10/08/23 The Leaven of the Pharisees

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all praise to Christ the son all praise to the Holy Spirit Our God has over the king will be in Jesus mighty name I in Jesus mighty name I believe Lamentations 3:1 19-26 says remember my Affliction and my wanderings the wormwood and the g my soul continually remembers it and has bowed down within me but this I call to mind and therefore I have hope the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning great is your faithfulness the Lord is my portion as my soul therefore I will hope in him the Lord is good

to those who wait for him to the soul who seeks him it is good that one should wait quietly for the Salvation of [Music] the surr gra for to is All [Music] [Music] iake Soul s my soul I where you I will trust when I see morning by morning great is your [Music] faithful breath bre [Music] s my soul sing will can't tell if it's right or not I'm just good rord gave me a [Music] look [Music] to all my heart you are good you always are morning by morning great is your faithfulness through me all fear be reminded my future is secure oh my

father he has spok and he keeps his every word all Fe be reminded my future is oh my father he has spoken and he keeps his every word I will trust where you leave I will trust I can't see morning by morning oh morning my morning I will trust my heart are [Music] good morning by morning great is your faithfulness to me I will trust my heart you are good you always are morning by morning great is your faithfulness [Music] to Matthew 6: 9-10 says Our Father in heaven Hallowed Be Your Name Your Kingdom Come your will be [Music] done your will be done God

and Father as in heav Earth my heart is to self me [Music] seom your unchanging love Be Still My Soul Your Voice and PR not my [Music] will I may never fly know the Fe true he [Music] was [Music] cross hope myor father not will [Music] I am broken in the night of fear and doubt I will my good father Yes to one king as Jesus so I shall [Music] glor all your Saints i s father [Music] will [Music] father us daily and find all the world might see your glory and your name be lifted high this day we overcome for you shall see home

now as your church we lift our voice in pray father not my [Music] Wills over for you shall see us safely home now as your church we lift our voice and pray father not will buts father not my will [Music] buts father we are honored to sit before your throne and bring to you our Broken Vessels that you restore we come with all of the weight of the world of sin and destruction and heaviness and you lift our eyes up to you and you show us your goodness and your kindness you extend grace and mercy to us that we do not deserve but we get

to be made right by you for you God as we prepare to hear your word this morning would you just settle our hearts from whatever the world is bringing in do you help us to put aside worried about whatever questions may be surrounding your mind whatever we're thinking about is happening later today and we want to be here and present focused on you fix our eyes on [Music] you fill us with your spirit go and have seat good morning everyone this time we our kids that are up they can head out their clroom the rest of us if you have your gra Luke 11 is

where we today 11 actually cover pretty big chunk today so last week we did like three or four vers this be a lot but Luke 11 and we today but before we do that I want you to kind of remember where Jesus is in this situation and the way I want kind of picture for you where Christ is is by illust so you kind of imagine how many of you have ever seen like all right know all right so nobody great at least so kind of picture stage the and lawyers are Judes situ and then several thousand people who are kind ofing around and to

see and kind of scenar the and lawyers because of this great that has come around it's allow come see they want to understand a little bit who Jesus isim kind of picture saying like all who are you where are you from what are you here to do for us and he's like okay Jesus I'm from heaven and what I'm going to do for you is uh essentially forgive the entire like forgive the world I'm going to stay Sinners and and they're like okay we have a lunatic on our hands and so we're going to need you is some kind of sign like we're going to

need you to to do more than just kind of speak in this moment and so what Jesus tells what we saw over the last couple of weeks he essentially says I'm just going to give you the sign of J all right I've already done enough technically speaking for you to believe in me for you to trust me but because you're not believing even in the Miracles and the Wonders and healings and and all those things that I've already done you're not believing that I'm just going to let you see one one I'm going to give you the sign and so picture stage he's ESS tell

them what the sign ofon is is you going you're going to kill me I'm going to let you kill me and then I'm going let you bury me for 3 days and then after 3 days I'm going to come back and this is my act this is the dance that I'm going to give you on stage right now that's what I'm going to do for you and again they think he's lost mind all right think he's lost his mind and so after he tell that to him he's about to go off stage and one of thees one of the judges they say to him hey

hey why don't you come over to my house we're going to have dinner okay we're going to have DIN and that's where we pick it up in this passage is this Pharisee inviting Jesus over to dinner so Luke 1137 want you go ahead and stand as we read God word and my prayer is just that we would we would listen to what God wants to communicate to us today because even though we may not be a Pharisee in the story um Jesus does at the end of it kind of give a be disciples all right don't be like them and so we want to see

