EVERY DAY WITH JESUS
Followers (Disciples) of Jesus
A devotional consideration of the Gospel of Saint Matthew
(This is also found on line at Saintlucas.org)
(Context) Remember the time and place of these chapters of Matthew’s gospel. It’s the week in which Jesus was crucified. He is in Jerusalem. It’s God’s time for the eternal sacrifice. This week provides Jesus with one last opportunity to speak to the general citizens of Jerusalem and to His enemies prior to His mock trial, final persecution, and crucifixion. It’s time for tough talk to expose sin and warn about the consequences of continuing in it. Tough talk motivated by love for His enemies and desire for their repentance and salvation for which He would soon give His life.
MONDAY, January 9, 2012 Matthew 23:1-4 1 “‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.’”
Responsibility and Respect These are remarkable words from Jesus to His disciples then and now. Who was it that most often made Jesus’ life difficult? Besides the Devil himself, who provided the fiercest and most persistent opposition to Jesus’ ministry? “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees” right? As a group they had not respected Him. They themselves, of themselves, were not worthy of respect. Yet, Jesus tells His disciples to respect them! Why?
“‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat’”, Jesus said. By the grace and will of God, these persons had a place of great responsibility in God’s Old Testament Church. It was their responsibility to faithfully teach and preach the Word of God, which He had revealed through Moses and the Prophets. They were God’s representatives. Therefore, they were to be respected for their office even though they were personally not worthy of respect because of their disrespect for God, for His Word, and for the Son Whom He sent as the Savior.
To the extent ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sitting in Moses’ seat’” faithfully proclaimed God’s Word, they were to be obeyed.
Until Jesus returns, His will is to graciously give some people positions of responsible authority within His Church. Sadly, today as well as then, some of those sinners through their teaching and/or their behavior dishonor their LORD and the office He has entrusted to them. They will have to answer to God for that! Meanwhile, Jesus wants His disciples to respect the leaders He has established - good and bad - and, to the extent that they faithfully share His Word, to obey them even when they themselves do not practice what they preach.
PRAYER: LORD, help those to whom You have given authority to respect Your authority and to use their authority to honor You and bless Your people. Even when the authorities are not personally worthy of respect, keep us as your people from losing respect for authority. AMEN
TUESDAY, January 10, 2012 Matthew 23:5 “‘Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long...’”
SHOWTIME! Religious leaders and the religion they practice and lead ought to be solely for the purpose of glorifying God. In Jesus’ day, the practice was absolutely the opposite: not to glorify God but to get the attention of and admiration from people: “‘Everything they do is for men to see’”. It’s “SHOWTIME”.
Their “phylacteries” (prayer boxes that they wore) and “tassles on their garments” (commanded by God, Numbers 15:38,39, to remind them of His Law and their relationship to Him) became objects of pride and competition. A modern equivalent would be striving to wear the largest or most beautiful cross or Christian symbol - for the sake of getting attention for one’s self.
The desire to attract attention to one’s self comes naturally to sinners, including us. Our daily lives of faith and our weekly gatherings as the faithful can easily lose their focus upon God. So easily we become self-conscious of the good we are doing. So easily we seek to impress others by the outward performance of our worship. In so doing, our deeds and our “duds” become duds indeed - worthy of punishment not praise.
PRAYER: LORD, may my way of life be worship in all that I do alone or with other Christians; and, may all of it be focused entirely upon You. AMEN
WEDNESDAY, January 11, 2012 Matthew 23:6-10 “‘...they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.’”
HONOR, STATUS Oh, we know this too don’t we? That desire to be recognized by others as being SOMEBODY, desiring praise and recognition. How do we escape this desire of our flesh?
The escape route from this begins by first of all recognizing that only the LORD is deserving of honor and praise. Give God the glory! Next, rejoice in the honor and status His grace has given you through faith in Jesus. John sets the example: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God, and that is what we are!’” What greater honor could I possibly want?! What greater status could I possibly attain than this which I have received as a gift of God’s grace?! Finally, as Christians we can help discourage the fleshly desire each of us has for honor and status by remembering the honor and status each of has graciously received from God and treating each other with the respect due to a child of the heavenly Father and a sister or brother of Christ Himself.
