From the Inside Out

Most of my life I suffered from being an approval addict. I wanted people to think well of me, like me, be impressed by what they saw, even believe good things about me that were not true.

Growing up I was in Royal Ambassadors (RA’s) They are kind of like Boy Scouts in a Baptist church. Like Boy Scouts you get badges for learning things or achieving goals. I earned some patches but not all of them or enough that would impress. So, I bought all the patches and put them on the jacket. I didn’t tell anyone that I earned them, I just made it look like I did.

Slide The outside is what others see!

The outside is about action, decoration, and even our declarations.

Are there things you have done or maybe even do now because you care about what people think?

Do you care about what people think of you? Maybe you wear certain clothes because they give off the impression of style, or a certain level of success or maybe even an “I don’t care” what anyone thinks. Which by the way is actually still trying to manage what other people think of you.

We wash our cars, mow our yards, shower, comb our hair, brush our teeth. We make ourselves presentable.

Are church you might be tempted to appear caring, holier and more spiritual than you really are. Or even when worship, maybe there is that nudge as you are singing “lift my hands”, to lift your hands to the Lord, but there is the thought, people will see me or that’s not the kind of worshipper I am or that is so embarrassing or fill in whatever thought you have about what others might say that keeps you from following that nudge from the Spirit.

All that while, you and I know what is going on in our hearts, our minds, our souls. We know the truth of what is inside and so does God.

Slide The inside is what is seen by God!

The inside are all our fears, doubts, longings, judgements and more. The inside houses the truth about the state of souls, our struggle to have faith in difficult times. Our wanting to be liked or our fear of being labeled, rejected or misunderstood.

It is easy to fake it, it is hard faith it. There came a time in my life over 25 years ago that I have realized that I cared more about what people thought than what God thought. God was caring, kind, forgiving, loving no matter what. But people, I feared if they knew the truth, they would not love me, like me, follow me.

God convicted me that this was idolatry. I had another God, and it was the God of approval.

I have said it before many times, I had to give up on my spiritual reputation and release the desire to manipulate or even lie about what was really going on inside.

Over the last few weeks we listened to the words of Jesus as he declares the truth about the religious leaders of His day. They were all about the outside, what others saw and not at all willing for the truth of their inner lives to be known. But Jesus outed them.

Woe to you who keep people out of the Kingdom! – slamming doors

Woe to you who weigh people down with rules! – laying burdens

Woe to you who swear to by God and everything – let your yes be yes and no be no.

Woe to you who live in a world of backward thinking – missing the main thing. love, mercy, justice, faithfulness. You strain at a gnat while you swallow a camel

This morning, we are going to look at the remaining woes.

The word woe and it give the idea of despair, or a sense of hopelessness as well as a connotation of mourning.

The one place that no one sees or truly knows your heart. It is that inner place that shapes our attitude and outlook to the world. And, because of that …

Slide The condition of your heart is the key to your spiritual health.

Your physical heart health is something you pay attention to, especially as you age. Heart attacks are common and often problems are happening inside that you do not see. Your spiritual heart health is just as hidden and even more important. Proverbs says …

Slide Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

The heart is where our decisions and choices are made. It is the seat of our intentions. All of our actions and words flow from its motivations.

Slide The heart is the center of our being. It is the seat of our desire and will.

What is happing in your heart will impact all the areas of your life. What is going on in the unseen will eventually become visible.

If we fill our hearts with fear, anger, lust, jealousy, greed, envy, unforgiveness, gluttony, materialism, and other things that are contrary to everything that makes for a healthy soul then life will look different.

Slide Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Matthew 23:25–26

Jesus called them hypocrites. Hypocrite comes from the Greek term for "actor." It is someone who pretends to be one thing but is really another. It describes someone who is fake. Jesus used this term to brand the scribes and Pharisees as religious frauds.

Jesus confronted them and us to clean the inside because then the outside will be clean too.

Slide Clean the inside – confess, repent and receive healing, forgiveness and wholeness.

Knowing what you do is self-awareness. Knowing why you do it, is self-knowledge. You can’t have transformation without both.

In our sinful state apart of from salvation … we don’t stand a change. Jeremiah writes …

Slide The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

You might say that …

Slide Outward righteousness without inward righteousness is eternal death!

You can have the outward appearance of goodness and still be spiritually dead on the inside. And that inside death can only be covered up for so long. Because in the end, there is not hiding.

