SERMON OUTLINE:
Woe #1: For focussing on small matters while overlooking the big issues (vs 42).
Woe #2: For making it all about me (vs 43).
Woe #3: For deceiving others into becoming defiled (vs 44).
Woe #4: For adding to others guilt without assuming any themselves (vs 45-46)
Woe #5: For faking obedience while looking pious (vs 47)
Woe #6: For substituting works for faith (vs 52).
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
• In his historical book ‘The Three Edwards’ by Thomas Costain,
• He described the life of Raynald III,
• A fourteenth-century duke in what is now Belgium.
• Raynald III was grossly overweight,
• And was commonly called by his Latin nickname, Crassus, which means “fat.”
• After a violent quarrel,
• Raynald’s younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him.
• Edward captured his brother Raynald but did not kill him.
• Instead, he built a room around Raynald in the Nieuwkerk castle;
• And promised him he could regain his title and property;
• As soon as he was able to leave the room.
• For us today that would have been no problem:
• Since the room had several windows and a normal sized door,
• And none of which was locked or barred.
• Question: So what was the problem stopping Raynald escaping?
• Answer: His size - to regain his freedom, he needed to lose weight.
• But Edward knew his older brother,
• And each day he sent him a variety of delicious foods.
• Instead of dieting his way out of prison,
• Raynald sadly grew fatter and fatter.
• Whenever Duke Edward was accused of cruelty,
• He had a quick answer:
• “My brother is not a prisoner. He may leave when he so wills.”
• But Raynald never left, he stayed in that room for ten years;
• And was only released after Edward died in battle.
• By then his health was so ruined that he died within a year.
• Raynald III was a prisoner of his own appetite.
• TRANSITION: The religious leaders of Jesus day (Pharisees & teachers of the law),
• Were also prisoners of their own appetites.
• For them food was not the problem but something far greater…
• They were prisoners of hypocrisy;
• That trait which is like an untreated cancer,
• It will slowly grow and will destroy the person who has it.
Quote: What is hypocrisy?
Answer: Hypocrisy is when you pretend to be what you don’t intend to be.
• The word "hypocrite" means "two-faced"
• We get the word from the Greek theatre where the ancient actors;
• Would use different face masks to play different characters.
• The actor true face was always hidden,
• Because they wore a number of different face masks,
• These masks enabled them to portray different characters – pretend to be someone else
• Hypocrisy is when we are two faced;
• When we pretend to be one thing in public and we are something else in private.
Ill:
• An example of hypocrisy would be:
• Preaching publicly on the topic ‘Being faithful to your partner’;
• While in private having a secret affair with someone.
• We see hypocrisy in all areas of life;
• It is sad when we see it in the lives of politicians and leaders;
• And sadder still when we see it in the lives of Christian’s.
Now no-Christian is perfect, That is not an excuse it’s a fact!
• So at times we will be hypocritical,
• But that hypocrisy should be ‘at times’
• And we should be seeking to deal with it whenever it rears its ugly head.
Quote: John Newton (writer of the hymn Amazing Grace):
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be,
I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be,
and by the grace of God I am what I am”
• TRANSITION: None of us our perfect and we all fail;
• But like Newton we should be making progress in our Christian lives.
• So we can look back and say; “I am not what I once used to be”
• Now in this passage this morning;
• Hypocrisy is seen is a deliberate or justified life-style choice by these religious leaders
Let’s look at the passage:
• Jesus is invited into the house of a Pharisee (vs 17)?
• At this time in the life and ministry of Jesus,
• The Pharisees are opposed to him,
• So inviting Jesus into your home was a very strange thing to do!
• I would suggest his invitation was no genuine;
• This Pharisee and the other guests had an ulterior motive,
• They were looking for an opportunity to find fault in Jesus;
• To accuse him of not keeping their laws.
