Woe, Woe, Whoa!

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Don Filcek; Matthew 23:13-36 Woe, Woe, Whoa!

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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. Oh, we're so excited you're here.
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We have some announcements for you this morning before we get started. You should have found one of these at or near your chair when you came in.
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This is a worship folder, and it's a tool to help orient yourself to Recast. There's information about who we are as a church and announcements and upcoming events that we have going on here.
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So you can go ahead and take a look inside. Also inside there, if you're new or newer, there's a connection card.
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We don't pass an offering plate here at Recast, so if you feel led to give, go ahead and drop this in the giving slot at the welcome table in the lobby.
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The Recast Marriage Retreat is coming up. It'll be March 19th and 20th at Gold Lake Ministries.
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And if you want to sign up, sign up starts next week in the next three weeks in February. So do you want to go?
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Sure. The last thing we have is the family meeting. That'll be
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Sunday, February 21st at 7 p .m. If you call Recast your home church, then this is for you.
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That's not all we've got going on here at Recast. For more information, go to recastchurch .com. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, leave a like, hit the bell for notifications and subscribe.
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Thanks for watching. That's one of the reasons that I preach through books of the
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Bible, that we take off, like, Matthew, the entire book, and then begin to take it passage by passage and verse by verse, is that way we get to hear all that God has to say to us versus the things that I want to say to us or my favorite themes or my favorite.
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And we get tired of that. And plus, you wouldn't gain a whole lot if it was just my opinions or my thoughts anyways.
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So that's why we dig into God's word is because how many of you know that sometimes God's word says things you're not comfortable with?
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Did you know that? And sometimes it's in the very nature of us hearing from God, things that rub us the wrong way, that are the very things that he wants to correct our thinking on.
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And so I need that. I think you do too. And so hopefully you're able to grow as a result of listening to this.
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I give all that build up because this is a passage that has the most stern words of Jesus Christ that are recorded for us in the
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Gospels. In this passage, Jesus is going to take it straight to the religious leaders.
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He's going to issue seven woes in this passage. And a woe, you need to understand a little bit about what a woe is.
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We don't use that word a ton. I mean, a word that might be more related to it that we would use more frequently and still not often is the word doom.
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A woe is a verdict expressed. One commentary that I read in one dictionary defined it as a verdict expressed in sorrow.
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I want to point out that in the process of calling it a verdict, it is a judgment. Jesus Christ is indeed judging these religious leaders and he finds them lacking in this text.
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But he's not happily judging them. He's not angrily judging them. He's factually judging them.
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To issue a woe is to say, I know what you have done and I know that without a change a real bad end is coming for you.
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That's what a woe is. That's a doom. There is a bad ending and a bad destination to those who act in this way,
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Jesus is saying. Now, we have a larger chunk of scripture to read this morning, so we're going to just jump in and read it.
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So, if you turn to Matthew chapter 23, grab your device or your Bible.
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Matthew chapter 23, we're going to read verses 13 through 36. And as I read, you'll notice some exclamation points.
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I'm going to try to make those evident to us in my inflection. It is a sorrowful judgment that Jesus is issuing, but it is also a stern judgment.
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This is not me leveling charges against you who have gathered here at the nine o 'clock service.
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This is the Word of God addressing us. And so, I want you to hear that, not through my voice and my inflection that I'm angry at you, but at the end of the day that God wants to say something to us and he wants to get our attention in this text.
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Matthew chapter 23, verses 13 through 36. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
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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.
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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte.
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And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself.
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Woe to you, blind guides, who say, If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing.
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But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?
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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.
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You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
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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
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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and then neglected the weightier matters of the law justice and mercy and Faithfulness these you ought to have done without neglecting the others
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You blind guides straining out in that and swallowing a camel 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
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You blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean
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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 uncleanness
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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness
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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous
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Saying if we had lived in the days of our fathers We would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets
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Thus you witness against yourself that you are sons of those who murder the prophets fill up then the measure of your fathers
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You serpents you brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
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Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes some of whom you will kill and crucify
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Some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of Righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barakaya whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar
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Truly I say to you all these things Will come upon this generation
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Let's pray father. I thank you. I thank you for the sternness of your word
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Confess that I can get caught up in myself in such a way That it takes stern words.
