TRANSCRIPT

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well good morning everyone that was pretty good yes that was good um it’s good to see you all this morning and um you know I I may be a surprise to some of you and I’ll just have to say first of all alex is on vacation isn’t that terrific and alex is actually in england so uh he and his family were able to go back there on wednesday and they’re going to have a terrific time over the next couple weeks um yvonne was supposed to preach today so for some of you are looking at me and saying you don’t look like a female um I apologize for that but uh uh yvonne called me later in the week and uh she got pretty sick so um I’m pinch-hitting for her and I just find it so ironic that God would have me preach on this passage that that yvonne was struggling with um because this is this passage which is uh kind of the woe passage woe to you so hang on and we’re gonna see what it has to say to us today um I’m looking forward to this but you know

what first let’s have a word of prayer and let’s pray for yvonne and her healing let’s pray father thanks so much for this morning thank you that you’re here and dear God I pray that you would teach us and instruct us from your word and help us to make some sense out of this but father we lift up yvonne we love her and we just lift her to you and we pray that she would know your healing strength that uh she would be able to be made whole again you’d uh relieve some of these cold symptoms and other symptoms that she’s experiencing thanks for her thanks for alex over there in england and laura and the kids give them a great time and lord give us a great time too we love you and we’re thankful that you’re with us I pray this in Jesus name amen amen you know this passage we’re going to look at is luke chapter 11. if you’ve got it you can open up to it I’ll be flipping it up on the screen as well but um in luke chapter 11 Jesus kind of

gets into this situation where kind of has this uh well he kind of offends some people um and and I had to think back and just ask the question have I ever had that experience of offending someone you know that’s about the last thing I want to do I like people to like me but um I do remember this time about a year ago a year ago in july we had a funeral here at the church and uh I carry these these things in my back pocket now this mask I’m looking forward to when I can just throw it away but right now I carry my back pocket in case anybody has some some issues that we need to wear this but back then things were just beginning to open up and we were able to have some services where we could be together at like this funeral we still had to be six feet apart we could wear masks in but at the time that the funeral was coming on we could tell people if you feel comfortable and would like to remove your mask once you’re in your seat you

can do so um I probably played that a little too heavy and said oh we’re so glad that you’re here and now that you’re seated if you just like to breathe again take your mass off and enjoy and um little did I realize that in the process I offended a few people um I went on vacation about a week later and while we were back east I got a phone call a rather serious phone call it was from tri-county health and and they said we understand um you said some things at a at a service giving people permission to remove the mask and I said um yeah and I gave them the date of when it was because four days after the funeral they changed the protocol where people had to keep their masks on once they heard the date they said okay we understand that’s fine it’s just that we got a report and um yeah we’re sorry to bother you you did what was okay back then but it struck me I offended somebody to the point where they would call up

and uh report south fellowship to the tri-county health oh isn’t this working okay sorry about that I think it’s my scratchy beard I’m not sure um we had that issue in the first service but um in in the passage that we’re going to look at today uh Jesus is going to offend some people and you know this is the series called building a bigger table and I have to admit when I read this passage after yvonne called me I just said oh goodness God first my first response was why did you even put this in the bible first off my second response was okay where do you want to take us on this so I pray that this would be helpful to us as we journey together and um let me just read the first verse to kind of set the setting that we’re going to look at as Jesus was speaking one of the pharisees invited him home for a meal so he went in and he took his place at the table his host was amazed to see that he sat down to eat without first performing the hand-

washing ceremony required by jewish custom and and I just focus in on that word amazed I think this translation is being rather gracious there um I think a better translation of it might be shocked or even offended this pharisee was opening his home to Jesus and Jesus came in and just sat down at the table to eat and this pharisee was kind of upset that he did not wash his hands according to the jewish customs okay that’s that sets the setting and um I just have to say as I dug into this you know you got to know first and foremost I love Jesus I do but when he does stuff like this I really like him um and we’re going to dig into why but but first let me just kind of set the setting of what this meal is you know we have Jesus and we don’t have any indication that his disciples were with him so I think Jesus was all alone and um he he was there with some pharisees now the pharisees it was interesting as I looked it up but you know we all

