So we're continuing our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew. And this morning we find ourselves in chapter 23. We finished chapter 22 last week. We're in chapter 23 and we'll be using the first 12 verses of this chapter as our text for the sermon this morning. And as always, if you're able, would you stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's infallible, inerrant and inspired word. Matthew chapter 23, verses 1 through 12. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but 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 in the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces, 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 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. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be. exalted. This is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So as we've been working through these recent chapters in Matthew, we have seen these religious authorities so upset with Jesus because he's being praised as the son of David, the Messiah, the Christ. They've openly challenged his authority, where he gets it and who gave it to him. And he's answered them. He's given them parable after parable, which these rulers recognize after hearing them. are meant to point out that they themselves are being disobedient to God and are outside the kingdom of heaven instead of leading people into it. And in fact, we just saw Jesus answer three questions given to him that were intended to trap him, to entangle him and to test him. And we saw that through his answers, he has amazed some who ask him these questions and silenced others. In return, after those three questions, Jesus asked them just one question. He asked them, so who do you think, whose son is the Christ? Whose son is he, really? Well, they answered, of course, the son of David. Scripturally, that was clear, which is why they don't like Jesus being called that. But in return, Jesus quoted Psalm 110 verse 1. The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool. And he said to them, in essence, could he really just be David's son and still be called Lord by David, the greatest king on the earth? Or is he also necessarily the son of God? You see, although not explicitly stating it, he is clearly implying again that he is the Christ, the son of David, the son of God. Now, in the last two chapters, Jesus has been confronted by really the full range of the religious leaders of the Jews. The chief priests have been mentioned, the elders, the scribes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees. However, in this chapter, in chapter 23, Jesus begins to focus in on the scribes and the Pharisees. His audience, however, has changed. I believe he's still standing in the temple courts where he's been for this whole exchange. I believe it's likely that the scribes and Pharisees and maybe even the other Jewish rulers and leaders are still there next to him after having asked him all these questions and listened to his parables, but he is no longer in this passage talking to them. He now turns his attention to the crowd who has been there all along, listening to his teaching before the interruptions and even listening to the whole exchange with these leaders. He turns his attention to the crowd, I think, particularly in verses 1 through 7 in this passage. And then I think in verses 8 through 11, 12, I think his focus shifts more particularly to his disciples, not just the crowd at large, but the disciples in particular. And as we look at verses 2 and 3 in this chapter, I think it's really important that we understand and interpret what Jesus is saying here in the context of what he says in the whole chapter. Because it sounds like Jesus is saying at face value, all you people, whenever these scribes and Pharisees teach you something, you should listen to them and you should obey it because they're the right people. They're sitting in Moses' seat. Just don't do what they do. You've heard it said, right? Listen to what I say, just don't do what I do. That's sort of what Jesus seems to be saying about these people. Now, would that make sense from Jesus? And I ask that question because one way of helping us to understand this is a brief theological saying that probably not many people outside of reformed circles have really heard it, but orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. What that means is that true, faithful belief in the right things will lead you to live and act in the right ways. That's obviously the teaching of scripture, right? That's why Jesus keeps emphasizing you need to follow God's commands, you need to live according to these things, because you're now the people of the kingdom of heaven. Your life has to be different. But I would also submit to you that the opposite of that brief little saying is also true. I don't know if heteropraxy is actually a word or if I'm just coining it, but heterodoxy also leads to heteropraxy. Wrong beliefs will lead you into wrong actions and living. And we also see that in the world around us all the time, do we not? It doesn't take a great scholar or philosopher to be able to understand that kind of thing. So it seems really unlikely to me that Jesus is actually saying, these people don't do anything that you should practice, but when you hear them teach, you should listen to them. I think Jesus is speaking, we would call it now, tongue-in-cheek, in a very ironic kind of way. In fact, when he talks about them sitting in