Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
From early in my childhood what I learned is that the Christian religion Held an important place in American society.
I Can see this even living in the north in the south some say there is a church on every block
This is why it's called the Bible Belt But in the north the Christian religion is seen here as well
The home I grew up in was only 1 .7 miles from our church building
In that short distance we passed by three churches The Christian influence is unmistakable
But we now live in post -christian America and this has been this way for quite some time and it's even more now than ever
What this means is that Christianity no longer has the influence that once had but there are still church buildings
Everywhere you go to downtown Minneapolis you see businesses you see church buildings
Some of the most beautiful buildings some of the most beautiful architecture Are the deadest churches that there are?
There are people who still meet in these buildings, but most of the people who attend these gatherings on Sunday are performing their religious duty
They don't really want to go, but going and makes them feel better about themselves or people think
Church is what good people do so I am going to go to church But these places of religion are not what
God intended God intended for churches to be full of life
He intended for the music and singing to be Lively he intended for people to give to his work with a joyful heart
He intended the preaching to be full of life. He intended the fellowship to be rich But in many places of religion all over America, and I would say
Europe as well Is very much like this This liveliness is absent and in its place is deadness
There's no desire for God, but only duty When this happens God is not honored.
He is displeased as 1st Corinthians 16 22 says if anyone has no love for the
Lord Let him be accursed No one can fool
God Spiritually dead churches and spiritually dead people will not fool him
He knows and he demands that our highest delight be in him He wants this to be evident in churches and evident in individual lives
But just as we see this today Jesus Experienced this as well
He ran into dead religion all over the place and as the
God man. He hated it And he called it out This morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew.
We are going to once again see Jesus have a confrontation with the corrupt
Jewish leaders These people were engulfed in this deadness, and we will see important truths here
Through his words so this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me To Matthew chapter 15.
We'll be looking at verses 1 through 9 and if you're using a red Bible in the pews I don't know the exact page.
I think it's 970 something The sermon is titled dead Doctrine what
I'm going to do is I'm gonna begin by reading the text Matthew chapter 15 verses 1 through 9 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said
Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders for they do not wash their hands when they eat?
He answered them and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
For God commanded honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die
But you say if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God He need not honor his father
So for the sake of your tradition you have made a void the Word of God You hypocrites
Well that Isaiah prophesy of you when he said this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far
From me in vain. Do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men?
Here's our big idea Flee from the darkness of man -made religion flee from the darkness of man -made religion
We'll see three reasons why in our text before we jump in let me give you a little recap of where we have been Last week we saw the account where Jesus walked on water
The disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee to the other side and as they were in the middle of the lake
They noticed a figure coming toward them this figure of course was
Jesus He was a man of course, but they thought it was a ghost And what happened is that Jesus told them not to be afraid and As Peter was in the boat with the disciples
He looks out toward Jesus Jesus, and he takes a step of faith and asked Jesus if he could walk out to him
Jesus told him to come Peter stepped out on the water But once he was out there he started to doubt and he cried for help and the
Lord Rescued him in this episode Peter showed some faith. He got out of the boat
But he had much growth to do in the area of trusting Jesus, and this is a good application for us
Jesus is trustworthy But we have growth to do in trusting him He calls us in our lives to extend our faith and to experience the blessing of extending that faith
As we look to him what we must understand is that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives
Now this once again leads us to our text that we've already read And our big idea is this flee from the darkness of man -made religion, and here's our first reason why?
Those engulfed in man's tradition rebuke true religion Those engulfed in man's tradition rebuke true religion
We'll see this in verses 1 & 2 The last time we saw the Pharisees and scribes was in chapter 12 where Jesus called them an evil and adulterous
Generation because they sought for a sign The questions that they asked Jesus were not innocent questions like I really want to know the answer you know our kids ask us those
Questions you know why why why? They want to know the answer The scribes and Pharisees they don't want to know the answer they want to they're gotcha questions
They're trying to disprove him In our passage they once again come to him in hostility as verse 1 & 2 tells us
We see these verses again, then the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders for they do not wash their hands when they eat?
It's interesting here that these came from Jerusalem. That's a good observation to make here Where were the highest up Jewish leaders from at this time?
