Straining Out Gnats And Eating Camels Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

ENGAGE

In the first church that I pastored, we had monthly business meetings in which the church would vote on such important issues as what temperature the thermostat should be set to on Sunday mornings, what words to put on the church sign, when to have a potluck, and even what color paint to use when we repainted the walls. That was something new to me and I was shocked at how passionate that people could be about such trivial matters.

But the bigger problem is that those people didn’t have the same kind of zeal for bringing the kingdom of God near to others and reaching others with the gospel. Their idea of a good church was one where they got to sing their favorite hymns, the pastor wore a suit every Sunday, and where they got a personal visit from the pastor at least once a month. To them those things were far more important than actually reaching their community for Jesus.

That situation was a real eye-opener for me. That was the first church I had been a part of that was so completely focused on such minor and trivial matters that they missed the more important major ones. And so, after working for over a year to try to change some of those attitudes with little success, I decided that I needed to move on.

TENSION

Fortunately since that time, I’ve never been in a church where such trivial matters were the driving force. However, that doesn’t mean that from time to time, I haven’t run into that attitude in some individuals.

In the time I’ve been here at TFC, I’ve seen a number of people leave the church. And in those cases where the people have been courteous enough to explain why they left, I can only remember a couple times where someone left because of something important like a disagreement about doctrine. In every other case, people essentially left over a matter of personal preference or some trivial matter.

Unfortunately it seems to be human nature to major in the minors and minor in the majors when it comes to our relationship with and we’re probably all guilty of doing that at times. By now you’ve probably figured out that the Pharisees also did that and this morning as we continue our current sermon series titled “Modern Day Pharisees” we’ll see what we can learn about how to make sure we don’t follow in their footsteps.

TRUTH

Before we look at this morning’s passage, let’s quickly remind ourselves of the six traits of a “modern day Pharisee” that we’re covering in this series.

You might be a “modern day Pharisee” if…

• You judge the Scriptures rather than being judged by them

• You think you’re better than other Christians

• You are more interested in making clones of yourself than disciples of Jesus

• You look for loopholes in God’s Word in order to excuse your sin

• You major in minors and minor in majors

• You work harder at looking good than being good

This morning, we’re going to focus on the fifth indication that you might be a “modern day Pharisee”:

You might be a “modern day Pharisee” if you

major in minors and minor in majors

[Read Matthew 23:23-24]

You can’t possibly read these words without seeing that Jesus had a sense of humor. I love the illustration that He uses here to point out the way that the Pharisees majored in minors and minored in majors. He accused them of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. That paints a pretty vivid picture, but you might be wondering why Jesus used those particular animals in His illustration.

According to the ceremonial law in the Old Testament, both the gnat and the camel were designated by God as “unclean” animals that were not to be eaten by the Israelites. Jesus picks them out here because they were the smallest and the largest of those unclean animals.

You can imagine in that day how easy it was for a tiny gnat to get into a cup of water or wine. So in order to show just how pious they were, the Pharisees would go to great lengths to strain any gnats out of what they were drinking, just to make sure they didn’t ingest one unintentionally. They would often strain those liquids through a piece of cloth and then just to let everyone else know how meticulous they were they would drink through clenched teeth just in case a gnat had slipped through undetected.