Woe to You: Matthew 23:25-39 (Sermon)

 

CUP

[Invite someone up front. Cup that is full of stink (curdled milk/food coloring).] Could I have a volunteer, please? Would you drink this? [No.] Why not? The cup is so lovely, it is crystal. I got it at the garage sale this weekend. Why won’t you drink it? [It smells and looks horrible on the inside.] Thank you. You can have a seat. I bring this up because we can look pretty on Sunday, but inside, it could be a wreck. Jesus spoke to people who were faking religious piety two thousand years ago. They abused their position of power and took advantage of the weak and marginalized. They arrogantly let their status get to their heads. They were so far off that they didn’t put two and two together to see Jesus as the Messiah. Instead, they thought that he was a threat. Consequently, they sought to destroy him. Jesus knew they could only do what the Father allowed and confronted them in chapter 23 of Matthew. And in doing so, he issued us a warning and comfort. He wants our attention and our affection. He is not okay with hypocrisy, greed, pride, selfishness, and oppression. So, let’s listen to his prophetic confrontation. 

TEXT

I am going to have __. Read for us this morning. We will be continuing our series in the book of Matthew. Turn in your Bible to chapter 23, starting at verse 25. The words will be on the screen. Please stand with me if you are able. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:25–39, ESV)

Thank you. Let’s pray. Dear God, thank you for your Word. It is not always easy to hear or understand. Please speak to our hearts. Open our eyes and ears to see and listen to you. Transform us by your Spirit. We need you. Don’t let us stay the same. You are worthy. Amen. You may be seated. 

CONTEXT 

Jesus was in Jerusalem. He came triumphantly. The people proclaimed him blessed and Hosanna, which was Aramaic, meaning, “Save, I pray.” However, when they spoke it to Jesus, it became a shout of praise. Hosanna! Jesus was the Savior of Israel and the world. He taught, healed, and confronted the perversion of temple commerce. The religious leaders asked him what authority he used to do this. They sought to trap him with his words. He saw through their games and put them on their heels with his questions. He told them short stories that put a bright spotlight on their resistance to God. Dumbstruck, some left him. He spoke to the crowd, commenting on the leadership’s lack of character. Then, he addressed the leaders directly in chapter 23. He sounded like a prophet of old, offering seven judgments and a prophetic lament with shadows of Old Testament references. 

MAIN IDEA 

We are picking up where we left off a month ago. The text’s main idea is a stern condemnation of hypocritical hearts and a warning for God’s people. The leaders had neglected the most important priority: God. They wandered away from God through hypocrisy, greed, selfishness, lawlessness, and oppression. Some of us have suffered under such abuse. All of us have wandered from God at one point. We can be like the corrupt officials or the oppressed crowd. This passage shows us that Jesus is not okay with sin. He wants attention and affection. His confrontation is a warning and a comfort, and rightly so. 

WOE #5

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23, verse 25. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (Matthew 23:25–26, ESV) 

Let’s back up. What is a woe? A woe is an exclamation of grief. It is not like “Woah,” which we say to a horse or in shock. We may have heard people say, “Woe is me,” which is similar to Jesus’s expression here. Yet, this type of woe was a “Woe to you.” It had a bite and sting. The NLT interprets this as “What sorrow awaits you.” Why did Jesus say woe to these leaders? The Pharisees were in deep trouble. He said in verse 3 they preach but don’t practice what they preach. They were two-faced. In verse 25, we see how that played out. They were blind hypocrites, greedy, and self-indulgent. That was the junk in their cup. 

GREED

What is so bad about greed? I have heard people say it is good. In Luke chapter 16, Jesus taught, saying, 

“No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13, ESV).

Luke commented that the Pharisees, overhearing Jesus’s teaching on money, ridiculed him. Why? He explained they were “lovers of money.” They were greedy. Jesus responded by saying

“You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15, ESV).

They had backward values. God hated what they loved. What did they love? Money, themselves, their positions, power, fame, clothes, and recognition. Those were of utmost importance, not God, to them, not caring for God or those in their charge. In Luke chapter 20, Jesus said: 

Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. (Luke 20:46–47, ESV)

The Bible uses this Greek word for greed three times. Once here, in the parallel account in Luke, and finally in Hebrews about plunder. It means “a state of strong desire to gain things and, if necessary, by violent means.” (Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 291.)

