Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 11:37-12:3
[ Pause ] Take your Bible out and find the Gospel of Luke. We're going to look this morning at the last part of Luke 11 in the first couple of verses in Luke 12. There is an outline in the bulletin. You can follow along in that outline. Most of what we're going to talk about this morning is there. We're going to read the passage in a minute. Before we read it, let's sort of lay a little bit of groundwork. What we're about to read is a story about a Pharisee who invited Jesus over for dinner. And in the middle of that dinner at the Pharisee's house, a lawyer spoke up and began to talk to Jesus and ask Jesus a question. I want to make sure you know who the Pharisees were and who the lawyers were. We've seen both of these guys in the Gospel of Luke and we've even stopped along the way to talk about who they are. But just laying the groundwork, who were the Pharisees and who were the lawyers. First of all, the Pharisees. Understand these guys were a religious group in Jesus' day, sort of similar to a denomination today. So today we have Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Piscopalian. And based on those labels, you have some idea of the person who affiliates with that group. And Pharisee was sort of like that. It was not a huge group of people. In fact, outside of the Bible sources tell us that at the time of Jesus' birth during the reign of Herod the Great, there were about 6,000 Pharisees in Israel. They did not all live in Jerusalem. They did not all hang around the temple all day long. Because these guys, I'm jumping out at the bottom, they were laymen. They were not clergy. They did not make their living from religion. And they made their living as carpenters or as teachers or as builders or farmers or ranchers or whatever the case may be, so they were not clergy. They were popular with the people. They were well respected in their communities. And for the most part, they were just middle class, regular, all ordinary, good guys. And everyone in the community sort of looked up to them. They were not in Jesus' day in political control over Israel. That was the Sadducees. The Sadducees had made a political alliance with the Romans, and they were the ones who had control. But the Pharisees had serious political clout. And so that's who the Pharisees were. Sometimes you hear Pharisee and you just think the worst person imaginable. That was not them. They were just sort of decent, moral, middle class, upstanding citizens, pillars of the community. Also with this dinner, there were lawyers. And we talked about a lawyer a few weeks ago. These are not like public defenders, prosecuting attorneys. It's not that sort of lawyer. These guys were experts in the law of God. If you wanted a modern day parallel, the closest maybe you could come is to say a seminary professor. These were guys who did make their living from religion. They were teachers of the law. Sometimes they're called scribes. But they were clergy. People in Jesus' day called them rabbis, teacher. If you want to know the connection between the Pharisees and the lawyers, you understand that the lawyers sat in rooms and developed and thought up the theological system and the moral system and the religious system that the Pharisees in turn tried to live out. The lawyers are sort of the book smart guys. And some of them were Pharisees, but not all of them. They're the book smart guys. And they come up with the rules and the interpretations and this and that. And the Pharisees take all of that bundle of stuff given to them by the lawyers and they try to live it out in everyday life. They invite Jesus over for dinner. You also need to know that both of these groups of people hate Jesus. I don't know if you've ever invited anyone over to your house for dinner who you hated, but that's what they did. They hated him. We've seen already in the Gospel of Luke that they have begun to scheme and to plan and to plot. They've talked about wanting to get rid of Jesus. They've talked about how to do that. They've opposed him. They've tried to trick him. They've tried to trap him. They tried to set him up to make him look stupid. They hate Jesus. They go into the dinner, not liking Jesus. They go out of the dinner, not liking Jesus, even less or even more. However you say that, they're more angry with him. And they're angry with him because at dinner, Jesus exposes him. Jesus looks across the dinner table and what he says in effect is your religion is empty. And then he leaves a dinner and he looks at his disciples and he says that religion is dangerous. That's the big idea of the passage this morning. Very simple. Hippocratic legalistic religion is both empty and dangerous. Religion that is hypocritical and legalistic is empty and dangerous. I wonder if you took a pole in Odessa of Christians and you asked Christians in Odessa, Texas, what is the biggest threat to Christianity today? I thought this week about some of the answers that you might hear. What is the biggest threat to Christianity today? There was a pole that came out, a Pew research study that looked at church attendance in the United States and the news is it's continuing to go down. Not so much in churches like ours and evangelical church but really in Catholic churches and mainline Protestant churches, it is going down. So maybe some people would cite the pole and say declining church attendance, that's a threat. Maybe some people would say, you know what? The breakdown of the family unit, the breakdown of marriage in our society is the biggest threat that the church faces. Maybe you say it's just the growing influence of secularism of people who do not believe in God or the Bible or Jesus, just sort of this very, very aggressive secular worldview. That's the biggest threat. Maybe some people would say it's a political party, this political party or that political party. I think you would hear both answers. Some people might say it's a loss of religious liberty. That is a genuine reality in today's world. Your ability to be a Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim for that matter and to live it out in everyday life is coming under attack more and more every day. So maybe some people would say the loss of religious liberty. Maybe someone else would sort of be the alarmist and say, well, it's the growth of other religions. It's the rise of other religions, Islam or these other faiths are beginning to take over. And I think if you looked at Jesus and said, Jesus, what today? 