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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Welcome to the Sandals Church Podcast. My name is Justin McVey and I am the campus pastor at Sandals Church East Valley. We are so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this incredible message. If you've enjoyed our content, please consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:02/09/2009 was a day that changed all of us. And it probably changed you in ways that you can't even begin to imagine yet. Do you remember that day? February someone was shaking their head like, no. Is it my son's birthday or something?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But, no. It was the day that Facebook added the like button to post. You see, before that moment, social media was mostly about sharing updates. But, when the like button appeared, something shifted in our entire culture. Suddenly, there was now a measurable response to everything you posted.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You guys remember this? Like, I remember getting poked on Facebook. And, as a peacemaker, that is a bit intrusive, know. But, that small feature did something profound to all of our culture in a massive way. It introduced a performative kind of dynamic to your life where we no longer just shared moments, we presented them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We crafted them. We began to curate them. And over time without realizing it, we began to measure ourselves by how others responded to us. So that you can't just casually go out and enjoy a new sourdough pizza without your overly political family member liking it or judging you for your matcha price and how much you're willing to pay for a nice matcha. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And when you and I live in a performance oriented culture long enough, that instinct doesn't just stay online, but it bleeds into every aspect of your life. So that performance drives a lot of what you guys do. Meaning right now, of you have a job where you are over performing. A job that you prayed for. A job that you once thank God for.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now, you're overworked because performance is driving you. So maybe young people, you're in relationships in school that are primarily defined by you wanting them to give you attention and an approval. It's driven by performance. Maybe even some of you young adults, you're dating today and you're feeling the pressure to perform, to show up emotionally, to perform physically, and it's leading you to compromise boundaries you set because you are a follower of Jesus. Even some of you might even like, if you're willing to be honest, you feel like you got to perform in your marriage as a spouse.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You see, performance has a way of seeping into every part of our lives and it has a way of shaping our hearts and reshaping our motivational structures. It shapes how you see yourself. It shapes how you, think about validation and who you think you need, you know, to approve you or like you. And when you look for validation in that way, it has a way of shaping and forming excuse me, deforming all of your life. I got a little brain fart right there.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Said forping. What the heck is forping? And none of us can imagine that you simply just take these kinds of clothes off and just show up to church as everything is fine. Perhaps performance when it shows up to church is actually at its worst. When you look for validation in the church as a Christian.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Something dangerous is at work in our lives when our faith becomes a kind of performance instead of what we often say here at Sandals Church, a real experience. A genuine, authentic kind of active transformation. And what's at most danger is our integrity and our lack of integrity. And in the words of Jesus, we're called to be salt of the world, but what happens to salt when it loses its saltiness? What good are we if we don't have integrity?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:If our religious life is not real and authentic friends, what good are we? What does the world care about that kind of faith? How do they respond? Well, they respond oftentimes with a very famous phrase that all of us know. You can even finish it as I begin it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You practice what you preach. Right? Listen to this quote from Dallas Dallas Willard when he writes, how many people are radically and permanently repelled from the way by Christians who are unfeeling, stiff, and unapproachable. He goes on, they're boringly lifeless. That's kind of a sting.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Obsessive and dissatisfied. He says spirituality, wrongly understood or pursued, is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God. What an indictment. Now here's the thing. This is not a new problem.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is an ancient one. Jesus himself confronts this problem in our passage today, Matthew 23, and perhaps what he is most concerned with about your life today and my life today is our lack of integrity. Meaning for some of us in the church, we have a lack of integrity. Where we, in the words of Jesus, do not practice what we preach. And this is a needed word.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why do I say that? Because ironically enough, we find ourselves living in a time where there is like a spiritual awakening happening. Like if you look around you, people are coming to church. It's an exciting thing to be, especially here at Sandals Church. New people flood our our churches every single weekend.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a gift to see who shows up. And this is happening not just with us, but around the world. There is a movement of God right now. Some even use the word revival to talk about it. And we often get excited in these moments as do I.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But we talk about, you know, this idea of the church going out to convert the world. But what if one of the things that Jesus wants to do is not to convert the world, but what if he wants to convert the church first? So, the focus is not just on converting people who don't believe in him, but convert people who say they follow him back into actually following him. Because perhaps the people who need conversion most are the ones who claim they've already been converted. It's time for Jesus to convert the church.