The Church of Eleven22 - Condition of the Heart - Religion to Redemption - Matthew S6E5

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

What happens when we look like we’re following God on the outside, but our hearts are far from Him? In Matthew 23, Jesus confronts the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, legalism and self righteousness, exposing the danger of doing all the right religious things without truly loving God.  Following Jesus isn’t about how well we look, how closely we follow the rules or how much we do for Him. More than anything, God wants our hearts, and everything else should flow from our love for Him. Sermon References: Matthew 23:1–39 Matthew 15:7–9 Revelation 2:1–5 John 14:15 Matthew 16:13–19 1 Peter 2:9 Matthew 6:9 📌 Supplemental Resources From This Week: • This Week’s Full Service • Deepen Podcast • Claire's Story • Matthew Season 6 The Church of Eleven22® is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas.   To find out more about how God is moving in and through The Church of Eleven22, visit coe22.com

All right. All right. Hey, it's so good to be with you this morning. I want to invite you to open up your Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter 23. If this is your first time, we are genuinely glad you're here. We're growing by verse through the text. We believe at 1122 that our power and preaching is not in our cool stories, but in the Word of God. Amen? And so we are going through Matthew 23. It's the last public encounter that Jesus has with the Pharisees before. He walks to the cross. Got a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time today. We're doing communion at the end of this. And so here's what I'm going to do. The first 12 verses of Matthew 23, what Jesus does is he has a very public encounter with the Pharisees. He's going to, in front of a really large crowd, expose their sin in a really loud, public kind of way. The first 12 verses, what he does is he gets to the heart of the root of their disease.

And then starting in verse 13 through the end of the chapter, he goes through what the seven woes are. I'm going to read through those seven woes, briefly comment on them, and then we're going to drill down into the first 12 verses, because that's where he gets to the heart of it. When I preached this series at the Stone, my church back in the day, I did a seven-week series on that. I'm about to do a seven-week series in three and a half minutes. You ready? Put your seatbelt on. Here we go. Matthew 2313.

He says, but woe to you. scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. That's going to be important in a man. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. What are you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites? For you travel across sea and land and make a single proselyte. When it becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much, a child of hell as yourselves. In other words, you're saying you're crossing land and sea to get followers to follow you,

but when you do, all you're doing is sending them to hell. He said, woe to you blind guides who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. You blind fools, for which is greater, the gold or the temple that he has made the gold sacred. And you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. If anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. You blind men, for which is greater, the gift on the altar that makes the earth.

that makes the gift sacred, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred. So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells on it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, by him who sits on it. In other words, what they were doing is they were creating, that's the Pharisees, for themselves, religious loopholes that made them look awesome on the outside, but on the inside they weren't really worshiping God.

And then in Matthew 23, 23, it's an important one. Jesus said, woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe, mint, and dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness these you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Jesus says, you guys are doing great at the external stuff that people can see. And the stuff that's small, actually, but at the end of the day, you're neglecting the stuff that God cares the most about the weightier stuff. Justice, mercy, faithfulness, you blind guides, straining out a knack and swalling a camel.

And in this next part, verse 25, one of the things that Jesus just nails down on these guys is, what are you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites? For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate. But inside, they're full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee first, that's going to be important. Listen to this. First, clean the inside of the cup and the plate and the outside may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like white wash tubes,

which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all in cleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy, and lawlessness. We're going to talk about that in a minute a lot. On the outside, they looked amazing. On the inside, they were rotten. Verse 29, wo to you Pharisees, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the rices. Listen, he said, they're safe. 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 measures of your

Father, what Jesus just said is you guys say all the time that if we'd live back in the day, we wouldn't have taken part in murdering the prophets like our fathers did. We would have listened to the Word of God. But what Jesus is saying is that the Word of God, gentlemen, is standing right in front of you. And you are about to send him to the cross. And I want you to listen to one of the last thing he says to them. Listen to the intensity of which he says it. He says this publicly.