2015. What is the biggest threat to Christianity in the United States of America? I think he would say something like this. The biggest threat to Christianity comes from theologically informed, morally conservative, religiously active people who don't know God. That's the biggest threat. Forget all that other stuff I just listed. Theologically informed, biblically aware, religiously involved, morally conservative people who really do not know God. That religion is empty and dangerous. Look at Luke chapter 11. We're going to begin in verse 37. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and he reclined at the table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not wash, first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup in the dish, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness. You fools. And not he who made the outside make the inside also, but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tied mint and rouge and every herb and neglect justice in the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees, for you loved the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it." One of the lawyers answered him, teacher in saying these things, you insult us also. And he said, "Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens, hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of able to the blood of Zechariah who perish between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering." He went away from there and the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light. Whatever you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for Your Word, for the Gospel of Luke, for the truth that we see in this book, Week In and Week Out. Give us eyes to see. Give us hearts to receive Your Word this morning. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You ever go into somebody's house as a dinner guest and said something stupid? I have some stories like that and I thought about telling them and I thought, you know what? A couple of weeks ago, I put a picture of my wife up on the screen that was less than flattering and so I better keep these stories to myself. But let me just say, we have experience putting our foot in our mouth. Go to somebody's house. They're hosting you and you say something and as soon as you say it, you think I probably shouldn't have said that. I wish I could just reach out in the air and grab those words back. At first glance, it looks like Jesus did that, right? The Pharisee invites him over for dinner. He comes over for dinner and almost the first thing out of Jesus' mouth is you Pharisees are fools. And on and on he goes and it's sort of awkward and everyone in the room is wondering, does he not know that this guy's a Pharisee? Did he not know that he's in the home of a Pharisee and he's rolling and he's rolling? And finally Jesus stops to catch his breath and the lawyer speaks up and the lawyer could care less about the Pharisee who just got run over. He says, hey, the stuff you're saying is kind of offensive to me. You're talking about him, but you're also talking about me. And Jesus, this is where you realize it's not an accident. Jesus doesn't say, oh, I'm so sorry that I offended you. He turns and he looks the lawyer directly in the eye and then he runs the truck over the lawyer. Jesus is exposing these guys for their hypocritical, legalistic religion. The whole thing gets kicked off because Jesus comes to dinner and he doesn't wash his hands before the meal. You understand this has nothing to do with hygiene. This is not like you didn't take a squirt of the stuff out in the lobby before you came to church and shook everybody's hands and disinfected. That's not what they're talking about. This is Jewish ceremonial washing by which these men thought that they were literally washing the world off of their hands. They'd been out in the world. They'd come into contact with dirty, unclean people and things and the sinful world out there. And before they eat, they literally want to wash that off. That's the heart of the problem in this passage. The Pharisees and the lawyers think the problem is out there, not in here. That's the problem. If you understand that, you understand the whole passage. They're sitting down looking at Jesus saying, hey, you didn't get that stuff off of you. And Jesus says, that stuff is not the problem. Your heart is the problem. And he begins to unfold this sort of diatribe. Six woes, three against the Pharisees, three against the lawyers, exposing how their religion is both empty and dangerous. And so first he looks at the Pharisees and we'll just look at what Jesus had to say. And we'll say, these are some tests to see whether or not we are more like the Pharisees than we'd like to think we are. I am a hypocrite. Number one, when I'm more concerned with outward appearances than inward godliness. If that's you, you're a hypocrite. If you're more concerned with outward appearances, then your relationship with Jesus Christ and godliness in your heart, you are a hypocrite. Jesus says, you're worried about hand washing and to quote him exactly, you are not at all concerned, verse 