Be Honest with God

Well, we are finishing a series this morning that we started a few weeks back, and it's a series called Boiling Point.

For the last year, we have been following the life of Jesus through the book of Matthew.

We started in February, and here we are, almost done with the entire book of Matthew.

We've just been following along with Jesus, trying to learn as much as we can about him.

That's kind of been my primary hope is that at the end of this year, to whatever degree you've participated, that you have a clearer understanding of who Jesus is, that you know him better, that you understand him more deeply, that you can live your life with a closer connection to him.

And today we're gonna see Jesus in a really awesome way.

We're gonna see Jesus tested and challenged.

And sometimes when you get tested and challenged, your true colors have a way of showing.

That happens for all of us.

When you're up against it, the real you comes out.

And sometimes, if you're honest, it's not a good version of you.

It's not the best version of you, at least.

I don't know if if is anyone else like that?

That like when okay, good, I'm not alone.

So you guys can actually pray for me about this because this is probably about to happen in my life.

Um, I'm coaching basketball again.

So this is the fifth year I've said it's my last year.

Um no, I'm coaching my son's team, and uh man, that's just been a challenge.

I think this is like my sixth or seventh year coaching, and uh every year I tell myself, hey, referees are not evil people, referees are not evil people.

There's nothing wrong.

They're just they're probably getting paid like$20 a game.

Come on, cut them some slack, right?

That's what I say at the start of every season.

And then eventually, there's a ref and there's a moment, and I'm tested, I'm challenged, I'm put up against it, and the best me does not come through.

So, like, for example, a couple years ago, got a technical foul.

Um, it's the only technical foul I've ever gotten.

I'm gonna say this.

Anyone who anybody ever coach, like coach basketball in the room, any other basketball coaches?

Is there any okay, a few?

Like six, seven seasons, one technical foul.

That's pretty good.

I'm just gonna say that, right?

No?

Okay, whatever.

Um, it's good for me.

My dad was my coach, he got a technical game.

I mean, so uh so the the situation was pretty simple.

We just had this young ref, and he blew his whistle more than I've ever seen a referee blow.

I think he was getting paid per whistleblow or something.

I don't know how it was working.

And so he's just foul, foul, foul.

I'm confused.

The other coach is confused.

We have players fouling out left and right.

I'm like, what's going on?

And eventually he blows the whistle, fourth quarter, one of my players fouls out, comes and goes, Coach, I don't know what I did.

And I said to my player, but kind of loud, uh, it's okay, he's just a bad ref.

And it's not that big of a deal, guys.

Come on.

If you're gonna be a ref, you gotta have thick skin.

All right, no, I'm teasing.

Um, no, I shouldn't have said that.

What I should have said to him was, hey, it's okay.

Sometimes refs are calling it more tight, and that's part of the game, and you gotta learn that.

But what I said was, it's okay, he's just a bad ref.

So the ref heard this.

He blows his whistle, gives me a technical foul, and I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I didn't say that to you.

I said that to my player.

I am allowed to tell my players what I think of the game.

I didn't say I think you're a bad ref.

I could have, but I didn't say it to you.

I told my player that I think you're a bad ref.

I can talk to my players.

He didn't agree.

Um, I probably shouldn't have mentioned this.

It was a first-grade basketball game.

Uh that might be important context.

It's all good.

It's all good.

Last year, no technicals.

And uh, and I've just I'm just saying, I'm prepared because it's about to start, and I know that I'm gonna be challenged, I'm gonna be tested, I want to pass the test.

I know it's coming.

I've already prepared my heart, I've prepared my parents, I've said, hey, guys, it's gonna be a fun season, but just know when it gets challenging and hard, and we're in those close games that referees, like good referees in youth basketball, are kind of like they're like unicorns.

They just they don't exist, right?

Except for Mike Holbrook, who is a longtime CYB ref and also goes to his hands.

So, Mike, if you're here, obviously you're the exception.

Okay, along with any other referees that I don't know that go here, and by the way, if you happen to be that, just maybe before the game, if you're at my game, come tell me who you are.

That's not that I not that I'll behave differently, but like we might as well use it as a connection point, and it would be good information for me to know.

Okay.

Um, actually, and all jokes aside, one of my biggest fears in the last few years has been what if a referee walks into our church and comes here and is like, I remember that guy, and it probably wouldn't be good because when it comes to sports and all that kind of stuff, the the best version of me does not often arise.

That's the way life goes very often.

When we get challenged, we get put in a situation where our patience is tested, the real us shows through, and oftentimes we fail those tests.

At least I do.

But Jesus is a little different.

And today, we're gonna see Jesus challenged and tested, and we're gonna see a version of him shine through the it's it's amazing.

I mean, Jesus is incredible.

When he gets pushed, when he gets challenged and he gets tested, he just passes with flying colors.

And it's an incredible inspiration, and it should just leave us in awe.

And I'm so excited because today we're gonna see Jesus pass the test.

And in doing so, it's gonna get intense.

And we're gonna learn something really important about who Jesus is and how we can be in our relationship with him.

So, with all that said, let's let's give some context to where we're at in the story.

A few weeks ago, we had Jesus arrive in Jerusalem.

We'll actually bring up a map that shows you this.

He left a small village and he made his way into the city.

Um, this was a day that we often call Palm Sunday.

All the people see Jesus coming and they lay palm branches down.

This was actually like a sign of uh of worship in many ways, and they're saying, We recognize you're here to rescue us, Jesus.

