Seven Warnings for My Church (3/15/26)

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That's CHVRCHNS q.org, and now let's listen in to today's

teaching. I don't know if you've ever

reached into the fridge looking for a sweet Halo orange.

You know, those big bags of Halo oranges that, you know, market

grocery stores try to get rid of this like 2 for $5 and like,

I'll take 2 bags. And you're never going to

consume that many Halos in, you know, in a week, you reach in

and you've only you've reached in for Halo.

And then have you ever seen those rotten Halos?

The ones that they've been sitting there too long, They're

squishy. They're kind of like, And then

you see the one that's got mold on it and rotted.

How about apples? You buy a bag of apples, you

reach in and there's the apple with the soft, nasty, squishy

stuff. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Or pepper that's gone slimy or

cheese with mold growing on it. You know, once something's

rotten you, you do not want to draw near to it, right?

It was something's rotten you. You pull back and like, but then

hopefully you reach in and you throw it out.

You know, you get rid of the rotten stuff because really, who

wants to keep rotten food in the fridge?

Answer. Lazy teenage boys, that's who.

Not my boys, not my boys. And this is what makes sin so

painful. It's it's sin is a rottenness of

the heart. And when our nature, our sinful

nature spills out in frustration or anger or pride or despair,

what happens is our hearts are exposed.

Our our true nature is revealed to everyone, mostly our family

members. Sometimes it's hidden behind the

windshield when you're yelling at the person in front of you,

going way slower than they ought to, or perhaps it's under your

breath. But really we're repelled not

only by others rottenness, but we sometimes, most times are

even repelled by our own rottenness.

We say things like I can't believe that just came out of my

mouth or how can God love someone who thinks this way or

does these things? But thankfully, despite the

rottenness of our own hearts, God is not afraid to draw near.

Even though we have a rotten Halo heart, He draws near to

those with rotten hearts, not to condemn, but to save.

This is the image that I want you to keep in your mind as we

come to Matthew chapter 23. You know, God in the flesh has

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

come to his people. He's come to his own city.

He's come looking for good fruit.

But what he finds among Israel's religious leaders is not health,

not holiness, not life, but rot, not rotten fruit, but rotten

hearts. And before Jesus goes on to

speak in chapters 24 and 25, which is known as the Olivet

Discourse, it is about certain judgement to come.

The disciples will be like, look at all this stuff.

And he's like, yeah, it's, it's going to be gone before he gets

there. He exposes the rottenness of the

heart of Israel's religious leadership.

And the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees and

the Herodians and all of the religious leaders and the

political leaders of the day, they're all in the crowd.

And Jesus is turning to them and he's going to expose the

hypocrisy. He's going to, he's going to

say, guys, here's what's rotten in your heart.

They had turned following God into a performance, rules,

appearances, status and external behavior.

And Jesus is exposing rotten religion so that his people,

what he's doing is he's saying don't go this way, go this way.

Beware he'll he'll use he says in chapter 16, he says beware

the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees already addressed this

issue. When you say beware of

something, it means that you don't don't go near there.

There's danger because the Kingdom of heaven will not be a

place filled with rotten Halo hearts.

No rotten Halos in the Kingdom of heaven because rotten hearts

lead to a rotten future. Rot spreads.

So if you'd like to take notes, here's this this text.

This chapter is actually broken down into 3 chunks, verses one

through 12. Jesus makes it clear that we're

not to mistake religious appearances for real life with

God. You can mistake the outside for

what might be true on the inside, but Jesus says real life

with God isn't necessarily always seen on the outside.

Second, in verses 13 through 36, Jesus gives what's called the

seven woes, but they're warnings for the church.

You know, he gives woes to the, the, the, the Pharisees.

But really these are warnings for us.

We don't like look back and be like those guys.

You know, they should have known better.

We actually read this and like, no, these are warnings for us

because we could very easily fall into the same trap some of

us have. And finally, we see in verses

3739, Jesus reveals his heart, his sorrow for unrequited love.

That's a fancy word for it has not been given back.

When we love someone and we pour our love out and it's just

unrecoited, it's not giving back.

It's not reciprocated to us. There's sorrow on God's heart

and then Jesus will leave the city.