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It takes shock and awe to get my attention at times So father
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I pray that that would be a reality here today that not a single one of us would squirm out from underneath that the
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Conviction and the rebuke of the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we would identify and see ourselves in these woes
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And then equally be moved those who belong to you that we know how we come out from underneath this doom in this woe
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And it is only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is only through our faith and trust in him
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There are no better than this religious leaders. We are not Above this and it's so easy to point fingers and think oh, well, at least
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I'm not like them father I pray that you would not allow that to settle on our hearts, but rather let the let the weight of these woes hit us
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Demonstrate to us the depth of our depravity the depth of our brokenness so that we can now
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Rejoice all the more in the salvation that is given to us If it was up to us, we would be doomed if it was up to us
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The woes would land firmly on our shoulders And so father I pray that you would allow there to be both rebuke and correction in our hearts as well as hope
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Because of the cross of Jesus Christ. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen All right well
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I encourage you to keep your Bibles open to Matthew 23 13 through 36 and get as comfortable as possible as We walk through a passage that is meant to make us uncomfortable
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So if you need to get up and get more I know this is a nine o 'clock service and it might be that some of you
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Are still waking up so don't hesitate to get more caffeine or more doughnuts back there
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But before we dive into the seven woes, let me remind you of the context what's going on here Why in the world is
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Jesus like shouting and there's exclamation points in the text or why is he upset? Well, Jesus is just a couple of days out from being crucified
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He's going to literally be killed by some of these very people here Put up and they're gonna be shouting crucify him crucify him
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And of course the way that he tackles this and the way he takes them head -on You can understand why they would be upset as well
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But the pompous and arrogant religious leaders have been challenging his authority They're the ones who came to him and said I'm the basis of what authority are you doing these things?
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And the fact of the matter is Jesus hasn't been willing to submit to their authority And I would suggest to you that nothing can make an illegitimate leader more angry than one who will not submit to them
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You know what? I'm talking about someone who doesn't have the authority, but if you won't submit to them Well, they're angry
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And so Jesus was addressing the crowds and his disciples in our text last week
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And he was talking to the crowds and in general, but the the Pharisees and the scribes were standing there
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They have already challenged him and he turned his attention to the crowds now He turns and levels his blazing eyes directly at the scribes and Pharisees who came to challenge his authority
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And he lets loose like waves battering a sandcastle on the shore wave after wave after wave
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Whoa after whoa after whoa doom after doom after doom and you maybe felt that cadence as I was reading the text
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Each whoa follows a pattern he pronounces the word whoa Doom and then addresses them by name and calls them
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Hypocrites in every every single one of the woes ends with him shouting the word Hypocrites the word hypocrite, of course because it occurs so much in the text requires a little bit of definition
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Remember that it means actor. It was literally came right out of the theater of the
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Greek theater He's accusing these really religious leaders of wearing a mask. They're playing a part
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They're acting a certain way in public and doing other things in private and further it has to do with their heart
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They are doing things outwardly While their hearts are not really in the right place with God at all.
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And here's what you need to understand these these religious leaders, they don't really love God and Furthermore, they don't really love the people
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Who do they love most? Themselves they love themselves
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And a quick word to clarify hypocrisy because how many of you heard that word thrown around a little bit? Maybe you've heard it mentioned recently in politics.
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You've heard it mentioned religiously about religious people How many of you have ever just heard that?
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churches are just full of hypocrites any of you have a friend or a relative or a family member or somebody that has said that To you before go to raise your hand if you've heard that before Churches are just full of hypocrites
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Well, I want it I want to clarify that because at the end of the day that implies something that I don't think is exactly accurate
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It gets thrown around but it's as if people think the church is full of hypocrisy because it's full of sinners
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But that's not necessarily the case that misses the point the church hear me carefully recast The church is only full of hypocrites in as much as it's full of sinners who say they're not sinners
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If you're a sinner and you say you're not a sinner then you're a hypocrite But if you're a sinner and you say you're a sinner, you're not a hypocrite.
