The Weightier Matters of the Law - Levi Baer

I wished to greed each one of you in Jesus name. Welcome to each

of you, the home folks, visitors. Good to see you all here.

I think there's more home folks home today than we have had in a

while, so that's good. Seems like the busy season is upon us.

I feel like already this morning my heart is full of many different aspects of

the Christian life to consider already, and a lot of what we have heard

today. I really appreciated the devotional at the beginning there, and also the

Sunday School, and so many of these things I felt like tied into what

I would like to share. If you want to turn in your bibles to

twenty third chapter of Matthew's Gospel, that's where we will take the message this

morning. Maybe before we go any further here, I ask an interest in

your prayers as we attempt to share what God has laid on my heart.

I feel like, for some reason or another over the last weeks months,

that especially, that the devil has a keen interest in my life and in

the life of my family, And for whatever reason, I've let maybe an

aspect of depression come into my life, and I want to acknowledge as depression

is sin, it's it's having a lack of faith. And yesterday, as

I needed some fresh air from studying, I was out outside fertilizing the sweet

corn and thinking about what God had laid in my heart. M hm.

And for some reason or another, all the sudden I heard some gravel crunching

and a vehicle pulls into the driveway. And Saturdays, it's not very common

to hear people driving in and out, and a car, sure enough,

it came all the way in and pulled up right onto the parking spot in

front of the garage. Didn't recognize the vehicle. A man got out,

and at that distance I wasn't quite sure who it was, but I heard

him make an exchange at the front door with my wife. He was looking

for me, and I stopped long enough to realize that it was a friend

of mine that doesn't live here, and an old acquaintance that I have known

from a boy And he said he didn't want to interrupt me, but I

heard my wife say, we'll just go talk to him. He'll take the

time, he'll make the time he needs to take the time to just talk

to you. And so we did, and he met me with a hug

and a warm greeting, and he said he felt like the Spirit led him

to come talk to me. He said he felt like I needed some encouragement.

And I don't think he knew what all was going on inside of my

heart at that time, but we just had We just caught up for a

while. We had a good conversation. He didn't have much time, but

when we left, he put his arm around me again and he wanted to

pray with me. That he'd realize then that I was studying to this morning,

and he wanted to pray for me in that regard. And somehow a

fog lifted off of me, and I realize that Jesus really cares about what

is going on in our life. He really cares. And that's Them are

the kind of them, are the kind of circumstances. Them are the kind

of instances that give us faith to take the next step. I don't know

when I will ever see that person again, but I do have faith that

he is a man that is following God because he listened to the spirit.

And that is a lesson for me as well. Do we listen, Do

we stop and take the time when the Spirit speaks to us in your Bible's

Matthew twenty three. I would like to begin just by reading verse twenty three

through twenty nine, and I will refer to many more of the verses that

are in this chapter as we go on, But just to give you a

little idea of the setting here, let's read these verses. In Verse twenty

three says woe unto you Jesus talking to the Pharisees, scribes and pharisees hypocrites,

for you pay tithe of mint and a nice and coomin and have omitted

the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These

ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye

blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, will unto

you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites. For you make clean the outside of the

cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter,

that the outside of them may be clean. Also want to use scribes

and pharisees hypocrites. If you're like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful

outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.

Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within your full of

hypocrisy and iniquity. Want to use scribes and pharisees hypocrites, because you build

the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous. Will stop

there for now, but I would like to get in the message this morning.

From verse twenty three, I'll read it one more time. It says

wall unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of

mint and a nice and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the

law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These aught et I've done,

and not to leave the other undone. The title this morning is a weightier

matters of the law, the weightier matters of the law. I was reading

through this Gospel sometime back, and for some reason, this term that Jesus

used here, this sentence, jumped off the page at me, and I

had to think, this is Jesus Christ himself that said these words, How

can we go wrong with the words of Jesus. What does he consider the

weightier words of the law, the important the important part of the law.

Matters of the law, I should say. And the three things that he

names here are judgment, mercy, and faith. A little backdrop to this

situation here, not long before this is where Jesus came into the temple and

he ushered out dismissed the people that were there buying and selling. Somewhere,

I'm not sure where it gives us that impression that he threw the money tables

over he didn't have a lot of time for what was going on in the

desecration of his temple. How does that line up with showing mercy? I

think it's the same idea as this word woe that he uses eight times in

this chapter. What does this word woe mean? A condition of deep suffering

from misfortune, affliction, or grief? This term woe here used by Christ.

