Jesus, Lord Over The Law

Most about Martin Luther is that he will make the most simple point with the most colorful language The most colorful way so in what we're talking about today, we're looking at what it means to faithfully follow Jesus and and Luther described our most basic problem being like a drunk man trying to mount a horse and Immediately while trying to mount the horse, the drunk man will fall off to the left, and then in an attempt to not fall off the left again, he'll mount and fall off the right side. And speaking of how we constantly kind of teeter and totter with legalism, adding to the law, thinking we're doing something to please God, and licentiousness, embracing a freedom to sin. These are the two basic problems As we think about salvation, as we think about how we walk in Christ and enjoy Christ, we're either typically insisting on our own personal freedom or our own personal regulation. We have to remember, as Sam opened up our service with a call to worship, we're saved by grace. We are saved by believing in the one Jesus Christ and what He has done for us. It's His work. that saves us and forgives us. And then remember, he then calls us to good works because he saved us. It's important as we think about this call to believe and trust grace and then to obey, to understand the difference between a command of scripture and a personal conviction. You see, a command of Scripture is something we see God giving all of us, that we should expect of each other. A personal conviction is something that I take personally, a truth from, an implication from the Word, that I don't impose upon others, even though I might encourage others. This morning as we look at Jesus, He's going to be addressing a misunderstanding of the law. A misunderstanding of how the law is applied to be lived out. And we really have five successive stories in Mark 2 and 3 where Jesus is getting questioned and challenged. So if you're new with us, we're in the Gospel of Mark. If you have a Bible, there's a Bible I hope in front of you. Please take it. Open it up. You can take it home with you. We're on page 837, Mark 2. going to go back a little bit. Look at the very first verse of the very first chapter. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark is writing to us so that we will know that Jesus is the good news in what He has come to say and what he's going to do. We have John the Baptist with the beginning of his ministry. And then if you look at the latter part of chapter 1, there's healing. There's, there's, there's touching a leper. There's, there's giving people their, their, their sight. He's going to, to heal men. He's going to cast out demons. He, people respond with amazement. His teaching has authority. His power is great. And then chapter 2 begins this series of confrontations. If you were here last week, you were with us, and Jesus confronts the scribes. Jesus says, your sins are forgiven, and the scribes rightly say, only God can forgive sins. And Jesus says, you are right, so that you know that I, the Son of Man, have authority to forgive sins. He says to the paralytic, stand up. And then after that, he calls tax collectors and sinners to himself. He invites sinners to be part of his mission, to be part of his ministry. And the Pharisees asked, why would you eat with sinners? Because the healthy don't need a doctor. The righteous don't need a Savior. I've come as the good news of Jesus Christ for sinners. Well, this week we're looking at the next three questions and challenges. The beginning of chapter two is the first two. If you look, the question we'll look at first, chapter two, verses 18 to 22, There's a question as to why Jesus' disciples are not like the Pharisees. Why don't Jesus' disciples fast like the Pharisees? The second question comes from the Pharisees. Why do you work on the Sabbath? Why do your disciples work on the Sabbath? That's chapter two, verses 23 to 28. And then finally, we see the question Will he perform a miracle on the Sabbath? That's chapter three, verses one to six. First simple outline, I'm going to give one word here for each of these sections. Rejoice, rest, repent. Rejoice, rest, repent. Let's look at chapter two, verses 18 to 22. Our heading is rejoice, Jesus is with us. Rejoice, Jesus is with us. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. So we have a bit of a helpful setting there. The people were used to their religious leaders demonstrating their faith, their commitment with fasting. And notice that the question, it comes from just the crowd. These are common folks wanting to know something from Jesus. Something's different. And the people came and said to him, why do John's disciples and disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Now fasting is the discipline of abstaining from food, your body's need for substance, for physical need. It's abstaining from that for some period. It could be one meal. It could be a half a day. It could be a day. It could be 40 days. It's setting aside your physical need for food to focus on your spiritual need in prayer. That's what it means to spiritually fast. And the three pillars of Judaism, as far as we can tell, of this day, were prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. The Jews, the Pharisees, they would actually call fasting the affliction of the soul. It was tied to the confession of sin, the repentance of sin. It was tied to the idea of grieving and mourning. There was something very, very important about it as a prerequisite to real religious commitment. And so you see here, the disciples of John, the disciples of the Pharisees, they fast. That's