And when he gets into the area he goes to, he doesn't do what they think he's gonna do.

He doesn't like go deal with the Romans.

He goes right into the temple and he addresses the corruption of the religious leaders in his community head on.

They've sort of turned the temple into this money-making enterprise, and he's flipping over tables and he causes this major scene because Jesus is intentionally raising the temperature.

That's why we've called this series boiling point.

Jesus, he's raising the temperature, he is intentionally heading for a head-on conflict with the powers that be, and he knows how it's going to go.

After this, after he flips all the tables and causes all this ruckus, Jesus leaves the temple and he goes to this village called Bethany.

Bethany is a place where some of his closest friends lived Lazarus, Martha, Mary, if you know those names, they were from a village called Bethany, very close to Jerusalem.

And if you're a normal person, you're like, okay, I just caused this huge scene, everyone's all upset about it, all the most important people are angry.

Maybe lay low for a while.

Right?

Maybe keep a low profile.

Not Jesus.

The very next day he gets up, he goes right back to the temple.

And you know the Pharisees, the religious leaders are like, he's never going to show his face here again, but Jesus goes, nope, I'm coming right back.

And we were there last week.

When he goes back to the temple, he starts to challenge the religious leaders from like a theological perspective, and he actually lets them know very clearly who he thinks that he is, that he very much has confidence that he's the Messiah.

He doesn't hold back from that.

And he says things that are audacious.

We talked about that last week, the audacity of Jesus.

We get to see this amazing side of him in this conflict that Jesus boldly claims that he is the Messiah and that he has authority in the temple.

It's not them that has the authority.

So that was last week, and today we're gonna see the religious leaders sort of regroup and come at Jesus and attempt to test him.

And like I said a few moments ago, we're gonna see the true colors of Jesus shine through, as is often the case when you are challenged and put on the spot.

So, with that said, let's start with Matthew chapter 22, verse 15.

Matthew 22:15

It says, Then the Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested.

The Pharisees are the most prominent religious group at this time.

We we read about them all the time.

If you're familiar with the story of Jesus, you've you've definitely heard of the Pharisees over and over again.

He's often the enemy of, they're often the enemy of Jesus.

They're always trying to trap Jesus, test Jesus, challenge Jesus.

And just for some background, the Pharisees are an interesting group.

They're actually a group that started, like officially, about 150 or so years before Jesus.

There was this brief period of time where Israel was free.

They had been ruled by Syria.

There was an uprising that led to freedom.

This is known as a period of time called the Maccabean dynasty.

The Maccabees were this kind of family that ruled Israel, and Israel was independent until Rome comes in and takes over.

But there was this period of time where they had independence.

And during that time, the Maccabees set up a family of high priests that should not have been high priests according to the laws of the Old Testament and the way that the lineages work.

They were really big on that kind of thing.

And the Pharisees were this group of kind of die-hard, conservative, religious, like Bible guys.

They love Scripture, they love the authority of Scripture, they were strict in their adherence to it, and they said, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not the way it's supposed to be.

That's not, this doesn't line up with Scripture.

And they formed this opposition party to try to hold the leadership accountable to what God's word said.

And that's not a bad thing.

That was their origin.

An opposition party focused on strictly adhering to what God had said to do.

But as time went on and their influence grew, they became more than just diehard followers of God and his word.

They became the ones who, in their minds, had the authoritative take on what everything in Scripture meant.

And not only were they trying to follow the laws of Scripture and make everybody else do so, they were adding to those laws.

And in an attempt to make it basically impossible to break the laws of God, they were creating more and more ways that you had to live so that if you never did this, you could never do that, and if you never did that, you could never break a law.

And it became this oppressive religious system, and Jesus didn't have much tolerance for that at all.

The Pharisees had tons of influence in the religious community, and Jesus has opposed them at every single turn.

And so now they're going to trap Jesus, and they come up with this really interesting way to do that.

They go to Jesus and they say, Hey, should we pay taxes?

Should we pay taxes?

Now, like in our day, don't really have a choice.

I guess you do, but you should pay taxes.

In Jesus' day, this was a loaded question.

In fact, at the time of Jesus' birth, there was a revolt that actually happened in the same area that Jesus is from.

It was led by a man named Judas of Galilee.

And it was a revolt that for a brief period of time had some success, and then Rome came in and squashed it, and it was all about paying taxes.

Because the people in Jesus' day saw paying taxes to the Romans as not just something that left a bad taste in your mouth, because they don't need the money.

They saw it as a form of worship, and it was this sort of way of bowing to Caesar.

And so there was a lot of debate in terms of should we pay taxes or is that a form of worship?

And the Pharisees are hoping that Jesus says, no, don't pay your taxes, because then they'll just go to the Romans and have them arrested.

The Romans do not want another Judas of Galilee, so if they catch wind that there's this guy with influence telling people not to pay taxes, Jesus is done.

He's arrested.

But they also know that if Jesus says, yes, pay taxes to the Romans, that's going to make him unpopular with the people because the people don't like the Romans.

So they think they've got Jesus trapped.

They're testing him.

And here's how he responds.

Verse 18, it says, Jesus knew their evil motives.

You hypocrites, he said.

Why are you trying to trap me?

Here, show me the coin that's used for the tax.

And when they handed him a Roman coin, he asked, Whose picture and title are stamped on it?

Caesar's, they replied.

Well then, he said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.

And his reply amazed them, and they went away.

It's so simple.

Jesus knows his stuff.

