Cleaning Up Our Act

Here's a passage of scripture from Matthew chapter 23, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles. Chapter 23, verses 25 and 26. God is gracious and kind, but he's also a judge. He gives us kind things and gracious things, but he also judges our lives. God looks at our lives and he judges us not because he wants to hurt us, because his judgment isn't punishment so much as it's correction and discipline. The end result of what God wants is to have a person's life shaped the way it ought to be, the way that it's successful and productive and powerful and useful. And so he's in the process of shaping us all the time to be the kind of people he made us to be. Now, we're used to looking around us to see people and wondering what they think about us and trying to make sure that our life looks right. We try to dress in a decent way and we try to act in a way that's suitable with the crowd that we're with because we want people around us to look at us and approve of what we do and say. And so we try to clean up our act. But God is not so much interested in us cleaning up our act with each other as he is with himself. But when he looks inside of us, he sees a whole different thing than what we may look like on the outside. And so what he is concerned about is making sure that we clean up our act with him. The people that Jesus was addressing were very religious people. They were concerned about things that they thought were important. They knew the Bible. They taught the Bible. They said they lived the Bible. But Jesus pointed out to them that as religious people, they were far from what he wanted or approved of. In this particular passage, he addresses the issue of what's inside of them. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Now whenever you pick up that passage and you read it, you think of the dishes on your table and looking inside of one of the dishes and maybe seeing a little residue from the last meal and you need to clean it up so it'll be clean for you to eat out of. But the people who heard this story had different ideas about cleanness than maybe we would have when we pick it up. If you read through the book of Leviticus and Numbers, you will find over and over again long discussions about the things in this world that are clean and the things that were considered unclean. It wasn't that they were filthy in terms of dirt, unclean. For many of them had nothing to do with that. What they had to do with was the spiritual relationship that people had with God. He said to his people, I want you to be holy as I am holy. Now there are certain ways that I want you to act so that all the world around you sees you and knows that you're different than the rest of the world. And so there are certain things that I want you to do that show that you are listening to me. And those things are clean things. Those things that I tell you you should not do are unclean things. Now eating pork was an unclean thing for them. Doesn't mean it was bad for you. It just meant that every morning when the Jewish people got up and they ate breakfast, they weren't like the rest of the world. They didn't eat any sausage or they didn't eat any ham or they didn't eat any pork at all. And their breakfast reminded them that they were children who belonged to God. When they put on their clothes, they couldn't wear clothes that had mixed fabric in it because they were reminded they belonged to God. And these things that they did allowed them to stay clean. That means it allowed them to live in obedience to the things God told them to do. If they deviated from that, they became unclean. Now whenever these Pharisees who knew the Scripture backward and forward heard him talking about the cup being clean, they would think of something perhaps different than you and I. For if you left a cup open with no lid on it, it became unclean. And if you drank from that cup or you ate from that cup, it would make you unclean because being unclean was contagious. If you did something that was in rebellion to what God said to you, then you became unclean. It wasn't that the cup made you that way, but your act of rebellion or disobedience made you unclean in God's eyes, not an obedient follower of His. Now the Jewish people knew exactly what it meant to have clean things. But every person, no matter who they are, sometime or other in their life became unclean. The remedy for that were to come to God and admit it. Some of the responses was for God to say, well, you have to go outside the camp for one day till nightfall. Some two days, some three days, some a week long, some several weeks long. And you had to admit during that period of time that you were in rebellion to what God said you should do. And this was a punishment that God gave so that you would remind yourself not to do this again. Then after that time came, you went to be cleansed for what you had done. And you would go back to the priest and he would tell you what to do. Sometimes it was to take whatever it was that was unclean. If it was something metal, you might take it and put it in the fire. And it would be clean then when you took it out. If it was a dish, you would take this clear water and wash it off. Or if something had happened to you, you touched a dead body, you had to take a bath and wash all your clothes so water would clean you off. Sometimes you had to go and they would put blood on you, sprinkle blood from a sacrifice just on you as a way of making you clean. But then you would be presentable to God because you'd done what he told you to do. Now when Jesus said to these people, you Pharisees are hypocrites, you're actors. That's what that word means. It's not negative necessarily, just an actor. You're acting one way when in reality you are another. When you see the inside of a cup and you say it's unclean, and you know if you eat from it you become unclean, what you do is you go and you wash the outside of the cup. Now they would have known that this