Rediscovering true devotion

Matthew 9:14-17. Had kind of a comedy of errors a second ago. I realized I did not know where I laid my notes in my black little binder. I was walking the halls and praying this morning and carrying it with me and had a mad dash of looking for it for a second ago. All right, Matthew 9. Um, we've been studying the book of Matthew. We've been walking through it. Last week we jumped into Romans for for Easter. Uh, now we're diving back into Matthew. And so we're going to look uh today at Matthew 9:es 4-17. 14-17 hear the word of the Lord. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away, and the garment and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wine skins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved. This is God's word. Lord, we just pray that you would um speak through your word this morning as you always do. Your word is life. It is living. It is active. It is sharper than a two-edged sword. And we pray that even this morning, Lord, you'd give me clarity of mind and thought uh but also ultimately that your Holy Spirit would speak to each of us this morning. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So, as we've been traveling through the book of Matthew, uh there's been sort of a series of correctives or rebukes that have been going on. When we looked at the the very first section in Matthew, uh Jesus actually heals and he and it's kind of a corrective or rebuke that he does uh on the scribes at that point in time. Because when Jesus sees the faith of these guys and and he says to them to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven." They're sort of offended. And the question is is who but God can forget sins, right? And so Jesus sort of delivers a corrective showing that he has the authority. He sees the faith of these men. He says your sins are forgiven, but then he validates it by healing the man um and telling him to walk. And uh and then we see the next piece in it is that the uh Pharisees came in the next section that we looked at a couple weeks ago. They come to Jesus and remember Jesus has called Matthew. Matthew has now thrown a big party and uh the the there's a gathering of sinners and tax collectors. This sort of sketchy crew that you would not think or expect uh a religious a respected uh religious or rabbi uh religious leader to gather around. And he's around this sort of sketchy crew of individuals and it just doesn't look very religious. It doesn't look very right. And so once again though Jesus delivers a corrective to them. It's not that the well or the whole need a doctor. It's those who are sick. And uh instead of being in the confines of the temple and all of religion and its predictability and cleanliness and and abstaining from those evil wicked people, Jesus enters into those places um so that he might transform, change and heal those places. Now we come here and we have a third group. We have the disciples of John and uh and like the Pharisees and like the disciples of John um these guys are practicing a religious devotion. There were a number of different religious sects or groups that existed in this day. You know you had the the Essenes or you had the Zealots. you had all these different groups of people um and and they they had disciples and they followed these different teachings and ways and and in some ways they were all Jewish groups. So there was a lot of overlap, but there were also distinguishing factors that existed in their in their ways and in their following. Well, the Pharisees and the disciples of John do have one similarity. There were many differences between them, but one of the similarities they did have was the practice of fasting. And now fasting wasn't something that you always had to do. But in Jesus's day, a lot of people in these different religious groups, including the disciples of John and the Pharisees, they practiced fasting twice a week. It was a regular practice. Now, from the Old Testament, there's really fasting that is only commanded during the day of atonement. That's the main time when people are commanded. uh we see other practices or or times when a fast is is called for, but it's not a regular ritualistic tradition outside of just the day of atonement itself. But something has shifted and like a lot of things, we can take good things and we can begin to codify them in a way that we say this is something we're just going to do as a ritual. And and the tradition itself isn't bad. Even the practice of adding regular fasting into your life isn't bad. But when you begin to take that external piece and you begin to think this is what it looks like to be a devoted follower of God, these different attributes, these different external pieces, this is how I should look and conduct my life. And that is what makes me holy and good and religious. And so Jesus's disciples, well, they they don't do that. They're not following this custom or this practice. And they're also kind of a little bit of a of a of a an interesting group of unlikely people that you might gather as a group of disciples. people from very different walks of life, maybe not the best Jewish kids that grew up in Jewish schools, you know, and uh and yet Jesus has gathered all these different people together around him. And so when the when the the disciples of John begin to observe Jesus's disciples and they see these differences and they see they don't kind of they don't really act like we act. They don't do some of the religious things we do. And so maybe the question underneath that is are they really that devoted to God as followers of God? And I think what