Day 3: The First Opposition

This is a section called The First Opposition. The first half of the book, there are three separate oppositions, and He wants the disciples to understand how to handle opposition and what they learn about Him and what they learn about following Him from that.

I'm in chapter 2 and what I'm going to tell you in advance is there's 5 scenes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Each one of them have a major lesson. Jesus has healed a leper. He is now famous. He has to stay out, sort of, in the lonely places because masses of people, I mean, He's bigger than any rock star you can ever imagine.

And now we pick up the story. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that Jesus had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door. And He preached the Word to them. Some men came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get in to see Him because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus. And after digging through it, they lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.

When Jesus saw their faith, notice plural, not just the man. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. Now, some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?

Immediately, Jesus knew in His Spirit, that this is what they were thinking in their hearts. And He said to them, Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat and walk. But that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.

Application. Desperate people do desperate things to see Jesus, to meet Him where they're at. Loving people do desperate and radical things to help people they love get connected to Jesus. I'll let you run with that and think of all the implications for you and for me.

Jesus is teaching God's Word, and out of the blue, this guy comes down. And Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven. And the religious leaders, notice, here's, here, we're conflict now. What and who does He think He is? And see, Jesus wants His disciples and all those people He's teaching, to know, when you follow Me, you need to know who I am. So, He says, okay, which is easier.

You want me to, you want to prove it, basically? And so, He says to him, get up and walk, and he does, and they're amazed. And then here's the point. I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And only God can forgive sins. Now, if you're His close friend, there's two things going on. One, awesome, wonderful, great, and, boy, this guy just rocked the boat. Where are we going to go from here?

Scene number two. Once again, Jesus went outside beside the lake. A large crowd came to Him, and He began, notice what He keeps doing. Teaching God's Word. So, He began to teach them. As He walked along, He saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. Uh, by the way, tax collectors were public enemy number one. They were Jews who had betrayed their country. They're working for Rome. And here's a guy in a booth. People would come and they usually were overcharged. Uh, they would usually rip people off.

So, Jesus walks by, sees this guy in the booth and notice, He says, Follow Me, Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed Him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him. When the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, saw Him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples, Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

And so, again, opposition, controversy, these closest disciples that are going to change the world, they're now experiencing things that make them very, very uncomfortable. All their life, their view, their prejudice, their bias was tax collectors are the enemy. And Jesus says to one of them, follow Me. But now it gets worse. Not only follow Me, but we learn from one of the other Gospels, you know, Matthew says, why don't You come over for dinner because You've changed my life and I've got a lot of friends that, how about I, I put on a meal. And You come over, and You tell them what You told me. I mean, that's really what happens here.

So, you know, you're His followers, and you follow Jesus, and you imagine, you go, oh my gosh. He sits down. In this culture, eating with a person was a sign of acceptance and valuing them. Pharisees and good Jews would never eat with a Gentile. Jesus, it's like, He's breaking all the traditions. He sits down and He eats with them and notice it says the disciples were there, too.

And so what Jesus ends up doing is He's saying again and again, Your religion is keeping people from the love of God. I'm going to go to people and I'm going to meet them where they're at. Application. Who do you know that you're uncomfortable going to and associating with that needs to hear about the love of Christ?

What group, what people that dress differently, or look differently, or have a different color skin, or maybe are theologically different, or maybe you're actually related to them and they've treated you in a certain way. Jesus goes out of His way to meet people where they are, and He doesn't think anyone is beyond hope.

Scene number one, he has authority. He's proven he's God. Scene number two, God loves everyone. Scene number three. He's questioned about fasting. Now, John's disciples, I'm in verse 18, chapter 2, John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And so people came and asked Jesus, How is it that - John here is John the Baptist - John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but Yours are not?

Basically, what's the deal? Jesus answered them, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he's with them? They cannot so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day, they will fast.

And then He gives them an illustration, which in their culture at their time, the lights would come on, it would be crystal clear. He says, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wine skins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wine skins in, in that day, a wine skin was, was very, very valuable. And, new wine wasn't fully fermented, and so if you put new wine in old skins, as it begins to expand, what it would do is it would ruin the wine skins, you'd also lose the wine.

So, He goes, you know, practically no one does this, so what you do is you take a new wine skin that's going to be able to have elasticity, and you put new wine in it, so they sort of go together. And what He's really saying to them is, there's a new paradigm. And the bridegroom, right? We've got a lot more information than they had. What's the goal of fasting? The goal of fasting is to enter into God's presence in a more intimate way. So, what's Jesus saying? He's saying the presence of God is with them. Why would they fast? God incarnate is with them. I'm here. They can't get any closer. There's no need for them to fast. They are with Me.

They just learned He can forgive sins. They just learned He came for any and all. And now He's saying, could you all please get a life and understand that all of God's plans from the very beginning were about a relationship. It's not the rules, it's not religion, it's not doing specific things that make you right with God. The entire goal from the garden and after the fall is that we would have deep, intimate relationship with Him.

And Jesus is saying, I'm the one who came, I'm going to bridge it. And actually, He's going to create a way where tax collectors and anyone far, far away from God will have a bridge to the living God by what Christ has done on the cross. And so, He's beginning to foretell, this is why I came, this is what I'm going to do.

Scene number four. One Sabbath day, verse 23, Jesus was going through the grain fields. And as His disciples were walking along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to Him, Look, why are they doing what's unlawful on the Sabbath? He answered them, Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar, the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for the 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.

