Matthew 23Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles this morning. This will seem like a strange jump here. We're going to be looking at Matthew this week is a little bit of an introductory week in Romans chapter 1 for the next section of Scripture, and I found it fitting maybe for us to go to Matthew chapter 23. I feel like, if I were to title the section in Romans which we're traveling through, the next section of Scripture, the verses, I would title it "The Holiness of God and the Depravity of Man." So next week this breaks up into several different sections. Next week we begin the beginning of that section and we're going to be visiting the wrath of God, and then we'll make our way through the remainder of chapter 1. But today I felt I would jump over to Matthew chapter 23. Most of our small groups are doing an introductory for the second section of chapter 1. I believe this maybe helps us see this next section that we're moving into in the light of God's holiness and the light of man's depravity, and honestly just the nature of man to do things against God. Many of you, even if you haven't been in the church any amount of time at all, you have heard the word Pharisee. It is something that is used a lot.
Most people say they don't want to be one, so that's a typical thing. We tend to consider Pharisaical living those who say one thing and do another. And so today I want to maybe look at that, because I think so often when we think of the wrath of God being applied to the depravity of man, or the sin of man, or man in his sin, one of the things that we think about is people outside of the church. But ladies and gentlemen, sin is in the church, and man is depraved, and if it were not for God we would not be saved from participating in continual sin. We just desire to sin, and this happens even in the church, even for those, honestly,
Point 1Pharisees were zealous and sincere, yet condemned
Who have declared to be Christians for years. We get to see a glimpse in Matthew here of the Pharisees. These were religious zealots. They were zealous for the things of the Lord. They were passionate about the Lord. But the problem is, you can be zealous and passionate and you can get it wrong, and I think that's important today.
It's extremely important. We know later on we get a picture of men and women standing before the Lord professing that they are believers in Christ, and God says to them, "I don't even know who you are. Depart from me," and go to hell, basically. And that's troubling. And I don't know about you, but to think that we could be a pastor and stand before the Lord one day and realize that we're not making it to heaven, and in spite of all of our efforts, those efforts fell short, because efforts don't get you to heaven. Christ does.
To know that we've been maybe serving in the church, we've served on the board of the church, we've served and we've taught small groups. We don't have Sunday school here, but that's what I would say. Back in the day I was a Sunday school teacher. That was kind of like you're a pastor, you're a Sunday school teacher. Man, like that's Sunday school teachers were huge back in the day. They knew the Word, they were dedicated to the Word. But there are going to be Sunday school teachers or small group leaders that will not make it to heaven. So I thought it was good that we talk about the Pharisees, because a lot of times when we think about the Pharisees, we push that idea so far away from us that we don't consider that we might be one. And God promises us in his Word that in the church today, across America and across the world, there are people sitting who think they're saved but they're not. Pharisaical, they're even zealous for the things of God. They're passionate about his ways, but they just don't know the truth that they think they do. If we're going to talk about God's wrath, we should probably evaluate where we are. We know we came out of 1 John. We spent almost two years in 1 John about assurance of a believer. We know what a believer looks like. A believer is not just somebody who professes something but somebody who lives something by the power of the Holy Spirit. So that's good. Today I would title this, and we're going to jump through this, and I'm going to read chapter 23. We're probably going to go 1 through a lot. I'm not going to read the whole section, I'm just going to kind of break it up, and I'm going to break up this section much like I did at family camp, through questions that I had. I'm going to ask these questions and you can write them down as notes. But here's the title, here's how I would title this sermon today to kind of give you an idea where I'm going: an Earnest Heart Does Not Exempt You from Condemnation.
You can be earnest and you can still go to hell, and I think that's important.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:28
Really, that's the picture we get as Jesus begins to deal with these religious leaders in his day. One writer said of Matthew 23, Jesus' words in this passage fly from his lips like claps of thunder and spears of lightning. Out of his mouth on this occasion come the most fearful and dreadful statements that Jesus ever uttered on planet Earth.
In this text Jesus addresses the scribes and the Pharisees, and he calls them what many of us have, it has become a common word in and outside the church: hypocrites, sons of hell, blind fools, blind guides, robbers. These are things that Jesus called them: self-indulgent, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, persecutors, murderers.
