to download on PC rightclick on this link and save as
to download on Mac hold option and click on this link
Introduction
John has spent most of his life in some form of church leadership. He has spent his life explaining the Scriptures to people and calling them to worship God in obedience. As such, he has influenced hundreds and hundreds of people. And most of these people would point to John as the prime example of what a minister should be. Until they found out that he had been stealing money from the church.
Beth has been a Christian for as long as she can remember. She was born in the church, raised in the church, and to this day spends most of her time in the church. To say that Beth appeared to be a devoted follower of Jesus would be an understatement. Everyone around her would point to her as the perfect example of someone who takes their faith very seriously. Until they found out that she left her husband for a married man.
I don’t know if you know John. I don’t know if you know Beth. But you do know people like John and Beth. You know people who appear to be firmly devoted to God, people who you would point to as the very example of what a person of faith should be, who eventually turn away from God and turn toward the most heinous of sins.
Why is this? Why is it that can say this knowing that most of you – if not all of you – know exactly what I’m talking about? Why is it so common to see the most devoted religious people turn out to be guilty of the most despicable moral failures? That’s a very important question. And perhaps it brings to mind even a more important question: how do you make sure that you don’t become one of them?
Jesus will answer both of those questions for us tonight as we continue to listen to his words from Matthew 23. Turn there with me if you will.
Religion Produces Sin
Over the past two weeks we have summarized Jesus’ teaching in this chapter with these strong and offensive words: “Jesus Hates Religion (And You Should Too).†Now when we use the word religion, remember, we’re talking about any and every system of belief that says, “If you obey these teachings then you will be loved, accepted, and blessed.†Every religion in the world promotes some variation of this basic philosophy. Every religion in the world claims that if you obey certain teachings then you will be loved, accepted, and blessed by God, or by the universe, or by other people, or by karma, or whatever. This is even the message of thousands upon thousands of Christian pastors. But it’s not the message of Jesus. And it’s not the message of the Bible. No, the message of Jesus and the Scriptures is very different. The message of Jesus and the Scriptures is that religion, as just described, is evil.
Jesus has spent the first portion of the chapter explaining this very thing to his disciples. But now he transitions and begins to communicate the same message directly to the religious leaders of his day. Let’s listen to what he says to them in verses 13-15.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are.â€
Two weeks ago we saw that Jesus hates religion because it produces fear. Last week we saw that Jesus hates religion because it produces pride. Tonight we see a third reason that Jesus hates religion. Jesus hates religion because it produces sin.
Now on the surface that statement sounds false, doesn’t it? I mean if religious people are known for anything they are known for doing everything they can to avoid sin. But Jesus tells us that religion does not lead people away from sin. It leads them to it. He gives us two examples of this in the verses we just read. First, he says that religious people claim to teach other people how to get to God. But their teaching actually makes it more difficult for people to get to God. Instead of helping them walk into God’s kingdom they slam the door to God’s kingdom in their face. Second, he says that religious people claim to convert people into children of God. But they actually just make them twice as much a child of hell as they were before, and as the religious leaders are themselves. Because of that, Jesus tells the religious leaders, “Woe to you.†Or, to translate that into words more suitable to our culture, “I am greatly displeased with you and your judgment is coming.â€
Jesus hates religion – and Jesus will judge religious people – because religion produces sin. And while that statement may sound false on the surface when you dig deeper its truth becomes glaringly obvious. Religion not only produces sin. Religion produces sin in three different ways.
First, religion produces sin because religion requires that you trust in yourself and not in God. Remember, when we talk about religion we’re talking about any system of belief that claims that if you obey its teachings then you will be accepted, loved, and blessed. Religion by its very definition must produce sin because religion by its very definition is idolatrous.
We commit idolatry anytime that we give to creation what belongs to Creator. When we trust a created thing more than the Creator we are idolaters. And that’s what religion requires that we do. Religion tells us that our position with God depends upon how well we can keep the demands of our religion. If I am accepted, loved, and blessed by God it is because I have obeyed him. What this means is that I trust in myself to make me right with God and I trust in myself to keep me right with God. It means I trust creation more than I trust Creator. Religion produces sin because religion, by its very definition, requires idolatry. It requires that we break the first and most important commandment, which is to have no other gods before the True God.
