INTRODUCTION
• RELATIONSHIP VIDEO (NOT A POWERPOINT)
• SLIDE #1
• Should relationships make a difference in your life? Should a relationship with Jesus make a difference in your life?
• Our relationships in many ways define who we are. Think about it, to Rachel’s friends, I am Rachel’s dad. To Robyn’s friends, I am Robyn’s husband. To people at church, I am your Minister.
• I believe the MOST important relationship that defines who we are is our relationship or lack of relationship with Jesus.
• We have been taking a look at 8 ways to be a bad Christian.
• Today we will continue that examination.
• One of the ways we can be a bad Christian is when our faith is not based our a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus.
• We will look at three indicators of where our faith is based.
• Let us start with our text in Matthew 23:15
• SLIDE #2
• Matthew 23:15 (ESV)15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
You can tell what your faith is based on by:
I. WHAT DRIVES YOU.
• When you try to tell where your faith is based, knowing what drives you can be an indicator of where you are at.
• People are driven by many things. The desire for money, power, prestige, and popularity are but a few.
• What is it that makes you get up in the morning? What makes you want to do what you do?
• In verse 15, Jesus tells us that the Pharisees would literally or figuratively travel across land and sea to make a proselyte.
• These guys were driven.
• What is a proselyte? A proselyte is simply someone who after teaching changes their religion.
• In Old Testament times there were basically two types of proselytes to the Jewish religion.
• One was known as a Proselyte of Righteousness. This is a pagan or gentile who fully embraced the Jewish religion, they followed all of the rites of the Mosaic Law AND they were circumcised!
• The other type was the Proselyte of the Gate. This is one who rejected their pagan life, conformed to some of the Mosaic Law and WAS NOT circumcised.
• You can probably guess which group was larger.
• When Jesus said the Pharisees would cross land or sea to get a proselyte He was more or less saying they would spare no pains, take any means necessary to convert an interested party.
• The Pharisees restricted their zealous missionary efforts to God-fearing pagans.
• “God-fearing” referred to Gentiles who followed the beliefs of Judaism. They didn’t want to mix with the “unclean” Gentiles. But the Pharisees’ zeal was real.
• They would go to Jewish communities in other lands, and in addition to handling legal matters and teaching, they would try to talk the God-fearers into undergoing the final rite of circumcision.
• This sounds like a GREAT doesn’t it?
• It sounds like these men were driven to convert people to God!
• Isn’t that what we are supposed to do?
• Is that what drives you? Why do we want FCC to grow? We want to help build God’s kingdom don’t we?
• As a Minister, am I serving the Lord for His glory or my gain? Serving for His glory should be the thing that drives me. It should be the thing that drives you.
• Remember, Jesus called these guys hypocrites AGAIN. Why?
• Maybe what we want to think drove them to reach people was not what was really driving them?
• You see, getting a proselyte was a big thing for a Pharisee.
• Gentile proselytes were not easy to make, and when one of them converted he was considered something of a prize.
• The Proselyte of Righteousness was the kind of convert in which the scribes and Pharisees delighted. It was considered a great achievement to initiate a Gentile into all their legalistic practices.
• The Pharisees were driven to make proselytes because it made them look good. That is part of the reason Jesus called them hypocrites.
• Back to my earlier question. What is it that drives you to serve the Lord? A couple of weeks ago we touched on this. Is it to receive the praise of man or the praise of God?
• Are we wanting to grow as a church for our glory, do we want to build an empire or do we want to help grow God’s kingdom?
• Do we want to make sure everything is the way we want it because we worship tradition or are we willing to do what we need to do to please the Lord.
• You can tell a lot by what drives you. You can tell where you faith is based or rooted in by what motivates you.
• What drives your activities, actions, passions, and complaints?
• A second way you can tell where your faith is based is by where your focus is.
• SLIDE #4
You can tell what your faith is based on by:
II. WHERE YOUR FOCUS IS.
• The Pharisees at first glance seemed to be focused on making converts. It seemed like they wanted to introduce God to a godless people.
• This sounds great.
