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Matthew 23, 27 and 28. A little context here. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and the

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scribes, the experts in the law. These would have been the really religious people of the

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day and certainly some of them probably really were obedient to God but as we see in the

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scriptures there were a lot of them that really looked the part. They looked the part. They

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spoke the right words but Jesus called them out pretty harshly here in Matthew chapter

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23. And we're just reading a couple of little verses here but that might be good homework

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for you this week if you want to go through and read all of Matthew 23. It's pretty stern

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the language that Jesus uses. So let's read through the text, Matthew 23, 27 and 28.

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Then we'll pray and get started. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are

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like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside but inside are full of a dead

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man's bones and every impurity. In the same way on the outside you seem righteous to people

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but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Let's pray. Father God we come to you this

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morning and we thank you for your word and dear Lord this is a heavy word. It was heavy

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for the Pharisees and dear Lord maybe it's heavy for us today. Maybe we fall into this

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same category dear Lord. Maybe we do a good job of looking good on the outside but being

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pretty rotten on the inside dear Lord. So God maybe we are hypocrites today. If so I

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pray that your word would speak to us to let us see that. That you would encourage us through

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this word dear Lord that we would learn from our hypocrisy and God be those who genuinely

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trust you and serve you and live for you. God I pray that you would hide me behind the

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cross that you would take away any pride or any fear I have today that I would be able

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to preach and teach your word in a way that brings glory and honor to you. I pray that

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your Holy Spirit would speak the words that you want me to speak that you want us to hear

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and that we would listen to him dear Lord and that they would transform our lives. And

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I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. When you read through Matthew 23 you will see in

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this short little section here in 19 verse span Jesus calls this group hypocrites seven

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times. Now this is kind of a dirty word. This is not a word that any of us would like to

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be called. None of us would like to be called out in our hypocrisy. We wouldn't like that

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especially this religious group. Especially this group that Jesus was talking to because

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they would have really considered themselves to be something special. They really would

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have said that they were probably a little better than everybody else. They were better

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at following God's laws than everybody else. They were better at doing what God said than

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everybody else. But Jesus saw through that. He saw through their religion. He saw through

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their outward actions and he knew that their heart was not right. That's pretty evident

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to tell as you read through the New Testament as you see these encounters that Jesus has

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with these Pharisees. Quite often it's easy to see that their hearts are totally from

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where they need to be. They are far from being hearts that are focused on God. And here in

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Matthew 23 Jesus really calls them out for it. So you can understand why it wasn't long

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after this point that Jesus was nailed to a cross. They didn't like Jesus and then Jesus

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goes and really gets on them here in Matthew 23. And certainly that would not have been

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well received by this audience. But what does he say in this scripture? What does he compare

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them to? He says in verse 27 that they are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful

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on the outside but inside are full of dead men's bones and every impurity. Now whitewashing,

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that might be something that you're familiar with or maybe not. If you watch HGTV you see

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a lot of home restoration shows. Sometimes you see that's a popular thing. It kind of

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became popular here in the last few years. And it's a good way to take something that's

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old and particularly brick if you want more of a fresh look to whitewash it. Now whitewashing

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is predominantly made up of lime. Now a lot of times what you see on these shows they'll

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just water down some paint and scrub it on there. But traditionally speaking when you

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talk about whitewash it's a lime. It's kind of the main ingredient and it can be a little

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thicker than what we may think of as whitewash today. And it was common especially in those

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days to wipe it and smear it along and around the entrance of a tomb or a rock that covered

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a tomb, whatever it may be. That tomb would be covered in whitewash. Now that may have

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been for a couple of different reasons. Some have suggested that tombs in those days were

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marked with whitewash to make them stand out. That way nobody would get too close to a tomb

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and be unclean because they touched something from a dead body. And so some have suggested

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that whitewash tombs was simply a way for people to easily identify that there was a

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grave there. Now we kind of, in our day, most of our graves are in a graveyard. It's easy

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to tell where the graves are. They're usually within a fence of some sort and they're usually

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well-kept and they're usually marked by a tombstone. But in Bible times there might

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have been a grave here and a grave there and might have been a hole in the rock somewhere

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here that they were stuck in. And so these tombs were kind of all over the place. And

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so whitewashing might have been one way to establish that there was a tomb there that

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everybody would easily be able to see those traveling from out of town. Perhaps there

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were some other purposes for it too though. As far as lime goes, lime is good at killing

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disease. It's a good disinfectant. And so it might have had some disinfectant qualities

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too. After all, you've got a tomb there, you've got a dead body, the dead body begins to decay,

