Jesus and the Religious
Transcript
Well, good morning. We are in our third week of our Jesus and People series. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. And what we've been doing in this series is we've been taking some time to just look at... The Bible says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
It says that in Colossians 1. It says in Hebrews 1 that he's the exact imprint of his nature. So that when we look at Jesus, we actually get to see the character and nature of God. And so we kind of have this understanding of how does God feel about me? Or we have questions about how does God feel about me? How would he interact with me?
And so what we've been doing in Jesus and People is just taking a look at how Jesus interacted with different groups of people, different types of people to see how does God actually respond or feel about me if I kind of fit in that category. So the first two weeks, if you fit into the category, you pretty much knew. So last week, Mac talked about that you had your identity wrapped up in past events, that you were kind of wounded. You had some past stuff that you thought defined who you were. And the week before that, we talked about people who were just completely at the end of the rope and just absolutely desperate.
And so there wasn't really a whole lot of like, when we were talking the first week about being desperate, you probably weren't sitting there going, now am I desperate? Am I in a really bad spot currently? Like do I have options or not? Like you kind of know. You're either that's me, that's where I am, or you don't. Today is going to be a little bit different because what we're going to talk about is sneaky and hides.
And so if it is you, if you kind of fit in this category, you most likely don't know. You most likely don't walk around thinking, that's me, that's you talking to me right now. Like you just don't know. And so I'm going to pray. Let's pray together that the Lord would speak to us, reveal to us where this shows up in our own hearts and our lives, so that we might best follow him.
God, we ask for your grace. We ask for your Holy Spirit to expose us today, that we might see clearly how we ought to approach you, how we ought to understand how the gospel applies to our hearts, so that we might follow you, that we might love you, and that we might feel and know your love. And we praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Some of you came in today and maybe you've been hanging out in Christianity a little while, or you've been checking this Jesus thing out, but most everybody knows two things about Jesus.
And so maybe you came in today and these are the only two things you know about Jesus. And you maybe have never taken the time to think about how these two things aren't really coherent together. Like they don't make a whole lot of sense. So thing one that everybody knows about Jesus, Jesus was the nicest person who ever lived. Like he's just the best. Like he would hug you if you were ugly.
That's who Jesus is. Like Jesus is just the best. He was humble. He was kind. He was loving. He was nice.
That's the first thing everybody knows about Jesus. Like if you ask somebody, hey, do you think you and Jesus would be friends? He'd be like, yeah, I think Jesus is great. Like I don't have a problem with Jesus. Thing two that we know about Jesus. Sorry, this is a two.
This is a one. Thing two that we know about Jesus, he was brutally murdered by people that hated him. Okay. Thing one, nicest person ever. Thing two, brutally murdered by people that hated him. Now that's not usually how that goes.
Like there aren't a whole lot of people that are like, that Mother Teresa, she makes me sick. Like that doesn't really happen. Like it doesn't make a lot of sense that Jesus was the nicest person ever and brutally murdered by people that hated him. Like those aren't really coherent together. And what we find as we look in the gospels and we see Jesus interacting with people is that Jesus does not get along well with religious people. Jesus does not get along well with religious people.
Now that seems weird too. Because you're like, wait, didn't he start a religion? Like aren't his followers like religious people? Like isn't that, hey bro, isn't that what we're doing right now? I can't know what this is. Like Jesus would be mad at us?
Like what's, what's going on? Like that's, that's kind of what, and the answer is no. Jesus didn't start a religion. He wasn't religious. And what we mean by religion, when we're talking about religion today, and when we're talking about religion mostly is this, this idea that what I do, my, my work, my effort, my behavior is what earns something with God. So most religions are basically do this, don't do that, and God will love you.
Do this and don't do that. You'll reach nirvana. Be this type of person. Be this nationality. It's, it's all about you. And so basically religion is this.
I obey and therefore God loves me. I obey. I behave. I'm moral. I follow the rules. I obey.
And therefore God loves me. And it actually can equate to, I obey. And therefore God owes me. Like I've, I've punched the clock. I've done my moral thing. I've earned it.
