Signs of Spiritual Malpractice

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. I'm Jason.

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And I'm Eliza. We're so excited to have you here today. Let's get started with some announcements. You should have found one of these at our

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New Year chair. This is the worship folder, and in here you can find information to help orient yourself with Recast. Also inside of that is a connection card, and if you're new here, we're so glad you're here.

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Feel free to fill this out and give it to a volunteer, and then you can get one of these new t -shirts. It will fit you.

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Also, we don't pass a plate here at Recast, so in the worship folder there is an envelope for giving.

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If you feel led to give, just go ahead and put it in there, and then at the welcome table there's a slot. You can just slide it right in there. Hi, so next week,

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February 7th, is an exciting day for Recast kids. We will be having classes for kindergarten through fifth grade again at the 10 .30

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service. So at 9 a .m. we have infant three and five, and then at 10 .30 we have infant through fifth grade.

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So prayer is something we've been talking a lot about at Recast lately, and Moms in Prayer is an international organization that exists to pray for our children, our teachers, and all school staff.

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So on Wednesday mornings at 9 .30, the moms in Madawan get together and they pray for about an hour.

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They use this time to cast their cares on God for their kids, and they also pray for the Madawan school staff by name.

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And if you're a Pawpaw mom, there's a group for you too. On Monday evenings there's a virtual gathering to pray.

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If you want more information about that, contact Andrea Hurst. Last week, Zach Lloyd was affirmed by 100 % of the voting members here at Recast.

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So now our board is back to full strength of seven members. We are so thankful for these godly men at Recast.

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Hit it! Subscribe to our

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YouTube channel and click the notification bell. Also, for more information, go to recastchurch .com. You guys catch a, did you catch a

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Brady Bunch vibe from that there? Some of you, how many of you know what I'm saying when I say Brady Bunch?

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How many of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about? Some of the younger people probably here. Well, welcome to Recast Church.

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I'm Don Felsick, I'm the lead pastor here. And welcome to all of you here, and an extra special welcome to those of you that are here just checking things out, maybe for the first time, second time, or third time, or whatever.

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But we're glad that you've taken time out of your busyness, especially on a blustery, snowy day, to gather together to grow in faith, community, and service.

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And that's what we're all about, a pretty simple process about growing in faith, community, and service. And this morning, we're gonna be, for our faith, and for the building of our faith, and the growing of our faith, we're gonna be looking at a chapter that proves to be one of the most scathing rebukes that Jesus issued during his earthly ministry.

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He spoke meekly, with kindness, and then there's passages like this entire chapter, chapter 23, where he speaks very directly to a specific group of people.

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And the hardest words are gonna be saved for next week, actually, next week in chapter 23 is where he really dives in, and even begins to call them hypocrites, and uses some of those words.

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But this week's gonna set the stage for that, and it's still relatively harsh compared to what we assume my

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Jesus is gonna talk like. And so the harshest words Jesus offered were leveled at religious leaders who were elitist hypocrites.

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What I mean by elitist is that they thought that they were the ones given by God to correct the people, to shepherd the people, to rebuke the people, to kind of beat the sheep into submission, and that was their view.

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And then hypocrite, it comes from a Greek word, Jesus actually uses it in the text, but the word hypocrite means actor.

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So whenever you hear the word hypocrite, think actor, you're just acting and playing a part, but it's not really who you are, and that's what we see is they were elitist hypocrites, and Jesus is gonna call them out for that.

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He's gonna point out over the course of the next couple of weeks many indictments against those who thought they were leading the people and God's people in the right direction, and by no means were they leading them in the right direction.

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And so let me be clear before we read this text that Jesus is not merely cautioning us about false religious leaders as if he's primarily saying, okay, watch out for bad pastors, watch out for bad elders, watch out for bad teachers or bad seminary professors, but he is equally cautioning all of us together about ourselves.

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Whether we're leading or whether we're following, Jesus is speaking to all of us a word of caution about the way that we are meant to live in community together.

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And also to identify something about pride and the way that it naturally attaches itself to the human heart, even in ways that sometimes is subtle that we have a hard time identifying.

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And so in an episode of The Office, how many of you, when I say the show The Office, you have some, that gives you some frame of reference.

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There's a guy named Creed Bratton and he says this. He says, I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

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You have more fun as a follower, but you make more money as a leader. I would add to his quote that if it's a cult, either way, you are still wrong.

