Matthew 23 - Part 9 - Woe unto you...

 

Read Matthew 23

Do as I say.  Not as I do.

Many of us old folks remember that saying.  Most won’t argue that such an attitude is not effective leadership. Lead by example is much better.

This is the exact attitude that Jesus pronounced upon the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.  But Jesus didn’t leave it there.  He told the people that they had to obey these men with poor examples of leadership.

Do what they say but not what they do.  Ouch!

The instructions that they gave still came from God’s law even though they did not understand God’s heart.  They were terrible shepherds but they had memorized the rules.

They do not practice what they preach!

They will list ad infinitum the rules that one must follow but won’t help the least little bit.

Everything that they do is done for show.

Jesus continued—don’t think that you will ever know enough to be called teacher or rabbi.  There is a sermon title that has been passed down for decades, surely going well back into the previous century, maybe further.

It is called, Titles or Testimonies.  I don’t know the text of the original message but for many of us, the title fully conveys the message.

When we stand before Jesus, he does not want to see our curriculum vitae. He doesn’t want to see our resume.  He doesn’t want our business card and he sure doesn’t care how many titles you can put before and after your name.

Our credentials are our love and service.  Use your gifts and talents to serve the Lord, mostly by loving one another and serving others. In this service you will find obedience to the Lord, though it will not feel restrictive as the world knows obedience.

 When the roll is called up yonder, titles won’t mean diddly.  It’s will be our testimonies that will be the substance of our discussion with our Lord.

Here is something to think about.

And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

It’s got a last will be first and first will be last ring to it, don’t you think?

Jesus was not content just to tell his disciples and whatever crowd may have been gathered not to follow these hypocrites.  He provided substantial evidence against them.  We will look at what we might call the 7 Woes of Chapter 23.

The first of the woes—the kingdom of heaven.

They—the Pharisees—don’t want people to live in the kingdom of heaven; yet, you don’t live there yourself.  What’s up with that?

If anyone truly entered the kingdom of heaven, the rules of the world and the secular demands of the religious hypocrites would have no hold on anyone.

The Pharisees enjoyed their high standing.  They didn’t want anyone cutting into that.  They wanted to use God’s word to control and not to empower the people who sought after him.

Did they not understand how much greater it would be to live among people empowered by God to do God’s will? 

Do we understand that making someone less does not make us more?  We know many people like this.  They want to bring down, discredit, gossip about someone else so they feel better than those they have disparaged.

This section is a protracted monologue by our Lord about the Pharisees and other religious hypocrites.  It is one chastising after another without counsel to us.

So, here is our counsel from the full biblical witness.

Love one another.

Pride leads us to shame.  Humility keeps company with wisdom.

He who despises his neighbor lacks sense.

Do nothing out of vain ambition or selfish deceit.

Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.

We are not in competition with others.  We serve God by serving others.  We should celebrate when the lost come home.  We should rejoice as others seek to follow the Lord.

We only have to think back a few verses in this chapter.

Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

The second of the woes—a son of hell.

We have liberty in Christ. Not everything is profitable in that liberty, but we do have freedom.  We are charged to live wisely.

We have abundance in Christ Jesus.  He came to give us life and life abundant through him.  Let’s throw in life eternal as well.

We know the truth in Christ Jesus.  Our charge is to live in the light and live in the truth.  To know him and make him known.

The Pharisees would go to great lengths to make a convert and then heap laws and rules on top of them so as to suck the life out of life.

We reach people with these words:  Repent and believe the good news.  Yes, people must turn away from the ways of the world—from evil—and believe in and embrace the ways of the Lord.

The response of people is to be liberating.  They cross over from sin and death to life and purpose. They will never live another day without God-given purpose.

The Pharisees stuck to their model.  New converts were just people that could be subjugated to their authority.

We receive new believers as brothers and sisters in Christ.

The third of the woes—blind fools.

In government, politics, and war there is something called mission creep.  This is where a well-defined mission adds something else to the initial tasking, then something else, then something else, so much so that the initial mission is obscured.

I will abuse the term mission creep and say the Pharisees had righteousness creep.  They started with what God had prescribed and ordained and then they added something and then something else and then they lost sight of the sacred nature of God’s instructions.

They had become obscured by their own mandates, so much so that not even the Pharisees could distinguish between God’s law and their own directives.

