Woes! | Under Pressure

Woes! W -O -E -S! That is the title of my sermon

today, so I want to have a little fun with this.

When... Do we either hear or when you hear that

word woe, when do you use that maybe in your

life? Maybe you don't use it a whole lot. Maybe

you use it more in the W -O -A -H in your life.

Woe that way. So let's have a little bit of a

back and forth. So when do we use this woe or

woes or woe? It all depends on your inflection.

When do we use this kind of phrasing in our life?

Woe is me. Absolutely, right? When we're feeling

maybe down about ourself or a sad clown, you

know, those kind of things, woe is me. Absolutely.

When else? Yeah. When Larry gets too close to

another car. All right. Well, that took a turn.

No pun intended. All right. Yep. And he's not

even here to defend himself. All right. Fair

enough. Yeah. All right. When else? In the back.

Oh, okay. So that's what I hear like with kids,

right? Siblings, right? All of a sudden someone

does something, the other sibling goes, oh, you're

in trouble. And they say it gleefully, which

I think is very much Satan incarnate. Others.

How many of you go straight to Uncle Jesse from

Full House? That's where I go, right? I go to,

whoa, right? Absolutely. Thank you, Lisa. Yep,

at least one of you. Or maybe like, whoa, tomorrow

I turn 40. You know, stuff like that. Those kind

of woes. Where else? What? A big fish taking

your drag. Okay, I don't even know what that

means. But, yeah. A fish in a drag. Great. Taking

it. Maybe that's a smoking thing. I have no idea.

But fish taking a drag. Went out. I can envision

myself in two years in the church parking lot

with Joey learning to drive using this word a

lot. Right? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't worry

about the graveyard. They're already dead. But

understand that woe can be used for many different

things. Jesus is going to use this very specifically.

Because this pressure that he's going to bring,

the woe is more of a warning. But these are warnings

that are not new to the people of Israel. Because

woes were used a ton in the Old Testament. This

was one of the main jobs of the prophets, major

and minor, right? That was one of their jobs,

were to bring the woes. Which was God's like,

be careful. You're about to do this or woe when

you do this. God being all knowing, right? God

seeing that, knowing what they are going to do.

He warns them and he does the same thing today.

And the pressure, this kind of particular pressure

comes from, that we're going to talk about today,

comes kind of something we bring upon ourselves.

Because one of the woes we saw in the minor prophets.

We saw that before Lent in that sermon series.

We see now is when faith becomes a performance.

That is what Jesus is going to call out today

in a very specific way. We talked about that

in one of the Minor Prophets, that when our faith

becomes performative, when we feel like we're

doing it for an audience or we're kind of getting

into our faith character, or that alter ego where

we have Monday through Saturday gym, but then

Sunday gym is very different. When faith becomes

a performance, this... brings a pressure. The

pressure to look like everything is fine, okay,

just right, whatever. Just enough for people

to look for someone else to have an issue. The

pressure to appear spiritual. High, lofty, that

piety, false sense of piety. A pressure to maintain

an image that we have it all together. The pressure

for our online self and our real self to not

be the same always. Right? We have that pressure.

Sometimes the hardest place to be honest is the

very place where honesty needs to be. That honesty

in those moments should really be the first thing

we walk through. And this is the tension that

Jesus walks in in a very lengthy, there's a lot

of scripture here this morning, in Luke chapter

Luke 11 · chapter mention

11. You see, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner.

Now. I have a sermon series set for, I believe,

fall of 28 called Dinner with Jesus that I'm

really excited about. I may bring it in to even

maybe this year, if not beginning of next year,

where we're going to look at all the dinner passages

that Jesus gets brought into because they're

fascinating. On the surface, this seems like

a polite conversation, though it's a weird ask,

but Jesus goes. But under the surface, there's

a pressure to this dinner. This is a pressure

cooker. Because the Pharisees had mastered the

art of religious appearance. Everything looks

great. Right? We get the china out just for when

the queen comes over. Said nobody ever. But we

do it for appearances. There's no way they're

going to eat on the paper plates when Jesus is

around. They knew the rituals. The Pharisees

knew the language. They could speak the Christianese

or the Templeese. They knew how to look faithful.

