Introduction
and we reject what he has to say and we don't allow it to penetrate our heart to the level that it changes us.
This is not a buffet religion. This is not something where you get to pick and choose the parts of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:11
Even in the Godhead, we tend to want to reject the judgy part of him and just take the loving part of him. We want to ignore the wrath part of him and we want to just embrace the mercy side of him. So we end up making t-shirts that say Jesus above everything. Does that mean Jesus above God and the Holy Spirit?
And I know the heart behind the statement. But in the middle of that weaved in there is this idea that we could even pick and choose the parts of God we like and reject the rest. We build entire denominations on it. We structure entire religious movements on it. We this is what we do. It's what we do, folks. It's what we do. I'm not coming here today to say shame on you.
I'm coming here today to say shame on all of us because this is our nature. It is in our very nature. This is why the Apostle Paul is constantly saying,"Wh do I do the things I don't want to do and I don't do the He's just as confused about it as you are."
We have a sin problem. It's wired deep in our DNA and Jesus came to redeem you of it. He is the hope.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:24
He's the only hope. So, we move on. So, we see that we tend to be critical. We tend to pick and choose. We tend to decide what we want Jesus to be. That's what we've seen. That's what we've seen. And then we move on to verse 20–24. That's our assignment today. We see something a little different. He says, "then he began to denounce the cities who were most of his mighty who where most of his mighty works had been because they did not repent.
Woe to you chis. Woe to you beta. For if the mighty works done in you would have been done in Ty and Siden, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Ty and Siden than you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. Man, this is an awesome sermon, right?
Everybody would love to come to Sunday and hear this. It would be that' be a hot one right off the press. You know what I mean? I mean, today many of our churches don't preach like this.
We don't talk about what happens when you reject Christ, not the version of Christ. You've constructed, the true Christ of the Bible.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:48
It's serious business. There is a and I know we want to come and we want to know how to parent better and we want to know how to have a better marriage and we want to know how to have 10 steps to success. But this place here what I'm talking about here, I'm not talking about this pulpit or Echo Church. I'm talking about the word of God is the pulpit that speaks into our lives beyond the things of how you can become a better person. It speaks of things of how he can make you a better person. Amen. And those two are very different.
And the church can be guilty right from its pulpit, the word of God, by taking the word of God and preaching steps into pheraceuticalism.
But our trust is not in our efforts. Our trust is in what he did. And so this is the warning. When you trust in what you do and you deny him, woe to you.
It's concerning today. And this is what will happen when we hear there comes a day where people stand before the Lord. They say, "I did this in your name. I did this in your name. I prophesied in your name. I did all these mighty works in your name." Came and he says, "Depart from me." Because you trusted in 10 steps to be a better man and you didn't trust in Christ. Did you know you can know him and not trust him?
Did you know that you can come and you can hear about him and not follow him?
Did you know that you can be steeped in religion and be spiritually bankrupt?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:39
Did you know that your life can be filled with religious activity, but there never be true change in your heart? This is what he's speaking about here. Woe to you because there was no shortage of religious activity happening here. It just wasn't aligned to God and his ways.
And you convert them. Will you be exalted? No. No. You're going to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom. Oh man. This is where Jesus threw down like hellfire from the sky and killed everyone. All right. By the way, you know, I know we want to remove Jesus from that, but he was probably lighting the match because what they're in one accord.
I know we want to remove Jesus from the Old Testament and think he just showed up, but he is God and he has always been. They're three in one. Jesus doesn't just show up on the scene, boom, when he's born. That's not when it happens. He's a part. So whenever God is moving in wrath and in judgment in the old Testament, Jesus is there lighting the fire.
We don't like to think like that, but they're in one accord. They're not like you and I. We can't even be getting we can't even get in one accord in our own house or we can't get in one accord
In the church. This is why he calls us to unity because in the church when we see unity, we see God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:01
He's calling us to be one in thought and one in the way that we live. And then I know I should be reading Scripture and such. That's what my job is. But listen, but I tell you that it will be more tolerable of the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than you. Okay. So here's the thing. I don't buy it.