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And Jesus here in our text has a message for both leaders and followers. By the way,

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Jesus is not anti -leadership. He's not against having hierarchy. He's not against all authority or anything like that, but he certainly recognized the tendency in the fallen human heart to corrupt leadership into self -serving abuse.

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And so we're gonna look at that and look at what Jesus says over the next couple of weeks on that front. But let's open your

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Bibles to Matthew 23, verses one through 12. If you have a device or an app that you can navigate, use that to navigate over there now.

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But Matthew chapter 23, the first 12 chapters, and let's see what Jesus has to say to followers and to leaders.

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And we are all in one of those two categories, so he's speaking to us. And again, recast,

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I say this every week, but this is God's holy and precious word. He desires to have, this word has a desire to change us.

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God, through his word, has the power to impact us and to shift us off of the focus on ourselves to others.

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And so let's listen in. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the

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Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So do and observe what they tell you, but not the works they do, for they preach, but do not practice.

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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.

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They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplace and being called rabbi by others.

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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

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Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ, the greatest among you shall be your servant.

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

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word that has the power to encourage, but also equally has the power to rebuke and to correct, and I believe that all of us have some relationship in this room to pride, to arrogance, to wanting to be seen for the good that we're doing, to want to be recognized, and to appreciate titles that people would give to us, and also there is within all of us the tendency to not follow our own advice, to not practice that which we would preach.

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And so, Father, I pray that wherever this text finds us, that you would allow your spirit to root sin out of our hearts through the words of our

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Lord and Savior, that you would meet us here in this place and allow this to be a time of worship and acknowledging you with our very lives, and I pray that this would be a passage that impacts more than this hour that we spent together this morning, but that it would go with us throughout this next week for your honor and glory.

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I pray that you would receive all that we do together in this corporate gathering as worship to you this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, well, before we dig into the text, just as I say every week, over the course of the remainder of our time,

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I encourage you to make yourself comfortable, if that means getting more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last, take advantage of those back there.

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And again, all of that caffeine is with the focus of trying to keep our attention on God's word this morning, so take advantage of that.

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The context of the passage that we're looking at this morning is contentious. You need to understand that from the get -go.

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It's a contentious text. The religious leaders confronted Jesus, and they are the ones who initiated a challenge against his authority.

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They came to him and said, what gives you the right to teach all of these people in the temple? You see, a crowd has gathered around Jesus in the temple courtyards in Jerusalem, and that helps us to set the stage.

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This is in the setting of a large crowd gathered. It's, again, important for you to understand that this is the last week of Jesus' life on earth as he's having these run -ins and these confrontations with the religious leaders.

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He will be crucified in just a few short days based on the promotion towards crucifixion and towards his removal by these very religious leaders who are offended by him.

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It's Passover week. Another thing that's helpful to understand. Passover week meant that Jerusalem was busting at the seams with pilgrims and people traveling to the city to offer up sacrifices and to celebrate

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Passover together. Estimates are that the city would swell by 50 % of the people during Passover week, and it would just be every hand on deck and every room full and people just sleeping everywhere and just making it work.

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So when he drew a crowd, you need to understand that when the text is told us that he's in the midst of a crowd in the temple courtyards and they're listening to him teach, it's likely a massive crowd.

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Don't have in your mind 12 people standing off in a corner of a courtyard having a conversation. No, no, no, this is a large crowd, and it's likely that the majority of the religious leaders came out to challenge

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Jesus at this point. This is not a small gathering. And the religious leaders clearly didn't like the spread of the fame of this guy.

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They perceived him to be an uneducated bumpkin from the backwaters of northern Israel. All the farming land was up north.

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The city, the metropolitan area of Jerusalem was in the south, and so the south was the educated elites.

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The north was considered to be kind of backwards and a little bit hillbilly, and so they're like, this is some guy from up north coming down here to try to tell us how to live, and they didn't like it.

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So there have been contentious questions from the religious leaders challenging Jesus's authority, but he answered those questions superbly, and you can see those in the last few messages on the website or on the podcast, on the book of Matthew, you can see those questions that he was challenged with.

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And then last week we saw him return the favor by asking the religious leaders a question, a question that drove toward the answer that Jesus is better than their

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Jewish hero, King David. They thought King David, mighty King David, was the best, and he said, no,

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I am David's Lord. But David had lived centuries before Jesus, and he's saying,

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I was his Lord back then, and he's actually making a claim for himself to have preexisted his birth and to have been

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David's Lord all along, which is a pretty big claim. And so now Jesus turns away from that dialogue with the religious leaders, addressing them directly, and it's important that we understand that there's a shift in the dialogue.

