Immediately Stop Dead Work
Mark: Immediately • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Opening
Opening
We are back again still in Mark. I Told you a while back that you are going to hear the same themes over and over again in the text. It is going to feel like you are hearing the same things if you pay attention. This isn’t because I have an agenda, or its certain points I want to preach, but because the Gospel that we preach is not a complex Gospel. It is not a Gospel that has a huge amount of layers, and the life that we are called to live not a complex life. The Bible says the opposite in both cases first about the gospel 2 Corinthians 11:3-4
I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily.
Paul warns us here that we should not let anyone take us away from the simple and pure devotion to Christ. I can go super deep in the Greek every week and I can talk to you about hypostatic union and Calvinism vs Arminianism or Real Presence vs Symbolic or limited vs unlimited atonement. We could get into philosophy and essence vs energy distinctions. I could give you all these intellectual reasons to believe in Christ and all the arguments that are made for it, but the Apostle Paul told me to go about it another way, He says we really only come here to preach 2 things 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
I come week after week sermon after sermon to preach to you Christ and him Crucified. Its a simple Gospel and a simple way of life. Believe in Christ, believe that he died on the cross for your sins, believe that he rose on the 3rd day for your sins, that he loved you and me enough to come down from heaven and live a sinless life as the perfect example to us and then he gave his life even though he was sinless so that we could be saved from our sins. What a God, what a God, Jesus went to Calvary to save a wretch like you and me that's love, they hung him high and stretched him wide he hung his head for me he died that love. but that not how the story ends because 3 days later he rose again. Now once you understand this we then say go read the gospel and the law of God and see how the Messiah lived, walked, talked and in everything in life ask yourself one simple question. WWJD what would Jesus do, or in some cases WDJD what did Jesus Do. We don’t do what we do for praise or for the glory of men, but as the Messiah says he does everything that he does so that the father can be glorified, we do everything that we do so that Christ can be glorified and magnified.
Immediately Stop The Dead Works
Immediately Stop The Dead Works
This leads us directly into our main passage for today, and If I can be honest with y'all I didn’t want in myself to preach this particular message today. I wanted to give you a nice long sermon about fasting, but sometimes the spirit leads us in a direction that we may not want to go, but one that we need to go in.
Today We are coming from Mark 2:18-22
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were often fasting. So people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t Your disciples fast like John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees?”
Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? As long as He is with them, they cannot fast. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
So the story starts with the usual suspects and some unusual suspects. We are used to seeing the Pharisees coming against Christ, it is not as usual to see the disciples of John the Baptist. But they come to Christ to question him not about faith, or not about wisdom, not about character but about religious practice. Sometimes some of us are the same way.
We become more focused on religious activity than actual true religion. The Apostle James tells us what true religion is James 1:26-27
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James says True religion
is watching what you say to people and how you put your mouth on them or at them, taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves and keeping yourself from being polluted from this world, but some of us we tend to put our false religion what we think religion should be over what the scriptures say. We see someone trying to get closer to God and we began to Judge them, because they are not meeting the standards of your false religion, but they are exceeding the standard of True Religion. He hasn’t put the scripture in his bio yet, but he is feeding the homeless. He still sagging, but he been coming to church and trying. Now instead of offering to buy him a belt you just texting about him later. She been coming to Sabbath Service and to bible study, but her wardrobe still a little immodest, but may not have it right now to change her whole wardrobe, she’s all on her own 2 kids, but rather than offer her help with a few new outfits you think its the right thing to do to talk about her later. The man used to be a drug dealer, and now you see him every week giving to the homeless and doing the back-to-school drives, now rather than tell him he is doing a good thing, you are talking about him saying that drug money, you don’t even know he stopped selling drugs 6 months ago gave all that money up and now he working a job just like you except he actually gives to the needy when you don’t.
