hi i'm pastor scott pastor of the oasis church listen we are so excited that you decide to join us for the preaching and teaching of god's word we just pray that this will stir your affections towards christ but we have one encouragement we want to leave you with please do not allow this to take the place of the local body of believers we pray that you will be involved in a local congregation a local church that you can find yourself submitting under the eldership and the leadership of a local church we pray that you will find yourself stirred towards christ and that your joy in christ will be ever increasing enjoy
last week we as a church looked at that incredibly difficult passage to understand that passage where jesus christ the lord and savior the sinless spotless man holy man truly man truly god called a gentile woman a dog and you remember her response yes lord oh that we would have yes lord on our prayers more then whatever else we pray and this was a high point in mark last week at the end of chapter seven this gentile immoral scandalous woman saying yes lord because this was the first time in the gospel of mark that a human uttered lord to jesus the disciples jesus his own disciples spending 24 7 traveling walking with jesus over and over will not call him lord until what we saw this week in our reading plan chapter eight and we'll get to that in two weeks so recognize this beautiful gospel-oriented truth that the gentile immoral scandalous woman understood who jesus was before his own disciples jesus has a mission his mission is to reveal himself to his disciples so that they may know who god is and there is a great glory in the church because we get to worship the holy god the god of the universe the creator of the heavens and the earth the god who knit you together from womb to tomb and all the way into eternity that god the unlimited god that is who we worship and the disciples of jesus christ you and i if we claim to know christ are never content in our knowledge of him we are always learning always growing always deepening in our faith the walk with jesus christ is not for the faint-hearted and it is not for the sissies because when you walk with jesus you realize this one truth i can't do this and i say welcome to the club you now have an understanding and what great joy it is where jesus looks at us and says yeah but i can amen and that's where our hope is and i know as we read through this passage in our reading plan this week we kind of scratch our head at the disciples a little bit and we're like how do these guys not get it because you and i are just so perfect right right we just get it all the time right no none of us have been corrected none of us have been wrong and so this morning i want to start our discussion because what we're going to look at is what true worship is in order to understand what true worship is we have to understand what the church is the church the people of god the elect that god chose before the foundation of the earth are on this earth for one purpose and one purpose only fix the world wrong jesus already did that to do what to glorify god in all things through all things for his name we want his name to be shouted from the rooftops and in the valleys to everyone that they may know who christ is one of my favorite texts on the church is found in the book of ephesians i call ephesians by the way the like mini romans right like it's kind of all the great parts of romans shoved into six chapters this is what paul writes in ephesians chapter 3 verses 20 through 21 now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us the power at work within us to him be the glory in the church and in christ jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen amen do you notice what paul did there to him be the glory where in the church and then in christ jesus so what does that tell us that god is most glorified through the people of god coming together for the worship of god to him be the glory the only one to bring glory to god on this world is the elect the church god's people worship brings us into contact with the majesty and the greatness of god without worship without true worship we will never see the glory and the greatness of god without worship we will never be in awe in amazement of who jesus is and let me share with you this morning and i'm going to preach so counter-cultural this morning without the church without the church it is impossible to glorify god
the church is god's plan for bringing glory to all corners of the earth the church and the glory of god are inseparable from one another two sides of one coin and so this is the glory of god in the church and in worship when we stop looking to ourselves and we start looking to others you didn't believe me i didn't think you would i knew you were like nope it's all about me so here you go philippians 2 count others more significant than your selves look not only to your interest but to the interest of others that's one verse cool romans 15 1 we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and to not please ourselves do you know what paul just did there he called you out if you think coming here think church is all about me and what i think paul is saying you're mature and you have a lot of growing to do you want to know how you know if you're mature in christ you have more excitement and joy seeing the glory of god be filled in others through your service and here's the cool thing god does when you do that when you lift others up god fills your cup and it overflows amen i still don't believe you cool first john 3 16 no greater love than this than christ laid down his life for us so we also ought to lay down our lives for one another there is great glory there is worship when our greatest desire to see other people come to know the glory of christ in the church outside the church and in everything we do selfish worship produces discussions about preferences godly worship cares only about one thing that god is glorified in others godly worship has one goal in mind that god's glory shines into all the world into all others because godly worship delights in the fact that christ has died and since christ has died we are kind of righteous by his blood so that becomes the reason and the means of our praise when we miss that truth in our worship we will miss the glory of the church and in christ and worship will become about us
