Jesus and Pahrasees

Matthew 16:6 NASB95

And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, I find that today there are an increasing number of evangelicals and Pentecostals who look at the gospel promises and then look at their own lives and look at the churches that they pastor and come away from that with a deep despair within them.

Think of the promises of the gospel the gospel is the power of God unto salvation then if the gospel is the power of God unto salvation why is it that we see so many powerless and weak people around us why so many leaders ministers experience powerlessness if indeed the gospel is the power of God to salvation.

What did Jesus mean when he said that he was the bread of life and to eat of him meant that we would never hunger again and never thirst again .

And here I find so many people go through their Christian life and their battle cry is I'm hungry and I'm thirsty what is this what has happened to the bite in the gospel what has happened to the power of the gospel and the deepest satisfaction of our longings in the gospel something's gone wrong wasn't always this way.

In fact if you look into church history I would say that he's been with us for a very long time now , something wrong with the experience of the gospel something wrong in the results from the preaching of the gospel what has gone wrong. I suggest that I believe that what is wrong is that we have not heeded this warning of Jesus, we were not watching out and we were not aware of the leaven of the Pharisees, this is one of the most intense warnings that Jesus gave watch out beware and then to describe the teaching of the Pharisees as leven that evil thing in the minds of the Jewish people.

You would have expected Jesus to say watch out and beware of the prostitutes, tax collectors, murderers or watch out and beware of those sinners that will lure you but he doesn't in fact by his own example he felt quite happy sitting with prostitutes and with thieves and the worst of sinners.

His warning to the church was not the things that the church is usually warning about, he didn't seem to be afraid of the world as we define the world he seemed to have tremendous faith in his own love that could overcome selfishness, tremendous faith in the light who he was that could swallow up darkness.

His concern and his warning to the future leaders of the church was in those days yet to come beware watch out for one thing the leaven of the Pharisees. What is wrong with the Pharisee, Today we've almost lost what was wrong because when you call a person a Pharisee or you're saying something bad about them so we just dismissed them as bad people.

They weren't, you know they could get into most of our churches very easily they were nice people, they were sincere people, the Pharisees had tremendous love for Scripture. Surpasses anything that you find in the in todays world.

Do you know that at two years old if you were born into a pharisee family if you were a man I'm sorry ladies you didn't count in that family but if you were a man a male child at two years old they would take the scroll of the law the Torah first five books of the Bible and they would smear it with honey and the little male child would have to lick the honey off the scroll of the law so that his earliest memories would be that your word is like honey to my mouth but four years old he would begin memorizing the Book of Leviticus of all books to start with Leviticus at four years old by the time he was 12 he had memorized intelligently Genesis through Deuteronomy .

I say intelligently because he would go to the temple and examined by the rabbi's and all his answers would have to be quotations from the Torah and then after that into his teenage he would start memorizing the prophets and the Psalms and then would be added all the great lectures and discussions of the rabbi's and the teachers over the years not bad

So these people were immersed in the scripture you have to say that their first love was the scripture and discussions about it. In fact if you wanted to join them part of the initiation of joining their little sect was that you would promise to take upon you the yoke of the law the Torah that was your first promise you know how you yoke the animals together so they'll do a better job they said we will yoke ourselves to the law of God we will involve the law into every segment of our lives and you couldn't become a Pharisee until you had publicly said you will take upon yourself the yoke of God's law.

Now about prayer they kept the set hours of prayer didn't matter where they were in the shopping mall in the middle of a crowd when the hour came for prayer they would stand and pray and they could pray for a long time unashamed of what people thought , didn't care where they were and of course that went back about hundred of years before Jesus was here when to do that was to be thrown into jail maybe killed they had stood against persecution praying in public places not bad.

They fasted twice a week not bad there's more than most church members.

They were faithful tithers quite fanatical actually they didn't only tithe on money they tied on everything they had right down to the vegetables and herbs in their garden some of you would like to have some church members like that tithers .

