The Lifted Warrior
Designed for new and young believers in Christ, this weekly podcast equips you with essential spiritual tools to navigate daily struggles and uphold Christian values. Each episode offers practical strategies to strengthen your faith and stay committed to a life fully submitted to Jesus. Join us as we encourage and empower you to stand firm in your walk with Christ.
The Lifted Warrior
Matthew 16:6 | Beware the Yeast
Our understanding of who Jesus is must come from spiritual revelation, not just logical reasoning or human teaching. This episode explores Jesus' warning about the "yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees" and how misinterpreted doctrine can slowly overtake our spiritual lives.
• The yeast Jesus warns against is misrepresentation of who He is and what He came to do
• Peter's revelation about Jesus came directly from God, not from human understanding
• Like yeast, false doctrine only needs a small foothold before spreading throughout your beliefs
• The Pharisees were blinded by tradition while the Sadducees rejected the spiritual realm
• Bad theology either produces unhealthy influence (alcohol) or spiritual suffocation (carbon dioxide)
• Three ways to combat deceptive teaching: read your Word daily, find community, and build relationship with Christ
• We must monitor what spiritual information we're consuming and check everything against Scripture
Monitor what information you're taking in daily. The next time you encounter a teaching that raises red flags in your spirit, check it against the Word of God. If it aligns with Scripture, accept it. If not, reject it.
What's up, guys? Today we are going to be talking about Matthew 16, or using that as our our leaping point for our conversation, but before that, first I want to welcome you to the lifted warrior podcast. If this is your first time here, what we do is, once every two weeks, I give you wisdom and strength concerning slight concerning, concerning life's daily issues, and give you just practical steps on how to live a life from a spiritual standpoint, versus striving and going from a, you know, trying to do things in the natural. So if that interests you, you're in the right place, but let's get into it, man. So if you weren't here last week, what we talked about, or what we kind of went through, was just how, in this same text in Matthew 16, where we see Jesus calling the Pharisees and the Sadducees a adulterous generation because they were begging not begging, but demanding a sign from him in order to believe in him. And so if we take a look in that same scripture, I'll read the verse and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:The two verses that we're going to be focusing on is Matthew 16 and 6, which reads watch out, jesus warned them, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And then from there jumping to verse 12, and it says last, or excuse me, verse 11 first, and it says why can't you understand that I'm not talking about bread? So again I say beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then at last they understood that he wasn't speaking about the yeast and bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And really, just to get into it, man, when I first was reading this and thinking about it and planning out everything for the podcast, I got really in depth about studying, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and what they believed, and I do think that's imperative, or I do think it's necessary for the topic that we're going to discuss today.
Speaker 1:However, when just sitting down and thinking about this again with God and really asking God okay, god, what is it that you really want to show your people through this? What is it that you really want to breathe into them? And I just really started to read around the scripture that I was looking at what I just read to you and we see something very profound, I believe, and just by reading the word of God, man, the word of God is so amazing. I don't want to get off topic, but the word of God is so amazing because if you read it and you read it in context you'll see a lot of purity in what God is trying to get to his people. You'll see a lot of purity and just a pure message of Jesus Christ and what he's come to do for us. And that's what I really want to hit at, because what I believe and don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bible scholar, I don't claim to be, I don't profess to be one at all.