I want you to remember that phrase because we're going to talk about that a lot.

Jesus knows his stuff.

When you really know what you're talking about, you can give very short, succinct answers to questions.

You don't have to talk and blabber on and on and on as you're trying to find the answer in your brain.

Jesus just says it.

He goes, look, this coin belongs to Caesar, fine.

Give it to Caesar, but also give to God what belongs to God.

In other words, you don't have to choose between being a good citizen on this earth and being a good citizen of heaven, so to speak.

You can do both.

And the Pharisees are like, ah.

It's too good of an answer, and they just leave.

They're mad.

Now Jesus is going to get tested by another group.

Test number two comes from the Sadducees.

Now the Sadducees and the Pharisees are kind of like opposing political parties.

Very much like in our day we have Republicans and Democrats.

The Sadducees were a much smaller group, but also much more powerful, more influential.

They were elite.

Their origin was similar in terms of length to the Pharisees, but these were guys who were put in a place of power and authority.

They had close connections with Rome.

They were very much in favor of the status quo staying as it is.

Because they had power.

They had wealth.

Annas, the high priest, he was a Sadducee.

The Sadducees were not strict in their adherence to Scripture.

They were more about influence and power in an earthly sense, and they had some theological ideas that were very different than what the Pharisees and most of the people believed.

For example, they rejected the idea of an afterlife.

They said there's no such thing as life after death.

There's no heaven, there's no hell, there's no such thing as resurrection.

That was their belief.

And there's a lot of scripture that directly contradicts that.

You have a lot of prophets in the Old Testament, for example, that there's a resurrection that happens in the life of Elijah.

You have, they didn't believe in angels.

You have lots of stories in the Bible about in the Old Testament of an angel coming down and speaking to like Gideon or someone like that.

And the Sadducees' ways of dealing with that was they just rejected everything but the first five books of the Old Testament.

They said, these are the only things that are really scripture.

We reject everything else.

Just as a quick side note, that's often a way that people who are false teachers will justify what they teach.

If they try to teach with any authority from Scripture, they'll just kind of pick and choose what scripture they view as authoritative and what scripture isn't.

And the hard thing about that is even though in some ways uh it's expedient, because you can say, oh, I just reject that and I believe this, or I think that's wrong, I think this one's right, or this one's more authoritative than others, when it comes to scripture, it's important for us to know this.

If you ever hear someone talk like that, it doesn't work like that.

You cannot simply uh cut this scripture away and focus on this scripture because it's all interconnected.

I want to show you guys a really cool graphic.

I think I've shown this once before, but this is a graphic that shows you all of the cross-references that happen in the Bible.

There's 63,000 cross-references.

So, for example, if you didn't like the book of Deuteronomy, and I don't know anyone whose favorite book is Deuteronomy, um, well, you can't reject it if you follow Jesus because Jesus quotes Deuteronomy all the time.

It was one of his favorite books.

Jesus is always quoting Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Psalms, among others.

And so this shows you all the different cross-references that happen, and as you look at that, you're like, yeah, there's no way to just go, ooh, put that one to the side.

Doesn't work like that.

But that's what the Sadducees did.

They said, yeah, we just reject everything but the first five books.

So they come to Jesus to test him theologically.

And this is probably a scenario they've given to the Pharisees to try to mock the Pharisees and put them on the spot.

They said, okay, suppose there's a scenario where a lady gets married and her husband dies, they don't have any kids yet.

In ancient Jewish law, if you married a guy and he died before you had kids, you had to marry his brother.

And have a child, hopefully, with his brother, because that way the family line could continue.

And I'm glad things don't work like that anymore, but that's the way that it was.

Okay?

So they say, hey, suppose that happens.

And so she marries his brother, but then guess what?

Brother dies too.

So she marries another brother and another brother and another brother, all the way up to seven brothers.

It's a ridiculous scenario.

And then she dies.

In heaven, whose wife will she be?

That's their scenario.

And it's ridiculous and silly and preposterous, but it's probably something they've given to the Pharisees many times, and the Pharisees probably can't answer it because, you know, the for all of the Pharisees, positive creativity is not one of them.

So they they pose this question to Jesus, and you can just feel there's like this air of arrogance about it.

And here's how Jesus responds Test number two.

He replies, verse 29, uh, your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures, and you don't know the power of God.

For when the dead rise, he says that very clearly, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

In this respect, they'll be like the angels in heaven.

So, right there, in one sentence, he's like, There is the resurrection of the dead, there is an afterlife, and there are angels.

And he says there's not marriage in heaven.

Now, some people hear this and go, no.

And other people hear this and quietly go, yes.

But we won't deal with that.

That's a whole different conversation for another time.

Uh I will say, whichever side you're on, if you're married, join a generations group.

We have great marriage groups called Generations.

They're awesome.

My group meets tonight, it's a lot of fun.

So he says that.

Verse 31, he goes on and says, But now as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead, haven't you ever read about this in the scriptures?

Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

So he's the God of the living, not the dead.

And when the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching.

He's referencing, for example, when Jesus speaks to Moses through the burning bush, when God speaks to Moses through the burning bush.

And same thing that we sang about this morning with that new song, He is the Lord, that He's I Am.

And he says, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he speaks about them in the present tense, even though they died a long time ago.

And this is from the first five books of the Bible.

It's something that the Sadducees can't just dismiss.

And Jesus says, boom, right there, you have God speaking about these dead men as if they're living because they are.

Because there is life after death.

