Accidental Pharisees
Best Sermon Ever 2014

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All right Mars Hill. It’s that time of year again. Great time. Best Sermon Ever’s where we bring in some guests and I get a little break with my wife and kids.

And today, I’m bringing back Larry Osborne. He taught for us last summer, and you loved him, and a lot of people said, “Please bring Larry back.”

He’s also done training for our staff. He’s on our Board of Advisors and Accountability. He is the one who has been incredibly helpful for many years, helping Mars Hill Church to go to video, and multiple locations, and sermon-based small groups. Those are all his investments and deposits and we’re profoundly grateful for him.

He’s got a great wife, great family. Pastors a great church down outside of San Diego. We’ve had the privilege of being there and seeing what God is doing through him. And I want to sincerely say that he’s been nothing but wise counsel, a friend, super helpful, godly man, great insight. Pastor Larry reminds me of the book of Proverbs. He will distill wisdom into nuggets that are life-changing and deeply impactful. So, we’re very honored, and grateful, and glad to have him.

And every year at Best Sermon Ever, we also include a little gift that’s a little fun and kitschy, and so he is now going to get from us a Tommy Bahama’s gift card, because if you know Pastor Larry, you know he’s going to use it. God bless you. Thank you, Larry. And see you guys after our break.

I wonder what comes to your mind when you hear the word, “Pharisee.” If you’ve had the privilege of being a Christian for a long period of time, I’ve got a pretty good idea. You think of someone who’s pompous, you think of someone who’s arrogant, and on top of that, hypocritical. If you’re just beginning you’re journey with Jesus and checking out the Bible and all of that, you still probably have, just through our culture, a negative concept. You realize if somebody calls you a Pharisee, that hasn’t exactly been a compliment. Today though, we’re going to take a look at who these people really were and how accidentally we can find ourselves walking down the same path that they walked down.

But I want you to understand that if we could go back in time a couple of thousand years, and we heard the Pharisees, our response would be like, “Oh, them.” No, our response would be, “Wow,” because the contemporaries of Jesus, when they thought of a Pharisee, thought of more or less the spiritual Navy SEALS, the top of the spiritual food chain, the most committed and most passionate of the committed and passionate followers of God. So much so that Jesus played the Pharisee card. I don’t know if you know that, but in a famous passage called the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:20-48, he has a series of six statements from the Old Testament law where he says, “You have heard, but let me tell you.” So, you’ve heard the Old Testament law that says you shall not murder, but I want to talk to you about a murderous heart that shows up in anger, and gossip, and slander, and other things. You have heard that you shall not commit adultery, but let’s talk about an impure heart that would if it could, and the whole idea of looking upon a woman to lust being the same thing as far as a heart attitude as actually acting it out. He had six of these. “You’ll have heard, but I tell you.” Now, he bookends these six statements with a couple of rather shocking statements. The first one is found in Matthew 5:20 where he says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” You’ve heard, but I tell you. You’ve heard, but I tell you. You’ve heard, but I tell you. Six times. And then he sums it all up in verse 48 with this, “You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Now help me out, is that one depressing sermon? You want to enter the kingdom of heaven? All you’ll have to do is have righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees and be perfect like the Heavenly Father. Well, I want to make sure you understand something crystal clear, and that is that when they heard it, they didn’t on the back side go, “Oh my gosh, how are we going to be like the Heavenly Father? But at least we’re better than those Pharisee loser guys.” No, they were like, “How can you be more righteous than the most righteous of anybody we know?”

You see, what Jesus was giving in that Sermon on the Mount is he was giving us a measuring rod so we could see how high his righteousness is and how short ours is, that we could never make it by our own works and our own effort to find ourselves acceptable to God or to pay off our sin, if you will. And the whole purpose of the Sermon on the Mount was to drive us to our knees and to drive us to the cross where Jesus was going to be hanging and paying for our sins. But instead, we do the strange thing, and we’ve always been that way. I bet you guys are that way. I’ve done it in my own life where God gives me this measuring rod to see how short I am, and I say thank you, and I take it over here and look for a bunch of people who are shorter than I am. And I go, “Look how short you are and how tall I am.” And we’ve done that, have we not, with the Sermon on the Mount, over and over as we nit pick and we argue about certain things in it. And the whole point was, “You’re in deep weeds. You need Jesus.” He played the Pharisee card.

