Modern 11:30am

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] good morning river city let's get on our feet [Music] i'll sing you alone [Music] [Music] let us [Music] let our faith become a mountain that will rise and never fall [Music] till the day we stand on [Music] know [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] us [Music] no more fears [Music] nobody [Music] [Music] that will [Music] till the day [Music] [Music] till the day [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i saw darkness run for cover but the is [Music] is [Music] this is my testimony from dead to life cause grace rewrote my story [Music] christ the righteous i'm justified this is my testimony this is my testimony [Music] yes [Music] [Music] jesus christ [Music] [Music] from [Music] [Applause] [Music] things are still oh [Music] is [Music] christ the righteous i'm just is [Music] jesus christ [Music] [Music] when the darkness falls it won't breathe cause the god i serve knows only how to try on and my god will never fail oh my god we'll never fail i'm gonna see your victory i'm gonna see your victory [Music] victory for the battle belongs to [Music] there is [Music] and i'm not backing down [Music] [Music] [Music] victory [Music] belongs to you [Music] belongs to you [Music] we thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] me [Music] foreign [Music] victory [Music] [Applause] [Music] victory [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] um [Music] good morning my name is kay and i'm rob thanks for joining us this morning if you're new to river city we're glad you're here please text new to 916-915-0510 and we'll send you a one-time text with ways to find out more about our church here are some opportunities to get plugged in here at river city register for men's conference october 1st and 2nd here at river city this is a weekend for guys high school through adult to be biblically challenged with inspiring teaching in small groups plus time for fun outdoor activities find out more information at the info counter after today's service baptisms will be celebrated in all three services on sunday september 26th children grades three to five middle and high school students and adults who desire to be baptized can sign up now we believe it's important for every believer to be equipped with biblical responses to human opinions sign up for the biblical worldview equipping class to learn about various worldviews and how to see current issues through the lens of the bible mom time is a monthly gathering for moms of all ages and life stages to share a meal and engage in practical discussions about motherhood from a biblical perspective register now for the next momtime gathering on october 3rd come grab delicious drinks and pastries at cultivate cafe open sunday mornings after each service for you coffee lovers who just want a cup of coffee we have a coffee express line 10 of all purchases will support aim students in sixth through twelfth grade come back for student ministries fall kickoff tonight at 6 30 on the patio stay connected with us on facebook and instagram and download the free river city christian app you can find out about all these events and more at rivercitychristian.org or on the app thanks for listening and have a great sunday happy sunday church it's good to see you here for those of you that are watching at home welcome we're glad you are a part of our worship experience as well we want to take some time together this morning just to to pray for one another there are a lot of needs in the world around us but we also know that there are individual needs and so maybe there's something going on in your life you would just like to be included in this time of prayer we want to do that so if you would just raise your hand if you would like us to be praying for you for something keep them up for a few moments the rest of us let's take a look around find somebody that you can pray for right now thanks and at home we encourage you to submit a prayer request on the river city christian app or at prayer river city christian.org let's come together as the family of god in faith right now in prayer jesus thank you for this day and this opportunity that we have to to come together in this place with brothers and sisters in christ to be able to worship you to be able to sing songs of of praise that help us kind of get refocused re-centered help us to look to you god thank you for the time that we get to hear from your word this morning we pray god that we would be able to apply the truth of of your word into our own lives [Music] god there are just a ton of needs around us lord i pray that we wouldn't get so busy in our everyday lives that that we miss the opportunities that we have to stop and talk with someone to encourage someone to let them know that we care god i pray that you would help us not to be so focused on ourselves that that we miss seeing the needs of a fellow student or somebody that we work with or somebody in our neighborhood or somebody at the gym or at the store god help us to notice and help us to represent you well this week help us to care help us to show compassion lord for people that are hurting that are in need and god right now we just want to pray for each other we know that there are people here or people that are listening that are struggling with something that they're just having a difficult time facing a particular situation god would you remind them right now that they're not alone in jesus that you've got the answer if they would just look to you god help us all not to try to figure it out on our own but help us lord to seek your face to seek your wisdom we ask you holy spirit to lead us and direct us guide us every day [Music] father we just pray now that our hearts