FBCWest 646 | Doing Good on the Sabbath
Recorded On: 02/16/2025
Bulletin
Hymn # 55 “I Will Tell the Wonderous Story”
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalm 9:1 & 2
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“In the House”
“How Great Is Your Love”
“Resurrection Power”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Doing Good on the Sabbath”
“Let It Begin”
Sermon Notes
Mark 3:1 – 3 Jesus, His enemies, a man with a withered hand are all together in a synagogue on the Sabbath
Mark 3:4 Jesus Asks is it lawful to do good or arm on the Sabbath, but they don’t respond
Mark 3:5 Even though Jesus is angry and grieved He heals the man
Mark 3:6 The Pharisees and Herodians seek to destroy Jesus
Mark 3:7 – 10 Jesus sought ny Jews and Gentiles to be healed by touching Him
Mark 3:11 & 12 Unclean spirits cried out who Jesus is, but He warned them not to reveal who He is
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
You may have heard the expression,
"I can't hear what you're saying because your actions are so loud." Kind of that's what takes place during this period of time in Jesus' ministry. There are those who seek to accuse Him, and He asks two questions, but they remain silent. However, later, their actions scream their response.
So I encourage you to listen to what Jesus' questions were and what the reaction and action of the
(Music)
as opposed to what most people don't want to do, it seems, to be bound by what God says.
And people will make up rules and regulations to appear to be holy and religious and sanctified.
Those are the type of people that Jesus seemed to had to deal with.
And so we're going to see an incident of that in his ministry.
So if you have your vitals and you should turn to the Gospel of Mark chapter three, starting with the verse verse.
And so it says, "Hey, that being Jesus entered into the Senate, again into a synagogue and a man was there whose hand was withered." So two things I want you to notice here. One, Jesus' common practice, his habit was to attend synagogues.
And generally speaking, when he would attend the synagogue, being the traveling rabbi, if he will, he would frequently speak or have some part in the service.
So I kind of encourage you, if Jesus felt it necessary either for us or maybe him, go to synagogue or to a religious worship, maybe we should also make that a habit and always attend worship service. But there was a man who had a withered hand or whatever. Now again, this is a little bit surprising because frequently people who were either diseased or disabled weren't allowed to go because there was a thought that a person who was diseased or disabled had sinned and you didn't want to have any part with them. And so they weren't usually allowed to participate in the worship.
Unfortunately, if they would have read Job, they would have understood that bad things happen to good people.
Just because something happens to you doesn't make you, other than we're all sinners, doesn't make you subject to God's wrath.
But like many people then and unfortunately religious people, they thought, "Well, therefore, if you're disabled, God's mad at you and we don't want any part with you." And so it's unusual for this man who had a withered hand be in the synagogue, which is why I suspect that he was a plant.
The reason why I think he was a plant was one, generally you're not allowed to be there. And then the next verse, "And they were watching him and they being the scribes and the religious leaders were watching him, Jesus, to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him." So again, I think that they were very much aware that this man was there and I think they probably saw to it he was there because everybody knew he was there and the scribes and the religious leaders wanted to see what Jesus would do so that they could accuse him. So I kind of tend to think that he was a plant so that they might have something to do with that. Now I want you to notice this, "And watching to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath."
Notice that it didn't say that he would try to heal him on the Sabbath or that he would make some effort to heal him on the Sabbath. So these who are seeking to accuse Jesus of violating the Sabbath don't have any doubt that Jesus is able to heal the man with a withered hand.
Isn't it interesting they have no doubt of Jesus's power but refuse to acknowledge who Jesus is.
But instead they're seeking to do what Jesus is going to perhaps do, heal this person on the Sabbath so that they might accuse Jesus of violating the Scripture.
"And he said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward." So he was somewhere in the congregation.
Jesus knew that the man was there because being God he knows things and he also knows why the man is there and what the scribes and the Pharisees and all those are wanting to do, to accuse him. So Jesus isn't going to just do what he does in secret.
He calls attention to the man and says, "Hey, come forward."
So he calls him and he says, "Get up and come forward."
And he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath to save a life or to kill?"
Jesus asked two either or questions.
He says, "Tell me, you people who are the scribes, the rulers, the interpreters of the law, when it says we're not to work on the Sabbath, does working mean to do good or to do harm or to save a life or to kill?
Can you do good or bad on the Sabbath?"
And it's interesting that he frames it that way, especially the second one, to save a life or to kill.