But they're literally trying to pull one over

on the Son of Man. Something we learned about

two weeks ago. At the dinner table, Jesus is

going to do something shocking. He is going to

warn them with woes. W -O -E -S. Not something

that usually is done at a dinner table. They're

not curses. They're warnings. Grieving warnings

spoken to people whose religion had become an

empty practice. What does that mean today? When

you go to church, yet there is nothing changing

in your life. You're just going to stay status

quo. You're going to come. You're going to serve.

You're going to worship. You're going to do the

nursery. You're going to do whatever. Nothing

is making a difference because faith has become

empty. Under this pressure, Jesus exposes. The

most uncomfortable thing we can walk in in our

lives. Hypocrisy. That hypocrisy plagues the

church. Then, it plagues the church. Now, and

what we know from our study in Revelation a couple

years ago, it will plague the church in the future.

So let's dive in. Luke 11. Again, there's going

to be a lot of scripture here. A lot of slides.

We're going to start with verse 37 of Luke chapter

Luke 11 · chapter mention

11. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked

him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined

at the table. 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. You fools!

Did not he who made the outside make the inside

also? But give as an alms those things that are

within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

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. Woe to you, Pharisees.

That's second. For you love the best seat in

the synagogues and greetings in the marketplace.

Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves

and people walk over them without knowing it.

One of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in

saying these things you insult us also. So he

continues, he said, Woe to you lawyers also,

sorry Garrett, for you load people with burdens

hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch

the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to

you, for you have built tombs of the prophets

whom your fathers killed. You are witnesses,

and you consent to deeds of your fathers, for

they killed them, and you build their tombs.

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 generation,

from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah,

who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.

Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this

generation. Woe to you, lawyers, for you have

taken away the key of knowledge. You did not

enter yourselves, and you hinder those who are

entering. As he went away from there, the scribes

and the Pharisees began to press him hard and

to provoke him to speak about many things, lying

in wait for him to catch him saying something

he might say. In the meantime, when so many thousands

of people had gathered together that they were

trampling one another, he began to say to his

disciples first, Beware of the leaven of the

Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered

up that will not be revealed, or hidden that

will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have

said in the dark shall be heard in the light,

and whatever you have whispered in private rooms

shall be proclaimed on the housetops. There's

a lot there. A lot to that conversation. The

first pressure point that Jesus enters right

away and calls out is that external religion

can hide an unchanged heart. Six, seven different

woes in just that dinner conversation. That brings

a lot more pressure than the Thanksgiving dinner

that may turn political or when all of a sudden

the black sheep of the family shows up and no

one thought they were. There's tension to all

of those conversations. Jesus is bringing it,

it seems, upon himself. But Luke tells us that

Jesus reclined at the Pharisees' table without

performing the ceremonial washing expected before

the meal. There's immediate tension. The Pharisees

are shocked. Probably not really. Not because

Jesus was unclean, but because Jesus ignored

their tradition. And Jesus responds directly

to it. He knows their hearts, right? Calls him

by name. We sang it, but he knows their hearts.

You Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup

and the dish, but inside you are full of greed

and wickedness. In other words, the outside looks

clean, but Pharisees, Munster Church, Pastor

Jim, the inside is not. Jesus is not condemning

cleanliness, my friends. He is exposing the danger

of external religion without internal. That's

the first pressure. He is exposing. And none

of us should be comfortable with that. We hide

these sins, right? We keep them to ourselves.

We hide them locked in some room in our soul.

And what Jesus does, because he can, he exposes

them. This is the pressure of appearances. We

struggle with this in the church. We've struggled

with this for centuries in the church. We learn

how to say the right things. We learn how to

act the right way. But our hearts remain untouched.

