Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A New Sabbath

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Who is Jesus? In Mark 2 and 3, Jesus makes a claim about himself that’s so immense it almost defies categories.  In this text, two incidents are detailed and they both have to do with how we observe the Sabbath day. To understand the magnitude of Jesus’ claim here, we have to unpack the meaning of the entire text and then ask what he’s actually claiming. Let’s look at the features of the story and learn from each of these: 1) the anger of Jesus, 2) the enemies of Jesus, and 3) the claim of Jesus and what that means for you. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 8, 2015. Series: Light in the Darkness: Glory of Jesus in Mark. Scripture: Mark 2:23-3:6. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. This month, we've selected a special set of sermons and talks from across the years that Tim Keller preached at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. This month's messages highlight themes like rest, idolatry, and integrating our faith with our work, each one rooted in the truth that the gospel truly changes everything. This morning's scripture is from Mark chapter 2 verse 23 through chapter 3 verse 6. One Sabbath day Jesus was going through the grain fields and as his disciples walked along they began to pick some heads of grain The Pharisees said to him look

Why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? He answered have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need in the days of a Biathur the high priest he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread Which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.

Another time, Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill. But they remained silent.

He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. The word of the Lord. These first weeks of the year, we've been looking at the early chapters of the Gospel

of Mark to come to some conclusions about who Jesus is. This is a traditional thing for the church to do in the early weeks of the year. Who is Jesus? And last week, if you're here, you would have heard or read and learned from a text in which Jesus offered forgiveness as sins. And the religious leaders who heard him do that were aghast because they said only God can offer

that. But if anything, in this passage, Jesus makes a claim almost more immense, which is kind of hard to imagine. But it's a claim so immense that it almost, I think, defies categories. There's no category for it. Now to understand the magnitude of it, it's gonna take us our entire time because we have to unpack the meaning of the entire text and at the end we'll come back and we'll say,

so what is this claim? What is he actually claiming here? There's two incidents here if you notice, but they both have to do with the Sabbath day and how we observe the Sabbath day. And so what I'd like to do is just take a look at the features of the story and see what we learn from each of the features.

I'd like to look at the anger of Jesus, which is mentioned in chapter three, verse five. Why is he so angry? Then I'd like you to look at the enemies of Jesus, the Herodians and the Pharisees. Why do they get together? And what does that alliance tell us? But then lastly, we want to look

right at the amazing claim of Jesus. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. So let's take a look at the anger of Jesus, the enemies of Jesus, and the claim of Jesus, and that'll help us understand, I think only if we do that, the magnitude of what he's saying about himself here and what that means for you. So first of all, the anger of Jesus.

In verse 3, chapter 3 verse 5 it says that he looked around at them and in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts. He looked at them in anger, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts. He looked at them in anger, deeply distressed for their stubborn hearts. Three very important words. First of all, the word for anger here that Mark uses to describe Jesus is a very intense word. It's not irritation.

It's not even just getting, I got mad. In the Greek lexicon, and Greek lexicon are usually not very, you know, they're not very rhetorical. The Greek lexicon said this word means anger at an epic scale. Anger at an epic scale. So he's not just irritated or kind of mad. There's epic scale. So he's not just irritated or kind of mad, there's epic scale and then it says distress which is a word that actually means to grieve as if somebody who died that you love has just passed away. So epic scale anger and incredible grief over what? Now it says

stubborn hearts. Is that it? Stubborn hearts? Well, now the word stubborn of course means both a mixture of hostility and blindness. A little bit like addiction. You know, addicts on the one hand they're in denial, they don't know what they're doing. At another level they do. They kind of do and they don't. That's what addiction is about. It's a little bit like that. But this word stubborn heart is an attitude of the heart that is both blind and hostile. And it's a little hard to imagine why Jesus would be so furious. I mean, epic

scale and grieved over the way they treat the Sabbath? Well, let's take a look at this for a second. I mean, the trigger is their attitude toward the Sabbath. In the first passage, the religious leaders are upset because Jesus and his disciples were picking grain on the Sabbath. In the second, they're upset because Jesus is doing medical treatment, as it were, on the Sabbath. And the religious leaders of the time,

