Life Following Christ

I want to use a passage of scripture this morning from Matthew chapter 23, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles. This passage follows a series of events in which Jesus has been attacked. The scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees have all had their chance at him. They've said rather vicious things about him, and they've tried their very best to put him in a position where he would look as if he was a failure, or as if he didn't know what he was doing, or if he was a fraud. All of those things they wanted to make sure that Jesus was a loser and they could show it. But Jesus never got mad at them. He wasn't angry at them. He didn't say anything bad about them. But Jesus wanted to direct his disciples to help them understand what was taking place. Why is it that these religious people are so angry at Jesus, who's the most righteous and holy person that's ever lived in this world? So he was trying to describe to them the events and circumstances that were taking place and why they were. In this passage, Jesus starts out by saying to them, to his people, the followers of him, a very complimentary thing about the scribes. He said, you should go to them and listen to what they teach you, because they're teaching you the Bible, and you should live by that. Everything they tell you to do, you should do it with vigor. That's a great compliment to anyone to have. But then he said, but I must warn you, you listen to what they say, but you don't do the things that they do. Because they tell you what to do, but they don't do it themselves. Jesus then begins to describe what it is he finds in their lifestyle objectionable. He says, the people who are so passionate about being Pharisees, they do things that draw attention to themselves. They make everybody focus on them and look at them because they want the people to see their good deeds and what they've done and think well of them. And when they do that, they detract attention away from God. Now the Pharisees were not one group of people all the same, like any group that you find. The Jews knew this too. In fact, in the Talmud, I read recently that there was a list of Pharisees, of different kinds of Pharisees that the Jews themselves had written. They said there were the shoulder Pharisees who had all their good deeds on their shoulders so when they went by, everybody could look at them and see those, and they called those shoulder Pharisees. There were the wait-a-little Pharisees who knew what they were supposed to do, but they said, I'll do it later. So they had a good message and talked good things, but they didn't always put them into practice themselves. There were the bruised and bleeding Pharisees. They took very seriously the issue of lust. If they were walking down the street and saw a woman coming, they would close their eyes, turn their head away, run into the wall, run into a post. They called them bruised and bleeding Pharisees. Their bruises were a sign of their modesty and their chaste nature. There was then the mortar or the humpback Pharisees, the tumbling Pharisees sometimes they called them because they were always humble. So they always were stooped over and they walked in a shuffle, you know, not looking up at anyone. They were so humble and they would stumble over things and fall. They were the humpbacked or the stooped Pharisees. There were the ever-reckoning Pharisees or the computing Pharisees. They always had a long list of everything they did that was good because they were keeping records of it. They wanted God to know all the good things they did because they thought in some way it made a way for them to be able to get into heaven. So every good deed they did had an ulterior motive to it. There were the timid or the fearing Pharisees who everything they did good they were terrified if they didn't do good they'd go to hell. So their only good deeds were done to protect themselves, to save themselves. And then there were the God-fearing Pharisees who really, truly loved God and served Him because they loved Him and cared about Him. All kinds of them. Jesus didn't condemn all of these people because they were trying to live the law. His condemnation rests on people who were concerned about their appearance before other people. He was concerned about people who were trying to earn their way into heaven, doing good deeds and were proud of their good deeds that God might bring them into heaven. He knew that the lifestyle they were living was contrary to what He wanted for the people of His followers. This is not the way I want you to live. And so He said to them, I want you to be sure that you don't do the things that they do. They do these things that people might draw attention to them. This is the way Jesus said it. And Jesus said to the crowds and His disciples, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, but you must obey them and do everything I tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see. They make their phylacteries wide, the scripture verses they held on their hands, and the tassels on their prayer shawls long. This is a way to show their spiritual nature. They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogue. They love to be greeted in the marketplace and to have men call them rabbi. Jesus was condemning this arrogance on their part, the desire to have special standing, to be seen as important people, and all the things that went with it. A special seat at the synagogue, recognition in the marketplace, so that everyone around when they spoke, hello rabbi, would recognize that here was a learned man of God. It made their ego feel big, made them feel important and significant. Now what I want to focus on this morning, verse 8, but you are not to be called rabbi. Now Jesus begins to tell us, this is the lifestyle that I condemn. If that's what I condemn, what do I want you to be like? But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have only one master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one father and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called teacher, for you have one teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant, for whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. There's something that you, I think, would help you to know about the culture in which Jesus was dressing. The rabbis were very special people to the