Our busy culture doesn’t prioritize rest. God rested from his work in Genesis 1, so what does that mean for us? In this episode, Brody walks through Scripture and shows how Jesus defined what a Sabbath day means and why he is the Lord of the Sabbath.
The Pharisees replaced the Sabbath law with their own man-made traditions, but Jesus gives us rest from the religious burden of legalism. The Sabbath is for you.
Let’s pause this week and rest in the Lord.
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters exists to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of Scripture and personal relationships in order to equip the Church to impact this generation.
Learn more about our student and adult conferences at https://www.swoutfitters.com/
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Our busy culture doesn’t prioritize rest. God rested from his work in Genesis 1, so what does that mean for us? In this episode, Brody walks through Scripture and shows how Jesus defined what a Sabbath day means and why he is the Lord of the Sabbath.
The Pharisees replaced the Sabbath law with their own man-made traditions, but Jesus gives us rest from the religious burden of legalism. The Sabbath is for you.
Let’s pause this week and rest in the Lord.
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters exists to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of Scripture and personal relationships in order to equip the Church to impact this generation.
Learn more about our student and adult conferences at https://www.swoutfitters.com/
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Hey everybody, it's Thanksgiving week and it is my favorite holiday of the year. I obviously love what we celebrate at Christmas and what we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday the best but as far as family and tradition and getting together and as holidays ago, thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We will be spending this week, in fact Monday. Today, on Monday of Thanksgiving week, we will drive down in the evening to the family in middle Georgia where little's families from will spend a few days with them riding four wheelers and side by sides and building tree forts and hunting deer and hogs and rabbits and squirrels and fishing in the pond. And on Thanksgiving day we'll do the annual polar plunge in the lake or the pond on the farm there. In some years it's not that cold because it's far enough south, but it's usually pretty chilly and it'll be awesome. Looking forward to it. Then on Friday at some point Friday, we'll head north, probably leave on Friday afternoon and head up to Virginia because Virginia Tech and UVA will be playing Final game of the regular season. So looking forward to that. But I love this week. It's my favorite. So much tradition. We've been doing this tradition since before we had kids and so our kids have only ever known Thanksgiving this way and I love it.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a pattern of family traditions and I would encourage you to create that I think it's so wonderful and so just it's awesome it gives something for your kids to look forward to and it creates a good stream and pattern of memories. I know it's not, everybody's not going to do it, but I would encourage you to do it. So we our Thanksgiving looks the same every year and our Christmas looks the same every year Committed years ago to be home for Christmas so that we could worship with our church Christmas Eve service. I think that's very important. I want my kids to grow up with that habit and pattern and pattern of memories. And then we decided that, with with grandparents tugging and pulling it, we want to wake up in our own home by the fire on Christmas morning and then we go to grandparents from there. So that's, that's our thing. You do, you know, think of what your thing might be and do it. I know a lot of people will go. A lot of families will come together and stay at the grandparents house on Christmas Eve or whatever, and that's cool to it, doesn't matter. There's no right or wrong. Just create memories and enjoy the holidays and don't make them a burden. It's so sad when I hear people talk about the burden of the holidays. It should be wonderful. December is going to be awesome and I'm looking forward to to the next few weeks.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to make one thing available or make you aware of one thing that we've talked about already, but I want to bring it back up. The snowbird advent book is available. Pick up a copy of that. It's linked in the gear store in the show notes. Matty's got that link, so make sure you get that. Get a copy of that, get yours. It's a day by day advent study that. That is awesome to go through in the month of December. And so today's episode. Well, let me get through the intro. I've already gone for a few minutes here. Let me let's get the intro done and then I'll I'll introduce today's topic in conversation.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:All right, so welcome again. And what I'm doing today is I want to look at I'm going to be preaching here soon, in about a week or two, on a passage of scripture and Mark two, and I've been just studying it and mulling it over. I don't have the sermon prepared yet, but I've got a ton of notes written and I want to. I want to walk you through some thoughts, because it has to do with Jesus calling himself the Lord of the Sabbath. And so it has to do with the Sabbath and it's something that's always been interesting to me because it happens so much in the ministry of Jesus, and I'm learning through this study just how, what a big deal it was, and the way that the Sabbath played into the fair cycle system. But as you listen to this, come back at the end. I want to give you a challenge to just use this week, thanksgiving week, as a week of rest and worship and, given thanks to the Lord, thanksgiving produces joy, and so find what you can be thankful for and rejoice in the Lord, and he'll give you strength in that. And so we're going to dive into God's word. We're actually going to dive into Mark, chapter two. So I'm excited to share this with you. So let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Mark, chapter two, verse 23. On the Sabbath he was going through the grain fields and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him look, why are you doing what is not lawful? On the Sabbath, he said to them have you never read what David and those who are with him did when he was in need and hungry? How he entered the house of God in the time of a by a Thor, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and also gave some to his companions. Then he told them the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So then, the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been around a couple or maybe a family, where one person nitpicks the other person to death? It can be horribly frustrating to listen to that, and it must be really frustrating to be treated that way. Imagine completely losing my cool and yelling for that person to just give me a break. The Pharisees and temple leaders treated Jesus this way. They constantly nitpicked and confronted Jesus over every single thing that he did Every single thing he said. But Jesus never lost his cool. In fact he welcomed the conflict. It gave him opportunity to speak truth, reminded of a story that happened to me recently, and then sharing the story with a couple of the other pastors at Red Oak Church. They had had similar interactions with this local gentleman.