The quote often attributed to Mark Twain is: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”  The Pharisees easily fooled themselves.  Power is seductive like that, but it left them helpless to hear the truth.

They had become blind.  They were not born blind.  They became blind.

We are to have eyes to see and ears to hear.  We must know the voice of the Good Shepherd. We will not follow any other.

We are not to become blind.  We must keep our eyes to see and ears to hear by putting the words of our Master into practice.

The fourth of the woes—you hypocrites.

This section has one of my favorites chastising phrases of our Lord: You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

You live the letter of the law while embalming the heart of the law.

Do these words sound familiar?  Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.

The Pharisees and other religious hypocrites would give a tenth of what they received as their income, but kept their distance from mercy and humility.

Jesus didn’t say that they had to choose.  They should do both—tithe (tithe means tenth) and practice love and mercy and humility.

They nitpicked the details while missing the big picture.  You strain out a gnat while swallowing a camel.

Again, we must seek the full biblical witness if we want more than just chastisement of the Pharisees.

Should we tithe?  Absolutely, but not out of compulsion. 

Should we gather in the assembly and worship the Lord?  Absolutely, but not because we have to.  Our hearts should compel us to gather for worship.

Should we share the gospel?  Are you kidding me?  We should share it like it was the best news ever, mainly because it is.  We are commissioned to share the gospel but our hearts compel us to bring good news to the world.

We should study God’s word with great passion, focusing on every detail, but not to the exclusion of the divine heart that inspired every word. 

We should internalize God’s words so that we can serve as a certified workman for the kingdom of God, but must not work solely by regulation and checklists when God has loved us with an everlasting love and commanded us to love one another.

God’s directives have been given for our own good.  Obedience to God’s directives does not restrict living by love and we should never interpret them to do so.

Let’s not be people who strain out a gnat and then swallow camels.  Let’s be people of love.

The fifth and sixth of the woes—hypocrites again.

This is one of the more difficult sections for men of this century to understand.  If you cup is dirty, put it in the dishwasher.  That’s why you bought the thing.  Let it do the work. Why wash the cup so that it’s clean enough to wash.  What’s up with that?

Let’s leave the mechanical dishwashers out of the interpretation.  The Pharisees were all about appearances.  If the outside looked good, people might think that they were clean on the inside.

Jesus knew better. He continued by calling these religious hypocrites whitewashed tombs.  The tomb looks pretty on the outside but everyone knows that you don’t want to open a tomb.  The smell would be overpowering.  The inside of a tomb is not an appealing site.

We have looked at this inside out thing before. If God’s word is not at work in you from the inside—the heart and mind—then it doesn’t matter how pretty you make the outside.  God sees the heart.

We must take the words of our Lord, internalize them, and live them.

The seventh of the woes—you guessed it: hypocrites.

Have you ever thought if you were in Adam’s or Eve’s place, that I would not have done that?  That tree would still have all of its fruit.  I would have chosen differently.

And the world would be a better place…

You betcha!

Then we realize that we have only been awake for 10 minutes and need to confess to God for 15 minutes.  It is human nature to think that we would have done a better job.

The Pharisees had this sanctimonious—holier than thou—nature about them.  They didn’t really live according to God’s desire, but they wouldn’t tell you that.  If they made an error, it wasn’t really an error.

If you are the guys with all of the penalty flags, you know you can’t waste them on yourself.  You will surely need them before marking off 15 yards for some petty offense for those who are not sporting the pretty big boxes on their foreheads.

The Pharisees did not divorce themselves from the sinful world that they lived in.  Like their ancestors, they had grown accustomed to some of the comforts of the godless.  While they were sanctimonious, they were not sanctified.

They were not growing closer to God.  They made up their own rules so they didn’t need to be.

Here is the short version-hypocrites.

How do we apply this to ourselves?  Stay humble.  Let the word of God judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

You snakes!  You brood of vipers!

After 7 woes to the Scribes and Pharisees and teachers of the law, Jesus was just getting warmed up.

Jesus asked a rhetorical question.  The hypocrites could not answer.  They had tried before with we are sons of Abraham, but Jesus didn’t give them any points for that answer.

 Jesus challenged them:  How will you escape being condemned to hell?

