church
has got it all
figured out.
We are doing well.
And then point my finger
at every other church
out there.
As you've heard me
say before,
we have our own
95 theses
we can nail on our door.
Stick it with a magnet.
Right?
There are faults
within our church.
There are ways
in which we are
saying to people
for you to be accepted
by God,
you must look like me.
And this is not
the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
So, men,
if you were asked
to help serve
the Lord's Supper,
let me just ask
that you go ahead
and go back
and get the elements
for the Lord's Supper.
I want to read to you
some more of
Colossians 1.
We read a bit
beginning in verse 15.
But turn with me,
please,
to Colossians 1.
Verse 15.
Jesus is the image
of the invisible God,
the firstborn
of all creation.
For by Him
all things were created
in heaven and on earth
visible and invisible
whether thrones
or dominions
or rulers
or authorities.
All things were created
through Him
and for Him.
And here's where
we keep going.
And He is before
all things,
preeminent.
And in Him
all things
hold together.
and He is the head
of the body,
the church.
He is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
that in everything
He might be preeminent.
For in Him
all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell
and through Him
to reconcile
to Himself
all things
whether on earth
or in heaven,
making peace
by the blood
of His cross.
and you
who once
were alienated
and hostile
in mind
doing evil deeds,
He is now
reconciled in His body
of flesh
by His death
in order to present
you holy
and blameless
and above
reproach
before Him.
You see
in this text
this completed
work of Christ
on the cross.
And that's what
we celebrate together
in the Lord's Supper.
Not that we might
labor together
under our own power,
that we might rejoice,
find great joy
in the work
that He has completed
and is completing
in us.
And I hope that
contemplating this
and thinking through this
makes you motivated
to share
this gospel
with the world.
Let's pray together
and then have the men
come
and you take the Lord's Supper
as you feel prepared.