what they're like because Jesus is disciples to not be like that so we'll start at verse 37 while Jesus was speaking Pharisee asked him to die with them so he went in and reclined at table and the Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first was before dinner and the Lord said to him now you phes you cleans the outside of the cup and of the dish but inside you full of greed and wickedness you fools did not he who made the outside make the inside also but give his those things that are within behold everything is clean for you but wo do

you for you and neglect Justice and God these to without NE the other wo to you for you love the best SE Sy and GRE in places woe to you for you are like unmarked graes and people walk over them without and then the lawyers answered them teacher saying these things you insult us also and he said you lawyers also for you Lo people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not teach the burd with one of your fingers or do not tou one of fing wo to you you build the tombs of the prophets your fathers Ked so you are witnesses and

you consent to the Deeds of your fathers for they killed and you bus therefore also the wisdom of God said I will send them prophets and apostles some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets Shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this from the blood ofel to the blood of Zarah who perished between the Altar and the sctu yes I tell you it will be required of this generation woe to you lawers for you have taken away the key of knowledge you did not yourselves and you hind those who were as he went

away from there the scries and phes began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about things and wait for him to catch him something might say but in the me when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another he began to say to his disciples first Beware of the of the which is hypoc nothing is cover will not be hidden or revealed that will not be known therefore whatever you have said in the the light and whatever you have whispered in private shall be proclaimed on the house father we thank you so much word provid

to us this morning we know that word Us in understanding the truth about you are Jesus and we know that there is nothing that do in order to become like Christ it is the working of the spirit of God guiding Us in the truth of the scriptures to ingrain it into our minds and our hearts so that we walk in step with you so that we get to understand you we get to treasure you above all things and so father my prayer is is that as we walk through this passage and we unpack it that your spirit is just doing a work in our minds

and in our hearts so that we are able to say no to the things that are making us hypocritical and able to say yes to the things that are our spirit guided to make us more like your son Jesus that's what we pray for that's what we ask for this morning we thank you for your work it's in your name we pray amen you guys may be seated looking at verse 37 so it starts off here Jesus joins this Pharisee he goes up to his house he reclines at table now one of the things that the Pharisees have done is they've taken the Mosaic wall

which is the Torah which is the first five books of the Old Testament what they have done with that is they have added to it over time all right so there's been thousands of years that have transpired between the finishing of the Tor to now where they find themselves in the first century what they've done is as prophets and as uh priests and as phes and as Warriors they wanted to continue to sort of take the word of God and what he given to us through the law and they've wanted to create their own culture in order to try and in a way protect it

but what they've done is is they've just added rules on top of rules on top of rules one of the rules that they have added is that you are to uh do this ritual of cleansing before you eat in order to ceremonially consider yourself to be clean to then partake of something it was never something that was actually given regarding the Mosaic law in order for them to participate in and so what Jesus is doing in this moment is he's not coming in to try to be nasty all right he he's not coming in to eat and just choose not to wash his hands all

right so like don't use this as like one of those scriptures where like all right I'm just not going to wash my hands before I eat anymore because Jesus didn't do it like that's not what he's doing what he's rather doing is he's just taking a stand he's proving a point and what is his point why why does he come in and choose not to wash his hands well what he's trying to say to them is he's trying to Echo John 14:6 what the Pharisees have done is they have created for themselves a way a truth and a life that they are abiding by and

what Jesus is doing is he's coming in to begin kind of unpacking that and saying what you are required to do is trust in and believe the true way truth in life which is himself which is himself and so he begins to kind of tell them looking at verse 39 why he did not and again they didn't even bring it up he's just kind of reading their mind in this moments knowing their thoughts he tells them I I basically understand that you're questioning the fact that I did not wash prior to eating but here's why and in verse 39 he says you Pharisees you cleanse

the outside the cup and of the dish but inside you're just full of greed and wickedness you fools did he who not or or did not he who made the outside make the inside also he goes on to say but give as arms those things that are within behold everything is clean for you that's a different way of lifestyle that I'll show you here in a moment and then he starts with these woes and he gives three woes to these faes what do you Pharisees you tithe mint and Brew in every Earth but you neglect Justice and the love of God you you do one

thing phenomenally but you neglect something else you fools did um he goes on to say again woe to you Pharisees for you love the best seed in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces woe to you for you are like unmarked Graves and people walk all over them not knowing it anyone from the God is Ling or just Jesus is loving and we should just love everybody body we should just accept everybody like I don't think Jesus said these things with a smile on his face like like Jesus speaks truth does he not I mean Jesus calls out sin he calls out when someone is