Speaker 1:But there's a guy here I won't say his name, we'll call him Jim. He's a local man. He retired to this area. I'm not sure where he's from, but Jim is a little bit, I don't know how to say it. He's extremely opinionated but he's got some crazy views. I mean diabolical crazy views, particularly as it relates to the King James version of the Bible, the nation of Israel, some anti-Semitic ideology, some extremely leaps Legalistic stuff, definitely a racist guy and just a really strange blend of religion, religious views, strong opinions, and he's loud and he's crazy.
Speaker 1:And I was talking to him one day before I knew that he was like this, because he was talking to a gentleman that I know really well who struggles with depression, particularly seasonal depression, and this guy was standing there listening. My friend was standing there listening to this guy, jim, and my friend's name is Bob, I'm not making that up. That's his real name, and Bob is a sweet gentle, older man who really struggles with seasonal depression and the cold weather setting in and the gray, overcast days and we've had forest fires recently and it's just kind of a tough time of year for Bob. And Bob was listening to this guy rant about Israel and God's judgment and the King James Bible and how Bob's not really a Christian because of this and that and the other thing, all things that Jim had made up, and I sat and listened to this as I walked up onto the conversation and there was a point where I couldn't take it anymore and so I just started to talk to this guy, jim, and there's a verse in Proverbs that says answer not a fool according to his folly. But there's another verse that says answer a fool according to his folly. And when you drill into it, the idea is there's a time where you just don't need to answer, you don't need to get in a conversation, you need to consider the source and leave something alone. But there are times where you need to speak up. There are times where somebody so foolish in their assessments or their opinions or what they're expressing that you need to speak up. And this was a moment where I felt like I needed to speak up because Bob was.
Speaker 1:Bob was feeling the pressure and the weight that this guy was applying to him. Bob was feeling very condemned. Bob's a very insecure and sad and quiet man who struggles. I don't know what. His life is thrown at him. He's a pretty closed guy and I've tried to have conversations with him and he's a believer and he follows Jesus and he trusts the Lord. But he comes from a pretty rough background and he's never really opened up about it. But you can see it on his face and this guy's just applying a ton of pressure to Bob and Bob's about to crumble. Finally, I just told this guy best thing for him to do was get in his car and leave. And I mean I was pretty aggressive, aggressive to the point that I questioned afterwards was that appropriate? Was I too aggressive? Should I have been that way? Was that un-Christian, like, was it something not becoming a pastor or ministry leader? But in that moment I felt like I got to get this guy put in his place because he's about to devastate this other guy, my friend Bob, and so I confronted it.
Speaker 1:There's another time I remember where some kids had gotten excited about their new faith. They had come to faith in Jesus. We had done a street ministry thing in our hometown of Andrews. This is years and years ago. 25 years ago we had done a like a rally and we had brought in a flatbed trailer and we had a band play and brought a band in. Some friends of mine came in and really talented group. They did some covered music and then had a worship set and we preached and we shared the gospel kids that were coming and going.
Speaker 1:This is back in the days when people would steal crews. For those of you that know what cruising is, it's pre-cell phones, pre-common use of internet. This is when kids would just go out and ride up and down the streets and drop tailgates and sit in parking lots and hang out. And there was a local I'll call him a pastor. I think he was a good guy. He just was a little confused and he ran a business where he was the first guy to bring certain internet services and cable TV services to the community. And for about 20 bucks a month you could get cable TV in your home and for about 40 bucks a month you could get it all HBO, cinemax, the movie channel, if you remember when that was an upgraded package back in those days, and this man began to rail on me because he said that we had used something other than the King James version of the Bible to rant at me, saying that kids that had come to faith in Jesus with any other translation being used, that they weren't really saved.
Speaker 1:And it was very discouraging because there was a young man standing there with me that didn't even know what he's talking about and so there was a confrontation. I got I got a little confrontational with this guy and walked away thinking, you know, maybe that was appropriate. I think it was not for me, but for this young man that was getting really confused. As this guy a red faced local pastor who also profited at the tune of $40 a month per subscription to put HBO into people's homes it's not a big leap to see the inconsistency and hypocrisy in that. So I confronted it.
Speaker 1:Now we'll stop here and say more times than not, I need to be confronted rather than being the one who's doing the confronting. I'm not saying that I've got some moral high ground, I'm not comparing myself to Jesus, but Jesus would confront the Pharisees and the religious leaders, and oftentimes he would do it in front of people who they had bullied and controlled and manipulated and scared. And so you got two things the Pharisees are doing. One they're nitpicking everything that Jesus says, everything that Jesus does. They don't want Jesus to succeed. They don't want him to be successful. They oppose him. But on the other hand, they've got no compassion for people. They get mad when Jesus heals people. They plot to kill Jesus.
