Dan Werthman: If you have served in our country's armed forces, would you stand and let us thank you?
Dan Werthman: Would you please stand if you're a veteran?
(Applause)
Dan Werthman: We thank you for your service, and even more, we thank our great God, who gave us this nation and the freedoms that we enjoy.
Dan Werthman: If you have your Bibles this morning, I encourage you to open to the Gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: We start chapter 3 today.
Dan Werthman: If you're visiting, we're working our way through the Gospel of Mark.
Dan Werthman: What are we doing?
Dan Werthman: I was just thinking about, as we were singing that last song, the beautiful name, the wonderful name, the powerful name of Jesus.
Dan Werthman: We're looking at what is in that name?
Dan Werthman: Who is this one who reveals himself, that we know as Jesus, who reveals himself as God, by his Holy Spirit, works through John Mark to describe a little bit, a little glimpse of his life and ministry.
Dan Werthman: So we pick it up in chapter 3 today, beginning at the first verse.
Dan Werthman: This morning I'm reading from the New American Standard, and I'm going to dive right in.
Dan Werthman: "And he--" that's Jesus--"entered again into a synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand." Now let me pause there.
Dan Werthman: That word"again" is significant.
Dan Werthman: What does Mark want us to see?
Dan Werthman: Something has begun previous in chapter 2 that now Mark wants us to see is part of a pattern that's actually going to build and build.
Dan Werthman: He's entering into the synagogue on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: This is-- if you missed it last week, we talked about one of the ways that Jesus got in trouble, so to speak, with the religious rulers of his day was what we call controversy about the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: We kind of unpacked that last week.
Dan Werthman: And so right after last week's text, what do we see this week?
Dan Werthman: Again, he's initiating what will be a Sabbath encounter, a Sabbath controversy.
Dan Werthman: He is intentionally initiating this.
Dan Werthman: He is walking, really, into what we could consider another trap laid by the religious leaders using the Sabbath and the synagogue, and this man who was there.
Dan Werthman: There's some speculation that this man with a withered hand may have even been intentionally brought in by these religious leaders to the synagogue to set Jesus up for this.
Dan Werthman: I can't prove that, but that makes a lot of sense to me.
Dan Werthman: The man was there.
Dan Werthman: I want you to notice the man, as we go through this text, he does not initiate anything with Jesus.
Dan Werthman: We see other people coming to Jesus for healing.
Dan Werthman: We see other people going through great lengths.
Dan Werthman: Remember the men, the friends who removed the part of the ceiling to lower their friend down before Jesus?
Dan Werthman: But here, this man is just sitting there in the group, in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: Jesus initiates this encounter.
Dan Werthman: And this is a man with a withered hand.
Dan Werthman: That term that Mark uses, that Greek term, we can't get real specific.
Dan Werthman: All we really know is it describes a condition of paralysis or deformity that could have been the result of an accident, could have been from disease, it could have been a birth defect of some kind.
Dan Werthman: Verse 2:"And they--" that is the Pharisees.
Dan Werthman: You see that from verse 6, if you look ahead there--"they--" the Pharisees, the religious rulers--"were watching him--" Jesus--"to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath, in order that they might accuse him." They were watching him.
Dan Werthman: And that's an imperfect, which, you know, normally I don't make much of the verb usage here, but that means this is an ongoing activity.
Dan Werthman: This is not a one-time thing.
Dan Werthman: This is a campaign.
Dan Werthman: They've been doing this day in and day out.
Dan Werthman: They are watching him carefully.
Dan Werthman: Why?
Dan Werthman: They're not impartial observers.
Dan Werthman: They're not just interested people.
Dan Werthman: They are looking for a way to accuse him, to bring legal charges against him.
Dan Werthman: So at this point already, just two chapters in, the religious leaders have already made up their minds about Jesus.
Dan Werthman: They don't see his name as beautiful, as wonderful, as powerful.
Dan Werthman: They see his name as a threat to them.
Dan Werthman: They see him as a challenge to the influence and control that they have over the people.
