Basic Instructions for Life and Ministry

We are, as Jim said, in a study on the life of Christ and in honor of my good friends from Indiana, I want to begin with a scene not on the screen, but just to tell you about a scene from one of my favorite all-time movies, Hoosiers. In the movie, Gene Hackman is playing a coach of a high school team, a small high school in Indiana that goes on to win the state championship, and that is based on actually a true story. But in the movie, he has been working with one of the players' fathers. And that father has had a problem with alcohol and actually the coach begins to work with him and actually makes him one of the assistant coaches. And one night, during a game, the father hasn't shown up for the game, but during the game, he comes in drunk. And makes quite a scene at one end of the court. And of course, his son is humiliated. And so the coach deals with all of the distraction of that, and then he walks over to that man's son, the man who is drunk, to his player. And he looks him in the eye and he says, now you get your head back in the game. He wanted to remove all the distraction from him and get him back focused on the game. In a sense, that's exactly what Jesus is doing in our passage this evening in Luke chapter 16. Luke 16, we're in the last three months of Jesus' life. Jesus' life and ministry is actually coming to a conclusion. And as it does so, as the days are ticking down toward the time when he will make his way to Jerusalem. We have seen, in the last few chapters, the escalating controversy with the Pharisees, resulting in the Lord Jesus just taking them to task. Remember, he was in a banquet in one of their homes and just went after the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And then after that, in chapter 15, uses a threefold illustration, a parable of the lost sheep and lost coin and lost son, to once again describe and illustrate the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that they do not share the heart of the Father because the Father's heart is for the lost. The Father's heart is for those who have wondered far from him and Jesus is truly the friend of sinners. Now, that's the accusation on the part of the Pharisees, but Jesus takes that as a badge of honor that he is the friend of sinners and shows the hypocrisy of the Pharisees by showing how much God loves sinners. So, he's been dealing with the distraction of the Pharisees. But now, it's like he walks back to his disciples and looks them in the eye and says, okay, now you keep your head in the game. Because in chapter 16, verse 1, we find Jesus told his disciples, we'll see the same thing in chapter 17, verse 1, Jesus said to his disciples, remember, this is a period of time when the crowd is swelling around Jesus, says he's kind of moved away from Jerusalem into Priya, and there's huge crowds around the Lord Jesus. And he's dealing with the Pharisees, so there's a lot of distraction, but now he's coming back to his disciples and he's saying, okay, you guys, you keep your head in the game. I want to make sure that you understand some basic instructions. And that's what Jesus is doing in this time. Not only sparring with the Pharisees, but also giving basic instructions to his disciples. We saw last week that Jesus was instructing him at the beginning of chapter 16 about commitment, and that's where we pick up tonight. He used a negative illustration of commitment, and we looked at that, and there was a good bit of question about that. So, I want to start back with that and see if we've wrapped up all the questions that you had, or if you've been lying awake at nights all week wondering, why would Jesus use an illustration like this? Remember, it was a guy who was in trouble with his boss, the accountant, basically of his boss's household and firm and business, and he's been embezzling money evidently, and his boss has found it out. He's going to fire him and says, you've got to give one last accounting. I want to know what's going on. And so, this, what the King James calls unjust steward, the NIV, calls a shrewd manager, decides, OK, I'm going to be without a job. I'm too proud to beg. I can't dig ditches or unwilling to do that. And so, I've got to figure out a way to provide for myself, and what he does, as he says in verse 4, it says, I know what I'll do. So that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses. So it's clear that this plan is designed to make him look good among some people who owe his boss. What he does is he slashes their bills so that he comes out looking like the good guys, boss comes out looking like the bad guy. And so when he gets fired, these people will have pity on him and probably somebody will offer him a job or at least they'll help pick care of him. But when the owner finds this out, verse 8, the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. You can almost see when he finds out what's happened. He kind of laughs and says, that guy, that guy's really shrewd. That guy was really clever. And then Jesus uses him as an illustration in verse 9. Let's pick back up with that. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Okay, now this illustration about commitment, a negative illustration, Jesus turns around to make a positive teaching about commitment. And he's going to give some instruction about some positive evidences of commitment, the first one being a commitment to invest in the lives of others. So Jesus says, just like this guy was shrewd in preparing for his future, the children of light believers need to also be shrewd in preparing for their future. Now that's kind of where we left off last week. What questions did you go home with? None. Okay. We all are. This is one of the more difficult illustrations and parables that Jesus uses to figure out why he would use this kind of an example as a positive illustration. Okay. So we'll get back to that in a moment. Any other questions about what's going on here? Do you remember what the main lesson was that Jesus was saying? What was what was the one thing Jesus picked out from this story that he's going to use to build a positive lesson on? He turned the wellings. Okay. The way he treated people, the way the shrewd manager treated people. Okay. I mean, there may be something to that. I'm not sure that's the main focus of the story, but there may be some illustration of the grace of God here. Steve. You think whatever position we have in law, the insolence is good though, but we should have a round of things that we can make an effort to make sure we're being told that we can give things. Okay. All they have is a male. Right. Okay. That's kind of the background from chapter 15. Okay. You look quite good at yet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of difficulties with this parable. Let's take a step back. Let's take a step back. Let's remind ourselves of the fact that, okay, in any parable, remember, we've talked about a lot of parables as we've gone through the life of Christ. In any parable, there is one main point, right? You don't press all the details and try to make all the details fit because they don't. That's not the point. The point is to get across one lesson. And remember, the lesson Jesus is getting across from this story is that here is a guy that was shrewd enough to use the story. To use whatever means he had at his disposal to prepare for his future. That was smart. Now, the way he did it was probably unethical. But the one thing Jesus is going to point out and pull out of that because it's clear in verse 9, that's the lesson he's making, is that this guy used the means at his disposal to set himself up for the future. That was smart. That was shrewd. The way he did it was unjust and unethical. But the idea of getting himself ready for the future, that was sharp. That was sharp. Now, Jesus takes that one point and applies it to us, the children of light. And that point only. Notice what he says in verse 9. He says, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends. Okay. So he's taking that principle using the means at our disposal to gain friends to influence people so that when it is gone. What's he talking about being gone? The wealth, the worldly wealth and the opportunity to get anymore. In other words, when the time comes that this life is over and you can't accrue anymore worldly wealth, then what's going to happen if you have prepared yourself for your future. He says, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoa, that throws a whole different shade on the story. He's not talking about using money to get kickbacks and under the table, kind of deals and unethical stuff so that you can influence people to treat you good in the future. That's not the point. The point is like the unjust steward who used whatever means he had at his disposal to prepare for his future so that he would be set up for the future. Jesus is saying you do the same thing, but do it spiritually. Okay. You take whatever means you have. He talks about using worldly wealth. Take those means and make sure that the future you're preparing for is when you get the heaven. So that the friends you make with your worldly wealth will welcome you into eternal dwellings. Ah, there's a whole different picture now. He's not talking about doing anything unethical or unjust. He's taking that one principle from the wise or shrewd manager and saying, you know, the guy was sharp in the sense that he got himself ready for his future. Now, you do the same thing except you use your means at your disposal, whatever worldly wealth you have to make eternal investments in the lives of people so that when there's no more opportunity to gain worldly wealth, you know, in the story, the guy lost his job. Okay. But when there's no more opportunity for you to gain worldly wealth, what you have done with your worldly wealth is to invest in people's lives for eternity and they will welcome you into heaven. So it's a basic principle that God is saying a commitment to investing in the lives of other people that we use the means at our disposal to win people to Christ, to build them up in the faith so that when we leave this world and there's no further opportunity for us to gain worldly wealth, what we have done with our lives will result in treasure being laid up in heaven. And people welcoming us there because we have, we've been involved in missions. We've been involved in talking to the person across the street using, using our means to be able to influence people for Christ. We prepared for our future. Yeah. But it was an eternal future. That's the point. Okay. So he just takes that one point. He's not using the guy as an illustration of how you ought to do business or even how you ought to live your life. He's just taking that one point. He was pretty smart in that he used the means that he's disposal to prepare for the