Jerusalem where did Jesus spend most of his ministry? Galilee it's a news is spreading about Jesus, and they said okay
We got us we got to send the cream of the crop of our Jewish leaders To address this guy so these would have been the prestigious people coming to Jesus and what you will notice is that the
Pharisees and Scribes Come to him once again in hostility
Last week we saw the narrative where Jesus walked on the water in the Sea of Galilee and so he is here in this near the
Sea of Galilee as they have this conversation and They come to test him and the question they ask him is
Why are your disciples? breaking the tradition of the elders
It's very interesting here how they say the tradition of the elders and not scripture
That should be a dead giveaway here that there's a problem What we have learned so far in Matthews that the
Jewish leaders had many man -made laws Now we know that the Word of God came through Moses and Moses and the other prophets of the
Old Testament But what the Jews of old taught is that Moses passed on an oral tradition, okay, so by mouth
To the leadership of Israel and this oral tradition was written down into what became known as the
Talmud as one author wrote to provide the means for superficially keeping
God's Commandments regulation after regulation and ceremony after ceremony were added until God's own
Word was utterly hidden behind the wall of tradition Instead of protecting
God's Word the tradition obscured and perverted it Before long tradition was more familiar and more revered than God's own
Word this move from scripture to tradition occurred over a period of several hundred years and by Jesus day the
Jewish religion was engulfed in man -made tradition The scribes and rabbis were to be listened to these were the authority these were the ones who knew
These are the ones who are gonna lead you down the path of having a relationship with God To violate a tradition was more severe than violating a clear command in Scripture This is how far off the rails they came
Getting this broader context tells us how serious it was that the disciples neglected one of the traditions
You're not serious in the eyes of God Serious in the eyes of the leadership What the second verse 2 tells us is that they violated the traditions of the elders by not washing their hands before they ate
Okay, we know that hand -washing before meals is a good thing right, but does it rise to the level of?
Dishonoring God like they're saying here The Pharisees and scribes observed this about the disciples and called them out
They were looking once again for an opportunity to nail Jesus see you're not from God We are
The purpose of a washing was to remove anything unclean that a common Jew may have come into contact with By ingesting food with unclean hands the body would be unclean
So the tradition made it that the Jews Always had to wash their hands before eating if they didn't have any water then they couldn't eat
They had to find water to so that they were clean Now the
Old Testament did say that priests were required to wash their hands and feet before they perform their ceremonial duties
However, the extra biblical tradition said that every Israelite had to wash up before they ate
No such law exists in the Old Testament It was a man -made law and Jesus and his disciples rightly did not keep it
Once again the goal of the Jewish leadership is to refute Jesus to discredit his whole ministry what they want to show is that he is a phony and They're not
But it should be no surprise to us that Jesus disciples disregarded these traditions who cares this doesn't do anything
Why would we keep this? Now before they followed Jesus They probably took part in these traditions as most of the
Jewish population did remember that this Jewish leadership Describes in the Pharisees had the Jewish people in the grip of their hands
What they said went and to go against them meant consequences
But once the disciples followed Jesus They would have known that to follow these traditions was a complete waste of time
But there were strict laws in the Old Testament You know when you read the Old Testament you see this, right?
Read through Leviticus lots of strict laws and you might think well Maybe the Jewish leaders at this time were right because it certainly seems like God cares a lot about these strict laws
What we see in the New Testament is What God thinks about strict ceremonial laws
The ceremonial laws were meant to point ahead to greater spiritual realities
The ceremonial laws were pictures or types for example the sacrificial system in the temple was intended to point ahead to the once for all sacrifice of Christ as the book of Hebrews makes crystal clear all
Of the ceremonial practices commanded by God in the Old Testament were temporary But what the
Jewish leaders did is expand the ceremonial laws to the point where they were adding things that weren't even in The Old Testament and they missed the whole point
Jesus would have communicated The truth of these laws to the to his disciples They no longer needed to keep the ceremonial laws and they especially did not need to keep the man -made
Jewish traditions that were added later God cares about The heart
Not external religion It's not like there's something magical here if we do this.
