23 August 2015
I. Introduction
--
turn in Bibles to Matthew 23
--
this morning, we are continuing in our series on how to be a bad Christian --
by the time that we are done, we should be proficient at being able to keep
people from really coming to Christ and getting to know the Lord in a close and
personal way
--
in this series, we have been working through this passage in Matthew 23 and
observing the different failings of the Pharisees that Jesus pointed out to His
disciples
--
so far, we have covered three ways to be a bad Christian:
--
first, make Christianity burdensome by adding all kinds of rules and traditions
and rituals that no one could ever keep
--
second, serve others only to be seen -- in other words, make it about you and
serve others only so you get the glory and recognition
--
third, shut the door of grace to those wanting to come to Christ -- don't let
people in who are sinners or who are different from you and keep people from
growing more knowledgeable or more committed to the Lord than you
--
this morning, we are looking at the fourth way to be a bad Christian -- namely,
by following the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law
--
so, if you would, look down now and follow along or listen as I read vs. 15-22
Matthew 23:15-22 (NIV)
15 "Woe to you, teachers of the
law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single
convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as
you are.
16 "Woe to you, blind guides!
You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone
swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.'
17 You blind fools! Which is
greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
18 You also say, 'If anyone swears
by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is
bound by his oath.'
19 You blind men! Which is greater:
the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20 Therefore, he who swears by the
altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21 And he who swears by the temple
swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
22 And he who swears by heaven
swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.
--
in her book, "A Practical Guide to Living in Shanghai," Kathleen Lau
relates the story about a friend of hers who was traveling around China by
train -- one day, her friend finds himself in a remote town in the interior of
China -- with his limited Chinese, he goes up to a counter at the train station
and asks the clerk, "Do you have a ticket to Shanghai?" -- the clerk
replied, "No"
--
in China, there is a law that won't let them sell tickets in advance -- so her
friend assumed that all the tickets to Shanghai for that day were sold out --
so the next day, he goes back and asks the clerk, "Do you have a ticket to
Shanghai?" -- the clerk replied again, "No" -- so her friend
left and came back and the exact same thing happened again on the third day
--
by now, Kathleen's friend realizes that something is wrong, so he asks the
clerk, "Why don't you have a ticket for Shanghai?" -- the clerk replied,
"They sell tickets to Shanghai
at the next window"
--
now, it is obvious to us that when the man went to the window and asked for a
ticket to Shanghai, he actually wanted a ticket -- he didn't care who sold it
to him or what window he had to go to -- so, why do you think the clerk wasn't
more helpful and didn't direct the man to the other window?
--
you see, in China, the Government forces people to follow the letter of the law
and to do no more -- Kathleen's friend didn't ask the clerk where he could get
a ticket -- he just asked the clerk if he had a ticket to Shanghai -- the clerk
followed the letter of the law and only answered the man's question -- that was
all that was expected of him and that was all that he was going to do
--
if Kathleen's friend had reported the ticket clerk for bad customer service, he
probably would not have even been reprimanded because he had done exactly what
his boss had told him to do
--
we understand why Kathleen's friend was upset -- living here in America, we
have been taught that the spirit of the law is more important than following
the letter of the law -- in other words, it is the intent behind our actions
that is more important than the act itself
--
for example, it is illegal for anyone in here to kill or harass or harm a bald
eagle -- it is protected by the Endangered Species Act -- but, let's say that
on the way home today, we see a car hit a bald eagle and wound it -- it's
laying there in the middle of the road, and we know that if another car comes
along, it is going to get killed -- so, I imagine that most of us would break
the law and pick up the eagle and take it to a vet
--
the letter of the law says you can't pick up a bald eagle -- but the intent of
the law -- the reason the law was written -- was to protect the bald eagle from
being harmed -- so, even though you might not be following the letter of the law
if you pick up the eagle -- you are following the spirit of the law
--
in this passage, Jesus makes the same point to His disciples and the Pharisees
-- yes, the Pharisees were totally obeying the letter of the law -- they were
doing everything that God required in the commandments and were not failing to
do anything that He told them -- but, they were missing the intent of the
commandment -- they were missing the heart of God's law
--
they were so concerned with following the letter of the law that they missed
the spirit of the law -- the ultimate reason why God gave us the commandment in
the first place
--
so, let's spend a few minutes and look at this passage together
II. Scripture Lesson
--
verse 15
Matthew
23:15 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You
travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you
make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
-- Rowland Croucher, an evangelist
in Australia, preached a
Sunday night service one time to a very small conservative congregation in
rural Australia
-- he started off by asking them what they knew about the Pharisees
--
now, we all know that Jesus was constantly being berated by the Pharisees for
not following the law -- and we know that He saved some of His harshest rebukes
for this sect of legalistic Jews -- but Croucher wanted to know whether there
was anything good about them -- so he asked the congregation to list out the
good things about Pharisees and he wrote them down on a chalkboard at the front
of the church
--
this congregation pointed out that the Pharisees knew their Bibles -- they were
men who really had studied and memorized the Word of God -- they were
disciplined in prayer -- they fasted twice a week -- they did more than tithe,
they gave about a third of their income to their church
--
they were moral upstanding people and followed God's law to the letter -- they
were the very epitome of holiness -- many had been martyred for their faith --
they attended 'church' regularly -- they were evangelical and orthodox,
believing in a literal interpretation of Scripture -- and they were
evangelistic -- they were dedicated to sharing their faith with others -- right
here in this verse, Jesus said they'd even cross the ocean - a fearful thing
for Jews - to win a convert
--
when Croucher finished writing all of that on the board, the people in the
church got silent -- he pointed to one of the leaders of the church on the
front row and said, "What's wrong?" -- the leader responded,
"That's us -- we're Pharisees"
--
Croucher responded, "Then you've got a problem: Jesus said these sorts of
people are children of the devil!"