and we'll explain why they were doing this in a minute, had put so many regulations around the Sabbath that the things that Jesus were doing were technically illegal. There were many, many, many things that the religious leaders said you can and can't do in the Sabbath. There were at least 39 forms of activity

that were not allowed and there were other forms that were allowed. It was all laid out to the millimeter, practically, of what you could do and what you couldn't do. You could walk this far but not this far., was all laid out, you know, to the millimeter, practically, of what you could do and what you couldn't do. You could walk this far but not this far. It was all laid out. But what is the Sabbath for? The idea of rest, what's its purpose?

What's it mean? And the idea of rest is to restore, replenish, repair. In a sense, when you take your rest, you're restoring, replenishing your strength and kind of repairing yourself so that you can get up and go on with your life and your work. And so here is Jesus about to restore a man's hand.

It says, down there, it even uses the word restore, which of course, which we get our word rest from. The Pharisees had created so many laws around the Sabbath, trying to make sure that nobody violated the Sabbath, that what Jesus was doing was technically illegal, except it was restoring. That's what the Sabbath is for, to restore. And so the rules, the legalistic rules,

had thwarted the very purpose of the Sabbath, which is bad. Why? Jesus was mad. But can we really say epic scale? I don't believe he's actually angry simply at an over-scrupulous approach to the Sabbath. He's looking at something deeper,

an attitude that the religious leaders had toward the law of God itself. Because see, when he says up in verse 27, which is an interesting phrase, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, I think there's a secret, because Jesus is not just talking about the Sabbath, he's talking about the law of God in general.

Let's translate that. The law was made for us, not us for the law. God's law was made for us, not us for the law. And you know what that means? The law of God, Jesus says, is a gift, not a chain. It's a gift, not a burden. It's a gift from a loving God who gives it to you, saying this is how you'll thrive and find your true self.

Not a chain by a tyrannical God saying, I'm gonna make you sweat, I'm gonna restrain you, I'm gonna restrict you. The law of God is something that keeps you from being happy, but you're just gonna have to put up with it. That's the chain idea, as opposed to the gift idea. The law of God is, and obedience to the law of God is the way to thrive and find your

true happiness and the desires of your heart. And what Jesus is saying is those are two different approaches to the law of God. And the one that makes him furious is the attitude of the heart that sees the law of God not as a gift, not as something that's for us, but actually as a burden, something that's against us, something that's over us, something that is crushing us. That's what makes him unhappy. Not just simply the Sabbath observances, but it's that very attitude toward the law and it's an attitude of the heart, of course. It's the heart that upsets him. Now where did that attitude come from? You gotta go, we're gonna keep going back.

You gotta go back to Genesis. In Genesis three, two and three, God puts the human race in paradise and he gives him only one law. Only one law, it's amazing. He says you can do anything you want. There's only one law. You see that tree

Don't eat the fruit of that tree. Just that one anything else is fine. Just that one But what's interesting is there's no indication of why? There's no indication of why God says don't eat that tree or anything of that tree but he doesn't say why and Because he doesn't say why that that means a lot. He doesn't say, don't eat that tree because it tastes terrible, just terrible. No, he doesn't. Nor does he say, don't eat the fruit of that tree because if you do, you'll drop dead. It's poison.

It's poison. Nor does he even say, which he could have, he says, don't eat the fruit of that tree because it's high in calorie and low in nutrition, and just to make sure you see that it's in your best interest not to eat the tree, I'm gonna put a little, one of those labels, you know, which tells you that sugar and carbohydrates and calories

and things like that. See, if he had done that, then if he'd said don't eat that tree, and here's the reason why it's in your best interest not to, See, if he had done that, then if he'd said, don't eat that tree, and here's the reason why it's in your best interest not to, but he just says, don't eat a tree, and it doesn't tell him why, that means he was calling not just for a particular kind of behavior, but a particular relationship to him.

