Jesus and the Sabbath Part 2

Oh, the rules, the laws, and the regulations that man can create. Have you ever taken some time and just considered how many laws that we have around us, how many regulations, how many... what was that? Nobody pays any attention. Oh, nobody pays any attention. Well, that is true to some of them. But the sheer number of rules and regulations that we have around us is at times mind-boggling. There's a Forbes.com article titled, How Many Rules and Regulations Do Federal Agencies Issue? And it was written by Clyde... excuse me, Clyde Wayne-Cruz, Jr. and this is an article from August 15, 2017. So, about five years ago, it said, With Congress on summer vacation, it's an appropriate time to reflect on the number of laws it passes versus the number of rules and regulations put out by hundreds of federal agencies that they are supposed to oversee. The bottom line is that in today's America, most binding rules comes from agencies unelected rather than elected lawmakers. Looking back, there has been 88,899, so almost 900,000, federal rules and regulations since 1995 through December 2016 for only 4,312 laws that were passed. So, a little over 4,000 laws were passed that created over almost 90,000 federal rules and regulations. It finishes by saying, Dozens or hundreds of rules each year are characterized as major, economically significant, or just significant. And it's no wonder, as we consider the laws that mankind passes, the sheer number of laws that we have built into our tax code, right? One of the things, as becoming an adult and having to file your own taxes, I'm so thankful there's software now to help because I remember seeing my mom and dad sitting around a table, as you guys probably have done your yourselves, filling out the forms by hand with the book that you'd get. I think it was a post office would often have the information. You'd get it, you'd have to read through it, and then it never answered everything. And so people would have to, this is how people would do it. And what's funny is because of the complexity of it, there's actually a whole bunch of cartoons that's been made about doing your taxes. And I know it won't do me, do you justice because you can't actually see the illustrations, but I'll try to describe a few of the cartoons. The first one, it's two men are sitting in the IRS office, which none of us ever want to do. The man is obviously being audited, the one sitting on the one side of the table, by a very serious IRS agent. And the man begins, the man being audited says, it's funny how two intelligent people can have such opposite interpretations of the tax code. And of course, he's looking happy, but the gentleman on the other side has got a solemn face. There's another one, the situation. It looks like a mom is overseeing her kid, her son, doing maybe some homework. There's packs of paper all around him. And the person among the paper says, none of this makes any sense. It's almost as if they don't want me to understand.

And she says, maybe that's why they call it the tax code. There's another cartoon, a husband and wife at the kitchen table working on their taxes. There's a shoebox on the one end and then just scattered paper throughout. The shoebox, of course, most likely held the the tax documents for the year. And all these papers are across the table. And the gentleman says, apparently we should have used an offshore, retroactive, tax-avoidant, fully deferrable corporate shoebox. Maybe I would have saved them a little bit. There's another one. Mom and dad have been working on the taxes and they both, and there's papers all around the table, and they've both fallen asleep at the kitchen table as they were working on their taxes. And dad's, of course, snoring. The two kids and the family are peeking around the corner looking in and said, did mom and dad finally break the tax code? And the other sibling says, no, the other way around.

And then there's a last one. A man sitting on top of all this piled up paperwork, folders, forms. It's just a big pile, and he's sitting on the top of it. Another man walks in and says, what happened? And the man sitting on the tax pile says, Congress simplified the tax code again. There's just so many, as we consider the rules and regulations that we seem to be under, there's no end to the creativity that mankind has to create all these different laws, these regulations that we must live our lives by. And like I shared two weeks ago, the laws that themselves are not all bad, as they're followed, as we were reminded. For example, driving on the roads. It's good that we have laws. There would be absolute chaos. There would be a lot more risk driving our cars on the road if it wasn't for the laws we have. So there is a place for good laws. But again, there's no shortage for the number of laws and rules that mankind is able to think of when we really put our minds to something. This is the example that we see of the scribes and the Pharisees outlined in scripture. After returning from captivity in Babylon and before Jesus Christ was born as God in the flesh, the religious leaders began to define what constituted rest by formulating specific definitions of the kind of work to be avoided on the Sabbath. From the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, it goes to describe how extreme some of these measures had become by Christ's day.

