He Is Good | Jesus is Better | Mark 12:35-40 | Coleton Segars

Teaching text for today is Mark 12, verses 35 through 40.

Mark 12:35–40

This is what Mark writes.

While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the Son of David?

David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

David himself calls him Lord.

How then can he be his son?

And the large crowd listened to him with delight.

And as Jesus taught, he said, Watch out.

Watch out for the teachers of the law.

They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.

They devour widows' homes, and for a show they make lengthy prayers.

These will receive greater condemnation.

This is the word of the Lord.

One of the movies that I really loved was The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith.

He's kind of fallen on hard times since he slapped Chris Rock, but the movie was pretty good.

And actually, the hard thing, like it was such a, it was very true to its name.

It was a the the whole movie is just a grind.

And like the whole thing is a literal pursuit of happiness.

And at the very end, you get like five seconds of joy.

And it was like, I felt all of these emotions like waiting for relief from the tension that you feel in that.

And then finally at the last minute, it was like five seconds of like, hey, everything's good.

And I'm like, I needed more time, I needed more happiness.

There was like two and a half hours of pursuit and five seconds of like, okay, we're done pursuing.

And um, I say that, I did love the movie.

This message is going to be like that.

This is a hard message.

Jesus has basically been in an argument for the last two days of his journey towards the cross.

And so the messages have been harder because Jesus is literally in conflict.

Um, and they've been asking him questions and they've been trying to pin him down and all this stuff, and now Jesus asks a question and he pins them down.

And then when he pins them down, he's like, All right, now I got some stuff to say about how you guys have been functioning.

And he goes after them.

And I think in that space it's hard, it can be hard, and it's a critique not just of religious leaders, um, but also to the church at large and to Christians.

And so there's critiques here that I wanted to draw out.

And so it might be a pursuit towards the relief that we'll get at the end.

So if you find this and you're like, this is a heavy message, I warned you in advance, this will be a heavy message.

Um, but we'll wind up in a spot, hopefully, um, where there is some relief, where the tension is resolved a bit, where you're actually filled with hope.

That's my prayer and hope.

Um and so what I want to do, based on that introduction, is I want to give you three things that Jesus is critiquing, these three things that the teachers of the law did, that I believe the church still does wrong today.

And when we do them, the church loses credibility and it makes people say the line, I want nothing to do with that.

I don't want anything to do with the church, I don't want anything to do with God, I don't want anything to do with Jesus, I don't want anything to do with that.

Three things that they're doing that I believe the church still struggles with, that loses credibility in the eyes of the public and makes people say those things.

And then I want to give you why I believe those things shouldn't lead us to run away from Jesus or God or the church, but they should actually lead us to love Jesus, move closer to Him.

Like these things are gonna be, I mean, they're just terrible things.

I was doing research for this sermon all week, and I had to take breaks because I was so discouraged by some of the things that are happening in the life of the church.

Not our church specifically.

I love our church, we're killing it.

But and I'm very humble as well.

So um, but just these things that happen and have happened in history.

It's been so hard to watch and to put this in here, but I think it applies.

But then I want to look at those things and go, but those are the things, those very things that make people want to run away from Jesus are the things that should lead us to run directly to him.

And so that's what I'm gonna do today.

Three things.

The teachers of the law get wrong, that we also get wrong the first.

First thing that we see in this text that Jesus critiques is that the teachers of law have a hypocritical lifestyle, hypocritical lifestyle.

They appear righteous.

They're not righteous, they appear righteous.

Jesus says, watch out for the teachers of the law, watch out.

They like to walk around in flowing robes and greeted with respect, and for a show they make lengthy prayers.

And Mark Strauss in his commentary on this passage says the teachers of the law wore these long white linen robes that were fringed and reached almost to the ground.

These garments imitated the robes worn by priests, and so they signified, in quotes, religious devotion.

They only signaled religious devotion.

But Jesus realizes like you guys are just signaling virtue.

You're just signaling religious devotion.

You're not actually religiously devoted.

You just signal it.

You look holy, but you're not.

You're actually hiding something that takes place and that's going on within.

And in another interaction with them in Matthew's gospel, when he's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes, the teachers of the law, he's like, he calls them whitewashed tombs, which is a, he's like, woe to you, Pharisees and teachers of the law.

You're like whitewashed tombs.

You look beautiful on the outside, but inside you're filled with dead men's bones.

And honestly, this background image, can we, is there, can you go back to the beginning just where you see that background image?

This background image, I chose it for a reason, but there's this artist that um his name is uh Bryn Gillett, and he painted this, uh, and it's of, I believe it's Luke 18, um, where the Pharisee is praying, he's in the temple praying, and the tax collector, the sinful tax collector is in the background.

And Jesus says that one is more justified than the other because this person's putting on a show, but the one back there is actually truly like, God, help me a sinner.

I need something from you.