It comes from his heart of love to broken men, broken men that

are stubborn and blind to the important laws of God. What is this law

that he's talking about? What is this weightier matter of the law? I

believe it simply refers to the law of Moses and the prophets the Law of

God. A little bit more on the backdrop. I mentioned that he had

just not long before this dismissed them from the temple. So think about what

was going through these Pharisees, scribes and Pharisees, these devout religious Jews.

I don't think there was a lot of fuzzy feelings exchange between them and Jesus

at this point. You know, he was coming into the temple, he

was preaching, he had a following of people, and before the temple situation,

he had rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, and these people obviously were

there and witnessed this scene of him writing in and the people that shouted Hosanna,

Hosanna. Think how that made these people feel. Who was this carpenter

from Nazareth that had so many people that we were worshiping him? Think about

that, how that would have affected the threat that they would have felt to

their religion. It appears here in verse in chapter twenty three that Jesus had

some feelings of his own toward these men. I think at the heart of

Jesus it was love, like we mentioned, but he also I believe it

was very turned off at these men. In fact, he goes on to

call them all kinds of names, just a few of them. He calls

them hypocrites, blind guides, fools, whited sepulchers, describes them as dead

men's bones. Towards the end of the chapter, it seems like he leaves

nothing to the imagination. Calls them serpents and generation of vipers. Imagine how

he's saying this to these men that believe themselves to be right religious, devout

orthodox? Do we get the idea by now that Jesus struggled to appreciate what

these men were after back to our texts verse there it says, you have

tied on herbs. The fact is is that was going over and beyond the

law. They weren't even required to tithe on herbs. But according I guess,

these men thought that. These Pharisees thought that if some tithings good,

more is better? Is that how we feel? Is that how we view

our Christian walk? But he doesn't necessarily cast judgment on them for tithing on

the herbs. He said, these ought you to have done, but not

to leave the other undone. And that is the key this morning for us

is to not throw everything out together? Why is it so hard for human

beings to have both to have the image of God and a life that lines

up with God? Verse twenty four. He makes an interesting little illustration here,

like Jesus does so many times. He says, you blind guides,

which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Just for interest sake,

I believe in the Hebrew translation it says strained out a gnat. The idea

of that is when these people strained their wine, they poured it through a

cloth into their vessel, and it would strain the gnats out, because obviously

gnats are attracted to sweet things, and so that's kind of the idea behind

this. That's where Jesus got this idea of a gnat. Like I've already

wondered, like, what's what's up with a gnat and a camel? Well,

another thing, obviously, is that they're at each end of the size

spectrum, and they're both were considered unclean. A gnat is an insect,

but there they were considered unclean. And here he just makes this illustration to

say, you worry about little things that don't really matter, but you can

hardly believe that I'm preaching about the Kingdom of God, judgment, mercy,

in faith, these weighty matters. If you want to hold your spot there

at Matthew, but turned to Micah six verse eight. The New Testament has

something to say on this matter as well, just another proof that the prophets

were inspired by God. In Micah sixth verse eight, it says he hath

showed thee o man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of

thee But to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with

Thy God. Faith and humility go hand in hand. This right here in

Micah versus chapter six, verse eight. It is a very essence of following

God. He has showed the od man what you should do. These are

the principles that should be the focus of our life. Judgment, mercy,

and faith. We will look more at these three here a little bit later.

But I want to go back to these Pharisees a little bit more and

try to just take some lessons from their life for us. For me,

I guess another reason that this message kind of weighed on my heart is because

I've seen so much of these Pharisees in my life. In what ways were

the pharisees omitting the weightier matters of the law. Let's look at a few

of them here in the same chapter, in verse fourteen, Notice, woe

unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows houses,

and for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation.

Devour widows houses that took advantage of the most vulnerable human being of their

day, the widows, and for pretense make long prayers, using their religiosity

to cover their vile and immoral lives. Now, they weren't all that way.

Some of these were good men that were maybe subconsciously obeying this religion.

I don't think they were all bad people, but many of them were.

It brings to mind the popes in the dark ages, that there was so

much immorality, but so much going by the letter of the law. Notice

in verse twenty eight we read that verse aready even so you outwardly appear righteous

and command but within you're full of hi hypocrisy and iniquity. Sometimes we appear

this way consciously and sometimes subconsciously, And that's what can be somewhat scary for

us as humans is we don't always know, or we don't choose to believe,

where our heart really is. Notice one other thing in verse fifteen,

it says, won't you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites where you can compass sea and

land to make one proselyte, And when he has made you, make him

twofold more the child of Hell than yourselves, as they will go across the

world for one convict. Sounds good, right, But what they are bringing

that person to, that man was not the Kingdom of God. These were

the same man that brought the woman to Jesus to be stoned. There were

one hundred percent convinced that she deserved death, omitting the weightier matters of the

law, judgment, mercy, and faith. If you want to turn to

First Thessalonians, chapter four, I'd like to look at a verse there.