people of God. During the exile in Babylon, the law became very important and people had to hold on to the law because all they had of their religion and so the one who taught them the law was the one who was elevated or important to them because this is the way by which the word of God came to them and they knew how to be able to live because the rabbi explained to them what life was and how you were to live it, how God wanted them to live it. So the rabbi took an important place and over the time his place became more and more important as the rabbi began to want to be important, the place got elevated higher and higher and higher, even more after Jesus' death and this is what Jesus was talking about. The rabbis were people who everybody looked at in a special way. If the rabbi in your community, the teacher of the law died, they expected everyone in the family to mourn, everyone in the community to mourn as if it were a brother who died. And the rabbis said that if you didn't pay the rabbi sufficiently to support his financial needs that you would be in danger of going to hell. And they said that even after a rabbi died, if you said negative things about the rabbi, you were in danger of the fires of hell. You see how subtly the rabbis had been elevated from an ordinary citizen of the community to someone who was on the level of God himself? It's God who sends people to hell for rebellion against him. Now the rabbis have placed themselves not only as a teacher of the words of God or the law of God, but as an unequal with him and if you say anything negative about the rabbi, you're cursing like cursing God. If you say anything bad about the rabbi, it's like saying blasphemy against God. So what Jesus was talking about in this issue was not necessarily the word rabbi, for it only has the meaning you pour into it, but he was talking about a world in which people saw religious people in a hierarchy. There's no ordinary people down here with us and then those who are preachers are a little bit higher and those that are regional directors are a little bit higher and those in charge of the whole thing are all together on top of it and there is a spiritual hierarchy of people above you and whenever you call the rabbi by name in this culture, you're placing him on a level above all the rest of you. Now you who are followers of me are not to do that. You're not to say he's the preacher so he's bigger than we are, closer to God than we are, more spiritual than we are. Sometimes people call me and say, I want you to pray for me, I know you have a special connection to God. This is contrary to scripture. He told us not to do this and he tells us exactly why, because you're all brothers. We have one father in heaven, that's God, and the book of John says, to as many as believed him, to them gave he power to become the children of God. You don't get higher than that unless you become God himself. All of us then are children of God, we're brothers and sisters in faith and we have one level, one level. There's not a hierarchy of people. Well what is there then about a person who's a preacher or a teacher? Well Paul deals with that when he's talking in 1 Corinthians. You know the whole book of 1 Corinthians is dealing with this very issue. It's so ingrained in us that any kind of group or organization needs to have someone that's in charge and someone that's under them and then there's the hoi polloi underneath all of that, which is in our nature. So the Christian, the community in Corinth became followers of Christ and they began to have the experience of spiritual gifts and each one had different gifts and so they were arguing who had the most important gift, who's the level up. Speaking in tongues some of them said, the gift of giving some said, the gift of teaching some said, all these different debates about exactly what it was. They were all arguing about the importance of their particular place and Paul uses in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians this discussion. The body is a unit, verse 12 of chapter 12. He brings the issue of spiritual gifts to the fore and he recognizes indeed that there are many different spiritual gifts in the church and our tendency is to see people with spiritual gifts in certain levels as more important or closer to God or more valuable than other people. He's writing this book to let us know that that's not true at all. It's not at all what God had in mind for what Jesus taught was that everyone was brothers on the same level. The body he says is a unit. The church is a unit. It's made up of many parts it's true and though all its parts are many they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we're all baptized by one spirit into one body whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and we're all given of one spirit to drink. We're all the same he's saying. All of us are the same. Skip to verse 21. The eye cannot say to the hand I don't need you and the head can't say to the feet I don't need you. On the contrary these parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable and the parts we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable we treat with special modesty. While our presentable parts need no special treatment but God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it so that there should be no division in the body but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers every part suffers with it. If one part is honored every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you a part of it and in the church God has appointed first the apostles, prophets, he goes on to list all the different functions. All of them are the same. They have spiritual gifts from the Father. There is no division between them. What Jesus is talking about in this passage has brought to light here. When you read this at first and it says you're not to call anybody Rabbi you say well that word then is forbidden. No it's not the word it's the meaning of the word to the people who were there. This word said this person is far above the ordinary human being. You are to look up to them and you are to consider them better than yourself. What Jesus is fighting is the issue of spiritual hierarchy among his people. There isn't one. It's all a figment of our imagination just like this was. The rabbis want to say we need special attention because we have a special role for