future. Now, believers ought to be that smart, but in a spiritual way. Okay. Get ready for your future, but make sure you're preparing for heaven. That's the point. Does anybody else think that was an unusual manager? I mean owners that would come in to the gap of keeping them out of all these ones? Well, again, I don't think he was commending even the owner. I don't think he was commending for cheating him out of his money. I think he was commending him for that was smart. That was smart. I think he kind of had a chuckle and say, boy, I got gif. I didn't see that one coming. But you know, he said himself up well. That was smart. It is an unusual illustration, isn't it? It's an unusual story. But again, you can't press all the details of a parable and try to make all of them fit in the application. It's just one major truth. The parable is trying to get across. I mean, the three he just told about the lost sheep and coin and some. The main point, the one point was that God loves sinners. Okay. That was the main point. Now, there are lots of rich illustrative material in those stories. But for sure in this one, it's just the one main point that's all we're worried about. Okay. Yes, Lou? I almost found out that the only reason he did is to create a heaven. So more to it than that. I mean, because of the man that is the only reason he was the only reason he was the only reason he was the only reason he did. Yes. This unjust steward in the example. Yeah, he's just he's just an example of someone who was doing earthly stuff to set himself up for his future here on earth. I don't think Jesus intended him to be an example of anyone trying to prepare himself for heaven. But he says we should learn the lesson of preparing for the future. But then take it to another level. We're preparing for heaven. We're not preparing for when we lose a job. So the unjust steward is not trying to get the heaven by what he does. He's just trying to set himself up for being taken care of in the future. But can you do those things that you can get to the next? No. No. What we do though is we take whatever is at our disposal. Whatever God has given us time, abilities, finances, and we invest them in the Lord's work and in people so that when we get to heaven, we've made eternal investments. And that's how we prepare for our future. That I think is right. That's the only thing we can do to prepare for our future is to send souls. Now, it's not Jesus is not saying that we'll get you to heaven because obviously, and that's a good point. He's not teaching doing those things will get us to heaven. But he is saying that as believers, when we make investments in people's lives, then there will be plenty of people there welcoming us. And our life will be worthwhile. It's basically the same concept as the judgment seat of Christ. If I use everything in my life to build stuff just for me and for the present, I've built my life out of wood hay and stubble. If I use my life to live with an eternal perspective, then I've built my life with gold, silver, and precious stones. And when I get to heaven, and I don't get to heaven because I did those things, get to heaven because of faith in Christ. But when I get to heaven, I will find that my life has been invested in eternal things. And there are people there waiting for me welcoming me into heaven because I invested my life in eternal things. And that's the point Jesus is making. It is a strange way to make the point. But again, we lose some of the oomph of this because we don't live in their culture. I think probably people who lived in that culture would have probably smiled at this and said, yeah, that's a neat story. And we kind of miss some of it because we don't operate in that culture. Okay, you ready to move on? I sure am. Are you ready to move on? Okay, all right. Now, I think it's important to see because this came up last week. I think it's important to see that Jesus is going to move on to a different subject now. He begins in verse 10. He may be kind of building on what he's just talked about with eternal investments and talking about money, but he's talking about a different concept now. So forget about the Shrewd manager. He's not in view in verse 10. Okay, that that guy's behind us. So when he's going to talk about faithfulness here, he's not using the unjust steward or the Shrewd manager as an example of faithfulness. I think that's important to see. He's moving on to a second kind of commitment and this kind of commitment is a commitment to being faithful in verses 10 through 12. Verse 10, he says, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, he may still have that guy in the back of his mind because that guy was not trustworthy in handling worldly wealth. So that that illustration may still be in the back of his mind, but he's illustrating a different point here. If you've not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you've not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? Jesus is talking about a completely different issue here and that is faithfulness, a commitment to being faithful. What is he saying, bottom line, what is he saying about faithfulness from these verses? What do you get from these verses about faithfulness? Doing what's right? He does talk about being trusted, doing what is right so that you can be trusted. Trust being trustworthy. Okay, if you can be trusted with little, you can be trusted with more. What does that say about