Matthew 23:1-39 - Woe!

[00:00:00] Good morning, Church. [00:00:03] I'm not supposed to do this in front of everyone, but we're. We're a family here and so I can do this. Hi, Lucas. Lucas is in town. [00:00:13] Make sure you say hi to him. [00:00:21] Oh, man, what a joy to be together today. Church. Amen. [00:00:28] I'll tell you guys, in a season of transition like this, right, this is our first Sunday since Chris Otterson started his new position at a sister church in our association. You can. There's this little bit of trepidation, right? Like, what's it going to be? Like, what are we going to do? But I got to tell you guys, I am so grateful to the Lord not just for his provision for our church family, but for our amazing creative team. And just the way they worked their tails off this week and showed up and served us so well. And I want to tap onto that. How good it was for my heart to just hear my church family singing so loud this morning. What a beautiful gift. I am so grateful for you guys today. We are finishing up our little series today in the book of Matthew called Jesus versus Religion. We've been going through this for several weeks, looking at this section near the end of Jesus's ministry when he's in Jerusalem confronting the religious leaders. We're going to be finishing that out today in Matthew 23, if you want to go ahead and turn there. By the way, if you don't have a Bible with you today, we really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here at Emmanuel Fellowship. There are house Bibles around the room. You're welcome to snag one of those. And if you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I'd encourage you to take one of those home or ask one of our pastors and we'll, we'll get you a nicer one. But we're finishing up this series. We're in this chunk of Matthew where Jesus has entered into Jerusalem for the last time in his earthly ministry. And it. He entered in like wild, like he came out of the gate swinging. He marches into Jerusalem in the. The famous scene of his triumphant entry with the whole thing, right, people waving palm fronds, hosanna in the highest. He marches into the temple and slips over tables and sends out the traders and, or the money traders and all these different things and immediately starts healing and preaching in the temple courts. And it starts this scene of this kind of showdown between Jesus and the religious leaders of Jerusalem where it's just this back and forth where they're trying to discredit him publicly. They're. They're trying to get the crowds to turn against him. And he is just slapping back. He is just ripping these leaders apart. Withering critiques of the way that the Jewish institution, the leadership specifically in Jerusalem, has absolutely failed God's people. It is nuts. It's nuts. I think we're going to be really challenged by this text today as we land this out. So we're stepping into the last little scene of this, where Jesus takes the whole argument and he just kind of brings it together. [00:03:15] He's going to stand here, and he's going to judge, and he's going to confront what is lacking in the Jewish religious practice of his day. It's going to be intense. I think it's going to hit pretty hard for us today. I want to pre warn us with that. [00:03:30] But here's the thing, guys. As we sit here and we dig through this critique and especially Jesus's critique of the religion of his day, it's important to remember, right? Religion as a concept is not bad. It's not bad, and it's wonderful. Religion, like all things that are human, it can just become corrupted. It can just get messed up. And so in this text today, as Jesus brings it all together, what we're going to see is that he isn't just confronting these religious leaders. [00:04:06] He's confronting religious religion as it was practiced in his day. And really, like, through that religion, as we practice it, he's challenging the whole concept of worldly religion. You know, these leaders, these are the very people who should have recognized him, who should have been doing the work of drawing people to him, and yet they're the ones who are publicly trying to discredit him. I kind of think of it like. Like it's the worst episode of all time of Undercover Boss. You ever watched that show? You know what I'm talking about? Like, that's. That's rough right here. These people have the opportunity to use their religion to point people to God. Instead, they're trying to gather people away from God, Jesus, and God himself. Jesus is there watching them do this, right? Like, that's rough. By the way, I can't think of the show Undercover Boss without thinking of the SNL skit where Kylo Ren is the Undercover Boss. You guys know what I'm talking about. Matt, the radar technician. If you missed out on this amazing cultural moment, even if you're not a nerd, you need to go back to it. It's Undercover Boss, but it's the Bad guy from Star wars, killing, killing, killing his employees. It's just an amazing scene right at the end where it shows him. And he says, this week I made four new friends, and I only killed one of them. So I feel like that's a win. It's great. It's great. And luckily, luckily, Christ as the undercover boss is a little better than Kylo Ren as the undercover boss, right? But there's a lot more grace in the way Christ is approaching this. But the point stands. The point stands. It's like John says in the opening of his gospel. He says he was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. [00:06:04] Jesus comes to the leaders of the religion dedicated to worshiping him. [00:06:11] And instead of turning people to him, they criticize him, they plot against him. [00:06:17] This whole section of text shows how religion can just become so worldly, can become so worldly that it just becomes useless. It becomes worse than useless. It becomes dangerous. Struck it again, Guys, I've said this several times, but. But I want to. I want to get us ready for this mentally, because Jesus is going to lay down the gauntlet today, and I think our temptation is going to be to distance ourselves from it and go, man, those guys are real bad that Jesus is critiquing them so, so intensely. And there is truth to that, right? [00:06:58] But