I don't buy it that they're worse than Sodom. I know what Sodom did. I mean, just go look it up on Google today. Chat it, AI it, check it out, see what it is.
I mean, actually, just read your Bible. But if you find Sodom and you see the activity that was happening in that day, it was bad, folks.
It actually it seems worse than people in cities that there is religious activity happening.
Church. They're having church up in there. Think about it. Now, not to isog this Scripture and jam you in it, but that's you today. I know you think everybody out there so much worse and they're on a worse track than you. All the lost people, all the sodomites, all those people. We love talking about those people because it takes the heat off you.
But today, if the gospel is going to do its work in you have to stop pushing it away from you. And the task every Sunday is not to come in here and go, "Boy, that's a good one for so and so. I'm tagging him on this one."
The goal of every sermon, every Sunday, is that you would let the gospel pierce your heart,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:58
not you would use it as leverage and make it a pulpit to pierce someone else's.
That's the work of the gospel when you hear it. Oh, because when it's hot, we all want to get out of the kitchen.
Sometimes I want to get out of the house because whenever Brooke is cooking, our fire alarm is so close. We have very bad ventilation evidently in our kitchen because every time she cooks just anything, the alarm goes off. So it makes us not want to cook anymore. Like I just want to just go out to eat all the time because I and it's like where and the dogs are crying because their ears are hurting and I just wanna I just want to go to McDonald's. You know what I mean? I just want to leave the house and go to McDonald's.
Because when it gets hot, when it gets noisy, when it gets crazy, we want out of the kitchen. And Sunday can become that for us. I got a funny meme from my friend and it was so true. It was so true. But it was like when you look forward to going to church on Sunday and then it had this guy just beating the snot out of a punching bag. Like one of those like blow up punching bags that kind of fall down and come back up and this is what you run into.
Guys, that's kind of a lot that happens when you open Scripture because it was meant to pierce the heart to divide like a sword, like a razor blade, bone and marrow. It's doing it's cutting. And I know we go to it for encouragement. I think that it can cut and still encourage. I think it can suck a punch and still provide fruit.
And it's a funny meme and it was hilarious. But I was thinking about that and I was thinking, man, Scripture really is like that. Am I right today? Just has its way when we let it do its work. When we don't take one Scripture out and we try to make people feel happy, but we let the Scripture do its work and it makes people holy, it does a different type of work. But there's a woe to the church.
There's a woe to religious activity. I'm I named this sermon I couldn't think of a better title. I think start to think of something really cool. It's not so cool. It's kind of dorky, but this is what it is. The danger of indifference right inside the church. Now, none of us would label oursel as being indifferent about God.
Many of us here today, I know your faces, I know your families. I know your life. I know your heart. I know what you've gone through in a lot of your life. I know many of you.
And I would not necessarily label anybody in here today indifferent, but
Indifference finds its way in our lives more often than you might think.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:07
Let me just break this down for you because let's just get it away from Jesus because that makes us feel that seems well scary to think we're indifferent to the things of God. But you're indifferent about a lot of stuff and so am I.
Now, whenever I first met Brooke, I was on a chase. I was on a hunt. I loved her. I loved her smile. Loved the way that she walked. Loved the way that she talked. And I wanted to get to know her.
It was amazing. And that chase produces a certain type of behavior. Can I get an amen, man? Now I have two sons and when they date they are they clean themselves because I will make them clean themselves. They brush their tooth because when they were young I made them brush their teeth. No, not tooth. They have more than one tooth.
They have some teeth. They have a whole mouth full of teeth. They're good, guys. They're good. I made them brush their all of their teeth when they were young. But whenever they're dating, something just it goes up a notch, if you know what I mean. They smell extra great.
Even when they're not around the girl they're pursuing, they take more showers than they normally take. They brush their tooth perfectly. They do all these things. It is amazing because it changes your behavior because when you first meet somebody and you're first in pursuit, you're not indifferent about it. You're not common with that person. In the church, this can happen.
