As we begin this morning, I'd like to welcome those who are visiting with us. I feel somewhat like a visitor myself. I've been here so infrequently for the last while. First, a little time on vacation and preaching here and there. But we're certainly glad to see you and pray that the Lord would bless your time with us. Also, I wanted to say concerning the paper on the prayer request that I just wanted to encourage you to take that home and to use it. It's not just something for today. Today's the day of prayer for home missions, but take it home and pray for these works. There are 10 churches there, 10 mission works. If you pray for one a day, you can go through the list three times in a month. And lift up before God all of these works, these attempts to reach the loss for the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with me this morning to Mark chapter three. And here in Mark chapter three, we are going to be looking at the first six verses. As I read the verses and as you follow in your own Bibles, remember that this is God's word to you. And he, that is, Jesus, entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, stand forth. And he saith unto them, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He sayeth unto the man, stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. And thus, we have the reading of God's holy and inspired word. May the spirit of God help us to understand it. Everyone here today, I am sure, knows that today is the 10th anniversary of the Islamic jihadist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. that killed 2,977 people. Anybody that's over the age of 15 probably remembers that day very well. If you were not glued to the television set, you probably had the radio on, or you were constantly checking the internet for updates as to survivors and maybe further attacks throughout the United States. We were just panic-stricken. We were in fear. No one could believe that People were so wicked, so evil, to perpetrate such horrendous things against so many innocent individuals. In the aftermath of these attacks, politicians promised to hunt down those who were responsible. They said things like, we will succeed because we are the United States of America. But in reality, their assurances offered very little hope because the attacks themselves showed how truly vulnerable we were as a nation. And so for a few days, a few hours, a few months, the American people were without hope. And I suspect that that condition, hopelessness, is still largely true. Now, when we look to man for hope, we are always going to be disappointed. No nation lives forever. All that's left of ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome are faint reminders of once great empires. And you know what? If the Lord does not come back soon, the United States will also fall someday. It may be next week. I hope not. Maybe it won't happen until our great, great grandchildren have grandchildren of their own. But someday, if the Lord tarries, it will happen. The United States is not invincible. And anyone who puts his confidence in this republic is going to be devastated when that happens. Men need hope. We need something that we can trust in when everything around us seems to be falling apart. We need a rock that can shelter us from the constantly changing storms of life. And I've chosen these verses from the third chapter of Mark today because I believe that these verses set forth that truth in a remarkable way. And so let's look to see what God's word says to us today. The story in our text is very straightforward. Jesus went into a synagogue on a Sabbath day. He saw a man with a withered hand and he healed that man in spite of the opposition of the Pharisees. That's the story in a nutshell. And yet, as you look at this story, you see that there's a lot going on behind the scenes that you really have to understand in order to appreciate what this is really about. For example, just look at the man with the withered hand. Mark doesn't tell us anything about him. We don't know his name or what city he came from or anything like that. And Matthew and Luke do not give us much more information than this. But Luke does tell us one thing that the other two gospels do not tell us. Luke tells us that it was this man's right hand that was withered. And since most people are right handed by nature, This small, seemingly insignificant detail takes on a life of its own. It shows that this man was not able to support himself by working. There's even an early apocryphal tradition, it's recorded in a book outside the Bible called The Gospel According to the Hebrews, that says that this man was a stonemason. And so obviously, if he's got his right hand withered and he's right-handed, he's not going to be able to continue in that craft. Now, we don't know that he was a stonemason. But whatever his occupation might have been, in the first century, a disability of this kind would have reduced this man to begging. And note one other thing about him. And this is even more fascinating than the other. This man is in a state of helplessness and perhaps even hopelessness in a sense. And Jesus came into the synagogue while he was there and he did not ask Jesus to heal him. He didn't say a word. If you look at the same story in Matthew and Luke, you see that nowhere is there any indication that this man approached Jesus and said, would you take away my infirmity? But, you know, in that