This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 12 February 2023. The audio recording of the sermon can be found below along with the transcript.
Is Christianity your religion? Or is it your refuge? Do you find following Jesus to be restrictive (just a list of rules of what you can and can’t do)? Or do you find following Jesus to be freeing, liberating, comforting? Does your faith feel more like you are running on a treadmill (as you constantly try to keep up the pace) or like you are resting in an armchair (as you enjoy who God is and what he has done for you)? Christian, how do you feel towards Jesus? Is gathering with his people on a Sunday the highlight of your week? Is feeding on his Word more satisfying to you than your favourite food? Is speaking to him in prayer more precious to you than conversing with your closest friend? Is following Jesus a blessing? Or do you sometimes find it to be a bit of a burden?
Over this last year, we’ve been slowly working our way through Matthew’s Gospel. And last Sunday evening, we considered 11:25-30, which includes one of the most famous verses in the book. In 11:28, Jesus declared, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." It’s a wonderful verse that really does deserve to be as well-known as it is. And we saw last Sunday it only becomes more wonderful when you see it against the backdrop, in the context that Matthew puts it in. If you remember last week, we saw Matthew highlights the importance of this context by beginning that paragraph in 11:25 with the words, "At that time". It was at that time of being rejected by his generation, at that time when he was condemned by the crowds, that Jesus pleads, "Come to me...".
And our passage today begins in the exact same way, with Matthew once again highlighting the importance of what has just happened, by stating in 12:1 that it was "At that time [that] Jesus went through the cornfields." Once again, Matthew draws a direct link between what has just happened and what is about to happen, makes a clear connection between what Jesus has just said in Matthew 11 and what Jesus is about to do in Matthew 12. And you don’t have to read far to realise what this connection is. For having just told us that Jesus can give us rest, Matthew now records two stories where the meaning of the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, is first debated, and then demonstrated. In 11:28, Jesus claimed if we come to him, he will give us rest. And now he proves it, for we see he is the one to which the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, points. Further, having told us following Jesus removes our burdens, here Matthew shows us that the religion of the Pharisees only increases them. Let’s consider each story in turn: (1) Jesus is greater than the Sabbath (12:1-8); (2) Jesus can give you true Sabbath (12:9-14).
1. JESUS IS GREATER THAN THE SABBATH (12:1-8)
Christmas is often a busy time. Work and school to finish, gatherings to arrange, presents to buy, and of course dinner itself needs to be prepared and cooked. If we are honest, sometimes it can get a bit too busy. You stay up late on Christmas Eve to wrap presents, and then get up early on Christmas morning to prepare the turkey and put it in the oven. You rush to and from church, if you go at all, because you still have the vegetables to finish and the table to set before your guests arrive. After dinner, you go for the mandatory Christmas walk, and then it is straight back into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal, after which you must do all the dishes that have piled up during the day. When you finally get into bed on Christmas night, you can feel so exhausted from all the effort and work that you find yourself looking forward to a bit of a rest on Boxing Day. We all know it is possible to put so much effort and energy into celebrating Christmas, that you never really get round to celebrating at all. What is supposed to be a day to gather with family and friends to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, can get swallowed up by all the add-ons and traditions. You spend the day so occupied with the turkey and presents, that the true meaning of Christmas is lost in the background. A day that should be a blessing to us, can sometimes feel a lot like a burden.
Here in our passage, we see that something similar had happened to the Jewish day of rest, the Sabbath. In a few weeks, in Exodus 20, Jamie will teach us that after rescuing his people from Egypt, the Lord gives them the Law to live by, summarised in the Ten Commandments. And the fourth commandment stated that God’s people should enjoy a day off every Saturday, a day to be known as the Sabbath, which is the Hebrew word for "rest". Having rescued Israel from the burden of slavery, God gives them a weekly day of rest. It was supposed to show that they had a special relationship with him, for he himself rested on the seventh day of creation. And so, on the Sabbath he told his people to stop all the work that they did the other six days, and devote themselves to worshipping him. The Sabbath was supposed to be a blessing, as we read in Exodus 20:11, "the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
And yet, by the time of Jesus, this good gift from God, this day of rest, seemed more like a burden. The principle of Sabbath is clear in the Old Testament, however all the details weren’t set out. The Israelites knew they should stop their work and worship God. And yet, except for a few examples of what this looked like, God largely left his people to apply this principle to their own lives. God didn’t give them a long list of what they could and could not do. And yet, over the years, the religious leaders had developed such a list. By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees, a name given to many of the strictest Jewish teachers, had come up with 39 different rules for the Sabbath.
