Luke 6:1-26

Luke has been telling us that Yeshua of Nazareth was and is the Most Amazing Person who has ever lived! He is the Most Unique Person Who Ever Lived! He is the Most Important Person who has ever lived! He is the Person every human being should know the most about and get to know the best!

Through words spoken by angels, God the Father, holy men and women, and through Yeshua Himself, Luke wants us to know that Yeshua is the Son of the Most High. He is fully God and fully Man. He is the unique God-Man. He is God’s beloved Son who was and is very pleasing to God. He is the long awaited Lord Messiah. He is the Son of David. He is that Most Special Human Being who was and is anointed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the ultimate Prophet, Priest and King. He will rule over the Jewish people forever. His kingdom will have no end.

He is the Savior. He will provide salvation for the Jewish people in particular, and also for the rest of the world. He will bring redemption to the world, setting us free from the dark, destructive and deadly forces of Satan and his demons, sin and death.

After centuries spent in chaotic darkness, the King’s arrival was like a glorious, magnificent Sunrise From On High, like the rising sun whose light came to us from Heaven, shining on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, bringing us peace and well-being. He is a light bringing revelation and truth and salvation to the Gentiles, and the source of greatest honor and glory for God’s special people Israel.

The One Anointed and Empowered and Full of the Holy Spirit is able to give the Holy Spirit to human beings who welcome Him, and receive Him, and know Him, and trust Him, and honor Him. The Holy Spirit will save them and transform them and eternalize them.

Yeshua is not to be messed with, ignored or taken lightly. He will greatly reward those who follow and love and serve Him and He will punish those who reject and oppose Him.

But, not all will welcome the light. He is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel. He is a sign that will be opposed. Those who come to Him will rise. Those who reject Him, no matter how powerful, well-educated in Torah, will fall.

Yeshua was and is perfect, righteous, holy. He was and is the only Human Being never to sin. He was able to resist all of the temptations of the Evil One himself. He never sinned, never yielded to any temptation.

Yeshua is Israel’s Supreme Teacher. He is the wisest of the wise. He is the Greatest Teacher of the Torah. He is the world’s Greatest Teacher.

He was and is full of the Holy Spirit and power. He was and is the greatest miracle worker. God the Father and God the Spirit worked through Him to do great miracles of healing – healing many many of the Jewish people of all kinds of physical illnesses, and healing many of our enslavement and control of the dark demonic forces. His great healing ministry was a taste of the greater healing that He will bring to sick and dying humanity. His casting out of demons foreshadowed Him crushing the head of the serpent, and undoing all the evil that Satan has brought us, and ending all satanic control over humanity.

He is wonderful! He is Amazing! He is so very very important to us! He is so necessary for our salvation from the deadly forces that have ruined us; our redemption from Satan, sin and death; our peace, our well-being, our healing, our restoration to health, our spiritual recovery, our liberation, our reconciliation to God, our welcoming acceptance by the good Creator from whom the whole world is estranged, our eternal life.

Even though He was and is so special, and so uniquely heralded, and did such great miracles, not all recognized the One through Whom The Universe Was Made. Most of the people of His home-town of Nazareth rejected Him and tried to kill Him.

Even though many ordinary Israelis liked Him, and wanted to get closer to Him, and hear Him teach, and come to Him for help with physical and spiritual problems, the majority of the leaders of the Chosen People rejected Him. Their hostility increased more and more – especially as His influence spread throughout Israel and beyond; and because of the unique claims He and others made about Him; and because He didn’t follow all of their interpretations and traditions.

Part of the problem of some of the leaders was the legalism of the Pharisees, particularly their misunderstanding of what is true Sabbath observance and what isn’t. Now it happened that He was passing through some grainfields on a Sabbath; and His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating the grain. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why do You do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

Even though the Torah does not teach that picking the heads of grain violates the Sabbath, the Pharisees taught that this kind of activity was harvesting, and therefore work, and therefore forbidden on the day of rest. But, Yeshua knew better. He knew that picking some grain and eating them or picking and eating a piece of fruit from a tree was permissible. He knew that the Pharisees were being legalistic and wrong. And so the Supreme Rabbi graciously tried to teach them and correct their misunderstanding:

And Yeshua answering them said, “Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone, and gave it to his companions?”

