Breaking the Rules to Do What’s Right

Audio Transcript

We’re continuing on this morning in our long study through the entire Bible and we are, as you know, now in the New Testament, specifically in the four Gospels. We’re studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in harmony together, studying the life of Christ. And whenever we finish the four Gospels, we’ll be moving on to Acts and the letters of the New Testament. We’ll be moving from “The Life of Christ” to “The Life of the Church.” And when we’re done with that, somewhere in 2078, we’ll move to Revelation and we’ll look at “The Life to Come.” I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to skip right there and just go ahead and talk about that.

So we finished up the Sermon on the Mount last week in Matthew chapter 7, and so we pick up the narrative this morning now in Mark chapter 2. Mark chapter 2, and today we’re gonna look at verses 13 on through the first 12 verses of chapter 3.

Hey, I want to ask you, are there times when doing right means breaking the rules? Are there moments when obeying God requires that you stand against religion?

As we move further into the life of Christ, we’re going to see this increasing pattern of hatred against Him intensify, and it’s going to get worse and worse from here on out. We’ve seen small glimpses of it along the way so far, but we’re going to see this hatred for Him grow as He continues breaking the rules of the Pharisees. Now, He’s not breaking their rules just because He wants to be rebellious. He’s doing it because He understood something that they had forgotten: God is far more interested in what’s right than what’s religious. God is far more interested in what’s right than in what’s religious.

Today we’re going to look at a few examples of this growing criticism that Jesus faced and see what we can learn from how He responded to it. We’re not going to be able to go extremely deep on any of this because the way I’ve structured this message is to sort of be like a stone skimming across a smooth pond—we’re going to touch, I believe, four different events that happened back to back in His life, and I encourage you to dig deeper on this on your own. Let’s begin though by looking at Mark chapter 2 starting in verse 13.

It says, “Then He,” that’s Jesus—always remember to understand who we’re reading about—”Then He went out again by the sea,” that’s the Sea of Galilee, “and all the multitude came to Him and He taught them. And He passed by and saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me.'” So Levi got up and followed Him. Verse 15: “Now this is sometime later, as Jesus was dining at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many, and they followed Him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, ‘How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?'”

Jesus has just called Levi, also known as Matthew. There were many people in the Bible who had two different names. Thomas was called Didymus, Simon was Peter, and so on. This is Matthew that we’re talking about, the one who wrote the Gospel of Matthew. So Jesus says, “Just come along,” and called Levi to follow Him. Now I must insert quickly, as we looked at when Jesus has already called His first few disciples, we saw that months ago, Jesus didn’t walk past and see Levi for the first time and say, “Follow Me,” and it wasn’t some kind of hypnosis trick.

Levi didn’t just stand up in a zombie state and follow Him. This Jesus was the most popular man in Israel at this time. Thousands and thousands of people were clamoring after Him, and we’re gonna see more of that next week. He was well-known. I have no doubt that Levi had already encountered Jesus, that the Spirit had been working on his heart, and when the time was right, just like with His other disciples—when He called John and Andrew and Simon, they already knew Jesus.

They had been tagging along with Him here and there a little bit, and when Jesus finally made the official call, they were ready to go. And so I’m convinced that Levi already knew who Jesus was, the Spirit was working in his heart, and when the time was right, Jesus said, “All right, Levi, come on, it’s time. It’s time. Leave your life behind and come and follow Me.” And that’s exactly what Levi did.

Now, it’s important to note Levi was a tax collector, which meant he was despised by his fellow Jews. He was despised by them. He was an outcast, and here’s why: Rome had conquered Israel at this point and they imposed crushing taxes on the people, but Rome didn’t actually collect the taxes themselves. They auctioned off the right for others to come and collect taxes, and they auctioned it off sort of to the highest bidder.

These tax collectors, also called publicans, paid Rome a fixed amount upfront, and after that anything extra they could squeeze out of the people was theirs to keep. And some of the historical writings tell us they charged exorbitant fees on top of this. Some of them would double your taxes and they’d say, “This is what you owe.” They’d take half and they’d pocket it, and these tax collectors were becoming filthy rich at the expense of their own fellow countrymen.

The system was riddled with corruption, and any Jew who signed up to be a tax collector was branded as a traitor and he was hated by other Jews. The Talmud equates tax collectors to murderers and robbers, puts them in the same category. No respectable Jew would ever be seen socializing with a tax collector. And so they sort of hung out in their own group.

