Twisting Traditions
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Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders,
and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Mark 7:6–7 (ESV)
And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Mark 7:8–9 (ESV)
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)—
then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Thesis: God does not accept twisted worship.
Intro: We are now entering into the last year of Jesus’s earthly ministry.
Much of what Jesus has done up until this point, when it comes to the Jewish purity regulations, was challenging the way they were to be viewed.
One example, when He healed the woman with the issue of blood in chapter, 5, one of the messages we may receive from that encounter is that the pure should not fear the impure, but restore and bring healing to that which tradition said was “unclean.”
For the first century Jewish man, or woman, purity was a matter of great importance - in fact some Jewish martyrs lost their lives for their stance on eating pork.
The belief behind this legalism was, that their obedience to God’s law would provoke God to come alongside the nation, empower them, and therefore they could rise above any kingdom or nation that would dare to conquer them.
So, the Jewish leaders, especially those within the Pharisees and Scribes, had added traditions that were meant to be an indication of ones loyalty. Not just to God, but to Israel itself.
They had replaced the true worship that the law required, and the true markings a heart searching after God would have naturally, the fruit of that relationship, if you will, in a person’s life who sought a relationship with Him.
They’d replaced such things with twisted traditions meant to box people in, within the law.
Cages within cages, in a sense.
What is worship, though? To put it simply, it is the way we show our reverence for God.
In fact, that’s the Greek word used in verse 7, as Jesus quotes Isaiah, it’s sebontai, which means “to show reverence for.” In Isaiah 29, which Jesus quotes, it’s the Hebrew word “yah-ray”, which literally means to “be afraid or fearful of”.
It’s the awe we show in our reverence for Him, His power, His majesty, His glory, His love and compassion but also His wrath and His justice. And we demonstrate this awe in how we live for Him...
As our life imitates what we truly believe about Him. Our theology comes out in our worship.
And this comes to a head today in our text in a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees and Scribes.
He quotes Isaiah, who prophesied about this very sort of thing, and the gist of the message is simply, “God does not accept worship done wrong.”
Worship done to the wrong god, the right way, is just as unacceptable to the Lord as worship done to Him in the wrong way.
It is Twisted Worship. It is, as we saw prior to the series of Mark starting, it is “Strange Fire”.
Twisted by tradition, by legalism, by men… who are set on appeasing themselves, not God.
God does not accepted twisted worship.
And tradition, for the sake of tradition, becomes slavery, it becomes selfish, until finally, it becomes savage.
Allow me to unpack all that this morning.
Tradition Can Become Slavery
Tradition Can Become Slavery
Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
Jesus had likely worked His way back, from our text last week, He has found His way back to Galilee.
In fact, John’s Gospel says as much, and goes on to say he would not go back to Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him there. (John 7:1)
And Mark gives us insight into what is going on here. The local Pharisees have called for backup to deal with Him. The Scribes “had come down from Jerusalem”, and they’re clearly watching both Him and His disciples closely.
It’s not that they begin to notice that the disciples’ hands are dirty when they go to eat, they were unwashed. The disciples had not followed protocol.
This more than just washing their hands - there was ceremony that had to be performed, purification that must be completed, before a man was allowed to feed himself.
Their hands must have been cleansed in order to separate a Jewish man from any sort of defilement.
For Jesus, it’s the same argument, a different day!
We’ve seen this earlier in the Gospel of Mark. Back in chapter 2, the Pharisees had issues with Jesus and the way He and His disciples treated the Sabbath, they had issues with how and when they fasted (Mark 2:18, 24).
To clarify, these Pharisees and Scribes are not concerned with hygiene, they’re considered with performance.
And they are there with one goal in mind - to trap Jesus. He has defied their rules against healing on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6) had been plotting, if you remember, with the Herodians
Mark 3:6 “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”
This is their way of taking their shot at him publicly, to discredit Him. If they can make him lose popularity with the public, hurt his credibility, He will be less of a threat, and they may not have to do anything to Him physically.
Or perhaps, the mentality was, “if we can dishonor Him now, nobody will care when He gets murdered.”
So the true fight begins.
In a boxing match, a good boxer may spend the first few rounds learning his opponents moves, range, speed, tells, vulnerabilities...
Good gamblers do the same thing. Some of you may remember the TV show “Maverick”, but I’m not old enough to remember that - I remember the movie with Mel Gibson.
