Woe to pharisees and lawyers. Lk 11:37-54 Part 3
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.” 45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 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. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 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.” 53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
A Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner at his home.
Jesus promptly offended the man by neglecting to wash his hands,
forgoing the ritual cleansing that the Pharisees considered essential to personal godliness.
Then, as if that were not bad enough, Jesus proceeded to denounce the Pharisees for being more concerned with outward appearances than inward godliness.
He pronounced three woes against their hypocrisy.
The Pharisees had a lethal influence on the people who looked to their example,
and they needed to start getting honest with God about their inner sinner.
They needed to reflect upon their own hearts.
As Jesus was having this conversation with this Pharisee, if we were to zoom out and look at a picture of the table and the room, we would see quite a sight.
The other guests were likely sitting there, slack jawed, mouths open, dumbfounded about what Jesus just said.
Not only was Jesus acting in a culturally inappropriate way, he was also speaking in a personally offensive way.
Because he wanted the Pharisees to look at themselves.
That is when one of the lawyers speaks up.
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
This lawyer, professional scholar, felt insulted by Jesus words.
We must keep in mind, in order to feel insulted, he also had a feeling of superiority.
Tou can only feel insulted if you think that you are better than the insult being levelled at you.
The lawyers felt insulted because Jesus was implying that they were wicked, disobedient, deceivers, and they thought the opposite of themselves.
Perhaps his speaking up was to be a word of caution, trying to get Jesus to take a step back about what he was sating.
Because surely Jesus did not intend to offend a fine, upstanding, God-fearing man like himself!
But what does Jesus do?
He doesn’t back down.
Jesus went right ahead and proceeded to offend every last lawyer in the room.
Maybe what he said will offend us too, but if so,
it is not because Jesus has bad etiquette,
but only because he knows how badly we need to be confronted with the sinfulness of our sin.
The state of our hearts affect not only ourselves but also those around us.
The state of our hearts has an impact on every point of human contact we have, from the conversation with the clerk at gas station, family members.
Jesus continues to address the heart with three more woes that he pronounces to the lawyers.
46 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.
Remember, lawyers as referred to here are not as we think of them today.
They are not prosecuting or defending clients.
The other word often used to describe these people was scribes.
They were Bible scholars and theologians.
They were very well studied in the OT.
To equate them to people today we would think of them as college/seminary professors perhaps people who were writing commentaries on scripture.
To study the law was their occupation.
Some lawyers were Pharisees, but not all of them, because not all lawyers followed the customs of the Pharisees.
There were also some Pharisees who were lawyers; they were Bible scholars by profession.
But many Pharisees were involved in some other line of work.
In fact, many of them were lay people.
Jesus condemnation of the lawyers here is in regards to the expectations that they place upon others but do not offer any further help.
You load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do no touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
The main issue at stake is their loveless application of the law.
They show no grace to others.
Stating rules for others to follow but believing themselves to be so holy that they did not need the rules.
Hence Jesus condemnation using the word burden.
The word burden in Greek speaks of a load for transport, something that is carried.
We think of perhaps a cargo ship, or a beast of burden.
I am sure each of us have picked up a heavy item and experienced a burden of weight in that manner.
Some of us did yesterday moving rocks!
Jesus condemnation is so poignant because it is the exact opposite of what He stated.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The lawyers recipe for a relationship with God was to keep the rules they found in scripture perfectly.
Jesus recipe was to come to him, to learn from him, to live like him.
Jesus specializes in ministering to the tired and needy.
He does not leave people feeling worn out, beaten up, and ashamed.
Rather, He provides rest.
To trust in Jesus is the rest in the work He did for us on the cross.
Paying the penalty for our sin at we owe and can never pay.
And because we can rest in His unconditional acceptance of us, serving Him is easy and light on our souls.
Where are you today?
Are you feeling weary or burdened by spiritual things?
Or are you feeling rested?
Are you serving Christ out of the love he has shown you?
Are are placing burdens upon yourself to try to attain a relationship with God.
I hope and pray that as I pastor, I do not come across as burdensome and giving out lists of do’s and don’ts.
But rather encouraging and directing you in your relationship with Jesus.
“If your religion is wearisome and burdensome, God’s answer is not a longer quiet time, or a firmer commitment reading your Bile.
God’s solution … is rest—rest in the loving acceptance of Jesus and His perfect load-carrying work for you.”
The next woe that Jesus gives is a little more difficult to interpret for us today.
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
Today visitors to Jerusalem can see similar tombs in the Kidron Valley,
built in the memory of various prophets from the Old Testament.
Making these memorials was considered a act of reverence,
a way to honor the ministry of Israel’s former prophets.
They also thought of it as a way to atone for the sins of their fathers, who had put so many of those noble prophets to death.
But Jesus saw things rather differently.
As far as he was concerned, when people built these tombs they were finishing the work their forefathers had only started.
This was a case of “like father, like son.”