He owes me. That's religion. The gospel, which is what Jesus came to present, to do, to accomplish is God loves me. Specifically, God loves me in Christ in that he would die for me, pay for my sins, pay my debt, and give me his life when he rose again. So God loves me in Jesus.
Therefore, I obey. Because I'm loved. From a position of freedom, from a position of being loved, therefore I obey. Two very different things. And on the outside can look very similar. So, they both obey.
So, in this room, a person who's absolutely been radically changed by the gospel, and believes, I'm loved by God through Jesus, therefore I obey. And someone who believes I obey, therefore God loves me, would look very similar. Show up on Sundays. Give of your time, of your money. Be a part of a community group. Serve.
You'd be doing all the same steps in a lot of ways. Look very similar, and your heart and your motivation would be in two completely different places. One is from a position of rest and love, a family, of being adopted as a child of God through Jesus. And the other one is, as a position of earning and work and effort, trying to get God's favor. Look the same. Two very different positions.
The way I think about it sometimes is romantic comedies. And this is the plot to like 17 different romantic comedies. But it's the same plot. I'm going to do the teenage version of it. And as soon as I start talking about it, you'll go, oh, I know that movie. Yeah, you do.
You know five of this movie. But let's just go with the basic one. This is the plot. Really cool guy. Most likely athletic. Kind of a jerk.
Bets his friends that he can take any girl in the school and make her prom queen. So they pick the most awkward, terrible girl they can think of, who is the same girl at the end, but just with her hair up and glasses. And then she takes the glasses off, puts her hair down. Everybody's like, what the heck? Kind of like the Superman thing. But so he picks this girl and then he begins to pursue her.
So he puts in all this effort, these actions. He begins to talk to her, say nice things to her, take her out. He goes after her. And his behavior looks very similar. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, though, he falls in love with her. He realizes that she can, she has a heart.
She's not just good at math. He falls for her. Usually after she takes her hair out of the ponytail. That happens somewhere in the middle. And so then he, no offense to people with ponytails today, it's just how the movie works. I didn't write it.
I'm just telling you what it was like. People in the back pulling their ponytail around. But, uh, so he falls in love with her and then the actions look the same. He actually goes further. He pursues more. He cares more.
At the beginning, it was about himself. At the beginning, it was about earning something, achieving something. It was about his own notoriety, his own status. At the beginning, he did all of these actions, but they terminated on him. And at the end of the movie, he does all the same actions and actually even more. Like he shows up and sings a song or whatever and super embarrassing or whatever.
But he does even more, but it's about her. It's about pursuing, like genuinely their relationship, that he cares about her, that he knows that she cares about him even though he's messed this all up because she found out or whatever. Does that make sense? So you've got the first half of the movie, which is basically what religion is. Going through the same motions, but it terminates on us. And then you've got the back half of the movie, which is what the gospel is.
It's all about Jesus. And it's about where we, the position, the relationship that we already have and not trying to maintain it, but for the joy of the relationship pursuing it. So in our basic understanding, if we thought about it, we would think this. This is how most of us understand stuff. God likes good people. There are good people and bad people.
There are moral people and immoral people. There are those who behave and those who misbehave. And God likes the good people. Like if God was going to show up on earth, he'd like the good people. And so when you read through the gospels and you look at the Pharisees, the Pharisees are like the best example of good people. Now, if you've read the Bible much, when you read Pharisee, you think bad guy, but you wouldn't.
That's actually not helpful. You wouldn't have thought that if you were a first century Jewish person. The Pharisees were religious leaders. You would have thought good guy. They were very moral. They behaved really well.
They taught scripture. They memorized scripture. They knew it backwards and forwards. You would ask them your Bible questions. They were the good guys. May have been a little bit stuck up about it and kind of jerks, but you still wanted them on your class project in Hebrew school.
Like they were the good guys. And so what we would see, since God likes the good guys, when he became a person, when Jesus showed up, he would be hanging out with the Pharisees. They'd be fist pumping all the time. Like one of them would quote Leviticus and he'd be like, dude, up top. And they would high five. They'd be best friends, right?
