“The Lord Of
The Sabbath” Mark
SCRIPTURE INTRO:
Why are the Pharisees
mentioned so often in Gospels?
Even thought the Pharisees
have long disappeared as a religious/political party,
their spirit remains. It’s the spirit of works righteousness.
Works righteousness is the
belief that if I do good, God owes me.
That’s the natural religion of every human
heart.
Jesus came to offer a different way
completely—not works, but rest.
Rest in his
perfect, finished work.
INTRO: I’ve always been amazed at the way mothers can tell
when their little children are tired and need a nap.
Nobody thinks the mother is
right.
Dad just thinks the kid is being sassy or
whiney and needs a pop on bottom.
Someone else thinks child just needs a toy
or cookie as a distraction.
Mother can usually convince
them that she is right.
But who is the one person who
cannot be convinced?
Who is sure that mother is absolutely
wrong? The child
himself.
If he was crying before, when
he realizes that she’s taking him to the crib,
he fights and
screams and cries even harder
I remember Allison and I used
to laugh about that when ours were little.
We would say: I wish someone would tell me I have to take a
nap.
But children will have none
of it.
They know they’re not tired. They know they don’t need a nap.
They fight and scream and then there is
silence from the bedroom.
You peek in and they are
conked out and peaceful.
Moms know their children—they know when they
need rest.
This passage is about a fight
over rest.
Sabbath means “rest” in Hebrew. The Sabbath day is the day of rest.
The Pharisees attacked Jesus
and his disciples because,
according to the
Pharisees, they were working and not resting on the Sabbath.
They were breaking the fourth
commandment, which is:
Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy, on it you shall not do any work.
The Pharisees had developed
over the years a very detailed formula for determining
what activities
constituted work on the Sabbath.
Picking
wheat, husking it in your hands, to eat as a snack was considered work.
It was in the category of harvesting and
threshing grain on a small scale.
Treating a person medically,
or healing a person whose life was not in immediate
danger, whose
treatment could wait till the next day was considered work.
Man with shriveled hand would
not have been hurt if healed next day.
Jesus did not engage the
Pharisees on their level.
He did not say: You have too strict a definition of work.
He did
not say: Picking and husking with hands
not same as harvesting.
In other words, he did not get into a debate
about what is work and what isn’t.
And that’s one of the
challenges of studying this passage.
Because those are the sorts of questions
Christians through years want answered.
“What is exactly allowed on Sunday and what
is not?”
But Jesus, as usual goes
deep, he gets to the heart of the matter.
And he makes an amazing
statement.
“The Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath.”
Jesus is saying about
himself:
I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I am the Lord of Rest.
Jesus was saying to the
Pharisees.
You think you are keeping the Sabbath but
you are really breaking it.
You’re breaking it because
you aren’t resting—you’re working.
You are slaving away to prove to God,
through your
religious observance, that you are ok.
You are working, even by your
refusal to work on the Sabbath,
to prove that you
are acceptable to God.
And you are ignoring the
source of real rest—that’s me.
Only through me that you
can be right with God.
This just
as relevant for us today. Until you rest in Jesus you will never rest.
You will work your whole life to prove
to yourself,
others, and to God that you are ok.
You won’t succeed. You will be prideful and anxious, critical
and joyless.
But rest in Jesus, the Lord
of Rest, and you will know that God is satisfied
with you and you
can be satisfied with your life.
Let’s look at this passage
under two headings:
1.
The futile toil of works righteousness.
2.
The delightful rest of Jesus Christ.
MP#1
The futile toil of works righteousness
What was wrong with the
Pharisees?
They weren’t the liberals,
they were the conservatives.
They weren’t the party that was moving away
from traditional values,
and the Bible as
the word of God—that was the Sadducees.
The Pharisees went to
church. And weren’t Christmas and Easter
attenders.
They were there every time the doors of the
synagogue were opened.
And they had small group Bible
studies.
Sit around for hours reading the Scriptures
and discussing the numerous
Jewish commentaries on the
Scriptures.
And the prayed long and
often, and they fasted, and they tithed.
And when it came to the Sabbath, 4th
commandment they were particularly
careful to obey God
and not work on the day of rest.
As far as commitment to
religious exercises—
they would probably
put everybody in this room to shame.
But there was something wrong
with them.
It’s no mystery.
Jesus identified their problem over and
over—it was works righteousness.
In fact, as I said before
Scripture reading,
this is something
that comes up over and over in the Gospels.
So often, that it’s a
challenge to preach it again and again.
But when things are repeated
over and over in the Bible,
it’s because the
Lord wants us to get them straight.