Dan Werthman: They want to bring him down.
Dan Werthman: They want him taken out like John the Baptist.
Dan Werthman: John the Baptist, just by being faithful to the Lord, of course, was taken into Roman custody by Herod Antipas and executed, his head cut off, and that's what, already, these religious leaders want to see happen to Jesus.
Dan Werthman: We've seen this growing opposition to Jesus developing over the last two chapters.
Dan Werthman: We saw it all the way back in chapter 1, verse 22:"The crowds and the people were amazed at Jesus' teaching." Why?
Dan Werthman: Because he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes.
Dan Werthman: So the religious leaders who had the titles of authority, they had the positions of authority, the people heard nothing out of their mouths or saw nothing in their actions that communicated the authority of God to them.
Dan Werthman: But Jesus, but these people heard something.
Dan Werthman: They intuited something in Jesus's teaching that communicated the very authority of God.
Dan Werthman: And maybe they couldn't put their finger on what it was, but they knew it was different, and they were drawn to Jesus, which is away from the influence and control of these religious leaders, so the opposition starts all the way back in chapter 1.
Dan Werthman: They begin looking for grounds to accuse him in chapter two, verse six: the scribes are sitting there when he forgives a man of his sins before healing him, and what are they thinking?
Dan Werthman: "He's blaspheming!""So maybe," they think,"we can accuse him and we can get them taken out by accusing of blasphemy." And then we go forward in chapter 2, to verse 16, and they are following him again, watching him in this ongoing activity.
Dan Werthman: And what do they see?
Dan Werthman: They see that he's keeping company with sinners and tax collectors, and it occurs to them,"Maybe we can accuse him of immorality.
Dan Werthman: Maybe we can make a case that he's doing what these sinners do, that he has the kind of flawed character that these tax collectors do.
Dan Werthman: Maybe we can take them out that way." And then last week, we saw in chapter 2:24 the beginning of a new angle: to take him out by violating the Sabbath law.
Dan Werthman: The Pharisees were saying to him,"Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" And if you weren't here last week, I encourage you to listen to that sermon online.
Dan Werthman: You get a lot of background of where Sabbath law developed extra-biblically, outside of the Bible, and how how burdensome it had become, but that's their grounds now.
Dan Werthman: That's one of many grounds they're seeking to develop, but that's the grounds, as we come back to mark chapter 3, verse 2.
Dan Werthman: What are they looking for on this occasion?
Dan Werthman: They are looking to see if Jesus would heal this man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: Then, just a real quick recap of last week, the fourth commandment:"Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.""Remember the Sabbath." It's a day of rest, not of work.
Dan Werthman: And then the Mosaic law, the first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, explaining that out further.
Dan Werthman: But they had built a whole system of extra-biblical laws, of rabbinic tradition, getting down to the tiniest detail about what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: And really, where it comes to play in this incident today, is the general principle,"Well, what happens on the Sabbath if somebody needs medical treatment?" Here's the general principle.
Dan Werthman: And this, by the way, this is within the rabbinic law, not the biblical law, the rabbinic law at that time, and it still exists today among Jews who practice the Sabbath law.
Dan Werthman: Here's the general principle when it comes to healing, when it comes to medical treatment: when treating a patient who is critically ill or when dealing with a patient whose life is in danger, one is commanded to violate the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: So it sounds good so far, right?
Dan Werthman: You can save life on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: Sabbath rules can be overridden when life is in danger, but that is a pretty high standard for the Jews both then and now, and let me just give you a few illustrations of how high that standard is.
Dan Werthman: So here are restrictions.
Dan Werthman: Yes, you can save life on the Sabbath if somebody is dying, if somebody is perishing, and if they don't get medical care, they're going to die, but here's a few sample restrictions that existed then and still exist today.
Dan Werthman: One: it is forbidden to set a dislocated hand or foot on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: Again, that's not in the Bible, but that's out of rabbinic tradition.