Because God loves the good guys. You would look at them and think, if God loves anybody, it's these people. If God cares about anybody, these people. If he's proud of anybody, it's these people. If he has favor on anybody, it's these guys. And what we see is that Jesus shows up and he and the religious people, those who behave really, really well, those who are very, very moral, very, very good, it's those people that they can't stand each other, that he says really mean things, really un-Jesus-y things, the way we think of Jesus.
Because you know Jesus, he like wears a white robe and he kind of floats. Like we know he has feet, but he's a little floaty because you can't see his feet because of how long his robes are. And he holds a lamb. Sometimes a single tear just rolls down his eye and you just know he thought something super profound and was really touched by something. He says stuff to the Pharisees that you just assume he had to have put the lamb down. Like it just got serious.
And he was like, like either covers the lamb's ears or he's like, you know what? No, no, I'm putting my lamb down. This is about to get real. Like he says stuff to Pharisees that you're like, this isn't, this is not nice. And so what we're going to see is that Jesus, when it comes up against religion, when he comes up against the idea that I obey, therefore God loves me, there's animosity, there's anger because they completely miss the point. Turn to Luke chapter 11.
We're going to look at a story of Jesus at a, at a, I love this story because Jesus is in a, at a house party. He's at a dinner party and at a Pharisee's house. So we're in Luke chapter 11. That'll be on page 556, 550, no, sorry, 565. It's probably written up behind me. I'm winging it here, guys.
565, If your Bible looks like this. Luke chapter 11, we're going to start in verse 37. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So Jesus is teaching out in open air area. A Pharisee comes over and says, will you come dine with me? So he went in and reclined at table.
Off to a good start. Want to come eat at my house? Sure. Walks in, sits at the table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Now, this isn't like a germs thing.
They didn't know about germs the way we know about germs. So this wasn't like my grandmother who wants to squirt hand sanitizer all over everything all the time. It's not that. It was a ceremonial, added to the law thing. So the Old Testament law, the Pharisees had gone through, looked at the law, and added in their own little rules of how you applied it better and how you could be more pious and how you could be more holy.
And so they took Scripture and added to it. So Jesus didn't do the added to stuff. But they would have been lined up. The Pharisees, we know that there are lawyers there, which just meant that they studied the Hebrew, the Jewish law. They would have known the Torah backward and forward and taught on, here's how to apply the law. They would have been probably in line waiting to get to this ceremonial jug to wash ceremonially to show their piety and how much they cared and how much they followed well.
And Jesus walks in and plops down at the table and is like, let's eat. Y'all got mashed potatoes? Like he just sits at the table and it says that the Pharisee was astonished. He's scandalized by this. It doesn't say he says anything, so I just assume he did his best like puckered up religious face, which was just like, like looking back and forth at Jesus, like you see this guy? Like he's washing his hands, he's looking at the other like Pharisees and lawyers, like are you kidding me right now?
He's not going to wash. And so this is what Jesus says, assuming just to his face. He says it to his face, says it because of his face is what I meant there. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Verse 39, And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Well that escalated quickly.
Just a little rule on manners. When you get invited to someone's home, break a house rule, and then tell your hosts that they're idiots. Probably didn't know that. It's in the chapter after which fork to use for your salad. But this seems like a very non, like Jesus just gets intense very quickly in his main point.
And what we're going to see the rest of this is he's going to unpack what he just said, which is you only care about the external. You wash the outside of the cup and the dish. And they're like, okay, what does this have to do? And then he immediately says, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You only care about external. You only care about what this looks like.
You only care about behavior. You're only a, I obey, therefore God loves me. It has nothing to do with a loving relationship, nothing to do with following, nothing to do with resting in God. It's I obey. It's my behavior. So he says it's all external.
39. And the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside all but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplace.
Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. 45. And one of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. So the lawyer's like, whoa. You know, when you put the Pharisees on blast like you just did, that was a little bit offensive to me. The lawyer assuming, can't really be talking to me, just wanted to clarify, maybe you should, you know, whatever to the Pharisees, but apologize to me maybe.
This is what Jesus says. 46. And he said, woe to you lawyers also. Oh, guy should have kept his mouth shut. Sorry. Jesus was like, oh, are you confused as to whether or not you are included?
Let me say the word lawyer so that we're clear. Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed, so you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. As he went away from there, so it seems as if he did not stay and eat, he didn't stop and say, pass the biscuits. Furious leaves. As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.