And the Sadducees don't have a response for Jesus.

So they leave as well, and the crowd is astounded because every time Jesus is being tested, it's just bam, bam.

It's passing the flying colors.

The next test, test number three, this is a little different.

This isn't from a Pharisee or a Sadducee, as far as we know.

It actually, you get the impression this is from someone who genuinely wants to follow God the right way.

He's probably heard Jesus answer these things.

He's blown away by his responses, and he's like, this is my chance to really figure out what matters most to God.

And so he asked Jesus, what is the most important commandment?

Of all the commandments that we have in the Old Testament, hundreds of them, which is the one that's most important?

And Jesus responds in Matthew chapter 22, verse 37, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

Matthew 22:37

This is the first and greatest commandment.

A second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

And his answer is perfect.

Because I love the fact that the guy asks for one, Jesus gives him two, but they're so linked together you can't separate them.

You can't say that you love God and not love people because God loves people.

People are his favorite.

He loves people passionately.

If I'm gonna love God, I have to love the people that God creates.

It'd be like telling me that you love me but you hate my children.

Doesn't work like that.

And this man hears this and it's yes, clearly, that all of the law of the prophets, all the Ten Commandments, all of it, it's summed up in just love God and love people.

If you actually look at the Ten Commandments, it's an interesting study.

They either fall into one of those two categories, how I relate to God and how I relate to others.

And if you love God with all your heart and you love people as much as you love yourself, you're you're in a good place.

Jesus sums it up so clearly.

Why?

Because he knows his stuff.

He gets tested time and time again, and he knows it.

He knows his stuff because he wrote it, he inspired it.

Does that make sense?

Like it's it's all him.

That's why he said to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but they point to me.

It's all about me.

I inspired it, I know it.

He just passes these tests like it's nothing.

It's amazing.

He's so clever, he's so intelligent, he's brilliant, he's he's awesome.

And then we continue, and Jesus now, after being tested three times, he's gonna sort of turn the tables and test those around him.

So in Matthew 22, verse 41, it says, Then surrounded by the Pharisees, they've come back.

Matthew 22:41

Jesus asked them a question: What do you think about the Messiah?

Whose son is he?

And they reply, Well, he's the son of David.

Like of what lineage is the Messiah gonna come from?

And all the prophecies said he would be from the lineage of David.

Jesus responded, Well, then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, call the Messiah my Lord?

For David said, and he quotes a psalm, the Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet.

Since David called the Messiah my Lord, how can the Messiah be his son?

And what Jesus is doing here is he's sort of shattering this perspective that they all had in terms of seeing the Messiah as purely a human, political, military figure, that he's more than that.

That the Messiah is not just a human being, a prophet, a king, that the Messiah is divine, is of heaven.

And when Jesus says this, it says in verse 46 that no one could answer him.

And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.

So here we have Jesus, he's come back to Jerusalem after creating this huge stir, turning over the tables in the temple, challenging the religious leaders.

They come and they try to test him, he passes.

Pharisees pass that test, Sadducees passes that test.

Someone that's just genuinely curious about God, he gives them exactly what he needs, and then he challenges the Pharisees, the experts, and they can't answer his question.

Jesus has just established himself clearly as the authority.

No one's gonna dare ask him any more questions.

And if you're if you're like me, at this moment, this is where you walk out.

This is where you say, All right, I'm taking the win, I'm gone.

Right?

I came, I turned over the tables, I caused this big stir, I left, I came back, I passed three tests, and then I tested you and you failed.

It's been a great day, guys.

I'll see you tomorrow.

But remember, Jesus, he's here to raise the temperature.

When he came into Jerusalem, he came with the intention of conflict.

He's not here to survive.

He's not here just to say a few things and escape and get by.

He knows exactly what's gonna happen to him in Jerusalem.

He knows that the cross is coming.

He's told his disciples, we're going to Jerusalem, and I'm gonna be handed over and I'm gonna be crucified.

He's there to raise the temperature, and I said a few weeks ago, kind of think like a stove, and you're just slowly raising that fire level, you're turning that knob, and it's just getting hotter and hotter.

Well, now Jesus is gonna pour some gasoline on that.

Because after passing these tests and then testing the Pharisees, Jesus, we're gonna read the entirety of Matthew chapter 23 right now, and Jesus is just about to dress them down as directly and as intensely as you could possibly do.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

If they had the ability to call a technical foul, they would have.

Okay?

So let me just read this.

And I want you to understand, Jesus has passed these tests, and now he can either walk away, but he decides to raise the temperature even further.

And the entirety of Matthew 23 is Jesus addressing the religious leaders of his day.

So let's listen to this.

He's bringing heat.

Matthew 23, verse 1.

Matthew 23:1

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.

So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don't follow their example.

For they don't practice what they teach.

They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Everything they do is for show.

On their arms, they wear extra wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels.

The Jewish people had lots of things they would do to sort of demonstrate their adherence to God and scripture, and the Pharisees just show off a lot, is what Jesus is saying.

And they love to sit at the head of the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues.

They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces and to be called rabbi.

Don't let anyone call you rabbi, for you only have one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters, and don't address anyone here on earth as father, for only God in heaven is your father, and don't let anyone call you teacher, for you all have one teacher, the Messiah.

The greatest among you must be a servant, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

And here's where it gets really intense.

Verse 13.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

You won't go in yourselves, and you don't let others enter either.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell that you yourselves are.

Blind gods.

What sorrow awaits you?