Matthew 2333, kind of lands the plane. And he says, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Like, man, Jesus, how do you feel about that? My goodness. You know, one of the things that I focused on as I prepared for this message and sort of hit me in a fresh way. was I began to think deeply about how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees and specifically the sin of the Pharisees,

which is moralism and self-righteousness. It's fascinating to me how he dealt with their sin compared to how he dealt with the sin of what society would have considered their worst sinners. Right? If you ask anybody in that culture, who are the godliest people around? They said the Pharisees. And if you were to go and talk about the tax collector or guys like Zekees or the woman caught in adultery, people have said, those are the worst sinners around. But think about how Jesus dealt with people that were far from God compared to how He dealt with people that were far from God but thought they were close to God.

I mean, think about the woman caught in adultery. How did he engage her and deal with her sin? This is a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. They've dragged her into the street, they've got rocks, they're going to stone her. And Jesus deals with her sin, but he does it arguably in a gentle way. Gently, privately. He almost loves her, calls her to repentance in this gentle love. loving way.

Think about Zacchaeus. Y'all remember Zakias? He's a wee little man. Y'all remember him? Zichias. Here's the thing about Zichias. Zachias was a cheating, lying extortionist

that collaborated with Rome, who was the enemy of the people of God. Y'all, this guy was a sinner. This dude was a sinner. This was the guy that you prayed did not, that your daughter did not bring home to meet you. Number one is you didn't want to have. have we little grandchildren.

Amen? But more importantly, Stu was messed up. And when Jesus encountered him, publicly, he doesn't shame the guy. He doesn't publicly call him out on his sin. Instead, Jesus invites himself to dinner

with this guy, which you just didn't do. He invites himself to dinner. And it's when he's at the guy's house, that he engages, Zacchaeus on his sin, but he does it privately and gently. And guys, I could keep going. But the point that I'm trying to make here is this, that when Jesus encountered people that were far from God,

that were mired in their sin, he would engage their sin gently and lovingly, as he called them to repentance. But when he encountered the religious moralist, mired in self-righteousness, he publicly lays out their sin, And he ends the conversation by saying, you boys are serpents. In other words, you remind me of Satan.

And oh, by the way, y'all are going to hell. Now, here's the question I want to get to the bottom of today. Why? Why does Jesus, when he encounters these guys, is he so pointed? Why does he publicly and loudly call them to their sin? We're going to two things quickly this morning. We're going to get to the bottom of why. Jesus engages the self-righteous moralist in that way.

And two, more importantly, and I want you to hear this, I want you to evaluate your own hearts as we go through this. Church, as I studied for this, and I was kind of going through the points, one of the things that I did is I found myself when I'm looking at hypocrisy, and I was talking, you know, writing down the legalism stuff that we're about to get into, I found my heart and my mind immediately going to all the other people out there that needed to hear this sermon. Start, you know, going through legalism, thinking about those darn Southern

Baptist, right? Thank God I'm not like those guys. A little theological joke there for you. But here's the thing. I want to challenge you to really ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you, to where you see this stuff coming into your heart and life because church, Jesus had an issue with it. Okay? Y'all ready?

Look at Matthew 20. one. Again, they've come to Jesus, they've asked him a question, he returned their question with a question, made them look really dumb, they made the decision, we're not asking Jesus any more questions. Jesus turns to the crowd that he gathered in front of the disciples and he begins to, in front of the Pharisees and everybody else, lay out their sin. And Jesus said to the crowds and to the disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees, sit on Moses seek. Church, that's important. Listen. What that means is this. Jesus publicly said something. He said, look, these guys occupy a position of God-given authority to teach the word of God to the people. And so Jesus says,

hey, look, they're in a place of authority and their calling, and that's important, is to preach and to teach the word of God to the people of God. And he says, so do, in verse 3, so do whatever, do and observe whatever they tell you. Now, he said, in other words, if they're teaching the Word of God, you do what they tell you to do. But watch this.