Make a little more sense as to why the religious people hated him and wanted to kill him. Jesus' response to everybody, he shows up and says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And people who were in flagrant, immoral rebellion had been told consistently, you're a sinner and you need to come be good. You need to come behave. You need to earn your way back. And at some point, it was, you've sinned too much.
You can't come back. You're out. We're in. Jesus says, you're a sinner and you need to come back. You need to come back. You're welcomed in.
My burden is easy. My yoke is light. There's nothing to earn. Come in. And so when he says to sinners, you're a sinner, they say, yeah. Can you help with that?
He says, absolutely. And then he looks at religious people and he says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And they say, you're evil. You're wrong. And they kill him. Because the response of religion to grace is to try to destroy it.
The idea that you don't have to earn it, but you can just be freely welcomed in. Religion doesn't like that because religion loves earning something, loves obeying to achieve status, to achieve favor. So here's what we're going to do today. Jesus basically says this. You only care about the external. And then he gives a bunch of cultural examples about how that shows up.
So for us, most of us don't tithe mint, rue, and herb. Like you hadn't bought a spice rack from Bed Bath & Beyond and went home and weighed out 10% of it and brought spices here and was like, next time we have some chicken, pour some of that thyme on it. Like that hadn't happened. Most of us, I don't think any of us have built a tomb for a prophet. Like he's going through and saying, this is how it shows up. None of us like the best seat in a synagogue.
So, what we're going to do as best we can is we're going to walk through and try to give cultural examples of where religion, where self-righteousness, shows up. Now, here's why this is important. There are some people in this room, three people in this room, you're not a Christian, checking things out, and basically you maybe have understood that Christianity is a set of behaviors. It's a come follow the rules so that God will love you. It is not. Hopefully this is clarifying.
There may be some people in here who genuinely are Christians. You have trusted Jesus. You've believed the gospel. But religion is like weeds that grow in the garden of the gospel. It's briars that wrap itself around so that it begins to grow and it's hard to fight. We tend to lean towards religious ideas, religious efforts, and self-righteousness even if we understand the gospel.
So as best we can, we're going to try to diagnose that today. Some of you in here have grown up in the church, have heard a lot of things about Jesus, have memorized a lot of Bible verses, read your Bible, study, pray, give money, show up, serve, and you are not a Christian. You have trusted in yourself. You have trusted in your behavior. You have trusted in your own self-righteousness, your own religious activities. You are very much in the I obey and therefore God loves me camp and you are not a Christian.
And Jesus cares enough to say, repent and trust me. Repent of all of your very, very good works. repent of all of your really good morals that you think you can stack up in front of me and I somehow owe you. Repent of all the reasons why you've done all these good things because ultimately they terminated on yourself. Now, there was two responses to what Jesus said. One was anger. If you just got angry, good, pay attention.
Religious people don't like grace. This is a good opportunity to repent. The other was you cannot be talking to me. That was what the lawyers said. And if you're in that camp, pay attention. Let's try to weed out some religion.
Let's try to weed out some areas where it's grown up in our hearts and led us astray. So he says this, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish but inside you're full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside also but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. If you're religious, it's all about external, not the heart. It's all about the external, not the heart. So for a religious person, even a person who says I'm a Christian, your way of knowing how you're relating to God is based solely on your behavior.
Am I doing the right stuff? Am I not doing the wrong stuff? Only behavior. Has nothing to do with Jesus, has nothing to do with his sacrifice. You realize maybe that was the door that got you in but the way that you relate, the way that you understand your Christian walk is am I doing the stuff? Are my externals good?
And then it doesn't matter how you change those because it's not a heart issue just as long as you're not doing the external wrong stuff and you are doing the external good stuff, it doesn't matter how you go about changing them. So you may have like an accountability partner, y'all get together and your main goal is how did you fail this week? How have you sinned? How have you fallen short? Because the only goal is behave well because that's how we know that God cares about us. And the way that we spur ourselves on, pride, fear, guilt and shame.
So pride is, I'm a Christian, I'm better than this. I'm not that type of person. I'm strong enough to say no to this sin. That's what you look at your person that you're walking through stuff with. When you get in your community group, that's what you appeal to. You don't point people to the gospel, you appeal to pride.