See you may look clean, you may look to the world like you are living your life to God, but on the inside you a filthy, no love, no mercy, no change. And the people that you talk about may look a little dirty on the outside, but that because they came in the right way. They clean the inside first, because if you clean the inside first you the outside will become clean on its on. Matthew 23:25-28
Woe to you, scribes 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, so that the outside may become clean as well.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you appear to be righteous, but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
A bad tree cannot produce good fruit and a good tree cannot produce bad Fruit. So rather than focus on your dead works, focus of actually developing a relationship with Christ that will produce good works. You only pray when someone is watching, you only fast so that you can tell people how hungry you are and that you don’t know how you are going to make it, ain’t read your bible once you are looking for praise from men. Matthew 6:16-18
When you fast, do not be somber like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be obvious to men, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Everything that you do, you do it to be seen by men, not for the glory of God, That's Dead works not Good Works. To the world you're a virgin, super chaste, to anyone who actually knows you, you are the most perverse promiscuous person who they know. To the world you never even have a drop of alcohol, but to the ones who know you, you can drink the whole bottle of Hennesy in one night STRAIGHT NO CHASER. You all on Facebook preaching how the homosexual community is ruining society, but you got 3 kids and is actively cheating on your wife or husband right now. I said this one last week you coming in Church you see a young lady sitting there and you start judging her, she was just stripping last night and she in Church this morning, brother how do you know what she was doing last night? You have everything to say about the only fans, but if we saw your bank statement, you just about keeping onlyfans in business all by yourself. We have gotten so caught up in dead religion that our hearts aren’t being changed and we can’t effectively evangelize the world because we are trying to condemn the world.
Don’t be who what you think a religious person should be or look like, be what the bible says true religion is.
We see all the time where Paul says that no man will be saved by the works of the law, or that no man will be justified by the law. I’m going to teach for just a quick second.
What does Paul mean here ? Does Paul mean that your actions the way that you live have no bearing on where you will end up, he can’t be saying that. When we look a little deeper into that phrase Works of the law Paul was dealing with something the Messiah the Messiah dealt with and something that we still deal with today.
if you are on our text list to get the scriptures every week this week you also got a page telling you about 4qmmt. If you have ever heard of the Dead Sea scrolls, a collection of biblical book found in Israel in the Qumran Caves from 1946-1956, they are dated from the 3rd Century before Christ to the 1st century. 4QMMT is found there and the name literally means Some Works of The Law.
But this document does not name different laws from the Torah. What is does do contain is extra biblical rules that one religious group of Jews sent to another religious group of Jews. That they are teaching should be required.
The same thing the Messiah Preaches against in Mark 7 and Matthew 15 when the Pharisees and the scribes come to him and ask why don’t his disciples wash their hands before they eat lets read it Matthew 15:1-9
Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands before they eat.”
Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he need not honor his father or mother with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you:
‘These people honor Me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from Me.
They worship Me in vain;
they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”
They were teaching their man-made traditions while at the same time neglecting the commandments of God and we have that same issue today. We have people that are more focused on traditions rules that we men have set up than what God actually commanded. Some Churches have a standard of Dress, one that a lot of people cannot meet, and it keeps them away, God Called for modestly, he did not call for you to have a floor length skirt on every time you leave the house. We shut up the kingdom of God by our rules. They will preach a whole sermon about how you cant even have a glass of wine, even though Christ did, and then after service serve Pork Chops, I think one of these things is mention in the bible and one is not.
The reason why we fast is to hear from God, we fast to weaken the flesh so we can hear and obey the spirit. The Pharisees are so caught up on religion that they cannot see that God is with them in the flesh. The One who gave the law that they are trying to make it look like they are keeping is right there with them. The reason why the dead works stop is being you have God in you. It isn't reading that bible that first gives you a new spirit and a new life, the scribes and the Pharisees had the bible, they had the law of God but it did not change them, Paul tells us that when he read not to covet without the Messiah all it did was make him covet all the more. The one who can make them as close to God as possible the one that can save them from those dead works the one that can change there heart and make them new is right there, the bridegroom is there with them, the one we are waiting for to return is with them, but they can’t see him.
We have to know the same thing today as believers. We have to know that God is with us every day in everything that we do, God is omnipresent. That means he is always there. He is with us at every moment, he sees it all and he hears it all. You make can fake it with people. You may can convince them that you are celibate, but God knows what goes on in that bed room, you may can convince the world that you are chaste, but God can see that phone. You may can convince the world that you are the nicest little thing, but God saw how many times you cussed that woman out.
No patches
No patches
Now the next section is important. We cannot gloss over it
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.
The Messiah tells us that we cannot just patch us that old garment.
