May 31, 2026 What Would Jesus Think of My Service? (Mark 7:1-13)

Pastor Kevin Justice continues with the series, "Mark: Living With Kingdom Urgency."

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

If you have your Bibles today, I want you to open them to Mark chapter 7. I know most of you are used to seeing a different face up here. Pastor Jeff and his wife Jennifer, they're on vacation. They're building an igloo somewhere in Alaska, along about right now, I guess. But uh anyway, I trust and pray they're having a wonderful time of rest and relaxation. I appreciate so much Jeremy uh filling in what I normally do, and for Jeff trusting me with the opportunity to do what he would typically be here doing, and especially the opportunity just to carry on his series out of chat out of Mark. And so I'm excited about that today in Mark chapter 7. Uh, some of you have had the wonderful experience of buying a new car, or maybe just maybe even new to you. I know uh about two or three years ago now I bought uh 2016 Toyota 4Runner, and I was so thrilled to death. Now it only had 44,000 miles on it, but to me, man, that car, it was so clean and so pretty, and you know, some of you have had that experience, or even maybe a brand new one nobody else has ever driven before. And you get that ne car and you're excited about it, you're going down the road and uh just loving life, and all of a sudden you see this on the dashboard, and you go, uh-oh. And you think instead of you know pulling off the road, raising the hood, seeing what's going on, you have a better solution. You open up the glove compartment and you pull out a little roll of black electrical tape, and you just tear off a little piece about like this, and you just stick it right there on that little glass place, and problem solved. I don't see the check engine light anymore. And so we know how that story would most likely end. We're gonna be riding down the road, happy in our new car, covering up the problem that's going on, and we're gonna wind up on the side of the road with smoke building up under the hood or all the electrical things doing all crazy things because your alternator's gone, or something is wrong. And we just chose to ignore it. Uh covering up a warning indicator did absolutely nothing to fix what could be a catastrophic issue with your car. Sometimes, I think if we're not careful, we can do that in our spiritual life. That may sound absurd, like we would never, I would never just ignore that light all the time. But sometimes we do that in our spiritual life. We do something similar to that. By all appearances in our life, everything is fine and dandy, everything's good, everything's clean, everything's great. But the Lord can see through the electrical tape. He knows what's going on under the hood, he knows what's going on inside our heart. Sometimes the electrical tape we use in our spiritual walk are what we're gonna see in this uh passage of scripture: human traditions and external rules that make us look like a really good Christian. That make all appearances uh so clean and nice and proper. And people can look and say, oh, that person's a great Christian. And all the time we're using those external things to hide a major problem that might be going on in the inside. Mark 7, that's what Jesus is going to talk to the Pharisees about. See, the Pharisees, we all know a little bit about them, these uh religious rulers and leaders of the day, that felt like if they just forced everyone to follow a set of strict codes in the same exact way that they followed them and obey man-made protocols, that they would be able to check the box of righteousness. It's all about following the rules and the codes and the traditions. They altered their external behavior to look good, but they entirely ignored the underlying engine of their souls. We're gonna see how Jesus confronts them about this today. Jesus in this passage is gonna tell us that true service to God cannot be manufactured by hiding our real problems under a layer of religious compliance. It requires sometimes opening up the hood and let God fix the problem that lies underneath. I want us through this message to ask us all our question as we read this passage of scripture. What would Jesus think about my service? What would Jesus think about my worship? What would Jesus think about my walk with him? Let's look at verse 1 in Mark chapter 7. When the Pharisees gathered to him and with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. Skipping down to verse 5. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition, remember that word, of the elders, but eat with defiled hands. The Pharisees and some of the scribes, the scribes were kind of like lawyers, people who would interpret the laws of God and the oral traditions that had been handed down by the rabbis, and they would interpret at what's the best compliance. All of these folks lumped in together to be kind of like the spiritual authorities of the day. They were interpreting the Mosaic law and these oral traditions that had been handed down. They were hearing about Jesus, and they were hearing that he was obtaining quite a following. You remember last chapter, he fed 5,000 men and their families with five loaves and two fishes. Uh he was uh walking on the water. He was healing people that would lay out by the side of the road and just touch the hem of his garment and they were healed. Miraculous things happening. Well, the religious uh order of the day were kind of threatened by that. Here was a guy that some people