You know what I'm talking about. It's that group

of boxes we check. Went to church, check. In

our youth ministry, went to catechism, check.

Went to Sunday school, check. Served on this

committee, check. Had been an elder, check. Deacon,

check. Did all the things, check, check, check.

Jesus doesn't care about the checks. Jesus cares

about your heart. The Heidelberg Catechism reminds

us in Lord's Day 2, from where do we know our

sin and our misery? From the law. From God's

word. God's law does not merely examine behavior.

It examines the heart. And when the heart is

examined, appearances can no longer hide the

truth. Now, if you're uncomfortable, I get it.

I'm uncomfortable. Because when we talk about

exposing things, especially in 2026, it is gotcha

journalism all over the place. Everybody wants

to, everyone wants to gotcha, wants that gotcha

moment, right? Whether it's someone running for

office or someone getting popular online, everybody

wants to expose something they do just to knock

them down in a place that absolutely none of

us should take. We talk about it a lot in seminary

that when you become a pastor, right, you live

in a glass house. What does that mean? That means,

well, you're in a job that for the most part

is on 24 -7, 365, right? I know a lot of you

think it's one day a week. That's fine. It's

not. But understand that everything really can

be exposed or seen for the most part. I don't

fully agree with that because it's, you know,

I don't know how many of you drive by our house

just for the heck of it. You wouldn't raise your

hand even if you wanted to. Thank you, Eli. That's

weird. And so understand that, you know, it's

not just pastors. It should be every believer,

right? Every believer lives in glass houses,

and when we want to stand in judgment and throw

those stones out of our glass house, what we

fail to realize is our windows break first. You

go to the woman caught in the act of adultery.

Though without sin, cast the first stone. Jesus

is not calling it out to the regular people today,

though he is for the sermon. He is calling out

the religious ones. This was the religious elite,

quote unquote, but he's really calling out the

church. Pressure point two, religion without

mercy becomes oppression. Then Jesus goes on

this dialogue, this monologue, if you will, of

woes. Woe to you Pharisees. So let's break down

this word woe. Woe, though we had a lot of fun

with it in the beginning of the sermon, it's

not simply anger, but there's grief to it. This

is an emotive word. It is a cry of someone who

sees destruction coming. Right? There's so many

uses that we see in this word, but biblically

what Jesus is talking about is he is seeing their

destruction coming, and he's verbalizing it.

Now, that's met with a mix of emotions. That

could be met with, praise the Lord, I'm so glad.

I needed that stop sign in my life. I needed

that yield sign in my life. I needed that do

not pass go, do not collect $200 in my life.

But for some of us, we get angry. How dare you

tell me what the future is going to hold? How

dare you try to navigate my path? Though I pray

to you for doing that, I don't really want you

to because I want to guide my own path. I want

to draw that own path for myself. Jesus points

out the Pharisees' meticulous attention to the

tiny little details. They tithe their herbs,

their mint, but they neglect justice or the love

of God. In other words, they observe the minor

rules while ignoring the heart of God's law.

And Jesus then addresses it in front of them.

He addresses it to the lawyers, the experts of

the law, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes.

You load people with burdens hard to bear. The

religion becomes too heavy. It gets corrupted.

Instead of helping people walk with God, the

leaders had created a system that actually crushes

them. The Heidelberg Catechism reminds us in

Lord's Day 44 that the law ultimately exposes

our inability to keep it perfectly and should

drive us to Christ. But what does Satan do? Satan

uses that guilt to try to drive you away from

Christ. And there's the tension. You see, the

Pharisees have reversed the purpose. Hear this

point. Instead of leading people to grace, they

buried people under the rules. They couldn't

receive it or keep it, so they sure were going

to make other people not be able to receive it

or follow it. And that is the hypocrisy, and

that's our third point. Hypocrisy resists the

truth. Jesus continues his warnings by pointing

out Israel's history. The prophets were rejected

again and again. We know this. We've talked about

this, Munster Church. And now the same pattern

is happening. He sees it in the temple. The religious

leaders claim to honor the prophets, but their

batting average is very poor. The past does not

support their present claims. They are plotting

against the very one the prophets talked about.

