Woe To Hypocrites!

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0:18If you have a Bible, let me encourage you to turn to Matthew chapter 23, and we're going to be looking at verses 13 to 39 this morning. It's a longer passage, so I'm going to read it as part of my sermon. But let me encourage you to turn in your Bibles there. Matthew chapter 23, verses 13 to 39. And if you don't have a Bible, there should be a blue pew Bible in the seat in front of you, and you can find it on page 828.

0:58If you look ahead, you'll have seen that this is not a happy passage, and yet we believe that all scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for correction and training and for our edification this morning. So would you join me as I pray and ask the Lord to do just that? Father in heaven, we need your help this morning. We need eyes to see. We need hearts that would feel rightly about what you say in your word, and for some this morning, we need to be undone by this word. And for others, we're going to be defensive. We're going to put up our walls. And so, Lord, we pray that you would break those down so that you could rebuild them in the right way. So help us see what you want us to see and hear what you want us to hear, and to feel what you want us to feel.

2:00And so come now in the power of your Spirit and do that for our good and for our everlasting joy in Jesus. We pray all this in your name. Amen. We live in a world where there is much hypocrisy and much accusations of hypocrisy. If you turn on the television at all around this time, you see all of the political ads going on in Minnesota. Any of you seen some of the political ads? I have. And you see all those attack ads, and what are they accusing the other side of? Hypocrisy. Well, they didn't do anything about fraud or taxes or affordability or ice or whatever it is. You're a hypocrite because you voted for or supported this individual or legislation. And we see hypocrisy and accusations of hypocrisy everywhere.

3:04You have the rich billionaire who's trying to chastise everyone to kind of take better care of the Earth, reduce your carbon footprint, if you will, as they fly on their private jet wherever they want to go. The financial advisor drowning in credit card debt, the marriage counselor on the brink of divorce, or sadly, the preacher who fails to practice what he teaches, or the parent who says to their children, yells at their children, "Stop yelling at your siblings." Hypocrisy is a widespread problem, and it's one of the more damaging accusations that can be made about someone today because it calls into question one's integrity.

3:51It's not just saying you're wrong, but it's saying that you're a fraud. You're a moral fraud. Just think with me for a moment. Say one of your best friends comes up to you later this week, and they say, "We gotta talk." And they look you straight in the eye, and they say, "I think you have been a hypocrite." How would you feel about that? That cuts right to the core, and that is exactly what happens in our passage this morning. Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees that they are hypocrites. He calls them that six times. And last week, we got a glimpse of the problem in chapter 23, verse three.

4:39They are the ones who preach but do not practice. They love the praise and honor that they get from looking the right way but not being the right type of people. So our passage this morning has two primary purposes. First, it's Jesus pronouncing judgment. He's denouncing the scribes and Pharisees. He's not going to spar with them theologically anymore. He's just saying, "I'm done with you. This is all that is wrong." He doesn't pull any of his punches. The second kind of purpose of this passage, though, is that it was recorded so that we might benefit from it this morning. It's a warning to all of Jesus' disciples. Beware.

5:24So we're to heed the primary warning this morning, which is beware of religious hypocrisy. Jesus hates it, and only he can save us from it. Beware of religious hypocrisy. Jesus hates it, and only he can save us from it this morning. Now, our passage contains seven woes. You probably see that at the beginning of Matthew chapter 23. There's a little header there, seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees. And I think the best way to read these woes is the first six are paired together. So one and two go together, three and four go together, five and six go together, and then seven stands alone. So what we're going to do is we're going to walk through this passage, and we're going to see four things that Jesus hates.

6:17We're going to see the four things that Jesus hates or four things, four manifestations of hypocrisy that Jesus hates, and they're going to be being roadblocks to his kingdom, distortions of his word, external religion, and rejection of the Messiah. And I'll give those to you as we walk all the way through. Now, before we begin, some of us may feel a little bit uneasy when I talk about the things Jesus hates. You came to church expecting a message on the love of God and how we can find our joy in him, and yet here is this passage about what Jesus has a hatred for. And yet hatred is not disconnected from love.

