Dennis Tuuri

is found in Matthew 12:1-8. Matthew 12:1-8. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn and his disciples were in hunger and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, “Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day.” But he said unto them, “Have you not read what David did when he was in hunger, and they that were with him?

How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat? Neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests. Or have ye not read in the law how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.

For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.

Let’s pray. Father, we acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ. We thank you that this is his day. We pray now that his word might be used by your Spirit to transform our lives. Help us, Father, to hear the ministry of the Holy Spirit transforming us in the context of your preached word. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We’re taking a brief excursus in our sermons going through the Gospel of John. Last Lord’s day we dealt with the first half of chapter 5. You know, in John’s Gospel these things happen and there’s a long explanation or teaching from our Savior about these things happening. And in John 5, the controversy with the Pharisees begins to really take shape, and it takes shape on a Sabbath day—healing of a man who had been lame for 38 years. And what we said was that our Savior in the Gospel of John is properly executing the Father. He’s declaring the Father. He knows him and he’s declaring to us what the Father’s intent was for the Sabbath in these miracles that will happen on the Sabbath in the Gospel of John.

The other major healing in the Gospel of John in terms of a man who is in the same sort of condition—a blind man—also occurs on the Sabbath day. And so we have these Sabbath miracles by our Savior.

It seemed good then to take three weeks and talk about the Christian Sabbath, so-called in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Today our sermon will be on the Lord of the Sabbath, taking from the various synoptic Gospels primarily here in the Gospel of Matthew, but Mark and Luke also have the same account and we’ll draw on them as well as we go through the sermon.

Next week we’ll talk about the eighth day Sabbath. You know, what is this change of day? If we think that the fourth commandment has abiding validity, it has application to us today. Why do we worship on the first day of the week instead of the seventh day of the week? And next week we’ll talk about the eighth day Sabbath and how this was prefigured—this change of day from the end of the week to the first of the week—in the Old Testament sabbatical system. Our Savior taught it. The apostles practiced it. And we’ll talk about that next week and the significance of it.

We’ll see again as we continue to go through this series on the Sabbath that the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day is to be associated with a new creation that’s being affected in the Gospel of John. We know that’s what the Gospel of John is all about from beginning to end—from “in the beginning” in John 1:1 to John chapter 20 with him breathing on his disciples and making new creations, as it were, of them and those that follow him. We know that’s what this is about. And so the Lord’s day is about the initiation, the inauguration, the continuing movement of history in terms of this new creation affected by our Savior.

So we’ll talk about that next week and then in two weeks we’ll speak about the sanctification of the Sabbath. What do we actually do? What requirements are there upon us? What demonstrates faithfulness to Christ in the way we structure our particular Sabbath day or Christian Lord’s Day?

This will take us into the Advent season. Today in the providence of God, we’re at that particular point of the church year that’s designated as Christ the King. This is the last Sunday before the cycle begins with Advent Sunday. And so today we go to the Lord of the Sabbath on the day in which many elements of the Christian church around the world are celebrating Christ as King today.

And next week, when we begin to talk about Advent—the Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ—the Sabbath day, the Lord’s day is an advent of the Lord. You know, we read that John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day in Revelation. And the Lord’s day is the same grammatically in the Greek as the day of the Lord. So we could call it the day of the Lord. It kind of sounds more tame if we call it the Lord’s day, but if we think of it as the day of the Lord—an advent each and every Lord’s day of the Lord Jesus Christ who will sift and refine and judge his people and make discernments among them—then we take it a little more seriously in terms of his advent.

And we’ll be speaking about that advent for the next couple of Lord’s days as we consider the Sabbath. And then after that, we’ll go back to John 5 and pick up our Savior’s instructions then in John chapter 5. After this incident with the Pharisees, he then teaches to them about how he is the Lord of judgment and he’ll talk about John’s witness—Advent themes to be sure. So that’ll bring us into the end of December.

So today we want to talk about the Lord of the Sabbath. This is called, as I said before, the Lord’s day in the New Testament. The Westminster Confession of Faith equates the Lord’s Day with what they called the Christian Sabbath. So another name for the Lord’s day, according to the Westminster Divines, was the Christian Sabbath—to distinguish it from the Old Covenant Sabbath.

Who is the Lord of Sunday? Sunday is the day we use in our culture. It’s not a bad name. You know, the seven days of the week are named for the seven celestial bodies that appeared in the sky. And the greatest of those is Sunday. So it’s proper to worship the sun and think of the brightness, the brilliance of his coming. The way the sun comes up every day—well, who’s the Lord of Sunday? Jesus Christ. That’s what this text clearly tells us. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is the Lord of this day.

How did you honor Jesus today already? If he’s the Lord of this day, how have you honored him today? Or to honor the Lord, of course, how have you done that so far today? And how will you honor him with the balance of this day?

How many hours are in a day? What does it mean when we read about John being in the Spirit on the Lord’s day? If it designates simply the worship service, it would be called the Lord’s hour or in the context of this church, the Lord’s hour and a half or two hours. But it isn’t called that, is it? It’s called the Lord’s day. How many hours are in a day? 24 hours are in a day.