All the prophets were pointing to Jesus. And

as we see, they were plotting to kill him. Because

friends, the truth is hypocrisy will always resist

truth. It feeds itself on lies. It feeds itself

on the fake. That's how hypocrisy works. Truth

exposes the heart. Luke tells us that from this

moment forward, the leaders begin pressing Jesus

hard. There's a turn in the narrative. It wasn't

just, okay, let's see if this guy's going to

be consistent in his answers. It's going to be,

now we're going to put the pressure on to snuff

him out. Right? The hits just keep on coming

for Jesus. The pressure around Jesus intensifies,

and the reason here is simple. Jesus' truth is

threatening their way of life. So we can talk

about the Pharisees and the pastors and all the

religious elite, but let's talk about all of

us now in 2026 who claim Jesus. The same holds

true. I could be a great Christian for about

95 minutes on a Sunday. But every other day,

people wouldn't even know. Friend, that's hypocrisy.

When we try to hide, that is showing what we

actually believe about God. And at the end of

the day, it's that he's not God. If we try to

hide, if you try to play hide and seek with someone

that's omniscient and omnipresent, it's not God

who's the fool. It's us. And that's the fourth

point, that nothing stays hidden forever. Jesus

then turns to his disciples and says, Beware

of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Leaven spreads quietly. It starts small, but

eventually takes over. How do I know? I have

a very good friend who loves to bake, and I've

learned so much from her outright anger about

baking, right? I think she is at 74, right? 74,

what are those called? Spatulas. She is broken

because baking gets her. It's not Bethany. I

won't tell you who it is. It's Cheyenne. But

understand that she is such an intense baker.

It is like spiritual for her, and I love watching

it, right? Because A, the product is really tasty,

right? It's really, really good. But there is

a thing you have to kind of beat into submission

when it comes to baking. My wife does it as well.

My sons are learning it. Way not from me. Mine

is called DoorDash. And so understand that there's

an art to it, but leaven, if you don't handle

it the right way, much like yeast, it takes over.

It starts small. Just like hypocrisy. Hypocrisy

doesn't necessarily start in the grandstand.

It starts with that still small lie. That little

rumor. That misdirection. And it grows. Jesus

warns that one day everything hidden will be

revealed. Nothing is covered up that will not

be revealed. Every mask eventually falls. Every

hidden motive is exposed. The reality really

should humble us, should terrify us, should make

us cling to God more. Because, let's be honest,

none of us are immune to hypocrisy. So if you're

feeling that binding, if you're thinking, how

in the world did Jim know my week? I don't, but

I know mine, and I'm saying it to me first. I

think it's a lot easier to live with the mask

off, right? I say that knowing I don't always

believe that. But when the mask falls off, something

happens. There is good news in the woes. Yeah,

the Pharisees we know won't get it, except for

one, right? We get one in Nicodemus. He does

get it. That's another rhyme for another time.

But because if everything hidden will eventually

be revealed, it could be terrifying. If there

wasn't something, in good Reformed theology,

we cling to this word. Does anyone know what

it is? We sing about it. It's really amazing.

Grace. Everything hidden will eventually be revealed,

and it could be terrifying if there wasn't grace.

And that is where the gospel enters. Lord's Day

23. God grants and credits to me the perfect

satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of

Christ. In other words, the gospel does not depend

on our ability to maintain a perfect image. It

depends on Christ's perfect righteousness. The

gospel has never been about me. It has never

been about you. It's never been about Munster

Church. It should define who we are. Jesus exposes

hypocrisy not to destroy sinners. And friends,

let's be honest, he could. He could have left

that, much like some movie I'm sure is out there.