Their understanding of holiness in fact that's one possible meaning of the word Pharisee the separated ones whether given to them as a nickname or whether taken upon themselves they were the separated ones separated from all unholiness, separated to God's law and the keeping of it and separated to the people who kept God's law. They even had carefully written out everything one must do in order to please God and all the things you must avoid in case he would be displeased. They'd written their own laws they called them fence laws they were laws that fenced off the law of God so you wouldn't even get close to trying to break it because these other laws kept you away from it.

Their whole life was what do you do in this situation what do you do when this happens how do you keep the law of God on that day, how do you not break it on that day, they were separated unto the law.

Did you know that the Pharisees went all over the Roman Empire as evangelists, they could be found in every synagogue seeking to bring people to stand and publicly say I come under the yoke of the law and to begin to be fanatical as they were in seeking to please God can you fault a man for being like that really.

Let's face it can you fault a man for trying so hard to please God, can you fault a person even if it is a little bit fanatical, can you fault him for such zeal .

Gospels is pretty obvious that they were aggressively at war with Jesus now this becomes interesting here are people immersed in the scripture given to prayer, fasting, tithing, evangelism and yet when Jesus comes among them who he was what he did everything he said enraged them they were totally opposed to his mission. That's interesting I mean I want you to get that that that's pretty well. Here are people immersed in Scripture prayer, tithing , evangelism, fasting and yet hopefully opposed to everything Jesus stood for and what Jesus was doing and of course the feeling was mutual.

You notice Jesus singled them out and if you marked off every time Jesus had a really nasty confrontation with the Pharisees and You’ll realized if you took all those passages out, there's nothing left in the Gospels that's the truth.

You think about it you are on the pages of the Gospels you are talking of all-out war both from the Pharisees toward Jesus and Jesus toward the Pharisees. This is interesting he singled them out as the greatest enemies of truth .

Pharasees have all different kind of sinner but Jesus never called anyone a sinner that that's interesting you know if we call people sinner we learn that from the Pharisees Jesus called those people you know the prostitutes and the drunks and there was people who were on the wanted list and he called them lost interesting, lost sheep actually. But you know what he called the Pharisees snakes vipers

Here are people who are as far away from anything that his outward religion as they could be and he says you are precious lost sheep and here are people who are as involved in Scripture and prayer and he calls them snakes and vipers.

I think this deserves a lot more understanding here he baits them he deliberately breaks their fence laws although silly the laws they put up to stop you getting to break the real law. He broke all the fence laws and he did it under their nose he made sure they saw it he was baiting them come on and then when he spoke it was as if he said to the crowds those people I am NOT.

To an Hebrew person this is pretty tough language that he says here watch out beware of the leaven of the Pharisees - a Hebrew that's not a nice word leaven is a bad word very bad it always meant the silent working of evil , in fact you know your Bible you go back to the Passover they had to clear out all the leaven. You remember the meal offering as it was offered never to be any leaven. Leavens was always associated with something hideously evil and all the more dangerous because it worked silently.

Yeast would be more familiar to you than Laven, if you don't use for your bread making it you'll turn out with a flat bread, if you do use it you'll get a big loaf right that is more or less what it's about it means you add it and it works silently you don't know what's going on until you realize you've ended up with something other than you would have ended up if you hadn't added it.

Jesus said if the leaven, the yeast the teaching philosophy of the Pharisees gets into what I am saying you will end up with something that I'm not saying so beware watch out for that teaching it's dangerous. Tragically that is exactly what did happen, the leaven of the Pharisees so early got into the message of the gospel it's story of Acts.

You could pursue it through the acts that was the great conflict between Paul and those dear fellows in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Saints they never really saw it. James he never got it really, Paul saw it even Peter had a problem with it and that great confrentation in Antioch between Paul and Peter.

You know why Paul saw it so clearly because he was an ex Pharisee, you see that was all that happened in Galatia when Paul stands and tears out his holy hair and says you poor stupid idiots of Galatia how I love you but how stupid you are that you've fallen for this nonsense. it was Pharisee ISM it was the leaven that got in there mixed with the gospel and created something else.

