An Honest Community (Matthew 23:13-33)

Here’s my sermon from this past Sunday, from this challenging passage in Matthew 23. You an listen to the audio of the message here.

Anybody feel any anger lately - when you look at what’s happening in America today? Especially with much of it supposedly in the name of Jesus? Do you often feel like cussing even? Just a few years back. I decided to veer off from my notes, which is never a good idea. And, instead of saying a word, right there in front of my eyes, I tried to switch to another. And what came out was a less-than-ideal combination. And one of my biggest fears came true. I’ll never forget Bobby’s big belly laugh. I’m like, “Thanks for drawing attention to it, brother!” I think my teenage son had it recorded and looped - even before lunch. But that was an accident. Most days I look around and want to curse on purpose. Because there’s so much going on that’s just so hard to stomach.

Last week, Bobby preached and got us rolling here in Matthew 23. He showed us how Jesus calls out the proud and wicked leaders of Israel. And warns us from going down that same road ourselves. But here Jesus takes it even further. He turns up the heat and gets really angry at those men. He throws out this series of woes. And does some cursing in the more literal sense. We’re going to jump into that today - these really hard words - and learn what they might mean for us today.

The Woes

Now the first thing you might have thought, after listening to that passage, is: “Whoa, dude. That’s a lot of woes!” The Lord Jesus uses that term here seven different times. “Woe to you,” He says, directed to the Jewish leaders of that day, the “scribes and Pharisees.” But before I turn to just what that means, I want us to stop and ponder: “Isn’t Jesus getting really emotional in this chapter?” Indeed, He is. And that should cause us to ponder how we view our feelings. Now I mentioned this back when Jesus threw tables in the temple.

But our emotions come from God Himself. In fact, we see them in God Himself - in the Father and in the Spirit, but especially in the Son. Some have tried to say that this makes God unstable and unreliable, swinging back and forth based on people or circumstances. But hear me: as our unchangeable Lord sees things that rub against His character, that work against His ways, they should rightly make Him mad. They should make Him sad. And that’s the same thing they should do in us - as we’ll see soon. The problem is that we’re humans and sinners. And we don’t always respond to the right things - and in the right way.

What we see here is a combination of mad and sad. “Woe” in God’s word sometimes communicates lament, but other times condemnation. It’s the latter that Matthew seems to emphasize here. Jesus is using the language of the Old Testament prophets. He’s calling out Israel’s teachers. He’s warning them of judgment. And we’re going to take some time now to see just why. Let’s walk through each of them briefly.

We see the first “woe” there in verse 13. Jesus condemns the work of those leaders. They’re supposed to be guiding people into the kingdom. But they’re actually blocking and padlocking the door. Because their King is right before them. The kingdom of God has come. And they’re not recognizing it - or Him - at all.

The second “woe” follows there in verse 15. The Lord calls out the influence of those teachers. They travel across the world to call people to faith. Not really to Judaism but to their messed-up religion instead. Pharisaism. With its rules and pride. And their converts end up taking it even further. They become “twice as much” children of “hell” even than them.

We hear third of the oaths of these Pharisees and scribes in verses 16-22. Jesus pronounces a curse on their speech. “Woe” are those, Jesus says, who need to swear at all, but especially those who make all kinds of goofy oaths to try to get out of keeping their word. Swear by the gold or the gift and it’s more serious than the temple or the altar? Seriously? God sees it all. This is tantamount to swearing on your mother’s grave or upon a stack of Bibles. Cross my heart. Hope to die. Seriously? If you have to go there at all, it means your word’s not worth squat.

We see the fourth “woe” there in verse 23. Jesus condemns their focus. They’re worried about the minutiae, tithing right out of their spice rack, but they’re missing out on things much more important - like “justice and mercy and faithfulness.” They try to keep the letter of the law - following Leviticus even word by word - but they completely miss its spirit! They don’t want to be ceremonially unclean before God. So they won’t let what the law calls unclean - pests - into their drinks. They want to be able to approach God in worship. So they weed out the gnats, but let the camels right on through. Jesus calls out their insanity.

In the fifth “woe,” Christ curses their character. Look at verses 25 and 26. They’re all focused on their cleanliness. They even add on their own regulations. They want to really be sure. They wash their cups. They scrub their plates. But they just focus on the outside. While the inside is nasty. Jesus can see their hearts. They’re full of “greed and self-indulgence.” Disgustingly dirty - just like those dishes.

Jesus continues on that path, calling out their image in verses 27 and 28 - the sixth “woe” in this list. Getting close to a dead body would also leave you unclean. That comes straight out of Numbers 19. So to keep that from happening, people would paint their tombs bright. They would whitewash them. These graves that could also be ornate.

