The Lord of the Sabbath Sends the Twelve

Today we get back to our regularly scheduled program as we come back to the series titled The Way, the Truth, and the Life, studying the life of Christ through the Gospels.

Let's recap briefly what we have studied so far. After 400 years of silence toward the people of Israel, God sends His only begotten Son to be born of a virgin girl named Mary. That birth fulfills many prophecies that had been spoken of the Messiah, the chosen one or the anointed one that God would send to deliver man from the curse of sin and offer salvation to the Jews and Gentiles.

That last bit is important to remember, because at the time of Jesus' birth, most of the Jewish people had reduced the coming of the Messiah to simply delivering them from their oppressors. The Jews were living under the rule and authority of the Roman Empire at this time. Rome was just the latest of the empires which the Israelites had been in service for for the last 400 years. The Israelites were desperate for the Messiah to come and deliver them from the yoke of foreign oppressors. Many had lost sight that the Messiah's greatest feat would be to deliver all of mankind from sin.

So Jesus is born, not in a palace, not to a family of great wealth or influence, but in a stable in a little town called Bethlehem Ephrata, to a young woman engaged to a man named Joseph, a carpenter from the unimportant town of Nazareth. Jesus is swaddled, not in fine linens or silks but in simple cloths and is laid in a manger, a feeding trough for barn animals. The first to know about it were not news outlets; TMZ was not waiting outside the stable doors trying to get a picture of the newborn baby to publish to their website. Nobody was waiting to sign Mary and Joseph for exclusive interviews about their life, and the Hallmark and Lifetime channels were not planning any movie deals about this event. It happened in silence, in an insignificant area of the world, and the first people to know about it were stinky, old shepherds.

We know very little about Jesus' childhood and virtually nothing of His teens and 20's. What we do know is that at the age of 30, Jesus is living in Nazareth and it comes time for him to begin his public ministry. In preparation for this, God has raised up a man named John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, to preach and prepare the hearts of all who will listen for the ministry of the Messiah. God reveals to John the Baptist and the rest of Israel that Jesus is that Messiah and the Son of God when Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River.

If you will remember, when Jesus came up out of the water, the voice of God the Father is heard saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well please," while the Holy Spirit of God descends and rests upon Jesus in a visible form as a dove.

A couple of months or so after this even, John the Baptist is still preaching to others that Jesus is the Lamb of God that would free mankind from the curse of sin when Jesus passes by him and a few of his disciples. Two of these disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and presumable John (the future apostle, not John the Baptist) leave John the Baptist and begin to follow Jesus. Jesus makes his way into Capernaum and ends up calling more disciples, Peter, the brother of Andrew, James, the brother of John, Phillip, and his friend Nathanael. These men leave everything behind and begin to follow Jesus as His disciples. We see that Jesus returns to the region of His upbringing and performs his first miracle in the city of Cana as he turns water into wine at a wedding celebration.

He then travels to Jerusalem for the Passover feast where he preaches and heals many there and in the region of Judea. It is at this time that the Pharisees begin to get curious about Jesus and his teachings about the Kingdom of God. He is approached by a man named Nicodemus who is a leader of this religious sect of the Jews, and it is in this private conversation that we get what has become the most famous passage of Scripture ever recorded: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus explains to Nicodemus that entering the kingdom of God is not about your earthly birth and nationality, not is it by the works that one does. To enter into the kingdom of heaven you must be born again, and this second birth is a spiritual birth that is accomplished by having faith in and receiving as savior the person of Jesus, the only begotten Son of God.

Traveling back to Galilee, the region encompassing Nazareth, Cana, and Capernaum, Jesus sets his temporary headquarters up in Capernaum. There, a meeting is organized between him and a great deal of Pharisees and other religious leaders from all over. These men have come to Jesus to hear more of His teachings and to ask questions. They have come to hear if it is true that this person, whom they consider a mere man, actually claims to be the Messiah, the Son of God. As Jesus is preaching to them in a house, a crowd gathers all around so that it is impossible to enter the house via door or window.

But certain men have a friend who is paralyzed. These five men all have faith that Jesus is not only capable of healing, but that he is the Messiah, the savior of the world. So desperate it the need of the paralyzed friend that the other four decide to break open a hole in the roof and lower their friend directly to the feet of Jesus. Jesus here does something unexpected, instead of healing the man physically, he looks past the physical need and looks into this man's and his friends' hearts full of faith and declares for all the Pharisees to hear, "Your sins are forgiven."