And then Jesus shows up and He not only calls a tax collector to follow Him and be His disciple, but He then goes and eats at his house along with other tax collectors and sinners. Now Levi has been transformed by Jesus and he throws a party and invites all of his crony friends to come and have a meal because he wants to introduce his lost friends to Jesus. I mean, there’s a whole message there. You know, I read a statistic one time that I had to drill deeper in because I thought it was wrong when I first read it: the vast number of people who, when they become a Christian, the statistics said within two years all their friends are Christians, and I thought, “That’s impossible, nobody leads all their unsaved friends to Christ within two years.” I had it wrong. What it was saying was, on average, when a person is saved, within two years they’ve traded all their old friends for Christians.

Folks, that’s insanity! We don’t understand our mission if we’re doing that. The people in here today, I love y’all and I’m glad we get to do this together and fellowship together as Christians, but if this is all the friends you have, you need to get busy. You need to look around you and say, “Lord, open my eyes to people around me who need You, befriend these people, love them, be generous to them, care for them.” This is what Levi is doing.

Now, in Jewish culture, eating with someone, having a meal with someone, was not a casual experience. It wasn’t like us today, “Hey, you want to go grab a burger?” It was a sign of acceptance and fellowship. If you went into someone’s home and shared a meal with them, or you invited someone into your home to share a meal with you, you’re saying, “You’re part of my community.” It was a very strong statement.

The Pharisees would never eat with sinners. They would never have a meal with a tax collector, because they believed that by doing so, they made themselves unclean, just by being in the same house. Do you understand the tension we’re looking at as Jesus, the one who’s come along claiming to be their Messiah, their Savior—their supposed Messiah—is breaking their rules and eating with tax collectors and sinners? This was a scandal of the highest order.

So the Pharisees obviously did not go into Levi’s house—that would have made them unclean. I don’t know, they were looking through the windows or something, they saw what was going on, they were disgusted by it, and they called the disciples, Jesus’ disciples, and they say, “How can your Master eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus hears this, and what He says next I think is one of the clearest statements He ever made about His mission. Look at verse 17: when Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That’s the heart of the Gospel. Jesus came for the desperate, the broken, the lost. He came for the overlooked, the marginalized, the ones who were excluded.

But let me throw this in quickly: don’t misunderstand what’s happening here, because we’ll see this in the life of Jesus again and again and again. This meal He’s having with Levi, with Matthew and his unsaved friends, that created such a scandal, Jesus is going to do this again and again and again—associate with people He was not supposed to. And this has been misunderstood by many a believer.

Jesus didn’t spend time with sinners to affirm them in their sin; He spent time with sinners to save them from it. I’ve heard people say, “Well, I’m gonna go and get drunk with my friends so I can reach them for Christ.” No. No, no. Jesus is not saying, “Your lifestyle is fine, I approve of everyone’s lifestyle.” This is what you hear taught today. I heard it just a few months ago again: “What do you mean Jesus is against homosexuality?” Well, He is. “No, Jesus loves everyone. He approves of everyone.” He doesn’t. He came to call men to repentance. From what? From their sin.

So it’s a fine line here. I can’t tell you where that line is. I would never try. You must work that out for yourselves. I’ve messed this line up a time or two in my life, in trying to be with unsaved people, you know, in my business. I was constantly around lost people. The lines got blurry for me there sometimes. I didn’t know what was right or if it was too far, but this is how we live the Christian life, you know, we work these things out along the way. We’re called to be in the world, but not of the world. And the part we always hear is “not of the world”—we miss the “in the world” part. We’re called to be in the world, but not of the world. We’re called to shine as light among those who are in darkness.

Jesus is not condoning their sin. He hasn’t become one of them to try to say, “You’re sick and I’m the Doctor.” I mean, it’s kind of an insult here, what He said, but it’s the truth: “They’re sick and I’m the Doctor.” But His response did something else: boy, it exposed the Pharisees. They were just as sick as the tax collectors, but because they refused to admit it, they missed the salvation that Jesus was bringing.