It says, the religious code regarding the Sabbath listed 39 principal classes of prohibited actions and going through them, some were sewing, plowing, reaping, gathering into sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking. Each of these chief enactments was further discussed and elaborated so that actually there were several hundred things a conscientious, squall-abiding Jew could not do on the Sabbath. For example, the prohibition about tying a knot was much too general. So it was against the Sabbath to tie a knot. But then there's questions. Well, what about this type of knot? That type of knot. So it became necessary to state what kind of knots were prohibited and what kind not. Oh, I just... that's a nice play on words there. It was accordingly laid down that allowable knots were those that could be untied with one hand. One hand. If you could untie a knot with one hand, that was an okay knot. And we see that in which book of the Bible? It goes on to say, the prohibition regarding writing on the Sabbath was further defined as follows. So this is writing. This is doing what many of you are doing with your notes right now. I think the majority of the group's breaking the Sabbath if you didn't know it. It says, as following, he who writes two letters with his right or left hand, whether of one kind of letter or of two kinds, is guilty. He even who should from forgetfulness write two letters is guilty. So if somebody makes a mistake, forgets it's a Sabbath, writes more than two letters, guilty. Also, he who writes on two walls, which form an angle, or on two tablets of his account book, so that they can be read together, is guilty. So again, this is from the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary describing some of these regulations. From our own UCG study guide again, Sunset to Sunset, the religious authorities define a definition of work that could violate the Sabbath command was vastly different from any ordinary definition of work. For example, plowing was a prohibited work category, and few would dispute that plowing is a difficult work. However, according to first century rabbinic opinion, the prohibition against plowing could be violated by simply spitting on the ground. The spit could disturb the soil, which in the rabbi's view was a type of plowing. Women were forbidden to look in a mirror on the Sabbath because they might see a gray hair and pull it out, and that would constitute work.

I'm just going to leave that as it is. There's no commentary coming from this guy on that one.

Here's another one, and this is again from our study guide, Sunset to Sunset. It says, wearing nailed shoes on the Sabbath was prohibited because in the authorities' view, the addition of nails meant they were carrying an unnecessary burden. Even walking through the grass was not allowed because some of the grass might be bent and broken, which constituted threshing one of the forbidden categories of work. It concludes by saying, The religious leaders taught that if a house caught on fire on the Sabbath, its inhabitants could carry their clothes out of the house to spare them from the flames because that would be bearing a burden. However, they were allowed to put on all the layers of clothing they could wear and thus remove the clothes by wearing them, which was acceptable.

So hopefully it was a slow-burning fire, right?

This was the environment, as we consider today, that was all around Jesus as he saw the heavy burdens that were cast upon God's people. Some of these burdens seem downright comical, and it's hard to believe they were created in order to put a hedge around the Sabbath and protect it. The weightiness and hard-to-imagine laws in which some in Christian circles today will use to say that Jesus came and did away with the Sabbath because of the constant confrontations he had with religious leaders of the day. But we know from examining the entirety of Scripture that this is 100% not what Jesus was doing. Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew 5 and verse 17.