He's pleased man -made religion is Everywhere we know this maybe you grew up in it
What is interesting is that what happened in the Jewish religion has happened in Christianity over the last 2 ,000 years
There's a reason the Protestant Reformation had to happen 500 years ago It's because the church at that time the
Roman Catholic Church was engulfed in man's tradition The Reformation is just getting back to the
Bible. What what okay? Let's go beyond the traditions here What does this say and if these traditions?
Contradict what this says we got a problem because this is the Word of God and the
Word of God does not change Reformers like Martin Luther and John Kelvin rediscovered what was actually written in the
Bible Rather than what took over in the form of man -made tradition By the way, it also returned the
Bible to the common man Because You you believe whatever they told you right whatever the leadership told you that's what you believed
Mark and Laurie and I were talking about this yesterday When we preach through the
Bible you you you go you I hope you do I hope you follow along with Nothing to hide.
What what I am saying is what this says If you have to go through someone and they say you know what you you can't trust the common people
That's a problem. The Bible is written to everyone. It's just supposed to be read by everyone and so the the
Reformation brought the Bible back to the common man and The leadership can no longer deceive people with their traditions that are
Not the Word of God What I want you to understand about Eureka Baptist is
That man -made religion is not welcome here Only the Word of God Modern -day
Pharisees would rebuke us. They would say you're not doing this. You're not doing that But we will say along with Jesus and his disciples we don't need to follow that man -made tradition
That's what they're telling The Pharisees and scribes in this text. That's what we tell anybody who is on us for not following certain traditions
Do not let anyone impose on you. What is invented by man? This historically has happened many times and it's even happening today.
I Have explained this before but it's worth explaining again Over the 20th century the dominant
Pharisee ism in the church Came from ultra conservatives and people think that we're conservative
Compared to some people we're pretty liberal If you were to see some churches out there that are and this was more dominant in the old age
These very conservative people frankly and lots of Baptist churches made rules You can't go to movies under any circumstance you can't drink a drop of alcohol under any circumstance
You can't dance under any circumstance. You can't play cards Under any circumstance.
You also have to look a certain way If you are not dressed up when you come to church on Sunday morning, you are sinning
If your hair looks a certain way you are sinning For these
Pharisee like people only certain music is allowed also in this case. It's only Old hymns right and we love hymns we sing hymns to this church
But we can you can you can be pharisaical about that Some also have said only one version of the
Bible King James only People given to this have so much focus on the things
I listed that they often forget about what God truly cares about And by the way, we should use wisdom with all those things and you can see why they would they would go to that direction
Because right alcohol can be very dangerous Cards can be very dangerous dancing very dangerous
Movies most of them are bad But no movies, right so you can you could take it to the extreme and that's what
The fair the kind of the I would so -called the ultra conservative Pharisee ism was This was the old
Pharisee ism, but this is largely on life support today compared to what else is out there It is out there still.
In fact, I just had a conversation with a guy who's very much engulfed in this sadly But it is in the minority compared to what else is out there the dominant form
Today is coming from the opposite end of the spectrum and that is those evangelicals influenced by the left
Okay, so the pendulum has swung used to be over here now Speaking of swinging
Now it's over here This Pharisee ism comes from those who never think this would describe them
We're the we're the progressive side of evangelicalism. We're not the Pharisees These people
I would describe them as the social justice warriors a Few years back.
There was a Christian conference held remembering Martin Luther King jr 50 years after his death
This was a Christian conference The conference was perplexing to begin with as Americans we appreciate
MLK and what he did to advance equality under the law for blacks however
MLK was a pastor and he was a false teacher We shouldn't be afraid to say that he was
He did not believe that Jesus was God He did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ He was a pluralist who thought that all religions can lead to heaven
Okay, so we as Americans we celebrate him as Christians We don't
Because of he was a false teacher But at this conference there were progressive
Christians rebuking white evangelicals for their continued role in racism And this not only happened at this conference, but others as well and also in the pulpits all over America The social justice movement as I've explained before is built on Marxist ideas
You are an oppressor because you are white and you're among the oppressed because you are black in other words
All whites in America are guilty because of their skin color And this is not biblical and yet these misguided pastors embracing man -made tradition call called white
Christians all over America to repent They call something sinful that isn't sinful they call them to repent of something where those listening did not need to repent of In this system whites are always the oppressors and blacks are always the oppressed
So what this means is a continual repentance that needs to take place for white
Christians in This man -made system. There really is no growth since you are always guilty.