For you say that it means nothing to swear by God's temple, but that it is binding to swear by the gold in the temple, blind fools, and he's basically saying they have all these silly religious rules that if you really start to split the hairs, they don't make any sense.

Blind fools, which is more important?

The gold in the temple or the temple that makes the gold sacred?

And you say that to swear by the altar is not binding, but to swear by the gifts of the altar is binding.

How blind?

For which is more important, the gift on the altar or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

When you swear by the altar, you're swearing by it and everything on it.

And when you swear by the temple, you're swearing by it and by God who lives in it.

And when you swear by heaven, you're swearing by the throne of God and by God who sits on the throne.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're careful to tithe even the tiniest income of your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law justice, mercy, and faith.

You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.

Blind guides, you strain the water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel.

The Jewish people had foods that were not clean in their eyes.

They were declared unclean, and they had certain animals that were declared unclean.

A camel was basically like the largest of the unclean animals, and a gnat was the smallest.

So he's saying, you're so careful to follow every letter of the law, but you're missing the point entirely.

He goes on.

I lost my place.

Boom.

All right, verse 25.

You think that we're about done?

Oh no, no, no.

He's like halfway there.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean too.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.

Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law, and you Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you build tombs for the prophets that your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of godly people your ancestors destroyed, and then you say, if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would have never joined in killing the prophets.

But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murder the prophets.

Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started.

Snakes, sons of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of hell?

Therefore, I'm sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law, but you'll kill some by crucifixion, you'll flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city.

As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all the godly people of all time.

From the murder of the righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah, son of Barekiah, whom you killed in the temple between the sanctuary and the altar.

I tell you the truth.

This judgment will fall on this very generation.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers.

How often have I wanted to gather your children as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.

And now look, your house is abandoned and desolate, for I tell you this: you will never see me again until you say, Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

And he's quoting a prophecy from the book of Psalms.

Alright, so that's pretty intense.

That was long.

I was like, let's just read it in its entirety.

Jesus, that's an uninterrupted rant of Jesus.

And imagine being the Pharisees and just sitting there and listening to that.

Blind guides, snakes, sons of vipers.

Whew.

Hypocrites.

That's his favorite line.

He says hypocrites over and over again.

Calls the Pharisees hypocrites.

That word, by the way, in Greek, very specific word, and it's the word used for actor.

It's an actor, it's a pretender.

I was thinking about that this week, and maybe we could use some levity after that intense few moments with Jesus.

When I was in high school, I did plays, you know, because that's how you get cool in high school, is you do school plays.

It's like the fastest way to being a cool kid.

Actually, a buddy of mine, uh, I've been spending some time with the last few weeks was in a play with me back in the day.

And so uh, you know, I did basketball and drama.

It was a weird thing, but that was my that was my thing.

And so I was thinking about acting, because Jesus is calling them actors, actors.

And he's saying that as an insult and as a former actor, you know, I take offense.

Um so as far as acting goes, I think, and hear me out on this, uh, because it's gonna sound prideful, but it's not.

I don't think it is anyway.

Uh, I think I might be the greatest actor that my college ever had.

I'm gonna explain, I'm gonna explain.

So, I never got recognized for this.

By the way, it stinks when you don't get recognized for things.

Like, for example, when I graduated college, I didn't get any awards.

And I had a friend that got awards, like, I had good grades, but he had like amazing grades.

But I remember telling one of my professors, yeah, but he comes to class every day.

And I come to class like every third day, and my grades aren't that much lower than his.

So, from an efficiency perspective, I think I have the highest GPA per lowest attendance ratio, and I think that's actually a bigger accomplishment, but they didn't see it that way.

There was no, I was waiting for that award on graduation day.

There was no highest GPA per lowest attendance ratio, whatever, maybe one day.

Well, same is true with acting.

I didn't get an award for this, but I think it holds up.

Here's the deal I I had a scholarship to college for drama, for acting, and uh had it for two years, got paid for two years, never did a play.

Not one, zero.

Two years I got paid by my college to be an actor, and I never I didn't do anything.

I didn't audition, I didn't go to a class, I did nothing.

And I'm not dis I'm not dishonest, I guess I am.

Um, but I'm really like letting you guys know who I am.

I'm a horrible coach, I hate referees, and I like no, I I went to the school, I got the scholarship, and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do this, and then the first round of of you know auditions happened, and I like, uh, I don't know.

I rethought it for a little bit, wasn't really sure.

Acting in high school was just kind of goofy and fun, and acting in college was like serious.

They were really serious about it.

I was like, I'm not that serious about it.

And so I kind of wavered, and I intended to like audition.

My responsibilities were I had to at least be involved in one performance, and I just the the year went by and it never happened.

And so I went to my professor and I said, Hey, obviously, you know, I didn't do any of that, I'm sorry.

And he goes, Well, are you gonna do it next year?

And I wasn't lying.

I said yes, and I meant it.

I thought, yes, I will, yes, absolutely.

Freshman year, you know, figuring things out next year, absolutely.

So year two, didn't do any of it.

Uh and then I lost my scholarship, which is understandable.

But here's what I'm saying, greatest actor.

I apparently, I was such a good actor that I both convinced my college to pay me to not act.

And I also convinced myself, I thought I was gonna do it too.

Like that's how good of an actor I was.

That I both convinced my college and myself to have a scholarship.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's just a random acting story to bring levity to that hard moment of Jesus.

Okay, back on track.

Sorry, forgive me.

