I'm going to begin reading at Matthew 22 verse 41, and really focus then on the first 12 verses of chapter 23. Please give your attention to the Word of God. Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He? They said to Him, The Son of David. He said to them, How is it then that David in the Spirit calls Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat. So practice and observe what they tell you but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by others. But you, are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Now, in this area, we have the privilege of having a lot of Jewish friends and neighbors, and there's a lot of ways of expressing the Jewish-Christian disagreement, but here's one. Where is the Hebrew Scripture going? How's this story supposed to end? Who's got the right ending to the Old Testament? Now, among Jews, you might find a certain variety of answers. Some might say, well, the Talmud The rulings of the rabbis. The main one written up about 600 A.D. in what we call Iraq today. That's where the story's going. And by extension, rabbinic Judaism and orthodox Judaism. Of course, most Jews we see around here are not orthodox. They're reformed. So they might say, well, no, really, it's not all those details and old regulations. Really, it's about some main ethical principles and compassion for the oppressed. That would be more of a Reform Jewish answer. Somebody else might say, well actually, where the story is going is Israel. The modern state of Israel, refounded 1948. Still others might say, well actually, it's heading for the Messiah. We Jews are waiting for the Messiah. Now nearly all Christians, and I'll deal with the exceptions tonight, nearly all Christians would say, hold that last thought there. The one about the Messiah. We think that's your best answer so far. This book is heading for a Messiah. Now let's talk about who that might be. It's Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah. And it's time to get on board with Jesus the Messiah because Jesus is the Messiah. That's where the story is going. So the New Testament is where it's going and the church is where it's going. The community of those who have responded to Jesus the Messiah. And this is an argument that's been going on since Jesus and in these chapters of Matthew we see Jesus arguing with the Pharisees and Sadducees about the Old Testament and among other things they're arguing about where it's going and how to summarize it. And we shouldn't pretend that this is so easy because the Old Testament is big. I mean this is a pretty small print here but even in this small print it's 800 pages and it's got 39 different books in it. different authors, writing really out of different cultures, because it's written over a millennia. It's got different genres. It's complicated. So how should it be summed up? And we've been getting Jesus' summary over these last couple of weeks. Existentially, he says, we're heading for a resurrection. The resurrection life will not be the same as how we are now. We won't be with our spouses. We'll all stand before God like the angels. But existentially, we're heading for a resurrection. Ethically, The greatest commandment is love the Lord your God. And the second is like it, love your neighbor. So ethically, the center is those commands to love. In terms of historically, he's saying we're heading for the Messiah. What do you say about the son of David? Whose son is he? And he's been saying there's gonna be some unexpected twists with the Messiah. He'll be rejected before he's exalted. and the tenants, the people who reject him, are gonna get thrown out, and other guests are gonna be brought in. So there's gonna be a twist with the Messiah, but he says, that's the summary of the Old Testament. Existentially, there's a resurrection. Ethically, love God and neighbor. Historically, we're heading for a Messiah. That should be familiar, that's what we try to teach here. What was the Pharisees' summary? Well, it was not the same as the Sadducees, that's why they were a very different group. Existentially, the Pharisees would have said, we're heading for a resurrection. They didn't understand it as clearly as Jesus did, but they knew from the Old Testament we're going for a resurrection. Historically, they would have said, yeah, we're going for a Messiah. They had no idea that there'd be a big rejection of the Messiah, but they would say, yeah, we're going for a Messiah. And ethically, well not only could they agree with the Great Commandment, Depending on this discussion, in some discussions, they came up with it. In Luke, there's a lawyer gets up, asks Jesus, how am I saved? Jesus says, well, how do you read the law? And then the lawyer comes up with the great commandments, one and two. Jesus doesn't say it first. The lawyer says it first. Jesus says, good answer. So they were able to say, ethically, the center is love God, love neighbor, but then what's the guy wanna do? He wants to ask, yeah, but who's my neighbor? And that shows you the problem there. I wanted to debate the meaning of neighbor. It's always a little dangerous. You do have to figure out what God means. But you can get to the point where you prefer the figuring to the doing. You can prefer the arguing to the doing. When I was in college, I was with the Inner Varsity Christian Fellowship and I got trained and I would lead small group Bible studies. And so they said, all right, well, you've got to do a study in advance, prepare your questions. You've got to get some questions that make the people really read it, observation questions. Then you've got to get questions to get people to really think about it, interpretation questions. And then you've got to get questions that actually get people to think about how to do it, application questions. And they told us, now, be careful, because it's very easy to have all interpretation questions. People love to talk about the