So no matter what else we think about what the Old Testament instructs us in terms of what we’re to do on the Lord’s day, we know that the Lord has designated a particular day different from the rest of the days. Now, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the week aren’t his days, too. You know, the tithe represents all of our earnings. So it’s not as if you can give God 10% and then do what you want with the rest. What you’re to do is supposed to be understood and guided and directed by the consecration of the part for the whole. All of what you do is to be consecrated to him. All of our time is to be consecrated to the Lord of the Sabbath.

But by doing that—to do that effectively—God tells us how to use the first part of our money or the first part of our time and that’ll help us to structure the rest of our day, okay? So there’s special things set apart for that tithe. We talked about that in the adult Sunday school class this morning. And there’s special things designated to be done on the Lord’s day and certain things that are not to be done.

So you’ve got this 24-hour period of time, right? You got up this morning, you’re going to go to bed tonight sometime. That whole day is called the Lord’s day in the New Testament. And it is the fulfillment of the Old Testament sabbatical system. We’ll talk about that more next week. But it is the Christian Sabbath, the Westminster Divines called it.

So we should be honoring Jesus Christ today. This is the special day of coming together into the presence of the King, to the presence of the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus, and honoring him, honoring the Father, and honoring the Holy Spirit. How did you do that today? Did you dress differently today? Would you try to think about your attitude a little more consciously this morning? Did you think about what you do when you got here? Did you pray that God would reveal himself to be the forgiver of sins and the dispenser of knowledge and the giver of life-giving joy to his people?

Did you think about the worship service? Did you maybe come an hour before the worship service, an hour and a half before, to begin the day by learning how to sing more maturely as Christians that 15 minutes prior to our Sunday school opening that you then attend to the teaching that’s available? You know, you don’t have to do those things, but if you did and you had the right attitude about it, that’s probably one way that you honor the Lord Jesus Christ today.

How will you honor him after the dismissal of the worship service? Will you stay with his people? You don’t have to. It’s not a requirement. But wherever you go, whether you leave at 12:30 or you leave at 3:30 today, that doesn’t mean the day is over. The Lord’s day is 24 hours. It continues on into the rest of your day. It’s not over when you’re done here.

And we have two different ways to look at that. We can say, “Well, Gee, that means I still have things I got to do. That’s kind of a drag. I was hoping it’d be over at 1:30 or 12:30 or 11 or whatever it is or 3:30. I could relax.” Or we can say, “Praise God. He’s given us a good thing for our souls. The Lord of the Sabbath cares for me, and he’s given me this 24-hour period to set apart in a particular way to honor and glorify him.” And we can delight in it.

See, isn’t that neat? Don’t have to go rush out and do the normal stuff we do. Don’t have to rush off to work, Lord willing, if God has permitted you not to work today. Don’t have to go and do the normal commerce stuff that we do throughout the rest of the week. Proper as it is, set that aside. He said, focus on me today.

We talked last week from John chapter 5 that a big thing that we’re to do on the Lord’s day is to help other people. We come together in convocation. We encourage each other to acts of mercy. Maybe we do some of those this afternoon. Ask yourself, children, did you honor the Lord Jesus Christ this morning? That you arise early enough so that the day would not be rushed for you. That you make the day so far a burden to yourself by failure to get up in time to be leisurely about it. What do you do with your brothers and sisters this morning? You should think about it more today. It’s not that it’s okay to be improper tomorrow, but today is the special day. If you can’t pull it off today, if you can’t consecrate yourself to really be aware of Christ’s presence—the Lord of the Sabbath today—how are you going to do it tomorrow? You’re not, I would suggest. So this is a special day for us and we need to think about whatever we end up doing the rest of this day, whether we get together with other young people or get together with other adults or we go home and try to bring encouragement to a sick wife or whatever it is today.

You see, the rest of the day, it’s still Jesus’s day and he should be at the center of what we do. Now, we may do all kinds of different things in it, but we better be doing it with an attitude of honoring the Lord of this day.

This text is normally used to sort of say, well, see, the Sabbath isn’t all that important for Christians today. But you know, that’s really not what he’s saying. What is our Savior doing? Is he saying the Sabbath laws are put out of sync now? No. He’s saying, I’m Lord of the Sabbath. You guys have messed up Sabbath instruction. He tells the Pharisees, “You said improperly that my disciples have guilt in this matter for simply eating wheat as we go through a field.”

And he’s not getting rid of the requirements of the law upon him and his disciples. If our Savior broke Sabbath really in this account, or his disciples broke Sabbath—if he broke Sabbath, how does his act of obedience merit righteousness for us? You know, his act of obedience is the full obedience to the law. Now, I would say that a better way to think of that is the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam was unfaithful and so he broke the law of God. Jesus is totally faithful for his people and as a result he keeps law. He doesn’t keep law, you know, to merit salvation, but he’s faithful for us. Salvation is always by grace through faith.

And if he breaks Sabbath here, it shows he wasn’t faithful to the covenant. If he really broke the Old Testament law, the same with his disciples—if he encouraged them or condoned their breaking of the Sabbath. So he can’t be doing that here. No matter what else he’s doing here, he can’t be doing that.

