FBCWest 645 | Jeus Is Lord
Recorded On: 02/09/2025
Bulletin
Hymn # 477 “Now I Belong to Jesus”
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalm 134
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“Raise a Hallelujah”
“God so Loved”
“Egypt”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Jeus Is Lord”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“Echo Holy”
Sermon Notes
Mark 2:18 – 20 Jesus’ disciples criticized for not fasting and Jesus’ response
Mark 2:21 & 22 No one uses old things on new
Mark 2:23 & 24 Disciples criticized for picking and eating grain on the Sabbath
Mark 2:25 & 26 Jesus’ response
Mark 2:27 The Sabbath was made for us and not us for the Sabbath
Mark 2:28 Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
Disciples of Jesus are often criticized, and you may have experienced a similar criticism that we're going to talk about today. Sometimes people will criticize because they do something that we don't do, and they think that they're better, more holy, more righteous than us, because they do something that we don't do. Or the opposite, sometimes we do something that they don't do because they don't do it. They think they're more holy or righteous or better than us. Jesus is going to respond to those criticisms that applies to His disciples of that day and even to of Mark chapter 2 and we're going to start with verse 18.
And as you're turning there, it says this.
John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting and they came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" So see, we do something that you don't. We fast.
Now, I want you to understand something.
The only biblical requirement to fast in the Old Testament on the Law was one day, the Day of Atonement.
That was the only day that the people of God were to fast during that one time.
However, the Pharisees wanting to be pious fasted twice a week.
It was usually Mondays and Thursdays.
They did so because they wanted to appear religious and better than everybody else. And so they fasted. And we're going to see what Jesus's response to this criticism is.
And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
But the day will come, and the bridegroom is taken away from them, and they will fast in that day."
So Jesus says, "Your situation is different from the disciple situation, for you see the bridegroom. The Messiah is present with them, and there is a celebration."
So I want you to kind of get Jesus is the Son of God, Emmanuel God with us.
Why would you want to mourn and fast when you're in His presence?
Now, the disciples of John were looking forward to the day of the Messiah, and we were fasting to hope that that day came and to cry out for that day. But the disciples of Jesus are walking and listening and teaching and hearing,
Emmanuel God with them. And so during a party, you do not fast during the party. And Jesus says, when the bridegroom is there. And so the question refers to there's going to be a day in heaven called the married supper of the Lamb.
Is that an appropriate time to fast? No, that's a time to celebrate. Jesus is saying, "I am with them. This is not the time to fast."
Now, I want you to kind of see that fasting can be of some value.
But usually when we actually do a fast, sometimes people will fast because they're trying to clear their mind to do something.
But if you will, a genuine fast comes, and I want to give an example in the Scriptures.
David, when he was told that the child that was consummated by his and Bathsheba's adulterous affair, that God would take the child.
David fasted. David cried out to the Lord. David didn't bathe because he was consumed with the grief of the thought of losing a child. And he tried and tried and tried to get God to change his mind. And sometimes there may be things in our lives that we are crying out to God that are so important to us that we fast and we pray and we do these things. So there are times when there's this felt need to fast, when it's appropriate to fast.
But notice in David's situation, once the child died, David ended his fast. He took a bath and ate because he said, "Perhaps while the child was alive, I could get God to change his mind. But when he didn't, then blessed be the name of the Lord." And so there are appropriate times in our lives when we may seek to fast because there's something so overwhelming in our lives. We want God to either come in or change and do whatever.
The second thing I find interesting is when God, when Jesus does tell us to fast, when we do fast, no one will know it.
Because Jesus says, "When you fast, don't look like you're fasting. Have a smile on your face. Make sure you're bathed. Do the other thing." So that the rest of the world doesn't know that you're fasting because you're doing it not for pious sake, but because you're doing something that's internal.
So even if the disciples were fasting and Jesus says, "No, that's not the time," they would have known it because Jesus' teaching is, "Don't show your religiosity.
Make it personal." Like when we go into our prayer rooms to pray, not to pray to look holy. It's to commune with God. And so these are the things that... And so the people who are fasting twice a day and thinking we're not holy or pious because we don't want...
Either there isn't that opportunity for the need or they will never know because we have been instructed not to make it obvious.
