An Example Not to Follow - Matthew 23:1-12

In life we often look for role models, people we want to emulate. This is the reason that we lift up athletes, leaders, and others who we think have characteristics we want to develop in our own lives or to encourage in the lives of our children. Advertisers understand this, and will pay big bucks to someone who they think is a desirable role model, because their endorsement will help them sell their product.

By contrast, people don’t like a negative role model. When someone is caught in a scandal, advertisers tend to dump them. They don’t want to be associated with a negative role model because people will avoid anything associated with them.

In terms of learning how to live our lives though, both positive and negative role models have their place. Sometimes seeing the example of a negative role model helps us see the kinds of behaviors we should avoid—just as positive role models help us see the kinds of behaviors we should cultivate.

In our text this morning, Jesus shows that the Pharisees (with whom He has been verbally sparring for the last couple of chapters) are negative role models. He uses the negative example of the Pharisees to teach his disciples about what not to do, and helps to give them a fuller picture of what true disciples look like. So let’s look at what Jesus says about the Pharisees in verses 1-7.

The Charges

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2“The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. 3So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. 4They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

5“Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. 6And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. 7They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’ (Matthew 23:1-7, NLT)

Jesus starts somewhat paradoxically. As He prepares to condemn the Pharisees, he starts by telling his disciples that they should listen to them, because they are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. This seems contradictory, but we have to understand a little bit about what the Pharisees and teachers of the law did in order to understand exactly what Jesus was saying here.

First of all, the Pharisees believed strongly in the law of Moses (also called the Torah). They sought to explain the Torah to the people and to ensure that the people obeyed God’s law. This was a good thing! Jesus was saying that when they were speaking the truth about the law of Moses they were doing what was right and so the people should listen to them. These men were very learned in the Torah, so it was prudent for Jesus’ followers to listen carefully to them teach about it, much like how we would learn from a pastor or Bible scholar today.

The problem with the Pharisees, however, was that they didn’t stop with teaching the Torah. They had constructed an additional set of laws that were even more stringent as a way of “putting a wall around the Torah”. Basically, they expanded on what God’s law said and created an additional, even stricter set of laws that people should follow so that they would never be in danger of breaking God’s law. They taught that their laws had equal weight as God’s law…and they were wrong. So Jesus was saying that the people should listen to the Pharisees when they taught God’s law—even as he condemned them for elevating themselves above it.

Throughout Jesus’ teaching, he has shown us that the key component of God’s law is the attitude of the heart, and though the Pharisees were excellent at keeping the laws outwardly, their inward condition was far worse. Their hearts were far from God even though they appeared to be highly devoted to Him. This is what Jesus was condemning. He said that the disciples should listen to the Pharisees when they taught God’s law, but they shouldn’t follow their example, because their hearts were far from God.

Jesus gave several examples of the Pharisees’ outward appearance of devotion to God, but an inward reality of selfishness.

First, they wore extra large prayer boxes. Some translations say that they made their phylacteries broad. Phylacteries were something that devout Jews would often wear when they prayed. They were small leather boxes that contained very small parchments containing 4 specific scripture verses. They often would wear one on their arm, with the box resting on the back of their hand, and one on their head, with the box resting on their forehead. Why would they do this? It was an attempt to literally follow God’s command to them in Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:8 to tie God’s words to their hands and to wear them on their foreheads as reminders. This command was less about literally tying the words of God to your body and more about remembering God’s commands in everyday life. Regardless, at this time the religious leaders took this command quite literally.

Taking the command literally, however, wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that they were missing the point! God told them to tie His words to their hands and wear them on their foreheads so they would remember to put Him first, but the Pharisees were using it as an excuse to make themselves look good! It seems that the Pharisees may have made it a practice to wear exceptionally large phylacteries, so that people would see that they took God’s word very seriously. A private act of devotion had become a very public show. This is what Jesus condemned. He condemned them because they were missing the point!

Second, they wore extra long tassels on their robes. God had commanded the Israelites to put tassels on the four corners of their robes as a way of reminding themselves of God’s commands (Deuteronomy 22:12). As a result, the religious leaders of those days did exactly that. And even to this day, many Jews have tassels on the four corners of the prayer shawls they wear when they pray. It seems that even Jesus had tassels on his cloak, because there are a couple of different passages that say someone touched the tassels on Jesus’ cloak. So Jesus’ beef wasn’t with the fact that people were wearing tassels on their clothing. It was with why they were wearing the tassels.