This is one of those reinforcing scriptures on exactly what was Jesus doing when he was teaching and giving instruction on the Sabbath day when he seemed to maybe by some, if you just take a very narrow view of Scripture that he was doing away with the legalistic aspects of the Sabbath or doing away with these commands that were put in place, that releasing everyone to do whatever they wanted on the Sabbath. Matthew 5 and verse 17 undoes that mindset. It shows us what was truly in Jesus's heart what he came to do in the mindset he did it with. Matthew 5 and verse 17 He said, Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. And this the Greek word here for fulfill means to fill to the brim, to make full, to fill up, or to render full. So it'd be like filling a bucket of water all the way to the top is what fulfill means here that he did not come to destroy but to fill to the top. Going on, it says, For sure do I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. And again, this is a different Greek word for the word fulfilled here, which this word means to come into existence, to begin to be, or to come to pass, or to happen. So Jesus is saying in these two verses that he did not come to destroy but to fulfill, to fill to the brim, fill it up completely, and that nothing would pass from the law till it was all fulfilled, meaning until he returns as the conquering Lord and Savior we all look forward to, and a new earth is established, a new way of living is set up. He goes on in verse 19, says, Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whomever does and teaches them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

He says, For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Two weeks ago in the sermon I shared, we looked at part of the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, how they created burdens, how they cast these burdens on their fellow citizens, and they carried themselves with the pride in the way that they dotted their eyes and crossed their teas in some of these regulations that we couldn't help but find comical because of the weightiness.

Because of the burden it would be, it almost seemed like somebody was making a joke about these things, that they were making stuff up, but yet this is the law that the religious leaders put the Jews under, and they carried this with them. I mean, imagine carrying some of these burdens, that everything you did would have to be subjected to question. And if you did make a mistake, there was no room for forgiveness because you should know these hundreds of laws on how to keep the Sabbath day.

This is that hypocrisy that Jesus is saying that our righteousness must exceed beyond just what they had put on because it has to get down to the heart of the matter of what God wants us to do in keeping this day holy. The truth is, we do often want things clarified and defined in our life. Most of us do not appreciate a vague response or things that are abstract in definition, do we?

We like things spelled out. We like things clarified. We like there to be a system, an orderly process for a lot of the things we do in life. Again, imagine driving down the road with no rules. Anybody can go any speed they want, any direction they want, any lane on the berm. It would be absolute chaos. Ignore traffic lights. There would be no traffic lights because what's the point if everybody's just doing their own thing?

The sheer anxiety and the pressure and the challenge that that would create would be overwhelming. And so, imagine that type of situation, and that's why we enjoy having some defined clarity in our lives. This past week, we were able and blessed to be able to take Kelsey to college and drop her off. And there was an orientation that she got to be part of to go through, and they had the day spelled out. There was a certain time that she had to be at the first meeting, and then it went through the whole day. When was her lunch break? They give this to students so that they have clarity in that first orientation day, their structure in their day.

They know what time the dining hall is going to open for breakfast, what time it'll close, and then reopen for lunch. We like organization. We like there to be structure in our lives, and so there is a comfort that we have with laws and rules for living our life. But sometimes, the desire for this codified structure can creep into how you and I observe the Sabbath. This is an issue that the scribes and Pharisees fell into when desiring to protect the Sabbath, and this is why their oral law contained hundreds of rules, specific do's and don'ts on the Sabbath day.

Jesus did not spend a lot of time laying out the rules for the Sabbath, and this is because the rules were already well defined. He didn't have to lay them all out again, but what he did do was lead by example.

He came to demonstrate and to expand on the spirit of the law, and in the beautiful teaching shared by our Savior and one that we looked at two weeks ago, he said, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the son of man is also Lord of the Sabbath. And that, of course, is from Mark 2 and verse 27 and 28. So today, in the message I prepared and prayed over and brought with you today, I'd like to look at some more examples of what Jesus Christ did on the Sabbath day and for us to consider the good works that we can also do on this special day.

Again, in the sermon I shared, we turned to a passage where Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, but we stopped short of the lesson that he was bringing out. And so, to set the stage for today's message, let's look, turn back to Luke chapter 4 and verse 14, and let's dive a little bit deeper into what his message was on the Sabbath day that we have recorded here. Luke 4 and verse 14.