Acting was not for me.

It was not for me.

Jesus calls the Pharisees actors, hypocrites, blind guides.

I mean, he's he's challenging, and this is such an incredible thing, and this is honestly where we're gonna kind of land the plane.

Because in these first moments when Jesus is tested, we see that Jesus knows his stuff.

He knows the scriptures, he knows the prophecies, he knows everything you can know about God.

And he proves that to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the people genuinely seeking God.

He has an answer for everything, and it is perfect.

It is right.

Jesus knows his stuff.

But here, when we get to Matthew 23, and he just brings it to the Pharisees, we learn that not only does Jesus know his stuff, he knows our stuff.

Like he sees them.

He sees the Pharisees as they are.

They're actors, they're pretenders, they act holy, they act righteous, and he says, I see through it all.

I see your hearts.

Everyone else sees the outside, I see the inside.

He sees them clearly.

Jesus knows his stuff, but he knows their stuff.

He knows our stuff.

He knows it all.

And on one hand, this is an idea that can bring fear.

For example, Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 through 13 says the word of God is alive and powerful.

Hebrews 4:12–13

It's sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow.

It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God.

Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes.

And he is the one to whom we are accountable.

We're all accountable to God, and we're all naked and exposed.

Like he sees everything.

There's so many examples of this in the life of Jesus where he knew what people were thinking.

Moments where he's sitting across the table from someone who's judging him, from a Pharisee, a religious leader, oftentimes, and it says, But Jesus knew their thoughts.

When the Pharisees come to trap Jesus, he begins, even before he gets to Matthew 23, where he just goes on this rant, he begins by saying, Hypocrites, I know what you're here to do.

You're not curious, you don't really want to know more about God.

You're here to trap me.

He sees through all of it.

There is nothing that can be hidden from God.

There is nothing that we can hide.

And on one hand, that can bring fear.

But in the right light, it's the it's the exact opposite of that.

In the right light, it brings freedom in a way that nothing else really can.

Because acting and pretending is exhausting.

That's exhausting.

One of my favorite shows is The Office.

And I know that there's inappropriate things in the office.

I'm not recommending The Office, saying that it's good to watch The Office, but when Megan and I got married, it was a brand new show, and some people gave us the DVD, and it just kind of became part of our of our marriage.

One of my favorite episodes of The Office.

Any office people in the room, by the way?

Anyway, all right, woo! If you hate The Office, I'm sorry.

Um, it's totally fine.

There's this one episode where the branch that they all work at is about to close, and all this, there's news of all this stuff that's going really poorly, and so Michael, the uh idiotic yet sometimes genius boss that they have, decides that instead of focusing on all that stuff, they're just gonna do this murder mystery game.

There's a whole episode where he makes everyone pretend that they're a character and they have this entire day of doing this.

And when that day is over, Michael says, This is the hardest I've worked in a really long time.

And it's kind of funny because on one hand, it's like he's lazy and that's why the company's in trouble because no one really works hard.

But on the other hand, there's something about that.

Like, pretending to be someone you're not all day long is exhausting.

It's exhausting.

Because it requires this constant focus and intensity.

And unfortunately, oftentimes in life, we live as hypocrites.

We live as actors.

Sometimes we feel like we have to, you know, if if you're at work and you really don't like your boss, sometimes you have to act.

You have to pretend.

If you're in a hard season of life, something's going on at work, at home, and it's really difficult, but then other people are around.

You have to pretend, right?

How's it going?

Oh, it's fine, it's great, it's great.

On the inside, you want to scream and yell.

But outwardly, you're just like smiling, and it's it's great.

You're you're you're pretending.

Because you kind of have to.

Maybe you're living at home, you live with your parents, you're a teenager, and uh, you know, your parents confront you about something, then they say, Do you think I'm stupid?

And you obviously pretend in that scenario.

Of course you think they're stupid.

You're a teenager, they're an adult.

That's the whole deal with that.

But you in that moment have to go, no, not at all.

You're brilliant and amazing, and like intelligent.

Don't go that far.

But you just you go, no, you pretend.

You know, you get a job, you don't really know what you're doing, you just fake it, you act like you do, you act confident, you have no idea what's going on.

Like pretending is unfortunately a big part of this side of life.

And it's exhausting.

It's exhausting.

And there's kind of an innocent version of pretending where we're just doing our best to appease people around us and to, you know, get by, but there's this other version of it where you have struggles, deep struggles, but maybe you don't have the courage, or or maybe the maybe you're just confused, you don't know what to do, and so rather than be honest and say, hey, I'm really struggling, I'm having a really hard time, I need help, you just act like everything's okay, like you've got it all figured out.

I I had a good friend a few years ago who lost his house and it got taken away.

And his family, his wife, and children had no idea they were in financial trouble.

They didn't know about it until the house was gone.

They showed up one day with an eviction notice, and his wife is like, What's happening?

I thought we were fine.

You said we were fine.

And in that moment, he just had to own that and say, I know I said we were fine, we're not fine, I've been trying to figure out a way to get us out of the mess that we're in, and it all failed, and everything came crumbling down.

And obviously, she was incredibly upset, obviously, at the their circumstance, but the fact that she had no clue.

But that's how life goes sometimes.

Sometimes we're just stuck and we don't know what to do, so we pretend.

We act.

And it's exhausting.

It's tiring.

It takes everything out of us.

We feel like hypocrites, we don't like ourselves.

And with Jesus, we don't have to do that.