He said, but not the works that they do. For they preach, but they do not practice. If you take a note, here's the first heart issue that Jesus reveals about the sin of the Pharisees. It says the first thing these guys are dealing with, and the reason he had such a problem with them is because they were just mired in hypocrisy. Mired in hypocrisy.

And here's the thing that hit me as I studied this. Hypocrisy definitely means that they were preaching one thing and doing another. That's what he just said. And these guys did deal with that level of hypocrisy. They would stand up and publicly teach thou shall not murder, and they're going to murder Jesus. You all with me? but there's a different kind of hypocrisy that Jesus engages throughout the scripture. And it's this.

And I'll show you biblically in a second. And this is where I think we really need to be evaluating if we see this in our own lives. Church, for these guys, what I believe Jesus had a bigger issue is this, is their hypocrisy, or rather, their hypocrisy meant that their holiness was external and it was not internal. Their holiness was external, but it was not internal. Look at Matthew 15.7. Don't turn there. Just listen.

This is Jesus speaking to the Pharisees. He says, you hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Y'all see that? these guys were honoring God with their mouths, right? They were honoring God with their mouths. They'd stand up publicly and they'd preach and they'd honor God. And listen, they would dress in all these amazing religious robes and amazing garb and they looked holy on the outside.

And here's the other thing that's important. They were doing all these religious activities that made them look holy. Everybody would have thought these guys were righteous. But Jesus said, here's the thing. as much as you're honoring God with your mouth, as much as you look righteous on the outside, as much as you're doing all this religious activity, Jesus' point, as you're doing all of it, completely divorced from a spiritual affection for God. And that's what he's talking about when he's dealing with the sin of hypocrisy.

Church, do you see that, that kind of hypocrisy in your life, where your lips honor God but inside your heart is far from God. I want to tell you, let's bring this a little closer to home because I think it's so easy to kind of see what these guys were doing and think, man, you stupid Pharisees or whatever. But I would argue that maybe the strongest rebuke that Jesus ever gave to a group of people that were doing stuff for God,

but their hearts were far from God, was not the Pharisees. I think you'd make a strong argument that the harshest rebuke he ever gave was a really successful Christian church in the New Testament. Right? You ever heard of the church at Ephesus?

Revelation 2. Here's the thing you need to know about the church at Ephesus. These guys were externally successful in just about every measurable way. These guys were like the church of 1122 back in the day.

We're crushing it. And Jesus is going to speak to the church. Now keep in mind, this is in Revelation. Jesus has died. He's risen from the grave. He's ascended into heaven. And he is speaking now to John, the revelator, who's writing this down. And what Jesus is doing is speaking to the seven churches in the New Testament.

I want to read to you Revelation 2-1. Because he says something I think is really important. What Jesus is doing here is some red letters. he is describing himself to the church. I want you to listen to how he describes himself. He says, to the angel, or that's the messenger, of the church in Ephesus right. And Jesus describes himself this way.

He said the words of him, who holds the seven stars in his right hand. And watch what he says. Jesus said, I'm the one who walks among the seven golden lamp stands. What a fascinating way that Jesus just described. himself. Church, why does Jesus describe himself and say to the church, hey, I need you to know something. I'm the one that walks among the seven golden lambsams. Well, the seven golden lampsams were the

seven churches of the New Testament. And Jesus said, here's what I want you to know, church at Ephesus. I am the one who walks among you. That's so important. It's what he's saying here. He's saying that his presence is in the church. Listen, and we know that Jesus is, or rather God is omnipresent. So he's present everywhere all the time. But we also know, 1122, that the Lord does not manifest his presence everywhere all the time. And so what Jesus is reminding the church, he said, I want you to know something. He said, I am blessing your church with being blessed.

present in a powerful way in your church. I am the one that's walking among your lambs stand. Listen, I want to just stop right there and say something. Pastor Jobi has said this. We're calling it. What we're experiencing right now at 1122 is revival. Amen? We are seeing an unbelievable movement of God in this church that we can never take for granted.