What he seems to be saying is reasserting his authority over the day and calling on them to properly observe it. And as we’ll see, he is condemning them for covenant violation of a massive scale in his statements to them. And we’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

Now, before we go to the outline, still by way of introduction here, I didn’t plan it this way, but kids, I’ve kind of given you on your kids’ outline that the way this outline worked out as I wrote it out—didn’t plan it this way—is it kind of follows that five-part covenant model. One of the things we’re trying to do in our Sabbath in our Sunday schools, our Sabbath school, our Bible, Lord’s Day Bible classes is to teach our kids the big themes of Scripture: the seven days of creation, the three gifts, three sacrifices, all that stuff. And one is this five-part element of how God seems to renew covenant. And these five steps are listed under question number five of the children’s outline.

Now, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is a creation ordinance—is what I’m going to say first. So: creation, God is creator. We are creatures. So the first step of the five-part covenant is God—a simple way to put it. There are nouns you’re to write on the left hand column, kids, and verbs on the right hand column. So the five elements of the covenant: God declares who he is. So “God”—and then the second part. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath is a redemption ordinance. It teaches the redemption of us. So the next word down of this five-part covenant model is “us.”

Who is God? Who is his people? Us. And then he gives us laws. No. God in his covenant says who he is. He says that he’s delivered us. He tells us who we are. And then he tells us what faithfulness looks like. We say, “Well, the laws of the covenant. You got to keep them.” But see, Jesus kept them all for us. He is the faith of God for us. So faith is the word I want you kids to put as the third element of this five-part covenant model. Faith—reflected in obedient deeds to the law. Faith is what the third element is.

And Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath properly executes the Sabbath law. He tells us what faithfulness on the Sabbath—being faithful to God—looks like. We want to know that we understand that he’s our creator and redeemer and we’re his people and he tells us what faithfulness looks like on the Sabbath. We want that.

And then finally, he says that there’s judgments that occur. He judges the Pharisees, right? He says that covenant keeping is great and covenant breaking represents unfaithfulness. He brings judgment. So the next word down is “results.” God, us, faith, results. There are results that occurred to us as a result. If we’re faithful, we’re faithless—faithful, we enter into all those great blessings of Sabbathkeeping. Faithless, judgment of Jesus will be upon us just like it was upon the Pharisees.

So faith—results—rather, the results of faith. And then finally, the future. He’s Lord of the Sabbath. He’s Lord of time. The future belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. This correlates with our worship service. The five C’s is what you’ll put on the right. Call. God calls us to worship. He calls us. In response to God’s call, we confess our sins to him. He declares who he is. He reminds us who we are. We need to confess our sins and plead his redemption. Confess.

He then consecrates us in faithfulness, right? We come together. He calls us. We confess. Then he consecrates us through the preaching of his word. He tells us what his word says. It tells and describes what faithfulness looks like. And we can say we want to be faithful. We consecrate who we are. We try to do it not as Greeks here but as good Christians, whole body. We walk forward with our tithes and offerings, consecrating ourselves in response to the preached word, singing the Nicene Creed, I believe it is today, in preparation for communion.

We come and consecrate ourselves by singing our faithfulness—or we believe that we have faith in these great creeds of the Christian church. And then he communes with us. The result of faithfulness is: you come here faithfully and God calls you, you confess, he consecrates you and he communes with you, particularly at the Lord’s table, right? Results of faithfulness—the blessing that God gives us at the table. Unfaithfulness can’t come to the table. You see? Faithfulness, you get to go to the table, communion with Christ. And then finally, he commissions us. He sends us forth into the world. Commission.

So this outline sort of found itself in that model and I wanted to just review that briefly with the children today.

Let’s work our way through now the outline itself in terms of what the Lord of the Sabbath is.

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. Now this is important because if we’re kind of not thinking too clearly about this, we’re going to think, well, the Sabbath was that Mosaic stuff and the Westminster says the Mosaic judicials have expired except for the general equity—and maybe what Jesus is saying is the Sabbath is all over because it was just about Moses in Israel. Well, that’s not true because the Sabbath, of course, is a creation ordinance. It predates Moses. It predates the Fall, right? Seventh day, God rests.

And this creation ordinance is described for us as being the basis—or the creation, rather—and God’s resting in some way for what the fourth commandment is all about in Exodus 20: Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your strangers within your gates.

Now, in another place, in Deuteronomy, it says the reason why your servants don’t work is so you could give them rest. You want them to rest today. They may be prone to work, but you want to have them rest today. It’s why we don’t want to go out rushing to the mall this afternoon. If you don’t have a birthday present today or anything, you want those people to rest. You want them to go home on the Lord’s day. You don’t want that store open on the Lord’s day. And the only way that’s going to happen is if people stop going there. They can rest and then be paid for doing nothing and then their employer will start sending them home finally in years to come. We want our servants to rest on the Lord’s day, right?

So, and all this resting is tied to creation. In verse 11, “In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. He rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord God blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” So the creation pattern is what’s built into who man is. The Sabbath predates the Mosaic ordinances. It goes back to the Sabbath. And in Exodus 16:22-30, we have some requirements there that they not gather manna on the seventh day. This also predates the giving of the law, right? It predates—not the giving of the law, but the sabbatical ordinances for when they go into the Promised Land. And so the Sabbath is not simply a Mosaic ordinance. It goes back to creation itself. It predates that. It’s built into the very fabric of the created order.

