Do What I Say AND What I Do! | Matthew 23:1-3

[00:00:00] We'll truth, daily, this is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. And Jesus says he's worth starting adverse one. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples. Now he's not talking to the Pharisees, he said he sees and describes anymore. He's talking to the crowds and disciples.

[00:00:41] So notice what he says here about the Pharisees. The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So practice and observe whatever they tell you. In other words, there are the representatives of Moses. There are the teachers of the law.

[00:00:56] But the problem was they added to the laws of Moses with their own man-made rules and put this huge yolk of burden upon the people. Yet Jesus said if they're speaking for Moses from the law and the prophets, do what they say.

[00:01:12] But they so it says, so practice and observe whatever they tell you but not what they do. In other words, they don't practice what they preach. That's where that message came from. As a matter of fact, Jesus says this in the next phrase.

[00:01:26] For they preach but they do not practice. Wow. What can we say about the Pharisees and scribes then? They took just as seriously their man-made rules that they put as a burden upon the people as God's rules.

[00:01:42] They told them to obey those rules but they didn't do it themselves. They didn't practice as Jesus said what they preached. And then if they did obey those rules, they did it so that it would look good in front of other people.

[00:01:55] That's why they did it so that they could get praise from other people while look how obedient you are, look how observing the law you are, look how representative of God you are, look at what mighty leaders you are.

[00:02:05] So they did it so that they might appear good in front of other people. This was their motivation. Now the flip side of that opposed to that was the attitude of the apostle Paul and this is what he said.

[00:02:18] Listen to this, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. My friend, can you say that too? Can you say to people who are following you maybe as a parent or a grandparent?

[00:02:31] Can you say to them if you want to find out what it means to live as a Christian look at my life? Do what I say and what I do? We as believers in Christ should never say to those who are younger than us who we

[00:02:49] maybe are mentors to. We should never say, hey, if you want to know what it looks like to be a Christian, don't look at me or do what I say but not what I do. That should never be our attitude.

[00:03:01] Now all that said, we want to obey the laws of God, we want to live for Jesus, we want to honor God with our life, we want to be representatives of the gospel, we want our lives

[00:03:10] to conduct obedience and love and care and honesty and integrity and forthrightness and all these different things that are part of what it means to follow Jesus. We want to do that sincerely and we want to do that to the best of our ability.

[00:03:25] That is our intention, that's our goal but here's the problem. Sin still sticks to us. Satan still attacks us. That old evil flash, that sinful flash, that old Adam inside of us is diametrically

[00:03:41] opposed to the will of God and sometimes what we find is we want to obey God. We want to do the right thing but Satan rear us is ugly head and that sin nature wins

[00:03:51] the day and we fall and we're poor examples of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But here's the incredible thing. We go back to the cross, we confess our sins, we drown it in the blood of Christ.

[00:04:05] We know that Jesus paid for it on the cross when he said it is finished, that meant that that sin and all the sins of our life were fully paid by Christ's sacrificial

[00:04:15] death on the cross and just as he rose up from the dead we rise up to newness of life. We have a new beginning, a new start, a new life in Jesus Christ and so we say,

[00:04:28] okay I'm going to mend my sinful life and I'm going to have the attitude to those people around me if you want to know how to live as a Christian look at my life.

[00:04:36] We're not going to do it perfectly, we're not going to do it obediently fully but here is the thing. We do the best we can with the strength that God gives us and the Holy Spirit inside of us.

[00:04:49] The Pharisees, you know you think about it, it was just empty ritualism. They didn't really have a relationship with God, they surely didn't believe that Jesus was a Messiah and you got to remember this is Holy Week.

[00:05:02] This is like Tuesday or Wednesday of Holy Week when they're having these conversations with Jesus right and their heart was so far from God that one intention were the leaders

[00:05:11] you people do what we say even though we're not going to do it and oh by the way we're going to put to death this rabbi, this Jesus of Nazareth. That was their whole intention. That's not us. We love the Lord. We love His Word. We love Jesus.

[00:05:25] We want to honor Him with our life and my friends by the Holy Spirit's power we can do just that. So our attitude should not be, do what I say but not what I do or attitude should be, do what I say and what I do.

[00:05:40] We're not going to do it perfectly and when we don't go back to the cross, receive the forgiveness of sins in Christ and start a fresh, start a new one again. That is today's Daily Truth. Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ.