If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I invite you and encourage you to open with me and turn in the Gospel of Luke to Luke chapter 11. We'll read this morning verses 37 through 54. As Jesus is shown hospitality by this Pharisee, and as they get perhaps more than they bargained for, as they have a conversation with Christ, and Christ exposes their heart. As we've been working our way through this little mini-series of Christ with His people, here we come as Christ deals with these Pharisees, these lawyers, and these scribes, And yet we note that there is a word for us and we see the heart of Christ open towards sinners like us here in this passage. So we come to read Luke chapter 11 verses 37 through 54. Remind you that this is the very true and errant and infallible word of our God. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he 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 Pharisees 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 he 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 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 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, laying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say. Thus far, the reading of the Lord's Word. Please join me again in prayer. Our great God, what a privilege it is to sit under the reading and the preaching of Your Word. And yet, in our sin, how unteachable we often are, how incorrigible we are to the truths of Your Word, to the diagnostic and the surgical work that Christ, our High Priest, does upon our minds and our hearts to convict us of sin, not in order that we should despair of salvation, that we might run to him and find our only hope of salvation in him alone. We pray that as we unfold even briefly these verses this morning, that they would meet their intended aim and their desire, that they would pierce our consciences and our hearts, that we would listen in faith, and that you would grant us your spirit in this time to discern these things. And we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. A number of years ago, I don't know if you were familiar with it, but there was something very popular out on the internet called penny auctions. And the way that these penny auctions ran is that they had these goods that you could bid on, and you would only raise the bid by one cent. And the catch with this is that there was no time limit or expiration on it, and so you continued to bid one penny higher until hopefully nobody bid, and then you were able to get this prize. Well, being a relatively impulsive person, as I was informed about these penny auctions, I went and visited a site, and sure enough, I found something that I really wanted. And I thought, well, this is great. This is only going to cost me a couple cents. And so I started bidding one penny after another. And people continued to bid against me. And I continued to bid more. And the thing with these is that when you bid, you actually paid that. It wasn't only the winner that got the prize. But I thought, this is great. I'm going to get this for cheaper than I could get it in the store. And before I knew it, I was bidding against all sorts of people, and that price was going up and up and up and up and up, until eventually it passed the price of the product in the store. And to my dismay, I thought, what have I done? I have been so stupid. that I was blinded by this thought of getting this item that I wanted at a super cheap cost. And I thought, this is going to satisfy me, this is going to be delightful. And yet I failed to perceive that this was a fraud, that this was a facade, that this was a trap that was trying to bring me in and to sucker me out of all of my money. Indeed, at some point, I believe it was my wife who came up to me, and not in anger or frustration, but said, Michael, you really need to stop bidding on this stupid product. And as I heard those words from her, it didn't strike me as though she were frustrated or angry with me, but rather that this was my wife being incredibly merciful to me, that it was her caring for me and showing me what I couldn't see in my impulsivity, that this was fake, that this was a fraud, that this was a waste to be spending my money on. Indeed, it was my wife who was mercifully protecting me from being deceived and being dazzled and distracted by this relatively cool product that was coming with supposedly a low price tag. You see, how often we need people in our lives to mercifully protect us. to tell us that these things of the world, that some of these vain imaginations and thoughts that we have, that these aren't real, that these aren't helpful, that they're not beneficial, but that they are fake, that they can be very destructive. Thankfully for me, I was just out a little bit of money, but there are some things that we buy into that have eternal consequences. And it's true that just as in life, so in the Christian life and in the life of faith, we often need people to protect us mercifully and kindly through rebukes and through sharpness to unveil our eyes to those things that would otherwise deceive and dazzle us. Now as we come to this particular section of scripture this morning, as Jesus confronts these Pharisees and these lawyers, this is exactly what Jesus is doing. Not only for the Pharisees and the lawyers themselves, but perhaps even more for his disciples and for those like us who have the opportunity to read what it is that Jesus says here, that Jesus as our merciful high priest is unveiling the mask of the religiosity and of the folly of legalism. And he speaks in such sharp words in order to draw us back that we wouldn't be dazzled, that we wouldn't be distracted, that we wouldn't be deceived. by the false faith of these Pharisees