Woe To You (Part 2) Luke 11:45-54

Luke 11:45-54

Sun, Nov 17, 2024 11:19AM • 40:40

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Jesus's teachings, Pharisees' hypocrisy, confronting sin, religious standards, truth vs. kindness, religious leaders, legalistic burdens, prophets' deaths, gospel message, legalism distortion, grace and mercy, repentance call, Isaiah's vision, gospel transformation, eternal life

SPEAKERS

Josh Slater

As we study your scriptures that you are honored and glorified and magnified, and all that we think and all that we say and all that we do, it's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Alright, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Luke. CHAPTER 11. We're going to be in verses 45 through 54 this morning, Luke, chapter 11, verses 45 through 54 last week we looked at the last week, we looked at the first section of Luke. Of this section of Luke, I guess. And Jesus addressed the Pharisees and their hypocritical teaching and standards towards the common Jewish man or woman during the time. And as Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, he begins to offend others sitting at the table. Remember, Jesus was invited to a dinner by a Pharisee, and he's using this opportunity to correct and to confront the Pharisees. And as he's sitting there, it's not just the Pharisees who are there, but there are other people sitting at the table that we'll look at in just a second. They're called the lawyers. But one of the things we have to understand about Jesus is like, Jesus wasn't afraid to offend people. He wasn't afraid to be offensive. He stood on the truth. And sometimes the truth of the Word of God offends people. Some people don't like to be confronted with the truth, right? We got that old saying the truth hurts, right? And sometimes that, that is what happens. And so as he's sitting here, he's not afraid to speak up for what God commands him to speak up about. He's not afraid to confront people when their lives don't line up with what God's Word says. And I think that we as followers of Jesus should take a page out of his book, right? We need to be able to stand on the truth of God. We need to be able to speak the truth of God, we need to be able to confront people when they aren't living according to God's standards. We need to make sure that people know where God stands and that we don't just kind of couch to their their beliefs, but what God actually says is what's right. Remember, he created this life, he created this world. He created everything in existence, and he knows how it's supposed to operate. And one of the problems that we have, though in our time and in our culture is that we value kindness and politeness more than we value truth. We don't want people to be upset when we speak the truth, and that's dangerous, because sometimes speaking the truth is going to offend sometimes, speaking the truth is going to not feel kind to the person you're speaking truth to. Now I do want us to notice one thing about this passage is that when Jesus is talking to these people, who is Jesus addressing, he's not addressing non believers. He's not addressing those who hate God. He's talking to religious people. He's talking to those who say that they love God, that they claim that they follow His commandments, and that is who he feels like is important to speak this truth to. Now this can't be overlooked. Sometimes we will need to confront others who say that they believe and follow Jesus, that, but they aren't producing the fruit of salvation. So this truth isn't just for non believers. It's also for those who claim to be following Jesus. We can't fall into the trap of kindness and and feel like we don't want to hurt other people's feelings. When it comes to the things of God, it's okay and right and good to speak the truth in it's actually imperative that we speak the truth, and speaking God truth will hurt some people's feelings. It will make some people angry. It can stir up all kinds of emotions.

So we need to be ready for that.