See, that law was also requiring an attitude of heart. See, that law was also requiring an attitude of heart. It was requiring that you understood, basically God was saying, obey me just because you trust me. Just because you trust that I'm infinitely loving, good and wise. Obey me just because you know that I'm God and you're not and you willingly embrace that and gladly trust me to be God

So obey me not just that but obey me because you trust my goodness my infinite goodness love and Wisdom and of course, you know the story when the serpent came in the serpent didn't immediately say eat that tree Here's what the serpent said. He says, you know, if you eat of that tree, your eyes will be opened. And what's he doing? He's going after the heart. What he's saying is you realize that God has told you you shouldn't eat of that tree

because he does not have your best interest in mind. Because if you obey God, you will miss out. If you obey, you will miss out. If you obey, you will miss out. God does not have your best interests in mind. There's all sorts of potential you'll never reach if you obey God. The law of God is not a gift, it's a chain, it's a burden. It's not a way to actually find

the deepest desires of your heart. It's a restriction so that you will not never, it will squelch the deep desires of your heart. That's what the serpent said. And once the heart attitude changed, of course they ate. But here's the point. The point is that the lie of the serpent has actually gone into every human heart. Every single human heart. Every single one of us believe that.

That if we obey, we'll miss out. That you really can't trust God to be in your best interest. That the law of God is not a gift, but a chain, a burden. And here's the thesis, my thesis is, because that's in every single human heart, whenever any human being at all faces a moral norm, a moral absolute in general, or the law of God in the Bible in particular, every single possible, there's a huge range of possible responses but every single one of them is informed

by the lie of the serpent. The lie of the serpent comes into play whenever somebody says, you must not, thou shalt not, whenever that happens. However you respond to it, is informed by that lie. Because that's the attitude of heart. That attitude of heart, not just you're kind of legalistic, you need to loosen up Pharisees,

you enjoy yourself on the Sabbath. That wouldn't be enough for epic scale fury. What he's trying to say is there's something in your hearts that is treating the law of God not as a gift, but as a chain. And that's why the anger. Now, I just said, here's, we need to get into the second point like this. I just said that the full range, every possible human response

to a moral absolute or to the law of God is informed by that, by the lie of the serpent. You say, how can that be? Some people obey the law of God, some people don't. Point two. Let's go to point two. Let's look at the enemies of Jesus for a second. Who are these enemies? It says verse six, then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Now every commentator, every historian that knows anything,

says this is one of the most extraordinary verses. You know why? Well, who were these people? The Roman Empire, because it had taken over all these countries and cultures, was essentially imposing Greco-Roman, Hellenistic, pagan ideas and codes of conduct, and they were spreading over the whole empire even into countries that were very, very different culturally and of course one of them was Israel, one of them was Judea. And there was an enormous conservative reaction. Many in Judea felt

like they were being overwhelmed with a cosmopolitan, licentious, pagan immorality, and so they put up these huge walls, and the Pharisees were a big part of that. That's one of the reasons why they didn't just say obey the Sabbath day, they said here's all the things you may or may not do. Every single one of the biblical commands had just tons and tons of high barriers around it

saying you can do this, you can't do that. It was a conservative reaction to what was perceived as being a creeping immorality, a creeping licentiousness. The Herodians were the people who actually supported the secular power, which was Herod. The kings were called Herod. The Herod's were the rulers of Israel, but they were put in place by the Romans. And the Herod's and the Herod's were the rulers of Israel, but they were put in place by the Romans.

And the Herod's and the Herodians were people who supported the secular power and the Hellenization of culture. The Pharisees were their absolute enemies who were trying to hold on to the old conservative ways and the traditional moral values. And somebody, I heard once somebody said, well the Herodians and the Pharisees

are a little bit like blue state liberals and red state conservatives. And I want you to know that that's not fair because as much as you may think that we have a polarized culture, the differences between blue state liberals and red state conservatives are nothing like this. These people were sworn enemies.