Moses' seat, The ESV and most other translations literally translate it that way. They sit in Moses' seat, as if it sounds like they legitimately are sitting there. But that word can also be understood in a slightly different way. It could also be understood to have Jesus saying they have seated themselves in Moses' seat. In other words, they are the ones telling you they're Moses' successors. And I think that's what Jesus has in mind here. Keep in mind that it was just back in chapter 16 verse 6, I believe, that Jesus warned his disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees, right? Remember that? Well, why would he warn them against the leaven teaching of the Pharisees back then and now say, but when they say it, believe it. Doesn't fit. He's also been teaching against their teaching in chapters 12 and 15 and 16 and 19. So it makes no sense that he would be commending their teaching now. I think if you heard Jesus speak, you would have heard the irony in his voice as he said, they sit in Moses' seat and when they teach, you should hear them and listen. Now with all of that in mind, I think when we look at this, we should understand that Jesus is actually beginning his critique of the scribes and the Pharisees and pointing it out to the people at large. He's going to focus his direction back next week, Lord willing, when we get to the passage next week, but right now it's to the crowds. When he gets in verse four and talks about them tying up heavy loads, placing them on people's shoulders, I think almost certainly what Jesus is referring to here are these extra laws and regulations. Remember, that's what the Pharisees were famous for. They were so concerned that you don't violate God's law that they made up a whole bunch of other laws and put them around God's law like a fence so that you wouldn't get anywhere near breaking God's law. But they required you to keep God's law and all theirs. And so Jesus says, notice those extra laws don't come from God. Jesus says these scribes and Pharisees tie those laws up themselves into a great heavy bundle. And then they come over to you and they pick that bundle up, put it on your shoulders and expect you to carry it while they don't lift a finger to help. Notice also how Jesus characterizes all of what they see as their pious behaviors. He's going to generalize, speak about those behaviors in a general way in verses five through seven. He's talked about these also more back in chapter six when he talked about some of this, but notice what he says here. He says they do all their deeds. Not sometimes they mess up and do this, but they do all their deeds. Why? to be seen and approved and honored by others. That is their whole goal. You might remember the first question of the Shorter Catechism, what is the chief end of man? Chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not to glorify yourself and enjoy yourself forever. But these scribes and Pharisees seem to have this all backward. They're concerned about accumulating honor and glory and respect for themselves in everything that they do. This verse seems a little foreign to us because it talks about phylacteries and fringes or tassels. And we don't right away know what that means, but really this is a literal fulfillment, if you will, of a command that God gave back in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, actually in chapter 6 and verse 8 and chapter 11 and verse 18, he's talking about his command. Remember, it's with the great Shema, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. And then he goes on to talk about how you shall keep these commandments always And then he goes on to say, and I actually put it in your bulletin so that you can see this. He goes on to say, you shall teach them diligently your children. You'll talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. I think God meant that metaphorically. I think what God meant was these commands are so important, you need to keep them right in front of your eyes, your mind, your heart at all times. You need to keep them on your hands so they're ready at hand to remember and use every time you're going to do anything. But many of these Jewish people took this literally, and they made these little boxes called phylacteries, and they would write down these scriptures, put them inside the box, and use straps to hook them onto their foreheads, so that they literally had a front lip before their eyes. And they would do the same on their hand or arm, so that it would be on their hand. Well, God would have been much happier if instead of putting the box on your forehead and arm, you'd have actually kept his word and law in front of your eyes, heart, and mind, and kept it ready at hand always, and used it the way he intended. the fringes that God commanded them to put tassels or fringes on the corners of their outer robe. But you see, what Jesus is accusing these scribes and Pharisees of, they do the phylacteries, but what they do is they make their boxes extra big and the straps that hold them, they make them extra wide. Why? So that everybody sees them and notices, oh wow, he's got a bigger phylactery than I have, he's really holy. And the tassels, look at the tassels on his robe, mine are only two inches long, his are eight. My goodness, he's really a holy guy. He's really keeping God's Word. You see, they make these tassels and these phylacteries extra large not to obey God more and to get God's favor. They make them to garner more attention