Conflict in Capernaum: Rest from Religion
Jason Grissom
MARK: THE SERVANT WHO WAS OUR SAVIOR • Sermon • Submitted
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· 14 viewsJesus came to revolutionize religion not reform it by giving us rest through redemption.
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In this passage Jesus is restating his intent to end religion by replacing it with himself. Jesus is not a reformer he is a revolutionary. is not that he’s here to do reforming of religion, but he’s here to absolutely end religion and to replace it with himself. Do you see what I mean
Let’s take a look at this passage, which actually, as you can see, is two incidents that are linked together here, both having to do with the Sabbath. What we’re going to see is, on the one hand, the futility of religion and, on the other hand, the finality of Jesus Christ.
What Jesus says this week in this passage is not that he’s here to do reforming of religion, but he’s here to absolutely end religion and to replace it with himself. Do you see what I mean? Let’s take a look at this passage, which actually, as you can see, is two incidents that are linked together here, both having to do with the Sabbath. What we’re going to see is, on the one hand, the futility of religion and, on the other hand, the finality of Jesus Christ.
The futility of religion
The futility of religion
1. The futility of religion
1. The futility of religion
Let’s look at the futility of religion in
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.
And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.
And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”
And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Here we have Jesus in a synagogue on the Sabbath day. There he encounters a man with a shriveled hand. The Pharisees are watching to see if Jesus will violate the Sabbath commands.
Jesus gets angry at them and heals the man with the shriveled hand. What do we learn here? First, the law of God directed that you had to rest from your work one day in seven. Yet as great as that sounds, the religious leaders of the day saddled this law with so many specific regulations. There were 39 types of work, types of activity, you could not do on the Sabbath. One of them was picking grain as you walked through a field. Of course, in the second incident they’re looking to see whether Jesus does something that breaks one of those regulations.
Jesus angry at their hardness of heart heals the man. What do we learn here? Religion turns liberation into load. The Pharisees had taken the Lord’s Day of respite and turned it into a day of requirements.
Jesus is angry because their hard hearts had make his day hard instead of a foretaste of heaven.
What is the Sabbath about? It’s about restoring the diminished. It’s about replenishing the drained. It’s about repairing the broken. Jesus healed this man so that everyone would have an living illustration as to the intent of the Sabbath.
Religion had caused their hearts to be as the man’s hand. They were insecure and anxious about the regulations. They were tribal and self-obsessed with their own instead of caring about the man. They were judgmental.
And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Why? The answer is religion, because in this great verse 27, which we’ll get back to actually in the second point here, is a very, very profound statement. He says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” For a minute, let’s not think about the particular rule of the Sabbath. God says many things. He laid down many laws. He says, “Rest one day out of seven,” but he also said, “Don’t commit adultery.” He said, “Don’t lie.” He said, “Give your money to the poor.”
For a minute, let’s not think about the particular rule of the Sabbath. God says many things. He laid down many laws. He says, “Rest one day out of seven,” but he also said, “Don’t commit adultery.” He said, “Don’t lie.” He said, “Give your money to the poor.”
Here’s what Jesus is saying. He says there are two spiritual paradigms. In one, the moral law is a burden. It enslaves you. In the other, the same moral law can be a blessing, can be a gift, can lead to flourishing.
For one group obedience is a burden. For the other group it is a gift. In verse 27 he’s talking about two spiritual paradigms, and he’s contrasting them because they’re radically different. These paradigms are the gospel of Jesus Christ and human religion.
Most people in the world believe there is a God and you relate to him by being good. All religions are based on that basic principle.
Some religions are what you might call nationalistic. What they are is they say you connect to God by coming into our people group and taking upon yourself the markers of being part of this society. Other religions are spiritualistic. They say you reach God by working yourself through certain transformations of consciousness.
Other religions are formally legalistic. There’s a code of conduct, and if you do it, then God will bless you. They’re all based on the same idea. Religion is based on the principle that,
“If I obey and I perform, I’m accepted.”
“If I obey and I perform, I’m accepted.”
Christianity is not only different than that. It is absolutely diametrically opposed to it, completely opposed to it, because religion says,
“I obey; therefore, I’m accepted,” but Christianity, the gospel of Jesus, is, “I am fully accepted in Jesus Christ; therefore, I obey.”
