The Weightier Matters of the Law

Hey, everyone. Let me see. I get this thing sliding all the time. So there we go. Maybe, maybe not.

All right. See, if everything goes sliding off, we'll know it didn't work. It's truly a great honor to be able to be here with you today. It's a pleasure to keep the Sabbath. And you know, if you think about what we're doing here at church, is we're here keeping the Sabbath because God told us to. We're doing it to picture His kingdom.

So is what we're doing today something that pleases God? Does this make God happy?

I think the best answer we could say is maybe.

Because it's important that we always remember that there's wrong ways of doing right things.

And that comes into every part of our Christian faith. For example, we can feel proud of ourselves for being among the very few in the world that understand and observe God's Sabbath. We could look at what the Bible says about keeping this as being a sign of His people, and that can make us think that it's something in us that makes that possible. And for both of those, God would be very upset with us because God hates pride. Please turn to Matthew 23 and verses 23 through 24. At the end of the day, what God looks for most in Christians is attitude. One of the things my dad stressed throughout my life, and it's definitely resonated, what God looks for is attitude. And where we're going to now, there are many places in the Bible where a single verse captures what, in a sense, summarizes all that God is looking for, these crystallizing verses. And this sermon today is going to focus on one of these verses that you know very well. But I hope as we go through it, it expands a little bit in your thoughts and your understanding of it. Matthew 23, and we'll start in verse 23. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithes of mint and anise and common, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. So, was Jesus condemning the Pharisees for being too strict?

Was his problem that they were too committed to tithing?

No, absolutely not. Because Jesus told them they were right not to neglect their tithing. And the law of Moses required them to tithe on all of their increase, including whatever they grew in their gardens. Now, you don't need to turn there. I will just give you two verses to validate that statement. Deuteronomy 14 verse 22 says, You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. Leviticus 27.30, And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's, it is holy to the Lord. So clearly, they were supposed to tithe on what they grew. Now, an interesting thing that happens. Sometimes we think of how strict the Pharisees were, the fact that Christ condemned them, and we make assumptions. So we assume from there that Jesus must not like people who are zealous. Some rationalize that Christianity should be a good part of our lives, but it shouldn't be our number one focus. Now, I can guarantee you Jesus was not a proponent of that kind of a wishy-washy faith. That was not where he stood. In fact, Jesus was the exact opposite. He was the one who called for extraordinary measures. If you think about his statements, things like, take up your cross and follow me, or love your father and mother less in order to follow him. Jesus was looking for zealous followers who were willing to sell all the small pearls they had to buy the pearl of great price. So let's bring this home. Not too long ago, but a couple months ago, we all returned from celebrating the feast somewhere in the world, and we did that because we set aside a tithe.

What the verse is talking about. Now, hopefully we tithed everything we were supposed to do throughout the year. I'll assume that's a given.

The lesson Jesus pointed out wasn't to become less zealous in our tithing. Instead, the complaint Jesus had with the Pharisees was their selective zealousness. They were selectively zealous. Many times, Jesus referred to the unnecessary requirements the Pharisees had added to and then mandated around the law as a heavy burden.

Jesus said, you do all that extra stuff, but you've neglected the weightier matters of the law. So what does it mean to be weightier? And with that, I'd like to answer that with an analogy.

There are two ways to view the law of God. What I will call the domino view and the bull's eye view. The domino view pictures that all of God's laws are uniform, and they're all of equal importance.

The bull's eye view says that the ones in the center are the most important. Think of a target.

Now, please, let me clarify so you don't misunderstand. All of God's truths are important and necessary, every jot and every tittle. And that isn't being questioned here. But with that said, if you look throughout the Bible, there are many examples where God says some part of his truths are more important than other parts. A couple examples. You don't need to turn to these. Proverbs 6, 16 through 19 says, six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to him. So those seven were highlighted as concerning God more than other things. Old Testament regularly talks about God wanting a pure heart more than sacrifices. Even peace sacrifices, not sacrifices for sin. Even voluntary sacrifices. So he did say that sacrifices were required, but they weren't what mattered most to him. Mark 12, 31. Jesus said, Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, man. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven, man.

So there's a difference. We can keep going and going. There's an example of the most important commandments were love God and love neighbor. That means they're secondary, that aren't placed as those two highest ones. So we can keep going. But the point is, it's more of a target view within Scripture, and we can't pick and choose where we obey. So let me go back to the original question. What does it mean to be weightier?

