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Part 13 of 44
Wisdom and Wonder Series, Episode 1
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Welcome to Wisdom and Wonder, a brand new teaching series walking through the power and parables of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapters 12–20. We'll organize this journey into nine seasons, with each chapter representing a season and each message an episode. Together, we'll marvel at the wisdom of the Lord Jesus and unpack the parables—short stories that encapsulate powerful kingdom principles.
Before we dive into Matthew 12, let me introduce you to Matthew himself. He was a first-century Jewish man who worked as a tax collector for the Roman government. Tax collectors were despised; they would charge people more than they owed and pocket the difference. Matthew was wealthy through this corrupt practice. But one day, Jesus walked by his job and called him out of darkness into light, calling him into salvation and full-time ministry.
Matthew surrendered his life to Christ and eventually died a sacrificial death for Him. Yet he left us an incredible legacy: the Gospel of Matthew, the most read document in the history of the world. For over a thousand years, the church has used his gospel for discipleship. Never underestimate what God can do with a surrendered life. You have no idea what God will accomplish through your obedience.
Here at our church, we study line by line, verse by verse. This isn't about entertainment—it's about the Word of God. I want you to be more impressed with Scripture than with my oratory. Today we'll unpack Matthew 12:1–8, and we're calling this episode "I Desire Mercy."
Before we examine this text, I want to talk about something deeply dangerous to the Christian life: legalism. It often creeps into our hearts subtly or overtly, lurking in our minds.
About twenty years ago, I met a young brother in church who was married but his wife didn't attend. When I asked why, he explained that her pastor—her uncle—wouldn't allow her to visit other churches. He told me about the burden his wife carried: her church forbade makeup, ear piercing, movies, television, and wearing pants on Sundays. When I met her, she was mentally exhausted, emotionally broken, and spiritually anemic.
That sister was a victim of legalism—a powerful and dangerous word I would learn to understand years later.
Legalism is excessive, strict rule-following in an attempt to foster righteousness. It's an over-preoccupation with rule-following that supersedes the need to show love, grace, and mercy. In legalism, we care more about laws than about human beings.
Legalism rears its head in three main ways:
First, we make performance God's standard for righteousness. We think: if I pray enough, read enough, or do enough of something, then I am righteous before God.
Second, we make man-made rules and traditions God's standard for righteousness. For example, some say, "If you're not baptized, you can't be saved." But the thief on the cross next to Jesus was never baptized, yet Jesus said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." Baptism is the outer sign of what Christ has already done in your heart—it's the wedding ring of salvation, not the marriage itself.
Third, we make personal preferences God's standard for righteousness. We turn our personal preferences into doctrine. If someone doesn't use the King James Bible, we condemn them to hell because we love the King James. But that's a personal preference, not biblical doctrine. When we go into gray areas and make doctrine out of them, we create legalism.
Legalism creates false narratives of performance—things we must do to earn righteousness. It ruins relationships and destroys churches. It tears up minds and homes. It damages marriages.
But the worst damage of legalism is this: it diminishes the cross, the person, and work of Jesus Christ. Legalism says the blood was not enough. It suggests we must earn something from God to be righteous. But doctrine teaches us: when the Lord sees you, He sees you as justified and perfectly righteous, not because of who you are, but because He sees you through the blood of Christ. Your righteousness comes from where your Savior sits at the right hand of the Father.
Matthew begins our passage with a striking phrase: "At that time." This matters. Just before this incident, Jesus had said:
"Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Jesus was speaking to people living in a legalistic society—people frustrated and tired by religion. Now, immediately after this invitation, we see what happens:
"Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck the heads of grain and eat them. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, 'Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.'" (Matthew 12:1–2)
This is an agricultural society with no stores, no easy access to food. Food is scarce and a luxury. The disciples have been traveling with Jesus for a long time, and they're hungry. In God's providence, they walk through a grain field where they can satisfy their hunger. This reminds me that God always has a way to meet our needs—sometimes through a check in the mail, a handshake with someone holding a $50 bill, or a barber offering free haircuts. God divinely provides for His children.
The Pharisees were following Jesus in that field. What are they doing there? They stay close enough to watch His every move, looking for an opportunity to trap Him. We have people like this in our lives—hoping for our downfall, watching for a chance to betray us. My prayer for you is: "Lord, prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."
Historically, the Pharisees emerged in the second century BC from a radical group that split into two: the Essenes and the Pharisees. Both groups were serious about holiness and God's laws. The Essenes eventually left Jerusalem, built a community on a mountain, copied the Old Testament scrolls, and preserved them in jars—the Dead Sea Scrolls we discovered in the 1940s. These manuscripts, over 2,000 years old, prove the accuracy of Scripture today.
The Pharisees, however, became the teachers and professors of Israel. If you wanted to know God's Word and laws, the Pharisees had all the answers. They gained power and influence, sitting on the Sanhedrin—the supreme court. They wore long robes and large hats, prayed loudly on street corners to be seen, and prided themselves on being holier than everyone else.