what we see as they come to Jesus and sort of press at this or poke at this because the question about this is what does true piety look like? What does true devotion to God look like? That's the question beneath it all. Is it about the fasting? Is it about the different religious practices? Or is it something else? Do I need to just pause for just a second? Do am I like messing something back here? So, what does true piety look like at the end of the day? And so, true piety though is not about these external practices. And Jesus is going to deliver this corrective and answering this question about really showing them what it means to be devoted to God and ultimately to rightly respond to him. What it means to truly be devoted to God. What is that? What does it look like? What does it mean? And that's what we're going to find in here as Jesus is once again delivering this corrective. Because if we don't get this right, it means that we go down a wrong trajectory and we can have the form of godliness but deny the power and the authenticity of it. We can miss something can have all the attributes on the outside but it be devoid of the real power and beauty and joy on the inside itself. So as we look at this, let's start in what true devotion is not. Let's start with that. What it is not. Well, it's not externally driven alone. It's not just the focus on the sacrifices or on the fasting or on the temple worship or on the Bible reading. See, all of these externals, you can have all of these pieces on the outside and yet not have a heart that's connected and that loves God. You can just look at these outside attributes like the Pharisees did and maybe even now that the disciples of John are tempted to do and think this is what it means to follow God. And we're the kind of people that show real holiness, real devotion to God. We're all in. We do these hard things in our life and that makes us a kind of people that are devoted to God. And so the but what happens over time is that these externals number one can produce a pride. We can just look at that and think, I'm this kind of person. And we can become legalistic in our lives. And what we can do, and even what John's disciples are guilty of doing, is we can begin to look around at other people who do not practice their devotion in the same way that we do, and we can begin to judge them. And this happens even in the church. It happens amongst religious people. You can have religious people or church people judge other church people. I've seen churches as a group of people locally judge other churches because they don't do certain things. They don't conduct their service a different way. They don't observe certain traditions a certain way and they think we're all good and we're healthy and we're doing things right. And those guys over there are not. Now, don't get me wrong. There are some things we have to believe as a church. There are some things that every church that's going to commit to God. There's some non-negotiables. But on these tertiary, secondary things, we can get caught up sometimes and think, well, they're not fasting over there. They're not singing hymns over there. Not doing whatever it is. And we can begin to sort of condemn and think, oh, we we're doing it right and others are doing it wrong. And you know the thing is is if if we have that kind of spirit amongst religious people, amongst people that are devoted followers of God, well, what do we feel about the world? How might we be posturing ourselves towards them? And can they sense our judgment of them? Because if we're judging the the other Christians and churches around us, man, how are we thinking about and feeling about the people of the world around? True devotion is not about the externals. If you only focus that alone, you can produce this form of a devoted disciple, but they don't have any sort of life or ethos or spirit or heart that drives that. Jesus actually condemns that. He talks about that to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:15. This is the old wine skin. You can have all the ritualistic pieces and yet still not love God, still not recognize his movement, his power, who he is. He could be missing and devoid of something. And Jesus when he's talking to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:15, he actually says uh to them, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You travel across sea and land to make a single proelite, single follower, and you make him twice as much a child of hell as you as yourselves. You take a believer and you make them fit all of the form. You say, "This is the the wine skin you're going to fit in. We're going to make you we're going to you fast. You got to observe the Sabbath a certain way and you can't carry certain things on certain days. And you certainly can't heal on the Sabbath like that pagan Jesus keeps doing. And they have all these ritualistic beliefs that they they form people into. And it's all just come into the faith. Come in and follow God and fix your life and have all of these external things that you just put. And it's what it is is it's a yoke. This is the yoke that Jesus talks about. And he talks about how heavy that is because all you begin with is the outside outside conformity but not internal transformation. It's not rooted and tethered and driven by a love for God. It's just about looking like what you're supposed to look like to be a religious person, to be a follower of God. And it starts with the outside instead of the inside. And it's gotten so out of hand in this day that Jesus, it talks about how heavy the yoke is and how they're