Speaker 1:John, chapter five the first recorded interaction that Jesus has with religious leaders is the first Sabbath related interaction Jesus has with religious leaders is surrounding the healing of the man who for 38 years had laid as an invalid beside the pool of Beth Beth Sada, I think, or Bethesda, I don't remember now how you pronounce it. And Jesus heals this man on the Sabbath and they freak out on him and Jesus says what are you? What am I supposed to do? Am I not supposed to do this on the Sabbath? Like, is it not better to heal this man? It's an intense conversation, it's an intense interaction.
Speaker 1:But you read that and you can't help but get the feeling that something more is going on here. It's not just about Jesus healing this man. There's a bigger issue, and there is. It's that Jesus is expressing his Lordship, his sovereignty, his deity. These guys would rather people remain broken, poor and oppressed than to worship Jesus. And so Jesus, in our passage that we just read, is with his disciples on the Sabbath, walking through grain fields, and these guys are picking the grain and eating it. Picking the grain and eating, it's not not a big deal. It's really not a big deal, and I think that it's important maybe to think about what the Sabbath meant for those people.
Speaker 1:Because in that passage that we just read, jesus claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath. And for us today to hear that it's not a big deal, of course he is. Of course he's Lord of the Sabbath. We meet every Sunday, which is our equivalent of the Sabbath, most of us anyway, we meet on Sunday and we worship Jesus. He's the Lord of our worship, he's the Lord of our worship service, he's the point of every sermon, he's the object of our praise. We don't really even use the word Sabbath, but we do practice a day set aside to worship corporately the Lord. So of course he's the Lord of the Sabbath For us today. It doesn't seem odd that he would say that we use the Sabbath principle. That's a little bit different Taking a day of rest, taking a day to relax, taking a day to have fellowship with friends and family.
Speaker 1:And for Jews in general and for the Pharisees in particular, the claim that Jesus makes in that passage to be Lord of the Sabbath is a radical claim and it would have it did infuriate them. But it would also trouble them Because at this point in the story we're in the end of Mark, chapter two, and if you read the first two chapters of Mark up to this point, jesus has proven to people, to followers, to listeners, to his new followers and to those who have rejected him, to the Pharisees. He's proven that he has a different kind of authority when he teaches the Bible. He's proven that he has authority to heal the sick. He has authority over physical sickness, the natural world. He's cast out and defeated and exercised demons. He's proven that he has authority over demons. He's resisted and withstood and overwhelmed the temptation of Satan and the wilderness, proven that he has authority over the prince of demons. John praises him, people worship him and he receives it because he's worthy and he's given salvation and called to, called disciples to follow him. At every turn.
Speaker 1:Jesus has validated his claim to be the son of man, so it makes sense that he would express himself as the Lord of the Sabbath. But does it really make sense? Is he really the Lord of the Sabbath? Maybe? Maybe a good foundation for why he would say that would be. Why he would say that would be to understand what he means when he says that he's the son of man. Because that last verse that we read he says the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath, and that verse is so loaded. That's Mark 2, 28. And I want to unpack that verse a little bit. So Jesus saying that he is the son of man would only make sense that he would then say he's the Lord of the Sabbath. And to understand what I mean by that statement, you got to go read Daniel 7, 13.
Speaker 1:Daniel, chapter seven, verse 13, says this this is a vision that Daniel saw. I continued watching in the night visions and suddenly one like a son of man. There's the phrase. Now listen how he describes the son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, he approached the ancient of days, that's God the Father, and was escorted before him and he was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, so that those of every people, nation and language should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. So there's a description of the son of man let's take a minute here and unpack that coming with the clouds of heaven. What does he mean by that? Well, jesus rides on the clouds. We also see this in John's vision in Revelation Jesus riding on a white horse, but as the cloud rider. He is in full, glorious display. When we see this picture of Jesus. And then the second thing that Daniel sees in his vision is that this cloud rider approaches the ancient one, the ancient of days, and was led into his presence to reference to God.
Speaker 1:No one can just enter into the presence of God, but Jesus is God, so he has a rightful place of authority as God the Son. In other words, the Son of man is God the Son. This is the fact that Jesus takes us into the throne room of God. Hebrews 414 says we have a great high priest who has entered into that presence, so let us come boldly before the throne of God. I can enter the very presence of God because of Jesus's presence in my heart and in my life and in my mind. This is just wonderful. Jesus dwells with God the Father. He's the Son of man in his presence. Then it says he was given authority over all the nations of the world.