It's time for us to take a stand for what is good and what is right. It's time for us to stop dancing around the things that God hates. It's time for us to take a stand to make sure that we are offensive but we are offensive for the name of Jesus, that we are offensive for the truth of God. Now this isn't to degrade anyone else and elevate ourselves? No. This is about truth. This is about proclaiming the truth that God has set forth in His scriptures. If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God and we believe what it says, Then we need to stand firm on what it says. If we don't believe that it's the word of God, then, you know, go somewhere else on Sunday morning, right? But the reality is, is that if we believe that a sword of God, if we believe that God has spoken, then we have to be able to and willing to stand on the Word of God. You see, politically and culturally, Christians don't hesitate to call out other people. We don't hesitate to call out people who vote differently than we do. We don't hesitate to call people snowflakes or or evil or wicked if they don't align with us, but we don't have that same fervor with other religious people, with other people who claim to know Jesus. When it comes to hypocrisy in the church, we tend to be silent about it. When it comes to other people gossiping, we tend to be quiet about it, but we need to be as bold with our brothers and sisters in Christ, as we are with people outside of outside of our tribe, outside of where we believe. If we have brothers and sisters in the church who are living in sin, gossiping behind other people's backs, we need to look at them and rather than speaking kindness, we need to speak the truth. Need to confront them. That's what Jesus is doing here. He's confronting those who say that they love God with the truth that they really don't love God, and that can be seen by their actions. Now I'm not saying that this is a free pass for us to speak ugly to people or to make someone to feel less than that's not what I'm saying. However, I am saying that as the people of God, we need to stand on what God has revealed to us in His Word. And sometimes it's going to step on toes. Sometimes, it's going to make religious. In the heavy burden of legalism, when Jesus confronts the Pharisees, there's some collateral damage here. There are lawyers sitting at the table. There's a bunch of people sitting at the table. Just a little insight into what a lawyer is versus what a Pharisee is. Lawyers aren't what we think about then they're not what we think about today. Okay? So they didn't go to court and adjudicate cases. These lawyers were like biblical scholars. They were theologians. They knew the scriptures inside and out. They were the ones who built a hedge of protection around the law. And what I mean is this is they were the ones who would say that you can't carry a stick on the Sabbath because that could be work. And I know that we talked about this last week when it came to the Pharisees, so we need to know that there is some overlap between the Pharisees and the lawyer, they're not the same, but there could be in the same camp. I want to say that there there's some overlap some lawyers could be Pharisees, but it wasn't a universal rule okay. people are too heavy for them to carry. we talked about this a little bit last week. the commandment remember the sabbath and keep it holy from exodus twenty eight or twenty verse eight, the lawyers thought it was too vague that god wasn't clear enough, and so they wanted to add some clarity to that law. here's an excerpt from one of the ways that they address carrying something on the Sabbath that could be work right because carrying something. the Sabbath could be work. They said this, a man may not carry an object in his right hand or in his left hand, in his bosom or on his shoulder. He he however, he may carry it on the back of his hand or with his foot or with his mouth or with his elbow or in his ear or in his hair or in his wallet, carried mouth downwards between his wallet and his shirt, or in the hem of his shirt, or in the shoe of a sandal. So you can't carry anything except for if you carry it this way. It seems pretty ridiculous. It doesn't seem much clearer, but they did think that it added some clarity, right? Some Bible scholars believe that the scribes and the lawyers, what they taught was more important than the Scripture itself, because they said that it was clearer than what God had revealed. So they were subverting the scripture to add their own rules and their own regulations on what it looks like to live a holy life. Though it may be clearer, in some respect, it's also adding undue burdens, making obedience to these man made commands nearly impossible to follow. So instead of helping people draw nearer to God, they were placing hurdles in the way. Then when they fail to meet these outrageous demands, they would look down on people with disgust. How can you not obey? How can you not accomplish this? They're adding these burdens to the service of God and making their devotion stale instead of instead of holy, instead of righteous. They're looking at people and they're saying, Hey, if you can't follow this, then you don't love God. That's a warning for us, isn't it, we must never hold believers to a standard that goes beyond what Scripture actually teaches. Western Christians have been really bad at that in the past. I'm not sure if I've told this story to you guys before, but when I was a teenager, I had a best friend. He's still my best friend. His name's Ricky, and Ricky and I were like peanut butter and jelly. We were always together. We went to church together. We hung out together. We worked together a couple times. We both attended the same so when we were teenagers, we both attended the same youth group, and we were both guys. I know you can't believe this, but we were both guys that were known at times to stir the pot right, to shake things up, to make some people feel uncomfortable. We kind of tried to push the boundaries a little bit. And so one Sunday, Ricky was running late for church, and when he got to church, people were shocked, because he was wearing PJ pants and a tank top, okay, but he's at church, right? He came to youth group wearing his pajamas. He wasn't wearing anything scandalous, like I said, he was just wearing some PJ pants and a tank top. But let me tell you that he received so much backlash from wearing PJ pants and a tank top to church, so much so that one of the pastors actually pulled him aside in the office and said, Hey, this isn't the way that you dress when you come to church. Now, they didn't know, man, that we wear suits. They didn't demand that we dress real fancy. But Ricky and I, after that instance, we both lamented how dumb the rule was. Why can't he wear PJ pants to church? Why can't he wear a tank top of shirt church? This could be a real burden to other people who don't regularly come to church. How would the congregation look at someone else they didn't know coming into church in pajamas. They should have been excited for Ricky to show up. See, the thing that I didn't tell you about Ricky is Ricky didn't have a believing family. He didn't have family who would take him to church. He was coming to church on his own as a teenager to learn more about God, and they were looking down on him because he was wearing PJs instead. Of being excited that

