This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to our 14th week of looking
through the book of Matthew, chapter 12 we're going to be looking at together
this week. And I want to begin today, begin this week by reading the first eight
verses of chapter 12 of the book of Matthew. At that time Jesus went through the
grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing
what is unlawful on the Sabbath. " He answered, "Haven't you read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry?

He entered the house of God and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread,
which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you
read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day
and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

If you had known what these words mean, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would
not have condemned the innocent, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. "
Now that last phrase, the Son of Man, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. To get to
the meaning of these verses, you have to get to the meaning of that phrase.

What does it mean that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath? Let me tell you some
things it does not mean to begin with. First of all, when you say that Jesus is
Lord of the Sabbath, number one it means the Sabbath is not Lord.

The laws about the Sabbath, the way that we keep the Sabbath day, the day of
celebration, those are not the Lord over all of our lives. Now Jesus is saying
this to the Pharisees, "And they had made the law, the rules of the Old
Testament, their Lord. " And they wanted to make it everyone else's Lord.

These laws were written down eventually in a book of laws called the Mishnah,
whole sections about how these commandments in the Old Testament applied to
everyday life. For instance, the section of keeping the Sabbath is 24 chapters
long. So not only keep the Sabbath, but here's how, and here's how, and here's
how, and here's how, and here's how.

And also in the rest of the Talmud, you can read the commentaries on keeping the
laws that are explained in the Mishnah. 156 pages of that section of
commentaries is devoted to commenting about how to keep the Sabbath. So they
were very serious about keeping the law.

They had the law, they had the description of the law, they had the commentaries
on the description of the law. And it resulted sometimes in strange actions. For
instance, it said in the law that you can't tie a knot in the Old Testament
unless it's absolutely necessary.

So they had to figure out when could you tie a knot and when could you not tie a
knot. This may sound strange, but I'm going somewhere with this. They determined
that a woman could tie a knot in her girdle because that was obviously
necessary.

So that could be done on the Sabbath. But you could not tie a knot in a rope to
lower a pail to get water. That was not necessary.

So they actually figured out, and this made its way into the Mishnah, they
figured out that you could tie a girdle to a pail of water and lower that into
the well to get the water. That would be okay to do. By making so many laws and
so many ways to go around the laws, they found themselves having to bend over
backwards many, many times.

And the law became their Lord. Even today, you can see Sabbath laws around the
world. I'll never forget going to Jerusalem years ago and on a Sabbath day, on a
Saturday, going to get on the elevator and somebody said, "Don't get on that
elevator.

" I said, "Why not? " They said, "Well, that's the Sabbath, the Shabbat
elevator. What does that mean?

" Well, it means the elevator stops on every floor. Why does it stop on every
floor? So no one has to push the button because pushing the button would be
work.

It would create a spark, which is a kind of work, so you can't push the button.
So on Sabbath days, the elevator stops on every floor. So I got in another
elevator.

It was funny. When I did, everybody else who had to usually get on the Sabbath
elevator, they got on with me because they didn't want to stop at every floor
and it was okay for me, a Gentile, to push the button. So I pushed the button.

We all went happily up together. Now, we hear these things about the laws and we
think, "I would never do anything like that. " The law, the rules, the
regulations, the rituals, I'd never let that be my Lord.

But let's just wait a minute. This is something we all struggle with. Whenever I
or you, whenever you attend worship, like I'm supposed to go on Sunday, I'm
supposed to go on Saturday, I'm going to church, whenever I attend worship, but
I don't worship.

I just stand there and I don't apply what the Scripture says to my life. I just
went expecting somehow that just going would mean God would bless my life. But I
didn't put my heart into it in any way.

That's a way of keeping the law without having a heart towards God. Many, many
people, we have Bibles in our homes, but we never read them. As if somehow
having that book in my house is somehow going to make my house more holy.

That doesn't make your house any more holy. And so we have ways we struggle with
this as well. We pray before every meal, but sometimes we say the same rote
things without even thinking about God while we're praying.

We get caught up in the same things. We don't want to make the law the Lord. We
don't want to make the ritual the rule the Lord.