Dan Werthman: You find that in the Mishnah or the Talmud, the recordings of rabbinic tradition.
Dan Werthman: I don't know if any of you have ever had a dislocated hand or a dislocated foot.
Dan Werthman: I dislocated a finger playing football, and that was pain enough that I wanted it treated that day.
Dan Werthman: So what's the restriction here?
Dan Werthman: You can't get treated on the Sabbath if all you have is a dislocated hand or foot.
Dan Werthman: That is not life-endangering.
Dan Werthman: Here's another one: any medical procedure which is necessary to perform for the patient, but it is clear that it is not at all needed to be performed on the Sabbath, should be delayed until after the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: So think that out.
Dan Werthman: You need to have surgery.
Dan Werthman: Something's wrong.
Dan Werthman: Something's causing you pain.
Dan Werthman: You need the surgery to correct that and relieve the pain, but it's not going to kill you in 24 hours.
Dan Werthman: You have to wait.
Dan Werthman: You can't have that surgery on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: That's the restrictions.
Dan Werthman: It does not rise to the level of being life-endangering.
Dan Werthman: Here's one more: imagine, you know, not hard to imagine in Israel, but anywhere, imagine an earthquake and buildings coming down in an earthquake.
Dan Werthman: Here is the restriction.
Dan Werthman: If a building falls down on the Sabbath, enough rubble can be removed to discover if any victims are dead or alive, and if alive, the victims can be rescued.
Dan Werthman: But if dead, the corpses must be left until after the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: Not life-endangering to a corpse, is it?
Dan Werthman: And we hear that, and we feel the coldness in that, but that's the kind of rabbinic tradition that had developed just in this area of medical care, of healing, of saving lives.
Dan Werthman: And so you can see, you can infer from these conditions, or from these restrictions, how the religious leaders were viewing what was going on there that day in the synagogue.
Dan Werthman: This man only has a withered hand.
Dan Werthman: That withered hand isn't going to kill him.
Dan Werthman: He's had that withered hand probably a long time, maybe from birth.
Dan Werthman: And even if Jesus can do something about it, you don't have to do anything about it today, on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: It can wait'til a weekday.
Dan Werthman: It's not life-threatening.
Dan Werthman: So according to their rules, their extra-biblical restrictions, if this man wants to be healed, he must wait for a weekday, and really, they couldn't have cared about this man less.
Dan Werthman: Really, they were callous toward this man.
Dan Werthman: Whether they set this man up, bringing him in to trap Jesus, or whether they just took advantage of the fact that he was there, the effect is the same.
Dan Werthman: They are using him as a tool to try and trap Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Jesus, by contrast, see, something totally different: yes, it's the Sabbath, but he sees this man sitting there in his suffering and in his shame.
Dan Werthman: This man is suffering.
Dan Werthman: He's probably disabled.
Dan Werthman: Imagine having one of your hands paralyzed where you cannot use it.
Dan Werthman: Imagine the impact it would have on your life.
Dan Werthman: There is a degree of suffering in that.
Dan Werthman: Imagine the shame, especially if it had a very obvious appearance of deformity, of how how you as a man or a woman, for that matter, would feel, walking around with people seeing your deformed hand.
Dan Werthman: Jesus sees this man in his suffering and his shame, and he's moved with compassion toward this man.
Dan Werthman: So verse 3:"He said to the man with the withered hand,'Rise.
Dan Werthman: Stand up.
Dan Werthman: Come forward.'" Again, the man does not initiate the encounter.
Dan Werthman: Jesus initiates the encounter.
Dan Werthman: The man's sitting there silently, and Jesus calls to him and then notice how Jesus does it.
Dan Werthman: Could Jesus have healed that man right where he was sitting, without even having him stand up?
Dan Werthman: Of course he could have.
Dan Werthman: But Jesus has him stand.
Dan Werthman: Jesus has him stand up where everybody can see him, and if that's not enough, Jesus has him come forward to the center of the synagogue.
Dan Werthman: These are commands that he speaks:"Rise and come forward." What is he doing?