When we say something has more weight, we can speak of it either in importance or in difficulty. And I'd argue most things I've found through life are both. Usually the most important things are the more difficult things. It's usually the way I tend to find it. But when we view the word weightier in this way, we get the idea that the Pharisees had neglected the harder parts of the law, that God felt needed the most focus. They neglected the elements of the law that God saw as the core of what he looks for in obedience. Remember, Christianity is about attitude.

You see, anybody can give a tithe.

All it requires is giving something to the church and setting an additional tent aside for a vacation once a year called the feast. Don't misunderstand me. If money is tight, I totally get that we have no clue where we're going to get the money from, and it takes trust and faith to be able to put 20% aside because we don't know how we're going to survive. Nevertheless, it's still something anyone can do. Tithing doesn't require a change of heart.

You with me? One man can pay his tithe every weekend and curse God throughout the week.

Another man can give 20% to God on money he earned dishonestly. So, ultimately, paying our tithes amounts to little more than a ritual in and of itself. When we give the tithe as a demonstration of our gratitude to God and our faith in him, then it's precious to God. Attitude. But the ritual can be followed without any of the deeper meanings and it's meaningless. So, let me share an analogy to help you picture what the Pharisees were doing. So, imagine for a minute I'm a computer-a-perman, and someone brings me this laptop to fix because it doesn't work. Within the first 20-30 seconds, I figure, I have no clue how to fix this thing. It's too tough. Rather than try to work on fixing this thing, I pull out and start dusting it. And I decide, it's still not right. So, I get a rag and soap, and I really start cleaning it. It's still not good enough for me. So, I get really fancy color paint. And I paint the thing. When that person comes back, they may think I'm the most brilliant computer-a-perman in the world because they're going to see this laptop that looks better than they do. And they'll be like, whoa! They're going to be impressed for a little bit until they try to turn it on, and they realize I didn't do anything. Right? Because I thought the real problem would be too hard to fix, I focused instead on what I could do easily, which is making it presentable. But the computer is still useless. And that's what the Pharisees did. They knew the most important parts of the law were what they didn't want to keep.

They just ignored the difficult parts, and instead they became zealous with easy parts.

They were strict with easy parts. But Jesus said that wasn't good enough. And if you read verse 27, he says, they were like whitewashed tombs, which looked beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are filled with dead men's bones and everything unclean. So it was this sort of selective zealousness that Jesus condemned them for. They were supposed to obey the easier parts, the external parts of the law, but they were to be equally committed to the more difficult parts of the law as well. So what are we personally to learn from Matthew 23-23? The first thing is we must never leave the impression that we, like the Pharisees, are self-righteous in how we keep God's law. Because it's really easy for us to read these verses and apply it externally. Apply it to how we evaluate our effectiveness at being arbiters of justice, mercy, and faith about what's deserved by others. You know, if you get the head roll and start pointing fingers. Things along the lines of, I must wisely judge and show mercy toward other people's actions, and somehow I need to keep my faith toward God while doing this, even though I've been wronged by or understand more than that idiot. That's not what this verse is talking about. This verse is about us looking in the mirror of the Bible and examining ourselves. At the end of the day, if we don't live with justice, mercy, and faith, we aren't living like true Christians. It's as simple as that. We should always be growing and maturing in these three competencies throughout our lives. And a critical and foundational thing for us to understand about this is that we can't truly practice these, and we can't truly practice these, justice, mercy, or faith without God's Spirit.

They are only understood through His Spirit, and I will show you then, and they're only obeyed by His Spirit. So, let's now take a look at the three words that Jesus used. And as we do, I really want you to remember a basic concept, but I think we can gloss over it. And that is that words have different meanings and connotations.

The words, judgment, mercy, and faith, we've heard them so much, and we have immediate mental models that come out. But even in Greek, there were more than one meaning for each of these words.

What I'm going to do today is I'm going to consistently use different words than judgment, mercy, and faith when I reference them. They will be captured within their definitions. They will represent their meaning. But I hope when I do that, it will help you think of these words differently and personalize them differently within your life. Because at the end of the day, what I hope you leave with this message realizing is that Jesus wants us to personally display righteousness, be compassionate, and act truthfully in all we do. That's what's being pointed out. The first word is judgment or justice. Now, justice means preserving what's right.

