LISTEN
This sermon was preached by Andy Brownlee at the Ladybarn site of Christ Church Manchester on Sunday 11th July 2021.
SERIES
This message was part of the ‘SERIES NAME’ series, preached at Christ Church Manchester’s church in Withington in EARLY/MID/LATE YEAR. The full series included the following sermons:
BIBLE VERSES
This sermon was based on Luke 11:37-52.
Woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers
37While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
45One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
49Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
KEY POINTS
Clean the Inside of Our Lives – Not Just the Outside
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The Blood of Jesus, the Gospel is what cleans us once and for all.
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It’s important to keep applying the gospel to our lives daily. Applying the gospel to the conversations we have, what we think. Applying the gospel to our lives each day is like giving the inside of the cup a polish so that the dust of greed, comparison, envy or judgemental attitude doesn’t settle.
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The reality is we all deserve to be told off by Jesus like the pharisees were, we all have the tendency to be like pharisees, to be judgemental, selfish, greedy and self-centred. The gospel says you deserve to be told off but that’s not what you get, you get forgiven, you get accepted and you get life, life in all its fullness.
Focus on What is Important Rather than What is Trivial
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There’s nothing wrong with Netflix, Social Media, Computer games, just like there’s nothing wrong with tithing the herbs in your garden but you’ve got to ask yourself what are you not doing because you’re spending lots of your time doing these things instead?
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Malcolm Gladwell says that if you want to become an expert at something you need to spend 10,000 hours at getting good at it. Jesus says what’s important is Justice and the love of God. What if we decided to become an expert at Justice and Loving God and devoted 10,000 hours to that? Do you think we’d get better at Justice and loving God? Absolutely.
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Is your faith the most important thing in your life? Are you willing to make everything else secondary to it? Are you willing to spend time and work hard at developing it? making it stronger?
Help People Find Their Way to Jesus Rather than Hindering Them
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The teachers of the law made it hard for people to find their way to God. They put up obstacles. We can read that and think that’s terrible but I think this passage must make us all honestly ask ourselves are their things we do in our lives that become obstacles to people finding Jesus?
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Maybe it’s just that you never talk about your faith when opportunities arise. How much are your comments and interactions on social media helpful? Maybe you’ve just got a really pessimistic outlook on life. Or you just can’t resist a bit of gossip. Or you still get drunk occasionally or just can’t stop the odd swear word from slipping in. Or there’s just very little discernible difference in your life from someone who’s not a Christian. All these things can hinder people from finding their way to Jesus.
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How do we help people find their way to Jesus? Firstly: Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some person ever reads. Secondly: keep doing the stuff we covered in our mission series:
Meals Together
Intercede for 5 people
Serve Practically
Share your Story
Invite others
Offer prayer
Never Give up
MORE SERMONS
To see more sermons from Christ Church Manchester, you can visit our sermons page, or why not consider subscribing on iTunes.