7:04Jesus loves what is good and true and beautiful. And so the other side of that is he hates what distorts those realities. It's good to hate gossip that creates suspicion and disunity. It's good to hate drunk driving that carelessly kills a loved one. And so Jesus is motivated by his great love for his disciples, and even for the scribes and Pharisees, so that he issues these condemnations. We're to hear it this way. One of the pastors shared Psalm 141 verse five with me, which I found so helpful. It says this, "Let a righteous man strike me. It is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is oil for my head.

7:50Let my head not refuse it." I think that's how we, as God's people, are to hear these woes and condemnations this morning. These are the strikes of a righteous man. They are like oil on our heads, and it's a kindness to our souls. So let us not refuse it this morning. So first, we come to Jesus hates roadblocks to his kingdom. Look with me at verses 13 to 15. Here we get the first two woes of our passage. Verse 13, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

8:47For you travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." Let's pause here. You'll notice verse 14 is missing. It's probably in a footnote there Not present in the earliest manuscripts, and so probably a later addition. The first thing we need to understand is this word woe. We don't really use it anymore, but woe is like a three-note chord of lament, condemnation, and warning. Lament, condemnation, and warning. And wrapped up in the word woe is this idea of sadness and grief. There's this warning to repent, and then Jesus is also pronouncing imminent judgment. So these are the faithful wounds of a friend.

9:41The second word we need to define or understand is hypocrites. Hypocrisy, as we've said, as we've seen this throughout Matthew's gospel, is not just inconsistency between what we think and what we do. Because if that was the case, we would all be hypocrites because we're all weak, we're all fearful, we're all forgetful at times. But a hypocrite literally refers to playacting or pretending. And so a hypocrite tries to fool others with their outward appearance. They want you to think a certain way about them based on what you can see, while at the same time, they're harboring something very different on the inside.

10:25Now, these first two woes, what hypocrisy is Jesus condemning? They block others from entering the kingdom of God. Look with me at verse 14. He says, "You shut the kingdom, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in." The problem here is that they have deceived even themselves. They've become hypocrites without knowing that they've become hypocrites. They were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. The Pharisees didn't go out to say, "Let's not try to enter the kingdom of heaven." No, these were the ones who were fasting and praying and tithing, paying lots of attention to the law, trying to cross all their theological t's, dot all their i's to ensure that they would get into the kingdom.

11:12And Jesus is saying, "You don't go in, you're not in, and you shut other people from getting in." They genuinely thought they were bringing people to God. They genuinely thought they were pleasing God, and they were self-deceived. And so we say, what was their problem then? If they were getting so much of the law sort of right, what was their issue? Why are they on the outside looking in? It's what we've seen throughout Matthew 21 and 22. They have rejected the King. They've rejected Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ. They refuse to believe in the one sent by God. They built a fence around God's law, trying to keep others from getting close to breaking the law. And the fence that they have built has kept them actually out of the kingdom. We see the very same thing in verse 15. Look with me there.

12:13"For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte." You make a convert. You convert someone to Judaism. "And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." So Pharisees would travel around Jerusalem and outlying regions, and they would come across these Gentile God-fearers. These people who were saying, "I want what you guys have, and I think you're worshiping the true God." And so these Gentiles who were outside of Israel would say, "We want to come to the synagogue." And so these Pharisees would say, "Come, follow me. Let's get you circumcised, and let's get you to obey the law.

12:52Start eating kosher and follow the Old Testament law." And the problem is that they would lead these people even further astray from the kingdom. The underlying issue is that they don't know God. They continually reject the Messiah. They lock and close the door from the outside so that they don't get in, and no one else can get in because of their false teaching. They are self-deceived. And so the first warning here is don't become a roadblock to others entering the kingdom of heaven.

13:31So we might ask, well, how do we do that? How do we become roadblocks that obscure or prevent others from entering into the kingdom of God? Now, I think a primary way is that we can obscure the gospel. We can obscure the gospel. I think of Roman Catholic teaching that obscures the fact that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. And then they add all these other things that would confuse people, like praying to Mary and the Pope's authority and venerating bones of saints. And you can say the same about certain strains of Pentecostal teaching that emphasize the prosperity gospel.

14:22You just come to Jesus, and he's going to bless you beyond your wildest dreams, and you're going to become so wealthy. Just give me 59.99 in the process. Or mainline progressive Christianity that denies the resurrection or the virgin birth. And it's easy to look out there to say, "Yeah, other people obscure the gospel." But how does it hit closer to home? How do we become roadblocks to others entering the kingdom of God?