And so the artist did this beautiful, I mean, it's really beautiful, but it's it's haunting.

But his point is like, one of them looks more righteous than the other.

And we all know this.

You're in church, you ever see somebody crying and going to get prayer, you're like, what happened to them?

Like, you know, like there's something, what's going on?

Come and confess your sins, and the altar is full, and it's like, sinners, they're all here.

Like, there's something about that.

And so it looks like one is more righteous than the other.

But he is actually saying that, like, it's all for show.

It looks alive, but it's dead worship.

It looks alive, but it's dead.

And then notice the other one looks dead, but he actually has a halo around his head, like this one, actually.

And so it's just this commentary on this idea, this appearance of righteousness, but it's all hypocrisy.

It looks good on the outside, but it's dead on the inside.

And that's what's going on in the teachers of the law.

And my first experience with this hit me pretty hard because uh just experiencing some of these things.

Um, I lived in Wisconsin, uh, Rainey and I were doing ministry up there, and uh wanted to move to New York City uh for a number of reasons.

But one, there was this pastor in New York City named Carl Lentz, and he was just doing this incredible ministry in New York and having incredible success, like reaching people, and New York can be the hardest space to like talk to people about Jesus and enter into conversations, although they're pretty open to most things, but it can be a very difficult place to try and share the gospel.

And he was just doing it in such a compelling way that it was like inspiring me and my friend and like all these people.

And so, like finally, we moved to New York to do ministry in New York, in large part because of what we saw him doing there, and wanted to just be a part of that, wanted to do the exact same thing.

And so I have this photo of me and uh my best friend Brian.

Uh that's uh just killing it, um, just when we think we're cooler than we are.

But um I we're sitting in Central Park, and I'd been that Randy and I had been in New York for, I don't know, a handful of months at that point.

And at the bottom, I you can see the post, like when we grow up, we want to be like Carl Lentz or whatever.

And uh, there was another guy that we also wanted to be like, but I was like, the photo didn't age well.

Um but during this time we were so inspired, like we're posting things about just so inspired by this guy.

And then to find out that during or around this exact same time, this pastor that was inspiring new pastors to come to New York was actually going into the boroughs of different spaces in New York, far far away from his church, telling people he's not a pastor, that he's a sports agent, so that he can meet women and have an affair.

And like that interactive, like experiencing that disillusion, like there was just something so sad and so discouraged.

Like, I wanted to be just like you, like that what you showed on social media and what was seen on the internet, what was seen on the TV, and what was seen through your life was like, this is so incredible, it's an incredible thing that God's doing.

And then to have this moment where you're like, I want to be just like you, and then you figure out who they're actually like and what's actually taking place.

And I'm not meaning to shame them.

He's still with his wife, and they've gone through a lot of repairing and a lot of work and all that stuff.

And I don't know him, so he doesn't listen to our podcast, I'm pretty sure.

But my point is there is something like it was it disrupted their church, it broke their church down.

Um, there was so much pain from all of it, and it led people in that church to leave that church and to lead like none of this, if none of this is real.

Like all of this must be fake.

If the leader himself or the leaders of this thing, like I was giving Christianity a shot, and the leaders themselves don't actually, they're preaching one thing and they're living something else.

Maybe all of it's fake.

And this I this thing leads people, this hypocrisy on the outside, but dead things on the inside or hiding unrighteousness on the inside, just leads people to say, I don't want anything to do with that.

And maybe that's you, maybe you, or at least you have family or friends, I know I do, that are like, the church, Jesus, God, all of that's like y'all don't even do the stuff that you claim is so important to you.

And so I don't want anything to do with it either.

And so Jesus critiques this thing in the life of the church, in the life of the teachers of the law that still is alive and well in the church.

And it leads people to say, I don't want anything to do with that.

So that's the first critique, a hypocritical lifestyle.

The second, the second thing that Jesus critiques is that they use the teachers of the law, they use God to get better treatment and better stuff.

He says, Watch out, verse 38 and 39, watch out for the teachers of the law.

They like to walk around in their flowing robes and greeted with respect in the marketplaces.

They have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.

David Guzick in his commentary said this: He says, The Jews of Jesus' day taught that the teachers were to be respected almost as much as God.

They should have the exact same respect and honor as God.

They said that they deserved more honor and respect than other people in life.

Sorry, we deserve better.

They taught that the greatest act that someone could do was to give money to a teacher.

Of course, it was the teachers themselves who taught this.

And so they used the Bible.

They used God's word and they taught it in such a way to get stuff for themselves.

I must have the if you love God, you'll give me the best seat.

If you love God, you'll give me an invite.

If you love God, you'll give me what I want.

If you want to show honor to him, you need to show honor to me.

And if you if you don't give me what I say the Bible says, then you're disobeying God.

You're not just being a normal human who's like, hey, you're kind of a lunatic.

You're not, you're not that.

