Right thing the wrong way Pt 6
Why religious people are dangerous
Introduction
A. Today we are going to finish our sermon series on ‘Doing the right thing the wrong way.” This has been an incredible sermon series and has really affected me and the way I go about representing God and the ways of God.
B. We need to be careful that we are doing the right thing but we need to more careful that we are doing it the right way. It is not right to excuse bad behavior by saying, “Well at least I did the right thing.” If we do it the wrong way, with the wrong attitude, being mean or rude it does not please God and it actually hinders the work of God and often sets people further away from God rather then helping them.
C. Today I want to look at one more situation about a group of people who were doing the right thing but went about it totally the wrong way. Today we are going to talk about why religious people are so dangerous! We are going to read the story about when the Pharisees caught a lady committing adultery and brought her to Jesus to see what He would do about this sinful situation. We will be reading in the Gospel of John today. Let’s see what God’s Word has to say about being religious in John 8:1-11.
The Pharisees were right, she should have been stoned
A. One day in Jesus’ life, there was a woman who was brought to Jesus by the ruling authorities. She was guilty. She was breaking the law of God and was caught committing adultery. There does seem something strange about this though.
B. What is missing here? (Let the people yell out, ‘The man.’) It is interesting that the women always catch this! Yes the man was missing. I am not sure why but it really does not matter. She was guilty and her punishment, according to the Law of God given to Moses, was supposed to be stoning to death. It would not have changed anything if they brought the man along with her or not. She was guilty. There was no way around this.
C. The religious leaders wanted her to pay the ultimate price. They wanted to condemn her to death by stoning. But before they carried out their plans, they brought the woman to Jesus to see what He might have to say about the whole thing. What Jesus did on that day changed her life forever. It gave her a brand new start. The Pharisees on the other hand did not really care about this lady. They cared more about following the rules of religion and punishing anyone who did not follow the rules. They were doing the right thing, but they were going about it the wrong way. Their incredible disrespect for this lady is shocking. Their love and compassion were non-existent.
Religious people are dangerous
A. They follow the letter of the law. That is all they are concerned about, people and people’s needs are never considered. They simply measure everything by the rules. Are you obeying the rules? Good. Are you breaking the rules? Then you get punished.
B. The law is good. We need rules to live in this world. Can you imagine if we did not have rules on the highway and people wanted to drive on either side or go as fast or as slow as they felt lead! That would not work. What if we did not have rules at work? You could show up whenever you wanted or leave whenever you wanted and still get paid the same amount. Rules are good, but we need to be careful we don’t live ONLY by them. They can make us mean and hurtful. They can lead us down a path of doing the right thing the wrong way.
C. There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling sin exactly what it is. God hates sin and makes it clear that sin will never have a place in His presence. As believers, we are called to hate sin and stand against sinful behavior. However, it is important to remember that God hates sin but He loves the sinner. Jesus died to redeem lost people, to buy them back from the penalty and punishment of sin. More important than our call to hate sin, is our call to love sinners. Far too often we forget this fundamental fact. We look at people, size them up, pass judgment and begin throwing stones. The sad truth s that we are far more willing to point out the faults and failures of others without realizing and recognizing that we are not without faults ourselves.
D. Religious people are dangerous because they are doing the right thing. But since they are doing it wrong, it brings confusion in people’s minds about God. It leaves a bad taste in their mouth and pushes people away from God. Since they are religious people who are doing this people can’t figure out why something not right. Many times unreligious people are intimidated by religious people!
E. Here is the mistake that these religious people were making. They were not giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to give specific guidance about how to apply the Law in certain cases.
Jesus was NOT religious
A. Jesus was stalling for time, writing nothing in the sand. I have heard so many sermons about what Jesus was writing in the sand. Some say He was writing out their sins. Some say He was writing the word ‘forgiveness.’ Have you ever tried to write in dry sand? It is not possible! Since we are not told what He wrote, I think it best we don’t try to guess what He wrote. I believe what He wrote was not significant. People are funny when it comes to understanding Jesus in the Bible. We forget He was 100% man. He set aside His God powers when He came to earth. So instead of saying that Jesus as writing the sins of people, He was probably buying some time, and praying, “Oh crap, what am I going to do? Please help me Holy Spirit!”
B. He was waiting to hear the Holy Spirit tell Him what to do. It would not have been wrong to condemn this lady to be stoned. She broke the Law of God and the law was clear on what the punishment should be. There are times when God brings judgment on sin. We read about a story in the Book of Acts about a couple that made a large donation to the church after they sold some land. They told a lie and said they were giving all the money to the church but in fact they kept back some of it and they were struck dead, right there in the church service for lying! Would have been an interesting Sunday service that day. You go home and your husband or wife did not attend that day ask, “How did church go today?” “Oh same old, same old, a couple was struck dead for lying!”
C. The point is there are times when God brings swift and harsh punishment when people go against His ways and there are times when God shows grace. Jesus was not changing the Law when He told her to go and sin no more. He was showing Her grace and mercy. God is not obligated to ALWAYS punish bad behavior. He can show grace when He sees fit to do so. Just like many of us who are parents know we are not obligated to always punish our children when they do wrong, or we don’t always have to punish them the same way when they do wrong. Sometimes we may feel lead to talk them instead or maybe use a different form of punishment.
