If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew, the twelfth chapter. Looking this morning at this
exchange between the Lord Jesus Christ and these Pharisees, these
self-righteous legalists here in this chapter. The title of the message this
morning is, Christ Our Sabbath. Christ Our Sabbath. Now, in these 14 verses here,
we can help to see that the subject matter, the theme of the discussion
that the Lord is having here, the declaration that the Lord
makes, is concerning the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day. Now, these Pharisees that were
here, the disciples were walking through these corn of wheat,
it was a wheat field, and as they were walking through, they
grabbed some corn of wheat in their hands and they rubbed it
together to get the chaff off of it, and then they ate it.
Well, the Pharisees, when they saw this, they knew that it was
the Sabbath day and they began to be very enraged. They were enraged at these disciples
and disgusted at the Lord Jesus Christ that He would allow His
disciples to eat corn that they had rubbed together on the Sabbath
day. Why? Because this was part of
their tradition. The Sabbath day to the Jews was
the centra of their traditional worship. The Sabbath day worship. And they added so much to this
Sabbath day that in the Talmud, there are 24 chapters as to practical
application of what you can and cannot do on this day. And one of those traditions was
you could not pick up wheat, rub it in your hands, and eat
it. This was against the traditional laws of the Pharisees. And I would have us know this,
when Jesus' disciples went through and they grabbed this corn of
wheat, I want you to know that these were very poor men. These
were very poor men. The Lord Jesus Christ fed 5,000,
but when His disciples were hungry, they had to eat just what they
can get out of the wheat with their hands. He didn't use any
miraculous miracles to feed them, so don't believe in that health,
wealth, and prosperity garbage. God takes care of His disciples,
but He doesn't have to do it in a miraculous way, does it?
He just lets them walk through His wheat fields and pick up
some corn and eat it. Well, they took this corn and
enraged these Pharisees because to them, plucking was reaping. If you grabbed something on the
Sabbath, you were reaping. And when they rubbed their hands
together, you were threshing wheat. They thought it was against the
law of God. But this was not against the
law of God, neither was it against Any of the law, neither His Christ
nor His disciples were in violation of the law. Friends, I would
have you know that the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly kept the law
of God absolutely without exception. Including Sabbath worship. Including
Sabbath worship. This is another lesson for us.
Why did Jesus Christ go into the temple on the Sabbath day? Could He learn anything from
them? Was there anything he could learn from listening to those
priests or going to those offerings? No. But he went. He went to fulfill the law of
God. And he did fulfill the law of
God. And what these disciples were
doing was not against The law of God. Deuteronomy 23, 25 tells
us that this is legal according to the law for a man to go through
a wheat field and pluck ears of corn if he's hungry and eat
it. It's lawful. They didn't break any laws by
doing that. And so now, the Lord here takes
this opportunity to give clear instruction as to the meaning
and purpose of the Sabbath day. The meaning and the purpose of
the Sabbath day. Jesus, seeing these self-righteous
legalists, He digs right to the heart of their traditions. He stabs right at the heart of
their traditions. How? By going back to the Word
of God. Now, Jesus could have said, you're
wrong because I said so. He could have said that, and
He would have been right. But because He had become the Servant
of God, He Himself referred to the Scriptures as the end-all
authority concerning the law. If you want to know what God's
law says, then you've got to go to God's Word. You can't make
up your own traditions, you can't make up your own thoughts about
this. God's Word is the authority. And what did he do? These two
questions, look at this. He said, Have you not read about
David when he entered into the house of God and ate the showbread
which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them, but
for only the priests? And David was running from Saul
at this time. He ran from Saul and he was traveling
for many days and he was hungry. He was starving. He wasn't just
a little hungry. These people had been traveling
for a long time, running from Saul. And they get to this land
of Nod, and they say to the priest, you got any bread? We're hungry.
We're starving. And the priest says, all I've
got is the showbread that just came from the table of showbread. I'll give you a little understanding
about that. The showbread was to be laid out before the Lord
on the table of showbread, but every Sabbath it was to come
off and be replaced by another loaf of bread. And that loaf
that was on there became the priest's loaf of bread. That's
what they had to eat. They ate from the table of showbread. And when that bread came off,
it was common bread again. It wasn't sanctified unto the
Lord. It was common, but it was only
lawful for the priest to have it. And David said, we need bread. Give us this bread. And the priest,
seeing their need, he gave his portion of bread to them. And
he did eat. But David didn't break the law.
David didn't break the law because it was a priest's bread to give. You see, David had a necessity.