And then Jesus is going to give them a couple of examples of why he's doing something different. He goes, "No one sows a patch of unshrunken cloth on an old garment. Otherwise the patch will pull away from it and the new from the old and a worst tear results." Now, for those of us who aren't into patching or doing those types of things, basically if you take a new piece of garment, especially in those days, because they didn't have pre-shrunk clothes, that if you had a holy garment, in today's world, I guess it would be holy jeans because everybody now pays more money for holy jeans than for good ones. But they say, "Okay, all of a sudden maybe the style changed and you're not supposed to wear holy jeans. So you would want to put a patch on them to look like you're cool again." And so Jesus says, "You wouldn't take a non-pre-shrunk cloth, a new one, and put it on an old garment because when you do, when you wash it, the new one will shrink, which will cause the stitching and you'll rip the old garment and now it's worse off and you can't use it because there's a bigger hole."
And then he uses a second example.
"No one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is lost and the skins as well. But one puts new wine into fresh wineskins." He says, "If you're going to put new wine into an old wineskin, the problem is the old wineskin has already expanded because of the fermentation process.
And so it is given all the elasticity that it can because it's already moved during the fermenting process." So he goes, "If you put new wine in to allow it to ferment, then it will stretch the wineskin beyond its ability and will burst and not only have you no longer, before you could at least put water in or some other type of liquid, but once the wineskin is broken, it's unusable and you've now lost the contents to wine."
And Jesus is saying, "I'm not putting my new teachings, I'm not putting what I'm doing into the old system because the old system is only concerned about the old system. I'm doing something new and I'm not going to bother putting my new wine, the wine of the new covenant into an old system."
The old system got off track because the old system was the dos and the don'ts rather than faith, which the old system was originally designed for. For Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. That was always the plan. There was never these things you do and these things you don't do and therefore that impresses God. It's always been faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And so Jesus is saying, "I'm not taking the old about how many times you fast or don't fast. It's not about the outward appearance. It's about the heart."
And then they're going to get criticized again. And it happened that he was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath.
Now, the Sabbath is always going to be a controversy for the Pharisees and Jesus and his disciples. And in the next message, we're going to see the controversy again. So they're passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath and his disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.
Now, first, I want you to understand they're not stealing because under the law, the owner of the field was never allowed to harvest the entire field. They were to leave the corners untouched. And they were also not to use sickles ever to so that there would be grain that would fall on the ground and they were not allowed to pick it up because that was, in essence, their benevolence situation.
Those who were in need could come to the fields and find the grain we see during the time of when all of a sudden I had a...
Who's the lady with Boaz?
Ruth, right. Ruth, Ruth... How could you forget Ruth? Ruth harvested so much because Boaz so favored her that she had more and more than she could do. And but again, it was that was the way you had benevolence. And so when the disciples are walking through, they're not stealing. They're simply saying, we're hungry. We're in the midst of traveling, ministering. And therefore they're taking some grain that has been left as appropriate. So they picked the heads of grain.
And the Spirit says, we're saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Again, we don't do things like that on the Sabbath because it's a Sabbath. We have made the Sabbath such a vehicle of holiness that they're not supposed to do this. Now, it's interesting.
The scripture say that we are to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. They made all kinds of rules and regulations. There were only so many places, so many feet that you could walk on a Sabbath. There's only certain things that you could do or not do. And they had all these rules that were not connected in reality to remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.
Remembering the Sabbath means God rested on the Sabbath. He's the one who created it all. I'm going to give him thanks and think about him and worship him and honor him. And I'm going to keep that day separated from all the other days. It's not necessarily rule keeping. It's understanding who God is and worshiping him.
So he responds to them this way. He said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and had he and his companions became hungry?
How he entered the house of God in the time of Abathar, the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priest.
He also gave it to those who were with him. So Jesus says, I want to give you an example of something that happened.
Now, the commentators somewhat are kind of confused why David is used in this instance. So I'm going to try to help to explain that. David came and Saul was seeking to kill David and his companions. So David took off in a hurry. They didn't have any weapons. They just got out of there as quickly as they can because they didn't want to die. But Saul wanted him dead. Now, this was after David had killed Goliath. And so because of the travel and whatever and the ex
of David, they were in the holy place and each day they would have new bread and each loaf represented one of the tribes. And then the following day they would take that bread out and put new bread in and there would be that constant offering.
But the only people who were robbed to eat the bread was the priest.