39, with greed and wickedness. You think, because you look good on the outside, that the wickedness of your heart is not that big a deal. Understand, he didn't say you're more concerned with hand washing than abortion. You're more concerned with hand washing than murder. You're more concerned with hand washing than adultery. Those are external sins. He talks about internal sins. You're more concerned about this external stuff and making sure everybody thinks you look good than the greed in your own heart. You're a hypocrite. Number two, you're a hypocrite when? You're more concerned about your own little rules than the big things that matter to God. If that's you, you're a hypocrite. These guys majored in minors, and the example they talk about here is tithing. Give you some scriptures, you can jot these down. The Bible talks about tithing, very plainly. Leviticus 2730 and Deuteronomy 1422. Leviticus 2730, Deuteronomy 1422. Both talk about tithing, tithe. Whatever increase you have, tithe on it. And if you don't know what that means, that simply means you take 10% of it. You get to keep 90 and you give God 10, because you're understanding that you're not giving God 10% of your stuff, but God's letting you keep 90% of his stuff. So you just give that back to God. That's what God requires of you. And these guys did that. But they added a lot of rules to it. Interesting that there's debate among old Testament day age, Jewish scholars, and they talk about, do you have to tithe on your herb garden? And some said you did, and some said you didn't, and they went back and forth. And Jesus says, look, you guys are so good. You've got it nailed down. You pull off 10 little mint leaves, and you bring one to church, and you leave nine at home. You guys have got it down to a science. The problem is you're more concerned about your own little rules missing the big picture, than you are loving God. That's what he says. You're more concerned about that than the commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You spend all day arguing about how many mint leaves you should bring to church, and you don't care about loving God. You missed it. You're focused on your own little rules instead of the big things that matter to God. I've been a pastor now for about 10 years, and I have found anecdotally this to be true. Most of the people, not all, but most of the people who want to argue about doctrinal minutia. Most of those people could give a flip about loving their neighbor or taking the gospel to the unreached. I'm not telling you I don't like arguing doctrine. I went to school forever. I love arguing doctrine. We can go eat lunch and we can look at verses and argue and back and forth, and we'll still be friends. It'll be great. But I'm talking about the nit pickers, the people who get upset with you, and not on big things, on little things. Most of those people could care less about missions. Most of those people could care less about serving in their own church. That's the people Jesus is talking about. They're more concerned with their own little theological system than they are God. They love their own theological system more than they love God. Watch out for that person. Jesus says they're a hypocrite. Number three, I am a hypocrite when I crave recognition for my spiritual accomplishments. Craving recognition for my spiritual accomplishments. Jesus says you guys like the best seat in the synagogue. That was their version of church, basically. And you like public, loud, where everyone can hear it, recognition in the marketplace. You want everyone to know that you're a big deal. Now, I know you guys. These are not big things for you. You don't care about the best seat. You just want your seat. That's all you care about. I just want to come to church and get my seat. Get the best seat. I just want my seat. You don't care about loud greetings and recognition at HEB. You just want to survive HEB. But maybe this is still a problem for us. In a social media age. Where we can put on social media the best of ourselves. And we can put out what we want other people to see. And we can Facebook, post, and tweet and Instagram about all sorts of spiritual stuff. Look, I'm not telling you to stop doing that. I'm not going to stop doing that. Did it this morning when I got here. I'm also not telling you go home and quit putting all the good stuff on social media and put all your drama on. We don't want to read that either. Don't put that on there either for crying out loud. We don't want to read about you griping. We just want to see a picture of your kids or your grandkids. That's all we want to see. So the answer is not to say get rid of social media. That's what the Pharisees would have done. Well, that's a problem. Get rid of social media. You can't have, you have Facebook. You're not a very spiritual person. That's not the answer. The answer is for you and I to look in our own hearts and to say, what am I posting and why am I posting it? What is my motivation? Am I only posting this so that somebody will give me a spiritual pat on the back and think that I'm so wonderful? If that's your motivation, don't post it. Some of you are kicking back on this when you're like, I don't even have Facebook. I get a pass on number three. This is great. Hey, the Pharisees didn't have it either. The Pharisees did not have it either. So nobody gets a pass just because you're not crazy on social media. Just understand that you're a hypocrite when you crave recognition for your spiritual accomplishments. Number four, one more. I'm a hypocrite when I'm spiritually dead inside and no one knows it but me. That's these guys. I told you earlier, no one thought of the Pharisees as villains. Everyone thought of these guys, I want my kid to be like that when they grow up. They looked like they had it all together. And Jesus