Weighed By the Word
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you–but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.”
(Mat 23:1-3)
As I read Matthew chapter twenty-three for devotions I was profoundly moved. This statement is the forerunner to the eight “Woes” that Jesus pronounces in the passage. Jesus’ wrath had been kindled against the scribes and the Pharisees and rightly so, since they were not practicing what they were preaching.
I almost started reading the passage, eyes glazed over with condemnation of the Pharisees. But, as I kept reading the chapter I was personally drawn in, with myself in the position of the Pharisees. Within moments, it was so clear that their indightment was mine too. Jesus’ description of them is a description of me.
For anyone of us who are directly presenting the Gospel, this is an especially difficult teaching to receive at the hands of our Savior. We are sinful and guilty in many of the areas that the Pharisees were. How many times have we preached the Word that we were not living? I sure have, and I was crushed by the following verses:
(Mat 23:23) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. (Mat 23:24) You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
Here, Jesus makes an accurate assessment of me.
(Mat 23:25) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. (Mat 23:26) You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
And again, Jesus describes me.
(Mat 23:27) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. (Mat 23:28) So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus looks at me and sees me as I am.
What becomes apparent is that a child of the King must be weighed by the very Word that he wants to preach to others. Yes, the Gospel is a wonderful message to proclaim but it also exposes the hypocracy of the message bearer. Unless I intend to become irrelevant, I must apply the Word to my own life and when I am found to be lacking, I must humbly seek the mercy of Christ.
The truth is that I continue in my hipocracy, pretending as though I have a good grasp on God. Yet, this pretension must have a profound effect on unbelievers. Perhaps my walk with Christ is turning people off to the kingdom of heaven? The following verses make me wonder…
“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.
(Mat 23:13)
It makes me tremble to think about what a pastor goes through Sunday by Sunday. His hearers must surely weigh him against the very word that he preaches. What a humbling prospect, to have to stand up before a congregation and be the mouth piece of a holy God and so publicly fall short!
Well I am not a pastor. I’m a missionary… constantly on display as well… in a land where I am the guest. Am I real or am I fake? Am I full of empty words or do I exhibit a transformed life in Christ? That’s what locals are trying to assess about me and it’s got me thinking.
Am I becoming a whitewashed tomb that outwardly appears together but is inwardly full of all sorts of uncleanness? How many times have I rejected God’s will for me because I couldn’t stomach the person proclaiming the truth? Well, in spite of my admission it’s really amazing that Jesus exhorts the crowds to be doers of the teaching even when those proclaiming it were hypocrits.
By the time I reached vs. 32, I stood condemned and hungering for deliverance. Then I read this…..
Mat 23:33-37
(33) You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
(34) Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,
(35) so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
(36) Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
(37) “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
Verse 34 started out promising enough as it showcased the faithfulness of God to intervene and save sinners who are drowning in their own quagmire. But rather than becoming recipients of grace, the Pharisees condemned those who were bearing the message of salvation. They rejected the means of grace that God provided. How many times have I done the exact same thing?
This passage simply cut me in two. It revealed how desperately wicked I am and how passionately God must love sinners like me. That God would want to dwell with me, a person who is ugly both on the inside and outside makes Him a wonderful Savior indeed. The Gospel message is a message that I must accept in my own heart. It’s a message that is at times bitter but always infinitely sweet.
Jealousy
The Bible reading plan I’m using right now gives me four passages of Scripture to read from each day. A few days ago, I started in on 2 Chronicles. So far it’s been a very convicting read… so much so that I can’t get chapter twelve off my mind. From the twelfth chapter comes a haunting account of divine jealousy in response to the faithlessness of the northern kingdom of Judah. Check it out:
“Soon after Rehoboam had control of his kingdom, he and everyone in Judah stopped obeying the LORD. So in the fifth year of Rehoboam’s rule, the LORD punished them for their unfaithfulness and allowed King Shishak of Egypt to invade Judah. Shishak attacked with his army of one thousand two hundred chariots and sixty thousand cavalry troops, as well as Egyptian soldiers from Libya, Sukkoth, and Ethiopia. He captured every one of the fortified cities in Judah and then marched to Jerusalem. Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah had gone to Jerusalem to escape Shishak’s invasion. And while they were there, Shemaiah the prophet told them, “The LORD says that because you have disobeyed him, he has now abandoned you. The LORD will not help you against Shishak!” Rehoboam and the leaders were sorry for what they had done and admitted, “The LORD is right. We have deserted him.” When the LORD heard this, he told Shemaiah: The people of Judah are truly sorry for their sins, and so I won’t let Shishak completely destroy them. But because I am still angry, he will conquer and rule them. Then my people will know what it’s like to serve a foreign king instead of serving me. Shishak attacked Jerusalem and took all the valuable things from the temple and from the palace, including Solomon’s gold shields. Rehoboam had bronze shields made to replace the gold ones, and he ordered the guards at the city gates to keep them safe. Whenever Rehoboam went to the LORD’s temple, the guards carried the shields. But they always took them back to the guardroom as soon as he had finished worshiping. Rehoboam turned back to the LORD, and so the LORD did not let Judah be completely destroyed, and Judah was prosperous again. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled seventeen years from Jerusalem, the city where the LORD had chosen to be worshiped. His mother Naamah was from Ammon. Rehoboam was a powerful king, but he still did wrong and refused to obey the LORD.