not living a life according to the way the truth and the life it is good and right for that to be called out for how would we know to live the way truth and life if it wasn't proclaimed to us and so this is of those moments where one of the most unloving things you could do is just affirm or accept or be okay with someone living a lifestyle contrary to the way truth and life of Jesus Christ and that's what he's doing he's calling this out as a Act of Love towards these Pharisees he could have just not gone to the house and just

went hey I'm going to go hang out with I'm kind of tired you know that the show is really that was that was a lot I want to go grass a little bit but no he engaged and he went to their house in order to speak truth to them and what these Pharisees have been doing is essentially living a life that is considered to be on the outside very successful but on the inside it's something completely different Jesus is getting after their soul here he he's getting after their heart and the condition of their heart where they are critical about Jesus's unwashed hands he's drawing

attention to their unwashed hearts you wish or you watch the outside but on the inside you're just a mess you've been really successful but honestly you've not been fruitful Henry Nan who is the author of emotionally healthy spirituality he put it this way success comes from strength stress and human effort in other words what he's trying to say is if we just exercise all of our strengths maybe that's intellect strategy persuasion systems and policies we can we can exercise our strengths and then if we add stress like we care about it we we we want to get in the grit and just do it and

then add human effort to it you can really be successful in almost anything in this world you can you can essentially change the world with that mindset but not necessarily changing the world in good things or posi that you can just change the world by just adding your own strengths your own e human effort your own kind of stress regarding what you think is a good thing that's exactly what these Pharisees were doing they were trying to change the world in their own success in their own human effort in their own stress they're the religious Elite they're the ones who have so changed their life

in the culture around them that when they go out into the marketplace people want to be around them people want to they're like the celebrities of Judaism at this time they're the ones that when they throw up a conference together people are selling it out to try to get around them and say we are looking at your life and you seem like you have everything put together we want to do things like you do things they receive re the greetings in the marketplaces but Jesus says they're like unmarked graes have you ever seen the movie the six cents anybody six cents in here all right

if you haven't seen the movie I'm about to ruin it for you but it also came out like 25 years ago you had in the movie It's Bruce Willis and he's walking around just living his life and doing his job and he's trying to do a really good job at it but in the end he's he's trying to help a boy who sees dead people okay he's trying to counsel him there like he's trying to help this kid out at the end of the movie Bruce Willis realized comes to the understanding he's been dead all along and was unaware of it that's what's going on

with these Pharisees Jesus is trying to point out to them that you think you're alive by the way that you're living your life according to your way your truth your life but in reality you're dead on the inside he's trying to help these Pharisees see that through their Lifestyles though they appear to be successful they're dead they do not have a heart pumping the life blood of Jesus in their veins in verses 39-42 Jesus gives this brief example of of the Cup being clean on the outside which is unnecessary yet still being filthy on the inside they're doing everything they can to exert their human

effort to make sure their appearance looks clean but yet on the inside are wasting away he goes on to say that if their Lifestyles would have been marked by alms charitable giving then it would have revealed their true righteousness the greatest fruit in Judaism that is a life marked by righteousness is a life marked by charitable giving so not necessarily considering your own interest but only considering the interest of others that's what they consider to be like reaching the Pinnacle of righteousness and what he's telling them is you don't do any of that you're only greedy and full of wickedness if there were any charitable

giving any arms within your life maybe maybe I would have something to go on here but he's saying you don't do any of that and then he goes on and says that um not only are you sinful but you steal from God everything about you is not what God has communicated and is revealing to the world actually you think that you are the ones who are close to God but in fact you couldn't be further away from God and so he gives those three woes to them touching on the grave one here for a moment unmarked Graves okay that there there's kind of two signs

to this the the first two is he's just talking about their greed and their wickedness but the second one also impacts others and what he gets at there is there's two ways that he's talking about that they talk about whitewashed tombs and they talked about unmarked Graves one of the things that Matthew highlights when talking about the Pharisees is he mentioned them as being whiteash tombs they make themselves look beautiful on the outside they build these tombs and they make it look great but yet in the real in reality they're just full of dead bones like they're just dead on the inside this one refers

refering to it as an unmarked grave instead of a whitewashed tun is actually a a completely different thing but also kind of similar in the same way what he's trying to say is this also impacts others by saying that they are unmarked Graves and people are walking over them it is ceremonially unclean for you to touch a grave you you actually go into the same process as as those who who have touched lepers you have to go and separate and seclude and isolate yourself for about seven days before you can then start going through the ceremonial process of cleansing in order to re-engage community what

he's just called them is essentially anybody who interacts with you you have made them unclean not only are you dead on the inside but you're leaving other people to be dead when they interact with you you you you are not doing anything of any benefit to anybody around you and a crazy thing that Luke goes on to say and we'll actually cover it whenever we get to it down verse or chapter 17 he says this he said to his disciples Temptations to sin are sure to come but woe to the one through whom they come which essentially is saying like we're all going to experience