where we fail in worship is we make worship about us and not about god when our worship emphasizes us first and then god disaster will always follow if you don't believe me read the book of exodus come back and talk to me if you ever bibles go ahead grab them we're gonna be in mark chapter eight mark chapter eight is gonna be our text we are flying to the book of mark we're almost halfway done with the book of mark um yes we are skipping a lot we're gonna skip the feeding of the four thousand it's a repeat of the thing of five thousand don't worry your home group leaders will explain all the differences between the feedings of five thousand and the feedings of the four thousand i love this fact y'all that we have home groups where you can work this stuff out the stuff we miss on sunday mornings you can tear that apart i was telling molly i feel like i study as much for home group as i do sunday morning because there is a lot of good stuff to go through in our reading plans and so we're gonna go right into the discussion with our friends the pharisees i know that's no one in here except for the one who stands in front of you the pastor himself so you all get to hear me as i preach to myself this morning as we look at the pharisees but before we do that we need to pray god has orchestrated worship with god's people in three main ways singing done praying and preaching so let us pray together as a people of god
father god we come before you and we thank you this morning that you have sent your son to be the propitiation for our sins that we are counted righteous we are justified by faith alone through grace alone in christ alone god that we have one plea and one plea only that christ is our only hope and so we exalt christ this morning now church says just pray for me i pray that i'll be helpful to you this morning pray that i'll be useful pray that i'll be clear pray that this morning god will speak through me that he'll hide me behind and beneath his cross
now church says just pray for yourself pray that god will open up your ears your heart and your mind this morning that he'll remove obstacles that you will clearly hear his word being exposited to you this morning
father god this time is yours we pray these things because of your son's atoning work on the cross and the spirit that's live and active within all who believe amen amen so if you remember a few weeks ago we preached on jesus and his last run-in with the pharisees and he called them out on legalism and so my whole point on that sermon was to remind you and i of the dangers of legalism and one of the tall tale signs this is how you can know you're in the area of legalism or not is if you get more upset over other people's sins than your own sins and let me tell you you're going to try justify it right again like i said you're standing for the person standing in front of you delivering god's message has battled and fought legalism his whole life i thought that after a decade of putting to death this sin it would not be a problem anymore but it often rears its head so if you feel like i'm picking on you this morning know it because i'm picking on myself because i know when i say that that you're more worried about other people's sins in your own sins you start to justify it yeah but look at what they're doing i'm not doing something as bad as that well the bible calls you out doesn't it for all of sin and fallen sure the glory of god for all deserve condemnation and wrath
james tells us what that if you've broken just one of god's laws you're guilty of breaking all of god's laws so therefore what there is no distinction of that person's worse than i because we all stand for god guilty and then if you remember we worked through this a few weeks ago go check out sermon right would it what do we see that god that christ his greatest judgments are reserved for who the most immoral people absolutely not the self-righteous legalist people that have tried to work their good works into the kingdom of god they're the ones who receive the greater judgment and so this is a stern warning throughout all of scripture and we must pay attention when the bible warns us against us so we're going to have another run in with the pharisees and i pray that it is as encouraging to you as it was to me as i read over this text mark 8 verses 11 through 13 this is the word of the lord the pharisees came and began to argue with him seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him and he sighed deeply in his spirit and said why does this generation seek a sign truly i say to you no sign will be given to this generation and he left them got into the boat again and went to the other side so let's recap jesus is coming back from his journey to gentile territory remember last week we talked about how he went to the area of tyre and sidon that wasn't like going next door he took a month-long journey into tyre and sidon and