I'm sorry, it's First Thessalonians two, verse four and five. Here Paul

writing. And I'm quite sure that Paul knew a thing or two about the

religion of the Pharisees. Remember that's what he was himself before his conversion,

and throughout Paul's writings, that great apostle. This is sprinkled through it all

that he knew exactly what the tendencies of man are. And I'm sure that

he battled with that himself in many ways. But here in second chapter first

Thessalonians four, it says, but as we were allowed of God to put

in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak not as pleasing men,

but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we

flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness. God is

witness a cloak of covetousness. This speaks about something that we put on to

look good, a cloak to appear righteous. Paul said, we didn't never,

never, once did we do this. And like I said, who

was more attuned to the Jewish laws than Paul? What is a cloak of

covetousness? I believe that it's worldly ambition and despotism hidden under the broidered garment

of high and holy calling. Does that sound familiar at all? A high

and holy office under the guise of a cloak of covetousness. This is not

a Pharisee problem. This is a human problem, human nature problem, where

they use their power and their greed to bring people under their umbrella that was

corrupt. Back to Matthew twenty three in the fourth verse says, for they

buying heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and lay them on men's shoulders,

but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Rules

for thee, but not for me. This was a very common trend of

these men. I couldn't help but think of our political world today when I

think of this. This term has been brought up more than once. It's

a human being problem. Many of these Orthodox Jews that brought all this heavy

requirements on the people did not actually follow this themselves. They did not follow

their own rules, those same ones that they enforced with so much weight.

Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I don't claim to be well

versed in how all these laws and the written Torah and the oral Torah and

how all this worked. But from what I understand, we have the written

Torah, which refers to the laws of Moses, the first five books of

the Bible, and then we have what they call the oral Torah. And

the oral Torah was things that were added down the road by these Pharisees by

these Jews, and from what I hear, from what I understand, it's

after the fall of Babylon, they felt like they needed to get some more

control, get some more rules to enforce some things for more control. I'm

not sure what all was behind it, but they had these rules, these

straining at a Gnat. Just a few. For example, one was that

they were not allowed to carry a handkerchief on Sunday on the Sabbath. I

should say, the only way they could do that is if they would sell

the handkerchief to their coat pocket, to their garment, and then it wasn't

another piece of garment, it wasn't an extra, it was sewed to their

garment. So they would do that. Another one was that they weren't allowed

to light a candle on the Sabbath. Another one was that they weren't allowed

to walk more than a Sabbath day's journey on the Sabbath. So sometimes what

they would do is they would they would go ahead, they knew where they

were going to go, and they would at certain intervals along their journey they

would put food at this person's house, and on their journey they would stop

and take that meal there and then and go further in their minds. They

were not abusing that because they were stopping along the way. Just to give

you a little insight of some of the oral Torah that went on. Now,

I'd like to look a little bit more at these three judgment, mercy,

and faith. Judgment here I believe as the idea of justice. So

if you think of it in your mind, judgment, justice, fairness,

ask yourself the question, how do you feel towards your enemies this morning?

How do you feel towards those that you feel like despise you or you despise

them? Is that reconciled in your mind? What is the state of your

relationship to those that are closest to you. I don't know about you this

morning, but I am way too quick to judge others on what I see.

We grossly misjudge people at times. That's what Jesus is saying here.

We can't see the heart. Yes, we see the fruit, but many

times what's happening is things that we know nothing about, we don't understand.

The story goes of a Mormon pastor in Salt Lake City that was driving home

from a service one night in traffic There and he came out behind another vehicle

to red light, and his foot slipped off the brake and hit the accelerator

and his car moved forward and it hit the vehicle in front of him.

Of course, he was mortally embarrassed and he wasn't sure what to do,

so he thought, well, I'll just get out and deal with the situation

the best way to know how. And he was getting ready to exit his

carridor and he sees from the vehicle in front of him this huge, hulking

man get out and come towards him. He decided to just stay right where

he was, and this man comes out there and for the next I don't

know how many minutes, absolutely abused him with the worst language you could ever

imagine, deeply humiliating for this pastor. And after the man was done,

he turned and went to his vehicle and drove away. And this pastor was

not sure what to do. He didn't like to think of a man on

the loose and the streets of Salt Lake City with that kind of a attitude.

