John Gunter: Here with us this morning as we worship God together. Heath was all over my sermon, so we'll talk about that later. Now, again, I want to invite you to bible class as well. We we did we are gonna have some overlap today. They were warned about that, so they understand.
You see them walk out, I'll need to talk to them. But again, just a great time of opening up the scriptures together as we go through the book of Acts in class and then Mark today. We're gonna begin with a couple episodes that are traditionally taken together, and so we're gonna we're gonna kinda do that today, and that begins in Mark chapter 12 starting in verse 38. And in his teaching, he said, beware of scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feast, who devour widow's houses, and for a pretense, make long prayer. They will receive the greater condemnation.
Now, that is an interesting thing because if you remember last week, and I'm sure most of you don't, I have to remind myself sometimes, wait, what was that I preached on? But when we talked about the greatest commandment, Jesus actually commends a scribe that you are close to the kingdom of God because the scribe you remember we kinda joked about it. The scribe told told Jesus, yeah, good job. That's right. You know?
Wouldn't you like to be that person that I approved of what Jesus said? That's great. But shortly after, Mark gives you this this teaching from Jesus that says, beware of the scribes who like to do these things. Now, of course, that's a generalization. We know we understand from the previous context that there are some people who desire the right thing, or at least it looks like it.
But as we know with many of of Jesus' conflicts and issues, there were people that constantly were out to trap him in different things. Right? And so when Jesus begins, he says, alright, well, beware of the scribes. And when when you hear scribes, what you should hear is religious leaders. Beware of the religious leaders who like to walk around in long robes, like greetings in the marketplaces, have the best seats in the synagogues, and the places of honor at feasts.
Now, none of us do that kind of thing, do we? We like the best places. Now, to kind of describe what this is like, if the the best seat in the synagogue, we we think was probably this might freak some of you out, so I'm gonna do it. Was probably a seat up front, right in front of the box with the scrolls that faced the congregation in the synagogue. That was the best seat.
And so that would be reserved for elderly people and things like that, and here, take your place of honor, you can be front and center and see that. A preacher I like to listen to said well, was interesting, he had a conversation with some Muslim people in his town, it was in Nashville or around Nashville, and so what they did was they were in conversation together about what they believed, and so he attended the mosque with them to kind of see what went on, and they came to church with him. And so when they came to church, and they were looking around like they started, like, can can anybody sit here? Nobody's sitting here. Was like, yeah.
You can sit there. And they felt honored to sit in the front. We didn't tell them, or he didn't tell them, nobody wants to sit there. Right? But that was a place of honor for them.
But that was in the Jewish synagogue, that would have been kind of the place. You're up front and center. You could see everybody, hear everything. Right? And then when you're talking about places of honor at the feast, like the people who sat in the right place in the place of honor, you got the best seat around the best people, and actually you got the best food.
They would serve you the best food at that position. And so what you see here is Jesus saying, beware of the religious leaders because this is what they're like. That ought to hurt our feelings a little bit. Because religious leaders or religious people in general should be, we've taught hopefully, right, we're supposed to be about other people as well. Jesus said, well, religious leaders are like this, they're out for themselves.
Did you hear that in all of this? They want the best seat in the synagogue, they want the place of honor at the feast, and and remember Jesus is even taught on this. He said, when you go to a feast, pick the lower seat. And then you may be honored, right, when they ask you to come to a better seat, but don't just go seeking the best seat. You ever seek the best parking spot?
Thank you, God. God has blessed me with this spot, and you just made somebody hobble all the way from their spot because they couldn't get your spot. Right? But we we even think about it, I want the best spot, I want I want to get the right thing. I love getting the the right spot at a sports venue or a concert.
Like, I I wanna be I don't wanna be I don't necessarily wanna be down with everybody oh, the riffraff. Right? I wanna be down with everybody. I wanna the right spot where I can sit and or stand and have room, and all those things. So we kind of seek those things for ourselves, but when we're thinking about life in general, we should be walking around as image bearers of Jesus, caring for the people around us.
Right? Jesus says, you gotta watch out because your religious leaders don't necessarily do this. They want the best spot. They seek that for themselves. They want the best place at the feast.