Last week this came up in
Jesus’ conflict with Pharisees over fasting,
week before that,
the calling of Levi, this week, in the matter of Sabbath-keeping.
But it’s the same thing over
and over—works righteousness.
Works righteousness, or self
righteousness (same thing)
is the natural
religion of the human heart.
It says: I obey God, therefore I’m in, He accepts me.
I’m good, I’m better than the really bad people,
so God owes me.
Works righteousness is a
program of self-salvation.
It can take many different forms—
but what we see in
the Pharisees is its moral and religious form.
I do what the Bible says, and
I’m in and everybody else is out.
Pharisees talked biblical
language—talked about sin and repentance and grace.
But they saw their sins as simply little
failures in their program of self-salvation.
In the areas that really
mattered, like keeping the Sabbath day—
they were certain
that they were good enough to get God’s approval.
The purpose of the Sabbath,
as we will see in a few minutes is rest.
It’s to restore the weary, to replenish the
exhausted.
But the Pharisees totally
distorted the Sabbath
by turning it into
one more part of their program of self-salvation.
In order to do that, they had
to make it something that they could measure,
so that they could
say, yes, we’ve done that, we’ve kept the Sabbath.
We’ve been good, we’re in. God owes us.
So what they focused on in the
command was the prohibition against work.
Set out to define what constituted work.
If you walked over 3000 feet
on the Sabbath, you were working.
But if you walked somewhere to get something
to eat,
then you could walk
another 3000 feet from that spot.
The Pharisees would set up
little stations where they would put food.
Could go on and on but I
don’t want to mock the Pharisees too much—
because don’t we do
the very same thing?
Set out to define exactly
what constitutes obedience to God’s commands,
and then excuse
everything we do that is out of step
with the spirit of the command.
A white lie, a wandering eye,
time wasted at work—
that’s not really lying,
or immorality, or stealing—
in those big
thing’s I’m still right on track.
And at the deepest level of
all—we miss the heart of God’s commands—
They show us how we are to love God and love
our neighbor.
But we think that if we have
just behaved, not done any really gross sins,
then we are doing
pretty good and God owes us.
Do you see futility of that
kind of working? It’s toil. It’s checking a box.
But it doesn’t get you any closer to
God.
It doesn’t accomplish what
the law of God is intended to do—
show you your need
for Christ, keep you humble,
give you a path for
loving God and other people.
Let me ask you two questions:
1. Are you a
faultfinder?
Look a the
Pharisees. It’s the Sabbath Day.
They are going through all of the motions of
religion perfectly but they aren’t
looking at
God—they’re watching Jesus and his disciples.
They are hoping to find fault
as a way of securing their righteousness.
Has this ever happened to
you? You’re at the dinner table, just
said Amen,
and one of the
children says—Johnny had his eyes open during the prayer.
And you say: How do you know he had his eyes open?
Children are so honest about
their works righteousness.
That’s what tattling is all about. I am better than Johnny, I deserve approval.
I just opened my eyes for a second, I could tell he had his open the whole time.
As adults we’re so much more
subtle.
We just shake our heads and say:
“I just don’t see how a person could do a
thing like that”?
Are you a fault-finder? Are you continually critical of other
people?
Do you enjoy standing in judgment over the
moral failures of other people?
That’s a sign of works righteousness.
2. Are you
joyless?
Jesus healed the shriveled
hand, and Pharisees went out and plotted to kill him.
No rejoicing, no laughter. No amazement at what God had done.
Because it is rules,
rather than a relationship with God that mattered to them.
Throughout the Bible
obedience and joy are companions.
Psalm 19—Law of God is perfect, reviving the
soul.
When there is obedience there should be
laughter.
The reason is that true
obedience brings you closer to Lord himself.
But self-righteousness sucks the joy out of
obedience.
You are obeying just to get something from
God, not to get God himself.
So you are either
joyless and proud—like Pharisees,
or joyless and
anxious, always wondering if you are living up.
Works righteousness is our
natural religion.
It can find a place even in the church—but
it’s a dead end.
Never brings rest—but an
increasingly critical and joyless spirit.
And often a sense that you
are never measuring up.
And that brings us to . . .
MP#2
The delightful rest of Jesus Christ
Jesus said: The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I am Rest.
What does that mean?
The fourth commandment calls
us to rest on two levels.
First, it is a call to take
physical and mental time off.
It is God saying: I know what you need, you need rest.
It is not good for you to work seven days a
week, week in and week out.
It is not good for your work to dominate you
in that way.
For numerous good reasons,
you need rest.
It’s like a mother looking at
her little child and knowing that he needs a nap.
She knows what’s best, he doesn’t.
Because she knows him better than he knows
himself.