Dan Werthman: He's not only going to heal this man; he's going to focus everybody's attention in the synagogue on really what the main issue is: not just the attention of the religious leaders, but everybody's attention.
Dan Werthman: Here's the real question that Jesus wants to bring into focus for them, and by the way, for us:"Does Jesus have the authority that he claims?" For them,"Does he have the authority over the Sabbath?""Does he have the authority to really explain and even enlighten us about God's purpose for the Sabbath and how God wants us to live out the Sabbath principle?" But it goes much beyond that.
Dan Werthman: For you and me today, does Jesus have authority over us?
Dan Werthman: That's the question he's forcing everyone to consider, then and today.
Dan Werthman: It's a real, valid question.
Dan Werthman: Why?
Dan Werthman: Because we live in a culture, particularly today, where many people would think of themselves as Christians, many people would claim to have some kind of connection, some kind of relationship with Jesus, many people look back to perhaps a prayer that they prayed at some point in life or some kind of experience, particularly an emotional experience, and yet, and this was true of me for many years, and yet they live their life, not under Jesus's authority; they live their life under their own authority.
Dan Werthman: They call their own shots in life.
Dan Werthman: Jesus may be savior, but Jesus isn't Lord, having authority over their lives.
Dan Werthman: So Jesus pushes that question then.
Dan Werthman: Jesus pushes that question.
Dan Werthman: That's part of the reason the Holy Spirit has brought you here this morning, is he wants you to consider where you stand in relationship to what he's revealing to you through his word about Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Well, in verse 4, Jesus challenges the Pharisees.
Dan Werthman: "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?" I love how he starts this.
Dan Werthman: "Is it lawful?" What is he doing there?
Dan Werthman: He's referring to:"Where's your source?
Dan Werthman: Not in your rabbinic tradition.
Dan Werthman: Where's your source in God's word?
Dan Werthman: Where's your source in the Mosaic law?" Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
Dan Werthman: "Where is your source for saying that, out of compassion and out of mercy, a man cannot be healed on the Sabbath?
Dan Werthman: "Show me your source in God's word, not in your own opinions." It reminds me: the denomination that I grew up in after I was saved and the one I'm ordained in, the Evangelical Free Church, there's this traditional saying and it's simply this:"Where stands it written?" And what does that mean?
Dan Werthman: It means that there's this understanding in our denomination that you can have your preferences, and on secondary issues you can have your opinions, but before you impress your preferences or your secondary opinions on someone else, show me where that is in God's word.
Dan Werthman: Show me, respectfully, lovingly, show me how you support that with what God says.
Dan Werthman: And if you can't, if you can't support it in God's word, don't impress it upon other people, even if it's a preference that's very dear to you, even if it's an opinion on a secondary matter that you feel very strongly about, if you cannot support it in God's word definitively, do not make it a barrier between us.
Dan Werthman: "Where stands it written?" That'd be a very good practice for all of us as followers of Jesus Christ, and that's what he's saying here when he says,"Is it lawful?" Well, more specifically, Jesus is challenging them to show him where God in his word has spoken to the issue of doing good or doing harm.
Dan Werthman: Think of the stance of these religious leaders.
Dan Werthman: They're willing to ignore the pitiful condition, the suffering, of this man, even to use that suffering to entrap Jesus on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: And Jesus is implying,"Is that doing good, or is that actually doing evil?" Jesus, by contrast, reveals the heart of God in how he responds.
Dan Werthman: "What does God say is good, on the Sabbath or any day?" Well, much scripture speaks to that, but I think particularly in one of my favorite scriptures, Micah 6:8.
Dan Werthman: This is God speaking through the prophet Micah to his people.
Dan Werthman: "He has showed you, O man, what is good." Here it is.
Dan Werthman: Here's what God says is good.
Dan Werthman: "And what does the Lord require of you?
Dan Werthman: To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." God does want us to do good on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: And he defines what is good here in a similar passage: to do good on the Sabbath or any day is to act justly.