Ricky was there because he didn't meet their expectations,

they corrected him. Now, knowing what I said about us stirring the pot, he continued to wear PJs to church, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Okay? The point I'm trying to make is that initial time that he came to church late wearing PJs, and they said, You can't come to church that way. Is a ridiculous standard. It's a burden for some people. What if all they have is pajamas? I know that's a hypothetical, but what if that's all they had? What if all they have are shirts with holes in them, jeans with holes in them? What if they don't appear like Christian people at church? What are we supposed to do? Be Like you can't come here until you get some clean clothes.

Oh, like we are. Should be welcoming. Now, I don't think

that we're that type of church, but if we aren't careful, we can build these ridiculous boundaries too. We can be a burden to someone who wants to follow Jesus. It may not be PJs. What about tattoos? What about somebody who wants to drink a beer or two. What about somebody who wants to listen to some scandalous hip hop music, right? What about somebody who may be loud and rambunctious in the fellowship hall or during service? None of these things directly violate scripture,

but we can easily set up boundaries and burdens that

may be more than some can bear, maybe more than some can handle. So instead, what do we need to do? We need to be like Jesus. We need to bear one another's burdens, not add to them. We need to make sure that

people who are here, we excite, we're excited about

not demand more than the Lord does. This doesn't mean that they get a free pass for sinful behavior. That's not what we're talking about. But if it isn't a violation of Scripture, if it isn't a violation of God's commands, then let's not make a big deal about it. We have to make and know the line of demarcation between what the Lord has commanded and what our own personal preferences are. We must not elevate our own personal preferences to the level of God's command, to the level of God's instruction. That type of legalism, telling people that they have to do XYZ in the family of God is a burden that is too great for them to bear. And as they grow in the knowledge of the of the Lord and their devotion to whom, maybe they'll become convicted the same way that you're convicted about things. But our traditions are not necessarily based on what Scriptures or God commands, and sometimes we need to let go of those traditions. Some of those traditions are golden calves for people. They need to be shattered. They need to be destroyed. Our faith is not built on a set of laws to uphold the rather a gospel to believe. The fact that we have laws in the Gospel shows us that we can never add up to them. We can never complete the laws perfectly. We can never fulfill the laws perfectly. That's just what that question asked at the beginning of the service. Who can obey the law completely? No one, not one. No one is righteous. No, not one. And it's ridiculous that we have to add to those burdens, those that law and say, Okay, you can't uphold God's law, but I expect you to uphold mine. Christianity is different because we know we can't live up to the law, that we violate the law day in and day out, and because of that, we're in the needs of God. And the gospel tells us that it's through faith in Jesus, through faith in His death, burial and resurrection, that we can gain God's favor. This doesn't mean that God doesn't require things from us when we believe. There's definitely a response to the gospel that leads to following God's instructions, but our salvation isn't built on those rules. Our obedience is built from an overflow of love for God's grace in our lives, Legalism is a distortion of the gospel message, we must never place burdens, undue burdens on other people.

We must not be like these lawyers.

These lawyers weren't just guilty of placing heavy burdens on other people. Jesus also implicates them and accuses them of being guilty of murder

as well. Look what he says in verse 47 Woe to you. You

build tombs for the prophets and your fathers killed them. Therefore you are witnesses that you approve the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you built their monuments. Because

of this, the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them will kill, will kill and persecute

so that this generation may be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible. Jesus here is calling the lawyers, not just those who cast on heavy burdens of people. He's also calling them murderers. It's an interesting accusation that Jesus lays out here for the lawyers. Jesus tells them that they build monuments to the prophet, and because of that, they are complicit in the death of those same prophets. Before we look at what Jesus could

