Untitled Sermon

Morning Church! If you have a Bible, please turn to the gospel of Luke chapter six. We will be looking at the first 11 verses this morning.

If you are a first time guest this morning or you are relatively new we are going through the entire book of Luke as a church and we have titled this series, Jesus For All.

Luke is a medical doctor who was hired as a private investigator for a Roman government official, Theopholis.

Theopholis was a brand new convert and he had some doubts and questions about his new faith....so he hired Luke to give a detailed account of the person and work of Christ

Luke even writes in the very first chapter that he hopes Theopholis’ faith would be made complete…and that is my prayer for each one of you this morning.

This book answers the two foundational questions that our very faith, doctrine, and practice rests on.

1. Who is Jesus

2. Is the resurrection true?

I want to read one verse of our text for this morning and them I am going to pray.

Luke 6:5 (ESV)

5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

As I pray for our time this morning, I would ask that you pray for Quinn as well as he is preaching right now at Fairland Southern Baptist Church.

PRAY!

When I surrendered to the call of ministry I sat down with my youth pastor and he took me to Jolly Pirate Donuts. I was a senior in High School and I knew the Lord was calling me to preach and also pastor.

I will never forget that night at JPD. Eating my plain glaze donut and drinking a Mt. Dew..

My youth pastor gave me a spiral bound notebook, which I still have to this day. On the very first page he wrote two words at the top with a line down the middle.

Those two words were DOCTRINE and TRADITION

As I began my life in ministry and even still today, these two words are crucial as I navigate my own life and the direction of this church.

DOCTRINE- is rooted in God’s Word. Not up for debate. Doctrine takes God at His word and we fight for doctrine when God is abundantly clear.

For instance, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the virgin birth, the doctrine of original sin, the doctrine of Christ being fully God and fully man, these are all things that we hold on tight to…we fight for....and pastors are instructed to protect and guard.

TRADITION - is mostly rooted in man’s interpretation of things that are seemingly unclear in scripture. In some aspects, scripture is not dogmatic on things. Biggest forms of tradition are christian liberties and practices in the local church. This is why every church is different. Some churches preach in the KJV, some churches have piano only while others rock out with a band. Some churches have all the lights on while others have the lazers and haze.

Little comment about Bible translations (step away)....I preached at this little baptist church out in the hollar and the pastor asked that I preach in the King James. Sure thing. No big deal. I get there and an older gentleman approaches me and asks if Im going to preach from the authorized Bible…I humor him and say yes. He then asks me if I got the Bible with the red in it. I was like the red in it.....yea telling us the words of Christ....gotta have the red.

Yes my Bible has the words of Christ in red but that wasn’t a thing until 1901…why does it matter????? TRADITION

Somewhere down the line this gentleman, god love him he means well, got confused on the doctrine of inspiration and the authority of scripture and placed a tradition of red letters on the same level.

Don’t judge this guy…we do the exact same thing. River Valley has traditions.

The church (universal) gets in serious trouble when we turn our TRADITIONS into DOCTRINES. It will turn us sour to the ones who are most important to our mission…the lost.

My first youth pastor job I was very young and dumb. Thought I knew everything. The church I was at had this tradition every Sunday. Everyone who had a birthday or anniversary that certain week would come up to the front and put a dollar in the plate while everyone sang happy birthday and then happy anniversary.

I asked the pastor why they did that. He said they have always done it. Every week....even long before He got there....and he was on year 14.

In staff meeting one day I asked if we could not do that anymore because it was weird, it makes first time guests and lost people really uncomfortable. He said absolutely not. He actually agreed with me but he feared for his job. He said that was a sacred cow in the church. Tradition.

In our church, you wouldn't think that we are a traditional church....but I would present to you that we are. Do you know what makes a traditional church? When you do the same thing two Sundays in a row.

River Valley, lets be a church that holds tight to doctrine . Let’s fight together to keep the unity of the doctrines clearly stated in the Bible. Let us let go of traditions and press forward to unchartered waters and lets see God work.

In our text today we are going to see people’s response to Jesus pushing back on tradition. Don’t be like them.

Here we go…verse one!

