Latest / Reformed Thinking / Mercy Over Sacrifice: Christ, the Sabbath, and the Condemnation of the Guiltless (Matthew 12:1–7)

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Mercy Over Sacrifice: Christ, the Sabbath, and the Condemnation of the Guiltless (Matthew 12:1–7) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am so glad you're here with us.
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  We've got the books open, the coffee is ready, and we are set
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  to really dig into Scripture and some of the great theological
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  works to get a better handle on the Lordship of Christ.
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  It's good to be here. Today we're going to a place
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  that on the surface sounds, you know, peaceful, the grain field
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  on a quiet Sabbath. But as we're about to see, it's
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  actually, well, it's a battleground.
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  It really is. That's a good way to put it.
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  We tend to have this, this sort of Sunday school picture in our
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  heads of the Galilean green fields, you know, pastoral,
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  serene golden wheat. Birds chirping, right?
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  But in Matthew chapter 12, this field becomes the scene of a
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  crime, or at least what's alleged to be a crime.
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  We're looking at Matthew 12 verses one through 8, and it's
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  that famous story of the disciples plucking grain on the
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  Sabbath. I think for a lot of us,
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  especially if you, you know, grew up hearing these stories,
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  you read it and you think, OK, the Pharisees are just being
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  grumpy again, this is what they do.
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  Typical Pharisees. Yeah, typical.
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  But looking at the source material we have laid out today,
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  particularly the analysis mercy over sacrifice and the sovereign
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  of the Sabbath, it's just so clear that there is much more at
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  stake. This isn't just a squabble over
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  etiquette. No, not at all.
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  This is a collision. It's a collision of two
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  kingdoms. Two kingdoms explain that.
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  Well, you have the Kingdom of man made religion, which is of
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  course represented by the Pharisees, sees crashing head on
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  into the Kingdom of God, which is embodied in the person of
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  Jesus. The stakes here are their cosmic
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  we're not just talking about what's OK to do on a Saturday.
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  We're talking about who is in charge of reality itself.
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  And we're going to see Jesus. He's not just going to brush
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  aside a rule. He's actually going to reclaim
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  the very concept of the Sabbath from all this legalism, and in
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  doing so, reveal himself as the only true resting place for
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  anyone who's weary. Text is well, it's everything
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  here, isn't it? We say it all the time on this
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  show, but you really cannot grasp the weight of this story
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  if you don't see what happened just before it.
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  You can't. Matthew is such a careful
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  writer. He's a theologian, not just a
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  journalist, putting stories in chronological order.
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  He doesn't just, you know, throw these events together like a
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  scrapbook. He places this whole conflict
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  immediately after the end of Matthew 11.
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  OK, so let's remind ourselves, how does Matthew 11 end?
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  It ends with, well, maybe one of the most comforting invitations
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  in all of Scripture. Come to me, all who labor and
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  are heavy laden. And I will give you rest.
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  Exactly. Jesus offers rest for the soul.
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  Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is
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  light. It's this beautiful open handed
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  promise of relief. So promise of rest.
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  A promise of rest and then you turn the page, maybe not even,
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  and you get to Matthew 12 verse one the the ink is barely dry on
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  that promise of rest and suddenly were thrown into a
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  conflict about the Sabbath, the official day of rest.
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  I see it now. The rest that Jesus promises at
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  the end of Chapter 11 is immediately put to the test in
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  the beginning of chapter 12. That's the narrative tension.
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  Who is the true giver of rest? Is it this religious system, the
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  Pharisees, who had piled on so many rules that the Sabbath
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  became a crushing burden? Or is it the Messiah standing
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  right there in the field? So we move from the promise of
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  REST to the problem of a religion that had, in a way,
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  destroyed REST. That's it.
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  So let's get into the scene. Let's paint the picture for
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  everyone listening. It's the Sabbath, Jesus and his
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  disciples. They're walking, likely on a
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  path through these grain fields. And there's a key detail.
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  The text gives us their motivation.
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  They're hungry. They're hungry.
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  This isn't recreational snacking.
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  They aren't vandals out to destroy property.
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  This is a biological need. These are men following an
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  itinerant preacher. They probably don't have a full
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  pantry waiting for them. So what do they do?
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  They reach out. They pluck some heads of grain.
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  Rub them in their hands to get the husks off.