You're actually disobeying God.

When I first got to this church, again, this is still this whole thing that's happening in Jesus' day, still happening a lot in our church or in the churches today.

So much so that when I got to this church, um, very sweet lady uh and meant it sweet in the whole thing, was very kind.

The first thing I think that she said to me was um I mean it was like hello in the pleasantries or whatever.

Um but one of the first things that she said to me was, hey, don't think that I'm gonna put you on a pedestal and treat you better because you're the pastor.

And I was like, Your name is like, what's that?

Um and it was it was very sweet.

Uh the conversation was good.

It wasn't, it wasn't hostile or aggressive, it was just like, hey, don't ruin this for me.

And you have to imagine, like, what is someone's background and what have they experienced historically inside the church that leads them to go to a brand new pastor and just like first things first, do not think that I'm gonna put you on a pedestal because you're a pastor.

And I was I received it.

I was like, yeah, I'm not expecting that.

We're good.

I mean, I'd love for you to let's let's be friends, but like we're um but it was like, please don't screw this up for me.

I love this church.

And in my experience, I just experienced these pastors coming in and trying to be treated better and making themselves more important than everybody else, and it just ruins the whole thing.

Please don't ruin this beautiful thing that we have here at this church.

It's one of the first conversations I had at this church, and again, it was very sweet, but you see that and it plagues churches.

Some of y'all have seen this.

I mean, I know that you guys see it, but a couple of you um, you guys send me Instagram reels like I'm on Instagram all the time.

I'm not, I get like two minutes a day on Instagram.

But I get these reels that people send to me of like these pastors, and you've seen these things if you're in that world.

Larry Ray hasn't, but somebody has.

Um but there's these reels of these pastors that um at their churches, they're forcing people to tithe.

They're making them stand up and forcing them to tithe, and then and then standing up and tell how much you're gonna give.

And if they don't say a number big enough, they shame them in front of the church.

And they're doing that based on the scriptures in their mind.

They're teaching this is the way to do it.

God loves a cheerful, cheerful giver, so you better smile while I shame you publicly in front of everybody.

And it's like, that's brutal.

But they're using the Bible to get whatever they want.

I've heard stories and seen videos of pastors and evangelists who say, like, why do you have a private jet?

And it's like, well, because my time is consecrated to God.

And uh honestly, I don't, if I was waiting in lines at the airport with the normal humans, um, I would be sinning against God because my time is consecrated to him.

And so, really, this is a way of me being faithful.

I pray better on my private jet um than I do.

And the other thing that you guys, you peasants, work on.

And I I'm trying I honestly, I'm trying to make a little bit of a levity, a little bit, because it actually is that's a real story that actually happens.

It's probably more than one.

My friend Gib uh shared a story with me the other day about um a pastor that is well known, not in this area, but uh he was like, at their church, um, if you're there and the pastor walks in the room, you are forced to stand up when the pastor walks in the room.

And so they have an intern, a stand-up intern that they send into any room.

The pastor's about to walk in, and before the pastor gets in there, the intern who has the worst job in the whole world, just gets to look at everybody like, hey, he's about to come in here.

All y'all better stand up.

Everybody gotta stand up.

And so the intern goes in and does that thing, and he said, one of the reason he knows about this, one of his friends who used to be like a ex-NFL football player, the intern said it to that guy, and the guy was like drinking his coffee.

He was like, Shh, yeah, I'm not doing that.

I'm not standing up for some random.

I stand up for Jesus and I'll bow the knee to him, but I'm not standing up for this guy.

I'm not doing that.

But I was like, what is it?

Like we're supposed, and I we're supposed to show honor, and that was the verse that was being used.

We should honor those who are in leadership over us, who have authority over us, who preach the scriptures.

They deserve a double honor.

That is all Bible.

It's real.

However, it's not used, and it's not supposed to be used to actually benefit the other, the things in us or the spaces where people use those things to get whatever they actually want.

And I'm all about honoring people.

And I also want to be honored and respected as the work that I do and the space that I live, but that's true for everybody.

It's not like one gets honored above everybody else, and then everybody else has to deal with something less.

That actually is true in some part, but the honor goes to Jesus and Him alone, and everybody else gets just to offer that honor to him.

And so using these things in the scriptures, using the Bible to get better treatment for our for ourselves or in the church, it just forces the church into this space where it's like people go, Of course, I don't want anything to do with that.

The pastor doesn't know my name, but I have to stand up when he walks in the room.

He doesn't want to know me at all, but I gotta stand up when he like, I don't want anything to do with this.

Talked to a guy the other day, had a conversation, um, and it was going pretty well.

And then I told him, he was a contractor, and he was like, What do you do?

And I told him I was a pastor, and the conversation like took a hard stop.

It was like, shh, it's like going pretty well, going pretty well, might be friends.

You're a pastor, not gonna be friends.