Speaker 1:But what I believe from reading this, and what I believe God showed me to share with everybody who will watch this video, is that the yeast that Jesus is talking about is the misinterpretation or the misrepresentation of what Jesus Christ or who, of who Jesus Christ was and what he came to do. And the reason why I say this is because if we look in the same chapter and we look down at 16, where Peter I mean, excuse me, where Jesus begins to address Peter, we see Jesus responds to him and he says Simon Peter answered you are the Messiah, the son of the living God, and Jesus replied you are blessed Simon, son of Jonah, son of John, excuse me, because my father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being, and the more I read that, the more I understood. Okay, god, I see that the yeast that you're warning us against is the misrepresentation or the misunderstanding, or not putting the proper value on Jesus Christ and what he did for us as Christians. So, to kind of hit on that even more, what we see in the chapter, or earlier in the same chapter, is that they're begging for a sign in the same chapter is that they're begging for a sign. They're begging something that they can see physically in order to attribute power and in order to attribute authority to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:However, what you then see Peter does is he gets his understanding, he gets his validity of who Jesus Christ is from God, from the spirit, and that's what I think we have to begin to do as believers is really stop trying to get our understanding of who Jesus Christ is from anything other than the spirit, whether it be from our own logical understanding, whether it be from research, whether it be from other people, whatever. It is the only way that you're going to truly be able to understand and be able to attribute the proper responsibility and the proper authority or lordship over your life to Jesus is by the spirit. The Bible says that they that worship me must worship me in spirit and truth, and if that's the case, then the only way that I can understand, the only way that I can come to God through Jesus is through the spirit. So I must first understand and begin to search for God spiritually, not search for him through logic and I know, guys, this is hard for us because we're logical thinkers but we have to begin to not shut that part of our brains off, because God is very logical and if you truly read the Bible for what it is, you'll see just how logical he is illogical he is, however, but in order to truly understand him, we must then begin to go into a spiritual realm to understand his nature, and we will never fully understand his nature. However, if we begin to understand his nature spiritually, we'll begin to have less of a hard time understanding who he is. We'll have less of a hard time submitting to the, the godness, that he is right, and so that's really, like the bulk of it, right, but I do. I do have some other things that I did actually search up and I think it's important. Like I said, I do think it's important to this podcast and what we're dealing with on today. Stay too long on it, because I think the bulk of it truly is just understanding, really, the the authority that Jesus has, and how it's a spiritual thing more so than it is a logical thing.
Speaker 1:Um now, but when we do talk about the Sadducees and the Pharisees, right, I think it's important to understand that these were Jews. Not only were these Jews, these were very devout Jews. So these were people who understood the text. These were people who understood the word. These were people who should have understood who Jesus was. However, because they were relying on only what well, for the Sadducees at least, because they were relying on only what was written they were not able to then use the spirit to better understand who Jesus Christ was. And for the Pharisees, they were so tied to their tradition that they were not able to see who Jesus Christ was.
Speaker 1:So, just to give you a little backstory on the difference between these two sects, again, they were very devout Jews. They were people who knew the text. They were the people who were looking for a Messiah. They were the people who Jesus came to be a redemption to. However, they denied him. They didn't want anything to do with him because they were so caught up at least with the Pharisees Again, they were caught up in their traditions and what had been done always, that they were not able to move from that and be able to accept Jesus for who he was.
Speaker 1:And then for the Sadducees one Jesus really had it out for them, because the Sadducees was the sect that was in charge of the temple they were mainly in government and things like that, and so they were the people. That was really getting over. What do I mean by that? They were getting over. What I mean by? What do I mean by that? They were getting over because in the old testament, if you read it, when god is laying out okay, this is what you have to bring in order to sacrifice, he says if you do not have a proper sacrifice, then you can buy one, right.
Speaker 1:And so what happened is this sect of jews, the uhducees, who were typically priests they began to monopolize that. So somebody would come in and say that they were about to sacrifice what their sacrifice? And they would look at it and say, hey, that sacrifice isn't good enough. Hey, buy this one, and then they'll turn around and sell that. And so when you look at what Jesus was doing when he went in and flipped over the tables and, you know, said this is my, this has become a den of thieves. That's who he was addressing.
Speaker 1:And so those same peoples, from then on, really had it out for Jesus because he was disrupting their system. Yeah, he was disrupting their systems and he was causing them to begin to lose their profits and also lose their influence over the people, because he was directly going against the sliminess of them that's not the best word, but that's the word that came to mind is the sliminess of them, the greed of them and them taking advantage of people. So what does this mean to this? It means that we must be mindful to make sure that our theology, to make sure that our understanding of this scripture, does not get in the way of us of knowing who Christ is. The entire reason for this Bible is for us to know God, our Father, jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So if we begin to get so puffed up and so caught up in our theology that it keeps us away from truly knowing Jesus Christ and who he truly is, then we've been deceived by the same yeast and by the same leaven that Jesus is talking to the talking to his disciples and telling them not to be deceived by.
Speaker 1:And the thing about yeast that I really want to kind of like remind us of the thing about yeast is that it doesn't take a lot of it in order for it to then destroy the whole batch of bread, not even destroy it, but it spreads quickly. It's an active thing. In the same way that yeast is an active thing, improper doctrine is also an active thing, and it only takes a little bit in order to get you away from where God wants you to be. It only takes a little bit of leaven and then slowly, over time, that little becomes much, because you're not actively watching, you're not actively taking it out, you're not actively rooting it out, and so it begins to grow. And so where it was only one thing that was improper, that improper thought or that improper understanding of one of God's scriptures, then begins to bleed over into everything else.