possibly mean here, I want us to understand

what a prophet is, because I think we need to understand what a prophet is in order to understand that the gravity of what Jesus is saying. Here, A prophet is someone who is sent by God to commune, communicate the message of God, to communicate what God wants to say. Sometimes it's what he wants to say to his own people, sometimes it's what he wants to say to the Gentile nations. But the prophets of God are the ones who come along and say, Thus says the Lord. And they tell them what God says. We've have several books in the Old Testament that are authored by prophets. We've got Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Micah, etcetera. However, these weren't the only prophets sent by God to communicate this message. There were other prophets throughout the Old Testament, Elijah, Elisha, Zechariah, Abel, the prophets weren't popular with many in Israel. When they showed up, when a Prophet showed up, he was most likely saying, Hey guys, I'm bringing a message of repentance. And the only reason a message of repentance needs to be given is because you have disobeyed the law of God. You have strayed from his obedience. You have not done what he has instructed you to do. So when people hear that they're doing something wrong, guess what? They don't really like it. That's what we talked about earlier. They don't like to hear when they've done wrong. So these prophets are telling them that God is displeased with the way that they're living, and if they don't turn back, they don't repent of their sin and get back around the right path. God is going to discipline them. Nobody likes to hear that we are wrong in the ways that we live our lives, that we aren't pleasing the Lord. So often times when they would hear this from the from the prophets, what would happen? They would be persecuted. They would be killed. So because the prophets of God were bringing the Word of God to people, and they didn't like it, they killed the prophets.

So those people who killed the prophets were

with all intents and purposes, not just Prophet killers, but word killers,

the word of God. They despise the Word of God.

So they may have not said that with their lips. Maybe they would have said, Yes, we love God. Their actions revealed that they didn't. They didn't love what God said. They only loved what God could do for them. Now, Jesus sees the actions of these lawyers as ironic. He doesn't see that these lawyers are building this monument to kind of uphold and honor the prophets that were killed. He sees it as a worst, worst than that. He sees it

as an approval of their death.

Jesus is essentially saying, Your fathers killed the prophets and you buried them, and so you're playing the same part in their death. The prophets were killed by your fathers, and you make sure that they stay dead, the death of the prophets was a judgment on the people that killed them. That's what Jesus says when, by using, when he uses the wisdom of God in sending the prophets, the reality is God knew that every single one of those prophets that would going to be murdered were going to be murdered. He knew that they were going to be persecuted. So why did he send them to in the first place? He wanted to send them to proclaim the good news of redemption and to solidify the judgment that was going to be heaped upon those who killed prophets.

God's wisdom and His sovereignty is apparent

in all of history, in his dealings with His people and His dealings with the world. God knew the rejection that his prophets would face and but because He is merciful and gracious, he was offering an opportunity for his people to repent, an opportunity that they squandered, that they held on to their wicked ways more than they held on to the righteousness of God. So they persecuted and they killed the prophets, and Jesus then doubles down by what he's what he's saying, by telling these lawyers and Pharisees that they will be held responsible for all the blood of the prophets.

From abel to Zechariah. What could he possibly mean by that? Who's

able? Who's Zechariah? Well, the first person to be murdered in the scriptures is Abel cain's Brother, right? That's Genesis four. He's murdered by his brother, Cain. Why is he killed? Well, he's killed because he brought a better offering than Cain did. That Cain was distraught that the Lord honored Abel offering of the Lamb, then he did the offering of fresh fruits. But how does that make Abel a prophet. How does that make Abel a prophet? Well, Abel, through his actions, was offering a prophetic foreshadowing of the sacrifice that happens in Israelite history, that sacrifice of the Lamb, and also prophetic vision of what's going to happen with Jesus, the sacrifice of Christ Cain was or Abel was not instructed to Slater an animal. Instead, as a prophecy, he was given that understanding by God that what needs to happen is

there needs to be shedding of blood of an animal, not just the offering of fruits. It's a

beautiful picture of the gospel in that story. Second who was Zechariah? He was a prophet killed in Second Chronicles, chapter

