Summer with Jesus Sunday Gathering

Hey, hey! Good morning.

Welcome to Church Online.

So what we are what a beautiful day.

Sometimes I wish I could sing, which is right now.

Hey, listen, everybody can sing.

We're here.

Hey, my name is Cody.

My name is Brandon.

And I believe everybody can sing.

Well, you're wrong.

It's okay.

We all can try.

Um everyone can sing at least like L.

My point is made.

Everyone can sing.

There's someone out there who can be the best worst singer.

Yep.

That's true.

That's true.

It's okay.

No, everybody's gifted in different ways.

That's fine.

That's fine.

That's true.

You're gifted in different ways.

You're gifted.

We're gifted because you're here.

That's right.

What a gift.

Love it.

We are so glad that you're here with us.

Almost like we do this professionally.

Yep.

Good job.

Maybe like Summa Pro.

Suma.

The Will Farrell reference.

Look at us.

All right.

Cool.

We are so glad you're here this morning.

Um, hope you're having a great summer.

Hope you're having a great start to your week.

Hags.

Yep.

Hope you're Hags and Hags and what we're doing.

No, no.

Okay, I'll stop.

I'll stop.

And we do, we're excited about this morning.

We're going to be continuing in just a minute our series through the Gospel of Matthew.

We're calling it Summer with Jesus.

And we're really, if you've been tracking along with us, you know that we're we're tracking along with Matthew through his gospel and watching the life of Jesus.

And so we're going to dive back into that in just a moment.

But we do want to say if you've missed any of those uh episodes, as it were.

Installments.

This series.

Yeah.

If you missed any of those sermons, we would love for you to go back and watch those on the Archives catch up.

You can check those out on the website or the app, which we love to talk about.

It's one of the things we love to talk about.

Yeah, do you uh it's my turn.

This is okay.

Uh download it.

Um open it.

Use it.

Share it all the things.

Does that cover everything?

That's great.

No, man.

The app is fantastic.

It's the general store or the striplings of apps for those local people.

Um you can get everything you need there.

You can get pickles, meats, jelly.

Oh, this isn't a commercial for striplings, sorry, but you can get all that there.

So yeah, you can take next steps.

You can join groups, you can learn about groups, you can learn about the events, you can see what's going on.

I mean, we have it all, friends.

I feel like this is a really bad infomercial.

Like somebody should be like, Billy Mays! Uh no.

Um, so the app's fantastic.

Uh, you literally can find anything that you uh need to know that's going for things that are going on in our church on the app.

Um, and yeah, we're kind of we're on the downhill stretch from summer.

Yep, but fish for kids is still happening.

Yep, it's a big thing that we're trying to partner with all summer long.

So please make sure if you haven't, um if you haven't taken a step to get involved, just check it out and just see where the Lord might be leading you to um participate within Fish Fridays this summer.

Um is that that's it?

Is that it?

I did it.

I love that.

Good job.

Well done.

Yes, well done.

Uh one of the other things you can do on the app uh is take sermon notes.

Yes, don't watch this.

No, this is what I'm about to do.

Segue.

Um, my pride that I'm missing.

We're about to jump in uh with our next installment.

I'll see what you're doing.

And here from God's landing the plane.

He's landing the plane, everybody get ready.

Buckle up.

Requesting permission for fly by the the light, the seatbelt light just came on.

We're going into our, what is it, what do they call it?

Whenever you're descent.

Yeah, yeah, that's that word.

I was just going down something on that one, right?

Yeah, it's close.

It's fine.

Land the plane.

We are we're jumping in to uh our next astomic of uh the Gospel of Matthew, Summer with Jesus.

So grab what you need, i.e.

the app, because you can take sermon notes on that guy and track along with everything going on in the sermon.

In the sermon.

Yeah.

So let's hear from God together and then we'll be back on the other side.

Nice.

Why don't I try my best?

Good job.

So well, let's jump in if you want to open your Bibles and to Matthew 23 is where we're gonna be.

We're in our Summer with Jesus series, and we've been walking through uh the gospel of Matthew, and we're hitting, you know, we're not able to go necessarily hit every story, um, but we're moving through, trying to, as the Lord has led us to um to teach on some of these specific passages.

And uh so today we're in Matthew chapter 23, um, probably about 15 years ago, my brother, my older brother, uh we we call him Butch, um, that's what he's known as.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

He and I both are have been in ministry.

He is now retired from pastoral ministry.

Uh but he and I were we're at a conference, and the leader of the conference is a pastoral leadership conference.

He he asked this question.

He said, Leaders, pastors, he said, I want you to I want you to think about what your greatest fear is.

What's your greatest fear?