You always need to repent of your whiteness And what these teachers did and are still doing sadly
After being confronted what they're doing is laying a burden on Christians that God does not put on them
Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11 verse 30. My yoke is easy and my burden is light
But this burden put on Christians by these misguided preachers is a heavy burden
This is the new Pharisee ism and just like the Pharisees they do their works to be applauded by the world
What they are doing is rebuking those who are rejecting their man -made tradition Just like the scribes and Pharisees rebuke
Jesus disciples They are rebuking those who are trying to follow
Jesus while keeping this false teaching out It's interesting.
There's a church in Washington DC right now That is a
That that is really doing very poorly Years before this pastor came who's really taken it in a bet in a down this direction
Like I'm just mentioning here. It was a very diverse Church blacks Hispanic whites and they
Rejected Marxist ideas and yet this church had all different colors of skin at this church and yet this new pastor
Pretty much if you don't embrace this man -made tradition You're you're not for you're not for other skin colors.
You're just you're racist and And the great irony of this is that before he was even there.
This was a super diverse Church And they understood what the Bible says about we're all created in the image of God.
We're all one Really one skin color. We're just different shades of brown.
We're all one race The human race and but they understood this and so in and yet he's taking him down this really tragic direction and The irony of this whole thing is that there needs to be a repentance and that repentance needs to come
From those preachers adding burdens on Christians just like the Jewish leaders did in the first century okay, so Whether it's from the ultra conservative side, right?
We're these extra Rules that the Bible doesn't have in there or on the left side these extra rules that the
Bible doesn't have in there We need to flee from that So flee from the darkness of man -made religion and the first reason why is that those engulfed in man's tradition rebuke?
true religion And here's our second point
That is that Jesus rebukes the misplaced values of the outwardly religious and we'll see this in verses 3 through 6 in the previous point
We saw a rebuke the rebuke came from those engulfed in man's tradition now the true rebuke comes as it comes out of the mouth of the
God -man in verses 3 through 6 where Jesus Answers them and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
But you say if anyone tells his father or his mother what would you have gained for me as given to God?
He need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the
Word of God You'll notice that Jesus does not answer the question by defending the disciples actions
He responds by asking a counter question that exposes their hypocrisy
What they accuse the disciples of doing doesn't matter But what Jesus points out about the corrupt your leaders does matter
What Jesus tells them is that they are guilty of a real sin Not a fake sin a real sin
He had a long list of sins. He could have pointed out that they were committing but Jesus points out the fifth commandment to them
The fifth commandment says that one must honor your father and mother
You'll notice in verse 4 who this law came from Who did it come from God?
Not man God Jesus also told him the serious penalty for breaking this commandment
Exodus 21 17 says that anybody who reviles their parents shall be put to death
It's a very serious crime in Old Testament Israel, it was a it was capital punishment to curse your parents
This law required that one honored father and mother through respecting and taking care of them
But once again, the Pharisees obscure about the Word of God clearly says they muddied the clear waters.