“I obey; therefore, I’m accepted,” but Christianity, the gospel of Jesus, is, “I am fully accepted in Jesus Christ; therefore, I obey.”
The gospel is not like religion. Religion is, “I give God something, and then he owes me because I’m a good person and he needs to treat me that way and other people do too.” Christianity is saying God through Jesus Christ gives you a complete salvation which you receive by sheer grace, and then you gladly and gratefully live for him … exactly the opposite.
In religion you are saved by being better than everybody else, by rising above the masses and living the good life and taking the narrow path and going the way of performance.
In other words, you are saved by being better than others, but in Christianity you’re only saved if you admit you’re absolutely no better than anyone else, and you can only be saved by grace. Those are two absolutely different paradigms.
Our text shows us one particular way of contrasting these two paradigms. Our text teaches us how the moral law functions? Here are two people, and they both want to obey what God says.
Here they are, but the moral law, God’s law, functions in two totally different ways in the two different paradigms. In religion, the purpose of obeying the law, the purpose of the law, is to assure you that you’re okay with God. That’s the purpose. You’re working very hard to do all these things to assure yourself you are a good person. Therefore, God owes you to answer your prayers and bless you and take you to heaven and so on.
In religion, the purpose of obeying the law, was to assure you that you’re right with God. Working hard at obeying the law would assure yourself that you are a good person. Therefore, obligating God to answer your prayers, bless you, and take you to heaven.
As a result, when you come to the law, what you’re most concerned about is detail. You want to know exactly what you have to do, because you have to push all their buttons. You have to know exactly what you have to do so you can be assured. The purpose of the law, the purpose of obeying the law, is to assure yourself you’re a good person, that you’re doing everything right.
You’re not going to want to look at the broad meaning, the broad moral purpose, the broad motives of the law. You’re going to be very concerned … In fact, you’re going to write into the moral law sorts of details that aren’t really there so you can assure yourself you’re obeying it.
In the gospel, the law of God has a completely different function. It’s there to take you out of yourself. It’s there to show you the kind of life of love you want to live before the God who has done all this for you.
The law of God is a way of showing you how to love God and how to love others instead of being absorbed on yourself.
The law of God is sketching out a particular kind of life so when you look at it, you want to see the broad purpose of the law and you want to see the motivations of the heart, and you’re not as concerned about the details, because in religion, obeying the law makes you feel better than everybody else because you are complying with the details.
In the gospel, when you look at the law of God, you’re humbled by it. You say, “Oh, I can never live up to this. Yet God loves me in spite of that, and I’m going to do my best to resemble him and live the life of love he wants me to live.”
In other words, in religion you can look at the details of the law. In the gospel you look at the broad motivations and trajectory of the law. In religion, it makes you feel better that you’re obeying. In the gospel, it humbles you.
Let me illustrate this . . .
He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Just to try to concretize this a little bit, just to give you an example of this, it’s very, very vivid because it was one of the first places … Sometimes my pastor illustrations go way, way back into my little town in Hopewell, VA, where I was a pastor for 10 years. One good reason to use it is there’s nobody here who will think I’m talking about them.
Here’s what I think we’re being asked to do in this law, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ God is saying, ‘I want you to meet the needs of other people, meet the needs of your neighbor, with all of the joy, with all of the eagerness, with all of the quickness, with all the ingenuity, and with all the creativity and industry with which you meet your own. I want you to meet the needs of other people with all the same kind of intensity with which you meet your own. That’s the standard. That’s how I want you to live your life.
Religion asks; “who is my neighbor?” Real Christianity says there are no limits on who I can love. Religion asks; “how far do I have to go with my neighbor?” Real Christianity says I there are limits on how I can love. Religion says loving everyone as I love myself is a ridiculous request. Real Christianity says loving everyone as I love myself is a right response to my experience as a Christian.
The law was not given as a means of our redemption but to show us our need for redemption. Jesus comes to fulfill the law so that we can be free to live in the fulness that it provides.
One other good reason is when I was a younger man, many of these pennies just dropped. Some of these distinctions became real to me for the first time in some of these interactions. I remember I’d preached a sermon on “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the town of Hopewell.
