FBCWest 387 | Woe to Pharisees and Lawyers
Recorded On: 04/19/2020
Bulletin
FBCWest
April 19, 2020
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth.”
Praise and Worship
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalm 147:1
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
SPECIAL MUSIC – By Pru Hungate
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Woe to Pharisees and Lawyers”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
Acknowledgements and Announcements
Benediction “Won’t Stop Now”
Sermon Notes
Luke 11:37 – 41 Clean: Inside or out?
Luke 11:42 – 44 Woe to the Pharisees
Luke 11:45 & 46 Woe to the religious lawyers
Luke 11:47 & 48 Woe to them
Luke 11:49 - 51 Accountable for the blood split
Luke 11:52 Continued woes to the religious lawyers
Luke 11:53 & 54 Plotting against Jesus
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
We've been looking at the life and Ministry of Jesus and Jesus's ministry has gone through some ups and downs in the sense of as he was teaching more and more people, we can to be attached to him become his disciples. Others just wanted him to do signs and wonders and get the bread and the fish.
And he would then do things like do some hard sayings like you must eat my flesh and drink my blood and people would say who can hear this? Who can do this? And they left and it just we did down to his disciples. But again Jesus popularity started, grow and grow. And the Pharisees.
Wanted to see what's going on. See why Jesus was popular. They were always tended to be in opposition to him.
Um and after Jesus had spoken in a loop.
Chapter 12 I mean I'm sorry Luke Chapter 11. Sorry with verse 37 we see that after Jesus had spoke it says this now when he had spoken a Pharisee, asked him to have lunch with him.
And he went in and reclined at the table. Now if you've been a pastor or your pastor, you kind of know what's going on. The menu may not be what Jesus is initially expecting, because when it pastures often time asked for lunch. That means what's on the menu is roast pastor, and they usually you're invited because they want to deal with some subject that they're not too happy with you about. Well, the unfortunate thing for these Pharisees, and.
And religiously lawyers? Is that the menu is going to change from roast Jesus to roast Pharisees and lawyers.
And so, after having been invited to lunch and Jesus reclining at the table, it says.
And when the Pharisees saw.
And he was surprised.
That he had not first.
Ceremony washed before the meal you see before in the Jewish custom is it is important to do a ceremonial washing as it is actually to have hygiene. And Jesus wasn't participating in their ceremony. And so since Jesus is this rabbi, they don't understand why Jesus doesn't comply with ceremony. So obviously Jesus can't be as holy and clean as he claims to be.
Jesus sees right at the heart.
But the Lord said to him.
Now you Pharisees, clean the outside of the Cup.
And the platter but inside of you you are full of robbery and wickedness. So Jesus gets right to the point he doesn't even use the analysis. So first I'm gonna use the analogy of what Jesus is saying. And then what Jesus says Jesus saying is you guys are so concerned about washing the outside of the Cup, that that's all you concentrate on.
But not the inside, and so to use kind of analogy, it's like having a Cup where you put coffee and tea and milk and various other forms of drinks and you never ever washed them.
Pretty soon it becomes disgusting.
And Moldy, and yet he sang the Pharisees of more concern about making sure the outside of the Cup is clean. But it doesn't matter about the inside, but Jesus Hammers it home even more. 'cause he doesn't go from the Cup to the Cup. He goes from the outside of the Cup to the inside of them. And he says, inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness.
You foolish ones.
Did not he who made the outside make the inside also isn't if God made the outside, he made the inside. Why are you more concerned about what's outside if God also made what's inside?
But give that which is within as charity and then all things are clean for you. Now we get the idea of Charity is being doing good works in doing good deeds and giving to charity and this sense charity is love in action.
Jesus is saying show your love and action and when you do that it doesn't matter what the outside is. You can be dirty on the outside.
But it's the inside that is important to do that, rather than be worried about ceremony.
But Jesus isn't done there.
He says what war do you Pharisees now? This is gonna come as a shock because the Pharisees are the ones or the religious leaders there, the one that everybody supposedly looks up to as being wholly and knowing where God's doing, and he's saying woe to you. You guys are in terrible danger.
Or you pay tie the Mint and rue in every kind of guard nerve and yet disregard justice and the love of God.
But those things you should have done without neglecting the others.
So Jesus goes right to the point and says you do things.
That are even far exceeding the law. The law does not regard require you to ties meant.
As other garden.
Herbs if you want to do that. But notice Jesus doesn't say don't do that. He says what you've done is you majored on the minor.
Instead, major on the major, what's the major to love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength.
And then love your neighbor as yourself and see if you do that, then do the other. That's fine.
But you're not doing.
What's required of the law to fulfill the law you have majored on the minor and therefore you need to take concern. But the Pharisees are not unlike many of us. A lot of us will major on the minor. We look at the things that we do in the things that we say rather than it is who we are or whose we are. So we need to always remember. Keep the first thing first.
And all the other things will follow into place.