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  Right. Kind of shucking them on the go
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  and then they eat the kernels and just like that the Pharisees
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  are there. Which always feels a bit weird
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  to me. Like were they just hiding in
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  the stalks waiting for something?
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  It does feel like that, doesn't it?
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  It just shows their whole mindset of surveillance.
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  They were shadowing him, you can be sure of that.
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  Just waiting for a slip up, a violation, and now they pounce.
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  And they point and they say, look, your disciples are doing
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  what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.
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  Unlawful. That's a serious charge.
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  It's not impolite or inconsiderate.
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  It's unlawful. OK, so we have to get this
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  straight because a modern reader could easily misunderstand the
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  accusation. We might hear that and think,
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  well, yeah, it's unlawful, they're taking green, it isn't
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  theirs. That's theft.
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  But the Pharisees aren't accusing them of stealing, are
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  they? No, not in the least.
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  And this is where you start to see the beauty of the actual
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  Mosaic Law, the law of God-given in the first five books of the
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  Bible. It had this incredible provision
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  for the poor, for the traveler. If you look at Deuteronomy 23
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  verse 25, it's spelled out God's law explicitly says you can go
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  into your neighbor's field of standing grain and you can pluck
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  heads with your hand. So it was a kind of built in
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  welfare system. It was.
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  Yes, it was a welfare system woven right into the
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  agricultural fabric of the nation.
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  Now, you couldn't bring a sickle in there.
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  You couldn't start harvesting their field for your own profit.
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  You couldn't fill up a basket to take home.
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  But you could eat on the spot to satisfy your immediate hunger.
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  That's amazing. It prevents hoarding, but it
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  also ensures that nobody starves in the land of promise.
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  Exactly so based on the actual written law of Moses, the law
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  concerning property and theft, the disciples are 100% in the
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  clear. No violation of the 8th
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  commandment. None whatsoever.
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  So when the Pharisees yell it is unlawful, they are talking
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  specifically and only about their interpretation of the
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  Sabbath regulations. And this gets us to their whole
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  system, the halakah and this idea of building a fence around
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  the Torah. Yes, let's unpack that fence
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  because this is where the Pharisees got really inventive,
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  and not in a good way. We hear that phrase a fence
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  around the law, but what did it actually mean for someone living
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  in that time? It sounds protective, like
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  they're trying to do a good thing.
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  And that's the tragedy of it. Their motivation, at its root,
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  was probably sincere. They were zealous.
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  You can't call them lazy. They desperately wanted to
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  protect the holiness of the Sabbath.
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  They were terrified of repeating the sins of their fathers, which
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  led to the exile. There was even a belief that if
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  Israel could just keep one Sabbath perfectly, the Messiah
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  would come. So the stakes felt very high for
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  them. Incredibly high.
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  So to make sure that nobody ever, ever accidentally broke
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  God's law, they created a whole system of extra rules.
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  A fence to keep people far away from the actual law so they
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  couldn't even get close to breaking it.
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  It's. Like a buffer zone?
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  It's a buffer zone, Exactly. So if the law says don't work,
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  the Pharisees then have to ask, well, what does work mean?
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  Define it. And so they did.
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  They came up with 39 distinct categories of forbidden labor in
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  the Mishnah. They're called the Avat Malacca.
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  The fathers of work. Yes, and these categories were
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  supposedly derived from all the types of activities that were
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  needed to build the Tabernacle in the wilderness. 39 categories
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  that is specific. So how does a hungry man eating
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  a snack fit into that complicated grid?
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  Well, this is where you see the legalism get a little absurd.
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  In their calculus, the action of plucking a head of grain off the
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  stalk was classified as reaping. Reaping like with a scythe.
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  As far as their categories were concerned, yes, it's harvesting
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  work and then the action of rubbing the grain between your
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  hands to get the husk off Let. Me guess.
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  That was threshing and if you then blew the little bits of
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  chaff away from the kernels. That's winnowing.
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  You got it. Reaping, threshing, winnowing
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  all in one mouthful. That just feels like such a
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  stretch. I mean, it's a handful of grain.
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  It's not like they're out there with a combine harvester.
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  It's. A huge stretch to our ears, but
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  that's the nature of legalism. It creates this what you could
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  call a spiritual pathology. Think about what's going on in
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  the minds of the Pharisees. They're looking at hungry men
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  who are eating, but they don't see hungry men.
