Dinner Conversation with the Pharisees

[0:00] Turning to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. I'd sent out on the Wednesday email!

[0:30] So we'll be dealing with verses 37 to 44. And we'll get to that, to reading that in just a second. Luke 11, 37 is where it will be.

[0:46] Shared meals can be a great time to renew acquaintances and deepen relationships. We often look forward to big family meals, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other meals.

[1:02] I've heard many of you say your favorite holiday of the whole year is Thanksgiving. And how it's just a time to be thankful. And we get together. And it can be such a blessing.

[1:14] Sometimes, though, we have that one family member, maybe it's you, who wants to take the conversation in awkward directions.

[1:30] Sometimes it's needful. Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen. Sometimes it's things like, Dad, I don't think you should have a driver's license anymore.

[1:44] Time to want to leave the room. Or, Mom and Dad, I don't think you can live alone anymore.

[1:55] And there's a whole host of questions or topics of conversation that can go on at a meal like this that can be very uncomfortable and awkward and make people wish they were anywhere but where they were.

[2:10] We're going to look at a situation today that took place when a Pharisee invited Jesus home for a meal. It would be amazing to invite Jesus for a meal.

[2:25] Or maybe it'd be terrifying. If you were to invite Jesus to have a meal with you, what would you want to ask Him? More importantly, what would He want to talk about?

[2:45] That's the kind of situation we have here. What did Jesus want to talk about? Let's look at Luke 11, verses 37 to 54.

[2:59] While Jesus was speaking, and the speaking is what we've looked at in previous verses here. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him to dine with Him. So he went in and reclined at table.

[3:11] The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.

[3:31] You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms also those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

[3:49] But woe to you, Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others.

[4:03] Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues, and greetings in the market plates. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.

[4:20] Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for this situation. And I know that we always look at Jesus ready to just beat the Pharisees down, but I thank you that in a very real sense, this is a huge, huge exhibit of mercy.

[4:45] And so, Father, I pray that you would be with us. May we not be looking around at Pharisees to condemn as we hear your word today. I pray that you would be with us and help us to see the mercies that you're showing to them.

[5:00] And I pray that you would show us mercies today as we consider what you said to these Pharisees. I know that they were wrong, but so often are we.

[5:12] And I pray that you would be with us in Jesus' name. Amen. The setting, we've preached through this, so I'm only going to just mention it so it gives you the context.

[5:28] In verses 14 to 36, it starts out by Jesus casting out a demon and the crowd's reaction. And some of them said, oh, he's casting out demons by the prince of demons.

[5:41] And Jesus addresses that. And he doesn't hold anything back. If I cast them out by the prince of demons, who do your sons cast them out by?

[5:52] And he speaks very directly. And then some said, we wish for a sign. And we saw, in the last time we were looking at this, where Jesus addresses that idea of them wanting a sign.

[6:06] No sign will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And how God was going to be merciful to those who didn't deserve it. And God was going to do the work.

[6:20] But while answering both of these questions, a Pharisee asked Jesus to a meal. Now, this is not unusual.

[6:31] And this is not him being out of the ordinary. This kind of thing happened often. They would attend something that was going on and the person who was speaking, they would think, let's discuss this further.

[6:49] And so they would invite that person who had spoke back to their house. And they would ask a few questions, but the intent was that the man that they had brought back to the house to speak while they ate would get a huge opportunity to be able to address the questions and to speak freely.

[7:10] It was a way of carrying on discourse. It was a way of finding out more about the things he was teaching. Now, we've seen this kind of situation before.

[7:23] Do you remember back when there was this scene that Jesus had gone to a Pharisee's house and this woman of the city came in and wept and washed his feet with her tears and put oil and wiped his feet with her hair and put oil on his feet and all the reaction.

[7:43] And we explained how that was the same kind of situation. Jesus was asked back to the Pharisee's house where they could talk to him. And as they're talking, there are people standing around the edges. The doors were left open.

[7:54] People could gather in the room and listen to what was discussed back and forth. Once in a while, they would even interject things. But mainly, it was between the host and the people that the host had invited and the main person that was asked to come.