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's time for you and I to confront our lack of integrity. And so I I realized I've shared all that in five and a half minutes. I'm out of breath. So let's take a deep breath and just be open to how God might speak to you as you receive this word about self examination and what in your life needs to change. So I'm gonna ask that if you're willing and able, wherever you happen to be watching this, that you would stand with us for the reading of God's word.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Out of Matthew 23. Matthew says, then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the teachers of religious law and the pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don't practice. Excuse me. But don't follow their example for they don't practice what they teach.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to erase the burden. 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. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces and to be called rabbi.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Don't let anyone call you rabbi for you hope you have only one teacher and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don't address anyone here on earth as father for only God in heaven is your father. And don't let anyone call you teacher for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is God's word. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we pause in prayer to acknowledge that you have, gathered with us as we have gathered. And so we ask now Lord that you would speak to us from your word. And the words of Jesus you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see so that we might become who you desire us to be in him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you so much. You may be seated. My, what a word from Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now if you're unfamiliar with his story, we have as a church over the last year or so been in this series called the Gospel of Matthew where we've been studying Matthew's biography of Jesus and where we find ourselves here is in the final week of his life. And it's interesting to me that out of all the things, out of all the stories, miracles, and things that Jesus did on his last week of his life, Matthew takes extended time to talk about the pharisees. Why do you think that is? I ask that because it's natural for us to kinda always just wanna dunk on the pharisees. Look at them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're so dumb. Pharisees. But I think Matthew, as he's compiling this biography, bear in mind, he's writing to disciples. He wrote this biography for the church. And so I think Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is aware of your propensity and my propensity to become the very kinds of people that we despise in our own lives.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And he's aware of that. On top of that, he's aware of our propensity and capacity for self deception. It's pretty huge. The ways that we can deceive ourselves. Case in point, why is it that you never lose an argument in your own head?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You always win. I always win. I'm a peacemaker. I'm a nine on the enneagram, which means I won't fight you in person, but we've already fought in my head. And guess what?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I've won every single argument. Why is that? Because our capacity for self deception is great and so this is a significant warning for us and so let's be open to how God might speak to us as we work through this passage together. Look there with me at verses one to three. It says, Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, so he's kind of gathered them together, the teachers of religious law and the pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So practice and obey whatever they tell you. That's interesting. But he said, he goes on, but don't follow their example for they don't practice what they teach. Now let's pause there. When Jesus says they are the official interpreter, some of your translations might say, they sit in the seat of Moses.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now, this is both a literal seat that would have been in their synagogues, their churches, and it's also a metaphor. In other words, Jesus, in his mind, despite dealing with the mess of this church and with the mess of the religious system of his day, he still values teaching. He says they are the official interpreters of the law. In other words, they had a job to act as Moses once did. To study the scriptures, to interpret them, to deliver the word of God to the people of God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what they were called to do. He says that's very needed. Right? It's it's something that we still do today which is why this week I spent about twenty to thirty hours just studying Matthew. Doing what many of you don't have time to do so that I can get up here and deliver a thirty minute, hopefully above mediocre average sermon.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? He still values teachers, which I think is a good word for us because even in a day when, you know, church is questionable, teaching is sometimes questionable, Jesus still acknowledges our need for them and says they teach truth. You should obey it, but don't follow their example. In other words, his issue with us today is not so much the truth that we are teaching, but the lack of truth that is lived out in our lives. That's his challenge and he's confronting all of us with this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Saying to you and I today that right now, whether you can see it or not, there is a gap in your life. There is a gap between what I say I believe and the way that I actually live. And Jesus is looking to confront that gap. He might be okay with your theology. Like you might believe all the right things.