That's why this shouldn't be something that makes us fear.

The only people that should be afraid are the people who are committed to continuing the act.

Like if you're gonna double down on acting and pretending, then yeah, that's not gonna go well for you.

Jesus sees right through it.

He doesn't he doesn't just know his stuff, he knows your stuff.

He knows all of it, he knows our hearts, he sees it all exposed.

And if instead of fighting that, you just submit to it.

There's freedom.

Because with Jesus, if you do submit to that, if you do humble yourself before him, whatever state you're in, you find acceptance.

We find that from the woman at the well.

Right?

I reference her all the time.

It's like one of my favorite stories.

But she shows up, Jesus is there at this well.

If you don't know the story, she's lived a really interesting life.

She's been married five times, divorced five times, she's living with someone she's not married to.

Uh, she's frowned upon by everyone in society, and yet Jesus tells her, I know exactly who you are.

He tells her her life situation, her past.

He says, it's the same thing, like, exposed, I see it all.

And he shows her unbelievable love and mercy.

He doesn't reject her.

You have Peter, and Peter, you know, Peter's acting a lot, if you know his story, but I think he kind of believes it himself.

Sometimes that happens.

Sometimes when we act and pretend, we end up believing it.

And so Jesus tells his disciples that they're all gonna abandon him.

And Peter's like, not me.

He's like, Jesus, I mean, these guys probably will, but me, like, Jesus, I'm Peter.

Remember that time you you said I'm the rock, and you're gonna build your church on, I think Peter thought on himself.

And Jesus says, Peter, look, before this day is even done, you're gonna deny that you even know me multiple times.

And Jesus is right, because he sees Peter exactly as he is.

But then after that, Jesus receives him, restores him, loves him, and affirms his calling.

We have a tendency as people to either underestimate ourselves or we overestimate ourselves, and it's easy to live life just pretending and faking it and acting, and that is an exhausting way to live.

But there is true freedom with Jesus in being able to say, Hey, this is who I am.

This is who I am.

You see me.

I don't need to pretend with you, I don't have to act with you.

Maybe you feel like you have to do that with other people, deal with that, and I think Jesus will free you from that too.

But at the very least, start with Him.

When it comes to Him, you don't have to act, you don't have to pretend because it's pointless.

Instead, with Jesus, you can just be like, here I am.

Here I am, Lord, and I'm sorry.

And He sees you exactly as you are, and He loves you, and He will gently, but directly, if you'll let Him, deal with all of that stuff, to the point where you don't have to pretend anymore.

That bit by bit He begins to change us, challenge us, shape us.

Sometimes that's conviction, sometimes that's encouragement, it's whatever is needed in the moment, but it's a process called sanctification.

His Spirit working inside of us, bit by bit, begins to deal with all the stuff that we we typically push to the side or try to bury as we pretend and act our way through life.

But with Jesus, you don't have to do that.

And so here's the the takeaway.

It's really simple.

Just be open and honest with God.

Start there.

It'd be great if we could be open and honest with people.

And I think we should be.

We want to get to that point, but sometimes, for whatever reason, for a variety of reasons, we just we just can't.

We're not there yet.

And that's okay.

We're not there yet.

We're all works in progress.

So we have to have grace for ourselves.

And grace for others as they're growing.

But at the very least, when it comes to God, just be open and honest with God.

Don't pretend.

Don't act.

Like, what does that look like?

Well, it means when you pray, just pray in like an absurdly honest way.

David did that a lot in the Psalms.

If you read some of the Psalms, some of them are just like, woo! David is telling God how much he hates this person, this group of people, and how he wishes that they would just all be destroyed, be crushed.

And it's amazing how often, if you read those Psalms, by the end of the same Psalm, which a psalm is just like a song, David's writing to the Lord, it's a prayer.

By the end of it, he's like, I will praise you and you're so good.

It's like first he has to be honest with God and just unveil everything, and he's just venting and getting it all out, and this and this.

And by the end of it, he has peace.

But you can be totally honest with God.

And I say this just saying, I grew up in church, and so I was taught to pray a certain way, and I don't think I was really taught to pray authentically.

It's like you pray, okay, oh God, and all that.

Jesus taught us how to pray.

The Lord's prayer is very simple and short and sweet, but that's not supposed to be the totality of what we pray, not all of what we pray.

Because, for example, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, we're gonna get there in the story really soon.

He prayed.

And he prayed, God, I don't want to do this.

Like, Father, I don't.

Is there another way?

Is there any other is there any other way?

Let me know.

It'd be great, Father, if there was another way.

He's being super honest and authentic.

And then he surrenders and says, Your will, not mine.

He gets peace and courage and the fortitude to do what's necessary.

But he's honest with his father.

He's honest with God.

Worship team, you guys can make your way up.

We're gonna take Lord's Supper and wrap up.

But I want to, I just want to encourage us to say that, to understand that Jesus, he knows us.

He knows you.

And he knows it all.

He knows the good.

And there's probably more good in you that Jesus sees that you don't.

There are things about you that Jesus recognizes and thinks are amazing and loves, and you've never even seen it.

And there's things about each of us that aren't good.

They're not right.

They're not the way they ought to be.

And Jesus sees it.

And when it comes to those things, we don't have to act, we don't have to make excuses, we don't have to pretend.

We can just go, yeah.

I'm I'm a mess.

I'm a mess.

I'm weak.

I've failed completely at this.

I'm not I'm not a good this, I'm not a good that.

I'm addicted to this.

