The gap between knowing and living, between religious performance and authentic faith—this is where many of us find ourselves today. In this challenging and heartfelt message, Stephen Feith opens a new six-week series with a question that hits close to home: "Have you ever done the right thing for the wrong reasons?"
Drawing from Matthew 23, Stephen examines why the Pharisees—people who believed in Scripture, the Messiah, and resurrection—completely missed Jesus when he stood right in front of them. Their failure wasn't a lack of knowledge or even wrong practices; it was that they had substituted the appearance of righteousness for actual transformation.
The parallels to our modern spiritual experience are striking. We live in an age saturated with biblical knowledge and spiritual content. We know how to look and sound spiritual. Yet as Stephen powerfully puts it, "We are educated beyond our obedience." We know far more about God than we're willing to live out.
Jesus uses startling imagery like whitewashed tombs to illustrate this spiritual danger—appearing beautiful externally while harboring death within. This isn't just about personal hypocrisy; it's about how our focus on appearances rather than transformation can actually contaminate those closest to us.
But this message isn't about condemnation. After his strong rebukes, Jesus shifts to a maternal image of longing: "How often I've wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks." His desire isn't to shame us but to free us, not to punish but to gather us in love.
Whether you're exploring faith, returning to it, or consider yourself spiritually mature, this message offers a powerful invitation to move beyond spiritual performance to spiritual surrender. Because Jesus didn't die so we could learn the correct answers—he died to give us new hearts.
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