Why would that happen because they hadn't seen the gospel in all its clarity and they thought this could be added on with the teaching of the Pharisees what's wrong with it I mean when you say that here is something that is more destructive than sitting down to eat with prostitutes here is something more dangerous than hanging out with the Mafia as the tax collectors were you know the the philosophy of the sinners on the street is not anywhere near as dangerous as this what is this, yeast turns the gospel into that it really isn't.

I tell you the first thing the yeast of the Pharisees turns the gospel into just another religion.

Bread and Cheese

A boy went to school his mother used to wrap sandwiches for me put them in my lunch pail and I don't know why she had a funny habit she she'd wrap each sandwich in a different colored paper made the lunch pail look very nice but you'd pick out the red one see what's the red sandwich today and it was bread and cheese and so you you'd pick out the yellow one and unwrap it it was bread and cheese unwrapped the blue one it was bread and cheese

When you go around the world today and unwrap all the religions and get past the surface it's the same old stuff bread and cheese as no it's boring or lifeless religion, do you know why because religion, religion presupposes separation from God. Religion was born at the base of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when man was divorced, severed from God and he is aware that a great gulf is fixed between him and God's religion presumed that he could build a bridge across and every religion in the world bow one man's imagination drawing up that which seems right unto man as a proper way to approach God.

Religion wherever you find it is man's imaginative attempt to build a bridge to God and of course all religion seems right unto man because man invented it but the end there are the ways of death man's gonna build a bridge well how does he get to God you know to him to anyone who is in that sense religious God is always up there he's always over there use that there's a separation and I've got to somehow get to the God who's over there or somehow convince the God over there to come over here that's religion.

Performance at the heart of Pharaseeism

The God who separated from me well the way that seems right unto man is to seek to build a bridge to God by performance that's Pharisee ISM at its heart If that's all I had to say this morning about the Pharisees you've got it right there Pharisee ISM at heart is performance for God I will do this and I will not do that, I will not go there but I will go here, I can't wear this but I must wear that, I can't eat this and I can't drink that and I can't do this but I must eat this and I must drink that, outward performance performance some houses the Pharisee that will build a bridge across to God and of course in so doing they had to neglect or shall I say suppress the revelation God had given of himself in the Old Testament have you ever thought about this a religious person does not worship God they worship an idol that is made after their own image.

Pharisee saw God as one who had a master list of sins and taboos a God who despised anyone who didn't keep the list and that was the God they worshiped. It was a God that you could reach by their standards but if they had known who they themselves were really saw their sin they would understand you can never deal with sin by changing clothes that ridiculous or anything.

Can you really deal with men's separation from God with a list of religious customs or taboos, it's ridiculous unless you've changed the image of God to fit into that concept but of course if that's the God you have, a God who despises people who don't keep the list well you know in your heart you don't keep the list even the one you made up and so the Pharisees saw themselves as worthless inside they were in bad shape they saw themselves as filthy worthless individuals and they took it out on everybody else that was worse than themselves and perceived everybody else as worthless they tried to cover up their perceived worthlessness with their performances with their do’s and their don'ts and they loved to come up against others worse than themselves and say I'm not like you.

The fact is that when the real God turned up among them and walked and lived among them they were embarrassed by him they hated him because this isn't the God they worship. This one talks about love and acceptance and he doesn't call anybody worthless he says in fact there are such value just one of them is worth more than all the world and he said that he was manifesting the name of the character of his father.

The brigde begins from God’s side

You see from the very beginning this is what they neglected or suppressed from the very beginning of scripture the only approach to God was God you understand. The bridge does not begin from the man's side, the bridge begins from the God side and if it doesn't begin from the God side then there's no bridge.

The only approach to God is God he takes the initiative. Salvation was not man's idea salvation was God's imposition of love upon man.

All man can do is say thank you and say if you did it you did it it is thank you. It's faith in other words man by faith rests immediately upon God and his salvation, you know what I mean by that he does not rest immediately he doesn't mediate by doing this and doing that and promising this and dedicating that no no no man rests immediately no works no promises no dedications just here I am God you said it thank you, here I am it's immediate.