You know what God’s word says, but you do not know God or the One he sent to save the world.

It truly was a rhetorical question.  The only salvation is through Christ Jesus and these hypocrites had rejected him time and time again.  There was no other option than the one they repeatedly rejected.

Jesus recounted how many times God’s own people had rejected him and the prophets that he sent.  He noted how he longed to gather his children in loving embrace but they were not willing.

The very lives of those who claimed to be so righteous were desolate as so many who claimed godliness before them.  Without Jesus they remained without hope.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’

Repentance was the only way for those who thought they knew God best but knew only what served them.  They must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.

How can we avoid becoming hypocrites?  What does the Lord require of us.

There’s more to it than this, but this is a good starting point.

Seek justice

Love mercy

Walk humbly with your God.

I will repeat that last phrase.

Walk humbly with your God.

Without humility, without the humble nature through which Christ entered the world, we are susceptible to becoming hypocrites.

Walk humbly with your God.

So as we continue into 2021, let’s love mercy, be generous towards God, have Christ as the cornerstone in our lives and be ready to learn from him, not relying upon our own understanding.

And let’s walk humbly with your God.

Amen.

Matthew 23 - Part 8

 

Read Matthew 23

You snakes!  You brood of vipers!

After 7 woes to the Scribes and Pharisees and teachers of the law, Jesus was just getting warmed up.

Jesus asked a rhetorical question.  The hypocrites could not answer.  They had tried before with we are sons of Abraham, but Jesus didn’t give them any points for that answer.

 Jesus challenged them:  How will you escape being condemned to hell?

It truly was a rhetorical question.  The only salvation is through Christ Jesus and these hypocrites had rejected him time and time again.  There was no other option than the one they repeatedly rejected.

Jesus recounted how many times God’s own people had rejected him and the prophets that he sent.  He noted how he longed to gather his children in loving embrace but they were not willing.

The very lives of those who claimed to be so righteous were desolate as so many who claimed godliness before them.  Without Jesus they remained without hope.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’

Repentance was the only way for those who thought they knew God best but knew only what served them.  They must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.

Amen.

Matthew 12 - Part 4

 

Read Matthew 12

Jesus continued exposing the hypocrisy and short-sighted thinking of the Pharisees and those siding with them.  Remember when I said that I do not want to be on the other end of a statement that Jesus begins with Woe unto you…

I also do not want to be in the company of those he might call a brood of vipers.  You bunch of snakes, you forked tongue devils, you good-for-nothings--these are terms that I don’t want sent my way, especially by Jesus.

Jesus went on the explain the terrible thinking of the Pharisees.  If you want to rob a strong man’s house, then you had better have enough people to tie him up or you will be the one bound and sent off to prison.

A good tree gives good fruit and it can’t give bad fruit. A bad tree can’t produce good fruit.  These are not new concepts but Jesus makes direct application to the Pharisees.

How can you evil good-for-nothings think that anything you say is right or good or brings glory to God in any way?

It’s time to choose sides.  You are for me or against me.  If you choose the wrong side you will be scattered.  You won’t prevail.  It’s really your house divided against itself.

As bad as it seems to confront the Son of God, it is so much worse to reject the very Spirit of God.  You are in danger of coming out on the wrong side in the judgment because you are rejecting more than the One whom God sent.  You are rejecting the very Spirit of God.

For every religious person who thinks they have it all figured out but have rejected the heart of God in the process, the words of Jesus should hit home here.

For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

Here is the short version.  You are with Jesus or you are against him.  There is no middle ground.  There is no fence-sitting.  It’s for or against, and no argument of man will help you if you picked the wrong side.

What words acquit us?  Jesus is Lord.  We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died as a sacrifice for our sins, that God raised him from the dead, that he is with the Father in heaven interceding for us, but the coup de grâce is our profession that Jesus is Lord.

He is more than the Son of God.  He is more than Savior.  He is more than redeemer.  He is Lord.

In those words, we are acquitted.

Amen.

Matthew 3 - Part 1

 

Read Matthew 3

Let’s begin with a review of all of the Bible verses in the Old Testament about baptism.  Do you remember in which part of the Torah we find the instructions on baptism?

Exodus?  Leviticus?  Or did those instructions not come until Joshua entered the Promised Land?

