So Luke chapter 11 beginning at verse 37. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So Jesus went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisee cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you, Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. One of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. And Jesus said, Woe to you, lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers for they killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said I will send them prophets and apostles some of them some whom they will kill and persecute. So the blood so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation. from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say. H.G. Wells, the English writer of most famously science fiction, often referred to as the father of science fiction or even the Shakespeare of science fiction, was not a Christian man. But I would like to begin this morning with a quote from him nonetheless regarding Christ Jesus and the kingdom. For I believe Mr. Wells recognized in the teaching of Jesus something that many in the church do not seem to fully grasp. And I quote Mr. Wells, I am not going to try to ascribe deity to him, to Jesus, or try to make him anything other than just a man. Again, Mr. Wells was no Christian. I want to treat him as an artist would paint a portrait, and I want to paint a portrait of Jesus as I see him, and if a glimpse of deity shines through, be that as it may. But I am taking no theological position. The doctrines of the kingdom of God, as Jesus taught them, was no less than a bold and uncompromising demand for a complete change and cleansing of this life of our struggling race. An utter cleansing without and within all whom God takes into the kingdom, Jesus taught, God serves alike. There is no distinction in his treatment because there is no measure to his bounty. From all, as the parable of the buried talent witnesses and the incident of the widow's might enforces, Jesus demands the utmost, the righteous life for all men, the only righteous life, was the service of God's will with all that we had and with all we were. Jesus, Wells observes, was like a terrible moral huntsman. digging mankind out of a snug burrow in which they had lived hitherto. In the white blaze of this kingdom of his, there was no privilege, no pride, no precedence, no motive indeed, and no reward but love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and blinded and cried out against him? The doctrines of the kingdom was no less than a bold and uncompromising demand for a complete change and utter cleansing without and within. And Jesus, says Wells, was like a terrible moral huntsman, digging mankind out of a snug burrow in which they had lived hitherto. All are, in the imagery of Zephaniah from Sunday school, settled on the leaves. And Christ, Christ is that lamp that searches them out, the true light that was coming into the world. Is this not a good picture of what we have this morning in Christ's confrontation with the Pharisees and the scribes as Jesus draws them out of their snug burrow of self-righteousness and ceremonialism and sentimentality? and places upon them the uncompromising demand of the kingdom that is donned upon them in the in the coming of Christ, the demand of a of a complete change and utter transformation, a cleansing that reaches far deeper than the outside of the cup. Now, what is a Pharisee? First, a Pharisee was one of those who belonged to a particular sect of the Jews known as the Pharisees. The other sects of Judaism were the Sadducees, which were made up primarily of the priestly aristocrats. And then there were the Essenes, which were of a monastic mindset. The Zealots, who were the political revolutionaries of the day. And we might add to the list the Herodians, which were aligned with the Herodian dynasty. the Herods, and thus they were sympathetic to Rome. A bit of a sellout. And then there were the Pharisees. The Pharisees. The Pharisees were zealous for the law and for the traditions. They were doctrinally driven. They were practical in their theology. They were, as their name in Hebrew indicates, separatists. Unlike the Herodians, the Pharisees were not of the world. Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees were not primarily made up of the ruling class and the wealthy, but were laypersons. Laypersons who took the things of religion very seriously and opposed all compromise with that which belonged to the world. And I think that minus the obvious hypocrisy that plagued this group, Jesus would likely have lined up most with the Pharisees. Clearly he did on such doctrines as concerning the resurrection, the spiritual realm, and the afterlife, as well as the importance of holy living and law abiding and reverence for God. And I think that the average Pharisee might have assumed the same as well. Consider the Pharisee in this morning's account who, after hearing Jesus speak, was apparently not too turned off, for he invited Jesus to lunch. And there is no indication from the text that this particular Pharisee was trying only to trap Jesus. For the Pharisee here is actually shocked that Jesus didn't partake in the hand-cleansing ritual before eating. In other words, he apparently was not lying in wait for Jesus to snub the system, nor was he expecting Jesus to do so. Rather, this Pharisee expected Jesus to practice the rituals that the Pharisees were known for. And not only here, but this is true elsewhere in the Gospels. And so again, I think the average Pharisee might have assumed Jesus to be sympathetic to their persuasion. And yet, at the same