And it says, they devour widows' houses. We're not exactly sure because he doesn't explain what that means. It's probably something like overlooking the widow's needs or even maybe as, you know, widows and children who didn't have fathers were the most at risk, and they may have let them just kind of go into poverty and not have anything while looking out for themselves. Right? I think that makes sense, but we don't know anything else than that.
But it says, and for a pretense, make long prayers. Well, after acting like this, then I'm gonna stand up before you and give just a grand prayer that you'll all enjoy. Right? You ever been a part of a prayer like that? I've timed prayers like that, and I'll just be honest with you.
I had a friend who I went to school with that you might as well, if you've back problems, go ahead and prop up, says he starts speaking. Now, I don't know what the motivation was, it may have been very genuine. But sometimes, we can do things that just are for our own benefit or what we try to do to make ourselves look good to other people. Yes? Yes, we do.
Jesus talks about this in Matthew 23. He said, then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the pharisees sit on Moses' seats. They they sit on this kind of this place of power. They are the religious leaders. Right?
And so so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. That's the original do what I say, not what I do. Right? That's what Jesus says, unfortunately, the religious leaders here, scribes and pharisees, for they preach but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move with them with their finger.
They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the places of honor at feast, and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by others. And again, let me let me point out, when they talk about the phylacteries, they want to have the best robe. You see this in the parable of the prodigal son. Okay? When the son returns, put the best robe on.
This is a long kind of flowing robe. This is a this is a thing to say, I am this type of person. I am a a special person of importance. They again, the feast and the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces. It was a it was considered honorable is if I show up in the marketplace, you catch me at H E B, and you come up and say hello to me first.
That was considered honorable. It was considered it was actually considered humble when one of the Jewish rabbis, he made a point not to do that. He wanted to be the first to greet you because otherwise, I'm just standing waiting in my nice ear, just go ahead and say it. Go ahead and say hello to me because it makes me feel important. Now, I've ducked behind the, you know, the the road not to say hello to somebody, but I don't think I've done that.
Maybe I have. But that that was considered this honorable thing, and they sought that out. You hear that? That's what they were seeking. And again, last week, what we talked about, the greatest commandment.
Right? Love God and love others. Now notice this starting in verse eight, But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ, the greatest among you shall be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Now, I don't want you to freak out and think, oh, well, I I know I've had an instructor, I've had a teacher. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying you didn't have a teacher in school. But what he's saying is they they sought those things, those titles as positions of honor, that I am I am pursuing this honor for myself.
I am honored when you call me rabbi at H E B. Nobody's called me that yet. When I got my master's degree, I I threw out there, you could call me master pastor. Not one person has done that. I've been upset by that.
But we might think about it, maybe reverend might be the closest that we think of. Reverend, like honorable, right, something like that. And to be upset if you didn't call me that, right? That would be something like we're talking about here that we just desire things for ourselves. That I'm just out here looking for these things.
The next section that I was talking about in Mark is this, he said, and he sat down opposite the treasury and watched people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which makes a penny, and actually, it's not necessarily true that it makes a penny. It's it's about eight minutes worth of work, whatever that is, in your world, but it's a very small amount of money. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.
In verse 44, if I can get to it. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Now, Jesus kind of sits back in this moment and observes. Now, what they would have had is this this treasury they would have kind of like a treasury room and an offering box that would kind of be similar to this bucket. And they would be putting in coins, you weren't passing around dollar bills.
You understand that? They ever held an old Roman coin or something like that? And so, just like the kids, and this is gonna be terrible for the audio, just like the kids, every time somebody gave, you didn't hear a dollar floating in there, you heard plank, plank. Now, how many of you give online? Yeah.
A lot of you. You don't even like it when we started giving online, we started wondering, oh, people aren't gonna see me give it all and what are they gonna think? We've had that thought, haven't we? Right? Because there's something about how I'm seen in front of everybody that makes me feel good.
And it makes me feel a lot better if it sounds like rather than. Right? So if next week we said, hey, we're not gonna do online giving, we're not gonna do checks or anything, everybody bring coins, we're gonna come to the front. Some of you would go get as many rolls of pennies as you could find, Right? Because for some reason, we desire not, again, loving God and loving others, but how you perceive me.