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You're just a sinner Do you get what I'm saying by that? And so that that misunderstands some fundamental
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Explanation to or definition of the word if we admit we are sinners saved and forgiven by grace and that God is still working
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On us, then it's not hypocrisy when we stumble and get back up again.
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Do you see what I'm saying? So the fact of the matter is Hypocrisy is not leveled well against you if you're honest if you're truthful.
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I'm not a perfect person I'm not the I'm not Christ himself I am a fallen human made out of the same stuff as you and so Therefore we stumble and we get back up again and we stumble and we get back up again
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And that's the nature of our relationship with God, but these religious leaders were very satisfied to pretend
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Here's the here's where the level of hypocrisy is right to it where Jesus is right to call them hypocrites they were satisfied to pretend that they were better than they were and Furthermore they were pretty confident.
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They were better than everybody else And so Jesus is humbling these men who were exalting themselves and you can actually see a little
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Bit of him applying what he said last week. He said those who exalt themselves Will be humbled and then he gives us a case study this week see like this
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These who have elevated themselves. I am going to humble them in your midst So we find the first wall in verse 13 and we're gonna see seven woes here the first woe in verse 13
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And here it is doom on you actors Because you bar the gates of God's kingdom you shut the gates of God's kingdom in people's faces
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You see the way into the kingdom of heaven There's only one way into the kingdom of heaven and that's to come to the throne room of the king and ask for forgiveness to Ask for clemency a nice kingly word come into his presence bow the knee and say, please please let me off the hook
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Please please give me clemency. Please. Give me forgiveness ask come to his presence ask for grace ask for forgiveness and pledge your
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Loyalty to the king and you are now a citizen of his kingdom and he will welcome you
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Welcome anyone who would come to him in that way into his glorious kingdom with humility saying
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I need your forgiveness But Jesus here hear me carefully Jesus himself is the king of this kingdom and these religious leaders rejected the king and In doing so have also encouraged others to reject him as well
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And so in that sense they have slammed the gates of the kingdom in the faces of the crowd Who really at the end of the day wanted access to Jesus was curious about Jesus wanted to know more about him and there's a no
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He's not he's nothing He has no authority he has no power he has no he's teaching falsely all of this stuff
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They are pretending to lead people to the kingdom of God while they are guilty of rejecting the king
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And with each of these dooms comes an inverse application How many of you understand if these activities and attitudes of these religious leaders?
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Cause Jesus to pronounce woe and doom on them. Then how many of you are with me and wanting to head the other direction?
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Like if these are the very behaviors and the very things that make him say whoa doom like destruction damnation is coming for you
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Then I want to be over here as far away from these things as I can get And so that's how we find our applications in this text
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What do we want to do in the other way the other direction the far away from this first? Whoa is to enter the kingdom of heaven and bring others to a pretty simple application if you're taking notes write that down Enter the kingdom of heaven and bring others to Throw wide open the gates to the kingdom of heaven by making much of the king who is the king?
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Jesus is the king Accept Jesus as your king as your ruler accept his clemency and his forgiveness and then go out and live for him
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Which of course a part of living for him means bringing others to the king as well
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The second doom is found in verse 15 Doom on you because you convert people to your own condemnation
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You yourself are condemned and then you're bringing others along with you How many of you know that false teaching spreads?
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It does and it sometimes spreads with good intentions I think these religious leaders actually thought these scribes and Pharisees thought that they were right to reject
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Jesus But sincerity does not equal truth and So they were winning proselytes proselytes a big fancy word for converts people were coming over to their faith but what was their faith a hypocritical religion of Acting a part of playing a part of looking better than everybody else and so in this
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Jesus accuses them of winning people for damnation and Isn't it true?
