King of Rest: Trusting in the Lord of the Sabbath

At the Cross

Welcome (Sam Garcia)

1) We are Worshipers

2) Members Meeting, next Sunday night in chapel. Fingerfood fellowship at 530, hymn sing at 545, meeting at 6.

3) OCC Packing Party TONIGHT! –5pm – bring a soup or dessert

4) PBC NextGen Christmas Program – Sunday, 12/11 at 5:30

Scripture Reading (Matthew 12:1-14)

Prayer of Praise (God is Faithful), Jackie Lewis

He Will Hold Me Fast

Jesus Messiah

Prayer of Confession (Bitterness), Micah Figgers

Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor

PBC Catechism #46

What is our responsibility as worshipers?

With God’s help we pledge to not forsake assembling together for worship. We further pledge to work together to continue faithful worship in this Church, as we sustain its ordinances, discipline, and doctrines.

Pastoral Prayer (Mike Lindell)

SERMON

Imagine it’s your birthday, and a friend comes to your house with a surprise birthday cake. You’re super excited, you LOVE birthday cake, because you’re a normal human being with feelings. But just as you’re about to open the cake box and dig in, your friend says, “Hold up, I haven’t told you the rules.”

“What? This is birthday cake! It’s amazing. It doesn’t need rules.”

“Nope, this cake has rules. You can only eat it between 2:17 and 2:19 p.m. on Tuesdays. You can’t use a fork, you have to eat it with a spoon. It must be sliced with a stainless steel cake knife. If you want ice cream with it, it has to be French Vanilla. And you have to serve the ice cream on a separate dish. If you like milk with cake, it has to be whole milk from grain-fed, cage-free cows. You must not serve the cake on any plastic dishes. Eat it with your left hand, not your right hand. Each bite must be chewed for exactly 19 seconds, no more no less. Etc.”

At some point, what was meant to be a blessing has turned into a burden.

Turn to Matthew 12

Fresh off their short-term mission trip, Jesus’ disciples immediately find themselves embroiled in two separate controversies with the Pharisees.

And by the end of those controversies, the Pharisees are plotting to kill Jesus.

What controversy could’ve possibly caused such a ferocious response? The Sabbath.

The Sabbath was meant to be a blessing to God’s people, but it has become a burden.

Last week we saw Jesus’ heart to give rest to weary and burdened souls.

Ironically, one of the heavy burdens for people in Jesus’ day were the man-made laws surrounding the Sabbath day of rest.

So Jesus gently and mercifully comes along to unburden people and give them true rest.

Once again, He unburdens us by telling us something about who He is...

Matthew 12:8—“For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

That statement is the most important sentence in this entire section.

Everything else Jesus says and does concerning the Sabbath is rooted in that statement.

Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, we can find our rest in Him.

Three Implications:

1) Don’t Add to the REQUIREMENTS of the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:1—At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.”

Remember, the Sabbath (Saturday) was the day the people of Israel were instructed to set aside as a day of rest and worship.

For much of the OT, Israel ignored the Sabbath command.

Their disobedience would cost them.

Prophets like Jeremiah warned Israel this failure would eventually lead to their exile.

After exile, the Jews learned their lesson and once again began keeping the Sabbath.

But, as is common to human nature, they over-corrected.

We see an example of this in...

Matthew 12:2—But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

When I first told this story to our kids, they were concerned that the disciples were stealing.

But the Law actually permitted hungry travelers to do this (Deut. 23:24-25)

The Scripture forbade a farmer from harvesting on the Sabbath, but grabbing a few heads of grain to eat certainly wasn’t forbidden.

But it did violate the Pharisees rules, so they angrily confront Jesus.

What happened? Over time, the Jews began adding to the requirements of the Sabbath...

In the Talmud, a major collection of Jewish traditions and laws, there are 24 chapters listing Sabbath laws. [1]

The Law said you couldn’t carry burdens on the Sabbath, but it didn’t specify how heavy the burden could be. So the religious teachers came up with some ideas...

You couldn’t carry a load heavier than a dried fig.

Some replied, “Well what about our clothes? They’re heavier than a fig.” To which they replied, “Your clothes don’t count as a burden if you’re wearing them, but you can’t carry them.”

False teeth couldn’t be worn because they exceeded the weight limit

The Law said you couldn’t work on the Sabbath, but it didn’t specify what counts as work. So again, the religious teachers came along to help...

You couldn’t throw an object in one hand and catch it with another.