God. What Paul was saying was every part of the body has a special role for God. Well you say face is very important because I look at you and I see your face and that's really important. But if the little piece inside of you that pumps your blood is gone your face doesn't amount to anything. You're dead. You might say well my body is strong I have a vigorous body and I tell you if your liver quits working it's over for you. You can't see your liver and I can't see your liver and I can't see your heart but they're vital parts of your body and all the rest however much people might look at the outside they're critical for life. More critical than your face. More critical than your muscles. Every part in the body of Christ has a value to God. He placed them there and they're important to him. Don't think that some people among you because of the gifts they've been given have an elevated position of spirituality with God. They do not. And then he says something that's sort of startling to us in this passage because it sounds as if he's telling us something that's almost impossible to do. And do not call anyone on earth father for you have one father in heaven. Now remember it's not the word that Jesus is concerned about as with Rabbi. It is the position that that word addresses. Remember when Jesus was calling people to be his followers he said to a man I want you to come and follow me and he said I'll be glad to do that but I've got problems. My father is sick and near death and I need to go see him. And then I'll come and follow you. What he was saying was I listen to your command to me but your command is counteracted by my father's request. So I must obey him first and when I've satisfied my father then I can obey you. Jesus said the man who takes hold of the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of heaven. What he meant was if you're going to enter my kingdom the father must control your life. And if your earthly father tells you to do something contrary to what your father in heaven tells you to do the choice must be crystal clear for you. It is your father in heaven who takes the priority. What he was saying in the use of this word is do not give anyone in this world a place in your life that God ought to have. If your father came up to you and said you know son I'm fixing to hold a bank robbery I want you to help me and you sit down and say to your father in heaven should I rob the bank? What do you think he's going to tell you? You got that one don't you? Well sometimes it's not that easy. My father asked us to do things that seemed like it's not quite evil but it might keep me from doing some things that God wants me to do, be in Bible study, take a job at the church. You see those are harder questions to face because we want to give to earthly fathers a place of significance and importance but Jesus said let no one in this world control your life ultimately but God. Does it mean you don't pay honor to your father? No for the father tells you to honor your father and mother and he will tell you in circumstances where there's a choice between one or the other which one you must do and you must always be willing to listen to the person who's your father, your father in heaven. The fact that when you come to God and you say I give you my life he gives us the ability to become children of his we then now become responsible to be children of God and that takes precedence over everything else in our lives. It was even true of Jesus. One day he was at work doing the work that God had called him to do. Mother and his brothers were outside and people came to him and said your mothers and brothers are outside and he said let me tell you something. You people are my mother, my brothers, and my father. Why? Because he has the same father we have. They're all on common ground with each other. There is no one to me more important than you. Not even Mary my mother. You take precedence over human relationships. What Jesus was teaching is great equality of the kingdom of God. Once you become a child of God there is no higher level to which you can come and everything that we make to be higher than that is our own human fantasy. It's not what God does. In fact you know whenever Paul is writing 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 15 he refers to the people in Corinth as his children saying he's their spiritual father. Now what Paul is meaning is I don't stand between you and God but in human terms my life and ministry resulted in your spiritual birth into the family of God and so on that level I can say I'm your father spiritually. But he knew what this passage was about and he knew that he was never to stand between them and God. They were always to listen to God even when he wrote them a letter or even when he spoke to them. And if you'll notice when the cults spring up here and there the leader of that cult has to take the position to be the ultimate authority in their life. If I tell you to drink poison Kool-Aid I expect you to do it. If I tell you you should have four wives then you should have them. If I tell you I'm the one who should have sex with you then you must accede to me. You see the cult focuses on an individual, a human person as the ultimate controller of their lives. That's why you must be careful with anyone religiously who wants you to do everything they tell you to do. What are you listening for then? Oh when you listen to someone who's a teacher in Sunday school or a Bible teacher you're listening in their words for the very words of God himself, not the teacher's words. Is the message drawing attention to the person or to God? Are you hearing what that person wants you to do so you feel like if you don't do what they want you to do they're going to be mad at you? Or is it that you hear the words of God and you know if you don't do what God tells you he wants you to do he'll be upset with you? And so when the preacher preaches are you more concerned about what he thinks of you than what God thinks of you? Are you listening to his words to hear the words of God? If this is done correctly and I open the passage of scripture and I do the study I'm supposed to do and I pray as I'm supposed to pray and I have something to give to you there is here the very words God wants to say to you. And spiritually if the Holy Spirit's inside of you you should hear that and you should know the difference as to