Here in Luke chapter 11, verse 45, the Bible says this,
Then answered one of the lawyers and said unto him,
Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also.
And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers.
Maybe this guy should have just kept his mouth shut.
For ye laid men with burdens grievous to be born,
and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
Woe unto you, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets,
and your fathers killed them.
Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers,
for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
Therefore also said the wisdom of God,
I will send them prophets and apostles,
and some of them they shall slay and persecute.
That the blood of all the prophets,
which was shed from the foundation of the world,
may be required of this generation.
From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,
which would perish between the altar and the temple,
verily I say unto you,
it shall be required of this generation.
Woe unto you, lawyers,
for you have taken away the key of knowledge.
Ye entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in,
ye hindered.
And as he said these things unto him,
the scribes and the Pharisees
began to urge him vehemently,
and to provoke him to speak of many things.
It wasn't because they wanted to learn.
Look what verse 54 says.
Lying wait for him,
and seeking to catch something out of his mouth,
that they might accuse him.
We're going to preach a message entitled this,
Heavy Burdens and Hardened Hearts.
See, the Pharisees,
they had their own way,
and their own situation.
They were saying,
look how good we are on the outside.
Look how clean our hands are.
And Jesus said,
look how dirty your heart is though.
You're dead on the inside.
They had made religion about
just this outside facade,
and that's why Jesus multiple times said,
hey, you're hypocrites.
You're saying one thing,
but you're really another.
And now he's kind of shifting directions
here to these lawyers
that were there to help people
know the word of God.
He said, listen, you've missed it.
You're weighing people down
and making it extremely difficult
for them to find God.
And he said, that's a dangerous place to be.
When religion replaces grace,
it crushes people.
And that's what Jesus is teaching us
right here this morning.
So let's ask him to help us
as we jump into the sermon.
Father, thank you for this day.
Lord, thank you for your word
that we can open this morning.
Thank you for the songs
that remind us of your goodness to us.
And as Brother Cliff just sang,
Lord, I'm so thankful
you've been good to me.
Lord, I'm thankful you've been good
to every single person
in this audience.
The fact that we're here today
to hear the word of God
is a blessing.
Lord, I pray that you would speak
to hearts as need be, Lord,
that you would meet us
where we are.
If there's somebody
that doesn't know you as Savior, Lord,
that today would be that day.
Lord, I pray you would help me, Lord.
I need you.
I need you to clear my thoughts
and my mind, Lord.
I pray you'd give me the words to say.
That it would be a help
to the hearer today.
And we ask all these things
in your son's precious name.
Amen.
Thank you so much for standing.
May be seated.
Have you ever tried
to help somebody
and they did not receive it
as help?
You ever, like,
try to be a nice citizen,
a nice neighbor on the road,
so to speak,
and you're driving up there
and you see somebody's gas caps open
and you try to roll down
and you're like,
your gas cap's open.
And then they look at you
like you've just insulted
their entire family lineage.
Like, bro,
I'm just trying to help you.
You know,
let them know,
hey,
your blinker's still on,
you know,
because like,
I don't want everybody else
to be as mad at you
as I was.
You know,
because I was behind somebody
yesterday
and I kept slowing down,
slowing down.
I'm like,
their blinker's been on
for two miles.
I'm like,
I couldn't get around
and I'm like,
and you know,
it's just,
I tried to be in the spirit
but I really wasn't.
I mean,
the idea is,
you weren't wrong
and maybe you weren't
even mean about it.
You were just right.
And somehow,
that made it worse.
Because I think
we can all relate to that
because I think,
you know,
we've all been
on the other end as well.
That we've been corrected
by somebody,
we've been trying to,
they may be trying to help us
and it just hit a nerve.
Not because they were wrong,
because they were dead
on the money.
And we didn't like that.
We didn't like how that felt
and why is that?
Why is it sometimes
when somebody's trying to help us
and they're trying to correct us
and they're trying to show us
the truth,
it hits a nerve.
I think because sometimes
it's not just confronting behavior,
it's exposing what's really
in our heart.
I think that's what it is.
It really,
it gets down in there
and we don't necessarily
like that.
And as we saw last week
if you were here
in verses 37 through 44
and we see again,
that's exactly
what's taking place.
These Pharisees,
they were there
and it seemed like
they were always kind of
in the shadows.
They were always kind of
lurking behind
seeing what Jesus
was going to do.
