Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Psalm 142 Revelation 3:14-22 Matthew 23(:1-15) March 30, 2008

Community of Hope Easter 2 David Drum

Series: Jesus Said What?

Part 1: About Religious People

Have you ever seen the picture of Jesus holding a little lamb? He has a very warm, tender expression on his face, and the lost little lamb looks perfectly safe and content. I still remember going forward for a children’s sermon when I was maybe four or five, and the pastor had that picture that he showed us. He asked us why we thought Jesus might have rescued this lamb, and I quickly answered, “Because the lamb’s cute.” The reason I remember that incident is because everyone laughed, and I was embarrassed. I wanted to get the right answer, and assumed my answer must have been wrong.

Most of us, even if we’re pretty new to this church stuff, have a picture of Jesus in our minds. And I’ll bet many of us picture Jesus as soft and gentle, meek and mild. Not a bad picture to have, actually, because nobody has ever shown more love nor a greater desire than He did, to seek and save the lost, to warmly, tenderly, gently bring back home those who’ve been battered by the world. Even when our bruises were our own doing, he still comes looking for us and lays down his life to bring us back home. Like the Old Testament prophet said about him, “A bruised reed he will not break.” So that’s a good picture to have.

It’s just not the only picture we have of Jesus. Over the next several weeks we want to look at some of the things Jesus said that might surprise us. And so we might as well start with a bang, and look at a picture of Jesus as a hell, fire, and brimstone preacher. Jesus’ words in Matthew 23 are incredibly strong. He says in verse 15, “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” In verse 25, he yells, “Blind Pharisee!” In verse 27, he says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.” In verse 33, he asks, “You snakes, you brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” Now, if that doesn’t qualify as a hell, fire, and brimstone sermon, I don’t know what does.

It’s hard to picture Jesus cradling a lamb while speaking the words of Matthew 23. But if we look a little closer, we learn that the two pictures are actually part of the same set. They can’t be sold separately.

The first thing to notice is who Jesus was preaching to. He wasn’t talking to notorious sinners. When I was a student at the U of A, street preachers would often come and stand on the Mall around lunchtime, preaching hell and damnation. Their targets were completely predictable – fraternity and sorority students, those who drink alcohol, those who dressed provocatively, those who sinned sexually (or at least those who the preachers assumed must be sinning sexually for one of the previous reasons.) But that isn’t who Jesus is addressing at all. Jesus is addressing those who ignored or condemned the notorious sinners. He’s addressing those who memorized the Bible, followed all the rules, worshiped the most regularly, and prayed the most consistently. He’s addressing the religious people. And he’s not the least bit happy!

But in another surprise, watch what he says and what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t argue against any of the religious activities these people were involved in. He doesn’t say that those rules are old fashioned or out of date, or tell people to just lighten up. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 23, p. ??? as we want to take a brief look at the whole chapter.

The chapter starts with Jesus saying that the religious teachers should be obeyed. “They’re telling you to do what’s in the bible,” he says. But they don’t practice what they preach. And his biggest argument against them is in verse 4. He says, “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” Now, Jesus isn’t talking about a 1^st century construction supervisor giving orders and watching others to do the work. He’s saying that these religious people are telling you accurately what God requires - that’s the heavy load portion. They just aren’t helping anyone be successful.

Verse 5 – everything they do is for show. They want to look good. Beware if you want to get credit for the good things you do. Especially beware if you find yourself jealous of someone else who seems to get more credit than you do.

Verse 13 – they shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces; they neither enter themselves nor let others enter. What does that mean? To me, verse 13 is the hardest verse to understand out of the whole chapter. But let’s try it this way. How do we enter heaven? It isn’t by doing enough good things to outweigh the bad. Contrary to popular opinion, we don’t get to heaven by being good people. What does God want from us? Why did He create us? If all He wanted was our obedience, He would have made robots. Robots do what they’re programmed to do. Certainly God prefers us to do the right thing over the wrong thing, but that isn’t the first thing He’s looking for. He wants our love. He wants us to love Him in return. These religious leaders didn’t love God; maybe they feared Him, maybe they hated Him, maybe they didn’t think about Him much at all. But there’s no evidence that they loved Him. So they weren’t entering heaven, nor were they encouraging anyone else to do so by their actions.

Verse 15 says that the religious leaders were eager to recruit others to join their ranks, but because they themselves showed little love, those who joined them tended to be even worse.

The paragraph starting in verse 16 talks about looking for loopholes. Completely missing the overall intent of a law, and looking for a way out. Reminds me of all those commercials for lawyers who can help get you off if you’re charged with a DUI. Never once is the question asked, “Were you actually driving under the influence?” The whole goal is to find a way out. That angered Jesus.

Verse 23 talks about doing the little things, but missing the bigger things. Like watching your language carefully so that you don’t swear, but quickly responding in anger when someone else swears, never asking or caring about what’s happening in the other person’s life. Watching your language is a good thing. But loving people is even more important.