I think the real thing is this. Jesus is challenging our relationship to religion in this text. [00:07:06] He's challenging the way we consider religion. Remember, Jesus's most intense critiques are not for people, not for sinners. They're not for people that the world or the culture dismisses. Jesus's most intense critiques are for the church people. [00:07:25] They're for us, for the people who show up every Sunday, who tithes, who are in Bible studies. Those are the people that Jesus challenges the most. Because for us, it is easiest to fall in the trappings of making religion worldly, of making it useless, of making it dangerous. [00:07:45] But so today I genuinely believe today Jesus has a challenge for each of us. I believe God really wants us completely and fully to reject worldly religion and to turn to Jesus while we can. That's my main point today. Reject worldly religion to turn to Jesus while we can. [00:08:05] There are few ideas that Jesus teaches as emphatically as this. Reject worldly religion. [00:08:14] Turn to him. Turn to him now. Today is the day of the Lord. Don't. Don't waste time. Turn to Jesus while he may be Found. Don't be satisfied, beloved, with empty religious practices that are really just for this world, that are just for this time, that are just to puff you up. They are worthless. [00:08:38] And you were made for more than that. You were made for better than that. [00:08:44] But as we're going to see today, I think it leaves us with a really important question. How the heck does someone know if one's religion is worldly? Right? [00:08:53] How do you actually identify that? I mean, I highly doubt that these religious leaders, these men who were dedicated to leading the temple worship in Jerusalem, I highly doubt that all of them were just straight up charlatans and frauds. I'm sure some of them were. I'm sure some of them did not believe what they were doing and were just doing it for worldly power and money and those things. But almost certainly the majority of them were perfectly convinced that they were not only glorifying God with their lives, but that they were leading God's people well. [00:09:29] So how do you look at your own practice of religion in spirituality and use the kind of discernment that helps you pick through and figure out what practices, what rituals, what beliefs that you engage in are actually of the kingdom of God and what are of just worldly religion? [00:09:48] I think Jesus today is going to give us a word on that. So let's pray and let's jump into what is admittedly a very long text. Jesus, we need you this morning. [00:10:00] You are the one who guides us. You are the reason we are gathered, Lord, I ask today that you would ground us, connect us to you, and where our heart needs, Lord, speak through your text today. Convict us, Lord, but let our conviction not sit in this place of crushing us with guilt or destruction. But Holy Spirit, I ask that gently, as you convict us, you would draw us to repentance and draw us to the life and the freedom that you actually have for us in your kingdom. We need you to do this work, Lord, So we pray in your name. Amen. [00:10:35] Again, we've got a good amount to cover today. Stick with me, it's going to be worth it. We're in Matthew, chapter 23, and we're going to start in the first verse where it says this. [00:10:47] Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore, do what they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do because they don't practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them. They do everything to be seen by others. They enlarge their phylacteries, they lengthen their tassels. They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace, and to be called rabbi by people. [00:11:29] But you are not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. So do not call anyone on earth your father, because you have one father who's in heaven. And you are not to be called instructors either, because you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. [00:11:53] So as our text begins, what happens is that Jesus has been in this very public back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with the leaders. And it culminates as they just set this series of traps. What about this Jesus? What do you think about this Jesus? What about this Jesus? And he keeps just answering and answering. And at the end, he goes, let me ask you a question. And when he asks them a question, it just silences them. He just gets them. And it says, the religious leaders, they're all, like, plotting, but no one's brave enough to stand up and question Jesus. And in that moment, he turns away from them and looks at his actual disciples and his followers, and he goes, let me talk to you about these guys. [00:12:32] That's rough. [00:12:34] That's rough. They're standing right there. And Jesus turns and says, let me tell you exactly what's wrong with these guys who've been sitting here questioning me. [00:12:45] Now, before we talk about his critiques here, let's put ourselves in the cultural moment. The people that Jesus is critiquing here are the Pharisees and the scribes. And the scribes is just a word that's used in the New Testament, really, for kind of educated religious people. You could sub in the idea, in our parlance, of someone who's been to seminary, right? That's kind of what they're talking about, a religiously educated person. But the Pharisees specifically, this was kind of a sect within Judaism in Jesus's day. And the thing you have to remember is that in Jesus's day, like, theological convictions, like, maybe what we would think of as, like, denominations and political parties were really, like, indistinguishable. They were kind of all mixed together. And so the Pharisees were one such sect in Judaism, in Jesus's day, they had theological, kind of what we would consider denominational convictions, but they also had very specific political and social convictions. And what's interesting about about the Pharisees is that they were considered socially incredibly conservative. They were very pro Israel, very anti Rome. They wanted to see Israel established as a sovereign, independent nation away from Rome. But theologically