There is no biblical instruction on baptism available to us from the Old Testament; yet, this chapter begins with John the Baptizer earning his title.  He was baptizing at the Jordan.

His baptism was one of repentance.  Now repentance was and is a concept that we can get our heads around with Old Testament precedent.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because the people there might repent and turn away from their evil ways and God would spare them the punishment and destruction that they so richly deserved.

But there is no mention of baptism.  Wearing sack cloth and putting ashes on your head might have been the thing to do, but baptism never entered the conversation. 

Repentance was a dry land experience as far as the Old Testament goes.  John does something different, but obviously familiar to the people of that age.

The Scribes and Pharisees say nothing of the fact that John is baptizing people.  Somewhere along the way, baptism became a part of Hebrew life.  The New Testament is full of baptism references, but John is the first instance that we note of this practice.

John baptized with water.  He promised one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  John’s mission was to prepare the way for Jesus.

How do you prepare the way?  If a king was coming, you fixed the roads.  If the tin horn had washed away, you got a new one and smoothed out the crossing over the gulley.  Detours were not acceptable to the king.  He would not want to go around the problem.  You were supposed to fix the problem before he got there.

Get rid of the detour and keep the road straight. 

Today we complain about our roads and then we complain about construction when somebody starts to fix them.  While I’m sure that the new Diamond Interchange makes it easier for trucks and large vehicles to access and exit (especially left turns); I don’t think it fits the model of make straight the way.

John prepared the way for Jesus by calling all to repent of their sins.  If you want salvation, you must first repent.

We must still prepare the way to receive our Lord and Savior.  Sometimes that takes years.  Sometimes it is a moment, but however long, we must realize that our life lived only for ourselves is not one that has readied the way for our Lord.

We are not ready for grace without repentance.  The world wants that.  The world wants sin in one had and forgiveness in another.  While God is a forgiving God; we must not become cavalier to his lovingkindness. 

We are called to repent.

John called all and baptized those who came to repent of their sins.  The One greater than him who would come after him would baptize with the Holy Spirit, but would also call for repentance.  As we will see in the next chapter, Jesus called people to repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

And I can’t leave out John’s treatment of the Pharisees and Sadducees who had come just to watch.  They were spectators and arm-chair quarterbacks but we know  of none who came to repent or for baptism.

Why should they repent?  They were sons of Abraham.  They had their ticket punched.  Or did they?

John warned these snakes—you brood of vipers—that God could take the rocks around them and make new children of Abraham if he so desired.

John warned them that they better invest less in their lineage and more in their lives proved worthy by the fruit they produce.

John came before Jesus and would continue his ministry concurrently with Jesus for a time and at different locations, but the message remains for all.

Prepare the way for the Lord.  How? Repent of your sins.

What is the message that you hear from me at Ash Wednesday?  It’s a reminder.  There is no Ash Wednesday in the Bible.  The apostles didn’t partake of Ash Wednesday.  The ashes have no power.

The message of that time which I believe is a reminder to us should be life for the world. 

REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS!

We should not only hear these words but share these words with this lost world.  Amen.

Fruit worthy of repentance

Read Matthew 3:1-12

Complying with rules is one thing.  Producing fruit is another.  Fruit is a product of something, often a plant or tree.  We have heard the fruit of the womb, meaning offspring. 

We can think of the Fruit of the Spirit as what comes of living by the Spirit that is within us.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

John the Baptizer noted the presence of the religious leaders, specifically noted are the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he called them out.  You bunch of snakes!

Who gave you a heads up that the wrath of God is looming over you?

The Pharisees and Sadducees had not come to John to repent and be baptized.  They wanted to see what was drawing people all the way out to the Jordan River. Surely the news of what John was doing had reached far beyond his limited place of ministry.

John knew who had come to see him.  These were the upper crust of the religious society that prevailed over the Hebrew people.  The Romans were their political masters, but these self-righteous men would use God’s rules to enslave his people far more than the requirements of the godless regime that governed them.

They were to have been the shepherds of Israel, but they did a terrible job of pastoring the people entrusted to them.  What did they have to worry about?  They were the top tier of the Sons of Abraham Club.

John boldly addressed these men who were used to getting the grand treatment, being given the best seats at events, and who otherwise considered their status more than their mission.  He charged them to produce fruit worthy of repentance.