And that's what this chapter is about. Really encouraging, right? Really encouraging stuff for this Sunday morning. Now, if you today were to imagine, maybe I should have started this way, but if you were to imagine today Jesus coming. You came in for worship, you grabbed your seat, and all of a sudden the back doors opened and Jesus came walking down the middle aisle right during our worship time. Can you imagine what some of the feelings or thoughts that might cross your mind? What would your posture be? What might you be thinking? Would you be filled with excitement or joy or glee for the fact that the Son of God had come into the room, like literally, or would it be fear? What would it be? What are some of the things that you think you would do? I think oftentimes when we think of Jesus, we don't think of him saying hard things like this. We picture him in our worship, picture adoring him, we picture maybe sitting on his lap, we picture maybe kneeling down in front of him, and excitement and joy that Jesus has come.
But Jesus came to the Pharisees and it wasn't so awesome. Sometimes Sundays are like that. I know we want to come and we want to open God's Word and we want to be encouraged and we want to be inspired and we want to feel filled up with joy to overflowing, but sometimes God's Word to us is hard to hear.
That's kind of what was going on here with the Pharisees, and you have to understand that these are people who thought they were doing everything right. These are not these are people much like us who are striving to live for the Lord. Jesus had some harsh words for them. Now, there's a couple different ways we could approach this passage. We could read it and say, "Man, those scribes and Pharisees, they're terrible people. I mean, just awful. They're just the worst.
They're evil to evoke this kind of wrath and condemnation from Christ. I mean, Christ is probably one of the easiest-going characters in the Bible, right?" So if Jesus, the guy who just got through playing with a bunch of kids, is being this mean, they must really be some punks. Pharisees probably earned it, right? I mean, at the end of the day, what kind of horrible, no-good, very bad people make Jesus get this mad? So we begin to attribute all kinds of horrible things to the Pharisees, failing to realize that we might be like them. It's easy when we go into this next section in Romans, it's easy when we talk about the wrath of God, the depravity of man, the sin of man, when we talk about those things, to push that so far off from ourselves that we do not evaluate our lives any longer. We simply consider the wrath of God and we consider the sin of other men.
We sit in services and we consider who should hear that sermon rather than the fact that we should hear that sermon, and we lack the ability to apply God's word to our lives and learn because we're too busy considering who's worse than us.
We measure ourselves not by ourselves, we measure ourselves by others.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:01
Let me tell you, we work real hard to find others who are worse than us so we can feel better about ourselves. A lot of our conversations, and just listen to your conversations when you talk about other people, just mind that. Could it be, whenever someone comes up in a conversation and you speak of their weakness and you do it constantly, could it be that you're justifying yours? I've found in life that those who talk the most about other people are probably someone who refuses to grow in their walk with the Lord, but rather use conversation and gossip and murder when talking about other people to justify their sin.
All of us have been guilty on some level. Some of us are just professional at it, but all of us have been guilty. Be careful when you point out the faults of others, because when you do so, the Bible says many fingers are pointing back at you. So let's not do that today. Let's not think and wonder who this most applies to. Ladies and gentlemen, this applies to you, and we should evaluate our life, our church, and our pursuit of God. The Pharisees in the day that Jesus is speaking to them, they are highly regarded religious leaders of the day. They were well respected. They were devout. I guarantee you they prayed more than you.
I guarantee you they followed the law more than you. You see, following the law doesn't get us to heaven. Jesus does. Belief in him does.
They were more morally conscious than us. They were devout. They were not insincere in any way. They were very sincere.
They believed in what they were doing, as much as Paul who writes the book of Romans, who was hunting down Christians. Paul was hunting down Christians, and they believed that what they were doing was right and good, and so did everyone else. And they did not do it halfway like many of us in America do. They did it with all their heart. So a serious caution for us. So here's a serious caution for this text that I want to start with, and I'll go ahead and warn you, this is a very heavy statement, but I'm convinced based on this text that it is true. I've thought about it over and over again this week, and not just as it applies to scribes and the Pharisees two thousand years ago, but I believe it applies to you and me. So here it is. It is possible for you and me to genuinely believe that we're doing God's work, obeying God's Word, and accomplishing God's will, yet to be deceived and to experience hell for all eternity. I'm going to say it again, I think it's important. It is possible for you and me to genuinely believe that we are doing God's work, obeying God's Word, and accomplishing God's will, yet be deceived and will experience eternal damnation. That's possible.