speaking, they were considered the progressives because they had the Torah and they also had the rest of the Old Testament. And they also dug into the writings and observations of the rabbis and the traditions. They had a whole lot of text they dug through and they had a pretty expanded spiritual belief based on some of the other Jewish sects of their day. [00:14:17] Jesus is mainly critiquing this group of people, the Pharisees. And the reason he's critiquing them is that their theology had a really practical outpouring that was just incredibly destructive for most of Israel. You see, they believed firmly in the idea of the Sinai covenant or the Mosaic covenant. If you go back to Exodus, when God frees Israel from slavery in Egypt, he draws them to the wilderness, he brings them to Mount Sinai. And through the prophet Moses, he makes a covenant with the where he says, follow all my rules, do all this stuff, do all these things, and we will be covenanted together, you and I. I will be your God, you will be my people. I will live among you, I will bless you, I will set you apart, I will protect you. I'll go before you and come behind you. It's all these beautiful things. You can read about the culmination of this in Deuteronomy 28. In Deuteronomy 28, God spells out through the prophet Moses, very specifically, if you are faithful to my covenant, that means obey what I've commanded you. Then you get these blessings. And he spells it out very specifically, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. But if you are unfaithful and you break my covenant, I will turn every one of those blessings into a curse. [00:15:35] And you'll receive these curses. And he lists them out, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. [00:15:40] The Pharisees believed passionately that this was the defining way that God related to Israel. Covenant, blessings and curses. And those the reception of those blessings and curses was based entirely on the collective pool of faithful obedience of God' So they had developed this idea that there was a collective aspect to Israel's obedience to covenant, that if enough of God's people did enough obedient things, it kind of built into this common pot of holiness and observance. And if that stayed at the right amount, then God would check the box, covenant fulfilled, and he would give all the blessings. But if you read through Israel's history, go through the historical books, Judges 1st, 2nd Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, all those, what you find is that historically, Israel was miserable at holding their end of the covenant. Their story as a nation is a story of constant unfaithfulness and failure in sin and God bringing about the curses outlined in Deuteronomy 28. Until someone comes along and reminds them of the gospel, and they repent and turn back to God and God restores their blessings. There's this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And it culminates during the time of the ministry of the prophets, where God says, that's it. That's enough. You so grievously broken my covenant for so long that I am done and I'm destroying you. And he sends the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and he wipes Israel off the face of the planet. [00:17:17] Blows them out. [00:17:18] Now, by Jesus day, God's people who had survived their ancestors were living again in the promised land. But they were living as subjects of the Roman Empire. They weren't free. They weren't an independent, sovereign nation. And so the Pharisees had concluded, we just aren't holy enough. [00:17:39] Our collective pot of holiness, of obedience, of covenant, observation. We haven't got enough of it to get God to give our covenant blessings back. And so they came up with this idea. Obviously, the solution is we need to be more holy. [00:17:57] And so if we can get more people to observe and obey the laws, and not just that, if we can go above and beyond, if the law calls you here, let's get people to go here, here, here, and here. And that'll show God how seriously we take this, how holy we are. And eventually he'll go, yeah, I forgive you, and he'll restore all the covenant blessings. This is the foundation of the entire Pharisaical theology. [00:18:28] You need to do more, do more. However much you're doing, it's obviously not enough because God is not blessing our people. So do more. [00:18:42] Jesus was not a fan of this theology. [00:18:45] He's not a fan of this idea. This theology. It pushed these guys to create what they called hedge laws, where if the law said do this, they would add four or five steps to keep you from not even getting close to breaking that law. And by Jesus's day, they had these intricate traditions where the scripture might say something as simple as, don't touch a dead animal before you go to worship. That might be what the law actually says, but the Pharisees add onto it and add onto it and add on to it until what they expect is, well, listen, anytime you sit down to eat a meal, make sure you wash your hands. But when you wash your hands, only wash your hands using set aside sacred water that's been left in this set aside sacred vessel for this amount of time and prayed over this many times. Because when you wash your hands in that, you'll bring with you some extra holiness. And that way, just in case, when your wife went to market and bought dinner, she accidentally picked up a piece of fruit that at some point had touched a dead animal and that brought its own holiness into your home and touched your table, you will supersede that unholiness with your sacred washed hands and you'll bless your whole family. Huh? [00:19:51] Oh, by the way, if you don't do that, you're the reason God's not restoring Israel, you pagan. [00:19:59] That's the theology of the Pharisees, and Jesus is not a fan of it. That's not an exaggeration, by the way. That exact debate comes up in Jesus's ministry. [00:20:10] Jesus, you didn't wash your hands before you ate. Don't you love Israel? [00:20:15] Kind of nuts. I actually said that to my kids every night before dinner. [00:20:22] These leaders are putting these burdens upon the average person, just these average people who love God and are doing their best and