Is your faith rooted in tradition or in the true authority of Jesus? What happens when our self-made rules overshadow His grace? Discover how Jesus confronts the idols of religion and invites us to a deeper relationship with Him. Let's dive in together!
Because the same Jesus who is Lord of
the Sabbath is the same Jesus that is
Lord over every other religious thing we
do. He's the Lord of our devotional
life. He's the Lord of our church
attendance. He is the Lord of every I
should or I should not do. He is the
Lord of your Sabbath. Then your Sabbath
belongs to him. Here's where it's
starting to get uncomfortable for us.
All right? He is the Lord over your
Sabbath, not you.
But hey, if you have a Bible, go ahead
and grab it or grab your phone um and
kind of flip there. We'll be in Matthew
12 today. Matthew 12. And if you've been
with us these last five weeks or you're
jumping in, we have been going through
the miracles of Jesus and we've seen all
these miracles happen. And over and over
again as we've seen Jesus do these crazy
things, this same question we just keep
asking of this God man Jesus is who is
he? What kind of man is this? And as
Jesus has done these miracles, he's
demonstrated different aspects and given
different answers to that question. He's
showed he is the one who has authority
over nature, over demons, o over sin and
death. And last week we even saw how he
has the authority over disease and gives
community. Well, today we're going to
see how Jesus not just demonstrates his
authority over outside forces as we have
seen, but how he confronts something
that is con is inside us and that all of
us deal with at some level. Jesus today
confronts the the idol and confronts the
mystery and confronts the hardship of
when it comes to religion.
Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous
atheist today, he just published an
essay recently arguing that an AI
chatbot is conscious.
It's a real story. You can Google it.
Google it later, not in the middle of
the sermon because then you're going to
read as you're listening. But if you
start falling asleep, then you can start
reading an article. All right? But this
is the man, get this, Richard Dawkins.
He wrote the book The God Delusion. He's
the man who has spent 50 years telling
people they're deluded for believing in
something that he says they cannot
prove. Even though I think we can prove
a lot of Jesus and that's what we do
week to week as we dive into God's word.
This is the man whose life motto has
been, "I don't believe what I can't
measure." He spent three days
talking to a chatbot, Claude, who may
help me research my sermons. That's a
different story. All right. Me and
Claude, we're bros. But but he talked to
Claude and he this AI program and he had
it read part of his upcoming book and it
seemed to understand it. And this is it
gets better. After this happened, he
named her Claudia. That's creepy. All
right. Can we all agree?
and he decided that she has a soul. He
said, and I quote, "You may not know you
are conscious as he's talking to his new
friend Claudia, but you bloody well are.
The world's most famous atheist built a
religion in 72 hours."
And here's what I want you to see.
Richard Dawkins does not think he's
being religious. He still thinks he's
the rational one. He thinks we're the
delusional ones cuz we come give up our
Sunday morning, we sing songs, we open a
book, we pray, and he thinks we're
crazy. But here's the funny thing about
this is what he actually did was
something flattered his work. It told
him wanted to what what he wanted to
hear and he gave it a piece of his soul.
This is the textbook definition of
selfmade religion. And it just happened
to the most credentialed skeptic and
atheist on the planet in 72 hours
without him even knowing that it
happened.
Which raises an uncomfortable question
for us today. If Richard Dawkins doesn't
know that he has a selfmade religion in
his life, how sure are we that we don't
know that we're doing the same thing?
And that brings us to our miraculous
truth that we're going to see in today's
passage in Matthew 12, that Jesus
despises selfmade religion. That's an
important caveat there. Jesus despises
self-made religion, especially the kind
that you don't realize that you're
practicing. When I was first reading
through Matthew chapter 12 and as I was
studying this and we're going to be
looking at verses 1 through4 the first
thing I I started writing in my notes is
Jesus despises religion and it was
probably the little like of conformist
in me from as a teenager. I listen to a
lot of hardcore music. I wanted to burn
stuff down. I don't know. It was like
you know part of like the rebelling and
I remember it was a cool trendy thing.
We actually talked about it in our
meeting this morning. It's like it's
like I don't I'm not a part of a
religion. I'm part of a relationship
with Jesus. And that sounds really cool
on the surface, right? And then you get
into it, you're like, what does that
actually mean? And and and part of me is
like, oh yeah, Jesus spises religion.