That's possible. Now that statement should rock us back on our heels just a bit this morning. Now, I grew up in a culture where fear was one of the greatest evangelism tools of the nation, specifically in our denomination. Fear moved people to the altar. That's not the goal here, but there is a difference between fear and proper consideration, and I believe we should consider some things. And although it may strike fear in our hearts, we need to consider some things very seriously. The Bible, in this Matthew chapter 23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees." It's actually repeated seven times. He woes them. Okay, "woe" says a couple of things: be warned, and stop. That's the simplest way that I could put it, right? If I were going to tell you what "woe" means, every time you hear "woe to you," we don't use that word, I would maybe replace it with "warning, stop." All right, so God is compelling them, really, honestly, he's warning them, and he's telling them to stop. Do they stop? No.
We get a lot of warnings in the Bible. Do we stop? No. Are you with me today? It's important that we take warnings seriously.
But we don't just look at the Pharisees like idiots. Man, he warned them. He gave them seven warnings, he gave them seven stops. He gave specific things they needed to be warned of and to stop, and they kept doing it. How many of you are like that? So God is trying, I believe, to speak to the hearts of everyone in here. "Woe to you." Condemnation, damnation, and he said judgment be upon you. And Jesus said it to people who believed what they were doing brought honor to the same God that "woed" them. That's frightening, but it's true. Think about it.
This is at the foundation of major world religions all around the world. Let me take it off of us for a minute. Let's go up and out to major world religions, and there's many of them, but two that I can think of right offhand that will be non-personal to us would be Muslims and Jews.
"Woe to you, woe to you." There are all kinds of people in the world who, under the banner of Christianity, claim to be Christian, are deceived, and they are being deceived today, whether it's Mormon or Jehovah's Witness or Orthodox churches, like I saw in some of my reading as we went down through in this last week for school. It's happening all over the world, and we'd be fools to think it could not happen to us in America, that we could not be deceived the same way. Now, you have to understand, back when they were established in the church, in the apostolic era, they were planting churches, and as soon as they were planting churches, false leaders were coming up and they were teaching false things right inside the churches.
And if you think that happened in the apostolic era and no longer happens today, you've got another thing coming. There are people right in our fellowship, and sometimes from our stages and from our pulpits, whatever they look like, doing the same thing. We have Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, that are false teachers.
And honestly, not every false teacher, listen, not every false teacher even knows what they're doing. Some of them are sincere. It is the responsibility of every single person to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, right? That means this: that it is your responsibility at the end of the day to know what you believe and to base what you believe on his Word and his Word alone. All right? If you then become dependent on every teacher to base your spiritual walk, you might run the risk, although they are a sincere person, of being led astray and being caught at judgment day believing the wrong thing and end up moving for all eternity into damnation, and you'll do it sincerely, passionately. But we're responsible. We're responsible.
Point 2Do we practice what we preach?
So there's some key questions, and I'm going to ask them here. Here's the first one, and we're going to pull it from the text. Here's the first question that we should ask ourselves when we read this: Do we practice what we preach? Some of you are thinking, "Pastor only." I want you to apply this to you.
You are constantly communicating something and constantly preaching, and your life is a testimony of something. Fathers, you are preaching every day to your children.
Mothers, you are doing the same thing to your children, to the people that you hang out with, to your friends, to your husband or to your spouse, to your employees. Do you practice what you say you believe in? Let's walk through them step by step. Matthew 23:1–4 says this: "Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do.'" In other words, let me break this down, because that's a weird word. The Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, right? As it is a place of authority, it is a place where you can trust his word, and they preach something and they tell you that you should do what they say, but they don't even do what they say. That's what that means. So let's move on. "For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger." Question number one: Do we practice what we preach?
Do you practice what you preach? The reality is the Pharisees preached but they did not practice what they preached. So the Bible is telling us, don't follow that example, don't be like them. They are guys who pour heavy burdens on others, telling them to do this and that, but they aren't willing to carry any of the burdens themselves.