• If this Pharisee was sincerely looking for the truth,
• Then he could have met privately with Jesus to talk things through,
• But this Pharisee was out to trap Jesus and he thought he had got him!
• When he saw that Jesus did not practice the ceremonial washing,
• Which he and the other Pharisees always practiced before meals.
• I love the fact that throughout the gospels,
• The enemies of Jesus look like they have got him,
• But Jesus is always one move ahead!
• Instead of them exposing Jesus,
• Jesus turns the situation around and he exposes them.
Notice: JESUS EXPOSES THEIR FOOLISHNESS:
Ill:
• A good story is told of the old preacher Thomas K. Beecher,
• Who could not bear deceit in any form.
• Finding that a clock in his church was always too fast or too slow,
• He hung a sign above it on the wall.
• In large letters it read:
• "Don't blame my hands—the trouble lies deeper."
• TRANSITION: For you and me, that is where our trouble lies - deep within us!
• Whenever our hands do wrong, whenever our feet do wrong;
• Whenever our lips, or even our thoughts are wrong.
• Remember that the trouble always lies deeper within.
• The heart of the problem is always the problem of the human heart.
The foolish mistake of these religious leaders:
• Was to think that righteousness (living right);
• Was only a matter of external actions.
• And they conveniently forgot about internal attitudes.
• Or like Jesus said in verse 39, the carefully clean the outside of the cup,
• But ignore the real problem of the inside of the cup,
• In other words they concentrated on the outside – what people could see;
• But ignored the inside – what God can see.
• For them it was all about show,
• i.e. looking better than the next person,
• Because I look and act more godly than you, I must be please God more than you.
• For them it was pure selfishness, they had no love for other people,
• i.e. their passion was for polishing their own image before others.
• They had no desire to help other people, they only ever found faults in other people.
• For them it was all black and white, a prescribed religion;
• i.e. every action was categorised, was prescribed.
• It was a religion of rules & regulations! “You must not do this/ you must do that etc.”
Note:
• That this washing that is mentioned in verse 38 was not about hygiene.
• That is washing your hands before a meal.
• It was all about ritual washing, that bis washing your hands in a prescribed way;
• That was what was so important to the Pharisees.
• Doing it the prescribed way marked you as an ‘insider’
• And no doing it marked you as an ‘outsider’
• So straight away Jesus is divided from all the other guests in the room;
• They see him as an ‘outsider’ while they are all ‘insiders’
• They think he is contaminated but they are pure.
One thing Jesus did not like:
• One thing to rouse is holy anger,
• One thing to make his blood boil,
• One thing to make his eyes flash and his voice boom,
• It was when Jesus encountered hypocrisy;
• And the ones who embodied hypocrisy the most were the religious leaders;
• The scribes and the pharisees.
Ill:
• When it was launched in 1936,
• The Queen Mary was the largest ship to cross the oceans.
• Sailing between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York.
• Through four decades and a World War she served until she was retired,
• She is now anchored as a floating hotel and museum in Long Beach, California.
• During the conversion from sailing vessel to restaurant;
• Her three massive smokestacks were taken off to be scraped down and repainted.
• But on the dock they crumbled.
• Nothing was left of the 3/4 inch steel plate from which the stacks had been formed.
• All that remained were more than thirty coats of paint,
• That had been applied over the years. The steel had rusted away.
• TRANSITION: The Pharisees & scribes were like those empty stacks;
• They had no substance, only an exterior appearance.
Pause:
• Before we look at the faults of the Pharisees that we see in these verses,
• Just remember that hypocrisy still lives in religious people today!
• Externally we may all look like pretty decent people,
• We may all give the impression that we are living for God’s glory,
• But on the inside the danger is we can be hollow and without substance!
• So as we look at these Pharisees,
• Let’s examine and challenge our own hearts regarding the issue of hypocrisy.
• Is my Christian life hollow or does it have substance?
