Real Worship
Why Are You Here?
As we open up God’s Word this morning, I want to start with a question: Why are you here?
Not why are you here on this earth, but why are you here in this building? Why did you wake up this morning—rather early, I might say—get dressed, get in the car on a rainy day, and come to church?
As I ask that question, I know a lot of you have different answers. There are many different reasons why we chose to come to church today. For some of us, we’ve had a really hard week. We got to the end of ourselves, and we thought, I just need to go somewhere. Church might be that place. For others of us, we get up every Sunday like clockwork. Our alarm is set to the exact same time, we get in the shower at the exact same time, we get dressed at the exact same time, and we drive to church for the exact same gathering every single week. It is just what we do.
This question of why you are here is so important, because with the wrong heart, even church can become an idol. Sometimes we just go about our daily schedule with an internal emptiness. This morning, Jesus is going to approach this very subject. He is going to talk about why we do the things that we do, and what He truly wants for us as His people.
Two weeks ago, we joined Brad as he walked through the feeding of the five thousand—that incredible moment on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. All the while Jesus was teaching His disciples, He would do something and they would watch. He did and they watched, marveling in awe of the things He did. Then, two weeks ago, we came to the point where Jesus watched as they did ministry in His power. They approached with a couple of fish and some loaves, and through the power of Christ, they fed over five thousand men—which likely means ten to twenty thousand people—with just a small sack lunch. Jesus was preparing those disciples for the mission ahead, teaching them to live by His power and strength long after He left this world.
Last week, Brad talked about Peter. Oh, Peter! He sees Jesus walking on the water and says, “Lord, if it is You, tell me to come to You on the water.” He steps over the edge of the boat. I cannot help but wonder how that felt. Was it wet? Probably. He takes a couple of steps, loses his focus on Christ, and begins to sink. That moment allows Peter to experience the full depth of his need. As he sinks, Christ reaches out His hand and says, “I’m here.”
Jesus has been preparing His disciples, showing them the depth of their need for His power, His might, and ultimately His Spirit, whom He would send after ascending into heaven. Now, having seen and done incredible things, they are about to experience even more.
Desperation and the Power of Christ
Join me in verse 34 of Matthew chapter 14.
Matthew 14:34-36 (NASB)
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent [word] into all that surrounding district and brought to Him all who were sick; and they implored Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched [it] were cured.
They have just crossed the water and landed at Gennesaret, a region on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee between Capernaum and Magdala. This was an area where Jesus’ miracles had happened in plenty. The people in the Galilee region had experienced the miracles of Christ over and over again; it was the hub of His earthly ministry. So the people recognized Him the moment He stepped off the boat. They thought, Jesus is here! Bring the sick! Bring those who need Him—He can heal you!
They saw His power to heal, and they immediately brought the sick to Him. It is the same thing that happened in Capernaum in Luke chapter 4, when Jesus went to Peter’s home, healed his mother-in-law, and word spread so fast that it became a revolving door of sick people coming to be healed.
Luke 4:38-40 (NASB)
Then He got up and [left] the synagogue, and entered Simon’s home. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and she immediately got up and waited on them. While the sun was setting, all those who had any [who were] sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them.
When people experience the healing power of Christ, they bring more people. That is likely the story of your own life. When you first experienced the healing power of Christ—His ability to heal your soul and forgive your sins—as a young Christian, you were on fire for Jesus. You knew what He did in your life, so you ran to your circle of friends and family and said, “Come to Jesus! He will heal you!”
The tragic thing is that over time, we can become numb to that. We stop living in awe of what Jesus has done in our lives, and we slip into the daily tradition of simply going through the motions. But these people in Gennesaret were desperate. They were on fire for what Jesus could do.
Notice the text says they didn’t just ask Him; they implored Him. They begged. They were at the end of themselves. They had lived for years with whatever sickness, deformity, or ailment they had. In those days, being sick or deformed meant being completely ostracized from society. They had tried everything else and nothing had saved them. They knew Jesus was their only hope for restoration and redemption.
So they came to Jesus, begging Him just to let them touch the fringe of His cloak.
Matthew 9:20-22 (NASB)
And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well.’ But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.’
They had likely heard about the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew 9, who pressed through the crowd believing that if she could just touch the hem of His garment, she would be made well. That happened right in this region. These people had faith that just a touch of Christ was enough. The text says that as many as touched His cloak were cured.
