What Is Lawful On The Sabbath? Luke 6:1-11

We are starting our study of Luke 6 this morning and in our Scripture we will find Jesus infuriating the Pharisees because of what He and His disciples were doing on the Sabbath. It is very difficult to talk about the Sabbath in modern-day America, even here in Oklahoma City, the buckle of the Bible Belt. The difficulty lies in the fact that the Sabbath, which is from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, or Sunday, the day when we Christians gather together for worship on the Lord’s Day, is just another day here in our country. It’s a day to get caught up on work, a day to attend little league sports events, take care of the endless list of things to get done around the house, and the list goes on and on and on. Over the past few decades it has become more and more common that more and more people have to work on Saturday or Sunday, or both. 

In Jesus’ day things were very, very different. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees and teachers of the law had built a “fence” around the Sabbath. The fence laws were intended to keep people from violating the Sabbath. So which is it? Do we cast any idea of Sabbath aside and do as we please or do we make sure we get back inside of the fence that was built around the Sabbath? That’s what we are going to talk about this morning as we read our Scripture. Let’s take a look. 

1 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" 3 Jesus answered them, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions." 5 Then Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." 6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." So he got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?" 10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. (Luke 6:1-11 NIV)

Two Sabbaths. Two violations, according to the religious leaders of the day. The end result for the Pharisees and the teachers of the law was that they were “furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.” 

Jesus defended His disciples plucking heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath. On another Sabbath, Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand. So, the question before us this morning is, “Does Jesus side with the modern-day practice of doing whatever we wish on the Sabbath?” He clearly doesn’t agree with the Pharisees and teachers of the law when it comes to the Sabbath, but does He agree with our modern-day practice? Before we answer that question we might want to try and better understand the Sabbath itself.

Many of you know that keeping the Sabbath day holy is one of the Ten Commandments, but Exodus 20 is not the first time we run into the idea of the Sabbath. The first time we find the Hebrew word “שׁבת” (shabbat) is in Genesis 2, after God had finished the six days of creation. Turn to Genesis 2 and let’s begin reading together in the first verse.

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:1-3 NIV)

God had finished creating and He “stopped, He “ceased” creating,” or, as the NIV translates it, He “rested.” This is what the Hebrew word “shabbat” means, “to cease, to stop, or to rest.” God didn’t rest on the seventh day because He was tired from the work of creating. God stopped what He had been creating, He saw all that He had created, and He said, “Ah, this is good, no, this is very good!” Let me explain. Six times, in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, and 25, during the six days of creation, after God created, He saw His creation and “God saw that it was good!” In verse 31, God looked at all He had made and He said, “It is ‘ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד’ (tov me’od), it is VERY good!” God was pleased, He was satisfied, He enjoyed the work He had done. This is our first reference to the Sabbath and it was experienced by God. 

We find the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, but before Moses and the freed Hebrew slaves ever arrived at Mt. Sinai, YHWH had already instituted the Sabbath rest for His people. After the tenth plague and the move out of Egypt, God provided food and water for His people as they made their way through the wilderness. In Exodus 16:29-30 we read,

29 Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out." 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:29-30 NIV)

Back in Genesis 2 we read, “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…” God set the seventh day apart as different from the other days. He is the One who made it holy. Now, in Exodus 16 we read that YHWH “has given you the Sabbath;” Not only had He given the day He had made holy, but He gave His people the food they needed for two days on the sixth day so they could enjoy the seventh. For those people following Moses they were to cease their traveling, stop their working and worrying, and enjoy all that God had done to get them to where they were. 

Just four chapters later we find Moses and the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai where God gave Moses the Law, the Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment, and the longest, most detailed of all the commandments, is the law concerning the Sabbath. Take a look at Exodus 20:8-11 with me.

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11 NIV)

Isn’t that interesting? God had “made” the Sabbath holy and now His people were to “keep” it holy. Remember, “holy,” the Hebrew word “קדשׁ” (Kadosh) literally means, “to set apart, dedicate, or set aside for a certain purpose.” Six days they were to labor and work, but the seventh day was to be set aside for a specific purpose.

In Deuteronomy 3, Moses told the people he would not be going with them into the Promised Land, Joshua would lead them. Knowing that he wouldn’t be with them once they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, Moses stressed to them the importance of God’s commandments. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, he told God’s people,

12 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you.  13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15 NIV)

Six days you need to get after it, get the job done, but “the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.” No animal or human, from the most powerful and prominent to the day laborer and servant, is to do any work, but instead they are to rest and remember what YHWH has done. 

