Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath
The Gospel of Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewJesus shows the religious leaders that He is Lord of the Sabbath.
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Introduction: What do you know about the Sabbath? The word itself means “to rest from labor”. The Sabbath began at sundown on Friday night to sundown Saturday night.
Let’s take a walk-through Scripture and discover what it has to teach us about the Sabbath.
The first time we find anything related to the Sabbath is in Genesis 2, where we see that God rested from His work on the seventh day (Saturday). We see this in Genesis 2:2-3,
2And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
It appears that the seventh day was set apart as a day in which God rested from all His work.
The very next place where we the Sabbath is referred to is in connection with the gift of manna that God gave to the children of Israel in the wilderness. We read in Exodus 16:23–30,
23 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.’ ” 24 So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.” 27Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the Lordsaid to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29See! For the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
Afterwards the Sabbath is mentioned when the law was given from Sinai. In Exodus 20:8–11, we read,
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lordyour God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
The Sabbath day is based on God’s completed work of creation.
We also know that in the Mosaic law strict regulations were laid down regarding how the Jews were to observe it. We read in Exodus 35:2-3,
2 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. 3 You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
Wow! I ask you, is there anyone who is keeping the Sabbath to this extent today?
· No work was to be done on the Sabbath.
· Whoever was found working on the Sabbath were put to death.
· No fires were allowed in the home on the Sabbath.
We know that the Jewish people often violated the Sabbath. It was the Jewish violation of the Sabbath that led to their captivity.
As I was studying this topic of the Sabbath, I came across an Orthodox Jewish website that listed 39 categories of work that was forbidden by the law. Allow me to walk through them quickly with you. They are:
1. Carrying
2. Burning
3. Extinguishing
4. Finishing
5. Writing
6. Erasing
7. Cooking
8. Washing
9. Sewing
10. Tearing
11. Knotting
12. Untying
13. Shaping
14. Plowing
15. Planting
16. Reaping
17. Harvesting
18. Threshing
19. Winnowing
20. Selecting
21. Sifting
22. Grinding
23. Kneading
24. Combing
25. Spinning
26. Dyeing
27. Chain-stitching
28. Warping
29. Weaving
30. Unraveling
31. Building
32. Demolishing
33. Trapping
34. Shearing
35. Slaughtering
36. Skinning
37. Tanning
38. Smoothing
39. Marking
As we come to our text today, we are going to discover that Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath. I mean think it through – Jesus is God in the flesh, and He was the one who instituted the Sabbath at the beginning. It makes sense that He is also Lord of the Sabbath.
I. Jesus’ disciples pluck heads of grain – 12:1
I. Jesus’ disciples pluck heads of grain – 12:1
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
Get the scene down in your head. Jesus and His disciples are walking through a grainfield on the Sabbath. Now, what would you do if you were walking through a grainfield? You would do exactly what Jesus’ disciples did. You would reach out and you would pluck heads of grain and you would eat it. I’ve been there, and you probably have too.
Notice in our text that we are told that His disciples were hungry. Hunger will make you do almost anything to satisfy the stomach. I’ve heard people say, “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. I also heard people make excuses for outbreaks of anger because they were hungry. It’s the word, “hangry”? Hunger and angry combined. Which means being upset due to being hungry.
There have been situations where I have been hungry, and in those situations, I have picked blackberries along the Oregon coast. Fruit trees in Washington. I have also picked heads of grain just outside of our home when we lived in the Foothills of Spokane, Washington.
The problem at the get go in our text is that the disciples picked the heads of grain on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees saw them doing it.
II. Jesus’ disciples accused of doing what was unlawful – 12:2
II. Jesus’ disciples accused of doing what was unlawful – 12:2
2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”
Apparently, the religious Pharisees saw Jesus’ disciples pick grain, and immediately their judgmental spirit jumped into action, and they accused Jesus’ disciples of doing what was not lawful to do on the Sabbath.
Where did this come from? Well, I read, “One of the reasons was that during and after the exile (around 440 BC), Pharisaic Judaism began to develop rules that augmented biblical Sabbath law in order to “build a fence around the Law” (m. Aboth 1:1) so that one would not inadvertently violate it. Those additional rules are not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Carrying a burden on the Sabbath was forbidden (Jr 17:21-24), but the later authorities felt the need to be more explicit about identifying what a burden was. They formulated dozens of rules so people would avoid carrying a burden on the Sabbath (a tailor could not carry around a needle stuck into his coat; one could not carry enough ink with which to write two letters of the alphabet, etc.). So, according to these traditions, when the disciples were picking the heads of grain off the stalks, they were guilty of reaping and of preparing food for consumption on the Sabbath, both banned under Pharisaic traditions.”[1]
There are three religious groups mentioned in the New Testament. They are:
1. The Pharisees. You remember them because they were “Not Fair You See”. They placed all kinds of unrealistic expectations on people.
2. The Sadducees. You can remember them because they were “Sad You See”. They didn’t believe in a future resurrection.
3. The Scribes. You can remember them because they were “Not Real You See”. They were hypocrites. Play actors.
The Pharisees knew that the Mosaic law said that NO work was to be done on the Sabbath. In the eyes of the Pharisee’s plucking grain was work, and therefore they pointed their boney fingers at Jesus’ disciples. Basically, the Pharisees were accusing the disciple’s actions as if they were harvesting the grain. And remember, work on the Sabbath was punishable by death according to the Mosaic law (Exodus 35:2).