These are people that would kill each other in a dark alley if they found each other. These are people who were total enemies. And that's the reason why Morna Hooker, who's a Cambridge scholar, she's a historian at the University of Cambridge, in her commentary in the Book of Mark, she says this, an alliance between the Herodians and the Pharisees,

two groups completely opposed to each other in attitude and in interest, is extraordinary. Mark shows us that Jesus was opposed both by religious authorities and by the secular power who ordinarily hated each other to death. Why would these two groups that utterly hate each other agree on this, this guy's got to go, we've gotta kill him. It's extraordinary. And yet, we've already laid the groundwork of an answer already here.

How so? See, Jesus, the reason they were both mad is that when Jesus met a moral person, a religious person, or when Jesus met an immoral person, an irreligious person, he told them both they were lost. So when he met, in John chapter four, the lady, the woman at the well, who had had serial husbands and lovers, he said, you're lost, you need eternal life.

But one chapter earlier, when he met Nicodemus, who was the Pharisee of the Pharisees, he was a religious ruler, a leader, morally scrupulous, a Bible teacher, a theologian, he said, you are lost, you need to be born again. So when he, here's a spectrum of possible ways of dealing with the law of God. At one end of the spectrum, people who say,

oh, there's no right and wrong, or I can live any way I want. At the other end of the spectrum, people who say, oh, there's no right and wrong or I can live any way I want. At the other end of the spectrum, highly moral. In fact, loading regulations on top of regulations, highly moral. And yet, Jesus says, you're all lost. You know why? Here's my thesis. They're all lost because they're all cut off from God personally, because even the people at this end that look like they embrace the law of God, all of their attitudes toward the law of God are being informed by the lie of the serpent in our hearts. All of the attitudes toward the law are completely controlled by the conviction

that the law of God is not a gift, it's a crushing chain burden weight. How so? Well, it's not that hard to see that people at this end of the spectrum, people who say, I can live any way I want. Or, you know, I guess at the far end of the spectrum of attitudes toward, of human responses to moral law,

at the far end of the spectrum, you've got people who say there is no right and wrong. They're relativists. They say everybody has to decide what is right and wrong for me or you. You can get a little more moderate and people will say, well, I see some things in the Bible that are good and I accept those, but there's other things in the Bible

I can't accept, I just can't. That's not healthy or that's regressive or something like that. Now here's what you've got. These are people who are informed by what? The deep conviction, the law of God, they do not believe that everything God says in his word and tells you to do is there to help you thrive,

is there to help you get liberated so that you don't get enslaved to other things, is there to help you find deep satisfaction, is there to turn you into a person of greatness? Is there to teach you habits of the heart? Of love. In other words, nobody there actually believes that every single thing God tells you to do is a gift from a loving God who says,

this is the way you'll thrive, this is the way you'll be free, this is the way you'll be satisfied, this is the way you'll turn into the person the way you'll be free, this is the way you'll be satisfied, this is the way you'll turn into the person you really want to be and need to be. Nobody down there believes that. They see the law of God one way or the other as a burden or a chain. Oh, okay, well how about over here? How about the devout?

And how about the very, very devout? Do they see the law of God as intrinsically, that obedience is just intrinsically pleasing to God? It's intrinsically liberating, satisfying? Do they obey the law of God just to know God, just to please God, just because he is God? No. At this end of the spectrum, people are saying,

if I obey the law of God, in fact, that's why I want to add regulations, because I want to nail it. I want to totally nail it. I want to say I'm absolutely perfectly compliant with the law of Sabbath, or this law or that law, then I can turn to God and say, now you owe me. You have to answer my prayers.

You have to give me a decent life. You can't let that bad thing happen to me. I have my rights. I'm a taxpayer. I've paid my dues. You owe me. In other words, the attitude toward the law of God is, I'm gonna use the law of God to pry blessings

out from under the clammy hands of this tyrannical God. If I don't live an incredibly good life, I can't do that, but if I do live a good life then God owes me. There no way is there a sense in a person, in very moral people, there's no way there's a sense that the law is just a way for me to become liberated, to a way to learn how to love. And therefore, everybody on the whole spectrum, I'll say this again, every single human response to moral norms in general, or the moral law of God

in the Bible in particular, whether you reject it, whether you embrace it, it's always informed by the lie of the serpent and that is it's a burden, it's a crushing thing. God has worked through Tim Keller's teaching to help countless people discover Christ's redemptive love and grow in their faith as they learn how the gospel is the key to every aspect of life. This month, we're featuring a brand new book by author Matt Smethurst titled Tim Keller on the Christian Life.

