So if you would, I invite you to take your Bibles, since we are in church after all, and open them up to Mark 12. We haven't read our text yet this morning in our service, so let me do that for us. Mark 12, starting in verse 38 through 44. Mark 12, 38 through 44. And in his teaching he said, Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." Now for those of you visiting with us this morning, I don't want you to think it's the first of the month, so It's time to remind everybody to give to the church. That's not what the sermon is about this morning. We're actually nearing the end of the public ministry of Christ, believe it or not, in Mark's gospel. I'm not saying he doesn't say anything else. He does it to his disciples and to those around him. But his public ministry is ending this morning and with him teaching the crowds. And from here on out, it's private teaching of the disciples and, of course, the trial and his death. So this morning, Mark sets a text before us, two of them, and it displays for us two things, a picture of false religion and a picture of true religion. So it's your task this morning to understand two things. First, once again, who Jesus is. That's the most important. And secondly, who you are. Which picture that we're going to paint this morning using this brush demonstrates who you are. Which one are you? A false religion or a true religion person? Are you the hypocrite or are you the humble? So let me remind you the context again before we get into that. It's been a month or so since we've been in this text. Jesus has been demonstrating that he really is the Messiah. That's what his public ministry has been about. By riding triumphantly into Jerusalem, heading straight for the temple, He's judged the religion of the day, he's talked to the leaders, he's overturned the money tables, and he's caused quite a scene. Now from there he was faced with what seemed to be an endless barrage of questions, right? Intended to trick him, or to trap him, or to tear down his credibility altogether. And yet each one of those questions has been met by the Lord Jesus Christ and answered either directly or indirectly in a way that has confounded his opponents to silence. And then eventually, to the point where Mark records for us that no one dared to ask him any more questions. Then it was his turn to ask a question. And the question that he asked was a riddle. That's what we went through last time. That not only demonstrated who he was, but also put to shame the scribes. Now Jesus uses Psalm 110, if you remember, in the verses prior to our text this morning, verses 35 to 37. which read, And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself in the Holy Spirit declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him gladly. Jesus, for all intents and purposes, has basically entrenched himself in the temple. And he drove out the livestock, and he drove out the money changers, and he scattered those who with pride plotted against him. But he himself is not going to be driven out of God's house, out of his father's house. Not by the scheming of men, not by their foolishness, not by their questions, because he has a purpose. For although he is David's son, he is yet even greater, because he is David's Lord. So that brings us to our text this morning. And although I stopped at verse 37 last time, we have to understand that the text doesn't stop there. When we stop on Sunday mornings, usually it's not because Jesus stopped, it's because we're out of time or there's too much to cover. So this is a continuation of the David's son riddle that we talked about. Now, verses 38 and 39. And in his teaching, he said, Beware of the scribes. who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts." I'll stop there momentarily. Now the first thing I want to point out to you is that Mark tells us these comments were in his teaching. This was not just his opinion. This was not just him spouting off things against the scribes. It says this is within his teaching. As he's teaching them who he is, the Psalm 110 about being the Messiah, he includes in his teaching or in his doctrine this warning of beware of the scribes. Again, it was not just his opinion. It was not just a random insight. Saying, oh yeah, by the way, I'm seeing these guys walk around, beware of them. It's actually in his teaching. It was part of the instruction that he was giving this great crowd of people that were listening to him. He was giving a command. Beware. Beware of the scribes. The very same scribes he has just confounded with this riddle about who he is and who David's son is. So I want to review this for a moment. Who is this class of people that Jesus is warning the crowd about to be aware of? Well, it's the scribes. The scribes were experts in handling written documents in Israel. The duty of the scribe was as follows. It included teaching, interpretation, and regulation of the law. That's why we call scribes lawyers. They were experts in Israel's law, in handling the documents, in handling Moses' scrolls. That's why it's okay to call them lawyers, so I'll use that term interspersedly here. Again, they were experts in the legal documents, experts in interpreting the law, or so they thought. A very intelligent, a very civilized group of men. Now you would think that because of this, because they knew the law the way that they did, because they settled all these cases, and they copied down all the letters of the law, and handling the legal documents that they did, and sitting over God's commands, that it would humble them, just knowing the vast majority of commands that God had given them. That they measured themselves up against