--
but then he asked, "What's so wrong with this list of admirable qualities
of the Pharisees? -- Short answer: it omits what was most important for
Jesus" -- a relationship with the Father
--
The Pharisee -- both ancient and modern-day -- is only concerned about the law
-- about how they can fulfill the law and do it right -- Now on the surface,
there's nothing wrong with that -- Jesus demands that we be holy as He is holy
-- that we live moral, righteous lives of obedience to God's commands -- but we
can take it too far -- we can keep every aspect of the law and in the process
destroy the very people the law was intended to save
--
the Pharisees were dedicated and committed, but they were dedicated and
committed to the wrong thing -- they worshiped the law and not the One who gave
them the law -- and so, when they went out and evangelized -- when they witnessed
to other people and converted someone to their sect, Jesus says they made them
twice as much a son of Hell as they -- because they weren't teaching them to
follow the One who made the law -- but to follow the law to the letter at the
expense of a relationship with the Father
--
in other words, they were not evangelists for God, but evangelists for the law
and Pharisaism -- their concern was not a relationship with God, but adherence
to strict religious standards -- they weren't trying to bring people to God --
they were more concerned about making people Pharisees -- and, if we're not
careful, we can do the same
-- as one writer put it, "If we teach
mere conformity to a Christian cultural standard, rather than allowing God to
effect inward conviction and renewing of the mind, then we set people on the
path of outward, artificial righteousness" that does not lead to true
salvation -- in essence, we can bring people to church, but not to God -- that
was the sin of the Pharisees
--
verse 16
Matthew
23:16-18
16
"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it
means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by
his oath.'
17
You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold
sacred?
18
You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone
swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.'
--
Jesus gives the Pharisees an example of what they were doing wrong by pointing
out the way they justified themselves through oath-making -- in Numbers 30:2,
it says, "When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate
himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he
said." -- in other words, "don't break your oath, but keep the oaths
that you made to the Lord"
--
God takes oaths very seriously -- they are binding -- and for that reason,
Jesus taught in Matthew 5 that we should not make oaths to God or anything else
-- but here, we see that the Pharisees have taken the letter of the law even
further -- they began looking for loopholes in the law -- for ways to do
exactly what God said while still doing what they wanted
--
not only were they making oaths to God -- they were also allowing people to
make oaths to the temple and the altar -- to man-made objects that were
intended to point people to God -- not to be worshiped themselves
--
and so they interpreted the letter of the law to make it say that oaths made to
the things the Pharisees considered important -- the gold in the treasury of
the temple and the gift on the altar -- these oaths were binding, but the
others were not
--
so Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this practice -- verse 19
Matthew
23:19-22
19
You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift
sacred?
20
Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21
And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
22
And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on
it.
--
the temple and the altar -- the gold in the treasury and the gift on the altar
-- these things were dedicated to the Lord -- they pointed to Him -- so, while
the letter of the law allowed loopholes that changed the binding of oaths,
Jesus said that the intent of the law -- the spirit of the law -- was that
oaths made to the Lord were always binding and should be kept and not broken
--
the Pharisees kept the law, but missed the purpose -- in Matthew 12, we see a
passage where this contrast between keeping the letter of the law but missing
the spirit and the purpose of the law is brought out sharply -- we don't have
time to go into this passage in detail, so let me encourage you to look it up
for yourself later this week -- let me just give you a synopsis of what
happened
--
one time, Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field on the
Sabbath -- His disciples were hungry and they began to pick some of the heads
of grain and to eat them -- the Pharisees became livid and they approached
Jesus -- "Why are you letting your disciples do what is unlawful on the
Sabbath?"