A cloak in Jesus’ day was like the Swiss Army knife of clothing. During the day, men wore it as a long, flowy outer garment to keep warm. At night, it doubled as a large comforter while they slept. Jesus was wearing this cloak, and people reached out in faith just to touch the edge of it. He did not even have to speak a word, and they were healed. Every single person who had an encounter with Jesus in faith was made whole.
This passage puts the compassion of Jesus on full display. Remember, right before feeding the five thousand, Jesus had tried to withdraw to have solitary time with the Father. Yet when the crowds followed Him, He had compassion on them. After walking on the water, He arrives at Gennesaret exhausted from ministering and training His disciples. In the midst of busyness and weariness, it is so easy for us to check out and say, “Sorry, God, I can’t do it right now. My kids have soccer, and sports take up all our time,” or “It’s Thanksgiving, and I’ve got so much family coming that I don’t have time to serve.”
Yet in the midst of His exhaustion, Jesus shows compassion. Why? Because He came to serve, not to be served. Being a servant leader is not just an act He puts on; it is who He is. He models what it looks like, when you are at the end of your own strength, to rely on the power of the Father and continue meeting the needs of others.
Furthermore, according to the Jewish traditions of the day, touching sick people made you ceremonially unclean. You would have had to wash your hands or immerse yourself in a ritual bath (mikveh) before you could enter the temple. But Jesus was not concerned with becoming unclean. The Son of God, the Author of the Law, does not become defiled by our brokenness. Jesus makes unclean people clean; they do not make Him unclean. If you are here today wondering if your past makes you too dirty for God, know this: Jesus makes you clean.
Tradition Versus the Commandment of God
This setting leads directly into a major confrontation with the religious leaders.
Matthew 15:1-2 (NASB)
Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’
Galilee was a significant distance from Jerusalem. Why had these scribes and Pharisees traveled all the way up north? In their hierarchy, the religious leaders from Jerusalem were the “top-shelf” elite—the most educated and influential. The local Pharisees in Galilee likely felt threatened by Jesus’ growing popularity and sent for the heavyweight theologians from Jerusalem to trap Him and find a reason to put Him to death.
They confront Jesus by asking, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
It is easy for us to read “tradition of the elders” and assume they were talking about the Old Testament law. But they were not. They were referring to oral rabbinic interpretations that were later compiled into the Mishnah. Over the centuries, rabbis built extensive fences around the Law. They thought, If God says to be clean before entering the temple, we should mandate elaborate ceremonial washings before every single meal to make sure no one accidentally crosses the line.
Over time, these human traditions carried as much—if not more—weight than the actual Scriptures. Washing hands before eating is great hygiene, but the Pharisees had turned it into a supreme test of religious righteousness. They were obsessed with the external and the superficial. Outwardly, they wanted to look like their lives were completely surrendered to God, but they were only concerned with covering up their sin and managing impressions, not with having their hearts cleansed.
There is a historical account of a rabbi who was imprisoned with very limited rations of food and water. Instead of drinking the water to stay alive, he used his small daily ration to ceremonially wash his hands before eating his bread. He was literally willing to die of dehydration rather than break the oral tradition of the elders. That shows you the immense grip these man-made rules had on people.
External rituals had become a way for the Pharisees to live with one foot in the world and one foot in religion. They wanted to appease God through outward conformity without ever surrendering control of their hearts.
Before we judge the Pharisees too harshly, we have to ask ourselves: Do we do the exact same thing? It is easy to manage externals. We can attend church, raise our hands during the songs, and get baptized while still holding onto the steering wheel of our lives. Heart transformation is much harder because it requires total surrender to God.
Jesus calls them out on their hypocrisy directly.
Matthew 15:3-6 (NASB)
And He answered and said to them, ’Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ’For God said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,’ and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’ ’But you say, ’Whoever says to [his] father or mother, ‘Whatever I have that would help you has been given [to God],’ he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And [by this] you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
Exodus 20:12 (NASB)
’Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
Exodus 21:17 (NASB)
’He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
Jesus exposes their game. The Fifth Commandment clearly states, “Honor your father and mother,” and Exodus 21 establishes severe consequences for dishonoring them. Part of honoring elderly parents included providing for their financial and physical needs.
Mark 7:11 (NASB)
but you say, ‘If a man says to [his] father or [his] mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given [to God]),’
In Mark’s parallel account, he uses the untranslated Hebrew word Corban, which means “given to God.” The Pharisees had invented a religious loophole. A person could look at their money or property and declare, “It is Corban—dedicated to the temple!” That meant they could legally tell their needy parents, “I’d love to help you, Mom and Dad, but my resources are consecrated to God.”