The Apostle Paul also played the Pharisee card at one point when he was talking about supremacy, and following Jesus above all things, and nothing else can measure it up. One of the things he said was that he had been a Pharisee, and he counted it “skubala,” which was an earthy Greek term that the King James Bible translated as dung. And all the translations since still kind of dance around. He was basically saying it is absolutely worthless, and none of them went, “Well, I know that.” They were, “You’re kidding!” You see, the Pharisees, as I said, were the best of the best.

So how did it happen that those who were most passionate and those who were most committed to God ended up as arch-enemies, the caricature of all that is against what Jesus stands for? Well, I want you to know it happened accidentally. It was never their intent. They started out as the most zealous, knowledgeable, and sacrificial. Nobody knew more, studied harder, or made sure that if anything was towards the line that they were back from that line. They became widely acknowledged by everybody as the best of the best, and then they made a fatal mistake. They took it upon themselves to become God’s watchdogs, rottweilers for poor, old God who needed someone to protect him. And they decided that they were going to be the guardians of the gate, the defenders of God. And one day, when God actually showed up in the flesh in the form of Jesus Christ, they became his arch enemies. As I said, how did it happen? Accidentally. They never, ever intended to be what they became. It’s a lot like having dinner at Denny’s. No one plans to go there, you just end up there, right? And in our own lives, just as the pathway they took took them where they didn’t want to go, in our own lives, we today can become accidental Pharisees without realizing it, and before we know it, we’re eating at spiritual Denny’s. And so today, what I want to do is I want to explore how that happens, and I want to explore what we can do so that it doesn’t happen to us.

Obviously, a passionate pursuit of God is a good thing. Would you all agree with me on that? I mean, that’s a wonderful thing. But as all good things, it can have its own dark side. And if you want to jot a couple of things down, these are the dark sides of our spiritual passion if we are not careful to keep our eyes on Jesus.

The first one is this, if we aren’t careful, our passion can drown out our compassion. That’s what happened to the Pharisees of old. Their passion and zeal for God just slowly covered up and drowned out their compassion, so that when Jesus overlooked things they weren’t willing to overlook, or when Jesus was compassionate to people they felt were worthy of judgment, they turned on him as a false prophet and a false teacher.

We can lose our heart for the struggling. We can lose our heart for the back of the line and the not yet ready. There’s a fascinating passage that talks about it, and I invite you to find it in your Bibles. It’s found in the book of Revelation, Revelation 2:1-7. And we see a church that had, in its passion, lost its compassion. It’s known as the Church at Ephesus. And in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John is taken up to heaven in a heavenly vision, and in the beginning of it, the Lord gives him seven letters for seven churches. And they’re all written, and some are rebuke, some are encouragement, some are rather harsh, and some are a mixture.

And one of the churches he wrote to is a church known as the Church at Ephesus. In our New Testament, we have a book of Ephesians that was written to that church. Now, let me give you a little of that church’s pedigree. It was founded by the Apostle Paul. Now, would you agree with me that’s a pretty good pedigree spiritually? Okay, and then their next pastor was a guy named Timothy, who in your Bible we have 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy written to. He was left in the region of Ephesus to kind of give oversight to the various outstretches that were there. So you’ve got a church planted by Paul, then you have Timothy as its pastor, and not that much time has passed as the book of Revelation is written because it was written by the Apostle John, who was one of the apostles of Jesus. He’s not yet died, so within his lifetime, something has happened. Here’s what’s happened. We read it in Revelation 2 beginning in verse 1, “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write,” these are the words of Jesus, “‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.’” A picture of Jesus. “I know your works,” your deeds, “your toil,” how hard you work at all of these things, “and your patient endurance,” you keep on keeping on when others are ready to quit, “and how you cannot bear with those who are evil,” you deal with sin, you don’t wink at it, “but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.” Doctrinally, they were dialed in. “I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Now, the more famous translations use it this way. “You’ve left your first love.”

