Lord, we need your grace and mercy. I’ll admit that I am worn out. It’s been a heavy week of grief. And yet, I know you have a word for us today. Would you give me grace to deliver this message? Would you speak to my heart right now, even as I preach? Would you give us all ears to hear what your Spirit is saying! Make us sensitive to Your Spirit! Your word says it’s not by might, not by power, but by Your Spirit! We need your Spirit now and always! And I need the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, right now! Lord, would you pour out your grace? Move in our hearts and speak a word that is true. We need you. It’s in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23, that’s on page 821 if you’re using a house Bible. And as you are turning there, I’m going to go ahead and call the ushers forward to receive our tithes and offerings. This morning, we’re talking about the Kingdom of God, or the ‘Reign of God… ’
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When I was a kid, there was a popular worship song called “Our God Reigns” that became a hit worldwide.
“Our God Reigns” was in regular rotation in my church in the 90’s. It was slow, with long, drawn-out notes. Its tone was majestic and triumphant! My youth pastor made it his signature song as he bellowed in his suit and tie: OUR GOD REIGNS! OUR GOD REIGNS! OUR GOD REIGNS! OUR GOD REIGNS!
Now I’m curious, does that song ring a bell for any of you? Any other church folks from the 90’s?
So that’s how I remember that song, I’ll always hear it in Pastor Greg’s booming voice.
Now, smash-cut to the early 2000’s. I’m in my early 20s, attending a hippie dippy church founded by real-deal Jesus Movement hippies of the 60’s and 70’s. And one day, the guy who wrote “Our God Reigns” came to sing at our church. His name was Lenny Smith.
Lenny got out his acoustic guitar, told the story of how he wrote the song, and then started playing. And I was stunned because what he sang sounded nothing like the victorious “Our God Reigns” I grew up with! Honestly, it sounded more like Kermit the Frog singing “The Rainbow Connection!’
You know what I mean? “The lovers, the dreamers, and me!” That’s what he sounded like!
“Our God reigns…”
I couldn’t believe it. There was nothing majestic or triumphant about it. In fact, it was about the most unassuming, folksy worship song I’d ever heard! And it made me wonder, how in the world did we get from Lenny’s original, Kermit-the-frog-like version to the victorious anthem I grew up with?! How in the world did we get from there to here?
As this unassuming folk song made its way around the globe, I guess it began to take on a life of its own, until it was far enough from its original form that it was almost unrecognizable.
I mean, the words were the same, but the form had changed dramatically. From humble and grass-rootsy, to regal and triumphant. From an unsophisticated folk tune to a polished anthem.
“Our God Reigns…”
The Reign of God—the Kingdom of God…
What does that even mean?
Throughout this entire series, we’ve been referring to the book of Matthew as a “Kingdom Manifesto,” a declaration of just how “upside-down” and unexpected the kingdom of God really is.
Because in God’s Kingdom, the last are first, the poor are blessed. Right?
We talk about the ‘upside-down’ Kingdom of God all the time! And we should! Because Jesus did!
If I were to ask you:
What is the primary theme of Jesus’s message(s)?
What would you say it is?
Is it ‘love your neighbor?’ ‘Love your enemies?’ Is it the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do to you? These all seem like good options.
But the primary theme of Jesus’s message is actually
“Repent. For the Kingdom of God is here.”
It’s the Kingdom of God.
In Matthew’s gospel alone, Jesus mentions the Kingdom over 50 times. That’s why we call it a Kingdom Manifesto! For nearly a year now, over and over again as we’ve slowly worked our way through the Gospel of Matthew, we’ve seen Jesus announce that the Kingdom of God is near.
Now, to us, we associate the word “kingdom’ with a localized place. We hear “kingdom” and think “Great Britain” or some other geographical territory ruled by a King.
But the biblical idea of the Kingdom of God has more to do with the RULE of God than a specific location. The Kingdom is about the King’s activity—God’s activity, His Rule and His reign. And we are under his reign, joining Him in His activity.
That’s why we sing:
Our God Reigns.