And we often think of justice as this legal term, right? Good old TV shows justice is served when someone gets what they deserve or somebody commits a crime they're found guilty in court, and we said, that's justice. Turn to Isaiah 64 in verse 6. Isaiah 64 in verse 6. Calling that justice assumes what happens in the world's courts reflect proper decisions about what's right and what's wrong.

But if you look at how our courts apply justice these days, that's not the case, right? It's extremely political. Look at all of the energy around the election realizing Supreme Court justices were going to get nominated. They would have come in with an ideology and would interpret laws.

The problem is human minds don't know what true justice is. Isaiah 64 verse 6. But we are all like an unclean thing. And all, not some, not most, all our righteousness are like filthy rags. Oh! So God defines all of our human reasoning and justice as filthy rags. And the word literally means menstrual garments.

So clearly God doesn't feel much about our justice.

What then is God's justice? Turn to Psalm 119 verse 142. Psalm 119, 142. And while that question rolls up easy about God's justice, it's really a far more complex one than one might initially think. Because as I started reflecting on this, I realized there are many ways to describe what God's justice looks like. Love and grace are part of it. How we treat others is part of it. Ultimately, the entire Bible reflects our best illustration of God's character. And his entire character is based on justice. Right? The most important thing we must understand is that God's righteousness and his justice are not ours. Ours is self-righteousness. God's righteousness is always based on love. Psalm 119 verse 142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your law is truth. Now, an important thing for us to understand is that God is always righteousness. Why that rolls off the tongue easy. But think about that. God is always righteousness. God's righteousness doesn't change tomorrow because love doesn't change. Every Saturday morning, I'll get in the hot tub and do my prayers, and no song came on about the alwaysness of God. And that's the concept. Let's read verse 144. The righteousness of your testimony is everlasting. Give me understanding and I shall live. So David understood where he needed to look and where we all need to look to understand justice. Unless we have God's spirit and think as he thinks, we will not understand the meaning of these words. So we have to see God's love and righteousness to understand the heavier matters of the law, that he's stressing is most important. And until we think as God thinks, we'll never understand his mind. Turn next to Isaiah 55 and verses 6 through 9. Isaiah 55, 6 through 9. You know, we may love to act as an arbiter, to act as this judge, but we can't individually identify what's wrong humanly. Only God can identify righteousness. And that's what these verses initially showed, is our mind can't understand this. And if we can't understand righteousness, it can't understand justice, it can't understand how to determine between good and evil. And if we can't understand good and evil. Isaiah 55 verse 6. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his stops, let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him, and to our God for he will have been abundantly pardoned. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my way, says the Lord. That simplifies the whole issue. We can't understand God's thoughts by ourselves. And if it's not clear enough, the next verse pops in. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. This makes it even clearer. Do you ever look around at what God's doing in your life or in the life of others and say, I don't get it?

Do you look at something and ask God, why, God? Why? The key is found in what we just read. Isaiah 55. God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours. His plan and his strategy is being worked out in our lives and in the universe. There is so much more burning up than anything we can come up with, and that's where we have to look. So the only way we can understand justice and righteousness is looking through his eyes, and his laws and instructions will tell us what's right. The law was not done away. People love to throw that out there. But you know Romans 7 and 12 says therefore the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good. We have to learn what God says in order to lead towards salvation. Let's look at an example of this, and I'd like you to turn to Leviticus 19 and verse 15. Leviticus 19 and verse 15. From the very beginning of the law, justice is one of the major themes, and you'll see it carry all the way through the Bible. There were a lot of laws for the Israelites on how to apply justice, not just to their brothers, but to foreigners as well. And if you go to the prophets, you'll see it consistently coming up. Isaiah was constantly correcting Israel for their injustice, not only to Israelites, but to others. And he would point out and he'd say, you've perverted justice.

So what is meant by justice? Does it mean we don't let the criminals go free? Now, God cares and is very interested in that kind of justice. But I would argue that that form of legal justice is the easy kind. And we can focus on that and neglect the more difficult justice that God says we need to apply in our lives. And then we'd be just as inadequate as Israel was. Let's read an example of what God shows is where injustice comes in. Leviticus 19 verse 15. Do not pervert justice. Do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. Now, I hope you observe when you look at this verse that justice is directed toward a certain category of people.