time, we must not understate the damning nature of the hypocrisy which plagued this particular group of Jews. The Pharisees were, by and large, guilty of putting on a religious show, as it were. They were, as the term hypocrite indicates, play actors, and their stage was the Judaism of Jesus' day. The Pharisees and the scribes were the epitome of ones whose light in them was actually darkness. And Jesus here wants them to see that. Jesus wants them to see the reality of their own spiritual bankruptcy. And so Jesus almost exclusively pronounced his woes upon this group of religious men, the Pharisees. And yet, we must be careful, brethren, not to make some sort of extraordinary and unique villain out of the Pharisees. A villain that exists in history only, whereby we can stand over them, looking down upon them, and judge and condemn them as though we are nothing like them. For in some ways, we are like the Pharisees. In fact, in some ways, we should aspire to be like them. For not all within the sect were equally worthy of our Lord's woes." To illustrate this, we might consider the description of the Pharisees that appears in the Talmud, that central text of Rabbinic Judaism, which speaks of seven types of Pharisee. Seven types of Pharisee. And these are summarized for us by the commentator, Robert Stein. First is the shoulder Pharisee who wears his good deeds on his shoulder for all to see. Second, the wait-a-little Pharisee who finds excuses for putting off a good deed. Thirdly, the bruised Pharisee who, to avoid looking at a woman, runs into walls. Fourthly, the pestle or hunched-over Pharisee who walks bent over in pretended humility. Fifthly, the ever-reckoning Pharisee who is always weighing his good deeds against his bad. But then the document as well speaks of, sixthly, the God-fearing Pharisee who lives in holy awe and fear of God. And lastly, the God-loving Pharisee who genuinely loves God from his heart. As the commentator Robert Stein concludes, the kind of commitment that leads to the finest piety is also frequently accompanied by hypocrisy. Neither Pharisaism nor Christianity is exempt from this unfortunate tendency. We must see, brethren, that their tendency is our tendency. And I would submit to you that while Luke's intention here in part is to portray for Theophilus in vivid detail just how it is that Jesus could be rejected by his own people and even murdered by those who seem to be the most devout among them, his supreme purpose, is not so much a history lesson, and certainly not to simply demonize the Pharisees, but rather Luke's aim here is to warn his Christian audience, to warn his Christian audience not to be found guilty of the same sin as the Pharisee, lest they face the same condemnation as the Pharisee. As Luke portrays Jesus here, pulling mankind from our snug burrow of self-righteousness, or complacency, or presumption, or nominalism, or empty ceremonialism, or comfy sentimentality. Jesus is exposing the spiritual reality of the kingdom of heaven that he is bringing. And he is actually insisting upon it. He is insisting upon it for all who would come after him. This passage is ultimately an attack not on a first century sect of Judaism, but on any attempt of outward empty piety that does not flow from a radical inward transformation. This passage is an attack on what Bonhoeffer dubbed cheap grace. Grace without price. Grace without cost. Grace as a mere doctrine, an intellectual assent. Justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. The preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline. communion without confession, grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Christ Jesus living and incarnate. Cheap grace that is worthy of woe. Let's turn to the account, verse 37. While Jesus was speaking a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and reclined a table and the Pharisee was astonished to see that Jesus did not first wash before dinner. that Jesus did not immerse before eating, presumably immerse his hands into or under water. The hand washing in view here is not a simple matter of proper hygiene as we think of it, but of ceremonial cleansing. For the Pharisee, defilement was something that was picked up as he went about his day out in the community, out in the world, and that defilement needed to be removed before eating, lest he take it into himself and defile his insides and thus leave him in a state of deep uncleanness. Thus does Jesus teach elsewhere. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person. Whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. And therefore our Lord responds here to this particular Pharisee, verse 39, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. The first half of Jesus' statement seems to highlight the absurdity of their hyper-focus on the external at the expense of the inward. You Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish. He likens their behavior concerning spiritual things to only washing the outside of a cup or a bowl, neglecting the parts of the dish that actually touch the food and then serving food in them to your guests, expecting it to be pure. Such is the tendency of the Pharisee with regards to spiritual things, with regards to their spiritual life. They focus almost exclusively on the outward, at the exclusion of the more important and foundational inward. Second half of 39, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. Again, this spiritual revolution that Jesus is bringing demands a radical transformation and not merely of outward reforms and certainly not of mere religious ceremonial expressions, but rather a radical