faithfulness? Be faithful in little things, right? Where is faithfulness cultivated? I didn't ask that right. No, not at what age? Well, Jesus basically is talking about faithfulness is seen in the little things. Okay, if you're faithfulness with little things, then you can be trusted to be faithful in larger things. But I think he's also making the point that faithfulness is not just something that comes out of the blue. You know, you're given a big responsibility someday and you're faithful in that. And oh, everybody's shocked and surprised. No, faithfulness doesn't start with big things. If you haven't cultivated it in the little things, it will not be there when you're given a big responsibility. See, faithfulness is first of all cultivated in your heart and character in the little things in life. If you don't cultivate faithfulness in the way you do the little things, in the way you demonstrate integrity in the little things, do you carry stuff home from the office? That's not yours. Do you take things at work and use them for personal things and never reimburse? Those little things that we can so easily say, well, it doesn't really matter. If you're not faithful in those things, then you will not be faithful in bigger things either. Faithfulness is cultivated. It's learned. It becomes a part of, it becomes ingrained in our character in the little things. That's what Jesus is talking about here. If you can be trusted with little things, then you can be trustworthy with big things. But if you're not trustworthy in the little things, you will not be trustworthy in the big things either. And the big things he's talking about are, verse 11, true riches as opposed to worldly wealth, spiritual things, eternal things. It's very easy for us to think that faithfulness only has to do with things that I'm called upon to do for the Lord. If I'm faithful in that, that's okay. I don't have to be faithful at work. And what Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no. Faithfulness begins in the little things like what you do at work. Because if you're not faithful there, you will not be faithful in spiritual things either. It is. Jean, it's one and the same. Because it's a character issue, isn't it? It's a character issue. Pardon me? I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. It's being able to see the difference between black and white. What's right and what's wrong? Let's not live in the gray areas, although we all recognize there are some gray areas, but let's make sure we know the difference between right and wrong. And we're going to be faithful in those little things. Faithfulness begins in the little things. It's not an accident. It doesn't just pop up when you're given big responsibilities. If you cheat and cut corners in the little things in life, you'll do so in the bigger things also. Remember me, I've told this story several times. Remember me telling this story about the junior executive that was being interviewed for the CEO of a large company. This is a true story. And he has shown great promise in the company. And so he's being interviewed for this job. And the board that is interviewing him has all but made their decision to hire this man. And they break for lunch. And they're going to come back and just finish up the formalities of the interview process. And in their minds, it's a done deal. He's going to be the next CEO of the company. And so when they go to lunch, three of them, the board members walk into a cafeteria-style restaurant across the street from this corporate headquarters. And up in front of them a little ways is this young man that they've been interviewing. And there's some people between them. And so they figure once they get through the line, they'll go over and sit with him, but they're not going to bother him until then. But they watched as he went through the line. And it's kind of a K&W type deal where you pick up your food and pay for it at the end. And so they noticed and watched as he took two pads of butter and stuck them under his napkin so they wouldn't be seeing. So that he wouldn't pay for them. When they got back to the boardroom, not only did they not hire him as the CEO of the company, they fired him from the position he had. And when he demanded to know why, they told him what they had witnessed. And he became irate. You mean over six cents worth of butter? And one of the board members said, if you would be dishonest about six cents worth of butter, you would also be dishonest about six million dollars of this company's funds. And we cannot trust you if you won't be honest about six cents worth of butter. And that is true. And that's exactly the point Jesus is making. If you're not honest in the little things, you're not honest in the big things either or faithful in the big things. Faithfulness is cultivated and demonstrated built into our character in the little things first. And then it becomes apparent when the larger responsibilities are given. Okay. I think that's the point Jesus is making here. Any comments or questions about verses 10 through 12? Okay. First 13, he talks about a third commitment that has a commitment to the Lordship of Christ. And it kind of builds on this whole idea of money. He's been talking about money. Jesus uses money a lot in his parables. But in verse 13, the topic seems to shift to what's really Lord in your life or who is really Lord in your life. So verse 13, he says, no one can serve two masters. Now remember, remember, he's talking to his disciples. He's got them right in front of him saying, okay, now get your head in the game. I want to talk to you about some serious stuff about your character. And so he's not addressing the Pharisees here. He's addressing the disciples. The Pharisees are hearing it. We'll see in verse 14, but he's addressing the disciples. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Now the point here is we must be committed to the Lordship of Christ. There's only one, there can be only one Lord in our lives, which implies that we all serve someone or something in our lives. All of us have something that is our Lord, that is our master, if you will. We all have something or someone that is our master. And the question we got to figure out is what is it? There's only room in life for one hub, one center around which everything else revolves. Now there's room for a lot of stuff in our lives, but there's only room for one center around which everything else revolves. You can't have two centers, there's one. And that's what Jesus is driving at here. What is the center of your life? What reorders your life? What dictates your priorities? What's the hub? What's the center around which everything else revolves? Is it money and the things that money can buy or is it God? And Jesus uses those two. He could have used others. He could have used, is it a job? Is it relationships? Is it fame? Is it pride? Lots of things you could put in the place of money here. Jesus has been talking about money and so he continues to build on that thing. But you could put other things in there in the place of money that you may struggle with more than money itself. Recognition? Whatever. What is it that is at the center of your life that everything else revolves around? That's the most important thing to you. And what Jesus is saying is you can't have two of those, you can't serve two masters. It's one or the other. It's God or it's something else. And in this case he uses the example of money. So he's really calling his disciples to a commitment to the absolute lordship of Christ that Jesus is the center. He's the hub around which everything else revolves. That's got to be the way it is for those of us who claim to be his followers. Okay, comments, questions, commitment to the lordship of Christ. See? I think worry is a symptom of the disease. I think worry is the outward manifestation of whatever is controlling you. And so whatever is controlling you, you worry about that. And at certain points in your life, it may be your health, it may be money, it may be your job, it may be a car, it may be whatever. But I don't think necessarily that worry is the God. worry is the symptom that there is another God other than Christ. And if Christ is at the center, then he replaces worry about any and all of those things. Yeah, yeah. Certainly. There is a proper kind of concern. And Jesus demonstrated a proper kind of concern. And he indicates that we should have proper concern in the sense of being responsible and concerned about our responsibilities and our families and so forth. Yes, there is a proper kind of concern, a proper kind of concern in the sense of burden for others. Yes. Yes, it is human nature. Yeah. It is a part of our human nature. And so is selfishness. And so is pride. So is dishonesty because our human nature is affected by what? Sin. I mean, we have been contaminated and ruined by sin. People made an image of God. That image has been marred because of sin. So it affects everything we do. And we have a lot of natural tendencies to do stuff that are not right that are not God honoring and worry is just one of them. But yeah, it is human nature for sure. And some of us have a little bit more of that human nature than others, right? Some of it's driven by personality type and so forth. You know, there are some people that just kind of float through life and other bothers and there are others who are concerned about every little detail. So some of that's driven by personality. Okay. Jesus indicating that I have commitment to the Lordship of Christ. You can't have two Lord's. You can't have two Gods. All right. Then, verses 14 to 18, Jesus talks about a commitment to the authority of the Word. This really is not stated in those terms. But when you put everything together in these next few verses about how he's addressing the Pharisees, I think you could summarize it under that that topic. Because now he does address the Pharisees. He's been talking to his disciples. But now look at what happens in verse 14. The Pharisees who loved money and they've been listening to these stories thinking, man, this guy's not the lunch. What does he talk about and unjust steward? We thought that guy's a hero. He did pretty good for himself and dishonest with little things. That's okay. I can do that. And all of this. You can't serve God and money both and the Pharisees for 14 who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. Wow. Now, get the picture in your mind. The Greek word here for sneering literally means to lift the nose. They actually had their nose in the air like, what does he think he knows? What does he think he is? Okay. It's this arrogant attitude toward Jesus. They're sneering at him. And so Jesus turns on him as he has been doing regularly in the last few chapters. He will not let that pass. And so this is what he does. He says to them, verse 15. What