For a number of sermons I have made mention my desire to cover this topic of the weightier matters of the law.  Each time I get closer to giving it I realize some foundation needs to be laid before we get into the meat of it.  As I covered the previous topics as a foundation I then set my sights into tackling this subject.  But any study into this question quickly reveals that you can do a 12 part study and still want to cover more.  My goal is to cut to the heart of the matter without leaving out the context.  After collecting about 3 hours of content and weighing them to see what should be covered It seems as though we will need to cover this in pieces as well. 

At the heart of this topic are the most important aspects of the Law of God.  As we approach Passover this would be a good thing to have in the front of our minds.  But God is love and love is about relationships.  Our relationship with God, the Law, and one another is paramount to understanding this.  The title of this series comes from Matthew 23:23. 

The Weightier Matters of the Law

 

Matthew 23:23-24   23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.  24 "Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

 

 

As you can see by looking at this passage there is a lot going on.  It’s like walking into the middle of an argument and trying to figure out what’s going on.  Here you can see that Jesus is attacking the Scribes and Pharisees which is nothing new but as you go through this section you can see this is not a minor rebuff but a major attack on their character.

As Mr. Walker often says, to understand a scripture you must go back and see what it meant to the people in which it was written first before you can start drawing conclusions as to the meaning of the passage.   Wouldn’t it be great to say let’s just read what the matters are and do them and we are done.  After all, the conflict here is with the Scribes and Pharisees and does not directly concern us at all.  So since His fight was with them, let’s just read ahead and go on our way.

The problem with that approach is that I have read through the entire section and I cannot say that this was not written for me.  In fact, I feel that many of the conflicts we get into in this life are a direct result of not understanding the gravity of what Christ is saying here. God’s laws come from Him. God is love. So to understand His Laws we have to have love.

Our legal system today is a perfect example of this point.  Our legal system does not work because those that practice it do not practice love first.  What if Lawyers had to prove their cases with love instead of precedent?  What if you had to show love before you even brought a matter to court at all? 

What is lacking in our legal system is not more laws but love.  Therefore, understanding the weightier matters of the law and not understanding the love that binds them together is basically useless.  This is why the preparation for this topic has been so difficult.

As you know I don’t have a Facebook page but I often look over my wife’s shoulder to some of the interesting back and fourths that go on in the electronic community.  I especially like to catch up on the many discussions about the bible that often arise from the bible reading program or some other biblical topic. 

Some of the questions asked are basic and get answered rather quickly and they are buried by new questions and observations.  Other times, someone will ask a question that gets so many replies that they take on a life of its own.  You see people commenting and choose to agree or disagree.   I love to see people working out their own salvation with fear and trembling as we read in Philippians 2:12.  But we should not forget that 7 verses earlier in verse 5 it talks about first having the mind that is also in Christ, and in verse 8 it tells us the importance of humility in the process. 

So if we are to have the mind of Christ, the humility of Christ, and then in the absence of Christ on earth we have to work out our own salvation, then the question I would ask is “Don’t we need both to even understand the weightier matters of the law?”

The world if full of human conflict because we spend too much time on what we feel is important and not enough time on what God says is important. 

I include us here with the world because we too have conflict in our lives.  Both in and out of the church we find ourselves at odds with others and there is a lot we can learn on this topic if we are to grow in the love of God and build better relationships both in and out of the church.

We know that the first century church started to grapple with this topic because many of them, like us, felt their time was much shorter than it actually was.  As the years turned into decades many began to lose focus.  The Apostle John, the last of those that were with Jesus, wrote his Gospel much later than the other three.  He stressed a number of themes as he saw spiritual drift in the church.  Turn to John 14 and lets read a number of things that Jesus said that only John brought out when he recorded his account. 

This are some of the last instructions Jesus gave before his arrest and in a sense was giving some extremely important teaching regarding the commandments. 

John records Jesus’s words in verse 15 of chapter 14.

NKJ John 14:15-16   15 " If you love Me, keep My commandments.  16 "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever --

NKJ John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

NKJ John 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

If you study your bible for places where we are told to keep God’s Commandments,  Laws, Statutes, or ways,  you will quickly pass 100 places.  If you then count the times God tells us to Obey Him you can add another hundred.   But without the heart you can’t obey.

Psalm 119:1-2  NKJ Blessed are the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the LORD!  2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!

Psalm 119:11   11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!

The Gospel of Matthew records quite a bit about keeping those commandments and it is in Chapter 23 where we will get to the weightier matters, but in chapter 22: we see a powerful definition of what the commandments really are.

 

Matthew 22:35-40   35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,  36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"  37 Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  38 "This is the first and great commandment.  39 "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  40 "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Love is the most important commandment.  Every law of God has love at the heart.  If you try to keep a law and leave out love would be like breathing air with all oxygen removed.  It only leads to death. 

