The Evil and Atrocity of the Rolling Stop
Memory Verse:
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:58
Sermon Sentence: Beware the desire to pick and choose what you want to do and what you want to avoid.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:58
Sermon Sentence: Beware the desire to pick and choose what you want to do and what you want to avoid.
Day 1
Read Luke 11:37-53
The setting of this story seems like it could be a significant piece to me. Maybe I am stretching a bit to get here, but the idea that this exchange happened inside the home of the Pharisee as opposed to outside the home seems to merit some weight. Out in the real world, the Pharisee could blend in quite easily. Well, I am certain his uniform made him stand out more from the crowd, but even in that there were certain assumptions that people brought to a conversation with him that were not present in other conversations. It is like when a priest or a nun goes out in their full get up and are treated differently or even the nature of everyone around them is adjusted just knowing they are in a room.
But inside the man’s home was much more vulnerable. I am sure you can relate to even the difference between the thought of seeing Jesus on the streets to Jesus being in your home. Some think that the Pharisee brought Jesus into his home to find a piece of criticism on him, and maybe that is the case. We don’t get anything that specific from the text. But if that is the case, it is interesting that in the place that the man planned to be able to criticise or accuse Jesus the most, he found himself most vulnerable to criticism and the source of a tirade by Jesus. Notice that most of the criticisms that Jesus offers up about the Pharisees are all from a more intimate understanding of what is going on in their deepest of hearts, and seem to be better presented in this setting for consideration as opposed to out in public for everyone to see this argument unfold.
Do you think Jesus was set up here or that this was an innocent dinner that went south?
Why do you think that the Pharisee set this meeting up like this? What do you think he hoped to accomplish?
How have you noticed your heart being more or less susceptible to Jesus' instructions and teachings the closer you get to Him?
How does this become part of your prayer?
The setting of this story seems like it could be a significant piece to me. Maybe I am stretching a bit to get here, but the idea that this exchange happened inside the home of the Pharisee as opposed to outside the home seems to merit some weight. Out in the real world, the Pharisee could blend in quite easily. Well, I am certain his uniform made him stand out more from the crowd, but even in that there were certain assumptions that people brought to a conversation with him that were not present in other conversations. It is like when a priest or a nun goes out in their full get up and are treated differently or even the nature of everyone around them is adjusted just knowing they are in a room.
But inside the man’s home was much more vulnerable. I am sure you can relate to even the difference between the thought of seeing Jesus on the streets to Jesus being in your home. Some think that the Pharisee brought Jesus into his home to find a piece of criticism on him, and maybe that is the case. We don’t get anything that specific from the text. But if that is the case, it is interesting that in the place that the man planned to be able to criticise or accuse Jesus the most, he found himself most vulnerable to criticism and the source of a tirade by Jesus. Notice that most of the criticisms that Jesus offers up about the Pharisees are all from a more intimate understanding of what is going on in their deepest of hearts, and seem to be better presented in this setting for consideration as opposed to out in public for everyone to see this argument unfold.
Do you think Jesus was set up here or that this was an innocent dinner that went south?
Why do you think that the Pharisee set this meeting up like this? What do you think he hoped to accomplish?
How have you noticed your heart being more or less susceptible to Jesus' instructions and teachings the closer you get to Him?
How does this become part of your prayer?
Day 2
Read Matthew 23:1-12
You are probably pretty familiar with the idea that you should “practice what you preach.” That is why it does no good for the smoker to tell the young man trying cigarettes, that they should not be smoking because it is not good for them. The message is surely true and worth hearing, but the source seems to be confused about the very thing that they are trying to present. If you really believed that the smoking was bad for me, wouldn’t you not be smoking yourself? A bad source does not make the message itself bad. We do not have to imagine too much for that to be realized. Best case scenario, the message and the messenger are in agreement and you don’t have to do this work.
That was the lesson Jesus started with on the Pharisees. They held a great place and a place of honor. They were teachers of the Words of God and that is a good thing. It is good because God’s word is good. The problem with the Pharisees was not that they were preaching the wrong things, but that they were not practicising the things that they were claiming to believe. Well, not all of the things. There were some of the things that they were doing, but there were also some pretty obvious things they wanted to skip over. I guess a good lesson Jesus was telling them was to separate the person from the message and you could still find value. Jesus didn’t fight with the Pharisees just to have an enemy and to flex His muscles.
