Jesus verses Self-centered Religion
Thesis: Jesus attacked self centered religion and warns us not to be apart of the traditions of men because their motives are self-centered not God-centered. Scripture
Texts:
Matthew 9:2-17:
1Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.
2Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
3At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
4Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?
5Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?
6But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.…” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”
7And the man got up and went home.
8When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.
9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.
11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
14Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
15Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.
17Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Luke 11:37-54 (Matthew 23):
37When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table.
38But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.
39Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
40You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?
41But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
42“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
43“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44“Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”
45One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.”
46Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
47“Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them.
48So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.
49Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’
50Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world,
51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.
52“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
53When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions,
54waiting to catch him in something he might say.
Introduction:
“Much of our spiritual life has a great deal of leaven of self corrupting it,” said Dr. A.T. Pierson. “We seek self-advantage and self-glory on a higher level, and of a more refined sort. Nothing is so hard to kill as pride and selfishness. Man is like an onion layer after layer, and each a layer of self in some form. Strip off self-righteousness, and you will come to self-trust. Get beneath this, and you will come self-seeking, and self-pleasing. Even when we think these are abandoned, self-will betrays its presence. When this is stripped off, we come to self-defense, and last of all, self-glory. When this seems to be abandoned, the heart of the human onion discloses pride that boasts of being truly humble!”
Use an onion to demonstrate this illustration. – The onion as you peel it causes the eyes to burn because of the strong odor.
Self is like this onion it makes the eyes to burn when we peel it and deal with it. Self-centeredness is the odor that causes the Lord’s eyes to burn from its sting. This is why Jesus told us to die to self to get rid of that which brings tears and sorrow to eyes and the heart of God. Think about this passage in Luke 19:41-44:
41As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”45Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. 46“It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’
Jesus also was sorrowful we are told in Luke 13:31-35 because of the condition of the nation of Israel. It had walked away from God-centered mindsets to self-centered religious mindsets.
The truth of the matter is self is always getting in the way of each of us. Christians and non-Christians alike. Self even gets in the way of spiritual leaders and churches. You may be thinking how has the self-centered views of others affected spiritual leadership and the church? The first way is by becoming focused on self righteous traditions and then requiring everybody to align with this man made tradition. Jesus repeatedly confronted this dangerous mindset day after day in the place that should have recognized Him for who He was the Messiah. But self blinded the religious leaders. Lets explore Matthew 9:1-17 from the Visual Bible and see what Jesus did when confronted with self-centered religious mindsets.
Movie Clip: From Matthew 9:2-17 from the movie Matthew. This passage illustrates what happens when Jesus meets up with self-centered religious mindsets. It’s important to notice how self-centered religious minds are blinded when it comes to recognizing the will of God and the heartbeat of God. It’s all rooted in a thing called SELF.
I. How can a religious tradition become harmful? When SELF takes control of the religious persons heart and mind.
a. A religious tradition becomes harmful when it’s a self-centered practice rather than a God-centered act of worship.
i. SELF can be defined in the following ways by these different acrostics:
1. SELF= Serving Ego Living Foolishly
a. EGO = Edging God Out
2. SELF= Soon Everyone’s Life Fails
3. SELF= Someone Erasing Love & Faith
4. SELF= Serve Ego Lose Future
5. SELF= Sin Evil Lust Flesh
6. SELF= Serving Evil Living Fatally
ii. SELF I believe has done more to hinder the Kingdom of God than even the Devil.
1. SELF has caused more church splits
2. SELF has caused most of the apathy in the church.
3. SELF has allowed other things to surpass God things in our lives.
4. SELF has done atrocious things in the name of God.
5. SELF has divided the Body of Christ
6. SELF has deceived people for personal gain
7. SELF has used people to glorify themselves
iii. SELF is just plain selfish!
1. We encounter in the Business world all kinds of SELF.
a. Just look at the recent scandals- Enron, World Com. SELF is the root cause of these rip offs. SELF does not care about who it hurts or abuses. It just cares about SELF.
2. We encounter SELF also in the religious realm.
a. SELF has caused people to do evil in the name of God!
b. SELF has encouraged people to :
i. Self-glorification
ii. Self-indulgence
iii. Self-centeredness
iv. Self-righteousness
v. Self-focused
vi. Self-inflated
vii. Self-infatuated
viii. Self-willed
ix. Self-empowered
x. Self-seeking
xi. Self-driven
b. Self created religion becomes the burning sensation to the eyes and the heart when it becomes elevated above what Scripture teaches.
i. When a tradition draws the attention to the one doing the act it stinks up the place and causes damage to the spiritual eyes of the individual and to others.
1. When men elevate the place of a self-centered religion for the purpose of drawing attention to their spirituality. It becomes nothing more than a tradition of men and has no eternal value and God himself will reject this self-centered religious act.
ii. The Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus’ day took their own man made traditions and lifted them to higher eminence.
1. As a result they became self-centered and not God-centered.
2. They were so blinded the Pharisees could not even recognize God when he was right before them doing miracles.
iii. The Pharisees were the Spiritual leaders of the day.