Nothing could be bought or sold

Clothing could not be washed

A letter could not be mailed

Fires couldn’t be lit or extinguished

Baths couldn’t be taken in case water spilled on the floor and “washed” it

A woman couldn’t look in the mirror in case she saw a gray hair and was tempted to pull it out

Some teachers forbade intimacy with one's wife on the Sabbath. “Too much work!” [3]

Soldiers weren’t allowed to fight on the Sabbath. In fact, the Jewish historian Josephus reports that Jerusalem fell under Roman control about 60 years before Christ partly because the Jews refused to fight back on the Sabbath day.

It was illegal to spit on the ground on the Sabbath. If the moisture dented the soil,  the spitter would be guilty of plowing. If a seed happened to be there, he is also guilty of  sowing. [4]

One of the rabbis said, “The rules about the Sabbath . . . are [like] mountains hanging by a hair, [because the teaching of] Scripture is [little] and the rules are many.” [5]

John MacArthur summarizes: “Instead of being a day of rest [the Sabbath] had become a day of incredible burden. Because of the thousands of man-made restrictions . . . the Sabbath was more tiresome than the six days devoted to one’s occupation. It was harder to ‘rest’ than to earn a living.” [6]

How are we tempted to add to the requirements of the Scriptures?

Homeschooling

Dating

Alcohol

It’s okay to have personal convictions, but you cannot require them or look down on those who disagree with you.

Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, we can find our rest in Him.

Second implication...

2) Don’t Ignore the EXCEPTIONS to the Sabbath.

How is Jesus going to respond to the Pharisees objections?

I would say, “Those are your rules, not God’s rules! End of argument.”

Jesus didn’t break any of the Sabbath rules in Scripture!

Rather than simply addressing this one issue, Jesus upends their entire thinking about the Sabbath and argues for His deity at the same time.

Jesus responds by listing three exceptions to the Sabbath commands in Scripture. Three things that are more important than the Sabbath...

A) The King is more important than the Sabbath

Matthew 12:3-4—He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

In 1 Samuel 21, David (the Lord’s anointed future king of Israel) and his men are on the run from the murderous King Saul. And they’re hungry, so they ask the priest for bread. The only bread the priest had was a special bread that was used in worship (think communion bread). It was set out every Sabbath day, and the Law forbade anyone to eat it except for the priest.

But Ahimelech, the priest in the story, knew that someone greater was there. This was David, the future king who had been anointed by Samuel. So he gave the bread to David, and nowhere is he or David condemned by Scripture for that decision.

Jesus is saying, just as the needs of King David outweighed the rules about this special bread, so too the needs of the King of Kings outweigh the rules about the Sabbath.

The King’s men have a right to eat, whether they belong to David or Jesus!

Jesus is saying, “David could break the Sabbath because He was the Lord’s Anointed. As the Son of David, the Messiah, the King of Kings, I am more important than the Sabbath too.”

Beginning in verse 5, Jesus mentions a second exception...

B) The Temple is more important than the Sabbath

Matthew 12:5—Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?”

If anybody worked on the Sabbath day it was the priests in the temple. If anything they worked twice as much that day as they did any other day.

Just like for most people on staff at a church, Sunday is not a day off. It’s the busiest day of the week!

But the priests aren’t guilty of breaking the Sabbath are they? Of course not! Because something greater was there. So the Sabbath Law yielded to the importance of Israel’s worship in the temple.

Jesus is saying, just as the priests can work on the Sabbath without guilt, my followers can work on the Sabbath. Why?

Matthew 12:6— I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

What’s greater than the temple?!? Jesus!

The temple represented God’s presence among the people, but Jesus is God’s presence among the people!!!

Jesus mentions exceptions related to the king and the priests. Then in verse 7, Jesus mentions a final exception from the mouth of the prophets...

C) Mercy is more important than the Sabbath

Matthew 12:7-8—“And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Here Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6. In Hosea’s day, the Jews were observing all the outward trappings of the law, but they weren’t caring for each other.

If we keep reading, we’ll see how the Pharisees were doing the exact same thing...

Matthew 12:9-10—He went on from there and entered their 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.

The Scriptures say nothing about healing being against the law on the Sabbath

But the Pharisees’ interpretation considered it to be work.

Healing was permitted only in life-and-death situations. If someone was merely sick, the healing must wait until the day after the Sabbath. [7]

Some said you couldn’t even pray for the sick on the Sabbath, because that might lead someone to work. [8]

Is Jesus going to go along with this way of thinking? He certainly could wait a day and heal this guy on Sunday so as not to rock the boat...

