Right, church family, good morning.
Hey, let's welcome everybody that's watching at Church Online with us this morning. We've got a live stream going out in the lobby, too. So this is your cue, if you're still out there, to come on in with us. The air conditioning is doing great this morning. Thank you, Jesus, for AC. I think it's okay to say thank you for that.
Hey, fair warning today. I've prayed about this for some time, and this particular message and this text, as it was coming, it's going to offend some of you this morning. All right? The gospel will offend you from time to time. I truly believe that if we find ourselves in a place of comfort where everything we hear never challenges us in the Scripture, I think that the version of Jesus that oftentimes we're creating in that instance is one that really just looks like us, thinks like us, acts like us, never challenges us or changes us. And that, as much as I read the Gospels, is not Jesus as he reveals himself to us in Scripture.
So today is going to be one of those days where I'm going to push us. And just remember, I do this because my calling is not to do anything but serve the will of our Master Jesus Christ and be faithful in representing his word. And so we're going to do that today.
So I'm going to read our text. We're going to pray, and then we're going to get into the message. If you guys are okay with that, somebody say, "mm-hmm."
All right. Let's read the word of the Lord. This is going to be Mark chapter 7. Our text today is Mark 7, verses 1 through 13. So we've been working through the Gospel of Mark since the early spring, maybe even the late winter. And we're now in chapter 7, verses 1 through 13.
I'll read from the ESV. By the way, if you have the Peak City app for your phone, it has the YouVersion Bible in that app. And you can follow along with the ESV there. And we create sermon notes for you as well that you can fill in the blank with and even email them to yourself when you're done with your message notes for this particular sermon.
The Bible says in Mark chapter 7, verse 1, "The Pharisees gathered to him, that's Jesus, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to, and catch this phrase, the tradition of the elders."
Verse 4. "And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there were many other traditions that they observed, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches."
Let's pause right there. And dining couches? Hmm, that sounds like a wonderful idea from the New Testament. Let's bring that back. The dining couch, yeah? Let me explain what that means, okay? Because I'm here to kind of translate and help us out.
So if you're thinking couches around a table and we're all sitting down lazy boy style and just eat, that's a wonderful picture. And I like that very much, okay? Just but. That's not what was happening. A dining couch, for them, it was a mat, often a woven mat, and it was a cushion, a pillow, that you could put under your arm.
So effectively what would happen, and I praise God that I'm 45 and I can still do this for you. When they ate, there would be a table that stood about a foot high off of the ground, and they would lean on their sides, often like this, with a cushion underneath them. They would face towards the table, kind of all around the table on the mat, and they would eat together. So that's a dining couch.
So the Pharisees, even better that I can get up without groaning. Praise the Lord, huh? Yeah, yeah, right. The bar's getting set low, church family. Come on now. And that's probably the funniest thing that's going to happen in this entire message. So I'm glad you enjoyed the moment. Dining couches. So they would clean those and all these other vessels.
Verse five. Let's continue in verse five. "And the Pharisees and the scribes had asked him, asked Jesus, 'Why do your disciples not walk according to the—here it is again—tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled, unwashed hands?'"
And he said to them, "Well, did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites? In other words, Jesus did not like what they had to say. As it is written," and he quotes Isaiah, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men.'"
And Jesus said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die. But you say, 'If a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corban.'" In parentheses, it says, "That is given to God." In other words, Mark is explaining for us words that we non-Jewish folk wouldn't understand because he's writing this to a non-Jewish audience. And he explains this word Corban.
And I'll get to that in the message and give it even more detail. Corban, that is given to God. Verse 12. "Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."
How many of you know that it was a bad day to be a Pharisee in front of Jesus on that particular day? This is something that we need to focus on here. And some of you are like, "Well shoot, Nate. Hand washing. I'm not offended. In fact, I wish that you would wash your hands more. Praise God."
Okay. Maybe there is a little bit more humor in the message for the 11 o'clock service. I don't know. Some of you are sitting there saying, "Come on, Nate. It's fine. We'll keep it clean. 10-4."