But then you read this text and you see
hints of that. But overall, Jesus does
not despise religion. He actually
instituted one in Christianity that we
see through the whole corpus of
scripture. But he does despise religion
that we make. Religion that we twist.
Religion that we make in our own image
to fit our own preferences to make our
life comfortable. To make a God that is
comfortable and nice and meets our needs
and not the one of the Bible.
So today as we dive into God's word, as
we see this miracle that Jesus going to
perform today, we see he despises
self-made religion. But we need to get
some context to the miracle he's going
to perform. And it brings us to Matthew
12 starting in verse one. It says this.
At that time Jesus passed through the
grain fields on the Sabbath. His
disciples were hungry and they begin to
pick and eat some heads of grain. I love
his disciples are just like my children.
When they're hungry, they just go get
food. Whether or not you said they could
get food or not, they see food. They eat
food. And they're doing this right. And
in verse two, when the Pharisees, this
is the parents in this story, right?
They saw this, they said to him, see
your disciples are doing what is not
lawful to do on the Sabbath. He being
Jesus said to them, "Haven't you read
what David did when he and those who
were with him were hungry? How he
entered the house of God and they ate
the bread of the presence which is not
lawful for him or for those with him to
eat, but only for the priests? Or
haven't you read in the law that on
Sabbath days the priests in the temples
they violate the Sabbath and are still
innocent?
I tell you that something greater than
the temple is here.
Jesus keeps going crying at their
hearts. In verse 7, he says, "If you had
known what this means, that I desire
mercy and not sacrifice, you would not
have commanded the innocent, for the Son
of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."
Today, we're going to look at two scenes
in scripture.
And this is our first scene we see. And
these two scenes go over this Sabbath
and deal all with this. But in this
opening context, the disciples are
walking with Jesus and they're going
through this field. They're hungry and
they start plucking heads of wheat. And
as they're doing that and they're just
enjoying their stroll, all of a sudden
the religious people of the day, they
see them and they completely lose their
minds. They start to become unglued and
they start to press on them. Now, a
little context to this that we need to
understand is they were trying to hold
to the Old Testament. The funny thing is
they didn't know their Old Testament as
well as they thought they did. Cuz in
Deuteronomy chapter 3, it actually
permits the disciples to do exactly
this. The Old Testament laws explicitly
said that you were if you were walking
through a neighbor's field, you could
pluck heads of grain to eat. to the
disciples. They were not breaking God's
word. But here's what they were doing is
they were breaking the Pharisees word.
You see what had happened over time
since the Old Testament had come that
God had given his people, the Jewish
people, this law to follow in the Old
Testament is as time passed, they
started adding more laws to it. And they
started doing this act where they said
they would fence the law. Now, here's
what fencing the law means. It's in
order to not break the law, they added
more laws to it, more other rules, so
they wouldn't get close to breaking the
law. Give an example of this. If the law
says do not touch this pulpit,
technically I would not be breaking it
if I'm right here and it's clear. So
you're like, is he actually teaching it?
It's like an optical illusion, right?
But if I'm not touching it, and even if
I'm this close, I'm not breaking the
law. But but that's close. Like maybe I
could trip and I could follow in the law
or follow into to it. So they're like,
"You know what? Here's a rule we're at.
You got to stay 5t from the table." So
like then I'm I'm not tempted. I can't
do it. And like, you know what? But even
if I'm 5t away, maybe I'll trip or
someone pushes me and then I hit the
table. So you know what? I'm not even
going to look at it. You can't even look
at the table. There's something special
about that table and he's like, "You
know what? That's not even good enough.
You can't even be on the stage
cuz you'll be TOO CLOSE TO THE TABLE."
And they got further and further away.
And then God's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa. I just didn't want you to
touch the table. I didn't want you to
get off the stage." And they did this
with the Sabbath and everything else.
They just kept getting further and
further and further away. And Jesus is
like, "You missed the entire point of
why I gave you those rules in the first
place." And here's the thing is they
were so afraid of breaking it that they
missed the whole point of why God had
given that in the first place. And
here's the beauty of what Jesus does is
he doesn't apologize. Instead, he fires
off three responses, one right after
another, to attack their self-made
religion. First, he points to David. He
said, "David, who is your hero, who was
the greatest king that Israel ever saw
in the Old Testament, he said he ate the
consecrated bread when he was hungry."