he had one mission and that was to cast a demon out of a little girl who he never even met he met mama and if you remember what we said last night where the prayers of the saints are there is always hope but what this beautiful story reminded you and me of from last week is jesus did this to the most immoral person we could imagine the most immoral person you could imagine looks like a boy scout con compared to this gentile canaanite woman and then what then we saw in chapter eight through our reading plans he goes to the decapolis was the decapolis a gentile and jew area and he feeds the four thousand full of gentiles and jews and so we have seen so far in mark two miraculous feedings first to the jews and then to the gentiles feeding of the five thousand feeding of the four thousand and so why does this important why is the end of mark seven and the beginning of mark eight so important because paul's gonna pick up the same thing in ephesians chapter two that christ has come down and he has torn down the wall of hostility that divides us and if you remember you can imagine jesus and his disciples they're like why did we take a month-long journey so you can speak a demon out of a girl who you never met we could have done that from israel why did we take a month-long journey you can imagine the argument right there are plenty of problems here in israel jesus why did we go outside of israel to tyre and sidon because jesus has come to say there are no more borders for the christian because you've been called out of this world and into the kingdom of god so you do not see borders because the gospel goes to all nations revelation says every tribe tongue nation and language will be around the glory see so you and i have a directive to take the gospel to all of the nations and the promise of the old testament is what the glory of god will cover the world like water covers the sea isn't that a great hope our 10 40 window will have the glory of god shining amidst it
and he comes back he goes he feeds the four thousand great miraculous moment happens and just like in your life and in my life and in jesus's life often following a mountaintop experience the valley soon follows we must be aware we must be aware that after mountaintop experiences valleys often follow we must be aware to never define the glory of god as only happening on the mount in the tops because our god is the god who works on the mountaintops as much as he does in the valleys and yes the mountaintops are so much more exciting but the valley moments is where you truly see god do miraculous works and may i remind you this morning church god does not give you the valley so you may appreciate the mountaintops that may be cute on a hallmark card that's not biblical god gives you the valley so that you can see in the darkest deepest worst moments of your life he is still at work that god is the god of the mountaintops and the valleys and as psalm 23 says he leads you to the mountaintops and guess where he leads you down into the valleys so do not disregard those of you who are in a valley right now do not count god out for you will see that he is going to shine brightest when it is darkest and here you see these pharisees and they are coming in rank and file they're coming basically looking like a military i mean they're all lined up in rank and file march in step because they have a purpose to call out jesus so jesus's mountaintop experience he's had a great victory had the woman who he called the dog yes lord he's like finally at least the gentiles are getting it praise god and then he has the feeding of the four thousand do you remember back to the feeding of the five thousand when what they looked everyone was hungry jesus had compassion and the disciples had a great idea a very practical idea to get these people fed send them away jesus what's absent in the feeding of the four thousand is what send them away jesus the disciples and the feeding the four thousand go to jesus and says we need help if you remember in the feeding of five thousand they leaned on to their own and they're saying the feeding of the four thousand they leaned into jesus ah jesus is like victory finally they're getting it these stiff-necked hard-headed people again i'm not preaching anyone in this room but the one preaching himself because none of you are hardheaded and stiff neck and so here come these pharisees and what do they demand but a sign jesus you owe us a sign now if you were to read just mark chapter 8 never read mark chapter one through seven this is actually a perfectly fine demand why we've read it in deuteronomy the last few weeks deuteronomy 13 deuteronomy 18 this should be familiar to you the command of god is that when a prophet comes you are to demand a sign and when that sign comes to fruition you will know that he is from god but if it does not come you stone that sucker because you don't want that evil to spread around you we've read this deuteronomy 13 and 18. but here's the problem these guys have already been given a sign remember if you remember back to mark chapter 3 what did the pharisees admit by their own volition of course he can cast out demons he is the prince of demons they have acknowledged miraculous signs from jesus already
they have refused to count jesus as messiah their hearts are hardened they have refused to be corrected by jesus refusal to be corrected will always result in hardened hearts
because back in chapter 3 jesus said you have missed the point