Speaker 1:And Mark 1 and 2, leading up to the Sabbath passage that we're considering today, jesus's authority has been on display we just talked about that over physical illness, demons, satan, scripture. It's been attested to by John, by God, the Father, god, the Holy Spirit at Jesus's baptism. Attested to it the disciples who follow him and profess and claim that he is the Lord, and then by the crowds that are starting to gather and follow him and worship him. His authority has been on display. But now his authority is on display in a different way. In Mark, chapter 2, verse 28, he's claiming to have authority as the Lord of the Sabbath, but as the Son of man. This makes sense because also in Daniel 7, 13 and 14, honor and authority and sovereignty are given. Honor is given to the Son of man. This means he's to be worshiped, he's to be obeyed. Sovereignty means he's given all power and control and is supreme over all of creation, including nations and tribes. He's supreme over people that Jesus refers to him as to himself as the Son of man is a claim right here in Mark 2, 28, that he is the one in the vision in Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14. It's a claim to be God. It's a claim to be worthy of praise and worship. It's a claim to be sovereign. It's a call to people to obey him. And so in the final verse of Mark 2, this passage that we're considering, the claim is that he's the Lord of the Sabbath Lord of the Sabbath on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:We got to go back to Genesis 2 to really understand the early teaching on the Sabbath. The first time it's really mentioned in terms of a principle or an action is in Genesis, chapter 2, verses 2 and 3. It says on the seventh day God finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day when he rested from all his work. So the Sabbath was ordained by God. This means that God defines the Sabbath, is sovereign over the Sabbath, rules the Sabbath wrote the Sabbath into Hebrew law at Mount Sinai as part of the Ten Commandments. But to the Pharisees the Sabbath was the center or central point of their system. We'll get into that a little bit more here in a few minutes. Jesus will show not only that he is sovereign over the Sabbath, but also that he was. He has total disregard for the quote, unquote Sabbath of the Pharisees. It's not the true Sabbath. He's going to gash their symptoms. He's going to gash their systems. He's going to gash their methods and methodology repeatedly.
Speaker 1:If you consider Mark on a chronological timeline, john McCarthur points out that Jesus has already stirred up conflict surrounding the Sabbath. We mentioned this earlier in John chapter five, when he healed the man by the pool at Bethsaida Bethesda Forget which one it is, I should probably just go look it up. Jesus has already declared himself to have authority over the Sabbath. The man that was healed there was hopeless. He was superstitious. He was hoping in the stirring of the water to heal him. In John chapter five, when Jesus healed him, he made this man. Well, immediately, keep in mind when Jesus would heal somebody, he would completely restore them and this man had been an invalid for his whole life. It means he's atrophied. He can't walk, he can't move, he can't pick things up. He's completely atrophied. He's unable to do anything for himself. This is overwhelming. Let's just pause here and read that in John chapter five. No doubt it's a familiar story.
Speaker 1:After this, a Jewish festival took place and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. You always say go up, because Jerusalem was in an elevated position, even though Jesus was north of Jerusalem, up in Galilee. So he would have geographically come down, but he went up to Jerusalem. He would do this. Jesus would often go into Jerusalem during festivals when you had a bunch of people and a lot of religious connotation and application and context.
Speaker 1:By the sheep gate in Jerusalem there's a pool called Bethesda there it is called Bethesda In Aramaic which has five colonnades. Within these lay a large number of the disabled blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there who had been disabled for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him do you want to get well, sir? The disabled man answered I have no one to put me into the pool when the water has stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me. Get up. Jesus told him pick up your mat and walk Instantly. The man got well, picked up his mat and started to walk.
Speaker 1:Now that was the Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed this is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat. He replied the man who made me well told me pick up your mat and walk. Who is this man who told you pick up your mat and walk? They asked, but the man who was healed did not know who it was because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Speaker 1:So you've got this. You know they're grilling this guy because he's carrying his mat. They know this dude. They know that he's a lot. He's laid there for 38 years, four decades. He's been laying there as an invalid. Where's the compassion? Where's the? Where's the human spirit? Why would they not be excited for this guy? No, because it's Jesus is threatening their power. The Sabbath is at the center of their power. You know they're arguing that this man is breaking the law by carrying his bed on the Sabbath. It's important to understand that what they've done is they've elevated. They've taken the Sabbath law and elevated it and created something that defines ultimate religious spiritual virtue. I mean literally. If you study through all the Sabbath texts, what jumps out and this is something that I've only recently really come to learn and appreciate is that the Sabbath was central to their control and power over the people.
Speaker 1:Jesus, in Matthew 15, six, he confronts him. He says you cancel the word of God for your own tradition. See, they had replaced God's perfect Sabbath law with their own man made traditions. That's what Jesus was addressing in Matthew 11, 28, which is my wash favorite verse Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Speaker 1:This wasn't making a reference to actual physical labor. He wasn't saying, hey, you tired, you split wood all day. You worked a 12 hour shift at the hospital as a nurse. You drove a truck 16 hours. You only supposed to drive at eight but you had. You got hung up and you broke down and you couldn't get like like your school teacher and you had to go to work sick, call a substitute teacher and go home and you've been laying in bed with a fever and now you got to go back to work because you got over it.
Speaker 1:But you're still not fully strong. You're weak from being sick. Your police officer who's constantly in a grind against the system, that doesn't seem to support you. Sometimes You're a pastor who feels underappreciated. Does Jesus give us rest from our physical labor? Of course you're a. You're a mom and a housewife who's homeschooling two kids and then got a toddler to deal with. You're a pregnant lady, with a newborn already and you're overwhelmed because this pregnancy was unplanned. Does Jesus give us physical rest? Yeah, he does, but that's not the big idea. Sometimes you're physically tired, but, man, what about spiritual exhaustion? What about emotional exhaustion? What about mental exhaustion? This was making a reference to those things.
