Ultimate Cage Fighting
Pt. 4 – The Cage of Religion
I. Introduction
Round 1, we battled the Cage of Fear. Round 2, we squared off against the Cage of Death. In Round 3, we slugged it out with the Cage of Addiction. Today, we take on what may be an even tougher opponent . . . the Cage of Religion.
I say tougher because at an initial glace religion seems to be great, good, and even necessary for us to live a godly life. The idea of religion appears like an innocent and even noble cause.
Perhaps the best place to begin our examination of the Cage of Religion is at the beginning. Genesis 1 and 2 is the account of creation and man’s unveiled and unrestricted interaction with God. Walks in the garden. Daily sightseeing tours of God’s handy work. Dialogue and relationship with no barriers. Then Genesis 3 comes along and chronicles the fall of man and the breakdown of that uninhibited relationship. Sin enters the picture and division is now the law of the land.
Religion means to “to bind fast” or “to bind again”. Finally in Chapter 4 of Genesis we see the birth of Religion. Cain and Able in an attempt to bind fast or bind again to God again carry out a religious ceremony of sacrifice to God. They had been given no instructions or commands. They take it on themselves to struggle be tied again, or to be tied quickly, to God. I think it is very important to see that RELIGION WAS BORN OUT OF SEPARATION. God never wanted religion for His people. He only wanted relationship. And I want to submit to you that is still His primarily desire . . . relationship!
Mankind learned well from our forefathers. We are very re
ligious! There are about 21 major world religions today and if you break it down into subdivisions, one study claims over 4200 religions can be found on earth today.
There is a God-sized hole in our souls that we are constantly trying to fill with religious activity. Religion is our attempt to get to God!
There is nothing wrong with trying to get to God except that our strength, power, adherence to a set of rules, devotion to a certain creed, following dress codes, or any other man made path never gets to God. In many cases those things become a substitute for God! So religion can provide order, camaraderie, evaluation, systems, but not God! God is only found in relationship and that relationship can only be found by going through the one door that has been opened to us to get to God! That door is Christ Jesus. That is why in John 14, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” No religious system. No religious code can get you to God. In fact, what religious systems do is cage you in!
Did you know that you can be very religious and have no relationship with God? Paul recognized this and experienced this when he traveled to Mars Hill in Acts. In Acts 17:22 he says about these religious folks, “I observe that you are very religious in every respect.” Yet at the same time Paul also points out in verse 23 that they have an idol built that they worship with the inscription that says “to the unknown god”. They don’t even know who they are worshipping. Paul understood that regardless of how religious you are you are dead unless you know the one you are worshipping. Religion is self-sterilizing. Religion minus relationship cannot sustain life. Religion without relationship only produces death. Paul discovered that there was no life on Mars.
If you are not careful you can become satisfied with religion and allow that to become a substitute for or even a barrier to God.
I find it interesting that while Jesus was walking among us that He had a very contentious relationship with religious folks. That is probably putting it mildly. Jesus strapped on gloves everyday and went to war with the most religious folks on the planet. He spent his whole life messing with religious folks. He picked fights with them. He wasn’t very patient with them. He called them names like vipers, white washed tombs, fools, and hypocrites (by the way those have been in the church since Jesus’ day so it is nothing new). Jesus dismissed them or got rid of them at various times when he was healing folks. Some he dismissed by his words and once they were dismissed with a whip! These were religious folks! They had found 612 rules in the Bible and from them; they had extracted 2,000 other rules about the rules. You know you are religious when you need rules for the rules! These were called fences. Jesus would have viewed them as cages!
II. Spotting the Cage of Religion
So if this was Jesus’ response to religion and we don’t want to become trapped by a religious cage so that we are separated from Him, how do we know if we have become caged by religion?
There are several things Jesus points out that that help us spot religion.
Matthew 23:3-7; 27-28
3All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 4For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 6And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 27Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer. 4-7"Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ’Doctor’ and ’Reverend.’ 27-28"You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds. (Message)
1. Religious folks don’t practice what they preach!
They knew the law, preached the law, enforced the law, but didn’t live the law. Know anyone like that? Are you like that? Jesus was very clear that we must live out what we preach! Religion is easy to spot because a religious person will always be able to give you the right answer, the letter of the law and condemn the person who isn’t living up to that law, but seldom ever live up to the law themselves. Religious folks are really good about attacking the sin they see in everyone else without ever addressing the sin in their own life! How many of you know the other car’s headlights are brighter than yours? Remember the old beam and speck teaching?
A sure fire way to know if you are caught in the cage of religion is to listen to yourself talk about other people’s sins!
2. Religious folks make it hard for people to reach God!
Have you ever met anyone that made it harder for you to reach God than it was for them? I mean they got to God by following a simple procedure. I pray with my mouth believe in my heart and then I am in relationship with God. Now, though that I have met God I think there are some other standards that you have to meet first before you can come to God! Somewhere along the way religious folks have come to the conclusion that it is our job to clean folks up before they reach God rather than allowing them to reach God and letting Him clean them up.
I am all for holiness! Believe me I know about holiness. I have never been to a movie. I have never danced. I still wear long pants rather than shorts (you should thank me for that later by the way, because I would blind you permanently). So I know about holiness! But only holy people are supposed to be holy. Religious folks expect sinners to act like saints! And if they don’t we make it so hard on them that we become a roadblock to keep them from God as if their sin is going to contaminate God!