Jesus didn't seem to have as much problem with the rebellious sinner because there's still for that man he can receive God's salvation but the Pharisee he's not only a rebellious sinner he has also set himself up not to accept God's Way of salvation. He said I've got a better way, Pharisee ism is not only rebellion it is saying that the way back that God has laid down is not good enough for me that's Pharisee ISM. Because their performance is their biblical basically I'm not gonna fall to man for pray I'm not gonna fall to man for immersing himself in the scripture or fasting or tithing or evangelism all of their performances at their heart the biblical but this yeast this idea that works silently that says you have to perform in order to build the bridge you must do something to get God's attention, you must achieve bringing God over here that yeast of the Pharisees it turns what is beautiful and biblical into something else altogether.

You see prayer by the time the Pharisees have finished with it it was no longer fellowship with God, it was and how long did you pray today brother . fellowship has nothing to do with it we're timing this. My prayers better than your prayer.

Immerse himself in the Bible oh yes but they had long since lost the author of the scripture and they were left with the empty husk of Scripture have you ever been to a restaurant and the patriarch of the family has read the menu to the family and then he's explained to you what lamb chops are until you're drooling at the mouth and then you've sung a song about cheesecake and gone home that menu contains a description of something that is bigger than itself having read the menu I need the waiter to come and he will bring me from the kitchen that which I found in the menu but is in fact bigger than the menu you can read the scripture and memorize the scripture until you're better than the Pharisees and you can sing all Scripture songs but unless the Holy Spirit brings you him who is in the scripture but bigger than the scripture taste and see that the Lord is good don't read the menu taste at the living Lord Jesus Christ.

you search the scripture said Jesus to the Pharisees you do huh you search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life but he said it is these very scriptures that testify of me . You won't come to me and they did the same thing with tithing and fasting and all their rituals it became a dead end in itself. Tithing was not the celebration of love to God it was how much did I give what does God now owe me. I fasted two days that gives me so many brownie points then this guy and I fasted one day I'm better than him. jAll is out of performance you see and when it becomes out of performance the thing is dead. It's meaningless I have reduced these expressions of life into a mere currency that I think is gonna buy me favor with God trying to earn God's blessing.

Evangelism it's no longer a proclamation of God's love because I've forgotten God loves, as far as I'm concerned I become worthless before this great Pharisee in the sky. Evangelism becomes how many others can I bring under the bondage that I'm living in, how many people can I present the master sin list.

how many people can I bring under the yoke of the law but above all the leaven or the yeast of the Pharisees it totally missed the goal, it missed love you see what is the whole law of God it's it's not Ten Commandments that's only an appearance ten commandments is only your surface view of the thing really the entire law is love isn't it.

if I love you I won't kill you I won't lie to you I won't steal from you , whichever way you look at it the whole law is summed up in one word love and so the law said Jesus is in two sentences love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself .

Paul reduced it to 1 he says the whole law is summed up in love your neighbor as yourself, it was in 10 negatives because we couldn't handle the positive to start with, we were so set upon selfishness, God had to come to us in a negative way but it's only an appearance of the God who is love do you get that by the time Jesus comes we can say now love one another as I have loved you that's it that's the whole thing you couldn't, you couldn't understand it in Exodus there's a bit deep for you then but you can get it now look love is the whole thing,

the Pharisee was incapable of that, he did not understand that God was to be loved for he didn't have a God who loved. You understand that man's love for God is only the response of love to love, you can't love a God who's always beating you over the head we love because He first loved us. They couldn't love, to them God was the ultimate slave driver and love man how can you love worthless people we're trying our best to keep they're not even trying as far as the Pharisee was concerned other human beings were annoying mosquitoes they were interruptions to the great job of trying to please God.

Can't you see I'm fasting don't talk to me today cuz you see I'm studying the scripture stop interrupting, people were there to be despised people were there to be separated from, separate me separate me let me only speak to my own kind.

