Who's Going to Clean This Up?

Now as we continue in our message series, Meals with Jesus, and since I was just talking about kids, I thought I would start mentioning it. One of the greatest things about being a kid is that when you're a kid you get to make big messes. Like kitchen messes, for example. Or paint messes. I love these kids. How about permanent Sharpie messes? Oh yeah. That's... I'm gonna leave a mark for a while. Or flower all over the living room messes. This is my favorite. This is falling asleep with your favorite jar of jelly messes. Picture of contemporary. Because you know, it's what you do when you're a kid. You make messes. And even better than that, you never have to concern yourself with who is going to clean this up. Because when you're a kid, it's not gonna be you. You're scot-free.

A couple years go by. We grow out of that stage only to make different messes. Personal messes. Relational messes. You know this to be true. You've seen this. You've seen it happen around you. And no doubt, you've made some messes of your own. And it's really been that way since pretty much the beginning. I mean, you only get about two pages into the Bible and there's Adam and Eve doing what? Making a mess. And ever since that, then it's been pretty much mess after mess after mess after mess. And that's why God came to us in Jesus Christ to rescue us from the mess that we've made in this world. In fact, as a pastor named Andy Stanley said not too long ago, Jesus loves the little messes. All the messes of the world. That's pretty much the core of the Christian message.

And so Jesus enters into this world, into a religious context, in fact, where people are keenly aware that there are messes all around them. And some of them are very committed to the idea of not making any more messes. And so, in particular, a group called the Pharisees, they have a basic strategy for life and for faith and it boils down to this. Avoid all messes. Don't touch. Don't eat. Don't do anything that might make you dirty. And they have hundreds of rules all designed around this principle. Staying pure, clean, untainted by the world. And perhaps you're here today for a similar purpose. Part of your motive is that there was a time in your life you made a mess. You were motivated to connect with God in a way that would improve your life. Or you're here today because you're in a mess. You don't want to be in that mess any longer. Or you've got kids. They're in our children's program right now. Or they're in youth group. Or they're enrolled in our preschool or our schools. In part because you're hoping that that will all lead to them avoiding some of the messes that you know are out there waiting for them.

And this is all good. I mean this should be a place where people, both young and old, learn how to live better. But I have to ask, does all this clean living automatically lead to a pure heart? I mean did Jesus come simply to show us a better way to behave? Or is there something more expansive, more epic, more profound to His message and His ministry and mission in this world? Well we're gonna find out today. So I want to invite you to open up your Bibles if you have them to Luke 11. You don't have your Bible. You can follow along on screen. You can use one of those in the pew rack. You can look in your notes, on your phone. All sorts of ways to follow along this morning. Luke 11. We're gonna be looking this morning at verses 37 through 44 as I said. And here we go.

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him. So he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not wash before the meal. Now let's just stop there for a moment. This is not the kind of hand washing that your mom told you to do before supper. This is not, you know, all employees must wash their hands before returning back to work. This was a ceremonial hand washing. It was a ritual designed to remove whatever sinful contact you might have had during the course of the day. Maybe you touched a sinful person and so you were gonna wash that off. And this Pharisee, he doesn't voice the fact that he's amazed that Jesus has not done this, but Jesus is already on to him.

And in verse 39, he just kind of leans in and says, "The Lord said to him, 'Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people. Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?'" You want to say there, "Wow Jesus, I mean tell us what you really think." They just sit down and Jesus is like right in this guy's face, but here's what he's getting at. This little ritual that you might have made these guys feel cleaner and better about themselves, but Jesus is saying, "No, no, you missed the point entirely. The problem's not out there. The problem's in here. Inside the cup."

Reminds me several years ago, I came back from sabbatical, which is this amazing benefit that you all are generous enough to provide for the pastors here, and it was pretty much a better part of three months. And I come back to my office and I'm pleased as I walk in to see that my favorite coffee mug is still on my desk. And the remarkable thing about that is three months have gone by and not one of the other pastors or office workers has stolen it. So, you know, it's pretty incredible. It's one of the reasons why I believe in miracles, but you know, I like this mug because it wasn't too fancy or fruity. There it is right there. It's just basic mug, white, black handle, black rim around the top, and you can't see the picture, but down at the very base it was also black as well.

And the first morning I grab it and you know rinse the dust out and pour myself my first cup, and I'm back to work ready to go. And I'll fast forward to Thursday of that week. Pretty much used that cup all week long several times. I've rinsed it, filled it, and stuff like that, but I go to take the last sip of that particular cup of coffee that morning, and I noticed something. Because whereas it does have a black handle and a black rim, what I had taken for the black base, it starts sliding towards my mouth as I go to take that last sip. It's like a little round patch of tar. It's kind of flexy and slimy and old. You see, it turns out if you walk away from a full coffee cup and you just leave it for like three months on your desk, that coffee will turn into something that you can use to patch asphalt. I know this for a fact.

