Concealed Tombs

Call to Worship

Welcome to First Baptist Church of Artesia. We're so glad you've joined us this morning, online and in our sanctuary. Our first reading of the service comes from Psalm 103:

My soul, bless the Lord, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget all his benefits. He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit; he crowns you with faithful love and compassion. He satisfies you with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle. The Lord executes acts of righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He revealed his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.

— Psalm 103:1-11 (CSB)

Join us this morning as we worship.

Welcome and Announcements

I just want to welcome everyone to our Sunday service. So, if I'm standing right now, I'm not going to do the announcements and close the service because we haven't heard Pastor Steve preach yet. So, we'll just try to do things differently right now. I'm still here to do the announcements.

First of all, it's a reminder for all of us of why we worship. Part of our worship really is giving our offering—offering for our church and offering for our God. Part of giving is really glorifying God, and as we worship and as we give, it's really for His glory and honor. At the same time, it is also for His work. Yesterday, they did evangelism, and it's part of our work right now. We'll do it every other week, and so it will also allow us to reach people here in our community. How do we give? Online, on your smartphone, you can mail it, or drop it off here on Sunday. Truly, God will bless you.

Of course, a couple of announcements. Number one, the ladies and all church members will have our Prayer Corner again on August 20th here in church after the service. Everyone is invited. We'll pray, share, and even hear what God is doing in our lives. So, August 20th, mark your calendars. After the service, everyone is invited; we'll be praying again as a church.

And of course, we continue our Sunday school every Sunday from 8:45 to around 9:30. We are still in the Book of John. We started John 17 today, the prayer of Jesus, and so everyone is invited so we can have fellowship as we study the Word of God.

Last but not least, there will be no Bible study on Wednesday—this coming Wednesday. No Bible study until the end of August. We'll be back in September after Labor Day. We will give the announcements later on, but stay tuned. Of course, we will be back and we'll study the Word of God as we continue to do it. Okay, God bless you all.

A Psalm of Praise

Praise the Lord. Thank you, Pastor. Somebody praise the Lord! God is good, all the time. Amen—or "all men," as they say back East. Praise the Lord.

I just thought I'd change things around a little bit. You know, one of the things I'd really like to see here is young people involved in the service. I've always liked when young people come up and read the scripture; it makes them part of the service. A lot of times, what happens is you have a children's service, or a young people's service, or a teen service, whatever it is, and you kind of separate them from the main body. Then when they're 18, you kick them out of that, but they don't relate to the main church because they've never been in it.

And so, as we grow and young people come in, we need to incorporate them in the service, to make it part of their church as well, so when they hit a particular age, they just come right into the regular service and we worship together.

But anyway, praise God. Let's read Psalm 111:

Hallelujah! I will praise the Lord with all my heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. The Lord’s works are great, studied by all who delight in them. All that he does is splendid and majestic; his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He has provided food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works by giving them the inheritance of the nations. The works of his hands are truth and justice; all his instructions are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever, enacted in truth and in uprightness. He has sent redemption to his people. He has ordained his covenant forever. His name is holy and awe-inspiring. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his instructions have good insight. His praise endures forever.

— Psalm 111:1-10 (CSB)

You know, the Psalms pray for us; the Psalms speak for us many times. And as we sang earlier, "It's all about You, Lord." As we come before God, we're here and it's not about us—it's about Him. We give Him praise, honor, and glory as we come together as a body of worshipers, fixing our eyes on Christ. Amen.

Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Luke. When you get to Luke, say "Amen." Hey, you guys are good! Drop down to verse 37. Luke 11:37, and I'll be reading through verse 44:

As he was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that he did not first perform the ritual washing before dinner. But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil. Fools! Didn’t he who made the outside make the inside too? But give from what is within to the poor, and then everything is clean for you. “But woe to you Pharisees! You give a tenth of mint, rue, and every kind of herb, and you bypass justice and love for God. These things you should have done without neglecting the others. “Woe to you Pharisees! You love the front seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. “Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves; the people who walk over them don’t know it.”

— Luke 11:37-44 (CSB)

May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His most precious and holy Word. Let us pray.

