Sermon Nuggets Mon Oct 11 – Religion
Theme- Dangers of Religion
Phil 3:1-7 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
Dangers of Religion
We are a religious people. God made us that way. People from all cultures go through some type of worship to whatever god or gods they have created. There are more battles fought over religion literally with wars or with arguments and discord among people.
This week the Supreme Court is discussing whether or not the Westboro Baptist church has the right to protest at military funerals the judgment of God upon homosexuals. Their methods have been insensitive and offensive for those who have given their lives for the freedom include the freedom to speak one’s mind. How the courts determine the outcome is anticipated regarding the freedom of speech laws. Another Baptist church in Florida got international news when they were going to burn the Koran. Muslims were ready to fight the US and put soldiers in greater danger in this symbol act.
Both Baptist churches had religion. But did they have the mind of Jesus?
While in a store, I overheard a little of a conversation between a couple of men talking about something in their Sunday School class. I did not listen in so I wasn't paying much attention to the dialogue, until I overheard something about Baptists. Apparently one of them visited a Baptist church but they agreed that the Baptists were too restrictive. They liked their own church better.
The fact that they attended any church was an encouragement to me, but I did wonder what their experience of Baptists was. People identify rightly or wrongly of all the things you can't do if you are a Baptist. Maybe that is why almost all church plants and many established churches no longer put Baptist in their name. It keeps other people from visiting because the negative press as well as negative reactions of Baptist churches has been a barrier to the gospel of Jesus. Are we guilty?
One president of a Baptist denomination was to have his portrait taken. The photographer said, " Don't smile. We want a solemn expression." Why? "Well, its usual isn't it?"
It is the case that we are all called to live lives that are holy unto the Lord, but holiness is not the same as living a drab life. There is seriousness about our purpose, but this book of Philippians is about joy. In fact it shows how one can have joy even in difficult times. We know from our earlier study that Paul was having a difficult time in prison, and the Philippians themselves were having trials and struggles in their lives. Having trials and struggles should not be reasons to start feeling sorry for ones’ self, being ready to throw in the towel on the church, on God, and on life itself. Do people find Christians joyful?
Maybe that is why it is a command in the Bible, "rejoice in the Lord." When our hope is centered in Christ, we can always rejoice in God’s love for us. It is comforting to know that in our world of war and threat of terrorism, we can have a confidence in God's sovereignty. A divine joy in the Lord is possible for believers in spite of adversities, struggles of difficulties because we know that this too will past. It may shake us, but we don’t have to let it defeat us. God can turn every blow and disappointment that comes into our lives into a blessing for us.
What the Bible tells us is that religion can be dangerous to real joy.
We will look at Paul’s life when he was very devoted to religion but missing out on a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues Oct 12 – Culture
The Danger of Religion: Culture & Traditions
First danger is the danger implied in this passage is of culture. You see Jesus came within a culture. Every nation and every area within a nation has a culture. A missionary is involved in cross cultural ministry, meaning he comes from one type of culture and must learn how to minister to a different culture.
You have different sub-cultures within the US.- Urban and Rural, North and South, East and West and Midwestern. In fact the way so many churches seek to worship is probably more based on culture than on principles from the Bible. We are used to a style of worship because of the culture in which we were brought up and judge other things accordingly.
In India the term they used was "nominal Christian" meaning they were not really believers of the heart, but rather from their background and culture they attended and joined church but it was not from the heart, but expectations of their sub-culture or family to do so.
The Bible says that Jesus came to the Jew first. Certainly, as you understand more of the background of the Bible there is excitement as you see how the Old and New Testaments relate. To understand many of the figures, illustrations and prophecies it helps to know a little bit about the Jewish culture of that day.
Jesus was the promised Messiah. He was to deliver the Jews, God’s people, from injustice and oppression. When Jesus came to Palestine he was not recognized because they were wrapped up in more cultural and historical expectations than they were with faith. They were concerned about the law, and how that law should be applied. They added 800 other civil laws and soon the culture was filled with more concern of the civil laws than the moral laws. Soon these traditions became so important they were intersected with the religion. They knew God worked with Abraham Isaac, and Jacob. The Jews had a special relationship with God and in order to stay from sin, and became separatistic.
No wonder there was uproar among the Jews when the Gentiles became Christians. Their culture was considered pagan and the people were unclean. If someone wanted to join the Jewish faith he had to repudiate his religion and culture. He was required to be baptized, circumcised and follow the Jewish laws.
Paul was finding Jewish Christians trying to make Gentiles fit their Jewish culture. These cultural leaders were known as the Judiazers. They felt all of the traditions needed to be kept in order for anyone to have true faith in Jesus. All Gentile Christians had to first become like the Jews and start the road to sinless perfection and keep the 600 plus laws.
Paul has an interesting term for them- dogs. This is what they called the Gentiles and now Paul is calling the Judiazers dogs-Scavengers, who get what they can. It is the lowest dirtiest animal, next to the pig, in their culture. They were causing havoc in the church prowling the Eastern cities without a home and without an owner, and attacking those who passed by.