our own Temptations but woe to the one who tempts others woe to the one who leads people into temptation he goes on to say it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea then that he should cause one of these little ones to sin I mean he's going hard after these Pharisees like you're dead on the outside you or inside you're making everyone else think that you're alive but then by interacting with you it would be best for you to just die than continue influencing the culture that is around you so the Pharisees

are just getting this spiritual and emotional Beatdown and like a good friend the lawyers try and back up their friends the Pharisees verse 45 look at it one of the lawyers answered him and these lawyers aren't like civil lawyers okay so don't think like attorneys and our day AG these lawyers are the experts of the law okay so they're the ones who are looking at the T the first five books of the Old Testament they're reading it they're memorizing it they are the ones who are teaching it to others um so they're the ones that the Pharisees refer to when it comes to hey we

need a verse or hey we need to exert this sort of uh law or ritual and so they go to the law so they work hand inand with one another they're kind of like their research team if you will and so the lawyers they they they want to chime in on this and Jesus has something to say to them too teacher in saying these things you insult us also and he said what do you lawyers for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers he's saying you're essentially you're you're putting a law

on the people that is is too much for them and and even just considering not just the fact that the old law is too much but that they're adding to the law and nobody can essentially do it it's giving them a position of power in keeping people in suppression and oppression woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed what he's essentially going on there is they're all about their fathers they're all about the prophets of all and so they're building these monuments and these tombs in order to celebrate them and essentially worship them but what they're functionally doing

is operating kind of in a polytheistic realm they're worshiping the prophets not whom the prophet spoke of they're celebrating their fathers as if their fathers were the ones doing everything correct and right now we again we celebrate the prophets minor and major we love them we we we we we love all the things that they've done again they're Sinners they messed up all right there's no prophet of the Old Testament that we would look at and say he did it all right they messed up they are considering these lawyers considering that they did not mess up that they had not done anything wrong and so

they're memorializing them and what he is saying is he's kind of drawing on two things not only is that not good stop doing that but he's also saying you don't realize that what you have done is you're actually the ones who killed your fathers like you were the ones who didn't listen to the prophets didn't listen to the fathers of old but rather continue to lead the people astray continue to lead them not according to what God's wisdom was that's why he goes on to say therefore also the wisdom of God spoke and said I will send them prophets and apostles some of whom they

will kill and persecute what he's trying to get at is the sons of the prophets are the ones who killed the fathers of the prophets you are guilty and their blood is on your hands so stop memorializing them stop honoring them because you are also dead on the inside and then he goes on he says this verse 52 is is key here wo to you lawyers for you have taken away the key of knowledge you did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering what he's getting at there is they've got the Old Testament law which is the key to helping interpret and

look for and foreshadow the mess side of come they have all of the signs that they need in order to not miss Jesus and what he's getting at here is you have all of the knowledge you you've got the key to it but you yourselves have not listened to it you have not entered into the knowledge you have not entered into learning what the Old Testament is actually pointing you towards and because you have not listened to or learned it or tried to seek to actually understand it you're missing the fact that the answer for it and the Fulfillment of it is actually standing in

front of you and speaking to you right now not only did you not enter into it but you're keeping it from everyone else so just like the Pharisees or the unmarked Graves that anyone who interacts with them becomes unclean he's also saying to these Warriors these teachers of of the law that you are withholding the key to knowledge the key to the Savior you're just as bad you're just as bad and as he went away from there the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and provoke him to speak about many things I mean they just they're coming harder we got more questions

for you we want to interrogate you a little bit more we we we don't like what you're saying we want to catch you in something that would essentially and anytime it says like they want to catch him and something I mean it's just like a stake him all right they're looking to find a fault so that they can get him off of the scene and remove him from his real Get Talent they want him out of the show completely but what they're really trying to get at is finding something where they can charge him and eventually crucify him because what Jesus is doing is he's

actually unraveling the entire system that they built in order to support themselves to support themselves they need the people tithing dill and mint leaves and all these said like they need the people contributing everything so that their lifestyles are secure so that their power is secure so their Authority is secured because they love having the best seats in the synagogues they love having all of these privileges at their disposal and Jesus coming in and Gathering these thousands thousand of people who are hearing a different way a different truth and a different life is actually beginning to threaten the lives that they have built for themselves