24 he was killed in the courtyard of the Temple confronting the people about their sinfulness. He's

only got like three verses in all the Second Chronicles, there's something that we don't see in our Bibles that Jesus is doing here the Hebrew scriptures. The Hebrew Bible is actually in a different order than our modern Bible. Is okay. So they begin the same they have Genesis at the beginning. So that would have been Abel, but they don't end with Malachi. Instead, they end with Second Chronicles. So Jesus is saying that these lawyers that he's talking to are responsible for all the deaths of the prophets, from the very beginning with Abel to the very end with Zechariah, and they wouldn't have missed that. They would have recognized that Jesus is condemning them and holding them accountable for all deaths of Prophets. Now, that doesn't sound really fair, does it? How am I responsible for what they did in the path? How can I be responsible for the deaths of the prophets? I didn't even know them. I didn't live during their time. Well, there are two reasons that Jesus says this. First is that they're not learning from their past mistakes. They're perpetuating the same harm and heaping guilt and heaping guilt on themselves because they're not learning from their prophets past mistakes. And second, the question is, who do all the prophets point to what is all the Old Testament? Point to Jesus. Everything points to Jesus. So from the very wisdom of God, what was the purpose of all he did, from the creation of the world to the choosing of Israel to the giving of commandments God's actions, His words, His prophets were always moving toward Jesus. Everything has been moving toward the coming of Jesus. All of the prophets testified about Jesus. So when these prophets, these lawyers, not prophets, these lawyers, murder Jesus, they carry the guilt of all the prophets. They're more guilty than their ancestors because they rejected and murdered not just a prophet, but the Prophet, the greatest prophet, the prophet of whom all other prophets spoke about. So though they may have believed they were honoring the prophets of old by erecting these tombs. The truth is, they were laying down their own judgment because they were rejecting the one that the all the prophet

spoke about.

They were rejecting the one who came to save their souls. They were rejecting the one who offers them salvation. They're rejecting

the prophet who not just speaks the word of God, but is the word of God.

The better way for them to have honor the Prophet was not to erect these tombs, but to listen to what Jesus was saying.

It would have been for them to obey His instruction.

It would have been better for them to live in the way that he told them to live. The best way for them to honor the prophets would have been for them to recognize who he is, that all the prophets up to him were talking about him,

and those of us who follow

Jesus, we need to live lives that honor Jesus. We need to confess our sins we are so often guilty of we need to rely on His grace to sustain us. We need to tell others about his offer of salvation. We need to continually run back to the gospel of grace. We need to be rejecting what Jesus has shown us instead. We need to follow his footsteps. But not only that, we don't need to gate. Keep the beauty of grace, the beauty of the mercy of God. We need the we have the greatest knowledge. We have the greatest news in the world, and we should be sharing it. Which leads us to the last woe of the lawyers. In verse 52 he says this Woe to you, experts in the law, you have taken away the key to knowledge. You didn't go in yourselves, and you hindered those who were trying to go in. These are some harsh words from Jesus, the lawyers, the educators of Scripture. They were supposed to lead people into the knowledge of God to the reality of salvation, but they had taken away the key of knowledge. I think that is important for us to understand the purpose of Scripture. Scripture is not a moral guidebook on how to live your life. Though there are moral lessons in there. That's not what it was written for, though, if we listen to those moral standards, human life would flourish. Scripture is also not a self help guide on how to become healthy, wealthy and happy, though it does contain wisdom in order to live a life that is full of joy. That's not what it's for. Scripture isn't simply a textbook that talks about historical things. Scripture isn't a way to control the masses, though it does contain teachings that are beneficial to everyone

and has shaped our current culture and understanding of humanity.

So if the scriptures aren't for this purpose, if they're not a moral guidebook, if they're not a self help guide, if they're not a textbook, if they're not a way to control people, what is the purpose of God's word? Why do we have the scriptures? The purpose of God's word is to reveal to us who he is and the beauty of His plan of redemption. That is why we have the scriptures. They're not cutesy stories about historical figures. They are stories that point to the beauty of Christ, and that's where the lawyers got it wrong. They weren't showing people the beauty of God. They weren't showing people the plan of his salvation. Rather, they were using it as a rule book to control people. No, they didn't have a necessarily nefarious motives. Okay, they knew their history that when God's people disobeyed God, they were sent into exile and lived under oppression. So their goal was to make sure that that didn't happen again. But if they would have pointed to the beauty of the scripture to reveal