says, you guys, you're like an unmarked tomb. People walk over you, they don't even know what's underneath them. They interact with you, they think they're talking to somebody religious, somebody spiritual, somebody who has their act together. It's a joke. You're dead. You understand that's what he's saying to them in using this analogy of the tombs or this unmarked tomb. He's saying, you are spiritually dead and you're the only one that knows it. And maybe that's you. Maybe you come to church every week. You go to Sunday school class every week. You pick up an envelope when we do a fundraiser for Kenya. You bring it back full of money. You sing the songs in church, you fill out the outline. On the outside, it all looks good. But maybe you're the one who knows on the inside, it's not all good. Jesus says, if that's you and if you just want to continue playing the game, like it is all good on the inside, when you know you're spiritually dead and you don't have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, then you're a hypocrite. Look at verse 45, here's where the lawyer pipes up. I mean, that's a serious litany of charges and the lawyer says, teacher in saying this, you insult us also. We're the guys who came up with the lifestyle that the Pharisees are trying to live. You're insulting us. And so Jesus looks at the lawyers and he begins to talk about legalism. And so let me give you a few tests to see if legalism is an issue in your life. We'd like to think that it's not. We'd like to think we're not like the lawyers, but here's a few tests. Number one, I am a legalist. When I expect others to do what I myself refuse to do, that's you, you're a legalist. Jesus says, you guys don't even lift a finger to carry the burdens you expect other people to carry. You load these people down. You won't even lift a finger to help them or to do it yourself. You expect your kids or your grandkids to follow Jesus when you don't do it. You expect your kids or your grandkids to love Jesus more than anything else in this world when you don't. You expect other people in the busyness and the chaos of life. You have the expectation that other people ought to always give you the benefit of the doubt when you're having a bad day, but you will not do that for others and you always see and expect and look for the worst in them. Do you expect others to serve at church so that you can come when you refuse to serve? Do you expect others to do what you yourself refuse to do? If so, you're a legalist. Number two, you're a legalist when I put on a show of spirituality while ignoring the word of God. This is the longest section in the passage. Obviously, Jesus takes this one serious. Five verses talking about what he means here. He talks about these Pharisees and these lawyers have built tombs for the prophets. And I'll just basically, here's what Jesus is saying. "Your parents and your grandparents and your great grandparents and all the way back, they never listened to the prophets. They killed them." And so he looks at them and says, "Really, it's fitting that you would build the tomb. You're just finishing what they started." None of you are listening to God's word. He sent it to you time and time and time and time again. Not only did you ignore it, but then you killed those men and then you built tombs for them to pat yourself on the back and say, "Look how spiritual we are." Built this big monument. You know how much money I donated to that monument? Made a sacrificial gift to build the tomb for that prophet. Jesus says, "If that's you, the real problem is you are ignoring God's word. You are not listening to God's word." I talk to people regularly and I think about this passage and people will come to me. People tell you all kinds of stuff as a pastor. You'd be amazed. They just come and they just start spilling it. Telling you stuff. I want my life to be different. I want to change. I want this. I want that. I say, "Great." I say, "What do I need to do?" You need to read the Bible. You need to come to church. Bible is kind of confusing. Sunday mornings. I don't know. If you want things to change, that's what you need to do. Listen to God's word. Read his word. Come to church. Hear it preached. Hear it taught in Sunday school. Maybe one of these days you can even teach it to other people yourself. You'll learn a whole lot more that way than you ever did sitting in a class. Maybe that's where you ought to start. They're like a special prayer. I could just pray to get rid of this problem. You just write a check. Just wrote a check or something. Ignoring God's word. Number three, "I'm a legalist when I prevent others from growing in grace and truth." Verse 52, "You've taken away the key of knowledge. You didn't enter yourselves and you hindered those who were trying to enter." These guys were teachers. You understand? They were supposed to make the good news of God's grace plain and clear for people to understand. That was their job. And Jesus says, "You haven't done your job. You've not made anything clear. You've just muddied the waters. You've made it difficult for people. They don't understand. They don't get it. They're following down dead in roads." And so you just ask yourself and I ask myself, "What is my influence on other people? Do I help them grow in God's grace and in knowing the truth? Or do I not help them grow in that?" Jesus says, "If that's a problem, then legalism is a problem." Back up from the, "I might be a hypocrite. I might be a legalist." Okay? I didn't put this one on your outline because I didn't want you to see it coming. One more warning. I'm a hypocrite and I'm a legalist when I sit in church and listen to a sermon on Luke 11 and 12, and I think about other people instead of myself. Man, I wish so-and-so was here this morning. He's out of town. Maybe he could listen to the