Dan Werthman: To do what is right toward the people that he brings into our lives.
Dan Werthman: To do good on the Sabbath or any day is to love mercy, to show compassion toward hurting people that we encounter, whatever day of the week it is.
Dan Werthman: So Jesus is proclaiming to them, and he's teaching us this morning, that not only is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, but that God actually requires that we do good on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: He calls us to respond mercifully to people who are hurting and needy that he brings across our path.
Dan Werthman: Let me just make that very real: consider within the walls of this building, when we come on Sunday mornings.
Dan Werthman: Again, referring to last week's sermon, Sunday is not the Christian Sabbath, but Sunday is the day that for many of us, we seek to live out the principle of the Sabbath, to rest and be refreshed.
Dan Werthman: And part of that is we come and we're together and we worship together and we fellowship together.
Dan Werthman: So you come on Sundays, and you know, you have things that you want to do on Sunday mornings.
Dan Werthman: You need to get to your connect group, or after service, you need to get to lunch.
Dan Werthman: But what happens, you know, when you have an agenda, where you need to go and what you need to do, what happens when you encounter a person and you give the standard greeting?
Dan Werthman: "How are you doing?" And they may answer,"I'm fine." And your radar, your intuition or your spiritual discernment, picks up that is not the case, that that person may be saying those words, but that person is burdened.
Dan Werthman: There's something further going on there.
Dan Werthman: We have a choice at that moment.
Dan Werthman: Are we going to be merciful?
Dan Werthman: Are we going to do what is good?
Dan Werthman: Might I have to divert my plans to get to the restaurant that I want to go to in time to get a table?
Dan Werthman: Might I have to divert my plans to probe deeper, to actually spend some time with that person, to pray with that person?
Dan Werthman: Maybe that's going to lead to a need to minister to that person.
Dan Werthman: Am I willing to do that?
Dan Werthman: That's the kind of decision-- I'm not going to tell you what the right answer is in any specific situation, but that is the kind of decision that God puts before us and asks,"What are you going to do?
Dan Werthman: "Are you going to do it as good?
Dan Werthman: Are you going to show mercy to that hurting person?" Or let me take it beyond the walls of church on a Sunday.
Dan Werthman: You are, like my family when we had kids still in the home, you are rushed on a Sunday morning and getting everybody dressed and in the car, and on the way to church, you're probably already late like we typically were, and you notice your neighbor in some kind of clear distress.
Dan Werthman: Maybe she's a single mom.
Dan Werthman: Maybe it's the guy across the street who is a widower, and you see what's happening.
Dan Werthman: You see the events, the circumstances, that they're in the midst of, and they're in real crisis.
Dan Werthman: What do you do?
Dan Werthman: You're already late for church, for your Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: What do you do?
Dan Werthman: What does it mean to show mercy, to do what is good in those situations?
Dan Werthman: God calls us to do good, to be merciful on the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: That often requires us to sacrificially extend ourselves, but I digress.
Dan Werthman: Let me come back to the text.
Dan Werthman: Jesus continues to challenge them at the end of verse 4:"Is it lawful to save a life or to kill?" And here, he is probing beyond this man.
Dan Werthman: Now he's probing at what's in their heart.
Dan Werthman: I think he knows their motives at this point, and he's challenging their intentions to try and get him arrested and eventually executed.
Dan Werthman: He's pointing out the hypocrisy of them criticizing him while they're actually plotting in their hearts and their minds to have him killed.
Dan Werthman: You see, the bigger issue that Mark wants us to see, not just in this this situation, but throughout his Gospel, is what Jesus claimed about himself.
Dan Werthman: We saw that at the end of chapter 2, verse 28: Jesus claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: He claimed to be Lord.
Dan Werthman: William Willimon puts it this way:"The clash with authority here in this situation, it's not over the rules over what can and can't be done on the Sabbath; it's over who rules." And that was true of them, and that's true of us.
Dan Werthman: It's not really, under the surface, about the rules.
