GOD FORBID SUCH THINGS
This is a
great time of year for fresh, homegrown tomatoes. Last week we had a couple of beauties sitting on the windowsill
just waiting to be sliced for our sandwiches.
On the outside they were perfect—bright red, firm and beautiful. But when I sliced into the first one, it was
rotten inside! I felt cheated! Such anticipation with a promising appearance
that was blown away by the reality of decay on the inside.
Jesus faces that problem in the lives of the religious leaders of Israel
in the passage we are studying in Matthew 23.
On the outside they gave every appearance of being holy men, but that
appearance was deceptive in that they were hiding the true condition of their
hearts behind a religious façade. The
outside looked good but the insides were corrupt. Jesus denouncing them for faking it and declares that God forbids
any who would follow Him from living such deceptive lives!
THESIS: Woe to those who are content to fake it when I offer you the chance to be real!
--Jesus challenges and confronts the scribes and Pharisees
by declaring “Woe” in four more strongly worded denunciations.
--They address three different subjects (the second and
third speaking to the same issue in different ways).
I. YOU EMPHASIZE THE SMALL THINGS, BUT NEGLECT THE BIG THINGS.
Matt. 23:23
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and
cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and
mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without
neglecting the others”
A.
LIGHT-WEIGHT ISSUES
--If there is an easy way to do something, we are inclined
to find it and then stick to it…even if it is not very effective!
--The scribes and Pharisees had discovered that giving a
tithe off the top for the small amounts of mint, dill and cumin they had was
not a very difficult thing to do, so they made a big deal out of something very
small.
--Since it cost them little, they could obey this aspect of
the Law and then brag about how meticulously they upheld the Laws of God.
When I was in college, I used to hear guys excusing
their behavior on Saturday nights by making sure everyone knew that most of the
time they got up and made it to church on Sunday morning. Getting out of bed and going to church is
not very difficult, but if they could abide by that small standard in their own
minds, they could get away with ignoring other areas of sin in their lives.
In our generation we have witnessed
a shift in the way our culture thinks about consistent behavior. It is no longer considered very important to
be faithful in all things as long as you give it your best shot in some
things…no matter how insignificant they are in the eternal scheme of things!
B. HEAVy-WEIGHT
ISSUES
--Jesus pointed out that in giving the tithes on those small
items, they did well and they should not stop doing that, but that they should
recognize that they were overlooking the big-ticket items that really stand out
in the heart and mind of God.
1. Justice
--Jesus confronts the lack of good judgment on the part of
the Pharisees in their failure to demonstrate any concern for what is right
regarding other people.
--The idea behind the Greek word for ‘justice’ is to make a
judgment between two things, in their case between what is right and wrong in
the way they treated others.
--They had unjustly determined that the personal rights and
needs of others were not important and so they could treat them any way they
wanted.
Several years ago, I had an embarrassing
conversation with someone working for our church. He was an African-American man and as he was leaving the
building, one of our members treated him as if he were nothing more than a servant
placed here to do her bidding. As this
person was coming to do what was easy—show up for a Bible study—they
unfortunately neglected to demonstrate the love of Christ for a person who was
treated unfairly, unjustly because of the color of his skin. Such things go on all the time but in our narrow
focus, we miss the big picture—God wants us to be like Christ in the way we
treat everyone He sends our way.
Jesus says, “You are very concerned
to measure out exactly one tenth of your herbs and spices so that you keep the
law, but you care nothing about the blind, the lame, the leper, and all those
who are merely props in your world…not real people with real needs, who have
names, families, dignity.”
2. Mercy
--You are quick to pray, “God, have mercy!’ when you need
it, but unwilling to offer mercy to others when they need it…quick to plead for
it when you need it from others, but hard-hearted when it comes to others.
--He asks, “Why do you not care about the things that matter
to God, and care so much about insignificant things?”
Mic. 6:8 But he’s already made it plain how to live,
what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do
what is fair and just to your neighbor (do
justice), be compassionate and loyal in your love (love mercy), and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God
seriously (walk humbly with your God).
[The Message]
--Frankly, it is easier to pick out a few little things that
we can do well than to attempt the things God wants when we realize that we
will probably fail.
--Acting toward others with mercy costs us more than we are
willing to give, so instead we act toward them in a manner unworthy of Christ
and figure we can make up for our rudeness, our frustration, and our anger in
other less costly ways.