transformation of the inner man is what is called for. For that is what Jesus is bringing. That is what Jesus is purchasing in his own blood. and affecting in the human souls to which he is pouring forth his grace. But inside you Pharisees are full of greed and wickedness. This first term greed speaks of pillaging or plundering. and the second of debauchery or malice. And so these Pharisees, while tending scrupulously to religious rites and ceremonies, are at the same time plundering the souls of men and doing so with malicious intent. They are full of greed and wickedness. They are, says our Lord, Fools, verse 40, you fools, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? Jesus here likens these religious elites of Judaism to the fool of Psalm 14.1, the fool who says in his heart, there is no God. For, asks Jesus, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? In other words, God is the God of the outward man as well as the inward man. He made both, he owns both, and he will have both. God made both the outward and the inward, and he is concerned with both. And the Bible is quite clear, actually, that God is chiefly concerned, not with the outward, but with the inward man. For from the inward, the outward will necessarily flow. And so God is concerned first with the inward. And this is made clear in both the New Testament and the Old Testament. In fact, an empty outward ceremonialism accompanied by a heart that is far from God was a major point of rebuke that came to the Jewish people from the prophets of old. Isaiah 29, 13, this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. And their fear of me is a commandment taught by men. And in this saying of Isaiah, our Lord reveals in Matthew 15 how the prophet was actually prophesying of the Pharisees of Jesus' day. God is the God of both the outward expression of religion as well as the inward reality of religion and he is concerned first with the inward. And so the lack of any concern among the Pharisees with regards to the inward, to what God is most concerned with, was effectively a declaration on their part that there is no God. In other words, it was foolishness. And so brethren, a lack of concern among us with regards to the inward, to what our God is most concerned with, is effectively a declaration on our part that there is no God. It is a form of functional atheism. For the God who made the outward made the inward also. He owns both and he will have both. He wants both. And he wants both to be clean. And so our Lord reasons both must be made clean. And so how are these greedy Pharisees to be made clean on the inside? Well, that is the topic of the very next verse, verse 41. But give as alms those things that are within. Make your almsgiving those things that are within you. And behold, everything is clean for you. Give, yes, but not in a manner as to be preoccupied with percentages, nor out of a mere obligation or some sort of divine coercion, nor with the very Jewish thought of the day that the giving of alms, that outward act would save and purge from sin as almsgiving indicated godliness. which if you think about it left the door wide open to a form of godliness and salvation apart from true inward transformation. Like that of the Pharisee in Luke 18 who prayed, I thank you Father that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and even like this tax collector, and why? Well because I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all that I get. Giving of the outward in this way leads to a mere outward expression of righteousness while inwardly the same one can remain full of greed, full of unrighteousness. And so Jesus says, don't give like that. Don't give merely of the outward, but give that which is within you. Give that which is in your heart. Give of your love. Give out of a heart of love and everything will be clean for you. Give of yourself. Give of what is in you. Do not give in a merely outward manner, but give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. The first of our Lord's woes is helpful here, I think, verse 42. But woe to you, Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. It is just as the Pharisee in Luke 18 says, they gave a tenth of all that they got, even apparently to the point of counting out a tenth of the leaves on their herb plants. And at the same time they neglected justice and the love of God. Justice and the love of God. And justice here is concerned with the plight of our fellow man, the have-nots. In other words, justice speaks of love for neighbor. And so in these two, justice and the love of God, you have the two greatest commandments upon which all the other commandments hang. Love for God and love for neighbor. And so give of these, says our Lord, to us. Give of these love for God and love for neighbor. It is not about meeting a certain percentage. It is simply about meeting the needs of others, loving on other people. out of a heart that treasures God above all else and whose generosity towards us we love to extend to others as we share in our love's concern for those who are the least among us. And so let us, brethren, always give from that which is within us. Give love. And all that we do, brethren, Let us be giving of our hearts. Let us be giving what is within us. And let us beware of disconnecting the outward from the inward, lest we fall into the same sin of the Pharisees and thus partake in their hypocrisy and therefore their condemnation. But what if I find that I lack within that which I need, that which I desire to give? Well, first of all, welcome to the club. And second, where do where do we suppose we must turn then