We should be doing everything we can do to make it as easy as possible for people to get to God. I am not talking about cheap grace! I am not saying that once people encounter God that we shouldn’t expect them to drop their addictions, their alternative life styles, their promiscuous life styles, that their language shouldn’t change! I am just saying that we should be making sure that God is as easy to get to for them as he was for us! God doesn’t need to be protected! Once they are saved we can help learn a better way to live as long as we don’t put such heavy rules on them that they can’t stay in touch with God!
One sure fire way to pinpoint someone who is religious is that they are extremely opinionated! And it is their way or no way! They are always the authority and the one who is right!
3. Religious folks are more concerned about the outside than the inside.
Perpetual fashion shows. At the prescribed time of prayer, if they were crossing the road, they would stop and have their hour of prayer while all the traffic backed up. This was a Pharisee. It was an outward, external show-off kind of thing. They had a prayer shawl, which was prescribed in Scripture (Numbers 15:38). The shawl had tassels. God said when you see the tassels move you will remember that I am your covenant God. They made their tassels exceedingly long. That was to show that they remembered God more than anybody. Even the way they walked was distinctive. They would shuffle in a pious manner. You couldn’t miss them. When they gave money they would have trumpets blown prior to their giving and make a big show of their giving.
These religious men were always making an outward show, but had no inward fruit. They had a form of godliness but no power.
How many of us make a religious show, but our religious activity has no impact on how we live our lives or whether or not we know God?
Did you know that going to church can be a social status or symbol issue? Attend just to climb the social ladder! People actually choose churches based on who they can meet and how can help them gain standing in the community or in their business! I thought we came to church to rub shoulders with God not a prominent business or political leader!
4. Religious folks want titles and positions.
I don’t have to say much about this. It is self explanatory. But you know you are religious if you chase titles and positions so that you will be publicly honored and revered! That doesn’t happen does it? You better believe it! There are folks right now at Kinkos adding apostle, prophet, bishop, pastor to their business card thinking that will get them honor. I think we should subscribe to the idea that our gift will make room for us and that any title we have is a title that has been given to us by others based on our gift rather than taking one on ourselves. I have a title that you can use for me! How about Steve! If you want to call me pastor because I have become your pastor in your mind and that is the place I have in your life fine, otherwise Steve is fine! I understand the principle that you can’t receive people beyond where you perceive people. So I am not saying we should disrespect those who have earned respect. I am just saying we don’t need to long for titles and positions just for honor sake! Your gift will earn you position in people’s lives.
III. Escape from the Cage
How do we get out of the cage of Religion?
1. Remember our first love!
Was our first love the rules or God? Was our focus holiness or Jesus? We have to get our focus back on Jesus and all the other stuff will follow.
2. Remember that God is trying to get to us harder than we are trying to get to Him!
Religion forces us to do certain things to get to Him. Relax, do the religious things you do, even Jesus said we should tithe, gather together in worship, etc., but do those things as a result of His love not to earn His love. He is never going to love you more or want to be with you more than He already does. Repent of the performance mentality! You can’t earn your way in! You are not going to impress God. We do what we do because we love Him!
3. Experience grace again!
We need to go back and remember that we are saved by grace. We didn’t earn it and didn’t deserve it. In fact, our righteousness is as filthy rags! So, therefore, those who have been given much grace should in turn offer much grace! We would become a lot less grating, argumentative, hard to get along with, and less of a hindrance to people coming into the kingdom if we would remember the amazing grace we have personally received!
4. Get involved in true religion.
We are told very clearly in James 1:26-27 about the kind of religion that God respects and blesses. He starts by telling us another way to tell if someone is caged by religion.
26If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
Your mouth reveals how religious you are!
Then he says there is a pure or real religion that God accepts.
27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
The religion that we must get involved in is caring for those who are less fortunate. Those who are unloved. Real religion helps others get to God by loving them into the kingdom. We don’t chastise them into the kingdom. We don’t rule them into the kingdom. We don’t preach them into the kingdom. We daily walk with them, put our arms around them, hand them candy-filled eggs and a hotdog, pitch them a softball and congratulate them on a great play, laugh with them, cry with them, help them when they are down, relate to them and love them into a relationship with God. Then after that we guard against corruption. We are with them but not of them. We walk with them, but we guard against sinning with them.
Put what we know into action. Most of us are religiously educated way beyond our level of obedience!
Colossians 3:12-14 is Paul’s answer to religion. In Chapter 2 he deals with religion. In Chapter 3 he shows us how we should live now that we know Christ.
12-14So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
IV. Closing
Religion is dangerous. 1000’s of People have been killed physically in the name of religion. Folks continue to be killed spiritually by religion. It can trap you in a prison of opinions, rules, and the law which kills. Or we can get involved in real religion that brings people to a loving God.
So my question is, "are you caged up by religion?"
Do you practice what you preach? Do you have everyone else’s life figured out, but can’t live your own?
Do you make it hard for people to reach God? Are you overly opinionated?
Are you more concerned about what other people think than you are about what God thinks? Is it just a show? Is church attendance just a religious act because that is what religious folks do? Is tithing just an act? Is worship just an act? Or are those things birthed out a love for Him?
It is time for us to escape that cage and remember His love, His grace, and His heart which is for those who are far from Him!
How many of you would keep doing what you are doing, keep the rules, keep serving, keep loving if there was no fear of punishment or no promise of reward?
Most men’s righteousness is only an evil heart constrained by fear. If it wasn’t for punishment . . . they don’t have right heart or right motives!