So first verses one through 12, we just read that, you know,

Jesus is essentially saying here, hey, guys, the crowds and

to the disciples, he's not mainly speaking to the

Pharisees. This is kind of a cringey

moment. You know, it's like in, in if

you've ever been called out, none of you have, but I've been

called out in the middle of the the classroom when I was in, you

know, elementary school, teachers would often have to

say, Tommy, you know, I hate it when I'm called Tommy.

You know, it's because it reminds me of, you know, just

these moments when I would have to be the one called out so that

everyone else would learn the lesson, right?

Is anybody with me on that? Has anybody been that person?

Oh, all 2 of you, Great, excellent.

So, you know, it's that cringy moment when the teachers talking

to somebody and everybody's like, oh, snap, you sit up and,

and you behave. That's what Jesus is doing.

It's warning ordinary people. He's, he's speaking to the

ordinary people that are around and the crowds are there to

listen to him And he's saying don't mistake religious

appearances with real life with God.

Look at verse 3 says do and observe whatever they tell you.

He says that they sit on Moses's seat.

That means that they speak from the authority of the scriptures.

The law of God was not the problem.

Moses was not the problem. God's word was not the problem.

It's not like anything changed in God's word.

He's basically saying, hey, listen, when they teach from the

Scriptures, do what the scriptures the law tells you to

do. Remember Jesus said, I've come

not to abolish the law, but to fill it, to fulfill it.

The problem was that these men handled holy things while their

hearts were far from God. They preached truth, but they

did not live it. And what they said and what they

did were worlds apart. We'll look at look at what that

what that does in verse four. He says, well, because they they

tie up heavy burdens. They practice with they do not,

they do not preach. They they put burdens that are

hard to bear. They lay them on your shoulders,

but they themselves are not willing to move any of it.

This is what false religion does.

False religion loads people up, but it never it, it, it never

lifts them up. It, it, it, it pushes them down

and makes people feel the weight of guilt and pressure and shame

and spiritual exhaustion, but it really offers no relief.

A lot of people, a lot of us in this room know that feeling,

right? You've been under either a

religious system of your own or of man's religion.

You know, a church can also put this on people.

But you know, I know what I should be doing.

You keep telling me that, OK, I know the standard and I

internally know what I ought to do and what I ought not to do.

I know what a godly life is supposed to look like.

But I keep failing, I keep falling far behind.

I keep feeling guilty. No one has to tell me of all my

failures. I'm I'm very familiar of how bad

I am, how much I fail. But when there's a religion that

says, well, you know how you get rid of that?

You do this, you do this and this list of things.

And here's a way to to kind of shed that guilt.

And then you do those things and what's the problem?

Then you feel you're like, I either AI didn't get to do the

list, you know the to do lists, you don't get to them all the

time or you don't do them perfectly or you don't get

around to them. Or here's the thing, I don't

want to do them. I don't want to do them.

What do you do then? And then you get to the point

and you start to ask, well, what's the point?

And that's exactly the kind of burden Jesus comes to confront.

He does not come to say, hey, do more.

He's like, no, no, no, you're putting burdens on people that

were not supposed to be there. Look at verse 5.

Why do they do that? They do all their deeds to be

seen by others. They put burdens on people they

want to be see they love honor and they love recognition.

They love titles and greetings and status.

They want to look spiritually impressive.

But really behind all of that was just pride, just pride.

And then verse 8 Jesus says but you so he's turning that's

plural. He's he's saying you my

disciples, you are not to be that do not become like these

men. You have one teacher.

The instruction that you were to receive doesn't get filtered

through these guys. It gets filtered through no one

but Christ. You have one teacher.

You have one father, You have one instructor.

He is the Christ. In other words, there's no one

who can really, truly lead you to life with God.

It's not a religious celebrity. It's not the one who has the

most followers on on his their podcast, although having

followers and having an influence is not bad.

It's not how large or small that's not the issue.

It's when the heart is is wrong. It's when the heart is looking

for its own honor, its own celebrity, its own performance.

When the heart is hypocritical, when I say one thing but do

another, it's Christ. It's God himself.

You are never going to find God shifting in what he teaches.

We do not have a God that shifts like changing shadows, right?

James says he does not. He does not sway in what he

says. He lets his yes.