14:54Do we refuse to forgive? Do we lie at times and excuse it? Are we gossiping behind closed doors? Are we harboring secret sin? Jesus warns his disciples of behaviors that will prevent others from coming to Jesus. If your life was put on display, we projected the contents of your life on the two screens next to me. Would others see that and say, "I see how the gospel transforms"? Or would they say, "Oh, that's what Christians are all about? That's not what I thought." So the warning here, I think for all of us, is beware of being an obstacle to faith rather than a conduit of grace. Now we move to the next thing that Jesus hates. He hates roadblocks, and now Jesus hates distortions of his word. Look with me at verses 16 to 24.

16:06We're going to read the third woe here, and just note how many times he uses the word blind or blindness. Verse 16, "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it, and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it, and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon it."

17:08He calls them blind three times. And so what are they blind to? I think they are blind to God's law, and they're blind to God's purposes. Now, we could spend a lot of time breaking all of this down, but I'm going to just summarize it. Jesus condemns them for their willful blindness as it relates to their distortion or their understanding of God's word, specifically related to oaths and oath formulas. Jesus addressed this earlier in the Sermon on the Mount back in Matthew chapter 5, verses 33 to 37, and he told them, "Don't swear by this or that." And at the end of it, he says, "Just let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Anything else is from evil." In other words, just tell the truth because everything relates to God.

18:00Now, the specific problem here is that the Pharisees had crafted this elaborate set of rules to determine when an oath was binding and when it wasn't binding. If you swore by the temple, it doesn't count. But if you swear by the gold of the temple, then it counts. What made it valid or invalid? It's a little bit like this. I don't know if any of you experienced this as a kid. Public school, on the playground, and what would kids say? They would tell some outlandish, outrageous story of what they did over the weekend. And then what would they say when you call them on it? They would be like, "I swear. I swear to God.

18:39I swear on my mom's grave." Anyone experience that? You guys maybe went to better schools than I did. "Scout's honor," maybe is what they would say. And then when you pressed further, they'd be like, "Psych." That's a term from the '90s, means just kidding. "Psych." And then they would say, "My fingers were crossed behind my back," or, "My toes were crossed." Right? That's what the Pharisees and the scribes are doing. These elaborate loopholes to sort of circumvent what they actually say, and they're blind to their own foolishness. They're leading others down these paths of blindness because they're not just doing this, they're teaching others to do this.

19:24It's like if you called up an Uber and you get in and your driver is blind, and they're not driving a Tesla with full self-driving. You would get out of that Uber. And Jesus teaches that one cannot separate the altar and everything that sits upon it. You can't swear by heaven without swearing by the very throne of God, God who dwells in the heavens. In other words, every single oath or promise that you ever make is always before God Almighty. So the scribes and Pharisees distort biblical teaching. They pervert God's law and mishandle the scriptures that they even claim to know and teach. Now look with me at verses 23 and 24.

20:10Very similar idea in a different way. Verse 23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." So the Israelites were commanded by God to give tithes to the Levites, who did not have a land inheritance. So they were to give a tenth of their grain and their wine and their fruit and their herds and their flocks. And this would support the Levites, the priests, who did not have this land inheritance. And Jesus is saying, "You're hyper-scrupulous.

21:02You're not just tithing your grain, your wheat, but you're tithing even your spices and herbs." And the problem is you've neglected these weightier matters, and it's almost like he's calling to mind Micah 6:8, "Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God." We see that throughout the Old Testament with the minor prophets. You guys think you're obeying God. You're bringing sacrifices and tithing, and you've neglected the more important matters. The Pharisees have majored on minor things, and Jesus likens it to straining out a gnat to make sure you don't eat of even the smallest unclean animal, and yet using sort of rabbinic hyperbole, you swallow a camel, the biggest animal in that time. So they were precise about small things, careless with weightier things.

22:02It's like tithing down to the closest half cent, and yet you commit fraud and you steal in the process. I think I've told this story before. When I was a kid, I thought all I needed to do was make sure I tithed, and I was supposed to put my quarter in the little offering plate that came around on Sunday. And so sometimes I'd go steal it from my brother's piggy bank in order to give it. I was that hypocrite.

