The Lord of the Sabbath — Luke 14

0:00 Like to pray again. Father God, we do thank you for your love. We thank you for your holy word, which is which is able to to raise us up, Lord, to give us new life. We thank you for your precious word and always pray as we open it that you would bless it. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

0:17 So today we're in Luke chapter 14 and we're going to read we're going to read from verse one up through 24. I want to remark before we start reading it that the entire portion verses one through 24 is in the context of being at this ruler of the Pharisees house where Jesus was invited to eat. So, just keep that in mind all the way through, that's the context. Fourteen:one, Now it happened as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before him who had drop sea.

1:14 And Jesus answering spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? But they kept silent. And he took him and healed him and let him go. Then he answered them saying, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day. And they could not answer him regarding these things.

1:43 So first of all, the ruler of the Pharisees had invited Jesus in a show of goodwill, in a show of goodwill. But we noticed that they were really watching him carefully because it was, I should say, anything but goodwill that they had towards the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we reviewed back through the rest of the Gospel of Luke that we've read up at this point, this is the fourth time that there's been a conflict over the Sabbath between the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees. And so, they're looking for an excuse, some way they can nail the Lord Jesus. And so, that's sort of the context in which we're introduced here.

2:38 And he says, Behold, there was a certain man before him who had dropsy. Dropsy, I think we call it a demon now, it's the swelling of your limbs. It's usually associated with heart failure. Probably this guy didn't have too much longer to live if the Lord Jesus didn't do something about this. And so, the Lord Jesus is prepared to heal him, but he realizes, he's not ignorant of what's going on around, he realizes, he picks up the antagonism that's going on there.

3:16 And so he leads in in a way that makes it difficult for them to lay hold of it. And Jesus answered, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? I'm assuming that he's looking right at the man. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? But they kept silent.

3:44 They were looking for something to find fault and they just let it go in there. So the Lord Jesus let in in such a way that they found difficult to lay ahold of what he was doing. So they kept silent and he took him and healed him and let him go. So it says he took him. I'm assuming that means he actually reached out and took hold of him, laid his hand on him and he healed him and then he let him go.

5:07 He says, Don't come here to be healed on the Sabbath day. This is the Sabbath day. And the Lord Jesus was just plain indignant to him. And he called him a hypocrite. Said, Hypocrite.

5:19 You know good and well that on the Sabbath day you go out and you lead your donkey to water and your ox to water. And you would deliver, in this case, we have ox fall in the pit, you would deliver your ox if it fell in the pit. And here's some, it's certainly implied here is here is somebody with a case that's threatening their life, threatening their very life and you don't want to heal them on the Sabbath day? They could not answer him regarding these things. Now, what I'd like to do before we run on down through the chapter here is this is the fourth time in the book of Luke itself that the Lord Jesus had a conflict, definite conflict with the Pharisees relative to the Sabbath.

6:18 Now, what I wanna do is I just want to, I don't want to review them all completely, but I just want to list three points that the Lord Jesus made relative to this conflict over what the Sabbath day was all about. And I think we'll have a better sense of what the Lord Jesus had to say by doing this. Okay? So I'm not going to turn us to this. I'm going tell you where it is.

6:49 It's in Luke chapter six. It's also found in Matthew 12 and in Mark chapter two. This... And it's the time when the Lord Jesus was going through the grain field with his disciples and it was on a Sabbath day. And as they went along, the disciples reached out and they would tear off a head of grain or some heads of grain and they would probably rub it in their hands and they would eat the grain.

7:20 And the Pharisees were following and they go to the Lord Jesus and they say, Your disciples are doing what's not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. And they're indignant with them. And so what I want to do is tell you what they said, and I'm quoting here Matthew chapter 12, but just listen to this. So the Lord Jesus says to them, he says, If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. I'll read it over again.

7:58 If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. So, what I want to do, so he was quoting from the book of Hosea in the Old Testament. I'm gonna read verses, Hosea six:six. I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. The point seems to be this, that the Lord Jesus was essentially saying, Don't allow your religious practices to stand in the way of the mercy of God.

8:37 God says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Do not allow your religious practices to stand in the way of the mercy of God. You know, that was exactly what the Pharisees were doing. Matter of fact, I'm just going to read a verse out of, this is Matthew 23. This is when the Lord Jesus had really been fed up completely with the Pharisees.

