[0:00] All right, let's go to Luke chapter number 11 in the book of his words that will last forever, that bring joy, that bring life. What a great song before we study the Bible together.
[0:12] And how awesome it is that we get to have a life-giving book. All week long, some form or fashion, Satan has tried to lie to you. The world has tried to get you to buy into some way of thinking that is not for your good, but it's for their good.
[0:28] But we can open up God's Word and we can look at the truth of it. We can find life and we can find joy. And it's the greatest honor in the world to get to read God's Word with you today.
[0:39] So as he spake, that's verse number 33. So as Jesus was speaking of the story about the lamp and of the eyes, somebody invites him to have a dinner with him.
[0:51] And at that dinner, this conversation will put on display what he is teaching about. So there's a parable. And in this parable, it talks about eyes and a lamp.
[1:02] As a kid, you probably sung the song, This Little Light of Mine, I'm Going to Let It Shine. It's a great song. But it's not the emphasis of this passage here. The emphasis in here is not about just the lamp, which the apostles had a responsibility to shine the light.
[1:16] But it had to do about the reception of those that would have the truth. What do you do? I mean, what do you do? Do you feel about the Word of God like these young ladies who sang today, that it gives life everlasting, that it brings joy?
[1:28] Is it received into your life? If you are receptive of the light of Jesus' teaching, then it will fill your body, your life, with light.
[1:39] Verse 34, If you have lost your eyesight, there is no receiving light into your body.
[2:09] I cannot reach my hand out and receive light into my body if my eye is not single and it's not proper. It's not in proper working order. So the disciples, the knowledge that Jesus gave the disciples shouldn't be hidden.
[2:22] It shouldn't be put under a bushel. The understanding that you have of Jesus, the wisdom of God, should not be hidden. But there's two parts to that equation. There's the visible element of the light, but there's also the ability to receive the light, which is in the eye.
[2:37] It's in the health of your eye. If you were to be diagnosed as legally blind, it would have to do with the measurement of how much light your eye would be able to bring into it.
[2:47] If you can't receive light in your eye, you cannot see. So then we're going to say, take heed of that your light is not darkness. So how do you do that? How do you make sure that your eye is not darkness, that your eye is single?
[3:00] And so that's letting the words of Jesus enter into your life and illumine your body, and that your life will be full of that light. That the dark deeds of evil will find no place, that you'll be listening and obeying and practicing the word.
[3:15] So in these verses here, it has to do with people's reception of God's word. Will they be receiving the light of Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God, or will they reject it? Because there's light as one element, but there's also the eye.
[3:28] So it moves on to a conversation. And in the conversation, we're going to say it has to do with what's on the inside. Not just the external things, but what's on the inside. That's where Jesus, with the Pharisees, is going to talk about a cup that is clean on the outside of it, but it's dirty on the inside.
[3:44] So, as he spake, a certain Pharisee came to him and he said, I'd like for you to have a dinner with me. On many occasions, Jesus is having a confrontation with the Pharisees.
[3:56] But on three occasions in Luke 5, chapter 5, chapter 7, chapter number 14, this confrontation happens around a dinner table. And the Pharisees have a distorted view of Jesus.
[4:09] They have an unhealthy eye. Have any of you ever seen a plaque in somebody's home? It's small and it would be put in the dining room and it says, Christ is the head of the house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation.
[4:25] Have any of you ever seen this picture or painting in a house? Well, this sentiment is very good for a home. But I'm sure the Pharisees and the lawyers here wish that Jesus would have been the silent listener to every conversation.
[4:38] Because Jesus was not silent about what was going on. Jesus is too loving to ever allow people, the Pharisees or the rebel, to ever be living in sin without confronting it.
[4:51] So, the Pharisees are doing what Pharisees do. The Pharisees, it said, they marveled when Jesus came in and he did not wash his hands. All right? Jesus did not forget to wash his hands.
[5:02] Jesus was not opposed to good hygiene. We have the Old Testament. We know that Jesus did not uphold the hygiene. Teenagers, this is not an excuse not to wash your hands. Okay? You cannot say, well, Jesus didn't wash his hands before meals.
[5:14] All right? You need to be able to listen to your parents. But Jesus says, I'm not playing your games. I'm not playing your rituals. So, whatever ritual you want to do before this meal, I'm not doing that.