Now, I grew up thinking of this passage in the terms of a band of my era called The Righteous Brothers. I thought it was a “You Lost That Loving Feeling” passage. And what Jesus was saying to the church here was, “Man, you used to be all on fire. You were ready to do all of these things. And you’ve become complacent and you’ve just lost your fire and your passion for me.” I mean, I can’t tell you how many drive-by guilting sermons I heard based on this passage. And they would talk about maybe a dating relationship and then you get married. And you know, in the dating relationship you’re all excited just to talk on the phone. You’re opening the door and all that. A few years later, it’s like, “You can open the door.” And you know, like, what’s with this? And just kind of a rip on you’re not as wired in your passion for God as you were in the beginning. But that’s not what this passage says. The passage doesn’t say, “You lost your first passion.” It says, “You lost your first love,” or here, “You’ve abandoned it.” You know what the Greek word for love in this passage is? It’s the word “agape.” It’s the word that really has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with actions. It’s being kind. It’s being gentle. It’s not keeping account of wrongs. It’s not being prideful, jealous, and a whole series of things that many of us have even heard at weddings where the 1 Corinthians love passage is read, and agape love is described, and comments will be made, “It’s not about how you feel. It’s about what you do.” And what the church in Ephesus had lost was they had lost their tendency to put the needs and interests of others as more important than their own. They were incredibly passionate. They were doing more deeds than everybody else. They were working harder than everybody else. They were more doctrinally pure than everybody else. They were on it. We would be getting on airplanes to go study that church today. And Jesus is saying, “You don’t understand. If you have lost agape, you’ve lost everything.”

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 13, he talks about all kinds of things that we could do. If I can have a prayer language that prays in the language of angels, if I understand all biblical mysteries, if I have so much faith that I can move a mountain, but I don’t have love, I have what? Nothing. That’s where the church found itself, and that’s where accidental Pharisees always end up. Whether they’re the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, they were the people in the Church of Ephesus, or they were people like you and people like me, they never intend to end up at Denny’s. But there they are, eating a patty melt. What are you—how did this happen? Sometimes enjoying the patty melt and not understanding all that God actually has for them somewhere else.

If we aren’t careful, our passion can drown out our compassion.

And the second thing to jot down about the dark side of spiritual zeal is if we’re not careful, we end up sending a message that God’s grace is only available to those who deserve it.

You see, we sing about grace. Some of our churches, we have grace on the name of our church. In fact, sometimes I say the bigger the “grace” letters are and the bigger the font, you know, if it’s in Arial—you know, bold Arial, 16 font, the more that it’s like that, the less grace sometimes we give. You know, we’re all about theologically grace is unmerited favor, amen, but then we go, “Well, they don’t deserve that.” If you have to deserve grace, that’s an oxymoron. Mercy is unmerited, grace is unmerited, and slowly, slowly, the spiritual leaders, the Bible scholars, the Navy SEAL disciples, if you will, of Jesus’ day, found themselves in a zone where they wanted to give grace and they wanted to give mercy to everybody who deserved it. And they were so mad at Jesus because he showed up and gave it to everybody who didn’t deserve it, and they had no idea what had just happened to them.

Now there are a couple of things we need to remember when it comes to following Jesus, and we’re going to look in a few minutes at the most unlikely of Jesus’ followers and how God used him and how we need to think about those kind of people in our lives. But there are a couple of things to remember about following Jesus that will help us avoid this dangerous trap of becoming an accidental Pharisee. And the first one is this. As you walk with Jesus, whether you’re just beginning your journey or you’ve been at it for a long time, you always need to remember that the most dangerous place to be is not the back of the following Jesus line, it’s at the front of the line. It’s totally counterintuitive, but the most dangerous place to be when you’re a follower of Jesus is towards the front and not at the back.

Let me help you with that. Imagine for a moment that I’m a world-class mountain climber. I know, I know, but just hang with me and imagine, okay? And I want to go to all of the top peaks in the world. Where is my danger greatest, at base camp or towards the peak? Clearly towards the peak, right? Every year, on the top mountains in the world, very experienced, high quality mountain climbers are killed, sometimes through no fault of their own. I think of the avalanche that happened this year on Mount Everest and wiped out a whole bunch of people. But also every year, there are some top tier mountain climbers who are killed because as they got better, and better, and better, they became cockier and cockier, and they took risks that a beginner would not take. And as they got up towards the top and the weather began to change, people said, “Man, it’s not time for an ascent.” They go, “Oh, now I’m experienced enough,” and they would try to go when everybody else wouldn’t. Or there would be a crevice that seems to have had some movement or whatever, and they go, “Oh, I’m experienced. I can get over this,” and they’d go down.

The most dangerous place to be is at the front of the line, and here’s the reason. Pride lives there. And pride is not a small thing. You know, we often—sometimes in Christian circles, we talk about pride because it’s kind of just this generic word as if it’s an occupational hazard of being on fire for Jesus. I remember hearing a radio preacher once talk about, “Well, I struggle with pride,” as if he was saying, “And I drive too fast on the highway occasionally.”

