Two Journeys

Do you think that you would be able to spot an impostor who has skilfully disguised himself at a key moment? Would you be able to do it, do you think? Especially if the future of a kingdom depended on it? Now, there's some key moments in church history, in which that is precisely what happens. A thousand years ago, Christian settlements of Northern Europe were being terrorized by one of the most fearsome bands of warriors that this earth has ever seen. I speak of the Vikings, who were able in their sleek low-draft boats suddenly to appear at any moment and terrorize Christian monasteries and Christian communities with a bloodshed and a slaughter that reached up to Heaven.

One of the most incredible and encouraging stories in the advance of the Kingdom of Christ is how these fearsome warriors, these Vikings, were brought to faith in Christ. And a key individual, a key figure in that history is a man named Olaf Tryggvason. Now, Olaf was himself a raider, he was a Viking. He was a pagan and a godless man, but in 986 AD, Olaf and his ships were harbored along some islands named the Scilly Islands, a group of about 100 islands near England, and he had heard of a Christian hermit, a man who was a Christian who had it seems extraordinary powers of discernment, even the ability to know the future. And what man doesn't wanna know the future, especially an ambitious young man, like Olaf was.

And so he wanted to hear this man out, and so he actually dressed one of his men just like him, put him in his own clothes and sent him to this Christian hermit. And this Christian hermit took one look at this impostor and instantly recognized him to be an imposter and sent him back to his master with some words. Well, at this point, Olaf is impressed and curious. So he goes himself; he went in person to see this Christian hermit, and the hermit spoke of his future. He said that Olaf would become a Christian, and that he would lead many of his own people to faith in Christ and destroy paganism. And to prove the truth of these long-range prophecies, the hermit gave him a short-range prophecy, and that is that he would return to his ships and some mutineers would attack him and wound him severely, badly enough for him to die, but that he would remarkably recover in seven days.

And that is precisely what happened. Olaf went back to his ship; some men fought against him. He was wounded. He was carried off on his shield, and seven days later he was amazingly healed. And he became a Christian after that. And you can well imagine the power of these prophecies. And he went on to become the King of Norway and really just severed the root of paganism in that land and led many to faith in Christ. And all because this one Christian hermit could recognize an impostor.

A little over four centuries later, the same thing happened again with Joan of Arc, when she felt led by God to lead France against some English invaders. She had no standing whatsoever; she was a peasant girl but already some amazing things had happened. And there were some questions. The Dauphin, the future king of France, Charles VII, wanted to find out if she was the genuine article, and so he invited her there and she came and he disguised himself as a regular nobleman and stood amongst his other noblemen. She walks right up to him and begins to talk to him as the Dauphin, as the future King of France, and to say that she would fight the English wherever she found them. And to tell him and whispered to him, something that only God could have told her. He was immediately convinced, and the history went on from there.

Let me ask you a question. If a Christian hermit on the Scilly Islands can recognize an imposter, if Joan of Arc can recognize an impostor and disguise, do you not think the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is able to do so? Can he not expose an impostor, and conversely can he not recognize the genuine article when he sees it? And so at the end of John chapter 1, when Nathaniel comes to him, he says, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” He's not a deceiver; he's not an impostor. He is what he claims to be, a genuine Israelite. “How do you know me?” Nathaniel asked. And Jesus said, “I saw you while you were sitting under the fig tree.”

Jesus has that ability to just look at an individual and see them right through to know what they really are, to know who they really are. There's no way to be an imposter in front of Jesus. And then at the end of the second chapter of John, Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover doing many miracles and it said, “Many of the people there saw the signs he was doing and put their trust in Jesus, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them.” It says at the end of John 2, “For he knew all men and he did not need man's testimony about what was in a man, for he himself knew what was inside a man.”

And so later in John chapter 6, when many of his false disciples went away from him after Jesus taught, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood,” and they couldn't handle that teaching. Jesus said to the 12, “You don't wanna go away too, do you?” Peter answered, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Then Jesus said, “Have I not chosen you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” It is impossible to deceive Jesus.

And I think as I look across the Scriptures, I think there are few passages that bring me the same feeling of fear and concern as does Matthew chapter 7. I know we're preaching on Matthew 23 this morning, but in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says these words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father, who is in Heaven. Many” - Feel the weight of that word, dear brothers and sisters - “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles.’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you, away from me you evildoers.’”

Can we even measure that moment of shock in that category of people who looks up at Jesus in his glory and says, “Lord, Lord,” and they're excited to see Jesus and they think he's equally excited to see them. And they're about to get the shock of their eternity, that he never knew them and that they're going to have to spend eternity away from him, eternity in Hell. Now I think they should not be shocked. Jesus, in Matthew 7, says, “Away from me, you evildoers.” There was evidence. It's not like there's no way to know, it's just a crap shoot, maybe the Lord will know you, and maybe he won't; we just have no way of knowing. The Lord is not that way.

You know what the Lord does in Matthew 23, he gives a category of impostors a very clear warning that they're going to hell, if they don't repent. He doesn't send them to Hell. He gives them a warning concerning Hell. “How will you escape being condemned to Hell?” he says. “What are your plans?” We'll talk about that verse next week. But he gives them a warning, and do you not see the grace of God in that? Do you not see the kindness and mercy of God in that? You heard in my prayer this morning, my desire is that if you are in fact a Gospel hypocrite, if you have been playing a game, if you have been deceiving your neighbors, deceiving even your own family, and deceiving yourself, I'm just pleading with you on the basis of Matthew 23, drop the robes of hypocrisy and come to a genuine faith in Christ.

Do you not realize how merciful and gracious he is to give you this warning? Do you not see his kindness in showing you the genuine article and pleading with you and saying anyone who comes to me I will in no way drive away, but I will give them eternal life? But this is for you the day of salvation. It doesn't really make a difference if you've been playing a game up to this point. If today you hear his voice and you came to faith in Christ, all your sins will be washed away, all of them. And you'll be welcomed on that final day. The question is, “How can I know if I'm an impostor?” And I'm also gonna speak a word to Christians. I don't believe, and I thought this through this morning, I came to this conclusion this morning. I don't believe every Christian is a hypocrite. I don't think that's true. I think at that point the word disappears, doesn't have any meaning.

I think a hypocrite is someone who makes a claim to be something that they're not. Was the Apostle Paul a hypocrite? I think not. In Romans 7, he said, “I have a bitter struggle with sin every day. Pray for me; pray that I'd be delivered. Pray that I might preach the gospel boldly as I should.” He's not an independent, holy, perfect, individual. He said, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ,” but he acknowledged that he had an indwelling warfare with sin; he wasn't a hypocrite. And I think it's possible for Christians to live in such a way that they are not in any way, shape, or form hypocrites. They give God all the glory for their salvation; they say “He is my righteousness.” They are honest about themselves; they acknowledge indwelling sin, and they fight it every day.

But I do believe there are some Christians that are hypocrites, that are coming far short of the sanctification God would have for them if they would just be honest about certain indwelling patterns that they have, certain struggles they have. If they would just be honest and if they would deal forth, look forth rightly, they would make a quantum leap ahead in their Christian walk. So I'm addressing you today as well, and I'm asking that you would pray that there's not a person here that would walk out of this room a hypocrite. Maybe they walked in a hypocrite, but no one would walk out an actor anymore, an actress concerning the things of God.

It's just too important, because someday we're gonna stand before the one who speaks these words, and we're going to give him an account for our lives, and there'll be no fooling him. And there'll be no fancy lawyers that can get you off at that point; there'll be no way to deceive. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight; everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” And that's Jesus. And so hear his Word and allow his Word to search you; allow his Word to do its work in you.

Now last week, we began looking at these seven woes. Jesus is speaking to the scribes and the Pharisees. Just a very brief word about them. The Pharisees were a sect of Judaism, a sect of the Jews who believed that their right standing with God was on the basis of their obedience to God. That's the definition of legalism, I think it's a good one. To think you can pay for your sins by future obedience, present and future obedience, that's the essence of legalism.

And these Pharisees were the essence of the legalists. This is what they did. And they didn't follow the law of Moses, they followed human traditions based on the law of Moses and thought that they had it all figured out, the Pharisees. The Scribes were professional copyists of the Scriptures, who stood at desks all day long and copied the laws of Moses, and who thereby gained an education in the Laws of Moses, not available to the common populace. And therefore, I think, felt prideful toward this rabble, this mob that knew nothing of the law, and were arrogant and therefore in every way, very much like the Pharisees. And therefore Jesus just links them together.

The seven woes he speaks. Some have noted this number seven is the number of perfection, the prophetic number of completion. And the word “woe” is a prophetic word of warning, of impending condemnation and judgment from God. And therefore a seven-fold woe from the final Word of God to the human race. God the Son speaking to them saying, “Woe unto you,” seven times. In effect saying, “You are in a completely dangerous situation, you must repent.”

And so we saw last time the first woe in Verse 13, “Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the Kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter.” Do you not hear the danger of those words? “You are not entering the Kingdom of Heaven, and nor will you permit those entering who are trying to.” You are ministers of hopelessness and you're on a road to Hell. Woe number one.

Woe number two: Woe for making hellish disciples. Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. And then when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Hell as you are.” In other words, if you enroll in the school of the scribes and Pharisees you're going to end up in Hell; they do not lead to Heaven. He calls them blind guides. The second woe.

The third woe, here, you get these legalists, who wrote the fine print in the contract, and then got out of the contract. They have this whole thing about oaths. They say, “Yeah, I swore by the temple, but I didn't swear by the gold of the temple. You didn't notice that, did you? So I don't need to keep my oath.”

“Oh, you heard me swear by the altar. Well, I didn't swear by the gift that was on the altar. I don't know if you know this, because I spend my whole time studying the law. And if you swear by the altar, now it means nothing, but if you swear by the gift on the altar, now that's a binding oath. And you probably didn't notice I didn't swear by the gift on the altar, and perhaps you didn't notice that I didn't swear by the gold of the temple.”

Jesus sweeps it all away. “He who swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.” Shall we not think about God when we speak words? God created the heavens and the earth by the word of his power. Everything he says is true; all of his promise as he keeps, all of his warnings he makes good on. This is God; this is the way that God deals with words. So don't shirk your oaths and your vows. Simply let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no,” “no” in the fear of God. That was last week.

The fourth woe is in verse 23 and 24, look at it. “Woe to you teacher of the law, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill, and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides, you strain out a gnat, but you swallow a camel.”

Now Jesus is here dealing with the fact that the Pharisees in their blindness could not see what was the centerpiece of the law and what the law was about. And so, they go off to the periphery of the law and they find this issue of tithing, and I'm not saying tithing is not important. Jesus implies it is important here, but they take the tithing regulation and they go to the nth degree. Picture them there in their kitchens, the Pharisee and his wife. 

“Did you buy any spices today?” “Yes, I bought some spices.” “Well, let's sit down and work on it. Have you got any mint?” “Yes, I've got some mint.” “Okay, let's get going.” And so they get out a little scalpel perhaps, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine for me, one for God. And so they go, nine leaves for me, one for God; nine for me, one for God. And then later they have a chance to boast about it. “I give a tenth of all that I own, and I fast twice a week.” They get to boast in front of God.

Now, at one level can I say there's nothing wrong with being attentive to details? I think details are important. And so does God. Jesus said in Luke 16, “He who is faithful in a very little will be faithful in much.” You prove yourself for future great ministries by being faithful in little ministries now, and if you're faithful in what seems to others to be little he'll give you more to do. And if you're not, he won't.

And so, I think little things do matter. Jesus himself said, “Even a sparrow doesn't fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” He knows that little things matter; he knows better than we do. He is very attentive to details. And on judgement day, we'll have to give an account for even the careless words that we've spoken. Details actually do matter.

But the issue here isn't so much the details. Jesus assents to the fact that it's right to give a tenth of the spices; there's nothing wrong with that. He says, “You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.” Go ahead and give a tenth of your spices. But clearly there are different levels of priorities in God's law, and you missed it; you missed what the law is about.

The law is about justice; not your justice initially, but God's justice. And that teaching that the laws about God's justice should crush you and crumble you and bring you to the second point of the law which is mercy, that God might have mercy to you, a sinner, and that you trembling for mercy may actually obtain it. That you might receive mercy having been crushed by the justice of the law, that you might receive mercy. And having received mercy, then what are you going to do? You're going to be merciful to other sinners around you. And faithfulness, that God is faithful to keep his promises to save a single broken-hearted sinner that comes to Jesus Christ. Christ came and he suffered and he shed his blood that sinners like you and me, hypocrites like you and me, people just like you and me can be saved.

The justice of God brings us to the cross, and there at the cross we find the mercy of God, and the mercy just flows all over us. Oh come to Christ, trust in Christ, I'm pleading with you. Come to Christ while there's still time. This is the judge of all the earth speaking these words to us, and he's saying “The law was about justice, and mercy, and faithfulness. And I will give you life. I'll keep all of my promises to you, if you'll just come.”

But the scribes and Pharisees, they missed it all, and so they were themselves corrupt because they didn't see the beauties of these attributes in God. They didn't have them in their own lives at all. They were inequitable, they were unfair, they were unjust, they were unmerciful, they were brutal, they were unforgiving, they were unkind, they were greedy, they were abusive of others while they're giving the tenth of their spices. So Jesus sums it up perfectly. “You strain out a gnat, but you swallow a camel.” What an image that is. You missed the big picture.

Fifth woe: Woe for external cleanness but internal greed. Look at verses 25 and 26, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they're full of greed and self-indulgence. The next two woes have the same thing in common, a good outside show, but corruption on the inside.

Scribes and Pharisees live for the external show. They had abundant intricate washings of pots and cups and dishes and all kinds of stuff. At one point in Jesus' ministry, they really get on Jesus for this, that he doesn't fall into all the rules and regulations of the washings. Now, I believe such rituals could be symbolic of the purity that God desires, but let me ask you a question. If you could only have one of the two, a clean inside of the cup or a clean outside of the cup, what would you choose?

Imagine if you go to a tea house or a fine restaurant and it's sparkling on the outside, but there's some kind of stinky rancid grease on the inside. And it's just wafting with an aroma on a hot August day, and there's no air conditioning in the place. And you're like, “Could you please bring me a clean cup?” That is, if you even stay at the restaurant, dear friends. My goodness.

How can it be that you work so hard on the outside and there's nothing done about the inside. Look what Jesus says, “On the outside it looks so good, but on the inside they're full of greed,” literally the word is robbery. And another verse in Luke 20, they devour widows' houses. They're actually using their position of power to take over foreclosures or something like that, and just move widows out who maybe can't pay their taxes or something like that. Some technicality of the law, and they take over widows' houses, and not just one or two, but they take over a bunch of them.

Greed, and Jesus says self-indulgence. Everything they do is for themselves; they're feeding their flesh. Greed and self-indulgence. And so for the fifth and last time in the chapter, Jesus uses the word blind to describe them. Look at verse 26, “Blind Pharisee! first clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will be clean.” Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Why is that? Well, in another place, Jesus said, “Make a tree good and the fruit will be good; make a tree bad and the fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

Oh, dear friends, you clean the inside and the outside is gonna get clean. And by the way, that's a lifetime process. You know what I mean. Any of you involved in that beautiful ordinance called Christian marriage, you know that's a lifetime journey to get the outside looking good, but first clean the inside of the cup and dish and then the outside is gonna get cleaned.

The only problem is, you know what it is, we can't do it. You can't clean your hearts. You can't make your heart even a little bit cleaner. But Jesus can, dear friends. That's the good news of the gospel. Bring that dirty heart, that shameful heart, that wandering heart, bring it to Jesus. He is an expert at cleaning the inside of the cup and making the outside clean.

Look at the sixth woe: Verse 27 and 28, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you're full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” It's just like the same woe we saw a moment ago.

David said in Psalm 51:6, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.” Man looks at the outward appearance, but it's God that looks at the heart. “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord, and who may stand in his holy place? He who has cleans hands,” yes, that's good to have clean hands but you also have to have a pure heart. And Jesus is teaching here, if you have the pure heart, your hands are gonna get clean. They just go together.

The seventh woe, woe for honoring dead prophets while murdering live ones. That's basically what's going on here. Look at verses 29-32, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! you build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ And so, you testify against yourselves that you were the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the sins of your forefathers.”

This is really quite revealing, it's more of a display of spiritual pride. You know they say hindsight is 20-20. And they're looking back in their own history. I'm speaking about Jewish history now and they acknowledge something that they notice there. “You know something? We don't treat prophets well; we tended to kill them.” Jesus had told a parable about that, the parable of the vineyard. And there kept being messengers and they kept getting mistreated and killed.

And so now this generation says, “You know, we actually acknowledge that, but we wouldn't have done it. I know that if we had lived back then, we would definitely have humbled ourselves at Elijah's fiery preaching. We would have said ‘The Lord, we're here to serve the Lord. We're not worshipping Baal.’ If we would have been there, we would have been the ones who stood up and we were on Elijah's side. No, we wouldn't have resisted Moses when he brought down the Ten Commandments and all that, we wouldn't have spoken of stoning him and wanted to go back to Egypt; we wouldn't have done that. We would have been among the righteous; we would have joined Joshua and Caleb and those that saw what God was doing and by faith were ready to enter the Promised Land. And in the days of Jeremiah, we would have been among those that saw the Babylonians as our just punishment, and we deserve to be punished for our national sins and we would have joined with Jeremiah in preaching against that wicked nation, and we would have joined Jeremiah and gone out to the Babylonians and joined with the Babylonians. We would have listened to Jeremiah in those days.”

Oh, what deception. Wouldn't it be better to say, “If I had lived back then, like I'm living now, I would have been just like my ancestors. Wouldn't have been any different. I would not have been any different.” That’s why as Stephen said, so plainly, “You always resist the Holy Spirit,” always, speaking to the Jewish nation. Generally, the tendency naturally, if we can speak this language, the tendency is to shoot the messenger. Have you ever noticed that? To shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger, dear friends. Listen to the message, listen to the message.

It's a rare man, when the prophet of God is standing in front of you with his finger extended pointing right at your chest, saying, “You are the man.” It's a rare individual who gets down on his face before the prophet and says, “You're right. I have sinned against the Lord.” Like King David did. It's a rare individual. Jesus says “That does not characterize your nation, and it doesn't characterize you. And to prove it, what's gonna happen is you're gonna kill me, and then I'm gonna send you prophets and righteous men and teachers of the law and they're gonna preach the gospel and you're gonna kill them too.” “Fill up then the measure of the sin of your forefathers,” Jesus is saying.

Now dear friends, for three weeks, we have looked at the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees and by now, I'm certain you're saying, “Boy, am I glad I am not a scribe and a Pharisee. Thank God I'm not a scribe and a Pharisee.” I hope you're not saying that.

I hope you were here the last two weeks and learned not to say that. “Thank God, I'm not like them.” Well, what lessons can we take from this?

Start with the 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith or not.” Test yourselves. Don't you know that Christ Jesus is in you, unless, of course, you fail the test. Now, that test needs to be a Biblical one. I'm gonna give you a few aspects of it in a moment. It is possible you'll pass the test. I do believe there are real Christians here on earth that God's spirit and God's Gospel has powerfully worked. Amen. And there's some genuine Christians even here in this room, praise God. And that you'll pass the test, but examine yourself anyway.

And when you find grace inside you give glory to the one who gave it, and you will not be a hypocrite. And just be sure you tell other people, “God did it for me.” And don't act like you're more righteous than you are. Or in a moment we're gonna go to the Lord's supper. It says, “You ought to examine yourself before you eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Then do it, examine yourself, and see if the Lord is at work in you.

Now, I'm gonna give you some questions to ask. And with that, I'm gonna close the sermon and we'll go into the Lord's Supper. How can you know if you're a gospel hypocrite? How can you know if the work in you is genuine or not? There are actually so many different answers that I've already given you some. If you're not sure where to look, look at the beatitudes.

But here, this is from a Puritan minister named John Flavel. Question number one: Do I make the approval of God or the applause of men the end and main design of my religious acts? Are you doing it for an audience horizontally, or are you doing it for the one who sees what is done in secret vertically?

Secondly: Am I more concerned with the trouble that my sin may cause me in this world, or with the dishonor that sin brings the name of the holy God? Does my sin trouble me relationally with God and with Jesus, or am I just concerned about what could happen to me as a result?

Thirdly: Do I rejoice from the heart over the success of God's work done in the world whether I'm involved or not, you're involved or not, whether you get any credit or not? Are you just happy when you hear of sinners brought to faith of the advance, of the gospel in some way, of a church growing somewhere that's not related to ours at all? Do you just delight in that, because it's the advance of Christ kingdom? Or do you personally need to be involved and get the credit?

Number four: Do I desire to do all of the duties and actions of the genuine Christian life, even though they may be costly and difficult? And when I find that I come short of them do I grieve over it and yearn for the gap to be closed so I live that genuine Christian life? Do you basically celebrate the pure, perfect Christian life you see in the epistles, and in the gospels, even if you can't quite attain it? Does it bring you joy and delight? Or as it says in Romans 7, “In my inner being, I delight in God's law.” Is that true of you?

Number five: am I sincerely resolved to follow Christ in holiness in all circumstances in my life even if it's unpopular with the surrounding culture, or do I hold back on Christ fearful of what other people will think?

And number six: Do I make no conscience of committing secret sins or omitting secret duties, or do I seek to carry out the secret aspects of my Christian faith, personal holiness in secret, as Jesus commands in Matthew 6?

What I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna close the sermon in prayer, and then we're gonna go to a time of the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a great grace that God has given us, it's a foretaste of Heaven. It's a chance to look at what Jesus did on the cross. If you have come to saving faith in Christ already and you've testified to that by water baptism, you are welcome at this table. If you haven't come to faith in Christ, if you know that you're not a Christian, then don't come to the table but just accept Christ right now; believe in Jesus now. And in the future, you'll be welcome at the Lord's table. So prepare your hearts. If you've heard the Word, now examine yourselves and prepare to receive the gift and the blessing of the Lord's supper.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the ministry of the word that we've heard now. And Father, as we give our attention to the Lord's Supper, we think of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, the way that he shed his blood, and the way that he was raised from the dead, and the way that he now so very graciously invites former enemies to come and sit at table with them, as we heard in that song earlier. Thank you Jesus, thank you. And Lord, that this would be a sacrifice of thanksgiving. I pray that you would send forth now your Holy Spirit. Work conviction in us, work change in us, oh Lord, work conversion in some that may be here today. And Lord be here, Holy Spirit minister Christ to us now by these homely elements of the bread and the cup, we pray in Jesus name.

Hypocrisy, that's the word that's in front of me and in front of us this morning, hypocrisy, the wearing of the spiritual mask. It starts with pride, it starts with the desire to be praised and honored by other people. And it gives little thought to what God really thinks. Hypocrisy is concerned with external appearances, with a show of righteousness. Hypocrisy wears a mask and a costume, having learned religious jargon, having learned religious facial expressions, religious tones of voice and religious body language, it's able to appear to most any audience as righteous.

Hypocrisy gets dressed for church every Sunday, polishes up the image and walks out on stage, and puts on a show. Conversations in the parking lot, in the church foyer, over coffee during Bible for Life. All of these handled with skill to hide the reality.

And what is the reality? Spiritual death, spiritual decay, enslavement to sin, to pride, and lust, and materialism, and pleasure. That's the truth. And though that person knows the language of Christ and of the gospel, the reality, the power of godliness is starkly absent to the only audience it really matters, and that's God. It's one of the most painful works of a pastor, to expose a gospel hypocrite. Maybe one of the most difficult as well. But that's a labor that's in front of us, not just this week, but next week, for two weeks. We're going to look at the issue of hypocrisy.

And the issue of spiritual hypocrisy, I think is one of the most deadly in the Christian life. It's a counterfeit righteousness, that effectively blocks the sinner from receiving the true righteousness that Christ offers freely by faith. Contrasted with the actor is the true Christian, the true Christian cannot stand the sham, is deeply aware of the sin within, and wants the genuine remedy. Wants a genuine walk with Christ. And the greatest grief in the life of a true Christian is the gap between their life, and the true standard taught in the gospel, that's the greatest grief in the heart of a true Christian. True Christians aren't perfect, they don't live the perfect standard that's not the case at all. But they yearn for it, they hunger and thirst for it. But not so the hypocrite.

A true Christian is spiritually humble, broken-hearted meek and lowly, concerning his own condition and his own situation. The Beatitudes describe the true Christian well, “Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. And blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

So this morning, we're gonna take a painful walk through Matthew 23, one of the most devastating chapters in the Bible. You have Christ, the gentle Savior, launching missiles of judgment on the Scribes and Pharisees. We hear this repeated refrain, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.” And as I mentioned last week, and I'll keep reminding, the biggest mistake you can ever make when you come to a passage like this, is to assume that Christ is talking about someone else and aren't you glad it isn't you? That's a big mistake you can ever make. No, a genuine Christian, is deeply concerned about hypocrisy.

One of the marks of true Christianity, is you take warning passages very seriously. You never blow them off, because you're well aware of the sin within. You feel it, you know it, you're wrestling, you're fighting it every day by the power of the Spirit. And the warnings help you in your fight. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the warnings give you that strength to fight. So we don't run from the warnings, we embrace them. We say, “You must be speaking to me, Lord.” And so as we hear Christ verbally undress the scribes and Pharisees and their wretched hypocrisy, if this passage should make us feel smug, and righteous, and say, “I'm sure glad I'm not like them,” then I do believe you've missed the point. Rather we should be taking our hearts to Christ and saying, “I want a genuine work of grace in my heart. I want a genuine walk with Christ, change me dear Jesus.”

Now also, as we come to Matthew 23, we're not just coming to any kind of hypocrisy, we're coming to a specific kind of hypocrisy, and that's hypocrisy in spiritual leaders of the people of God. It's a deadly dangerous form of hypocrisy, when spiritual leaders are hypocrites, and that's what we're dealing with here with the Scribes and Pharisees.

Now, I've said before, we need to be aware that Satan has three great, categorically, three great weapons that he uses on the people of God. Worldliness which is the allure of the world. Its enticements, its appeal, its sensual pleasures, its excitements, visual pleasures. Vanity Fair, and all of its enticements, the allure of the world that's worldliness.

Secondly, there's persecution, that's the attack of the world. Rejections, insults, missed promotions, gossip, slander, shunning by cliques, all the way up to bitter pounding by hate-filled governments and religious zealots, imprisonment, riots, confiscation of property, torture and death, that's persecution.

And then the third, false doctrine, false teaching. The perversion of right doctrine, by a subtle convincing counterfeit. An overemphasis of some truth until it becomes a falsehood. The infiltration of strange ideas, strange worship patterns, things that are contrary to the biblical conception of God, legalism on one side, license on the other. False doctrine.

And of the three, the greatest as I've said before, is false teaching, Because it lingers to attack that thing which is said to be the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, to the gospel. The gospel is doctrine, and false teaching attacks the doctrine and therefore cuts the tap root of spiritual life and the people. 

And the greatest condemnation there is in the Bible, is for spiritual leaders, hypocritical spiritual leaders who are teaching false doctrine. 2 Peter 2:17, Peter says of them, “These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.” The Bible hints at the fact that there's not all equal punishments in how there are different levels of condemnation. There are different levels of judgment and it seems that blackest darkness is reserved for false teachers. Hypocrites.

Now, as we're looking at Matthew 23, we're looking at the Scribes and Pharisees, or the teachers of law and the Pharisees. We see a hellish combination of all three attacks. We see worldliness in these men, worldliness, because they're consumed with their earthly situation, they do spiritual things for earthly benefits, they're very worldly. They're concerned with earthly prestige and power and greetings, and marketplaces and titles of honor. Most important seats in the banquets and they're materialistic too, in terms of they devour widows' houses it says in Luke 20, they gobble them up and so they use their position to get money. I think they're in charge of the sacrificial system in there and the money is just rolling in. And so there's that materialism, worldliness.

Persecution, we see that absolutely, they savagely attacked true religion. They fought Jesus every step of the way. Persecuted him on every step of the way, and they are the ones at this point, who are secretly plotting to have Jesus killed. And Jesus says, “This is what your future holds.” Right here in this chapter, verse 34. I won't cover it today, but he says, “I'm sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. And some of them you will kill and crucify and others, you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.” Persecution.

And then thirdly, false teaching, they taught a false teaching, false gospel of legalism and self-righteousness. Legalism is thinking that you can be in right standing with God by your obedience to God. That's what legalism is. And so as you try to have a right standing with God, you look to your own obedience to God's rules and God's commands, that's the essence of legalism. That's what they taught. They had a meticulously careful system of reinterpretation of Moses's laws, human traditions and all that, and they taught that you could be saved, by following their approach to religion.

And so these are the deadliest enemies of the gospel that the early church faced. The triple threat of worldliness, persecution and false doctrine. More than that Jesus's denunciation of them in Matthew 23, exposes the hypocrisy of our own hearts. The fact that we ourselves are not what we ought to be, and we have our own outward shows of righteousness and our inward corruptions, and so that's the work that's in front of us here. 

Now, as we look at Matthew 23, we're looking, as I said, at the bitterest of all of Christ's teachings. He pulls no punches and therefore he's hard to listen to in our tolerant age. 

This post-modern age of ours is an age of toleration. And we embrace that kind of toleration. Live and let live. So clear denunciation of other people for their spiritual lives and their doctrines is considered extremely rude and harsh and divisive and judgmental. But let's never forget, the one who's speaking these words here in Matthew 23 actually is the judge of all the earth. And so, if it seems judgemental, understand the one giving it has the right to judge. It says in John chapter 5 that “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” 

And later in the same Gospel, in Matthew 25, Jesus said this, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him. And he will separate the nations one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” He's gonna put the sheep on his right and he's gonna put the goats on his left. And then, he's going to pronounce over some eternal blessedness. And he's gonna pronounce over others eternal condemnation. And he has the right to do it. That's the one who's speaking here in Matthew 23.

So what should happen in the hearts of some people, the Scribes and Pharisees, to hear the judge of all the earth say this, “You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to Hell?” That's one of the most terrifying verses in the entire Bible. Think of who's saying it. Asking what are you gonna do to get out of Hell? How are you going to escape?

Now, the Gospel of Matthew, the context for this, the unifying theme of the Gospel of Matthew is the Kingdom of Heaven. And really, more specifically, if I can say it this way, Jesus as the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, that's the unifying theme of the whole 28 chapters, the Kingdom of Heaven and Jesus as its King.

And so, from the very beginning, it starts with the genealogy proving Jesus' right to be king. And then after the birth narratives, we have John the Baptist who is coming and saying, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” And he testified that someone was coming after him, whose sandals he wasn't worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire and his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, he'll gather up the wheat into his barn, but he'll burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. That's Jesus, the judge of all the earth coming in the name of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then after Jesus faces Satan in the desert, fasting 40 days and 40 nights, and defeating him, he then begins to preach the exact same message that John the Baptist had been preaching: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

And then in the Sermon on the Mount, as I have already quoted the Beatitudes, we have an unfolding of the nature of the hearts of those that are in that kingdom, starting with the Beatitudes, but just going on beyond that. The nature of the kingdom is a kingdom of true heart righteousness, of heart religion, in which the righteousness of those who dwell there must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes. It's a true heart righteousness, in which we fight not only external crimes like murder, but the root of it, which is anger. Not just external sins like adultery, but the root of it, which is lust. 

It looks right down into the heart, in which Jesus warns us, be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. Don't put on a show, but do your acts of righteousness secretly, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so you're giving may be in secret. And when you pray, go into your rooms and close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. And when you fast, put oil on your head, and wash your face, so that nobody knows you're fasting, live secretly unto God. He's the one who sees everything, have a heart religion. Have a heart righteousness.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these other things, food, clothing and shelter will be given to you. Don't judge other people. Take the plank out of your eye, see your own sin first. See how plain it is, should be there, it's right in front of your face, you should see it. And if you're able to deal with that and honestly deal in a broken-hearted way, with your own sin, then you'll be able to see clearly to help a speck out of a brother or sister's eye. And beware of false prophets. Beware of false teachers. They come to you and sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ferocious wolves.

The Sermon on the Mount, describes the Kingdom of Heaven, and from that point on, Jesus goes on to display the power of the Kingdom of Heaven. It's not a matter of word only, but of power of transformation, of the forgiveness of sins of miracles done, sins to a paralyzed man. “Your sins are forgiven,” because he sees his faith. He can look right into the man's heart and he can say, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus read the minds of his enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees standing around, “This is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus knew their thoughts and said, “Which is easier to say: ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘rise, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.” And then he said to the paralyzed man, “Rise and walk,” and he got up and walked. That's the power of the Kingdom of Heaven, forgiveness of sins, a genuine heart transformation.

We come at the end of Matthew's gospel, the final week of Jesus' life, Jesus makes his triumphal entry. They're proclaiming him the Son of David, but they don't understand who he is. They don't know what he's come to do. His enemies are angry at him. Jesus gets into one conflict with them after another, they demand to know by what right he cleanses the temple, and they deal with him at that level. And then Jesus tells parables concerning their wickedness and their sin, and then they come at him in chapter 22 with one tough question after another, and Jesus deals with them all.

