The following is a presentation of Edgewood Reformed Baptist Church, West Monroe, Louisiana. As you take your Bible in hand we turn our attention to a new segment of teaching as we shift our attention to Matthew chapter 23. Now, you may think that our times together over the last several years are unconnected, but you would be incorrect in your estimation. that our times together, the several weeks we spent in Deuteronomy looking at the law, the giving of the law, and that the nation of Israel was devoid of a heart change and were focused on the law, is directly tied to our time in Hebrews where we have been confronting, the writer of Hebrews was confronting that idea living within the law, living within the rights and the rules and regulations, but yet not knowing God. And we took a pretty good look over many weeks together at this idea of Christ being greater than the law, greater than the Mosaic law, and that there was a need of faith, a need of belief in the life of every believer. And today, as we turn our attention for a number of weeks to Matthew chapter 23, We're continuing to see, by way of example, the reality of the lostness of the nation of Israel, the lostness of those who had religion. And our time in these verses, 39 verses, the entirety of chapter 23, is going to be centered around this singular point, that religion is a poison that blinds its followers to their true condition before Christ. Now let me say that again. That religion is a poison that blinds the follower of that particular religion. It blinds them to their true condition before Christ. That was true with the Pharisees. And chapter 23, you may know, is the seven woes to the Pharisees. And so I want to send these several messages together to take a good, long, hard look at our lives to see whether we're being Pharisaical. This series that we're endeavoring upon today is called, Woe, It's Me. Now you know that saying, woe is me, but our time together is called, Woe, It's Me. For I believe that if we will be honest with ourselves and look at our lives in the light of scripture, we might very well find that we are guilty of doing exactly the same things that the Pharisees were doing in Jesus' day, in that we may be falling prey to dead religion. Now, our time today, in the first four verses of this, comes this. Christ calls us, or excuse me, first twelve verses, Christ calls us to see religion for what it is. And we're called to follow the teachings of God and not the appetites of men, the appetites of other men, the appetites of our own appetites. And so we want to consider this as we're looking at this text under the idea of, whoa, it's me. In Matthew chapter 23, starting at verse 1, reading down to verse 12, the Lord Jesus, and this text comes to us from the Lord Jesus himself. And so this is Christ speaking. Verse 1 of chapter 23 says this, then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do. For they preach, but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders. but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace, and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one 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, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Today, I want us to consider this text under a couple thoughts. The first one is this. If you're going to do anything, do what God has commanded in His Word. That sounds like pretty good advice, doesn't it? If you're going to do anything, do what God has commanded in His Word. That sounds to me like it would be the safest path. But if you're going to avoid doing something, avoid doing what makes much of you. Again, that sounds like pretty good advice. If you're going to do something, do what God has said. And if you're going to avoid doing something, avoid the things that highlight you, make much of you. And today, the reason all of this is so is if you're going to make much of someone, make much of Christ. Right? Does that make sense? that if we're going to highlight somebody, we need to highlight Christ. That's the teaching that the Lord Jesus has given to us in these verses. Now, somewhere around A.D. 200, one of the church fathers, Tertullian, said this, if Christ reproves the scribes and the Pharisees sitting in the official chair of Moses, but not doing what they taught, what kind of supposition is it, well it's not much of a stretch, that Christ himself should sit upon his own official chair, men who were mindful to command, but to practice also, practice devotion. which he, in all of his ways, recommended to their teaching and practicing, first by his own example, and then by other arguments. See, the idea here is the practicing and the preaching, or the preaching and the practicing. And so the thought for today, the word for today that I want us to consider is the word devotion. Now, let me say that again. Write it down at the top of your outline. Your word for today is devotion. We're going to be talking about true Christian devotion. See, many people today, I fear, are just like the Pharisees of Jesus's day. They're busy doing what may seem to be good things, many seemingly good things, but are completely devoid of any real heart change. They have no devotion in their life. They have no devotion to the Word of God. They have no devotion to the Church of God. They have no devotion to Christ Himself. You see, our Lord demands that we listen to the Word of God and follow its teachings with a genuine heart's devotion. So what I'm asking you today to do is to be devoted. That's what I'm asking you to do. Now, there are some here, maybe today, that have never understood what true Christian devotion really is. I hope by the time we're done today that you'll get a glimpse of what devotion is and that you might be inspired to seek devotion. There may be somebody here today that gets angry with me because as I highlight what devotion is, you see in your own life that you're really not very devoted. And don't be angry with me, just take that as the conviction of the