Well, good morning, everybody. I'm a little nervous today. I have my boots on. I kind of feel a little wobbly. I'm like Bambi walking around the stage today. Thank you very much for just the warmth and hospitality last week. It was good to spend time with you. It was lovely to get to meet so many of you. Please be patient with me. No doubt I will have to ask you for your name thirty times before it finally sticks. So, just be patient with me, and please know the intention is very much to get to know you and to enjoy our fellowship in Christ and this season that the Lord has allowed us to serve one another.
If you have your Bibles, could you open up, please? Look, chapter 14. If you've been watching closely, last—a couple of weeks ago in the bulletin it suggested that I was going to preach all the way to verse 24. Then we kind of adapted and said, well, no, I'll preach to verse 11. And then last night I had to text Paul and say, “I’m sorry, but we are only going to get to verse 6 this morning.” So, our reading's shorter. Can I ask you to stand, if you're able, while we read God's Word and before we pray? The Scriptures say:
[Scripture Reading] “One Sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching Him carefully. And behold, there was a man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. Then He took him and healed him and sent him away. And He said to them, “which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to those things.”
Let's take a moment and pray.
[Prayer] Our heavenly Father, we are so grateful to find ourselves in this place. We're so grateful to already have come before Your throne in prayer, to have been able to sing praise to you, the one who is worthy. But now we ask that You would meet us at the point of our need. We thank You for the scriptures. We thank You for how they reveal to us our own deceptive hearts, and we pray that that reality will take place today, that You would help us to see where we fall short, that we would see the insufficiency of ourselves, that our personal dependence would be broken, that we would instead be thrown upon the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. We thank You for Him, and we thank You for the repentant. He is quick to show mercy and compassion. So, Lord, we pray that You would draw us close to Him today through an examination of the Word, for it's in His name we pray, amen. [End]
Please have a seat.
One of the hardest things, this is a bit of a sob story, one of the hardest things about being a pastor is going on the plane. Now, it's not because we're scared of travel or anything else, but inevitably we end up sitting beside somebody we don't know. And normally what happens is they say, “What's your name?” And that one I can answer. The next question they always ask is, “What do you do?” or “What do you do for a living?” And nothing kills a conversation like the answer, “Well, I'm a pastor of a church.” All of a sudden, the individual sitting beside you looks at their feet and no more do they engage for the rest of the flight. There is no conversation stopper like that, except for the one we see in the text today in Luke 14.
But you know the dynamic of a dinner. Well, when guests are invited and they come together, the hope of the host is chemistry. That there will be this spark, there will be this excitement, there will be this vibrant conversation that takes place. But just like the pastor on the plane, nothing kills a dinner conversation like bringing Jesus to the table. Often whenever the believer speaks of their savior, the conversation stops. In fact, not only does it stop, often animosity begins to rise. People who would quite happily pronounce the name of Christ in their everyday conversations as a swear word, whenever he is mentioned at the dinner table in a positive light, prickle, get annoyed, go cold.
And the reason for that is you can't bring Christ into the conversation without everybody in the room being exposed. And that's exactly what takes place in Luke chapter 14 verses 1 to 6. In fact, all the way through to verse 24, this whole thing is taking place in a room around a dinner table. Lunch is happening. The midday meal is being served. But Jesus has been brought into the room. And so, rather than provoke stimulating conversation, we'll read twice, even in the few verses we're studying this morning, that everybody falls silent.
Because in this four-course meal, there is a contrast, a huge contrast drawn between broken religion, that of the Pharisees, and what is true, what God has intended and what Christ embodies. And so, the first thing I want you to notice in the text in front of you is that there, here, “Jesus is exposed to a test.”
Jesus in verses one and two is exposed to a test. Look at verse one and note the time frame that is mentioned here. The text begins one Sabbath. One Sabbath. This is the last Sabbath event that will be recorded here in Luke's Gospel. It's not the last thing to take place on the Sabbath, but it is the last event that Luke, in particular, underlines the chronology, lets us know that this is a Sabbath occurrence. And the reason is we're meant to have a Deja vu type of moment here. That this is something that has happened many times before. If you have your Bibles, turn back to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, let me remind you of the flow of Luke's gospel. Luke chapter 4 and verse 16. The text reads:
“And when He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of Him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph's son?” And He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha. And none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian.” And look at verse 28. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove Him out of the town and brought Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so they could throw Him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, He went away.”