And after all of that, this is Jesus' final formal word to the Jewish nation, Matthew 23. That's the context of these woes.

Who were the Scribes and Pharisees? We talked about them last time, the Pharisees were members of a religious sect, it was legalistic and he had worked its way into a position of power and authority and influence in Israel. Who thought that they were righteous because of how well they obeyed their version of the laws of Moses. And the scribes were professional copyists of the law, who therefore knew the law better than others, and were arrogant because of that and taught the same kinds of things that the Pharisees taught.

And in this chapter, we have a seven-fold woe. Seven times Jesus says, “Woe to you.” Seven times. Now, this is Jesus is taking on the office of a prophet here. There are three great offices in the Old Testament: prophet, priest and king, Jesus is the consummation of all three. And here he is the ultimate final prophet of God. The ultimate prophet of God. And he's standing over Israel and Israel's leaders pronouncing a seven-fold woe. The word woe is danger from a prophet. You're in danger of condemnation. You're in danger of judgment. It's a prophetic word.

Isaiah used it frequently. Isaiah 3:11, “Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They'll be paid back for what their hands have done.” In Isaiah 5, six times he uses the word “woe.” And then in chapter 6, he turns it on himself. “Woe is me” says Isaiah “I am ruined, for I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” He turns the word of woe in on himself. If you do that, in truth, you're safe dear friends. You're safe in Christ, because you realize you need a Savior and you run to the cross. You run to the blood shed on the cross for you. If you can say, “Woe is me” and then run to the cross, dear friends you're safe.

So that's what Jesus is doing, He's proclaiming woe to them. And I really do believe it's one final effort to save them. I think he's reaching out, he's just speaking words at this point. It's just words, friends, it's just words. But it's not just words, is it? Those words held out the only hope of life for them, if they would just listen.

And we see Jesus probing their hearts, astonishing perceptiveness in this chapter. He knows what their motives are, he knows why they do what they do. How can he know us so well? Well, he is the one who searches hearts and minds, Revelations chapter 2. He reads your thoughts. I already talked to you about when they said this fellow is blaspheming.

I love that passage in Luke, where a Pharisee had him over and he's eating and this sinful woman comes and touches him, and the man says in his heart, “If this man really were a prophet, he'd know what kind of woman is touching him, that she's a sinner,” he was just thinking that thought. And the text says, “Jesus answered him and said, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’” That's a bit eerie when you think about it. Jesus answered him, answered what? His thoughts, the thoughts of his heart.

Does Jesus know your heart? Yes. Does Jesus study your heart? Yes, he does. Is Jesus concerned with hypocrisy? Yes, he is. And the judgment, the Judgment Day, it says in 1 Corinthians 4:5, “He's going to bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts.” That's what he does on Judgment Day. Romans 2:16 speaks of Judgment Day, as the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything's uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” The safest thing you can do dear friends is just lay under that gaze of God now. Say, “Search me, know me, search my heart. Find if there's anything wicked in me,” Psalm 139, “Lead me in the way everlasting.” That's the safest thing you can do.

So let's look at the first of these seven woes. We're gonna finish next week, but let's start with this one in verse 13. “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces, you yourselves do not enter nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Simply put, these men were spiritual leaders who led to hell. That's really what Jesus is saying. “You yourselves do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you're not going to Heaven, not as you are.” He calls them blind guides in verse 14. “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

In another place again in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:20, he makes it plain that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You must have a perfect righteousness, and that can only be given to you as a gift by faith, if you just trust in Jesus, He just gives you that righteousness as a gift.

But these men, they reduce the laws of God to a system of works established by the traditions of men. This system was overwhelming, it was comprehensive, but it was doable, just as long as you were a hypocrite. You can actually claim, “I've kept all of the laws of God from my youth, all of them.” And they missed the point of the law of God, the point of Sinai was to crush our self-confidence and get us to flee to Christ. That's what the law is for, to crush our self-confidence and enable us to flee to Christ.

But these men were legalists, and they thought that if they could just keep their own traditions of the law, keep them as far as the outward human audience went anyway, then they would be right with God. Legalism fails before God, and that's the only place that matters, isn't it? Isn't that the only thing that matters, whether God thinks you're righteous or not, whether God accepts you or not? That's the only thing that matters.

Legalism may soothe your conscience if you do well, it may make you feel proud, it might make you feel religious, might make you feel better than other people, it might be a little bit of a religious bump or high or something like that. May bring order to your life. It may enable you to achieve showy outward results, but inevitably, it will damn your soul. Because your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, it must be perfect righteousness.

Now, there's another way to understand this saying, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you allow those to enter who are trying to.” These men had in effect made themselves judges of who was going to Heaven or not. And they were essentially dispensers of despair.

They shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces saying, “You will never go to Heaven, you have no hope.” They offered no hope to a prostitute. There's no grace or mercy in their system. They offered no hope to a tax collector. They also offered no hope to an adulterer or adulteress. Disqualified, you’re out of the race. And I think for them, they're probably happy about it, they're in competition with these people, and the more unrighteous people that were around them, the more righteous they felt. They shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces. For people that were trying to enter, the scribes and Pharisees just ministered hopelessness, and they were bitter enemies of Christianity.

This is another way to look at it as well, when the true gospel started going forth, they got in the way of it, they impeded it, they tried to prevent people from coming to faith in Christ. You read the book of Acts, and we'll talk more about this next week, but everywhere Paul went, there were these zealous Jews that were there trying to hinder the gospel, everywhere. They would travel to do it. It's like, didn't they have jobs, didn't they have something to do with their time? Where is Paul going next, we'll be there. Just to make trouble for him.

Paul talks about them in 1 Thessalonians 2, speaks of the Jews, I think he means people like the scribes and Pharisees, “who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displeased God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles, so that they may be saved. And in this way, they heap up their sins to the limit the wrath of God has come upon them at last.” Shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces.

You know what I wanna do, I wanna open it wide. I wanna say what Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, said Jesus, for I'm humble and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.” Come to Jesus, Kingdom's open wide. The curtain of the temple has been torn in two from top to bottom. The way is open. Come. And if today you hear his voice, don't harden your heart, but just come to Jesus, Let him forgive your sins. It's wide open.

Second woe, verse 15, “Woe to you teachers of law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Hell as you are.” Continuing the previous themes, he just addresses their zeal here. Here it’s their zeal for converts. They exert themselves with great zeal to gather disciples after themselves.

I think it's all a matter of pride. If you can have 20 disciples who follow your ways it makes you feel proud. And that was what was motivating them. A yearning for pride. And notice the level of their zeal, they travel over land and sea for a single convert. Back then travel was very difficult, laborious, dangerous. Getting on the Mediterranean Sea in a boat, you might have a shipwreck like Paul did. Very dangerous. But they're willing to do anything, they're willing to travel over land and sea, tremendous zeal.

So it is today, we're surrounded by religionists who are more zealous than we are. Twenty-first century Islamic jihadists who will train body and mind for one thing, and that is death, for suicide, all for the glory of Allah. And their zeal greatly outstrips ours. But if any should follow their teachings, they will lead them to Hell. For it's just yet another legalistic system is all it is, just another work system, a system of works righteousness, but their zeal is great.

Or how about the Mormons, many young Mormon people, young men and women, travel over land and sea, they get on airplanes, they go into dangerous and difficult places. I remember seeing them in Japan, they look the same in Japan that they do here. It's always the same. I mean, the white shirt, the tie, you know, bike helmets, the backpacks. There's a couple of Mormons. And they are there, they're all over the world. 53,000 Mormon missionaries on the field right now, 5,000 Southern Baptist missionaries. Travel over land and sea to win a single convert. And then if they should make one, they make them twice as much a son of Hell as they are.

Or what about the Jehovah's Witnesses? They go from door to door, knocking on doors, trying to win converts. And if they should ever win them to that false system, they would make them twice as much sons of Hell as they are. What this means is, under condemnation, they've not come to the true gospel.

So I say to you, zeal for evangelism is a good thing, it's good to be a soul winner, amen. It's good to sacrifice so that others can come to faith in Christ, but it won't save your soul. The only thing that's gonna save your soul is if you yourself come to Christ. And having been saved, then you can invite others.

Thirdly, woe for being blind guides, look at Verses 16-22. “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by Heaven swears by God's throne, and by the one who sits on it.”

These men were blind guides, they had no idea where they were going. In John 9, Jesus speaks to the Pharisees after the healing of the man born physically blind. And he made this statement: “For judgment I have come into the world so that those who are blind may be able to see, and that those who see may become blind.” And the Pharisees said, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now that you claim we can see, your guilt remains.” And so, they were spiritually blind.

Now, how is it displayed? Well, here it has to do with the issue of the swearing of oaths. This is very big in Judaism. Swearing of the oaths. “I swear by the temple of God that I'll be in Jerusalem by the Passover, I swear by the temple of God.” Well, it turns out, if he said that, his oath meant nothing. You have to read the fine print here, it's gotta do with fine print. These folks were lawyers, remember? They were legally-minded. You have to read the fine print. Such an oath is invalid. Now, if he had sworn by the gold of the temple to be in Jerusalem by the Passover, now that would be binding. Playing games, playing games. “If you swear by the altar, now it means nothing, but if you should happen to swear by the gift on the altar, now that oath is binding.”

Now Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by Heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’; or else you'll be condemned.”

So at core, a dishonest heart makes a read-the-fine-print oath, you know, crossing the fingers. I always wonder, where’d that come from? If you say something but you're crossing your fingers behind your back, it really doesn't count. Do you not understand? God created Heaven and earth by the word of his power, when God speaks it's true. God is incapable of lying. There is a God in the universe, that's Jesus' point here. And he holds you to what you say, and if you start playing tricky games with your words and try to evade your promises, woe to you.

And so, Jesus reminds them of the temple and the one who dwells in it, that's God. And he who swears by Heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it. A true spiritual guide has eyes of faith, and everything he does is in the presence of God. And when you say something, God is listening to you, he hears what you say. And so, Jesus just sweeps away these tricky little word games that they were playing.

And next week, we're gonna look at the last woes, the tithing of mint leaves, and neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. The fact that they externally look clean and actually inward, they're full of corruption. And for honoring dead prophets while murdering the live ones. We'll talk about that next week.

What application can we take from this? Well, start with this, just say, “Lord, I acknowledge that there is hypocrisy in my heart.” Now let me say something to you about this. There are two kinds of hypocrisy.

One is the hypocrisy that every single Christian feels when there's this difference between what you espouse as a standard in the way you're really living. Do you not feel that in your heart? And if you think you're entirely free from that, you don't know yourself and you don't know the Word of God. But if you look at the word of God, and then you see your life and you see there's a gap between him, that's the hypocrisy that sanctification seeks to address. You're trying to make that as small a gap as possible. The answer to that hypocrisy has come back again to the cross and say, “Lord, I am not living as I should. I want you to purge me, I want you to clean me, I want you to change me.”

But then there's a different kind of hypocrisy, in which you present yourself to be a Christian and you really aren't. And that one will condemn your soul to Hell. Now, next week I'm gonna talk about how can you tell the difference? We all see sin in our lives. How can I know whether I'm a gospel hypocrite? I'm gonna talk about that.

But let me say this one thing in closing. The mark of a genuine Christian is a yearning after righteousness inward and out, and the yearning to make your life conform to what Christ commands, whether anyone sees it or not. And so, Thomas Brooks said this, make this your prayer and let this all close. A genuine Christian says this, “Oh, that this ignorant heart were more enlightened! Oh, that this proud heart were just more humble! Oh, that this profane heart were just more holy! Oh, that this earthly heart were more heavenly! Oh, that this unbelieving heart was just more believing! Oh, that this angry heart was more humble! Oh, that this carnal heart was more spiritual! That this vain heart was more serious-minded! That this dull heart was more quickened! that this dead heart was more enlightened! Oh, that this lukewarm heart was more zealous for God and for Christ in the Gospel, and the great concerns of eternity!

We turn to a new chapter, in our study of Matthew today, Matthew chapter 23. And as we do so, we come to a potentially very disturbing chapter, a very unusual chapter in Matthew's gospel, and in the gospels in general. We see Jesus just letting loose on his enemies, in just a stream of criticism, of conviction, a prophetic denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. It's very powerful. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites,” he says again and again. We’re not gonna get to that section of Matthew 23 today, but this is what's in front of us, as Jesus just lets loose on his enemies, and speaks the truth to them.

Often, I think, just in my own personal life, as I think about being a spiritual leader, I think about my role as a pastor, and just as a man, I think of that vision of Christ that the Apostle John had and recorded in Revelation chapter 1. The resurrected, the glorified Christ, who the Apostle John, in his exile in Patmos, saw, and a vision of Christ that is just stunning and overwhelming. And something captures me. It speaks there, in that picture of the resurrected Christ that he has on the island of Patmos, that his eyes are like blazing fire. And later, in his letter to the churches, his letters to the churches, Jesus, speaking about each of the seven churches that he seeks to address, he says this, “I am he who searches hearts and minds.” And I just put those two together, Jesus, the resurrected Christ, the glorious, the holy one, the one with the eyes of blazing fire, he searches our hearts and our minds. He knows us. As the psalmist said, “Search me, O God, and know me, and try me and see if there's anything unworthy in me.”

So I think about that as I come to Matthew 23, as he just turns those eyes of blazing fire on the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites who are spiritual leaders in Israel. And there are just a number of dangers as we come to this chapter, and there's just dangers that are uncovered in the chapter for us. And just the dangers of the chapter itself.

And the danger is when, if you come to a passage like this, say, “I'm so glad I'm not like them.” Aren't you just so glad that we're not like the scribes and Pharisees? Danger, dear friends, danger. You should never do that. “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” We've got to come to the scribes and Pharisees and say, “Oh God, show me how I am like them, and teach me to not be that way. I don't wanna be like that.”

And as pastors, as elders, spiritual leaders, we can come and say, “I'm just so glad that I'm not a leader like the scribes and Pharisees.” Woe to us then, if that's how we come to it, we need to humble ourselves before this text and say, “God, make me not like this. I don't wanna be a spiritual leader who is a hypocrite, I don't wanna be a white-washed tomb.”

Church people who are not spiritual leaders can say, “I'm glad I'm not in that position of leadership, and I can just assess those who are, and I can just look at the scribes and Pharisees, and if need be, our own pastors or elders, and say, ‘There it is.’” Woe to you if you do that.

We need to all be under this chapter, don't we? We need to let it search us, because, frankly, we all struggle with the sins that are exposed here. Hypocrisy, pride, worldliness, these are the sins that Jesus is dealing with. And can we really say, “Thank God I'm free from all of those”? “Thank God I don't need to worry about hypocrisy. I am exactly what I appear to be. Thank God that I don't need to worry about pride, I'm the most humble person I know. Thank God the world holds no attraction for me. I'm free from any concern for worldly praise or worldly positions or worldly possessions and pleasures. I'm free from all that.” Oh, you know yourself, don't you? Say instead, “God bring it to me. Bring me Matthew 23. Search me, Lord Jesus, with those blazing eyes. Teach me who I really am.”

Now I come to another danger, and that's just the danger in ministry for me, as a pastor, anybody in spiritual leadership, and it's just something that's standing there all the time. And the danger is this, is that, at some point, we will turn away from a central desire to please God and turn to earthly things instead, that we will seek, through ministry, to please ourselves in some way, in some worldly way. That's a great danger, and it stands over me, over all the elders, the pastors of every church, that at some point, you're gonna turn away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ and seek to get something earthly out of your service to God.

It's a great danger. It's been around a long time, and it's exposed here in this text, we'll see it, in these 12 verses we're gonna look at. It went back in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 34 talks about these shepherds. “Woe to you, Shepherds of Israel, you shear the flock and you eat the meat and you tear them apart, but you don't tend the poor and the needy. You don't go after the strays.” It's been that way a long long time. Those who, like Paul says, we never put on a mask to cover up greed, God is our witness. Greedy people are idolaters, Paul tells us, and so people in spiritual leadership can become idolaters. They can look for something earthly out of their service to the church, been going around a long time.

It was going on in the Middle Ages with the Roman Catholic Church, and then on into the time of the Reformation. Right before the Reformation, there was a pope, Pope Julius II, a fascinating individual. He was a warrior Pope. I mean, not spiritual warfare. I'm talking, he got on a horse with a sword and with armor and went out and led a Catholic army out onto the field to battle his enemies, and fought them, and he wanted to be seen as a warrior.

As a matter of fact, he commissioned Michelangelo to do a number of works of art there in Rome, and Michelangelo, one of the works was of himself. Julius paid for money to have a sculpture of himself. And so, Michelangelo made him holding a Bible. He said, “What's that under my arm?” “It's a Bible, your Holiness.” “A Bible.” “What do I know of Bibles? Put a sword in my hand.”

Erasmus wrote, after Julius died, wrote a very humorous piece called “Pope Julius Excluded from Heaven.” It's actually very funny to read, as the Pope is there knocking on the gates, and they won't let him in. But very, very incisive to how this man had traded, if he ever had it, I don't think he ever had any piety, but traded it for earthly things.

And it's been going around a long time, it's going on in our day, in the 21st century. In 2008, World Magazine did an exposé on six televangelists and their private jets. I don't know if you read it. The name of the article I thought was clever: “What Would Jesus Fly?” What would he fly? What corporate jet would he fly? What private jet? Of all the various options, which one would he choose? And so, it named the names: Fred Price, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, these men who have private jets.

Jesse Duplantis, in particular, had a support letter that he sent out, in which he was talking about the Falcon 50 jet that he was going to purchase. It's a super-medium or long-range plane, able to go 3,000 miles between refueling, can fly from coast-to-coast. This is a private jet, it's pictured on the cover of your bulletin. You are wondering what in the world does that have to do with the sermon? But there it is. There's the Falcon 50. And he called it “a great tool for world evangelization.” It can sell for up to $50 million.

I was thinking, as I was reading this article, about Jesus' original instructions to his twelve apostles, when he sent them out two by two, you remember in Matthew chapter 10, he said, “Do not take along any gold or silver in your belts, take no bag for the journey or extra tunic or sandals or a staff even,” but get on your Falcon 50 and fly wherever the Lord leads you to go, and they'll supply you with everything you might need there. Alright.

But again, danger, danger for me, danger for me to judge these men for what they're doing and not say that there's something here in Matthew 23 that exposes me, as a pastor. Can I really say that there are no earthly motives in my service to First Baptist Church? That there's nothing earthly in my heart as I seek to get up to preach or as I minister here? Can I really say that? Can pastors really say they're free from being addicted to pastoral perks, like the pastor's parking spot? I do have a parking spot here, and if you park in it, it's gonna be a problem for me. But we haven't chosen to put a little plaque on it yet so, because nobody seems to want it, but at any rate, there it is, pastoral perks.

And I tell you this, there's not a pastor that doesn't have danger in this area, can get addicted to earthly benefits that come from serving Christ. One simple one is just the praise and encouragement that you get. If you're in a loving congregation, you're gonna get encouragement. Now, don't overhear what I'm about to say, don't go too far the other direction. It is a good thing to encourage faithful servants of any type in a church. I don't just single out elders or pastors but anybody who is doing something for the Lord, there should be some stream of encouragement going toward that individual, should be.

Okay, but it can easily become addictive for a pastor, can easily become addictive. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, spoke more generally about what it means to store up treasure on Earth. He said, “Our Lord's injunction means to avoid anything that centers on this world only. It applies to people who, though they may not be interested in wealth or money at all, are yet interested in other things which are entirely worldly in the last analysis. They cannot be tempted maybe by money, but they can be tempted by status or position, promotion into positions of power has done endless harm in the Church of God to men who have been quite honest and sincere but who have not been on guard against this danger. They have been laying up treasures on earth without knowing it, their interest has suddenly been moved from that one center of pleasing God and working for his honor and his glory and it's turned, almost without their knowing it, to themselves and their own engagement in his work. In such ways,” says Lloyd-Jones, “a man can be laying up treasures on earth and it is so subtle that even good people can be a man's greatest enemy. Many a preacher has been ruined by his congregation, their praise, their encouragement of him as a man, has almost ruined him as a messenger of God, and he has become guilty of laying up treasures on earth. He tends, almost unconsciously, to be controlled by the desire to have his people's good opinion and praise, and the moment that happens, that man is laying up treasures on earth.” End quote.

Again, I'm not saying that you should never encourage me or other brothers or sisters in Christ. I'm not saying that. I'm talking about what's going on in my heart while it's happening, what's going on in our hearts as we receive that praise and that encouragement. You can start living for those material benefits to ministry, and there are deeper issues of pride, control, demanding more and more control in the church, more and more influence.

And so, for all of these reasons, the great dangers here the Lord Jesus spends his final public sermon in Matthew's gospel, not on a salvation theme directly, but on a sober warning against false spiritual leaders whose arrogance severely damages the people of God, the scribes and Pharisees.

And so we've seen Christ dealing with his enemies here. They have been coming at him. They have been seeking to trap him, they're trying to get him in trouble, they wanna kill him, they hate him.

Jesus ends Matthew 22 with a question, which we covered last week, about whose son is the Christ. And they couldn't answer a word in reply, but that didn't mean Jesus was done with them. Now here, in Matthew 23, he turns his guns on them, so to speak, prophetically, and he exposes them, these scribes and Pharisees. Who were they?

Well, the Pharisees were one of the major religious sects of the time. They were extremely conscientious, and they felt that their good standing with God was in relation to their obedience to God's commands, even down to the minutiae of the Mosaic Law. They were the Pharisees. We've seen them again and again.

And the scribes, the NIV, has “teachers of the law,” they were copyists, and they would stand at desks and they would copy the scriptures and make them available to people. And so they were the ones that counted the letters, they were the ones that knew how many letters there were. They were also well-trained then in the scriptural things, and found themselves to be teachers of Israel.

And in a good way, that is a tremendous blessing, you'll get Ezra, and Ezra was a scribe, that's what he was. And he was a godly scribe. It says in Ezra 7:10, “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord into teaching its decrees and laws in Israel,” that's good. And in Nehemiah 8, Ezra faithfully instructed the Jews, just a great chapter of expositional teaching of the law, and just how faithfully he unfolded the Word of God. That's Ezra.

But in Jesus' day, the scribes, the teachers of the law were some of his bitterest enemies. They became arrogant and selfish. As we're gonna see in this chapter, they thought that they were righteous because they knew more of the Bible than anyone else. And the worst part of all was that they had missed the whole point of scripture.

The whole point of scripture is Jesus Christ. The whole point of scripture is to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And these are the ones about whom it’s said in John chapter 5, “You diligently study the Scriptures,” Jesus said, “Because you think that by them you possess eternal life?” Just 'cause you have a Bible? “These are the scriptures that testify about me,” said Jesus, “and you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” These are the scribes.

So Jesus exposes them, and he begins by saying, in verse 2 and 3, “The teachers of the law, the scribes, and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.” Now, this is really quite fascinating. It causes commentators some difficulty. They're really bad people, as we're gonna see in this whole chapter, but Jesus is telling us to kind of obey them and do everything they tell us.

It's problematic because, in another place, in Matthew 15, he says, “These teachers of the law and these Pharisees were hypocrites, whose teachings were just rules taught by men.” In Matthew 16, he warned his own disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” and came to understand that meant their doctrines. Be careful of what they teach. And yet, here he's saying the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you.

Well, there are two different ways that commentators go on this. One is that Jesus is actually being somewhat sarcastic, because the Greek actually implies they have taken it upon themselves to sit in Moses' seat. They have taken a place that really wasn't given to them, but I actually don't go that direction. I'm gonna go a different direction.

I'm gonna say it this way, I don't really care who tells you the truth from the Word of God, you need to obey it. I don't care if a donkey opens up its mouth and brays that you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit adultery. Doesn't really make a difference who the messenger is as long as they're speaking the truth, according to the Word of God. When they teach according to the Mosaic Law, then you must obey them and do everything they tell you.

But the problem with them, at this point, at least, in Matthew 23, wasn't their teachings, other places, yes, but not here. The problem was how they were living. You must not follow their example, Jesus said, “Don't do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” You've heard that before. It was Jesus that said it first. They don't practice what they preach.

And so they're exposed here not for false teaching, but for false living. Jesus is gonna call them hypocrites seven times. A hypocrite is an actor, a hypocrite is somebody who presents something that they're not. And so these scribes and Pharisees were presenting themselves to be something they weren't.

They did not practice what they preached, Paul uncovers this, not focused so much on the scribes and Pharisees, but just the Jews who had the law and didn't keep it. In Romans 2:23-23, it says, “You then, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?” Dealing with the same issue here.

Therefore, what I take out of this, my application for this, I need to practice what I preach, and that's shattering for me. I'm a verse-by-verse expositor. Dear friends, I see more in the text than I can preach well, and I can preach better than I can live. What do I do then? Do I give up my ministry? Do I go take my talent and hide it in the ground until Jesus returns? No, you can't do that, I’m stuck. In James, it says I'm gonna be judged more severely, but in Matthew, if I take the talent and hide it in the ground, I'm going to be judged very severely. And so, what can I do except seek to live up to what I teach? But you know something? You're really not much different. I don't know if you notice this, but most of the commandments and the requirements for spiritual leaders are not much different than the Christian life, generally. And none of us can afford to be hypocrites. None of us can afford to espouse the standard of Christianity and not live up to it.

And so Paul told young Timothy, the young pastor, “Watch your life and your doctrine closely.” Persevere in them, in both the life and the doctrine, because if you do, you'll save both yourself and your hearers. So we've got to put the two together.

Jesus also spoke of the scribes and Pharisees and said that they lacked compassion for sinners. Look at verse 4, “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they, themselves, are not willing to lift a finger to help them.” Scribes and Pharisees here are exposed as cold, unfeeling, uncaring people, spiritually. And this, I believe, is a direct connection with - comes as a direct connection from spiritual pride. They see themselves as spiritually superior to everyone else, they're just better than everyone else, and therefore they just have no sympathy for anybody under them.

They believe that they have achieved this high level by their own efforts, they're spiritual athletes. So you wanna be as good as me? Then work as hard as I did. They have no sympathy whatsoever. They just don't see themselves properly. That's the whole problem. Truly genuinely converted people know the source of their salvation, don't they? They know who they really are. They really are actually spiritual beggars, Matthew 5:3, who had nothing to offer to God except sin, who could expect nothing from the justice of God, apart from the promises of the gospel, nothing but wrath, and they come to God as beggars and say, “Be merciful to me, the sinner.” They won't even look up to heaven, but beat their breast and beg for forgiveness. And they haven't forgotten that. And so then, when they go find other spiritual beggars, they know exactly how they got saved. And there's a mercy that goes out to them, there's a brokenness that connects with them, a yearning that they would know forgiveness because they're just like them, just like them. There's no difference.

But these scribes and Pharisees, what do they do? “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders.” This is talking about legalism, it's talking about legalism, that the burden, the oppressive burdens, of the Pharisaic way of getting to heaven. They were just relentless. The religion they set up was a cold-hearted relentless machine that just destroyed everybody except hypocrites, who said, “I keep it. I've kept all the laws of God.” They were the ones that said, “I can do it.” And they're arrogant, and they fly above everybody else, like a tax collector or a prostitute or just an average sinner. They can't get anything from the scribes and Pharisees, they're hopeless. They tie up heavy loads and throw them on men's shoulders, but they won't do anything to help them.

A genuine pastor, a genuine elder, a genuine spiritual leader is gonna have a broken-hearted compassion for sinners, and want to see burdens lifted. How different is Jesus than this who said in Matthew 11, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus lifts burdens. He lifts the crushing burden of a guilty conscience.

Maybe you came in here that way today. Maybe you came in here crushed by your guilty conscience. You know you're a sinner. You know you have no hope before the judgment seat of God. You know that you're heading for hell, but you don't know what to do. Woe to me if I don't tell you how to get that burden lifted. Come to Jesus. Let Jesus lift that burden from you. He lifted it from me. He lifted it from me, and I'm free of my sins not because of my own righteousness, 'cause I worked harder than anybody else, but because Jesus was merciful to me and gracious to me. Oh, find mercy in Christ. Come to the cross, find it in Jesus, find it in his blood, so you understand that Jesus is the Son of God, and he shed his blood for you, to take your burden off of you.

But you see, these folks, they just put burdens on people, and made people feel guilty all the time. The Apostle Paul didn't do that. He said in 1 Thessalonians 2, “We were gentle among you like a mother caring for her little children. You know that we dealt with each one of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting you, urging you to live lives worthy of the Lord.” That's the ministry right there. It's not crushing burdens thrown on people and, “Good luck with that. Hope you can do well.” It's not that at all.

We also see, and this is fundamental to the rest of the chapter, verse 5, “Everything they do is done for men to see,” do you see that? What's the problem with that? You know what it is? They've lost God focus, if they ever had it. They are not focused on God. They don't have faith, that's a whole thing.

True spiritual leadership has to do with faith. It has to do with seeing the invisible, seeing God and pleasing him and ministering invisible things for the benefit of people. You're in an invisible realm, you're ministering invisible things. It's a faith ministry here, but these folks, everything they do is done for men to see. They lack faith. They're not God-centered. They're self-centered and they’re world-centered, so they put their religiosity out as a badge for everyone to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long. These phylacteries were just leather boxes that they put on their foreheads and on their arms, and they wrapped them up with leather straps, and they were literalistically obeying the command to tie them as symbols on your foreheads, and bind them on your hands, and put them on your doorposts, and all that.

So they literally did that. And I'm not necessarily against that, but I think, it's actually I have just a physical problem with it, because what they did was they wrote the scriptures that said tie them up, etc., they wrote those actual scriptures and put them in a box. I would think the Lord would rather have them open and read every day, read multiple times. It's the reading of it. So I think I'm actually against the literalistic obedience of this. I don't actually think Jesus had the box on his head. I think, instead, he sought to live it out by having it in his mind, saturating it in his mind.

And so everything they did was done for men to see, and so constantly, in Scripture, praise from men is pitted against praise from God, as if you cannot seek both, and you can't. You can't desire both. You may have both, but you can't seek both. Do you see the difference? I mean, I'm sure Paul received plenty of praise in his life. Jesus received praise in his life. There's nothing wrong with praising an individual.

The problem's reversed, what's going on in the heart of that individual? Do you seek it? And you cannot seek both praise from God and praise from men, you can't seek both. And so Jesus said, in John 5:44, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another and yet you make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” You can't go horizontal like that, just all I care about is what people think about me. You'll forget the vertical. You’ll forget God. Or in John 12: 42-43, “Many, even among the leaders, believed in him, because of the Pharisees, however, they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogues, for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.” John 12. Many other verses.

Paul rejected this, Galatians 1:10, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Now, again, a pastor can go too far with that, just like the congregation can go too far, earlier in this message. “I don't care whether you're ever pleased with me or not.” That gets a little weird actually, tyrannical. I become a sociopath at that point. But the point is what am I seeking? I am seeking to please you by pleasing God. And I actually want the ministry to be pleasing to you, because it means your hearts are being moved, but that's not my goal, is that you be pleased with me. Do you see the difference? And Paul says I can't both seek praise from men and praise from Christ. Can't do it.

Instead, Christ commanded somewhat of a secret religion in some way, “Do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, to be honoured by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full, but when you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your father, who's unseen, and your father who's unseen sees what is done in secret and he will reward you. That's the religion that pleases God.”

Now, these false spiritual leaders also lacked humility. Look at verse 6 and 7, “They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them, ‘Rabbi.’” Pride reeks from everything about them. Their one thought is themselves. They're the center of all their thoughts, and they want, one of the earthly perks here is, societal recognition, places of honor, titles of honor, positions of prestige. It's not just money. These things are very tempting. The head table at the banquet, front and center. “Oh, come right this way. Oh, come.” They pull out the chair for you, and you got the name right there in the front, and all of this honour coming on you, and it's just addictive and intoxicating. And if it becomes your goal in ministry, get out of the ministry. That's God's word to me.

Seats of honor. As in most churches today, synagogues had raised platforms, like I'm up on right now, and they would have seats, and you'd sit up there. And at the right time, you would come, as an honored visiting Rabbi, and you'd get to read some scripture, and all that kind of thing. I used to sit up here. There used to be chairs up here. I didn't move down out of any great humility. I just liked being with my family, and plus, I didn't like you all watching me while I was singing. So there was actually... Probably there was some pride in going down off the dais up here, or whatever. But they love to be elevated and to be seen and to be greeted and to have those honorific titles.

I think about this often, with the whole Dr. Davis thing. Look, I've been Andy my whole life. I've been Dr. Davis for 11 years, okay? I understand the desire that people have to honor. Some of I've been working on for 11 years, and you're still calling me Dr. Davis, and that's fine, okay? And I think there's a place for it. There's a certain thing, just as long as I don't seek it and yearn for it. I understand that, 'cause I call other people Dr. So and So, and I do it with a clear conscience. But I'm Andy, I'm just a man, I'm just a sinner, saved by God's grace. You understand that? And so, therefore, I think there's an appropriate level. Children, I think, need to honor those older. I think there's a place of honor. I think that has to be taught, but there's a different theme here, and that is a yearning for these kinds of titles of honor.