And that's a hard issue, isn't it? Because my desire, again, is not to love others, it's to love myself. It's to be selfish, it's to be, alright, I want to portray a particular picture to you. And so Jesus sits back and of course, he looks at all these people who are able or that can give so much money, and he said, you know, she actually, with the 2 copper coins, that didn't make near as much racket as the large sums you just heard, she actually gave more. And we still act like that.
Right? If someone today gave us the money to build a building, just get, I'm gonna write a check, we're gonna do this, we would reward them with our praise and our thanks, and we might put their name on something, right? We do that with sports stadiums. Know, rich people all the time just give money and their names on something. Right?
Now, the fact is that they may very well be in this position, that the money they gave in relation to their wealth may not have been near as much money as you give in what you have. Right? But what we do is we celebrate the one who gives a lot even though they've got a lot more to give. And so Jesus said, okay, well, don't get this messed up. She has given more than all of these even though, if you were sitting by, and I'm sure many of them did, to see how much brother a gave.
Right? Oh, I'm gonna make a lot more racket with mine than they did. Well, she is giving out of faith, isn't she? Because that's what we do. Lot of times, we give out of our abundance.
We don't have to live on faith giving all that we have, we give a small percentage and call it faith. Real faith is giving all you have and going, God, you've got me. Not my bank account, not all of that, but God, you have me. And the overlap with class today is is what Heath was talking about back in Acts five. But notice this, this is a common theme in scripture, unfortunately, and I think we can relate it to to ourselves.
It says, but a man named Ananias and his wife with Sapphira sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the holy spirit and to keep back yourself part of the proceed proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did did it not remain your own, so it was yours to do whatever with. And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Again, your choice.
You've got it. You've got the money. It's at your disposal what to do with it. Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God.
When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young man rose and wrapped him up, and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. So Peter already had the figure.
Right? Ananias has told him. Alright. Well, tell me if you sold the land for so much? She said, yes, for so much.
But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out. Immediately, she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in, they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
Now the issue here is as we see it, is that Ananias and Sapphira have cooked up this lie. Peter says it's not that you you didn't give it all, it's that you lied about it. It was at your disposal to do whatever. You you did this great thing of selling your land to be able to help people, but their desire of their heart was not to say, well, I sold it for this, and I kept some back. I needed some money for my family or whatever, and so here's the rest of it.
The desire was, I want to look as good as I can in front of all these people. And so what they did was they said, well, we sold it for this, and here's all of it. I'll I'll tell you why, because right before this was was this story about Barnabas. Says, there there was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of land or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at all the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus, Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.
So what we have is this story of Barnabas right before the story of Ananias and Sapphira. And so I would imagine, I think you can imagine with me, that part of the issue for Ananias and Sapphira is they were seeing people actually sell property and give it all. And do you think there's ever any comparison between people? Boy, they did a big thing, I'd like to be able to do that. You ever said to yourself, boy, if I had a bunch of money, I'd give a bunch away and all that stuff?
Yeah. We'd to do that until we have money and then make different decisions. But their example here, and again, what Heath said during communion was right, this was not a forced thing. This was something people out of what you see is the the grace of God overflowing. You see that people loved others so much that I I I don't I don't see my own possessions as my own.
What I see is this is something that can be used to help the kingdom of God, to make sure there were no needy people. Boy, wouldn't that be something to say, in Mont Belvieu, Texas, there were no needy people. Sometimes we're so far removed from needy people, we think there aren't, but there are. Do you understand? And so the issue is, again, alright, well, I want to look a certain way in front of all these people.
Jesus tells this parable in Luke 18, which I think hits at the heart of that. He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. And so what you see again in this parable is comparison. You know, I want to compare myself to you, and how do I wind up? Am I at the top or am I at the bottom?
I wanna fix that. K? And he says, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men. Boy, he's starting out strong.
Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this man went down to have his house justified rather than the other.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. You heard that scripture today already? Yeah. Yeah. It's a common theme in scripture.
What I want you to notice and of course, this is a parable. This is something Jesus made up, but of course, it's based in some sort of reality. Right? This is how we act. And so again, when you hear Pharisees, scribe, anything like that, you should hear religious leader.
And so the religious leader has these things to to bring to God. Okay? I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. What did the tax collector do?