And he goes on and says, what are you Pharisees, for? You love the chief seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.
What are you are you are like concealed tunes and the people who walk over them or unaware of it.
Jesus is saying you like.
Being treated well, you like people respecting you. You like having the places of honor.
Ann
That's all that's important to you.
But in that would Jesus is saying is in essence your land mines.
When people come in contact with you, thinking that you're holy instead, you run clean because when you are in contact with a dead body under the law, you were considered unclean. So Jesus is saying every contact you have with people is like walking over to is like becoming unclean. So here these who think their super righteous and are entitled to respect and honor.
Or anything but.
Entitled to respect and honor.
Now verse 45.
Jesus.
Then start responding to. A lawyer's comment says one of the lawyers, so obviously there is several lawyers present at the lunch time as well. So one of the lawyers said to him and reply teacher when you say this, you insult us too.
Vena lawyer I. This saddens me.
This was a lawyer, should have said was.
Can you explain further?
Can you help us to understand where you're coming from or I disagree? Jesus, because I think tithing of the mint in the rue shows that we do love God more whatever. So in engage in a debate, but instead he goes.
Well, when you insult the Pharisees, you're insulting us too.
Didn't say it wasn't true, you just said you're just you're saying bad things about us.
Jesus being Jesus says, Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to insult you. That's not what he says at all. But he said, were you lawyers?
As well.
You see, I'm I'm in double problem 'cause I'm a lawyer. Enter password. One more striking I'm out but he said, what do you lawyers as well for? You wayman down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burden with one of your fingers.
You see, the scribes and the Pharisees, the lawyers had his tendency to say we're going to protect the law, so we're going to make all kinds of rules and regulations that you can't violate so that you can ever violate the law. And then we get so concerned about the rules and regulations. We forget that the rules and regulations were there to benefit.
The law, so I'll give you an example.
Of the law says that you're not to do any laborious work on the Sabbath.
So they created a rule that says that you could not go past a certain distance.
Otherwise, that would be violation of the law, so it was called a Sabbath day journey.
So if you had a friend who lived outside that Sabbath day journey, and let's say that friend is sick, you couldn't visit him because you would be violating the law. You've made it more difficult to do what it is God wants you to do to love your neighbor because you can't.
Do that, I've heard it said from a reliable source that in Jerusalem, in Israel, even today.
That on the Sabbath.
If you're in a high rise building, every button on the elevator is pushed.
To go up and down. So if you're on the 20th, four of a of a high rise and you want to get to the lobby, you stop on every floor going down. And when you return, you stop on every floor going up now.
My office.
Is in a high rise.
Currently my office is on the 12th floor.
I don't consider pushing a button work.
I don't pay. I don't charge any my clients for pushing the button. I'm arriving to work.
To work.
But it's not work to push a button as far as I'm concerned. Walking up 12 flights of stairs would be work.
Not pushing a button, but you see that they are so concerned about not violating the law that they do all of these things, so it's kind of like to use another analogy is that you have.
A 90 pound weakling trying to build up their muscles and they're struggling with a 20 pound weight to build up muscles.
What the lawyers do is not, say let me help you. Maybe I'll lift up one side and that 20 pounds will now be 10 pounds and you'll get more exercising. So let me add another 10 pounds of the bar.
They don't help. They hinder and Jesus, and that's your problem. You're not helping, you're hindering, but then he's going to go on further with them.
What are you?
Are you build the tombs of the profits and it was your father's who killed them?
So you are witnesses an approved the deeds of your father's because it was they who killed them and you build their tombs and then you pretend to honor the profits by building the tombs of the profits. But you're agreeing with your father's in the very act of killing the profits and persecuting him. So Jesus, just because you built a tune, doesn't get you off the hook because you still follow the path and teaching.
Ann
Characteristics of your father's.
For this reason also the wisdom of God's that I will send to them, prophets and Apostles, and some of them they will kill, and some of them they will persecute, so that the blood of all the profits said, since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation, from the blood of able to the blood of Zachariah, who was killed between the altar and the House of God.
Yes, I tell you it shall be charged against this generation.
Now this is an amazing whoa. This is an amazing accusation in judgment. Jesus is first said.
The wisdom of God now endure. If you look at the Commentaries, they'll argue about what the wisdom of God is they're talking about, like in proverbs wisdom goes out.
I think it's simply means the wisdom of God. It means that God knew what he was doing.
So God sent.
Profits, not knowing that they would kill him, but knowing that he was going to provide a warning to them.
So the wisdom of God says you are without excuse because I sent you profits I sent to you apostles. I sent you various people to warn you to get back on the path, and you refused.
So it's the wisdom of God. It says it wasn't foolish, this it was wisdom that God used the profits and the Apostles.
And then he says that.
That you first him and then he says that this whole generation is going to be accountable.
For the blood from able, which I find interesting, 'cause when you read Genesis I doubt many people think that able was a Prophet.