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Have you found this to be true in life? I have seen it I've seen it in my own heart as a matter of fact It's often true that students take it further than their teacher
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You know I'm talking about Where the teacher goes only this far and doesn't say anything more the students build on that and add to it
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And that's where you get this twice as much a child of hell as you are I've met to throw it into theological terms.
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I've met Calvinists who are more Calvinistic than John Calvin You know what? I'm talking about. I mean, that's just they take it further
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Take it further than the the originator ever wanted it to go So what is the reverse of this second one?
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well it's just simply to continue to win people when people and guide them to be twice as much a child of the king as you are
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Not a child of hell a child of the king Our hope is that we lead That we those we lead to Christ will go further into love and further into obedience of Jesus than we ever have
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That's kind of my that's my hope and prayer for my own Offspring my own kids is that God would do a work in their heart that goes vastly far beyond anything
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I've been able to offer to them I pray that for them because if they only achieve what I've achieved and they're just gonna be
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They're gonna be a mess in a center, too And so my hope and prayer is that they'll just continue to grow and God will do things in their lives that I can't
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I can't provide for them Of course by the way the application to this presupposes that we are telling others about Jesus and Bringing others to forgiveness through his sacrifice on the cross for us
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The third woe is long and confusing and is found in verses 16 through 22 Even as I read it
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It might have been a little bit confusing to you because we don't often think in terms and speak in terms of of oaths and vows
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But here's the doom that I am summarizing these obviously each time that we cover them doom on you because you play games with Obedience to God that's really the gist of what's going on in verses 16 through 22
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They're playing games with obedience to God. In other words, they're looking for loopholes. They find them they create them
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They look for loopholes and they they jump through them Jesus uses here a really common thing in their day and age
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Which is a really uncommon thing in our day and age as a running commentary on the problem of them looking for loopholes
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What we need to understand about this long passage is there's a lot of detail about vows and oaths that we just don't get
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But vows and oaths were common practice in the religious life of the
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Jews during this time They had complex rules even an entire book that surrounded the rules
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About when a vow was and wasn't binding and They loved to take public vows and public oaths and the religious leaders
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Liked to use those rules to their advantage now, that's probably not super helpful to just leave it in generic terms so let me illustrate it for you a
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Jewish leader during this time could take a public vow literally standing in the temple courtyards and Grab attention of people and say hey
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There's a vow going on and people would gather around and he would say something like I swear By this very temple that I will give my whole salary this next year to the poor vow publicly taken
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Publicly binding right and they would look really good. But through convoluted technicalities
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They would say that the vow wasn't binding because they didn't swear by God I never mentioned
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God in that vow and therefore he's not the one who is the keeper of that vow and Therefore I I'm not gonna get punished if I don't and so this was a big show
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But it was deeply hypocritical because they would utter these public vows with no intention of following through So what does it do?
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It makes them look like they are being generous While they do not really intend to or plan to be generous
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So Jesus calls out this kind of game playing and instead of diving deep into the nuances of what
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Jews did and didn't believe about Various vows, which is exactly what Jesus does here He takes takes it where they're at the thing about it not being where we're at is that it's it's
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Informative to us to see how the Jews process these different vows What you know given to heaven or by the gold of the altar by the by the sacrifice on the altar the gold of the temple
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Or all of that stuff It's not very helpful for us to get down into the nuances of what what was and wasn't a legitimate vow
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It would be better to draw your attention to the definitive passage that where Jesus Tackles how we in this new covenant era of grace the era that we live in How do we deal with vows and in Matthew 5?
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I encourage you to jot this down. You can read it later Matthew chapter 5 verses 35 through 37 I've already preached on that before But Jesus says that his followers should not need many vows or oaths, you know
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You don't need you don't need vows those who are followers of Jesus don't need them instead of playing games and looking for loopholes
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What are we supposed to be about? We should seek to obey God and let our word be true
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If we say yes, then we are those who go do it. And if we say no we are those who don't
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Followers of Christ should not need the drama of formal oaths Especially about things that are routine obedience
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We don't need oaths to be generous. We just go out and be generous Do you get it?
