The following is from The Crossroads Community Church message series "Real Jesus" by Pastor Shawn Kemp.
Today as we finish out our series "Real Jesus". We’ve been looking at some of the popular images of Jesus that are out there and comparing those images with the real Jesus. And why have we been doing this? Because your understanding of who Jesus is impacts your whole life. Jesus once confronted his disciples with the question of who he was:
Today as we finish out our series "Real Jesus". We’ve been looking at some of the popular images of Jesus that are out there and comparing those images with the real Jesus. And why have we been doing this? Because your understanding of who Jesus is impacts your whole life. Jesus once confronted his disciples with the question of who he was:
“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’” Matthew 16:13-15
Who do you say that I am? It’s a really important question. So, we started out by looking at “Jesus Is My Homeboy: Jesus in pop culture”. Then we looked at Santa Claus Jesus. Last week we looked at Sweet Little Baby Jesus in a Manger. Now, this week, we look at our last image of Jesus, and this one hits a little closer to home, because this one is Christian Jesus.
You see, as Christians there are images and ideas that we have about Jesus, and some of them are correct and some of them aren’t. But before we go any farther, let me say, I’m not out to bash other Christians. I’m like Paul, who said in Philippians 1:18: “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” My goal, today, is simply to point out some dangers that we need to avoid in our understanding of Jesus. Now, we don’t have time today to look at every image and idea about Jesus that is out there among Christians. So, today, we are going to look at one particular image of Jesus that is very common among Christians and that is an easy trap to fall into. And, maybe a better name for this image of Jesus than Christian Jesus is Religious Jesus.
During Jesus’ time here on earth, his biggest confrontations, the people he had the harshest confrontations with, the people who ultimately condemned him to death were religious people, the people who were the religious leaders of the Jewish people. They were called the Pharisees, and Jesus’ biggest battles here on earth were with them. Now, here’s the thing, even as followers of Jesus Christ, we can have a tendency to become Pharisees, to see Jesus as someone who came to start a religion rather than as coming to change the world and free us from sin and self and self-righteousness and religion.
So, let’s take a look at some wrong ideas about following Jesus. And all of these come from Matthew 23, one of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees. So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. According to this idea, the goal of being a Christian is attaining more knowledge, studying more, knowing all the intricate details and minutiae of the Christian faith.
The Pharisees had this kind of attitude about religion. In fact, many of the Pharisees were what was known as scribes. They were the experts at religious law. They were lawyers for religion. Doesn't that just sound warm and friendly? And they had the rules memorized. They knew all the interpretations of religious law. They studied what other people had to say about the Bible and could quote them at random. They spent hours and hours in Bible study, in classes, with their nose in a scroll. Look at what Jesus said about the Pharisees:
You see, as Christians there are images and ideas that we have about Jesus, and some of them are correct and some of them aren’t. But before we go any farther, let me say, I’m not out to bash other Christians. I’m like Paul, who said in Philippians 1:18: “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” My goal, today, is simply to point out some dangers that we need to avoid in our understanding of Jesus. Now, we don’t have time today to look at every image and idea about Jesus that is out there among Christians. So, today, we are going to look at one particular image of Jesus that is very common among Christians and that is an easy trap to fall into. And, maybe a better name for this image of Jesus than Christian Jesus is Religious Jesus.
During Jesus’ time here on earth, his biggest confrontations, the people he had the harshest confrontations with, the people who ultimately condemned him to death were religious people, the people who were the religious leaders of the Jewish people. They were called the Pharisees, and Jesus’ biggest battles here on earth were with them. Now, here’s the thing, even as followers of Jesus Christ, we can have a tendency to become Pharisees, to see Jesus as someone who came to start a religion rather than as coming to change the world and free us from sin and self and self-righteousness and religion.
So, let’s take a look at some wrong ideas about following Jesus. And all of these come from Matthew 23, one of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees. So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. According to this idea, the goal of being a Christian is attaining more knowledge, studying more, knowing all the intricate details and minutiae of the Christian faith.
The Pharisees had this kind of attitude about religion. In fact, many of the Pharisees were what was known as scribes. They were the experts at religious law. They were lawyers for religion. Doesn't that just sound warm and friendly? And they had the rules memorized. They knew all the interpretations of religious law. They studied what other people had to say about the Bible and could quote them at random. They spent hours and hours in Bible study, in classes, with their nose in a scroll. Look at what Jesus said about the Pharisees:
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” Matthew 23:2-4
Jesus encouraged the people to listen to what the teachers of religious law had to say. The problem was their studying of the law did not produce a change in their lives. They tied up heavy burdens on people. The Pharisees had spelled out over 600 laws that people were to observe. And the Pharisees taught that knowing Scripture took precedence over obeying it. So, studying Scripture was the most important thing.
The problem is that study does not have the power to produce a changed life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe there is tremendous value and importance to studying the Bible. I mean, I spent eight and a half years after I got out of high school in college and grad school studying the Bible. I spend hours each week studying and preparing for the message. The problem is when studying becomes a substitute for living out the teachings of Scripture. Some people know an awful lot about the Bible, but it doesn’t impact the way they live their lives. They are like the person described in 1 Corinthians 13:2: “If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be?” The value of your study is demonstrated in the impact it makes on the way you live your life.