Traditions can mislead people today. Denominations and ties to the church because that is the church of mother, father, grandmother and grandfather and beyond can be a cultures that keep us from faith.
I was pastoring in Wisconsin for about 2 years when I met someone in the community who said they were from my church. That was the church of their heritage. I had not met them and I was the pastor, nor were they on the church rolls. He looked somewhat embarrassed and said, "I didn't say I was a fanatic." If that's were grandpa went, it's okay with me too. That's cultural religion.
But culture can also get in the way of worship as well. We can judge others unfairly by what we are used to or what we enjoy instead of what is honoring to the Lord. In the Baptist church I grew up in, they always stood and sang the doxology after the offering. I thought that was rather weird. But boy trouble came to any pastor who tried to change that tradition. There are congregations that like to whoop it up in worship. Others approach services with preplanned liturgy and written prayers. Africans hymns on benches with Men and women separated and the beating of the drums. I attended Indian churches clapping and singing while seated on the ground, and it was not considered proper to come into a place of worship with your shoes or sandals on. In Russia you can never have a prayer without standing even if you are at home and having grace both before and after the meals. Those are all cultural ways to express faith, but it is a problem if the culture soon becomes the law and anyone who doesn't practice faith they way we do cannot be a true Christian. Unfortunately, many missionaries used to confuse the culture with the message in the lands in which they ministered instead of adapting truth to ways the people would appreciate and understand. Most churches have had battles over whether their service should be tradition, contemporary, praise chorus, guitars organs or blended. Cultural concerns can be a danger in religion. And be very careful you don't confuse that with godliness.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds Oct 13 Performance
Verses- Phil 3:1-7
Danger of Religion- Performance
Another danger of religion is performance. Many, if not most, people think religion is a matter of doing a bunch of good things that will qualify you to get to heaven. Being circumcised was not only a culture thing among the Jews but also it became a legalistic requirement for Jewish Christians to accept a person as a brother in Christ. They taught was something required in order to be accepted by God. It is placing our salvation on works of men instead of the works of Jesus Christ.
The danger of religion is that many think if they do certain things they will go to heaven because they have joined a church, or was baptized, or give money to a church and serve in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.
Circumcision was a sign back to Abraham's day of being part of his family and a sign of the blessing of his seed. The male foreskin was cut, literally and physically to the people of the promise indicating they were God's people.
Acts 15 reveals the council meeting of the apostles and elders to discuss what is required after people came to faith in Christ,. The physical act of circumcision cannot save. Judiazers were more concerned about performance than sincere faith in Christ. What is needed, Paul states, was a circumcised heart. That was a figurative expressing meaning we are cut in our hearts with guilt and same of sin and want to cut that out of our lives and turn to Christ in repentance and open up our hearts to God to take away our sin and forgive us.
When anyone makes knowing Jesus Christ a secondary issue in being saved, that person is an evildoer. Today we have a whole range of what some people teach must happen to be a Christian. Some teach you must speak in tongues, another teaches you must be baptized, one stresses tithing, Most believe you must just try to live a good life.
It is so easy and so tempting to want to be able to point to a number of things we do and don’t do in order to show that we are saved. But that’s not true. We can do all the right things, go to all the right places, and volunteer at all the right functions and be lost and spend eternity in hell. Our hope cannot be in doing, but rather in knowing who Jesus is and becoming what he intended for us to be.
A man can be the best volunteer, the most helpful person at the church, and the person everybody know they can depend on for help. But if that man is a husband, doing those things is not what God is seeking. God wants him to be a child of God. That means loving his wife and his children in a manner pleasing in God’s eyes, before trying to minister to the church and to the world. "God always wants us to be what we need to be at home first. But we’d rather impress the world with our good deeds. The world might be impressed, but God never is.
One pastor wrote on the blackboard- doing. Then beneath it he wrote –done. True faith does not begin with our doing anything. It is accepted the truth it has already been done for us. We cannot earn our salvation but receive it. Likewise there are many who try to impress God with the works as a Christian. But God knows our hearts if it is performance or if we are acting in the love for Him and others.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs Oct 14 Pride
Verses- Verses- Phil 3:1-7
Dangers of Religion- Pride
The problem that many religious people have is when they set up the rules and trust the rules you can therefore judge one another and yourselves according to those rules and you have developed a hierarchy of status. Those who perform very well can take pride in the fact they are Jewish, and keep all the laws, and members of the Pharisees or Sanhedrin, or Rabbis of great education.
They are self righteous. It is a religion of self. Success breeds smugness. But the Bible teaches, "a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou will not despise."
We are called to fall on our knees in repentance and ask forgiveness. There is no pride that can be taken in our work. We cannot be proud of what we have done to be a Christian for we did nothing to deserve it. Someone told us the good news. Christ did all the rest.