9:05 So he says, he's pronouncing woes on them. This is Matthew 23. But woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men for you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow those that are entering to go in. They were so fixed on their religious expressions, in this case, the Sabbath, that they would have rather the man not even be healed than to heal on the Sabbath day. And the Lord said, That's not what God says.

10:02 The Lord Jesus said this relative to when they were accusing the disciples. He said, The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. And so you start thinking, okay, so God creates the world, Genesis one, in six days, creates the world, he creates all the life that's in the world. On the end of the sixth day, he creates mankind. And then on the seventh day, it says that God blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it.

10:43 Now the Lord Jesus explains to us here that the Sabbath was created for man. It's created for the good of man. And they were making it a burden. Why, you wouldn't wanna help men on the Sabbath. No doubt, this principle is what leads to the Lord saying a little bit later in the chapter saying this, It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.

11:12 There's no doubt based on that idea that the Sabbath was made for man. So that's the second principle. God is lawful to do good on the Sabbath because Sabbath was made for the man. Okay, and the third one, and this one I'm going to quote from the Gospel of Luke. It seems like each of the Gospels has just a little bit different stress as it tells the story.

11:39 In the Gospel of Luke, says, the Lord Jesus says, the Son of Man also is Lord of the Sabbath. It's rather an awesome saying. It's like, it's almost like he's saying, you're looking at the one that has the right to tell you what the Sabbath is always all about. And when you stop and think about it, who was this man? Who was this man, Jesus, who they were accusing?

12:14 Who was this man? Well, He was the Son of God who came into this world to save us. He was the Son of God. He was the Creator. We're told that in John chapter one and a couple of other places.

12:32 He's the Son of God, He's the creator of the world, and He's the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the one that has the right, the authority to pronounce concerning the Sabbath day. Okay, so having gone to those three principles, now, I'd say this, particularly this last one, where the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, it certainly rotates around the idea of who He was. And I think even when you think about it, so He's doing these miracles on the Sabbath day. When you think about it, why was He doing miracles?

13:11 What was the purpose of those miracles? Well, no doubt it was to show kindness to mankind. No doubt it was to show kindness to mankind. However, part of one of the big, big reasons for the miracles was to demonstrate just who he really was. He was the man that had power over nature.

13:31 He was the one that could still the water so that they smoothed out at his word. He was the one who could raise a man from the dead. Who could this be? And they were forced to ponder this. One of the neatest cases of this has to do with another healing on a Sabbath day.

13:56 And I'm going to run over to it. It's in John chapter nine. I'm just going to spend a moment on it because I think it makes the point really in a priceless way. Okay, John chapter nine. I'm just going to read, I'm going to just break.

14:13 So this is a story of the man that the Lord put mud on his eyes and sent him to the Pool Of Siloam and said, Go and wash. And he went and washed and his eyes were healed. And so, in the fifteenth verse, remember, it's on the Sabbath day. Then the Pharisees asked him again how was he received his sight? And he said to them, He put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see.

14:46 Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, This man is not of God because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others had a little different opinion. Others said, How can a man who's a sinner do such signs? See, those miracles, they had a reason. There was a division among them.

15:06 Now, further on down in the chapter, the Pharisees are sort of attacking the blind man that could now see. And in the twenty fourth verse, it says, And they called the man who was blind. They said to Him, 'Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner.' And he answered and said, 'Whether he's a sinner or not, I do not know. But one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.' It was an unanswerable proof, wasn't it?

15:43 It was unanswerable. I was blind, now I can see it. Well, they continued to kind of ride on this man. And the twenty ninth verse says, they say, We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we do not know where is coming from, where he is from. The man answered and said to him, Why, this is the marvelous thing.

16:12 You don't know where he came, where he is from, and he opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it's been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered him, You were altogether born in sin.

16:40 Are you teaching us? And they cast him out. They threw him right out of the... I don't know whether it was a synagogue or the temple. And Jesus heard that they had cast him out.

16:52 And when he found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of God? Now, the man wasn't quite there yet. He didn't quite understand who the Lord Jesus was yet. But he did know this one thing, didn't he? I was blind and now I see.

17:11 He didn't know that one thing. That was there for him. And Jesus said, and he answered, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. You know, in my mind, I can just see the light bulb going off in that man's head.