making children of of hell out of these followers instead of devoted, loving followers of God. And one of the things that that Jesus even points out to them is fasting is not a bad thing. He answers the question, "Fasting is not bad. There's a time for fasting. But if you really knew who I was," is what Jesus might say to them. If you knew who's standing in front of you, if you knew that I am the groom that you really that that you fast for, I am the one that you have been praying for. I am the one that you've been longing for. You wouldn't have fast. You would rejoice. You would have great joy and celebration for the Messiah is here. And it would transform everything instead of trying to just fit a certain ritual and say this is always the way that we're going to have holiness. This is always the way that we're going to be in order to show that ourselves as devoted of God. God God, you would actually respond to the way that God is working around you. And true devotion is rooted internally, not externally. True devotion is about the heart. And when we focus on the external forms, what happens? I mean, think about that for just a second. Got to fast, got to read my Bible, and you start adding on stuff. Sabbath, rest, gotta make sure I'm praying more, gotta meditate on the scriptures. And we just start, I got to journal, right? Because journaling is good. People have been talking about journaling. and and you start doing all these things externally in your life and then what happens? Well, you don't keep up with it. You don't have the time for it. Then what? You get discouraged and you don't do it as well. And then you begin to feel like you don't measure up. Maybe I'm not that good of a Christian. Maybe I'm not really a devoted follower of God. And that devote and that discouragement sets into our heart and into our life because we started with the external. Instead of rooting it in a love and a relationship and a walk for God, you don't start with the external, you start with internal transformation. So what does true devotion look like? What's true devotion look like? True devotion, I'm just going to put it in a few words here to to encapsulate it. One, it's relational. True devotion begins and it births out of a relationship that encounters God. He is ultimately the goal. Why would you fast? It had become in Jesus' day not just about about like trying to fast in a way that mourns the state of the world that longs and laments for God to come and do something that laments all of the brokenness of this world that cries out and and it just became this thing this we just do hard things. We abstain from food and do you see it kind of loses its life. The goal of any discipline, the goal of any devotion is always God. It's not the form. It's not the practice itself. And so true devotion has to be relational. It has to be connected to God himself, to a pursuit of Christ. And so right here even the piety begins with that encounter that Jesus is the goal to know him, to walk with him. And the disciples are more aligned with that. And that's why they're not fasting now because it's birthed out of relationship. Most of these guys came. Why? Because Jesus invited them and he called them. And something about that in their heart responded to what he was doing and working and the fact that he chose them, the fact that he showed love and his grace to them. And out of that that that just unbelievable response. Yeah. I I'll follow this guy because of he's teaching in a way we've never heard before. It's all about spirit, truth, life, heart in all kind of new ways and and that connection to him births that relationship in their heart that makes them pursue God but in different ways in different seasons. And you know something about this as I thought about this this week. If you think about if we have external forms of piety that are not tethered and rooted in a heart of love for God. They become often judgmental like I talked about. And the world notices it. They begin to sense that in us. And there's nothing winsome or compelling about just these external forms of devotion to God. It does not look enticing or fun. It just looks like you take on a bunch of things in your life, a bunch of practices, these aesthetic, you know, tithe more, fast more, read your Bible more, and and and you're just kind of following this script in life. And the world looks around and says why? What is compelling about that? We anybody can pick up these external things about their life. You can just invent all sorts of ways to show devotion. But when it's rooted in God, when it's birthed out of a relationship, what's the life in it? What fuels your desire to read God's word? What fuels your desire to pray? What should fuel your desire to give or to be generous or to serve? It's joy in God. It's a gratitude for all that he has done for us. It's a response to his work. It's rooted in him. It's it births a love and a and a devotion to him. Our eyes are fixed not on these practices, but on him. and we'll just begin to do things naturally in response and pursuit and desire to have an encounter with him. It's relational in that sense. And the world looks on at that. And that's compelling. That's inviting because they don't see the practices. They see the love. They see the grace. They see the joy. They see the life that is birthed in it. Jesus's disciples are closer to that right now in this season than the disciples of John are. And that's why people are following Jesus in droves. These words of life, heart, devotion, spirit. He breathes things into people's lives and changes them. And he makes people like