were calling rabbi and calling teacher and doing these things uh out from under their authority. They intended to do something about it. Look, they it was on purpose. It wasn't just they happened to be where Jesus was. Where Jesus was at this time, it says they came to him from Jerusalem. That was about 90 miles. And you say, well, what's the big deal? You jump in your car and you can be at Raleigh in an hour and a half, right? Well, not so in their day. We're talking about four days to a week's journey from Jerusalem to where Jesus was. And so they they were intent on going and we're gonna confront this guy and we're gonna do something about this. And so that's the scene that's creating here. They weren't really concerned in accusing him about the washing of the hands about health and hygiene. They weren't worried about that. Probably not the greatest hygiene standards at that time of the world and in that place of the world anyway. But you know, they weren't so concerned, oh, their hands are dirty, they're eating. They're concerned about something deeper, some of these oral traditions that have been handed down about purification and washing and what had to do in the Old Testament with what was clean and unclean, about what you had done and what you'd been around and all those kinds of things. There was ceremonial washing that had to take place. That's what they were concerned about, that Jesus, this rabbi, his followers, his students were ignoring the traditions and eating without the ceremonial washing of the hands. What they were doing, they were elevating the status of these uh traditions to rules given by God. You know, you had the law handed down to Moses by God, and they were they were elevating some of these extra things about the ceremonial washing to the same level. And so let's let's do this. Let's turn back in our Bibles to the place where uh God gave the instructions about how the ceremonial washing of the hands had to take place before you ate. Uh anybody anybody know where that's found? We have a problem, Houston. It's not there. It's not there. Now, did God hand down some laws? Yes, he did. And some things they were supposed to do. He handed down moral laws. That's like the Ten Commandments. The things, the how you're supposed to live and be in good moral. He handed down ceremonial laws that mostly had to do with the priests and how they were supposed to wash before they made sacrifice. There were some other ceremonial laws about things that you would do that would make you clean or unclean, touching dead bodies, all kinds of things like that, that there was ceremonial washing that had to take place. So those had been handed down, but you see, here's the problem. Over the next several hundred of years, the rabbis added to these things. And it was oral tradition that they handed down by mouth generation to generation that they thought in, and really probably with good motives, let's make sure we're clean, let's make sure we're pure, so let's add some steps to what God said we need to do just to make sure. And they would hand it down orally until a few hundred years later, finally, somebody wrote it down in what they would now call the Mishnah, which would be uh in conjunction with some other things, make up the Talmud, which is what the Orthodox Jewish people would follow right along with Scripture right now. But they were oral, man-made traditions handed down, not the actual words of God given to Moses. That's what the problem was. You know, there were moral laws God gave, there were civil laws, uh, there were these purifying laws, the ceremonial laws, there were civil laws that he gave about how you're supposed to get along with one another. Uh things like when you uh do your crops, don't harvest your crop all the way to the edge of the field. And if anything falls by the wayside, don't go behind and pick it up. Leave it for the sojourners and the strangers and the less fortunate to come behind you and pick it up so that we can provide for them as well. And God told them to do things like that, and just other things, just to get along in the community where you are. And the problem was the the rabbis adding these oral traditions. See, what God gave was simple to follow. The priest could follow it, the average person could follow it without that heavy a burden. But these next several hundred of years and rabbis handing down these oral traditions just mounted rule upon rule upon rule upon rule. Uh somebody said there was like 35, one said 35 chapters, the other called it 35 pages. I don't know, maybe a chapter was a page. 35 chapters about how you're supposed to wash the cups and the pots and the pans to live up to these oral uh codes that the rabbis would hand down. And the problem was that the Pharisees were elevating these things right up to the law that God was giving. And it wasn't even really a thorough washing of the hands, it was just really a symbolic sprinkling of the water to say, okay, now we're all clean in God's sight. That's what this was about. If you'd gone to a public place by the market, who knows what you may have come in contact with with all these things that make you unclean. So let's let's take it further and let's do the pots and pans and the cups. Let's even do, if I've been out in the market, let's even do the place where I'm going to sit down to eat and make sure they're all ceremonially washed and pure. So I'm not doing anything out of what the rabbis said we need to do to make sure we're on the up and up, to make sure we're morally clean and pure.