Lord God, we thank You for this day. We thank You, Lord, for bringing us together once again. Lord, open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our hearts to receive what it is that You have for us. Lord, we thank You for those who are here, those that are on their way, those that are traveling, and those that are home recuperating or watching our live broadcast or even the recorded broadcast. Lord, we thank You that the Holy Spirit is the teacher, the guide, the one who opens our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. You are the one that leads us into scripture.

Father, we just thank You. We lay our burdens down at Your feet, Lord, and we look to You for instruction, we look to You for guidance, we look to You for hope, healing, and strength, and all the things, Lord, that only You can provide. And so in this, we give You thanks and praise, and glory and honor. In Jesus' name we pray, and the church said, "Amen."

The title of my message this morning is "Concealed Tombs." A concealed tomb is a place where someone could unknowingly be defiled. In other words, Old Testament scripture talks about graveyards and cemeteries and things, saying that you should not go there because of dead spirits and stuff, and they would be defiled before going into worship. Another thing that's going on in here is this "woe to the Pharisees." There are a couple of things I wanted to unpack: the concealed tomb motif, and then also the "woe to the Pharisees."

Now, the Pharisees at the time—over the period after the Old Testament ends—they were a very pious group, a very righteous group. They started out with the idea that they were going to study the scriptures, they were going to return to God, and they were a very solid group in the beginning. But 400 years later, by the time Jesus comes around, they're basically just a political outfit, and it's about them. They want to be seen, they want to be heard, but they're not necessarily men of God. And so what this passage here is about, Jesus is saying, "Woe to you Pharisees," because He knew where they started. He knew what they were supposed to be, He knew what they were preaching, and He knew what they were teaching, but yet He also knew how they were acting and how they were behaving. Many times in scripture, you will see Jesus saying, "Woe to you Pharisees," and it's because He understood what they were supposed to be about, and they had kind of left that and drifted away from it.

The Danger of Wrong Motivation

Another thing here is to look at motivation. In this passage, Jesus challenges the Pharisees to look at their own motivation. In ourselves, we should always be looking: what motivates me? Why do I want to do this? Why should we be doing this, whether it's in the workplace, at home, in relationships, or obviously in church as a Christian in how we treat one another? What is the motivation for what we do?

We sometimes have to take a look at that because we can drift away from the true motivation. The true motivation is the gospel: that we are saved because we understand that we are sinners separated from God, but God so loved us He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us. If we believe that and confess it to the point that we're willing to confess that to others, the result is salvation. But you see, that is what begins this change in us; it changes our motivation. Now we are living for Him, through Him, and by Him. So we have to change what it is that we do, and if there isn't this complete conversion, if there isn't this change, if there isn't this baptism—and baptism again means "change"—if that's not going on, then you kind of look like one thing but you act like something else. This is what He's bringing out here.

So in verse 37, it says, "Now when he had spoken, a Pharisee asked him to have lunch with him, and he went in and reclined at the table." Guess who's coming to dinner? Jesus! And you know, in that time, you would not invite someone to your house for a meal, you would not sit down with them for lunch or dinner or whatever it might be, if you were at odds with them. So this was a friendly gesture on the part of the Pharisee to invite Jesus, but what's the motivation behind it? We always have to look at when somebody does something, what is the motivation behind it? It was a friendly gesture, for sure.

Then in verse 38, when the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed His hands before the meal. One of the things that amazes me in scripture is that Jesus never, ever bypassed an opportunity to teach. Everything that He did was instructional. Here He is, He walks into this room, He knows what's going to happen, He walks in, sits down at the table, and the rest of them are doing ceremonial washing or cleansing. Now, Jesus knew the law; He knew what the law said about all of this. But He sits down at the table, and the Pharisee saw it and was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed.