[8:11] So this is not an unusual situation. It's something that takes place regularly. And Jesus, as the one who was asked to be there, was considered the honored guest.

[8:22] given that opportunity to expound further on the topic. And he gave opportunity for more engaged discussion in the situation.

[8:35] So this was a normal thing. And it wasn't unusual for these discussions to get deep fast or to get sharp fast.

[8:45] And so what Jesus did, it's not that he's breaking some social protocol in beginning to ask questions and direct his thinking towards these things.

[8:59] The Pharisees probably wanted to discuss Jesus' teaching. He just talked about who's casting out demons by who and the sign of Jonah. And I'm sure they're like, what? Tell us more.

[9:09] And so they ask him back. But Jesus is that one at a dinner party. That one that sometimes we wished we hadn't invited.

[9:22] But he's that one who getting there totally ignores their questions. Because he's the son of God.

[9:35] And you see here, he knows their hearts without them saying. They make faces. They, you know, crook their mouth and all this stuff. But Jesus knows their heart.

[9:47] And so he takes an opportunity to discuss their hearts. What would it be like to be at a meal with someone who could look right into your heart and see that exact thing you had been hiding from everyone and addresses it in front of everybody.

[10:06] whoo, talk about uncomfortable. And Jesus, he knows their hearts and so he provokes this discussion that they needed to hear.

[10:17] And he does that by a social faux pas. Faux pas is doing something socially that's not acceptable. So he gets there and everybody else is preparing for the meal and he digs in.

[10:36] Now, what did he do? He didn't wash his hands. Now, kids, I want you to know this is not chapter and verse for you to tell your mom and dad that you don't need to wash your hands before lunch.

[10:54] That's not what's going on here. Okay. This is a situation the Pharisees were people who were very concerned about defiling themselves.

[11:05] They always wanted to be holy. Well, that's a great thing. They always wanted to be holy and they didn't want to become unclean in any way. And we'll see the lawyers next time and they're, the lawyers are partly Pharisees and partly other people.

[11:23] but these, these, all these religious leaders had this, this practice of taking the word of God and building fences around it.

[11:35] One fence, two fence, three fence. And we could go into it. This, this can be seen how it's taken from Leviticus and all this stuff. One of the things we've been reading in our, in our public reading through Leviticus some of the things have been, oh, if this happens then you're unclean for this amount of time.

[11:59] If that happens you're unclean for this amount of time. And, and, and I'd like for you to try to think through some of the things that, that we've read that have been awkward and uncomfortable as we've talked about cleanness.

[12:12] And, and these, these men wanted to, wanted to be perfectly obedient to all of that. And so, to be perfectly obedient they made extra rules.

[12:27] You know, um, it'd be like, it'd be like me growing up. My dad, I grew up on a dairy farm in case you don't know it. And, um, we helped, had kept the cows in with electric fence.

[12:40] How many have touched an electric fence? Only a few of you. Oh, you have not experienced anything until you've touched an electric fence.

[12:53] Okay. Um, an example of a Pharisee looking at, uh, an electric fence. Electric fence is there. Dad says, don't touch that electric fence.

[13:04] It hurts. An example of a Pharisee would be like your brother saying, you can't get within 10 feet of that electric fence. An even better Pharisee would say, you can't go out the back door of the barn because there's electric fence out there.

[13:20] And an even better Pharisee would say, stay in the house. There's an electric fence out there. And there were rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. And they're all meant to say, I don't want to break that rule of touching the electric fence.

[13:36] And, and the Pharisees did this kind of thing with cleanness. I don't want to be unclean before God. Well, that's an admirable thing if you're following the rule that God gave.

[13:49] But they said, we have to be careful lest we become unclean and we can't serve the Lord. So to make sure that we're not unclean and you get unclean, you remember there were many ways you could become unclean.

[14:04] All kinds of ways you could become unclean. Some of them were embarrassing. But they would, they would say, okay, lest I become unclean, I'm going to make a rule that protects me against breaking the rule.

