Grace or Law, You Choose
Mark 2:18-3:6
Message #8
We’ve got a ton of scripture today. We’re going to look at the final three confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees that wrap up this powerful five confrontation section of Mark.
Last message we saw the second confrontation in the message “Don’t Be a Pharisee.” Today I want to give you a good reason to never embrace any type of modern-day Pharisee-ism. We want to leave today, making a clear choice between embracing the grace of God in Jesus Christ or embracing the law of any current-day Pharisees.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor. It is his goodness toward those who have no right to expect God’s goodness. The Greek word (CHARIS) is also translated GIFT.
And so, we choose between receiving the gift of God’s grace or trying to earn our standing before God by following the law, whether the actual Biblical law or any of the hundreds of man’s versions of God’s law.
So, before we take a look at our first confrontation between God’s grace and man’s law, let’s get some background on fasting. God’s law set aside one day a year as a required day of fasting – the Day of Atonement. This was to be a time of repenting and humbling yourself before God. There were also “special fasts” called, usually during times of crisis, and there were, and there are good and appropriate reasons to fast.
But the Pharisees had made fasting an outward show of religion. Eventually, the best of the best of the most religious Pharisees were fasting twice a week just to make sure everyone knew how much more holy they were than the common people.
Mark 2:18 (NLT)
18 Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting (John the Baptist may have been in prison at this time – prompting his disciples to also fast), some people (NKJ= ‘they’) came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?”
“Jesus, if you really have ‘come from God,’ why don’t your disciples follow the MOST STRICT of the Religious customs, like the Pharisees do?” (a question we should ask).
And notice Jesus doesn’t say fasting is wrong. He implies that the wrong motive for fasting (like the Pharisees had) was wrong.
Mark 2:19 (NLT)
19 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can’t fast while the groom is with them.
Can you imagine going to a wedding and after the ceremony, you head over to the reception hall and it’s just an empty room – no food and no furniture – and the groom stands up and says, “Since you are all here to celebrate this joyous occasion we’re all going to sit on this hard floor and fast.”
The Bible says Jesus is the Groom, and all believers are the Bride (the Church) and when the Bride and Groom are together, it’s a time of great celebration – not fasting. And at this point, Jesus was with his “Bride-to-be,” the very beginnings of the church. And so, Jesus says, this is no time for your religious laws. The Groom and the Bride-to-be are just getting to know each other. But Jesus says there will be a time – soon enough – when fasting will be appropriate.
Mark 2:20 (NLT)
20 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Jesus was speaking of himself being physically taken away from his followers. Then there will be a time for his followers to fast.
But then, Jesus goes even further in his explanation with two more illustrations, both explaining that the New Covenant of grace is fulfilling the Old Covenant of the law. And he’s going to say this New Covenant of grace – in him – will never fit into the Old Covenant of the law. Here’s how Jesus illustrates it.
Mark 2:21-22 (NLT)
21 “Besides, who would patch old clothing (the law) with new cloth (grace)? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before.
22 “And no one puts new wine (grace) into old wineskins (the law). For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.”
Now, verse 22 has been used for all kinds of wild stuff thrown under the heading of “New Wine.” But the context determines the correct interpretation of the Bible, and the context here is clearly that the New Covenant of grace, in Jesus Christ, has fulfilled and therefore replaced the Old Covenant of the law.
Guys, Jesus Christ came to the burdened, to unburden them by his grace. The Pharisees came to the religious to give them laws to prove how religious they were. We see it in the Bible in the First Century, and we easily see it in our culture today. Embracing religious legalism proves how religious you are. Embracing the grace that comes in Jesus Christ gives you freedom and new life in him.
And so, now we move to our second confrontation between God’s grace and man’s law, and it’s going to get really heated now because Jesus is going to mess with man’s chosen granddaddy of the law – the Sabbath.
Mark 2:23-24 (NLT)
23 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat.
24 But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, why are they breaking the law (bum, bum, bum) by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”
They’re breaking the law by eating a handful of grain while walking through a field… God help them. And in fact, God – who is with them – is going to help them.
I think more than anything else that it was Jesus messing with man’s law about the Sabbath that really drove the religious leaders to kill him.
Why is it that the Pharisees then and some churches today choose the Sabbath over all other laws to make such a huge deal about? In “Christian-ese” churches that focus on the Sabbath above God’s other laws are called “Sabbath-keeping Christians.” But there are also other laws about our relationship with God.
Why do we never hear about “Have no other gods” Christians (first commandment)? Why do we never hear about “Have no idols” Christians (second commandment)? Why do we never hear about “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain” Christians (third commandment)?