Now having shown the Pharisees their folly regarding ceremonial hand-washing:
• Jesus will now pronounce six ‘woes’:
• Three of these he aims directly at the Pharisees,
• And three he aims at the scribes or the teachers of the law.
Woe #1: For focussing on small matters while overlooking the big issues (vs 42).
“‘Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practised the latter without leaving the former undone.”
We would say the majored on minors, but totally ignored the big stuff!
• A tithe was ten percent of something
• i.e. An income (if you earnt £100 you tithed a tenth £10 for the Lord,
• i.e. It could also be a tenth of your crops or a tenth of the fruit on your fruit tree etc.
• Jesus condemns them for the way they carefully weighed & measured their tithes,
• Even tithing from the tiny amount of herbs they grew in their gardens.
• They were meticulous in getting things exactly right,
• And yet when it came to the important stuff;
• They were negligent, they somehow let it pass them by!
• i.e. When it came to being fair and reasonable towards other people,
• When it came to showing love for God.
• They were happy to give short measures!
• If we forget the important big stuff;
• Then there is really no point spending time and energy on the lesser/minor stuff!
• Notice: The criticism is not for what they did;
• But for what they did not do!
• The big things as well as the little!
Woe #2: For making it all about ‘me’ (vs 43).
‘Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the market-places.’
• Religious leaders are supposed to serve other people,
• They are supposed to help point other people to God,
• But these leaders wanted all the attention on themselves,
• For them it was all about ‘me’.
Their self-centredness was seen in two obvious ways:
• FIRST: they loved the most important seats in the synagogues
• In most Churches no-one wants to sit on the front row,
• The front row is left for children;
• Or latecomers who turn up and discover these are the only seats available!
• It was very different in Jesus day:
• In the synagogues.
• The front row was ‘first class’ seating,
• Because the sacred scrolls, the ‘Torah’ (the first 5 books of the Old Testament);
• Were kept at the front of the synagogue facing the congregation.
• The closer you were to them the greater the blessing!
• Also the prayer leader & scripture reader stood at the front as well.
• So those nearest the front could hear and see everything clearly.
• So the front row was ‘first class’ seating,
For these Pharisees the front row also had another advantage:
• It meant they would be in full view of the rest of the congregation.
• They could see others and be seen by everyone,
• They couldn’t be missed!
• They could sit in these seats and they could show to the others gathered;
• Just how ‘devout’ they were in their faith.
Ill:
• They sat there as kings, surveying their court;
• Basking in the admiration of their subjects.
• SECOND: They also loved to be seen and they loved to be greeted:
• The Pharisees and Scribes loved to be greeted with honour and respect:
• In fact the very title ‘Rabbi’ means: ‘My great one’.
Ill:
• When they walked through the market place,
• They walked slowly, just waiting for someone to recognise them.
• Waiting to hear those words:
• “Look Pharisee Benjamin is here! Surely you have heard about him”
• They wanted to be religious celebrities,
• They were not interested in signing autographs and having selfies with people;
• But they longed for recognition and for their names to be publicly uttered.
Woe #3: For deceiving others into becoming defiled (vs 44).
“‘Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves,
which people walk over without knowing it.’”
• These verses might sound odd to us today;
• But in New Testament times, they would have been clearly understood.
• During certain feats, like Passover,
• Jerusalem experienced a big invasion of people into the city.
• Strangers who did not know where to go or what to avoid.
• So to help them avoid wrong places i.e. where dead bodies were buried;
• The inhabitants of Jerusalem would white-wash the tombs,
• They did this so that they might be marked out and clearly visible,
• Therefore, no visitor to the city should ever walk over to touch a grave,
• And by doing so ceremonially defile themselves.
When Jesus used this illustration he was not holding back:
• He looks the religious leaders in the eye and says;
• “Someone should have white-washed you!”