know about pharisees we all know the pharisees were kind of seemed like the enemy of Jesus but the pharisees were a non-political lay movement they didn’t want to get involved in politics it was it was lethal it was everyday common everyday guys who had jobs but they took upon themselves to be passionate that the law of moses be followed so they were concerned about every little detail of the law they wanted people to follow it they were passionate the traditions would be maintained and the reason for this passion they felt they were really moved by God in this direction they they honestly felt that if they could lead the nation to truly live in the way of the law and to satisfy the law that God would deliver them from the roman emperors from the roman conquerors so they took that upon themselves um now there’s another group at this lunch that we’ll see a little bit later on this was the experts in religious law or lawyers and I

probably don’t need to say much more um lawyers these were professionals these were professionals and they were focused on defining the law you know when the law was written I mean it didn’t address each and every situation and so these lawyers took it upon themselves to address each and every situation and to come up with how the law should be lived so when you put the pharisees and the experts together they worked hand in hand the experts came up with what to do the pharisees did it and they tried to get everybody else to do it as well and here’s Jesus who goes right to the table and starts eating and we may think oh these people were a little upset because of personal hygiene no it didn’t have anything to do with personal cleanliness that had to do with ceremonial cleanliness and this wasn’t the first time that Jesus and his disciples kind of got into trouble for this back in mark it tells us in mark chapter 7 they

noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the jewish ritual of hand washing before eating the jews especially the pharisees do not eat until they have poured water over their hands as required by their ancient traditions similarly they don’t eat anything for the market until they immerse their hands in water this is about one of many traditions hear that many traditions they have clung to such as their ceremonial washing of cups pitchers kettles and you could probably say et cetera et cetera um so this whole thing of ceremonial washing of the hands I just want to read to you to give you an idea of what went on this is from a commentator william barkley he’s got great insights into culture but he writes this the law laid it down before man eight he must wash his hands in a certain way and that he must also wash them between courses as usual every little detail was worked out large stone vessels of water were especially

kept for the purpose because ordinary water might be unclean now does that ring a bell anybody remember the miracle performed at the wedding of cana that was Jesus first miracle and they he called for these large stone vessels to be filled with water and these were the ceremonial water vessels they were supposed to be the clean water and Jesus turned him into wine isn’t that great how he makes a party out of stuff I like that these large stone vessels were purposely there for the ceremonial cleaning the amount of water used must be at least a quarter of a log and when I read that I’m going that’s pretty big until I read this that is enough to fill one and a half eggshells that’s a log first the water must be poured over the hands beginning at the tips of the fingers running right up to the wrist then the palms of each hand must be cleansed by rubbing the fist of the other into it finally water must again be poured over

the hand this time beginning at the wrist and running down to the fingertips to the pharisee to omit the slightest detail of this was to sin wow was the sin now here’s Jesus who full knows what the ceremonial requirements are and he just goes right down to have a lunch I like that I like that um and I don’t think he forgot to clean I don’t think that he was ignorant of what was required I think Jesus knew what was in the hearts of these individuals and he said it’s teaching time and it’s time to speak directly to what we have here um let me read to you what Jesus then said to this pharisee the lord said to him you pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish but inside you’re filthy full of greed and wickedness fools didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside so clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor and you’ll be clean all over how would you like to be at that lunch wow um what a challenge he throws

out and and you know as I think about it I can understand the greedy part I mean face it I think all of us in our culture struggle with greed from time to time but boy when he would say wickedness is in your heart wow that just stabs basically what he was saying to these men who were sitting around the table was guys if you were as concerned about what’s in your heart and what you put in your heart as you are about washing your hands you’d be pretty good guys now granted what we read sounds really negative and this is a passage where we’re going to look at a phrase called whoa um before we get into that I guess I’d just like to ask what would it be like if you went down to atlas down here at the end of our mark of our street or our shopping center or any other coffee shop and you ordered a cup of coffee your favorite coffee and the barista grabs a cup like this and it starts to pour in that cup and you say wait a minute wait a