[14:18] And then I'll make a rule against protecting me from breaking the rule that will protect me from breaking the rule. And so, the Pharisees developed this, I'm going to read from Mark two verses that gives the, the overall, Jesus summarizes it there.

[14:35] By the way, Jesus deals with the Pharisees very often. We're going to see more of it as we've continued through the book of Luke. We've already seen it, but we're going to see more. And it's all through the Gospels.

[14:46] In Mark chapter 7 verses 3 and 4, part of it, this, this is Mark explaining as he's writing the Gospel that he's writing, he's explaining what, why Jesus said what he did.

[15:03] Okay, so this is a, this is a narrative comment by Mark. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to, to, to, the tradition of the elders.

[15:20] Think, rule to keep from breaking the rule. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. and there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

[15:40] Even the couches they would wash. And so, anytime they were out in public, anytime they were outside their own home and came back, they would wash before they eat.

[15:55] Now, you see, that doesn't sound bad. Why would Jesus provoke them by not washing his hands? This is nothing to do with touching animal excrement or mud from the ground or anything that you really didn't want to put in your mouth.

[16:16] It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with association with unclean things. If they touched something that an unclean person had touched, they would, oh, I'm going to be unclean, even if it had been weeks and months.

[16:36] And so, what they would do, and I almost put it in here, but I didn't because I found it hard to read. I'll just give you the gist of it, and I may not get it exactly true, but, or correct, but you heard of the Mishnah?

[16:50] That's the Jewish set of rules that was built to keep people from breaking the law. And the Jewish Mishnah stated that when you came inside to eat, you had to have, I want to say it's 1.2 cups, it's a specific measurement, you had to have a certain amount of water that you would pour over your hands, and you had to pour it so that it was going towards the wrists, and if you poured it so that it was like you poured it above your wrist, or you poured it like this, and you went like this before it was drained, it goes off, and it ran back down your, then you were unclean.

[17:31] Or if you washed this hand, or rinsed this hand, and then touched the other hand, it was all done, you had to do it over again, you were unclean. And there were all kinds of, you know, you had to do it with this amount of water, and you had to do it in this way, and if you messed up in this little part, and it was way beyond what God said.

[17:53] It was all their rules. And so, Jesus was not coming in eating after he mucked out the stall without washing his hands.

[18:05] He was coming in with physically normal, clean hands. And yet, these people felt that they needed to wash.

[18:16] And so, what did Jesus do? He sat down. I don't know if they said grace or anything, I don't know, that custom, whether they did that at mealtimes or not, but he picked up his fork, or probably didn't.

[18:30] They used bread that they would sop up juice with, and scoop things into a bowl, and scoop it in with their mouth. The bread was what they used as utensils, and he just went at it.

[18:41] And the Pharisee looks at him, and look at this, and you get that look like, this man is uncouth. And even worse, he's a sinner.

[18:54] Look at him. He doesn't even care if he's clean. The Pharisee noticed that he didn't perform the ceremony, and he morally or mentally judged him and condemned Jesus for breaking the law, but not breaking God's law, breaking their law.

[19:13] It's like your sister saying to your dad, dad, David went outside when there's an electric fence behind the barn. You never had a sister that would do that.

[19:26] You know, they're tattling on something that they created. It wasn't anything to do with what God had said.

[19:37] And so Jesus does that so that he can talk with these people about the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of their hand washing. And he says in verses 39 into 41, he says, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness.

[19:59] he takes a physical situation and morphs it into talking with them. He likens the idea of hand washing, the ceremonial hand washing to washing cups and pots.

[20:20] But in doing that is using that to point to the picture of the stupidness of washing the outside of a cup or a bowl, putting it on a shelf and pulling it back down.

[20:37] How would you feel if you came to my house and we still had toddlers? Say like the 10 month old type. They're sitting in a high chair, you're trying to get them to learn to eat with a spoon and you know he's had creamed corn and creamed chicken or whatever and it's the end of the meal and he's happy and you know the food's going everywhere and the food goes in his mouth and the food comes out of his mouth and goes back into the bowl and you know how and you watch the mom pick up the bowl and she takes this nifty wipe and she wipes the bowl and she sets it on the shelf just like that.