He pointed out that the religious leaders tended to make their tassels exaggeratedly large. They didn’t do this so they would have a greater reminder of God’s laws, but so they would appear to others to be more devoted to Him. Jesus was saying that even acts of religious devotion, when done for the wrong reason, are wrong!

Third, they desired the seats of honor. In those days, where a person sat was indicative of the degree to which they were honored. Whether it was at a dinner at a person’s house or at worship in the synagogue, where you were seated said a great deal about how other people viewed you.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders placed great importance on being seated in places of honor. This meant that at a dinner at a person’s home, they wanted to be seated next to the host, in the most honored position. And during worship at the synagogue, they would be seated at the front of the congregation—and if they were particularly honored, they would be seated actually facing the rest of the congregation! Jesus condemned this attitude. Once again, Jesus wasn’t saying that it was wrong to sit in the places of honor, but rather that it was wrong to confuse devotion to the Lord with being owed honor. When these religious leaders became more concerned with receiving honor and blessing for themselves than they were with honoring the Lord with their lives, their priorities were out of line.

Fourth, they desired respectful greetings. It was of great importance to these religious leaders to be addressed as Rabbi when they were out in public. Rabbi was a term of respect, so they were demanding that others show them respect as religious stalwarts. Once again, they were more concerned with the respect they were receiving than they were with ensuring that God’s name was respected. They were trying to parlay their religious devotion into personal gain…which misses the point entirely.

Application

These charges seem, in a sense, somewhat minor. And I suspect most of Jesus’ disciples had never even considered that these things might be things that God did not approve of…and yet Jesus is pointing to the real issue, which is that God is far more concerned with what’s in our heart than He is with how we look on the outside. If our primary concern is personal gain, then our hearts are not in the right place.

So Jesus follows up his condemnation of the religious leaders with a command to his disciples,

8“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. 9And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father. 10And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. 11The greatest among you must be a servant. 12But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus speaks specifically about not letting people call them Rabbi or Father or Teacher. These things seem relatively minor, but the point Jesus is trying to make is that we must make certain that we are keeping our hearts and our attitudes in check.

Once again, I don’t think Jesus was saying that there is anything inherently wrong with addressing someone by any of these titles. For example, Jesus doesn’t seem to have any issue with us referring to our earthly fathers with the title Father. What He seems to be reminding people is that we must always remember who the ultimate authority is. It is not our earthly fathers or our earthly spiritual leaders—it is the Lord God Himself.

So what does this mean for us today? We don’t tend to call people rabbi or teacher, though in the Catholic Church they often refer to priests as Father. Is it wrong to refer to our spiritual leaders with titles of respect? Not necessarily. It is really a question of how we view the person and the title. If we feel we must refer to a person by a particular title because we respect them and want to indicate that, I think it’s fine. But if we refer to a person by a title because we view them as a spiritual authority, or as somehow higher than us spiritually, then it’s a problem.

In some churches, it is a big deal to refer to the pastor by a certain title. I remember once being chastised for only referring to my pastor by his first name. I was told that I shouldn’t let him hear me refer to him by any title other than pastor or brother. This is a problem! This man was trying to elevate himself above the other Christians he was serving! I think this is the kind of attitude that Jesus was condemning.

I know people sometimes refer to Dad and me as “Pastor”. I appreciate that these people are attempting to show respect to us. I appreciate that in formal situations, people write out my name as Reverend Rick Goettsche, simply because it is a way of showing respect. But I hope you all know that neither Dad nor I expect anyone to refer to us in this way. To most of the people with whom we interact, we are simply Bruce or Rick. We always talk about how in this church we take God’s Word very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously at all. The reason is this: we are just men! God has given us a job to do, just as He has given to you. Those who serve in the church are not somehow more worthy of honor or respect, or somehow more holy than those who serve God in some other capacity! So to demand that other Christians show you some arbitrary form of respect is sinful, because it fails to recognize that we are all equal before God—our one true Teacher.

In the same way, most of us don’t struggle with the temptation to wear broad phylacteries or to have extra large tassels on our clothing as a way of showing others how devoted to God we are. But, we may still struggle with the same temptation today—it will just manifest itself differently.

