Bad Religion: It's All About Me
The saying, "It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I believe," is often heard in Christian circles. Bad religion can be equated to a lazy man's philosophy. Though we are offered peace with God through what Jesus has done for us, the daily decisions that we make determine both our present and eternal destiny. To walk in a life worthy of the calling that God has placed upon us, we must understand the way that the kingdom of heaven works and acknowledge why what we do matters.
The Way Things Work
Jesus often taught in parables which were comparisons or similitudes explaining the dynamics of life. Jesus referenced the parable of the sower as of utmost importance (Mark 4:13), because it described the realities of a growing or declining relationship with God.
Matthew 13:1-23 (NIV)
1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 10The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 11He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ 16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. 18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Religion is often thought to be a quick fix rather than a process of growth.
The four examples of responses to the Word of God being preached are different types of heart responses that we can have. The truth is that we determine what type of heart that we will have.
Scenario 1:
When we do not understand the depths of how God's Word should transform our lives, it is because we have not studied. Bad religion has you sit in worship gatherings endlessly, yet perpetually remain the same.
One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet. (Proverbs 27:7 NIV)
If you are humble and hungry, you will find a way to continually find nourishment from and utilize what you have been taught.
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts. (Psalm 119:97-100 NIV)
To understand the Scripture, you should look to:
Memorize the Word. (Retain it, so that it is available and useful.)
Meditate upon the Word. (Discover its meaning and application.)
Manifest the Word. (Find a way to put it into action.)
Scenario 2:
People have no root (a private life with God as an anchor), so when opposition or criticism comes because of your Christ-centered convictions, you have no strength from which you can pull.
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12, 13 NIV)
The Greek word used for persecution literally meant: To harm, do evil to someone, ill-treat, injure; to prejudice, to create a bias against, ill-affect, or create antipathy towards.
The gospel brings adjustment and redefinition to our identity and character. Just because someone is bringing correction to your life does not mean that it is hate speech. In fact, Proverbs 27 continues to state:
Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:5, 6, 17 NIV)
Scenario 3:
In the world, people are driven by the strange combination of pleasures and fears.
It is the ploy of the enemy to perpetuate a paralysis in our routines to lead us to ineffective living where we make no impact for the Kingdom of God. It is much like the lion tamer with the chair in his hand pacifying the otherwise ferocious cat by inducing a lack of focus in the beast.
"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S. Lewis (Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)
Scenario 4:
Jesus is clearly looking for a return on His investment in us. A life that produces a crop 100, 60, and 30 times of what is sown into it, means that, through the commands of Scripture, our life is marked by the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fellowship, tithing and offering our finances, evangelism, discipleship, and service to faithfully, steadily, advance the gospel. This brings increase to the Kingdom of God through His church, which is to be the pillar and foundation of the truth in any society.
Why What We Do Matters
Matthew 13:24-43 (NIV)
24Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 “ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ ” 31He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” 33He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough. 34Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. 35So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” 36Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.
The religious life is also often seen as a "good idea" rather than an assignment as you follow Christ. First, we can see that what we do counts, because, on the day of judgment, Jesus will have His angels separate the wicked from the righteous. The wicked will be cast into eternal torment while the righteous inherit the Kingdom of God. It is only through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection that we are made righteous, played out through the obedience that follows our trust in him.
The church is to be the quintessential combination of both wisdom for the world's ills and virtue to provide manpower towards these solutions.
"Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since that Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth, and you will get neither." - CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, Part 44 (1952; Harper Collins 2001) 134.
Jeremiah 29:4-7 speaks of the importance of cities as centers of intellectual thought, power and commerce. The formulation of ideas in these centers shape society as a whole. Metropolitan areas were the focus of Paul's missionary journeys.
Have a vision to be more than transient in this city. The habits that you develop now are the ones that you will have later under more strenuous circumstances, only exacerbated. The disciplines that you develop in the rigors of the city can mark your life.
“The local church is the hope of the world, and its future rests primarily in the hands of its leaders.” -Bill Hybels
The rule of God is presented as a far better option in which to live all areas of life.
Matthew 13:44-52 (NIV)
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied. 52He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
Bad religion is that which is compartmentalized rather than a life-shaping revelation.
A half-hearted approach to your faith was never an option in God's mind. We are to be on mission with Jesus Christ to redeem the world through his gospel, which is the only meta-assignment that will truly satisfy.
At the crossroads of calling, when you are trying to decide what to do with your life and time, a good question to ask is: "What will I look back and say that my life has meant in God - the only thing that lasts eternally?"
"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death..." - C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
Practical:
- Find one way this week to throw your lot deeper into Christ's Kingdom to produce a crop 100, 60, or 30 times what has been invested in you.
Second City Church- Bad Religion Sermon Series 2013