[5:26] And so, that's what he does. And so, they marveled. Marveled. That's kind of the, like, I can't believe it, kind of condescending. Kind of like when your wife asks you to go to the grocery store and she says, get a gallon of milk.
[5:39] And if they have avocados, get four of them. And you come back from the store and you get four gallons of milk. And she says, why do you have four gallons of milk? Because they had avocados at the store. So, I got four gallons of milk.
[5:50] All right? And so, your wife marvels at you. It's like, you know, just somewhere between unbelief and just condescending. Like, how dumb are you, you know? How did I get here?
[6:01] All right? And so, the Pharisees, when they marvel at him, it's not this wonder that we're supposed to have, that worship of him. But they're condescending at him and saying, how could he not follow our rules?
[6:13] We've got rules and you're supposed to follow these rules. In Columbia, outside of all the different grocery stores, they had a place you could wash your hands when you were coming in. And so, it became part of the practice, you know, during this recent year to provide that for him.
[6:29] So, this isn't about not good hygiene. This has to do with him saying, I'm not playing your games. You're not going to make rules upon me and adding into the law and I'm not going to follow those.
[6:41] And so, Pharisees love creating rules for two supposed reasons. One, so if I have a rule, then I don't accidentally break the rule that God gave. I'm going to put enough rules around the rules that God gives, the law that God gives, that keep me from breaking them.
[6:56] And it just never stops. And then secondly, have you ever been off the interstate, off an exit, and it has a no parking sign, but there's like 40 of them? And so, it's not just the sign that says you can't park there, but they put so many signs that you couldn't park there if you wanted to.
[7:12] Have you ever seen this before? Just one after another, no parking. And that's what the Pharisees did. They said, we're going to rule proof your life so that there's so many rules that if you follow these, you'll be so far removed from breaking a rule.
[7:25] That's one reason they would give. And the other one that they would gladly tell you, they would be unashamed to tell you, is they do it so they can manifest or show their adherence to the law in an obvious way.
[7:37] You can't see my heart. So, let me do some external things on the outside so you really know how pious and how wonderful I am. And the question you've got to ask is, how do people get away with that?
[7:49] Like, honestly, how did they get away with it? I meant to ask Brother John before the service, maybe on some Sunday night he could take some time and look at during the intertestamental period where the Pharisees come in and how this kind of set up.
[8:02] I know he's been studying that recently. But you think, how did the Pharisees get into this position there? One of the missionaries in a communist country told me they were at a place and they were in a taxi.
[8:14] And the person in the car with them was pointing out all the cameras and talking about how there's so many cameras and how they're always being watched. Well, as a good, you know, as an American, they're like, that's horrible. I wouldn't want that.
[8:25] And aren't you so sad about this? And the person said, no, I think it's great. I feel so safe. It's a different perspective, right? And so these Pharisees, when we talk about them, all of you are like, oh, no, the Pharisees, they're the bad guy in the story.
[8:39] They're not known as the bad guy in the story. These are people that are very devoted to the things of God. These are the people that in a world where everybody was not taking the things of God seriously, they were very serious about it.
[8:52] And so, I want to remember that. But they come so far. Ezra was a scribe. Remember that? But now we're talking about Pharisees and scribes, and they're not doing what God had set them up to do.
[9:03] And so the Pharisee here has an eye problem. Verse number 39. And the Lord said to them, now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.
[9:16] Have you ever asked your kids to wash the dishes and you thought they did a good job until you went to take the dishes out and you began to use them and you realized they look clean, but they didn't do it?
[9:27] Because, you know, you have to wash your dishes before you put them in a dishwasher, right? And that's what it feels like. And so the dishwasher didn't do a good job. Don't argue with me, Thatcher, okay? And so they put it up.
[9:38] And so that's the example being given. It looks very good on the outside, but it's on the inside what really matters. If I have a choice between a cup that's dirty on the outside or one clean on the inside, give me the one clean on the inside if you're going to put something into it.
[9:50] But there's not a choice that needs to be made. And so this leads to what I call an awkward dinner conversation. The few of you that read the Monday email that comes out, I said last Monday that I was going to share with you a very awkward dinner conversation that Stephanie and some friends had.