But yes, in fact, that's even what Jesus is addressing here.

And that's even what James is probably drawing from in this

particular teaching. James is probably drawn from the

teachings of Jesus. Absolutely.

That's what he was supposed to do.

But when he thinks about the ways in which we're to treat one

another. The book of James which the

women are studying is an incredible commentary on this

passage in this section right here.

Those who teach Christ and Christ alone are being used by

Christ. The issue is not so much whether

we give certain people titles within the church.

You know, it's it's when that title is won so that I might get

honor is high holiness of the church in Newtown Square.

Dr. Reverend Tom Hazina I'm going to put that sign out front

right. If I ever do that, call members

meeting, fire me and hire someone that will never put a

sign out there like that, you know, that's what you know.

Call me high, holy Reverend or call me this, call me that.

There's a difference between called what the scriptures say

is these are your pastors, these are your elders, these are your

shepherds, these are your leaders and they are the

servants of all. In fact, that's the fork in the

road. In verse 11, Jesus gives the

great reversal of the Kingdom. Look at verse 11.

He says, listen, you are not to act like this, but how are we to

act? And this should sound familiar

by the time we get to this point.

Friends, we've been studying Matthew.

This sounds like repetitive, right?

It's repetitive. Verse 11.

The greatest among you shall be your what servant.

The least of these will be the greatest of these.

And whoever wants to exalt himself is going to be humbled,

and whoever humbles himself is going to be exalted.

That is Matthew's way. And I think Jesus way of hinting

about what's right around the corner, because what's right

around the corner is Christ's exaltation on the cross.

He's been humiliated. I mean, the moment he came into

the womb of Mary, I mean, the eternal God comes in the flesh.

He's already shrunk. So his humiliation doesn't start

with the crucifixion, friends. His humiliation is the fact that

he has to like eat, sleep and breathe in this creation that he

created. He has to be constrained in the

flesh. I mean, he's he has to go poop

in the woods. You know, it's like how

humiliating is that when the king of the universe has to dig

a hole? You know what I'm talking about.

I want to put it in frames like he's already been humiliated,

but yet his exaltation is coming.

We look at the cross. We don't look at humiliation.

His exaltation is actually the moment of victory on the cross.

And then his double victory is when he raised from the grave

and says, Yep, death can't hold me.

So the fork in the road is verses one through 7.

Jesus like this is one way of living, friends, disciples, you

can live for yourself. You can look, make sure that

there's an appearance of holiness, but there's really

not. You're rotten at the core.

Or in verses 11 through 12, there's a way of humility,

surrender and service that may look like death.

In fact, what will happen is people will look at Jesus and be

like, yeah, he lost. It looks like death, but really

it is not. It's the most glorious victory

all the world will ever see. Looks like death on the surface.

See, it looks like life on the surface, but death on the inside

Looks like death on the outside. Service, humility, no fame, no

fortune, no celebrity, but life and glory inside.

We struggle with that. We all have.

We live in a culture of appearances.

We, we, we post this post that dressed like this, dressed like

that, we're worried about who's doing what.

We compare ourselves to one another.

The Oscars are a huge picture of this.

Everybody shows up on the carpet and they're they're dressed to

the nines and they put this appearance in the world just

says this is this is glory. But really there's, there's

death and rot apart from Christ. So then Jesus, what he'll do is

he'll give 7 warnings. He says, this is what you need

to look out for. Here's 7 warnings for the

church. In verse 13, he starts to say,

whoa, whoa, not whoa. Like WHOA, like whoa, that was

cool. Like whoa, woe to you.

One theologian called the sustained denunciation of the

scribes and Pharisees the Rolling Thunder of Christ's

wrath. Rolling Thunder.

Like when you hear the You know, in the summertime, one of my

favorite things to do is to sit outside and watch a storm come

in before the rain. Just just torrential downpours.

You can hear it off in the distance, the Rolling Thunder.

You see the crack of the, the light.

And then you hear like, you know, used to count 11000 two

1003 with that see how close the storm was coming.

You hear the Rolling Thunder the, and it, and it echoes.

This is to echo in our hearts and our minds.

Jesus turns and gives 7 woes. And just so you know, this is

not just anger. It's not anger.

