Am I Irrelevant?

Matthew 16:5-12, 21:17

Heavenly Father,

One of the greatest insults one can ever give another is to label another as irrelevant. Extraneous, immaterial, inappropriate, inconsequential, insignificant, pointless. Irrelevant. I don’t want to be irrelevant to You and Your Kingdom!

Such was the sin of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Their sins of legalism and liberalism rendered them irrelevant to Christ’s Kingdom. One of the greatest fears of my life is that I would become a power-mongering, political manipulator, jockeying for position.

The Pharisees legalism made them irrelevant to Christ’s Kingdom. The scribes and Pharisees pled the special interests of their carefully articulated legalism, shrouded in proof-texting, theological jargon, and hundreds of years of tradition. William Barclay paraphrased Jesus’ warning against the wisdom and ways of the Pharisees: "Take care lest you make your religion a series of 'thou shalt nots' in the way the Pharisees do. Take care that you do not identify religion with a series of outward actions, and forget that what matters is the state of a man's heart" (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, p. 145).

The Sadducees dismissed theological precision and replaced it with protecting their wealth, practical expediency and political power. They manipulated the state, the temple, the law, the people, and the Roman oppressors by any strategy necessary in order to preserve their wealth, position, and power. The Sadducees were irrelevant to Christ’s Kingdom because of their confidence in materialism, their commitment to a racist nationalism, and their confidence in political power.

The only occasion these rival factions set aside their bitter rivalry was to kill Jesus! Jesus said that both the Pharisees and the Sadducees were poison to the Hebrew nation. Control. Intimidation. Irrelevant.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that Jesus Christ came to these spiritual and political leaders, and they could not accept Him. Therein is our warning. If spiritual and political leaders fail to accept the plan and person of Jesus Christ, we will be abandoned by God as irrelevant.

Am I irrelevant to Christ’s Kingdom work on earth? Have the motives and distractions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees become my motives and distractions? Legalism? Materialism? Nationalism? Politics? Power? God forbid.

In the Name of my God and King,

Amen.