in order to gain? But to Christ, we must turn to Jesus. I mean, if this Pharisee had only simply confessed of his unrighteousness and repented of his greed and turned to God and to Christ. Remember how Peter at the Jerusalem Council spoke of the Gentile believers who were chosen by God just as they, the Jews, had been. A fact to which God testified by pouring out his Holy Spirit upon them, having, says Peter, cleansed their hearts. by faith. It was God who cleansed their hearts and he did so by faith. So repent and believe on Jesus. Confess your lack and look to Christ for therein do we find cleansing of both the outside and more fundamentally the inside. Now what follows in this passage is a series of woes Six woes, in fact, the first which are leveled at the Pharisees and the last three at the lawyers or scribes, the so-called doctors of the law, those among them who were seen as experts in the law. These lawyers were essentially Pharisees, but more pointedly, these lawyers or scribes were the source, the source of the teachings and the traditions that the Pharisees were practicing. It was from these lawyers that the interpretations of the law and the applications of the law were coming down to the people. And so as Jesus begins to find fault with the pious expressions of the Pharisees, this lawyer can't help but feel at least an indirect assault on him. And so he complains to Jesus, verse 45, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. to which Jesus responds, well, woe to you also. And no longer is it an indirect assault on the lawyers. Now what is it exactly to pronounce a woe upon these hypocrites? Well, woe is an exclamation of grief, of grief. It is pity mixed with anger. It is sorrow mixed with judgment or condemnation. And therefore, this woe, I think, amounts to a warning, an earnest warning of impending destruction if one persists on their current path. It is a call to repent, to repent or else. And so within these walls I think we find our Lord pointing to particular ways in which these Pharisees and lawyers have fallen into their empty form of religion. And therefore they can serve us today as warnings of what to avoid, of what to turn from, of what not to do, and what to do in return, what to repent of, and where to seek our Lord's help is cleansing. We are given here in these Pharisees and lawyers the antithesis of what we ought to be. That we might avoid their sin and instead put on the positive ideal which stands directly opposite to them. So with that as our aim let us run through these six woes. First, verse 42, again, but woe to you Pharisees for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. The error here to which our Lord points is the way in which the Pharisees tended to major in the minors. They took the tithe to the extreme. As I mentioned before, apparently counting out the leaves on their individual herb plants, being sure to give a tenth of all that they were given. But the bigger concern, actually, was the danger that came with majoring in the minors and that is the tendency to also neglect the more important things. It wasn't that they were only majoring in the minors but that their hypervigilance with the minors was leading to their neglect of the majors. They were majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors. For you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. without neglecting the others. In other words, Jesus is not against them giving a tenth, even of their smallest plants, but not at the expense of those things which more profoundly characterize one's walk with God, such as love, love for God and love for neighbor. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Secondly, verse 30, verse 43, woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. In other words, these Pharisees fed upon the praises of men. That which was most important to them was that they were thought well of by other people. And what this really reveals, I think, is how their great love was not for God and for his glory, but for themselves and their own glory. That is what they loved most, themselves and their own glory. And that then is what they sought above all else. And so it had a way of coloring everything that they did as all that they did, they did to exalt themselves. Everything they did, they did with an eye to self. But 1 Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Thirdly, woe to you for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. Under the old covenant law, to touch a grave would render a man unclean for seven days. It was a severe form of defilement. And therefore, graves were to be well marked, and they were by whitewashing them. They were whitewashed in order that one couldn't accidentally wander onto a grave and defile themselves. by inadvertently walking over the grave. And to unmarked graves, Jesus now likens these Pharisees. And this would have been shocking to the Pharisees on a couple of levels. First, while the Pharisees consider themselves to be the epitome of cleanliness and strive with all their might to remain in that state of cleanliness, Jesus states how they are actually unclean. For they have not cleansed the inside of the cup, and so the light in them is really darkness. They are, as Jesus elsewhere states, like whitewashed tombs, white on the outside, but inside are an unclean corpse. And so ironically, it is these Pharisees here who are identified as the source of defilement among the people. And this too would have hit them hard. It is actually they, the Pharisees, who are the source of defilement among the people of God. As the people of God are looking to them, as those who are clean and upright, and thus follow after them, and in so doing the masses are inadvertently defiling themselves. They are following these hypocrites to destruction. And what a somber warning to us then to be sure that the light in us is really light and not darkness. And particularly those among us who would teach and lead and guide, we above all need to be majoring in the majors, loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and others as ourselves, doing all that we do not for our own aggrandizement, but to make much of Jesus, pointing souls always and ever to God and to Christ. 