When Jesus says "Woe", He means Woe

Hello Church Family:  What makes Jesus perturbed?  Angry?  Upset?  What do you think?  This week in Luke 11, we get to see Jesus being angry and not sinning.  What is making Jesus angry?  He really does not like works-righteousness!  He never hesitated to offend religious people who thought of themselves as self-righteous on account of their own petty works.  Jesus always took the opportunity to confront those who considered themselves holy and acceptable to God because of their great ability to keep man-made rules.  Jesus was not going to let self-righteous people be pridefully happy in their false sense of security through endless man-made rule keeping.  This is the very reason the Son of God came to earth.  He came to make us acceptable to God through His perfect righteousness.  Jesus was not going to let spiritual hypocrisy just slide on by in the lives of these pseudo-holy people that flaunted their rule-keeping and led others in the same burdensome works salvation.  These pseudo-holy leaders were keeping people from the truth of the Gospel.  Jesus was not going to let that happen.  So, what did He do?  He sat down and had a meal with them and dropped some heavy Gospel truth on their plate about their absolute hypocrisy (Luke 11:37).  I am sure that these occasions made for some great mealtime conversations.  

Jesus considered people who loved to impress others with their veneer of righteousness on the outside through external works as spiritual hypocrites.  These religious people did not have a desire to live out these claims on the inside, within their heart.  They externally professed one thing yet inwardly practiced another.  They would clean the outside of the cup while leaving the inside of the cup filled with smelly, moldy, scum (Luke 11:39).  They made great claims of belief and obedience but they were not able to back up those claims with any inward conduct that matched those claims.  They professed to be full of holiness but were actually empty of holiness.  Jesus knew that these religious people were pretending to be moral and spiritual lovers of God in order to gain the praise and approval of others.  Jesus saw through their religious veneer into their hallow heart that had no desire to truly commit to a life of internal Godliness.  Jesus came to save us from this life of spiritual hypocrisy.  He saved us from the religious duty of keeping intolerable man-made burdens that lead to a miserable life of always falling short.  We are free in Christ!

Jesus was somewhat aggressive towards these pseudo-holy people.  In Luke 11, He called them fools and pronounced six “Woes!” upon them and their way of living.  “Woe” means, Stop!, Dread!  Horror!  Jesus is not playing around with works righteousness and spiritual hypocrisy.  The bad news is that as believers we also struggle with spiritual hypocrisy.  One of the common elements in all of us is hypocrisy. No one, not even the most mature of Christians, is ever entirely free of hypocrisy.

However, the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that there is a remedy for spiritual hypocrisy.  What makes us clean is not an outward washing of water, like the Pharisees would think would happen when they washed their hands (Luke 11:38), but an inner cleansing of the Holy Spirit.  The gospel convinces us that nothing we do for God has any merit of its own. We want to see ourselves the way God sees us, as forgiven sinners accepted in Christ.  Whatever good that is within us is only by the Grace of God.  We do not want people to praise us but to praise Him.  The obedience we offer is not some desperate attempt to gain God’s favor, but a grateful response to the salvation He has provided through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We are to give God everything that is within us.  Jesus is aggressive about this message so that we will experience salvation by grace alone and not by any works than we can gin up!  If Jesus was aggressive about the message of salvation by grace let us do the same.  Enjoy your salvation from works righteousness unto Christ’s righteousness.

Luke 11:41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

This Sunday we will be meeting in person at the church building if you would like to join us in person at 10am.  And for those who will be staying at home, we will  be live-streaming on our Grace Community Church Topsail YouTube Channel. Push the blue link.  We can also be found at https://www.gracetopsail.com/

I look forward to worshipping with you Sunday, - Steve