The way I explained it was I said,
I remember after the service a teenage girl in my church came up to me and said, “Let me get this straight.” This is 1977 or something like that. She explained she had just been in the homecoming pageant with her best friend. She had come in kind of like last in the pageant, and her friend had won. She said, “So you’re trying to tell me the Bible says I should be as happy for her as I would’ve been for myself if I had won. I should be just as excited, just as happy, just as celebratory with her as if it had happened to me.”
I said, “That was pretty good application. I wish I had put that in the sermon. Thank you very much. Yeah, that’s right.” She looked at me, and she said, “Christianity is ridiculous. Nobody can live like that. Who lives like that?” We sat down, and I said, “Okay, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
She said, “That’s ridiculous. First of all, I want to know exactly who my neighbor is. It can’t be everybody in the world. That’s ridiculous. I could never do that. I want to know who my neighbors are. What number of square blocks around my house does the Bible cover? Secondly, I want to know exactly what you have to do. What are the things I have to do for my neighbor?”
She was a little Pharisee and not a superior little Pharisee, an anxious Pharisee, not somebody who felt better, somebody who felt worse, not in any way a self-righteous, arrogant person. Do you see? For her, because she was not awash in the love and acceptance of God through Christ because that penny had never dropped for her, the purpose of the law was to assure herself she was a good person so she could know God and other people had to treat her as a good person. She had the right to think of herself as a good person.
Therefore, she couldn’t handle any law that was that broad, that was painting this life of love. She didn’t have the emotional security to handle it. She wanted to narrow it down. She wanted to make it detailed. She wanted to nail it down so she could feel good about herself when it was done. Do you see how different that is? By the way, she’s all right now.
However, do you see how radically different religion is from the gospel? Not only is Jesus angry in verse 5 but so are the Pharisees in verse 6.
Who were the Herodians? The Herodians were the supporters of the Herods, the dynasty that ruled Israel, representing the Roman occupying power. In other words, the Herodians were those people who represented the occupying power of Rome politically and the Hellenizing culture of Greece, because wherever Rome went, they conquered a country, and they set up their rulers.
Wherever Rome went, they brought with them the culture of Greece, the Greek approach to sex and to the body, the Greek approach to pluralism and to spirituality, the Greek approach to all these things. So they would take over these countries, they would rule those countries, and they would bring this sort of paganism culture. So many of these countries like Israel, for example, felt assaulted by these immoral, cosmopolitan, pluralistic, pagan values.
In these countries, for example in Israel, there were resistance movements: the Pharisees. The Pharisees put all the emphasis on, “We have to live according to the Bible, and we have to put big hedges around us and the pagans. We have to live very moral lives and very, very biblical lives and very, very, very good lives.”
Do you see what’s going on? That means the Herodians are from the blue states, and the Pharisees are the leaders of the red states with traditional values, moral values. The Pharisees felt just like leaders of the red states feel, that they’re being overwhelmed with the cosmopolitanism and pluralism and paganism of the blue states, and, “We have to go back to traditional, moral values. We have to go back to biblical values. We have to read the Bible, and we have to be good.”
These are the leaders of the red states and the leaders of the blue states, but they agree we have to get rid of Jesus. These are two groups that never talked to each other, but now they do. In fact, notice Pharisees, the religious people, take the lead. This is one of the main themes of the Bible. The gospel of Jesus Christ is neither religion nor irreligion. It’s neither moralism nor relativism. It’s not traditional moral values or “Do whatever you feel is good for you.” It’s neither.
When Jesus meets Nicodemus, the Pharisee, religious leader, he says, “You’re lost. You need to be born again.” Here’s a person trying to live according to the biblical values. “You’re lost.”
Then in the very next chapter, though he’s nicer about it than he is with Nicodemus, he meets the woman at the well. She has had multiple husbands. She’s living with a man whom she’s not married to, and he calls her to change.
There are basically two approaches to life. There’s moral conformity, “I’m going to be living a very, very good life,” or self-discovery, “You have to decide what is right or wrong for you.”
According to the Bible, they are both ways of being your own savior and lord.
Here’s one person who says, “ I decide what’s right or wrong for me. I live my own way.” Do you see? That’s a person who’s being his or her own savior through self-discovery.
Over here is a person saying, “I’m going to obey everything so that God has to take me to heaven.”
Both approaches are hostile to the message of Jesus.