regard, he's just like every one of us, because apart from God's grace, we cannot go to the Lord unless he first comes to us. But then add this to the picture. Not only did this man not go to Jesus, but there's also no indication in any of the Gospels that Jesus had taken any steps to help him. We get the sense as we read the passage here in Mark or the other Gospels that Jesus would have just walked right on by this guy if a controversy had not arisen. And here, of course, we are reminded that that's his sovereign choice to do so. He is under no obligation to heal anybody. He heals whom he chooses to heal, just like he saves whom he chooses to save. Now, the first verse of Mark's account also tells us that this incident took place in a synagogue. And you might say, well, does that contribute anything to the story as you read through the gospel? You see, Jesus is constantly in the synagogue teaching and doing things. And the answer to that is, yes, that detail that Jesus was in the synagogue when he met this man is extremely important. It's important because what because of what synagogues were. Synagogues, you see, came into being more or less about the time of the Babylonian captivity. That takes you back to the sixth century B.C. Solomon's temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Sacrifices could no longer be made to God. And even if the temple had survived the attack, Nebuchadnezzar had carried away all the brightest and best of the young Jews and all the other Jews were scattered all over the world. It almost seemed like they had no way to worship God, no way to gather together. And realizing that they needed fellowship, that they needed instruction in the word of God, and that they needed opportunities to worship the Lord, they began building synagogues all over the known world. These synagogues, in many ways, serve the same roles that churches serve today. But here's the important point. Pay attention to this. Synagogues were a place of hope. They were a place of hope, their presence among the Jews represented their confidence that God would, in fact, bring them back into their land, just as he said he would. They represented their confidence that God would further bless them in days to come with the coming of the Messiah and his kingdom. Yes, the synagogues arose in a very dark period of Jewish history, and yet they always looked forward to a much brighter and more glorious day. You see, now that Jesus has come, churches need to shine even more brightly than the synagogues did. We have a hope that the world needs. In the gospel, we have a record of our Savior's complete defeat of the enemy. We're told that the devil himself is chained in a bottomless pit for a thousand years and can no more deceive the nations. This is what Christ has done for us. He's given us so very much hope. And to him be all the praise and all the glory for what he has done for us. Now, with that message of hope, we ask, will there be terrorists occasionally? Well, sure there will, because the devil's chained, but his chain is long and he can get around some. Will these terrorists cause destruction like we saw 10 years ago? Well, perhaps if that's what the Lord wills. But will they win? Will they ever have the victory in all of this? And the answer to that is not a chance. One day they will stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ who will hold them accountable for every evil thing that they have done. And I guarantee you that those men who flew the airplanes into those buildings 10 years ago today were disappointed that day when they were not rewarded with 70 virgins apiece. Instead, they were thrown into a lake that burns with fire and brimstone forever and ever, where they will spend eternity suffering and contemplating the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. Beloved, when I say that the church has this hope, what I mean is that you have this hope. Buildings don't have hope. This building has no hope. This building's hopeless. But you're not. You're not without hope. And what are you doing with your hope? Do you keep it all to yourself? Do you go home on Sunday morning and say, I'm a Christian, I've done my duty for the week. Or do you lead others to Jesus so that they can have the same hope that you have? Do you share your hope with your auto mechanic, your dentist, your hairdresser? How about your appliance repairman? Get my tongue twisted here. Your appliance repairman. You know, years ago, they used to say that Maytag repairmen were the loneliest people on Earth. They might be lonely, but they still need the Lord. They still need to hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when you see someone who's down, Maybe because he has a withered marital hand. Do you give him the hope of Christ? Or if he's down because he has a withered financial hand, do you lead him to Jesus? When other people around you are worried about future terrorist attacks like they were predicting, even for this very day, do you remind them that the Son of God reigns over all creation? Even Muslims. You fly buildings or fly airplanes into buildings, need the hope of Jesus Christ because they have been taken captive by a very dark, satanic religion. Now, please pay attention to what I'm saying in all of this. I am not asking you to invite people to church. The church by itself is not the answer to anyone's problems. What I'm telling you is that you need to invite people to Jesus Christ. That's what Philip did when he saw Nathaniel. He said, we have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets did write. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, come and see. He invited Nathaniel to see for himself the hope that there is in Jesus Christ. You see, the man with the withered hand went to the synagogue because it offered hope to the hopeless. I don't know for a fact that he knew exactly what he was looking for there that day, but I do know one thing. I know that he found what he needed. as soon as Jesus walked through the door. Jesus presence invariably stirs up controversy, and you'll notice that that's also what happened when Jesus walked through the door. Verse two says that the Pharisees watched him. They wanted to know whether he would heal this man on the Sabbath day and or that they might have a have an accusation against him. Matthew's gospel is even more explicit than that, because it says that the Pharisees instigated the controversy by asking Jesus whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. So there's no doubt here that the Pharisees were looking for something to hold against Jesus. Some commentators even think that they might have planted that man with the withered hand in the synagogue so that they would have something to contrive against him. But here's what's what's really interesting to me about what's going on here. The question over the Sabbath did not have to be controversial. It did not have to be as much of a problem as it ended up being. You see, Jesus could have just walked out of the synagogue. He could have silenced their foolish question with a question of his own, as he often did. He could have quoted from the 56th chapter of the book of Isaiah, which specifically prohibits doing evil on the Sabbath and does not restrict doing good. And he certainly didn't have to heal this man with the withered hand on the Sabbath day. His condition wasn't life threatening. He had been who knows how long he had been with a withered hand. But he didn't have to be healed that day. His healing could have waited just a few more hours. It wouldn't have been the end of the world. You see, there was a controversy here, not because the Pharisees wanted a controversy. The controversy was here because Jesus wanted a controversy. He had something he wanted to teach his disciples. And he had something else that he wanted to expose in the Pharisees. Now, look at how the events unfold at this point. The Pharisees are sitting around the room watching Jesus intently, that's really what the Greek word means, it means they were gazing at him, staring at him. And while they were doing that, Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stand up in the middle of the room. That's really what it means when it says to stand forth. No one that was there on that occasion would have misunderstood what that meant. You see, Jesus was saying he was the rabbi, he was in charge of the synagogue, he was in charge of his people, and he was going to use this opportunity to minister to this man in a way that nobody else ever could have. Now, on the surface, the question that arose from the Pharisees had to do with the propriety of healing on the Sabbath day. And that's how Jesus responds to them in verse four. He says, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But underneath what Jesus says here, there's something that's far more subtle and far more important. What we might we might call the clash of worldviews. But even that's not really strong enough to say what's going on here. What we really have here is a war over Christ views, a war over Christ views. Jesus, the true rabbi, the true teacher of his people, offered one view of himself and the Pharisees, who had been the disciples of the scribes and pretended to be teachers on their own, had another view. And so this whole discussion really boils down to one very simple question, and that is, what do you think of Jesus? What do you think of him? Now, here's what I mean. Over the years leading up to this incident, the scribes and the teachers of the law had turned the law into a means of earning favor with God. And in order for this to happen, their view of God also had to change. Instead of recognizing God as a God of grace and mercy who once delivered his people from Egyptian slavery, not because of anything that they had done, but because he had made his promise to their father Abraham. And they turned that God into a God who was never satisfied with anything that men do. No matter what we do, the Lord always wants more. We keep throwing our good works at him. He's an endless pit that's never full. Well, the Sabbath, you see, is a really good illustration of how this works. By the first century, the rabbis had outlawed 39 categories of work on the Sabbath. They forbade such things as kneading bread or baking or washing wool. or weaving two threads together, even separating two threads that become tangled, tying something or untying something, sewing, tearing, writing two or more letters. And this isn't a dear John. These are ABCs. If you write two A's together, that's a violation of the Sabbath. Erasing two or more letters, extinguishing a fire, kindling a fire. or transporting an object between your private house and some public building. Now we look at that, and of course the list is much longer than that, but we look at these prohibitions today and they come across to us as very