How have you seen the message and the messenger not line up in your life? Was it an example at home you always saw or have you experienced the toxic leader in the church that wants to have the platform but refuses to heed the message?
Inside of each of us is a version of the Pharisees. I still think that is the lesson that we are to learn from them. With that being said, how have you yourself wrestled with this same issue, not practicing what you preach? What have you done about it and how did you change that reality?
How does this become part of your prayer today?
Day 3
Read Matthew 23:13-36
Have you ever been in one of those situations where you felt the urge to say something, but you were not sure if that would be beneficial for the situation? The person really needs to hear what you have to say, but they also are not ready to hear what you have to say. So you wrestle the weight of what it is that needs to be said against the weight of what it will cost for it to be said. There is wisdom in that pause that I am sure most of us could use far more of that ability than less. I don’t know of anything that would make me think that Jesus would not have agreed with this logic. Which means that this conversation was weighed out against that model. Would what Jesus felt needed to be said here change the Pharisees? Surely he realized it would not. Was it still worth the stir that it would cause? It seems he thought so, because here we have it before us. That lends me to think that Jesus’ target audience was not the Pharisees so much as those of us that would overhear the message. Why would Jesus use the example of someone that would not heed the message to communicate the message? This is why I think the majority of what is to be taken from these texts are for me, not for the information about Pharisees.
Now that we have worked through the logic, I wonder about how I am supposed to read this? The language could read as a yelled dialogue that comes across as a rant more than a conversation. So was Jesus angry when he said this? Frustrated? Or was He just worked up? Was he more sad than anything?
If you imagine yourself as the recipient of this message, how do you feel afterwards? Are you offended? Are you annoyed? Are you mad?
Why is that?
What is the one thing that seems to hit the closest to home for you in this passage?
How does this become your prayer today?
Have you ever been in one of those situations where you felt the urge to say something, but you were not sure if that would be beneficial for the situation? The person really needs to hear what you have to say, but they also are not ready to hear what you have to say. So you wrestle the weight of what it is that needs to be said against the weight of what it will cost for it to be said. There is wisdom in that pause that I am sure most of us could use far more of that ability than less. I don’t know of anything that would make me think that Jesus would not have agreed with this logic. Which means that this conversation was weighed out against that model. Would what Jesus felt needed to be said here change the Pharisees? Surely he realized it would not. Was it still worth the stir that it would cause? It seems he thought so, because here we have it before us. That lends me to think that Jesus’ target audience was not the Pharisees so much as those of us that would overhear the message. Why would Jesus use the example of someone that would not heed the message to communicate the message? This is why I think the majority of what is to be taken from these texts are for me, not for the information about Pharisees.
Now that we have worked through the logic, I wonder about how I am supposed to read this? The language could read as a yelled dialogue that comes across as a rant more than a conversation. So was Jesus angry when he said this? Frustrated? Or was He just worked up? Was he more sad than anything?
If you imagine yourself as the recipient of this message, how do you feel afterwards? Are you offended? Are you annoyed? Are you mad?
Why is that?
What is the one thing that seems to hit the closest to home for you in this passage?
How does this become your prayer today?
Day 4
Read Isaiah 1:1-20
The human heart is much like the Pharisaical mind. That is the point of this series of sermons that we have been looking at. No one reading the Bible wants to take the side of the Pharisees, it is not literature that presents the sides like that. The annoying thing about that is that every time the story gets close to them, they seem to be checking all of the boxes that we think we need to check: they look the part, they have the position, they know the stuff, and they live the life. Which leads us to find the rebukes from God in our life and respond with a confused posture. “What do you want from me God?! I am going to church each week. I have been trying to read my Bible. I am here praying to you tonight. I thought this would take care of this struggle?”
That is the place that Isaiah’s words sting at us the most. We tend to live in the place that we offer up our partial obedience, or even our mostly obedient, up to the Lord as if we are throwing Him a bone. The people talked about in this passage were there for the regular, oftentimes expected acts that equal religion, but they lacked the main point. They thought that their sacrifices were doing something for God.
That hit me pretty hard when I typed that out. They treated their relationship with God as something that He needed, not that they were the primary needy ones. That is what I do. I give so that God has…as if He doesn’t, and much like a mafia boss, I assume the debt will be repaid since I kicked Him in a little. God does not need sacrifices. God gave the Ultimate Sacrifice of Jesus on my behalf…because I was the depleted and distorted one. I needed the sacrifice. These are my thoughts in real time and I need to go process this a bit more. Hopefully I have left enough here to get you close to the same time of reflection from this text.