He was starving. Second of all, he says, have
you not read when the priest profaned the Sabbath by the offerings? Every Sabbath day there were
two sacrifices that must be offered. And so when the priests were
to go in, they would kill the sacrifice, they would gut the
sacrifice, they would chop it up, they would chop the wood,
they would put the fire under the altar, and they would burn
the sacrifice. Well, the law of the Sabbath
says you're not supposed to chop wood, you're not supposed to
prepare meals, you're not supposed to kill animals on the Sabbath
day. You should have all that prepared
beforehand and then eat it. But you see, the priests were
given special permission because it pertained to the worship of
God. It pertained to the worship of God. And thirdly, we can see that
the Lord dug in this by the healing of this man down through 10 through
verse 14 about the healing of the withered hand. He dug into
the heart of their traditions by showing them that they had
no love or compassion or mercy. They had no love for the worship
of God. They had no love for other men
and their necessities. These legalists would impose
the law upon every man regardless of... and being devoid of love
of God and the love of other men. But Mark chapter 2 and verse
27 gives us the heart of this. When Jesus said the Sabbath,
men were not meant for the Sabbath, but Sabbath for the man. God
gave this day as a day of rest, not a day of burden. Not a day where men would impose
traditions. It was a day of rest that God
gave. And the rest was for the man. God, in grace, gave rest to men. He said, six days. You've got
six days. Work six days. And on the seventh
day, why don't you all rest? Why don't you have some rest?
I made this for you so that you would rest." Now, concerning
this Sabbath, I've got four points in the message this morning concerning
this Sabbath day. You're probably asking, what
does this have to do with us? What does the Sabbath have to
do with us? It has everything to do with you. You see, God
says we shall have a perpetual, continual Sabbath. In other words,
His Sabbath never stops. It never stops. It never ceases.
God's Sabbath is perpetual. It's forever. And I want us to
see how this applies to us as believers in Christ. We know
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe it. We know that. So how then is
this Sabbath meant for us? First of all, let's look at the
legal Sabbath. What was the purpose of the legal Sabbath? We must
understand the Sabbath to be like all of the other laws. When
I say Sabbath day, I'm talking about just like all the other
laws of sacrifice, the Ten Commandments, the other nine commandments,
that's part of the law. The governmental law, all of the law is the law.
And this Sabbath was part of that law, but it was only temporal. It was only for a short period
of time. The law of God was only meant
for a certain period of time. The ceremonies and ordinances
were typical ordinances, which represented Christ. You see,
Christ is the anti-type of all the law, including the Sabbath. But when the Jews, God gives
them two reasons why He gave them the Sabbath in the Old Testament.
First look at Exodus chapter 20. Flip over to Exodus chapter
20, verse 10. He says, let's go ahead and read
verse 9 with it. He says, "...six days shalt thou
labor, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. And in it thou shalt not do any
work, nor thy sons, nor thy daughters, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all
that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Wherefore, the
Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." God says, you
will obey the Sabbath, you will rest on the seventh day because
I rested. Because when I created all things,
I rested from my work and hallowed that day for you." I love this. A preacher wrote this. He says,
when God rested on the seventh day, it was divine complacency,
of infinite satisfaction, of perfect content. It was like
God said, this creation of mine is all that I meant it to be.
Finished and perfect. And I am perfectly satisfied
with it. There is nothing more to be done.
It is all very good. Therefore, God rested from His
creation. God rested from creating anything
else. Everything you see now is because
of God's creation. It remains, whatever is here
is here. In other words, nothing else
is created. Nothing else in this natural
world is created. God finished it. God finished
it. And it was perfect when He finished it. And even though
man by sin marred his creation, yet God says this, I will restore
my creation. So when the Jews rested on the
Sabbath day, they should have rested in remembering the perfect,
holy, righteousness of God in that God, omnipotent, created
all things. and He rested. They should have
remembered that. And when they rested on the seventh
day, they should have also known this, that God is coming again
to restore His kingdom, His earth, into the perfect state as it
was before. So every time Sabbath day came
around, that's what they should have been thinking. They should
have been thinking about God's holiness and God coming again.
What do we have? The holiness of God and the sinfulness
of man and the judgment of God. They should have been thinking
about these things. But they also were given a second
reason to have the Sabbath day of rest, and that was to remember
God's redemption. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 5 and
verse 15. Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse
15. God says, and remember that thou
wast a servant in the land and that the Lord thy God brought
thee out thence through a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord thy God commanded
thee to keep the Sabbath day. He said, remember that I redeemed
thee. So what are they to remember
on the Sabbath day? Redemption. The coming of the
Messiah. That's what they should remember.