Which leads to the next woe …

Slide Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:27-28

If you ever have the opportunity to go to Jerusalem, you will want to see these whitewashed tombs.

PICTURE

These are the tombs Jesus was referring to and may even have been visible to the crowd as he was giving this woe.

Outward righteous acts is not a sign of inward righteousness. They were pretenders, they were hypocrites, actors playing a part.

We can’t be good enough, holy enough, serve enough, give enough to satisfy the righteous requires of the law. And if the religious leaders of the day, experts in all things righteous, couldn’t do it then how in the world can we?

It is the condition of the heart that is key, it’s the heart of the matter that gives us true righteousness and that is only achieved one way!

Slide Inward righteousness is only achieved through a personal relationship with Jesus!

It is not what you do on the outside but rather who dwells in your heart on the inside. Who is the one leading, guiding, motivating, transforming you on the inside. Jesus said …

Slide Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

The religious leaders were always comparing as to who was doing the right thing, the right way and arguing as to which way was more right that another. They were righteous in their own eyes. They were all about the outside acts which lead them to a self-righteousness and …

Slide Self-righteousness leads us to compare our goodness to others, past and present.

Listen to this woe …

Slide Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Matthew 23:29-31

They build monuments to celebrate the prophets who their ancestors killed. And now they will kill the son of God who comes as prophet, priest and king.

Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. - With blistering sarcasm Jesus prophetically assured them, "Don't worry, you will get your opportunity to slay God's prophets too!"

Jesus echo’s the words of John the Baptist …

Slide But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Matthew 3:7

Jesus says again in Matthew 12 …

Slide You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. Matthew 12:34–35

If this was the case, it undermined the Pharisees' entire argument that they were not like their fathers and would not have shed the blood of God's prophets.

The phrase the sentence of hell is literally translated as the sentence of Gehenna.

Gehenna was the Greek name of the Hinnom Valley, located to the immediate south of Jerusalem's city walls. It served as the city dump where waste and animal carcasses were burned and rotted. Jesus often used Gehenna as an image to contrast the blessings of His kingdom.

We think we are better today than those who came before us. We would never!

What past atrocities in our world do you think that you would never have done.Massacring native Americans, participating in the holocaust, owning slaves being brought to this country.

I have resisted at times the idea that somehow, I should repent for the actions of my ancestors or for the actions of the human race in general. The notion that I would never do such a thing nor am I responsible for the sin and heinous actions of humanity in the past.

But clearly there is connection between the self-righteous of the past and the present. Acknowledging past sins and my own sinfulness allows me to not put myself above the past and therefore doomed to repeat it.

Slide Recognize your own sin and fallenness and the sins of our past, present and future!

We are not above nor incapable of doing the same sins as our ancestors.

Jesus goes on to say …

Slide Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Matthew 23:32-36

From Abel in Genesis whose blood was shed by his brother Cain to the prophet Zechariah … from the first book of the law to last combined book of the prophets, Zechariah and Malachi, they would be responsible for the shed blood of all the righteous.

Jesus is saying that they are doing the same thing that they are accusing their ancestors of doing. It begs the question, is there …

Slide Collective responsibility or individual responsibility?

Or both. Yes. In our individualistic society we don’t tend to see the collective responsibility as it says in 1 Chronicles …

Slide … if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

Individual yes, collective yes … Jesus finishes this passage with a final lament, a painful and sorrowful cry of pronounce over Jerusalem. Which begs the question for all of us.

Slide Are you brokenhearted over the rejection of Jesus by the world?

Does it break your heart that people are suffering under the weight of sin. Does it break your heart that they are being lead astray by blind guides.

Slide O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Matthew 23:37–39

Slide Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, Deuteronomy 32:11

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Slide Do you long for the return of Jesus?

Slide Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Psalm 118:25–27a

What do we need to do this morning?

Slide Your heart is the key!.

Slide God offers and gives you a new heart.

Slide And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

Slide You can walk in the God-given desires of your new heart.

Slide Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

Slide You can love God with all your new heart.

Slide And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Matthew 22:37

Slide Woe to all of us who live with a wicked heart!

Slide Blessed are all who live with a new heart on the inside so they can live with an authentic faith on the outside!

Slide Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

Pray

Song – From the Inside Out

Let this song be the cry of your heart for Jesus to consume you from the inside out. Let your life be one of relationship with Jesus.