[21:17] All the still inside and it's the same color bowl you're looking at and there's weird patterns inside.

[21:31] You would say that's idiocy. I would rather you're not cleaning the outside than not cleaning the inside. But he's pointing to them how they're so foolish saying you've got to keep these laws that we've made so that you can look good before God.

[21:51] And he's saying but you've done nothing with your heart. And Jesus literally calls them fools because they only cared how they appeared to men.

[22:08] And he says and they had to know this. I just can't fathom why they don't think about this and yet I say that. And we're going to talk about how we're all Pharisees.

[22:21] We're all hypocrites. I can't fathom how they think that only the outside matters. That it only matters how you appear to men. But aren't we people who are just like that?

[22:37] More concerned about how our house looks when somebody comes over than the hard attitude we have towards them. More concerned about whether our laundry is put away than our attitude towards these people or how we can help these people.

[22:57] He says God made the outside and the inside. He cares about both. And I think one of the things also he's trying to get across to them is that we're fools.

[23:11] if we think that we can clean up our outside so much that we can hide our wicked hearts from God. And that's what they were doing.

[23:25] They were just saying if I get all these rules right then God will love me. And Jesus is saying you've got a whole heart issue that you're not dealing with.

[23:42] We're fools if we think we can hide our wickedness, the wickedness of our hearts by accentuating some aspect of God's law that we think we can keep.

[23:53] You see I would never do that. But we do. We do. But God sees our heart. He sees both the inside and outside.

[24:04] Hebrews 4.13 and no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. He sees it all.

[24:20] Every bit of it. And the beautiful thing about Jesus here and he's strong and he's bold and he sounds like he hates them.

[24:35] But if you jump to another passage in scripture where Jesus is looking at Jerusalem, a place that is full of Pharisees and scribes, a place that is full of sinners and as he's soon going to the cross he weeps over Jerusalem.

[24:54] Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who have killed the prophets and that's what we're going to talk about next week. You who have killed the prophets. Oh how I would long that you would come to me and be gathered to me as a hen who gathers her chicks.

[25:11] This is mercy. This is grace. He's not telling them this so that he can be glad when the hammer comes down on them at judgment day.

[25:23] He's trying to get them to see that they need to turn before judgment day comes. And he says to them, if you take care of the inside, all will be good.

[25:41] Because how we act and truly look springs from our heart. From out of our heart comes all kinds of things.

[25:53] things. Jesus instructs as to how these Pharisees would be seen as right with God. Or could be seen as right with God.

[26:09] They need to be concerned with the cleanness of their hearts as concerned with the cleanness of their hearts as they are with the cleanness of their hands. how would it have been different if they sat down and instead of washing hands, they said, Lord, we've been out in the marketplace and we've seen people and some have been rude to us and some have been cruel to us and Lord, show me my heart.

[26:44] show me where I've been ungodly towards them. They needed to be as concerned about the cleanliness of their hearts as they are the cleanliness of their hands.

[26:58] So Jesus explains here what they need to do to make their hearts clean. And he just, he doesn't go into it much.

[27:09] He simply summarizes that if they made their heart clean and serve with a clean heart as well as a clean life, then they would be accepted.

[27:23] But one of the things that you might be running through your mind, but they can't do it themselves. Exactly. No man can cleanse his own heart and be free from his sin.

[27:36] He needs someone from outside to do this. And what has Jesus been preaching this whole time? repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

[27:48] He was bringing the kingdom of God. Jesus wanted these men to repent of their sin and go to Christ for cleansing.

[28:00] He's the one who will change their heart. He's the one who will do the cleaning on the inside and the outside.

[28:11] But they had to see their own condition. before they could take any steps to being right with God. They had to see that they were as dirty on the inside as they were.

[28:24] They thought they were clean, but as they were on the outside. And at this point in Jesus' discussion, the Pharisees could not see their sin.

[28:38] so he gives them three areas in which they were under the judgment of God. Verses 42 to 44. But woe to you Pharisees for you tithe mint and ruin every herb and neglect justice and the love of God.