You might picture Jesus like wagging his finger and yelling

at these guys. Whoa, whoa, actually, we know it

just popped in my head. You know it.

The Princess Bride, you know, the witch, Boo.

Does everybody know what I'm talking about?

Boo, Queen of Pew dresses. There's spit on coming out.

You know, Jesus is not, you know, in a beard.

Like whoa, you Pharisees, sinners, poor Marie, I'm sorry.

This is why no one sits up front.

This is why no one sits up front.

I do apologize to some people last week.

Hey, I'm sorry. I looked at you way too much and

they didn't come back. They literally didn't come back

now in this it's not quite that I'm sure he's angry, but mixed

into this is the anger that is that is drawn from grief, deep

sorrow. It's parents is when you have to

you know, you have you have you have sons or daughters who have

done something and and you're just grieved by the impact of

their sin and they're old enough to understand and you're you're

you're like even be not be yelling.

You might be angry kids, friends, teenage sons and

daughters or all of us. I've heard this.

I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at what you did right.

You know that it's a grief there.

That's what Jesus is is doing. It's sorrow over ruin.

He's not merely denouncing these men.

He's exposing a deadly way of life and he's calling people not

to to follow. So look at the first world verse

13. He says you scribes and fairies,

you're hypocrites, you hypocrites, you, you, you're

wearing a mask and acting a different way.

You shut the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

This is devastating because if, if God is opening the Kingdom of

Christ, if he's welcoming people into the promised Kingdom, and

these men were standing in the doorway blocking the entrance,

that's not a good thing. You do not want to stand in

between God and life. He will ruin you.

He's done it before. See also Egypt.

You want to keep my people? I will just rain fire down.

I'll plague after plague after plague until you yield and then

I'm going to rescue my people and you're going to come after

them again. I will ruin you because I love

these people. They were standing in the

doorway blocking the entrance. And that's also what false

religion does. It blocks doors.

It takes what God has made open and starts adding barriers.

Jesus says come to me, all you who are weary in heaven meeting.

But false religion says no, no, no, not yet, not yet.

Clean yourself up first. Clean yourself up.

Do do a little bit more. Prove yourself first before you

can come to him. And that's what the Pharisees

had done. They'd taken their traditions.

They treated them like scripture.

They they treated their traditions of the elders as if

it was scripture and it was blocking the door.

They were they were turning people's eyes and even their own

eyes away from Christ. They were blocking the entrance

to life. There.

He was right there. And they're like, you're not the

Christ, you're not this, you're not that.

Look over here. The traditions.

I mean, I think about it is if you know, you got an all

exclusive pass to Disney, Hershey Knoebels, I don't know,

Dutch Wonderland and you know, hey, you've got an all day pass

and you've got VIP parking. You're able to go and you got a

full food package. You just go in and enjoy the

park and you've got that ticket. And the Pharisees are pretty

much saying like, Hey, listen, that's great.

You've got an all access pass, your food's covered, your time's

covered. You've got your, your fast

forwarding in front of people. Tell you what, why don't you,

just just in case, why don't you park the furthest from the

entrance just to prove that you're thankful to God.

And you know what? Probably you should wait an

hour. Wait an hour before.

If you get there, wait an hour. Control your kids, by the way.

And if they get excited and angry and fight in the hot sun,

calm them down. And then calm.

So park far away, Wait an hour, calm your kids down.

Then, when everybody's approaching, walk to the

entrance. Also, if you get to the entrance

by 12, it's too late. You should probably wait an

extra day, start again the next day and be early.

You don't like what? Are you kidding me?

No, they're blocking the entrance.

Jesus came to remove barriers, not add them.

And this is a stern warning for the church that wants to add

extras to the gospel. When we add extras to the

gospel, we're putting barriers in front of when we're doing

things, when we're holding things that are higher than they

ought to be, and we're keeping people from experiencing the

life giving fruit of the gospel. We are.

We are being warned. Don't add extras to the gospel.

Look at the Second World. They also make rotten disciples.

You travel to make a single proselyte, but what happens you

make them a child that is twice as much a child of hell as

yourselves. Wow, that's strong language.

Basically he's using prophetic language here.

