You know we get all upset and disgusted when the world is honest and says I want nothing to do with your religion.
Horrible, blasphemous. And they'll even say things about Christ and about God. We get all upset about that when they're just being honest.
I respect their honesty. But what of all of those who claim to believe but in their daily life they live as though God does not exist? This is why we need to seek God intentionally. As Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Author and teacher Andrew Murray said, abide in Jesus the sinless one, which means give up all of self and its life and dwell in God's will and rest in his strength. This is what brings the power that does not commit sin. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shines a light on the deceptive nature of sin and the freedom from sin you have in Christ.
Right now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you dive deeper into God's truths. Holidays and special days of celebration wake us up from the daily grind and provide a backdrop for creating memories. But beyond traditions, time off and intentional family time, holidays can illuminate spiritual truths as we hear from Skip Heitzig. You may not know that Valentine's Day has Christian roots, but time and secular culture have transformed what was a great celebration of those who would stay true to the Christian faith. It has turned into simply a celebration of romantic love. You can find spiritual significance with Happiness, Holiness and Holidays, a four DVD collection of celebration messages from Pastor Skip. And it's our thanks when you give $25 or more to help keep this ministry on the air.
Here Skip with a strong thought on another holiday on our calendar. Because God is our Father, we never have to fear. Because God is our Father, I don't have to live selfish myopic life.
Because he is our Father in heaven, there is no limit to his power from heaven toward those of us who are on the earth. It's an incredible phrase, our Father in heaven. Call now to request your copy of Happiness, Holiness and Holidays. Our thanks for your generous gift.
800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now we're in Matthew chapter 23 as we get into the message with Skip Heitzig. If you want to see how bad sin is, just look at the cross. That's what sin did.
It put the perfect one, the holy one, the righteous one, the sinless one, in that kind of agony and pain and bloodshed as he took sin, our sin upon himself. But this disease is so bad that often those who are most infected do not realize how sick they are. As Billy Graham once said, the most devastating effect of sin is that we are blinded to it. Now here's where the blindness gets really dangerous. It gets dangerous because typically you and I are really good at spotting somebody else's sin and really bad at smelling our own. It's like we're like the guy with Lindburger cheese on his mustache and we're going around going, this world stinks.
Well, the problem is right here. Martin Luther put it this way, the recognition of sin is the beginning of salvation. And let's suppose you have a new car. You say, well, from your lips to God. Well, let's just suppose you have a brand new car.
I'm going to use this illustration to illustrate how people handle guilt in their lives. So you get a new car and this car has all the bells and whistles, all the fancy screen gadgets that tells you the weather in Dubai and are the planets aligned and all that stuff. As you're driving down the street, you hear a noise, a pleasant sound, perhaps maybe even a voice that says the air pressure in your left front tire is low. It might have an icon.
It might even be in a British accent. The air pressure in your left front tire is low. Oh, how nice. Or check coolant. Or my wife and her car has this little pleasant thing and it goes off if you go too fast. Now it's set. There's a factory setting and then you can change it.
You can move that setting of what is too fast. Well, we have changed it since we got it. And I'm not going to tell you what we changed it to. Okay.
So let's say we're driving down the street. And let's say that means you got a change. You got a change. You got a change.
You got a change. That means you got to check the coolant soon, which is critical or the air in your tire needs to be filled up. So there's a couple of ways you can handle those notifications.
Number one, you can go and get a fixed, put air in your tire, put coolant in, don't go so fast. Or there's another way you could handle it. You could carry in the glove box of your car, a nice little hammer.
It could be chrome on top and maybe the leather handle matches the image really nice hammer. And so when that light goes off, when that warning light goes off, you just reach into the glove box, take that little hammer and smash the thing that's telling you, you got a problem. Okay. So you can handle it one of two ways. Let's say you smash it. It'll fix the problem.
Today. You'll be okay now, but eventually unchecked, that car could burn up. Well, that's how a lot of people handle their guilt. They have these imaginary hammers in the glove compartments of their consciences.
So when a little light of conviction comes their way, goes off in their mind and their heart, they just knock it out by excuses. I'm not so bad. Others are worse than I am.
You know, I'm better than I used to be. So sin is detectable and sin is dangerous. Let me give you a third characteristic. Sin is diverse. It's not, it's not one form.
It takes on many forms. Look at verse 23. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weighty or 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. Now Jesus here touches not only on what they did, but on what they didn't do, not only on what they committed, but also what they neglected. So let me give you a quick background. The law of Moses required the Israelites to pay a tithe annually.
We talked a little bit last week about that. A tithe was 10%. That was of marketable crops as well as income. Whatever they had, they gave 10% to keep the nation of Israel going. According to Leviticus 27, that was to pay to the theocratic kingdom of Israel just to keep it operating. A 10th of their income, everybody was paying 10% every year.
