Matthew 23:1-12
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We live in a time where everyone desires, a particular appearance and image.
Last week was Easter Sunday, so everybody had on their Easter dresses and their Easter clothes and everyone takes pictures and such.
Our family was no exception to that.
My whole life, even as a kid, I always got something special to wear on Easter.
And now, We do the same thing.
Last week, after church, we went over to eat lunch with our family and I was told not to change out of my church clothes because we had to take a family picture.
And because we had to take a picture we wanted the picture to look good and so in order to do that I had to be wearing my “good” clothes.
So on Easter Sunday, if you look on Facebook, you’ll find pictures of families from this past week who all took Easter pictures.
Again, I don’t have an issue with taking pictures of your family. I don’t think that is wrong or anything like that.
But I do think it illustrates the reality that we live in a world where the image we portray may not be the purest form of who we actually are.
Easter is when we take pictures because everybody has on their “nice clothes.”
And we post that because we want everyone to see us in our best.
“Hey! Let me get on this side. This is my good side.”
I’ve never seen someone post a picture of themselves when they first get up in the morning.
Because we all have an image that we want to maintain.
We want to look good, as good as we can, before others.
Regardless of what we say, we truly do care what people think about us.
Now, to be sure, this is all outworking of human pride and I struggle with it too.
I believe this is one of those common to man struggles.
But there is a measure of fake to it as well.
Right?
Where we try to portray something before others but its not actually who we are.
We come to a group of people this morning, and this group will be familiar to you… we have spent a lot of time talking about the scribes and the Pharisees.
These are the people who had did a good job of performing and portraying, and presenting a self image that is not an accurate representation of who they actually are.
Jesus, obviously as God incarnate, sees through the fake, and so he warns his people not to follow the Scribes and the Pharisees.
Look in verse 1.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
Jesus here is addressing the disciples and the crowd.
And he’s addressing how they should deal with the Scribes and the Pharisees.
Jesus is answering the question of:
How should the people there should respond to these people who are in positions of religious authority but when you look at their life, it is inconsistent with what they teach.
This is what he is dealing with here.
And so, first, Jesus acknowledges that the Pharisees and the scribes do have a position of authority among the people.
He says “They sit on Moses’s seat.”
In other words, they hold a position of religious authority.
We all remember Moses.
Moses was the leader among God’s people.
He was charged with telling them what God said and leading them.
And so here, Jesus says the scribes, and these Pharisees have set themselves upon Moses’s seat.
In other words, in this day and time, they were the ones who were the teachers in Israel.
They studied the law of God.
They taught the law of God.
Now, make no mistake, they added a lot to the law of God by way of their traditions.
And Jesus would condemn them for that.
But they also taught what Moses wrote as well.
And so, Jesus says, in so far as they tell the people what Moses wrote, the people should listen to them.
Jesus tells them this.
Listen to them, and do what they tell you to do whenever they inform you of what the law of God says.
However, Jesus quickly draws a line on how they should deal with these people.
3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
In other words, Listen to the word from them, but don’t live like them.
Don’t even watch the way they live.
And here is what is goin on here.
They can be accurate in what they tell you in speaking God’s word, but the words that they speak and the word that they proclaim does not make its way any further than their lips.
It never takes root in their heart.
And because of that it doesn’t make its way into their practice.
Jesus says they preach but they don’t practice.
They tell you what the word says, but they don’t do what the word says.
Paul deals with a similar group of people in Romans when he says this—
you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
This is problem in Jesus’s day and in Paul’s day, and its a problem in ours.
The problem of People who hold positions of religious authority, who have the task of preaching the word, but their lives betray the word they preach.
So Jesus says, do not follow their example.
Listen to what they say.
But don’t do what they do.
Now for these scribes and Pharisees, This would have been super offensive, because they believed themselves to be the epitome of what it looked like to follow God.
They believed themselves to be the spiritually mature among the people of God.
They believed themselves not only to preach the word, but to do the word.
They would’ve considered themselves to be the most holy among the people.
And Jesus here says, “They’re not. They’re not the examples to follow.”
A couple things here I want to point out:
This is something that I thought about this week as I’ve prepared.
But this is a warning to those of us who teach God’s word who preach God’s word.
This is an implicit warning to those who would find themselves in the offices of the church that we not just be speakers of the word but doers of the word.
There is a danger of holding an office, while living a lie.
I met with an older pastor friend of mine this week and he and I were having lunch.
And this is a dear brother and a mentor to me, and we got together to eat lunch and in the course of conversation, he told me about a point in his life where he had quit the ministry.
He quit pastoring
He quit for 12 years.
And the reason why it was because he had no personal walk with God.
Pastoring and ministry became his profession.
He said “his walk with the Lord and his ministry became professional rather than personal.”
It was about getting task done, rather than done out of the overflow of his heart as he personally communed with God.
And so he had to step away. He burned out because he was seeking to do everything on his own strength apart from a vibrant relationship with God.
Now, God called him back and he is a blessing to me.
But his story illustrates that having a position holding a position of authority within the church and even having a position like pastor or deacon or Sunday school teacher or whatever other job there is in the church, does not magically give you personal holiness.
It does not automatically mean that you are doing everything that God would have you to do.
There’s a danger of being one person in the public eye and on this stage and being a completely different person in private.
There’s a danger of being placed in a position to speak the perfect word of God and yet, it have no effect upon your personal life.
Jesus says that’s where these people are.
And so, lets stop here, and reflect, because this gives a strong warning to me and to other leaders to check our hearts to consider whether or not we are truly living and doing the word of God or if we are just holding a position.
Now… there is an encouragement here.
Jesus does command his disciples and the crowds to listen to the word of God even from these people, which means that the word of God does not return void, regardless of who is speaking it.
The gospel can save in spite of the speaker at times.
I have counseled people who were brought to Christ and to salvation under a leader, or a pastor, who later turned out not to be who he proclaimed to be in public.
Well in that moment, there’s a crisis of faith within that person because they wonder because that pastor fell and did not appear to be genuine, they wonder if their own personal salvation and experience of conversion is genuine because they were saved under the ministry of that person.
But I rejoice in the fact that, regardless of the people who proclaim it, the word of God still can go forth and accomplish the purpose that God sends for it.
Now, this does not give pastors and teachers, an excuse to live recklessly.
It does matter how we live.
There are character requirements that God requires of those that the church recognizes as its leaders.
Our lives should not call into question the word of God that we proclaim.
It does harm to the gospel and to the church when the churches leaders do not live holy lives.
It does harm to the flock of God when church leaders live recklessly.
And the Lord cares deeply.
James warns us..
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
The author of Hebrews says this—
17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
For those of us who lead, it ought to terrify us and we ought to check our walk and our talk and our steps as we walk in this life, knowing that one day—
we will give an account of what we teach,
we will give an account of everyone that we lead,
and we will give an account of how we lived.
Church, in light of this—I need your prayers.
I want my life to be consistent before you and ultimately before God
So I ask you that you would— Pray that for me.
Pray that for Will.
Pray that for these men who serve as deacons in our church
Pray that for our men and ladies who lead Sunday school classes or other ministries.
Pray that our lives would match what we speak.
These people don’t.
Jesus, then list out the besetting sins of these people that make them unwatchable, and unfollowable for the people that he loves.
Their Message.
They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
Jesus here speaks about the nature of the ministry of the scribes and Pharisees.
The scribes and Pharisees taught the error of legalism.
They believed that you could live righteous enough for God to where he would accept you.
But the problem was they believed that only they were actually righteous enough to do that.
And they wanted everyone to know that.
They would constantly place more laws upon the people.
Their teaching was a graceless teaching.
It was all law and no gospel.
Douglas O’Donnell says this—
“The scribes and Pharisees added so many man-made rules atop God’s Word that the Word of God seemed stifling, tiring, and crushing.”