In it, he distills biblical insights from Tim Keller's nearly 50 years of sermons, books, and conference messages, including each of the sermons we've highlighted on the podcast this month. The book explores foundational theological themes from Tim Keller's work, like grace, idolatry, justice, prayer, suffering, and more. It's a resource that we hope will help you apply the gospel more richly to your everyday life.

We'll send you a copy as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the good news of Christ's love with people all over the world. Just visit GospelinLife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. I'm either gonna reject it because I think it's a burden in a chain,

or I'm gonna use it to force God to give me the things that I want. It's not intrinsically a wonderful thing. Look, when I was falling in love with my wife, I never forget going to her and saying, aren't the things you want to change in me? Tell me what you'd like me to do differently. I mean, I wanted her to love me. I wanted her to like me. And I actually wanted to make changes. I remember she had a list. One of them very nicely could be said to be. I mean, I want to, you know, I need to show honorable reticence here and discretion. I guess I could say there was one category that you might

put, call the area of personal hygiene. And I was okay with that. That's great. Okay. Okay. Except, you know, when my parents had talked to me about it, it was a chain, it was a burden, no way. But now to be told this is what I want you to do from her was a gift. Why? My attitude of heart. do from her was a gift. Why? My attitude of heart. Attitude of heart. I knew that it would please her and I knew that she knew also that she was also, she said, it's not just for me, you know, it's for other people. I'll get a little more serious. When I was a high school kid, when I was a high school kid when I was a teenager and living at home. I lived in a pretty morally strict home. And one of the rules was, it was a biblical rule,

was no sex outside of marriage, which is a biblical rule. And I gotta tell you, at the time it felt very restrictive and not a way to actually have joy in life. But you know, as time has gone on, I've come to see and not a way to actually have joy in life. But you know, as time has gone on, I've come to see if it is true what the Bible says, that sex is actually God's designed way for you to make a whole life commitment to someone else. It's God's designed way to actually

create a unit of community between two people that is incredibly, incredibly strong and yet intimate. And if you don't use sex in that way, according to the Bible, you actually ruin to some degree your heart's ability to make those kinds of long-term commitment. In other words, the Bible says don't use sex as a way of personal fulfillment,

not just as a way of just basically getting ego affirmation. Use it as a way of not getting ego affirmation but giving yourself to somebody else. I now look back on it and I'm very glad that what I thought was a very restrictive rule turned out to be a way of me able to develop a habit of the heart that took me into areas that are of richness I would have never known otherwise. Look, when Jesus says to both the moral and the immoral, you're lost. When the Herodians and the Pharisees said, this guy's got to go, they realized that Jesus is saying something that both moral and immoral people hate.

And it's because they have the lie of the serpent, we all do, in our hearts. We all do. And our attitude toward the law is informed by that, and Jesus rejects the whole thing. So here's my question. Why, I mean, what he's angry at is his attitude of the heart. And his attitude of the heart informs absolutely every

single, if it comes out, every time we confront the law of God, no matter how we respond to it, how can we get some kind of change here? What will liberate us from that? Because honestly, none of us have got anything like the joy and the liberation that the Bible says would come to those who gladly give themselves to the obedience of the king. And so lastly, here's how you get out of it. Here's the solution. It's the claim of Jesus.

It's this remarkable claim. I want to unpack it for you. And now we're finally in a position to see why it's so important. Verse 28, right in the smack in the middle, so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus is not repealing the Sabbath completely. When he says in verse 27, the Sabbath is for us. It's a gift for us. He's clearly not saying so you don't have to observe the Sabbath anymore. No, he's not saying that. But what he is seeming to do is he's also at the same time disobeying a lot of these regulations that had grown up around the Sabbath. What is that about?

