The sermon titled 'Greater Than the Temple, Lord of the Sabbath' by Jason Dohm explores the events in Matthew 12, where Jesus and His disciples are accused by the Pharisees of breaking the Sabbath law by plucking grain. The sermon highlights two primary focuses: the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and His desires for His people beyond mere Sabbath observance. Jesus uses the examples of David consuming the showbread and the priests working on the Sabbath to illustrate His authority to interpret the law and emphasize that He is greater than the temple and Lord of the Sabbath. The sermon underscores the tension between rigid adherence to Pharisaical interpretations and the true intent of the law, which is rooted in mercy over sacrifice. The ultimate message is that Jesus is the authoritative interpreter of the law and that understanding God's commandments requires knowing Him personally. The sermon concludes with a call to recognize the dangers of Pharisaical tendencies within oneself and to focus on Christ's preeminence in all things.

At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But He said 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? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple.

But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For The Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath. 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. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. Dear Heavenly Father, We thank you for your word that you have given us. We thank you for this testimony, this testament that you have given us, that we may see your plan in history, that we may see the glories of your son Jesus Christ that we may see our own sin on our own pride, our own self-righteousness, dear Lord. Dear Father, I pray that you would be with Jason today, that you would fill him full of the Holy Spirit and with power.

Dear God, that you would work on his mind as he expounds this sermon text to us, that you would put your words in his mouth. And dear Heavenly Father, that you would open our hearts and our minds and our eyes and our ears, that we may see and truly see, that we may hear and truly hear and that we may understand. In Jesus' name, amen. In Jesus' name, Amen. In the text for last week in verse 25, Jesus praises His Father.

He says, I thank you Father. He is praising God. He is thanking God because it seemed good to God to hide the things of His Kingdom from those who are wise and to reveal the things of his kingdom to babes. So Jesus praises them because it seemed good in the sight of the Father to hide and also to reveal. And then at the very end of the text in chapter 11 verses 28 through 30, Jesus says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." In contrast, we saw that in Matthew 23 verse 4, Jesus speaking of the scribes and the Pharisees says, For they bind heavy burdens hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. So the text put before us, Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, and the scribes and the Pharisees who will bind a heavy burden on you. They themselves won't even lift a finger to move the same burden. Now we head into Matthew 12 and this is exactly what we see.

We see scribes and Pharisees ready to bind a heavy burden onto us, but that Jesus himself has a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. It is easy to look at our text for this week and just get wrapped up in the inner workings of Sabbath observance. And our minds immediately go to what's lawful and why. But The text doesn't really take us there. Our minds wander there, but it's not the direction actually that the text is pointing us in.

It is a very useful text for understanding the Sabbath and understanding what we should and shouldn't be doing on the Sabbath. But really this text isn't fundamentally about that. It's fundamentally about two things. The first thing and the most prominent thing is it's about the identity of Jesus Christ. It's about the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, as the Redeemer of His people, as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

And secondly, it's about what He wants from His people. Not just on the Sabbath day, but on every day, in every category. What is the desire of God for His people? When we get right to the middle of this text, God is going to talk about what He desires. So, It is a text about the Sabbath.

It is a text about what we can and can't do on the Sabbath. But if we get wrapped up in the inner workings of that, we miss out on what Jesus is really saying, which is, I am greater than the temple. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. And there are things that I desire and I want my children to understand them. I'm not training slaves.

I'm discipling children. And that's really the fundamental difference between what we see in the approach of the scribes and the Pharisees and what Jesus is actually teaching. So let's go straight to the text and let's look at verses 1-8 together. I'll read it again, Matthew 12, 1-8. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, They said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But he said 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.

Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, You would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath." Jesus and his disciples are in the grain field on the Sabbath day. His disciples are hungry.

They began to pick heads of grain as they are walking in the field. And rub them together. This is in Mark's parallel passage. They are rubbing these heads of grain together and in their hands and then they're eating them because they're hungry. And the Pharisees see it.

And I just want to pause there and say, That's fishy. The text doesn't give us any more there. But the Pharisees are looking on. The Pharisees are observing even what they are doing as they walk through the grain field. And so the text doesn't comment on it more.