1. Their focus was to master the Torah in every detail.
a. The Torah was not merely “The law” first five books of the Old Testament but it also included the Old Testament Prophets and Historical Jewish writings. The Torah also included oral teaching passed done from Priests, Rabbi’s and Prophets.
b. It consisted of not only the Ten Commandments, but also adapted itself to certain situations. In a given situation the Pharisees would then infer God’s will of this particular scenario and then create an Oral law for it for the future.
c. The Oral law was also known as the tradition of the elders.
d. The Pharisees would twist the Torah into their way of interpretation and then make the claim that they represented God Almighty.
e. But in reality they did not represent God’s Will but their will. The focus became more distorted as the spiritual leaders of Israel focused their attention toward self-glorification for keeping up all these religious acts.
i. They liked to be honored for their so-called holiness.
ii. They proclaimed that they were more spiritual than others.
f. So the focus went from the Lord to self. They cried, “Look at how great I am”!
iv. Jesus had witnessed these self-centered acts day by day by the spiritual leaders of Israel
1. He saw the corruption of it. He observed a cast system, self glorification, condemnation of others.
2. He saw the name of Jehovah being blackened and it made his eyes sting from the vapor of self-centeredness.
3. Now you can understand why in Matthew 23:23 he lets them have it, “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
4. Since the day Christ confronted the Pharisees their name has become synomnous with self-righteous hypocrites.
T.S. - Lets explore in more detail Matthew 9:9-17 and see how Jesus dealt with this self-centered religious mindset.
II. What happens when a self-centered religious mindset encounters Jesus?
a. What happens when a self centered religious mindset meets God in the flesh? There is a clash of spirits because the spirits are incompatible.
i. In the scenario above we see a sharp contrast in God’s desire for spirituality and the religions mindset of spirituality.
ii. Whenever self-centered religion meets up with Jesus-centered religion we have a clash. You might ask “What does self-righteous religion look like and act like?” Glad you asked it looks like the following:
1. It always promotes self-righteous acts over God’s acts of grace.
2. It promotes the works of the individual to get to Heaven instead of the cross of Christ as the means to Heaven.
3. It builds “Bless me clubs” not “Die to self clubs”.
4. It claims to be on a higher spiritual plateau than others and looks down on others with prideful arrogance rather than being humble in spirit.
5. It focuses on personal gain rather personal sacrifice for others.
6. It draws attention to their faith rather than faith in God.
7. It forces their interpretations of Scripture on others as God’s will.
8. They are quick to call someone who disagrees with their teaching as off the Devil.
9. They promoting fingering pointing as a way of life. They point at others and say “Shame, Shame, Shame” and then point their finger at themselves and say “Look at me – Look at how great I am!”
10. It promotes a teaching of the “Have” and the “Have Nots.”
iii. The Pharisees portrayed all these traits in the Scriptures and there are still some today following the ways of the Pharisees rather the way of Jesus. Lets explore Matthew on what to do and what not to do.
1. Jesus has earlier that day lead Matthew to Him. So there is a big party celebrating this conversion. Matthew a former sinner invites all his friends over to meet the one who changed his life. Great evangelistic method for helping others to meet Jesus and to become transformed.
2. The Pharisee’s are lurking outside like Jackals watching this whole scene. They decide to try to confront some of Jesus disciples. They attack with the first question: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
a. In essence they are saying – If he were of God he would nothing to do with this rift-raff.
b. Jesus’ rebuke in verses12, 13 is a reminder to all of us to guard out hearts and spirits.
i. 12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
ii. He stresses that the claims of mercy outweigh those of the ceremonial law. The traditions of men. Which was don’t associate with those who are unholy!
iii. Jesus answered the question of the Pharisee’s by pointing to the heart beat of God.
3. The Pharisees left Jesus presence and then put John’s disciples up to asking the next question not wanting to be on the receiving end of Jesus words of spiritual insight and rebuke.
4. The second question by the religious self-centered mindset. “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but you and your disciples do not fast?”
a. Meiber noted that the occasion for the fast was called by the Jewish leadership because the autumn rains had not yet fallen, and a public fast was ordered to bring the rains.
b. Fasting was another form of the Pharisees self proclaimed religious tradition. There fasting times always drew attention to themselves.
c. The Pharisees had once again taken a teaching out of Scripture and turned it into a self-centered religious ritual for the purpose of glorifying themselves.
i. The Mosaic law only instructed the Jewish nation to fast on one day, that day being the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29).
ii. The Day of Atonement was a Festival envisioning Israel’s national cleansing from sin. Idea was fast to deny self and receive forgiveness and God’s salvation.
d. The religious mindset of people will always take a Biblical principle and reinterpret it to point to how holy they are by doing this spiritual act.
e. They take God-centered traditions and make them self-centered tradition for the purpose of self-glorification.
i. The focus was on “Look at me!” not “Look at GOD!”
ii. Barclay states, “They often whitened their faces so that no one could fail to notice that they were fasting.” They is essence went around screaming “Look at how holy I am!”
iii. Remember a religious mindset always places the emphasis on self and not on God!