And they took opportunities
like that Pharisee did last week.
He said,
hey man,
I'd love to have you
over for lunch.
And it wasn't a friendly invitation.
That's what he wanted it
to seem like.
But really,
he was looking for
an opportunity
to kind of really
get in there
and find something wrong
with Jesus.
We saw it at the end
of our text here today.
They were looking for something
to come out of his mouth,
the Bible said,
so they could just
nail him on it.
They could find
this situation.
And so really,
what he did is
he confronted these Pharisees
about their hypocrisy.
He said,
listen man,
you're so excited
that you're so clean
on the outside.
And you're following
all of these ceremonial
washing laws.
And Jesus went to dinner
and didn't wash his hands.
I mean,
and they just lost
their marbles.
And he said,
you're so worried
about the outside
of the cup.
What's going on
on the inside?
And he really exposed
their hypocrisy.
You know,
there are certain times
in life when maybe
the room is tense,
you shouldn't say something.
But you all know somebody,
and maybe you are
that somebody,
you're like,
I'm going to say it.
You're like,
don't say it.
And maybe your inner self
is saying,
don't say it.
And you're like,
hey,
we don't like how
you're treating our friends.
Because that's what
the lawyer did right here.
That's what verse number 45,
he said,
master,
thus saying,
thou reproachest also.
He said,
hey,
you can't say that.
Who do you think you are?
That's basically
what this man is saying.
That's kind of the idea
and the tone
that he comes with.
And he's really saying,
Jesus,
when you rebuke them,
I don't know if you know this,
but you're rebuking us also
and we don't like it.
You're really mean.
I mean,
that's kind of what's going on here.
That's kind of the attitude here.
So who are these lawyers?
The Bible says that,
then answered one of the lawyers,
now they're not attorneys
like we would think of today.
This is not a man
that would represent you
in a legal case
before a judge.
No,
these lawyers
were experts
in the law of Moses.
The law that Jesus
just kind of offended
and didn't wash his hands
ceremonially,
they were the ones
that interpreted scripture.
These were the men,
these lawyers,
were those that taught people
how to live out
the word of God.
Here's the problem though,
just kind of recap
a little bit last week.
They took the word of God
and then they added
a whole bunch of things
onto the word of God
and said,
this is the word of God too.
They had built this crust
around the law of God
so they wouldn't
break one single law.
And yet,
they were weighing
these people down.
See,
the idea behind this lawyer
and his group of friends,
they didn't just study
the Bible,
they were the experts on it.
They didn't have Google
back then.
If you had a question,
you couldn't Google it,
you had to go ask
one of these guys.
You had to run it
through him,
you had to make sure
that you were doing
all the things
that you were supposed to
and he was the one
that would tell you.
And as Jesus is confronting
the Pharisees,
they quickly realize,
I think he's talking about us.
You ever been in a situation
like that?
Somebody's talking like,
is he talking about me?
And that's kind of
where he's at
and he's there
and he's hearing this.
But instead of repenting,
instead of realizing,
you know what?
Maybe I've kind of
missed the mark a little bit.
Maybe I'm not exactly
where I should be
and maybe I should re-evaluate
how I'm teaching the law
and what exactly
the law says.
No,
he begins to defend himself.
And that's a natural
human reaction,
isn't it?
When we are called
on the carpet,
so to speak,
even if they're right,
I'm going to fight it
tooth and nail
to make sure that I win.
Okay,
come on,
don't act like you
don't do that.
And that's when Jesus
turns to him
in verse 46
and begins to
directly warn them.
And it's not just
a warning for them
because sometimes
we look and say,
well,
I'm not a Pharisee,
I'm not a lawyer like this.
But I think we saw last week
and I think we're going
to see this week as well
that sometimes we can
kind of slide into
the same things
they're dealing with.
You know why?
Because that's where
our heart likes to go.
We like to prop
our own selves up.
We want to make sure
that we're the ones
that are in control
and here's kind of
the truth,
the main truth
of this text this morning
is that when religion
becomes about control
instead of about compassion,
it crushes people
instead of actually
changing them.
Jesus didn't come
to crush people.
No,
Jesus came to seek
and to save
that which was lost.
Now,
don't misunderstand.
I don't have a lot of time
to go into this.
It's not all about
just love everybody
and compassion.
No,
Jesus is full of grace
and truth.
So we just want to make sure
that's clear on the top.