Well, here’s the problem. In the book of Proverbs where God says, There are six things, yea, seven I hate. And I always want to ask him, “Is it six or seven?” Someday I’ll find out. But he says, There’s six things, yea, seven I hate. The first thing on the list is guess what? Pride. But fortunately, the word “pride” is not the Hebrew word that is used there because pride is so generic, I kind of get it, but I don’t kind of get my hands around it in real life. Here’s the phrase that’s used. Haughty eyes. Looking down on others. And I want to tell you, I get a lot more scared when I hear that phrase than when I hear pride. Because haughty eyes simply means when I meet you, I’m looking for what’s wrong with you rather than what’s right with you. Haughty eyes means that when I’ve overcome something you haven’t overcome, I’m looking down on you. Haughty eyes means when I know something you don’t know or you understand it wrong, I look down on you. Haughty eyes is a sense of superiority in my relationships. And the Lord says, “That’s the number one thing I hate.”

I like to tell the guys at North Coast, “You know, God would rather have you struggling with porn than pride,” and does that get their attention. Now, please don’t text or blog that Larry is pro-porn. I’m not saying that. I’m simply saying when he has his list of things he hates the most in my heart and my soul, it’s my tendency the longer I walk with God to see what’s wrong with other people who are walking with God and to take my eyes off Jesus.

Let me just share from my own spiritual journey. I was one of these guys that made a 180 degree turn when Jesus came into my life. You know, the kind that you go back to a high school reunion and they go, “I hear you’re a preacher. No way.” And here’s what happened. At the beginning of that, I mean, I was, like, on jet fuel. I was so on fire, I’m just—my eyes are on Jesus and I’m running as fast as I can because he is completely out of reach. And not to earn his favor or my salvation, but simply to become what he has called me to be, the Spirit of God is giving me this desire and drive. And I’m trying to catch up, and he is so far in front of me, and I’m just running the best I can. And somewhere around year 2 maybe in my walk with God, a damnable thing happened. I began to notice out of the side corner of my spiritual eyes those who had started with me and hadn’t run as far, those who had stopped to take a break, those who had actually gotten a little scared and started to turn around as if they were going to head back. And instead of having my eyes on Jesus and how far I still had to go, instead of using the word of God as a mirror that kept showing me every single thing that was out of place, it became a set of binoculars so I could check out everybody else and notice everything that was out of place with them. And I was starting to have salad at Denny’s, and I had no clue. It’s an incredibly dangerous place to be. The place where we meet people, we hear people, we hear stories, we watch, we whatever it would be, and we go to the place of what’s wrong with them instead of what’s wrong with me. We’ve begun the journey to becoming an accidental Pharisee.

The fact of the matter is the Bible’s definition of a disciple includes some people you and I would never, ever expect. The kind of people that if we could be a fly on the wall watching the New Testament days happen or today happen, we’d look at those people and we’d go like, “Psh, how do they belong? What in the world are they doing here?” And God would say, “Well, they belong in powerful ways that you have no clue and no idea.” One of them is a guy named Joseph of Arimathea, and we’re going to explore him today and see what made this guy tick. Now, Joseph of Arimathea, if you’ve been a Christian very long, you’ve heard of his name because it’s his tomb that Jesus was buried in. But he’s the most important disciple that nobody knows anything about. We just hear his name and don’t know much about him. His story is found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all four gospels, but it just goes over our head. It goes over my head. For many years, I was a pastor, and I heard of the guy, but I didn’t know his story and it’s quite simple to explain why.

Basically, I knew a whole lot about the death of Jesus Christ. I had studied those passages. Once I became a pastor, I would teach on those passages. I knew cross-references on them. I really dug into the death of Jesus on our behalf for our sins. And then there was this conjunction like on a run-on sentence called Joseph of Arimathea and the tomb that connected the death with the resurrection. And I had studied the resurrection of Jesus in great depth as well. I mean, I’m a pastor. You’ve got to preach on it every year.

I’ve been a pastor—this September I’ll start my 35th year at the same church. I want to tell you, how many times can you preach an Easter message? You know, some day, here’s my dream. Some Easter, I’m going to walk up and go, “He’s alive. I’ve been telling you that for 35 years. He’s still alive. Live like it,” and just walk off. Yes! Wouldn’t that be cool? It’ll be my last one, but I’ll do it someday.