and of these lawyers. Now, as we come to these verses this morning, there are just several points that we wish to draw upon. And the first point, as we meditate upon these verses and look into them, is that we first have a display of the legalism that these Pharisees and that these lawyers were living by. Now, most of us are familiar with who these Pharisees and these lawyers were. These lawyers weren't those who we commonly think of as lawyers today who arbitrate and prosecute and defend people in the courtroom. But the Pharisees and the lawyers, they were of the religious elite. They were the teachers. They were the instructors. They were the rabbis. They were the people that were journeying from synagogue to synagogue and opening the Word of God and teaching people what God's Word had to say. These were people that were highly esteemed within the religious community of the Jews here in the first century. And as Jesus comes, he confronts these well-to-do, these well-respected and honorable religious leaders, and he confronts them to show them that their faith is nothing but a pile of legalism. A very strict definition of legalism in theological terms is that legalism is our attempting to earn God's acceptance through our own works or through our own righteousness by what we do. And that's what these Pharisees and what these lawyers stand condemned for here. It is through their works, that it was through their righteousness that they were trying to earn God's favor and acceptance with Him. You know, it is true that in Jesus' day, just as well as today, that legalism is often misunderstood. And if you've been in the church long enough and you've kept your ear to the ground in Christian circles long enough, you know that many people misunderstand how legalism is displayed in the lives of people. This often happens either through ignorance or through inaccuracy. And it is common today to think that legalism is simply equated with loving or regarding or obeying the law of God. That if we begin to speak of the law of God, or we begin to say, you know, as followers of Christ, there are things that Christ commands of us, there are duties that we owe unto God, People, particularly in evangelical circles, are very quick to say, whoa, that's legalism. Don't tell me what I need to do. Don't talk to me about law. Just give me all gospel, all grace. Jesus has done it. And I can't tell you how many times I've been labeled as a legalist, how many times our church has been labeled as a legalist, how many times I've labeled other people as legalists. Because by nature, we don't like these imperatives. But we need to remember that legalism is not having a regard or obeying or a love for the law of God. That as Christians, we ought to regard the law of God. We ought to love the law of God. We ought to see the law of God as our great joy, as the Spirit infuses grace in us to keep this and to walk in these commandments. If regarding and obeying and loving the law is legalism, then David, the king of Israel, stands condemned. Because you think of that glorious Psalm 119 that is nothing but a love owed to the law of God and to all the joy that he finds in the commandments of God. That if loving and regarding and obeying the law of God and being told to obey it, if these things are legalism, Jesus is guilty. As Jesus told his disciples, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And if loving and regarding and obeying the law of God is legalism, then Jesus himself ought to be condemned, because here was one who loved God's law far more than any of us, and who obeyed God's law down to its most meticulous iota, more than we ever could have. So legalism is not simply a revering or an obeying or a loving the law of God. Rather, legalism is often better displayed in the attitudes towards faith. And that's what Jesus condemns here, is that he looks at these Pharisees and these lawyers, and he draws out their particular attitude towards faith. And he says, don't you see that the way that you understand faith, that this displays you're legalists, that you have misunderstood the gospel, that you have misunderstood grace, that you have misunderstood your relation to the law of God and to all that God is. And we see that Jesus condemns at least five particular attitudes of faith that these Pharisees and that these lawyers have. You note first there in verse 39 that theirs was a legalistic faith because their faith, rather than exposing sin, it hid sin. And Jesus speaks to these Pharisees in verse 39 and he says to them, now you Pharisees, you 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 his alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you." Of course, Jesus is playing on these words here, that as he came to sit down for the supper, that he didn't wash his hands, and that Pharisee stood shocked. You know, Jesus, how can you not wash your hands? And Jesus uses this to draw out this spiritual analogy that their faith was one that didn't reveal sin, that didn't expose sin, but that their faith, their religiosity was one that sought to cover up their sins. These Pharisees had attempted to make themselves look all pious and devotional and holy and good on the outside while they neglected the innermost parts. That they failed to understand that God desires and delights in truth in the inmost being. That these were those who thought we can, as long as we have this facade of religiosity and holiness, well then it doesn't matter what's on the inside. And inside they were filled with greed, they were filled with wickedness. Theirs was a faith that hid sin rather than exposing sin. Jesus says this is a fraudulent faith, that this isn't what you have been called to, to simply put on an outward appearance in a form of