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Intro:
If you have your bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Mark chapter 12.
We will begin reading together in verse 38 and we will read all the way down to verse 44.
for the last several weeks we have been reading of Jesus’ confrontations with the religious elite in the temple of God in Jerusalem.
Last week, we saw that Jesus had answered all of their attacks so well, the religious leaders had stopped asking questions… and now Jesus was doing the teaching.
It would be fair to presume that we only have little snapshots here in the gospel of Mark from those far lengthier teachings in the temple.
But today’s passage, shows us that Jesus pulled no punches.
In chapter 11, we saw Jesus physically flip tables in his frustration over the corruption happening within the temple.
Now we see Jesus elaborating all the more on what he was seeing.
Lets read, and then pray for understanding.
Lets Pray
Mark strategically places these two teachings side by side so as to compare two types of worshippers: the scribe and the widow.
One of the worshippers serves as a warning to us.
The other worshipper serves as an example for us to imitate.
In the culture of the time, it would have been generally assumed that the scribe was the model of godliness.
According to popular sentiment, the scribe is the one who has been blessed by God with a position of prominence.
He is honored among many.
He is wealthier than most.
He has power, authority, and influence.
The impoverished widow on the other hand doesn’t appear to have been blessed by God.
She has no prominence.
She has no financial resources.
She has no influence.
The culture very naturally would have assumed that the worship of the Scribe was the more valuable and the more impressive worship.
But just as Jesus has done from the beginning, he readjusts common perspectives and he flips natural values on their head.
Rather than praise the Scribe, and rather than praise the wealthy giving large sums of money in the temple… Jesus actually warns very sternly against the Scribes and their worship.
Jesus uses the word “Beware”
He uses a word that conveys potential danger…,
Like a Shepherd warning his sheep of wolves on the hunt, Jesus says be careful,
be on guard,
watch out for this.
We are going to look at three warnings this morning from the example of the Scribes.
Warning #1 Beware of People Pleasing Worship (v.38-40)
Note the word “like” in Jesus’ description.
The Scribes like to walk around in long robes.…
these were special robes that set them apart from the common people in the temple.
They like the greetings in the market places… meaning they like that everyone wants to talk to them, acknowledge them, And get attention from them.
They like the best seats in the synagogues.… the seats up front where they have the best view and where they can best be viewed.
They like the places of honor at the feasts.
As we have seen over and over again in the gospel of Mark…
We are warned that there is a way to do godly looking things, in very godless ways.
There is a way to do godly things, without the motivation of pleasing God.
Remember Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees in Mark 7.
In this case, Jesus points out that the Scribes had a driving motivation and it was not to please God.
It was not to worship God or to lead others to worship God.
Rather than offering genuine praise to God…,
their hearts desire was to receive praise from other people.
It was not God whom they wanted to please… it was men.
And what a dangerous disposition this is.
Every person in this room has a stronger than you realize desire to please others.
You want to be liked.
you want to be valued.
You want to be affirmed.
You want to be told good job, well done, you look good, you did good, you smell good, you write good, you talk good.
You want to be told you are strong, smart, funny, likable, tough, and even godly.
There is a hole in the soul that feels empty and inadequate without someone else’s approval.…
and the human nature is such that it seeks to fill that hole in the soul with as much of other people’s praise and affirmation as possible.
You seek it from your parents, bosses, spouses, and friends.
We all want to be important.
We want to be significant.
And their is a sense in which some of those longings for love and affirmation are designed to be fulfilled in healthy ways within Christian community…
but what happens when you twist even religious practices into something that serves your longings for recognition more than they serve the God you give lip service to?
What happens when your prayers within the congregation are more about proving yourself to others than pouring yourself out to God?
What happens when prayers in front of people are often and easy, but prayers in the quiet of your living room are few and far between.
What happens when your primary thoughts at the synagogue become about which seat of honor you will get, rather than how you will edify those in the seats around you.
Jesus says Beware of people-pleasing worship…
In fact, he says there is a greater condemnation for such people pleasers.
There is a sort of selfishness that comes with man-centered people-pleasing worship that actually serves self not just instead of others…, but even at the expense of others.
Notice verse 40,
Jesus notes that these Scribes will take every last penny of a poor widow’s money to pay for their own luxurious lifestyle all the while making long prayers in the synagogue and pretending to be holy…
the accusation here is one of hypocrisy.
Warning #2 Beware of Hypocritical Worship
This verse would have been more striking to the Jewish reader then to us… because of the specific teachings in the Old Testament law about caring for the widow.
The Old Testament, which the Scribes claimed to be experts in, was full of warnings to anyone who mistreated widows.
We see this emphasis first in Exodus.
And we see the seriousness of it all again and again throughout the Old Testament.
Notice the prophet Isaiah’s indictment on the worship in Israel, and notice one of the reasons for God rejecting their worship.
In Isaiah, the people were obeying the ritual expectations of God’s law while totally ignoring the moral implications of God’s law.
Here in the gospel of Mark, the Sadducees were worshipping God publicly and proudly…, all the while they were disobeying one of the clearest teachings in the Old Testament.
They were not just neglecting the needy among them…, but they were exploiting them and as the text says, “devouring” them.
Hypocritical worship is the kind of worship that picks and chooses the types of religious activity that suits you best.
Its the kind of worship that throws itself into the public and praiseworthy acts of worship… all the while it totally ignores and rebels against very obvious teachings of the Lord.
Be warned…
God is not pleased with our worship… when we knowing and willingly ignore his word in one area of our life, while we present ourselves as obedient in all other areas.
God is not worshipped, when we treat him as God only in the areas of life that are most convenient to us.
Do you see this temptation in yourself?
Do you see this temptation to pick and choose which of God’s instructions you will obey as if you are the God over those instructions?
The point is clear here.
The Scribes do not fulfill either of the two most important commands Inquired about just a few verses earlier.
People- pleasing and hypocritical worship does not love God fully nor does it love others…rather this kind of worship merely uses God and others… for self-fulfillment.
The self is ultimate in this kind of worship…, while God is secondary.
We can see this even in the way Jesus describes their financial giving.
We are going to focus on the impoverished widow here in a moment but for now, notice how the wealthy people give.
Offerings in the first century were not secretive.
They were public acts of worship.
In fact, large offering boxes in the temple were built in such a way that amplified the sound of the coins being dropped into them.
They were shaped somewhat like trumpets so that no one could reach down in and steal out of the box, but also so that the sound rang out when someone gave into the treasury.
but its not the public act of giving that is sin…, its the twistedness of men who turn that act of worship into an opportunity to impress others.
And of course there was a lot of that going on.
Mark says, many rich people were giving large sums…
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