It is one thing to know something, it is one thing to preach something, it is quite another to do it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:26
Fathers, parents, have you ever heard the phrase "Do as I say, but not as I do"? That the simple fact that you have to say it is evidence that you don't practice what you preach. Don't be like that.
Jesus is saying don't be like that. That's Pharisaical. I've found today that most people in church who are judgmental of Pharisees' behaviors don't even know they're Pharisaical themselves.
Do you practice what you preach? Where is there inconsistency between what you say and how you live?
Do we practice what we preach? Question number two. That was quick, right? You feel encouraged. It was pretty quick. You're like, "Oh my gosh,
Point 3Do we seek God's approval or men's applause?
There's a bunch of questions, we're never going to end." Okay, number two: Are we content with the approval of God, or do we desire the applause of men?
Matthew 23:5–7 says this. This is where I extrapolate that from, that question: "They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long." Now for those who don't know what a phylactery is, a phylactery was, you strapped it to your head and had the law on there, and a bunch of different laws, and the bigger the phylactery, the more you really loved God. And they would have fringe that would hang down off the end of their robes.
That's the phylacteries, that's what the fringe was. "And they love the place of honor at feasts," or the best seat at the table, "and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by others." They loved that stuff. Are we content with the approval of God or do we desire the applause of men? That's my question for you today. This is the same thing we saw in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus called out men and women for fasting, praying, and giving in order to be seen by men. Not that those things were bad, but some people do it to be seen.
Here it's scribes and Pharisees who want to be seen by others. They make their phylacteries broad, which were texts inscribed from God's law.
They were worn on their head or their arms and fastened to their foreheads, and fringes basically were tassels worn on the outer corners of the clothes. These things were prescribed, actually, in the Bible. Don't let this be lost on you: this was prescribed in the Bible. How many of you know that you can take biblical things and you can apply them wrong? And the wrong application of biblical principles is just as bad as doing nothing at all. Misapplication matters. If misapplication matters in regards to fringe and phylacteries, how much more does misapplication matter when it comes to his Word? And oh, do we see some crazy phylacteries and tassels being preached from pulpits today. Misapplication of God's Word, it matters.
It is not okay to just take, "Well, somebody quoted a Scripture and that must be what it means," but then not do the homework to see if it really means how they're applying it. Like, there's this good Scripture, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," but that, out of context, begins to be applied for you to get what you want and do what you want and have the strength to accomplish whatever you want, and that's not what that text means. Actually, Paul says that when he's in prison and he's suffering, after he had been beaten, and he's saying, "I can do all things," even be in prison for Christ, not win a basketball game for Christ.
Wrong application is nothing more than a phylactery made broad for your own purposes.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:06
It's hanging tassels of Scriptures that dangle and dingle and give you the appearance of holiness, like you love God and his Word, when really you use God and his Word to serve you.
We're guilty of that, and we're responsible to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And let me tell you, we're guilty. And so listen, it doesn't make you a terrible, no-good, very bad person. Actually, it does.
We're all terrible, no-good, and very bad, and that's why we need Jesus.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:41
But at the end of the day, I want you to understand something: God loves you, and this text is to help you understand that we're depraved and even in our earnestness to serve the Lord we get it wrong.
I don't want to beat you down. God doesn't want to beat you down with the Word. He wants to call you out of that behavior, because there's something better.
It is a deadly thing to desire the applause of men.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:12
And this is a quote, I don't know who said it's unknown, I looked everywhere, I couldn't find it on google, so it must not exist: It is a deadly thing to desire the applause of men, for once you receive it, your flesh enjoys it and you want it more and more, and you become less and less content with the approval of God. Oh, come on, how many of you know that to be true on some level? How many of you have ever heard somebody say, "I want to be satisfied with God being pleased with me, but I'm just worried that people aren't"?
I mean, they don't say the second part, they think that second part, but they say the first part somehow or another. For some people, God being pleased with us just isn't enough.
We want to be celebrated by men. Let me tell you why: because once men celebrate you, it's hard to enjoy God celebrating you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:03
Number three, the third question: Do we assert our superiority over others and in the process usurp Christ's superiority over all? Do we assert our superiority over others and in the process usurp Christ's superiority over all? It would have been awesome if I made slides, but I didn't, so deal with it. All right, I don't, I wish I would have, sorry.