minute that thing’s filthy and he says well it’s clean on the outside and this is good coffee and as I pour it in you’re not going to know the difference yeah we wouldn’t want that and you know what I don’t think God wants that either and that’s what’s going on here um I’ve entitled this message we’ve all got a little bit of pharisee and I think as Jesus speaks to the pharisees here I think he speaks to us today so I would challenge you to fasten your seat belt and realize Jesus loves you um when we look at this word woe woe to you I think I’ve always approached this passage and just thought man he is angry he’s really angry and you know there are people right here in our own church but people across christendom who seem to love the wrath of God and they kind of like this picture of Jesus sitting at this table with a bat ready swinging around blow to you I don’t think that’s what’s going on this word is interesting what the flavor of this

word and that’s the only thing I can figure out the flavor kind of the foundation of this word is sorrow this word comes out of sorrow the strong’s concordance defines this woe alas uttered in grief uttered in grief and I kind of like the way I’m I’m using the new living translation I’m sorry if it throws some of you off when when you compare what I have up here to what you have in your lap but the new living translation compares this and says it’s what sorrow awaits you and I really think what Jesus is saying here is come on guys you’re missing the mark there’s so much more for you the time’s going to come if you miss it you’re going to be so sorrowful that you spent your whole life going down the wrong path well that’s a loose translation but the love of christ coming through that kerry and I have kind of um received a word just recently called compassionate compassionate and it basically and I hope I don’t offend any of you here but uh

compassionate it comes from one of these exercise classes that kerry signed up for and the trainer always says compassionate and basically what it means is this person is saying I’m going to be compassionate when I’m really pissed off and that that is what I see is happening here with Jesus Jesus is frustrated as he sits at this table Jesus is angry as he sits at this table but compassion is coming to make him say something so let’s see what he says to these pharisees he has three particular woes to you what sorrow awaits you pharisees for you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens but you ignore justice and the love of God you should tithe yes but don’t neglect the more important things what sorrow awaits you pharisees woe to you pharisees for you love to sit in the seat of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplace yes what sorrow awaits you woe to

you pharisees for you are like hidden graves in a field people walk over them without knowing the corruption that they’re stepping on wow now those are our three kind of heavy statements so let’s just kind of kind of break them down I think what the first one is saying is they flipped the values they flipped the values here it’s talking about them making such fastidious efforts to tithe everything and if you’re hearing kind of on you don’t know what the word tithe mean it basically means a tenth and the old testament law said they should give a tenth of what they grow a tenth of what they earn to the temple to the temple worship these guys took it to the next level and everything they would give a tithe even to some of the my mute herbs I looked up you know in another translation it talks about mint and roux and I never knew what roux was I looked it up roux is a tiny little plant that’s grown in in in your garden and it’s for diarrhea

but anyway that’s just so we all know but mint and rue and tithing even to that aspect but but they neglect justice they neglect the love of God um when I think of that I think of the love of God but I think of justice as being as we look around and do we have enough love for the people around us to get involved in just things Jesus was approached by a teacher of the law and he said what’s the most important commandment in the law of moses and Jesus replied you must love the lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment a second is equally important love your neighbor as yourself the entire law all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments love God love others love yourself and here were the pharisees who were taking such fascidious care to look like they were righteous when on the inside they were filthy um a few years ago

there was a fella named tony cumpolo I used to love to go to hear this guy because you’d never know what he was going to come out with next but he wrote this book who switched the price tags who switched the price tags and it was all based upon a thing when he was a kid he and his best friend concocted this scheme they thought it would be great for them to go sneak into the five and dime in their town some night and spend the evening switching all the price tags so that when people came in the next morning they go there and there’s a radio for like five cents and there’s a bobby pin for 25.50 and they thought wouldn’t that be great he even said boy we just dreamed about what that would look like I don’t think he ever did it but in some ways I think we’ve done it to ourselves we have flipped the values of what’s important of why Jesus came in the first place I would just ask you you’re here this morning are you here this morning