I think I may have put this on a slide so that you could remember it. I don’t know how to word this, but I believe this is close, maybe: “The greatest barrier to God’s grace is believing you don’t need it.” The greatest barrier to God’s grace is believing you don’t need it. God can rescue anyone regardless of their past. I’m telling you, I’ve sat and listened to people’s stories over the years—some of the things in the past, I didn’t know if I should call the cops or not. I mean, some people have had some rough paths. You know, like, “Is this a crime? Should I be on the phone with somebody?” You know, God doesn’t have a problem saving any of that.

The thing He can’t work with is a man or woman who says, “I’m good enough already. I don’t need help.” Fact is, man, we are all sick. We all need the Doctor, capital D.

And the beautiful thing is, Jesus doesn’t keep us at arm’s length. He’s the one extending the invitation. While we’re still mucking about in our sin, Jesus is the one who says, “Come to Me.” He invites us. He’s willing to come and sit at our table and fellowship with us if we’re honest enough to admit our need. Do we remember what Revelation 3:20 says? Jesus speaking these words: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, fellowship with him, and he with Me.”

Well, that’s the first attack we see in this series of verses. The second attack comes in the next verse, verse 18: “The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Jesus, ‘Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not?'” Now, we’ll get more into this much later down the road, but we’ve kind of forgotten about John the Baptist at this point, haven’t we? It’s been a long time. We started last year in the New Testament looking at John’s life and how he baptized Jesus and so on.

John has been off the scene now. I must tell you at this point for quite a while now, John, the beautiful one who came to point people to the Savior—John the Baptist has long since now been arrested and thrown in prison. So all these months we’ve been studying the life of Christ so far? Guess where John has been. He’s been sitting in a prison cell this whole time—for speaking the truth, by the way.

But remember John had disciples before Jesus came along? And this is what it’s referring to here: some of those, sort of the straggling bunch that were still left after John was put in prison—you know, “What do we do now? Do we keep this thing going?” But there were still some disciples of John—in fact, we’ll see them even later in the New Testament in the book of Acts—still some around. They were fasting along with the Pharisees, and they see Jesus’ disciples not fasting on this particular day, and again it’s an offense to them, and so they want to know why.

Do you remember the Pharisee in Luke 18 who stood and prayed aloud and said, “I thank You that I’m not like other men, like this tax collector”? And then he started listing his religious credentials. Remember one of the things he said? He said, “I fast twice a week.” Yeah, twice a week. The Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday of every week. Coincidentally, Monday and Thursday were the market days, and so fasting on those days ensured that the largest crowds possible would see them as they walked through the marketplace with a pained look on their face: “Oh, Rabbi, you look down today.” “Yes, my son, I’m fasting. A second day this week—fasted Tuesday as well.” “Oh yes, you’re such a holy one; yes, you’re so spiritual.”

First of all, God never commanded anyone to fast every Monday and Thursday—every, every Monday and Thursday. There’s no record of that, and there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way—nothing in the world wrong with fasting twice a week. But this was a man-made rule that they were trying to force on Jesus.

Now His responses here go quite deep in the next few verses—I’m not going to have time to dig into all of those—but He gives three illustrations. In response to this accusation, He gives the illustration of a Bridegroom, saying, “My disciples don’t need to fast because I’m their Bridegroom; I’m with them; this is a time of joy.” He gives a second illustration, saying the example of sewing a new piece of cloth onto an old worn piece of cloth that has a hole in it. He said, “Don’t do that because it’s going to stretch and it’s going to make the tear even worse.” And then He gives a third illustration, I think one we’re most familiar with, saying, “Don’t put new wine in old wineskins, because the new wine will expand and it will burst the old wineskins.”

In a nutshell, what He’s saying is this: He’s saying, “You guys are hung up on your religious rules, and any attempt to mix the freedom of the salvation that I’m offering with the old burdensome religion of Judaism will not work. You can’t take the new Gospel that I’m bringing and try to force it into your old system of rules. That’s not how it works.”

Well, moving on, we see the third attack on Jesus now in verse 23: “And it came to pass that He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath”—there’s the key, “on the Sabbath. And His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain, and the Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?'” Well, this seems like an odd thing. Why would they be upset about this?

Well, Israel was forbidden to harvest crops on the Sabbath. Now, that’s a great, good, wise guideline to have in place. It was put in place for every man, so that was a good thing to have in place: “Don’t work your fields, don’t harvest your crops on the Sabbath, take this day of rest that God has given to you.” But the Pharisees took that simple rule to absurd extremes. Let me just give you three quick examples of this particular incident of them just picking some heads of grain.