unknown 11:59

R.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

C. Spruell said this in his book about Mark. He said, This is what happens when people who have a disposition to control others' lives begin to chip away at their freedoms and accumulate power for themselves. This has happened in every society, in every culture, in the history of the world, but the Pharisees did it with a vengeance. I like that quote. First, they would comment on the law, then they would write a policy about the law. After some time, the policy would be elevated to a regulation, and shortly thereafter, and here's the rub, shortly thereafter, the regulation would become as conscience-binding as the written law of God. And the Pharisees took great pride in obeying all of those traditions, or finding creative loopholes that we get denied of them. That's what we're going to see a little bit later in this passage, too. In order to declare themselves spiritually superior and in order to earn God's favor, this is what we do. We're going to follow these laws. Now, Jesus, why, rabbi, teacher, they're calling you, why are your students not following these traditions? Why are they eating without the washing of the hands? Why are you not requiring them to do this? Well, now, how did Jesus feel about these oral traditions that have been handed down and added and elevated to the status of what God said? How did Jesus feel about that? A couple phrases will give us a little bit insight about that. Two phrases I want to talk about. The first phrase you'll hear Jesus say over and over when he's talking with people as you read the Bible is, it is written. It is written. Now, to the Jew listening to Jesus talk at this time, they knew what he meant by that. Not just it's written in a book somewhere. This is what God gave us in the law. It is written. This is what the prophets said. This is scripture. This is the word of God. When Jesus said that to the devil and the world is tempted three times, three times he answered the devil's temptations. It is written. It is written. It is written. He's quoting scripture. Now, another phrase Jesus used from time to time is this you have heard. You have heard. Now, the listener would fully understand what he's talking about in context when you're talking about teaching. When he says you have heard, now he's talking about the oral traditions brought forth by the rabbis and handed down orally from generation to generation. Two distinctives. What did Jesus think about these extra rules and regulations? You know, what did he think about these things that were not part of the written law of God but had been passed down by the oral tradition of the rabbis? He used this phrase you have heard in the Sermon on the Mount. But then he contradicted what they had what they you have heard. Look at Matthew 5, 43 and 44. You have heard, there's that phrase, that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Pretty logical, right? Love your friends, hate your enemies. That's what we've all heard. That's the oral tradition. But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. And so Jesus is contradicting what you have heard, and he's not going to elevate what you have heard to the status of what God has said, and it is written. Jesus made it clear that while he was dedicated to the word of God, he was not going to elevate man-made traditions to the same status. He wasn't going to do it. Look at verse 6. He said, Well, when he's talking to the Pharisees, and oh boy, these are some indicting statements. He said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy, he's quoting Isaiah now, of you hypocrites. As it is written, here's what's important as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me. Teaching us doctrines, the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. So the first practical instruction I want to, I want to I want us to take away from what Jesus is saying to this. Now, this is this is uh uh what word am I looking for? Man, this is deep. This is deep. Are you ready for it? Those of you who are note takers, don't be a hypocrite. Profound. Well did Isaiah say of you hypocrites? So what do we take away from this? Don't be a hypocrite. Now we understand what that word means. We all know what it is when we hear it. Somebody whose actions and words, or I'm sorry, somebody whose words don't line up with their actions. They talk one way and they act another, and that usually uh reveals what's really going on underneath in the heart. So the actions do not match. That's one thing. But another thing, some scholars even indicate that it could be, and I think this is more common with us, someone who is not so much a deliberate pretender, but someone who is self-deceived and really mistakes the outward for the inward. I think we can all be in danger of that. We can all be in danger. We've all heard people say, I ain't one of that church, they're just a bunch of hypocrites. I mean, that's the mantra. Well, guess what? You're right. One person said it really cluedly, would you rather go to church with them or go to hell with them? We all can have that as a part of our spiritual walk where our actions don't line up with what we say at times. And I think sometimes probably not so much a deliberate thing as it is, you know, in true intention, we think the outside is what counts. We're well-meaning. Some of the standards that we've all heard about from hard-nosed Bible, fundamental Bible believing that you shouldn't do this and you should wear this and don't do that, go there and da-da-da. They're well-intentioned. People really felt that this is the way we're gonna