You're better than that, come on. You're a man. You've grown up in the church. Fear? What if your wife found out? What would happen if you got caught?
No love for Jesus, just fear. Guilt? How would you feel if you did that? I can't believe that you'd be that type of person. And we spur ourselves on with this, we spur other people on with this, and we spur our children on with it too. You don't want to be like that person.
You don't want to be that type of person. You want to be a, your last name's Phillips. Have some pride. It's not the gospel. And there's no rest there. But it's all about external behavior.
So as long as you're behaving morally, you don't really question your heart, as long as the actions are good, you feel like you're fine, you've related to God fine. You look to other people's external sin to value, to understand their value. The next thing he says is, as he begins to explain how this plays out, he said, Woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint, rue, and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. He says, you do these rule-following, minutia things. They tithe out of their spice rack.
He says, you should do that, but you've missed the point. You've missed the whole heart behind it. You don't love God. It's just about following rules. Religious people love rules. They especially love rules that aren't in the Bible that they've added to the other rules so that they can know whether or not they're good.
Here's what happens in religion. You oscillate between pride and despair. Either you're doing the stuff and so you feel great. God loves me. We're rocking along. He's proud of me.
I have value. I have worth. Or you're falling short and you feel terrible. God's mad at me. He's disappointed in me. He can't love me.
Look at me. And the gospel negates both of those because our righteousness, our good works are found in Jesus and our debt's been paid in Jesus. So when we fail, the gospel's true. And when we succeed, the gospel's true. We don't oscillate between pride and despair. The other thing we love about rules is that it gives us a level of control.
If my relationship with God is based off of my behavior, then I have some rights. I have some say. There's a limit to what he can ask of me. My relationship with God is based off of behavior. Then there's only so much he can ask and he owes me.
So if we're religious, when things go poorly, there's either self-loathing, I failed, God's punishing me. You try to figure out, something bad happens in your life and you try to figure out what you did wrong. Why would God not let me have that? Why would God have this relationship break up? You try to point out, this must be what I'm being punished for. Or, you've been really good, so you're mad at God.
You owe me a spouse. You owe me. I true love waited. You owe me. I kissed dating goodbye and you owe me. I've worked really hard.
How could this happen? I've been praying, I've been going, I've been serving, I've been doing all the stuff you want. How could I lose my job? Because your understanding of your relationship with God is based solely on your behavior. And there's no rest there. And there's no peace there.
And there's no life there. And it just makes joyless obedience. Joyless manipulated obedience rather than genuine love and following. And you've missed the point. Because the point is that we would love God, that we would understand His love for us, that we would understand justice and love, which is the cross, that God paid for sin and that He loves us so much that He would pour grace out on us. And He says, these you ought to have done, you ought to follow, you ought to do these things, but it's not about that.
You ought to serve, you ought to give. It's not about that though. You've missed the point if you think you're earning something. Here's the thing, when it comes down to rules, Jesus doesn't have to exist. Jesus doesn't have to exist if my relationship is based off of rule following. If I'm good based off of my own merit, then it just gets to be about me and I get to be in control of the situation.
Jesus doesn't have to exist. But since Jesus does exist and God's a God of grace, He's not controlled by our actions, good or bad, but freely just pours everything out. So when we get religious, there's no rest, there's no joy, there's no peace, and the only way we understand our relationship to God is are we checking the things off the list? Are we doing the right behaviors? When you're religious, you'll repent. You'll understand that you're going to fail and you'll repent, but even your repentance has to measure up.
Was I guilty enough? Did I feel bad enough? Did I pray hard enough? Did I beat myself up enough? See the gospel, you don't get to beat yourself up. Jesus was already beat up for you.
Your repentance doesn't have to measure up, but when we become religious, even our failures have to measure up. Then He says this, Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves. People walk over you without knowing it. When we become religious, it all becomes about title and position and prominence and being looked up to, being the one who has the answers. I'm the girl in our group that everybody comes and talks to.