Spirit and a purpose to change those things in your life that are not in keeping with devotion. You see, we need to display devotion, and not just as a rite or a ritual, but as a heart condition truly being changed by the Word of God. Now, as we look at this today, I want us to think on our first proposition. that if you're going to do anything, do what God commands in His Word. You see, we're doing people. Our culture is based upon doing, right? From the time we get up in the morning to the time we fall into bed exhausted in the evening, we are constantly doing. We do this and we do that. We might think that we do these things well. We may think that we do some other things not so well and we need to be better at doing right. We're all about doing. Well, if we're going to do anything, let us do what the word of God says, and the first four verses of our text today, Jesus says this, said the crowds in his day, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So practice and observe what they tell you, but not what they do. For they preach, but they do not practice. Now, I want to just mention to us briefly here, as we're looking at this, that the devotion seeks to walk the walk where religion doesn't. Now, the question that I'm asking us at this point is this, am I devoted to God's Word? Now, why would I say am I devoted to God's Word? Well, Jesus said scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. They sit in a place of authority. It wasn't that there was a chair somewhere in the synagogue that was labeled Moses and that was the chair they sat in. What it means is that what the scribes and the Pharisees were doing is they were standing in authority over the people that were listening to them. And so they were supposed to be teaching the Word of God. And at least in some measure, they were teaching the Word of God. For Christ says, listen to what they say, practice what they say, observe what they say, just don't do as they do. You see, there's this command for us to follow the Word of God. And in case you were wondering, the Lord says, so do all. Observe all. Practice all that they say. Not just some of it, but all of it. And so my question for us today is this. Am I devoted to this practice? Do I have a devotion in my own heart, in my own life, in my own mind to seek out the Word of God, to listen to the Word of God, and to follow the Word of God? Do you have a devotion to the Word of God. And if you have a devotion to the Word of God, then you will walk the walk and talk the talk. Jesus said very simply of the scribes and the Pharisees, they preach, but they don't practice. They say what you ought to do, but they themselves are not willing to do it. And so in our lives, as we're seeking as to whether we have devotion or not, I want to ask us, are we guilty of that as well? Will you tell your children what they must do, and yet you're not willing to do what you tell your children they ought to do? Do you tell your children that they ought to be loving and kind to their brothers and sisters? That they ought to have that other, someone else more significant than myself kind of attitude? That they're to look out for their brothers and sisters, and yet they see you and your spouse fighting all the time? Maybe, Dad, you're frustrated and angry with your wife, and so your children see you acting in that way? Are you telling your children that they need to be devoted to God, and yet you're not living out that devotion in your own life? Are you guilty of that? If you're guilty of that, may I say that you may have religion and not devotion. But we need to have devotion. Christ has called us to be devoted one to another. Christ has called us not just to preach, but to practice what we preach. As a matter of fact, in Matthew 15-3, the Lord said, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? He calls the Pharisees, scribes and Pharisees out on the carpet and say, you are supposed to be devoted to God. You're supposed to be giving things to God. But there was a tradition in their life that said, if I have, excuse me, They're supposed to be taking care of their father and their mother. That's the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother. But what they were doing is they were saying, what I have is devoted to God and not honoring father and mother. And the Lord says, why are you breaking the command to honor your father and mother by the traditions of saying that everything I have is given to God? See, our practicing can look good. Our preaching can sound good. But are we truly devoted to the things of God? As we continue on in our time today, I want us just to give kind of a counterbalance to this first question. Am I devoted towards God? Am I doing the things that God has commanded me? By saying this, well, if I'm going to avoid doing something, I need to avoid what makes much of me. And the reason I say that is found in verse 5. Now, the Lord says that they preach, but they do not practice. And down in verse 5, He says they do their deeds, all their preaching, all their practicing to, to be seen by others. You see, the idea here is that there is no room for devotion in my life if what I'm desiring is to call attention to myself. Now, I want us to think about this for just a moment. The reality is that there's only so much room in your life, right? There's only so much room in your heart. There's only so much room in your spirit. There's only so much room in the things that you do. Most of us are familiar with this from computers, right? I was looking this last week at at computers, and as you look at the specifications for computers, it'll say it has a 500 gig hard drive, or it has a terabyte of memory in its hard drive, or 320 gigs in a hard drive, or 100 gigs in a hard drive, or some of your phones and tablets and notebooks have 32 gigs in their hard drive, right? And we know when we see that example that that's the amount of space, the amount of room on the hard drive. And every one of us know, maybe by example, that if you fill up your computer with stuff, there's no more room, right? If you fill it up with stuff, there's no more room. There's only enough room on your computer to hold so many things, right? You follow what I'm saying? Well, the reality of our life is simply this, that there's only so much room in my life. That room is either filled up by me or it's filled up by God, right? And so if I am filling up my life with things of me, I can't fill up or let God fill up my life either, right? It's either God or it's me, and there's nothing in between. Absolutely nothing in between. And so if I'm going to be devoted, if I'm going to exercise devotion, if I'm going to give my life to devotion, if I'm going to be devoted to God, then that's an all-consuming thing. That there is no way that God can have a spot and I can have a spot right next to Him. It's either God or nothing, or it's either me or nothing, right? And if in my life what I'm seeking to do, what I'm serving to do is promote myself, if I'm seeking to be the center of attention, if I'm seeking to call attention to myself, guess what I'm not calling attention to? I'm not calling attention to God. You see, devotion is not about me. Devotion is about God. They preach. but they don't practice. Jesus said, look, listen to the teachings, listen to the Word, because they're giving you the Word of God, so listen to that, but don't follow their example of how they're living it out, because all they're doing is calling attention to themselves. Listen to what He says. For they make their phylacteries broad, and their fringes long. Now the phylacteries and the fringes are just a reference to the religious things of the Pharisees. The phylacteries were the little boxes that had the Shema in it. Right? Y'all remember the Shema from Deuteronomy? A hero Israel, the Lord God is one. You shall write these things down. Right? And you shall teach them to your children. All the things of God. And they would write those on little pieces of paper and put them in boxes and they would strap them to their foreheads. And the bigger your box, the more religious you were. The bigger your box, the more you put God's word into it. And the fringes were the fringes on their prayer shawls. It's called a talit. And the longer your fringes, the more pious you are. You see, the idea is, is they were making themselves out to be very religious people. They were making themselves out to be super saints, so to speak. And the reality was, is there was nothing on the inside. They were preaching, but they were not practicing. I just wonder in our own lives how many times we're guilty of doing this. We talk about all the Bible studies that we've completed. That's something that we do in reformed life and Bible study is good. I certainly endorse Bible study and we need to be meditating upon God's word. But sometimes we get caught up with how many books of the Bible I've studied or how many devotions I've read. or how many times I've been to church, or any number of things, and we begin to prop up our works, our activity, as somehow being a super saint. And when we do that, I fear that devotion has gone right out the window. Better yet, why don't we say, what have we learned from our Bible study? What have I applied as I have looked at the word of God? How well do I see the Old Testament knitted to the New Testament, knitted to the Psalms, knitted to the Proverbs, knitted to the Epistles or any other? How do we see the word of God being knit together? You see, the reality is simply this. It doesn't matter how religious you look. What really matters is how righteous you actually are. And see, devotion leads us to that point that we put ourselves aside. We don't need to be seen as super spiritual. We don't need people to really know just how much we studied, but that our devotion drives us for them to see God and Christ in us and not look at us. You see, there's no room for devotion. when all we're desiring to do is call attention to ourselves. But if we're going to do anything, let us do what the Word of God says. Which brings me to the second little point here, that devotion seeks to ease the burden of others. Religion doesn't. Listen to what the Lord said in verse 4. He says of the Pharisees, they tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. Did you notice that the Lord uses an example of toil and labor and burden? That what the scribes and the Pharisees were doing in that day is that they were saying, you must do this and you must do that and you must do the other. Actually, they were doing that 614 times. You must do all of these things. And that was a hard burden to carry. You may be familiar with this with your own children at times, that as they begin to grow and take responsibility within the home, that you assign certain duties for them to take care of, right? Whatever they may be. Help in putting the dishes away or take the trash out or keep their beds made up or keep their rooms clean. And sometimes as parents, we begin to put too many things on our children. You know, we give them a list of about 50 things that they need to do, right? Now, I think we would agree that for certain children, a list of 50 things that they need to do every day is probably a little bit much, don't you think? There are some things that they ought to do, and we realize very quickly that we need to restrict the list. Let's maybe only give them three things that they need to do every day. And you have to ask the question, why? Is it that our children are subpar and they don't understand? Of course not. What it is is that a list of 50 things that need to be done by every child every day is burdensome, right? And so we cut back some of the stuff and we just make them do three things. And as they grow and mature and they can handle those three things quite readily without us reminding them or telling them that they have to do it, maybe we add one or two other things that need to be done. But I doubt that we ever get to a point where we make them