I. Introduction Hypocrites June 13, 2010 Matthew 15:1-20 We all use words that we assume everyone knows what they mean sometimes they do, sometimes they don t. The title for today s sermon may be one of those words. So before we get started, let s define the word hypocrite. A hypocrite is anyone who pretends to be something he isn t. Examples are all around us. There are people who claim they are concerned about the environment, but they drive Hummers and gigantic SUVs. They would never think of recycling. There are people who claim they are concerned about those less fortunate than they but they never contribute anything to help; all they give are words. There are those who claim to be pious religious. But their hearts their actions are full of sin. In a different scene away from church type people, they can match the irreligious word for word and action for action. These are just a few examples of hypocrites. Jesus had an example of a hypocrite, turn please to the Scripture reading for today Matthew 15:1-20. In sermons and Sunday school classes we often malign the scribes and the Pharisees as being terrible people hypocrites. What we often forget is that these were the religious leaders of the day. Most of them wanted to use their talents and abilities to learn about God and then help others become God-fearing men and women. They wanted to help others to be able to really worship God. They were the pastors, the ministers and religious teachers and leaders of their day. Until Jesus came along, the majority of them were looked up to for their religiousness or piousness. But now there was a problem; Jesus teachings were starting to cause confusion in the minds of those who heard Him in the area around Capernaum in Galilee, so the religious leaders there requested help from Jerusalem the headquarters of Judaism. These scribes and Pharisees, who came from Jerusalem, would come from the highest level of leadership of Judaism. They had prestige and learning superior to that of those in Galilee and they would be able to better question Jesus and refute His teachings. In this morning s Scripture we see their charge against Jesus, Jesus countercharge, and Jesus teachings to those around Him and to His followers. II. The charge against the disciples The visiting leaders didn t try to hide the fact that the disciples offense and Jesus offense was against the tradition of the elders rather than God s law. They were breaking the traditions of the elders the long-standing traditions of Judaism. Since they were the only reliable interpretation of God s Word, in the minds of the Pharisees, the traditions of the elders were superior to Scripture. 1
The traditions or the oral law had been handed down from the teachers of one generation to another as they tried to make the Old Testament practical and relevant for contemporary life. This oral law was finally written down and is called the Mishnah. By Jesus day, it was a greater offense to violate the teaching of some rabbi than to break the teaching of Scripture. In the minds of the scribes and Pharisees that came to Jesus, it was a very serious matter that His disciples would break the traditions of the elders. Their concern about the washing of hands, which was to be done in a particular way, had nothing to do with being clean physically. The purpose of this washing was to remove any ritual uncleanness that was caused by touching something ceremonially unclean, such as a dead body or a Gentile. It was bad enough that Jesus and His disciples mingled with outcasts, but they did not even seek to be purified afterwards. The charge and the question was, Why weren t they purifying themselves? III. Jesus countercharge Jesus replies to the Pharisees charge against His disciples by making a countercharge Himself. He asked them and the teachers of the law, Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? The scribes and Pharisees knew the Ten Commandments well and could easily recite them. They knowingly and willfully replaced God s specific commands with their own contradicting traditions. Turn to Mark s account of this encounter with the Pharisees Mark 7:9-13. If a Jew wanted to escape some financial responsibilities, he would declare his goods to be Corban a gift to God. This meant he was able to use his goods for his personal needs but he was free from any other obligations, such as taking care of his parents. Obedience to this tradition made a person disobedient to the Word of God. Exodus 20:12 taught to honor father and mother. The Corban rule would make a person dishonor his parents, and, at the same time, disobey God. Jesus called them hypocrites as He quoted from Isaiah 29:13, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. They pretend to be something they are not. Their mouths and their hearts were coming from 2 different places. Not only did their human traditions and teachings nullify God s Word, but their worship was empty of any real meaning. IV. Jesus Teachings A. Teaching the Crowd 2
The crowd had been listening to the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees so Jesus turned to them and told them to listen carefully and pay close attention. Jesus was about to say something that wasn t hard to understand but it was going to be hard to accept. In no uncertain words Jesus states that spiritual impurity is not caused through eating foods that are ceremonially unclean. Ceremonial cleansing is not the key element in producing godliness. Spiritually uncleanness godliness is a matter of the inside of a man, not the outside. What matters is what is in a person s heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? It is the evil in the heart, which eventually proceeds out of the mouth that makes a man unclean. It s what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man, not what goes in. B. Teaching the Disciples The disciples were astonished by what Jesus taught about foods. They had been raised good Jews. They knew the difference between the clean and the unclean foods. This was hard to understand. But they and Jesus had another problem; this teaching had offended the Pharisees and was certain to cause serious problems. Jesus was not worried about the Pharisees. He said that neither they nor their teachings were from God, and therefore would not last. As in the Parable of the Tares, these hypocrites would be uprooted, judged, and cast into the fiery furnace of Matthew 13:42. Jesus also compared the Pharisees to blind guides. Not only does the hypocrisy of the Pharisees blind them to their own inner impurity, but in their blindness they lead the people astray. In Matthew 23:15 Jesus said, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. C. Teaching Peter As the leader of the disciples, Peter spoke up for all of them they still weren t sure. The parable that Peter wanted Jesus to explain was the one that He gave the crowd in verse 11. It wasn t that Peter and the disciples didn t understand what Jesus meant; it was just hard to accept. Even though Jesus patiently explains it again, Peter really wasn t able to grasp the idea that all foods were clean. He would need to be taught the lesson a couple of more times once in Acts 10:9-16 and once in Galatians 2:11-16. The meaning seems obvious us to us, but it was astonishingly new to orthodox Jews. Jesus said that food that goes into the mouth does not affect the spiritual heart. It simply goes through the digestive system and comes out in human waste. By teaching that food and ceremonial purification 3