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And that's really what Jesus taught us about vows We don't need all that drama. And by the way, I don't know about you
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Some of you in the room have taken some formal sacred oaths as well I've only taken one my entire life that I know of There's only been one oath in my entire life and my wife knows that after 25 years that I have every intention of seeing it
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Through we've had fun years and we've had not so fun years and this thing Between us is only ending when
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God takes one of us home. And so that's the nature of a formal vow a formal oath You let your yes be your yes and your no be your no and we said yes
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And I'd encourage you to think about that in terms of when you hear vows and oaths
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My hunch is that very few of you have taken Very many vows at all, but those that you do
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Take them seriously, especially when you stand before God The fourth woe is found in verses 23 through 24 doom on you
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Speaking of those religious leaders, but also we there's no it's not by chance by the way that we're reading these
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These these settle on us to doom on you for majoring on minor things while neglecting the major things
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You major on the minor things these religious leaders. It says tied on the small things like their spice rack
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They gave 10 % of the harvest from their little window box spices in their kitchen
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While they neglected obedience in the huge categories huge massive sweeping things like justice
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Mercy and faithfulness. Nah, that's not so important. But here's a little bit of dill Interestingly, Jesus is not accusing them by the way of being petty in tithing on their spices.
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He's not disagreeing with that He's not saying they did wrong there. They're so stupid. Look at them. They're just so trivial and chintzy
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And they're just doing these little things. No, he says you should be doing the the big and the little things He instead is critical most importantly of what they have neglected we ought to be
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Generous to God But we ought to also value fair treatment of others mercy and kindness to all faithfulness that is having integrity in our work in our community in our relationships and Jesus uses a humorous word picture here
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They in verse 24 they strain their cup of tea To make sure that they don't swallow anything unclean like a gnat that might be hiding in there
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But they ignore the camel swimming in their cup of tea and then they swallow they swallow that They're so busy worrying about the small things that they miss the big things that they're lacking in their lives
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So to correct this we need to look at our justice We need to look at our attitude towards mercy towards others and look and take a solid glance into our hearts at what does
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Faithfulness look like in here. You see God forbid that we're known as people who are religiously detailed
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Read my Bible every day or do this at a certain time or do this while being unkind or socially corrupt or prejudice
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Major on the overarching relational changes that God wants to work in you
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Things like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness
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Faithfulness gentleness and self -control things like that All relational things that his spirit wants to work into the lives of his followers
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The fifth woe was found in verses 25 and 26 Doom on you for cleaning up the outside of the cup or the plate without attention to the inside Now this is differentiated from the sixth woe only in that this one is active it's about action
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These religious leaders were actively Actively pursuing a cleaned up reputation.
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I think some of us have been there How many of my identify there's seasons and times and situations and scenarios in your life where you've tried to clean up?
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And I don't mean like dress up. I mean like literally like tried to scrub your reputation anybody
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You know, how many of you want to look good? Well, that's another Three of us. Are you serious? The rest of you like now
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I don't care. I don't care. Hope everybody knows all my crud No, I think all of us want to be clean on the outside I know that the rest of you just didn't raise your hand because you're tired or you weren't paying attention
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This is about action they were they were intentionally Intentionally, did you hear that word because that's really important in this they were intentionally working to make themselves look better to others
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While ignoring what was going on Inside their own head and their own heart
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Inside it says Jesus knew their motivation. He's able to see and peer into their hearts and he outright directly condemns them based on their what he sees in them they were motivated by greed and Self -indulgence and this led them
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I believe to try to be the best religious leader possible They're motivated they they're motivated by self -indulgence and greed and they knew that their livelihood depended on what they looked like on the outside and so they would scrub the outside more if it meant more money and more power and more ease we need to clean up the inside of the cup first says
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Jesus and This is done through a constant return to prayer and the word the only thing that I have found in my entire life that has any impact on the
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Inside of me is the Word of God and dependent prayer Talking to God and hearing from him
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Now I want to I want to be clear. I'm pretty convinced. I can make myself look better than all of you
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And some of you would take up that challenge But I cannot make myself better than you.