Jesus isn't saying,
well,
just as long as you love,
you're okay.
No,
there are some boundaries
and the law is good
and the law teaches us
those certain things
but there are many things here
that they were adding to it
that wasn't about God,
it was about them
and keeping their finger
on the people,
so to speak.
Because the law
that they loved so dearly,
that they studied so intently,
they had given their life for,
it had this one goal
to lead people to God.
When you look at the Old Testament,
you look at the law of Moses,
it wasn't a bunch of laws
and rules that you had to follow.
It was pointing to Jesus.
It was pointing to
there was a coming Messiah
that would change their life
and it helped them live their life
in such a way
that they could come
and have fellowship with God.
Listen,
when you read through Leviticus
and you read through
some of these books,
you think,
man,
this is so weird,
it's so boring.
No,
you know what it should do?
It should encourage your heart
that God wants to be close to you.
That he made a way
and that he brought it down together
and you have an opportunity
to know God.
That's what the whole word of God is.
It's so we might know him.
It's his love letter to mankind,
his redemptive narrative
because that has always been the plan
that Jesus came to seek
and to save that which was lost.
Not to give us a hundred million rules
so we can work our way to heaven.
There is nothing you can do.
He already did it.
That's what the cross is about.
That's why he gave his life
on the cross of Calvary.
But instead of leading people to God
by the word that they knew inside and out,
they were actually using it
to weigh people down.
To get them kind of in a place
where they thought,
this is not possible.
And as we walk through this text today,
what we're going to find is
Jesus exposes three dangers
of legalistic religion.
We hear that term thrown out all the time
and I want us to hang on
and we're going to see exactly
what he's talking about.
Here's the first danger
of legalistic religion.
It loads people with burdens
but offers no help with them.
Look at verse number 46.
And he said,
Woe unto you also, ye lawyers,
for ye laid men with burdens
grievous to be born,
and ye yourselves touch not the burdens
with one of your fingers.
When Jesus gets in these conversations,
we'll say,
with these Pharisees and these lawyers,
he doesn't really beat around the bush.
He said,
Here's the problem that I have with you,
you lawyers,
is you pile rule upon rule upon rule.
You pile expectation upon expectation
and standard upon standard,
and there's nothing wrong with rules
and expectations and standards,
but here's what they did.
They demanded perfection
and offered no grace.
They acted like,
Well, we keep these,
and what's wrong with you people?
Here's the truth.
They didn't keep them either.
On the outside,
they looked real good in public.
They looked real good in certain situations,
and when Jesus said
they were loading these people down with burdens,
he was not exaggerating.
I'm not going to bore you with it,
but they really had taken the law of God,
which was good and holy,
which was good and holy.
Don't misunderstand that.
We're not throwing the law away.
Jesus didn't come to destroy the law.
He came to fulfill the law.
He's the one that made the way for us.
No, it's a good and it's a holy thing,
but they built this extra crust of rules around it
to protect it.
And that may have been the heart at the beginning,
but as we said last week,
by this point,
it's all about them keeping control.
It's about their ability to rule the people,
and over time,
that crust grew thicker and heavier.
And by this time,
there had been thousands of additional regulations.
Just to give an example,
so we understand kind of what Jesus is saying.
Exodus chapter 20,
there in the Ten Commandments,
he said this,
Remember the Sabbath day,
and keep it holy.
And he goes on to say,
Thou shalt not do any work.
And really what they did is they said,
That's a great law.
Obviously the Lord gave it.
But we're going to protect that law.
And so they took that law of keeping the Sabbath,
and they created 39 categories of forbidden work,
and then endless subcategories under that.
Sounds exciting, doesn't it?
You know, I have a hard enough time with the speed limit.
And I'm like,
Does it really mean 75?
You know,
I want to,
we've got all these subcategories under it.
You know,
they took something that was obvious,
just do this,
and they said,
Well, we need to help people understand
exactly what this means.
To give you an idea of how ridiculous it was,
one of the rules said that
you couldn't carry anything more on the Sabbath
than a dried fig.
Obviously it doesn't weigh very much.
So if you carried,
if it weighed less than a dry fig,
you're okay.
But if it weighed more than a dried fig,
then you were carrying a burden,
and you broke the law.
Here's what they said,
If you carried something less than a dry fig,
you put it down,
and you picked it back up,
now you've doubled the weight,
and now it's a burden.
