Are We Minimalists Series

Message

Humans are interesting creatures aren’t they? On the one hand we mostly want to be seen as being good people who are doing the right thing and who make a positive contribution to the community. On the other hand – in order to achieve this goal – we try and do as little as possible.

We do it at school.

We do it at University.

We do it at work.

We do it at home.

We even do it in our spiritual life.

What we are is minimalists.

It’s the principal of doing as little as we can to make ourselves look good, and then justifying our actions when we need to bend the rules a little bit to suit our needs. It’s also a principal which quickly makes us very judgemental of others. And it is principal that was used by a group of people in the Bible known as the Pharisees.

Jesus didn’t have a lot of good things to say about the Pharisees. Which was kind of strange because everyone else at the time believed the Pharisees where good hard working people. They were often leaders who were held in high regard. They were very committed to God and to the Jewish community. They took the word of God seriously. So seriously that they added another set of rules to the Word of God. Many of those rules were to help people understand how to use the Sabbath Day – which in those days was the day of worship, not a day of work. So, how do you avoid work? Well here is one of the rules they had.

In those days they had two types of chickens. Chickens which laid eggs and chickens which were fattened up to eat. On the Sabbath day you could not eat eggs that were laid by an egg-laying chicken because the chicken had worked to lay that egg. But, if your eating chickens laid an egg you could eat that one. It wasn’t work it was an accident. Not only that you couldn’t eat the fattened chicken on the Sabbath, but you could eat the egg-laying chicken.

That is just one of many rules. These people all looked so holy and so upright with all these rules to follow. And the society was looking at the Pharisees and saying, “I could never be that holy” and the Pharisees would look around and say to society, “You will never be as holy as us”. Then into this situation Jesus drops a bombshell.

I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:20

As far as Jesus is concerned all the rule following and hallo’s are useless. People cannot be minimalists and expect to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s the principle. Jesus then goes on to apply this principal is six different areas of life – each area is introduced in the same way.

You have heard that it was said – that is the Pharisee minimal approach.

But I say – this is the Jesus “enter the kingdom of heaven” approach.

Let’s have a brief look at each of these areas and see how they apply to us.

Regarding Murder - Read Matthew 5:21-26

Pharisees – You have heard it was said

Do not murder. It seems simple enough. Don’t kill anyone. Make sure you don’t assist people to Suicide. Make sure you don’t starve people to death. We haven’t done these actions. So this isn’t us. We have kept the rules.

Do you think you are a murderer? If you don’t you’re a Pharisee.

Jesus – But I tell you

You may not have literally picked up the gun, but if you have been angry with someone you might as well have. You see murder is just anger that has been given its full expression. Why do you think they say, “If looks could kill ...”. We know if looks could kill a lot more people would be on trial for murder.

Jesus doesn’t look at the actions. Jesus looks at the heart. What He wants to see is a heart that is going to bring about peace. If you are offering a gift and remember someone has something against you:-

not you have something against them.

but someone has something against you.

You go. You fix the issue. You be the peacemaker. That is the kingdom way.

Are you a minimalists or Kingdom citizen?

How many people have you murdered?

They have hurt you and you want nothing more to do with them. You continue to habour anger and bitterness. You go out of your way to make sure you never see them again.

There is not forgiveness. There is no healing. There is no peace-making.