An interesting study is if you look through the Bible and see how often justice is related to the poor and the disadvantaged. It's like the measuring stick of whether we get it or not, because they're regularly connected. And the natural tendency we have as humans is to take advantage of those who are downtrodden or those who are poor. It is to push them even lower or use our position to take advantage of somebody, because we have leverage there. And without even thinking twice about it, we can do it as Christians.

It's something we can very easily do. Well, in the law, there are a lot of rules that deal with these people. So doing what's right doesn't allow you to gain at anybody else's expense. That's the point that's being mentioned. So maybe the Pharisees kept most or all the rules right down to the letter with their interpretations of them, but they regularly found ways around the purpose or the intent of the law. The rules that were intended to ensure justice for the poor didn't protect them, because the people found ways around those laws. And I think that's an important thing for us to keep in mind. Just doing the letter doesn't ensure what God intended for is even remotely accomplished. On the flip side, I think there's a life lesson in there, actually, and that is, if you and I focus on keeping the purpose and the intent of the law, we won't have to worry about missing the details because they'll fall into place. But with that, you have to realize the verses we read before, and that takes seeking God's understanding and judgment to discern the underlying spiritual purpose and intent, not our own little biases. But when we get that, that's the reason they couldn't find fault with Christ. He was going to the deeper core of it, but when they tried to get into a nuance, he was like, huh, remember this? Oh, never mind. You just threw off my clever mental game of how I thought you were doing something wrong. So here's one of those personal reflection moments. If you use Matthew 23, 23 as a mirror to evaluate yourself, how well are you doing living up to God's examination of whether you are righteous, fair, or just?

Room to grow here. But that's what's being talked about. Would the strangers you went into at the fees? Would your coworkers, if I randomly walked in and said, tell me about Anna, does she represent fairness and justice? Hopefully they'd say yes. But it's interesting, you know, people you run into in the store, heard somebody on the radio talking about, if you found $100 or your ATM instead of giving you $200, what would you do? You know, hopefully we do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. But it's an interesting way to look at it. Do we display racism, prejudice, or sexism in any way? Do we show godly restraint, or do we prioritize feeling good in the moment?

Do we put satisfying our own desires above helping the poor and the needy?

So that leads into the next word, which is mercy. Mercy is also known as compassion. The natural outflowing of compassion is seeking justice with the poor. So they naturally connect. If you have compassion on the people who are poor or disadvantaged, then you're not going to take advantage of them. And that's why Jesus said the second greatest commandment was loving your neighbor as yourself. They connect. And it's our love for people that will help us seek justice on their behalf and act mercifully toward them. So these words are often linked throughout the Bible because they're very, very much connected. Compassion literally means to suffer with it. Interesting study. If you study the word, you'll find that it's always linked in the Bible with an action to follow. When you find the word compassion, you will see an action to follow it. And if you want to think back to the example of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10, when the Samaritan saw the wounded man who had fallen among the thieves, Jesus said that he had compassion, and then it shows what he needed. So that means if you and I want to be compassionate, we have to do something about it.

We aren't merciful if we aren't living compassionately and mercifully toward others. Ouch! They connect.

Turn to James 2, verse 15 and 16. James 2, 15 to 16.

It's important that we look around the world and learn to identify what's right and what's wrong. Learn to identify God's way. But sometimes we can be so busy shouting out against sins we see in the world that we overlook the point is that we're supposed to be actually loving other people around us. Standing against sin is easy compared to loving and being merciful to people. Again, weightier matters. Doesn't mean no one's wrong. But that's the heavier matters that God intends for us to be great at. James 2, verse 15. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, go! I wish you well. Keep warm. Be well fed. But does nothing about his physical meanings. What good is it? So, we like to see James talking to you. James is talking to spiritual people here. These people thought they were their verbal actions and their concern, genuine concern, I'm sure, toward their brothers and sisters was spiritual. And it may have been spiritual. They thought it wasn't adequate. It wasn't adequate. James said they needed active compassion, active mercy.

And often we can think we're fulfilling our requirements toward people when we only try to meet their spiritual needs. And that's not wrong to pray for people who meet their spiritual needs. But what the Bible tells us is that if we have an opportunity to demonstrate God's love to someone by meeting their physical needs, then we have a responsibility to do it.