yet are living under the oppression of Roman rule. And they're being told by their spiritual leaders, you're the problem. You're the problem. You're the reason God's not blessing us. You're not doing enough. You're not holy enough. You're not pleasing God enough. [00:20:49] It's your fault. [00:20:53] And so Jesus, he has no patience for this. [00:20:57] He says, this is nuts. That is not how God set this up. And you guys, you leaders, not you guys, these religious leaders, you're the worst. You're putting all these burdens on these people, and yet look at your own spiritual practice. Everything you're doing, you're not doing it to glorify God. You're doing it to look good. [00:21:17] Then he gives these two strange examples about tassels and phylacteries. These are based on real, actual traditions and laws. In the old testament, Numbers 15 instructs folk to attach tassels to the four corners of their prayer shawls as a way of showing their connection to God. In Jesus's day, these men would take these tassels and they would have special ones made that were bright and long and braided and stuck out of their clothes and went almost all the way down to the ground. So people could see, dang, look at that guy's tassels. He, like, really loves the Lord. That was the point they were getting at, was to show it off, right? In the same way. Phylacteries. These are these little leather or wooden boxes that folk would strap to their forehead or their wrists. And this is connected to a tradition in Deuteronomy 6, where it talks about taking the laws of the Lord and carrying them with you. They'll take these little boxes and they'd fill them with scraps of paper with scriptures written out on them. And the Pharisees in this day, they would have elaborate, large, bright painted ones that you could see from across the room. So you're able to go, wow, that dude's really spiritual. Look how seriously he takes this stuff. [00:22:23] And then he talks about how these guys, they go out into the world and they live their life in such a way as they're trying to get attention to their spirituality. They want the front seat at social gatherings. They want the front row at church. They want to be greeted out in public when people going, oh, Rabbi, oh, it's so good to see you. This is a word for teacher. And then Jesus gives this threefold critique, which is his way of letting you know he's taking this really seriously. Says, you don't do it that way. [00:22:52] Don't do it that way. In my kingdom, we don't live that way. It's not how we do it. You don't need anyone to call you rabbi. You don't even want to call you Father. You don't need no one to call you instructor. These are all terms used in this day for spiritual leaders and authorities, because you don't need any of that because you're all brothers and sisters and you're all guided by the same Holy Spirit. Now, interestingly, this is a little bit of a side note, but just for some. Just for some trivia for you. Historically, Baptists have actually taken that particular command from Jesus very seriously, very literally. You know, most Christian traditions, we attach honorifics to ordained clergy and pastor. You know, things titles like father, priest, reverend, vicar, those sorts of things. But in Baptist traditions, we simply use brother as the honorific for our ordained pastors. In fact, if any of you in this room were married by me, then your marriage license is signed brother, not reverend or pastor, because that's part of Our faith tradition. [00:23:54] I think that's a fun little thing. It's a way of saying, even though we acknowledge different giftings and different strengths, right? Like we put people with different callings and different spiritual giftings and different positions of the church because of the Holy Spirit, none of us are above the other. And just because I'm a trained pastor in this room, that doesn't put me in any sort of place over you. We are brothers and sisters, washed in the same blood, standing before the same cross and imbued with the same Holy Spirit. Amen. I love that truth. And there's something that Jesus says is fundamentally different about the kingdom of God here. [00:24:28] That we don't practice our religion for the purpose of lording over others, of gaining social ground or gaining power or gaining authority. Jesus says, no, no. He reiterates here something he's already said. In my kingdom, in my kingdom, we seek to out serve one another. [00:24:49] The people who want to be in charge, the people who want authority, they seek to serve. [00:24:55] We lower ourselves. We love and serve others. [00:25:01] This is really at the root of how Jesus differentiates worldly religion and kingdom religion. [00:25:08] World religion is used to gain worldly authority. It's used to gain worldly glory. It's self focused, it's small. [00:25:17] But religion of the kingdom of God is about the spirit of God. It puts Jesus and others first. [00:25:24] So as we continue in this text, we're going to get really practical for a couple minutes. [00:25:30] Jesus is about to outline seven specific condemnations of these leaders that he's been in conflict with. The seven woes, which I think is a really dramatic way of saying it. But Jesus is putting himself here squarely in the tradition of the Jewish prophets. This word woe, woe to you, sounds kind of like Shakespeare to us, right? But this is a way the prophets would speak. This idea of woe, it's kind of this combined piece of. It's a warning and it's also sorrow. You say woe to you. It's a way of saying, you better take this seriously. This is a stark warning of God's judgment on you. But there's also this sorrow of going, I don't want this for you, I want better for you. So the prophets spoke to Israel and it's how God, our Jesus chooses to speak to the religious leaders here, pouring out seven specific woes on them. And so we're going to go through these one by one. And I want to encourage us to do this. [00:26:36] Let's do our best to put ourselves in the headspace to understand what Jesus is critiquing here. But let's all choose right now to be humble enough to, to step back and consider how these woes might actually apply to the way we practice religion today. [00:26:52] Let's