the law, you would think that that would make them humble and contrite, knowing that these commands that they were given, there's no way they could measure up. But instead, that wasn't the case. What happened was it seemingly puffed them up and made them prideful. And it was because of their pride that they became hypocrites. They became proud of what they wore. They wore these long flowing robes that the scribes and the Pharisees were to wear. But instead of making a mark of this as someone who knows the law, they wore them around like, look at me, I know the law. Instead of having other people mark them, they marked themselves. They became proud. They loved the greetings that they received in the marketplaces. They loved the fact that they could walk into a market and people would recognize who they were. They were very proud of their honored seats. They were one of the best seats in the house. And as we will see, proud of their long prayers. They were pretenders. They wore an outside, long-flowing garment, but true religion was nowhere to be found in their heart. And it should serve a warning to us all. This is what J.C. Ryle put, and I love the way he put this. He said, of all the sins into which people can fall, none seems to be as exceedingly sinful as false profession of belief and hypocrisy. At all events, none have drawn from our Lord's mouth such strong language and such heavy denunciations. It is bad enough to be led away captive by open sin and to serve various different lusts and pleasures, but it is even worse to pretend to have a religion while in reality we serve the world. Let us beware of falling into this abominable sin. Whatever we do in religion, let us never wear a cloak. Let us be real, honest, thorough, and sincere in our Christianity. We cannot deceive an all-seeing God. We may take short-sighted humans by little talk and religious claims, a few clichés and a show of devoutness, but God is not mocked. He discerns the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. His all-seeing eye pierces through the paint and varnish and tinsel which cover the unsound heart. The day of judgment will soon be here, and the joy of the godless lasts but a moment." See, he makes a distinction, doesn't he? It's bad enough to be a murderer, or to be a liar, or to be a thief, but it's even worse to be those and yet claim to be religious. That's why when you see TV preachers fall into great sin, it's more of a, I won't say shock, but an amazement. Because here's this man who's been elevated to this position, and so it magnifies his fall all the more, doesn't it? See, the scribes wanted to be perceived as having a true religion, a great name, a great honor, a deeply rooted sense of piety. But that wasn't the case then, and not much has changed in 2,000 years. I know self-professing unbelievers who want to be respectful towards Christianity and religion. Right? Some members of my own family, my extended family, who want to use religious language when I'm around, because I know that I preach the gospel. as to not offend me or to offend my family or to offend the people I know. And yet what they should be worried about is not offending me, but offending a holy and just God. I don't want them to be respectful of religion just because I'm around. Instead of trying to be respectful to maintain family relations or close friendships or whatever it is, they ought to be concerned that their talk is a sham. The fact that they even maybe even step into a church at all is blasphemy. Because all the while they want people to see that they can use the talk, that they can see that they can take the sacraments. But the fact of the matter is that they hate Christ. And I know that. And so do they. They hate being at church. And so what if Jesus died and rose again? Because even if he didn't, it would be all the same to them. Now this kind of hypocrisy isn't the only kind of hypocrisy either. I would dare mention that there are more people in hell at this moment who lived a life of apathy. Tony talked about this a week or two ago. Than there are those who are murderers. Now what's apathy? Tony explained this, I'll tell you again. It's a lack of emotion. A lack of care. And I take this one personally. Here's why. Because when I first started preaching the gospel, the one thing that I wanted to do from the pulpit The one thing I aim to do is to make people care. To care about the Bible, to care about Christ, to care about serious things. I wanted them to be excited about what Christ had done. About what God had revealed. And I admit my own sin in this. That's the wrong purpose to be in the pulpit. My purpose in the pulpit should be to preach Christ. Because I realize that I can't make people care. Tony can't make people care. You can't do that. Only God can change a heart. Only God can convict a person. And so I take this warning that Jesus gives us this morning very seriously of beware of the hypocrisy. Now you can think I'm in a soapbox here and that's fine. It probably wouldn't hurt since I'm short. But then I'm picking on certain people. But God has declared in His Word that He has promised He will not be mocked. Roll your eyes now and think it's funny now. Walk around saying all these things right now, and making a profession of belief now. But a day is coming, and this is what Jesus says, when all things in secret will be revealed. When the great rivers of judgment will overflow, and I ask you, what will you do then? This virgin likes to say, what will you do in the swelling of the Jordan? As Paul writes for us in Galatians 6-7, Do not be seeved. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that he will also reap. And this is the message that Jesus gives to these scribes. You like to walk around in long robes. You like to make a false profession of faith. But what you are reaping, or what you are sowing, you are going to reap one day. Let me read the end of this passage. That's why I think our text this morning, the warning that Jesus gives, does not only mean beware of these men, because they are swindlers, as we'll see, but because each and every single one of us in this room has a potential to be one of them. He's not just saying beware of them because they'll cheat you out of your money. He's saying beware of them because you can easily be like them. To do things only for show, or because your parents want you to do them, or because your friends want you to do them, or because your pastors want you to do them. To be greeted and viewed as someone great, or someone important, or even someone who you aren't really at all. Now Jesus continues with his reasons for telling the crowd to beware of them. In verse 40 he says this, who devour widows' houses and, for a pretense, make long prayers. They will receive greater condemnation." I want to start with the first accusation. They devour widows' houses. Now, these widows that he speaks of are most likely women who had depended on their husbands for decision-making, who take care of finances, who made all the decisions in the household and ran things. We probably have grandparents or have grandparents this happened to if grandpa died and grandma was left to kind of take care of everything and she needed to do that and she didn't know how to do that so she needed help so when these men died the widows were left to handle the estate by themselves weren't they so enter the scribe and lawyers they would come in and graciously offer to manage things for the widow don't worry about your finances I can take care of it I'm a lawyer I'm a scribe I'll help you do what you need to do Of course, what we don't hear about often is that they would do this for a very hefty commission, thus reducing what these widows had to very, very small amounts, robbing them out of house and home. In other words, these scribes were swindling and taking advantage of these widows. And everyone, especially Jesus, knew it. As Hebrews tells us, for the Word of God, and I find this interesting, he says, the Word of God, when we read that, we always think of the Bible, right? The Word of God. The Bible. But listen to what he describes here. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight. Did you catch that? The word of God, no creature is hidden from his sight. He personifies what the word of God is here. So who is that? Well, it's Christ. But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom ye must give account." So the Bible does that. It discerns the thoughts of men. And it reads our thoughts. It knows what the intentions are. But it's personified in Christ, isn't it? That's what he's talking about. Christ knows the intentions of the heart. It is to him we're going to give an account. Now what makes it worse is not only were they dealing very unfairly with these very poor women, but pretending to be pious as they were doing it. Not much has changed for a definition of a lawyer, has it, in 2,000 years. Masking their menace with a false religion, a false devotion to God, they're actually performing a service to God by helping these widows by robbing them. In a word, as we have pointed out, they were hypocrites. This ought to serve as a warning to those who practice hypocrisy, who claim the name of Christ but never want anything to do with Him. To those who come into worship service and mock the worship. To those who taste the bread and the wine but have never tasted Jesus Christ. I call that, I've said that before, I call that robbing from God. When you take the sacraments and you don't own Christ, you are stealing from his table. Jesus has words for such hypocrites when he says this. These people draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me. Have you ever done anything in vain? Just a couple nights ago, I changed Aisley's diaper. Put a clean diaper on her. And the moment I put the clean diaper on her, she went to the bathroom. I felt like I did that in vain. I just wasted the diaper. That's what doing something in vain is. And what does God say here? In vain do they worship me. Can you imagine? Have you ever thought about the fact that you come into a worship service, or people come into a worship service, and they pretend to have a religion, and they pretend to listen to the sermon, and they pretend to sing, and God says, you're doing that for no reason. You might as well have stayed home on Sunday morning. You're doing it in vain, because you have nothing to do with me, really. So you're saying, in vain do they worship me. In vain do these scribes help these widows and proclaim my name. In our text, Jesus goes on to show their false piety. They devour widows' houses, and he says, for a pretense, make long prayers. What's a pretense? A pretense, according to the dictionary I looked up, is a false show of something. Very simple. These men were making a pretense, or a false show of prayer. You can replace the word pretense with the word pretend. You know what to pretend means, right? To pretend. To play. That's what they're doing. They're pretending to be believers by making these very long-winded prayers in order to sound good in front of other people. Jesus explains this more in Matthew 6, 5 and 6. He says that when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they have loved to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. Now I've been reading