First, they said—now they’ve taken “don’t harvest on the Sabbath,” and they’ve done this with it—first, they said if you pluck a piece of grain on the Sabbath, that’s considered harvesting. Second, if you rub the grain in your hands—and by the way, Luke in his parallel account of this event says the disciples rubbed the grain in their hands—if you rub the grain in your hands to remove the husks, that was considered threshing. And if you ate the grain, heaven forbid, that was considered storing your crops away. Yes. So these religious people, they had taken this beautiful gift of Sabbath rest that God had given to them, and they turned it into a minefield where every possible step risked breaking the law. People were afraid to do anything. If they walked across the grass and the hem of their robe brushed a piece of grass and a seed flicked out, that was considered sowing on the Sabbath.

How does Jesus respond to this? Well, in the next few verses there, He points them back to King David. He reminds them of a time when David and his men were fleeing for their lives from King Saul. They were hungry and they were exhausted; they were desperate. And David went into the tabernacle and he ate some of the bread that was reserved for the priests. Now, according to the strict letter of the law, that was wrong. But God saw David’s heart. He knew that he had no evil intent whatsoever; he was just trying to feed his starving men, and God had a heart of compassion toward him. God didn’t condemn him for doing this. Jesus is saying to these Pharisees, trying to help them see, God’s law must always be read through God’s heart.

When our heart is right, even our imperfect obedience is accepted by God. You know why? The truth is, we don’t have any such thing as perfect obedience, so it’s a good thing. When your children were little and they were learning to walk—we’ve all done this as parents, you hold out your arms and they’re like teetering along and their eyes are wide like, “Look at me! Look at me!” and they’re starting to take steps and they fall down, and they fall down again, and they fall down—you yell at them, right? “What are you, stupid? Get up! This isn’t a falling session, it’s a walking session!” No, of course not. They’re doing what’s right and beautiful, but they’re doing it imperfectly because that’s all they can do.

God said—and boy, through the Old Testament, and we looked at many of these years ago—God said, “You’re bringing Me perfect worship”—like, it’s spot-on, perfect worship—and He says, “I despise it. It makes Me sick. I wish you would shut the temple doors. Why? Because your heart isn’t for Me at all.” They were keeping God’s laws, but they weren’t doing it with their heart.

God, I’m so thankful that God looks at the inward when man looks at the outward. I’m so thankful because there are so many times, you know, when I do something dumb and maybe I offend one of you or, you know, just make a stupid choice, and I’m like beating myself up and other people see and they’re like, “Oh, Phil’s a pastor?” You know what God’s doing? He’s going, “Phil, come on. Come on. We got work to do. It’s okay. Come on.” He sees my heart and yours too. We should be very thankful for that, because I can’t perfectly keep His law. Jesus came and did that for us so that if we receive Him by faith, we’re now perfect in the eyes of God, even though we’re still stumbling here for a while in this flesh.

And then Jesus drops a bombshell in the middle of this field, verses 27 and 28. He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man, referring to Himself, is also Lord of the Sabbath.” Now, I don’t have time to dig into that—you can if you want to—I’m telling you that statement right there means nothing to us, but for this man, Jesus, to stand there in that field and say to these religious experts, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath”—who is the only one who’s Lord of the Sabbath? God in heaven. People say Jesus never claimed to be God. Here’s one of many cases if we would just understand the context. Jesus is saying to them, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath—you do the math.” But He’s saying to them, you know, the Sabbath was never meant to control people or burden them with endless regulations; it was a day of rest meant to bless people. But the Pharisees had twisted it into a day of grueling obedience to these endless rules.

I sometimes ask our elders when we meet together, “Are we propping anything up artificially that we need to kill? Is there anything we’re doing just for the sake of tradition that we don’t need to be doing?” Because, you know, I was sharing with a friend this week when we started this church, and I grew up in a missionary family and know people all over the world, and when they heard I was doing this, they said, “Oh, so starting a Baptist church?” I went, “No, it’s just a church.” And they’re like, “What?” I said, “Yeah, it’s not—we’re not anything. We’re just followers of Christ.” “Well, you have to be something.” “Yeah, we’re followers of Christ.” “No, but I mean, no, but I mean, you have to be some denomination, don’t you?” “Actually, you don’t. We’re just followers of Christ. Is that okay?”