walk through these one by one. Let's get beat up collectively together for a few minutes and then I promise you we will come back to the encouragement and truth and forgiveness of the gospel. Okay? But let's, let's let these be as heavy and as cutting as they are supposed to be for a few minutes. [00:27:09] So verse 13, the first woe. [00:27:13] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces for you don't go in and you don't allow those entering to go in. [00:27:27] Jesus has mentioned several times over the course of his ministry how important it is to enter the kingdom and yet how difficult it is. Think about the way he closes out the Sermon on the Mount about the wide and narrow road and the wide and narrow gate, right? Narrow is the gate and few enter by it. That leads to life. [00:27:47] Jesus says these religious leaders not only miss the opportunity themselves, they block the way for others. [00:27:55] This is rough, but you have to remember Pharisaical theology was primarily works based righteousness. [00:28:04] Israel was suffering because individual Jews just weren't good enough for God to give them their blessing back. The solution then is obviously to work harder and be better. In other words, this is anti gospel. It's anti gospel. It all rested on whether or not you were disciplined enough to be good enough to earn God's favor. [00:28:29] And we must be humble enough to admit, beloved, that this kind of worldly religion is alive and well today. [00:28:37] Comes out in our gripes, in the way we judge other believers, especially young believers new in their faith. I just don't get why people don't wear church clothes anymore. No one knows their Bibles anymore. When I was young in my faith, I went to three different Bible studies. And you know what? My kids behave the whole time and in public like. [00:28:59] I still live off those scriptures I memorized when I was in college. No one does that anymore. [00:29:06] Because here's the thing about this trap. [00:29:08] Spiritual disciplines are wonderful. They're wonderful. [00:29:13] You should, you should do those things. Show up the church, give God your best. Study the Word, memorize the word, yes, yes and amen. All of it. [00:29:23] But we do those things because Jesus has saved us in his grace. [00:29:30] He won us righteousness. He gave us forgiveness by his accomplished work on the Cross, we don't dress nice and show up and learn all these cultural expressions to earn our place in the Kingdom. Beloved Jesus, think of your own story. Jesus bid us to come as we were. [00:29:51] He looked at you and your sin and rebellion. He looked at you in your lack of being good enough and said, I love you. Come to me. [00:30:01] Come. Come. Those without money, buy food. Come. Those who are thirsty, drink. Come, receive my grace. This is how Jesus sought you in all your immaturity, in all your lack of discipline, in all your not good enoughness. [00:30:18] We have to give the same invitation to others. Amen. [00:30:22] To trust that it is Jesus in fact who will disciple them. [00:30:26] And that if they're not engaging in spiritual disciplines that you maybe think they should, and they're not bringing traditions into the places and times of worship like you hope they would, well, maybe God is still working on their hearts like he's still working on yours. Come on. [00:30:41] Do you do your spiritual works because of Jesus, or do you do them to try and convince Jesus that you actually really do belong here? [00:30:51] Do you encourage others to their spiritual practices because of how good Jesus is, or so they can be good enough to be Christians? [00:31:01] It's a subtle difference. Subtle difference, but it's the difference between worldly religion and kingdom religion. [00:31:10] Now you'll note most of your Bibles don't have a verse 14. We don't have time to talk about that today. But it's because we have good Bible translations and we found older texts. If you have a King James, verse 14 is there, but I think anything else, it's not there. So verse 15, our second woe. [00:31:28] Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to make one convert. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are. [00:31:42] Wow. [00:31:44] These leaders. [00:31:46] Hear this. [00:31:48] These leaders are missional and evangelistic. [00:31:53] They made disciples. [00:31:55] Can we just talk about that for a minute? They were so passionate about their religious practice that they were actively seeking out more people to do it. [00:32:06] I mean, how many of us can honestly, with a clear conscience, say that of our own faith practice today? Right, but the problem is this. A disciple copies off of the disciple. Er, when you go and invite people into your spiritual practice, you are replicating what you are. [00:32:28] See, these Pharisees were doing a great job of seeking out winning converts, but they were converting people to empty, dead religion. And they left these new converts just as dead as they were were when they started. [00:32:40] But guys, I would argue that all of us, when it gets down to it, are evangelists because all of us naturally talk about and promote the things we are passionate about. [00:32:51] Whether you're introverted or extroverted, we talk about the things we love. [00:32:56] That might be your political opinions. That might be your favorite sports team. That might be the best deal on TVs. That might be the best Mexican restaurant in West County. Charo at Baxter and Clayton. It might be your religious practice. [00:33:09] We all evangelize what we are passionate about. And when it works, we're excited. That's cool. Some of you are like, I never heard of that restaurant. I'm gonna go try it. And then you'll go. And you'll go, dang, I didn't know a sit down Mexican restaurant in west county could be this good. And then you'll be a convert. A convert. It'll work. [00:33:30] When it works, we're excited. But the problem is when it works, we copy what we are. [00:33:37] Beloved, consider your own life for just a moment. Consider your own practice of faith. What are you winning people to? [00:33:48] The people who seek you out, who build relationship with you. Does your life invite