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He turns to the crowds and the disciples and begins to talk to them. And it's important to remember who he addresses.

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He will go back to addressing the religious elites directly in the text next week with scathing rebuke directly to them, but for a moment he's gonna talk about them while they're still standing there.

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And I imagine a couple of the Pharisees and Sadducees going, you know we can still hear you. You know we're standing right here.

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And as he tells the crowd a basic rebuke of these religious leaders that are there on display for the crowds, and I imagine they didn't like, just like we wouldn't like being called out in a crowd in front of everybody for our behavior as well.

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And so he's talking to them and they're talking about them as they stand there listening.

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And our text breaks down, and if you're a note taker, if you like structure, you're welcome. Here's four points.

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It breaks down into four cautionary commands for us to follow, and if you're taking notes, don't put down four commands.

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Put down four cautionary commands because they're a warning to us. You see them in the forms of warnings here in the text.

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And the first is practice what you preach, verses one through four. The second is be content with God's approval, verses five through seven.

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The third is don't seek out prestigious titles, verses eight through 10. And the fourth is humbly serve each other, verses 11 and 12.

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And so let's jump into the first one, which is the first four verses. Practice what you preach.

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How many of you have heard that phrase said before? It's something that's pretty common in our culture, and maybe we've used it as someone who we know doesn't practice what they preach, and equally, maybe it's been something that somebody's leveled against us, that we don't always practice what we preach.

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But Jesus begins here in verse two with what begins to seem like an encouragement to the religious leaders.

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Now remember, he's talking to the crowds, and he's talking about the religious leaders, and he tells the crowds and his disciples that these religious leaders have genuine religious authority in what they teach.

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You see, I believe that Jesus is identifying that these leaders have been genuine students of the Old Testament law.

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They do teach truth from the word, and they sit in the tradition of Moses.

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He says they sit on Moses's seat, think like a chair position at a college. They sit on Moses's seat in as much as they dissect the law that was recorded by God through Moses for all of humanity.

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Now, I wanna point out that in what way should you obey the Old Testament law, and what way should you obey what these teachers are communicating?

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And I would say that you ought to, that to some degree, at the end of the day, he is calling those who do not believe in him to try out the law.

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Go ahead and do what they tell you to do, because what happens when you try to obey the law? What is the law meant to do?

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Bring you to the end of yourself, bring you to the realization that you can't do it. So he's telling these religious leaders, go ahead and follow what they say, because you're gonna come to the end of yourself pretty quick.

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You're not gonna be able to do it. Now, he doesn't go that far. He's just saying, they're teaching solid stuff. They're teaching the law of God, and so that's not bad.

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And when verse two mentions the seat of Moses, it's debated whether or not that was a literal seat in the synagogue, and maybe even the bottom of your, if you've got an

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ESV study Bible, I think there's some notes in there that talk about this, and you can wrangle about this, because there's archeology that has uncovered a specific seat, they didn't stand when they taught, they sat when they taught, and so there's a seat that's in the center of the front of every synagogue, and they're like, oh, that's

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Moses' seat. Well, it doesn't say that anywhere, and that misses the point a little bit, because it doesn't matter that much whether it was a literal seat or not, because what

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Jesus is saying here is that these guys are pretty consistent with the law when they teach on Moses, and in verse three,

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Jesus tells his disciples to do and observe what they say when they're teaching about Moses, when they're teaching on the law, do it.

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The content of these sermons, hear me carefully, the content of these sermons was clearly accurate enough that Jesus was endorsing their content.

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It is important to understand this, because it's important that we grasp that spiritual abuse does not always come in the form of heretical teaching.

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Spiritual abuse does not always come in the form of heretical teaching. Somebody can be a good teacher and still not get it right, because look again at verse three, what is verse three, what is

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Jesus indicting these religious leaders for? He says, do what they say, but do not follow their example, because they preach, but do not practice.

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They preach, but they don't follow through, they don't do the things that they're telling and commanding everybody else to do.

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Now, just to point out the obvious, and I think we know this, but we need a reminder and a refresher on this, it's possible to know the right things, it's possible to believe the right things, it's possible to even be a teacher of the right things without doing the right things.