They should remember, yes, God is holy. Yes, we're full of sin.
God is coming in judgment. But ah, God also has and shall
provide us a Messiah, a Redeemer. They should have remembered the
Messiah on the Sabbath day. Because He was the one pictured
in this redemption from Egypt. So then by these two reasons,
the Sabbath was to be a perpetual, everlasting Sabbath. And you
know what? It was to be delightful. It was
to be delightful. When the Sabbath came, the Jews,
they should have been delightful. It should have been a day of
delight and rejoicing. But instead, they made it a burden.
Just like every legalist, just like every religious, self-righteous,
freewill, works religion person does, is they take the Word of
God that should be joyful, and they place so much burdens on
people that they cannot bear it. They cannot bear it. The Sabbath day. Friends was
meant for their delight because it finds only its fulfillment
in Christ. That's it. The reason for the
Sabbath was to picture Christ. Christ. This, like all of the other pictures
of the Old Testament, the seventh day, men were to rest from all
their works. Even so, sinners, saved by grace
through faith in Christ, listen to me, you should rest from all
your works. We who believe in Christ, He
is our Sabbath, our rest. From what? Works. From law. From religion. from burdens too
grievous for us to bear. Well then, how then is Christ
our Sabbath? Number two, the Sabbath can only
be a delight to one that is resting from all their labors of religion,
works, and resting in faith in Christ. Where do I see that the
Sabbath is a delight? Look at Isaiah chapter 58. Look at verse 13. Isaiah 58 and verse
13. God says, "...If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My
holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable,
and thou shalt honor him, doing not thine own ways, nor finding
thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou
delight thyself in the Lord. And I will cause thee to ride
upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage
of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it." Friends, we should not and do
not observe a literal Sabbath day. We do not. Why? Because the Sabbath has been
fulfilled in Christ. That's why. He is our Sabbath
day. If men try to keep a literal
Sabbath day, they will find no rest, no peace, and no delight,
but only a burden. Only a burden. I remember when I was a kid,
when I went to church, I went because I had to. And I'll tell
you what, it was no delight. This morning getting my own children
out of bed was no delight. It was no picnic. Why? Because
they detest this. They loathe this day. Because
they have not Christ in their hearts. You see, now that I have
Christ who is my Sabbath, I rejoice to come and worship Him. I rejoice. This is not a burden to me. This
is a grace. This is a blessing to me. And
friends, if you don't want to be here, don't. I want to be
here. I love Him. I want to serve Him. And I want to be here. You're
not here because I went over there and twisted your arm to
make you come, did I? I hope not. I hope you came because
you wanted to. Because Christ is your delight.
You've come this morning, I hope, to rest. To rest in Christ. To see more of Him. If any man tries to keep any
part of the law, whether it be Sabbath, circumcision, sacrifice,
the other non-commandments, it's nothing but a burden. Matter
of fact, Paul said, If a man tries to keep circumcision, Christ
profits him nothing. Isn't that right? If a man tries
to keep one part of the law, He says, aren't you supposed
to keep all of it? Yeah. You see, the law is the law is
the law. And if a man is doing the things
that are in the law, he is under and subject to all the things
in the law. Not just what he wants and what
he can pick and choose. He's subject to everything. And friends, that's more than
any man could bear. None of us have ever obeyed the
law perfectly in ourselves. But when a sinner sees his works
are useless and nothing but sin, when a sinner ceases from all
his pleasures of self-righteousness and self-glory, ceases of finding
his own way, and turns to Christ by faith, it's only then he can honor the
Sabbath day. It's only then he will truly
understand what it is to rest from all his labors. Jesus Christ, by His own obedience,
has brought in an everlasting righteousness. And Jesus Christ,
by His death, has atoned and redeemed all of His people by
His own blood. And God raised Him from the dead
and manifests to every human, every man of this race, that
God was satisfied with His work. He was satisfied, completely
satisfied with the work of Christ. Go to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, look at verse
9. Scripture says, "...there remaineth
therefore a rest to the people of God. For He, Christ, that is entered into His rest,
He also ceased from His own works, as did God from His." Isn't that
what I said about God's creation? Didn't God cease from His work
of creation because He was perfectly satisfied with it? Even so, Christ,
when He had finished His work of redemption, when Christ had
finished the righteousness of God, completely obeyed the law
of God in the stead of His people, when He was finished, when He
was raised from the dead, God set Him on the throne and He
rested. He rested. Believers, we may call Christ
the Sabbath of our delight because He has entered into His rest
and His work is finished. It's finished. There's no more work to be done.