And Jesus pretty much says to this Pharisee, "Look you guys, you know, you're all about cleaning the outside of the cup, but inside your hearts are black, kind of slimy." Verse 41, he says, "But now as for what is inside you, be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you." Now that's kind of an awkward verse to translate and somewhat difficult to understand, but here's what Jesus is getting at. These guys did, in fact, give to the poor quite religiously, quite regularly. The only problem was it had nothing to do with mercy or compassion or concern for the poor. It had everything to do with simply burnishing their image.

And Jesus is saying, "Look, if you were to actually give out of what is inside you, if that generosity flowed out of a heart of mercy and love, then that would be a portal into your soul. It would be an indicator that things are doing well inside. But again, for them, it was all show, all pretense. In fact, later in Luke 16, Jesus is talking about how you cannot love both God and money at the same time. You can't serve those two masters. And when He said this, interesting insight into the hearts of the Pharisees, it says this starting in verse 14, "The Pharisees who loved money, heard all this, and were sneering at Jesus." Imagine Jesus saying, "You can't love both God and money at the same time." They're sneering at Him.

And He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts." That's really today's passage in a nutshell. God knows our hearts. We can have this church act down. We can sing all the songs. We know what to say. We know what to do. We know what not to do, especially in public. And we can even sprinkle our money here and there, and everyone buys it except for God who knows what's really going on in our hearts. And I think the temptation is for us to look at the Pharisees and say, "What a bunch of idiots. Man, I am so glad that I am not like them." We ought to be careful lest we stumble as well.

I was reading this week a story by Philip Yancey. It's in his book, "The Jesus I Never Knew." Great book, but he was talking about when years ago he taught a Sunday school class at his church in Chicago, and it was a class that focused on the Gospels, and it was somewhat innovative because before people used a lot of media, he had this big collection of movies about Jesus, and he would show clips from several movies, and then they dive into those scenes in the Gospels and talk about it. It attracted a very eclectic group. He had PhDs. He had working class people. There was a homeless guy that would come and shower, and they joined the class, and so they felt really good about the vibe of this group. It was like, "God's really doing something kind of unique and cool here."

And one morning they're talking about how Jesus often butted heads with the Pharisees. Could have been talking about the passage we're looking at today, and that led to a discussion of how in even modern day you can have Pharisaical approaches to religion, and people start getting in there, start to share their war stories. Like people are talking about the fundamentalist church that they grew up in, or others are talking about how they just barely survived Bible school, and they're having a good time with this, and kind of laughing, and Philip Yancey offers his own story. He talks about when he was a student at Moody Bible Institute in the early 70s, and how they had this very strict rule pertaining to all the male students. At that time, you could not have hair over your ear. You couldn't have a mustache. You couldn't wear a beard, which was ironic, as Yancey pointed out, because every single day students like him would pass by this huge portrait of D.L. Moody, the founder of the school, with, you guessed it, hair over his ears, beard, and mustache.

So everyone's laughing, having a good time, except for one guy named Greg, and Greg's just sitting there like this. He's visibly upset. And then finally he looks at the people around him, he goes, "You know who the Pharisees are? You are." Points right at Philip Yancey, and the rest of you are as well, because you know what? He goes, "I'm a Christian. I'm here today because of Moody Church and its influence on my life." He said, "Isn't it so easy, just like the Pharisees, to get together and talk about people behind their backs and look down your nose at them? You guys are the Pharisees." And when he says that, all eyes turn to Philip Yancey, like, "You're the leader, now what are you gonna do with this?" We're all looking for a response, and he says, "I had none." Because Greg had caught us red-handed in a moment of spiritual arrogance.

See, here's the thing that church people like us often forget about the Pharisees. They started out with good intentions. You didn't become a Pharisee because you wanted to wear the uniform. You became a Pharisee because you wanted to live a good and godly life, but the problem was it didn't work. It never works. If we are to somehow earn our way into God's good graces, it does not work. They could not live up to their own good intentions any more than you and I can live up to ours. And so you know what they did when they realized that they actually couldn't live up to their own standards? They said, "Oh Lord, have mercy on us sinners." No, they didn't do that. They faked it. They pretended to be better than they actually were.