And that's why at this point is important as anything you're going to hear. I'm going to tell you something. as good as that man can preach and I think he's the greatest preacher in the United States of America as incredible as a leader as we have in this church and this man and this staff

and all the systems and all the buildings I am telling you I have been doing this long enough to know that the reason that we are experiencing what we are experiencing is for whatever reason by the grace of God he has chosen to pour out

his presence on this church he is here he is walking among our lamp stand, and that's why we cannot ever take what he's about to say for granted. Revelation 2-2, Jesus says something powerful. He said, I know your works. I put that in the sermon because I want you to know what he's saying. Jesus just said, I pay attention to the church.

I pay attention to what you're doing. And then he gives them all the things they're doing right. I'm going to go through him quickly. He tells him this. He goes, here's what you're doing right. He goes, you're living on mission for God. You're not the frozen chosen, man. You're a people that is living.

You're living it out the doors like you're living it in the doors. You're telling people about Jesus. You're living on mission. This was the church who was holding high theology. Right? This was not a seeker-friendly kind of thing. These were people that cared about the Word of God said that you don't put up with false prophets. When you find evil men in your midst, you put them to the test, and you find them to be false.

He says, I see that you're enduring for the namesake of Jesus. It's the word that used to describe when a woman back in the day was carrying a water pot on her head. He's saying, I see that you are carrying and enduring under the weight of the gospel that you're not giving up. And then he says something interesting. He said, and I love the fact that you're not doing the deeds of the Nicolations, which I hate. I remember being a young youth pastor and thinking that I'd never heard Jesus say the H word before. And so I looked it up. And the Nicolations were doing this, church.

They were bending in an effort to reach the culture. They were bending so far to the culture that they'd stop being salt and light in the culture. Jesus said, I hate that. He said, so you're living on mission, you're holding high theology, you're enduring under the way to the gospel for the name of Christ. You're not bending to the culture. And I don't know about y'all, but that sounds like a pretty amazing church. Kind of church I'd want a pastor, but you know the rest of it.

Revelation 2.4, Jesus says, but this I have against you, you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Does that sound familiar? Just like the Old Testament Pharisees, somewhere along the way, this unbelievable church was doing all this stuff for God, and they stopped doing it out of an overflow of their love for God. And do y'all remember what Jesus said to them was going to happen? If this amazing church doing all this amazing stuff didn't come back to the most important thing, sitting at the feet of Jesus, giving him their heart, it's one of the most haunting verses in the entire Bible, Revelation 2.5,

he said, remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent, and do the work she did it first. Watch, he said, if not, here it is, I will come to you, and remove your lampstand from its place. You remember how Jesus described himself? He said, I'm the one that walks among the seven golden lampstands. I'm the one whose presence is showing up among your church. Jesus said, if you don't come back to the place where everything you're doing is out of an overflow of your love for Jesus,

I'm going to remove your lampstand from its place. In other words, I'm going to remove the blessing of my presence from your church. Church says a lot of things I'd rather do than be a part of a church that's the presence of Jesus is not at. Here's what Jesus just said. Got bad news and good news. Here's bad news. Jesus just said that if we love church more than we love Jesus, then Jesus will have no part of our church. You're saying if we love our mission more than we love our Savior?

then our Savior will have no part of our mission. He's saying if we love worship more than we love the object of our worship, then the object of our worship will have no part of our worship. Church, are y'all hearing me? So important that more than anything else, we as a church make sure we are sitting at his feet doing it because of our love for the person of Jesus Christ. And if we ever stop, if we ever stop, may he remove his lampstand. And make no mistake, he will.

And the person that just said, amen, the lattice was Job, Jobie Martin down on the front. Pastor Job Martin, he said, amen. And that's why we never will get our eyes off of Jesus. Listen, here's the good news, though. The good news is that Jesus just said more than anything in the world, more than how you dress, more than how you follow the rules, more than anything you do for God. What Jesus wants from you and from us more than anything else is just our hearts. And that's really good news.