You see what's going on here. He is teaching on the Sabbath. And what He is doing is He's revealing to the people clearly who He is, and their reaction was nuclear. He is the conversation stopper on this moment. Look on down, verse 31:
“And He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them, (what does it say,) on the Sabbath. And they were astonished at His teaching, for His word possessed authority. And in this synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him saying, “be silent and come out of him.” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power, he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out, and reports about him went out into every place in that surrounding region.”
So again, remember what's going on here. We're being told that a Sabbath occurrence takes place. In fact, a Sabbath healing is very like 14 verses 1-6. And word about this healing spread. People knew about it. People in surrounding towns, in the larger district, heard about how Jesus handled this particular moment. So, by the time you get to 14, this is nothing new. Turn over to Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6, look at verse 1. It says:
“On a Sabbath, (again,) while He was going through the grain fields, His disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered 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 took and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him.” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus claimed authority over the Sabbath, an authority that sat over and above, in fact, sat outside of the Pharisaical system of the day. Look on down, verse 6:
“On another Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And a man was there whose right hand was withered, and the scribes and the Pharisees watched Him to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath so that they might find reason to accuse Him. But He knew their thoughts. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And He arose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life or to destroy it.” And after looking around at them all, He said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.”
Again, we're seeing in the past Jesus had already taught about the Sabbath, about the purpose of the Sabbath, about the intention of God that the Sabbath would be a blessing. It was for the betterment of men and women. It was for their good. And yet even back then when confronted with that reality, the Pharisees responded with fury. And then come to Luke chapter 13, the previous chapter to the one we're studying today. Look at chapter 13 and verse 10:
“Now, He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you're freed from your disability.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. (It's very similar to the passage again that we have today.) But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “there are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As He said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.”
So, you see the point here, in Luke, when we come to chapter 14, verses 1 to 6, and once again we read one Sabbath, we're meant to think Deja vu. We have been here before. This is nothing new. And at one level, everything we're going to talk about today, sorry to tell you, is nothing new. You have heard it before. And yet, what we'll see in the text is, yet, these Pharisees still do not get it or do not want it, they refuse to embrace the repeated lesson that has been pronounced. Proverbs 26:11 reminds us, doesn't it?
“Like a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”
There is an incredible stubbornness that marks the human heart. And sometimes we jump over these repetitions in Scripture, but it is significant. Jesus had to teach the same thing again and again and again. He had to highlight the same sin again and again and again. Why is that? Because the human heart is incredibly stubborn. It has a way of blinding oneself to the reality of the sin that sits within. Jesus, here, repeats His lesson because the deviance of man demands that He repeats His lesson.
Now, your issue this morning may not be one of Sabbath-breaking. But how often Satan does form habitual sins in our heart, sins that we do so often, that become so ingrained into who we are that we don't even recognize them as wrong anymore. In fact, sometimes we pridefully think of them as moral and significant. I stand for truth. No, you're bitter. I make sure that things are done the right way. No, we're nasty to that person. We form even patterns quietly in our house of sins that we tolerate. We could very quickly point it out in everybody else, but our hearts have grown desensitized to those particular patterns. Our conscience is so seared that we don't even see it as wrong anymore. It reminds me of the need described…do you remember Psalm 139? It's going to happen a lot. Psalm 139 verse 23:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.”
Why does the psalmist speak that way? Well, the reality is, I can't search myself. I can't know myself. He continues:
“And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Part of the idea there in verse 24 is, Lord, we need you to see, to identify every grievous way within me that I may be led. Lord, help identify the sin within me that I may move forward. I become so desensitized, I do not see it myself. It's the wonderful reality that so often we open this book, and we come to it, and it shines upon the heart like a light. And it shows us where the cobwebs are. It shows us where the muck is that needs to be cleaned, because so often we fall into a habitual pattern of sin that sears or dulls the conscience. We become so accustomed to these things, we accept them as who we are, or even worse, we pridefully stand over them as what is itself moral.
