What Worship Is Not - Part 5
Scripture; Matthew 15:1-20 (p. 1521)
Title; "What Worship Is Not" Part 5
What traditions do you have?
A very poor holy man lived in a remote part of China. Every day before his time of meditation in order to show his devotion, he put a dish of butter up on the window sill as an offering to God, since food was so scarce. One day his cat came in and ate the butter. To remedy this, he began tying the cat to the bedpost each day before the quiet time. This man was so revered for his piety that others joined him as disciples and worshipped as he did. Generations later, long after the holy man was dead; his followers placed an offering of butter on the window sill during their time of prayer and meditation. Furthermore, each one bought a cat and tied it to the bedpost.
Source Unknown – Sermon Illustrations
Tradition is the living faith of those now dead
Traditionalism is the dead faith of those still living.
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition, p. 65.
Look at the passage – Vs 1-2 (Pharisees and tradition)
Vs 3 - Worship is NOT a tradition
- Why do we break God's command for the sake of tradition
Vs 4 – Jesus answers with a command from God
- Answers with another question – probably because he knew they were right (Jesus wasn’t concerned about this tradition)
Vs 5 & 6 - Jesus knew the Pharisees' scheme;
Pharisees liked the word Corban
- this is how they got out of helping their parents, in fact it said "they must not"
Vs 7-9 – Jesus says "You Hypocrites"
- Have you ever worshiped in vain?
- Have you ever made worship about something other than what it should be?
Worship is NOT Worship Order
Appearance
Numbers
Watching the Worship Team
Church – Chapel or this building
Preference - Organ or Drums
Requirement
How long you are in church
Sitting
Five O’clock
The message
About You!!!
Vs 10 - Jesus said "Listen and Understand"
· This is very important, pay close attention. This was not going to be hard to hear but hard to except.
· Vs 11 – food laws were very important
Vs 12 – The disciples wanted to keep Peace
Vs 13-14 - let them fall in the pit, it's just a matter of time
Vs 15 & 16 – "Wake up and smell the coffee"
Vs 18-20 - It is not immoral acts that make a person unclean. It is an unclean heart that expresses itself in wicked and immoral acts. We don’t need to clean up our lives. We need to let God cleanse our heart. Then our lives will be clean. Larry Richards
Don't follow "The Law of Intention"
- I am going to try not to, but Jesus give me a heart of worship
Jesus wants Worship to be from the Inside-out
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. 5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 he is not to ‘honor his father with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” 10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’” 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” 15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”