So I knew all about this, I knew all about that, and then Joseph, it’s like, yeah, whatever, of course he had to be buried. And the problem is what we do is we often read the Bible through the lens of our own culture and experiences, not really understanding how different the world was. It’s kind of like you ask a fish, “How’s the water?” The fish goes, “What water?” because it’s all it’s ever known. And we do that with the Bible, and I did that with the burial of Jesus because we bury dead people. Okay, even if nobody knows you or whatever, there’s a pauper’s grave over here. What I didn’t understand is that’s not what was done in the days of Jesus, especially to a criminal who was nailed to a cross. It was such a shameful death that a Roman citizen couldn’t even have that happen to him. And there was no ACLU to make sure you died nicely or you had an exercise room in your jail, you know, or any things like that. It was a tough, blood-thirsty culture. And here’s what they did with crucified bodies. They took them down and they threw them on the garbage heap, where within mere hours they were picked apart by scavenger birds and wild dogs.

The first time I got that I went, “Oh my goodness.” Joseph became a lot more important because no Joseph, no Easter. He also fulfilled an incredibly bizarre Messianic prophecy. In the early days of the church, one of the ways they would try to prove that Jesus was indeed the promised Jewish Messiah, both to Jews and Gentiles, was to look at Old Testament passages that were Messianic prophecies about the coming Messiah. You see them scattered throughout the book of Matthew in particular, which was written primarily to Jewish Christians. And some of the prophecies about the Messiah were quite easy to fulfill. I mean, there were numerous babies born in Bethlehem for instance. But there are some that only Jesus could fulfill, and one of them is found in Isaiah 53:9, where this is what we are told about the Messiah. That he’s going to die a condemned man, which Jesus did on the cross. He’s going to be assigned a grave with the wicked. That’s what happens to you. Yet, he will be buried with the rich.

Man, I would so love to be a part of one of their, like, Messianic prophecy conferences. You know, we have ours today where we try to figure out all this—you know, like people at North Coast, they’re always asking me, “Will you teach through the book of Revelation?” They don’t really want me to teach through Revelation, they just want me to tell them who the antichrist is, as if I have a clue. You know, so I go, “Yeah, we can have a 5-week speculation series, or 2 year, or whatever, but I don’t know.” I just know this. I’ve read the book, we win. Right? And he’s coming back. And when he comes back, all the things that were prophesied, people will read and go, “Yep, that’s how it was.”

Well it was the same way with the prophecies about Jesus coming. And they speculated, and guessed. We’re actually told in 1 Peter some of the prophets that wrote these things search intently to find out, “What’s with this?” and God told them, “It’s none of your business. It’ll make sense later. It’s written for others.” And so when he came, it matched. Well, how bizarre is it? The Messiah will die a criminal, be assigned to a grave with the wicked, and then Joseph pops up, “Let me bury him with the rich.” Pretty bizarre, huh?

And Joseph—one more thing about this guy before we dive into the passages. I believe he had the privilege of giving to Jesus the first honor in his exaltation after the cross. I get that from Philippians where we are told in chapter 2, we are told to do nothing out of selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind to consider the needs and interests of others as more important than our own. We are to have the same mind in us that Jesus had, who though existed in the form of God did not regard that equality with God as something to be held onto and grasped, but he emptied himself, becoming a man. And then over and over it talks about his humbling, all the way to his humbling on the cross when he died for your sins and mine. And then the passage goes, “Therefore, God highly exalted him.” Now think with me for a moment. In the act of his humbling, when the King of kings, Creator of the universe incarnated, and took on a human body, and showed up here on this earth, where was the first place that he was placed? In a manger, a stinking feeding trough. Nobody wants to put their kid in that no matter how much you try to clean it up. It was the ultimate act of humility that his first place was a borrowed animal’s feeding trough. Now, after he finishes his journey, paid in full, it’s all done and the Father begins to exalt him, where is the very first place that he’s placed? Not just in a tomb, in the tomb of a rich man. What an amazing guy. What an amazing privilege. So, let’s kind of find out who this guy was.

And we’re going to take a look at what I call a different kind of disciple, because the Bible’s definition of a disciple includes some people we would never, ever, ever, ever expect. The first one is found in Matthew, so if you have your Bible with you, find Matthew 27:57-61. And then we’re going to look at Mark, the next book over, then Luke, and then John. We’re going to look at all four passages where Joseph is mentioned, that as I said, for years, I just skimmed right over as the conjunction in the Jesus story of the death and the resurrection, connecting them.

First of all, Matthew 27, starting in verse 57. “When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.”