That's what false teachers do In verse 5 Jesus quotes their tradition if anyone tells his father or his mother
What you would have gained for me is given to God what this tradition has in mind is a gift offered to God There was a tradition that said that one could set aside all of their possessions and say that these possessions belonged to God as a gift
And once someone did this they could not go back because a vow was offered to the Lord in Numbers 30 verse 2 says that once you make a vow you have to keep that vow
This meant that the person could not help his parents with financial assistance You might say this is a life of sacrifice since everything is dedicated to God But on further inspection, this is not the case not at all
The person would give what the law required him to give to God But the but the rest would be left to him as one author said the tradition was not designed to serve either
God Or the family, but the selfish interests of the person making the hypocritical vow
In order to keep the tradition the fifth commandment was broken As Jesus says in verse 6 for the sake of your tradition you have made void the
Word of God This is a very strong rebuke from Jesus they value their tradition
That's their idol But they neglected what God has commanded and what God truly cares about In Matthew 23
Matthew 23 is the chapter where he just lets off on them In verse 23 of that chapter
Jesus said woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law
Justice and mercy and faithfulness These you ought to have done without neglecting the others
The corrupt Jewish leaders didn't care about loving their neighbor. They didn't care about helping the poor
They didn't care about taking care of their parents as the law commanded what they cared about was their
Tradition and somehow they thought that that please God if we just do these rituals if we just played the game
Somehow God is pleased Their priorities were misplaced and Jesus rebukes them for it
And what we must understand is that this can happen to churchgoers Whether true
Christians or not we can value things in our church that actually become idolatrous and we are a church that has lots of history and It is a history that we are right to appreciate and we should celebrate and we have we just have 140th anniversary this past summer
But what if we care more about our church history than following Jesus closely? What if we care more about our traditions
We can care more about our history more about our annual activities More about the kind of songs we sing more about our unique facilities and the decorations in these places
We can idolize things that are staples in our church without worshiping God If you think about some of these beautiful buildings
That are around and I think our building is a beautiful building. It's a nice old historic church building
You can worship that right you can you can you can think man I love going to this place because it's just a neat place to be right.
There's a nostalgia to it But that's not what God wants. God wants our hearts when we idolize things that are
Not essentials, okay that are history traditions things like that We put ourselves in a dangerous place
When this happens misplaced priorities happen our passion should be for Jesus and what he is doing Our greatest desire should be that we love
God more than more and then help others as well as we love him And the way that we show our love for God is by doing what he has commanded
So may we make this our aim always as a church So we are to flee from the darkness of man -made religion
And the second reason why is that Jesus rebukes the misplaced values of the outwardly religious
The third reason why we are to flee from the darkness of man -made religion is That Jesus calls their so -called worship meaningless in verses 7 through 9
Man -made worship or man -made religion misses the whole goal verses 7 through 9 where Jesus says you hypocrites
Well that Isaiah prophesied of you when he said this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me
In vain do they worship me? teaching as doctrines the commandments of men
Now how ugly is it when people wag their finger at you? When it's the doctrines of men
It's ugly when that happens when people impose on you what God? Does not oppose
I'd mentioned that I had a conversation with a guy recently it made me angry. What's this guy doing?
And it's alarming when that happens And what Jesus does here is he quotes a passage from the
Old Testament Isaiah 29 and 13 This prophecy was written 700 years before Christ and this prophecy was about the people more immediate to Isaiah But it's also true about the
Jewish leaders who stand right before Jesus The Jewish leaders at this time were much like their forefathers and this was not a compliment
They say the right things they would never say murdering was okay or coveting was okay or stealing was okay
These were people who didn't say curse words these were people who did not hang out with drunkards and prostitutes
Externally they were clean, but inwardly they had dark hearts Jesus did not mince words when he described who they were in inwardly in Matthew 23 27
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful But within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness
Now you go to a graveyard, you know tombstone beautiful you don't want to see what's inside there, right?
That's that's what he compares these people to oh, you look beautiful on the outside But you're dark.
You're ugly on the inside God does not care about external acts that are not connected to the heart
God hates dead religion This type of religious practice does not benefit the person practicing
This type of religion because it does not honor God it is not true worship And this is why
Jesus says in verse 9 in vain. Do they worship me? This religion does nothing.
It's a waste of time You might as well do something else on Sunday morning if you're gonna do that all
The ceremonies all the rituals all the going through the motions does absolutely nothing
The a dead religion was common in Jesus day and it is common in the world today And when we think of the more ritualistic movements in Christianity We think about Roman Catholicism.
