Matthew 15:8–9 (NET) ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
This has been a very humbling and challenging verse for me to reflect upon. I hope to be able to offer encouragement to us and to explain what Jesus was referring to when He quotes this text from Isaiah 29:13 to the religious leaders of His day in this blog post.
Who was Jesus talking to?
The Pharisees were a group of religious leaders in Judaism that were very strict in adhering to the law. In fact, they were so strict that they added many of their own laws to God’s law in order to “protect” (more like control) people from stumbling in any matter of God’s law. What seemed to be a good idea turned into legalism and ultimately a complete rejection of God’s most wonderful work – the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
This group of people became so hyper-focused on the laws that they were instituting that they in essence took their eyes off of the laws and heart of God and became misguided by their own direction. We must be careful not to follow in their footsteps, or the footsteps of others in today’s world that would put us into bondage to something under the guise of “protection”. Jesus told His disciples to beware the yeast of the Pharisees in Matthew 16:5-12, when His disciple thought He was talking about actual bread but Jesus was really referring to the influence of the teaching coming from the Pharisees.
It is really interesting that Jesus would have used that analogy of yeast to describe the Pharisees. Yeast is the ingredient in bread that causes it to rise, and it influences the whole batch once it enters into the mix. Even just the smallest amounts of yeast can have a huge impact on the quality of the taste, smell, and look of the bread it is influencing. In much the same way, the beliefs that we adhere to and allow to influence our lives will determine how we engage with others around us. The Pharisees were definitely an influential group and Jesus was warning His followers to steer clear of the influence of these religious leaders.
Why? you ask, because these people were doing everything they could to manipulate God! Yes they had the appearance of godliness and they were “rewarded” in the culture as important and highly honored, but they were not connected to the heart of God! God hates insincere rituals and empty religious platitudes that are designed to manipulate Him into thinking that we are somehow better people as a result of them (see Isaiah 1:11-15). God desires expressions of devotion from the heart that recognizes Him as the only reason for any sort of goodness within the one offering up such worship (see Ps. 51:16-17). See, Jesus knew their hearts (as He knows our hearts) and knew that they were not interested in worshiping to be near to God but more interested in showing piety in order to impress and overpower the people around them. He even calls them “white-washed tombs” in Matt. 23:27, saying that they make the outside look clean but on the inside they are full of dead bones. Those are some very harsh words from the One receiving our worship!
How does this apply to me?
I am reminded of Paul’s exhortation to the Galatian church when he found out that they were turning back to adherence to the law as a means to their salvation. He asks them an amazing question in Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?”. I think this is the danger of legalism, we tend to get sucked into the vortex of thinking that adherence to the law is our means to salvation. Our effort = our deliverance/salvation. This is false and it is in opposition to the Gospel. In the chapter directly before this one, Paul says that the life he lives in the flesh he lives by faith in the Son of God who loves him and gave Himself for him (see Gal 2:20), then he says in the following verse, “I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:21). Paul understood this principle of legalism verses the Gospel very clearly because he says of himself that he was a devout Pharisee too (Acts 23:6 & Acts 26:5), and he piously sought to destroy the followers of Jesus.
There will be temptations for all of us to resort to our own efforts as we live out our life by faith. When we do have those temptations, we must recognize whatever yeast/leaven we are under and cast it out in the Name of Jesus. This is so important because it ultimately impacts our worship! It causes dual allegiance (if there is such a thing) in our devotion, and therefore introduces a new “god” into our lives. The law.
Any time that we adhere to a set of rules or traditions over the Word of God, we make that our “god”. I grew up in a very tradition-rich environment of religion, and watched as my parents (and by extension all of us children) got excommunicated from our family and friends because they chose to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Once they made the decision to follow Christ, they knew that they could not remain within the current system of tradition they were in because they recognized that it had become their “god”. The Bible clearly states that we are not to have any other gods but the One true God (Exodus 20:3).
I don’t know why this happens to us, but people are naturally inclined to actually want bondage to something that creates the illusion of protection and freedom. We desire to be told what to do and how to do it, and then usually we end up rebelling against those instructions. It is a true mystery (explained at length with a wonderful personal touch from Paul in Romans 7) and one that we must all pay very close attention to in our lives. Be careful that you are not becoming complacent in your faith journey because you are finding your security in the traditions and rituals that you are mindlessly following. This is exactly what the Pharisees, and the people in Isaiah’s day, were doing. Ok, it’s Sunday so let’s go to Church. Ok, it’s dinner time so let’s pray. Ok, it’s payday so let’s give the church some money. These things are all good but when done with complacency or out of obligation they do very little to truly provide worship for the God who deserves it!
Everything we do should be done in faith and with reverence for Christ! “These people draw near to Me with their lips but their hearts are far from Me.” Let that sink in for a minute. What are you doing right now that gives the appearance of godliness but you know in your heart that it is coming from obligation, or straight up duty? Have you lost your heart for Christ? Are you trusting in your own efforts to bring you closer to God? Are you nullifying the Word of God by adhering to a tradition or standard set by men (for example, not raising hands in worship because the people in the church might think I am weird even though the word of God tells me to do so, or accepting a sinful lifestyle and living that way because a certain Pastor told me it is ok to live in such a way even though the Word of God clearly defines it as sin.) Be careful to devote yourself to God and His ways, to live in freedom as Christ has designed you to live (Gal. 5:1), and to not get entangled into the yoke of slavery that legalism puts on us.
Again in Galatians 5:9 Paul reminds us that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. That could be good or bad, depending on the leaven that you are allowing to influence you. If it is the influence of a legalistic and tradition-based set of rules then that will be to the bad, but if it is the leaven of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace that He gives to live in freedom then that will be to the good! Allowing that Gospel to influence us will give us access to the life that Jesus wants us to live as He defines it in John 10:10, “Life to the fullest”! Paul concludes his explanation of the freedom of the believer in Christ Jesus by stating that the only thing that matters is faith working through love, not adherence to a set of rules set and taught by men and women who desire to be “god” in the lives of those they influence! Be careful not to get sucked into that trap.
Once we understand this truth and start to live accordingly then our worship will not be in vain, and none of us wants to hear that our worship is in vain (meaningless). I want my worship to come from a pure heart that actually touches and moves my God. I want us to please our Father whenever we enter into His gates to offer up our praises to Him! The way to do this is to live our lives by faith, trusting in the sacrifice Jesus made for us, and devoting ourselves to holiness and love through faith! So, let’s bless our Father with true worship that is not done in order to get anything from Him, but rather because of our reverence for who He is and what He has already done for us!
I will leave you with the words of Paul to Colossians:
Colossians 2:20–23 (NET) “If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as though you lived in the world? “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” These are all destined to perish with use, founded as they are on human commands and teachings. Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body—a wisdom with no true value—they in reality result in fleshly indulgence.”
God bless you!
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