So I won't either. But when I read this, I pause in my mind to say, what? And they say, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful. Now At this point it would be helpful just to review the law that the Pharisees say Jesus' disciples are breaking. It is found in two places, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but we will read it out of Exodus 20, verses 9-11.

6 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, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." The Lord hallowed the Sabbath day. He set it aside for his very own purposes.

Are the Pharisees saying here when they say, you are doing what is not lawful to do, are they saying that they broke this law, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5? And the answer to that is, sort of. Sort of. The rabbis of the day have made their commentary on this law. And this is a general law.

It does say that you shouldn't work, that It should be a day that's hallowed to the Lord. But it doesn't dissect what you're free to do and what you're prohibited from doing. And so the rabbis have filled in the blank in great detail. And as they've done with almost every other law, they put a fence around it. In other words, we want to make sure that you stay out of trouble.

And so we're going to keep you away in our dissecting this. We're going to keep you away from the boundary and we're going to redraw the lines in a way that is absolutely safe. So if you follow our commentary on the fourth commandment, You'll be sure not to be in sin. And so they have definitely violated the rabbi's commentary on the fourth commandment. And it's up for debate whether they've actually violated the commandment.

They're on the other side of the fence, but the fence wasn't put there by God. The fence was put there by the rabbis to keep you away from the boundary of the actual commandment. Jesus answers them with two rhetorical questions. And both the questions start the same way. Have you not read to the scribes and the Pharisees?

Ouch. And it's meant to have the effect that you get when you read it, and you think what it must have been like for the scribes and the Pharisees to hear, have you not read? The blood pressure is rising at that point. That is exactly the effect that Jesus is going for. He speaks in his two rhetorical questions of two case studies.

The first is David, the second is the priests. And the implication is that the answer is obvious. If you just look at the two cases, then you say, oh, eating heads of grain in a grain field on the Sabbath as it's happening here is really not a violation of the Sabbath. So he begins with, have you not read about David? And he's taking us to 1 Samuel 20 and 1 Samuel 21.

In chapter 20 of 1 Samuel, Saul has demonstrated his commitment to killing David by trying to run his own son through with a spear. So Saul is committed. He is committed to killing David. And in chapter 21, David is running for his life because if he doesn't flee, Saul is going to kill him. Just as soon as he can get his hands on him, Saul is going to kill David.

David's first stop is a place called Nob. The tabernacle is there and Ahimelech, the priest, is there. David needs provision. He is fleeing for his life and he needs provision. So he asks for provision and there is nothing on hand except for the showbread.

So the account in 1 Samuel 21 is of Ahimelech actually giving David the showbread for his companions. Now the law that governs what's right and not right to do with the showbread is in Leviticus 24 verses 5 through 9. In Leviticus 24, 5 through 9, it calls for 12 loaves to be baked and set before the Lord on a table. And it's perpetual. There will never be a time when this law is being followed where there aren't 12 loaves set before the Lord on this golden table.

And you do the switch over on the Sabbath. So there is fresh bread every Sabbath day to be put before the Lord. One loaf for every tribe of the people of Israel. And It's clear from 1 Samuel 21 that it's switchover day. It is the Sabbath day.

So you think, well this doesn't directly have a bearing on the Sabbath. Actually, David is coming into the tabernacle on the Sabbath day because it's the day where they're changing over bread. They've already got a new set of twelve loaves. John Gill actually takes the time in his commentary on this passage to cite the different rabbis that proclaim that David is not guilty because this is an act of necessity. And so the Jews are already having to concede the point to Jesus because their own rabbis have said David didn't really violate the law here.

It's only lawful for the priests to eat the showbread. But because David is fleeing for his life and needs provision, it's an act of necessity. And The law of the showbread is intended to be typical. It is a type. It is part of the tabernacle and temple design that actually points to Christ.

Isn't that an interesting thing to insert into this text? These are types that point forward to Christ. So the point of the showbread isn't to be withheld from the man who is fleeing from his life. The point of the showbread is actually to point forward to Christ. And we have David here not carelessly neglecting to prepare for the Sabbath.

I just haven't taken care of my business and I'm hungry so I go in and eat the showbread. That is a million miles away from what is happening in 1 Samuel 21. He's running for his life. He and his men need provision and it was okay for David to eat the show bread. Then he says, Have you not read about the priests?