I mean, can you imagine people pretending that their lives are not as messy as they are? Who does that? I'll tell you who does that. I do. You do. You know, this is why the tax collectors and the prostitutes were such an easier audience for Jesus. They knew their lives were messed up. Everyone else did, so there was no incentive to pretend about anything. But with the Pharisees, with the self-righteous, Jesus here, He said, "Grabbing them by the lapels and saying, 'You don't get it until God changes your heart, until you're humble enough to allow Him to change your heart.'" All of this religious posturing is a total waste of time. It's pointless.

That brings us to the big idea this morning in this message. And if you've been here for a while, you've heard us basically say this in so many words, but I'm gonna say it again, and it's this. A changed heart begins with a cleansed heart. A changed life begins with a cleansed heart. There's no other way around it. It's why in Proverbs 4:23 it says this, and I'm gonna invite you to read this along with me. Let me hear you read this with some enthusiasm. Here we go. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Everything you do, it all starts here. And you might be thinking, "Well, you know, I got it, Mark. I know that. And I have no desire to be like a Pharisee, and so, you know, I'm good. I got this." But before you check that box, and just kind of move on in your mind, I want you to see how Jesus continues with these guys.

Because over the course of these next couple verses, He's gonna invite us to do some soul-searching of our own, some personal inventory of our own. And it's kind of like when a friend of mine, not too long ago, he was talking about some anxiety that he was suffering, and part of that anxiety had to do with the fact that he was afraid that something might be wrong with his heart physically. And so when he communicated this to his doctor, his doctor says, "Okay, well, let's check you out." And he ordered a stress test for my friend. And have you ever had a stress test before? Yeah, so they basically, they put these electrodes on your chest and a hose in your mouth that measures your oxygenation of the blood and stuff like that, and then you're on a treadmill, and they start that treadmill, and you start jogging with all this breathing through the hose, kind of like six million dollar man type of thing.

And after about two minutes, that treadmill, it clicks up and gets a little steeper. You got to run a little faster, keep up with it, and then it clicks up again, and then again, and again, and again, until you fall off and die. Or at least you feel like that's what's gonna happen. But it turns out they can diagnose all sorts of things about your heart when they stress it in this way. And I think that's what Jesus is going to do in this, these next few verses. I mean, how do you, how do you assess the condition of your own heart? Because again, the Pharisees, they thought they were, you know, good as gold. They were, they were in, and they couldn't have been more wrong.

And so there's three questions that I want to offer up to you this morning, and I want to preface that by saying none of us have arrived. Okay, none of us are perfect. We all know that, and so as you ask yourself these questions, I want you to ask it with that in mind, and just think more or less. Generally speaking, how does this connect with my own heart and life? And the first question is this, do I love what God loves? Do I love what God loves? Because faith without love is totally empty. It's like a song that Johnny Cash wrote some years ago, it goes like this, "Come heed me my brothers, come heed one and all, don't brag about standing or you'll surely fall. You're shining your light and shine that you should, but you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good." That's great theology from Johnny Cash, because God loves people.

And when God starts to change your heart, you will love people, not just the lovable ones, the easy to love, but those that are harder to love. And so back in verse 11, or back in chapter 11 verse 42, Jesus says, "Whoa, to you Pharisees." And let me just stop you there, because I used to read that word "whoa" like Jesus was like going "whoa" and calling down fire on them. Not quite the nuance of that word. It's more like our word in English for "alas," or when you say "whoa" is me, there's some condemnation in that, but there's also regret, there's sadness. That's all packed into what Jesus is saying here when he says, "Whoa, to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue, and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone."

See, the Old Testament instructed the Israelites to give it a tie, the tenth, from their fields and their flocks, but now the Pharisees, they've taken to this total extreme where you imagine the guys out in the herb garden, he's counting the leaves, like you know, "one for you God, you know, nine for me, one for you, nine for me." And this type of ultra religious effort, the problem with it, it just amounts to spiritual narcissism. It ultimately becomes about you and how you can kind of, you know, pad your own religious resume and you're so caught up in your own self-righteous effort that you don't have the time or the inclination to care about anyone else. They're not even on your radar.

Jesus tells us, "You want to know what God wants? God wants you to love Him with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul, and to love your neighbor as you do yourself. You do that, everything else is gonna fall into place." In fact, when he says that in Luke 10, he goes on to illustrate it with a story. A story about a guy who gets robbed, beaten, left, half-dead on the road. And lo and behold, this priest should be good news. A priest comes by to attend to him, but no he doesn't. He tiptoes around the guy on the other side of the road and goes off to do his priestly duties. Next guy is a Levite. That would be like a church administrator in our day. He walks in, does the same thing as the priest, just tiptoes around him. Off he goes to do his church business.