How are you doing with that? Turn next to Luke 15 and verse 20. Luke 15 and verse 20. Where we're stepping into is the parable of the Bible's lesson. And you all know the story well. One son wasted his inheritance. He was doing all the wrong things and came back begging for mercy from his father. Luke 15 and verse 20. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion. Remember what I said? When you see the emotion, you will be in action to the closest. And ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

This is the way God acts toward us. And it's how he wants us to act toward others. Do we really have compassion in verses?

There's times I don't and I can't get back and I kick myself. When we look in the mirror, if we're being honest, we see our human nature sometimes. We don't like to be told or...

Yeah, I guess let's go down the path. We don't like to be told we're wrong. Or we don't like to be told the person we're supposed to show mercy to. Well, you know what? It's kind of like man- And that's what he wants us to do as well. Now, this word mercy also means showing forgiveness. It's in the definition of the word. It means forgiveness.

You know the sample prayer that Jesus gave as part of the Sermon on the Mount. You don't need to turn there, but Matthew 6 and verse 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. This active compassion is required. For those who are merciful, mercy will be shown to you. We see the same thing here with another definition of this word. So if we don't forgive, God will not forgive us. If God doesn't forgive us, we won't be in the kingdom of God. Oops. Wait till your matters. So the key is having mercy and forgiveness toward others. Do others see you and I exhibiting that type of a loving attitude every day?

Sometimes good, sometimes not quite as good, right? We're growing. If we don't practice mercy in this way, then we can see why a person might look at any of us in the churches of God and say, you know what you guys are doing? A lot of the technical stuff, right? But you're missing the way to your matters. That's not the way we want to be discerned or seen. If God forgives our sins, what else should we display toward others? Because God wants us to keep His law because we love them.

God wants us to keep His law, but that doesn't stop there. It's because we love them. Remember what I mentioned before? True Christianity at its core is about attitude.

Are we keeping the Sabbath here today? Did we keep the feast or did we celebrate it?

Got into an interesting dialogue with somebody who doesn't attend anymore, saying, well, if I go, I'm going to celebrate the feast. I'm not going just to keep it. And she got in this diatribe of the way she's seen people pompously keeping it and just being proud because they were doing the acts. I agreed with her. I said, none of us should go there for that reason. But it's an interesting thing. If we love God's way, then we won't only focus on our obligations to observe the full letter of the law, but the spirit of it will be reflected in our attitude and our actions. We will be forgiving and we'll be merciful toward others.

You know, if you want to contrast it, you can say, if we stand against sin but we have no love for the sinner, then our version of mercy is useless. If we say we stand for justice and mercy and what's right but have no compassion to benefit someone who's downtrodden, our mercy is useless.

So why is it so hard for us? Why is it so tough? I think the trouble is that people who need our love and compassion are sometimes very difficult to love. Just being honest. The ones that need our love the most in this world are often the ones that require a most demanding love. It's easy to love your rich neighbor. It's not going to cost you anything. Probably something's going to come back. A little something-something in return.

And we can say we love our poor brothers or those who are kind of irritating. It's easy to say, but it's oftentimes hard to do, right? Because active loving with a person who is uncomfortable is going to require something. It's going to cost something. And that's where growth comes from. The third thing Jesus condemned the Pharisees for was unfaithfulness. Now, the people we interact with each day need to see us as faithful and trustworthy. Is that the way we're seen? Faithful and trustworthy. Because that's what the weightier matters of the law are about. Can people depend on my words? Can they count on what you say?

It was easy for the Pharisees to put on a show of righteousness. You can picture them. I might just have this mental image of them walking up in this gallant way once a week and paying their tithes. But God wasn't interested in being segmented in their lives. Faithfulness is about consistency. God demands that his disciples give everything to him, not just once a week, 10%. Faithfulness is about integrity. Faithfulness means that what I say or hear on Saturday is what I practice throughout the week. It means what I do in public is what I do in private. Real spirituality is supposed to rule our lives, and that's a journey of growth we're going through. Do you worship idols? That's when those questions immediately jump to a response, but it's where you also want to back off a little bit from. Because idolatry can be anything we put ahead of God. Anything. So if we've been unfaithful to God by turning to some desire of the flesh, we've all been there, then we've committed the same sin.