We don't know. Did he do any of this? We don't know. But but Jesus, in in telling this story says, the tax collector, the one they would have seen as evil, greedy, all of these things, is the one who goes home justified despite the Pharisee giving tithes of all that they get, fasting, doing these religious things. Well, what's the issue?
The issue is, I'm not loving my brother, am I? I care more about how I am seen in public. God, I thank you, I'm not like the riffraff here. I'm better, I study the bible more, I've been faithful in my attendance, I've been doing all of these things. If you're having those thoughts, guess what Jesus said?
You're not going back home justified. But the person you might have been looking at, judging, saying, man, I'm glad I'm not like them, I've got my life more together, They may have come to God with an open heart, humble, saying, Nothing more than, God be merciful to me, a sinner. God justifies those people. Because it's it's not just about the sin. Right?
Sin is an issue. The sin is an issue that Jesus has paid for. Sin is an issue that God has taken care of. And if all we do is go around trying to judge other people, we're gonna miss it. The grace has been given to us.
And that maybe that that anger or hatred or judgment that is flowing out from us is a thing that needs to be forgiven. Right? Because what you see in the Pharisee is Jesus tells this parable. What you see in the Pharisee is the Pharisee never asked for anything. Right?
No forgiveness, no repentance, no here's what I've done, it's just here's what they have done. A lot of us here have sat through a lot of church services or bible classes growing up, where all we did was talk about the other people. Other people down the road aren't doing it right. And somehow, we miss things like this, where our judgment of other people may be the very thing that condemns us. All we're doing is pointing out and we should be looking in.
Right? It's the whole log in the eye. I don't see the log in my own eye, but I do see the splinter in yours because I'm really looking for that. Right? And so that's how we are and that's how we treat other people.
Again, just last week we talked about the greatest command. One of the scribes came up, heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? Jesus answered, the most important is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
May you may need to highlight that in your Bible. Because we spend a whole lot of time wrestling around with different things, don't we? Oh, I can't believe he doesn't believe this. I can't believe she believes that. Well, the greatest commandment over anything in this book is this right here.
You get that? Not my words. These are the words of Jesus. Right? Some of you laugh when I say, not John Guenter.
I had a sermon the other I guess a few weeks ago, Katie said that I said that like 18 times. Not John Guenter. This is the word of God. Right? Alright.
Well, alright. And the scribe said to him, you're right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one and there is no other besides him, and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Do you catch that? That's a big deal.
That is not a small thing. Because if I think all my salvation is tied up in what I bring to God, my sacrifices, my burnt offerings, that's a different relationship than God has provided for me, isn't it? K? Or that I need to to show the love of God. And when Jesus saw that, he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God, and after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Well, the issue here, again, is, well, how do you love your brother? How do you love your neighbor if all I'm concerned with is me? If I just love me, so me, how do I love others? If I'm all about promoting myself and making sure I get the right spot, I sit in the right places, I'm seen in the right way, I want you to believe I'm doing everything the right way. Right?
In class, I said, you know, we're gonna yell at our kids so they act a certain way in church. Right? You better act this way, and then, you know, we'll go home and deal with the rest of it. My mom said when I was growing up that I I'd get in trouble at home. She said, Well, your teachers say that you act perfectly at school.
That doesn't surprise any of you, I know. She said, Why are you acting up here? And I said, Mom, probably looked her in the eye and said, I've got to act bad somewhere. She said, well, I guess I'd rather be at home than at school. So okay.
So that's our our thing to laugh about, but okay. Well, alright. Well, if I'm only concerned with doing this and promoting myself, how do I love you? How do I love others? If I'm only concerned with how you perceive me, how do we actually get to this genuine, authentic relationship with each other?
We can't, can we? What that takes is work, and what that takes is openness. And I promote all the time, hey, maybe a place to do that is a small group. You don't have to be in a small group to do it, but I think it's a good place to it. But often, we're not comfortable with the sharing and with the openness, and so we'll wait till that perfect time, and that perfect time never comes because I don't want to be seen in a certain way with these people.
I don't want to be seen in a certain way with those people because I've got those up. I've told you the story before, but Katie and I were in a small group, and we had been there for a year and a half, maybe two years, and we started off a season with sharing. I decided, hey, we've been with people enough, we wanna you know, we've read that scripture about confessing sins and stuff, and so I'm like, I'm gonna confess what I've got, you know, what I've dealt with. Right? Which is not easy, is it?