So that's hypocrisy. Honored God with their lips. Hearts are far from him. Number two, listen, I'm going to go through this quick. Matthew 23-4. Jesus said they tied up heavy burdens, hard to bear. And they laid them on people's shoulders, but they themselves were not willing to move them with a finger.

Second thing that Jesus reveals there is their legalism. Legalism. Now listen, here's how I would define it. This is important. These guys were elevating their children. traditions above the Word of God. They were elevating their traditions above the Word of God. And Jesus says that is causing, following God, to be a burden to people.

The Pharisees had a really bad habit of taking the commandment of God and the law of God, and they would add stuff to it. Jesus called it the commandments of man or the traditions of man. And they would add stuff to it, their own rules. and then what they do is they took their little man-made commandments and their man-made rules and they would put them on the same level that they did the Word of God. And when you didn't follow their extra rules,

they would crack you to the white meat just like you would like sin against God. Right? And that's what Jesus tells them later on. He says, look, in vain do you worship me because you teach as doctrine the commandments of men. It would be like this. What would be a command of God? It would be honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Everybody check this out. Did y'all know that's meant to be a blessing to you? That's not meant to be a beat down to you. God did that because he wanted you to rest. Sounds amazing to me. He wants you to rest. He wants you to take a day where you rest. He wants you to take a day where you focus on him.

I want you to take a day where you focus on your family. He wants you to take a day where you trust the Lord with your work. Doesn't that sound great? But then what the Pharisees were doing they would take their traditions, and they would add to it, and they're like, all right, God says you can't work, so here's what that means. You can't pick like a grain of wheat

from your own crop and feed yourself with it because that's work, you filthy sinner. Oh, and, you know, like if your ox falls in the well, you've got to leave him until the next day and hope he's still alive because you can't get him out of the well, because that's work, you filthy sinner? And then they look at Jesus, and they're like, Jesus, you can't heal anybody on the Sabbath

because that's, that's work. And Jesus looks at him and says, here's the thing, boys, you're taking your traditions and you're raising them to the level as the word of God, and you are causing following God to be a burden to the people of God. Let me give you a real quick illustration of where I see this being played out. I see it in Christian private school. Now listen, I love Christian private school. My kids went to a Christian private school, and they got an amazing education.

I coached football for four years. Christian private school got three Texas high school state championship rings from a Christian private school. Guys, I got Bling from a Christian private school. God does amazing things there, so don't email me. But I want you to know that I've seen this in them. And then we'll bring it home a second. But give an example. What would be like a law or a commandment of God?

meant to be a blessing. Let's talk about modesty. God ask us to dress modestly. Why? What's the heart of God for dressing modestly? It's simple. He just doesn't want you to go dress out there and look like a hooch. That's it. That's it. God doesn't want you to look like a hoot. Just want you to honor God with the way that you dress. But Christian private schools thought, all right, we're going to take another step. Here's what not looking like a hooch means. You've got to have a 14 inch length pair of shorts, not 13 and a half. you can't have any stubble on your face men you can't have hair past your ears

I was doing these notes and it hit me that Jesus couldn't have gone to my kids Christian private school my son my son came into school one day and he was wearing the shorts that his mama bought him we found out they were 13 and a half inches the headmaster was walking down the hallway with a ruler stops him John Daniel Carter your dad's a preacher

he's like I know he's like let me put the ruler on those pants. He said, young man, those are 13 and a half. Why do you have 13.5 inch pants? He's like, I don't know. Headmaster. He's like, my mom bought him. I didn't mean to. And so let me ask you, is J.D. rebelling against God? Is J.D. rebelling against the school? No. It's the pants. His mom bought him. He's poor. He ain't got enough money to go buy more pants. Y'all, they gave him detention, is the word I'm looking for. Listen. You know how ready my kids were to get out of that school at the end of it? It became a burden.

