Jesus doesn’t lie – He says SEEK YE FIRST the KINGDOM OF GOD (Matthew 6.33) and ALL THESE THINGS will be added to you! If we want to live a life of constant increase and addition, we need to SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD first. There are so many things that stop us seeking the kingdom –
Some people seek their own ministry empire above the kingdom of God. They are self-promoting, self-seeking and self-obsessed. They never go to conferences to learn, only to speak. They never promote another ministry, they only promote themselves. They elbow their way into platforms to preach but barely have anything to say. They are arrogant not humble, what Jude calls wandering stars. Humble yourself before God and seek His kingdom. Be like Paul, even if people who preach Christ to spite you are promoted, rejoice!
People seek things above the kingdom. They are scheming to get stuff, investing in crazy schemes to get stuff. Look for ways to advance the kingdom rather than get money in, and the stuff will always take care of itself.
Some pastors are just passive, they let things happen. They haven’t got a plan for next Sunday let alone for the next year or decade. That’s not seeking – the word seek in the Greek is ZETEO – it’s a word that means to get off your backside and actively work at finding something. You have to make seeking God’s kingdom a habit – you need to fire yourself up and ask God for a plan and follow that plan. Everything you need in your life will be added to you as you place Jesus first and keep seeking His kingdom!
One of the things that will mess up your life no matter what you are called to do is having the wrong priorities. I see this a lot. People prioritize things that are unimportant and important things do not get done. Jesus talked a lot about this, and you can always tell when Jesus is talking about priorities because He uses the word “first”. Let’s look at what Jesus thinks is important and let’s put that first too!
Matthew 5.23 and 24 says “If therefore you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift”
In other words, relationship matter more than the service. As pastors we can get carried away with making the Sunday service awesome, but the purpose of the service is to build good relationships. If you are in strife with someone, go and sort it BEFORE the next time you preach, before the next time you have an offering or a service, before you are next at the altar. If all we have is great services without relationships, we might as well go to the cinema and watch a film! Selah.
One of the things you notice as you read the gospels is that Jesus Christ was a friend of sinners. So much so that the other ministers called Him an alcoholic. They said all sorts of things about Him. But the Pharisee Pastors then and now don’t know any sinners, and it confuses them when someone does!
Look at what confused them in Matthew 9:
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? Matthew 9:11
They could not understand why Jesus would have a sandwich or a cup of coffee with a sinner! We have to be very careful we do not get so caught up in our services and ministry to the church we don’t know any sinners.
I challenge every pastor or leader: when was the last time you had lunch with a sinner?
As I entered my second year of Bible College, I was very concerned that not only were all my friends and people I ate with Christians, but not only that they were all Bible College students. I didn’t even know new Christians or those who didn’t share my call for ministry! I made some changes, I started going to our local pub to meet some sinners and eat with them and talk to them.
All of my life I have made sure I have friends who are sinners. It stops you arguing over how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin, it stops foolish disputes, it stops arrogance, and you have a chance to influence people. Also, when I am dealing with church people who have friends, family and coworkers, I can help them deal with them from experience.
One of the saddest problems I see with so many Christian leaders is that they are shining brightly into the light when we are supposed to shine in the darkness. But if you are never in the darkness, how can you shine there.
Pharisees forgot that the reason we live Holy isn’t to create the Holy living club, but to reflect the nature of God to the world and help others find His love and grace. People today do the same.
After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, you would think all the other preachers would be so happy. Something has happened that verifies their God, their view, their faith, their lives. But it did not make them happy because they were actually jealous of Jesus! Have a read of John 11.45-48 (NKJV):
45 Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. 48 If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”
Can you imagine that? I can barely imagine that, but I have seen it before. I know pastors and preachers who cannot rejoice when we open another church, as it fires up their envy. It fires up their fear. Some people have a narrative that we cannot change the UK and when we take a step towards that, they are envious. They spread rumours, they try and derail other ministries, they gossip about things they know nothing about, and eventually get to verse 53: “they plotted to put Him to death”. I have not had people try and kill me yet, but I have certainly had small-minded Pharisees try and destroy my ministry and reputation through lying about me, assaulting my character, and telling others to stay away from me. What an ungodly thing to do! But it happens, because many care more about their own standing than the truth of God’s Word and the love of the Spirit of God.