We think about Lutheran churches in our neck of the woods And now not all Lutheran churches in our area are in biblical
Some do hold to the Bible we have disagreements, of course, but but it's not heretical
But we often hear in conversations people say I'm Lutheran, right you go up to them and you might invite him to church
And they say I'm Lutheran And when I hear these words, it is likely That this person is trying to just get you off their back and say
I go I belong to a church And then you ask them. Well, what was the sermon last Sunday? I've been to church in six months or you know,
I haven't last time I went was Christmas and Easter But this happens in Baptist churches, too to go to a church can be to go through the motions and Let's play the church game because it's
Sunday and let me say a word of Thanksgiving to the Lord when
I think of where our church is that right now this largely does not describe us He is moving us further and further away from this
And I see a group of people that wants to be here that desires to worship the Lord together that are hungry to grow
But we can still fall prey to this we can honor God with our lips, but not with our hearts
An unbeliever is always in this place, but believers can succumb to this too We need to watch out for this
Dead religion is done in vain God cares about our heart
He wants our heart to be fully engaged And we can fall into the trap of kind of going through the motions.
Are we thinking about the words we're singing? Are we thinking about how we can please God? He wants us to have a burning passion for him he wants us to be moved we sing these songs of praise together
He wants us to obey him in our lives out of our deep love for him And if we say words honoring to God, but our heart is really treasuring something else
Then we are acting hypocritically a Hypocrite is an actor.
That's where the the word comes from a Number of years ago. There was a pastor on the rise in the
Twin Cities He was writing books invited to conferences Making a name for himself
It's interesting I everything I just stated there it almost seems like more than that That that's a pitfall
Alright fame is a very dangerous thing But not always but more than that. It seems like whenever that happens the person crashes and burns.
But anyway In this in the bio of this man on the church website. He said that he was when he was younger
He wanted to be an actor But then he was called to ministry and as his fame was at an all -time high people noticed that he wasn't treating people very well
He would get easily angered around others but people wrote this off because he was from the
East Coast and they say well, he's just he's just from New York and You know, they're just not they don't have
Minnesota, Wisconsin nice there, right? We can write this off, but they should not have written it off This was a major character flaw that made him disqualified for the ministry
But this was just the tip of the iceberg. It was discovered that he was having multiple affairs.
And of course he was forced to resign But let me go back to his bio remember what he said in his bio he wanted to be an actor and The great irony of it is that he was an actor
He played the role of pastor But eventually he was found out. We don't want our words to be hollow
We want the words of praise toward God that come out of our mouth to be the overflow of a heart that truly
Desires God I get convicted when I think about that story because Who are we
Do we just play the game or are we really treasuring God?
We didn't ask ourselves that question. I need to ask myself that that question, right? Do you become a pastor just to play the religious game
That's what the Pharisees did That was their treasure. But like I said earlier, there's no place for that here
That's not who we want to be far from it We want to be pleasing to our
Lord It says in Isaiah 66 Here is the one to whom
I will look he is he was humble and contrite and trembles at my word
That's who we want to be So we are to flee from the darkness of man -made religion
We have seen three reasons why in this text those engulfed in man's tradition rebuke true religion Jesus rebukes the misplaced values of the outwardly religious and Jesus calls their so -called worship
Meaningless, we do not want to have a religion rooted in man's wisdom teachings and traditions
Such a religion is corrupt such a religion is lifeless and such a religion
Ultimately leads people to hell That's what we must understand this. There's gonna be a lot of religious people in hell
That's a sobering reality. It's true But knowing that you are a sinner and that you need the
Savior Jesus Christ is the only true religion there is and this religion is beautiful.
This is a religion from the heart And next week we're going to look at the heart dig deeper into what that means 2nd
Corinthians 3 18 says and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another as the
Spirit breathes life in You through your relationship with Christ. He is making you into something glorious and this is the opposite of dead man -made religion
May this describe everybody in this room may dead man -made religion have no part with us now next
Sunday We are going to look at the deepest part of each of us. What is it in us that determines the course of our life?
We'll look at that Lord willing next Sunday and I say Lord willing by the way, what if Christ comes back this week, right?
What if I get hit by a bus right? There's no guarantee that we'll be here next Sunday But Maybe we might okay, and if we are we'll look at the next 11 verses of Matthew chapter 15
But this time let's close in prayer Father in heaven, what a wonderful God you are
In Lord, I think all of us if we're honest We can fall into the trap
Lord of having our hearts not engaged doing things externally doing it because we feel like we have to I certainly know
I do that Lord but may that part of us die and May a spirit -filled person replace that person more and more