We've been unfaithful to God. And again, God, as I said at the beginning, isn't looking for half-hearted zealousness. He's looking for people who are totally, completely faithful to him. So over and over, Jesus condemned the Pharisees for being hypocrites. Remember what the word means? Hypocrite means play actors on a stage. And it described them well. They were willing to act as if they followed God. They were willing to play the charade as if they were righteous. But God wasn't interested in that. And God isn't interested in you and me acting like Christians. Because he's looking at our hearts. He's reading what the real motivations are all the way through. He wants people who are consistently and faithfully committed to being righteous, to being just, to being compassionate. Now, another important lesson to keep in mind relates to the source of our faith. It's critical to remember that we're not saved by our faith. We're saved by the faith of Christ.

Faith in myself is just wasted faith, really. And at the end of the day, the quality of our faith is determined by our relationship with God. Think on that one. The quality of our faith is based on our relationship with God. It's an issue of perspective. So let me test that perspective. How do you see God?

How do you see God? Because your answer to that will ultimately define whether you are truly faithful to Him. Because, you see, God is always faithful. God is always faithful. Trustworthy. The Bible is full of examples supporting this one. It has to be where our hope comes from. We have to believe that, well, we have to believe it absolutely and completely and unconditionally and base every decision on that certainty. If you'll turn to Deuteronomy 7 in verse 9, why do we keep God's commandments? Now, if our answer to that, and answer in all honesty, if we're to answer that with a lie detector serum or whatever that makes us hurt everything out, and we come back and we say, because we're obligated to or required to, then you know what? We're going to fail at some point, because there'll be other things way more tempting in the moment, if that's our reason. The reason has to be because we trust God. If He tells us to do things, then we know it's for our own good.

Because we can trust Him, because we can always count on Him, because He's always trustworthy. Deuteronomy 7 and 9, therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenants and mercies for a thousand generations, with those who love Him and keep His commandments. It's a really reassuring verse, and it's imagery. I mean, the way it's written is obviously written as imagery, but if you want to say a generation is 20 years, then He's saying He'll be faithful for exceeding 20,000 years, and by the way, mankind's only been on earth for 6,000. So it's an illustration to say we can count on our God. So, with that as context, here's another thought.

The Bible is simple, provided we trust what it says.

Think on that one. The Bible inherently is simple if we trust what it says. The Bible is simple, provided we believe it. We can't judge from our own level of understanding, because we've already learned our justice and our reasoning is human. It's selfish. It's limited.

We can't naturally understand God's laws, but if we do what we're told to do, then we know we'll be blessed. Hard part is doing that, right? But at the end of the day, it comes down to that. Selfishly, we want to do our way and be blessed. Doesn't quite work. Turn to Romans 4, verses 18 through 21. Romans 4, verses 18 through 21. Another foundational lesson about faith. We don't have to understand to obey God. Our job is first obey, and then understanding comes with time. And that goes back to what we learned about justice, right? Because remember what we read? Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. So if we're waiting to understand before we obey, we've got our priorities all backed up. That's not the way we get it. We have to expand our thinking beyond ourselves. Our faith can't be based on our needs, because the Bible is clear that our needs are not always going to be met. We're going to have tough times. The Bible is pretty clear we're going to have ups and downs. Instead, what we have to be assured is that if we're close to God, all things will come together for good. That's the long-term strategy that God says, keep that in mind. Tough times don't mean as much. And what we're about to read in Romans 4 is about Abraham, who was very faithful to God. Romans 4 and verse 18, who, contrary to hope, in hope, believed. So that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken. So shall your descendants be. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead since he was about 100 years old. And the deadness of Sarah's womb, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. And being fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to perform. I always love the phrase that Abraham hoped against hope, and he was fully convinced.

But that took a lifetime. It took a lifetime. It's going to take us, it's going to take me a lifetime.