None. You know, I like that part of
the day. Why don't you? If you're out there working and
it's done, you can just sit back. I've never actually done that
in completion, have you? Because I've always got to go
back and do it again. I'm thinking about mowing the grass. I get
done, I go, wow, you know, that looks good. But then in the back
of my mind, ah, I'm knowing that next week. And the next week,
it's not finished! It's never finished! And nothing
we do in this life ever seems to be finished. But I know this,
Christ is finished. His work is done. It's complete. It's perfect. It's everything
God desired it to be. It's perfect. And there is no
more righteousness to be worked out. There's no more offering
for sin than His. God has highly exalted Him and
given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus Christ every knee should bow and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Behold Him! Don't look at me, look at Him!
See Him! He's on the throne, and He's
sitting down at the right hand of God. Why is He sitting? Because He's done. The priests,
when they were in the tabernacle, in the temple, they never sat
down. Their work was never finished.
But Christ, after His one offering for sin, has sat down forever. on the right hand of the Majesty
on high. He said to God Himself, He said,
I have finished the work which Thou has given me to do. Glorify
Thou me. He said, God, I merited Your
glory. Give it to me. And God said,
yes, you did. Here it is. You finished it. You did it. You accomplished
it. Behold, my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased." Friends, this finished work is the glory
of Christ. His rest, His completion of all
that He must do, He has done perfectly and needs nothing. This is His glory. If you're a sinner today and
you have not bowed before Christ, He is worthy for you to bow down
to Him. He's worthy of it. He's worthy
of it. He is altogether glorious. Glorious. And God has exalted
Him to such. God exalted Christ and glorified
Him because of this perfect work. This rest in Christ. we realize
was finished in the eternal purpose of God, wasn't it? This rest,
this completeness, was in the purpose of God from all eternity,
so that Christ was as a lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. And His people were eternally
chosen, redeemed, pardoned, blameless in Christ even before the world
began. But everything that God purposes
must come to pass in time. And it did. It did. God purposed it and Christ accomplished
it. And He accomplished it in absolute
perfect completion. When the God-man mediator finished
His purposed work, salvation and redemption by His blood,
He took His seat, entered into His glory, and sits undisturbed
and unhindered by any man." That's where the Lord sits right now,
in glory. And He has entered into the heavens
as a forerunner for us. What have you got that God wants? What can you enter into the presence
of God with? You will. You will see God. You will enter into the presence
of God. But what will you enter with?
What have you got? You've got sin, and that's it.
And God will justly give you what you deserve, if that's all
you have. He will give you hell. But I know this, my forerunner
has already entered into the veil for me. He's already entered. And what did He enter with? His
own blood. And God said, I'm well pleased.
I'm well pleased with that. And so when I stand before God,
my forerunner has already entered in for me. So when I go to be
with God, I shall forever be with God. Why? Because of Christ. Because His
work became my work. His perfections became my perfections. And therefore, I rest in Christ. Number three, how can a sinner
find rest? Look at verse 3 of Hebrews 4.
For we which have believed Do enter into His rest. Faith. Faith in Christ. This is how we enter into the
rest. This is how we come to understand
and realize is through faith. Always through faith. The Spirit of God comes and He
takes the Word of God that I have preached to you and He applies
it to the heart. He gives you life so that you
can see your need and see that Christ is all the rest that you
need to stand before God. And so then, all of us who have
believed, all of us who do believe in Christ alone, do keep the perpetual Sabbath. The true Sabbath. The one that
that day represented, we keep that every day. Every day. When we believe in Christ. Matter
of fact, we keep that every moment of every day. And I'll tell you
this, my faith is as good as unbelief. That's
how great my faith is. My faith is wavering, my faith. You see, but I don't have any
rest in my faith. I have rest in the object of
my faith, Christ. That's how we rest. That's how
we repose. We lean back and rest from all
of our labors to see Christ and how He connected
this teaching. Go back to our text. I want you
to see how Christ connected this. I like that, at that time, the
Scriptures are there, every word has a meaning. At that time,
what did He say just before He started teaching about the Sabbath?
He said this, "...Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you..." What? Rest. I will give you a
Sabbath of rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find..."