In effect, the people of Jesus’ generation were becoming unwitting accomplices to the murder of the very men they sought to honor.
Rather than honoring the prophets by building these tombs, they were joining their ancestors in killing them.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases it this way in The Message
47 “You’re hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. 48 The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets.
The tombs themselves were not the issue.
The issue was the rebellion in the hearts of the spiritual leaders as they refused to listen to God’s Word.
It was much easier for them to live in the past by admiring some dead prophet than it was to live for God in the present by doing what the prophet said.
I think that it is just as hard for us today to grasp what Jesus was saying as it was for the lawyers of that time.
They truly believed they were doing everything right.
They truly believed they were in a healthy relationship with God.
I fear many Christians today are walking this same path and Jesus himself warns us of it.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
The lawyers of that day made a grand show of outward devotion, but their hearts were far from God.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not submit their lives personally to the message of the Old Testament prophets,
but they built monuments to them to make it look as if they honored them.
Jesus lumps the current leaders with their ancestors who killed the prophets.
48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
He is saying that the current leaders are finishing off the job that the earlier generations started.
As in all the other woes,
The underlying problem goes back to the heart.
Outwardly they act as if they honor the prophets,
inwardly they do not repent of the very sins which the prophets condemned.
Which is the questions we must ask our own selves.
Is my Christian walk one that is outward only?
Am I acting as though I honor God and yet don’t seek to repent of the sin he condemns?
Do I love my own sin too much to deal with it?
Verses 49-51 helps us to see that this is nothing new.
Abel was the first man to die because his righteousness convicted his brother of his evil deeds.
In the arrangement of the books in the Hebrew Bible, Zechariah was the last prophet to be killed (2 Chron. 24:20-25).
Jesus is saying that the blood of all the righteous men who were martyred in the Old Testament would be charged against this current wicked generation,
because they rejected God’s revealed wisdom about their sin.
The point is, don’t put on a show for people to see.
Actually live a life that displays Christ.
The third woe really helps us to see how the condition of our hearts has an impact on those around us.
52 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.”
As teachers of God’s word they have diluted, twisted, added to, detracted from, and obscured the word of God.
They have taken away the key of knowledge.
The lawyers were called to lead people to salvation.
Because they taught the Scriptures, they were supposed to hold the key to saving knowledge.
But Jesus said they had taken the key away.
Now, because they had lost the key, they themselves could not enter eternal life.
Even worse, they were keeping other people from entering as well.
The very men who were supposed to usher people to God were blocking the way!
They spent all their time reading, studying, debating, and teaching the Bible;
yet rather than making its message clear, they were only confusing people about the truth.
Jesus Christ is the key, just as he is the way, and the truth, and the life.
The key to saving knowledge is the grace that God offers to guilty sinners through Jesus Christ.
The way to be saved—the way to have eternal life—is not by works of our own obedience.
Rather, it is to confess our sins and put our trust in Christ alone for our salvation.
In many well-meaning but legalistic Christian homes, parents mistakenly think that the way to keep their children in line is to lay down and enforce a lot of rules.
Rules are important and necessary.
But the way to keep children in line is to lead them to a personal knowledge of the Holy One.
Kids here today, I want to encourage you to get to know Jesus.
Read about him, pray to him, talk with your parents about him.
Jesus is with you when no one else can be.
If you truly know Jesus and the great love He has for you.
That He gave himself up for your sins, you will want to please him as you grow.
Beginning with your own heart.
As Christian parents, our goal is to help our children to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ,
To live in a growing personal relationship with Him.
Legalism takes an external approach; biblical Christianity focuses on the heart relationship.
Given everything that Jesus said at the Pharisee’s house, can you even imagine the tension around the table as the dinner party ended?
By the time Jesus was through, he had offended everyone at the table, exposing each person’s hypocrisy, pride, hatred, and legalism.
He exposed their hearts!
He had accused them all of keeping people away from God
and contaminating others with the deadly corruption of their ungodly hearts.
It is no wonder they wanted to kill him.
What should they have done instead?
When Jesus offended them, they could have responded a different way altogether,
the way that we should respond when the words of Jesus offend our own self-righteous pride.
They ought to have responded as Isaiah did
5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Rather than being offended by what God said about his sin, he repented of it, and was saved.
If the lawyers and Pharisees had made the same confession, they too would have been saved.
But rather than pronouncing woe upon themselves, they plotted to put Jesus to death.
What choice will you make?
What is the condition of your heart?
What is going on with your soul today?
I beg of you, don’t put Jesus away as the lawyers wanted to do.
Instead say “Woe is me, Lord, for I am the heartless legalist,
I am the hateful rebel who hinders people from coming to Christ.
God, save me by the cross where my sins sent Jesus to die.”
Remember, Jesus hates pride, He hates legalism because it does not deal with the condition of our sinful hearts before God.
But Jesus loves grace, because it is by His grace that He transforms sinners into saints who love God and who love others.