Let's pray. Right? Well, you know, have you ever flown from the East Coast to the West Coast? Or West Coast? East Coast. Anybody done that? Wave at me. All right. There's a bunch of states in between. And they call those the what? Flyover states. Right? Well, I want us to know that this is not a flyover passage of Scripture. I don't believe there's any of those in the Bible. But if there was ever one that you wanted to kind of speed through, let's not do that here. There is a lesson that God needs to teach us for such a time as this.
So, let's get into it. But first, let's pray.
Father, I pray that you would speak your truth. Today, that your gospel would change us. That we would desire more than anything to be like you. To follow your commands. To live in a life in such a way that it is pleasing to you. That it honors you. That it reflects you. That it conveys the transforming work that you've done in us. And if someone's here that's never experienced this precious gift of your salvation, let today be the day where their life is forever changed and transformed by your truth and the power of your Holy Spirit.
Jesus, this is all for you. So, it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
So, the Pharisees are back at it again. And if you've been tracking with us through the book of Mark, back in chapter 2, somebody say chapter 2. Back in chapter 2, they actually started watching Jesus and his disciples very closely. It was the Sabbath day. Jesus is cruising with his disciples through the corners of some grain fields.
And back in his day, Jewish farmers would leave the corners of the fields unharvested so that the poor could walk through the corners. And they could take the husks of grain, husk them in their hands, and they'd have something to eat. So Jesus is walking with his disciples through these fields on the Sabbath day, eating. And the Pharisees say, "You're working on the Sabbath!" Which they weren't.
But because of the Pharisees adding all these extra laws to God's law, they tried to make a case that somehow, Jesus and his disciples were working on the Sabbath. You see, what the Pharisees had done was they took the 600 plus laws of Moses that are scripture in the Old Testament. And they decided, you know, that's a great thing. And God gave this law for us to enjoy him and kind of guardrails to keep us from worshiping other gods. You know, but we think we're going to help that a little bit.
We're going to add some traditions to these laws. And they added over 2,000 new requirements to the already 600 plus existing laws. And they made this thing that God would use to give his people joy, help them know him and not stray from him. And it turned into this hugely burdensome thing that everybody's failing at. And it just makes life awful because you're constantly walking on eggshells about all these things that you have to do certain ways that you can't do, that's no longer clear.
The Pharisees were awesome through about 1,700 years of being the stewards of the law at making it unbearable. And Jesus had something to say about what they were doing. And so, they started watching him in chapter two, husking the grain. And he said, "Yeah, I'm not breaking the Sabbath law. I'm not harvesting anything. I'm eating a snack with my disciples."
And then right there in the next story in chapter three, there's a man on the Sabbath who has a withered hand. And then the Pharisees say, "Oh, we're going to get him. We're going to get Jesus now. We're going to trap him. Because if he heals someone on the Sabbath, the Mosaic law says that you're only allowed to give someone medical care on the Sabbath if it's life-saving medical care. And that's the only reason. If they need something else, they can wait until the day after the Sabbath. Let's see what Jesus does."
And then Jesus looks at the Pharisees and says, "Let me tell you something. The Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath." And he looked at this man that was in need. And he looked at the Pharisees. He said to that man, "Stretch out your hand." And this man that had a withered hand had a limb difference. That hand was completely healed and restored.
It was at that moment that the Pharisees said, "We've got to kill him because we can't control him." And they went to the Herodians who were Jewish in lineage, but they were not serving the Lord. They were very, very secular, hedonistic people. And the Pharisees didn't like them, but they needed to team up with somebody. So they went to the palace and they started talking to the Herodians, Herod and all of his court, plotting on how they could trap and kill Jesus from that moment on.
And here we are a few chapters later in seven. And they're back at it. Washing Jesus and his disciples said, "Hey, why don't you guys wash your hands?" In fact, Mark chapter seven, verse two, it says that the Pharisees saw some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
And that brings us into our first point in the message today. And this is so, so very important for us to grasp. It is that God's commands are greater than man's traditions. God's commands, you shout a little bit louder on this one, are greater than man's traditions.