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there could have been some disease there. And so perhaps part of it was simply we want

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to make sure to disinfect this area and to take care of everything. And you still throughout

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the centuries whitewashing is something that you see some places in the world. It's kind

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of a part of their style, part of their building structures, the cyclades, some islands off

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of Greece. Those islands are known for the fact that they have whitewash buildings. Every

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building there is whitewashed. Every one of them is whitewashed with blue doors and blue

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shutters and blue everything. That's kind of their style. And so throughout the years,

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people have used whitewash for a variety of things. And whitewashing in and of itself

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is not bad, but Jesus is using this term to make a comparison here, to say, okay, there's

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a contrast between what you think you are and what you really are. And so when he tells

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these people that they're hypocrites, and he's already said it several times before

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we get to this verse, they're probably already steaming. And then he simply uses something

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that they're all familiar with and he compares them with tombs. Now, they would have been

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proud if they would have been considered whitewashed, if they would have been pure and clean and

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disinfected, so to speak, from all the sin around them, they probably would have wore

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that title proudly. But what Jesus said is, you are like a tomb. Now, anybody that knows

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about tombs and about graves know that it doesn't matter what you see on top of the

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ground. And the truth of the matter is this, that what's in the ground, it is rotting and

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it is decaying. And we might not like to think about that, but that is the cycle of life.

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That's the way things go. I was walking by the cemetery the other day and I saw some

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beautiful tombstones. And there are some people probably in your family and maybe when you

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die, you're going to have a beautiful tombstone and maybe on top of the ground, your family

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is going to keep it well manicured and it's going to have the most beautiful flowers kept

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up all year round for every season and your tombstone may be encrusted with diamonds.

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I don't know. It may be as beautiful as it can be, but in the ground, we are going to

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decay to the point to where we will eventually turn back into dust. And Jesus tells his audience

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here who thought that they were really holy, really special. Jesus says, you are like a

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tomb, like a whitewashed tomb. Jesus says on the outside, you are beautiful. You are

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spotless and it's easy for everybody to see who you are. They can see you from a mile

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away by what they see on the outside and they can say, oh wait, there's those holy Pharisees.

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And then Jesus tells them the hard part, the part that they don't want to hear, the part

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that maybe you and I don't want to hear today. And Jesus says on the inside, you are rotting

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away. On the outside of that tomb, it's beautiful, but Jesus says inside of that tomb is nastiness

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and dirtiness and filth and gross stuff and it is rotting away. And Jesus says, you look

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the part on the outside, but inside you are a dirty, rotten, nasty sinner. Whoa. Well,

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those are pretty heavy words that Jesus uses here. And maybe he picks this term whitewashing.

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Maybe he's trying to call his audience back to Ezekiel 13. There's a large section in

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Ezekiel 13 where God is condemning the false prophets, those who are acting like they are

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God's people, but really they are leading people astray from God. They are leading people

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in the wrong direction. And the same illustration is used there. It's used of the false prophets

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to say, oh look, you've made whitewashed walls, but one day those walls are going to crumble

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because they're not built on God. And then you'll gather around and say, but what about

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all the beautiful whitewash? What happened to these beautiful walls? We see the same

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language in Acts chapter 23 when Paul is, he's always on trial. He's always under attack.

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And on one of those occasions he's brought before the high priest and he uses the same

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language. He says that they are like a whitewash wall, the Sanhedrin and the high priest that

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Paul has brought before. Now, certainly it seems as though Paul is referencing that story

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in Ezekiel in the same way that Jesus is here. And what Jesus tells his audience and what

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Paul told his audience and what God told his audience in Ezekiel is this, is it does not

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matter what's on the outside. It matters what's on the inside. This is a simple and basic

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truth that we see throughout the New Testament. We see this in a few ways maybe that Jesus

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reveals the same truth to us in his teaching. And that is we don't want to be those who

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simply look the part on the outside. We want to be those people who live for God on the

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inside. And so we have a simple question that we have to answer today and I can't answer

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that question for you and you can't answer that question for me. We can all look as good

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as we want to look on the outside. We can fool everybody. We can do all of the religious

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things and we can say long prayers and we can do a lot of really religious stuff and

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come to church and put lots of money in the plate. All to be seen by people and we may

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have every appearance of good in our life but we need to look at our heart because within

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our hearts there may be every appearance of evil in our life. And so perhaps today we

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need to look at ourselves and we need to see is there sin there? Is there evil there? Is

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there rottenness there that we're simply trying to cover up? Are we simply trying to cover