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How many of you already knew that? But we need to be reminded of that. And Jesus is cautioning not just the leaders on this point, but who's he speaking to?

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The crowds, he's speaking to his own disciples. And we all, to a person in this room, need to take this on as well.

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According to verse four, these religious leaders, part of their preaching but not practicing was loading others down with heavy burdens.

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By the way, I believe that those heavy burdens need some explanation, and just for now, you need to understand that those are the laws and the rules of the

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Old Testament. Well, they themselves were not willing to even lift a finger, it says, to help.

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So they were loading other people down. Hey, you guys need to do this, hey, you guys need to do that, hey, you need to do this, all the while not offering any assistance.

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I want to liken them to the modern day Westboro Baptist Church that would shout down sinners and speak some truth without a shred of love or gospel to help.

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They would point out the problem, these religious leaders then, and some of our religious leaders now, would point out the problem without being willing to help with the solution.

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Do you understand that, can you make that connection? And a side note here about what Jesus means to imply by the phrase heavy burdens, because I found this to be very enriching as I thought about it this week.

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I think he applies this to the content of their teaching. What were they teaching? They were teaching on Moses, they were teaching on the

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Old Testament law, and they were teaching correctly. In other words, keeping the Old Testament law as correctly understood,

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Jesus identifies here as a heavy burden. It is a heavy burden to live under the law.

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Any of you ever live under law? Any of you ever try to go it alone? Any of you ever try to just completely in and of your own strength please

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God? That's a hard place to live, because I think we all know, go ahead and raise your hand if you know you fall short.

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You've come to that realization. Praise God, because that's half of the problem, is realizing that we fall short, and that we needed a savior.

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He understood that this is a heavy burden, and here's the beauty, Jesus is uniquely qualified as the only human who can speak accurately to the weight of the

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Old Testament law. Do you know why? He's the only one who kept it. He's the only one who kept the law in its completion.

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The only human to ever fully fulfill the law of God for us on our behalf, a law that we couldn't keep that he kept for us so that by faith we could be considered law keepers.

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That somebody like me could be considered a law keeper by faith and trust in the one who kept the law fully.

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And you know what his testimony is here of that law? The one who bore the law on our behalf, not just bore our sins, bore the law on our behalf.

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His assessment, heavy burden. Heavy burden to bear.

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Heavy, heavy to keep that law. So the first cautious command should be applied both to our assessment of those who we would follow and to our own lives as well.

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Follow people who practice what they preach with love and then be a person who practices what you preach with love.

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Don't offer advice without a genuine commitment to love and help the one you are advising.

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Be ready to jump in with them or don't offer the advice at all. Practice what you preach.

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Second, be content with God's approval, verses five through seven. The second command comes in the form of a further indictment of these religious leaders.

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He says it right up front in verse five. They want to be seen by who? Others. They want to be seen by others.

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Not I want to be seen by God. I want to be pleasing in his sight. I want him to know my love for him. No, they want to be seen by others.

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They major on big shows of big religion. They wear wide phylacteries and long fringes and you're like, okay, now

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I get it, right? Phylacteries, I get that. No, maybe some of you know what that is. But long fringes have nothing to do with rodeo or country western concerts or bad 70s fashion in this context.

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Another Brady Bunch reference there for you. It's that kind of day. But this comes straight out of a really funny law.

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I think it's really funny how the Jews did this. Deuteronomy 6 .8 says something,

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I'm gonna paraphrase it. They were told, the Jewish people were told to bind the word of God on their hearts and on their hands and on their forehead.

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I believe, figuratively speaking, to demonstrate that your head belongs to God, that your heart is driven towards God and that your hands are for the service of God.

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So that's what the metaphor was meant to be. But just to cover their bases, just in case, they literally took the word of God, put it in a little leather box, slapped it on their forehead like a bad workout video.

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Okay, and then they would have the wristband with the little leather box on it. Thank you,

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Ryman. Laughing for everybody, I love it. So, leather box on the forehead, and what you have here is these guys were making them broad.

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Jesus is kind of mocking them. Like, think that through for a second. Jesus is kind of making fun of them. It's like, you're showing up with a box, like an

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Amazon delivery box on your forehead with the word of God in it. Like, they'd make really broad boxes and their wrist, you know, weighed down with this huge box with the word of God in it.

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Like, that's the image that he's showing. You'd make your phylacteries, that little box we call a phylactery, a box for the word of God.