See, the Pharisees had forgotten this very thing. Verse three, it says, "For all of the Pharisees and the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to, here's the phrase again, tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches."
And Mark gives all these details because, again, he's writing to an audience that's not Jewish to explain what is happening here and why the Pharisees are getting so angry at Jesus, because all the other Jewish people would look and say, "Yeah, why don't they have to do that? Pharisees say, we got to do it. Why don't, Jesus, why don't they have to?" They would all have that question and the rest of us would be like, "What are y'all talking about? Let's eat," right? Because we're Gentiles and we don't get any of that stuff.
So Mark's explaining that and he explains that ceremonial washing, but here's that key phrase. It is this phrase that keeps coming up, the tradition of the elders. Because the Pharisees had added all these rules to the law and they were traditions. And what they had done was they started elevating these traditions to the level of God's law, saying this is just as important as Scripture, but God's commands are greater than man's tradition.
So in this key phrase, I want us to look at this, this key phrase, the tradition of the elders. So God gave the law to Moses. This is his word. Moses gave the law to the people at Mount Sinai. And then over centuries, the Pharisees or the law keepers have given their interpretations and they've given their misinterpretations of those Scriptures and it gets twisted and added to, and they keep having this idea of saying, "You know what we're going to do? We're going to keep far more than just the law. We're going to also do these extra things. So we'll be even extra holy and even extra guarded from worshiping or serving something other than God."
And in doing that, they made so many rules that they actually started violating the original law that God had given. And Jesus was not having it. He said, "I'm done with this." Jesus is attacking tradition. By the way, he's attacking the idea that tradition can somehow become equally as important as his instruction. No, it cannot. And it never will.
And if you claim to be a follower of Christ, he sits on the throne of your heart in the very first place. And his word comes first before anything else. It doesn't matter what rich tradition your family may have been raised in that takes a backseat to the word of God.
Yeah. So let's keep going. Let's say Jesus is angry, and I'm trying to convey his emotion here clearly so that we really grasp what we're being taught in his word. He phrased the tradition of the elders. Those are the extra laws all there. Josephus was a Jewish historian, and he commented about the Pharisees. This is just someone who's a very credible historian. These were his words about the Pharisees.
It says in his writing, the antiquities, the Pharisees had delivered to the people a great many observances, which are not written in the law of Moses. So that's the key phrase, this tradition of the elders, these extra things. And here's the key issue is that the Pharisees thought that their traditions had the same authority as God's law. No. No, it did not, but that is the key issue.
And this is where Jesus is grinding his ax today. And by the way, none of these washing traditions actually were commanded for ordinary people in the Bible. You could be an observer of the law, a Jew that loved the Lord, a worshiper of God. And unless you were a priest, you weren't required in the Bible to do any of those things.
But what the Pharisees did was they said, "Oh, well, the priests, they have to do all the washing of the cups and the pots, and they have to wash their dining couches because they're eating in the temple and it's a holy place where the presence of God resides." And so there were extra laws for cleanliness for them. I think that makes sense.
But then the Pharisees came along and said, "Well, if it's good for the priest, we'll just do it everywhere," and started adding these laws and adding these traditions that were not commanded for God's people. And I love this in verse 10. In verse 11 of our text today, Jesus calls him out. He says, when he says this, he says, "For Moses said," in verse 11, but then he turns to the Pharisees in verse 10, and then he turns to the Pharisees in verse 11 and says, "But you say."
In fact, if you read the Matthew account of the story, it says, Jesus says, "But God said" in one verse. And then the next he says, "But you say." He's showing this contrast of the law that God had given to Moses, God's word. But yet you're saying something, Pharisees, that is contradictory in your traditions to the word of God.
See, the Pharisees, they were guilty of elevating traditions to the level of God's law. And friends, we're doing the same thing today. Maybe not we in this room, but it happens. And Satan, our enemy, is so very cunning and crafty, and he wants to deceive us, and he wants to cause us. He wants to take our eyes off of Jesus, and he wants to cause us to do things that we think would be good things, that elevate something else to the status of God's law, of God's word. And he'll do anything he can to get us to take man's words and elevate them to the level of Scripture.