Jesus is saying, “Woe to you” who are just like that. You look clean and nice on the surface. But inside you’re full of death. Of “hypocrisy” and “lawlessness,” He says.

We see the seventh “woe” in verses 29-30. Jesus calls out their pride. As they build and take care of the tombs of their prophets, the ones killed by their ancestors, they’re saying, “Yeah, but we’d never do that.” But really? They’re about to chase down and kill the one all those prophets pointed to! They call them their “fathers.” And they truly are their sons. They look and they act just the same. By completing those monuments, they’re really finishing the job.

In the last three verses, Jesus cries out, “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.” In other words, keep on sinning. You’ve almost reached the limit. Just dare the Lord to respond. And He caps it off by calling them “serpents,” “vipers,” saying they’re headed right toward “hell.” He strips off their masks. He exposes who they really are.

Jesus is angry. Almost daring them to kill Him. But He’s also warning these leaders. Calling them to repent. But more than anything, the Lord’s concerned for their followers. Don’t follow these guys, He says. They act like the ones who’ll show you how to be blessed. But really they’re cursed. Stay far, far away.

The Pharisees

Let’s boil down the problems of these Pharisees. I think it can be expressed in four simple ways. They missed the point. They played the part. They caused others pain. They lacked perception.

First, they miss the point. Jesus is the point - of God’s word and God’s world, and He’s right in front of their faces. They’d been waiting for a King. They’d been longing for a Kingdom. Well, there He is. His reign has arrived. And they’re not having it at all.

They wanted power, prestige, for their nation to be restored. They wanted no part of this kingdom He’d brought. And this strange, humble King. Who shared meals with the poor and the weak. This One who gave, who served. So they also missed the life that His Kingdom brought. One of love. They completely miss the heart - of God and His word. “Justice and mercy and faithfulness.”

Second, they play the part. Six times Jesus calls these Pharisees “hypocrites.” And that’s a term for an actor on a stage. They’re acting all holy - like they keep every line of the law. But it’s all a show and a sham. Really, they’re full of “lawlessness,” says verse 28. Outside they look clean. But inside they’re really dirty. They look like the model of life. But in actuality, they’re filled with death. They’re “full of hypocrisy.” They’re fakers, phonies, posers, and frauds.

Third, they cause others pain. They block the way to life. They pile junk in front of the door. They hurt others through their words. You can’t trust what they say. They make more clones of themselves. And those robots run over others. And again, they don’t show love. “Justice and mercy and faithfulness” aren’t their thing. They say, “Follow us, and you’ll get blessed.” But truly they lead to cursing.

Fourth, they lack perception. There’s another word that stands out - if you read this passage a bunch. Jesus also refers to these Pharisees as “blind” five different times. They proudly think of themselves as bearers of light. But they’re completely in the dark. They can’t perceive what’s true. They’re lost. Can’t see at all.

As Tom Wright explains it, they’re not only wrong. They’ve “constructed a system within which they’ll never see that they’re wrong. They’ve created a “closed world, like a sealed room, into which no light, no fresh air, can come from the outside.”

Paul Tripp explains what that this blindness really means.

“If you are physically blind, you know you are blind and you begin to develop a set of life skills to cope with this significant physical deficit. Not so with spiritual blindness. Perhaps the scariest and most spiritually debilitating aspect of our spiritual blindness is that unlike the physically blind person, the spiritually blind person is not only blind, but he is blind to his blindness.” (Paul Tripp)

This I think sums up what we see from these teachers. Missing the point. Playing the part. Causing others pain. All because they lack perception. I think I could even summarize it even further. They don’t share - or even see - the truth about themselves, the truth about God. They’re not honest teachers.

Our Response

And that makes Jesus really mad.

Now here’s my question. Do we see any thing like this happening today? And does it cause you to get really angry? The Pharisees were the Bible guys in that day. The folks who took Scripture really seriously. Who cared about holiness. Who stood up for truth. Aaron and I were talking this week about who that sounds a lot like. We’re a part of the Christian evangelical world. And that movement can so easily display these tendencies right here.

Where our teaching and behavior makes people want to run. And when people come into our churches, and walk out as far worse people. As legalistic, self-righteous jerks.

Where our word often can’t be trusted. Where we state and spread lies. Where we try to make God sign off on our sinful agendas. Now that’s taking the Lord’s name in vain!