whenever I start demanding something of you and God starts demanding something of you. Never call someone your superior who stands between you and God. That's what he was saying. The word doesn't necessarily matter to God. It's the hierarchy that it represents that matters enormously to God. And then he says nor are you to be called teacher for you have one teacher the Christ. Now do you get the pattern here? Matthew chapter 28 verse 20 Jesus said we're to go into all the worlds and make disciples and teach them to do everything that I've told you to do. He commands us to be teachers. So we're not to call anybody a teacher, no. Remember the context he's talking about. Here are the teachers of the law who take that position to say I am superior to you and I am the one who has the message of God and you have to listen to me. Don't ever look at someone as the ultimate teacher of spiritual things to you. No preacher is that and if he becomes that to you, you've sinned. For all the pastor does is teach the words of God and if he gets to be the person who's between you and God and he becomes the focus of your attention then everything is wrong. Everything is mixed up. What Jesus is telling his followers is there is one thing for you and that is you come to God and you say you're the Lord and ruler of my life and he becomes your father so he controls everything in your life. He becomes the great master. That's what the word rabbi means. Great master. He becomes the one who's your teacher. He's the source of everything for you. Everything you need is found in God. Nothing else is found anywhere else except in God. And then Jesus says something that if you read the Bible literally will confuse you. The greatest among you will be your servant. So I heard someone say well God really wants us to be great because he says the greatest of you. Well, remember it's the word. Does greatest mean that you're greater in the eyes of the people around you or in your society or culture or in your church? Or is it how God assesses us? He's already told us we're not to look for hierarchy among the people. We're not to elevate one another among ourselves but we're all to be considered equal with God. So who is it that determines whether or not we're great? It's God. If your father wants you to look, he wants to look down on you and say I'm pleased with what you've done. I've given you a gift and I've given you a responsibility and you've done it. I'm pleased with you. If you want God to see you and be pleased with you, then you must become a servant. But there's a catch here too, you know. Well, I can become great if I'm a servant of everybody. So let's see. Every time I go to the church I'm going to take every job they'll offer me. Every time they say we need a volunteer, I'm going to hold my hand up. Every time there's something to be done, I'm going to jump in and do it. And I'm busy all the time doing everything there is in the world. And I look around at myself and say, you know, boy, you're really doing a good job. Look at all the things you're doing. And suddenly my servanthood has become an issue of pride with me. My servanthood has elevated me above all those other people that don't do those things. Look at me. I am such a wonderful servant of God. You see, you don't get away by just using the word. You look inside of your heart to see what you take pride in. When you think about your own life, what do you say in your spiritual life gives you pride? A sense of significance or accomplishment or value. That's what he was talking about, the Pharisees that kept a list. I want God to know how good I'm doing. Now they had a list that's different than ours, but, and if you come into the kingdom of God and say, well, it's all about servanthood, but I'm going to serve everybody, everywhere, all the time. And all of a sudden you find yourself caught up in pride and arrogance. Look how much I do for God and for others. But you see, God looks in your heart and he knows why you're doing it. He knows if you're doing it because there's a need and he knows if you're doing it because he's told you, or if you're doing it because you're trying to earn a standing with him. So if you want to be great in the kingdom of God, you must adopt the same spirit that Jesus had, and that is to do everything the Father tells you to do, regardless of whether people like it or not, regardless of whether they kill you or not, regardless of whether it's successful or not. You do what God tells you. In verse 12, he gives us the final word of note about what this lifestyle is, for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. You see, the person that's doing all this servant work is elevating themselves in their own eyes. They're standing with God. It's awfully easy when you do the work of God and you try hard to do it, not to look back on it and feel proud of it. You may have heard people say around the church about someone that they're so humble and their greatest pride is that they are so humble. You can have pride in your humility, say. You can have arrogance in your humility. But it doesn't matter what you think you are or what others think you are, because God knows what it is. And if you exalt yourself and you think of yourself as better than the people around you because of what you do and how hard you work, if you think of yourself as better, more spiritual, sort of farther up the line than other people because you don't do what other people do or you do more than other people do, then you're exalting yourself. That's when we get mad at other people because they're not doing their share. I am doing so much and no one else is doing their part. I exalt myself. God has a word for that. I will humble you. If you really want to be seen in God's eyes as important, then humble yourself. How do you do that? You say to God, I'll do whatever you ask me to do. And when I've done it, I've done it only because you've told me. I don't care what anybody else in the world does. It doesn't matter if I'm the only one who's doing it. I'll do what you've asked me to do. I don't care if nobody even values it, Father. If you've asked me to do it, I'm going to do it because you've asked me to do it. And when I see some need that is here and you've said to me, meet that need, pray for that person, go talk to that person, invite them to church, tell them your story, witness to them, I will do that no matter what happens. Even if I'm the only one that's doing it, even if they get mad at me for doing it, even if it costs me greatly for doing it because there's no one in the world I would rather be happy with me than you. And when you've humbled yourself in such a fashion, then God will exalt you. You oftentimes hear in the church people complain about others that don't do their share or their job. That's not our business, see, because they don't work for us. They work for God. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, take a servant spirit. What is a servant? Well, it's really the word in the Bible, servant, is a word for slave, and you have a boss, and when you have a boss, you do what the boss tells you, and it's none of your business what the others do. It's only your business if you've done what you're supposed to do. What Jesus is outlining here is a lifestyle that's really contrary to everything we know in our culture. You're had now a part of a group where everybody's the same, and everybody's given a job, and those who do an important job in the world's eyes are no better to God than those who do insignificant things in the world, for they all do one thing, exactly what the Father tells them to do. That's all he asks, and now when you've done your job, you're finished, where you see, I'm not the boss of you, and you're not the boss of me. God is the boss of both, and if we humble ourselves and simply do what God asks us to do, when that final day comes and you stand before him, he'll say, well done, my good and faithful servant. He won't ask us to stand next to him and tell him the people that didn't do their part down here. He's not concerned about that. He won't ask us to stand next to him and tell him the people that didn't live quite like they should down here. That's his to take care of, not ours. What we are are brothers and sisters, all the same, with one father, given a job to do each of us, and held accountable by a father when we do it with a spirit of servanthood and obedience. Well, you see, what he's talking about here is this one thing that allows you to enter the kingdom of heaven, that is when you come to the threshold of your life and you say, I've been living my life doing exactly what I want to do, when I want to do it, the way I want to do it, and it's gotten me in the worst mess I've ever been in in my life. Now I recognize that if I would listen to you and put you in the position of authority in my life, everything would be different because now I've learned that you can make a difference in my life and the world. And so today I give myself to you. You alone are my father. You alone are my God. You alone are my boss. And from this moment on, I will live in submission to you. And at that moment, he makes you his child. And you're the brother of every other person that's done that. Maybe you're at the place in your life where you realize that's what you need to do. You look back and say, it hadn't quite worked the way I wanted. I'd like to start over. Well, you can. All you have to do is say, okay, God, I want to be your child. I want to live the way you tell me. Right now, today, this moment, you can say to God, I give my life to you. From now on, you're my rabbi, you're my father, you're my teacher, you're my Lord. And no one else will ever have that place for me. And by the miracle of God, he makes you his child. Maybe you can remember back to when that happened to you, how things were so different for you. How your sins were lifted and your guilt and shame was taken away. Everything was new to you. Is it still that way? Or have you begun to live that worldly way like some of the Pharisees, trying to get credit from God, putting yourself up and down on standards of the world or yourself? You can start over again with that, too. You just have to recognize where you are and say, God, I want to live this way. I want to live the way you tell me. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment to pray? In a moment, I'm going to ask you, if you've never surrendered your life to Christ, to do that. And then I'm going to ask you to do something else. Because I'm going to ask you to leave the seat where you are, come to the front and say to me, today, I want to have God as my father, and no one else will ever stand between me and him. Now, he'll tell you if that's what you ought to do, and you listen to him. He's the one that's going to speak to you. You don't do this because I ask you. You do it only because he told you, this is what I want from you. And you'll know that inside. And I want to ask you, no matter how long you've been in this Christian life, if you look at your own life, does God see you as a faithful servant? Have you served a while and quit? Are you still doing what God wants you to do? If you want to count in God's eyes, then today you have to say to him, I'm doing everything I know you want me to do. If you can say that, then all is well between you and him. If not, then please, please, come back to his feet and say, I'm sorry. I'll start over. Father, this is a time in which we sit before you listening to your voice and yours alone because you're the only one talking. I pray, Father, whatever's in my life that you don't want, whatever arrogance or pride, false humility, disobedience, can be burned away. I ask for every one of us that that would be true. In this moment as we sing together, that your voice would be clear and plain and our hearts submissive to you, for you alone are God. In his name we ask this, amen. Would you stand please as we sing? All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, make me Savior wholly thine. Let me feel the Holy Spirit, truly know that thou art mine. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. So Father, you know if these words are from our heart and we mean them, or whether they're just words, what we all pray is that the words we sung to you are the words of our heart and our lives. So we ask if there is anything that's contrary to these words, that you'd make that clear to us, that in the end they would be true. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. And and thank you. Yeah, heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight, flooding my soul with glory, divine hallelujah. I have rejoicing, singing his praise there, Jesus is mine. I have rejoicing, singing his praise there, Jesus is mine.