I'm the one everyone can confide in. I'm the one that helps manage everybody's sin issues. I'm the most helpful. Religion begins to show up in, I'm the one who understands the gospel the most. When our group gets together and talks and everybody's giving advice, I give the gospel. I help people know that the gospel, that's why I'm better than everybody.
Isn't that cute? I love being self-righteous towards self-righteous people. Look at these religious people. Idiots. I'm better than they are. See how sneaky it is?
Confess sin and somebody just gives you advice and you think, no, you should have pointed me to Jesus. You failed. You don't give them the gospel, but you want them to give it to you. That's why you can't confess sin. Or you can only confess safe sin. Yeah, I've only prayed an hour a day this past week and I've only memorized half of Leviticus when I was planning on memorizing the whole thing by now.
I really feel for you, bro. Like you can only confess safe sin. You can't be real about where your heart is. You can't be real about what's going on. When you do sin, you only care if people know about it because it's all about the external and it's all about how you're perceived. You see, if it's based off of our work, then I need to be beating the people around me.
So you'll point out where you're strong and where other people are weak. That's how religion shows up a lot in marriages. Here's where I'm good and here's where he fails. Here's where I'm doing all of this and here's where she's an idiot. Because you need to be perceived as better. When you sin, you image manage, you try to hide it, try to spin the story.
You won't confess. So if somebody catches you in sin, you're going to wait as long as you possibly can until they completely say, this is what I know you did. And then you'll say, yeah, I did kind of do those things. Because you think it's about prominence. You think it's about your position. You think it's about how you're viewed because that's the only way you understand your relationship to God.
There is no freedom. There is no grace. There is no ability to fail because you have to be seen as good. You take criticism very poorly. Religion, religious people take criticism very, very poorly. Criticism isn't fun for anybody.
Sometimes you're just receiving some, some loving correction. But you know why some of you, criticism eats away at you for days or weeks? Is because the only way you understand how you're doing is based off of how other people view you. So you immediately become defensive. You immediately fight back. You immediately respond with things like, well, pretty big words for someone who's been divorced.
Couldn't even keep your marriage together. Because the goal is not to grow. It's not to love Jesus more. It's to look good. And to be better than those around you. It also makes you very critical.
If half of everything you say is a complaint, it's because you want to make sure everybody knows that you've noticed, that you're elevated, and everybody else falls short. That's religion. And that's why they loved prominence, and they loved being greeted, and they loved best seats in marketplaces because that's how they understood their worth. And he says this, you're an unmarked grave. You're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know. You're dead, but as long as no one knows, that's okay.
There's no life, there's no joy, there's no hope, there's no freedom. You're dead, but as long as it's hidden, that's okay. So the goal is not love for Jesus. The goal is not grow in grace. The goal is not be real in the context of community. The goal is look good, pretend to be good, pretend to have it all together, make sure that people think highly of you so that you can know that you're okay.
See, eventually it just becomes, let me look good. Reality has left the room. You have a lot of secret sin, a lot of inward greed and wickedness, a lot of brokenness, but you can't bring that out into the light because the only way you know how to relate to God is to be thought well of, to look good, and to have your external behavior looking okay. And he says, you're the fool. Eventually, when we're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know, that we're a grave, and the only goal is to not have a tombstone, you're the fool. You have fooled no one, you're the fool.
And at the end of it, when you stand before God to be judged, you're the fool. You only care about your sin if someone else knows about it. You only care about external behavior. The only way you know how to relate to God is am I measuring up by following the rules? Do I behave well enough? And here's why I think Jesus is as furious as he is when he relates to religious people.
I think this is why he's as furious as he is. And I think we see it in two places in what he says, and we're gonna end here, try to understand a little bit of Jesus' anger. He says, you tithe mint, rue, and herb. You do all the little works. And you miss justice and the love of God. You miss the main point.
You miss the gospel. You've based it off of behavior. Here's the biggest problem with religion. It's all about you. That's the problem with religion. It's all about you.
It's all about self-righteousness. It's all about your work, your behavior, your moral conformity, your good effort. So you may give to the poor. You may feed the hungry. You may serve. You may work really hard, but you're in the first half of the movie.