Where we carry around our Bibles and ignore the verses about grace. Where we do lots of ministry, but show very little love. Let me pause there for a minute. Yes, because we stand for the truth, often we’ll be misunderstood. We cannot affirm all our world wants us to affirm. But let me just say: if people now think of Christians and say, “They don’t care about justice; they don’t care about mercy. They don’t resemble the Jesus of the Bible at all,” it’s one of the most damning things that could ever be said. And it should shake us - and send us to our knees.

I remember a young man that was was proud about one thing. He claimed he had never said a cuss word. I thought, “Oh, you mean today?” No, he meant ever. But I wondered then - is God really happy about that, or more angry at the heart bragging about that feat? We clean ourselves up real well, friends. But underneath that veneer, there is often wood that’s rotting. There is a vanity and hatred inside that’s not unlike these Pharisees. Put us in a position of authority, and we Lord it over others. Call us out on something, and all the venom flies out.

We look back to the past, and say we’d never do that. But our actions show otherwise. We wouldn’t kill Jesus. There’s just no way. But it was our sins, too, that put Him on the cross. And we fight for our righteousness just as they did. “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” That’s what the crowd said. And our actions betray the fact that we’d have joined in there, too.

I’ve said this before, but verses like this remind me of what we say about racial injustice in our country. If we were back in the 60s, we would have fought for Civil Rights. In the years before that, we wouldn’t have stood for Jim Crow. We would have never owned slaves. Or fought to keep them ours. But today, it’s DEI. Before that it was CRT. Just before BLM. That made everyone mad. Before that, yes, it was MLK. You think plenty of people in the church today, maybe even you, wouldn’t have opposed him? Our fathers sure did. And if a pastor like me tries to call that out, people get mad. “Stick to the gospel! Why you being so liberal?” That’s the same thing people were shouting back then. Straining the gnats. Swallowing the camels. Have things really changed? Or is the pattern repeating itself?

We’ve prided ourselves on being a “Christian nation.” But maybe Jesus looks at us like we see here in verses 32 and 33. “I’ve about had my fill of you and your people.” “You’re a “brood of vipers” and heading straight for hell.” What do you think?

Like the Pharisees, we can be all about our power, about securing our prestige. Establishing our kingdom on earth. And wanting nothing to do with the ways of King Jesus. Again, it’s enough to make a guy really, really mad. To make a preacher really want to cuss. Except for the fact that I see all this in me.

How often do we miss the point ourselves? And turn from opportunities where we can show love? Because we’re not secure in Christ’s love, we end up playing the hypocrite. I’ve mentioned a few times, my new puppy Rudy. I love him so much. But he drives me crazy, too. He gets absolutely insane every night about 9. We’re trying to wind down. He’s just getting wound up. And it’s pretty often that I lose my patience. But I don’t want to be known as the guy cussing up a storm as I let him out at 3 a.m.

Because I’ve still got so far to go, I can cause others pain. And usually it’s the people closest to me - my wife and three kids. My close friends, our staff. And it’s also because I, too, lack perception. We’ve all got blindspots. We don’t see ourselves accurately. And we need His help.

What’s sad is that this greatly harms our witness in the world. Author Scott Sauls writes that, as he talks with non-Christians today, he really sees three barriers, things they just can’t stomach. They look and see so much hypocrisy. They think we’re all about politics. And they see a lack of humility. To summarize, we look like Pharisees. And that should make us sad. It should make us mad. Like Jesus here.

There’s another way, I think we can also end up as hypocrites - by looking down on those who don’t see things like us. It’s like we’re Pharisees in reverse. Nigerian Pastor Femi Osunnuyi shared a few years back of his painful realization that he was becoming an anti-pharisaical Pharisee. He wrote, “Thank you, God, I’m not like those un-nuanced, un-irenic, judgmental, narrow-minded, bigoted Christians!” He was riffing off Keller’s quote: “The fastest way to become a Pharisee is to hate Pharisees.” I’ve sure been there. Even this week. God wants us to love - even those we’d throw in that category. Marilynne Robinson, in her book Gilead, talks about a man who’s lashing out at Pharisees in the church. She writes,

“He seems to me to be a bit of a scribe himself, scorning and rebuking the way he does. How do you tell a scribe from a prophet, which is what he clearly takes himself to be? The prophets love the people they chastise, a thing this writer does not appear to me to do.” (Marilynne Robinson)

What about us? Aren’t we so often like those unrighteousness Pharisees? Who couldn’t see who God was. And couldn’t see who they were. And therefore, didn’t love.