do 50 things in a day because we can't do 50 things in a day, can we? I can't. I'd forget about half of them. You see, there's this idea of laying burdens on people's shoulders that they just simply can't bear. And religion does that. The Pharisees were doing that. They were saying, you know, you, the scripture says you must be in compliance with every one of the laws, because if you have transgressed any of the laws, you've transgressed all of them. And that was the point of the law, by the way, to show us that we can't keep the law. But the Pharisees and their religion were giving the people a list of do's and don'ts that was just entirely too heavy for them to carry. So I ask you this question as we're thinking about our devotion to God. How am I actively seeking to make life easier for those who are around me? Have you ever asked yourself that question? How am I actively seeking to make life easier for my wife? How am I actively seeking to make life easier for my husband? How am I actively seeking to make life easier for my pastor or for the elders or my friends at church? You see, we need to be thinking about how we can actively, not philosophically, but actively, practically, in real life terms, make life easier for someone else. That's devotion. Devotion seeks to ease the burden that people have on them and not heighten the burden. But if you're going to avoid doing something, let's avoid the things that make much of you. Well, see, there's no room for devotion when you desire to be the center of attention. In our text today, it says, and they love the place of honor at the feasts and the best seats in the synagogue, talking about the scribes and the Pharisees, verse 6. But the idea is this, that it wasn't that they just liked the really good seats. The idea is that they wanted to be the center of attention. They wanted to be the cat's meow. They wanted to be the ones that everybody oohed and aahed over. They wanted to be the ones that everybody came to. They wanted to be waited on and not wait on others. But you remember what the Lord said. He said, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve. Right. And we see that picture within the Lord's life as he washed the disciples feet. He took on the form of a servant. He he did a menial task. He made life easier on the disciples. And at the end of that said, I've given you an example of making life easier on other people. That's not just about making life easier. It's about the heart of devotion. You see, when we're truly devoted one to another, and if we're truly devoted to God and His Word, then we will go out of our way to try to make life easier for other people because we're not trying to be the center of attention. Now, I just wonder in our lives, my life, your life, that how often do we fail at this particular point? How often do we want it to be about us. Do you ever feel uncomfortable when people begin to make much of you? I hope you do. I hope you feel a bit disquieted when somebody talks about how good you may have been or how well you may have done. I'm not against compliments. I'm not against compliments at all. But I would hope that in the heart of the believer, in the heart of the Christian, that we would be a little bit uncomfortable when the focus is put on us. I've wondered for many years how to actually deflect that attention back to Christ, or maybe better said, reflect that attention to Christ, that anything that I might do is not of my own doing, but of Christ in me. Anything that I might do well is not my effort, not my intellect, but Christ in me, right? You see, there's just no room for devotion. If we're truly wanting to be devoted, if we're going to really ask ourselves about devotion and take a serious look at devotion, there's no room for devotion when I want to be the center of attention. I think of all of our points today, this might be the most practical point that we can teach to our children. Don't you agree that they're not always the center of attention? Don't our children like to be the center of attention? Don't they like to be the center of attention? Certainly they do. But maybe this is the most practical thing that you can teach your children this week, that you're not the center of attention, that life is not about you, that our home doesn't revolve around you, that our home revolves around Christ. That Christ is the center of attention. That life is all about Christ. And that my existence and my words and my schooling and the discipline that I might have to administer this week, or whatever it is that you face this week, is focused almost entirely on Christ. See, that's a picture of true, genuine devotion. And there's no room for devotion When the center of attention has to be me. But one last thing that I want us to consider this morning, back to the if you're going to do anything, do what God commanded you. Is that devotion intentionally seeks to grow in its ability to do these things? Religion doesn't. Look with me, if you will, at the verse four again. The Lord said, and they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with one finger. Now that phrase, to move them with one finger, what it indicates to us, the language of the New Testament would indicate to us here that they were not even willing to consider it. It wasn't that they wouldn't help people. It wasn't that they tied up the burdens and put them on their shoulders and they wouldn't come along and help. They weren't even willing to consider helping. You see, the modus operandi, if you will, of the Pharisees was simply this. We're going to push it off on them and then we get to do what we want to do. Right? Now, I know none of us have ever done that. None of us have ever pushed anything off on somebody else so that I could go do what I wanted to do. Right? None of us have called in sick. None of us have faked a sore throat to get out of school. None of us have said, I can't pick this up. Would you come help me? Only to run off and let the other person handle it