and they walked away from him and so therefore we need to be corrected often amen and you know who needs to be corrected the most yeah those immoral people out there teenagers kids they need to be corrected no no no the more mature you are in the kingdom of god the more you have a need to be corrected if you want to become the greatest in kingdom you got to become the least god's leaders the preachers the pastors the teachers need the correction more than anyone without correction you will harden your hearts never follow a leader and never be a leader who refuses correction for refusal to be corrected will always result in the hardness of heart and that hardness of heart will permeate throughout all the people around them hard hearts will never be able to glorify god because they'll be so focused on self how you respond to correction will reveal your heart do you welcome correction in your life or you come up with excuses do you deflect correction or do you receive it
here's what i know about correction most people become impenetrable because either a they've never asked for correction or b when it comes up they'll make up excuses reasons if it is a brother or sister in christ who has come to you with correction i want to encourage you shut up and listen shut up and listen because your immediate responses i gotta explain i gotta i gotta defend myself but man if they're a brother or sister in christ they're doing it for your good and they love you and so know this when correction comes receive it take it to the lord and let the lord speak into that and and by the way don't be one of the i'm i'm real quick sorry commercial break don't be one of those people they're like i can only be corrected if it's perfectly shown to me homie if it's a brother or sister in christ they love you enough they're saying hey i'm seeing this pay attention to that that's god's mercy that's god's grace if you constantly give excuses and justification your hardness of heart will come and no one's going to want to correct you
so that's step one in hardening a heart failure to be corrected do more listening than you do talking step two is found right here step two in the hardening of heart is what demands in worship when we forget who we worship when we forget that it's god we worship we will find ourselves creating demands when it comes to worship we'll think that our demands must be met first in order to meet with jesus when in fact when we meet with jesus our demands melt away that's right because we see jesus clearly your demands will blind you from seeing the glory of christ demands in worship is highly presumptuous while worship is highly humbling demands in worship will prevent you from truly enjoying the fellowship of the church you've seen this right people have come up to you and they said well i tried the church and it didn't work out for me
the better question when it comes to worship is not who's pouring into you but who are you pouring into do you trust god to fill you full through your love for others next i want us to see this word in the text it says they came so that they can test him circle that word in your marked journals that's only used four times in the book of mark three times by the pharisees but the first time it's used in the book of mark chapter one satan came to test jesus mark is defining for you and i that this is straight evil demands in worship is not worship at all it's veiled unbelief think about how weak it is to demand a sign from god when you've been given his holy perfect word what a sign demands is the fact that god has to prove himself to us the potter has to prove himself to the clay that's what a demand is in worship
next i want us to see that disbelief hard-heartedness that is expressed in demands is a rejection of the teaching remember it's not words it's not signs it's not wonders that bring people to god it's the teaching and preaching of god's word you remember back to chapter one jesus says i came that i can teach over and over he continued on to teach he continued on to preach romans chapter 10 reminds us that it's god's words that call men and women from death to life to quote calvin where a church where the word of god is clearly preached there is the church regardless of the faults that swarmed with it amen because it is god's words that call people from death to life and you will hear it man if god would do this i would believe him my dear friends if people are unmoved by the word of god the whole sea can split in half and they would not believe in him that's right it is god's word that brings faith it's god's word that calls us from darkness to life if we are unmoved by the word of god we will be unmoved by any sign and wonder from heaven and will in fact become blind to the signs and wonders that are clearly given why because this is the great joy of the church i love god's just great plan here because you know what he promises god's church when you go out and you truly preach and teach god's word you will see dead men and dead women come to life you will baptize them and you will see a whole new creation through the preaching and teaching of god's word amen this is the greatest sign here and this is great joy for the church and this is where we started worship does not demand it gives it was a great worship of the son who gave his life to the father for us that was his act of worship i'm laying my life down unto you oh god do what you got to do and the whole wrath of god poured upon the sun so that his church may live amen and this was great worship finally in our little discussion on worship i want to add this worship is not an activity it's an identity worship is not an activity it is an identity if you think of worship as only happening on sunday mornings in home groups my friend you are hardening your heart worship is both private