Fellowship in the Word

Guest (Male): Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: From Jesus' point of view, religion's no virtue at all. Religion is of all the things you can be. Religious is probably from Jesus' point of view the worst thing you can be. Now we’ll see as we go on, I think why that’s the case and why he evangelized religious people in a very different way than you and I probably do.

In a very different way than he evangelized sinful people. Now I use that term loosely because one thing we do know: how many people are sinful? Everybody. Yeah, but you know what? Everybody doesn't see it that way. And the people that don't see it that way are religious people. They don't see it at all.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: This past week as I was reading scripture for the Tuesday night Bible study on a biblical assessment of Catholicism, I was struck by something that I hadn't seen before or thought about very much. And that was that Jesus used two completely different styles of evangelism.

It's interesting to me that when he was talking to sinners, he talked to them a certain way. But when he was talking to religious folks, he talked to them in a very, very different way. You’d think that because Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, that it would have been the religious folks who would have been the ones who would have anticipated him, accepted him, and of course it wasn't true at all. That's not exactly what happened.

In fact, they showed him very, very little respect. But interesting, he showed them even less respect than they showed him. The way he talks is just completely different. When he talks to the woman caught in adultery, he said, “I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more.” When he talks to the woman at the well, he says, “You've had five husbands. The guy you're living with now is not your husband. But I want to offer you living water.”

When he talked to two of the most notorious people in their culture, Zacchaeus and Matthew, both tax collectors, he invited them to follow him and they both did. But when Jesus talks to religious people, it's a completely different tone in the way in which he evangelizes. Hopefully, something we can learn from.

I want you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 11. I’ll start in verse 14 just to give some context to where we're going. It says, “And he, Jesus, was casting out a demon. It was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds were amazed.” Then these words, “But some of them said he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons.”

Now it's interesting because when you read in Matthew 12, that's what the Pharisees said. They realized he was casting out demons, but they tried to make the case, “Well, he only does it because he has a demonic influence.” And Jesus said, “Well, that wouldn't even make sense if I was casting out demons that way.”

But now other people are picking up on what the religious leaders said and said maybe that's why he's doing it. Others to test him, they were demanding a sign from heaven. It didn't matter how many things Jesus did, by the way. The people always said, “Could you show us a sign?”

And so Jesus, it said in verse 17, “He knew their thoughts and he said to them, ‘Look, this wouldn't even make sense if I was casting out demons that way.’” But let me explain something to you that's very important to understand. He hits it in verse 23. He said, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, he scatters.”

In other words, that's a profound statement. No one's spiritually neutral when it comes to Jesus. He said, “You're either for me or against me. That's it. That's the only options there are. You can't be neutral.” That's the way Jesus saw it. Now it's interesting that in verse 27 it almost seems prophetic to where we're going.

And while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed.” Wow. Now, by the way, that's a compliment, isn't it? Yeah, about who? Mary. Right. That's a compliment. Blessed. I mean, this sounds like, wow.

Now, what's Jesus' response? He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Wow. “Oh, blessed be your mother.” On the contrary. “Blessed are the people who hear my words and observe it.” Quite an interesting thing if Jesus is speaking of the Queen of Heaven. You see what I mean? He's very straightforward about this.

Look, I don't really care about that. It reminds me of in his ministry at one time, his mother and several of his siblings were outside and they wanted to get in and see him and talk to him. And they said, “Your mom and your siblings are outside and they need to see you.” And Jesus said, “This is my family. The people that are sitting in here, this is my family now.” He doesn't say anything else.

Now it's interesting that he almost said this prophetically. Notice what after that he said, “As the crowds were increasing, he said, ‘This is a wicked generation. It seeks a sign and yet no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.’” And you know what that is. The sign of Jonah. Jonah was in the great fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the earth.

So Jesus is now calling this generation a wicked generation. And to show you how wicked it was, in verse 31 he said, “The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Behold, something greater than Solomon's here.”

“The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” Interesting. He also says in another place in the Gospels that the people who lived in Sodom will stand up and curse and judge this generation.

Now when you think of the worst people, you see the worst people in the Old Testament. You think of the Assyrians. They were so terrible. Remember Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh no matter what because they were so horrible a people. How about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? Horrible. What Jesus is saying is, “But they're better than these people.” Wow. Why is that?

He says these people are religious. From Jesus' point of view, religion's no virtue at all. Religion is of all the things you can be. Religious is probably from Jesus' point of view the worst thing you can be. Now we'll see as we go on, I think, why that's the case and why he evangelized religious people in a very different way than you and I probably do.

And in a very different way than he evangelized sinful people. One thing we do know, how many people are sinful? Everybody. Yeah, but you know what? Everybody doesn't see it that way. And the people that don't see it that way are religious people. They don't see it at all.

And so consequently Jesus then decides he wants to go further and he says in verse 37, “Now when he had spoken, a Pharisee asked him to have lunch with him. And he went in and he reclined at the table.” That's an interesting thing. A Pharisee wants to have lunch with Jesus. He's likely interested. Some Pharisees were.