There's nothing else to eat except the spread and the only quote unquote lawful ones to eat it are the priests.
And what happens is, is the high priest says, OK, you can have it because the situation is good. Always Trump's rules.
These men were hungry. They were famished. And while it was only lawful for them to eat, somebody was there who was I don't want to say important, but important.
David was the anointed king, although not the acting king. David was the one who stood in front of Goliath and said, I'm not going to allow you to challenge my God. And even though no one thinks I can, I'll come out and I'll fight you because you're in the front of my God.
And so he went and he slowed Goliath and that sword was in the tabernacle. And after the incident that happens here, David's looking for weapons. They said, well, we got the sword of Goliath. I'll take it. You see, David showed righteousness because he was unwilling to allow anyone to curse God.
And so the good was you're hungry. I'm going to permit it now. Notice David didn't go and go into the Holy of Holies and get it. It was done so by the priest. So it was consented to.
All too often, we're so worried about our rules. If we would forget why the rules were instituted.
And Jesus said to them.
Do it again.
Jesus said to them. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
Jesus, why did God institute this? He didn't institute this.
So that the Sabbath would rule over men, but that men would understand that they needed rest. They needed communion with God. They needed to make it holy separated so that they might have an opportunity to remember who their creator was, to remember who was the one who was providing for them, to remember the one who was blessing them. Because let's face it, we all get busy in our lives. We all go to work and then we do those things. And then there's the kids and their dinner and all these things. And we're wrapping up and wrapping up. And we're so consumed by doing things that sometimes we forget what's best.
So what God says, I want you to have a Sabbath so you have an opportunity to not only rest from your labors, but to concentrate on God to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
It was instituted for our benefit, not our benefit for the benefit of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was for us, not us for the Sabbath.
Then Jesus is going to say something again. Why I think he uses this particular passage because David going into and getting something had nothing to do with the Sabbath.
It's this.
So the Son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
You see, the first time he said the bridegroom is with them.
So why should they fast? They should be celebrating because Emmanuel, God is with them.
And now he's saying there's someone here even greater than David.
The priest allowed David and his companions to eat the holy bread because of a situation.
Jesus is saying, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not Lord of me. Someone greater than David is here.
And if I say it's OK, it's OK.
Because it is not the rules, but who they're with.
So give you an example. When we get to heaven.
Are you going to be happy saying, you know, I'm really glad.
On February 9th, two thousand twenty five, I was at church.
Are you going to say, I'm really glad I'm in the presence of Jesus?
Somehow, I don't think today is going to be that much impressive to you as to being in the presence of Jesus. Now, I know I'm a fantastic guy and I know that you can't wait for my next words to say because of that interesting.
But even as interesting as I am and as compelling as I am. I fade in comparison to Jesus.
And Jesus, you guys are so ruled on on what day to do what?
And who's with you?
I am the son of man.
The son of man. Emmanuel God with us. The one who is God that we can understand in the flesh appearing with us and for us is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
He is Lord of all.
Some have said if he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord of any.
But he is Lord of all.
And so. When we decide, should I do this or should I do that?
What is good?
What is the best?
Is being hungry better.
And providing for those who are famished.
Or following a rule.
Is it better.
To go to a party.
And say, I'm sorry, I can't eat any food because I'm fasting.
Or you go to the party.
And don't anybody know you're fasting or if it's Jesus's party, you celebrate.
What what a sad situation.
To be in the presence of Jesus and be in mourning.
Say, Oh, poor is me. Oh, woe is me. Things are terrible as opposed to things just got better.
Because my Lord and my God is with me.
And I'm with him.
And he's protecting me. He's providing for me. He's loving me. He's forgiving me. And he's going to give me ultimate victory.
I don't think that's so sad.
Think that's a reason to have a party.
And that's a reason to say.
It's okay if you judge me by what I do or don't do.
Because you'll change your mind tomorrow.
But I'm going to do what he wants me to do. Because I'm following him.
And if he says it's okay, it's okay. And I don't care what you think.
And if he says it's not okay, it's not okay. And I don't care what you think.
Because he's my Lord.
He's my master.
He is the son of man, the son of and the Lord of the Sabbath.
He is the king of kings and Lord of lords.
And it is not what I do that makes me holy.
It is because of who he is, the holy one that makes me holy.
And I'll remember him.