would be open to learning more about who you are and help us lord that it would not just be an intellectual exercise but god that it would change our hearts it would change our behaviors our attitudes the way that we live because jesus we really want to be a little bit more like you it's our prayer today we pray in jesus name amen will you stand as we continue worshiping [Music] how could i express all my gratitude i could sing these songs as i [Music] [Music] so i up my hands i'll praise you again [Music] [Music] [Music] singing [Music] i've got [Music] i will worship is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] loves [Music] [Music] praise the lord [Music] get up and praise the lord [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] you go before i know that you've even [Music] you come back and you calling my victory [Music] that you've even gone [Music] it leads me from the dry [Music] all i did was worship all i did was all i did was stay still [Music] much better [Music] your way [Music] you know before i do where my heart can seek to find your [Music] my truth [Music] was [Music] hey [Music] much [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] when i thought i lost me you knew [Music] put me back together [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] together [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] god we just take a moment this morning to declare that that it's better your way we take a moment to surrender our lives to you to surrender our will to yours god we thank you that you're with us we thank you that you care about us that you sacrificed your son on a cross so that you could have relationship with us and god i just pray this morning that you would speak to us you would pour out your love on us that we would be able to to walk out of here with a new with a new vision for our lives gone with new conviction for our lives we thank you for this time we love you and in your name we pray amen you can have a seat all god's people said gotta start uh by just noting that my wife and daughter in the front row wearing raider gear that is love baby loyalty don't tell me the game i'm taping it that's old school devoe in it just win baby sorry anyways let's dive into what's important uh in just a couple weeks we have our men's conference uh and we are inviting you to be there it's the beginning of october first weekend there uh it's here we've had to pull it here for a lot of reasons um one good thing in that is i've heard a lot over the years a lot of people say well i can't go because i want to travel i don't want to sleep on that bed i want to hear that guy snoring you don't have to worry about that anymore you get to sleep in your own bed on friday night i can't control your wife's snores but but it's going to be a great time because it's going to be here here's what we're asking if you're a guy and you call this place home we're just asking you to prayerfully consider joining us because something special happens when the men of god come together and hear from him that helps us move in the same direction i'll be there and i hope to see that you there as well so if you want more information you can just look at the app sign up there or go out and get some questions asked all right if you have your bibles again we are a bible believing bible teaching church i believe it helps to have your bible with you if you don't don't worry about it pull out your phone and google matthew chapter 15 verse 1. matthew 15 1 as we dive back in the series that we actually started a long time ago uh walking verse by verse by verse as much as we possibly can through the book of matthew and here's why we handle scripture this way this is why we preach this way this is why we've been doing this for 108 years that's right this church was planted in 1913. uh the reason why we as a church pick a book of the bible or we walk through a section of scripture uh or we do a character study and allow scripture to teach us is for quite a few reasons one i'll just tell you right off the bat my calling from god is to preach the timeless never changing absolute truth of the word of god my calling is to preach the bible in and out of season when it's in vogue to do so and i open up because we're walking through a passage and we get to talk about love and everyone pats me on the back or when we come across a passage that's unbelievably culturally uh unacceptable to many people and even christians don't like it and my head is on a chopping block my job is to preach the word because when we preach the word we're allowing god to choose our topics not man-made lists i don't preach from a list of man-made opinions because the word of god used by the holy spirit penetrates the soul as scripture says it's double-edged scripture when the holy spirit uses it is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness because when the holy spirit uses the word of god with a people it says you and i are now thoroughly equipped for every good work which means the holy spirit uses his word to prepare us to train us to give us tools so that we can live as he's called us to live in an incredibly immoral culture and so we don't pick all the topics that we can go through and all the issues that are in our culture we allow scripture to bring them up because when scripture uses them in our lives we then with the help of the holy spirit can actually live as we called to live when we come across those issues that's my calling and so as we dive back into matthew if you choose to participate with us as a church this is who we are we trust in the absolute timeless truth of god's word to lead us because we believe scripture when it says it will not come back void amen so with that in mind as we dive in in case you have forgotten