Luke chapter 14 verses 1 to 6 is coming once more to remind us that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. For here in Luke 14, once more we find ourselves on a Sabbath. Look at verse 1:
“One Sabbath, when He went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching Him carefully.”
This particular Sabbath, Jesus is invited to dine at the home of the ruler of the Pharisees, or a ruler of the Pharisees. At one level, Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, says, this was a very normal thing. If rabbis came into town, it was normal to have them speak at the synagogue, and Jesus by society was viewed as one of these rabbis. And if a rabbi spoke in the synagogue, it was the general accepted custom to bring them to your house for food, that they always had at the sixth hour of the day, which is midday. And so, after the morning's activities in the synagogue, the custom was that you would go to somebody's house, and you would enjoy a meal. They had been prepared the day before, so as not to break Sabbath, but you would come, and you would enjoy this food together in the home. That's exactly what is taking place here.
So, at one level, the idea of Rabbi Jesus being invited to somebody's home for food, that's not unusual. But what is surprising is the one who does the inviting. This is one described in the text as a ruler of the Pharisees. Now, we looked back last week, and I want you to notice again chapter 11, verse 53. Let's remember who these men are. Luke 11, verse 53:
“As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press Him hard and to provoke Him to speak about many things, lying in wait for Him, to catch Him in something He might say.”
These are not good guys. Normally, if somebody invites you for lunch, that's a good thing. These guys do not have good motives here. In fact, this particular Pharisee is called a ruler of the Pharisees. That word ruler is used eight times in Luke's gospel, and seven of those times it is clearly used in a pejorative sense. This is not a good man. That Pharisaical system, it had a grip on the society of its day. It was so influential. You remember the history of the Old Testament. Israel, continually rebellious, chasing after other gods, would fall into patterns of grievous sin. And God had warned. And God had to punish by sending the people into exile. And so that took place.
When the people were restored once more, when the temple was rebuilt, when the people were once more settled in Jerusalem, at that point a Pharisaical system began to form. What it was, was a desire to protect the moral fabric of that society. In our past, we had always degenerated and run from God. And so, the Pharisaical system was created to stop that from taking place. We're not going to let the thin end of the wedge in anymore. We are going to add rules. We're going to set expectations to make sure that no longer will the moral fabric of society decline in such a way as God has to intervene the way He once did. Sounds very good, doesn't it? But the problem with that system was they did not simply look to the law of God as their guidelines. They created their own.
And so really what they did was they looked to human intellect. They looked to the human heart to be the source for their framework of behaviors in order to preserve society. And the Pharisees really stand as a warning today, don't look to men or don't look to women as a way of preserving the rot in society. That will not work. It will create its own type of rot. Out of the heart flows every form of wickedness. Even when we try to be moral, out of the heart flows every form of wickedness. And the Pharisaical system is testimony to that. They had designed a set of rules to protect society against slip, but naturally that system focused on externals. They had very little time for, “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”
These Pharisees weren't looking to spend time with Jesus here in verse 1. They were looking to trap Him. Notice the phrase there in verse 1. It says: “They were watching Him carefully.” That wasn't out of interest. That wasn't because, you know, they were endeared towards Him. The Greek dictionary defines this word watching as “scrupulous observance accompanied by malice.” There was a sinister spirit here. The idea is of surveillance.
Now, we have a wonderful security team here in the church, and whenever you come in, they greet you with a smile, but they're watching. They're watching. Well, these men in the text here were watching. There was a spirit of surveillance. They were trying to see a way of catching Him out. In fact, the phrase that begins verse 2, “And behold,” or in verse 3, “Jesus responded.” It's amazing. It says, “Jesus responded,” and they haven't said anything yet. It implies that Jesus knew there was an agenda going on here, that there was a sinister purpose behind this meal. That's why they're watching. Look at verse 2:
“And behold, there was a man before Him who had dropsy.”