I'll post these on Facebook, how about that, and then you can get them if I'm moving too fast. So Jesus ends verse 7 by talking about the delight the scribes and the Pharisees take in being called rabbi by others, and he says this: "But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father who is in heaven."
Like, there's an explicit command: don't call teachers "father." Are you with me today? You know where that applies, right? It applies in a lot of places, but it applies somewhere specifically. Now, I'm telling you right now, we've got to be careful about this stuff. "For you have one Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ." Right now we know that Jesus is not saying here that there should not be teachers and leaders in the church.
What he's saying here is do not assert your authority over people by your titles. Let me make this extremely personal: do not demand that people call you "Doctor"
When you have a doctorate. Okay, let me break this down a little bit more: do not demand that people call you "Pastor."
Is it bad for you to call someone a pastor? No, that's their role. But don't demand that, because it positions you with superiority. Now, we should have leaders in the church, but we shouldn't demand that people give us a specific title. That's the way I take that. You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, I'm just saying that's what it says. It's saying do not demand that. Do we have pastors? Yes, God established pastors.
It's saying be careful to not value your title so much that you forsake, you spend so much energy for that title that you forsake actually living up to it. Are you with me? Okay. I've been at churches where pastors don't really like cleaning up.
I'm not saying a pastor always has to clean. Sometimes we have people in the church to clean and serve, but if needed, a pastor should be able to do that. It should not be beyond a pastor or leader to pick up a chair and stack it on another pile of chairs. Does a pastor have to do that? No, he doesn't have to do that, it shouldn't be beyond him to do that. Are you with me today? It is the attitude that matters. Now, we know that Jesus is not saying that there be no leaders and teachers in the church, but it is a clear rebuke to those who have used their leadership position to assert some sort of superiority over others based on their title and what they do. Now, how many of you love C.S. Lewis, right? Two people, that's great. Three, there's three. There's another one went up there late. Well, maybe this will help you. Like C.S. Lewis, right? Some of his reading, if you haven't read him, I won't encourage you to do that, right? I think there's actually a movie about C.S. Lewis that just came out, right? Brook's been trying to get me to watch it and I'm like, I don't know, let's watch, you know, a superhero movie or something. I don't know. But maybe we should watch that. Here's a couple questions I want to ask you real quick to kind of maybe set up the C.S. Lewis quote. Does your heart delight in receiving honor over other people? Because Matthew 23:8–10 might be speaking to you. Do you find some weird sort of comfort whenever you realize that you are in a better or even higher position than someone else? Are you prone, even in your own mind, to exalt yourself above others? Do you compare yourself with other people? I spoke about that early, got ahead of myself. Even subconsciously, do you measure yourself against them to discern your own spiritual maturity? This is what C.S. Lewis talked about in his powerful chapter on pride in Mere Christianity. I love that book, right?
He calls pride self-conceit. He calls self-conceit the great sin. Lewis says this, it's a long section here: "If you think you're not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed."
I love that. Just get straight to the point, right? I love that. I actually heard Alistair Begg was teaching at a pastoral conference at his church, and he said, "Humility appeals to my pride. It appeals to my sense of pride. It is an honorable thing to say you are humbled. I am humbled indeed." Now you are no longer humble indeed. All right, so this is kind of what C.S. Lewis is saying: if you think you're conceited, it means you are. If you think you're not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed. "If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud." And then listen to how he links pride with competition: "now what you want to get clear is that pride is essentially competitive, is competitive by its very nature." And then he talks a little bit, and then I'm going to jump to this part: "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest."
Can you relate? God cautions us here as he cautions the Pharisees. He cautions us, anyone who might, in even all earnestness, be pursuing God but have behavior similar to that of the Pharisees, that same caution to them then comes to us in the church today, and we have to evaluate if this is in our hearts. Andrew Murray says, "Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can ever live in you." I like that. That's good stuff.
Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:41
That's good stuff. Question number four: Do we humbly serve others, or are we hypocritically centered on ourselves? I think this is my greatest struggle.
Are you with me today? Now, some of you might be in other ones, and so let me just be honest and say I think this is mine.
Now, my wife, she's really good at that, and it annoys me. It annoys me how good. Now, I understand that there are some that have the gift of serving, like literally, they just have a gift of it, and I end up breaking the one we just read before by comparing myself with people who serve better than me. So then this one causes me to break the one before. You understand what I'm saying? It's just like a downward snowball picking up steam and mass. One becomes an issue, they all become an issue. Do we humbly serve others, or are we hypocritically centered on ourselves? I think that in a season of "Is it Jesus" and "Not so Jesus," even in the way that we interpret God's Word, I think this is an issue. Jesus says in verses 11 and 12, "The greatest among you shall be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew 23:11–12. So are you constantly, consistently looking for ways and opportunities to serve others? These are some questions I've asked myself. Or is it, are you more concerned, is your more consistent thought, "What would be best for me in this situation?"
Wow, this is so personal. When people around you say that humble service is your posture, oh, this, and so here's some questions that I really hate, right? I really hate these.
Would people you work with say that you're a humble servant? Well, I'm going to ask people who really don't know me that well, quite honestly. Let's not ask the people that are closest to me, I'm going to get a lower score. I'd like to ask you guys, let's not ask the staff, it'll out me what my motives are. Would the people you work with say that? Would the people around you in the church say that? Would your husband or wife or your children or your parents
Point 4Are we hindering people's salvation?
Say that you are a humble servant that thinks of others more than themselves? Do you humbly serve others, or are you hypocritically centered on you?
Anybody can yell "hypocrite." Just be careful, because you might be one too.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:55
Question number five: Are we hindering people's salvation? And this one, man, this one right here, man, this one right here, the last two years I have come under such strong conviction about this that, listen, I understand that God, God is gracious, amen, and God can work everything and work it for his glory. God can take the worst things and he can work those things for his glory. God repurposes things for his good. But man, do I feel conviction and the weight of conviction under this. Now, I understand we have grace in God, but I think it's okay to be convicted. Now, some people will say, "Well, your conviction is self-deprecating." If it moves to self-deprecating, I don't think that helps. I don't know if I say that word well, I'm from the South, but you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. If it moves to that self-deprecating position, then that's not healthy. But it is good to be convicted, and you have to evaluate whether you've done something well or not. And the reality is, I didn't understand the difference. I just thought, hey, let us go out into all the world. I mean, like even, I really even want to change the name of our church, but we're not going to, probably, who knows, I've changed everything around here. But I really feel like it used to be "So the World May Hear,"
And we pushed everything out to this global push to do stuff to the far outer realms of the world that we refused to be faithful in our house or our town. It was about saving the one person all the way across the world that this little church in Pleasant Hill could reach. Why? So we could get glorified for reaching people across the world in a small little town like Pleasant Hill. Now, we would never say that, and we certainly didn't understand the absolute selfishness in our motive. We really, we were earnestly trying to do something good for the Lord, all while serving ourselves. Listen, it's so easy.
It's so easy to sin that the goal then becomes something. Listen, sometimes the goal is in how many people we reach, how many people are in our pews, and what it looks like, versus God's Word. So now we are then led by things that are temporal rather than spiritual, and those motivators, right, like once we accomplish some of those things, then those things begin to pull us even further in the direction that is not godly, and we think that because we see success in these things that it must be God.
God must really be moving where the people are. Now, in the Bible, Jesus was really good at drawing a crowd out, and then he was really good at preaching the Word and getting them all to leave. So if you merely measure success by what draws people, then you wouldn't value the Word.
Are you with me? You wouldn't value the discipleship, you wouldn't value the Sermon on the Mount, because literally he had drawn all the people in by healings and feedings, and then he preached the Word one time and all of them left except for the disciples, and probably some of them wanted to leave. Are you with me? So if you determine what is valuable based on what happens on the outside, you might miss what's truly valuable. Even Jesus gets irritated at one point and says, "All you want is signs and miracles. It's all you want. When will it be enough?" Oh, I think the same question then reverberates and echoes into our churches today, because many people come looking for a sign. They need an encounter with God that they refuse to experience by sitting in his Word in their house.