AMERICA

In America, speaking out against this lust for stuff at peoples’ expense is popular. We hear about the 1% and demand corporations to pay their fair share. On the work floor, people decry the “Man.” There are protesters and vandals seeking justice. Part of me gets why. When we don’t see change, we want to take matters into our own hands. Is that what Jesus called for? Does this passage justify taking up arms? No. Jesus was confronting. The leaders confronted him about who he was. He was answering with a prophetic voice, speaking out against their evil. His courageous address can be a comfort to those who suffer. However, it can also be an indictment or warning to us. As kids, we would say that four fingers point back at us when we point. Globally speaking, most Americans have privileges beyond the rest. Our houses are filled with cheap gadgets, international foods, and textiles mined or manufactured through back-breaking sweat and toil of the have-nots. The world could point at us, saying it is unfair. They could say where their livable wage is. But why did Matthew put this passage here? Besides that, it happened, and I think he included it because Jesus was confronting and comforting. He was confronting injustice and comforting those looking for the righting of the wrong. So, in application, we might do soul work seeing a bit of Pharisee in our hearts, or we might look and see a consolation. Jesus wants to re-calibrate our hearts to the Kingdom of Heaven. He condemned the heart of greed birthed out of a love of money conceived in pride and selfishness. The apostle Paul says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Money is a tool. We print it or, in fiat, determine its value. In God’s economy, gold is asphalt. We must not worship it as a golden calf, coins, or collectibles. Yet, it is natural that: 

• Raises result in a rush. 

• Deals result in a buzz. 

• Wins result in endorphins. 

But soon, the rush, buzz, and endorphins fade. The money is taxed, spent, and devalued. All excitement disappears. Money disappoints. God wants our attention and affection. Don’t fall prey to the slick preacher, con artist promises, or desires that seek hasty gain and overthrow God’s place.

Self-Indulgence

Let’s talk about the Pharisees’ self-indulgence. The word is only used one other time, which means a lack of self-control. The Pharisees lacked self-control. Using the same interpretative question, do we struggle with self-indulgence? Do we at our workplaces, homes, or teams abuse our position of power at others’ expense for our pleasure or gain? Would the world call us jerks for Jesus? Have we let our privilege and gifts go to our heads? Do we operate like God blesses us so we can do no wrong? I think there was some of that in those who were “self-indulgent.” What can we do if we see a little Pharisee in the mirror? Seek God. If self-indulgence or greed has taken root, the Holy Spirit gives us self-control and generosity. He helps us battle. That is a starting point. But what does that start to look like? Prayer, listening to God in Scripture, and seeking other Christians can talk about the ways we lack self-control. Ask for God’s help to change. We can ask God to show us where to begin and where we can adjust. 

How might you lack self-control? Where might there be a bit of this Pharisee in you? They were blind; we don’t have to be. We can allow the Spirit to show us what we look like this morning. Where might we connect with this error of the Pharisee? God can meet us in our brokenness, guilt, and shame. If we know we struggle with self-indulgence, there is grace. The fact that you see it, you are better off than the Pharisees. They didn’t. They were okay with endorsing money changers in the temple to use a particular currency with a price-gouging exchange rate. They were making worship cost-prohibitive. They were profiting at some spiritual extortion. They devoured the offerings of low-income people for their pleasure. We will see Jesus use powerful language against them. This was not okay. God is inviting us to join him on a journey of discipleship and spiritual formation, countering this self-centered model of materialism and theft. He wants us to recognize our poverty of Spirit, our need for rightness before him, and our sorrow for our sins. If we struggle, that is a great starting place. You are not alone. I struggle. Share, in confidence, your struggles with a brother or sister in the Lord. God is here, and he is in his people to help you out. We can be praying for each other. 

BLINDNESS

In verse 26, we see Jesus talk about blindness. Jesus had said this before. The reality is that we are all born spiritually blind. Over the years, God has opened my eyes. I have learned more and more about myself and him. Jesus wants to give us spiritual cataract surgery. He is not okay with the status quo. I picture a parent telling a child they have a problem, but the stubborn child doesn’t see it. “You are headed in a bad direction,” says the parent. “No, I am not. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t understand. Everyone does it. It isn’t bad. No one gets hurt. You are the one blind. You want to ruin my life.” I think we see strong language, and sometimes the strong language breaks through the kevlar skull and calcified heart. This was a confrontation for the Pharisees but is a warning and comfort for us. 

WOE #6

Let’s go to the next woe. We will spend less time on these other two woes and Jesus’s final comments. Turn to verse 27. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:27–28, ESV)

This is another example of being clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. Jesus’s indictment got worse. Instead of pointing out specific heart problems like greed and self-indulgence, he implied they were unrighteous and lawless. Consider the irony: The keepers of the Law were the ones who were breaking the law. What law? Go back a chapter. Look at chapter 22, verse 35. 

