Vain Worship? When Tradition Replaces the Heart

Last time I was here, we were in Mark 6. The first time I was here, I don't remember where we started. Every time I come back, we run into the followers of tradition — those who cling to it.

Is that better? Oh, look at that.

The followers of tradition, the religious leaders of the day, are going to come face to face with the One who came to free men from the bondage of those same traditions. So we're going to have a confrontation today.

Those who follow tradition would come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to free men from those traditions. The religious leaders of the day had taken the gift of the law and added to it — rule upon rule upon rule — causing an unbearable burden on the men trying to follow it. We love the law of God. We love to read it. It feeds our souls. Paul said in Galatians 3:24, "Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith."

So we love the law. But in this passage, what they were battling was rules upon rules upon rules — so many that Jesus himself looked at the religious leaders of that day and told them their worship was in vain. Imagine that. In vain they worship Me, says Jesus. That word means folly — no purpose, pointless. How horrific would it be to stand face to face with the Creator, the One who so loved the world that He was willing to die on behalf of sinners, and have Him look at you and say, "Your worship is folly. It has no purpose. It's pointless."

That's what Jesus said about these religious leaders — men who gave their entire lives to trying to do it right, and got it wrong.

I'm going to read the text this morning, and as I do I'll give you an outline. Ask yourself these questions: Why did the Pharisees leave Jerusalem to gather around Jesus? What was their complaint — what did they voice? How did Jesus respond? And lastly, how might that apply to you and to me? Because we want to worship Him in a way that we'd never be fearful He would look at and call vain.

Let's pray, and then we'll get to the Word.

Heavenly Father, we bow before You, the God of all creation, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen — the God who so loved the world that You sent Your only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The God who gave us Your Word to direct our steps, a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. The One who allowed us to understand that this Word before us is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, reproof, instruction, and correction, that we might mature in our faith. We bow before You and ask that for both speaker and hearer, we might be led by the Holy Spirit today to learn what You have for us. Lord, we recognize we are weak in the flesh, and so many things easily beset us at moments like this, and we desire to grow in our faith together. So we ask You to lead our time, all for Your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Let me read the first seven verses of the text we'll look at today — Mark chapter 7, beginning in verse 1:

"The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, 'Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?' And He said to them, 'Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.'"

So this chapter begins with the Pharisees and the scribes traveling some 85 to 100 miles on foot to gather around Jesus. That's how the chapter begins. I'd venture to guess most of us in this room have never stepped out our front door and thought, "I think over the next few days I'll walk a hundred miles." That isn't normative for us.

Strange note — on Friday night I had dinner with a young man named Noah Coughlin. Does anyone know that name? He's a Vacaville young man who has walked and run across our nation five times, always for a different cause. He just finished his fifth trip, becoming one of three people to touch all 50 states. He started in October of '25 and finished on the 4th of July, 2026 — the 250th anniversary — carrying the American flag into the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, the last state he hadn't crossed. 5,400 miles by foot. It was called Run for America — one simple message: we have more in common than what divides us as Americans. Some of us here were praying for him daily as he worked his way across the country. Anyway, we happened to have dinner with him Friday.

So — 85 to 100 miles. That's what the Pharisees and scribes did; they walked from Jerusalem to meet Jesus and gather around Him. The Pharisees were a religious movement devoted to strict observance of the Mosaic law and the traditions handed down by Jewish leaders. You know who the Pharisees are. The scribes were the experts in Jewish law — the legal scholars of the day, the teachers and interpreters of Scripture. So together, those who had traveled these 85 to 100 miles were the lawkeepers and the law interpreters, and they came to Jesus looking for a violation of the law they could catch Him in.