Isn't that stupid?
Now we're not probably supposed to say that in church,
but I just did.
That's what it is.
And I just want us to kind of
put ourselves where they are.
They even debated
how you should carry something.
Well, if you carry it in your hand,
then you're working,
but if you put it under your arm,
you're not working.
You know, if you carry it on your back,
and what's the situation there?
Can you imagine living like that?
I mean, you have to walk around with a scale.
How much does this weigh?
Oh man, I can't carry that.
I mean, you're constantly calculating.
You're constantly anxious.
You're constantly wondering,
did I just break another rule?
And by this point,
some people just got to the place where,
who cares?
Well, I'm not even going to follow this,
if this is what God is about.
I want no part about this.
And the idea with these lawyers
is they had made religion exceedingly exhausting.
They think, man, I'm not going to church
if that's what it's about.
I'm not going to synagogue.
I mean, what's the point of all of this?
Why is it so difficult?
And here's what made it worse
in Jesus' estimation.
At the end of the verse, he says,
and you won't even touch it
with one of your fingers.
You make all these rules
for everybody else to follow,
but you make all the loopholes.
See, they had a loophole
to get around all of this.
Well, we can do this
because of this, this, and this.
You couldn't walk a certain amount
of feet from your house.
So what they would do
is they would tie a rope
on their ankle,
and they would walk around,
and they're still connected to their house
so those feet don't actually count.
But they're lawyers,
and so they know.
You know, has anybody
ever tried to read lawyer speak today?
I mean, it used to be like,
you know, my grandpa's like,
I'll just shake somebody's hand,
and that was all you needed.
Now you like,
you just go and try to buy a meal.
You've got to sign a contract.
You're like, what does this all mean?
That's how they lived their life
when it came to serving God.
That's the burdens
that they had been placed on.
And the very men who made the rules
did not help the people carry them.
They didn't walk beside them.
They didn't encourage them.
They didn't show any ounce of compassion.
They just demanded compliance
as they said, we love you.
We're here as shepherds of Israel.
We love the law of Moses.
We love Moses.
We love David.
We love all these prophets
that we're going to see in a second.
They weren't shepherding.
They were controlling the people.
And that's why when Jesus showed up,
he had compassion.
He saw them as sheep without a shepherd
and he called them to himself
and he was taking those burdens
because that's what a good shepherd does.
You read John chapter 10.
Jesus just lays into him.
He says, here's the problem.
You're a hireling.
You're in it for the money.
You're in it to get what you can get
out of these sheep
and then you're going to leave them
on the side of the road.
I'm the good shepherd.
I'm the one that loves the sheep
and I will lay down my life.
And that's what Jesus is showing us right here.
And I want to just remind us today
that legalism is still alive and well
and it still adds weight.
Because you know what it does?
It makes following God feel impossible.
It replaces the joy that Jesus offers
and reminds us that's available
for all that are in him.
It replaces that with pressure.
It replaces relationship with performance.
Listen, your Christian life
is not based on all the things you do.
God doesn't love you more the more you do.
Should you serve the Lord?
Should you do things?
Absolutely.
You know why?
Because he loves you.
Because he died for you.
Because he changed your life.
And you look at your life
and you think about that song
Brother Cliff said
and you realize this,
God's been good.
And you think of that,
if God's been this good to me
then you know what,
maybe I can help somebody else
see that God's good to them too.
And that's why we live the life
that we live.
And if people feel crushed
instead of encouraged by our faith,
something is wrong.
It's wrong.
We need to know that your coworkers,
your friends at school,
need to know that Jesus is in there
just to throw a whole bunch of rules at you.
You ever ask somebody,
hey, you go to church,
I'm just not into all those thou shalt nots.
But you know what?
When you really see the heart of Christ,
John tells us in 1 John,
his commandments aren't grievous.
They're not burdensome.
You know, you begin to realize
the closer you get to Christ,
actually the law was given
because God loves me.
Because he wants me to know him more.
He wants me to trust him more.
And that's why Jesus said later on,
come unto me all you that are labor and heavy laden
and I will give you rest.
For my yoke is easy
and my burden is light.
That's not the Pharisees' law.
That's not the lawyers that said,
hey, you come on,
we're going to make sure
you're doing everything right.
Jesus said, that's not how it goes.
That's not what he was searching for.
Listen, Jesus didn't come offering more rules.
He came offering rest for your soul.