Now, I want you to note a couple of things, and if you treat your Bible as a life textbook, which I certainly hope you do, you might want to mark up a couple of things about him. The first thing is found back in verse 57. “When it was evening, there came a rich man.” So the first thing we know about him is that he was a rich man. Somewhat important today, where sometimes you get the idea that to be a rich follower, committed follower of Jesus is an oxymoron. You know, but that’s what he was. He was a rich man. And the second thing is he was a genuine disciple of Jesus. You find that at the end of verse 57. Not who was about to become, but who actually was a disciple of Jesus. Now the third thing to note in the passage we just read is this. Who was at the tomb? Joseph and the women. And who does Matthew make quite clear was not at the tomb? All of those disciples who had given up everything to follow Jesus. Not one of them was there.

Now the passage goes— the story of Joseph goes on. Turn to the right and find the next book, which is Mark, and find Mark 15:42-47. Mark 15:42-47, we find this. “And when evening had come, since it was the day of the Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council,” very key point, “who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God,” looking for the Messiah, “took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” And the story goes on.

So, we find two more things about him. He was rich, he was a genuine disciple, he was a respected or prominent member of the council, and in God’s eyes he was bold and courageous.

So, let me step back. A respected, prominent member of the council. What’s that? It’s called the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a group of 70 Jewish leaders and the high priests. They were essentially the senate for the Jewish nation religiously. And he wasn’t just a member of that group, he was a prominent or respected member of that group, which is going to become very important. And in the eyes of God, he was bold and courageous. And you get that. As I said, there was no ACLU or anything like that around then, so you go up to Pilate who has just crucified a guy, and you say, “You know that guy you just killed as a criminal? He’s my main man. Can I have his body and bury it in my tomb?” That takes guts. And if you’re a part of the council, the Sanhedrin, which is the group that condemned Jesus as a blasphemer and turned him over to the Romans, that takes guts too, doesn’t it? He’s rich, a genuine disciple, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, bold and courageous, and then Luke tells us something more.

Turn further to the right and find Luke 23:50-54. Luke 23:50-54. “Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God.” Now I don’t know about you, but that creates a bit of a problem. You’ve got a prominent, respected member of the council that declares Jesus a blasphemer, turns him over to the Romans, and he doesn’t agree with the decision, but there’s nothing in the Bible that indicates in even the slightest way that he objected or in any way stepped forward to put a stop to it. How can that be? First I go, “Well, maybe he wasn’t there.” Well, if you’ve ever been to Jerusalem, it’s not a very big place. You can walk around the entire city wall in half a day very, very easily. And on a major decision like that, with only 70 people, and all this going on, everybody kind of isolated in this small, little place, nobody’s going, “Oh, where’s Joseph?” “Oh, I don’t know, he’s taking a nap.” “That’s okay, let’s go on.” He was clearly there. He didn’t consent with the decision to turn Jesus over to the Romans. How could that be?

John tells us with the most bit of shocking news ever. So find the next Gospel. We’ve seen Matthew, Mark, Luke, and now we’re in John, John chapter 19, beginning in verse 38. “After these things Joseph of Arimathea,” and now for the second time, here’s what we’re told, “who was a disciple of Jesus,” he’s a genuine disciple of Jesus, “but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night,” in John 3, “came bringing,” and it’s the rest of the story.

He laid low in the weeds because he was afraid of what he would lose. A respected, prominent member who was a disciple of Jesus, when push came to shove, hid in the corner, afraid of what he would lose. Now you help me out. Is that one big time loser himself?

But here’s what I want you to catch. You and I would often look at a not yet ready Joseph of Arimathea, or a chicken Joseph of Arimathea, and we would have haughty eyes towards him. We would look down on him. We would write him off. We would say sometimes even, “You’re not radical enough. You’re not this enough. You’re not that enough. You’re not a real disciple.” But here’s the problem. Who calls him a disciple? God does. You see, disciple is a little Greek word “mathetes,” and it simply means followers. And it includes the very last person in the following Jesus line. I mean, the last one, it includes the middle, and it includes the front. Sadly, we’ve kind of reinterpreted discipleship so it’s something you know, that—again, the Navy SEAL spiritual, you know, extra credit for those who are really into it. No, you’re either a follower or you’re not. And I admit, some are pretty sucky followers. And Joseph, I mean, I’m not saying, “Hey, Joseph is where you want to be,” but I am saying this. God forbid that I start raising the bar higher on other people than Jesus has raised it himself. Because the next thing I know I’m having now my main course at spiritual Denny’s. Plowed through the salad, having the main course. I think Jesus is so happy with me, lucky to have me on his team. And he’s going, “Larry, you don’t get it. You don’t get it.”