5. The Pharisees and many others to follow them have always been bent on taking spiritual principles and then twisting them into a systematized ritual to show everyone around them how spiritual they are. It’s rooted in the thing called pride!
a. They wanted to be noticed and applauded for there “Great spirituality!”
b. It s like people who label themselves Reverend. Or Very Reverend and flaunt it like they have a higher degree of spirituality than others. The focus becomes self! Not God!
6. This is why Jesus opposed the Pharisees so strongly because he knew that the sin of spiritual pride would destroy and do severe damage to the Kingdom of God.
T.S. - Jesus then tells the three parables to convince the disciples of John and others that you cannot allow the influence of self-centered religious mind sets to distort the teaching of God.
III. What did Jesus mean by sharing the three parables, The Bridegroom, The unshrunk cloth, and the wineskins?
a. Jesus responds to John’s disciples and the Pharisee mindset by telling three parables to correct this dangerous self-centered religious thinking.
b. Jesus first responds with the parable of the Bridegroom.
i. The Bridegroom parable paints this lesson to the listener and the reader.
1. Jesus was telling them that this was not the appropriate time to fast for his disciples.
a. Instead this was a time to rejoice and because Christ was with them, the time would come when He would be gone and then they would fast. But as for now it was a time to rejoice because sinners had become believers that day and it’s not a sorrowful time but a rejoicing moment in history.
ii. The 2nd parable of the unshrunk cloth on the clothes was portrayed to teach the religious mind set that their self-righteous attitude toward religion and God was incompatible with the Truth of Jesus.
1. “No one sews a patch of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does the new piece will pull away from the old making the tear worse.”
2. The old garment in the story represents the Pharisees ceremonial law. Their own self created religion on how to please God.
a. Some interpret this to mean that the Pharisees rigid obedience to minute details of no relevance was meaningless and these acts would never justify them before God because their hearts were in the wrong place.
b. In Mark 7:8 Jesus refers to their ceremonial law as the “traditions of men”. He declares, “You have let go of the commandments of God and are holding onto the traditions of men.”
i. He warns them as he does us that they were in their religious pursuit missing God entirely.
ii. He was calling them to abandon a religion of bondage and to embrace the way of God which led to freedom and transformed lives.
iii. They needed to pick up the cross and crucify the flesh!
c. The Pharisees (The religious self centered mind set) was being shown that Christ’s teachings and those of Judaism focused on self and meaningless ritual were not mixable.
i. There was no place in God’s kingdom for self-centered religion.
ii. There was no place for meaningless rituals focused on self-glorification.
iii. There was no place for a religion which looked down on others.
iv. There was not place in the Kingdom of God for a religion which promoted pride over lost souls.
3. When an old garment is washed with new cloth sewn on it, the new cloth shrinks and tears away from the old. Jesus was proclaiming to each of us here today that His teaching of New Life would tear away from the self-righteous teaching and promotion of Judaism. Jesus prophesied the Christian split from what Judaism had become because of man’s distortion of the message of Jehovah.
4. In essence he said a “New age of spirituality has come!” “Love is the Way!”
iii. The 3rd parable of the wineskins.
1. It was common in Jesus day to carry water and wine in goat skins. These skins would be sown together around the edge to make them seal.
2. Now when wine ferments it expands. So when you put new wine into wineskins, it ferments and expands stretching out the skins. If the skin was already stretched out, the new wine would ferment and burst the skin because it could not stretch out any more.
3. That analogy is the same as the old garment. That is the old school Judaism does not mix with the new Gospel presented by Jesus Christ.
Conclusion:
Let us review what we learned today:
1. How can a religious tradition be harmful? A religious tradition becomes destructive to us and others when it becomes SELF-centered rather than GOD-centered.
2. What happens when Jesus meets up with SELF-centered religious mindsets? There is always a clash between the two because they are incompatible and Jesus will always rebuke and attack a religion based on SELF-glorification.
3. Why did Jesus tell the three parables? So he could teach us the right way to God.
a. The Bridegroom parable reminds us that we need to rejoice when sinners come to Jesus and that we should never twist scriptural teachings. We are never to draw attention to SELF and therefore take the focus off of what God has done.
b. The parable of the unshrunk cloth teaches us to not allow ourselves to mix self-centered religion with the Gospel of Grace.
c. The parable of the wineskins reiterates the importance of making sure that Christianity and the way of Jesus is not polluted by self-centered religious thinking.
Jesus always denied SELF and followed what the Heavenly Father wanted. He never allowed SELF to control and destroy His life. I find it perplexing today as I look around and see that today many promote SELF – embrace SELF- serve SELF- and push SELF, when Jesus clearly told us to deny SELF. Jesus’ wants each us to be selfless myself included and to make sure that we keep SELF out of the way of God.