Essentially this group of religious teachers taught all the do’s and don’ts and never highlighted the forgiveness and grace and mercy and compassion of God to guilty sinners.
Everything became a do this and live type of mindset.
Rather than leading the people to look outside of themselves for righteousness that they could not attain on their own, they consistently just added more rules to the people.
Jesus has here they tied up heavy burdens upon them.
In other words, they gave them things that were too much for the people to bear, and then Jesus says they would not let the finger to help.
They preached a condemning message that offered no Hope.
They left the people they taught burdened and stifled under the weight of heavy laws.
Jesus comes and his message takes a completely different tone.
He says to those who are burdened with the weight of their sin,
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Jesus’s message is a completely different message than the scribes and the Pharisees.
They added so many laws that people felt defeated and buried under the weight of everything that they had done wrong.
Jesus says come and bring that to me and I will give you rest.
I will give you my yoke
In other words, what Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 11, is that if you come to him, the message is simple.
It’s not do this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this.
It’s simply come to Jesus. Call upon Jesus. Believe upon Jesus.
And he will take that burden from you and the requirement is not all this list of things to do, it is one thing!!
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
Whenever we consider this, Jesus’s message is the exact opposite of what these people were saying look at verse four again.
They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
Jesus says I will take that heavy burden from you so that your weight is easy and your burden is light and I will take care of that which burdens you.
This is the message of the gospel.
And it is a stark contrast to the message of these people.
So Jesus condemns their message.
But he goes on
Not only is their message and their ministry, corrupt, but everything they do, they do for their own glory.
For their own vanity. So that people will look at them and think “oh how great those people are.”
This is what Jesus says beginning in verse five
They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
They do everything that they do in the public eye so that other people will see what they have done.
They want you to know just how pious and religious they are and so, even the things that they wear shout, I am holier than you.
It says they make their phylacteries Broad and their fringes long.
These were two religious accessories that religious people would wear.
“A phylactery is a tiny box containing tiny copies of key passages of the law. Observant Jews of that time wore them on the arm and forehead at least part of the day.”
It’s so literally they would wear these boxes with scripture in it.
Jesus says they made theirs very large. Everybody could see just how much scripture they had.
Some even believe that this was some kind of superstitious charm.
One scholar said—
“The wearers think that if they dress correctly, God will bless them. If they also dress distinctively, people will know they are religious leaders.”
They want to be seen.
Jesus goes on to say that they love the place of honor.
They love to be in the seats where everybody sees them and sees just how religious they are.
They want to be known among the synagogues.
They want to be called rabbi.
They desire the title.
They like the prestige that comes with the title and the respect that it garners.
The word Rabbi means authoritative teacher.
And so collectively in that term, it carries with it a notion of knowledge and understanding, and also authority.
But Jesus is about to say that there is no room for that kind of title chasing in the kingdom of God.
This action of wanting the title and wanting the prestige betrays everything the kingdom of God is about.
But this is something all religious people deal with.
Someone once said “Display is the perennial temptation of religious people.”
People want the recognition. They want the titles. They want to be somebody.
Listen to what Jesus says- He lets the air out of that balloon.
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
Jesus here speaks against title chasing within his kingdom.
He tells the crowd and his disciples don’t let anyone call you rabbi.
You have one teacher. He later says the same thing as far as instructor and he tells us who the instructor is.
It’s Christ.
in other words, Jesus is the only one deserving of these titles.
He also says call no man your father on earth for you have one father who is in heaven.
Now he’s not talking here about familial relationships.
We understand, father and mother to be relationships that God ordains.
Scripture says to honor your father and your mother.
So he’s not talking about that kind of title, father and mother.
We also know that Paul was Timothy’s “father in the faith.” In other words, he was discipling him.
Here when Jesus says this— It’s not talking about either one of those cases.
I think he has in mind here setting a man on a pedestal to where you would look to him and refer to him as Father, like he is the one with spiritual authority over your life.