Where did he come from? Just happened to dander in. You've got to understand that the Pharisees didn't like people with obvious sickness. They considered that sin. The one person who normally would never have been invited to this dinner was the man with dropsy. You know how sometimes you have certain rivalries? You know, in L.A. there was a huge rivalry between USC and UCLA. You know, anytime college football was going on, you know, people made clear who they were aligned with and never did the two-mix. Well, this is the spirit of what we have in front of us. The Pharisees didn't mix with characters with dropsy, with men like this.
The condition of dropsy, it was one of swelling. There could have been many underlying serious health conditions as to why the body would swell, why there would be this accumulation of fluid in the tissue and joints. The point is it was visible. You could see it. You could look to the left and you quickly would spot the man with dropsy and being very careful not to make any eye contact. You could see it. It was in front of your face in that type of sense. And such a person would have been avoided, especially by the Pharisees, and especially when it came to eating.
Like the Pharisees were fussy, but they were really fussy around the dinner table. That was a particular place, they were really conscious of rules about what was clean and what was unclean. In the other Rabbinical writings, we can look them up and we can see that dropsy specifically is named as one of the diseases that was associated with sinful practice. That's how this people understood what was marking this particular man. So, you get the idea that this man's presence at the meal was not kosher, and yet they allowed the man to be there.
And I think from the language that we've already seen in verses 1 to 3, I think they planned the man to be there. Here is a trap set by the host. Now, the Bible says, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” But that's exactly what this arrogant ruler of the Pharisees sought to do. In his mind, dropsy was a disease to be avoided, but it wasn't a serious one. The guy would still have dropsy tomorrow. He'd still be alive tomorrow. It was a disease, yes, but it was one that could wait till the next day. It was one that shouldn't be thought of on an important day like Sabbath. And so, he knew Jesus will be exposed in front of everybody, all my guests, as a lawbreaker. At least that's what he thought.
It's an amazing reminder, isn't it, of how arrogant the human heart can be. We're so slow to learn a lesson. We saw that in the repetition of the Sabbath idea. But how arrogant the human heart also is that we would dare test God, the One who is the righteous judge, the One who will judge the living and the dead, the One before whom you will give an account. And yet so many men and women arrogantly point the finger at Him and judge Him instead. Or at least they think they are judging Him instead.
I don't know what has brought you to church this morning. Maybe some of you have come earnestly seeking to hear about Jesus, to hear about what Christians teach. But you're here primarily to weigh Him up. You're not in that position. You may think you're in that position, but you are not in that position. You're the one on the scales. He's going to pronounce a verdict about you, and you're guilty. Guilty, apart from His grace. It's amazing how quickly the human heart turns to judge God rather than to recognize the true reality that He will judge you.
So here this man, like so many of us, he sought to expose Jesus to a test. What happens next is Jesus turns the whole thing back upon the Pharisees by shining a light on the intention of Scripture and how different it was from their broken system. So, I want you secondly to notice how these Pharisees were exposed to God's law in verses 3 and 4, how they are exposed to God's law. Look at verse 3:
“And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
Again, notice that word, “responded.” Jesus knows the thoughts of these men. He knew that a test was silently being presented to Him. But rather than run away scared, Our Lord presses into it. And then notice as well, it's not just the single ruler of the Pharisees here. But verse 3 notes that the whole room was full of lawyers and the Pharisees. Now, I don't know what you think of a lawyer, but probably what you have in your head as you think about that word lawyer is not what the text is meaning. The text, when it speaks of a lawyer, is speaking of those who were the experts in what the Old Testament law taught. You think of them as the, you know, Old Testament professor down at DTS. That's the character that we're talking about. Experts, or at least supposed to be experts, in what this book taught. They knew the thing inside out, or at least they were meant to. They were meant to know what the Old Testament laws communicated. These were those sorts of men. And remember John 2:25, Jesus knew what was in man. He knows all about them. And so, he asks us, this collection of Pharisees and lawyers, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
And the Pharisees taught that the Sabbath was a day for only necessity. If something could be done tomorrow, you were to wait till tomorrow. Nothing, as far as we can control it, should interrupt God’s Day. That's what they believed. That's what they taught. And so, Jesus' question here in verse 3, it highlights their broken theology. Because when He asked that question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not,” every single one of them would have said, “no, it is not lawful.”