Luke 4 and verse 14. We read these first few verses, but then we're going to continue the last sermon, but we're going to continue on with the account. Luke 4 and verse 14, then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out throughout all the surrounding region, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah, and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he closed the book, and he gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. It's an amazing example that he set early in his ministry, because the Jews at the time, they knew Isaiah 61. They knew it by memory. They knew what it described. They knew it described a conquering and future coming Messiah who would come onto the scene at a time that they hoped would be in their life. A Messiah that would put the end, the rule of the Romans, the oppression that they were under, who would give them their their promised land that would lead them into a new way of life, a new hope, a new direction. And they would have been living their lives looking forward to this coming Messiah. And by saying today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, Jesus claimed to be fulfilling this prophecy and proclaiming himself the expected Messiah, which he was. This was the renewal God's people were waiting for, even if they didn't know or recognize what he would really do at that time. While they wanted to be set free from the Roman government, they wanted to be recognized as God's people, those following him, and to have their Lord and Savior come and set up a new way of life. The truth of the matter is what they really needed was to be set free of the heaviness of their sin. They needed to be renewed in their hearts and renewed in their minds, and they needed their Messiah to lead them out of bondage and into a spiritual promise land. And he did all of these things. It's not much different from what we want. And the reason why you and I are part of this congregation, why we gathered here together today, we recognize our brokenness. We recognize the hole that exists in our heart apart from God.

We know that we don't have the answers, and as much as we try to bring and put our life together, the more things that start to fall off the plate. It's like that analogy of trying to herd cats. It's just impossible to herd cats because they have a mind on their own, and they do all their own things. You'll never fully wrap your mind around cats or kids, for that matter either.

That's why my mom said God gave women two hands so they could hold on to two children no more than that. And I was number three, so I'll let you know that.

It is hard as we go through life to try to do things on our own. It's impossible when we really think about it, and that's why we're here. Because we're broken people. We're people who need a physician. We're people who need guidance and a way to go forward. And again, everything that Jesus did as God in the flesh was for that purpose for us today. And so let's again be reminded of what Christ came to bring to humanity. He came to preach the gospel to the poor. He came to heal the brokenhearted, from proclaimed liberty to the captives, and to recover the sight of the blind, to freely oppressed. And so there's a couple questions for us to consider today.

Can we help heal and free others from some of the weightiness they carry with them in their lives?

Can we touch and impact another life in a beautiful way that would bring comfort and encouragement on this holy and special day that God has given to us?

Because for the remainder of this message, I'd like to look at some additional actions that Jesus performed on the Sabbath as he fulfilled the prophecy we read in Luke chapter 4. And as we look at these examples, let us consider the application that we can have with them today based on these questions that I just shared with you.

What are some of the good works that we can perform on this Sabbath day? So in the first example, let's turn to John 5 in verse 1.

This is when Jesus heals a lame man on the Sabbath at the Bethesda pool.

John 5, starting at the beginning of the chapter in verse 1.

We're going to look at just three different accounts, further accounts, adding on to the sermon from two weeks ago.

Again, that's an interesting study to see everything that Jesus did on the Sabbath day through Scripture. And this is only going to cover a few of those additional items. There's more that we could study into if we wanted. But here, John 5 in verse 1, we see a beautiful thing that Jesus did on the Sabbath day. After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time in the pool and stirred up the water. Then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.

Consider that for a moment. This person had an infirmity for thirty-eight years.

Mr. Hobb talked about some of the challenges that we have faced in our lives. Some of our challenges have gone back thirty years in losing someone special to us, someone close to our heart. Some of us have battled illnesses for a long period of time. Do we really stop and put all of our preconceived thoughts aside and just consider the trials that some of us are going through in our own specific situations ourselves? Because Jesus did here in this example.

Verse 6, He said, When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time. Notice that Christ didn't realize that he just stumbled on somebody and, I don't know how long you've been sick. Maybe you've been here a day, a month, two years? No, it says he already knew he had been in that condition a long time. So this is something that Christ recognized. It was on the forefront of his mind, and he said to him, Do you want to be made well?