But it's easy to rail on Christian private school, but you know where we do this a lot is in our parenting? You know how the Phariseical spirit will show up in our parenting? It's when we focus more on the rules than we do trying to draw our children's hearts to the heart of God. I want to give you parents. I didn't preach on parenting for the longest time because I wanted to make sure that my parents weren't, or my kids, rather, weren't idiots, but they're all awesome. And so I'm going to talk about parenting for a second. John 1415. Parents, this is for you.

Check this out. John 1415. Jesus said this. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now, my whole life, growing up, I thought Jesus was saying it like this. If you really love me, you do what I tell you to do. You all know that's not what he's saying? What he's saying is that if you would just love me, then the result will be that you'll keep my commandments.

Do y'all see the difference? He's saying that the root needs to be love, and then the fruit will be obedience. Parents, we do that a lot of times the opposite. We try to make obedience the root and hope that love of God will be the fruit. That's why, he's like, that's opposite of what we ought to be doing. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 23, 25, you blind Pharisee, first, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate. The fat, the outside may also be clean. Jesus, like, if you'll just love me, then the result will be.

You obey my counsel. Listen, listen, if all our kids ever hear is be good and follow the rules, and we are not teaching them to do that out of an overflow of our love for Jesus, then we are not discipling our children. We're just turning them into little Pharisees, y'all. The number one job as a parent, first and foremost, is to not make followers of rules. Our number one job is to make followers of Jesus. Right. So the first thing we see, hypocrisy. Holiness was external and internal. Legalism. They were elevating their traditions above the Word of God.

Number three, we're going to do this really fast. Jesus reveals their sin of self-exaltation. They were doing everything they did not to point people to God, but to point people to themselves. Let me read Matthew 23-5. Jesus said they do all their deeds to be seen by us. others, for they make the philacteries broad and their fringes long. In other words, they would wear all this external religious stuff to make themselves look important.

They love the places of honor at feasts and best seats in the synagogue. They love being honored. Verse seven, and greetings in the marketplace is being called rabbi. Verse eight, but you are not to be called rabbi. You were to have one teacher and you're all brothers. You call no man your father on earth. for you have one father who is in heaven, neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ, the greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whoever exalts himself will be humbled. But whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Listen, what Jesus is saying is that when you're out there loving people, exalting you, and loving people honoring you, and everything, you find your heart one day and everything you're doing it, you're doing it so people will look at you and not looking at Jesus, then you are literally going against the heart of God. He's like, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Scripture says God opposes the proud. That's pride. God opposes the proud. Y'all,

there's a lot of things I want to do in life, but I don't want to be opposed by God. These guys were They took everything That was supposed to point people to God And they turned it into a stage And made themselves the star They took everything that was supposed to point people to God's glory

And they were pointing people to their own glory And if you want to have a fascinating Bible study Go do a Bible study on the glory of God And how he cares about his glory He's like I will not share my glory With another The Lord's Prayer What's the first thing he asked us

to pray. Our Father is art in heaven. Who art in heaven, say it with me. Hallowed be your name. Our feet are supposed to hit the floor and the first thing we're supposed to pray is God today. I want your name to be exalted above my name. These guys were doing the opposite. Church, everything you do in life, everything you do, everything you say, every action, you're sending one of two messages. look at God or look at me. Jesus is saying, man, these guys, all they care about is themselves, and they've missed the heart of God. Last one. Jesus is going to reveal, and this is a really, really big one for them and for us.

Four things Jesus reveals before he goes into the specific woes, which are the manifesting symptoms of the forward issues, is obstruction. These guys, their sin. was the sin of obstruction. Here's what I mean. Look at verse 13. It's the first woe, and I believe he starts with this one, because this might be the biggest one.