I feel threatened by tax collectors they say nasty things

prostitutes and thieves they smoke and they drink I don't want to be around him I only want my own kind and we can read the scripture to each other

separate me separate me that really got into the church didn't it , I mean what was it by two hundred three hundred they were running off to hide in the desert don't don't let me be tainted by the world.

There was man called Simeon Stylites, also called Simeon the Elder,the who went up on a pole and did sit-ups on the pole for 37 years, when you read church history you can learn about him. Well he sat on top of a pole I mean if you want to get away from dirty sinful men I suppose the top of a pole is a place to go, and there he just sort of went sit-ups to God and and and said you know I'm holier than everybody else because I'm closer to you you talk about separation I've got a climb a pole to get close

and then other people got the idea so they had their poles, my poles taller than your pole and this is in church history .

Then you read about the the nesters all those fellows who nested in trees to get away from people it's there, the yeast of the Pharisees it's with us today

Jesus the total opposite he loved people he had hardly ever talked about his love for God it was just so obvious it was there but he never talked about it why did Jesus pray all night is God impressed when you lose sleep sounds like Pharisee ISM why do you get up early in the morning to pray because God likes you when you can't open your eyes properly I mean stupid stuff.

Why did Jesus pray all night, why did he arise early - so that he could be with people all day long, if he was like the Pharisees he would be able to separate himself and say I'm praying don't touch me but he prayed before dawn he prayed all night so he could be with people all day you see the complete reverse of the Pharisee. To him loving his father was expressed in loving people

it's possible to keep all the outer forms and to be totally void of the real theme and the real thing is love and not human love which only loves the nice people the highest people and the best and the most beautiful but the God kind of love which reaches out to all people and you might understand right away that's impossible. I hope you understand that remember dealing with the young Pharisee that we call the rich young ruler and after that the disciples are confused and they say to Jesus who then can be saved and I love the way the scripture puts it it says and Jesus looking on them as if there was a pause he's looking at them and saying fellas you're not gonna believe this looking on them said with men it is impossible and if I think it is possible for to build the bridge then it is impossible it's only when I know that salvation is impossible then it's possible for I'm driven then to God and with God all things are possible.

But these people the Pharisee yeast cannot face the impossibility of love it dare not face it because it knows in its own strength I can't do it so it won't face it, it produces another code of holiness that has nothing to do with love which is dress and clothes food drink habits meaningless empty rituals of religion but everybody's forgotten why they do them and if you keep all the rituals wear the right clothes go to the right places avoid the wrong places you're in and when you're in you can gossip and tear everybody to pieces and is okay because you're in you see that's exactly what the Pharisees did.

of course if I'm performing if my heart is love to God then my works will be from God and unto God but if it just works you got to perform to somebody the Pharisee yeast needs an audience must have an audience the actors only reward is the applause and the number one concern of the Pharisees was how do I appear to an outsider and secondly how do I appear to other Pharisees you think about that

their identity as a human being was contained in how do I appear to others, on the inside they were a mess you talk about dysfunctioning they were a mess their entire life, identity meaning was how do I look to others how do I look see that's why they prayed out there you see I pointed out that when it started they were persecuted for praying in public that was it it was good that was a stand that was all long gone it was over they still pray the in public because they noticed people watched and so now they prayed and they prayed long prayers so that they would appear as holy people

And then of course you know back in in the law it says that the you were to have the law of God in your head and in your heart and it was a long practice goes back way before the New Testament that they put little tiny Scrolls of the law in for a little tiny box and when he came to prayer time they would tie it around their head so the law is on my forehead and they will put it on their arm and they would bring their arm to touch their heart after prayer time they would take it off not the Pharisees they kept it on all day they walked around with a little box on their head and said you see I carried the law of God in my head but then so does Pharisee Zachariah so my box is bigger than your box they walked around like jolly unicorns after a while with the boxes on front of their heads how do I look how am i balancing the Word of God on my head ridiculous yes utterly ridiculous but that's where they lived that was their identity.