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  They don't see the human need. They just see the hand motion.
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  They just see the mechanics of the action.
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  Hand move towards stock, Stock was detached.
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  Error violation. They see a rule being broken.
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  They don't see a person being fed.
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  They prioritize their fence over the actual vineyard it was
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  supposed to protect. They loved their rules more than
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  the people those rules were meant to help.
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  That's a perfect way to say it. They got so fixated on the rule
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  about the rule that they completely missed the point of
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  the whole law in the 1st place, which is love for God and love
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  for neighbor. And notice the trap they're
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  setting? They don't just go and yell at
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  the disciples themselves. They go straight to Jesus.
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  Yes, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful.
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  It's a direct attack on his authority as a teacher.
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  They're trying to discredit him. It is in that culture a rabbi
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  was held responsible for the conduct and the teaching of his
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  disciples. So if the disciples are
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  lawbreakers, well, the blame falls squarely on the teacher.
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  They're trying to frame him. They want to prove that this
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  Jesus of Nazareth produces lawlessness.
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  Their logic is, if he's the Messiah, why are his followers
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  sinners? Exactly.
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  So Jesus is now on the spot. He has to respond and I just
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  love how he handles this. He doesn't get drawn into a
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  petty, ditpicking debate about their 39 categories.
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  Right, he doesn't say. Well actually, according to
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  Missionary Tractate Shabbat 7.2 rubbing isn't threshing if the
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  volume of grain is below 1 figs worth.
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  He doesn't play their game at all.
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  He goes right over their heads. He takes them back to the
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  source. He goes to scripture and.
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  He uses a classic rabbinic argument style.
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  Right he does. It's called Calva Homer.
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  It's a Hebrew phrase that means light to heavy.
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  It's an argument from the lesser to the greater.
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  The logic is, if something is true in a less important case,
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  then how much more must it be true in a more important case?
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  And he starts with a story from history, a story they all knew
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  but clearly didn't understand the point of.
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  He brings up David. He says have you not read what
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  David did when he was hungry? That question alone has to sting
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  a bit. He's asking the professional
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  Bible scholars, the teachers of Israel.
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  Have you not read your own book? It's a sharp rhetorical jab.
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  It's almost sarcastic. You men, you spend all day
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  everyday reading the text. Did you somehow miss this part?
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  He's not questioning their literacy, he's questioning their
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  comprehension. He's exposing the fact that they
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  read the words on the page, but they missed the entire
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  theological point. OK, so let's walk through this
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  case study he brings up. It's from First Samuel Chapter
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  21. It's a fantastic story.
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  It is. And again, context is key.
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  David is on the run. He's fleeing from a murderous
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  King Saul. Here's the critical part.
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  David is God's anointed king, but he's living in exile,
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  rejected by the current administration, running for his
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  life. So he comes to the Tabernacle at
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  a place called Knob, and he and the men with him are starving.
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  They're starving, they're physically depleted.
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  They need food to continue and the priest, a man named
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  Ahimelech, tells him the only food available is the bread of
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  the Presence. Also called the showbread.
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  And this is not just any loaf of bread.
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  No, this was holy, extremely holy.
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  If you look at Leviticus 24 verse 9, the law is explicit.
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  There were 12 loaves representing the 12 tribes of
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  Israel, always set before God in the holy place.
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  And that bread was reserved for one group of people only, the
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  priest. Only the priest.
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  So technically speaking, from a ceremonial law standpoint, it
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  was unlocked lawful for David, a man from the tribe of Judah, not
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  a Levite, not a priest, to eat that bread.
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  But he did. He ate it and he gave it to his
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  men, the priest to him. Alec gave it to him.
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  And this is Jesus's whole point. Crucially, Scripture never ever
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  condemns David for this action. Jesus points this out.
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  He says David entered the House of God and ate the bread which
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  it was not lawful for him to eat, but he was guiltless.
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  OK, so what's the principle here?
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  Is Jesus just saying that rules don't matter if you're hungry
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  enough? Is this some kind of situational
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  ethics? No, and that's a really good
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  question because it's easy to misread that.
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  He isn't saying the ends justify the means in some kind of, you
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  know, chaotic rule breaking way. He's teaching what we could call
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  the logic of necessity. He's showing them from their own
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  scriptures that ceremonial laws, laws that deal with rituals and
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  symbols, must yield to higher moral imperatives.