[10:05] So many years ago in the Connect class, we had a thing called Connect Four. So four couples would get together for a meal. So there's four couples. There's eight of us. And we went to pray before the meal. And so I went and I grabbed Stephanie's hand and a couple others, they grabbed hands.
[10:19] And beside me was Jared Farrell. Some of you would remember him. One of the funniest guys that you would ever meet. All right. So Jared looks around and he saw that everybody seemed to be holding hands. That's what he thought.
[10:30] So he didn't, he wasn't holding Stephanie's hand and he thought he was breaking the circle. And Stephanie didn't have her hand on the table because everybody wasn't holding hands. Just, you know, me and Stephanie were holding hands. And so in the middle of the prayer, because he didn't want the circle to be unbroken, he puts his hand on the side of Stephanie's head and he just leaves it there.
[10:48] And so we get done and I look up and there's Jared holding his wife's hand and he's holding Stephanie's head like that. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I didn't want the circle to be unbroken.
[10:59] All right. And so that led to a lot of laughter and a fun conversation. But could you imagine the dinner with Jesus? And they said, you didn't wash your hands. And he says, well, you're dirty on the inside.
[11:09] All right. That really escalates things pretty quickly here. It didn't go to laughing, but it brought, should have brought conviction to them. And it leads in verse 53 and 54.
[11:20] It says, they begin to urge him. They try to get him to talk more because they're trying to catch him in something so they can accuse him, which will lead to a confrontation later on in Luke 9, 22, where it says, a son of man will suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be slain and be raised the third day.
[11:39] These people, it led to them wanting to kill him. This conversation led to them being the conviction that should have been brought, should have been exposed, the repentance that should have been there, the light that should have been received, should have filled the body and brought repentance, but it was rejected of them.
[11:57] They believed and they propagated a lie that what is on the outside is all that matters. You fools, verse 40, that's strong language. Jesus did not use it flippingly like we so often do today, but Jesus, when he said it, it had significance to it.
[12:13] Did you not, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? Do you not believe that God, the creator of the universe, that he made everything that you see, that he not only created you outwardly, but also the inside of you?
[12:28] And so they went to great lengths to appear to be clean on the outside. Let me give you five of those real quick. One of them, it says that they gave a tithe on the mint and the rue and all manner of herbs.
[12:42] So not was it just that they would take the garden that they had, which was taught in the Bible, and they gave a tenth of what they grew, but even the wild herbs that would have grown outside of their house, that they were to use it, they were taking it, and they'd be very precise.
[12:56] You ever worked with something? Parsley is about the only thing, or what's, cilantro, there we go. How many of you love cilantro in here? How many of you hate it? You know, some of you, yeah, okay, so cilantro, but you try to work with that, you know, could you imagine, could you imagine working with cilantro, and then as you took it, you decided to take the cilantro, and take apart the leaves of it, and take a tenth of it.
[13:19] Very precise, right, in what they were doing, that they weren't being haphazard about it. Anything that came into their lives, they were proud. I even take the wild herbs outside of my house, and I give a tithe of it.
[13:31] Then they loved the uppermost seats, the chairs around where the priest, so if you can imagine it, like if we were teaching from here, there would be some chairs that would be placed right here. They would be faced outward, and you'd all look at them and say, wow, those guys must really be something, because they have the nice seats, all right, in the church.
[13:49] And then they loved it when they were in the market, verse 43, and they would say, hello, rabbi, hello, teacher. They loved it when people would recognize that they were a place of authority. They loved those things about their religion.
[14:02] And then when the lawyer speaks up, and they said, well, yeah, but what about us? He says, well, you guys, the laws that were made, you can't even keep up with them. You guys are basically like the IRS of religion, all right?
[14:15] Like you make rules, and then you have to have people interpret the rules for you, because nobody can even know all the rules that you have made. And you have made so many rules that you can't keep up with them yourself.
[14:27] And so they made laws upon laws, and then another external thing they did is they made monuments of the graves of the prophets. The Old Testament prophets that had been killed by their forefathers, they found where those places were, and they built monuments to it.
[14:42] Because remember, these are things that they're doing, all on the external, all trying to let people know that they were good people, that they were religious people, that they could be looked up to. Nothing's wrong here.