Dan Werthman: It is about whether he rules over our lives.
Dan Werthman: And that is true for them.
Dan Werthman: That is true for us.
Dan Werthman: Does Jesus, as the Son of Man, does he have God's authority to determine what can be done on the sabbath?
Dan Werthman: What fits with God's purpose for the Sabbath?
Dan Werthman: And broader than that, does Jesus, does he have authority over everything, over everything in our lives?
Dan Werthman: That is the decision.
Dan Werthman: That is the question that he calls every one of us to make a response to.
Dan Werthman: And what's the response that we see of the religious rulers here at the end of verse 4?
Dan Werthman: They kept silent.
Dan Werthman: They kept silent because they can't answer this.
Dan Werthman: They kept silent because they cannot respond to the power and the wisdom of what he said, and their silence actually is evidence that religion for them, it's not what's in their heart.
Dan Werthman: Religion for them has become a checkoff list of whether they're keeping the rules.
Dan Werthman: Religion for them is a list of works that they can perform, they can go through the motions on, without surrendering their hearts to the authority of Jesus.
Dan Werthman: You know what?
Dan Werthman: You and I are pulled with those same temptations to go through the motions of the Christian life just with a list of rules that we check off.
Dan Werthman: We go through the motions of trying to do these actions just without any real surrender of our heart.
Dan Werthman: We experience the same temptation as these religious rulers.
Dan Werthman: Verse 5:"After looking around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of heart, he said to the man,'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." I'm struck by what Jesus shows us here: we see anger in Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And by the way, this is the first time in the Gospel of Mark, but this is not the last time we will see Jesus angry.
Dan Werthman: I don't know what that does to you, but you know, I have this uneasiness with anger, both because of what anger has done in my life by my expression of sinful anger, and what has happened in my life by others' expression of sinful anger toward me.
Dan Werthman: And so I'm both drawn to this and I'm unsettled by this, that Jesus is modeling anger for us.
Dan Werthman: I mean, we know both Old Testament and New Testament, Proverbs 4, Ephesians 4, say basically the same thing:"Be angry and yet do not sin." In other words, the Bible acknowledges we're made in the image of God.
Dan Werthman: There are things that make us angry because God becomes angry about things, and yet there's a way to sin in our anger, which is usually what happens, but apparently there's a way to not sin, to have righteous anger.
Dan Werthman: And here, that's what Jesus is displaying: righteous anger.
Dan Werthman: He is angry here at something that could not be tolerated by his holy moral nature.
Dan Werthman: And yet his anger here, it's not polluted by sin.
Dan Werthman: His anger here is not sinfully expressed.
Dan Werthman: So what do we see in this?
Dan Werthman: What does he model for us about what it means to be angry and yet do not sin?
Dan Werthman: I love this definition of righteous anger by a pastoral counselor by the name of David Powlison, and this is one that I've had to chew on for a while but has been very helpful to me personally in my own struggles with anger.
Dan Werthman: Powlison says,"Anger--" and I think he's talking about righteous anger here--"is active displeasure toward something that's important enough to care about.
Dan Werthman: It is an active stance that you take to oppose something that you assess as both important and wrong." There is a righteous form of anger.
Dan Werthman: In fact, it would be wrong, it would be sinful not to care about things that are important, things that God cares about.
Dan Werthman: But the problem is often, usually, in our flesh.
Dan Werthman: When we take a stance, we do it in the flesh, and so we become angry about things that aren't important to God, or we fail to become angry about things that are important to God that we should care about, or in the expression of our anger, we do so sinfully and in the flesh.
Dan Werthman: But Jesus here, his anger fits this definition.
Dan Werthman: He displays anger that is perfectly righteous.
Dan Werthman: He cares about what is important.
Dan Werthman: He cares about the callousness of these men.
Dan Werthman: He cares about God's purposes for the Sabbath.
Dan Werthman: He experiences active displeasure toward their perversion of God's purposes and their disregard of this man's suffering and shame, and he takes an active stance to oppose what he assesses as important and wrong.
