How Should We Respond To Jesus Christ? Series

How Should We Respond to Jesus Christ?

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 12:9-15

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared March 22, 2022)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 12. By this time the Lord was in the second year of His earthly ministry, and this chapter shows us the vicious hatred that had begun to grow in the Christ-rejecting Pharisees. They started stalking Jesus, looking for any opportunity to accuse Him of doing wrong. In vs. 1-2, the Lord and His disciples went through some grainfields, and the hungry disciples picked some of the grain to eat. When the hateful Pharisees saw that, they attacked Jesus by saying, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!''

*They accused Jesus of allowing His followers to break one of the Ten Commandments, but the disciples weren't breaking God's Law. They were only breaking one of the thousands of nitpicking rules the Pharisees had added to God's Law. (1)

*But Jesus showed them that God cares about us meeting the needs of other people. The Lord also cares about us honoring Him as our Master. Jesus made this clear in vs. 6-8, when He told those Pharisees, "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 Christ is infinitely greater than the biblical temple in Jerusalem. That temple has been gone for almost 2,000 years, but Jesus is the eternal Son of God! Jesus is also Lord of the Sabbath Day. In fact, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus is Lord of all!

*No wonder He cares about us honoring Him as our Master, but Jesus also cares about us living with His kind of mercy in our hearts. So, in vs. 7 He quoted Hosea 6:6 and said, "If you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless."

*Today's Scripture moves on to cover one of the countless miracles Jesus worked during His time on earth. This miracle is also reported in Mark 3 and Luke 6. With this background in mind, let's read Matthew 12:9-15. And as you hear God's Word, please think about your response to Jesus Christ.

MESSAGE:

*How should we respond to Jesus Christ? This is one way to ask life's most important question, and I say this because our answers make all the difference in the world. It's the difference between having a wonderful life or a wasted life, between being saved or lost, between Heaven or hell, between eternal life or eternal death, everlasting joy, or everlasting judgment.

*How should we respond to Jesus Christ? This question may have never been on your mind before. But it is a question we are answering every day by the way we think and live. Today's Scripture helps show us how we should respond to Jesus.

1. AND FIRST: WE SHOULD NEVER ACCUSE JESUS OF BEING SINFUL.

*But this is what the unbelieving Pharisees were trying to do in vs. 9-10:

9. Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.

10. 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.

*The original word for "accuse" here was a legal term that meant charging someone with a crime. And that's what those Christ-rejecting Pharisees were trying to do to Jesus. Those Pharisees were so hostile against Jesus that they accused Him of breaking God's Law. But Jesus Christ is the spotless, sinless Lamb of God. He is the only person who has ever lived a perfect life.

*And their hateful accusation was so evil that Jesus was filled with righteous anger. Mark 3:4-5 tells us that Jesus asked them, "'Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?' But they kept silent. So 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."

*God forbid that we should ever accuse Jesus of being evil. Psalm 33:5 says the Lord, "loves righteousness and justice; The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." Psalm 107:8-9 pleads with all people to "give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness."