Thinking That Kills

Guarding Yourself From the Yeast of the Pharisees

What kind of teaching is shaping the way you see God?

Jesus gave His disciples a sobering warning: “Be careful. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” He understood something about religious thinking that we often underestimate. Yeast works quietly. You rarely recognize it while it is spreading, but eventually a small amount influences everything.

The yeast of the Pharisees is still among us. Guard yourself from teaching that:

• Focuses more on your behavior than God’s mercy.

• Emphasizes institutional allegiance more than Kingdom pursuit.

• Focuses on the tithe of money but neglects the full surrender of the heart.

• Proclaims God’s power with words but never practices stepping into His power through action.

• Spends enormous energy polishing the temple while neglecting extravagant generosity toward the poor.

• Focuses more on man’s ability to get close to God than God’s ability to come close to man.

• Focuses more on outward cleanliness than inward transformation.

• Creates heavy burdens for others rather than helping carry them.

• Emphasizes minor acts of obedience while neglecting the weightier matters of God’s heart: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

The yeast of the Pharisees is deceptive precisely because it carries spiritual language while missing the heart of heaven. It can quote Scripture. It can preach holiness. It can call people to sacrifice. It can even produce obedience. The danger is that we can learn to obey God without ever truly knowing His heart.

Pharisaical religion can teach you how to live for God while never teaching you how to live with God.

This is why Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees were so intense. They had developed an entire religious system supposedly devoted to God that could no longer recognize God when He stood directly in front of them.

That should sober us.

Because the yeast of the Kingdom produces something dramatically different.

The Kingdom will cause you to think so differently from religious systems that those infiltrated by religious yeast may consider the destruction of your reputation, influence, or ministry to be a righteous act. Jesus warned His disciples that a time would come when people would kill them believing they were offering service to God.

Religion can become so convinced of its own righteousness that it crucifies the very thing heaven has sent.

The yeast of the Kingdom focuses on the sacrifice of mercy, not merely the sacrifice of money. Jesus told the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” They understood sacrifice, but they had missed His heart.

The yeast of the Kingdom isn’t consumed with institutional growth or denominational allegiance. It pursues spiritual oneness and radical submission to the supremacy of Jesus. It isn’t primarily asking, “How do we make our thing bigger?” It asks, “How do we make Jesus greater?”

And the yeast of the Kingdom doesn’t merely talk about supernatural power. It practices it. Jesus told His disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, and drive out demons. Freely they had received, so freely they were commanded to give.

The Kingdom isn’t merely a form of religion. It is a flow of heaven’s life and power.

But perhaps the most dangerous thing we could do with a message like this is immediately think about everyone else who needs to hear it. The Pharisee is always easier to recognize in someone else.

So Jesus’ warning must first become personal: What yeast is working its way through me?

Where have I made Christianity more about my performance than His mercy? Where am I more concerned about protecting an institution than pursuing His Kingdom? Where am I talking about supernatural power that I am unwilling to practice? Where have I become more passionate about being right than becoming like Jesus?

Jesus, purge the yeast of religion from us. Teach us again the scandal of mercy. Teach us the freedom of surrender. Teach us to treasure Your presence above our performance, Your Kingdom above our institutions, and intimacy with You above merely doing things for You.

May the yeast spreading through us be the yeast of another Kingdom.

A Kingdom of mercy. A Kingdom of surrender. A Kingdom of oneness. A Kingdom of power.

A Kingdom where Jesus alone is King.