It's going to take a lot of God's Spirit to help out. Another important thing for us to understand is that faith is a process rather than a product. Faith is a process rather than a product. It's a constant quest for a there that we're never going to totally get to. But with God's help, we'll get closer all the time until we are resurrected, and then all of a sudden we can fully get there. You will never have perfect faith. And if you want to go in that direction, becoming a Christian means a change of direction and not achieving perfection. We're constantly re-stirring to get closer and closer to that. Intellectually, we get it. But if we truly believe it, then why are we so hard on people sometimes? You know? We shouldn't expect other Christians to have every matter pertaining to the faith all worked out, and they shouldn't expect that of us. Because if so, then nobody would ever become a Christian after Christ died. That'd be the end of it. Oh, well. A Christianity of one. But our goal is still to become fully convinced, like Abraham was. That's what we're striving toward, and that's what we should be acting every day toward. Not just at church. That's a good place to start. That's why we get these booster shots every week. But in society, at home, in our neighborhood. And that's what it means to grow in God's way of thinking. That's what living faith means. And if we do, no one will ever look at one of us and say, you know what? I see you living the letter of the law, but I really don't think you guys get the spirit of the law.

And that's been said about people in the churches of God. Absolutely has. So proud about what we know, but we're not living it.

We will act accordingly, and we'll connect them both, if we're really yielding to God in that way. Turn next to Matthew 9, verses 17 through 25. Matthew 9, 17 through 25. Before Christ died, it's an interesting contrast. The disciples didn't have courage. They fled. After Christ died, and they received God's spirit, they boldly told everyone they saw that we ought to obey God rather than man, even when their lives were threatened. It's an inspiring story of a contrast of what faith in God and his spirit will make possible. We also need to grow in that grace and in that knowledge, in every situation we have. And we're going to bump into walls and do it wrong and plead to God for forgiveness and grow some more. None of us have enough faith in every situation.

We never will, but all things are possible with God. Again, where's our faith from? Where's the source of what we're doing? So what we're going to read here is an example of a man who I love, his honesty. I always love this set of scripture because I can so relate to this man. Mark 9, verse 17. Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son who has a mute spirit. And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down. He foams at the mouth, gnashes the teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they couldn't. He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. Then they brought him to him. And when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him and fell to the ground and he wallowed and foamed at the mouth. So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. It'd be terrible as a parent. But if you can do anything, interesting wording to Christ, have compassion on us and help us. Look at Jesus' response. If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

That pricked the man's heart. And here is the spirit that I love. Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Don't you feel that? I've had enough times I've talked to God. I said, God, I want to do this, but ugh, I just don't have the strength for this. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And when Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to a deaf and dumb spirit, I command you come out of him and enter him no more. It's easy to relate to that man. And Christ saw his honest sincerity and his longing to have more faith, and he showed him compassion.

And the same is something I think we need to pray about regularly. We need to ask God all the time to forgive us our unbelief and bring us closer to him. Another definition of faith. Faith means trustworthiness and love. It's being faithful like God is to us. And look at just the last hundred years. We've seen two terrible wars with hundreds of millions of people being killed.

And today the world's worse. We live in a world where there's very little mercy and forgiveness and justice that's being shown, and Satan's influencing more and more of the way people think. So what is our normal carnal response? Our normal response is to ask God why. Why, God? Why? And have doubts. But God knows what he's achieving in us and his ultimate plan for the world. It's about having faith in him, and only our hope comes from doing what he says, seeking God as part of this church family, seeking him as our Savior.

Turn back now to Matthew 23, and I'd like us to read verse 23, but this time I'd like us to focus on verse 24, the second verse of that scripture we're focused on. Matthew 23, 24. One day the whole world will know both the letter and the Spirit of the law. They will be able to observe the Sabbath like we do. They can celebrate the feast days.

They will probably teach us many things that their own perspectives and what God reveals to them will help us learn, and God's Spirit will also help us see so many things. We're like, wow, I so didn't get that. But that's the beauty of growth. That's going to be an eternity of growth. That's what we're striving for. Matthew 23, 23. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithes of mint and anise and coman, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Now verse 24. Blind guide to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Now what's verse 24 talking about? If you want me to summarize the theme of what that is, it's called majoring on the miners. Majoring on the miners. You've heard the phrase, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? Why does the squeaky wheel get the grease? Because that crazy noise is irritating, right? And so that's what we do. We get frustrated by that squeaky wheel. And we go and it just starts annoying us to no end.

And we go and grab grease. Sometimes at the expense of not putting gas in the vehicle, and then we run in even more problems. But that's the point of it all. So what Jesus was graphically illustrating here was that the Pharisees had what I'll call an inversion of priorities. They had their priorities all backwards. They would focus and go crazy trying to strain out this little tiny gnat so they didn't eat an unclean gnat.