All of your selflessness is actually selfishness because it just terminates on you. You're feeding yourself, clothing yourself, serving yourself. Because at the end of the day, you think it's added to the bottom of your ledger that you get to present to God. And the problem is, with religion, it's all about you. That's how you can gather in a room. Churches gather all over the place and they just talk about, here's how to do better.
Here's how to try harder. Jesus never shows up because he doesn't need to be here. He's not the hero you are. That's how we get in our groups and all we give people is, here's how I used to be like that and then I changed. Here's how I got better. Here's how you could be better.
Here's how you can do better and try harder because Jesus isn't the hero you are. And the problem with religion is that we are claiming, please God, judge me. Let me stand before you on my own merit. Let me stand before you on my own righteousness. When we come to the judgment day and I stand before you, please weigh me out, measure me, you'll see that I'm good enough. And Jesus hates it and he hates religion because it's all about you and you will fall short.
Just behaving just makes you an unmarked grave, which means that you can be in a church, you can be in a group, you can lead a group, you can hang out forever and be dead, never raised to life by Jesus, never given life by Jesus and stand before God and be weighed out and measured on your own merit because that's what you've always wanted. And he hates it. The second thing is what he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also. Before we get into that, let me tell you something that happens when we become religious, when we begin to only follow rules. You might share the gospel, but only because you know there's no joy in it.
Your offer to people is come behave, come be good like me. So there's no joy in sharing the gospel. There's no joy in inviting people to come slave away with you. But you might do it because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to check off the list. There's no desire to be on mission. There's no desire to help people meet Jesus just to behave.
But you know that one of the things you're supposed to do is check that off the list. So you'll do that because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to do. But there's no desire. There's no brokenness over the fact that there are people in our city who don't know Jesus. There's no brokenness over it. There's no joy in pursuing people that don't know Jesus.
You do it some because you know you're supposed to check it off the list. Here's the thing he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. Religion lies about the gospel. Religion lies about the gospel and we believe religion.
We lie about the gospel. We take the key. We don't go in and we keep others from coming in. So someone comes to you and says how do I follow Jesus? How do I become a Christian? You say well here's the list of rules.
Here's the list of behaviors. Here's how to come be good. Here's some guilt. Here's some fear. Here's some shame. God's going to judge you.
You should feel bad. Be proud of who you are as a Christian and we've lied about the gospel. We've stood in the way of the door. Jesus comes to say there is no burden. There is no weight. I've paid for all of it.
I offer you grace and what we stand and say is come be good like me. Please come work with me. Please come slave away with me. We can all be good together and then one day we'll all get to stand before God and be judged on our own merit. Please join me in seeking after your own righteousness and being condemned on your own work and your own effort. And it's a lie.
Jesus loves us enough to say you don't want it to be about you. And the gospel is a much more beautiful truth than come earn it. He died to pay for everything. He declares that it is finished. There is no effort. There is no behavior.
There is no work that you're going to bring before God. We get to show up empty handed. We get to show up completely broken. Nothing's added to our account. All of it was paid by Jesus. The call to the gospel is not come be good.
There are not good people and bad people. There are people and Jesus. And the call of the gospel is to come trust Jesus. Which means that for those of us in flagrant rebellious immoral sin repent of your sin. And for those of us who are religious moral upright and have done all the right actions repent of the reason why you did all that good stuff. Because ultimately it was just about you.
Jesus offers grace to everyone. Hope to everyone. And we can have freedom and life and joy in Jesus. Some of us in the room you need to erect a tombstone. And you need to be raised to life. that's what's offered to us in Jesus. Admit you're dead.
There's no shame in that. There's no shame or guilt at the cross. Just freedom and life and hope. And for those of us who are Christians but are allowing religion to creep in becoming more critical trying to posture ourselves so that we look good the call's the same. Repent and come and know Jesus and come and trust the gospel. I'm going to pray.
Father we thank you for your grace and your love. We thank you for your joy and the hope that we have in you. God help us to see where we're trusting ourselves. Help us to see where we've ceased to follow you. Cease to rest in you. And God please help us when we want it to be about us when we lie about the gospel.
And for that person or those persons in this room today that know a lot about you but don't know you and are currently asking you to measure them on their own self-righteousness. God in your grace help them see it. Help them to erect a tombstone today so they can be given life by you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.