PRAYER: Father, let me seek no other honor but be content that You acknowledge me as Yours! AMEN
THURSDAY, January 12, 2012 Matthew 23:11 “‘The greatest among you will be your servant. The greatest among you will be your servant.’”
True greatness Who is the greatest? The answer to that is simple, a young Christian child can answer that: “God”, a child would say. And, be correct. God is the greatest! No comparison. And, what’s the greatest example of God’s greatness? Isn’t it the whole life and work of Jesus? He is the eternal Son of God. He takes on a true human nature unstained by sin. He is God in the flesh, Immanuel. Why does He do this? Elsewhere He put it like this: “‘The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:45
God will grace His individual people with different “gift packages”. Different gifts same grace. To those whom God chooses to gift the most and greatest of gifts He will give the same opportunity that He gives to those whose gifts may be less: that is the opportunity to use those gifts in the service of the Savior by being the servant of others. This is nothing less than walking in the footsteps of the One Who is the Greatest - Jesus, our Servant/Savior.
PRAYER: LORD, Your grace has made me Yours, Your servant to serve others. That’s all I want. Thank You! AMEN
FRIDAY, January 13, 2012 Matthew 23:12 “‘For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’”
It happens... You weren’t even thinking about it. You weren’t thinking about yourself. You were scarcely conscious of what you were doing. Someone needed you. Something needed to be done. You did it. You helped them. The task might not have been easy. It may have been rather messy. The best is when no one but God knows what was done and who did it.
You did it. More accurately, God did it through you. As He did, it happened. You humbled yourself. It becomes a way of life, a (new)natural effortless way of life. It happens.
And, then, grace happens again - He exalts you. That wasn’t your goal. It is a gift given to those who don’t seek it and who know that they don’t deserve it: “‘...whoever humbles himself will be exalted’”.
Isn’t the LORD and His ways just “too much”?!
PRAYER: LORD, teach me the exhilerating joy of humbling serving You through others. AMEN
SATURDAY, January 14, 2012 Matthew 23:13 “‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!’”
Whoa! and Woe! The editors of your Bible perhaps put the heading SEVEN WOES at the beginning of this twenty-third chapter of Saint Matthew. That’s what mine has. Open your Bible, if you so choose, and count them for yourself. Seven times Jesus expresses Himself with the words “‘Woe to you...” Then, He proceeds to express the reason they deserve and, unless they repent, will receive God’s wrath.
The reason Jesus cries out “‘Woe’” is really to say Whoa! Stop it!
Unbelief and all the bad behavior that flows from it cries out for God’s wrath, for eternal judgment. God’s not looking forward, so to say, to bringing that upon anyone. Instead, He wants sinners to look forward to what their current behavior will bring so that they stop it and do not receive its consequences. Of course we know that change of mind and change of behavior, it goes by the Biblical word - REPENTANCE.
PRAYER: LORD, may Your Spirit always warn me about any of my attitudes and actions that are displeasing to You and therefore deserving of Your wrath; and, may I always heed those warnings and alter the way I think and act. AMEN
SUNDAY, January 15, 2012 Matthew 23:13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”
Church not “churchy” Seven woes are before us in this chapter. God willing, we shall explore them in the week to come. That exploration is not impersonal or merely historical. To be sure, we will be looking at others then and now. But, the purpose of our gaze is not to judge them - that’s God’s business - but to apply God’s judgments to ourselves in the spirit of the proverb: “If the shoe fits, wear it.
We wrote above: “Seven woes are before us in this chapter.” These words are not intended for what we might call “the world” they are for the “church”, that is to say, for those who are convinced that they are the Church. Or, perhaps better, we might say that they are intended for those who sincerely want to remain a part of the Church.
The seven woes condemn various kinds of what we might call “churchy talk and behavior”. Words and behaviors that seem very religious but are actually disgusting to God and which call for His condemnation.
Each of us, as people who believe in Jesus, are a part of the Church, the body of Christ. We are Church not “churchy”. As such, we want to be the kind of people the Head of the Church wants us to be. For that to happen, we need to listen to His words and have Him apply them where they fit so that more and more He shapes us by His Spirit through His Word.
PRAYER: LORD, shape me by Your Spirit as a living member of Your body, the Church. AMEN