people to be more like Jesus? [00:33:55] Does your life invite people to be more like, I don't know, your favorite politician or your particular fandom? [00:34:03] What does your discipleship create? Beloved, let me ask you this way. If someone were to study your life the way Peter studied Jesus or the way Timothy studied Paul, if someone were to study your life that way, what would they end up like at the end of it? [00:34:25] Would they be more like Christ or less like Christ? [00:34:28] It's worth considering. [00:34:30] The third woe, verse 16. [00:34:33] Woe to you blind guides who say, whoever takes an oath by the temple, it means nothing. But whoever takes an oath by the gold of the temple is bound by his oath. Blind fools. For which is greater, the gold of the temple? The gold or the temple that sanctified the gold Also, Whoever takes an oath by the altar, it means nothing. But whoever takes an oath by the gift on it is bound by his oath. Blind people. What is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore, the one who takes an oath by the altar takes an oath by by it and everything on it. The one who takes an oath by the temple takes an oath by it and him who dwells in it. And the one who takes an oath by heaven takes an oath by God's throne and by him who sits on it. This one's strange because Jesus is speaking to a specific cultural issue that just doesn't super apply to us. It's this idea of swearing oaths. This is a contemporary issue. Jesus actually addresses it a couple times in his ministry and it basically comes down to this. It was common among Pharisaical folk to use technicalities in oaths as excuses to not actually keep their word. [00:35:37] Well, I know I swore by the altar, but I didn't swear by the gift on the altar. And that's really the holy part. And so, you know, I don't really have to do it. Sorry dude, I didn't sin. We're still good. We're in a net holiness for all of Israel. [00:35:50] Jesus points out that this is dumb, that your word is your pawn. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. But the bigger issue here is that Jesus says how this is an example of the Pharisees spiritual blindness, but they are teaching technicalities and workarounds in people's faith instead of focusing on truth. [00:36:13] Way to think about this in your own religious practice is to ask if you are looking for what you can get away with or looking for how you can honor God. [00:36:22] These are the kind of questions that come up in our minds where we say things like, I mean, how much can you drink before it like really becomes sinful, right? Like I know it's fine to like start out but like where's the line where it crosses over into like sinfulness or drunkenness or whatever? How much marijuana can I use before it becomes a sin? How far can I go sexually with my boyfriend or girlfriend before it's sin? So you know like, you know, I know you can kiss him, but like how far can I go? Well, when we're planning on getting married anyway, so does it really matter like if we live together, like that's not really a big deal. How much can I actually talk about this person with you right now behind their back before it's gossip? Like I really want you to just kind of know the truth, you know, but also I'm like, I don't want to talk bad about them, right? [00:37:07] I know this is dishonest, but this is like normal in my career and like all my co workers do. This is if I don't engage in this practice, I'm going to become non competitive and like I'm really not going to be able to keep up with my field. So Gab doesn't really care about that, right? Like that's good. [00:37:22] Should I keep going or have I struck enough nerves in the room? [00:37:27] Beloved world, religion looks for what it can get away with. [00:37:33] It looks for how far it can go. [00:37:37] Kingdom religion asks the question about how one can glorify God. [00:37:41] Don't ask how close you can get to sin without getting burned. Instead, ask how you can glorify God in every situation, in every relationship you have. Ask that question and see what answers you come to. [00:37:56] Fourth woe, verse 23. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You pay a tenth of mint, dill and cumin, and yet you have rejected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. You blind guides. You strain out a gnat and gulp down a camel. [00:38:20] Jesus here points out a major hypocrisy of world religion. These religious leaders are keeping track of the minutia of rule following. They don't just hide their money when they go to church. They go through their spice rack and they tithe their spices. [00:38:38] Imagine bringing those teeny tiny bags with a little bit of your cumin and a little bit of your thyme and a little bit of your rosemary. But they are ignoring the actual heart issues. [00:38:50] Things like justice in the world, mercy for those in need, faithfulness to God. God himself rebuked Israel for the sin through the prophet Micah when he said, mankind, he has told, told you what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Act justly, love faithfulness and walk humbly with your God. [00:39:11] As Jesus says this, this. [00:39:14] Do the teeny tiny things of forgetting the big things. [00:39:17] It's the same kind of blindness as looking for loopholes. They believe they're spiritual because they're following these little laws, but they're ignoring the things that God obviously cares about in their world. [00:39:31] Because this comes out so easily in our religious practice today, comes out when we obsess over our religious preferences or a cultural expression or a rule in religion, in church, to the exclusion of actually taking the gospel to people in need, Right? If you've ever found yourself in a place where you'd rather have the music you like, the right song sung the right way by the right person or the program you like, we've always done this trip, We've always done this event. We've always done it on this weekend, when those things matter more to you, and then the sheer truth of more people dead in their transgressions, lost in their sin, hearing about the grace of Jesus. [00:40:22] If accomplishing your preferences weighs more than seeing the kingdom advance in