Hyperbolic language is saying like you, you travel land and

see you go to a lot of effort to make this one disciple, but what

happens is you make them twice as much.

Which is another way of saying super zealous.

Remember when we came to Christ and we were excited, we would

share with a tree. We came to Christ, we'd share

with our friends. We were bold.

We were we were excited. We're like, this is a new found

religion. This is this is life giving.

OK, I'm I'm doing something to earn God's favor.

He's like, you make them twice as much as a child of hell

because that's where you're leading them.

Their zeal was real, but it was misdirected.

They were not leading people to God.

They were reproducing blindness. Their teaching was being

replicated and it still is to this day.

It still is to this day that matters because the people who

teach us about God shape the way we see God.

Think about the first people that taught you the Bible,

taught you certain convictions. Some of us hold on to those

because the impact that the first person we heard, the first

pastor, the first message, the first book, we're like this is

true. You just soak it up and you

absorb it and you tend to follow that the rest of your life until

someone counters it with something that's different or or

you learn in your growth. That's why it is such a gift

when you were born into a family that points you to Jesus early

on. This is why, moms and dads, it

is a gift to your kids that if you're trusting Christ and

you're following Christ, parents matter.

Pastors matter. Churches matter.

Your friends matter. Books matter.

The voices we trust matter. When someone points us to Christ

and is truly Christ, it matters because left to ourselves, we

would not find him. God moves towards us.

God seeks us out. It's through people.

He sends people to speak to us. He's speaking to you right now

in the words He's speaking. He's moving towards you right

now. Anything you hear that's of Him

is him moving toward you. And zeal for the wrong thing

sends people to hell. That's a heavy statement, isn't

it? L Ron Hubbard, the founder of

Scientology. Plenty of people are zealous

about that. People that we know that are

famous actors and musicians, they're zealous for it.

And this man has caused people to be zealous for it and it will

send them straight to hell because they are going in the

wrong direction, trusting in the wrong things.

And this is the tragedy of this chapter, because these men had

the scriptures. That's why Jesus gets the most

phrase like you have the scriptures in them.

You think you'd find life. But it points to me, I'm right

here. Jesus was standing right in

front of them and they still wouldn't see him.

The third woe is that they swore in public, and that's not the

kind you think they were swearing in public.

Look, verse 15, I'm sorry, 16 woe to you blind guides.

If you, if you shift there, if you, if you go down, just

highlight or circle a look. How many times do you just use

the word swear? You, you swear for this, you

swear for that. They swear a lot, but it's not

the swear you think they're not like using expletives.

I could no, I'm not going to use examples of swearing, but they

had created elaborate distinctions about what counted

and what did not count, what bound a person and what did not

bind a person. Jesus saying that this is just

another form of blindness. You, you, you're turning

truthfulness into a technical game.

Well, technically it's you. You, you said, you gave me your

word that you would do this. But the law says this.

And So what we need to do is, you know, you swore.

And so you all be $10. What?

They were just creating this confusing system of swearing by

the temple, swearing by the gold.

And what happens is, is, is they were actually turning something

that was super obvious. Like, hey, how about your yes,

just be yes. Like why don't you just worship

God by your truthfulness? Give to God.

What's God's right? Give to Caesar's.

What's Caesar's give to God's, what's God's?

And God does not want clever evasions.

He wants truthful hearts. How many of us, if we're honest,

are fairly duplicitous in our conversations with some people

either in our families or Co working?

Even if as Christians we tend to tell a white liar we you know

what, like someone sent you a text and you see the bubbles and

they go away and then you ask, Hey, did you get my text?

Like, Oh no, I didn't see it. Liar.

I saw the bubbles and it even said was red, right?

It's true. Apple tells you when it's red.

God says just speak the truth always.

These men sounded religious, but underneath there was dishonesty.

This is a warning for us to just just be honest, just to let our

yes be yes. We we don't need to be

duplicitous like the 4th will. They majored on minors and they

ignored the majors. You tithe MIT and Dill.

You set aside these tiny little things, but you've neglected

weightier matters, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

You failed to help the poor and the marginalized.

You've you've done so many things that are obsessed with

details, while you've neglected those things that matter the

most. This is such a vivid picture

because he's saying like you strain out a gnat, but then you

seek to swallow a camel. He's using the imagery there.