We might make sure others see that we are putting a check in the offering plate so they know we are devoted. Or we might casually mention how much we give to the church the fact that we tithe. Check your motives…if you are doing these things in order to impress others, you’re doing them for the wrong reasons.

We might try to impress people with our biblical knowledge. There is nothing wrong with knowing what’s in the Bible. As a matter of fact, we should work hard to know everything God has told us in His Word. But when we try to show others how holy we are by quoting verses or sharing facts that we have learned, we are falling into sin. Sharing what we have learned with others is good when we are trying to help them in their faith—it’s bad when we’re trying to make ourselves look good. It’s a question of the heart.

We might constantly trumpet the ways we are serving God so others know about it. Once again, it is a good thing to serve the Lord. It’s good to serve in the church or to serve people in your community. But usually it’s not necessary for us to tell anyone else about what we have done or are doing. Sometimes we can encourage others with our stories, but if we’re honest, most of the time we tell people about the things we’ve done in order to paint ourselves in a good light. I think Jesus would condemn such actions as well.

Similarly, we might be unwilling to serve in capacities that no one else will see. I am so grateful for the many people who quietly serve the Church body. Many don’t see those who set up tables and chairs, those who cook meals, those who make plans for events, or those who keep the building in good repair. We often don’t hear about the person who visits people who can’t get out, or who helps a family in need, or who shares the gospel with their neighbor or friends. There are hundreds of little ways to serve the Lord and His Church. Many of them will go completely unnoticed by others. But sometimes we are unwilling to serve in ways that seem small. We are unsatisfied unless we can do something that is visible to others. The question we must ask is why? Is it possible that we are unwilling to do things behind the scenes because we aren’t really concerned about serving God at all? Is it possible that we are really only serving in order for others to praise us? Once again, it’s a question of the heart.

These are just a few examples of ways in which we might run afoul of the same temptation the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day faced. The specifics of how we try to impress others may change, but the temptation to make things more about outward appearance than about our hearts is still alive and well today, just as it was 2,000 years ago. And just as it was wrong for Jesus’ disciples then, it is wrong for us to do now.

Conclusion

Jesus used the Pharisees as a negative example—an example of what not to do. Sometimes those are incredibly powerful examples for us, because we can look at these individuals and say I don’t want to be like them. But at the same time, we often need some positive instruction to help guide us in the right way to live. Fortunately Jesus gives us that at the end of these verses.

The greatest among you must be a servant. 12But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:11-12, NLT)

Jesus tells us we should be servants to one another. We should be less concerned about our own accolades and more concerned with how we are doing as a team. I think this is one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned in sports—that a team is successful when everyone contributes what they can to make the team better…without regard to what kind of accolades they get as an individual.

I was never a great athlete. I loved playing sports (and still do), but I was never the star athlete on the team. One of the things that my coaches taught me, however, was that just because I wasn’t going to be the guy with my name in the paper, it didn’t mean that my role wasn’t important. The guy who throws a block to let the running back break free is just as important as the guy carrying the football, even though many people don’t notice his contribution. The guy who passes the ball to the man who’s open for the shot is just as important as the guy who makes the clutch basket. The same is true in the body of Christ. Our goal is to improve as a team, because when we do, we honor the Lord.

Jesus tells us to be willing to serve one another and to humble ourselves. That means that we should be willing to learn from those around us. It means we should be willing to hear correction when it’s needed and make the necessary changes in our lives. And it means that we should seek to be obedient to the Lord in both the big things and the little things—without trying to draw attention to it.

I believe Jesus’ point is this: God is far more concerned about the condition of our hearts than He is with our reputation among others. So we should work at cultivating the right kind of heart, instead of trying to cultivate the right kind of reputation.

Here’s the thing about true role models. Most of us can sniff out a fake. We kind of have a sense when we’re being sold a bill of goods. We can tell when people are simply putting on a show for us. At the same time, those who are genuine stand out to us—and ironically they stand out without even trying to. These are the kind of people we are supposed to be. People should see a difference in us, but not because we’re putting on a show, but because we are genuinely trying to please the Lord. If our hearts are in the right place, we will have an impact in the world around us. Maybe we won’t get the praise from the people around us that we would if we trumpeted our actions—but instead we will get the praise of our Father in Heaven. And that’s worth far more.