Joseph falls into a category I call “the not yet ready” and he’s a huge warning for me and my desire to make sure I don’t walk down that accidental Pharisee path. Because the hard thing is, as I talked about earlier, when I take my eyes off Jesus and I begin to notice who I’ve passed, who’s sitting by the sideline, who’s not doing very well, what happens is I get puffed up thinking God’s lucky to have me, and then I start to get angry, frustrated, or judgmental on those that he loves but I don’t respect, and I now have haughty eyes. And again, I think he’s pleased with me at the time.

Before we lash out at those lingering at the back of the line, there’s some things we need to remember. And I want to leave you with three take home principles out of the accidental Pharisee theme, the lesson from the church at Ephesus, and the things we can learn from the most unlikely of disciples, Joseph of Arimathea. And here they are.

Number one, the story is never over until it’s over. The story is never over until it’s over. You know, if I could have been a fly on the wall back in the days of Jesus, and especially somehow on a time machine so I know most of the end of the story but not all of it. I’m not yet a Bible scholar or whatever it would be. And I’d be watching, and I would see over here a Peter, and a James, and a John who when Jesus comes up and says, “Come and follow me,” they go, “Okay!” They leave everything behind. They leave their business behind. They are just full on in following Jesus. And man, I’d be looking at that and going, “That’s what a disciple is. That is amazing. That’s what we need to be.” And then somehow, I’m able to see Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus sneaking up at night and listening to Jesus, and I realize they become disciples of him but they’re hanging out in the not yet ready part of the back of the line, and it’s because they’re afraid. I’d look at them and go, “Psh, what is this?” And we can do this by the way, because, you know, Jesus made some pretty strong statements, right? He said, you know, “If you’re ashamed of me, I’ll be ashamed of you. If you say, ’I’ll follow later, but first let me wait until my dad dies so I can bury him,’ you’re not worthy of me.” But here’s the problem. We often take some of Jesus’ words in red and we ignore others. So the more I move to the front of the line, the more I get my favorite verses, and they always have to do with something I’ve overcome, and I love those. I put them on coffee mugs and Jesus junk, sell them in the store. And Jesus is saying, “No, all of Scripture matters.” All of the Scripture matters. And as I’m looking at Joseph, just ready to nail him with a whole bunch of verses, Jesus is saying he’s a real disciple. He’s saying it twice. He’s saying he’s got an incredibly important role, and he’s saying this. When push comes to shove, all of these, Larry, you are so impressed with, they’re not even going to show up after Jesus’ body is lying limp and dead on the cross. Joseph, the one you think’s a loser, he’s the one who’s got that part. You know, John the Baptist’s disciples had the guts to come and get his body after his head was cut off. He was beheaded. It’s amazing to me the guys who gave up everything weren’t even around to see that his body wasn’t cast aside and eaten within hours.

The second principle is this. I always want to remember that we will be judged as we judge others. We will be judged as we judge others. It comes from Matthew 7:2-5, where we are told, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” And then it goes on, The measure we use to judge others is what’s going to be used on us. So the passage isn’t saying, “You can’t call sin ‘sin’,” because if Jesus calls something sin and I say it’s not sin, well, then I’m arguing with Jesus. That’s not a good thing. I always am going to lose that one. But he says—when he says, “Judge not,” he continues it, “lest you be judged. For this reason the measure, Larry, that you use on others is the measure I’m going to use on you.” It goes something like this. God’s up there and he’s got a measurement he wants to pour out on my sin in my life. It’s called grace, unmerited favor. It’s called mercy. I don’t receive the judgment I should. It’s called paid in full by Jesus Christ on the cross. But he’s up there watching me, and as I move further to the front of the line and I begin to nit pick at those who are back or where I used to be and forget that I was once there, the Lord’s up there going like, “Hmm, that’s interesting, Larry. I really would rather give you this, but if that’s how you want to be judged.” It’s like, “It’s really okay, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

See, I’m just crazy enough, really crazy, that I think sometimes Jesus meant what he said. I know that’s bizarre, but I really believe that when he said, “Larry, the measure you use to judge others for what they do is the measure used on you,” and it’s not just about where I am today. It’s also where I struggled yesterday. I want to tell you, that changes a whole lot of things. It changes a ton of things. I actually believe that when Jesus said—taught us to pray, “Father, forgive me as I forgive others,” he maybe meant it. Or in a parable in the book of Matthew, I think it’s Matthew 18, where he tells the story of a guy who was forgiven billions of dollars and then wouldn’t forgive somebody who owed him something. And then the king in that story takes the guy who wouldn’t forgive, he says, “Oh, I thought you wanted mercy. I forgave you, but I guess you don’t.” And then he takes the guy, and he puts him in prison, and he says, “So, you can stay there until you pay off the billions you owe,” which means forever. And then Jesus said, “If you don’t forgive others as you’ve been forgiven, this is how it’s going to work for you.”