it's been a little while matthew writes this book to his fellow countrymen he writes it to jewish people to prove to them that jesus is the old testament messiah that they've been awaiting for us we as a church exist so that through jesus people will be saved matthew's gospel is a 28 chapter argument using the old testament israel's history now in real time showing jesus in his ministry teaching and miracles that jesus is that guy what we are learning when we walk through matthew is jesus is the incarnate god he has come to this world to save it and his salvation is found through christ and christ alone today as we dive back in uh matthew brings us to a section uh it's going to bring us back into about matthew 18 in which he allows us to see jesus preparing the 12 disciples for ministry after he's gone and doing so we kind of have this repetitive story go over and over and over again what happens is we have these very intense interactions between the jewish religious leaders and jesus probably better called altercations or confrontations because the religious leaders were already openly hostile to jesus they had already talked about plot and how they might kill him but they haven't done it yet why probably many reasons but one of the big ones at this point in time in jesus ministry jesus was very popular amongst the common person the common person around the area of galilee they like this jesus why well because jesus was feeding them and healing their diseases this is a good guy to have in the neighborhood i mean every time he showed up he came with him an all-you-can-eat buffet and then he he he healed all your ailments and so to keep from antagonizing the common man if you will so that he would not rise up against the jewish leaders instead of killing jesus their strategy was first to discredit him they're thinking if we can get if we can just get these people to see that he's a fraud they will turn on him on their own we won't be the bad guys in fact they'll probably see us as heroes then after these confrontations matthew then will juxtapose this confrontation or compare and contrast this confrontation and then he'll teach the crowd or even the disciples or sometimes both as we'll see in our passage today all right let's dive in matthew chapter 15 verse 1 it starts with a very important word and it says then we're gonna stop right there we got one word in and we got some work to do i actually counted we have 332 more words in our passage that will dissect them all kind of kidding the theological significance though of this word then is important it connects us to the previous passage see in the previous passage jesus was compassionately healing everyone who came to him many of these people were not submitted to him and most of them eventually will not submit to him as well and yet out of compassion he heals them nonetheless then we have a confrontation with the religious leaders who want to destroy his credibility so the then shows us right after jesus heals hundreds of people the jewish leaders completely ignore that reality and tried to discredit him they're ignoring the significance of the healings which matthew is using over and over again to prove that jesus is the old testament messiah and so the compare and contrast that the juxtaposition is healings and now let's discredit him even though he did great work it says then some pharisees and teachers of law came to jesus from jerusalem that's key jerusalem is about a two to four day hike the point is these guys weren't just in the neighborhood and they heard about jesus hey let's go check them out no no no this was an intentional cia-like mission with ill intent from the top these men were sent from the sanhedrin in jerusalem to get rid of jesus it goes on to say they ask a question which is also a total set up question they didn't just make it up right then no this was through a brainstorming session of the religious leaders back in jerusalem they come up with a question that they think is a gotcha question they think they've got him cornered and because of this it will destroy his credibility what's the question look at verse two why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders they don't wash their hands before they eat wow they got him they got him now let's look at why though they think they got him it's important to understand this we have to first look at this comment the tradition of the elders the tradition of the elders is a nickname for what we now call the talmud the talmud simply defined as a storehouse of hundreds of years of jewish rabbinical teachings or another way to say it in our vernacular is a compiling of man-made interpretations of the law hey guys this is what the law is saying in christianity we would call this a commentary a human being saying hey guys you may not understand this so let me tell you what this passage says and what it means how this came about was the jews when they were in exile the scribes the first one being ezra they began to assemble and copy the scriptures because they wanted it to last out of a heart for god and the people the scribes then started making comments they added their commentary on various passages that they thought were difficult they thought were unclear and so really out of a heart for god and people they're trying to give an explanation gradually a larger and larger accumulation of the interpretations was developed until it came to a point where there are actually more interpretations than actual scripture which is not unusual most of you if you held it up your bible's about this big and probably about this thick and yet we have millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of pages written by people trying to help us understand what the bible says and so this isn't