Dr. John MacArthur describes the absurdity of it all: “Tailors did not carry a needle with them on the Sabbath for fear they might be tempted to mend a garment and thereby perform work. Nothing could be bought or sold, and clothing could not be dyed or washed. A letter could not be dispatched, even if by the hand of a Gentile. No fire could be lit or extinguished—including fire for a lamp—although a fire already lit could be used within certain limits. For that reason, some orthodox Jews today use automatic timers to turn on lights in their homes well before the Sabbath begins. Otherwise they might forget to turn them on in time and have to spend the night in the dark. Baths could not be “taken for fear some of the water might spill onto the floor and "wash" it. Chairs could not be moved because dragging them might make a furrow in the ground, and a woman was not to look in a mirror lest she see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out.”[2]
The Pharisees were guilty of condemning Jesus and His disciples. Have you ever had people point their fingers at you and accuse you of doing something unlawful biblically?
III. Jesus provides some examples to the Pharisees – 12:3-5
III. Jesus provides some examples to the Pharisees – 12:3-5
Sometimes the teachers need to be taught. This is what Jesus is going to do here in these verses. Jesus is going to school the Pharisees.
A. David and his men – 12:3-4
3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
This account of David and his men is found in 1 Samuel 21:1-6. You have got love how Jesus instructs them,
“Have you not read what David did when he was hungry,”
Surely the Pharisees had read this account many times. Afterall, they considered themselves experts of the Scripture. Even so, Jesus reminds them,
“4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?”
Why did David and his men eat the showbread? Because he and his men were hungry.
Listen, what Jesus was teaching these religious leaders was that there may be occasions in which ceremonial law might be rightly overruled. Hunger would be one of those situations.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, “It was clear from his example that necessity has no law.
Tony Evans writes, Scripture itself, then, testifies that God’s laws were never meant to get in the way of taking care of the necessities of life. The Sabbath was for the benefit of man, not for his destruction (see Mark 2:27). [3]
Jesus doesn’t stop with David and his men. No, he goes on to speak about the Priest themselves that served in the temple. Who, get this, did their ministry on the Sabbath day.
B. The Priests – 12:5
5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?
In this second example Jesus spoke of the priests who violated the Sabbath all the time. In just practical ways by carrying out their duties as priests. These men were WORKING on the Sabbath.
Jesus reminds these legalists and extremist that the priests were declared blameless. They prepared sacrifices on the Sabbath in spite of the general prohibition of work.
Would these two examples be sufficient for the Pharisees? Probably not, so Jesus approaches it another way.
IV. Jesus proclaims Himself greater than the temple – 12:6-7
IV. Jesus proclaims Himself greater than the temple – 12:6-7
6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
Here Jesus reminds the Pharisees that One greater than the temple was standing before them. Of course, He is speaking about Himself.
One author penned, “Jesus created the Sabbath and He has the right to determine what practices are on the Sabbath.”
In your own personal Bible, I want you to underline verse 7,
But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
The words, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6) mean that God is more interested in mercy (compassion), and not sacrifice. We sometime think that it’s all about offering up sacrifices to God when it is extending mercy. Everyone needs God’s mercy, and we need to extend God’s mercy to one another.
Mercy was extended to David and his men. And mercy was extended to the priest carrying out their daily responsibilities. And these Pharisees should have extended mercy to Jesus and His disciples as they picked grain on the Sabbath day.
V. Jesus is even Lord of the Sabbath – 12:8
V. Jesus is even Lord of the Sabbath – 12:8
8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
To be Lord over something means that you are its MASTER. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the master of the Sabbath. Which means, the Sabbath is not the master over His disciples, or Him.
Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Jesus is actually affirming equality with God. God had established the Sabbath.”
The bottom line is that Jesus has the last word over the Sabbath. After all, He is God in the flesh. He determines the practices!
There is something else I want to point out that is not found here this Matthew’s Gospel but is recorded for us in Mark’s account of this event. We read in Mark 2:27,
And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”
Which is more important? The Sabbath or Man? Man is more important. This is the truth that Jesus sought to drive home to the Pharisees.
Conclusion: Far too many times like the Pharisees we get caught up in law and regulations instead of common sense and Christian mercy.
What did we learn from this passage of Scripture? We learned the following:
1. Hungry? Pick grain on the Sabbath.
2. We will always be accused of breaking something found in God’s word. There will always be finger pointers around us.
3. Look for the deeper truth in every situation – David and the showbread, the priests who minister on the Sabbath.
4. Jesus is greater than the temple (which was highly respected and thought of).
5. God is more interested in our showing mercy towards others than our sacrifice toward Him.
6. Mercy overlooks and isn’t always condemning.
7. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He controls the Sabbath. He is master of the Sabbath.
8. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
[1] The Moody Bible Commentary, Michael A. Rydelnik
[2] MacArthur, Matthew 8–15, 282
[3] (Evans, Tony. The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (p. 1476). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)