How many of you know that the Messiah did not come to fix your life. He didn’t come so that you could keep living the way that you were living before. He didn’t come so that you could continue in that sin and just make it to heaven. He did not come so that you could be the same old man. He came so that you could be born again John 3:3-6
Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
We must be born again you cannot be that man that you were. You can’t just say I'm going to go to church and go home and be the same person. Your spirit has to change. You have to become and new man a new creature in Christ Jesus 2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
Your old friends that knew you before you came to Christ can get to know you again, but you should not remind them of then person that you were before . Take the one who wrote this verse the Apostle Paul for example, when the spirit came over him, it change his life so much that we went from persecuting the believer to being persecuted for the gospel of Jesus Christ Acts 22:3-5
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel in strict conformity to the law of our fathers. I am just as zealous for God as any of you here today.
I persecuted this Way even to the death, detaining both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and the whole Council can testify about me. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and I was on my way to apprehend these people and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished.
Now see here Paul says that he persecuted the way even to death,
But then he is put on trial by the same people that he was persecuting the way with and he makes this confession
We have found this man to be a pestilence, stirring up dissension among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,
I do confess to you, however, that I worship the God of our fathers according to the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets,
This is what we preach here today is the same profession of faith that we make, we believe in everything written in the law and in the prophets, and we confess the Messiah as lord, everything that Paul confesses. We at Altared Doers Confess. Same Sect same confession, same faith as the first century.
He goes from persecuting the way to professing the way, this is the power of the cross, this is the power of the Messiah. That Paul that was going to kill the believers was dead, he was gone, a new Paul was born he was made new.
The same as you must be born again you must have a new life so that the Messiah can live through you. You have to give up the sin, you have to give up the fornication, the lying. the stealing, the anger, the lust. In some cases the things that you wanted in life. What you wanted to do, how you planned for your life to go, you have to say for God I live and for God I die. My life is not my own, what I want to do in the flesh I will give that us so that Christ can be magnified to the glory of the father.
and finally
New Wine
New Wine
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
You can’t try to put Christ in your old way of thinking. You problem is not that you are not trying hard enough, that you are not fasting hard enough, that you are not reading enough. The problem is the heart behind it. You have tried to pour new wine into old wine skins and all you are going to do is ruin yourself.
Christ is the answer, not trying to preform better. I know y'all are probably tired of hearing but we need to hear it again Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
We are not saved because we tried harder. We are not saved because we fasted more, or because our music became more Christian, or becasue we stop fonicated. We try harder because we are saved, we fast more because we are saved, our taste in music changed because we are saved, we stopped fornicating becaue we are saved. My brothers and sisters I beseech you to not try to do this on your own. If we could do it on our own the Messiah would not have come and bleed and died so that you can be forgiven and so that you could receive the power of the holy spirit, that is that new wine, but before you can receive that new wine, that new life you have to be born again. Romans 8:3
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,
What the law could not do what you could not do the Messiah did when he came and bled and died for you, he delivered on a promise that he made, that he would create in you a new heart and renew a right spirit within you. That he would remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. If you want that heart of Flesh, if you want to be changed, if you want to get rid of the sin that is plaguing your life. If you are tired of being a sinner. if you are tired of thinking that you overcame the sin just for it to come back.
God is present, Now as much as he knows your sin, the Messiah tells us that he did not come to condemn the world, but he came so that through him the world might be saved. The Messiah tells us that the father already knows what you are in need of all you have to do is ask. You do not and you should be ashamed that you are broken Psalm 34:18
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted;
He saves the contrite in spirit.
If you are struggling with that addiction, if you are struggling with that anger or that lust. If you are struggling to even believing so that you can commit to God, you don’t have to fake it. We serve a father that loves us more than we could even ask think or imagine. So come to him with you sacrifice in hand 2 of them. Psalms 51:15-17
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare Your praise.
For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and a contrite heart,
O God, You will not despise.
Come to him with a broken sprint seeking rest from those sins, he says that he does not want the blood of bulls or a goat or a ram, but he does want you. So now what can you offer him Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Offer him the only thing that you can offer him, Offer him your life laid down on the altar.
You are tried to put new wine in old wine skins come today and receive those new wine skins Acts 2:37-41
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off—to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
With many other words he testified, and he urged them, “Be saved from this corrupt generation.” Those who embraced his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to the believers that day.
The same thing we preach to you today. Repent, that means turn away from your sins, be baptized in his name be born again, believe on him and you will receive the gift on the holy spirt, put new wine in new wine skins. The bridegroom is here now. Stop the dead works now. Be born again today.
