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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's Word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.

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Now, it happened on the second Sabbath after the first. It seems that Luke is using the second Sabbath as a marker to show us how busy Jesus had been since the last Sabbath that was mentioned in chapter four. In just seven days, Jesus had cast out demons. He healed Peter's mother, ministered to people all evening. They came from everywhere, just when it got dark. He preached in synagogues, called his first disciples, cleansed the leopard, healed a paralytic called the apostle Matthew, and even told some parables. We see from the Gospels that Jesus was a very busy man. And it says now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first. If you really want to know what's important to a person, look at two things. First, look at how they spend their time. But secondly, look at how they spend their money. And from Jesus schedule, we see that his top priority was setting people like you and me free, because this was on the top of the list of the things that he did all day, every day between the Sabbaths. Some say that obtaining a work life habit if you want to be successful is a myth. I'm not sure about that. But I have learned to not only prioritize things that are on my schedule, but to be intentional about scheduling my priorities. And this is exactly what Jesus did. And by the way, if you're married, it's not about having time. It's about making time for your spouse and your kids and all else that's needed. So I have a growl in my heart this morning. And he's the lion of the tribe of Judah. And I can't explain it, but sometimes I just kind of hear a growl, Mr. Devil, it won't work. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. So it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that he went through the grain fields. The Holy Land at this time was a very rich agricultural society. It was full of barley and wheat fields. The land was full of farmers and the rest. And the Bible says his disciple plucked heads of grain. Now, the law of Moses made special provisions both for the poor and fortune and for hungry travelers. And travelers, at least three times a year would at least the men would all be required to go to Jerusalem for certain feasts. So God provided for people's journey back and forth to Jerusalem. Deuteronomy 23 and verse 25, Moses says, by the Holy Spirit, when you come into your neighbor's standing grain. You may pluck the heads. Watch this with your hand. You see, God didn't want anyone in his kingdom to go hungry. He didn't want it then, and he doesn't want it now. What I've learned is wherever God guides, he provides. And if he's not providing, check whether or not he's guiding your lifestyle choices. But you shall not pay attention. He said, use your hand, but then he says it in the negative. But you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain. In other words, he wanted folks to be blessed by the handfuls and not sackfuls. God wants us to be generous, but he also wants us to be wise. Pay attention to what I'm saying. Don't be that person that takes an inch or given an inch and you end up taking a yard. An opportunist or a family member disguised as a friend could be as devastating as a sworn enemy. Back to Luke 6 and 1. That was all free. His disciples plucked the heads of grain. These 12 men were in the perfect will of God. Jesus himself had called them. Jesus himself had led them to where they were. But these men still had very, very practical needs. And what I've learned is sometimes God provides for us through means we may feel too proud to consider. What we see is really the apostles here gleaning from charity. They were reaping from the benevolence of others. And I know for me, one of the hardest things for me to do is to ask somebody for something. I'm a little bit proud like that. And God's been working on me. But. But what I've noticed in my life, and it's probably the same in your lives. God wisely designs most of the doors in my life just low enough I must humble myself and bow my head to him before I enter. So, you know, I kind of wish that I could just, you know, walk in the door all proud and, you know, like, you know, it's me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But often I gotta humble myself and I gotta deal with myself in order to get through that door that God has for me. Only six of you understand what I mean? So they plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them. And this is where the problem was in their hands. This harvesting that they were doing, if you will, was a little bit like cracking peanuts. If you've ever been to five guys, you, you know, you gotta crack the shell to get to the nut. And some of the Pharisees were watching and judging the apostles and said to Them why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? This is important. Jesus did not have a problem with what Moses wrote in the law, but the things that the rabbis had added to the law over the generations. You know, by the time of Jesus, Sabbath law regulations got so intense, some people would not have a bowel movement on the Sabbath because they considered it work. Yeah, even in modern times. Back in the 90s, tenants in an Orthodox community in Israel let three apartment buildings burn to the ground. Why? How did that happen? Well, they went to ask the rabbi whether using the phone to call the fire department was a violation of the Sabbath or. Or considered work. And in the time it took the Rabbi to decide. Yes. Which was the right decision, fire spread from the one building to two neighboring buildings. You see, Jesus never violated the laws God gave to Moses for the Sabbath. But what Jesus did is he intentionally broke legalistic rules that were added to the law of Moses. God gives us grace to do what he says. He doesn't give us grace to do what everyone likes. And you gotta learn not to go beyond God's word. And, you