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it up? Are we trying to whitewash our lives? Are we trying to fool everybody in this building

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today? And you may can fool everybody in this building. You may have done a good job of

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that but you can't fool God. And no matter how we look on the outside one day we will

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stand before God and God always looks at the heart. God doesn't look at what man looks

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like. It looks at God looks at our heart. So what's on our heart today? Are we whitewash

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tombs today that are rotten on the inside? Are we those who are on the inside who are

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doing the will of God? Living in obedience to God. If we're not today we need to stop

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pretending. We need to ask God to change our heart. We need to go before God with the things

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in our heart that shouldn't be there, the things that we struggle with. And maybe today

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we need to acknowledge a hard truth that we would rather not admit and that is that we

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are hypocrites. That we come to church on Sundays, that we say we love the Lord, but

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yet we don't live it out. We don't show it in our actions, we don't show it in our attitudes,

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we don't show it in the way that we treat other people. And maybe today if we're honest

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with ourself, maybe there are more of us in here than we care to admit that we are a bunch

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of hypocrites today. And praise the Lord. If we come to that truth today, if we hear

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this passage today, if we hear the words of Jesus today, how will we respond? Well the

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Pharisees, many of them at least, it doesn't appear responded very well. Wouldn't it have

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been great if they would have said, Jesus, you know you're right, we are a bunch of hypocrites.

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But they didn't. They continued in their hypocrisy and did their best to get rid of Jesus. What

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about you and I this morning? We hear the words of Jesus here, are these words speaking

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to us today? Yes, they were spoken to some Pharisees, but Jesus is speaking to us today

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too. Will we hear these words and respond to them? Will we ask him to forgive our hypocrisy

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and will we strive to live in obedience to him? Or will we simply walk away angry at

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the Word of God today? Let us not be those who walk away from the Word of God, but walk

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to the Word of God and trust in Jesus Christ. And not those who live in hypocrisy, but those

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who live in the Word and obedience to God. Let's pray. Father God, we come to you, we

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thank you for your good word today. I pray that you would help us to consider this simple

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truth. Dear Lord, maybe we fooled ourselves. Maybe we've whitewashed ourselves so good

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we think we're a little better than we are. Dear Lord, maybe we think just like the Pharisees

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today. Maybe we fall into the same traps. We don't like to admit it, we don't like

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to think it no more than they did. God, maybe if Jesus come in here today and preached to

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us, we might not receive this word any better than they did. We think we would, dear Lord,

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but the problem is, God, we have sin in our life just as they did. So dear Lord, I pray

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that you would help us to examine ourselves, to see the areas of hypocrisy in our life

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that we have, that we stop pretending, that we don't put on a mask that we're something

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better than we are, but dear Lord, we just come to you and just lay it all out. God,

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we are broken, we are a mess, we are rotten, we are sinners. And God, I pray that you would

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just help us to see that, to be convicted of that, to confess that to you today, to

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repent of our sins. God, that's what your word calls us to, that we would repent of

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our hypocrisy. Yeah, if we're hypocrites, God, that's bad, but we don't have to keep

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being a hypocrite. So I pray that you help us, because this is a struggle, dear Lord.

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There are some parts of our life that we live in hypocrisy, we don't even realize it. We

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don't even know it. So help us to see those things and be made aware of those things,

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to repent of those things, God, and not to just look apart, dear Lord. We don't want

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to just come to church on Sunday and look apart. We really want to know who you are,

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dear Lord, and live for you. We really want our hearts to be changed so that people wouldn't

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see us on the street and see us as a hypocrite, but people would see us on the street and

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see us as people who love you and who love others, dear Lord, that you would receive

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all the glory from that. So God, help us to be a good example, because, dear Lord, what

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a tragedy it is that those of us who are supposed to represent you sometimes fail so miserably,

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God. We have to be a light to the world, dear Lord. And if our light is nothing more than

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hypocrisy, then, dear Lord, we're not doing a good job of turning people to you, and even

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worse, dear Lord, we may be turning people away. So I pray, dear Lord, that you would

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just help us during this Christmas season, that we would remember the light of the world

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in Jesus Christ, that we would seek to be a light in the world with the people we encounter,

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dear Lord. Forgive us of our sinfulness, dear Lord. We can whitewash the outside, but, dear

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Lord, we pray today that Jesus would whitewash the inside with his precious blood, that we

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would be cleansed as white as snow, and if there's one in this room that doesn't know

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Jesus, God, I pray today that they would repent, confess their sins, and ask forgiveness. And

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I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.