Thomas Brooks. his works, volume 2. And in there he actually uses this phrase. He says this is the scariest phrase for a false believer that you can possibly imagine. They have received a reward. What's the reward? People saw you pray. Big deal. That's the reward. That's all they're going to get is people saw them attempting to pray. These scribes were praying, not for the sake of prayer, actually talking to God, but only to be seen and thought of as being religious people. Jesus then says one more thing publicly, and this is the end of his public ministry right here. From here on out, again, the teaching is all about the disciples and the explanation of the end times and those kinds of things. So the last words heard publicly in Mark's gospel in the form of Jesus' earthly teaching is this. It's about the end of all hypocrites. These words are these, they will receive the greater condemnation. That's the last thing Jesus said publicly in his ministry while he was on earth, according to Mark's gospel. They will receive greater condemnation. So let those words sink in. But now Mark takes us from the example of a false religion, or hypocrisy, to that of true religion, or a true devotion to God. I want you to start in verse 41. And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums, and a poor widow came. and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow is put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box, for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." So Jesus sits down in the temple courts, across from where the treasury is located, And the treasury consists of, I think it was 13, large brass boxes with an opening that kind of looked like the end of a trumpet, if you've ever seen a trumpet. Sometimes you see a fountain like this and you can put a coin in there and it kind of goes down in a spiral and hits the bottom of the box. And since they were brass, the offerings could be heard. When you drop a coin into the metal, it makes a clang. Now Jesus is watching, keeping that in mind, not just the offering, but everything. He sees everything. Jesus sees all. So Mark tells us that Jesus watches rich person after rich person walk by and drop large sums of money into these boxes. And he tells us, and tells his disciples, that this destitute woman has put in more than all these. Spurgeon called her doubly poor. For not only was she a widow, she was a poor widow. She not only lost her husband, she didn't have any money either. Now it's even possible that given where Mark inserts this narrative, and I think this is true, she was one of the widows who had probably been a victim of these scribes. I wouldn't doubt that at all. The victim of a swindling lawyer who had perhaps had her house devoured. Now she had this measly income week to week or day to day or whatever it was that she lived on. In fact, I think it's very highly likely that this was the case. And that's why Jesus points it out right here. But this widow comes by and drops in her offering, which consisted of two very small coins. Together they're called lepta. Singularly they're called leptin. There were roughly one, listen to this fraction, it's amazing, one 128th of a denarius. Now remember, a denarius that we talked about in the past is a day's wage for a laborer. He got one denarius for a day's work. And what this widow had for income was a fraction of that, a one 128th amount. It's nothing. It's not a very large sum of money at all. In fact, I don't even think you can call it a sum. It was barely worth a penny, so Mark says. But even so, she takes these two coins and she drops them into the offering box, and Jesus sees all of it. Now, our natural tendency as Americans would be to say that the rich gave more, right? Since they gave large sums of money. If you give $1,000 and I give $1, who gave more? Well, you would say the $1,000, right? That's $999 more than the dollar I gave. I'm an accountant. I'm using numbers. We would say the widow gave less, but the sum isn't the point. And that theory doesn't even hold up when you're looking at the percentage-wise of it. 1,000 out of 10,000 is a factor of what? 1 tenth, right? But two pence out of two pence is a factor of one. Now Eric left, but I was going to say, so math students, which is the greater percentage? One person, the widow, gave 100%. The other, in the example I used, 1,000 out of 10,000 gave 0.1%. So what's the greater percentage? It's 100%, isn't it? So Jesus says that even though the rich gave these large sums of money, the widow actually gave more. Not because of the percentage that she gave, although technically that was true, but because of what was left over. Not because of what she gave, but because of what was left over. A rich person can come by and drop $10,000 in the offering box and may not even miss it. But Jesus says this widow came by, dropped two small coins in, and what did she have left over? Nothing. The rich, she says Jesus, gave out of their abundance. In all likelihood, what they gave wouldn't really be missed. They wouldn't even notice it from their checkbook. But this widow gave out of her poverty. He makes a special point in saying that she gave everything that she had, all that she had to live on. I tend to think, and the commentaries I read this week confirm this, that it wasn't everything that she owned in savings or anything like that, but it was her income, whether it was daily or weekly or whatever it was. Whatever she had to live on for the week, that's what she gave. She put that in the offering box. Again, the real issue here isn't about the amount, though. It's not about the amount that the rich gave, and it's not about the amount