I think there is a modern example of this—
In the Providence of God, this passage falls on a week where Francis a man who had the title the pope of the Roman Catholic Church passed away.
I saw in light of that news this week, a news article where it had a list of men who are potential candidates to replace this man.
Men from all over the world.
All of them hoping that somehow in someway, they will be given this coveted title of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
I bring that up because—You need to understand that Roman Catholics refer to that man as “holy father.”
Jesus says here (Call no man Father.)
Now the pope wasn’t around when Jesus was here on the earth, and I’m not saying that he is doing this specifically.
But I think this is the general kind of error and titling Jesus is addressing here.
Referring to a man as holy father, a title that only god deserves.
This is another aberrant view and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.
It goes completely against what Jesus is teaching here.
I don’t see how they get around this particular text of scripture where Jesus clearly says we are not to do what they explicitly and proudly do.
But that is one among many of a host of problems with the catholic doctrine of the papacy and with Catholic doctrine in general.
And really it’s sad.
In my opinion, the man who passed away this week who was deemed the head of the church by millions across this world, he met the true head of the church and he will deal with the consequences of falsely, allowing himself to have been given that title.. he will deal with that for eternity if he did not repent.
Jesus said you are not to call any man, father, in any kind of spiritual sense.
And the more broad point is that you are not to take these titles or give these titles.
Rather Jesus calls them brothers.
We’re just another member of the family of God.
There is no spiritual hierarchy.
There are names for offices like Apostle given to the Apostles, and even today we have pastors and deacons, and I think that is permissible, but is not something that we chase as a spectacle.
Now, let me summarize for a moment.
These scribes and these Pharisees, their ministries were characterized by burden placing rather than burden taking.
They practiced their religion for all to see.
They wanted everyone to see just how religious and pious they were.
They chased the titles.
They loved the honored seats and wanted everyone to know their name.
Jesus says that’s not the way of the believer.
Listen to what he says in verses 11 and 12.
The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
This is completely backwards from the world that you and I live in.
This teaching is counter culture.
It’s even paradoxical. Meaning it seems like a contradiction.
But Jesus says here that if you exalt yourself.
If you make yourself the spectacle.
If you exalt yourself, there’s a warning of judgment here. You will be humbled.
Proverbs tells us this…
Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Jesus says to those who want to follow him following him is not about status, and it is not about everyone thinking you are so great.
In fact, he says if that’s your mindset, there is a humbling coming.
Don’t exalt yourself. There is the negative command.
Jesus then gives us the positive teaching here of what we should strive for.
And it’s two things.
Service and humility.
And I believe these two things are connected.
I believe that servanthood flows out of the virtue of humility.
Humility is something that has commended across scripture.
Pride is something that is considered to be a vice across Scripture.
Humility is a virtue because it’s a proper view of ourselves.
I heard a definition of humility one time and it went something like this- humility is the attitude that results when we honestly assess ourselves in light of who God is.
Humility is tied to our view of God and ourselves.
Pride is when we think too highly of ourselves in comparison to others.
The humility results when we have a proper view of God, and we see him in all his holiness and his greatness, and then we let that glorious picture of God serve as a mirror to our own soul and heart to where we understand just how low we are.
If we do that.If we gain an understanding of who we are in light of who God is, I believe that servanthood then flows naturally out of that humility.
I don’t know that I’ve ever met a prideful servant, who is truly a servant.
But the most servant minded people I’ve met are humble.
They don’t do it to be seen.
They don’t practice their religion with everybody else can see how great they are.
They do it out of a sense and desire to love others, and to be gracious to others, and to be merciful to others because God has been gracious and merciful to them.
So Jesus says those who humbled themselves will be exalted
And he says this just days prior to him, humbling himself to take our place upon a Roman cross
But like we celebrated last week, having risen from the dead after having humbled himself, we serve an exalted savior.
He is the supreme example of what it looks like for the humble to be exalted.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