(2 Chronicles 12:1-14)
Tragically, the chapter opens with… “Soon after Rehoboam had control of his kingdom, he and everyone in Judah stopped obeying the LORD.” As any king should do upon taking office, Rehoboam works hard to build a united kingdom. But he soon gets too comfortable and began drifting away from the law of the Lord…. and everyone else in Judah follows his lead.
God responds by shifting his instrument (King Shishak of Egypt) into place – allowing him to invade Judah. In an attempt to escape the invasion, Rehoboam flees to Jerusalem where the prophet Shemaiah anounces to him how his disobedience is the reason for the invasion. What’s more devastating is that God abandons them and refuses to help. How fearful Rehoboam must have been to face the anger of God in light of his complete failure.
God’s jealous love for His people burned so bright that now his anger also burns. The text reveals something interesting in that Rehoboam admits that he and the people have deserted Jehovah. We’ve not been privy to the dialogue that God must have been having, but when the leaders say “The LORD is right. We have deserted Him” it’s as if God had been making the case that He had been deserted. The people deserted God…first.
God’s anger eases when Rehoboam humbles himself and the people are sorry for their sins. But… His anger still burns. When I first read this, I was so calloused to the holiness of God that my first feeling was that God was being unjust in not pardoning them completely from the consequences of their sin. Instead, we read that God puts an excalmation mark on the situation by permitting Shishak to conquer and rule them but not utterly destroy them. He does this so that: “then my people will know what it’s like to serve a foreign king instead of serving me.”
This is certainly a hard teaching when I work it out practically for my own life. With my heart being just as wicked and way-word as the people of Judah, the Lord might let me to follow my own way such that I serve other kings who rule over me brutally. What’s interesting is that this is an expression of the loving discipline of my heavenly father in order that: “my people will know what it’s like to serve a foreign king instead of serving me“ Personally, I’ve served other kings before and they are BRUTAL. I know what it’s like.
Jesus is King and the question is whether His people will honor Him as such. In the case of Rehoboam, the passage indicates that he turned back to the Lord and so the Lord did not allow Judah to be completely destroyed. And so that’s the end of the story….. right? Well, a few verses later we read about the prosperity of Judah and that Rehoboam again becomes powerful… but he still did wrong and refused to obey the LORD. The ending is predictable because its the storyline of all of our lives.
This Christmas season, we must decide whether we want to know what it’s like to serve a foreign king or whether we want to know the service of king Jesus. Jesus himself says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” May God grant me and my household mercy to serve the Lord.
Anxiety & Prayerlessness
I’ve been reading the book A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul E. Miller. It may prove to be one of the most significant books I’ve read perhaps because of the battle I fight with prayerlessness. Miller describes my heart at so many points it’s uncanny. Not only that, but he’s helping me peel back layers of dysfunction. Yesterday I read his chapter on “Bending Your Heart to Your Father”. Here’s an excerpt that spoke to my soul:
The connection between anxiety and continuous praying goes back to Eden, where Adam and Eve were in unbroken fellowship with God and continuous prayer was normal. When they sought independence from God, they stopped walking with God in the cool of the day and their prayer link was broken.
What does an unused prayer link look like? Anxiety. Instead of connecting with God, our spirits fly around like severed power lines, destroying everything they touch. Anxiety wants to be God but lacks God’s wisdom, power, or knowledge. A godlike stance without godlike character and ability is pure tension. Because anxiety is self on its own, it tries to get control. It is unable to relax in the face of chaos. Once one problem is solved, the next in line steps up. The new one looms so large, we forget the last deliverance.
Oddly enough, it took God to show us how not to be godlike. Jesus was the first person who didn’t seek independence. He wanted to be in continuous contact with his heavenly Father. In fact, he humbled himself to death on the cross, becoming anxious so we could be free from anxiety. Now the Spirit brings the humility of Jesus into our hearts. No longer do we have to be little gods, controlling everything. Instead, we cling to our Father in the face of chaos by continuously praying. Because we know we don’t have control, we cry out for grace. Instead of flailing around, our praying spirits can bless everything we touch.
David captured the connections between a humble heart and a quiet heart in Psalm 131.
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child on its mother; like a weaned child is my soul on me. (verses 1-2)
We become anxious when we take a godlike stance, occupying ourselves with things too great for us. We return to sanity by becoming like little children, resting on our mothers.
What I like most about this book is its saturation with honesty. Miller helps me to honest about the states of disorientation I can feel in my relationship with God my Father. He’s willing to acknowledge the state of my heart that’s disquieted and restless without remaining there too long. By taking stock of God’s Word my heart will be re-orientated. Miller makes one last comment about this passage:
One of the unique things about continuous prayer is that it is its own answer to prayer. As you pray Psalm 131, your heart becomes quiet. You rest, not because there is magic in the words but because your eyes are no longer raised to high.