The Lord's Day

Introduction:

This morning, we are going to look at a celebration that should happen every single week. I’m not sure what your favorite holiday is. Maybe it’s Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or your birthday! Imagine getting to celebrate your favorite holiday every single week.

That is essentially what we get to do every week when we worship. We get to honor the Lord and enact a picture, a foretaste of what heaven is going to be like one day. Let’s turn over to Matthew 12 and see what we are talking about as we learn more about the Lord’s Day this morning.

Matthew 12:1–8 ESV

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. 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.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 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? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Matthew begins chapter 12 by telling us that it was “at that time that Jesus and His disciples went through the grainfields on the Sabbath.” It was around the time that Jesus had just finished His discourse in Chapter 11. Those words, “at that time” connect what Jesus has just said aobut the heavy burdens of the Pharisees and Jesus’ invitation to come find rest in Him with what is about to happen.

I don’t know how much thought you give to the Sabbath. Some people make a fuss about whether we should worship on Saturday or whether we should worship on Sunday. We have to remember that the Jewish Sabbath began at sundown on Friday and lasted until Sundown on Saturday. Their days were reckoned by evening and morning like the creation days were.

Genesis 1:5 says,

Genesis 1:5 ESV

5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

In fact, the whole Sabbath system is a reflection of that creation week. The Bible says in Genesis 2:1-3

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 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. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Every week, we have a reminder of God’s creation of this world and the rest that we long for that will one day be realized

Jewish families would observe the Sabbath on Saturday, but after Christians were expelled from the synagogues in the New Testament and in order to honor the resurrection of Jesus, we begin to see the Church worship on Sunday.

The Bible teaches us that it doesn’t matter what day we observe as a sabbath. More on that in a moment, but for now, back to the question I asked earlier - “How much thought do you give to the Sabbath?”

As we look at what Matthew recorded for us, we need to keep in the back of our minds that this was a serious question for the Jews, and it should be for you as well.

To understand our text this morning, we are going to kind of work backwards and the first thing we need to understand is that:

1. The Sabbath is the Lord’s Day (vv.1, 7-8)

Why did God ordain the Sabbath? What is the purpose of setting aside one day a week as a day of rest in the first place?

Don’t you think that if we were to forget about observing a sabbath, we could get a lot more done? Isn’t it enough to just come to church once on Sunday and then do whatever else we want the rest of the day? We can’t be legalistic about the number of services we have on Sundays, but we should pause and consider that the Sabbath is the Lord’s Day. We also should consider that God can do way more with less than we can do with more. Worshiping God is never wasted time.

God’s ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. God gave us the Sabbath to be a blessing to us. It is a picture of salvation. It reminds us of the hard labor that sin brought into the world and the final rest we long for in heaven.

Every day is really the Lord’s Day. God is the one who is the real “Father Time.” He holds our days in His hands and everything passes through His sovereign hands. However, there is a day that God has modeled as a holy day for us that we need to observe. There are some practical reasons we observe a sabbath and we will look at them in a minute, but most importantly the sabbath reminds us to give praise to God every week.

Illustration:

When a Jewish family would prepare to observe the sabbath, it was like a huge holiday every week. They would prepare everything in advance. They would get the food ready for the sabbath the day before; they would get the house cleaned out and ready for the people who would be there; and most importantly they would go to the synagogue to hear the Scripture read and taught and offer sacrifices.

Even today, Jewish families will observe some of these things, minus the sacrifices. They will even get those huge coffee kettles and fill them with hot water to have it ready on a timer for them when they need it the next day so that they will not boil any water.

No work is to be done because God rested on the 7th day. God did not rest because He was tired, but in order for us to rest and in order for us to contemplate what God has done for us.

Because it is God’s sabbath, He gets to make up the rules for how we are to observe it and He gets to be the focus of our worship. The Pharisees had lost sight of what God’s intent was for this day. They meant well, perhaps, but they had added all kinds of crazy rules to the sabbath that had superseded the meaning of the sabbath.

They wanted to make sure no one broke the commandments, which is a noble task; but in order to do this they moved the fence posts farther away from the edge.of God’s actual commandments. If God said you can’t so something, they added to it to make sure no one came close to breaking God’s law; and in effect they made their laws more important than God’s while losing the heart of the Law.

Jesus tells the Pharisees in v. 8,

Matthew 12:8 ESV

8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus is claiming deity here by saying this. It was God’s sabbath and Jesus is claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath.

For us as Christians, we should not have a hard time understanding this. We worship on Sunday, because it is the day Christ rose from the dead. We can see in several places where the church was gathered on the first day of the week or as John called in in Revelation, the Lord’s Day. I think instead of us calling is Sunday, we should return to calling it the Lord’s Day.

Jesus is Lord of the sabbath for us. The Sabbath is to be a day of worship for us. It is to be a day of celebration and reflection. It is also the Lord’s Day and not just the Lord’s morning. We should give Him the whole day and not just a part of it.