Where he tells the table, “I never cheat, I seldom bluff, and I’ll spend one hour losing if you just let me play.” Then he loses for exactly one hour - spending that entire hour learning their tells.
Then Maverick proceeds to take all their money. That’s what the Pharisees hope to do here.
Feel Him out, see what they can learn. Try to match wits with Jesus - oops, can’t do that, so let’s call in help from the Scribes in Jerusalem - and the bell rings, the deck has been shuffled.
They watch Him, they watch His disciples, they’re not concerned with winning at this point, necessarily, but...
They’re certainly concerned with validating themselves and their mission...
(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders,
Now here’s how the ceremony would go:
First, it had nothing to do with really washing dirt off anything. It was a ceremonial rinsing. They’d have someone pour water out of a jar onto someone else’s hands, with their fingers pointing up.
As long as the water dripped off at the wrist, that person could proceed to the next step. Then he had to pour water over both hands with the fingers pointing down. Then each hand was rubbed with the other.
What about the soap? Yeah, what about it? It wasn’t used. It’s strictly ceremony. What’s the point?
TO appease ceremony. Tradition.
The tradition of the elders, the extra-biblical laws and interpretations of Scripture had supplanted Scripture itself as the highest religious authority in Judaism.
It had only come along since the Babylonian exile. The only time Hebrew Scripture talked about washing ones hands before eating, was when the priests were required to do so by Levitical law.
the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. When the sun goes down he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food.
Now Mark makes this note within verses 3 and 4 for our benefit, for the Gentile reader’s benefit. Because without understanding this, it would almost make it seem like the disciples were like hungry pigs headed to a trough rather than a dinner table.
They weren’t, they just weren’t as concerned with the traditions of the Jews like the Pharisees and Scribes were.
The actual Greek reads (οι ιουδαιοι εαν μη πυγμη νιψωνται τας χειρας) “unless they wash their hands with a fist”, which basically is Mark’s way of saying, “They’re not washing to get clean”.
The practice was tedious, and mostly symbolic - and the Pharisees expected it of anyone who may see themselves as someone who aspired to be a preacher or teacher of the Law, or even just a religious minded person.
But there’s no real requirement for it...
and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)
Oh, here’s something. “When they come from the marketplace”? Where did Jesus just come from, back in chapter 6?
And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
Their mentality is, “When we do what you do… we wash” but the thing is, they don’t do what Jesus does, they don’t heal the sick, they don’t teach the poor, and Jesus will expose this of them.
They’re so enslaved by their traditions, their so enamored with their legalistic ideals, what they want Scripture to be about, verses what it’s actually about - they’re going to miss the point completely.
When they come back from the marketplace, by the way, their type of washing is different from that mentioned in verse 3 - they wash their hands and the Greek word is nipsontai (νιψωνται) - to wash.
That’s just the rinsing of their hands, but the word Mark uses here in verse 4, means something else entirely. They do not eat unless they wash -baptisentai, the root is baptizo (βαπτισωνται) - it’s where we get the word for “baptism”, they purify themselves entirely. They submerge themselves.
Why would they do this? They’re not required to.
Now, there are all kinds of laws about touching unclean things - dead things like touching a dead animal.
“And by these you shall become unclean. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening,
And various other things a person may touch involving uncleanness that doesn’t need to be gone into detail - but suffice it to say you wouldn’t know you were unclean unless the person you happened to bump into made it known they were unclean when you touched them.
The idea is, what the Pharisees were doing was saying that ordinary people were so unclean, they had to continually separate themselves from them, continually cleanse themselves, because the “stench” or uncleanness of others may have gotten on them.
19th Century theologian and pastor John Broadus said, “But in the market-place one might easily chance to come in contact with a person or thing that was ceremonially unclean. So upon returning from the market-place they were not content with the ordinary washing, but would before eating wash, bathe, themselves, literally “baptize themselves”. No careful housewife among us would take more pains in cleansing persons or things connected with yellow fever or smallpox than they took with persons or things that had become ceremonially unclean.”
You see how the Pharisees viewed the people? Remember that the name Pharisee means “separate one”
You now see why it’s so powerful Jesus touches a leper?
You now see why it’s so important that if an unclean woman just touches His robe she’s healed?