Matthews who were tax collectors, who were far from God, who weren't interested in things of God to becoming disciples who follow, who conform their whole lives to him, who will one day take up their cross and follow him in all sorts of hard ways. And there will be days of fasting. There will be days of hardship. There will be days of sorrow. The bride will and groom, the groom will go off for a season, but it will still be birthed in this pursuit of God. All right, I got to keep going here. So it's responsive. It adjusts as in as in essence as well. It adjusts to the seasons of life. So it's rooted in relationship. It's also responsive in the work and the ways that God is is working in and around our lives. It's the wineskin and it's new and it's flexible and it flexes with the different seasons of life and the ways that God is working. I guess maybe the way that to illustrate this would be there are seasons of mountaintop. There are seasons where God is so near, man. You pick up your Bible and you start crying. You feel his spirit so near and tangible in your quiet time and in your prayer life. It's alive and God is near. And in that in those moments, right, we should be responding in ways of it would be almost unfitting to fast in those moments. Not to say you couldn't, but you have to be responsive in the practices. I remember um coming to faith or recommitting my life in college to Christ. And man, I was on fire. I just was so passionate in that season. God just seemed so near. I'd be in my car just start crying. I'd be singing worship songs. I'd be just consuming scripture because I was just so hungry to learn about God, to spend time with him, to to experience him. And it was a mountaintop, right? But we don't get to live on the mountaintop. Not in this life because life is hard and it's broken. And you probably know and can imagine because you've lived life as well. There are also seasons where God seems distant and he seems far and life feels harder and maybe temptations in life feel stronger. That doesn't mean God's forgotten you. It doesn't mean he's abandoned you. In some ways, that dryness could even be called what we call the dark night of the soul. These times where we walk through the void and the valleys. But you know, God uses those things because in the difficult places in the wilderness, the plants that survive in the wilderness, what do they do? They learn to put down deep roots deep into the soil to find the water and the nutrients that are not at the surface level. See, as a Christian, I would have stayed at baby level Christian if it was only mountaintop. But the valleys and the dark nights and the hard places, God used those to deepen my faith, to learn to walk with him. And not just to walk by sight, not just to walk by the sugar highs and the nearness, but learn even in the moments where it's hard. And even in the moments when he seems distant, how to press in, how to lean in and pursue God. not just to wait for him, but to like reach out. And in those we do put down deep roots. We do grow. We deepen. And so we learn to respond to God in all of these different ways. True devotion is also transformative. True piety embraces the teachings of Jesus. It embraces his new wine skin. It's not the old wineskin of just following a certain set of p. You come into the Christian faith and you just have to pick up all of these different disciplines and all these different practices. It looks different in different seasons. In some seasons, it's going to look more like what we see in the disciples of Jesus right here, feasting. There are other times where it's fasting. There are seasons of joy. There are seasons of lament. And in them all, we learn that true devotion responds to ways that God is moving. We just ultimately are transformed through a heart that loves and pursues and seeks after him and that steps into the wine, skin, and the form. See, Jesus came and he taught a new kind of teaching. It was all about heart. It was all about spirit. It was all about not the outward forms of godliness, but the internal transformation about a heart that loved God. Because you could have all the outward forms of it and still not love God. You could follow the law law. You could strain at it. You could be doing all the right things and have all the right forms on the outside and be broken and dirty and dead on the inside. And that's what we often saw was produced in Jesus's day, especially in the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all these different schools of followers who adopted the practices, but they missed God in the midst of it. And Jesus comes along and reorients. He doesn't come to abolish the law, for example. He comes to fulfill it. He comes to breathe life into it. He comes to show us the true purpose and intent and design of God's law. One that put him first and foremost. Ultimately, the law was to love God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and strength. And everything that you did was in response to him and how he was moving in your life. Even the ways that you love those around you was because of your love for him. And it drove the way that you lived in this world that you loved the king as we we embraced this value of loving the king, living the kingdom, and seeking the common common good. And it's rooted in that love and desire to worship and to live and seek after God to live before him in joy at heart and devotion. And these are the words and the teachings that Jesus begins to root us into. Not external forms of piety, but internal transformation. And it's not just rooted in whatever you want to do. It's