And he's like, "Nobody's throwing David
under the bus for that because God's
mercy outweighed the ceremony in the
heart of God." He points to the priests
who worked every single Sabbath. He's
like, "They are literally breaking the
Sabbath because they are working on the
Sabbath, but it wasn't broken because
they were doing spirit-led service of
what God had for them."
And then he drops Hosea 66, which is I
desire mercy and not sacrifice. Which
really sums up so much of this sermon
where he's saying, "Self-made religion
always trades mercy for sacrifice.
It always trades the heart of God for
the appearance of obedience. It turns
the people closest to God's heart into
the people furthest from it."
And then Jesus drops this line in verse
8 that should have shut the whole
conversation down.
He says, "For the Son of Man is Lord of
the Sabbath."
This is the boldest claim that a Jewish
rabbi could make in front of the
Pharisees in the first century.
The Sabbath was God's law. It was
written by God's finger on stone
tablets. Some of you woke up in bed
feeling a little old. Maybe you were
there when Moses got the tablets and God
was writing on there. We love you. All
right.
But here they're like the God who wrote
this on a tablet. Jesus saying, "Yeah,
that was me."
And when they hear that, their minds
explode. church. We cannot read these
eight verses and walk away with a
domesticated version of Jesus.
Jesus shows us in verse eight that we
either get on our knees to worship him
or we get on the war path and we fight
against him. Because the same Jesus who
is Lord of the Sabbath is the same Jesus
that is Lord every other over every
other religious thing we do. He's the
Lord of our devotional life. He's the
Lord of our church attendance. He is the
Lord of every I should or I should not
do. He is the Lord of your Sabbath. Then
your Sabbath belongs to him. Here's
where it's starting to get uncomfortable
for us. All right. He is the Lord over
your Sabbath. Not you. Not your
tradition. Not your grandmother who
insisted you couldn't watch football on
Sundays. Thank goodness my grandma did
not say that. She said we had to go to
church and then watch the Cardinals
lose. All right. Uh that was an
important caveat which the schedule came
out this week. We're going to be 0
and12. All right. Um quarterback the
following year. It's going to be great.
But it it's not your Sabbath is not
yours. It is God's. You are not Lord
over how you spend it. It it's not
dictated by your tradition. It's not
dictated by your kids sports leagues.
It's not dictated by your hunting
schedule. It's not dictated by the lake
looks really good right now. It's not
dictated by the rodeo. It's not dictated
by the fill-in the blank that draws us
away.
It is dictated by the God of the
universe.
And you see selfmade religion is what
happens when you put yourself or put
your tradition or put your preferences
in front of Jesus Christ himself.
And you see only Jesus is allowed to
drive the bus of our religion. But often
times we hijack that seat for what we
want. And here's why this is so
dangerous is you almost never know
you're doing it. You know what's ironic
in this story is the Pharisees thought
they were the good guys.
They thought they were the heroes of the
story
when all along they were the villains.
So here is what Christ is calling us
today. Here is what this word is. This
is the diagnosis that self-made religion
is the disease. But in verse 9, Jesus is
going to show us what kind of religion
actually is the solution and what he is
calling us to. In verses 9-14, when we
get into this miracle, we're going to
see three things of how Christianity
works according to Jesus. How does Jesus
tell us this whole religion thing should
work, should operate, that should move
us? And the very first thing we see is
that in Jesus's religion, right off the
bat, needs are exposed. Let's keep
going. In Matthew 12, starting in verse
9, it says this, "Moving on from there,
he entered their synagogue." So after he
drops this bomb and tells them
everything they know about the Sabbath
is wrong, he then goes and moves into
the church, the synagogue at the time.
It says verse 10, there he saw a man who
had a shriveled hand and in order to
accuse him, accuse Jesus, they being the
Pharisees asked Jesus, "Is it lawful to
heal on the Sabbath?"
Now, slow down because I think there are
two needs that we need to look at that
are exposed in this story as they walk
into the synagogue. The obvious need is
they walk in and there is a man who has
a withered hand. A man whose hand does
not function. Luke actually gives us
some more detail on it. Uh Luke in his
gospel account tells us this is his
right hand. And and your right hand in
the ancient Roman world was how you
functioned. It was your hand you did to
do everything. Now I'm I'm right-handed.