what the people see and they typically understand as being very religious. And so when they come to Jesus, his disciples, they're not fasting. They recognize there's something different about what he's doing and what his disciples are doing. And so I think it's just a really good, honest inquiry. The crowd comes, the common folk, they're observing. What's different? Why do these people fast and why don't your disciples fast? Now Jesus answers fairly indirectly. He does mention fasting, but he goes, he launches straight into a series of analogies, some parables, to teach them what's really going on. And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. So he's answering the question regarding fasting, but he's taking it in a different, he's putting it in a different setting. He's really emphasizing the idea of a wedding and how special the celebration is. As long as their bridegroom is with them, they cannot fast. A day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and they will fast in that day. When you have a party, you typically have a feast. The wedding day is a great celebration, where whoever's throwing this celebration, the parents of the bride, or the groom, or the families all together, they're gonna come together, they're gonna bring the best food, and they're gonna present the best wine, and there's gonna be great celebration. You say, you don't go to something like that and fast. Imagine if you had a graduation party. or a 50th anniversary party, or a retirement party, and you brought out the best food, you had the best catering, and you put all this work into this fantastic feast, and your guests came and they just said, no, we're taking a season of fasting. We're going to sit over here, and we're going to be somber and self-reflective, and the music's fine. I can just sit over here on the couch and don't mind us. We're here to support you, but we think we'll just abstain from all the fun and kind of just internally meditate over here in the corner. That's how I want to participate in your party. Be kind of supporting. No, we invested in this party. We want you to come and celebrate. It's not a time of affliction and grieving and mourning. It's a time of celebration. What Jesus is getting at with this teaching on the bridegroom, you don't fast when He's with you. I think He's pointing out that there's something very different about Him. Jesus has come as the Messiah, as God's own Son, and you do not fast and grieve and mourn while He's with you. You're to celebrate. He has come to be the one who is God Almighty to save his people. There's reason to celebrate. There's no reason to fast. There's also something here that the Pharisees, they wanted to fast to demonstrate how religious they were. Jesus' disciples, and Jesus doesn't need to demonstrate how worshipful they are. They're just seeking to honor God, to honor the Father. Now, I do want to make reference here, and I do think there's something curious about verse 20. Jesus says there will be a day when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. It's possible, Jesus here, by referencing a bridegroom image, he is pointing his people, the Jews, to remember the Old Testament. God told Israel, I am like a husband to you. I will love you perfectly. I will come and embrace you. You are my bride, Israel. There might be a picture here that he's trying to allude to, to help them see that he is the perfect God who has come down to be united with his people. You can see this picture in Hosea 2.19 and other places. And I wonder if verse 20 is actually even an allusion to his death on the cross. There will be a day of weeping. There will be a day of fasting for his disciples when the bridegroom is taken away. This might be the first reference to the cross, and Jesus will give many references to the cross. But the main point here is the crowds have an honest question. Why aren't you religious like everybody else? And I believe Jesus is saying, it's because I am the one who has come to present true religion. I am the God who has come to save sinners. I am the God who has come to forgive sinners. There's a great reason for celebration. There's no reason to fast. He's come to save his people. Jesus is different. Now we keep looking, and he goes on to explain with two more parables. Notice they both start the same way, verse 21. No one does this, no one does that. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth to an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it. The new from the old, and the worst tear is made. You don't take a new patch and put it on an old piece of cloth. It'll tear away. It won't work. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins. The old wineskin is not fit for the new wine. The new wine is destroyed. It doesn't work. Jesus has come to be the perfect fulfillment of the Old Covenant. He is the yes and amen to every promise. When he's speaking of new and old, let's not think this is like New Testament, Old Testament contrast. No. The picture here is something different. I believe what he's challenging them with is that if they have a preconceived notion, an old cloth, an old wineskin, if they themselves have a preconceived notion of what religious looks like, Jesus isn't going to fit that. Jesus fits with what the Fathers already said in the Old Testament. He's a perfect fulfillment of all the things God has said, but our preconceived ideas, our own ideas, our own imagination, our own preferences. Jesus doesn't work as a patch on those. Tears away eventually. That old wineskin of what we think our Savior should look like. That old white skin of what we think God