And then he said, I want you to turn to your neighbor, turn to somebody next to you, and I want you to share what your greatest fear is.

When you think about ministry, what God's done in the past, what God wants for the future.

And so I had I had been reading through the gospels and had read read this passage just in a recent time, 15 years ago, and so this was on my mind, and I turned to my brother, I said, My greatest fear is that if Jesus was here today and he was preaching and teaching like he did when he was on the planet in person, my greatest fear is that I would be a 21st century Pharisee.

That's my greatest fear.

That I would be a 21st century modern-day Pharisee.

Because Jesus in this passage, he preaches hard, he teaches hard to the Pharisees.

And so last week we talked a little bit about the Pharisees.

Jesus was teaching the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 16, and then he he walked away and he separated himself and he began to invest in the disciples.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

He goes back to the disciples and then he begins to teach the masses, and so he he begins to address, and we see it all through the gospels where Jesus addresses the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees, but in this passage, Matthew 23, he really zones in on the Pharisee.

Now, what what who are the Pharisees?

What are the Pharisees?

It was a group of religious leaders of Jesus' day.

And I shared last week you had the Pharisees who were known as the conservatives.

They were the ones who wanted to follow the law to every little detail.

As a matter of fact, they got focused so much on every detail as we see in this passage, they forgot about really what their mission was about.

They forgot how to examine their own hearts and stay focused on Jesus.

And so the Pharisees were religious leaders of the day.

They were the ones who focused on the law, they focused on the scripture.

Let's follow it to every detail.

They were they were they had a high social status, they were looked up to, everybody respected them and honored them.

They would have been the last group of people that someone would have referred to as sinners.

And and they thought they focused so much on how to live right, how to live perfect.

But their focus was on behavior and performance rather than on relationship with Jesus.

Performance and behavior modification.

And so Jesus addresses the Pharisees in this passage.

You've got also the Sadducees, he doesn't address them in this passage, but you've got this religious group of leaders called the Sadducees, and they were kind of the liberals of the day.

When I'm talking, I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about theology.

The Pharisees believed in following the letter of the law, where the Sadducees, they didn't believe, they didn't believe in the literal resurrection, bodily resurrection, they didn't believe in miracles.

And so they were so far to the extreme and opposite of the Pharisees that they weren't even a part.

They didn't even earn the right to hear Jesus address them.

They're not a part of the picture, but the Pharisees had been such an influence on the religious culture and the Jewish life.

Jesus addresses them.

Matthew 23, let's read verses 1 through 7.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples.

So he's speaking to the masses and he's speaking to his disciples.

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat.

So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do, for they preach but do not practice.

They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders.

But they themselves are not willing to move them with their fingers.

They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.

They love the place of honor at feast and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

So Jesus calls out the religious leaders.

He says, You sit on Moses' seat, which is the seat of judgment, the seat where the leader of the synagogue would sit.

People would come with their issues for counseling or or or disputes with their neighbors.

And the person, the Pharisee that's sitting on the seat of Moses would give out wisdom and counsel.

But it was a it had become a seat that was really all about religion and it lost its focus on giving God the glory.

It says they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear.

They themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

And it says their phylacteries were broad and their fringes were long.

So in Jewish life, based on the law, Jewish leaders would literally tie up the they this came out of Deuteronomy from the from the law in the Old Testament.

It said, hey, tie up the word of God, wear it on your arm.

And they would literally tie a little box that had scripture in it.

You see it.

If you run into a Jewish rabbi in the airport in Atlanta or New York, uh sometimes you'll see a rabbi stop in between flights and he'll pull out his phylacteries and wrap them around his arm, and there's a little box.

They'll tie a little uh Headdress around their head with a little leather box that has scripture inside it and put it on their forehead.

And then they were given the command in numbers to wear tassels and fringes on their clothing.

And there were little knots that represented the five books of the Torah, the law, first five books in the Old Testament.

And so those were meant to be reminders that they should always be surrendering their heart and focusing on the promises and the word of God and for you to always make sure that you examine yourselves, but but they would wear their tassels long so people could see that they were religious.

And the longer your tassels, the more righteous you were considered.

And they would wear their phylacteries wide on their head and big on their arm.

But they'd lost their way and forgotten about the core of following and loving the Lord.

Matthew 23, 11 and 12, Jesus says, The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Whoever exalts himself will be humble, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And so Jesus is calling out the Pharisees.

They have focused on performance and behavior rather than heart transformation.

And so Jesus is calling them out.

He's rebuking them in this chapter.

And he gives what we call the seven woes, seven woes that are rebukes from Jesus in chapter 23.

