Luke 6:1-5

Luke 6:1-5 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. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 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.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Today's verses show Jesus teaching his disciples and those around him that God is more concerned with what is inside a person that the outside of a person. He cares more about God's plan than man's interpretation of God. When his disciples are criticized by some Pharisees for eating kernels of corn on the Sabbath, He reminds them of David and his companions who entered the house of God and ate consecrated bread when they hungered. His explanation is that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. In essence He says, you do not serve God in a vacuum; God also serves you. You are not under the Law; I, the Son of Man, have set you free. It is not what enters a man from the outside that defiles him, but what comes from a man's heart that will cause him trouble, the very reality that brought guilt to these judgmental Pharisees.

We know from the Old Testament that David, for example, was a far from perfect human being, yet scriptures tells us that he was chosen by God and found favor with God. He was also a man of faith and continually returned to a position of dependency upon God. The women's group was studying Hebrew's 11 yesterday, and there is so much in this wonderful chapter to remind us that faith is the sure substructure of a believer's life, our hope of what is certain and what we believe to be true. We place our faith in the continuing reality of God's existence, not based upon our intellect or upon our senses but upon our trust in Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus was telling his disciples they served a God who loved them enough they could eat in faith of the fruit of the field when they hungered without judgment. I think Jesus was also pointing to a walk of faith that places full dependency upon God for everything: food, drink, shelter, guidance, understanding, EVERYTHING. He was making everything new, offering a new and living way, such as what we read about in Hebrews, for He had not called them from their nets to a life of fear but a life of freedom in him.

This new life was to be a life of faith. Although faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, this certainty does not always transfer into our actions. God might not always ask us to do things as simple as eating grain on the Sabbath. He might ask us to build an ark on dry land in a place where there has never been a flood when our human inclination and intuition tells us that we are going to look very foolish indeed. But He says, "Build the ark," so by faith, we build an ark. The rains come for 40 days, and our entire family escapes destruction. Then God calls us "righteous" because we trusted him, but we know that He deserves all the praise and all the glory, for He was the one to whisper in our ear; He was the one who made us bold. Yes, just as He gave the boy king, David, the nod and called him to a great task, just as He gave him the strength to defeat a giant, God gives each of us the power and the faith to defeat the giants in the land. Whatever you need today, whether it is food, a boat for the flood, money for the bills, faith to endure to the end, God is your source. Don't let unbelief keep you from entering in by faith. Enjoy God's goodness today.