Get in touch with your inner Pharisee...and kill him
Introduction:
I have to admit that when I first started reading the Bible, I didn’t really like Jesus. He seemed like a jerk because of the way that he talked to people. But the more I read, the more I realized that his harshest words were to the people most like me – the self-righteous, arrogant, people-pleasing Pharisees. No wonder I didn’t like him.
The more you study the gospels, the more you realize that the people who were attracted to Jesus were the screwed up people, and the people who were repulsed by him were those who thought they had it all together.
Jesus was full of both grace and truth. He never compromised his message of repentance and obedience, but the worst sinners loved to hang out with him. But the proud and religious Pharisees couldn’t stand Jesus and his lavish love for wicked people.
You may not be familiar with the men known as the Pharisees, so let me tell you about them. The Pharisees were separatists before and during the time of Christ who had gotten fed up with their compromising Jewish brothers who had begun to assimilate to the gentile, godless culture. So, rather than compromising their faith, they got even more serious about it. They developed a strict observance of all of God’s laws. They also added to God’s laws just to be sure that they wouldn’t accidentally break one. They avoided non-Jews so that they wouldn’t be contaminated by their godlessness and sin. As a result, the Jews held them up as the most righteous people around. While the Pharisees were highly revered in their day, Jesus had his harshest things to say to these men.
Why? Because more than anything, Pharisees represent what it is to be religious. They were under the belief that they could earn forgiveness and acceptance from God by avoiding sin and following God’s rules. This self-righteous attitude militates against the truth—which is that you can never do enough good for God to be pleased with you and that you can only be forgiven and accepted by him because of what Jesus did for you. The gospel of Jesus Christ was about a relationship with God through faith in Jesus. The mindset of the Pharisees was about religion.
All of us have an inner Pharisee. All of us are, as Tom said a few weeks ago, “incurably religious.” We think that somehow we can merit acceptance from God either by doing good or by avoiding being worse than others.
You may not think that you have an inner Pharisee, but you do. You shouldn’t have to look very deep to find him. but today I want to encourage you to find that inner Pharisee. We are often told in our day that there are certain untapped qualities in us that we need to explore. My Google search helped me see that people are urging you to“Get in touch with your inner...”
§ Ninja
§ Child
§ Iron man
§ Champion
§ Barbarian
§ Dog
§ Roger Ebert
§ Dork
§ Picasso
§ Redneck
§ American Idol
Well, today I want to encourage you to “Get in touch with your inner Pharisee...and KILL HIM.”
Your inner Pharisee:
§ Does good things to impress other people (Matthew 6:1)
o This is all about motive
o God sees the motive, people don’t necessarily see it
o You’ll get the reward of people being impressed, but nothing more
o This is ultimately about pleasing people
o Some examples include:
§ Giving money to impress people
§ Long-winded babbling prayers to impress people
§ Physical expression in worship to impress people
§ Lack of physical expression in worship to impress people
§ Pointing out your devotion
§ Drawing attention to yourself
§ Not saying “no” to commitments that you shouldn’t take on
§ Preparing a sermon to impress people while Tom’s on vacation
§ Looks down on “sinners” who seem worse than you (Matthew 9:9-13)
o This comes when you misunderstand God and yourself
o All of us have prejudices against people that we think we are better than
o We think we are the good guys and “they” are the bad guys, but the truth is that we’re all bad guys and only Jesus is the good guy
o Your inner Pharisee forgets that you have a terminal disease—sin
o Jesus himself as a good physician who was there to help the sick
§ Takes a genuine interest in somebody and their story
§ Asks questions
§ Listens
§ Wants to provide a remedy that will cure them, not just deal with the symptoms
§ Knows what he’s talking about
§ Doesn’t avoid the sickness, but gets his hands dirty
§ Takes the sickness seriously and wants to help
o We must view sick sinners as our patients desperate for a cure, not our enemies that we’re trying to avoid.
§ Cares more about your outward appearance than your heart (Matthew 15:1-9) (this point was later omitted)
o The Pharisees had placed their traditions above the commands of God
o The Pharisees rules wouldn’t allow them to give “corban” to someone else because it was dedicated to God, but they could renounce it and spend it on themselves
o Though they had words that honored God, he cared more about their hearts
o 1 Samuel 16:7 – man looks on the outside, God looks at the heart
o Your inner Pharisee wants to preserve your selfishness while maintaining an appearance of holiness and faith
o When you elevate your preferences to the place of God’s word, you are acting like a Pharisee
§ Music styles
§ Dress styles (fancy or casual)
§ Parenting methods
§ School choices
§ Political views
o When your asking yourself, “What’s the minimum that I can do and still appear spiritual?” you are thinking like a Pharisee
§ Trusts in your own goodness to please God (Luke 18:9-14)
o Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous – as a result they treat others poorly
o These people are filled with spiritual pride
o In reality, nobody is righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10-12)
o This is the ultimate contrast – a Pharisee who keeps the law with vigor (he goes above and beyond by fasting twice a week) and a tax collector who clearly disregards God’s law
o What God is looking for is repentance
o Isaiah 66:1-2 – God is looking for those who are humble and contrite in spirit and who tremble at his word
o The tax-collector walks away “justified,” which means that he has a right legal standing before God
o Your inner Pharisee thinks that somehow God will accept you by your goodness
o The truth is that you are accepted by God only on the basis of Jesus Christ
You have an inner Pharisee. He lurks beneath the surface of your soul and convinces you that you really are a good person and that your aim should be to please the people around you. His lie is that your religious efforts can make God accept you. Are you killing him? Is he getting weaker or stronger? Does your participation in church today reinforce your inner Pharisee by somehow thinking you’ve done good for God or does it remind you that like the tax-collector, you need God’s grace?
Do you read the Bible and feel proud that you accomplished a good thing for God?
Do you pray and feel proud that you’ve done something God will be pleased with?
Do you give money and think that God must really be proud of you because of it?
Do you avoid certain behaviors and think that as a result God must really be pleased?
We kill our inner Pharisee with one thing: the gospel – the truth that nothing you could ever do would free you from sin or make God pleased with you, but that God is always pleased with you because of what Jesus did on the cross on your behalf. Isaiah 54:9-10 promises that in Christ, God will not be angry with you again.
Your inner Pharisee is a proud, arrogant, people-pleasing, self-righteous, play-to-the-crowd hypocrite. He tempts you to be religious and to neglect the gospel. He needs to die. Kill him.