1 Corinthians 11.1, Be imitators of me, says Paul. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Fourthly, and he said, woe, verse 46, woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. These lawyers with their interpretations and their applications were loading the people up with burdensome demands. They had constructed a fence of tedious rules around the law of God, straining the gnat for others while themselves swallowing the camel. However, the charge here is not that they did not keep the law themselves, but that they refused to help others to keep it. Those others whom they burdened. Verse 46, you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. These men were to interpret the will of God for the people. And instead of doing that, they loaded them up with tedious rules and regulations, majoring in the minors. They missed altogether the weightier things, namely the will of God for the people. They searched the scriptures, thinking that in them they had eternal life. And the scriptures bore witness about Jesus. and yet they refused to come to Jesus that they may have life and thus they failed to lead the people to life in Christ. For their Messiah had come to them And he was saying to them, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and 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. Fifthly, verse 47, Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation. From the blood of Abel in Genesis, The first book of the Hebrew Bible, to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary, recorded in 2 Chronicles, the last book of the Hebrew Bible. These Pharisees and scribes loved to adorn the tombs of the prophets while at the same time as we have seen they refused to actually honor the prophets by heeding their words. And so Jesus here sort of flips the script on them stating how their fathers killed the prophets and they now affirm the evil deeds of their fathers by burying those same prophets. Their fathers killed them and they bury them. Or perhaps put another way, these hypocrites, like their fathers, prefer prophets who are dead. For dead prophets are safer for the hypocrite. And this is evidenced in what they are soon to do regarding Jesus and later would do with those whom Jesus sent to bear witness about him. The term martyr actually refers simply to one who bears witness. However, because of the faith of so many of those who bore witness to Jesus in the first century, martyr came to stand for one who actually was killed for their testimony. So it is that many, and in particular religious hypocrites, prefer prophets who are dead. These Pharisees and scribes could not tolerate living prophets for they threatened them as they called them to account. And this brings to mind the advice of one old preacher, a dead prophet. His advice to spend much time in those areas of God's word that cut and hurt us most. to spend much time in those areas of God's word that cut and hurt us the most. Let us never brethren get in the habit of avoiding that word of God which cuts us and hurts us. We need to be ever subjecting ourselves to the living and active word and letting it have its appointed effect upon us. And we need living prophets We need living prophets as well as those who have gone on before us speaking to us the words of eternal life. Sixthly, verse 52, woe to you lawyers for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. Again these lawyers and scribes were the interpreters of God's word and therefore the key of knowledge here would be the key to understanding the scriptures. And again they searched the scriptures thinking that in them they had eternal life and the scriptures bore witness about Jesus. Yet they refused to recognize their Messiah even as he stood before them. They refused to come to Jesus that they may have life and thus they failed to lead the people to life in Christ. These lawyers these interpreters of the scripture were the ones they were the ones who were adapted to reveal Jesus in the Old Testament. And as he appeared before them to recognize him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. They were the interpreters, the doctors of the law. But instead of opening the eyes of the people to truth, to the glory of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all the promises of old, instead of using the key to open up the scriptures to the people, to open up the fullness of the mystery of God that had been hidden for ages, They instead locked up the glory of the gospel in their burdensome and tedious interpretation and application of God's law and threw away the key. They locked it up and threw away the key. To them was given to lead the people to the Christ who had now appeared to proclaim with the Baptist Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. May their failure and their judgment serve only to increase in each of us a sense of gravity, brethren, and urgency to ourselves lay hold of this Christ and to point others only and ever to this Christ and Him crucified to gospel truth. Amen.