Speaker 1:So we must make sure that we're constantly on guard that we are not putting ourselves in a situation where we are now taken over by deceptive teaching, where we are now taken over by not putting God or not putting Jesus in his respective place. Even if you look back at this text, the Bible says and tells us that God is going to build his kingdom off of the revelation of who Jesus was. And so if we don't have proper revelation on Jesus but our theology is, I ain't going to say, correct, if we don't have a proper understanding of who Jesus is, but we're well versed in doctrine, then we've fell, fallen to the same yeast, or to the same thing that the Pharisees and the Sadducees fell to. It's because we're not allowing ourselves to truly see Jesus for who he really is and what he is, to our life, which is our savior, which is the Messiah, our life, which is our savior, which is the Messiah All of this boils down to is all in all of your doctrine and all of your understanding. You must be putting Jesus at the center of that understanding, that Jesus is the one who has come to save, redeem and bring you back into proper alignment with God.
Speaker 1:In simple terms, what it is is we have to understand that we are justified by Christ, and by Christ alone, not by anything else. We're not justified by religion, we're not justified by keeping the law. We're only justified by Jesus Christ. And so when we begin to put our justification in ourselves, when we begin to put our justification in what we do, when we begin to put our justification in anything other than Jesus Christ, then we have fallen to the leaven of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Is this making sense?
Speaker 1:I'm hoping it's connecting to you, because it's really good to me to really just understand and to know that, hey, all of what I'm learning when I'm learning the Bible is to give me a better context, a better understanding of my Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. All of what I'm learning when I'm learning the Bible is to give me a better context, a better understanding of my Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. All of what I'm getting at all of my devotional time, all of my time digging in his word and understanding it deeper, or even just coming or even just fleshing out different things that God would give me in order to to give to you guys, like it's all better, shaping my, my identity in Christ, but also, beyond that, and more important than that, it's just shaping my understanding of who Christ really is and his power and what he did and what he accomplished simply by stretching his arms out on the cross and dying for me, because it because of all of that that brings me back into right standing with the God who created the universe. It brings me back in correct standing with the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob. It brings me back in good standing with the God that created the heavens and the earth. It's just hitting you. Let's keep pushing, though, and another thing that we have to understand about yeast in, and what it does is that it breaks down sugars, so it breaks down the sweet thing, and it turns it into two things that, if not checked, can cause death or harm to the people around you, and so what this leaven that we receive, or that we can receive by receiving improper doctrine, can do, is it takes the sweetness of the gospel and it turns it into alcohol or influence, or it turns it into carbon dioxide, which is suffocation, and if we're looking at the two, when I'm talking about influence, I'm not just talking about your own influence, like, yeah, what I'm doing right now, there's a level of influence that, if not managed properly, I can fall over to the wrong side of the of the coin as well. Right, but what I'm talking about influence is not just this. The influence is also the influence of people around you.
Speaker 1:I believe that many of people have been led astray because they have fallen victim to the influence of those who they have looked upon and for, even just for Bible reference. The Bible also says I can't think of the book or the chapter, but it also says that in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord right. And so what this is saying is that? Well, what this is revealing to you is that he had King Uzziah in a place where he was not able to truly see God. And I believe many of us have done the same thing. Where we have put people who we believe are our leaders, we have put people who, I ain't gonna say, believe. We've put people who are our leaders, we've put our pastors, we've put our apostles, we've put our evangelists, we've put our parents, we've put our friends in a place where they are blocking our ability to see God, and now we are ruled under their influence. And then the other thing when I say carbon dioxide and how it suffocates you, what it does, is because the other side of this coin, if you're looking at the Sadducees, they did not believe in anything spiritual, but they did not believe in spirits. They did not believe in resurrection, they didn't believe in spirits.
Speaker 1:Submit your mind. The longer you begin to submit your ideology, your thoughts, to that thought process, it slowly suffocates you to where the Bible says that God is spirit and you must worship him in spirit and truth. But you then begin to think that the spirit realm is not real or begin to put put these things that are clearly in the Bible as you begin to X them out. And I'm not coming for anybody, but the best thing that I can think of is like just cessation. Cessation is where they don't believe in the gifts of the spirit, they don't believe that the Holy ghost come and gives um, give utterance or different things like that Right. And so when you begin to push those things down and not believe in the full totality of the gospel, not believe in the full totality of what Jesus died for us for, not believe in the full totality of this Bible, then you begin to slowly suffocate yourself, not necessarily physically, but you begin to suffocate yourself spiritually, to where you're not able to truly breathe and able to truly commune with God and be able to commune with the Holy Spirit that was given unto us as a helper.
