If you have read the Gospels you have come across religious teachers known as Pharisees. These people were members of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity. (dictionary.com) Religion was their profession.
These men found Jesus’s claims to be the Messiah offensive. He did not fit their idea of how the Messiah would come. He did not fit into their religious framework. Yet they made their lives all about being religious, pious. This really blows my mind – to engage in such a life-long pursuit of the things of God and MISS GOD in the process.
Interestingly, Jesus says in Matthew 23:3 that it is for our benefit to follow the teaching of the law of Moses that the Pharisees and Saducees proclaimed but beyond that he says:
(follow their teaching)… verse 3b but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
He spends the rest of the chapter rebuking and gravely warning the Pharisees of their error. I am always dumbfounded as I consider the fact that these people encountered Jesus in the flesh and rejected Him. Not that rejection of Him was so uncommon. Many rejected Jesus while He went about His earthly ministry and people continue to reject Him today. But, I believe what astounds me is that these men who studied the law, given by God, who looked for the Messiah, stood face to face with Jesus – the Messiah in the flesh. They were so close to eternal life, so close to the Him, so entrenched in religious knowledge, so outwardly pious and yet so inwardly lost and corrupt.
Within Matthew chapter 23 Jesus says to them,
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. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
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. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
We see a lot of religious behavior today as well. Regular church attendance, dedicated serving, and charitable giving. We see a lot of religious behavior and yet, Jesus would say in many cases,
Woe to you! Heed my warning! Don’t pursue religious behavior. Pursue me.
The truth is, in our flesh,
we pursue God on our terms.
We seek God for our benefit.
We look to God with our expectations and
we make a “god of our choosing”.
I am always sobered to read the account of the great following Jesus encountered as he traveled around in his earthly ministry. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He raised the dead. People wanted more!
In fact Jesus couldn’t really even find a quiet place. After he fed the 5,000 he withdrew from them and went to the mountain by himself. Yet they pursued him all the more.
John 6:24-25 says,
24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
But Jesus responded like this…
Verse 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
Jesus began to speak to the heart of the matter. He told the people His purpose in coming. He began to talk about being sent God, about being the Messiah, about being the Bread of Life (not just the giver of earthly bread). Yet, after all He had done as evidence of His supernatural power, they would not accept it His words.
He addresses their true motives. He sees their hearts and knows what they pursue….“Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”…
As David Guzik from the Blue Letter Bible put it, He discouraged every fleshly motive for following Him. And here’s what happened next.
Verse 66 (one of the saddest verses in the Bible if you ask me) After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
Let me point something out here that crushes my heart. These are not casual observers. Notice the word disciple.
These were people who John Gill’s Commentary describes as those who followed Christ, heard him, and professed to believe in him, and were baptized in his name, but were not true disciples, only nominal ones.
I’ve spent some time thinking about this in our context today. What are we after? How about you? Are you one of the many disciples that (if conditions were necessary) would turn away from Christ?
What are you after? Are you seeking religion and rejecting truth? Are you seeking Christianity without Christ?
I’m reading a book called Conversion by Michael Lawrence and in it he says:
When we misunderstand the purpose of our salvation, we get into trouble. If we think Jesus saved us to make us happy, fulfilled, or prosperous, we will be tempted to abandon Jesus when those things don’t immediately show up on our doorstep. Instead of thinking that salvation is about God’s glory, we will assume that the Christian life is all about us, our gifts, calling and how we can be fulfilled. The local church will become a stage for our potentiality, an arena for our gifts, an audience for our vanity.
Sounds a lot like the Pharisees. And Jesus condemned them for their wicked hearts.
Where verse 66 leaves me broken, verses 67-69 inspire and move me. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Jesus came to pay the penalty for our sin. He, although perfect and sinless, took our sins upon Himself on the cross and died in our place. We deserved death. We deserve God’s wrath. But, in His love, God made a way for us to be redeemed. He made a way back to Himself through Jesus. Christ paid the sin debt that we owed. This is the Gospel. This is what Jesus came to proclaim. And those who follow Him must embrace the gospel and it alone to save them.
I leave you with another quote from the book Conversion –
It’s hard to talk about hell and God’s wrath. It is much easier to talk about being saved from purposeless lives, low self-esteem, or unhappiness. So we treat Jesus as a solution to a subjective, internal problem. Come to Jesus; He’ll give you purpose and meaning. The trouble is, subjective problems can be solved through subjective solutions. I might choose Jesus to gain a sense of purpose, but my friend down the street sincerely chooses a career. Who’s to say which is better? It’s all subjective. When we fail to preach the justice of God and downplay His wrath, we are talking about some other gospel. We have changed it from an objective rescue to a subjective path to personal fulfillment.
Friend, the danger of rejecting Christ for religious pursuits and man-made theologies, is nothing new. In fact, it’s a reality in our churches all around us.
I implore you to look within your own heart. What are you after? Are you passionately pursuing Jesus and life in His name or are you after something else.
If people have not come to Christ His way, then they have not come to Him at all.
Lord, open blind eyes and unlock deaf ears. Reveal truth to the hearts of those who are being deceived and tempted to turn away. Make hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. All for Your Glory! In Jesus Name, Amen.