Instead, humble yourself and make yourself low. Christ then commands humility from his leaders. He's talking, at this point, to his disciples, and he says, “You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one master, and you're all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father and he's in heaven, nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.”

This is just very, very humbling. The bottom line here is we have to learn these lessons of greatness. The greatest among you will be your servant. The one who goes lowly, the one who is mindful of the fact that there's an infinite gap between the most exalted human being, other than Jesus, I mean, most exalted, and God himself, there's just an infinite gap.

And if you need some humility, then just go stare into the face of God, and go to the cross and stare at the work of Christ on the cross, and get humbled that way, because it says in verse 12, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” We should fear the humbling of God, the inadvertent humbling, you know, the humbling that God does to arrogant, uppity people, we should fear that.

Look what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. You don't want that happening to you. Seven years as an animal, eating grass. God can do that. Those who walk in pride, he is able to humble, and everything in your life is fair game, material possessions, your health, everything. God can use anything to discipline you if you get prideful. We ought to fear the humbling of God. We ought to instead humble ourselves.

So how can we apply this to ourselves? Well, first of all, I think you just need to come, again and again, to the cross of Christ. I have already appealed to you, who are unbelievers here, to do so. We are all, to some degree, hypocrites. We don't present ourselves honestly. We need to instead come and be humbled.

And we ought to understand true spiritual leadership. True spiritual leaders are going to shun accolades, words of praise. They're going to do menial tasks of ministry. They're gonna preach and teach unpopular doctrines, but do so with humility and brokenness, not arrogance and triumphalism, as though they're proud of being able to preach on such a dangerous theme. They need to persevere in difficult ministries, despite apparent lack of worldly success. They need to speak in humble words and humble tones, praising others and making little of themselves. They need to be good listeners, and they need to be prayer warriors. Alright.

So, church, pray that for your elders. Pray it for me. Pray that that's the kind of man I would be, because I believe that you need godly spiritual leaders. You need good shepherds, under-shepherds under Christ, who will help you finish the race of salvation, and you need these kind of leaders, not the false kind. Pray that you'd have them. Pray for me that I would be this kind of man that the other elders would be these kinds of men. But while you're doing it, pray for yourself, because other than the specific roles of leadership and the teaching ministry, and all that, God's calling these same things from you as well. He wants you to be genuine in who you are, present yourself to be a sinner saved by grace. Be a broken-hearted spiritual beggar who understands that only by the grace of God are you saved.

And one final word, don't corrupt your elders by fawning, praise and flattery, but don't stop encouraging us either, okay? So continue to pray for us, encourage us, but pray that God would do that work of humbling in our hearts. Let's be the kind of church God wants us to be, okay?

Pastor Andy Davis preaches Matthew 22:41-46 to explore the question, "Whose son is the Christ?" The text points to the deity of Christ.

So that's my single desire for the sermon today, to elevate your thoughts about Jesus Christ that you would think greater thoughts of him than you've ever done before. I'm convinced there's not a person in this room that doesn't need that. We need our thoughts of Christ elevated, we need our thoughts of Christ to move up higher than they are right now. And everything we need is right here in this room right now, you have the scripture, right here. You have the Holy Spirit to do this, this is his task and the task of the scripture as we'll prove from the text today: The scripture's job is to elevate our thoughts of Christ, and this is what the Holy Spirit has done, that he would take from what belongs to Jesus and minister it to us, so that we would have great thoughts of Jesus. So while I'm preaching this I would urge you to pray for that to happen, pray for it in your own hearts, pray for it in this room, and then spreading out those lives that we touch.

Now, right now in my life, I have the privilege of teaching every week on Thursdays at Southeastern Seminary on the English Puritans, what a great movement of God, a great movement of revival happened in England through those individuals. Puritanism and the word Puritan isn't generally thought of highly in our age any more than it was in theirs, but they were remarkable people, who accomplished far more than most people ever do in their lives for a simple reason that they really, really trusted in God and in the scriptures and sought to put the scriptures into practice in every area of their lives. They were relentless in this.

And they had great visions of Christ and of what God could do in their country and in their lives, simply because they believed. Their number perhaps at 4% of the total English population when they took over the country for a short time in the middle of the 17th century. Other people, I think, lacked their level of commitment, their level of determination, but they were still well thought of even by those that weren't in their number. One Puritan pastor, in particular, Richard Rogers of Wethersfield in Essex, was told by a gentleman, a country gentleman, “Mr. Rogers, I like you and your company rather well. Only you're much too precise for me.” And Rogers answered, “O Sir, I serve a precise God.”

And we're gonna see the precision of God in the text today. We can see it in the universe that surrounds us, we live in a precise universe. And in these days in which we're battling against the weird thought of evolution, of atheistic evolution, we’ve got to counter it with truth. But God has left abundant evidence of his precision just in the cosmos. I mean, astronomers can predict with remarkable accuracy when a comet will return to this part of the cosmos. It's amazing, you can navigate by the stars. There's just a precision up in the cosmos and there's a precision down in this ecosphere as well. The way that God has woven together physics and chemistry and biology in a remarkable system that must be so, for there to be life. And if you could imagine, just the control panels of the world and they'd be labelled, and if you were to just move a few of those knobs just slightly, life would not be possible here on this earth.

And so, dear friends, we serve a precise God and the evidence of that precision is around us in the cosmos, but I would submit to you today: it's much more clear in scripture than anywhere else. The precision of God in Scripture is mind-boggling, it's breathtaking. And if you haven't had your mind boggled by it and you haven't had your breath taken away by it, then study the Scriptures more accurately. What amazes me is the synthesis, the harmony of these 66 books and how they proclaim with one voice, these doctrines we must know and believe. It's just incredible to me, and I don't think I have fully grasped just how deep it is.

The precision of God is just obvious in scripture. We're gonna see it here in this last passage in Matthew chapter 22. We're gonna see in this account, as Jesus has twice in Matthew 22, stunned his enemies by his answers to their questions. Now, he's gonna stun them even more by his question to them. They've been crossing swords intellectually battling back and forth Jesus' enemies, and now he is going to just render them silent by a question he asked here at the end of this chapter. And in this account, we're gonna see how precise is the Scripture itself and how precisely Jesus Christ handled the scriptures. Even down, dear friends, to a single letter in the Hebrew text, the whole thing hinges on one letter, whole thing.

And so we're gonna see the precise nature of Scripture, but better than that, we're gonna see the precise mind of God and scripture's precision serving a higher purpose. And the higher purpose of the precision of scripture is that we would come to believe in Christ. And that we would see the greatness of Christ and we would honour him and worship him as God and not think too low thoughts of him. That's why this text is here, that's why the scripture is here, the scripture is here to grab hold of our minds and our hearts, and lift them up into the heavenlies so that we can worship Christ. And in so doing, receive forgiveness of our sins that by faith in Christ, we will receive cleansing and forgiveness of our sins. And so we see not just the precision of scripture and the precision of God, but we're gonna see God as triune in this passage, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, as the scripture testifies to the true nature of God. We're gonna see all of these things today. So since we're gonna see all of those things we better get going, I mean this is all just introduction. But we have to get going, don't we? We're gonna be here a long time, but that's alright, that's alright. For this purpose, I think it's fine.

So we serve a meticulous Saviour, earlier in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus talked about the scriptures. He did it in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away not an iota, and not a dot, will pass from the law until everything is accomplished.” Matthew 5:17-18. Now there Christ says very plainly, he had come to fulfill the Scriptures not to abolish them. There are going to be some things he's gonna say even in that Sermon on the Mount that seems like he's just knocking the scriptures aside, but he doesn't. He's come to fulfill the scriptures, and so he wants them to know his attitude toward the scriptures, so that we would have them too.

And he zeroes in on this one statement: “Not a yodh or a pen stroke,” I think would be the way it comes across in the Hebrew, but it goes over in the Greek into iota. I think they're just related. Greek is iota for the Hebrew letter yodh.

Now the Hebrew letter yodh is just a little - it just looks like an apostrophe. If you could just imagine just a little apostrophe at the end of a possessive like “the boy's hat” something like that, just that little apostrophe you put between the y and the s. That's what the Hebrew yodh is. Just a little letter. It's used in the four-letter word for God, Yahweh, you see it all over the Hebrew text there and so that's a yodh.

He says none of those yodhs are gonna disappear until everything is accomplished, all the yodhs will still be there when Jesus returns. He's going to uphold them. So, dear friends, we as a church, we don't need to defend the scriptures, we don't need to defend the Bible. We have to take every thought captive and cast down strongholds and misunderstandings, but the Bible's gonna be here, friends. There's no getting rid of it. And so the yodhs are gonna be there, they're all gonna be there, until heaven and earth pass away, said Jesus.

And “the least stroke of a pen,” it could be the difference between a Hebrew letter he which is just an H-sound and the hech sound which gives that kind of Hebrew sound. The difference between the two is just a tiny gap. In one letter versus the other. And if they close that gap, it's a whole different letter.

And so I tell you, the precision of the alphabet and of the writing, I think, lended itself to a precision toward the Jews, the Jews themselves are a precise people in this regard, a remarkable people. They had a meticulous view of the Scriptures. And I think it tended in this direction, they knew that there were 613 commands in the Pentateuch, five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, and that 248 of them were positive, and 365 of them were negative. How did they know that? Well, they counted them, friends.

Oh, they knew more than that though. The scribes counted letters forward and back in the law of Moses, they could tell you how many of each letter there was in each book of the Bible. Amazing. They could even tell you the middle letter in the Pentateuch. And the middle letter in the Old Testament, middle letter in the Pentateuch, for those of you who really care is in Leviticus 11:42, there's a waw in there it's like a w right in the middle of the word for “belly.” So don't do it now, please, do it later. But there it is. That's the middle letter of the Pentateuch. How did they do that? They counted forward, they counted backwards, meticulous.

And you think Jesus would come along and say, “You're being way too careful with the scriptures here. You're way too meticulous.” No, He's actually even more meticulous than they, more careful than they. He's not dispensing with careful Bible study, not at all. He just said, “You missed some things. Let me show you something you've never noticed before.” That's what he's doing in this text. And he says that none of this, none of these letters or strokes of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law, until heaven and earth disappear, until everything is accomplished. The law is still going to be around, actually later in Matthew's Gospel, he's going to expand the statement to include his own words. “Until heaven and earth pass away,” He says. “My words will never pass away.” “Heaven and earth will pass away,” He says. “But my words will never pass away.” Well, Jesus here applies it to prophecy. He was very attentive to details, very careful in his handling of the text, and he's going to make an important point concerning the Messiah based on this one Hebrew letter this yodh.

So look at the verses, verses 41 through 46, that James read. Let me read them again. It's not a long passage, it says “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’ ‘The Son of David,’ they replied. He said to them, ‘Well, how is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him “Lord”? For he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’” If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’” I love verse 46. “No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.” That ends it, friends. That's a fitting end to chapter 22, don't you think? Jesus silences His enemies with this question.

The context we've been seeing is the final week of Jesus' life. Jesus' enemies keep mounting up a charge and coming up the hill after Jesus. They ask him questions about taxation, he deals with that remarkably. They ask him questions about the resurrection, the Sadducees do, he deals with that remarkably. An expert in the law comes and asks him which is the greatest commandment, and he deals with that again remarkably. Amazing teaching.

Then he turns around and he asks them a question, a penetrating question. Now Jesus is, I believe the greatest question asker in history, the greatest question asker in history. And if I can just get you to pause and think of it this way. Some day he's gonna ask you a bunch of questions about your life. He's going to probe you, he's going to search you. He's going to ask you to give an account for your life. And Job himself said “I couldn't answer him once in a thousand times.” Jesus has the ability by his questions to render us silent. And I think it's a good thing for that to happen now, don't you think? For us to be just rendered silent under the questions, the probing questions of Jesus to calm our hearts down and just let him search us by his questions.

But Jesus, from the very earliest stages of his life, was a phenomenal question asker. You remember that story, when he was age 12 and he somehow got separated from Joseph and Mary, you remember that? I mean, what happened there, friends? I mean, Joseph and Mary, I've often thought about, praise God for that. I mean these are a godly couple who lost track of the Messiah, the savior of the world. There are no perfect parents, friends, not even Joseph and Mary, they didn't know where Jesus was.

And so, for three days now, this isn't three hours now, for three days, they had to look for him. And they went and finally found Him in the temple, and it says in Luke 2:46 and 47, “After three days they found him in the temple courts sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” So Jesus was asking questions, maybe he even asked this one, he tried this one at an early stage and they didn't have an answer to that either. But he was a prober with his questions and so it continues. So often in his ministry, we see Jesus asking questions that gets to the heart of the issue.

For example, when his enemies were offended that Jesus had forgiven the sins of a paralyzed man, the man is still paralyzed; he has already forgiven his sins. He went right to what the man needed, “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.” They were offended at that. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And Jesus said in Matthew 9:5. “I have a question for you. Which is easier: To say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to say ‘rise and walk’?” That's an interesting question, isn't it? Let that one rattle around in your soul for a while. They're both really easy to say, both really hard to do. And so Jesus shows his power there.

Or how about this one, to the legalistic Pharisees who are drilling him for not following their traditions, He asked them this, Matthew 15:3. “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” That's a question from Jesus. Or to his disciples in Caesarea Philippi: “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” Now there's an important question, isn't it? Who do you say that Jesus is? I tell you that your soul will depend on your answer from the heart.

Or this one, to two blind men sitting by the side of the road, calling out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.” Jesus went and stood in front of them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” That's an important question, isn't it? By the way, I use it all the time in evangelism. If I get to the point and somebody I think is ready to receive Christ, we've done everything, and they want... They say, “What should I do?” I say you should pray. What should I say? So, we've been talking for an hour. You ought to know what to ask him for. “What do you want him to do for you?” “Well, I wanna go to heaven.” “Then tell him.” “I want my sins forgiven.” “Then tell him.” “I wanna live a whole new kind of life.” “Then tell him.” And he'll answer those prayers. But he does stand in front of us and say what do you want me to do for you? It's a key question, isn't it?

To Jesus' enemies who are questioning him closely about his authority. “So I have a question for you and if you answer my question, then I'll answer yours. ‘John's baptism, where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?’” Then they had that little huddle. Trying to figure out what they're gonna do. A little strategizing session. Just answer the question, but they didn't wanna answer Jesus' question.

Now, we have this one in verse 42. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” That's the question. Now for the Jews, genealogies were incredibly important, they derived a huge amount of their self-esteem and their self-importance from being genealogically or physically descended from Abraham. John the Baptist dealt with this very strongly. Do not think, he said to the Scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees. He said, “Do not think you can say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.” So they put a lot of stress on genealogies and descent.

I think they figured this was an easy question. This is a softball. Wow, what a tough question. Whose son is the Christ? They probably immediately answered “Son of David.” I mean, a four-year-old knows that one, Son of David. It's a cupcake. It was an easy question to answer.

Well, the Messiah was the Son of David. He was to be the Son of David. They were right, but that wasn't the whole truth. And we'll get to that in a moment, but it is true that Jesus the Christ was to be the Son of David. This was promised to David. 2 Samuel 7:12 and 13, when David wanted to build a temple for God and God said, you wanna build a house for me, I'm gonna build a house for you. “When your days are over David, and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me,aAnd I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Son of David, then. The Messiah would be the Son of David.

The Psalms and prophets agree with this again and again. Psalm 132:17-18, “Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for my anointed one,” that's the Messiah. “I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown on his head will be resplendent,” Psalm 132. Jeremiah 23, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I'll raise up to David a righteous branch, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding and counseling, power. And this king will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. And in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which this branch of David will be called: the Lord our Righteousness.’”

Or Ezekiel 37, “My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd and they will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. And they will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it will be an everlasting covenant, and I will establish them and I will increase their numbers, and I'll put my sanctuary among them forever.” There's the word David right there in Ezekiel, centuries after David had died.

Hosea 3:4-5, “for the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. And afterward, the Israelites will return and seek the Lord, their God, and David their king. And they will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last day,” Hosea 3:4-5. And then finally Zechariah 13:1, “On that day, a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”

Again and again we're told in the Old Testament through the prophets, that the Messiah is to be the Son of David. That is true. So this was an easy question. Very easy. Yes, but in Jesus' hand the other shoe is about to drop. Something they hadn't thought of before. As Jesus asked this question, “Whose son is the Christ?”

Now, Jesus was in fact the Son of David. As a matter of fact, by my reading, it's the first fact the New Testament gives us. It's really quite stunning if you look at it, Matthew 1:1, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David,” right away. It's the first thing we're told about the Christ. He's the Son of David. That is true.

The apostle Paul makes it clear as well, in Romans 1. He speaks there of “the gospel of God - the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures regarding his son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David.” And so the Messiah was to be a human being. He was to be a human being, a descendant, tracing his genealogy from David. Yes, that is true.

Jesus in his lifetime was consistently called the Son of David and he never refuted it, he actually accepted it. After his triumphal entry, he goes into the temple and the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he was doing and the children, shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” And they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” They asked Jesus. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “Have you never read, ‘from the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?” Jesus was the Son of David.

But Jesus' point here is that he is so much more than that. Actually he's infinitely more than merely the Son of David. That's Jesus' point. That's the point of Psalm 110. That's the point of our text today. Jesus' goal is that they would acknowledge his divinity. His deity, that he is the Son of God, as well as the Son of David, that's the goal here. That's what he was driving them toward, and that's what I believe through the Spirit he's driving us toward here as well. And even if you acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, the text isn't done with you, it's still driving you upward to think greater thoughts of what that means, that Jesus is in fact the Son of God, and so he asks these devastating questions.

Yes, he is the Son of David, but “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ then how can he be his son?” Oops, we never noticed that before. Been reading it for years, never noticed it. “The Lord said to my Lord,” one word in the Hebrew, one little letter at the end makes it possessive, we'll get to that in a minute. Verse 46, no one could say a word in reply.

Jesus silenced them, and from that day they were afraid to come and bring those questions around. They came to make Him look bad, they always ended up looking bad themselves. Jesus ended up looking more glorious, more intelligent, more well thought out, more in connection with the people. A better servant of God. He always ended up looking better, they ended up looking worse.

Alright, now let's see if we can unravel Jesus' arguments. Let's try to find out what's at the heart of it. Alright, the first key to this whole thing is the Davidic authorship of Psalm 110, David wrote it. And I say to you, if David didn't write it then Jesus' argument falls apart. It's just a fact. If David didn't write Psalm 110 Jesus' argument falls to the ground.

Did Jesus think that David wrote Psalm 110? You better believe he thinks it. “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord,’” etc. “If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” Did Jesus think David wrote this? That's a slam dunk friends, yes, Jesus clearly thought that David wrote Psalm 110. Absolutely central to the argument.

Now if the Psalm was written centuries later by someone who's seeking to honor David, the argument falls apart. Such a Jewish individual writing centuries later seeking to honor David would have had no problem calling one of David's sons “My Lord,” indeed, he would have been his lord, he would have been his king. That's not a problem. Jesus' argument falls apart if David didn't write it.

Key number two, the inspiration of the Psalm, down to the letter by the Holy Spirit. Okay, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’?” This is the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, who came to guard David's mind from error, as he wrote Psalm 110.

And so we have the inerrancy or the perfection of the Scripture as essential key here, David could have written it but he could have been wrong to call him “My Lord.” And so he has to be protected, the scripture has to be protected from error. And so the second key is the Holy Spirit's involvement in the writing of the scripture, of the text.

By the way these first two keys are essential to all Old Testament scripture, and indeed new as well. Human authorship plus divine inspiration together. The Bible is a 100 percent human book, written by human authors. It is a 100 percent divine book, inspired from beginning to end by God, it's both. In that way it's very much like Jesus. 100 percent human, 100 percent divine. 2 Peter 1:20-21 figures this out for us, it says, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture ever came about by the prophet's own interpretation, for prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So what happened? One day David got up and said, “Just a good day for writing scripture today, just, I mean it's just that kind of a day I just feel like writing some scripture.” No, he just wrote a Psalm. Do you think David had any reject Psalms? I bet he did. I think that year while he's waiting for Bathsheba to give birth to their child, I don't think he wrote any Psalms that made it in the Bible that year, I'm thinking. So I think there are lots of reject Psalms, but the Holy Spirit came on David that day, when he wrote Psalm 110, and the Holy Spirit said, if not directly to David, but at least to us the church, “Today I am writing scripture through you and everything you write will be perfect.” Doctrine of inspiration.

Key number three. Psalm 110 is speaking about the Messiah. It's talking about the Christ. Jesus had asked at the beginning of this is, “What do you think about the Christ?” The anointed one, the one who is to come? “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They answered “Son of David.” “Well then how is it that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’?” And then quotes Psalm 110. So key to Jesus his argument is that David is speaking about the Messiah, the one who is to come. Frankly, this whole Psalm, if you read it, Psalm 110 is messianic. It has marvelous teachings about Christ. Frankly, if it's not messianic the whole Psalm makes no sense at all.

First of all, the question of this text is if David wrote it then about himself, then why would he call himself ‘Lord’? So it's certainly not about David. If someone else wrote it, about a descendant of David, who is not the Messiah, how do you explain the grandiose assertions made about him in this Psalm, like this one? Psalm 110:4, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” Look, Hebrews spends basically three chapters dealing with the depth of that argument. Psalm 110 is very, very deep, it's clearly dealing with the messiah.

Key number four: The fact that under the law of Moses, a son could never be considered or esteemed higher or greater than his father. In the Ten Commandments, sons are commanded to honor their fathers. There's an order there, a hierarchy. A father then would never call his son, “My Lord,” certainly not a king to the prince. Even in the rare occasions where there'll be co-regency, the father would still have the greater honor.

So the logic of Jesus' question implies that the father is always seen to be greater than the son positionally. Again, this is not an essential being, like fathers are of greater essence than sons, not at all, the ground is very level before the cross, dear friends. But Jesus himself says this in that mysterious kind of way, John 14:28, “If you love me, you would be glad that I'm going to the Father for the Father's greater than I.” It's a mystery, but there's a position there, the father is greater than the son, the son receives things from the Father. That's how it works.

And key number five: Every letter in the Psalm is inspired and David calls him, “My lord.” As mentioned above, the whole argument comes down to a single letter in the Hebrew, the possessive yodh at the end of the word adon. The word adon means “Lord” or “master.” Adonai is the way that they make it possessive. My Lord, my master. You know, remember when Mary sees Jesus, resurrected Jesus she calls him Rabboni, the little i at the end is my, “my rabbi,” is what she's saying, “my master.” It makes it possessive. And so Jesus bases it on that possession.

Now the word adon, translated “Lord” can simply refer to a human master or a king. Anybody in authority over you, you could use that word adon, or it could refer to God. 1 Kings 1:24, Nathan said “Have you,” speaking to David, “have you, my lord,” That's adonai, “Have you My Lord [the king] declared that Adonijah shall be king after you and then he'll sit on your throne?” But he calls him adonai, “My lord.” You can do it for a human king. But it's also a common word for Lord, as in God as well. For example in Psalm 8:1. “Oh Lord [Yahweh], our Lord [adon]. There's the word. So, they're used just side by side, “Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth” and many other examples as well.

So in any case, why would David be calling his own son, his Master? Why would David, speaking by the Spirit, call his own descendant, my king? Why would he call him my Lord? That's Jesus' question. Do you feel the weight of it now?

Now there were many sons of David, actually it wasn't a big deal to be a son - actually it was, I mean, son of the king, it's a good thing to be a son of the king, but there were lots of them. And after that certainly lots of descendants, even in the New Testament, Joseph, the husband of Mary is called “Son of David,” by Gabriel. Gabriel comes and says, Angel the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.” He’s called “Son of David.”

Solomon is called “Son of David” in Proverbs 1:1. In 2 Samuel 13:1 you have it twice. “In the course of time Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.” So again, like I said, neither of those are like worthwhile people, neither Amnon nor Absalom, but they're both called “Sons of David.”

But there's only one of all of his sons, that David calls, “My Lord.” There's only one. And it is the Messiah. And how great is he, friends? How great is Jesus? How great is the majesty of this descendant of David? Well, in Revelation chapter five, there is in the right hand of God, a scroll which some have interpreted to be the title deed of the whole universe. Ownership of the universe, it's there in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne. And there's this mighty angel calling out, “Who is worthy to take the scroll and break open its seals and read it?” Who is worthy to do that?" And they search heaven and earth and under the earth and no one is found who is worthy, and then suddenly, one comes. One of the elders - John as you remember weeps and weeps because nobody is found - he said, “Do not weep. Wait till you see what's about to happen.” Heaven is a happening place, friends, you don't want to miss it. I mean it's an exciting place.

And so one of the elders says, “Now, watch and see. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The Root of David has conquered. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” And “Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. And he had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders, they fell down before the Lamb.” You want to know where David is right now? He's on his face before his descendant Jesus. He's on his face before Jesus and he's worshipping him gladly. He's delighted to pour forth worship on his own descendant. He's worshipping him. At the end of the Bible, Revelation 22:16, almost the last verse in the Bible, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright morning star.” Well, that's who Jesus is, and that's why David called him “My Lord,” though I don't think David fully understood it then. He understands it much better now. Amen? Much better now he understands. How much greater Jesus is than them.

Well, the Jews had no answer at that point. They've had 2,000 years to think about it and now they're trying to answer. I went to a website in which some Jewish rabbis are trying to prepare Jewish people to answer Christian evangelists, and they say, you know they might bring Psalm 110 around. Now, again, they've had 2,000 years to think it through. 2,000 years to work on this, they didn't have an answer that day but maybe now they have one.

Alright, you know what they say? It's right there on the website. They say that the inscription of the Psalm, just says le dawid which could be translated either “By David” or “For David,” could go either way. And so we think this Psalm was actually written in honor of David, you see.

Well, that does successfully destroy Jesus' argument, but there's no scriptural merit to it at all. They don't do that with the other Psalms that are ascribed to David, they know that David wrote some Psalms. By what rule would they come to Psalm 110, and say “Well, this one was written on behalf of David, not by David.” Besides which, between you and me, let's just go with Jesus on this one I think David wrote it. Amen? So that's no good argument, there's no proof for it. 

Alright, what else do they say? Well, they say adonai can actually mean “Master,” or something not actually God or Lord like he's worshipping or anything. Maybe he's just esteeming him very highly. Again, this doesn't fit the Jewish mindset at all. Again, the father is greater than the son, this would never have happened. David, you can't imagine. Imagine David coming to Solomon after he had been crowned as a successor, then bowing down to Solomon and calling him “My Lord,” I can't imagine it, neither can the Jews, it doesn't fit, friends. That's after 2,000 years, that's the best they can do. Or else maybe there's another website with a better answer, I didn't find one.

So we'll just move on, shall we? There is no answer, except one. Can I give you this answer? Fall down on your face before Jesus and worship him. There's your answer. Fall down and acknowledge that he's God, he's not just a human being. He's God. And his deity and his humanity together coming into the world can save you from your sins, do that. Let that be your answer. And so this psalm helps prove the deity and humanity of Christ, as Gabriel said to Mary, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, and he will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” That's Son of God, friends, “and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” That's humanity friends, it's the Incarnation in one message from the ancient.

The Psalm also gives us the proper relationship with David to Jesus, more on that in a moment. The Psalm also teaches us how to approach all Old Testament prophecy, the principles that Jesus assumes here are key for us throughout the study of the Old Testament. All Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, the scripture secondly should be read Christologically, try to find Jesus in the Bible, and you'll find him. Find Jesus, John chapter five, “You diligently study the Scriptures, because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These scriptures testify about me,” said Jesus. So look for Jesus in the Old Testament.

Thirdly, scriptures should be taken letter by letter accurately. Precision always helps you friends. Look carefully. We should also be praising God for the accuracy of the Bible, Amen. You can build your life on this. This is a solid rock that isn't going away. It's still here thousands of years later and it will continue to be here. Praise God even more for the greatness of God himself, for the greatness of the precise mind of God and the way he communicates. He has so many more things to teach us. We'll spend eternity learning from God. And praise God for that.

Conversely, can I urge you: fear, fear judgment by such a meticulous God, fear it. Revelation 20 and verse 12, “I saw the dead, small and great standing before the throne and the books were opened, and another book was open, which is the book of life and the dead were judged according to what they have done as recorded in the books.” He is a meticulous record keeper of your life. And you can't survive that judgment without Jesus' atoning blood. So can I urge you to come to the cross. Look to Jesus, say, “Jesus I don't have a hope, unless you died for me. Oh that you would give me your righteousness as a gift, I plead with you, forgive me,” and he will. And then your name will be in the book of life, and you will not be judged based on your sins, but based on Christ's righteousness and his covenant with you by faith. Trust in Him.

Flee to Christ, and having fled to Christ, can I urge you to be more careful how you live, than you've been? Little things matter friends, this is a precise God and we need him to live precise lives. We get sloppy don't we? Don't we get sloppy in our lives? We let our thoughts go sloppy and we let our actions go sloppy, we get lazy in our spiritual disciplines.

We serve a precise God, like the Puritans did, and he's no less precise now than he was then. He is a precise God and so “Be very careful how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity,” Ephesians 5. Very careful the life you live.

And finally, I want to end the way I began. I just want to say sweetly to you, with joy in my heart. This actually brings me joy to tell you this, and I speak it to myself too. Your thoughts and mine, our thoughts about Jesus are too low. They're too small. So I wanna invite you on a marvelous upward journey of thinking great thoughts about Jesus. For the last one or two minutes of this sermon I just wanna compare Jesus to David. Okay, let's just compare them.

When we first meet David he was ruddy and handsome. Good looking young boy. Jesus, I tell you, will be the most beautiful sight you've ever seen in your life. It's kind of like all beauty emanates from Christ, He is the radiance of God's glory, it's gonna shine from him. And just the sight of it is gonna change you for eternity, you'll lose your sin nature as soon as you see him.

Alright, then we see David, as a young shepherd boy taking care of his father's sheep. And you remember how he killed the lion and the bear with the sling and all that kind of thing. Jesus has done infinitely better than that. He cares for the sheep as a Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. And not one of them is lost. He is better, a better shepherd than David.

David was chosen from among Jessie's sons and anointed before his brothers to be king over Israel by Samuel. But Jesus was chosen by God before the foundation of the world, to be King of the Universe, and was anointed not by oil, but by the Holy Spirit of God. That's why he's called the Christ, the Anointed One.

David courageously fought and defeated Goliath. He was an enemy that everyone was afraid to face. And he won. Jesus defeated the world, the flesh, the devil, sin and death. Enemies that none of us could face. And won an infinitely greater victory, and the spoils from David's victory over the Philistines lasted for just a little while. We get the spoils from Jesus' victory and they last for all eternity. He just gives better gifts than David did.

David was persecuted by Saul out of jealousy for a short period of time. I don't know anybody persecuting David now. Are they still persecuting Jesus? Oh yes they are. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Said Jesus. They've been after Jesus for 2,000 years. They still hate him, and they're still slandering him and taking his name in vain and doing all kinds of stuff, they still hate Jesus because Satan hates Jesus, he's been persecuted still, but the amazing thing about Jesus is how gracious he is. If you just turn, if you just repent, he will accept you. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive them away, I'll just take them, even if it's Saul of Tarsus who's been hating on me for a while. He'll take him. That's the graciousness. “Any sin and blasphemy spoken against the Son of Man will be forgiven,” said Jesus. Isn't that marvelous?

David eventually became king over Judah and then had to fight for it but became king over Israel. Jesus is King of kings, friends. He's the King of all kings, not just over little Judah and Israel. David reigned for 33 years, how long will Jesus reign? For eternity, forever and ever. He will reign on that throne. David ruled imperfectly but with a sense of being a man after God's own heart, with judgment and righteousness, but he still sinned, and because of his sin, some people had to die in a plague. Jesus, he's a perfect King, everything he does is right. Everything he does is righteousness. He's a perfect exemplar of righteousness and justice on the throne.

David sinned with Bathsheba, and had Bathsheba's husband murdered, Uriah, to cover up his sin. Two things. Jesus never sinned, ever. But Jesus shed his blood for David so David wouldn't have to go to Hell for that sin. He died for David's sin, so that David could actually be up in heaven in one of those concentric circles around Jesus worshipping and praising him.

David eventually died and was buried and his body decayed. Jesus died for our sins, was buried, but on the third day he rose again, and he never decayed and his body ascended up and it's at the right hand of Almighty God and there he will be forever and ever. Jesus is just better than David, Amen? And David knows it doesn't he? Knows it now, doesn't he? And so he says still, “My Lord.” Won't you call him your Lord? Close with me in prayer.

There are some journeys that we take in life, some roads that we can get on that just change our lives. They are memorable roads. I think about one in particular, the Karakoram highway, I saw with my own eyes in 1987, in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan and on into China. The most spectacular stretch of scenery I've ever seen in my life, the Karakoram mountains, the second highest mountain range in the world just like another world, it was. Mountains over 20,000 feet high and the Indus River flowing beside the highway, just cobalt blue and just kind of eerie as though we were on another planet. And just I thought about the beauty of this world and it made me yearn for the new heaven, the new earth, the home of righteousness, and how beautiful it was.