and so they got to get him out they got to move him away in order to continue living their their way but again it's dead and so then Jesus Does this thing where he kind of withdraws from them for a moment and he begins speaking with his disciples and as he's trying to speak with his disciples again people it's like Jesus at this point has just gone vital people are trying to get to him to get as close to him as possible so much so that they're Lally just trampling one another and he says this down in verse or chapter 12 1 through3 in the

meantime when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another he began to say to his disciples beware watch out now there's a difference here to the Pharisees and to the lawyers it's a woe and a Woe Is essentially you need to die which is actually good news for them because what do we need to do in order to receive life take up our cross daily and die ourselves it's actually good news that he's trying to tell them wo to you you need to die to yourself you need to die to this way of life life this truth that

you're following this lifestyle that you built for yourself you need to stop you need to die to that and you need to receive the life that I am providing the way that I am providing the truth that I am providing and he's been doing that for his disciples and he's been teaching that to them all along and so he's coming to them and he's saying I need you to watch out because it's a slippery slope to begin living the same way that they are it's easy to let the Le of the Pharisees get into your way of life that I am teaching you to where

it can corrupt it to where it can corrupt it and Le was just a way of saying that they they were all about bread in that day and so Le was a way in which one thing can get in and it begins spreading it's yeast essentially begins spreading and and and you know the process of that to where it affects the whole world and what Jesus is telling them is don't let anything that is not my way my truth in my life get into the way of the truth in life you have to watch out for it don't be like them because it's hypocrisy it's

hypocrisy and so that's the main point that's what Jesus has been trying to get at this whole time is he's looking at the success of the Pharisees lives while they're dead on the inside and he's saying it's hypocritical they're saying one thing when they are else and so he's telling the Believers the disciples don't be Hypocrites don't pretend don't pretend can we be can we be honest for a moment these are people who have chosen religion to be their way their truth their life but they don't have a relationship with the object of their religion the one true God at one point the people of

God they knew God and now they are blind and can't even see the Son of God standing in front of them listen this the slippery slope to becoming like these Pharisees is when those who found God stop searching for him like as soon as we think we found God we stop searching we stop pursuing we stop abiding this is when the Le gets in and therefore Jesus refers to them as Hypocrites even even this is a Jewish Theologian kind of says something similar he says you cannot become devout if you already think you are Dev same thing for us as Believers we can not become

like Christ mature in our faith if we think we are already there which is hard because you've heard me say you know already not yet you already are righteous therefore become righteous but this is saying something different those who already think that they progressed to the point of spiritual maturity are the ones who are in fact in the church we will never stop gr JD Greer we we went out several of our um Network pastors went out to spend time this last week with with a group of Pastors in the mountains and um JD shared with us and he said and if you've ever read

the book gospel de this is this is where that comes from but he said we used to think that Christianity like the was kind of like waiting into a pool and like the gospel was kind of like the the beginning step of just stepping into it um and that the Deep stuff was was where you kind of move on from the gospel but the reality is is that the gospel is the Deep like it's what enters Us in and it's what we spend a lifetime diving into it's what we spend a lifetime growing in and maturing in where we never graduate from it and so

at the end of the day let's stop pretending let's stop pretending the thing I have found in now 17th year of ministry what I have found most refreshing is when someone says I don't know and I want to know I want to grow when someone can not posture themselves in a position where they're saying like I I am a spiritual mature person or I am aist right or I don't think I need to learn any more about that or I'm good on that or I don't read my Bible because I grew up in the church and so I know the Bible That's hypocritical that's hypocritical

and that's what Jesus is warning them of is to not do that confessing one thing and then living a different thing is what Jesus is warning his disciples of he's warning them because of how easy it is to establish a culture of hypocrisy and it can start from the top down I mean when you start reading through Galatians you get to Galatians Chapter 2 you'll see that the Apostle Paul will actually call out um Peter who at the time is the pastor of the church the whole church he's the pastor of it and Peter was dining and hanging out and and just shooting the bre

with the Gentiles of the church and then his Jewish Brethren show up and all he starts moving away from the Gentiles and only hanging out with the Jews he allowed the 11 of in that moment Prejudice and racism to get into his heart and he moved and separated himself because he didn't want the outside to be viewed any differently he wanted I I'm not I'm not walking like the Gentiles which in his action was actually him walking with the Gentiles and he gets called out for it so it can happen in the church we we can be hypocritical and even Galatians 2 like that's what

