Mark 2:23, The Sabbath Day by John.

The Sabbath Day
Mark 2:23-3:2

1. This text starts out, "One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields..."
2. The word Sabbath appears four times here in six verses, the four verses we read and in chapter 3, v 2 which we did not read.
3. Some time after God instituted it, people changed the Sabbath to suit themselves.
3. The Pharisees watched Jesus!
(1) They hoped He would do something they could use against Him
(2) The fact that they were there immediately tells us the Pharisees broke their own law!
(4) They accepted the Ten Commandments, but as well as I remember, their the scribes added many things to them. For instance, it was a sin to travel more than 150 steps on the Sabbath day.
4. An acre is 43,560 sq. ft., and if the acre is square, each side will be about 207 ft in length.
(1) If a person walked around a square acre of land, the trip would have taken more than two Sabbath Day's allotment of steps!
(2) 150 steps is an awfully short walk, isn't it?
5. Since this portion of Scripture deals with the Sabbath, let's go back to Genesis 2:2 for a moment and look at how the Sabbath began: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

I. You See, The Sabbath started with God! Jews Changed It.

1. The Sabbath started with creation, but God included it in the Ten Commandments. The first words in Exodus 20:8-11 are: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."
2. It continues saying no work should be done on the Sabbath day. That refers back to the Genesis account.
3. How long it took for people to change the Sabbath we do not know, but as soon as the changes were made, the Jews worked out various schemes to get around their own Sabbath Law.
4. The Scribes and Pharisees evaded the Law just like the common people did.
I1) Can you imagine a grain field no bigger than a half-acre? (Their fields were not large, but probably none were that small.)
(2) Jesus and His disciples were "going through the grain fields!" (v 23). ("Fields" is plural)
(3) The Pharisees went with Jesus and His disciples! They broke their own Law!
a. They were going more than their own prescribed Sabbath Day's journey.
b. It's true that if they wanted to go across Jerusalem on the Sabbath, they could. They could make 150 steps, stop and visit a moment, and then go another 150.
c. Eventually they could go all the way across town!
5. I could condemn the Pharisees for that, but I shouldn't because I know that we do a lot of the same kind of thing with our own laws.
(1) We don't consider ourselves to be breaking the law if we drive 65 when the speed limit is 60! Isn't that true?
(2) If you think about it, you'll find a lot of other things you do to get around one law or another.
6. The Jews changed God's law of the Sabbath to fit into their own desires.
7. It is also just as wrong to make God's Law more stringent than God intended it to be. They did that, too, when they put a 150-step limit on a Sabbath journey.
(1) Early in the history of our nation, our citizens were almost Pharisaical in their closing everything down on Sunday! And we have always known Sunday is the first, not the seventh day of the week! Not the Sabbath of Jewish Law!
a. Jesus arose on the first day of the week.
b. As far as we know, that is our reason for worshiping on the first day of the week.
c. In essence, Sunday is a Christian Sabbath.
(2) The Pharisees went to the extreme in keeping the letter of the Sabbath while breaking the spirit of it.
(3) Today most of us have gone to the opposite extreme!
(4) Anything goes on Saturday and Sunday.
8. Oh! I haven't forgotten! Gentile Christians have never been under God's Law!
9. We need to understand, all of God's Laws were given for our good, not as an arbitrary limitation of our rights.
10. Perhaps some of the things we consider to be religiously questionable really fit into God's intent for the Sabbath.
(1) Serving dinner at a restaurant is certainly a questionable thing. On the Sabbath housewives in Israel were not even allowed to cook! But I'm in favor of restaurants being open on Sunday.
(2) Suppose hospitals today said, "Everybody out! Go home! Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and we will be closed! If you make it, you can come back Monday!"
11 Let's not lose sight of the fact Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath.
12. Let's remember He indicated it is righteous to do good on the Sabbath! (I think feeding people in restaurants is good, and keeping hospitals open every day is necessary and good!)
13. You see we need to consider all the Scripture together in thinking about this. Now what did our text say?

II. "The Sabbath Was Made for Man, Not Man for the Sabbath." v 27.

1. People need a certain amount of rest. God made us, and He says we need to rest one day out of seven.
2. The government in Scotland only allows their doctors to work 48 hours a week!
(1) That's six eight-hour days!
(2) The one day they have off may not be a legal Sabbath.
(3) They work only six out of seven days: Does that meet God's requirement for human beings?
3. We fill our minds with recreation on Sabbath days:
(1) Does that meet God's requirement of us?
(2) When God made the Sabbath day holy, that meant it is set apart for Him!
(3) We need to make sure that we talk to God about what we do on the Sabbath and find out whether it pleases Him or not! We are children of the King!
(4) We should not depend on anyone else to tell us what pleases God unless it is clearly delineated in the Scripture. (I've never seen pro-football mentioned in the Scripture for instance. I call what they do [and get handsomely paid for] work, don't you? But it is not for me to say the right or wrong
of Sunday football. That is God's area. I have no expertise in that area at all! They need to settle that issue with the Lord themselves.)
4. What I need to do is remember, "The Sabbath day was made for man, nor man for the Sabbath."

III. There Is a Sabbath Rest for All in Jesus.

1. Hebrews 4:8-11 says, "For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience."
2. Here the Sabbath-Day takes on a whole new meaning, and one that the Jews should have recognized, but did not.
3. The Sabbath Day is a picture of heaven.
4. It tells us at least 7 things:
(1) Heaven is a place, a time, when we will stop doing all the things that occupy our waking thoughts and time on earth.
(2) We will have wonderfully new things to do in heaven that will take their place.
(3) We will be in the presence of God Almighty, and we are not now able to even see Him.
(4) Our lifespan on earth is short, but the Sabbath rest of heaven will last forever.
(5) We sometimes wonder what we are doing here, but that will never enter our thinking in the Sabbath rest of our Lord. (We know we are there because we put our trust in Jesus while we were here!)
(6) Some of us go to political rallies, some to concerts, some to football games. I believe we are looking for the glorious joy we cannot experience until we are in our Sabbath rest with Jesus.
(7) There will be no crying there, no sorrow, because all of these things that hurt so much on earth will be swallowed up in the victory we experience in Jesus.
5. Did you notice that last verse from Hebrews? "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience."
6. If Jesus is not your Savior, you have no hope of the Sabbath rest. Give yourself to the Lord Jesus, and you will have no fear of death, but rather a certain expectant hope of that final Sabbath when that we will spend with the Lord Jesus forever!

Emmanuel 11/5/2006