the person

of God, then they would have been leading them into the right thing rather, instead, they were leading them out of God's grace into their own way. And this is kind of funny, because they wanted to make sure that they didn't get live under oppression again, all the while they're living under Roman oppression during Jesus's time. But even more than that, they had these lawyers. Had the key to the knowledge of God standing right in front of them in Jesus. The reason for all the scriptures was standing right in their presence, and they completely missed him. This just goes to show us that though they know the words of God, they didn't know the Word of God. Jesus says it this way in John chapter five, verses 39 through 40, when he says this, you pour over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. So though they knew the words and they could tell you the the scriptures, they did not know the God behind the scriptures. From their knowledge about the Scripture should have been pointing people to Jesus, yet instead, they are arguing with him, and they're trying to find faults in his teaching. They're trying to find problems with his ministry, and because of that, they're not only condemning themselves, but they are also hindering those who are seeking out the truth of God. So we have to take some time and think about how we are tempted, like these lawyers, to withhold the keys of knowledge of Jesus. And first and foremost, the way that we are like these lawyers is when we don't share the Good News of Jesus, we want to keep it to ourselves. We want to go to church and never let people know about the life changing transformation of the gospel. This is my secret and I want to

keep in my back pocket. When we're not sharing the gospel, we are withholding

the keys to knowledge. Second, we start to add works to the Gospel, much like these lawyers here, we start with a we start to build fences around what it means to obey the gospel, we create a barrier of entry into the knowledge of God. Or maybe third, we have to we have people focus on behavior modification rather than spiritual transformation, that we are more concerned with what people look like on the outside than what God is shaping on the inside of their hearts and souls. We can also muddy the waters between our political stances and Christianity. It's telling that instead, that sometimes we are more vocal about the political candidate that we support than we are about the Jesus that saved our souls. We're more vocal about the things that are going on in this world than we are about the Christ who died to save us. We distract from the gospel when we lean into things that don't matter eternally.

Fifth, and finally, maybe we just maybe we preach the gospel, but we don't preach the fullness of the gospel. If we do preach the gospel to those who are lost, we can distort or we can change the message. If we aren't telling people that they are sinners and they are enemies

of God because of their sin and rebellion against Him, and that God has made a way for them to have reconciliation with him through the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, then we're missing the message of the gospel, we tell people that coming to Jesus is going to fix all their problems, that their lives will will never have suffering, that everything will be okay, all life will be hunky dory. If you just follow Jesus, then we are giving them false hope. We're giving them a message that will cause disappointment, because guess what? Things get hard. Life is hard. We have a hope in Jesus. We have a hope eternal. It's Christ alone. But when we tell people, you come to Jesus and everything's going to be good, and they come to Jesus, maybe they start to see that their life isn't any better, that things are harder, that they face persecution and hatred from their family because their family thinks that they're better than they say that they're better than them because now they're following Jesus. How do we we're not preaching the fullness of the gospel. Jesus said that you will face troubles in this world, but he

gives hope, right? He says that you will face troubles in this world, but take heart. I have overcome the world.

I have overcome the world. We tell people that faith in Jesus means that we have intellectual knowledge of Jesus, but we don't demand that they follow him self sacrificially, and we haven't preached the fullness of the gospel. We have given the false gospel. All five of these categories keep people from understanding the truth of the life committed to Jesus. We aren't to lead people away from Jesus but toward him, and sometimes that we don't do that. We push them away through our hypocrisy and through our burdens that we try to place in the way they go back to what I said earlier. We have to know that saying these things about Jesus is going to be polarizing.

Telling people about the truth of Scripture. People don't like to hear their sinners. People don't like to hear that they are enemies of God. We

live in a culture where everybody believes that they're a child of God, which isn't right. The only children of God that are those who have been adopted into the family of God through the blood of Jesus. That's uncomfortable for us to say, but that's what the Scriptures say, that the only way we become a child of God is through belief and faith in Jesus. Otherwise, we are children of wrath, and people are not going to like that truth, just like they don't like Jesus's truth. Jesus is Lordship, and their brokenness are at odds with one another until they see how broken they are. See people didn't like it when Jesus taught it. In fact, they sought to kill him for the things that he said. So they may not like you either look what what happens in verse 53 when he left there. So Jesus finishes teaching, the scribes and the Pharisees begin to oppose him fiercely and to cross examine him about many things they were lying in wait for him to trap him in something he said, there's a hatred that has come toward Jesus. This is Luke's way of providing us with some insight into the hearts and the motivations of the scribes and the lawyers and the Pharisees. They didn't like being called out for their disobedience to the Lord. They didn't like being confronted with their sin. They didn't like that Jesus was willing to offend them and point them back to the God they claim to love, so they begin to oppose him, fiercely, laying in wait so they could trap him in what he said instead their proper response