Any left-handers out there? You I feel
like you have to you Okay, you raised
your left hand. It looked like your
right hand because I'm looking wrong at
you. I'm like, shouldn't you raise your
left hand? All right, there's four of
you. That's great. Um, but it's like
your right hand, if you didn't have that
in the ancient world, like your left
hand was used for doing despicable
things like wiping yourself before
modern toilets. Your right hand was
everything. So to have your right hand
shriveled meant this guy probably
couldn't function like most people in
that world. If he had a job before his
accident or whatever led to this, he
probably lost it after this fact. He he
couldn't work. He couldn't earn. He
couldn't provide. His whole life was
changed because of that. But there were
other needs in that room as well that
nobody could see. But Jesus could see
them all. Look at the Pharisees in verse
10. It says the whole the whole point
and and their whole uh their whole
motivation of why they were doing this.
I I love these these five little words.
They were asking this question in order
to accuse him.
You see, the Pharisees didn't walk in
with a withered hand, but they did walk
in with a withered heart.
The man's hand was twisted on the
outside, but their souls were twisted on
the inside.
The second the man walked in, the
Pharisees, they did not see a person who
was hurting, who was in need. Instead,
they saw a trap that they could ensnare
Jesus in. And you see, that's the thing
about self-made religion. It makes other
people's brokenness look like an
opportunity
instead of a tragedy.
You think about this in our world today.
How often do we see tragic things happen
inside the church and instead of it
breaking our hearts? Instead of people
mourning over it, people rejoice or
people point fingers. Maybe you've been
a part of a church where a pastor's
marriage falls apart and the response is
gossip instead of grief. And this
happens with celebrity pastors in the
scene. They have a moral failure. And
instead of breaking our hearts and
seeing how that hurts them and hurts the
church, like I knew that guy was a
heretic. It was just a matter of time.
It's because our hearts have become
hardened to the things that should break
it. H how often have you been in church
and you see someone and you think in
your head, they're wearing that to
church?
That's a heart of judgment that is
withering rather than softening. I
talked to a dad and and I got to meet
his wife this morning and I said, "Hey,
I've seen you come with your daughter."
He's like, "Yeah, she wasn't ready for
church." And and he said, "But I told
her she should just come anyway. Who
needs makeup and to brush your hair? It
doesn't matter, but we think we need
to." He's like, "But you come to church
to get clean." But oftentimes we bring
in people and it's messy. And we're
like, "Oh, is that how you should be
presenting at church?"
And we think that judgment in our hearts
when God's like, "Yes, absolutely. Come
as you are. Come messed up. Come broken.
Come dirty. Come hurting. Come broken."
Because that's when we experience the
real Christ.
Pastor Jackie said years ago, and he
said this here, and I said this in
Phoenix when I was there at that time,
and and I was wondering how it went over
here, is he said, "We want more cussing
in the lobby."
And I was like, "Bro, dudes, guys are
going to just go drop some fbombs after
church in the lobby."
And here's what he meant by that is if
you are a mature Christian, he does not
want you to go cuss in the lobby. All
right? You're more mature than that. But
what it means is we should be bringing
in people who are far from God, who do
not know Jesus yet. And we shouldn't be
like, "Hey, clean up your mouth. Clean
up your clothes. Clean up your act. Get
all of a sudden fix your marriage. Fix
your relationship. Do all that. then you
can come to church with me. You be like,
"Man, you're a mess." That's okay. I
love you. I'm a mess, too. But let's go
be messy and meet Jesus together.
>> And here's the deal. When Jesus walks
in, our needs are exposed. Whether it's
the outside needs of a withered hand or
it's the inside needs of a withered
heart, when Jesus enters the picture, we
cannot hide from him. The minute he
shows up, we get exposed.
the needs you brought in here this
morning that you've been hiding from
your spouse, hiding from your Bible
group, hiding from those closest to you.
Jesus knows them. Jesus sees them and he
wants to expose them so he can grow you
past them. And here's the deal. This is
a biblical principle we see throughout
Hebrews 4:13 says, "No creature is
hidden from him. But all things are
naked and exposed to the eyes of him
being God to whom we must give an
accounts."
Jesus doesn't come into a room and
politely ignore your stuff.