all under grace and I live how I want. It was a wine skin. It was a wine skin that that invited us to step in and to to to root it ultimately in a relationship with Christ and it informed and infused and fueled how we would live. The old uh we can hold on sometimes so much to these external forms and miss the real devotion which the Pharisees did. And we've seen this over and over again where we we make the form the way to God instead of the heart of it at its very core. The real test of it is when you miss something in your life, when you miss a quiet time, you miss your Bible reading. Do you feel guilty because you missed it? Or do you miss God in it? And perhaps maybe that's a test of it all for us is where it lies. Do you feel guilty because you miss the practice? Or do you just miss God? You miss Christ in the midst of it all? True devotion is relational. It's responsive and it's ultimately transformative in a way that isn't just internal, I mean external, but internal transformation. So, how do we embrace a right devotion to God? How do we find the heart and the soul and not just wind up coming to church, singing the songs, being moral people, trying to be good, trying to read our Bible. Well, it's ultimately rooted in, like I said, relationship. It's coming to God. Romans 12:1, you know, coming and presenting yourself as a living sacrifice to God. And why? And how? because of all that God has done for you and letting that just draw your heart into that relationship with him that wants to seek him that wants to run for him. Kind of like my my new baby Christian self, right? Just hungry for God, finding ways like to meet with God, to encounter him, presenting myself to him. Lord, what do you want? What do you want of me? How can I find you? How can I seek after you? How can I grow in you? And giving God that time. Awtoer used to talk about that the path to God there are no microwaves there are no shortcuts. We must give him time and count no time before him is wasted to seek to be infused and fueled by our love and devotion to be seeking after the groom to be enjoying his presence. to see the grace and love and the things that he's poured out in our life and letting that fuse a devotion and a power and a joy in our life. So practically though, right, we can talk about all of these things sort of intangibly like, oh, you should love God, you should pursue him, you shouldn't just do outward forms of conformity. Really ultimately the ways that we step into these things are through these practices. There are these devotions and and it's not to make it ritualistic, but they're a practical way to meet with God. And what I mean by that is is is the things that most of you probably already know. And there's a lot of them that we maybe don't even know. You know, fasting can be one if we orient fasting the right way. Bible reading can be one. Praying, solitude, Sabbath, serving, community. All of these devotions, some people call them spiritual disciplines. All of these things can be avenues or pathways to encounter the presence and the power of God. But here is the danger. If you make those the goal, if you make them the the way that you're going to become a devoted follower of God, then there's a subtle shift that happens and you begin to see if I do that thing, I will become godly. It's it's to make it almost formul formulaic. If I read my Bible enough and I pray enough, you know, then then I will start to like I will be mature and I'll be growing in God. But you know, you can do those things and not encounter God. You can do those things and grow in knowledge of God, but knowledge can puff up and you can still miss something in the midst of that. The goal of the disciplines is always God. It's always to meet him. Those are just graces. The disciplines, the practices, the devotions, they are just graces that position you to meet with God. You can open your Bible and read it and the words are dead and they mean nothing. But if the goal is God and it is to sit with him and is to encounter him and it's birthed in a hunger and desire to meet with him, you can also hear and see the life and the Holy Spirit speaking through these things because the goal is an encounter with God. He is the destination, not the practice itself. And in the reflexive sense of it, sometimes God will call you into different seasons where different practices may be more helpful than others. There are seasons where I know people just have incredible journal times, right? They just they get in and they read the word and they're kind of journaling their thoughts about it and God's just speaking to them as they're writing and and that does some sort of edification. prayer can be one and and if we're if we're reflexive and the goal is God, there will be times where he will interrupt your flow because it's not about always about like checking the boxes to get to God. I'll give you just a case in point this morning and I have no idea why and it's odd that it happened to me this morning. I went to read my Bible this morning just to have a time with the Lord and I this has not happened regularly. I just sensed very very real just the spirit of God just like right then as I went to open my Bible and I just thought I think I think I just need to sit with the Lord. And I know for some of you you feel like ah you need to read your Bible. Of course that yes but I just felt the presence of God and I just sat there for a minute just to wait on him because he's the goal. He's the joy of life. He's the one that we seek and all these things are just pointers to him to receive that grace from him. And in that