Rabbi Yeshua was teaching these religious leaders several things. First, that some laws and principles are more important than others. Meeting human needs so that human lives are preserved is more important than observing ceremonial kinds of laws. Here is what Rabbi Yeshua pointed out: If King David violated a command of the Torah, but did so to meet the needs of his men to keep them alive, and David was not judged for it, neither should David’s Descendant be criticized for allowing His followers to satisfy their hunger in the way they did – especially since the Torah didn’t forbid it.

Then Yeshua made another point – that His was the authoritative position because He is the Supreme Authority. And He was saying to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” The Sabbath was and is one of the most important times and observances among the Jewish people. The Sabbath is very special. It was created by the Lord of time and eternity. Then the Lord set the seventh day apart from the other days and blessed it. Later He made it a sign of Israel’s special relationship to Him. The Sabbath was such an important and serious thing between God and Israel that the penalty for violating it was death.

And yet, Yeshua claimed that He was even more important! He claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath – which means that He is greater than the Sabbath. As the Lord of the Sabbath, He has the right to decide what is legitimate to do or not to do on the Sabbath, what is in keeping with Sabbath observance and what isn’t.

No ordinary rabbi should ever place Himself above the Sabbath and dare claim to be the Lord of the Sabbath! But Rabbi Yeshua did, because He knew that He is far greater than an ordinary rabbi.

But, the Pharisees rejected Yeshua’s claim that He was the Lord of the Sabbath whose declarations were authoritative. They were unwilling to recognize the wisdom and authority of Israel’s Supreme Rabbi Yeshua, and that He was able to understand and correct that which was right and what was wrong in the Judaism of His day. And so their hostility toward Yeshua increased. The conflict intensified.

Luke gives us another incident that took place on the Sabbath that further intensified their anti-Yeshua sentiments. On another Sabbath He entered the synagogue and was teaching; and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees were watching Him closely to see if He healed on the Sabbath, so that they might find reason to accuse Him. Just as the so-called experts in the Torah and the Pharisees were wrong about picking grain on the Sabbath, so they were wrong about miraculous healing taking place on the Sabbath. Being used to do supernatural healing wasn’t a violation of the Sabbath. How could it be? It was the power of God that was working through Yeshua to heal people – even on the Sabbath. Therefore this was legitimate divine activity. Yeshua knew this. He knew He was right. He knew that it was right for a miracle of healing to take place on the Sabbath. He knew that the Pharisees and the Torah teachers and experts in the Torah were wrong.

But He knew what they were thinking, and He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” And he got up and came forward. And Yeshua said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?” The right answer to these questions of the Lord of the Sabbath is that it is in keeping with the nature of the blessed Sabbath to do good and to save a life on that day. A healing miracle brought restoration and refreshment to human life, and restored peace and rest to an individual. Isn’t that what the Sabbath is all about? Therefore Yeshua’s Sabbath healings were in keeping with the nature of the Sabbath, and were permissible and blessed and very welcome!

But, these religious leaders would not submit to the authority and wisdom of Chief Rabbi Yeshua. They disagreed with Him and clung to their wrong understanding of Scriptures. But, instead of being intimidated by their rejection, or compromising with their error, Yeshua boldly went ahead and did what God wanted Him to do. After looking around at them all, He said to him, “Stretch out your hand!” And he did so; and his hand was restored.

Yeshua did not compromise with the opposition. He did not back down before error. Nor should we. Having trust in God, and love for the truth, the Spirit of God worked through Yeshua to miraculously and instantly and fully heal this man. The man’s life was blessed. God and the Sabbath were honored. The truth was taught to Israel.

But, the Pharisees and experts in Torah didn’t use this God-approved miracle as an opportunity to reassess their position about what was permissible on the Sabbath. They didn’t change their minds about Supreme Rabbi and Prophet Yeshua. Instead, they became more entrenched in their wrong positions, and their dislike of Yeshua grew. But they themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what they might do to Yeshua – to oppose Him, to render His influence ineffective among the Jewish people, and eventually to kill Him.