entirely. None of us have ever done that, right? You see, if you're going to do anything in life, are you listening? If you're going to do anything in life, do what God's word says. And what God's Word says is, don't do like the Pharisees. Intentionally grow in your ability to follow the Word. But they themselves are not even willing to move a single finger to help. So I ask you this question, what am I doing? What are you doing to grow in your ability to be devoted? I want you to think about that for a minute. What are you doing right now in your life to ensure that you're devoted? What are you doing in your life right now that you haven't done before? But you're doing it so that you will be more devoted. Are you getting up earlier in the morning to make sure that you're able to have that special quiet time with the Lord before your day starts? You say, well, Rusty, I've got children and I'm tired. Well, yes, I understand that. We have a newborn in our home now and he's up at all hours for feedings and different things like that. And praise God that he's sleeping well and he does sleep through most of the night. But somebody has to feed him generally at 11 or 12 and somebody has to feed him generally about four o'clock. And if it were up to me, I would just let Nancy feed him and I'd just sleep right through. Right. If it were up to me, but it's not up to me. I don't want to call attention to myself. I don't want to be the center of attention. I want to make things easier on Nancy and Asher, for that matter of fact. And I want to grow in these things. And so the idea is multifold, but I'm tired. As many people who have newborns are tired. You don't sleep much with a newborn. But the question is, what am I doing to ensure my devotion? Am I willing, even though I'm tired, to get up a half hour earlier to make sure that I can get my prayer time in, my Bible study time in, my Bible reading time before somebody has to get up to feed Asher? Am I willing to cut my afternoon nap, if I were to get one, 30 minutes short so that I can make sure that I was taking an inventory of life to make sure that somehow I was in keeping with God's Word? Am I letting my schedule dictate whether I have family worship or not? Am I saying to myself, well, you know, because I'm working an abbreviated schedule and Nancy's working an abbreviated schedule, what that means is generally either one of us, if we're working that day, we don't get home until 6 or 6.30 or sometimes a quarter of 7 in the evening. And it's really easy for us to say, you know what, it's late by the time we finish dinner. And so I think we'll just let family worship go tonight. But am I intentionally doing those things? I say no, even if it's 10 o'clock at night, we're going to have family worship to maintain my devotion. What am I doing that perhaps I have never done before, never had to do before to ensure that I am being devoted to God and his word, that I'm that I'm growing in my devotion? You see, we don't need to be guilty of not wanting to lift one finger. In this area of life. We don't need to be guilty of saying, well, this is just the way it is and I'm not willing to change it. We need to grow in our willingness to ensure devotion. Now, I want to just point out something to us here from the text. This is under the heading, if you're going to avoid doing something, avoid the things that make much of you. And that is this, that there's no room for devotion. when you desire to be seen as the expert. Now, what's at the root of this problem is this. If I'm not willing to grow, if I'm not willing to even consider that I need to improve, then implicitly what that means is I think I've already got it down pat, right? How many of you this morning practiced tying your shoes? How many of you, when you got up this morning and decided to put your shoes on, put your shoes on, you tied them, then you untied them and you tied them again? And then you untied them a second time and you tied them again? And then maybe you untied them a third time and tied them again, and you did all of that for practice? Now, I realize that some of our children may have done that, but as adults, how many of you tied and untied your shoes multiple times this morning for practice? I would be willing to bet nobody did. I would be willing to bet you tied your shoes once and that was it, right? You see, you're an expert at tying your shoes. And you don't even consider that you need to practice, right? Because you got it down pat. Velcro doesn't count in this instance, okay? That's cheating. But do you see that when we take this idea of devotion, And we think to ourselves, I got it all down. I'm devoted. I don't need to practice. I don't need to do anything that would further my devotion. Then we're seeing ourselves and we're wanting others to see us as being an expert in that area. Jesus says that the Pharisees like the greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. They want the notoriety. They want the influence. They wanted people to look well upon them and say, wow, look at how spiritual they are. But there's no room for devotion in our lives when we think we have it all put together. There's no room in our lives, there's no room for devotion in our lives when we think that we're already the expert. So if you're going to avoid doing something, Avoid the things that would make you look like an expert, because the reality is you're not. None of us are. So if you're going to do anything, do the things that God's Word says. And if you're going to avoid doing anything, avoid doing those things that makes much of you. Which brings me to my third and final thought today that I want to finish on, and that is this, that if you're going to make much of anybody, make much of Christ. Right? Does that make sense? We've talked about avoiding the things that make much of us. We've talked about avoiding being, calling attention to ourselves. We've talked about avoiding being the center of attention. We've talked about avoiding being an