Um and it wasn't that, it wasn't like fully that, but it was this space where the conversation changed.

And he just said, I just built a home for a pastor.

Uh, it was a multimillion dollar home.

And he wasn't judging or anything like that, but he was just like, What's that about?

Like, why does that guy need a multi-million dollar home?

And he's like, You know that there are people in the church that don't have enough money for a home.

And I'm building this dude.

He's like, again, he's like, I got paid either way.

He goes, but that's weird to me.

What is that about?

And I was like, man, I don't know.

Could we just let's go just I've you see my house?

I don't know, like come to our church.

Um but it was one of those things where it was like to him, and he wasn't quoting the Bible.

It wasn't weird to him because he knew the scriptures.

He wasn't like, you know, Jesus says the foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

He doesn't even say that.

He doesn't know that that's in the Bible, but it didn't matter.

The process itself of a pastor having those things, like that thing itself, it was like, this is really odd to me.

And he just said, he's like, that kind of thing, that's why I don't go to church.

That kind of thing, that's why I don't give to the church.

He's like, I will give my money away to poor people and I will help those in need financially.

He's like, but I'm not giving my money to a church.

Look what the church does with the money that's given to it.

Why would I ever give money to a church when this kind of thing happens?

And again, Jesus is critiquing this idea of just going, you're using the Bible, or you're using your position, or you're using these things to get better stuff for yourself.

And it just leads people to go, I don't want anything to do with that.

And then number three, Jesus critiques that the teachers of the law use their power to pray on the weak and manipulate the susceptible.

They pray on the weak and they manipulate the susceptible.

He said, watch out for the teachers of the law.

They like to walk around in their flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogue and the places of honor at banquets.

They devour widows' houses.

They devour widows' houses.

David McKenna in his commentary shed some light on what that actually means and what Jesus is referencing.

He says, as one is as one of their functions, the scribes are the teachers of law.

They serve as consultants in estate planning for widows.

Their role gives them the opportunity to convince lonely and susceptible women that their money and property should either be given to the scribe for his holy work or to the temple for its holy ministries.

In either case, the scribe gains personally.

If he can convince a widow to become a patron of his work, a life of comfort is assured.

If the widow prefers to contribute to the temple, he determines the share that can be taken as his consulting fee.

There is no better way to assure the confidence of widows than by the show of spirituality, whether with long prayers in the temple or instant tears on the television.

And so he's referencing and saying this idea, like they use their position of power to steal and manipulate from other people.

Steal from the weak, steal from the susceptible, and to manipulate them.

And again, unfortunately, a lot of this hasn't changed in the life of the church.

There were so many examples that I had to cut them.

I had so many that I could have put in here that the sermon would have just gone on forever, but it's heavy enough, and I'm gonna keep it short.

So I picked like five or six different examples just to show you and to roll through.

But this type of thing happens all the time, and it has happened recently, this year, and different spaces and then in history as well.

But in the Southern Baptist world, if you remember, a report came out three years ago about all the covered up sexual abuse that had happened, over 700 different abusers in the span of a decade, all of it covered up.

One of the articles, Griffin Gulledge, says this.

He says, on May 22nd, the sexual abuse report was released to the public.

It opens with a 15-page summary followed by 250-plus pages of substantiating evidence.

The report tells the dark story of victims and children coming to leaders for help and finding only harm.

A rotten bureaucracy told victims, go away and be quiet.

Throughout the report, it's clear that the Southern Baptist leaders have used the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, for their own power, position, and profit.

And so they're using their power, using their position to cover up abuse.

The articles, there's tons of articles, you can go find these online, but one of the articles, or many of them, all had these, you know, things underneath them and all these different comments about these different things.

But a lot of what they said was like during when abuse victims would come forward and say something to their leader, say something to their denomination, or say something to the pastor, what was normally said was you cannot say that.

Because think of what it would do to the church.

Do you want to be responsible for closing the doors of this church?

And it's like, no.

That's not on me, that's on something that happened to you guys.

But it was this manipulative power to go, if you do this, God will be dis if you talk about what's happened to you, God will be displeased because his church will suffer.

You don't want his church to suffer, do you?

And so they use their position of power in order to manipulate and actually keep victims and keep abuse victims down and to keep it hidden so that it wasn't found out.

That's one, that happened three years ago.

And there are plenty of other examples of pastors and evangelists and televangelists and healers and random people who just have an idea about a religion or whatever, and just asking people for money in four, like, if you give me money, I will give you, or God will bless you with healing.

And they promise a lot.

And so again, the list was long, it was hard to read, but I only put a couple of them in here.

It's probably too small for you to read, so I'm gonna read it.

But so many of these people just asking for money, and if you give money, God will bless you.

Kenneth Copeland, I don't know these folks, but maybe they ring a bell with you guys.

Kenneth Copeland, he and others taught people to sow money and expect to harvest, including healing and financial return.