You know, the French Revolution tried to get rid of the seven-day week. They tried to go to a ten-day week, and I guess the communists tried that in the USSR, too, as well. Nobody’s ever been able to do that, though. People fall back to a weekly cycle because it’s built into the nature of man to require one day out of seven set apart in some particular way.

So the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. What’s the first reason then, children, that we should honor Jesus all day today? Because he made us. He made us and in making us, his creation is the first reason given to us for Sabbathkeeping.

But secondly, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and the Sabbath is a redemption ordinance. It’s a redemptive—a redemption ordinance. In Deuteronomy 5:12: “Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor, do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.”

That’s what I mentioned a minute ago. But now, instead of tying this to the six days of creation, verse 15 says, “And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

So the Sabbath is a redemptive ordinance. And because of the redemption, we’re supposed to honor the Sabbath day itself and to have no work done in it, labor done in it, and to rest in it. So when men fall into sin, the picture of the results of faithlessness—when they were in Egypt, the oppression of other men, rather—their sin takes away rest. They didn’t have a Sabbath day rest in Egypt. They had to work seven days a week. God brings them out and saves them. And as a result of saving them, he then tells them now rest every one day out of seven.

So the Sabbath is a redemptive ordinance. So what’s the second reason that we should honor Jesus all day today? Because he saved us. He saved us. You see, if we see that Egypt is a picture of our salvation, our redemption ultimately through the work of our Savior, then the Sabbath, which is tied first to our creation—we’re created beings, we should keep it—and then tied to our redemption, Egypt prefigured our redemption in Christ. Somehow the Lord of this day says it should be different because he made us and because he saved us.

These are creation and redemption ordinances. So Jesus is the creator—transcendent. He is the redeemer—immanent with us, right? There’s a hierarchy established through his redemption of us. And now he’s going to give us some ethics. He’s going to explain what this means.

Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath properly executes. You know, in the text we just read from Matthew, he talks about David and obviously he’s the greater David. You say, “Well, David did this work of necessity because he was hungry. He was running away from a tyrant. I’m the greater David. These are my guys with me. We’re eating corn in the wheat in the field. It’s okay, okay.” So he’s the greater David.

He says that one greater than the temple is here with you. And he talks about the priest ministering in the context of the temple. So the temple worship prefigures the coming of Jesus as the greater temple. And then he says that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. Moses gave instructions in terms of how the Sabbath was to be observed in the context of a particular time in redemptive history. And Jesus says now he’s the greater lawgiver as it were. He executes to them proper observance of the Lord’s day. So he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the best one to explain to us what it means. And that’s what he does here.

He strips away Pharisaical additions to the law of God that went beyond the law of God and restores the meaning of the Sabbath back to its original meaning and purpose as found in the creation and redemption ordinance and as found in the Mosaic requirements given to us in the fourth commandment and then the other things as well in the Old Testament, okay.

And the first thing he teaches us here in the book of Matthew is he teaches the permissibility of works of necessity on the Sabbath in both testaments. He says to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him? 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.”

You’ll remember the story hopefully. Younger children, maybe you don’t know it. Saul is trying to kill David. He’s on the run and David and his men are hungry. They got nothing to eat because a tyrant is chasing them—chasing them around the country—and he has to go into the priest’s house and ask for the showbread and he is given that by the priest. And so Jesus positively affirms that as a good thing. Some people say, “Well, is that a good thing for David to do or not?” He’s saying, “Yeah, David did something here that involved no guilt on his part.”

He’s going to use the expression “guiltless” and “blameless” as he goes on in this explanation of true Sabbathkeeping. So he’s saying David didn’t break any ordinance by eating the holy food. Now we have the greater David here with a different band of men eating wheat bread in the context of the greater temple, who he is. So there’s a lot going on here more than just clearing up what the Sabbath means. There’s some big picture stuff going on rather obviously that’s significant when we come to the Lord’s table today.

But what we see here is that Jesus is at least saying at one level that David had a work of necessity. He was properly preserving his life, right? The sixth commandment says that we are not to take life. And a positive obligation of that commandment is we’re supposed to preserve our own life—supposed to take care of ourselves. Somebody’s chasing after us to kill us, we’re supposed to run. And when you run, you’re being faithful to God as demonstrated in obedience to the sixth commandment.

And if you go beyond that a little bit, the Westminster standards also say that we’re to do everything we can to promote life. If we’re starving and our blood sugar’s getting low and we’re about ready to faint and then Saul will kill us, it’s proper to eat what God places in the context. And in this context, it was the showbread that sat in there that was only for the priests. So David is not acting, you know, like Uzziah here, taking priestly privileges onto a king because he wants power. He is properly being faithful to preserve his life and the life of his men through a work of necessity.