Third person, Jesus calls him a what? A Samaritan. You read non-religious guy there, outsider there. He actually cares for the guy, takes him in, sacrifices so that this guy can be healed. Now it's a very penetrating story, and I don't think that any of us are, you know, going to get caught up in tithing our mint or basil or whatever it is we're growing in our herb garden. But I think it's pretty easy, if we're not mindful, to be so insular, to get so caught up in church culture, and very good things, mind you, you know, Bible studies in small groups and this church activity and that church activity, but after a while it can be so much that it's like a, we've become part of this Christian bubble, you know, our own little holy huddle, and you know, we don't even really know our neighbors. We don't know their burdens. We don't know their fears. The only time we see them is when we wave politely when we're driving by, what? Going to one more thing at church, and I'm all for church, but I'm also for what's going on out there in our community.

People who don't, are not sitting in these pews this morning. People who don't know the love that Christ has for them and how He could transform the messes that they're living in right now, and just maybe Jesus wants to use us to get that message to them. And actually there's no maybe about that. So do I love what or better who God loves? Second question is this, do I live for applause or an audience of one? Jesus has already nailed these Pharisees for their focus on externals, and He's going to come right back to that here in verse 43, when He says, "Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces." I want to show you something. This photo on screen, this is a picture of an ancient synagogue. This is a synagogue at Migdal. It was built probably a hundred years before Jesus. It was called Magdala. Mary Magdalene lived here. This was her hometown on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. There's very little doubt that Jesus taught in that very space right there.

I want you to notice something though. You see those seats, little bench seats that wrap around the inner perimeter? Those are like the good seats, okay? That's courtside seating at the Warriors, okay? This is where if you're important, if you're significant, that's where you want to sit, because that's where you get seen. And when people see you sitting there and then they see you out in the marketplace, they come up to you and they give you a respectful greeting because you're a special person. It's kind of like this little pew down here, right? This is the special seat at Twin Lakes Church, isn't it? Come on, we all know it. You never sit there. That's where the pastors sit. That's where Valerie's sitting right now. So when you see her in Nob Hill, I want you to give her a respectful greeting. Because she loves it.

Now of course I'm just having fun and it's easy to kind of poke holes in this because it's kind of ridiculous to think like, "Well look at me, God. I got the front seat." You've heard me talk in the past about when we were growing up for a while we had turkeys and I was so amused by them because they're epitome of empty pride, the way that they compete with each other to see who can puff up more than the other like this. In the other was, "Oh yeah, check this out." Like that. And not too long ago I was going for a walk where we live in Corraletus and I came across seven wild turkeys and I filmed them with my phone. Check this out because no problem seeing who the two males are in that group, right? They're just like, "I got this, girls. Let me protect you." And the other guy's like, "Nuh-uh, no. I'm all over this. I got this." And you might be thinking, "Well Mark, they're doing that because you've made them feel insecure by your presence." You know, this is a defense mechanism to puff up like that. Yeah, my point exactly because often that's what it comes down to. Make myself look bigger than I am. And how ridiculous is that from God's point of view?

Can you imagine God looking at us puffing up and praining ourselves like he's impressed? Seriously guys? Any more than what we'd see on the screen? You know, the greatest perspective that you will ever gain in life is when you reflect not on you, but you reflect on what Jesus has done for you. When you realize that the God of the universe was willing to take upon all your mass upon himself to absorb that on the cross, you let that penetrate your heart. And I promise you, you will become less and less concerned about what other people think of you. You will be less motivated for the applause of people and much more motivated for living before an audience of one. In fact, you will cherish the moments when you have the opportunity to do something for him out of love and devotion that nobody else sees but him. And you go, "Man, that's where my greatest joy is." Because after all, he's the only one that's actually worthy of honor and praise. He's the only one worthy of you devoting your very best to. And as that penetrates your heart, you'll also realize it's really only his opinion, his applause, that ultimately matters.

So where's your heart today? I mean, more or less, generally speaking. When you ask yourself, "Do I love who or what God loves? Do I live for the applause of people or an audience of one?" And then the third question is this, "Do I leave people better or worse? Do I leave people better or worse?" Because here's the hard truth about hypocritical religion. It not only hardens my heart and steadily draws me further and further away from God. It has a toxic effect on others. It's not neutral. And so in verse 44, Jesus concludes, "Woe to you because you are like unmarked graves which people walk over without knowing it." You see, to come in contact with a dead body or a grave was to become, again, richly defiled for a week, in fact. Couldn't go to the temple, couldn't be part of the synagogue. And so this was a big deal. And Jesus is telling these Pharisees who think that they are, you know, the paragons of cleanliness and purity, because you're actually defiling the people around you. They don't even know. They're impressed. You're defiling them.