Well, he gives us a very big clue when he gives us a biblical illustration. Up here he says in verse 25, when they're saying why are you doing things unlawful on the Sabbath, he says, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of a biathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread which is lawful only for the priest to eat and he also gave some to his companions. What's he saying here? At first sight it's a little hard to tell because David is, this happened in the Old Testament and it was when David was on the run for his life, he wasn't the king yet,

he was a fugitive and he went to the tabernacle and you know the tabernacle was the place where you worshiped God and you had the altar and you had the sacrifices and you had all the various ceremonies. And you also had a table. And on the table there was the consecrated bread. And it was part of the Tabernacle worship. Jesus says David went in there and ate the bread. It wasn't on the Sabbath,

there's no indication it was on the Sabbath. He wasn't breaking any Sabbath rule. So what is Jesus bringing this up for? He's talking about the ceremonies. You know, there's the Ten Commandments. Those are ethical laws. Don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery. But then there were lots and lots and lots of other rules that were called ceremonial

rules because they had to do with how you worshiped God. The tabernacle was a place where a sinful human being could go into the presence of a holy God. How could that be done? Well, the tabernacle was a whole set of ceremonies in which you had to clean yourself, you had to wash, you couldn't touch this or that, you couldn't eat this or that,

you had to refrain from this or that, and then when you went in, you had to bring a certain kind of sacrifice, that kind of sacrifice, not this kind of sacrifice, and then you could go in and worship. It was really a kind of enormous object lesson, trying to show people that you can't just go into a holy God, something has to be done.

Something has to be done to bridge the gap between you as a sinner into a holy God. Something has to be done. Something has to be done to bridge the gap between you as a sinner and the holy God. And so you had all these ceremonies, lots and lots of ceremonies, and Jesus is saying, even David realized that the ceremonial law was temporary. It was provisional. It wasn't an abiding thing. It wasn't like thou shalt not kill,

thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery. The laws, and some of the, evidently, some of the ceremonial laws around the Sabbath or about what you could eat or about what you could wear, about what you could touch, and what you did in the tabernacle. All of those things, Jesus is saying, were temporary. And even David knew they were temporary.

That the sacrifices weren't there forever. So you have a lot of laws in the Bible, in the Old Testament, that are not ethical laws so much as they're ceremonial laws. They have to do with the temple worship and how you connect to God, how do you get into a relationship with God. And Jesus is saying those are actually,

he's hinting here, those are actually temporary. David knew they were temporary, I'm telling you they're temporary, including these things that you've put up all around the Sabbath. Temporary, okay, until what? And then he says it. The son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. That's a bombshell. Because when he said I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, everybody said, wait a minute, wait a minute, isn't God Lord of the Sabbath? And Jesus is directing us to I'm the Lord of the Sabbath, everybody said, wait a minute, wait a minute, isn't God Lord of the Sabbath?

And Jesus is directing us to think about the origin of the Sabbath. Come with me for a second. Genesis chapter one. God is creating the world, and then we're told he rested. Well, why? What does that mean?

God can't get tired. You know, when you and I rest, we need to restore our batteries. But God obviously doesn't ever need to restore our batteries. So what does rest mean? Well, the word Sabbath just means to cease. That's all it means, to cease. And what it meant was,

he said, it is finished. It's good. Nothing more needs to be done. And so the original Sabbath day, according to Genesis 1, was when God had been creating the world, and he basically said, it's finished. It's done. It's good.

It's paradise. Nothing more needs to be done. And when Jesus Christ says, but I'm Lord of the Sabbath, here's what he's saying. I'm gonna go to the cross, and on that cross, I'm going to say, it is finished. I'm gonna say, it is done. I'm going to say,

cease from your work. How would that be true? Well, Judith Shulowitz, some years ago, she's a fine Jewish writer and some years ago she wrote a great article, I think it was in, I don't forget where it was, but it was in New York Times Magazine, I guess, called Bring Back the Sabbath, over was over 10 years ago. And she was Jewish and had been raised with Sabbath observance and she'd gotten away from it. And then she realized she had been wrong and she wrote an article called Bring Back the Sabbath.