So Jesus says it was never against Sabbathkeeping to take—make a work of necessity if this is the only way you can get food today. It’s proper to harvest on the Lord’s day. That’s what they were upset about. The law said you could go through a field and eat. That’s not what they were mad about. But what the law says is that you can’t harvest on the Sabbath. Well, you know, is this harvesting? Picking grains of wheat and rubbing them with your fingers to take off the stuff you’re not going to eat. Well, that’s what the Pharisees were saying. But they were adding to the law. You can’t rub grains now—pretty close to harvesting. We don’t like that. And Jesus says, even if we’re harvesting here, even if it’s work that might violate the Sabbath, still if it’s a work of necessity, it’s the way to be faithful and preserve life—to eat this stuff.

And what he’s referring to here, and he’ll refer to it in big terms a little bit later, but he’s saying, “We’re running for our lives, too. You guys are plotting against us. We’re David and his band. And the reason we got to eat this stuff is because we were in your town this morning and you didn’t have us in for eating.”

Back in chapter 10, he had commissioned them to go out and to preach in the various cities. And here he was on a missionary journey. And these guys were not feeding them. They wanted him to faint. Worse than that, they’re going to plot his death on the Lord’s day, which is what they’re always doing on the Sabbath. They’re always plotting on the Sabbath to kill him. So he’s saying a work of necessity is a proper observance. It’s not violation of the Sabbath.

Secondly, he teaches the necessity of service to true Sabbath rest in both testaments. Matthew 12:5 and 6: “Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath?” [Put italics around that.] “Profane the Sabbath and are blameless?”

They’ve not broken the Sabbath really. They’re abiding by the truth of what that Sabbath day is all about. He’s saying, as was David and his men when they sought to preserve life by eating the showbread—and here he says that in the temple work goes on regularly. I work every Lord’s day. Get up here and preach. I’ve always said it’s a little more work to listen to a sermon than to give one. So I guess we’re all working today.

Jesus says that work on the Sabbath day is not necessarily wrong. When the Sabbath says don’t do any work, the understanding of that law is to be taken in the full context of the revelation of what faithfulness on the Lord’s day looks like—on the Sabbath looks like. And the Sabbath required the priest to do particular sacrifices on it. They had to cut up animals, haul sides of beef around, all that sort of stuff.

So Jesus says that just because it’s work of some type or service doesn’t mean it’s wrong. And in fact, there is a necessary service that has to go on in terms of true Sabbath rest.

And here’s where he says, “I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple.” So he’s drawing these allusions. He’s trying to—he’s bringing judgment to them as he’s executing the Sabbath for us. He’s also executing it for them and showing them where they are guilty of profaning the Sabbath day by plotting his destruction, okay.

Jesus is executing the Lord of the Sabbath executes the Sabbath. He teaches the priority of mercy over sacrifice. And this is found in both testaments. “If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

He just called them blameless. Now he’s saying we’re guiltless. He’s not saying it’s okay to break the Sabbath now, this side of his advent. He’s not saying that. He’s saying they’re not guilty. They didn’t break it. And if you would have understood the Old Testament, that is the spirit of what Sabbathkeeping is about, you would not have come after us and condemned us. You would have seen that David did works of necessity. You would have seen that the priest did necessary work in the temple and we’re doing about God’s business here and you didn’t feed us. So this is necessary work for us.

And finally, he says that from the Old Testament, he quotes that God prefers mercy to sacrifice. Listen to Isaiah 1 and what it says in verses 11-17:

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? Bring no more feudal sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They’re trouble to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.”

God says he desires mercy instead of sacrifices. He says, “You’re trampling around in my gates here.” Isaiah 58 says, you know, if you don’t trample the Sabbath underfoot—the only way to trample the Sabbath underfoot is not to go out and do whatever you want to do today. Jesus says, you’re trampling the Sabbath underfoot when all you’re cared about is ritualistic observance of certain things that God says you should do. When you deny the meaning of them totally through not assisting the fatherless, the widow, the stranger, through not helping the oppressed.

Now, that’s true of both testaments. This is Isaiah we’re talking about saying the same thing that Jesus did. He’s Lord of the Sabbath, reminding them of what the Old Testament always taught about that one day out of seven. It was to be a day of bringing life to people and instead of oppressing them. And if all we do is come together on the Lord’s day and go through our five-part covenantal worship service with the three sacrifices—and we all know about the three gifts and we all know what we’re here to serve God, but he’s really serving us—and we go through the rituals of doing all that stuff, but our lives are not lives that demonstrate covenantal faithfulness to God by being merciful to those that he puts in our path, God says this is a trampling underfoot of his Sabbath. His Lord’s day is defiled by such people.

Now, if we get rid of the whole idea of the Christian Sabbath and make this an hour observance, how do we enforce that? See, how do we make sense of all of that? How do we make sense of mercy ultimately representing itself in these sacrifices that God had commanded them to do, and us? It’s like the Savior saying, you know, you tithe these very small things, but you don’t do the weightier aspects of the law—you know, mercy and justice, you don’t do that stuff. He doesn’t say they shouldn’t tithe. He wasn’t saying they shouldn’t bring sacrifices. Well, he was. If your lives are not going to be reformed, don’t come here is what he’s saying. You won’t get in the door. If my priests do their job, you won’t be allowed to bring your sacrifices of praise today because he’s going to bar you at the door if your life does not demonstrate faithfulness to Christ by extending mercy to others.