Have ever done that? And so I I planned to do that, and that day, one of our our former elders in the church was there, he just showed up for whatever reason, and another elderly gentleman who's a friend of mine just showed up, they wanted to see how we did small group. And I was like, okay, well, do I share? Because I had planned to share with all of my close close friends here. Do I share?
Yeah. Why not? I saw those those men as mature Christian men, I thought, well, I can do that. Now, eyes got about that big, you know, because unfortunately, we're not used to going very deep in church, are we? We're used to skimming the surface and kind of doing things to make ourselves feel better, but not actually diving in and saying, here I am.
Now again, the end of that story is we didn't ask anyone else to do it, we didn't set up any parameters, but after we were done sharing, we had a couple that said, We'll take next week, we'll share our story. And every couple shared their story. They shared sin, they shared issues that they dealt with, and guess what came out of that? Only closeness. Because guess what?
If you're walking around here saying, well, I hope they they think I'm a sinless person, we all know that's not true, don't we? We may not want to look in the mirror, but we all know it's not true. But what you get when you when you have authenticity is you get this closeness of relationship. You have broken down a barrier that you have erected. You have decided, I want I don't want to break this wall.
I want to set up this beautiful little picture. Have you ever sometimes we do this, we don't even want to come to church because we feel like our lives are not not good enough, we don't have everything together enough to be in church. You ever felt that way? If you haven't, wonderful. But a lot of people have.
A lot people tell me about, I don't even wanna go, I don't have things right, and I say, come on. Get to church and allow Jesus to fix that. Right? What we read last week is this, in first John four, we love because he first loved us. You you keep first and foremost what God has done for you at the front of your brain.
That God has has so loved us. We love because he loved us first. He gave the example of what love is. Right? Which is what what Jesus says about the widow.
Right? She has given all. The greatest command is to love God with all that you have, all your heart, your soul, your mind, all of this. And he looks at the widow and said, yeah, there you go. She gave it all, not everyone else.
Now, he doesn't he doesn't condemn everyone. What he's condemning is the thought that just because you give a lot, you know, you're closer to God, not give a lot monetarily, but even those 2 copper coins were more than everybody else was giving. It says, we love because he first loved us, loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and he hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
You got that highlighted yet in your bible? That's pretty clear, isn't it? For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. We said last week, because all those other people are theoretical. Right?
The the foreigner, don't know, the stranger, or the enemy. Right? I don't feel I have enemies necessarily. And so I can I can love them because I don't have to look at them? I don't know who what they look like.
Right? If they look if I knew, Scott, you're an enemy of mine, alright, we got to deal with that because you're right here. Otherwise, we just kind of give ourselves the benefit of that, oh, yes, I would probably love an enemy, like the scripture said. Well, you don't love your brother. The scripture says, don't even worry about that.
You can't. Because not only if you can't love your brother, you certainly can't love your enemy because your brother's right there and you gotta deal with him and you can't handle that. That's what I tell my kids, you can't handle it. You can't handle that. How could you love God if you haven't even seen him?
So don't don't think. This commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. The key thing I want you to take away from this the sermon today is this, the gospel message isn't about how great you are, but rather it is about how great is your God. If all we're concerned about is showing people that I am great, that's a bad image because I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna look like the Pharisee, I'm gonna look like the religious hypocrite as we talked about this morning, that turned people away from church or at least use that excuse that we're hypocritical. I wanna say, yeah, I'm a I'm a sinner in need of the grace of God.
Because if we have it all worked out without God, we didn't need Jesus in the first place, did we? But God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son. We love because he first loved us. It's not about how great you are or how you think people perceive you. It's about sending the gospel message, which is about how great God is.
This morning, we'll offer a time of invitation that, if you've strayed from this, if you've gotten caught up in negative thoughts about your brothers or sisters, or just caught up in how other people perceive you, which is easy to do, We just wanna encourage you to to pray about that. You know, whether you come right now, I'd love to pray with you. It's an honor to do so. But pray with someone that will keep you accountable and will check on you, but will be authentic with you, that you can you can open up to. Don't leave here without a better relationship with Jesus.