Now, can we be honest? In our marriages, in our community, in our social gatherings, in our church and the church at large, we don’t often act like we really believe that’s true. And I want to exhort every one of you as an individual to give to others the mercy you have received and give to others the grace you want, both of which are unmerited, because Jesus commands it. And we’re always going to find Joseph of Arimatheas when we’ve given up our business, and followed Jesus for 3 years, and we think we are so cool. And the story’s not yet over and God is watching, in ways I will not fully understand until I’m in his presence, but he’s watching and saying, “Okay, Larry. I had a different measure I wanted to use on you, but you get to pick. You get to pick.”

If our definition of a disciple— the third thing is this. If our definition of a follower of Jesus or disciple doesn’t have room for a Joseph of Arimathea, we don’t have the same definition Jesus has.

Remember, it was the Pharisees who disdained those at the back of the line. It wasn’t Jesus. It was the Pharisees who preferred to thin the herd to help out God and got angry when instead of raising the bar, he lowered the bar. It was the Pharisees who ran around elevating sacrifice above mercy and Jesus who came and said, “No, I elevate mercy above sacrifice.”

Here’s kind of a weird thing a lot of people don’t notice. Jesus was a friend of sinners, so sometimes again, fish in water that I talked about earlier. We see that and we think, “Oh, okay, the more hardcore somebody is anti-God and I’m a friend of them, the more God is pleased with me.” And there’s a good thing in that because we’re not called to be at spiritual war, we’re called to be persuaders, right? Persuasion is the picture, not warfare when it comes to our community. But at the same time, we can forget the sinners Jesus hung around. You know who they were? They weren’t Gentile, demon, idol-worshiping people. They were fellow Jews who knew better but were living in some area of sin. And they thought it was really okay because they weren’t as bad as all the hardcore Gentiles. And they thought they were somehow under the contract or covenant that God had with Abraham and all of his descendants, so they could live like hell and it’d be all okay. Does that not sound like some back of the line Christians you’ve known in your life? Jesus went towards those people. He never excused sin. He never said, “Oh, it’s okay to stay there.” He always called it to themself, but he went with grace and mercy. Grace and mercy 100% of the time. And it was the Pharisees, as they chomped down dinner at Denny’s, who thought they were helping out God. When he had a banquet for them, they were eating cold French fries. It’s crazy, but we can do the same thing.

Jesus found a bruised reed and he said he would not break it. Jesus found a smoldering wick and didn’t go, “Pfft, what are you doing here?” He fanned the flame. I tell you, I want to be a lot more like Jesus than the accidental Pharisees. I want to run for the front of that line. I want to be a man that is passionately pressing into God. But I never want to be a man who is doing that to the point I’ve lost my compassion for people who are where I was or where I am, calling down God to have a standard of judgment that’s not the judgment that he would love to give me. It’s our choice. Pharisee or mathetes? We get to pick.

If we would only grasp this, can you see what that would do to our marriages, to our sons and daughters as we try to raise them? What it would do in our community as we have our disagreements politically and all kinds of things? What it would do in our small groups as we have to bear with one another? What it would do in our church and what it would do for the kingdom? Amazing stuff.

Be crazy. Live like Jesus really meant what he said and you won’t be stuck with a patty melt.

Let’s pray. Father, I ask you to take the things that we have looked at today, and would you speak to our hearts individually? And Lord, help us so much not to use your word as a pair of binoculars to run around checking out everybody else, but to use it as a mirror to see every little thing that you want to work on in our own lives. That we inch by inch would become a little more like our Savior and our Lord Jesus Christ. To his fame and his glory I ask you. Amen, thanks.

Pastor Sutton Turner here. The sermon just finished and you can still play a role at Mars Hill church. Whether you’re part of one of our local Mars Hill churches, or part of our global Mars Hill community, if you value this sermon, please consider making a donation by visiting marshill.com/give.

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