• A grave/tomb was full of rotting corpses, full of corruption;
• Jesus uses this powerful picture;
• To show the religious leaders their spiritual condition before God,
• And not only are they corrupt;
• But they were contaminating unsuspecting passers-by who followed in their footsteps.
• Wow! Not only are these stinging words,
• They come from a visiting guest,
• Remember Jesus is in the house of a Pharisee.
• Guests are supposed to be polite, on their best behaviour,
• But this guest is not following protocol.
So, the other guests (teachers of the law) speak up for the host (vs 45);
• Maybe they are hoping to rescue the host from this embarrassing situation,
• Cause Jesus is not displaying what we might call ‘good etiquette’,
• After all, publicly criticising your host is not the expected thing.
• Well, their intervention is not going to help;
• Because Jesus turns his words away from the Pharisees and onto these scribes.
• And it is now their turn to get a verbal swipe from Jesus.
Ill:
• Sir Alex Ferguson former manager of Manchester United FC.
• Is regarded to be one of the greatest and most successful managers of all time
• One of his character traits was called ‘the hairdryer’.
• At the half-time interval with the players back in the changing rooms,
• Fergie would get right up in the face of a player he thought was not performing,
• And he would stars critiquing (shouting) at that player.
• If a player was not doing the business, whoever it was;
• Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona... the list goes.
• Fergie would give them the ‘hairdryer’.
• TRANSITION: You could say after giving the Pharisees the ‘hairdryer’ treatment,
• Now it is time to give the lawyers the same experience.
Woe #4: For adding to others guilt without assuming any themselves (vs 45-46)
“One of the experts in the law answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.’
Jesus replied, ‘And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”
• These scribes were teachers of the law;
• A good lawyer always finds a loophole!
• And these lawyers/scribes were skilled in their profession.
• These rules and regulations were added to God’s Law by the lawyers,
• i.e. for God’s one Law, “Keep the Sabbath day holy”
• The scribes and lawyers had added hundreds of rules and laws interpreting it.
• While they made sure that ‘jo-public’ observed the Sabbath day;
• They themselves twisted it to suit their own needs.
Ill:
• Religious leaders had put a walking limit;
• On the distance a Jew could go from his or her home on the Sabbath.
• They originally set this distance by their tradition as 2,000 cubits,
• (about 1,000 yards – 914 meters)
• But the religious scribes/the lawyers found a loophole,
• That enabled them to get around this limitation.
• They simply defined their home as anywhere their personal possessions were.
• So if they sent a servant out with a bag of worthless possessions,
• A 1,000 yards up the road, and then repeated that again and again and again;
• They could go on long journeys because they were never away from their home,
• Because their possessions were their home.
• TRANSITION: How to twist the law and get away with it!
• But you could bet the ‘Jo-public’ would not get away with that one.
• It was always one rule for us and another rule for you.
• Or to paraphrase George Orwell:
• “All Jews are equal but some Jews are more equal than others”
In the gospels Jesus deliberately ignored and broke their elaborate and petty rules;
• We see that in these verses;
• Where Jesus he refused to follow their has specialised hand washing instructions.
• These rules do not help people follow God;
• Rather they complicate the issue, they cause people to fail,
• When we fail that then brings guilt into the equation adding to a person’s misery.
• The religious leaders insisted everyone kept the Law,
• But they always found a loophole for themselves to bend the Law,
• They therefore burdened the people while abusing it for themselves.
Woe #5: For faking obedience while looking pious (vs 47)
“‘Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets,
and it was your ancestors who killed them.”
Ill:
• The calendar month of January is named after the mythological Roman god Janus,
• Who if you knew your Roman gods had two faces,
• One to look into the past and one to look into the future.
• Which is why January bridges the old year and the start of the new.
• TRANSITION: No human being can have two physic al faces;
• But we can all be two-faced in a hypocritical sense.
• The Pharisees and teachers of the law were two-faced:
• Jesus said they constructed monuments for dead Old Testament prophets,
• Yet they ignored what the prophets actually said!
