Downtown Community Church

The longer you are a Christian, the easier it is for your external spirituality to exceed your inward fidelity to God. Most of us have experienced a brand of Christianity in people that displayed the externalities of holiness in a way that made us feel judged instead of loved. This sort of approach to Christianity causes us to modify our behavior in order to appear to be  more “Christian.” But Jesus constantly called the Pharisees out for this sort of behavior. In Matthew 15, Jesus confronts the Pharisees for using their written traditions selfishly to break commandments. We see this sort of selfish half-obedience in ourselves when it comes to prayer. Prayer is set apart for God, but if God answered “yes” to every single prayer you prayed last week, how many people outside of you and your family would be positively affected? In this way, we try to leverage the spiritual practice of prayer for personal gain. Jesus turns his attention to the human heart, calling out those who perform lip service to him while th