We do it to this day. And again, I told you, some of you are going to be offended here today. So that's not my goal just to offend you. I'm just an adult, and I know that what I'm about to say is going to do that. I'm mature enough to handle this. But I'm your pastor. I love you. Like, you would not even begin to understand. I pray for you like your mama prays for you if she's a believer in Jesus Christ. And I would not say these things if I didn't care.
So let me set this up because I want to be very clear about who I am and how I feel about this. Let me show you a picture of my family, okay? So this is my family on Independence Day. And this is my house. And yes, that is my American flag. And yes, I have a couple of neighbors here that can vouch for this. I have a four-dealership-size American flag that flies on my home, daring the HOA to be able to handle all of this freedom, okay?
I am grateful to live in the United States of America. I don't apologize for that. Now, please don't applaud. Don't respond. I want you to listen, okay? Because this is important. There's nothing wrong with being grateful to be a part of a country like this, where when we start going the wrong way, we can vote and see if we can start going the right way, you know, that's built and founded on principles. There are many of them God-honoring.
And there's nothing wrong with teaching your children to have that kind of gratitude as well. There's nothing wrong with flying an American flag. That's a great tradition. I think I wish more of us would do it. I think it's obvious that I wish more of us would do it, right? I don't think ideas like communism and Marxism do the world any good. They end in genocide and death. Read your history books.
I'm not preaching politics today. But I want to be clear about this. It's not me, all right? Traditions are great. But when we take traditions and we start trying to elevate them to the level of God's law, that's where we are sinners. And I've seen something that very much bothered me. That's why I don't want you to comment when you see this next photo. I just want you to look at it and let me talk, if you would give me that grace.
Because this is what I've seen. This is called the We the People Bible, where they have sewn the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence into God's holy word. And that is one of the most disgusting and insulting things that I have ever seen. It profanes the word of God. He stands exalted above all things. And Satan wants to take good things and try to make them God things. And thus making people idolaters. And friends, that is a bad thing.
There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with loving those founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and teaching your kids about those things and those traditions. Hear me say this, that's a good thing. But when someone tries to elevate this to the status of the word of God, that is sin. And we have become like the Pharisees.
And Jesus was angry, calling them hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchers, saying that they've forgotten about the God that they claim to worship when they do things like taking the words of man and elevating them to the word of God. And we must fight against this at all times.
And some of you I know are angry and offended just because I even said this. And I would say this with the heart of a pastor. Who are you worshiping? Who sits on the throne of your heart? Because absolutely, you can be a blood-bought believer in Jesus Christ, completely sold out to the Lord. And at the same time, you can still love the country that you're from. One of these things doesn't contradict the other.
But when you try to put one at or above your love of the Lord your God, then you have fallen into sin. And this is the closest context I can give us here for today of what was happening then. God let it be true of us that we love you above anything. And when anything tries to set itself or exalt itself at or above where you are, may it convict our hearts so very deeply.
Amen. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. We've got to learn. We've got to learn to discern between human tradition and what is God's instruction. We've got to be people that are hungry for the word of God, that put his word above everything else and discern what truth is there. That we don't let our traditions become what we say, that is on the level of the word of God.
There's nothing wrong with customs or traditions. You might come from a culture with very rich customs and traditions. And if they're not commanded in Scripture, that's fine. As long as there's no conflict in Scripture with your traditions and your family heritage and all that good stuff, there's nothing wrong with that.
Now, some things, there are. Like, for instance, like my heritage. I had a DNA test done. I wanted to see what my lineage was, and I was all excited that it would be some kind of diverse thing. It's not, okay? What you're looking at here is just a big old smattering of the United Kingdom and some Viking with a little tiny splash of Italian, which was just enough to make my Italian family go, "I knew there was a little something we liked about that guy," just a little, little.
But like I'm 90% all the other stuff, like Viking, UK, Scotch, English, Irish. And I could say something like, "Well, it's the tradition of my people on your wedding night to get completely sloshed because, you know, we're Irish and gosh begorrah and all that, whatever." That's not my tradition, by the way.