interpretation. And then, oh, we have no time left for application. They warned us, don't let the I questions, no, shrink them down, get to the application questions. You gotta spend some time talking about it, so what are you gonna do about it? That's always a danger, to prefer debating to doing. And then there was another danger, and that comes from the rabbinic approach, to build a fence around the Torah. We used to live next door to probably the best used backdoor pool in Elkins Park. They definitely got their money's worth out of this pool. Of course, they had a fence around the pool. That's the law, all right? Now, the fence didn't just block off the pool, it blocked off all the grass and the pavement around the pool, all right? And that's kind of like what the rabbis meant. Build a fence around the Torah meant make it so that people don't get close to breaking God's law. The quickest example would be the commandment says, do not take God's name in vain. So the rabbinic approach was, okay, don't say God's name at all, because if you don't say it at all, then you won't take His name in vain. Well, that goes well beyond the commandment, actually. So they're trying to be pious, they're trying to guard against breaking God's law, but they create all these new laws that push the boundaries back, well back, and they're thinking, okay, this is the safe and pious thing to do, but the trouble is, where do you put the fence? So you debate the fence. The fence is the decisions made by men. The new rules are by design, not the Torah's rules. They're around the Torah's rules. And so they begin to get your traditions going and then different people have different traditions and you debate it. And so little by little your eyes can come off of God, off the Word, off those actual commandments and onto your man-made traditions that are supposed to protect the commandments. And it's largely still kind of like that. I have a Jewish friend who said, you know, Jews don't read the Bible the way Christians do. And what he meant was, those kind of Bible studies I was describing. Christians do those. They're like, let's read the Bible and talk about it. He says, you know, my friends don't do that that much. Or again, some of us know a man who was running up at White Lake, Jewish raised, now a Christian, loves to run without a shirt on. So he comes up to, and he's thirsty, Jewish, Orthodox Jewish store. On the, sign on the door, please respect the Torah. No shirt, no shoes, no service. So he waits outside the door to debate with the first guy that comes out. He said, where in the Torah does it say no shirt, no shoes, no service? So he gets a little circle all around him debating this. And somebody said, well, in the Talmud, he says, oh, how can you compare the Talmud to the word of God? And here's somebody say, apostate, which is correct. The guy has left Judaism. He's now a Christian. But why does it take an apostate to say, how can you compare the Talmud to the word of God? Everybody should see the power of the question, especially if you read the Talmud. Jesus had more debates with the Pharisees and the Sadducees because the Pharisees were closer to the truth. They had the whole Old Testament. They believed in resurrection and the angels. They could identify the great commandments. But it turned into close but no cigar because their fundamental approach was off. They choked off the voice of God and made it all about the traditions of men. And so Jesus denounced them. He had reason with them. He'd done miracles, but they were resolute. Most of them, not all, some Pharisees end up believing. But as a group, they're resolute in opposition. They're all about the traditions of the fathers. And so he has to give up on them here, but he can't just ignore them because they're influential. They had the copies of the Old Testament. Most people back then didn't. So how could you hear the word of God? You had to go to the synagogue, or maybe go to a scribe. He's your source. He can pull out the scroll and read it to you, because you don't have a copy. And what's more, the word of God itself says, go to the priest. Deuteronomy 17, if any case arises requiring decision between one legal right and another, any case too difficult to you, you go to the Levitical priests and judge and consult them and do what they say. And rightly or wrongly, the Pharisees and the scribes were in that role. So Jesus says, practice what they tell you, not what they do. He's saying the problem isn't God and God's word, it's the Pharisees and their interpretation. And he's trying to thread the needle here, because it can be hard to distinguish what God is saying and what his interpreters are saying. And you know that when you get offended by leaders, you can just leave the church. We see that with our Roman Catholic neighbors. They get offended. Roman Catholic Church gives them reasons to be offended. And they leave. But what do most Roman Catholics do when they leave the Roman Catholic Church? They go nowhere. They should be here. Some of you are here. But most don't go to any Protestant church. They should go to a Protestant church and get back to the Word of God. But most are still ex-Catholic. It's Catholic or nothing. And they just leave because they're offended. And they don't hold on to God as they reject flawed interpreters. And so Jesus here, He's trying to separate them for His audience, He says, observe what they tell you, that is, do what the Word of God actually says, because they're the ones who have it for you, but don't follow them. And He means not just don't follow their example, which He mentions, they preach but don't practice, He also means don't follow their teaching, once the teaching is based on their traditions, and not on the Word of God. We can tell He means that because He's already disagreed with them on the Sabbath, and on purity, and on divorce, and they're about to say, yeah, and they give bad guidance