And yet it says that the blood of able speaks more distinctly.
So even in Abels death he declares righteousness of God. So from the beginning of creation, until the blood of Zachariah. Now there is a discussion of which Zachariah this means. Some people say, well, this is Zachariah is concluded at the end of the histories, and so it's from Genesis to the end of the histories for the Jewish people. Others say no, it's a zachariah, that's.
It's another person that we're talking about, and the third group says there was another person in Jesus contemporary time who died and Jesus saying from that point until contemporary.
I kinda not follow that view. Why because of Jesus wanted to make a comment I would have said from able to John.
As John was the greatest of the profits, but then Jesus would later say, but those the least in the Kingdom of Heaven are greater than John. So if Jesus wanted the tire Bolt from this point at this one, then I would've thought he would've said from able to John. He says that right, but whatever he saying that Jesus saying from the complete set of profits.
You are accountable for their blood. Why is it that they're accountable for their blood? Because something greater than able? Is there something greater than Zachariah? Is there something greater than Moses? Was there something greater than David? Was there something greater than Elijah? Was there something greater than Enoch? Was there? And that was Jesus?
And the Scriptures, and you might say, well, this is a tough and boy is it bad for that generation?
Well, let me tell you this, the scripture says.
It if you trampled under foot the blood of Jesus.
You are responsible.
Because God sent his son as a ransom or you, and if you reject that you are guilty of his blood.
And I would much rather be responsible for able Zachariah and for the blood of Jesus.
What are you lawyers?
Where you have taken away the key of knowledge you yourselves are not enter.
And you hindered those.
We're entering.
What I believe Jesus is saying is what Paul learned.
You see, the lawyers were so enamored with the law. It's also they looked at was the law that Paul knew that the purpose of the law was to be a schoolmaster to teach us the need of Jesus.
That we needed someone to die in our place to forgive us our sins because the law could not do that. The law was simply to point us for the need of a savior.
And the problem is the lawyers, even though it was their duty to understand the law, it was their duty to teach the law. Instead, they didn't bother understanding the law or to teach it properly.
That's why the scriptures warned us that it is a very serious thing to teach the Scriptures, because then you are held accountable for what you teach.
The lawyers the religious lawyers.
Didn't teach.
The purpose of what God intended them to learn. Instead they obstructed. Instead they hit it.
Looking at the law as something that the law was in and of itself that the law was the savior when the law was never instituted to be savior, but the point.
To the savior.
So he.
Jesus.
If you want Lamb Bass.
The spare season describes. He tells them that they.
Are dirty on the inside, although that they spend all their time cleansing the outside. He tells them that they major on the minor.
He tells them.
That their land mines, he tells the lawyers.
That they are accountable that they're no better than the others. That they have blood guilt that they don't help. Those who need help understanding. Instead they create more obstacle. And he tells the lawyers.
That
They.
Didn't see wisdom.
They entered it.
And so.
There are a couple of ways that the Pharisees and scribes, the lawyers, would respond.
Similarly, the way that you and I and respond when Jesus says.
You know you're lacking in something.
You can either self justify.
Or you can repent.
So when we are confronted with whether we major on the minor.
We should repent.
And major on the major, and to do the minor again. Jesus doesn't say it's not important to do what you're doing. The problem is what you're doing is not that important.
So they could have repented.
Are they simply could have?
Said
We reject the idea that they take even a third option.
And when you left there.
Describes in the Pharisees began to be very hostile.
And to question him.
Mostly on many subjects, plotting against him to catch him in something he might say. So from that point, and rather than examining what Jesus had taught, rather than examining whether what he said about them was true.
They decided to get rid of Jesus.
So from that time on, they became not interested in what he was saying so much.
Even though when they were interested, they still ignore him in the sense of they didn't take his teachings as valid.
But now they are seeking to find a way to eliminate him.
They become hostile. Plotting against him, you catch him.
And the problem is, as we will say, many weeks from now.
You're never able to catch him in anything.
He's the one who has to say.
It is as you say.
In order to be condemned.
But I'll spend the remainder of Jesus Ministry.
Not trying to understand Jesus.
Not trying to understand what he means.
By Grace.
But to oppose him.
The plot against him.
And it's no wonder that in that generation.
That they are held accountable.
Because it was the law that pointed to Jesus, it was the Prophet that pointed to Jesus and they were so proud of building tombs.
Instead of hearing the one that the father sent.
And so my admonition to you and to Maine.
So not only here Jesus.
Not only to listen to him.
But then to take a look at what's on on the inside.
Make sure that it's clean.
Make sure that it's forgive and make sure that we understand what he teaches.
And follow what he says.
As opposed.
Rejecting him.
So I encourage you.
To take a look at this one.
To invite him.
Or lunch.
But not for the purpose.
Of having roast Jesus.
But for the purpose.
Of knowing him.
And the power of his resurrection.
And the Fellowship of his suffering.
And all God's people said.