The Tradition of the Mikvah

One of the things that this goes back to, I've explained it to you before, is the Mikvah. Mikvah is what they would have on the side of the temple. It was like a square opening filled with water, and it had steps, and it was used for ceremonial cleansing. If you went to the high priest and you had an illness, or an issue of blood, or you had just had a child, or something was going on where you had to be examined by the priest, once the priest said you were now clean, you went into the Mikvah. In other words, you walked down into this, and it was a ceremonial cleansing where you were saying before God, "I was not pure and holy, but now I am." You would go down and come back up. This is why when John the Baptist was baptizing, people went to be baptized because they understood it in terms of the Mikvah. They realized there was a change that they needed, this repentance, and so it was a form of Mikvah for them.

Mikvah is where we get baptism, and it's a ceremonial cleansing and an Old Testament custom. Jesus knew the law, but Jesus didn't come to destroy the law; as we know, He came to fulfill the law and to give the proper context. It's like the Sermon on the Mount when you read Matthew 5, beginning with the Beatitudes. When you read that, Jesus does such a marvelous job of saying, "You have heard it said," or "the scripture says," and then He says, "but I tell you." With a transforming initiative, He says, "This is what it means." In other words, He right-sizes the scripture, because what happens a lot of times is we can take scripture and misinterpret it and use it the wrong way. This is the beauty of the Sermon on the Mount: He says, "I tell you, this is how this passage is to be used. I tell you, this is what it means." Again, He's talking about, "Woe to you Pharisees, you're doing one thing, but what is your motivation?" He's trying to bring them back and show them what they should truly be doing. So again, He's not trying to destroy the law; He's coming to fulfill the law but giving the proper context to what is actually going on.

Cleaning the Inside of the Cup

In verse 39, the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness." He goes right after it. He says, "You're cleaning the outside, but what's also important is the inside." In other words, we need to look inside because that's where the motivation comes from. We can look like one thing on the outside. I can walk around and carry a big Bible, wear a suit or some garment, or preach like this and people say, "Oh, he looks like a godly man." But it's not until you look at my heart that you begin to understand if I'm really following scripture or not. You can look one way, you can present yourself one way, you can say you are a Christian, but God is looking at the heart. We should be looking at our own hearts, understanding that God is looking at our hearts for that change, because if we are just doing it in a ceremonial fashion, what is the point?

A lot of times, we do things out of habit and we forget why we were doing them. We realize we're doing them, but there's no scriptural purpose to them. Again, it's like my story—you've heard it before—about the daughter who asked her mother, "Why do we always cut the end of the pot roast off before we cook the pot roast?" And the mother says, "Well, honey, that's just the way we always do it. We always cut the end off, we put the pot roast in the pan, and we put it in the oven." Well, that wasn't good enough for the daughter. The daughter says, "Something else is going on here; that just doesn't sound right. Why would you be cutting the end off and just throwing it away?" So she goes to the grandmother. She says, "Grandma, why do we cut the end of the pot roast off before we put the pot roast in the oven? That's the way my mom does it." And the grandmother says, "Oh, honey, don't you understand? When your mother was little, we didn't have a pan big enough for the whole pot roast, so we had to cut some of it off!" She was throwing away good pot roast when she could have put the whole thing in the pan!

Sometimes we do things and we don't even know why we're doing them. This is what Jesus is trying to point out. 400 years ago, you used to be pious. They used to call the Pharisees the Hasidim—you were the righteous, you were the devout of God. And now, what are you? Now you're a political outfit. You want to be seen. You want the hem of your garment to be longer than anybody else's. You want people to see you in the synagogue, you want to read the scriptures in the synagogue, you want people to see you giving your tithes. You want to stand on the corner and be noticed. You want people to come to you, but inside of you, your heart is dirty. He says you're cleaning the outside, but what about the inside?

This is what plagues us today in Christianity. If we don't examine our hearts, if we don't look at the hearts of others, we could just be ceremonially doing things with a depraved and wicked heart, but on the outside, it looks good. You realize every cult that has come down the pike—and "cult" means worship, by the way, worshiping the leader—every cult that comes along uses Jesus as the hook. They'll tell you a little bit about Jesus. Everybody has heard about Jesus, though a lot of people don't know much about Him. So they use Jesus Christ as the hook, and they get people thinking they're coming to church, thinking they're coming to Christianity. But then what they do is they stop preaching Jesus so much and they start preaching themselves. Now Jesus is in the background and they're in the forefront, and it's a subtle, slick little change. If you don't know better, you get sucked into these things. This is the danger because these things can go on inside of a church. We look one way, but is our heart changed? Are we really who we confess to be? That's why it's important to examine ourselves, to look inside.