The second thing we need to understand is:

2. The Lord’s Day is for Worship (v.6-7)

Matthew 12:6–7 ESV

6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Since God is the originator of the Sabbath and it is His day, it is only natural that we should worship God on the Lord’s Day.

Jesus after addressing the Pharisees complaint and giving a couple of examples of sanctioned “sabbath breaking,” makes the statement that something greater than the temple is here.

What is a temple for? It is for worship right? It is to praise the Lord. Jesus has just used the illustration of the priests preparing sacrifices and of David and his men being fed because they were hungry the consecrated bread in an act of mercy. These sacrifices and the bread were used in worship.

Jesus makes the connection to these acts of worship by quoting from Hosea and Micah saying that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. The sacrifices were a demonstration of God’s mercy. They pointed forward to Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins on the cross. God did not need animal sacrifices. He isn’t hungry. The sacrifices were a demonstration of God’s mercy through Jesus.

But God does desire worship. Jesus is saying that wherever the presence of God’s Spirit is, worship should take place. In the Old Testament, that was the temple. By the time of the Babylonian exile, temple worship was difficult and synagogues sprang up wherever there were at least 10 Jewish families to worship.

These were places where God’s spirit would be present, but they had also become corrupted places of worship. Jesus comes on the scene and He is God incarnate. The fullness of deity dwells in Jesus and so wherever Jesus is, worship should take place. Jesus is greater than the temple.

Now in the New Testament age, we have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ living in us and we can worship anywhere. We don’t worship man, but God.

Now, let’s turn to what is allowed on the Lord’s Day. These allowances are exceptions for us. While we should remember that the whole day is the Lord’s and we should cease from our labors and normal activities to worship God, there are some things that we are allowed to do.

3. What is Allowed on the Lord’s Day (vv.1-14)

A. Meeting Needs (vv.1-4)

Matthew 12:1–4 ESV

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. 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.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 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?

Pharisees had made so many rules about the Sabbath that it had become an ugly monster rather than the beautiful celebration it was supposed to be.

The Pharisees said that you could not pick, thresh, or winnow wheat on the Sabbath. This was to keep commerce and work from happening, but here you see how crazy their rules had become. They considered it work that the disciples were picking heads of grain as they walked, rubbing it between their fingers (which they would call threshing and winnowing), and then eating it.

The disciples were not stealing and they were not breaking any laws. The edges of the fields were left for the needy to glean from and they were not breaking the heart of the Law, only the Pharisees extra regulations.

Jesus points them to two examples of sanctified sabbath breaking.

David and His Men Eating Holy Bread

The Priests Profaning the Sabbath for worship

David and his men ate the holy break (1 Sam. 21)

God never condemned the act

There was legitimate need

The greater violation was that the Pharisees did much more to technically break the sabbath. That leads us to the second thing allowed on the Sabbath.

2. Acts of Service (v.5)

Matthew 12:5 ESV

5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?

On the Sabbath the priests would break the technical rules of the sabbath to serve the Lord and minister to the people.

They would perform sacrifices on the sabbath, perform their priestly duties, and even perform circumcisions. All of this was acceptable because it was connected with service.

The third thing that was allowed was:

C. Acts of Mercy (vv. 9-14)

The Bible says that in a second encounter with these Pharisees, perhaps a few days later, Jesus went into their synagogue.

The other gospels tell us that this was on another day, but look at what happened.

Matthew 12:9–14 ESV

9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue. 10 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. 11 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? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

The man was probably planted by them there or they knew he would be there

He was being harassed and used by the Pharisees

Jesus argues that man’s life is more valuable than a sheep, and therefore it is okay to do good and heal on the Sabbath

The Pharisees believed the person should come back after the sabbath

Jesus heals the man without even touching him. He demonstrates He is the God who spoke things into being.

Sadly, they Pharisees never questioned if Jesus could heal. They knew He could.

They counted on it to trap Jesus.

Even after the miracle, they refuse to see who Jesus is. They go out to conspire against Him.

It is a sad person who refuses to honor God despite the obvious evidence He has given.

Conclusion

The Pharisees thought that God would be pleased with their pious acts of worship and sacrifice. They put on a show and a spectacle, yet what God wants is a heart that is genuinely committed to Him.

Maybe that’s been you. Maybe you have either been trying to earn God’s approval through religious acts, or you have completely ignored what God would want altogether.

How is your heart? Do you honor the Lord’s Day and commit the day to worshiping the Lord?

Do you take time to teach your kids to worship God on the Lord’s Day?

Or, do you just squeeze Him in with all of the other stuff you’ve committed to? If so, maybe you need to rethink your commitments. It isn’t your day, it’s His.

He created it for you to rest, reflect, and worship. Let’s make sure we are doing all three.