For example, in Exodus 34:21, God had said not to plough land on the Sabbath. And so, the Pharisees developed all kinds of extra rules to prevent this happening. For example, they said you could not spit on the ground, for when the spit hit the soil it would cause a slight indent, which would be a kind of ‘ploughing’. If a Jew wanted to spit on the Sabbath, they had to spit on a rock, for then there would be no indent, and so no ‘ploughing’. These were the kinds of rules the Pharisees added to the Sabbath. They took the good gift of a day of rest and turned it into a day of regulations. As Calvin comments, "one could scarcely move a finger without making the conscience tremble." A day of rejoicing and refreshment had become a day of restriction and restraint.
We see this illustrated so well for us in this walk that Jesus and his disciples took through the cornfields. In 12:1, we read as they were walking, the disciples felt hungry and so picked the corn as they went along for a light snack. God specifically stated this was allowed in Deuteronomy 23:25. He had said that this was one way you could love your neighbour, by allowing travellers to snack on corn or pick grapes as they walked through your land. It is similar to how in the UK today, we are allowed to forage wild berries from hedges in the countryside for ourselves. The problem with what the disciples were doing was not the taking, but the timing. For 12:1 tells us this happened on the Sabbath. And that was an issue, for one of the Pharisees’ 39 rules was that you could not gather any food. Just snacking on a handful of corn was enough to be guilty of harvesting a field. And so, we read in 12:2: [READ].
I think sometimes we can be tempted to view the Pharisees as uptight, over-the-top fanatics who just need to be told to calm down, chill out and stop taking things so seriously. After all, who in their right mind would equate spitting to ploughing or snacking to harvesting a field? And yet, when Jesus responds, we see that far from telling them to stop taking God’s law so seriously, he actually says they aren’t taking it seriously enough. Jesus responds to their accusations with three arguments, each drawn from a different part of the Old Testament. He uses the history of 1 Samuel in 12:3-4, the law of Numbers in 12:5-6 and then the prophet Hosea in 11:7-8. Rather than telling these Pharisees they were too pernickety and particular about what the Bible said, he challenged them to go away and look at it all again. The problem wasn’t that their view was too rigorous, it was that it wasn’t right! Twice, in 12:3 and 12:5, Jesus ironically asks these Pharisees "haven’t you read?" It is ironic, as Jesus knows they most certainly have read those parts of the Old Testament. These Pharisees knew Scripture inside out. In fact, some of them were famous for being able to recite it backwards. They had read every word, knew every syllable, counted every letter, and yet here Jesus says that their understanding was shallow, their interpretation lopsided, that these religious leaders didn’t know God’s Word as well as they thought they did!
It is a good reminder that we never know Scripture well enough. No matter how often we have heard it taught, no matter who has told us what in the past, we must always be going back to the Bible, continually reconsidering God’s Word. [...] Further, we see that we can never take God’s Word too seriously. Remember, the problem with the Pharisees wasn’t that their view was too rigorous, it was that their view wasn’t right! Jesus doesn’t correct them by saying ‘lighten up, stop taking everything so seriously’, no he presses them deeper into the Bible, forces them to consider it more closely. And the same is true for us today. Unfortunately, in the past, conservative Christians have sometimes acted like these Pharisees: spoken where God is silent, added rules to what God has given, made up traditions about what you can wear, what you can drink, where you can go, what you must do, we could go on and on. And yet, see here the solution to this is not taking Scripture less seriously, being more relaxed about what God says, giving a bit of leeway or slack. No, the solution is never to look less at the Bible, it is only ever to go deeper into the Bible. It is pushing beyond such shallow understandings of God’s Word and seeing the true meaning of holiness, righteousness, how Jesus wants us to live. It is God’s Word that can correct us, leads us to a right application of truth. We do not avoid becoming Pharisees by taking the Bible less seriously than them. We avoid becoming Pharisees by knowing the Bible far better than them. If we go wrong, it is never because we have taken the Bible too seriously, it is only ever because we have not understood the Bible well enough.