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  Like preserving human life. Serving human life, mercy
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  outweighs ritual. When a man is starting to death,
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  the law about who can eat the holy bread stands down to serve
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  the higher law of love and compassion.
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  But there's a much deeper layer here, isn't there?
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  I mean, Jesus didn't just pick some random story about a
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  starving guy from the Book of Judges.
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  He specifically chose David. This is where we have to put on
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  our, you know, our Reformed thinking caps.
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  This is the Christological point and it is powerful.
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  In First Samuel 21, David is the true anointed king of Israel,
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  but he is being rejected and haunted by the established
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  leadership by Saul. And Jesus is the true anointed
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  King. The Messiah who is currently
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  being rejected by the established religious
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  leadership, the Pharisees. The parallel is absolutely
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  perfect. It's a 1 to 1 correlation.
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  It is Jesus is the great Son of David.
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  He is the anointed King, walking in his own kind of exile through
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  the green fields of his own land.
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  So the Cal, the Homer, the light to heavy argument is this.
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  If the Shatter, David the type had the authority, the
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  prerogative, to set aside a ceremonial rule for the sake of
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  his men's survival. Then how much more does the
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  substance Jesus, the true king, the anti type, have the right to
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  provide for his men? Precisely.
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  The disciples are the King's own retinue.
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  They are his followers. The King's business is urgently
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  and it requires sustenance. You got it.
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  You cannot condemn the King's servants for maintaining their
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  strength in order to serve the King.
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  So Jesus just brilliantly uses their own reverence for their
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  great King David to completely trap them.
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  Because. If they condemn his disciples
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  for eating grain. Then they logically have to
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  condemn King David for eating the bread, and they could never
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  do that. David is their national hero.
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  To condemn David would be to undermine their entire national
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  and theological identity. That is just it's a masterful
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  argument. It completely silences them on
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  the historical front. But he's not done.
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  Not even close. He pivots from the history books
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  to the very institution they revered above all else.
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  He moves from David to the temple itself.
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  He brings up the priests. This is the second rebuttal, the
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  argument from legal precedent. He says to them.
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  Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests
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  in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
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  That phrase profane the Sabbath. That is shockingly strong
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  language for Jesus to use. It is.
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  It sounds like he's agreeing with them.
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  That work on the Sabbath is profanity.
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  It's deliberate. He's adopting their own rigid,
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  legalistic definition of work for a moment, just to show them
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  how absurd it is. I mean, think about what a
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  priest actually did on a Sabbath day.
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  Our idea of a pastor's work is maybe preaching A sermon,
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  shaking some hands, praying. Right, not a lot of heavy
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  lifting. But the Levitical priesthood in
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  the temple? That was hard, physical manual
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  labor. He was a butcher shop.
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  It was a slaughterhouse. It was.
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  And on the Sabbath day, according to the Book of
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  Numbers, the number of required sacrifices actually doubled.
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  So the priests are working twice as hard on the day of rest.
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  They're slaughtering bulls and lambs.
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  That means lifting heavy carcasses, skinning them,
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  cutting them up, draining the blood.
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  The lighting fires on the altar, which was forbidden for everyone
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  else. They're lifting heavy loads of
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  wood. They're baking the new show
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  bread. Every single one of those
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  actions, if you applied the Pharisees strict 39 categories,
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  would be a flagrant violation of the Sabbath.
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  By their own definition, a priest on duty on the Sabbath is
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  the biggest Sinner in all of Israel.
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  But of course, they aren't Centers for doing that.
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  God himself commanded them to do it.
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  And that's Jesus's point. He calls them guiltless.
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  Why? What makes their work guiltless?
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  The temple. The temple service sanctifies
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  the labor. The work is being done for God
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  in God's house as part of God's commanded worship.
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  So this establishes a principle, a hierarchy of holiness.
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  Yes, the command to serve God in the temple overrides the command
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  to cease from work. Therefore, the holiness of the
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  temple is greater than the holiness of the Sabbath day.
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  The holiness of the place protects the priest from the
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  charge of breaking the rule about the time.
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  And this is the setup, isn't it? It's the second part of his
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  argument that's leading to the massive conclusion.
