Sermon Tone Analysis

So imagine you’re out on a Saturday and you decide to do some work.

Mow the yard for a few bucks, work on your jump shot, go to the batting cage, clean the house, baby sit.

And while you’re doing it a group of old men shows up and starts yelling that you need to be stoned!

Not the kind they do in Colorado, but the kind where people throw rocks at you!

This was something that might have happened thousands and thousands of years ago because of a Jewish law.

Who can tell me what the fourth commandment is?

Give a KitKat to whoever gets it right.

We’re looking at a story tonight where Jesus uses this fourth commandment to teach a very important lesson.

Jesus offers us rest from all our exhausting work to be good enough.

And we’re all trying to be good enough.

In different ways for different people… stretch this out some to make it personal.

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What is the Sabbath?

This is probably the first question many of you have after hearing this story.

And we need to understand this to understand this Jesus story.

So what is it?

Did God need to rest?

No! Absolutely not.

He was not tired!

He’s God!

He doesn’t get tired.

He doesn’t need rest.

So why would he rest?

To set an example for his creation!

I think God knew He was finished with his creation so He stopped his creative work and enjoyed it.

I also think He was setting an example for humanity, a model for us of work, work, work, and rest.

Most of humanity will work to their own detriment in pride… We want more...

And when we busy ourselves like this, we don’t leave time to seek and worship God.

This can even happen to me!

This also forces us to rely on Him.

God is good in sneaky ways like this.

He reminds us of our need for him in these annoying ways!

We have to sleep.

Can’t live without it!

He can though.

He’s greater than we our and we should lean on Him!

He called his people to take regular rest, and that meant that they might lose business opportunity, but they were to trust Him in that anyway.

As proof that humanity will work ourselves to death and need this command, how many businesses are closed for a day of the week now?

In Deuteronomy God tells his people it is also a reminder of the slavery He rescued them from in Egypt.

The Sabbath was also intended to give his people a time to zero in on him and focus on worshipping God.

I think another reason God gave his people the Sabbath was as a sign of something greater to come, but we’ll get into that in a few minutes!

So now that we know what the Sabbath is, what is the point of this story of Jesus?

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and offers his rest in place of our work to be enough.

Also, the weekly Sabbath day was Saturday!

Sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, to be exact!

So what did they do?

What the Sabbath Day was.

This was an important sign of the covenant (or agreement) between God and Israel.

God gave some regulations for the Sabbath.

They couldn’t gather manna or gather wood.

They couldn’t do their normal, every day work, they couldn’t carry a load.

And because of what the Sabbath represented, it was not taken lightly if it was broken, or profaned is the word used often in the Old Testament.

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So here is what ended up happening with the Sabbath, what Jesus is getting on to the Pharisees about.

They did to it what they did to so much of God’s law and made their own law around it and used it to put themselves up on a pedestal.

They added so many regulations to it that it actually became work to observe the law to rest!

They made rules about how much weight made something a load they weren’t allowed to carry.

They made rules about how far they could carry something.

They were only allowed to travel 3,000 feet from their home.

BUT!

If they had food somewhere, that was an extension of their home, so they could travel another 3,000 feet from there!

In their pride, the Pharisees were trying so hard to be sinless that it led them into more sin.

They were trying to earn their righteousness instead of throwing their hands up and calling out to God in humility.

Acknowledging that they couldn’t do it and they needed Him.

They did this with the whole law.

We still try to do it today.

I’ll be good enough…

How do you know?

I won’t sin too much...

How do you know?

I grew up doing water sports, I’ve told y’all about some of this before.

There was one time when it was just me and my friends putting the boat into the water, well a couple times actually, but we put it in the water… bilge starts running and won’t stop, realize that the plug at the back of the boat wasn’t in.

This is what trying to be good enough is like.

No matter how much water that bilge pump spit out of the side of the boat, it was taking on water way to fast to be ok.

No matter how good we are, how many sins we don’t commit, the amount of righteousness we get is nothing compared to the sin flooding in.

In fact, here’s the gross truth...

We have to humble ourselves and realize that no matter how much good work we do, it will never be enough.

We are saved by grace, through faith.

Not by works.

You can not earn a relationship with God.

You can not earn your way to Heaven.

You must humble yourself, acknowledge your need for Jesus and surrender to Him! God was trying to tell his people this through the Sabbath.

He’s trying to tell us still to rest in Jesus’ work for us.

That’s what the Sabbath day is now.

What the Sabbath day is now.

No where in the New Testament are we told to observe the Sabbath day.

A lot of people think Sunday is the new Sabbath day, but all the Bible says is that the church gathered on Sunday to worship.

It doesn’t tell us we aren’t allowed to work on Sunday.

It does say in the New Testament that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law in the place of his people and the work is done.

What did Jesus say on the cross as He was dying?

The most important meaning of this principle of Sabbath today is resting in the completed work of Christ and not in legalism.

Not working for our salvation, because it’s impossible.

But there is still a physical aspect to the Sabbath principle, because humanity still works to death!

We need rest!

“No rest for the best”?

No, forget that!

How many off nights has LeBron had this year?

This world tells us to keep going and never take a break so we can be the best.

That’s not a mindset the Holy Spirit would give us.

That’s not relying on God’s provision.