Paul tells stop being hypocritical the same Grace that is for the Jews is the same Grace that is for the Gentiles and it is made a people who are marked by the blood of Jesus here's the reason reality is that there are actually two great hypocrisies two great hypocrisies so there is actually a good hypocrisy that I'm going to allow us to walk in and participate in and you're like what he's gone off the RS there's the person who wants to present themselves as beautiful successful put together but on the inside they're ugly they're D and they're broken all right we're going to call that

of the world is that not what our world is after is that not what Society is after is that not what culture is after don't worry about the heart don't worry about your affections and your desires don't worry about your soul and don't worry about peace and don't worry about those things what will actually provide for those things is if you're beautiful on the outside is if you have all the success if you have all the riches if you if you just stand in an aisle at the grocery store and you look at the magazines they are preaching a message what you need is 10minute

apps do this and your physique will change it takes more than 10 minutes but if you do this you'll be happy change this you'll be happy grow in this way I mean just sponsored on on on Instagram as you're scrolling is all of this uh 10 way or you know three steps to get quick or rich quick I mean it's all based around the external what you have or what you look like but on the inside we're dead we're we're not going to cover that as a society we're not worried about that that's a worldly hypocrisy that's the position of these Pharisees but then there's

and I'm was going to say a Christian hypocrisy that I believe is good here what I me by that because the world cannot understand it on the outside we may according to worldly standards not look beautiful not be put together not be successful but on the inside we are beautiful we're thriving we're being put together in the Lord listen to this as I tie it into Jesus At The Cross I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 47-8 and actually into 2 Corinthians 51-15 those the big passage that I'm going to read if you have your Bibles go ahead and turn there it will be on the

screens 2 Corinthians 4 7-8 I want you to see hypocrisy flipped where to the world it would be considered hypocritical to the world's stand which is ugly on the outside beautiful on the inside and that's actually the place to be not saying you have to like physically be other I'm just saying like we're not concerned about the external listen to how it's countercultural from a Christian standpoint starting verse seven we have this treasure and what he's talking about there just so that you know is is relationship with Jesus all right that's why as a mission of our church treasure Jesus and help others follow we

have this treasure we have Jesus in Jars of Clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us we are afflicted in every way but not crushed perplexed but not driven to despair persecuted but not forsaken struck down but not destroyed always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies for we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh just our bond our life so that death is at work in us

but life in you what he's basically saying in those few verses is our lives look like they're falling apart like it doesn't look like we're successful at all it actually looks like at every we're just dying we're just we're just dying but on the inside we're thriving we're thriving since we have the same Spirit of Faith according to what has been written I believed and so I spoke we also believe and so we also speak knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence for it is all for your sake so that

his grace extends to more and more people it may increase Thanksgiving to the glory of God so he's just saying right there like we we want this message of what we're experiencing this internal thriving life this renewing of our spirit we want it to spread so we're going to continue preaching and proclaiming that so that we do not lose heart though our outer self is wasting away our inner self is being renewed day by day you're not going to see that on a magazine in a checkout line you know what just just let those abs fade away just let them go they're not as important

as you think they are though my outer self is wasting away our inner self is being renewed day by day I want to Har on that one a little bit more because I know majority of us are under 30 in here it's okay guys it's okay all right you're not 18 anymore it's okay let your body was away [Music] amen now I'm not saying like all right we're going to go you potato chips and ice cream at 11 o' every night but it's okay let it waste away for this light momentary Affliction is prepar in for us an eternal wave of Glory beyond all comparison

as we look not to the things that are seen what we perceive about one another but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient they just they're hearing and they're gone but the things that are unseen are Eternal it goes on down in chapter 5 for we know that if the tent that's just our body is our Earthly home is destroyed we have of building from God a house not made with hands Eternal in the heavens for in this tent we Gran I mean we can give an amen to that for those who are 30 and over we give

an amen to that we grown longing to put on our Heavenly dwelling give me that glorified body that does not get injured while sleeping anymore if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked for while we are still in this tent we Gran being burdened not not that we would be unclothed but that we would be further clothed so that what is Mortal may be swallowed up by life he who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the spirit as a guarantee what he's saying is is in this life your body your life that you think

is going to be successful might fall apart the spirit that has been given to you is increasing and renewing you day after day so that even though I'm calling aart on the outside me I'm thriving on the inside I'm growing in peace I'm growing in affection I'm growing in love I'm growing in Joy I'm growing in kindness I'm growing in gentleness I'm growing in all these things that are Eternal Eternal he's given us the spirit to basically allow us to hold on as we continue to Gran he's saying hold on this tent is just going to fall a wind's going to KN it over he's

given us a building that we're looking forward to one day so hang on persevere it's okay so we are always of good courage and we're pumped up we're excited because of what's going on on the inside not the outside we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord for we walk by faith and not by sight yes we are of good good courage we're excited we would rather be away from the body and at home of the Lord yes so whether we are at home or away we make it our aim to please him to be in