One story in particular was a woman named that I've found, a woman named uh Bonnie Parker.

She had cancer and was convinced by Copeland's ministry that giving money would bring healing.

And it bankrupted her.

It bankrupted her and her whole family how much money she gave to this.

And she gave that money in hopes of healing until the day that she died.

And there's an article written by her family to the Copeland ministry that is just sad and brutal, but very honest.

And it's like you just, you stole and stole and stole.

Mike Murdoch, he preached so a seed kind of giving, implying that financial giving will bring back more from God.

According to reporting, he once told people deep in credit card debt to give$1,000 to his ministry as a seed, and it would help cancel their debt.

That's a think of that.

Think of just the logic of math.

You have no money.

Here's what, and you're in debt.

You're in debt, no money.

Give me a thousand, go in more debt, and then you're gonna get out of debt.

And it's like, what world do you think?

Walter Maguire, leader of the prophetic healing and deliverance or the PhD ministries, good Lord.

He introduced a miracle cash card, claiming it carried anointing and miraculous benefits if people made sacrifices, i.e., pay money for it.

Paula White came this year alone in 2025.

She asked for gifts of a thousand dollars in exchange for the seven supernatural blessings.

According to the Denison Forum, she tied these blessings to promises like prosperity, sickness will be removed, longer life.

She previously promoted a resurrection seed.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.

It's terrible.

Um, a resurrection seed of$1,144, referencing the story of Lazarus, John 11, 44, suggesting that spiritual blessing will come to you if you give$1,144 based on John 11.44.

Literally using a passage from the scriptures and being and then using it for their benefit.

You can't give 1143, Lazarus is still dead.

You got to give 1144.

That's when the life comes.

Like you really got to get that last dollar in there.

God really is keeping track of that.

This other guy, Peter Popoff, which I do like his name, but I think it wasn't going great for him.

Popoff taught seed of faith.

People give money with the expectation that God will reward them financially or with healing.

He also sold miracle spring water, folks.

Miracle spring water in infomercials.

People were asked to sleep with the water, pray over their empty bottle, send it back with a donation, of course, and were promised miraculous protection from disease and financial prosperity.

It's brutal.

I honestly, I had to stop.

I was like, this is so frustrating and so annoying.

And that's like five.

And Jesus is standing in the middle of people, and it's like, this is what you've done.

Like, y'all have done this.

You've devoured widows' homes.

You have, you've just taken my father's name and you've used it to build an empire for yourself, and it has nothing to do with him, and it's keeping everybody out, and it's making everybody not want anything to do with this, and like just the frustration that he must have felt having to deal with those things.

But those are the reasons that the church has lost credibility, those and others.

But underneath all of these articles, you read them, there's all these comments and quotes from other people, and there was a common there, I mean, angry people, a lot of anger, a lot of questioning.

But under these articles, the common refrain was basically this.

They basically all wound up saying, This is why I want nothing to do with religion, this is why I want nothing to do with church, this is why all of these stories, this is why I want nothing to do with God, Jesus, and all the rest of it.

And that's what these things do.

These critiques that Jesus, these criticisms that Jesus is bringing up and actually saying, He's like, those things lead people and have led people in my life and in your life, and maybe even you in this room, to be like, I don't want anything to do with that.

I don't want anything to do with that.

And I do understand that.

Um, maybe more than if you're like if that's your experience, I really do understand that um more than you realize.

Um because like I was interested, like 11, 12 years old, I was interested in faith and uh was getting into that kind of thing.

And then going around my peers or the people that were Christians, it was like this real strong turnoff.

It's like I don't want anything to do with Christianity because of the Christians.

I was like, I'm I'm curious about this thing and I'm interested in this thing, and I had a good experience, but like my primary experience with Christianity in Georgia was like, I don't want to be a Christian because of the Christians.

I know Christians, I don't want to be anything like them.

And so this idea is real, and I do understand that, but I will say the feeling of just going, I want nothing to do with those things.

I want nothing to do with that because of this.

The fact that you want nothing to do with those things, which I hope that's true of everybody, the fact that you want nothing to do with hypocritical living, uh, the fact that you want nothing to do with people who manipulate the poor or steal from those who are weak or hold down those who are abused victims, the fact that you want nothing to do with that, that shouldn't lead you away from Jesus.

It actually should lead you to get closer to Jesus because the thing that you're saying, I want nothing to do with that.

Like that frustrates me to no end.

Jesus is saying the exact same thing.

He's actually saying with you, you're in agreement with him.

And it's like, I don't want nothing to do with Jesus because of that stuff.

And he's like, he doesn't want anything to do with that stuff either.

He's separating himself from those things.

These passages are Jesus condemning that type of behavior.

You want to condemn it, and he's like, I want to condemn it too.

You hate it, and he's going, I hate it.

And so we shouldn't be a part in this.

We should actually draw closer together.