Not only that, but both of these approaches lead to self-righteousness. Oh yes, they do, because the moralist says, “The good people are in, and the bad people are out. Of course, we’re the good ones.” The secular, self-discovery people say, “No, the progressive, open-minded people are in, and the judgmental bigots are out. Of course, we’re the open-minded people.”
Both approaches lead to self-righteousness. The moralist says, “The good people are in, and the bad people are out.”
The self-discovery people say, “No, the progressive, open-minded people are in, and the judgmental bigots are out.”
In New York City, of course, it’s a blue state. There’s an enormous amount of self-righteousness about self-righteousness. In New York we are so self-righteous about self-righteousness. “We are so much better than people who think they’re better than people.” The secularism leads to as much superiority and self-righteousness as religion does. It is not the way we’re going to heal the divisions and the exclusiveness out there in the divisions of the human race. No way.
Here’s what the gospel says. The gospel does not say the good are in and the bad are out, nor that the open-minded are in and the judgmental are out. The gospel says the humble are in and the proud are out. The gospel says the people who know they’re not better than anyone else, they’re not more open-minded, they’re not more moral, the people who know they’re not better than others are in, and the people who think they’re on the right side of the divide are out.
If you’re a Christian, here’s what I have to say to you about this. Religion is, “I obey; therefore, I’m accepted.” That leads to self-righteousness. It leads to spiritual deadness. It leads to superiority or anxiety if you’re not living up. If you’re living up to your standards, you feel better than everybody else. You’re bold but not humble. If you’re failing, you’re humble, but you’re not bold and confident. It leads to thin-skinnedness. It leads to being very, very critical and judgmental of everybody else. The gospel is, “I’m accepted through Jesus Christ; therefore, I obey.”
In spite of what you say, in spite of what you believe, the default mode of the human heart is to always go back toward religion, always go back toward, “I obey; therefore, I’m accepted.”
Therefore, you must always clawing your way back toward the gospel every single day, forcing yourself to remember the gospel, you say, “Why do I feel like that if I believe I’m a sinner saved by grace? Why do I feel inferior? Why do I feel superior? Why am I so worried? Why am I so mad at God?” All those things don’t go with, “I’m a sinner saved by sheer grace.” They go with, “I am owed because I have lived a good life.”
If you are not clawing your way up to the belief in the gospel every single day, you’re sliding into religion, and you’re sliding into all those things I just said, the spiritual deadness, self-righteousness, anxiety and the judgmentalism which the rest of the world rightly hates about religion.
The finality of Christ
The finality of Christ
2. The finality of Christ
How can Jesus Christ really pull off this change and just say, “Religion is over because I’m here”? It’s really remarkable. Look at this second thing he does.
And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
How can Jesus Christ really pull off this change and just say, “Religion is over because I’m here”? It’s really remarkable. Look at this second thing he does. Again, let me read you these two verses in verses 27 and 28. They are remarkable. “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ ” That’s amazing.
First of all, he says you do need the Sabbath. He does not say the Sabbath was made for Jews, nor does he say, “The Sabbath was made for my followers, for Christians.” He doesn’t say the Sabbath is just for certain people. He says the Sabbath is made for humanity. That means you have to rest from your work. You can’t overdo it. You have to put a limitation on your works.
First of all, he says you do need the Sabbath. He does not say the Sabbath was made for Jews, nor does he say, “The Sabbath was made for my followers, for Christians.” He doesn’t say the Sabbath is just for certain people. He says the Sabbath is made for humanity. That means you have to rest from your work. You can’t overdo it. You have to put a limitation on your works.
In other words, Jesus is affirming the basic principle of the Sabbath, and yet over and over again he squashes, he tramples on, all of the rules and regulations and the legalism around the Sabbath. He comes in and says, “I’m blowing all that away. I’m blowing everything away about your religious, legalistic way in which you’ve used the Sabbath.”
He’s blowing away the whole religious paradigm. He’s saying, “No, we’re not going to do any of that stuff.” How dare he? Where does he get off doing that? The answer is in verse 28. “I, the Son of Man,” which is what he calls himself, “I am Lord even of the Sabbath.” What did he just say?
The word Sabbath means the deep rest, deep peace. It’s almost a synonym for shalom.
Jesus says, “I am the Lord of rest. I am the source of the deep rest you need. I am the Sabbath. I have come to completely change the way you do your rest. I fulfill the Sabbath. The one-day-a-week rest you get is just an image of the deep, divine rest of God that I am the source of.”