all bad until the distinction between scripture and these rabbinical interpretations became minimal and then it went further here's how it went really wrong by the time jesus showed up the talmud man's interpretation had surpassed scripture as a supreme religious authority in the minds of the jewish leaders and most of the people now there's obvious many problems with that but the big one is any time there was a contradiction between the talmud and god's very word the talmud now won out therefore it became a greater offense and judaism to disobey the writings of a jewish rabbi who lived a hundred years ago rather than the very word of god this is why they think this accusation the religious leaders accusation was so damning this is why they think they've got him cornered he's breaking the talmud supreme religious authority we've got him they're going to learn they don't now the reality is jesus and his disciples were regularly dismissing atonement that's why you may not know it this is why you see the religious leaders attacking them so many times and it seems weird seems out of line or ridiculous they're using the talmud over and over and over again to try to corner jesus with that said though this issue of ceremonial rinsing was a big one in atonement ceremony washing such as washing your hands before you be was highly regarded in fact in one sentence it says this whoever in the talmud it says who whosoever has an abode in the land of israel and eats his common food with ritz hands may be rest assured that he shall obtain eternal life in other words if i lost you the talmud says if you wash your hands before you eat you will be saved i kind of think it's if you confess your mouth with jesus lord and believe in your heart you will be saved but they said if you wash your hands before you eat you will be saved now i know almost every mom wishes this was in the bible but it's not hey joey wash your hands no you're not saved then that's what how far had gone because her hearts were not right with god worship of god became superficial and legalistic and so they added regulation after regulation after ceremony after ceremony until the talmud instead of lifting up highlighting help people understand protecting god's word the interpretations actually obscured and perverted it to the point people thought if i just do these activities it doesn't matter what my heart is like i'm still right with god for us today the challenges throughout history human beings try to create ways in which we can be right with god through a set of man-made hoops ceremonies and traditions that have nothing to do with the heart and that's really the point people want to continue to live in sin apart from god's word yet get the out of jail free card which is really ignoring the real issue that god always wants to deal with he wants to deal with the heart nothing against catholicism per se but i have friends like this that will do something wrong and then they'll go in and give their eight hail marys with little to no intent to change because they know tomorrow they can just get another eight hail marys in that's not the heart of the word so jesus says this verse 3 and why do you break the command of god for the sake of your tradition for god said honor your father and mother and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death but you say if a man says to his father or mother whatever help you might otherwise have received from me as a gift devoted to god he is not to honor his father with it thus you nullify the word of god for the sake of your tradition all right what is this saying i'm going to do the best i can to explain it but i don't want to get lost in the particulars of this interpretation because there's a bigger picture that jesus is addressing what's happening in this specific quote is jesus is quoting the fifth of the ten commandments honor your father and mother which the religious leaders would have known very well then he doubles down and he quotes exodus 21 that goes on to say don't just honor your father and mother you also should not speak ill of them or you shall be put to death wow that's quite the command now when we take the law and the prophets together together we see that bound up and honoring your parents is the responsibility of every israelite to show your parents love respect service care and the responsibility to meet their needs when they can no longer do it themselves it's really important to understand at this time there were no retirement plans no 401ks no pensions how it worked was you would build up your home your house maybe a piece of property or land and you would build it up and there would be a certain time that you'd bring your eldest son in oftentimes actually receiving the inheritance they would then take over and then the son would take care of the parents that's how it worked your parents were your future but the talmud the rabbi's tradition ridiculously gave people an out from this biblical financial responsibility when you look at verse 5 jesus is quoting the torment so let me just kind of give you the translation of what jesus is saying mom dad i wish i could help you but i've declared my possessions corbyn which means i've declared my possessions a gift devoted to god corbin was a man-made tradition referring to a vow that you'd put something of your possession as a gift to the lord like your house my house is now corbin this home is a gift to the lord what it went on to teach is because it's a vow scripture says it it's ungodly unbiblical to break a vow so you cannot break that vow this corbin this gift unto god so this talmud said it's not that you shouldn't help your parents with this house it actually forbade it that's what jesus is saying you you forbid it by honoring your father here's