• i.e. Instead of following Micah’s advice;
• “To act justly, so show kindness and to walk humbly before God”
• (Micah chapter 6 verse 8).
• They conveniently ignored what the prophets said;
• Because that would require change,
• It was easier to acknowledge them as great people from the past;
• Than to follow their example and message in the present.
• So Jesus said, you do have a link with the prophets,
• It is not those monuments you build,
• Rather it is through your fathers who killed them!”
• By building monuments and tombs,
• They were just finishing the job that their father’s had started!
• Verses 48-51:
“So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49 Because of this, God in his wisdom said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.” 50 Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.”
Woe #6: For substituting works for faith (vs 52).
“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.’”
• No-one knew the Old Testament scriptures better than the scribes & lawyers,
• Yet, instead of unlocking the door and letting the truth out,
• They took the key of knowledge and hid it.
• The people remained ignorant because these leaders
• Kept the people from understanding its simple truths.
Ill:
• One of my heroes is William Tyndale (16th-century).
• He was the first to translate the Bible into English from the original languages.
• Probably the greatest Bible translator of them all!
• Up until Tyndale the Bible had been locked up in Latin,
• Latin was the language of the Church;
• And you needed a priest to tell you what it said and what it meant.
• Then people like Tyndale appeared and started to translate it into English,
• So that it could be read and speak for itself.
• One day, a priest visiting Little Sodbury saw Tyndale and verbally attacked him.
• Tyndale’s replied with this statement:
"If God spare my life, before very long I shall cause a plough boy to know the scriptures better than you do!"
• This was not an idle boast.
• Tyndale knew that if people read the Bible in English,
• It would put an end to the corrupt priests and their man-made traditions.
• TRANSITION: These Scribes & Lawyers had also locked up the scriptures,
• Not in Latin but in their interpretations and additional rules,
• Instead of unlocking the door and letting the truth out,
• They took the key of knowledge and hid it.
• Therefore the people remained ignorant because these leaders
• Who had kept the people from understanding its simple truths.
Quote: William Barclay:
“In their mistaken ingenuity they refused to see its plain meaning themselves, and they would not let anyone else see it either. The scriptures had become the perquisite of the expert and a dark mystery to the common man”
• Jesus Christ is the key to the scriptures,
• These scribes and lawyers should have seen their Bibles spoke of him,
• But they did not.
• When you take away the key,
• You will never understand what God has written.
And finally: Jesus aroused their anger.
• Hypocrites do not want their sins exposed.
• It is not only embarrassing for them but it ruins their reputations!
• Each of these six woes of Jesus had stripped away, layer after layer of hypocrisy.
• From now on these religious leaders would not wear a mask,
• They would show true hostility towards Jesus.
• These events helped to cement their opposition to him,
• In verses 53-54 they deliberately attack him with ‘catch questions’
• They will keep trying to discredit him.
• And in the end if they cannot catch him out they will simply lie,
• They will pay false-witness to confess to false charges against him.
Final Application:
• Is simple avoid hypocrisy;
• Quote: As someone once said:
• “Be what you are, cause if you aint what you are, then you are what you aint!”
Ill:
• At the start of my talk I gave you a quote from John Newton,
• The quotation was:
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be,
I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be,
and by the grace of God I am what I am”
• That is the quote you will find in books of quotations,
• It is one of his great sayings, but actually it is only half a quote!
• If you dig a bit deeper you can find the full quote:
• The full quote is:
• “I am not what I ought to be.
• How imperfect and deficient I am!
• I am not what I wish to be,
• Although I abhor that which is evil and would cleave to what is good.
• I am not what I hope to be,
• But soon I shall put off mortality, and with it all sin.
• Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor yet what I hope to be,
• I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan.
• I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge;
• That by the grace of God I am what I am!”
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=JQWFnGRl3K1gewL5bcVcXnNv4i1hyZtB