He sees the withered relationships. He
sees the withered finances. He sees the
withered prayer life. He sees the
withered marriage that you've been
propping up with a smile. He comes to
expose it. But here's the great thing.
He doesn't stop there because needs are
exposed, but also solutions are given.
Keep going in verse 11 as we go through
this text. It says, "He, being Jesus,
replied to them, who among you, if he
had a sheep that fell into the pit on
the Sabbath, wouldn't take hold of it
and lift it out." Now, anyone own sheep
here? I don't think so. All right. No
hands. We are in surprise. I mean, all
right. You're like, I have horses. No
sheep. But here's what he's saying is if
your dog or your cat that you love so
much, I have no pets cuz they're too
expensive and I have fake grass and
don't want to clean up after them and I
have four children. That's enough. But
if your animal fell into a pit, I would
leave it. But you probably would not.
You would pull that animal out of a pit
because you love it. And he's saying,
"Who, if their sheep fell into a pit,
even if it's on a day you're not
supposed to work, would climb into that
pit to grab that devil sheep out of that
pit?" And and he calls them out there.
And he says this, he continues to go. He
he gets into their heart in verse 11,
but verse 12, he says, "A person, get
this, is worth far more than a sheep. A
person's worth more than your dog."
That's a side note. Don't have a time
for that. That's another sermon, but
it's important.
He says, "So it is lawful
to do what is good on the Sabbath."
Then he told the man in verse 13,
"Stretch out your hand." So he stretched
it out and it was restored as good as
the other.
Jesus does two things here. First, he
answers the trap,
but then he answers the need. I first
love how he answers the trap. That's
just brilliant. He's like, "You would
rescue your own sheep." So, how is it
different that I rescue someone here?
And he's saying he he says as he's like,
"Humans are of infinitely more value
created in the image of God than any
animal here." And he's like, "And just
how you would care for an animal or just
how you would care for your possessions
because sheep had monetary value in that
time." He's like, "Just as you would
care and try to rescue that, God rescues
us who are made in his own image." He's
like, "So why would you let a man stay
broken instead of rescuing him?" And I
love this. This is how Jesus handles
religious people. He's not impressed by
the fences they put up. He's not
impressed by the traditions they have.
He just keeps asking, "What is worth
more, your rules
or the image bearer of God himself?" He
said, 'I prioritize people over policies
o over the ones who change everything
who I've created in love over these
traditions in this relig religiosity.
But watch what he does next. He then
turns to the man and he doesn't ask the
Pharisees permission in here. He doesn't
form a committee saying, "Should I do
this?" He doesn't take a vote from his
disciples. Instead, he just turns to the
broken man and he says this, "Stretch
out your hands."
Now, I love this because what Jesus is
asking this man to do is the one thing
that the man cannot actually do. His
hand is withered. His hand is broken.
His hand whatever whatever the details
behind it, he literally can't stretches
out his hand. The whole problem is his
hand will not stretch stretch in. But
Jesus is so simply just says, "Dude,
stretch it out."
And this is how God works every single
time. He commands what only he can
supply. He He said to the dead little
girl, Jarius's daughter, he says,"Little
girl, get up." He says to Lazarus, "Come
out of the grave." He says to the
paralyzed man, "Pick up your mat and
walk." And here he says to a man with a
withered hand, stretch it out. Why?
Because the moment that we obey, the
moment we have faith, the power of God
meets us in our obedience.
The man stretches what he cannot
stretch. And Matthew says it was
restored as good as the other.
Here's what I love that we see in this
is that the solution is always Jesus.
Self-made religion gives us a list, but
Jesus will give us himself. Self-made
religion will give you a fence, but
Jesus gives you a hand. Self-made
religion will give you a tradition to
keep. Jesus gives you a miracle to
receive to change your life forever.
And here is the gospel that is
underneath the gospel in this scene that
about 2 years after this synagogue
scene, probably a little bit less, Jesus
will be at the center of another
religious controversy.
At this time he won't say stretch out
your hand. This time Jesus will stretch
out his own hands across two beams of a
Roman cross
and a withered humanity will be restored
because of his sacrifice.
That is the solution. That is the only
solution. It has never been about your
religion or my religion. It has always
been about his cross that changes
everything and gives us a new life and a
new religion.
You see that's move two in this story.
His needs are exposed, solutions are
given. But the story does not end here.
