Love or Legalism

Good Morning

Talk about this Friday, the encouragement from going out and handing out flyers.

Pay about this Friday.

Today we are going to be looking at Mark 2:23-28.

Last week we looked at the new covenant that Jesus brought. We talked about the parable of the old and new wine skins and the new cloth sewn onto the old cloth. Today we are going to look at tradition and ceremony and how love trumps them. We are going to see that Jesus teaches that love triumphs over legalism.

R.C. Sproul tells a story about his first job as a professor at a Bible College. He was walking across campus and he saw a couple of students playing cards. He asked them what they are playing? They said that they are playing Rook. He said, “I haven’t played Rook since I was 8 years old.” They said that that was the only christian card game, and that was all they could play. He said to himself, What am I going to do? My wife and I play in a weekly double bridge tournament!

It wasn’t just the Pharisees that made up rules. We do it today.

There are few things that are more destructive, seductive, and deceptive to a true and vital relationship with God than the deadly poison of legalism. It breeds death rather than life. It has a natural draw from our flesh that desires and causes us to look to ourselves rather than to Christ for our spiritual status before God. It makes us think that we are the spiritual elite when in truth we are spiritual slaves.

Legalism is raising to the level of biblical mandate and command what God has neither commanded nor prohibited in His Word. It is taking our traditions and preferences and imposing them on others as an act of spiritual superiority, even though the Bible does not make such practices universally prescriptive.

The characteristic of legalism is looking for the shortcomings in others rather than in oneself. It looks for what is wrong in someone’s life in order to criticize and condemn them rather than what is right in order to commend and encourage them. It reinforces feelings of spiritual superiority and elitism that are man centered rather than Christ centered. It focuses on external behavior rather than internal issues of the heart! I don’t do the sins that you do, so I am better than you, you are not as close to God as I am.

We have pharisees still today among us. These are the people who want to put undo burdens on us. Who want to take away the work of the Holy Spirit and push us towards works only. People who believe it is more important to keep rules than to love on others.

Let’s dig into our verses today and see what Jesus has to say to the Pharisees’!

Please stand as we read God’s Word.

Mark 2:23–28 (NASB 2020)

23 And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.”

Mark starts be telling us that Jesus and His disciples were walking through the fields on the Sabbath. Back then, there were not roads everywhere to travel on. It was common practice for people to walk through fields. They didn’t have horses or donkey’s to ride on so they were walking. As they were walking, they were picking the heads of grain to eat. God, being all knowing and outside of time, He knew that they would have to walk long distances through fields and would get hungry while doing so. He make a law that made it legal to pick the heads of grain or any other food growing in the fields that they were traveling through. This is in Deut 23:2

Deuteronomy 23:2 (NASB 2020)

2 No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, may enter the assembly of the Lord.

They were legally able to take and eat the heads of grain. This was not the issue that the Pharisees’ had, they had issue with what had to be done to be able to eat the grain. They would have had to roll the grain in their hands, then rub them together and then toss them into the air. This would have been considered sifting, threshing, and winnowing. This was all forbidden on the Sabbath. This was not forbidden by God on the Sabbath, this was forbidden by the Pharisees and all the laws that they had added to the Sabbath. The Talmud, which came about after Jesus, has 24 chapters of just the added laws that the Pharisees’ added. The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology. One Rabbi stated that he spent 2 1/2 years studying one chapter, just to be able to understand all the nuances of their law.

In Genesis 2:3

Genesis 2:3 (NASB 2020)

3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

God did not define or spell out what it meant to rest on the seventh day. He just said that we are not to work on that day and we are to worship Him on that day. It was meant to be a day of rest and worship and focus on God. A day of rest and reflection. They had made the Sabbath a burden that was impossible to carry for the Jews. I am going to list some of the laws that they had added.

You could only go a Sabbath day’s journey. 1999 steps not 2000.

You could not untie a knot.

The Pharisees’ were liberal in the fact that you could stich up your garment if you tore it. One stich was all you could do.

You could only provide medical care to someone who’s life was in danger. If someone dislocated a shoulder, you could not help them until after the Sabbath. If someone broke their wrist, no help. You could not help your animals either. If a goat or oxen was giving birth and struggling, you had to just stand there and watch.

No burden could be carried that weighted more than a dried fig, or half a fig if you carried it twice.

If you put an olive in your mouth and rejected it because it tasted bad, you could not put another whole olive in your mouth again until after the Sabbath.

If you threw an object up in the air and caught it with the other hand, sin. If you caught it with the same hand, no sin.

If a person was reaching for some food and the Sabbath day started, they had to drop the food and could not bring their arm back in.

A scribe could not carry his pen.

A tailor could not carry his needle.

A student could not carry his books.

No clothing could be examined. You may inadvertently find a lice and accidentally kill it.

Wool couldn’t be died.

Nothing could be sold, bought or washed.

You could not send a letter, even by heathen.