relationship with him for what for we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil therefore verse 11 knowing the fear of the Lord and we want to persuade others but what we we are is known to God and I hope it is known also to your conscience we are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart again

he's just attacking this idea of stop boasting in what looks right on the outside and only boast about what is working in the inside for if we are beside ourselves it is for God if we are in our right mind it is for you for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this here's where he ties it all it he he's like a reason why we are letting the OU self waste away but are being renewed day after day in our inner soul is because we've concluded this we've came to this conclusion we've observed everything that's out there the way the truth

and life of the Pharisees and the lawyers and scribes and Sadducees and Judaism and all that we've looked at all of that but then we've listened to Jesus and we've come to this conclusion one has died for all for the um one has died for all and therefor all have died and he Jesus died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake Di and was raised I mean death Life Death life we're going back and forth here if you seek for life in the external in your own success you actually lose life but if

you seek life in Christ and you die to all of that you actually receive life of ET return that's the good hypocrisy is to be considered hypocritical to the world you look like you're dead on the outside but on the inside we're alive because we're not seeking after the same things that they believe is giving life we're rather seeking life in Christ and this is why it is a conundrum for the world around us because our circumstances might look like it's killing us and yet we're steady and we're calm and we're at peace and maybe even a little bit excited because Jesus is filling us

with his spirit and he's saying choose the good portion him trust in what he is working in you and it's all because of what he did that was hypocritical in their day and age what did they want they wanted the greatest King to come on the scene Israel's Got Talent wow us I want you to wow us right now in order to win this if you're saying you're the king if you're saying you're the Messiah you're the chosen one that we're supposed to be looking for well we want you on a throne right now so show us that you deserve the throne and Isaiah says

there's nothing about his appearance that they would deem worthy of a magazine cover there's nothing about his life that they would say we want to model and invite him to a conference to speak in order to help others see that this is how you can get rich quick he's homeless he even made so much to to be born in Nazareth so that their lawyers one of them Nicodemus comes is there anything good that comes from Nazareth nothing good comes from there like he made sure to flip the whole thing on its head to be able to actually show them the greatest sign that they needed

was one to die for what they deserved they're already dead on the inside and because of their actions on the outside they deserve to die in Eternal punishment and Jesus ENT the S and says I'm going to die for all so that all might have a chance to live might actually flip this thing over if it's so easy to be hypocritical to profess we treasure Jesus but not walk in him where do we get the power and ability to not let the lon creep in because that's like this is kind of the application piece and it what pulls us into communion here I like I

don't want us to pretend anymore like no no pretending anymore all right just put that on the wall Romans 65-14 says this if we have been United with him in a death like his we shall certainly be United with him in a resurrection like his we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also then live with him and we know

that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him for the death he died he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives to God so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus therefore let not sin therefore re in your mortal body to make you obey its passions do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness for sin will have

no dominion over you since you are not under the law but under grace Jesus has provided for us the fuel that we need to live this life and the way that he did that was he himself came to the Earth and he lived under the wall executed every single official law all right you can't look at it and be like well he didn't do what the Pharisees said was ceremonially righteous was because they added to it but he fulfilled everything that God ordained through the law and the prophets he fulfilled it perfectly which is what's required of us to be honest all right but we're

required to live the law to do righteousness but we can't so he comes to like we we we harp on the death of Jesus yes and amen but we cannot forget the fact that he also lived the life that you and I cannot live so he earned righteousness for you so that when we accept Jesus and he comes to live inside of us the same Jesus that abided by the law and fulfilled it is the same one living in us so that whatever Commandments God gives us when we trust in Jesus and believe that he is in us and has given us the ability and

power and authority through the spirit we can also now live by the law we can also uphold it this is Romans 3: 21-31 if you want to read through that on your own do it where at the end of it it says what do we do do we just get rid of the law and he says no rather you upold hold it you uphold it because of the spirit that is living in you the same spirit that enabled Jesus to be able to live according to it and never sin so he earned that for us and because we broke the law well what's the wages

of sin death anyone who falls short of the glory of God which is the law and the prophets anyone who falls short of that deserve death it's just the way God set it up it's not pay me $100 and you get to continue living it's not it's not anything along those lines it's not your works it's not all your efforts all of that is what the Pharisees were trying to do he saying go do that Jesus came and did it perfectly for you now you bring your sin to the table you bring all of your failure to the table Jesus is then going to pay

your penalty for you he's going to pay your debt in full he's going to die in your place that's why we call it substitutionary atonement the way what God uses as payment is the shedding of blood that's why they had all the sacrifices in the Old Testament it was just a forhad blood covers sin it was temporary for them Jesus being the perfect sacrifice makes it Eternal not temporary he sheds his blood and his blood then pays God for our sin for our death and it's p in full so that God's Wrath towards our sin our death is satisfied if it wasn't satisfied guess what