And this Kingdom, this reign, this “Rule” of God, is a theme that spans the full length of the Bible! All through the Old Testament, we see the characteristics of God’s Kingdom defined:
Justice is a hallmark of our God’s Kingdom. Mercy is a hallmark of our God’s Kingdom, the mercy he bestows upon us, and the mercy we show one another. Amy talked about this in last week’s message when she read THIS excerpt of God’s LAW from the book of Leviticus:
9 “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. 10 It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:9-18
God’s reign is marked by justice and mercy. From the beginning, the Kingdom of God included provisions for the poor and the foreigner living among you! From the very beginning.
Humility is a hallmark of our God’s reign; those who give of themselves in humble service are the ones who are considered exalted in God’s Kingdom.
It’s spelled out in Micah 6:8:
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love [d]mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
This week, in Matthew 23, we pick up right where we left off last week. Jesus is surrounded by a crowd. His disciples are there, along with some onlookers and a handful of religious leaders. These religious ‘elites’ were the highly educated Pharisees, scribes, and teachers of the Law of Moses. They certainly would have known Micah 6:8! But they weren’t doing justly. They weren’t loving mercy. And they certainly weren’t walking humbly.
Because of this, tensions between Jesus and the religious authorities were reaching a boiling point, and in Matthew 23, Jesus gives one of the most intense and incendiary teachings about the failure of these religious elites to practice what they preach!
Now, a warning, for some of you, this may be a side of Jesus you don’t recognize. In this passage, Jesus sounds less like a gentle shepherd and more like a fiery prophet! And it’s important for us to identify that Jesus IS speaking prophetically here.
When we look back at the Old Testament prophets, they didn’t gently point out people’s faults. They were direct and harsh, especially when it came to condemning oppressive systems of injustice! Or when God’s people refused to repent, or defied God’s rule, or misrepresented the Kingdom of God.
Jesus’s words in Matthew 23 are prophetic! And we’re going to read ALL of them! Starting at verse 1.
“ Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. 3 So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. 4 They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.
Jesus is addressing his disciples and the crowd, talking about the Pharisees, in front of the Pharisees! He just announced: “Don’t be like these guys!! They have a head full of knowledge, they know all about the legalities of the law of Moses, but they don’t practice what they preach!”
What they have is knowledge—without obedience.
Knowledge without obedience.
They had a kind of “illness of the heart.” An inward condition. We call it hypocrisy.
Knowledge without obedience is hypocrisy. It's knowing all the right things, saying all the right things, even teaching the right things — while failing to live them.
And Jesus uses these Pharisees as an object lesson, a warning not to become like these hypocrites who have all the knowledge but lack obedience.
The Pharisees weren’t doing justly. They weren’t loving mercy. And they certainly weren’t walking humbly! Somewhere along the way, they’d lost the plot!
Verse 5:
5 “Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra-long tassels.
We have to pause here. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy, Moses commands Israel to wholeheartedly commit to obeying God’s commandments. He tells them to do everything they can to never forget God’s laws: talk about them all the time, teach them to your children, nail them to your doorposts, tie them to your hands – wear them on your forehead! Do whatever it takes to never forget the Lord your God!
While this command to tie the scriptures to your hand and forehead was likely figurative, the Pharisees and teachers of the law took it literally! Which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with wearing physical objects that remind you of your role as a servant in the Kingdom of God. Anyone wearing a cross necklace today? Anyone got a cross tattoo? There’s nothing wrong with wearing reminders of who you are in God’s Kingdom.
But these extra-wide prayer boxes and extra-long tassels worn by the Pharisees were status symbols, meant to signal a kind of extra-special, spiritual superiority. In our day, we could call that virtue-signaling! These pious religious elites were virtue-signaling. The words may have been the same; their extra-wide prayer boxes still held the same Old Testament scriptures, but the form had changed dramatically. By outward appearance, these Pharisees and teachers of the law seemed to be the most devout, most revered, most religious people in society. And they liked it that way. Verse 6:
6 And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. 7 They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’
8 “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. 9 And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father. 10 And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.
***In this period, the word Rabbi meant “great master,” or “my great one.” Jesus was insisting that no human deserves that kind of adulation or excessive praise! That kind of honor is reserved for God alone!