But verse 4 hints at the fact that they are so determined to expose Jesus that we read that these men who normally, you know, you can picture them in the children's Sunday school class, they're the first to put up their hands. You know, oh, ask me, ask me, ask me. They loved to give the right answer. They loved to say what was right. That's the type of character that we have. But verse 4 says that those same men remained silent. Their silence is another hope to trap Jesus here. Dropsy wasn't life-threatening. That guy would still have dropsy tomorrow. So surely healing him could wait till tomorrow. And they were sure that a mediocre disease like this, it would be wrong to deal with it on Sabbath. And they thought from their past experience, from the things they'd been told, that Jesus won't be able to help Himself here. And at one level they're right. Look at what the rest of verse 4 says.
“They remained silent, then Jesus took him and healed him and sent him away.”
In contrast to the passive silence of the Pharisees and lawyers, Jesus acts with decisive compassion. That phrase, “Then He took him,” it could be translated, He took hold of him. It's a firm, a purposeful grabbing hold of the man. It implies real physical contact, a grabbing him, a skin-on-skin moment. Again, that was a no-no to the Pharisees, in that system of what is clean, what is unclean, that they would never have touched a man with dropsy, and especially never touched a man with dropsy around the dinner table. But we're not talking about Pharisees, we're talking about Jesus here. And so, He takes hold of the man, and He takes hold of the situation, and instantly He heals the man. There's no medicine. There's no time needed for the swelling to go down. I know what you have in your head, like a balloon that's burst, and the swelling goes down. None of that. It's instantaneous, and it's obvious, and it's observable. You can see that a real miracle has taken place in front of our eyes.
And after Jesus heals him, Jesus, according to verse 4, “He sent him away.” The verb there has the idea of, he released him. He set him free. It's the same word that's used back in chapter 13 verse 12 to speak of the woman being freed, the woman who, verse 16 of chapter 13 said, was oppressed, held captive by Satan for eighteen years. She was freed from that captivity. She was released. Now this man also is released, but not so much from the captivity of Satan, but the captivity of that Pharisaical system that had no time for him, that had held him captive, that kept him at arm's length, that told him to stay outside of the synagogue. Jesus came and released this man. He told him to go home. He set him free so that the man could engage once more with society and even more so with the Lord.
That woman in chapter 13, that demonic presence had held her captive, had trapped her. And this man's dropsy in chapter 14 had cut him off from the ability to engage with the religion of his day. Do you see what the problem was with their system? It was so fixated on what is permitted, or what they permitted, that they missed the very intention of the law. They missed what God's law was established for. God's law was given not to oppress, but to benefit, to encourage what was good, to encourage a better life. And they had taken it and twisted the law in such a way that it became handcuffs to chain people up, to oppress their fellow man. But Jesus here, He's not the same. And He walks into the situation and immediately heals this image-bearer of God and sends him on his way.
So, you see the story. The Pharisees, they exposed Jesus to a test. And now in His actions, Jesus exposed them to really what was the intention of the law. And in so doing, “Jesus exposed their hypocrisy.” In verses 5 and 6. He exposed their hypocrisy. Look at verse 5:
“And He said to them, which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”
Here Jesus corrects their broken theology. And He does it in two ways. Jesus is often simply a genius. And often in how He speaks, there's more than one thing taking place, and this is one of those moments. The wording is very careful here, and it kind of operates at two levels. The way He has worded this question highlights first of all that there was Old Testament laws that explicitly spoke about with oxen, with donkeys, the need to help your neighbor on the Sabbath. And then secondly, it also showed that the natural pull of the heart. That God has wired the human heart in such a way that there are certain people we love, and we will insist on helping. We will insist on caring for when they're stuck, when they're in trouble.
So firstly, He reminds them of the requirements of the Old Testament by His very wording. It gives an allusion to Deuteronomy 22 verse 4. He talks about this fallen oxen here in verse 5, and it reminds us in Deuteronomy 24:4, it says:
“You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.”