Speaker 1:He's talking about the immense and intense burden of legalism that the Pharisees had placed on this people. Jesus said I'll give you rest. See, the Pharisees were giving them a religious burden, but Jesus was lifting the burden and carrying it for them so that he could give them rest. It's the matter of law versus grace. Jesus is extending grace by fulfilling the law and carrying the burden of it. Again, macarthur, he says this. Matthew 23 says you, you bind heavy burdens on people and you never lift a finger to help them carry those burdens. See, they lived under fanatical need to adhere to endless rules, down to the minutia, but they could never. They couldn't do it. Yes, they were never free from the burden of their own guilt and lack of achievement. So Jesus defied their Sabbath man made rules and because of this he said my father is working until now and I am myself working Me and the father, not you.
Speaker 1:We decide what to do on the Sabbath. I'm Lord of the Sabbath. I decide what the Sabbath is for. I love this. Jesus is declaring himself to be the one who determines why the Sabbath exists. And what he's saying is don't, don't listen, don't miss this. He's saying the Sabbath is for you. It's to give you rest, it's to give you peace, it's to give you a pause in life to worship and enjoy a meal and fellowship and friends and family and a nap and creation, and to come together with God's people and worship. That's not what they're doing with it. Religious radicals are imposing an unbearable burden with the Sabbath. So when Jesus says this, the religious people, they lost it.
Speaker 1:And that John five passage in verse 18, it says that the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill Jesus. It's crazy. Talk about going to a dark place fast. Now they're starting to conspire to kill him. It's just always been shocking and repulsive to me to think about this. It's always been just unbelievable. These guys are going to try to come up with a way to kill Jesus.
Speaker 1:So that John five confrontation was the first confrontation surrounding the Sabbath and Sabbath law and it took place in Jerusalem during a holy festival on the Sabbath, in front of a whole bunch of people, in a high pro profile moment. So, moving, moving out of that, uh, john five, you know that's the first Sabbath confrontation and that would have set off a bit of a firestorm because of you know the fact, obviously, because it says they're going to start conspiring to kill Jesus. Then there's no doubt in my mind that as he left Jerusalem from that incident, traveled back up to Galilee, the news and the story of that healing went ahead of them, went, went ahead of him, and so the Pharisees reaction would have also gone ahead of him. Word, you know, news travels. Uh, even in a time where there were no, there was no real technology, word just travels so fast.
Speaker 1:So the event on the Sabbath in Mark two, which is where we're reading about the grains, picking the heads of grains and eating them, that's a much different scenario, but Jesus makes the exact same point. So he heals a guy on the Sabbath, tells him to pick up his bed and carry it in John five, and then, sometime after that, he picks heads of grain with his disciples. He's, he's pick, he's. He's creating confrontation. I feel like, um, I think he's he's. He's doing this to make a point. And the point is the same thing Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:He's the son of man, which means, as we saw in that glimpse back into Daniel seven, he sovereign, he's authoritative, he, like, he is worthy to be praised and worshiped and obeyed. And so when Jesus is confronted In our text with, with, you know, by these, when these leaders come up to him and they're like what the heck, guys can't be harvesting grain on the Sabbath, remember, there's nothing. The only thing that is Mentioned in the Old Testament about the Sabbath is to keep it holy and arrest, so worship and rest. There's not a bunch of rules associated with it. Jesus says two things, there's two statements in his response. He says the Sabbath was made for Foreman, not the other way around. And Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. And that's where he uses the Daniel 7 verse 13 title the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. I'm the Son of man, I'm the sovereign one who is to be worshiped, I'm God in the flesh and I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is for man to rest and worship and I'm the Lord over that. So y'all this up. This is a really big Controversial statement and what I'm learning is all of these Sabbath Scenarios in the Gospels Matthew, mark, luke and John, all these interactions that Jesus has surrounding the Sabbath, that's kind of ground zero of Jesus's claims to be God. So when people say today I'm driving through Andrews, alright, and I look over and in front of the Andrews post office there are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They got their little booths set up. They're giving out their little brochures to ladies. God love them, god help them. They're blinded, they're going to hell, they are bound for damnation, and they're so nice and they believe so strongly in in the lie.
Speaker 1:Last week we were in Boston. Two weeks ago now, we were in Boston for the, the Virginia Tech Boston College game, and we went up. I think I told y'all went up a couple days early, saw the city. It was awesome, I did. The Freedom Trail was so great and we were in. You know the park there, boston Commons, I think they call it. It's, it's the equivalent of Central Park to Boston. I think is what that is basically really beautiful park, beautiful trees, big fat squirrels, cool art, lots of statues of old American Revolution heroes. And Then there is a booth with four or five Jehovah's Witnesses set up and they're giving out literature, brochures.
