INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• There is a lot of responsibility that comes with being a Christian. It is not always easy to do what we are called to do.
• It is so easy to get off course and start heading down the wrong path.
• We can run into a lot of dangers if we start neglecting our faith.
• Over the past couple of weeks we have been looking at some of the serious problems the religious leaders of Jesus time were having.
• AS we look at these issues, we can learn how we ought not live our lives.
• Today we are going to look at the third way we can be a bad Christian.
• When we become an obstacle to others coming to experience the grace, love and salvation that Jesus has to offer, we are not doing what God wants us to do.
• How can we become obstacles to others coming to Christ? Are not people responsible for their own salvation?
• In the passage we will examine today, we will see three traps we can fall into if we are not careful.
• Let’s look at Matthew 23:13 together. Verse 13 beings the series of “WOES” that Jesus directs toward the religious leaders.
• The word “WOE” can denote a compassionate expression of sorrow or a strong condemnation or a combination of the two. (Expositor’s Commentary, Matthew)
• In this case, I really believe Jesus is using a mixing of the two, leaning more toward the condemnation part, but still done with somewhat a sorrowful heart.
• SLIDE #2
• Matthew 23:13 (ESV): 13“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
• One way we can become an obstacle is by claiming to know the way.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
We become an obstacle by:
I. CLAIMING TO KNOW THE WAY.
• Have you ever had a problem and then went to a person to get some help. As you explained your problem the person listened intently to you.
• You think they can help you solve your problem because they acted like they knew what to do.
• Later after you ended up with more problems that you started with, you discovered that your “helper” had no more clue as to what to do that you did.
• See, the job of the religious leaders was to help lead people into a relationship with God, but they apparently had no clue themselves.
• These leaders hid under the mask of godliness. This mask was designed by them to hide their polluted heart.
• Jesus called these people hypocrites. A hypocrite was one who wore a large mask to cover their true identity as the pretended to be someone else. We would call them actors today. Or maybe politicians.
• These religious leaders had persuaded themselves that the formal ritualism, the external acts of “righteousness” denoted signs of true devotion and holiness.
• These folks pretended to know God.
• If they really knew God, they would have known He is a God of love. Their god possessed none of that.
• SLIDE #4
• Matthew 9:10-13 (ESV)10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
• OUCH!
• All these guys could focus on were themselves and their traditions.
• They pretended to be God’s spokesmen and they pretended to be in His kingdom.
• They actually thought they spoke for Him; they spoke for a God they did not know.
• What about now?
• When we claim to know the way to God, when we claim to have a relationship with God, to be speaking for Him and if we claim to be a part of His kingdom, it needs to be real.
• Pretending to be what we are not will eventually come out.
• People need real answers to real questions from real Christians. When we give people help, we need to give them real help, not our opinions. They need to see Jesus shine through in our lives, not just hear us talk about it.
• When you are real, when you are convicted of something, you do not get mad at the messenger, you seek God’s face to see what He was trying to tell you through the messenger.
• These folks went after Jesus because they did not like what He said instead of seeking what God was trying to tell them.
• We need not claim to know the way, we need to truly know the way lest be become an obstacle to others.
• The way this manifests itself is brought out in our next observation from verse 13.
• SLIDE #5
We become an obstacle by:
II. REFUSING TO GO THE WAY.
• Remember last week when we talked about the fact that Jesus could do something we could never do? He could look into the very soul of a person and know what was really going on inside of them.
• Why did Jesus call these leaders hypocrites?
• A hypocrite is not someone who doesn’t know better or one who is struggling, but it is a person pretending to be what they are not.
• These people knew what they should have done but refused to do it.
• When Jesus says these people did not enter themselves, He was not threatening them; He was making a statement of fact. Jesus called them hypocrites because they knew better.
• They praised Him with their lips and denied Him with their lives.
• If we refuse to live for Jesus, why should we receive anything from the Lord?
• SLIDE #6
• Matthew 7:21 (ESV)21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
• This what Jesus says! You do not do His will to earn salvation, you do it because you are saved, because you love Him for what He has done for you.
• Listen to what Romans 2:17-24 says.
• SLIDE #7
• Romans 2:17-24 (ESV)17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
• Deep down these people knew who Jesus was, but they did not se fit to live their lives in such a way that reflected what they knew to be true.
• They saw Jesus perform miracles as proof of who He was. They refused to repent of their sins. They stuck to their self-indulgent life.
• For us today, this gets close to going back to our first point.
• If we are going to preach and teach love, forgiveness, righteousness, etc. then we need to make sure that we are doing all we can to live it.
• Look at this passage.
• SLIDE #8
• Matthew 6:15 (ESV)15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
• We need to be all that Jesus wants us to be. WE do not want to be the excuse that another person uses not to become a Christian.
• Living it will be a struggle at times, which is all right, work through it with the help of the Holy Spirit, with the encouragement of brothers and sisters in Christ.
• Don’t be a fake by pretending to be what you do not intend to be. We need to walk the walk.
• A third way we can become an obstacle to others is by:
• SLIDE #9
We become an obstacle by:
III. GETTING IN THE WAY OF THOSE SEEKING THE WAY.
• In the passage, Jesus makes some strong statements.
• He tells the crowd these leaders shut the kingdom of heaven in peoples faces.
• The picture that Jesus was giving was that of the religious leaders blocking the entrance to a house, but they themselves would not enter it either.
• They shut up heaven to people by their false teachings about Jesus, by binding them to observing their traditions, by opposing Jesus Himself, and by trying to convince may others not to follow Him.
• SLIDE #10
• Romans 2:24 (ESV) 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
• Later in the verse Jesus says they would not even allow those who would enter to go in!
• Literally this says that they would slam the door in the face of those who would knock.
• There was many times when the people were ready to follow Jesus only to have these folks lead them away from God.
• In John 9 Jesus heals a blind man, this man sees the religious leaders, instead of rejoicing that this man blind from birth was healed, they gripped that Jesus did it on the Sabbath, they did not want to believe the guy was even blind.
• Look at a part of the conversation.
• SLIDE #11
• John 9:24-25 (ESV) 24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
• We need to make sure that we do not get in the way of a person seeking God.
• How can we do that? Many churches struggle with change. We want everything to be like it was at some glorious point in the past.
• I have my time, it would be to turn the clock back to 1983-1989. What a GREAT being a part of FCC in Vandalia.
• I had a conversation with one of my best friends Brian who is now an elder the other day about this very thing.
• We cannot recapture the past, we can only learn from it, both from the good and the bad.
• I am SO proud of being a part of FCC because our church is willing to adjust what we do to stay relevant in the culture from a methodology standpoint.
• This is why we have made some of the adjustments we have made. We want to open the door for ALL ages to come to Christ.
• We do not want to shut the door on people because we want it to be all about what we want.
• Times are changing and we must be willing to change with them.
• We are not just here to ONLY take care of each other, we are here to reach out to the community for more to take care of!
CONCLUSION
• The religious leaders had a lot to think about, they were not too willing to do so.
• I hope that as we go through the 8 things we will discuss that if God is speaking to us in a particular way that we will listen to him.
• Do not look at problem areas as defeat; take them on as a challenge!
• Let Jesus help you grow in Him daily!