As we said, Jesus corrects the Pharisees through three arguments from the Old Testament. First in 12:3-4, Jesus shows there are clearly exceptions in Scripture to ritual rules like the Sabbath. For in 1 Samuel 21, David breaks such rules by giving holy bread to his hungry followers. These Pharisees accused Jesus’ followers of unlawfully eating to satisfy their hunger, and so Jesus points out that David, their greatest king, did the very same. He follows this in 12:5 with a second argument, which makes an even more powerful point. He says: [READ]. Here Jesus highlights that while the Sabbath is clearly important, Scripture says some duties are even more important. He refers to Numbers 28:9, where instead of resting on the Sabbath, the priests have to do even more work than usual, for they offer extra sacrifices on that day. And yet, because the priests serve in the temple, they are innocent of breaking the Sabbath. Jesus points out their temple duties are clearly more important than their Sabbath duties. How does this excuse the actions of Jesus’ disciples? Well in 12:6, Jesus applies this in a shocking, scandalous way, for he declares, and "I tell you that something greater than the temple is here."
If in 12:3-4, Jesus hints that he and his disciples must be compared to King David and his followers, here he goes one step further and openly declares that he is greater than the temple. The temple was where God dwelt with his people in the Old Testament. However, now God had come in the flesh, in Jesus, he dwells with them in a far greater way. God’s Son is clearly greater than God’s house. And so, do you see how the logic works? Because the temple is greater than the Sabbath, the priests who serve in the temple are innocent of breaking the Sabbath. And because Jesus is greater than the temple, and which is in turn greater than the Sabbath, then those who follow Jesus are innocent of breaking the Sabbath as well. O yes, the holy place is greater than the holy day, but the holy one is greater than them both. Just as the Sabbath was suspended for the sake of sacrifices at the temple, Jesus suggests it will now be set aside because the true temple, the final sacrifice, has come. As Jesus said back in 5:17, he came to fulfil the Old Testament, accomplish what it pointed to, achieve what it aimed at. The Pharisees had falsely condemned Jesus’ disciples because they failed to consider Jesus’ identity, failed to see how his coming had changed everything. And we see a similar point in 12:7-8. By quoting Hosea 6:6, Jesus again highlights some commandments are more important than others, that matters of mercy override rules about rituals. And in 12:8, he concludes with that famous phrase that once again highlights his identity, his importance over the Sabbath, for he says, "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Or as another translation puts it, "sovereign over the Sabbath".
As Christians, when we come to apply a passage like this one, I think we need to take great care. You see, in the past, many godly preachers and teachers have used this text to argue about what Christians should or should not do on a Sunday. And yet we should remember that the Jewish Sabbath, which took place on a Saturday, must be distinguished from the Christian Lord’s Day, which takes place on a Sunday. There are of course a range of views regarding the differences and similarities between the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day among Christians, indeed even among members of our own church. And this isn’t the time to delve into that debate. However, as I studied this text, it seemed clear to me that our passage is far less about the Lord’s Day, and far more about the Lord himself. It is the fact that Jesus is greater than the temple, is the Lord of the Sabbath, that clears his disciples from all charges.
Like those who get so caught up with the presents and the turkey and the Christmas tree, but forget the point of Christmas, these Pharisees were so preoccupied on keeping the Sabbath, that they had forgotten the whole point of Sabbath in the first place, forgotten its purpose was to worship God, enjoy a relationship of rest and refreshment with him, to walk and talk with him as Adam and Eve did when God rested after creation. So much so, that when God himself showed up in the person of his Son, when the one who was greater than the temple walked into town, when the Lord of the Sabbath was spotted refreshing his disciples in the cornfield, they charged him with breaking the rules, spoiling the very sign that was supposed to point them to him. The day that should have been a blessing, had turned into a burden, because they were blind to who Jesus was, to how they could find their true Sabbath in him.