They only want something that moves them to goosebumps and tears. So, "Show me something and move me and let me feel something and see something, or it must not be God." This is why people hate getting in their Word, because it's not good enough and it doesn't move us.
I mean, this is so like, I'm just, I'm convicted about this. Some of the changes you've experienced in the church is just trying to figure out how to value the right things, and it's troubling when you make those decisions and people walk. It's hard to keep doing that. It's hard, but we're going to have to determine as believers in Christ, do we want to be comfortable and entertained, or do we want to be biblical and godly? It's simple. I'm not against entertainment.
I go to Worlds of Fun just like all y'all. I've let my hair flow back on the roller coaster, but I ain't got none, but I still go and have fun.
It's not bad to have fun. It's just bad if fun is your lord.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:28
That's what's bad. Are we hindering people's salvation? That's the question. Let me read it from Matthew 23:13–15. It says, "Woe to you." Now we move into the woes, and this right here is just, I mean, the first part was hard enough, but just wait till you listen to these woes for these behaviors. "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you"—what does that say in Matthew 23? Let me make sure that's not a Matthew, I'm not reading that. Let me read 13 through 15. "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." Okay, now I've got to go back to here, because I can't even read that. I did, but not very good. It's like all the words are going like this, because I need readers. "To go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel," listen to this, "across 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." Wow.
Wow. Wow.
I read this two years ago and thought, "I'd do that. We do that here."
What a statement. So let me share with you a couple questions I had out of that. Are we hindering people's salvation? That's the whole point of what the scribes and Pharisees were doing. They were keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven, and don't miss their sincerity in doing so. They travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte. These guys really believed that what they were doing, the message they were spreading, was right, and they've given their lives to making it known to everyone they can, but in the process they are hindering, actually hindering, people's salvation, keeping people from the kingdom of heaven in their process of trying to proselytize them to go there. God help us. There are two pictures I want to give you. Both of these are stories of someone coming to Christ, people coming to Christ. One is people at an evangelistic crusade, and the other one is an individual in a tribe, in a village, in one of the untouched parts of the world, more untouched parts of the world. I'm going to give you these.
The first picture is the conference, or the evangelist, evangelistic crusade, and at this crusade, and I'm not downing every evangelistic crusade, I'm not trying to go into that conversation, i'm just trying to, I'm going to give you a snippet of some of the things we're taught at this crusade that I recently read. So the message that was being taught was, "trust in Jesus and things will go well for you." Tell that to the apostles, and tell that to Jesus, actually.
Tell that to most of the church in the New Testament. "You'll have a better life." Once again, "you'll have health and wealth and prosperity and success in the world." Tell that to the apostles. Tell that to them.
And then there's a story of a lady I recently read in some of my reading material, when she came to Christ, could very possibly, very easily, it could have led her to have her throat slit. Many people were having their throat slit in front of their kids. Yet she turned from her sin and herself and trusted in Christ because she believed he was worth more than her life. That's the gospel, honestly, and you could argue with me all day long. I don't really enter into arguments with people who do not read this in its entirety, because if you do, we don't even have an argument anymore.
That's the gospel: to follow Christ. In other words, to follow Christ, to enter into the kingdom of heaven, costs you everything.
It costs you everything that you have in this world and possibly your very life, and to preach anything less than that is to preach a false gospel.
I'm not making this stuff up. This isn't just Shawn's, you know, melancholy, pessimistic perspective. It's his Word.
I believe that the church is full of teachers, men and women, who minimize the character of God, who minimize his holiness and righteousness and wrath, which we're going to get into soon, who dilute the sinfulness of man, who trivialize the sacrifice of Christ as merely one option for salvation, who call people to give quick intellectual assent to Jesus by raising a hand and praying a prayer without counting the cost, and we're making people in the masses that are two times the son of the devil.