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I Can make myself look better than you do you hear the difference, but I cannot make this heart better than yours
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But I know one who can I? Know one who can come in and change us and radically transform us as a people one heart at a time
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And that's where the hope lies In this sense, I believe that Jesus is calling us all to lean
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Not on ourselves, but to lean more on him who can clean us from the inside out
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The sixth woe is like the fifth and it's found in verses 27 through 28 Doom on you because you are satisfied with a superficial veneer a thin coating of spirituality
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These religious leaders were satisfied to go no deeper than just the millimeter thick of wood veneer
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But underneath there's all kinds of rot and decay These religious leaders were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
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He says even while commanding others to be lawful They're full of lawlessness they appeared really good on the outside, but the truth is they knew what was in their own hearts
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How many of you ever been fake to somebody and you really know that you're not that great? Do you know what
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I'm saying? I? Think we've all done that, you know, what's going on in your own heart even as you try to play a part
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They knew the corruption that was beneath the surface in them, but in greed they were happy to stay on the surface
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And the solution for us here then in the opposite is to dive deeper Hear me church, even if it hurts
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Dive deeper even if it hurts Sometimes getting down into our hearts and taking a tour can be discouraging and that's why we stay on the surface
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Do you know what I'm talking about? take take a moment to introspect and I've I've been hearing this increasingly that one of the most terrifying thing to the
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American mind is time alone in silence with themselves You guys heard that We're constantly turning the radio up we're constantly tuning into a podcast or have the have the
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TV going in the background or we were just always Because we're afraid that if we turn that off in silence, we might have to deal with some things
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We might end up having a little bit of a monologue in here that that's uncomfortable So we're constantly constantly filling ourselves with noise
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Nobody Who stays at that level of veneer is in a healthy place? and so what we want to do is sometimes
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It can be discouraging to get down to the deeper parts of ourselves. And so we just pretend to be good people
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But Jesus wants us to be whole and healed people And so his desire he desires access to all of us if we would let go and let him clean house inside Nobody who is satisfied to just whitewash.
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The tomb is a healthy person Let Jesus in to do the deeper cleaning in your soul
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The last woe the seventh woe stretches from verse 29 through 36 and it wraps up the text
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Doom on you for pretending to celebrate God's messengers while seeking to kill his messengers
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Ultimate hypocrisy. I pretend to love God's Word while I hate his word. I pretend to Be delighted about his prophets when his messengers come to convict me
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But I am really secretly on the side trying to kill them the religious establishment during this era in this time built many religious monuments
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And many of these religious leaders that he's literally speaking to here in the temple courtyards We're likely part of commissioning some of those monuments to long -dead prophets
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There there are still monuments that date back to ancient times like this and further these religious leaders love to read
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Themselves back into history as heroes some of us might be able to Relate to that kind of notion saying if we had lived in the days of our fathers.
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We would have been the good guys We would have been on the good side if we had lived back then and and I think all of us can at times
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Trick ourselves into thinking that too. I would have been King David facing off against Goliath But never with that whole
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Bathsheba thing. That wouldn't have been me. I Would have been bolder and and more more on track than Peter less like Jezebel more like Elijah.
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That would have been But Jesus knew the hearts of these religious leaders was murderous even toward him
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When he calls them to go ahead, it's a stark stark statement in verse 32
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I'll really go back to 31 thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets
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Fill up then the measure of your fathers.
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What is he saying in this phrase? He's outright challenging them to go ahead and finish the work that their father set out
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In putting down the Word of God and his messengers who bring it They merely their their ancestors merely killed the prophets
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But here before him are the very guys who will be responsible for killing the very son of God himself
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And he says go do it finish it You're gonna you're gonna fill up the measure of the sins of your fathers
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And as he reveals this murderous intent in their hearts He spills out with his strongest statement of judgment in verse 33
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And you can see it building and building and building until it comes to this verse 33 You serpents and sons of serpents
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Where have we heard in Scripture the word serpent before? That any prominent place in the garden
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You serpents and sons of serpents. How are you going to escape being sentenced to hell?