Do not be that. Don’t be Peter saying I will happily die as long as John does too, be someone who is happy to die and rejoice that others live. When others increase, rejoice. When others are favoured, rejoice. I have reached the place where people who have persecuted me and get promoted, I still rejoice. Paul said he was just happy Christ is preached, and that is the place we all need to reach. Stop being envious of others, never ever be in the place where you wish another servant of God harm. That makes you a Pharisee not a pastor, and it is a huge mistake that will drive you into bad places.
In Luke 16.14 Luke tells us that the Pharisees loved money, and because they loved money they scoffed at Jesus talking! That’s staggering! Imagine listening to Jesus and scoffing. I know some people think they would never scoff at Jesus, but they scoff when His emissaries speak His words today for the same reason – they love money.
Let’s start at the foundational level here – a lot of ministers – FAR TOO MANY – spend very little time listening to others. I know pastors who for decades have never been to any conference or meeting they are not given a voice at. I just do not understand that approach at all. We need to be in the place where we listen to others talk. I listen to a minimum of one sermon from someone who is not me every day (I also listen to myself for quality control and read a lot of books but that’s by the by). We need to do that.
But when we listen to others, especially if they are more fruitful than us, we should not scoff. The Greek word for scoff is ekmykterizo and it literally means to lift your nose in the air, it means to sneer and deride. Jesus had healed the sick, they hadn’t. Jesus had raised the dead, they hadn’t. Jesus had crowds, they didn’t. But rather than have the humility to listen, they mocked. That’s one of the clear signs of a Pharisee – they mock fruitfulness and dismiss it. Rather than change and become more fruitful, they pull down the fruitful.
We regularly have people come to Tree of Life who want to be in leadership, but they mock what we have achieved. They haven’t started a church, we have – over and over, so an ounce of humility would mean you stop and listen. I’ve had people in my healing line tell me how to pray – no, you get to do that when I join your prayer line!
Sheesh! I have had a lot of pastors who have not done what we have done mock us and try and control us. Don’t be a Pharisee pastor – firstly, be in places where you hear the Word, and when you do – and the person is fruitful – don’t scoff, even if they do things difficult, but listen, learn and grow. Pharisee Pastors presume they have arrived and nothing could be further from the truth!
At the core of being Pastor Pharisee is a lack of mercy. Mercy is one of the most essential qualities a pastor needs. Every other one of the fivefold ministries travels from place to place, but a pastor has to get up week after week in front of the same people, and because people are people, they need mercy and lots of it.
But a Pastor Pharisee does not have the capacity to show mercy. Jesus pointd that out to the Pharisees saying to them: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy and faith; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone (Matthew 23.23).
The Pharisees were counting their mint leaves out to make sure their tithe was exactly ten percent (notice Jesus explicitly says they should tithe – and so should you, it’s just that mercy means more).
The Pharisees were big on rules, but they never ever walked with God so never ever understood mercy. There are principles that govern the way we should all act, but the giver of these principles is God, and God is full of mercy.
I love praying, but there times to rest and not pray. There was a time Jesus told His disciples not to sleep but to pray, but other times that he told them to sleep. Both are Biblical.
But good pastors show mercy to people. Good pastors don’t fall apart when other fall apart. they stand strong and show mercy. They are like the Lord, the Good Shepherd, the example shepherd – they ensure that when they are around people that they are showing goodness and mercy to them all their days.
If you fail to show mercy to people, you are not going to be an effective pastor. I was called by someone the other day who I have known for many years, he isn’t in the Tree of Life Church, but in another church, and his pastor had said some nasty things to him. I am all for speaking strong (as I am sure most of you know) and speaking truth, but this was degrading, it was stating that this person was not significant and important and that they should not have any aspirations for the future. I have never met someone who is not significant and who shouldn’t dream bigger. That made me sad because although I am sure my friend could be a nightmare in a local church, I know he did not deserve that said about him. A lack of mercy is the problem.
