Lessons from Matthew 15: More Hypocrisy

After reading about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and their rules, let me ask you a question: Do you think Jesus gave a rip about what the Pharisees thought at this point?

I think Jesus was more concerned with the thought that God had placed the Jewish people in the hands of the religious leaders. And though they knew the truth, they failed to act upon it. They selfishly turned the people away from God to their own man-made religion. It was a religion made up of rules and regulations that were not from God. This was so they would be elevated or thought of as higher than God. All eyes were on them!

More Hypocrisy

And thus the truth of the matter was that their hearts, not hands, were spiritually defiled and thus declared by God unclean!

Apparently the disciples themselves were so steeped in this hypocritical religion that they needed Jesus to tell them what He meant.

He did so after the slight rebuke asking them if they were still so dull. And then He said to them, don’t you get it? It’s not what goes in the body that is the issue, for what goes in comes out. But rather it’s what’s inside that matters. For what’s inside will eventually make its ways out also!

Nothing is hidden from God; nothing escapes Him. He is after all our Creator, the one who formed us in our mother’s womb. God knows more about us than we know about ourselves, yet He never forces Himself on us. He is gentle and kind. And though we have all been born into sin since the first Adam, He allows us the privilege and opportunity to come to Him.

God was doing something different and He was leading them to see the error of their ways but they refused to get it! They liked themselves and their ideas and agendas far better than they loved God and His Son. And so Jesus called them blind guides (having no light of their own) and He declared them condemned. They were condemned in their state of sin, for without a confession of faith in Jesus Christ that’s where they were stuck. Not because they hadn’t been given the truth. They had, but rather it was by their choice that they remained as they were–full of self and full of sin!

Which bring us to this truth:

Those who reject Jesus and His truth will be condemned and eternally separated from Him.

The religious leaders and the people had lost sight of their first love: God. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and Jacob. And instead they replaced Him with themselves. They loved themselves, their traditions and rituals, more than they loved God.

We as Christians need to be mindful of those things in our own lives that just become routine rituals: going to church, studying the Bible, and even ritualistic prayers. For if our hearts are not in them, they are meaningless and empty and really done only in vain. Remember, what we do doesn’t matter to God unless our hearts are in it!

And if your heart is not in it, could it be that sin has entered in? The sin of self?

You see, there is a little Pharisee in all of us. There is sin, hypocrisy, and when the truth of God exposes such things we must confess them before Him and receive His cleansing. Then whatever our hands set out to do will bring Him great pleasure and abundant joy!

Because of the great opposition of the religious leaders and their refusal to listen and understand, and because Jesus knew it was not His time yet, and because He still had much to teach His disciples, Jesus left that place. He withdrew Himself along with His disciples and they traveled northeast into Gentile territory!

Now these travels likely took several months. And what is unique, as we will see in the next couple of lessons, is that these are only a few of the times we are told that Jesus healed others outside of Israel.

Terri Hamman

Faith & Fitness Coach