He said, but woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. If you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. I want you to, can we go back to the beginning of that real quick? I want you guys to read that one more time. but woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. Jesus said your hypocrisy, your legalism,

you're pointing people to yourself instead of God, here's the result, here's what it's doing. It's actually shutting the door to heaven in people's faces. And the reason Jesus has such a problem with that is because that, again, is the absolute contradiction and the opposite of everything he was about and everything we were called to be about really, really fast. I want to remind you of something that Jesus said to Peter.

And we focus on the first couple of verses, but there's something that Jesus said to Peter in Cessori of Philippi that we don't pay a ton of attention to, but you guys remember, he said, who do people say they am? Who do you say they am? Peter said, you Christ, Son, the living God. Jesus said, you're right.

Blessed are you. Shime Bargernal, for flesh and blood, did not reveal that to you. But our father, who is in heaven, revealed that to you. And Peter, upon this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And that's such a height verse that we stop right there. And we don't get to the next part, which is really important. Matthew 16, 19.

Watch what it says. Jesus said, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Peter said, or rather Jesus said something to Peter. Here's what you need to know, Peter. If you're a person of the confession and he's talking to you and me, if you believe he's the Christ and the son of the living God, what Jesus just said is, I have given you the keys

to the kingdom of heaven. 1122, what do the keys do? They open doors. He said, here's what you're going to do. here's how the church is going to run over the gates of hell as everybody of the confession is going to have the keys to the kingdom

and you're going to open the door so that people can walk in. Make no mistake. That's sunk into people. Peter's mind because a short time later after the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, Peter would write a letter in 1st Peter and in chapter 2

he's going to say something to the people of God He's talking to the church here. I want to read it to you. We're almost done. Hang with me. 1 Peter 2.9. He's talking to the people of God. And he says, but you are a chosen race.

And he says, you are a royal priesthood. That would have made the church's mouths drop open. He said, you are a priest. Those people would have thought, me. Priests are people that draw people into the presence of God. Not just any priest. It's the royal priests. Royal priests are the ones that served in the presence of the king.

And Peter said, here's what you need to know, Christian. You're just not some random everyday person living your life. You, believer, are a royal priest. Why am I telling you this today, 1122? Have you ever wondered why you have the job you have by accident? You ever wondered why you're the dad of the kids you are, the mom, the business owner? You ever wondered why you're in the school you're in? The neighborhood you're in?

Scripture is clear. I believe it's an Acts that the word of God says that God chose for you before you were born the boundaries of your habitation and the place that you would live. The span of your life and the place that you would live, you are where you are in the time that you are because God wanted you in that time and place. And listen, I'm going to tell you something. The reason that you have the job that you have. is because God needed a priest with the keys of the kingdom in that job.

The reason that you're in the neighborhood that you're at, the reason that you're a father of the kids that you have or the mother of the kids that you have or the grandfather or grandmother of the kids that you have or you're on or the neighborhood that you're on or the neighborhood union or whatever it is because God in that place for those people needed a priest with the keys of the kingdom of God in the place that you are. I'm going to ask you a simple question. We're about to do the Lord's supper.

We're shutting the door of the kingdom in people's faces. Our calling is to be a people who are very identity. The reason we get up and we breathe air in the morning one is to belong to Jesus and to love him, but then go out to our jobs and our schools and our teams and our families and be a priest with the keys to open doors so that people far from God who, Jesus loves so much could walk through the door. I'll say this and we'll do Lord's over.

I was hanging out with Pastor Britt a few nights ago at some folks' houses doing some 11-22 stuff. Pastor Britt was praying at the end of it and something just came out of his mouth when he was praying. And I know you're not supposed to do this because we were praying, I picked up my phone and wrote it down because it was so hype right in the middle of the prayer.

And when he said amen, I was like, I'm going to preach it when I preach in a couple weeks. And I tell him, I'm probably not going to give you credit. But I am. It was him. Y'all, he said something is so cool. And I'm going to say this and we'll pray. He prayed, Jesus, the reason that every day we get up and we ought to strive to see one more person. enter into the kingdom

because every single person that enters the kingdom that's one person closer to the trumpet sounding and you coming back for us that's why we do it let's pray church you have

the keys to the kingdom Jesus gave them to you you are a priest that's who you are out of an overflow of our love for Christ. Let's go open doors. Father, we love you. I thank you for your word.

