Evening Service for 8/8/2010
“What Would Jesus Hate? Legalism”
HoHum:
One Sunday afternoon there was a drunken man who was staggering down a country path. He came upon a baptismal service at a pond. There were many to be baptized that day and the drunk, not knowing what was going on, got in the line to be baptized. Finally it was the drunks turn to be baptized. The preacher asked him, “Sir, did you found Jesus?” “No,” the drunken man said. With that, the preacher baptized him. The drunken man came up sputtering. The preacher asked again, “Sir, did you find Jesus?” “No,” the drunken man said. With that, the preacher baptized him again. The preacher asked again, “Sir, did you find Jesus?” “No,” the drunken man said. With that, the preacher baptized him again and this time made him stay under until his arms and legs were flailing. The preacher finally let him back up. The preacher asked again, “Did you find Jesus?” The drunken man said, “No, are you sure this is where he fell in?”
WBTU:
A. Talking about what would Jesus hate?
B. Talked about judging sinners, about dividing disciples.
C. Read Mark 3:1-6. We see here that Jesus was angry. We often have this picture of Jesus that he was so nice and kind and patient like a Mr. Sunshine.
Thesis: From Mark 3:1-6, let’s talk about 3 different people.
For instances:
I. The Man with the withered hand
A. We are not told if the man’s hand was withered from birth, or due to later onset of palsy, or some tragic accident in his work. We are only told that it was withered. In a time that virtually any form of activity, whether it is work or play or daily chores required the use of the hands, you can imagine how his entire life must have been hindered by this handicap. We may suppose the man was poor, because he would not have been worth much to any employer as workers with two good hands. He had to eat and drink with one hand, carry things with one hand, and if he was married, he could only caress the adored cheek of his beloved with one hand...perhaps only hug her with one arm.
B. This man was a faithful Jewish man. He was at the synagogue and the people there knew him. He could not attend services in the temple because of his deformity, but he had a right as a Jew to sit in any synagogue.
C. Where could a one-handed man ever go for any real sympathy and encouragement and help except to the people of God? Here he is, taking his usual place in the synagogue among his family and friends; people of this small Galilean village he had known all of his life, and he was there to worship his God in spirit and in truth.
D. Imagine this man coming to his church on that Sabbath Day and having Jesus heal him! What a glorious day it was for him! Notice, that the man did not request this of Jesus. Jesus just did it for him. The man did have some faith for he stretched out his hand and it was restored to normal. Is this why the man went into the synagogue? No, but what a glorious day for him!
E. What a wonderful day it was for this man’s family, for this man’s work situation, for this man’s self esteem. The Bible tells us: (Rom 12:15 NIV) Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. This man probably had been coming to that synagogue for years and what a wonderful day!
F. Great! Everyone was rejoicing. No, look at vs. 6. The Pharisees are not rejoicing. They are not even concerned about this man with the withered hand. Vs. 2 shows that they are not concerned about him at all. Even if they are not happy with Jesus and his teachings, at least they could have rejoiced with him over his healing.
II. The Pharisees
A. Steve Goodier- Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.
B. The Pharisees are the vultures. What they are doing here is looking for a violation of their Sabbath laws. I say their Sabbath laws because this was not in the Old Testament. One of their man-made laws was that one could not heal on the Sabbath. More specifically, a doctor or anyone giving aid to an injured person could do only what was necessary to sustain life in a life-threatening situation, but he could not lawfully dress a small wound, or bind up a broken limb or administer medication. That was work and work on the Sabbath was prohibited.
C. Notice that Jesus did keep the Sabbath laws in the Old Testament. Some specifics from OT were to cook food the day before, not light any fires, let animals rest, not cut wood (man was put to death in OT for doing this). Also notice that Jesus really did not even break the Pharisees laws in this situation because he didn’t touch the man at all. The man stretched out his hand and was healed.
D. Several things wrong with their attitude.
1. They were in a place of worship, and their whole attention was fixed on Jesus for the purpose of catching Him breaking their law, so they could accuse Him.
2. They, the religious leaders and teachers, should have been the ones most fervently praying; “Oh Lord, there is in our midst a dear brother with a withered hand. Bless him and do what is best for him.” Instead, they had no concern at all for the crippled man, his condition or his life’s circumstances or even his spiritual health. To them, in the hardness of their hearts, he was only bait. So hard were their hearts that they deliberately deafened their ears to Jesus’ words, closed their eyes to His acts of mercy, profaned worship with their murderous plots, and cared not one whit for a man who was less fortunate than they, and in fact, should have been specifically in their charge to care for.
3. They knew that Jesus would want to heal this man. They have observed Jesus enough to know what he would want to do. They should have given thanks to God for Jesus healing the sick, instead of using it for a way to accuse Jesus of wrongdoing.
E. Under normal circumstances this would have been good, but when it involved Jesus they through out all logic and said that it was bad.
F. Tony McCreery- A lady at a church where I was Youth Minister is a prime example. She had worked with the youth some. She was a fun person to be around. It was time for change, however. I knew it, the kids knew it, the preacher knew it, and everyone knew it. Over a period of time, we began to slowly make changes in the way things were done. Kids started coming to Christ and being baptized. God was doing great things in the church. The youth group was growing. Things were happening. She was mad because things were different than they always had been. She had the opportunity to take part in what was going on, but she chose not to. Why? Because she didn’t like the changes. She wanted to have things go according to how she thought they should go. She was more worried about tradition than about worship, more worried about the changes than about people. She was looking for problems rather than seeking the kingdom.
G. This reminds me of people who complain about too many baptisms, complain of too many people (they take their pew), and complain of too much money. It’s bad enough when people are nit pickers and fault finders. When they begin to find fault with things that make God and others smile, this is ridiculous and sad.
III. Jesus
A. Jesus cared about this man so much that he was more than willing to walk into the Pharisees trap. He knew what they were thinking. We see that from Vs. 5.
B. Jesus would not let these Pharisees stop him from doing good. (1 Pet 2:15 NIV) For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Notice who was silent in this passage vs. 4.
C. There are no acceptable excuses to stop doing good. People use excuses of: "But they did this or it won’t matter, it might get me into trouble, it’s not a good day, they are not from my church or denomination, they are such low lives". All unacceptable!
D. Especially with the Pharisees, Jesus spent a lot of time trying to correct their legalism= strict conformity to the letter of the law rather than its spirit ((2 Cor 3:6 NIV) He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.) LOVE W/O TRUTH = LIBERALISM – DO WHAT YOU WANT WE WILL LOVE YOU AND SO WILL GOD! A LIE! TRUTH W/O LOVE = LEGALISM – DO WHAT WE SAY OR YOU’LL BURN. BE LIKE US OR YOUR WRONG! A LIE!
E. Jesus hates anything that stops people from coming to him. Stand up in front of everyone vs. 3. “I’m going to break a rule and I want everyone to see it.” A good rule but taken to the extreme it represents something that gets in people’s way of Jesus.
F. The one thing that I see out of Jesus here is his compassion. He cared about people more than anything else. It mentions that Jesus had compassion on the people and then he always did something for others because of his compassion.