silly and restrictive, but the rabbis were deadly serious about every one of them. In fact, they went so far as to say that even works of mercy and charity could not be done on the Sabbath, except when a man's life was in immediate danger. What irony there is here, because they allowed a man to rescue a sheep who had fallen into a pit, but they couldn't help a man. They had effectively outlawed love on the Sabbath. But that kind of thinking doesn't exist anymore, does it? Wrong. It's all over the place. The Roman Catholic sacrament of penance is based entirely on the notion that you can satisfy for your own sins by doing good deeds. Sometimes those deeds are praying the Lord's Prayer, or maybe if you are in need of some serious penance, you take a pilgrimage. But it ends up denying the finished work of Christ, that he did it all for you. And then our Methodist and fundamentalist brethren, they have their own list of do's and don'ts. They often frown on such things as drinking alcohol, dancing, playing cards, going to the movies. In theory, their restrictions are intended to protect you so that you won't break God's law in some other way. For example, if you dance closely, there's an inclination to commit fornication. If you play cards, you might be tempted to gamble and so forth. But what really happens with these things is that they often replace God's law. What God's law prohibits, they allow. And what God's law allows, they prohibit. Now let me give you an example of this. 25 years ago, as my wife and I were preparing to move from Philadelphia to Cincinnati for my first pastorate, a Christian friend offered to help us pack our belongings. And as she was boxing the things that were in the kitchen cabinet, she came across a small bottle of whiskey. And this had been given to me by a fellow that I worked with. I was witnessing to him at the time. He was not a believer, and yet he was willing to listen to me. And he appreciated the interest that I took in him, and so he gave me this small bottle of whiskey. Now, without asking my wife, I wasn't there at the time, or saying anything, our visitor unscrewed the lid to the bottle of whiskey and dumped it down the drain. And when my wife asked her why she did that, she said it was to protect us from the demons in the bottle. But what did she done? She stole our property. She destroyed something that was legally ours. Apparently, it's OK to break God's law as long as it somehow fits into the commandments that she had imposed upon herself. Now, it's easy to see that kind of thinking and behavior in other people. What about ourselves? Is it possible that we might be guilty of the same thing when we quote, for example, the 16th century preacher and martyr John Bradford, who said there, but for the grace of God, go I. Is there just a just a smidgen of pride in ourselves when we say that as if we had somehow done something for God to take note of? Or perhaps we assume that our pure reforms, theology and worship give us an edge over our brethren who have not yet come to reformed convictions. Look what's happening in our text, the man with the withered hand went to the synagogue looking for hope. He went there on the Sabbath day. Believing he could find rest in the hope that the synagogue represented. And while he was there, Jesus walked in. Jesus was everything that this man wanted. Jesus is everything that we want and need. He's the hope of everyone who believes in him. That's what Paul says in the first chapter of Colossians, where he calls Christ the hope of glory and says that he is in you. Christ has taken up residence in you by his spirit. Where you are, he is. He's not even as distant as the synagogue so that you have to go to a place to find hope. He's always there. He's also the one in whom you can find real Sabbath rest. And that's what he meant when he said, come on to me and I will give you rest. And so when you struggle with your sins, Jesus teaches you to stop trying to earn your way into heaven and to look to him for all the righteousness that you need. When your problems overwhelm you, he encourages you to cast all your cares upon him because he cares for you. And when you want to thank him for the great mercy that he has shown to you, He tells you, he assures you that it is lawful to do good and to save life on the Sabbath. That is, it's lawful to do these things when you see your good works as the fruit of his grace working in you. The Pharisees' opinion of Jesus was exactly the opposite of his own. Jesus came to do good, but the Pharisees were set on evil. He came to give life and to save it. And what did they want to do? They wanted to take it away. That's why they sought to accuse him. And, you know, when this incident was all over, the Pharisees still had not learned their lesson. Verse six tells us that they were even more determined than ever to kill Jesus. They even went out and hatched a plot with the Herodians that they had no natural connection to. in order to rob the Jesus disciples of the hope that he came to bring and to replace that hope with dark, deep despair. Can you imagine anything more evil than that? Jesus, the consolation of his people, was standing right there in their midst. And the Pharisees not only questioned his right to do good, but tried to use his goodness to destroy him. Now look at Jesus' response to all of this. First, he dealt with the Pharisees. Verse 5 tells us that he looked around about on them