[14:53] Nothing to see here. Look at all these things we're doing on the outside. But Jesus knows the heart, right? Jesus knew that they were just reflecting light, but they were not receiving the light that was given.
[15:05] They were just given an image as if they were filled with light, but they weren't. And then in verse number 51, it says, From the blood of Abel to Zacharias. This doesn't work in Greek or Hebrew, but in English we go from A to Z, right?
[15:17] All the way from Abel to Zacharias. All the prophets that had been killed when they were brought to them. And it says, It shall be required of this generation.
[15:28] A time of reckoning had now come to them. So this isn't, if anybody had been eating their food at this time, had there been any other conversation happening at the table, this is where I think the fork would have went down, and everybody would have looked up, and it would have got very quiet.
[15:45] Because Jesus says, Now is a time of reckoning. It makes you kind of think about in Genesis when he says, in Genesis 15, 16, he says that his wrath towards the Amorites had now been filled.
[15:57] That you have been patient, and I've been long-suffering, but now is a time of reckoning. And he came to them, and he says, Now is a time for you to give an account of this. It's going to be required of this generation.
[16:08] And so they omitted the weightier matters. No love for God is shown. There's no love for God, and that's shown in the fact they don't have a love for others. Luke 11, 42, it says that you pass over judgment and the love of God.
[16:22] While you're over here counting your herbs and dividing it out, a tenth of it, you're ignoring all the people around you. You show no love of God. You show no care for other people. And in Matthew, in a parallel passage, it says that you pay the mint, pay the tithe of the mint, and the different herbs, and you've omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
[16:43] While you're working over here counting out your tithe on these herbs and being so proud about that, you need to be doing some business in your heart. And so here were people that showed no love for other people, which demonstrated that they were dead on the inside.
[16:57] They did not have a living faith. They were dead on the inside. And this love for a superior status of religion that it provided for you. You want everybody to think that you're active and that you're very much alive in the things of God, but I know that you're dead on the inside.
[17:14] They were supposed to paint the tombs there, the cipollars white, and so that when people would get near them, they would see them. You were probably taught this by your grandparents, as I was when you walk through a cemetery.
[17:25] You're supposed to be very mindful that you don't step on a headstone or you shouldn't step where somebody's there out of respect. And so they had a way in which they painted it to show that it was. And it says, You, people don't know this about you, but you're dead on the inside.
[17:39] You are graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. It's like if you're walking through a cemetery, if you went to maybe a place where before they had head tombstones and you were walking and you didn't realize it, it says that the people that are walking among you don't realize that they are walking among dead people because on the outside you look so very much alive.
[18:02] And then a dedication to a list that they create that they judge other people by. Dedication in itself is not the goal, for a person may be dedicated to the wrong things. Jesus calls for dedication to love and ministry, not to law and slavish obedience.
[18:18] Jesus created a garden that we could walk in and have a relationship with Him. That's what He desires of us. And then there's no sincere love for the Word of God.
[18:30] They appeared to love. Speaking of the Word of God, I'm speaking about the prophets of old. They say, We love those old prophets. I know our great-great-grandfathers, they killed the prophets, but we love them.
[18:41] We make statues for them, and we make monuments for them. And Jesus says that if they were to come, you would kill them, because the prophets that I'm going to send unto you, you will slay them, and you will persecute them.
[18:53] So they gave this outward love for the words of God, but they didn't have it at all. And so the sins of the scribes and the Pharisees could still continue in this day, and if so, it creates a hindrance inside of the church.
[19:06] Luke 11, 52, it says, And them that were entering in, ye hindered. So not only were they dead on the inside, but the people around them that they were supposed to be teaching the Bible to, they weren't properly doing that, and they were a hindrance.
[19:20] And this is a big accusation to a group of people whose role was to help people understand the Torah, the Word of God. It was their job to help people understand the Word of God, but the way that they were living, and their heart was doing the opposite, they were a hindrance.
[19:37] In the book of Acts, we see this. We see that in the book of Acts. We see the removal of a hindrance. What, can I be baptized? What man should forbid me from being baptized? In the story of Ethiopian eunuch.
