Jesus Shows Us How To Live A Holy Life Series

Jesus Shows Us How to Live a Holy Life

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 23:1-12

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared January 26, 2023)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 23. As you know, Jesus was in Jerusalem to die on the cross for our sins. The city and surrounding villages were crowded with over 2 million Jewish pilgrims there for the annual Passover Feast. (1)

*Early that week, Jesus went into the Temple to drive out the moneychangers and dove merchants, because they had turned the Court of the Gentiles into a den of thieves by cheating the pilgrims. Then in Matthew 21:14-16, "The blind and the lame came to (Jesus) in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' they were indignant and said to Him, 'Do You hear what these are saying?' And Jesus said to them, 'Yes. Have you never read, "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise"?'''

*The next day, Jesus went back to the Temple. Luke 20:1 tells us that Jesus was there teaching the people and preaching the gospel to them. That's when the elites of the city started a series of verbal confrontations with the Lord.

*God's Word goes into a lot of detail about these evil scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians who had united in their malicious hatred of Jesus Christ. Normally, the scribes and Pharisees were bitter rivals of the Sadducees and Herodians. That's because the Scribes and Pharisees radically enforced their man-made additions to God's Law. Sadducees rejected those laws, and the divide was so bitter that in Acts 23:10, Paul was almost pulled apart during a clash between these two groups. But the Sadducees were far worse in a different way, because they rejected the basic truth of God's Word.

*The scribes and Pharisees were also bitter enemies of the Herodians, because they were supporters of the non-Jewish family appointed by Rome to rule Palestine. But almost all of these men agreed in their venomous rejection of Jesus Christ. They were obsessed with His destruction, and had been plotting the Lord's death for months. (2)

*In Matthew 22, these evil men continued taking turns confronting Jesus, desperately trying to get Him to take a stand against God's Law, or their Roman conquerors. Of course, they miserably failed, because you can't trick God. And Matthew 22:46 ends the chapter by saying that "no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore."

*Now in Matthew 23:1, Jesus began to speak to His disciples and the multitudes of people in the Temple that day. John Phillips explained that "Jesus was still in the temple court with His disciples gathered around Him, the multitudes spread out before Him, and the national leaders of Israel in the background. The leaders were still stinging at being so effectively silenced by the Lord. Already infuriated, they were willing to pay any price to get rid of Him. Now His scathing denunciation of their hypocrisy would sign His death warrant." Phillips said that, because in this chapter you will see Jesus on fire with righteous wrath against the wicked leaders who had twisted God's Law for their own selfish purposes. (3)

*The Lord was just getting started in today's Scripture, but in these verses Jesus also shows us how to live a holy life. Please think about this as we read Matthew 23:1-12.

MESSAGE:

*The first time I ever got sent to the principal's office was in the third grade. My best friend was Zach Smith. We lived close to the school, so Zach, my first grade brother and I used to ride our bikes to school. There were 3 old teachers in our neighborhood (at least 25 or 30 years old), and they walked to school together every day.

*One day, I don't know why, maybe we had seen an old World War II army movie with the planes dive bombing, but one day we decided to dive bomb those teachers. So we zoomed down the hill as fast and close as we could, and we let out a rebel yell as we sped by!

*That was the dumbest thing I had ever done in my life, -- up to that point. We were all in the principal's office about 15 minutes later. And I don't know why in the world I did that. But I was sure it was Zach's fault.

*Zach helped me get in a lot of trouble. Sometimes I would tell my daddy, "Zach did it first." Dad would reply, "If Zach Smith stuck his head in a fire, would you?" I was definitely following the wrong example.