Sermon Tone Analysis
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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?
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