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They would literally put a little scroll in there and put it on their forehead when they prayed. You know, especially when they went to these kind of festivals.

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You would have, I bet Jesus could look around and find those phylacteries on people's head as he's talking in the temple.

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Now, the tassels were a little bit strange, and you know, like I said, it's not about rodeo or the Brady Bunch. The tassels were commanded in Deuteronomy 22, 12 as a reminder of the covenant, the word of God, and that we serve

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God. Straight up, just a, I commanded you to put tassels on your clothes, so you should put tassels on your clothes to remind you that I commanded you to put tassels on your clothes.

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Like, at the end of the day, that's the goal is to remember God and God's commandments, and so the command to put tassels on your robes was for that reason, and these religious leaders were making a big show of their obedience by making really long tassels to go, look at me.

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Look at this big box on my forehead. Look at the length of these tassels. I'm super in with God.

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That was the image that they were portraying, and you get the impression that their goal is that you would look at them and go, that's a really, really, really great guy.

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Look at the size of the box on his forehead. And they loved being noticed, it says in the text.

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In verse six, they loved to be seated in places of prominence and honor. Now, how many of you have been to like a concert venue?

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You've been to a sporting arena? Go ahead and raise your hand if you've, you know, you've been to a place like that. How many of you know that there's prime seating?

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Like, right, when you go to the box office or you go to the ticket online thing and you can find the tickets and there's like really expensive ones and there's really cheap ones and all of that stuff.

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And anybody tell me, like this is a church venue. Where are the prime seats? The back row.

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The guys in the back row, they know, they know. So what is that all about, guys? Because those of you in the back row can tell me at some point what that's about.

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I mean, it's like at a sporting event, I'll be up front far from the bathrooms and the exits. So I can see this concert.

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But what is it about church that we're like, I wanna be near an exit, just in case. You're afraid that something's gonna go down?

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You're afraid it's gonna get crazy up in here and you're gonna have to flee or something? Like, it's kind of funny. But those of you in the back row can give me some insight.

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The nine o 'clock service did. They gave me some insight, it was kind of funny. But in verse seven, they love loud greetings in the marketplace.

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They love prominent seats. By the way, in the synagogue, those prominent seats, none of you want those because those were up on the stage.

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So the prominent seats for the religious leaders, they love to sit on stage. They're in their pomp and circumstance and their great finery and their big boxes on their forehead and their long tassels sitting there all proud and pompous, probably falling asleep as the word was read.

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But in verse seven, they love those greetings and they really loved one particular greeting that can be mystical to us.

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We think we understand it and it needs some definition. They loved it when people would introduce them as rabbi or my rabbi.

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They wanted that, they longed for that and there's a reason why. Now what does, somebody go ahead and say out loud, what does rabbi translate into in English?

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Does anybody know that? Teacher, so you know it as teacher. The problem is that word in English means something subtly but importantly different than rabbi did to their day and age, primarily because we have a different kind of system of education now where education is mandatory.

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So you all had teachers whether you liked it or not. You didn't have a choice over who your third grade teacher was, you just went to third grade.

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You're getting what I'm saying? And even in college, how many of you know you were limited in who you could choose from,

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I mean you might have maybe two professors who taught the same class but probably not, and the sky's the limit.

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You could just go out and pick somebody to teach your history class or your communication class.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? And so from that standpoint, a teacher to us in our culture is somebody who disseminates information.

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They've got a little bit more education than me. They're able to give me some information that I need and I have very little volition in terms of my choosing of that individual.

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Now the rabbi system was completely different and we need to understand that. When we think of teacher, just straight information, but a rabbi was acknowledged as higher in status and to call someone your rabbi meant that you had gone out of your way to intentionally submit to that individual, nothing mandatory.

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Nobody had to have, you didn't have to have a rabbi. So when you introduce somebody as your rabbi, you are introducing them to somebody that you have submitted your life to.

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You have pledged loyalty to them. You are going to go where they go. You are going to eat where they eat.

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You are going to talk like they talk. You are gonna teach what they teach. Are you getting what I'm saying? There's a depth to the word rabbi that is not the same depth to the word teacher in English.

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The religious leaders loved, according to Jesus, they loved that process.

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They loved the process by which somebody would come and say, I swear my life to you. You get it?

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Further, they loved to be publicly recognized and greeted by their loyal subjects. My rabbi was a sweet sound to their ear, especially in public.