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35–40, ESV)

The law keepers were not loving. They loved themselves but took advantage of others for their own benefit. Do we have the same problem? Do we love like Jesus or the Pharisees? How is our love for God? How would we rate our love on a scale of 1 to 10? Do people know we are Christians by our love? Maybe we are like, “Yeah, I love God.” Great. How about other people? Do we love people? Jesus wants us to love our siblings, spiritual family, neighbors, and enemies. Being honest with ourselves, are we loving? I feel like I can always grow in love. Jesus’s confrontation with the religious leaders can be a warning for some of us. We can repent and seek God and change. Our story is not over. The inside of our cups might need a cleaning. 

WOE #7

This brings us to the last woe. Like the Beatitudes in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, it points to the persecution of the prophets and looks ahead to future persecution. We hear about the disciple’s heart in the Sermon on the Mount. This confronts the heart of the Pharisee. The Sermon on the Mount tells us that the disciple inherits heaven and earth, but this chapter tells us that the hypocritical religious leaders inherit hell. This, too, is a warning and comfort. Let’s read, starting at verse 29:  

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:29–36, ESV) 

We see the extent of their blindness, lawlessness, and depravity. Jesus called them serpents, a brood of vipers, murderers, and persecutors and headed to hell. 

ZECHARIAH

Who was Zechariah? Many scholars think this refers to 2 Chronicles chapter 24. [I might not read this, depending on time.] It says: 

Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’ ” But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and avenge!” (2 Chronicles 24:20–22, ESV)

This was a sharp judgment Jesus issued. As Adam and Eve’s son killed his brother, Abel’s blood cried out from the ground as condemnation. Zechariah cried out for justice at the altar when God’s people killed him in the same way. He cried out against these religious leaders whose ancestors would be guilty of the death of Jesus. It seems that Jesus spoke to a type of spiritual leader, not all because Nicodemus Joseph, and Arimathea were leaders and secretly became followers of him. He could have been speaking literally or typologically when he said this generation. I am uncertain as to which it is, but I know Jesus will die by their machinations. And these leaders will support the execution of Stephen and James. Jesus’s followers, Peter, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alpheus, Thadeus, and Simon the Zealot, would all die for their faith. Every apostle faced martyrdom except Judas, who betrayed Jesus, and John, who escaped execution miraculously. And violence against God’s messengers didn’t stop. Today, thirteen Christians die daily for their faith in Christ. Justice is on its way. For those who have endured church hurt and abuse, and I know there are stories here and in our community of this, God sees. He will right the wrong one day. Justice will be dished out. Beware, hear Jesus’s words of confrontation for those who see hints of Pharisees in your soul. God sees all and knows. Be warned.  

JERUSALEM

This brings us to the last section of this Scripture. Turn to verses 37 through 39. 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:37–39, ESV)

Jesus’s audience changed. He addressed the city of Jerusalem. A city that “killed the prophets,” “were not willing,” and didn’t all welcome Jesus like the Galilean crowd. Instead, they questioned him, and some cried out to crucify him. Jesus cared for them despite this. He loved his enemies and his people. He spoke of a picture of a mother caring for her children. Moms love their babies. Jesus ended this confrontation by quoting Psalm 118, which was what little children were saying of him in chapter 21, and echoed the hope that God will send a Savior, Messiah, Hosanna. Jesus’s predictive word points to his prophetic role, second coming, judgment, and salvation. He is coming back. We will read much more about this in the coming weeks. 

HOPE 

Do you hear his heart in his words? He will not tolerate injustice. He called out wickedness, hypocrisy, greed, selfishness, lawlessness, and oppression. God sees and will bring righteousness at the perfect time. There is hope and help for those who suffer. 

PHARISEE

For those who see a little Pharisee in themselves and struggle with generosity, self-control, and love, there is help, too. Our stories are not complete. We are not alone. If we see the disparity between God’s way and ours, pay attention to Jesus’s words and give him your affection. He is the only Savior of the world. He came to save us from our sins. He sent his Spirit. The Spirit is here to help. He convicts us to change. Satan would love for us to be blind and not. Don’t leave this morning unmoved. Don’t go through life doing the same thing every day, hoping for a different result. God can help us. He can clean out the inside of the cup. Begin with acknowledgment. 1 John 1:9 tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to purify us from all unrighteousness. Let us pause now to consider how we may be like these Pharisees. Jesus loves sinners. By grace and faith in him, he fills us with his Spirit. He cleanses us up and sends us out to share the good news generously. [Clean cup. Drink fresh water]. 

PRAYER 

Let’s pray. God, we have not loved you with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We have loved money and what it can do for us. We have been greedy, selfish, and blind. God, please forgive us all our sins. Thank you for the grace and love we have at the cross. Thank you for Jesus’s blood. You are so good. We love you, Lord. Amen.