should be like. When Jesus comes into that, it bursts. It doesn't fit. Jesus is teaching them, I'm not what you expect because you're not reading my Father's Word. When you expect me to be like the Pharisees, and again, they're the most conservative, He doesn't fit their preconceived notions. There's a great difference. Now, I want to be very clear here. Jesus doesn't fit their preconceived notions, what the Pharisees are doing, or what John's, the Baptist disciples are doing. Jesus comes to establish a relationship of love. I believe that's one of the things that's confusing about what Jesus has come to do for his people. They're amazed and they're astonished with the kind of teaching he does. They're amazed and astonished that he declares your sins are forgiven. Let me clear, he's established a relationship. I also make clear, he's come to establish a religion. Christianity is a religion. There's a way to be saved. You believe in Jesus and all he's done, and then there's a way to live. There's a relationship. Jesus loves us, therefore we love him. And then there's obedience, because Jesus says, if you love me, you're going to keep my commandments. Jesus isn't anti-religion here. He's just simply saying, I am not going to fit what you preconceive to be religion. I've come to establish the way to God. I've come to establish the righteousness of God. If you think about this, Jesus has come as a bridegroom, and because He's with us, because He's the one true God, because He's different than all the other religious leaders in the history of the world, He is the one true leader of religion, right religion, to know God and to rejoice in Him, to obey Him. We should be celebrating. The bridegroom has come to love us perfectly. The bridegroom has come. There should be great rejoicing. Obedience to that bridegroom who loves us. It shouldn't be burdensome. Brothers and sisters, I encourage you, lift your drooping heads. Put off the grimaces and grumbling. Have gratitude that Jesus has come. He's died for our sins. He's risen again. He's a son of the right hand of the Father, and He will return. I believe here when you say that the joy of the Christian has a buoyancy to it. We don't live in a world where we're void of or ignore difficulties and burdens as if we're just always fasting and grieving and mourning. No. We're celebrating that Jesus Christ is here, and we seek to live out His Word because the Bridegroom is with us. He isn't going to match what we expect Him to be in our own imagination. He is who God has, the Father has sent him to be. There's a challenge here. If we're frustrated in our religion to Jesus, if we're frustrated in our commitment of following Jesus, I think one of the first questions we have to ask, are we frustrated because we're trying to put Jesus on a patch of what we think he should be like? There's a real challenge here that we should be rejoicing in who he is and submitting to him. The second teaching, the second question and challenge, it actually does come from the Pharisees. Our first point, rejoice. Jesus is with us. Secondly, rest. Jesus is the Lord of the law. Verse 23, our setting is important. One Sabbath. Again, when you're going through the Gospels, you know something's gonna happen that's gonna be pretty dicey. The Sabbath was the setting for most standoffs between Jesus and the religious leaders. One Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. So a simple image here. They're walking through the fields, and as they're walking, they're just grabbing grain to satisfy hunger. Verse 24. And the Pharisees were saying to Jesus, look, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Now let's just pause here and contrast this question with a question from the crowds. Earlier, the crowds, in verse 18, I think they're just making a good, honest inquiry. Why are your disciples different than the Pharisees? The question for the Pharisees is not just a good, honest inquiry, is it? What is it implying? Why are you doing what's unlawful? It's a question that has an accusation tied into it. They're already assuming some guilt here. Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? If we were to look at the Mishnah, one of the, the rule books that the Pharisees followed, they had 39 very specific rules for what you could not do on the Sabbath. The Mishnah is not the Bible. That is a tradition that, that they came up with because, Pat read Deuteronomy earlier on the Sabbath. It, there's not a lot of detail as to what it means to not work. And so the Pharisees, wanting to be religious, wanting to obey God and honor God, I believe with an honest heart, they said, well what does that look like? What does it mean? What does it mean not to work? And so they came up with different rules. Some of these rules. You can't tie a knot. You can't fix a roof if it falls. You can't reset a dislocated hand. That's not life-threatening. You can wait another day. You can't write more than one letter. Two, that's work. So we can see here that they have extra rules that they're trying to impose upon Jesus. I also wanna make it very clear, Jeremiah 23, 25 says that plucking grain from your neighbor's field is perfectly legal. What the Pharisees are having trouble with in Jesus is one, they've determined how far you can travel. I think they're concerned about how long they're taking a journey. And two, they're going to interpret plucking as reaping, and that's work. All right, so let's remember, Jesus just said, if you take a new patch and you try to put it in an old garment, it's gonna tear away. Imagine what kind of tearing away you're gonna feel right here in this next section. They asked Jesus a question, assuming guilt, and he says to the Pharisees, the men who insist that they're the ones who interpret the law, have you never read? You feel the tension there? He's not trying to lower the tension of this problem. He's taking these men who assume guilt, and he's asking them, have you not read? Are you completely ignorant of God's word? He's not lowering tension, he's raising it. Have you never read what David did? When he was in need and was hungry, now that's a very clear, important qualifier, he and those were with him. How he entered the house of God in the time of Abathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him. Have you, have you not read 1 Samuel 21? That's the story he's referring back to. David is being pursued by Saul. In the midst of this pursuit, they are, they're famished. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're dying of hunger almost. The word there is intense hunger. And so David comes to the priest and says, do you have any bread? And the priest comes out and he says, no, I, I don't have any common bread, but I do have the bread of the presence. David knows they can't eat it. It's holy bread. The men aren't priests. And the priest says, are any of the men unclean? Have they been with a woman? No, we're men at battle, waging war, a holy war for our God. We are clean. And so the priest makes a judgment call and says that the bread of the presence, which is a holy bread only for priests, he takes it to feed their hunger. The common point here is hunger leads to death. God's Word and His laws are for life, and at this moment, Jesus' disciples, they're taking food for life, and David's men, they're able to take this holy bread for life. Some people try to argue that David was a priest and that's what made it okay. His men aren't priests. The whole point here is that God and His Word are for our good. And for whatever reason, as we look at the Word of God, in God's wisdom, in God's power, David's men were able to eat when they were hungry, even though it was holy bread. It's interesting, as Jesus referred himself back to maybe the bridegroom of the Old Testament, it does seem like he's likening himself to David here. David, the righteous king of Israel, Jesus is saying, I'm not just like David, I think he's actually pointing out that I'm greater than David. I am not just like David, and my men were hungry, so we're gonna take something that you at least say is unlawful. Verse 27, if the patch wasn't already tearing away from that old cloth their religious system, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That's a general rule. The Sabbath was made for man and our good. And so the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He's telling them, who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do on the day I created? Who are you Pharisees to come and tell me what, what's lawful? I'm the author of the law. I'm the one who breathed out and, and made the six days, and then the seventh day was set aside for rest. I'm the one who gave Moses the very law. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. I would say he's Lord of the Sabbath in many ways because he created it. The Sabbath also points us to Jesus. See, the Sabbath is the last day of creation. It's a day that points to what the goal of creation is, and that is to rest in God. Jesus comes to do all the work for us so that we can truly rest in Him. So that we can abide in Him and all the great work He has done to save us. He is Lord of the Sabbath because He frees us from the idea that we have to obey the law enough to be good. He's God who is good for us. He's God who has come to give us rest because of the work He's done. Now it leaves the question, what does that mean today for Sabbath laws? Is there a Christian Sabbath? What does it mean for Christians? Is there a law for us? Let me first point out, Jesus here is making it very clear to the Pharisees, you're leading a different kind of religion than, than God's religion. I am the bridegroom that's come down. I am David. I am the king. I am bringing about a righteous rule. I am the Lord of the Sabbath. If you want to know what worship looks like, follow me. He's confronting them, but there's always an invitation. Secondly, we need to remember that Jesus himself has paid the price for us. He has taken upon himself the guilt we have for not obeying the law. And then he gives us a new law. We're not free of law as Christians. You can go to Galatians 6. Bear each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. What it means to bear each other's burdens, let's say Isaiah's carrying a hundred pound burden. If I'm going to bear his burden, it means I'm going to come alongside and pick up the handle and half of it, so we're each carrying 50 now. We're carrying that big, heavy burden together. I'm wanting to take weight from Him by putting on myself. That's what it means to walk alongside of each other in love, fulfilling the law of Christ, the one who has borne our burden of all our guilt before God. He's calling us to come alongside of each other and bear each other's burdens. That's the main focus of what the law of Christ is, according to Galatians 6. Is there a Christian Sabbath? I don't think so, but I'm happy for the disagreement about that. The Jewish Sabbath was a day set aside for not work. That's what marked the day for the Jews. It was not working. It was a reminder that you could trust God to provide for you. It was a way of building faith. The Sabbath was designed for man to learn how to trust God. It was marked what they did not do. The Christian's day