You see, you can study and not let it impact your life. There are a lot of things I studied throughout my years of school that have little impact on the way I live my life. There are a lot of things that I learned to take a test, and I aced the test and had a 4.34 gpa when I graduated from high school, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about some of those things today. It's like Sam Cooke’s song “A Wonderful World” says, “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French I took, but I do know that I love you, and I know that if you love me, too, what a wonderful world it would be.”
You see, knowledge alone is not enough. It has to impact the way you live your life. Look at James 1:22: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Here’s what can happen. You can use studying as a way of covering up for the fact that your life is not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. "Well, I’ve got this one area of my life that I’m ashamed of, that is a dark secret, that I don’t want anybody to know about, so I’ll cover it up by acting super religious and really studying the Bible."
But the problem is that knowledge by itself produces arrogance. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Corinthians 8:1-3). Studying without application, without love in your life, causes you to think you are better than everybody else. In your Christian life, inspiration without application leads to constipation. Let me be really honest with you, the last thing a lot of Christians need is another Bible study. They’ve already got so much knowledge that they are about to pop. What they need is to get plugged in to a ministry team, go on a mission trip, serve our community, do something with what they know, apply it to their lives.
It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about a relationship. It’s about knowing God and being known by God. It’s about falling more and more in love with him. It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about knowing the God who gave the rules, understanding his heart, and living and loving the kind of life he wants us as followers of Christ to live. The goal of study is not knowledge. The goal is to become just like Christ.
So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. Then, the second wrong idea is that following Jesus is about appearances. This one is a little different from the first one. Whereas the first one says knowing the rules is what is really important, the second one says it’s all about what’s on the outside, what other people see, your appearance that really counts. One of the dangers as a Christian is that you think that what Jesus is concerned about is just making you a good person. Or you think, as long as I am good on the outside, nobody will know about what’s wrong on the inside. Or as long as I’m good around certain people, as long as I’m a good person on certain days of the week, as long as I keep up the illusion that I’m a good Christian, then I’m okay.
Well, take a look at what Jesus says about the Pharisees. “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long” (Matthew 23:5). Everything they do is done for men to see. There are a lot of different variations on this one. There are religious profiteers, pastors who are using Christianity as a way to make money. So, they preach good sermons, and they look nice, and they treat people kindly. But it’s all with impure motives. It’s all to gain monetarily for themselves. Then there are people who use Christianity to gain standing with other people, to increase their business contacts. Then there are people who just want a pat on the back. They want other people to tell them about how good they are and what a wonderful person they are.
The problem with all of these motivations for “being good” is that they only go skin deep. It’s kind of like the way I used to clean my room when I was a kid. My brother and I shared a room together, two teenage boys, so you can imagine. My mom didn’t even dare try to go in there very often. But every once in a while, she would decide that we had to clean our room. So, we would go through and shove stuff in the closet and under the bed and on shelves, just enough to get Mom off our case. One day later, it’s back to the same or worse condition than what it was in. It wasn’t really clean. It just looked that way with a casual glance. It’s like what Jesus said about the Pharisees:
The problem is that study does not have the power to produce a changed life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe there is tremendous value and importance to studying the Bible. I mean, I spent eight and a half years after I got out of high school in college and grad school studying the Bible. I spend hours each week studying and preparing for the message. The problem is when studying becomes a substitute for living out the teachings of Scripture. Some people know an awful lot about the Bible, but it doesn’t impact the way they live their lives. They are like the person described in 1 Corinthians 13:2: “If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be?” The value of your study is demonstrated in the impact it makes on the way you live your life.
You see, you can study and not let it impact your life. There are a lot of things I studied throughout my years of school that have little impact on the way I live my life. There are a lot of things that I learned to take a test, and I aced the test and had a 4.34 gpa when I graduated from high school, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about some of those things today. It's like Sam Cooke’s song “A Wonderful World” says, “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French I took, but I do know that I love you, and I know that if you love me, too, what a wonderful world it would be.”
You see, knowledge alone is not enough. It has to impact the way you live your life. Look at James 1:22: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Here’s what can happen. You can use studying as a way of covering up for the fact that your life is not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. "Well, I’ve got this one area of my life that I’m ashamed of, that is a dark secret, that I don’t want anybody to know about, so I’ll cover it up by acting super religious and really studying the Bible."
But the problem is that knowledge by itself produces arrogance. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Corinthians 8:1-3). Studying without application, without love in your life, causes you to think you are better than everybody else. In your Christian life, inspiration without application leads to constipation. Let me be really honest with you, the last thing a lot of Christians need is another Bible study. They’ve already got so much knowledge that they are about to pop. What they need is to get plugged in to a ministry team, go on a mission trip, serve our community, do something with what they know, apply it to their lives.