Trying to be right in the eyes of God but leaving out love also only leads to death which makes sense because God is Love.  We know that keeping the Law does not earn salvation and that salvation is a gift of God through Love.  He does not give that gift to those that do not share His love.  When God’s love and righteousness is primary in our hearts, then seeking to obey him starts to make sense and even becomes easier.

During this series, we are going to read through the 23 chapter of Matthew to see how love is so important to understanding God’s Law.  Love is practiced through relationships.  God’s Law is about relationships.  So to understand the weightier matters of the law we have to ask ourselves how relationships fit into the Law.

Let’s keep this in mind as we read through Matthew 23:

The 23rd chapter records a stinging rebuke of the Scribes and Pharisee’s in the early 1rst century.  These people were experts at keeping the commandments and Jesus never seems to praise them for their efforts. 

It was near the end of His earthly ministry and time was nearing when He must be crucified as our Passover.  He had challenged the Jewish leaders numerous times but never like this. 

Now it is natural to look unfavorably at these leaders and say they are not examples for us and move on.  But the questions that were asked in the time of Christ were not that different from the questions that are asked today.  For instance, Jesus and His disciples were often challenged about their conduct on the Sabbath. 

I can tell you that many times on Facebook someone is asking questions about how to conduct themselves on the Sabbath or Holy Days, or how they keep the commandments.  In turning to the Bible for answers it is easy to go straight to the answer and judge others for missing the truth.  In a sens, they are condemning the behavior of others.  How does that fit into relationships that we are to build and maintain on this earth.  I have had witnessed discussions where being right takes the priority over showing love.

Did Jesus condemn Pilate?  Did he condemn the woman at the well or the woman who was almost stoned for adultery?  Does the fact that he didn’t mean He was OK with such behavior?  He built relationships with each of them and then taught them through love.  Even if the three of these people never converted in their lifetime they at least had a positive relationship with Jesus who was a representative of God’s Kingdom.  Have you ever considered yourself a representative of the Kingdom of God? 

2 Corinthians 5:20   20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

Ambassador is a representative and reconciled is about relationship.

If we are to have the mind and humility of Christ, and with fear and trembling work out our own salvation, then we certainly don’t want to condemn anyone but to be a light to others to help them find their way; to be an ambassador for the Kingdom of God.   

Let’s take a look at Matthew 23 and see the context of this passage so we can get a better sense on how we should view this topic.

 

Matthew 23:1-23  NKJ Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples,  2 saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.  3 "Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.  4 "For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.  5 "But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.  6 "They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues,  7 "greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, 'Rabbi, Rabbi.

In this first section there is much to discuss.  First of all, it is very easy to focus on the sin of the leaders and miss the point that Jesus is saying.  Jesus is speaking to the multitudes the Jewish leaders are most definitely hearing what He is saying but Jesus is addressing the Crowds as well as His disciples.  (this is for us)

Now He is speaking about the Jewish leaders but the message is being delivered to the people.  So when we read this we want to remember that it is to the people first and that we, above all else, should learn the point that Jesus is making.  That first point is about authority.

Point 1) Respect Authority

At this point the Pharisees sat in Moses seat and had authority.  Jesus told the people to obey that authority regardless how they use it, Jesus tells the people to follow their instruction even though they are poor examples of how to do it.  Now wouldn’t we rather it said to only follow them when they are perfect examples?

Now the hold the Pharisees had over the people would change with the death of Christ and the new Covenant. 

Hebrews 8:13   13 In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

• That system of going to the Temple as the place where God dwells was replaced with our bodies being the Temple of God.
• The High Priest making intercession for the people on the Day of Atonement was replaced with Jesus Christ as our High priest who makes daily intercession for us.
• Jesus became our sacrifice so we no longer sacrifice animals in our place as Jesus already took our place.
• Jesus called men into the ministry to replace the roles the Pharisees held in leading the people.  The Ministers would truly shepherd His people as He did and not rule over them in harshness.

But does that mean we don’t have to respect authority?

Jude 1:9   9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

Why did Michael dare not?  Was he afraid of Satan?  No, Michael was showing respect for the authority that Satan had on this earth rather than respect for Satan himself.

There is so little respect in this world today.  People don’t respect the leaders that God allowed to be in place.  If God allows Satan the office he currently holds, you can be sure He allows all leaders in this world to exist.  They are serving a greater purpose even if unwilling and He expects we will show respect for that office while we are under it.

Jesus says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s

This means to have a certain respect, just as Michael had, to the governing powers in the world.  God has allowed them.  We have spoken about politics on a number of occasions but when I go to gatherings like NWW I still hear conversations where members are running down their government.  Our government is corrupt, yes, because they do not seek God and His righteousness first.

But our role is not to take sides in a losing battle.  We can learn a lot from the passage where Jesus says, let the dead, bury the dead.  Someday we will see how to really run a government but we won’t ever see it in this age.

But that is outside the church, what about inside?