please God, but somewhere along the line, those things get elevated to a commandment from Scripture, and we feel like this is the test. The outward is the test. That what makes me clean or unclean. Jordan's gonna talk a little bit more about that next week, what makes something clean or unclean. Those things are gonna come out. When we when our actions don't line up with what we say, those things are gonna come out sooner or later in the way we treat others. So it's a very practical instructions I think we can take from what Jesus said to the Pharisees in these verses for how we ought to live our life, and so that he won't look at us and say, You hypocrite. He quotes from the prophet Isaiah, and the first thing I think we take away is number one, make sure what you say and do on the outside matches what is true on the inside. Look at the last part of verse six. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Oh, may that never be said of me. Or any of us. So I started to say every Sunday because I but I guess I gotta say 99% of the time because this is the one Sunday out of a million, this is not gonna be true. Usually every Sunday, I've got something going on today that I'm not doing this. Usually every Sunday I leave church here, we go buy food, and we take it over to my mom's house and we eat lunch with my mom over there at her house. 99% of the time. Most of the time, what I will do before I go pick up that food is I will go home and change clothes, and it's usually into something much more comfortable because it's usually 85 degrees at my mom's house. Last Sunday it was 90 outside, she had the heat running when we got there. I was like, mom. So, you know, I get into my t-shirt and my tennis shoes, and most of the time a pair of shorts or whatever, and I go to Parker's or hibachi or cracker barrel or wherever we decide we're gonna eat that day, and I walk in there and I see all these people who they have on church clothes. They've been at church. And here I am walking up in my, you know, my track shoes and my t-shirt, and I've sometimes I feel like, are those people looking at me and thinking I'm a heathen and I didn't even go to church today? I'm concerned about that. Why in the world would I be concerned about that? But I am. It's what's on the outside. Now, what about this? What if I were to leave and you know have on my suit and tie and march in there with all the other church folks that got on their church clothes, and they're looking at me and they say, Oh, that guy must be a good Christian. He's gone to church today, obviously. What a what a great man he is. And then I get my order and uh it's wrong. And I proceed just to just to berate this poor little old girl that's behind the counter, just doing the best that she can. What do you mean this is not what I ordered? Can you guys not get anything right? I want to see a manager. You get him out here right now, I want to refund it. Would my church cloth on the outside match what's in the heart? So that's public. What about this? What if what if everything's okay with the order? That little girl gives me my change and I Look through it, and there's an extra $10 in there. I go, I got a tip today. And I go on about my merry way, and nobody is the wiser about that in my church suit and tie. God would know there's a little bit of mask and tape over the check engine light, wouldn't he? Does what we do on the outside, is that the measure of what's going on on the inside? Make sure what you do on the outside matches what's true on the inside. Don't honor God with your lips, with your heart far from him. What about coming to church? Praising the Lord, singing these things we saying. I believe in God the Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe he rose again. I believe in the name of Jesus. And in reality, we're not willing to sacrifice any of our creature comforts to really follow him. Is what's on the inside matching what we're saying on the outside? Have you ever witnessed somebody that'll come to church, man, and they will close their eyes and raise their hands in worship? And you knew good and well they are living Monday through Saturday in a way that's directly opposed to a moral command given in Scripture. It's not even something hiding, they're just out in the open. Does what's on the inside match what we're saying on the outside? And this is what Jesus means by people honoring me with their lips, but not having a heart to obey and honor Him. So that's number one. Number two, make sure your service to God is not a wasted effort. What is the result of the outside not matching the inside? Jesus says, in vain they do worship me. Boy, that one hit home with me. Is what I'm doing for God going to count? You may be very busy about serving the Lord, but it accomplishes nothing if the heart is not right. It'll be empty of meaning. It'll be worthless. That's what vain means. In vain, it's worthless. Why do you come to church regularly? Why do you read your Bible? Why do you do devotions every day? Why do you serve on a volunteer team here at Unity? Why do you give in the offering? All these are good things, and they're signs of somebody who's trying to serve the Lord. But if we are secretly harboring sinful attitudes, or if we're sinning openly when we're away from here and away from other Christians and people who know us, these things are meaningless and do nothing to earn us favor with God. They're external things. Thirdly, make sure Scripture outweighs personal preferences in your spiritual life. Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. That's what Jesus said the Pharisees were doing. That's elevating things that are not scripture to the same level, plain and simple. How we live, look, look, I know we're supposed to live holy. We're supposed to want to be separate from the world. How that looks and how that plays out is going to be different in different times, in different places, in different cultures. Look, you can go on the mission, you go to West Africa somewhere this morning where there or some time difference on their worship time. It's not going to look like what ours did today. People aren't going to be dressed like we're dressed today. It's different. Are they worshiping God the same as we are? Make sure scripture outweighs personal preferences in the way that you live. Now there are timeless commandments and truths and principles of the Word of God. It's never going to be okay to murder somebody. It's never going to be okay to commit adultery. It's never going to be okay to hate somebody. It's never okay to be gluttonous. All of these things that we know are specific sins that God said, don't do this. Those are commandments. Those are never going to change. The problem comes as when we try to determine, okay, what is my what are my standards of holiness? How am I going to live in light of this? So that I can follow God. And godly people sometimes are going to disagree on where that standard hits. It's just a fact. It might not always look the same. We have to follow our own conscience and we have to follow the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit in our conscience says, you know, gives us some feeling about doing something, then we don't need to do it. We don't need to sin against our own conscience of the Holy Spirit, but then we need to let other people have the same freedom. They have the Holy Spirit too. Let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit for them, like you're trying to let him be that for you. Now, how do we discern somebody's spirituality? Then are we supposed to even care? Yes. The Bible says we are supposed to inspect fruit. We're supposed to look at somebody's inward character based on things that can give us clues about that and be fruit inspectors. We, you know, we we look at their uh their, you know, how how do we decide who we're gonna be friends with? How do we decide who we're gonna associate with? How do we decide who we're gonna go in business with? Who how do we decide who we're gonna date? How do we decide who we're gonna marry? Well, we look at their inward character and how that dictates what they do in their personal walk. And so what are some of the tests? How do they dress? How do they know? Are they honest? How do they treat people? Are they humble? Are they generous? Do they live in obedience to clear scriptural commands with regard to morality? Do they try to do the will of God in their life? Do they try to make decisions based on what's going to glorify God the most? These are the tests by which we can try to judge somebody's character and spirituality, not the outward externals all the time. And so make sure scripture outweighs personal preferences in your spiritual life so that you can demonstrate inward character that's formed by the Holy Spirit. And then fourthly, do what is morally right instead of what merely sounds spiritual. Do what's morally right instead of what merely sounds spiritual. Let's look at verses 8 through 13 here. And this is where Jesus really talks about. I I mentioned loopholes before. This just blows my mind. Verse 8, you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and mother. Whoever reviles father and mother must surely die. That's there. That's in the law of God. It is written. Verse 11, but you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corbin, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother, thus making void the word of God. Honor your father and mother, that's the word of God. Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do, Jesus said. Corbin. This is a Hebrew word, and the concept is something you're dedicating and giving to God. In this context, when they used it, they talked about something that they were leaving for the temple treasury after they die. That was Corbin to the Pharisees. And so let's let's let's pretend for a minute. Let's pretend you've you've written in your will, when I die, I'm leaving everything I have to unity church. Or perhaps to the worship pastor at Unity Church. Um let God let your conscience be your guide. No, but you're gonna you're gonna leave it to unity. That's that's a noble thing. Everything I have is going to unity. Now, you proceed to live your life in a comfortable, enjoyable way. And if you need a car, you're gonna buy a car. If you want to take a nice trip vacation, you're gonna take that nice trip vacation. You're gonna have a nice home, you're gonna you're gonna spend what you need to spend, knowing, hey, whatever's left over when I'm done, it's going to unity. Now let's say a tragedy happens, and your mother and father are in dire straits, a hurricane leveled their home, or a health crisis came and took everything they had to pay for treatment, or something, and they they are just they they have nothing left. And you say, Well, mom and dad, I'd love to help, but I've committed everything I have to unity when I die. Now, commitment to unity sounds pretty spiritual, doesn't it? But are we supposed to honor our father and our mother? Surely we wouldn't do something like that. That's exactly what the Pharisees were saying in this, and it just blows my mind, and that's why Jesus said, You hypocrites. You hypocrites. Let's think about a biblical example of that. 1 Samuel 15. God had