Matthew 23: Setting the Kingdom in Order

Jesus confronts religious hypocrisy head-on in Matthew 23, delivering a scathing rebuke of the Pharisees and teachers of the law who created religious bondage instead of freedom.

• Jesus acknowledges the teaching authority of religious leaders while condemning their hypocrisy
• Religious leaders created burdensome rules but did nothing to help people bear them
• Jesus pronounces seven "woes" against the religious elite, exposing their obsession with external appearances
• Religious leaders prioritized minor regulations while neglecting justice, mercy, and faith
• Jesus uses powerful metaphors: blind guides, straining gnats while swallowing camels, whitewashed tombs
• Religious hypocrisy shuts the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces
• Jesus laments over Jerusalem's rejection, expressing His desire to gather them as a hen protects her chicks
• When the King enters our lives, He sets His kingdom in order for our freedom
• God sees the evil that people do and will bring justice at the right time

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting the Kingdom in Order
• 2:54 Jesus Confronts Religious Leaders
• 6:12 Seven Woes to the Pharisees
• 11:23 Jerusalem's Rejection and Future Hope
• 13:02 Let the King Set Things Right

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, matthew, chapter 23,. And today's title is Setting the Kingdom in Order. Setting the Kingdom in Order, I'm telling you, today, is one of those chapters that you want to get your coffee, your popcorn. Get it ready, because Jesus is going to light some people up today. All right, I got a story to tell you that I hope will illustrate it, but this is one of those that, if we had been there in the moment, I'm curious. I want to know, in the comments below and all of this, what type of person would you have been? I'm going to get into it in just a moment. So, if you have your Bibles open up with me, do Matthew chapter 23. Get your popcorn ready. Get Open up with me. Do Matthew chapter 23. Get your popcorn ready, get your coffee ready. While you're doing all of that and getting your Bible ready to go, make sure you take just a moment and pause.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Like share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. When people are going through and they're looking, they want to know what is it that they're going to be getting out of God's Word. So make sure you don't just leave the five-star review that's wonderful but leave a short comment and tell people how you're connecting with God's Word. It really does help. And make sure you're subscribing to the YouTube channel. We are trying to get over 2,000 subscribers and there are a lot of people who will listen to the videos or watch the videos, but they're not subscribed. It doesn't cost you anything, but it helps us in the way YouTube finds the content, and our goal is just to present God's word and to grow our community. So make sure you're doing that for us. Also, make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown discussion on Facebook and you can find the links to all of that stuff at thebiblebreakdowncom.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Well, once again, as you're getting everything ready, don't forget that the overall goal of Matthew is to talk about King Jesus. Of the four Gospels, matthew is focused on helping the Jewish nation understand Jesus is the one that they've been waiting for, that all of the Old Testament has been talking about the coming King, and in chapter one he says Jesus is our rightful earthly King. But then he spends the rest of Matthew saying but he is so much more than that and, as we have been going through this, we have been seeing how Jesus has come into Jerusalem. He threw out the evildoers in the temple, he has been talking about all this stuff and then now he's about to set the kingdom in order. He's about to set the kingdom in order and he is about to just absolutely blow up all of these people who have been really corrupting the people of God, and what this reminds me of.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Here's my story. I was in a situation I got to change a lot of details to protect the innocent, even though it was a long time ago. There was a gentleman who was. He was accused of some things a long time ago in church. One of the good things about growing up in church is I got a thousand stories of some silliness that we've all been involved with from time to time. A long time ago, this guy had been accused of a lot of stuff and we ended up having a church meeting. I mean, this was a long time ago. I mean I'm a teenager at this point, right, we had a church meeting long time ago. I mean I'm a teenager at this point, right, we had a church meeting and at the church meeting, this particular gentleman is supposed to be getting up and he is going to share his side of what happened.

Speaker 1: 3:38

It involves some different people in the church and all this and what he was supposed to do. What he was supposed to do is he was supposed to get up and he was supposed to share just kind of general details. You know, the idea was you're supposed to be, you know, professional about this and you're supposed to just kind of say things in such a way that it could be, you know, just just, very, just, just, very general right, this guy gets up there and he starts naming names, which he wasn't supposed to do, naming names, dates, times, exactly what they did, and I mean he's leaving nothing to the imagination. I mean he's laying it out there and when it's happening, all of a sudden you're like, oh, this is so awkward because I mean he's calling people out, here's the thing, they're in the room. So it's not like.

Speaker 1: 4:26

So, like now, if you got something to say, we do what we're not supposed to do, okay, we're not supposed to do this. But if you got something to say, what most people do nowadays, unfortunately, is they go on social media and they don't say names, but they just say there are people, and then they go into it. Right, that is not this guy. He's looking right at them. Time place. This is what they did and I remember they are, I feel, so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable. But there was this other part of me that was like, oh really, what else did they say? You know what I mean. So there was this interesting dichotomy of not wanting them to be embarrassed, and there's another part of me that had my popcorn going. What else? Well, that reminds me of what we're going to get into in our text today, because Jesus is in the temple, he's got the crowds around him, and in the crowds were always the Pharisees, the Sadducees, religious leaders.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Remember, in the days before this, we've been talking about how they were constantly waiting for Jesus to slip up so that they could have a reason to arrest him. So they're in the crowd and Jesus, looking at them, starts talking and and throwing all kinds of shade about these religious leaders. So, if you're ready, here we go. This is what Jesus said while looking at them, and on one end they're like you got to imagine. You're like, oh, this is so uncomfortable, but on the other end, you're like, yeah. So I want to know the comments below, by the way, which are you? Are you somebody that would have been like, oh, I feel so uncomfortable. Or would you have been like the loudest amen person, the loudest high person in the room? Here we go. Verse 20, verse one of chapter 23 says this.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses, so practice and obey whatever they tell you. And you imagine in that moment pause, that the Pharisees Sadducees are like yeah, imagine in that moment pause, that the Pharisees Sadducees are like, yeah, thank you, jesus, fair play to you. Thank you for throwing us a little bit of a compliment there. So he says obey whatever they say and practice whatever they say, and practice, rather, whatever they tell you. But then he goes south from there. It goes straight downhill and he says but don't follow their example, for they don't practice what they teach.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Looking right at him, he says they crush people with unbearable religious demands and they never lift a finger to ease the burden. Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside and they wear robes with extra long tassels they love to sit at the heads of the banquets and the seat of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces and to be called rabbi. Don't let anyone call you rabbi, for you have one teacher and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters, and don't address anyone on earth as father, for only God in heaven is your father. Pause.