David did not move to replace Saul as King even though he was anointed to take his place and Saul was leading the people astray.  So many have left the fellowship over the years to start a new church or follow someone else because someone is more correct in one area or another. 

We are not talking about heresy here.  Saul still put himself under God’s authority but quite poorly.  It’s one thing to leave because someone is trying to get you to abandon everything you believe. 

David saw Saul as the Lord’s Anointed.  That means the Lord made him who he was and it is the Lord that has the job of removing him.  But what if he does not remove him fast enough?  Does God error?

God’s timetable and level of tolerance does not match ours.  We want God to give us infinite time to repent but we don’t want God to allow someone over us to sin one moment longer than what we feel is needed to repent.

How many times since the foundation of the Church have people complained about the leadership?  We see strife between the members, with the members and the ministry, within the ministry, and with the leadership of the Church itself.

You can go back to the time of Moses and see how they murmured and complained about Him.  You can go through the time of the Judges and see how they complained about them.  You can go back to the times of the Kings and see how they complained about them.  And you can even go to the time of the prophets and see how they complained about them.

Now we come to the time of Christ, and we see the Jewish leadership at odds with Jesus Christ Himself.  If we are not careful, you can make complaining about fallible people a habit and then start to complain about God.  You might think that impossible but our bible has examples where this happened, first with Lucifer, but then with so many through time even the leadership of His church at that time so that the people called for Christ’s death.

Let’s learn to respect authority and have patience with those over us.  They may make plenty of mistakes but God has allowed them to be there.  Learning respect of authority will have great dividends in our lives and show God that we want to live under his authority.

Point 2) Don’t allow yourself to become a victim

Now I am not talking about persecution and being that kind of victim.  I am talking about making yourself a victim.  Its starts early in life and we can so easily fall into the trap of being a victim. 

• I was late because this guy drove slow in front of me and made me late.
• I didn’t get my work done because of someone else.
• We make excuses for our faults and failures and blame others just like Adam did to God.  The woman you gave me caused me to sin.

You see it in conversations every day when someone relays how they were treated or how they had to endure this or that.  When we go through life that way it is easy to always look to others for our failures in life.

So while it is easy to look at the sins of poor examples of the Pharisees and focus on that, we should look to ourselves and ask ourselves why do we so often have conflict with one another and poor relationships even those that God has allowed to be put over or around us?  We are not promised to have perfect people around us, we are promised to have persecution.   Sometimes that comes in the form of imperfect people around us.

I wonder how many conflicts amongst the body could have been avoided if people were not always a victim.  When we are the victim we grant ourselves the right of sympathy and release ourselves of the responsibility to overcome.

Much of the discussions on Facebook are good and with good intent.  Even some of the harsher comments were probably not mean to be mean.  Often time they are made out of frustration when they feel someone is so clearly wrong.  They feel like a modern day Isaiah:

Isaiah 58:1  NKJ "Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins.

How do you do this and build relationships? We do this by working on the relationship first, give advice when asked, and live as an example and let God sort out the rest.  The reason we have to let God sort out the rest is point 3.

Point 3) Only God can open someone’s eyes

Often times you have heard the passage in Matthew 18 used to discuss reconciliation.

I have heard people who were at odds with someone use this passage to explain how they tried to repair the relationship but was rebuffed, especially when they try to get the church involved.  But a closer reading of Matthew 18 brings out an important requirement to this process.  Let’s read through and see if something jumps out at us as possibly overlooked in the past.

 

Matthew 18:15-17   15 " Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  16 "But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.'  17 "And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

 

You see the part about a brother sinning against us?  So many times we read this passage in our minds as “If you have a disagreement with a brother.  We can decide that we have been wronged when we simply have a disagreement with someone.

This is a process God gave to be truly reconciled when sin is involved.  We don’t go the church when someone disagrees with us.  We go to our brother and in humility work through disagreements.

But what if those disagreements involve doctrine?  If two people disagree about doctrine then at least one of them is wrong.  It’s possible that both sides are wrong.  When God called us we had our eyes opened to see the truth.  How long is that process?

There are many passages in the bible that I now understand that once upon a time I was wrong.  Maybe I was taught wrong and maybe my eyes were never opened on that passage until I was mature enough to understand it.  When we see disagreements in the church it can seem so personal.  God wants us to keep His commandments and when we can’t agree on what that means in this case or that we can get mighty frustrated.

For many of us there was only one source for that truth on earth and so we readily accepted that truth even when it was in error.  Over the years, many doctrines have been changed and better understood.  But the timetable of having our eyes opened is different for everyone.  Sometimes we have to get to a certain point in our lives before we can truly understand something. 

But others may have understood that point for years and then it causes strife in the body.  When I disagree with someone I might make a sincere attempt to teach them but if they don’t see it my way what am I to do?

 

Our relationships in this life are so important to get right.  We will continue on with this topic next month to understand what is most important to God and what should be most important to us.