on oaths, and they neglect the weighty matters of the law. So he's not saying that their teaching is good when he says, do what they tell you. He says, when they read the Word of God to you, listen to it. After that, you should probably stop listening. He says, don't follow them, stick to God's Word, but you have to get it from them, they're sitting in Moses' seat. So observe what they tell you, not what they do. And he says, why? He says, they're inconsistent. They tell you what to do, but they don't do it. They're ethically challenged. No doubt that's not true of every Pharisee, but true of far too many. He says, they have no compassion. They tie up heavy loads. Tying up was an idiom for making a legal ruling. They make a legal judgment. They tie it up and they put it on men's shoulders and they don't care how heavy it is. Once you begin to add up all the Sabbath rules, in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. It's hard to see how the day is a delight. The Sabbath was made for man, but they made it as if the man was made for the Sabbath. They themselves don't move a finger, they don't look for how to make the heavy burden light. Jesus said that his burden was easy, and his yoke was light. And we know Jesus moved a finger. He came to earth. He came to village to village. He came to sick people and possessed people. He came to die, He moved a finger. He said, beware of the Pharisees, inconsistent, not compassionate, and man-pleasers. He's already denounced this back in the Sermon on the Mount. Now when you do what God tells you to do, some of it is visible. It's external, people can see it. That's unavoidable. And as you do what God tells you to do and people see it, that can encourage other people, that can rebuke and irritate some people, that can be a witness to some people, that can impress some people. But then it can start to be why you're doing it. You can begin to do those things for the people to see it. It's meant for God, but gradually, or maybe quickly, it becomes a way for you to impress somebody. So this is an ongoing temptation, a permanent one. Jesus says these Pharisees are concerned with their traditions and the regulations and it ends up being something to be seen it's so poisonous to do things meant for God for people. Do things meant for God for God even if people can see it and they will see some of it but make sure you do it for God. So it says beware the leaven of the Pharisees they make their phylacteries broad. Now what's a phylactery? It's a little leather box And inside, it's got key texts of the Torah, and then you can wear it. You can like tie it on your head or onto your hand. Now, why do that? Well, they're literally doing Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 11, where it says, bind them as a sign on your hand, let them be as front, let's between your eyes. And so that's the way of doing that literally by having little key texts like love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, putting it in a box, then you tie it on. And he says, yeah, and they make those boxes big, don't they? That's what he's saying here. Why the box so big? Or he says, they make their tassels long. That's why we read the Numbers 15 passage. You'll notice that God has commanded, keep the fringe on the end of your coat. And Jesus did that. It says that the woman who was bleeding for 12 years, she reached out and touched the fringe of his coat. And elsewhere, Matthew 14 and 15, it says that the crowd, they were just trying to touch the fringe of his coat. Same word, all right, so he was obeying the law. If you picture Jesus, picture him with some fringe coming off his coat, like the Torah said. But the two schools of the Pharisees actually debated how long should the fringe be. Shammai said longer, Hillel said shorter. Now why is that a religious debate? Well, if your approach is to build fences around the Torah, you end up making that an issue of debate. And you end up saying, yeah, look how pious I am. I got a long fringe. I trip on it. Look how pious I am. Jesus is saying, who are you doing that for? That's not for God at this point. It doesn't help you remember any better. You just need a little bit to remember God's commandments. And he says, they love to exalt themselves. Now, the Talmud has a similar line in it. Whoever exalts himself debases God. whoever debases himself exalts God. So the Talmud, it's got the same thought. Two problems were that the Talmud wasn't written yet, and besides, it's an ongoing temptation, always a temptation to exalt me, to love the place of honor, the best seat, the fancy greeting, being called rabbi. In terms of the etymology of rabbi, I read it's sort of a, if you break down where's the word come from, it means my great one. Now, if you meet Rabbi so-and-so from AJ, all right, it means teacher in everyday use, but the etymology is my great one. And Jesus says that's unacceptable. You're at the point where you don't explain the word of God because you love God, you love the perks. You love what the word gets you. You're in it for what you get out of it, not out of love for God. Now, this is always a challenge for the church, because people always like glory. I know I do. I think most of you do. And it's always tempting to please people, especially the people who pay you. And it's always easy to lack compassion. I know how to walk in my shoes because I do. To walk in your shoes, well, first I really have to know a fair amount about you first, and then I have to actually care enough to try to think about it and actually put myself in your shoes. That's two big steps. A lot easier just to walk in line. And it's always easier for anybody to say what to do than to do it. Preaching is a moment, practice is a lifetime. And so as we read Jesus condemning the Pharisees, it's always a good time, and the longer you've been in the church, probably the more important it is to examine yourself and say, so