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Now the main point of this command is really back in verse five. These religious leaders did religious things to be seen and to be recognized by others.

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They wanted the approval of mankind, but the followers of Jesus instead ought to seek the approval of who?

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The approval of God. The first application was to practice what we preach, and the second is to be content with God's approval.

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We ought to think carefully about why we do what we do. Are we serving for the smile of God?

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Are we serving for that day of well done, good and faithful servant, or are we serving for the attention of other people?

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This takes a strong measure of introspection about our motives, and how many of you know it gets tangled in here?

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Gets tangled in your own heart, and from day to day, you might get it right one day and get it wrong the next. You might get it right one hour and get it wrong the next hour, you know what

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I'm saying? So this is an ongoing relationship with God of going back to him, practicing what we preach, and asking

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God for the strength and the ability to do so, and then being satisfied with his approval.

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The third thing, don't seek out prestigious titles, verses eight through 10.

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Don't seek out prestigious titles. Jesus uses the word rabbi in verse seven to spin off into a more direct instruction to his followers.

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We are not to accept or pursue pompous and prestigious titles, titles like rabbi, teacher, master, reverend, grand vizier, grand puba, big kahuna, or whatever it might be that becomes a snare in your own heart.

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Now, I can tell you sincerely, and it might actually be a question that's in some of you that have been around here for a while, it might be in your mind.

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Maybe some of you that were paying attention at the start of the service. I get up here, and I introduce myself as the lead pastor of Recast Church every week.

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And that is not me, and I'm trying to show you my heart. That's not me throwing my weight around, or trying to act important, or like I'm the big guy here, or anything like that.

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I do that to identify myself to those who are newer around here. I personally, when

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I'm sitting in a place new, I like to have the person on the stage identify themselves so I can put them in a framework, in a place.

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Do you guys get what I'm saying? Anybody else like me on that? And so I'm doing that for the visitor. I tell you sincerely,

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I prefer to be called Don. I don't prefer

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Pastor Don, although I know that that helps to identify. Sometimes I call, and I'll call, and I'll say, this is

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Pastor Don, just to clarify, because I know that you might have some other Dons in your life, and it just gets to the point. But I love, love, love when people feel comfortable just using my first name.

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I don't mind my first name. So, go for it. But I believe that the issue here, by the way, is not the giving of titles.

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I don't think at the end of the day it is the title itself. It's not the words, it's not the pronouncing of the word

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Pastor, or the word Rabbi, or anything like that that's sinful. I believe this because the New Testament literally has titles.

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The New Testament talks about titles. There is the title of Elder, Pastor, Teacher, Evangelist, Apostle.

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The words themselves are not the point, but Jesus is drawing attention to what our heart often does with titles.

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We must be very self -aware, and Jesus is explicit with the reason we need to be self -aware, because there are other priorities in our life than seeking and obtaining titles.

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And verse 80 tells us to be cautious about giving and receiving the title Rabbi, because we have only one true

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Rabbi. We only have one who we have sworn our loyalty to, and his name is Jesus Christ, and that ought to be true of all of us, not loyalty to John Piper, not loyalty to Don Felsick, not loyalty to any host of other people who could grab our attention and our ear.

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But how many of you find it refreshing to know that you have one voice that you are beholden to, one voice that you need to pay attention to?

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All others are optional. I want you to remember that, church. This year, last year was a year of many voices.

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This year will be louder, and the year following will be louder yet, because we are not putting this back in the box.

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The toothpaste has been spilled out in terms of social media and our ability to speak, and it's not gonna go away.

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So all the more reason, church, that we need to listen to the Rabbi. We need to listen to the teacher who has revealed his truth to us in his word.

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One voice that matters, all others optional. Beneficial? I hope that what

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I do up here is beneficial, but at the end of the day, it is only in as much as I'm accurate to the word of God that it matters.

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Everything else is fluff and waste. So if I'm helping you to understand the word of God better, then

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I'm doing my role. But it's only as much as we can hear from God in this that really matters.

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So to clarify, we are all brothers and sisters. That means that we are on the same level in the family structure.

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I am not a super brother. I am a brother with some

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Bible training and a calling to serve my peers with the grace of God and the gifting that he has given to me, which often involves me up front here.

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But I am not singled out in terms of my calling is different than your calling. I am doing my part, think of it this way,

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I'm doing my part to serve the body just like you should. Your part will look different than mine.