Last week, I had some rather exasperating treatment
by an airline—kept from boarding a plane because of factors totally beyond my
control, failures on the part of the airline which resulted in significant
delays in getting home. To be honest
with you, I did nothing to make the Lord proud that afternoon! I wanted someone to have to pay for what
they did to me! After complaining to
everyone who would listen, I came home and wrote customer service and
complained some more.
Sure I was upset but who could
blame me? No one deserved mercy…they
had treated me badly!!
Wait a minute! Who deserves mercy? Those who need mercy never deserve it…it is
to be freely given! In truth, I was a
poor witness for Christ, a terrible person to be around and there is no amount
of tithing the following week that would make up for all that!! No extra time reading the Bible, no extended
prayer time could compensate for my lack of mercy.
While sitting in the terminal, I
started to work on the sermon but realized that that was just a way that I was like
the Pharisees—being a teacher of the Word but feeling no obligation to actually
allow it to shape my life to be like Jesus!
3.
Faithfulness
--Being faithful to God means doing so in all areas, not
just the ones which can be handled conveniently and comfortably.
--Writing a check for my tithe does not exhaust my emotions
like trying to love someone who is being very unlovable…attending a meeting
does not tax my will power like maintaining clean hands and a pure heart.
--God is more interested in how faithful I am in all of life
than in how particular I can be in a few areas of my own choosing.
Matt 23:24 24“You blind guides, who strain
out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
--How can we be so picky about some things and totally
oblivious to others? Woe to those who
continue to do that in spite of realizing what is right in God’s eyes!
II. YOU EMPHASIZE THE OUTER
SHELL, BUT NEGLECT THE INNER CORE.
--The next pronouncement of woe comes in two examples as
Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees as the hypocrites they were.
--Cups and tombs provide the illustrations Jesus
chose in making His point perfectly clear.
A. THE
CUP: OUTWARDLY CLEAN, INWARDLY CORRUPT
--Somehow there had been a shift of emphasis in the
religious world of Jesus’ day, just as in our own.
--Instead of concerning themselves with the reality of an
inward encounter with the living God, the religious community had begun to
focus only on the outward trappings, the rituals and regulations of religion.
Matt. 23:25-26
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of
the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and
self-indulgence. 26 You
blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the
outside of it may become clean also.”
--If the contents of the cup are corrupt, it does not matter
how sparkling clean the outside is.
--If you can sing all the songs of the church with
exuberance, recite memory verses for hours, point out all the places of
ministry you have filled, but still harbor resentments, withhold forgiveness,
pollute your heart by setting impure images before your eyes, you are nothing
more than a cup that is clean on the outside and corrupt on the inside.
--Jesus denounces such hypocrisy in the strongest possible
terms and calls for us to be pure inside and out!
--What continues to corrupt the cup of your heart this
morning, even as you have come to polish the exterior in public worship?
B. THE TOMB: OUTWARDLY
BEAUTIFUL, INWARDLY DECAYING
--In yet another vivid image, Jesus compares them to tombs
which have been beautified on the outside, but again the inside is the problem.
--The cup spoke of something refreshing that was corrupted,
but the tomb speaks of something already dead that has been whitewashed in an
effort to de-emphasize the fact of inward decay.
--In making that transition from the image of the cup to
that of the tomb, Jesus graduates to another level of seriousness in the woeful
condition of their spiritual lives.
Matt. 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear
beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all
uncleanness. 28 Even so you
too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy
and lawlessness.”
--Putting a coat of paint on the outside of a tomb does not
change the fact that it contains what is dead—not what is dying, but what is
already dead!
Most of my life, either my grandfather or my father
sold granite headstones for gravesites.
These monuments were intended to serve as a memorial to the loved one
who had died and most folks wanted those tombstones to be as attractive as they
could afford them to be. But never once
in all those years did I ever hear them say that someone wanted to dig down and
beautify the inside of the grave…they just wanted to mark the outside with
something nice knowing that the inside was decaying.
Only through the resurrection with
Christ will the insides of tombs be made beautiful again!
--The point Jesus was making was simple but serious—you
cannot change something that is dead and decaying by putting a good face on it.
--You cannot cover spiritual deadness by painting over it
with a veneer of church activities and fool the Lord!
--In both these illustrations, Jesus wants us to understand
that if we emphasize the outer façade while neglecting the inner reality, we do
so at our peril since the Lord looks on the heart!
III. YOU EMPHASIZE THE PAST ATROCITIES, BUT
NEGLECT YOUR PRESENT RUTHLESSNESS.