Speaker 1: 7:25

What that was meaning is is someone who has ultimate authority over you. And so he was saying it's okay to have people you call leaders and it's okay to call your dad father. The point was is they were calling these people as their ultimate teacher? He said no, no, no, god is your ultimate teacher. They may teach you the ways of God, but they get what they know from God. Okay, it makes sense. All right, let's go back to it.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Verse 10. It says and so then don't let. Don't let anyone call you like the ultimate teacher. You know, capital teacher, for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. So, like, our goal as pastors, shepherds, is not to tell you what we think about. What we think is to tell you what God thinks Like. Explain to you God's word. Okay, verse 11, the greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves, pointing at the Pharisees, will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Speaker 1: 8:18

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you, pharisees? You are hypocrites, for you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You won't go in yourselves and you don't let others enter either. What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and Pharisees? You are hypocrites, for you crossed land and sea to make one convert and then you turn that person into twice a child of hell. You yourselves are blind guides. What sorrow awaits you, for you say that it means nothing to swear by God's temple, but that it is binding to swear by the gold in God's temple. You blind fools. Which is more important, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You say that to swear by the altar is not binding. You, blind fools. When you swear by the altar, you are swearing by it and everything on it. And when you swear by the temple, you are swearing by it and by God who lives in it. And when you swear by heaven, you are swearing by the throne of God and by God who sits on the throne.

Speaker 1: 9:30

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and hypocrites, you Pharisees. You hypocrites, for you are careful to tithe even one of the tiniest income of your herb garden, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law justice, mercy and faith. You should tithe yes, notice, he says that you should tithe but do not neglect the more important things. You blind guides. You strain your water so that you won't accidentally swallow a gnat. You strain your water so that you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel. Your sorrow. What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees? You hypocrites, for you are careful to clean out the outside of a cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee First wash the inside of the cup and the dish and then the outside will become clean too. What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees? You hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs beautiful on the outside but filled inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like religious people, righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. While sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees? You are hypocrites, for you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed and you decorate monuments of godly people your ancestors destroyed and then you say if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would have never joined in the killing of the prophets. But saying that you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, finish what your ancestors started. You snakes, sons of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of hell? Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law, but you will kill some by crucifixion. You will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time, from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah, son of Berechiah Pause, that is him speaking of. In 70 AD, the temple was destroyed, jerusalem was destroyed and the people of God were scattered again over the known world. Verse 37, o, jerusalem, jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me. And now look, your house is abandoned and desolate. For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you say blessings on the one who comes in the name of the lord. So jesus is naming names. He is saying this is what y'all up to. What can we take from this? Well, that means that when the king comes in, he sets his kingdom in order. When the king comes into our lives, he sets his kingdom in order, and so let him cook, let him do what he wants to do. There's so many things we could take from this. I could tell you that God sees the evil that people do. Jesus isn't talking about something new. That's happening as a matter of fact. What he's saying is is you guys have been doing bad things for a long time, but justice is on its way, and so one of the things we could take from this is to realize and understand that God sees and at the right time, god always does what is right. But what I want to get from this today is is that when the King king comes in, he sets his kingdom in order, which means some things are going to be good, some things are going to be bad, but we can trust him, and for some of you who are listening to this, you've been a Christian for a long time. You you've been in the way of God for for a while and you're just taking steps, and that's awesome. But there are some who are listening or watching. This Christianity is new to you and you need to understand that when the king moves in, he sets his kingdom in order because he wants to walk us out of every bondage, addiction and chain and darkness that we have walked ourselves into, and so what we need to do is is let the king cook, let him call out what he needs to call out, let him bless the things he is going to bless, but in all things, let God's word speak to our life, because God is more interested in our freedom than we are, and that is what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about people who have come into the lives of the people and they have distorted God's word, god's word that was supposed to bring freedom. You look at the five books of Moses. The goal of the five books of Moses was to bring freedom to these people who were formerly slaves, and they have taken the Word of God that by the time of Jesus, it is so full of bondage that the people don't even know what to do, and Jesus is saying no, no, no, my kingdom is not a kingdom of bondage, it's a kingdom of freedom. And so let's restore freedom, and to do that, you gotta let the king set things in order. So let the king have his way in your life and watch what he'll do. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for your word. Thank you that your word sets things in order. I'm thankful today because of your word and what it does. I, I celebrate it, lord, and we submit ourselves to your authority. We ask you, king, to have your way in our life, and we celebrate you now In Jesus' name. We pray Amen, amen. Well, god's word says in Matthew, chapter 19, verse 21, or, excuse me, verse 28. Let me try that again Matthew 28, verse 19. It says all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Matthew, chapter 24.