podcast. They need to hear this. They really need to hear. Man, I wish my kids were here. I wish my parents were here. Story ends like this. Jesus offers a warning. He's been doing a lot of that in the gospel of Luke in these middle chapters. He warns his disciples about hypocrisy. He warns them about legalism, and he warns them about judgment. That's the first couple of verses in chapter 12. He says, "Everything covered will be revealed. Everything hidden will be known. What's in the dark will be brought to light. The things that have been whispered will be proclaimed from the rooftops." Without being too disrespectful to Jesus, I think what he's saying is here. In the end, it's going to go down like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. Do you ever watch Scooby-Doo? Every episode ends the same, right? They finally catch the bad guy. They get them tied up, or they can't run away. They yank the mask off. Everybody says, "Ah! We had no idea!" And then they hold a bad guy off. That's kind of what Jesus is saying here. You can run around with your mask on of hypocrisy and legalism, and your phony, no-good, empty, dangerous religion. But in the end, somebody's going to catch up to you, and your mask is going to get ripped off. And all the stuff you thought you could keep in this nice little sort of weird, spiritual life that you're living is going to be exposed for everybody to see. All the secrets, the things whispered, the things hidden, all of it. In the end, you will be exposed. The truth will come out. Now listen, we just have a moment of honesty and read the first few verses in Luke 12, 1-3, and say, "That's bad news for me." Because Jesus was not just talking to Pharisees and lawyers, he was talking to land and Coleman in that passage. I'm not saying I walk around in all day, every day, it's these seven things, but I'm telling you that's me, left to myself, apart from God's grace, that's me. And I'm not foolish enough to think that it's not you. And you read that and you say, "Man, Jesus," kind of all over my toes. He is on your toes. And if Luke 12, 1-3 are serious, if they're real, if they're true, you and I got a real problem. Do you notice how this passage ended? These guys go out and they try to trap Jesus and trick Jesus. Here's how it should have ended. It should have ended like it ended for the prophet Isaiah. You go back and you read in the book of Isaiah, chapter 5. There are six woes in Isaiah 5 directed toward the religious establishment in Israel. How many woes in Luke 11, 6? How many woes in Isaiah 5, 6? Then you come to Isaiah 6, the next chapter. Just heard these five woes. And Isaiah does not say, "You know what I think I need to do is wash my hands and get this yucky stuff off of me." Isaiah says what in Isaiah 6? Woe is me, not them, me, not the Pharisees, me, not the lawyers, me, not the world out there, not that group, this political party, these immoral folks, woe is me. I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And now I've seen God and all this holiness and I just heard these woes, I'm toast. And when Isaiah agrees with God about his own hypocrisy and legalism and sin, what happens next? God does something to take away his sin. Isaiah doesn't take it away. Isaiah doesn't wash it away. God does something in the vision and says, now, this Isaiah 6, 7, now your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. You can't do it. Woe is you, but I will do it for you. You understand that's how this story should have ended. Six woes at dinner, three for the Pharisees, three for the legalists, really six for anybody who had ears to hear. And they should have left dinner and said, woe is me. Woe is us. We're in deep trouble. We need somebody to take away our sin and tone for our guilt. And instead they walk out and they say, how can we trap him? How can we trip him? How can we make him look stupid? How can we get rid of him? Eventually they get rid of him, right? It's at the cross. The Bible describes wicked men putting Jesus to death at the cross. And the Bible also says that in that wicked act, God himself was at work to do what? To seek and save the lost. This is Luke 19, 10. You understand that Luke 19, 10 is our only hope. Don't leave today determined to be a better Pharisee. Don't leave today with a reformed version of legalism. Leave today humbly agreeing with God about the reality of your situation. Saying, God, woe is me. What Jesus is talking about is me to a T. My hope is not in me. My hope is in you that you will remove my sin, that you will atone for my sin, that you will take care of my guilt. My hope is that the Son of Man came to seek and to save me. Let's pray. Father, we acknowledge our depravity and our sinfulness and our foolishness and our stubbornness and our hypocrisy and our legalism. And Father, we agree with you that it is empty and dangerous. And our hope is not that we can do better from this point forward. Our hope is in Luke 19, 10. The message that Jesus came to seek us and to save us. Father, we are grateful for your grace that gives us life. We are grateful for your grace that changes us, that as we continue to follow Jesus, you expose more and more of what we need to put behind us in order to follow Jesus. And so whether we have followed Jesus for the first time this morning or whether we have followed Jesus for 50 years, we pray that your spirit would convict us of our sin and drive us to the cross and that our hope would be in who Jesus is and what he did for us. We thank you that the Son of Man came to seek and to save us. Without him, we have no hope. Father, as we sing together, we are acknowledging your grace. We are acknowledging the greatness of Jesus, the uniqueness of Jesus. And we pray that you would hear our song as we sing together. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.