and corporate worship is not about feelings or preferences it's about the glory and the majesty of god if you make worship about preferences and feelings what will follow will always be demand demanding what you need demanding proof demanding feelings well pastor you're grinding you're grinding your axe and you're swinging at us this morning i don't like that friends i'm just paraphrasing jesus that's that's a great joy of being a pastor you just plagiarized jesus the whole time right so here you go again argue with jesus don't argue with me you wanna be one of my disciples pick up your cross follow me if you don't know what that looks like go watch the pageant of the christ today and there's your view the whole christian life is a death to yourself when you call on jesus as lord that is the funeral to the world in a delivery room to the church
let us not be a people who are still infants in the faith let us grow and deepen in the faith why because the call of christian life is to put off ourselves and put on that of christ to put off our preferences to put off our demands and put on the glory and the majesty of christ this is sanctification i must decrease so that he may increase and this is a glorious act because the more you walk in sanctification the more you find joy in serving and loving others and the less you care about your preferences and your demands so the christian life is filled with refusing to do wicked things and desiring to do glorious things and the more we behold christ and his cross the more the joy of the christian walk is finally we see this in this little section that jesus walks away from the pharisees i want us to understand that jesus walks away from the pharisees jesus rejects those who have rejected him he gets in the boat and he has left them
jesus has rejected them he has moved on he has turned them over to satan he has handed them over this is a terrifying warning church this is a terrifying warning to you and me to be aware of how we worship who we worship and what we worship because if we make worship all about us we will harden our hearts paul by the way says the same thing in romans chapter one i couldn't choose between romans chapter one and hebrews chapter five but um here we are romans chapter one paul says what although they knew god so they knew who jesus was they did not give honor to him and they did not thank him and then if you read that stair step it goes all the way to paul saying and so god handed them over to themselves
he left this is what hardness of heart does hardness of heart will finally get the point where god will hand you over to you this is the debasement of romans chapter one but remember where romans chapter 1 starts although they knew god they did not give honor to him and they did not thank god my friends without thanksgiving and gratitude in your prayers you will be missing out on one of the greatest joys of the christian life to neglect thanksgiving and gratitude is to neglect the glory of god the pharisees show this here they did not honor jesus they did not give thanks to him they demanded from him
this is why our prayers are filled with thanksgiving gratitude and thanksgiving is the greatest weapon in our prayer arsenal
and there will be one final sign these pharisees will be given according to matthew it'll be the sign of jonah the resurrection the resurrection will be the crowning proof that he paid for it all and so faith is like love it cannot be proved it can only be demonstrated by commitment and trust let me say that again faith is like love it cannot be proved it can only be demonstrated by commitment and trust no person when they say do you love your spouse just holds up their wedding ring they say i'm committed to this person for richer for poor in sickness and in health for better or for worse love is a call to commitment not a call to feelings amen and so if you're in here this morning and you're taking a stalk of your prayers of the last few weeks and you realize you've demanded a whole lot more in prayer than gratitude here's the good news start thanking god today go into sunday mornings go into your home groups and have gratitude in your prayers and in your teaching of god's word a complaining heart is a hardened heart
do you see church as a place to serve you or a place for you to come in and highly exalt jesus as being the hands and the feet of jesus do you come into the do you come into the people of god to be served or to serve verses 14 through 21 now they had forgotten to bring bread and they had only one loaf with them in the boat and he cautioned them saying watch out beware of the leaven of the pharisees in the leaven of herod and they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread and jesus aware of this said to them why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread do you not perceive or understand are your hearts hardened having eyes do you not see having ears do you not hear and do you not remember when i broke the five loaves of the 5 000 how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up they said to him 12. and the seven for the four thousand how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up and they said to him seven and he said to them do you not yet understand friends this is insult to injury the smartest most brilliant people of the word of god have radically rejected the messiah and here you've got the disciples and what are they doing they're arguing amidst one another and he has a warning beware of the leaven so what is leaven it's a small very small tiny you cannot see it little thing that spreads and ruins the loaf levin is only used positively in