And the same is true today.
Jesus didn't call us to weigh people down.
He called us to point others to him
and say, he's the way,
he's the truth,
he's the life.
Go to him.
Run to him.
If you're looking for rest.
And Jesus shows us that it wasn't just about
these heavy rules they placed on him.
It was about their hardened hearts.
Because legalistic religion,
number two, it does this.
It honors the messengers,
but ignores the message.
That's what we see in those verses,
in verses 47 through 51.
We won't take time to read it again.
But here's the idea.
Jesus is saying, listen,
you build all the tombs for the prophets.
You make sure their graves are looking real pretty
and you decorate them
and you honor the men that God used in the past.
But don't miss what he said.
He said, you're the sons of the very people
that killed them.
We think, well, it's not their fault.
And here's what Jesus is saying,
and you're just like them.
You want to act like you're not
because you're honoring them.
You celebrate the dead prophets
and you resist the living truth.
Because you know what the prophets were speaking of?
You know what they were teaching about?
You know what they were reminding the people?
Jesus is coming.
There is a prophet coming.
There is the Messiah coming.
And Jesus says, I'm here
and you're resisting me.
All the things Moses talked about,
all the things David talked about,
all the things you find in the Old Testament,
it's just a shadow of what is coming.
And he says, I'm here.
And they said, we don't like it.
You know, we love Moses.
We love Abraham.
We love all these men.
But listen, let's just keep them there.
Let's just honor what they did.
You see, they admired the message,
the messenger, but rejected the message.
And when you read these verses,
it seems like Jesus is being really,
really unfair to them.
Like, why wouldn't you honor the prophets?
Because Jesus, what he's showing us,
he was exposing something deeper.
He said, listen, the monuments are beautiful.
I mean, we go all around,
you can go all around the world
and you see all these monuments,
but it's not about what's on the outside.
He says, you build them
to keep the prophets safely in the past.
You want to act with your lips.
You got a bunch of lip service,
but you don't really believe anything they said.
You don't really believe Abraham and Moses
because if you did,
you wouldn't leave their life like this.
You wouldn't be following like this.
I love how one commentator said,
he said, your fathers killed the prophets
and you make sure they're dead.
That's what Jesus is telling them right here.
See, kind of what Jesus is saying is this,
you honor them where they can't confront you.
You know what they would say?
They would lift up all the laws of Moses
they followed to a T,
but they wouldn't speak of the other ones.
They wouldn't talk about mercy and grace
in the Old Testament.
They wouldn't live there.
You celebrate them
because they can't correct you in certain areas.
You remember where they can't tell you
to repent of it.
The idea is just this,
they honored the messenger,
but murdered the message.
Listen, the word of God is not something
we can say, well, I love this in the past
and let's celebrate this.
No, here's what we live by.
The word of God.
That's what Jesus is saying.
He said, you're so worried about tradition
and monuments
and you got everything in order
and this is for David
and this is for Moses,
this is for Abraham.
He said, what about the truth
that's in front of your face right now?
That's kind of what Jesus is saying.
And he's reminding them,
you can't really defend yourself
because your present actions
are proving what is true.
They weren't about the word of God.
Even though they were so-called experts in it.
See, the very,
what he's saying is the very ones
who claimed to love God's word
were the ones silencing it.
They had locked it up.
They had made it where it's
only by their interpretation.
They weren't different from their fathers.
In fact, Jesus says,
you're just partners in crime with them.
That you've made the word of God
difficult to reach.
And he says, because of that,
you're going to have even
a greater condemnation.
Because you remember,
it's been a while,
but a few weeks back,
he said, listen,
you have a great light.
Think about all the things they've had.
They had the word of God.
They had the Old Testament.
They had the prophets.
They had John the Baptist.
They had soon to be the apostles.
Their responsibility was even greater.
And these self-proclaimed guardians
of the word of God
were the ones killing the word of God.
That the everyday person
in Jesus' day,
they didn't really know
what God's word said,
but they know what the lawyers said.
That's why Jesus comes and says,
listen, I know you've heard it said
when he's preaching.
He's preaching to common people
like me and you.
I know what you've heard it said
from the lawyers and Pharisees,
but I want to tell you
what the truth is.
I want to tell you
how you're supposed
to live your life.
You think, well,
how does this really apply to us?
I think sometimes in our own lives,
it's easier to honor
spiritual heroes of the past
than obey God's word today
in our own life.
