Are We Pharisees?Sample

Caiaphas knew what to do. Jesus was dividing the crowds with unsanctioned teaching and manipulating the uneducated with Mosaic-law-breaking miracles. The scriptures warn against false prophets! Israel could be wiped out by the Romans because of this guy. Above all, God told him Jesus would die so all of God’s children would be united. No. Brainer. They needed to kill Jesus.

Inconceivably, Caiaphas was wrong. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had made Caiaphas a knowledge expert and he really believed he knew what to do. He’d heard God! Well, his connection was faulty because he was a man and leader who did things his way.

Jesus said whoever wishes to follow Him must lose their life, take up their cross daily and follow Him. Some interpret this to mean we must do the things we hate and not do the things we love. Thinking this way, we become harsh, driven, demanding, and heartless.

What Jesus was really saying was better and more offensive: we are no longer in charge. We might get what we like and want. We might not. It’s not up to us anymore. It’s up to God.

You see, connection with God is not really life-giving unless we are yielded to Him. Autonomy is the enemy of submission to God. Autonomy is “the right or condition of self-government.” More simply: it’s a self-led life. The Pharisees were incredibly self-led. Because of this, knowledge and even revelation from God fueled their autonomy.

If we are autonomous, we take what the bible says, and/or what the Holy Spirit has told us, and we run with it. We imagine all the things God could want and we rush to deliver. We don’t continuously commune with God. We can despise questions or non-compliance and can be reluctant to stop and check in with God if it slows down our perceived progress. We see work as applied knowledge and feel incredibly irresponsible for not doing all that can possibly be done, and thus should do.

We can imagine ambition is the highest form of obedience and become consumed with doing FOR God instead of living WITH God.

We can forget that apart from Jesus we can do nothing. We can forget we could do a million accomplishments only for Jesus to tell us He never knew us--He’s looking for obedience, not sacrifice. Maybe we interpret these verses in such a way that being “apart from Jesus” must mean blatant sin, or anything else— as long as our control is preserved, if not empowered.

We can hate yielding precisely because it means we are not in control. We can be reluctant to wait on Him or to cultivate a constant connection with Him, because we don’t know how long we might be waiting or how to even connect. “That won’t/doesn’t work!” or “imagine all the bad things that might happen if we don’t act now!?” We can’t stand inaction and have little paradigm for rest.

Tree of Knowledge people don’t like not being in control of their own destiny. They don’t like trusting God… unless it’s a version of trust where everything is progressing as we’d prefer, where things make sense to us, and where we’re fully holding the reins.

What if God wants to do more? What if He wants to do less? What if He wants to do other than what we want? Other than what makes sense? Outside of our control? How yielded are we?

What if, instead of simply letting people go buy food nearby, Jesus wants to feed people now with someone else’s five loaves of bread and two fish? What if, instead of getting on the boat with our ministry employees, Father God wants to hang out with us on a hill until 3 a.m. and then walk across the lake?

Yielding doesn’t compute to the autonomous person. It’s full of terrible ideas and can’t possibly, actually, be God. It’s so unnatural we forget it might be supernatural. We forget God loves to be Himself and do what He can do and what He can imagine.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus didn’t want to go to the cross. He even told His father so. He’d begun to experience what He had come to the earth for—total union with us—and He LOVED it. He didn’t like the idea of a grisly death at the hands of cruel men.

Those who walk with God know we have a voice with God. We can humbly express our concerns and desires, and be filled with thankfulness, trust, and His presence. We can remain yielded, gladly embracing God’s preferences (and commands) over our own. We. Trust. Him. His ideas are undoubtedly better than ours anyway. We love to yield because we won’t be in control—God will be in control.

Caiaphas heard from God and assumed he knew what to do. How much do we assume? Do we think we know what should be done? Do we like being in control of our own lives? Do communing with God and yielding seem too… fluffy? Are we living autonomously? Are we… Pharisees?