And the first half of it, she says this, she says, let me argue on behalf of an institution that kept workaholism in reasonable check for thousands of years. The weekly Sabbath. Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. But you cannot down shift casually and easily. Interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of the will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction. That's very wise. She says, what's great about the Sabbath always was it was a way that the entire community of people, your community came together and it was basically

a discipline down shift. You say we're not working. And she was right in saying that at one level we all need to cease from our work every so often in a very disciplined way. We need to really downshift Otherwise, we just you know, we we need it to restore ourselves So at one level we need to cease from our work our physical work. We need to cease from our work But then she goes further and said but there's that there's another kind of work we have to cease from and then she goes further and said, but there's another kind of work we have to cease from. And then she says, religious, you know, she's talking about the fact, people say, she was trying to also say it's good to go

to religious services on your Sabbath day. And here's how she defended it. She says, religious rituals do not exist simply to promote togetherness. They are designed to convey to us a certain story about who we are. The machinery of self-censorship must shut down too. We must still the eternal inner murmur of self-reproach.

And here's what she means. There's a rest underneath the physical rest that we need. Or you might say there's a work underneath the physical work that we need. Or you might say there's a work underneath the physical work that we must stop doing, we must cease. And she's called it the machinery of self-censorship, the inner murmur of self-reproach. Perfect example of that would be the great movie Charities of Fire.

You remember that movie? There's two guys and they're both working very hard. This is, I forget what year, but the early early 20th century they were both training to be in the Olympics. They were running in the Olympics for Britain. And they were both running in the 100 yard dash. And one was Harold Abrams and one was Eric Little. And their attitude toward the work, they were both training and working

very, they were exerting themselves physically. But their attitudes were very different. Harold Abrams never smiled. And he basically said, I've got ten seconds to justify my existence. When that gun goes off and I start to run, I've got ten seconds to justify my existence. What he was saying is I'm running to prove myself. I'm running to make sure I feel like I'm a person of worth. I'm running to achieve something. And even when he gets the gold medal, it's very clear in the movie

that he really isn't all that satisfied. It wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. He's working and working and working, but he's also, there's an inner work. It's the machinery of self-censorship, the eternal murmur of self-reproach. I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, but if I win this gold medal, maybe I will.

So he's working, but underneath, he's working to achieve a sense of worth. Eric Little is working, but he's actually got a sense of self-worth, because he says, and it comes from God, and he says at one point to his sister, he says, Jenny, God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.

Now here, they're both exerting themselves, but underneath, one is working and one is resting. You might say, the first guy is working even when he's resting, and the second guy is resting even when he's resting, and the second guy is resting even when he's exerting. You see, there's two kinds of rest we gotta cease from. And where does that deeper kind of work come from, that we need to prove ourselves?

Well, you know, if you come from a traditional society, you've got the pressure of your family, right, and what your parents want, what a burden, what a chain that is. Or if you live in Western society, especially if you come to New York, you're working to prove yourself, to make some money, to achieve your, you know, what a burden that is. What happens if you get religious? Well then you've got all these rules and if you do all these things then you'll go to heaven.

What a burden that is, what a chain that is. We need to cease from that work. We need to really, we need to have the rest that Eric Little had. How do we get it? When Jesus Christ said I am Lord of the Sabbath, he didn't just mean I have the power to change the rules. He's saying I am the Sabbath.

He says in Matthew chapter 11, come unto me. All ye who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest, I am the rest. How can he do that? Here's how he can do it. On the cross, when he said it is finished, what was finished? I believe he's saying this, I have just finished the work

that you are being crushed under. All of us know that we're not what we ought to be. The Bible explains that, go back to Genesis three, when Adam and Eve lost their relationship with God, they put fig leagues on themselves, remember that, why? Because they knew there was something wrong, and we've been working exhausted, it's exhausting, ever since, to get rid of that sense that we're not what we ought to be and Jesus Christ He says I have completed the work that's crushing you

Whether it's a religious work, whether it's traditional society work, whether it's Western society whether you're irreligious whether you're religious I have I Have finished the work. I've lived the life you should have lived. I even died the death you should have died for your sins. And now if you come to the Father through me, he looks at you and says, I'm satisfied. There's nothing more you should do.