22:34They have strayed from the heart of the law, distorting its teaching. The most obvious example of this is what just happened earlier in chapter 22. What happened there? Jesus. Which is the greatest commandment in the law? They're trying to make Jesus think, "We're really concerned about how to please God." Yet the premise of the whole question is to undermine Jesus so that he would get killed.

23:10So how are we susceptible to the same thing? We can be hyper-focused on certain sins in ourselves or maybe in others, and yet blind to massive realities that we have neglected. Maybe we're focusing in on the major sins committed by those out there in our culture, and yet we're harboring lust or anger or unforgiveness or pride or self-reliance. I'm saddened by all the times I remember how I yelled at my kids so that we would then come do family worship. I would get angry and yell at them so that we could worship God. This is what Jesus is calling out. Do we quibble about technicalities? Should I tithe from gross or net? Do I have to pray before I eat?

24:21And yet we neglect the weightier matters of the law. So this third and fourth woe warn us, don't distort God's commands. Don't undermine his teaching with technicalities. So Jesus hates those who put roadblocks. He hates those who distort his word, and then now number three, he hates external religion. Look with me at 25 and 26. Here's the fifth woe. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean." The third warning here is against outward appearances or merely external religion.

25:20Scribes and Pharisees were very careful in washing their cups and plates. But what Jesus is saying, inside, your hearts are greed and self-indulgence. That word self-indulgence could mean lack of self-control or even pointing to sexual sin. And Jesus says, "Clean the inside first, so then the outside will also be clean." But Jesus is not talking about how to do your dishes here. He's saying, "Stop paying so much attention to your outward appearances when you've neglected the very heart of the matter." The equivalent would be like this. Say you have a bride and groom. I know some weddings are coming up for some families here at the North Church.

26:07Imagine a bride and groom on their wedding day, and they have painstakingly planned this celebration. So the groom is in a tuxedo. The bride has this designer bridal gown made of the finest materials, and bridal gowns, they can just mark it up two times just because you'll pay for it. The flowers are stunning. The decorations are flawless. The music is beautiful. They've gone to multiple tastings in order to get the most exquisite of food. Every detail has been carefully planned by the bride and groom and the mother of the bride. But the problem is, the bride loves the wedding more than she loves the groom.

26:57The groom cares more about how he looks than the woman that stands across from him. If that was the case, you would say something is profoundly wrong about this wedding, and that's what Jesus exposes about the Pharisees. They love the appearance of religion, but they don't love God or his sent one, the Lord Jesus Christ, at all. They love the festivities, but they don't love the bridegroom that has been sent. Now look with me at the sixth woe, verses 27 to 28. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

27:53So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." During Passover, the tombs of ancestors or those who had passed would be sort of covered in this lime plaster, and that would make them white. And it was mainly so that people who were making their way into the city wouldn't accidentally touch a tomb, accidentally sit on one or lean on one, and then become unclean for the next seven days because they were going into Jerusalem for Passover. And so whitewashing a tomb would've been the equivalent of this massive do not touch sign, so that for all the pilgrims and travelers coming into the city, they would know, stay far away from that. Why?

28:45Because inside was death. And that's the problem with the scribes and Pharisees. They wash themselves, in a sense, so that they're gleaming white on the outside, but inside they're full of decay, wickedness, and evil. The problem with the Pharisees is you wouldn't have looked at them and been like, "Clearly they don't know God." You would've looked at them and been like, "Those guys got it together. They know exactly what they're doing. These are the most religious people that I have ever looked upon. They must know God." That was the problem. They looked full of religion. They looked picture perfect, and yet they neglected what truly matters.

29:31It's like if you have this big, pussing, growing scar on your face, and you just keep covering it up with more makeup, when in reality it's skin cancer and it needs to be cut out from the inside, or on the flesh, on the surface at least. This is true of the Pharisees, and this is true of us as well. We cannot clean our inner corruption by washing the outside. It doesn't matter how many baths you take, how deeply you scrub. You can't wash away your anger, or greed, or pride, or lust. And it doesn't matter what color you paint a tomb, inside is still death. That's Jesus' point. And so this morning, for us, do we care more about how we look than about who we are?