But, their rejection and plotting will only advance the plans of God! What they meant for evil, God will turn into the greatest good! The anger and sin of man will be incorporated by God to accomplish His plan for our salvation. Their rage, their discussions to eliminate Yeshua will be part of the way that Yeshua’s great mission will be fulfilled! To advance His good plans for our salvation, God will use the schemes and deeds of the wicked and the good works and words and service of the righteous. How cool is that?

The opposition was intensifying. Now, the leadership of the new community of the faithful remnant of Israel needed to be organized. Messiah’s foundational disciples, His special emissaries and leaders needed to be chosen. Yeshua knew that it was time for Him to chose those men. But, before He made that very important decision, He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

Yeshua was always close to God, and always heard from God, and was always able to talk to God. Yet, He often went away and isolated Himself so He could concentrate on prayer. If Yeshua did this, how much more might we need to? Before this huge decision, that will affect the history of the world, and eternity, Yeshua spent extra time in prayer. The lesson for us: We need to pray much before our big decisions too. We really need to get close to God, and talk to Him, and listen to Him, and get the direction from Him that we need, especially for our big decisions.

And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Over the centuries, the Lord has had millions of students who have followed the Master. And among the disciples, there are some very special ones, who were chosen by God and Yeshua to help in this great mission of redemption and the recreation of a new and eternal humanity.

These eleven men did not start off as professional religious leaders. Maybe that is because the vast majority of Israel’s religious leaders had been mistrained and mistaught. Yeshua specifically chose regular men who worked regular jobs and who were willing to learn from Him to be His leaders. That’s good new for you and me!

These regular kind of men heard about the young Rabbi from Nazareth, and were interested in Him, and got closer to Him, and the closer they got the more they liked! The closer they got, the more they learned. The closer they got, the more they were transformed and became more like Him. The closer they got to Yeshua, the more able and useful they became. The closer they got, the more willing they were to leave everything else, and help Yeshua accomplish His great mission of human salvation. Get closer to Yeshua!

And, what was true for them is true for us today. Become a disciple, a follower, a student of Rabbi Yeshua! Get closer to Him. Learn from Him! Implement the things He teaches. Then go and teach others!

These eleven men, with the later addition of Matthias, become twelve of the most important men who ever lived and ever will live. They have been very important in the history of this world, and they will be important in the ages to come. They led the early Messianic movement. They brought the good news to Israel. They wrote much of the New Covenant Scriptures. One day they will sit on twelve thrones ruling the twelve tribes of Israel. The beautiful wall of the New and Eternal Jerusalem has twelve foundation stones, and on them are the names of these twelve emissaries that Messiah sent to teach us and lead us. God knows how to reward those who follow Him, and faithfully serve Him, and those who sacrifice for Him!

He had many disciples, and they were growing in number. And, Yeshua now had His foundational leaders in place.

At the same time, the majority of the religious leaders were firmly opposed to Him, and their opposition was also growing.

At the same time, many of the regular Jewish people all over Israel, and even beyond Israel’s borders, were coming to Yeshua, and listening to His great teaching, and experiencing His great healing ministry.

Yeshua came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.

Luke again tells us that God was using His Son to heal human beings of all kinds of physical diseases, and to heal them of the spiritual disease caused by demons having influence over them. And, Yeshua was not healing a few. He was healing all! Yeshua’s great healing ministry foreshadows what He will do when He returns one day. He will heal all of humanity, physically and spiritually! My friends, each one of us, and all of us, need the Great Healer, the Savior of body and soul, so very much!

Rabbi Yeshua is the greatest teacher who ever taught. He is far greater than all the teachers of the nations, and all the prophets and rabbis and sages and wise men of Israel. Next Luke gives us some of Rabbi Yeshua’s powerful, anointed, God-inspired teaching.

Lord willing, we will continue our study of this great teaching by the greatest of teachers – in a couple of weeks.