Mark says they gathered around Him. That wasn't uncommon — crowds gathered around Jesus; that was normal for Christ. In Mark 1, after Jesus heals people and casts out demons in Capernaum, the whole city gathered at the door. After He cleansed a leper, Jesus could no longer publicly enter a town because the crowds kept coming. In Mark 2, the house was so full of people that they had to open a hole in the roof to lower the paralyzed man down to Him. He was so surrounded that He had to go out to the sea to speak to the people. In Mark 3, people came from Galilee, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and from Tyre and Sidon — He said, "Give Me a boat, that I might preach to the crowds," because they were pressing in on Him so much.

But what about the Pharisees? Why did they gather, and why at this particular time did they decide to walk 85 to 100 miles to gather around Jesus? Consider what was happening just before, in Mark 5 and 6. Jesus was casting out demons. He healed the woman with the twelve-year issue of blood. He raised the synagogue official's daughter from the dead. Imagine being a religious leader of that day and hearing that a child who was dead is now alive — that there are witnesses. Or that a woman who for twelve years went to every physician of her day and could not be healed simply touched His garment and was made well. Or hearing, as we see in Mark 6, that there were only five loaves of bread and two fish, and yet He fed twenty thousand people. Who could you call today, in 2026, and say, "I need to feed twenty thousand people this afternoon"? No one could do that. But Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Jesus is the Creator — and when the last piece of bread was gone, the Creator created more. And when they were finished, twelve baskets were left over for the twelve disciples to take with them. He was marvelous enough to feed all of them and still provide for His own.

The word of Christ's miracles must have reached Jerusalem. You would hope that those waiting for the Messiah would pause and ask, "Could this be the One? He heals the sick. He raises the dead. He feeds the thousands. He casts out demons. Could this be the Messiah? Let's go see." That's what you'd hope — but we know that isn't why they were walking.

Back in Mark 3, when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, the Pharisees watched it happen and then went out immediately and began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, plotting how they might destroy Him. A man's hand is healed right in front of them, and they walk out asking how they can destroy the One who healed him. The word "destroy" there means to fully cut off, to bring about a permanent and absolute ruin — to cancel out, to remove, implying destruction by way of a miserable end. They saw a man healed and thought, "We want everything taken from this Man, and we'd like it to be miserable on His way out." And this — for healing the one who wasn't well. The withered, weakened hand was made whole, and their response was, "For that, we want to destroy Him."

I believe the first chapter of Mark shows us clearly why Jesus fell out of favor with the Pharisees and Sadducees for the rest of His ministry. It says that Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the crowd was amazed at His teaching, "for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." I believe that was the first strike against Him in the eyes of the religious leaders — pride. "You mean to tell me this carpenter preaches a sermon greater than us, the educated, the well-trained leaders of the community?" And the people said, "That's exactly what we're saying. He speaks as one having authority — not like you."

Solomon tells us in Proverbs that only by pride comes contention. Anytime we notice contention in our lives, we can pause and ask, "What's our pride in this?" I was once told by an older brother in the faith — when I was newly married — "When you're arguing with your wife, and you're completely, beyond any doubt, sure that she's a hundred percent wrong, go to a quiet place, get on your knees, and pray, 'Lord, she is so wrong — help her to see.' Before you even finish the sentence, you'll be so convicted of your own pride and sin that you'll want to go apologize." I've found that to be true. The only time it doesn't work is when I'm too stubborn to do it — because all contention comes from pride.

I believe as soon as Jesus spoke with that kind of authority, pride created enough contention in the Pharisees that they said to themselves, "Let's walk 85 to 100 miles. We've heard of these miracles — let's find a reason to destroy Him." They watched Him. They watched His followers. And they thought they'd found their reason.

So why did they gather, hoping they might destroy Him? Let me ask you: why are you gathered around Jesus today? This passage puts tradition right next to the heart of man. Our hope is that we're here because of our hearts — because we love Him and want to be gathered with the saints on Sunday. But sometimes it's just tradition, and it gets dry.

Now — what was their complaint? Look at verses 2 and 3: "And He had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders."