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  Because if the Stone Temple in Jerusalem has the authority to
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  make a worker guiltless, it. Forces the question into the
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  open. Is there anything or anyone here
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  in this grain field that is greater than that temple?
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  And then comes the climax, verse 6, the earth shattering
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  statement. I tell you, something greater
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  than the temple is here. You just have to let that land
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  for a minute. For a 1st century Jew listening
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  to this, the temple was, well, it was everything.
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  It wasn't just a big, impressive church building.
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  No, it was the center of their universe.
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  It was the one place on planet earth where heaven and earth
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  were believed to meet. It was the only place atonement
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  could be made where the blood was shed for sin.
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  It was considered the very footstool of God on earth.
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  It was the heart of their national identity and their
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  hope. So for a man, a Carpenter from
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  Nazareth, to be standing in a dusty, ordinary field and say
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  something greater than that building is standing right here,
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  I mean, to their years, that's so audacious it must have
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  bordered on blasphemy it. Absolutely did.
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  And you pointed out something in the notes about the grammar here
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  that is just so telling. He doesn't say someone greater
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  than the temple is here, he says something greater.
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  Right the the Greek word Maison, it's in the neuter gender.
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  Why is that significant? Because he's not just making a
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  claim about his personal status, he's claiming to be the greater
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  institution. He's not just a holier person
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  than the high priest. He's saying, I myself am the
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  true temple. That stone building in Jerusalem
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  was just a type. It was a shadow, a signpost
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  pointing forward. The whole locus of God's
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  presence on earth has shifted. That is the theological
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  earthquake of the New Covenant right there.
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  God no longer dwells in a temple made with human hands.
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  The fullness of God now dwells bodily in the person of Christ.
• 18:12
  So now apply the logic from the priests if the stone temple, the
• 18:16
  shadow protected the priests from guilt while they work to
• 18:19
  serve it. Then how much more does the true
• 18:22
  temple, Jesus himself, the substance, protect his own
• 18:25
  disciples from guilt while they're working to serve Him,
• 18:28
  which in this case is simply eating to have the strength to
• 18:30
  follow Him? The irony is just it's
• 18:34
  overwhelming. The Pharisees are obsessed with
• 18:36
  defending the shadow, the ritual, the building, the rules
• 18:39
  about the building. And in doing so, they're
• 18:41
  attacking the very substance that the shadow pointed to.
• 18:44
  Who is standing right in front of them?
• 18:46
  They're so busy guarding the blueprint that they don't
• 18:48
  recognize the architect when he shows up.
• 18:50
  They're defending the signpost while trying to tear down the
• 18:52
  destination. It's a tragic picture.
• 18:55
  So Jesus has dismantled their case historically with David,
• 18:59
  and he's dismantled it legally with the priests.
• 19:02
  But now he goes for the heart of the matter.
• 19:04
  He quotes from the prophets. He does.
• 19:06
  He pulls out Hosea 6 verse 6 and he says to them, and if you had
• 19:10
  known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you
• 19:15
  would not have condemned the guiltless.
• 19:17
  And that phrase, if you had known the clear implication, is
• 19:22
  you don't know. You, the teachers of Israel,
• 19:25
  have missed the main point of your own Bible.
• 19:28
  This is the interpretive key to the whole thing.
• 19:30
  If you don't get this principle, you will misunderstand the
• 19:33
  entire Old Testament law. So let's talk about that word
• 19:35
  mercy. In English, mercy often just
• 19:38
  means not punishing someone who deserves it.
• 19:41
  Is that what the Hebrew word is getting at here?
• 19:42
  It's so much bigger than that. The word is cheesed.
• 19:45
  And if you've been in Reformed circles for any length of time,
• 19:48
  you've heard this word. It's one of the most magnificent
• 19:50
  words in the Bible. It means loyal love, steadfast
• 19:54
  love, covenant faithfulness. It's not just a feeling of pity.
• 19:57
  It's an action born out of a committed, loyal relationship.
• 20:00
  It is the very character of God Himself.
• 20:03
  And Jesus puts that cheesed in contrast with sacrifice.
• 20:06
  Now obviously God commanded sacrifice is the Old Testament.
• 20:09
  So Jesus isn't saying that all sacrifice is bad, is he?