The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and he walked. And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed. And he answered them, and he answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk. Instead of being thankful and rejoicing that this man was healed after 38 years of this infirmary, all they could do was to point out of his breaking of the Sabbath day by carrying a bed. And again, we see that law defined by God in what chapter? Whippers? What book?

This is their made-up, man-made law that they had said that you can't carry your bed. You can't carry a knapsack, or a roll-out mat that you sleep on on the Sabbath day because that is working.

They were holding him guilty to their own man-made law. They should have been celebrating with him. They should have been rejoicing that he can now do things that he could not do for the last 38 years.

But they go on and they ask him in verse 12, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk? But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you have been made well. Send no more, lest the worst thing come upon you. The man departed and told the Jews it was Jesus who had made him well. And for this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them and said, My father has been working until now, and I have been working. Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father, making himself equal with God. Even though after the six days of creation, God rested, you and I can be very thankful that we have a God that continually is working in the lives of humanity, continuing to work in our lives. God never stops working because he is always doing works of good. Every week, God does miracles of work on this Sabbath day that you and I are partaking of. He sends the rains to water the crops. Babies are born on this day. Animals are born on this day. Crops and plants grow.

He provides protection from accidents, and we could go on and on and on, couldn't we?

There's been more times than I can count driving to church that an accident almost happened right in front of me. And there's no way to explain it other than God's protection, his help, his deliverance. How many things have we prayed for so that we could be here on the Sabbath day because either an illness came in, something happened at work that was going to make us feel like it was going to creep into the Sabbath? I've had those work not right now, thankfully, but in my past profession, I had jobs where it's like, I've got to get this done. People are needing it done, and Friday is now slipping away. There's only so many hours left before sunset, and I prayed, God, please help me figure this out, this solution to this problem, because I need it done. I don't want to leave these other people in a lurch. And then all of a sudden, this and then Mike gets to do a little happy dance in my own little cubicle because God provided a way out so that I could keep his Sabbath day. God does so many amazing miracles of work on the Sabbath, and not only these physical works, but he is performing spiritual ones as well, helping us all grow closer to him on this day, helping us to understand more fully the depth of understanding from Scripture. He's continually doing works of good. Jesus wanted to teach that when the opportunity presents itself to do good, we should not ignore that opportunity. So what works of good can we do on the Sabbath? How can we help someone spiritually grow on the Sabbath? How do we monitor our conversations on the Sabbath to be a blessing for someone else? Next account I'd like to look at the second one is in Luke 13, and we'll look at starting in verse 10. In Luke 13, we see the account where Jesus heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath. Luke 13 in verse 10.

Luke 13 verse 10, it says, and now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years.

Notice that. So here's another issue. 18 years, and was bent over and could no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. Is there anything wrong with what Jesus did here? Is there anything wrong with helping a woman like this? In the eyes of the religious leaders, there was plenty wrong.

Those watching knew it was prohibited to give aid to an ill person unless the situation was life-threatening to that person.

This is why the rulers in verse 14 answered him, but the rulers of the synagogue answered with indignation. That's a strong word. That's a word I had to look up to see what are some of the other synonyms. Outrage, anger, fury, resentment. Because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and he said through the crowd, and they said, this is now them getting on their soapbox and preaching, there are six days on which men ought to work. Therefore, come and be healed on them and not on the Sabbath day.

Then the Lord answered him and said, Hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? So what, not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, who Satan has bound? Think of it! For 18 years! I love how the writer, the one who recorded Luke here, added that in there. Because it sounds like you or me having a conversation, right, with somebody? We're trying to make a point. We're trying to drive something home. Jesus himself said, Think of it! For 18 years!

This is what was on his mind, was how long that she had been under this weight.

He says, Think of it! For 18 years! Be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath.

And when he had said these things, all of his adversaries were put to shame, and all the multitudes rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.