the new testament once and that's in matthew chapter 13. all other places in the bible and all other places uh that of the writings of this time leavened by the jewish people was always used negatively again with the exception of matthew chapter 13. so leaven is an evil thing it's small seemingly insignificant but over time it grows and destroys and so he talks about two groups of people he talks about the pharisees and herod so what is this leaven that jesus is referring to if you read matthew's account he goes on to say that it's the pharisees teaching in luke's account he says that the leaven was their hypocrisy so what do we do well being this side full god's full word in our hands we get to combine them all together and see that hardened hearts produce false teaching produce hypocrisy and end with a demand for a sign a demand in worship so this is a question we ask does our worship produce in us a love for others does your bible reading soften your heart for the glory of god in others now we may be tempted in here to think how do these guys not get it they just saw 4 000 people been healed they have seen a lot of amazing miracles of jesus how do these guys not get it and i think that mark has been trying to get this across to you and i the last five chapters or so faith is not built on intelligence why because jesus just had the most smartest guys in the land reject them faith is built on two things proximity and understanding proximity to jesus should lead to understanding and understanding should lead to proximity again mark is trying to compare and contrast our woman that we talked about last week you remember she came to jesus proximity and she understood jesus yes lord it is that proximity and understanding that led to that great active faith she had an act of faith and here you have the disciples and they think we're close to jesus but they did not seek understanding while you had the pharisees seek understanding and lacking proximity and they lorded themselves over christ with demands pay attention to what and who you worship for what and who you worship will always spread to others belief will spread and so will unbelief and this is why i say oh so many times to you and to me over and over make sure you have a ferocious god glorifying christ exalting time with god each and every day without that you will become spiritually anorexic
you will become spiritually dead without a daily devotion in prayer and god's word without a private and corporate time of worship you will wither and die and your faith will never lead you to action you will be like a plant with no sunlight and no water the greatest leaders in the kingdom of god were always attributed not for their skills but for their worship amen if you lean on your skills and neglect your worship you will harden not only your hearts but the hearts of others the reason for that is because you cannot truly lead anyone to the glories of christ without first experiencing the glory of christ we as a church have been so blessed to receive some just some young families and i want to talk to those young families for just a moment young moms young dads and there's some expecting moms and dads coming um no it's not an announcement it's um sorry molly um lord forgive me um i want to just say to you and i want to say it this way this morning if you do not have a personal quiet time a personal time with the lord you will be unable to show the glory of god to your children and to your family the most important thing for any young mom and young dad is to make sure they have a time with the lord easy for you to say you don't have the kids screaming in the morning i'm just reading the mail find a way to have a ferocious time with the lord because you cannot give which you have never received and so recognize that the most important thing you can do for your family is to have a private and a corporate worship time both not either or
now what if i don't have a family what if it's just me i'm all alone the principle still remains your belief or unbelief will spread it will spread like leaven to those closest around you if you have an identity of worship if worship is who you are then all who hang around you will want to worship with you they'll desire to behold the glory in a way you do
and so are you leading people in unbelief or in faith what does your private worship look like
pose it another way how do i know i'm a pharisee or a disciple jesus left the pharisees and the disciples he's frustrated but he's still hanging on and we've seen this several times in mark if you see jesus as useful if you only see jesus is here to fix your life fix your marriage fix your country fix your enter the blank here if you see jesus as useful you will never have a ferocious quiet time of glorifying god you must see jesus as king if you see jesus as useful you will miss the majesty and the greatness of god you will be like the pharisees you've got to prove yourself to us so jesus here he calls his disciples to understanding why because they're worried we only have one loaf and we're like dudes you guys just saw like him feed four thousand five thousand i think he could take care of 12 with one loaves easy for you and i to say that
when i know there's times in my life where i've worried about one little loaf and jesus is saying you've missed the glory you've missed a majesty these guys have missed because they're worried about the things of this world than the glory of the majesty of christ and so jesus has a warning be where be aware of false worship