because the worship is so good it’s fun to hear adam lead us in worship are you here this morning because it’s great to see each other or are you here this morning because God is here and he calls us to come into his presence I think Jesus can look at us and there’s a little bit of pharisee in each and every one of us this next slide that I’m not even going to look at is one my wife wanted me to include because this goes back in something in our marriage 35 years ago where I went to look for a bathing suit for carrie and as I went into the store I saw this bathing suit hanging up and it had a 50 off marker on it and I thought great and I love the look of the suit so I started going through the racks because that was a I mean they always put the smallest suits up on the up on their display so I’m looking through the rack trying to find my wife’s size and I finally found it and guess what it didn’t have 50 off and I’m thinking now wait a minute

that said 50 off this is the same suit so I switched the price tags and I was pretty proud of myself and I went home and I gave it to carrie and she loved the suit and two days later I just couldn’t keep it in anymore and I finally told her what I did and she said oh we got to take it back and so we did I thought they might even have pity on me but they didn’t they took it back and she doesn’t have that suit what’s the just thing to do you know how how did I get to that point where I said oh no I can justify this I can just do this I love Jesus yeah but I’ll switch the price tags um Jesus challenges us challenges us to the consistency of our lives it’s not just about what’s on the outside it’s what’s on the inside in our heart that counts and I would ask us again another thing our are do we care more about the biblical knowledge we can absorb than we care about the God who’s revealed in the bible because I think Jesus would challenge us right at

that point in fact he challenged the people in his day at that point in in john john chapter five you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life but the scriptures point to me yet you refuse to come to me to receive this light Jesus is about opening the door so that we can come into the presence of God himself it’s not opening the door to rules and regulations but it’s opening the door to his freedom that he has called us into woe to you pharisees woe to me pharisee there’s a little bit of pharisee in each and every one of us how do we deal with that here’s here’s the second thing he talks about and I believe it means that they’re focused on themselves what sorrow awaits you pharisees for you love to sit in the seat of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplaces what sorrow awaits you guys wake up before it’s too late because if it’s too late you’re going to be so

bummed that you missed this it’s not about you it’s about being able to come into a relationship with God that brings new meaning and wholeness into your life when I grew up I was in a baptist church I was a baptist pk and uh that means preacher’s kid sorry and we always used to have three chairs on the on the platform I don’t know if that was for the trinity I’m not sure why but we’d always have three chairs and I can remember my dad sometimes sitting up there sometimes the song leader sat up there sometimes the guy was gonna read scripture sat up there um sometimes and you know what there’s nothing wrong with that nothing wrong unless you’re sitting up there so people can see you um it’s not about us and if we come to worship this morning so people will see us and think we’ve got it all together you know we’ve missed what worship is all about and it’s all about God and God alone

I’ve told you before that when I work on a message I go through battle rattle and I usually get all uptight and you know I’ve come to the point to realize that’s just who I am I’ve had to ask I wonder why that is I’d like to think it’s because I want so much to treat scripture the right way and I want it to be handled correctly I also don’t want to be made a fool and when that comes to the surface I realize right there you know what I’m doing this for the wrong reason I shouldn’t be doing this so that people can come up and clap me on the back and say great job dan that was wonderful I mean I love hearing that but it’s about God it’s about Jesus and Jesus opened up this platform so that we could come into his presence the third one that he says and this is tough they corrupted the seekers see what sorrow awaits you for you are like a hidden grave in

a field people walk over them without knowing the corruption that they’re stepping on um now basically the picture of this is as people walk through there would be people buried in the ground sometimes um they would just walk and yeah they didn’t see any markings or anything they’d step right on the grave there was a a verse in numbers that kind of gave a little warning of this if someone touches a human bone or a grave that person will be defiled for seven days that means they were quarantined we all know what quarantine is they were quarantined for seven days if they stepped on a grave so the jews in order to protect each other they would mark their graves they would make sure that people could see that there’s a grave here they might outline it with white stones they might use whitewash itself to be able to mark that unmarked graves were grades that just look like the regular field and people unbeknownst