they wore their prayer shoes when they went to pray not the Pharisee they wore their prayer shawls all the time but worse than that they lengthened the tassels so they flowed in the wind as they walked and they you see how holy I am how do I look how do I look how am i doing, see you could go on their prayers they giving was done ostentatiously just so the people would notice.

ever been into a gym where there's weight lifters, ever never seen them if you know one day have you been in a gymnasium and seen mirrors all the way around the wall have you ever was why, ever watched a weight lifters all the time check-in me out how's the muscle doing that was a Pharisee checking himself out how do I look compared with him I'm doing pretty good it's in the book that means they're so self-conscious what self-consciousness is part of the split of the fall man was not only separated from God he was separated from his self so that I become self conscious true aliveness is spontaneous. if you're self conscious you're walking alongside yourself checking up on yourself to see how self is doing isn't that the truth it's part of the fall you're separated from yourself you can't live if you're too aware of living.

the Pharisee is in a terrible shape he walks along beside himself and says you're not doing bad Pharisee I'm not doing bad, and then he see something where he's not so good in fact he's not very good at all thank God no one else can see that because you're looking terrible now you're disgusting wretch creature.

This is the conversation going on inside a self-conscious person now I'm good but most of the time you're worthless thank God no one can see you you despise yourself in these poor wretches who lived for the applause of the crowd, the awards or recognition of the other religious. How am i doing , how am i doing , it's terrible and they needed the simple folk they desperately needed the uneducated and those who had never studied scripture they needed them so they can sneer and say the ignorant, they desperately needed the prostitute and the thieves and the tax collectors so they could say I thank you our God I'm not that man.

I may be bad but I'm not as bad as him it's all part of my self-conscious performance before the crowd. Every morning when a Pharisee got out of bed he stood by his bed still druggy with sleep in the first words he raised his hand and say I thank you Oh God I am NOT as other men I thank you Oh God I am NOT a woman and I am NOT a dog and I'm not a Gentile I am a Pharisee under Jew and I thank you O God I'm not as other men and on that he began his day. when Jesus told that parable he was only repeating what every Pharisee said he needed I'm different I'm separated and I only have in my group the right kind of people I've drawn a circle they can't join until they're like me .

Jesus looked at the people that these Pharisees despised and he said they're lost sheep they're not to be despised. They are of supreme value not worthless, sinners maybe but not worthless, sin does not make us worthless we're still value so of such value the Shepherd comes to find one that was lost, the woman turns the house upside down to find the lost coin, the father waits for the boy covered in pig waste to come home, his worth has tremendous value.

the word lost Jesus used that word a lot it's important, you know I have a special Pen which I bought a few years go, this is an expensive pen I love, now I don't go around buying things like that, this fountain pen i use it i also use bic pens (one you get on you office stationaries, you know the one I am talking about, I've never lost a bic pen and I tell you why cuz they're not worth losing, oh I've had hundreds of Bic pens go missing but I'vent lost any of them they stay missing . if I lost the gold pen and I would cease everything until it was found. You lose gold pens, bic go missing. In the spirit world human beings are not like spirit Bic Pens they're gold-plated not worthless. Jesus saw the value of human beings that it shows up starkly against the Pharisee who couldn't love anybody because he's so withered and has such a sense of his own worthlessness and can't believe a God loves him they couldn't comprehend that God loved anybody let alone bad people and interestingly which we hardly ever hear talked about but out of that mindset and yeast of Pharisee ISM come all manner of sins jesus called them adulterers and adulteresses.

Woman caught in adultery and pharasees brought her to Jesus, what did Jesus

how did the Pharisees know where she was that's a good question and when Jesus said he that is without sin among you did you know in the Greek it says he that is it without this sin it's not just sin it's that sin out of this which appears so holy which in fact in the eyes of the average Israelite was holiness that it's heart at best it was an empty shell at worst it was see thing with corruption that erupted like a volcano every so often but above all Pharisee ISM the heart of all evil because they rebelled against God's saving initiative of love that's the sin of Pharisee ISM.