D. Jesus wanted to only do what He heard the Father telling Him to do, especially when it came to following the laws of God. Jesus never condoned the woman’s sin, He never said, “Hey that’s all right, God loves you anyway.” No, He first gives her grace, pardons her sin, then says, go and sin no more. Jesus showed a good example of accepting people and challenging people. He let the lady know He loved her and accepted her by standing up for her, but when He sent her away, He challenged her in Pastor Dave’s amplified version; “I believe in you. You can do better, go and sin no more!” He treated her with respect. This is powerful. Truth and grace can go together.
E. God gave us laws, and when they are broken punishment usually follows, but God is not obligated to punish everyone EVERY single time they do something wrong. Sometimes God lets us slide, that is called ‘mercy.” Mercy means we do NOT get what we deserve. We may deserve to be punished for something bad that we did, but for some reason God decides to show mercy instead.
F. People who are religious do not understand this. That is why religious people tend to do the right thing the wrong way. Always punishing people without ever showing mercy is not a good thing.
How can we be careful not to become religious? Rom 10:17
A. We need to learn the difference between the LOGOS Word and the Rhema word.
B. This verse is telling us how faith is born. It comes from hearing God speaking to you. The Greek word used here for ‘word of God’ is Rhema, which means the inspired word, or the written word personally applied to your life. Faith comes when God speaks to you. Reading God’s word makes it easier to hear God speaking to you. But just reading the word is not enough
C. The written word is called the Logos in Greek. It is the Word of God without any mistakes. When we read the Logos Word, the Bible we learn about God and His Kingdom. But just reading that does not give us faith. Just because we read that Jesus healed the sick does not give us the power to heal the sick. This is part of the problem with people claiming their healings. Just reading that Jesus walked on water does not give us the power to walk on water. What is needed is the ‘Rhema’ spoken word from God to you. When God speaks to us then faith is born. We can recognize it is God’s voice, because it agrees with His written Word. So if we hear something that is contrary to God’s word we know it is not God speaking.
D. When He speaks faith is born in our hearts, actually we first have to decide whether we believe it is God speaking and we have to decide whether we are going to obey or not. Faith is born from hope. First you have hope then you dream about it and pray about it. Somewhere in this process, God speaks to you about those hopes and dreams and says, “Yes or no.” When He says, “Yes,” at that moment it becomes faith. You receive it from God; you agree with God, you say “amen.” Something inside of you knows it is going to happen. It is no longer a dream. When you hear in your spirit God says yes, at that moment faith is born. That is when it changes from hoping something is going to happen to knowing in your spirit something is going to happen.
E. Logos gives you hope. You read about it and you begin to believe that God can do the same for you. It is how we learn about God’s character and the ways of His Kingdom. But just because we read something in the Bible it does not mean that we can do it. When we read the stories of God divinely moving in miraculous ways it becomes a foundation upon which we can build.
F. But we need the Rhema word to have faith and to do the right thing the right way. Rhema is a PERSONAL word of God to you about a specific situation. Now this is very important. If you don’t get this you will struggle with being religious.
G. Religious people don’t know the difference between the Logos, written word, and the Rhema word, inspired word. They basically don’t know the voice of God’s Holy Spirit. So they just make their decisions on the written laws and rules.
H. A truly spiritual alive person has both the logos written word and listens for the Rhema Word on how to apply the written word to their situations.
I. If we want to do the right thing the right way we need to learn how to listen to God’s Holy Spirit regarding how to apply God’s Word to our lives and to our situations. There is no substitute for this.
There is an interesting proverb that says: Answer a fool according to his folly and then it says, ‘do not answer a fool according to his folly.” Prov 26:4-5
A. Now that does sound like a contradiction doesn’t it? What is wrong with King Solomon, can’t he make up his mind? What is he trying to say?
B. He is trying to say sometimes we need to get in and confront a person or punish a person for what they are doing, but there are also sometimes when it is best that we back off and let them alone.
C. How do we know when to do each of these?
D. We need to know the voice or the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is not that mysterious. He puts thoughts in our heads. Sometimes we just get an impression or a sense that we should do this or do that. Usually that is the Holy Spirit trying to guide us.
E. This is scary for some people, especially religious people. They would just rather live by rules, it is easier that having to listen to the Holy Spirit. It is easier to just live by rules than having to learn how to love each person and to be sensitive to their particular needs. But if we want to do the right thing the right way, we need to listen for the Rhema word, the inspired word.
Summary
A. If we want to do the right thing the right way, we need to slow down and give God a chance to speak to us by His Holy Spirit.
B. Then once we hear His voice we need to have the courage to obey. I say we need courage because sometimes God does not do things by the book. Sometimes He is way outside of the box and it take courage to obey.
C. Learning the difference between the Logos and Rhema word will be a great help in doing the right thing the right way.
D. Living being lead by the Holy Spirit is the greatest adventure you could ever imagine.
