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Our sermon will be on Luke 10:17-20

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Sue

Georgey

Billy and his Dad

Dorcas

Mark Wilson

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Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus - 450

Just As I Am - 275

Something About That Name - 106

3 Strikes and You’re Out

Softball season just ended for Lizzie.

When she played, I thought she did well. I’m proud of her.

Her team didn’t go to state, they lost most of their games, but they tried.

When I was playing baseball, I didn’t strike out very often. I got on base most of the time.

I don’t remember ever striking out.

I remember playing a game in kindergarten. We were playing in the championship game of our league.

I was at bat. We were tied up. We had 2 outs.

It was up to me. I had to get on base.

I popped the ball over the short stop. It was my favorite place to put the ball.

They tried to put me out at first, but overthrew. They were too late anyway.

I kept running past 2nd, headed to 3rd. They almost got me at 3rd but missed there as well.

I was headed to home and they didn’t have a chance.

I won the game and the championship for our team.

Disclaimer: some elements may be embellished a bit. It was over 40 years ago and I was a little kid.

Whether in baseball or softball, you get 3 strikes.

Then you are out.

Life doesn’t work that way, but it sometimes does.

I worked at a place that only allowed you to be late 3 times. (It might have been per year.)

Today, we are going to talk about a time when Jesus gave the Pharisees and Lawyers 3 strikes.

Luke 11:34–54 NKJV

34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.” 37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.” 45 Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, “Teacher, by saying these things You reproach us also.” 46 And He said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men 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, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation. 52 “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.” 53 And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, 54 lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.

Pharisees and Lawyers

In order to understand what is going on here we need to understand who Jesus is talking to.

Pharisees were a certain sect of Jews.

At the time of Jesus there were 2 major secs of the Jews: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There were others, but they didn’t interact with Jesus at least that’s recorded.

The Pharisees believed in the Laws that Moses recorded and they added to that the “Traditions of the Elders”. That’s important because Jesus didn’t wash like they did.

They wore certain clothes, and you could tell they were a Pharisee by the way they were dressed.

Let me give you an example: Pharisees wore what were called Phylacteries. They were these small leather boxes that had texts of the law in them. They took Deut. 6:8 literally.

Deuteronomy 6:8 NKJV

8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

The Lawyers, also called scribes in other places, were probably also Sadducees, but they were people that knew all the intricacies of the laws of Moses.

They also added to the Law, because they taught how to get around things in the Law.

So you have one group that adds to the Law and another that teaches all the jots and tittles of the Law.

By the way, Jots and tittles were added to letters of the Hebrew alphabet to modify meaning of the letters.

Woe to the Pharisees!

The first thing to note is that they saw that Jesus didn’t wash his hands like they did. I don’t know exactly how they did it, but I’m sure that Jesus did what was required by the law. He just didn’t do it like they did.

In answer to this accusation, Jesus responds by saying they make the outward part clean, but the inward part is full of greed and wickedness.

Jesus goes on to talk about some of their practices. He gives them 3 woes or strikes:

They tithed mint and rue but didn’t care are justice and the love of God

They loved being set in places of honor in synagogues and marketplaces because they were filled with pride.

They were hypocrites because they picked out the pieces of the Law that made them look good.

They cared more about how they looked to others than they did about fulfilling the Law.

Do you remember the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus taught that what was going on inside was just as important as the outside.

For example, you could commit adultery and you can do it in your heart as well.

They were missing the greater thing.

Look at this picture. It appears that this girl is hanging off a cliff.

However appearances can be deceiving.

This is the rock she is hanging off of. It’s only a few feet off the ground.

Just enough to take this picture and make it look dangerous.

Woe to the Pharisees!

Let me ask you a question: How many people can you tell what church they belong to by the way they are dressed?

How about this: Can you tell someones office in the church by the way they are dressed?

Now how they are dressed are not important, it’s actually what’s in their heart.

3 strikes and the Pharisees are out. What about the Lawyers?

Woe to the Lawyers!

Jesus just stepped on the toes of the Lawyers.

So now he goes off on them.

They load men with the burdens of the Law, but they didn’t do these things.

They build the tombs of the prophets, but they didn’t follow their teachings. Inwardly, they were rejecting the prophets. The voice of those martyred were crying out. Abel was the first that was killed and Zechariah the priest was the last. The first one is in Gen. 4 and the second was in 2 Chron. 24.

They were not only not keeping the law, but they were keeping the knowledge of the law away from them. This is the part of what catholics were doing that caused the reformation.

So what does this mean? They taught things that they didn’t do. This is hypocrisy at it’s finest.

Yesterday, as I was taking Christian back home after going to the ER, I told Christian to do as I say and not as I do.

I’m not going to say what I was doing, but it had to do with the speed of the truck.

So the lawyers received 3 strikes - how about us?

Woe to Us!

This is where the rubber meets the road.

So what does this have to do with us?

These groups still exist in another form inside Christianity.

There are churches that say that you are not a Christian if you don’t believe this or if you don’t do this.

Some of them even say you’re not a Christian if you believe these others are still Christian.

For example if you have Bob that believes that a certain thing is a sin (and it may be), and Bill that believes that as well, but Bill is willing to fellowship and talk to someone who does not. What we sometimes see is that Bob will stop fellowship with Bill because he is willing to associate with those who disagree.

What Bob is missing is the Love of God. Do you see the problem.

Many times in Christianity, we see division upon division based on the silliest of things.

There is a joke that I have heard a few times. I goes like this:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

This is the Pharisees.

The closest thing that I can compare the scribes and lawyers to is modern liberalism.

They cry out about much of the true church about how they are doing it wrong. They are not showing love.

What are they doing? The are taking away the key of knowledge.

There is a fine line between the love of God and the law of God. We need both to understand the Gospel.

If you come to someone and say here’s this medicine you need to take without telling you what it’s for, are they going to take it? Some might but many will not. We need both.

So how do we talk about it without unnecessarily upsetting people? We start with generic sin and make sure they know that we are guilty of the vary same sins.

So what happened when Jesus said these things?

Luke 11:53–54 NKJV

53 And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, 54 lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.

Woe to Us!

They got angry and not just angry but wrathful. They will eventually succeed in killing Jesus.

After this, Jesus tells his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. What he’s talking about is their teachings. Just like leaven or yeast, it will spread through all the teachings until it has spoiled the lot.

He tells them to be afraid of God, not men. He is the one in control of our eternal destiny.

That means we should worry about God’s teachings and not man’s.

When Martin Luther was facing death because of what he had said of the Catholic church, he said:

If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God’s word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help me! Amen.

I’m going to make some people mad here: We put rules on each other that are not in the Bible!

We shout about certain sins, while leaving out the ones that we are guilty of!

We proclaim the gospel as free to all who will believe while judging those same people!

We look down on others, while pretending to be holy!

I will not point my finger at someone else’s sin, without seeing 3 fingers pointing back at me and looking at my sin.

That was 3 woes.

We can’t talk about God’s love without his law,

and we can’t talk about law without his grace.