Speaker 1:So we see that yeast does those two things and neither one of those things has the ability to kill you or harm you in small doses. Alcohol cannot kill you in small doses. Doses Alcohol cannot kill you in small doses. However, in large doses, where it begins to take over your mind and you begin to not think clearly, then you put those around you at harm and you also put yourself at harm because you've lost your inhibitions, you've lost the thing, the checks in your mind, the checks in your understanding that tell you, hey, maybe this isn't the best idea, maybe this isn't the right thing that I should be doing. And once that guard is broken down, you become dangerous to yourself and to those around you spiritually. And then the same thing again.
Speaker 1:I already explained it, but when we think about carbon dioxide, it's something that we expel in order that we may bring in more oxygen, right? So if I must expel the bad things in my life in order that I may breathe in more of God, if I'm not taking in more of God but I'm taking in more carbon dioxide, meaning if I'm not taking in more of his Holy Spirit but I'm taking in more of just plain, of just text with no life to it, then eventually I suffocate myself and when I begin to what the words that I would give, that are supposed to give life, then become to bring, then let me calm down, man I get so stirred up and I really just be trying to just sit and talk and have a chill conversation, but I get into this stuff and I just get so stirred, I'm sorry. So the very thing that was supposed to be given life like you know, if you're a preacher or if you're a minister in any type of way, or even if you're not, and you just you know, a believer of Christ, but you're giving an encouraging work to someone or you're speaking with them and you know what you're speaking was supposed to be given life. But because there's no life in you, you begin to suffocate the people around you as well, around you as well. And this is what again, what becomes so dangerous when we talk about yeast or when we talk about leaven, is the fact that it only takes a little bit in order to start this process of taking over your life, or taking over your ideas and your ideology, and then it becomes a stronghold in your mind, it becomes a stronghold in your heart and it becomes a stronghold in your belief system. And now you, it's hard for you to truly see christ. For christ, you begin to see christ as an adversary, unknowingly, because you've lended yourself to the influence of either yourself or others around you and you've or to dying, quite literally.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's go here, and my hope in this conversation, as we're talking and as we're kind of pushing through my hope in this conversation is simply that we just begin to be more mindful of what it is that we say, we believe, what it is that we intake, what it is that we allow to take root and begin to germinate and begin to bring fruit in our lives Because, truthfully, everything that sounds good is not good and everything that looks good is not good. And so we must be mindful and vigilant. Even as Jesus told the disciples beware that you are not taken over by the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We have to also make sure and beware that the doctrine that we're getting, that the understanding that we're getting, that it's not trying to lead us astray by influence or that it's not breathing death into us and the easiest way that we can do this and I say this every single time I get on here and begin to give instruction or just practical steps in order to overcome whatever it is that we're dealing with.
Speaker 1:But simply reading our word, reading the word of God, will do so much for you. Reading the word of God will do so much as far as helping you to be able to decipher what's him and what's not him, who's of him and who's not of him. Because the more that you read the word, the easier it is when you hear something that's off to just be like, that don't sound like God. The more you read your word, the more you spend time with him, the easier it is to not be fooled by any wind of doctrine. And so, if you don't hear anything from this from me, from here on, man, read your word and read it daily and do not despise reading your word, even if you don't feel like you're getting something crazy from it, even if you don't feel like you're getting something you know juicy or it's mind-blowing from it.
Speaker 1:I really encourage you just to continue to read your word regardless, because what it's doing? It's building your it's first, it's building up your faith, because hearing faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But two, it's also building up your theology. It's building up your mindset. It's building up your belief system so that when things come against you in the spirit realm, when you're facing opposition spiritually, when you're facing things that come against your thoughts, when your mind is being attacked, you have something to stand on. Secondly, it's going to get you more acquainted with our Lord and Savior. It's going to get you more acquainted with the heart of God. It's going to get you more acquainted with the voice of the Holy Spirit. So make sure you are reading your word.
Speaker 1:Second thing that we can do to combat this is getting into community. You know, with this whole series of deconstructing us and, you know, really just combating the whole spirit of deconstruction that's going on, I'm finding it more and more important that you find community. And I'm not saying that you have to go to a traditional church, I'm not saying that you have to be, you know, under a certain type of person. What I am saying is that you need community because in community, error can be corrected. In community, a improper thought can be straightened out. In community you can get multiple perspectives about one topic, and so if your perspective is wrong, it can be corrected and you can get the truth of the matter without having to go through a time period of hurting or pain, what we must do or what we must get back to.