[28:55] These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it.

[29:12] He gives them three woes. This idea of the judgment of God is upon you, you need to turn. The first woe, woe to them, the judgment of God upon them for their meticulous obedience to the ceremonial law, but neglected the spirit of the moral law.

[29:34] What he's getting at is this tithe stuff. So, it's not happening right now.

[29:47] I don't think any of you have a garden going right now, but if you, let's, it'd be good for us, pretend it's June or July and you've got your garden started maybe June or July so July maybe, let's say it's July and you're walking around the corner of the house and you have that one spot on the corner of the house where long ago you or somebody who owned the house before you planted mint mint tea.

[30:22] And you love mint tea. And you go out pick a handful and you make mint tea. Do you think about tithing on mint tea?

[30:37] That which grows of itself and you profit from, do you go, hmm, God's blessed me here. I have, I'll pick an easy number.

[30:50] I have ten leaves of mint tea. I'm going to take one and give it as tithe. Or you've started your garden and it's growing real well and you have dill of about this high and you're thinking we're going to make deviled eggs today.

[31:11] And, oh, dill on, I like it. But you go, oh, dill on deviled eggs. And you go out, you take your little paring knife and you only made a dozen deviled eggs.

[31:27] But you go out with your paring knife and you pop off about an inch and a quarter of dill. And you take it in, now it's an inch and a quarter. So you think, hmm, before I start this, that's a tent, you put it in that cup that you will take to the temple that coming week or to church and the rest of it you put on your eggs and enjoy your eggs.

[31:53] Do you do that? They were that meticulous if they used salt, catch a tenth of it, put it in their jar.

[32:06] They were that meticulous about keeping a tithe. I want to point out one thing, Jesus does not rebuke them for that. Now, do you need to tithe on your mint and your dill?

[32:22] And it says rue. Rue is another spice, it's aromatic. I don't know what it is, but I've heard it is aromatic. I don't think, I mean, we don't have plates for checks and bills and one for dill and mint and everything else.

[32:40] But it's that spirit of being, Lord, I want to give you what's yours. Do you have that kind of spirit? Jesus doesn't say, you wicked Pharisees, knock off this tithing.

[32:51] He goes on to say, this is right, that you ought to keep. He says, but you're keeping all this stuff that people can look at.

[33:01] people can see you bringing your three eighth inch chunks of dill to the church because you carry it in a cup or whatever, but they can't see what your heart does.

[33:17] He's not rebuking them for tithing. He's saying that their meticulousness in tithing was something they were using to cover for their sin in other areas.

[33:31] they were people who failed to produce justice. Mark 12 40 says, and this Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.

[33:48] They will receive greater condemnation, devouring widows. They would require of widows that which widows couldn't do. The Pharisees failed to care for parents.

[34:01] Mark 7 11. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained by me is korban, that is, given to God.

[34:13] This goes on to explain what's going on there. Well, a person is to take care of their parents when they're old. But the Pharisees had made this rule that if I dedicate all my money to God, then I don't have to take care of my parents.

[34:30] And they would just go up and tell their parents, sorry, I did the korban thing. All my money is God's. And yet, they would spend it however they wanted, but they would fail to do the right thing, to do the just thing, to take care of their parents.

[34:45] They failed to pursue justice. Here they were. Everybody could see they tithed, but no one saw that they ignored their parents.

[34:59] No one saw that they were cruel to widows. No one saw some of the other things that they did. So he's trying to get in their mind how they have this separation in their thinking, and they're not seeing how corrupt their heart is.

[35:15] They're only trying to make it look like they're great in everyone else's eyes. They failed to pursue their relationship with God. They neglected their love of God.

[35:33] Their praise was about themselves. This is talking about the way people, they wanted people to acknowledge them. They would go to the temple or to the synagogues rather and get the chief seats.

[35:48] What were the chief seats? They were the seats for the people who are considered most educated, the best teachers. They were the seats that would be like in our situation, they would be the seats that would be back here that you could see that these people.