I thank you for its power. And Lord, I want to thank you publicly. Thank you, Jesus. For walking among this lambs stand. For blessing us with your presence. Father, may we never do this for any other reason, but the glory of your name. Father, I pray for every person

in this room, especially anyone in the room that as I preached, Lord, that they found themselves sort of struggling with some of that stuff in their hearts, Lord, I pray they would come home to you today. Let's give their heart to you. We love you. We praise you, and we thank you for who you are and what you've done. In Jesus' name, amen. Church, we're going to take a minute, and we're going to do communion together.

And remind our hearts of what. what this is all about. After that interaction with the Pharisees, Jesus is going to be on a collision course with the cross, where he will willingly lay down his life for you and for me. He's going to willingly shed his blood as a once and for all time payment for your sin and for my sin.

But on the night that he would, would be betrayed, he brought his men into a room and they were celebrating the Passover. Church, in your hand, you have some bread and you have a little cup that represents the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. I'm going to walk through both of those elements, and at the end, we're all going to take those two things together. And so on the night that Jesus would betray, and he's with his boys, he held up some bread, and he broke it in half like this. And he held it up, and he said, men, this is my body. And he said, it's going to be, it's going to be broken for you.

You said, so tonight, we're going to take it, and we're going to eat this bread. This time I want you to do it in remembrance of me. And then he took the cup and he held it up, and this is when it gets really good, y'all. He said, he said, this, this is the cup of a new promise, a new covenant that I'm making with you. This cup, it represents my blood. And it's going to be poured out. It's going to be shed for the forgiveness of your sins, the once and for all time. Every sin you've ever committed, it's going to be my blood.

It's going to be poured out for your forgiveness. He said, take it and drink it. And often as you do, do it in remembrance of me. Church, that word remember. It means to go as far. and intensely into the memory of that moment as you can. And so right now I want you to take the bread, and I want you to put it in your mouth,

and I want you to remember the broken body of Jesus Christ. Do it now. It's the body of Christ broken for you. And now I want you to take the cup. I want you to drink it. And as you do, remember the blood of Christ that was shed for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.

Brick it up. Father, we thank you for the sacrifice that you made that today we are our forgiven people. Lord, may we leave this place today and live as people of the gospel and open the doors so that many could come in. Thank you for your blood. Thank you for your body. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Church, would you stand with me today? We are going to respond because that's what we do at 1122. You don't just hear the word of God, but it's so important that we respond to it. There's a couple ways you can do it. I want you to listen. We do this every week. I want you to hear this. Number one is we're going to sing. And I don't know if you guys notice, but we have got a really good reason to worship God. Amen? Here's the other thing we're going to do. We say this every week, but I want you to think about it just a little bit differently. We ask you sometimes to give.

Talk about giving your first and your best to God. Some of you, it hit me. I've been there. You give because it's what you're supposed to do. That's legalism. That's Phariseeism. Maybe today what you need to do is not sing. You don't need to come down here, but you need to write a check and you need to do it out of an overflow of your love for Jesus Christ. So I'm going to need to do that today. I'm going to leave that with you and God. And the last thing is we want you to respond. Down here at the front, we have some carpets for you folks with bad knees. And even if you've got good knees or bad knees, y'all Thursday night, this place was packed, and a lot of it was parents.

And I loved it. I got choked up. Right down here, there was a father. He had his three children. the kids were on their knees and their dad was just weeping, praying over them. That's the gospel. So I need to grab your family. Come down here and pray over them.

You grab your wife if your kids aren't here and pray that you would lead them in the gospel. Church, love you. Let's respond to God. He is worthy and he is worthy of our praise. Let's pray.