When you read that, you go, that's a strange jump, okay, to do good or to do harm, to do good or to do evil.
I get that. But then he goes, "To save a life or to kill.
We're going to see why the second question is so apropos to this situation."
So he asked him, "Can we do good or do you do harm? You do good, you do evil. You save a life or do you kill?"
So he gives them this question, but they kept silent.
If we're traveling on a road and I'm driving and you're with me and we come to a point where there needs to be a change in direction, maybe a fork in the road, or you're going to take one freeway versus another, and I ask you, "Which way should we go?"
And you say nothing.
And then you start to criticize me when we appear to be on the wrong road. I want to tell you to shut up because you had the opportunity to tell me and give me advice before it was necessary, but they kept silent.
They should have said, "Well, what do you mean by good? What do you mean by harm? What do you mean by..." Maybe they could have entered into a dialogue, but they knew by entering into a dialogue, Jesus being who Jesus is would defeat their arguments.
So they kept silent.
After looking around them with anger and grieve at their hardness of heart.
Now this is an aspect of Jesus that so many people don't know. They think Jesus is this milky, milky toast kind of wimpy kind of guy who whatever you do is just all right.
He gets us. It's just all right. You can do whatever you do because he just gets us. No, when you are this hard hearted or hard, not only hard headed, but hard hearted, Jesus becomes angry and sorrowful.
It seems that's why I always when we have the communion and I say that he has written something not on tablets of stone, but something a much harder substance on our hearts. It's because our hearts generally are hardened, but it's him who softens them and places his mercy and love upon us, but they're hard hearted.
It's not that they seek the truth.
They seek their own advantages.
And he said to the man, stretch out your hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored.
They're going to accuse Jesus in just a moment because he healed on the Sabbath. He healed on the day of rest.
He did good, not harm.
And yet.
And yet they are so hard hearted. They don't see that he did good. They don't see that the scripture says that we are to remember the Sabbath, the day of rest and make it and keep it holy, separated. It's something that we should be living for God and considering and doing for God. And it says God made the heavens and the earth in six days on the seventh he rested. We're not to do any laborious work, but to celebrate him. But Jesus asked the question is doing good work.
I want you to consider a couple of things.
Even in the law, the priests had to work on Sabbath days. They even had to work on high holy days. They had to make offerings of sacrifices, of burnt offerings. They had to go into the holy place and to change out the bread and to make sure that the candles had enough wax and oil and kept burning. And they would minister and they would place offerings onto the holy place where the cloud would lift up representing the prayer of the saints. They would be ministering during not only a Sabbath day, but a high holy day. Why? Because they were serving God.
Serving God is not work.
It is serving God. It is remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy, even high holy days. And so these priests would not buy. They can say, well, you know, I guess the bread has to be two days old and it burns out the thing because we're not supposed to do anything on the Sabbath. The scriptures require them to do and they are the priests, the workers for God. The scripture also tells us in Ephesians that we have been saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves is a gift of God, but that we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.
That God ordained beforehand.
God wants us to do good.
So doing good on the Sabbath is not work, but it's amazing how many people change and do these things. And so, for instance, I haven't been there, but I've been told that if you are in a skyscraper in somewhere in Israel and it's the Sabbath, all the buttons are pushed already.
You have to stop on every floor going up and every floor going down.
Because somehow pushing a button is work.
So even if Jesus, what I want to do, Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand.
Now in other healings, Jesus has touched the leper.
In other healings that the gospel talked about that Jesus bent down and took spit and play and molded it and placed it on a guy's eyes. There are times when he is cast out demons. There are actions that have been taken place by Jesus that you can say somehow is work.
He told the guy to stretch out his hand and it was healed.
What work did Jesus do other than do good?
We don't even say Him and be healed. He just says, "Stretch out your hand."
So doing good on the Sabbath is not a violation of the scripture. And so when Jesus says, "Is it lawful to do good?" There is never a day that is not lawful to do good.
As a matter of fact, it's probably even more lawful to do good on the day of rest than to do nothing on the day of rest.
But it certainly is a violation to do harm anytime, let alone on the Sabbath. And He's saying, "Is it lawful to save life?"
Yes.
And it doesn't matter when.
Could you imagine having a heart attack and the doctor saying, "It's terrible for you that it happened on a Saturday. Hopefully you survive till tomorrow and come see me."
You'd be grateful that the doctor violated the law.
But he wouldn't be violating the law that God had written because we were doing good. He was saving a life.