might be walking there and they might step on it and what happened they were defiled and and for seven days they had to stay away from everybody else um Jesus is looking at these pharisees and saying come on guys wake up before it’s too late because what you’re doing is actually defiling people it’s leading them in the wrong direction you’re corrupting because of all of these regulations that you’re trying to live out I want to tell you a story of this guy and I don’t know if I’ve got the pronunciation ignaz zemowise ignace zimmerweiss he was a doctor he lived in uh the 1840s 1850s 1860s is back when medicine was starting to come into that scientific realm where they were realizing you know diseases are caused more than by evil spirits there’s there could be germs behind this there could be something happening and so they started doing more scientific um uh methods to try to discover and they would do lots of autopsies

trying to sever what what killed this person uh ignis went through his medical training and then he had his first job at the vienna hospital in vienna in vienna austria and he was working in the maternity ward and this was a very large hospital had two maternity warrants one was run by doctors with medical students the other was run by midwives and as he looked at the results of both maternity wars he began to realize wow there’s something going on in this maternity ward where the doctors and the medical students are working because the mortality rate is really high among the women and they had something called childbed syndrome that usually would kill a woman in about three days after giving birth he looked at the midwives maternity ward and the women weren’t dying and he thought what is the difference so we started to try to observe and as he watched them he realized that the the midwives had the women give birth

by lying on their side whereas the doctors and the medical students would do it in the conventional way on their backs so he said okay doctors make the women lay on their sides and there was no difference women were still dying so he tried to observe again and he noticed that there was a priest after any woman would die on the doctor’s side this priest would go through with a bell and boom boom and pray out loud and he thought man that’s freaking the women out no wonder they’re dying they’re scared to death so he took the bell away from the priest he let him still go through and pray but he couldn’t ring the bell women still died and he went what is going on so he went away for a few weeks just to kind of cogitate to think to roll this over and when he came back he got the sad news that one of his cohorts had died of child bed syndrome and this was one of his male doctor cohorts and he thought wow so here’s a

male who died of child bed syndrome and he tried to look into what was happening and and they said well he was involved in an autopsy he cut his finger a little bit and three days later he was gone and so he began to ask that question could he have contracted this somehow through that autopsy and then he began to put two and two together and he realized that the medical students and the doctors would take the woman that had died take her in and do an autopsy trying to figure out why she died and they would be called out to give birth to a to a mother who wasn’t waiting sometimes they’d wipe their hands sometimes they’d rush over there because it was an emergency and so he started to say to the doctors okay guys it’s time to start washing your hands and putting chlorine on your hands and immediately the death count dropped and he became the father of antiseptic medicine in that discovery now you would

think that he would be proclaimed and acclaimed and he would be famous and yet I’m wondering how many of you have ever heard of him he was fired about three months later from that hospital because the doctors were so offended that he would point the finger at them as blame for these women dying he ended up dying a pulper I think the same thing’s going on here at this pharisees table Jesus is pointing to them and saying you know you’ve got good intentions guys but what you’re doing is killing people what you’re doing is is holding people back from the truth that they could have what was you I don’t want you to wake up too late and realize what the truth was Jesus stepped into that situation he stepped into that situation with a solution he stepped into that situation to bring the life that we could walk with God himself by sacrificing himself for us and yet as he would proclaim this to those men they

would reject it they would reject it because it spoke against what they believed in so strongly where do we go with something like this you know maybe what I would say to us is can I go back to where this started and ask ourselves the question what offends me what am I offended by because you know what happened here was Jesus went to a meal and someone was offended that he didn’t wash his hands according to ceremonial law and I wonder sometimes when we get offended by things is it just like a ceremonial law that we put up that we’re comfy with and Jesus said no no I’ve come for the whole world and sometimes you need to step beyond what offends you and sometimes you need to embrace the person that you say you would never come to he did and he stepped into this world for us and go on because you know I told you the pharisees were one group but there was another group there and this was the