Jesus never exits the grave if it was not satisfied he remains dead forever which would have proven he was just another random guy but because it satisfied the wrath of God three days later the spirit of God resurrects Jesus and what it's telling us is this is what happened happens to us spiritually this is what's happening to us we don't get the fullness of what Jesus did in the moment because Jesus when he came out of the Grave he came out in his glorified body he looked phenomenal okay he's no longer wearing the same stuff that he was wearing that Isaiah spoke of all right

we we don't know what that full change looks like yet but Mary saw it she didn't even recognize it he got the new scrubs on all right so he's he's walking in the new body and he's the first fruit of that and then allowed them to be able to see him and understand that it was truly him the same thing is going to happen for us but has happened for us spiritually so going back to the heart a hypocrite heart they're alive on the outside dead on the inside because their heart's dead it's a Heart of Stone eel says that God will show up and

he will remove the Heart of Stone and give us a heart of Flesh so that he will be their God and they will be his people this is what God is doing when we believe and trust in Jesus is he's removing the heart that has made us dead in our trespasses and he's giving us the righteous heart that is Jesus living inside of us and that's what enables our body to trust in God and to walk in step with his Spirit to live a life that is being renewed Day by Day on the inside even though our mortal bodies we don't have the the sweet

ride yet we don't have the building we're still in the tent all right it's just a tent that on the inside has a party going on okay so we're really excited about what God is doing on the inside of us and we're tolerating the external for for a momentary Affliction as he says it in certain Corinthians we just deal with it but we are rejoicing because of what the work that he has done in us it's just a great Exchange change no longer are you sinful you're righteous you're a child of mine you're a daughter and son that I've adopted come home and that's what

he's telling us that's what he's proclaiming to us to you and me and guess what that is what fuels us to not let the L in we know what God has done in our souls and in our hearts and we trust that and we run to it we walk in step with it we want to know more about this heart that he's giv it's like you don't buy a car and just let it sit in the driveway and never drive it now he's given you a new identity so let's drive it let's learn about it this is one of those moments where you actually should

pull the owner's manual out and read about it no one does that with a vehicle but in this scenario what he's done is he's given us the word of God to say this is who you are now get into the owner's manual because he owns US bought us by his blood or we're his he's given us a manual in his word to be able to say this is who Jesus is this is him who's living inside of you get to know him through his word so that you can walk in step with his spirit and that is going to increase as you walk through this

life as you are heading towards that eventual glorified body where the outside then also represents the inside that's why right now we're just walking as good Hypocrites because the inside of us does not appear on the outside get to the heart of the issue that's what Jesus is trying to do to these Pharisees and that's what he's warning his disciples of and that's why it's a good warning for us don't forget the inside work so stop pretending stop pretending let's go ahead and stand as we stand just remember the work that he has done for us that he came and he broke his body and

blood in order for us it all starts there all right it all starts the beauty of that we don't we don't have posture ourselves like the Pharisees we don't have to go after one another's pra what we do want to stir up is the work of I'm really grateful of your really grateful of your I love seeus I what we don't want say is hey I just noticed that you your hair that means that means in Christ working your soul we get to do that because he's already on the cross he looked out the and in speaking with his father he said the work needed

to be done in order to that it's finished should we don't there's a new way a new truth Life Trust the word and soes and you believe that he's done this work in your life he lived the perfect life could not live supposed to die and he Days Later gu for that will bring from to believe that then we to Remember by hising life and that's why this is spiritual that represents that where food and wine is considered the church it's spiritual we come back to the Feast of Jesus on a daily basis that's why we do this every single week because it can't be

once a week that receive this this is a daily thing come to the true bread and wi the one that's actually and gr so if you believe that I want you come down grab the El seat and we will I receive from the Lord to you the Lord Jesus and when he given thanks he broke it said my body which is for do this in the same way also the after new do this in remembrance of me for as often bread you drink cup [Music] youim father thank you so much for your truth we thank you for your word this morning we know that it's

easy for us to that together I'm praying that this is an opportunity for us to not because we don't what we want TOA rather that our lives by day by trusting your each one of us your love that lavishes us is what calms our soul and it gives peace to our we lives it gives us rest we rest you and alone though we may have issues with other relationships finances jobs just stress of Life an we experience often times but the reality and are you are addressing you are us you giving us your strength that comes through relationship you're telling us don't worry about tomorrow

tomorrow hases just come to me I so we come come to you we you it's [Music] continue [Music] F punch me that their gu Lo all the [Music] GU stop so