Well, that's pretty obvious what you're meant to do there, isn't it? The law of God isn't ambiguous. When the oxen has fallen, you go help. Doesn't matter if it's Sabbath, you go help. That's what you're called to do. And here subtly through the wording he chooses, Jesus reminds them that the Rabbinical system that they had created was actually stopping them from doing exactly what God's Word said. You see the irony? Their man-made laws were stopping them from actually keeping God's law as it states it. The good intention of God's law was crushed by their man-made qualifications and traditions and expectations.
In fact, we know in Jesus' day there was a whole religious tradition in Qumran that is recorded, and we can see the way people thought, and there they explicitly banned people from helping an animal that would give birth on Sabbath or helping a stranded animal on Sabbath. They weren't allowed to do it. And so, the very clear Word of God was replaced, they thought, by their better, stricter laws. You know, so often we think when it comes to the law that stricter is better. Friends, you cannot improve on the law of God. These men thought they were improving the law of God by being more firm, by being more strict, when in reality that firmness, that strictness, that was just sin. Arrogant sin, but sin, nevertheless.
You see the problem with that type of thinking? You cannot make more godly what comes from God. The law is not designed to be strict. It's designed to be good. That's how the law operates. And the greatest problem with that system that they created was it had taken the good law of God and twisted it into an ugly system that missed the very intention of the law. Jesus sums up the Old Testament law in two commandments. Do you remember? What are those two commandments? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says that's what it's all about. If I had to put my arms around the whole thing and give you the summary statement, there it is. Love God, love your neighbor. You hear how positive that is? You hear how good that is? Do you hear how not strict that sounds?
Jesus is highlighting here that their system didn't just make it trickier, it took away the very heart and intention of the law. He asks a question here that underlines the fact that they had taken the Sabbath, which God had given. Do you remember why the Sabbath was given? For rest. That you would feel better the next day. That it would be a release. A relief. The best part of the week. It would be restorative. And they had taken that very thing designed to give rest to men and women living in a fallen world, and they had taken it and made life harder by it. Again, look at verse 5:
“And He said to them, “which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”
Now, Deuteronomy 24 talked about donkeys and oxen, but Jesus doesn't settle there. What does He do? He doesn't talk about the donkey. Depends what you think of your son. He talks about the family, doesn't He? Your son. Your son. And in doing that, he's not just playing or talking to those who care about animals. In our house, everybody loves animals, except me. We have a dog in our house. Oh, Issy comes home from school, she cups the dog's head in her hand, and she pours out her feelings. It's her emotional support animal. Me? That dog just smells. And so here Jesus cleverly, He realizes that many of us are not animal lovers, and so He brings in one that we all love, our child, the Son. And He highlights in doing so the natural heart of man and its depth will insist on helping His own. It doesn't matter what situation my son gets himself in, I'm going to be there. I'm compelled to help. How could I not help? In fact, look at the word there in verse 5, “Will he not immediately pull him out?” Like, that's the way the heart works. A father insists that if his son's in trouble, I'm going to help. I've got to help. What else could I possibly do? The idea here is Jesus is talking to the room and he highlights, here’s something none of you will hesitate to do. If it was your son, you would help him. That the man with dropsy, they set him aside. If it was your son, you would help him. And we all get that, don't we? Love compels us to help the one that we love when we're in need.
Now what does that highlight about these Pharisees? They loved their son, but, dropsy man, there was a lack of affection for him. They had a double standard. And so, in Jesus' question here, He's underlining not simply that healing is allowed on the Sabbath, but He's showing here, if you really love your fellow man, if you really love your neighbor as yourself or even as your son, you would show him compassion. Surely, that's the right thing to do. You would show love. You would want to help. You would feel drawn. If you really viewed them the way God's law calls us to view them, you would be compelled to action. God gave the Sabbath so that men and women could rest. And so, part of our concern is that we want them to rest. Now, we know you find rest in Jesus Christ. We want the world to know that, to find that, to live in that. And here, these men had missed it. These people needed rest from their toil under the sun, and instead they made the day harder. And Jesus is saying to these so-called experts of the law, if it was your child, even if it was your ox, you would have acted without a second's thought. But somehow you justified ignoring this man to leave him in pain until tomorrow when help was available. He's highlighting, you are missing the very intention of the law altogether. You cannot make a rule, a system that goes against goodness, that goes against mercy. But that's exactly what the wicked system of the Pharisees had done. And so, Jesus' question here in verse 5, it exposes their folly, and that's highlighted by what we read in the next verse. Look at verse 6:
“And they could not reply to these things.”