You now see why it’s amazing that Jesus doesn’t always mind that the people are crowded around Him?
When Jesus came along, the traditions of the Pharisees and Scribes - what had once been a nice little cage for the people - were now cages for the Pharisees and Scribes.
They hated Him because He exposed their legalism wasn’t worship of God, it was worship of themselves.
And when the wickedness of our own hearts are exposed, we often hate those who shine that light.
It was Twisted Worship, it was a lie they had told themselves, that if they followed the ritual the relationship would come.
To the point they were missing the relationship that mattered. Their hearts were hard, so their skulls became thick, and their souls became lost.
At one point, perhaps, their intentions were good, but the traditions were no longer worship for them, it was slavery over them, and God was rejecting this twisted worship, offering them instead freedom.
But would they take it? Will we?
Tradition Can Become Selfishness
Tradition Can Become Selfishness
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Now, Josephus tells us that this was a practice developed over many years of study of the Torah, that as the Jewish people had studied the law, they had built up these traditions around them.
One of the goals of these traditions is commonly called “fencing”, or creating a type of buffer zone around the law to keep the explicit requirements of the Law unbroken.
If they keep these traditions, these Pharisees and Scribes will be able to sleep better at night knowing they’d done everything they could to keep the law in their own, personal, clean way.
Exodus does give us some insight here, that the priests were to wash before making a sacrifice, or before coming into the tent of meeting.
Exodus 30:20 “When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.”
But that’s about performing a sacrifice, not eating supper. So the logical path they followed must have been something like, “If my hands must be clean for sacrifices to God, to be in God’s presence, I should definitely show God my zealousness by keeping as much of me clean even prior to putting something into my body.”
The idea was, even if they weren’t priests, they could be as pure and holy as one. Again, purity was a huge deal to the Pharisees, if they wanted God to do what they wanted Him to do - they had to maintain that purity.
By asking Jesus as to why the disciples aren’t doing this, they’re implying that - as He is the Master, and they’re the disciples - it’s his fault. That He has taught them wrong.
As they’re implying that He isn’t a good teacher to his disciples, they’re saying they are, as this would have been something they definitely would have taught their pupils.
Mark 7:6–7 (ESV)
And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
People love to say, “Jesus was so kind, Jesus was so loving...” Jesus wasn’t afraid to call people out, either. “You hypocrites” he says.
He does this elsewhere
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
It’s the Greek Word huperkriton (υποκριτων) which is distantly related to a word meaning “an actor”, or a “stage player”.
In this context, however, Jesus is referring to their hardness of heart, the fact that they’re just “acting the part”, trying to go through the motions as they pass judgment on those who are not as fake as they are.
When people say, “The church is full of hypocrites” they have no idea. The hypocrites are the least of the church’s problems! The difference between a person who says that, and the person who goes to the church, is that the person who goes to church knows they’re a sinner.
We know we’re messed up, we’re in need of a Savior, we know were it not for God’s grace and our submissive belief in His promise to us through His Son, through the cross, we’d be lost.
The only thing that makes a Christian better than those around Him is that He knows He’s not better.
It’s not enough that Jesus just calls them out for hypocrisy, He needs evidence. He needs to back it up.
Name-calling will get you nowhere in a debate if you can’t give evidence for why you said such a thing. If you call out a false teacher, and call them such, give an explanation as to why. People may not like you said it, but Jesus did it so...
He does that very thing here in the text.
“This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me;” who is their heart focused on, I wonder, if it’s far from God? The answer is obvious. Themselves.
Making themselves appear to be something they are not, so the world around them gives them pats on the back, and loves them.
Jesus has called this out before, too.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Who are these hypocrites He is referring to?
The Pharisees, the Scribes. Who else stands in the synagogue but those religious leaders seeking attention.
“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Again, who does this?
The Pharisees and Scribes, they’re doing it to receive their reward, and Jesus says they’ve gotten all they’ll get.
They are spiritual phonies.
In our text, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 29 but it reads slightly different.
Isaiah 29:13 “And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,”
The reason, if you noticed this already, is because in Isaiah our translators are going from the Hebrew into English, and in Mark we are getting Mark’s reading of the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Hebrew), and then into English.
But the message is the same.
The Pharisees were no different than their ancestors - they worship with their mouth, they honor with their lips, but their heart is far from God.