On the Sabbath, those guys are working. They are doing all the kinds of labor that when you look at their commentaries on all the things you shouldn't do, The priests are violating in every category. And so Jesus actually says they are profaning the Sabbath, and yet they are blameless because they are doing what God has commanded them to do. So they are profaning the Sabbath, but they are not really profaning the Sabbath because they are obeying God. They are actually doing what God commanded.

So the Sabbath isn't a universal ceasing of activity. It is a day of rest, but it's not a universal ceasing of all activity. It's a day of rest and worship. And the worship that God is requiring on His day, the Lord's day, is going to generate activity, and it's lawful activity. There are pastors all over the country that were burning the pre-dawn oil this morning.

They were up long before you were up. And they were hard at work. And all that work that they were doing was lawful work to the extent that it was for the worship of God. So the Sabbath isn't a ceasing of all activity, it's a ceasing of certain types of activity, and the activities that are necessary for the worship of God, like the set-up team to come in and help us be ready to come together as the people of God, is lawful Sabbath activity. Now we get to verses 6-8.

Verses 6-8 is the punch line. This is the things that we really need to know are in verses 6-8. That Jesus is greater than the temple and that Jesus is Lord even of the Sabbath. What is really being communicated here? Is this executive privilege?

Executive privilege is a term that we use for our President. Our President can do things that you or I cannot do because he is the President. So there are laws that don't apply to our President because of his office. Is that what Jesus is doing here in saying that he is greater than the temple, that he is Lord even of the Sabbath? Is he claiming executive privilege to say, the Sabbath laws don't really apply to me and my disciples?

After all, the lawgiver, you would have to admit, has executive privilege. Jesus is the lawgiver. He is saying, I am the Lord of the Fourth Commandment. I am the Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus was here not as the law-giver, he was here as the law-fulfiller.

When we go and look at what Paul writes to the Galatians in Galatians 4 verses 4 and 5 we find this, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law. Jesus was born of a woman born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Critical to Jesus' mission to come and be the Redeemer of His people would be to come and to be born under the law and to perfectly satisfy every law that God had given. He hasn't come to abolish the law, He has come to fulfill it, to live a life of perfect obedience so then he can be an acceptable sacrifice and his perfect obedience can be imputed to his people. If Jesus exempts himself from even one law, even one Sabbath ordinance, then he is not fit to be the spotless lamb and he cannot impute righteousness to us.

And so it is so clear that we see this rightly. There is no executive privilege here. Jesus is not exempting himself or his disciples from the law and saying, I don't have to play by those rules. Jesus came here to play by those rules and to perfectly fulfill them. He is arguing that what is happening in that grain field is a perfect fulfillment of the Sabbath law.

In claiming that he is greater than the temple, in claiming that he is the Lord even of the Sabbath, he is really claiming that as God He has final say to rightly interpret his own laws. As the maker of heaven and earth, when it comes time to decide what is lawful and what is not lawful, what is meant by law, that he will have the final say. So here Jesus is, and he is freeing the fourth commandment. He is freeing it from wrong interpretations, hundreds of years of wrong interpretation, and from man-made additions. That is what Jesus is doing here in the grain field.

He's freeing up the fourth commandment from wrong interpretations and man-made additions. Haven't we already seen this in the Sermon on the Mount? Chapter 5 is just instance after instance after instance where Jesus said, You have heard that it was said of those long ago, but I say unto you, Jesus is not overturning the law, he is not changing the law, but he is freeing it from all the wrong interpretation and all the man-made additions. He speaks of murder, the sixth commandment, and he says, I am the Lord of the sixth commandment. He speaks of adultery, the seventh commandment, and He says, I am the Lord of the sixth commandment.

He speaks of adultery, the seventh commandment. He says, I am the Lord of the seventh commandment. What about oaths? I am the Lord of oaths. What about vengeance and retribution?

I am the Lord of vengeance and retribution. And I am the Lord even of the Sabbath. In Matthew 5, he was contradicting the same group, the scribes and the Pharisees. And he's contradicting them because they've done something. They've taken the law and they've said, this is the law.