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And some of us are behind the scenes and some of us are up front. But it's all the same. It's all the same calling, to serve one another in whatever capacity that God has given us, whatever gifting he's given to us.

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How many of you are glad that somebody showed up and made coffee this morning? Any of you? Glad for somebody, a smiling face, to be greeting at the door.

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Glad for those who are kind of behind the scenes working in the kids area this morning. All kinds of roles, some are up front on the stage doing things that you do not want me to do.

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You don't want me singing and playing drums would be a joke, that'd be fun to try sometime.

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Dave's like, no. Oh, he wants to try it. He's like, yeah, go ahead and humble yourself there.

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That would be fabulous. And it wouldn't be good at all. We all have a part to play.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? We're brothers and sisters together in this thing called the kingdom of God.

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He tackles two other prominent titles in his day and age. Spiritual father in verse nine. Now it says father, but that was a spiritual title that was used during that time.

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And again, a title that the rabbis and the religious leaders and the scribes absolutely loved, and it was a title of endearment spiritually and a way to kind of cozy up to a religious leader was, oh, my father, tell me what you think about this.

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And they would use that title. And again, in verse nine, instructor, which might be better translated, master.

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So I can respect the desire to absolutize this passage and make sure you never call your earthly dad father again.

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You call him dad, you call him daddy, you call him pa, you call him something else, but don't call him father, because Jesus told me I can't use that word or something like that.

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Or don't call anybody instructor. Don't call him teacher. Don't use those sounds out of your mouth, but instead use something else.

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But that misses the wrestling that God wants to do in us, because there are all kinds of titles that fall under this if they produce pride in your heart.

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It's not just religious titles, by the way. If the title vice president of marketing causes pride, and you use it often to weigh in with weight about weighty things with weighty people, then maybe you ought to check your heart.

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If you find the need to sign PhD at the end of your name while you're checking out at Kohl's, maybe you ought to check your heart.

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Remove, scrub that from your signature. Despite the fact that Jesus is concerned here about the way we work within this church and his church, not seeking out titles for privilege,

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I think we would all do well to think about how we use titles and how we can often over -own titles that we have been granted.

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And that's not to say that you can, how many of you have a title for your work? You have a title, you have a role, you have a responsibility, and people use your title, or your title is on the door at your office, or whatever it might be.

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It's not to say that you need to turn the nameplate around so nobody ever sees your title or anything.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? We can absolutize this to the point that we're not getting to the heart, and that's what God wants to do in us, is to recognize where we are pursuing it, where we are loving it, and where we're throwing it around.

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You get it? The big difference between a title given and a title grasped and clung to.

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You get the difference? And that's where he's going here, is recognizing in our own heart our tendency to abuse authority that we are granted.

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Jesus is saying, outright, I think, that titles are dangerous to his people. We have one rabbi who we have sworn our loyalty to, we have one father who is the almighty creator in heaven, we have one instructor and master who is the

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Christ. Jesus is the one we should be following, and we follow him together.

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We each have different roles to play, but all of the roles can be assumed under this last cautionary command.

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Humbly serve each other, the fourth command. Verses 11 through 12 is where you find this, and verses 11 and 12 serve as a summary statement to everything

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Jesus has been saying so far in indicting these religious leaders. Here, he finally provides the solution to all of these self -serving tendencies that we have in our fallen, sinful hearts.

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You see, our hearts are prone to tell others to do things that we ourselves do not intend to do, and will not do. We tend to do good only when we're seen by others doing it, and we tend to love titles of authority and abuse them.

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But Jesus gives us the antidote, and it's something we all need to grow into. As a matter of fact, it's part of our growth plan here. It's very fundamental.

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We all need to grow in service. We all need to take on the role and the responsibility that he's given us, and to do so with glad hearts of joy, serving our

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Lord and Savior. See, he says the greatest among us, church, will be a servant to the body.

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Be the one who serves everyone else. That is what greatness looks like in his kingdom, an upside -down kingdom, where it's not the one that's served that's great.

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It's not the king who sits on the throne and has somebody fanning him, putting grapes in his mouth, that is the great one. It is the one who serves that is great.

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The greatest among us, church, will serve each other. And the summary statement seems to get to the heart of the issue here in 11 and 12.

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Jesus is primarily addressing those who place themselves over others and like it.

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This is not removing all authority or suggesting that you don't need other people in your walk with God. You do, we need each other.