Their silence is telling. In His question, Jesus has exposed the fact that He is not breaking the Sabbath, but even more than that, He's exposed the reality that in His compassion, in His act of healing this man who was suffering, He was actually fulfilling the Sabbath, fulfilling the intention of God's provision of a day of rest. And as He does so, He underlines the folly of that broken system.
God's law does not rule against love. It doesn't rule against care. Rather, it demands it. It insists upon it. It's not just that they chose to be silent because they're trying to work out what to do next. Rather, verse 6, did you notice the wording? “They could not reply to these things.” They couldn't create an answer. Because here, Jesus is the ultimate conversation stopper. They had no reply to give, because He was the period on the conversation. His action, His thought, His logic so clearly reflected what the Old Testament law taught, far more clearly than their foolish system that they had devoted their lives to, they had nothing to say at all. How often that's exactly how Jesus works.
We hear the challenge that comes from His Word when His Word is rightly divided. It's all sitting there, and what do we do? We really don't have anything to say. We sit in front of it, and we realize how far we fall short. We know it's true. We know everything that is here is exactly right. And when Jesus exposes the folly of our system, it's a conversation stopper for most of us. The only thing left is you need to repent. In other words, you need to put your hands up and say, you know what? I have nothing to say because I have been exposed. And because He's compassionate, we can turn from our sin and look to Christ and know that He is rich in mercy, willing to forgive all who come to Him. And yet sadly, often, like these Pharisees, we just sit in silence.
These blind Pharisees couldn't see the man in front of their face. It reminds us, doesn't it, of just how self-focused so often this very practice of religion can be. How much did you pray for your fellow believers this morning? I'm sure many of you prayed for yourself coming through the doors. Help me to focus. May I grow. May I learn. And again, there's nothing wrong. You need to pray those things. But how quickly our worship becomes self-focused? How little do we pray for one another? Bear one another's burdens? Encourage one another? Correct one another in love. It's so easy. And church history is littered, along with the Bible itself, with example after example after example of a subtle twisting of our very religious practice to make it all about you, all about self, all focused on me. It breeds that spirit that ignores real people.
For friends, God in His infinite wisdom has built us into a community of believers, where each part of the body has a role to play, a work to do, a service to render for the good of everyone else. Not for self, but for their good. And yet so often we fall into this, this trap of making it only about us. Jesus reminds us here that our faith, lived out, is to be marked by compassion, by mercy, by seeking to better, to benefit others around us.
I wonder if other folk, if they came from the surrounding area and they walked into church, would they not be welcome here? If some evening we have an event in the church and somebody stumbles in from the pub next door, would we prickle and quickly turn them out? A dress code that they better understand they've got to adhere to. Certain issues, baggage people bring with them that politely we say would be better dealt with down the road in another place, another church. Jesus warns us here that true religion must bear the fingerprints of the compassionate God that we serve. He shows us here how to love our fellow man, and He calls us to love also.
Let's pray and ask that He would give us the grace to do just that.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for Jesus Christ and how unlike us He is. We are so thankful, Lord, for the clear evidence of wisdom, of living out the very intention of all that your law contains, of personifying what is good, what is kind, and what is merciful, for the quick compassion that He showed to men and women around Him. And we pray, Lord, and we ask that our thoughts about Him this morning wouldn't simply be a conversation stopper, but we pray and ask that as you have humbled us, You would draw us once more to Yourself, make us a people dependent upon grace, and as You have loved us, we pray for the grace to love one another. We thank You for even the testimony we saw last week of how Jesus looked upon the very city that would seek to kill Him and was filled with compassion, yearned like a mother hen to gather them under His wings. Lord, cultivate in us that same love for the lost, desire to help, insistence on compassion for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of Your glory, and to live out all that You have us in Jesus Christ. For it's in his name we pray. Amen. [End]