They've skinned it down. They've contracted it. They've reduced it to something that's manageable and doable. And it's all external and Jesus rebukes them. He frees it from all the misinterpretation and the additions, or I guess in that case the subtractions.

But now he is addressing the opposite error. The scribes and the Pharisees have taken the Sabbath law and they have said this is the Sabbath law. It's exactly in the opposite direction. In Matthew 5, it's doing this with the law and in Matthew 12 with the Sabbath law, they've done this. And so it's wrong.

It's blasphemy to add to the law of God and to subtract to the law of God. And we see them doing both. I printed out yesterday the Mishnah on the Sabbath. And it's about 20 pages. This is the tract in the Mishnah on the Sabbath.

And they'll tell you what God really meant to say in Exodus 20. But he was trying to save space, so he left it to the Jews to fill it out. So I'll just read you a couple. By the way, this is really entertaining reading. This is a crack-up.

Chapter 6.7 The cripple may go out with his wooden leg. For those of you wondering if that is lawful on the Sabbath. Oh, wait, no, not exactly. Such is the decree of Rabbi Meyer, but Rabbi Josie prohibits it. If the wooden leg has a receptacle for pads, it is subject to defilement.

This is what you find. This is the adding that they had done. So now we get to chapter 7 of the Sabbath tract in the Mishnah and paragraph 2. And it gives us the 39 categories of work that you can't do. I'll read you some.

Sewing, plowing, reaping, binding into sheaves, threshing. We'll skip down a little bit. Hunting deer. So I was told yesterday that you cannot hunt deer in North Carolina on Sundays. And I guess this is where it comes from.

Writing two single letters or characters. Erasing in order to write two letters. You can't do that. So you can't write two letters. Again, you can write one letter.

I don't know why the distinctions are here, but you see how they're parsing this. This is not how you disciple a child. This is how you train a slave. If you're discipling a child, you want your child to know your heart behind the things that you're instructing them. This is the training of a slave.

You can't go out with your wooden leg. How can you read that and know what the heart of God is? Think of what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. In this place there is one greater than the temple. Now those are fighting words.

Priests are important, but the Jews would acknowledge that they live and die. They come and they go. The high priest is really important, but the same thing. He lives and dies. He comes and goes.

But the temple is here to stay. The temple will be here when we are all gone, think the Jews. It's the place where he has caused his name to dwell. Now here comes Jesus and he says there is one here who is greater than the place where God has called His name to dwell. Listen to Isaiah 66, this is the last chapter in Isaiah.

Isaiah 66 verses 1 and 2. Thus says the LORD, Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool. Where is the house that you will build me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made and all those things exist, says the Lord.

But on this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word." The temple cannot contain God. He did ordain it. He did cause it to be the place where His name dwelt, But it wasn't where God dwelt. And he says that instead of a building for him, he looks upon him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and one who trembles at his word. This is the heart of God.

Listen to 2 Chronicles 6, 18. In 2 Chronicles 6, the temple has actually been built. David wanted to build it, but God wouldn't let him build it. But his son built it. And here we are.

David's son Solomon is consecrating the temple. He says this, 2 Chronicles 6, 18, but will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple which I have built." Solomon builds this magnificent temple. Is he proud of his temple?

He is not. He knows that the heaven of heavens cannot contain God. He knows that this building that he's built will not contain God. So, Here comes Jesus. The temple is nothing.

I am greater than the temple. Then he says, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus Christ is the Word incarnate, the Word made flesh. The worlds were made by Him, the worlds were made through Him, The worlds were made for Him. So if there is a need to know when something is or is not in accordance with the law of God, He will be the one to say, He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

The ESV Study Bible says this in the notes section, Jesus does not challenge the Sabbath law itself, but rather the Pharisees' interpretation of it. As Messiah, Jesus authoritatively interprets every aspect of the law and here points out the Pharisee's blindness to the actual intent of the Sabbath to bring rest and well-being. This final argument in response to the Pharisees challenge is the decisive argument that because of who Jesus is He had the authority to interpret the law. This is the meaning of this whole section Jesus has the authority to interpret the law So that when someone comes to him and says, we fast, why don't you fast? He says, I'm the bridegroom.

