COV LIFE BLOG
Mark 2:13-3:6 – Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
| Jesus, in Mark 2, indeed says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, Jesus is saying the reason that God invented the Sabbath Day in the first place was for a blessing to us. He’s infinite; He doesn’t need to rest. We’re finite; we do need to rest. Therefore He provided for and even mandated rest so that we could neither deprive ourselves or others of the rest that we need. It’s a blessing of God, but the Pharisees had turned that blessing into a burden because they had missed the fundamental point of what the Sabbath Day was about. Isn’t it amazing that these men were all scrupulous about keeping the Sabbath, but it didn’t cause them the slightest tinge of conscience that they were trying to use God’s commandments to kill a man? And worse than that, the man that they wanted to kill was God in the flesh? Now, you see, their problem was not just a tiny over-correction in their interpretation of Scripture; their problem was they had missed the whole point. Now friends, you don’t have to be a legalist to miss the whole point of the Sabbath Day. You could be into your freedom and miss the whole point of the Lord’s Day, so don’t think that this is a problem just for the Pharisees. It’s a problem for all of us. We can miss the point if our hearts aren’t right, because you can’t worship the Lord unless your heart is set on the right thing. That’s the real key to your Lord’s Day. You want to enjoy the Lord’s Day? The only way to enjoy the Lord’s Day is to enjoy the Lord of the Lord’s Day. That’s the whole key to enjoying the Lord’s Day. If you don’t enjoy the Lord of the Lord’s Day, the Lord’s Day is going to be miserable! If you want to be somewhere else, you’re not going to enjoy the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Day is my favorite day of the week. I get up as early as I can; I stay awake as late as I can. It’s my favorite day of the week. Is that how you feel about the Lord’s Day? Or you just can’t wait till it’s over so you can get off to doing whatever else you want? You see, it’s real easy for us to look back at those Pharisees and say, ‘Oh, you nit-picky hypocrites…you legalists!’ But, my friends, our hearts can be just as wrong about the Lord’s Day as theirs were if we don’t worship the Lord of the Lord’s Day and enjoy Him more than we enjoy the pursuit of our own agendas and pleasures. Ligon Duncan SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY SONG FOR THIS WEEK |
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