So his hand was healed.
Notice their reaction.
The Pharisees went out immediately and began conspiring with the Herodians against them how they might destroy Him.
Now I want you to notice a couple of things.
The Pharisees are these religious leaders who supposedly know the law, who kept silent
when Jesus asked the question.
They could have had a debate and maybe convinced Jesus that you'd have to wait till Sunday to heal this man.
But they remained silent.
But they went out immediately, which meant they went out on the Sabbath to do what? Conspiring how they might destroy Him, how they might kill Him. So now I understand why Jesus says, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm to save a life or to kill?"
Because He's pointing right at them and saying, "You are violating the Sabbath because you're going to go out immediately after this Sabbath day worship, seeking how you can kill me."
They did more work plotting and planning their accusations and destruction of Jesus than Jesus did by saying, "Stretch out your hand."
So not only did they violate the actual terms of the Scriptures, they violated the substance of it. They planned to kill on the Sabbath, not to save a life.
Even though knowing that Jesus was going to heal this man on the Sabbath, not that He would try, not that He might, not that He would, so that they could find an accusation so that they might destroy Him. Rather than saying, "You know, guys, maybe we should reconsider who this Jesus is because of His teaching and because of His actions."
But because they are so hard-hearted, it doesn't matter who Jesus is. They simply seek to destroy Him. Now, it says that they conspire with the Herodians. Now, who are the Herodians?
There are the people who support King Herod, not the King Herod that sought to kill all the babies when Jesus' birth was announced in Bethlehem. It was his son Herod who was responsible for seeing to it that John the Baptizer lost his head
and also was brought before Jesus in one of the many trials that Jesus experienced prior to the crucifixion. So the, if you will, the political people of the government was conspiring with the religious people to seek to destroy Jesus because Jesus was upturning their interpretation of the Scriptures and they were fearful of Jesus that He might upturn the political situation.
And Jesus came, as He said, to save sinners like you and me.
So it says that Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples and a great multitude from Galilee followed and also from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Edumea and beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon and a great number of people heard all that He was doing and came to Him. You see, Jesus' ministry is becoming more and more well-known and more and more popular, not only with the Jews, not only with the people who are close in the area of these particular synagogues, but Gentiles are hearing of Him because they were beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon. So Jews and Gentiles were understanding who Jesus was doing and what He was teaching and they were coming to Him.
You would think the religious leaders, because they knew, you would think they would know the Scriptures, would see who He is.
Gentiles who have no background in the Scriptures, hear about Him.
And He told His disciples that a boat should be stand ready for Him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd Him.
For He had healed many with the result that those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him.
Whenever the unclean spirit saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, "You are the Son of God."
The religious leaders didn't acknowledge who He was, but the demons and the unclean spirits knew exactly who He is and was, and they would shout out.
And He would earnestly warn them not to tell who He was, because again, I believe it is not the obligation or even the permission of the unclean spirits to say who He is. It is for those who are redeemed, those who have come to know who He is or to declare who He is.
Because He has come to save sinners like you and me.
Now, I have concentrated on the religious people.
How they, in voice, remain silent, but their actions screamed, "Kill them."
Their actions answered Jesus's questions by, "Yes, it is lawful to do harm and to kill."
Even though their words never said so.
And it would be interesting and rightful to concentrate on them.
I want to talk about the man with the withered hand.
Maybe he was a plant.
Maybe he was used and didn't know it. Or maybe he was used and knew he was being used.
Did that stop Jesus from healing them?
Doesn't matter where you come from, how even the enemy might have used you to try to accuse Jesus.
His love and His mercy and His healing comes anyway.
He was angry at the religious leaders. He wasn't angry with the man with the withered hand.
And he gave mercy to that man.
And it doesn't matter where we come from, how innocent or lack of innocence we are.
He still will love us and have mercy upon us.
Once we see who He is and acknowledge who He is. And that that healing can come, yes, even on a day of rest.
So I would say that the healing begins.
We may not have withered hands. We may not have withered hands.
But quite frankly, we have withered souls.
We were created in the image of God.
And because of our sin, had as marred that image so that that image is withered.
But He can say, stretch out your soul and it will be made whole.
And while physically it was restored fully, our souls, when that healing comes, are restored fully.
But sometimes we, our minds just don't catch up to what God has done for us. So whether you've been used or not, I encourage you to do that. I encourage you, as Jesus says, come forward.
So that you might understand that healing begins with Him.
And