and respect and honor for themselves from everyone else. And notice when he talks about the places of honor and the best seats at the feasts and the synagogues, notice Jesus doesn't say that they're humbled by receiving these and thankful for them. He says they love them. Remember Jesus' admonition when you're invited to a feast, take the lowest seat. You don't want to take the highest seat and have the host come up and say, that's not actually your chair. You need to go down here. Somebody else sits there. Sit in the lowest one so he can come to you and say, no, no, come on up here and sit with me. These guys don't wait for the invitation. They love the best seats. It's an inordinate love. It's an unbiblical love. They also love something else. They love the deferential greetings that they receive as they walk through the marketplace, recognizing them as the holiest of men among them. They love to be called rabbi. Now, we might look at that and think, well, what's wrong with that? Rabbi, as far as we know, kind of means teacher, and if they were teachers, that's okay. We call teachers teachers. But actually, when you take the word rabbi literally from the Hebrew, what it actually literally means is something more like my great one, my master. They love being called that by everyone. See these are exactly the kind of behaviors that Jesus condemned in his Sermon on the Mount all the way back in Matthew chapter 6. The first six verses and then 16 to 18. Remember he talked about whenever you fast, whenever you pray, whenever you give alms, don't do it in front of everybody. Don't draw everyone's attention to it. Do it in private and your God who sees it in private will reward it privately. But remember what Jesus said in verse one of chapter six, and connect it with what he's saying here. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order, why? To be seen by them. For if you do that, then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. You see what Jesus is saying? These guys are doing this all for their own attention, they're not getting anything from God for this. It's not pious, it's not godly in any way at all. Back in Matthew chapter 6 he called the people that did these things hypocrites. Now here in chapter 23 he identifies them as the scribes and Pharisees. Let's consider what Jesus has said in other places about this subject in verse 4. Remember that God never intended that man should find obedience to him, keeping his law, that they should find it burdensome, heavy toil. You've read, I hope, Psalm 119, how God's word is of delight, sweeter than honey, right? Meditate day and night on it. That's how God intends us to respond to his word and obedience to him. It was never intended to be a heavy burden that bowed us down, and God never intended that man would have to bear that burden as bad as it might be on his own. That's why, again, Jesus, if you go back to chapter 11 and you go back to verses 28 to 30, Jesus gives this extremely gracious, welcoming invitation. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, weighed down, and I will give you, not more work, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Now, why does Jesus describe his yoke as easy and his burden as light while he describes the burden imposed by the scribes and Pharisees as heavy and hard to bear? Is it only because of those additional laws and regulations that the scribes and Pharisees have been adding to God's law? Well, that's certainly part of it. But I don't think that's the bulk of it. I don't think that's the primary thing that Jesus is pointing to here. What you need to understand is that the scribes and Pharisees are teaching that the way to get personal righteousness before God is by keeping the law. You earn it. You obey the law, and the better you obey it, the more righteous God sees you as, and he'll reward you for it. But in fact, Jesus Christ, on the contrary, was God's answer to fallen man's total inability to perfectly keep God's law and earn righteousness in any way at all. Jesus, as our federal head representing us, kept the law of God perfectly for us in his life. And when he suffered for our sin, he then gave us his own perfect righteousness to put as a robe around us so that we are clothed in his righteousness. It's a gift, a gracious gift from God, from Christ, so that we now as justified people no longer take the obedience to God's commands as an unwelcome burden that is heavy and hard to bear. Instead, we strive to keep those same commands now, not as a burden, but instead, as a response of heartfelt thanksgiving to God for the grace that he's shown to us. If this is what you're like God, I want to be like that too. And so now having seriously warned the people at large against these false teachings and practices of the scribes and Pharisees, it seems to me at least that Jesus turns his attention now directly to his disciples. And it makes sense because They are, after all, going to be the new scribes and teachers in the kingdom of heaven when this whole Old Testament Israel covenant structure is set aside at the destruction of Jerusalem. And also, remember, he has granted them miraculous powers to advance the kingdom of heaven, right? They can cast out demons, heal diseases, they can do all these things. And along with that, he's given them prominent positions in the kingdom of heaven. They are apostles, his own personal ambassadors. They will sit on thrones with him, he said. Notice what he says to them, though. These