And though I foolishly rode on the top of the van on the luggage rack, I wouldn't trade it for the world, I really wouldn't. I'll never forget that. They would not let you do it here, they'd pull you down, and arrest you or something, but over there they don't care if you die or not, they really don't. So you can ride up there, and the scenery was incredible.

But I remember a year before that, another mission trip, I was on a different highway, a different road, a different trip I took it was in the streets of Mombasa, and we were there at the end of the last week of a 10-week mission trip, and we were there, it was in a resort area and we were having a final time together, a time of prayer and Bible study. It was a beautiful area, but some of us took a ride into the poorer area of Mombasa and just to see what the city was like and to pray for the people.

And I remember distinctly that ride as well, very, very unforgettable ride. We were in this air conditioned, expensive minivan and surrounded by poverty that I had never seen. This was my first trip out of the country, summer of '86. And I just felt like it was somehow a symbol of the way that I could live my life in this world, a sinful way. A way in which I'm enclosed by luxury and comfort and security and air conditioning and all that, and out there is all this poverty and suffering. And I just resolved before the Lord, I didn't wanna live that kind of life. I didn't wanna stay in that air conditioned, safe, secure bubble when there's all these suffering people outside.

I had another ride a number of years later, through Port-au-Prince, along the Cité Soleil and it's a different highway there. And my guess is, now probably they're clearing it with rubble; they have to have that highway, so maybe it's been cleared by now, I don't know. But I will never forget just the view of, without question, the greatest poverty I've ever seen in my life, a tent city there in which half-clothed children come out and stoop down and scoop up muddy water out of puddles and put them in bottles and screw the top on and then run back into the city there, and I wonder what they're gonna do with that water. And just a vision there of poverty. And again, something calling out to me at least to pray if not to minister more securely. When I heard the news of the earthquake in Haiti, I immediately thought of the Cité Soleil and all of the misery and suffering there is there.

So this morning, we're going to look down, I think a very dangerous road. And we're gonna call it the Jericho Road; we're gonna look down the Jericho Road. It's a road of self-sacrifice, a road of being searched by the law of God, so that we can find out what's in our hearts. Tim Keller said of the Jericho Road, “The road to Jericho is steep and dangerous, so dangerous in fact that people have called it the ‘Bloody Way.’ Jerusalem rests at 3,000 feet above sea level, but Jericho, only 17 miles away, is actually 1,000 feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. So the road between the towns descends sharply through mountainous territory full of crags and caves allowing thieves to hide and strike and escape with great ease. Traveling the Jericho Road in those days was much like walking through a dark alley in the worst part of a modern city except that it was many miles to the nearest street light.”

So you get the picture of a very dangerous road. But that Jericho Road is not dangerous merely because there are brigands on it who could jump out at you and assault you and take your precious possessions. Jesus meant a different kind of danger. Or I might say a different kind of challenge. It's dangerous for us to consider because here on the Jericho Road, the Lord Jesus confronts us with our own selfishness. Here on the Jericho Road, the Lord Jesus confronts us and asks, “Will you really love your neighbor as yourself? Will we love our neighbors as ourselves or will we just love ourselves? Will we spend ourselves on behalf of others, or will we pass by in safety wasting the opportunities for good works that God has given us?”

Now, this Jericho Road, I contend, can happen any time, any place. It can happen in your own homes, when your spouse demands more of you at that moment than you feel you wanna give. That's the Jericho Road. The Jericho Road can happen in your neighborhood when you find out that your neighbor has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, what will you do? Are you gonna minister or not? Jericho Road can happen as you stand in line at Walmart and there's a father and a son having a conversation, the son wants to buy something, the father who's now unemployed can't afford. And they have that conversation. I don't know what to do about that situation. I'm just saying I'm feeling confronted at that moment by the needs around us. It can happen at a stop light, when someone stands there with a hand-painted sign and tries to catch your eye and tries to get money from you.

It can happen at church when you see a newcomer standing alone at the end of worship service and you don't know them, and you feel within yourself a desire not to go talk to somebody you don't know, but instead you just stay with what's safe and easy. That's the Jericho Road. It searches us all the time. It has to do with interactions with other human beings, any human being, any time, any place, who has a need that you might be able to meet. And therefore it's dangerous for us; it challenges us because if we learn to walk the walk of the priest or the Levite in the parable, it becomes a very easy habit pattern to follow, and you probably know what I'm talking about. You look. You see. You look away. You pass by on the other side of the road. It's a very easy habit to get into, and all of us have that habit pattern within us, and so Jesus told this story to challenge us.

Everyday we're surrounded by people with needs and sometimes those needs are overwhelming. And the relentless call of Jesus in the law, this is law for us, the relentless call of Jesus Christ every moment of the day is that we should pour out ourselves, our time, our effort, our resources in benefiting others, caring for others.

So last week, we began to look at this study, this topic. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? And today, we seek even more clarity.

So we're continuing really our series of Matthew, but we're going sideways over to Luke to try to understand this second greatest commandment. Our context in Matthew is the final week of Jesus's life. He's in a bunch of conflicts with his enemies. They're testing him; they're searching him.

And this lawyer comes up and asks which is the greatest commandment in the law. As you remember, Jesus gives this very orthodox somewhat predictable answer. “Now Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

If I can just stop and say these things are not for me, as a Christian, just commands. They are in fact promises. I always think of that, someday it's gonna be true of me in Christ. Amen. Isn't that glorious to just think about that? I don't think we can ever think about it too much, but I don't think we can ever be convicted by it too much either while we're in this life. So it has to have both that and that aspect of work in us. So we will be both convicted and we will be hopeful as we know that the Lord is by his spirit going to fulfill these things in us.

So last week, I made the case that these two commandments are absolutely intertwined. You can't pick and choose between them; they are not equal commands. There is a first and greatest command and the second that's like it, but they are absolutely intertwined. I said that you cannot love your neighbor, if you don't first love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you would love your neighbor more than you love God, you would be making your neighbor an idol and you can't do that. God must take top priority in your lives

And so it is really not possible to have non-Christian fulfillment of this second great command. It can't be done. You have to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength in order to love your neighbor in such a way that God is pleased. However, it's not enough to just love God, is it?

It's clear that Jesus inserted the second commandment because it is vital for us to understand it, they're intertwined. And so, in 1 John 4:20 it says, “If anyone says ‘I love God’ and yet hates his brother, he is a liar; for anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” And there are many other such verses. You cannot pick and choose. We must both love God and our neighbor.

Last week, I gave this definition of what it means to love your neighbor: Love is cheerful sacrifice for the benefit of another person and for the glory of God. And so we said last time that love has both an internal heart aspect and an external physical or bodily or active aspect. There is that heart affection, which is essential to the love; we must genuinely from the heart, love. And then there is that sacrificial service that results in beneficial action. And so it must be cheerful, it must come from the heart, out of a connection, a love that we have a movement in the heart. But it must not end there, it must go out into sacrificial service.

And the more sacrifice there is we can say the greater the love is. John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends.” So we measure love by sacrifice. The more it pinches at you, the more it costs you something, the more inconvenient it is, the more expensive it is, if you give it cheerfully as an act of worship to God, now that's what God is talking about; that is love for the neighbor. So there are those two aspects; there is the heart attraction, and then there's moving out in beneficial sacrificial service.

So Christ was our example. I zeroed in on one verse in particular. Mark 1:41, which I cited last week. This is just review. But there “A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, ‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Filled with compassion. Jesus reached out his hand touched the man, ‘I am willing,’ he said, ‘Be clean.’”

So there is a very good picture of the two parts of love I'm talking about. Filled with a movement of compassion, my heart is knit toward you. I am in your situation; your pain has become my pain. Filled with that compassion, Jesus reaches out his hand and heals him. And so this is the sacrificial service of Christ.

Now, I want to bring up and ask this one question then. In the words of the command, what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? To love your neighbor as yourself. Does this teach the prior need for some kind of comfortable feeling of self-esteem before we can actually do anything for anybody else? Does it give us a command that we ought to be loving ourselves. And then having loved ourselves, we are then to love our neighbor out of the overflow of our self-love? You can kinda tell where I'm heading with this, but I'm going ahead and couching the terms. Is that what it teaches? Or does it in effect, teach you, you already do love yourself, now love your neighbor like you're loving yourself.

And so, I tell you that you hear a lot of this these days, you can't love anyone else until you love yourself, this kind of self-esteem. So first, you need to love yourself, then you'll be fit and ready to love your neighbor as yourself.

In my opinion, I think people suffer and struggle with self-esteem because they're being disobedient to the commands of God. It's true of all of us. If you're struggling with your self-image it's generally because in your conscience, you have a sense that something's not right. And so therefore it doesn't make much sense to say, “I can't obey these commands of God, until I feel better about myself.” Friends, that is a quick downward spiral.

I don't think that's what it's teaching here; grammatically in the Greek, it asserts that we really do already love ourselves. This is the measure of love. There's no command here; you cannot find a command to love yourself here. Rather it's assumed that you already do love yourself. And so, in effect, Jesus is saying that you should seek the highest, the greatest good for your neighbor, the way you seek the greatest good for yourself. In effect, Jesus is basically saying “You shall seek the good of your neighbor, just as you naturally seek your own good. Nourish and cherish your needy neighbor, just as you by nature nourish and cherish yourself.”

 Now, a key verse on understanding it this way is Ephesians Chapter 5 which talks about the husband's responsibility to love his wife. And you know in Ephesians 5:28-29, it says, “In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself; after all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it.” So what Paul is saying is, you do love yourself. You do look after your own needs, husbands. You do care for your physical needs; do the same for your wife. That's what it's saying there.

I think that we can take that concept and extend it generally to the second greatest commandment. So every act of kindness and care you show to your own body, and you've shown many this week; you don't even recognize how many different ways you minister to your body. I mean, if you're uncomfortable, you shift around in your seat. I see some of you doing that from time to time. 

If you have an itch, you'll do what it takes to scratch it. As I've talked about before, I get those right between my shoulder blades. You know what I'm talking about? Right in the center, right between, it is almost at my age, physically impossible to reach it. At least not without a trauma of pain on my shoulder, alright. And I found that my shoulder amazingly is willing to sacrifice for that part of skin in the center between my shoulder blades; it's amazing the things that my shoulder's willing to do for that little piece of skin that's having some strange tingling. And so, you reach back there. Well, anyway, I'm not gonna demonstrate but you know what I'm talking about. You do love yourself dear friends.

If you're cold, you get a sweater, you get a blanket, you put it on, you change the thermostat. If you're hungry, you go make yourself something to eat. If you're craving some attention, you go get some attention. If you want some encouragement you fish for it.

And I'm not saying all these are appropriate ways that we love ourselves. I'm just telling you, you love yourself. I would say you relentlessly love yourself. We actually discussed even the cases of suicide. And John Piper in his book from one of the things he writes about that he says even somebody who's committing suicide is seeking something for him or herself. A release from the pain, that kind of thing. And actually I find it to be an exceptionally selfish mindset without hardly any thought at all about the ramifications of those that are left behind, So I'm saying it's just a natural law. You're going to do good to yourself, you're gonna love yourself, you're gonna care for yourself. Do the same for your neighbor.

I think that's what Jesus is saying. Think about your neighbor's needs just as you think about your own. And so in Philippians 2:4, it says “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” The non-Christian, the natural state, is to be fanatical about looking after your own interests. The Christian adds to this, the interests of others. It says in Philippians 2:21, “Everyone looks out for his own interests,” this is that kind of Darwinian, dog-eats-dog, “look out for number one” mentality that I think has made this world such a miserable place to live in. Jesus has shown us a better way; he's shown us a way of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, denying yourself and your own needs, so that somebody else's needs can be met.

And so a loving Christian then learns to see others' needs as if they were his own. He looks at urban poverty and says, “What would it be like if I lived there? What would I need?” He's looking at unemployed people and saying, “What can I do?” Matthew talked to me this morning about Jobs for Life. Listen, it's a tremendous ministry and we have as many as 11 or more students that are getting ready for this, we need some. We need some ladies that will be willing to help. But they just... You look at that and you say, “What would it be like if I lived in that situation?” There's an expansion of vision that happens when you genuinely love. Stepping out of your own comfort zone and your self-satisfaction and taking on the misery of others.

As a Christian you look at the lostness of co-workers and you say, “What would it be like for me if I were without hope and without God in this world?” And how joyful would it be if somebody would be a messenger of the Gospel to come to me? A Christian, a loving Christian looks at total strangers in public places, in terms of what needs do you have that I can meet? Can I hold the door for you? Can I let you go first in the check out line? Can I give you the last empty seat on an airplane and wait for the next flight even? Can I stop in the rain and help you change a flat tire? These are just mentalities of Christians. This is what it means, horizontally, to love your neighbor as yourself. 

Now, last time I said there are two great texts to look at these two aspects of love, alright? There's that heart affection aspect that without that heart affection it isn't genuinely loving in the sight of God. It's hypocrisy, really. It's just an outward show, so there has to be something from the heart and I said, 1 Corinthians 13 describes it better than any other passage in the Bible. 

Just by way of review, the basic concept is, you can have tremendous sacrifice, but you can do it without love, and it will be nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3. “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.” But I tell you, you look at a verse, like that. And you realize just how relentless Jesus is for us. I don't know hardly anybody that would really even do it, but it could be that somebody could do it and Jesus would still say, “I have this against you,” isn't that amazing when you think about it?

He's standing over all of us and saying “You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Hence my statement earlier how sweet it is for us as Christians to look at it, not just as commands, but promises. Oh God, do this in me, it's impossible for me to reach so high in my life.

Was Jesus delighted to give himself, to surrender his body? You know he really was. For the joy that was set before him he did it. Not the thing itself, not the process, that was miserable. But for what he got out of it, he was delighted to die for you and me. That's a beautiful thing.

And so you've got to have that internal heart state of delight, that joy, that connection that happens between you and the person, described in this way: “Love is patient, love is kind, doesn't envy, it doesn't boast, it's not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, it's not rude, it's not self-seeking, it does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

So this is the heart condition that we discussed last time. But we also said it's not enough to just feel those feelings for somebody. It's gotta move out. It's gotta move out. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. We've got these hands that are given to serve, so we move out and we've got to act.

And I think the best passage for describing that lifestyle, sacrificial love for neighbor, is this parable. It seemed to be in Jesus' mind. He wants to describe how you love your neighbor as yourself. That's why he told this story. And so, look at Luke 10, if you're not already there, just take a minute and look at Luke 10:25-37.

Now the context here of Luke 10 is earlier in Jesus' life. It's the same issue, however. It's the same question. He's just dealing with it again, but just earlier. And this time the lawyer that he's talking to, it says is seeking to justify himself. The Lord comes and asks him the question, which is the greatest commandments and all that? And he says, “Well, what do you think?” And puts it back on Jesus. And he gives a perfect answer. This is a guy who's gonna do well in a theology exam, both beginning and end he gets the right answers all the time.

But Jesus, I think, at that point then says, “You have answered correctly, do this and live.” And then turns and talks to somebody else, kinda leaves him in the lurch at that moment, looking perhaps a little embarrassed. I think we already knew that, didn't we? So, he seeks, it says, “to justify himself.” You ought to just freeze your eyes right on that. Look on that text as if it were a mirror. I don't think there's one of us sinners here that doesn't seek in some way to justify ourselves when it comes to the second command. Or I could use another word, to excuse ourselves from service. “I don't need to take care of that person for the following reasons, I already worked this out. I've got the theology all worked out. I know why I don't need to do that because this person is this kind of person and they did this…” And you don't have to do it.

And so this lawyer sought to justify himself by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Basically what he's saying is, “Please tell me that what I have done already is already enough. I'm already in. I'm already there based on what I've done. Tell me that. Tell me, I'm already fine. Please don't even tell me that I'm doing well, keep doing... I don't even wanna hear that. I wanna hear that I've already achieved. I'm already there.”

So he sought to justify himself. What a warning it is. We think we don't need to love our neighbor if he is what we call undeserving poor. What do we mean by undeserving poor? Well, somebody whose poverty is because of their own sin. Friends, who's left after a while? I mean, who's left? We're gonna look at somebody and say we're only gonna give to the deserving poor. The ones that really, really deserve our attention. Do you not realize how arrogant that sounds to God?

Did we deserve to be saved by Jesus? He didn't use that with us, but we excuse. Here's an able-bodied man who should be out working for himself, and I'm not gonna give him a penny. I'm not saying we ought to give him money, but I'm saying we ought not to turn away from him. I'm saying there ought to be some ministry. We think we don't need to love our neighbor as ourselves if he's a stranger or possibly dangerous or will involve us deeper than we want to be involved. Well, that may be the case, but that's more of a searching of our own hearts. We tend to draw the boundary lines around who we should love so tightly that it excuses most of our unloving relationships. I'll say more on this at the end. 

There are two key questions that this parable answers. What are these two key questions? Number one, is what is the question the lawyer asks, who is my neighbor? So simply put, who should we love? The parable's told to give us the answer to that question, “Who is my neighbor?” And he tells the parable as an answer to that question.

But secondly, I think it also answers, “How should we love him?” It gives us a display of how we should love our neighbor.

So you understand the story, there's this deadly, dangerous Jericho Road, and there are five different people in the tale. First is the victim, and I think it's key to note that we know absolutely nothing about him. I mean nothing. What do we know about this guy? We know he's on the Jericho Road and he got attacked; that's all we know about him. We don't know if he's Jewish. We don't know if he's Samaritan, might be Roman. We don't know anything about him. We don't know if he's rich, if he's poor, if he's old, if he's young. We don't know anything about this individual. And I think it's very striking because again, this is the question that Jesus is seeking to answer.

Who is my neighbor? Answer: This guy. Who is it? Well, what do we know about him? You don't need to know anything about him except that he has a need. It's an individual, a human being, in need. So basically, Jesus is saying, “Your neighbor is anyone in need.”

Then you've got the robbers. We don't know many things about them either, except that they're exceptionally selfish individuals who are willing to break the laws of God and man to take from this individual what they think is best. Basically, their motto would be something like this, “What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine if I can take it from you.” And there are some people that live like that.

But then you've got the priest, and then you've got the Levite; they're the same guy, so I'm gonna have them be the same guy. Is that okay? The priest and the Levite are the same guy, just times two. So who are they? Well, their motto would be something like this, “What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. Have a good day. Live and let live. I don't wanna get involved.” 

And what's so striking about both the priest and the Levite is they see the individual lying there by the side of the road. “He saw him and passed by on the other side.” “He saw him and passed by on the other side,” it's very significant. The good Samaritan, he sees him and ministers. So, this sight is so important. Take them into you with your eyes. Look at him. Look at him. These are individuals that are choosing to be willfully ignorant. I don't wanna know much more than I already know. I already know more than I wanna know. 

And so they pass by. Why did they pass by on the other side, why not like walk right by him? Well, it's a little uncomfortable. I wanna put as much distance between us and the misery and the suffering as we can. Hence that air conditioned bubble that was in me in Mombasa. There's this, “I want a gap, a safe space.”

And, you know, it's amazing how we can actually carve out a lifestyle in which you hardly ever see any suffering people. It's actually easy to do. And by the way, I think some of the worst, most terrifying sins that there are in life are those sins of omission, the things that you ought to do and don't do. That's how these folks did, the priest and Levite, they're on some holy mission, I guess. I don't know. They're going to Jerusalem; they're gonna do something for God, but they don't do clearly what God wants them to do.

And so those sins of omission are just scary, aren't they really. Because it says in Matthew 25, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will gather all the nations before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” And he's going to put the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left. And then after commending the sheep, he says to the goats, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.”

They didn't do anything. They just didn't do what they should have done. “‘Now when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger needing clothes or sick or in prison and not help you?’ ‘Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did not do for me.’”  What would it be like to see a replay of our lives and see all of the possible ministries we could have had if only we'd been more attentive? And therefore, you ought to be pleading for open eyes as a result of this sermon. Just say, “God give me grace, give me eyesight to see opportunities I've been missing. I've gotten in the habit of passing by. I don't wanna keep doing that. Give me a new eyesight here.” I'm praying it for myself too. 

And then you have the innkeeper. His motto is, “What's mine is yours if you'll pay me for it.” So there's an individual who is willing to help if he gets something beneficial in this life out of it. He's a mercenary. 

And then there's the good Samaritan basically, “What's mine is yours if you need it. If you need it, I'll give it to you.” So Jesus, I think specifically chose a Samaritan because he was trying to offend. I don't know what it is, is that what he's doing? I don't know, maybe the parables are that way, but Jesus is trying to get you to listen. And by choosing the Samaritan, who they would have despised, as the good guy in the story, it just shows Jesus' nature.

Look what he does. Look what he does. He stops his own life. He invests himself fully. He gives of his time, he even spends the whole night caring for the man. The man's well-being has become his whole focus. He set aside his own agenda. We don't know where he was going, or what he was doing, but that's done now at least for the night. He gives of his money, pays silver coins to the innkeeper for whatever costs there may be, and he promises to come back later to finish his care and see that he's fully recovered. That's how he sacrifices, that's what he does, that's what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

And so at the end of that then Jesus sums it all up. “‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’” Like I said, he's good at the right answers; he's a good right answer giver. And so he was like, “Oh, the one who had mercy.” Right you are. “Go and do likewise,” said Jesus. You know these things. You'll be blessed if you do them. That's in effect what he's saying. Go and do likewise. This, I think, is a categorical command from our Savior to us to love our neighbor like this. Go and do likewise.

Well, it leaves all kinds of questions still in our hearts, but He does answer the two questions. Remember I said there are two questions. Alright, who is my neighbor? Anyone in need, providentially, anybody who crosses your path, anybody you know about, anybody in need. He's a human being, he's in need of something, providentially in my life, I see him.

By the way, do you not see how that self-esteem interpretation just doesn't fit? Imagine as he's going along the side of the road there's the good Samaritan and he sees the man there and he kinda sits down next to him as the man is bleeding there. Says, “I want you to know I really would like to help, but I've just really been feeling gloomy about myself recently. I've been struggling with my self-esteem. I haven't really liked myself very much. I don't feel good in public settings, and I'm just not well put together right now, wish I could help.” He gets up and walks off. 

I have a hard time fitting it into the parable. It's like there's this need and guess what happens? Out go questions of self-esteem. They're just out. Here's a guy with a need. Let's go for it. Guess what? When you live your life like that, all of a sudden, you realize it's been years since you've worried about how you were about yourself. You're just happy, productive, fruitful and energetically serving Christ and healthy, really, really healthy and happy. I already said that didn't I? But anyway, happy and healthy and well put together. You're not asking, “Can I really do this?” And so I think that kind of answers it, who is my neighbor? Any needy person at all. And what does it mean to love him as myself? Sacrificial acts of service. 

But there are still some questions remaining, aren't there? Is mercy ministry necessary or essential to the Christian life? Like, can I not do this and still go to heaven? Let's realize the original question is, “What must I do to get eternal life?” in Luke 10; that was the original context. Jesus in effect is saying, “Do this.” Is this teaching works salvation? Well, we know it's not, but it appears that Jesus sees care for the poor and the needy as of the essence of being a Christian; it's of the essence of the Christian life. Well, another question may pop in your mind, what is the scope and dimension of my life of loving my neighbor? Like the lawyer, aren't we ready to ask in different ways who is my neighbor?

Tim Keller, in his book, Mercy Ministry: The Call of the Jericho Road lists ways that modern Christians seek to escape costly ministry to the poor and needy by making excuses and asking these kinds of questions. “Just how far do we have to go?” “You don't mean that we should pour ourselves out for anyone and everyone do you?” “Doesn't charity begin at home?” “You don't mean that every Christian must get deeply involved with hurting and needy people. I'm not really very good at that kind of work. It's really not my gift.” “I have a busy schedule, and I'm actually extremely active in my church.”

You start to see that the priest and the Levite kind of answer is going on here. “I've got things I gotta do for the church.” “Isn't this sort of thing the government's job anyway?” Well, we can get into that discussion another time. “I barely have enough money for myself and frankly aren't many of the poor really just personally irresponsible? Isn't it the case that if they would just get their act together, that things will be better in their lives?”

And realistically, “how far should we go?” You can see anything you wanna see all over the world. You can see the Haiti earthquake, within hours after it's happened. Or maybe even while it's happening, I mean, are we really supposed to care for everybody that's hurting and broken all over the world?

These are real questions that come into our hearts. My question is this, how can we really be transformed as individuals, so that we actually obey these commands as God intends? That's my question, how can FBC become, without question, a loving church in this community that does the good works God has ordained for us to do? That's my question. So that we are not excusing ourselves from good works and missing, friends, so many blessings that God has for us to do. Are we not living in the Jericho road right now, every day?

Now some time ago, I gave a talk at The Gospel Coalition in Chicago on this topic and I want to lay out quickly, some, I think biblical priorities in helping us to sort this out. 

The first priority I laid out is this: Justification before ministry. And by this, I'm talking to you as an individual. Please be sure that you yourselves are justified by faith in Christ, apart from works of the law before you even try to do these things. They came in John 6 and said, “What must we do to work the works of God?” And Jesus said, “This is the work of him who sent me, that you believe in the one that he is sent.”

Let's start there. I said it early in the sermon. I'll say it again. Do not try to do mercy ministry if you're not certain that your sins are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ. We are not saved by doing mercy ministry, friends. We are saved by someone else's mercy ministry to us, Jesus. And then we're saved to do mercy ministries for others, but we're not justified by our works. So let's be sure that we have that. Have you trusted in Christ? Are your sins forgiven through faith in His blood? Have you let Jesus wash not just your feet, but your hands and your head and your whole soul in his cleansing grace and mercy? Have you let him do that for you? Then set aside everything else I'm saying and just come to Christ, if you haven't yet. That's priority number one: Justification before ministry.

Priority number two is: Ministry to the soul above ministry to the body. It is more important to minister to the soul than it is to minister to the body. Jesus settled this forever when he said, “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” He said it in John 6, after the feeding of the 5,000. “Do not labor for the food that spoils,” he said to the poor. “Do not labor for the food that spoils but for the food that endures to eternal life.” And so that's our message in mercy ministry here, in any kind of loving of the poor and needy must be gospel proclamation above all else. Now, it doesn't mean temporally it has to come first. Sometimes you feed them some soup or do some things, but in that there's a seeking and a yearning to have that gospel conversation and to share the gospel. So ministry to the soul above ministry to the body; it does not mean we don't minister to the body, friends. Just setting out priorities. So we want to minister to the soul because it's eternal.

Thirdly, ministry to the family of believers and to our own families above ministry to outsiders. This is a clear biblical priority. First and foremost, God has arranged most of the people in the world in families to care for their overwhelming ongoing needs of food, clothing, and shelter. It is clearly too much for the church to care for the food, clothing, and shelter needs of everybody in the district. That is something families are supposed to take care of. And so it says in 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” He's talking there about in context ministry to the widows and be sure that they're truly widows in need. Be sure that they don't have a son that can take care of them, and he ought to take care of them.

And then a little side step from that is we need a minister to Christians, first and foremost, above ministry to non-Christians. And you get this again from Galatians 6:10. “Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family believers.” There's a priority structure there. So we're gonna minister to Christians as they have need, especially within our own church and then outward from there. But this doesn't mean we don't minister to non-Christians. It's just a priority structure.

Fourth, ministry to the poor above ministry to the rich. Jesus provokes us with this teaching. Luke 14, “Jesus said to his host, ‘When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and you'll be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’” So there's a clear priority structure there. Find out those that are genuinely needy and minister to them, but this doesn't mean that we have no ministry to the rich. The rich can be hurting in other ways, significantly hurting, and so we need a minister to them as well.

Alright, so what applications and challenges, do we take from this? Well, I'm already challenged. I know about you. I look at these kinds of things, and I say, “Lord, how can I live a life pleasing to you?” I think basically what I get from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 is each day has enough trouble of its own. Let's put it positively, each day has enough ministry opportunities of its own. Let's do the good works that God has ordained for us to do today. Let's do them today and let's find out what they are.

Let's love our neighbor as ourself within our own family. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Love her, cherish her, take care of her. Wives love your husbands, pray for your husbands, build them up, encourage them. 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind,” let's really do that. 

Parents love your children, cherish them, pour yourselves out for them and into them, pray for them, set them a good example, be tender-hearted and compassionate with them. Paul says to the Thessalonians, he says, “We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children; you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of the Lord.” That's how fathers and mothers should be. So do that; love your children. 

And let's love our geographical neighbors right in our own neighborhoods. It's like I'm not sure we have neighborhoods anymore. It's amazing, the modern technology has made neighborhood's almost like a thing of the past. There's so much seclusion these days, do you see it? It's really hard. If you don't think I'm right, then just go knock on someone's door, ring their doorbell if it even works. And they'll be surprised to see you. I'm not saying you should do that as a ministry strategy, I'm just telling you some things have broken down. Maybe we ought to start rebuilding our commitment to our physical neighbors, to see who's around us, and how we can minister to them. Ask God for opportunities to do it; ask God for help. You're not on your own in all of this.

And what about fellow church members, how can we love our fellow church members as we love ourselves? Well, I would begin with prayer. I would start with prayer lists and find out how people are hurting. They frequently will tell that on the prayer list, so go find it and say, “Okay this isn't just a line on a piece of paper, this is so and so who's saying that such and such is going on in his or her life.” Think about it. Take it to God in prayer as though it were happening to you, and think if this were happening to you, what kind of ministry would mean something to you? How could somebody minister to me.”

Love your urban neighbor and your international neighbor as yourself. Different ministries, I already mentioned Jobs For Life. We have a growing ministry in an urban setting that's getting stronger and stronger. It could be that God may be calling you to minister right here in the community and you don't know how. There's this incredible ministry called Durham Cares. I talked with these folks last week, and they basically will listen to you, they interview you, they find out what you are into. There's this discussion back and forth and then they line you up with some ministries you might be interested in. Said it sounds like e-Harmony.com for ministry. And they said, “Yeah, that's what it is.” But they try to line you up with some options for ministry. 

There are opportunities. We've seen a tremendous growth to our own international student ministry. English as a Second Language, other things, just being hosts and having people in your home. It's been beautiful to see some people really get excited about that kind of ministry. Friends, we are called to love our neighbors as ourself, even to the ends of the earth. John Piper summarizes it this way, “Our Lord is aiming to call into being loving, compassionate, merciful men and women whose hearts summon them irresistibly into action when there is suffering within their reach. To that end he demands that they again and again ask themselves this question: Am I desiring and seeking the temporal and eternal good of my neighbor with the same zeal, ingenuity, and perseverance with which I seek my own? Is my own native and insatiable longing for happiness seeking its fulfillment by drinking deeply at the fountain of God's mercy and then letting it spill over in love into the life of my neighbor?” Close with me in prayer.

“And now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” So says the final verse of 1 Corinthians 13. And as I meditate on that, I think about what does it mean these three remain? Could it be at the end of your life, when there's nothing else left? You're conscious that you're dying, you're at the end of your life, you're not sure what else is left, these three will still be there: Faith, hope, and love, at the end of your life. But you know what's gonna happen if you believe in Christ? Soon faith and hope itself will drop off. Faith will become sight, and you'll no longer need to hope for what you do not have, you'll have it. And you know what we'd be left with then? Love.

And as Jonathan Edwards put it in an incredible sermon I read, “Heaven is a World of Love.” You will step across that divide that river of death, and you'll step into a world of love that can scarcely be described. A world rich with love, with the consummation of love, with love incarnate there on his throne, Jesus Christ, and your own heart will be transformed in an instant and all the things you labored for all your life to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love your neighbor as yourself, will be instantly given you as a gift. And you'll be transformed into a person of love, fit for a world of love. And you'll be welcomed in at that point. That's the consummation. Isn't it? That's what we're looking for.

Heaven is a world of love. But this world is not a world of love. It's not characterized by love. It ought to be, but it isn't. And so, we are surrounded by 6 billion people, and very few of them really know what love is, have experienced the love of Christ. Few there are that find it, Jesus said. And sometimes in the simplest acts of kindness and generosity, there can be an oasis of love in the middle of all that, that gives us a foretaste of that future world of love. And how sweet is that?

Sometimes, it can even happen while watching a movie. It doesn't always happen, but sometimes it can happen. And here I'm talking about a really sweet and pure love scene. Not that sordid type that we know about. But I was watching this movie called Driving Miss Daisy, sometime ago. Maybe you've seen it, about an elderly African American gentleman, Morgan Freeman, who is hired to drive around an even more elderly Southern lady. And the movie just traces the development of their relationship. As it goes first from kind of suspicion and not really sure where they are with each other, of an employer-employee relationship and that's all. She didn't really want him to drive. She doesn't use him. He drives along and she's walking and will not get in the car. And it's quite a scene.

So there's some mistrust but as the relationship develops, a really beautiful thing to see, just friendship is what it is. Friendship.

And the consummation of that is, at the end, the final scene, and by this time she's quite elderly and she is suffering from dementia, and she's in a nursing home. And she's sitting at a table, and it's Thanksgiving and Morgan Freeman goes to visit her. And she's got a piece of pie there. And it's on the table and there's a fork there, but she doesn't seem to be aware of it. And so he sits down and he's trying to talk to her. And he just decides to feed her the pie. And that's just one of the most spectacular scenes in all moviedom for me. Like, that's boring. No, it's not boring, it's awesome because as he feeds her the pie, he seems to be eating it through her. As though her joy is his joy. As though the taste of the pie in her mouth as though he is enjoying it. He doesn't have a bite of the pie. Your pleasure is my pleasure, your joy is my joy. Your pie is my pie, and I'm not taking it from you. You go ahead and eat it all, but I can enjoy it through you.