The Pharisees react by thinking in their own hearts, "How can this man declare this? Only God can forgive sins! This is blasphemy at worst, and at best it is Jesus' way to get out of actually healing this man in the presence of this multitude...possibly because he is incapable of doing so." This would have put many of their minds at ease that the healings they had heard of and that some had even witnessed were just fake healings. However, Jesus, being God, was able to see exactly what they were thinking in their hearts.

So Jesus looks at them and says, "So that you know that I am the Son of Man [a title used in the Old Testament for the Messiah, and a title used over 80 times in the New Testament, all referencing the Messiah], So that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth and in heaven to forgive sins, watch this." At this point he turns to the paralyzed man and says, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." At that point the man gets up in front of the multitude of people, rolls up his bed, and walks away!

The multitude around Jesus marveled. They said among themselves, "Wow! How amazing is it that God would give such power to a man." They missed the whole point of what Jesus had been saying. The Pharisees also missed it. They said among themselves, "This man just claimed to be God in the flesh." They missed the fact that Jesus proved his claim by healing the man (something that had been prophesied of the Messiah many times. The Pharisees also held to the belief that a person could not be healed of a disease if they first did not have their sins forgiven). So Jesus just proved His claim with His actions, yet the Pharisees did not believe, but instead accuse him of blasphemy, and this is the first record of hostility that we have toward Jesus on behalf of the Pharisees and other religious leaders.

Jesus leaves Capernaum after that to go and preach to the other 200 or so towns in Galilee. He travels around Galilee preaching and healing many, and eventually returns to Capernaum where he calls another man to follow him as a disciple. This man is Matthew, also known as Levi.

Passover is soon approaching again, and Jesus and his disciples make their way back to Jerusalem. As they visit the areas around the temple, they come to a pool called Bethesda where they meet a man. He was a paralytic who had been in that condition for 38 years. Jesus comes to the man and asks if he wants to be healed, and the man's response reveals where his hope was for healing. He said, "I have no one to help me get in the pool." Occasionally there would be a stirring of the waters of this pool, and whoever got into the water first, was healed from whatever ailed them, but this man, being paralyzed, could not get there fast enough when the waters were stirred. His hope, however, was still confidently placed in the healing qualities of this pool that he would never be able to reach on time.

Jesus' conversation with that man essentially redirected the man's hope for healing from the pool to Jesus. This man had been looking at the pool for so long, years, possibly, hoping in something that could not deliver to him the promise that it held. It would require of the man an impossible amount of work and effort to gain the healing he desired from that pool, but along came JESUS!

Jesus redirected the man's focus from the pool to himself and gave a simple command -"Arise, take up your bed, and walk." This man believed that on Jesus' words he would be healed, and in that belief he rose up, took up his bed, and walked for the first time in 38 years.

Much like that man, we saw that so many people put their faith in things that cannot deliver. The majority of religions around the world offer up the lie that if you just work hard enough, you can gain heaven, or enlightenment, or nirvana. If you just try hard enough and better yourself you can gain peace in the afterlife or in the coming life. Even many religions that acknowledge that there is a God that punishes sin teach that if you work hard enough at doing good things, if you pray enough, or if you forsake all worldly things and dedicate yourself to the service of God that it will be enough for you to avoid punishment and enjoy heaven. Those are promises that cannot deliver. And like the man in this event, mankind is in need of taking our eyes of of those pools that cannot deliver because we are not capable enough to do the work necessary to gain that promise, and we must focus on the promise of Jesus that says that those that come to Him, He will in no wise cast out.

Jesus did all the work for us to have salvation, like the hymn goes, he paid it ALL. There is nothing that we could do to earn salvation. We must simply believe in Jesus alone and accept Him as the gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

After that session, we looked at the response of the Pharisees. The day that Jesus healed this paralyzed man was not an ordinary day; it was a Sabbath day. A day that God had told the Jewish nation that they should do no work, but rest on that day. Over the centuries, the Jewish religious leaders and scholars had added so many restrictions upon this day that not only did they agree that it was unlawful to work on that day, but they had set up traditions so strict that they could not even walk out of the house carrying anything in their pockets, as that would be considered carrying a burden, and therefore working.

