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In Matthew 12 Jesus warned his disciples to “be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy”
This is interesting to me because generally we consider our own sin to have only consequences for ourselves. This passage suggests otherwise.
Yeast affects the whole loaf of bread and the same concept is repeated in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul admonishes the Corinthians to keep the local congregation free from “yeast” (sin).
The Pharisees hypocrisy affected the whole of God’s Jewish nation because the Pharisees were in a position of leadership. Their hypocrisy could permeate and adversely affect the ones they were teaching and influencing making them hypocrites as well.
How can church leaders today be hypocrites? Here are a few things off the top of my head.
- The teacher who teaches kindness and compassion towards the poor but when given the opportunity to help the poor comes up with some excuse not to.
- The teacher who teaches the need for hospitality and the “oneness” hospitality helps create but is not hospitable at all except perhaps to his friends.
- The teacher who urges the congregation to invite their neighbors to church but never does himself.
I wish we had some kind of spiritual mirror where we could view ourselves as God views us with 20/20 spiritual vision. Of course we can look in God’s word but too often when we look in that mirror our eyes are often blurred with selfish hypocrisy that can harm the entire congregation and render it the Church of the Hypocrites.
We’ve been studying the Parable of the Talents in my High School/young adult class and have learned, correctly, that God assesses our ability and based on that assessment expects some kind of productivity out of us.
I asked my class that if God revealed to us what he thought of our individual abilities... how would that make us feel?
For instance, if God revealed to the whole class that we were all just one talent people what would be our response? Would we just respond by thinking… God knows everything and I am what I am or would we be so indignant at our own correctly assessed ability that we decide… I’m not going to be a one talent man… I’ll prove that I can be better?
What if God told everyone in the class that they were all five talent men what would our reaction bethen? We might be pretty happy and smug and maybe rest on our laurels.
If God told me that I was a five talent man I think that might motivate me to be even better. I might think I’m going to do so well they are going to have to write a new Parable about the 10, 5, 2 and 1 talent men.
You see, in John 15 we find out that God prunes his most productive people so we can be even more productive… that’s how a low talent man can be a higher talent man… by letting God prune him. And as one of the students pointed out this morning… pruning hurts the plant a little but it’s a pain that is soon forgotten, especially in comparison to the great joy we feel at pleasing God.
Let's be the best children of God that we can be and trust his process.
I think an interesting study would be to compare the beginning and the end of Jesus’ ministry.
Of course it began with Jesus’ baptism and choosing to fast in the wilderness for 40 days and then to be unsuccessfully tempted by Satan.
Jesus’ choice to begin his ministry is interesting. My guess is he did it in this manner to foreshadow how his follower’s personal ministry must also begin by being cleansed by the waters of baptism and to receive the promised “gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
At the beginning of his ministry Jesus voluntarily deprived himself of a necessity of life… food.
At the end of his ministry he was deprived of another necessity of life… all his friends, followers and family.
Jesus was all alone at the beginning and all alone at the end.
Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness in an attempt to make Jesus his servant. Satan never tried that again but at the end successfully tempted Judas and Peter and manipulated the Jewish and Roman governments to kill Jesus. If Satan couldn’t make Jesus his servant he would kill him… or so he thought.
When Jesus was baptized a loud voice came from Heaven… this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
When Jesus died on the cross God spoke again by tearing the veil in the temple, sending an earthquake and making the dead rise from their graves.
Surely Jesus baptism foreshadowed his death, burial and “rebirth”… buried in the waters of baptism and buried in the ground. Arising from the waters of baptism and arising from the tomb.
All of this was an example for us. Remember… Satan never gives up. Sometimes he changes his tactics but he doesn’t give up and if we don’t give up either then like Jesus we can live for eternity in God’s presence and among the “principalities and powers in Heavenly places”.