17:35 And he says, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. My imagination at least, I can see him falling down on his knees before the Lord Jesus, maybe grabbing around his knees and just worshiping. You are the Son of God. You are the Son of God.

17:53 Isn't it beautiful? Now, that's where we're going with the statement that the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath too. Now, we're gonna go back and continue in our chapter. Okay, so we're ready for verse seven. Now, what I want to do is I want to stress one more time the fact that there was this conflict going on and this man was showing Jesus a show of hospitality, but in reality, they were trying to nail the Lord Jesus.

18:56 So he's going to tell this parable. Then in the twelfth verse, it says, He also said to him that invited him, and he gives him some wise counseling. And then finally, in the fifteenth verse, it says, Now when one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, He said. And so, it's quite clear that we're still in this same sin. So, you're going to hear the Lord minister, it's in this context that He's ministering.

19:28 Verse seven, So he told a parable to those who were invited, and when he noted how they chose the best places, saying to them, 'When you were invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit in the best places, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him. And he who invited you come and say to you, Give place to this man. And then you began with shame to take a lower place. But when you are invited, sit down in the lowest place so that when he has invited you comes, he may say, Friend, go up higher. Then you will have glory in the presence of those that sit Now, reminding ourselves that we're talking to the Pharisees and that they were actively opposing the Lord Jesus, how could they escape where they were?

20:36 Well, only through humility. Only through humility. And the Lord ministers to them on humility. Humble yourself and let God do the exalting. Good advice for everyone, not just for them, for everyone.

20:52 Now, the next one, the next one, he's going to talk to the man who actually invited him, the one that was supposedly showing hospitality. Then he also said unto him who invited him, when you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends and your brothers and your relatives and your rich neighbors, lest they invite you back and you'll be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just. So, is this man has is is I I think it... The very fact that the Lord speaks like this is if you would have been in that feast, if you'd looked around, you would have seen seen all the important people in the town.

21:50 As far as as far as I know, the only one that would have been perhaps in that in that other category was the one man that was there for a plant. And and and he had been healed by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says, You shouldn't really do it this way, the Lord Jesus says, because you just do it to be repaid. But he said, If you really do it because of the need, and then you'll find that you'll be blessed from it because they can't repay you, you shall be repaid in the resurrection of the just. Now, one of the things that struck me in this story was this, that what the Lord Jesus placed before this man as a reward was a future prophetic event.

22:53 And the only way you could have entered into what the Lord Jesus said would be through faith because we're not talking about, You're going to get another reward for doing that right away. You're going to have to wait for the resurrection of the just for that one. And only faith could lay hold of that. Perhaps that's part of the message of this, is that it's only through faith that we're really going to enter into the promised blessing. Okay, we're gonna just jump on for the sake of time.

24:12 So, yourself of that. Then here goes the parable. A certain man gave a great supper and invited many. He sent His servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, Come, for all things are now ready. Just before we continue through the parable, I just want to suggest to you that that's the Gospel message, that that's what we're talking about.

24:41 If we stand up in front of you and say, Come to the Lord Jesus, we're talking about that come, come for all things are now ready and that this message is being sent out, Come, for all things are now ready. The Lord Jesus Himself said this, Come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew eleven twenty eight.

25:21 So the parable continues. And they all, with one accord, began to make excuses. The first said, I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. Another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I am going to test them.

25:48 I ask you to have me excused. Still another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So, the servant came back and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant. Was the master of the house happy at their response?

26:11 No, he says he was angry. God makes an invitation, doesn't he? He makes an invitation to us, Come. And God is displeased if we refuse his invitation. It's an invitation that he gives to us with open arms, Come, come, he says.

26:35 And so, what were their excuses? Well, first one said, I have bought a piece of ground. I must go and see it. Possessions, maybe. That oftentimes does seem to grip people so that they can't seem to yield the message, come to me of the Lord.

27:01 The second one, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. Perhaps this would be the busyness of life being so interested in the challenges of the business of life that there's no interest. There's no interest in coming to the Lord. And the third one is, I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come. This one is kind of interesting because it would seem to me that the idea here is don't let any relationships, not even the closest family relationships, keep you from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.

27:43 This is no doubt what led to down the twenty sixth verse where it says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple. We look at that and say, What does that mean? We certainly find elsewhere in the scripture where it says we're to love our father and our mother and to honor them and we're to love others, our brothers and sisters. So it doesn't mean hate in that absolute sense that it almost seems to. What it means is hate to allow them to anyway keep you away from the Lord.