The Pharisees go to Jesus and accuse him of breaking Sabbath law (though in reality he had only broken Sabbath tradition) by healing the man and ordering him to take up his bed an go home. This drives the Pharisees mad with rage and they begin to look for reasons to be able to put Jesus to death.

After these events, there are a couple things that happen on a couple of different Sabbaths that also infuriate the Pharisees. I want to briefly go over these things and Jesus' response to it, but I don't want to spend a lot of time on it today. If you wish to read more about these events, they are located in Matthew 10 & 12, Mark 2 & 3, and Luke 6.

Basically what happens is this: after Jesus and his disciples leave Jerusalem, they are walking through some fields of grain on a Sabbath, probably either barley or wheat fields. The disciples then start to take handfuls of grain in their hands and rub it together and eat it. We would not consider this to be a big deal, but remember, it is a Sabbath day. If the Pharisees considered carrying a handkerchief in your pocket as carrying a burden, then certainly picking off grain from the field would be considered reaping and therefor working on the Sabbath. And sure enough, some Pharisees witness this and come up to Jesus and say, "Why are your disciples picking grain on the Sabbath? Don't they know that it is unlawful to be doing that? They are profaning the Sabbath day!"

Now, the basis of their argument stemmed, not from what God had expressly told the Israelites in the law and through the prophets, but in their traditional interpretations of the law. Their argument for this being "unlawful" was based upon tradition, not Scripture. So it was un-traditional, not unlawful.

So Jesus begins to remind them of a story. He reminds them of when David was running from Saul who wanted to kill him, he and his men ran to the priest in the Tabernacle and asked for bread. At that time, there was no bread except for the showbread. The showbread was comprised of 12 loaves of bread set out before the Lord on a table every Sabbath day. The 12 loaves were then removed on the next Sabbath day and to be eaten only by the priests and no one else. The Showbread was baked on the Sabbath and replaced the old showbread on the same Sabbath that it was baked.

So David asks the priest if he can have that bread for his men, even though it was not lawful for them to eat it (since they were not priests).

He also reminded them that every Sabbath, the priests "profaned" the Sabbath as well, because on the Sabbath, there was work being done in the Temple. The showbread was baked, animals were slaughtered for sacrifice, lamps and other fires were lit, and general work was being done in the temple.

Then Jesus says some things that are very interesting and they strike a nerve with these Pharisees.

Matthew 12:6-8 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. 7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

Skip to verse 7, verse 6 and 8 go together so we will analyze them together, but focus on verse 7 right now. He says, "If you would understand what the phrase I will have mercy rather than sacrifice means, then you would not be bothered about these disciples of mine who are guiltless in picking grain for themselves on this Sabbath." This is a quote from Hosea 6:6. It is an assertion that the inward life is superior to the outward form of living. The outward life is nothing if the heart is wrong, something that from now on, Jesus will expound upon to great detail. In fact, it is a concept that we find over and over during the remainder of the New Testament, this concept of the inward life being superior to the outward life, and that intentions of the heart matter when performing service to others and to the Lord.

Jesus is hear saying that when two laws conflict, the higher law suspends the lower law. The higher law in the case of David was the law of mercy. David was not to eat of the showbread, it was specially reserved for the priests, but the priests were to show mercy to others, and in the absence of any other food to give to David and his men, the law of mercy superseded the law of the treatment of the showbread so that David and his mend would not suffer hunger. We can confirm that God did not in any place judge the priests for giving that bread to David and his men, and here in the New Testament, we see the Son of God Himself approving of the action.

The rules of the Pharisees had reduced the Sabbath to a question of doing versus not doing. But this argument cannot be taken to its logical ending as Jesus reminded the Pharisees about how the priests weekly "profane" the Sabbath by all the work that they do. He points out that doing things that would have been considered work in the service of the Lord was a good and proper thing to do, because it superseded the law of rest on the Sabbath.

These priests that were working on the Sabbath were not working to make a profit, they were working to the worship of God and in those sacrifices and in that baking of the bread, they were also working to sustain themselves, as the bread would ultimately be for them to eat and of certain sacrifices, they were able to harvest certain portions of meat for them and their families to live off of.

So the disciples, as they picked this grain and ate it, they were not doing it in an enterprising fashion, they weren't planning to sell it on the side of the road and make a profit with it, they were doing it for their sustenance, and not simply for their sustenance, but to maintain strength in the service of the Lord, whom they were following.