your midst, beloved, don't fool yourself. [00:40:33] We all fall into this trap. This is an easy trap. Because we have these beautiful spiritual experiences. You grow. You have these moments in church life and in communal life where you have these transcendent connections of God. Whatever was happening then, whether it was an event, whether it was a mission, whether it was a song, whether it was a leader, whatever was going on, when you have a transcendent connection to God, it becomes sacred in your heart. And you think, surely if everyone else experienced this same thing, then they would have the same experience of God. But the truth is, beloved, the power is in the spirit of God, not in that expression you've experienced. That song is meaningless. I'm sorry. I'm sure it was beautiful, but it is not the eternal kingdom of God. [00:41:23] That leader, that program, that summer camp, that Bible study, those things are not the spirit of God. They're wonderful. They're wonderful. [00:41:38] But don't. Don't let them weigh more in the kingdom in your heart. [00:41:44] All of us fall into that trap. It is so easy. [00:41:48] It's not that they're not beautiful, not that they're not wonderful. It's just that you need to remember what they are, which is small. [00:41:55] Small. [00:41:56] They weigh less. [00:41:59] Okay, the fifth and sixth lows go together. Let's look at them together. Verses 25. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence. Blind Pharisees. First clean the inside of the cup, so the outside of it may also become clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. [00:42:37] Dirty cups and whitewashed tunes. [00:42:40] Similar ideas, but there is a nuanced difference here. The first image is of a dirty cup where you only clean the outside, right? Like, imagine that scenario where you're doing your dishes and you've got all. Imagine you're doing my dishes and you've got all the sippy cups, and I mean the ones full of milk that my kids hand under the. Under the sofa for three weeks. Like that one, right? You're cleaning my dishes for me because you love your pastor and you know how stressed I am. But you look at these sippy cups and you go, honestly, I think if I just clean the outside and put them back in the cabinet, It'll be fine. [00:43:13] That's pretty gross. [00:43:15] Don't do that. [00:43:17] Don't do that. That's image number one. The second image is something that was unique to this time, in this moment. You have to remember, in this culture, they didn't have set apart graveyards the way we do. And so around Jerusalem, on different people's property, there were tombs and graves in lots of places. And when you had major festivals where people would walk for literally weeks or months to get to Jerusalem, what they would do is they would go out on their property in the weeks leading up to festivals, and they would literally paint all the graves and tombs. They'd paint them bright white so that you didn't actually accidentally step on one and make yourself ceremonially unclean and unable to participate in the festival. And so people would paint all their tombs as a warning sign to say, don't walk here by accident, especially if you're on your way to Passover. [00:44:00] Jesus is saying, these Pharisees in the same way. They look good. They look good on the outside. Publicly, everything looks right. But inside, their hearts are full of greed. They're full of self indulgence, they're full of impurity. They're decayed. [00:44:17] Decayed and rotten. [00:44:19] Because worldly religion rots you. It rots you when you take your spiritual energy and you point it toward this world, but it's not built for decays you. [00:44:31] So how about you, beloved? [00:44:34] I think most of us have already learned the skill of how to put on a church face and how to smile and say, oh, I'm blessed. [00:44:43] When people shake your hand and ask you how you're doing on Sunday morning. Or when you want wander into a living room with small group. [00:44:50] We know how to do that when inside we're dying, or inside we're just selfish, don't really want to be there. Or we're given over to some unrepentant sin that we've numbed ourselves to actually engaging. Because we don't foresee a world where we care enough to deal with it or where God's actually going to break us free from it. [00:45:11] A religion like that can make you look really good to others, but it does nothing to heal and grow your heart. [00:45:20] There's nothing to actually change you, beloved, that is of this world. The gospel of Jesus changes human hearts. Jesus invites us to come exactly as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us where we are. [00:45:35] The gospel changes here. [00:45:37] Okay, one last woe. Bring it all together. [00:45:42] Verse 29. Woe to you, scribes. And Pharisees, hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we wouldn't have taken part with them in shedding the prophet's blood. But so you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. [00:46:02] Fill up then, the measure of your ancestors sins. You snakes, you brood of vipers. How can you escape being condemned to hell? This is why I'm sending you prophets and sages and scribes. Some of them you will kill, crucify. Some of them you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so all the righteous blood shed on the earth will be charged to you for the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barak, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I tell you, all these things will come to pass on this generation. Boom, mic drop moment. Jesus's last woe. Here is this strange idea about prophets. Jesus is basically telling them, you love to honor the prophets, but you are exactly the kind of people who would have persecuted them and killed them. [00:46:50] You love to make a big deal about how great Isaiah is. But if Isaiah was here, you would have joined in arresting him. [00:46:57] You would have jumped in on it. [00:46:59] Because I think this raises a really sober question for us as we consider our own religion. And I think it's a great way for us to land the challenge of these woes. [00:47:10] I want you right now to take a minute and think of a religious figure