[36:05] Now, if you go to a church and some of the pastors are sitting in the back, please don't think that they're doing that. But these people were doing that. just to be seen. They wanted to be known as the smartest people in the group.

[36:20] Their praise was all about themselves. It wasn't about who God is and what God has done. Their service was how they could promote themselves, not because of their love of God, for what he had done for them.

[36:37] Luke 18, 11, the Pharisee standing by himself, thus prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector.

[36:56] Their testimony is more about what, I'm sorry, if your testimony is more about what you do, or what you are, than who God is, or what he's done, then you could be facing some of the same attitudes of hypocrisy as these Pharisees did.

[37:17] Now, I said you. I know I regularly face these things. I know I regularly think about, I'm sorry, I wished I could say I never thought about, but what do you think of me?

[37:34] I think about that. And sometimes those kind of things can affect the way we walk and the way we act. Jesus told these Pharisees, you should keep doing the tithe, you should show justice, and you should love God.

[37:55] Micah 6, 6-8, with what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

[38:07] Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

[38:18] He has told you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with! your God. God. The second, woe, woe to them, the judgment of God on them, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplace.

[38:38] They sought this recognition that we spoke of. They thought they deserved their honors for their obedience to the law, for their education, for the way they taught.

[38:50] They didn't deserve these seats, even though they may have looked good on the outside. Their hearts were full of greed and wickedness. what were they not doing?

[39:02] Romans 12, 10, love one another with brotherly affection. Out do one another in showing honor. Luke 14, 10, but when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, friend, move up higher.

[39:20] Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. They should have been loving their neighbor as themselves. The third woe, woe to them, the judgment of God upon you for your unmarked graves.

[39:36] This one had to hit them so hard. Numbers 19, 16 says, whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who has died naturally or touches a human bone or a grave shall be unclean seven days.

[39:59] And so to prevent people from becoming unclean by touching a grave they didn't see, the Jews would go out every spring with whitewash and they would whitewash the graves so that as you walk towards Jerusalem, maybe you were a pilgrim, you had been in Galilee and you were coming for the Passover, they all wanted to know exactly where the graves were because if you touched a grave, you were unclean for seven days, you couldn't partake of the festivities that you had come there to Jerusalem for.

[40:33] And these people were greatly concerned about not touching graves, they didn't want to be unclean, and even though they were greatly concerned with that, they themselves, Jesus said, were like unmarked graves.

[40:50] Think back to the beginning of clean cup on the outside and filthy on the inside. Jesus is pointing to this again. Pharisees, you're like unmarked grave.

[41:05] Now the part that would have been hard, they would have thought their example would have been blessing the whole nation. Then anyone who was around a Pharisee would go away saying that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

[41:16] I am so growing because of that, but Jesus is saying the exact opposite. you're the people who are making everyone around you unclean.

[41:27] Why? Because no one knows you're full of filth and sin and wickedness and you defile everyone you come in contact with.

[41:42] that must have burned and the people around them had no idea that they were being corrupted by the very people who thought they were the best, who thought they were the most religious.

[42:01] Their greedy wicked hearts were defiling others. others. I'd just like to end with a warning to a couple of warnings to us.

[42:16] Some here think that they are a Christian for the care they take in being correct or the care they take in doing their duty. God knows our heart.

[42:29] are you claiming to be a follower of Christ but your heart is full of greed and wickedness? No matter how good you may think you look on the outside God sees what is on the inside.

[42:48] If you were to have a meal with Jesus the conversation might go much like this conversation went with the Pharisee. And so my question to you is if you've never trusted Christ as Savior if you're not depending on the work that he did what will you do with the wickedness of your heart?

[43:13] And again the answer is what Jesus preached all of his ministry and what he still commands today. Repent of your sin trust him.

[43:28] He made provision for the cleansing of the heart and he can wash you inside and out. A Christian this passage is not something that we can brush off for those who just don't know Christ.

[43:45] This passage speaks to us. I want you to think about King David for a minute. King David was a man God said was a man after his own heart.