In Christ Jesus God has done everything to take us from sin and to place us into himself and there is nothing man could do, Christ has accomplished all and he is now all in all then what is faith, faith is my rest in and my response to God's initiative he took the initiative he came to me he accomplished all he then announced to me he done it all that's why it's called the good news by definition is the announcement of that which has already happened it's not the good directions it's the good news it's God announcing I did this I've come to tell you there's nothing more to do it's the good news that's when faith happens that's why it says thou shalt confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord that doesn't mean to say he's the boss of your life that is a poor Western interpretation of that, Jesus is Lord understood in a biblical sense is that he accomplished his work,

He who was God who entered into the consciousness of human who lived his life among us and as a man entered into the consciousness that he was God and then he has the God who his man took our sin and in the shedding of his blood took it away and not only took it away but took to himself our various sinfulness and crucified us with him on the cross and having accomplished it rose from the dead and ascended and is now exalted, He's finished it, He is Lord and when I see that it is done there's nothing more to be added he did it he has come down to where we are to take us to where he is he did it

I say he is Lord that's he seated at the right, he's exalted

it's over it's done

good news it's over, all religion says you do

the gospel says he did so that if that's the case if it's all over if he did then I am loved,

God judged me worth dying for I'm not worthless, you are not valueless, I am of such Worth I could only be purchased by the blood of Gods son I

have worth I'm loved and if he's at the right hand of the Father then my pardon is achieved, I couldn't be closer to God than that I am as close as he

I am received, I am at home in God then there's nothing to do is there. I mean God says it is done, faith says it is done

and there you get it faith, faith is always present tense Pharisee ISM is always future tense Pharisee says when I fasted a bit more , read my Bible earlier in the morning than usual

when I dedicated myself then perhaps we'll arrive at the end of the road and one of these days I'll be worthy enough to be good enough

faith always now if God has done all and I can't add to it faith says.

New Testament knows nothing of obedience to the law, the gospel is called the obedience of faith. It's a lot easier to obey the law, faith that says I don't do anything that's threatening now I can't do anything to please God and it wonderful I finally arrived I know where I stand I cannot please God what a relief spend, all my life struggling to do what I can't doand to realize he did everything and it is so it means I don't have to bring Christ down from above all bring him up from beneath.

Number of Paul’s letter were written to refute the pharasee ISM that was trying to creep into the church

Galatians 1:15-16

1:15 God’s eternal 1love dream separated me from my mother’s womb; his grace became my 2identity. (The word, 1eudokeo, means his beautiful intention; the well done opinion. [My mother’s womb, my natural lineage and identity as son of Benjamin.] The word, 2kaleo, means to surname, to summon by name.)

1:16 This is the heart of the gospel that I proclaim; it began with an unveiling of his Son 1in me, freeing me to announce the same sonship 2in the masses of non-Jewish people. I felt no immediate urgency to compare notes with those who were familiar with Christ from a mere historic point of view. (The Greek text is quite clear: “It pleased the Father to reveal his Son in me in order

Philippians 3:8–10 NRSV

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,

its not saying I am doing to die like to accomplish something He has left out rather reconganising the fact that I died with Him and rose with Him.

Romans 6:8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

Galatians 2:20 NASB95

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Jeremiah 31:34 NKJV

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Look at

Hebrews 8:11–12 NASB95

“And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ For all will know Me, From the least to the greatest of them. “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more.”

One of the signs of Pharasee ism is what lacking inside ir within man will compensate with external things, whether its clothes, laws or eating etc etc, this you can see in denomination.

So those rules or laws have taken the place of grace, mercy and kindness, pharasee ism have creeped in in many forms, some things that we consider spiritual law or activity is Pharasee ism.

I have experienced in my own life when I got to church most focus was my external apperance rather then teaching me what Christ has accomplished, because it the truth that sets your free

Today people are judged apperance, he or she is wearing jwellery - no they cannot be spiritual

communions are denied because are wearing jwellery

preacher is wearing a bracellet he cannot be spiritual.

in many forms Pharaseeism have creeped in.

at time things we do is more based on who is there, how big the crowd is rather one person, and driven by love