Do you find this same problem in your heart? If so, how?
What personal application does this text make you think of as you are reading it today?
How does this become part of your prayer today?
The human heart is much like the Pharisaical mind. That is the point of this series of sermons that we have been looking at. No one reading the Bible wants to take the side of the Pharisees, it is not literature that presents the sides like that. The annoying thing about that is that every time the story gets close to them, they seem to be checking all of the boxes that we think we need to check: they look the part, they have the position, they know the stuff, and they live the life. Which leads us to find the rebukes from God in our life and respond with a confused posture. “What do you want from me God?! I am going to church each week. I have been trying to read my Bible. I am here praying to you tonight. I thought this would take care of this struggle?”
That is the place that Isaiah’s words sting at us the most. We tend to live in the place that we offer up our partial obedience, or even our mostly obedient, up to the Lord as if we are throwing Him a bone. The people talked about in this passage were there for the regular, oftentimes expected acts that equal religion, but they lacked the main point. They thought that their sacrifices were doing something for God.
That hit me pretty hard when I typed that out. They treated their relationship with God as something that He needed, not that they were the primary needy ones. That is what I do. I give so that God has…as if He doesn’t, and much like a mafia boss, I assume the debt will be repaid since I kicked Him in a little. God does not need sacrifices. God gave the Ultimate Sacrifice of Jesus on my behalf…because I was the depleted and distorted one. I needed the sacrifice. These are my thoughts in real time and I need to go process this a bit more. Hopefully I have left enough here to get you close to the same time of reflection from this text.
Do you find this same problem in your heart? If so, how?
What personal application does this text make you think of as you are reading it today?
How does this become part of your prayer today?
Day 5
Read Psalm 51
Yesterday we read Isaiah 1. Today’s Psalm, if you don’t know, was written by the great King David. It was written after his most not so great moment when he wrecked his life and the life of those around him, and to cover it all up, he took the life of someone else. Needless to say, this is a bad moment. In this moment, you will find David owning all of his sin. You may respond to that statement with an assumption that this is obvious and the only way to respond to such a bad situation. You would be right, but you would probably lack a record that lives out what you declared that you believe by saying that. Maybe that was a bit harsh and I am assuming too much about you, and I will allow that. But at least reflect for a second. I find the overworked and over used muscle of sin cover-up in my life, and that is where that comment comes from.
Isaiah was writing 200 years removed from David, so it is not like they had compared notes. But David, in this Psalm, writes out that same idea from yesterday: you don’t delight in sacrifice from me, as if I can pay you off by giving you what you need, God. You desire me to have something, not something from me. You desire that I don’t have the sin that was just displayed in my actions. For that to be there, I have to be broken and humbled so that I can be yielded to you.
I hope you will take this Psalm that we have read many times, and mull it over this morning in light of what we have been studying this week.
In light of your life today, what could you learn from David that needs your attention?
Why do you think that God looks for a “broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart?”
How does this become your prayer today?
Yesterday we read Isaiah 1. Today’s Psalm, if you don’t know, was written by the great King David. It was written after his most not so great moment when he wrecked his life and the life of those around him, and to cover it all up, he took the life of someone else. Needless to say, this is a bad moment. In this moment, you will find David owning all of his sin. You may respond to that statement with an assumption that this is obvious and the only way to respond to such a bad situation. You would be right, but you would probably lack a record that lives out what you declared that you believe by saying that. Maybe that was a bit harsh and I am assuming too much about you, and I will allow that. But at least reflect for a second. I find the overworked and over used muscle of sin cover-up in my life, and that is where that comment comes from.
Isaiah was writing 200 years removed from David, so it is not like they had compared notes. But David, in this Psalm, writes out that same idea from yesterday: you don’t delight in sacrifice from me, as if I can pay you off by giving you what you need, God. You desire me to have something, not something from me. You desire that I don’t have the sin that was just displayed in my actions. For that to be there, I have to be broken and humbled so that I can be yielded to you.
I hope you will take this Psalm that we have read many times, and mull it over this morning in light of what we have been studying this week.
In light of your life today, what could you learn from David that needs your attention?
Why do you think that God looks for a “broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart?”
How does this become your prayer today?
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