Speaker 1:These people are deceived and they've believed a lie, one of the things at the core, the crux of what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe, and the same with the Mormons, the Latter-day Saints. They reject the deity of Jesus. They reject the innate, inerrant, eternal deity of Jesus. They don't believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity. And One of the arguments that people that reject this will make is they'll say Well, jesus never claimed to be God. How can you say he's God? He never claimed to be God. Well, he claimed to be the son of man in Daniel 7 and to be the Lord of the Sabbath, god over the Sabbath, the sovereign over the Sabbath. Think about that claim. That's a claim to be, that's a claim to who he Like. When Jesus is saying that, he's saying I'm, I am God in the flesh. So the Sabbath that? Let's consider these things that he said.
Speaker 1:The first the Sabbath was made for man, not the other way around. The again, the Old Testament instruction about the Sabbath. It was rooted in creation. Go all the way back to Genesis 2 and it says on the seventh day, the Lord, the Lord God, rested from all of his work that he had done in creating. This is also, by the way, why I and we for the most part at swoe, believe I speak for everybody, at least everybody in the teaching team we believe in a literal seven-day creation. People say, yeah, you're having to reject science. I don't know, man, I don't, I don't think so. I don't think you have to reject signs. I think the flood answers for a lot. But the reason I believe I hold to a literal seven-day creation is because of the Sabbath principle. God rested on the seventh day and that's a 24-hour day because it's then connected to Six days you work and on the seventh day you rest. But but so the first mention of the Sabbath or as a principle is in Genesis 2, 3. That's the day that the Lord God rested from all his work.
Speaker 1:The word comes from the Hebrew word I think you say this sabbaton or sabbaton, and just means to cease. The double B, those two B's in the word, intensify the sound. You see this? I know in Uganda people that speak uh, luganda, they, you'll see that. You'll see double consonants in words and it makes a harder consonant sound. So sub bath or sub baton, the double B intensifies the sound. So it's an intense word. To even say the Old Testament law. They came along. God gave that, that instruction to people, simply to say that they were to cease from working on that day. You rest, you don't work, that's all. No specifics, no details, just rest, don't work. I want you to enjoy this day. It's a holy day set aside for worship and rest, and so it was a gift from the Lord that. Think of this. The Sabbath was a gift God had given to people.
Speaker 1:My brother was a. He played football Western and His truck he had a little Mazda pickup truck that was about worn out but it was still running, it was still ticking along. And my dad shows up ever after the game. There was this big. My folks were split up and it was like it was always tension around the games and my dad, his intentions were really good, but he shows up at the game and after the game he does this big presentation where he gives my brother the keys to a new truck. That wasn't new, it was new. It was new to him. It's probably a 10 year old truck. Well, no, let's see, it was like this would have been in like 99 and the truck was like a 92 model. So you know, seven or eight year old truck, something like that, and he gives them the keys to the truck and he gives him a payment booklet. So he gives him a gift that then costs my brother, you know, three or four years of $200 a month payments or something, at a time where he's broke. As a joke, it would have been a lot easier to do the $800 repair job on his beater little truck or whatever you know.
Speaker 1:So there are some gifts that end up costing us Something or end up not being very good gifts. That you know. The Sabbath is not like that. It's a gift from the Lord not to then turn around and have to cost you An enormous amount of burden, you know. But it is like it's more like this little gave me.
Speaker 1:This was one of our first. We had probably been married a year and a half and I remember she gave me this on Valentine's Day. Remember, when you first get married and you give each other Valentine's presents. We did that. I don't know if everybody's done that, but we did that and she gave me an Estwing framing hammer, a 28 ounce framing hammer. I wanted one so bad. We were building the camp we were working at at the time. We're building a bunch of cabins and we had a lot of construction going on and I wanted, I wanted this hammer man this is like, but they were like 30 bucks, which was a ton of money for me back then. And she bought this for me and I think I used that hammer to frame up six cabins there. We did a Dine and Hall expansion edition. When we came to Snowbird the first probably six cabins I framed with Little's Dad the big kahuna I did me and Sean Clark did all the framing work on the next couple Did several of the other buildings that came into. This day I use that framing hammer when I'm doing stuff, even around the house. So it was a gift that cost that I had to then work with, but it was productive work.
Speaker 1:So think of it that way the Lord gave us the Sabbath as a gift that would cost us obedience. There's gonna be effort, you know what I mean. Like it's not like that. Then on Sunday you're gonna just lay around all day. You're gonna get up, you're gonna go to the house of the Lord and worship with God's people, you're gonna come home and then you're gonna rest. There's a structure to it. So it's not like for you in the sense that you get up on Sunday and you go to the lake all day and drink beer and fish right, that's the old Southern Baptist joke about why people don't go to church in the summer. I gotta go to the lake, but it is. There's a responsibility that comes with it, but it's one of joy and pleasure. It brings about fulfillment, the way that gift of that hammer did, and so it's not a gift that brings an overwhelming burden. So that truck that my dad gave my brother was brutal. It cost him high insurance, lots of monthly stress financially, bad gas mileage, and he left a pretty reliable and efficient little truck to move into that big Chevrolet.