• 20:12
  No, absolutely not. He's about to become the final
• 20:15
  sacrifice himself. He's not abolishing the system,
• 20:17
  he's fulfilling it. But what he is condemning is the
• 20:20
  Pharisees priority. Their whole religious system was
• 20:23
  inverted. They had the information, but
• 20:26
  not the interpretation. That's it.
• 20:27
  They had memorized the text about how to perform a
• 20:29
  sacrifice, but they had totally missed the heart of the lawgiver
• 20:33
  who commanded it. They had the rules, but they
• 20:35
  didn't have the relationship. So ritual performance, sacrifice
• 20:40
  without any real compassion, without cheese, is just false
• 20:44
  religion. It's worse than useless.
• 20:46
  It's dangerous. If your religion makes you
• 20:48
  cruel, if it makes you indifferent to a hungry person,
• 20:51
  Jesus is saying it is not from God.
• 20:54
  The Pharisees were so meticulous about the sacrifice part, you
• 20:57
  know, tithing their mint, their dill, their cumin, but they had
• 21:00
  zero cheese. They had no compassion for
• 21:03
  hungry men. And because they lack that
• 21:04
  mercy, their judgement was completely warped.
• 21:07
  He says it directly. You would not have condemned the
• 21:09
  guiltless. That's a verdict on their
• 21:11
  verdict. It's a terrifying thought,
• 21:13
  especially for anyone in leadership in the church.
• 21:16
  Legalism blinds your judgement. It actually causes you to call
• 21:20
  good things evil and evil things good.
• 21:23
  They looked at innocent men, men who were with the Son of God,
• 21:26
  and they called them criminals. That is the tragic end of
• 21:30
  merciless religion. It fundamentally misrepresents
• 21:33
  the character of God. It makes God look like a petty,
• 21:36
  bureaucratic taskmaster instead of a loving, compassionate
• 21:39
  father. It turns the Covenant of Grace
• 21:42
  into a new covenant of works and Jesus is saying to them, look,
• 21:46
  if you actually knew God's heart, if you understood the
• 21:49
  prophet Hosea, you would know that God would much rather you
• 21:52
  feed a hungry person then you slaveishly keep a man made
• 21:56
  tradition about what constitutes threshing.
• 21:58
  And all of this leads to the final definitive statement, the
• 22:01
  seal on the whole argument, verse 8.
• 22:03
  For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
• 22:05
  That's the mic drop. There is no comeback after that.
• 22:08
  Everything he said before this, about David, about the priests,
• 22:11
  was building to this one claim. He's no longer just He's an
• 22:14
  authorized interpreter of the law.
• 22:16
  He's not just a prophet saying here's what the law really
• 22:18
  means. No, a prophet says thus says the
• 22:21
  Lord, But Jesus says, I tell you here, he claims ownership.
• 22:25
  I mean, think about the Sabbath. Who established it?
• 22:28
  Who created it? God at creation in Genesis
• 22:31
  chapter 2, After six days of work, God rested.
• 22:35
  So by claiming to be the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus is claiming
• 22:37
  to be the one who instituted it. He is claiming divine authority.
• 22:41
  He's claiming to be the God of Genesis.
• 22:43
  He has the right to determine how the day is observed because
• 22:47
  it is in fact His day. He is not a subject under the
• 22:50
  Sabbath law. He is the sovereign over the
• 22:53
  Sabbath. OK, I want to pivot here for a
• 22:54
  moment and bring this into our own tradition as Reformed
• 22:57
  believers who hold to the Westminster Standards.
• 23:00
  How do we connect this teaching Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath to
• 23:02
  how we think about the day now? Because we don't, you know,
• 23:05
  observe A strict Jewish Sabbath on Saturday.
• 23:08
  That's a crucial distinction to make, and it's a place where
• 23:10
  there's often a lot of confusion.
• 23:11
  Our position is that the Mosaic Sabbath, the Saturday Observance
• 23:15
  with its specific ceremonial regulations, and its strict
• 23:20
  penalties like the death penalty for gathering sticks, all of
• 23:24
  that was part of the Old Covenant structure.
• 23:25
  It was a shadow. And Colossians 2 says the
• 23:28
  substance belongs to Christ. Exactly.
• 23:30
  Christ has fulfilled those shadows, so we now observe the
• 23:34
  Lord's Day, Sunday, the 1st day of the week, not because it was
• 23:38
  commanded in the same way, but because it is the day of
• 23:41
  resurrection. It's the day the Lord of the
• 23:43
  Sabbath completed His work of new creation and entered into
• 23:46
  His rest. Yes, and the Westminster
• 23:48
  Confession of Faith in chapter 21, paragraph 8.