Friends, that is that horizontal love that God is commanding of us here in this passage today. That we would love our neighbor like that, that we would love our neighbor as ourselves. And you know, we can't do it. Our heart is so hardened and we're so corrupt in sin that we can't do that naturally. We need a supernatural work of God to fulfill this command. And that supernatural work of God is available to us through the grace that's given us in Christ Jesus.

He came, it says in Ephesians 2, talking about the hostility between Jews and Gentiles, that's the context, but I'm gonna extend it just to all human relationships. He came to destroy, to put to death all hostility between the two. And to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace. He's come to do that, friends, not just with Jew and Gentile, but with people. Person A and Person B, in Christ, becoming one together. And in this way, I think, Christ died to fulfill this second commandment. He died loving his neighbor as himself. He died in order that we might love our neighbors as ourselves.

So, let's set this in context. You know, it's the final week of Jesus' life. Jesus is having strife and conflict with his enemies, who are seeking to kill him. They hate him, and they try to lay one trap after another for him. In Matthew 22, the Pharisees and Herodians bring him this question on taxation. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” He deals with that. Then the Sadducees come with that ridiculous question on resurrection and whose wife will she be of the seven. He deals with that. And then this expert in the law tests him with this question, “‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ And Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.’”

Now, for the last two sermons, we've looked at the first and greatest commandment, it had its proper place. It comes first. It should be first. Talk more about that in a moment, but that is that vertical relationship toward God, that we should love God with all of our hearts above everything else. But we cannot love God and hate our neighbors. And again, I'm gonna talk more about that. And so, it must move out. Jesus gives beyond what the lawyer asked, a second commandment which he said is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

And so, we come to this issue of our horizontal relationship with one another, our love relationship with the other 6 billion people on the face of the earth. You are not alone. There are other people. That's a central pillar of our parenting. We're teaching our children, they're not alone, there are other people. Those other people are precious. They're created in the image of God, this kind of thing. And so we're not alone. And so we've got this horizontal, and dear friends, we come therefore into a dark history. In the Bible, there's a dark history of that horizontal relationship.

I believe because our fellowship with God was broken, our fellowship with one another was broken. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were soon in hostility toward one another. And we see evidence of it right from the start, Genesis 3:7 “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; and so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” This is just evidence of a distance that's come between the man and his wife, between Adam and Eve because of sin.

And then when God confronted Adam, Adam sought to blame his wife and God, too. You remember that, Genesis 3:12, “The man said, ‘This woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.’” And so therefore, I think that broken vertical relationship with God inevitably results in broken horizontal relationships.

First and foremost, here in marriage, Adam and Eve covering themselves, and blaming each other for sin. That's just the beginning of marital difficulties. All manner of problems would then pollute the marriage relationship after that. Conflicts, arguments, dissensions, jealousy, adultery and divorce, even murder would sully marriage in the generations to come.

Then in the very next chapter, Cain and Abel, as the sin spreads more horizontally, we see the brotherly affections dissolved, destroyed as Cain is jealous of his brother, Abel, and murders him. By the end of the chapter, we have this man Lamech who murders a man just for insulting him. And you could just see the degeneration of that horizontal relationship.

By the time of Noah, the world was filled with violence, it says. That's why I believe that the death penalty was established for murder after the flood was over. If any man sheds a man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for the image of God has God made man. He re-establishes the dignity of humanity concerning murder. You can't murder a person, because they're created in the image of God. Terrible wickedness in Noah's day.

And so it continued beyond that. Abraham was called and then Ishmael was born, and then Isaac afterwards and Ishmael mocks Isaac. And they're in hostility with one another. That brotherly affection destroyed, if it ever existed, in that relationship. 

Then Jacob and Esau come, the twins who are struggling in the womb, and come out struggling and struggled all the way through. And how Jacob swindled his father and stole Esau's blessing and then Esau wanted to murder him. He comforted himself, he consoled himself with the thought of murdering his brother. And so Jacobs has to flee.

And so he runs and meets Laban. Oh, what a man Laban was. And so now we get the employer-employee relationship destroyed as Laban swindles him again and again. And then you have Rachel and Leah, and the hostility there is sister to sister, as they're in a clearly dysfunctional family. And the relationships are just very, very tough. Joseph and his four, I guess, wives give birth to the patriarchs and they hate Joseph. And they wanna murder him for his coat of many colors, they're jealous of him, instead, they sell him for money as a slave.

And so the Book of Genesis, you just see the degeneration of that horizontal relationship and you know the story doesn't end there. And it's continued right to this present time. All you have to do is click into a CNN site or whatever, and you're just gonna find the evidence of hostility, person-to-person, wars and rumors of wars, of crimes and murders, of divorce and hostility and broken relationships, of even church factions and divisions.

And so it's a dark history we face today. But dear friends, there is hope, isn't there? Isn't there hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Isn't there hope for that world of love? We have to trace out this dark history, we have to look at the darkness of our own hearts. But know this, the future is infinitely bright, and someday this hostility will be put to death, and it will be gone forever and ever, amen.

So we have these two commandments. We have that vertical commandment, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. We have that horizontal commandment, Love your neighbor as yourself. And as I already touched on but I'll say now more fully, those two commandments are completely intertwined. You can't pick and choose. That's why Jesus went beyond what the lawyer asked him, gave the second commandment. The lawyer didn't say which are the top two commandments, but Jesus knew that he could not give a summation of all the Law and the Prophets without the second command.

And so I say this: true love for your neighbor depends on your love for God. If you don't love God, you cannot love your neighbor properly. I speak now to unbelievers who do charitable works. You're not really loving your neighbor, not as God intended. And why is that? Why do I say that? Well, because you cannot, you must not, love your neighbor more than you love God. Frankly, you must not love anything more than you love God. If you love anything more than you love God, you're an idolater.

So you cannot make an idol of your neighbor. But quite frankly, most people who are not Christians who do good works, works of benevolence and charity, they're really just loving themselves in a sinful and idolatrous way. There is a pride involved in some of those good works. So I say to you, you cannot really love your neighbor if you don't first love God through Jesus Christ.

But secondly, we know this is true as well, true love for God always results in a horizontal commitment to love others. You cannot really be loving God if you don't love your neighbor. The two of them go together. So 1 John 4:20 says, “If anyone says ‘I love God’ and yet hates his brother, he's a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." So the two are intertwined, we must have them both.

Now, I've already said before, and I say again, it's very, very plain. This is the law of God, these two commandments, this is the law. This is Sinai, this is what God requires of you. This is what he's standing on you and with threatenings and with earthquake and with flashing lightning, and thunder with a loud voice. He says you must obey these two commands. You must love me with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you must love your neighbor as yourself. This is the standard of judgment, this is the law of God, the Ten Commandments can be arranged in these two tables.

The first table, the vertical table, the first four commandments. You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall not make any idols or bow down to any idols or worship any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. These are the vertical commands in the Ten Commandments. It's that love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And then the last six are all horizontal. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor and you shall not covet your neighbor's belongings, anything that belongs to your neighbor. Those six commandments are summed up in this one commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Romans 13, Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of that second table of the law.

And as I've said before, God really does intend for the human race to obey this. You must be righteous in these two senses. You must have loved God, and you must have loved your neighbor as yourself. These are not idle words. These words are our life, Deuteronomy. And if we have not obeyed, we stand guilty and condemned before the law of God.

Romans 3:10-20, says by this law, we are condemned, not saved. As it says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Do you not see the two commandments right there in that list that Paul gives? Their feet are swift to shed blood, that's horizontal. There's no fear of God before their eyes, that's vertical. They're not obeying the law. Paul continues. “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be justified, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by obeying the law; rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin.”

It should not surprise you, then, if you listen to a sermon on the first and greatest commandment and you become conscious of sin. And it should not surprise you, again if you hear a sermon on the second greatest commandment, that you become conscious of sin in your life, expect it friends. Expect that you'll be convicted by the Spirit, that you'll find that you have not been loving as you should. You've not loved your neighbor as yourself.

And so we must have a savior. We must have a gospel, if it's only law, we are condemned, we're lost. But it's always law plus gospel. That's my pleasure. My delight is to proclaim both law and gospel to you. And so, I proclaim, not just to you, but to my own soul. There is hope in Jesus.

But Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” And he came to fulfill them in many different ways. He came to fulfill them just by obeying them. He just obeyed them. He just loved God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved his neighbors as himself. He perfectly obeyed the laws of God.

And he won a perfect righteousness, which he then offers to us as a free gift. And this “righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,” Romans 3:21-24. There is our hope.

Jesus was obedient, and so in Him, you can be seen to be obedient too, simply by faith. But is that the end? Is that the end of our encounter with the two great commandments? Friends, you know, it's not. As I've said before, God isn't giving you a free pass. “Now that you're justified, forget about loving me, and don't worry about loving your neighbor,” he's not saying that. He's saying, “Okay now, now that you're justified, I have given you the gift of my indwelling Holy Spirit. You're an adopted son or daughter of the living God.” Now he turns you and he faces you to the law and says, “Now do this. Do it. Walk in these ways.”

Romans 8:4, “In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” He wants you to love God, and friends, horizontally, he wants you to love your neighbor as yourself. And he wants you to do it by the power of God.

So, what does it mean then to love your neighbor as yourself? Now, I'm gonna talk more next week about “as yourself,” we're gonna talk more about that phrase, I'll save that till next week. 

But let me give you a definition similar to the one I gave you concerning that vertical love for God. Remember how I said it was cheerful sacrificial obedience to God's commands? I'm gonna do something similar horizontally, just shift the words a bit. Horizontally then, love, love for neighbor is cheerful sacrifice, resulting in beneficial action for the glory of God. That's what true love is.

We'll start with the end, it's got to be done for the glory of God. If it isn't, then there's something wrong with it, it's defective. So we've got to do it for the glory of God. But with that arranged, we've already talked about that in the previous two sermons, then what is it? Okay, well it's cheerful sacrifice resulting in beneficial actions in the world, helping them in some way.

I'm gonna take that and break it into two senses. This clarity I think came to me very much in prayer this morning. I see that there are two aspects in the New Testament, and we've got to understand them both. And I'm devoting this sermon to one and then next week's sermon to the second aspect. Okay. There is a heart affection aspect, and there's a physical action in the world aspect. And without both of those, you're not loving. You got to have them both.

So there's a heart affection for the neighbor, a delight from the heart, going out from the inside, resulting in sacrificial acts of service to them that are gonna help them in some way. And I believe there are two great scriptures that describe those two. The heart aspect of love is 1 Corinthians 13, you can turn your Bibles there, I'm gonna trace along with that, this morning. 1 Corinthians 13 describes the heart affection aspect, that internal sense that must be there, or it isn't love.

The external actions part, I could choose a lot of passages, but Luke 10 the parable of the Good Samaritan describes that. Sacrificial acts of service to benefit the person. We'll discuss that next week. Okay. The two have to be there, so love is an affection, it's a heart movement toward a person, it must come from the heart, that's included in the word cheerful, you're cheerful and you're glad to do it. And it's got to be a sacrifice that is a willingness to give something valuable: Time, energy, money, yourself, your attention, your gifts, your personality, your listening ear, something of value, something you sacrifice, without the sacrifice there's no love and it results in beneficial action in the world.

Something has to actually happen in space and time. They need to know you did something for 'em. So there's actually some kind of act of service. It could just be a word spoken of encouragement, but if something happens, so that there's an internal feeling aspect and in that external sacrificial service aspect.

And so love is a feeling, friends. It's not less than a feeling. It just is more than a feeling, but it's not less than a feeling. Okay? And common expressions of love fill the world. “Oh, I love this song! It's my favorite!” says a teenage girl and leans forward and turns up the radio. It's happened before.

“I love this time of year,” says a woman at the spring when the warm winds begin to blow and the flowers are poking up from the soil, and the birds have returned and the days are getting warmer and longer. Do you sense I can't wait for it to come. Come spring. I've gotten soft since I moved down here. I couldn't ever live in Massachusetts again. I just don't think I could do it. I don't know how our brothers and sisters made it through. I don't want to. My relatives they’d probably call me soft. I can't handle any more blizzards, you know they're pretty until they get all salty and dirty and sandy and all that and then it's not so fun. But at any rate.

“I just love the mountains with all the spectacular scenery,” says a hiker to his partner as they just look at one of those scenic overlooks. Or, “Daddy loves you so much,” says the Father who has been away for a week on a business trip to his little daughter as she runs with her arms stretched out. “I love chocolate,” says the wife as she opens up the package later this afternoon or maybe already this morning. It's already happened. “I love March Madness,” says the guy as he settles back into the easy chair and watches the first of 16 consecutive basketball games. No more comments on that, you know who you are.

Now the question is how are all of these loves related? Are they related? Are they connected? A song on the radio, a season in the year, a mountain scenery, a four-year-old daughter running with her arm outstretched, chocolate, college basketball, and God. How do they all relate? They do relate. It's wrong for you to think they don't relate. There's a reason that we use the same word for all of them. They are clearly different, but they all just relate.

And as I said last week, Jonathan Edwards helped me organize this and see that they all do relate: The heart has the ability to assess and analyze things, and then be attracted or repulsed from them, it's what the heart does. It's what your heart was designed by God to do. And the essence of true religion according to Edwards is affection of the heart, primarily expressed vertically toward God. But it also moves horizontally toward the neighbor. The heart is moved in attraction toward the neighbor. That's what I'm gonna try to describe to you today, there's a heart movement toward the neighbor. And without that heart movement toward the neighbor, it isn't really love, whatever you do it for.

1 Corinthians 13 I think makes this plain. Look at verse 3, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Okay, what Paul's saying there is he's talking about sacrifice in the highest sense of the word, the highest level of sacrifice. You give all of your possessions, and then you give your body to death. You have nothing left to give, that's Christ, that's what Jesus did. His possessions were gambled over to fulfill prophecy, and then his body was just given out fully for us.

Even if you did that though, and you had not loved you would gain nothing. It would not be commendable before God. Isn't that terrifying? Think about it. It's like, I don't even do anything close to that. It's like, but even if you did, if you did that and you didn't have love, so therefore I assert to you love must be more than just sacrificial actions. There's got to be something else, something in the heart, there's gotta be a heart affection for the individual.

John Piper in his classic Desiring God makes it plain that what he calls disinterested benevolence is not truly loving, saying, I don't get anything out of the things I give, I don't get anything. I hope you husbands did your duty and bought your wives something, “Oh don't mention it, hun, it was just my duty.” That's not gonna get you anything dear friends, oh actually that it gets you a lot, it won't get you what you want. She doesn't want to think it was your duty.

One Christian writer was talking about this. Suppose a husband says to his wife, “Must I kiss you goodnight every night?” She says, “Yes you must, but not that kind of must.” In other words, if it doesn't come from your heart I don't want it. So there's got to be something inside you that says “I want to do this for you.” We should delight in doing good to others. We should enjoy benefiting them. And if you don't, it isn't love. So 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each man should give what he has decided to give in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Dear friends, how much of your service to Christ and others did that just weed out right there? “Reluctantly or under compulsion,” that is so convicting, isn't it? If you're doing it reluctantly you're doing it like 'cause you have to, it isn't really love. God wants you to do it cheerfully. And why should we be cheerful givers? Well, we should just think of the joy and delight that we bring God by obeying his commands. We are loving God by doing this, that should make us happy.

And then horizontally we should just be pondering the blessing and the benefit we're bringing to another person. We're alleviating their suffering, we're making them happy, in some way that should make you cheerful. And you should think thirdly about the rewards you get, your stored up treasure in heaven. And someday you're going to experience God's pleasure in what you did, when he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” you've got three good reasons for being cheerful and giving.

So it should make you very very happy to give. So therefore genuine love is a feeling that fills the heart. It's an internal motivator and attraction towards the person. “I want to bless you. It is my pleasure to help you to bring you joy. I want to ease your pain and suffering.” And without that feeling it isn't love, it's hypocrisy.

Jonathan Edwards put it this way, “In some sense, the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his own happiness in doing good to others because he places his happiness in their good. His mind is so enlarged to take them, as it were, into himself. Thus when they are happy he feels it. He partakes with them, and is happy in their happiness. This is so far from being inconsistent with the freeness of generosity, but on the contrary free generosity and kindness, consist in it.”

In other words, if your mind can't expand to then include this other person, so that you're happy because they're happy, you haven't really loved, that's what Edwards is saying. Powerful statements. Ponder it the rest of the day because it's so life transforming.

Now of course, as we've said and we'll talk more next week, the feeling isn't enough I must balance it. Say I had so many good intentions. I really really felt lots of good feelings toward the members of this church. But did you do anything for them?

I mean did anything ever happen because of it? Well, that's James' job. James comes in and does that, also I John, both of them teach about the same thing. But James 2:15-17 says, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes or daily food. If one of you says to him ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way,” he makes the point, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

I don't think it's a stretch to say love is the same way, love without actions isn't love, it's dead. So there's got to be something physical done for the individual. So, 1 Corinthians 13:3 says you can't just have the actions, you've got to have the feeling. Got it? James 2 says you can't just have the feeling, you've got to have the actions, you've got to put them together in order to get biblical love. Does that make sense? All the rest is just exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13, should we skip it? No we're not gonna skip it, let's go ahead.

Jesus gives us a display of this again and again in his ministry, do you not see it? How many times does his heart go out to somebody, and then he does something for them? Beautiful example, you should look at it in Luke chapter 7, don't turn there but just later on, read it.

Jesus comes into Nain. And there's a widow there and it's a funeral procession, she is burying her only son. I mean, you just have to understand how tough that is, she's a widow, no husband, and now she's burying her only son. She is bereft of provision and protection in the world in that society. And it says in Luke 7:13, “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don't cry.’” Do you see that? His heart went out and he said something, “Don't cry.” And then he raised the son from the dead. Don't you wish you could do that? Wouldn't that be beautiful? But he acts and does something for her.

Again, with the leper in Mark chapter 1, “A leper came to him imploring him and kneeling to him and said, ‘If you will, you can make me clean,’” Now listen to verse, 41, Mark 1:41 this captures it, “Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand." That's it, friends. That's the combination. Do you see it? “Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and healed him, ‘I am willing be clean.’” There it is.

Jesus has shown the way for us. He's done this again and again. I could multiply examples. But his heart is moved, and then he acts. It started in heaven. His heart was moved toward us and he entered the world. And that's what he's done. And so he's still in heaven, he's up there in heaven and he's still doing it.

Hebrews 4:15 says, “We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with our infirmities, the feeling of our infirmities,” KJV, it's beautiful. He is moved by what we're going through and prays for us, based on that.

Alright, so 1 Corinthians 13, what kind of heart attitude is truly loving? Well look at verses 4-6, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” Let's just look at those verses there, there's enough there.

Love is patient, that's long-suffering, you put up with things for a long time, that's a heart state, a state of patience. Conversely, love is not impatient. We are an impatient people. So a loving neighbor cannot be impatient with his neighbor. Don't impatiently wait for your neighbor to finish their sentence so you can finally say what you want to say. That's not loving. Give them all the time they need. Even if you don't get to say what you want to say. Don't be impatient as all the checkout lines at the supermarket are full and this person seems to not know how to do you scan. Don't let the emotions of impatience rise up in your heart, give them the time they need to figure it out.

Love is kind, there's a mildness in the heart that is loving, there's a gentleness toward an affection, a tenderness, love is kind. Conversely, anti-love is unkind, we are more and more characterized by unkindness, we are becoming an unkind harsh people. People who cut down people with a clever remark, or show somebody up at a meeting or grab a parking spot right out from under somebody just as they're sizing it up.

Love does not envy, envy is a feeling of jealousy. Do you know how good it's gonna feel to be free of that in heaven? I mean it's gonna be beautiful, to just enjoy the exaltation of the martyrs and the great men and women of the faith higher than you and me, and not feel even the slightest motion of jealousy or envy toward them but just delight in what God did in and through them. That's gonna be awesome to be that out of yourself and free of yourself to feel no envy or jealousy at all.

Love doesn't boast, there's no boasting in it. You're not saying, “I'm the greatest of all times,” Muhammad Ali said that, remember, “I'm the greatest of all times.” In doing that he's putting down all the other boxers; that's just not loving. It may be what our athletes do these days but it's not Christian.

Love isn't proud it says, pride is the root sin, it's celebrating yourself too much. We could go on and on about that one. Love is not rude, dear friends, do you not see the growth of rudeness in our culture?

I was reading one journalist who was talking about rudeness in America, I came across this story. See if you can relate: “The other day I went into a juice place, ordered a smoothie and watched the girl behind the counter fill to overflowing, cram the top on and slide it across the counter at me with such vehemence I wondered if she was training for some Olympic shuffleboard event. Luckily my reflexes are quick and I caught it just in time. But then came the challenge of inserting the straw, which of course resulted in the top popping off and the smoothie squishing out all over the counter. She watched me the whole time and did nothing to assist me as I went through the futile motions of trying to mop up the mess with the tiny squares of napkins they provide. Finally I asked her for another top. ‘You mean a lid? You want a lid?’ She snarled before shoving another one across the counter.”

Have you had any kind of encounter like that before? Even worse, have you ever been like that before? That's the hard part. Love isn't rude, like that. There is more and more rudeness. It bothers me when I put my directional on to change lanes, I'm one of the few people that uses their directional... That was a prideful statement, wasn't it? I actually have started to notice how many turns are made without them. I saw a bumper sticker once and it's “visualize using your directional,” I love that. All right, just picture it in your mind. But you put the directional on saying I would like to change lanes and the person speeds up to prevent you from getting over. I don't, I don't understand that.

And so what I do is I say those same tendencies are in my own heart, be sure I don't do it too. Be sure I don't do it too, because whenever you judge someone else you're judging yourself it's out there.

Love isn't selfish, you're not looking for your own things, it's not easily angered, flaming into anger at any moment. And it keeps no record of wrongs. Could it be that sometimes your marriage relationship or church relationships are poison because you're keeping a record of wrongs? You haven't really forgiven? Love doesn't do that.

Love does not delight in evil. I've mentioned before in sermons this “shadenfreude” this delight in somebody else's demise, or delight in their trouble. Watching YouTube videos of the world's worst drivers, with a secret delight knowing you're not one of them. Boy it's fun to watch that lady, take six minutes to size up a parking spot in Walmart until the guy finally does it for her, boy isn't that fun? And it's like yeah you laugh at it and all that but then you're like you're delighting in somebody's struggle trouble, they're having a hard time. Even worse, is delighting in somebody else's sin. And you see that too with, you know, with a Rick Pitino or a Tiger Woods or something like that and there just seems to be a fascination with it. And I think it's ultimately self-serving and prideful.

Love doesn't delight in evil, but what does it do, where do we end up here? We end up with delight, cheerfulness, it rejoices in the truth, it rejoices in the truth, and here at last, friends, the two of them come together, what is the truth? Jesus is the truth. And so horizontally I'm gonna delight in giving you Jesus. Christian or non-Christian, I want you to have Jesus, or thy word is true, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. I want to give you the word.

And so the vertical then flows out into the horizontal, I wanna give you Jesus, I wanna give you the word, I wanna delight in the truth in your life. So we're gonna watch over one another in brotherly love, and we're gonna sanctify each other, and pray for each other and delight in the truth. I'll zero in on that word delight, love delights in truth coming up in that person's heart.

Friends, assess your heart, assess your heart. Can you listen to this and not be convicted? Can you listen to this and make it through unscathed? So say 1 Corinthians 13 is my favorite chapter in the Bible. It's the wedding chapter. It's so beautiful. It is the toughest chapter in the Bible friends. It's a chapter with teeth. And it digs in and says, “Are you doing this?” These aren't just pretty words. This is the heart state of affection, you should have for other human beings, for every other human being.

This is what God wants from you. Now next week we're gonna talk about okay so what, maybe we have those feelings, maybe God's worked them, what kind of life of action should we seek? How can we serve the poor and needy? How can we see that kind of love come alive in a marriage, and in a church? What kinds of acts of service and sacrifice does God expect from us? Close with me if you would in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Matthew 22:34-40, and how we are to examine our hearts in light of Jesus' Crucifixion and obey the Law of God.

Truly, it is said that God's ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. If it had been up to me, John's gospel would have ended at Chapter 20. What an incredible end there is there, and I know we're preaching on Matthew, I haven't forgotten. Your pastor hasn't lost his mind. But this is how I'm beginning the sermon today. You remember what happened in John 20, how Jesus, resurrected from the dead, appeared suddenly through locked doors and stood in the midst of his disciples and said, “Peace be with you,” and showed them the evidence of his resurrection, his hands and his side, and said again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, I'm sending you.”

Thomas wasn't there. Doubting Thomas. Over that next week, he asserted that unless he saw the physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection, he would never believe. A week later, Jesus comes again, though the doors are locked, and stands in their midst, and says, “Peace be with you,” and then he shows the evidence of his resurrection to Thomas. Hands and his side. Stop doubting and believe. And Thomas makes that confession, which everyone on the face of the earth must make if they want to be saved.

That saving confession, which must come from the heart, saying, to Jesus, “My Lord, and my God.” That's the pinnacle. Maybe the pinnacle of the Bible right there. The evidence of Jesus' deity, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and then a sinner standing and saying, “My Lord and my God,” to Jesus. “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And then Jesus did many other miraculous signs which are in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and believing you may have life in his name.” That sounds like a good place to end to me. What do you think? But there is a whole chapter 21, after it. What is the purpose of that chapter 21?

You remember what happened, how the disciples seemingly having nothing to do, decided to go back to fishing. I mean like physical fishing, not fishing for men, I mean, fishing. And so they're there fishing, in the Sea of Galilee, and suddenly a stranger stands by the shore and says, “Have you caught any fish and they'd fished all night and hadn’t caught anything. And he said, “Why don't you try the right side of the boat.” Suddenly the nets are so filled that they are ripping and breaking and it suddenly dawns on them who the stranger is by the shore. It's the Lord. Peter dives in, swims in there, they barely are able to haul that filled net to shore. Jesus makes them a breakfast of fish and bread and serves them.

And then he turns to Simon Peter, and starts to work on him. You remember what happened, don't you? Simon Peter had denied Jesus three times. Three times he said that he didn't even know him. He was trying to save his own life. The very thing that Jesus told us we should never try to do, whoever tries to save his life, will lose it. And so, he denied him.

And that very night, you remember in the providence of God, and the sovereignty of Christ, Jesus, being moved from one side of his trial to the next, just as the cock crows and Peter has denied him for the third time, Jesus turned and looked right at him, without saying a word. What did he need to say? “You are guilty. You're guilty of not loving me, you're guilty of denying me.” Just the crushing blow of that look, and you know what it did to Peter.

Oh, he went outside and wept bitterly, he wept. To look in the face of Jesus and to see that disappointment. Is there a future for me? Is there a place for me? I mean, yes, Jesus, you're risen. But is there a place for me? I'm the one who denied you. I don't love you like I should, I know it now. I know who you are. I agree with Thomas. You're My Lord and my God, but what am I? And is there a future for me?

And so, Jesus says to Simon, he says, “Simon son of John. Do you truly love me more than these?” I don't know what “more than these” means. More than these fish? More than these friends? More than these people love me? Do you love me more than you love anything else? I don't really know. I don't have to know 'cause I'm not preaching on John 21 this morning, but at any rate, “Do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord", he said, “You know I love you.” And Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Sometime later, he turned to him and said again, “Simon, son of John. Do you love me, do you truly love me?” “Yes, Lord,” he said. “You know that I love you.” “Take care of my sheep,” he said. The third time he said to him, “Simon Son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus had asked him this question three times. Now let me ask you, do you think that Jesus knew this would hurt Peter? I think he knew it. Did he intend to hurt Peter? I think he did. But not the kind of hurt that Satan would intend or an enemy would intend. It's the heart of a friend. It's the wounds of a friend. And the issue is, “Do you love me?” Jesus is saying. And I just feel that this is vital. We don't just need to know who Jesus is, we don't just need to know that his death was for us, and all that, we need to have this problem dealt with in our hearts that we don't really love Jesus.

And we need Jesus to stand in front of us, and probe our hearts to reveal to us that we really don't love him like we should. And it hurts, friends. And so, I don't have any desire to hurt you today but Jesus may. And I just want to step out of the way and let him do his work on you, because we're coming, as I said two weeks ago, to the foot of Sinai here. This is the law, friends, with all of it's delightful language and loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength we know the truth, don't we? We don't love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Some time ago, I came across these lyrics, “Give me one pure and holy passion. Give me one magnificent obsession, give me one glorious ambition for my life to know and follow, hard after you.” I couldn't sing it. I couldn't sing it. I actually kind of almost hated it. I was like turn the page. I don't wanna sing this one, 'cause it just isn't true of me. I don't have one pure and holy passion. I'm a man of many passions. And I yearn to be a man of one passion, I really want that.

And so John 21 actually ministers to me. Maybe it ministers to you to have Jesus stand in front of you and probe you on this very issue. Do you love him? Do you love Jesus? Do you love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength? Do you? And that's what this sermon is about today. It's really diagnosing your heart condition. None of us enjoys a trip to the doctor. You know that annual check-up. Some just go ahead and skip it. That's not a good idea, but that's what we do. And so this is just diagnosis. This is just God probing us, by the Scripture. He's probing our hearts. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Now, let's set the context. You remember Jesus was in the final week of his life, and his enemies are there trying to make trouble for him and Jesus deals with many, many different difficult questions. And then along comes this lawyer from the Pharisees, and he says “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

Jesus gives a very orthodox-ed answer as you remember. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

We saw two weeks ago as we looked at this, “with all your heart” means that central part of you. Your heart is that part of you that thinks, it feels, it decides, it plans, it desires everything inside you, that heart of you, the core of you, love God. And love God “with all of your soul,” the “nephesh”, the life principle, with every fiber of your living being as you live and breathe, love God. And “with all your mind,” the part of you that thinks, and reasons and meditates, the part of you that imagines your thought life. All your mental powers, your science and philosophy, and logic, and all of that thinking, love God in all of it. And then with all your strength. With your body, present your body. All of its powers and its faculties to God, ready for service. God, I want you to use my body. I want you to use all of my strength, I wanna be poured out like a drink offering, I wanna drop exhausted on the pillow at the end of the day, having given everything for God.

And it says with all of your heart, and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength, and the full teaching of the Word of God is all the time. So you do all of that all the time and never fail. Now you see why I've said this is a trip to the foot of Mount Sinai. Who wants to stand up here and testify. I have kept this law. I have kept this law. This week has been the best week of my life. I have kept this law 100 percent. Who would dare to testify like that, I wouldn't.

In Pilgrim's Progress, Christian, the character that's moving from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, before he comes to the cross, he comes to Mount Sinai and it's like a mountain leaning over ready to crush him. And I think we think, “Oh wow, boy. The first and greatest commandment, love God.” It's the very thing, friends that we don't do.

And so we talked about that last time. And Jesus gives a second commandment which I'm going to speak fully on, more fully next week, but he said “The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” The two of them are interconnected. I'll make that point next week. 

But everything, all the law and the prophets, everything God wants from you everything he commands from you hangs on these two things, summarized by these two things: Love God and love your neighbor.

And I said last week, God actually in fact requires this of us. It's not theoretical. It's not theoretical, it's not like he's gonna dismiss it and say, “Oh, well we all know nobody kept it. And so you're fine. I'm gonna grade on the curve.” God doesn't grade on the curve. Did you or did you not love me in this moment or at that moment, etcetera? And then you just start to see the times where you didn't piled up.

And I said at this point, you must understand the purpose of the law, is it not to crush self-confidence? Is it not just to crush it into a powder where you realize, I cannot do this? I can't be perfect, I can't. I must have a savior. The law brings wrath dear friends, not salvation, Romans 4, read about it. It doesn't bring salvation. The law brings wrath. By the works of the law, Romans 3:20, no one, no flesh will be justified in his sight. You can't do this, that's the testimony of the Word of God.

But thanks be to God, there's a gospel, amen? Thanks be to God, that's not the final word. Could have been, that could have been the final word on us. You didn't love me. And therefore go to hell. God could have said that, that could have been the final word. We are condemned by that law, 'cause God really did mean it.

But it says in Romans 8, “What the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son.” Praise be to God. For sending Jesus who went and actually did this for 30 plus years, he actually did it in space and time with his body, he loved God perfectly every moment of his life. And he won for us a perfect righteousness that he now just offers you as a free gift. Oh dear lost friend, that's your only hope, that's the righteousness God actually does require, he's just gonna give it to you as a gift. Just as a free gift.

He'd just say “Here, put this on. Give me all of your wickedness, and all of your sin.” And he puts it on Jesus, Jesus dies under the wrath of God. Remember I said the law brings wrath. There's the wrath at the cross. And he just gives you a gift. Perfect righteousness. Well, that was all last week.