It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about a relationship. It’s about knowing God and being known by God. It’s about falling more and more in love with him. It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about knowing the God who gave the rules, understanding his heart, and living and loving the kind of life he wants us as followers of Christ to live. The goal of study is not knowledge. The goal is to become just like Christ.
So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. Then, the second wrong idea is that following Jesus is about appearances. This one is a little different from the first one. Whereas the first one says knowing the rules is what is really important, the second one says it’s all about what’s on the outside, what other people see, your appearance that really counts. One of the dangers as a Christian is that you think that what Jesus is concerned about is just making you a good person. Or you think, as long as I am good on the outside, nobody will know about what’s wrong on the inside. Or as long as I’m good around certain people, as long as I’m a good person on certain days of the week, as long as I keep up the illusion that I’m a good Christian, then I’m okay.
Well, take a look at what Jesus says about the Pharisees. “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long” (Matthew 23:5). Everything they do is done for men to see. There are a lot of different variations on this one. There are religious profiteers, pastors who are using Christianity as a way to make money. So, they preach good sermons, and they look nice, and they treat people kindly. But it’s all with impure motives. It’s all to gain monetarily for themselves. Then there are people who use Christianity to gain standing with other people, to increase their business contacts. Then there are people who just want a pat on the back. They want other people to tell them about how good they are and what a wonderful person they are.
The problem with all of these motivations for “being good” is that they only go skin deep. It’s kind of like the way I used to clean my room when I was a kid. My brother and I shared a room together, two teenage boys, so you can imagine. My mom didn’t even dare try to go in there very often. But every once in a while, she would decide that we had to clean our room. So, we would go through and shove stuff in the closet and under the bed and on shelves, just enough to get Mom off our case. One day later, it’s back to the same or worse condition than what it was in. It wasn’t really clean. It just looked that way with a casual glance. It’s like what Jesus said about the Pharisees:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:25-28
You see, Jesus wants more than just Bible study, head knowledge, and he wants more than just outward obedience. He wants your heart. Again, this really is about following Jesus, loving him, developing a relationship with him, and allowing him to change you from the inside out.
So, the first wrong idea is that following Jesus is about knowing the rules. The second one is that following Jesus is about appearances. Then, the final wrong idea is that following Jesus is about me. And this is a really common idea, that following Jesus is about my comfort and my wants and desires and my pleasure and achieving my goals and my fame. It comes out in the idea that church should be about making me comfortable. It comes out when people feel like they aren’t getting patted on the back enough. It comes out when we feel like life is not going our way.
And that’s the attitude that many of the Pharisees had. In the end, their religion was about making them look good, achieving fame for themselves, getting glory for them.
“They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'” Matthew 23:6-7).
"Beware of these teachers of religious law! For they love to parade in flowing robes and to have everyone bow to them as they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and at banquets. But they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property, and then, to cover up the kind of people they really are, they make long prayers in public. Because of this, their punishment will be the greater." Mark 12:38-40 (NLT)
The notion here is that the point of Christianity is to make much of me, to glorify me, to exalt me. And nothing could be further from the truth. The point is it’s all about God. It’s not about me. Following Christ is about making much of Christ and little of me. It’s all about giving God all the glory and honor and fame. And there are two ways you can do that. First, by serving other people. A priority in the kingdom of God is not status, but service, giving myself away for other people. Jesus says, in Matthew 23:11-12, “The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” God’s system works completely different from the way the world’s system works. In God’s system, the leaders are the servants, the greatest are those who give themselves away, those who will be promoted are those who intentionally debase themselves for the sake of others.
Then, the second way you give God all the glory is by pointing other people to him. Lk. 5:31-32: “Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” When I start thinking the point of following Jesus is all about me, then I have completely missed the point. When I start thinking the focus of my Christian life and the church and my relationships with other people is about me and my comfort and my needs and desires, I have lost sight of what Jesus’ whole purpose was about. He came to call sinners. The best way for me to take the focus off of me is by pointing other people to Jesus. Go on a mission trip, help us hand out hot chocolate at the Christmas parade, help us give away breakfast to commuters, develop a relationship with a friend at work and invite them to The Crossroads, tell them your story of life in Jesus. Point other people to Jesus.
So many people settle for a substitute Jesus, a Jesus who just doesn’t measure up to the real thing. You can receive the real Jesus today.
Then, the second way you give God all the glory is by pointing other people to him. Lk. 5:31-32: “Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” When I start thinking the point of following Jesus is all about me, then I have completely missed the point. When I start thinking the focus of my Christian life and the church and my relationships with other people is about me and my comfort and my needs and desires, I have lost sight of what Jesus’ whole purpose was about. He came to call sinners. The best way for me to take the focus off of me is by pointing other people to Jesus. Go on a mission trip, help us hand out hot chocolate at the Christmas parade, help us give away breakfast to commuters, develop a relationship with a friend at work and invite them to The Crossroads, tell them your story of life in Jesus. Point other people to Jesus.
So many people settle for a substitute Jesus, a Jesus who just doesn’t measure up to the real thing. You can receive the real Jesus today.
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