Why are the Pharisees so upset about the Sabbath? Let me explain what the Sabbath is.
God created the world in six literal days and gave it order. On the seventh day, He rested—not because He was tired, but to set a principle. He blessed and made the seventh day holy. The Sabbath was so important that it became the fourth of the Ten Commandments:
"Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
God was teaching His people rhythm: work, rest, work, rest. There's nothing virtuous about being a constant workaholic. If God demonstrated this rhythm, He was teaching His children not to live out of sync. There's a time for rest.
The purpose of the Sabbath was simple: rest and to marvel in the goodness of God. That's it. Nothing more.
The Sabbath also distinguished God's people from pagan nations. All pagan nations had religion and sacrifices, but none had a Sabbath. When other nations saw a whole people shut down for a day, they knew these people belonged to a God they didn't know.
But thousands of years later, by the time Jesus came, the Pharisees had added to the Sabbath an entire book of rules, laws, and regulations that God never gave. The people became weary, burdened, and heavy laden with all these rules:
What was intended to be a day of delight in God's presence had become a day of misery and bondage.
This is what people were living under. Religious leaders had strapped yokes around people's necks with rules and regulations that made life too heavy to bear. Instead of enjoying this day with God, people were trying to get around it.
The Pharisees accuse Jesus: "Your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath."
But whose law? Look at Deuteronomy 23:25:
"If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand. But you must not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain."
God Himself gave permission to pluck grain with your hand. But the Pharisees, thousands of years later, said it was unlawful to do on the Sabbath. This wasn't God's law—it was human tradition.
Why did God allow this? When Israel came out of 400 years of slavery, they had wounded minds. God was teaching them as a farmer teaches those with fields to leave the corners unharvested:
Leave the corners of your fields for the poor and the foreigner, so they can see the generosity of God's people and know you serve a great God.
God was training them not to consume everything but to display generosity. He was teaching percentage giving and generosity—not because He needed it, but because generosity reflects His character.
Before you look down on the Pharisees, consider: How many of you have told someone, "You need to do this or God won't do that"?
How many of you have read Christian books that told you if you don't get up at 3:00 a.m. and spend two hours with God, He'll be mad? So you're waking up at 3:00 a.m. every day, miserable, feeling guilty when you oversleep—all because of a book you read, not because God told you that.
Your guilt is not coming from the Father. It's coming from bad doctrine you trusted without checking Scripture.
There are people under my voice right now with Christian practices you can't find in Scripture. Instead of enjoying Christianity, you're constantly feeling guilty about some area where you're "dropping the ball" from a noose you put around your own neck.
Legalism flourishes where there is ignorance of God's Word. You read more Christian books than the Bible itself. You pick apart Christian theology books but never spend time reading Scripture. That's backwards.
I've seen whole denominations built around one verse. For example, Deuteronomy says a woman should not dress like a man. But when Moses wrote Deuteronomy, pants did not exist. How can you take one verse and tell all women they can't wear pants, building a whole denomination around it, enslaving women who work construction jobs?
Or consider this: some pastors say, "If you don't tithe, you're cursed with a curse." But Scripture says the priests were robbing God, not regular believers. God wants us to be generous givers and percentage givers—not because He needs your money, but because giving reflects a heart of generosity.
Some of you read Christian books that don't have Scripture to support them. You trusted the author because they're famous or have a big following. Stop trusting every person with a title. Learn to love Scripture. Check behind people with Scripture. Stop reading Christian books that don't have Scripture in them.
I stopped using devotionals that take a passage and write a paragraph about what it means, then send you on a journey God never told you to take. My devotions now are New Testament letters. I spend months in books like Colossians and Proverbs. I'm not against all devotionals, but I'm against literature that doesn't support Scripture and calls itself Christian.
I saw a book titled A Christian Theology for the Biblical Support of Same-Sex Marriage. But you don't need to go past Genesis: "In the beginning He created them male and female... a man will leave his mother and father, be united to his wife, and the two shall become one." What biblical evidence can you possibly write to contradict God?
Don't take your personal preference and make doctrine to lead others into bondage. Some of you were under pastors who told you if you don't do something, God will be mad. You've been doing it for years, can't keep it, but it's legalistic. Who told you God requires that of you?
You're trying to read three chapters a day and can't do it because some book said you must, so your reading becomes a burden. But I could get three verses in and that's enough.
You've seen people who were prayer warriors, and they made you think you had to pray like them. You just got saved. They've been saved twenty years. They expect you to pray, fast, sacrifice, and give at their level. If you don't, God is mad at you.
This is different from righteous indignation against sin. I'm talking about man-made rules and regulations—things you try to keep in your own heart or impose on others.
If you think, "I missed my reading today and it hurts," ask yourself: Why does it hurt?
Now let's see how Jesus responds to this legalism. He says:
"Have you not read?" (Matthew 12:3)
The first thing He does is appeal to Scripture. If you had read, you would know you're wrong. Reading exposes error. Jesus combats legalism with biblical knowledge, not with false doctrines or arguing.