Now I wanna ask a deeper question, “What does this mean?” Thanks be to God that if you have trusted in God, this righteousness is credited to your account, it's imputed to you or reckoned to you. You're thought of as righteous as Jesus, is that the end of our salvation? You're free from the law, oh happy condition. You don't need to love God with any part of you.

Is that so? Is that what the Bible teaches? That cannot be. You know, what he says, “Okay now that you're forgiven now that I see you as perfectly righteous from this point forward, for the rest of your existence on into eternity, I see you as perfectly righteous, now I want you to get up and obey this law.” Romans 8:4, “For what the law was powerless to do, in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh, to be a sin offering. And so we condemn the flesh in the flesh in order that,” listen, “the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

So he actually does want you to obey this, friends. He wants you to love him now and for the rest of your life, and more and more and more, as you live by the Spirit. It's what he wants you to do. He wants you to walk in this law with all of your heart.

So I've tried to understand what it means to love God. I've studied my own heart, I’ve studied the scriptures, I study other people as they study me. I look and I try to understand love. Love is a pretty common topic in our society. What are the odds that you'll turn on the radio and hear the word “love” within the first minute in some song or something. It's just all over the place.

So it's a very familiar topic. What does it mean here? Well, I thank God for the brothers and sisters in Christ that have gone before us, and one of my favorite men from church history is Jonathan Edwards. And Edwards kind of sorted it all out for me, in a book that he wrote called Treatise on Religious Affections.

Let me give you the context historically, of what Edwards wrote. It was the first great awakening, perhaps one of the greatest revivals in all of church history. It was in 1742, and the Holy Spirit was poured out. There were sweeping changes, there was religious excitement, there were major upheavals, all kinds of things were happening. Huge crowds were leaving their fields and their shops and going out to hear gospel preaching, especially George Whitfield. People were coming from miles around to hear Whitfield and others preaching the gospel. And many people swooned, sometimes even physically, under the influence of the gospel. And there were some changes, some changes happened.

However, you know in the parable of the seed and the soils, Jesus warned about what they call the stony ground hearers, the ones that hear the Word with joy and immediately respond, but when trouble comes they quickly fall away. And so now it's been a number of years later, five or six years later. And Jonathan Edwards is looking back on the experience of the Great Awakening and what's happened since then. And he's probably the most careful thinker and accurate spiritual assessor, maybe, in all of church history. And he put his skills to work in assessing the nature of true revival or more deeply the nature of true religion, a true right relationship with God, what is true Christianity, that's what he was looking at, what's the truth?

And he likened the initial enthusiasm of many of those hearers of the gospel to the cherry blossoms of spring, that come each of them promising some sweet cherry fruits later on, but many of them flutter to the ground without ever bearing any fruit at all. But some of them ripen into maturity and produce delicious sweet cherries. So he wanted to assess spiritual experience and try to get at what is the nature of true Christian experience, true Christian religion.

Now, there are opposite views of the Great Awakening two equal and opposite errors concerning all of the excitement and outward emotion. Error number one, is that religion is only a matter of the emotions, the feelings and especially extreme outward displays of emotion: raising of hands, melting, falling on the ground, screaming for joy, dancing in the aisles, whatever. Big displays of emotion. And if you don't get to that level, you're really not truly saved.

But then there is an opposite error, that religion is never in any of those displays. And if you see any of them you know there religion isn't. Religion is more in the reason and judgment, and in dutiful behavior. Dear friends, both of those are ditches. Edward sought to steer in the middle to try to find what it really was. Satan's scheme here, friends, was to push unstable souls into excesses, and that created a backlash effect.

Early in the awakening, Satan pushed people to extremes, to burning clothes and books and doing all kinds of things and just outward huge displays of emotion. And the tendency was, if you don't have all that you're not really saved. And a few people only a few people seemed interested in trying to probe what was really going on in the hearts of people. Edwards was one of them. What were the root causes? Eventually people just threw out the baby with the bathwater, went the opposite direction, you ended up with a cold formalism, in which no emotional displays were permitted at all.

So he's like, what is the truth, what is the nature of true religion? And as he thought through, prayed through, the Lord led him to this text, 1 Peter 1:8. Just listen, don't turn there, but just listen, “Though, you have not seen him,” Christ, “you believe in him; and even though you do not see him now, you love him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” You love him, the invisible one, you believe in him.

I think it's beautiful, isn't it? That it was Peter that wrote that, the one who was probed by Jesus. Do you love me, do you love me? He says, you've never seen him, but just like me, you love him, don't you? And so, Edward said, there it is. True religion then in great part consists in holy affections, emotions, holy emotions, holy affections.

Now this is what he does, he breaks open the human heart, he breaks open the human heart so we can understand what it does. And he said the human heart has two capabilities. There are two things it can do. Okay? First of all it can understand, and second, it can have affections toward what it understands. These are the two things the heart does, you do it all the time. You may not know you're doing it, but you are.

And so, first the analytical side, the heart has the ability to perceive things, everything it encounters, and to assess those things, to analyze them, to understand them for what they are, to judge them. That's what the heart does.

Secondly then, the heart has the ability to be inclined toward or repelled away from everything you're analyzing and assessing. And you do it without any matter of the will, it's not something you're choosing to do, it's just the way your heart is. In short, then you'll either love or hate to a greater or lesser degree everything you analyze in the universe. Everything. So then, I just started to think, I get it now, I get it. It's got to do with attraction and repulsion, my engineering mind started to kick in. Alright, bear with me, guys. That's what you have as a pastor. This is who I am. I'm a mechanical engineer.

Years ago, I worked at a company that made ion implanters and there were these awesome magnets, these rare earth magnets samarium-cobalt magnets, strongest magnets I've ever seen in my life. Boy, were they fun? We had lots of fun with those things. You could do lots of pranks, like putting important messages for your roommate. And most of the message is covered by a magnet that could not be moved with 10 men. Oh, that was fun, I enjoyed that.

“Whatever you do be sure you…” That kind of thing, and covered with the magnet. And I remember seeing my roommate leaning on it, pushing, trying to pull it in something and that was fun. That's sick, though, that you could even do that to someone that you love and a friend but I did that. The Lord has his ways though, that magnet erased all my credit cards too. So, you know, the Lord, he got me back for that one, it was right there in my pocket. And then I went to use the card and that was that.

But I remember these magnets and I would hold it and you could just throw a paper clip and any, just within feet, and you just see the thing go like that and just move to this magnet. And we did all sorts of stuff. We put it like on the other side of walls and we'd stick things there and wonder how it's sticking on the wall, and it was just a lot of fun. We did all kinds of things.

So alright, now you have this image of this powerful magnet in your heart. The object lesson is on the basic nature of the human heart. God has designed your heart with the capacity to be attracted to or repelled from everything that there is, to a greater or lesser degree, all the way down to no attraction or repulsion because you know nothing about it at all. That's where you start and the more you get to know things then you more love or hate. That's what happens. And again, the amazing thing is you actually have no control over your heart as it does this. This is something just the heart does. It has to do with the nature of the heart.

And so now in comes mathematical engineering analysis part two. Picture a number line, okay. And you've got the plus side and zero and the minus side. What your heart does is it puts everything on that number line, in an array. Positive and negative. I love it, I don't love it. I desire it, I don't desire it. I want it or I wanna stay away from it, to a greater or lesser degree. Everything in the universe, it's all there, your heart is just doing it.

And what is God saying? God has to be number one affection farthest as far right on your positive number line as possible, and nothing can be equal to it, or surpass it, or frankly even be close to it. You must love God more than anything else in the created universe. That's what it's saying. And Edwards is saying true religion is in the nature of the attraction to God. And that you love Him with holy affection. That's what it is.

And at the moment of conversion everything gets rearranged - Not everything, but many, many things, all things of spiritual import get rearranged. You heard a testimony earlier, 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.” Everything gets rearranged, and then, sanctification starts to move things, you start to love God more and more and more. And love the people of God more and more and the Word of God, more and more. And the kingdom of God more and more. And all of the things of God, that's sanctification.

Conversely, you start to hate sin more and you start to hate what it does to you and hate pride, and lust, and you want it out more and more. That's it. That's the nature of true religion, that's what's going on in your heart. And as I said, we don't have any control over our hearts directly, we just can't. All we can do is just know our hearts, and say, “God, God, there isn't an infinite gap between you and created things in my life. There are some times that it actually seems that I love some other things more than I love you. God, would you change me?” And that yearning to change is evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in your life.

Oh, I wanna convict you, but I wanna encourage you too this morning, I want you to know when the Spirit's at work in your life. And if you're discontent with how little you love God, then that's the Spirit's work in you. And if you yearn to love him more, then that's the Spirit's work in you. Ezekiel 36:27, “I will put my Spirit in you and I will move you to keep my laws and my decrees.” And so this is the first and greatest one. He's gonna put the Spirit in you and move you to love him. He's gonna move you to do that.

And so compared to our love for God, any other affection should look even like hatred. So God should be on your number line, so far that when you stand at the God position and look down, there's such a gap between you and the next thing that it almost looks like hatred. And so, Jesus says in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife, and his children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple.” That's what it means now. You understand what that means. It doesn't mean you actually hate those, but by comparison, standing there at the position of your love for God, everything else it's almost all the same at that point. That's how much you love God.

Alright, so what then should love look like in my life? That's what it is. How should it play out in my life? So I've thought about that too. You know the Bible verse, it says, “We love because he first loved us.” Well, I think that that has more to teach us, I think we also love like he first loved us, He teaches us how to love. Right. So we should love like he has loved us.

How has he loved us? This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He's demonstrating love. God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for you. And he demonstrates the heart of it, when he says, “Do not fear, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He just enjoys doing this, it's for the joy set before him that he did it. So I put all that together and this is what I think love for God is: Love for God, then, is measured by cheerful sacrifice in the obedience to his commands. You've gotta have all three, friends, if you don't have all three, you're not loving God. Cheerful sacrifice in obeying his commands.

Let's start with the last one, obedience. You cannot love God without obeying him. John 14:15, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” “This is love for God,” 1 John 5:3, “This is love for God: to obey his commands.” God is telling you, if you love me, you'll obey me, you must obey my commands.

Okay. So it has to be obedience, but is that enough? No, there has to be sacrificial obedience. It has to cost you something. I mean, you just know the way it is. Valentine's Day is coming up, friends. Husbands, let me say something, don't forget it. Love your wives but let me tell you something. They wanna be sure that there's some sacrifice involved. Don't dig something out of your glove compartment and give it to her. There's gotta be some sacrifice. It's gotta hurt you, it's gotta cost you something. If it doesn't cost you something, it isn't love. Did God's love for us cost him anything? Oh yes, it did. He sent his Son for us. It's got to be sacrificial obedience to the law. It's gotta cost you something to obey, and he's gonna make you prove it too. He's gonna make things hard for you sometimes to obey to see how much do you love him.

But that's not enough, either. Isn't that amazing how much God wants from us? It's not enough to just obey, it's not enough even just sacrificially obey, you have to cheerfully sacrificially obey. You have to do it with joy and delight in your heart. You have to want to do it. We've covered that before. Valentine's Day, don't tell your wife, “Hey, I didn't take this out of the glove department, I did just what the pastor said. I want you to know how much this cost me. Alright. I have obeyed and I have sacrificed.” That will not get you any further than giving the cheap gift dug out of your glove compartment. She needs to know how much you love giving it to her. Right? And so you have to have a delight in the giving. This is gonna work horizontally next week when the same definition is gonna work for people too. Cheerful sacrificial obedience, that's what it's gonna be for people, too. 

But here's the thing, it says in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,” that’s sacrifice, huge sacrifice, “but if I have not love, it profits me nothing.” What is it saying? There's a heart disposition that apparently is missing. Well, this guy is dying for people. And that's powerful, isn't it? God doesn't just want the sacrifice, he wants you to delight in doing it for God.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, when a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, he went and sold everything he had and bought that field.” I think it's a privilege for us in the Christian life to buy that field, in some sense, again and again. Day after day, you get to sell everything for Jesus. Day after day for the joy set before you, you get to make sacrifices for Jesus. I'm not in any way denying the permanence of justification or anything, you've got to feel it's yours, I'm just saying we get to make that sacrifice again and again, and that's the nature, the essence of our love relationship with God.  “For God loves a cheerful giver,” dear friends.

So there it is.  So diagnose your own heart. What's going on? Is there a principle of sacrifice in your relationship with God? Does it cost you anything to be a Christian? Does your quiet time in the morning cost you something? Does your giving, your financial giving, cost you something? Does your service in your ministry to the church here, or in any other way, does your evangelism cost you anything?

And when it does, are you doing it cheerfully or under compulsion? Do you feel like you have to do it? You gotta do something to prove yourself to God? Well, you're back under the old work system then. Are you doing it cheerfully or under compulsion? And is the pattern of your giving to God set by his word, by his commands? He's told you what he wants. Are you following his laws, and his commands? Is that what's going on in your life? Diagnose your heart, Friends.

And you know what's gonna happen when you do? You're gonna come to the conclusion that I did earlier this morning, and I just said, “How can I preach this sermon? How can I preach? I feel like my heart is distant from you, I don't love you like I should. I don't. So who am I to stand up in front of a bunch of people and tell them they need to love God?” And I just kinda was like that for as much as 90 minutes this morning and I kept thinking, and then suddenly I felt the grace of God come into my heart. And I felt then like the Lord testified to me. Now you're ready to preach, because you're not preaching as a self-righteous man. I'm not standing in front of you telling you that I do this 100 percent. I'm just telling you, I wish I did. I yearn, I hunger and thirst to do this.

And so what do I do then if my heart's distant? I want to commend briefly, another passage of scripture. It's printed right in your outline. James 4:4-10. I just wanna read through it briefly, it's not another sermon within a sermon, but I just want to bring it to you to heal you.

First and foremost I wanna bring you back again to the cross. If you feel like your heart's distant, remember this, Christ is your righteousness. Keep that in mind, never forget. It's not how much you love God, it's how much he loved you in Jesus. Never forget that. Go to that again and again. But is that enough? No, we need to have our wandering hearts brought back.

James 4:4-10. “You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think the scripture says without reason that the Spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you, Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

There's the remedy. Just let me say some brief things. First of all, be honest and call the wandering of your heart what God calls it: spiritual adultery. Don't call it by any other name. The thing, the created thing you love more than God is an idol. Someone who loves idols is an idolater. Call it what it really is, spiritual adultery is idolatry.

So identify the idols. What is it? Is it worldly pleasure? Is it sexual sin? Is it materialism? Is it Power or workaholism? What is it? Is it worldly entertainment? Is it food? What is the idol that you love more than Jesus? Identify it, and call it spiritual adultery to love it more than you love Jesus. This is the essence of worldliness. Understand the jealousy of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit he caused to live in you, envies over you.

Imagine a husband and wife and they go to some party, and the wife is starting to be a little too familiar with another guy there. What is that husband going to feel toward that? What's he gonna feel? That's what the Holy Spirit feels when you wander into idolatry. He's jealous over your affections. And he goes and gets you. And he will not let you wonder, and so just understand that that spirit he caused to live in you is envious over your heart.

And then rejoice in the promise that God will give you more grace. Anybody here need more grace? I need more grace, I need fresh infusions of grace. Not just grace for justification, but I need grace to stay loving Jesus. I need grace right now. So give me more grace, God, I need more grace. Just humble yourself and say, “I need more grace.” And James points to the scriptures to the way to get it. You get more grace here, this is where it comes from. The Scripture says that he gives us more grace. Read the scripture, get the grace from the Bible. “Grace to you,” Paul promises it. So go get it, go get yourself some more grace to deal with that idolatry in your heart.

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Then humble yourself. Identify pride in your heart. It's always pride that causes us to stray from loving God. First of all, we make too much of our own pleasure and happiness. I must be happy, I must be happy right now, I need to do this. That's just pride, friends. And it's pride for you to say, “I know best how to make myself happy.” God actually knows better than you do how to make you happy. So let God oppose the proud, but let him give grace to the humble.

Then submit yourself humbly to God. Resist the devil. It is the devil who is the pimp, who is dressing the world up, the prostitute world, painting her eyes and making her look attractive, that's his doing, that's what he does. Resist him in this, and he'll flee from you. O blessed thought! The Holy Spirit will make him run. The omnipotent spirit will turn him and put him to flight, if you'll just dig in and resist.

Come near to God then. Say, “Lord, I love you. I'm sorry, I strayed. I'm sorry I allowed my heart's precious affections, the ointment of my heart to be poured out at the foot of an idol. Please forgive me. Please forgive me and take me back.” Come near to God, and what is the promise? He will come near to you. Then “wash your hands, you sinners.” That means turn away from the things you were doing. Stop doing them. Don't just keep doing this again and again, wash your hands, change your life. “Purify your heart, you double-minded.” Start thinking differently about those idols. And be willing to be broken and hurt: “Grieve, mourn and wail.” Peter wept when Jesus looked at him. Maybe you need to weep and cry. This is one of those scriptures that the good-time people and good-time churches will never preach. Grieve, mourn, you all need to grieve, mourn, and wail. Hey, let's all have a time together of grieving, mourning and wailing. That's sometimes what needs to happen, dear friends. Cry. And then humble yourself before the Lord and let him lift you up. Spiritual physician telling you how to heal your straying heart.

We come now to the time of the Lord's supper. I can't think of a better time for you to look after your heart. It says in Corinthians that in order for you to come to the Lord's supper, you have to assess your spiritual condition. You have to look inwardly. Have you been convicted today? Then bring that to God, and say, “Lord, heal me. Draw me in and use the Lord's supper, use the Lord's Supper to draw a sinner like me back into a healthy relationship with you.” The Lord's supper is for people who have testified plainly to faith in Christ. We had baptism. They've testified by water baptism. If you have come to faith in Christ, and have testified to that by water baptism, you're welcome at this table. If not, I urge you to refrain lest you eat and drink judgment on yourself, but instead, I urge you to come to Christ and trust in him.

Close with me, if you would, in prayer. Father, I thank you for the message of the word and as we give our attention now to the Lord's supper, we pray for the sending forth of your Holy Spirit, so that we can enjoy you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. The main subject in this sermon is preparations for the Lord's Supper.

This morning, I would like for you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians Chapter 11.  We were to have had the Lord's Supper, and I'm going to preach a sermon in preparation for the Lord's Supper, it is just going to be next week.  I actually think this is a benefit to us to have a week to prepare for the Lord's Supper.  I also think we tend to underestimate the significance, the spiritual significance of the Lord's Supper, and I don't want us to do that.  I want us to understand how significant spiritually the Lord's Supper should be for us as a congregation, should be for us individually as Christians, and so let's look at 1 Corinthians 11.  

I am going to read Verses 17 through 34, and God willing, the Holy Spirit will unfold these verses to you and help you to understand.  “In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.  In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.  No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.  When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else.  One remains hungry, another gets drunk.  Don't you have homes to eat and drink in?  Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?  What shall I say to you?  Shall I praise you for this?  Certainly not!  For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.  The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’  In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.  Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.  That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.  But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.  When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.  So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.  If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.  And when I come, I will give further directions.”   

So, we are going to look to Christ next week as we assemble for the Lord's Supper and so I want to focus on this concept of looking.  I think the Lord has given us through faith, spiritual eyesight.  The Book of Ephesians talks about the eyes of our heart being enlightened, and so we can close our physical eyes and we can see Christ.  Christ can be clearly portrayed as crucified in the Book of Galatians, just through preaching.  Through the ministry of the Word of God, we can see Him.  And so, we want to see Christ in the Lord's Supper.  We want to have an experience with him by faith.

Now, the context in 1 Corinthians 11, the Corinthian Church was a gifted, a talented church, they didn't lack any spiritual gift, but they were split by divisions based on human pride.  They were immature spiritually, and they were dealing with many doctrinal and practical problems.  There was sin in the church, and there needed to be church discipline.  As a result, there was sexual immorality, and of a kind that didn't even occur among pagans.  There were questions about marriage and celibacy, and questions about divorce.  There were issues concerning food sacrificed to idols and how that Corinthian church should mingle with their pagan context.  There were questions about financial support of the ministry and how elders should be supported financially.  There were questions about the role of women in the ministry life of the church and questions about spiritual gifts, especially about speaking in tongues, the question of tongues and the superiority of tongues and Paul arguing for the superiority of the gift of prophecy.  These are the things that just fill up the pages of 1 Corinthians, and then finally, Paul focuses on the importance of the resurrection, the physical bodily resurrection that we Christians can anticipate in Christ.

And so, 1 Corinthians speaks to all of these issues.  And in the midst of all these swirling issues, Paul takes up the topic of the Corinthian church's behavior when it comes to the Lord's Supper.  Reading between the lines and reading the lines themselves, it seems that some of the Corinthians were acting very irreverently with some impiety toward the Lord's Supper.  They were underestimating the Lord's Supper.  Some were looking on it as an opportunity to eat their fill, some of them it seemed scandalous and were even getting drunk.  And though the Lord's Supper was meant to unite the church around the death and resurrection of Christ, it actually was a source of shame, putting their disunity and their carnal selfishness on full display for all to see.  And so, in the midst of all of the issues with the Corinthian church, Paul wants to address this issue of the Lord's Supper, and in the middle of all of this, in the middle of his teaching, he dropped somewhat of a theological bombshell.  In Verses 27-30 he talks about some of the excesses and some of the sins, and he tells them that basically the Lord has killed some of them because of the Lord's Supper, some of them have fallen asleep because of sins in connection with the Lord's Supper.

I don't think it's possible then for us to overestimate the importance of the Lord's Supper.  I do think it's possible for us to think about it wrongly.  It's possible for us to think about it with doctrinal error.  But I just tell you, I don't think it's possible for us to overestimate the importance of the Lord's Supper, because the Lord put some to death because of how they were behaving, and so he takes it very seriously and I think we ought to as well.  I guess my desire is that you would spend this week in a unique way, perhaps in a way you never have before preparing for the Lord's Supper next week, that you would get yourself ready, and I would want you to do it very positively, very sweetly, expecting to encounter Christ in it by the Holy Spirit.  I want to talk about that.  

Paul moved by compassion for the Corinthians and moved by zeal for the Lord, really moved by the Spirit of the Lord himself, he wrote these verses about the Lord's Supper.  His purpose is to warn them to take the Lord's Supper very seriously, to understand it doctrinally, properly, lest they be judged by taking it in a wrong manner.  But more than that, it's just that the Lord who is good and who loves us, wanted to give them and wants to give us a gift, just like, "Man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath for man."  So, also, it is with the Lord's Supper, it was made for us.  It was made to benefit us and to be a blessing to us, and so the Lord wants to give us a blessing, a rich river of blessing for the church of Jesus Christ, and so it has been.  But, it has also been traditionally a source of division and disunity and doctrinal debates across history, so we should understand where we are in historical context as well.  

Myself, I was raised a Roman Catholic; I was an altar boy.  I used to dress up when it was my time, and I was maybe nine, 10 years old, and we were trained what you're supposed to do in a particular moment in the mass.  The focal point of the mass is the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, and the high point of that is this moment in which the priest takes the bread and raises it up, and at that moment as an altar boy, I was supposed to ring the bells.

And so, I would ring the bells, I didn't know why, but we rang the bells when he did that, we did all these things without really knowing why, which I think is one of my big problems with the Catholic church, that they don't explain things to the people.  But, what was happening, doctrinally, according to the Roman Catholics at that moment was transubstantiation, the actual bread and wine were being changed, changed into the literal body and blood of Christ, and they believe this, by this concept of transubstantiation.  The idea came from Aristotle, he was a philosopher, a Greek philosopher, ancient Greek philosopher, and he had this concept of the world that we live in, that everything in the world has two things, basically substance and accidents.  The substance is what the thing really is in its essence, kind of like before God, and the accidents, not the way we would like a car accident, but just the way that that thing relates to the physical world, the way we would connect with it by our five senses.  Its sight, its aroma, its taste, that kind of thing.  And so, in the doctrine of transubstantiation, I think the scholastic theologians kind of put it all together.

And so, "Oh, I get it.  Now, I know the meaning of Jesus's words when he says, ‘This is my body.’”  They brought in some Aristotelian logic and said, "Okay, we get it. The bread, the substance of the bread and the wine are changed to that of Christ, His body and His blood, but the accidents, the way it interrelates to the outside world doesn't change, so it still smells like bread, tastes like bread, like wine, etcetera.  But it has actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, transubstantiation."  Now, I learned all that as a Protestant, I didn't learn all that as a Catholic, but that is their doctrine, that's what they teach.  And the moment of transubstantiation is that moment when I rang the bells, when the priest would raise up the bread.  Well, Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 16th century, when he was training to be a priest and when he celebrated his first mass, perhaps you've seen the movie where he is so overcome with fear at actually handling Jesus Christ, that he's holding the cup and he shakes and he spills the cup, and He is just overwhelmed with fear in the presence of God.  As he came to an evangelical understanding of the gospel, he never lost his respect for the Lord's Supper, and I think his false understanding of it as well.  He believed in the doctrine of real presence, in other words, that Christ was physically present there, but he denied transubstantiation. 

He said, "We don't know how it happens."  So, forget Aristotle, there's nothing in the Bible about all that, but there is something in the Bible about real presence, at least, so there was Luther, “This is my body.”  And so, therefore, I don't know how it happens, but it happens.  It really is the body of Christ.  It also really is bread, it really is the blood of Christ, it really is wine, it's the same.  It happens at the same time−so Luther.  Another man, Ulrich Zwingli, a reformer in Switzerland, had a different view, and his view was that we should take nothing into worship except what we find in Scripture, and there's nothing in Scripture about real presence, or transubstantiation of any of this.  He opposed the old Catholic ways entirely.  He rejected the significance of the Lord's Supper that had been so central in the mass.  He went the other way and made it almost of no consequence at all in the life of the church.  He had what is known as the Memorial view of the Lord's Supper, it's completely for us just to remember what Jesus did.  It's really almost a matter of indifference.  

Now, in my opinion, in our modern context, most evangelical churches tend to be Zwinglian.  We tend to minimize the Lord's Supper.  It's just a memorial.  It's not that important.  We know it's not that Catholic thing.  And so, often, especially in larger churches, they are going to relegate it to Sunday evening, once a quarter, and so, my goodness, you could easily go years as a member in good standing of a church like that and never take the Lord's Supper.  Now, of course, that would have been unheard of to Protestant churches in the centuries that preceded but I'm just telling you where we are.  I think for myself, I think we have to correct this view, we have to come to a different view.  I think Zwingli is at one extreme and Luther, and then beyond him, the Catholics at the other.  I think John Calvin probably has the best view of the Lord's Supper, and that's the view that I embrace, it is what I call the Spiritual Presence view.  Basically, God has made us a promise, Jesus has made us a promise to be in a special way, present in the Lord's Supper.  He's making us a promise and if we trust Him in that promise, if we believe that promise, we will benefit from the promise.  So, if you come next week expecting something from God in the Lord's Supper, you will get it.  And I do, every time.  I expect that the Lord is going to bless the Lord's Supper.  We are going to have a sense of the presence of the Lord.  It is still bread; it is still grape juice.  It hasn't changed in any way, but I've changed, I can grow, I can have my faith renewed, I can be strengthened, I can be blessed you see, and so that's what I expect, and I'd like you to do that this week.  I would like you to get yourselves ready to be blessed by the presence of the Lord spiritually, that is the view that I take.  So that is historical context.   

Let's look at 1st Corinthians 11. We are going to look in different directions as we come to the Lord's Supper.  This idea of looking has to do with take your mind and focus on something, so we are going to look in different directions and we are going to begin by looking back.  

 The Lord's Supper enables us to look back in history, back in time, and so we ought to do that when we come to the Lord's Supper, we ought to look back.  First of all, we can look back to the Passover, the Last Supper was a Seder, it was a Passover celebration, and there are five key parallels between the Passover and the Lord's Supper.

First of all, both the Passover and the Lord's Supper were established as lasting memorials for the people of God, to be commemorated from generation to generation.  In this way, they are very similar.  The Passover, of course, commemorated the exodus of the Jewish nation from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  The night of the Passover was the dreadful, tenth and final plague.  The terrifying plague on the first born.  Each Jewish home sacrificed to a Paschal lamb, a Passover lamb, and painted the blood on the door posts and across the top, and the angel of death as he moved through the land would see the blood and just passed over.  And so, the Jewish first born were spared because of the blood of the lamb.  The Lord’s Supper was established to replace the Passover which Christ was about to fulfill.  Jesus fulfilled the Passover.  Never again would a Passover lamb need to be sacrificed.  Never again would the sacrifice of a Passover lamb be pleasing to God.  God put an end to it when he identified through his prophet, John the Baptist, when he pointed to him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," and I say also takes away the need to sacrifice an animal. 

Jesus established instead, the Lord's Supper to take its place.  So, both of these are commemorated in lasting ceremonies and they were to be passed on from generation to generation.  Exodus 12:14, “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord−a lasting ordinance.”  Also, in our text today, look at Verses 23-26, “. . .The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’”  So, He has established this as a lasting commemoration.  “In the same way, after supper he took the cup saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.'  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.”  So, this is a lasting commemoration, something established by the Lord.  Secondly, there are parallels between the Passover and the Lord's Supper in that both services involved bread.  Thirdly, both services involved wine.  Fourthly, both services involve the community as a whole coming together, and fifthly, both services commemorate redemption.  These are five points of connection between the Passover and the Lord's Supper. 

So, at the time of the Lord's Supper, we look back to all that Jewish history, we look back to the Jewish roots of our faith, and what happened at the time of the Passover.  We also look back to the night that Jesus was arrested.  Look what it says in Verse 23, “. . .The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread.”  We should remember how Jesus was with his disciples that night, how He spent one last time with them and how He was betrayed by someone who sat at the table with him.  We should remember how his betrayer dipped his hand into the bread, into the dish with him.  A close associate, a friend of Jesus, and then left to betray Him.  We should remember how sad and troubled Jesus's disciples were, and yet how glad Jesus was to eat this one final meal with them.  We should keep these things in mind.  

We should remember the events of that sovereign somber night, we look back, but we look back also, even more significantly I think, to Christ's death, to his body and blood given for us, for our sins, the bread symbolized Christ's body, broken for us on the cross.  The blood symbolized Christ’s blood, the wine symbolized Christ’s blood shed for us on the cross and this death is the center of our redemption.  It is a clear recognition of one central fact, and that is, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Christ's identification of the bread with his body and of the wine with his blood focuses our attention on the need for a substitute who would sacrifice himself in our place to cleanse us of our sins.  

We will also look back to the establishment of a new covenant.  The Passover was an Old Covenant ordinance.  The center of the Old Covenant was the need for animal sacrifice, for blood sacrifice.  In Leviticus 17:11, it says, “For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life."  Hebrews 9:22, looking back on the Old Covenant, said here, ". . .without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."  But Christ, here, is instituting a New Covenant in his own blood, thus ending forever the need for animal sacrifice, as I've already mentioned.

Look at Verse 25, “In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’"  Now, this new covenant was predicted in Jeremiah 31, when God would establish a New Covenant.  It would not be like the Old Covenant, because the people didn't keep it, they violated it.  But he would establish a New Covenant in which the sins of the people would be taken away and they would be given a new heart, and God would write His laws on their new hearts, and He would be their God and they would be His people.  That is the essence of the New Covenant.  Jesus is establishing it, He says, "In my blood."  So, this is the blood of the New Covenant.  

We look back and very personally, we also ought to look back to our own experience with Christ, our own faith.  We ought to look back at the fact that we have come to faith in Christ sometime in the past, remember your own personal testimony of faith in Christ, how you first believed, how you first came to trust in Christ, what were the circumstances going on at that point?  And think about what the Lord has done with you since then, just how graciously God has dealt with you, how much God has sustained your faith, how much He has filtered your temptations and not allowed you to be tempted beyond what you can bear.

How God has protected you, providentially, how God has cared for you and fed you and clothed you and loved you, all of that time in Christ’s name.  You should remember with a great thankfulness, your own walk with Christ, your pilgrimage, how you have grown since that first time you trusted Christ, and all the things you’ve learned of the Bible, and all of the ways that the Lord has answered prayers.  And the sweetness of your relationship with Jesus Christ, you should look back to your own personal history as well.  So, we look back to the Passover, the night Jesus was betrayed, to Jesus’s body broken and his blood shed on the cross, to the New Covenant established in his blood and to our personal faith in that blood, looking back.  

Secondly, we should look up.  We should look up to God the Father.  Remember that in the Gospels, whenever Jesus would take bread into his hands, He would look up and would give thanks.  I find that interesting.  He did it when he fed the 5,000, He would look up.  I’ve marveled at that because I believe in an omnipresent God.  He’s as much down as He is up and left as He is right.  There is nowhere you can go and not find him, and we also know we are kind of here in the middle of space and there is no bottom, and there is no top.  It’s as far down as you want to go and as far up as you want to go, but yet, again and again, Almighty God is displayed as high and lifted up.  He is above us, and I think it just has to do with relationship, it has to do with how great He is and how He is above us, and mighty and powerful and awesome.  And so, Jesus would take this bread into his hand and He would look up and He would give thanks to his father, and He did it that night as well.  In Matthew 26, it says, “Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you.’”  And so, He focused on his Heavenly Father.  He said, “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”  It was God the Father who crafted this salvation plan, it was God the Father who was delighted to crush his Son on your behalf.  It was God the Father who did not spare his only begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all.  It was so that Christ might bring us to God the Father and safely into his Heavenly Kingdom that Christ came.  The Lord’s Supper is part of the Father’s sweet efforts to reconcile rebellious sinners to Himself in Christ.  So, look up to God the Father.  