But Jesus restores the true meaning of the Sabbath, which is now for us the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day. He says it’s lawful to do well on the Sabbath. Right after this account in verses 9 and following, we read this:

“Now when he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’ That they might accuse him. Then he said to them, ‘What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?’ Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

He heals the guy then and they seek to kill him. They start to counsel. They have a little meeting on the Sabbath and plan how they’re going to take him and kill him. So Jesus says it is lawful and in fact it’s of the essence of Sabbathkeeping to do good, to do well in terms of Sabbath observance.

Secondly, he says it’s lawful to enhance life on the Sabbath. Mark chapter 3 is the parallel account to this account from Matthew and it talks about the same incident: Man with the withered hand. They watched him closely that they might accuse him. He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” And then he says to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. When he looked around at them being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out. His hand was restored as whole as the other.

Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him. So here the Matthew account said Jesus says, as Lord of the Sabbath, it’s proper to do good or do well on the Sabbath. In the parallel account in Mark, he actually says it’s proper to save life on the Sabbath. And the example of that is helping the man with the withered hand.

Now the guy wasn’t going to die. So when he says save life, he means it’s proper to extend and enhance life on the Sabbath. So this is a day, a day set apart that we’re to honor him. And one way we honor him is to bring life to other people—to do well for other people today with him in mind, okay.

So Jesus properly executes the Sabbath to us. Where do we find out how to honor Jesus today, children? Where do we find out? This is the Lord’s day all 24 hours. We want to honor him in it. Where do we find out how to do that? And the answer is all of the Bible. It’s not just Matthew or Mark or Luke. Jesus is executing and explaining a whole bunch of stuff from the Old Testament, kind of making us understand it clearer. He’s bringing the lens to replace the filthy, goofed-up lens of the Pharisees by which we read their view of the Old Testament. And instead, he’s bringing us a proper lens so we can properly understand what that one day out of seven has always been about. It’s always been about restoration, extension of life, showing of mercy, and he’s restoring that to us.

So all of the Bible instructs us. When we get down to weeks from the day, about how do we sanctify the Sabbath? How do we set it apart? We’re going to look at all the Bible in terms of that and try to make sense of it because our Savior here says he’s Lord of this day and he’s going to tell us what it’s all about and the word—all of the word is him and his requirements to us—his evidences of faithfulness.

Four, Jesus says Lord of the Sabbath administers covenant blessings and cursings for its observance or violation, okay. So he’s Lord of the Sabbath. What does the Lord do? A Lord gives rules, gives direction and guidance, but the Lord brings punishments and rewards as well.

Now, I want us to remember that what we’re not talking about is doing works to gain rewards. Ultimately, the works that we do—proper observance of the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day—is a demonstration of faithfulness and faith in God through Christ. That’s what it’s all about. We’re not about setting up a series of rules to follow. We’re about living lives of faithfulness that demonstrate themselves in observance of the particular commandments that God reflects in his word, okay? And whether we are faithful or not, God is going to bless or curse. He’s going to make us receive benefits or he’s going to make us receive judgments.

And in this case, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. As the greater David, he strongly rebukes his contemporary Sauls. See, he’s not just telling us what the Sabbath is about. He’s bringing judgment, which is just what he’s supposed to do as Lord of the Sabbath, right? Gathered together with Jesus on the Lord’s day. And whether they understand why they’re there or not, that’s where they’re at. And he’s going to pronounce blessings to his disciples. He says, “These guys are blameless and guiltless in terms of observance—faithful observances of my commandments—but you guys are Saul.”

And he says it by way of intimation. He says, “Well, you know, at first you could say, well, why does he bring up that? Why does he use David? Because that wasn’t really the Sabbath day, right? That he was running away.” But he brings David as a direct parallel to himself. He is in the field. He is the greater temple. The field is his temple that he governs and controls. He’s feeding his people and he’s eating wheat, the stuff that bread is made from. And he is being persecuted and chased around by a bunch of Pharisees to see what he’ll do so that they can kill him. They’re Sauls, you see, and they’re chasing the greater David.

So our Savior as Lord of the Sabbath brings judgment. Evaluation. He shows to them their faithlessness to God, their lack of faith in God and their hatred of him. What did Jesus do to the Pharisees in today’s text? He judged them. Children, on your outline number nine, he judged them. He evaluated them. David had to eat the special bread because Saul was trying to kill him. And Jesus here and his men are required to eat food because they’re not going to be fed. They’re actually being chased by the contemporary Sauls.

Our Savior brings judgment. Sabbath violation is covenant violation. These are very important points here. You know, we talked this morning in the adult Bible class about the tithe and the mercy aspect of the tithe and how in Deuteronomy 26, you keep—and it’s sort of pictured in the third year of tithing under that system, the Old Testament system, special place of worship, etc. But the whole tithe cycle of three years was brought to completion. And then you could say, I tithe correctly and specifically, I use part of my tithe to help the widows, the fatherless, and the strangers. Therefore, I’ve kept all your law. It was emblematic of the entire covenant, whether you kept the tithing requirements, and specifically whether you ministered grace, extended life, did works of necessity with the money God gave you—that was his tribute money—whether he used that to extend life to the fatherless, the widows, and the strangers.