A 10th of their income every year. Second, there was a tithe every year on top of that to support the worship system, the festivals, the feasts that were corporate feasts for the nation. That's Deuteronomy 12. Also, every third year there was a third tithe where they had to to support Levites, aliens, orphans, widows. So all total, they gave about almost 25% of their income to the Lord and His work.
But these guys, these scribes and these Pharisees, oh, they went the extra mile. They went to the spice cabinet and they took out the mint and the anise and the cumin. And here they go, okay, there's 10% of the mint. Put that over there. That's for God. This is the 90%.
That's what I keep. I mean, they got so detailed about it. Now, these spices, they're not marketable crops.
They don't need to tie that. But they're spices that you have at home. Yet, they decided to be that spiritual, that detail. So Jesus' point is simply this. You're so concerned and meticulous about small insignificant things that you have neglected the big things like mercy and justice and compassion. Now, this brings up a very important delineation in the diversity of sin. The Bible seems to indicate that there are sins of co-mission and sins of omission.
You may have heard those terms. Those are terms in theological circles that most people learn. A sin of co-mission versus a sin of omission. Now, a sin of commission, like the word implies, is something you commit. Sin of omission is something you leave out. So a sin of commission is doing something we shouldn't. A sin of omission is not doing something we should. So it's not helping somebody when you should help them. It's not praying when you should pray. It's not being a good steward of what God has entrusted to you. Those are sins of omission.
There's an old fundamentalist Baptist chant that said, I don't smoke and I don't chew and I won't go with girls that do. Well, what do you do? What are you doing? What do you do? James in chapter 4 verse 17 said, to him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.
Did you catch that? To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin. That's a sin of omission. So for example, what does a man have to do to destroy his home?
Answer, nothing. Just don't tend it. Don't nurture it. I mean, does he have to beat his wife to destroy his home?
No, just neglect her. That's all he has to do. It's like the wife who said, honey, how come you never tell me you love me? He said, oh, sweetheart, when we got married, I told you I loved you.
If things change, I'll let you know. A lot of guys live in that way of thinking. Love isn't a diamond that you find.
It's a flower that you cultivate and nurture in water. It's like a boss who went to his, one of his workers said, you're fired. And the worker said, I'm fired for what?
I didn't do anything. And the boss said, that's why you're fired. And some sins are obvious ones and some are not so obvious ones. Some we can go, oh, that's so obvious. That's so blatant. That's wrong.
Open, flagrant. Others are hidden and respectable. They are white collar sins. They're the kind of things that we go, yeah, I know those are bad, but not a big deal.
Really? Things like gossip, things like selfishness, bitterness, anger, gluttony, prayerlessness, envy. I've had people say, well, you know, when it comes to comes to God and them spiritual matters, I just live by the 10 commandments. I've had people tell me that I live by the 10 commandments. Ever, ever had anyone tell you that? It's all the religion I have. I just live by the 10 commandments.
Next time somebody tells you that, ask them this. Okay. Name them. Well, let's see. Don't kill people. Good. Good. You're off to a good start. What are the other nine?
You may get two or three or four or even five, but you're not going to probably get all 10 though. These are people who say, I live by the 10 commandments. Furthermore, examine those 10 commandments and you'll discover the 10 commandments aren't just talking about your actions.
They're talking about your attitudes. So listen to the 10 commandments, just one of them. This is out of Exodus 20. The Lord says, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not covet his man servant or maid servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Do you hear that? All those are hidden. You don't see that. You don't see lust at first. You don't see envy at first. You don't see a desire that somebody has to have something that is not his or hers. So sin is detectable. It's dangerous.
It is diverse. A fourth characteristic of sin is it is deceptive. Verse 25, Christ continues, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish. Well, that would be deceptive if you don't clean the inside.
But the inside, he says, they're full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish and the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which appear indeed beautiful outwardly, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. You see, they were skillful at making a good appearance of right living. They cleaned up the outside.
And they cleaned up the outside for one reason. So when you looked at them, you go, impressive, wow, spiritual, higher than the rest of us. Look back at verse five. Jesus says about them to the crowd, but all their works they do to be seen by men.
In other words, their whole life is a show. You can cover up a lot with a three-piece suit. You can cover up a lot with a Bible in your hand. You can cover up a lot with a cross around your neck. You can cover up a lot with a bumper sticker on your car.
You can cover up a lot with a song on your lips and a smile on your face. It can be deceptive. One Christian publication I found, put it this way, sin as a caterpillar is dangerous, but sin as a butterfly is a thousand times worse. If sin in its ugliest form is dangerous, who can know its unmeasured power and influence when it puts on robes of beauty?
So think about this. The worst form of blasphemy isn't a person who denies God, denies his love for God, or doesn't walk with God, wants nothing to do with God. The worst form of blasphemy is a person who claims to know God, walk with God, love God, but doesn't. You know, we get all upset and disgusted when the world is honest and says, I want nothing to do with your religion.
Horrible, blasphemous. And they'll even say things about Christ and about God. We get all upset about that when they're just being honest.