godliness. You've been called to repent even of your internal sins and of all those things that wage war within you. We see secondly that Jesus condemns another attitude in their faith, and that is that they were heartless towards God, and they were heartless towards the things of God. In verse 42, Jesus says, 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. And Jesus condemns their faith here as a legalistic faith, as a fraudulent faith because again while on the outward appearances they were religious and they were devoted and they were pious, I mean going through even their spice cupboard and tithing of these things and giving to the priests and to the Levites and to those who served at the altar And yet Jesus says that in all of these duties that you perform, look what you've neglected. You are heartless in your religion. You are heartless in your faith. You have no inward affection or love for God or for the things of God like justice and mercy that you ought to be concerned about doing these things as well. Now these Pharisees, they stand as an example of how far one may be perceived to go in their paths of devotion, pining at how far short they could fall because their giving and their sacrifice and their service wasn't born out of a genuine affection and love for God and all that God is and all that God has given to them and a thankful heart giving back to Him. But it was done through an unaffected heart. was done through a heart that disregarded the love of God and the justice of God. It was a heartless faith. And yet Jesus goes on even more. And he condemns another aspect of the attitude of their faith. And that is that they highly esteemed themselves, particularly in the presence of others. And again, we see that in verse 43, as Jesus says, 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. These Pharisees, that their faith is being exposed to be fraudulent here because they puff themselves These were the religious elite. These were the people who loved to go down Main Street and be praised and lauded by everyone who wore their vestments and who wore their titles and their offices on their sleeves, who loved to be adored by the crowds and by the people. As Jesus condemned them elsewhere, that these were the people that would go and stand on the street corners and they would make long prayers as a show so the people would be dazzled by the prayers that they were uttering. That these were people that when they went into the synagogues that they demanded the best seat and the seat of honor and the people flocked to them and esteemed them and looked highly upon them. That these were people who were puffed up in all of their pride and in all of their arrogance that they had failed to see that the very heart and the nature of faith is that it's meant to humble us. That as Paul would later write to the church in Rome, that we ought not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but we ought to think of ourselves according to the measure of faith that God himself has distributed to each of us. These were men who put themselves forward in the king's presence to stand in the place of greatness, furthered their own platforms and their own popularity amongst the people. Jesus says, for all of this, your faith is useless. This isn't a true faith, it's a fraudulent faith. And he goes even further, and he now condemns the lawyers. Maybe I'm the only weird one here, but you almost chuckle at what happens in verses 45 and 46, that here Jesus is reclining at the house of a Pharisee, and he's just called these three woes down on these Pharisees, and some lawyer hotshot decides to stand up and tell Jesus he's offended. And he says, teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. And you know that Jesus doesn't give ground, that Jesus doesn't go, I guess I spoke too quickly. But it's like Jesus seizes upon the opportunity, and what do we have in verse 46? But he says, yeah, 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. And we see that these lawyers stand in league with these Pharisees because they as well, they're hindering other people's joy in Christ and in God by heaping up unbiblical burdens upon their shoulders. For those of us who are familiar with Judaism and the sect of Pharisees and what these lawyers spoke of, right, we know something of these burdens. Now, these were people that had every law of God drawn out to every maximal conclusion, to every little fine and nuanced thing about what you can do and what you can't do and how many steps you can take on the Sabbath. And if you take just one more step, well, then you are in violation of the Sabbath and resting on the Sabbath. And these were people who had all these little intricate details and these burdens and these ideas and these opinions and these preferences. And where they erred is that they loaded these up onto the backs of other people, and they said, if you're going to be faithful, if you're going to be a follower of God, then you need to do this, and you need to do that. And they took the traditions and the commandments of men, and they heaped it up upon people's shoulders. And they said, here, this is how you're a good follower of God. And Jesus says, even of these burdens, you yourself don't even touch them. You yourself can't even bear these burdens. But you continue to afflict people. You continue to hinder other people's joy in following me and in following God by esteeming all of your preferences and elevating these to the standards of holiness and piety and devotion. Now one, perhaps, as Reformed people, strikes us right between the eyes. Because how easy it is to take our opinions, and to take our preferences, and to take things that the Bible has not commanded of us, and to raise those things as the standard