Passion and Leadership of the Heart

Jesus looks at the heart, and this is, again, where we find the motivation. Why do you do the things that you do? I tell people all the time, I'm looking for motivation, whether it's in church, in the people that I deal with, in Christianity, or in the outside world. I look for motivation because if I can find your motivation, then I can better understand you. Sometimes, unfortunately, you see motivation that is wrong, that is off, and then you know where this is going to go, so you need to protect yourself from that. From the outside, we look the part, but from the inside, this is where change occurs. We are a work of heart. God is looking at our hearts for change. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." We know the brain is not in the physical heart, but the passion is in the heart. This is what He's saying: that which you are passionate about, you will follow.

Some people are passionate about fame and fortune, and that's what they follow. We see it all the time; we see it on TV, we see influencers, we see all this stuff going on out there, but that stuff also creeps into the church. They want fame and fortune inside the church. The outside might look good, but the inside is desperately wicked and has not been changed. Look at this in terms of leadership. For our leaders, you have to look at their heart, whether it's in the church, in the business world, or if you're a leader in your home, in politics, whatever it might be. Look at the motivation, look at the heart, because that's what's going to guide them. Whatever they are passionate about will guide them.

Years ago when I first started this walk with the Lord, football was Sunday morning. This time of year, it was everything. I was passionate about football, and we used to go to a Roman Catholic church, and I figured, "Okay, I can work this out because they've got services on Saturday night, they've got Sunday night... if I miss it, I can still make it." My motivation was football; my motivation wasn't God. The church was just to look good, but the motivation was football. But then when I really came to that point where I submitted my life to God, where I really, really confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, all of a sudden football wasn't that important anymore. I realized I could tape the game, I could watch the game later, and I didn't have to have season tickets anymore because my heart changed. I still love football, but I love God more. I want to follow God more. All these outside things are fine—I'm not saying that stuff is wrong—it's just a matter of your motivation. What is first in your life? What is first?

Look at motivation in terms of leadership. If our leaders are motivated correctly, then the outcome will come out right. If they are not wired right and they're doing things out of selfish ambition, it will never, ever turn out right. Unfortunately, this plagues the church as well. We need to look at our leaders; we need to look at what we're doing. We have to all examine ourselves: why are we doing what we're doing? What is the purpose? Who gets the glory, who gets the praise, who gets the honor? Hopefully, it is Christ.

We Are the Vessel

In verse 40, He says, "You foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also?" You know, this is God looking at us. Don't you realize? It's like when Moses and Jeremiah were trying to get out of doing what God called them to do, and He says, "I made your body"—and I'm paraphrasing—"I made your mouth, and if I made your mouth, I can put the words in it." God is over all things; you can't fool God. Looking one way on the outside doesn't work, because God knows. That's why the only one who's going to judge us is Jesus Christ, because He's looking at the heart and He knows what's in the heart. We are a work of heart. God is trying to change us. He says you don't need a new cup; you just need to clean the inside and the outside of the cup.

I remember one time my aunt and uncle came over. They always came over on a Saturday morning early, and we would make coffee. There was a cup sitting there, and my aunt got it, poured me a cup of coffee, and gave it to me. I wasn't thinking anything of it. We were doing stuff, and all of a sudden, I went to pick up the cup and I saw all this junk floating in it. Suddenly I realized it was a cup that milk had been in a day or so before, and there was spoiled milk on the inside. But see, she just looked at the outside of the cup, and since it was where the rest of the cups were, she didn't bother to look at the inside because the outside looked clean. But when I looked inside, I thought, "What if I didn't look inside?" All of a sudden, you get that taste in your mouth, and you realize: "What am I going to do with this? Am I going to spit it out, or am I going to swallow it?" Because you realize it's bad. It could be poison; it could be something harmful to you. All of a sudden, you realize you don't need a new cup—you just need to clean the cup God gave you.