Luke 6:1 (ESV)

1 On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands.

This first sabbath encounter occurs on…the sabbath! Not Sunday, but the Jewish sabbath was on Saturday! The early church changed their day of worship to Sunday because that was when Christ raised from the dead.

God ordained the Sabbath for the children of Israel back in the book of Exodus when moses received the ten commandments

Exodus 20:8–11 (ESV)

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. 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 within your gates. 11 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.

God gave very specific instructions for the sabbath....this would be DOCTRINE. But the Pharisees and Scribes ADDED to the law regarding observing the Sabbath....TRADITION.

So let me set this story up for you....Jesus and His disciples are out ministering to people and they become hungry. They pass a field and they plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing it together in their hands.

Verse 2!

Luke 6:2 (ESV)

2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?”

The Pharisees are like modern day TMZ....paparatzi following Jesus and his disciples everywhere waiting for them to mess up. So they see what his disciples did and they set off the alarm....you are doing unlawful things on the sabbath!

The unlawful thing wasn’t stealing the grain from the random field.

In the law, if you were hungry and you were passing by a field, you could take a handful of grain or whatever and eat. It wasn’t stealing. Even in the law there is hints of grace and provision.

God’s law said that you couldn’t WORK on the sabbath. Were the disciples working? Absolutely not. They just took grain, rubbed it in their hands and ate.

But the Pharisees had their own traditions ABOVE the law and they said that the grazing of grain was sinful.

PAUSE. God was serious when he gave the DOCTRINE about the sabbath. Don’t work or you will die.

Check this out

Numbers 15:32–36 (ESV)

32 While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.

Jesus and his disciples did NOT violate the law in any part but Christ’s critics thought they did.

Its also interesting that Jesus’ biggest critics weren’t lost people. They were seemingly religious. Nothing ticks off religious people more than messing with their TRADITIONS.

Verse three...Look at Jesus’ response to the tabloids...

Luke 6:3–4 (ESV)

3 And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?”

Sometimes I have a very weird way to view scripture…my mind wonders off…when I read the interactions of Jesus and the religious my mind goes back to my teenage years. As a kid I was only allowed to watch holy show on TV LAND (leave it to beaver, Andy Griffith, Gilligans Island, Love Boat absolutely not). Well, I would sneak and turn on MTV and a show I watched was called Wild n Out. Basically a show about rap battles. Im not endorsing this sow....just being honest about my past

You have two groups of people just going at it....back and forth. One group would dis the other and then they would dis back....that is exactly what is happening here....

Jesus throws the punch, Have you not read????? Insults them.

Of course they have read....they were religious leaders....dedicated years of their life to the reading of the OT.....

They knew exactly who david was. One of the heroes of the OT! They weren't going to throw shade at David....they loved him. So Christ reminds them of a story.

1 Samuel 21:3–6 (ESV)

3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

Point of the story....David ate bread that was ceremonially unlawful for him to eat…only the priest were to eat the holy bread. It was okay for David and his men to eat the holy bread because the priest gave them permission to do so.

Sometimes, ceremonial traditions get in the way..

Here in Luke…the great HIGH PRIEST gives permission for his disciples to gather grain and eat on the Sabbath....Jesus was more concerned for his disciples wellbeing than a tradition.

Jesus then delivers the ultimate gut punch…didn’t even give them time to get their thoughts together for a rebuttal...

Luke 6:5 (ESV)

5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

The ultimate dis....proclaiming that you are God.

Jesus is Lord of the sabbath because it was his idea in the first place. Sabbath didn’t originate on Mt. Sini with the law given to Moses....Sabbath was instituted during the creation order.

Sabbath was given NOT as rules to follow but as a chance to rest and enjoy a God who gives us blessing after blessing.

The Pharisees tradition got in the way and they were completely blinded to who was right in front of them. Church, that is what tradition does. It blinds us to what God is doing and can do.....The very presense of God was in their midst and they wanted to nit pick gray areas of theology and esteem what they thought above what God’s Word says.

You see, Jesus gets to do whatever he wants on the sabbath. He is the Lord of it.

PAUSE

I told you that Luke has two main questions he is investigating....Who is Jesus Christ? He is God in the flesh. No one could claim the title Lord of the Sabbath except for God.