told was going to use Saul and the army of Israel to destroy the Amalekites. Why he was gonna why was he gonna do that? Because the Amalekites were evil, wicked idol worshipers, uh sacrificing their babies to their idols. Just you wickedness, wickedness. And God said, I've had enough. They're exceedingly wicked. We're gonna put judgment on the Amalekites, I'm gonna use Israel to do it. Saul, I want you to wipe it out totally. I don't want you to save anything. I don't want you to save possessions, I don't want you to save livestock, I don't want you to save people. You wipe it out. Israel goes under Saul's command, and they do have a victorious uh battle. They they they they defeat the Amalekites. Saul does not destroy the king, he lets the king live, and he keeps all the, he gets looking at this livestock and says, hey, this is pretty good, pretty, pretty good to be in our coffers, all this livestock. So why don't we just keep some of this here? Well, the prophet Samuel is gonna come and uh Saul, how'd the battle go? Oh, it went great. We defeated the Amalekites. Um did you obey God? Do it? Oh, yes, we did what God uh told us to do, and all of a sudden they hear ba. And in old King James, Samuel says, What meaneth the bleeding of the sheep? If you destroyed everything, why am I hearing the sheep baying over there, or however you would say that? And Saul says something so spiritual. I just kept the best so that we could sacrifice them to the Lord. Sounds nice, doesn't it? What's the problem with that? It was disobedient. It's not what God said to do. Don't do what sounds spiritual, do what's morally right. I told that most of the teenagers were in the earlier service, and some of the young people still in here, or any of you that may be looking at a dating relationship, we know from the word of God the Bible says, do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, right? Have you heard somebody say, Well, you know, I'm gonna date this guy, maybe the Lord will use me to lead him to Christ. That sounds really spiritual, doesn't it? Is it obedient to what the Bible says? Don't be unequally yoked. On and on, examples we could go. Don't trade what sounds spiritual for what really is morally right and what God said to do it. Now, are we are we going to are we are we gonna achieve perfection in this? Are we ever gonna be able to do this 100%? No, it's not gonna happen. How do we decide how we're gonna walk worthy, as Ephesians says? There's probably gonna be times when somebody's gonna accuse you and accuse me of being a hypocrite. So how do we get to the place where we walk worthy and we're pleasing in God's sight and Jesus wouldn't look at us and say, You hypocrite. So remember I mentioned earlier that there were true, legitimate laws that God handed down to his people, and these fell in three categories. There were moral laws, there were ceremonial laws, and there were civil laws. And so are we supposed to ignore anything that's not a moral law? No, I don't think so. I don't think so because there's a spirit in which those things were right, and God told these people to do these things, and even if they didn't understand all the ramifications of it, they didn't understand how Jesus was going to fulfill it all, they many of them by faith just believed God and did it, obeyed out of faith in God. And so I think there's something there for us. I'd like us to offer us three suggestions as we leave here today, how we cannot be seen, hopefully, by the Lord as a hypocrite. Number one is let Jesus be your righteousness. Let Jesus be your righteousness. I mentioned there are moral laws in the Old Testament, those are things like the Ten Commandments. I mentioned earlier: steal, don't steal, don't lie, don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't bear false witness, honor your father and mother. Those are the moral laws that God has handed down. Let's get a show of hands here. How many of you have never broken one of the Ten Commandments? I'm gonna put my hand down, and if you thought you were gonna raise your hand, you just broke one because you're lying. We cannot do it. We can't keep all the moral law. There is, let alone all the ceremonial stuff, we can't keep all the moral law. And the Bible says if we're guilty of breaking one of them, we're guilty of the whole thing. We can't measure up. So how do we measure up? Let Jesus be righteousness. This is why Jesus came and died, because when we trust his death, his resurrection for eternal life, his righteousness is imputed to us. It is credited to our account. The Bible calls this the great exchange in 2 Corinthians 5 21. Even though our righteousnesses, this is not this verse, but our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, the Bible says. We can't be righteous, but listen to this. For he, God, made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That is how we keep God's moral law. It's Jesus. It is his righteousness. He imputes it to us. And when we place our faith in some of the things, like we saying, I believe in God the Father, I believe in Christ the Son. If we believe He is the only way to salvation, then we are righteous in God's sight because of Jesus' righteousness. That's how we measure up. We cannot do it on our own. We can't measure up on our own without Jesus. So let him be our morality. Let him be our righteousness. Number two, let the Holy Spirit shape your character. Let the Holy Spirit shape your character. Again, in the Old Testament, they had the ceremonial laws about this washing and what was clean and what was unclean and all of these things, trying to be pure in God's sight. That's how they were set apart. That's how they were sanctified. That's how they were used in God's service through all those ceremonial things. Well, now that work of sanctification and washing, if you will, is performed in a believer by the Holy Spirit. He makes us clean. He makes us into what he wants us to be. Galatians 5, 23 to 25, but the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and forbearance and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. That's one I have a hard time with. That's what I got. You know, in your report cards or in a little boy, you got you got satisfactory, or you got in needs improvement. I got in in self-control every time we got a report card. I still battle it. These are the fruits of the spirit. But look what the rest of this verse says. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. And since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. That's what makes us clean. That's what makes us what God wants us to be. Let the Holy Spirit shape your character. And then finally, let the Word of God be your guide for life. Let the Word of God be your guide for life. In the Old Testament, they had specific structions from the law, from the books of wisdom, from prophecy. Surely they didn't even understand it all, but they obeyed in faith, and Jesus came and fulfilled the law and the prophets, and now we have a new covenant through Jesus Christ. We have the complete revelation of his finished work on the cross and the word of God that God has given us. And we have everything we need to live a godly and holy life. And so you want to know how you're supposed to treat others once this character is shaped? How do I live among others? How about let's start with the Beatitudes? How about let's start with the epistles and what Paul said? Let's look to the word of God. Hebrews 4 12, 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 of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Let the word of God be your guide to reflect what's in your heart. Have you ever gone seen a movie set or something like that where you see a building that's just a facade? It's just the front. Let's look at that picture. Just the facade, the front of a building, and there's nothing behind it. There's an urban legend, if you will, that means probably didn't happen, but it's a really good story. And it has to do with real people. Catherine the Great, one of the uh rulers of ancient Russia, and a friend who was over one of the territories that was gonna become part of this Russian Empire. And uh Grigory Petumpkin, you know, was gonna bring Catherine the Great on this tour of this land that was now part of the Russian Empire. And the problem was the land was awful, dirty, slum. People were poor, just living in rubble and awful. And they didn't want to make this impression on Catherine the Great, so they were gonna take her down the river that rode by this territory. And this Gregory Potomkin, he had he had built and painted these facades like villages, storefronts, and houses and colorful, and he dressed the peasants, poor peasants up in real colorful costumes. And so when the boat came by, they could all smile and wave to Catherine the Great. And then once the boat got by, the workers would hurry up, take it all down, put it on cars, take it up to the next bend in the river, set it all up again, and then wave at Catherine the Great. Is that the way we live our spiritual life sometimes? A really great picture on the outside. There's nothing behind it on the inside. Is your service to God merely a facade to make others think there's a godly heart motivating what you do? And are you willing to let Jesus have control so that there's something real underneath the surface? What's in our heart? Can we bow our heads together today? I mentioned the gospel and the way to a relationship with Jesus Christ, and you're thinking, man, this is this is step four and five. I'm not even at step one yet. How do I get this? How do I let Jesus become my righteousness? How do I place my my faith and trust in him? Well, if you believe the things we sang about, if you believe that Jesus is Lord, if you believe that God sent him to die on the cross for your sin and raised him from the dead, and because he died for your sin, lived a sinless life and died for your sin, he can forgive you of your sins, and you ask him for that forgiveness, and you ask him to become his child, and you ask him, God, I want to be your follower. Will you save me? That's how you embark on that relationship. Others that have that relationship, I just want us to do a little business with God while we pray. God is what's on the inside measuring up to what I'm putting out on the outside? Is my heart mode of pure? Is there a problem under the hood that I'm just trying to cover up by masking over the check engine light? God, would you show me those areas that might be there? Forgive me of that and let me measure up through the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, and through Jesus what you want me to be. Father, I do pray today that you would help us to make those kind of commitments, that what we're doing is done from the right motive because things are right on the inside, and we have pure hearts and a desire to do your will. And then how we live on the outside measures up to that. Let us not be like these that Jesus has condemned. That we honor you with our lips and our hearts are far from you, that we worship you in vain, that we hold up the traditions of men and elevate them to the level of scriptural commands. God keep us from that. Let us be sincere in our worship, in our service to you.