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's got very little to say about that, but he has a ton to say about the way it's actually lived out in your life. Can you see that gap? Are there areas right now in your life where you are intimately aware that though you say this, you believe this, you might even teach this, There is still a gap in your life. You don't live it. Perhaps one of the great critiques against the church today from the world is not so much that they disagree with our truth, but they don't like the way we are holding truth.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's a difference between those two things. So Jesus is going to help us unpack this. Look at there at verse four. He says, they crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. What a what a picture.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Never lift a finger to ease the burden. Crushed by the weight, never lift a finger to ease the burden. What is he getting at? Well, bear in mind that, the the rabbis, the pharisees were instructed to offer the law of God from the Old Testament. The Torah.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Alright. For those of you who may not know, that's the first five books of the Old Testament. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. And anyone know? Deuteronomy.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There you go. Good job, y'all. Within the first five books, there's roughly 613 commands, a little over 200 positive commands do this, and then 300 and, 65 negative commands don't do this. One for every day of the week. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Every day of the year, actually. And what they had done over time and tradition had added a fence around that law. So, they created secondary laws to prevent us from ever breaking the first laws. And over time, this became burdensome. I mean, imagine for a second what it would be like to try to make sure you are following every law, like over a thousand of them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's insane. He says there's too many burdens. Verse five he goes on, 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. Now, this again is a reference to a passage in Deuteronomy where we are instructed to bind the word of God onto us, to keep it on the forefront of our minds.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of your translations might say phylacteries. It's a small leather box. And maybe you've seen people even today wear these, especially if you've gone to New York, you might see people who have literally the scriptures tied to their heads wrapped around their arms. And what Jesus, I think, is bothered by is not so much the dress, but the appearance of devotion that doesn't actually lead people to drawing near to God. It actually distracts them further away from him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what he's concerned with. He goes on. Look at verse six. And they loved to sit at the head table of banquets and the seats of honor in the synagogues. Now, bear in mind, in this particular day and age, to to be at a table, your seat often communicated your value in the community.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So, whoever, you know, you decide to sit for dinner on a Saturday night, communicate to everyone else your value, your status in society. And in their day and age, they had these kind of u shaped tables. So wherever you chose to sit was a sign of your status and position. Now, we can kind of think of this today in our own, you know, kind of lives a little bit as you go out with some friends on a Saturday night and it's like, who's gonna sit at the center? You know?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Who's gonna sit at the head? And some of us are like, that's all we think about. I can't wait to sit at the center so I can talk to everybody. Then I would imagine some of you were like, nah, it's okay. It's not for me.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, you get invited to sit at the center. Like, nah, nah, nah. I'll sit at the end. And then what do you do? You pout the whole time at the end of the table over dinner that you're not at the center.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? So, you're no better than the rest of us. So, where do you choose to sit? Jesus says these leaders of that day loved the head of the table. They loved their status.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He goes on in verse seven. They loved to receive respectful greetings as they walked by in the marketplaces to be called Rabbi. Who wouldn't like to be called great one once in a while, right? They come out of my bedroom, oh great one father. It'd be a nice way to be greeted once in a while.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Notice the verse eight, Jesus now kind of turns. That's what they do. This is their way of life. This kind of performance driven religion that in the mind of Jesus is dead and continues to die. Verse eight now, don't let anyone call you rabbi for you have only one teacher and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love his kind of egalitarian sensibilities here. Jesus wants to reshape our view of God's family, your spiritual family at church. We are equal friends. We are all equal. He says, don't let anyone call you Rabbi.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That the word there is a great one and I like that he kinda does a little wink to himself. He's like, you got one teacher. It's me. Right? So Jesus is doing there.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And he says the verse nine, don't address anyone here on earth as father for only God in heaven is your father. Now bear in mind in his day, it would have been a common practice for a rabbi or a pharisee to be called father by their disciples and in turn to call their disciples their children. And Jesus is bothered by this. Don't call anyone like that. You have a father.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love that he grounds it. Remember the Lord's prayer, Matthew six, our father in heaven. In the midst of this kind of, lack of integrity, this spiritual performance, Jesus drops this nugget reminding us of our identity in the father. You have a father in heaven who loves you. And we'll come back to that because it transforms everything that happens beyond that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He goes on, and don't let anyone call you teacher. Some of your translations might say instructor or headmaster. This is essentially the position of Dumbledore. Like no one's called Dumbledore around here. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There is no Yoda here. For you have one teacher, the Messiah. Now it's interesting. Jesus' prohibition of titles kind of challenges us today in our modern day because I understand the culture we all swim in, especially here at this church, we have titles like pastor. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And we use those often to kind of communicate both reverence and respect and I get it. It's great. What I think Jesus is after here, what deeply bothers him, what he's confronting is the use of titles in a way that puts us in a position of power over and against other people. Where you start to perform and find a status and identity and a title. Why do I say that?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, yes, uses words like pastor. He actually likens pastors to fathers and mothers as a metaphor. But you will find zero examples anytime where Paul is called Father Paul or Pastor Paul. In fact, what you will find throughout the New Testament, the word pastor is far more used as a verb to describe what you do more than it is a title or a position you take. The word we use sometimes that's better used is elder.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Now, again, I say all that realizing kind of the nuance that we kind of live with. Most of you say pastor out of just simple respect. You're not intending to break Jesus' command here which is why I said I think he's after the abuse of a title. And I honestly share that because if at any moment you guys come up to me and you just call me Fredo or Alfredo, I'm going to be totally okay with that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Please do not feel bad if you forget to call me pastor. It's a title that I'm sometimes even slow to take because it does describe what I do, but not so much a title I have. Now, I know it's a bit of a rabbit trail, so we'll just pause there. But, I have on occasion heard this, Reverend Ramos, And, I gotta tell you, I really love that. So, maybe at some point, you know, our church can get together, our job titles will change because Reverend Ramos has got a rig to it, you know.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But, again, his warning is about a kind of religious performance that finds validation, identity, and power over and against other people through the kinds of titles we have because they're heavy today. I mean, it's become an American past time to watch the news or scroll on your phone about another pastor who has failed morally. And it's tragic. I think about my own life in this way. The first pastor to disciple me, to call me into his office weekly, we read books together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He showed me the way of Jesus. He was an incredibly gracious man. A few years ago it came out. He was in multi year long affair with someone. Fired from that church.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I haven't seen him in a long time. And many of you like that's your story too. You know what it's like to meet a pastor, but then have a very different kind of experience with him. And so Jesus' warning here is a strong caution. Careful with our titles friends.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Careful with our titles, especially in the church. Notice how he ends now in verse eleven and twelve. The greatest among you must be a servant, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Notice this is not a command. This is Jesus making a statement about reality in his kingdom.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You want to be great? Find the servants. And if you attempt to exalt yourself, again, is not a command. This is a statement of reality. Any attempt through performance to exalt yourself, you will find yourself deeply humbled in life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And any attempt because God is your father to humble yourself over time, you will be exalted. You will be lifted up. Now, as we start to wrestle with this gap between what I say I believe and the life that I actually live, Jesus I think offers us three critical gaps that if we're not attentive will widen in our lives. It was happening in the text and it's happening in our lives. The first gap is this, the gap of hypocrisy grows in my life when I place burdens on others that I don't carry myself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Verse four, they crush people with unbearable religious demands. Now think about this. Before you cast judgment on the pharisees, has there ever been a time where you place an unrealistic expectation on somebody else? Like you you expect people to show up for you while you rarely show up for them. You expect patience from people, but you rarely know how to give it to them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You want your friends to check-in on you, but when's the last time you checked on them? See, our culture has a term for this. It's called the fundamental attribution, attribution error. I cannot talk today. Lord have mercy.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Fundamental attribution error. It's a fancy way to describe this. When someone else does something wrong, we assume it's because of their character, but when we do something wrong, we assume it's because of our circumstances. Case in point. The other day I'm on my way to work and I get cut off in traffic.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:While I'm listening to a podcast on how to be a better Christian leader, I yell out the words, you idiot, and then I speed ahead. I'm like, must be on your phone. You're probably on your phone. I get ahead, pull up next to them, they're on their phone, and then now I start judging. This is a full Ferris Afredo this moment because I'm like, man, you know, during Lent, I'm practicing Lent, I've given up my phone, you should have given up your phone too because you're distracted on the road.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? I go on this whole rabbit trail. And then on my way home from work, getting off to the same exact freeway, I accidentally cut someone else off. You know what I say? Oh, shoot.