that the widow gave, even though he points it out. The real issue here is about the heart. It's about false devotion. The scribes had false devotion, a false religion, only doing what they did to be honored, to be seen, to be thought pious. The widow demonstrates true piety, or true religion, because she gave her two small coins to the Lord, Or not because she gave her two small coins to the Lord, but because she gave her heart to the Lord. And that truth was demonstrated by her offering. You see? That's how it worked. That's what Jesus is getting at. It's her offering demonstrated her devotion to the Lord. This widow put in more than all those who contributed because she gave herself. She denied herself a means of income so that she could contribute it to the church. What she gave, in a word, hurt. What the rich gave, again, would hardly be missed. She sacrificed. They did what they had to do. Now, some churches would use this passage, again, to fleece their congregations into giving more. I'm not going to do that. I will say this. Giving is important. Tithing is important. We have things to pay for. That's how the Lord ordained it. We have a room to pay for. We have a radio program to pay for. We have convenience supplies to pay for. We have all these things that we have to pay for. That money has to come from somewhere. God commands that we give. There's no denying that. But remember this. What you have and what you give has already been given to you. Anything that you gave was never yours in the first place. What you have, you were given. It isn't like God needs the money. If God wanted to give us a big building, and have everything paid for, he could. He's God. He can do whatever he wants. But it's not that God needs the money. What does he say in Psalm 50? Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you, for the world and all its fullness are mine. So what is he saying in that psalm? He's saying this. I own everything. I don't need anything from you. I own it all. It isn't about the money again, it's about the heart. What you give, you give out of your heart. I saw an exact this morning before we started that we were talking about tithing and percentages and all this and some people want to be very rigid about this whole 10% thing carrying over from the old covenant. Now if that's what you want to give, that's great. I was listening to a sermon by Alistair Begg who pointed out that if you really want to take that rigidly and just make it a rigid, I got to do this every month, it would be closer to 30%. The 10% isn't even all that they gave. So just keep that in mind when you're thinking about percentages. It's not about the percentages, it's about the heart. Now this isn't a sermon on finances. We could talk about that sometime if you wanted. But I want to mention this here. Notice something else about this text. What does Jesus do? He doesn't look down on the rich though. I want to point that out. He doesn't look down on the rich here. He doesn't say that it's evil because they have a lot of money. He never says that. It's not bad for them to be rich. He simply says that the widow gave more. Not that they were bad for having money, but just the widow gave more. That's all he says. It's a contrast in devotion with the scribe. That's what he's pointing at. The scribe had a false religion. This widow had a true religion. God doesn't ask that we give all we have to live on. He doesn't ask for that. No one will find that anywhere in scripture. In fact, that isn't even a good biblical principle. Why? Because God commands that we be good stewards of what he has given us, rich or poor. He commands that we take care of our families. And if we give everything that we have to the church, and we can't buy food for our family, we aren't being a very good steward, are we? Paul has a harsh thing to say about this. I'm not just making this up. This is what the Bible says. When he writes to Timothy, he says this, So what's Paul's principle? Make sure your family can eat. Fingeth. Make sure your family can eat. In all this, however, I don't want to miss the overall theme of Mark. We can talk about finances. We can talk about false religion. We can talk about hypocrisy. We can do this all day long, but the main theme is Jesus Christ and historic redemptive revelation of what's going on in Mark. Now, I can't say this any better than Timothy Gray does. I highly recommend his commentary on this. He sums up Jesus' entire time in the temple. And this is what I want you to get out of this sermon. This whole time that he's been there teaching is telling a story. It's pointing you to something. It's pointing you to who he is. So here's how he sums up his entire time in the temple, because next week we're going to look at Jesus leaving the temple and what happens. He says this, The entire temple story in Mark begins with Jesus' royal entry into Jerusalem on a colt, which parallels Solomon's enthronement. At the end of Jesus' teaching in the temple, he points to Psalm 110 when teaching about the Messiah. That psalm speaks of the enthronement of a priest-king, and is particularly striking given Jesus' location in the temple area. Psalm 110. After Jesus discusses the enthronement psalm, he judges the scribes and sits enthroned opposite of the treasury. This is why we read Malachi this morning. Mark's specification of the treasury, which is unique to his gospel, by the way, is powerful given the unfolding story. Jesus accused the religious leaders of turning the temple into a den of robbers. And now, with Jesus seated in a judgment opposite of the treasury, which is the purse of the robbers, the reader witnesses exactly