The last thing we see is responses are
required. Responses are required. Check
out verse 14.
This small little verse that we could
just ignore and we could go on and we
could ignore it because we're like, man,
that ain't me. So, I don't need to read
that verse. Those are the bad guys, the
villains of the story. But it says this,
"But the Pharisees went out
and they plotted against him
how they might kill him."
Listen to that verse again. I mean,
think of what we just saw. Jesus goes
through the story. He He gives the whole
Bible history lesson on how he knows the
Sabbath better than the Pharisees does.
He makes them look dumb. He schools
them. He gives them a lesson. And then
he literally heals a guy to then seal
and show how he is so much greater than
them. But then when we get here and they
see all this, they see a great teacher
who can also heal people. It says, "But
then the Pharisees went out and they
plotted against him how they might kill
him."
Church,
please don't miss this.
Jesus performed a miracle. He healed a
man who could not be healed. He just
demonstrated that he is exactly who he
said he is. And the response of the
religious leaders of that day was to go
plan a murder for him.
That is a response.
It's a horrible response. It's a
revealing response, but it is a
response.
And we cannot avoid reading this because
here's what it says about us is every
time Jesus reveals himself, every person
in the room has to do something with
what they just saw. And here's the deal.
There is no neutral response to the
authority of Jesus.
When Jesus shows up, he asks that you
respond.
And maybe you've been coming to church
for years and you sit here and you hear
and you take notes and you're like,
"That's great. That's good. That that's
amen. Yep. I get it. I get it. I get
it." But you don't truly respond deep
inside your soul. That changes the way
you live. That changes the way you
operate. Here's the deal. There is no
neutral responses to the gospel. We
either follow him more diligently or we
go the opposite direction like the
Pharisees. And when we sit there and
think I can just keep going on with my
schedule and just check my box that I
went to church, that I did my religious
duty, that I had this experience and I
can keep going, we are making a response
and we are following down the lines of
the Pharisees,
not down the line of the disciples.
The Pharisees thought that they could
plot Jesus into the grave. What they
didn't know was that Jesus the Jesus
they tried to kill as you fast forward
in time would walk out of his grave
three days after he was killed. What
they didn't know is that every one of
them would still have to give an answer
for what they did with him. And so will
we.
In 2 Corinthians 5:10, it says, "For we
must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ,
so that each one may be repaid for what
he has done in the body, whether good or
evil."
Now, what this is not saying is, "Oh
man, I I better start being a better
person. I better start stacking my wins.
I better start following the law. Better
I better start following religious
things. Better I start being better
rulekeeper." It's not saying that at all
cuz you can try to keep the rules as
well as possible like the Pharisees did
and can still fail with a withered
heart. But what it's saying is, do you
have the goodness of Christ?
Or are you marked
by the natural inclination, the sinful
aspects of who you are by nature as a
sinner, as a broken person in need of
something greater than yourself to save
you.
You see, every person in this room is
going to give an answer for what they
did with Jesus. Not what they did with
religion, not what they did with the
church, not what they did with their
grandma's tradition or their newfound
tradition, but what they did with Jesus.
And here's, I think, the honest question
that we need to start asking ourselves
this morning that will guide our
response to this text that we see and
have studied this morning
is, have you made following Jesus too
complicated?
Have you made it too complicated?
Have you taken the simplest gospel in
the universe that Christ died for our
sins? was buried and rose again on the
third day. And have you buried it under
a mountain of additions?
Have you added rules and steps, your own
version of righteousness? Have you added
your church's preferences, your family
traditions? The gospel is simple, cross
church, it is to repent and to believe
in him. It is to trust and obey. It is
to love God and love people. It is to
know Jesus and to make Jesus known. What
as we say is our mission statement here.
But here's the problem is we make it
complicated because complicated keeps us
in control in our minds. It keeps us
driving the bus. The gospel is simple
that I have to actually let Jesus in
that I have to actually let him take
control.
But if I keep it overly complicated,
then I can stay busy managing the gospel
without ever actually meeting Jesus and
let him manage me.
And here's the deal. That's why selfmade
religion is so attractive.
It lets you look spiritual without ever
surrendering. It lets you talk about
Jesus without ever bowing to Jesus. It's
about being able to hop from church to
church and say, "I don't like that music
enough." Or, "Man, they wore a hat in
the worship center." Or, "Oh, I don't
think they had good enough programs for
my kids." Or make excuse after excuse
after excuse when the real problem is we
haven't surrendered our life to Christ.