Verse 25 uses the example of cleaning the outside of a cup, but ignoring the filth inside it. There are plenty of measurable things we can do religiously – saying our prayers, crossing ourselves, doing our devotions, giving our offerings. All of those can be fine things to do – Jesus never condemns any of them. He just wants to know, how are those things changing your character? Is your heart harder, or softer? Is your love growing, or shrinking? Is your worship getting more joyful, or more routine?

Verse 27 compares the religious leaders to whitewashed tombs. Who are you when nobody’s looking? What does your thought life look like? Those are the questions that matter.

And verses 29 and following say, “You think you’re so much better than others, but you do the same things they do.”

Just like me in that opening children’s sermon story, I think most of us want to get the right answers. And the longer we’ve walked with Jesus, the more time we’ve spent in and through the church, hopefully, the more we learn, the more we grow. That’s all good. But here’s the big danger. The more you learn what God expects, the easier it is to notice when things don’t line up. The easier it is to notice when others blow it. And your next reaction will tell you a lot about whether you’re on the religious path that makes Jesus so angry. When someone is living far from God, does that make you angry, or break your heart? Does it make you look for a way to get away from them, or pray for a way to come to them with the hope and life of Jesus? When you think about what you hope happens here at Community of Hope, are you thinking about what would please you, or what would save the person who doesn’t yet know God?

The picture of Jesus holding the lost lamb and the picture of Jesus preaching hellfire and damnation go together. They’re part of a package set. And the reason is this. Jesus loves the lost. He bled out for the lost. And people who make it harder for the lost to be found inspire Jesus’ wrath. Think a mama bear and her cubs. Don’t mess with God’s kids. Hypocrisy is always one of the first couple of reasons given for people wanting nothing to do with church. What’s the antidote to hypocrisy? Guess what – it’s not perfection. It’s confession. It’s admitting that we blow it. It’s not pretending like we’ve got it all together. The difference between the saved and the unsaved is that the saved know the Savior. That’s it. And the saved, if they truly are saved, when they encounter the unsaved, will want to introduce them to the Savior.

God has asked a dear friend to take six months and visit other Christian churches here in Tucson, so she can experience what visitors experience. Her husband agreed that this was a call from God, as did their pastor when she told him. It’s been a terrible experience! She’s been routinely ignored, and sometimes flat out told she wasn’t welcome. Worse, the people in her own church haven’t understood what she’s doing, and have started spreading rumors about why she’s not around. What does all of that say? It says that the church is full of religious people who make Jesus angry. Most of us know better than to get angry if a visitor sits in “our” seat. But how many of us think ahead of time about where a guest might want to sit, and make sure that room is saved for them? Who are we thinking about when we make decisions, even in church? Ourselves? Or other people Jesus died for?

Our Wednesday night workshops are so we can get better at loving people we don’t yet know. We were talking this week about how Jesus can change our lives dramatically, and rejoicing with Nancy and Cheryl who shared their personal stories last Sunday. Known to God, but unknown to any of us, a few miles away, a man from out of town was struggling mightily and calling out to God. His wife’s alcoholism was out of control, and things were bad. Ed said to God, “Please help me get back to church.” Well, while our workshop continued, he went to run an errand, but made a wrong turn. Instead of going back to the campground, he ended up pulling into our parking lot right as the workshop ended. He wanted to know if someone would pray for him. Cheryl got to share parts of her testimony again, we prayed for his wife, and got him connected to a Christian recovery group here in Tucson. He told us the next day that while we were praying Wednesday night, his wife in Colorado called a friend, recognized her problem, and asked for help. He called again yesterday – he’s back in Colorado, both he and his wife are back on the right track, and he’s giving all the glory to God. Ed’s story is why the church exists!

Now, what was our part, and what was God’s? Well, we prayed for opportunities. We shared testimonies. And we were ready to be welcoming when he came. But God did a whole bunch of things that we couldn’t possibly have done. Being on God’s team is way cool – we do have a part to play, but our teammate? Just join Him on His field, get Him the ball, and watch Him work.

Think back one last time to the religious people Jesus was so angry at. How did people who knew the Bible and wanted to do what was right, get so far off track? I think part of it is that they didn’t think much about those far from God, and when they did, their thoughts were all negative, as if their own progress had been their own doing.

Jesus spoke so strongly because He died for those religious folks, too, and he wanted desperately for them to be with Him instead of against Him. So I can’t sugarcoat things today, either. If we ever forget how much we need Jesus to save us, we could be just as in danger of hell as the first Matthew 23 audience. And when we remember how Jesus has saved us, we’re desperate to see him save others, too. So here’s the pulse-check for today. Are you passionate to see others come home to Jesus? If not, I only know of three possibilities – one, you’ve never yet come home to him, yourself, or two, you’ve become the lukewarm person Jesus talks about in Revelation and spits out of his mouth, or three, you’ve become the religious person Jesus talks about in Matthew 23 and warns of hell.

The picture of Jesus holding and protecting the lost lamb is why we have the picture of Jesus preaching hellfire and brimstone at those who don’t love and seek out the lost. (Prayer)