[19:48] Or in Acts chapter number 10, Can any man forbid me being baptized or receive the Holy Ghost? Always speaking about the hindrance of some other group. But Paul, when he preaches in jail in Acts 28, verse 31, he speaks, Teaching these things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence that no man forbidding him.
[20:07] There's a hindrance in the book of Acts that we see from this group of people that are teaching the Word of God wrongly, that are teaching the externals, but no real relationship.
[20:20] They create this false religious system. They don't know grace and love. They only know performance, and they know judgment. So that's why verse 52 will say, Woe unto you, lawyers! You have taken away the key of knowledge, and you have entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in, you hindered.
[20:36] Brother Brett, if you wouldn't mind putting a picture up here of the three Migels here, okay? They're all named Miguel. And when I was in Columbium, and I'm not only grateful that when we study through the Bible, we have the subjects and the order that God puts them, I'm also grateful where God allows me to be at when I'm studying these passages.
[20:57] And so there I was with Miguel, and this one in the middle, okay, in the blue shirt. And so I'm there with Miguel, and some 17 years ago, when I first moved to Alpharetum, I went to Starbucks, and there was a group of people learning Spanish, and I met this sophomore in high school, and I said, Man, you speak really good Spanish.
[21:17] He's like, I should have. I grew up, I was in Columbia the first 12 years of my life. All right? And I just remember him knowing that. But Miguel, he didn't have, we couldn't invite him to a church building at the time. There wasn't a church building.
[21:28] There wasn't a discipleship curriculum. There was no form and structure. There was just a group of people that just loved Jesus and wanted to tell this young man, Miguel, about Jesus and just tell him what God had done in our hearts.
[21:40] And so Miguel accepts Christ there some 17, almost 17 years ago. And his dad, getting to talk to his dad about the Lord, now Miguel's dad is a believer, and this little Felipe, he grows up now in a Christian home.
[21:59] And it was just so special because I just realized how quick it was from Miguel being a sophomore in high school to being a husband and being a dad, being a pastor in a church in Columbia, and just seeing that, and just being so, thinking about how he didn't have, we didn't have any structure.
[22:17] We didn't have any form. Well, all we could offer this young man was a love for God. But now there is a church, there's a missions agency, there's a building there, there's a building here, there'll be new buildings, and there's all these other things.
[22:31] And I just want, I think about our responsibility to this young man. What does he get over the next 16 years? Does he get all the things that we didn't have before, but not get the weightier matters of how we just love the Lord and all the things that his dad got?
[22:46] Or will he get all the new things, all the external things that we never had before, but not really have the things that matter? That really lays upon my heart. The greatest responsibility that I feel to our missionaries is that they have an environment and a culture that when they come home and visit, it isn't buildings, it isn't policies, it isn't structures, but it's just the place that just really loves Jesus.
[23:09] Not a group of people that are doing a lot of things on the outside that say that we love Jesus, but that really at the heart of who we are. And so this strong realization that they will get these things that you, he says, these things ought to have done and not leave the other undone.
[23:25] It's not that we stop doing all these things that we're doing for the cause of Christ and sending out missionaries and starting new things and growing, but the other things, the weightier matters can't go undone, which is our heart for God.
[23:38] Luke 11, 49, it says, therefore also said the wisdom of God. Who's speaking here? Who's speaking in this story? Jesus Christ. And so we're talking about them rejecting the knowledge and them being a hindrance of the knowledge.
[23:52] And then here in this story, Jesus Christ being referred to as the wisdom of God, and they send the prophets and the apostles and slay them. God was sending them knowledge.
[24:03] He sent it in the prophets. He's gonna send it in his son, and then they will send more prophets that will come, and they will slay, and they will persecute them. They rejected the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
[24:15] And that's the most important thing, that we have to make sure. We do not want people to be hindered from knowing about the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is the thing that must be done.
[24:26] That is the weightier matter. So I ask you here, but there are time remaining, what are some heart-level signs of an authentic faith? What are some signs, not what have you signed up for, not what are all external things that have done, not as what is the monument you built to a prophet that show you love the Word, not all those outer things, not as you giving a tithe of the herbs that you get, but what is it on the inside when you go to examine your heart, as we are told to do when we go to take the Lord's Supper, which we will do together next Sunday.