I'll say when it's the time of fasting, so when someone comes and says, why are you violating the law of the Sabbath? He'll say, I'll tell you when there's been a violation of the law of the Sabbath. I'm greater than the temple. I'm the Lord even of the Sabbath. And then he quotes Hosea 6.6.

And it's not the first time we've seen Hosea 6.6. He quoted it back in chapter 9 when he was being rebuked for eating with tax collectors and sinners. He quotes the same verse, I desire mercy not sacrifice. The commandments of God reflect the perfect character and nature of God. That's why we have the commandments of God, so that we'll know what he's like and what he desires and what he requires of his people.

They reflect his character. If you want to know what God is like, go study the law of God. You'll learn so much about what God is like because they reflect Him. You can slavishly follow the rules without knowing God. But you can't truly understand the law unless you know God.

And so you see it flows in both directions. You need the law to understand God, but unless you know this God, not in an intellectual way, but unless you know God, there is no hope that you will be able to do anything besides A slavish obedience to the law. You'll never be able to act like a son and obey, truly obey the law of God. Verse 7, Jesus says, But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. Jesus pronounces himself and his disciples guiltless.

Not a Sabbath violation. We did not do what it is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. Jesus is teaching something that goes way beyond the nuances of Sabbath observance. He is teaching that God prefers mercy to sacrifice. Now, we can't hear what he is not saying, we need to hear what he is saying.

He is not saying, obedience doesn't matter. If we heard that, we didn't hear Jesus. He didn't say that. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Now, 99 times out of a hundred, sacrifice is part of mercy.

So here's an ordinance of God we'll participate in the Lord's Supper today. Is that pulling in the opposite direction of mercy? The Lord's Supper? It is mercy. It's the mechanism of God's mercy.

And so many times we find that that's true. That sacrifice, the things that God has given us to do, the ceremonies that God has given us in the law to do, are a means of mercy. So It's not two things pulling against each other, but the end point is mercy. So when we begin to see that the way we're going about our sacrifice is pulling against mercy then we've not understood. All the law and the prophets hang on two commandments.

You would love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and that you would love your neighbor as yourself." All the law and the prophets hang on those two commandments. Paul says, love is the fulfillment of the law. Now I preach this with trembling, and the reason I preach it with trembling is Matthew 5, 19, whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom." And if we misunderstand what Jesus is teaching here, we take a pinhole and we want to drive the Mack truck through it. No! Jesus isn't saying that it doesn't matter if you obey.

Or if you have something else going on that you need to take care of that the Sabbath can be set aside. Jesus isn't saying that. This is not license. This is not situational ethics. It's not.

Jesus isn't teaching either one of those things. But he is saying that when a ceremony of the law is going to overthrow the end of the law, which is love, then you haven't really understood what the law requires. When a ceremony of the law is going to overthrow the end of the law, what does Jesus say? I desire mercy. That's the end of the law.

So when your understanding of what God is requiring has you overthrowing mercy as God defines it, we have to be really precise here, as God defines it, then we have not understood what God is requiring. In the parallel passage in Mark 2, this is added to what Jesus said on this occasion, Mark 2.27, and Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Matthew didn't record that, but that was said right here in the same account. The Sabbath was made for man. The Sabbath was meant to be a blessing, not man for the Sabbath.

So it wasn't meant to have a heaping up of things that would cause the Sabbath not to be a blessing. But it was meant to be a blessing. The Sabbath is about the worship of God. It should be carefully prepared for in reverence for God. Everything that we do, everything that we think about the Sabbath should be reverential to our God because it's not just rest, it's rest and worship.

Not one to the exclusion of the other. Now, turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58. This is a very, very important Sabbath passage. Isaiah 58, starting in 13.

Isaiah 58, 13 and 14. Isaiah 58, 13 and 14. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." So this is a great text to put beside our Sabbath practices.

So how about Jesus and his disciples in the grain field? Any violations here? Any problem between Isaiah and Jesus and his disciples? No, Not at all. Jesus and His disciples were not indulging in their own ways.

They were not indulging in their own pleasures. They were not indulging in their own words. Surely for Jesus and his disciples the day was a delight to them. And this is what God desires. And we should use this text to help us think about how we spend our Sabbath.