expert. But you know, there's something in us that drives us to make much of somebody, right? Now, I would suggest to us today that we could say that's worship, right? Would you agree with that? When we make much of somebody, in essence, what we're doing is worshiping. And so we're going to worship somebody. Now, what I have mentioned to us today is that we not worship ourselves, and really that's what's at the heart of this matter with the Pharisees and then with ourselves today is that many times we try to worship ourselves. And if we're worshiping ourselves, we certainly can't worship God. But I want us to see that we need to worship somebody, that if we're going to make much of someone, let us make much of Christ. Look at verse eight with me, if you would. Jesus says, but you are not to be called Rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. And he goes on to say, the greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. You see, the idea is that we need to make much of Christ. Devotion, in fact, insists upon Christ being the Lord. True devotion insists on Christ being the Lord. We only have one Teacher, it's Christ. We only have one Father, it's Christ. We only have one person who sits in a position of authority, and that's Christ. Now, look, don't misunderstand. Don't think that Jesus is saying that you can't call your earthly father dad. That's not what he's saying. We honor our earthly fathers by calling them the term of endearment, whether it's daddy or father or dad or papa or whatever it is. Those are terms of endearment, and we can use those. But the reality is, at our point of devotion, there's only one Lord, and it's Jesus Christ. You shall not be called rabbi, for Christ is our teacher, and you shall not be called father, for you only have one father. And in this, devotion willingly submits to Christ, Christ as our Lord. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor. The greatest among you shall be your servant and whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. You may be listening to all the things that I've said today and it may not sit well with you. You may not like what I've said. You may be offended that I've called into question your level of devotion. You may say, Rusty, my devotion is my business and you don't have anything to do with it. Well, OK. You could take that track, I guess. But is that very humble? If I came to you and said to you in a moment, you've got something green on your teeth. Wouldn't you be thankful for me doing that? Now, if I stood in front of the whole church and said, Lamar's got something green on his teeth, which you don't, by the way, brother. But if I said that in front of everybody, that's one thing, right? But if I went to Lamar away from everybody else and out of earshot of anybody else so that he wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the whole congregation and said, Lamar, brother, I think whatever you had for breakfast is still hanging around. That would be a very loving thing to do, don't you think? Because I don't want him to be embarrassed every time he smiles to have everybody see what he had for breakfast. That's a loving thing to do. Today, as in that illustration, Lamar can either exalt himself and say, you don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone and then walk around the rest of the day with something green on his teeth. Or he can humble himself and say, brother, thank you, I appreciate the fact that you care enough about me. Yes, I'm embarrassed in front of you that I got something green on my teeth, but thank you for sharing that with me to help me along the way. You see, you can either accept what I'm saying. what the Word of God is saying, or you can humble yourself and follow what God has given to us today. See, I don't want you to be counted in the many people that I see in the world today who are like the Pharisees. I don't want you to be busy doing things while the whole time you're completely void of any real heart change. I don't want to see you not do what God's Word says you ought to do. And I don't want to see you fail to avoid the things that make much of you. I want to see you make much of Christ. For in that is true devotion. In that is a life abundant, a life changed by the power of Christ, a life that lives under Christ as being Lord, a life that submits to Christ, that humbles itself to Christ and in the end is exalted by Christ. That's what I want to see for you. The old song goes, I found the pearl of greatest price. My heart does sing for joy. I sing, I must, for Christ is mine. Christ shall my song employ. Whoa, it's me. As many times, it is me. It is you. We're just like the Pharisees. We're hard hearted. We're stubborn. We exalt ourselves. But the word of God and Christ, our Savior, calls us not just to preach, but to practice what we preach and to live with a heartfelt devotion. Father, We praise you and thank you and glorify you that, Lord, you have called us into account through your word today. And Father, we admit before you that we are many times not very devoted. We're not devoted to your word, we're not devoted to your people. We claim submission to Christ, but we really have true devotion to him even. At many times, we're not even willing to look at our own lives, to look at ourselves in the mirror, to see how we're doing. Father, I pray that you would forgive us for the exaltation of ourselves. Forgive us where we want to be the center of attention. Forgive us where we think we're the expert. Forgive us where it's all about me. And Lord, in the cleaning out of our worshiping ourselves, I pray, Father, that you would fill that void with a devotion to Christ. And that we would not be a Pharisee. But that we'd be one who is truly devoted to you, loving you and loving all those things that you love. Move upon us, Father, in that way that we might bring you glory and honor in all that we do. These things we ask, Father, in the name of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.