Brothers and sisters, is that true for parts of your Christian life? Here we see that God’s good gifts, even that of the Sabbath, become lifeless and dead, be burdens rather than blessings, if we forget about Christ. John Stott put it like this, "Christ is at the centre of Christianity; all else is circumference." Is that true for you? Is Christ at the centre of your faith? Does everything you believe and do revolve around him? Do you read your Bible to grow in your knowledge and love of Jesus? Are you giving yourself in prayer to speak to your Saviour? If not, such things are just religious habits. Do you come to church to learn more about Jesus and worship him with others? If not, then this is simply a social club. When you serve, formally in church ministries or informally by discipling and evangelising others, are you consciously doing that out of thankfulness to Jesus? Driven by a desire to make his name known? If not, do not be surprised if you end up like these Pharisees, weighed down by a list of all you have to do, worn out by all the regulations and requirements.
This is true not just in what we do personally, but also in what we do together. If you have been around Grace Church long enough, you will know we value what the Bible teaches about the local church, try to practice what it says about church membership, leadership and discipline. And rightly so, for those things are wonderful blessings that God has given to us in his Word that we may faithfully represent him. And yet if such doctrines, such practices, are to be kept from becoming our version of the Pharisees’ 39 rules for the Sabbath, then we must ensure that Christ is found at the centre of them, that Jesus is always seen as the reason for them, the one who stands behind them. It is the same for any plans we have to plant or revitalise a church in the future, as we were discussing earlier this week together. Brothers and sisters, if such a work is to be a blessing rather than a burden, if it is to be a genuine extension of Christ’s kingdom rather than the equivalent of a franchise opening up another storefront, then it must be done with, driven by, a hunger and passion for Jesus Christ. For Christ is the centre of Christianity and all else is circumference in comparison.
Brothers and sisters, if following Jesus right now feels more like a burden than a blessing, then maybe you have forgotten who you are following, become blind to just how great Jesus is. He declares here that he is greater than the temple, that he is sovereign even over the Sabbath, that he is to be valued above all other things. Jesus is so great, that it seems that we cannot make too much of him. He is the one subject of which you cannot speak too much, he is the one person of which you cannot think too much. As I am preparing sermons, I keep a quotation at the bottom on my page of what Charles Spurgeon once said to his students. When speaking about what to include in sermons, he commented, ‘Whatever else you leave out, let Jesus Christ never be forgotten.’ Friends, if you forget all else in your Christian life, let Jesus Christ never be forgotten. For we see here that if you do not keep Jesus at the centre of your faith, then just as if the sun was removed from the centre of the solar system, all light and life will go out. If you take Christ out of your Christianity, you will be left with nothing but empty religion. If you forget Jesus, undervalue Jesus, then even God’s best blessings (his word and church) will become burdens. For Jesus must be seen as greater than them all, at the centre of them all, working in us through them all.
2. JESUS CAN GIVE YOU TRUE SABBATH (12:9-14)
Here we see one of the reasons why Jesus is greater than the Sabbath, greater than the temple, for he gives us what these things were pointing to. Jesus is greater than the Sabbath, because he can give us true Sabbath, true rest. It is clear Jesus’ response in 12:3-8 rattled the Pharisees, for as he moved from the field to their synagogue, we read in 12:10 that they try to trap and trick him. When they see there is a man there with a shrivelled hand, we read, "Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" It is so sad isn’t it, that when the Pharisees noticed this man all they saw was a problem, a problem that they could turn to their own advantage. And yet, Jesus, the one who is gentle and humble in heart, instead sees a person, a person who is suffering greatly and needs restoration. Having a deformity in his hand, he would almost certainly have been unable to work, as so much work was manual labour with your hands in those days. Further, Luke 6:6 notes that it was his right hand, which should have been strong hand. This man suffered from a debilitating disability, yet the Pharisees turned him into an object for an argument, a prop in a debate over proper conduct on the Sabbath.