[24:57] What should you be examining when it comes to examining your heart? It says in verse number 54, laying wait for him. They were waiting for him, but to catch him in something.
[25:08] A sign of an authentic faith in your heart, is that you would desire the second coming of the Lord. I would tell you that if you do not desire the second coming of the Lord, that is a matter in which you ought to speak to him about.
[25:22] That is a matter that you ought to go to the Word. Hebrews 9, 28, So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall be a peer the second time without sin unto salvation.
[25:35] In the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians says, Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Philippians, for our conversation is in heaven, for whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[25:45] These Pharisees were looking to catch him in something. They were looking to accuse him in something. But if you're alive on the inside and you're not dead, then you don't love the things of this world so much that you don't wait for his second coming.
[25:59] You should be anticipating it. You should want to see him. You ought to desire to be with the Lord. And that would be one of the things that you would have in authentic faith. Secondly, you should have eyes to see spiritual truth with a heart that responds to conviction.
[26:14] Seeking to catch him something out of his mouth that they may accuse him. They wanted to take the words of God and accuse him. But if you have spiritual eyes, the conviction ought to be a byproduct of recognizing spiritual truth.
[26:28] The Holy Spirit brings conviction when we hear his word. This new birth that we've been given gives us increasingly a taste for spiritual truth.
[26:40] Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is man that trusteth in him. A primary way that you taste is through conviction. The way that you taste and see that the Lord is good is that you respond to the word of God with conviction.
[26:56] This occurs in our heart. It's not an intellectual exercise. Romans 10.10, For with the heart man believeth on the righteousness. It's a matter of your heart. This knowledge communicated to us by the Holy Spirit gives us a growing desire to know and to worship God.
[27:13] This results in changed behavior motivated by a growing desire to be holy as God is holy. As he has become the treasure in the field which you would sell everything for.
[27:25] How do you not fall into the sin of the Pharisees and the scribes? How do you not have a religious life that's only external? As you look inside of your heart and you would say, Do I really desire to be with him?
[27:36] Do I really look forward to the day that he will come back because I want to be with him? Ask yourself inside of your heart are you responding? Are you tasting and seeing that the Lord is good? That when you hear the word of God do you see it as life-giving and joyful or do you just see it as another list of rules to follow for something that is external?
[27:56] And then a desire of our hearts would be to spend our days living for him. It said to them you enter not in yourselves. They created this kind of system but they didn't even play by it.
[28:07] It wasn't real to them. Their faith wasn't real. It was all pretend and on the outside. 2 Thessalonians says in verse 11 chapter 1 Wherefore also you pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of this goodness and the work of faith with power that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you.
[28:30] Our heart motive is to do good according to the will of God. That you want to please God above all else in your life. You want to please God more than you just want to appear that you're pleasing God.
[28:43] That your relationship with him is real and personal. That your hatred for sin isn't just because it's a hindrance to your life but your hatred for sin is because it is what put your Savior upon a cross.
[28:55] It is what grieves the Holy Spirit in your life. And then we would work and we would live in faith that we would make decisions based upon the truth of God's Word.
[29:05] That we wouldn't just be pragmatic and live as unbelievers and just make decisions like that but we would really live a life of faith and that our greatest heart's desire is to glorify God.
[29:16] When you're making decisions is the decision that God, I just want you to be glorified. I don't want to be right. I don't want to win. I don't want to just further myself. I want you to be glorified.
[29:28] That is the heart of a person who is not dead on the inside that has an authentic faith that isn't just living with the externals that are there. This week, I listened to a book.
[29:38] If you listened to a book, can you say you read it? I don't know. All right. Yeah, I listened to a book so I didn't read it. I listened to a book and it was the testimony of a man and he went to a college and while he was in college, he knew that the Christianity and the faith that he grew up with, he did not believe in God and so his roommates knew it.
[29:55] Even though he was in a Bible Christian college, he did not even pretend to be a believer and so he was on a ministry assignment where they were at another college and they were supposed to be sharing their faith at the college but he would just go there and he would just watch sports the whole time and he wouldn't go out and share his faith.
[30:12] So before they would go and do that, these men would sit in a circle. There was four of them and three men would pray and then they would pause and they would let this man pray named Philip and Philip, he would never pray.