Their worship is vain. It is empty, it is fruitless, it is vanity. What is vanity? It’s excessive pride in, or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements.
In doing this, they also teach the commandments of men as though they’re doctrines.
Doctrine comes from Scripture. If you have truly understood a verse or a passage, it will lead you into a doctrine - which is a Biblical truth we may hold to. But these Pharisees and Scribes were getting their doctrine from traditions men had set up.
This is not just a Jewish attitude or practice, Christians do this, too. Paul speaks of this to the Colossian Christians:
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Paul also warns the young preacher, Titus, when he tells him to rebuke his church sharply if they should fall into this practice, “that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth” (Titus 1:13-14).
It’s very easy to slip into traditions - especially those that make us feel good about ourselves - but even more so when we call it worship.
When it becomes “Me-ology” instead of “theology”. Theos being God - He is the focus of our hearts and our worship.
This is what the Pharisees had become.
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
These traditions were not even written down, they only existed in oral form and had been passed down generation after generation since the return from Babylonian exile, and yet these men hold it as if it were holy Scripture.
Later it would be written down in the Mishna, near the end of the 2nd century, but these traditions were just something accepted.
Something understood.
Something that puffed up those who knew them, and tore down those who didn’t.
One of the keys to being an effective church is being conscious of our own oral traditions, our own unwritten rules.
If someone comes in, a first time guest or maybe someone who hasn’t been here in years, if we aren’t careful we develop a culture that says, “You’re not welcome because you’re not one of us.”
We joke about such churches, the “us four and no more” type churches.” Yet the Pharisees prove that it’s possible to deceive ourselves into believing it’s the right thing to do.
I said this a couple of weeks ago - we don’t have to be like the world, but we do have to relate to the world enough to be able to speak to the world. We are living here, after all.
We must beware of selfish worship. The “Me-ology” in the songs we sing, the “me” focus in the sermons we preach. Worship isn’t affirming our sin, it’s surrendering to a holy God who removes our sin so that we no longer have to be enslaved by it.
The truth is the Pharisees wanted Ritual without Reality, they wanted Tradition more than Truth, and they wanted Conformity more than a real cleansing.
Be on guard, church, that we not become the same ourselves.
Selfish worship is twisted worship, and it is not accepted by God.
Tradition Can Become Savage
Tradition Can Become Savage
And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
The traditions, by themselves, were not necessarily a bad thing. But the heart behind them is where the problem came.
We have church traditions even now, that are not necessarily Scriptural. I mean, nowhere are we told to celebrate Christmas or Easter - yet we do.
Traditions have a way of reminding us of God’s truth, of leading us into a deeper relationship with Christ, if the heart and mind behind the tradition is coming from the right place.
In fact, the apostle Paul told the church at Thessalonica,
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
and warns them
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
The tradition Paul is speaking of, by the way, is that of the Gospel. Of Communion, of the things the apostles had learned from Christ and passed on down.
He makes that clear in 2 Thessalonians 2:14. But the fact remains, traditions aren’t necessarily evil - but the people who follow them can make them become so.
Jesus said they had rejected the commandment of God in order to establish their tradition - in other words, they’d made their way higher in their own eyes than even that which God had commanded.
And again, He explains this further, even bringing the 10 Commandments into the argument...
“Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’” which, the apostle Paul would later point out, is the first commandment with a promise. (Ephesians 6:2).
And the law clearly states that “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die,” which is Jesus quoting Exodus 21:17
“Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.
Both of these commands tell the Hebrew or Jewish person that they must honor one’s parents - and as we’d believe it to be not just Mosaic Law, but Moral law, we’d understand it to apply to us, too.
The law speaks much of honoring one’s parents, not just in the 10 Commandments, but we are also to treat our parents with respect, love, reverence, dignity, and even assist them financially when we’re able and they’re in need.
The second command clarifies the first - God takes the way a generation treats the previous generation seriously.
Paul even tells Timothy, 1 Timothy 5:1-2 “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.”
That doesn’t mean you’re always going to see eye to eye, but a rebuke to an older person should be done with respect and gentleness.
I’m not always the best at that, if I’m being honest, even with my own dad. Doesn’t mean I don’t love him, doesn’t mean I don’t love an older person in the congregation.
It’s something I’m working but frustration in correction from a pastor is a far cry from the wickedness the Pharisees were committing (that’s not to excuse my imperfections, but we’ll move on.