would have been to recognize their error,

to recognize their sinfulness, to acknowledge Jesus's teaching. But instead, they allowed this offense to harden their hearts towards him. They allowed their pride to get in the way. This is no different than how some people approach Jesus today. Rather than listen to him and just start looking for they start looking for ways to ignore him, ways to ignore the Scripture. This would come in a form of of responses like this. I've heard that was a book written 2000 years ago. What does it know about living life in the 2024 that's just a bunch of patriarchal nonsense. Believing in God. That's just a cop out for weak

people who can't handle the difficulties of

life. God can't be real. Look at all the moral problems in the world today. Man, you just believe in fairy tales. Well, I believe in silence. Those are all things that people say when it comes to following Jesus. These are all accusations that people throw at Jesus and his followers. These are all reasons to deny the truth and oppose Jesus fiercely. Honestly. They all boil down to this truth. People don't want to worship the Lord and offer their lives to Him. They don't want to Jesus is telling us woe to those who don't believe in Him, for we will face the wrath of God. So in response to his warning, instead of responding with all these excuses, how should we respond to the Lord? Before I read this response, it's the response from Isaiah in Isaiah chapter six, verses one through five, I want to just let you know Isaiah

was a prophet chosen by God to go and tell God's people that he was

going to punish them for not obeying. Now, one of the things about Isaiah life is Isaiah. When God called him, Isaiah, God told Isaiah, you're going to go preach and you're going to go preach repentance, and people are going to look at you and they're going to laugh at you, and they're not going to respond to what you say, but go preach anyway. That's the that's the ministry that Isaiah is called to go preach about repenting. People are going to hate you, but do it anyway, which is telling for us, some people are going to hate us. Okay. But anyway, so Isaiah was chosen by God as a prophet of God. The Lord reveals to him himself to Isaiah in a mighty way in Isaiah chapter six, and it happens this way in the year of King, the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne high and lifted up, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim was standing above him. They each had six wings with two. They cover their faces with two. They cover their feet and with two. They flew

and one called to another. Holy.

Holy. Holy is the Lord of Armies, his glory fills the whole earth. The foundations of the doorway shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. And then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips, and because I my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies. Isaiah. Response to seeing the glory of God was to say, Woe is me. I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. The truth and the beauty about the majesty of Jesus that we

should is that we should recognize His grace and His compassion, and we should see what he teaches and and though we are a people of unclean lips, of unclean hearts, unclean lives, Jesus came to offer Himself as a sacrifice

so that, though we are dead, we can be made alive, so that we can have deep and meaningful relationship with the Creator of heaven and earth. That's why Jesus came. Let's not forget that, that we have good news to tell the world. Look at what Romans six or Yeah, 623 says. It says, For the wages of sin is

death, but the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ, Jesus, our Lord, John 316

for God loved the world in this way, He gave His one and only Son that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Romans, five, eight. But God proves his own love for us that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. What do all three of those verses have in common. First, we recognize that we are sinners. We recognize that we are not worthy of God's love and compassion, that we we have offended him, that we are enemies of God, that we are children under wrath. That's the first thing we recognize, and that we have earned death through our sinfulness. That is the the wage that we have earned, and yet we also see the grace of God. We see the mercy of God. We see the love of God. That while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us, that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ, Jesus, our Lord, that God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. I don't know where you are with the Lord this morning, but I want you to know that there is Grace at the feet of Jesus, and I beg you not to leave here today with just more knowledge, but to leave here transformed by the gospel message, you are a sinner, and you need forgiveness. That forgiveness comes through faith in Jesus. Don't make any excuses. He's calling out to you. We listen to him. Let's pray, Father, we are so grateful for your love. We're grateful for Your Word. We're grateful for your grace and Your mercy in our lives, Lord though we we are wretched sinners who are dead in our sins and trespasses, we can have new life through Christ, Jesus, our Lord. Thank you for that Lord. Thank you for the grace that you extend to us, the mercy that you have given us. Thank you for the love and the compassion you have us that you didn't leave us alone in our dead, in our death and on our sin, but you have created us life through Christ, Jesus, if we believe, there's anybody in here who doesn't believe, Lord, I pray that they would give their lives to you, but they would honor you with their life that they would submit to your Lordship, and prayer all this in Jesus name, Amen.