He could have just lit that match, everyone in

that place dies, and he just goes out to really

cool music. But he doesn't. Jesus exposes it

so we recognize it, so we confess it and be rescued

by him. The same Savior who confronted the Pharisees

will soon carry their sin, our sin, the sins

of the hypocrites, the rebels, and the failures

on the cross. Which means the Christian life

is not about pretending to be righteous. If you're

here today and you love pretending to be righteous,

I'm going to lovingly say, whoa! Stop. Let it

go. Jesus wants you to be real with him. Why

would he not want you to be real with others?

If we can be a church, if we can be a people

that lead with our limp, with where we fall short,

where our need of grace is, I think that's the

right thing. Because then, guess what? We just

get to point to the cross. It's not me who built

this. It's not you who built this. It's not me

that sustains. I am nothing without the grace

of Christ in my life. It's about trusting the

one who is righteousness. Because friend, in

Christ, so many good things come. And it usually

starts with the mask falling off. Because grace

is greater than all of our hidden and public

sin. Right? We sing that great song. Grace, grace.

God's grace. It is so amazing. That's why they

wrote a song about it. So what does that mean

for then and now? Like, what does that mean?

How do we walk in this grace? Well, then the

religious leaders trusted appearances and Jesus

exposed the hearts. Now, we live in a world of

curated images and spiritual performance. We

see it all over the place. My Christianity just

needs to be the 15 seconds on my Instagram or

my TikTok or my social medias. We've learned

how to actually connect with people so I can

try to craft for them what I'm like. And then

never really have anyone get to know me. How

lonely that is. How fake that is. You want people

to fall in love with a mask? Think of the hurt

when the mask falls off. But Christ calls us

to something different. I'm going to give a couple

words. I'm giving to myself first, but I'm giving

them for you as well, for us to walk through

it together. What does he call us to? He calls

us to honesty. He's calling us to repentance.

He's calling us to faith. Really, it's the faith.

Of our understanding of who Jesus is, of what

Jesus has done for us, and how he should be the

center of our lives in everything that we do.

Because if we truly believe that, if we truly

have that faith, Lord's Day 7, right, talks about

this gut, this knowledge, but this conviction

deep down in my gut that this is real. That Jesus

is real and he's doing something about my life.

and the people around me, the gospel should free

us from the art of pretending. Because when your

identity is about pretending, friend, that's

not a real identity. That is a fake identity.

Because our identity is not built on our performance.

Never has been, never will be. Our identity should

and solely be built on Christ's righteousness.

That is how we walk out the life of a believer.

That is how we can follow God's word even in

the uncomfortability. Follow him through the

woes and the stops. Follow him to the well done's.

To the good and faithful servants. Because I'll

close with this. This faith is real. It is. Jesus

does not call us to perfect. appearance. Stop

striving for perfection. That's never been the

call. The call has been always will be holiness

and an understanding of grace. He calls us to

authentic faith. A faith that confesses sin.

A faith that receives grace. A faith that trusts

Christ more than our own reputation. More than

our own successes. more than our own finances,

more than our own potential building projects,

more than all those things that, as he says in

the book of Matthew, moth and rust will destroy.

This faith recognizes we need grace for ourselves

and to give it to others. Because when the pressure

reveals our hearts, when that hypocrisy is exposed,

guess what? Grace is right there to meet it.

And the Savior who sees everything is the Savior

that will forgive you everything. And I don't

know about you, but that's the kind of person

I want to be. I believe that's the kind of person

we want to be. When we come in, we don't have

a list of things you have to look like, smell

like, act like in order to have a seat here.

Because Jesus doesn't do that. Yeah, there's

truth. We need to abide by this truth. I say

it all the time. We can't say, I'm a follower

of Jesus, but I murder a little. Right? It doesn't

work. But church isn't about maintaining a list

of rules. It's about receiving grace upon grace

upon grace upon grace upon grace because I need

it. Because you need it. And when we all can

confess that together, guess what? It's level

at the foot of the cross. And that is where Jesus

really starts to work. So if you have a woe in

your life, stop. Look. Listen. He's telling you

that for a reason. Lean in and find out what

it is. Let's pray.