28:24 The call is so important and any excuse is unacceptable. Unacceptable because the consequences of it are so serious. Okay, so what's he going to do? What's the master going to do? So we're in the middle of the...

29:12 I just love those words, And still there's room. The message still goes out, doesn't it? Still there's room. And one of the things that I found was fascinating when it says, Bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind, those that feel their need. They know they need help.

29:35 And those are the ones that will come. And I just want to just point out to you that back in the thirteenth verse, he uses the exact same description, the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. Perhaps that's enforcement, maybe, that the Lord made clear. Look, look, they're the ones, who are the ones that are gonna come? The ones that feel their need.

30:07 Do we feel our need of the Savior? It's an important thing for us to understand that we need the Savior, but do we feel it? Do we have a sense of it? If we don't, we'll probably make excuses. Well, let's realize that we do.

30:24 All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all need to be saved. The servant said, Master, it's done as you command and still there's room. Then the master said to the servant, Go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled for I send you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. Why couldn't they taste his supper now?

30:54 Because they refused. They refused it. What are we going to do? Are we to refuse the invitation or are we going to accept it? You know, there's an interesting short little ditty down in, or little story, should say, in Revelation chapter three.

31:16 I'm just gonna turn to it because it has to do with the master's invitation. Revelation chapter three, And so, the church of Laodicea was accused of being cold towards the Lord and there was a rebuke that was put against them. And then in the nineteenth verse, the Lord speaking says, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. He's rebuking them. Does that mean He doesn't love them?

31:54 No, that's not what that means. It means he does love them. What does repent mean? Well, repent literally means a change of mind. I suppose it's like you and I are going along in our lives and we're doing our thing.

32:20 We're going along, we're doing our thing. This is the way we... And somewhere along the line, as we do this, somewhere along the line, we begin to realize that the way we're doing it isn't working out. Our lives are a mess. Our lives are a mess.

32:41 And so we realize God's way. We've heard the message. So we turn around, a change of mind, a change of mind. We turn around, we no longer wanna go our way. We wanna go to God's way and accept his invitation, his offer of salvation, his message of come.

33:02 That's it. So now, repentance. Therefore, be zealous and repent. And then the next verse is the one I'm really after. So this is the Lord speaking and He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

33:21 If anyone hear my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with me. I stand at the door. What door? Oh, perhaps it's the door of our hearts, or maybe, maybe we might better just say it's the door into our life. The Lord's like standing in front of us and say, I want into your life.

34:05 My mother had to punish me. And I really felt guilty. Felt like I'd really... Just a little boy, but I felt it. I felt it.

34:20 And Mother talked to me, to talk to me about the Lord Jesus. And I said to her, But, Mother, I do want Jesus to take my sins away. And she said, Donnie, if you mean that, you should tell that to the Lord. And I did. I got down on my knees beside my mother, and I asked the Lord Jesus to be my savior.

34:44 You know, isn't it interesting that in the Bible it says, You have to have faith like a little child? I'm example of the little child. I was a little child but I believed in the Lord Jesus. I trusted in Him. And so, stands at the door of our lives.

35:05 He knocks. He says, If any man hears my voice and opens the door, what is that voice? It's the voice, Come. That's the voice. It's the voice, Come.

35:16 If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and be with him and he with me. Do you want that? That's worth having, let me tell you. Fellowship with God. Fellowship with God.

35:36 I want to turn to one last verse in John one. John one. And verse 12. I'll start with verse 11. He came to his own, talking about Jesus.

35:58 He came to his own, his own did not receive him. That's pretty well where we are in our chapter, isn't it? He came to his own and his own did not receive him. But as many as did receive him, as many as received him, to them he gave the right, perhaps the privilege, to become children of God to those that believe on his name. As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.

36:36 Have you believed yet? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus yet? Have you come to Him? Do you feel your own need? Well, God is saying to you, Still there's room.

37:05 We thank you that he died on the cross for our sins. He provided a way of salvation. We praise your holy name for this, Father, that that we have a way that we can have our sins forgiven. And we pray, father, that each one here will trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We also pray that you'd bless our time with a baptism after this.

37:27 Praying in Jesus' name. Amen.