You see, I don’t have anything against Baptist, Presbyterian, anybody else—I don’t have anything against that. I’m just saying for me this is something that God’s burdened my heart with since I was a teenager: like, don’t follow man-made patterns. Follow the Word. And we’re not doing it perfectly here by a long shot. Have you seen the elders I have to work with? I mean, it’s a miracle we get anything done! Actually, reverse that and it’s true, right? Guys, I’m the one. I’m the one causing problems. But like, I don’t care if I’m a Presbyterian, I don’t care about being a Baptist—I want to follow Christ. That’s all I want. I don’t want to be burdened by some denomination saying, “Well, you have to do this on this day, and you have to observe this, and you have to…” No, take a hike. We’re just following Christ. We’re doing it very imperfectly, but that’s what we want to do here.

Finally, this brings us to the grand finale of these encounters with the Pharisees that we’re going to look at today—the very next verse, Mark chapter 3 verse 1: “Again, Jesus entered the synagogue and a man was there who had a withered hand.” And they—who’s they? The Pharisees—guess what they were doing? They watched Jesus to see whether He would heal him on the Sabbath. Why? So they could praise God for the healing? No, so that they might accuse Him.

Jesus sees a man in the synagogue with some kind of deformed hand. It’s been speculated possibly some kind of leprosy that had deformed his hand—I don’t really see that in here—but there they were, Pharisees, once again watching His every move, desperately trying to find some way to bring charges against Him.

So now, picture this: here’s a man in desperate need. Possibly he’s struggled with this disability his entire life, and here’s Jesus who has the power to heal him. What a moment this is. Think of the opportunity standing right in front of us: a man in need and Jesus who can meet the need. This is great, except the religious leaders cared more about protecting their religious rules than they did about a man who was suffering, and in their minds they’re looking at this going, “Oh, we got Him now.”

Jesus knows what they’re thinking, and look what He does. One reason He’s my hero is He never runs from controversy or opposition or attack—He steps into it. He calls the man to step out in front of everyone and He asked this piercing question, verses 3 and 4: “And He said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Step forward.'” Then He said to them—uh-oh, wait a minute, we got a shift here, He’s not talking to the man anymore. Now He’s turned and He says to them—who? The Pharisees—”Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. I bet they did! Dead silence. They can’t answer.

If they say it’s lawful to do good on the Sabbath, then they’re basically admitting that Jesus has the right to heal the man. If they say He shouldn’t heal him, then they’re exposing the coldness of their own hearts. Jesus is forcing them, so courteously forcing them, to confront how corrupt their entire religious system has become.

By the way, if you want to do a mind-blowing study, go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and do nothing but look at the questions Jesus asked people. It’s phenomenal. He said more through questions than I’ve ever said in a 40-minute sermon. What a brilliant question this is! What a brilliant question! He’s not rude, He’s not impolite: “Hey fellas, answer me this. Is it right to do good on the Sabbath or do evil?” And as they’re choking on their chewing tobacco, we get to verse 5.

Watch this: “And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.'” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. First of all, saying “stretch out your hand” to a man who can’t stretch out his hand is really… that’s taking a step right there, isn’t it? Saying to a crippled man, we’ve already seen this, “Rise up and walk.” Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t notice?

My dad, you know, crippled when he was 18 years old and walked on crutches his whole life and then in a wheelchair later in life, he was in—he had some kind of accident, I don’t remember at the time—and was in a rehab facility here in town for a couple weeks to get his strength back. And you would think people would read the charts, you know, and I’m there one morning with him and this nurse comes in and says, “Good morning, Mr. Pikes, time to get up and take your daily walk!” And he said, “Well Han, I’d sure love to do that.”

You see, saying that, like, “Hey, hey buddy, come on, get up and walk.” “Well, I can’t.” Jesus, this is so incredible! I don’t want to get off on this, but I’ve told you before, one of the things that plagues me day and night is, “Am I doing anything to limit the power of God in my life?” I’m not getting off into wacky doctrine or whatever. I’m just… just something I ask, man. Like, we have the Holy Spirit in us who raised Jesus from the dead, and the best we can do with that is ask Him to bless our food.