You don't like it, and I don't like it.

And Jesus actually says, there is a greater condemnation for them.

I don't even know what a normal condemnation is.

What's a greater one?

Like, I have no idea.

But he's going, you want to condemn them.

He's like, I will condemn them further.

This type of thing frustrates you, but it burns me up.

And it's something that like people have gone, like, I don't want anything to do with Jesus because of what the how the church is.

And he's like, I don't want that stuff either.

It shouldn't lead you to leave me.

It should lead you to leave that and come find me because I don't want those things either.

And Jesus actually goes even further to disassociate himself from these people.

Um, these these verses that we read at the top that we haven't talked about just yet, they seem like really random.

Jesus is asking a question, but they're actually very, very important because Jesus is trying to make a point when he says this.

So this is what he says in 35 through 37.

He says, Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David?

David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

So if David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?

And again, it's a very odd passage, and you can just skim over it and be like, I don't really know what Jesus is talking about.

He's just asking a random question.

But what he's doing is he is showing all the people around them, it says that they listen to him with delight.

He is showing everybody around him, the teachers of the law have no idea who the Messiah is.

They have no idea who the Messiah is.

And so by saying that, the point he's making is so they have no idea who I am.

Therefore, their actions don't represent me because they don't know me.

And so he is pulling back these layers and going, I hate what they're doing and think what they're doing is wrong.

And also, if they're ever doing things in God's name, I'm God.

They have nothing to do with me because they don't even know me.

They can't represent somebody they don't know.

And that's what he's saying here.

He's like, don't think that we're the same.

We're not.

We are very, very different.

And you need to see that.

They don't even know who I am.

They don't even know the Bible that they're holding up and using for their own good.

They don't even know the Bible.

They don't even understand half of this stuff.

And what he's doing is he's trying to let them know and trying to let the people know.

They don't represent me because they don't know me.

And in the same way, when the church acts like this and the church fails in these ways and falls in these spaces, it shouldn't lead us to then deny or run away from Jesus.

It should just lead us to abandon those spaces and actually draw closer and nearer to Jesus.

Because you don't like it, he doesn't like it.

You don't want anything to do with that, neither does he.

So you guys actually have a ton in common.

And so if you're running away from religion, you're running away from Jesus because of some of the things that happen inside the church.

I get that that's the immediate go-to.

And everybody online was saying that too.

Like, I just, this is why I want nothing to do with that.

And it's like, but he doesn't either.

And so you would actually have a ton in common with him.

I think you'd love him if you got to know him, because the anger that you feel towards those things, he shares that with you.

So these things are terrible, but they should lead us closer to Jesus, not further away.

Because those things do not represent what he is actually like.

But with him is something that's far better.

And so a couple of things that we need to apply to our own lives, and then we'll close.

Couple of things we need to apply.

One, Christian, non-Christian, wherever you're at, we have to fight against the temptation to look good on the outside only.

Just fight the temptation to look good on the outside.

This is something that everybody does.

Our culture is bent towards this.

We like to hide our flaws and elevate our strengths.

Hide our flaws and accentuate the strength areas of our lives.

Social media is making billions of dollars off of that idea.

Hide your flaws, elevate the strengths.

So you have these pictures of people where they're posting, like, we're a really happy family.

It's like, you guys hate each other.

Everybody knows it.

But on Instagram, you look real happy.

It's really good.

Like that you can pose yourself and filter yourself, and you can do all these things where you look happier, more in love, skinnier.

Like you can, like every I'm smarter than I actually am.

Like you can post all these different things.

And you on Instagram, no one's like, could I please elevate my weaknesses?

No one's, if you're doing that, like, God bless you, but no one's doing that.

Everyone's showing the best version of themselves.

And our culture is just built around like, hide the flaws, hide the areas that aren't able to get the applause and elevate the spaces that do actually get an applause.

We do this with the clothes that we wear.

I wear these clothes because they make me look good.

I don't wear those clothes because they don't make me look good.

Then we look at our closets with all of our clothes and go, I have nothing to wear.

And it's like, you have a closet that you're looking in with all your clothes.

We do this with all those things.

We do this in conversations.

We're the victim and they're to blame.

I'm not the problem, they're the problem.

I'm the hero, they're the villain.

Like that we we we we just naturally have this thing to hide or to push down the spaces where we're wrong and to elevate the spaces where we're right, or to sh hide the stuff that makes us look bad, and to elevate the things that make us look good.

This is just part of the culture that we live in.

But when it shifts and it seeps into your faith, it poisons it and it makes it something that's dead.

It makes it something that's dead on the inside.

And it leads us into a space where it's like, yeah, you you look so holy, you look so righteous, but this is such garbage.

And people are gonna come to you like coming to a well for water, and you're gonna have nothing to for them to drink, just bones and dry ground.

Like they need something from you.

I'm like, there's nothing here.

It's all been fake.