But it was over. Sometime later, at a meeting, this pastor

was preaching the message and he noticed there in the audience this man, the

very man that with the colorful language, and he felt like he definitely needed

to talk to this man. And after that and made contact with him and

profusely apologized for his actions that day. He said, I was wrong,

completely wrong, And he went on to explain to him that he was coming

home from the hospital to his family at home with the news that their mother

had passed away, and that's where he was headed when he got rear ended.

And so this pastor he could have crawled in a crack if he would

have seen one. He felt terrible about the judgments that were cast in his

mind on this man. I can think of many times in my life where

I passed judgment way too soon. Jesus says, justice, it's not ours

to be the judge. It's not our right. The Golden rule comes into

play here, and it means a lot when it comes right down to it.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What about

in our business practices, There's many things that we can do that are completely

lawful. But turn the tables and you be the one that's receiving the bill.

I just had a little embarrassing episode here in the last months with a

brother from our church here that I accidentally overcharged, and somehow words just don't

describe it. There's no excuses at work, but the fact is it was

a mistake and no, Jean, your bills legitimate. I just didn't want

him hope, and it was him, But there's it. Just it happened

sometimes. But it was just a reminder to me to be careful. You

know what the Bible says, especially to those of the household of faith?

Does that mean anything to us? This thing of mercy? The next thing

here, the second one. I just had a conversation recently with a man

that used to be a part of this church, and we were talking about

this subject, and his feelings were that we just need to accept each other,

accept everyone, have mercy, which is true. But ringing through that

was the tolerance that the world very much thrives on today. That we tolerate

everyone and everything. And that's where there's a line is drawn. Did Jesus

tolerate the desecration of the temple? Not even close. I don't even think

he was tempted to. But I just shared with him that yes, it's

good to have. We need to be kind to each other no matter what,

but we do not tolerate what appears to be sin and following the world's

system. Is our goal in life to restore a man back to God's image,

and that's where the point of this kindness comes in. We will never

restore people if we don't actually care about them, and that our goal is

not to restore them, not to point out how wrong they are, but

to restore them to the image of God. That's where we all were at

one point in our life. Are we sensitive to the needs of others?

Maybe you think you're just naturally not that type of person. I've entertained them

thoughts before. That is no excuse to not be sensitive to the people around

us. I had to think of the rich Man and Lazarus story, another

story of Jesus making a point that in this life you have your good things.

Is that where we're at we're enjoying good things while people suffer. It

didn't turn out very well for the rich man. Lazarus ended up with much

more. I also had to think of the woman at the well that Jesus

matt the Samaritan woman that came to the well with her face covered because in

those days, women didn't want to be seen. And this woman happened to

have lived a sinful life, and Jesus knew it. She was an immoral

woman. But what did Jesus do? Did he walk away? Did he

run the other way and act like he didn't see her? It says no,

He talked to her. He led her to the well of living water.

That woman went away from the well a different person because of living water.

The last one is faith. I've mentioned earlier that faith in humility I

believe go hand in hand. We cannot have faith, a true faith in

our Almighty Father, without being humble enough to admit that we don't have the

answer. This thing of faith, it can mean so many things, it

feels like can be almost complicated. But maybe just a little explanation of how

that could affect our life this morning. Have we come to the conclusion in

our life that it is impossible to live a sin to overcome sin? We're

just sure that Jesus does not expect us to be completely free of sin.

Do we fail at times? Absolutely? But do we come back and repent

and forsake so instead of forsaking our sin, instead of overcoming because we're faithless

we wear this cloak of religion instead. Just go back to First John,

first chapter, verse nine. It says, if we confess our sins,

he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from

all unrighteousness. Revelations three twenty says, behold, I stand at the door

and knock. If any man hear my voice, I will come into him

and sup with him, and he with me. That is the desire of

Jesus this morning. That is directly opposite of what the Pharisees were practicing and

living out in their life. Back in Matthew twenty one, Jesus gives a

little incident there of the fig tree. He and his disciples were walking along

there, and he uses this as a teaching point to his disciples. A

fig tree that appeared wonderful had fully leafed out, but as they drew near

it, they realized that there was no figs on it. It was not

bearing fruit. Jesus cursed that tree and said that it will never have fruit.