You can become so common with religious activity and the things of God, you forget who you're worshiping.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:23
We can become so common with worship that worship, we forget what it's for, who it's for, why we do it. We simply go through the motions because we're common with it. It's like going to church. See, now if I were dating Brooke and I picked her up to go to church, I would run around the car and I would open the door for her and I would say, "Come in, my princess." Us and I would close the door for her and when we would walk from the car to go into the building, I would not walk 10 paces ahead of her because we were in a hurry. I would walk with her and we would hold hands and it would be romantic. Everything was an opportunity, but now it's like, "Come on, woman. Let's get there." What causes that?
We're coming. The longer you hang out with somebody, the more you begin to take advantage of them. It isn't like you're malicious and you're nefarious and you really don't care about the person anymore. But other things have become a priority. Let me tell you what they are. Those things you're not so common with have been prioritized because it's more exciting than what you're common with. Sin can become this.
That's why sin never stays with one vice. It moves from vice device to vice device to vice device to attitude to behavior to consumption. And the reason we do it guys is not because that one thing has allured us. We move because we have become common with one thing and we have to have another. Something bigger, something better, something higher, something that lifts us more. It's never one thing because the moment it becomes common, we move to something that's not so common.
And
Sin will present itself. Track with me. Sin will present itself in a way that will lure you away from that which you become bored with.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:14
And the longer you're in church, I think I'm doing good today. The longer you're in church, the more appealing sin becomes because you're no longer common with it. Oh, and then we what we will do was saying track with me. We won't do any of the polarizing things that people in church know you shouldn't do. We'll just, you know, we'll just we'll just gossip and call it a prayer request.
We put religious language on our sin and it's just as destructive. And this is where indifference takes root in our heart. And that which we used to glory in, we used to chase after, we used to woo over, our woo turns into a woe.
You can be in church so long that your woo becomes a woe.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:19
And that's sad.
Last week, the text showed us that I read earlier 16 through something. What showed us what men do with Christ? We reject him because we don't like the way he came. This week, this text, it shows us what men don't do with Christ.
That's what he's doing. That's what he's building. And a man or a woman can be damned to hell just as surely by what they do as what they don't do. That's important. We tend to think of judgment in terms of open rebellion. We think of the person who rejects Christ or mocks Christ or hates Christ or openly chooses sin and lives in it flippantly with disregard to his sacrifice. But Matthew 11:20–24, it gives us something far more subtle and in many ways far more frightening.
These people did not shake their fist at God. They simply did not repent. They heard him. They saw his works. They lived in the light of extraordinary revelation. They had abundant privilege and they did nothing.
When you look ahead to the great white throne of judgment, there will be certain there will certainly be people who will say in their defense, "I never did anything." And that will be their condemnation. They never did anything.
They heard the truth, they did not repent. They heard the gospel, but they did not come to Christ. They sat near the things of God every Sunday, but they remained unchanged. That's what makes this passage so frightening for those who sit in the church.
The warning of Matthew 11 is that indifference is not innocence.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:16
It's not innocence. Lord, help us.
Point 2Indifference can use truth without being changed by it
All right, just moving on. I'm I'm out of time. Number two, indifference can use truth without ever being penetrated by truth. Or it I ran out of room, so I just put it.
Indifference can use truth without ever being penetrated by it. Matthew let's see 21-22. Woe to you Torres. Woe to you, Bada, for if the mighty works done in you have been done in Ty and Siden. They would have repented long ago in sackcloth and in ashes. But I tell you, it is more bearable on the day of judgment for Ty and Siden than to you.
They can use truth without ever being penetrated by it. There's another form of indifference that is more subtle. We can take the truth of God and instead of allowing it to penetrate our hearts like an arrow, we stand behind it like a pulpit.
We use truth rather than allowing truth to use us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:27
And the longer you're in church, the easier it is to do this. It's so easy to do this, guys.
You ever been in a place where you just been immensely aggravated with people? It's amazing how you can use truth to go at them in your conversation.
But truth is not given to you to shoot arrows at others. It's given you to you so that you might be changed. It's not ammunition that you can shoot across the bow of your pulpit of your life.
