INTRODUCTION’
• SLIDE #1
• We live in a society is that is becoming increasingly intolerant of Christianity. Now, with that said, I do not want to come unhinged and make it sound like 2018 in the United States is the worst time in history to be a Christian.
• All I am saying is that for a society that claims to pride itself on being tolerant, that tolerance appears to be a one-way street in the eyes of many.
• Because of this, it is tempting to disengage from society or to back off and apologize for what we believe in.
• It is getting more and more tempting just to stand down.
• With the intolerance, tolerance we seem to be experiencing today, for Christians, it is tempting to either avoid answering questions or water down our answers so much that the answers do not resemble anything close to the truth.
• As we turn to Luke 6:1-11, we are going to follow Jesus on a couple of Sabbath days. On these days, Jesus is going to be confronted with a question from some religious leaders.
• One of the most challenging things for us to do is to deal with a falsely held belief that someone has.
• When the falsehood is so ingrained in a person, when we try to give a loving, logical, truthful answer, people can have a tendency to resist listening to the truth.
• For instance, when I talked about the phantom Separation of Church and State that since the 1950’s we have been TOLD is in The Constitution, yet in reality is nowhere to be found.
• I can challenge folks not to take my word for it, but to look for themselves. Many people will not take the time to look because of laziness or a refusal to look at anything that might contradict what they believe.
• Another issue is the thought that all paths or religions lead to the same God. Sadly, they do not.
• We deal with rejection when we try to share the truth with people today, but that has always been the case.
• Today we will find Jesus in a situation where he will be confronted by a question from the religious leaders.
• Jesus is going to use the Word to combat some false thinking, teaching as well as some intellectual contradictions that the Pharisee’s held.
• I want us to see how He deals with the situation.
• My aim today is to help us to see how we can Dive Deeper into the Word with Jesus to combat false teaching, thinking, and attitudes.
• Let’s turn to Luke 6:1-2
• SLIDE #2
• Luke 6:1–2 (CSB) — 1 On a Sabbath, he passed through the grainfields. His disciples were picking heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. Jesus handled a question. (1-2)
• Jesus is walking through the grain fields with the disciples minding His own business when some of the Pharisee's see that Jesus is grabbing some of the grain, rubbing it in His hands, then eating the grain.
• He was hungry and found some grain to eat.
• This will be the first of Luke’s four “Sabbath Controversies," which are stories in which Jesus is accused of violating the Sabbath Law by the religious leaders.
• The fourth Commandment found in Exodus 20:8 says to “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
• There is not a lot said, what does it mean to keep it holy?
• The word "Sabbath" comes from the Hebrew Shabbat, meaning "to cease" or "desist." The primary meaning is that of cessation from all work. Bruce, B. J. (2003). Sabbath. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen, & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (p. 1426). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
• So, what constitutes work, cooking a meal? Feeding the animals?
• The Pharisees, beginning many decades before the birth of Jesus, were continually debating what was work and what was not. Their motives were mostly good—they wanted to keep the Law of God. The desire to keep the Law of God is not legalism, even if one wants to be concerned with the lesser matters. Black, M. C. (1995). Luke (Lk 6:1–11). Joplin, MO: College Press Pub.
• For the most part, the Pharisees wanted to do the right thing.
• By the time Jesus came on the scene, the Pharisees had settled on some 39 different types of work, and within these 39 classes, they had generally agreed on what constituted work and what did not. Black, M. C. (1995). Luke (Lk 6:1–11). Joplin, MO: College Press Pub.
• We are going to have a showdown between Jesus and some Pharisees. They are coming after Him because He is doing something the Pharisees had agreed was a violation of the Law.
• So, they ask, why are you doing what is not lawful?
• This question goes to the heart of what we deal with yet today, false teachings and misconceptions about what constitutes truth.
• We know what Jesus is doing is not sin, yet the Pharisees take issue with Him and believe that He is committing a sin.
• Christianity is filled with things like this. Where in the Bible does it say you cannot play cards, dance, watch TV, or even have a glass of wine on occasion. (NOT EVERY OCCASION) ?
• Where does it say what brand of car we are to drive, or what type of house to purchase?
• Now, when it comes to some of those things, we are not to get drunk, we should not dance in a vulgar way, there are some things on TV we should consider staying away from, and we probably should not gamble away what we own.
• In other words, there are principles and boundaries to follow.
• When we tell people they cannot do certain things, most of the time we are doing what the Pharisees were trying to do.
• You cannot dance in a vulgar way if you do not dance, can't get drunk if you do not drink, etc.…
• The Pharisees were trying to combat the problem of keeping the Sabbath holy by going nuclear.
• Now Jesus is caught in the crossfire, what does He do? What should we do?
• SLIDE #4
• Luke 6:3–5 (CSB) — 3 Jesus answered them, “Haven’t you read what David and those who were with him did when he was hungry—4 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? He even gave some to those who were with him.” 5 Then he told them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
• SLIDE #5
II. Jesus proposes an answer. (3-5)
• Here are some thoughts concerning this exchange.
• Jesus could have handled this question in a multitude of ways. Jesus always knew thoughts, and heart of those He dealt with.