It's okay to honor people
and be thankful.
I'm thankful for men and women
that made this possible
that we can gather here
at a beautiful church building.
But we can't live in the past
at Central Baptist Church.
We can't live in the past
in our own life.
No, what does the word of God say today?
You know why God used these men and women
in our own church
all these years ago?
Because they obeyed the word of God.
That we have to do
the very same thing.
We can love revival stories.
We can listen to famous sermons.
We know great men of faith
and all of those have their place.
But God is still speaking today
and obedience still matters.
That's what Jesus is saying.
We can build great monuments
about how awesome it used to be.
Listen, the same God
is still working in your life today.
Listen, I'm thankful for revivals
that happened in the past.
I'm thankful for great sermons
that I can go online
and listen to from great men of God.
But I'm thankful that God
still wants to use my life.
That God still wants to have
a revival today.
That God still is saving souls
and changing lives
and restoring relationships
and mending marriages.
I'm thankful God still does that.
Why?
Because the word of God
is still alive.
It's still powerful.
Listen, we can celebrate
the truth so often
without submitting to it.
And when we do that,
it's just modern day tomb building.
Then we say,
well, we love all these things.
Well, you should love those things.
God used them in your life.
But what are you doing right now?
How are you letting God
work in your life right now?
See, then Jesus,
he exposes the deepest danger of all
when it comes to legalistic religion.
We see it in verse 52.
Here's what it does.
It blocks people from God
instead of leading them to him.
That's really what it does.
Look at verse 52.
Woe unto you lawyers,
for you have taken away
the key of knowledge.
Ye entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in,
ye hindered.
I mean, really what's been taking place
since verse 37 of this chapter,
I mean, Jesus has been throwing haymakers,
and he's landing them.
They don't like him.
He kind of throws one final haymaker,
and he's saying,
listen, these experts of the law,
they didn't just unlock the truth for the people.
They completely complicated it.
They had no idea what they were supposed to do.
They begin to wonder,
does God even love me?
I mean, how can God love me?
I failed how many laws this week?
I can imagine living in this time frame.
I mean, I would just be like,
I couldn't, there's no way I can,
I mean, 10,
we have a hard enough time with 10.
I mean, just think if there was 39 categories
with subcategories and this and that,
I mean, you wouldn't even know
you're breaking the law.
And you would think to yourself,
there's no way God can love me.
How can God love somebody like this?
Because their job was to point people to God,
but here's what they were doing,
standing in the doorway and blocking the way.
Hey, you can't come in here.
Only the lawyers and the Pharisees,
only the people that really love God,
only the people that follow all the laws of Moses
are allowed to come in this door.
That's why Jesus,
if you kind of hope you're piecing together,
he says, I am the door.
That's where you're supposed to enter in.
That these men knew what the door was,
but if people walked through it,
then they would lose some power.
They would lose some ability.
They would lose some sway over these people.
Think, how are they blocking the door?
Many of these laws weren't the law of God.
They were man-made rules.
They were blocking the door through their own pride
and their own spiritual control.
These men had laid burdens on God
that made God feel unreachable.
Listen, God's not unreachable.
In fact, for God so loved the world
that he came,
that he sent his only begotten son,
that Jesus made a way.
In verse 52, he says,
listen, you had the key of knowledge
and you took it away.
You say, what's the key?
What's Jesus talking about?
This right here.
Listen, you should be so thankful
that you have one of these right here.
I mean, you study even history.
This doesn't even,
after the first century,
you know what?
It was really difficult
to just find the word of God
at times in history.
Think of the dark ages
and they would lock it up
and only the priests could do that.
Listen, thank the Lord
you have your own copy.
And you should bring it
and you should study it yourself.
And sometimes if I say something,
you're like,
preacher, what did you say?
Listen, study it yourself.
I don't have the corner of the market
of the word of God, by the way.
You all have the ability to do that
and we should love it.
We should be thankful for it.
I mean, you can have it on your phone.
Isn't that awesome?
Don't be texting your friends right now.
I mean, it's so accessible to us.
Do not ever take that for granted.
That you have the word of God.
That you don't have to wait and say,
wonder what the priest says,
wonder what the lawyer says.
No, what does the word of God say?
You can go right to it
and you should be so thankful for that.
And instead of opening
the word of God to people,
they buried it
under traditions
and under interpretations
and under a religious system.