Dan Werthman: He models righteous anger.
Dan Werthman: How does his anger remain righteous?
Dan Werthman: How does he become angry without sinning?
Dan Werthman: Again, what usually happens to me, I suspect it's what happens to you as well, is again, I become angry about the wrong things, things I shouldn't become angry about.
Dan Werthman: The things that I should care about and become angered about often pass right by me, and often, in my expression of anger, I'm pulled into fleshly responses: bitterness, rage, abusive speech, quarreling, and fighting, and many others that the Bible marks as works of the flesh.
Dan Werthman: And I imagine that's your experience, too.
Dan Werthman: Jesus displays a righteous response to what angers him.
Dan Werthman: We see it in verse 5, and it's only a little slice of what righteous anger looks like.
Dan Werthman: There's much more that we find in scripture, but it's an important slice.
Dan Werthman: "He was," notice what the text says,"grieved at the hardness of their heart." I'll come back to him being grieved in a moment here, but let's consider this concept of their hardness of heart.
Dan Werthman: The Bible calls us to be tenderhearted.
Dan Werthman: When God saves us, Jeremiah says, he gives us a new heart, a tender heart, a heart made of flesh, a heart that the holy spirit can get through to, a heart that truth can take root in, a heart that is pliable to the Holy Spirit and responsive to the Holy Spirit.
Dan Werthman: That's a tender heart.
Dan Werthman: But hardness of heart is the opposite of being tenderhearted.
Dan Werthman: Hardness of heart is the condition of, even when truth is presented to us, we're unwilling to understand it, we're unresponsive to it, and this is such a common spiritual condition, hardness of heart.
Dan Werthman: There's over 40 different references to it throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament.
Dan Werthman: And it's not just unbelievers.
Dan Werthman: Unbelievers, of course, we see plenty of examples in scripture of being hardened in heart, but believers, we see in scripture, can develop that clogging of the spiritual arteries, that spiritual hardness of heart that becomes resistant to God's truth, unresponsive to God's truth.
Dan Werthman: What is Jesus's response to seeing their hardness of heart that's displayed in their response?
Dan Werthman: He is grieved by it.
Dan Werthman: He's not angered by it.
Dan Werthman: He doesn't respond with abusive speech.
Dan Werthman: He doesn't engage them in quarrels.
Dan Werthman: He doesn't rage at them.
Dan Werthman: He's grieved by it, and the word really means to be deeply grieved.
Dan Werthman: The idea I think, there, is that you see that the effect that this is having upon their own souls, as well as other people, is poisonous, is toxic, and this kind of righteous response of anger, it doesn't focus hatred on the person.
Dan Werthman: It focuses hatred on the enemy who's behind that person, influencing that person, taking advantage of the situation.
Dan Werthman: It sees that person as the spiritual equivalent of a prisoner of war being used by the enemy, and he's grieved by it.
Dan Werthman: He's grieved by the effect it's having on this man with a withered hand, the people in the synagogue, he's grieved by the effect it's having on these men and their souls.
Dan Werthman: That is a righteous response of anger to hardness of heart.
Dan Werthman: Jesus then calls the man,"Stretch out your hand," and when the man obeys, his hand was restored.
Dan Werthman: You know, I think it's really worth noting here: Jesus doesn't do anything to heal this man.
Dan Werthman: He simply speaks.
Dan Werthman: And this man, Jesus does not command him to do anything.
Dan Werthman: He just simply extends his hand.
Dan Werthman: Do you get that?
Dan Werthman: Jesus does not violate even their extra-biblical Sabbath regulations to heal this man.
Dan Werthman: This healing occurred without any violation of their Sabbath regulations.
Dan Werthman: So do you think they responded with,"Oh, okay, you did it without violating the Sabbath rules.
Dan Werthman: Blessings upon you." No.
Dan Werthman: Verse 6:"The Pharisees went out, and they immediately held council with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him." Evidence of their hardheartedness.
