How does someone end up standing outside a soldier's funeral with a hateful sign, genuinely convinced they're serving God?

That's the opening question of this Memorial Day weekend message — and Mark 2 provides a sobering answer. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a slow drift, usually starting with a good heart and a real desire to honor God. But when religious activity gets untethered from God's actual heart, it produces something cold, self-righteous, and ultimately capable of seeing a broken person as a tool rather than a human being to love.

In Mark 2:23–3:6, Jesus clashes twice with the Pharisees over the Sabbath. Both times, he exposes the same root issue: they've taken something God gave as a gift and turned it into an idol. They've learned the rules, protected the rules, and completely missed the God behind the rules.

Pastor Garrett McCord works through the passage with pastoral honesty — including a story from his own early ministry when he realized he was drifting the same direction — and lands on five sharp questions for self-examination: ways we can be doing all the right things while quietly missing God's heart for people.

The message closes with the Gospel: the Lord of the Sabbath died to give us true rest. And the invitation is still open — "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

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