is not the right thing to do. Because if the inside of the cup wasn't washed too, and you ate out of it or drink out of it, you would become unclean. So they would see immediately that what Jesus was saying was not true. You don't wash the outside of the dishes when it's unclean, you wash everything in the dish. He said to them, now you have done the same thing. For on the outside you give great appearance to be a very faithful, obedient person to God. And they did. They read the Bible, they prayed, they went to church, they did everything that godly people were supposed to do. They knew more about the Bible than anyone else in their culture. They knew what the scripture said. And they tried to obey it. They did everything that the scripture said, so much so that they couldn't even live ordinary lives. They had to give up their jobs and sometimes their families to be able to live night and day obeying the words of the scripture. But he says, you've cleaned up the outside, so everybody looks at you and says, there's a great righteous and holy person. But let me tell you what I see inside of you. You're filled with greed and self-indulgence. These two words, greed and self-indulgence, in the NIV, if you have a different translation, you might have different words there. I looked at several different versions. The Bible found eight different kind of translations of this passage. For these two words, both of them, what that always means if you look in different versions and find different translations of a passage, it means that the words that are in Greek or Hebrew, whether it's the Old Testament or New Testament, are not easily transferred one word from that language to one word in our language. So you read all of those different translations and you get a sense of what that word really means. Now we know what greed is. Greed is an insatiable desire that a person has. It can be for anything in the world. It can be for very good things. It could be for chocolate. Just can't get enough of it. Just can't get enough. I just eat more and more. I bought Butch 16 pounds of chocolate. And he ate it in two weeks. And then he wanted more. It can be television. You sit down in front of the television and you watch it and you watch it and you watch it. You can't stop. It can be your phone. I saw on the TV the other day they had treatment for people who are addicted to their phone. One lady said, My kids went from the first through the sixth grade and I don't think I ever looked them in the eye. I was always on my phone. She's now taking treatment to break that addiction. This inner motivation that causes people to be so saturated with desire that they can't stop. Now we know what it's like with alcohol. We know what it's like with drugs. We know what it's like with those addictive kind of things, smoking. It can be shopping. It can be eating. Anything in your life that so possesses and controls you that you find yourself unable to say no to it. That's what he's talking about. Now, for these people, it was none of those bad things. You know what they were addicted to? They were addicted to the approval of people. He said to them, When you go out to sit in a place, you want the first best seat so everybody can see you sitting up front and everybody will look at you and say, Oh, there's the wonderful godly man up there. They were addicted to praise. They wanted when they went out in the crowds of people, not for people to say, Hi, Bob. They want him to say, Rabbi, Master. So everyone would know that they're the greatest Bible scholar in the community. Certainly in the room. They wanted that kind of praise and they longed for it until everywhere they went, that's what they wanted. They couldn't imagine going somewhere and not receiving the recognition that they thought was due them. When people came to him and said, We'd like to know how to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said, You tell them all the laws and everything that the rabbis have ever said about the laws until they're so overwhelmed, they leave saying, It's impossible for me to enter the kingdom of heaven. You're more interested in them knowing your scholarship than you are proclaiming the words of God. They were addicted to the pleasure of people looking up to them and approving of them. And they couldn't get along without it. You have this greed inside of you. Now, it's not an evil thing for them to have that. But it so controlled their life that they were blind to this great reality. It wasn't what people thought of them that mattered, but what God thought of them. Now, we don't often associate greed with violence, but, you know, the Black Friday season's coming up. Was it a year or two ago that it was on the news that people went to Black Friday and they were so interested in getting those bargains that they trampled some people to death? Everybody knows that, you know, if you take meth, it kills you. Yet people take it. You see, they're not able to say no. We know of many different kinds of addictions that people have that they're not able to get rid of that are deadly for them. But their greed is so powerful and so strong and so forceful that they cannot say no. What Jesus was talking about was a greed that's powerful until it becomes violent. That's one of the translations of this word. Your violence and self-indulgence. The powerful force of our human nature to want more and to want what it wants drives us to do things that are deadly and dangerous, both physically and spiritually. That's what Jesus was talking about. And the sin here was this. It was self-indulgence. It was a person who was saying, this is what I need and I'm going to satisfy what I need regardless of what happens. I'm going to satisfy my own desire to be the first one to get that bargain or to make sure I get that bargain. And it doesn't matter who's in front of me. It doesn't matter if I have to push people aside. It doesn't matter what happens. I will get what I want. Now, you see, this