I’ve shared all of this with you this morning to lay the foundation for the two stories Luke shares with us. In the first story, in Luke 6:1-5, Jesus and His disciples were on their way to the Sea of Galilee where Jesus would teach the “Sermon on the Plain.” As they were making their way, Jesus’ disciples grew hungry. As they walked through some grainfields the guys pulled some heads of grain, rubbed them between their hands to remove the husks, and ate them. Low and behold, guess who was watching? You got it…the Pharisees! They asked Jesus, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Now, it wasn’t unlawful to take some grain to eat. Deuteronomy 23:24-25 gave clear guidance. Take a look with me. 

24 If you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25 If you enter your neighbor's grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain. (Deuteronomy 23:24-25 NIV)

God cared for people and made allowances for hungry travelers. The Pharisees were livid, not that the disciples were taking handfuls of grain, but that they were doing it on the Sabbath. Remember how I told you that the religious leaders had built a “fence” around the Sabbath? God had said not to do any work, but the religious leaders felt like “work” needed some definition so they put their heads together and described everything that they considered to be work. In the Mishnah there are 39 categories with hundreds of sub-categories of what is considered work. In the Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, there are 24 chapters detailing Sabbath regulations for the Jews. You can’t touch money, write more than two letters of the alphabet, carry more weight than the weight of one-half of a dried fig, or drag a stick along the ground on the Sabbath because that would be considered plowing. Jesus’ disciples were guilty of reaping, because they picked the grain, threshing, because they rubbed the husks together to separate them from the grain, winnowing, because they threw the husks away, and preparing food, because they ate the grain. This was the Pharisees’ law, not God’s law. 

Jesus, instead of confronting the Pharisees with the ridiculousness of their manmade laws, pointed them to their own Bible. “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry…” The story Jesus was referring to, and which the Pharisees knew as well, is from 1 Samuel 21. David had been anointed king, even though Saul was still on the throne. David and his men were on the run because Saul wanted to kill him. David and his men were hungry so they went to the tabernacle where Ahimelech was the priest. They asked him if he had any food? 

4 But the priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here-- provided the men have kept themselves from women." (1 Samuel 21:4 NIV)

The only bread available was the bread of the Presence. It was sacred bread, 12 loaves of bread, baked fresh every week and sat on the golden table before the presence of the Lord. Once the week was over and the bread was removed, it could only be eaten by the priests. We read, in verse 6,

6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away. (1 Samuel 21:6 NIV)

Technically, Ahimelech and David, violated the law, but Ahimelech recognized that he had a higher calling at that moment and it was to feed God’s people who were in need.  In Matthew’s version of this same incident, after Jesus brings up David and Ahimelech, He quoted Hosea the prophet, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” (Matthew 12:7 NIV)

We are going to skip over verse 5, Jesus' declaration to the Pharisees, until we get to the end of our study for this morning. Jesus told the Pharisees, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Hold that thought until we finish taking a look at the second Sabbath story, which is found in verses 6-11.

Luke tells us that on another Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue and was teaching, when sitting in the congregation was a man “whose right hand was shriveled.” Of course, the Pharisees were there and they were joined by the teachers of the law this time. Luke tells us they were “watching” Jesus. They weren’t watching to learn something from Jesus’ teaching. They were watching to catch Him breaking their Sabbath laws. The Greek word for “watching,” “παρατηρέω” (paratereo), means, “to watch closely,” or “to observe carefully.” The word is used six times in the Greek New Testament and in five of the occurrences it is used with an evil intent. 

Jesus knew what they were thinking and instead of backing off and changing His plans, He called the man with the shriveled hand front and center. Jesus looked at the man and said, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” Let me assure you, that is the last thing he wanted to do! The man had just planned on going to church. He had no desire to be the center of controversy and yet, there he stood. Jesus turned to the Pharisees and teachers of the law and asked them, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?" The religious leaders had determined that you could assist in the birth of a child and perform a circumcision on the Sabbath, but no other medical procedures could be administered unless the situation was life-threatening. The man’s shriveled hand could wait until Sabbath ended in their minds. Jesus didn’t ask them if the man’s situation was life-threatening. He asked, “...which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 

Jesus healed the man. He wanted the Pharisees to see that by refusing to do good on the Sabbath, they were actually doing evil, they were withholding the power God gave them to bless and help someone in need. Cold, calculated, ritualistic, rule-following religion may make the Pharisees of Jesus’ day and the Pharisees of our day feel good about themselves, but it is empty, life-quenching and not life-giving. 