herod and the pharisees emphasized the wrong things that hardened their hearts their hearts were hardened and this spread to the disciples you see jesus is brokenhearted because the pharisees rejected him and the disciples are unaffected by it so pay attention to what you're most passionate about what do you think most about what do you think deeply about do you think deeply about the glory of christ and his cross do you think deeply about the greatness of salvation and christ being high and lifted up and all that comes with that what do you think of the problems of this world more pastor you've got your head in the sand sees you live in the ivory tower i know all these things my dear friends are important things but they're not eternal things do you think about the eternal things of god and if you could fix the problems of the world jesus his death was unnecessary so what do we do we as people of god we worship god and we trust that through our worship god will make all things new this is great glory fix your eyes on the cross if the glory of christ and his cross is absent in your worship we'll be like the disciples missing the glory of christ and therefore missing christ and then we have our antidote we have our antidote for the hardness of heart and it's seen here in verse 18. having eyes do you not see having ears do you not hear and do you not remember three things see hear and remember our antidotes in worship first of all see and i'm not going to take sethra's sermon next week he's going to take care of that because it's in the next story
second corinthians chapter 4 says this in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds so blinded there's eye language in there the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of christ who is the image of god the reason why people are blind to seeing the glory of christ because they're blinded and there's one antidote for that and it's found in the next part having ears do not hear this is romans going again romans chapter 10 the call to hear the word of god and this is an incredible warning for us do we hear the word of god do we hear what it says or do we have selective hearing do we do theology buffet or we take and pick the things we like but man when that convicting passages comes like i don't think so and then we kind of walk away do not play theology buffet because then you'll become theologically obese and faithfully anorexic and then finally the call to remember friends do not do not be the one telling other people's stories of faith well my friend did this and my friend did that and so and so did this and this church did that have the stories of how god has walked through you in moments of faith how he has not left you or abandoned you remember those stories and tell them that god is faithful let those stories strengthen you that god has seen me through even the deepest valleys and let that be preached do not tell other people's face stories tell your own
so what do you do if you do not understand the kingdom of god let me share with you this is why we have home groups i tell you i came in tuesday and i was like i have no idea how i'm going to explain deuteronomy 21-24 but man how god was so faithful to walk through a group of believers as we work through those incredibly difficult passages together do not neglect that god has put you in a church he has put you with other believers learn from them learn from them we grow with one another and not apart from one another god has to design his glory to be clearly seen through the church so how do we live this on this passage on purpose a few closing remarks for you first the pharisees demanded a sign their teaching was hypocritical and this caused hardness of hearts the antidote for hypocrisy is first authenticity being truly who you are great sin festers when people pretend to be who they are not
don't put on a face come in and say hey this is who i am next accountability do you have someone you meet with regularly do you confess sins to one another do you ask them to reveal your shortcomings your blind spots do you come together to challenge one another to know god's word do you come together to read god's word together to study god's word to challenge each other to memorize god's word and say how are you doing putting that into practice
this is the antidote for hypocrisy next knowledge without application leads to spiritual dullness application with no knowledge will lead to pride we need to grow in both application and knowledge not one or the other i'm great in application then bro growing knowledge i'm great knowledge when bro grow in application these are never enemies they're the breathing in and the breathing out of god's word appellate application alone will cause you to cry out look at me look at all that i'm doing for you oh god while knowledge alone will cause you to be critical of others will cause you to sit comfortably on the sidelines and you'll find yourself being accusing others of their walk and you will never actually be walking yourself
finally know that christ is the one who opens our eyes and god has removed the blindness of this world by dying on that cross the cross is what destroys our blindness because we will see clearly our call not to be served but to serve because that's what christ did for us let's pray father god we thank you for this morning god we thank you for this incredibly convicting sobering text this morning that you have called us to be righteous because you yourself are righteous so father god we thank you for this morning we thank you for the glories of the cross we thank you that you have not left us but you who began the good work see us all the way into completion so lord we praise you and worship you swearing praise things your son's name
amen
you