religious experts and this religious expert says teacher said an expert in religious law you’ve insulted us too in what you just said and I go dawg and Jesus turned to this religious expert and started to talk to him and I share this when I came to this point I got a little uncomfortable and I kind of wished the guy had never said anything in the first place because like I said these were professionals these were men who did this for a living these were men who studied the law and tried to define it for everybody else these were men who were paid by the temple coffers and I realized dan you’re a religious professional and as I look out here sure maybe many of you are not getting paid but many of you are leaders within the christian world within our religious structure here at our church many of you have opportunities to teach many of you have opportunities to lead small groups and I think what Jesus is going to say here speaks to us to

watch out this is going to be a little bit longer passage but let’s look at the woes that he gives to the religious experts yes said Jesus what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law for you crush people with unbearable religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden what sorrow awaits you for you build monuments for the prophets your own ancestors killed long ago but in fact you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did they killed the prophets and you join in their crime by building the monuments this this is what God and his wisdom said about you I will send prophets and apostles to them but they will kill some and persecute the others as a result this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world from the murder of abel to the murder of zechariah who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary yes yes it will certainly be

charged against this generation and finally a third woe what sorrow awaits you oh woe to you experts in religious law for you remove the key to knowledge from the people you don’t enter the kingdom yourself and you prevent others from entering so let’s take a look at these three woes they crushed the spirit of followers what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law for you crush people with unbearable religious demands and you never lift a finger to help I hope that’s never said of us here at south but sometimes it may happen you know we started with this thing of washing hands let me read you something from the mishnah now there was the talmud and the mishnah which were two books written by the experts in religious law trying to decipher just how to apply the law and this was one of the definitions they came up with uh when it came to washing your hands more water may be added to the second water

but more may not be added to the first water that makes sense when one pours water over one’s hands they need to be two pourings for the first pouring the water must go up to the joints which is interpreted either as the second joint of the fingers or the joint attaching the fingers on the hand and then it says we’ll see this in chapter 2 section 3. I’m going there’s another chapter about this the problem is that his fingers now defile the water that is on them so to fix the problem he then washes off the water with more water we’ll learn more about this process in chapter two if the first washing didn’t reach all the way to the joint he’s not allowed to pour the second pouring in a place where the first one didn’t reach rather he would have to redo the whole thing but if the second pouring didn’t reach the joint he can just add water to the spots he missed it goes on and on and on and I would tell you if I was in that culture I’d be

saying I give up you pile on burdens and you crush the spirit you crush these folks who want to know um I I had some friends who got involved in a church and they really loved it in the beginning and they called me and they were telling me about it and I said dan would just like to know what you think so I hopped online and looked at their website and it looked great looked like any other church you know I had enthusiastic worship looked like they had bible studies throughout it looked like it was a really good a good church and and then I I saw this one uh site that said recommendations and I thought well that’s interesting I wonder what that means so I clicked on recommendations and I was amazed to see the lists that I saw the first list was a list of authors and books that you were not allowed to read and I looked at these lists of authors

and books and realized wow I’ve read some of those and I’ve appreciated them and they were strong christians who wrote them but for some reason they didn’t quite jive with the people in this church then there was a list of music that you were allowed to listen to and not listen to and these were all bands that were christian bands and I’m looking at that saying ah I have to admit I got very frustrated and I wish I could say it was compassionate but I was just frustrated and I wanted to see the church change and I had to ask myself wow have we put burns on people that are totally unnecessary and if we have I would hope somebody would challenge us about that um I don’t want to be the kind of place I don’t want to be the kind of place that that just burdens people with one regulation after another regulation after another no Jesus was standing there before these religious leaders and he was saying I have come to free you from