Matthew 12:11-13—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? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.”

The Pharisees could have responded, “These aren’t acts of mercy! Your disciples aren’t starving, they’re not going to die if they don’t eat! This man isn’t on his death bed! He can survive with a withered hand!!!

You see the heart of Jesus here, don’t you? He cares even for small things like everyday hunger or a disability.

You also see Jesus’ deity in each of these exceptions...

He is a greater king than David, a greater temple than Solomon’s and gives greater mercy than anyone before or since.

He’s the Lord of the Sabbath!!

John 5:17-18—But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

A legalist heart is more concerned with rule-following than the Rule-Giver. What about you?

Do you look down on those with different convictions?

Do you pride yourself in your obedience to God?

Do you feel as long as you _________ you’ll be okay?

Which makes you feel better in your walk with God, rule-keeping or repentance?

Do you tithe down to the last penny yet struggle with generosity?

Do you apply the sermons you hear to someone else?

Do you celebrate how far people have come, or do you only see how far they need to go?

Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, we can find our rest in Him.

Third implication...

3) Don’t Miss the FULFILLMENT of the Sabbath.

How are you going to respond to this Jesus? Look at how the Pharisees responded...

Matthew 12:14—But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”

Isn’t it ironic that these people who say they’re so concerned about the Law are now planning to kill an innocent man?

We dare not do that. But we have more to do than merely NOT be like the Pharisees.

If we’re going to find our rest in Jesus, we must look at the Sabbath from this side of the cross as Christians.

We must not miss how Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath.

Two Reasons the Sabbath has been fulfilled:

A) It was a sign of the Old Covenant

When did the Sabbath begin?

Many people would say in the Garden, when the Lord rested.

But the word Sabbath isn’t used at all there

There was no command in Genesis for Adam and Eve to set aside a day to rest. In fact you won’t find any reference to a day of rest for Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or anybody else in the entire book of Genesis.

The Sabbath command began after Israel was rescued from slavery...

Exodus 31:12-13—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.’”

That word “sign” is really important

Throughout the Bible there’s a series of promises (called “covenants”) that God makes with His people. Those covenants are almost always marked by a sign

Covenant with Noah and the sign of the rainbow

Covenant with Abraham and the sign of circumcision

Covenant with Moses (Mosaic Covenant) = Sabbath

A day off is a big upgrade from circumcision, just saying

But here’s the point. The Sabbath is the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. That’s it’s purpose.

Are we under the covenant with Moses?

We get a hint in Matthew 12:15-21, where the Gentiles are putting their hope in Jesus. But it’s made explicit in...

Hebrews 8:6, 13—But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises… .

Verses 7-12 say the problem wasn’t the old covenant, but that God’s people couldn’t obey it!

Then Jeremiah 33 is quoted, which prophesied a new and better covenant.

Now let’s pick up in verse 13...

In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

NO! In Christ we are under a New Covenant and the signs of the New Covenant are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Sabbath is no longer binding!

The Sabbath has been fulfilled because it was a sign of the Old Covenant, which has been superseded by a new and better covenant. But there’s a second reason...

B) It was a shadow pointing to Christ

In Matthew 12:6 Jesus says that He is a new and better temple. All the language about the temple in the OT was ultimately pointing to Christ!

The same is true with the Sabbath...

Colossians 2:16-17—Therefore 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.

To insist on the Sabbath now that Christ is here is like loving your spouse’s shadow and ignoring your spouse. That’s ridiculous!

The Sabbath has been fulfilled because it was a shadow pointing to Christ.

Does that mean I don’t need to rest? Absolutely not.

Rest by trusting Jesus for your salvation

Hebrews 4:9-10—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.

This is the main way we relate to the Sabbath as Christians!

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

Rest by gathering with God’s people to celebrate the Lord of the Sabbath!

We don’t gather on Sunday as a Christian sabbath, but in obedience to the pattern of the Apostles, and to the clear commands of Scripture.

“It’s not restful!” You’re looking for the wrong kind of rest. This is rest for the soul.

Rest by trusting God’s sovereignty in the busyness of life

Psalm 127:1-2—Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to his beloved sleep.

Only God accomplishes His to-do list every day

We can sleep, take a day off, take a vacation, etc. because we trust Him!

Rest by looking to heaven, our forever rest

Since Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, we can find our rest in Him.

Come to Jesus (Rest in Him)

Benediction (Col 3:15)