And so when this happens to us, it poisons our faith, and it's something that we have to live in, it's something we have to fight.

There's this image I came across, it's uh the the street artist Banksy uh from the UK, and uh I really found it brilliant, but uh it's graffiti cleaning off graffiti, and so there's graffiti on the wall, and then the image is of more graffiti cleaning off graffiti.

And I just thought this was like this prophetic moment of like that's what it looks like.

That's what faith that looks good on the outside is actually doing.

Nothing.

It's doing nothing.

Actually, what this is doing, graffiti on top of graffiti, the image is I'm making this wall not clean.

It looks like I'm making it cleaner.

I'm actually adding paint and making it dirtier.

And that's what faith that looks good on the outside, but actually doesn't have anything inside, that's what it actually does.

It doesn't clean anything, it looks clean on the outside, but actually, what's actually taking place there is things are getting dirtier.

Looks good, but it's actually doing more damage.

That's what faith is like when it's just beautiful on the outside.

It offers nothing to people.

Actually, what it offers to people is pain.

It hurts people, and it leads you to actually be in disillusioned with your faith.

But then more than that, it leads other people to look at you and be like, if Jesus is like that, I don't want anything to do with that.

And it's like he's not.

That's holiness on the outside with dead bones on the inside.

That's not what he's like.

And so we have to be careful, we have to fight the temptation to just put on this good show of religiosity on the outside.

The second is we need to watch out, watch out, beware, be careful.

The word that Jesus uses when he says watch out, I wanted to read it every single time because Jesus is using a strong word about these people.

It's like you need to watch out.

It is possible for you to fall into this.

This is something that defines the teachings of the law, and you need to watch out because it will be something that can define your life as well.

You can fall into the exact same trap in so many different spaces.

So watch out that this doesn't become you, where you're actually just, again, holy on the outside, but actually filled with nothing on the inside, where you're actually using the scriptures and manipulating the scriptures to get exactly what you want in your family.

But you're actually bending the scriptures for your means and what you want.

So we have to be careful with that.

But even on top of that, we have to be careful and watch out that the experiences that we have in other churches, the church hurt that we've experienced, the stuff that we see online with religious pastors and televangelists or whatever, the viral videos that everybody keeps sending me about these terrible churches, we have to watch out that like those things don't lead us to go, how terrible that is.

I want nothing to do with Jesus.

We have to watch out to make sure that our bad experiences over here and our church hurt over here doesn't lead us to actually decide that must be what Jesus is like as well.

And then we have a direct correlation between the church is bad, therefore I don't want anything to do with Jesus.

Jesus is like, watch out.

You can have such a bad experience in the church with people that are supposed to represent me that you then begin to believe that I represent them and I don't.

We are not the same.

And so we have to watch out.

One of the things that I see with people who go through church hurt is like just bad experiences in the church.

And it's real, and their experiences are valid and very, very real.

But one of the things that I see with people going through those things is it can lead people to move not just from like that hurts, that's sad, it leads them to disobeying Jesus.

And so they were at a church that manipulated them and tried to get up, get their money, constantly talked about money.

So then what happens is they didn't just like, so that was wrong.

I don't want anything to do with that.

It actually leads them to go, so I'm not giving my money to any church like the guy I was talking about.

I'm not gonna give my money to any church.

And it's like, well, that's disobedient to the scriptures.

You don't have to give it to that one, but don't let your bad experience lead you to disobey what Jesus clearly calls you to do inside the church.

Other people had pastors who were just brutal and terrible and abuse their power, abuse their leadership.

And so now they're in a different church, new pastor, new thing, and it's like, I won't listen to any pastor, I'm not gonna honor them or respect them, I'm not even gonna get to know them, I don't want anything to do with them because I had a bad experience with my previous pastor.

And it's like, man, I get that, and that's real, and that's hard, and I don't understand the full story.

However, to then take that into every section of life that you're in, with every new shepherd or pastor that you're there, and to say that because one of them was that way, all of them are that way, is to lead you towards disobedience to the scriptures because you're actually supposed to honor those in leadership.

You are supposed to be under a shepherd who teaches you the word.

You are supposed to place yourself in those spaces.

And so if you just refuse to do that because of a bad experience, that bad experience is valid, but it should not lead you into disobedience.

Other people won't get involved in the community.

They come to a new church, they had a bad experience, the church blew up, the whole thing was sideways, and it was bad.

Then they come to a new community and they just want to heal up and rest and that stuff, but then they won't jump in.

They won't connect in community, they won't join in the groups and that kind of thing because like they've been hurt before.

It's like I'm not doing that again.

And so they don't open their heart to new community and things like that.

And it's like, but you're called to live in community.

You're called to bear the burdens of one another, to love one another, to share with one another, to encourage one another.

You're called to do the one another's with people, with one another.

You're supposed to do that.

You're built for that.