Which brings us to the next point, verse 6 and 8 Jesus says to the Pharisees, "There is in this place someone greater than the Temple," and then he affirms that "The Son of Man [referring to himself as the Messiah] is Lord of the Sabbath day."

To the Pharisees, there was nothing and no one greater than the Temple, for in the Temple was the representation of the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies. However, Jesus is there claiming He is even greater than the Temple (remember, he has not shied away from claiming that he is God in the flesh before). Not only that, he outright claims to be the "Lord of the Sabbath." The Lord of the Sabbath would be the one who instituted the Sabbath, and that was God. This was big!

So as Lord of the day, Jesus had a right to interpret it and to apply it in any way he chose. he takes this question outside the range of argument and brings it within the range of authority as the Lord of the Sabbath.

Let me give you an example. Say we have a rule in our house for our kids - no ice cream after 8pm. Who do you think set that rule? Certainly not the kids! It was the parents.

So we have this rule, and one night Aaron comes to me and says, "Dad, can I have some ice cream? I have been doing my chores all evening, and everything is put away and clean and nice. We are about to sit down and watch a movie and relax, can I please have some ice cream while we watch the movie?" I would say, "Nope, sorry, remember the rule, ' no ice cream after 8pm,' and it is 8:30. Sorry buddy."

However, if the boy is smart, he would ask his mother who would promptly say, "Sure, I guess you can have a little bit. You have been working hard for me and for our family, you can have some." I can guarantee you that one of the other brothers or sisters would see him with ice cream and say, "You better stop eating that. You know the rule, 'no ice cream after 8pm.'"

Is Aaron going to feel guilty at that point? NO! Is he going to throw away the ice cream and apologize? NO! Should he do either one of those things? NO! Why not? Because the lord of the ice cream told him he could have some! So when the other siblings get there undergarments in a twist and come and tell on their brother, guess what Mom is going to say. "Who cares? I told him he could have some!" She will bring the question of having ice cream out of the range of argument, because at that point, nobody can argue with her because she has brought it under the range of authority, which she rightfully has.

But Jesus doesn't stop there. He clarifies, as the Lord of the Sabbath, what the Sabbath was for. Luke and Mark both record something that Matthew does not during this interaction. Mark 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus clarifies that the Sabbath was mad for the benefit of man. It was made for man's convenience and blessing. Man, on the other hand, was not made for the sake of serving the Sabbath. The Sabbath was not to be merely a religious observance, absent all compassion. It was made for the benefit of man, giving him a day to rest of his labor, but the Pharisees had turned it into a burden more unbearable than any work day ever had been. The Sabbath was made for rest, and it had turned into man being a slave to the myriad of regulations imposed, not by law, by by tradition.

We do not have a record of the Pharisees reaction to these statements, but we know they were offended, and this would not be the last time Jesus offended their Sabbatical Sensibilities. If you continue to read, you see that Jesus, on a separate Sabbath, was asked by this same group of Pharisees (Matthew reads that it was in their synagogue 12:9-11) if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath.

Now, this was not a random question, this had been prepared as a way to tempt Jesus, for in their midst stood a man who had a withered hand. So Jesus asks them a question of his own. If you have a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath day, do you leave it or do you rescue it? The obvious answer for these men was that they would, without exception, rescue their sheep. Jesus then asks another rhetorical question - How much more valuable is a man's life than a sheep's life?

He asks another question. "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?" A better representation of this question is, "Is it lawful to do go by your action if by inaction you do evil?" He continues to expound on this by asking, "Is it ok to save a life on the Sabbath or should you let that life be lost and by your inaction let that life be lost?"

The Pharisees could not answer, because as we have seen, they had reduced their understanding of Sabbath law to simply doing vs. not doing. So Jesus follows their silence by saying, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." And with that, he brings the man with the withered hand to the center of the group and tells him to stretch out his hand, which the man does, and by his faithful obedience, receives healing from Jesus.

We do know the effect that this event had on these Pharisees because we can read it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They wanted to kill Jesus all the more.

Mark 3:6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

They were so angry that they consorted with the Herodians to kill Jesus. This was a big deal because the Pharisees and the Herodians were not friendly to each other. The Herodians were, as the name implies, supporters of King Herod. This gave them much political influence. They favored submitting to Herod, a ruler that was put in place by Rome, and this gave them political benefits. There were many that believed Herod was the Messiah. The Pharisees would have stood against the Herodians on most things because they would have been seen as compromisers of the Jewish religion and traditions, and because they followed Herod as the messiah, a man not from Jewish descent, but from the line of Esau, Israel's (Jacob's) brother.