how that robbery takes place. So the story about this widow is not just about how much you give or how much somebody else gives. It's about Jesus being king and lord of the temple. He watches as these scribes and Pharisees rob the people. The poor widow is fleeced, and Jesus' time in the temple comes full circle with this scene. And it's going to be little surprise after he witnesses what goes on in the temple that Jesus exits the temple and explicitly declares that not one stone is going to be left on another. So this Texas warning is a setup for next week. That's what it is. The entire time that Jesus has come into the temple and teaching in it, follows the plot of Malachi 3. That's why we read that this morning. In Malachi, the way leads to the temple, which the Lord will suddenly come. You'll find that in Malachi 3.1. The coming of his day, or the day of his coming, will be a judgment, Malachi 3.5. And the charge against the priests and the leaders of the temple is that they are robbing God, Malachi 3.8 and 9. So what Mark is telling you, he's not outright explicitly mentioning it to you, but he's showing you these contrasts and these connections in Malachi 3 with Jesus being the Lord of the temple. That's why Mark writes the gospel the way he writes the gospel. Jesus pronounced judgment, and again next week we're going to hear what Jesus says about the end times. Always exciting stuff. The end of the temple, the end of this age, the abomination of desolation, and so forth. But in the midst of all of this, And after having seen Jesus in the temple teaching, judging, cleansing, throwing the money changers out, our focus has to remain on Him. We can't afford to be false professors. This is his point this morning. There is no safety in being a hypocrite. No matter how much you give, no matter what you wear, no matter how much your parents think you're a Christian or anybody else thinks you're a Christian, because if you're a hypocrite, you will receive greater condemnation. I'll leave you with the words of Spurgeon. Everybody thinks Spurgeon is a very flowery orator. And he was. But he hit people hard when they needed to hear him. This is what he said. So it will be with any of you who have ridiculed the gospel. You will find in that great and terrible day of the Lord that your laughter shall have no power over death, and win you no reprieve from the agonies of hell. There will be no room for infidelity in that tremendous day. God will be all too real to you when he tears you in pieces and there is none to deliver. And the judgment will be all too real when the thunderclaps awake the dead, and the book shall be opened and read by the blaze of lightning, and the sentence shall be pronounced, Depart, you cursed." Those are very sobering words, aren't they? You think about how much God hates hypocrisy. Yet God in His graciousness has given us today what I just told you about was tomorrow. But He's given us today. And today is the day of salvation. That's what he says. He could turn hypocrites into humble servants by the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. So when you take communion this morning, think about that. When Paul says, examine yourself, I think this is what he's talking about. Not examine yourself for the week about, I sinned here and I sinned here and I did this and I did that. When you examine yourself, you examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. You're going to sin every week. You can recount those every week. But if Paul commands you to examine that you're in the faith, because if you're not in the faith, you're robbing from God. If you're taking the sacrament and you're not a believer, Jesus says you will receive the greater condemnation. So may our comfort and assurance this morning not rest on how we act in public, or how well I preach a sermon, or how well we can take a meal to somebody else, or all the things we do during the week to help those who are less fortunate, or whatever it is. or what we want people to perceive us as, we'll let our hope rest on nothing less than Christ's righteousness. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this text this morning, and Mark, and the silver warning that he gives to us all. Not just to scribes, not just to pastors, but to us all. About the dangers of hypocrisy. The dangers of doing things only so that people around us can see that we're doing them. Father, I would ask that you would break hearts this morning if they need to be broken. That you would shatter the hearts of stone and replace them with the heart of flesh. Father, I confess, as Tony pointed out earlier, that we are all, in some sense or another, at one time or another, hypocrites. Every time we sin, we're a hypocrite. Every time we claim to be a Christian, and then talk down to another brother. We're a hypocrite. Every time we take your supper, Father, and yet hide deceit and sin in our hearts, we're a hypocrite. I would pray that you would humble us and break us of that and bring us to yourself again and again as you do every week. We thank you for giving us your word and that we can hear it every week. That we live in a place and a time that the gospel can be preached freely. That when we gather on Sunday mornings, it's not just because our parents want us to, or because we're being dragged here, or because we feel like it's the right thing to do on a Sunday morning, but because we want to come and hear your gospel and what you have done for us. To be reminded of the forgiveness that we have in the blood of Christ. Father, I pray these things in the name of your Son, our faithful and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.