When the people in your church fall, help them get up. If they are unruly, warn them, if they are stupid, teach them. But all these things must be done in love. That’s more important than counting the mint leaves, or counting anything. It’s what truly counts.
Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. (Luke 16.14)
One of the biggest problems when Pastors become pharisees, focussed on the outward, caring about their lives more than the people they are called to serve and love, is that they eventually and inevitably become lovers of money.
They choose which church to preach at based on offerings rather than the leading of the Spirit, they will happily lie to get money, their church money is not tithed and their church is not generous to others.
There are three big problems when someone loves money, and as leaders, these problems get amplified.
WRONG PRIORITIES. If you are working on getting rich, you are not working on taking care of your congregation.
CORRUPTION. The number one reason pastors fail is sexual immorality, but close behind is financial immorality. Why are leaders capable of doing immoral things to get money? Because they love the money. Break that love of money by tithing, giving and investing in the kingdom!
FOOLISHNESS. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom – the fear of money is the beginning of foolishness. Often when someone does something foolish, money is at the root of it.
Jesus used a very powerful illustration to show you what a religious Pharisee looks like. He said “you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and excess” (Matthew 23.25). Imagine I served you a cup of coffee, and the outside of the cup had been very carefully cleaned, but inside the cup, as you drank the coffee, you start to realize is very dirty indeed. The cup looked good from the outside, and to the casual observer it looks like a clean cup, a mature cup, a godly cup, a pure cup. But as you get closer, you find out that the outside has been cleaned but the inside is still filthy.
I have sadly met few ministers like that. As you draw close to them, you find out that on the pulpit they look amazing, flowing in the gifts, teaching deep revelations, making the crowds happy – but they cannot be kind to people, they are rude to the waiter at lunch, they make coarse jokes, they are bitter at other ministers, they are inappropriate around women, they get offended easily, they are touchy over finances. In short they are ridiculously immature and not like Jesus.
It makes me sad every time I see it. Thankfully it does not happen often but it is the same feeling you would have drinking the coffee out of the “clean” cup and then finding out it is dirty after all.
The reason it happens is that the Pharisee Pastor is not living for Christ, but living for ego. Their whole life is about show. Cleaning yourself is hard work, so they only do half a job – but they only clean the bits on show. They only work on how people perceive them. They do not work on every part of their character.
Jesus thankfully gave us the solution. He said “clean the inside of the cup first so the outside might be clean”. Go and sort your attitudes, go and sort out how you treat people who cannot go any favours for you, go and sort out what you are doing when no one is looking. Stop being a hypocrite or you will be a rubbish pastor. You might have an average career as a travelling speaker, but it will always be hollow inside.
Jesus does not hold back in Matthew 23.14 telling the religious leaders of his day: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation (Matthew 23.14, NKJV).
One of the things I have seen far too often is pastors taking advantage of the poor. I know one pastor local to myself that charges £300 to pray for the sick. I know other ministers who sell prayer cloths for £200. I know another who paints “anointed” paintings that help your trees grow for £700. None of that is anything other than taking advantage of the poor. That is what the Pharisees were doing. It was common practise in the day for older women who were vulnerable in society to have a religious leader become the executor of the dead husband’s estate. The Pharisees would skim off all they could, then go to the prayer meeting and be all pious!
Of course we should teach and disciple people to be radically generous and big faith-filled givers, just like Paul did. Jesus was not upset about a widow freely giving her last two coins!
But if we manipulate people and use fear and guilt to separate people from their money, we are no better than the Pharisees of the day of Jesus. I know one minister who raised money for a mission trip, but he was actually taking his mistress on holiday! That’s wrong!