So we're going to go through the seven woes, but here's our big idea for this morning.

God desires repentance, not religion.

God desires our heart, not performance.

God desires repentance.

Repentance is turning and walking toward the Lord.

Turning away from trying to gain favor from God in our own strength.

And repenting is saying, God has already given me favor, and as a result of him changing my life, I'm going to repent and I'm going to obey.

Because I love him, not so I can gain his favor.

And so let's go through these seven woes.

We're going to do this rather quickly as we come to the end of our gathering.

And I want you to kind of be sensitive to how the Holy Spirit might be speaking to you in one of these woes.

What is a woe?

What is a woe?

I mean, this is a strange word that we see in Scripture, but as we see Jesus say, woe to you, Pharisees, a woe is a cry.

It's an outcry.

It's a cry of anger or pain or both.

And so Jesus is using the word woe as a word of judgment spoken over the Pharisees or to the Pharisees.

And he's addressing their hearts being turned toward performance and behavior and trying to force other people rather than themselves repenting and modeling what it's like to turn and give your heart to the Lord.

So in verse 13, he says, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

And so here's the, there's I'm going to give you a statement with each one of these woes.

It's really kind of the focus, what I believe is the focus for this morning.

The first woe is this Pharisees were doorkeepers rather than doorholders.

Doorkeepers rather than doorholders.

What I mean by that is in ministry, my main responsibility is to point people to Jesus and then to model what it means to repent and follow Jesus with my own life.

And so what I'm doing is I'm trying to open a door as I model, as I teach, as I live my life, I'm opening the door for people to walk into a relationship with Jesus.

But sometimes religious leaders, pastors, or Pharisees, we place heavy burdens on people before they ever know what it's like to follow Jesus.

And that heavy burden is performance or behavior modification.

And in a sense, they're closing the door and they're a doorkeeper rather than a door holder into the kingdom.

Does that make sense?

And so he says, You hypocrites, what does that word hypocrite mean?

We probably know what it means.

We've heard about it.

We've even said, some of us have said, or you've got friends, or you've got family, that say, I'm not gonna go to church.

I'm done with church, I'm done with organized religion.

Why are you so upset?

Because everybody I know in the church, or there's people in the church that are hypocrites.

And that word literally means someone who wears a mask.

It was a word that was borrowed from the Greco-Roman culture to describe someone who performs in the theater and they they played multiple roles in a drama.

And the way that they are identified in each role is they wear a mask, a different mask for each role.

And so Jesus is saying, you religious leaders, you are hypocrites.

You are demanding so much from those that follow you, but you yourselves are not willing to repent and to obey God first.

And so, in a sense, you have become a doorkeeper rather than a doorholder to the kingdom of God.

And so the Pharisees, and we talked about this as a church.

We go back to the days when Craig and I were led to plant church at the grove.

We we used to talk about this.

We don't want to be known for what we're against.

A lot of churches and a lot of religion and our culture, um, communities of faith are known more for what they're against, and we're always getting on a soapbox rather than being known for what we're for.

Craig quoted part, you know, uh the verse where Jesus is saying, you know, the harvest is ripe, but let's pray for laborers.

But then that look that passage, Jesus looks out over Jerusalem and it says his heart is moved with compassion.

See, Jesus was not critical.

Pharisees are critical.

Jesus was moved with compassion.

And so rather than being critical, we're we're to have compassion for our community.

We're to show justice, we're to live and demonstrate mercy and faithfulness to people around us.

And Jesus summed it up.

People would ask him, How do I, how do you sum up the law?

Jesus would say, Love God and love people.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And love people as you love yourself.

And I would add to that, Jesus is calling us to partner with him in mission.

So we're to love God, we're to love people, and then we're to we're to we're to partner with him in mission.

And so that's the first woe.

It's this Pharisees were door keepers rather than door holders.

The second woe, verse 15.

He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much of a child of hell as yourselves.

Ouch! A child of hell?

What is a proselyte?

It's a person is converting someone to religion rather than opening the door to relationship with Jesus.

That's what he means by a proselyte.

It's getting someone converted rather than a transformed life as a result of an encounter with Jesus.

Pharisees were more concerned with the number of followers than building people of faith.

Now I'm so glad that we as in the church have gotten over that, right?

We've gotten past that, being focused on numbers and how many attend our church.

Isn't that good that we've gotten past that?

No, I got I go I go to a meeting with pastors and I meet somebody new, and then I can tell you within three questions what they're gonna ask me.

How big is your church?

They're gonna ask, how big is your church?

And I hear my answer.

I'm like, man, I don't know.

I don't know how big I know we have some of the people that are in our church that come on a Sunday, and that's part of our church, and I don't know how big our church is.