--
later on, they rebuked Jesus for healing a man whose hand was shriveled on the
Sabbath
--
now, we all know that the Sabbath is to be a day of rest and faith -- it is a
day when there is to be no work -- in the eyes of the Pharisees -- in keeping
with the letter of the law -- the disciples, by picking the grain, were working
on the Sabbath and breaking the law -- and Jesus, by healing the man with the
shriveled hand, was working on the Sabbath and breaking the law
--
so Jesus points out the heart of the matter -- the purpose of the Sabbath was
not to make it a day to be worshiped -- but to make it a day that man could
rest from his labors and worship God -- as He said, "The Sabbath was made
for man -- not man for the Sabbath"
--
by following the letter of the law, the Pharisees were making the Sabbath day
more important than the God who made it
--
I like the way Eugene Peterson translates Jesus' response to the Pharisees
about their tendency to worry about the letter of the law instead of the spirit
of the law -- 'There is far more at stake than religion. If you had any idea
what this Scripture meant - "I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible
ritual" - you wouldn't be nitpicking like this.'
--
as David wrote in Psalm 51:16-17, "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I
would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings -- The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit; a broken and
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
--
in other words, it's not so much about doing the right things or following the
law to the letter -- but meeting the intent and purpose of the law -- which is
always to bring us closer to the heart of God and to share God's love with all
we meet
III. Closing
--
so, if you want to be a bad Christian, make sure that you follow the letter of
the law exactly and do no more
--
if the law says that you have to be at church on Sunday, don't stop to help a
person broken down on the side of the road if it means you'll be late or you
might miss the worship service altogether -- and don't even think about
skipping Bible study to help the single mother in your neighborhood mow her
grass -- that would be wrong
--
if the law says to not be judgmental about others and to love your neighbor as
yourself, find a loophole and gossip about someone with the excuse that you are
just lifting them up in prayer -- "Now normally, I would never dream of
telling you what so-and-so did, but I just want you to pray for them" --
don't consider bearing their burdens with them and lifting them up before
God and not man
--
if the law says don't work on the Sabbath, then make sure you don't cook Sunday
dinner because that would be working -- but go out to eat instead and then
condemn the waitress and the cook in the restaurant for working on Sunday --
and don't give them any more than 15% for a tip, because that's all that's
required, even if they are working on Sunday to help support their family
--
if the law says give God your tithes and your firstfruits, spend countless
hours trying to calculate 10% of your income and question whether God should
get a tithe from your gross or your net -- and never think about giving more
than what the law demands
--
and, if the law says that worship is on Sunday and Sunday only, then don't
consider doing ministry or having worship services on any other day -- why,
that might make it possible for law-breakers to come to church and get to know
the Lord
--
let me close by leaving you with a modern example of how we sometimes follow
the letter of the law with disastrous results -- in Chicago a few years ago, Christopher
Sercy was playing basketball with a few friends half a block from a local
hospital -- while they were playing, three teenage Latino gang members looking
for a black target approached and shot Sercy in the stomach -- his friends
picked up Sercy and tried to carry him to the hospital on foot -- they got
within 30 feet of the hospital and couldn't go any further, so they ran inside
and asked for help
--
But, the emergency room personnel refused to go outside to assist the dying boy
-- you see, hospital policy only allowed them to help people who were inside
the doors of the hospital -- they couldn't go out and bring Sercy in because
that would be violating the policy
--
frustrated, the boys went back outside and called the police -- when the
officers arrived there, they followed their official policies and called for an
ambulance -- you see, they were not allowed to carry people to the hospital in
their cars -- they had to defer to the ambulance service, and so they ignored
the pleas to help them get the boy into the hospital
--
when the ambulance still had not yet arrived after several minutes, the police
finally gave in and carried Sercy into the emergency room, where the hospital
staff was waiting -- but by then, it was too late -- nothing could be done to
save his life1
--
what killed Christopher Sercy that day? -- a bullet fired from a rival gang, to
be sure -- but it was also the hospital staff and the responding police, who
followed the letter of the law instead of doing the right thing, that killed
Christopher Sercy
--
following the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law is the fourth
way to be a bad Christian -- but I want you to understand that doing this has
eternal implications -- inaction on our part and failing to do what is right
can cause a person to miss eternal life with Christ
--
here's a rule of thumb for you to follow -- when in doubt, err on the side of
Jesus, and you'll never go wrong
--
as we close now, I am going to ask you to consider ways in your life and in the
life of this church that we might be more intent on keeping the letter of the
law instead of the spirit of the law -- let's pray that we always look at all
situations in the light of God's grace and will and purpose and that we do not
become modern-day Pharisees in our own right
--
let's pray
-----------------------------------------
1 Greg Asimakoupoulos [http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1998/august/5301.html?id=22395]
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