Do you see what He's doing here? Get the picture. And by the way, His disciples were breaking the law on the Sabbath, as the rabbis viewed it. Um, actually, I mean, if you do some research, there's some extra biblical resources that the Jews made. It's called the Talmud, and they had all kind of rules. And now they have this relationship with Jesus, and they're walking, and I'm, I'm pretty sure Jesus was the first one to break off the grains and start eating it as they're walking. And John and the guys are going, you know, Jesus can do it, I guess we can, and so they do it.

And then the Pharisees confront Him, and what He wants them to understand is that new wine demands new wineskins, and He takes an Old Testament passage, many of you might be familiar with, but David was being pursued by Saul, and so he goes to the priest, and there's no bread, and so David, there's the show bread, and I mean it was very holy, only a priest could eat it, but here's the point he wants to make.

The spirit of the law is far more important than the letter of the law, in other words, behind every commandment that God gives us. That's the actual thing to do. But behind the to do, there is a why. And the why, the spirit, the motivation, the intent, is more important than the to do. And so, Jesus says in that situation, yes, he broke the letter of the law, but the why behind it, he was God's anointed king.

And so, the spirit of the law wasn't broken by the priest or by him, and He used that as an illustration to say, You all have taken the Sabbath and you've made this list of rules, huge list of rules, and you tower over people and you manipulate them by guilt.

And He said, the whole purpose of the Sabbath was for man. The purpose is God in His kindness realizes that everybody needs a break. Your body needs to be refreshed. Uh, you need to have a day where you could celebrate and look back on, wow, look what was accomplished. You could have a day where you could worship and a day to enjoy one another, a day to have a great meal and enjoy family.

Jesus wanted them to understand the Sabbath was a gift. It was for refreshment. It was for help. It wasn't some duty that if you do X, Y, and Z, then you get approval for God. He's breaking the status quo. He's showing the Pharisees, and more importantly, His followers, the why behind the what of the law.

Notice scene number 5. It's just the first 6 verses of chapter 3. Another time, He went into a 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 on the Sabbath.

Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them. People in the synagogue and especially the leaders. Which is lawful on the Sabbath? To do good or to do evil? To save a life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them, notice, in anger.

And deeply distressed at the stubbornness of their heart. And said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. And then the Pharisees went out and begin to plot with the Herodians, the other religious group, how they might kill Jesus.

And this is the end of the first opposition. And you gotta get this, I mean, pause and think, here's someone claiming to be the Messiah. People are getting healed. Demons are leaving people, people's lives are getting better, but He is messing with your religion. He's messing with your status quo. And so, He comes into a synagogue, and I think of this, and they're watching Him in the synagogue because they know this man has a shriveled hand.

We're going to catch him working on the Lord's Day. I mean is that perverted? I mean, how warped can you get like, you can love people but don't love them today. I mean, that is absolutely ludicrous.

And I think one of the emotions we see, this is so helpful to me because I grew up where the picture that people gave of Jesus was meek and mild and passive and, you know, we had little lilies, you know, at Easter time and you had little baskets and you go to church and I remember my sisters would get their little, patent leather shoes and their new little dress and we go through all these ceremony and, you know, Jesus, thank You, He rose from the dead.

Where's the power? Where's the real Jesus of the Bible? He's right here. He looked at the tradition, the meaningless tradition, that did not lead to real relationship, and he says He was angered and He was deeply distressed.

I wonder if Jesus is angered and deeply distressed at some of what He sees in our lives and in our traditions and in our religiosity that don't lead to relationship. That we, when we get opposition, we whine and complain and why are people treating me that way? And God, if You really love me, why did You let this happen or let that happen? As opposed to we are following a revolutionary who breaks the status quo, who cares for the least of these, who has authority, who is God Himself, who brings new wine, it means new wineskins and new patterns and new life and new methodologies.

With every time and shift in culture and when He says, what's the purpose? Is it to do good or to do evil? Notice, they were silent. They didn't have an answer. And then He heals the man. And here's what I love. He didn't touch him. What did He do? He spoke.

He's going to teach those religious leaders, but more importantly His disciples. When Jesus speaks, it's done. There's power in His word.

Thirty some years later, when John begins to write his gospel, and wants to pull everything together for an unbelieving world: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, all things came into being through Him, and nothing has come into being that has come into being apart from Him.

He spoke, and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Moses brought the law. Jesus brings grace and truth.

The Hebrew writer would say later, that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword and piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joint and marrow and able to read the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

See, what Jesus was teaching them early on was there's power in His Word. And I know some of you get tired of me saying this, but you can keep getting tired. I'm gonna keep saying it. If you are not in God's Word on a regular basis, your life will not change. You don't grow deep. You don't become a follower. You don't change inwardly and be an agent of Him changing you unless you begin to have a reverence for His Word. And a relationship with the God who spoke it into existence that allows you to follow the living Christ, by the Spirit of God opening the Word to you, changing you from the inside out, and then you putting that into practice.

That's what Easter is all about. And Jesus is saying to this group and to us follow Me. He said follow Me through opposition. And you will recognize that I am God, and you will recognize that I care for the least of these, and you will recognize that I'm going to break all the rules if I need to, because this is about relationship, not religion.

And then at the very end, He's going to say, When your religion leads you to reject and not care for other people, when your religion creates bias so that you treat other people in ways that I would not treat them, when your religion does things that are counter to the person of Christ, your religion stinks and I'll have no part of it. Let's focus on relationship.