that you revere. [00:47:17] Maybe it's the person who led you to the Lord. [00:47:20] Maybe it's the first pastor that you had where your faith really grew. [00:47:24] Maybe it's the person who disciples you when you're in college. Heck, maybe it's like just an author, classical author, modern author. When you read that, you really connect with. [00:47:33] If that person had unfiltered access to your practice of your faith for, oh, I don't know, a week, month, would you be the kind of person they would challenge and rebuke? [00:47:52] Would you be the kind of person that they would go, hold on, hold on. [00:47:59] I think it's worth thinking about out the people we lift up and hold up and go, man, and this person spades so good. Yeah. If that person was your discipler and they had a real window into your heart right now, they got to spend the next week or month with you, how would they challenge you? [00:48:21] How would they push back on the way you're Living into your flesh, It's a great way to take a gut check. [00:48:32] Jesus pulled this whole section together by saying, these religious leaders, they have no excuse. They know better. They could repent if they wanted, but they are choosing worldly religion and God will hold them accountable for it. Oh. [00:48:48] Oh, that is haunting. [00:48:51] Haunting to me. Me. It's haunting to me because I know that I am often the one whose religion is so worldly. [00:49:00] I mean, I don't know about you, but when I think of my own flesh and my own struggles, I'm pretty sure I've fallen into, like, all seven of these woes in, like, the last couple weeks. Right? [00:49:12] It's easy. [00:49:14] And the problem is, I do know better. [00:49:17] Jesus has been so good to me. Me. He's accepted me in my sin. He's forgiven me. He's brought me into his kingdom with love and grace. He's patiently brought me along, guiding me to the call he has on my life. And I still turn my religious practice toward making me look good, still use it as a tool to build my own reputation and to expand my own comfort. [00:49:41] So what the heck do we do about this? [00:49:46] Where is the hope for the Pharisees like you and me? [00:49:51] Band, if you want to come up, I'm going to finish up this text to land us out. [00:49:56] Verse 37. It says this. [00:49:58] Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stone those who were sent to her. [00:50:05] How often I've wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are not willing. See, your house has left you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. [00:50:20] I know Jesus is still challenging them here, but I find this part of the text so encouraging. [00:50:26] This does not turn you back to the amazing heart of the gospel. I mean, this whole section, Jesus has been challenging us to reject our worldly expressions of religion. [00:50:37] And how the heck, like, how do you know if your religion is worldly? [00:50:42] I think the answer is so surprisingly simple here. It's just this. Does your religious practice connect you and other people to God or to this world? [00:50:51] Does your religious practice point you to eternity? Does it point back to you? [00:50:57] And when we all go through this really simple question and undoubtedly realize how much of our expression of spirituality and religion is worldly and selfish, what do we do when you invariably come to that conclusion? What can you do? If you know better, your judgment is just, oh, beloved, we turn back to Jesus. [00:51:23] We return to Christ. [00:51:25] It's true that Jesus saved his harshest rebukes for hypocritical religious people. And many of us would have likely fallen to the sting of his rebuke had we lived in this day and been present for this teaching. [00:51:39] But the grace of Jesus is for all who see it, even us recovering Pharisees. [00:51:46] See, Jesus looks at these people after ripping their religion apart and says, man, I long to care for you. [00:51:53] I long to draw you under my wings. Like a motherhead, Jesus has this mother's care for selfish religious people like us. [00:52:04] Longs to see us safe and secure in him, not needing to puff ourselves up to build our own reputations and comforts because we're safe in Him. [00:52:15] Beloved, this is the invitation of the Gospel for you and for me today. Turn to Jesus while you can. [00:52:23] Your worldly religion won't save you. [00:52:26] May help you find your footing in your comforts here in this world. But you were made for more than this world. [00:52:32] You were made for eternity with Jesus. [00:52:35] And real kingdom religion is whatever helps you move toward Him. Real kingdom religion is the invitation to hide under the warmth and protection and wings of your mama hen. [00:52:46] You've ever seen a mama hen protect its chicks? [00:52:50] It's actually beautiful. Chickens are not like the most compassionate creatures on earth. [00:52:56] But when it rains, when it snows, when dogs and goats show up, mama hens know what to do. [00:53:04] They puff up their feathers, they get their spurs out. They get between whatever is going on in their chicks, and their chicks literally run up underneath their legs and hide in the puff of their feathers. It's really cute. [00:53:17] Beloved, this is what Jesus invites you to today to find safety, warmth, comfort, redemption in Him. [00:53:27] I'm going to invite you guys to take a minute in prayer right now and to ask Jesus just as honestly as you can, what does this mean for you today? [00:53:36] What worldly religious practices do you need to repent of? [00:53:41] How can you take steps toward Jesus today? [00:53:44] How can you live out a religion that invites the other chicks out in the rain to come into the warmth and safety along with you and Jesus? [00:53:55] I'm so serious right now. Take. Take a minute to be in a posture of prayer. You don't have to do anything magical or special. Will you be sitting in your seat? That's awesome. Do you want to get on your knees or grab one of our pastors? You could do that. But wait, we're going to be here just like two or three minutes, guys. Real short. [00:54:13] Don't you just ask Jesus, what does he have for you? [00:54:18] See, leaks are looking to respond.