• I am pretty sure He knew the Pharisees were up to no good.
• He could have just walked on by and ignored them.
• He could have apologized for hurting their feelings and promised never to do it again.
• Jesus could have backed down from the truth and allowed the Pharisees to continue to believe their wrongly held convictions.
• That is not how Jesus chose to deal with this situation, and that is not the way we are to deal with questions from a hostile society.
• Jesus is going to rock their world a bit with His answer to them. These religious leaders had a deep-seated conviction that they were correct in their assessment of the situation.
• Just because someone has a deeply held conviction, it does not mean the conviction is right.
• Jesus takes these authorities on the Scriptures, to the Scriptures in an attempt to correct their wrongly held conviction.
• The story is recorded in 1 Samuel 21:1–6. David was a fugitive from King Saul. In hunger and desperation, David entered the House of God.
• Each week twelve consecrated loaves of bread, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, would be placed on a table in the house of God, the tabernacle.
• This bread was called the bread of the Presence (or showbread). At the end of the week, the bread would be replaced with fresh loaves, and the old loaves would be eaten by the priests (Leviticus 24:9).
• On one occasion, the high priest gave this consecrated bread to David and his men to eat as they were fleeing from Saul.
• The priest understood that their need was more important than ceremonial regulations.
• The loaves given to David were the old loaves that had just been replaced with fresh ones.
• Although the priests were the only ones allowed to eat this bread, God did not punish David because his need for food was more important than the priestly regulations. Barton, B. B., Veerman, D., Taylor, L. C., & Osborne, G. R. (1997). Luke (p. 139). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
• Jesus is saying that if you condemn me, you have to condemn David also!
• Jesus was not condoning disobedience to God’s laws. Instead, he was emphasizing discernment and compassion in enforcing the ceremonial laws, something the self-righteous Pharisees did not comprehend. People’s needs are more important than technicalities. Barton, B. B., Veerman, D., Taylor, L. C., & Osborne, G. R. (1997). Luke (p. 139). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
• Then Jesus caps it off by proclaiming that He is Lord of the Sabbath!
• Jesus had the authority to overrule the Pharisees’ traditions and regulations because He created the Sabbath!
• Someone has defined tradition as “the living faith of those now dead,” whereas traditionalism is “the dead faith of those now living.” Jesus’ critics in Luke 6:5 were locked into traditionalism. Barton, B. B., Veerman, D., Taylor, L. C., & Osborne, G. R. (1997). Luke (p. 140). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
• These folks had transitioned from honoring God with the Sabbath to meticulous rule keeping.
• SLIDE #6
III. The crowd offered a hostile response. (6-11)
• I am not going to read verse 6-11, but we will cover them.
• We are told on another Sabbath, the religious leaders are on the prowl, I will assume this not too long after verses 1-5 took place.
• Jesus enters the Synagogue, and there is a man with a withered hand.
• The scribes and Pharisees are watching Jesus closely. I am sure they are mad at Him for the answer He gave concerning the Sabbath of short time earlier.
• Look at verses 7-8 with me.
• SLIDE #7
• Luke 6:7–8 (CSB) — 7 The scribes and Pharisees were watching him closely, to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they could find a charge against him. 8 But he knew their thoughts and told the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand here.” So he got up and stood there.
• There will be times that the response we receive for sharing truth will not be well-received.
• I find it interesting that Luke told us that Jesus KNEW their thoughts. These folks did not want the truth, they wanted to do harm to Jesus.
• Look at verses 9-10
• SLIDE #8
• Luke 6:9–10 (CSB) — 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 After looking around at them all, he told him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did, and his hand was restored.
• I bet you could cut the tension with a knife.
• As Jesus looked around at those in the crowd, I wonder what they were thinking.
• The question Jesus asked as a double-edged question.
• These men did not care that the man needed healing, all they wanted was to get rid of Jesus because the truth He represented was going to destroy their fantasy world in which these people resided.
• When the truth of God’s Word collides with the fantasy life people tend to reside, hostility can follow.
• When Jesus spoke of saving a life, He was referring to the lame man, when He spoke of destroying a life, He was referring to their desire to destroy His.
• In a sense He was saying, HOW CAN YOU RELIGIOUS PEOPLE BE THINKING WHAT YOU ARE THINKING.
• You are so worried about YOUR rules that you forget the HEART and you forget what is IMPORTANT to God, PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT!
• Jesus healed the man, now verse 11 tells us instead of being joyful over the healing of the man, the leaders were filled with RAGE and started plotting how to get rid of Jesus.
• In the parallel accounts in Matthew 12:14 and Mark 3:6, it tells us they were seeking ways to destroy (kill) Jesus. WOW!
CONCLUSION
• When the Pharisees asked Jesus why He was breaking the Law, He gave them a Biblical response because their assumption was built upon a false premise.
• We will face this type of thing frequently, and we will need to be able to offer a loving, biblical response to people.
• Folks will not always like hearing Biblical truth, but we cannot back down, nor can we be hateful or give up on people.
• We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied into silence, the stakes are too high, we are trying to win the hearts and minds of people to Jesus!
