Grace Fellowship Sermons

Our culture tells us the next purchase, upgrade, or possession will improve our lives. Is that true? As followers of Christ, should we keep accumulating, give everything away, or is there another way? Jesus’ words press us to ask: What place have our possessions taken in our hearts?

We are continuing the theme of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees which Jesus likens to yeast. And like yeast, just a tiny amount of hypocrisy inflates, infiltrates, and pervades. Jesus warns his disciples to beware of hypocrisy and to take a bold stand for him and his message—without fear.

Hypocrisy is putting on an outward facade that masks an inner reality so that others will think better of us. Jesus hates this because it is outward focused and denies the Gospel. We are are all sinners to the core and the solution isn’t keeping rules to find favor with God (impossible) or to look good to those around us (foolish). The solution is to look to God Himself and embrace all He has for us.

Every belief system built on falsehood follows a recognizable pattern: it substitutes performance for genuine transformation and, when confronted by God’s truth, turns against those who embody and proclaim it. In today’s passage, we will trace that pattern so we might love Christ more deeply and extend His hope to those who remain far from Him.

Today, Jesus exposes a pattern that has plagued God’s people in every generation—the scourge of empty religion. Empty religious leaders resist God’s truth, burden His people, and honor yesterday’s messengers while rejecting their message today.

We are considering how a person can look religious without being spiritually healthy. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had mastered this kind of performative religion. Today, we continue to see how Jesus exposes this danger, not to condemn but to offer freedom in life.

It is possible to look spiritually healthy while hiding what is happening beneath the surface. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had mastered this kind of performative religion - carefully maintaining what others could see while neglecting what was happening within. Jesus exposes this danger, but not to condemn; He brings what is hidden into the light so that we can be transformed. We can live free.

After Jesus healed a demon-possessed man, the religious leaders first tried to shift the focus by attributing His power to Beelzebul, a ruler of demons within Satan’s kingdom, and then to stall by demanding more signs. The issue was not that Jesus’ identity was not credible, but that His Lordship over their lives was unacceptable. Today, Jesus reveals that the light of who He is was not hidden, but that their hearts had become hardened.

We have seen that the crowds in Jesus’ day rejected the evidence already before them: Jesus had delivered a demon-oppressed man who had been mute. Why resist Christ? Because they did not want to submit to Jesus’ authority in their lives. Today we see a second tactic of the hard heart: it demands more evidence to avoid submitting to what is already obvious and true.

Last week, we saw that some reject Christ by openly opposing Him. This week, Jesus reveals a subtler danger: some never openly reject Him—they simply never allow Him to reign. Both reveal a hardened heart that, one excuse and refusal at a time, reinterprets even the clearest evidence to avoid surrender. Jesus will show us a better way.