Why did the Pharisees choose that particular law to make a huge deal about more than any other law, and why today do some churches choose to make a huge deal about that one law more than any other law?
Well, I Googled the biggest church we know that focuses more on the Sabbath commandment than any other. I read some early history of that church, where its founder had made three false predictions about the return of Jesus Christ. In the aftermath of that, the second-generation leaders decided they needed something new to keep their followers from going to other churches.
And so, they chose to focus on the Sabbath and dietary laws, neither of which the founder of the movement taught. And then to make it stick, the new Prophetess of the Movement said that she was given these new laws in a vision from God. That’s just how man’s religion works. It’s not pretty, but it’s true, and it’s very, very wrong.
But the Hebrew – Shabbat – where we get Sabbath, means rest. And rest is good… right? Who could use some? But when we add the burden of religious law-keeping to rest, doesn’t it become less restful?
The breaking of man’s Sabbath laws (not God’s, man’s) continues to be one of the biggest confrontations between the grace of Jesus and the religious law of man. And so here, Jesus is going to go back to the days of the law, and he’s going to show God’s grace existed then.
Mark 2:25-26 (NLT)
25 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry?
26 He went into the house of God (during the days when Abiathar was high priest) and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions.”
King David – Israel’s greatest king – broke the ceremonial law by eating the “Show Bread” in the Tabernacle because there was no other food.
Jesus is trying to show that God was a God of grace, even in the days of the law. But the Covenant of the Law was necessary in order to lead to the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of the Law proved that we could not be made right with God on our own. And in the Covenant of Grace, Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law, in our place, and then Jesus offers us his righteousness through our faith in him.
And so now, Jesus is really going to make his point about all this “man’s law about the Sabbath” stuff.
Mark 2:27 (NLT)
27 Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.
God made the Sabbath to meet our need – for rest. God did not make the Sabbath so that man could add a long list of man’s laws and then turn what God meant for rest into a heavy religious burden. Only man could do that!
And the Pharisees are the ultimate picture in the Bible of what it looks like for man to turn what God meant for grace into a religious burden, and Jesus tries to close the door on the whole thing in Mark 2:28.
Mark 2:28 (NLT)
28 So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”
Jesus is Lord of the Law and over the Law, including the Sabbath. Jesus fulfilled all of the Law in your place and on your behalf. And now, by his grace and through your faith, he offers you his righteousness in place of your sin, and that is something no amount of religious burden-bearing can ever give you.
Finally, in our third and final confrontation, we see the following.
Mark 3:1-2 (NLT)
1 Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand.
2 Since it was the Sabbath (bump bump bummm), Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.
The religious leaders are watching closely, not to see if Jesus has the power to heal, but to see if he breaks one of their little man-laws. And I do mean their little man-laws. Because the Scribes had written thirty-nine categories of things that are considered work on the Sabbath, and so if Jesus was going to heal this guy, he had thirty-nine legal hoops to jump through.
You can hear the Pharisees whispering, “Yeah, if he heals this man on the Sabbath, we’re definitely going to kill him for that.” And “How dare he be God on the Sabbath! Doesn’t he know how holy the Sabbath is?”
Jesus has got to be infuriated right here; watching these religious leaders be so much more concerned about their made-up laws than about God’s grace toward this man. And so, we read in Mark 3:3-4,
Mark 3:3-4 (NLT)
3 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.”
4 Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him.
Because they’re saying to themselves, “What do you mean good or evil, save life or destroy it? We don’t know about any of that – this is about OUR Religious Laws!”
And Jesus is miffed – he’s angry – and he is deeply saddened by the hard hearts of the religious leaders. How do I know? Because the Bible tells me so.
Mark 3:5 (NLT)
5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!
And then, look at this last verse. It says everything about those who are committed to protecting their religious laws.
Mark 3:6 (NLT)
6 At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus.
The supporters of Herod were called Herodians. They were an elite Jewish political group and normally opposed to the Pharisees. But now, they had a common enemy, Jesus. And so now, you have two powerful and influential groups working together to remove Jesus from their culture. That would be truly scary to live in a culture where that was happening!
But ultimately, it’s not about a culture trying to remove Jesus Christ. It’s about a choice that each of us must make. If we desire to seek God today – we must choose to either seek the grace of Jesus Christ or seek the law of the religious leaders.
And I promise you, the Pharisees in the Gospels do not represent God’s desire for you or God’s plan for you. God’s desire is that you would embrace the grace of Jesus Christ, that you would see that you could never be “made right” by keeping any amount of religious laws.
And because of that, Jesus Christ came to live a perfectly righteous life for you in your place, and then die on the cross to pay the full penalty for your sin, and then to offer you his righteousness as a gift of his grace. And you receive it all through faith alone by putting your full faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone as your Savior and Lord.