The deceitful part was that under their oral traditions, the person could later revoke that vow for their own benefit. They used religious language to look pious while completely evading God’s clear command to care for their parents. They invalidated the Word of God for the sake of human tradition.
We see the exact same thing today in what people call “salad bar theology.” People pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like. If you are in need, you love the verses about generosity. If you feel guilty, you love the verses about grace and forgiveness. But very few people naturally gravitate toward the verses that command us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and die to our selfish desires.
Our culture does this constantly. When Scripture confronts sexual sin, people say, “God couldn’t possibly mean that for me today.” When Scripture speaks on marriage and divorce, people say, “God understands my happiness is what matters most.” We elevate human preferences over the eternal Word of God because it allows us to stay in control. We keep coming to church and singing the songs, but human reasoning remains supreme, and we make ourselves the god of our own lives.
The Heart of True Worship
Jesus exposes the root of the problem by quoting the prophet Isaiah.
Matthew 15:7-9 (NASB)
’You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ’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.’’
Isaiah 29:13 (NASB)
Then the Lord said, ’Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned [by rote],
God rebuked Israel in Isaiah’s day for the very same thing: replacing heartfelt worship with empty, mechanical ritual. They went through the motions, honoring God with their lips while their hearts were miles away. They cared about what people thought on the outside rather than what God saw on the inside.
After confronting the Pharisees, Jesus calls the crowd close so they do not miss the central point.
Matthew 15:10-11 (NASB)
After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, ’Hear and understand. ‘[It is] not what enters into the mouth [that] defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.’
Luke 6:45 (NASB)
’The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil [man] out of the evil [treasure] brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
Jesus makes it clear: God is looking at the heart. Outward rituals, unwashed hands, or ceremonial foods do not defile a person before God. Defilement comes from what is already festering inside the human heart.
At this point, the disciples—probably Peter—come up and nervously ask, “Do You know the Pharisees were offended by what You said?”
Matthew 15:12-14 (NASB)
Then the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?’ But He answered and said, ’Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. ‘Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.’
Jesus basically replies, “Leave them alone. They are blind guides leading the blind into a ditch. They were not planted by My Father, and they will be uprooted.” The Pharisees believed they were God’s elite guides for the spiritually lost, but Jesus reveals that they were leading people entirely in the wrong direction.
Peter then asks Jesus to explain the parable further.
Matthew 15:15-20 (NASB)
Peter said to Him, ‘Explain the parable to us.’ Jesus said, ’Are you still lacking in understanding also? ’Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? ’But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. ’For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. ‘These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.’
Matthew 23:23 (NASB)
’Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
Matthew 23:28 (NASB)
’So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus lays it bare: the heart is the control center of the person. Evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander do not originate from unwashed hands; they come from within the heart. That is why God cares about the inner person.
Any religious system that preaches “Jesus plus” is an unbiblical tradition. “Jesus plus church attendance,” “Jesus plus baptism,” “Jesus plus our own moral performance”—it is all false. What Jesus wants is you. He wants a heart that wakes up in the morning surrendered to Him, walks through the day submitted to Him, and goes to sleep resting in Him.
Real Worship This Season
We are stepping into the month of December. It is a wonderfully busy season with family gatherings, Christmas parties, ugly sweater contests, and presents. Yet Christmas is a time when the people of God can so easily be swept away from the Son of God.
It is so easy to get caught up in Black Friday sales, wrapping gifts perfectly, decorating the tree because family is coming over, or stressing over the Christmas dinner. But what is Christmas really about? It is about the reality that God loved you so much that He sent His Son into this world, fully God and fully man, to bear our sins on the cross. Jesus stepped into our brokenness to bring true hope.
Christmas is not about the food, the presents, or mere religious tradition—it is about Jesus.
As we enter this season, let us lay aside human traditions and empty religion. Let us surrender our whole hearts to Him. Today during our response time, we have the waters of baptism open. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ but have never taken that step of obedience, we invite you to come forward and be baptized.
If you come, come with the right heart—not to impress anyone, not for human applause, but out of a heart of love and surrender to King Jesus. When we cheer for you, we aren’t cheering for your performance; we are celebrating what Jesus has done on the inside of your life.
Let’s pray together.
Father, as we begin this Christmas season, we thank You for reminding us that You want our hearts. You are not interested in empty rituals or external performance; You desire our full surrender. Lord, help every one of us to lay down man-made traditions and self-righteousness. Teach us to elevate Your Word, to love You genuinely, and to live for Your glory alone. We submit our lives and our hearts to You today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.