30:25Do we care more about how we look than about who we are? I'm not saying come to church, just roll out of bed, just wear your pajamas and come because no one cares how you look. But do we care more about how we look than who we are? Do we judge others based on appearances rather than the substance of the heart? How many of you ... Don't raise your hand. How many of you checked the mirror this morning before you came to church, make sure the gunk is out of my eye, the hair is done? And then how many of you checked your heart this morning before coming to church? Lord, search me and try me. If there's any grievous way in me, Lord, I want to, again, confess and repent.

31:15Lord, if there's any hardheartedness, if there's any sins that I committed this week that you might bring to mind right now, Lord, I want to confess those before you as I walk into your house to worship with your people. Oh, help me. It'd be a means of grace to someone else this morning, not just that I would come to receive and to say, "Me, me, me," but, Lord, how might I minister to others? Did we check our hearts as we walked in this morning? So the fifth and sixth woe is beware of trying to look righteous without the very humble disposition before God. If you go back to the passage we looked at last week, what was the solution in verse 12?

31:57Josh drew this out for us. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Did you walk in this morning with a humble disposition before God Almighty? So we've seen that Jesus hates roadblocks to his kingdom. He hates distortions of his teaching. He hates external religion, and now he hates the rejection of the Messiah. He hates those who reject him and those whom he sent. Look with me at 29 to 36. This is a longer section, but I'm going to read it all for us. Follow along, 29. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

33:04Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." This is a long and complex section of scripture, but this seventh woe condemns the scribes and Pharisees of rejecting Jesus and rejecting all that Jesus will send. They are in the long line of those who have rejected God's messengers. So first, they build and decorate tombs in tribute to former prophets. So what they would do is they would build these tombs to Isaiah or Jeremiah, and it would be a way of sort of giving tribute, and they would decorate them. And what the scribes and Pharisees say by those actions and verbally out loud is, "Well, we wouldn't have been those who killed those prophets when they were prophesying and giving a word from the Lord." And yet what Jesus says is, "No. Yes, you would. You are cut from the same cloth.

34:44You are just like your fathers. If they were around right now, you would have opposed them, and you would've opposed their message, and you would've killed them." And how does Jesus know that? Because they want to kill him. Same type of messenger. They killed John the Baptist. So they're full of murderous hatred, and they oppose God and anyone God sends. That's what Jesus is saying there. Now, in verse 33, Jesus calls them a brood of vipers. So they're spreading poisonous teaching, and they will be sentenced to hell. So this is the condemnation. And Jesus says, "Why?" It's because they will kill, crucify, flog, and persecute the prophets, wise men, and scribes that Jesus will send. In other words, "You're not only just like your ancestors who killed the prophets that came before you.

35:40After Jesus dies, rises, sends out his disciples, you're going to kill him, crucify and flog my own disciples." So they have steadfastly rejected Jesus. They're cut from the same cloth of those who have steadfastly rejected all those God has sent, and they will steadfastly reject all that Jesus will send, which is why Jesus says to his disciples, "I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves who will be flogged, and persecuted, and killed." In other words, Jesus warns them of the judgment that is coming for rejecting him and for rejecting his disciples. Now, there's the mention of Abel and Zechariah And that gets a little bit technical, but essentially it's saying that you will be guilty of all innocent blood from A to Z, or beginning to end. Now, there's some questions about which Zechariah this is that Matthew refers to, but the basic point is clear.

36:49Abel is the very first victim of innocent bloodshed in Genesis chapter four, verse eight. So beginning of the Hebrew Bible, and then the Zechariah is probably referring to a priest who was stoned in the courtyard of the temple, which is recorded in 2 Chronicles 24. And in the Hebrew Bible, the way the Jews ordered the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, the very first book was Genesis, and the very last book was 2 Chronicles. And so he's saying beginning to end, you're responsible in the shedding of innocent blood. And so to reject Jesus is to reject God and all the messengers that God has ever sent. And those who rejected Jesus have solidarity with Satan and will be judged accordingly.