Please choose to seek the grace of Jesus Christ today.
Last message we saw the second confrontation in the message “Don’t Be a Pharisee.” Today I want to give you a good reason to never embrace any type of modern-day Pharisee-ism. We want to leave today, making a clear choice between embracing the grace of God in Jesus Christ or embracing the law of any current-day Pharisees.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor. It is his goodness toward those who have no right to expect God’s goodness. The Greek word (CHARIS) is also translated GIFT.
And so, we choose between receiving the gift of God’s grace or trying to earn our standing before God by following the law, whether the actual Biblical law or any of the hundreds of man’s versions of God’s law.
So, before we take a look at our first confrontation between God’s grace and man’s law, let’s get some background on fasting. God’s law set aside one day a year as a required day of fasting – the Day of Atonement. This was to be a time of repenting and humbling yourself before God. There were also “special fasts” called, usually during times of crisis, and there were, and there are good and appropriate reasons to fast.
But the Pharisees had made fasting an outward show of religion. Eventually, the best of the best of the most religious Pharisees were fasting twice a week just to make sure everyone knew how much more holy they were than the common people.
Mark 2:18 (NLT)
18 Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting (John the Baptist may have been in prison at this time – prompting his disciples to also fast), some people (NKJ= ‘they’) came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?”
“Jesus, if you really have ‘come from God,’ why don’t your disciples follow the MOST STRICT of the Religious customs, like the Pharisees do?” (a question we should ask).
And notice Jesus doesn’t say fasting is wrong. He implies that the wrong motive for fasting (like the Pharisees had) was wrong.
Mark 2:19 (NLT)
19 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can’t fast while the groom is with them.
Can you imagine going to a wedding and after the ceremony, you head over to the reception hall and it’s just an empty room – no food and no furniture – and the groom stands up and says, “Since you are all here to celebrate this joyous occasion we’re all going to sit on this hard floor and fast.”
The Bible says Jesus is the Groom, and all believers are the Bride (the Church) and when the Bride and Groom are together, it’s a time of great celebration – not fasting. And at this point, Jesus was with his “Bride-to-be,” the very beginnings of the church. And so, Jesus says, this is no time for your religious laws. The Groom and the Bride-to-be are just getting to know each other. But Jesus says there will be a time – soon enough – when fasting will be appropriate.
Mark 2:20 (NLT)
20 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Jesus was speaking of himself being physically taken away from his followers. Then there will be a time for his followers to fast.
But then, Jesus goes even further in his explanation with two more illustrations, both explaining that the New Covenant of grace is fulfilling the Old Covenant of the law. And he’s going to say this New Covenant of grace – in him – will never fit into the Old Covenant of the law. Here’s how Jesus illustrates it.
Mark 2:21-22 (NLT)
21 “Besides, who would patch old clothing (the law) with new cloth (grace)? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before.
22 “And no one puts new wine (grace) into old wineskins (the law). For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.”
Now, verse 22 has been used for all kinds of wild stuff thrown under the heading of “New Wine.” But the context determines the correct interpretation of the Bible, and the context here is clearly that the New Covenant of grace, in Jesus Christ, has fulfilled and therefore replaced the Old Covenant of the law.
Guys, Jesus Christ came to the burdened, to unburden them by his grace. The Pharisees came to the religious to give them laws to prove how religious they were. We see it in the Bible in the First Century, and we easily see it in our culture today. Embracing religious legalism proves how religious you are. Embracing the grace that comes in Jesus Christ gives you freedom and new life in him.
And so, now we move to our second confrontation between God’s grace and man’s law, and it’s going to get really heated now because Jesus is going to mess with man’s chosen granddaddy of the law – the Sabbath.
Mark 2:23-24 (NLT)
23 One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grain fields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat.
24 But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, why are they breaking the law (bum, bum, bum) by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”
They’re breaking the law by eating a handful of grain while walking through a field… God help them. And in fact, God – who is with them – is going to help them.
I think more than anything else that it was Jesus messing with man’s law about the Sabbath that really drove the religious leaders to kill him.
Why is it that the Pharisees then and some churches today choose the Sabbath over all other laws to make such a huge deal about? In “Christian-ese” churches that focus on the Sabbath above God’s other laws are called “Sabbath-keeping Christians.” But there are also other laws about our relationship with God.
Why do we never hear about “Have no other gods” Christians (first commandment)? Why do we never hear about “Have no idols” Christians (second commandment)? Why do we never hear about “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain” Christians (third commandment)?
Why did the Pharisees choose that particular law to make a huge deal about more than any other law, and why today do some churches choose to make a huge deal about that one law more than any other law?