I don't know how big our influence is.

I can't tell you exactly.

That's not my focus.

That's not my focus.

I want to I want to be a door holder.

I want to invite as many people as I can into a relationship with Jesus, but the Pharisees focused on numbers.

They were focused on getting recognition for themselves.

That's a bit of our culture.

We focus a lot on wanting bigger and bigger, but God says, I want you to grow deeper and deeper, and then I'll take care of growing your church as I want it to grow.

The third woe, Matthew 23, verse 16, he says, Woe to you blind gods, who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.

Matthew 23:16

You blind fools, for which is greater?

The gold of the temple that has made the gold sacred?

And you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.

You blind men, for which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it, and whoever swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon it.

There's a lot of swearing in those verses.

He really gives us a lot.

Here's the focus.

The Pharisees were deceptively dishonest.

Deceptively dishonest.

The Pharisee had a philosophy.

They wanted to get into all this language about swearing and oaths and and and the altar and it's just getting into all these details and losing the heart.

Losing the heart of what Jesus is asking.

And Jesus is saying, hey, just let your yes be yes and your no be no.

It's as simple as that.

And so the Pharisees were deceptively dishonest.

And Jesus is saying, listen, you have made this so difficult.

This idea of your word and your oath or just sharing something in your life, he said, just let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Fourth woe, verse 23, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

He says, For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, these are spices, and you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

He says, These you ought to have done without neglecting the others.

You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Here's the statement that goes with that law.

Pharisees love the law of God more than the heart of God.

Pharisees love the law of God.

And the law to the Pharisees, it's not, we're not talking about just the word.

We're talking about what the Pharisees had made the law to become.

They continued to add to it and change it.

And so he's talking about how the Pharisees focused on the tithe.

The tithe would be 10%.

It's your first fruit.

It's an offering to God.

And they got into the details.

The Pharisees wanted you to tithe 10% of all these little things.

And he talks about the spices.

And Jesus said, you've missed it.

You've lost the heart of what it means to give to the Lord out of overflow.

And he says, hey, you are supposed to give back to the Lord.

He said, don't neglect this focus of giving back to the Lord, but man.

Let's focus on the heart.

The heart of God.

And the heart of God, he sums it up several times.

Love the Lord God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And then love others as yourself.

Fifth and sixth, woe.

Here together.

Verse 25 to 28.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.

Hypocrites.

For you claim the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are clean.

Inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

And then he says another woe.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You think he's trying to send them a message?

Hypocrites?

For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

So also, you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Pharisees were more concerned with their reputation, their character.

They were concerned more about how people saw them with in contrast to just focusing on developing their character and their heart for God.

It's a trap that we fall into.

Performance, how do people see me?

I'm guilty.

I'm supposed to be, I mean, I'm supposed to be a pastor, I'm supposed to be righteous, I'm supposed to be good.

In reality, I'm supposed to model what it means to have a heart surrendered to God, to repent, to be the lead repenter.

That's what God calls us as pastors and ministers.

And then he says in Matthew 23, verse 29, the seventh woe.

Matthew 23:29

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

Thus you witness against yourselves that you were sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Fill up the measure of your fathers.

Here's what he's saying.

The Pharisees were blind to their own sin, were blind to their sin.

They knew the stories of the ancestors.

It's like us.

Hey, we we can tell you what every little tell about Jesus' life, but we forgot to be transformed by his Holy Spirit.

He said, Listen, don't focus on the previous generations and what they've done.

Focus on yourself.

And so you can sum up these seven woes into this one observation.

The Pharisees' self-righteousness led to their self-destruction.

Their self-righteousness led to their self-destruction.

Jesus comes to the end of the woes and he asks the Pharisees this.

Verse 33, he said, You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

How are you to escape being sentenced to hell to hell?

Man, my greatest fear is that I would be the one that Jesus is talking to in today's culture.

I would be the serpent.

I would be the brood of vipers.

And he'd say, How are you gonna escape hell?

And here's the lesson for all of us.

Here's the simplicity.

God's called us to repentance, not religion.

He's called us to focus on repentance.

What is repentance?

It's a response to the gospel.

What is the good news of Jesus?

What's the gospel tell us?

The gospel is the story of Jesus' life, his birth, his life, his willingness to surrender.

And he dies a cruel death on a Roman cross.

And while he's on that cross, he is taking upon himself the sins of all of us who would repent and put our faith in his death and his resurrection.

And so they buried him in a tomb, but on the third day, he was bodily resurrected.

That was so important.

Why was that important?

Because his bodily resurrection proved that he had power over sin and the grave and over death.

