PCC Sermons Podcast · Pompey Community Church

A Woeful Lack of Love

·51 min·3 clips

“All have hamarton” and “the wages of sin is death,” but the free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Pompey Community Church begins by welcoming listeners and turning to Luke 11:37-54. The sermon stays in that passage and lets the dinner conversation do most of the work. A memory from Disney's Robin Hood is used as a picture of disguise and outward appearance versus inward truth. That opening image sets up the theme of outer faithfulness versus the state of the heart. Jesus meets the Pharisees at the level of their public religion. They tithe mint, rue, and every herb with precision, but they neglect justice and the love of God. The preacher pauses on Jesus' woe and explains that it comes out as grief or horror in response to what he sees. The message then asks what each listener's own mint might be. It asks what small religious success people use to feel righteous before God. The point is not that small duties are worthless. The point is that smaller duties cannot replace the weightier matters of the law. Matthew's parallel account is brought in to sharpen that distinction. The sermon says there are lesser matters of the law and weightier matters of the law. It insists that both matter, but not in the same way. Clean hands are not the whole story. A clean heart should change the hands, and mercy should reach the poor. The preacher keeps pressing the gap between human effort and God's favor. People often live as if favor depends on what they can produce. The closing prayer asks for mercy, peace, forgiveness, and freedom in the Spirit. Christ is presented as the one who fulfills the law and gives that fulfillment by faith. The sermon ends by sending listeners back into worship as forgiven people.

As heard by us

A patient sermon that turns religious precision into a question about justice, mercy, and the heart.

PCC Sermons Podcast stays in Luke 11 and lands on a familiar fault line: religious precision can look impressive while missing what matters. The preacher draws that contrast cleanly, moving from the Pharisees' careful tithing of mint, rue, and herbs to the harder demands of…

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Why you'd press play

When you want a sermon that turns tidy religion into a hard mirror, start here.

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