In our affluent society with
all our leisure time and recreational activities—
I think we can miss the simple goodness of
this command.
Man I knew in
six days a week,
and they were poor, life for all of them was always work.
Except on Sundays, loved
Sunday for the refreshment of mind a body.
For most people in the world,
most times in history—
life is one day of
toil after another. Go to a third world
country, will see this.
For the Creator to say—rest one day in seven
and I will provide is wonderful.
“The Sabbath was made for man
. . .”
That brings us to the second
level of rest—deeper rest 4th commandment points to.
In the commandment, told that God rested
from his work on 7th day.
How is that possible? God doesn’t get tired.
In a deeper sense, to rest means to be so
satisfied with your work,
that you can leave
it alone.
When you
can say. I’m happy with this. It’s finished.
When you can say that, you are able to rest.
That’s the rest that God
wants us to experience.
Rest that is so deep that
we can look at our lives and say—I’m satisfied.
How is that possible? Only through Christ.
Only
through the Lord of the Sabbath.
Do you remember the movie
“Chariots of Fire”?
True story about two British
athletes in 1924 Paris Olympics—
Eric Liddle
and Harold Abrams.
On one level, about Eric Liddle, who was a Christian, Scottsman—
who had strong
convictions about the Lord’s Day—
so he refused to
run on the Sabbath.
Remember, when got to
instead of running,
spent Sunday as he had all his life, worship and rest—
missed out on the
race he had been training to run, got to run another.
But the movie had a deeper
level—contrasted these two runners.
Harold Abrams was running out
of a need to prove himself.
“When the gun goes off I have 10 seconds to
justify my existence.”
Eric Liddle
was running simply to please the God who he knew
had already
accepted him.
There is that wonderful line,
says to his sister—
“God made me fast, and when I run, I feel
his pleasure.”
Abrams, who was working so
hard to prove himself—
was weary even when
he won the gold, it wasn’t enough.
Liddle was rested even when he was working,
because he knew
God’s pleasure through his faith in Christ.
I love the way Tim Keller put
it in his sermon on this passage:
“There is a work underneath our work that we
really need rest from. For almost all of
us, unless God comes into our lives, we’re working and we’re doing things to
prove ourselves—to convince God, others, and ourselves that we are good
people. And that work is never over,
unless we rest in the Gospel.”
There is a work underneath
our work that we really need rest from.
That’s profound. That’s our essential problem. That’s works righteousness.
That’s what drove Harold
Abrams to run not for pleasure—
but to justify his
existence.
That’s what drove the
Pharisees in all of their religious exercises,
not for the joy of
fellowship with God, but to prove they were good people,
and therefore
accepted by God.
Let’s be honest, that’s what
drives us—work beneath our work.
We want to prove to
ourselves, others, and to God that we are ok.
We all chose different areas in which to
prove it—
success in parenting,
school, business, athletics, wealth, romance, religion
whatever—but the
end result is not deep satisfaction.
We cannot look at our work
and say: It is finished.
We cannot rest because there is always
incompletion and anxiety.
But what did Jesus come to
do?
He came to finish the work underneath your
work so that you can rest.
What that means is simply
this.
Jesus lived a life of perfect
obedience.
Every thought, every
attitude, every decision was one of perfect love
toward his Father
in heaven and toward other people.
He kept God’s law
perfectly. He rejoiced in it.
He heard from heaven those words of
commendation:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased.
And then, the Bible says, he
was obedient unto death, even death on the cross.
In that great final act of
obedience, paid the penalty for our sins.
And what were his final words
as he hung there on the cross?
It is finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
It is finished.
What was finished? The work beneath your work.
You no longer have to strive to prove you
are ok,
to secure God’s
approval of you—you have it completely in Christ.
Are you
trusting in Jesus Christ, the Lord
of Rest?
If you are, you’ll no longer
say: If I obey God, he’ll accept me.
You’ll say, I’m
totally accepted by God in Christ, therefore I’ll obey him.
You’ll no longer say: If I don’t obey, God won’t accept me, I’ll
fall from grace.
You’ll say, I can’t fall from grace, but oh
that makes me see my disobedience
in a whole new
light. How can I sin against the One who
died for me?
And for the first time you
are able to look at your life and be satisfied—
because you know
that God is totally satisfied with you, in his Son—
and you can rest in
that.
CONC: So what about the Lord’s Day?
What are we supposed to do on the
Sabbath?
John Piper said it well:
It’s a day for worshipping Jesus. It’s a day for saying by what we do and don’t
do that Jesus, not our work and not the money we get from our work, is our
treasure and our meaning. It is a
special day for the honor and glory of the Lord. A day for mercy and for
man.