That’s the first of three ways that religion produces sin. The second is this: religion produces sin because religion calls you to do good things for bad reasons. This is what we’ve seen over the past two weeks together, right? Because religion tells you that you are most accepted, most loved, and most blessed by God when you are most obedient to him religion can only offer you two motivators. If you have a religious view of the world you can only be motivated by fear or pride. If you believe that the acceptance, love, and blessing of God depends upon what you do then you will obey God out of fear. You will obey God because you fear that if you don’t you will not be accepted, you will not be loved, and you will not be blessed. If you believe the acceptance, love, and blessing of God depends upon what you do then will also obey God out of pride. You will obey God because it feeds your pride to believe that you have worked hard to earn the acceptance, love, and blessing of God. As we have shown in great detail over the past two weeks, a religious view of the world does not allow for any other motivators. It only allows for fear and pride.
And I hope you can see why this produces sin. If the only way that religion can motivate you is through fear and pride then you are sinning even when you do good because when you do good you are only doing good for self-serving reasons. You are doing good because you want to avoid God’s punishment (fear) and you want to earn God’s blessing (pride). As a religious person your obedience has nothing to do with you valuing God and it has everything to do with you valuing yourself. Even when you are most obedient to God you are not obeying God because you love him, you are obeying God because you love yourself.
So far we’ve seen that religion produces sin because it requires that you trust in yourself rather than God and that religion produces sin because it requires that you do the right things for the wrong reasons. Third, and finally, religion produces sin because its motivators of fear and pride are not strong enough to keep you from giving in to temptation.
As a human being nearly everything you do is motivated by one of three motivators. Fear, pride, or love. All three of these motivators are very strong motivators. But the one of these three motivators that religion cannot provide you with is love. And love is a far stronger motivator than either fear or pride.
To illustrate this I want you to imagine that this building were to catch on fire tonight. And let’s say that because of where I’m standing I was somehow able to get out of the building before many of you did. And as I stand out there watching the flames consume the building I notice that one of our visitors is still in the building. Now the question at that point is, Am I going to go in to try to save him or am I going to stay out to try to save myself? The answer to that question will entirely depend upon whether I am motivated by fear, or pride, or love. If I am motivated by fear then I am not going to go in to rescue a visitor who I don’t even know. If I am motivated by pride then I may go in to rescue the visitor just so that people will look at me as a hero. But you know what will keep me from going into the building to rescue a visitor out of pride? Love. If I love my life more than I love the pride I would feel from saving a stranger then I am not going in. You see, pride is a strong motivator. It might be strong enough to get me in the burning building. But love is a stronger motivator. So if my love for my own life outweighs my love for my own pride then the visitor, who I have never met, is going to burn up in this building. But now imagine that the person inside the building is not a stranger. Imagine that the person inside the building is one of my children. You can imagine that as I stand outside the burning building I would be overwhelmed with fear. But no matter how afraid I was to go into that burning building I can promise you that fear would not keep me out. Why? Because there is a stronger motivator involved. My love for my child is going to overpower my fear of going in and my prideful concern over whether or not I’ll look foolish doing so. Because of my love for my child I am going to toss my fear to the side, I’m going to toss my pride to the side, and I’m going to run into the burning building. You see, fear and pride are strong motivators but they will always lose to love as the strongest motivator.
Now let’s translate this illustration into terms of obedience and sin. Remember, as a religious person I can only be motivated to obey God by either fear or pride because I believe that it is my obedience that earns me God’s acceptance, love, and blessing. That was what John believed, the man we talked about when we began tonight. John had been involved in church leadership for years. People saw him as the prime example of what a minister should be. And, as far as his outward actions were concerned, he certainly was. For years he handled the church finances with the utmost integrity. He dealt honestly with every single penny that came into the church. But, as a religious person, his financial integrity was motivated by his fear and his pride. And while fear and pride were strong enough motivators to keep him straight for 15 years they were not strong enough motivators to keep him straight forever. Because, eventually, his love for money grew to be stronger than his fear of punishment and his pride in being a good Christian. And the moment that happened – the moment that he began to love money more than he feared God’s punishment and took pride in his own obedience – he began to skim off the top. At first he did this sparingly. A little here and a little there. But when he realized that God didn’t send any immediate punishment — and that he didn’t feel any overwhelming guilt — his fear and his pride became even less powerful, his love for money became even more powerful, and he started to take more and more money week after week. John fell into this heinous sin because his religion could not provide him with the one thing that he needed to resist temptation: to love God more than he loved himself.