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I didn't see them. And I'm running late. Go get my kids. And you know what? I didn't sleep well last night.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Just came out of a really hard meeting. I'm still processing. Why is it that other people's mistakes are flaws in their character? But when I made the same mistake, it's just situational. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:In the mind of Jesus, he says that's a heavy burden you've placed on other people. That's what happens. We want his grace. We want the grace of God, but we'd much rather him give law, justice, judgment to everyone else. It's a heavy burden.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The second kind of gap that Jesus calls out in our lives is not just the the burdens that we place, but the appearances that we also take. Right? This gap widens when I care more about how I am perceived than who I am becoming. Notice verse five. Everything they do is for show.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Can you imagine if the way Jesus described your following of him as everything you've been doing is for show? And the challenge is not just that we're attempting to look good, but that we're attempting to look better than we actually are, friends. I can remember the first time this happened in my life as a Christian. I was 21 years old. I had just come to faith in Jesus and I went up to a Christian camp.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I was a young adult still in college attending UCR at the time. I was so excited to be in this camp. This is my first Christian camp. So, I'm like, man, what's going happen? It's a Christian camp.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:How exciting. I got the agenda for our whole three days up in the mountains. I was flipping through it and I noticed that for each of the small group time, they had put the passages that we would be reviewing. And so what I did with my love for appearances and how I perceived, I grabbed my whole highlighter system because you know as a new Christian, you get a brand new bible and you gotta get a new highlighter set. So, had a yellow highlighter that, highlighted the main point.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I used green to highlight commands. I used blue to highlight questions, and I used pink to highlight interesting facts that I should go back to. I had a whole system. Right? You opened my bible, it like a rainbow.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So, what I did before the small group event, I saw what we were reading ahead of time and I went through and I highlighted the whole passage. I never read the passage before. Right? Just highlighted the whole thing. So, that when it was time for small group, they're like, I'll go ahead and turn to, you know, Colossians two.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I'm like, oh, perfect. Open it up and all of a sudden highlights everywhere. And I'm, you know, I'm kinda showing but I'm not showing at the same time. It's just enough. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And the small group leader is like, oh my gosh, Fred are like, wow, you've you've read this. And like, it was funny you've asked, you know, that let me tell you. It it was so embarrassing. Now, that's one story to say because, you know, I was 21, young and dumb, didn't know what I was doing. It's another thing to tell you that in this very moment, as I teach about integrity, I am concerned, more concerned at certain moments of this message about how you will perceive me than who I'm actually becoming through this word.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So that I will labor over certain phrases and sentences and timing because I am more concerned about the perception and reception of the sermon more than I am what God will do in and through my own life as I sit with this sermon. Friends, the capacity for self deception is great. It's great. And we may not be like the pharisees with our phylacteries, but we love our titles. You love the stories to share at social gatherings.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You can't wait to get to your story, your promotion. You know, Tim Keller has this great thought on humility when he says, you know, pride's becoming a problem in your life when every story and everything that happened to you is mainly about you. So is it possible that this gap of integrity, this lack of integrity is growing more in your life because you are so focused on this image that you just want to be accepted so bad? And I share that because man, it is hard enough to live our own life without the social proof that you have lived your life. Like, think about that for a second.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's hard enough just to live your life without the social proof that you're actually doing a good job at it. Right? Which is why it's hard to have a great moment sometimes and just have a great moment and not be, you know, impacted by that thought, I got to share this moment. And in the sharing of the moment, here's the problem. It's not just that others don't need to share the moment with you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? That's not the problem. The problem is others need to know how great of a moment I'm having. Right? That's really what we're after.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We call these Instagram worthy moments friends. It's an insane place that we find ourselves living in. Now, thirdly, Jesus presses further and says, this gap widens. Listen now. This gap of hypocrisy widens when I am more drawn to being seen than quietly serving others.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They love to sit at the tables. They love to be seen. In other words, your life of performance is marked by here I am. Here I am. God, here I am.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Here I am. So so much to the point that sometimes you lift your hands in worship and your thought is, I wonder what the person behind me thinks. They're probably a great Christian. Got it going on. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Here I am. They love the seats of honor in the synagogues. This is a terrifying place. Now, I have shared all this. These three critical gaps that widen hypocrisy in our lives.