Speaker 1:I think the old church had this right where they were big on listening to their elders. They were big on making sure that elders were in the church and that the elders in the church were heard, because they had wisdom that we need. They had so much wisdom that we need because they have lived life, and it's some things that they themselves have gone through that we don't necessarily have to go through if we simply listen Right. And so getting into a community will help us not to be led astray. Getting into a community will help us to better understand the word of God. Getting into a community will help us not be taken over by the leaven that Jesus talks about in Matthew 16.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing is really develop that relationship with Christ. I know some people now are getting upset with people saying that it's a relationship, it's not religion. But if you do not build your relationship with Jesus Christ, if you do not build your relationship with the Holy Spirit, begin to learn. Begin to learn their voice, begin to learn their character, begin to learn how they speak to you, how they operate with you, then you're doing yourself a disservice, because what you're doing and what you're saying is that the very help that jesus left me, the very help that the very example that god gave me, I don't need it. That's, that's truly what you're saying. You're saying that I know better than god and I don't need the example of jesus christ and I don't need the help of the holy spirit in order to live a life According to what they are here to help me do.
Speaker 1:So. We got to. We got to. You got to stop being so prideful in different things that we say we have to stop being so prideful in different things that we do and really just accept the help that God has already given us, and that help is one the Holy Spirit. The help is to what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us, and he didn't die just to make us right. He also died that he may commune with us. The same way he came and communed and he broke bread with his disciples is the same way that he wants to come and commune and break bread with you. But it's up to you if you want to accept that or not. I mean, you can be a self-professing Christian and not believe that you need to build your relationship with Christ and I honestly pity you because you're missing a major factor of this walk. You're missing a major help in this walk and that help is freely available to all of us. But we have to be willing to accept it. We have to be willing to know that.
Speaker 1:You know I don't have everything right. You know I can read this Bible from today to the day I die and still get things wrong. I need a helper, and the way that I understand that helper is by accepting him into my life one and then by building that relationship with him. So build your relationship with Jesus Christ, build your relationship with the Holy Spirit, read your word and find a community. That way you do not be led astray by this 11 of doctrine that's going around and there's so many I'm not going to name them, that's not my job. My job is simply to give you this Bible and to help you live a life according to this Bible.
Speaker 1:But you know that there's a bunch of different crazy doctrines going around. You know that there's a bunch of hurt people spreading sickness and illness into the world. You know what's going around in your community. You know how people are being led astray in your community. And one the way that you can stop that is by deciding that it doesn't infect you. Two, once you decide that it doesn't affect you, you can then do the same thing that I'm doing, whatever, what and what. In whatever way god has called you to disciple his people, in whatever way god has called you to Connect and build a kingdom. Go and do that, but first let's make sure our doctrine is correct. First, let's make sure that we are not being led astray by the yeast of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, which causes us to see Jesus imperfectly, which causes us to not understand who he truly was. And this is my challenge for you guys for these next two weeks before we hop back together. And this is my challenge for you guys for these next two weeks before we hop back together.
Speaker 1:It's simply that monitor what you are taking in daily, be on YouTube or they be on I don't know if people still use Reddit. Whatever it is that you're using to get your information, whatever it is that you're using to connect with the world, whoever you're coming in contact with, whatever that is, monitor the information that's coming into you so that you can check it, because a lot of us are being led astray because we're not checking these flying arrows that's coming in by day. So monitor that information and the next time that you see something that a red flag pops up, or you know you get a checking your spirit about it, or you know you just don't necessarily agree with it Go and check it by the word of God. And again, this word of God, I'll put it in this, the Holy Bible. Go check it by this, not by anything that anybody else says. Go and check it by the word of God and if it lines up with the word of God, cool, accept it. If it doesn't, do not agree with it. That's it. But that's it, man.
Speaker 1:So again, my name is Cam. I thank y'all for listening to, coming in and listening through this podcast. Again, this is the lifted warrior podcast where, once every two weeks, I give you wisdom and strength concerning life's daily issues to help you live a life from a spiritual sense and not fighting against the things that are fighting you from the natural. If you enjoyed this episode, I pray please go and share this with someone, but until next week, man, y'all stay lifted.