is a problem because the very first commandment is you're to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And you see, when you're controlled by greed, you're controlled by your own human nature. You're controlled by your own desires. I guess if there's anything in our culture that's more powerful than this, I don't know what it is. Over and over again, we're faced with, in our own lives and lives of people around us, making choices based on what they want, what is pleasurable to them, what's fun to them, what they enjoy. But you see, when Jesus called his followers, he said to them, if you're going to come and follow me, you must first of all, deny yourself. Jesus made it clear that the primary way to enter the kingdom of heaven was to say no to your own human desires. So if you get up on Sunday morning and you know you should go to church and your body says you should take some rest and take a nap or you should go to the lake or whatever it is that you might want to do, and you know what God wants you to do and you say yes to yourself and no to God, you have said, God does not control my life, but I control my life. And if you're so busy with the activities of your life, you don't have time to read the Bible or talk to God or ask his direction, what you're saying to God is, my plans are so important to me, I don't have time to listen to you. Who is worshipped here? It's yourself. And if an announcement is made about something that needs to be done in the church, clean the roof or drive the van or teach a class or take care of the extended care, and you think, hmm, I could do that, but I don't want to. I don't enjoy it. It's not what I would choose. What you've said to God is, my desire and my greed to fulfill what I want is more important to me than what you tell me to do. And you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven that way. For what it means to enter the kingdom of heaven is to say to God, you are the supreme ruler of all the world and in my life, I surrender everything to you. So you deny yourself. You say, from this moment on in my life, God, what you want is more important to me than anything in this world that I might ever want. And you control my life. Now, when Jesus was telling his disciples, if any of you want to come after me, you must deny yourself, then he said, and take up your cross. He meant by that, that I am going to ask you to do some things you do not want to do. I'm going to ask you to do some things that are going to be costly to you. And you have to decide in the very beginning if you're going to do what you want to do, what you like to do, what you enjoy doing, or what God tells you to do. For the time will come in your discipling life, and you cannot become a disciple without this, when you have to choose to do something you don't want to do. Something that's hard for you to do. Something that you don't enjoy doing. It is the nature of the life of following Christ. Because he did that too. I don't want to die on this cross, he said to the Father. But nevertheless, not what I wish, but your will be done. What drives all of us, is this human nature that we have, that brings before us, the desire for pleasure, and for recognition, and comfort, and convenience. So that we focus our attention on that, and when we do, we lose sight of God. That's what he was talking about with these religious people. Everyone in the world thinks that you're a wonderful person, because of how much you know about the Bible, and how you keep these laws. But I know what's in your mind. You're saying, I do this because I want everyone to recognize how good I am. And I hear what's in your mind, and I know what's there. You're not saying, God, I love you, and I will do this, because you have asked it of me. You're saying, God, I'm doing this, because you've said it to me here in the Bible, and I want everyone in the world to know, how good I am. I know the difference between what you do. So you've cleaned up the outside of your life, and everyone around you looks at you and says, boy, that is one fine Christian person. What's inside? Anger? Resentment? Bitterness? Ambition? What is it that drives you every day of your life? Or is it just what you want to do? Do you get up every day and say, what do I want to do? And that's what you do. Jesus described these religious people as actors, because what was inside of them was not exactly what was on the outside. He said to them, you clean the outside of the dish, and you want everybody to look at it and say that it's clean, but you know for yourself, because the inside has not been cleaned, that it's not clean, and you can't present it as something that is clean, because the inside hasn't been changed. The same is true for you. You can't come before me, saying everyone in the world approves of you, and I have to, for you have to stand before me, and I have to say, well done, my good and faithful servant. Jesus finished this by calling them blind Pharisee. What he meant by this was that they were focused on one thing. It was their own interest and desire. When God said you must love me more than anything in all the world, he meant that the primary concern of our life must be pleasing God and living in obedience to him. You're blind because what you look at is the outside and not the inside. You're used to thinking about what people think of you instead of asking the question, what does God think of me? What is he asking of me? And that is the difference between what makes you clean and unclean. Now, the Jewish people, whenever they got in trouble, did something that was unclean, touched something that was unclean, sometimes unclean and sin were connected in the Old Testament. The Jewish people never thought that their sacrifices could make them clean. They never even believed that doing all these things with cleaning the cups, or cleaning, taking a bath, or cleaning their clothes made them sin-free. Job said, only God can make what is unclean, clean. This