the loophole just because you declared something corbin dedicated to god didn't mean you turned it over to the temple or the synagogue in fact the person who declared a possession corbin a gift under god would often hold on to that possession to watch over it and so in the end to avoid sacrificially giving up one's possessions in order to honor your parents by supporting them in need you just say corbin and now that is sacred and unusable you keep the items it's an obvious covert purpose this tradition to invalidate the word of god so if i've lost you in the minutia there don't worry about that what i want you to catch is this they were putting the opinion of man above the word of god so they could disregard it and live any way they wanted to sound familiar we call that salad bar theology step up to the bible take what you want and leave behind what you don't like my friends i'll just tell you today in this new era of progressive christianity we see this in the american church culture all the time human opinion is elevated over the word of god because of how you want to live for instance i'm going to move in with my girlfriend i know what scripture says about that but times are different we're in love i mean how do we know if we're really compatible we don't live together before we get married god just wants me to be happy the list goes on and on and on i'll give you another one that i'm hearing all the time i don't love my wife anymore i know what scripture says about divorce but god knows i'm unhappy i deserve better my friends in my life say whatever it is for the bible says love conquers all the reason why i use that one is because i was actually sitting down with a friend about a year and a half ago who was going down this road and and i was challenging on is like god just wants me to be happy and he says the bible says love conquers all so just time out real quickly real quick first off the bible never says love conquers all so don't just throw out quotes and says the bible says it the bible never says that and by the way even if it did it's never loving biblically to sin the big question then is so what do people do when what they desire contradicts scripture i'll tell you what people do it's not new they elevate human tradition human opinion human desires human rituals we listen to friends opinions sometimes even christians over the word of god what are we doing we're looking for permission to do something we know we're not supposed to do why i'll tell you why because we want to it's human nature because then it's somehow easier to deliver with ourselves and in our minds i've seen it we'll still come to church we'll raise our hands during worship we'll get baptized we'll pray but when it comes to the word of god it's no longer king in your life you've become king god's no longer really the lord of your life you're the lord of the light your life you are now living by your will not god's what does jesus say the second part of verse six so you are nullifying the word of god for the sake of your opinion you're putting man-made opinions over the word of god so you can selfishly live the way you want and then somehow expect to be right with god and so jesus lovingly says verse 7 you hypocrites i just love when a secular person tells me you just need to be more like jesus but they never quote this verse you hypocrites isaiah was right when he prophesied about you man these are fighting words he uses the old testament isaiah of all things that they knew so well that spoke about evil people and he tells the religious leaders he was talking about you what was he saying what was isaiah saying these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me they worship me in vain their teachings are but rules taught by men let's marinate for a second you honor me with your lips but i don't have your heart your worship is in vain when we put human tradition our human desires our human opinions above the word of god so we can live how we want and somehow think we're right with god and let me tell you my friend i love you so i'm going to tell you the truth you're honoring only you're honoring him only with words therefore your heart is far from him and your worship is useless i think someone in this room needs to hear this i don't know who do you need to repent now listen i want to be clear we all sin every one of us but there's a huge difference between a heart that says oh man i hate when i do this i don't like that in my life i keep doing it god will you help me or even i know that's wrong but i really like it god can you at least help me begin to not like it that's a good place to start that's i'm not talking about that heart i'm talking the heart that says i know what the bible says but i don't care and you give god the spiritual stiff arm and you find a way somehow to manipulate scripture to go down this road let me just again speak truth to you my friends when you become a christian you have a new king and when you have a new king my friends you are now laying down rights we don't like to talk about this in our american culture these days laying down our rights i hear a lot of people talking about their rights let me just be as clear as i can as an american you may be free to do many things as a christian that you should not do well as i said before jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure so the very next verse verse 10 says jesus called the crowd to him so the assumption here is there's a large crowd they've assembled there's been healings there's been an altercation in which jesus laid down the hammer using the old testament to call this religious leaders hypocrites but jesus is still on mission and so he's going to use it as a teaching moment he goes on to say listen and understand what goes into