The tithe is a tax on our money that demonstrates our faith in the covenant God who’s going to bless or curse us based upon our obedience in that area financially, right? So it’s kind of emblematic of the whole, and the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day—this one day out of seven from creation on—is also seen as sort of a capsule, a zipped file of all covenant keeping that goes on, all faithfulness to the covenant in terms of our time, right?

So if we take one day out of seven and faithfully honor Jesus as the Lord of the Sabbath on it, Jesus says we’ve kept the whole covenant in a sense. And if we haven’t done that with the Lord’s day, if we haven’t honored him with one whole day out of seven, he says we’ve broken the whole thing. Let me prove that in Isaiah 56. We read this under B of the outline.

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Keep justice, do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who lays hold on it.’ Son of Man—Jesus, Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. ‘Son of Man who lays hold on it’—that’s us who keep—Now, how do we demonstrate that we’ve laid hold on the covenant of God in terms of doing justice and righteousness? ‘Tells us who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, keeps his hand from doing any evil. Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord’—speaking to the Lord—’has utterly separated me from his people. Nor let the eunuch say, “Here I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the foreigners’—that’s us—’who join themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant, even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their burnt offerings, their sacrifices will be accepted in my altar. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.’”

Now, we’ve talked about that text a lot. Our Savior identifies himself with that. The house—God’s house is a house of prayer for all the nations. Pastor Wilson’s going to lead us in a prayer for all the nations here. It’s what we do every Lord’s day. And this is New Testament stuff being talked about. And the essence of observance of the covenant—to be faithful to the covenant—we read here: “everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant”—parallelism—that is to be faithful in terms of the Lord’s day is to be faithful symbolically of the entire covenant of God.

There’s this strong correlation between honoring on one day out of seven, the Lord’s day, and God’s blessings to his people for covenant obedience. The same is true in Exodus 31. “The Lord spoke to Moses. This is the conclusion of the giving of the law on Sinai—ten commandments, moral requirements for all Christians. How are they summed up here?”

Well, we read in verse 12 of Exodus 31: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, “Surely my Sabbaths you shall keep. It is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”‘”

See, he doesn’t say that about the rest of the law. He doesn’t say that about everything that he requires of us. He says it about a few things. Circumcision—sacramental inclusion of the community. He does talk about the tithe in that summary way. And here’s the Sabbath. The Sabbath is designated as the sign—or a sign rather—a perpetual sign throughout the generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

“You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. For whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Now, the work has to be understood in the broader context. It was necessary work that Exodus just told us. The priest had to do, etc. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. In six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day, he rested and was refreshed.”

Now, when he had made an end of speaking with them on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses two tablets of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

Summation. And the summation of all the law—the covenant demonstration of one’s covenantal faithfulness to God—is whether or not you keep the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day today. Seems to me that’s what it’s saying. Jesus says he’s Lord of the Sabbath. This is a summary statement of how well we honor God with all of our lives. The tithe is a representation of honoring God with our economics. The Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day, the whole 24-hour day is a picture of our consecration to honoring and glorifying God and to being faithful—that indeed he blesses us as we do that.

You see, there’s this great correlation between the Sabbath and covenant keeping. Ezekiel 20:10-26. We won’t bother to read it, but you can look it up perhaps later on today. Another indication—just like these other two verses were—that all of covenantal faithfulness is pictured as Sabbathkeeping and a failure on the Sabbath—a violation of the Sabbath—is a violation of the whole covenant. See, that’s why God when he sends them away into captivity does so for 490 years. For 70 times 7, they failed to keep Sabbath with God and as a result he gave the land rest.

You can really boil down, at least the scriptures do this, one way to boil down their entire faithlessness to the God who had established covenant with them was that they failed to keep Sabbath. And as a result of failing to keep one day out of seven holy to God—one day out of seven, extending life and mercy and grace to other people—because they failed to do that, he kicked them out of his presence, sent them into captivity.

Proper observance of the Lord’s day is that important to us. You know, we were trying to drop a memorial on terrorism. And why is God judging our nation through the Twin Towers? And we do not want to forget abortion in the context of that. Certainly, the massive murders that go on in this country year by year call forth God’s judgment. And I know this is very odd to say this and most people today would think I’m crazy, but I just think you have to include in the reasons why God is upset with us, why he’s angry with our country—is a failure of God’s people—of God’s people to properly honor him one day out of seven. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and he’s going to see our covenantal faithfulness linked directly to what we do at this one day.

Now, I haven’t told you what you can do or can’t do. We’ll talk about sanctification of it in a couple weeks. But what I want you to see here first and foremost is the importance of honoring the Lord of the Sabbath on this day. That’s my single point today. Understand that for 24 hours out of your week, you’re to have a day that’s different than the rest of the day. You’re to honor God in some particular way.

Now, next week we’ll talk about why we do that on the Lord’s day, Sunday, instead of the seventh day—maybe Saturday, maybe a rotating day. We’ll talk about that next week. But why is this change from the seventh day to the first, or eighth day, made? We’ll see the reason for that next week. And then finally, in two weeks, we’ll talk more about what that actually means in terms of the application.