Notice first that the religious leaders were watching His disciples — not the disciples themselves, but Jesus, through His disciples. They're the ones eating with unclean hands, yet the Pharisees don't pull them aside to say, "Excuse me, you haven't washed." No — they go straight to looking for a reason to destroy Christ.

Second, notice this isn't about hygiene. It's not that they were worried about washing before eating for health reasons — verse 3 says they were violating the tradition of the elders. So what is this tradition of the elders? It was an oral body of interpretations that had grown up around the law of God. God gave His law through Moses at Sinai. As time went on, the custodians of the law — those concerned that God's law would fulfill its intended purpose for the people — began adding their own interpretations, misinterpretations, and accretions of every kind. God's law was good, but they decided the people needed help understanding it, so they added a few rules. Those few rules grew to over 600.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, writes in his Antiquities that the Pharisees had delivered to the people a great many observances that were not written in the law of Moses. The sufficiency of Scripture wasn't a value for this group. They delivered many things that weren't part of the law at all — and the trouble is that these interpretations came to be regarded, at least by the Pharisees, as equally important and equally authoritative as Scripture itself. Instead of looking only to the Word of God, the people had to look to the Word of God and the rules of men — and those rules had been elevated to a place of equal authority with Scripture.

There's a rabbi, Rabbi Elazer, who addresses Scripture in opposition to tradition, saying that anyone who agrees that Scripture stands above tradition "has no share in the world to come." If you lift the Word above tradition, according to this rabbi, you have no place in eternal life. The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish tradition in the Talmud, records: "It is a greater offense to teach anything contrary to the voice of the rabbis than to contradict Scripture itself." The traditions of men had been — and still can be — elevated above the Word of God. That's scary. That's dangerous.

Look at verses 4 and 5: "And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots. The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, 'Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?'" There it is again — tradition of the elders.

This was a gotcha moment for them. However long they'd gathered and watched, at this moment they saw the disciples eating bread without washing, and their complaint carried, in their minds, the same weight as the Word of God itself. When Jewish people came from the marketplace, they might have bumped into a Gentile or touched something unclean, so they wouldn't take those hands and put food in their mouths without ceremonially washing first. It sounds harmless — just washing your hands — but it had been elevated above God's Word, and it was extremely specific.

You can find videos today showing how observant Jews practice these traditions — leaning over the sink with water poured so it runs down and "purifies," done twice, then drying with a towel while keeping the hands down so the water doesn't drip back up and re-contaminate them. If it drips, you might have to wash again, unless you catch the water in a basin and dispose of it. You say a blessing when you finish washing, and then you eat — but if you're interrupted between the blessing and the eating and speak too many words, you have to start over. If you just finished washing, dried off, and someone knocks a pot off the table and you catch it and set it back down, you're fine. But if it hits the ground, you catch it, and you comment on it, that counts as more words, and you have to rewash. It gets that detailed — like the tradition that a woman shouldn't look in a mirror on the Sabbath, because she might see a gray hair, pluck it, and that would count as work.

So the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus why His disciples didn't cleanse themselves. We know their complaint: they'd traveled 85 to 100 miles hoping for a moment exactly like this — evidence they could use to destroy Christ. Their complaint wasn't that the disciples broke the law of God; it was that they broke the traditions of men. I imagine to onlookers this sounded holy and religious — pointing out this "violation" as respected leaders. There would have been people standing there thinking, "Look how holy they are."

I remember standing outside church one Sunday morning, many years ago, when a man asked me, "Do you ever get gas on Sunday?" I said, "If I need gas, that's usually when I fill up — based on need." He said, "I never fill up on Sunday. I'll even get out of bed Saturday night and go fill the car if I realize I forgot, because Sunday is the Lord's Day." As a young believer, I remember thinking that sounded impressive. But I'd hate for that to become a rule for life for everyone.

