For God's Sake, Stop.

September 6, 2026
For God's Sake, Stop.
Sermon Audio

CENTRAL TEXT: Mark 2:23-28, Luke 13:10-17

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” 27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 23:1-3a

LEADER: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

ALL: He makes me lie down in green pastures. 

LEADER: He leads me beside still waters. 

ALL: He restores my soul.

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH: Hebrews 4:8-16

Heb. 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 

Heb. 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. 

Heb. 4:14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

BENEDICTION: Matthew 11:28-30

LEADER: But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Illustrations:

Sep 6, 2026

Related Scriptures:

  • Exodus 20:8–11 / Exodus 31:12–17 
  • Leviticus 24:5–9 
  • Numbers 15:32–36 
  • 1 Samuel 21:7ff 
  • Nehemiah 13:15–22 
  • Jeremiah 17:21–22, 27

Discussion Questions:

  1. What was your family’s view of the Sabbath when you were young–strict, respectful, non-existent? 

  2. What’s your first reactions to the responses of the Pharisees and the head of the synagogue to Jesus’s actions on the Sabbath? Refresh your memory from the sermon: do your best to “steel-man” their point of view–that is, what could be behind their responses that respect requires and understanding of, even though Jesus is both challenging and seeking to overturn their view?

  3. From what we shared in the sermon, why might Jesus have performed so many healings on the Sabbath? 

  4. What’s the Sabbath a rest from and rest for?

  5. What is the most basic message of the Gospel of Jesus and why does it mean to be for us a source of inner and ongoing rest?

  6. What’s one thing that might need to change on your Sabbath–not that you might satisfy its command, but that you might be satisfied in the sense(s) it intends?

QUOTES:

I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love which subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God. 
- Wendell Berry
Human beings need God because their precarious and contingent lives can find final significance only in His almighty and eternal purposes, and because their fragmentary selves must find their ultimate center only in His transcendent love. If the meaning of men’s lives is centered solely in their own achievements, these too are vulnerable to the twists and turns of history, and their lives will always teeter on the abyss of pointlessness and inertia. And if men’s ultimate loyalty is centered in themselves, then the effect of their lives on others around them will be destructive of that community on which we all depend. Only in God is there an ultimate loyalty that does not breed injustice and cruelty, and a meaning from which nothing on heaven and earth can separate us. 
 - Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound, cited in Tim Keller’s Making Sense of God
Religion is not the place where the problem of man’s egotism is automatically solved. Rather, it is there that the ultimate battle between human pride and God’s grace takes place. Insofar as human pride may win the battle, religion can and does become one of the instruments of human sin. But insofar as there the self does meet God and so can surrender to something beyond its own self-interest, religion may provide the one possibility for a much needed and very rare release from our common self-concern. 
- Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound, cited in Tim Keller’s Making Sense of God
I lack the peace of simple things. 
I am never wholly in place. 
I find no peace or grace. 
We sell the world to buy fire, 
our way lighted by burning men, 
and that has bent my mind 
and made me think of darkness 
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
- Wendell Berry
Whatever is foreseen in joy 
Must be lived out from day to day. 
Vision held open in the dark 
By our ten thousand days of work. 
Harvest will fill the barn; for that 
The hand must ache, the face must sweat. 
 And yet no leaf or grain is filled 
By work of ours; the field is tilled 
And left to grace. That we may reap, 
Great work is done while we’re asleep. 
When we work well, a Sabbath mood 
Rests on our day, and finds it good.
- Sabbath Poem X, 1979, Wendell Berry
The mind that comes to rest is tended 
In ways that it cannot intend: 
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended 
By what it cannot comprehend. 
Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by 
Your will, not ours. And it is fit 
Our only choice should be to die 
Into that rest, or out of it. 
- Sabbath Poem II, 1979, Wendell Berry

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