He then defends His disciples by referencing David:
"How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests." (Matthew 12:3–4)
Let me tell you the story. David was a young man who fought battles at seventeen. The king became jealous and hunted him for thirteen years before he became king. While on the run, David was broke. Men gathered around him—about four hundred men—all in debt, distressed, and broken. They weren't like that when they reached the top, though. You have to stick with somebody long enough to see God raise them up.
While running from Saul, they came to God's temple. Inside were six stacks of bread—one on each side representing the twelve tribes of Israel. No one was allowed to eat that bread except priests. When the day was over, priests would take the stale bread and replace it with fresh bread.
But David and his men were hungry. They had no food and were in danger. David ran to the priest and said, "We need something to eat. Do you have bread?"
The priest said, "We only have the holy bread."
David said, "Give it to us."
The priest had to make a decision: hold to the law or take care of a person in need. Which one is more important to God? The priest chose mercy. He gave David the bread. David's men ate.
Jesus is making a point to the Pharisees: David did this, and you said nothing. But you're upset with My disciples picking grain?
Jesus makes three defenses:
First, He appeals to King David—the greatest king of Israel—who broke the Sabbath rules and was guiltless.
Second, He says:
"Have you not read that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?" (Matthew 12:5)
The priests work on the Sabbath making sacrifices, yet they're guiltless. Why? Because the higher law of worship supersedes the Sabbath law.
Third, Jesus says:
"I tell you, something greater than the temple is here." (Matthew 12:6)
The temple was the center of Jewish worship. But Jesus says now your center of worship isn't a building—I am your center of worship.
Then He says:
"And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." (Matthew 12:7)
He's quoting the prophet Hosea. Jesus appeals to a king, priests, and now a prophet. God desires mercy over sacrifice. God wants you to have more love and compassion than legalism. This doesn't mean having no righteous indignation against sin—I will cry out against sin. But don't strap man-made rules and regulations to people's lives. Don't impose your personal preferences as if they were God's command.
Finally, Jesus says:
"For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." (Matthew 12:8)
"Son of Man" is a title for deity in the Old Testament. Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man more than any other title. He's saying: I created the Sabbath. I was God in the beginning. I can adjust it any way I want.
I almost missed something crucial: Jesus said, "I am the fulfillment of the Sabbath." When the Sabbath was supposed to give people rest, Jesus said, "I am the new Sabbath." Yes, practice work and rest, but I am your Sabbath.
That's why He can say:
"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden with religion, and I will give you rest."
Free from rules, regulations, unnecessary burdens that God never put on you. Life in Christ is supposed to be a life of joy and freedom.
I'm a free man. I love God's Word and His commandments. I'm more pure in heart than ever. I'm more in love with my family than ever. I'm more secure in who I am than ever. I'm more disconnected from the world than ever. I'm more focused on eternity. And I've been leaning into His commandments for twenty years.
I feel freedom in Christ.
Let me close with Colossians 2:16:
"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink or with regard to festivals or new moons or Sabbaths. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ."
You think God is mad at you because you eat pork or bacon? God said that to the Jews in the Old Testament. That's been fulfilled. Do you think God is angry at you because you have a hot dog? I'm trying to break the chains of your religion and legalism.
"Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and the worship of angels, going on in detail about visions... These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh." (Colossians 2:18, 23)
People with false doctrines sound wise. They have an appearance of wisdom. But if you promote man-made religion through extreme asceticism, you're of no value.
My prayer for you is that we will be a people free from legalism—free from passing legalism to others. I'm praying for some of you to stop crucifying yourselves, stop beating yourself up every time you feel you fall short.
God is not as mad at you as you think He is.
I'm praying you'll find rest in Jesus Christ, your Sabbath. We will not be a people living under man-made bondage, but we will hold fast to Scripture and live the life of freedom and abundance that Jesus died to give you.
No more bondage. No more chains. No more shackles. I am free.
Free yourself. Free others. Live in the freedom of Jesus. And where the Bible is clear, the Holy Spirit will guide you.
If you're here today and you've never been born again, the greatest bondage anyone can suffer is the bondage of sin. You were born in that bondage. If you die in that bondage, you'll be separated from God for eternity.
The Father sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died a sacrificial death for you. He invites you to a table of freedom. He says:
"If you turn from your sin and place your faith in My Son, I will make you My son and My daughter. I will forgive you of all your sins. I will remove your bondage. I'll make you a brand new creature."
Do you feel the Lord working in your heart right now? That's the Holy Spirit wooing you. If that's you, I want you to come. Come out of bondage. Come out of those chains. Throw yourself on the altar of Jesus.
Repent. Tell the Lord you're sorry for your sins. Ask Him to forgive you. Surrender to Him. There's no magic prayer, no pixie dust. What matters is the sovereign regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit.
When one sinner repents, all of heaven rejoices.