Alistair Begg writes: "The public performance was impeccable. They paid careful attention to an almost endless list of do's and don'ts, but it was a thin disguise for the fact that they really didn't know God at all." From the outside, you'd think these people really knew God — look how serious they are, how often they go through their rituals, always washing their hands and cleaning their kettles. Surely they must know God in a special way. And God said, "You don't know Me at all." I don't think they woke up each morning deciding to wear a mask and pretend — I think they were confronted with a radical inconsistency in their lives. And that's convicting to me. I have to ask myself: what in my life flows from a heart pursuing Christ, and what is just something I do?

We might look at the washing of hands and 600 added rules and think, "That's ridiculous — you're putting a burden on people." We'd say sola Scriptura — Scripture alone directs my life, the Bible is supreme, the final authority, alone inspired by God, and everything else submits to it. And yet we should be cautious, because this can creep into any of our lives — and it definitely creeps into churches. You might read a church's doctrinal statement and agree with all of it — sin, salvation, the Trinity — and then find there's another document, often not published online, that new members are asked to sign: the church's rules and standards. In some churches, the standard based on the traditions of men quietly rises above the statement of faith based on the Word of God. It happens naturally.

When my wife Kathy and I were early in our marriage, we were part of a conservative, fundamental church that required us to sign a membership statement — a separation statement, committing to live separate from "this wretched world." That didn't seem strange to me at the time. I have many good memories from that church, wonderful years there, some bumps in the road, not perfect — but I love the pastor who preached to me all those years, and I love the current pastor, who used to be in my children's church when I was there. But I have to say, we often follow the traditions of men and push the Word of God to the side.

You might wonder, if you've never been part of a church like that, what kinds of things they'd ask you to commit to: no drinking, no smoking, no dancing, no card games of any kind, no attending movies in a theater, no pants for women in any circumstance — even at family camp (my wife loved that one) — no secular music of any kind. And when you have lists like that, what happens? They get broken. Then you have to decide what happens when they do. I remember the pastor used to listen to old country music from the '40s and '50s because that was still considered "clean," but newer country wasn't. The teenagers would come to me and say, "Pastor Joe, we signed something saying we wouldn't listen to secular music, but Pastor has cassette tapes of country singers in his glove box — isn't that secular music?" How do you even answer that?

Those are just some of the rules I remember off the top of my head, and by the way, the specific rules differ by denomination and by region — some places say no cigarettes but cigars are fine; some say no alcohol at all, others say no alcohol to the point of intoxication; some forbid community organizations like Rotary, others are fine with it; some forbid Little League, others aren't. And it always seems to trace back to something negative that happened once in a particular place, which then got added to the list.

Here's the problem: when we create our own list of what makes us holy, instead of coming to God and asking, "What do You say? What do You want me to do?" — we start grading ourselves against the list. "I got seven out of ten this week — not bad. I didn't talk to my wife all week, but I didn't smoke, so I'm doing okay." That's what happens. So we have to examine what we measure our walk of faith by — and how we measure others', too, since we're called to hold each other accountable, to encourage, edify, and correct one another. Not to worry about correcting the world — we're called to preach the gospel to them — but to hold each other accountable in the walk of faith. And I sure hope that accountability is rooted in the Word of God, not in his preference, or hers, or mine — because when it isn't, these preferences become idols that get in the way of simply knowing and loving Christ.

Scripture says man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. We can't help but judge each other by what we see on the outside — "That person's doing great in their faith." But what God is concerned with is our heart. First Samuel 16:7: "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" That's the issue today. Where is my heart toward Christ today? You're probably all doing some good things — but is your heart connected to the good things you do?

Verse 5 says the Pharisees and scribes asked Him why His disciples didn't walk according to the tradition of the elders but ate bread with impure hands. And Jesus answers — this is our third point: Jesus responds to them.

"He said to them, 'Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.'"

This is the third time we've seen the phrase "the tradition of the elders" in just seven verses. The Pharisees elevated it, and Jesus buries it with words like "hypocrite," "vain," and "hearts far from God." That gets my attention. I would love for Jesus to look at me and say, "Joe, I appreciate where your heart is." So how can we know? Jesus says their hearts are far from Him and their worship is vain — so how do we know if we're worshiping Him the way He desires?