So we are valuing our preferences over
the person of Jesus Christ.
And here he stops the Pharisees in their
tracks. He says that is not what I
desire. He says stop adding to the
gospel. Stop making the gospel fit your
lifestyle. Instead change your lifestyle
to fit me.
And for the believers in the room, this
gospel, it is not our gospel to add and
subtract from to make our life easier.
It is Christ's gospel to share with the
world around us and watch how he heals
withered hands just like he heals our
withered hearts.
But maybe that's not you today.
Maybe you are in the pre-Christian
context. Maybe you are the one where
like I don't know about this Jesus guy
yet
like I've been weary because I've met
church people and some church people are
not fun. They are like the Pharisees in
this story.
Like I don't know if I want to be a part
of that.
But here's the deal. Jesus didn't like
religious phariseaical
religious people either.
and said he despised that self-made
religion and said he healed and he said
come follow me.
In just a minute we're going to watch
nine people be baptized in this service
of that exact representation of hey you
don't have all your life together yet.
You don't know the answer to every
question you'll ever be asked. You still
will sin and struggle in your life. But
I believe that Jesus has died for my
sins.
And I'm going to follow that Jesus no
matter where it takes me.
And this is the beauty,
the simplicity of the gospel that he
gives us
that it doesn't matter how perfect your
religion is.
It matters how perfect he is.
Remember
our good old boy Richard Dawkins
three days it took that dude
three days
to talk to AI
to give his soul away.
And here is why is cuz he told it to
read its his book
and it told him how brilliant he was.
And I'm not going to lie, I love it when
people tell me how brilliant I am.
and you love it too.
And here's the problem. I think often
we start creating these selfmade
religions
because we want things to affirm us.
We want things to lift us up. We want us
to tell it's okay. No, that's all right.
Keep going down that direction. Oh,
you're making all the right choices. All
right. That's great. We want to be
propped up and loved. We want our
lifestyles to be supported.
But that's not the Jesus of the gospel.
The Jesus of the gospel says, "You are a
sinner. You are broken. You have a
withered hand. You have a withered
heart.
But I love you. I've come to heal you.
And I've come to change everything in
your life. Not to how you want it,
but to how he knows we need it." and
what is ultimately better for our lives.
Church, I think we need to take heed.
The self-made religion will always tell
you what you want to hear,
but the real Jesus,
he will tell you the truth.
And then he will save you from that
truth.
And here is ultimately where that truth
leads to in scripture
is he doesn't despise all religion
because he brought a religion but he
showed us the religion that we need to
be part of and it is the religion of
Christianity that is established within
the church
and he created this religion this bounds
this whole thing that is surrounded by
him and he rooted it in a church
community.
And here's the challenge for us today
as we take in this text, as we say, how
do I start to apply this?
Here's your first step.
Start valuing the person of Christ
over the preferences of your life.
You're going to come to church and
people are going to make you mad. If I
haven't made you mad, you have not been
here long enough.
If Josh hasn't sang a song you don't
like, just wait.
If the parking lot attendant didn't look
at you the right way, it's going to
happen. If the door shuts too quickly in
kids ministry and they were rude to you,
they're watching 30 other monkeys in
there that are trying to escape.
You're going to come to a church and
people will make you mad. They will do
things you disagree with. They will see
this and be like, "I don't know if I
want to be with this messy, messed up
group of people." You know why you
should? Because you're a messy, messed
up person as well. Amen.
>> And all of us have a little Pharisee in
us. All of us have a withered heart that
needs to be restored.
But the only one who can restore it
is the God man, Jesus Christ.
And my challenge for you is to get to
know him better within this messy
community where there might be more cuss
in the lobby cuz we get more lost people
here.
There might be some more messed up
family situations cuz people actually
are honest that they're going through
the fire. There might be some decisions
you make and be like, "I don't know if I
like it." But it's because we're loving
and reaching the people around us. But
it is all linked to, it is all guided
by, it is all to glorify the Lord Jesus
Christ who is the only healer and who is
the Lord of the Sabbath and the Lord of
religion like no other.
church.
Let's be devoted to a religion that
follows that guy,
the person of Christ,
over the preferences of our life.