is a job God has. So whenever you have sin in your life, only God can forgive that. What they did with the sacrifices was to say, the sin has been removed by the forgiveness of God. The sacrifice is the visible way that I can see that God has set me free from sin. For us, whenever you recognize that your life has stepped over the line, and you suddenly have the conviction that something wrong, something's wrong inside of you, God tells you that that's true. Confession of your sin is essential. God will forgive you of your sin. But what makes it possible for you to remove the stain is whenever you receive that gift of God and begin to do in obedience to Him what He's asked of you. That is when you know that now the forgiveness of God has become active and effective in my life. You're blind to the spiritual realities of life because you do not see life the way I see it. Here is the secret. If you will start with the inside of yourself, and you will say, God, I know my own motives, my own behavior, and my own action does not please you. You've made that clear to me. I acknowledge that it's true. I'm ready now for you to change me. I want you to change the desire that I have. If your life is run by your own human interest and desire, and you know God wants something different than that, whatever kind of addiction you have, whatever kind of control your human nature has over you, you recognize that that's something God does not want in your life, and you acknowledge it, and you say to God, here it is, you take it. It's a way of offering a sacrifice to Him. This special part of my life, it's been so powerful, I give it up. And then you say to God, in its place, I want to have obedience and self-control. I have not been able up to this time to control myself. What I want you to do is to teach me to hate what I used to love. I want you to teach me to see the danger in what I used to indulge in. I want you to show me the sin as dark, and as black, and as evil, and as wicked as it really is, that I might see what I used to enjoy as a poison to my soul. And as you read the Bible, and as you talk to God about this, slowly you will find God changing your mind to where you are able now to see and think the way God sees, and the way He thinks. Now, when this takes place for you Pharisees, you will not only become the kind of person everyone will look up to because of the outside of your life, but you will also become the kind of person God approves of. So if you clean up the inside of your life, you will have a connection with God, and peace with Him, and you will also have the respect of the people around you. But the way you're living, you've cleaned up only the outside, and you only have the respect of people around you, but you know inside of yourself that God is not pleased with you. And so you live with only the approval of people, and not the approval of God. Here is the secret for you and me. God does not leave us in mystery about all this. He will make clear to us exactly where we stand. All you have to do is to say to God, is there any part of my life that's not controlled by you? And you think about all the things you think, all the things that you do, and when you come to one that is, God will say, this is no longer under my control. That's how you'll know that inside there's uncleanness. When you find it, God has the power to make what is unclean, clean. Would you bow your heads for just a moment? What I'm asking you to do is to ask that question. What is it in my life that so controls my mind, my will, and my behavior that I do things of which you do not approve? And I can't seem to stop. If you ask that question and you listen, God will answer it. He will let you know. Now it's up to you. Are you an actor? Or do you live the truth? Or do you just not care what God thinks? All of us, sometime in this world, will die and stand before God. And as Jesus stood before the Pharisees and addressed them personally, so he will with us. Now you can get a preview from that by just what you heard. If you've appointed something in your life that's not the way it ought to be, and you brush it off, then you've said to him, I don't care what you think. If you said, well, I know that's a problem, but I'd rather not deal with it, you've said to him, you're not really in charge of my life. What God wants is to prepare us to be able to live a life that is completely like he wants it to be. With everything that God intended to come to you. That's what he wants for you. So following his plan is essential. Father, we come to these moments to hear you speak to us. The whole future of our lives depends on how we respond to you. When we listen and we obey, we find life. When we listen to ourselves and disobey you, we find death. I ask if there's anybody here who doesn't believe that. That you would show them the truth of it. And Father, for those who do believe it, I ask today that everyone would say, God, take my life. Make it completely yours. At least I ask this. In a moment we're going to sing an invitation hymn. I want to ask you to stand if you would, please. If God has spoken to you in some way and made clear to you what he wants from you, your human nature might tell you, no, not now, what will people think? But this is your opportunity to say, I've heard what you want, God. I'm ready to give you what you've asked of me. If you want to come and share with us a promise that you're making to God a commitment or an ask for prayer, this is your opportunity. As God speaks to you, listen to him, not to your fears or your human nature. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So Lord, we do ask this as our prayer, that you might come in not as an observer to us, but as a Lord and ruler, a master, a guide, that we might be able to find the life for which you've created us, and to live the life both inside and outside that finds your approval. In the name of Jesus, we ask this. Amen. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