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And as I was preparing this, I realized I've shared nothing new. Like all of us know this at some level. You've heard all of this before. So why then is there still, even though we know all of this truth, why is there still so much insecurity in the church? Why is there so much insecurity?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love the wisdom of John Tyson when he said, our ability to critique what's wrong is stronger than our ability to go to the source and practice what is right. In other words, our critiquing practices are stronger than our formation practices. So, thankfully, Jesus just doesn't want to just diagnose our problem today. He actually shows us another way. So, in light of the reality that oftentimes this gap of our life widens, Jesus is going to empower us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Jesus wants to empower you today to close this gap, to shrink it. And here's how this gap closes through number one, compassion that listens to those that I rather judge. When you and I make a judgment on someone, is so much easier to just label them and be done with them. A label will prevent you from ever learning to listen to somebody. And it's interesting to me that God, when he wants to describe himself in Exodus, he gives the sermon about himself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The first word that God uses to describe himself is what? Compassionate. It's a compound word that means to suffer with. When God gives a sermon on himself, the first way he announces it is to say he's a compassionate God. He is someone who suffers with us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He enters into what we've been struggling with. And so compassion, practicing compassion is a way for you to consider what it would look like to begin to listen to the individuals in your lives that you would much rather judge. And instead of placing heavier burdens on them because you already know their story, you begin to remove burdens and you begin to understand what Jesus meant in Matthew 11 when he said, come to me all who are weary and what burdened and I will give you rest. What if in your life, in the way that you practice compassion through listening, it was a way for people to experience Jesus himself removing burdens, Removing burdens. Because it is much harder for you and I to judge people when we have actually listened to their story and understood what they've gone through.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We cross the chasm of difference and realize, man, there's more to this person than I could possibly imagine. Secondly, Jesus empowers us to close this gap through integrity practice in private faithfulness. Integrity practice in private faithfulness. What do mean by that? What is one part of your Christian life that nobody else ever sees?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like is there anything you do for Jesus that is done privately and no one else has any idea about it? I want to take us to Matthew chapter 10. It's this random place in the gospels that most of the time, if I'm being honest with you, I skip when I'm reading the Bible because it's a list of names, but it's an important list. We read these words. These are the names of the 12 apostles.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:First Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew, were familiar with them. James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John again, the sons of thunder were familiar with them. Philip, not so much. Bartholomew, bit of a question mark, don't know who that is. Thomas, that's the doubter, we know him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Matthew, the tax collector, we've come to know him very well. James, son of Alpheus, kind of. And then Thaddeus, Like, some of you can't even spell Thaddeus, right, without looking at it. Like, who is Thaddeus? Simon the Zealot.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Judas Iscariot. We're familiar with him. But it's interesting to me. Like, Peter we know. John we know.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Thomas the doubter. We have a reference point for some of them. But then when you hit Thaddeus and Bartholomew, you're like, where did they come from? There's almost nothing written about these two individuals, but they were disciples. They were with Jesus every day of Jesus' ministry.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They heard his teaching. They watched his miracles. They went out and preached the gospel and we have zero record of their lives. Why do I share that? Because in a day and age where visibility is a virtue, these disciples rebuke all of that and remind us about a private hidden kind of faithfulness where you can still be faithful to God with integrity and no one will ever know your story.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's never posted online. This is the way the kingdom of God advances in the world. Not through Christian influencers who understand how to work an algorithm or sermon clips that go viral and get everyone's attention. No. The kingdom of God comes through everyday people like you and I deciding to live our lives with integrity in the smallest of ways when no one else is watching.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:In a world when everyone wants to be a Peter, you and I, you know what? We should be a Thaddeus. We should be a Thaddeus where your life is lived privately. As the Apostle Paul says, you work with your own hands, you live a quiet dignified life. What would it look like for you to have integrity that no one sees?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because the great challenge for many of us is a lack of integrity when nobody is watching. Your true faith, your true religion is played out when no one else sees you. And so is there any part of your Christian life that is lived out in private? Thirdly, as we close, this gap begins to close in our lives when we practice humility demonstrated by serving other people. Jesus loved to describe himself as the son of man who came to serve other people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Nothing to prove. Nothing to prove to anyone. And I love the word from this passage here. He said, you have a father in heaven, which which tells me something. I have a hunch that security and humility is rooted in the fact that you remember who you are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You remember who you are. Security and humility rooted in the fact that you remember you have a father in heaven who accepts you and loves you. What some of you need today when you think about integrity is to be reminded of the words that the father in heaven spoke over Jesus at his baptism. This is my son. You know what that is?