He gave you His vessel. In church, we praise God, and sometimes people don't understand why we raise our hands. You know what this is? This is a vessel. You're saying, "Lord, fill me up with Your love, Your power, Your strength. Fill me up." That's what this is: you're surrendering to God. You're like a cup, and He pours into you. Allow God to cleanse us. You don't need a new cup.

It's like the Apostle Paul. When he was Saul, he was zealous for the Old Testament, zealous for the things that he was doing. He got stopped on the road to Damascus, had that conversion, and all of that. His personality didn't change after he got saved; he was still the same pit bull he was before, only this time, he was a pit bull for God. He was going to go after it. You don't need a new cup; you just need to cleanse the one God has given you.

Complete Cleansing and Compassionate Service

Our cleansing in Christ is a complete work. When He was on the cross and He said, "It is finished," that means it is finished. That means there was no other work that needs to be done; everything now is through Jesus Christ. When we come to Christ, when we confess our sins, repent of those sins, and believe in our heart that God so loved us He sent Jesus Christ to die for us, and we confess that, we clean the inside. But we always have to check. We always have to go back for that renewal: "Lord, am I still clean? Lord, search my heart. Create in me, O Lord, a clean heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within me, O God." It's renewal. It should be part of our prayer life on a daily basis: "Search me, O God, find anything that is not of You, bring it to me that I might eliminate this in my life." It's renewal.

Christianity is renewal because we were destined for death, and now we're destined for life and eternity. It is a transformation. That's where Christianity is: we are transformed from people that were dead in their sins to people that are now alive in Christ. And that transformation is not superficial; it has to penetrate our very soul, our very being. This is what Jesus is trying to get these Pharisees to see, because they thought they were all that and a bag of chips. In reality, they weren't, and that's why Jesus just came in, didn't bother to wash, sat down, and gave them a Bible study.

In verse 41, He says, "But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you." Charity means giving to the poor. And "poor" doesn't always necessarily mean those who don't have money—though certainly, it does. But when you are poor in spirit, when you do not have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are poor. If we're spending so much time saying, "Look at me, look at me and see who I am," and we're not going out and preaching the gospel, not sharing the gospel, not seeing anyone saved, not inviting them to church, not having fellowships with people, not doing the things that we're called to do... then we're just ceremonially looking good. But if change is in there, then we realize we have to give out of the goodness that God has poured into us. You see, you minister out of the overflow. If God is always pouring into you as a cup, as a vessel, that overflow is what you minister.

Sometimes people say, "Well, I'm in a dry place. I'm just not with God anymore." Yeah, because God hasn't been filling them up anymore. Get back to God! If God can pour it back into you, we should never be in a place where we feel dry, saying "God's not using me" or "I can't." We've moved away from God. God didn't stop pouring; we moved away from God. It's like that drink machine in a restaurant: if you want your cup filled, you've got to go to the machine, you've got to touch the button, and it will fill it. Don't expect to be over here and get whatever it is you want to drink; you've got to go to the source, and the source here is Jesus Christ.

Justice, Love, and True Devotion

Give to the poor. Again, charity means giving to the poor. In this context, the poor are those outside of God's will. The Pharisees were so concerned about their outward appearance that they neglected their hearts. This is a subtle shift; a lot of times, we don't realize it. Sometimes people say, "I don't know how I got to this place. I used to be on fire for God, I used to do these things, and now all of a sudden, I'm not." Well, God didn't change, because my Bible says He's the same today, yesterday, and forevermore. My Bible says His Word is true and will never, ever fade away; it will perform what it's supposed to do. So what happened? You moved away from God. That's what happened. They have to come back to where God is.

An unchanged heart will destroy everything around it. It will destroy the organization it's involved in, whether it's in church, in business, in community service, in a school program, whatever it is. An unchanged, unclean heart will destroy everything around it because it's not following God; it's meant for destruction, meant for self-gratification. That was the problem with the Pharisees: it was self-gratification. They weren't doing what they did in the beginning. An unchanged heart doesn't know how to repent, it doesn't see the poor, it doesn't see what's going on; it is unrepentant.