It's finished. You're accepted. The verdict is in. And that's the reason why Hebrews chapter four says, therefore there is remains of Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God's rest rests from his own work just as God did from his. Oh, and you know how Jesus achieved this rest for you? By cosmic restlessness. When he was on the cross he was saying,

my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I thirst, I thirst, what's that? Restlessness, why? He got the restlessness you and I deserve so that we could get the rest that he has won for us. And you know what this means? That's what will change the lie of the serpent in my heart and your heart.

If somebody just tells me, God is love, you should trust him, okay? But I don't. But if I see him doing this, he's Lord of the Sabbath because on the cross he said it was finished, crushed under the weight of our sins. If I see him doing that for me,

then I begin to say, I can trust him. And slowly but surely, it's slow, it's slow. Christian brothers and sisters, it's slow. Because that lie is still there. But bit by bit by bit, it can be killed. And the more it's killed, the more you treat the law of God, the way I treated Cathy's, you know, mandates as a great way to get closer, as a great way to please the one Cathy's, you know, mandates.

As a great way to get closer, as a great way to please the one I was falling in love with. As a great way to become more aligned. You see, see religion says, if you obey, then God has to accept you. But the gospel says, because God has accepted you radically through the infinite cost to himself, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Now that changes that fear and that mistrust in the heart and now you'll want to obey. That's the gospel. And so what is the great claim? Jesus Christ is actually replacing all religion with himself. I'm the bread of life. I'm the final sacrifice.

I am your Sabbath rest. You don't need any of these other things. I'm the tabernacle, I'm the temple. You see what I mean by saying there's no category for the immensity of this kind of claim? Let me end like this, Dick Lucas, years ago, I've never forgotten this, and some of you may have heard me use it before.

It's so wonderful. Dick Lucas says, if you want to understand how radical this claim is imagine an early Christian in the Roman Empire talking to a non-christian friend His neighbor the neighbor comes and says I understand you're a Christian. I love religion. The pageantry is wonderful I don't know much about this Christian religion. Where are your temples? And the Christian would say, well, we don't have any temples, Jesus is our temple. And the neighbor would say, no temples?

Well, where do your priests do their work? Well, the Christian says, we don't have any priests, Jesus is our priest. A priest, says your neighbor. Well, where do you offer your sacrifices to curry favor with the gods? The answer is we don't have any sacrifices anymore because Jesus is the final sacrifice

because Jesus is the God who's come to get us. We don't need a whole religious cultist to try to get favor with some remote God. Jesus is God come to us. And the neighbor would finally say, well what kind of religion is this? And the answer is it's not actually a religion in some ways. Or it's utterly different than any other religion.

Jesus is the bread. Jesus is the tabernacle. Jesus is the priest. Jesus is the sacrifice. When you have him, you have everything. Question, are you a religious person? Moral? Are you an irreligious person?

Skeptical? Or are you a Christian? Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I, only I, can give you rest. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the richness of this passage and the magnitude of the claim. And we ask that you would just simply help us to

know how to enter into that rest. That's the promise. And Lord, we admit, those of us who have admitted our need for a savior and have rejoiced in Jesus' words, it is finished. And we know we have a complete salvation that we don't have to add to, we don't have to keep living up to something to earn our salvation. And yet, the lie of the serpent stays in our hearts. We really don't trust you in so many ways. Continue to kill that, that lie, so that more and more we come to love and trust you because, oh my Lord, the love relationship with you is actually that which most completely satisfies the desires

of our hearts. Thank you for all the things that you've done for us in the gospel. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. in the classroom. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the Gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world with the life-giving power

of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelonlife.com slash partner. That website again is gospelonlife.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2015. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.