Think about how those four points go together. Because we can’t see those realities, we end up in hypocrisy. Trying to make ourselves look good. We’re not secure in Christ. So, we compare ourselves to others. As Toni Morrison once put it, we can “only be tall, because someone else is on their knees.” We hurt those around us. That’s the way of the Pharisee. And it too much finds its way in us. But here’s my question. What do we do about it?

Last week, Bobby talked about being a humble community. Today, I want us to think about how to be an honest community. Telling the truth about ourselves. Telling the truth about Jesus. Here are four things to pursue, four things to pray for.

First, let’s become a family that doesn’t major on minors. Let us find our identity in Jesus. In who He is. In what He’s done for us. And let that free us to love. To show the mercy we’ve received. To work for the justice Jesus is bringing about. Let’s be all about the forest. And the trees will take care of themselves. Let’s not get sidetracked about things that don’t matter. Let’s love our God and our neighbors together.

Second, let’s be a place where you don’t have to pretend. Let’s be so confident in the gospel, that we don’t have to put on a front. There’s no need for a veneer. No point to a facade. It doesn’t mean we just get comfy in our sin. We’re just honest with those around us. And we ask for their help to grow. We can walk in the light together. As Ray Ortlund likes to put it, we can be impressive. Or we can be known. It doesn’t work to be both. We can walk truthfully before each other. As we often say around here, because God is gracious, we no longer have to prove ourselves.

Third, let’s be a people who won’t make others stumble. We beg God to change us by His gospel. To turn us into people of love. Who represent Him and His Kingdom well. We don’t bring reproach upon His name. We won’t make people turn and run. And I’m convinced a main way we become obstacles to the gospel is when we refuse to own our sin before others.

Years ago, we spent a year in the Missouri Theatre. My good friend, Tom Seagraves, was our security deacon at the time. He was standing at the entrance. Right before the Gathering. And an employee of the theatre came and wanted to walk up to her office. That was located right next to our Karis Kids area. And Tom told her no. And I think was pretty stern. And would not back down. One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in ministry is watching Tom sit down with her and the director of the Theatre and apologize. To ask forgiveness. It was beautiful. It showed so much humility. It showcased the beauty of the gospel. If we could let go of our pride and show our need for grace, people wouldn’t stumble and fall over us. They’d want to run and skip to Jesus. Let’s let our light shine, Karis.

Fourth, let’s be a body that doesn’t stumble in the dark. You see, Tom, had to be willing to listen to my words. We have to surround ourselves with people who will speak the truth in love. Who will hold up the mirror of God’s word so we can see. Who when they see us heading into darkness, will pull us into the light. Let’s live accountable to one another as we walk down this path of life. And walk humbly before God, our brothers and sisters.

Karis, let’s commit to living as an honest community. Telling the truth about who God is. And telling the truth about who we are, too.      

The Blessed

Now there are five sections - five blocks - of text in this book - bracketed by an intro - where Jesus is born and begins His ministry - and a conclusion - where the Lord turns and heads straight toward the cross. Some have pointed out that these curses right here - in the last block - are balanced by something opposite that we saw back there - in that first block. Do you remember? The blessings? What we’ve called the Beatitudes. Listen to them again.

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Matthew 5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Matthew 5:12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Now do you see how different those characteristics sound? From how the Lord describes those religious leaders? This is what it means to be a follower of the King. This is how citizens of His Kingdom look. This is the “blessed” life. But the answer isn’t just to try a lot harder. It’s to fall down on our faces. To confess how far we’ve strayed. And to lift our hands to Him in faith. Asking Him to transform us. To make us look like that. To help us see truth - about ourselves and Him.

Karis, this is the good news. Jesus didn’t just lament over His people. He did something about it. He didn’t just call down curses. He Himself became the cure. The most authentic, the most honest person who ever lived, who never sinned. He became sin for us.

Galatians chapter 3 puts it this way: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for as it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Jesus our King took all these woes upon His shoulders. He became cursed for us - for our hypocrisy, for our disobedience - and why? So that we could be blessed. Thanks be to God! And hear me: Jesus gets emotional about this. He wants better for us. Not to pretend. To live freely in His love.   

Well, next week Bobby’s going to jump up here again. And if he says something weird, I’ll be sure to make a scene. He’ll take on the end of this chapter. As we see more of the emotional life here of our Lord. Where it ends up with Christ weeping over Jerusalem. But let’s not forget what we’ve seen and heard here. Let’s not - like the Pharisees - play a part and miss the point, and through it, cause others pain, through a lack of perception. We see what Jesus thinks of that here. Let’s ask our King to do His work in us. And through it, shine. Let’s be an honest community together, Karis. Let’s pray.