Here, Jesus is echoing something he said earlier in Matthew. In chapter 19, when the Rich Young Ruler addresses Jesus as “good teacher,” and Jesus replies, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” He goes on to say:
30 But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.
He uses similar language to describe the upside-down Kingdom here, in verse 11 of Matthew 23:
11 The greatest among you must be a servant. 12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Matthew 23:11-12
All these religious elites wanted was to exalt themselves. Everything they did was for show! They had such a warped idea of what it meant to belong to the Kingdom of God! They’d lost the plot!
And how? How did they get from “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,” to show-boating, virtue-signaling, and title-grabbing?! How did they get from there to here?!
I’ll tell you how. They had an “illness of the heart.” Knowledge without obedience.
Because from the very beginning, the Kingdom of God was to be marked by justice, mercy, and humility – marked by love!
But by the first century, the religious elite had twisted it into something almost unrecognizable.
And Jesus wasn’t having it! In verse 13, He shifts from addressing the crowds to addressing the religious leaders directly:
13 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.
15 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!
16 “Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’ 17 Blind fools! Which is more important—the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 And you say that to swear ‘by the altar’ is not binding, but to swear ‘by the gifts on the altar’ is binding. 19 How blind! For which is more important—the gift on the altar or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 When you swear ‘by the altar,’ you are swearing by it and by everything on it. 21 And when you swear ‘by the Temple,’ you are swearing by it and by God, who lives in it. 22 And when you swear ‘by heaven,’ you are swearing by the throne of God and by God, who sits on the throne.
By the way, this is what Jesus meant when he taught his followers to let their yes be yes and their no be no! In Matthew 5:37, Jesus says:
37 Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
Again, an illness of the heart, a hypocritical and legalistic kind of religiosity, had so pervaded Jewish society that there were all kinds of ridiculous vows being made and loopholes being exploited. “I didn’t swear by the gold “in” the temple. I only swore by the temple itself, therefore… I am not obligated to fulfill this vow… Didn’t you hear me? I said temple… not GOLD-IN-TEMPLE!”
It was dishonest! It was verbal trickery. The abuse of vows had gotten out of control, and Jesus is calling out these fork-tongued leaders, and their religious double-talk, and holding them accountable!
Verse 23:
23 “What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. 24 Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!
Obsessed with their own piety, obsessed with the way others perceived them, these Pharisees would sweat the smallest details, without paying any attention to the larger, weightier matters. They cared very much about doing anything that would cause themselves to become ceremonially ‘unclean.’ As though faith were nothing more than a set of rules. Don’t touch that. Don’t eat that. And they were careful to do everything right in order to appear outwardly upstanding and righteous.
But they neglected to legitimize their faith through acts of justice and mercy! They were not kind. They did not show compassion for the poor or generosity toward the foreigner living among them! Oh, they kept themselves clean and undefiled from the world, but they were morbidly defiled within! An “illness of the heart.”
Verse 25:
25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
In 1st-century Judaism, avoiding contact with anything that could make a person unclean was of primary importance. For that reason, every year, before legions of travelers made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, burial sites along the route would be freshly painted a bright white! This was to warn travelers not to pass that way, lest they step on a grave and become defiled. Lest their shadow be cast on a grave as they passed by, for even that would have rendered them ‘unclean.’ And being unclean meant being outcast from society, until a priest declared them clean again.
Jesus uses vivid language to describe their religious hypocrisy. He condemns those who do everything they can to look the part on the outside but remain defiled on the inside.
29 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. 30 Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’
31 “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?
34 “Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. 35 As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time—from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth, this judgment will fall on this very generation.
What is the primary theme of Jesus’s message(s)?
“Repent. For the Kingdom of God is here.”
The Pharisees had an “illness of the heart,” for which the only cure was repentance.
In verse 37, as Jesus closes this speech, his tone shifts from one of indignation to one of grief and desperation:
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. 38 And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate. 39 For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!’
This is not an easy passage to read. And, I’ll tell you, it’s even more difficult to study. It can be hard for us to reconcile what we think we know about Jesus, his patience, his gentleness, his kindness, with the Jesus we see in Matthew 23— his scathing words and indignation at the level of religious hypocrisy embodied by the religious elite. But I’ll tell you what,
Jesus is all about his Father’s Kingdom!