We had a lady in our church who lost a child, another pastor came around her house, told her it was a demon who killed her child and it would kill her other child if she didn’t give him money for a cleansing prayer. I turned up at the house (not by design, well at least not my design, I had no idea) when he was doing it, and I cleansed the house of that pastor. I would have happily physically thrown him out of her house, and he knew it and made himself scarce. Outrageous behaviour. We had another lady in our church stealing from a widow, when I confronted her she “felt led by the Spirit” to find another church.
Paul told us that God loves cheerful givers, and does not want people to give “reluctantly or in response to pressure” (2 Cor. 9.8, NLT). If we are godly, we will love what God loves. I love when people give freely, when they realize the wonderful benefits of giving, and realize how good it is to tithe and share their finances with the church. But you won’t see me crying that we will go off air if people don’t give, or lose a building or whatever. You won’t see me cursing people or threatening their washing machines to breakdown if they do not give. No – it is a decision of love and faith that people must come to through their walk with God, and when they do it, it is wonderful.
The main reason pastors put guilt and fear on people to give is they are under fear themselves that the money will not come in. If you as a leader learn to trust God for your finances, the way you receive offerings and deal with vulnerable people will change forever. Selah.
One of the biggest problems with the Pharisees is that they got in the way of other people growing with God. In Matthew 23.13, talking about the Pharisees Jesus says “woe to you… Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men” (KJV). In the New Living, it says “You shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces… you won’t go in yourself and you don’t let others enter”.
One of the signs of a Pastor Pharisee is that they warn their people away from good ministries. I once had a couple tell me it took them a long time to find our church, because they tried calling a large ministry that they really liked to see if there were any local churches that had a similar style and message and doctrine local to them. That ministry told them categorically that there were no churches like that in our area!
I know they knew about me, I knew that very well, so I called up the ministry and asked why they would do that – they said it was their policy not to recommend our church to people in case someone went there and something bad happened to them. That has to be one of the most ridiculous excuses I have ever heard in my entire life! What a shame that couple had a few months trying to find a church until another pastor helped them and pointed them in our direction!
If you are a para-church ministry and you are not helping people get into good local churches, you are utterly failing at your mission. You are keeping people out of the kingdom and out of a life of heaven on earth! In our churches, people are saved, baptised in the Holy Spirit, healed of all sorts of conditions, discover their destinies and purpose and walk in their dreams. By refusing to even give people the option of going once or twice and making their own mind up if the church is helpful to them, the staff of this ministry have become Pharisees. They have cut people off from Heaven!
I first heard that I was the righteousness of God in a meeting in Birmingham, UK, in 1997. The preacher that told me I was righteous was Kenneth Copeland, but I had heard several messages in my denominational church against Kenneth Copeland, and people warned me not to go hear him! They were, whether they knew it or not, warning me away from finding out a revelation that when you get it, your life becomes so much more Heavenly! That’s a Pharisee.
Pharisees are dominated by envy. They will not recommend people listen to other ministries that could help them because of envy. They would tell people that Jesus was dodgy, and tell people all the “sins” Jesus did. They lock people out of Heaven by refusing to have the humility and kindness to promote other ministries that can help people! I have actually sat with people in Tree of Life and helped them find other churches that fit them better, I have send so many people to other events, to conferences, to Bible Colleges, helped people find books and DVDs and links that increase their wisdom and life. I have paid for my pastors to go to many other conferences to get Heaven into them over and over again!
Obviously, I am careful not to send people to places that have no track record of bearing fruit, but otherwise, I have no ego in this game – I just want to help people get Heaven. A few years ago, a couple approached me and said “we want to go to such and such a conference, but our last church would not let us” (I have no idea how they could stop them to be honest), and I said “go, and enjoy it, because I love the idea that you are fully equipped in a conference and I don’t have to come up with tens of thousands of pounds, work 14-16 hour days for a week, and preach – someone else can do all of that, and you become more useful for the local church” – that’s a win-win for me! We need to start having a kingdom vision and not being petty Pharisees and stopping people living their dreams.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 