Cold water could be poured into hot water, but not hot water poured into cold water.

You could not even boil an egg, not even if you just put it in the sand to boil it. In the summer it gets hot enough to boil eggs in the sands.

You could not bathe because when the water rolled off you it might wash the floor.

If a candle was lit, you could not put it out. If it wasn’t lit, you could not light it.

Chairs couldn’t be moved because they might make a rut in the floor.

Women couldn’t look in to a glass because they might see a white hair and be tempted to pull it out.

Women couldn’t wear jewelry, because it weighted more than a dried fig.

You could only use enough ink for 2 letters. Not written letters, 2 letters of the alphabet.

It would have been impossible to keep all of the Sabbath laws that they had created.

Notice that the Pharisees’ didn’t say anything about them walking too far! That was because they were there with them walking also. They would have been guilty also. They never point out what they do wrong, only what others do wrong.

The Pharisees’ were really questioning why Jesus doesn’t follow their laws and traditions. Why was He not a good Jew. We can see Jesus’ response in verse 25. He begins by asking if the have ever read the OT story about David fleeing from Saul and entering the Temple and eating the bread. Now this was a poke at the Pharisees. They were the students of the OT and would have read it several times over. I really believe that Jesus was saying, “do you not remember and do you not know why David ate that bread.” We can see this story in 1 Samuel 21:1-6

1 Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’ 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” 4 The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread, if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 David answered the priest and said to him, “Be assured, women have been denied to us as previously when I left and the bodies of the young men were consecrated, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then will their bodies be consecrated today?” 6 So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence which was removed from its place before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day it was taken away.

There was always bread in the Temple. It was called the bread of the Presence. It was 12 loaves of bread that was put on a gold table in the Tabernacle in the presence of God. It was replaced every Sabbath and the old bread was for the priests to eat. Only the priests were allowed to eat the old bread. It was a symbol that the 12 tribes needed to have fellowship with God.

Now David was fleeing from Saul, who was trying to kill him. David came to Nob, a town North of Jerusalem. He and his men came to the Tabernacle in search of food because they were hungry. The priest said that there was not any bread except for the holy bread. It was only for the priest to eat. The priest told David that if he and his men had be holy, set a part from women, he would give him the bread to eat. This priest was very wise and new the importance of a person over ritual and ceremony. He gave the bread to David and his men. Mercy triumphs over ritual and ceremony. Never do we sacrifice a person to save a ceremony! When it comes to human need, all ceremony and ritual are done away with. Necessity always over rules ritual. Tradition should never stand in the way of mercy, kindness, goodness, necessity. This was foreign to the Pharisees’. We can see this every time Jesus healed on the Sabbath. It drove the Pharisees’ crazy that He would not follow their traditions and rituals. They were more concerned with the outward where Jesus was concerned with the inward, the person.

Next Jesus tells them the truth about the Sabbath. It was made for man. It was made for rest, blessing, joy, mercy, compassion, the meeting of needs. It was made to reflect on all that God had done the previous week. There was no better day of the week to heal someone than on the Sabbath. It was what the day was meant for. The loving of each other, the meeting of each others needs. Jesus lived the true meaning of the Sabbath day.

And finally, Jesus blew their minds. He said that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the sovereign ruler over the Sabbath. Son of Man is the Messianic title Jesus used for Himself. This would have been a blaspheme of blasphemes! Jesus is God and God instituted the Sabbath at the creation when He rested on the seventh day. We see in Gen 2:3 that God instituted the Sabbath and He made it Holy. He sanctified it. He knew that we would need a day to rest and focus on Him. The Sabbath is a gift from God to man. It is not a burden that we struggle to carry. It is for us, to rest and reflect. To worship the One who is worthy of worship. Since God created the Sabbath, He is the Lord of it. Again we see Jesus speaking truth even though He knew it would make the Pharisees mad. We should always speak the truth.

Church, we need to choose Love above all else. If we only get one thing right, let it be that we love. That is the greatest commandment, Love. Jesus chose love and lived a life of love. He even chose love while they were beating Him, while they were nailing Him on that cross. While all that was going on, Jesus was asking His father to forgive them. That is true Love!! No matter what the world does to us, let us love. If the reject us, let us love. If they persecute us, let us love. If they mock us, let us love. If they take all that we have, let us love. It is not easy church, to live a life of love. It is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. Only a true believer can live this difficult life. We must stay focused on God and His Word. We must lift up and encourage each other constantly. It takes all of us together to live the life that Jesus calls us to.

This week during your prayer time, ask God to reveal anything that you might be using a legalism, anything that needs to change. Then listen. If it is there, He will reveal it. We must be on guard constantly, because our flesh desires legalism. We must fight the urge to be legalistic. We must chose people. We must chose love. Let our community know that Liberty is a house of love. A house that they are welcome at and we will help them walk through this difficult journey.

At First Anadarko, they end every service by the Pastor telling them to go be the church. Liberty, lets go be the church!

Let’s pray.