Beth’s situation was very similar. Beth had been a consistently obedient Christian for years. Everyone pointed to her as the ideal example of someone who is devoted to God and to his pleasure. For 10 years she seemed to have the perfect marriage. But, Beth would now admit to you, she was never happy with him. She always wondered what it would be like to be with another man. But she remained faithful to her husband nevertheless. Why? Because of her religious motivations of fear and pride. She had to remain faithful to her husband out of fear that God would punish her if she didn’t and out of the prideful desire to earn God’s favor by being a good Christian wife. Well, those motivators were enough for 10 years. But eventually they were overpowered by the stronger motivator of love. Beth left her husband for another man, a married man, because at that moment Beth loved her own pleasure and her own happiness more than she feared God’s punishment or took pride in being a good Christian wife. Beth fell into this heinous sin because her religion could not provide her with the one tool she needed to resist temptation: to love God more than she loved herself.
This is why it is so common to hear of very devoted religious people turning out to be guilty of the most despicable moral failures. Because their worldview, their religion, produces sin by requiring that they trust in themselves more than they trust in God, that they do very good things for very bad and very selfish reason, and that they try to fight sin with the very weak weapons of fear and pride instead of being empowered to fight sin with love.
If you have a church background, if you are a person of faith of any type, you have to ask yourself if you are guilty of thinking and living in this way. You have to ask yourself if you are living as though your acceptance, love, and blessing from God depends in any way – even the smallest way – on you. Because, remember, Jesus pronounces judgment not only on those who teach a religious view of life but on those who live according to a religious view of life. Hear his words again from verses 13-15.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are.â€
These are very strong words of very strong judgment awaiting those who teach or follow a religious view of the world. Now maybe you think these warnings don’t apply to you because you’re not religious. Maybe you’d describe yourself as irreligious or as spiritual. So you think this whole warning about religion producing sin is not relevant to you. But it is. Because, the truth is, an irreligious view of the world does exactly the same thing. Remember that the root sin of all sins is idolatry. The root sin of all sins is to give to creation what properly belongs to the Creator. We sin and we sin greatly anytime we love a created person or thing more than we love the Creator of that person or thing. We sin and we sin greatly anytime we trust a created person or thing more than we trust the Creator of that person or thing. We sin and we sin greatly anytime we fear a created person or thing more than we love the Creator of that person or thing. We sin and we sin greatly anytime we live for the pleasure of a created person or thing more than we live for the pleasure of the Creator of that person or thing. If you are an irreligious person then everything you do is done for the pleasure of someone other than Jesus out of fear, or trust, or love for someone other than Jesus. Which means that everything you do – no matter how good it might appear to be – is actually very wicked.
The Gospel Produces Righteousness
You see, religion and irreligion look very different on the outside. But at their core they are exactly the same. They both require that you give to creation what belongs to the Creator. So Jesus hates religion – and Jesus hates irreligion – for the very same reason. Jesus hates religion and irreligion because they produce sin and lead to death.
So what are we to do? The truth is every one of us is guilty, in some measure, of either religion or irreligion. So how do we escape the judgment that such people deserve? How do we break free from these systems that perpetually produce sin? How do we get to the point where we can do the right things for the right reason?
It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that Jesus has the answer. No, more than that, Jesus himself is the answer. Jesus did not just come here to teach us how to live a righteous life. He came here to live a righteous life for us – in our place. Jesus did not just come here to teach us how to avoid God’s judgment. He came here to receive God’s judgment for us – in our place. And then he rose from the dead to defeat sin and death for us – in our place.
You see this is the unique message of Christianity that separates it from every single religion in the world. While every religion in the world says you will be most accepted, most loved, and most blessed when you obey God, Christianity says that you are fully accepted, fully loved, and fully blessed simply by turning to Jesus in faith because Jesus obeyed God perfectly – in your place.
And as you turn from your religion and turn from your irreligion and turn to Jesus in faith you are freed from fear. Why? Because Jesus has taken all of your punishment and no punishment remains. You are freed from pride. Why? Because Jesus has provided all of your righteousness and you have none of your own. And you are given the power to fight sin and win. Why? Because now you have the one tool that you need: a love for God that is greater than your love for yourself. Knowing that you are forever free from the wrath of God that you deserve you are moved to love God more than yourself, because he poured that wrath out on himself instead of on you. Knowing that you contributed absolutely nothing to your own salvation you are moved to love God more than yourself, because he contributed everything.
While religion produces sin the gospel of Jesus produces righteous obedience. You see, it is precisely because you believe that Jesus has done everything for you that you are now moved to do everything for him. No longer obeying out of fear and pride but now obeying out of sheer gratitude for who he is and what he has done. And the beauties of sin become less and less and less attractive once you have truly beheld the beauties of Christ.