• Jesus said they would travel land or sea in order to make one proselyte! That would seem impressive.
• Remember I stated there were two kinds of proselytes. Righteous and gate.
• Remember also that Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites.
• It would appear the Pharisees were not winning these proselytes to God, but rather to their own religious traditions.
• In making converts, the Pharisees sought rather to secure outward conformity than inward piety, change of external religion than change of heart.
• There was no love of souls, no burning zeal for the honor of God, in their proselytism.
• They were prompted only by selfish and base motives—vain glory, party spirit, covetousness; and if they converted men to their own opinions, with their false tenets, gross externalism, and practical immorality, they had far better have left them in their irresponsible ignorance.
• Unfortunately, many of the Pharisees’ converts were attracted to status and rule keeping, not to God.
• By getting caught up in the details of the Pharisees’ additional laws and regulations, they completely missed God, to whom the laws pointed.
• A religion of deeds pressures people to surpass others in what they know and do. Thus, a hypocritical teacher was likely to have students who were even more hypocritical.
• The focus of the Pharisees was not god, but rather their rules.
• Remember Jesus was scolded by the Pharisees on many occasions for not keeping THEIR rules.
• These people were being converted to Phariseeism, not God. They were winning people to their corrupt practices and the traditions of their sect, not to God.
• What about our focus?
• Have you ever heard people say that we needed to get more people in the church so we could pay the bills? Or we need to get more people in the church because we will die out if we do not?
• Those issues cannot be the focus of our work. Our focus MUST be on carrying out the will of God by bringing people to Jesus. WE MUST KEEP OUR FOCUS ON JESUS!
• Sometimes people get their focus on the wrong place.
• WE WANT TO CONVERT PEOPLE TO CHRIST, NOT TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH CHURCHES OF CHRIST OR BAPTISTS, OR ANYTHING ELSE!
• It is all about Christ. I was at the church of a friend when I was in Auburn. It was a denominational church. They had a book or rules and creeds that was easily 3 times the size of the bible!
• I had a situation in another place where people were going to get upset over moving a cross so we would implement some technology.
• I know of another instance where a group was going to quit going to church because some fake stained glass was going to be moved.
• What is our focus?
• We should be thinking of ways to do God’s will not focus on a status quo.
• Then when we win someone to Jesus, we need to make sure we are winning them to Jesus and not just some program or to a preacher.
• What is your life focused on? Self or service to God?
• The Pharisees had some real issues with being focused in the wrong direction.
• If as a church we lose our focus, we will lose our way; we MUST stay focused on doing what we need to do in order to connect people with Christ!
• Keep your focus on Christ and you will be surprised how other things are not so important.
• A third way we will be able to tell what our faith was based on is by the kind of reward we receive.
• SLIDE #5
You can tell what your faith is based on by:
III. WHAT KIND OF REWARD YOU RECEIVE.
• WOW! Jesus gives a harsh assessment of what kind of reward these folks were in line for.
• The unfortunate part of this point is that by the time you get your reward, it is too late to change it or you cannot trade it in for something better.
• You do not get to trade your reward for what is behind door number two.
• I LOVED LET’S MAKE A DEAL! DONKEYS AND PIGS. RACH AND I WATCHED IT TOGETHER. Back to the message.
• Look at what Jesus says.
• SLIDE #6
• …you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
• Jesus is telling them that they are deserving of hell!
• He also says those they converted would be twice as deserving of hell!
• Sometimes the converts surpassed their mentors in fanatical zeal, but because their zeal was not godly it simply led them more certainly to hell.
• This is a passage from last week. It shows that GOD knows what our faith is based on. He knows what we are up to. He knows what drives us and where our focus is.
• SLIDE #7
• Matthew 7:21 (ESV)21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
CONCLUSION
• When our faith is not based on our relationship with Jesus, when it is based on other stuff, it will show. God knows. We will receive the corresponding reward.
• The leaders of Jesus day placed their faith in their system of religion instead of developing a relationship with their creator.
• When we misplace our faith, it will cause us a lot of problems and it will hamper our ability to win people to Jesus!
• Have you lost focus, today is the day to get it back!