I'm addicted to that.

I hate this person.

I hate you just say it exactly as it is.

Just spill your guts to God.

Uh-oh, I said we're gonna take Lord's Supper.

We are, I promise.

That's where I need the worship team to start playing music, so it tells me to stop talking.

No, about two years ago, my uh my daughter, my one girl, I have one daughter.

She was just having a rough day, she'd had a bad day at school, and I experienced something I never experienced before, uh, which is sort of like the volcanic eruption of emotions that can come out of a young girl.

I asked her how her day went, and she was like, she looked at me, she pretended for a second, she acted, and she said, it was good, but her eyes had tears in them, and I just said, Lily, be honest with me.

And I was not prepared for what happened after that.

It was just me in her room for about 30 minutes, and she was just and another thing, and another thing.

And then, like, it got to the point where she was like, and there's this girl in my class, and she's prettier than me, and she doesn't like, and I'm sitting there just like I didn't know what to do.

I was not trained for this.

Uh Megan wasn't home, otherwise I would have tapped out.

I've been like, Megan! Megan! We try to play our best player, I'm not the best player for that.

But you know, it was really amazing because when it was all said and done, like literally 30 minutes of just any anything else more, I just held her and I gave her this really long hug, and I just told her that I loved her.

Some of the stuff that she said was silly.

I didn't affirm that.

I didn't say, oh, she said a lot of things about kids that she was really frustrated with, and I didn't come along and saying, Yeah, they are, they're the worst.

I just listened to all of it.

She was completely honest, and I held her and I told her that I loved her.

And that was true.

I did love her.

Exactly in that state.

You can be honest with your father.

You can be honest with your father in heaven.

Totally.

And when you're like that, there's a freedom in that, guys.

There's a you get to release all of that pent-up frustration from trying to act your way through life and act like you've got it figured out and you have it together, and you have the answers, and you know the solution, and you know what to do.

You don't know what to do, you don't have the answers, you don't have the solution.

We're all mess.

We're all just trying to figure it out.

We're stumbling through the dark half the time.

But with God, we can just tell him like it is, be exposed before him and receive peace and grace and mercy.

1 John chapter 1, verses 8 through 10 say that if we claim we don't have sin, we're only fooling ourselves, we're not living in the truth.

1 John 1:8–10

But if we confess our sins to him, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

He's faithful and just.

If we just come to him as we are, honest and open, he's faithful and just.

And so as we take the Lord's Supper and wrap up, we have one person getting baptized, so woo-hoo for that.

Guys, I just want to challenge you this week and encourage you, be open and honest with God.

He knows his stuff.

Jesus proved that.

You tested, challenged, he knows his stuff.

And we see when he goes after the Pharisees, as intense as it is, he knows our stuff too.

And if, unlike the Pharisees, if we would just drop the act and quit pretending and humble ourselves before him and say, This is who I am, this is exactly who I am, and this is what I'm dealing with.

He's faithful to forgive and to cleanse.

And that's how he ended that big rant with the Pharisees, right?

All that hypocrites and blind guides and snakes, he ends up by saying, My desire is just to be like a, like a, like, I just want to wrap you in my arms.

He says, Oh Jerusalem, right?

Jerusalem, I'll go back to that.

He said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones the messengers.

How I've wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings.

But you wouldn't let me.

The heart of God is just to gather you up, to put his arms around you, to affirm his love for you, and to help you and grow you.

But oftentimes we don't let him because we push him away and we continue acting.

Don't do that.

Give up the act, be honest and open with God, and let him help you.

That's what he wants to do.

Let's take Lord's Supper.

I said a few moments ago that Jesus prayed in the garden before he was arrested and taken to the cross, which would have happened shortly after he had this very meal that we're having together with his followers.

And Jesus wasn't acting, he wasn't pretending, he wasn't putting on a face.

And the very moment that he prayed that, he had asked his closest friends to stay up late with him and pray with him because he didn't want to be alone.

And they fell asleep and let him down.

But he was asking for help.

He said, I can use some help.

And this moment with Jesus is not just a moment of power, it is a moment of power.

This represents his death on the cross.

This bread is his body, this juice is his blood.

He defeated death, he defeated sin.

But this also represents for us a reminder of the incredible honesty of Jesus.

How he just opened his heart before the Father, let the Father see exactly what he was dealing with, and the faithfulness of the Father to give him what he needed in that moment so that he could do what he was here to do to rescue all of us and ultimately be resurrected and glorified.

And so when we're in those moments where we're we're trying our best just to get through and we don't know what to do, and we're struggling and we're faking it, whatever it is, let's let's use this as a moment to remember that Jesus had hard moments too.

And rather than just put a face on and push through, he went to the Father exactly as he was, bared it all, and let the Father give him what he needed.

Let's pray.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

We thank you for what this represents.

This is your body broken on the cross, a sacrifice.

The final sacrifice.

And now, because of what you've done, it's finished.

And we never have to worry or fear that our sin hasn't been dealt with.

If our faith is in you, it's been dealt with once and for all.

We thank you for this, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

And Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This is your blood poured out for us to cleanse us, your life given in many ways to purchase life for us.

Lord, give us the strength this week to be open and honest with you, just like you were open and honest, Lord.

Always.

You know our stuff and you love us anyway.

And this meal reminds us of that because knowing all of our stuff, knowing all of our sin, all of our shortcomings, you willingly went to the cross and saw us as worthy of your death and your life.

And we thank you for that, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.