[43:56] Was he? Yes he was. Was he one who was trusting Christ as Savior? Yes he was. King David carried on for many months as though nothing had happened after committing adultery and murder.

[44:13] He might have still led people to the temple as he talked about in some of his psalms. He was certainly king and would have been leading the worship or at least people to worship at times.

[44:30] He may have looked like he was following God serving as king and even though he was doing his best to keep the outside of his life looking good his heart was full of adultery and murder and lying.

[44:46] So Christian we all struggle with sin but we need to be people who repent of that sin. Go to Christ for cleansing. Seek his help in turning from that sin to Christ's likeness.

[45:01] So I would challenge you to take God's word and examine your own heart. Do we neglect justice? Do we neglect love of God?

[45:17] Are we unmerciful towards those who are in need around us? do we seek honor and glory from others? Do we lie to others about the sin we harbor in our heart?

[45:34] What would Jesus want to talk about if we invited him to a meal? When we refuse to repent of that sin we become hypocrites sinners who are silently corrupting others.

[45:55] We're fools to think that God does not care that his people harbor sin in their hearts. I want to close with a reminder of very close to what I prayed in the pastoral prayer.

[46:10] Christian, I want to remind you that God knew the full extent of all the sin you would ever commit before you were born. And he called himself to you anyway.

[46:23] He will never say I didn't know that you would do that. I can't keep my promise now. He knew our sin and he still sent his son to take our place.

[46:36] He knew that David the king would commit adultery and murder and lie about it all. And still he sent his son to take his place. Praise God that he in his omniscience and knowing everything placed every single sin that his people would ever commit on his own son.

[46:58] And his own son suffered the full wrath of God for us. There is no debt to pay for those who trust in that work of redemption.

[47:10] God and the perfect life that Jesus lived has been put on our account. God is as pleased with you as he is with his son.

[47:24] Now I remind you of that because if you find yourself being hypocritical you find yourself with some of these things in your heart your only recourse is the exact same thing he was calling these Pharisees to do don't wait run to Jesus with those sins confess them let him cleanse you choose to live your life clean on the inside and out for him and you're going to have to ask the spirit's help to live a life clean on the inside and out because we have a merciful savior who calls us all to himself so come come let's pray thank you father for the wonder of our savior who was willing to speak directly with these Pharisees I don't know this is just a big if but it's it points to your goodness what if

[48:27] Nicodemus was there what if he was the one who heard one of the ones who heard and who comes back at a time when no one else can see him and finds out that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life Lord I pray that you would be with us may there be meals with you in our life where you show us our sin speak directly to us for the one who doesn't know you here today I pray that today would be the day they know their sin for the first time and they hear for the first time the wonder that Christ has died in their place and been willing to take their sin upon himself I pray that you would be with them Lord we as Christians we can look like Pharisees but Lord may we run to you and know that the sacrifice is sufficient and that the salvation is complete

[49:34] I pray that you would be with us in Jesus name amen we're going to sing hymn 358 Tyler could you bring a hymn book up for me the one here walked away 358 for all the saints the words of this hymn are great things that Christ has done for us 358 let's stand together and sing for all the saints who Alleluia, Alleluia.

[50:51] The most there are, their fortress and their plight. The Lord will captain in the welcome light.

[51:06] The hope in the darkness will have brought to life. Alleluia, Alleluia.

[51:24] O may thy soldiers be cold to and cold. High as the saints who know we are the Lord.

[51:39] And with them the victors crown your home. Alleluia, Alleluia.

[51:55] Alleluia, Alleluia. Alleluia, Alleluia. Soon, soon to be born, glorious rung and blest.

[52:14] Sweet is the call of heaven and ice the blast. Alleluia, Alleluia.

[52:29] Alleluia, Alleluia. The glory of Jesus, I am for glorious day. The saints triumphant rise in bright array.

[52:47] The King of glory passes on His way. Alleluia, Alleluia.

[53:05] The earth's wide bound from ocean's farthest road. It's a mercy in the godless soul.

[53:21] Seek it to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Alleluia, Alleluia.

[53:41] Receive this benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

[53:52] The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Thank you. Thank you.