he's going to do in the next few verses is point out their hypocrisy that they have no real concern for the word of God, even though they claim to remember remember who the Pharisees are. The Pharisees are the Old Testament scholars. They're the people who are supposed to know the Old Testament backwards and forwards and know how to plies to every part of Israel's life. They claim to have the utmost respect for the word of God, even so much that they've put all their traditions alongside it to help explain it. Okay. These are Bible people. At least in their minds. And so Jesus is going to point out they really have no concern for the word of God, even though they profess to. And it's seen it's seen in four different ways. First of all, seen in their priorities in verse 15. He said to them, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is the testable in God's sight. In other words, God and people and when he talks about what people value highly, I think he's going back to what he knows is in the hearts of the Pharisees and Luke has told us what's in the heart of the Pharisees. Verse 14, they love money. So Jesus says God's value system is entirely different from yours. And although you profess to be God's people and love God's word, you show that you're really hypocrites because you have totally different priorities from God. Yours is built around greed and wealth and God knows what's in your heart. He knows that. Because of their position, which is where it is, and because of the wealth and the wealth, the fear of these, the way all the others do, the fear of God in my life. And we have both. We have a lot of them. Quite possibly. Quite possibly. That's in their minds. You don't know what you're talking about. We love the word and we love money too. We love God. We love money too. You can do both. You can have it both. They may be thinking that. So again, Jesus is going to unmask them. Remember, he did it at the banquet. And when he unmasked their legalism and their pride, and he's going to do it again, he's going to peel back the layers that are over their heart and reveal exactly what's in their heart. And he says, you claim to love God and his word, but you don't have anything close to the same priority system as God does. I know what's in your heart. God knows what's in your heart. What you highly value, God has totally different value system. Okay, so their hypocrisy is seen in their priorities, priorities being out of balance. Secondly, it's seen in their attitude toward the kingdom. Okay, remember they've rejected the kingdom already and they've rejected the king. And so he's going to nail them on their attitude toward the kingdom in verse 16. He says, the law on the prophets were proclaimed until John, John the Baptist. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached and everyone is forcing their way into it. That's an unusual expression. What do you think Jesus meant by that? The kingdom of God has been preached since John and everyone's forcing their way into it. What's his point there? Have their own interpretation. Maybe. Maybe so. I remember he's talking to the Pharisees. They're making up their own rules. They've consistently done that and added them to the Word of God. With their love of money, they think they can buy their way in. I'm certain that to a great degree, they did think that. Yes. This expression has puzzled commentators and Bible students for years. And so you have to do a little digging really to get to what Jesus is talking about here, I guess. But everyone forcing their way into it into the kingdom. I think what Jesus is referring to is, okay, let's get the scene again. These are the religious leaders who have rejected the kingdom. But there's a whole crowd of people around Jesus and there are many people who are following Him who are in dead earnest about the kingdom. They realize what Jesus is calling on them. They realize He has just said, you can't be my disciple. I can chapter 14, unless you deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. And there are some people who are in dead earnest about that. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to pursue following the Lord Jesus. They're willing to give up anything. I think those are the people that Jesus is talking about. They're willing to give up anything else for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of Christ. Because remember, really, Christ and the kingdom are one and the same. And so I think what Jesus is saying is, your attitude toward the kingdom shows where your heart is. You see, you have no desire to follow me. You have no desire to sacrifice anything. Well, you love money. You wouldn't be willing to part with any of it if that were necessary. If God called upon you to give that up as a part of you becoming my disciple, you would not do it. Now, that's where your heart is. That's what He's saying to them. The kingdom has been preached and there are people who are rushing toward it, giving up everything else. But not you, not you. And again, He's unmasking their hypocrisy. Because they've made it very clear. They don't believe in His kingdom. Okay. So it's seen in their attitude toward the kingdom. Thirdly, it's seen in the attitude of twisting the word that they demonstrate. Verse 17. It's easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. Again, it's difficult for us in our culture to understand all that Jesus is talking about