of piety and devotion that others must live up to, even though we ourselves are unable to live up to it. You think, even at the founding of our denomination back in 1936, of the great controversy that arose between us and the faction that eventually split, that there were some who said, as a denomination, we need to outlaw all forms of alcohol. We need to be a teetotaling congregation. And the OPC said, we have no problem calling drunkenness a sin, but we cannot bind consciences by saying that alcohol is forbidden by God, because he hasn't forbidden it. And this is an issue not only within our denomination, but that arose out of fundamentalism that arose within evangelical circles. You think of the way that people do this nowadays when we speak of a particular genre of music that Christians must listen to. You can't listen to those godless genres, but you need to listen to Christian contemporary music or whatever it is. We see this in the superstitions that we buy into, that we think builds us up and makes us more pious and that other people ought to live, dare I pick, on holidays that aren't commanded in the word of God. I've had people that stand shell-shocked when I tell them we don't have a Christmas service. We esteem and we raise and we elevate preferences, health foods, health diets, what people ought to be wearing to church, what kind of cars they ought to be driving, what kind of entertainment they should or shouldn't be partaking in that isn't necessarily sinful. We are amazing at baptizing our opinions and our preferences as a thus saith the Lord. And Jesus exposes that heart amongst these lawyers here, and he says, don't you see? When you do this, you hinder other people's joy and freedom in serving me. You weigh them down. You weigh them down by commandments and customs and traditions that I have not commanded, that my father has not commanded, and who do you think you are? That you have a license to require of my people what I don't. require of them. And so he exposes their hindering other people's joy in serving Christ. And fifthly, we see that what they do is that they also pay very little heed to the Word of God. And just by sheer verses alone, this is the one that Christ spends the most time on as he addresses it there between verses 48 and 52. And he accuses these lawyers, and he says that, you know what you've done? You've killed the prophets and the apostles that God has sent to you. Now, we need to understand that Jesus isn't accusing them there of physically killing these people. They weren't alive when Abel walked the earth. They weren't alive when Zechariah was struck down between the altar and the sanctuary. What Jesus is saying is that your attitude towards My word is the same attitude of those throughout the Old Testament who scorned it and who reviled it and who paid very little heed and attention to what I had spoken. You people have taken the key of knowledge. You have no regard for the word of God and for the scriptures and for the truths that they convey. You turn people away from the Word of God and in so doing you are killing the prophets and you are joining in league with those who had scorned the Word of God and had no regard for it. So you are guilty of this. The blood of these prophets is upon your hands because you think that you can minister, because you think that you can teach, because you think that you can stand upon anything other than My Word. You have rejected the Word that I have spoken to you from heaven, you have rejected the those that I have sent, and you have hindered others from understanding, and you have kept them from knowing my truth and my word." Jesus says this is a fraudulent faith. So we see throughout these verses that Jesus puts on display the legalism of these Pharisees and of these lawyers. that he exposes the deceitfulness of their faith and where they erred. The second thing that we ought to note here, by way of application, is the dangerous desire for legalism. The dangerous desire for legalism. Now, I don't know about you, but I have never met a single individual who has claimed to be a legalist. I don't think these Pharisees and these lawyers would have raised their hand and said, guilty as charged. All right, this is a Christianese word that we use to insult other people. I remember a number of years ago, there was a man who was attending our church. He wasn't a member, and he was as close to legalist as I have ever seen in my life. He was all about works and earning salvation and doing all these things on his own grounds. And at one point, I called him out, and I said, you're a legalist. Even this guy was offended. And he said, I'm no legalist. Don't call me that. That's inappropriate. Nobody wants to be called a legalist. We all know that the scriptures condemn it. No heretic, no false teacher, no false prophet has ever enjoyed this title. And that can make it incredibly difficult to discern, especially within ourselves. Because we don't want to be known as a legalist, and we don't want our faith exposed as being a faith of legalism. But for something that is so offensive to the hearts and the ears and the heads of so many of God's people, we must see that legalism is not one of those fringe dangers that only a few people are prone to fall into. You think of the way in which The danger of legalism even infiltrated the ranks of the apostles. Here in Galatians we read that some certain men from James came to Peter after Jesus had died and after he was offering salvation to Jew and to Gentile and these certain people from Peter. We read that they led Peter and Barnabas astray. The Peter and Barnabas bought into this Judaizing legalism, thinking that the Gentiles, we can't have table fellowship with them if they want to come into the