Speaker 1:So the insanity and craziness of the manmade Sabbath laws that were imposed on people were imposed on them by the religious leaders. Now I wanna spend the last little bit of our time talking about where that comes from. So I don't know if you're familiar with this, but there's a series of writings, like a volumous work of writings called the Talmud. The Talmud was a Jewish commentary system that added to the Pentateuch or the Torah, the books of the law and the early history in Israel. But it was non-biblical, it wasn't a scripture. It was written by religious Jewish leaders. They were scholars, they were experts or whatever. And so in the Bible it's recorded simply to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship, which, if you're from the South, you can kind of appreciate this.
Speaker 1:You know Sundays are kinda y'all know I'm a big Andy Griffith fan. I think about you know they go to church and then there's those pictures. There's scenes of Andy and Barney relaxing on the front porch, rocking or swinging, and it's just a relaxing, chill day. You know country songs. I remember a song from Shenandoah. I don't know if y'all remember an old 90s band called Shenandoah. They talked about, you know, sunday in the South. It was a song about just what Sundays.
Speaker 1:So in the South we've appreciated Sundays in a certain way for a long time, but at the same time we busy ourselves on Sundays Go to the mall, travel ball tournaments for our kids, things like that. And so I think we gotta find that balance. You know, I remember when I was a kid, there was, I remember, a couple of families in our church that wouldn't go out to eat on Sunday because you were forcing somebody, you were causing somebody to have to work at that restaurant, and so they took that very serious. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but I do appreciate it. But then, on the flip side of that, I remember how to buddy and we would ride bikes after church on Sundays.
Speaker 1:He lived about a mile down the road from me, so after church on Sunday we'd get on our bikes, we'd take off and we'd ride on this country roads. You know we'd ride in the parking lot at church because usually because I was in one of those families where you had Sunday school and then church, and then you know Sunday dinner or lunch, whatever, and then you know choir practice at five, and then a small group's at six, and then Sunday church at seven or four, five and six, or five, six, seven, whatever it was. Anyway, we would always just get our bikes and go to the church parking lot and ride around while our moms were in choir practice, right. So he had a flat tire on his bike and his dad wouldn't take him to the store to get a tube and change his bike tire because it was a Sunday and I'm like, ah, that was probably not the intention of that, you know.
Speaker 1:So just I think we can get it wrong in a number of different ways, but the point is that we could probably reign in our own Sabbath practices and, to be honest, most of us need to go okay, is there a day set aside in my life every week where I worship, I give thanks, I rest and visit with family? I wanna think about what it looks like practically before we finish this episode, because I think for a lot of us we probably need to get a little bit more. We need to tighten up on it. You know, get up on Sunday and have your Sunday routine. For us, sunday is a little bit different, because sometimes we've got retreats ending on Sunday morning and then Red Oak Church meets at five o'clock on Sunday. But a normal Sunday routine is we have a brunch as a family around 11,. We follow that with a lounging devotion and we do devotions throughout the week and prayer time at nine, just quick devotions, our daily bread or whatever. But on Sunday we have a good 20 or 30 minute time of study after we eat and then we get up and we walk to the end of Robinson Road and Back, which is about a mile and a half. It's just a slow, relaxing walk. And then we come back and we just kinda lounge around in the yard or on the porch, depending on the weather, and we get ready and head to church and worship and then after church it's a time of family. Sometimes we have a family meal with three other families, but y'all get the point. Am I trying to tell you to do what we do or am I not trying to go into all the boring details of what our Sunday looks like? But we've gotten to a point where, as a family, we really try to guard that. But what I wanna do here is I wanna run through.
Speaker 1:I did a quick dive into some crazy Sabbath laws that were taken from the Talmud. So in the Talmud, where all the Sabbath stuff was laid out that Jesus was being accused of in this story and his disciples were being accused of, there were 24 chapters of Sabbath law instruction. Now, keep in mind all Jesus said was remember the Sabbath, keep it holy. On the seventh day, the Lord God rested from all of his work. You do the same thing. They took that and made 24 chapters of laws. So there was a story that one rabbi spent two and a half years studying the minutia of a single chapter on Sabbath rules so that he could understand them and apply them. So let me give you a few of these rules so you can see how crazy they were. One rule was that you could pick something up only if you were gonna set it down in a certain place. So they're really strict rules on lifting things. Another law in the Talmud was no burden could be carried that weighed more than a dry fig, I mean a couple ounces. Another one was if you ate an olive and spit it out because it was bad, you couldn't then put a whole olive in your mouth to replace it. So that was a law they had.