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Acceptance. My beloved son. You know what that is? That's affection. With what?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:With whom I'm well pleased. You know what that is? That's affirmation. I have given you a calling. Go and do that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:My hunch today is that many Christians today have at least maybe two of those things. Acceptance. Like you know, because you've repented of your faith, you believe the gospel, yada yada yada, God accepts you. He kind of has to. It's the gospel.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Some of you also have affirmation. You believe God's calling you. You got a purpose for your life. But I think what many of us lack is affection from God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meaning you struggle to believe that God actually likes you and likes to be around you. So much so that when you first think about God and as you enter His presence, what comes to your mind is not God delighting in you, but God being disappointed in you because you're late Or it's been a month since you read the Bible. Or you barely show up to church. Or you can't memorize scripture. Or you still struggle with forgiveness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Here's the problem. None of us will ever be scared out of hypocrisy. You could only be loved out of it. And until you realize that the father is so infatuated with you, you will constantly struggle with integrity. What I think was so secret and powerful in Jesus' life was that he knew who he was.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He was loved by the Father and because of that He had nothing to prove and He was free to serve the world. Free to serve the world. We go to this, passage in John 13. Listen to what happened there. Also in the final week of Jesus' life, in the upper room discourse, notice what John writes.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Jesus knew that the father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. You know what that is? Security. Verse four. So he got up from the table, took off his robe and wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Then he began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with a towel that he had around him. Security led to service for Jesus. He knew the father loved him. He knew where he was going back. And so instead of like a Pharisee reaching for a seat at the table, he reached for a towel to serve people.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Which tells us then the ability that you and I will have this week to serve people is rooted first in the fact that you know that you are beloved by God. You got to remember who you are because Jesus served not out of a need for recognition, but the fact that he already knew he was recognized by the father. It freed him to serve. And I am convinced that part of converting the church means that many of you need to stop trying to perform for God out of a wounding from the past and just freely receive the blessing from God that he longs to give you right now. You need the affection of God in your life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So that you might, in slow, small but real ways, stop living your life even in church where you say, here I am, and you start showing up and you say, ah, there you are. Because that's how Jesus' whole life was defined. Not by here I am attitude, but by, ah, there you are. To the woman caught in adultery, ah, there you are. To, the lepers, there you are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:To Zacchaeus hiding the tree, there you are. His whole ministry was marked by this attitude of, ah, there you are. I would imagine the reason why you are here today is because at some level God has said to you, ah, there you are. And he saw you in your sin. He saw you in your shame and he is calling you out.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And when you humbly receive the title that you are his son or daughter, it will free you up to become a servant. It will free you up to start to live life with integrity. And so the great challenge for all of us today at this point is to maybe consider places in our lives where we have reached for a seat rather than reached for a towel. Where you love the status, you love to perform and to find places in your life where you need to confess, where you lack integrity. Let's do that now as we close in prayer.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Heavenly Father, we ask now that you would, help us to become aware of the hypocrisy in our own lives That you would help us to close this gap between what we say we believe and how we actually live so that we might become a church that's converted. God, before you convert the world, you, I know you want to convert this church. And so help us become people who practice what we preach, particularly in the way that we serve people out of a place of love. Would you do that work in us now we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I just want to take a quick second to thank you for all of you who are watching wherever you might be. We understand many of you don't have a chance to attend a Sandals Church location and so you watch online and we say you are an absolute gift. We don't know you all, but we believe God has a plan for you. And I want to encourage you that this week you would find space in your life to instead of reaching for a table, you might reach for a towel and serve people. Serve people out of a place of love and integrity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And listen, if anything that we do as a church is helping you on this journey of becoming real with Jesus, I want to ask you to pray about supporting that work, And to do that, you can go to sandalschurch.com/support. Grace and peace.