Jesus’ question to the Pharisees and teachers of the law about proper behavior on the Sabbath was not new at all. In Isaiah’s day, the people thought they were pleasing God because they never missed a sacrifice, they frequented the temple often, and they kept all of the feasts, yet their sacrifices had become a stench in God’s nostrils because of how they were living. Take a look at Isaiah 1:11-17 with me. 

11 "The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. 12 When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-- I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. 14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! 16 Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. 17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:11-17 NIV)

I was at the YMCA on Monday of this past week. I had a conversation with a man in the locker room who had been an elder at his church for 20 years. He told me he had “deconstructed” from the Christian faith. After serving as an elder for 20 years, he had walked away, not just from his church, but from his faith. I asked him, “What was the final straw for you?” He told me several things, like finding no evidence for the Exodus for one, but it was something altogether different that crushed me. He said, “Churches spend 60% of their budget on the building and paying staff, but when a single mother comes needing help to keep her lights and heat on for her children, she has to jump through a week’s worth of hoops to get any help.” I told my friend that I’m sorry that has been his experience, but not all churches operate that way. God has called us, both as individual followers of Jesus and as a church, to do good, to save lives, and not to destroy people’s lives and faith. 

The man was healed, Jesus did good on the Sabbath, but the Pharisees and teachers of the law were livid, they were furious. In Mark’s version of this same story, he tells us, 

6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:6 NIV)

There are two ironies that you need to be aware of in this story. First, the Pharisees and teachers of the law were concerned that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath laws while they themselves wanted to kill Jesus and break the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” The second irony is that the Pharisees absolutely hated those traitorous Herodians! The Pharisees were anti-Roman occupation and anti-Herod. The Herodians were a bunch of politically motivated Jews who wanted the descendants of Herod the Great to rule over them. They despised each other, except when it came to Jesus! That old saying is true, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” 

We are about out of time so let’s turn our attention to the most incredible statement made by Jesus: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  The most common title attached to Jesus in the New Testament is “Christ” or “Christos” in Greek, which means “The Anointed One. This is the New Testament equivalent to the Hebrew title “HaMashiach,” or “The Anointed One.”

The second most used title to describe Jesus is “Lord,” the Greek word “Kyrios.” The equivalent in the Hebrew Bible is “Adonai.” When you see “LORD” in all capital letters in the Hebrew Bible it is the word “YHWH,” but when you see “Lord” in reference to God in the Hebrew Bible it is “Adonai:” “The Sovereign, The Master, The Authority and Owner.” 

The third most used title for Jesus in the New Testament and the number one title Jesus used of Himself is “Son of Man.” Jesus referred to Himself as the “Son of Man” eighty-three times in the New Testament! Daniel used the same title to describe One who would come one day. Listen to this.

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,  coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14 NIV)

You and I know that the “Son of Man” has come and He is coming again with all authority, all glory, and all sovereign power. All the nations of the world and peoples of every language will declare that He is Lord! When that day happens we will enter our eternal rest. 

Like the Jews of old who were told to “keep” the Sabbath day holy, we are to keep it different than we keep the other six days a week, we are to set aside time each week to look back and to remember that we were once slaves as well. We were slaves to sin, slaves to ourselves, and our slavery was inescapable until the Lord delivered us. We should never build fences around the Sabbath and make it a burden instead of a blessing, but we should certainly spend time each week, any day of the week, every day of the week, remembering, resting in His provision, and looking forward to the day when all striving will cease. 

You may be here this morning and you work on Saturday and Sunday. Does that mean you can’t rest and remember what the Lord has done? Not at all, find a day during the week that you can set apart and worship the Lord, recall how faithful He has been to you, how His grace and mercy have carried you, and praise His Holy Name. Just as God looked at all He had created and saw that it was “very good,” look at all He has done for you, through you, and be satisfied with where He has brought you my friend. 

You may be here this morning and you are not a follower of Jesus. Every day is just another day to get up, go to work, and then fall into bed at the end of a long day. You are weary of it all and I don’t blame you. Jesus invites you to come to Him this morning. He told the people of His day…  

28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29 NLT)

Won’t you come? He is humble and gentle of heart, and in Him you will find the rest, the forgiveness, the freedom, the hope that you are longing for in life. 

Mike Hays

Britton Christian Church

February 15, 2026