how am I doing with my inner Pharisee? Because the Pharisee sentences are human tendencies. It's human tendencies in an interaction with the Old Testament, but it's a human tendency. Jesus gave a few rules to combat self-glorification. Rabbi literally means my Great One. Well, that has to go. He says, my disciples, you are not to be called that. Why not? Because God is your Great One. And he's giving you one teacher, Jesus, and you are all brothers. And when he says that, he's fulfilling, he's signaling that he is the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31, God will make a new covenant, and it says, no longer will man teach his brother, they will all know me. There'll be an equality about knowing God as a benefit of the new covenant. Jesus says, you are all brothers. He's signaling, we're getting there. That new covenant is about to be made in my blood in a couple days, and you will all be brothers. He says, call no man your father. And what about your dad? Can you call your dad? Well, look at the context. What's he talking about? The scribes and the Pharisees, okay, he's talking about religious leaders. He's not talking about family relationships. So you can call your biological father dad. That's cool. However, there's two places not to use the word father. Here's one. The Pharisees were into the traditions of the fathers. Do that in Galatians. And the traditions of the fathers became more important to them than God's words. And so they were saying, haven't you heard that it was said? And Jesus was saying, it is written. That is, he's going back to God's words that is written. He says, call no man father. That is, don't elevate past teachers to the point where they begin to block out God for you. You just want to know what they said. Don't call your religious teachers father. It takes your eyes off of God, your one father. Now does this condemn churches that have you call the minister or priest father? I think it has to. What else can it mean? It does mean don't let past generations control God's words in the place you can't see it. But to rule out the literal interpretation, don't call the priest father, I mean that strikes me as arrogant not to assume that you shouldn't call him father. That's kind of the first most obvious meaning. Don't call your religious teachers fathers. I don't know what the Catholic Church and others are doing. It says never be called instructor because you have one instructor, the Christ. So he, the Christ, had been instructing them from the word of God, not from the father's traditions. He's been teaching from the main principles, not trying to put up a fence around the Torah. So he gives these few rules to combat self-glorification. No rabbi, no father, no instructor. Now that should provoke a fairly obvious question, particularly if you happen to know another group that we have here in the Philadelphia area, the Quakers. You know, a little bit about the Quakers, you'll discover the Quakers don't have ministers. At least not the meeting house Quakers. There's a different set that do. But around here, the Quakers don't have ministers. They say, hey, we're all brothers, so we don't have ministers. So the question is, well, John, should you be in the pulpit in light of this passage here? Should there be a pulpit? Should anybody be up in the pulpit? Should there be instructors? Well, that's a good question. And when you read the Bible, you need to bring all the passages together to see what it means together. You should be bringing it together to make sense of the whole. This is charitable reading. If you write something to me and what you say in the first paragraph strikes me as contradicting the third paragraph, I should not accuse you of having a split personality. I should go back and re-read them and see if you meant something a little more limited or a little more expansive than I thought at first. And if you're using instructions and it's not working, you try to reevaluate, what did they mean the first time? You read and making sense of it. So as you read the Bible all together, you see that Jesus promised the 12 apostles 12 thrones. So it's not against all special honors. And you read in Peter, Peter says, as an elder, I exhort the elders, conduct oversight willingly. He says, be subject to the elders. And James says, if anyone is sick, let him call for the elders of the church. And Hebrews says, remember your leaders and submit to them. And Paul says, Jesus gave pastors and teachers to the church to build up the saints. Paul gives us the character of elders and deacons. So Jesus is not forbidding all organization. He's not forbidding all leadership. If we read him that way, we're saying that we know him better than his apostles. And that's arrogant, because we only know him through the apostles. What he's forbidding is having church leaders be exalted with big titles. What he's forbidding is seeking honor and glory. I remember when I was in seminary, I got there at the same time as a new dean that had been brought in from a foreign country. And the seminary president went on and on and on about what this man had done back in his home country. I mean it made it sound like there'd be no Christians left in this home country if it wasn't for this guy. Made me wonder, well, so why'd you bring him here? Leave him there. Now I appreciate he was trying to say we're very happy to have this guy on staff here, but it went on too much. You can't go so far. Or how about the title reverend? I think that's the Christian rabbi. What does it mean? Revered one. That's like rabbi. I don't like the title. The Bible directs the church to have pastors, elders, and deacons. I think we ought to use those titles because the Bible does. And when you start looking at what the words mean, they're humble. Do you know what a pastor means, literally? A shepherd. And when was David a shepherd? When he was a boy. when he was the youngest of the