Sadly, there actually was a big debate over this issue within Judaism at the time. When considering whether you could heal or help the sick on the Sabbath, most took the view that you could only do so if their condition was life threatening. If you were not directly saving their life, then you weren’t to do anything on the Sabbath and instead tend to the injury or sickness the next day. According to the Pharisees’ understanding, Jesus should have left this man to suffer for another 24 hours, and then returned to heal him then. However, with the quotation of Hosea 6:6 still echoing in the background, which stated mercy is more important to God than ritual, Jesus challenges their callous view in 12:11 by pointing out that if they saw a sheep suffering on the Sabbath, they would act to save it. And so, in 12:12, concludes that given a person is so much more valuable than a sheep, it is therefore "lawful to do good [that is to heal this man] on the Sabbath."
The story ends in 12:13-14, with a stark contrast between the ultimate outcome of these two approaches to the Sabbath. On the one hand, in 12:14, you have the final response of the Pharisees, enraged at what they see to be Jesus’ scandalous breaking of the Sabbath, the day of rest, we read "the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus." These men who were so strenuous about keeping the Sabbath, now went and spent the remainder of that Sabbath, not resting in God, but plotting and planning to put the Son of God to death. It is sad and sorry end to the story for these men, and yet it provides a wonderful juxtaposition to how Jesus spent the rest of his day, to what Jesus did for this man suffering with a shrivelled hand. For in 12:13 we read: [READ]. The Pharisees were consumed by hate. Jesus was driven by love. The religion of the Pharisees ultimately led to death, Jesus’ death. But Jesus gave this man life. For when he stretched out his hand to Jesus, it was completely restored, instantly made healthy, sound, whole. By this, Jesus showed the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of refreshment and restoration, not just to recover from six days of work, but for this man to recover from a lifetime of infirmity.
If you were to look through the rest of the Gospels, you would see that controversies over the Sabbath are a regular feature of Jesus’ ministry. And yet, when you get into the epistles, the letters written to churches at the end of the New Testament, the Sabbath is only mentioned in two passages. Both effectively make the same point, a point that is so well illustrated by these events in Matthew 12. In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul declares that the Sabbath is the shadow, of which Christ is the substance. Do you get that? When you see a shadow set out on the ground, you realise that that shadow has not caused itself, but rather tells you there is something that shape around you that is being projected onto the ground. And Paul is saying that if the Sabbath is the shadow on the ground, Jesus is the Sabbath-shaped object causing that shadow. It is the same idea as when you think about a reflection in a mirror. If the Sabbath is the reflection in the mirror, Jesus is the one looking into mirror. Paul teaches that what the Sabbath promised, Jesus provides. What the Sabbath pointed to; Jesus is. The same point is made in Hebrews 4, where the author explains that there is a real Sabbath rest that remains for God’s people, that is there is a rest into which we can enter, for by faith in Jesus, by responding to the Gospel, we can come to enjoy eternal rest, perfect peace, a restored relationship with God and refreshment and rejoicing forever and ever. Is this not also what Jesus said back in 11:28, Jesus declared, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Come to me, all you who need a Sabbath, need restoration, refreshment, and I will give it to you and give it to you forever. Like this man who stretched his hand out to Jesus and was restored, made whole and well, we can all find restoration in Jesus, for Jesus can give us true Sabbath, everlasting restoration, eternal rest.
If you are here this morning, and you are not a Christian, see here that Christianity is not some lifeless religion, there is a reality to it, it is not simply a list of rules and regulations, it is not the faith of these Pharisees, it is not just a shadow, there is real substance to it, it is not just a burden, there is a true blessing. The Bible teaches us that none of us deserve this good gift of rest, of a refreshing relationship with God, for instead of finding our joy and satisfaction in him, we have turned to other things, we have all sinned, broken his good rules, and turned away from worshipping him, and yet in love and grace, because he is gentle and humble at heart, he sent Jesus to bring about true Sabbath, true rest for us, for this one who was greater than all the sacrifices at the temple, was sacrificed on behalf of his people, died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day in order to restore us to life as well, so that when we turn from our sin and trust in him, when we come to him for rest, go to him for refuge, we will be restored. Have you done that this morning? Have you gone to Jesus for restoration? Have you starched out your hand to him for salvation? For if you do, see here that he will give you true Sabbath, that he will give you a rest that begins in this life and stretches out forever and ever into eternity?
ALEXANDER ARRELL