And then he refers to these unmarked graves. Whenever they knew there was a grave, they would whitewash it so that you knew it was there. But invariably, there would be ones you didn't know it was there and the person would accidentally step on it, come in contact. It's like, "Oh man." And so think about this. Jesus starts talking to these guys that try to wash the sin germs off their hands before the meal. Jesus is saying, "Surprise, guys. You're the carriers. You're the carriers." And you're pulling other people down. You're robbing them of their joy. You're sucking out whatever love that they would have had for God and you're replacing it with this burdensome rules. And their hearts are hardened in the process.

And that's why Jesus is gonna say just a few more verses in chapter 12. 1, he's gonna say, "Be on your guard." There it is again. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is what? Hypocrisy. Be on your guard. Because what happens in here affects everything else you think and do. Bottom line is this. We do not change by simply avoiding something. We don't. Now, are there some things that you ought to avoid? Yes, it's called wisdom. It's called obedience. But the message of Jesus, the gospel, is so much bigger and richer than that because we do not change by simply avoiding something. We change by becoming something. By becoming the person God created us to be. The person that Jesus died for us to be.

And here's the amazing thing because in the way that only God can do, our mess becomes our message. A message of hope. A message of redemption. A message of a life transformed. And that's the beautiful thing about what Jesus is doing. And if you're a believer, here's, this is the thing that I want you to realize this morning. He's already doing that in you right now without you even thinking about it. He's already transforming your life. And our job is to simply cooperate with that. To say, "Yes, I mean, I'm on board. I want to do that. I invite you, Lord, to continue to complete what you started in me."

I'll close with a final example. I started this morning talking about how our seventh graders went to Mexico. And it was such a rich time because not only did they have a great time with the orphans, but they took on this house as a project there. This house is just kind of like two large garden sheds. And the woman that lives there, single mom, she actually grew up at the orphanage. She got married at some young age, had two children, and then her husband abandoned her. And so when we arrived at her house, it struck me that it wasn't just poverty that was at play there, although it certainly was. But there was a sense of despair, deep discouragement.

And our kids, when they jumped in, they cleaned her kitchen, as you could see, and they painted the rooms, and they just kind of made it look bright and fun and exciting. They picked up the yard, and I'm thinking to myself, "Man, these are middle schoolers. What does it take to motivate middle schoolers to like pick up someone else's yard? Are you kidding me? And scrub their stove and paint their walls?" Who does that? I'll tell you who does that. People, whether they're seventh graders or 70 years old or anywhere in between, whose hearts are being changed by Jesus. This was not a chore for them, this was a joy. They didn't do it because they wanted to impress anyone. They did it because Jesus was changing their hearts and making it look more and more like his.

This is really what Paul talks about in Philippians 1, when he says to the church at Philippi, and by extension to all of us, he says, "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you," you all, you notice it's in us, it's an inside job, "will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Church, that means that we have a destiny. It means that we are part of the greatest project in the universe, and God is inviting us today, I think, to say, "God, I am all in. I want to embrace with my whole heart what you're calling me to do." To an ex-church, if that's the desire of your heart, can you just give me an amen here at the end? Amen.

Well then let's pray towards that end. Lord, I thank you so much that you call us into such a glorious life here on earth and a future that we can't even begin to imagine. We're person by person, mess by mess. You start to redeem, you start to heal, you start to bring wholeness. And so Father, I pray that for all of us who call ourselves Christians here today, that our being here wouldn't be just a habit or routine, that we would never become jaded to what you are doing in our midst, but Lord we would be filled with with wonder and awe that that you would include us in what you are doing and that you are giving us, Lord, a heart that more and more beats and looks like yours.

So Lord, I just pray that you would continue to quicken our hearts, you continue to complete the work that you have started in us in this church, in our midst, as we represent your love, your grace, your intention for not just ourselves but our community. And whether it takes the form of serving here or serving a neighbor or helping a person on the side of the road or being part of the Project Homeless Connect, whatever it looks like, what I pray would never be out of guilt or as a sense of this will, you know, kind of add to God's approval of me, but Lord it would be just out of the outflow of our hearts, the love that you've given us and there would be great joy in those moments.

And for anyone who's here Lord and they're new to Christianity, they're just kind of checking it out, I pray that they would be able to see the distinction between religion that tells them do this, do this, do that, and don't do these other things and the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ who comes and does for us that what we could never do, that it's done. And we follow you in joyful obedience and gratitude because of how you're changing our hearts. Pray all these things, the name of Jesus Christ, our wonderful Savior. Pray that you would continue to make our hearts look more and more like yours. His name I pray. Amen.