In verse 42: "But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others." Is there justice and love in what we do? The Christian is transformed by the love of God and the justice in Christ, and now we live that through Christ. Christ is now in us, and we now live through Christ. That same justice and that same love should be there, but the Pharisees were not acting out of justice and love; they were acting out of selfish gain. It was all about them.

It's like we sang earlier: "God, it's all about You." In Christianity, when you study the history of the church starting in the late '60s and really developing in the '70s and the '80s, all of a sudden, Christianity became about the individual. It stopped being about God; it was about what I can get, what I can take away, what God is giving me. There's no service in that, no love in that, no justice in that, no charity in that, no going forth, because it's all about the person.

When I was at Fuller Theological Seminary, in one of my classes—I forget the title of the class—one of the things we did was go to the Norton Simon Museum there in Pasadena. That's the one where, if you watch the Rose Parade, you always see that building right there across from the cameras. We were talking about art and how art affects and depicts what is on the minds of people. I had never really looked at it this way before. What I saw when I went there was that the earliest paintings they had, the earliest drawings or mosaics, were all about God—about the deity of God, who God is. Then, as you moved through the Middle Ages and started going toward the Renaissance period and the Age of Enlightenment, all of a sudden, the artwork was about people and God. But it wasn't so much God; now you had pictures of people. That's what they were painting. They went from painting pictures about God to painting pictures about people. Then when you keep going and get to the modern era, now all the paintings and pictures and things are all about society—about buildings and cars and things in motion. We went from focusing on God to focusing on society and life. That was the commentary that art gave on that, and that's the danger when you don't check your heart. When you don't realize what we're doing and why, we will drift away and become something else.

Humility and the Legacy of Unmarked Graves

Verse 42 again: "But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others." Nominal Christianity—and that means in name only—nominal Christianity neglects justice and love because it doesn't understand them. You've never changed. In name only, there's no conversion there, there's no change. You're just looking like something, dressing like something, telling people you're something, but at the end of the day, you're going to kill, steal, and destroy; you're going to hurt people because the love of God is not there. This is what He is saying to these Pharisees: "Woe unto you! You're just cleaning the outside, but the inside is desperately wicked. The inside is still filthy. There needs to be a complete change."

Where is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Galatians 5:22-24. It's not about which one of those you want to exhibit today; it's about all of it: love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness, and self-control. All of it has to be there, not just the ones that you think work for you today. No, it's all of it. It's not the fruits of the Spirit; it is the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, there is evidence of the change. There has to be evidence of that change.

In verse 43: "Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces." It's all about me! Our position should be one of humility because we realize it's not about me. I was dead in my sins, I was lost without God, I was hopeless; there was no point to my life. But God so loved me He sent His only begotten Son to die for me. Then He gave me His Word, He gave me those who would preach the Word to me, He gave me those who would pray for me, He gave me those who would spend the time to mentor and nurture and not give up on all of us. God is working through all of us for the common good. This is why we all rejoice when one person comes to the Lord.

Once you understand the goodness of God, once you understand the magnitude of what God has done for us, then we come to God in all humility. It's never going to be about me; it's always going to be about You, because You have a heaven to take me to. No one else has that. You created me, You gifted me, You placed me, You loved me, and I neglected You. But like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, He didn't give up. When he saw his son turn, he opened his arms to accept him. And what did he do in the story of the prodigal son? He didn't tell him, "You were a bad dude, you messed up, I don't know if I can ever trust you again. I think you should just be one of the hired hands. Get in the barn and work with the rest of them." He didn't do that! He put the coat back on him, he put the ring back on his finger, and he called for a feast. The point is, he gave him the same position that he had before he left. This is what true forgiveness is. When you realize that forgiveness from God, He is putting us back in a position that we should have had originally before we sinned in the garden. He loves you that much. He loves me that much. He loves us that much that He's willing to do that. That puts us in a place of humility because we owe everything to Him. There's nothing we can do to earn this. That's what grace is: it's unmerited favor from God extended to us. We have to receive it—grace extended by God and received by the sinner.