that yes the law doesn’t speak about every aspect you’ve tried to solve that by coming up with rule after rule after rule after rule of how to live after the law and I’ve come to bring principle after principle after principle that will draw us to God and will try to free us from the bondage that you’re putting us in the second one is this one that’s a rather long passage they resisted the truth of messengers and it talks about yeah you build monuments for the prophets that your ancestors killed long ago but in fact you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did and what I believe he’s saying there is you know you’ve built these monuments trying to honor the prophets that your forefathers killed but unfortunately you’re doing the same thing when you refuse to hear the prophets that God sends to you right now and I believe very much as Jesus is saying this he is pointing to himself saying guys don’t don’t miss this this

news is good news and it’s for the whole world and you’re my people and you are leaders of my people and I want you to know the truth before it’s too late before you have sorrow that you missed it as I think about this I realize that God sent Jesus into the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him and I have to ask the question when we go into the world do we go in with the good news or do we go in with judgment the pharisees the religious leaders went in with judgment Jesus calls us to go in with his love and I’m challenged as I think of this as being a leader here at south do I listen am I open to those of you coming to me with challenges for me challenges about where my blind spots may be challenges where my love may need to be stretched a little bit more and I think Jesus has given us directives in scripture all of us together all of us together to understand this you must be quick to listen slow to speak slow to

get angry stop being defensive when someone comes and challenges us instead realize if they are moved by the love of God boy listen to this all of you dress yourself in humility as you relate to one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble so humble yourselves under the mighty power of God and at the right time he’ll lift you up in honor give all your worries and cares to God for he cares about you you know when I started working on this friday morning I was reading this these verses and I was going oh God how does this fit into build a bigger table because I’ve loved the the messages that we’ve had so far and just embracing and bringing people in love and eating together around a table boy this is an uncomfortable meal and yet I realized as I worked on this what better place than when we’re breaking bread together when we’re sharing food together to be able to share seriously what’s going on in our

lives as well it’s not just fun but it’s how do we sharpen each other how do we grow with each other how do we enlarge each other the last one they hindered the understanding of the seekers what sorrow what woe to you what awaits you experts in religious law for you remove the key to knowledge from the people you don’t enter the kingdom yourself and you re prevent others from entering and I just have to close by saying what in the world this key this key and I think it starts by asking the question what is going on inside of us right now as we come here to worship are you committed to Jesus christ do you see that Jesus is that way that opened up the doors for us to be able to come into God’s presence and be able to walk one and one with him and then his love to be able to flow through us to the rest of the world around us because that I believe is what Jesus came for and it’s the key to all knowledge and understanding the last thing

I would want is for something that we hold here at south to hinder you from approaching Jesus christ that’s why we we do things about spiritual formation we try to figure out what is it that can open us more and more to following Jesus it’s not legalisms it’s not rules and regulations it’s not something that cleans up the outside it’s something that deals with the heart issues that we have lord Jesus what do you want to clean inside of me it’s a question I think we all need to ask and you know I would tell you when you look at this history of the church and you start to read acts you know the pharisees yes I always see them as the enemies of Jesus but it’s interesting when you come to acts chapter 15 where the church is having a big meeting together it mentions how there were many pharisees who came to that meeting pharisees who were believers in Jesus christ and I believe that through the resurrection many of these pharisees had

their eyes opened before it was too late I’m not sure about the religious experts but I would just say for each and every one of us what is God doing in your heart what would he reveal that needs to be worked with what offends you and is it merely a man-made thing that offends you or are you really offended for God’s cause I would ask the band to come back up here and just ask us to take about a minute or so just to reflect I do believe that as Jesus approached these men around this table that day he approached them lovingly and compassionately yes he was angry and he was angry for good reason because he came to free us and here were his people who are enslaving us and Jesus calls us today to take his message of freedom first to our own hearts and then to hearts around us I would ask you to spend a little bit of time with that question maybe not a question that statement that king david said create in me a clean heart

renew a right spirit within me create in me a clean heart renew a right spirit within me let’s all say that together create in me a clean heart renew a right spirit within me create in me a clean heart renew a right spirit within me let’s close our eyes let’s seek God to create in us a new heart to renew us would you stand and sing with us