here. Whenever, and He mentions it several times in the New Testament, whenever Jesus talks about not the least stroke of a pen will drop out of the law, what He's talking about is the authority of the Bible. And that the Bible is God's truth. You don't add anything to it. You don't take anything away from it. He's not talking about translations here. Okay. That this verse is often used for that. That's not what He's talking about. He's not even thinking about translations. In the context dealing with the Pharisees, He's talking about the authority in your life is supposed to be the word of God. Not one part of God's word will fail to be fulfilled. Now, in contrast, all of your traditions and rules and all of that, that you think are so important, that doesn't amount to hill beans. What really counts is the word of God. That's our authority. And heaven and earth will disappear before any of God's word loses its authority. Again, in a very subtle way, in a sense, but they got it, I'm sure, He is rebuking them for their lack of respect for the Bible, because what they really value highly is all of their traditions and all their rules that they've added to the Bible. Okay. Times just about up. Let me quickly mention this last one. And that is that their hypocrisy is seen in their attitude toward marriage also. Again, He's speaking to the Pharisees. And so He's going to get in another illustration of how they really don't care about the word of God like they say they do. And it's seen in their attitude toward marriage, verse 18, anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. And I realize that opens lots of cans of worms. Let me just say a couple of things here. Number one, Jesus in the context is talking about their attitude toward the word and showing their hypocrisy. One of the ways that the Pharisees and religious leaders of Israel showed their hypocrisy that they really didn't value the Bible like they said they did is their view of marriage. It was very common in that day to divorce. It was easy to divorce and people divorced over the drop of a hat. If a wife burned her husband's dinner, he could write her a bill of divorcement. That was it. Some of you women would have been gone a long time ago. That would be the case in your home. But I mean, anything that happened, you could write a bill of divorcement. And it was fine. It was seen as legal. It was their attitude toward the sanctity of marriage and the sacredness of marriage that Jesus is really attacking. Don't take this verse, please, and make this everything the Bible teaches about adultery. And about marriage and divorce. This is not all the Bible teaches about that subject. You may recall, I did a seven-part series one time on divorce and remarriage. And we tried to deal with all the biblical texts that deal with that. This is not the only passage. And so this is not the summary of all of what the Bible teaches on divorce and remarriage. So please don't use this as a club. People sometimes take one verse like this and say, oh, you're married to a divorce woman, you're an adultery. That's not the full teaching of the Bible on this subject. And to use the scriptures that way is to be guilty of doing the same thing the Pharisees did. So please don't do that. What Jesus is saying in the context is you have no respect for marriage. And it's seen in the way you constantly divorce and think nothing of it. It's their view of marriage and the sanctity and sacredness of marriage, which Jesus is saying really shows your hypocrisy. Okay. Steve, you've been wanting to ask a question. It's two minutes after eight. So we're going to have to make it real quick. Please. This is the commitment for the Pharisees for the actual divorce of love for the Lord Jesus. And they, they're teaching the common work. I'm immediately thinking of God one. He didn't be getting what the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word, is the physical manifestation of God for two of us. And there is disrespect of love. There is respect and is light of man. Sure. Yeah. He was explaining that, you know, that was the greatest of man, not man, but the Sabbath. Right. Your point is well taken and a good point. The fact is that Jesus is the living word. This is the written word. If you reject one, you reject the other. Their attitude till the written word was seen in their attitude toward the living word. That's exactly right. Well, you had a comment or question you wanted to make. You just sounded like the Pharisees. But you liked that God was like the right girl and all the circumstances. Yeah. And that's exactly what Jesus talked to them about a number of times. That they added so many layers of tradition on top of the Bible that they were contradicting the Bible all the time by their traditions. And really, their traditions and rules became more important to them than the Bible. Read Matthew 15 and Matthew 23. If you really want to follow up on that idea that Jesus goes after them for those two chapters, he really blasts them for that. Okay. A wana kids are escaping. We need to go. Let's pray. Father, thank you for our time together tonight in your word. We pray that you would bless that we would be more like the Lord Jesus as we sang earlier. Lord, help us to understand how to deal with situations and people from your word. And most of all, to value you and your word above everything else in our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.