We are teachers who flat out deny, or at the very least skirt around, the doctrine of eternal hell. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that's out there. That's huge. There are people who deny that hell even exists. They will say that your eternal hell and torment is the sowing of bad fruits today, but everyone goes to heaven. Universalism. Teach this, be careful to not get sucked up into that trap. And they use Scriptures like "who can separate us from the love of God? Neither height nor depth nor angels nor demons nor," are you with me? And they take that Scripture and they say, "See, we'll all be in heaven." We must not hinder people from entering the kingdom of heaven by deceiving potential disciples, giving them less than the gospel of the kingdom. So I did my first two woes and one question. I'm going to do my second two woes and another question, and this is this: Are we more concerned with biblical minutiae than we are with practical ministry? Let me translate that: are we more concerned with all the little details, all the little facts, all the little laws, all the little things, than we are about practical ministry?
Sometimes we can so major on the minors that we miss the major.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:06
Here's what Jesus says. This is my summation, but here's what he says, actually: "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 fools! For which is greater, the gold of 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."
That one should track with us right there. That one should. That one right there.
"Woe to you," verse 23 or something, "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!"
Jesus is just, he's let loose right here. It would take me 18 years to be able to write something like this. This is crazy. The question: Are we more concerned with biblical minutiae than we are with practical ministry?
Some of us can get so hung up in knowing God's Word that we never live it. All right, moving on. Last one. Last two woes. Are we focused on outward cleanliness instead of inward holiness? Last question is based on this last pair of woes, in verse 25 and 27 through 28. It says this: "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. 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. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of
Point 5Realize you are a Pharisee and hope in Christ
Hypocrisy and lawlessness."
The first step, this is my summary, the first step to not being a Pharisee is to realize that you are one, okay?
Because when you realize you are, you begin to lose hope in yourself and place your hope in Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 55:37
That's the key. That's the key. We were in some discussion this week, and I'm not exactly sure what the context was or whatever, but a Scripture came up and it was rightfully given and it was rightfully communicated. The Scripture came up: "Who can save this man that I am? I do what I do not want to do and I don't do what I do want to do." And it's in Hebrews, and we don't know if it's the apostle Paul or who. Some try to ascribe it to the apostle Paul, some ascribe it to somebody different, but at the end of the day it's this struggle, and in one chapter you see him just constantly struggling with his flesh and struggling with sin, this member in me that just keeps wanting to do something and I'm out of control and I can't do things. And many people will really hammer down on that Scripture, but then if you flip the page and you go to the next chapter and you read that chapter, you're seeing this dialogue, this internal dialogue with the writer of Hebrews speaking about the struggle of sin that we have. We are no longer, we are captive by, we're captivated by sin, we're held captive by sin. I want to do one thing but I don't end up doing another thing and I just can't control this, and really you begin to look and say, "I have no hope in me."
The best way to not be a Pharisee is to realize you are, and then to lose hope in yourself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 57:11
So this writer of Hebrews begins to explain that. You flip the chapter. He says, "Who can deliver me from this body?" At the end of the one chapter, and then it goes to the next, and he says Christ can deliver me from this, and then he spends another whole chapter talking about the power of Christ at work in our lives, releasing us from that, being controlled by sin.
Now I am no longer controlled by those things, but I am controlled by the Spirit which lives in me, and he is greater than that other thing that lives within me. That's good news. We don't talk about that, and I'm afraid a lot of times what we don't do, the next chapter, is because we want to justify ourselves, continuing to live like a Pharisee. When we realize that our hope is placed in Christ, God doesn't give allowance for that.
First John doesn't give allowance for that. As we go on in Romans, he didn't give allowance for that, and Hebrews doesn't give allowance for that, and there is no book in the Bible, no epistle, that gives allowance for that, because once you have believed and once his Spirit fills you, your desires become his desires.
It does not mean you'll be perfect and you'll never sin. How many of you know that even as a believer you will sin? First John says that you will sin. If you say that you have no sin, then you are a liar, you make him a liar. It's not true that we will sin, he says, but we won't habitually practice sin and we won't habitually be a slave to sin. We have been set free. The desires might come, but we will not submit ourselves continually to things, habitually practicing them as if we are still a pagan. We might mess up, we might slip, we might have a desire that we are taken over by and we might submit to that, but at the end of the day we will be convicted, we will turn from that, we will repent, we will confess that sin, and we will not return to it like a dog does to his vomit day by day.
You know how you'd be a Pharisee and how to stop being a Pharisee: realize you are one, because you'll lose hope in yourself and you'll learn to place hope in God.
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