We should know that our own ways will be contradicted by the Sabbath. That's what you can expect. Your own pleasures will be contradicted by the Sabbath. Your own words will be contradicted by rightly observing the Sabbath. But if we will apply ourselves to it, desire to obey it, seek to obey it, and work to honor God through it, we have a promise that we will delight ourselves in the Lord.

Our Sabbath observance is such an important factor in the level of delight we have in the Lord. That's what Isaiah 58 says. He says, if you honor me on the Sabbath day, I'll increase your delight in me. That's why when Scott and Dan and Steve Brege preached on these when we were in Deuteronomy, they put it into a set and they named the set a Day of Delight. So when we are thinking of the Sabbath as this cumbersome thing we can't do, it's so restrictive, we're not thinking about the Sabbath rightly.

It's a day of delight. And Jesus and his disciples were in the grain field and they were delighting in the Lord in the grain field. I'm telling you they were. And it was just fine for them to pick the heads of grain and to satisfy their hunger that way. It was not a violation of the Sabbath.

If your keeping of the Sabbath is requiring you to abandon mercy, you've not understood the Sabbath yet. You've not understood it yet. The way your keeping of the Sabbath feels so oppressive, then you've not understood. Verses 9 through 14. 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." Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and it was restored as whole as the other.

Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. Jesus enters the synagogue. There is a man there. He has a withered hand. At this point, I want to take us to the parallel text in Mark.

Turn to Mark 3. We haven't talked too much about harmonizing the Gospel accounts, but this is one instance where it's a great case to look at and to decide what we're going to do with these two accounts. Mark 3 verses 1 through 6. And actually look at 2.28, Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. So you can see in Mark we are right where we are in Matthew.

We have just finished with Jesus claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath. Mark 3.1 And he entered the synagogue again and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched him closely whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, step forward. Then he said 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. And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts. He said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him." So there are these two accounts that are so similar in so many ways, but there is one really significant difference. And you might not have caught it.

In Matthew, the people of the synagogue ask Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? In Mark, it's Jesus asking the people of the synagogue. There's a parallel account in Luke. The parallel account in Luke just identifies these people as scribes and Pharisees. I'm going to start calling them scribes and Pharisees, where Matthew doesn't call them that, but Luke identifies them as that.

So that's why I'm doing it here on out. The scribes and the Pharisees are asking the question of Matthew. Jesus is asking the question in Mark. Now we have three options. We could say these aren't the same occasion.

There's a lot of similarities, but it's not the same occasion. That's a hard one to swallow. It fits right in the same flow in both places. They've both been out in the grain fields. It's the very next thing.

In the synagogue, on the Sabbath, there's a man with a withered hand, it really sounds like the same occasion. Option two, Scripture isn't inerrant. Scripture has some flaws in it. They can't both be true and so we can trust the scripture on big ticket items like redemption and things like that, but it's got some problems. Option three, somehow, someway, they're both true.

And we're going to put ourselves under the authority of God and desiring to know how the Scriptures can stay inerrant, perfect, so that what Scripture claims about itself are really true and we can hold to them. I don't know about you, but I'm too far down the track. Scripture has proven itself faithful and true to me a thousand different times. I'm not letting go of the inerrancy of Scripture. Scripture says it's perfect, it claims it's perfect, and it's proven itself to me a thousand times to be perfect.

I'm going to put myself under the authority of God and say, Oh Lord, will you show me how these things can be true together? Consider this. Jesus answers the question with a question. Jesus answers a question with a question. Do we have any precedent for that?

You betcha. Mark 11.30. Jesus by what authority are you doing these things? I'll answer your question if you answer mine. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?

Answer me. Matthew 22, 20. Jesus, should we pay taxes? Bring me a coin. Whose face is on that coin?

Think of the scene, if this is so. Jesus is there, the man with the withered hand is there. Jesus, now their motive is actually expressly said in the account. They're looking to accuse him. So we know what the motive is because Matthew tells us and so does Mark and so does Luke.

They all record it. They're looking to get Jesus. Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And Jesus points at this man with a withered hand and he says, step forward. And now we have a word picture right in front of us.

Is it lawful, Jesus, to heal on the Sabbath? Step forward. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? To kill or to make alive, to do evil or to do good? Is it lawful?