brothers. It's not a terribly skilled job. It's not a very high-paid job, being a shepherd. And that's what pastor means. How about elder? Elder means old man. That's what it means, right? Not particularly exalted, just, hi there, old man. And deacon, deacon means servant. Or it originally meant waiter. As in, I'm Bob and I'll be your waiter for the evening. That's what deacon actually means. Again, these are not like rabbi, father, or reverend. What about minister? Well, with minister, you start to split hairs, because minister does mean servant, but somehow it tends to mean somebody important. So anyway, that goes in the whatever category. I prefer pastor. It's the biblical term. It's the humbler term. And if you're more than 18, you can just call me John. And if you're less than 18, you can just call me Mr. Edgar. I don't think we need it all the time. And I'm just another brother in the church. But it's tricky. A lot of people want to put the pastor on a pedestal. They want to father you, rabbi you, or reverend you. And so Jesus here switches between saying what we're not to say and saying what not to let others call you. You are not to be called rabbi. So I just did that. Don't call me reverend. And then he says, call no man father. He switches back and forth between the recipient and the one who was speaking. Now we've gone through the details, what are the main theological principles that he's laying down here? Well as I said he came to make the New Covenant in his blood. He came to remove the veil that used to separate the Israelites from the Holy of Holies. He said we're gonna remove that spiritually, you can go directly before God. And so when we read Jeremiah 31 we focus on forgive their sins, remember them no more, that's the basis of everything. But it says a lot there about not needing to teach your brother to love God because He already does. And the point isn't that we shouldn't encourage each other to love the Lord. The whole New Testament says, encourage each other to love the Lord. But the point is an equality in the Spirit before God. In the Old Testament, the Spirit comes on a few particular anointed people. In the New Testament, it comes on all. The key theological point that Jesus here makes is what we call the priesthood of all believers. He says you are all brothers. All of us need the same mediator between God and us. We all need Jesus. And none of us need anyone else. We can all pray for each other. The prayers offered by one Christian are not more or less potent than the prayers offered by another Christian. And all together we stand before God in worship. Each one of us can testify to the grace of God to our friends. Another thing Jesus here is saying is that it is God who is the authority, one father who is in heaven. And so it's his word that is the authority. He lays down here what we call sola scriptura. The Bible alone is the final authority in disputes about religion. He says, call no man father. Don't put tradition on par with scripture, let alone higher. Call no man father. You have one father. God. And you must go to that word that the Father gave you as the Son explained it. Notice that. You have one instructor, the Christ. He's the final teacher. Suppose you're reading the Old Testament and you think you see another reason for divorce. Just stop. Jesus gave you the reasons for divorce. You don't need to get creative about the Old Testament reading there. Then you're trying to be a scribe and a Pharisee. We have one instructor, the Christ. He laid it down. You say, but so-and-so wrote it. Is it in accord with what Jesus said? Well, if not, then I don't care who he is. We don't write Talmuds where you get the ruling, but then you get Rabbi Akiba said this on the other hand. Because that doesn't produce Christian faith and obedience. It creates arguments. And the goal of our charge is love from a pure heart. and a good conscience, and a sincere faith." How do you like that? Love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Well, it's 1 Timothy 1.5. You have one teacher, even God. Jesus was condemning the scribes and the Pharisees, and he went on, we got it next week. He had to, because he was the Christ, and they were trying to turn people away from their own Savior. And so he had to speak out. But as he always did, he spoke in a way that edifies for all time. He gives us some basic theology. He fulfills the new covenant of Jeremiah 31. He makes us brothers. He gives us the priesthood of all believers. Call no man father, for we have one father, sola scriptura. And hold not just to scripture and theory, but to Jesus' interpretation of it. You have one instructor, the Christ. And he gave us the specifics that flow out of those bottom line principles. He warns us, practice what you preach. No one will be impressed very long with the opposite. Have compassion, or you contradict the gospel every day if you don't live and show compassion. Don't love glory. It's the Christ who brings us to know the Lord. We can all encourage each other. And don't make people big and God small, to echo a title. Don't be a man pleaser. Ask instead. what pleases God. Let's join together in prayer. Heavenly Father we thank You for our Lord Jesus who can teach us great things even when He must denounce those who would turn people away from You and we pray Lord that You would help us to watch our hearts carefully and to guard our hearts that we wouldn't be drawn away to pride that we wouldn't be blind to failing to practice. Help us, Lord, to be compassionate and humble before you. Lord, we pray that you'd help us to stir up one another, to encourage each other, to consider how. And we pray that you would help us to be brothers and sisters in Christ here in this congregation and with the other Christians that we meet and that we know, whether at work or school or in any way. Help us, Lord, to have this spirit that you describe here. We pray this in Christ's name.