But if I were to say that it was, guess what? It contradicts what Scripture says. It says don't be drunk with wine, but be full of the Holy Spirit. So, uh-uh. That tradition doesn't mean anything if you're a follower of Christ. You lay that at the foot of Jesus and say, "I'm doing it your way, not mine." Right?
Nothing wrong with tradition, as long as it doesn't conflict with Scripture. But our traditions have to take a backseat to the Word. Let me say it this way. Never make something that's permissible into something that becomes an obligation. That's what the Pharisees did.
It was permissible for people to eat food in that day and not have to wash their hands between every bite. But the Pharisees came along and said, "No, no, no. Every time you take a bite, now your hands are on. So you have to wash until the water drips down just to this part of your wrist. But if it goes past that, then that water is unclean now and you've got to wash them all over again." That was literally the law of the Pharisees.
And this is what they were doing. They were adding on these traditions and they were turning them into obligations. Like, for instance, at your wedding, you might want to exchange rings at your wedding. It's a great thing to do. It's a great tradition. Guess what? It's not commanded in here.
I exchange rings at my wedding. I wear mine very, very often. I wear mine very, very proudly every day. And I'm very excited about the fact that it still goes on and comes off the same finger because I'm so much more than I was when I married my wife. I'm like 45, 50 pounds more than I was when I married that girl some 19 years ago. And she's not. She's the same. I don't get it. The gene pool is a cruel thing sometimes.
But all that said, you don't have to do it. It's a tradition. It's a great one. But there's no command in Scripture that you have to do that. And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing conflicting in the Scripture either that says you can't. So you know what? Go ahead and do it.
At your wedding, you want to light a unity candle or do whatever. You know, that's all fine because there's nothing prohibitive there in the Scripture. But you don't elevate that and say, "Well, you're not really married unless you exchange rings."
Okay, time out. That's where you've crossed the line. Now you're lying because the covenant that you're taking is before God. It's about the covenant before God. It's not about the trinket. It's the trinkets that you exchange with one another that you might end up going to your deathbed with on your finger.
You do not take something that is permissible and turn it into something that becomes an obligation. Matthew's account of this makes the heart of the matter so, so clear. He says this, Matthew 15. I'm going to read this to you.
"Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 'Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they don't wash their hands when they eat.' And he answered them. I love when he answered. He answers a question with a question. 'And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?'"
Jesus is not playing around here, okay? He says this in verse 7. He says, "You hypocrites. What did Isaiah, I'm sorry, well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"
And then Jesus starts quoting Isaiah 29. In this particular scripture. But look at how Isaiah chapter 1 starts off. I'm going to read in verse 10. "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I don't delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs. I don't delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs. When you come to appear before me, who is required of you, this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me."
See, Jesus is not upending the sacrificial system here. He's calling out duplicity. He's calling out hypocrisy. He's calling these things meaningless offerings here. He's saying if we're going through the motions on the outside with no heart change on the inside, God has an issue with that.
Like for instance, in this particular passage, if a spouse were to leave their family, leave their spouse and their children, abandon them. But what they decide to do is several times a year to let them know that they're still around. They send a card to their spouse and their kids that they left. And they spray it with this very expensive, wonderful smelling perfume.
God is saying that you're offering sacrifice. You're offering sacrifice to those that are worthless or like that to me. "Oh, yeah, that smells nice. And it's a reminder of the very vile and foul thing that you have done by abandoning your family."
So Jesus is saying, "I've had it with these empty acts." And the Pharisees are just on this hamster wheel of doing things just to say that they're being able to look holy on the outside when on the inside, they are nothing but hypocrites.
Let's continue. Jesus says that Isaiah got it right. By the way, he says, "I'm talking about you, Pharisees. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it's written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain they do worship me, teaching doctrines as the commandments of men.'"
Jesus is telling these Pharisees that their religion is hypocritical and counterfeit. It's manmade. It's fake. What they're doing wasn't required by God. And they're acting like it was. They're just making up a whole new thing. And it doesn't honor God.