He is all about his Father’s rule and reign. And when someone in power misrepresents any aspect of his Father’s heart while claiming religious superiority:
Woe to them.
Jesus is the good shepherd! He’s all about PROTECTING HIS SHEEP!
And when someone tries to lead his sheep astray, when hypocrites try to harm his children:
Woe to them.
When someone locks the door to the Kingdom of heaven and won’t let anyone else enter.
Woe to them!
They’re like an abandoned house. Fenced off. Boarded up. Condemned.
And we could end it right there: woe to them! But that wouldn’t do this passage justice. Because I caught something right at the end of verse 38. A glimmer of hope.
Verse 38 says,
38 And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate. 39 For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!’
The Greek word used there for ‘desolate’ is the word
Erémos: Desert, wilderness, lonesome, solitary place, desolate
It’s used all over the book of Matthew to describe a deserted place.
And Jesus is no stranger to deserted places! Hallelujah.
He was led into the wilderness, erémos, a desolate place, where he overcame temptation.
He frequently sought out lonesome, solitary places, erémos, to be alone with his Father.
Jesus does not avoid solitary places. He goes there! He seeks them out!
And even if our own sin, our own illness of the heart— our own pride, arrogance, or hypocrisy has left our house erémos— abandoned, desolate, deserted,
We are not without hope!
Jesus has come to seek and to save that which was lost! He still seeks out lonesome places! And He comes to us today, carrying the same message He’s proclaimed since the beginning:
Repent! For the Kingdom of God is here!
Jesus announces the arrival of the Kingdom with one word: REPENT.
Repentance is the key to restoration.
The Greek word for Repent is: metanoeó (metanowhehoh):
It comes from ‘meta’ which means ‘changed after being with’ and ‘noieo’ which means to think. Put together, repent means “to think differently after being with!”
Jesus ends his rebuke with an open invitation to repentance!
He says you won’t see me again UNTIL you are ready to receive me. Until you are ready to welcome me into your desolate place. UNTIL you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!’ “You will think differently after being with me!” Repentance is the key to restoration.
Oh Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
The word of the Lord to King Solomon in 2 Chronicles chapter 7 says:
“13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people,
In other words, “when I have rendered their house desolate,” he says:
14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
If my people repent, I will restore!
If my people repent, I will restore!
Repentance is the key to restoration.
14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
The Psalmist taught us to pray:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Psalm 139:23-24
We’re going to leave the rest of the service open for a time of introspection and prayer. This is your time to say “Search me, O God, and know my heart. My anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you! And lead me along the path of everlasting life.
When I read this story about the Pharisees, I can’t help but ask myself, “Where have I been like them?” If Jesus said, “Don’t be like those guys, they don’t practice what they preach!” Where am I falling short? What principles of the Kingdom am I misunderstanding, misrepresenting, or outright neglecting?
And what about you? Are you guilty of hypocrisy? Do you have knowledge but lack obedience?
God already knows, so no need to try to hide it from Him! Just repent. Name that sin, that struggle, and ask God to empower you by His Spirit to turn away from that thing.
Maybe you’ve been led astray by some counterfeit idea of the Kingdom of God? That the Kingdom is for the powerful? The prideful. The arrogant. Those who appear outwardly righteous?
Is there some inward part of you that needs cleansing? Take this time to do some soul-searching. Ask God to point out any area of pride in you.
And trust me, I’m going to do the same! I wouldn’t have considered myself a judgmental person, generally speaking, but lately that’s been getting harder and harder. And I’ll admit, I’ve been led astray. I’ve fallen into the trap of judging others who don’t think like me, behave like me, or care about the people I care about. And I need to repent of my own pharisaical heart.
Let’s take this time to open ourselves to the healing work of the Holy Spirit.
Repentance is the key to restoration.
The Kingdom of God is here. And the King has come to reconcile his Kingdom. To cleanse every heart. To heal every heart.
Our God reigns, above it all, to restore all things (you and me, us and them) to restore all things to Himself!