men love to be called rabbi by the people, but you are not to be called rabbi. Well, again, why? Well, Jesus gives them two reasons. The first reason, he says, is that you only have one teacher. If rabbi means teacher, you only have one teacher. And the second reason he gives them is that under that one teacher, all of you are all brothers. That means you're all equal. You're not great ones. My great one, you're not masters. You're brothers under one teacher. It reminds you of Jesus teaching in Matthew 18 about all of them in the kingdom of heaven being not great ones, but little ones. It's a lesson Jesus had been trying to drive home to these men through his whole ministry, and they're still struggling with it. So he tells them that they are not to be called rabbi. But who is the one teacher? Well, if you had the King James Version in your hands or the New King James, you would see that they include the words the Christ or even Christ right after you have one teacher. The ESV and other translations don't follow that. The manuscripts they follow don't have that phrase in that particular location. But it doesn't matter because in verse 10, Jesus identifies that Christ is the one who's behind all of this anyway. And so clearly that is what is intended here. Christ himself is the one teacher. He is the Christ after all, not just Jesus of Nazareth. The point here is that none of you, Jesus says, are to encourage others or allow others to attribute to you honorific, presumptuous titles that are appropriate only for the one teacher, the Christ, whom you sit under. He goes on to tell them that they're to call no man father on earth. And he says this is for the specific reason that they have only one father, and that is their father in heaven, God. You may remember that was a primary theme of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, talking about God as their father. Now again, we want to be really careful what Jesus is not saying here. Jesus is not saying that children are not allowed to call their biological or legal father their father. How do we know that? Well, I can give you two quick examples. Jesus himself told people if anyone loves their father or mother or brother or sister or anybody else more than me, they're not worthy of me. So Jesus himself used the term in that sense. Also find it in a really prominent place in the Ten Commandments, don't we? You are to honor who? Your father and your mother. Jesus isn't telling us we can't call our father our father. And I'll even put out another example that people might quibble about. Paul at one point in his writings talks about himself as the father of Timothy because he was used by the Holy Spirit to help bring Timothy to faith in Christ. Paul isn't committing a sin. by referring to himself in that way. He's talking about a spiritual thing that is similar to the biological fatherhood that we all see around us and experience ourselves. But I want you to notice that nowhere in all of the scriptures does anyone address Paul, Peter, or any of the others as father in some kind of reverential, highly respected kind of manner, honoring them in that way. You see God is the only one who deserves to receive that kind of reverential care and addressing as we speak to him and about him. Now remember Jesus is not again ruling out offices and officers in the church. He established his offices in the church. Remember, he's the one who made these very men in front of him apostles. So he's not ruling that out, that there are going to be levels of authority and people who sit in those offices and carry that out. His own apostles are going to go on in their letters to spell out who those officers in the church are supposed to be and what they're supposed to be like and how they're supposed to conduct themselves. But guess what? None of those officers in the church are to want to be called rabbi either. None of them are to consider themselves the great one that everybody has to kowtow to and give all this honor and glory. They need to remember that they are brothers, little ones, in the kingdom of heaven. And people who are relating to them in the church need to remember that as well. Elders, pastors, deacons, they are not somebody special, holy and high above everyone else. They are brothers, just like you. It reminds me of John in Revelation as he's receiving all these great glorious visions and angels are helping to give it to him. And twice in Revelation when an angel does this, John finds himself compelled to throw himself on the ground in front of the angel and worship him. And you know what the response of the angel is? Remember, the angel is perfectly holy, glorious and majestic and powerful beyond anything John is. And yet the angel says, don't do that. Get up. Why? Because I am just a fellow servant along with you and your brothers who faithfully serve him and follow the words of the book. Even a glorious angel won't receive glory because it's not due to him. He's a fellow servant. He's a little one. Now in verse 10, Jesus also commands his disciples that they are not to allow or encourage others to call them, the word in the ESV is instructors. And that word is only used this one time in the New Testament. So it's hard to get what it actually means from scripture because that one time doesn't give you enough samples to be able to compare. Outside of scripture, it seems to have been used as a title for people who were teachers. But Jesus already talked about teachers in verse eight, so I don't think he's talking about teachers again here in that limited sense. It was also used to speak about people who served as guides, what we might think of as mentors or examples for people to set their own life after, as a pattern for people to follow. And I think this is what Jesus has in mind here. The reason he says that you're not to have people call you instructor is because you only have One instructor. The Christ. Me. I am the only example, pattern, that my people are supposed to pattern themselves after. Not you. Now again, full disclosure, the Apostle Paul does in the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 1, he commands the Corinthians, be imitators of me. Sounds like Paul's breaking that commandment of Jesus, doesn't it? Except for what he says next. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. In other words, Paul says, you are to imitate me so far as and to the degree that I faithfully imitate Christ. If I fail to do that, do not follow me in that. And so what Paul is really saying is, be an imitator of Christ, and I'm trying to show you what that's like. But I'm not him. And that needs to be for us too. We need to remember that in our own lives. We are to not copy, imitate the spiritual leaders that we see around us for them. But if we see Christ in them, we're to imitate the Christ that we see in them. because Christ alone is our pattern and our guide. Now these scribes and Pharisees that Jesus had been describing in the first seven verses, they consider themselves to be the greatest among Israel. The holiest, the most righteous, And so it's not surprising that Jesus concludes this teaching to the crowd and to his disciples in the way he does. With a summary of that lesson, he's been trying to drive home to his disciples for months and years now. Not just to get them to hear it, but to learn it, to embrace it. And yet they still struggle with it. They will continue to struggle with it. Jesus says, the greatest among you And notice the word he uses, shall. That's imperative. The greatest among you shall be your servant. He doesn't really mean that there's going to be great people, and because they're great, they're going to have to come to you and be your servant. What he means is the people who are your servant, they are the greatest. They are the greatest. You see, it's a prideful heart that causes people to exalt themselves. and then encourage others to exalt them as well. Proverbs 16.5 says, everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. That's a strong word, abomination to the Lord. And it's interesting that both Peter in 1 Peter 5.5 and James in chapter four, verse six of his letter, both of them agree so perfectly that they both repeat this sentence, essentially word for word. One uses the word resist, one uses the word opposes, but they both say, God resists or opposes the proud, but gives grace to who? The humble. The humble. And that's why, again, Jesus the Christ, the great and only teacher, the great and only instructor or example, can say to them with absolute confidence now, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. By who? By God. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. By who? By God. Those are sobering words. They should really give us pause as we approach our Christian life, and especially our relationship with others in that Christian life. Again, Jesus is the perfect example of that, right? He humbled himself. Look at Philippians chapter 2. Didn't think that being equal to God was something to be grasped, was willing to come in the form of a servant, was willing to be obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross under the curse of God, and because of that humility that he showed, God has what? Highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he's Lord. I wonder if you actually see the connection that I did with the correct answer Jesus gave just before this passage. Remember when he was asked, what is the greatest commandment? And Jesus' answer was, you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second is like it, you're to love your neighbor as yourself. He was commended for that answer. You've answered well, he was told by the scribe who asked him that question. But do you see the connection to what Jesus is talking about here with these scribes and Pharisees? These scribes and Pharisees are not loving God or their neighbor. Do you understand that? They're loving themselves. They're proudly exalting themselves over other people, not serving them. Again, think how absolutely opposite Jesus is in that invitation in 11.28-30. I am not proud, overbearing, and wanting your attention and praise. I am gentle and lowly in heart. Humble. Augustine, leader in the early church, when he was asked to name the three greatest virtues in the Christian faith, the Christian life, didn't have to think for a moment. He said the three greatest virtues in the Christian faith and Christian life are humility, humility, and humility. Drives it home pretty firmly, doesn't it? And Augustine understood that because for most of his life he was anything but humble. He was exactly like these scribes and Pharisees. You read his confessions, you'll find that he admits to that until Christ humbled him. And then he came to understand humility. How careful we have to be as we stress to people as they come into the faith, those people who have been saved and justified only by grace through faith, like Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, when