• 23:51
  It gives us this wonderfully practical application of Jesus
• 23:54
  teaching right here in Matthew 12.
• 23:56
  It says that the day is to be kept holy to the Lord for public
• 23:59
  and private worship. And here's the key phrase for
• 24:02
  duties of necessity and mercy. Necessity and mercy, Those are
• 24:06
  the two exact arguments Jesus just used against the Pharisees.
• 24:09
  Right. The Westminster divines were
• 24:11
  brilliant. They were drawing their
• 24:13
  application directly from this text.
• 24:15
  Necessity like David and his men eating the bread because they
• 24:19
  physically needed to survive, and mercy, like the priests
• 24:23
  serving God's people in the temple and Jesus allowing his
• 24:26
  disciples to be fed. So the Lord's Day for us isn't
• 24:29
  supposed to be a day of complete inactivity.
• 24:32
  It's a day for doing the right kinds of activity.
• 24:34
  I love that framing. It shifts the whole thing away
• 24:37
  from a long list of don'ts and towards a positive vision of
• 24:39
  do's. The question isn't just don't
• 24:42
  check your work e-mail, it becomes do acts of mercy.
• 24:45
  It moves the question from what am I not allowed to do to who
• 24:50
  can I show cheese to today. That completely changes the
• 24:52
  whole feel of the day. It does.
• 24:54
  So let's press into that. Let's move into application.
• 24:57
  We always like to break it down. Head, heart, and hands.
• 24:59
  Let's start with the head, the doctrine.
• 25:00
  What truths do we need to get straight in our thinking from
• 25:03
  this passage? I think the big one is that we
• 25:06
  have to constantly confront the fence building tendency in our
• 25:09
  own hearts. We are all recovering Pharisees.
• 25:12
  It's our default setting. We love to take God's clear law
• 25:15
  and then add our own little cultural rules and traditions on
• 25:18
  top of it. Why do we do?
• 25:19
  That I think it makes us feel safer or maybe even a little
• 25:22
  superior. If I have my list of extra rules
• 25:26
  and I keep them, I can look at someone else who doesn't and
• 25:29
  think, wow, they must not be as serious as I am.
• 25:32
  Can you give a modern example of a fence?
• 25:34
  Oh, they're everywhere. It could be anything.
• 25:36
  Real Christians homeschool their kids.
• 25:39
  Real Christians only listen to this kind of music.
• 25:42
  Real Christians would never vote for that political party.
• 25:46
  We take things that might be matters of wisdom or personal
• 25:49
  conviction and we elevate them to the status of God Law, and
• 25:53
  then we judge our brothers and sisters by them.
• 25:54
  And we end up saying, look at your disciples, they're not
• 25:56
  doing it my way. Exactly.
• 25:58
  And Jesus warning here is that this is so dangerous because it
• 26:01
  obscures the lawgiver. People start looking at our
• 26:04
  fence instead of at the Savior. It puts another barrier, another
• 26:08
  Braden, between a weary Sinner and the rest that only Jesus can
• 26:11
  give. That's a strong word.
• 26:13
  OK, what about the heart? Because I'm sure there are
• 26:16
  people listening who don't feel like Pharisees at all.
• 26:19
  They feel like the disciples. They feel constantly accused.
• 26:22
  They hear that voice in their head, maybe from their past or
• 26:25
  even from Satan himself saying unlawful, you're not doing
• 26:28
  enough, you're not holy enough. And this passage is such good
• 26:31
  news for that person, for the weary St. for the one struggling
• 26:35
  with spiritual anxiety, for the one who feels they never measure
• 26:38
  up. Listen to the verdict that
• 26:40
  Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, pronounces over his people.
• 26:43
  He looks at them in the midst of their failure, and he declares
• 26:46
  them guiltless. Guiltless.
• 26:48
  Not excused. Not trying hard.
• 26:50
  Guiltless. He doesn't say, well, you guys
• 26:53
  are kind of messing up, but I'll let it slide.
• 26:55
  This time, he pronounces a legal verdict guiltless.
• 27:00
  Why? Because they are with him.
• 27:03
  They are in the presence of the Greater Temple.