Here is how Paul addresses the pride problem. He compares his religion with theirs and Paul comes up higher on the totem pole so to speak. He has bragging rights, for He is a better Jew than they are. He was born into a pure Hebrew family and also circumcised. He was not a proselyte, nor was he descended from Ishmael (Abraham’s other son) or Esau (Isaac’s other son). The Judaizers would understand Paul’s reference to the tribe of Benjamin, because Benjamin and Joseph were Jacob’s favorite sons. They were born to Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. Israel’s first king came from the tribe of Benjamin. And this little tribe was faithful to David during the rebellion under Absalom. Paul’s human heritage was something to be proud of! When measured by this standard, he passed with flying colors." Both of his parents were Jews, he spoke the Jewish language, practiced the Jewish customs, and carried out the Jewish manner of life.
Paul could and did take pride in his religious knowledge. He had degrees in Jewish religion and in Christian theology that they couldn't even come close to. He says in regard to the law a Pharisee. Pharisees were the most educated of the educated. Paul had his academic degrees. Not only that, the Pharisees had the strictest and most difficult rules to follow. There were held in high esteem by the people. When you said your Son was a Pharisee, you had said something to be super proud of. He was a Pharisee and taught by Gamelio.
But let’s talk about zeal. No way can they take as much pride in zeal as Paul could. He was a persecutor of the church. Paul hunted down and voted to have Christians executed, not because he hated people, but because he loved the word of God. He thought these Christians were perverting the word of God in claiming Jesus to be the Messiah. He went out of his way to make sure the Jews remained steadfast to the word of God.
Bottom line Paul writes "as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless" Paul paid his tithes and all the special offerings without complaining. He helped the orphans and the widows, he was present at the temple, he was faithful in his tasks, he kept the law and nobody could go and say, aha, you’re not doing this. The man had more good works by himself than we probably have as a church.
If he wanted to have put confidence in his ability to make it into heaven on his own he had what it took to try it. He had religion, race, descent, education, high moral values, and blameless outward righteousness. But my friends when Paul discovered the reality of a relationship with Jesus was possible, his assessment of the value of these things in his life underwent a radical change.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri Oct 15 – Sincerity
Verses- 7 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."
Dangers of Religion - Sincerity
It is often said, “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere.” Most people recognize the falseness of that statement. But zeal and passion are often mistaken for truth. Some might be convinced that if people are willing to die for their faith, they have something I do not have. They are fully convinced they are right and gain followers to their cause.
Indeed, when Christ arose it gave confidence and passion to the apostles who were willing to now give up their lives for the cause. That zeal and passion and sincerity did not make it true. The facts of who Jesus Christ is and what He did made it true. We see the zeal of Muslim zealots who give their lives for a false religion. Are they sincere? Absolutely! Do they gain followers? They sure do. It is their passion to give their lives for a cause, even a false one, that others without purpose find attractive.
Paul relates his zeal and sincerity but compared to the facts of the reality of Jesus Christ all his works and learning and zeal is now garbage.
Warren Wiersbe in his little book on Philippians says "Like most ’religious’ people today, Paul had enough morality to keep him out of trouble, but not enough righteousness to get him into heaven! It was not bad things that kept Paul away from Jesus -- it was good things! He had to lose his ’religion’ to find salvation.
What it all amounts to is a set-up. He is not bragging to bolster himself, but to bolster the incredible work of Christ which has taken over his life. He has taken everything that the Judiazers hold dear and proven that he has already achieved far more than they could ever hope to, and then he brings it all down with one fell swoop.
Look at verse 7 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." Paul is saying, all these things that I thought were so important in life, and these things that I thought gave me an advantage with God not only do I consider them a loss, I realize now that they were actually a danger.
Paul is not saying that he is giving up these things to follow Jesus. He’s saying, these things would have sent me to hell, had it not been for Jesus. They allowed him to be content with just doing things, rather than being what God demanded of me on the inside. He was sincere, but sincerely wrong.
I see the commitment many people have, like in Mexico, to their religious rituals and grieve over their lostness of their souls. I saw Hindus call upon their gods and sacrifice things to them only without avail. Some pagan religions will require the sacrifice of their children. They have passion and commitment but it is all a lie from Satan.
When people say, I gave up my career to follow Jesus, or I gave up a good job to follow Jesus, or I gave up my fiancé to follow Jesus, they do not understand what Jesus offers. When we hold on to something instead of letting it go and follow Jesus, the truth is we are not holding on to anything. That thing has seized control of us and has become our god.
Notice it wasn’t just when Paul got saved that he considered everything a loss. It became a lasting attitude or way of life. Nothing was excluded. Anything that hindered him in developing and maintaining a relationship with Jesus Christ was considered a loss and a minus factor in his life.
Keep in mind that losses are not bad things in themselves. You can be spending time doing good things, even church things, but if they rob us from spending time in developing our relationship with Jesus Christ, those things are losses. Even people in our lives can become losses, once we allow them to keep us from becoming what Jesus intends us to be.
Jesus does not call us to do things. He calls us to come to Him, that we might become more like Him. Good works do not save us, nor do they change us. Zeal is admirable. Passion is noteworthy. But ultimately it comes from knowing Jesus personally, not in our emotional state.
Pastor Dale