Well, I Googled the biggest church we know that focuses more on the Sabbath commandment than any other. I read some early history of that church, where its founder had made three false predictions about the return of Jesus Christ. In the aftermath of that, the second-generation leaders decided they needed something new to keep their followers from going to other churches.
And so, they chose to focus on the Sabbath and dietary laws, neither of which the founder of the movement taught. And then to make it stick, the new Prophetess of the Movement said that she was given these new laws in a vision from God. That’s just how man’s religion works. It’s not pretty, but it’s true, and it’s very, very wrong.
But the Hebrew – Shabbat – where we get Sabbath, means rest. And rest is good… right? Who could use some? But when we add the burden of religious law-keeping to rest, doesn’t it become less restful?
The breaking of man’s Sabbath laws (not God’s, man’s) continues to be one of the biggest confrontations between the grace of Jesus and the religious law of man. And so here, Jesus is going to go back to the days of the law, and he’s going to show God’s grace existed then.
Mark 2:25-26 (NLT)
25 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry?
26 He went into the house of God (during the days when Abiathar was high priest) and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions.”
King David – Israel’s greatest king – broke the ceremonial law by eating the “Show Bread” in the Tabernacle because there was no other food.
Jesus is trying to show that God was a God of grace, even in the days of the law. But the Covenant of the Law was necessary in order to lead to the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of the Law proved that we could not be made right with God on our own. And in the Covenant of Grace, Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law, in our place, and then Jesus offers us his righteousness through our faith in him.
And so now, Jesus is really going to make his point about all this “man’s law about the Sabbath” stuff.
Mark 2:27 (NLT)
27 Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.
God made the Sabbath to meet our need – for rest. God did not make the Sabbath so that man could add a long list of man’s laws and then turn what God meant for rest into a heavy religious burden. Only man could do that!
And the Pharisees are the ultimate picture in the Bible of what it looks like for man to turn what God meant for grace into a religious burden, and Jesus tries to close the door on the whole thing in Mark 2:28.
Mark 2:28 (NLT)
28 So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”
Jesus is Lord of the Law and over the Law, including the Sabbath. Jesus fulfilled all of the Law in your place and on your behalf. And now, by his grace and through your faith, he offers you his righteousness in place of your sin, and that is something no amount of religious burden-bearing can ever give you.
Finally, in our third and final confrontation, we see the following.
Mark 3:1-2 (NLT)
1 Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand.
2 Since it was the Sabbath (bump bump bummm), Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.
The religious leaders are watching closely, not to see if Jesus has the power to heal, but to see if he breaks one of their little man-laws. And I do mean their little man-laws. Because the Scribes had written thirty-nine categories of things that are considered work on the Sabbath, and so if Jesus was going to heal this guy, he had thirty-nine legal hoops to jump through.
You can hear the Pharisees whispering, “Yeah, if he heals this man on the Sabbath, we’re definitely going to kill him for that.” And “How dare he be God on the Sabbath! Doesn’t he know how holy the Sabbath is?”
Jesus has got to be infuriated right here; watching these religious leaders be so much more concerned about their made-up laws than about God’s grace toward this man. And so, we read in Mark 3:3-4,
Mark 3:3-4 (NLT)
3 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.”
4 Then he turned to his critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer him.
Because they’re saying to themselves, “What do you mean good or evil, save life or destroy it? We don’t know about any of that – this is about OUR Religious Laws!”
And Jesus is miffed – he’s angry – and he is deeply saddened by the hard hearts of the religious leaders. How do I know? Because the Bible tells me so.
Mark 3:5 (NLT)
5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!
And then, look at this last verse. It says everything about those who are committed to protecting their religious laws.
Mark 3:6 (NLT)
6 At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus.
The supporters of Herod were called Herodians. They were an elite Jewish political group and normally opposed to the Pharisees. But now, they had a common enemy, Jesus. And so now, you have two powerful and influential groups working together to remove Jesus from their culture. That would be truly scary to live in a culture where that was happening!
But ultimately, it’s not about a culture trying to remove Jesus Christ. It’s about a choice that each of us must make. If we desire to seek God today – we must choose to either seek the grace of Jesus Christ or seek the law of the religious leaders.
And I promise you, the Pharisees in the Gospels do not represent God’s desire for you or God’s plan for you. God’s desire is that you would embrace the grace of Jesus Christ, that you would see that you could never be “made right” by keeping any amount of religious laws.
And because of that, Jesus Christ came to live a perfectly righteous life for you in your place, and then die on the cross to pay the full penalty for your sin, and then to offer you his righteousness as a gift of his grace. And you receive it all through faith alone by putting your full faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone as your Savior and Lord.
Please choose to seek the grace of Jesus Christ today.