rites do not affect a person s inner purity, Jesus is saying that the Pharisees religious preoccupation with dietary and purification laws is of no value to a person s spiritual heart her godliness. The traditions of the elders have nothing to do with true spiritual cleanness, since they only focus on the external. Ceremonial cleansings, even those governed under the Mosaic Laws, never did more than picture spiritual cleansing. Jesus said that it is the things that come out of the mouth and come out from the heart that make a man unclean. The heart represents the inner person, his thoughts, attitudes, desires, and motives. When the heart is filled with evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander and other ungodliness, then that person is unclean. The things that make one unclean come from an unwashed heart, not from unwashed hands. True righteousness is an inside-out transformation that begins in the heart and works throughout a disciple s life to produce external righteousness. V. Applications was then. It s been almost 2000 years since Jesus gave this teaching but it is just as applicable today as it A. First, watch out for traditions. Tradition is a helpful way of passing on the teachings of earlier generations so that each new generation doesn t have to reinvent the proverbial wheel of doctrinal truth. Many traditions help us to remember, cherish, and honor things that are noble and beautiful. But we must be careful that traditions aren t substituted for God s Word or distort or detract from it. Turn to Colossians 2:8. The problem with tradition is that it can be followed mechanically and thoughtlessly, without conviction, sincerity or purity of heart like reciting the Lord s Prayer or singing the Doxology while on autopilot. Because traditions are made by men, they can be accomplished by men. They require no faith, no trust, and no dependence on God. There are even evangelical traditions in churches today, man-made teachings that are often considered as authoritative as the Word of God or even higher, even though they contradict His Word like those that give a date for Christ s return. God s Word, the Scriptures, must be the ultimate authority in our lives. The Word of God must be elevated above any human tradition or teaching. It is in God s Word that we have the clearest understanding of God s will for our daily lives and the life of our church. Teachers, preachers, and doctrinal writings are helpful guides, but Scripture must continually be upheld as the final authority. The Word of God the Bible must be supreme over everything including tradition. 4
The only way that your life and our church can be guided by this Book is through studying and learning what God says not what man says. Turn to 2 Timothy 2:15. You need to know this Book inside out and backwards, then you correctly handle the Word of Truth, then you will not be misled by a smooth talker or someone with many degrees or many impressive titles. Hebrews 4:12 says, For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The only way the Word of God can change your heart is by knowing what it says not just reading it but studying it and discussing your thoughts and ideas with other Christians like we do in our SS classes and our Thursday night Bible studies. Then you will be able to recognize a hypocrite even if he is camouflaged to look like a Christian. B. Watch out for hypocrites. Satan has no greater allies than hypocrites who pretend to be one of God s children. And hypocrites have no greater tool than tradition. They do away with the need for God and His Word. There are 3 things from this passage that can be seen about hypocrites. 1. They are offended by the truth. Those who live in darkness are exposed by the truth God s truth. They say things like, My god would never... ; We need to change with the times. They choose not to follow God s Word and are offended by those who say they should. 2. They are destined for judgment. We will all stand before God and be judged by what is in our hearts. What is in your heart? 3. Hypocrites always lead others to disaster. They are the blind leading the blind. It is spiritually dangerous to stay around those who continually reject and oppose the gospel of Christ. In 1 Timothy 6:20 Paul writes, Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge. That s why Jesus said to Leave them Keep away from them and have nothing to do with them. C. Finally, allow your heart to be transformed. God wants us to give Him our hearts and not just our lip service. Turn to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. When you received with the Holy Spirit, as Romans 10:9 says, you believed in the heart your heart was changed. Now new and better things should come from your heart. In Matthew 22:37, instead of hate, we love from the heart. In Colossians 3:16, instead of grumbling, we sing from the heart. In Ephesians 6:6 (Romans 6:17) instead of disobeying, we obey from the heart. In 2 Corinthians 9:7 instead of taking, we give from the heart. So what about you, do you take time to study God s Word so that you aren t misled by hypocrites and others who teach false doctrines? Are you on guard so that traditions or we ve always 5
done it this way! thoughts don t creep in and replace God s Word or cause divisions? Can you pray as David prayed in Psalm 51:10, Create in me a clean heart, O God! Are you letting the Holy Spirit create a new heart in you or are you just putting up a good front? Someday you are going to stand face to face with Jesus, what is He going to say to you? 6