folds of grace and of salvation, and they have to follow the customs and the traditions of what it meant to be a Jew. They need to be circumcised. Even one like Peter and Barnabas fell into this. We think of the way in which Paul himself notes that in the end times it is a sign of the last days, that legalism is going to be increasing, that it is going to be rampant. We read 2 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 5 this morning in our first reading of Scripture. And you note what Paul says there. That he warns Timothy, the young minister, he says, in the last days there will come times of difficulty. And people are going to be lovers of self. They're going to be lovers of money. They're going to be proud and arrogant and abusive and disobedient to their parents and ungrateful and unholy and heartless and unappeasable. They'll be slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving. They're not going to be good. They're going to be treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And as an umbrella to condemn all these things, Paul says, listen, they're going to have the appearance of godliness, but they're going to deny its power. There are few biblical words that define the heart of legalism as much as Paul there in 2 Timothy 3 finds. The appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Legalism is not some fringe danger that only a few are apt to fall into. But legalism tugs and it pulls at the hearts and the minds of all of God's people. Because though we say we hate legalism, we all have a Pharisee in our own hearts. that earnestly desires legalism. You see, we desire legalism because of the character of legalism. Because if we're legalists, we look really godly. As Paul says, we have the appearance of godliness. And we are seen by other people as those who are pious. who are known for our devotion, who are known for our quasi-shallow commitment to the Word of God, that legalism carries the character not only of piety, but it seems to be powerful and persuasive in the hearts and the minds of other people. We were living in Jesus' day, and we had Jesus on the one hand, and we had these religious elite. On the other hand, it's likely that we would esteem the religious elite. We would say, those are the guys that we aspire to be like. Those are the ones that are persuading us. These are our cultural heroes and icons of the faith. That legalism appears to be so pleasant. There are so many Christians that fall into a legalistic heart. Why? Because they think, well, this is the safe route to take. This is to keep me from going in slippery places. This is in the words of Paul as he wrote to the Colossians. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. These indeed have an appearance of wisdom, but they do nothing against the indulgence of the flesh. They promote a self-made religion and aestheticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in doing anything to stop the corruption of the flesh. But it looks safe, and it looks secure, and it looks good, and it looks pleasant, and it looks pleasing, and it looks desirable. And so there's this tug on our hearts, just as there was on these Pharisees and these lawyers, to desire the character of legalism that we might look good. We might look like outstanding citizens, that we might look like really high and esteemable Christians. And we only desire it further because of the comfort that legalism gives to us. Brings a comfort so that we can feel good about ourselves. To have a checklist Christianity. Remember in high school, I worked at a restaurant. And as a teenager who had a relatively poor work ethic, all I wanted was a checklist of those things that I needed to do. Just tell me exactly what I need to do, where I need to be, how I need to speak, what I need. And as long as I get that checklist done, I could sit back smiling and comfortable and think, I'm a great employee. They told me to do this, I'm going to do that. They told me to do this, I'm going to do that. They told me to do this, check that off. I guarantee you, if my employer hadn't told me to do something, there's no way I was about to do it. I was comfortable knowing that. I was comfortable going home after a long shift and saying, I did everything that my manager told me to. I'm sure I'm going to get a good PR review and probably get that $0.10 raise that they promise you every six months. See, in the Christian life and faith, legalism is comforting. Because legalism looks at us and it says, you've done your duty. You can check it off your list. Nothing more needs to be required or expected or asked of you. And if anybody wants to challenge you, just whip out your little checklist and say, I got it all. I read my Bible this morning. I prayed. I showed hospitality a week ago. And that's comforting. It's comforting to our sinful flesh to be able to look at the Lord and say, I attended church today. Now the rest of the day is mine to do as I please. It's comforting to look at those who are in need and say, I paid my weekly offer. My money is now mine to spend on me and what I want, on my pleasures. It's comforting to say, I loved my neighbor yesterday, so I'm off the hook today. It's comforting to say, I've done my prayers, and I've read my Bible, and now I can indulge in trivial entertainment for the rest Legalism is so comforting because it gives us a threshold. And it quantifies the life of faith because it gives us a list of duties and nothing more. So we earnestly desire to have a legalistic faith. And we also desire legalism because of its cost. Because it costs nothing. Because legalism doesn't require repentance of sins. Legalism doesn't require that we seek the forgiveness that Christ alone can give to us so that we forgive others. Legalism