And Jesus says,
listen, the tragedy is twofold.
Number one, he tells the lawyer,
you have the word of God
and you're not even entering
into the kingdom of heaven.
He said, you have the map
and you missed the turn.
And not only did they not enter in,
they were making it harder and harder
for others to enter in.
He said, that's a dangerous place to be.
See, the warning especially speaks
to those who teach the word of God.
Not everybody's called to be a pastor.
But as a pastor,
I am not called,
I just want to make sure we understand this,
I am not called to preach my opinions
about the Bible.
I don't think you came here
to hear my opinions.
And you shouldn't have.
If you did, I feel sorry for you.
I'm called,
as your pastor,
to open the word of God
and preach the word of God.
Because you know what,
there's times in my life,
my opinions,
the Bible has to correct them.
When I start studying for a message,
there's things I'd like to,
I mean, I'd like to tell Brother Jerry
what to do.
I say that because we're friends
and I can say that.
But I don't,
I just want you to understand,
I'm just,
be transparent.
I know it's Sunday morning.
I don't sit in my office and think,
you know what,
I'm going after so and so today.
Because you know what,
when I open the word of God,
the Holy Spirit speaks to me.
And it's my job just to preach
what the word of God says.
You think, preacher,
why are we just walking through Luke
all the time?
You know what,
because I'm going to preach
what the word of God says.
I'm not going to pick and choose.
Sometimes there's going to be
a really fun message
in these last two weeks.
These haven't been the most fun messages.
Just to be honest.
But you know what,
we need it,
I need it.
And that's why we're going to
walk through it like that.
That as your pastor,
I just want to remind you
and I want to promise you
that I'm not here to preach
a hobby horse
or a personal agenda
or a cultural
or a political idea.
My goal,
my aim,
honestly,
my life's passion
is to preach
the word of God.
That's what God has called me to do.
And I just want us
to understand that
because Jesus is saying,
listen,
that was their job
and they said,
we don't like that.
It doesn't help us.
And we're going to do
what we want to do.
But I also want to remind,
I think there's a warning here
for everybody.
You don't have to be a preacher.
That we don't need
to replace the word of God
with books about the word of God.
Don't misunderstand that.
I read,
I said to all my Sunday school class,
all I do is read books
about the Bible.
But listen,
we can get so enthralled
about all the things out there.
Sometimes we study
all about the word of God,
but we don't actually study
the word of God.
And I'm the same way as you.
I listen to podcasts,
I listen to sermons,
all these things,
but we cannot replace
the scripture
with a podcast
or a sermon.
Listen,
you need to be involved
in a local New Testament church
with other believers
that are trying to do
the same thing
that is centered
around the word of God.
Because anything
that makes salvation
seem earned
instead of received
is blocking the door.
And I know this is
a hard thing to understand
in our world.
Not everything on the internet
is true.
But everything in here is.
You can find helps.
I use commentaries.
I read other great men.
I listen to other sermons
and kind of see.
But ultimately,
when it comes down to it,
what does the word of God say?
Because my job
is not to act like
I have the key
and y'all got to come
get it from me.
No.
I'm just reminding us
we all have the key.
That we all have the scripture
and we can all apply it
and use it.
And anything that replaces grace
with hoops to jump through
is hiding the key.
Standards and expectations
and practices
and things,
they have their place.
but they should be pointing
to the word of God.
Why we do what we do
is based on what
the word of God says.
He's reminding them,
listen,
you are called to lead people
to Jesus,
not make it harder.
He said,
woe unto you.
How dare you do that?
And when truth confronts
a hardened heart,
it produces a reaction.
That's what we see
in verse 53 and 54.
And as he said
these things unto them,
the scribes and the Pharisees
began to urge him vehemently
and provoke him
to speak many things.
They didn't want
to learn anything.
They said,
hey, keep talking.
We need some more ammo
to come after you.
Why?
Because they were lying
in wait and seeking
to catch something
out of his mouth
that they might accuse him.
See, their reaction
tells us everything
about their hearts.
But instead of listening,
they plotted.
Instead of repenting,
they just resisted
what God said.
Instead of humbling themselves,
they hardened their hearts.
And here's the truth
for us today.
That when God speaks
to our heart,
he convicts us.
That's a beautiful thing.
You should be thankful.
But conviction can either
lead us to repentance
or drive us to rebellion.