Speaker 1:If you threw something in the air, you had to catch it with the same hand. If you caught it with the other hand, that was a sin if it was on the Sabbath. Another one if you reached out your hand to pick up a bite of food just as sundown happened. And so the Sabbath kinda started and caught you off guard, because, remember, the Sabbath started at sundown on Friday evening and ended at sundown on Saturday evening. So you're reaching for that bite of food and then you realize, oh, sabbath just started, sun just went down. You had to drop the food and you couldn't bring your arm back in. You had to keep your arm extended through the course and duration of Sabbath. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:Couldn't carry a sewing needle, a scribe couldn't carry a pen, so I guess you couldn't take notes in church, couldn't examine your clothing for lice in case you found one and instinctively killed it. You couldn't boil an egg in the sand. Sand was so hot certain times of the year that they would boil eggs in it. You couldn't do that. That was too much work. You couldn't bathe that's work. It's also work to clean the floor, which is exactly what would happen if you were bathing in soapy water at the floor. You couldn't light a candle and you couldn't blow out a candle. Both of those things are too much work. Women couldn't look into a looking glass because they might find a white hair and be tempted to pull it out. Women couldn't wear jewelry because that weighs more than a dried fig. They couldn't leave a radish in salt because that could preserve it, which is also work. You could only preserve or pickle the amount of grain that would fit in a lamb's mouth if you were doing so on the Sabbath. Just arbitrary and stressful rules. John MacArthur says this what was forbidden? You couldn't write more than two letters of the alphabet.
Speaker 1:Sewing, baking, washing, kneading, binding sheaves, washing or drying wool, beating wool, dying wool, spinning wool, putting wool on a weaver's beam, making threads, weaving threads, making a knot, untie a knot, sewing two stitches, and on and on and on it goes. This system was oppressive and it was unscriptural and it was horribly ungodly and brutally unkind. And I would add this it set people up for failure. And in that complete discouragement it's so important because we struggle with enough discouragement. I struggle with enough discouragement. I have enough guilt and shame Did I bring on myself? I have enough anxiousness and frustration. It plagues me some days. And Jesus said I came to carry those burdens. The Sabbath was to be a day of relief. Jesus said again take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I'll carry that burden for you. And the Pharisees were imposing and putting these burdens on these people. Jesus said I'm Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is for you. You're not for the Sabbath. It's a gift to you. It's a gift of grace, not a demand of law.
Speaker 1:And so, as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, here's the application, I think, for this week for us to think about Take in a day of feasting, because you'll see the Sabbath principle also applied to feast days and festival days. Make this an extended Sabbath in as much as you can. I know some of you got to work. We've got people that are firefighters, emt, ems, police officers, first responders. Some people will have to do you just have to work on Thanksgiving. But in as much as it's possible, let's pause this week and rest. Take a nap, stuff your gillet and your belly and then take a nap with the football game on. Go, climb in a deer stand, go for a walk If you're lonely and alone, spend that time in reflection over God's word and feel the presence of the Lord. Or find a family that don't be afraid to just say hey, can I come hang out with you guys on Thanksgiving afternoon? But enjoy the goodness of the Lord. Do it every week and then, especially on a day like Thanksgiving day and on an maybe an extended weekend or whatever it looks like. But let's enjoy the fact that God has said to us hey, you need to take a break. You need to take it easy. You slow down, need to rest.
Speaker 1:I think we convince ourselves that we're, that we need to be busy, that it's critical that we're so important. I got to take this call, I got to return this text On how many times I've been in a meeting and somebody says, how, man, I got to go. I'm sorry, I got to go, I got to take care of this and I think a lot of time and I've been there, I do that. But I think a lot of times we convince ourselves that we're busy because it gives us some sort of value. The Pharisees were creating value for themselves and by creating a system that required constant religious attention. I think we do the same thing by just being busy, slow down, unplug, scratch your dog on the head, listen to the birds chirp, the rooster crow, the chickens out there clucking and pecking. Just take a break. Look to the evening or the noctime sky and take in the beauty of the stars and God's creation. Sit by a stream or a pond or a lake or the ocean and just take a Sabbath moment. Even For me, I try to Sabbath daily by spending one to two hours a day and just quiet, restful solitude.
Speaker 1:Reflection on scripture, personal worship. Once a week I try to spend a half a day doing it. You might think I can't do that. I got to work 50 hours a week and then I got family stuff all evening. I find I really try to make a way to go to do something for two to four hours once a week where I'm by myself, just in something that relaxes me. What I have found is the productivity of my life has gone up since I've been doing that. I've been doing it for several years now, I think. Once a month I carve out an entire day where I do something all day and it could be me by myself. Being in a public ministry position, I try to do stuff by myself once a month, all day. A lot of times it'll be me and little me and one of the kids. Me and Mo went last two weeks ago. We went on a little overnight trip. But unplug Every single week.
Speaker 1:Create a consistent pattern of practicing the Sabbath Sabbath in your life every week and do it as an act of thanksgiving and worship and do it as like, see it as a gift from the Lord to just busy yourself and say you can't afford to do it is to say no, thank you God. I don't want your gift, man. I think that's a mistake. So enjoy thanksgiving, make the most of it and, lord willing, we'll see you back here next week. I'm going to have a conversation ready for you, just sat down recently, and we'll follow up and have that for you next week with James and Jenna Roberts, swo missionaries to Togo, and I'm excited for you to hear from them. But enjoy your week, enjoy thanksgiving and thanks for listening. I hope this has been an encouragement and a blessing to you, grateful to be a part of your life just for a few minutes each week. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources. We'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.