the mouth does not make him unclean but what comes out of the mouth that is what makes him unclean you're saying you're missing the point i don't care about the externals i don't care about all if you get all the rituals right i don't care if you wash your hands before you eat i care about your heart are you submitted to me even in the old testament there was all those rituals and laws but he said this multiple times multiple times in the old testament says yeah you're following all the rules yeah you're offering those sacrifices right and at the right time but you're doing it for the wrong reasons i don't have your heart so it's meaningless i don't care what goes in your body i don't care if you're perfectly following all the rituals i care about the words that are coming out of your mouth and the reason why i care about the words that are coming out of your mouth is because they reveal to you and me what's really in your heart and luke jesus says it this way for out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks then verse 12. the disciples disciples came to him and asked so we have a transition here you may have missed it you have the large crowd you have the altercation with the religious leaders and he speaks to the crowd and now this is a more intimate moment in fact the market tells us they went to someone's house so it's just the disciples now he's teaching them verse 12 they asked him a question do you know that the pharisees were offended when they heard this by the way my friends let me just say it out loud if you speak truth you're gonna offend somebody the gospel is offensive and i'll tell you why because you have to say i can't do it on my own and i'm a sinner that's the only way we can be saved and so it offends people when i say you need jesus you need jesus so what are you saying you're better than me no actually the opposite i recognize the fact that i'm not better than you i'm a sinner therefore i need jesus that's true christianity it's offensive do you know that you offended the pharisees now i don't know who asked this question but i'm asking i'm guessing peter asked this question partly because it's just a peter thing to do partly because just two verse later peter's the one that replies so i think we have a conversation between peter and jesus regardless i think jesus shows incredible love and patience with his answer uh because i think if they asked me this question i would have said something like are you kidding do i know they're upset first off even if i wasn't god i just called them hypocrites and they pretty much think they're god's gift to men yeah i know they're upset secondly because i'm god you've just watched me feed 5 000 and walk on water i'm i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure it's safe to assume i know they're upset i got it but jesus doesn't say that he says every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots if he weren't with us he's going back to the parable of the weeds the scriptures jesus tells a parable and he says for a time we the people as we assemble there are false believers and true believers amongst us we're all together right now and we just have to trust the lord with that when he comes back he will discover who is who and he will take care of it we trust him verse 14 though says leave them other translations will say something like leave them alone or have nothing to do with them the point is it's spiritually dangerous to stay around people who steadfastly purposely reject and oppose the word of god yet call themselves christians i would even say this is a human opinion this is not from the bible i just believe it's actually safer to hang out with pagans who say i don't believe in god than it is with a person that says i'm a christian and then tells you you can live certain ways that oppose the word and i'll tell you why there's a moment coming in your life i don't know when next week next month next year that there's a desire of yours your life is in a trajectory that will eventually oppose the word of god we all get there at some point we all have these these issues in these temptations we're human but if you have somebody in your life that says i'm a christian and is not living as god is called to live purposely that's a person in your life that's going to tell you you deserve to do that go for it they'll give you excuse to do it they'll bless it why are they doing it by the way they're letting themselves off the hook they know they're not quite with the lord but if you're doing it too it doesn't seem as bad now listen if there's an opportunity to share truth that's these kind of people that should be done he's saying do it with great caution why should we be cautious the second part of verse 14 they're blind guides if a blind man leads a blind man both will fall in a pit now we're missing it a little bit in our english because we don't understand but jesus is being super feisty here the pharisees had a nickname for themselves nothing like self-appointed titles by the way their self-appointed title was leaders of the blind they believed they were god's gift to the people to lead them to righteousness jesus says nope you are the blind people and if people follow you you're all going to end up in a pit sadly i've seen it's super sad to watch but i've seen quite a few christians lead other christians into pits verse 15 peter then says explain the parable to us jesus in verse 16 says are you so dull poor peter i just i just love this guy he gets hammered but he's the one that keeps asking questions he's the one that keeps taking risks so you got to give him a break as i said last week of all the verses that peter has mentioned in the gospels it's right at 50 that he's either doing or saying the wrong thing last week he