--In the third case of denunciation, Jesus now brings out
the guilt of the scribes and Pharisees in the way they have responded when the
Lord sent His messengers to speak His Word.
--Each generation seems to think more highly of itself in
comparison to previous generations than it has any right to do.
--The pattern was at work in these religious leaders as they
presumed to distance themselves from the actions of those who had preceded them
in leadership.
We see the same thing in American politics. Each administration takes credit for whatever good happens under
their watch and places blame on previous administrations for whatever goes
wrong. In every case, the message is
the same—“We are clearly better than those who went before us!”
A. ACT
SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY REGARDING THE PAST
Matt. 23:29
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the
prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous”
--The religious leaders of Israel’s past had killed the
prophets and chased away the voices of righteousness sent by God to call His
people to repentance.
--Now the scribes and Pharisees continue to try to silence
the voices of the prophets of God, but at the same time make a big deal of
honoring those who had been killed or silenced by their forefathers.
I was reminded of this last month with all the
accolades poured out on Ronald Reagan by those who had done everything in their
power during his presidency to oppose his leadership and marginalize those who
followed him. How ironic that in life
he was a foolish and dangerous idealist, but in death was a gracious statesman
and hero!
Jesus tells the scribes and
Pharisees that they cannot have it both ways—they cannot honor those from the
past while condemning the same message in the present!
B. ASSIGN
BLAME TO YOUR FOREFATHERS’ PAST
Matt. 23:30
and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have
been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
--They worked hard to establish some distance from the sins
of their fathers, blaming them for their role in shedding the blood of the
prophets while at the same time were holding secret meetings to plot the death
of Jesus!
In our day, many church folks make a big deal of distancing themselves
from the sins of the past—the crusades, the inquisition, the slave trade,
racist church membership policies, and so on.
But at the same time that we blame
our forefathers for their failures, we find our own failures staring us
down—abortion, disintegration of the family through divorce and now through the
gains made in same-sex unions, persistent presence of racial segregation,
rampant moral and sexual impurity and so on.
It is easy to see and assign blame for those who lived before us but not
see our own sin. That will be the role
of another generation seeking to distance itself from our abuses.
C. ADMIT THE
GUILT OF THE PAST
Matt. 23:31
“Consequently you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those
who murdered the prophets.”
--What we actually do when we assign blame to those who went
before us is admit that we are the sons and daughters of those who left a
tragic legacy that we are in danger of carrying on.
--In admitting their guilt, we are in effect admitting that
we are like them and will continue their pattern unless something happens to
break the chain of guilt transmitted from generation to generation.
D. ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ROLE IN PERPETUATING THE PAST
Matt. 23:32
“Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers.”
--Jesus tells them that they are heading down a path of
destruction laid out for them from the past.
--He says that unless they heed His warning, listen to this
strong denunciation of their actions and attitudes, that they will fulfill in full
measure what their fathers had begun.
Matthew 23:31-32, The Message – “…And you
say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have
been on your hands. You protest too
much! You’re cut from the same cloth as
those murderers, and daily add to the death count.”
--Woe to those who think they are better than those who have
failed in the past because if we do not learn from the past we are doomed to
repeat it!
With that said, Jesus now summarizes the thrust of
these woes He has spoken to denounce the hypocrisy and blindness of the scribes
and Pharisees…and all those who would come along after them and think that we
are in no way like them!!
THEREFORE, WOE
TO YOU…FOR YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE THE CONSEQUENCES—THE SENTENCE OF HELL!
Matt. 23:33
“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?
Radical failures require radical words
of confrontation. Jesus does not shrink
back from saying what had to be said, then or now.
If we are more
concerned about our reputations than our characters, more concerned about our
appearance than our heart, we will fall into the trap which caught the scribes
and Pharisees.
It is critical that we examine our hearts each time we come into the presence of Christ to see if we have come to be made as much like Him as possible, or whether we are more concerned with just getting by with some religious duty that looks good on the surface.
Hear the cry of
Jesus Christ this morning for authenticity.
Hear His appeal today for genuine faith. Listen to the passion in His voice as He calls for us to let Him
change our hearts, not just our habits.
Woe to those who
refuse to listen, He says. With both
pity and wrath He confronts inconsistency and hypocrisy in our lives and
demands that we give Him absolute control over what we believe and what we do
so that in every way His work of transforming our lives to be like Him will
progress without delay.
Woe to those who
are content to fake it when I offer you the chance to be real!
July 18, 2004
©David
Horner 2004
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