Sometimes the word of God
meets us where we are
and we don't like it.
They say,
well, I'm not doing
that right now.
Be careful
because that's exactly
what they did.
They hardened their hearts
to the word of God.
Their response was tragic,
but it doesn't have
to be our response.
Maybe there's some things
in our life
that we need to look at.
That when God speaks
to us today,
we still have a choice.
We can defend ourselves
or we can humble ourselves.
Back to that opening illustration,
sometimes somebody
starts to help us say,
who do you think you are?
We laugh about that,
but sometimes the word of God
speaks to our heart
and we think,
who do you think you are?
I'm just trying to live my life.
I'm a good person.
You know why God speaks
to our heart?
You know why he challenges us?
Because he loves us.
Jesus is not trying
to bury these guys.
You know what he's trying to do?
He's trying to show them
their heart.
He said,
come to me.
You know what he's saying?
You're miserable
and you know it.
Why don't you come to me?
I'm here for you.
I love you.
I love you so much
I'm telling you the truth.
I'm telling you something
you don't want to hear.
And yet they refused it.
The Pharisees were focused
on outward appearances.
The lawyers were focused
on control.
Both missed God.
Don't be in that boat.
Jesus did not come
to burden people.
He came to free them.
John tells us in John 8,
you shall know the truth
and the truth
shall make you free.
Who is he talking about?
Himself.
He's the way.
He's the truth.
He's the life.
As we kind of close it down
this morning,
I just want to
just kind of
bring it to where we are.
I think sometimes
we can be here,
maybe somebody here today
is carrying a burden
Jesus never gave you
to carry.
You've kind of
put it on your own self.
Some of us have maybe
placed burdens on others
that God never intended.
It's okay to have standards
and have convictions
and have priorities
in your life
and we all should.
We have to remember
that we're growing
and God is the one
that does the growing.
God is the one
that does the work
and Jesus is offering
grace instead of pressure.
He's offering this relationship.
He's offering rest.
Come to him.
Maybe you're here
and you spent your whole life
trying to earn
God's approval.
trying to be
just good enough
and trying to
clean yourself up
just a little bit.
Maybe you're carrying
some spiritual weight
you were never
meant to bear.
I want to remind you
salvation is not found
in a bunch of rules.
It's found in Jesus Christ.
That's where it starts.
That's what God
wants us to know.
He carried,
listen,
He carried your sin
to the cross
and nailed it there.
He paid a debt
you couldn't pay.
He offers forgiveness
and new life today.
Sometimes,
maybe you're running around
and you've got all
these burdens on you.
Give them to the Lord.
The Bible tells them,
Peter,
cast all your cares
on Him.
Why?
Because He cares
for you.
Maybe you've been told
and you've been taught
wrongly,
you have to do this
and you have to do this
and you've got to do
all these things
so you can make it
to heaven one day.
No,
here's how you make it
to heaven.
You call on the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You place your faith
and trust in Him.
You realize that
you're a sinner.
That all have sin
and come short
of the glory of God
and the wages
of sin is death
but the gift
of God
is eternal life
through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
It's not about
keeping the Sabbath holy
and making sure
you're not carrying
too many dried figs
and all.
It's not what it's about.
But maybe you're here today
and you love Jesus
and you know Him
as your Savior
but you kind of drift
sometimes into that
heavy religion.
Listen,
Jesus came that you
might have peace
but maybe your life
feels like a whole bunch
of pressure.
Maybe your Christian walk
feels a lot more like
out of duty
instead of delight
in the Lord.
Maybe it's fear
instead of freedom.
It's not what Jesus came.
You know what He's
doing today?
Maybe He's calling you back.
Back to that
intimate relationship
about resting in Him.
Maybe you've added
burdens to your own life.
Maybe you've placed
expectations on others
that God never placed
on them.
Lay Him down.
Get at Jesus' feet.
Let Him work
in your life.
As we leave today
I just want us
to take this truth home.
This one truth.
Jesus never
adds burdens.
That wasn't His mission.
It was to lift them.
Doesn't mean we live
our Christian life
like the Wild West.
We don't have time
to go into all that.
But your life
in Christ
should not feel
miserable.
That's not
what Jesus came.
These men were miserable.
And they were making
other people miserable.
Listen, the joy of the Lord
should be our strength.
In thy presence
is fullness
of joy.
Is that your life?
It should be.
Because that's what
Jesus offers.