What? "...rest unto your souls." See, He said that, and then now
it was time to teach. And then He was taught when those
Pharisees, He began to teach about the true Sabbath Himself. He says, I'm the Lord of the
Sabbath. I am the Sabbath! If you don't understand that,
I'd have mercy. You believe that, Christ will have mercy. It's
to see Christ and believe on Christ as all your hope. Christ Jesus is our rest and
complete pardon. In Jeremiah 33, He said, I will
forgive their sins and their iniquities and I will pardon
their transgression. He pardons us. He is our complete
reconciliation. God has reconciled us by the
blood of Christ to Himself. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17 and
18. He has completely and absolutely
made our salvation secure. John 10, he says, my sheep know
my voice. and they follow Me, and I give
unto them eternal life, and no man shall pluck them out of My
hand. For My Father which gave them
Me is greater than all, and no man shall pluck them out of My
Father's hand. I and My Father are one." Security. Complete pardon. Complete reconciliation. Complete security. Complete security. And all who have entered into
His rest, the rest of faith in Christ, are assured that all
matters of divine providence are for your good." Everything. If God has offered up His Son, imputed our sins to Him, poured out His wrath on His only
begotten Son, and raised Him from the dead, is there anything
else that God would withhold from you that's good?" No. Everything is for your good.
Perfectly. You're going through what you're
going through because it's good for you. I don't understand that,
but I know it's so. Why? Christ is perfect. and everything He does is perfect. And therefore, we consecrate
ourselves to Him. We take His yoke upon us gladly. We take His yoke upon us and
gladly relieve ourselves of the burden of that law. We gladly
bow down our lives to Him. Why are you here? Why do you
breathe? Why do you get up in the morning?
What is your purpose? Is not our purpose to serve Christ
who is our rest? When God rested from His creation,
did He stop doing things? No. He sustained the whole world. But His creation was perfect.
And guess what? God created in you, believer, a new heart, a
new life. And that life is perfect. We
add not one stitch to the robe of Christ's righteousness. Not
one jewel of our works does it ever fit on the crown of Jesus
Christ. Nothing we do adds anything to
Christ's righteousness and salvation. Nothing. And yet, I want to do
everything for Him. I gladly bow before Him. He is my Lord and I am His servant
and Son. And this should be our hearts. Do you want confidence? Do you
want hope? Do you want assurance? Quit working. Rest in Christ. Rest in Christ. Number four, we who have entered
into His rest, how do we labor to enter into His rest? Go back
to Hebrews and you'll see that. Hebrews chapter 4. Paul mentions
this at the end of that. He says, For he that is entered
into his rest, he also did cease from his own works, as God did
from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter
into that rest." What is Paul talking about? Friends, even
though we rest in Christ here, there still remaineth a day of
rest, isn't there? Because we're in this physical,
mortal, sinful, fleshly body, because we live in a sinful,
restless, unresting world, we know this, that we've not
entered into the full rest of Christ yet. We've not seen all
that He has done for us yet. I rest on Him, He is perfect,
whatever that means. I've not seen perfection totally
yet. I'm still digging, still looking,
still searching. But because of this, there remaineth
a day, and though we go through this world, we're going to live
in restless times of care. This life and the circumstances
of the moment come in like a flood and sweep us off of our feet. At times, the cares of this world
and the doubts creep in like drops of water and mar our peace. Household cares, family cares. They're like birds trying to
build nests, aren't they? Luther said, I can't stop the
birds from flocking, but I can stop them from nesting. Constantly. One preacher said they're like
gnats on a summer day. They're just all around us all
the time, giving us no peace. Marring our peace. And there are some times that
the Lord causes trials and difficulties to come into our life. And it's because of these we
strive at times to enter into His rest. What's the first thing
when a trial comes or a difficulty comes or the cares come? What
do you try to do? You try to work it out. You try to fix it. You try to
make it right. You fall into sin. And what's
the first thing that you do? You go overboard the opposite
way, trying to make up for what you've done. Stop it. Stop it. Confess our sins and
iniquities before God and rest in Christ. The best way to see laboring
to enter into his rest is when Paul said this, I counted, past
tense, and do count all my righteousness as done. That's what he does. That's what it is to enter into
his rest, is to continually count all that we do as nothing, and
Christ as everything. And friends, that's something
we do moment by moment by moment through faith in Him. I've told you this before, I'll
say it again, faith in the Scriptures is always present tense. We must believe now. And now. And now. And that faith we just had is
no good. The faith we're going to have
is no good. We must believe Christ is our
rest now. And all who believe, Christ is
your Sabbath. He's your rest. Repose on Him. And you'll find peace. I pray
God blesses us. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.