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Well, at least even in his indictment he implies That there is a potential
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Escape from hell but this indictment comes from the place of Knowing their own murderous intent he sees it and he knows it and it will not just be by the way his own death on Their hands but Jesus further predicts the great persecution that comes upon his followers in Jerusalem at the hands of these very religious leaders after his death and resurrection
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He was says I'm gonna send prophets I'm gonna send sages and wise men and scribes and I think by that is implied the apostles and some of the
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New Testament prophets and some of those who will write the New Testament canon and probably the Apostle Paul is in my in his mind here and The Pharisees will kill them crucify some just as Actually happened to his disciples and whip them and hunt them down and hound them from town to town like they did the
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Apostle Paul I think a lot of the book of Acts fulfills this prophecy of Jesus here and Jesus Indicts them in line with all the murder all the murder of all the righteous people from the first Abel To the last in the
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Jewish Bible which would be Zechariah who was killed just steps away from where Jesus is speaking these very words
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I I can't I can't picture him saying this without a motion of his hand He may well have waved his hand and pointed right over there as he said this right there between the altar and the temple
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He's in the courtyard but right over there where you killed and slaughtered the last known
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Death by by the religious leaders of Zechariah the prophet Right over there happened right there
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It seems pedantic to say That our application of this final woe is don't have murderous intent or don't murder people.
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How many of you are nailing that one? I hope no go ahead and raise your hand because you're scaring me How many of you do not have murderous intent in your heart right now?
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Okay, so more of you raised your hand, but certainly not all of you guys take note
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Who's the elder on duty? Did you did you make note of hands? Yikes No, obviously
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Obviously, we don't even want to raise our hand cuz it's like duh -duh and I'm not murdering anybody or I'm so asleep
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I wasn't paying attention. Why is everybody laughing? But instead I think that an appropriate response to this last one would be
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Simply to do what we do every week to take communion together the reason being here that Jesus predicts his death and Those here who have come to the king and pledged loyalty to him and have asked him to forgive them
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We need the reminder that he died for us. I Need that and I'm grateful for a church that takes communion every week
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I know that it runs the risk of becoming routine and at the same time I can't think of a better routine if There's any if you're at risk of running routine then let it be a routine of coming back to the cross
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Let it be a routine of remembering the cost that he paid
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For your salvation. Let it be a reminder of the blood that was shed For you out of love that has removed this fear of death over us
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Our salvation and hope comes from the prediction the death that he predicts in his last.
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Whoa They killed him and it was for our sin that he was put to death and yet he went there out of willing love for us and In this he is taken from those who trust him the certain doom and woe that was a crushing weight on our shoulders
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And we no longer live under that fear of woe Cycles in the repetition in the wave after wave after wave of woe woe woe
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And we no longer live under that because he loved us and took the doom and woe upon himself so during this next song if you've asked
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Jesus to save you then take the cracker to remember his body broken in our Place and take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us
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And then let's go out of here sternly warned There is indeed a doom that rests over all who reject
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Jesus and for that reason the most loving thing that we can do Is to throw open
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Wide the doors to invite others to our kind and gracious King. Let's pray
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Father I thank you for this text. That is hard. It's difficult And at the same time is stands as a rebuke to our pride to our arrogance to our self exaltation
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What a fitting reminder as we come to communion this morning that we are not all that as a matter of fact we are the very cause of the sacrifice and the death of your son and so it is because of our sin because of our
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Brokenness because of our inability to do things, right? And to honor you correctly and instead we we're so prone to honor ourselves and to move into positions of hypocrisy and and Trying to be better than everybody else or at least making ourselves look to look to be better than others
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And so father, I pray that you would wash that away now Help us to confess those sins that we see in our own hearts and then father
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I pray that you would allow this to be a meaningful time Not just a routine not just the thing that we do every every week
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But I pray that you would meet us in this place Where we remember the the death of Jesus Christ for us his body broken for us and his blood shed for us