doesn't require that sacrificial, serving love that Christ exemplified in the extent of his life and has called us to. It doesn't cost us our pride in that we cast ourselves in humility and dust and ashes. Legalism costs none of our comfort. It never moves us into an uncomfortable position. Legalism doesn't even need the gospel. Legalism doesn't need a savior who has lived and who has died, who has been raised to the newness of life and now sits at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. It is a faith that is content without Christ. It is a faith that is content without the life and the death of Christ. It is a faith that is content without the spirit. It is an easy faith. And it is an easy believism. And it is an easy life to be a legalist. to think that we are Christians while denying the internal and in-working power of the Spirit. It is a faith that allows us to live for ourselves and for the things of this world while feigning and faking a faith in Jesus Christ and a commitment to God. It is so easy to look down on these Pharisees and these lawyers and think, how thick-headed were they? They don't understand this. But what a dangerous desire legalism is, as it infiltrates our hearts and minds so subtly, with serpentine wisdom, in order that it could devour us. And so thirdly, this morning, what we see is Jesus' denouncement of a legalistic faith. You cannot escape, in the course of these verses, the single most repeated word that comes from the lips of Jesus. And it is, woe. Woe unto you, Pharisees. Woe unto you, Pharisees. Woe unto you, lawyers. Six times in the course of these verses, Jesus calls down these woes upon the head of these legalistic people. Now the biblical and the Greek word for woe here, this is a word that is evocative. It is a word that is powerful. It is a word that is pregnant with meaning. And it is easy to miss, not only because we don't know our English as well as we ought to, but because it doesn't have the same force as it does in the Greek. But this word woe, these three letters are invested with a depth of meaning that we cannot overlook, particularly as it opens the heart of Christ towards burdened and legalistic Christians. Because this denouncement of Christ, this word woe communicates simultaneously first that Jesus makes a pronouncement of immense disapproval for these people and what they're doing. This is, woe is a word of curse. It is not a word of blessing. It is a word of malediction, not a word of benediction. And Christ expresses, with the highest possible term that he can, the disdain for such shallow religiosity amongst those who claim to love him and to follow him, a disdain for a legalistic faith. And he says in no uncertain terms, your faith means nothing to me. I don't approve of anything that you are doing. There is nothing commendable in a legalistic faith. Now, it is striking when we think and when we place ourselves into the shoes of these Pharisees and lawyers that I think it is fair to say these men were not intentionally and consciously subverting the truth of God. Much like German liberalism in the 20th century. That as these liberals made a wreck of Orthodox faith, that they were not subconsciously dismantling the scriptures, they thought they were doing a service to God. And it's true that these Pharisees and these lawyers were not these conscious people that were going around and saying, we're going to subvert the truth of God, and we're going to subvert the grace of God. We're going to make a wreck of people's faith. Here we are. We are these gunslingers. We're going to blast everybody away and apart from God, because that's what we're trying to do is destroy the kingdom of God. But that these were people who were intentionally trying to do what was within them and what they thought was right to promote the kingdom of God. You think in very similar terms as Jesus warns his disciples in John 16 that there's coming a day when whoever kills you, they're going to think that they're offering to God service. And these Pharisees, something very similar can be said of them, that they thought they were pleasing to God. And what does Christ say here? Pleasing. Pleasing? There is nothing pleasing about your religiosity. There is nothing pleasing about your heartless religion. There is nothing pleasing about you heaping up burdens on people's shoulders to hinder their joy in Christ. There is nothing pleasing in you heeding the word of God. There is nothing commendable here but only condemnation. And what a stark reminder this is to us. that God and Christ will not be worshiped by our self-willed additions or subtractions from his word. Christ is not pleased by our imagined piety or by our imagined good works. As our confession of faith reminds us in chapter 16, paragraph 1, good works are only such as God has commanded in his holy word. And not such as without the warrant thereof are devised by men out of blind zeal or upon any pretense of good intention. In this word, woe, what we see first is that Jesus pronouncedly disapproves in the highest degree of the faith of those who would embrace legalism. But a second thing that this word, woe, conveys to us is that it is a profoundly pitiful denouncement. It is a profoundly pitiful denouncement. As we read six times that Jesus declares, woe. This word ought to be read as a cry of pain and anguish. It's a word that is used in other places in the New Testament to speak of the pains that a woman feels in labor. All those of you who have given birth, you know as painful that there is anguish that is accompanied with it. This is the word that Jesus uses of those who are rich in this world, and he says, woe to you, that this is what Paul speaks of when he says, woe unto me if I preach not the gospel. It