Now remember the word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word which is Parash. It means separated. The Pharisees have been abundant in Israel for about the last 400 years since Ezra. There's about 6,000 of them in Israel at the time of Jesus. They're laymen and they are devoutly religious and very much into the law of the Old Testament, even taking it much, much further than the law does.

And this guy wants to have a time with Jesus. And Jesus said, “Sure.” So it's more like brunch than lunch. Late morning, that's the way they kind of do. And you recline. And this is an amazing thing because Jesus wants to make a point before anyone even talks. It says, “And when the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that he had not first ceremonially washed before the meal.”

Wow. You want to get upset a religious person? This is it. This is really terrible. You see, it's the idea that this isn't about hygiene at all. It's not like you have an eight-year-old boy and say, “Look, look at your hands. Come on, wash your hands before you eat.” It's not like that. This has nothing to do with cleanliness. This is ceremonial.

See, the reason being you could have touched a Gentile during the day. Or you could have touched the place that a Gentile touched. And if you did that, you are now unclean. To what extent? Big extent. You could go through a purification process that could take seven days. You have to be clean.

Old Testament. There's not a word in the Old Testament about ever doing such a thing. Not a word. This is something they came up with on their own. You see, and this is how they gauge someone. Listen as I read from Matthew 15. The Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said this, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”

And he said, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? God commanded you to honor your father and mother.” Everyone knew that fact. That's one of ten commandments. He said, “And you don't do it.” See, they had come up with a system to avoid that. They called it Corban.

And what they could do is when your parents got old and dependent and they needed you, all you had to say is everything in your estate is dedicated to the temple. You’d like to help mom and dad, but you can't. You see, and then what they'd often do too is once mom and dad are gone, then they'd retake their money back and not dedicate it to the temple. Keep it for themselves.

Jesus said, “Look, you're saying my disciples don't keep their hands clean ceremonially?” And by the way, to show you what it was like in the Mishnah, you had to use one and a half eggshells of water. I'm not even sure how that works. I mean, I get the half, but do you need three halves for one and a half? Anyway.

And you poured it over your fingertips and let it run down over your wrist. And that made you ceremonially clean. And Jesus goes out of it. There's no way Jesus is going to wash his hands when he goes in here. And notice the Pharisee is immediately bothered by this. He finds that he doesn't like this at all.

Now Jesus is about to speak then. The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisee, you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside you are full of robbery and wickedness.” Wow. His first point. Religion emphasizes the external and it always neglects the internal. That's what religion does.

Religion emphasizes the external at the expense of the internal. And it's interesting, he said, “You guys have endless ceremonies. You have endless rituals.” Whenever you see a group of people that have a lot of ceremonies and a lot of rituals, I'm just warning you, watch out. This is not right. This isn't right at all according to the Lord.

Jesus said, “Look, all that matters is what's on the inside.” Now you can see what happens here. When you do things externally, you sort of do it for each other and you impress other people. So you look religious. But the truth of the matter is as human beings, what does our inside look like?

How many of us are sinners? All of us, right? How many of us are righteous? No, not one. You see, the point's pretty clear. By the way, a sinner who's a tax gatherer or a prostitute, do they know that? Yes. Now, a religious leader, do they know it? No. They don't see that at all. To them, it's all external.

Jesus says, “Look, that's terrible.” Then he says to them, “You foolish ones. You fools.” Now if you know your Bible, that seems a little bit shocking. I think Jesus is pretty much when it comes to religious people, takes the direct approach. You notice that he's not mincing words and notice when you're witnessing to someone, the one thing you want to be no matter what is nice.

“I gotta be nice. Everyone has to be nice.” Jesus says no. Nothing matters more to me than the truth. You see, in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said don't call people fools. He just called them that. So Jesus said don't call people fools unless they are.

You see, and that's his point. The word is phrones, and phrones means simpletons. He said you're a fool. Paul wrote to us in Ephesians 5 and said don't be foolish. And Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2 and said that we may silence the ignorance of fools. There's a context for this and Jesus is basically saying, “Look, it all begins on the inside and your whole thing is about the outside. You don't get it and you never get it.”

Even the Old Testament, which we consider to be in a sense in the law, has a lot of rituals and that, but it wasn't the outside of the ritual that changed it. Even Moses said, like if I say what's the sign of being a member of Israel? Circumcision. You have to be circumcised, okay. But Moses said you have to have circumcision of the heart.

If you don't have your heart circumcised, you're not God's. Not everybody who's born in Israel is of true Israel unless your heart is circumcised. And so consequently, that's what Jesus is trying to say here. He's trying to make exactly the same kind of point. Then he says, “But give that which is in within as charity, and all things are clean for you.”

He said everything has to come out of the inside. That's where everything has to work. You have to give from your heart. Now if you read the rest of the New Testament, the Pharisees, the religious people had a very interesting way of giving. The key for them giving is that how many other people get to see it and how many other people know.

Now I don't think they talked about it, but I don't think they literally blew a trumpet, but maybe. You know, but the idea is you go out to the temple grounds and if you're a Pharisee, you hold your money out like where everybody can see it. Then there's a trumpet sound and you want everyone to see and then you walk over and you put it into the trumpet that's there into the and you turn to the people and say, “Look what I did. I want you to see what I'm doing.”