we tell them that they must also walk in the good works that God has prepared beforehand for them to walk in, in verse 10, How careful we have to be to help them understand that when they are keeping his commandments, they aren't somehow earning their righteousness before God by doing that. Christ earned their righteousness. What they're doing is showing the response of a thankful heart for the grace that had been shown in saving them. We also have to be careful not to see Jesus' criticism and condemnation in this text as only applying to the scribes and Pharisees in his day. Even at our own current Christian circles at large, and even narrowing it down to our own reformed Christian circles, we are prone to have apparently godly, pious teachers, preachers, who begin to gain for themselves a reputation. A reputation for being great ones. Masters in terms of teaching and preaching. Sometimes these men do this to themselves and sometimes others do it to them. More often I think it's a combination of both. I've attended a number of Christian teaching conferences over the years, and almost always when a speaker is being introduced, the first thing we're usually told is about how many degrees they have, what titles belong to them, how many books they've authored, what prestigious positions they have held or currently hold. Now I understand, as I listen to that, that all of that is intended, at least I hope it is, It's intended to present them to us as someone whose teaching can be trusted. This isn't some fly-by-night person who just popped up last night and hasn't thought about these things. They know, they've studied. I hope that's what is meant, and I think that's what is meant, but how easy it can be for that to slip into those people or even their listeners coming to see them as a rabbi, my great one, my master. The person who's got it all together, the one I need to follow. Or maybe their father, one who has to be honored and certain expectations have to be met for them because of how great and prominent and righteous and holy they are. And I guess the final statement to that is how often then have we witnessed, just in recent years, months, a couple of weeks ago, prominent, I emphasize prominent Christian leaders falling into great public sin and scandal, sometimes even into absolute apostasy, denying the faith entirely. We need to consider Jesus' teaching carefully. how vitally important it is for all of us Christians, whether we are pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, or we're just a layperson member of a church somewhere, no matter what our position or status is in that regard, we need to heed Jesus' teaching in this passage. From myself, who is a relatively unknown, bivocational pastor of a small, rural congregation here in Slatelick, to a guy who is pastoring a congregation of thousands of people in some great metropolis somewhere. Guess what? All of us, teachers, preachers, and listeners alike, need to remember that there's only one teacher, and there is only one example that we are to follow. The rest of us are all brothers and equals in each other's sight. He alone is the one who has prominence. He alone is to receive the honor and glory, the veneration of his people, and that is Jesus the Christ. You see, these men claim to sit in Moses' seat as the givers of the law, if you will. At least the interpreters of the law for God's people will tell you what you need to believe about this. And you have to trust us. You have to believe us. But they're false and ungodly. That's what Jesus is saying here. We're going to hear more about that, Lord willing, next week. Here's the honest truth. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. He is both fully God and fully man. And in his divine nature, Jesus Christ is the God who gave the law to his people. He wrote it. It's a reflection of his own character. And in his humanity through his incarnation as Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, he is also, scripture tells us, the only true mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. The living word, as John calls him in the beginning of his gospel. The only one who can not only teach us the truth of God's word, but who actually is the living embodiment of God's word that we're all to follow and to structure our own lives after. Let's hear his words carefully and by his spirit take them to heart for our own eternal good. Let's pray. Father, we come to you and how thankful we are That you're not a God who makes everything and then drops back into the distance and lets it all run and run amok. But instead you are the God who is intimately involved in every detail of your creation. You don't just observe it, you ordain it and you bring it all to pass. And you have purposes that are being accomplished in everything. And we pray that your purpose in your word this morning for our hearts and lives would be accomplished in us. That we would learn the lessons Jesus is teaching here. That we would learn that honor and veneration belong only to you and to your son. and that we're just little ones in the kingdom of heaven who are only worthwhile because of our association with him and with you. Because we're made in your image and after your likeness. We pray that you would help us to faithfully embody the true spirit of those who are in the kingdom of heaven. Humility and love for others. We ask these things in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.