I found that just I began to move into prayer. And I began to sense him directing me to to to confess some areas of my life. And al you know honestly he had me just start praying for some of you. I just felt burdened for different things that I know are going on in some of your lives. I wanted to meet with God that morning. And this is not about me or anything like that. The point of it is is just that the goal is God. And all of these different vehicles are just ways, but never, never, never make those the the the the thing and the goal themselves because you'll just miss God. You'll check the boxes. You'll do all the right things. You'll have the form of godliness on the outside, but you'll deny the real life and the power and the joy and the privilege of the king and enjoying him on the inside. So, we want to rightly orient our practices to embrace God's heart because in them we begin to experience him. We grow in him. We're changed by him. Because what God is doing and what Jesus is doing in the lives of his disciples is not just to produce legalistic religious people. He wants to take people, orient their lives around him, and then position them to be used for his purposes in this world, to be transformed by his love and by his grace and his power. and then to send them out as a people into this world to shine and to proclaim and to do the works of God in this world in a way that make the power and the presence and the kingdom of God and his gospel known to the ends of the earth. And if we will begin to adopt those things to see God as the goal to allow our hearts and our lives to be transformed and infused in such a way so that we're not just checking the boxes, we'll move from tidy clean Christians to people with purpose and vision and calling in our lives so that God uses us here in this body as we serve and love one another, but also out into the world in all of our different walks of life because God does have a mission and a purpose and a plan for his church and for his people and for you. And external piety will always make you separate and it will make you judgmental through that judgment through that I'm through that devotion. I've done all the right things. But if it's rooted in God and if it's seeking him, then our life ultimately is about transformation. It's about reflecting his heart to one another and to the world around as we experience him. We encounter him and we're flexible in ways that he might position and use and send and call us. The things he might lay on our hearts if we'll just really be open about just making him the goal and encountering him. and it'll change us so that we now naturally do all the things that he's been talking about, all the sermon on the mount pieces that he's been teaching, loving your enemy, all the different areas that he's just been unpacking, we begin to model that in our life. And maybe one just illustration here is um uh I wanted to make this a story, but it's actually a real life example, so I'll just use it in real life. So recently I was uh I was sitting at a red light. You know these guys that have these super fast motorcycles? Well, this guy rides up and he passes everybody and he like scoots his car at the front of the line right there. So he's sitting at the red light and he's just like I mean you know and I could tell even by I looked in my rearview mirror and the person behind me especially was especially annoyed by this and rightfully so. Most of us probably be like, we have a lot of thoughts about somebody that breaks in line and that do that and the audacity of of this, you know, probably 20-year-old kid that's on his motorbike and he just went around everybody and he's sitting there and he's we know he's going to zoom off in just a second and and all all of that. And in that moment, if we're pious people, if we're legalistic people, what's our response? Condemnation. We're mad. man, it's one of those sinner type people, you know, you know, we just we're ready to throw the rocks. But if our life is rooted in God, that true because true devotion to God, true piety is rooted into in a love and in grace and in the power of God. And we become those conduits, not conduits of the judgment of that guy, but conduits of grace. And that's the kind of thing that will motivate you to like in that moment. So, and this is gosh, I don't want to I should have shared this as an anonymous story as an example. So, at that moment, I just felt like the Lord wanted me to pray for him to pray that the Lord would somehow move and maybe even break parts of his life so that he might show him his need and the dir of his need for the living God. To pray for those that offend you or to pray for your enemies. Again, I'm sorry that I should have shared that as as a real life example, but to see like at the end of the day, that's the thing. God wants to position us for his mission to be his kind of people. And if we're focused on just outward conformity, then we'll never be transformed and used by God in the ways that he wants to make disciples like Matthew. He doesn't want to make them good phariseical Jewish people. He wants to make them followers of Jesus whose lives are so power infused that they go out into this world and they become all that he wants them to be and to use them in this world. True devotion, it connects us to God. It fills us with our master's spirit and his teachings and we live them out. And for us as a church, we say that as loving our king, seeking his kingdom, and ultimately seeking the common good of the world around us. And so we are called to practice the same as he has done for us. Let's pray.