An amazing part of the message that Jesus brought forth on the Sabbath represents a time of liberation, of deliverance from oppressive situations. And this helps us understand more deeply what a beautiful gift the Sabbath day is for us. The Pharisees didn't make their animals fast all day on the Sabbath, because they recognized this was the basic need for animals to have food, to have water. So the question for us to consider, what burden can we help loosen for others as we come in contact with them on the Sabbath? Who around us could use some encouragement?

Who around us could use some empathy and something that they are going through that is quite difficult? Do they need our judgment? No. Do they need our criticism? No. Do they need us to come up with the answer and fix their problems? Probably not. They just need to know they are not alone in their challenge and in their struggle. They just need a kind look and a comforting word. Is there something that we can loosen for someone today? It's a question to just consider and put into our mind.

The third example we'll look at is in John 9.

This is when Jesus heals a blind man on the Sabbath. Jesus 9 in verse 1.

Now as Jesus passed by, so we see that he's present again, he's involved, he's hands-on, he's present, not from a distance. That's why this is so important that we gather again on the Sabbath day, why we come together to be one with another. Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. So this is another extremely long period of time.

This man may not have been educated because being blind from birth wouldn't have had a way to really read, to comprehend, written scripture or other instruction. Most likely, maybe he didn't have any employment either, and he's at the will of getting free handouts, assistance from others around him. In verse 2, his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents said he was born blind, and Jesus answered neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the work of God should be revealed in him. And he again talks about what he had been commissioned to do, what his job was to do. In verse 4, he says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated, sent. And so he went and washed and came back, seen. To skip to the chase a little bit, the man was recognized by others who had seen him. They were asking, how are you able to see now? How is this possible? Who's done this thing? And they're questioning him. Is this really the same man that we had seen blind at the other places? Because obviously, this guy can see. And we see in verse 14, what day of the week this occurred.

Now it was the Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again, how had he received his sight? And he said to them, he put clay on my eyes and washed, and I see. Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said, how can a man who was a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, what do you say about him because he opened your eyes? He said, he is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of the one who had received the sight. And they asked them, saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? So now the Pharisees have not just taken this man and started questioning him. Now they're dragging his family into it. And note it, and remember, this was a family situation of going to your local synagogue, keeping the Sabbath together. This is like us. This is our family here. We come together. We're one on the Sabbath day. This is where we're comfortable. This is where we trust one another. And now the Pharisees are pitting the parents against the son to see if someone's lying, see if the truth is being told. And his parents, because of concern, his parents answered and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees? We do not know. Or who opened his eyes? We do not know. He is of age. Ask him and he will speak for himself. This is a mock trial situation going on now with the man who now can see witnesses being brought in of the parents, accusations being made. And you can see the parents are concerned that if they say the wrong thing, they're going to now be the outcast. They're going to now be the ones on the outside of the circle of the religious leaders because they were looking for someone who would be judged and punished on this Sabbath.

Verse 22, his parents said these things, and this is how we know that, his parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed, agreed already, that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. So the Jews used this threat of knowing or believing in Jesus would cause that person to be separated and kicked out of the synagogue. Again, this was their family. These were the friends that they shared the Sabbath with.

And now all of these relationships were in jeopardy because they believed in the Messiah.

Verse 23, therefore his parents said, he's of age. Ask him again, just stating the facts.

You let him answer for himself. So they again called the man who was blind and said to him, give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner, speaking of Jesus. And he answered and said, whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know that though I was blind, now I see. What a beautiful reminder that we have on the spiritual side of things.