Returning to the outline, point C: Proper Sabbathkeeping is covenant keeping.

Okay, so again, now we call this Sabbathkeeping and that’s a little bit of a controversial statement, too. Or do we have to keep Sabbath on this side of the cross? Well, Hebrews 4:9 says there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. That word “rest” even in the King James version has a little footnote to it and it says keeping of the Sabbath. There remains a Sabbathkeeping for the people of God because we have not been totally ushered into the eschaton, the end. The new heavens and the new earth have not been completed yet. Christ hasn’t returned. When he does, then the Sabbathkeeping of one day out of seven will be brought to a completion.

But until that time, Hebrews 4 says there remains for the people of God. Is that you? Are you a person of God? Are you a person who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you part of the people of God? If you are, Hebrews 4 says there remains a Sabbathkeeping, a rest, one day out of seven for the people of God. God says that if we do that, he greatly blesses us.

Isaiah 58—you know, it concludes with the great blessings of Sabbathkeeping, but on the way it tells us what Jesus tells us: that the true Sabbath of God is to extend mercy and grace. Not enough to go through ritualistic performances of sacrifices, but rather we’re to extend life to other people. And if we do that, God says we’ve kept the covenant and he will bless us with great blessings from on high.

Isaiah 58:13 and 14 tells us that God will cause us to ride upon the high places of the earth. In verse 12, we will be called the restorer of the breach—will be those that transform our culture once more if we properly attend to the Lord’s day and the extension of mercy and grace and life that’s called for in its context. We will be blessed by God for covenantal faithfulness if we’re covenantally faithful to observe the Lord’s day in the way he has required of it.

In Jeremiah 17, we read: “The Lord said to me, ‘Go and stand in the gate of the church of the children of the people, by which the king of Judah comes in and by which they go out and in all the gates of Jerusalem. Say to them, “Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter by these gates. Thus says the Lord, ‘Take heed to yourselves and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem, nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers.’ But they did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their necks stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.

“And it shall be, if you heed me carefully,” says the Lord, “to bring no burden through the gates of the city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day to do no work in it. Then shall enter the gates of the city, kings and princes, sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses. They and their princes accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city shall remain forever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the south, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.

“But if you will not heed me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”

If we do right on the Lord’s day, we are being faithful to the covenant. And if we don’t do what’s right on the Lord’s day, we are being unfaithful to the covenant. And Jesus Christ as Lord of the Sabbath brings blessings—great blessings—to proper Sabbath observance, to the proper observance of the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s day. Then the nations of the world will be converted and flow into the church. Great blessings and great cursings. Exile—being taken out of the land—fire at the gates. If we fail to be faithful to the covenant by being faithful to honor his day.

Jesus as the Lord of the Sabbath wants us to rejoice in this day. He wants us to be covenantally faithful to him and experience these great blessings. He tells us in the parallel account in Mark that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Now, he doesn’t do this to set the Sabbath laws on their head. He’s saying the Sabbath as executed properly from the Old Testament was always there so that you could come to joy and delight, that you could experience the great blessings of God on the day of rest that he’s set apart for you—the day of the extension of life and grace, the day of rejoicing in his special presence, the day of recognizing that God says that he blesses you apart from your work today.

The Sabbath is made for you. Why would you turn your back on it? Why would you despise the best gifts God gives you? Well, it’s not a damning nature that despises all the good gifts of God that makes us sometimes improperly treat our wives or our husbands, our children, not wanting to work the way that God has given us wonderful work to do, not wanting to do the things he’s called us to do. God says this day is made for you. He says that it’s a great blessing to you. He says that his burden is light.

Just before this account in Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 11 ends with God telling us that his burden is light. The Sabbath was made for man. It’s a great blessing to us. And the Sabbath’s yoke is easy. Its burden is light and its rest is joyous for the humble and meek.

In chapter 11, he says, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. You’ll find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And then right after that verse—his yoke is easy, his burden is light—he properly explains what observance of the Lord’s day is all about properly. And then in addition to his teaching, he immediately goes into a synagogue and brings life and heals a man’s hand as an example of doing well and extending life on the Lord’s day.

He tells us that his Sabbath requirements are not burdensome; they’re a delight. The Pharisees with their additions to the Sabbath requirement, they were burdensome. They were life-draining. His Sabbath is a day of life-giving. The Lord’s day is a day that he certainly calls you forward to sift and evaluate it. But more than anything else, for you covenant faithful people, the Lord’s day is a day of blessing and of rest and an easy yoke and joy to you.

All things, 2 Corinthians tells us, are mediated to us through Christ and all things are for you—the apple of his eye. The Lord of the Sabbath tells us that is true, that we enter into that rest today.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the tremendous blessing that the Lord’s day is to us. Forgive us, Father, for treating it lightly in this country. Forgive us for treating it lightly in our own hearts and in our families and in this church. Help us, Lord God, to honor you today. Help us to see over the next couple of weeks why it is that we worship on Sunday instead of Saturday and what it is that we’re to do with the balance of the day as we leave this place. But help us, Father, today to pledge ourselves anew to honor you with this day. We ask it. Amen.

With grateful heart.