I’m I overstepping my theological boundaries?
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
When he says, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath,” that is so over the top. Let’s talk about the “lordness” of Jesus and the “Sabbathness” of Jesus.
No, because in , he says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” When he says, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath,” that is so over the top. His self-consciousness is so incredible. It’s so outrageous, it’s so bursting through all the categories, it’s so beyond beyond, it’s so off the map that we need to spend a little time and just see what he’s saying. Let’s talk about the “lordness” of Jesus and the “Sabbathness” of Jesus.
The lordness of Jesus. Do you remember
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus is claiming all sins are against him. You can only forgive sins against you. When he forgives a man all of his sins, he’s saying, “All your sins are against me.” Now what is he talking about? Over and over again Jesus shows who he is.
Jesus understands there is a God who is uncreated, who is beginningless, who is infinitely transcendent above this creation, who made this world, who keeps everything in the universe going with his pinky, with the word of power, that all the molecules and all the stars and all the solar systems are being held up by the power of this God.
Jesus Christ says, “That’s who I am.” It’s on every page, even as off-handed comments. I love these places. In , there’s a great place where Jesus is talking about demon possession. Do you know what he says? He says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” What? Do you know what he just said? He says, “Yes, I remember back before the material universe was created. I saw Lucifer go bad. It was terrible. Yeah, I was around. I knew him.” What?
There’s another place in Matthew, where he says … Again, it’s almost off-handed. “I keep sending you prophets and sages.” What? Wait a minute. He doesn’t say, “I am one of the great prophets and sages God has sent.” No, he says, “I am the God who has been sending all the prophets and sages.” To prove that’s how he understood every prophet and every religious teacher and every sage and every wise man or woman who has ever lived always said, “Thus saith the Lord.” I defy you to find a place where Jesus ever says that. He never says that.
Can you believe it? All Jesus ever says is over and over again, “Truly, truly, I say unto you.” In every off-handed comment, footnote, sidebar, in everything he says he reinforces that he is the uncreated, beginningless, transcendent, eternal Creator and Judge of the universe.
Do you know what that means? People who say, “Oh, I believe Jesus is a teacher, but I can’t believe what they say about him being the unique, divine Son of God.” If you say that, that shows you’ve never listened to any of his teaching, because his teaching is based in his claim.
Do you like all of his teaching about the Sabbath? Fine, it’s based on him being Lord of the Sabbath. He says, “I’m the source of the Sabbath. I’m the One who invented the Sabbath. I’m the One who created the world and then rested on the seventh day.”
This is how N.T. Wright puts it. “How can you live with the terrifying thought that the hurricane has become human, that fire has become flesh, that life itself … walked in our midst? Christianity either means that, or it means nothing. It is either the most devastating disclosure of the deepest reality in the world, or it’s a sham, a nonsense … Most of us, unable to cope with saying either of those things, condemn ourselves to live in the shallow world in between.”
He’s right, because if you have a shred of personal integrity, you’ll know you can’t like anybody who makes claims like this. Either he’s a wicked or a lunatic person and you should have nothing to do with him, or he is who he says he is and your whole life has to revolve around him, and you ought to throw everything at his feet and say, “Command me.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but do you live in that sort of misty world? Do you pray to Jesus sometimes, maybe not a lot, but sometimes? When you’re in trouble you pray to Jesus, and then sometimes you kind of ignore him because you get busy. Is that right for you?
Listen. Either he can’t hear you because he’s not who he says he is, or else how dare you check in occasionally with this person? You can’t just pray to Jesus occasionally. Either he can’t hear you, he’s not who he says he is, or else he has to be the still point in your turning world, he has to be the thing around which your entire life revolves.
The Sabbathness of Jesus.
When he says, “I’m the Lord of the Sabbath,” and he says, “I can give you rest,” what does that mean?
Tonight what we’re doing is looking more about what this passage tells us about Jesus, not so much about how we ought to be living, but let me just put it like this. When the Bible calls you to rest, there are two levels. The first level is you need to take time off. You have to have physical and mental time off from your work.
When the Bible calls you to rest, there are two levels. The first level is you need to take time off. You have to have physical and mental time off from your work.