In fact, Jesus says, look, even in the Old Testament, he gives them a couple of
examples. Some scriptures about times when people broke the Sabbath law, but God
blessed them even as they were doing it. Have you made some set of rules the
Lord over your life?

It sometimes seems easy and clear to do that at first. I'll make the rule my
Lord. It seems easier.

I just do that and God will love me. But it's without life in the end. It's
empty in the end.

The Sabbath is not Lord. The rules are not the Lord of my life. So if the
Sabbath is not Lord, there's a second thing we have to realize that's not Lord.

You, the Sabbath is not Lord, but the second thing to realize is that you are
not Lord. You're not Lord of your Sabbath. You are not Lord of your Sabbath.

If rules don't run my life, the next thought many of us have is, well then maybe
I'll run my life. I'll figure out what to do on the Sabbath and that's what I'll
do. But you're no better a Lord than the rules are.

It might feel good at first. Usually when people make this decision, I'm going
to run my life, there's a sense of freedom in it at first. I figured it out.

I'm going to do it myself. But immediately that freedom becomes a selfish
pursuit and it's a lifetime pursuit of selfishness. You're no better a Lord than
rules are.

We're not meant to be the Lord of our lives. Rules are not meant to be the Lord
of our lives. The truth is, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.

Jesus is the Lord of you. Jesus is Lord of the universe. When He's in charge, it
works because He's meant to be in charge.

He is in charge. Nobody put Him in charge. He always has been in charge.

He always will be in charge. It's not like they had a vote and said God's going
to be the Lord of the universe. No, He has been from the beginning and He will
be forever.

When I was a youth pastor, I had a group of kids that loved to play that game
Risk. You might know about this game. You put a lot of little pieces on the
board and you move them around to try to take over the world.

I used to, every once in a while, you can only do this once actually, ask them
if they would play the Jesus is Lord version of Risk with me. And they said
sure. So we'd set up all of our pieces and start to move them over the board.

But at the beginning of the game, I'd take a stop clock and I'd set it so that
it was ticking the whole time. All the time we're playing the game. And when the
clock finally went ding, I would pick up the board and put all the pieces back
in the box.

And they'd go, "What are you doing? " I'd say, "Jesus is Lord. In the end, He's
the one who's going to rule everything.

In the end, all this moving around that we do, it means nothing if we don't look
to Him as Lord. " And some of the religious leaders in Jesus' day were
struggling with that. Even as some of us today struggle with that.

Having Jesus be the leader, the ruler, the director, the manager of our lives.
They continued to struggle in verses 9 to 14. Listen to what happened.

Moving on from that place, he, Jesus, went into their synagogue. And a man with
a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked
him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

" He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the
Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable 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 so he stretched it out
and it was completely restored. Just as sound as the other.

But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Notice what
happened here. This man is healed.

This man is miraculously healed. But immediately what they do is they start to
think about how they're going to kill Jesus. They completely missed the healing
because they were so caught up in their desire to accuse Jesus.

When I'm the Lord of my life, when the rules are the Lord of my life, I can miss
what the real Lord of my life is doing. And one of the questions behind this
passage to me personally is, "What am I missing? " One of the questions you
should be asking is, "What are you missing?

" Because God is not doing things the way that you would do them. Because you're
disappointed with God. Because you don't understand what God is doing, how God
is working in your life right now.

What are you missing? Because you've gotten so caught up in the disappointment,
so caught up in the not understanding that you're missing the miracle of what
God's doing in your life right now. I don't want to miss that.

I don't want you to miss that. So let's pray for spiritual wisdom, spiritual
eyes to see that right now. Our Father, we pray together that in the midst of
our disappointment, you'd help us to continue to see your hope.

That in those times when we don't understand, you would give us the faith to
keep looking for you, and to know that even when we don't understand, you do.
Father, we pray that instead of making some rule or ritual the Lord of our
lives, and certainly instead of trying to make ourselves the one who runs and
manages everything, that Lord today, this day, we look to you as our leader, our
guide, our manager, our Lord. Jesus, you are Lord, and we affirm that, and we
want to live that today.

In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look together at the
question of why did Jesus tell people not to tell others when he healed them?