He asks the question and then in the mark account there is silence. Silence. Jesus asks another question about your sheep. Your sheep is in a pit on the Sabbath. When you lift it out, if your sheep is in a pit on the Sabbath, And he doesn't have to utter the rest.

The rest is patently obvious. You'll do this for your sheep. But this man, made in the image of God, who has lived all this time with the withered hand. God wants him to wait till Monday because of the Sabbath. God wants him to wait till Monday because of the Sabbath.

Jesus says it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Loving your neighbor is good. Loving your neighbor is lawful Sabbath activity. And he says to the man, stretch out your hand. Jesus, that's kind of the problem.

Stretching out the hand is the problem. Jesus doesn't say, do you believe? He says, stretch out your hand. We'll see if you believe. We'll see if you try to stretch out that hand.

And he does. He starts the motion and he's able for the first time and how long to complete the motion He can stretch out his hand. And his hand is as whole as the other one. It's just as good as the other one. And so again, the miracle supports the claims.

I'm greater than the temple. I'm the Lord even of the Sabbath. And if you need proof, here is the healing. And now the Pharisees aren't interested in sticking around to debate the issue. They've been confounded, but they go away and they start their conspiracy.

They plot to kill Jesus. Now what's this all about? So they ate some grain on the Sabbath, you're going to kill them over that. So he healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. This is worthy of death.

I just want to say this is not just a little dust-up over Sabbath observances. This is about Jesus' claims to be greater than the temple to be Lord even of the Sabbath. This is not lost on the scribes and Pharisees. This is a claim to be God and they know it. Here's what we learned from this.

People will put up with your claims of morality. You're against gay marriage? Well, I think you need to rethink that. I'm not really that way. Or I think you're an idiot.

Or, but they can put up with that because they can dismiss our claims of morality. And so, they might not like you, but you don't get voted off the island for saying what you think is right or wrong. But when you say, there is a God in heaven and you must worship Him. When you say, There is a God in heaven and you must obey Him. You must repent of all that you have been thinking and doing.

You have to repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. When you say that, They want to kill you. When you say, there is a God and He is commanding all men everywhere to repent, they cannot abide you. In conclusion, a couple of weeks ago I titled the sermon, that in all things he may have the preeminence.

And it's a phrase that comes right out of Colossians 1. And since then, I keep thinking, I could title the sermon that. And another week, I could title the sermon that. That in all things he may have the preeminence. We could just have a series of totally different sermons on totally different texts all with the same title.

That in all things he may have the preeminence. This is what we are encountering over and over and over again in Matthew. It's Christ. It's Christ. It's Christ.

He's greater than the temple. He's the Lord even of the Sabbath. It's Christ. In all things, he has preeminence. What a tragedy if we were to get all the technical issues of Sabbath observance right and missed Christ.

The text takes us to Christ. Now, may we be faithful. May we be given light to walk by and then obey him. And one week after the other, learn to be better at observing the Sabbath. But if we would just constrain ourselves to technical obedience to that, we would have missed all.

It's Christ. Lastly, we'll quote Scott, you are the Pharisee in the story. It would be a mistake to go away from this text and not see how we're the Pharisee in the story. See how there's something in our heart that wants to take the commandment and bring it to here or to take the commandment and bring it to here. Did I do that?

I did it the wrong way. To expand or contract, depending on what serves our purposes. We are the Pharisee in the story. We've got the same seeds in us that were in full bloom in these scribes and Pharisees. And we better be on the lookout.

Those seeds will grow up and gobble us up if we are not vigilant, diligent. Then in all things, he may have the preeminence. Let's pray. Father you have sent your Son Jesus Christ greater than the temple, Lord even of the Sabbath. And He's rescued us.

We're so thankful. We're so thankful, God. We pray that we would learn what this means, that you desire mercy and not sacrifice. And as we learn that, we wouldn't find ourselves excusing ourselves from obedience, but we'd find ourselves full of mercy, full of love for you and full of love for our neighbor. All the law and the prophets hangs upon that.

Oh God, please help us as we consider these things and we seek you to know how to apply these in everyday life. Show us God what we should do today and tomorrow to be more faithful to the things that you're teaching us. In Jesus' name, Amen.