Not only do you need to repent, your actions should demonstrate that you have.

To repent is to turn away from and leave behind something.  In this case, it is to turn away from a godless lifestyle and leave it all behind—not only the rules of the world to include rules of the world masquerading as religion, but the thinking and status afforded by playing by the rules of the world.

To repent was to be a part of a wholesale exchange—body, mind, soul, and spirit.  Everything was left behind and exchanged for the ways of God.

This would have been a hard sell for the Pharisees and Sadducees.  They were the enforcers of the rules upon others.  They wrote the administrative law if you will. 

Do you know that our national legislature has written very little of our law?  They write more than enough and make the verbiage and syntax confusing and voluminous, but it is the administrative agencies that draft and implement most of our law and regulations. 

We don’t even get to vote for or against the people who write these laws.  There’s something to think on in the week to come, just in case you are running short of things to contemplate this week.

It’s all done with good intentions, or so that was the original intent.  Administrative law filled in the gaps in the law that was legislated.

So too the Pharisees and Sadducees filled in the gaps and noted exceptions and in so doing essentially embalmed the Law of God given through Moses.  These men surely did not come to see John so they could repent.  They came in self-interest.

We like it when the Pharisees and Sadducees get their comeuppance, but John’s command to them should hit us center mass as well.  Produce fruit worthy of repentance.

Produce fruit, not commentary or armchair quarterbacking.  Get on the playing field and do something productive.  And that’s your dose of mixed metaphor for today.

Our lives should demonstrate that we follow the one true God.  We don’t do things to receive acknowledgement from men but to please God.

Some will see that we do good and that we follow God.  Later in his gospel, Matthew notes that this brings glory to God, but we are little concerned about what the world thinks about us.

We produce fruit in keeping with repentance and this pleases God.  John was offering a baptism of repentance, but he said that this is just the beginning.  One is coming after me who is much greater and more powerful than me and he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

So, what is fruit in keeping with repentance?

The first and foremost is receiving Jesus not only as our Savior but as Lord as well.  Jesus is Lord!  We outwardly signify his lordship with baptism. 

It’s not Jesus and the Sooners or the Cowboys or our political party.  Jesus is Lord.  It’s not Jesus and this committee or that doctrine.  Jesus is Lord.  We have not really repented until we come to grips with this simple statement.

Repentance must not only include that which we turn away from but that which or whom we turn to and follow.  Our first fruit of repentance is receiving Jesus as Lord.

Turning away from evil and seeking good is noble.  It is a form of repentance.  I will turn away from the bad and seek the good.  It is noble but not sufficient.  We must seek after the Lord.

Just trying to be a good person is not enough!  That sounds critical of those seeking good.  It might be but it’s honest.  When we turn away from evil and seek good, we are still our own master.  We are doing this because it’s how we see things.  We are our own lord.  We get to be the Pharisee.

We become susceptible to sitting on the sidelines and criticizing those who are following Jesus.  The first fruit of our repentance must be to receive Jesus as our Lord.

Jesus is Lord!

Everything after that is our discipleship or the fullness of our salvation.  The rest of our fruit will come out of our discipleship.  That will include turning away from evil and seeking what is good.

It will include the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

It will include being the salt of the earth, that all may taste the goodness of God when they encounter us.

It will include being the light of the world, that people will see how we live and by such witness bring glory to God.

It will include embracing the ways of the Lord as our own.  It will be putting his words into practice.  It will be loving one another.  It will be being known by our love.

But it all starts with repentance.  We must be willing to give up the ways of this world—mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Receiving the Lordship of Jesus is now a part of our identity.  His yoke is easy and his burden is light, but now it’s our yoke and our burden.

Producing fruit worthy of repentance is first turning away from the world and seeking God through Christ.  Then we live out our salvation in such a way as to bring glory to God.

Narrow is the way which we come to Christ but abundant are the ways in which we may live for him once he is Lord.

Here it is in Okiespeak:  You can’t straddle the fence.

Repent, put God first by making Jesus Lord of your life, then produce fruit worthy of this fantastic relationship.

We will do good and it will be to God’s glory.

We will love one another and it will be to the glory of God.

We will be known by our love and put a smile on God’s face.

Let this be a bumper crop year in producing fruit worthy of repentance!

Amen.