is Sunday. The Jewish religious day was the last day of the week, a day you did not work. The Christian day of worship is the first day of the week, and we're marked by what we do. The first day of the week is because Jesus rose today. We're here to sing of the resurrection, to remind each other of the resurrection, to remind each other that this isn't the only life, that Jesus Christ has risen, and we're to follow him. We're supposed to be marked by what we do. What are we supposed to do? Bear each other's burdens. Today's a day where we gather to reflect upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to know how we can bear each other's burdens. Organizing this day around the life of the church so we know how to care for one another and love one another. If you think about it here, Jesus is challenging their wrong notion of worship. I want to challenge this of one of our problems in worship. The American church is known for this. We are known to worship at our work, work at our play, play at our worship. Worship is a serious call. It's an invitation from Jesus to say, come and know me, come and follow me. It isn't Jesus saying, come to me and there's no more expectation or law. He's saying, come and I will give you the right understanding of what is expected. I'll come and give you the right peace and joy. that only my Father can give. He is Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord of our rest. He is our Lord of the law, who helps us understand exactly what God has done for us and what's expected of us. Our third point, our third section. the last of the five series of questioning and challenging Jesus. We see there, first, the crowd questions Jesus. We rejoice in him because he's with us. The second is a rest. The Pharisees challenge him. And then we just have an all-out, awkward standoff. Verse one of chapter three. Our heading here is repent, Jesus will save you. Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him." Now, the idea here is that this might be the same day. It seems to be the same day. On the Sabbath, whereas he's already had a confrontation with the Pharisees about plucking grain, he's now entered the synagogue. And this man with a withered hand, probably sitting in the corner, not realizing how central he's going to be to a significant dispute. All the people are there, they're watching Jesus. Is he gonna notice, like he always does, someone who needs help, is he gonna see the man with a withered hand? and heal him, and notice at the end of verse two, there's a motive stated, so that they might accuse him. They're waiting to launch. Jesus, being God, knows what's going on. He said to them, is it lawful in the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? The one thing we keep seeing drive throughout these passages is that what God has determined, what God has said, what God has positioned Himself for man, is always for man's good. The law is good. The Sabbath is good. The tabernacle was good. The tabernacle was good because it reminded us we're too sinful to go straight to the presence of God. We need a mediator. We need help. We need cleansing. The Sabbath was good because it reminded us we need to trust God. Would Jesus get into the main focus, the main heart of who God is and what He's doing? Are we worried about doing good? Is the goal of the Sabbath to make sure people remain in harm? Is the law meant to harm you, or is it meant for your good? Look at the people's response. Mark intentionally always lets us see the response. Remember, there's been amazement. There's been astonishment. What kind of teaching is this? Who is this? Notice their response at the end of verse four. They're silent. Sounds like indifference. It sounds like there's, there's just confusion. They don't understand. They're silent. They don't understand who's speaking, the Lord of the Law, the Lord of the Sabbath. They don't understand what He is and what He's come to do, the Son of God, to save sinners. They're silent. They're so blind they can't see. The goal of God is to do good. To save lives. There's no response. Verse five, and so he, speaking of Jesus, looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. You can feel that patch ripping away from those preconceived religious ideas. They wanted a Jesus who was, who was going to be strict with the law. They wanted a Messiah who was going to affirm how strong, and how strict, and how clever, and how clear their extra traditions were. And Jesus coming, no, God is a God of goodness, and a God of life. And you just feel the, the patch ripping away, because they sit there in silence. And Jesus being the one who has come to do that good, and to save that life, He's angry. He's grieved. because their hearts are not open. Their hearts are hardened because of their commitment to their own religion, not God. And so just as this series started in chapter two, when Jesus wanted to make the point that he did have the power to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, stand up. This series ends in the same way. To make a point, he says to the man, Stretch out your hand. A man with a withered hand, a man who could not have opened his hand beyond a miracle and a good work from God, stretch it out, and his hand was restored. Now what you should do at this point, if you're there, is be amazed. Be astonished. Look at what the Pharisees do. Verse 5. They went out and they immediately held council with the Herodians. Let's stop right there. Don't read ahead. Herodians. Herodians were Jews who cooperated with the Greeks. They were Hellenized Jews. The Pharisees despised Hellenization. The Pharisees are