Meanwhile, they were swallowing a camel. And if any of you have been on one of those sweaty days where you're outside and you have this irritating obnoxious gnat, it's a great analogy. I mean, because those little things can just bug you and be all over the place. You're trying to get rid of them the next second. I don't know if you're driving down a car and have one in your car and you're trying to kill it on the window and they're just around there.

A couple of car, a couple of cycle rides, I've almost crashed because you go through a whole sea of them and they just will not stop pestering you. Anyway, I totally get this comment that he's making. But it's interesting because the two animals that are mentioned weren't listed by chance. If you look at Leviticus 11, we all know the clean and unclean food or meats part of the Bible. What he's mentioning is the smallest and the largest of the unclean animals that we're told to avoid.

If you want to compare verse 23 for the smallest and verse 4 for the largest, the camel and the small four-footed flying beasts are the contrast. So it was done intentionally. The point here is it's possible to carefully obey certain details of God's law but still be disobedient overall in our general behavior. Can you imagine the display of holiness that was made when the Pharisees went and did their tithes? I mean, they had to have...

I mean, they probably had some of your blowing trumpets. Who knows? They were very pompous, so I'm sure they made a show of it in whatever way they did it. And they were then counting seeds. 9, 10, 1, 2. Making this big show of counting seeds. But again, the key issue of Christianity is attitude.

It's about our heart. Instead of counting those silly little seeds. Have you personally known any people who are boastful about the special knowledge or understanding or spirituality that they have because they attend the Church of God and they get something somebody else does? Has anyone ever said that about you or I? Ouch.

We have to be very careful that we aren't so precise about doing the minor things, but we're refusing to do the more difficult things that God has said before us. Abediance is important, friends. Don't get me wrong. But giving a tithe doesn't exempt us from fulfilling God's other directives of becoming love like He is love. Another way of summarizing the Bible. And we can read all the Christian books. We can go to all the Christian conferences. We can listen to sermon tapes morning, noon, and night. We can go to Bible conferences and get an education at ABC. But if our focus isn't on living toward others like Jesus Christ did, then all these wonderful things get us nowhere. What are the seeds that we're counting every day in our lives? And again, recognize I'm talking to myself and I'm not condemning obedience. But if we're neglecting other things that God has told us to do, then we're in trouble. And I don't want any of us to be in trouble. We're all part of this big family that I hope gets to live together for eternity. If we aren't treating others with love, if we tear into others at the slightest provocation, we're counting seeds. We're neglecting what's really mattering the most, the weightier matters. And so majoring in the minors is something that's really damaging, but it's something we can fall prey to. And at the end of the day, we can't develop this relationship we want, this true relationship with God our Father and our Savior if at the same time we aren't developing a relationship with Him that reflects righteousness, that reflects compassion, that reflects trustworthiness, not just to Him, but to each other, to the strangers, to everybody around us. And without these, then our priorities are out of order. One thing I hope you get from today's message is that Christianity is about and and not or. I've come to discussion with that last night, and I changed it. I didn't go too far, but with my wonderful loving neighbor. But it's about and, it's not or. It's about the Old and the New Testament. It's about keeping the letter and the Spirit. We are not to have selective zealousness. And that's, I hope you understand, is what God is looking for from us. I'd like to finish by reading Micah 6 verses 7 to 8. Micah 6, 7 to 8. And these are verses that Jesus expected the Pharisees to get. As soon as He said, Matthew 23, 23, I guarantee you that well-educated group knew exactly where He was pulling those words from. One thing we need to remember is that our God is just, He is merciful, and He is trustworthy. And He wants us to be the same. God always has our best interest at heart. And like a coach sitting there, He knows we can do it. He's like, go! I know you can do this. He will never give us more than we can take, and He always knows what He's developing in us, not because of our strength, but by relying on Him. Micah 6 verse 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn from my transgressions the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? Here is what matters most. To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. So in this case, Micah is saying that the outward, easy works of sacrifice can't please God any more than the tithing that the Pharisees were doing of every little grain. The things will only please God when they are combined with the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. And those are the characteristics that hopefully every Sabbath and throughout the week when we talk to God, we're getting recalibrated because they're the heavier needs that we need to grow in.