Secondly, you should look up to Christ, our faithful high priest.  The Lord's Supper should be for you, a constant reminder of your need for Christ's ministry on your behalf.  Now, please don't misunderstand this, Roman Catholic theology posits that Jesus has to be offered again and again, and that priests, when the moment of transubstantiation happens and it becomes the actual body and then the actual blood of Christ, when they lift it up to God, they are offering Jesus again, much as an Old Covenant priest would have done.  I consider this blasphemous.  I think it's completely wrong, because the Book of Hebrew says that Christ died once for all and He never needs to die again; however, we should not lose sight of the fact that you need him every hour.  You are in constant dependence on Christ's ministry as your great and faithful high priest. 

You need him at the right hand of God interceding for you.  Don't you?  And so, we look up to Christ and say, "Lord, keep praying for me.  Please keep praying for me.  Keep filtering my temptations.  Keep being my faithful high priest, keep pleading your own blood to the Father on my behalf.”  And so, we eat and drink spiritually, much as we need to do physically.  In John Chapter 6, Verses 53-56, Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”  Now friends, it would be the easiest thing in the world to slip from those words right into transubstantiation.  It would be easy to do.  Don't do it.  First of all, the Lord’s Supper hadn't even happened yet, when Jesus spoke those words in John 6.  He wasn't thinking of the Last Supper there.

Well, what was he thinking?  He was thinking about his own death on the cross, and He was using a metaphor, He was using an analogy.  Just as you have to take physical food into yourself to live physically, so you must take the effects of Jesus’s death on the cross into yourself spiritually in order to live spiritually.  He even says plainly, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”  He is not saying you have to eat me physically.  The early Romans thought that the Christians were cannibals.  We are not cannibals; we don’t need to eat flesh.  Jesus told us how to think about his words, they are Spirit, and so we must rely on Jesus.  Look up to Jesus as you eat and say, “Just like I need food to live, I need you in order to be alive spiritually, too.”  We must also look up to the Holy Spirit.  He is our power, though the Spirit isn’t mentioned in this particular passage, 1 Corinthians 11, yet, you know that Paul never moved far from the doctrine that it is only by the ministry of the Holy Spirit that we partake in Christ.  It is the Spirit’s ministry to apply Christ to you.

That’s what the Spirit does, He takes of Christ and gives it to you, whether insights or word or just the spiritual presence of Christ.  He ministers Christ to you.  And so, the Lord’s Supper won’t mean anything to you.  That’s why I say it’s a spiritual view.  I have the Lord’s Supper, it is by the Holy Spirit that the thing becomes effective in your life, and so we must look to the Holy Spirit.  You look up to the Spirit and you ask him to seal you again in Christ and to testify to your heart that you are a child of God, and to uncover your sins in all of the ministry that the Spirit does, you just bask in the ministry of the Spirit, but look up to the Spirit.  So, at the time of the Lord’s Supper, we look up to God the Father, to God the Son and to God the Holy Spirit.   

Thirdly, we look within, we look within.  And here, we look within to our own sinfulness, dear friends.  We look within to the residual effects of the wickedness and in the flesh in us.  And the Lord's Supper is a good time to think about those things. 

Look at Verses 17 through 22 again, I've already read them, but it's just shocking.  “In the following directives I have no praise for you.”  Well, that's not good.  It's like uh-oh, here it comes.  You're reading a letter, it's like, oh, here it comes, it's like, okay, let's skip this part, the no praise part.  Well, let's skip that part.  Well, no, we don't skip this part, we must listen to what the Apostle Paul would say, “I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good."  It would be better if you didn't come together.  That is what he is saying.  “In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.  No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.  When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else.  One remains hungry, another gets drunk.  Don't you have homes to eat and drink in?  Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?  What shall I say to you?  Shall I praise you for this?  Certainly not.”  So, we have to look into our own sinfulness.  We complain, we fail to give God thanks for his many good gifts, we lust, and we stumble into sinful idolatry, we argue and bicker and reveal our selfishness.  We fail to live for God's glory and for His Kingdom and have our own selfish agenda for our lives and for our careers.  We fail to witness when we have opportunities to speak up for Christ, we fail to give what we have of all of our wealth, we fail to give appropriately to the needs of the poor, we do not live up to the calling that we have received.  And you know what I'm talking about.  If the Spirit's in you, you know that it is true, what I'm saying, the flesh is strong.  We all stumble in many ways, and we need to have periodic times to look inward and see it and be honest about it, and so every Lord's Supper is a time to do, I think, serious business with God.  You ought to look inward and find the sin within, the specific patterns of sin, the habits of sin that are in your life, and we have to acknowledge the seriousness of sin. 

Verses 27-29, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  We don't eat flippantly, we don't eat lightly, we bow in our hearts, we search our hearts for sinfulness, we bring out those sins that the Holy Spirit convicts us of, we allow Christ all sufficient blood to cover everyone, we judge ourselves right in this passage so that the Lord won't have to judge us.  Do you realize the significance of that?  Just ponder that for a minute.  In effect, your Heavenly Father, if you are a child of God is saying, “You can take care of this or I will.”  What a warning that is, isn't it?  Do you realize the resources available to God to discipline you?  I mean we have one, the extremity of discipline is right here in the text.  You die.  That's the extremity of discipline.  Would God actually take it to that degree?  He did, right in the text.  He would do that.

And so, we have an invitation from the Lord to cut off the Lord's judgment by judging ourselves and say, "Lord, I see, I understand, I see what you are telling me about myself.  I repent, I will bring forth fruit and in keeping with repentance, I am doing serious business with you now, I will live a new life."  The Lord's Supper is a good time for that.  Don't you think?  It's a good time for that?  Isaiah 66-2 says, “‘This is the one I esteem.’ says the Lord, ‘He who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.’”  We ought to tremble, I think, when we come to the Lord's Supper.  

We also look inward to our own repentance and faith, not just to our sinfulness, but to the fact that we repent and we trust Christ.  This, dear friends, is a meal of thankfulness, not of morning.  It's a meal of thanksgiving, that there is forgiveness available, that we don't have to stay in the Slough of Despond, you don't have to be down in the mud of guilt, that's what Satan wants to do, but you come up through the clean scalpel work of the Spirit in repentance and into a new way of living.

And so, it's a meal of thankfulness.  We look in and say, I do trust in Christ, I do hate my sin, I am hungry and thirsty for righteousness, I want to live a new kind of life.  There is full provision made, there is a feast of grace for you.  I remember some time ago, I have never been able to find where the story is, but I read it and I remembered it.  A Scottish pastor was serving the Lord’s Supper to his congregation when he saw a young woman who was trembling and weeping over her sin, and she dared not reach forth and take the bread.  The pastor, knowing her genuine faith in Christ and also knowing the reasons for her inner grief, leaned forward and whispered to her, "Take it Lassie, it's for sinners."  I've never forgotten that.  “Take it.  It's for sinners.”  It's not the healthy who need a doctor.  It's the sick.  So come to the table as a sinner and feed on Christ, that's what it's for.  We look inward.

We look inward also to the testimony of the Spirit that we are children of God.  It's the Spirit's work to assure us of Christ's full forgiveness, it's the Spirit's work to comfort us as we grieve over our sinfulness, it's the Spirit's work to testify with our spirits that we are God's children, and, therefore, we must look inward to be certain that we are eating worthily.

Please hear me on this.  If we eat in a manner unworthy of the Lord, we are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of Christ, this is especially true, dear friends, of a gospel hypocrite.  This is somebody who is not genuinely born again, but who comes to church week after week, faking it.  They know how to fake Christianity at certain times, but the Lord is not deceived and He knows the difference.  And so, it is dangerous for a gospel hypocrite to take the Lord's Supper, very dangerous.  It is also true of any unbeliever who partakes in the Lord's Supper for earthly reasons to impress or please some other person while despising the Lord whose blood paid for the feast, and it's vital that you be a believer in Christ, that you be a believer, and that you have testified to that by water baptism.  It's vital that you not partake of the Lord's Supper as an unbeliever, and so I think it's essential that we look inward, lest anyone for a moment think this as some slight memorial, some inconsequential ritual.  Think of the severity of the penalty the Lord enacted on some Corinthians who died because they ate in a manner not worthy of the Lord. 

Fourthly, we look down at the actual bread and juice, look down at it, look at your hands as you hold it, look at the cup, look at the physical piece of bread and the actual cup filled with grape juice.  These are physical elements, they have an aroma, they have a flavor, they have an appearance, they have a weight, the physical nature of this ordinance reminds us of the actual body and blood of Christ.  We are not docetists who believe that Jesus only seemed to be human.  We know that he was human.  The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  It was no theory.  It was no philosophy; it was no theology that was nailed to that cross.  It was the body of Jesus, and when He was nailed, his blood flowed down his body.  And that's how you are forgiven and so am I.  We should never forget that.  Colossians 1:21-22 says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” 

Hebrews 10:19- 22 says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God. . .”  The body and blood of Jesus is how you get into the presence of God.  And so, we should look to the physical body of Christ given once.  No, the bread is not the actual body of Christ, neither is the grape juice the actual blood of Christ.  This doctrine, as I have said, demeans the once for all sacrifice of Christ, that offering never needs to be repeated again, but when your physical hands hold the physical bread and cup of physical grape juice, we are reminded of a certain place in time on this physical planet, when the Son of God died for you.  And, they remind us to the time when our hands and all things will be made new in a coming world, we'll get to that in a moment, but God created the physical and the physical is good when redeemed by the work of God.   

Fifthly, we should look around to the body of Christ, the one true church.  Look at Verse 33, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.”  There are other people in the room.  I am really against private celebrations of the Lord's Supper, like just little things, I think it's something to be done in the church, friends.  I'm not so much talking about the church building.  If we are in Haiti and our building has been destroyed, we could gather on the rubble and have the Lord's Supper.  You don't have to have a building, that's not the point, but it's a church ordinance friends.  It's a church ordinance.  The loaf symbolizes 1 Corinthians 10-17, the body of Christ, we are members of one body, one loaf.  

And so, Jesus that night, He looked around and said, “Take and drink all of you,” and He wanted them to do it together and so, we look around in our fellowship with one another.  Isn't it a marvelous thing to belong to the body of Christ?  Isn't it a marvelous thing to know that there are brothers and sisters that believe what you believe all over the world, you haven't even met them, but you'll be friends in a moment? 

Have you ever had that happen?  Somebody from another culture, and just in an instant, you are friends because you have got the Holy Spirit in common and the Lord's Supper reminds us of our unity.  

And we look around to the watching unbelieving world.  If the pastor does his work properly, all unconverted persons in the sanctuary will be suitably warned not to participate.  I already did that a few minutes ago.  If you're not a believer, you should not participate in the Lord's Supper.  They can observe, they can look on, but until they commit themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and in the abandonment of faith, trusting in His blood to atone for their sins, all they are doing is eating and drinking judgment on themselves.

But the Lord's Supper itself, according to Paul here, is a proclamation of the Lord's death until He comes.  To whom are we proclaiming it?  Well, to each other, we should keep proclaiming the Lord's death, but also to the unbelievers in our midst.  1 Corinthians 14 says, “They were unbelievers that would come in and say, surely God is among you.”  Maybe the Lord's Supper is one of those times.  And so, we proclaim the Lord's death to a watching unbelieving world, and then finally we look forward.

At the Lord's Supper, we look forward to the second coming of Christ.  Yes, dear friends, Christ is coming.  Look at Verse 26, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”  Jesus is coming back someday and this holy little feast, this bread and juice thing will give way to a banquet where we sit at table with the King.  Jesus is coming back, Revelation 19, “He is riding on a charger for war, he's going to clean up this planet.  Everyone that doesn't believe and all the demons and Satan himself, they will be gone and the world will be made new.  Everything will be made new.  Behold, I'm making all things new.”  Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 26:29, don't turn there, just listen.  He says, “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's Kingdom.”  Wow.  I believe that the world is going to be resurrected much like our bodies, and so we are going to drink anew.  And that word “anew” is a mystery word to me.  I don't know what it means.  I don't know what eating and drinking is going to be like in the kingdom.  I think it's just going to be wonderful; we are going to sit at table with the King and we're going to feast, we are going to banquet.

Many will come.  In Matthew 8:11, “. . .many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom.”  You are going to pull up a chair, I guess.  Or maybe we will be able to float then, I don't know what, but we are going to sit and we are going to eat, and we are going to eat in mysterious ways, and we are going to enjoy it, and it's going to be delicious, and it's going to be a time of fellowship.  So, He says, I'm going to drink it again, I'm just going to drink it anew in my Father's Kingdom, with you.  He earnestly desires to sit at table with you and me.   

And so, we should look ahead to that day, we should look forward to the day when that feast, that banquet comes, and look forward to the day when you yourself will be resurrected from the dead, when you will receive a new body and you will be made new.  What a banquet that will be, that's exactly the language that Isaiah 25 speaks of on this mountain, Isaiah 25:6-8, “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine− the best of meats and the finest of wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples. . .”  They have seen a lot of that in Haiti recently, a body covered with a shroud.  On this mountain, He is going to destroy that shroud, the shroud that enfolds all people, the sheet that covers all nations.  He will swallow up death forever.  That's the resurrection, friends.  We'll never die again, and we will be in a kingdom and will feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the redeemed with Jesus.  I don’t think it is going to be like an eternal feast.  I don't think so.  I think there is going to be rhythms to our heavenly life in the new heaven and the new earth, but regularly, we are going to sit at table with Jesus and we are going to feast with Him in the kingdom.

Let's summarize, then we will be done.  In the Lord's Supper, we are invited to a comprehensive, spiritual look by the Spirit of God.  We are invited to look back in remembrance, to the Old Covenant and the Passover, the night Jesus was betrayed, to Jesus's body broken and his blood shed on the cross, to the New Covenant He established in his blood, and to our own personal faith in Christ, and our history with him.  We are invited also to look up in dependence on God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  We are invited to look inward in repentance, to our own in-dwelling sin and the patterns of sin that have so easily entangled us, and to our repentance and faith, which God has worked in us by His spirit as a gift, and to the testimony of the Spirit that we are children of God, and to be sure that we are eating worthily, that we are taking it seriously and eating in a manner worthy of the Lord.  We are also invited to look down, understanding that the elements are physical, and so also was the redemption by Christ's body and blood, physical body, physical blood, and that someday we will ourselves be spiritually physical, redeemed in our resurrection bodies. 

We are to look around in commitment to the body of Christ, the one true church united all over the world and to our own local church, too, and the pledge we have horizontally to be brothers and sisters to each other, to love each other.  So, we wait for each other and we care about each other, and to an on-looking world who's watching us with curiosity, wondering why they can't be included, and hopefully a spirit of jealousy, a good spirit of jealousy.  And they are like, I want to be part of that.  I want to be in.  Well, it's a day of salvation.  Come on and come to the banquet by faith, you don't have to be on the outside, come on, come and eat without money and without cost, and then look ahead in hopeful trust to the second coming of Christ and to the eternal kingdom of his Father, where we will feast forever and ever in resurrection bodies.  Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on John 8. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ's incarnation refutes the wicked lies of pro-abortionists.

So we're looking this morning at John, chapter 8. You can turn in your Bibles there. From the very beginning, from the Garden of Eden it has always been a battle for truth. There in the Garden of Eden, Satan lied to Adam and Eve, he brought up questions of truth. “Did God really say you will...” “You must not eat from any tree in the garden.” “Did God really say that?” and interjecting that seed of doubt. Or then just flat out lying with murderous intent, “You shall not surely die!” saying that kind of lie. From the very beginning then, it's been a battle for the mind... a battle for truth. We're surrounded by people who are confused in their minds. They don't think rightly. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians where he says, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They're darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” It's lots of mental words there, a lot of mind words, it's about the thinking, they're just not thinking clearly. 

But we have been given, dear friends, the mind of Christ, and we are called on to think rightly in this day and age, to understand our times, to know what we're facing, to understand the spirit of the age. And one label that we can put on the spirit of the age here is this question of postmodernism. We're told we live in the postmodern era, and that specifically comes down to the issue of truth. Josh McDowell said postmodernism is a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn't exist in any objective sense, but is created rather than discovered, and so we make up truth for ourselves. So there's confusion on this. And sadly, McDowell tells us by his research that this kind of mentality is settling into the church, so that we are thinking like the world does on this issue. In 1991, he said, McDowell, Josh McDowell said 52% of kids in churches who claim to be born again, 52%, 1991, said there was no absolute truth. In 1994, the number had risen to 62% that said that there was no absolute truth. In '99, five years later, 78% of the church kids he was polling said, there is no absolute truth. The year 2002, the number had risen to 91%, nine out of 10 church kids, claim to be born again, say there really is no absolute truth. 

Now you can just see the confusion, and therefore I feel a responsibility as a pastor to stand here and say, there is absolute truth, and His name is Jesus. And so today, we're going to have truth incarnate, Jesus, taking on the spirit of the age, which is postmodernism, and also the abortion mentality: the abortion lie meets truth incarnate. And so people, our neighbors, our co-workers, the non-Christians that are around us, they speak of truth for you and truth for me, “your truth,” “my truth,” this kind of thing. This kind of language, and where the rubber meets the road here, I think in our nation is on this abortion issue. This is where the mental confusion reaches its peak. In '92, there was a research poll that said that 73% that they polled stated they believe that the fetus is truly a human baby, and they also believe that killing is wrong. However, nearly three-quarters of those people, those same people, said that society should not have a say in any way, whether a woman terminates an abortion or terminate a pregnancy, an abortion. No, say at all. Three quarters, that's just mental confusion, friends.  

Or this one: 37 states in our nation have fetal homicide laws. You know what that is? Basically, if a pregnant woman meets with some kind of attack and she loses her baby, the man who attacked is charged with fetal homicide in 37 states. The core legal issue there is the personhood of the unborn., right? She lost her baby, he stands, or whoever attacked her stands, in judgment under those fetal homicide laws. But all 37 of those states allow abortion. Just mental confusion. What that means then is, legally, personhood is ascribed by the woman carrying the baby. It's not intrinsic, of course. After birth, it's intrinsic. So it changes at birth at that point, then you become a person because you're now born... It makes no sense at all. It's just mental confusion. In the same hospital, you can have some doctors, in a NICU, a neo-natal intensive care unit, just laboring with great skill to rescue a baby whose viability and fetal weight is less than an aborted baby in the same hospital. It just makes no sense. You could even see some doctors whose consciences have been seared doing one one day in the next one, or even on the same day.  

It just makes no sense. It's just confusion. Legislators can speak of being personally opposed to abortion and that they personally believe that the baby, that the pre-born is truly a human baby and ought to be protected, but at the same time in their public duty say they have to uphold the laws as they are written and go ahead and use this kind of language of a woman's right to choose. Back in the Clinton days, I remember when he was running for office, he said his goal was to make abortion safe, legal, funded and rare. That one always bothered me. Makes no sense at all. Why rare? Why rare and safe? Safe for who? I understand legal and funded, I get that, but I don't understand this at all. Why should it be rare? Talk to me, President Clinton. Why should it be rare? ‘Cause it makes you feel uncomfortable 'cause there's something going here? Yes, because maybe there's still some conscience that says it's truly a human person. Or this one: women having crisis pregnancies, they go to these pregnancy centers, and GE sometime ago came out with an incredible ultrasound where you can actually see in living time the face of your baby, and the statistics are that I don't know what it is, a high...like in the 90% or above, of those that are willing to look at the pictures, they decide not to have an abortion. It must be especially when the baby looks like them and they see that resemblance that sweet little face, but if they choose not to look, then the percentage goes way up on abortion, so I guess this is how it works. 

I remember when I was a little kid, I thought something doesn't exist if I don't look at it. If I cover my face, you're gone. You're not there. If I can't see you, you can't see me. I remember thinking that nothing existed until I looked and if I look, then it suddenly exists so I'd like, there it is. Suddenly, now it's gone. And you could tell me it's behind me, those chairs, all those empty chairs, but I don't believe it until I turn and to see it. My mother talked me out of that way of thinking. She said it was very self-centered. “I was here before you were born, and the world was here before you were born.” It helped me, things don't exist because you suddenly look at them. Friends, this is mental confusion. May everyone look at the ultrasound. May they all look at the faces and find out the truth, and the truth is this little baby is created in the image of God, and it ought to be protected by the laws of our country, dear friends, it ought to be protected by the laws of America.   

And so we're speaking about...Some people talk about a culture war. I think here, it's a clash of worldviews, is what it is, and so I wanna bring you face-to-face with truth. I have a lot to say about worldviews. I have a lot to say about other things, but I just wanna get to the Scripture, so I'm pitching page two, page three and page four... Basically, all of these are saying, if you follow the worldview that leads to abortion, you end up with chaos. Truth for me, and truth for you ends up with chaos. Well, guess what we’re having increasingly? Chaos. No, no, no Christians, we need to stand up and say, “There is absolute truth.” And I want to, again, introduce you to him, not to it. I want to introduce you to absolute truth incarnate and his name is Jesus. So we're looking this morning at John, chapter 8. Now, before Jesus was incarnate, God had already revealed himself to be the God of truth. In Isaiah 65:16, this is what he calls himself twice, the God of truth. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment, a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” 

Psalm 51:6 says, “Behold, you delight in truth in the inner portions or parts.” Psalm 119:116, “All your words are true, all your righteous laws are eternal.” Isaiah 45:19, “I, the Lord, speak truth. I declare what is right.” So God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is truth and the absolute standard of truth, and He speaks always the truth. So what is the truth? It's that which corresponds to what really is, to reality. That's what it is, everything opposite from God, who is the ultimate reality in the universe, is a lie. Everything opposite from what he asserts is a lie. John 8 teaches us that Satan is a liar and the father of lies. And so also all non-Christians have accepted his lies and have become liars themselves, and all of us would be liars if it weren't for the grace of God saving us from it. Because it says right here in Psalm 116:11, “In my dismay, I said, All men are liars.” That's our native state. But Jesus is truth incarnate. And so it says in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is God communicating truth to us. 

“And the Word was God,” verse 14 of that same chapter. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” So that's truth incarnate, dear friends. It’s truth incarnate, and his name is Jesus. John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” So we have the Gospel of John. What I'm going to designate for us this morning, the gospel of truth. Why do I call it that? Well, the Greek word for truth, alethinos, that's the Greek root — over one quarter of all of its uses in the Bible, in the New Testament, is in one book, the Gospel of John. Forty-seven times this Greek word appears in the Gospel of John. No other book uses the word “true” or “truth” or something like that, anywhere near as frequently. The second most frequent is 1 John, and that's 12 times. Romans, at ten. And so this is a gospel saturated in the truth, and it's truth covering every topic of life, like Judgment Day, for example. John 3:21, “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what He has done has been done through God, those that live by the truth comes into the light.” 

Or worship John, chapter 4, Jesus with the Samaritan woman. He says this in verses 23 and 24, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Or again, concerning our spiritual nourishment, the ongoing nourishment of our souls, John, chapter 6, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gives you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives his life to the world.’” So Jesus has come to be the bread of life, the true bread. Or again, Jesus's own role as life-giver to His disciples. John 15:1, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser, or the Holy Spirit's future role. He's called there the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit is just one of the names for him. Here in John 16:13, he's called the Spirit of truth. “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” 

Dear friends, where is postmodernism there? The Holy Spirit is going to guide you into spiritual, metaphysical, invisible truth. The very thing postmodernism says, we can never know. But we Christians know the opposite, don't we? We can know the truth through the ministry of the spirit of truth. And then the definition of eternal life. Jesus praying to his Heavenly Father in John 17:3, he says, “This is eternal life, that they may know you the only…” what? “true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Later in that same chapter, he says in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth.” We're getting a strong dose of truth this morning, do you sense that? That's what it's all about. If you wonder what the pastor is about, wonder no longer. It's about truth. There is truth. Dear friends, feed on it. Just let it flow through you. Read the whole gospel of John this week. Just feed on truth. The most significant assertion of all though, I think, concerning this is John 14 in verse 6, in which Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  

Can I tell you that I don't really think it's gonna be abortion in the 21st century that's really going to bring us into conflict with the world? It’s Jesus's assertion there, that He is the only way to God. And that you have to believe that he is the only way to God and is truth incarnate or you will go to hell. That is where the rubber will meet the road in the 21st century. We’re gonna waffle on that, we must not... they will not have life. If we don't tell them the truth on that Jesus, Jesus doesn't merely know the truth, he doesn't merely just assert the truth or teach the truth or exemplify the truth, or point the way to the truth, he is in fact, truth incarnate himself. He is the truth. And so he gives us all, I think, not just Pontius Pilate, but he gives us all an invitation to truth. You remember on trial? He stands before Pilate. Pilate says, “You are a King, then.” Jesus says, “You are right in saying that I'm a king. In fact, for this, I was born. And for this reason, I came into the world to testify to the truth.” 

Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. And just so you know, there's nothing new under the sun, postmodernism spoke at that moment, saying, what is truth? Now, it wouldn't bother me if Pilate said, “What is truth? I really wanna know, I've been searching all my life. If you would just tell me, then we could have a conversation.” He goes and says, “What is truth?” And goes out the door. There is postmodernism 20 centuries ago. Dear friends, we encounter truth, and in John 8, a saturation of truth. 

I just wanna bring you through eight assertions very quickly that Jesus makes, each one of them would be worthy of an hour, but I just wanna bring you just face-to-face with the truth and just apply it to this abortion question that's just tormenting my soul and our nation. Oh, for the day when we'll be done with it. Amen? I hope we're done forever with institutional racism. I assume we're done forever with chattel slavery. This can happen, too, friends, it can. So why don't we pray for it, why don't we pray for it.  

Assertion number one, look at verse 12, John 8:12, and the assertion here is Jesus is the only escape from darkness. He’s the only way to get out of darkness. You wanna get out of darkness? Jesus is the way, verse 12, “And Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘l am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” Our postmodern mishmash is a valley of darkness, and walking in a valley of darkness is inherently dangerous. Now, here I liken or I equate light and truth, I link them together. Psalm 43:3 says, “Send forth your light and your truth. Let them lead me, let them bring me to your holy hill and into your dwelling.” So God sends forth His light and this truth. They're really just the same thing, I think, in that case. Or again, Ephesians 5:13 and 14, everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. So by a light, we can see that that person over there is a woman holding a little baby, not three guys wearing baseball hats. It's good to know the difference. Or by light, we can see that it's raining and the roads are slick, rather than it's really hot and there's heat patterns coming off, like in August. It’s good to know the difference. Or by light, we can see that the police officer is beckoning for us to go into the intersection, not putting his hand up to stop. 

Is that important? I think that's important to know the difference, and he will not say, Hey, if he goes like that and you go and you get in an accident, he's gonna come over on the basis of truth and say, “I told you to stop.” You say, “But we live in a postmodern age. That was your truth. My truth is, I wanted to go...” Well, see how well that works in a court of law. We'll see if that continues. What a schizophrenic age we live in. We know very well when the police officer puts his hands up, stop and our eyes tell us the truth. That's what he's doing. By light, we can see the cat is sleeping on the floor in the walk space. All right, in the dark, you might not see her. You find out when you step on her neck. All right, the bottom line is, it's good to know what's in front of you as you walk, so by light, you can see the truth, you can see reality as the... Let me tell you something, God is reality, whether you believe in him or not, and some day you'll see it with your own eyes, that day will be Judgment Day. it's good to know now by faith what the truth is, amen? 

So there is a truth though, whether you think it or not. Now only by following Christ can we escape the darkness of confusion that Satan put around us. He's blinded the minds of unbelievers, it says. Now we must follow Jesus and this following of Christ is costly, wholeheartedly obedience. Look at verses 30 and 31, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are truly my disciples.’” So it's a continual following of Jesus, not a sampling of Jesus. We're not sampling his teachings, but it's abiding in his word. Dear friends, it is not enough to be merely a nominal Christian. Do you realize it's nominal Christianity that's led to these weird poll numbers? People asserting certain things about their spiritual state and then saying other things by how they vote and by how they live? That’s nominal Christianity. It will not save anybody on Judgment Day. We're talking about if you wanna be truly Jesus’s disciple, you have to abide in his word.  

All right, assertion number two. Unless you believe that Christ is God, you will perish eternally. 

Look at John 8:24, this is an incredibly important verse and frequently overlooked. This is what I call my Jehovah's Witness verse. You want one single verse for the Jehovah's Witnesses? This is your verse. Don't try John 1, believe it or not, they've heard it. All right, John 1:1, they've heard it, it should be good enough, but bring them over to something unfamiliar. John 8:24, and what does it say? “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” That's what the Greek says, friends. Now, the NIV and all the other translators stick some italicized words in there, and at least the NASB is honest enough to put it in italics, I am he but it's not there in the Greek, friends. It just says, unless you believe that ego eimi, “I am,” you will die in your sins. Now, what does that mean? Well, the Jews knew what it meant. Just the verse before that in verse 13, sorry, verse 23, he had said, “You were from below, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.” 

He's already kind of making a claim to the point, which is deity, I'm from above, but at the end of the chapter, he will make it very plain and clear, and the Jews will prove they knew exactly what he meant. Look at verse 56, “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day, he saw it and was glad,’ and so the Jews said to him, ‘You're not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ The discussion over. They picked up stones to stone him. They knew he was claiming to be God. Why? Because that's what God, that's how God designated himself from the flames of the burning bush. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses from the flames of the burning bush, and the Lord spoke to him from the bush saying, “Then God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you.’” So what Jesus is saying in John 8:24 is, you must believe that I am God in the flesh, or you will go to Hell. 

Our neighbors need to hear that. Our lost neighbors need to hear this truth, and we have to be courageous enough to tell them the truth. This is the truth that I think America hates more than any other truth. You'll have actually, I think, an easier time on abortion than on this one, these days, that Jesus isn't merely a good moral teacher, he was not a religious leader, he wasn't merely a prophet, is not enough to believe, even with the JWs, the Jehovah's Witnesses believe, that he is a god, but not the God. A powerful created spiritual being. No, no, Jesus is claiming absolute deity here and said, “You must believe it or you will die in your sin.” That means go to Hell. Recently, you know that Brit Hume committed a terrible societal guff by telling the truth. I think about what it says in Galatians, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” He was speaking of Tiger Woods, and he was saying that if Tiger Woods wanted to find forgiveness and redemption, he needed to turn to Christ. Do you all think that's true? If he needs forgiveness and redemption, if that's... if he wants a good hamburger, you can give advice, if he wants some good clothes, you can give some... 

No, no, we're talking about forgiveness and redemption. Where is he gonna find those? I tell you, he finds them in Jesus Christ and nowhere else. But look at the pounding he's taken. I read it on a Washington Post website, and the responses... The 346 responses, very interesting topic to the Washington Post readers. I didn't find one positive statement in a 100, the vitriol that was poured on this man for speaking the truth. And they were mocking Christ. One writer said, No wonder they threw the Christians to the lions. I wish we could do it again. Dear friends, that's a heart of murder, I'll get more back to that later, 'cause it's also in our text, it's a heart of murder is what it is.   

Number three, assertion number three. Judgment is coming, even if it doesn't seem so. Let me say that again. Judgment is coming even if it doesn't seem so. Look at verse 26, these ominous words, it's really just a statement you could just look right over it but Jesus said this to his enemies, “I have much to say in judgment concerning you.” That is terrifying. Very soon in our study in Matthew we'll go to Matthew 23, when Jesus gives the 7 woes, “Woe to you...” Well, this is in effect, the same thing. I have things to say about you. I have things to say in judgment about you. There is a day coming, a day of reckoning when we'll have to give an account for our lives, and Jesus says, I will speak in judgment. Now, notice that Jesus doesn't say them there in John 8, not yet. The day is coming when I will unburden my mind concerning your case and your situation. He will speak those words and he will speak according to the truth, because in Revelation 20:12, it says, “The court will be seated, the books will be opened and everyone will be judged according to what they had done as written in the books,” there's no escaping it. And the judgment will be based on truth. We really did those things, really thought those thoughts, it's really true. And so it is with abortion. People think that because the judgment isn't coming now, that it'll never come at all. 

Jesus didn't come into the world to destroy people's lives. He didn't come into the world to condemn people and to send them to Hell. He could have done that from Heaven. He entered the world to save people, and so he wasn't bringing judgment and wrath at that moment, he was just saying, it is coming. I have much to say in judgment concerning you, but it's going to be deferred. And so Jesus has much to say in judgment on this whole abortion issue. Dear friends, he has much to say in judgment against Planned Parenthood for opening, soon to be opened, a 78,000 square foot abortion facility, a super hospital, so to speak, in Houston, which will have the largest late-term abortion wing in the world. I have decided to spare you the details of how those abortions are actually done, I frequently review actually the procedures by which babies are killed up to 12 weeks, how they're killed toward the end of the first trimester. How they're killed early in the second trimester, I've decided to spare you the details, but they'd be true if I told you, and if we're just cringing back and saying, I don't wanna know how they're actually killed, I would urge you to go to websites and find out how they actually are killed. 