I will close with this, in verse 44: "Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it." In other words, people who do this, people who are like the Pharisees, they defile others. It's like walking over a concealed tomb that would defile someone before worship. We are around people who pretend to be or say they are, but in reality, they are not, because they're just cleansing the outside of the cup, not the inside of the cup. I'm not going to get a new cup; God gave us one cup, one vessel. It's our responsibility to believe Him, to trust Him, to follow Him, and to confess.

Concealed tombs: biblical law taught that contact with the dead or anything connected with the dead made a person ritually unclean and thus disqualified them for worship (Leviticus 21:1-4, 11; Numbers 19:11-22). So, unless we examine ourselves, we will be like the Pharisees who acted godly but actually defiled those around them, becoming unfit for worship. I don't know about you, but I think we want pure worship. I think we want to feel the presence of God. I think we want to understand God with a pure and contrite heart. I think we want to come before God in all humility, knowing it's not we ourselves, but it is Him.

When we do that, when that change permeates our very being and we're willing to look at ourselves on a daily basis and make sure we're on the plumb line of God—which is the scriptures—we examine our hearts, we examine our motivation, we align ourselves with Christ, and the end result is always going to be right. It's always going to be true, always going to be beneficial, always going to be helpful, always going to be healing, strength, guidance, goodness, and self-control. It's all there, and all we have to do is admit who we are, repent of those sins, confess Christ, and be willing to examine our hearts.

We say, "Cleanse me, O Lord." I work on a sermon throughout the week. I don't finish the sermon until I deliver it. I pray about the sermon all week, but I pray right before I come up here because I do not want a chance of something coming in between all of that and changing the motivation, changing my heart. Let us pray.

Lord, we come to You as vessels. Lord, we acknowledge that You created us, that You are Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. And Lord, we know that You see us, and You saw us in our condition as sinners, estranged from You. But out of Your love, You chose to save us if we would only repent, believe, and confess. Lord, help us to examine our hearts. Let us not be like the Pharisees. Let us always be humble servants before You, O God. Restore a clean heart within me and a steadfast spirit. And Lord, as a church, may our motivation and our purpose be clear. Strengthen us to do Your will, Lord. We will be quick to give You all the praise, and honor, and the glory. Lord, it's not about us; it's all about You. We thank You and we love You. In Jesus' name we pray, and the church said, "Amen." Somebody praise the Lord!

I think Pastor Erwin already gave us our announcements and stuff. I just want to say a couple of things. We went out on evangelism yesterday, and you should have seen Nohelia. Boy, she was out there, and it was hot, and she was going all over the place just talking to people and passing out scriptures and stuff. It was a good time in the Lord. I just want to encourage you: one of the things I noticed is that there are a lot of people... years ago when we used to do this, we would find more people who were accepting or more friendly, even if they didn't necessarily want to hear what you wanted to say. But now, we're encountering more people who are militantly angry and do not want to hear what we have to say. That means we have to work that much harder, we have to pray much more, we have to understand much more, we have to go at it harder.

The other thing I've noticed is that every Saturday we have gone out from here, Jehovah's Witnesses have been up and down these streets, all over. We need to make sure that people understand who God is from their position before a righteous God who demands righteousness from us, and how we have fallen, and how God is willing to restore us if we would only repent. We need to share the love of God in a compassionate and loving manner, but we need to be diligent in this.

As I call the praise team up, we will close. We're closing with a song and then we'll do the benediction from Numbers. What's interesting about the benediction is that God told Moses to speak this to the people, to tell Aaron to speak this to the people and to the priests after him, the sons of Aaron. He says, "If you will say this over them, God says, then I will do it." You see, we always have a part: we have to believe God, trust God, and say what God is saying, and God says, "Then I will do it." First in Hebrew, and then in English:

“May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”’

— Numbers 6:24-26 (CSB)

And may this peace of the Lord be with you all the days of your life, to strengthen you, to encourage you, to give you hope, and to let you know that there is a God in heaven who loves you and cares for you and is willing to use you for His glory. In Jesus' name we pray. God bless you, and have a good week. Amen.