Message by Chad Kelly
The following dialogue took place in one of the leading Christian schools in the 200s AD:
“What must I forsake?” a young man asked.
“Colored clothes for one thing. Get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Stop sleeping on a soft pillow. Sell your musical instruments and don’t eat any more white bread. You cannot, if you are sincere about obeying Christ, take warm baths or shave your beard. To shave is to lie against him who created us, to attempt to improve on his work.”
Quaint, isn’t it — this example of extrabiblical scruples? And perhaps amusing. The list has constantly shifted over the 1,800 years since this one was actually recorded.
And while the particulars change, the same conversations occur, sadly, every day in the church of Jesus Christ.
Tim Keller
Religious people obey God to get things; Gospel people obey God to get God.
Redeemed from Religion
Mark 7:1-23
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have a personal love-relationship with God!
Mark 7:1-5 (NLT)
One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. 2 They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. 3 (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. 4 Similarly, they don”™t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to””such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don”™t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”
One Rabbi said, “It is better to go four miles to water than to incur guilt by neglecting hand-washing”.
Yet Jesus was never impressed by all the religious rules and religious discipline of the Pharisees.
In fact, Jesus”™ harshest words were aimed at such dangerous and paralyzing nonsense!
Jesus came to redeem us from religion so that we could have a personal love-relationship with God!
1. A legalist always ends up a hypocrite.
Mark 7:8-13 (NLT)
For you ignore God”™s law and substitute your own tradition.” 9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God”™s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. 10 For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ”˜Honor your father and mother,”™ and ”˜Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.”™ 11 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ”˜Sorry, I can”™t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.”™ 12 In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. 13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
Legalism exalts the self-serving notions of men over the perfect ways of God!
Yancey
Legalism fails miserably at the one thing it is supposed to do: encourage obedience.
Only God”™s grace can enable obedience.
Spurgeon
I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.
A legalist always ends up a hypocrite!
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have an honest love-relationship with God!
2. A legalist”™s heart is always miles away from God”™s heart.
Mark 7:6-8 (NLT)
6 Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
”˜These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”™
8 For you ignore God”™s law and substitute your own tradition.”
Yancey
You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it”¦legalism encourages hypocrisy because it defines a set of behavior that may cloak what is going on inside.
Matthew 23:25-28 (NLT)
25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy””full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs””beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people”™s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
A legalist”™s heart is always miles away from God”™s heart!
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have a genuine, from-the-heart, love-relationship with God!
3. A legalist will always be offended by grace.
Matthew 15:12-14 (NLT)
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” 13 Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, 14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”
If legalists are offended by grace””instead of being changed by it””then let them be offended”¦and ignore them!
By the way, God”™s grace CAN change a legalist! Because I”™m a recovering legalist and His grace changed me!
But”¦
If legalists are offended by grace””instead of being changed by it””then let them be offended”¦and ignore them!
Galatians 5:1
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Don”™t ever let legalists entrap you or bind your conscience with their rules about food, beverages, clothes, activities, music styles”¦or whatever!
Allow your heart to only be bound to God”™s Word by the grace of Jesus Christ!
Mike Yaconelli
Petty people are ugly people . . . They are people who have turned their eyes away from what matters and focused, instead, on what doesn”™t matter. The result is that the rest of us are immobilized by their obsession with the insignificant . . . it is time the church quit pretending that pettiness doesn”™t matter . . . Pettiness has become a serious disease in the Church of Jesus Christ””a disease which continues to result in terminal cases of discord, disruption, and destruction. Petty people are dangerous people because they appear to be only a nuisance instead of what they really are””a health hazard” (Swindoll, 117).
Petty people are legalists”¦plain and simple!
A legalist will always be offended by grace!
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have a genuine, from-the-heart, love-relationship with God!
And Jesus says we”™re not to let legalists get between us and God!
4. Grace changes us from the inside out.
Mark 7:14-23 (NLT)
14 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. 15 It”™s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” 17 Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. 18 “Don”™t you understand either?” he asked. “Can”™t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? 19 Food doesn”™t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God”™s eyes.) 20 And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. 21 For from within, out of a person”™s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
God”™s priority is our hearts!
Matthew 5:3-8 (NLT)
3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be satisfied.
7 God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
God”™s priority is our hearts!
And our hearts can ONLY be changed by HIS GRACE!
Galatians 2:11-16 (NLT)
11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. 12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn”™t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 13 As a result, other Jewish Christians followed Peter”™s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ”˜sinners”™ like the Gentiles. 16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
Tim Keller
Without a knowledge of our extreme sin, the payment of the cross seems trivial and does not electrify or transform.
God”™s priority is our hearts!
And our hearts can ONLY be changed by HIS GRACE!
Yancey
God”™s law is so perfect and absolute that no one can achieve righteousness. Yet God”™s grace is so great that we do not have to. By striving to prove how much they deserve God”™s love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don”™t deserve it. The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.
Because, ONLY the GRACE OF GOD in JESUS can change our hearts!
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have a genuine, from-the-heart, love-relationship with God!
And His GRACE will change us from the inside out!
Conclusion
“Cheer up! You”™re a lot worse than you think you are! But cheer up, God”™s grace is a lot better than you think it is!” (Steve Brown”™s friend).
Jesus redeemed us from religion so that we could have a genuine, from-the-heart, love-relationship with God!