Luke pulls another story in his investigation regarding the sabbath in the next portion of scripture.

These events weren't back to back, but they are placed as such to create an even more compelling argument for Theopholis and the readers today.

Lets go on....verse 6

Luke 6:6 (ESV)

6 On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered.

You can see, on another Sabbath....wasn’t the same one.

Jesus is where everyone should be on the sabbath....the synagogue or the church.

This time he is teaching as a Rabbi.

Remember what Jesus usually pairs with his teaching? Healing.

Text says a man with a withered hand showed up.

All throughout the gospels we see the people who are coming to Jesus. The lost. The sinner. The sick. The Broken.

It is in these circumstances that we see the heart of God. Compassion. Mercy. Grace. Love. Healing. Forgiveness. Hope. Faith.

These types of people is why he came in the first place. This is his mission.

I did not come for the righteous but for the sinner to repent. The well don’t need a doctor, its the sick.

May River Valley Church be a hospital for the broken and not a museum for the seemingly self righteous.

I received a text message from someone that used to be connected to the church. One of the reasons they said they haven’t come back is because of all the hypocrites that we have and this person started to point out sin in other people in the church.

Praise God we have sinners in our church. Praise God this is a place we can come to meet Jesus in the midst of our struggle and sin.

I love this church because of how messy it is. Real people with real issues in desperate need of a real Jesus.

Lets see the next verse....

Luke 6:7 (ESV)

7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him.

Pharisees are watching.....got their binoculars and cameras out....waiting for Jesus to mess up....

Some theologians agree that maybe this man with the messed up hand was planted by the Pharisees as a trap....maybe...

Next Verse....

Luke 6:8–9 (ESV)

8 But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?”

Notice that Jesus knew their thoughts…they didn’t even say a word.

Same is true today....Jesus knows your thoughts....every single one of them

Context…the law stated that medical attention couldn't be administered on the sabbath only for the exceptions of life or death situations.

So Jesus is about to heal on the sabbath....but his medial attention is just him speaking.

Jesus sees this man’s suffering and he is inclined to heal.

Luke 6:10 (ESV)

10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored.

I love how the text says, that Jesus looked around....

His command is even funny....hey man, with the messed up hand, stretch it out.

The man having crazy faith stepped out into simple obedience and took the master at his word.

If you are taking notes write this down, when God commands, he also enables.

The result? His hand was immediately restored.

Who is Jesus? He is God. Only he can do that.

Verse 11

Luke 6:11 (ESV)

11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

I have seen verse 11 played out in churches....when people hold on to traditions they usually get very angry and they all gather together to discuss what they are gonna do with the pastor....

But the implications to Jesus was much more severe.

This fury from the Pharisees lead our Lord before Pilate. This fury lead to cries of Crucify, Crucify.

This fury lead to whipping and beating the back of Christ....who never did anything wrong.

This fury lead to his beard being plucked out....a crown of thorns smashed on his head

This fury lead to Jesus stripped of all clothing, naked, while his only possession he had was gambled away.

This fury lead to nails going into the hands and feet of the only innocent human to ever live.

This fury lead to a spear in his side to make sure that he was truly dead.

This fury lead to a burial in a borrowed tomb.

This fury lead to the most important day in the history of the world. The resurrection.

This was God’s plan. He wasn't surprised by the fury of the religious of the day....he used their anger to accomplish his will.

What you meant for evil…god meant it for good.

Jesus wasn't concerned for his reputation....sticking with the status quo of the traditions.

He did all of this for YOU!

TRADITION. DOCTRINE.

As long as I’m the lead pastor here we are gonna fight and focus on doctrine and we are going to cast our traditions to the side.

I’m going to lead this church with the conviction of God’s Word. My mind has been captivated by keeping status quo. My traditions, your traditions....let em go.

Hold on. 2023 we are going to let go of some of the traditions we have gathered along the 8 years as a church. We’re going to do some different things next year, I’m excited. Don’t be like the Pharisees. You will m

Church on the move. We will do whatever it takes to reach the lost.

It’s not about me. Purpose over Preference.