Jesus says, “Stretch out your hand.” And then it says something you wouldn’t expect in this narrative—like, this should be balloons and confetti at this point—Jesus is furious, broken-hearted, really, because their religion has made them blind to the very thing God cares about, and that’s people.

We’ve got one more verse, you ready for this one? Jesus heals the man, but the Pharisees don’t rejoice. Look at verse 6: “Then the Pharisees went out and he plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.” I’m going to tell you, religious tradition is a powerful drug, and it is deadly. Because over time, tradition almost always replaces truth. You go through the religious motions, but it’s empty, and you know it in your heart, but you still do it. These men are so offended by Jesus healing this man that they start plotting His murder on the Sabbath, the very day they claim to protect. Oh, the irony.

So what does all this mean for us? Man, I got to wind this down quick. I’ve listed three quick things for you, and these will be fast, I promise. First of all, and again I don’t know how to word all this stuff, this is just you make sense of it how you will. Number one: religion can become the enemy of righteousness.

Listen, the Pharisees weren’t bad people. They were sincere; they truly believed they were serving God. Do you hear that? They truly believed they were right. But their religion had become more important than their relationship with God, and so they’d grown deaf to Him. It’s possible to attend church every week, to give tithes, to sing songs, to read your Bible, and yet be so focused on doing things right that we don’t do the right things. Sometimes religion is the roadblock that actually keeps us from doing what God… Number one: religion can become the enemy of righteousness. Number two: God cares more about people than rules.

Throughout these passages we’ve looked at quickly today, Jesus has made it abundantly clear that God’s priority is people. And Jesus has demonstrated this not only through His teaching, but through His actions. He’s shown us that He’s willing to break the rules in order to reach people. Now listen, you must have rules in place. This is not one or the other. You’ve got to have rules in place in a business, in a family, in a church, in a school, in society. Chaos will ensue if you don’t. But when we’re more concerned about whether someone is dressed appropriately in church than whether they encounter Jesus, we’ve missed the point. We’ve missed the point. When we become convinced that we have a corner on the truth, that our way is the only way, and that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong, folks, I’m telling you, we’ve stopped being disciples and we’ve started being Pharisees.

Number one: religion can become the enemy of righteousness. Number two: God cares more about people than rules. And number three, finally: the heart behind the action matters. The Pharisees were obsessed with external obedience. They said as long as you follow the rules, you’re considered righteous, but Jesus kept pointing to something deeper, and He’ll do it for His entire ministry. He says you must look at the condition of the heart, not just the external behavior. It wasn’t just about what you did; it was about why you did it.

The Pharisees fasted, but they did it to be seen by others. They gave to the poor, but they announced it with trumpets. They prayed long prayers, but it was all for show. God isn’t impressed by our religious performance. He’s not looking for people who can check all the boxes and maintain a perfect image. He’s looking for people with humble hearts, people who are willing to admit their need, who are more concerned with loving others than with looking good.

And so He invites us, as we’ve heard these things this morning, to consider this, to weigh this: like, which group do you want to be in? Which group do I want to be in? I stood up here a few weeks ago and told you I’m a recovering Pharisee. I wish I didn’t have to say that, but it’s true. I’d be lying otherwise. I’ve worked through this stuff for years and I’m still working. I’ll be working on this the day I die. These are hard chains to break. But I thank God for the growth I see. I thank God for the freedom that He’s brought me in some of these areas. I’m not weighed down like I used to be.

Jesus here invites us to die to our need for approval, to die to pride and self-righteousness, to die to our obsession with being right so that we can live for what really matters. And so at the end of the day, we have to decide: do we want to be like the Pharisees—technically correct, but spiritually bankrupt? Or do we want to be like Jesus, doing good even when it means breaking the rules?

I’ll tell you, folks, the world is watching, and they are not looking for people who have all the answers and follow all the rules. That’s not what they’re looking for. They’re longing to see. They’re longing to see people who actually look like Jesus—people who are willing to love them even when the religious establishment doesn’t. Do you realize most people who reject Jesus aren’t rejecting Jesus; they’re rejecting the people who represent Jesus? I pray that God will give us, and begin with me, the courage to step out of our religious silos, to ignore the criticism of the Pharisees in order to reach the ones who need Him. May we be that kind of church. Lord willing, we’ll pick up right here next week.