fell and stumbled and jesus looked at him and said you you have little faith why did you doubt essentially what he's saying here is you're watching and listening to everything i am doing and saying and yet you're still not getting it i do think it's funny though because there's quite a few times that jesus has a crowd assembled and he has a teaching and everyone's oh man that was awesome and then the disciples pulled jesus aside and said we had no idea what you were saying there by the way we didn't get it i mean they were like they're nodding their heads hey man brother thumbs up i don't understand a word you said maybe you've been there but it's amazing how many times when they pull jesus aside and ask him he just plainly tells them just plainly tells them multiple times why he's preparing them because they're going to lead the church so he just tells him straight up 17 through the rest of the passage he just no holds barred verse 17. don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then goes out of the body but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these things make a person unclean verse 19. for out of the heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual morality theft false testimony slander by the way do these sound familiar he taught on all these in the in the sermon on the mount and what's he saying the sermon on the mount you can say out loud i've never murdered someone congratulations but have you ever been angry with another person in your heart it's as if you murdered them whoa we're sinners we're all sinners there's this point we need a savior out of the heart verse 20. these are what make us unclean but eating with unwashed hands that does not make him unclean so the basic teaching you're concerned about external things god is concerned about the heart the great need for all people is not to live perfectly out all these religious rituals but to be saved allowing god to wash us with the blood of jesus christ because what we need is not clean hands and clean activity we need a clean heart but i think what's really important for everyone here to understand you can't clean your own heart you can't do it there is not enough self-help books out there that are going to fix your heart problem only one person can fix your heart problem jesus christ the only person this is why we need to do the things he's asking us to do though we don't do the things to be saved only he does that we do them because it puts us in a place for the holy spirit to wash our heart wash our heart the rest of our lives and the more he washes guess what the more our activity looks holy the more our words become holy the more our thoughts become holy you can't do it only he can let me challenge you with two things one are you putting human cultural opinions over the word of god to somehow justify a particular part of your life that's out of step with god i'll say it another way are you using a human opinion to allow you in some way to break a command of the lord we have a class coming up that eventually i hope everyone takes not all at once but everyone on october 17th it's called the biblical worldview class we have a we have a crisis in christianity today barna tells us that the majority vast majority of people who call themselves christians no longer have a biblical worldview what they're doing is they watch the media or tv or politics or social media and then they allow that to create the lens on how they view the bible instead of you take the bible it's god's absolute truth for all time and then through scripture you view the world and if you do it that way my friend i promise you you'll never ever regret it and so we have a class coming up that's going to help us understand what that biblical worldview looks like the second challenge is just simply how's your heart how's your heart what thoughts are you thinking what words are coming out of your mouth and i'm not even being funny here at all when you're driving down the street and someone cuts you off how do you act when no one else is watching these reveal your heart and every one of us has a heart problem i don't care how christian you are how godly you are we all have a heart problem so how's your heart for some of you it's just time to repent of of a specific issue that you have justified for far too long let's pray god thank you for who you are it's very technical passage that we laid out god but it's beautiful it's still full of grace it's still full of mercy it's still full of forgiveness we can't do it we can't but lord you've given us the word to lead us in our life i pray for that person in this room right now that's caught between a rock and a hard place and maybe even this message if they obey you is going to be super painful maybe people will not like them or point their finger at them or reject them i don't know lord you do help them choose you every time i pray for me and my fellow brothers and sisters in christ that we lean into you to wash our hearts we can't do it i pray this in the powerful name of jesus christ and all god's people said amen god bless you would you please stand with us as we close in one last song of worship [Music] let's sing this together church you take [Music] you take what the enemy [Music] [Music] you take what the enemy meant for evil [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] i'm gonna see your victory [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] well whether you were online or in person we're so glad you joined us today god bless you and have a great sunday [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: River City Christian

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Id: HH6p-c3QFS4

Length: 81min 54sec (4914 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021