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But it is telling us that we ought not to depend too heavily on leaders at the expense of checking in with what

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God has to say. It's also a warning to those who would lead to not do so for titles, or for honor, or authority, or to amass their own following.

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Instead, he calls us to humbly, humbly serve each other. In verse 12, he concludes this discussion with his disciples and followers with a proverbial warning.

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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Let me say that again.

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Whoever exalts himself, whoever lifts himself high and makes himself out to be better than everybody else will be humbled.

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I don't want that, do you? Do you want that? If we live in this way that exalts ourselves and makes much of ourselves and wants everybody's attention on myself, then we are just asking

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God to fix it. We're asking him to fix it. We're just saying, are you gonna make true on this?

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And God forbid that we are like that captain who said, God himself could not sink this ship.

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Because how many of you know he could do it like that? Get it done. Are we pushing

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God to fix the problem of our pride for us? I think it might be better to pray now and say,

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God, help me now, before his hand is forced. But the converse is equally true and equally glorious.

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Followers of Jesus who humble themselves will be exalted. And how many of you know and have experienced that some of the

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Christian life, some of serving others feels like being a doormat so others can clean their feet off on your back?

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, let me just ask for another show of hands. How many of you have raised kids? Doing what it takes to be a good father or a good mother often feels just like what it means to not experience an immediate reward.

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That's not to say there's no reward in it, but it doesn't always feel like an immediate reward, right? And so God desires to lift up those who humble themselves.

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How many of you want God to fix that? When you are the one who is the walking mat for everybody else in service,

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God pledges to fix that in the end, to lift those up who are serving and lowly here and now.

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You see, pride, and I think we all know it, pride is a really tricky thing. And yet, it's interesting to note that Jesus offers the remedy, particularly in the way that he handles the titles.

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I want to kind of go back there for a second and look at it. Keep looking to God. You are not God's answer to the church, he is.

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So the way that I look at this is nobody needs me to be their rabbi when they already have a rabbi named Jesus. Nobody needs me to be their spiritual father when they already have an almighty father in heaven.

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Nobody needs me to be their master when they already have a master who is Christ Jesus himself.

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And so part of this I want to point out is not that, this is not a call to play the part of servants.

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This is a call to recognize you are, you already are.

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It doesn't matter whether you're going to believe it and lean into it or not, it's all we are. Just servants of the almighty, glorious, gracious, merciful

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God. So I'm not asking you to play a part. I'm asking you to lean into what you are.

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We have different roles, we have different functions, but equal standing church, no matter how up front or how behind the scenes your role is, we all have equal standing as sinners saved by a merciful and gracious God.

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And so let's wrap up our time by, we're going to do communion and then we're going to sing a couple of songs, but let's come to communion together this morning to take a cracker to remember his body that was broken for us.

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And let's take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us. Jesus told us to do this thing, that's why we do it every week.

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He told us to do this in remembrance of him. This is a memorial service of sorts. So if you belong to Jesus and you have asked him to be your rabbi, you've asked him to be your spiritual father, you have asked him to be your instructor, then let's remember together what he did on the cross to bring us forgiveness and freedom.

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And then let's go out from here, for those who are in Christ, the instruction is this, practice what we preach, be content with God's approval, avoid prestigious titles, and humbly serve each other.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the grace that you have given to this church with so many willing servants and so many people who are just using their abilities and their gifts and their skills and their talents and their resources to serve one another.

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And it's been a privilege to be a part of this for the past 12 years of observing the way that you have called out people to serve.

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Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts and minds to take this on, to take these cautions on this week.

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And most importantly, as we come to communion, to make sure that the bedrock and the foundation is solid before we go out and try to do anything, because God, I pray that no one would walk out of here with just a list of things to do without a connection with you.

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I pray that if there's anybody here who has not asked you to be their rabbi, their master, their teacher, their instructor,

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Father, I pray that today might be a day of them asking for the forgiveness that you provide and the wholeness that can launch them out into a life of genuine usefulness in your kingdom.

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Father, if there's anybody like that who does not know you, I pray that you would help them to just have a boldness about them and a curiosity to come to me and ask questions or to come to Dave, who's leading worship, or to the elder on duty and just have a conversation about how they can have forgiveness and a new and fresh start.

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And for those of us who are in with Christ, I pray that you would be with this time of remembrance where we take this cup and we take this cracker to remember the great and awesome sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

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thank you, we praise you, we desire to honor you this week in Jesus' name, amen.