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.
ILLUS: Jesus told the story about “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:10-14
In our day, when people come to church, there are those amongst them that are like that Pharisee. They say "God I'm thankful I'm not like that person! I'm thankful I don't behave like they do! I'm grateful that I do more at church than they do!" And they go on and on and on about how much more righteous they are than that other person.
They're kind of like the person who said: “No one’s saved but thee and me… and I’m not sure of thee.”
(PAUSE) Now, back in the days of Jesus the thing the Pharisees would do was that they set the bar of morality really high. They'd tell you what YOU needed to do. They might not do those things themselves, but they wanted to make sure YOU knew what was expected of you. They did that to impress people with how religious they were. They could play the game so that you'd think they were more righteous than they were.
But then Jesus came along and He set the bar of righteousness even higher than Pharisees did. In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus would quote something the Pharisees endorsed… and then Jesus would explain that that wasn’t quite enough for God.
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ I mean… that’s right out of the Bible. The Pharisees would have taught that. In fact, they probably felt pretty good about themselves when Jesus said this because they’d never murdered anyone… But then Jesus upped the ante. It’s not enough not to murder anyone… “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” Matthew 5:21-22
Then Jesus quoted the Bible again: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ It's right there in the 10 Commandments. And the Pharisees would smile and say “Yep… I've got that box checked - I’ve never committed adultery!" But then, again - Jesus said that wasn’t good enough – “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28) Ahhh man! Seriously? They believed they could look lustfully at a woman and God wouldn't mind. But God did mind.
Again Jesus said: ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ That's what the Pharisees would have taught! Divorce for the Pharisees thought about divorce as simply a mantter of getting all your paperwork in order. But then Jesus told them that wasn’t moral enough for God –“everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Matthew 5:31-32) I’m pretty sure that many Pharisees had divorced their wives for far less reason than that… and here was Jesus was exposing their selfishness and shortcomings!
And I could go on and on and on "You've heard it said..." "But I say unto you..." telling them "let me tell you what God REALLY thinks about that. And he cut the pharisees down, bit by bit until there was no righteousness they could claim for themselves.
The Pharisees had felt they had all their moral ducks in a row; and here was Jesus, just shooting down all their ducks. Their morality was never going to be good enough for God. (Pause) AND THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT!
Jesus said “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” But the righteousness of the Pharisees fell short. God’s righteousness would always exceed that of even the most righteous Pharisee.
Romans 3:10 said “It is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one.’”; Romans 3:23 said “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”; and Romans 3:20 declared “No-one will be declared righteous in (God’s) sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”
The point is – you can’t be righteous enough to earn your way into heaven. Even the most righteous Pharisee wasn’t gonna be good enough, because God’s bar of righteousness was just too high.
Now, why would God do that? Why would God set that bar so high? Well, the answer is: God set it that high because He was God. God is the very portrait of what righteousness, and holiness and perfection would look like. And so He's telling us what He's expecting from us. We'll never really quite get "there" - I mean, even the Pharisees couldn't get there, so even the best of us is going to fail. God was saying "this is where the bar is - you shoot for that bar! Because it's important for me (God) to know you're at least trying to reach that bar."
ILLUS: By contrast, gods of the Greeks and Romans that were in the cultures around Israel - they weren’t very moral at all. Stories were told of how selfish and untrustworthy these gods were; There were stories about their partying and drunkenness; And how they could be jealous and vengeful; And they slept around a lot.
In short, the pagan gods were a lot like the people who worshipped them, because these people who worshipped them had literally created their gods… in their own image. Someone once speculated… that the pagans probably did this (created their gods as being selfish, etc.) so that they could make themselves feel better about their own shortcomings. If these gods could be immoral in how they behaved, then that would give their worshippers an excuse for any sins they might commit. (gleaned from “Gods Above”, Star Trek – New Frontier, Peter David, paperback p. 129-130 (spoken by one of superhuman beings who had been one of the pagan “gods” that were worshipped on earth)
The pagans created their gods in their own image.. but we didn't. We didn’t create our God in our image … He created us in His, and He set the standard of what was right and what was wrong.
And God DID set a high standard for us. God said “Be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16). And at the end of the passage we read from the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) But wait a minute - we just got done saying that God is way more righteous and holy and perfect than we’ll ever be. That's a high standard. Why set it so high! I mean - if God knows I can’t be moral like Him, why would he set the bar of morality so high?
Well… if God had set the bar low, all we’d have to do to be righteous would be to be more righteous than the person sitting next to us (don't go looking around at the person next to you) and, if I could compare myself with several other folks - that would give me bragging rights. My morality would be impressive because I was better than most people I knew. And you'll hear people say that! "Well, yeah, I know I don't do what I ought to do, but at least I'm better than my neighbor or relative who claim to be Christians! You ought to see that church goer down the street." They compare themselves with other people because by comparing themselves, they make themselves look better.
But that’s not the way things work with God. MY self-righteousness would never be impressive to God. That’s part of the reason the bar is so high - so we’d know we DON'T deserve heaven. I don't, and you don't, and I don't care who the person is that you regard as moral may be... they don't either.
When Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Ephesus, he spent the first part of his letter telling how much God loved them. But then he pointed out– that BEFORE they became Christians – they were “dead in their sins” and they “were, by nature, children of wrath” before you came to Christ. Then he wrote: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works (your righteous deeds), so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:4-9
I can’t boast about my personal righteousness, because I was saved from sin when I was still dead in my trespasses. God gave me the gift of his grace when I did not deserve it. I didn’t deserve His grace/forgiveness, but He gave it anyway because He loved me (and you).
CLOSE: Now, it just so happens that there’s a story in the Bible about a prominent Pharisee who was as impressive as any man could be. If you ever thought you had a reason to be confident - that your works would impress God - this man had a far better pedigree than you (or I) would ever have. He was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Philippians 3:4-6
HE WAS BLAMELESS!!! If anybody had a right to get to heaven… he did! But then, he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and his life was never the same. We know that this Pharisee as a man named Paul. He was a man who wrote nearly ½ your New Testament; A man who planted numerous churches across Asia in places like Corinth, Ephesus and Philippi; He was a man who most of us would like to be like.
And yet he wrote: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” I Timothy 1:15-16
The BEST of the Pharisees realized he was the WORST of sinners!
And as he was baptized into Christ he was told “Rise and be baptized and WASH AWAY YOUR SINS, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16)
Reflecting on that decision to turn his life over to Jesus, Paul wrote: “I count everything as loss (all of his righteousness/all his accomplishments) because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8
INVITATION