is a burden, it is an affliction, it is painful, and that's what has led some interpreters to say, as Jesus calls these woes, rather than saying, woe to you, it ought to be woe unto you. that by this word Jesus reveals that legalism weighs heavily upon his heart. And why is that? Because the things of faith and the things of hope and the things of love aren't meant to be burdensome to his people. These things aren't supposed to be a drudgery, that the life of faith, and that the hope of faith, and that the love of faith, and that the joy of faith isn't supposed to feel like we're being weighed down in this life, and that we're living this killjoy, and this despicable life, and this burdensome life, and that this is just me picking up my foot one day after another, trudging my way to glory, feeling all these man-made traditions, and godless opinions, and unreachable preferences. Jesus laments here because legalism is a harsher taskmaster than Christ himself. And the high priest who has spread his arms and he has declared, come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is light, my burden is easy. But legalism kills the vitality of life, and the strength of faith, and the love of faith, and in great compassion. Jesus looks upon these Pharisees, and these lawyers, and those who are caught in the throngs of legalism. And he sympathizes. And he pities them. And he's sorrowful over what has taken them captive. Christ pities the soul that is burdened by legalism. Thirdly, this word woe also conveys to us a prophetic denouncement. It's not just a disapproval or a word of pity, but it is the strongest word of condemnation, and it is a foretaste of the coming judgment for all those who persist in legalistic ways. Christ wasn't known too often in the extent of his earthly ministry to call down woes. Even less rarely did he call down woes upon individuals. But here to these Pharisees and to these lawyers, he calls down this woe of the coming wrath and the coming indignation and condemnation that they can expect at the final judgment if they persist in this way. And why is it that Jesus hates with the utmost of his being a legalistic faith? It's because ultimately legalism, in any of its forms, in all of its forms, it steals from the work and from the grace of Jesus Christ. Because it is approaching salvation with Christ in one hand, and our works in the other hand, and trying to bring these two together. Or even more, it could be holding Christ with both hands in our works, even with just our little pinky finger and trying to slide that in there. And what it does is it distorts salvation, it distorts grace. It has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Legalism is nothing but an abuse of grace. It is a substituting, it is an adding to the perfect and the accomplished work of Jesus Christ on behalf of his people. And if Christ is going to be our Savior, then He will be our only Savior. And He will not share that glory with another. And so He pronounces and He denounces these woes upon the heads of these Pharisees and these lawyers because they think otherwise. And this woe rests upon the head of any minister who would think otherwise. And this woe rests upon the head of any Christian who would think otherwise that we can add to the completed and the accomplished and the sufficient and the perfect and the glorious work of Jesus Christ. He will be all of our Savior or He will be none of our Savior. And any who dare to hold on to even the slightest remnant of legalism, when they come and they dare to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, holding on to their works as accomplishing something in their justification before God, they will hear nothing but the word of woe from Christ himself. Woe to you, for you have rejected the gospel. You have rejected the grace that was freely offered to any who would come and embrace it by faith alone. So brothers and sisters, we see so clearly in these verses. Christ holds himself for it. It's all that we need. And an invitation to come to him and to come to him by faith alone. to embrace him and nothing else as he is freely offered to us in the gospel. He unmasks for us the deceitfulness of a legalistic faith that we might not be dazzled, that we might not be distracted by it, but that we might come and cast all of our hope and all of our assurance and all of our faith upon him who is more than able. to justify the ungodly. Amen. Please join me in prayer. Our gracious and merciful Lord, and our wonderful high priest, how we thank you for the truth of your word, and that it convicts, and that it exposes, and it lays us bare not to leave us helpless, but to drive us to the only one who can offer us measurable help in the time of need. We confess, O Lord, that all too often sins and temptations buffet our faith, and they pull and they tug at our hearts. And we thank you, O Christ, that you have not spared our feelings, that you have unmasked such deceits in order that we might be drawn to you in the freeness of grace through faith alone. We pray that you would remind us that faith is not a burdensome life, that it is not one that is meant to inhibit or to enslave us. But if the Son of Man has set us free, then we are free indeed. We thank you for your word and for the truths of it that we can contend mightily for them. And may you purge from within our hearts and our minds every remnant of self-willed religion, in every area where we add the commandments and the traditions of men. Our consciences would be bound to the word of God alone. We thank you, O Christ, that you are our priest, interceding for us and showing us the way of salvation. Grant us the humility that we need to walk in faithfulness. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.