And it's the same for us if we show up on Sunday morning trying to make everything look perfect on the outside, but our house is a wreck. Like, you know what it's like, man. You know, there's things going on in your home. Issues in your marriage and issues with your family. And you're riding back from your house, coming to church, having a big old cargument.
Right? This is the knock down, drag out, but you can't drag anybody because you're in the car. And right before you get to see the park team waving at you in the parking lot of Peak City, you look at your children and say, "Hey, if you want to die, keep it up. I better see a smile on your face right now."
And then you turn that corner and say, "Well, honey, I'm so glad we put some butch wax on the old crew cut and threw the 2.5 kids in the back of the minivan and came on to the house of the Lord today. Hey, brother, how are you doing today?"
Yeah. We're putting on something on the outside, making it look good. But on the inside, it's a dumpster fire. Right? It's like going to the doctor. Everything's looking good on the outside. And then they start running tests on you. Because something's wrong on the inside. And the outside looks good. But the MRI or the x-ray or the stress test says completely different. There is a problem.
Jesus came to resolve that problem. And the Pharisees were keeping people from knowing God by forcing upon others what God had not commanded, following their traditions as if they were God's laws.
Listen, friends, I want to tell you, knowing the word of God is great. But God is far more concerned with you living it in private than quoting it in public. Praise God. Amen.
Now, Jesus is going to give an illustration to this and we're done. Okay? This is what he says. He's telling the Pharisees, this is what happens when you start putting rituals over righteousness. This is what happens when you start putting rituals over righteousness.
Verse 9, "And he said to them, 'You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, "Honor your father and mother," and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die. But you say, "If a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corban," that is, given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.'"
Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do. It's not just this, Jesus says, but lots of stuff like this where you violate God's word.
So let's talk about what Corban is. This is the only place in the New Testament where this word Corban shows up like this. It shows up another time in the Greek for the word Corban and it's talking about the temple treasury. But particularly here, Corban, what it means is it's a gift to the temple treasury that's set apart for God's use.
In other words, you've been blessed. You have more than you need. And you have this, say we have a golden menorah. It's an artifact passed down to your family and you want to offer it to the temple. You want to give that to God. And you consider that Corban, this very valuable thing you've given to the temple.
Mom and dad fall on hard times. And all of a sudden they're like, "Son, you know that artifact that we passed down to you? We're not going to be able to keep a roof over our head. We're going to need to get that back." What happens?
What happened is that the Pharisees made their traditions and laws so binding that it would go against the word of God because they could no longer get that item back from the temple that they had declared Corban because the Pharisees were saying, "Oh, it's Corban. No takeaways. That's ours now."
And they would destroy someone's life to be able to line their own pockets and make themselves wealthy. So they would teach that you could give money to the temple in lieu of helping your parents in need. The Pharisees took a legitimate Corban offering and used it in an illegitimate and devious way to defraud parents and enrich themselves and nullify the word of God.
This sparked the anger of Jesus. This and many other things. But that's what happens when you make what Scripture says is mandatory into something that is voluntary.
See, this is the opposite of what we talked about earlier. When the Bible says that this is what you do and then you try to come up with a loophole so you don't have to do it, that's sin. So when we do things like say, "Oh, I know it's wrong, but God will forgive me anyway," Corban. You're doing the same thing. You mock the grace of God, the thing that put Jesus to the cross.
God, help us to never make what Scripture says. What Scripture says is mandatory into something that we consider voluntary. Help us always to have a heart that wants to please you. Help us be surrendered to your will to put you first above all things. God, we repent of the moments and the times where we have not done that.
Family, with your head bowed, just for a moment, there might be some things that you just felt conviction in your heart about as you heard the word today that you just need to just tell the Lord, "God, I'm sorry. I repent. I've been taking other things and I've been putting them in your seat in my life. Nothing belongs there. Good things maybe. I've been taking some good things and I've been putting them in the God seat and letting them drive and direct my life. God, forgive me. Help me to never do that."
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on Jul 16, 2024