Step one — and I'm glad there is an answer — read the Word of God, and do what it says. That's it. There's no step two. Maybe Pastor Paul has a longer list, but for me, it's this: read the Word of God, and do what it says. If we want to know how to worship rightly, we don't come up with our own list — we find His. We ask, "What does He say?" This is what I desire: to be a man of God, I have to be a man of the Word of God. I have to read it, apply it, and ask Him what He desires for my life — and I'll find that here.

Notice Jesus doesn't even address their specific complaint. He doesn't say, "They were hungry, and hungry people grab bread and eat it." He goes straight to the heart of it: "You have set Me aside for your traditions. This is vanity." He wants us to know Him far more than He wants us to know a set of rules we've put together for our own lives — and the way we know Him is by finding Him here, in His Word.

He directly identifies the Pharisees and scribes by quoting Isaiah: hypocrites — religious actors who sound holy, sound spiritual, but whose hearts are far from God. Because they followed their own traditions, their worship was vain — folly, pointless, of no purpose. They were teaching the precepts of men. One pastor writes that this is the pillar of legalism: when you take a commandment or opinion of men and teach it or promote it as the doctrine of God, you support legalism. Not everything in the Christian life is a matter of right and wrong — some things are simply preference, and when we turn preference into a matter of right and wrong, we often get it wrong.

Romans 14:1–4 says: "Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." Some people eat vegetables, some eat meat — can we just get along? Can we trust that God will hold each of us up, and not make that the issue? Don't become the lawmaker over every part of life.

It's fine if you read the English Standard Version and I read the New American Standard. It's fine if you prefer the King James or the New King James. It's fine to like old hymns better than modern ones — music is probably the number one thing people want to talk to me about as a pastor, and it's just fine. It's fine to drink alcohol, so long as it's not to excess. It's fine to sing with your hands up or your hands down. It's fine to sit up straight or bow forward when you pray. That isn't the issue.

Do you want to know what is the issue? Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." That's not okay to neglect. We can differ on all kinds of things, but if you're a follower of Jesus, you say, "I love Him, and I love you." And to love your neighbor means to be of benefit to them — to live your life asking, "How can I be of benefit to other human beings?" That's the law of the Lord. That's what Jesus said when the lawyer asked Him what the greatest commandment was: love Me with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love other people — be of benefit to them. If you start there, and set aside the rest of the pressure to look a certain way or perform certain behaviors, you'll find real joy in this walk of faith.

So how does this apply to you and me? I think I've already said it. We asked why the Pharisees came to gather around Jesus — to destroy Him. Their complaint was that He didn't follow their rules. Jesus' response: "Your heart is far from Me." How does this apply to us? To be a man or woman of God, you need to be a man or woman of the Word of God. I know you get faithful preaching every Sunday from this pulpit — you're blessed to have that — but if that's your only diet of Scripture, you'll starve. We have to be men and women who open it and read it ourselves. We have to learn it.

Not all tradition is bad. But when it elevates itself above what God calls God-breathed, inspired, profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, we're in danger. So what do we do? I'd encourage you to find time this week to examine your life. Look at your morning routine and ask yourself: is this my own tradition — coffee, the newspaper, YouTube shorts, shower, dress, rush to work — or is this what He's calling me to? You might find that somewhere in that routine, you need to make room for reading the Bible and praying. Then look at your midday, your evening, your close of day, and ask the same question: am I just living by traditions I've developed for myself, or do I truly have a heart after God — one that loves Him so much He's on my mind, that reads His Word, memorizes it, meditates on it, looks for opportunities to speak it to others and to be of benefit to them? That's your homework.