working with people they despise because they despise Jesus more. It's funny how a common enemy can make enemies friends. The Pharisees went out and immediately held council with the Herodians against him. How to destroy him. This is meant to be a sobering series of five stories that begins with Jesus showing he has the power to forgive sins. And we want that Jesus, because I hope we see we have sinned against God, and we need a clear conscience. We need washing. We then see that sweet story where Jesus goes and he invites the outcast of society, the tax collector, the sinner, come and dine with me. I am here to heal the sick. I am here to forgive the sinner. And then we have these series of confrontations. I'm not like other religious leaders, Jesus says. I'm the bridegroom. I am the love of God. Sit down to you. I am not like the Pharisees. I don't have extra rules. I'm actually like King David. I'm going to bring perfect righteousness. I'm not like these Pharisees. The law is not meant to hinder you. It is meant for your good because it is from God who is good. And out of their hardness of heart, He demonstrates who He is with the sign of the paralytic and the sign of the stretched hand. And all the Pharisees can do is want to plan His destruction. They're so committed to their old cloth They're so committed to their old wineskin, they're so committed to their system of religion, for whatever reason, that they want to destroy the one that keeps making the tear stronger. So we ask, as we always do at the end of these sections, who is Jesus? He's good. He is our good God who has come down to do what we need for our good. He took the wrath we deserve. He gives His righteousness and sonship to us. He rises a new life so that we can be alive with Him. He ascends to the reign of the Father so that we can come to the Father in His name. He mediates for us and gives His Spirit. Everything that is good towards us, it is through Jesus. He's the Lord of the Law. He gives us light in the midst of darkness. He's good. What is our reply? We could be like the crowds and just sit there silently, indifferent. Thinking Jesus is just like anybody else. Jesus is not like the other religious leaders that you'll run across because Jesus does not say, I need your obedience for you to follow me. I need you to come to me and I will give you all you need. I am the good God who will care for you. Do not sit there in hard-heartedness and refuse to respond. Don't be silent. Because the Bible says if you will confess that Jesus is Lord, if you'll confess that you're a sinner and you believe in Jesus to be your Savior, you will receive all the good benefits of Jesus. Don't be silent. Confess your sins to him and say, forgive me, Jesus. Your reply could be like the Pharisees. You could just hate Jesus. Because what Jesus says about us is hard to understand. He says we're sinners who will suffer an eternity of wrath. We are sinners that apart from Him will suffer an eternal breath. We are so bad. We've been so rebellious. There's nothing we can do to cleanse ourselves up, or to prove to God how good we are, because we keep rejecting Him. We keep rebelling. And so Jesus says, you must believe in Me. Really, at the end of the day, we either want to destroy Jesus, have nothing to do with Him, or we have to embrace Him. And we also know the Pharisees did accomplish that plan. Jesus was nailed to the cross. He submitted to those who were to destroy him so that he could die for even their sins if they believe him. If you aren't a Christian, do not resist him today. If you're not a Christian, if you never believed in Jesus today, confess. Do not sit there silently. Do not let your hard heart continue to turn in on itself and get harder and harder. I recognize Jesus is good. He's for your good. He died for you to give you what the Father has for you, which is good. If you're a Christian, We don't improve upon God's law by laxing its rules. We don't improve upon God's law by over-restricting them. When we look at the God's law and we first see the law teaches us first and foremost, we need a savior. The law first and foremost shows how often and how ridiculously much we fail in every way to keep that law. And so it first shows us how much we need to look to Jesus, how much we need to turn to Him and trust His grace. The first work of the law is to show us how sinful we are, so that we will then look to Him who is our Savior, and then we say, give us the grace that we might follow you in your law. What Jesus commands is good, just as what Jesus does for us is good. But we cannot separate His death and His resurrection apart from His teaching. We need to receive what He says about us. We're sinners who need Him. We need to respond to what He says to us. Trust me and obey me. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank You for Your Son who has come as the one who loves us perfectly. as the one who leads us perfectly, as the one who heals us, as the one who forgives us, as the one who saves us, as the one who has spoken a word of truth so that we can have a good word from You. Break our hard hearts so that we might be healed and cleansed and renewed by the power of Your Spirit sent from Jesus. Help us, Lord, to always see what You've done for us. Even in the midst of the hardest trial, it is good. Even what You say to us, even though Your commands, they seem almost impossible at times, but they are good. In Your grace, Your grace is sufficient to trust what You have done, to trust what You have said, Obey what you have commanded. Help us, Lord, to rejoice in the goodness of Jesus Christ. In his name we pray.