Dan Werthman: They didn't care whether or not Jesus had actually violated their Sabbath rules.
Dan Werthman: In their hardheartedness, they did not care about what God's true purpose and intention for the Sabbath is.
Dan Werthman: In their hardheartedness, they refuse to even consider that if Jesus wasn't from God, if he wasn't really the one with the authority that he claimed to have, this healing would have not even occurred, but it did occur.
Dan Werthman: They didn't care.
Dan Werthman: Their hardheartedness moves them to actually violate their own Sabbath rules by beginning to plot the premeditated murder of Jesus.
Dan Werthman: So let me bring it forward to us today.
Dan Werthman: When we think about rules, not just Sabbath rules, but our rules, let me just leave you with three questions for you to wrestle through this morning.
Dan Werthman: First of all, are you a rule breaker?
Dan Werthman: What do I mean by that?
Dan Werthman: There is a moral order to the universe that God has established, because God has ultimate authority, and I know we live in a culture that rejects that and rejects that there are any rules, any moral order.
Dan Werthman: And so many people, certainly I was there once, maybe you're there as you come here today, you reject any boundaries of moral authority over your lives.
Dan Werthman: And you are, just putting it very simply, like I once was: a rule breaker.
Dan Werthman: And God says,"Whether you acknowledge it or not, there is a moral order.
Dan Werthman: I am the moral authority, and if you violate my rules without turning to the provision of the way to be saved from your violation that I've made possible through Jesus Christ, you will perish, and you will suffer eternally in hell." And you're here this morning, and you're a rule breaker, and you have not turned to God's provision through Christ, that is what God has for you.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you're here this morning and you're not a rule breaker.
Dan Werthman: You are what I would call a rule follower.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you think of yourself as a Christian.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you think of yourself as a good person, but somehow, you got like I kind of got for a while growing up in the church, you got this misguided picture that following Jesus, that being a Christian is really about whether you can check off all the rules, you know, the rules of what you should be doing, and the rules of what you should avoid.
Dan Werthman: And if religion for you is really about a list of rules that you have some peace-- I don't even know how you get that peace, because I never found it-- by keeping the rules, or religion is about a list of works that you can perform without really surrendering your heart to the authority of Jesus, you are a rule follower, and you'll suffer the same fate apart from Jesus that rule breakers follow.
Dan Werthman: Where Jesus wants to bring you is really the third question: are you a follower of the One who rules?
Dan Werthman: Are you a follower of the One who has ultimate authority, who reveals himself in Jesus Christ?
Dan Werthman: The one, by the way, who perfectly kept all the rules, something you or I can't do, even if that was a way to be saved, the one who fully kept all the rules and then went to the cross in our place and died for our rule breaking and for our twisted around rule following and the one who imputes the righteousness of his perfect rule-following to you and to me when we put our faith in him.
Dan Werthman: So when Jesus looks at us, he sees us perfectly righteous.
Dan Werthman: Jesus wants to be not just a name to you; he wants to be your savior.
Dan Werthman: He wants to be your Lord.
Dan Werthman: He wants to be the One who rules over your life, over my life.
Dan Werthman: How do you respond to him today?
Dan Werthman: Today is yet one more invitation that he gives to you.
Dan Werthman: Don't be a rule breaker.
Dan Werthman: Don't be a rule follower.
Dan Werthman: Be a follower of the One who rules.
Dan Werthman: Let's pray.
Dan Werthman: What a beautiful name, Jesus.
Dan Werthman: What a wonderful name.
Dan Werthman: What a powerful name, Jesus.
Dan Werthman: Reveal yourself to us, Lord, wherever we are.
Dan Werthman: Only you know the thoughts, the mind, the heart of every man or woman, every young man or young woman who you have brought here today.
Dan Werthman: You know where each of us stand before you.
Dan Werthman: Lord, move rule breakers and rule followers to respond to you and become followers of you, the One who rules.
Dan Werthman: We worship you as savior.
Dan Werthman: We worship you as Lord.
Dan Werthman: Amen.