And so to have a bad experience is very, very difficult.

But if it leads you in disobedience to go, now I'm in a new church, but I'm not, I'm just gonna be in the background and never get in.

It's like, well, then now you're being disobedience.

You need the time.

I get that you might need time, but to say that I'm never gonna do it again because of my bad experience is gonna lead you in disobedience towards what Jesus actually calls you to do.

And so Jesus is like, watch out.

Not only that you don't fall into it, but maybe watch out that it doesn't shape the way that you view me and make sure and be careful that your bad experiences that lead you to be disobedient to me because I still have good things for you.

You had a terrible, tragic experience.

But there also should be this space where you understand that like not every church is that way, not every pastor is that way, not every preaching type of preaching and using the scriptures, and not all of it is is that way.

And so we gotta make sure, watch out.

And then the last, and we'll close with this.

We need to get to know Jesus so well that you can spot the counterfeits.

You need to get to know Jesus so well that you can spot the counterfeits.

Anne Graham Lotts, the daughter of Billy Graham, tells this story in one of her books, uh, Just Give Me Jesus.

Uh, she's telling a story about her mother at this dinner party in London.

She says this she says, Years ago, my mother was invited to a very prestigious dinner party in London.

As she conversed, mother discovered that the distinguished-looking older gentleman seated beside her was the former head of Scotland Yard, Great Britain's equivalent of the FBI.

Fascinated, she respectfully began to probe him with an for anecdotes.

As he opened up under her genuine interest, he revealed that the the departments under his authority had included those for forgery and counterfeiting.

When she proposed that he must have spent a lot of time studying counterfeit dollars, he corrected her.

On the contrary, Mrs.

Graham, I spent all of my time studying the genuine thing.

That way, when I saw a counterfeit, I could immediately detect it.

My mother's dinner party, my mother's dinner party guest had unwittingly touched on a very important principle.

If you and I want to be able to detect counterfeit Christs and counterfeit truth, we need to immerse ourselves in the real thing.

I love that story.

I think it's I think it's brilliant.

Um, and then just so true.

If you want to be able to detect the things that are fake, if you want to make sure that you're in a space where you're like, they're preaching about Jesus, they're treating, they're saying they're treating me like Jesus, or they're they're calling themselves a Christian, they're treating me this way.

To know Jesus so well, to go like, hey, I don't know who you're actually showing me, but that's not him.

That's not what he's like.

He would never talk to me that way.

He would never treat me that way.

He would never use shame to try and get me to do anything.

He would never use fear to try and move me forward in any of those things.

He would never do that.

I know him.

He is a savior that leads with grace.

This is loving kindness that leads to repentance.

And I don't know what you're doing, but it ain't him.

And we need to know something here well enough.

We need to know him well enough so that we can, when we experience a bad version or a bad experience, that call themselves the church and then we're the church of Jesus, or I'm referring, I'm representing Jesus, me like, no, you're not.

I appreciate that, but you're not.

And then you can walk away, not condemning them or kicking them or hitting them or anything like that, but you can just leave, you know.

So the church is still plagued by these things, plagued by the disease of the teachers of the law.

But my encouragement is to don't let those things lead you away from Jesus, let them lead you closer to Jesus.

Those things do not represent him.

He is nothing like that.

Those that stuff, he is not like that.

Hypocritical, only righteous on the outside, gonna manipulate you to get stuff for you, he is not like that.

You see that the most in his life, but you see it the most on the cross.

Jesus, though he was, think about it.

Though he was the only true righteous one, he chose not to appear as righteous, but he chose to actually appear as a sinner, dying, a sinner's death, a criminal's death on a cross, so that we could become righteous.

He wasn't trying to show off his righteousness.

He was like, I will actually lay down my glory and my righteousness, and I will be crucified on a cross, shamed and cursed by people.

I will do that so that other people will experience blessing and righteousness.

I don't need to prove to you I'm righteous.

I just want to make you like me.

I want to make you righteous.

He chose to actually go the other way and go like, I will look like a fool.

I will look like someone who's actually a sinner so that you can become righteous.

He didn't use his position of power to get more for himself, but he gave up his position as high king of heaven to humble himself, to come to earth in order to rescue and save me and you.

He's not like the teachers of the law.

Jesus didn't manipulate people, he didn't lie to people, he didn't abuse people, but he was spit on, and he was lied about, and he was abused, and he was beaten, and he was cursed, but he went through all those things so that you and I could experience the blessings of God.

He is just not represented in the teachers of the law, and he is not represented in churches that do it wrongly.

And if you hate it, he hates it more.

And if you want to condemn it, he says there's greater condemnation coming for it.

But don't let it lead you away from him when you see people abusing this thing, because Jesus is like, I am nothing like that.

I swear you'll love me if you get to know me.

So don't walk away.

Allow those things that you see in the life of the church to actually lead you closer to him.

Let me pray.