know, as wise as you may think something is, it still is not on the authority of God's word. So he's having his thing. And everywhere he goes, he stirs up controversy because he doesn't like people trusting in the wisdom of the rabbis over the wisdom of the Holy Writ. So Jesus answers them and said, and by the way, it's never a good idea, never ever to try to lecture Jesus about the Bible. After all, he is its inspiration. Matter of fact, the golden rule of Bible interpretation can be summed up like this. When the plain sense of Scripture means makes common sense, seek no other sense, lest you end up with a bunch of nonsense. And what's being said there is what's written in the Bible. What's clear in the Bible is hard enough. We don't need to add anything else to it. So Jesus said, cut it out, stop it. Have you not read this? Even there you see sarcasm there? Have you not even read this? I mean, the sarcasm was palpable, literally tangible. Because Jesus understood not only did the Pharisees know the entire law, but they had to actually memorize it in order to become Pharisees. So he's stating the obvious. Haven't you, you know, read the law? Basically, you guys don't know what you're doing. Somebody said this, said, sarcasm is the body's natural response to stupid. So Jesus had taken on a body and became a man. And he said, to them. Have you never read? You see, he's digging in what David did when he was in need and hungry. What Jesus is saying, if you want to find fault with my application of Sabbath law, you must also find fault with King David. Because when David was in a life or death situation, when he was running from Saul, he did something only the priests did. And what Jesus is getting at is someone greater than David is here. And that person and his disciples were on a life and death mission of saving the world. And what Jesus was really saying to the Pharisees, y' all need to recognize who I am and what I'm doing. Now, if that king did that, how about the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? Matthew 12:3 gives more details, but he said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him. So not only did David eat the sacred bread, he gave it to those soldiers that were with him. Just as Jesus had just permitted his disciples. They said, do you remember how King David, he entered the house of God and there was a priest there and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat. Now, Jesus was not condoning disobeying the law and the statutes of Scripture, but what he was demonstrating is if the moral law and the ceremonial law ever were in conflict, the moral law is always superior. Have I already lost you? Okay, stay with me in a minute. It'll make a little bit more sense. So David, again, it looked like on the surface he violated the law to protect the lives of himself and his men. He said he ate what was not lawful for him to eat, nor those who were with him, but only for the priest. Let's say this differently. Let's say your mom taught you to keep your Sunday dress shirt clean. How many boys remember how hard that was? Yeah, her doing that would have been right and good. But let's say on the way to church, you saw someone, someone that you knew that was bleeding on the side of the road. Do you avoid the person in need to keep your shirt clean for church? Or do you help her knowing that it might ruin your shirt? What do you do? You mess up your shirt. Because mercy is a higher law than cleanliness. So Jesus is digging in. So he's schooling them on the Bible. And by the way, Jesus was unlettered. He didn't go to school like the Pharisees. So they're really taken back by this young upstart in his 30s trying to teach them about the Bible. But then he goes on he continues, have you not read in the Law, which he knew, they all memorized that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath. So the Pharisees fanatically banned work on the Sabbath. But they also forgot that the Sabbath temple rituals required work because the priests had to kindle the fire for the offering. They had to slaughter and prepare the animal. How many of y' all know that's a lot of work to clean an animal. They placed the shoe, bread, and on and on about the various things that they did. And not only did the law require those in the temple to work on the Sabbath, actually people bought double offerings on the Sabbath, so there was double work. So Jesus digs in here and says, now the priests profane the Sabbath. One greater than any priest is standing here, by the way. And yet they are blameless. He's saying, come on, guys, I need you to use your head. Stop just mindlessly committing to your tradition. Then Jesus really pushed the envelope here. He said this. Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. Now, at this time in Israel's history, the temple was considered God's throne. You had the mercy seat and the Shekinah glory was there. The whole thing was built for the presence of God. And as the Creator is always greater than his creation, and as no one, the one who lives in the house is always greater than the house itself. I mean, you let the house burn down to get the inhabitants out. This was a direct claim to deity. And reading statements like this throughout the Bible, we can only come to really one conclusion. If you're honest with yourself, Jesus was either a lunatic or liar or he was Lord. Anything else is only patronizing Jesus. He said, but if you had known what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. He quoted the principle in Hosea, chapter six and verse six. And again once, what he's saying, sacrifice was a ceremonial law. You had to, you know, do certain, you had to sacrifice certain animals and all the rest, that was ceremony. But the moral law, the Ten Commandments and other things just like that, when you put them together, the moral law was superior to the ceremonial law. So he's saying here, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. He's saying, more binding than ceremonial law, again, are the moral principles that underlie all the law. Do you get what I'm saying there? Matthew 27, 22, and 37. I want you to watch what happens. It took Moses 10 commandments to give us the principles, to underline everything else. That was written in the law. But watch what Jesus does. Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. He's telling him what the law is all about. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is, like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Watch this. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So if we understand the principles behind the rules, everything else becomes easy. It took Moses on Mount Sinai, ten commandments to sum up everything God had to say. Jesus was able to do it in only 2 Matthew 12, 7. But if you had known what this means. By the way, this narrative is told in Mark, Matthew and Luke, so we're kind of borrowing from each. But if you had known what this means, meaning if you had grasped the principle. And a lot of people, they just want, don't do this, don't do that. You've missed it. If you get the principle, everything else becomes clear. Now, I know you think I was born of a virgin and somewhere in Bethlehem, that's so not true. Years ago, when I was in process, I met Christ as a student at the altar. You know, my heart was saved, my body was trying to figure it out. And this little girl that I was seeing at the time, and I didn't understand all this commandment stuff, and I didn't understand his Bible stuff yet, but one evening, the Lord literally spoke to me. He said, boy, if you love that girl, you let her alone. Don't be giving her memories. I don't know it came to me that way. I know he spoke in proper English, but don't be giving her memories. She gonna have to forget. If you're not gonna commit to it, you need to quit it. I still feel a growl, just a little bit of growl. It's not about the rule, it's about the love. I shouldn't be defrauding my brother by laying down with his bride. You shouldn't be defrauding your sister by laying down with his groom. But if you had understood the principle, instead of just the legality and the legalism and got the principle of the thing, you would have gotten everything right. But if you'd known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned what the guiltless. Jesus had a clear conscience in all he said. He called himself guiltless. Imagine being probably less than 6 foot tall. I mean, he's standing in front of the mighty temple and all of these men, and he calls himself guiltless. The Scottish preacher John Duncan said this. One, Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or two, he was himself deluded and deceived, or three, he was divine. But after reading the Bible, there's no way of getting away from this logical trilemma. You see, you don't have to start by proving or even fully understanding Jesus is God incarnate. All we must find out over time is if he's a lunatic or a liar. If he's neither. And he said the things that he said. He must be the Son of God. I did not. When I went to the altar, I didn't understand the Trinity or the triunity. I didn't get any of that. All I knew is I was a sinner, I needed the Savior. I sensed the presence of God, and I was like, I'm in. But over time, as I began to listen to him and watch the things he's saying, I said, if he's a good man and he's saying things like that, he's either crazy or lying. And if he's lying, how could he be good? He says he's the way to truth and life. How could it be true if he's crazy? So at some point, you're kind of forced to say, you know, what he is, who he says he is. Luke 6. 5. And then he said to him, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. Imagine that Jesus is saying, I own a whole day. I mean, who owns a day? Even the federal government doesn't own the day. But Jesus looked them in the eye saying, I'm guiltless. And the one who created the seventh day knows best how it was designed to work. Now, I want you to keep in mind, when God gave the Jew in the Ten Commandments the command to keep the Sabbath, there was no major society on the planet that took one day out of seven off. I could probably go as far as say there was none. But I just can't prove that people at that time would work from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week to get things done that needed to be done. And you would think that by the children of Israel, God's people keeping the Sabbath, that instead of them doing better, they would do worse. But when God's people trusted him, they did more in six days than all the other nations did in seven. God has not changed. If God asks for 10%, it's because he's gonna stretch it to be like 110%. Because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If you trust God with whatever he asks you to Give him. He always turns it into more. That's his nature. That's who he is. And he said to them, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. In the first six days of creation, everything that was needed for humanity was created, except rest. On day one, God created the heavens and the earth. On day two, the sky. On day three, the continents and the seas. On day four, the sun, the moon and the stars. Day five, the fish, the insects and the birds. Day six, he created all the land creatures. And then he created humans. He created humankind. Everything that Adam and Eve needed to eat and to drink, to breathe and to live was already here. Except one thing. Rest. Genesis 2 and 1. We're gonna dig in after the creation. Watch what it said. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. God was done. And on the seventh day, God ended his work which he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done. Now he did not rest because God was tired. God did not need a nap. He rested because he was finished. When you realize everything you need, God has already provided, you'll be able to enter into rest too. When Jesus said on Calvary's cross, tetelos die, it is finished, he meant it. He was saying, I'm here to introduce a new Sabbath. Matter of fact, all of the ten commandments you see throughout the New Testament, except one, the Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath was fulfilled in the cross. And there was no outward thing that God wanted us to do that could even touch what Jesus did on the cross. And what we tend to do is we tend to replace real things with their symbols. And God wanted nothing to get in the way of what happened at the cross. So on the seventh day, he rested from all the work that he did, and he said that it was done. And. And then God, what did he do? He blessed the seventh day. So when Jesus said it was finished, he created a new Sabbath. Everything we would ever need was provided for at the cross. All we have to do is believe it. And when we do, we finally find rest for our souls. So if I go into my day believing that God has already supplied all my needs according to his riches and glory, if I go into my day knowing every problem that might arise, God has already given me the answer. He's given me everything that pertains to life and godliness. That's what the Bible says. Imagine if I went into my crises knowing it's already finished before the fight begins. Imagine going through a ten round Fight. And you know in the end you win even before you get in the ring. It doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, you're gonna get back up. Cause you know what happens in that final round. So the Sabbath rest is really a place of faith. It's a place where we trust. God's already promised. It's already done. I might not see it yet, but it's already. What has to happen is the cross has to become more than jewelry. It has to become more than what we place on a building. It has to become something in our hearts where we say, God has already done for me whatever needs to get done for me. It is finished. I can rest in the midst of anxiety, in the midst of depression. I can be at peace because God already got me. He knows the end from the beginning, and he's already predicted I win. But it takes faith to speak that way. So you got a problem at home. You're like, lord, I need you. I mean, yeah, talk to him and everything. Are you going to fix it? He's like, I already fixed it at the cross, so just come to me with some confidence. No one has already settled in heaven and talk to me like I'm a God who knows something and got some answers. And yes, bring your anxiety and all that to God. But when you leave the room, there ought to be confidence that this situation is already resolved and provided for. That gives rest to your soul. The reason we're so tired and exhausted, because we don't trust the cross. We trust what we see. We trust natural circumstance, but not the cross. But when you truly trust what Jesus did, there's a calm. You see, I'll never do anything perfect enough to be accepted by God. But I know Jesus did something perfect enough for me to be accepted by God. My salvation does not depend on me. It depends on Jesus. And as long as it depends on me, I'm in trouble. But it depends on the one who gave the sacrifice that God accepted. If God didn't accept it, he wouldn't have rose on the third day. You hear what I'm saying? So all these things matter. So then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work. He did this as a model for us, which God had created and made. You see every day in creation until we get to the second chapter. Every day ends with the phrase and the evening and the morning where there's such and such day. Let's show them on the screen. There's the first day, evening, the morning, second day, evening, the morning, third day, evening in the morning, the fifth day, fourth day, I can count. Evening in the morning, the fifth Day, evening, the morning, the sixth day. But watch what happens when it comes to the Sabbath day. Then God blessed the seventh day, sanctified because he rested from all the work he created. But absent on the seventh day is this phrase an evening and morning with such and such a day. Because the rest that God ultimately has for us is not confined to a 24 hour day. It's supposed to be every single day of our lives where we cease from our own work, cease from our own strength, stop and cease trying to get everything based on our own effort, and let God work for us, with us and through us, so we can obtain the rest that Jesus provided for us at the cross. The cross is not just a religious symbol. It's the place our debt was satisfied. It's the place where it was made so I could have peace with God, relationship with God. All the provisions, why did he carry that? Why did he have that thorn on his head? Because the earth was cursed. And then Adam had to work from the sweat of his brow. Why did Jesus have the thorn? Because he redeemed us from the curse. I no longer have to live by the sweat of my brow, the strength of my hand. I have God working in me, through me and with me. Confidence is not in me, it's ultimately in him every day and evening and morning with such and such a day. But if you want to enter into God's rest, all you have to do is meet him at the cross and he'll begin to work on every other, every single day of your life going forward. Now, here's the deal. The older I get in him, the better I get. You know, the older I get, the more I'm resting, the more I'm leaning, the more I'm trusting. And you know, everything's not. When you come to this altar, everything's not all just going to instantly, you know, just, you know, it's going to take a little time to enter the rest, recognizing that again, my God's already supplied all my needs. Just like everything that Adam needed to eat, everything he needed to breathe, everything he needed to stand on was already there. Just like when you have a baby, what do you do? You get the baby's room set, you put together the crib and everything. Do you think God didn't put together stuff before you got here? God knew what you need before you need it, and he provided it all. We have to do is trust him to tap into it. And when you have that mentality, there's a rest. There's an ease that comes in living. Did you guys get anything out of that? I gotta end as quickly as I thought.