You see, and he said, “Look, don't don't do that. It's got to be within you.” By the way, that's not really ever changed. That's the point he's trying to make. See, the external means everything. When Jesus is talking to the rich young ruler, it's an interesting way that he's evangelizing him. Think of this question. What if someone came to you and said, “What must I do to have eternal life?”

Now I think you'd be saying, “Wow, this is my chance. He just asked me the question that most people don't ask. What do I have to do to have eternal life? There it is.” You thought, well, Jesus will take them down the Roman Road. He’ll first talk about Romans that we’re all sinner and then eventually.

Jesus knew exactly what was in the man's heart. He said, “This is easy. Keep the law.” It's a little bit facetious in some way. By the way, if you kept the law perfectly, would you have eternal life? Well, he'd be born in sin yet, right? But by the way, what did the young man say? “Got it. Kept it. I got it. I’ve kept the law. I’ve done it all. I got eternal life.”

Jesus said, “Great. Now sell everything you have and follow me.” Wait a minute. You see, what do we know about the man first of all as soon as he did that? He's greedy. You know it as soon as he does it. “Ah, wait a minute.” See, his whole view was, “Externally I've done everything,” which he hasn't. It’s a hypocrisy no matter what.

But the point was Jesus didn't talk to him in the way that he talked to the woman at the well, “I’ll offer you living water.” Jesus is talking to him in a very different way. God wants what's on the inside and nothing but what's on the inside. That's the whole point, and it's always been that. Amos the great prophet says writes this. “Stop your songs,” says God. “Stop your songs. I don't want any more of your songs. Stop it.”

Wow. Stop singing. Why? He says because your heart's not right. Don't do ritual singing for me. By the way, that's as true today as it was then. You don't come. You see, I’m just going to go through the motions. I’ll be God said, “Look, your heart's not right. Don't bother. Don't waste your time. All I care about what's on the inside.”

That's why he talked about it as a joyful noise. It doesn't matter. God's only intended in that. And when your heart's right, it Moses I mean, Amos writes then, and when your heart gets right, you can sing again. I love that. Get your heart right. It's always been like that. They just didn't see it that way. Religion emphasizes the external and it neglects the internal.

Secondly, religion majors in minors and minors in majors. That's what he says when he starts these woes. He said, “Woe to you Pharisees, for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet you disregard justice and the love of God. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

Notice what I'm saying. They major on the minors. He starts these woe judgments. That means, by the way, when it says woe, it doesn't mean woe, stop and think. He means I'm judging you. Woe to you. He does it here, he’ll do in Matthew 23, we'll look at in a minute. He said, “I'm judging you. You tithe everything.” I had to look up a rue. You know, a little herb, a rue. And by the way, the Mishnah says don't tithe the rue.

And I want to think if you got a piece of mint, how do you tithe that? I mean, you got a little thing. I’m going to take a tenth of the leaf off here. That's God's. Then this is mine. He said you do that. Do you know a Pharisee tithes like everything? They tithe mint. They tithe rue. They do that. They do that. They tithe everything they have.

Jesus said, “Wait a minute. And you disregard justice and love of God.” You see, what should you be about? What's the greatest commandment of all? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Ah, they ignore that. But we tithe the mint. You see, that's what we do. Wow.

And by the way, we can get into the same kind of thing. I’ve said it before, I’ll just say it again. I’ve heard people tell me, “Well, you know, they're always alarmed.” They say, “Well, are you a tither?” I said, “No, no, I don't tithe.” “The Bible says tithe.” “It does.” “Do you are you a biblical tither?” “Oh yeah, I am. Well, then make sure. Okay.”

There's a tithe you have to pay every year. All right, and that's a tithe of everything you have: your flock, your oil, your grains. You tithe one-tenth every year to God. Also every single year, you also tithe for all the national festivals in Israel. That's how they that's how they finance those festivals. So that's two tithes.

Every third year, you have to tithe for all the widows, the orphans, and the poor in the country. So if you're a biblical tither, you tithe 23 and a third percent every year. And then all your giving in the Old Testament is beyond your tithe. So are you an Old Testament tither? Really? You see what I mean? Be careful with this. Don't become religious about this.

I can remember one of my professors, Dr. Walvoord at the seminary, and he said something that was interesting. He was talking about tithing and he said that he said, “Well, I would always suggest to you that if you're going to tithe, give 10.1 or 9.9 and not 10.” And the reason he said it was Paul told us God loves a cheerful giver. Don't give grudgingly nor of necessity.

So if I zero in on just one thing, I'm giving necessity. I have to give ten. No, you Bible says you have to give 23 and a third. And then your giving goes beyond that. But Dr. Walvoord said something that was interesting. He said, “My first year of school,” and he was in his 70s at the time, “my wife and I were looking at our giving and we decided from that day on we'll start our giving at 20%.” And he said because we thought grace is twice as good as law. And so we're going to give at least 20% of our income and we always went from there.

But notice they would tithe into minutiae. Just and they didn't love God with all their heart or their neighbor at all. There's an hypocrisy again that you see and that's what Jesus' whole point is.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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