with anger and was grieved because of the hardness of their hearts. In these few words, you learn so much about your Savior. To begin with, take note of the fact that he was surrounded by the Pharisees. There were so many of them in that room that Mark tells us he had to look around the room. He had to scan the whole room to catch a sight of all of them. But in fact, in spite of the fact that he was alone and they were many and they were all around him, was he afraid that he failed to carry out the work that was he? Was he terrified or terrorized by these enemies of truth and righteousness? No, he just did what he had come to do. And notice that he was also provoked by them. He was filled with righteous indignation could probably be seen on his face because it bothered him so much. And it was all a result of the bitterness and the jealousy and the inflexible unbelief on the part of the Pharisees. This shows us how truly displeasing sin is to the Lord. And when you're considering committing a sin, I want you to think about the anger that Jesus showed toward the Pharisees on this occasion. I wanted to make you tremble knowing that the day of his wrath is just around the corner. But notice that Jesus was not only angry with them. Mark tells us that he was grieved by them as well. He was grieved by their fathers, Psalm 95 says, when they provoked him so sorely in the wilderness during their wandering. Jesus pities sinners. And we should, too. The hearts of every one of us here today should melt when we see someone obstinately pursuing a course of self-destruction, especially when it's somebody from within our own midst. James tells us what to do in such a situation. He says, Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converted the center from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. That's how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees. After addressing the Pharisees, Jesus also dealt with the man with the withered hand. And here we see that he gave this man the Sabbath day hope that he longed for. He told him to stretch out his hand. And when he stretched out his hand, it was restored whole as the other was. It was completely healed as if there had never been a problem with it. Beloved, this is just a small, very, very small token. of the super abundant grace that Jesus gives to sinners who seek His face. It's an emblem of the gospel at work in our lives. Every one of us comes into this world with withered hands and hearts that are dead in trespasses and sins. But we cannot stretch out our hands. We cannot by ourselves lay hold of Jesus and the life that He came to bring. But when He issues that command, Stretch forth thine hand. He also gives you the power to do what had been impossible before that. Both the command and the ability to obey that command don't come out of us. They come from him. And that's why we give him all the glory. But on the other hand, if we fail to stretch out our withered hands. In faith, if we fail to lay hold of his healing, it only shows that our hearts are still darkened with sin and the fault and the blame are completely ours. Now, do you see the hope that you have in Christ? The Pharisees didn't have any hope. Their whole way of thinking was against hope. Muslims do not have any hope. They think they do, but their hope is based on a great lie. Politicians cannot give you any hope. Their problem, you see, is not gridlock. Gridlock is actually a blessing at times, because it means that since they can do less, it means they can do less evil as well. But the reason that politicians can't give you any hope is because they are powerless. Their ability to do things is severely limited. They have no control over your hearts. They have no control over the results of any policies they might implement. They can't predict what's going to happen. The world has no hope. especially in our post 9-11 world. In the book of Job, we read a comment that's very applicable in our day. It's spoken by one of Job's so-called friends, Bildad the Shuhite. He says, so are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish, whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a spider's web. What a horrible state to be in. But that's not true of you. It's not true of you if you've put your trust in Jesus Christ. Just like the man that Jesus healed, you have a hope that will never let you down. Nobody can take it away from you, not even the devil himself. But what are you doing with it? Do you really cling to that hope every day? Do you share that hope with your relatives, your neighbors, your co-workers? Do you offer hope to people who are discouraged? Do you tell them about the hope that Jesus gave to this man with the withered hand? And do you make sure that they understand that if they believe in Jesus, they can have that same hope? May God lay it upon the hearts of every one of us to have a ministry of hope to all those that we know. Amen. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do come before you today thanking you for the great message of hope, redemption, life, rest that we have in Jesus. And we ask our God that you would make us cling to that hope and that you would give us hearts that burn for others to share that same hope. For we know that Jesus Christ, the hope of glory, is with us. And we ask all of these things now in his precious name, who taught us when we pray to say, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.