There’s another level of rest I’d just like to call you to here as we conclude our sermon. There’s a deeper level of rest. At the end of , when God created the world, it says he rested from his work. What does that mean? Does God get tired? No, God wasn’t tired. If God wasn’t tired, how could he rest?
The answer is to rest is to be so utterly satisfied with your work that you can leave it alone. When God got done creating the world, what did he say? “It is good.” He rested.
What does it mean to rest? It means to be so satisfied with something you can walk away from it.
What does it mean to rest? It means to be so satisfied with something you can walk away from it.
Only when you say, “It is finished” can you walk away.
Chariots of Fire, is a true story about two Olympians in the 1924 Olympics. One of the Olympians was a Scottish Christian, and he wouldn’t run on the Sabbath and this cost him a gold medal.
The movie was at one level about Eric Liddell stance concerning the Sabbath but it had another level that is often overlooked. Liddell’s chief competitor, for whom the movie constantly contrasted, was Harold Abrahams.
Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell were both trying very hard to win gold medals, but Harold Abrahams was doing it out of a need to prove himself. Abraham’s says when the gun goes off “I get 10 seconds to justify my existence.” He’s trying to prove himself.
Eric Liddell simply wanted to please the God who he believed already accepted him. That’s why he says to his sister something like, “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” In other words, Harold Abrahams was weary even when he rested, and Eric Liddell was rested even when he was exerting himself.
There’s a work we really need rest from underneath our work. 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’re good people. That work is never over unless we rest in the gospel, because at the end of creation the Lord said, “It is finished,” so he could rest. On the cross at the end of redemption, Jesus said, “It is finished,” that we could rest, because when Jesus said, “It is finished,” what was finished? Here’s what Jesus is saying.
The work underneath your work, the real weariness, the thing that really makes you weary, which is this need to prove yourself because you’re not satisfied with who you are, you’re never satisfied, it’s never good enough, you keep working … He says,
“I have completed that work. I have lived the life you should’ve lived. I have died the death you should’ve died. If you rest in my finished work, then you know God is satisfied with you, and you can be satisfied with life.”
“I have completed that work. I have lived the life you should’ve lived. I have died the death you should’ve died. If you rest in my finished work, then you know God is satisfied with you, and you can be satisfied with life.”
Then you have the deep, deep rest. I want you to know you could take all the vacations in the world, but if you don’t have the deep sleep of the soul, resting in what Jesus Christ did on the cross, because on the cross he experienced the restlessness of separation from God that we could have the deep rest of knowing he loves us now, that our sins have been paid for …
As a result, because Jesus said, “It is finished,” we can rest in his finished work, and we can rest indeed. That’s what he offers you.
In conclusion let’s allow our imaginations to help us this with text. Imagine Christians in Rome conversing with their neighbors about Christianity.
The neighbor says, “Oh, you’re a Christian. That’s great. I love religion with all its ceremony”
Where do you Christians go to temple? “We don’t have a temple. Jesus is our temple. We don’t need temples anymore.”
“If, you have no temple where do your priests operate?”
“We don’t have any priests. Jesus is our Priest. He’s the final Priest. He has put priests out of business. We don’t need any mediator. He’s the Mediator.”
“No temple? No priests? Then where do you conduct your sacrifices? Where do you perform the rituals that make you acceptable to God?”
“Jesus is our sacrifice, so we don’t have any more sacrifices.”
“What kind of religion is this?”
“It’s no kind of religion at all, because we didn’t get a religion; we got a person. We don’t have a God so high up there we need a religion to sort of get in connection with him. He came to us. He died for us. He came into our midst, and now we don’t have a religion. We have a person.”
Christianity should be so different than religion. Is it? No?
Can it be? Yes! The gospel can create communities, churches, and people who are so utterly different, they have the deep rest of grace in their lives. That’ll make us different. Let’s pray.
Our Father, thank you for giving us the deep rest that comes through Jesus Christ who died on the cross saying, “It is finished,” so we can know you’re satisfied with us and so we can pick up and leave our work and leave our pursuits and all the things that can make us so weary and deep down inside know because of his finished work, we can truly rest.
Lord, we do not want anymore to live lives of anxiety, of self-condemnation, of condemning others. We want to have that life of grace. We want to have our whole lives revolve around you. We pray that you would help us through what we’ve learned tonight to do it through Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.
Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.