That while we were blind to ourselves and to our sins and to our own nature, God has opened our eyes to see. And then they said to him again, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? And he answered, I told you already. And you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? Then they reviled him and said, you are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we do not know where he is from. And then I love these next few verses, about five verses. It reminds me of the power in which Stephen spoke the day that he was killed when God worked powerfully and brought to remember in so many things. And the boldness in which he spoke. Here we have a man who was blind from birth. And then through this miracle, we had this boldness to reply back in this mock trial that he was under. Verse 30, the man answered and said to them, Why is this a marvelous thing that you do not know where he is from? Yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him. He hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. What a powerful testimony from the man who was healed. In the presence of all these Pharisees and scribes who knew God's word, knew the scriptures by memory, inside and out, but it fell short of the application. And here's a man that was born blind. Again, probably didn't have much of an education, if any. Probably didn't have a lot of employment or practical living experience of living life. And yet, who was the one that got it? Who was the one teaching who here? And do you think they appreciated hearing this from this previously blind man? Verse 34. They answered and said to him, you were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us? And they cast him out. They kicked him out. Out of the synagogue, out of their lives, wanting nothing more to do with them. They were angered at having their authority questioned and their opinions challenged, so they cast him out of the synagogue.

They pretty much excommunicated the man from his fellowship, and they cut him off from his family and his friends. Verse 35. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, he said to him, do you believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, you have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. Then he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him. And Jesus said, for judgment, I have come into the world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind.

He's saying those who can see and understand Scripture and should know better, I'm going to allow them to remain blind to the bigger heart of the issue here.

But to those who have a willing heart, those who will be sensitive to Scripture and to his coming and to the works that he did, I'll allow you to see more deeply.

And some of the Pharisees who were there with him heard these words and said to him, are we blind also? And Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say we see, therefore your sin remains.

The question for us, is there someone we can restore to our family here?

Is there someone in our midst that needs restoring to you or to me? Is there a relationship here that we have with someone that needs to be restored? Is there healing we can bring to one of these relationships? As we begin to wrap up today, we see that Jesus's healing acts on the Sabbath foreshadowed a future and much larger event that we look forward to in this world desperately needs, the return of our Lord and Savior who will reign over the entire world.

Jesus's actions on the Sabbath are a reminder of this future coming time of peace, restoration, and healing for all of mankind.

So we joked about at the beginning, and we considered the U.S. tax code. There's no limit to the laws that man can come up with. The volumes of books that we can fill with regulation and instructions, and we can heap unfair expectations on others, and we can even impress ourselves, oppress ourselves in the process if we're not careful. Did Jesus change the law of the Sabbath?

No, not at all. What he did was he broke down the misguided, restrictive regulations and the religious leaders added to God's Sabbath day. He taught the deeper meaning and spiritual intent of the Sabbath, but he never one time broke the command to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He got to the heart of the matter with those he had the opportunity to teach and those who would be willing to listen. It wasn't enough that you just don't kill someone, right?

It was that you don't even hate them. That's the spiritual intent. He took things to such a deeper level than just what was described in the Old Testament at times. It was about the heart behind the actions and the attitudes. This is part of the beauty of coming together and being in person on the Sabbath. God has called us to a new way to live. A life to show compassion and help others to live better and more fulfilling lives. A life to put ourselves in other person's shoes and understand things from their perspective. A life to restore relationships that we have damaged or hurt. A life of doing good works on the Sabbath day. This does not give us liberty just to go out and to experience and do whatever our minds rationalize and we wrap our minds around because we know we've done those things. We've gone off-path. We thought this would be okay to add in or to do on the Sabbath and then later regret it and said, you know what? That's not what God wants us to do on this day. So this is not liberty to just create and go do and explore whatever we want on the Sabbath day to make 100 percent of our own decisions.

But as we look at our heart, as we dive deeper and understand what is the motivation behind what we're doing, we can look for these opportunities to help, to serve, to do works of good as our Father in heaven continues to do works of good for us. We can each do this right now today on God's West Sabbath day. Let's not wait a minute as we are here together in person. While we wait for the return of our Lord and Savior, let us live in the example of Jesus Christ and work the works of good while we have the time to do so on this Sabbath day.