He's like, he's like, you're going to, you're going to like

strain out a gnat so that your wine won't be unclean for the

sacrifice, but you're going to like swallow a camel, which is

like a nasty, dirty big animal. You can be incredibly precise in

small religious matters while remaining deeply out of step

with the heart of God. We can just drill down on the

most obscure theological issue or debate secondary and third

issues. Well, I think the Lord's coming

back at this time. Oh, well, naturally he's coming

back at this time. Well, actually, I think a third

way. And those who think the first

way, they're heretics. No, actually there's room for

debate. But why are we drilling down

these things? Like when's the last time you

went and served at a homeless shelter?

Or when's the last time you comforted A fellow member?

When did you serve at church? When did you, you know, there's,

there's far weightier matters and thinking about these things

that we tend to get drawn out on.

And Jesus is saying, don't be like that.

Let the main things be the main things.

They were so rotten in their hearts.

That's what rotten religion does.

It becomes hyper careful in the externals.

We're a church that dresses like this.

We're a church that sings these songs.

We use this version of the Bible.

We do these things and Jesus is like, OK, well, I'm not looking

for externals. I'm looking what?

Why do you do those things? What are you doing?

What are you doing to reach the loss in your neighborhood?

How much do you gathered together to pray for the lost in

the neighbor? How much do you pray for the

world? How much do you give generously

over in a bun you're already giving?

How much do you spend time knowing and loving Christ?

He gives the 5th woe. He says you guys clean all of

these dishes, but the things that you put on those dishes,

you know how you got those cups and plates filled?

You're full of greed and self indulgence.

He's calling them out saying like you are greedy, you're

greedy, clean up the outside because what you're doing on the

inside and the reasons for all of your things, he calls them

whitewashed tomb. That's a 6th woe.

Whitewashed tombs were for the sake of travelers.

Remember they're all going up to Jerusalem.

They would paint the tombs white because sometimes people were

randomly buried and in the Levitical law, if you came in

contact with dead bones, you were unclean ceremony unclean so

you could not worship. They would they would wipe them

out so that you could see them like, oh, there's a grave and

stepped over. He said.

You guys are like those. You're whitewashed tombs, but

you're dead inside. You're full of death.

That's what hypocrisy is, is death wearing makeup.

My dad always used to call our used cars, you know, turds

painted white. You know, it's like you can

paint something up that's a piece of crap, you know, but

it's still a turd. Sorry, I'm just giving you the

pictures. It's biblical the 7th row this

woe is that they used to build tombs for the prophets.

Verse 29. What they would do is they would

honor these previous prophets that were honored.

But what Jesus says you, you actually are in the line of

those who killed the prophets. Why?

Because you're about to do that. You're not just the physical

sons of those who killed the prophets.

You're also the spiritual sons, the ones that rejected the word

of God when God sent prophet after prophet after prophet.

You're about to do that right now.

In just a few days, they're going to get the people to say

crucify, crucify, crucify. This man said this, he's a liar

and Jesus will be silent and he'll let them do it because

it's part of the redemptive plan of God.

He says you're about to nail me to the cross.

You're going to you're going to kill another prophet and I'm

kind of more than a prophet. I'm the son of God, which is why

when he brings it down to this question in verse 33 says how

are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

One, when we read that, we ought to understand that when Jesus

affirms hell, that means that hell is a very real place.

Jesus points them to the reality of hell.

How are you going to be escaping this?

You're about to crucify the Son of God.

How will you escape judgement? There he is right there.

There's no excuse. He's taught them.

He's spoken to them. He's pointed them to the

Scriptures. He is there in the flesh.

He's done miracle after miracle after miracle.

I don't know how much clearer you can be than to do all that.

Price is done. How are they going to escape

hell? Well, the answer is the same for

them as it is for us. It's only the mercy of Christ.

This is what makes this chapter so searching.

The point is not look at those terrible Pharisees.

The point is man apart from grace.

This is what the human heart becomes.

We make up religions, we're proud, performative, blind, put

burdens on people, we're unclean, we're unresistant or

resistant, we're unwilling. And if left to ourselves, this

would be our end. But that's not what God does.