And then after you're done being nauseous and after you're done weeping, then there'll be some steel in your soul concerning this issue. It is a grievous thing. But Planned Parenthood will have much... Jesus will have much to say against them for what they're doing in Houston, or on doctors and nurses that willingly do abortions hardening their own hearts when they know the truth, or legislators and politicians, government officials that defend abortion rights and neglect the cause of the poorest and neediest people in our nation. On medical equipment manufacturers. I worked for a surgical equipment provider for eye surgery once. Well, there are those for abortion tools too. There are designers that actually design them. A curse on them. I was a mechanical engineer for 10 years. Why take all that training, apply it to that, quit the job, get another job. And then the executives that make all the money on the sales. 

Jesus has much to say in judgment on pro-abortion protesters that stand outside abortion places and yell and scream at pro-life demonstrators. Some of the most hate-filled and scary people I've ever seen in my life. He has much to say in judgment on men who father babies and then force the women to bear the pain of either raising that child alone or the abortion. He has much to say in judgment on men who should care for their daughters when they're in the dire situations of their lives, they should stand by them with everything they need to keep their baby. And he has much to say in judgment on women themselves who harden their hearts and get the abortions. On all the sins connected with this horror of abortion, Jesus has much to say in judgment, if they will not repent. God's apparent silence on abortion is temporary. I'm gonna say that again, God's apparent silence and abortion is temporary. He will speak his mind when the time comes. 

Assertion number four, the ultimate proof of Christ's deity is the cross and the empty tomb. Look at verse 28, “So Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am. Same Greek — you will know that I am — and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the Father has taught me. The lifting up the Son of Man is his crucifixion. Therefore, I can't hear this apart from also the emptying of the tomb, amen? The two of them go together. This is our only hope. And this is the sure and certain hope Jesus died for sins. His blood was shed on the cross for sinners like you and me. There is forgiveness, and it flows from the cross. There is forgiveness for all of those people. There's forgiveness for Planned Parenthood executives, if they will just repent and turn to Christ, it could all be forgiven. There’s forgiveness for medical professionals who participated in abortions, if they'll just turn and repent and turn to Christ. All of their sins will be forgiven, and the righteousness of Christ will be imputed to them. 

There's forgiveness for medical equipment manufacturers who take their skills and use them in such wicked ways, if they'll just repent and turn away and say, “I'm not doing that anymore.” They can be forgiven through faith in Christ. Forgiveness for the pro-abortion demonstrators and the politicians and government policymakers, for those men who in the past perhaps have forced women to get abortions through neglecting their manly duties, responsibilities, there's forgiveness, if they'll just repent and turn to Christ. There's forgiveness for women who get abortions, if they just repent and turn to Christ. 1 Timothy 1:15, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst.” If you're a true Christian, you just know what Paul means when he says, I'm the worst. There's no self-righteousness, it's gone, the cross just drives it away, and we have lifted up the son of man, the human race, lifted him up, that's done. We killed him. Then we will know that he is who he claimed to be. He is God when he rose from the dead. That's all the evidence we need. 

Assertion number five. Sin enslaves but Jesus, the truth, emancipate or sets you free. 31-36 teaches this, look at verse 32, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” With pride his enemies answered, “‘We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?’ Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.’” And then in verse 36, “So if the Son sets you free, you'll be truly free.” Or free indeed, O sing it, I am free at last, free from sin. If you're a Christian, you're free. Isn't that a wonderful feeling, just to run in the path of God's commands because he set our hearts free, free to love, free to obey, free to follow, free from guilt. There is no tyrant. There's no enslaving power like sin. Sin is a vicious tyrant that wants your very soul, your eternal soul. It wants to keep you under its vicious boot.  

And abortion is tied to sin, it's so clearly tied to the yearning for sexual immorality and freedom from consequences and all of that sexual revolution that happened in the '60s and then '73 came the abortion ruling. They're just linked together. I just wanna be free to do whatever I wanna do, I don't want any consequences in my life, I want freedom from judgment. I just wanna do whatever I wanna do. No, no, no, the true freedom is found in Jesus, freedom from the drive toward materialism that leads somebody to get an abortion for career reasons, or at least these doctors or the clinic side or the business side, to keep making lots of money on this. There's freedom from that, from that enslavement to materialism, there's freedom from enslavement to lust that leads to fornication. I was thinking this morning in the shower, and as I was just thinking about abortion, I wonder what percentages of the babies conceived that are eventually aborted are conceived in the following categories: adultery, fornication, marriage and rape. Just pie chart. I'm thinking the overwhelming majority are in adultery and fornication, and if those sins were wiped out, then abortion would just disappear, it wouldn't be necessary. It’s because of adultery and fornication, these things happen, but if you're enslaved into lust, Jesus can set you free. You don't have to do those things and get into those binds.  

Assertion number six, the devil is a murderous liar, and so are his children. Verse 44, Jesus again, speaking to his enemies, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” So the devil was a liar and a murderer at the beginning of human history, and his lies at the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, served his purpose, namely to kill us. He wanted to kill us. And so he lied to Eve and Adam and they bought the lie and they died. So he's a murderer, he is a murderer, but he's also the father of lies, so he sets up systems of lies, worldview systems, in other words, he just sets up lies. And his children are the unbelievers, the non-Christians. You know, you either have God as your adoptive Father or you have Satan as your spiritual father. Those are your options. There’s not a third option. And so when Jesus says, Your Father, the devil. That's very strong language. But that's the way Jesus was. He just told the truth. 

And so, non-Christians are serving Satan and serving lies, and more than that, both Satan and his children have murder in their hearts. Jesus said to his enemies, you are trying to kill me. A man who told you the truth I heard from God. You want to kill me? So that comment, the Washington Post, “No wonder, they threw the Christians to the lions. I wish we could do it again.” Freeze frame, that is murder. Why? Brit Hume, should be murdered? He should be thrown to the lions for saying that if Tiger Woods wants to find forgiveness and redemption he should turn to Christ, he should be thrown to the lions for saying that? My friends, is that where we're heading as a nation?  

Assertion number seven. People would rather believe the devil's lies than Jesus's truth. Look at verse 45, and look at it carefully. “Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.” Look at the word “because.” The reason you don't believe me is that I'm speaking the truth. If I would just lie, you'd believe me. That's the implication, right? If I could just stand up and sing from the same piece of sheet music as everyone else is singing, you would love it and you'd sing along, but if I come and tell you the truth, you won't believe it. People would rather believe in the devil's lies than Jesus's truth. With the abortion machine, the lies that we can have sexual freedom, the ability to do anything we want, any time we want sexually and be completely free from any consequences whatsoever, that is a lie, and it will be clear on Judgment Day what a lie that was. And because we tell the truth, people reject us.   

And finally assertion number eight, only the children of God can recognize the truth. Verse 47, “He who belongs to God, hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” The only ultimate answer to abortion is people repenting and turning to Christ, repenting and turning to Christ. 

And so we come to application. What's the application for you? I don't know your spiritual state. You alone know your spiritual state. Are you a Christian? Have you come to Christ already? Have you already come to the cross? Has the blood of Jesus cleansed you? Are you covered in the righteousness of Christ? Will you be fine on Judgment Day, 'cause you have trusted in Christ as your only Savior. You've turned away from your good works. If not, repent and come to Christ now. You may not have even done anything concerning the abortion issue, but if you don't know Jesus, you're in danger. Unless you believe that he is the I am, you'll die in your sins. So come to Christ. Christ has been raised up from the ground on the cross, and now he's been raised to life by the Spirit of God, come to Christ. And then if I can just urge you in detail, repent of sins as needed concerning the abortion issue, there are two categories of sin in this. Sins of commission and sins of omission. There are some that have committed sin and the issue of abortion. Repent, you know what they are. I've already listed them many times, I won't go through it again, but if you need to repent, I'm begging you. As though God Himself were making his appeal. Repent of that sin. Repent of the abortion. If you're the man, repent of forcing her in that direction. If you have committed sin in this area, a doctor, a legislator, a judge, and you've done things, you know are wrong concerning abortion, repent and come to Christ and let him cleanse you of all that, and then there are those grievous sins of omission, things you should have done and didn't. Are you in that category? I am. Has the Lord ever led you to do anything in this and you put it off or didn't do anything, giving money to PSS or to any pregnancy support service, or any crisis pregnancy center may be volunteering your time. Maybe you were in a conversation and you knew what you wanted to say, but you just didn't do it. You held your tongue because three or four of them were there and they might kill you, you know, if you said something, they might just go ahead and murder you, they might follow you home and kill you in your bed. And so you held back and you didn't say something. I'm just urging you to repent and say, “Lord, give me another chance.” 

Give me another chance. I wanna say something about the humanity of the pre-born, I wanna talk about how John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother's womb, there's a person, he's not even born yet but he lept for joy. I wanna talk about these things. And then, if I can urge you, thirdly, to just swim in the ocean of grace. One of the dangers of preaching every year on this is people just... they just don't understand grace. They don't understand the grace of God and what an ocean it is, and how in Romans 5:20, “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” just swim in it. If you have confessed your sin, you're free from the guilt, you are free from it, and God sees you as though you've never done it at all, you're free. It's so hard for us to believe that. And so when Satan comes around like in Zechariah 3 to accuse you, just let the Lord rebuke Satan. “Who can bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” You're free from it. 

Ocean of grace, but also the grace of God as an educator to teach you not to do it in the future. It could be that somebody here today is listening to me and three years from now, you'll reach a crisis in your life, and then all these cultural voices will come in on postmodernism, shove it aside and say the grace of God has taught me to say no to ungodliness and wickedness and lead a blameless, self-controlled life, whatever the consequences. Be courageous friends, and let's embrace this absolute truth that we've seen here in John chapter 8. Let’s start thinking clearly, let's start refuting the errors of our age. Let’s be warriors, worldview warriors and stand up for Jesus, stand up for truth incarnate and speak the truth in love. Close with me in prayer.  

It was the last week of Jesus' life. We've been studying this last week of Jesus' life in another gospel account. In John's gospel, we have the account of Jesus' visit, his final visit to his friends, Martha and Mary, and Lazarus. You remember that it was Lazarus that Jesus had raised from the dead, and Martha and Mary, he loved them dearly. And they had dinner together, and after dinner this rather stunning episode took place.

It's recorded in John 12:3-5, “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet, and she wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected. ‘Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.’ And Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She's done a beautiful thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want, but you will not always have me. What she did, she did to prepare me for my burial. And I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached, throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.’”

That's an incredible encounter, isn't it? This lavish gift worth a year's wages, 300 denarii, just poured out on Jesus, just poured out on him. And the house just filled with this odor of pure nard. Nard came from Northern India. It was imported at great expense in these tiny little alabaster boxes, very expensive, and John's account gives us a sense. This was pure nard, this was the best stuff. Poured it all out on Jesus. And Jesus actually defends this action. This lavish action of luxury poured out on him, he defended it.

I believe that this encounter literally happened, a physical thing that did happen, but I think it also speaks to me of something that God wants from me. The most precious thing that I have to offer. It's not in an alabaster box, it's in my heart. It's the affection, the love of my heart toward him, he wants that. He wants my uppermost affection given to him, poured out on him. That's what he wants. And every one of you came here today with that same gift. You have it, you have it to give, it's yours and you can give it to anyone you want. But God wants it for himself. He wants you to pour out your alabaster box of affection on Jesus, on God, through Christ. That's what he wants. That's what I think this commandment is standing over us for every moment of our lives, commanding us to do.

And as we venture forth into a new decade, as we enter a new year, I think, the greatest single issue in our lives this morning is simply this, do you love God at all? And if you do, do you love God more now than you did a year ago? Is your affection for God growing and healthy and strong? Do you yearn for God and the things of God? Are you able to say, “My heart yearns for him as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I yearn for God, and I want him and he satisfies me”? Is this love that you have for God growing stronger and stronger or is it growing weaker? Or as I say with all seriousness in my heart, is it even there at all? Do you even love God? Are you even born again? Are you even alive at all, spiritually? This is what's standing over us today as Jesus opens up the law of Moses.

And I think what struck me this morning, I really hadn't thought about it until now, but we are taking a trip this morning as a congregation to the foot of Mount Sinai. And here behind these statements, we should hear the terrors of the law. “This is the law,” said Jesus. This is the summation of the Law of Moses. And so we're taking a trip this morning to the base of Mount Sinai, to try to understand these commandments.

This is part of the final week of Jesus' life, a week of bitter testing when Jesus would be rejected by his own people. He was despised and rejected, Isaiah 53. He was not esteemed, he was not loved. He was rejected by his people.

And this chapter, Matthew 22, is a chapter of one contest after another, one conflict after another with some of Jesus' enemies who are trying to snare him and trap him. You remember the Pharisees and the Herodians with the question of taxation; and then the Sadducees with their question on the resurrection.

Now here is this expert in the law, verse 34, “Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.” They are assembling together. Acts 4, quoting Psalm 2, “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.’ Indeed,” Acts 4, “Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus. They did what your power and will had determined beforehand should happen.”

So here it is, this is the conspiracy against Jesus. And now they're sending forth this expert in the law to trap Jesus. But this man, I think it was a little different than most of Jesus' enemies. He was literally a lawyer, that meant he focused, spent his full-time on the Law of Moses. That's what lawyer meant here. But he was more than just one who studied the law, I think he loved the law. And I think he wanted to love the Lord who gave it. It's interesting in Mark 12, a fuller account of this whole thing, in Mark 12:28, this expert of the law noticed that Jesus had given a good answer and then began to speak based on that. “‘Well said, Teacher,’ the man replied, ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, and with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.’” That's what he said after Jesus had given his answer.

And then Jesus said this, “When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’”

So that's who this man was. Now, what was the testing question? Look at verse 36, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Now again, the law was the law of Moses, the law given by God to Israel, the nation of Israel, mediated through Moses. Moses was therefore, I think, the most revered man in Judaism.

And Jesus, it seemed, at certain points of his ministry was challenging Moses' supremacy, like in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder,’ but I say to you that anyone who is angry with his brother is in danger of the fire of hell. And you have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that anyone who even looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus seems to be supplanting Moses, then, in his own mind and that's blasphemous to the Jews.

Now, centuries of scribal tradition had encrusted the Jewish reading of the law. They struggled to hear the Word of God clearly and purely. Over the centuries, rabbis had determined that since there were 613 Hebrew letters in the Ten Commandments, there are also 613 separate commandments in the Law of Moses, generally. And they divided those 613 laws, the rabbis did, into two categories, 248 affirmative laws, things you must do. And they said this was one for each part of the human body, as they supposed. And then there were 365 prohibitions, one for each day of the year.

They also divided the laws of Moses into two categories, light and heavy. Heavy meant something that was absolutely universally binding, all the time. Light meant not so significant, but they could never agree as to which were the light and which were the heavy commandments. So it gave them something to argue about, which they did pretty much full-time, talking about the Rabbis. They are arguing all the time about the law. And so this question was actually a typical rabbinic question. But I think it also, in the context of Jesus' life and the hatred of the Pharisees, had a hidden barb. It was an effort once again, to entrap Jesus in his own words and have him arrested as a blasphemer.

And so they asked him which of all the laws of Moses was the greatest commandment. And Jesus gave, in verse 37, a very orthodox answer. There really is no surprise here. Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That's what it says in Matthew. Mark gives a fuller account of Jesus' answer. “‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”’”

So Jesus goes to the “shema”, that's just the transliteration of the word here, “Shema Israel,” “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” So significant was this one statement from Deuteronomy 6, that the Jews wrote it down on little pieces of parchment and they put it in little boxes that they put on their forearms or on their foreheads, called phylacteries. And they would put them also on the doorposts of their homes, because that's literally what it said to do in Deuteronomy 6. He then, Jesus, gave the commandment that was the centerpiece of all that God commanded Israel to do, also from that same chapter. Deuteronomy 6, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” This was recited by pious Jews every day. It was recited by the Jews together in the synagogue every week, every Sabbath. Jesus was no innovator here. This is not a shocking answer. He's not coming out of left field, sometimes he can do that with surprising scriptures they had never thought about, but not here. In effect, Jesus is saying, “This law has been in front of your eyes every day of your lives. There's nothing new here.” But there is an infinite difference between knowing the commandment and obeying it.

Now, what do these words mean? Well, it begins with this topic of love. The Hebrew word for love, “ahev”, is a deep and multi-faceted word. It's interesting to me that the first time that the word “love” appears in the Bible is in the context of a father-son relationship. I find that fascinating. I don't think there are any accidents in the Bible, generally, but especially not in the book of Genesis. As things get going, God is communicating to the human race.

And so the first time we see the word “love” is in Genesis 22. “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I'll show you about.’” Why is that significant to me as a Christian theologian? Because I think the most, the most significant love relationship in the universe is the love relationship between the Father and the Son. And every other love relationship is a reflection, an image of that love. And we as sinners are saved only on the basis of the strength of that love. I'll talk more about that in a moment but that's the foundational love there is in the universe, the love that the Father has for the Son.

The second time that the word love appears in the Bible is in the context of a marriage relationship. It has to do with Isaac again. And Isaac met Rebekah, you remember how she, let's give her, alighted from her camel. I'm thinking that's what happened. Others think she fell from the camel but that's fine. In any case, that was the first time that Isaac saw Rebekah. And it says that “Isaac took Rebekah into the tent of his mother, Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife and he loved her.” So, again, it's that use of the word love, the love of a husband for a wife.

Interestingly, the third example is also from Isaac's life. And that's at the end of his life. Genesis 27:4 “When he said to his son, Esau, ‘Prepare me the kind of tasty food that I love and bring it to me to eat so I may give you a blessing before I die.’” Same word.

And we use the same word in English. I love God. I love my wife. I love a good steak. And I'm actually gonna argue that there's an intrinsic similarity and sameness to all those kinds of love. It has to do with the heart direction, a heart affection. And what I said at the beginning of the sermon is the uppermost affection that you have should be given to God. And any created thing you put above God is an idol. We'll talk more about that in two weeks.

So what does he command here? Well, you are to love the Lord your God with everything you are. He says, “With all your heart.” Now, what is the heart? The heart is the central part of you, it's the core of your being. And in the scripture, the heart does many different things. For example, the heart thinks. It says in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts.”

Secondly, the heart feels emotions, feelings. In Romans 9:2, the Apostle Paul speaking of the nation of Israel and their apostasy from God and their rejection of Christ, he said, “I speak the truth in Christ, I'm not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” So the heart is the root of emotions. The heart is also the root of joy, as well. Zephaniah 3:14, “Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” So, it's a feeling.

Thirdly, the heart decides. 2 Corinthians 9:7, on giving money, it says “Each of you must give as he has decided in his heart.” So the heart is the root of the will, it's the root of the decision process by which you make decisions.

The heart also plans. Proverbs 16:1, “To man belong the plans of the heart.” So your heart plans.

The heart also yearns and desires. How many of you have cherished Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you,” what? “the desires of your heart.” It's the heart that yearns. It's the heart that desires.

The heart does all of those things. It seems, to some degree, that there's no internal thing that the heart doesn't do. And yet the Lord gives us two more internal words: Soul and mind. You are to love the Lord your God with all of your soul. Since the heart does so much, what's left for the soul to do, you may ask. Actually, in many verses, the heart and the soul are linked together and seem to be almost interchangeable.

The phrase “with all your heart and all your soul,” appears nine times in Deuteronomy alone. You remember when Jonathan wanted to take on the Philistine army all by himself, remember? And there was an outpost of the Philistines and he's got his shield bearer with him, remember? And he says, I wanna go up there and fight them, and the shield bearer says “Do everything you have in mind. Go ahead because I'm with you heart and soul.” Basically, it's everything inside me just wants to be with you, Jonathan, let's go do it. So the soul could be said to be that immaterial part of you that relates to God. But let's not be too precise about that because we're already told that we're supposed to love God with all of our hearts.

So long story short, I'm really not sure what the difference is between heart and soul. The word for soul is “nephesh”, and it relates to just living creatures, even animals. In Genesis 1:21, it says that “God created the great,” KJV, “the great whales and every living creature that moveth,” and the Hebrew word there is “nephesh”, all the living creatures, all the living nepheshes, and whatever, nepheshim, I guess.

But those are all the living things. So basically, think of it in terms of the principle of life inside you, that principle that makes you alive. Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being,” a nephesh. So as God just breathes life into you, that's your soul.

So, I think he's saying, you're to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, with every fiber of your being, everything you are inside you. But then he adds this third word, mind. The same thing with the mind, the mind is the part of you that thinks and reasons, all of that. Christ is commanding that all of your thought life be pleasing to God. That your intellect be fully given over to loving God, that you should love him in the depths of your mind.

Your imagination should be in full service to your love for God. You should be imagining in reference to God. Your mental powers, your science, your technology, your mathematics, your philosophy, your logic, your deductive skills, your reasoning skills, your powers of observation and argumentation. All of this should be given over fully to God, to loving God. And you should invent new ways of expressing love for God. Sinners invent ways of doing evil, Romans 1:30. That is, they contrive new ways of rebelling against God. Therefore, the opposite would be to invent new ways of expressing love for God.

Charles Wesley put it this way: “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great redeemer's praise. The glories of my God and king, The triumphs of his grace.” Now, I don't think that Wesley wanted himself a thousand tongues, that would be grotesque, but I think what he wanted was a thousand-person choir. I checked with Eric and he thinks that that's probably right, okay? I don't know what Charles Wesley would have looked like with a thousand tongues but I don't think I'd wanna see it. But a thousand-member choir to sing forth the praise and the glories. Oh, that I had that. He's using his imagination to think of ways to love God.

And then, finally, he says we are to love God with all of our strength. The focus here is on our body. That our bodies would be given over full strength to loving God. That you would present your body to God at every moment as a living sacrifice. That your arms and your legs and every part of your body, your mouth, all the parts of you would be given over fully in service to God. That you would pour out your strength fully to God at every moment. That you would be spent, used up, poured out, given over completely in service to God. At the end of your life that you can say, like the Apostle Paul did, I'm already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure. When God is through with me, all that will be left is my lifeless body. I have nothing left to give to God.

And those are the component parts but you are to love God with all of your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your mind, and all of your strength. The implication is, all the time. There's not a moment of the day that you should not be loving God like this. You should hold nothing back to love God completely, with everything you have, that's whole-hearted devotion. Psalm 9:1, “I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart, I will tell of all your wonders.” Psalm 119:2, “Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.” Oh, dear friends, we have the tendency to spare ourselves, do we not? To hold back some in reserve.

Athletes, I think, come the closest to doing something with all of their heart in our culture, maybe soldiers too. But there's an athlete, I remember some years ago, watching the end of the Ironman triathlon in Hawaii. This is for true sadists. I can't imagine why anyone would wanna do this to themselves. It all begins with a 2.4-mile swim in the ocean. That would finish most of us. I mean, literally finish us. That would be it. After that, a 112-mile bike ride. And then and only then can you begin the marathon, the 26.2-mile marathon. That's the full-blooded Ironman triathlon.

And I was watching this on TV. And there was this individual, and he was within half a mile of the finish line. He was leading at the time, but he had nothing left to give. And so he was crawling on his belly, on his hands and knees, his hands were bloody, his knees were bloody, his body was bloody and he was dragging himself to the finish line. He ended up finishing 14th or something like that, as others passed him by. He had nothing left to give. The standard of love that God demands from us in the law here is 100 percent every day of your life.

He also adds, and we'll talk more in a separate sermon, a second commandment is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And he says that everything depends on these two commandments. He organizes however many, 613, commands in the laws of Moses, organizes all of them, prohibitions and positive commands, everything comes down to these two. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. And so therefore, if you truly love God as God commands, if you truly love your neighbor in the same way, you will be perfectly obeying the commands of God. The Ten Commandments is a brief summary of the 600-plus laws. These two commands, even briefer summary of the Ten Commandments. It's a summation of everything that God wants from us.

Everything then comes down to this one word: love. “The goal of our instruction,” 1 Timothy 1:5, “is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Everything that we do at FBC should promote love for God, and love for neighbor. And if it doesn't, I tell you, it is worthless, it is chaff, it will be blown away on Judgment Day. Every one of my sermons should engender love in your heart for God, and for your neighbor. And all of our ministries should be organized and set up for that purpose, that love would be developed in our hearts and be expressed. And if we don't love, 1 Corinthians 13, says we are nothing.

Now, here's the stunning thing dear friends, God actually requires this of us. And this is where I bring you to the base of Mount Sinai, with all the terrors of the law. If you don't love God, every moment of your life that you are under the just wrath of God, and the punishment the wages of sin is eternal death for not loving God. God actually requires this. On Judgment Day, you will stand before God and the court will be seated and the books will be opened. And there'll be another book, The Book of Life, which is our only hope, but the dead will be judged by what they had done as recorded in the books.

And I am just trembling. This morning, I just trembled in my heart for lost people. If there are any lost people that are here today, who do not love God, God commands you to love him. And you have already disobeyed that command, you're already under the wrath of God for disobeying this law. Do you not realize how perilous these words are for you? God will look at the full record of your words and deeds, the motives of your heart. And he may say something like this, “I created you. I knit you together in your mother's womb. I sustained you every day of your life with food, clothing and shelter. I gave you rich experiences filled with joy and pleasure. I feasted your eyes with the delights of nature, of mountain grandeur, of gentle spring scenery, of rugged cliffs and tiny wild flowers, of grizzly bears and timid chipmunks, of roaring hurricanes and gentle zephyrs.

“I surrounded you with the love of family and friends. I gave you a loving wife and three children. And through them came thousands of gifts of love. I fed your mind with education, I gave you opportunities to grow and learn, I provided labor for you to do and a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. I paid you wages, money, with which you were fully supplied and sustained. I healed you when you were wounded and when you were sick. I renewed your strength when you were weary. I fed your stomach with nourishing foods while delighting your tongues with flavors rich, delicious, pleasurable exotic, varied. I entertained you with sports and movies, and books, and music, every good and pleasant moment you ever enjoyed in this world was a direct gift from me.

“Beyond that, I surrounded you with scriptural influences. You drove by countless churches, almost every day of your life. I put Christians in your life who loved you and who lived out their imperfect faith before your eyes as witnesses. Though you do not know the total number, I sent evangelists 173 times over the 69 years of your life, specifically to proclaim to you personally, the good news of Christ's birth, life, death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. And to appeal to you to repent of your sins and to find faith and forgiveness in Christ. Those evangelists used many different approaches to win you. Some of them were sweet and tender. Others were fiery and powerful. Some reasoned with your mind, others appealed to your heart and your emotions. You read in your lifetime 21 different tracks on Christ in the gospel, 1,377 times you heard some Christian radio or TV programming.

“Each of those were efforts that I was making to reach out to you directly and personally with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And after every time that you rejected the gospel command to repent and believe, I graciously covered your sins and sustained your life more, healing your diseases and feeding your stomach while holding out my hands to you that you would repent and believe in Christ. That's how I loved you, all the 69 years of your life. But I commanded you to love me. Did you? Did you love me with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength? Did you pour yourself out, day after day, in worship and adoration in your prayer closet? Did you thank me and praise me for each of those blessings with which I blessed you? Did you make sacrifices for me? Did you give money sacrificially to the poor and needy? Did you sacrifice time and bodily effort to serve me and to obey my commandments? Did you cherish me in your heart?

“Did you love Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Did your heart leap for joy again and again at the greatness of what I did for the world in Christ? Did you delight to hear of sinners converted, of marriages restored, of orphans cared for, of drug addicts rescued? Did your heart melt in singing songs to me or speaking words of praise to me? Did you love me with every fiber of your being, every moment that you lived?” 

Dear friends, I dare not put words in the mouth of God. But I believe that these words are consistent with the commands of God. And with what I understand the Judgment Day to look like as we are judged by what we did as recorded in the books of the law. Did we obey it? Did we obey the law? 

And now I tell you that saving yourself is impossible. Romans 3:20 “By works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Are you feeling it? I felt it this morning, I feel it still, through the law comes the knowledge of sin. This is the perfect law that Paul had in mind when he wrote that. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is what he had in mind.

You cannot save yourself by means of this law, it cannot be done. Charles Spurgeon put it this way. “Is there someone here so profoundly brainless as to reply, ‘I intend to keep it, I believe I actually perfectly can obey this. I think I can get to heaven by obedience to it, from here on out.’ Man, you're either a fool or else willfully ignorant. For sure, if you truly understand this commandment, you will at once hang down your hands as if to say, obedience to that is quite impossible. Thorough, and perfect obedience to that no man can hope to reach to. Some of you will think you will go to heaven by your good works. Do you really think that? This is the first stone you're to step on your stairway to heaven. I am sure it is too high for you to reach. You might as well try to climb up to heaven by the mountains of the earth, and take the Himalayas as your first step. For to obey this must ever be an impossibility. But remember, you cannot be saved by your works, if you cannot obey this perfectly entirely constantly and forever.

“‘Well,’ someone replies, ‘I dare say, if I try and obey it as well as I can, that will do.’ No sir, it will not. God demands that you perfectly obey this and if you do not perfectly obey it, he will condemn you. ‘Oh!’ someone cries out, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Oh, that is the point to which I wish to bring you this morning. Who then can be saved by this law? Why, no one in the world salvation by the works of the law has proved to be a clean impossibility. None of you therefore will say you will try to obey it and so hope to be saved. I hear the best Christian in the world groan out his thoughts, ‘Oh God,’ he says, ‘I am guilty. And should you cast me into hell? I dare not say otherwise. I have broken this command from my youth up, ever since my conversion, even. I have violated it every day. I know that if you should lay justice to the line and righteousness to the plumb line, I must be swept away forever. Lord, I renounce my trust in the law for by it I know I can never see your face and be accepted.’”

Do you not see it? We must have a savior. We must have a savior. We can't save ourselves by the law. And isn't it incredible that there is actually one man who has perfectly obeyed this law. Isn't that astonishing, be amazed. Oh may your heart melt in worship for him. His name is Jesus Christ. Jesus has cleanly and perfectly obeyed this command, every moment of his life.

And his perfect obedience to this law is our only hope. That and the fact that God has graciously agreed that if you just believe in him, he'll count his, Christ's, love as though it were your own. As though you had loved God as well as Jesus had. Isn't that incredible, the gift of imputed righteousness? That's the gift of the wedding clothes that you must wear on that wedding banquet day. We already covered that in that parable a few weeks ago. It's the love of Jesus for his Father that's gonna cleanse you and clothe you, and Christ did in fact do this every moment of his life.

And the ultimate measure of it, dear friends, is the cross, is it not? The cross of Jesus Christ. As he was talking to His disciples, the night before he was crucified, He said in John 14, “The prince of this world is coming for me, and he has nothing on me.” What does that mean? I am sinless. I've never done anything that Satan can accuse me of. Listen to this though, John 14:31 “But the world must learn that I love the Father, and that I do exactly what the Father has commanded me to do.” Oh, what a verse! How deep and how rich is that. The world must learn that I love my Father. How does the world learn that? Watch and see as I go to die. As I go pour out my blood for the Father. It was for love of the Father above all things, that he did it. And yes, it was to love his neighbor as himself. Yes, that as well, but above all things, he did it to love and obey his Father. And that is the gift of righteousness that God wants to give you.

How about this one, John 8:29, who of you can say this, Jesus can, “I always do what pleases him.” That is the righteousness he's offering you here today, as a free gift. Oh, how sweet, how wonderful! Our salvation in Christ is based on this love. It was for love of the Father that Christ died for us. Christ Jesus has become for us righteousness. And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace.

Now, you need to say to yourself, “I can never perfectly love God with all my heart, but Jesus did. And by simple faith in Christ, God sees me as righteous.” You might have walked in here lost, right now, you can say that, by faith. Say “Jesus, save me. Jesus, just save me. Give me your perfect obedience to law, give me your love for the Father and I will be cleansed, I will be holy. Give it to me now by faith.” You don't need to go anywhere. You don't need to walk the aisle, you don't need to come forward, you don't need to sign anything, you just need to believe.

And Christians, you need to realize this will forever be your righteousness. But don't stop there, dear Christians. And we're not going to. I'm gonna go back to this text again in two weeks. Because this is just the beginning of your salvation, this justification. Then you know what happens? The righteous requirements of the law need to be fully met in you who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. You know what the spirit's gonna do the rest of your life? Tell you this, “Love God, love your neighbor, Love God, love your neighbor, give everything you have for God, give everything you have for your neighbor. Pour yourself out the rest of your lives.”

And so what we're gonna do in two weeks is we're gonna do some diagnostic work. It's gonna become like a hospital here. We're gonna do the cardio test, we'll put you on the treadmill, and you're just going to be searched by the Word of God, and if you find that you have some defects in your love for God, we're going to show you the scriptural way whereby your love and your affection for God can be rekindled. So, that's in two weeks. In the meantime, I urge you, just look at James 4 because that's our text. The reason that our hearts as Christians grow cold to God is one simple word: idolatry. That's why. We become idolaters, we start to worship created things more than the Creator. And James 4, among other passages, is the cure for idolatry. Close with me in prayer.