It's supposed to pierce you. The Pharisees were masters at this. They knew the text. They quoted the text. They defended the text. They manipulated the text. And they used the text against others.
Guys, this does not stand in isolation with those men thousands of years ago. Everyone is guilty of doing this in the church at some level. Come on now. Maybe you are maybe you are less you have less of a proclivity to do this. And us more I call myself a realist. Others will call me a pessimist. But us more realistimist people tend to do this worse.
That's that's me. I align with that. I align with that. Be careful. Be careful with that. And we don't want to be called a Pharisee, but we do pheriseical things a lot. And yet Jesus repeatedly showed that they had twisted the truth to protect the desires of their own hearts. We do the same thing. We redefine words of the Bible. He's already defined like a love. That's the biggest one.
I mean, this word right here, love. God has clearly defined what love is, and we've split denominations over the subject. I need not go any further.
We search for teachers who will soften truth so that when we come on Sunday after a hard week, we can feel good. We collect interpretations that allow us to keep what we do not want to surrender. We become experts at explaining why the command does not really apply to us.
We find verses that justify our anger. We call it righteous indignation. Look,
You can put Christian vocabulary around your sin as much as you want. It doesn't change your sin. Sin is still sin.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:25
We find arguments that excuse our pride. We use Scripture to justify oursel when God is trying to use Scripture to cast a woe upon you.
God help us. Okay. Blah something. I'll go to the next point.
Point 3Indifference can hide behind a Christian character
Number three, indifference can hide behind a Christian character. I mean like character. Okay, maybe that isn't what a character is, but like a character in a play.
For some of us, Christianity is something we wear on Sunday.
I mean, so I got invited one time in high school to a Halloween party.
And I don't dress up, aka PJ Sunday. I'm the only one who wears normal clothes cuz I consider myself a normal person. But everybody else, all you non normals out there, you come with PJ and you acquies to that. Why do we dress that way? Because it has been communicated that we should. And no one wants to stand out like a sore thumb. But I remember one time I went to a Halloween party. Satan, you know what I mean? And they told me to dress up and I actually did it.
Come to find out I was the only one who was dressed up in the entire thing and they thought it was hilarious. And from then I will never do what you guys tell me to do.
Cuz the moment I come dressed in PJs one Sunday, all y'all going to be on suits and ties and dresses and you're going to laugh at me and you're going to point at me.
Okay, I feel better now that I've got that off my chest. But they all laughed at me at the party because I was stressed. I was the only one dressed. Let me tell you guys, I went for it. I went for it. All right, we need to move on. But some of us, so do we. Some of us, we dress up as a Christian because we're in Christian environment.
But
When we go to work, are you wearing the same character? If not, then you should consider if Christianity is just an outfit you wear on Sunday or if you've truly been changed.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:09
Last week we learned that the scribes began to dress in the same clothing as the royal court so that they could get access to the king's court. So what they wore their religious garb they would take off and they would put on a different outfit so they could get access to something secular. The reality is when at the point, listen, at the point that we began to dress according to the environment we're in, we need to question whether we've truly been changed.
Indifference can lead us to this behavior. It's not anything that serious. It's just something I wear on Sunday. We walk into church, we sing, we listen, we shake hands, we talk about the Lord, and all of that can strengthen the belief that we must surely be Christians. But church attendance cannot create spiritual life. Religious activity cannot produce a new heart.
You can put on activity all day long. You can put on church attendance all day long. It doesn't change you. And light does not act automatically transform us. Sometimes light simply reveals what is already there.
The question is not who are you when you are sitting in this room. The question is who are you when no one from church is watching?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:57
Who are you in your home? Who are you when you're angry? Who are you when you're disappointed or when you don't get your way? Who are you when you're with your spouse? Or your children. Who are you alone with your phone? That person may tell you more about the condition of your heart than the character you put on Sunday.
And this is the woe that came to the church then. And this is the woe that comes to us now.
When you become common with the things of God, you become common with God,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:01
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