As Jesus continues, He says,
But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,
The accusation Jesus is making here is deep. On the one hand, the Pharisees, when they saw a man or woman taking care of their father or mother, they might encourage them to stop and give their resources to the synagogue.
So any blessing a parent received through their children, whether it was financial, food, or something else, would be considered “Corban” and Mark explains to us what that means - it’s something sacred, something given to God.
So if something was deemed Corban, it must be important and was only to be used for sacred purposes.
Jesus is accusing the Pharisees of taking this Corban principle, and using it to redirect God-given resources from their proper and compassionate uses for their own selfish purposes.
This makes a mockery of God since He is the one who instituted the 5th Commandment, Exodus 20:12
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
They are taking that commandment and twisting it into their own evil schemes.
The Pharisees aren’t going to like Jesus making this accusation - for one because it’s true - they don’t ever deny that what He said was wrong.
And for another, if the people get wind of this there’ll be some parents who are taken care of some priests who won’t be able to buy a new Ferrari. Or whatever the 1st Century equivalent was.
Twisted worship is not about glorifying God, it is about satisfying self.
Self-gratification, self-appeasement.
Real worship is not about you, it’s about Him, it’s about glorifying God in reverence and awe.
And Jesus concludes this thought by explaining to the Pharisees what their twisted worship is doing.
thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
The NASB reads
thereby invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”
God’s word is voided, it is invalidated, by the tradition - but I thought God’s word does not return void, right?
Isn’t that what Isaiah says?
Isaiah 55:10-11 ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty [or void], but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
So is Jesus saying that God’s word is made void by twisted worship?
No, He is saying the twisted traditions are not worship at all. They’re not His word at all. They’re human creations that attempt to deprive the word of God of its authority.
The tradition that Christ is addressing allowed an individual to call his material possessions Corban, and dedicate them to God or the Temple.
If a son was angry with his parents, or his parents were immoral, he could declare his property Corban to keep them from getting it.
And it was a vow made before God, and since any vow made before God wasn’t to be violated (according to the Law - Numbers 30:2), his possessions couldn’t be used for anything except service to God.
But Jesus is exposing the fact that the Pharisees were cancelling out God’s command to honor someone’s parents, through their traditions, because they wanted it for themselves.
This is savage!
They’re stealing from the elderly, is what they’re doing. God hates that!
Proverbs 15:25 “The Lord tears down the house of the proud but maintains the widow’s boundaries.”
Psalm 146:9 “The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.”
But that’s not all they’re up to, Jesus knows their heart, and says “But you do many such things.”
The Twisted traditions were not worship, it was rejected by God, because it was savage, it was evil.
Conclusion:
I’m going to move to close in just a moment but here’s where the rubber meets the road. Here’s where we pull back and it needs to hit our hearts.
Christ died for the traditionalist just as he did for anyone. Even in our study of the Pharisees we must be cautious we not become one in a different colored robe.
We can become quick to call others a “Pharisee” because we think that means their sin is darker or more wicked than our own.
You might say “Well I’m not stealing from my grandma, so I’m not as bad as those guys were,” but if you’re not honoring her, yes you are as bad as them.
If we are not careful we begin to think it’s good to hate the Pharisee, but in having that mindset we minimize our own sins.
You’ll hear Christian celebrities (and I use the term “Christian loosely here) say, “You’re a pharisee for judging me because of my sin,” no, I’m lovingly trying to tell you you need to repent.
The difference between a Christian who is judging and a Pharisee condemning is that the Pharisee wants to demonstrate their moral superiority, while the Christian brother or sister truly wants to bring spiritual maturity.
Listen to the words of the apostle Paul:
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
And elsewhere he says,
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
We have to be careful to not become the Pharisee, while bringing others to Christ, growing in Him ourselves.
He died for your sins as much as He died for those who accused Him before Pilate. He died for your sins the same as He died for Caiaphas. He died for your sins the same as He died for the Roman soldier who nailed His hands and feet.
Twisted Traditions will condemn you - God not accept twisted worship - but the blood of Christ can redeem you.
Let’s close in prayer
If you’re here and this has hit your heart, maybe you’ve been the Pharisee locked in tradition, maybe you’ve been the one accusing others of legalism, boxing yourself in, painting yourself in a corner, find a place to pray this morning and repent.