Today is the 19th of the month. For nearly 20 years, on the 19th of every month, I've read the corresponding proverb — Proverbs 19. It never gets old; it's just God's wisdom. "Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than he who is perverse in speech and is a fool." I read that this morning and thought: integrity means completeness — a fullness in this walk of faith where you're not morally corrupt. Lord, I struggle, but I want that more than I want riches, because You tell me to. Verse 5: "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will not escape." Verse 8: "He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will find good." And again: "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will perish." Twice in eight verses — does he say, "Tell the truth"? That must be a problem for all of us, since he says it twice in eight verses; we must all have the potential to talk in the gray areas.

If you get in the habit of reading your Bible, you'll grow in faith like never before, and your heart will be after Him. The issue is the heart — and you already know where yours is. You know if, on the outside, it looks shiny, but on the inside there's a problem. First John 1:9 says, "If you confess your sin, He is faithful to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness." So if you're shiny on the outside but wrecked on the inside — confess it. He'll forgive you. Hebrews 4 tells us we have a High Priest who sympathizes with us in our struggles, and it says, "Boldly come before the throne of grace." If you're sitting here thinking, "Joe, this looks pretty good on the outside, but inside I'm wrecked, battling this and this and this" — know that the God of all creation, the One who came to die on your behalf, says, "I sympathize with you, because I've experienced everything you have, but without sin." And He invites you to boldly come before Him and pray about it.

On March 13th, if you'd looked at my son Tony from the outside, he would have looked as healthy as any 40-year-old you'd ever meet — fit as a fiddle, a CrossFit coach who taught the 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. classes, did his own workout at 7 a.m., worked all day, and went to jiu-jitsu at night. But on March 13th, he learned his inside didn't match his outside. He finished a workout, told someone he felt dizzy, said he was going to sit down — and he collapsed. The cardiac surgeon who later described his heart to us used the term "aborted sudden cardiac death" — when the heart loses all ability to pump blood, and after enough time without blood flow, a person dies. He died on his feet. The surgeon said the only thing that saved him was that he fell rather than sat down — the fall itself jarred his heart into enough rhythm to keep him alive. A doctor who was present watched him begin to come to after about 30 seconds. Tony had been newly saved, maybe a year and a half earlier. As he started to wake up, he told himself, "I'm in big trouble." He knew something was wrong. He wanted to pray but couldn't form the words, so he just said, "Jesus, have mercy on me. Jesus, have mercy on me." Then he went out again, and they called 911. After about 30 seconds he came to, fully clear-headed. The Lord saved his soul so that He could save his life that day. It's a long story, and it will be a lifelong journey for him with cardiac issues — but for that day, the Lord sustained him.

His outside didn't match his inside. So my question for you is: what about you? Is your heart close to Him — not because you followed a set of rules, but because He saved your soul, and you understand what His abundant, abiding grace in your life actually means? Whether you're shiny or dirty on the outside, can you say, "My heart is connected to Christ, because He died in my place on that cross so I might be forgiven of my sin, and He loved me enough to do that — and He's with me every moment of every day"?

I pray that all of us would take time this week to reflect on our hearts. And if you're outside the faith, I'd encourage you — this Jesus we've been speaking about is, according to Scripture, the only way to heaven. The Bible doesn't say there are multiple paths; it says there is one. "The only way to the Father is through Me" — that's what Jesus said. It's exclusive, and often people find that offensive. But if you don't find it offensive that one Man said, "I am God, and the only way to My Father is through Me" — what might be happening in your life is something called the drawing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may be saying to you, "Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved." If, for the first time, you're thinking, "I want to know Jesus" — that's a supernatural gift from God. Don't leave this place without finding one of us and saying, "That thing about wanting to know Jesus — I want to know Him." Let us sit with you and explain what a wretched sinner you are, what need you have of a Savior, and who that Savior is.

Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this morning. Thank You for Grace Fellowship of Dixon. We ask Your blessing upon this church today and in the days ahead. Let it be a place where the saints are sanctified and the lost are saved. All for Your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.