I respect their honesty. But what of all of those who claim to believe, but in their daily life they live as though God does not exist? This is why we need to seek God intentionally. As Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
As Charles Spurgeon put it, if you're not seeking the Lord, the devil is seeking you. Sin is detectable, dangerous, diverse, deceptive, but I've saved the best for last. The good news is that sin is dismissible.
It is forgivable. And that is the whole purpose of this book called the Bible and our Savior we call Jesus. Go all the way down to verse 37.
And as I read it to you, listen to the heart of Jesus wanting to cure the disease. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. I wish I could be with you right now on the Mount of Olives, standing in front of the city. It's a commanding view as Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives. He is sort of cresting in this beautiful portion of the Mount of Olives, overlooking below him the city of Jerusalem, facing west. And as He sees the city, He says, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
See, your house, that is the temple, is left to you desolate. As Jesus closes His last public sermon, He is lamenting their refusal to take the cure. It's like a doctor holding out the cure to a loathsome disease, knowing that it will cure the patient. And He's holding it out and lamenting the fact that the patient says, not interested, not willing.
I don't want it. Look at the tender language, the language of a mother hen protecting her hatchlings from gathering storms or from predators. How often I would have gathered your children together as a chick gathers or as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
It's a wonderful intimacy in this language. It reveals Jesus' desire to forgive, to heal, to dismiss the sin that He is confronting. So sin is the problem, but Christ is the cure. Or you could say life is short, death is sure, sin the cause, Christ the cure.
And He laments that they won't take it. What you have to understand, when I say sin is dismissible, this is the whole reason Jesus bothered to come from heaven to earth. This sums up His mission. The angel said to Joseph and Mary, you will call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sin. When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to the Jordan River, he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus Himself said in Luke chapter 19, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save those who are lost. That's why He came.
That's why we celebrate Christmas. He came into the world for the cure. So one more time, just look at verse 37 and note that we have in a single verse both the greatest opportunity and the greatest tragedy. The greatest opportunity, I wanted to gather your children together. The greatest tragedy, but you were not willing. Talk about a sin of omission. This is the worst sin of omission ever. Jesus Himself giving the cure to the dying patient and the patient saying not interested, don't want it, not willing.
Greatest opportunity, greatest tragedy. Jesus is willing to take care of our sin, all of it. Are you willing? I had a friend years ago who used to gather once a week with me, not always regularly.
I wasn't always good at getting up really early, but we would get up really early to pray once a week. And he came to me one time early in the morning and I'm kind of groggy. I'm not like feeling it, but he's all happy. And he goes, Skip or brother skip. He goes, I love repentance. And I'm going, really?
What? I'm just like, what are you talking about? I love repentance. He goes, yeah, you know how it is when God like pokes around in your heart and messes with you and you start feeling conviction. And then when you finally stop and you deal with it, he said, repentance is like brushing your teeth. You always walk away feeling refreshed.
I thought, Brian, that's good. So it's like the Holy Spirit messes with pokes and you go, oi, oi, oi. Go brush your teeth. Walk away feeling minty, fresh repentance. To put that in a biblical term, 1 John chapter 1 verse 9, John said, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So in this series, this series is not intended and it shouldn't take the wind out of our spiritual cells. It should put wind into our sails because the Holy Spirit is going to want to empty us all of self-righteousness, help us take off our masks so that we can have mask-free living. And we can be gracious toward those around us. Also, it's going to reveal great possibilities. Please notice in verse 37, Jesus talks about gathering you together.
That's what he wants. He wants to, in this series, gather you close to him under his wing, protected by him, intimate, loving, forgiving, dismissing of your sin, but bringing you close to him. Psalm 51, David said, the sacrifices of God are a broken heart, a broken and contrite spirit. These, O Lord, you will not despise. So as the Holy Spirit pokes around in this series and you go, ooh, let me find out what they're preaching on this week to see if I want to come to church.
Please don't do that. As he starts messing around with little tender areas and you go, oi, oi, oi, just think, you know what, grab that toothbrush, repent of that, deal with that, emerge from that, grow from that, because there's a lot of growth this old boy needs as well. As somebody once said, the only thing improved by breaking is the heart of a sinner. May God break our hearts and make us holy for his glory. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's powerful message for you from the series White Collar Sins. If you'd like to talk to someone about what it means to accept Jesus into your life, we'd love to speak with you.
Give us a call, 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Right now, we want to share about a special opportunity you have to take your knowledge of the Bible to a deeper level. Going to church is a great way to learn about God, but what if you want to learn more?
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That's calvaryabq.college. Did you know that your support helps others encounter God's word when they need it? Listen to this letter one person sent in. I've been listening to Skip for about six years and his teachings have gotten me through some pretty tough times.
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Again, that's 800-922-1888. Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip Heitzig sheds biblical light on the sin of laziness and how you can overcome it to live a God-sized adventure. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
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