We don't want to be part of being that fig tree this morning.

You know, I can stand up here and I cannot see your hearts.

In no way can I read your mind, see your hearts. As far

as I'm concerned, you're just all leafy fig trees. But God sees the

heart. Should godliness have form? Maybe that's a question that we eventually get

to, and we I've heard this passage in Matthew twenty three used to throw

out any kind of godly form many times. I don't believe that's what Jesus

was after he says that you weren't You should have not left the other one

undone second Timothy three five speaks of a form of godliness. And the fact

is that the Old Testament had many warnings on this human nature problem. In

Isaiah one eleven, God asks the question, to what purpose is the multitude

of your sacrifices? To me, God really did have a purpose for all

these sacrifices in the Old Testament ceremonial laws. But it was it was to

produce a change in the heart of man, not a change in God,

not in God, but in us. Before he send his sign to shed

his blood for us, he had these sacrifices, but it was only to

help us understand the character of God. We can never appease God with our

sacrifices. Never, even though they had their place in their day. Like

the fig tree. We can fool people, but when people get close enough

to us, they can see what we really are. Our children, our

families, our children know. They know if we're religious or if we're man

that want to be like Jesus. They are watching and they can so easily

be turned away from religion. Let's not throw religion out completely, but it

will become distasteful to them if they see mom and dad abusing it. Like

the Pharisees, the Apostles in the New Testament knew quite a bit about how

natural it is for man to cleanse outside but inwardly be ravening wolves. I

can think of people that I've known through the years that over the course of

their life, it becomes obvious of what they really are inside. I just

thought of an example of a man that when I was a boy, that

he came and he worked for my family for our business. Six ft three,

two hundred and fifteen pounds and hair the color of this pulpit, Samuel

Ethridge. He came to the Mennonite community there. I believe it would have

been a Southern Baptist background. He knew the right way and the man could

sing wonderful, he knew his Bible much better than most people in our church,

had so much going for him, very charismatic personality. But his problem

was that he could not stay clean from drugs. So he wanted the best

of both worlds. Isn't that how we do so many times come to church

do drugs or whatever it is. That's a vice to us. And I

remember I just we got him at a little apartment there in town, and

we would pick him up in the mornings to go to work early in the

summertime when it was hot, and out of that apartment when he would walk

out, the smell of marijuana would waft out. What do you do with

a man like that? I remember one day on the job he failed again,

and I remember him walking down that through entred Foot Freestall Barn where we

were pouring concrete, walk the distance and he said to my father, I'm

sorry, mister Barrett. Won't happen again. But we all knew that it

would. We all knew that it would. Or was that a lack of

faith? You know? Sometimes I wonder in them kind of instances, what

could we have done? I'm sure there was many failures to go around.

I have no idea where this man is today, no way to find him.

I'd be very surprised if he's alive, because he was in two terrible

things when we parted ways. James has a few things to say about this.

Said, if any man on you seems to be religious and bridles not

his tongue, this man man's religion is in vain. I know this is

kind of switching gears a little bit too. Our speech does betray us.

Doesn't mean that the outside doesn't matter. But what it does mean is that

it must start in the heart. Forms only of religion are our own worst

enemy. In Matthew five, verse twenty, Jesus, that accept your righteousness

exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, you will no wise enter into the Kingdom

of God, live over and above the law. Mark seven six says they

honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. I

mentioned earlier, we're coming to a busy time of the year. We're all

ferociously busy. Are we listening to the voice of God throughout our life?

What if we're wrong about how we are living out our Christianity? What if

we're wrong. What if a simple thing like riches and how we view money

keep us out of the pearly gate. I thought of the rich young ruler

there that came to Jesus, and he said, what must I do to

be saved? It's a wonderful question for all of us. And what did

Jesus say. He gave him the weighty manner matters of the law, and

the young man said, these have done all my life. You know,

he was doing really well compared to the Pharisees. But Jesus said, there's

only one problem. You need to go sell everything you have and give it

to the poor. What would we do if Jesus asked that of us,

do we even want to know what we must do? He fulfilled every commandment

but one, but one commandment is all. It takes one missed commandment and

we will miss the mark. My desire this mornings that when the return of

Christ happens, is that he will find faith on the earth, faith in

this church, faith in me. Micah six eight says to walk, to

act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. May God

bless you in the coming days as you strive to serve Him. In a

real way that is actually an anointing of the Holy Spirit in our life,

because without it, it's only a form of religion and we're missing the weightier

matters of the law. May God bless you.