More Righteous Series

A man was telling about being a student at the University of Southern California, and he and his friends worked hard to earn their PhDs, because they wanted to be would allowed to hold the coveted title of “doctor”. Then, one day one of their professors told about a friend of his who’d called his home and asked if the “doctor” was in. The professor’s 10-year-old answered the phone & replied, “Well, yes… but he’s not the kind that can do you any good.”

Today, we’re going to read about a group of men who had the titles. They were men of importance and prominence in Israel. They were like the PhDs who were called “doctor”… but they didn’t have TITLES that could do you any good.

In our text today Jesus tells his audience (in the Sermon on the Mt) that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20

Now, that’s kind of an odd thing for Jesus to say, because Jesus really didn’t like the Pharisees all that much. There’s a famous passage from Matthew 23:27-28 where Jesus says “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. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? I mean, at one point in our passage it would seem that Jesus is praiing the Pharisees, but then, in the passage in Matthew 23, He's condemning them as hypocrites and white-washed tombs. What's the deal?

Well - it helps to understand that the Pharisees were respectable religious leaders in Israel. The Pharisees were major teachers and leaders in the synagogues (which were kind of like the churches of our day). They were known for their high moral standards, and for their encyclopedic knowledge of the Scriptures.

Now, by contrast, there was another group of men called the Sadducees. The Sadducees were often the priests and leaders at the Temple; So, here we have the Pharisees, who essentially ran things the synagogues, and then you had the Sadducees who ran things at the Temple. And these Sadducees - while they believed in God - they didn’t really believe in a God who could do anything. Sadducees didn’t believe in the miracles of Scripture, nor in the promise of resurrection of the dead.

That sort of set the Pharisees and the Sadducees at odds with each other... and the Pharisees were constantly standing up against the Sadducees who were widely known to be corrupt… and not really nice people! And Jesus NEVER praised the Sadducees… but he did kind of praise the Pharisees. Even when Jesus was slapping down the Pharisees in Matthew 23 He said that “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat (in other words, they taught from the Bible) so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. Matthew 23:2-3

That’s where we get the phrase: “PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH”. These Pharisees knew their Bibles but they didn't obey it. They could tell you the difference between right and wrong. But they didn’t practice what they preached. They had the title of being religious people… but their title didn’t do them any good.

Someone has noted that the Pharisees would have made impressive church members. They knew their Bible inside and out; They prayed at least 3 times a day; Dressed in their Sunday best for worship; They took their morality seriously. But they were hard people to get along with.

ILLUS: Last week, John Rigle told about his daughter's experience with Christians as she worked at Lowes. She told him that a lot of the folks who worked at Lowes absolutely hated to work on Sundays. It seems that the church folk came shopped there on Sundays after church were the most disrespectful, selfish, and insulting people she’d ever met. In fact, I’ve been told that there’s a lot of waitresses who hate waiting on tables of church-goers, eating lunch after worship on Sundays, because of how demanding and ungrateful these people often are. In essence, they don't reflect well on the Jesus they say they serve.

Those people are the Pharisees of our culture. They are the religious people who wouldn’t miss church on a bet, and who have memorized Bible verses by the boatload - but they only care about themselves. They only care about what you can do for them, not for what they can do for you. And they stand in judgment of anybody who doesn't live up to their standards. And that’s just OUTSIDE the church building. On the inside of the church building… things can get even worse.