However, Jesus as the Messiah threatened the Herodians' beliefs and way of life as well as the Pharisees', so in this case, we see a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" being played out.

After these things, Jesus departs. The Bible says he withdrew himself from that area, and this is the first time that we see Jesus withdrawing himself for the purpose of self-preservation. It was not time for him to be arrested and killed yet, so he had to leave the area. But when he does, there is a great multitude from Galilee, Judea, Idumaea, Jordan, Tyre, and Sidon that begin to follow him. He heals many in this multitude and cast out many unclean spirits. To all of these he charges them to not make him known, again, as it was not his time to be arrested and killed yet, nor was it in the Father's plan that he should be made a king or a great leader at this time.

At this point he withdraws himself even more, now for a purpose far more meaningful than self-preservation. He withdraws himself to pray.

Luke 6:12-16 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; 14 Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.

He went to pray for a very specific reason, to call out of all his followers twelve that would not only be disciples, followers and learners of his doctrine, but they were to become apostles. An apostle is one that is sent, commissioned by Christ himself, ambassadors of the Gospel. These men were to be commissioned to go and spread the Gospel that Jesus had been teaching and that they had been learning. They would be empowered to do miracles in Jesus' name and to speak on His behalf. The word apostle in its basest sense means "one that is sent." These men would be sent. But they would become the 12 Apostles, men that met, or would meet, certain requirements and would be the ones that would first build upon the foundation of the church, that foundation being Jesus Himself.

This calling and this commission was one of great commitment. We do not have apostles today, as the requirements for the apostleship cannot be met by anyone today. But in the general sense, every Christian has a commission to go be an ambassador of the Gospel. Each of us have been sent out.

The commission to the church is to "go and preach the Gospel to every creature." We are to go and "teach all nations." That word teach means literally "to make disciples." We are to make disciples and teach them everything that Jesus has taught us. Church, we have been sent.

And just like Jesus prayed for those twelve before sending them, he prayed for us as well. Shortly before his death, Jesus prayed again for these disciples and for you and me as well.

John 17:1, 8-9, 15-18, 20-21 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

8 I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

You might say, I don't know where you see that Jesus prayed for us here in 2024, but it is coming up...

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

If you have Jesus Christ as your savior today, you came to that knowledge because of the word of these 12 original apostles. They are the ones that delivered it initially. So guess what, when Jesus was praying in John 17, he was thinking about you and about me.

We are described in his prayer as those which he sends. It is a big responsibility. It requires some real commitment. It requires dedication to a pursuit of a close relationship with God and a commitment to his word and his will regardless of what may come.

INVITATION: Today, the invitation will be a little different. Today's invitation, for most present, will be an invitation to reflect on what the Gospel is. We opened the service by introducing a song called There Is One Gospel. One good news. One message that can change the world. I am going to ask Tahsha to come and sing that song in just a moment, and as she comes to play (and before she sings) I do have a question I would like to ask.

Heads bowed, eyes closed. Are you saved this morning? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

If you are here and you are saved, then I will invite you to sing this song with me today. Pay attention to these words. This is the progression of the Gospel story that we have been sent to tell the world.

Life Groups:

What do you think of when you hear the word "ambassador"?

2 Corinthians 5:17-20 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

The last verse says that we are ambassadors for Christ. If that is part of our new identity as new creatures (v.17), what were we before Christ?

V. 18 tells us were were reconciled to Christ. What does that mean? The word means that we were returned to favor with Christ. The book of Colossians (1:21) tells us that before we had Christ, we were at one time enemies of God. In Christ, we have been brought to favor with Him. We have been reconciled.

What ministry have we been given according to verse 18? The ministry of reconciliation.

What does that mean? We are to give the Gospel to others so that hey might be reconciled to Christ as well.

We see in verse 19 that God was in Christ, reconciling the wold to himself (that was Jesus' mission), and that now that mission has been committed unto us.

V.20 - We are to ambassadors of Christ. Our message to the world? BE RECONCILED TO GOD.

Where can you be an ambassador for Christ? Be specific.

What does that look like? Be as specific as you can.

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