June
5-7, 2021
PENTECOST
2
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text:
Mark 2:23-28
“WHEN JESUS IS
LORD…”
In 1 Peter 3:15 the Holy Spirit had
the Apostle Peter write these words, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as
Lord.” It was in a section where Peter was encouraging Christians who were
experiencing unjust suffering to still be winsome witnesses for Jesus as
Savior. The key to doing that was to have Jesus as Lord of your heart not
something or someone else. His words remind us of a key truth: if Jesus is not
Lord to you than nothing you do or accomplish or try actually matters and you
will mess up everything that God has given.
We have a great example of that in the
word of God before us. We have some familiar players. Jesus and the Pharisees. People
familiar with the Bible kind of spit out that word, Pharisees. If someone calls
you a Pharisee it is no compliment. They are calling you pompous and arrogant
and someone who thinks they are better than everybody else. Please remember
that the Pharisees started out as the good guys. They were a religious sect of
the Jews that tried to be very zealous for God. They accepted the Old Testament
as the words of God. They cared very much that God be honored and His laws kept
fully. They even added all kinds of protective laws around God’s laws in an
effort to really, really keep them and they demanded that everybody else keep
them too. Now how can people who are trying so hard to get things right get it
so wrong?
1.
You
know who Jesus is.
It’s because for them, Jesus was not Lord.
They didn’t know who he was. “Once
on a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields, and his disciples
began to pick heads of grain as they walked along. 24The Pharisees
said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”
You see Jesus walking with His disciples and your first impulse is to question
him. The implication was clear. “Jesus, why are you letting your disciples
break the law of God? Don’t you care about God’s laws?” Why? They saw Jesus as
a rival teacher of the law and not as the Savior from sin they needed. They saw
their way to having a relationship with the Almighty God was by doing the right
things. In their minds they could do those right things so they didn’t need a
Savior and so Jesus was not their Lord.
Is He your Lord? Do you know who He is? Maybe
for a summer project you decide to reread all 4 Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John. If you do that notice how focused Jesus is on His mission. He doesn’t
stop people from sinning but He talks plenty about sin. He doesn’t try to
overthrow the Roman government or wipe out crime, poverty or injustice. Instead
he carefully obeys all laws and slowly but surely marches into Jerusalem to
give His perfect life on the cross. He is Savior from sin. The one God had
promised back in the Garden of Eden who would crush the Devil’s head. And when
Jesus is Lord you know that.
Do you know that? Obviously you do. You
are here worshipping Him or doing so online. And yet we have to work to keep
knowing that. Remember those Pharisees? Remember they started out as the good
guys, accepting the Bible as God’s Word and zealous for His commandments. Hey,
that kind of sounds like us today, doesn’t it? While so many of our fellow
Americans don’t accept the Bible as God’s Word, we do. While so many are
rejecting the commandments of God we do accept them as absolute right and
wrong. Do you see the danger for us? The Devil could trick us into becoming
Pharisees. Some things to think about. If you are watching the news and you see
God’s holy will rejected over and over again is your first thought, “I wish God
would strike them down,” or “Good thing we have a Savior,” and “Come Lord
Jesus!” Is Jesus your go to guy when you want to use His “Love your neighbor as
yourself” to manipulate someone to follow rules established by man or your own
opinion or is He your go to every morning and every night as your earnestly
pray, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” fully expecting Him to because Jesus is
your Savior. Is Jesus primarily the fixer of all earthly ills or the one who
lets you have a smile on your face in the midst of earthly ills because He has
saved you for heaven? When Jesus is Lord, you know who He is, Savior.
You also know how to use the law. The
Pharisees sure didn’t. “The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing
what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?” 25He replied to them, “Have
you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry (he and his
companions)? 26He entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar
the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for
anyone to eat, except for the priests. He also gave some to his companions.” The
Pharisees had high respect for the law. But because Jesus was not Lord they
didn’t know how to use it. They saw the law and their ability to keep God’s
commands as their way to heaven. They thought that was why God had given it. In
other words they thought that God came up with the law and then He created
people to serve it. Jesus pointed out it was in fact, the other way around. “Then
Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So
the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Let’s go back to when the Sabbath was set
aside to begin with. It was in the perfect world before sin. In the creation
account we are told. “On the seventh day God had finished his work that he
had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had been
doing. 3 God blessed the seventh day and set it
apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work of creation that he
had done.” God set aside the Sabbath after Adam and Eve were created. It
was to be a blessing for them. It would serve them by letting them get rest. It
wasn’t to be used to keep hungry people from eating. That was the point of
referencing what happened with David. Only the priests by Old Testament law
could eat the Bread of the Presence which was bread that had been set offered
as a sacrifice to God. But when David and his men came and were hungry and that
was the only food available. God’s laws were there to serve people not people
to serve the law. The law was a blessing and since Jesus is Lord He tells you
how to use His laws.
2.
You
know how to use the Law.
And when Jesus is your Lord you know how
to use the law. As a blessing. It’s first purpose is to show us our sin. Can I
suggest another summer project? Pull out your Luther’s Catechism and review one
commandment and its meaning per week. If you do that you will discover you are
sinning a whole lot more than you are aware of. How can that be good? It will
help you hold on to Jesus as Savior. It will help you appreciate all that Jesus
has done for you. As one sainted Seminary professor used to put it, “You make
your sin small, you make your Savior small. What size Savior do you have?” I
have a big one. So do you. And using the commandments to make us conscious of
sin does that. The law is a blessing. The second thing you will see is that all
of God’s laws for all people were given with our best interests in mind, to
bless us. Whether it’s the laws that point us to God first and using His name
properly or valuing word and worship or protecting property and marriage, they
all make earthly lives better.
And other’s eternal lives better. In 1
Peter 3:15 Peter followed, “But in your heart set apart Christ as Lord,” with
“Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason
for the hope that you have.” When you get into those religious conversations
about what is right and wrong don’t have the law as Lord but Jesus as Lord.
Don’t merely answer the right and wrong question. Then it’s just a matter of
rules. Christian rules, Jewish rules, Muslim rules, Lutheran rules. Get to the
one who is Lord, Jesus. After answering the morality question, acknowledge
there is a lot of sinning going on and by you and that’s why God sent Jesus,
your Lord and Savior who is big enough for both of you. Amen.
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