If they continue to do this, He's saying crowds, if you

continue to do this, this is your end.

The guilt for the bloodshed of godly men like able to secre

every godly man that's come there are equally responsible

for killing because their hearts were rotten.

And as you end in chapter 23 there see it says a lament over

Jerusalem. If you have a title.

Jesus says O Jerusalem, the city which is representative of the

people there. He says how often I would have

protected you, gathered you as children together as a hand

gathers her brood. He's using motherly language

there, protective language. But look what he says.

He says how often I would have done this for you, but you were

not willing. Friends, that's not spite.

That's not petty anger, that's not cold condemnation.

That's love. Jesus is looking at them.

He's saying that you just were not willing.

This is this is the heart of Christ.

He's exposing them because he loves the people they're

hurting. He's not just doing this because

he wants to throw them under the bus.

He's like, you are hurting people.

You are you yourselves are rotten and you're passing this

on. It's got to stop.

I'm here to stop it. I'm right here.

You're building barriers. When Jesus comes, he comes to

sweep all those barriers away. When all the man made barriers

are removed, when we remove physical barriers, when we

remove all the rules and the traditions, guess what's left?

There's only one barrier left. It's our own unbelief, our own

unwillingness to repent and that's the tragedy.

Jesus, God himself says, I would, but you were not willing.

It's not that Christ was unwilling to receive, not that

he was unwilling to save. He was, they were not and he is

still willing and many are not. And that's the great dividing

one. Jesus does not lament over this

city that sought in mercy and could not find.

It's not like I said, Jesus, how do we, how do we follow you?

Some people were saying but the city as a whole represented by

the religious system is like no, we'll have none of it.

Jesus was lamenting over a city that was pursued by mercy but

would have none of it. Some of you have family members

and friends and Co workers that you've you've prayed for and

have shared with and begged them to trust Christ and they're just

what unwilling? The sorry you feel is infinitely

the amount of sorrow that God feels for people who are

unwilling to come to him. But I just want to end with

this. Lest we think that these men

were hopeless. Think about Paul, Paul, these

men who rejected Christ. Think of the think of the worst

person you know who you've been praying for, someone that you

know that just has rejected Christ, and you think that

they're hopeless. They're like Will Ferrell and

spirited. Am I unredeemable?

Had to squeeze a song in there. Are these people unredeemable?

Is anyone unredeemable? In Galatians chapter one, verse

13 through 16, Paul says, you've heard of my former life in

Judaism. He's writing to the church in

Galatia. He said how I persecuted the

Church of God violently. I tried to destroy it.

I killed them. I imprisoned them.

I was advancing in Judaism. I was beyond many of my own age.

I was zealous. I was twice the disciple for the

traditions of my father's. I was a Pharisee of the

Pharisees. I was I had a Harvard MBA in

Pharisaical law. But when God, who had set me

apart before I was born and who called me by His grace, was

pleased to reveal his Son to me, that's one of the most hopeful

turns in the Bible. But when he revealed his Son to

me, I was saved. He was not beyond the reach of

grace because God drew near to him.

The wonder of the gospel friends, and if you want to

clarify this for anybody that you know and love, the wonder of

the gospel is that Jesus is not repelled by rotten hearted

people like us. Instead he draws near.

He exposes our rot not to shame us, but to save us in the end.

The only people that are shut out of the Kingdom are not those

who are too sinful. You can't be too sinful to enter

the Kingdom. You can't be too dirty or too

hypocritical or too broken. The only people that are shut

out of the Kingdom like these men, like the Jews of his day

and and the Jews of today, and anyone else in the world that

are unwilling to come. Those who are shut out because

Jesus has the door wide open and he's being proclaimed

everywhere. Won't you come to Christ?

Won't you come to Him? Don't be unwilling.

Don't be unbelieving. You will find that He is more

willing to receive you than you are willing to receive Him or

even to be received. That's the good news of the

gospel. God is willing to receive us

even though we have rotten Halo hearts.

And then what He does is He renews our hearts.

He gives us His own heart and we no longer have rotten Halo

hearts, but we've got a big, plump, juicy, sweet, delicious

Halo heart. The sermon you've just listened

to is a presentation of Church Newtown Square.

To find out more about our church, check out Church

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