• 27:05
  Their standing is not based on their performance.
• 27:07
  And that's the core of the gospel right there.
• 27:09
  We don't obey God's commands in order to earn a verdict of
• 27:12
  guiltless. We live lives of obedience
• 27:15
  because we have already received that verdict as a free gift in
• 27:19
  Christ. Rest.
• 27:20
  True Sabbath rest isn't just taking a nap on Sunday
• 27:23
  afternoon. The deepest rest is ceasing from
• 27:26
  the exhausting, impossible work of self justification.
• 27:30
  That's the ultimate rest. The book of Hebrews talks about
• 27:33
  this. It's stopping that hamster wheel
• 27:35
  of trying to prove you're good enough for God.
• 27:36
  You can't. But the one who is greater than
• 27:38
  the temple is here, and he's been good enough for you.
• 27:41
  You're standing before God isn't based on your performance in the
• 27:43
  grain field. It's based entirely on your
• 27:46
  union with the Lord of the Sabbath.
• 27:47
  Amen to that. So, finally, the hands.
• 27:51
  How do we practice this? What does this look like,
• 27:53
  especially on the Lord's Day? If we're not bound by the 39
• 27:57
  Pharisaical rules, what should we be doing with our Sundays?
• 28:01
  I think we need to reclaim the Lord's Day as a day of
• 28:03
  redemptive activity. If Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
• 28:06
  and his heart's desire is mercy, then our Sundays ought to be
• 28:10
  characterized by mercy. So things like visiting someone
• 28:14
  who's sick or in the hospital. Absolutely.
• 28:16
  Visiting the sick. Practicing hospitality.
• 28:18
  Inviting people into your home, especially people who can't pay
• 28:21
  you back. Serving the week in your church
• 28:23
  or your community. Spending extended, unhurried
• 28:26
  time and fellowship with other believers.
• 28:29
  It's not a day for selfish laziness.
• 28:31
  It's a day to intentionally step out of the six day rhythm of the
• 28:34
  economic rat race. The whole production and
• 28:37
  consumption mindset. Yes, and to step into the
• 28:39
  Kingdom rhythm of grace and mercy.
• 28:41
  It's a weekly protest against the idea that our value comes
• 28:44
  from what we produce or achieve. On this day, we declare that our
• 28:48
  identity is found and who we belong to.
• 28:50
  It's acting like citizens of the Kingdom of God, not just the
• 28:52
  Kingdom of this world. That's a great way to put it.
• 28:54
  Well, this has been a fantastic deep dive.
• 28:57
  As we start to wrap this up, let's just recap the ground
• 29:00
  we've covered. We started in a quiet Greenfield
• 29:03
  that the Pharisees tried to turn into a courtroom.
• 29:06
  They came with an accusation that carried the weight of a
• 29:08
  death sentence. Unlawful.
• 29:10
  They offered a system of condemnation.
• 29:12
  And Jesus turned that courtroom right back into a grain field of
• 29:16
  grace. He silenced the accusers and
• 29:19
  offered a verdict of life guiltless.
• 29:22
  And the choice for everyone listening is really that stark.
• 29:25
  You can try to find your rest in your own performance, in your
• 29:28
  own rule keeping. That's the path of sacrifice.
• 29:30
  Without mercy. It's a dead end.
• 29:32
  Or you can find your rest in the finished work of Christ.
• 29:35
  That's the path of mercy, and it's the only place that true
• 29:38
  soul level rest can ever be found.
• 29:40
  I want to leave you with one final thought to Mull over if
• 29:43
  Jesus truly is the greater temple, if he is the new living
• 29:47
  meeting place between God and humanity that changes the nature
• 29:51
  of everything. It means that every meal you eat
• 29:55
  with Him in mind is a holy meal. It means the ordinary, the
• 29:58
  mundane, the secular. It all becomes sacred when it's
• 30:01
  done in union with Christ. Those simple heads of grain
• 30:04
  became a holy feast, all because the Lord of the Sabbath was at
• 30:07
  the table. Amen.
• 30:09
  Well, thank you for joining us for this deep dive.
• 30:11
  Our prayer is that you find rest this week not an offense of your
• 30:14
  own making, but in the person who is greater than the temple.
• 30:17
  Grace and peace to you. We'll see you next time on
• 30:19
  Reformed Thinking.