[30:26] Well, this one time he decided he was going to pray and he was just going to be honest and as they pray, Philip came and he prayed and he says, God, you know I don't care if that whole college goes to hell.
[30:39] God, you know that I don't even care if I go to hell. I have no love for you. I don't think that you've ever loved me and I really want nothing to do with you.
[30:51] And he said in that moment the teaching in which he had heard about the Good Samaritan where he knew that he was not the Good Samaritan but he knew that he was the man on the side of the road, that he was the man that needed something, that he was the man that was spitting, that he was the man that needed help and even though he needed help and that Jesus had loved him and cared for him, that he was spitting in the face of Christ, he was broken at that time and he came to a saving knowledge of Jesus because he decided I'm not just going to pretend to do all the external things that everybody around me is doing.
[31:23] I'm going to be honest and I'm going to say I'm dead on the inside and Lord, I do not love you and the Holy Spirit brought light to him, convicted him and filled him with understanding.
[31:37] In the story of Pilgrim's Progress, Christian says to two men named Formalus and Hypocrisy, they came over the wall and when he does, he says, I walk by the rule of my master and you walk by the rude workings of your fancies.
[31:50] You are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way, therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You come in by yourselves without his direction and shall go out by yourselves without his mercy.
[32:06] These Pharisees and these scribes, they came in on their own terms. They made their own rules. They were not listening to God's working inside of their lives. They were not listening to Jesus here in this story but they were making their own form of religion and even though it looked really well and good, it was dead on the inside.
[32:26] So here in just a few minutes, I'm going to read to you a passage of 1 Corinthians 11. I'm going to ask all of you that you would take this week as you should take every week of your life and to prepare your heart as we would come together to take the Lord's Supper as we would commemorate the resurrection, the death burial of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
[32:46] But in 1 Corinthians chapter number 11, it's Paul teaching about the Lord's Supper there and what's the problem in Corinth? It's this. One of many problems is that they wanted to look like Christians but they didn't want to act like it.
[33:01] They wanted to appear to be something on the outside that wasn't true about them on the heart level. And so in 1 Corinthians 11, 21 and 22, For in eating everyone taketh before others his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken.
[33:17] I don't expect that to be the problem next Sunday, okay? But what? Have you not houses that eat and drink in or despise ye the church of God and shame them that have not?
[33:27] What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. So in other words, beware coming to the Lord's table when you're not treating one another the way the Lord said for you to treat one another.
[33:39] And why? Because that's hypocrisy. Don't come to the Lord's table with an external looking Christian faith that is all intact when you know on the inside there is evil and there's death.
[33:54] So this issue of religious hypocrisy is one that is alive and well in our own days. 2,000 years after Jesus had this awkward dinner conversation is still very relevant for us today.
[34:06] I just want to ask you as Christian will come to the piano and we're going to take a moment here in a little bit and you're going to pray either here at the altar in your seat just like the Pharisees and the scribes maybe quickly you'd be able to rattle off some outward things.
[34:21] I built the monument to the prophets so I love the word of God. I give even to the smallest things in my life I give a tithe and all those things he said are all well and good but you've ignored the weightier matter.
[34:34] What's going on in your heart? And this is something that only the Holy Spirit would be able to know about us in here. It's very clear that we don't know one another's heart but he does.
[34:46] And I want to challenge you that today and throughout this week would you come and would you be honest with them? Maybe there'd be somebody in here today that'd be like that man in that story Philip and he says I'm just going to be honest.
[34:58] My whole religious life has only been external. There is nothing on the inside. When I hear about other people around the world I have no heart for that. When I hear about the word of God I don't have any desire for it.
[35:10] I've only been going through the motions and that is the dead religion that is damning of the scribes and Pharisees. Or maybe you're in here like I am as a believer and you believe the lie of the Pharisees and the scribes as it applies to your sanctification in your walk with the Lord.
[35:28] And sometimes you just lean upon what other people think and doing what's right but your walk with the Lord isn't where it needs to be. It isn't real. It isn't growing.
[35:38] It isn't personal anymore. And today you need to make a decision and say Lord as it said I'm not going to let these things be done and these others undone. I'm going to make sure that I consider the weight of your matters.