And so that's what Jesus calls these religious leaders to.

I gave an invitation not to come forward, but for people just to respond in their seats.

And I went after the service, I went out into the lobby after the 11 o'clock service.

And so a young lady that teaches at Loganville Middle, she teaches and coaches at Loganville Middle.

Her name is Logan.

She she just gets it.

She is constantly investing in these young women, young girls that she's teaching and coaching.

And so she had one of those girls with her, and she's been bringing her for months to church.

She brought her to Honduras on our trip at the end of May, beginning of June.

Her name is Juliana.

I'm gonna get in trouble for telling her name out probably.

But Logan called me back into this room and she said, and we call her G.

Her name is Juliana, but we call her G.

She said, G's got something to tell you.

And I knew exactly what she was talking about when she said that.

She said, G, tell Russ what happened this morning.

And she said, I gave my heart to Jesus.

I gave my heart to Jesus.

And man, I was so pumped.

I was so excited.

And so for months, G has been coming.

She's been a part of our youth ministry.

She went to Honduras with us, and Logan has been pouring into her, and the community around her has been investing in her, pointing her to Jesus.

And so something clicked.

Something clicked.

Her eyes, her spiritual eyes were open on Sunday morning.

And she realized, man, what the Lord is talking about to me, I need to respond.

I need this salvation.

And so she she I don't know how the conversation went, but but but apparently she said to Logan and some of her friends and family with her.

She said, I I need this.

I know the Lord's speaking to me.

I said the Lord may be speaking to you this morning.

I know he's spoken to me.

It's always a jack in my heart.

I don't want to be a 21st century finger.

I don't want to be a doorkeeper.

I wanna I want to open the door for people who walk into the kingdom of God.

I want to make it as clear.

And simple as Jesus made it.

Love God with all your heart, with all mind and strength.

And then love others as yourself.

So would you pray with me?

As we come to the end here.

Let's pray together.

Father.

Every time we open up this book, you open up your mouth and you speak.

So as we consider how to respond this morning, I pray that you would speak into our hearts clearly and simply in how do we respond?

And it may be for the first time that people understand the gospel.

They understand that Jesus lived and he died and he rose again to save me from my sin.

That's the gospel.

The good news is Jesus.

Jesus has come.

Jesus has died.

Jesus has been raised.

And when I put my faith in him and I repent and I believe, I am walking through the door into the kingdom of God.

And so I pray if that's you this morning, just put your faith in Jesus for the first time.

Let somebody know.

Tell somebody that you're with this morning, come find me or Craig or one of our leaders and let them know what your decision is.

For many of us, we know the Lord.

God's calling us to take another step of faith.

That step of faith may involve helping with a new church plan.

Helping in an area of ministry that I've never experienced before.

God wants us to take steps of faith.

And we take those steps, He does incredible things.

Father, would you speak and would you work this morning in responding to how you've spoken through your word?

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand with me as we close?

Then Jesus blood and I just not trust the sweetest grain, but only trust in Jesus.

In Jesus' mind, I just I dare not trust the speed is free.

But only trust in Jesus, weak means straw When darkness seems to hide his face I should be changing every height.

We know that you can be doing a million different things with your time.

And so the fact that you're here, you got to participate in worship with us, it means the world we're so grateful.

And we hope that you are challenged, encouraged around God's word this morning.

Um what a great message.

And I really I just so enjoyed walking through the gospel of Matthew and following along with Jesus and just being challenged by seeing the way Jesus lives his life and asking the questions what do I need to do?

You know, how do I need to line up with how Jesus is living?

And so uh we we would love to tell you if you've got questions about faith or you got next steps that you feel like God is asking you to take in your journey, we'd love to partner with you and give you some resources for that because we believe that that's what this is.

This is not a one-time decision, but this is a lifelong journey of following Jesus, uh, as C.S.

Lewis puts it in the Chronicles and Rania further up and further.

Um so there's always a next step for us.

And uh so no matter where you're at on your faith journey, we would love to partner with you towards that next step.

So if you would text start to follow to 9700, start to follow all one word to 9700.

And again, we'd love to give you some resources on your journey.

I know.

Again, like Brandon said, we're so excited that you guys joined us this morning.

Um if there's anything that we can do for you uh this week, let us know.

Um we love to pray for people, we love to help our people any way we can.

So just please just let us know.

Um, hope that you guys are having a great time uh going through the sermon uh series with us, and uh it's gonna be coming to an end soon.

Yeah, we're getting on the descent, the downhill slope.

So today, yeah, so we're ready to enter our descent.

Um, but anyways, we're so grateful for you guys.

Um, we love you, and we will see you next week.