37:48So Jesus says judgment is coming, Jerusalem and the temple even will be destroyed. And the warning is, don't reject the Messiah or even his sent ones. So those are the seven woes and the four things that Jesus hates. Jesus hates religious hypocrisy, such as those who block others from his kingdom, those who distort his word, those who practice only external religion, and those who have rejected him. Now, look with me at verses 37 to 39. Here we get this closing tragic lament. Passage ends on this note. "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.

38:44See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" What we see in this lament here at the end is not just that Jesus dishes out judgment, but he laments over their unbelief. These are the people he came to save. Jesus' heart is full of love. He looked out on the crowds, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And so we see Jesus' tender mercy and love. He even likens himself to a mother hen. So the judge who pronounces the woe is also the Savior who says, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

39:44I wonder if any Pharisees, any scribes repented at the proclamation of these woes and came later and said, "Lord, I'm undone." He says this house will be left desolate. I think he's highlighting that Jesus will leave the temple. We see that in chapter 24, verse one. And in fact, I think it signifies that Yahweh, God Almighty, will have left the temple, and it anticipates the destruction of the temple that will come in AD 70. So how do we apply this sober warning this morning? The main point, beware of religious hypocrisy.

40:31Let's say maybe in the preaching of this word, we say, "Well, thank God I don't shut others out of the kingdom. I don't think I do that. I don't think I quibble over technicalities in the law, but I can see myself in that third warning. I care about appearances. I practice external religion. I can so easily neglect the heart and not abide in Christ and commune with my Savior, and I'm just doing, doing, doing, and I fail to be like Mary, who just sits at the feet of Jesus. And inside, I see that sometimes I'm full of greed and self-indulgence and lawlessness, and that's me. I'm a hypocrite. I'm just undone by this." And you ask, "What am I to do?

41:15What do I do if that's me?" It would be really ironic if I said, "Well, read your Bible more, tithe a little bit more, work to clean the outside a little bit more." That would be contrary to what Jesus calls for. Rather, run to Jesus. These warnings are to undo our pride, our arrogance, our self-reliance, and all we can do is run to the throne of grace and to say, "Lord, I've fallen and I've failed, and this is me." And to expose the mold and the death within our hearts to the light of the glory of Christ so that it might serve as a disinfectant so that we would be transformed and changed once again.

42:01And so we're to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. The right way to respond to Jesus' sober and stern warning is just to say, "Lord, that's me. I confess and I repent." Let the warning have its intended effect, just like a smoke alarm reveals the danger and calls for a response. We are to see hypocrisy within our hearts and turn to Jesus, receive his forgiveness, repent, confess, and then walk in the newness of life. We were in the prayer room earlier, and I was reminded of a passage in Isaiah 6, another famous woe in the scriptures. And we sang all about the holiness of God this morning, and almost every song was celebrating God's holiness. And that's the picture in Isaiah 6.

43:03Isaiah sees the glory of God on display. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." And how does Isaiah respond, having glimpsed the glory of God in its splendor? "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." When we see God's glory rightly, we will call down woes upon ourselves because we see how far we fall short. And yet what happens in Isaiah 6? An angel comes and takes a coal and touches his lips and says, "Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." It's pointing forward to what Jesus would accomplish. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He cleanses us. He makes us new.

44:09And then, amazingly, the Lord says, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" And Isaiah puts his hand up. "Here I am, Lord. Send me." And so that's what we get this morning. Woe. Woe to us, for we are people of unclean lips, and we dwell among a people of unclean lips. And if the glory of God were on full display, we would all fall down and call down woes on ourselves because we fall so short.

44:47And the wages of sin is death, and yet because of Jesus, his cleansing blood to ransom us, to rescue us out of darkness into his marvelous light, we can now say, "Lord, here I am. Send me." And may we be conduits of grace to others, not only going into the kingdom, but holding the door wide open and beckoning others, "Come, come. I found life." Let's pray. Father, oh, would you do that work this morning? Humble us, convict us, expose the death that dwells within, the unrighteousness, the love of the praise of man, and then renew us, cleanse us by your grace, that we would be transformed from one degree of glory to another as we gaze upon the beauty and the majesty of Jesus.

45:48And then send us out to make much of you to a world in need of Christ. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jump to live
Jump to live

Christ Has Come, He Will Come Again

The End Is Not Yet

Woe To Hypocrites!

Woe To Hypocrites!

Christ Has Come, He Will Come Again

The End Is Not Yet